final corrected banko janakari 18-2.pmd 64 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 establishment of a xylarium d. lamichhane1 short note 1 asst research, officer, department of forest research & survey, kathmandu, email: dlamichhane@gmail.com the xylarium is mainly intended to display the wood collections for scientific research, teaching, environmental education and other xylarium programs. this activity is useful for forest utilization research and education. nevertheless, it is not a new activity of the department because wood samples of some 32 species are already existed in the library. most of these species are of lowland or terai origin. therefore, with a view to increase diversity of wood samples, 21 more species specimens were collected from midhills of the country. the study area includes forest and farmland of kaski and syangja districts. the specimen collection was carried out during feb.april, 2008 and the wood treatment and labeling was done consequently. the dimension of the specimens is: length: 8", breadth: 4", thickness: 1". each specimen has a label of its local name, scientific name and main uses. 9 kafal myrica esculenta 10 katahar artocarpus heterophyllus 11 kaulo persea duthiei 12 kavro ficus lacor 13 khanyu ficus semicordata 14 khirro sapium insigne 15 mahuwa madhuca indica 16 phaledo erythrina arborescens 17 pipal ficus religiosa 18 sami ficus benjamina 19 siltimur litsea cubeba 20 suntala citrus reticulata 21 teju diospyros malabarica the other species already collected and displayed in the central forest library of dfrs are as follows: amaro (spondias pinnata), asana (terminalia tomentosa), banjh (q. lanata), bhudkul (hymendictyon excelsum), bot dhayero (lagerstroemia parviflora), champ (michelia champaca), chilaune (schima wallichii), dhale katus (castanopsis indica), gobre salla (pinus excelsa), gutel (trewia nudiflora), harro (terminalia chebula), jamun (eugenia jambolana), jhingat (lannea grandis), karma (adina cordifolia), khasru (q. semecarpifolia), khayer (acacia catechu), khote sallo (pinus roxburghii), koiralo (bauhinia variegata), lakuri (fraxinus floribunda), lapsi (choerospondias axillaris), musure katus (castanopsis tribuloides), okhar (juglans regia), paiyu (prunus cerasoides), phalant (q. glauca), sadan (ougenia dalbergoides), sal (shorea robusta), satisal (dalbergia latifolia), seto siris (albizia procera), simal (bomax ceiba), sisoo (dalbergia sissoo), tuni (cedrela toona), and uttis (alnus nepalensis). thus, the xylarium consists of the specimens of altogether 53 woody species of terai and midhills physiographic regions of nepal and has been displayed in dfrs. it will be useful for researchers, scientists, students, farmers, traders and other concerned stakeholders. photo: xylarium list of the species of newly collected specimens sn local name scientific name 1 amala emblica officinalis 2 amp mangifera indica 3 aru prunus persica 4 babul acacia arabica 5 badahar artocarpus lakoocha 6 bar ficus benghalensis 7 berulo ficus clavata 8 dabdabe garuga pinnata final corrected banko janakari 19-2.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 1 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal national forest resource assessment commences in nepal forests have multiple environmental and socio-economic functions that are vital at global, national and local levels. accurate, reliable, up-to-date and easily accessible information on the state of forest resources is crucial to support policy making and planning in forestry sector. in nepal, the last national forest inventory (nfi) was carried out in the nineties. according to that inventory, forest and shrub together were found to cover 39.6% of the country’s total land area. till date, another nfi has not been carried out to update the forest resource database. macro-level studies and visual observation have indicated that both forest coverage and condition in the hills have significantly improved due to intervention of community forestry. on the other hand, the valuable forest resources of the terai belt of nepal are getting degraded. the information based on the inventory of the nineties thus does not represent the present scenario. in this context, the forest resource assessment in nepal (franepal) project has started from january 2010 to update forest resource database. fra-nepal is a forestry sector bilateral project funded by the government of finland for the period of five years (2010-2014) to conduct nfi in the country. the project is under the ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc). the department of forest research and survey (dfrs) is the implementing agency. the main objectives of the project are: (i) strengthening institutional capacity, (ii) maintaining forestry sector information system, and (iii) data sharing among forestry stakeholders. the project aims to generate national-level data regarding forest coverage (including the protected areas) and the types of forest, growing stock, wood and non-wood products, trees outside forest, and biological diversity. new global issues such as climate change and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (redd) are gaining importance in international arena, and demand updated forest banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 2 cover map and carbon sequestration-related database to reveal change in the extent of forest cover and biomass. in this regard, fra-nepal project will facilitate to generate such datasets at national level. the project will first assess the data needs through wide interaction among the forestry stakeholders. methodological framework will then be finalized for nfi. after that, national-level forest resource data will be collected by using remote sensing technology and ground-based sampling. under the multi-source data collection scheme, local stakeholders will also be engaged to ensure the best use of local knowledge and to improve ownership of data for future use. both temporary and permanent sample plots will be laid out in the field, and measured. the state-of-the-art lidar (light detection and ranging) technology will be used as a part of nfi to acquire complete information on forests from top of the canopy to the ground. the lidar technology has been found to be a promising technology that can give three-dimensional information regarding forest structures. this technology will, therefore, provide complete information about forest structure that is required for biomass calculations. besides, very high resolution (vhr) satellite imagery will be used to detect trees outside forest. nationaland regional-level thematic maps will be produced, and the forest resource database will be updated. the updated forest resource database and maps will be useful for strategic management planning of valuable forest resources of nepal. dfrs and fra-nepal project anticipate support from all the stakeholders in this national endeavour. final corrected banko janakari 18-2.pmd 1 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal need for carrying out national forest inventory in nepal national forest inventory (nfi) is carried out for assessing and updating the forest resource status to plan and support the sustainable management of the forest resources of the country. it generates information on national forestry characteristics such as volume, biomass, diameter distribution, growth, yield, and quality of forest resources. other parameters included in nfi are land use structure and forest ownership, forest types and categories, forest health, biodiversity status, social, economical and environmental values of the forests. in particular, forest information generated through nfi is widely used for strategic and high level planning of forestry sector. being a signatory of multi-lateral environmental agreements, organizations and processes, the country is obliged to provide forestry related statistics and information periodically. for example, food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao) conducts global forest resource assessment every five years and also to other organizations to which nepal needs to report forestry related statistics. the department of forest research and survey (dfrs), under the ministry of forests and soil conservation, is a responsible government agency for conducting forest resource assessment (fra) at district and national level. in this context, dfrs has been carrying nfi for planning forest resource management. the first nfi was accomplished in the 1960s mainly focusing on merchantable and non merchantable timber volume whereas the second nfi, conducted after 30 years in the 1990s, covered volume, biomass, diameter distribution of the tree species and presence of ntfps. efforts have been made to carry out next nfi covering environmental dimensions of the forestry sector using airborne laser scanning technology for measuring the forestry characteristics. these efforts on nfi are in line with the three year interim plan (2007/08 09/10), 2 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 government’s policy and programmes of the fiscal year 2008/09 and the master plan for forestry sector of nepal (1989). the proposed nfi should support the national efforts to access the environmental benefits of forestry sector in monetary terms from the international mechanism such as reducing emissions through deforestation and forest degradation. the nfi program needs adequate expertise in the concerned field to accomplish the work with high efficiency and accuracy. this could be possible only by strengthening capacity of the concerned staff members of the department. nfi programme also needs to include parameters like soil, under-storey vegetation, tree crown conditions, coarse woody debris, and lichen community of the forest composite. as some countries have already initiated efforts to include such parameters in their nfi, we could also work in connection with the global standards so that there will be consistencies in information sharing and update. banko jankari.indd 40 information on human induced disturbance like deforestation has gained much importance particularly in the present global context of climate change and biodiversity conservation challenges. satellite remote sensing methods have been widely used to map area and patterns of deforestation as well as to analyze the rates of forest cover change (apan and peterson, 1998; franklin et al., 2002; hall et al., 1991; mas, 1999; mas et al., 2004). forest loss and fragmentation process through habitat loss, fragmentation and isolation of forest patches alter the landscape structure and functions, and ultimately have several ecological effects on ecosystem (matsushita et al., 2006, mcgarigal and cushman, 2002). therefore, it is important for deforestation analysis to include spatial dynamics of the forest, landscape which provides information on the temporal change in the patch metrics such as size, number, shape, adjacency and the proximity of patches in a landscape. previous studies have observed forest cover change in the terai, a physiographic region of southern nepal, which is important from both biodiversity conservation as well as rich forest resources (dfrs, 1999; dof, 2005; kandel et al., 2010; khanal, 2009). this study analyses the spatial and temporal pattern of forest cover change using multi-temporal landsat satellite imageries and uses fragstats, a spatial pattern analysis program to analyze characteristics of landscape fragmentation in laljhadi corridor forest of terai arc landscape in western nepal. materials and methods study area laljhadi forest, a biological corridor lies in kanchanpur district of the far western region of nepal. the corridor which encompasses four village development committees (vdcs) (raikar bichawa, baisi bichawa, shankarpur and krishnapur) (fig. 1), which are located between dudhwa national park of india and shukla phanta wild life reserve of nepal. it is a very important corridor as it connects nepal’s churia forest in the north to india’s dudhuwa national park in the south. geographic positions are 80° 20’e to 80° 33’e and 28° 38’n to 29° 10’n approximately. using landsat data for assessing forest cover change and fragmentation in laljhadi corridor of kanchanpur district, nepal r.r aryal1*, h. l. shrestha2 and s. khanal1 the study, carried out at laljhadi corridor in kanchanpur district of nepal, aimed at assessing forest cover change and fragmentation using multi-temporal landsat data. post classifi cation change detection was applied on temporal forest cover class datasets obtained by supervised classifi cation technique with maximum likelihood algorithm. the overall change analysis indicated a decreasing trend in forest cover. statistics on selected landscape metrics were generated to quantify the change in spatial structure resulting from fragmentation. the analysis of the landscape metrics depicted increase in fragmentation over the analysis time period along with progression of deforestation. key words: fragmentation, forest cover change, landsat, laljhadi corridor 1 department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal 2 international center for integrated mountain development (icimod), lalitpur, nepal * corresponding author: rajaramaryal@gmail.com 41  fig. 1: study area in kanchanpur district, nepal data four landsat images (table 1) were downloaded from the united states geological service (usgs), global land cover facility (glcf) (http:// glcf. umiacs.umd.edu/) web sites on 10 november 2010. all scenes correspond to the peak of the growing season of vegetation, with 9 to 13 years in between acquisitions. ancillary datasets included 1964 aerial photographs from the department of forest research and survey , 2010 rapid eye image from forest resource assessment project nepal as well as 1:25,000 topographic sheets from survey department. landsat multi spectral scanner (mss) and thematic mapper (tm) satellite imageries selected for forest cover change analysis had covered a period of 33 years (1977 2010). table 1: name and character of the images satel l i te type sensor date spatial resolution (m) landsat 2 mss 1977 jan 23 57 landsat 5 tm 1990 oct 23 30 landsat 5 tm 1999 nov 09 30 landsat 5 tm 2010 oct 30 image preprocessing histogram matching was applied so that the histogram of multi-temporal imageries resembles each other and aid classification and change detection. all images were geo-referenced using survey department’s topo layers and projected to universe transverse mercator (utm) zone 45. to match the pixel size with landsat tm, re-sampling of mss data to 30 m pixel was done using cubic convolution. image classifi cation the image classifi cation was carried out using erdas imagine 9.2. a supervised classifi cation technique with maximum likelihood algorithm was applied. landsat images of all the required data were classifi ed into three broad classes: forest cover, water body and others (cultivated land, settlement, barren land). training samples using ancillary datasets were taken as signature classes for classifi cation. for classifying the image of 1977, 1990, 1999 and 2010, the aerial photo of 1966, topographic map of scale 1: 25000, rapid eye image of 2010 were used as reference along with google earth. after the classifi cation fi ltering was done fi ltering out patches less than one hectare. after classifi cation in erdas 9.2, the classifi cation maps were exported to arc gis 9.2 for further processing. accuracy assessment typical accuracy assessment approach was applied, which involved verification of the randomly generated locations using reference data. for the quantitative analysis of the image classifi cation, kappa statistics was applied. kappa statistics is a measure of agreement between image data and reference data (jensen, 1996). overall classification accuracy and kappa coefficient statistics were derived for each image date as presented in table 2. table 2: result of kappa and accuracy assessment dates of image overall kappa coeffi cient overall classifi cation accuracy 1977 0.9081 95.33% 1990 0.8942 93.33% 1999 0.9439 96.67% 2010 0.8494 91.33% 42   forest cover change and fragmentation analysis post-classifi cation techniques are considered to have limitations as comparison of land cover classifi cation does not allow detection of subtle change within land cover categories (macleod and congalton, 1998). however, in the present study, since landsat which is a coarse resolution image, was used focusing on only one forest class with threshold of more than one hectare size, change detection was performed using post-classifi cation comparison method which produced acceptable results. the post classifi cation technique of image differencing was applied on subsequent pairs of the classifi ed single date images so that image difference data were obtained for the three time interval. the classified multi-temporal image with forest and non forest classes were analyzed using spatial statistics of fragstats 3.3 (mcgarigal and marks, 1995) interface inside patch analyst 4.2.13 (rempel et al., 2008) using metrics as listed in table 3. table 3: list of metrics landscape description metrics ca class area (ha) sum of areas of all patches belonging to a given class. nump number of patches for each land use class mps mean patch size (ha) medps median patch size (ha) the mpatch size, or 50th percentile. pscov patch size coeffi cient of variance, coeffi cient of variation of patches. pssd patch size standard deviation (ha), standard deviation of patch areas. te total edge (m) sum of perimeter of forest class ed edge density (m/ha) amount of edge relative to the landscape area. mpe mean patch edge (m/patch) average amount of edge per patch (te / nump). results and discussion forest cover change landsat mss images and tm images of 1977, 1990, 1999 and 2010 were used to produce forest cover maps of the study area (fig. 2). it was revealed that a considerable amount of forest (4581.72 ha) had decreased during the entire study period. table 4 depicts the statistics on total forest area and the equivalent percentage of area changed during the time intervals. highest loss of forest cover (2500 ha) took place between 1999 and 2010. table 4: total forest area in ha, percentage and change year forest area(ha) percent change area (ha) 1979 25902.42 72.66 1990 24573.78 69.26 -1328.64 1999 23866.32 67.26 -707.46 2010 21320.70 60.09 -2545.62 fig. 2: forest cover map of the study area in different time period 43  forest fragmentation analysis the analysis of selected landscape metrics depicted increase in fragmentation over the analysis time period along with progression of deforestation (table 5). the sum of areas of patches belonging to forest class or the class area (ca) showed trend of deforestation. the number of forest patches (nump) increased heavily in 1990s and declined sharply in 2010. field observation as well as the interpretation of secondary data revealed that this may have happened because of many disturbances in forests due to road construction, deforestation and migration in 1990s. by 2010, most of the smaller forest patches had already been converted to other land use classes. table 5: selected landscape metrics for forest class metrics 1979 1990 1999 2010 ca 25902.42 24573.78 23866.32 21320.70 nump 113 153 95 52 mps 229.22 160.61 251.22 410.01 medps 2.70 2.67 3.54 13.47 pscov 597.22 695.68 539.93 411.62 pssd 1368.99 1117.35 1356.45 1687.72 te 482975.2 656808.8 524871.1 393510.05 ed 18.64 26.72 21.99 18.46 mpe 4274.12 4292.87 5524.96 7567.50 mean patch size (mps) and median patch size (medps) showed overall increment from 1979 to 2010, indicating disappearances of small sized patches. patch size coeffi cient of variation (pscov) increased in 1990 but later decreased in subsequent time slices. patch size standard deviation (pssd) which measures absolute variation in patch size and is affected by the average patch size also showed the identical. total edge (te) which is sum of perimeter of patches showed decline trend in number of patches, while edge density (ed) remained almost static in the same time interval. however, the average amount of edge per patch, and the mean patch edge (mpe) almost doubled in 2010 as compared to 1979. it is interesting to note that for 2010, mpe is higher which is obtained by dividing total edge by number of patches though while both values are smaller than other time slices. conclusion the multi-temporal forest cover change analysis revealed the important changes both in the areas of deforestation and fragmentation of forests. a very clear trend toward forest fragmentation was observed with a continuous trend over time of decreasing forest cover as indicated by increase in the number of forest patches and ultimately decreasing following the conversion of smaller patches to other land use types. the use of multitemporal landsat images to monitor spatial pattern of forest cover change further supports the potential applicability of landsat sensor products for monitoring other land use dynamics in nepalese terrain. however, it is recommended that to understand more detailed dynamics of landscape fragmentation, future research should use higher resolution datasets and encompass wider landscape units rather than part of a small corridor. references apan, a. a. and peterson, j. a. 1998. probing tropical deforestation – the use of gis and statistical analysis of georeferenced data. applied geography 18 (2):137–152. dfrs. 1999. forest resources of nepal 1987 –1998. department of forest research and survey, ministry of forests and soil conservation, his majesty’s government of nepal, forest resource information system project, kathmandu, nepal dof. 2005. forest cover change analysis of the terai districts 1990/ 91-2000/01. department of forest, kathmandu, nepal. franklin, s. e., lavigne, m. b, wulder, m. a. and stenhouse, g. b. 2002. change detection and landscape structure mapping using remote sensing. the forestry chronicle 78 (5): 618-625. hall, f. g., botkin, d. b., strebel, d. e., woods, k. d. and goetz, s. j. 1991. large-scale patterns of forest succession as determined by remote sensing. ecology 72 (2): 628–640. jensen, j.r. 1996. introductory digital image processing. new jersay: trentice hall, usa 44   kandel, c. m., caetano, m. and cabral, p. 2010. forest covers monitoring of bara district (nepal) using remote sensing and geographic information systems. banko janakari 20 (1): 30-36. khanal, s. 2009. change assessment of forest cover in ghodaghodi lake area in kailali district of nepal. banko janakari 19 (2): 54-57. macleod, r. d., and congalton, r. g. 1998. a quantitative comparison of change-detection algorithms for monitoring eelgrass from remotely sensed data. photogrammetric engineering and remote sensing 64 (3): 207-216. mas, j. f. 1999. monitoring land–cover changes: a comparison of change detection techniques. international journal of remote sensing 20 (1): 139152. mas, j. f., velázquez, a., díaz-gallegos, j. r., sauced, r. m., alcántara, c., bocco, g., castro, r. fernandez, t. and perezvega, a. 2004. assessing land use/cover changes: a nationwide multidate spatial database for mexico. international journal of applied earth observations and geoinformation 5 (4): 249–261. matsushita, b., xu, m., and fukushima, t. 2006. characterizing the changes in landscape structure in the lake kasumigaura basin, japan using a high-quality gis dataset. landscape and urban planning 78 (3): 241–250. mcgarigal, k., and cushman, s. a. 2002. comparative evaluation of experimental approaches to the study of habitat fragmentation studies. ecological applications 12 (2): 335–345. mcgarigal, k. and marks, b. j. 1995. fragstats: spatial pattern analysis program for quantifying landscape structure. u. s. forest service general technical report. portland, usa. rempel, r.s., carr, a.p. and kaukinen, d. 2008. patch grid extension for arcmap: version 4.2. ontario ministry of natural resources. ontario, usa. banko jankari.indd 55 1 department of plant resources, thapathali, kathmandu, nepal. email: subhger99@yahoo.com 2 baraipur vdc -5, kapilvastu, nepal 3 national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari, lalitpur, nepal carissa spinarum l. (apocynaceae): a new addition to the fl ora of nepal s. khatri1, p. p. kurmi2 and g. d. bhatt3 short note the genus carissa l. consists about 30 species distributed in the tropics and subtropics of africa, asia and australia (shu, 1995). five species are reported from india, four from china and two from bhutan (hooker, 1882; shu, 1995 and watson, 1999). in nepal, carissa represent one species namely carissa carandus l. (chater, 1982; joshi, 1997; press et al., 2000 and bista et al., 2001). carissa spinarum l. has been so far not reported from nepal. this herbarium specimens was collected by puran p. kurmi from udayapur at udayapur village development committee (vdc) of kapilvastu district at an altitude of 150m. it has been identifi ed as carissa spinarum l. and therefore, it is found to be a new addition to the fl ora of nepal. this species is distinguished from the others by its secondary veins conspicuous on adaxial leaf surface; branches and abaxial leaf surface puberulent. description of the species carissa spinarum l., mant. pl. 2:559.1771. (fig. 1) shrub with a zigzag branching pattern; spines simple or forked, 0.5-2.2cm. leaf blade ovate to elliptic, 1.5-4.0x 0.6-2.0cm, leathery, fi nally puberulent abaxially, base acute, apex acute or short acuminate, mucronate; lateral veins 3-5 pairs, conspicuous. cymes terminal or axillary, 2-9 fl owered, fi nally puberulent. sepals ca. 2 x 1 mm, without gland. corolla white scented, tube ca. 1cm, lobes 3-7mm, overlapping to right; ovules 1 in each locule. distribution: india, nepal, china, bhutan, myanmar, sri lanka, thailand. ecology: terai plains, near river bank. local name: karauda flowering: march to may fruiting: september to december. specimen examined: central nepal: kapilvastu district, udayapur v. d. c. , udayapur, 150m, 2011.03.31, p. p. kurmi 025 (kath). uses: the roots are used to treat hepatitis and rheumatoid arthritis. (shu, 1995). acknowledgements we are grateful to mrs. sushma upadhyay, offi ciating director general, dr. sushim ranjan baral, senior research offi cer, department of plant resources and dr. khem raj bhattarai, undersecretary, national herbarium and plant laboratories , godawari for their encouragement and facilities. we are grateful to dr. keshab raj rajbhandari for his inspiration and valuable suggestions. fig. 1: herbarium specimen of carissa spinarum l. 56 references bista, m. s., adhikary, m. k. and rajbhandary, k. r. (eds.) 2001. flowering plants of nepal (phanerogams). department of plant resources, kathmandu, nepal chater, a. o., 1982. apocynaceae. in an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal volume iii. (eds.) hara, h., chater, a. o. and williams, l. h. j., trustees of british museum, natural history, london, uk, 82-83. hooker, j. d. 1882. flora of british india volume iii. m/s bisen singh mahendra pal singh, new connaught place, dehradun and m/s periodical experts 42-d, vivek vihar delhi -32. 630-632. joshi, c. m. 1997. apocynaceae. in flora of nepal (eds.) bista, m. s., vaidya, y. n. and rajbhandary, k. r. department of plant resources. 5 (18): 5-6. press, j. r., shrestha k. k. and sutton, d.a. 2000. annonated checklist of the flowering plants of nepal. natural history museum, london, uk. shu, j. h. 1995. apocynaceae. in flora of china (eds.) wu, zheng-yi and peter, n. raven, science press (beijing) and missouri botanical garden (st. louis). 16:146. watson, m. 1999. apocynaceae. in flora of bhutan 2: (2)., (eds.) grierson, a. j. c. and long, d. g., royal botanic garden, edinburgh and royal government of bhutan, 658-664. final added vol 15-2.pmd 1 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal initiating biosafety procedures in nepal the member states of the convention on biological diversity (cbd) have been debating the need for a biosafety protocol since 1991, from the time the convention itself was being negotiated. since then plenty of water have flown in rivers, and, with time the developed countries have been putting tremendous efforts in strengthening biosafety measures to minimise the consequences arising from genetically modified organisms (gmos). nepal has yet to develop capacity needed to restrict the gmos that enter into its frontier either legally or illegally. recently initiatives to develop biosafety guidelines for nepal have been started by the ministry of forests and soil conservation, which will also help ascertain whether nepal is a gmo-free country or not. the experience and knowledge of perils presented by genetic engineering and the biotechnology industries of the west have affirmed the serious inadequacies in both regulations and testing procedures that currently exist, as well as the degree of unpredictability with regards to ecological impacts of transgenic organisms. few classical examples of such impacts, have been reported i) on soil organisms and plant life by ecological society of america; ii) rapid transfer of transgenes by spontaneous hybridization between engineered oilseed and its weedy relative by denmark; iii) survival and spread of genetically engineered organisms/ dna from containment by germany. dna persistence in laboratories, waste water treatment plants, aquatic systems, soils and digestive systems of mammals has also been shown in a series of experiments. the long-term ecosystem effects of these surprise survivals are unknown. the gmos, which are currently designed for commercial release, are designed to be robust and vigorous. despite they are not supposedly designed to survive in open environment, increasing evidences have shown that these organisms survive in waste water and sludge, soils and aquatic ecosystems. from there they may migrate, mutate and multiply. this selfreplicating nature of genetic material and lateral spread through ecosystems results in an intrinsically unstable and unpredictable situation. even the (limited) understanding that we have at present, has now recognised three major risks: • effects of transgenic products (primary and secondary) on non-target organisms; • establishment and spread of transgenic crop plants in non-target sites; and 2 • transfer by hybridization and introgression of transgenes from crop into wild relatives. of special concern to a developing country like ours are the socio-economic impacts of the introduction of gmos and products. in the long run, it seems that the transgenic crops are likely to replace our traditional crops on which the rural communities have depended for their survival and livelihood since long. in addition, the patented transgenic crop could prevent the use of non-transgenic donor or recipient species by traditional farmers, resulting in the loss of landraces and increased production costs as farmers will then have to pay for patented seeds and their accompanying package of herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers. in agenda 21 of cbd, governments undertook to consider international cooperation on safety in biotechnology. that commitment includes: sharing experience, capacity-building and international agreement on principles for biosafety. nepal is one of the 170 plus countries to sign and ratify the convention in 1992 and 1993 respectively. it was followed by signing and implementing the cartagena protocol on biosafety on march 2001. authorities are now confident that this guideline will “greatly help conserve biodiversity and promote public health”. there is no doubt that a foundation has been laid, but how long will nepal take to build capacity so that it could protect itself from the perils of intruding biotechnology is a serious concern. final vol 16-1.pmd 41 growth of uttis (alnus nepalensis) monitored in a trial plantation at pakhribas, dhankuta, nepal t. p. barakoti1 a long-term growth monitoring experiment on uttis (alnus nepalensis) was conducted in the permanent sample plots of the agricultural research station (ars) pakhribas, dhankuta for 10 years (1992-2001). the average annual increment in diameter at breast height was 2.14 cm in the 8th year, and was 0.13 cm in the 16th year of planting. the trees grew 44 cm to 130 cm per year irrespective of the age. the highest growth rate correspondend with higher rainfall during summer (march-april). estimated biomass of stem and branches increased by 2-2.5 times within the 10 year period. thinning and felling of the trees needed to provide better growing environment. the data would be useful for growth modelling and proper management of uttis plantation in nepal . key words: nepalese alder vs uttis, height, diameter, biomass, pakhribas. a lnus nepalensis commonly known as uttis in nepal, few parts of india, pakistan and bangladesh, is an important multipurpose tree species. it grows in the cooler and moist areas of the northern temperate region of south-east asia, china, japan, and in south america. in nepal, it is distributed from 900 to 2700 m (lamichhaney, 1995) above sea level associated mainly with prunus and saurauria sp. in higher elevation and with schima and castanopsis sp. in the lower elevation. it is a pioneer species of degraded lands and is moderately shade tolerant (storrs and storrs, 1984) and colonizes well in gravel slip prone slopes (jackson, 1987). as a nodule-forming non-legume, it has the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen and improve soil. its leaf alone can add 100 kg n ha-1yr-1 to the soil (postgate, 1978). endemic to nepal (burley and stewart, 1985) and other mountain countries, uttis is one of the most preferred forest tree species by the hill communities. it is fast growing, commonly used for fuel-wood, timber, furniture and leaf litter. it is also used as fodder for livestock, and shade to large cardamom (ghimire, 1985) and teas (pac, 1985) in the eastern hills. its wood is used for industrial purposes (ply, match, tanning, chest for tea etc). according to pac (currently arsp) annual record (1995), uttis accounted for more than 50 per cent of the tree seedlings distributed from pakhribas forest nursery for planting in the koshi hills. over the past 30 years, this species has been extensively planted throughout nepal (lamichhaney, 1984 and 1995). in spite of extensive plantings, there is little information on silvicultural management of this species. there is no data record on thinning regimes and appropriate final plant spacing. therefore, a longterm growth monitoring trial was felt and that was established to quantify growing rates on yearly basis for regular measurements. the information is useful for community forest users and forest managers in planning and management of uttis in private and community forests. such information will enable estimation of current annual increment, mean annual increment and to derive suitable rotations. materials and methods the permanently established (planted in 1984 at 2x2m in collaboration of forest research division) sample plots of uttis (alnus nepalensis, d. don) in the north farm of ars pakhribas, dhankuta at the elevation of 1850-1900 m was used for growth monitoring trial. three squared plots of 32 m x 32 m (0.1 ha) were selected and laid-out in february 1992. the plantation was south facing block i and block iii were located in medium slops, whereas block ii was in slight slop located between the above blocks but it was facing southeast. the trees within the boundaries and edge trees in the plots were marked and demarcated. location map and plot chart showing each tree and identity number, site description (altitude, topography, slope, drainage, soil texture, natural vegetation etc.) of each plot developed. measurements of diameter, and tree height in the trial blocks were carried out (once every year in january). 1 senior scientist, agricultural research station pakhribas, dhankuta. e-mail: tpbarakoti@yahoo.com, arspakh@ntc.net.np 42 diameter at breast height (dbh) measured over bark for all trees in each block (replication), while top heights were measured in 10 fattest selected trees/ block. dbh was measured before felling. the number of standing trees and felled trees are given in annex 1. height of trees and girth of logs were measured and yield of wood was estimated. volume was calculated on the basis of mid-diameter of 3m logs. the biomass of the harvested trees was also recorded. the data on major parameters were taken since 1992 and continued for 10 years. fresh weight was converted into dry weight by multiplying with 0.41-a relationship derived by levenson (1979): y = 3.87 + 0.26 a, where, y = dry weight yield (kg), and a = dbh2 (cm). similarly, volume of stem was calculated according to volume equation (sharma and pukkala, 1990): ln (v) = (a+b) ln (dbh) + c x ln (h), where v is total of volume stem with bark (dm3 ), a = -2.7761, b = 1.9006, and c = 0.9428 d is diameter (in cm) and h is height (in m). the number of stock trees and removed trees in each block was recorded every year. up to 50% trees based on height, canopy close, dbh and density were thinned. the tree growth rate and ratio were calculated. in 1995, the bushes were partially cleared as there was difficult to move and take measurements. tree height and dbh were measured that year in mid february. results and discussion the major growth parameters like diameter and height were recorded from 1992 to 2001 and presented in table 1 and table 2 respectively. diameter at breast height-the average dbh increased from 17.23 to 28.00 cm over the ten years period (table 1). the dbh was measured in all selected trees in each block. the average increment rate was from 0.13 to 2.14 cm (table 1). the higher rates were during the initial period, when the trees were small. the data showed that uttis trees had gradual increase up to the final year of observation (2001), however the differences were found in decreasing trend. average tree height the average height of uttis plants varied from 15.73 to 22.40 m over the 10 years. likewise, the average increment rates or differences were 0.44-1.30 m for different years (table 2). the trees attained 5 to 6m during the 9 years period. unlike diameter, growth rates found higher during later period than the initial period. the heights were measured in the same 10 fattest trees, where the dbh were measured. the detail of measurement record is given in annex 2. according to 1995 records, average number of trees ha-1 after thinning was 673.8, 546.9 and 439.5 in block i, ii and iii respectively. normal stand is considered to be 900 trees ha-1 after thinning. a closer spacing might give a higher yield. biomass the biomass was calculated based on the given table (kharel and mulder, 1984). biomass of stem, branch and leaf are estimated separately (table 3). the data revealed that stem and branches could produce similar yield (around 40 kg tree-1 each at 8th year and above 100 kg tree-1 in 16th year of planting). leaves had smaller quantity of dry weight (5-11 kg/ tree) at 12% moisture. diameter and hieght at other locations various researchers had assessed growth measurement of uttis in the past at different parts of the country. a summary of the result is presented here (table 4) for comparison with the present result. it is obvious table 1 : average diameter (cm) increment in north farm, ars, dhankuta. �������� �� ���� ���� � ���� �� ���� ��� ���� ������� �������������� ���� ���� ���� ��� ���� � ��� ��� � �� ���� ��� � ���� ���� ���� ��� ��� ����� �� ��� ���� ��� � � ��� � �� � ��� � � ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� ��� � �� �� ���� � �� ���� ��� � � � ���� ���� ���� � � �� ����� ��� ���� ���� � �� ��� ����� ���� ���� ���� ��� ��� ����� ��� banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 barakoti 43 biomass year dbh stem branch leaf 1992 17.23 41.5 39.5 5.4 1993 19.37 52.7 51.0 6.4 1994 21.00 61.9 62.4 7.3 1995 22.67 69.5 70.0 8.0 1996 24.07 78.6 79.3 9.0 1997 25.43 86.8 87.0 9.8 1998 26.67 91.6 92.2 10.4 1999 27.40 95.5 96.3 10.8 2000 27.87 97.2 98.1 10.9 2001 28.00 100.0 101.0 11.0 year block i block ii block iii mean increment rate 1992 17.5 12.0 17.7 15.73 1993 17.7 12.9 17.9 16.17 0.44 1994 18.0 13.3 18.6 16.63 0.46 1995 19.3 14.3 18.9 17.50 0.87 1996 19.8 14.6 19.8 18.07 0.57 1997 20.5 15.0 20.5 18.67 0.60 1998 21.2 15.7 21.0 19.30 0.63 1999 22.8 16.8 22.2 20.60 1.30 2000 24.6 17.2 22.8 21.53 0.93 2001 25.3 18.4 23.5 22.40 0.87 site altitude dbh (cm) per year duration, year height (m) per year duration, year reported by, in banepa , kavre 1975 m 1.5 16 1.4 16 lamichhaney, 1981 nagarkot, bhaktapur 2150 m 1.1 7 1.5 2.5 nafp, 1980 godawari, lalitpur 1540 m 0.3 4 2.0 2.5 nafp, 1980 chalnakhel, kathmandu 1500 m 3.0 9 2.7 9 lamichhaney, 1981 thankot, kathmandu 1630 m 2.2 17 1.5 17 lamichhaney, 1981 jayakot, kaski 918 m 2.2 7 1.6 7 lamichhaney, 1984 palpa 0.6-1.0 4.5 fonzon, 1986 trisuli 7-10 5 that most of the data are close to the current findings. the dbh of the trees varied from 0.3 to 3.0 cm and the height from o.6 to 2.7 m, where the duration and age of trees are not identical (table 4). lamichhaney (1984 and 1995) emphasized the need of provenance identification within nepal. provenances from east nepal showed taller height than that of far-western region (clark, 1985). wood yield of uttis was estimated to obtain 7.0 t/ ha/yr from a 15-year rotation grown on a moist domain in ilam. in kaskikot, a 6-year old plantation was estimated to yield 6.0 t/ha/yr of fuel-wood (kharel and mulder, 1984). conclusion the long-term growth monitoring data permit to draw the following conclusion and recommendations. table 2 : average height (m) increment in north farm, ars, pakhribas table 3 : biomass of uttis (kg/tree) in ars, pakhribas: • dbh increment rate of uttis decreases with the age of tree. • no definite trend is followed in the rate of height increment, which may vary with growing environment. • faster growth of tree could be obtained preferably with regular and high precipitation during dry winter/summer months. • diameter and height of uttis are inversely proportional. recommendations • thinning should be done in plantations with 2x2m spacing after 5-6 years. • thinning and felling of undesired as well as slow growing small plants should be done regularly at an interval of 2-3 years. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1barakoti table 4. annual average diameter and height increased per year in uttis at different sites*. * source: (cited in lamichhaney, 1995) 44 • study on the effect of thinning on diameter, height and volume of uttis is suggested to conduct for data confirmation. acknowledgements the author would like to extend sincere gratitude to the station chiefs (dr. k r regmi and mr. p l karna) and ex-director (mr. f. e. tollervy of the then pac) for their continuous support to manage and excute the long term experiment. thanks are due to all officers and staff of the station, who were directly involved in the conduction of this experiment. mr. c m bhusal, who worked for the second half period of the research and involved in thinning, management, measurement and data recording. references burley, j and stewart, j l (eds). 1985. increasing productivity of multipurpose species. iufro, vienna, austria. clark, j. 1985. alnus nepalensis provenance trial. report no.t-21/82, pakhribas agriculture centre, dhankuta, nepal. fonzon, p. 1986. forestry field trials, 1982-86. tinau watershed project, tansen, nepal. ghimire, m p. 1985. growing alnus tree over cardamom plantation for fuel-wood in ilam district. occasional paper no. 9, cfdp, kathmandu, nepal. jackson, j k. 1987. manual of afforestation in nepal. nepal-uk forestry research project, kathmandu, nepal. kharel, b..p. and mulder, r.p. 1984. fuelwood production in a plantation of alnus nepalensis in the phewa watershed, field document no.16, hmg/fao/undp, kathmandu, nepal. lamichhaney, b p. 1984. variation of alnus nepalensis d. don in nepal. m sc. thesis, trinitycollege, oxford, uk. lamichhaney, b p. 1995. alnus nepalensis d. don (a detailed study). foresc monograph 1/95. forest research and survey centre, kathmandu, nepal. levenson, b. 1979. fuelwood utilization: a study of the demand and available fuelwood resources at six selected villages. phewa tal technical report no.9. kathmandu, nepal. pakhribas agriculture centre (pac). 1985. a review of forestry and pasture trial work. pac, dhankuta, nepal. postgate, j. 1978. nitrogen fixation. the institute of biology, studies in biology: no.92, arnold, p 4850. storrs, a and storrs, j. 1984. discovering trees in nepal and the himalayas. sahayogi press, kathmandu, nepal. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 barakoti 45 banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1barakoti uttis permanent sample plot, ars pakhribas annex 1. dbh and height of 10 fattest trees measured on : 6-7/ 2/ 1999 block i tree no. dbh (cm) tree height (m) block ii tree no. dbh (cm) tree height (m) block iii tree no. dbh (mm) tree height (m) 4 28 24.53 120 22 14.55 75 37 25.82 5 31 23.46 143 25 17.48 79 33 23.01 34 28 23.20 105 23 15.68 117 34 21.78 37 29 21.03 107 24 18.10 18 32 21.70 52 32 20.16 39 26 15.88 2 37 22.86 86 27 25.18 13 24 18.77 19 32 21.69 82 28 22.85 70 23 17.26 129 28 21.62 118 29 23.62 103 23 16.00 78 29 22.21 120 27 22.44 141 22 16.64 174 27 20.77 143 24 21.86 177 21 18.23 164 26 20.47 annex 2. description of the numbers of trees in different blocks block no i observation years description 1992 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 '00 2001 total trees from previous year 219 111 79 69 69 59 47 38 35 35 no. of trees for removal 108 32 10 0 10 12 9 3 0 2 no. of existing trees 111 79 69 69 59 47 38 35 35 33 removed trees, % 49.3 28.8 12.7 0 14.5 20.3 19.1 7.9 0 5.7 avg. diameter (cm) 11.6 14.1 15.7 16.8 17.6 19.2 20.5 21.4 23.3 25.5 wood extraction (kg) 2212 2580 2078 not thinned 1914 2212 2139 block no ii observation years description '92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 2000 2001 total trees from previous year 179 87 64 56 56 47 40 35 35 32 no. of trees for removal 92 23 8 0 9 7 5 0 3 3 no. of existing trees 87 64 56 56 47 40 35 35 32 29 removed trees, % 51.4 26.4 12.5 0 16.1 14.8 12.5 0 8.6 9.4 avg. diameter (cm) 9.9 11.5 13.6 14.9 15.8 17.6 18.5 19.4 22.3 23.5 wood extraction (kg) 1849 1864 1702 not thinned 1603 1685 1784 block no iii observation years description '92 '93 '94 '95 '96 '97 '98 '99 2000 2001 total trees from previous year 174 82 53 45 45 38 29 22 22 22 no. of trees for removal 92 29 8 0 7 9 7 0 0 2 no. of existing trees 82 53 45 45 38 29 22 22 22 20 removed trees, % 52.9 35.4 15.1 0 15.6 23.7 24.1 0 0 9.1 avg. diameter (cm) 12.1 14.4 17.5 19.2 20.3 22.3 24.7 26.9 30.0 31.3 wood extraction (kg) 2277 2439 1718 not thinned 1860 2035 1699 final corrected banko janakari 19-2.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 10 above-ground carbon stock assessment in different forest types of nepal s.k. baral1, r. malla1 and s. ranabhat2 this study assessed the above-ground carbon stock in the five major forest types, representing two physiographic regions and four districts of nepal. altogether, 116 circular sample plots were laid out systematically in different forests types to inventory the forest. total above-ground biomass was derived with allometric equations. results indicated variation in age of the stand (18-75 years), above-ground carbon stock per hectare (34.3097.86 dry wt. ton ha-1) and rate of carbon sequestration (1.30-3.21 t ha-1yr-1), according to different forest types. the rate of carbon sequestration by different forest types depended on the growing nature of the forest stands. tropical riverine and alnus nepalensis forest types demonstrated the highest carbon sequestration rates in nepal. key words: above-ground biomass, carbon, forest types, nepal globally, forests act as a natural storage for car bon, contributing approximately 80% of terrestrial above-ground, and 40% of terrestrial below-ground biomass carbon storage (kirschbaum, 1996). they play a critical role in reducing ambient co2 levels, by sequestering atmospheric c into the growth of woody biomass through the process of photosynthesis and also by increasing the soil organic carbon (soc) content (brown and pearce, 1994). carbon sequestration from atmosphere can be advantageous from both environmental and socioeconomic perspectives. the environmental perspective includes the removal of co2 from the atmosphere, the improvement of soil quality, and the increase in biodiversity (batjes and sombroek, 1997); while socioeconomic benefits include increased yields (sombroek et al., 1993) and monetary incomes from potential carbon trading schemes (mcdowell, 2002). the kyoto protocol recognized the importance of forest in mitigating the greenhouse gas emission (i.e. carbon dioxide, methane and other compounds) and has included forest and soil c sequestration in the list of acceptable offsets (unfccc, 1997). thus, reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation has emerged as an incentive mechanism for developing countries. however, updated national forest inventory data and technical capacity is poor; and accounting of changes in forest cover biomass stock, carbon emission and carbon removal are limited in the developing countries like nepal (dangi and acharya, 2009). therefore, this study has endeavoured to assess the above-ground carbon stock in the different forest types of nepal. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in five major forest types of four districts representing two physiographic regions of nepal (table 1). chitwan district includes both terai and mahabharat foothills while lalitpur, kavre and kaski districts represent the mid-hills region of nepal. sample plots there were 32, 34, 16, 16 and 18 number of sample plots employed in tropical riverine, hill sal, pine, schima castanopsis and alnus nepalensis forests, respectively to inventory the forest. the plots were circular in shape, and the sizes varied as follows: trees (size = 500 m2), poles (size = 100 m2) and saplings (size = 25 m2). field measurement was done by systematic sampling. diameter at breast height (1.3 m from the ground level) was measured with diameter tape and tree height was measured with the sunto clinometer. 1 assistant research officer, department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: sharadbaral@gmail.com and raj_malla@yahoo.com 2 executive member, green governance nepal. e-mail: ranabhat_sunita@yahoo.com baral et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 11 s.n. forest types age of the stand (yr) a.g biomass dry wt (ton ha-1) total ag carbon stock (ton ha-1) ag rate of carbon sequestration (ton ha-1 year-1) accuracy of biomass estimation (%) 1 tropical riverine forest 25 178.83 80.47 3.21 17.65 2 hill sal forest 75 217.47 97.86 1.30 19.20 3 pine forest 28 86.02 38.70 1.35 16.14 4 schima-castanopsis 22 76.24 34.30 1.56 11.27 5 alnus nepalensis 18 76.00 34.60 1.92 14.56 table 2 : maximum, mean and mode value of height and dbh of forest types s.n. forest type max ht (m) mean ht (m) mode ht (m) max dbh (cm) mean dbh (cm) mode dbh (cm) 1 tropical riverine 27.5 15.65 19 123 29.49 18.5 2 hill sal 30.0 12.75 9 89 19.56 13.9 3 pine 26.0 18.10 19 46 31.17 30.0 4 schima-castanopsis 13.5 6.95 6 32 8.86 6.0 5 alnus nepalensis 22.0 15.50 14 40 32.00 22.0 equations used for biomass calculation total above-ground biomass (agb) of hill community forests was calculated using different biomass equations produced by tisc (2000) according to the forest type and the species. fresh weight of biomass was converted to dry weight using conversion factor of foresc (1996). similarly, the agb of cfs located in the terai was calculated using the brown (1989) equation recommended for broadleaved species in tropical humid regions with precipitation from 1500 to 4000 mm and dbh limits from 5 to 130 cm, i.e.: calculated using equation (3) and presented in table 4. accuracy (bj) = μ = t. sx/√n………………..2 t = t value at infinity (1.96) sx = standard deviation n = number of plots = mean biomass accuracy (bj) percentage = bj/ *100…………3 results and discussion majority of pole size stands were found in hill sal, schima-castanopsis and tropical riverine forests. while in pine and alnus nepalensis forest, both tree size and pole size stands were found more or less same (table 2). variation in age of the stand ranged from 18-75 years, variation in above-ground carbon per hectare from 34.70-97.86 ton ha-1 and variation in rate of carbon sequestration from 1.30-3.21 ton ha-1year-1 in different types of forests (table 3). table 1 : district and geographical region wise distribution of studied forest types. s.n. forest type district name of cf geographical region major species 1 tropical riverine chitwan kumrose cf terai terminalia tomentosa, trewia nudiflora 2 hill sal (shorea robusta) chitwan amritdharapani cf mahabharat foothills shorea robusta 3 pine lalitpur saraswati cf midhills pinus roxburghii, pinus wallichiana 4 schima-castanopsis kavre gaukhureshwar cf midhills schima-castanopsis 5 alnus nepalensis kaski andherikhola cf midhills alnus nepalensis table 3 : above-ground carbon stock and carbon sequestration rate of different forest types of nepal baral et al. ][ )**(*9719.0141.3 hdbhdbhln egb + = − a . where, agb = dry wt. of above-ground biomass (kg) dbh = diameter at breast height (cm). h = height of the tree (m). accuracy calculation of biomass measurement accuracy of biomass measurement was calculated using equation (2) and accuracy percentage was ......1 b b b banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 12 age of the forest types varied from 18-75 years and above-ground biomass varied from 76 ton ha-1 to 217 ton ha-1. above-ground biomass (ton ha-1) was found to be highest in hill sal forest and lowest in alnus nepalensis forest (fig. 1). the figure shows that the age of all forest types except hill sal was more or less same but above-ground biomass was different. this was due to slow and fast growing nature of the studied forest types. nepalensis forest were more or less same, the aboveground biomass (ton ha-1) of these forests were different. this was due to variation in density of stands per plot, site quality and growing nature of the stand (i.e. tapering). 0 50 100 150 200 250 tropical riverine schima castonopsis hill sal pine alnus nepalensis forest types t o n h a -1 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 y rs ag biomass (dry wt) age of the stand mean dbh of the forest types varied from 8.86-32.00 cm and age varied from 18-75 years (fig. 2). from the figure, it is clear that tropical riverine, pine and alnus nepalensis have higher mean dbh against age of the stands as compared to schima castanopsis and hill sal forest. this indicates that above three forest types are fast growing in nature than the other two. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 1 2 3 4 5 forest types c m 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 y rs mean dbh of the stand age of the stand fig. 2: relationship between age and mean dbh of the different forest stands. note: 1 = tropical riverine, 2 = schima-castanopsis, 3 = hill sal, 4 = pine, 5 = alnus nepalensis 0 50 100 150 200 250 to n h a -1 tropical riverine schima castonopsis hill sal pine alnus nepalensis forest types ag biomass mean dbh of the stand above-ground biomass per hectare was found to be highest in hill sal forest and lowest in alnus nepalensis forest although their mean dbh were 19.56 cm and 32.00 cm respectively (fig. 3). from the figure, it can be clearly noticed that although the mean dbh of tropical riverine, pine and alnus the above-ground carbon stock of hill sal forest and riverine forest were found to be higher i.e. 97.86 and 80.47 ton ha-1, respectively whereas the aboveground carbon of schima-castanopsis, pine amd alnus nepalensis forests was lower i.e. 34.3, 38.7 and 34.6 ton ha-1 respectively (fig. 4). the carbon stock ha-1 for terai forest (80.47 ton ha-1) and hill forest (35.86 ton ha-1) was more or less same as reported by oli and shrestha (2009) for terai forest (76 ton ha-1) and hill forest (37 ton ha-1). both hill sal and riverine forests lie in terai region of nepal and are considered as “tropical forest”. remaining three forests types represent mid-hill region and are considered as “sub tropical forest”. the results show that “tropical forests” had higher level of above-ground carbon stock than “sub tropical forests”. fig. 1 : relationship between age and ag biomass of the different forest stands fig. 3 : above-ground biomass of different forest stands baral et al. schima castonopsis alnus nepalensis 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 to n h a -1 forest types series1 80.47 34.3 97.86 38.7 34.6 tropical riverine schima castonopsis hill sal pine alnus nepalensis fig. 4 : above-ground carbon stock in different forest stands schima castonopsis alnus nepalensis schima castonopsis alnus nepalensis banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 13 forest type carbon stock (t ha-1) carbon séquestration rate (t ha-1yr-1) reference all central himalayan forests 250.00-300.00 6.00-8.00 singh and singh, 1985,1992 seven central himalayan forests 166.80-440.10 6.83-7.42 rana et al, 1989 temperate forest of the world 125.00 4.19 malhi, 1998, press et al 2000 chirpine degraded forest 1.07-1.27 jina et al, 2008 oak degraded forest 1.47-1.84 jina et al, 2008 pine forest 38.70 1.35 this study tropical riverine forest 80.47 3.21 this study hill sal forest 97.86 1.30 this study alnus nepalensis forest 34.60 1.92 this study schima castanopsis forest 34.30 1.56 this study average 57.18 1.86 this study above-ground carbon sequestration rate of tropical riverine forest was found to be highest (i.e. 3.21 ton ha-1yr-1 (fig. 5). gorte (2009) also reported that moist tropical forests are important for carbon sequestration, because they typically had high carbon contents. tropical riverine forest, pine and alnus nepalensis are fast growing species thus had higher carbon sequestration rates while shorea robusta, schimacastanopsis were slow growing species, thus had lower rates of carbon sequestration. types was found to be 1.86 t c ha-1year-1 which seems logical and similar to the findings of dhital (2009) i.e. 1.88 t c ha-1year-1 under normal management condition in the community forests (cfs) of nepal. table 4 compares the findings of the study conducted at different time. it shows that carbon stock and carbon sequestration rate varied according to forest types. conclusions there was considerable variation in the above-ground carbon stock and rate of carbon sequestration rate according to forest types and its geographical location. forests representing the terai region of nepal had high above-ground carbon stock per hectare compared to hilly region. however, carbon sequestration rate of forest types depended on growing nature of the forest stands. tropical riverine, pine and alnus nepalensis forests are important for carbon sequestration in tree biomass in nepal, as seen from the comparatively higher carbon accumulation rates. references batjes. n.h. and sombroek, w.g. 1997. possibilities for carbon sequestration in tropical and subtropical soils. global change biology 3: 161-173. brown, k. and pearce, d. 1994. the economic value of non-market benefits of tropical forests: carbon storage. in: weiss, j. (ed.), the economics of project appraisal and the environment: new horizon in environment economics. e. elgar, aldershot, pp 102–119. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 1 2 3 4 5 forest types 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 to n h a -1 y r-1 age of the stand (yrs) mean dbh of the stand (cm) ag carbon seqestration rate rana et al. 1989 reported carbon sequestration rate of chir pine forests in the central himalayan region ranged from 4.5 to 8.4 t c/ha-1year-1. however, this study suggested only 1.35 t c ha-1year-1 , which was much lower (fig. 5) than reported. this might be due to inappropriate site for planted pine forest. the result of this study was also supported by jina et. al, 2008 who estimated carbon sequestration rate in degraded pine forest, ranging from 1.01-1.27 ton ha1yr-1. mean carbon sequestration rate of five forest fig. 5 : age, mean dbh and carbon sequestration rate of different forest stands note: 1 = tropical riverine, 2 = schima-castanopsis, 3 = hill sal, 4 =pine, 5 = alnus nepalensis table 4 : carbon sequestration potential of different forest types baral et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 14 brown, s., gillespie, a. j. r. and lugo, a. e. 1989. biomass estimation methods for tropical forests with applications to forest inventory data. forest science 35(4):381–902. dangi r. and acharya, k. p. 2009. a quick review of potential benefits and costs of redd in nepal. in acharya, k. p., dangi, r. b., tripathi, d. m., bushley, b.r., bhandary r.r., and bhattarai, b. (eds.). 2009. ready for redd? taking stock of experience, opportunities and challenges in nepal. nepal foresters’ association: kathmandu, nepal. dhital, n. 2009. reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (redd) in nepal: exploring the possibilities. journal of forests and livelihoods 8(1):56-61. foresc, 1996. biomass table of ten preferred species by forest users’ group in the hills of nepal. forest research and survey centre (foresc), ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu. gorte, r.w. 2009. carbon sequestration in forests, congressional research service report for congress, usa. hmg/nepal, 2000. biomass and volume tables with species description for community forest management. tisc technical paper series no. 101 90 p. jina, b.s., sah, p., bhatt, m.d. and rawat y.s. 2008. estimating carbon sequestration rates and total carbon stock pile in degraded and non-degraded sites of oak and pine forest of kumaun central himalaya. ecoprint 15:75-81 kirschbaum, m.u.f. 1996. the carbon sequestration potential of tree plantations in australia. in: (eds.), environmental management: the role of eucalypts and other fast growing species, eldridge, k.g., crowe, m.p., old, k.m. csiro forestry and forest products, 77–89. malhi, y., a.d. nobre and j. grace. 1998. carbon dioxide transfer over a central amazonian rain forest. journal of geophysical research 103:593-631. mcdowell, n. 2002. developing countries to gain from carbon-trading fund. nature 420:4. parts 1 and 2, global environmental change 4, 2 and 3, 1994, pp. 140-59, 185-200. oli, b.n and shrestha. k. 2009. carbon status in forests of nepal. an overview. journal of forest and livelihood 8 (1):62-66. 2009. press, m.c., n.j. huntley and s. levin. 2000. ecology: achievements and challenge. blackwell science, oxford, uk. rana, b.s., singh, r.p., and singh, s.p., 1989. carbon and energy dynamics of seven central himalayan forests. tropical ecology 30:253-269. singh, s.p. and singh, j.s. 1985. man and environment: the central himalayan case. biol. mem. 11(1):47-59. sombroek. w.g., nachtergaele, f.o. and hebel. a. 1993. amounts, dynamics and sequestering of carbon in tropical and subtropical soils. ambio 22:417-426. unfccc, 1997. kyoto protocol to the convention on climate change, bonn, germany. climate change secretariat. van noordwijk, m., cerri, c., woomer, p.l., nugroho, k., bernoux, m., 1997. soil carbon dynamics in the humid tropical forest zone. geoderma 79: 187–225. baral et al. final corrected banko janakari 19-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 23 consumption pattern of timber and fuelwood in community forests: a case study from sindhupalchok district d. lamichhane1 the study was carried out in four community forest user groups (cfugs) of sindhupalchok district of nepal with a view to find out the consumption pattern of forest products especially timber and fuelwood from the community forests (cfs). a set of structured questionnaires was used to collect data from the respondents of the selected cfugs. four cfugs were randomly selected from among those meeting the predetermined criteria such as: more than 5 years old, regularly harvesting timber and fuelwood, and active in forest management. with a 20% sampling intensity, 103 respondents were identified from the groups for household visit and personal interview. records of forest product distribution together with a checklist of secondary data were obtained from the district forestry office (dfo) and the cfug records. this data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. results indicated that there was no significant difference in the use of timber and fuelwood among the users. similarly, there was no correlation between the number of livestock and use of firewood. however, there was a strong relationship between the number of livestock and fodder trees on their farmland. there was a higher demand for fuelwood than timber but the pine-dominant community forests were found to be producing more timber, thereby creating a big gap between the demand and supply of firewood. however, the supply of timber was comparatively consistent with demand. keywords: community forest user group, demand and supply, farmland, fuelwood, timber one of the long-term objectives of community forestry programme was to regularize supply of the people’s basic needs for timber, fuelwood, fodder and other forest products (mfsc, 1988). considering the rural population of nepal, 67 percent of the energy requirement was met through firewood (dof, 1995). community forestry was clearly contributing to rural peoples’ livelihoods, through the acquisition of resources from forest products and other sources (pearce et al. 2003). our future challenge is to enhance the productivity of cf, and to ensure the equitable distribution of its benefits through the transformation of natural resources into assets that can address the livelihood priorities of cfugs, particularly those of the poorest (allison et al., 2004). the user groups receiving official support have substantially improved the condition of their cfs, for example by way of reducing forest fire occurrence (tachibana & adhikari, 2009). nevertheless, the current practices of community forest management have, to some extent, negative impacts on the rural poor that lack the provisions for addressing equitable system of benefit distribution and cost sharing among the forest user groups and households. if community forestry is to be rural poor-friendly, poor-income households should be able to realize the full value of the share of unused forest products either by way of transferable rights or from access to markets (dahal, 2006). according to dahal (2006), the net benefit and benefit-cost (b-c) ratios for the three income groups were calculated with the help of summary statistics of gross benefits and costs. the net benefit and b-c ratios for poor, medium and rich households were found to be -3, 0.85, and 0; 1, 4, and 1.08, respectively. in his study, eight major types of forest products from cfs were considered as material values. the total costs of forest use and management were broken down into labor costs, transaction costs and membership fees. the access of poor people to resources and capital has been reduced, with consequent negative impacts on their livelihoods (ostrom, 1990). this reduced 1 asst. research officer, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal email: dlamichhane@gmail.com banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 24 access has forced the poorest to enter nearby forests (other than cfs) which in turn has increased travel time for them to collect the forest products and induced negative impact on the condition of government forests in the neighboring areas. on the other hand, this situation reflects weak cfug-level governance (pokharel & niraula, 2004). increased growing stock of cf does not necessarily mean that there is increased access to either timber or fuelwood. although the operational plans require a complex exercise of calculating the growing stock, annual increment and annual allowable cut as part of the operational plan preparation. currently, even under cf-management practices, the only timber and fuel that can be harvested are from trees that have fallen down from natural causes or from allowable forest practices, such as thinning. this study was intended to carry out a district-level survey regarding the utilization pattern of timber and fuelwood collected from the cfs. the specific objectives of the study were to: (i) collect the socioeconomic information of the forest users using forest products; (ii) estimate the annual extraction of timber and fuelwood from the community forests of the district; and (iii) identify the household consumption and sale and the main uses of the forest products. four community forests of sindhupalchok district of the central development region of nepal (figure 1) were selected. the forests here were mostly pinedominated, consisting of the plantations done by the then nepal-australia community forestry project. this study has helped elaborate the utilization pattern of forest products such as timber and fuelwood extracted from the cfs in sindhupalchok district of the central development region of nepal. the utilization pattern includes the data on the demand and supply condition of timber and fuelwood in the district and quantitative basis for comparison with other community forests. materials and methods the study area covered four cfugs viz. bhagwati, gaurati, jogikhoriya and sunkoshi. using the cfugdatabase available in the district forest office (dfo), the aforementioned four cfs were selected randomly among those meeting some predetermined criteria such as the cfs with trees more than 5 years with 20 percent sampling intensity, 103 respondents were selected from the groups for household visit and personal interview. 20 percent of these respondents were female. primary data were collected using a number of techniques namely, household survey, focus-group discussion using pra/rra method, and a checklist for key informants. on the other hand, district and cfug records of forest products distribution and a checklist for committee member were used for the collection of secondary data which included database of the dfo, operational plan and records of the cfugs and other published and unpublished sources relevant to the survey. both primary and secondary data were organized and entered into a computer program for statistical analysis. the data were analyzed with the help of both descriptive and inferential statistical analysis such as tables, graphs, correlation analysis and chi-square (ç2) test. the demand and supply of forest products and their consumption was assessed using socioeconomic data. results and discussions existing demand & supply situation of timber and fuelwood according to the dfo record of the fiscal year 063/64 (2006-07), the consumption quantities within the selected four cfugs were: fuelwood 102,064 metric tons, timber 1,013,580 cubic feet and others 122,438 metric tons. similarly, timber and fuelwood old, the cfs producing timber and fuelwood, and the cfs active in forest management. altogether, 103 sets of questionnaire and 80 sets of checklist were used for primary data collection. figure1: map of the study area lamichhane banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 25 demand of timber & fuelwood 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 fodder none timber fuelwood forest product category % p eo p le sale outside the cfugs was 13,359.39 cubic feet and 1,200 kilograms respectively. the consumption pattern within the cfugs was determined by multiplying the average household consumption figure with the total number of households surveyed (dfo, 2006). the supply curve for timber and fuelwood harvested from any cf is normally vertical because both the quantity supplied as well as the price are generally fixed. the harvests of the forest products from the mentioned cfs will be also have a vertical supply curve. no matter how much someone would be willing to pay for additional products; extra timber/ fuelwood cannot be produced as the annual allowable harvest is set by the operational plan. also, even if no one wants the products, the allowable cut will still be made. since the supply s and price (p1) are fixed for timber & fuelwood, any shift in demand will only create gap between d1 and d2 (figure 2). the operational plan, i.e. taking out the forest products from 1-2 blocks rotationally. generally, the cfugs have prioritized the distribution of timber to the users in the case of: (i) construction of house for the households affected from natural hazards (flood, landslide and fire); (ii) making agricultural tools (plow, yoke, and handles of various tools); (iii) building new house in the case of separation within families; (iv) repairing the houses; (v) building and repairing cattle sheds; and (vi) public construction and developmental activities. in all these cases, poor and disadvantaged groups were said to have preference. timber to make charcoal was free for blacksmith during harvesting period. in some cases, transportation cost of forest products was so high that users were unwilling to collect fuelwood. consumption of fuelwood and its utility fuelwood was mostly utilized for brewing local alcohol readily saleable in the market; the users did not hesitate to use even timber as fuelwood. this indicates the users’ preference for fuelwood over timber and their higher utility. for making local wine, they bought timber at high price and used it as fuelwood. so there was the provision in the rule that ensured the use of timber only as timber and not as fuelwood. the timber from cfugs was not allowed to be sold at local sawmills. timber species most in demand were chilaune (schima wallichii) followed by sallo (pinus spp.). therefore, the cfugs wanted to convert their pine forests to broadleaved ones. however, fuelwood was adequate for those users who did not brew local alcohol. some of the measures to reduce fuelwood consumption included use of improved stove, biogas q quantity sp r ic e p d1 d2 when the demand d1 is in effect, the price will be p1. similarly, when the demand d2 occurs, the price should go up but because of the fixed price, it will still remain at p1. notice that at both values, the quantity is q. here, q = forest products available for annual harvest as per the annual allowable harvest prescribed in the operational plan. demand of fuelwood/timber generally increases because of population growth, separation of family/household, poverty and so on. production and distribution of timber & fuelwood there was higher demand of fuelwood than timber (figure 3). the main forest products of these pinedominated forests were fuelwood and timber. harvesting of the products was done according to figure 3: demand status of forest products figure 2: theoretical demand & supply curve lamichhane banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 26 cfug average no. of livestock/household average no. of trees/households average no. of fodder trees/households correlation coefficient bhagwati 6 39 13 gaurati 5 34 12 jogikhoriya 3 22 7 sunkoshi 2 14 5 av./household 4 27.25 9.25 (r) = 0.98 probable error (p.e) = 0.6745 × standard error (se), where se = (1-r2)/√n and n = 103 yes (%) cfug improved stove kerosene and gas both (%) no (%) bhagwati 28 6 34 66 gaurati 40 15 55 45 jogikhoriya 15 25 40 60 sunkoshi 30 60 90 10 percentage of users using timber/fuelwood cfug cf farmland buying percentage of people using kerosene and gas χ2 value significance bhagwati 16 72 12 0 gaurati 34 66 0 0 jogikhoriya 40 60 0 0 sunkoshi 0 0 66 34 88.38 significant table 1: measures taken to reduce fuelwood consumption table 2: measures to substitute insufficient timber & fuelwood from cf (n=103, p=0.05) plant, raising fewer quality-cattle than more quantity cattle, grass production on risers, terrace and marginal lands. according to the users, the production of timber and fuelwood from their cfs was insufficient for their needs and so, additional timber and fuelwood had to be purchased from other cfs and outside to meet their demands. sometimes, they even fetched forest products illegally from other cfs and government forests. apart from the cfs, there were 48 private forests registered at the district forest office (dfo). the cfugs did not have any program for reducing fuelwood consumption. the trees included in agroforestry practices on farmlands were mainly kutmiro (litsea monopetala), chilaune along with sal (shorea robusta) and sallo. initially, the consumption of chilaune for fuelwood was high but with their declining availability, the fuelwood demand has shifted to pines. now pines are thinned to promote succession by chilaune to a broadleaf forest again. pines continue to grow faster on gentle slopes while uttis and chilaune were grown on eroded areas. to make up for the insufficient forest products, the users had to depend mostly on their own farmlands. possibility of biogas for fuel energy was unlikely due to the lack of livestock (sheep/goat, cattle and buffalo). the ç2 test demostrated the significant differences on the sources of fuel energy used to make up for declining timber and fuelwood from the cfs (table 2). the major species grown in the farmlands include kutmiro, utis, tooni (cedrela toona), kyamun (syzizium cumini), badahar (artocarpus lakoocha), khanyu (ficus semicordata), lapsi (choerospondias axillaris), aamp (mangifera indica) and sallo. the main timber species on the farmlands was chilaune. the average livestock per households was 4 (table 3). similarly, the average number of trees per household was found to be 27.25 whereas average number of fodder trees in the farmland was 9.25. table 3 indicates the correlation between the number of livestock and fodder trees in private land. since, | r | > 6 × p.e., there is significant relationship between number of livestock and number of fodder trees in their farmland. table 3: correlation between the number of livestock and fodder trees lamichhane banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 27 use of firewood (% people) cfug cooking and making coal cooking and making alcohol cooking food only cooking food and kundo* χ2 value significance bhagwati 24 4 44 28 gaurati 8 27 27 38 jogikhoriya 20 20 10 50 sunkoshi 15 20 35 30 13.47 not significant * kundo is a foodstuff cooked for cattle using maize, millet, rice etc. percentage of users vs. consumption pattern of timber cfug house construction cowshed construction both no use χ2 value significance bhagwati 64 16 12 8 gaurati 58 12 30 0 jogikhoriya 40 15 15 30 sunkoshi 35 10 30 25 15.53 not significant n = 103 and p = 0.05 table 4: consumption pattern of timber table 5: use of fuelwood (n = 103, p=0.05) consumption pattern of timber and fuelwood in cfug timber was a major product of the cfs since the plantation-forests of pines were grown to produce enough timber. timber was mainly used for constructional activities, but most of the users also burned timber due to the scarcity of fuelwood. although the cfugs had accorded priority to the needy users for the maintenance and construction of their houses and cowsheds, a substantial number of users had no need for timber. the ç2 value revealed that use of timber was not significantly different among the cfugs (table 4). similarly, fuelwood was mostly used for cooking food, followed by large amounts of fuelwood used to brew local alcohol. local alcohol was one of the main sources of income as it was readily saleable. the use of fuelwood for different purposes was found to be insignificant among the cfugs, according to chi square test below (table 5). conclusions fuelwood and timber were found to be the major forest products in the study area. results revealed that the forest product most in demand was fuelwood and that its supply was insufficeint for many users since additional fuelwood was needed to brew alcohol as a source of ready cash income. the cfugs did not have many measures to meet their shortfall in fuelwood demands. trees on farmlands were relatively few and other fuel energies such as biogas were not viable due to inadequate livestock numbers. users with insufficient fuelwood from small cf or their farm trees had to buy them from elsewhere, or fetch them from other cfs or government forests. participation of users in forest management activities was poor because of the lack of time as labour was the main source of income for many users. therefore, most activities of cf management were carried out on wage basis. the consumption patterns for timber and fuelwood by the users were not significant among the cfugs but the measures taken by the users to complement the under-supplied fuelwood were significantly different. lamichhane banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 28 references allison, g., bampton, j., kandel b.r., shrestha, m.l. and shrestha n.k. 2004. community forestry and livelihoods: how can community forestry better contribute to the millennium development goals? in twenty-five years of community forestry. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 46 august, 2004, kathmandu, nepal. (eds.) kanel, k. r. et al. department of forest, december 2004, 171-179. dahal, mahesh r. 2006. benefit-cost analysis of community forest and its distributional impact on rural poor. economic journal of nepal, 29 (2): 93-107. dof. 1995. community forestry manual. department of forest, kathmandu, nepal. mfsc. 1988. master plan for the forestry sector of nepal. ministry of forests and soil conservation, his majesty’s government of nepal, kathmandu. ostrom, e. 1990. governing the commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action. cambridge university press. pearce, d., putz, f.e. and vanclay, j.k. 2003. sustainable forestry in the tropics: panacea or folly? forest ecology and management, 172 (2-3): 229247. pokharel, b.k. and niraula d.r. 2004. community forestry governance in nepal: achievements, challenges and options for the future, 2004. in twenty-five years of community forestry. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 4-6 august, 2004, kathmandu, nepal. (eds.) kanel, k. r., et al. department of forest, december 2004, 298-316. tachibana, t. and adhikari, s. 2009. does community-based management improve natural resource condition? evidence from the forests in nepal. land economics, 85(1):107-131. lamichhane dendrochronology, study of tree rings, has extensive applications now-a-days. the different disciplines such as archaeology and history, climatology, forest ecology, landscape management, geomorphology, glaciology, hydrology, environmental science, wood anatomy and physiology are applied dendrochronology as an analytical tool (braker, 2002). the systematic studies of tree rings started before the turn off 1900s especially from western north america, eastern north america, western and eastern europe. the early works on tree ring analysis in the north america were primarily focused to find the relationship between precipitation and tree growth (robinson, 1992 and cook, 1992). on the other hand, the early period of tree ring analysis in western europe has been used mostly to study the impact of industrial pollution on the environment and a large number of such studies have demonstrated a correlation between air pollution and growth increment (eckstein and pilcher, 1992). similarly, the first notable tree ring works in east europe particularly in the former ussr was carried out to identify the relationship between width of annual ring and annual precipitation and narrowest rings were found during dry years (kairiukstis and shiyatov, 1992). tree ring research started relatively late in some countries of the southern hemisphere namely the south america, south africa, australia and new zealand. tree ring analysis is one of the most useful methods for forest resources assessment because it gives information on annual growth of the trees. tree ring analysis provides more precise information on the different dimensions of forest ecology and management such as choices of forest species composition, changes in environmental conditions, investigation of age effects, cost efficient forest management, site selection for afforestation and reforestation which contribute in achieving the sustainability from technical, environmental and economic perspective (spiecker, 2002). whereas there are several types of methods for tree ring analysis, soft x-ray densitometry has an advantage that it can obtain not only tree ring width but also density of woods. the ring width shows annual growth and volumetric growth. when density of wood is available, weight of growth and yield estimation of chamaecyparis spp. through tree ring analysis d. k. kharal1 and t. fujiwara2 tree ring analysis is one of the most useful methods in volume and biomass estimation especially of the conifer trees. ring width and ring density are important parameters in dendrochronological research. the present research was carried out with the aim of estimating the radial and volumetric growth of the japanese cypress trees (chamaecyperis obstusa and c. pisifera). destructive method was used while collecting the wood samples from the selected trees. ring width and ring density were measured using soft x-ray densitometry method using micro-densitometer. computer programme, developed by the forestry and forest products research institute, japan was used to analyze the ring with and ring density data. the average ring width of the chamaecyparis spp. was found to be about 3.4 mm at the age of 30 years. however, two types of growth pattern were observed in the trees. average radial growth was about 5% every year during the first 20 years of the tree age, whereas, the average radial growth was negative during the age of 20–30 years. average density of the tree rings were increased by about 11% in each height of the trees starting from the ground. similarly, the stem density decreased by about 3.4% annually along the radial direction from the pith. key words: dendrochronology, ring width, ring density, tree biomass, soft x-ray densitometry 1 department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. e-mail:deepak_kharal@yahoo.com 2 department of wood properties, forestry and forest products research institute, ibaraki, japan. 36 banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 37 trunk can be calculated from multiplication of the volume and density. amount of carbon in a tree stem is an important parameter for the assessment of forest on the carbon absorption. the primary interest of this study is to estimate the radial as well as volumetric growth of japanese cypress trees using soft x-ray densitometry analysis. it further assesses the stem density of the trees using the same method. materials and methods study area sampled trees were selected from the strip plantation of the institute of forestry and forest products research institute (ffpri) area adjacent to the tsukuba science city in ibaraki prefecture of japan. the strip plantation is found as the mixed stand both in terms of species composition and stem size. both the japanese cypress trees (chamaecyperis obstusa and c. pisifera) dominate the plantation. cryptomeria japonica is also found in small number. growth in diameter, volume and biomass of the tree stem are directly and closely correlated with weather and climate situation of the area. five years weather data (2002–2006) of the study area were used to understand the local climate for this research purpose. the temperature reached up to 370c in july 2004 whereas minimum temperature (-8.60c) was recorded in january 2003 (http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/index.html, 2008). regarding precipitation, 1616.5 mm of annual rainfall was recorded during the year 2006 with 592 mm in october 2004 as maximum and 1 mm in december 2005 as minimum. monthly average humidity of the area was about 74% ranging from 57% in january 2002 to 88% in july 2006. wind velocity was one of the important parameters of weather situation which was about 2.45 m/sec in terms of annual average varying from 1.8 m/sec in november 2004 and 3 m/sec in april 2002. the maximum wind velocity was recorded in 16 m/sec in october 2002. the area had around 1960 sunshine hours in annual basis having maximum sunshine hours (250 hours) in july 2004. interestingly, the minimum sunshine hours (56 hours) was noticed in the same month in 2003. the annual average solar radiation of the area was about 13.18 mj/m2 ranging from 7 mj/m2 in november 2003 to 22.1 mj/m2 in july 2004. sample collection medium sized trees of the japanese cypress, c. obstusa and c. pisifera, were considered in this research. trees from the plantation were selected from different length of the strip. the diameter was measured at 1.3 m from the ground level. the trees were harvested at 20 cm height from the ground. the harvested trees were logged into pieces each one having one meter in length up to tip of the trees. each ring having 10 centimeter in width was collected from bottom of each log as the sample which was further processed in the saw milling to prepare one centimeter-wide wood strip having 2 mm in thickness. knots and damaged parts were avoided while preparing the wood strip for ring analysis. length of the strips were measured from simple measuring scale before keeping in the oven dryer at 65% relative humidity and 200 c temperature to maintain about 10–11% moisture content in all diameters range so that comparison of the different rings in terms of width and density can be made standard. the wood density was measured through volumetric-gravimetric methods and gravimetric methods. volumetric-gravimetric method was used when wood samples were large whereas gravimetric method was used to identify the density variation within annual rings. out of the various methods, photometry, morphometry, radiometry and x-ray densitometry (schweingruber, 1992) used in tree ring analysis, soft x-ray densitometry analysis was used for this research. xray films of the treated wood strips were taken using 20 kvp pressure in 14 milli ampere up to 4 minute. microdensitometer was used to measure the ring width and ring density through x-ray film reading. data analysis there are several microcomputer systems commonly used in the analysis of tree ring density some of which are compu-ta, trims, belfast tree -ring programs, catras etc. in the present study, programme developed by the wood anatomy laboratory of the forestry and forest products research institute, tsukuba science city, japan was used to analyze the ring width and ring density. false rings were identified and adjusted during the analysis. data on ring width, average ring density, maximum ring density, minimum ring density, range of density within the ring, percentage of late wood and early wood within the kharal and fujiwara banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 38 ring, percentage of late wood and early wood over density of 550kg/cum were identified as shown in the output of the computer programme. the total sum of the area of the annual ring was multiplied with stem length to derive stem volume of each log. stem biomass was derived using average ring density and stem volume. results and discussion the general observations of the sampled and surrounding trees are depicted in table 1. the sampled trees were surrounded by a group of trees in the strip plantation. four to six numbers of surrounding trees within the total distance ranging from 14.5 m to 26.3 m having total sum of diameter within the limit of 126.5 m to 200.5 m were recorded before harvesting the sampled trees. this provides important information while analyzing the tree rings since tree growth is directly affected by root and crown space. ring width analysis ring width varies from species to species and even tree to tree within the same species of same localities. some trees also have different ring structure in different stem height. table 2 shows the average radial increment of the tree in terms of ring width in different height class. the average diameter increment was found to be decreased gradually from base to the top in all trees. the sum of all ring width corresponded to the total diameter of the trees without bark as shown in the same table. table 1: general obserrvation of the sampled trees observation of the surrounding trees within the limit of 10 m radius from the sampled tree latin name tree symbol total number sum of dia. of(m) sum of distance of of surrounding surrounding trees surrounding trees trees (cm) (m) chamaecyparis obstusa h1 4 126.5 14.5 chamaecyparis obstusa h2 6 200.5 22.2 chamaecyparis obstusa h3 6 183.5 26.3 chamaecyparis pispfera s1 4 194.5 18.6 table 2 : ring width analysis by stem height tree height (m) h1 h2 h3 s1 av. ring width sum of width av. ring width sum of width av. ring width sum of width av. ring width sum of width mm cm mm cm mm cm mm cm 0.2 3.48 20.90 4.59 27.57 3.43 20.60 4.53 22.64 1.2 3.39 16.28 3.55 18.44 3.05 15.87 4.13 18.16 2.2 3.59 15.08 4.01 17.65 3.28 14.42 4.32 17.29 3.2 3.27 13.10 4.09 15.56 3.18 12.70 3.72 14.12 4.2 3.28 11.81 3.88 13.18 2.93 9.95 3.64 12.36 5.2 3.27 10.48 3.81 11.44 2.74 8.22 3.29 9.86 6.2 2.79 8.36 3.51 9.82 2.24 5.84 2.99 7.77 7.2 2.39 5.73 3.44 8.25 1.76 3.16 1.91 3.83 8.2 1.71 3.08 3.27 6.54 2.00 0.80 1.63 1.95 9.2 2.62 4.20 average 3.18 11.65 3.83 13.26 2.97 10.17 3.67 12.00 kharal and fujiwara banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 39 kharal and fujiwara the growth parameters i.e., ring width, percentage of early wood and late wood widths as well as ring density are the primary focus of measurement in the field of forest ecology and management (braker, 2002). the width of the annual rings and tree growth are mostly determined by the climatic and other abiotic factors such as light, temperature, precipitation, wind, nutrient, root and crown space, mechanical damages, air and soil pollution whereas genetics control the growth to some extend (schweingruber, 1996). schweingruber (1989) has noticed wider rings of poplar trees as compared to the bilberry trees growing in the same climatic condition. the reason for decreasing ring width can be explained through ecological perspective. as mentioned above, the sampled trees were medium in size and dominated by a group of large sized trees with big crown. ring width may be started to decrease once the sampled trees reached up to the crown base of the dominated trees in the strip plantation. all trees have higher growth rate in their early age and continuously decrease until the harvesting time. the result showed that c. obstusa increased by about 3.33 mm per annum in its radial direction which varied from 4.59 mm in maximum to 1.71 mm in minimum level. similarly, the rate of growth of c. pisifera was little higher than that of the c. obstusa which was about 3.67 mm per annum ranging from 4.53 mm in maximum and 1.63 mm in minimum level. the analysis further showed that even three trees of c. obstusa species of the same locality had different ring structure in the same height class. various climatic and non climatic factors affect in the vegetation growth out of which temperature and precipitation have strong influence in the growth pattern (fritts, 1976; kozlowsky and pallardy 1997, leal et al., 2007). however, ecological dimensions are equally important to understand the growth pattern of the trees. in the present study, the sampled trees were found influenced by the locality, crown coverage and stem density of the stand. it can be explained by the observation as shown in table 1. the number of rings by height class of each sampled trees for the given year is presented in table 3. the total number of annual ring in all trees of c. obstusa species were 30 in the ground level but their number was different in different height class. this particularly showed the age of the trees by height class. c. pisifera had 25 annual rings by the end of harvesting time. table 3 shows that it required at least 21 years to reach the height of 8.2 m from the ground for h1, whereas 28 years was needed to reach the same height for the h3. the gap of the rings within each height class showed that early and late growth in terms of height was small compared to middle age in all trees of both species. the early and late stages of all trees had smaller ring width compared to the middle stage. the trees grew little faster during 1977 to 1987 period and started to decline until the harvesting time (fig. 1). ring density analysis the density varies not only from species to species but also from bottom to top and pith to bark of the same tree. the average density of the trees by stem height is presented in table 4. the average table 3: number of rings by height class of sampled trees height class (m) number of tree rings h1 h2 h3 s1 0.2 30 30 30 25 1.2 24 26 26 22 2.2 21 22 22 20 3.2 20 19 20 19 4.2 18 17 17 17 5.2 16 15 15 15 6.2 15 14 13 13 7.2 12 12 9 10 8.2 9 10 2 6 9.2 8 banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 40 density increased with the increase in height. the opposite is true in case of diameter that is biomass density in centre of the tree, which is called pith, was higher compared to the outer circle as shown in figure 2. the average density of the c. obstusa was around 518 kg/cum, little higher than the c. pisifera. such figures are different than the basic density because ring density was measured at around 11% moisture content. analysis of stem volume average volume of each ring in each height of the trees continuously decreased from bottom to the top of all trees. an average ring of each height of the c. obstusa tree had 0.58–1.02 cm3 wood volume producing about 3.18 cft of wood volume in h3 to 6.2 cft in h2. table 5 shows the average and sum of volume of rings by each height class of the trees. table 5: average and sum of volume of rings by height class stem height (m) average volume of each ring in all years by height (cm3) sum of volume of all rings in all years by height (cft) h1 h2 h3 s1 h1 h2 h3 s1 0.2 1.07 1.84 1.02 1.59 1.14 1.95 1.08 1.41 1.2 0.91 1.12 0.69 1.31 0.77 1.03 0.63 1.02 2.2 0.79 1.18 0.63 1.28 0.59 0.92 0.49 0.90 3.2 0.64 0.98 0.60 0.67 0.45 0.65 0.42 0.45 4.2 0.60 0.86 0.43 0.63 0.38 0.52 0.26 0.38 5.2 0.51 0.77 0.33 0.51 0.29 0.41 0.18 0.27 6.2 0.36 0.62 0.20 0.37 0.19 0.30 0.09 0.17 7.2 0.22 0.51 0.10 0.13 0.09 0.22 0.03 0.04 8.2 0.09 0.40 0.03 0.07 0.03 0.14 0.00 0.01 9.2 0.00 0.22 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.00 0.00 ave/sum 0.67 1.02 0.58 0.90 3.93 6.20 3.18 4.65 stem height (m) tree symbol h1 h2 h3 s1 0.2 518 432 565 432 1.2 529 495 526 466 2.2 484 474 491 460 3.2 508 442 553 405 4.2 528 473 540 414 5.2 527 504 547 470 6.2 538 520 566 474 7.2 545 521 630 499 8.2 583 541 657 617 9.2 585 average 523 485 547 455 table 4: stem density (kg/m3) by height of tree fig. 2: ring density in radial direction of the stem kharal and fujiwara fig. 1: ring width by growth year banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 41 kharal and fujiwara biomass analysis biomass assessment is one of the important components of tree ring analysis. here, biomass was measured in terms of weight. table 6 depicts the average weight of each ring grown in all years by height class. average biomass of each ring in each height of the tree also continuously decreased from bottom to top of the trees. average biomass in each ring in each height of the tree in h1, h2, h3 and s1 trees were about 350, 439, 330 and 387 grams equivalent to about 58, 76, 60 and 57 kilograms of wood biomass in the respective trees. figure 3 for stem biomass of all trees corresponded to the 11 % moisture content. a comparative figure for stem biomass in different moisture content is also presented in table 7. fig. 3: average ring biomass in all height by year per annum biomass increment varied from 1.6 kgs in h3 to 2.5 kgs in h2 whereas increment of s1 was about 2.2 kgs per annum in the same locality. the stem biomass increased by about 3.4% annually at the age of 30 years. however, the rate of biomass growth during the first 20 years of tree age was about 5.6% annually. figure 4 shows the sum of ring biomass in all height by year. fig. 4: sum of ring biomass in all height by year table 6: average and sum of weight of all rings of all years by height class stem height (m) average wt of each ring in all years by height ( g) sum of wt of all rings in all years by height ( kg) h1 h2 h3 s1 h1 h2 h3 s1 0.2 556.1 796.2 575.0 689.1 16.7 23.9 17.3 17.2 1.2 473.8 482.6 390.5 568.2 11.4 12.5 10.2 12.5 2.2 410.7 509.9 353.9 552.6 8.6 11.2 7.8 11.1 3.2 330.3 421.8 337.1 288.5 6.6 8.0 6.7 5.5 4.2 308.8 371.4 244.0 272.4 5.6 6.3 4.1 4.6 5.2 264.6 334.3 188.9 219.4 4.2 5.0 2.8 3.3 6.2 188.8 266.5 110.8 161.8 2.8 3.7 1.4 2.1 7.2 112.9 221.5 54.6 54.1 1.4 2.7 0.5 0.5 8.2 45.5 172.5 16.7 29.3 0.4 1.7 0.0 0.2 9.2 95.9 0.8 ave/sum 349.5 438.6 330.4 387.8 57.7 75.9 50.9 57.0 description tree symbol h1 h2 s1 total green weight of stem (kg) 97.0 129.6 101.9 total dry weight at 11 % mc (kg) 57.7 75.9 57.0 total dry weight at 0 % mc (kg) 53.8 72.0 46.9 table 7: comparison of stem biomass by moisture content level banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 42 contrast to this, the biomass growth rate during the last 10 years of the tree age (20–30 years) was negative and equal about 10% per year. the reasons behind significant decrease of the biomass growth during the age of 20–30 years of the tree could be the competition with the surrounding trees for light, moisture and growing space. acknowledgements we sincerely thank jica nepal to provide financial support to conduct this research at the forestry and forest products research institute, ibaraki, japan. we further would like to thank ms. kana yamashita to support in our lab work at the institute. references braker, o. u. 2002. measuring and data processing in tree-ring research a methodological introduction. dendrochronologia 20/1-2: 203–216. cook, e. 1992. dendrochronology in eastern north america. in methods of dendrochronology (eds.) cook, e.r. and kairiukstis, l. a. kluwer academic publishers. dordrecht, holland. eckstein, d. and pilcher, j. r. 1992. dendrochronology in western europe. in methods of dendrochronology (eds.) cook, e.r. and kairiukstis, l. a. kluwer academic publishers. dordrecht, holland. fritts, h. c. 1976. tree rings and climate. academic press, london, uk. http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/index.html, cited in april, 2008. kairiukstis, l. and shiyatov, s. 1992. dendrochronology in the ussr. in in methods of dendrochronology (eds.) cook, e.r. and kairiukstis, l. a. kluwer academic publishers. dordrecht, holland. kozlowsky, t. t. and pallardy, s. g. 1997. growth control in woody plants. academic press, san diego. leal, s., melvin, t. m., grabner, m., wimmer, r. and briffa, k. r. 2007. tree ring-growth variability in the austrian alps: the influence of site, altitude, tree species and climate. boreas 36: 426–440. robinson, w. j. 1992. dendrochronology in western north america: the early years. in methods of dendrochronology (eds.) cook, e.r. and kairiukstis, l. a. kluwer academic publishers. dordrecht, holland. schweingruber, f. h., 1992. radiodensitometry. in methods of dendrochronology (eds.) cook, e.r. and kairiukstis, l. a. kluwer academic publishers. dordrecht, holland. schweingruber, f. h. 1996. tree rings and environment dendroecology. birmensdorf, swiss federal institute for forest, snow and landscape research. berne, stuttgart, vienna, haupt. schweingruber, f. h. 1989. tree rings: basics and applications of dendrochronology. kluwer academic publishers. dordrecht, holland. spiecker, h. 2002. tree rings and forest management in europe. dendrochronologia 20/1-2: 203–216. kharal and fujiwara final added vol 15-2.pmd 24 lok vanaki a recent innovative approach for managing private forestry in madhya pradesh, india a k bhattacharya1 and bijendra basnyat2 this paper highlights on lok vanaki (private forestry) scheme, an innovative and decentralized approach for managing private forestry of madhya pradesh (mp) and examines on policy provisions, implementation status and explore on issues associated with its implementation. this scheme was launched in madhya pradesh in april 1999 for promoting multi-tier scientific management of neglected and degrading forests on private holdings. the state government has taken adequate measures to provide sufficient legal support to the whole initiative. lok vanaki has not only helped on conservation and development of private forestry but also in socio-economic upliftment of people. it has also contributed in reducing the unemployment rate of the country concept through the charter foresters, who are fully authorized for preparation, implementation and monitoring of the plan. efforts are underway to make the programme successful through political commitment. keywords : private forestry, forest acts, management plan, mp, india. evolution of concept rapid population, growth has created a demand and supply gap for the forestry products. the gap of fuelwood was 9.75 million cubic meters in 1999 (mpfd, 1999). apart from this, the productivity of the forest resources is decreasing day-by-day due to over dependency on forest products. this has created a tremendous pressure in government forest, which had lead to their degradation, singh (1998) estimated that 14 forest-based industries in the state have been closed due to shortage of raw materials and many others are operating below their installed capacity. in addition to above, verdict of honorable supreme court on 12-12-96 states that felling of trees in all forests (including private forests) is banned except in accordance with approved working (management) plans. hence, it has been felt that there is an imperative need to shift the wood production functions from natural forests under forest development to private forest and wasteland in order to make the governmental forest to play the ecological role exclusively. as a result, the govt. of m p conducted a thorough study and discussion with farmers and officials in order to hammer out a programme to promote tree growing in the revenue area and private holdings, which generally fall in the category of wasteland. the govt. of m p launched “lok vaniki (private forestry) mission” a programme to promote tree growing in private holding and revenue area with people’s participation in april 1999. initially, the programme was lunched in four districts on a pilot basis, which has now been extended to 10 districts. the chronological event of evolution of lok vanki is summarized in table 1. 1 conservator of forests, madhya pradesh forest department, mp, india. email: ajoykb@sancharnet.in 2 senior research officer, narma consultancy pvt. ltd. post box 13536, kathmandu, nepal: email: bijendra@narma.org.np; bbasnyat@yahoo.com table 1: evolution of lok vanaki in mp years chronological events 1996 supreme court’s verdict against felling of green trees 1999 • launched the private forestry concept in madhya pradesh and opening of lok vanaki cell under lok vaniki with additional pccf (production) as the mission leader. • decided to implement in four districts of mp • a high-powered committee composed of senior officials from the panchayat, tribal, forest and revenue departments was set up to look into legal requirements of the lok vaniki scheme. 2000 scheme was extended to three more districts 2001 formulation of lok vanaki act 2002 formulation of lok vanaki rule which is being implemented in 10 districts of mp 25 the scheme lok vanki is an innovative programme launched in mp in april 1999. the concept contemplates capturing the inter-relationship between economic growth, environmental preservation and poverty alleviation through development of forestry in the private sector. the major focus of the scheme is on promoting multi-tier scientific management of neglected and degrading forests on private holdings and also inculcating a culture of tree cultivation. the vision statement, envisaged as “lok vaniki : vision 2020”, states ‘to transform the forestry sector in mp, so as to enable it to fulfill its dual role of maintaining ecological balance and environmental stability while simultaneously meeting not only the domestic demand but also a share of the international market of forest products through people’s participation thereby contributing to the socio-economic development of the state’. lok vaniki aims to • increased production of wood and non-wood forest products in the private sector by managing and harvesting standing forests on private holdings; rehabilitating degraded forests on private holdings and on lands under the control of government departments (other than forest department) mainly revenue department; plantations on private and revenue department wastelands. • empowering and strengthening of panchayats and creation of other necessary institutions like ‘kisan sangh’ and ‘chartered foresters’ to manage, supervise and monitor forestry and forest based activities as also tax collection in non-government sector. hence, lok vanaki is initiated for the scientific management of private forests and promotion of tree cultivation on marginal lands. this would be achieved by providing suitable legal, institutional and market environment. the lok vanaki management process can be summairzed as below in box 1. policy and legal measures the state government has taken adequate measures to provide sufficient legal support to the whole initiative. lok vanaki act, 1999 and lok vanaki rule 2001 has been formulated which provided an enabling legal framework to people willing to manage forests and tree clads area on scientific lines. the objectives of the act are to regulate and facilitate management of tree clad private and revenue areas in the state of madhya pradesh. lok vaniki, which emerged after the historic decision of the hon’ble supreme court has now assumed a shape that is based on sound legal grounds. key features of lok vanaki legislation are summarized in box 2. in order to facilitate tree cultivation and harvesting in a decentralized yet systematic and sustainable manner, peoples’ institutions are being entrusted with implementation responsibilities. institutions like “lok vaniki kisan uddyami sangh” are being registered under the societies act. the objective of the kisan sangh (farmers’ association) is to bring all small farmers together to organize for collective action in the field of private forestry and provide forward and backward linkages to its members, which are inevitable for multi-tier forestry. one of the other major objectives of the kisan sangh is to generate funds to make available the advance technology to the farmers and also facilitate proper marketing of timber and non-wood forest produce. forestry boards at state and district level are also being constituted to supervise various aspects of private forestry. the state govt. has recently created a new institution of chartered foresters to ensure box 1: procedural steps for managing private forestry under “lok vanaki “ • making the farmers aware of the concept, benefits to them through implementation of the scheme and their responsibilities. • they are told that the land cannot be diverted for any other use. • land has to be clearly demarcated and certificates obtained from forest and revenue departments that no forest or government land has been included in their holding. • a management plan has to be prepared and approved by a competent authority. • trees to be felled are marked strictly in accordance with the approved management plan. • regeneration of forest has to be ensured. • regular monitoring will take place and implementation of the management plan will be suspended if working is not found complying with management plan. all illicitly felled trees will be confiscated. banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2bhattacharya and basnyat 26 availability of technical assistance in the field of forestry on commercial basis. till to date, sevenchartered forester has already registered with lok vanaki cell. panchayat raj institutions, especially gram sabhas are supposed to play a major role in implementation and monitoring of private management plans. implementation status the lok vanaki was initiated in four districts but now it covers ten districts namely, devas, hoshangaad, damo, sivni, narsinghpur, jabalpur, kanti, mandala, dindori, sidhi. until now 1196 farmers owning 4211 hectares of land from five districts have got involved in the scheme (saigel et al, 2002). the state govt. has made elaborate arrangements for training and capacity building of these peoples institutions to evolve a transparent and convenient mechanism for private peoples active participation in management of their own tree clad areas. more than 150 training programs have been organized in 10 districts and 20,000 farmers are trained on various aspects of forest management with the introductory module of lok vanaki legislation. fifty management plan of lok vanaki have already been prepared of which four are being sanctioned and three has been forwarded to govt of india for approval as the plans cover more than 10 ha of land. in anticipation of the income that would be generated, many farmers invested in raising of plantations to further increase their assets. as per available information, approximately 3,79,000 seedlings were planted in 1999 planting season in dewas, sidhi and raigarh districts only. three farmers have started harvesting and their name and annual income is summarized in table 2 below. conclusions lok vanaki is a decentralized approach adopted by madhya pradesh forest department where the role of panchayat has been duly acknowledged. the concept of charter forester is not only innovative but could also contribute in reducing the unemployment. the farmers can make this productive without much box 2: key features of lok vanaki legislation • fairly free from colonial shadows: • an enabling law -voluntary in application: private forest owners voluntarily prepared plan for managing their wood lots • preparation of management plan: management plan is prepared to ensure continuity and improvement of the forest so that it fulfills its environmental and economic roles optimally. in preparing the management plan of private forests, the same silvicultural principles are applied as in the case of government forests • chartered foresters: availability of technical forestry services to people on commercial basis. these are the private independent parties who will prepare the management plan for the farmer for sustainable management of private forest • putting people first: self assessment by the owner of private forests the act itself is very progressive, the process for framing rules under the act was also participatory • single window deals with the issue of management of such private holdings for which a management plan is prepared under the provisions of the act. such lands shall remain outside the purview of the madhya pradesh land • recognition of role of local government in sustainable private forestry: the gram panchayat after having received the approved management plan from the competent authority should implement the plan according to prescribed time schedule. • institutional framework: state-level coordination committee, forestry boards at district and block-level, lok vaniki kisan samiti and sangh and chartered foresters, kisan sangh’ and chartered foresters to manage, supervise and monitor forestry and forest-based activities vfkhph��6dljho�hw�do���������7kh�6wdwh�*ryw��kdv�pdgh�hoderudwh�duudqjhphqwv�iru�wudlqlqj� dqg�fdsdflw\�exloglqj�ri� wkhvh�shrsohv� lqvwlwxwlrqv� wr�hyroyh�d� wudqvsduhqw�dqg�frqyhqlhqw� phfkdqlvp� iru� sulydwh� shrsohv� dfwlyh� sduwlflsdwlrq� lq�pdqdjhphqw� ri� wkhlu� rzq� wuhh� fodg� duhdv��0ruh�wkdq�����wudlqlqj�surjudpv�duh�rujdql]hg�lq�whq�glvwulfwv�dqg��������iduphuv�duh� wudlqhg�rq�ydulrxv�dvshfwv�ri�iruhvw�pdqdjhphqw�zlwk�wkh�lqwurgxfwru\�prgxoh�ri�/rn�9dqdnl� 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iruhvwv�li�surshuo\�lpsohphqwhg�� 5hihuhqfhv *203�� ������ 0dgk\d� 3udghvk� /rn� 9dqdnl� $fw� ����� 0dgk\d� 3udghvk� *ryhuqphqw�� %krsdo��03��,qgld *203� ������0dgk\d� 3udghvk� /rn� 9dqdnl� 5xoh� � ������0dgk\d� 3udghvk� *ryhuqphqw�� %krsdo��03��,qgld 03)'������ 0dgk\d�3udghvk�)ruhvwu\�$fwlrq�3odq��0dgk\d�3udghvk�)ruhvw�'hsduwphqw�� %krsdo�,qgld 6dljdo��6��$urud��+�dqg�5l]yl��6�6��������7kh�qhz�iruhvwhuv��wkh�uroh�ri�sulydwh�hqwhusulvh�lq� wkh�,qgldq�iruhvwu\�vhfwru��,qvwuxphqwv�iru�vxvwdlqdeoh�sulydwh�vhfwru�iruhvwu\�vhulhv� (frwhfk� 6huylfhv��1hz�'hokl�dqg�,qwhuqdwlrqdo�,qvwlwxwh�iru�(qylurqphqw�dqg�'hyhorsphqw��/rqgrq 6lqjk��'�3� ������6rflr�hfrqrplf�'hyhorsphqw� ri�0dgk\d�3udghvk� wkurxjk�)ruhvwu\�e\� wkh�shrsoh��iru�wkh�shrsoh��*ryhuqphqw�ri�0dgk\d�3udghvk��%krsdo��,qgld table 2: income from lok vanaki banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 bhattacharya and basnyat 27 investment (saigel et. al, 2002). this would not only help for conservation and development of private forestry but also in socio-economic upliftment of people. since this is a new programme, rectification in various aspects of implementation is needed. important among them is to expedite the handing over, which is very slow due to long administrative procedures. it requires approval from central government if the area is more than 10 ha of land. hence, lok vanaki is not a panacea but it can contribute a lot towards sustainable management of private forests if properly implemented. references gomp. 2002. madhya pradesh lok vanaki act2001, and madhya pradesh lok vanaki rule 2002. madhya pradesh government, bhopal, mp, india mpfd.1999. madhya pradesh forestry action plan. madhya pradesh forest department, bhopal india saigal, s, arora, h and rizvi, s.s. 2002. the new foresters: the role of private enterprise in the indian forestry sector. instruments for sustainable private sector forestry series. ecotech services, new delhi and international institute for environment and development, london singh, d.p. 1998. socio-economic development of madhya pradesh through forestry by the people, for the people. government of madhya pradesh, bhopal, india banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2bhattacharya and basnyat corrected bankojanakari vol 18-1.pmd 11 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 altitudinally coordinated pattern of plant community structure in the shivapuri national park, nepal shalik ram sigdel1 study on plant community structure was undertaken in different altitudinal ranges of shivapuri national park. the general objective of this study is to analyse different plant community structure in shivapuri national park with regards to altitudinal variation. the forest was divided into three distinct altitudinal ranges on the basis of dominancy. in each altitudinal range standard quadrats method was applied for vegetation analysis. the highest number of species was found in site ii. all the ecological parameters of the plant species were higher in site ii except basal area of tree that was highest in site iii. the pattern of distribution of plant species was not uniform according to altitude. at higher elevation, the forest was mature with almost closed canopy and trees were large; so the tree density was low. species richness was highest in site ii. species diversity among tree and shrub species was higher in site i. but for herb species diversity was higher in site ii for both seasons. such type of variations may be due to nature of soil i.e. acidity, nutrient availability and other micro-climatic factors. the most noteworthy thing was that variation in flower colour of rhododendron arboreum i.e. deep scarlet at low altitude, but it gradually changed into pinkish white as altitude increased. key words: altitude, density, plant community, species diversity nepal, a himalayan country, rises from the indo-gangatic plain, about 60 m asl in the south to world’s highest peak, the mount everest (8,848 m asl) in the north. with increasing altitude, vegetation changes from tropical, through subtropical and temperate, to alpine (stainton, 1972; numata, 1983; jackson, 1994). the boundaries of these vegetation zones are subject to much variation, being sometimes abrupt and sometimes gradual, in relation to various local factors such as topography, climate and aspect. there is a great variation in the vegetation along the rainfall gradient across the country from the high rainfall area in the east to the low rainfall in the west. thus, nepal’s geographical, altitudinal and climatological conditions taken together with various local factors account for the high species richness within the country’s geographical area of 147,181 km2, extending along the himalayan range. nepal covers only 0.1% of the world’s total land area, which is well known for different types of flora within a short distance. the angiospermic flora of nepal is unique. it has one of the richest floras in the world as far as the diversity of angiospermic taxa is concerned. nepal has a share of 2.6% of the world’s flowering plants (chaudhary, 1998). it has been believed that around 7,000 species of flowering plants are present in nepal, however only 5,636 species has been reported in the publication of dpr, 2001. but 6666 species of flowering plants has been reported in the recent publication (bhuju et al, 2007). vegetation of nepal has been divided into following six bio-climatic zones (dobremez, 1980): topical (< 1000m), sub-tropical (1000 2000m), temperate (2000m – 3000m), sub-alpine (3000 – 4000m), alpine (4000 5000m) and nival (> 5000m). forest is mainly found from tropical to temperate region. tisc (2002) revised the forest classification and mentioned 33 types. sub-tropical to temperate region has 41.14% of total forest in nepal (dfrs, 1999). the subtropical region has schima-castanopsis forest with other deciduous species in the east and central nepal and pinus roburghii forest in the west. the major associates in the former are engelhardia spicata, acer oblongum, pyrus pashia, eurya acuminata, myrica esculenta etc. but in the later the associates are myrica esculenta, lyonia ovalifolia, quercus lanata, q. incana, rhododendron arboreum etc. it is essential to understand the local and regional pattern of vegetation distribution, stratification in resource availability and for the management of forest. in addition to climate, other factors such as 1research officer, safe concern, email: sigdelshalik@gmail.com 12 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 sigdel biotic interactions also determine the vegetation type and their vigour. since shivapuri national park is watershed of bagmati river and one of the main sources of drinking water for kathmandu valley, forest type and ecological balance of the region directly determine the quantity, quality and sustainability of water supply to this capital city. it is anticipated that the present study provides baseline information for developing sustainable management strategy, which is of utmost importance for uplifting the conservation of natural resources. materials and methods study area shivapuri national park (27o45' to 27o52' n and 85o15' to 85o 30' e; altitude range from 1366m to 2732m asl and area 144 sq m) lies at about 12 km north of kathmandu valley. the park is the source of high quality drinking water. the shivapuri area provides about 1 million cubic litre of water per day (dnpwc, 2003). it is the watershed of bagmati, bishnumati, nagmati, syalmati, sani khola, thuli khola and alle khola. the most important objective of establishing the shivapuri national park is to increase the supply of high quality drinking water through the conservation and rehabilitation of the watershed. the park covers 23 village development committees of kathmandu, nuwakot and sindhupalchowk districts. the land resource mapping project (1984) classified forest of this park into two types: deciduous mixed broad-leaved forest and coniferous chir-pine forest. here subtropical and temperate type of vegetation is prominent. the subtropical zone is dominated by schima wallichii, castanopsis indica, c. tribuloides and pinus roxburghii. the common associates are alnus nepalensis, prunus cerasoides, engelhardia spicata and quercus glauca. the shrubs include mussaenda frondosa, osbekia stellata, hypericum cordifolium and phyllanthus parvifolius. at higher elevations, mixed temperate forest of oak (quercus lanata, q. semecar pifolia) and rhododendron (rhododendron arboreum) are predominant. the common associates are lyonia ovalifolia, myrica esculenta, q.lamellosa, symplocus sp., rhus sp, gaultheria fragrantissima, potentilla fulgens, hedyotis scandens, rubia manjith (chaudhary, 1998). data collection and analysis a field reconnaissance survey was executed in the shivapuri national park area from last week of july to first week of august 2003. the purpose of the initial exploration was to assess the feasibility of this work. from this exploration, southern part of the park was selected for this study. the study area (1600m to 2732m) has three distinct types of forests along the altitudinal gradients; pinus roxburghii forest (1600m -1800m), quercus – castanopsisrhododendron forest (1900m-2300m) and q. semecarpifolia rhododendron arboreum forest (2400m-2732m) (dahlen,1993). they are designated as site i, ii and iii respectively. the vegetation sampling was done by quadrat method (kershaw, 1973). the qurdrats of 10m x 10m for trees, 5m x 5m for shrubs and 1m x 1m were laid down for the estimation of quantitative data. for tree, two quadrats were laid at every 100m increment of elevation, starting from 1600m. individuals of tree species were classified into tree, sapling and seedlings (ifri, 1994). altogether 24 quadrats for trees, 48 for shrubs and 96 for herbs were studied. for that two sub quadrats (5m x 5m) were laid down in two corners of the 10m x 10m quadrate for shrub and four sub quadrats (1m x 1m) were laid down in four corners of the 10m x 10m quadrats. specimens of all species were collected and the herbarium prepared as used for identification. some of the plants were identified using standard references (hara et al. 1978; 1979 and 1982, stainton, 1988; shrestha, 1998) and others with the help of specimens deposited at tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch) and national herbarium and plant laboratory, kathmandu (kath). for nomenclature press et al. (2000) was followed. field data were used to calculate density, frequency, basal area, their relative values and importance value index following zobel et al. (1987). density and relative density density represents the numerical strength of the species in a community. density (p/ha) = total number of individual of a species total no. of quadrat studied × area of a quadrant (m2)× 10,000 relative density is a proportion of density of a species with respect to total density of all species. relative density (%) = density of species ‘a’ total density of all species × 100 13 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 basal area and relative dominance it is measured from diameter at breast height (dbh) and its basal area was calculated. it is one of the chief characteristics to determine dominance. so, relative dominance was determined as the relative value of basal area. basal area = π (dbh) 2 /4 the relative dominance was calculated as follows: relative dominance (%) = species diversity and index of dominance among the several indices, most commonly used two indices are simpson’s index (simpson, 1949) and shannon-wiener’s index (shannon and weaver, 1949). simpson’s index (c) reflects dominance and shannon-wiener index (h’) reflects species diversity. it was calculated as follows: total no. of plots in which a species ‘a’ occurred total no. of plots sampled ×10,000 frequency and relative frequency the frequency and relative frequency was calculated using following formulas. frequency (%) = frequency of species ‘a’ total frequency of all species × 100 relative frequency = basal area of a species total basal area of all species × 100 importance value index (ivi) ivi is the sum of relative density, relative frequency and relative dominance of a species in a community. the ivi value of any species in community ranges between 0-300 and the sum of ivi of all species is 300. similarity index (is) is was calculated as sorrenson’s index modified by greig-smith (1964). 2c a + bis = × 100 where, a = total no. of species in one sample b = total no. of species in another sample c = total no. of common species in both the sample s ∑ i = 1 c = (pi)2 s i = 1 h’ = –∑ (pi)2 (1n pi) table 1: number of species at different altitude site i (1600m-1800m) site ii (1900m-2300m) site iii (2400m-2732m) tree 22 25 10 shrubs 29 37 17 herb (rainy) 28 36 27 herb (dry) 17 26 23 where, c = simpson’s index of dominance s = total number of species pi = proportion of all individuals in the sample that belongs to species i h’ = shannon-wiener index results and discussion the study area had natural forest which has been protected for more than three decades. grazing and collection of fallen branches for wood fuel were frequent while felling for timber was not observed. altogether 147 species (36 trees, 37 shrubs and 74 herbs) belong to 125 genera and 58 families were reported from the study site. numerically important families were: asteraceae (16 spp), rosaceae (9 spp) and poaceae (8 spp). nearly half of the species were herbs. the number of herb species was higher in rainy season than in dry season. site ii was rich in number of species for all plant habits. the variation of total species richness along the elevation gradient is shown in the following table. the highest number of species (109) was found in site ii. this may be due to the transition zone of sub-tropical and temperate zone. this site acts as ecozone. but in site iii comparatively lower no. of species were reported. this may be due to the mature forest with almost closed canopy and trees were large; so the number of species was low. in case of site i, sigdel 14 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 the lower number of species in comparison with site ii may be due to more acidic soil as this is pine dominated forest. the pattern of distribution of plant species was not uniform according to altitude due to variation in micro-climate. at lower altitude pinus roxburghii is dominant among tree species. the major associate tree species are alnus nepalensis, schima wallichii, lyonia ovalifolia etc. generally pine forest has less number of biodiversity compared to broadleaved but here higher diversity was reported in pine forest rather than broadleaf forest. that may be due to mature forest with almost closed canopy and trees were large; so the tree density was low in the broadleaf forest. phyllanthus parvifolius is most dominant species among shrub species. melastoma malabaricum, berberis aristata, sarcocca coriaceae, crotalaria cytisoides, osyris wightiana, antidesma acuminatium were associated common species. eupatorium adenophorum is the most dominant species among herbaceous species. at middle altitudinal range, rhododendron abroreum and quercus lanata were frequently dominant among the tree species and major associated species are castanopsis tribuloides, quercus glauca, symplocus ramosissima, myrsine capitellata, gaultheria fragrantisima among shrub and melastoma malabaricum, berberis aristata, sarcocca coriaceae, crotalaria cytisoides, osyris wightiana were associated common shrub species and chlorophytum nepalensis among herbs. here the number of castanopsis tribuloides was higher with lower basal area as well as ivi value. at higher altitude, quercus semecarpifolia was dominant among tree specie with ivi value 108.37 followed by rhododendron arboretum (81.07) with quercus lamellosa, persea duthiei and eurya acuminata as major associated species, daphne bholua among shrub species. the common associated species were berberis asiatica, rubus acuminatus, rubus paniculatum, lindera pulcherrima, indigofera atropurpuria, arundinaria falcata and aconitum ferox among herbaceous species, which were ecologically most important species in the study area. the most noteworthy thing was that variation in flower colour of rhododendron arboreum i.e. deep scarlet at low altitude, but it gradually changed into pinkish white as altitude increased (above 2450m). important value index (ivi) the important value index provides a quantitative basis for the classification of community. the ivi value of any species in community ranges between 0-300 and the sum of ivi of all species is 300. in site i, the highest ivi (68.19) was recorded for pinus roxburghii followed by lyonia ovalifolia (24.41), alnus nepalensis (21.16). similarly, the lowest ivi (3.26) was recorded for eriobotrya elliptica. in site ii, the highest ivi (45.71) was recorded for rhododendron arboreum followed by quercus lanata (45.43) and quercus semecarpifolia (37.85). similarly, the lowest ivi (2.03) was recorded for theaceae sp. in site iii, the highest ivi (108.37) was recorded for quercus semecarpifolia followed by rhododendron arboreum (81.07). similarly, the lowest ivi (5.33) was recorded for lindera nacusua. it means these species are ecologically important to maintain the existing ecosystem. index of similarity (is) the similarity index value ranged between 18.75% and 62.82% for trees, 17.39% and 45.45% for shrubs/ saplings, 14.54% and 37.5% for herbs/seedlings in rainy season and 10% and 27.9% for herbs in dry season. the most frequent and common species have greater role on similarity between two stands (podani, 1978). so, variation in altitudinal range is the most important factor for determining the is. it may also be due to the different topography and edaphic factors. floristic similarity is the response of species to the micro and macro environment (krebs, 1972). the highest value of is (62.82) was recorded between site i and site ii for tree species and 45.45 for shrub/ sapling between same sites. this may be due to more common tree and shrub species between site i and ii. while this value was highest between site i and site iii for both rainy and dry season i.e. 47.6 and 53.06 respectively. for all type of plants the value was lowest between site i and site iii 18.75, 17.39, 14.54 and 10.0 respectively. this may be due to less common species and variation in altitude. the index of similarity value for tree species was found to be highest (62.82%) between site ii and i and lowest (18.75) between site i and iii. in case of shrub, the highest is (45.45%) was found between sites i and ii. while lowest (17.39%) between site ii and i. in case of herbs, the highest is was found between site ii and site iii in both seasons i.e. rainy (47.6%) and dry (53.06%). similarly is was the lowest between site ii and i in both seasons. sigdel 15 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 species richness and species diversity species diversity is the combination of species richness and species evenness. species evenness is the distribution of individuals among the species. the total number of tree species (species richness) was the highest in site ii but species diversity (2.64) was higher in site i. despite of higher species richness in site ii, contribution of single dominant species was high in site iii had higher simpson’s index (0.1898) because the index was more sensitive to dominant species. shrub species richness was higher (37) in site ii. species richness (17) and species diversity were low in site iii but index of dominance was high. the evenness was low and dominance concentrated to a single species. for shrubs, the index of dominance ranged from 0.036 to 0.116 and species diversity from 2.45 to 3.39. for herbs index of dominance was high in site iii (0.046) as there were lowest number of species richness with lowest value (0.032) was recorded in site ii as there were highest number of species richness in rainy season. it was because, higher the number of individuals, lower their contribution to make dominancy. reverse type of result was recorded; in case of species diversity i.e. species diversity was directly proportional to total number of species while index of dominance was inversely proportional to species richness. similar result was recorded for herbs in the dry season. conclusion altogether 147 (36 trees, 37 shrubs and 74 herbs) species belonging to 125 genera and 58 families were reported from the study site. species richness in terms of species number was greatly contributed (about 50%) by herbaceous species. the numbers of herbaceous species were higher in the rainy season than in dry season. pinus roxburghii was the ecologically most important tree species in lower altitude. at mid elevation rhododendron arboreum and quercus lanata were the most frequent and dominant species. at the higher altitude quercus semecarpifolia was the most dominant species. this result shows the three distinct forest types in the study area. the major associated tree species were alnus nepalensis, schima wallichii, lyonia ovalifolia etc. at lower altitude, castanopsis tribuloides, quercus glauca, symplocus ramosissima, myrsine capitellata at middle altitude and quercus lamellosa, persea duthiei and eurya acuminata at higher altitude. among shrubs and saplings, phyllanthus parvifolius was the most frequent and dominant species at lower altitude and melastoma malabaricum, berberis aristata, sarcocca coriaceae, crotalaria cytisoides, osyris wightiana, antidesma acuminatium etc. were associated common species. in middle range gaultheria fragrantissima was most frequent and dominant species with association of phyllanthus parvifolius, mussaenda frondosa, hypericum table 3 : species richness (s), diversity index (h) and index of dominance (c) of tree, shrub/sapling and herb/seedling layers in different altitudes altitude (site) habit s c h tree 22 0.078 2.76 shrub/sapling 29 0.093 2.80 herb/seedling (rainy) 28 0.042 3.08 site i (1600m-1800m) herb/seedling (dry) 17 0.079 2.68 tree 25 0.082 2.73 shrub/sapling 37 0.367 3.39 herb/seedling (rainy) 36 0.328 3.45 site ii (1900m-2300m) herb/seedling (dry) 26 0.592 2.99 tree 10 0.189 1.91 shrub/sapling 17 0.116 2.45 herb/seedling (rainy) 27 0.467 3.04 site iii (240m-2732m) herb/seedling (dry 23 0.059 2.95 table 2 : index of similarity (%) of trees, shrub/saplings and herbs/seedlings between different sites habit site i and ii site ii and iii site i and iii tree 62.82 34.28 18.75 shrub/sapling 45.45 40.74 17.39 herbs/seedling (rainy) 37.50 47.60 14.54 herbs/seedlings (dry) 27.90 53.06 10.00 sigdel 16 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 cordifolium, daphne bholua, arundinaria falcata. in higher altitude daphne bholua was most frequent and densely distributed species. the common associated species were berberis asiatica, rubus acuminatus, rubus paniculatum, lindera pulcherrima, indigofera atropurpuria, arundinaria falcata etc. regarding herbs and climbers eupatorium adenophorum and cymbopogon citratus were most frequent and dominant species at lower altitude in both seasons. in middle altitudinal range chlorophytum nepalensis makes its dominancy in both seasons. but in higher altitudinal range aconitum ferox was the most important species during rainy season and chlorophytum nepalensis during dry season. the other common herbaceous species were cyperus rotundus, bidens pilosa, saccharum spontaneum, desmodium concinum, scutelaria discolor, achyranthus aspera, potentilla fulgens, chirita urticifolia, smilex aspera, s. lanceolata, cyanodon dactylon, rubia manjith, plectertus mollish, fragaria nubicola, digitaria ciliaris. species richness was highest in the middle range of altitude. species diversity among tree and shrub species was higher in site i. but for herb species diversity was higher in site ii for both seasons. index of dominance for tree and shrub species was highest in site iii but for herbs index of dominance was highest in site i in dry season and in site iii for rainy season. acknowledgement i am highly acknowledged to professor dr. h.d. lekhak and mr. bharat babu shrestha central department of botany, for their valuable guidance, encouragement, valuable suggestion and critical comment in successful completion of this work. i also thankful to professor dr. p.k. jha, head of central department of botany for providing necessary laboratory facilities, professor dr. k.k. shrestha and staff of national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari for their help in identification of the unknown plant species. dnpwc and snp are due of thanks for their permission to work in this area. the anonymous reviewer is also thankful for reviewing this paper. references bajracharya, m.k. 1999. forest of nepal in nature’s paradise (eds. t.c. majpuria), white lotus co. ltd. bangkok, thailand pp 112-129. bhuju, u. r, shakya, p. r., basnet, t. b. and shrestha, s. 2007. nepal biodiversity resource book. united nations environment programme (unep), ministry of environment science and technology (moest), government of nepal. bpp 1995. biodiversity profile of the mid hills physiographic zone. gon/government of the netherlands. chaudhary, r.p. 1998. biodiversity in nepal: status and conservation. s.devi, saharanpur (u.p.), india and tec. press books, bangkok, thailand. dahlen, j. 1993. shivapuri integrated watershed management plan, nepal, fao, rome (italy). forestry dept dnpwc 2003. protected areas of nepal. dnpwc, kathmandu, nepal. dfrs 1999. forest resources of nepal (1987-1998). frisp publication no. 74. kathmandu, nepal dobremez, j.f. 1980. carte ecologie du nepal region: jumal saipla. pp 1-5. dpr (2001). flowering plants of nepal (phanerogams). ministry of forest and soil conservation, national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari phulchowki forest) in t.c. majpuria (ed.) nepal. nature’s paradise, lotus studio bangkok pp. 427. fao 1991. project document-shivapuri integrated watershed development project phase ii. gcp/ nep/ 048/nor. greig smith, p. 1964. quantitative plant ecology iiird edition, butterworths, london. greig smith, p. 1964. quantitative plant ecology iind edition, butterworths, london. hara, h. and l.h.j. willams (eds.) 1979. an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal. volume ii. brit. mus. (nat. hist.) london. hara, h., a.o. chater and l.h.j. willams (eds.) 1982. an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal. volume iii. brit. mus. (nat. hist.) london. hara, h., w.t. steran and l.h.j. williams (eds.) 1978. an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal. volume i. brit. mus. (nat. hist.) london. sigdel 17 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 ifri 1994. ifri data collection instruction manual, may 1994, version 7. international forestry resources and instruction (ifri), research programme. workshop in political theory and policy analysis indiana university, bloomington, indiana, usa. jackson, j.k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. forest research and survey center, ministry of forest and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. kershaw, k.r. 1973. quantitative and dyanamic plant ecology. edward arnold limited london. krebs, c.j. 1972. ecology. the experimental analysis of distribution and abundance. harper international edition. lrmp 1984. land utilization map. topographical survey branch, survey department, hmg/ kenting earth sciences ltd. canada. mope 2003. state of the environment in nepal. ministry of population and environment, kathmandu. numata, m. 1983. ecological studies in the nepal himalayas. in m. numata (ed.) ecology and conservation, the selected paper of makotot numata: 247-259. the himalayan committee of chiba university, japan. podani, j. 1978. a method for clustering of binary (floristical) data in vegetation research. acta bot. acad, sci. hung, 24: 121-137. press, j.r., k.k. shrestha and d.a. sutton 2000. annotated checklist of the flowering plants of nepal. natural history museum, london. shrestha, k. 1998. dictionary of nepalese plant names. natural history museum, mandala book point kathmandu. sigdel s. r. 2004. vegetation and soil analysis in southern aspect of shivapuri national park, nepal, m.sc. thesis submitted to central department of botany, t.u., kathmandu, nepal. simpson, e.h. 1949. measurement of diversity. nature 163: 688. stainton, j. d.a. 1972. forest of nepal, john murray publisers, ltd. stainton, j.d.a. 1988. flowers of the himalaya. oxford press, new delhi, india. tamot (shrestha), b., g.p.s. ghimire and s.b. karmacharya 2000. vegetation distribution in relation to soil surface characteristic in shivapuri watershed area, nepal. eco-print 7(1): 43-47. tisc 2002. forest and vegetation type of nepal. tree improvement and silviculture component (tisc), department of forest, kathmandu. document series no. 105. 180 p. zobel, d.d., p.k. jha, j.m. behan and yadav, u.k.r. 1987. a practical manual for ecology. ratna book distributor, kathmandu, nepal. sigdel final added vol 15-2.pmd 38 mistletoes are one of the important components of biodiversity. they play a vital role in natural plant communities by interacting with other hosts, herbivores and dispersers. in many cultures, mistletoes have been a source for many concepts, symbols, and rituals. since early days, they have been one of the most magical, mysterious and scared plants of folklore. probably due to their parasitic nature, elusive method of dispersal, and strange growth habit, many cultures have revered, feared, or thought them to have magical properties. the species not only adorn festive as portrait of friendship, but are still respected palliative for the most feared diseases including cancer, with their connotations in sympathetic medicines of abnormal growth (polhill and wiens 1998). in nepal, mistletoes have traditionally been used since long. however, they have remained unused by the modern pharmacological practices. the indigenous use of mistletoes such as dendrophthoe falcata, viscum album and v. articulatum was first documented in nepal in ‘medicinal plants of nepal’ (hmgn 1970) marking the beginning of ethnobotanical studies on mistletoes. nonetheless the works on indigenous uses still remained unattained. present study, therefore, aimed to collate and enumerate the indigenous uses of mistletoes. methods primary data on indigenous uses of mistletoes were collected from participatory observations and informal discussions with the locals at hattikhal, chepangghat, deurali and mulghat area (250-700 m; tropical zone) of bardia district in april 2003 and in godawari-phulchoki area (1500-2700 m; subtropical and temperate zone) of lalitpur district in july 2003 to june 2004. literatures briefing the indigenous use of mistletoes were also reviewed and analyzed. results of the eight species found to be used indigenously dendrophthoe falcata, scurrula elata, s. pulverulenta and viscum articulatum were used in bardia district and helixanthera ligustrina, loranthus odoratus, scurrula elata, s. parasitica, s. pulverulenta, viscum album and v. articulatum in godawari-phulchoki area of lalitpur district. most of the species were used for healing and curing the bone fractures, dislocation and sprain. very few were reported as fodder and edible (table 1). local people from both areas denied using mistletoes for fuelwood/firewood because they believed that such uses cause them debt in home and eye problems. the use of mistletoes for trapping bird was also important. tamang ethnic groups of phulchoki area believed that the use of mistletoes infected urtica dioca wood brings good luck during gambling. discussion to date, total of 19 species of the mistletoes are found in nepal (devkota 2005). though the species are few in number, their uses have been practiced indigenously for centuries. of the 19 species, 11 species are being indigenously used for various purposes. most of the existing ethnobotanical reports of nepal have recorded the importance of mistletoes for rural life. such importances include medicine, fodder and indigenous use of mistletoes in tropical and temperate region of nepal r. m. kunwar1, n. adhikari1 and m. p. devkota2 eleven species of mistletoes are widely used by different ethnic groups of nepal for various purposes. the local people of the present study areas (one each at tropical and temperate region) were found using eight species of mistletoes for food, fodder and medicine. noticeable use of the mistletoes is for healing bone fractures, dislocation and sprain. keywords: indigenous use, mistletoes, nepal. 1 centre for biological conservation, kathmandu, nepal (ripu@wlink.com.np) 2 amrit campus, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal 39 food. besides these, few species are used in trapping birds and few others are for food for birds and butterflies. mistletoes are extensively applied for curing muscular swelling, sprains, fractures, dislocations, etc. a detailed review of indigenous use of 11 mistletoes species has been presented below for the feaders. their synonyms and local names are given in table 1. 1. dendrophthoe falcata (l.f.) etting. (loranthaceae) leaf paste is used in skin diseases. it is taken in abortion (bhattarai 1991; siwakoti and siwakoti 2000). bark juice/decoction is employed for menstrual problems and asthma (bohora 1998; sapkota 2000; pandey 2001; bhattarai 2002). its paste is applied on boils, setting dislocated bones and extracting pus (manandhar 2002). fruit is taken as flavor, edible (hmgn 1982; panthi and chaudhary 2002; shrestha and kunwar 2003), astringent, narcotics, and for curing wounds (siwakoti and varma 1996, 1999), and its paste is applied on fractures for setting bones (manandhar 1986, 1990) and other medicinal purposes (sah et al 2002). nectar is food for hair crested drungo and sunbirds (bpp 1995). leaf along with urtica doica (sisnu) are made into paste and used to treat bone fractures (bhattarai 1993). 2. helixanthera ligustrina (wall.) danser (loranthaceae) fruits are edible (manandhar 2002) and whole plant is used as medicine (panthi and chaudhary 2002; shrestha and kunwar 2003). 3. loranthus odoratus wall. (loranthaceae) plant is used as fodder (gurung 2003). ripen fruits are taken by tamang people for indigestion (manandhar 1991, 2002). in winter, fruits are collected, boiled with equal volume of water and the viscous gel is applied over the tree branches for bird trapping (devkota 1995; nepal 1999). 4. macrosolen cochinchinensis (lour.) van tiegh. (loranthaceae) plant is taken to cure headache (devkota 1997). banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2kunwar et al. 2 total eight species were found to be used indigenously in present study. of the eight species, dendrophthoe falcata, scurrula elata, s. pulverulenta and viscum articulatum were used in bardia district. the use of helixanthera ligustrina, loranthus odoratus, scurrula elata, s. parasitica, s. pulverulenta, viscum album and v. articulatum was observed in godawari-phulchoki area, lalitpur district. most of the species were used for healing and curing the bone fractures, dislocation and sprain. very few were reported as fodder and edible (table1). none of the species were used as fuelwood. local people from the both areas deny using the fuelwood/firewood of mistletoes because they believe that the use of mistletoes species as firewood tempts debt in home and causes eye problems. the use of mistletoes for trapping bird was also important. tamang ethnic groups of phulchoki area believe that the use of mistletoes infected urtica dioca wood brings good luck during gambling. table 1. indigenous use of mistletoes in nepal sno species name local name indigenous use 1 dendrophthoe falcata (l.f.) etting.* {loranthus bicolor roxb., l. falcatus l.f., l. longiflorus desr.} rhiniya-m, ainjeru-n, mandargon banda-s, nihi-t edible, medicinal 2 helixanthera ligustrina (wall.) danser* {loranthus ligustrinus wall.} bhringe-g, ainjheru-mg, ainjeru, lisso-n edible, medicinal 3 loranthus odoratus wall.* {hyphaer odoratum (wall.) danser} ainjeru-n, khik-r, donglanaist fodder, medicinal 4 macrosolen cochinchinensis tiegh. {loranthus cochinchinensis tiegh., l. globosus roxb., l. viridiflorus wall.} ainjeru-n medicinal 5 scurrula elata (edgew.) danser* {loranthus elatus edgew.} bhringe-g, ainjeru-n, ainjera, che-s, nai-t edible, fodder, medicinal 6 scurrula parasitica l.* {loranthus scurrula l.} ainjeru, lisso-n edible, fodder 7 scurrula pulverulenta (wall) g. don* {loranthus carnosus wall., l. pulverulentus wall.} bhringe-g, ainjeru-n edible, fodder, medicinal 8 taxillus vestitus (wall.) danser {loranthus vestitus (wall.) danser} lisso-n edible, medicinal 9 viscum album l.* {viscum costatum, v. stellatum d. don} ainjeru-c, mistletoes, devil’s fuge, birdlime-e, harjor-g, ainjeru, harchur, hadjoda, sanohatchur-n, harchu-ne, gandhamadini, jiwantika–sa, nai-t, bang-th edible, medicinal 10 viscum articulatum burm. f.* {viscum dichotomum d. don, v. liquidambaricolum (hayata) r.s. rao} hadachur, hadjod-n, harchu-ne, bojha-r, kathkomunjga-s, gandhmadini-sa fodder, medicinal 11 viscum sp. lisso-n medicinal source: field survey (2003 and 2004) * species used in study area, species given in {} are synonyms c = chepang, e =english, g = gurung, m = moosahar, mg = magar, n = nepali, ne = newari, r = rai, s = satar, sa = sanskrit, sh = sherpa, t = tamang, th = tharu discussion 40 5. scurrula elata (edgew.) danser (loranthaceae) leaves are used as fodder. fruits are edible and used for bird trapping (shrestha 1988a; shrestha 1988b; nepal 1999; duwadee and kunwar 2001, manandhar 2002). 6. scurrula parasitica l. (loranthaceae) leaves are used as fodder. fruits are edible (manandhar 2002; shrestha and kunwar 2003). if taken, the tender shoots cause loss of appetite and vomiting to livestock (shrestha 1985). 7. scurrula pulverulenta (wall.) g. don (loranthaceae) leaves are used as fodder. fruits are edible and used for bird trapping. stem bark is boiled in water and used as a treatment of jaundice. 8. taxillus vestitus (wall.) danser (loranthaceae) plant is boiled and its extract is applied on sprain (manandhar 1993). it is also used as a wild food plant (manandhar 1997). 9. viscum album linn. (viscaceae) fruits are edible, laxative, tonic, aphrodisiac, cardiotonic (hmgn 1970; iucn 2004); used for tumor, mixed with egg and eaten to cure fracture (devkota 1997); food for butterfly delais aglaia (red base jazebel), delais belladona (hill jazebel); twigs are used by witch doctors (khanal and bhandary 1982). plant is used as diuretic; applied in wounds, earache, and enlargement of spleen (malla 1994; khan 1997; joshi and joshi 2001; panthi and chaudhary 2002; iucn 2004). root extract is taken to cure titanus (dangol 2002) and bark paste is applied on muscular swelling, boils, wounds, sprains, fractures (manandhar 1992; shrestha and dhillion 2003; panthi and chaudhary 2004; poudel and uprety 2004). plant paste is applied on curing dislocated bones (coburn 1984; manandhar 1989a; oli 2001; prasai 2001; shrestha et al 2004), wounds of cattle (manandhar 1989 a,b; shrestha 1997; bhattarai 2002; shrestha et al 2004; iucn 2004) and abdomen swelling. 10. viscum articulatum burm.f. (viscaceae) plant bark is often mixed with hen egg and pinus roxburghii leaf and taken for ailment of bone dislocation. it is given in fever attended with itching limbs and as an aphrodisiac. it has febrifuge properties (hmgn 1970). paste prepared from all parts of the plant is applied over the fractured portion of the body (oli 2003). stem paste and decoction is applied on cuts, wounds, bone fracture (nepal 1999; joshi and joshi 2001; niraula 2001; gurung 2003; iucn 2004), ulcers and blood diseases (sapkota 2000; pandey 2001; iucn 2004), epilepsy and sprain (siwakoti and siwakoti 2000). plant is also used as fodder (thapa et al 1997). 11. viscum sp. (viscaceae) plant paste is used in fracture (kattel and kurmi 2004). acknowledgements first author is grateful to zoological society of london, uk; and natural history museum, kathmandu for providing support to have field visit in bardia district. the second author is thankful to university grant commission, kathmandu nepal. references bhattarai, g. p. 2002. diversity and indigenous uses of flowering plant resources in the churiya forests of parsa wildlife reser ve and adjoining area . central department of botany, tribhuvan university, nepal. m.sc. thesis. 110. bhattarai, n. k. 1991. folk herbal medicines of makawanpur district, nepal. international journal of pharmacognosy, 29(4): 284-295. bhattarai, n. k. 1993. folk herbal medicines of dolakha district, nepal. fitoterapia, 64(5): 387-395. bohora, g. b. 1998. a study of traditional medicinal plants and its knowledge among people of bajhang district, nepal. central department of social science, tribhuvan university, nepal. m.sc. thesis. 33. bpp. 1995. biodiversity assessment of terai wetlands. hmg nepal and government of netherlands. bpp technical publication no. 1. 80+. coburn, b. 1984. some native medicinal plants of western gurungs. kailash, 55-87. dangol, n. 2002. documentation of the ethnobotanical knowledge of kumal community of chitwan district, central nepal. central department of botany, tribhuvan university, nepal. m.sc. thesis. 99. devkota, m. p. 1997. mistletoes of khimti forest, ramechaap district, nepal. banko janakari 7(2): 52-53. devkota, m. p. and acharya, n. 1995. status of angiospermic tree parasites of kathmandu valley. 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nepal. journal of natural history museum, 21(14): 243-266. sapkota, p. p. 2000. ecological study and traditional uses of medicinal plants in malika forest baglung, west nepal. central department of botany, tribhuvan university, nepal. m.sc. thesis. 95. shrestha, a, kc, b., and thapa, c. b. 2004. ethnomedicinal uses of plants among the kumal community in chirtundhara, palpa district, nepal. botanica orientalis, 4: 59-62. shrestha, a. k. 1997. documentation of indigenous knowledge on the utilization of plant resources by the tharu community around rbnp, west nepal. central department of botany, tribhuvan university, nepal. m.sc thesis. shrestha, k. and kunwar, r. m. 2003. plants. in oliver s (ed.) babai river valley: fish and biodiversity survey, royal bardia national park, nepal. zsl conservation report no.3. london: the zoological society of london. 119. shrestha, k. k., rajbhandary s., tiwari, n., poudel r. c. and uprety y. 2004. ethnobotany in nepal: review and perspectives. (a report) wwf nepal program and ethnobotanical society of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. 271. shrestha, p. 1985. research note: contribution to the ethnobotany of the palpa area. contribution to the nepalese studies, 12(2): 63-74. shrestha, p. m and dhillion s. s. 2003. medicinal plant diversity and use in the highlands of dolakha district, nepal. journal of ethnopharmacology, 86: 81-96. shrestha, p. 1988a. ethnobotanical observation on the tamangs of kathmandu valley, in proceeding of national conference on science and technology, royal nepal academy of science and technology, kathmandu, nepal. 353-358. shrestha, p. 1988b. contribution to the ethnobotany of the tamangs of kathmandu valley. contribution to the nepalese studies, 15(2): 247-266. siwakoti, m. and siwakoti, s. 2000. ethnobotanical uses of plants among the satar tribes of nepal. in ethnobotany and medicinal plants of indian subcontinent (ed) maheswori j. k. scientific publishers, jodhpur, india. 79-108. siwakoti, m. and varma, s. k. 1996. medicinal plant of the terai of east nepal. jnl eco. taxon. bot. additional series12. scientific publication, jodhpur, india. 423-438. siwakoti, m. and varma, s. k. 1999. plant diversity of eastern nepal: flora of plains of eastern nepal. m/s bishen singh mahendra pal singh, dehra dun, india. 491. thapa, b., walker d. h. and sinclair f. l. 1997. indigenous knowledge of the feeding value of tree fodder. animal feed science and technology, 67: 97-114. banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 kunwar et al. cover 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 25 status of blue sheep and himalayan tahr in dhorpatan hunting reserve, nepal j. b. karki 1* and b. b. thapa1 a survey of blue sheep (pseudois nayaur) was conducted in six blocks of dhorpatan hunting reserve (dhr), nepal. a total of 852 blue sheep were recorded in 73 different groups. the average group size was found to be 11.7 individuals. the average population density of blue sheep in the reserve was found to be 1.28 animals per km2. there were 263 rams, 307 ewes, 89 yearlings and 39 lambs. among the rams, 126 were classified as trophy rams, 92 as medium rams and 45 as young rams. the ratio of trophy rams to other rams was found to be higher than those found in the earlier studies. the mean sex ratio was 86 males per 100 females and the yearling to ewes ratio was 29 per 100 ewes. the survey of himalayan tahr (hemitragus jemlahicus) in sundaha block recorded 53 individuals with 30 males, 14 females, eight yearlings, and one lamb. the results indicated that the existing quota of blue sheep hunting can be safely continued. in case of higher demands, two more quotas can be added to barse, dogadi and sundaha blocks for the next five years (2008-2012). himalayan tahrs can be hunted in all the blocks. sundaha block can sustain four while the rest of the blocks can sustain two himalayan tahrs per year. key words: blue sheep, dhorpatan hunting reserve, himalayan tahr, hunting quota, population density d horpatan hunting reserve (dhr) established in 1987 (1,325 km2), encompasses 26.42% area of baglung, 14.13% area of myagdi and 59.45% area of rukum districts of western nepal. the reserve has dominant rangeland (444.56 km2) followed by forest (426.60 km2) and barren land (426.35 km2) with small area of agricultural land (26.38 km2) and shrub land (1.11 km2). it is the only reserve in nepal that allows blue sheep (pseudois nayaur) hunting. popularity of blue sheep hunting is growing among the international hunters due to its recognition by safari club international as one of the 14 species of wild sheep to receive the super slam title (bajimaya et al., 1990). hunting of blue sheep in dhr was continued till 22 april, 1998 but was stopped when sport hunting was disallowed in the area because of conflict. the status of blue sheep was unknown since 1998 and thus, the prime objective of this study was to estimate the blue sheep population along with other game animals of the designated blocks in dhr in order to determine whether the existing quota could be continued. this was essential for two reasons: to issue license and, to fix the quota. materials and methods study area the survey was carried out in six blocks: sundaha, seng, dogadi, gustung, barse and phagune, covering 587.5 km2. the boundary of the blocks mostly followed natural features. the important features of dhr include extensive high land pastures mostly above 3,800 m and, east-west ridges that make north and south slopes suitable for summer and winter habitats. the highland pastures, which are locally known as buki, provide summer grazing grounds for livestock (cow, buffalo, goat, and sheep). below such buki, temperate forests dominated by blue pine, fir, quereus spp., rhododendron, birch, and hemlock are found between 3,000 m – 3,800 m. survey method a survey was conducted for blue sheep and himalayan tahr in dhr during 25 may – 12 june, 2007. the survey was conducted by visiting potential habitats in all six blocks. direct count was done with the help of binocular (10*40 and 12*50) and telescope. counting by sex and age was attempted. group composition according to schaller classification (1973) was followed. only the total numbers were recorded, as classifying them into sex and age was difficult. 1 department of national parks and wildlife conservation, babarmahal, kathmandu *corresponding author: jbkarki@gmail.com banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 26 density of blue sheep the area of the blocks surveyed was expected to contain more blue sheep than what has been observed. however, the actual area inhabited by sheep was far less than the total area of the reserve. thus, 50% of the area of the six blocks (587.5 km2) was used for this estimation. the average population density of blue sheep in the reserve was found to be 1.45 (ranging from 0.38–3.60) animals per km2 (table 1). the mean density was found to be similar to wegge (1976) but lower compared to bajimaya et al. (1990). phagune and seng blocks were found to have the lowest apparent density (below one animal per km2) whereas dogadi block had the highest density of 3.59. the result was consistent with that of bajimaya major emphasis was given on counting the whole sub-populations of blue sheep for estimating the minimum number of trophy rams as well as for determining population structure of the group in each block. due to the lack of quantitative data on population growth trend, recruitment dynamics were analyzed on the basis of following assumptions: � stable age distribution (caughley, 1966) � sex ratio of male yearlings to female yearlings is 1 � no change in age specific mortality rate � mortality rate is same in all the three male age classes � recruitment and survival rates of young are constant and � no rams survive at the age of 15 years (chenrnyavskij, 1962) at first, the number of rams produced in each block was estimated. then, the estimated annual blue sheep quota was assessed with the existing quota for the sustainable harvest of blue sheep. the ratio of lambs to adult ewes was used to estimate net recruitment rate. the difference between the number of lambs and yearlings was used to calculate intervening mortality. the mortality in the male segment from yearling to trophy age was used to determine the recruitment rate of trophy ram. efforts were also made to search carcasses. for the himalayan tahr (hemitragus jemlahicus), popularly known as jharal, male was classified into adult, sub-adult and young; while female into adult, yearling and lamb. sightings of other wild animals were also recorded. in order to minimize personal biases that may occur while estimating males’ horn lengths and yearlings’ heights versus those of ewes and youngs, only one single observer was assigned for counting in one group. other team members assisted the observer to verify the results. results and discussion population of blue sheep for counting purpose, 65% of potential blue sheep areas were surveyed in sundaha, dogadi, barse, phagune and gustung blocks. a total of 852 blue sheep were counted in 73 different groups in six blocks. of them, 81.92% were classified into different age and sex groups. the average group size of the blue sheep was found to be 11.7 individuals per group (table 1). this size is more or less the same as reported by wilson (1981) and wegge (1976) but smaller as reported by bajimaya et al. (1990). the group size ranged from 2 to 79 individual animals. karki and thapa block area(km2) no. of groups no. of blue average group average apparent of blue sheep sheep observed size density sundaha 145 10 98 9.8 1.35 seng 138 5 40 8 0.58 dogadi 199 29 358 12.3 3.60 gustung 167 11 128 11.6 1.53 barse 201 11 167 15.1 1.66 phagune 325 7 61 8.7 0.38 total 1,175 73 852 11.7 1.45 table 1: sighted number of groups and individuals of blue sheep in each block of dhr banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 27 karki and thapa et al. (1990) which showed phagune and dogadi as having the lowest and the highest apparent densities respectively. the average density might be higher than the calculated apparent density because the team was unable to count all sub-populations of each block. productivity of blue sheep only 39 of 307 adult ewes were observed with lambs. though four lambs were seen with two adult ewes, the team could not consider them twins for the reason that other adult ewes too were seen at a distance of about 200 m apart in the same area. the mean recruitment rate was estimated to be 12.75% (table 2). since the team was unable to determine the number of lambs born alive, the ratio of the number of observed lambs to 100 ewes was taken as recruitment rate. the mean recruitment rate was found to be lower than the rate reported by bajimaya et al. (1990). the disparity could have occurred because of timing of this survey, which was conducted within the lambing period. it may be that the pregnant females had not given birth during the survey period. it can also be speculated that the survey had missed those pregnant females who went away leaving the group to give birth. no new born lambs were observed in sundaha and seng blocks (survey period: june 1–5). the maximum of lamb to adult ratio was observed in dogadi block (survey period; june 6–10) with 28% recruitment rate (table 2). block no ofblue sheep classified class iii (trophy ram) class ii (medium ram) class i (young ram) ewes yearling lamb sex ratio (m:f) yrl:f ratio recruitm entrate no. % no. % no. % no. % no. % no. % sundaha 42 8 19.05 5 11.90 2 4.76 21 50 6 14.29 0 0 71 29 0 seng 15 2 13.33 1 6.67 0 0.00 9 60 3 20.00 0 0 33 33 0 dogadi 299 62 20.74 39 13.04 23 7.69 98 32.78 49 16.39 28 9.36 127 50 29 phagune 61 6 9.84 10 16.39 1 1.63 29 47.54 11 18.03 4 6.56 59 38 14 barse 158 30 18.99 20 12.66 13 8.22 79 50.00 13 8.23 3 1.90 80 16 4 gustung 123 18 14.63 17 13.82 6 4.87 71 57.72 7 5.69 4 3.25 58 10 6 total 698 126 18.05 92 13.18 45 6.45 307 43.98 89 12.75 39 5.59 table 2: group composition of blue sheep in 6 blocks in dhr population trend of blue sheep out of the 698 animals that were classified into age and sex, 263 (37.68%) were rams, 307 (43.98%) were ewes, 89 (12.75%) were yearlings and 39 (5.59%) were lambs. of the 263 rams, 126 were classified as trophy rams, 92 as medium rams and 45 as young rams (table 2). the recorded proportion of trophy rams was found to be higher than those recorded by the earlier studies. this may be due to the suspension of the trophy hunting for more than seven years (1998–2006) in dhr. the recorded proportions of young rams were less compared to those recorded in the earlier studies. one of the plausible explanations for this could be that many young males with smaller horn size might have been mistakenly classified as adult females. the mean sex ratio was found to be 86 males per 100 females. the male ratio recorded was lower than what bajimaya et al. (1990), and wegge (1976), had recorded and higher than what wilson (1981) had reported. recording of higher number of females in this study could be due to the higher proportion of total animals classified. high degree of variation in sex ratios existed when compared between blocks, ranging from only 33 in seng block to 129 in dogadi block (table 3). this is in conformity with the studies of bajimaya et al. (1990), wegge (1976) and wilson (1981). the yearling to 100 ewes’ ratio was found to be 29. this ratio is less than the ratios mentioned in the earlier studies by bajimaya et al. (1990), wilson (1981) and wegge (1976). banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 28 karki and thapa for the same area, the total population estimated by different studies is different. for instance, bajimaya et al. (1990) estimated 1,346 animals, whereas wegge (1976) estimated 575–630 in five blocks excluding sundaha. similarly, wilson (1981) estimated 800–900 animals. this study observed at least 852 individuals in about 60% of the potential blue sheep habitat. this is similar to the observations made by wilson (1981) and wegge (1976) but slightly lower than that made by bajimaya et al. (1990) (fig. 1). fig 1: comparison of blue sheep number with earlier studies in dhr in general, it can be interpreted that the surveyed blocks contained healthy population of blue sheep with enough numbers; particularly the trophy rams. the numbers are adequate to sustain the existing quota. in some blocks, the quota can be increased to some extent for harvesting without disturbing the present trend of population growth of blue sheep, and reducing the proportion of trophy ram in population. the condition of dogadi block was better in terms of distribution and number of blue sheep. in this block, blue sheep were found in maximum number with higher group size and apparent density. gustung block, on the other hand, has shown that population is better than indicated by the earlier studies. dogadi block followed by sundaha block and barse block has higher proportion of trophy rams. this implies that these blocks can support one or two additional quota provided demands are raised, and the remaining blocks can sustain the existing quota safely. blue sheep quota the department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc) has allocated 26 blue sheep as an annual quota for hunting in dhr. the quota has never been fully utilized in any year between the period of 1980 to 1990 (table 3). according to the records, a maximum of 50% of the annual quota seems to have been utilized in 1992/93 and the minimum 19.2% in 1997/98. while considering blocks, a maximum of 61.1% of the annual quota has been utilized in dogadi block followed by 37.5% in seng block. except dogadi and seng blocks, the rest of the four blocks could be utilized for only 25% of the annual quota of blue sheep. on an average, only about one third of the annual quota seems to have been utilized in six years (1992/93– 1997/98). the trend of use of annual blue sheep quota seems to have reduced from average two third between 1980 and 1990 to only one third between 1992 and 1998. table 3: number of blue sheep harvest (1992/93–1997/98) on different blocks in dhr block blue sheep harvest % of current 2049/50 2050/51 2051/52 2052/53 2053/54 2054/55 total % of harvest annual (1992/93) (1994/94) (1994/95) (1995/96) (1996/97) (1997/98) harvest harvest quota sundaha 4 0 0 2 1 3 0 6 25.0 57.5 seng 4 2 1 0 3 0 3 9 37.5 67.5 dogadi 6 3 5 4 5 3 2 22 61.1 76.6 gustung 4 2 0 0 0 4 0 6 25.0 82.5 barse 4 3 1 1 1 0 0 6 25.0 42.5 phagune 4 3 0 1 1 0 0 5 20.8 75.0 total 26 13 7 8 11 10 5 54 34.6 67.0 * between 1980-1990 (bajimaya et al. 1990) source: dnpwc, 2011 banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 29 karki and thapa table 5: number of blue sheep and himalayan tahr harvest (2008/09–2010/11) on different blocks in dhr block 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11 as of feb 28, 2011 blue himalayan blue himalayan blue himalayan tahr sheep tahr sheep tahr sheep sundaha 5 2 0 0 4 2 seng 0 0 0 0 0 0 dogadi 4 1 0 0 2 2 gustung 10 6 0 0 0 0 barse 5 2 6 2 1 0 phagune 5 5 2 0 2 1 surtibang 1 2 2 9 0 0 total 30 18 10 11 9 5 source: dnpwc, 2011 himalayan tahr (jharal) the team spent one and a half day in sundaha block and a half to one day in the rest of the five blocks for surveying himalayan tahr as well. altogether 53 himalayan tahrs were sighted in sundaha block. they include: thirty males (class iii: 16, class ii: 13, class i: 1), 14 females, eight yearlings and one lamb. gender could not be assigned for 11 tahrs of phagune, three of barse, one of seng and another, one of dogadi blocks. the sex ratio of 53 classified jharal was 30:14 (214 male: 100 female). the yearling to female ratio was found to be 5.7 while that of fawn to female at 7. the existing data, secondary information and the pellet group’s observations suggested that surtibang and dogadi blocks can sustain annual quotas of four jharal whereas the rest of the blocks can sustain only two jharal per year. formal count of jharal was not carried out in surtibang block. however, the study team members made a few informal visits of the block, during which they observed pellet groups of jharal in many locations. if the demand for jharal increases, a separate census along with the hunting operation might be conducted to ascertain the status and, fixing the quota. current himalayan tahr quota wegge (1976) recommended that 11 -16 himalayan tahrs could be harvested in irregular intervals. in six years period (1992/93–1997/98), 40 himalayan tahrs have been used on a regular basis (table 4). on an average, about seven (44%) himalayan tahrs have been harvested and the maximum hunting was 12 (75%) in 1992/93 and 10 in 1994/95. more than six himalayan tahrs seem to have been utilized in seng and sundaha blocks alone, in a period of six years from 1992/93 to 1997/98 (on an average one himalayan tahr per year). the use of jharal quota has been recorded as 100% in 2008/09, 61% (11 in number) in 2009/10 and 28 % (five in number, for half season) in 2010/11 (table 5). if the quota for surtibang block is assumed as two, then the year 2008/09 becomes the first time when all 100% quota of jharal was used. however, it was discontinued after 2009/10. table 4: number of himalayan tahr harvest (1992/93–1997/98) in dhr block current 1992/93 1994/94 1994/95 1995/96 1996/97 1997/98 total annual harvest quota sundaha 11-16 0 0 2 1 4 0 7 seng 2 1 4 0 0 4 11 dogadi 3 0 2 0 0 1 6 gustung 2 0 0 0 4 0 6 barse 2 1 1 0 0 0 4 phagune 3 1 1 1 0 0 6 total 11-16 12 3 10 2 8 5 40 source: dnpwc, 2011 banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 30 the survey of himalayan tahr conducted in sundaha block recorded a minimum of 16 mature males of harvestable size. the maximum harvest was four himalayan tahrs in 1996/97. sundaha block can sustain annual harvest of four himalayan tahrs. it is suggested that only two males be allowed for harvest in each season (march/april) and (october/ november) to reduce any disturbances. signs, secondary information, occasional observation data and the demand situation suggested that each block can sustain two himalayan tahrs per year. it is recommended that in coming years, a comprehensive survey be carried out along with the hunting operation in all blocks, except sundaha. this will help in supplementing existing available information about the status of himalayan tahr. conclusion and recommendations the existing quota of blue sheep hunting, six in dogadi and four each in the rest of the five blocks can be safely continued. in case of higher demands, two more quotas can be added to barse, dogadi and sundaha blocks for the next five years. himalayan tahrs can be hunted in all the blocks. sundaha can sustain four and the rest of the blocks can sustain two himalayan tahrs per annum. the full use of prescribed quotas has been found to be used only once, in 2008/09. only 50% of the total quota per annum should be permitted to be harvested in each season so as to reduce physical disturbances caused by hunting. repeated hunting during the same season should not be continued in the same area of the block. if new companies are interested, surtibang block could be considered as a place to be allowed for himalayan tahr hunting. regular census is important to plan sustainable harvest; thus, counting one block each year to complete all the six blocks in a period of six years could be reasonable for practicing regular census. it will be better if the census could be carried out during the hunting operation as because necessary supports could be obtained from hunting companies. to supplement, a regular blue sheep and himalayan tahr count programme could be planned from the government budget so as to make dhr capable of monitoring changes due to hunting. on the other hand, dhr should be equipped with necessary logistic material like sleeping bags, tents, and instruments like binocular, digital camera, global positioning system (gps) and telescope with stand. in addition, game scouts, senior game scouts and rangers should be trained on counting, sexing and aging of blue sheep and himalayan tahr. involvement of local people in the management of sport hunting is essential. therefore, to increase their stake, reserve and the outfitters should initiate schemes that provide financial support to the concerned local communities. they should also assist local communities to use funds appropriately both in conservation as well as in income generating activities. references bajimaya, s., baral, n. and yadav, l. b. 1990. report on overall assessment of dhorpatan hunting reserve. department of national parks and wildlife reserve, kathmandu, nepal. caughley, g. 1966. mortality patterns in mammals. ecology 47: 906-918. chenrnyavskij, f.b. 1962. on the reproduction and growth of the snow sheep (ovis nivicola esch.) zool zh.41 (10): 1556-1566. dnpwc. 2011. hunting records of dhorpatan hunting reserve. department of national parks and wildlife reserve, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. schaller, g. b. 1973 . observation on himalayan tahr (hemitragus jemlahicus). journal of bombay natural history society 70 (1): 1–24. wegge, p. 1976. himalayan shikar reserves: surveys and management proposals. fao field document no.5. wilson, p. 1981. ecology and habitat utilization of blue sheep pseudios nayaur in nepal. biological conservation 21: 55-74. karki and thapa banko jankari.indd 1 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal invasive alien species: a menace to biodiversity convention on biological diversity (cbd) has recognized the threat to indigenous species and ecosystems caused by invasive alien species (ias). in this connection, the conference of parties to the cbd has urged its parties to strengthen the guiding principles for the prevention, introduction and mitigation of the impacts of alien species. global biodiversity outlook 3 has also clearly indicated alien species as one of the fi ve principal pressures that have threatened the world’s biodiversity. ias has become an issue of high concern on the international and national agenda because of its profound impacts on native biodiversity, people and economy. ias has been recognized worldwide as a direct driver of biodiversity loss. today, no habitat is free from the threat posed by the ias menace. meanwhile, both the frequency of invasive species incursions and the intensity of the impacts have increased to a phenomenal and unprecedented level, causing loss of valuable species. ias has drawn increasing international and national attention in recent decades, as managing it continues to be more and more challenging. in asia and the pacifi c region, the asia-pacifi c forest invasive species network (apfisn) was established under the aegis of the food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao) as a response to curtail the immense costs and dangers posed by invasive species in the sustainable management of the region’s forests. department of forest research and survey (dfrs) serves as the focal institution of apfisn in nepal. in nepal, hundreds of ias has been introduced wittingly or unwittingly during the last 50 years. at present, they have spread all over the country, occurring in various ecosystems. although, nepal biodiversity strategy (2002) has recognized the threats posed by ias, the related nepal biodiveristy strategy implementation plan (2006-2010) failed to specify any programmes on ias. today, nepal has been hard hit by outbreaks of some ias specially the mikania micrantha, parthenium hysterophorus, chromolaena odorata, ageratina adenophora, lantana camara and eichhornia crassipes. the wildlife as well as the protected areas has suffered disproportionately from invasive species. mikania has gravely invaded the koshi tappu wildlife reserve and chitwan national park of nepal. some nationally important wetlands have been seriously affected by eichhornia. ias cause serious impediments to conservation and the sustainable use of biological diversity, and generate signifi cant negative impacts on goods and services provided by ecosystems. from 2  management perspective, it is essential to prioritize ias damages and identify the sensitive and vulnerable areas affected by ias. mechanical, chemical and biological measures can be used to control ias and their spread. however, selection of the most suitable strategy may require in-depth research, careful planning and detailed monitoring. in the face of enormous impacts that can result from ias, relatively meager efforts have been made till date in nepal. the country still lacks proper policy direction on ias. although, the plant protection act and plant protection regulation provide some regulatory mechanisms for managing ias. there is a need of coordination among the stakeholders: particularly among the department of agriculture, the national plant protection organization, and the dfrs. at present, there is a lack of a comprehensive or coordinated survey and monitoring mechanism to properly document or catalogue ias in nepal. the present knowledge on ias is inadequate to deal with the monumental magnitude of the issue. dfrs, as a focal point of apfisn nepal, has recently prepared an action plan on ias management and presented in the apfisn workshop held between 6 and11 november 2011 in beijing, china. the fi rst phase of the three -year action plan includes activities like preparing ias strategy, surveying distribution, intensity and impacts of ias, and establishing national level network among the concerned stakeholders. the second phase includes activities like organizing a regional level interaction programme, training for the concerned professionals and organizing awareness programme at local level. final corrected banko janakari 18-2.pmd 3 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 carbon sequestration potential of alnus nepalensis in the mid hill of nepal: a case study from kaski district s. ranabhat1, k.d. awasthi2, r. malla3 this study was carried out to analyze the carbon content in different parts of alnus nepalensis, and to assess the effect of aspect and altitude in the carbon storage in alnus nepalensis as well as to quantify the total carbon sequestration (stock) in alnus nepalensis forest in the mid-hills of kaski district. the inventory for estimating above and below ground biomass of forest was carried out using stratified random sampling technique. the carbon content in different parts of alnus nepalensis was quantified using combustion method in the laboratory. for determining the soil carbon content, six soil profiles from each aspect were excavated and soil samples were taken from soil profile up to 1 m depth for deep soil and up to bedrock for shallow soils at the interval of 20 cm. mean carbon content in stem, branches, leaves and bark of alnus nepalensis were found to be 40.52%, 33%, 9.56% and 16.4%, respectively. total biomass carbon sequestered in northern aspect was 30.20 t/ha while for southern aspect it was 39.00 t/ha. in both the aspects higher carbon sequestration was observed at an elevation range of 1200-1300m i.e. 34.8 t/ha and 45.6 t/ha in northern and southern aspects, respectively. soil carbon sequestration in northern and southern aspects was found to be 113.4 t/ha and 169.30 t/ ha, respectively. the total carbon sequestration potential of alnus nepalensis forest was estimated to be 186.05 t/ha. key words: alnus nepalensis, altitude, aspect, carbon sequestration, mid hills drastic climate change and the escalating trend of the global warming have been triggered by human activities leading to elevated atmospheric carbon and greenhouse gas levels. such change is unlikely to have occurred through natural forces alone. the biggest factor of present concern is the increase in co2 levels due to emissions from fossil fuel combustion, followed by aerosols (particulate matter in the atmosphere) which exert a cooling effect and cement manufacture. other factors, including land use, ozone depletion, animal agriculture, deforestation and land use change also impact climate. to control global warming there are many options such as the mitigative optionsequestration of co2 and reduction of emission; the adaptive option – adjustment in ways that reduce the negative impacts of temperature changes on the environment; and indirect policies like controlling population growth or changing technologies. among the options, forestry is one of the most cost-effective mitigating options (ipcc, 1995). forests cover more than one third of the world’s land area and constitute the major terrestrial carbon pool (mellillo et al, 1990; roberntz et al, 1999). carbon (c) storage in forest ecosystems involves numerous components including biomass c and soil c. thus, in addition to various goods and services being provided to human beings, forests act as a natural storage for carbon at the global scale, contributing approximately 80% of terrestrial aboveground, and 40% of terrestrial belowground carbon storage (kirschbaum, 1996). overall, forest ecosystems store 20–100 times more c per unit area than croplands and hence play a critical role in reducing ambient co2 levels, by sequestering atmospheric c in the growth of woody biomass through the process of photosynthesis and thereby increasing the soil organic carbon (soc) content (brown and pearce, 1994). the main reason for forestry being of high interest is the flexibility provided by increased stocks of c in forests under the uncertainty regarding the impact of global warming (solberg, 1997). recognizing the importance of forest and soil in mitigating the greenhouse effect, an agreement was reached under the kyoto protocol (kp) to include forest and soil c 1 free lancer forester, e-mail: ranabhat_sunita@yahoo.com 2 associate professor, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal 3 asst. research officer, department of forest research and survey, babar mahal, kathmandu, nepal, e-mail: raj_malla@yahoo.com 4 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 ranabhat et al. sequestration in the list of acceptable offsets (unfccc, 1997). kp under the unfcc links the environment with economy by establishing a global carbon market. to implement kp, clean development mechanism (cdm) is only flexible way that allows developing countries to participate in the emerging global climate market. the cdm allows industrialized counties to meet their emission reduction targets through projects in developing countries like nepal, which contributes little to global warming. cdm has dual objectives of sustainable development and emission reduction (sharma et al, 2004). it is assumed that fast growing trees like alnus nepalensis fix the atmospheric carbon in above and below ground biomass more rapidly compared to slow growing species. however, the actual carbon sequestration potentiality of alnus nepalensis has not so far been assessed in mid hills of nepal. the midhills of nepal consist of large forest tracts of alnus nepalensis at different elevations and aspects, which requires assessment of total carbon sequestration potential of such forest. therefore, this study aims to establish the base line information for carbon sequestration potential of alnus nepalensis forest at different elevation ranges and aspects. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in kaski district which is located on the western part of nepal. it lies between the 83o 40' to 84o 12' latitude and 28o 6' to 28o 36' longitude and is at 200 km distance west of the capital. the elevation varies from 450 m to 7969 m from mean sea level. due to variation in landscape and altitude, the climate and natural vegetation of the district varies with a great influence of the monsoon. range of rainfall varies from minimum 3038 mm to 3353.3 mm. similarly, temperature is maximum in april up to 33o c and minimum in january up to 5.6o c. sampling three sample plots of 20 m by 25 m were laid randomly in each site at different elevation ranging from (1000-1600 m) and two aspects (north and south) for collecting data. the quadrates of size 10m x 10m for poles, nested quadrates of size 1m x1m for regeneration, grass and herb were laid out, and measurement of individual trees/poles lying within the plots were taken. biophysical measurements: measurement of diameter at breast height (dbh) within each plot was the main biophysical measure. d-tape was used for measuring dbh. estimation of carbon content in different parts of alnus nepalensis four samples of each stem, branch and leaf were collected during field visit. the samples were oven dried at 75 degree centigrade for 72 hours. then, it was heated in muffle furnace at 400 0c for half an hour. the organic carbon contain of the samples was determined using following relations (negi et al, 2003) carbon% = 100 {ash weight + molecular weight of o2 (53.3) in c6h12o6} ........................................ (i) estimation of aboveground biomass for estimating, the oven dry biomass of the tree components following biomass model was used ln (w) = a + b*ln (d) ............................................... (ii) where, w= is above ground oven dry biomass of tree (kg), d = is the diameter at breast height (cm), and a, b = are parameters estimated by mofsc (1996) (see table1). under growth biomass: all under storey bushes, grasses and herbaceous layers within the nested quadrate were clipped and weighed. clipped samples were sun dried for 35 days. in addition, leaf litters and twigs within the quadrate were collected separately and sun dried and weighed. root biomass it is also necessary to calculate the root biomass as roots play an important role in the carbon cycle as they transfer considerable amounts of c to ground, table 1: the estimated values of parameters (a and b) for the tree species species parts alnus nepalensis schima wallichi castonopsis indica a b a b a b stem -2.95 2.48 -2.78 2.23 -1.78 1.99 branch -4.44 2.36 -3.43 1.59 -2.14 1.40 leaves -4.77 2.23 -2.90 1.61 -1.63 1.45 5 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 where it may be stored for a relatively long period. however, the measurement of root biomass directly in the field is not a simple task. it requires a lot of time as well as experience, and therefore used the equation that has already been established. for broad leaf vegetation, belowground biomass = 30% of aboveground biomass ...................................................................... (iii) (adopted from: nepal, 2006) estimation of net carbon content carbon percent obtained from the equation (i) was used for the computing carbon content in stem, branches and leaves, which is 40.52%, 33% and 9.56% respectively. while the carbon content for the understorey biomass was assumed 43% of dry biomass (maclaren-ford robertson, 2001). the equations used for above and below ground biomass organic carbon are: • total above ground biomass organic carbon = {(total stem biomass * 40.52%) + (total branches biomass * 33%) + (total leaves biomass * 9.56%) + (total twig and litter biomass * 43%)} ...... (iv) • total below ground organic carbon = (total root biomass of tree) * 40.52% + total soil organic carbon .................................................................. (v) soil sampling soil samples were taken from soil profile up to 1m depth for deep soil and up to the bed rock for shallow soils at five different levels (0-20cm, 20-40cm, 4060cm, 60-80cm, 80-100cm). a profile was dug at least six places in each aspect and soil samples was collected at above stated intervals and transported to laboratory for analysis. bulk density (bd): soil cores of 4 cm in diameter and 10 cm long was used for collecting the bulk density data of each soil layer. the weight of soil samples were measured after oven drying 24 hours at constant temperature of 105 0c in the laboratory. bd = (oven dry weight of soil) / (volume of the soil) ............................................................................ (vi) bd expressed in gm/cm3 soil organic carbon (soc): the walkey-black method (jackson, 1958) was applied to measure the soil organic carbon percent. total soil organic carbon was calculated using the formula given below. (chabbra et.al, 2002): soc = organic carbon content%*soil bulk density (kg/m3)*thickness of horizon (m) further, it was expressed in t/ha results and discussion carbon content in different parts of alnus nepalensis carbon content was found higher in the stem part i.e 40.52% and low in the leaves i.e 9.56%. similarly, carbon content in the branches and barks were 33% and 16.41% respectively (table 2). carbon content was found higher in stem due to the higher density compared to leaves. table 2: carbon content in different parts of alnus nepalensis. name of parts sample no. mean carbon % se mean under stem 8 40.52 0.84 leaves 4 9.56 0.38 branches 4 33.00 0.40 barks 4 16.41 2.85 note se: standard error estimation of biomass of tree: the biomass of alnus nepalensis varies with elevation range and aspects. in northern aspect, higher biomass was found at the elevation range 1200-1300 m i.e. 4.596 t/plot while lower at the elevation range 1000-1100 m i.e. 2.604 t/plot. similarly, higher biomass was found at the elevation range 1200-1300m i.e. 5.980t/plot while lower at the elevation range 1400-1500 m i.e 4.490 t/plot in southern aspect. thus, southern aspect has 1.29 times higher biomass compared to northern aspect. difference in biomass at different elevation was due to the moisture content, soil property, temperature, duration of sunlight available and steepness of slope. biomass was higher on southern aspect than northern aspect (table 3 and 4) because the duration of sunlight is higher in southern aspect, which directly promotes more photosynthesis than the northern aspect. therefore, the net primary productivity was found higher in southern aspect forest. in both the aspect biomass was found in increasing order up to middle elevation range and than gradual decrease because with the increase in altitude the soc and temperature decreases. ranabhat et al. 6 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 above ground carbon sequestration it was found that above ground carbon sequestration was higher in southern aspect than in northern aspect (table 5 and 6). the above ground carbon sequestration in northern aspect and southern aspect forests including alnus nepalensis, castonopsis indica and schima wallichi was found 30.20 t/ha and 39.00 t/ha respectively. similarly, in both the aspect higher carbon sequestered was observed at the middle range elevations (fig 1). with the increase in the elevation, the carbon sequestration potential was found to decrease because temperature decreases as altitude increases. during photosynthesis, carbon from the atmospheric co2 incorporates into products of organic compounds. all the organic compounds containing carbon are stored in different plant tissues as food. thus, carbon appears as a part of plant biomass. the total aboveground organic carbon includes carbon on the aboveground tree biomass (eg. branch, stem), litter fall, twigs and biomass of undergrowth (gautam, 2002). elevation range mean(t/plot) se mean minimum maximum range no. of plots 1000-1100 2.604 0.121 2.162 3.038 0.875 6 1100-1200 3.917 0.710 2.338 7.150 4.810 6 1200-1300 4.596 0.453 3.566 6.100 2.534. 6 1300-1400 4.396 0.863 2.814 8.407 5.593 6 1400-1500 4.330 0.253 3.357 5.040 1.682 6 1500-1600 4.288 0.854 2.152 8.151 5.998 6 mean above ground biomass 4.022 t/plot table 3: aboveground biomass in northern aspect elevation range mean (t/plot) se mean minimum maximum range no. of plots 1000-1100 4.514 0.573 3.040 6.542 3.502 6 1100-1200 5.408 1.387 1.660 9.756 8.096 6 1200-1300 5.980 1.273 2.761 1.046 7.702 6 1300-1400 5.640 0.719 3.467 8.435 4.967 6 1400-1600 4.490 0.684 2.576 6.636 4.059 6 1500-1600 4.808 0.860 3.084 8.990 5.902 6 mean above ground biomass: 5.140 t/plot note: t = ton, se = standard error table 4: aboveground biomass in southern aspect cs by total above ground cs elevation range stem branch leaves understorey (t/plot) (t/ha) 1000-1100 1.539 0.182 0.016 0.000144 1.737 34.74 1100-1200 1.815 0.207 0.028 0.000164 2.051 41.22 1200-1300 2.009 0.234 0.030 0.000173 2.273 45.46 1300-1400 1.890 0.221 0.290 0.000180 2.140 42.98 1400-1500 1.497 0.180 0.024 0.000183 1.701 34.02 1500-1600 1.610 0.190 0.025 0.000181 1.825 36.50 mean above carbon sequestration: 39.00 t/ha note: t = metric ton, cs = carbon sequestration table 5: above ground carbon sequestration in northern aspect cs by total above ground cs elevation range stem branch leaves undrestorey (t/plot) (t/ha) 1000-1100 0.862 0.105 0.015 0.00012 0.982 19.64 1100-1200 1.310 0.150 0.022 0.00013 1.482 29.64 1200-1300 1.535 0.180 0.025 0.00014 1.740 34.80 1300-1400 1.474 0.172 0.023 0.00014 1.670 33.50 1400-1500 1.377 0.171 0.024 0.00015 1.572 31.40 1500-1600 1.431 0.168 0.023 0.00015 1.623 32.46 mean above ground carbon sequestration: 30.20 t/ha table 6: above ground carbon sequestration in southern aspect ranabhat et al. 7 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 higher carbon sequestration may be attributed by the fact that southern aspect has higher biomass compared to northern aspect. in southern aspect duration of sunlight is longer compare to northern aspect, which directly affects the photosynthesis. therefore, the net primary productivity was found higher in southern aspect forest. in both aspects, higher carbon sequestration was in elevation range 1200-1300 m due to the dense biomass of the forest. it was found the lowest carbon sequestration in the southern aspect at the elevation range 1400-1500 m due to steepness of slope, which has affected the soil depth hence the root development. and in northern aspect lower carbon sequestration was found at the elevation range 1000-1100 m, which lies near the river, and soil condition at that site was poor due to stoniness in the soil. content of roots is to be 40.52 % (table 2) of the calculated biomass. the total root carbon sequestration of alnus nepalensis including the castonopsis indica and schima wallichi species for the northern and southern aspects of the forests was 8.191 t/ha and 12.500 t/ha, respectively. similarly the higher root carbon sequestration was found at the elevation range 1200-1300 m i.e. 11.170 t/ha and 14.530 t/ha in both northern and southern aspect respectively. the higher value of root carbon sequestration in the southern aspect forest at the elevation range1200-1300 m may be attributed to the higher above ground biomass and dense vegetation in the forest. soil carbon sequestration: bulk density (bd) the range of bulk density in alnus nepalensis forest based on the entire profile (0-100m) depths is shown in (table 8). there was large variation in the bd with respect to depth in the forest soils. there was a gradual increase in the bd with the increase in the soil depth in both aspect the minimum bd i.e 1.131 gm/cm3 was found at the top soil while maximum 1.473 gm/cm3 at the depth of 80-100cm in northern aspect. similarly, in southern aspect minimum bulk density was found at top soil i.e. 1.007 gm/cm3 and maximum at the depth of 80 – 100 cm i.e. 1.277 gm/cm3. the bd depends on several factors such as compaction, consolidation and amount of soc present in the soil but it is highly correlated to the organic carbon content (morisada et al, 2004, leifeld et al, 2004). 0 10 20 30 40 50 10001100 11001200 12001300 13001400 14001500 15001600 elevation range c s (t/ ha ) north south figure1: above ground carbon sequestration in alnus nepalensis root carbon sequestration root carbon sequestration in the two aspects is shown in table 7. the carbon content was calculated after calculating the root biomass assuming root biomass is 30 % of above ground biomass and the carbon north south cs cs elevation range root biomass(t/ha) (t/plot) (t/ha) root biomass(t/ha) (t/plot) (t/ha) 1000-1100 0.781 0.316 6.330 1.354 0.549 10.974 1100-1200 1.175 0.476 9.520 1.623 0.657 13.150 1200-1300 1.380 0.558 11.170 1.794 0.727 14.53 1300-1400 1.319 0.534 10.690 1.692 0.685 13.714 1400-1500 1.300 0.526 10.535 1.347 0.546 10.918 1500-1600 1.286 0.521 10.424 1.442 0.584 11.700 mean root carbon sequestration 8.191 t/ha 12.500 t/ha note: t = metric ton, cs = carbon sequestration table 7: root carbon sequestration northern aspect southern aspect depth mean (g/cm3) se mean mean (g/cm3) se mean 0-20 1.131 0.083 1.007 0.068 20-40 1.219 0.969 1.101 0.126 40-60 1.353 1.124 1.117 0.051 60-80 1.473 0.000 1.277 0.361 note: se = standard error table 8: aspect wise bulk density at different depths ranabhat et al. 8 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 northern southern depth n mean(kg/sq.m) se mean n mean(kg/sq.m) se mean 0-20 6 3.67 0.97 6 4.33 0.67 20-40 6 2.77 0.69 6 3.61 0.51 40-60 6 1.85 0.42 6 3.58 0.84 60-80 1 1.65 0.00 2 3.07 0.27 80-100 1 1.40 0.00 2 2.34 0.30 aspect sum cs in all layers (kg/sq.m) tons/ha northern 11.34 113.40 southern 16.93 169.30 table 9: carbon stock in different soil profile depths of two aspect forests sn carbon sequestration in cs in northern aspect (t/ha) cs in southern aspect (t/ha) 1 above ground 30.20 39.00 2 root carbon 8.19 12.00 3 soil carbon 113.40 169.30 total 151.80 220.30 mean carbon sequestration by alnus nepalensis forest of both aspect 186.05 t/ha table 11: total carbon sequestration in alnus nepalensis forest soil organic carbon the soil organic carbon in forest soil depends upon the forest type, climate, moisture, temperature and types of soil. table 9 shows the depth wise distribution of soc stock in the forests. multiple comparison of means revealed that the soc was higher at the upper layers in both the forest. maximum soc value 4.33 kg/sq.m was found at top layer while miminum 2.34 kg/sq.m was found at the lower depth in southern aspect. in northern aspect 3.67 kg/sq.m and 1.40 kg/sq.m was found at top and bottom layers. thus, it was found that there was effect of soil depth and aspect on soc. the mean value of the sum of soil carbon sequestration in all layers along the soil profile is shown in table 10. the carbon sequestration in the soil from the top layer of 0-20cm to 80-100cm depth for northern aspect forest was found to be 11.34 kg/m2 and that of southern aspect forest was 16.93 kg/m2 .total soc in northern and southern aspect forest was found to be 113.40 t/ha and 169.30 t/ha respectively. the actual soil organic carbon sequestration by alnus nepalensis could not be analyzed due to lack of base line data of soil organic carbon in the study site. therefore, the total soil organic carbon content is considered as the soil carbon sequestration. table 10: soil carbon sequestration in the two aspect forests total carbon sequestration by alnus nepalensis the total carbon sequestration in the alnus nepalensis forests is shown in table 11. the total carbon sequestration was the sum of aboveground, root and soil carbon. total carbon sequestration in alnus nepalensis forest was found to be 151.80 t/ha in northern aspect while 220.30 t/ha in southern aspect. mean carbon sequestration in alnus nepalensis forest in both aspect was found to be 186.05 t/ha. pinus and alnus nepalensis are the fast growing soft wood so data was compared with pinus. above ground carbon sequestration and root carbon sequestration was found higher in alnus nepalensis than in pinus forest study of which was done in past by nepal, 2006 at palpa district. however, the carbon sequestration in soil was found lower compared to pinus sps, which is attributed by the fact that alnus nepalensis found in less fertile soil. it rapidly colonizes the gravelly land exposed by landslides and old cultivated land (jacksons, 1994) carbon sequestration potential of alnus nepalensis forest was found 76 percent in soil, while 19 percent in aboveground biomass and 5 percent in underground biomass. (fig 2) avg cs 19% ung cs 5% sc 76% fig 2: carbon sequestration in alnus nepalensis forest ranabhat et al. 9 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 note: avg cs = above ground carbon sequestration, ung cs = under ground carbon sequestration, sc = soil carbon conclusion • the above ground carbon sequestration in alnus nepalensis forest in southern aspect was found 1.29 times higher than northern aspect of the same forest. • the below ground carbon sequestration for southern aspect was found 1.49 times higher than northern aspect of the forest. • soil carbon sequestration was found 3 times as higher as total biomass carbon sequestration in alnus nepalensis • carbon sequestration potential was found higher in both aspects of middle altitude as compared to lower and higher altitude. • bulk density increases while soc decreases with the depth of the soil in both aspects. references brown, k., and pearce, d. 1994. the economic value of non-market benefits of tropical forests: carbon storage. in weiss, j. (ed.), the economics of project appraisal and the environment: new horizon in environment economics. e. elgar, aldershot, pp 102–119. chhabra, a., palria, and s., dadhwal, v.k. 2002. soil organic carbon pool in indian forests. forest ecology and management, 14, 87-101. gautam,k.r. 2002. carbon sequestration in agroforestry and annual cropping system in inner terai, central nepal. m.sc. thesis, agriculture university of norway. intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc). 1995. cambridge university press jackson, j.k. 1958. soil chemical analysis. printice hall, new york jackson, j.k.1994. manual of afforestation in nepal.vol 2. kirschbaum, m.u.f., 1996. the carbon sequestration potential of tree plantations in australia. in eldridge, k.g., crowe, m.p., old, k.m. (eds.), environmental management: the role of eucalypts and other fast growing species. csiro forestry and forest products, 77–89. leifeld, j., bassin, s. and fuhrer, j. 2004. carbon stock in swiss agriculture soils predicted by land use soil characteristics, and altitude. agriculture, ecosystem and environment. maclaren-ford robertson, j. 2001. carbon accounting methodologiesa comparison of realtime, tonne-years, and one-off stock change approaches. iea bio-energy task 25 workshop, joensuu, finland: lulucf: the road to cop6 melillo, j.m., challaghan, t.v., woodward, f.i., salati e. and sinha, s.k. 1990. effects on ecosystems. in houghton jt, jenkins gj, ephraums jj, (eds.), climate change. the ipcc scientific assessment. cambridge: cambridge university press, 283–310. mofsc, 1996. biomass table of ten preferred species by forest users’ group in the hills of nepal. final report, ministry of forest and soil conservation, kathmandu. morisada, k., ono, k. and kanomata, h. 2004. organic carbon stock in forest soils in japan. geoderma 119, 21-32. negi, j.d.s., manhas, r.k. and chauhan p.s. 2003. carbon allocation in different components of some tree species of india: a new approach for carbon estimation. current science, 85 (11), 15281531. nepal, s., 2006. a comparative study on carbon sequestration from two forest types in community forestry system (a case study from coniferous and broad leaved forests in palpa district) b.sc thesis submitted to tribhuwan university, institute of forestry roberntz, p. and sune, l. 1999. effects of long-term co2 enrichment and nutrient availability in norway spruce. ii. foliar chemistry. trees 14, 17– 27. sharma, d.b., karky, s.b., dahal, n., chapagain, n. and basnet, b. 2004. prospects and challenges in bringing nepal’s community forestry under kyoto protocol’s carbon trading regime in twenty-five years of community forestry proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry 4 – 6 august, kathmandu, nepal solberg, b., 1997. forest biomass as carbon sink— economic value and forest management/policy implications. critical rev. env. sci. tech. 27, s323– s333, special issue. unfccc, 1997. kyoto protocol to the convention on climate change, bonn, germany. climate change secretariat. ranabhat et al. final vol 16-1.pmd 46 community forestry programme is regarded as one of the most successful programme in nepal (acharya 2003; npc 2001; springate-baginski et al. 1998). however, at the same time many believe that community forest management is protection-oriented where the main forest management activities are limited to the removal of dead, dying trees and leaf litter. as a consequence the users are getting suboptimal benefits (gilmour and fisher, 1991; npc 2001; shrestha, 2000). in nepal, the middle hills protection area management system is not sufficient to represent the whole ecosystems (hmgn, 2002), and the management approach applied in community forestry should take a balance between biomass production and biodiversity conservation. it has been argued that change in stand composition is possible in community forestry through different management operations (jackson and ingles, 1994). department of forest research and survey (dfrs) is working to investigate forest management options appropriate to addressing local specific variations related to biodiversity conservation. the conventional research approach is not always appropriate to find solutions of such problems. realizing this, participatory research approach is increasingly being considered to investigate the problems and find out solutions. in this process, a study to investigate interface between forest and farm biodiversity was initiated in 2004. the aim was to link biophysical and socio-economic variations in biodiversity conservation issues through community forestry and private farm tree management. the first part of the research was conducted in the middle hills region in 2004. this report is the outcome of the second year research conducted in the two community forests in the foothills in the terai. the general objective of the research was to contribute for better understanding in biodiversity conservation in the community forestry. the specific objectives were to: • assess the existing forest management practices and their effects on plant diversity; • identify best practices adopted to conserve plant diversity and • investigate the role and capacity of users in promoting biodiversity conservation in community forests. biodiversity and community forestry the word biodiversity was coined by prof e.o. wilson to express total variation of life as a contraction of biological diversity. the components of biodiversity are ecosystem, species and genetic variation. the community forestry is a social process in which user groups share mutually recognized claims to specify their use rights to the management, development and utilization of forest. the issue of participatory assessment of biodiversity conservation in community forestry in nepal k.p. acharya1, k.r. goutam2, b.k. acharya3 and g. gautam4 the community forestry has been the most effective means of managing common forest resources in nepal. besides rehabilitating degraded hills, improving environment and contributing to the rural livelihoods, community forestry is claimed to be a major means of biodiversity conservation. it is also argued that the prevalent approach of community forest management threats to the conservation of biodiversity. this paper is based on the findings from two community forest user groups from central nepal and argues that the users’ innovative practices of active forest management favor biodiversity conservation. the study has documented users’ innovations to conserve biodiversity in community managed forests. key words: nepal, community forestry, biodiversity conservation and livelihoods 1 research officer, department of forest research and survey, email-kpacharya1@hotmail.com 2 asst. research officer, department of forest research and survey, email-keshab_gtm@yahoo.com 3 ranger, department of forest research and survey 4 ranger, department of forest research and survey 47 biodiversity conservation constitutes of different variables in a community forest. such variables could be forest management objectives, silvicultural practices, forest resource condition, species diversity, nature and kinds of species, forest products and watershed value, habitat conservation, user’s confidences, learning behavior and frequent monitoring and evaluation activities. recent evidences indicate that community forest user groups (cfugs) are slowly moving towards active forest management (neupane, 2000; khanal, 2002; malla, 2000; wagle, 2002). the active forest management approach calls for the implementation of various silvicultural and harvesting activities in the forests (acharya, 1997; branney, 1996). such active forest management by cfug can lead to an increased supply resulting in increased benefits to users consequently improving the livelihoods of the rural people. the rural people with subsistence agriculture may not put equal value to all plant species growing in their forest and putting equal value to all species may not produce forest products benefits that can be maximized with few selected fast growing and highly demanding species (acharya, 2003; rai et al., 2004). recent study (acharya, 2006) has shown that ecological indices such as shannon-weiner index (h’) is higher in farm land compared to community forests. in addition, the applications of various silvicultural and harvesting activities in the forests may affect forest structure and composition consequently losing biodiversity. on the other hand, cfugs might have been adopting innovative practices (best practices) to address biodiversity conservation, which are unknown to other users or development workers. hence, there is a gap in understanding users’ choice on different forest management operations and their effects on biodiversity conservation. material and methodology study sites the study was conducted in nawalpur saraswoti (basamadi) community forest (cf) and chakradevi community forest in makawanpur district. these two forests were located in similar geographical and ecological conditions. it was assumed that, the only difference is in forest management practices which have implications on biodiversity conservation. both of these forests are tropical sal (shorea robusta) forests in the foothills of the terai region. the nawalpur cf was known for active cf and chakradevi cf was recognized as passive cf. however, both the forests were under community management since the past characteristics nawalpur saraswoti cfug chakradevi cfug location of forest hetaunda munipilicity 11 basamadi vdc 5 aspect southern southern topographical region inner terai inner terai forest origin natural natural forest type shorea robusta shorea robusta forest area 200 ha 109 ha forest development stages pole pole no of households 568 152 access to road easy easy distance from district head quarter 3.0 km 3.5 km duration of community management 10 years 9 years table 1 : bio-physical and socio-economic characteristics of the study sites banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1acharya et al. stages activities selecting cfugs developing selection criteria, preparing list of potential cfugs, discussion with district stakeholders and selection of cfugs identifying research problem and designing research plan developing a list of issues and problems of selected cfugs, discussing with dfo and other stakeholders, prioritizing issues and identifying research issues, defining roles and responsibilities. implementing research and collecting information conducting research, developing recording system results and extension analyzing and interpreting results, deriving conclusions, organizing workshop and disseminating results. table: 2 : major lists of activities in the study 48 9-10 years. the field work was conducted during june 2005. some of the key features of two cfugs are presented in table 1. methodological approach the following methodologies were used to gather information in the study. questionnaire survey semi-structured questionnaire survey was conducted among the users of the forests. the questionnaire was about the forest management and silvicultural activities, species preference and selection criteria, importance of biodiversity and demand and supply situation of the forest products. social and resource mapping participatory social and resource maps were prepared to collect the information on the distribution and condition of forest resources. it was also useful to obtain the perception of nearby and distant users towards forest management issues. focus group discussion focus group discussion was conducted to obtain the information on forest management and silvicultural activities carried out in the forests, species selection criteria and preferences, varying perceptions towards management and biodiversity conservation issues. the discussions were concentrated mainly in the male, female and ethnic groups and groups of closest and distant users. key informants survey a survey was conducted with the key informants like teachers and users’ group committee executives to collect the information on the forest management and biodiversity conservation practices, species preference and nature and status of forest resources in the forests. species ranking species preference ranking was carried out on the basis of different criteria made by the users. likewise pair wise ranking of most preferred 15 species was done. ranking was done in different interest groups of the users. the method was very useful to identify species selection criteria and most preferred species in the community forests. users’ mass meeting detailed discussion was done in users’ mass meeting to triangulate the information found from different sources. the additional information on the forest products, management and silvicultural activities and biodiversity conservation issues were obtained from this discussion. stakeholders’ workshop a workshop with participation of all the stakeholders was organized. chairperson and other active members, men and women, of the two cfugs, district forest offices staff, biodiversity sector programme for the terai and siwaliks (bisep-st) staff and other stakeholders had participated in the workshop and shared their views on the forest management and biodiversity conservation in community forestry. the workshop was useful to identify roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders in biodiversity conservation in community forests. forest resources inventory forest resources inventory, as per the inventory guidelines, was carried out in both of the forests. the inventory was carried out with 0.5 % sampling intensity. the diametre at breast height (dbh) of trees of and above pole stage was measured while the number counted for all others i.e. seedlings and saplings, herbs, shrubs, grasses and climbers. review of op and constitution and other literatures operational plans and constitutions of the cfugs and published and unpublished literatures related to the study were reviewed mainly from the district forest office (dfo), makawanpur. limitations the study was limited to the plant diversity in the community forests. as baseline information was lacking, users recalling was used as one of the most important data source. results and discussions profiles of local stakeholders the cfugs are executive agencies for the management of community forests. the technical advice is being provided by the dfo located at the banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 acharya et al. 49 district headquarter and territorial offices. in addition, the support staff were overloaded with increasing workload due to the expansion of the programme. civil society organizations such as ngos, federations of forest users groups were increasingly acting as service providers to the cfugs. the dfrs was responsible to execute this research in collaboration with the stakeholders. participation in field research the identification of objectives and the research issue was not participatory at users’ level. however, the agenda were discussed with all the stakeholders and a set of process was followed at various levels. there were several interactions at the beginning in the district level, before finalizing the cfugs to be studied. table 2 illustrates how the process was followed and kinds of activit ies were performed. there was an active participation from different stakeholders including women groups. the preliminary analysis and initial outcomes of the field were shared among the stakeholders. forest management operations forest scientists have defined forest management as the application of the knowledge, which has been acquired in all branches of forestry and the allied sciences to the management of forests in the interest of man (jerram, 1983) where silviculture is a component. silviculture includes a range of activities and operations to the forest. however, the cfugs understand two silvicultural activities namely “godmel” and “jhadi safai” as substitute of forest management. the terms “godmel and jhadi safai” mean removal of shrubs, climbers and low quality timber species (kukath) to create favorable environment for the desired species. it can be inferred that present forest management strategy is directed towards the production of medium term to longterm products, mainly wood products. the nature of understanding on forest management was found to be similar to earlier study by acharya et al. 2004. however, users were also aware of the fact that every living being on the earth has rights to survive. the cfugs were predominantly applying selective felling, singling, thinning, pruning, lopping, and weeding/cleaning operations followed by plantations, soil conservation work and leaf litter collection. these forest management operations were carried out depending upon the nature, kind and conditions of the forests. the application of such activities may promote uniformity in species composition, spacing and canopy development. the nawalpur forest was handed over as cf in 1996. the forest was divided into 5 blocks. forest management activities like removal of dead and fallen trees, shrub and climber cutting (particularly thorny species and eupatorium), thinning, pruning, singling and plantation were carried out each year. the chakradevi forest was handed over in 1997. to the local communities. the whole forest was divided into five blocks. one block was designed to be treated each year applying forest management activities including shrub and climber cutting (jhadi safai), pruning and singling and plantation as required. however, the main forest management practice adopted was the removal of dead and fallen trees which was recognized as passive forest management. number and nature of species both the community forests were dominated by sal (shorea robusta). a total of 160 plant species were recorded in the two cfs (annex 1). a total of 55 tree species were found in the study area, out of which one half (28 species) were common to both of the cfugs. however, the number of species of all plant life forms was higher in actively managed forest (47 trees and 67 others in nawalpur saraswoti compared to 36 trees and 65 other species in chakradevi). however, unlike tree species, the number of common species of plants other than trees in both the cfs was less. out of total 105 species, only 38 (1/3rd) were common to both the cfs indicating great variation and sensitivity in their existence in two cfs, actively managed and poorly managed. species diversity, richness and dynamics a total of 55 tree and 105 other species were recorded in the two community forests. table 3a indicates that higher number of plant species was associated with the actively managed forest. the diversity indices of trees in two cfs are not varied significantly (table 3a). however, the richness index of tree species is higher in nawalpur cf than chakrdevi cf. higher richness index refers to the higher number of species and the higher number of individuals within the species regardless of evenness in distribution. the richness index was found higher in actively managed banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1acharya et al. 50 table 3a: diversity and richness indexes of two community forests no. of species shannon-weiner index(h') richness index (ri) forest tree others* tree others* tree others* nawalpur saraswoti cf 47 67 1.01 3.22 3.96 5.54 chakradevi cf 36 65 1.28 3.41 3.04 5.26 *others include shrubs, herbs and grasses table 3b: density of various life forms in two community forests (no/ha) forest regeneration sapling poles trees total nawalpur saraswoti cf 1,08,164 3,127 464 85 1,11,841 chakradevi cf 95,655 3,393 571 100 99,719 table 3c: density of most dominant species in two community forests density (no/ha) relative density % forest sal regn total regn sal, above regn. total, above regn sal regn sal, above regn nawalpur saraswoti cf 89,693 1,08,164 2,097 3,676 82.9 57.0 chakradevi cf 71,884 95,655 2,859 4,064 75.1 70.3 forest in previous study which is the case in the present study also. the data presented in table 3c are not supported by previous study (acharya et al. 2004). the previous study resulted in higher relative density of the most dominant species in actively managed forests where as in this case it was observed in passively managed forests. this is also supported by table 3b. however, diversity index (h’) is dependent on the distribution of species and their evenness. it is higher in uniformly distributed forest than that with uneven distribution. the higher h’ in nawalpur indicates higher uniformity than in chakradevi cf where fewer species have higher dominance over others resulting in lower h’. there is a need to relate with other several factors such as level of disturbances and response of the species which is not known. in addition, the lack of baseline data limits the conclusive remarks. table 3b shows the distribution of various development stages of various life forms in the community forests. the higher number of trees was observed in passively managed forest providing evidences of limited harvesting than in actively managed forests. similarly, table 3c indicates higher relative density of sal species in passively managed forest. it indicated that harvesting operations may create room for various species others than the dominant species. selective approach and biodiversity conservation the cfugs have developed some criteria to determine the species to be retained or to be removed during the silvicultural operations. the main criteria to retain are the usefulness of the species to fulfill their forest product needs. the criteria to remove a species are shrub, thorny species, dead, dying and damaged individuals of all species, species and individuals competing with main crop and low quality timber species. it obviously leads to selective approach for the species. the users want to retain species that give direct benefits. multipurpose tree species have higher chances for promotion. the main species preferences criteria in the two cfs (priority wise) were: 1. timber 2. specific use (eg. sandan has specific use for making plough) 3. firewood 4. medicinal use 5. others (fodder, fruits etc.) the preferences criteria has resulted in the species preferences list as in table 4. users placed sal (shorea robusta) in the top indicating the most preferred species. the users do not prefer low quality timber, shrub and climber species and many of the grasses and herbs. banmara (eupatorium adenophorum), titepati (artemesia vulgaris), unnue (gleichenia species), damaru (maclura cochinchinensis) and maidal (randia dumetorum) are some of the species, which have no direct use values. in both the community forests, low quality timber and almost all shrubby species were regarded as unwanted species and the management activities were focused towards removing them in favor of sal. it may lead to monoculture of sal species. it will have negative banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 acharya et al. 51 table 4: most preferred species in the study area preferred species (priority wise) main uses sal (shorea robusta) timber, firewood sandan (oogenia oogenesis) agricultural implement, timber chanp (michelia champaca) timber saj (terminalia tomentosa) and karma (adina cardifolia) timber, firewood chilaune (schima wallichi) firewood implications for biodiversity conservation through community forestry. the strategy to select species only to maximize wood production having no priority for biodiversity conservation contradicts with earlier studies of ingles and jackson (1994) and dahal (1994). they claimed that cfugs are more effective in forest management with higher number of species due to the opportunity to obtain wide variety of products. it would be more logical to point out that cfugs are more effective to manage with higher number of “useful” species. aus der beek et al 1997 claimed that there are specific clauses included in operational plan (op) of the cfugs to conserve biodiversity and provided examples from 5 cfugs from dolkha, however all these conservation efforts are directed to conserve high value tree species such as quercus spp. implications of active forest management on biodiversity in the early phase, while the major objective of the cf was forest protection, cf undoubtedly contributed for biodiversity conservation. but now, the users are implementing active forest management strategy in the forests towards producing good quality timber. the two silvicultural activities namely “godmel” and “jhadi safai” are understood as substitute of forest management. the users have adopted silvicultural activities, as an opportunity to remove all unwanted species from the forest, which of course could be essential to enhance preferred wood productivity. the main targeted plants are shrubs and low quality timber species (kukath). the “godmel” may cause altered diversity of tree species and modified forest structure and composition. the “jhadi katne” may lead to the conversion of shrub land forests to high forest. however, the active management can be utilized as an opportunity to conserve biodiversity where there is possibility of establishing new species other than the dominant resulting in higher diversity. sustainable biodiversity utilization will promote biodiversity conservation in cf. best practices and constraints to biodiversity conservation the study revealed that cfugs are increasingly adopting measures for biodiversity conservation in the cf. few major initiatives observed particularly in nawalpur cf were: • allocation of biodiversity conservation area • shifting tree selection criteria during thinning from species to tree condition. • initiatives to maintain all the plant species during management operations based on the condition of individual plant. • species conservation the biodiversity conservation was constrained by few basic problems. the research has identified following points that can be considered as constraints for biodiversity conservation. • inconsistent understanding of biodiversity conservation • poor know-how on biodiversity conservation and its importance • problem in identification of medicinal herbs and other ntfps • basic needs priority over conservation roles of different stakeholders the cfugs, service providers and the government’s roles to implement biodiversity conservation initiatives in cf is presented in the table 5. conclusions active management practices have influences on structure and composition of forests. density of sal is gradually increasing in the expense of low timber and shrub species. this may lead to single species dominated forest and loss of diversity of many plant and animal species. human induced and rapid conversion of forest structure through species preference and silvicultural operations harms natural environment, ecological processes and biological banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1acharya et al. 52 table 5: roles and responsibilities of cfugs and the government to support biodiversity conservation in cf. cfugs government bio-friendly utilization of the forest develop clear policy and guidelines related to biodiversity conservation in cf awareness creating in the cfugs implementation of appropriate extension media to make aware all the users implementing knowledge acquired through different training/workshops frequent interaction and training to users about the recent developments/approaches adoption of appropriate forest management activities such as controlled grazing and appropriate harvesting dissemination of knowledge to users on the importance and value of several unknown species fire control adopting reward and punishment system effective m&e system effective m&e system diversity. such situation will lead to the creation of modified forest types and ecosystems ultimately effecting ecological functions and services of forests. there are at least three different types of changes taking places in terms of forest structure and composition. firstly, the forest types are slowly converting from mixed (sal mixed) to monoculture (sal). secondly, the shrub and tree diversity may gradually decrease. lastly, the most critical threat is for the shrub species such as climber and thorny species. it suggests that shrub land areas are gradually converting to high forest and shrub land species are gradually disappearing. the active management does not always lead to species reduction; it depends on the kinds of activities undertaken and specific procedures adopted. the cfugs have demonstrated innovative approaches to address biodiversity conservation. these are indications that users are able to address these concerns through proper attention by the service providers. however, there is a need to scale up these activities through awareness and by creating favorable environment. in the past, the conservation of biodiversity has been mostly understood in terms of the management of protected areas and natural forests, ignoring the possible role of community managed forests. this traditional view is especially inadequate for the community forestry. the adoption of approach maintaining species other than sal during thinning operations, maintaining undergrowth in a forest with sapling and above development stages and retaining of undisturbed area along river side, stream slopes will help conserve biodiversity in cf. placing proper attention in the community forestry management process and practices can minimize the conservation threats to biodiversity outside protected areas particularly for shrubs and tree species. the activities related to the awareness creation about the importance of biodiversity at user group level, updating baseline information on biodiversity issues addressing current status, trends and threats, identification of threatened species and their distribution study and biodiversity recording and registration at local level are some of the key areas where immediate action is necessary. few initiatives adopted by the cfugs to address the biodiversity issues are to be scaled up. sustainable utilization of biodiversity through the development of biodiversity based enterprises can be supposed to be beneficial for participatory biodiversity conservation. references acharya, k.p. 2006. linking trees on farms with biodiversity conservation in subsistence farming systems in nepal. biodiversity and conservation 15:631-46. acharya, k.p., goutam, k.r. and acharya, b. 2004. the impacts of forest management in community forestry on biodiversity : a case study from midhills. forest research leaflet no. 18. department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. acharya, k.p. 2003. sustainability of support for community forestry in nepal. forest, trees and livelihoods, 13(3): 247-260. acharya, k.p. 1997. the management of common forest resources: an evaluation of bharkhore forest user group, western nepal. m.sc. thesis, the university of edinburgh, scotland, uk. aus der beek r., rai, c., and schuler, k. 1997. community forestry and biodiversity: experiences from dolkha and ramechhap districts, nepal. paper presented at the seminar banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 acharya et al. 53 on “conserving biodiversity in nepal’s community forestry” organised by the department of forest and nepal biodiversity action plan, 2nd october, 1997 kathmandu, nepal. branney, p. 1996. the new silviculture: india and nepal. in participatory forestry: the process of change in india and nepal. (ed) hobley, m. odi, london 190-210, pp. dahal, d.r. 1994. a review of forest user groups: case studies from eastern nepal, icimod, kathmandu, nepal. gilmour, d.a. and fisher, r.j. 1991. villagers, forest and foresters: the philosophy, process and practice of community forestry in nepal, sahayogi press kathmandu. 212 pp. hmgn. 2002. nepal biodiversity strategy, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. jackson, w.j. and a.w. ingles 1994. developing rural communities and conserving the biodiversity of nepal’s forests through community forestry. paper presented at a seminar on community development and conservation of forest biodiversity through community forestry: bangkok, thailand, 26-28 october 1994. jerram, m.r.k. 1983. a text-book on forest management. international book distributors, dehradun, india (reprint) 156 pp. khanal, k.p. 2002. under utilisation in community forestry: a case study from lalitpur district. banko janakari 12(2): 26-32. malla, y.b. 2000. impacts of community forestry policy in rural livelihoods and food security in nepal. unasylva 200: 38-45. neupane, h.r. 2000. factors that influence poorer households access to forest products from community forests: an analysis of decisionmaking and benefit sharing process. a thesis submitted for m. phil. degree at the university of reading, uk. npc. 2001. mid-term evaluation of the ninth five year plan, national planning commission, kathmandu, nepal. shrestha, k. 2000. protection versus active management, of community forests. proceeding of the workshop of community based forest resource management, godawari, lalitpur 20-22 november joint technical review committee, mofsc. springate-baginski, o., soussan j., dev o.p., yadav n.p. and kiff, e. 1998. community forestry in nepal: sustainability and impacts on common and private property resource management, report on first phase of field research, environmental centre, leeds university/nri/nukcfp. wagle, s. 2002. contribution of community forestry to the livelihood of local participants in the middle hills of nepal: a case study of makawanpur district, an m. sc thesis submitted to the asian institute of technology, bangkok, thailand. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1acharya et al. 54 annex 1 : list of species found in the study area 1. nawalpur sarswoti cf tree species herbs/shrubs/climbers/grass sn species sn species 1 amala emblica officinalis 1 amiloghans embelia nagushia 2 amaro antidesma diandrum 2 archal 3 amba psidium guajava 3 arerikanda caesalpinia decapetela 4 ankhatarua trichilia connaroides 4 ausadhi 5 archal 5 balujhar 6 asarekaingyo 6 banbesar 7 badkaule 7 banmara eupatorium odoratum 8 bahunikath hydrangea anomala 8 bansimilahara ceropegia pubescens 9 barro terminalia chebula 9 batulpatelahara stephania elegans, cissampelo pareira 10 bhalayo rhus succedanea 10 betlauri 11 bhille 11 bhakauli 12 botdhangero lagerstroemia parviflora 12 bhati clerondendron infortunatun 13 chilaune schima wallichi 13 bhatmaseghans 14 chiuri madhuca butyracea 14 bhatteghans 15 dadukuchche 15 bhorla bauhinia vahlii 16 gidarikanda premna integrifolia 16 bhyakurlahara dioscorea deltoidea 17 harro terminalia bellarica 17 bokejamuno 18 jalme 18 chitrebanso arthraxon lancifolius 19 jamuno syzygium cumini 19 chultheghans 20 kaijal bischofia javanica 20 datiwan achyranthes bidentata 21 kaingyo grevillea robusta 21 dhairo woodfordia fruticosa 22 kalikath myrsine semiserrata 22 dhotipateghans 23 karma adina cordifolia 23 dhupi-jhar 24 khirro sapium insigne 24 dubo cynodon dactylon 25 kumbhi cochliospermum religiosa 25 gaikhure 26 kutmiro litsea monopetala 26 gaitihareghans inula cappa 27 kyamuno syzygium cerasoides 27 galeni leea robusta 28 latikath cornus oblonga 28 ghantelahara 29 masala eucalyptus spp 29 ghodedubo 30 mauwa engelhardtia spicata 30 ghodeghans 31 paderi stereospermum spp 31 githalahara dioscorea bulbifera 32 phalamekath 32 gobrelahara 33 pharim 33 hatkatuwaghans 34 phirphire acer oblongum 34 kagchuchelahara 35 piyari 35 kali niuro 36 putalikath 36 kalilahara 37 rajbrikshya cassia fistula 37 kalisinke 38 rato kaidal 38 kanchirno 39 ritha sapindus mukorossi 39 kapaseghans 40 rudilo pogostemon glaber 40 kukurdainolahara smilax menispermoides 41 sadan ougeinia dalbergiodes 41 kurilo asparagus racemosus 42 saj terminalia tomentosa 42 kuroghans cyathula capitata 43 sal shorea robusta 43 kuthurke niuro 44 setosiris albizia procera 44 lajjawati mimosa pudica 45 sindure mallotus philippenenis 45 madanelahara 46 tantari dillenia pentagyna 46 maidalkanda randia dumetorum 47 unknown 1 47 musekharu 48 nagbeli lycopodium clavatum 49 niuro 50 panilahara vitis repanda 51 panisaro nephrolepis cordifolia banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 acharya et al. 55 52 parewa-andre lahara 53 phalamekanda 54 puranelahara 55 rudilo pogostemon glaber 56 sakhino indigofera cylindrica 57 sarpako makai arisaema erubescens 58 sikarilahara 59 simghans neanotis gracilis 60 sirughans imperata spp 61 syakhuleghans 62 taprejhar 63 tarullahara 64 thakal phoenix humilis 65 thakauli 66 tinpatelahara 67 unyu dicranopteris glauca 2. chakradevi cf tree species herbs/shrubs/climbers/grass sn species sn species 1 amala emblica officinalis 1 achirnoghans 2 amaro antidesma diandrum 2 akhleghans chirita urticaefolia 3 archal 3 amppate 4 asare lagerstroemia parviflora 4 ararighans 5 badkaule 5 arerikanda caesalpinia decapetela 6 bahunikath hydrangea anomala 6 balujhar 7 barro terminalia chebula 7 banbesar 8 bel angele marmelos 8 bankapas thespesia lampus 9 bhalayo rhus succedanea 9 bankarkalo 10 botdhangero lagestroemia parviflora 10 banmara eupatorium odoratum 11 chilaune schima walichii 11 bansimilahara ceropegia pubescens 12 dadukuche 12 batulpatelahara 13 damaiphalrukh 13 bhati clerondendron infortunatun 14 gindari premna longofolia 14 bhatteghans 15 harchur viscum articulatum 15 bhorla bauhinia vahlii 16 harro terminalia bellarica 16 bhyagutokolahara 17 jalme 17 bhyakurlahara dioscorea deltoidea 18 jamuno syzigium cumini 18 bokejamuno 19 jogikath 19 charcharelahara 20 kaingyo grevillea robusta 20 chitrebanso arthraxon lancifolius 21 kandejamuno 21 chultheghans 22 karma adina cordifolia 22 dhairo woodfordia fruticosa 23 kumbhi cochliospermum religiosa 23 dhotipateghans 24 kutmiro litsea monopetala 24 dubo cynodon dactylon 25 kyamuno syzygium cerasoides 25 dudheghans 26 latikath cornus oblonga 26 dudhelahara trachelospermum lucidum 27 odal sterculia villosa 27 gahatelahara 28 pandari stereospermum spp 28 galeni 29 piyari 29 gaujo 30 putalikath 30 ghatejhar 31 rajbrikshya cassia fistula 31 githalahara 32 sadan ougeinia dalbergiodes 32 gobrelahara 33 saj terminalia tomentosa 33 golkakri 34 sal shorea robusta 34 hatkatuwahans 35 seto siris albizia procera 35 jhumjhumlahara banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1acharya et al. 56 36 sindure mallotus philippenenis 36 jibresag 37 kalijhar 38 kapase 39 kathekharu 40 kharubanso 41 kukurdainolahara 42 kurilo 43 madanelahara 44 maidalkanda randia dumetorum 45 musekharu 46 nundhiki 47 panilahara 48 panisaro 49 parebaandrelahara 50 phyakseghans 51 purenilahara 52 pyajemula 53 ranisinka 54 rudilo pogostemon glaber 55 sakhino indigofera cylindrica 56 sarpakomakai arisaema erubescens 57 simalighans neanotis gracilis 58 sirughans imperata spp 59 sunakhari(orchid) 60 syakhulehans 61 thakal phoenix humilis 62 thakauli 63 thangnejhar 64 tinpate-lahara 65 unyu dicranopteris glauca banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 acharya et al. final corrected banko janakari 18-2.pmd 35 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 monitoring of gyps species vulture in nawalparasi district, nepal p. subedi1 critically endangered white-rumped vulture (wrv), gyps bengalensis and slender-billed vulture (sbv), gyps tenuirostris monitoring was conducted in nawalparasi district in the winter of 2005 following postupalsky criterion. the objectives of this study were to identify and monitor nest localities, behaviour and to explore information about the vultures. a total of 48 gyps vulture nest was located at six colonies. of these nests, 18 were found to be active nets, six nests belonged to sbv and 12 nests belonged to wrv. hundred percent nestling successes were observed in the study area. restricted pesticides i.e. bhc and ddt were found used in this area. diclofenac was the commonly used veterinary drug in the treatment of livestock. carcasses disposal practice was found favorable to the vulture’s survival. gyps vulture richness found in this area is due to the availability of food i.e. floating carcass along the edge of the narayani river and suitable habitat for roosting and nesting. the majority of the respondents had found favorable attitude towards vulture conservation. further studies on gyps vulture to identify the breeding status, head droppings behavior as well as conservation awareness program for local people and school children are recommended for long-term survival of these lords of the sky in the study area. key words: gyps vulture, monitoring, diclofenac, pesticides 1assistant forest officer, district forest office kaski, email: poorneshwor@yahoo.com vultures are the largest flying raptors in nepal. vultures along with hawks, kite, baza, buzzard, eagle, harrier, and osprey represent the avian family accipitridae. these birds of prey are a major component of order falconiformes. out of the nine species of vultures are found in south asia, eight species (table 1) are reported in nepal. two species, white-rumped vulture (wrv), gyps bengalensis, and slender-billed vulture (sbv), gyps tenuirostris, were formerly distributed in many parts of nepal (e.g. grimmett et. al. 2000, inskipp and inskipp 1991) and the indian vulture (inv) or the long-billed vulture gyps indicus may occur in nepal but there is no confirmed record yet (giri and baral 2001) are now listed as critically endangered on the iucn red list (birdlife international 2006). globally, wrv and sbv (here after both referred as gyps vulture) are found in nepal, india, bangladesh, myanmar, cambodia and laos. additionally, wrv also occurs in pakistan, bhutan and thailand and has been extinct from southern china (birdlife international 2000). the wrv was once described as the most common species of vulture found in indian sub-continent (oaks et al. 2004, birdlife international 2000, grimmett et al. 1998, inskipp and inskipp 1991, ali and ripley 1989, fleming et al. 1976 and ali and ripley 1968). this vulture retained strongholds in india and pakistan and disappeared from most of southeast asia in the early 20th century. a bulk population decline of more than 95% of this species was first noted at keoladeo national park, india in the 1990’s. since then, the catastrophic declines, also involving inv and sbv (split into two sub-species viz: gyps indicus and gyps tenuirostris-rasmussen and parry 2001) have been continuously reported across the subcontinent (quoted in oaks et al. 2004). current evidence suggests that populations of these species continue to fall very rapidly (gilbert 2004). 36 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 p p status s.n. scientific name english name nepali name birdlife/ iucn cites appendix nepal breeding 1 gyps bengalensis white-rumped vulture dangar giddha critically endangered ii nationally threatened resident 2 gyps tenuirostris slender-billed vulture sano khairo giddha critically endangered ii nationally threatened resident 3 gyps himalayensis himalayan griffon himali giddha common ii resident 4 gyps gyps fulvus eurasian griffon khairo giddha common ii passage migrant, rare, winter visitor 5 aegypinus monachus cinereous vulture raj giddha near threatened ii nationally threatened winter visitor 6 sarcogyps calvus red headed vulture sun giddha critically endangered ii nationally threatened resident 7 neophron percnopterus egyptian vulture seto giddha endangered ii resident 8 gypaetus barbtus lammergeier hadphor common ii resident source: grimmett et al. 2000 , birdlife international/iucn 2006, cites 2008, baral h.s. and inskipp c. 2004. once both commonest and resident before 1990’s in nepal, the gyps vultures have been declining alarmingly. the rate of decline was reported as more than 95% within last 15 years; however, the current rate of annual decline is nearly 40% (baral 2006). it was also reported that besides these two vultures, the remaining other six species of vultures are also declining gradually in nepal (baral and gautam 2007). the vulture study conducted at different times and places in nepal such as kathmandu valley (giri 1996 and panthi 1996), chitwan national park (giri and baral 2001), a visit in lowland nepal (inskipp and inskipp 2001), inaruwa of eastern nepal (giri and baral 2001), koshi tappu wildlife reserve ( baral et al. 2002), sukla phanta wildlife reserve and nawalparasi forest (giri and g.c. 2002), rampur valley (gautam and baral 2004) illustrated that both gyps vultures have been declining drastically throughout nepal. this decline is along the same magnitude as those observed in pakistan (baral et al. 2003). oaks et al. (2004) concluded that residues of veterinary drug ‘diclofenac’ are responsible for the wrv declines in the indian sub-continent. various factors, including poisoning and the use of pesticides, reduction in food availability and nesting habitat, abnormally high rates of nesting failure, adult/ juvenile/nestling mortality, diseases, nest predators, hunting, environmental contamination, calcium deficiency, aircraft strikes, and electric lines shock have been reported as possible causes for high gyps vulture mortality and subsequent population decline (birdlife international 2000, birdlife international 2006). some of these problems may have also been found to occur in nawalparasi district. in the recent years, the international, regional and national conservation bodies have expressed crucial concern over the widespread and rapid decline of gyps vulture. much stress has been imposed on the identification and/or location of the remaining breeding colonies as well as population of each vulture species as quickly as possible (birdlife international 2006). based on important breeding population of wrv, forests of nawalparasi are declared as important bird area by birdlife international and bird conservation nepal (baral and inskipp 2005). there is still much work to be done to prevent the extinction of greatly affected two species of vulture in nepal. no extensive vulture studies, except short thoroughfare visits, have previously been conducted in nawalparasi district of nepal to asses vulture population dynamics and ecology. in view of these circumstances, a gyps vulture monitoring was conducted in west of daunne hill of nawalparasi district during the breeding season in 2005. the objectives of this study were to identify and monitor gyps vulture nest localities and behavior, and to understand the local peoples’ perceptions about gyps vulture. the understandings of this study are expected to prove a cornerstone for future conservation, research and long term survival of these magnificent lords of the sky. table 1: status of vultures reported in nepal subedi 37 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 materials and methods study area nawalparasi district (27° 21'-27° 47' n and 83° 36'84° 35' e) lies in the southern central part of nepal (fig 1). topographically, the district divided in to three regions: mahabharat hills, churia hills and the terai (lowland plain). a ridge of daunne hills has divided the district into two separate plain area viz bhitrimadesh in the east and terai in the west. the study was conducted in the lowland western part of nawalparasi district i.e. west of daunne hill and covered the area of makar, panchanagar, ramnagar, sunwal and amrout village development committees. methodology potential gyps vultures’ nest locations were identified using existing networks of roads and foot/trails from february 25 to march 1, 2005 as well as using secondary information. postupalsky (1974) criterion was followed for assessing the reproductive success of gyps vulture. after locating the potential nest colony, nest monitoring and nest activity were recorded from ground level once weekly from march 2 to june 8, 2005. vulture nests were mostly observed from 6.00 am to 11.00 pm using 20*20cf nikon binoculars. all observed nests were recorded and marked using a hand held global position system (12xl navigator garmin). each vulture’s nest was given the separate number to avoid confusion among nests. other information i.e. nesting tree species, active and abandoned (non active) nest, nest location in the tree, nesting vulture species, fresh chicks activity and sign of illness (neck drooping of vulture), were also recorded. a sample questionnaire survey was carried out through randomly selected households in the vicinity of vulture colonies to understand inhabitants’ perception about vulture population, carcass disposal practices, livestock holdings and veterinary practice, pesticide and fertilizer use and forest resource use. information on locally practiced pesticides and veterinary drugs was also collected through informal talk with shopkeepers and government officials. study area map was prepared using topographical map of 1:25000 scales (hmg/ n survey department 1996) and using gps field data. results and discussion location and distribution of nest vultures were found to be more abundant in the west compared to the east of nepal (inskipp and inskipp 2001) and still hold some population of both wrv and sbv (baral et al. 2002a). this study has explored the forty-eight numbers of gyps vulture’s nests that were found widely distributed in the study area. out of the 48 nests; 5, 11, 3, 6, 8, and 15 nests were found in bardghat, chisapani, badera, sunwal, hadahiya and basahiya colonies, respectively (fig 2). out of 48 nests, 18 were found active and 30 were found fig. 1: location of study area. the district experiences tropical, subtropical and mild temperate types of climate. may and june are the hottest months and december and february are coldest months. the annual rainfall is 150 mm/year (mfsc 1995). the elevation ranges from 91 to1936 meters above the mean sea level (ddc, 2006). according to the altitudinal variation the average maximum temperature is 28.9 degree celsius. a total of 5,62,088 inhabitants are residing in the district (cbs 2002). the dominant forest vegetation species commonly found in the district are shorea robusta, terminalia tomentosa, dalbergia sissoo, bombax ceiba, syzigium cumini, terminalia chebula, terminalia belerica etc. permanent river and seasonal streams drain out from north to the south (ddc 2006). subedi 38 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 fig 2: distribution of minimum number of gyps vulture nest in the study areas. abandoned. among the 18 active nests, 6 nests belonged to sbv and 12 nests belonged to wrv (table 2). this study explored six nests of sbv in western nawalparasi that was a surprising and unexpected result amid continuous vulture decline circumstance. the abundance of vultures in this area can be accounted partly due to the availability of food (floating carcasses) along the approximately 75 kilometer long watershed and edges of narayani river and large plain area of terai and bhitrimadesh, and partly to the availability of suitable habitats for nesting, roosting and perching. nest abandonment about 63% nest abandonment was observed in the study area (table 2) though no clear causes have been traced for the high rate of abandonment. the time of nest desertion cannot be clearly explained because of late starts of monitoring activities. the high rate of nest abandonment could be due to the heavy strong wind that blew down some portion of nest during egg hatching, the change of old nesting colony by vulture its self, high number of frustration nest, high mortality rate of breeding vulture during nest building and prior or during egg lying, failure of egg during incubation and nestling mortality. the nest position and nest size on tree showed that some of the nests were being used for more than 3 years. villagers around vulture colony also confirmed this assessment. the vulture might have shifted and built the nest colony in nearby areas. unfortunately, these probable areas could not be scanned thoroughly because of adverse security condition inside the forest at that time. nestling success and nest deserted time of fledgling the earlier researchers reported 28% to 59% breeding success of wrv in different parts of country (giri and baral 2001, gautam and baral 2004). during the observation, entire eighteen active nests were observed with chicks and those chicks fledged successfully in may and june. this study explicitly concludes that nestling success was found to be 100% same as the myagdi and syangja colonies in rampur valley (gautam and baral 2004). literatures and previous studies have not reported such high number of sbv nests (= 6) and fledged chick successfully till date in nepal. this result indicated that this area is listed as one of the major potential sbv’s site in nepal. all parameters (viz. nest building activity prior to egg laying, egg laying and incubation, chick brooding and nestling period) of the breeding process of this study cannot be compared to other studies because this study maintained the data only after hatchlings completed since february 25, 2005. active s.n. colony total nests wrv sbv abandoned nestling success 1 bardghat 5 2 3 2 2 chisapani 11 1 1 9 2 3 badera 3 1 2 1 4 sunwal 6 6 5 hadhiya 8 2 2 4 4 6 basahiya 15 6 3 6 9 total 48 12 6 30 18 subedi table 2: total, active, abandoned and successful nest 39 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 nest deserting period of fledgling were found to vary moderately. in hadahiya and basahiya colonies, 7 fledglings were found to desert their nest in between may 23 to 30; and remaining 6 fledglings in between may 30 to june 5, 2005. while in the bardghat, chisapani and badera colonies, 3 and 2 fledglings were found to desert in between may 11-18 and may 18-5, 2005 respectively. chick behavior and parental care until the chick reached the fledgling stage, at least one of the parent’s vultures was regularly found to care the chick sitting on tree. the parents showed little activities in the early morning however, the late morning witnessed the frequent activities from those parents like standing, sitting, perching, preening and flying out of and to the nest, and sometime lining of the nests. the parents were sometimes found brooding the chick in the nest. when the chick became capable of standing and playing, the parent either stood on the nest or perched on the nearby branch to attend the chick. the chick stood and played with their parents in the nest. by the end of april, most of chicks were seen to reach the fledgling stage. the fledglings were frequently seen preening, standing and sitting on the branch and top of the tree, and shaking the tree they stood on was the most common and frequent activity during nest visiting time. nesting tree species and nest height vulture normally prefers nesting site at the edge of forest, open grassland with scattered trees, or in bombax ceiba and lightly wooded old forest. generally, wrv nest were found in colonies in treetops as well as rocky cliff at 2 -10 meters high. however, sbv nest only reported in trees usually large ones, at a height of 7-14 meter (birdlife international 2006). the bombax ceiba is found to be the most commonly used tree species to built nest. besides this, both gyps vulture are known to nest in a variety of trees viz shores robusta, ficus religiosa, f. bengalensis, albizzia species, mangifera indica, tamarindus indica, dalbergia sissoo, azadirachta indica, eugenia species, terminalia arjuna (birdlife international 2006 grimmett et al. 2000 and ali and ripley 1987). in nawalparasi, gyps vulture nests were reported on branches and trees tops in all colonies. more than 96 % of vulture nests were found to locate on terminalia tomentosa and 4% on shorea robusta. it is believed that gyps vultures prefer terminalia species because of easiness to break small leafy twigs tugging at it with bill, assisted by vigorous wing flapping to build the nest (ali and ripley 1968). the maximum nest height was found at 45 meter on terminalia tree and the lowest at 16 meter on shorea tree from the ground level and found abandoned. the average height of nest on the tree was found to be 31.5 meter. the chick fledged successfully from the highest active nest was noted at 37 meter in hadahiya colony. on the basis of the available literatures and research reports, this nest height measured at this study could be the highest nest record in nepal. neck dropping behaviour and reported dead vulture the neck drooping of both gyps vulture was observed from the beginning of study till june. through 14 times visit, on an average 5 neck dropper’s vultures were noted from the six colonies as shown in figure 3. neck dropping was also noted in breeding vulture. abnormally high rate of head (neck) dropping in gyps species are reported in nepal and the populations of wrv have declined catastrophically in lowland nepal (baral et al. 2004). fig. 3: indian white-backed vultures showing neck drooping syndrome adopted from cunningham et.al. 2003. prakash (1999) reported that once a vulture was seen to be sick, it invariably died within approximately 30 days of exhibiting sign of neck drooping syndrome. sick birds continue to feed and fly, but both the degree of lethargy and the periods of neck drooping behavior progressively increase. if this annual trend continues, we cannot imagine the existence of this lord of the sky. neck dropping to some extent may be a normal behavior in nepal (giri and baral 2001). some of the wild population of the gyps vulture in west of narayani river might have increased immunity power to this syndrome. all together five wrv and one sbv with rotting body with spreading feathers subedi 40 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 were noted in different locations. this study could not collect fresh vulture specimen to perform postmortem and hence it could not explicitly furnish the causes of head dropping and the neck droppers’ conditions and causes of death. it is presumed that breeding gyps vulture with chick did not die in the time of study because of hundred percent nestling successes. reported dead vultures might be sub adult and immature ones. logging concession and its effect on vulture habitat about one decade ago, bombax ceiba the main roosting and nesting tree species of vultures, was heavily logged from the cultivated area. at that time, more than 70 vultures were regularly seen on roosting in one bombax tree in bardghat area (pers comm. indra prasad sapkota). logging concession seriously limits nesting habitat of vulture that would be negative consequences on breeding success (gautam and baral 2004). recognizing the negative impact of logging on vulture habitat, the government of nepal (gon) declared to ban the logging concession of bombax ceiba, terminalia arjuna, shorea robusta, adina cordifolia, acacia catechu and michelia champaca on february 2, 1992. this provision was paralyzed and resulted in continuous destruction of vulture habitats (preferred tree species) even after the enactment of forest regulation (1993). birders, naturalist and government officials of nepal seriously raised this issue; the gon again decided to ban the logging of bombax tree but not terminalia on september 1998. unfortunately, the gon relaxed the prohibition of bombax ceiba logging concession since november 5, 2007 and this has resulted in the heavy destruction of vulture roosting and nesting habitat. the concerned authorities that grants logging concessions should at least confirm whether the trees to be logged are being used for vulture’s roosting and/or nesting. there is an earnest need to appeal gon and concerned bodies to make provisions to ban the terminalia and bombax species logging concession, if not at least ban logging of the nesting and roosting trees immediately. unless the interventions to safeguard the vulture habitats are implemented forthwith the existence of the vulture is in great jeopardy. social response a total of 40 individuals (2 female and 38 male and aged 21 to 60 years) were interviewed and found literate, being involved in agriculture in the study area. sixty percent of the respondents had migrated from mountain districts and other parts of the same district; and the rest (40%) were local inhabitants. the influx of people to this area started during 1960s after successful malaria eradication program. other cause of migration to these areas perhaps might be the lack of fertile lands in hilly and mountains districts. the people in the area are heavily depended on forest resources to fulfill the basic needs for their livelihoods. this creates high pressure on autonomous vulture habitat. basic needs of local people should be addressed through other conservation endeavors to ensure the sustainability of resources and vulture habitat. livestock holdings, carcass disposal practice and veterinary treatment a total of 356 livestock head were reported to be reared by the respondents. the average livestock unit (lu) was about 3.83 per household in the study area. thirty-two livestock were reported to have died during the 5-year period in the study area. seventyfive percent of the total death was due to diseases, 12.5% due to old age, and 12.5% due to accidents. one third of the diseased livestock was reported to die after treatment. when domestic animals die, 70% of the households’ throw the carcasses in open fields (such as stream bank, forest area and/or communal land), 20% of them buried and 10% of them call skin tanner. generally, it was reported that when livestock die due to diseases were always buried to prevent the potential spread of disease to their remaining livestock and human but not certainly to prevent vultures’ death due to diclofenac poisoning. they preferred to throw out carcass in open field in case of natural death of animals. this local practice was reported favorable to the vulture welfare. veterinary facilities were found available within 3 kilometer distance from the settlement. out of 31 agrovet shops in the district, 18 are located in the study area (ddc 2006). seven of eighteen shops provided the veterinary drugs and pesticides the name upon the request of researcher but they refused to provide the sold amount. other shops denied providing any information regarding this. eighty percent of the respondents called veterinarian (doctor and jta) to treat the livestock illness. commonly available and practiced veterinary drugs in the local market are presented in table 4. subedi 41 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 besides other veterinary drug, diclofenac is the easily available medicine to treat the livestock in the study area (pers. comm. shovakar gyawali). almost all shopkeepers sell the diclofenac as per requirement of the customers though, they were unaware about the side effects of the diclofenac to the vulture. the wild wrv might have exposed to diclofenac through contaminated water sources but the very low water concentration is unlikely to cause toxicity (okas et al. 2004). the actual quantity consumed and/or injected to the animal could not be made available. use of fertilizer and pesticides both synthetic (urea, potash and dap) and organic fertilizers (compost, cattle dung) as well as chemical pesticides were found use by farmers in agriculture cultivation. majority of the respondents (65%) used both organic and synthetic fertilizers as per their personal judgment. small proportion (10%) of the respondents used only organic manure in their farms; while 20 % respondents used only synthetic fertilizer in their farm annually. high proportion (70%) of respondents were frequently found using pesticides in their agricultural land to protect the crop from the harmful insects/ pests. out of 306 types of pesticides (nepal’s pesticides act 1991), 25 are commonly used in the study area and 12 of them are prohibited by this act. commonly used pesticides in the study area are given in table 4. some of prohibited pesticides viz. bhc and ddt are reported to be used in the study area. use of pesticides like forate, malathion and fenvalerate has been increasing enormously (giri and baral 2001). actual quantity of pesticides being used/ consumed in the study area could not be obtained because of reluctance of shopkeepers to provide the actual data on their sales. hence, this study could not reach the conclusion on this aspect. respondents were found unaware of the prohibited pesticides and their side effects to the living beings. conservation attitudes conservation attitude of the people was assessed by presenting 18 dichotomous (agree or disagree) statements to line up the people’s opinion to conserve the gyps vulture. the overwhelming majority of the respondents demonstrated favorable attitude towards vulture conservation. hundred percent respondents showed willingness and interest to contribute financially (ranging from rs.1 to 50 per year) to support vultures conservation activities such as habitat conservation, extension education, establishment of conservation ngos and awareness program. all respondents were found to support of community forest. majority of respondent (55%) affirmed that the veterinary drugs, pesticides and chemical fertilizer as the cause of vulture decline. eighty five percent of them also expressed serious concern over vulture conservation for our future generation, religious purposes, and stability of the ecosystem. conclusion encouragingly, the highest number (48) and widely distributed gyps vultures’ nests were reported in the study area. entire active nests (18) were observed with chicks fledged successfully. this study explicitly concluded that western part of nawalparasi district, particularly west of daune hills, is found to be one of the good strongholds of gyps vulture. if any actions to conserve the vulture habitat are not taken on time, the existence of the vulture will be at stake and we will have to face irreparable loss. further studies on gyps vulture focusing on breeding status, nest distribution and nest desertion, head droppings, is imperative to lineup other unidentified and unexplored information in this area. conservation awareness program among the local inhabitants and local school children focusing vulture present status, threats and its role in the environment table 4: commonly used pesticides and veterinary drugs in the study area. s.n. veterinary drugs s.n. pesticides 1 diclofenac 1 indosulfan 2 indosolphan 2 gentamycine 3 methyle parathion 4 dichlorvus 3 oxytetracycline 5 segar 6 cypermetheran 4 ampillicine 7 malathion 8 micropower 5 vita b complex +vitamins+mera 9 zinc phosphide 10 aluminium phosphide 6 introflaxacin 11 cypermethrine 12 mencozeb 7 anthalmantic 13 bhc source: district agriculture service office and district livestock office, nawalparasi subedi 42 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 need to be conducted to promote the long term survival of this species at this site. acknowledgement this study was supported by the bird conservation nepal. i acknowledge the district forest office nawalparasi; livelihood for forestry programarea office butwal; the peregrine fund-usa; oriental bird club-uk for their cooperation and former article support. my special thanks go to ms carol inskipp for her encouragement and suggestions and document support. local people of the study area deserve my sincere appreciation for their help and cooperation. references ali, s. and ripley, d. 1989. a pictorial guide to the birds of the indian subcontinent. bombay natural history society, india. ali, s. and ripley, s.d. 1968. handbook of the birds of india and pakistan. together with those of nepal, sikkim, bhutan and ceylon. vol (i) divers to hawks, oxford university press. baral, n. and gautam, r. 2007. why should conservationists go beyond protected areas to safeguard critically endangered vulture? danphe vol 16 (1). baral, h.s., giri j.b., som, g.c., giri, d., bindari, b., subedi, h., khadka, k. and baral, h.b. 2002. study of vultures in lowland nepal. a report submitted to the royal society for the protection of birds, uk. unpublished. baral, h.s. and inskipp, c. 2004. the state of nepal’s bird 2004. department of national parks and wildlife conservation, bird conservation nepal and iucn nepal. kathmandu. baral, h.s. and inskipp, c. 2005. important bird areas in nepal: key sites for conservation. bird conservation nepal and birdlife international, kathmandu and cambridge. baral, h.s., giri j.b. and virani, m.z. 2004. on the decline of oriental white backed vultures gyps bengalensis in lowland nepal. in chancellor r.d. & b.u meyburg (ed) raptor worldwide, wwgb/ mme, 215-219. baral, h.s., giri, j.b., poudel, n., upadhyay, g.p., watson, r. and virani, m. 2003. summary of results from the himalayan kingdom of nepal for the field seasons 2000/2001, 2001/2002, and 2002/2003-(02 dec 03) download <http:// www.peregrinefund.org/archived_conserve.asp? mode=view&conserveid=84&category=asian% 20vulture%20crisis& conserveid1=73> baral, h.s., poudel, n., giri, j.b., waston, r. and virqani, m. 2002a. study of vultures in lowland nepal. final report submitted to the peregrine fund, usa. unpublished. baral, h.s. 2006 vulture conservation in nepal. in proceeding of 23rd warden seminar 14-16 november 2006 (ed) dnpwc 2006, annapurna conservation area, pokhara; department of national parks and wildlife conservation, nepal. birdlife international 2000. threatened birds of the world. barcelona and cambridge, uk; lynx editions and birdlife international. p:180. birdlife international 2001. threatened birds of asia. birdlife international, cambridge. 966-980. birdlife international 2006. threatened birds of the world. iucn red list of birds http:// www.birdlife.org/action/science/species/ global_species_programme/red_list.html. birdlife international, cambridge, uk. cbs. 2002. statistical pocket book nepal. central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. cites. 2008. convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora appendices i, ii and iii valid from 1 july 2008, geneva, switzerland downloaded from http:// www.cites.org on 12 july 2008. cunningham, a.a., prakash, v., pain d., ghalsasi, g.r., wells, g.a.h., koltea, g.n, nighota, p., goudaf, m.s., kshirsagal, s. and rahmani, a. 2003. indian vultures: victims of an infectious disease epidemic? animal conservation (6) i 89-l 97. ddc. 2006. district profile of nawalparasi district, district development committee, nawalparasi, nepal. fleming, r.l.sr., fleming, r.l.jr. and bangdel, l.j. 1976. birds of nepal. nature himalayas. kathmandu. gautam, r. and baral, n. (2002). status of white rumped vulture gyps bengalensis in rampur valley, nepal. obc bulletin no. 36:46-48. subedi 43 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 gautam, r. and baral, n. 2004. studies on white rumped vulture gyps bengalensis from ecological and socio-economic perspectives in rampur valley, nepal. final report submitted to the oriental bird club, uk. gilbert, m. 2004. veterinary drugs responsible for asian vulture decline. world birdwatch. march 2004 26.1 pp:12-13. giri, j. and baral, h.s. 2001. study of vultures in lowland nepal. final report submitted to the peregrine fund, usa. giri, j.b. 1996. a study of birds’ behaviour in gokarna sanitary landfill site. m.sc. thesis. tribhuvan university, kathmandu, unpublished. giri, j.b. and som, g.c. 2002. study of vultures in far-western lowland of nepal. report submitted to the oriental bird club, uk. grimmet, r., inskipp, c. and inskipp t. 2000. birds of nepal. new delhi, india. grimmett, r., inskipp c. and inskipp t. 1998. birds of the indian subcontinent. christopher helm, london. inskipp, c. and inskipp, t. p. 2001. a re-visit to nepal’s lowland protected areas. danphe 10:4-7. inskipp, c. 1989. nepal’s forest birds: their status and conservation. second edition, christopher helm, london. inskipp, c. and inskipp t.p. 1991 a guide to the birds of nepal. second edition. christopher helm, london. mfsc. 1995. operational forest management plan of nawalparasi district, kathmandu, nepal. oaks, j.l., gilbert, m., virani, m.z., waston r.t., meteyer, c.u., rideout, b.a., shivaprasad, h.l., ahmed, s., chaudhry, m.j.i., ashrad, m., mahmood, s., ali, a. and khan, a.a. 2004. diclofenac residue as the cause of vulture population decline in pakistan. nature vol 427:(12), 630-633. panthi, k. 1996. birds diversity in gokarna. m.sc. thesis. tribhuvan university, kathmandu, unpublished. postupalsky, s. 1974. raptor reproductive success: some problems with methods, criteria and terminology. in hamerstrom et.al. proceeding of the conference on raptor conservation techniques for collins, co.21-30. subedi final bankojanakari vol 17-1.pmd 3 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 small scale wood based entreprises in community forestry: contribution to poverty reduction k.p. acharya1 and s. acharya2 nepal is promoting community-based forest management approach known as community forestry (cf) as a promising option to reduce environmental degradation and to fulfill the demands of basic forestry products of rural people. there are emerging concerns that whether community forestry can be used effectively to generate income and employment to help improve the livelihoods of the poor. the paper is based on furniture and agricultural implements production enterprises from parbat and myagdi districts of western mid hills of nepal. the furniture enterprise has earned usd 10,000 and the agricultural implement enterprise has earned usd 2000 during the past two years. the paper presents the process and approaches, production and market characteristics, present status and future prospects, role of development agencies and service providers, socio-economic impacts, lesson learned and policy implications from these case studies. the paper discusses that forest management should not be considered in isolation but should be linked with existing livelihoods opportunities and farming systems promoting the use of local materials and focused to provide employment to poor and vulnerable group. key words: community forestry, enterprises, wood, poverty, nepal the main forest management strategy of nepal is based on people’s participation, which is known as community forestry (cf). under the cf arrangement, local people make decisions regarding the forest management, utilization and distribution of benefits from a forest; they are organized as a community forest user group (cfugs). the primary motive for stimulating cf is its potential contribution to provide basic forestry products such as firewood, forage to rural people, to improve their livelihoods and to preserve the hills of nepal from further degradation (acharya 2002; mcneely 2002; malla 2000; hobley 1996; jackson and ingles 1994; gilmour and fisher 1991). with the advancement of cf, it has been increasingly realised as an attainable mechanism that can contribute to reduce poverty in nepal (kanel 2004; npc 2002; gentle 2000). however, the extent of the role that forest plays in reducing poverty is dubious (anglesen and wunder 2003). on the other hand, arnold (1998) argued that outputs from community forests can make to livelihoods outcomes through increased income, increased well being, reduced vulnerability and more sustainable use of natural resource base. nevertheless, in nepalese context, cf can be regarded as a key intervention to reduce poverty specially in rural areas. cf and forest based enterprises the cf policy of nepal is regarded as progressive to establish rights of local people over the resources; however, promotion of forest-based enterprises is limited. recently, there has been a tendency within the cfugs to initiate pro-poor activities to establish cf as a pro-poor program. the main arenas of interventions include promotion of income generation activities and concession in forest products distribution. the income generation activities include activities such as domestication of non-timber forest products (ntfps), support to livestock, and establishment of forest based small scale enterprises (fbsses). recent inclination of the fbsses is towards the promotion of non-timber forest products domestication, establishment and management of such enterprises (subedi 2006; binayee et al. 2004: kandel and subedi 2004; mfsc 2004; subedi et al. 2002; kanel 2000; wollenberg and 1 research officer, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, email: kpacharya@hotmail.com 2 program officer, livelihoods and forestry program, myagdi 4 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 ingles 1998; edwards 1996). subedi et al (2002) argued that forest based enterprises have the potential to contribute to better management of natural resources, provide income and employment opportunities to poor and disadvantaged groups. the development of small scale enterprises based on local resources and skills could be a good option to pick up the poor out of poverty and for generating income and employment at household level in shortest period. subedi (2006) assumed that enterprise-oriented community forest management can generate positive outcomes on both conservation and local livelihoods. recently, angelsen and wunder (2003) have identified five areas for forest based poverty reduction initiation that require high priority attention where the second option is small scale wood processing enterprises, which is underrepresented in the forestry literature (sunderlin et al. 2005). the present paper is intended to bring together information that is available from two wood based fbsses and to examine their impacts on forest management and livelihoods. case studies the first case study is furniture enterprise located at bharkhore cfug in parbat district. the second is agricultural implements production enterprise (aipe) located in ghorlas cfug of myagdi district. 1. furniture enterprise, parbat establishment there were series of meetings and discussions in the bharkhore cfug to initiate activities that are directly related in improving the livelihoods of the poor. five households selected were poor, having traditional skills and strong willingness. the cfug formed a furniture sub-committee to implement the establishment furniture enterprise. the fecofun facilitated finding a donor. the bilateral donor livelihoods and forestry program agreed to support. the district forest office, parbat facilitated the process. a business plan was prepared. the enterprise was established in the year 2004. out of the total investment of nrs 57,800.00, livelihoods and forestry program supported nrs 35,800.00 as nonrefundable grant. the cfug provided cash assistance of nrs 10, 000.00 (without interest) and additional raw wood equivalent to nrs 6,000.00 to start the enterprise. nrs 6,000.00 (10 % of total) was invested by the entrepreneur households themselves. products and production mechanism the input materials used by the enterprise are round logs, saplings and poles. four types of products are out puts from the enterprise. the main products are house construction materials and furniture. the owners of the enterprise are free to fix the price of the products or rate of the services. the average annual maintenance cost for the past two years is about nrs 20,000 including annual lease for land, electricity and workshop maintenance. the average daily raw material consumption is 6-8cft. it varies from a minimum of 2 to a maximum of 20 cft/day. the past two years of data shows that a significant proportion of species processed are from outside the bharkhore community forest either from adjoining cfs or from private lands. the use of main species and their quantity during the past two years was as: sal (shorea robusta) 30 %, sallo (pinus roxburghii) 40-50 %, utis (alnus nepalensis) 20 % and others (chilauneschima wallichi, katus castonopsis spp, and sisso dalbergia sissoo) 10 %. out of these, sallo is not available in the cf. employment and income the enterprise has generated year around employment for four individuals (one each from three selected households) (two household selected were redundant to join the furniture) and one additional skilled employee outside the community. since the establishment cost was supported as grant by the donor, the income is realized immediately and rises sharply. the monthly average income for the past 24 months was nrs 10,000.00 per households for three households after deducting the monthly payment of nr 6,000.00 to the outside employee. the total income from the furniture enterprise during the past two years is nrs 720 thousands. forest management and the enterprise the forest is divided into five blocks and one block is harvested annually in rotation. the system allows steady supply of forest products to the users and ultimately to the enterprise. the harvesting mechanism such as sectioning of logs has been applied carefully so as to reduce wastage volume during the processing. the production from near by community forests and private farm also reaches to the furniture in a significant quantity. acharya and acharya 5 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 record keeping and monitoring the record keeping system is very poor. there are only few instances where monthly records have been updated and maintained. the entrepreneurs have not felt that formal record keeping is important as it was not required in their traditional jobs. the cfug also has not been able to maintain the proposed monitoring and enforce the regulations. in addition, the poor record keeping is also a result of weak literacy of the targeted households. the users generally believe that the enterprise is in profit and doing well. success and reasons the furniture enterprise demonstrates multipartnership working modality to develop enterprise within the cf. the enterprise consists of five major stakeholders namely individual households organized in a sub-committee, livelihoods and forestry program, the forest users, cfug and the fecofun. the main reasons to explain it as a successful enterprise are the employment opportunities, earned income and saving and payment of the entrepreneurs’ loan prior to the establishment of the furniture. it is based on local resources, skills and market. the main reasons for the success of the furniture enterprise are as follows: • the selection of right enterprise and entrepreneurs: this could be measured by willingness, skills and traditional practices, and knowledge base on the enterprises. • the location of the enterprise in district headquarter has resulted in an easy available market. • the easy availability of raw materials from the cf and also buying facilities from the adjoining community forests and private farms. • growing market for furniture due to improved income correlated with the increased consumerism of local users. there has been shifting behavior of the users in utilizing consumption materials such as from mat to chairs. • the locally available sawing facility with reduced wastage has motivated users to utilize small sized products for furniture purposes resulting in over all increased in furniture volume. • strong institutional support from the cfug, fecofun and the donor. • finally, the low investment input from the entrepreneur helped reaching break even point early and benefits boosting motivation. 2. agricultural implements, myagdi establishment a household based aipe was established by the ghorlas cfug in the year 2004. four poor farmers having traditional skills were encouraged for commercial production of agricultural implements. a simple informal business plan was developed describing involving households, demand supply situation, market and cost estimation and formation of sub-committee. the plan states that resources, market and skill are available at locally but lack is the innovation. the dfo and the livelihoods and forestry program supported the move. a sum of nrs 3600.00 was supported to each household to purchase tools. in general, the cost for a one set (axe, saw, sharpener, hammer etc) of aipe tool is nrs 1500.00. one set can prepare several hundreds of products. however, regular servicing is provided by the farmer in the site with no additional costs. remaining money was used as seed money to purchase logs. products and production mechanism the operational plan prescribes to provide deformed and crooked trees and woody material for the production of implements. the cfug provides woody material of chilaune (schima wallichi) equals to 60 cft per year per entrepreneur at half price than other users as a support to the enterprise. the cfug has coordinated with two nearby cfugs for raw materials. there are six different products. the local names of these products are halo, juwa, danda, mohi, lidko and anau. the aggregate of these components make a complete set of equipment. the most commonly required product is halo. a halo is also an assembled tool made from halo, danda and anau. the preparation of these various products with specific size, shapes and structure requires a great amount of skills. the skill has been translated to generation in these families. the past two years production by the entrepreneur households is presented in the table 1. the most preferred species are chilaune (schima wallichii), phalant (quercus spp), foso (grewia spp), and dhale katus (castanopsis indica). the amount of woody material required varies from product to product. pricing mechanism and marketing the price for each of the components has been fixed by the cfug and not by the entrepreneur. the acharya and acharya 6 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 7 table 2: earned income during the past years name of the entrepreneur halo juwa danda mohi lidko anau total purna 50,000(250) 3,750 (25) 6,000 (30) 1,500 (10) 600 (2) 375 (25) 62,225 jeet 30,000(150) 1,500 (10) 2,400 (12) 300 (2) 300 (1) 0 34,500 dharma 24,000(120) 750 (5) 2,000 (10) 450 (450) 0 0 27,200 nara 20,000(100) 751 (5) 1,200 (6) 1,050 (7) 900 (3) 0 23,900 total 124,000(620) 6,750 (45) 11,600 (58) 3,300 (22) 1,800 (6) 375 (25) 147,825 note: figure in the parentheses is the quantity. among the four entrepreneurs, there is remarkable variation in earning amount that ranges from nrs 24 thousands to nrs 62 thousands. the table 2 also shows a strong link between the demand and the production. the highest number produced by all entrepreneur is halo, where as there are components which are not produced by all entrepreneurs. in addition, some users are still producing the implements for own use. forest management and the enterprise the production of raw wood from the cfug is regulated by the operational plan and excessive removal is restricted. the silvicultural activities are regularly implemented as prescribed in the operational plan. the cfug supplies subsidized woody materials equaling to 60 cft per year per entrepreneur. the additional quantity is collected from the neighboring cfugs and has been coordinated by the cfug. similarly, the entrepreneurs are free to collect from private tree grower. the aipe demonstrate generous opportunities to provide employment and generate income in rural areas contributing towards poverty reduction indicating that good forest management and poverty reduction can go hand in hand. the cfug has adopted following measure in linking forest management and sustainability of the enterprise. earlier, users gave little attention in beneficial aspects of the species during plantation. they use to plant whatever the seedlings were available. however, they have made utilitarian benefit of the species as a main preference criterion. the cfug has established a nursery to promote private tree planting. during the removal of the plants in silvicultural operations, priority is given to maintain species such as chilaune which is regarded as a best species for various components of the agricultural implements. the cfug have started coppice management of chilaune linking with agricultural implements. they have initiated activities for making regenerating environment for chilaune and phalanat by opening the canopy. users started to protect the natural seedlings in their farmlands. awareness about chilaune and its uses has increased. the cfug has decided not to use chilaune other than agricultural enterprises unless the part is unsuitable. the aipe has also contributed to plant or maintain seedlings of selected species in the private planting. during the sectioning of the wood logs, attention is given to maintain sizes appropriate to produce various components of agricultural implements. in earlier days, saplings were used to prepare cylindrical shaped danda. in this process, one danda requires one sapling. after the establishment of the aipe, it was realized that the practices is contributing in killing of several saplings and future trees. the modification resulted in the use of rectangular sawn wood, which means one log can produce several danda and one sapling can produce several logs in future. the use of sawn wood also prevented wrapping defects of danda. record keeping and monitoring 6 requires a great amount of skills. the skill has been translated to generation in these families. the past two years production by the entrepreneur households is presented in the table 1. the quantity of the halo produced varies significantly among the farmer. the factor determining are the willingness and the managerial ability. table 1: quantity of production during the past two years kinds of products and quantity produced in the past two years name of the entrepreneur halo juwa danda mohi lidko anau purna 250 25 30 10 2 25 jeet 150 10 12 2 1 0 dharma 120 5 10 3 0 0 nara 100 5 6 7 3 0 total 620 45 58 22 6 25 the most preferred species are chilaune (schima wallichii), phalant (quercus spp), foso (grewia spp), and dhale katus (castanopsis indica). the amount of woody material required varies from product to product. on average, each unit of halo requires 0.667 cuft, danda and mohi require about 1.5 cuft of wood and lidko requires about 3 cuft of wood. the rest of the tools require smaller amount of wood. pricing mechanism and marketing the price for each of the components has been fixed by the cfug and not by the entrepreneur. the cfug's intention is to make a balanced pricing system. the cfug regulated pricing system will also make entrepreneur accountable towards the general member of the cfug and identical prices among the entrepreneurs, avoid fixing monopolist prices, facilitate outside selling, and also make a realization among general members that the benefit is not limited to few households. the entrepreneurs are free to sell products to outsiders. presently, one complete set of plough cost nrs 1,140.00. the price is constant for the past two years. the prices in general are cheaper than were earlier when produced without formal enterprise or then nearby local prices. there is no market problem. the products are being sold with advanced booking from the entrepreneur housesfarm gate selling. the buyers are from the cfug and neighboring villagers. as each farming households of the territory requires 13 halo each year, the demand is in place. added benefit a halo requires 0.667 cuft of wood which is available at the rate of nrs 9 /cuft. it takes one working day to complete. the depreciation cost is smaller than the waste produced (used as firewood). a simple analysis to estimate added benefits in halo processing shows that each piece of halo earns additional 28 % benefits after deducting wood prices and opportunity costs of labor (nrs 150). using same estimation, about nrs 44 thousands out of 147 thousands was additional benefits generated because of the apie. employment and income the aipe is supporting to the households as an additional but major source of income and employment. the agricultural wages is regarded as a primary source of income. the productions take place at houses and in leisure time. the income information is encouraging in contributing improving household income. the aipe demonstrates itself as an enterprise that is favorable to poor. the following table 2 summaries the income generated from the enterprise during the past two years. cfug’s intention is to make a balanced pricing system. the cfug regulated pricing system will also make entrepreneur accountable towards the general member of the cfug and identical prices among the entrepreneurs, avoid fixing monopolist prices, facilitate outside selling, and also make a realization among general members that the benefit is not limited to few households. the entrepreneurs are free to sell products to outsiders. there is no market problem. the products are being sold with advanced booking from the entrepreneur housesfarm gate selling. added benefit a halo requires 0.667 cuft of wood which is available at the rate of nrs 9 /cuft. it takes one working day to complete. the depreciation cost is smaller than the waste produced (used as firewood). a simple analysis to estimate added benefits in halo processing shows that each piece of halo earns additional 28 % benefits after deducting wood prices and opportunity costs of labor (nrs 150). using same estimation, about nrs 44 thousands out of 147 thousands was additional benefits generated because of the apie. employment and income the aipe is supporting to the households as an additional but major source of income and employment. the productions take place at houses and in leisure time. the income information is encouraging in contributing improving household income. the following table 2 summaries the income generated from the enterprise during the past two years. among the four entrepreneurs, there is remarkable variation in earning amount that ranges from nrs 24 thousands to nrs 62 thousands. the table 2 also shows a strong link between the demand and the production. forest management and the enterprise the cfug supplies subsidized woody materials equaling to 60 cft per year per entrepreneur. the additional quantity is collected from the neighboring cfugs and has been coordinated by the cfug. similarly, the entrepreneurs are free to collect from private tree grower. the cfug has adopted following measure in linking forest management and sustainability of the enterprise. earlier, users gave little attention in beneficial aspects of the species during plantation. however, they have made utilitarian benefit of the species as a main preference criterion. the cfug has established a nursery to promote private tree planting. during the removal of the plants in silvicultural operations, priority is given to maintain species such as chilaune which is regarded as a best species for various components of the agricultural implements. the cfug have started coppice management of chilaune linking with agricultural implements. they have initiated activities for making regenerating environment for chilaune and phalanat by opening the canopy. users started to protect the natural seedlings in their farmlands. awareness about chilaune and its uses has increased. the cfug has decided not to use chilaune other than agricultural enterprises acharya and acharya 7 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 9 initiative from the cfug, supported and facilitated by the district forest office and livelihoods and forestry program. the selected enterprises establishment process and procedures can be summarized in the following five steps with no strict boundaries. table 3: steps and main activities in establishing fbsse step descriptions output identification of entrepreneur small group meeting, well being, skill, interest, willingness entrepreneur households selected identification of enterprises forest products, species availability, condition, resources material selecting of proper enterprise preparation of business plan formal or informal, demand supply analysis, marketing plan, fund provision, identification of stakeholders and defining roles and responsibilities a simple business plan developed and funds arranged enterprise establishment combine resources and develop a enterprise for processing enterprise established m&e the stakeholders require continuous support for an extended period to ensure success continuous improvement investment, employment and income the investment amount depends on the nature of the enterprises. the furniture enterprise requires higher (nrs 57,800) amount compared to the aipe (nrs 3600 per entrepreneur). the furniture enterprise is creating five full time employments and aipe is creating part time employment for five households. the total earned income is nrs 720 thousands from the furniture enterprises during the past two years whereas four aipe households have earned nrs 147,000.00 for the same period. since aipe requires no full time working and all the income (nrs 147 thousands) generated from aipe during past two years is an additional income to the entrepreneur households. similarly, out of nrs 720 thousands total income in furniture enterprise, nrs 288 thousands was additional income to the entrepreneur households due to the furniture enterprise. the entrepreneur households estimated that they could have earned 432 thousands as skilled wage labor even there was no furniture enterprise. the 100 % additional income from aipe and 67 % additional income signify the importance of enterprises promotion in cf. the findings support the argument that enterprises have a potential in contributing rural poverty through increased income to rural farmers. the enterprises are providing employment and generating income in rural areas contributing towards poverty reduction indicating that good forest management and poverty reduction can go hand in hand. the commercialization of aipe indicates that forest management should not be considered in isolation but should be linked with existing livelihoods opportunities and farming systems promoting the use of local material and focused to provide employment to poor and vulnerable groups. raw material and production both of these enterprises use wood as raw material. although the major source of raw material is community managed forests, enterprises are utilizing resources from the private land and national forest. the main products from the furniture enterprise include house construction materials and different kinds of furniture. the firewood and the saw dust are by products generated from the waste materials during the processing. the apie produces at least six different kinds of agricultural implement accessories. market characteristics unless the part is unsuitable. during the sectioning of the wood logs, attention is given to maintain sizes appropriate to produce various components of agricultural implements. record keeping and monitoring the entrepreneurs and the cfug are maintaining records on the kinds and quantity of different kinds of production including the time required for different products. success and reasons the aipe demonstrated that very small scale enterprise can be commercialized. this enterprise is successful and has been replicated in 11 cfugs in the district. the enterprises also widened the importance of species level direct benefits to the people and encouraged them to protect and maintain it. the processing activity resulted in value addition for the species chilaune from firewood to higher price products. the main reasons for the successful operation of the aipe enterprise are as follows: • the selection of right enterprise and entrepreneurs. • the aipe is benefited with the location specific advantages. the setting of the enterprise in hilly area with dominant agriculture practices, provided excellent market opportunity • the availability of local raw materials, local market and specialized skill with high level of motivation is key to success. • strong institutional support to the enterprise from the cfug, district forest office and the donor. • the income is additional benefits to producers. the nature of the production that utilizes flexible time will have higher chances of success. results and discussions origin and approach the statistics of parbat and myagdi district shows that ssfbe were begun to be established since 2003 (kanel and subedi 2004). the beginning was with bamboo crafts making and bamboo furniture. out of the 158 cfugs in parbat, baglung and myagdi districts, 31 cfugs have furniture and 15 cfugs have started aipe. broadly speaking, the enterprise establishment initiative within the cf was a response of the critics on the cf that it was not able to provide immediate benefits to weaker section of the community and at households’ level. at the time, there were emerging evidences that, most of the benefits from the cf were realized by fewer households (adhikari 2005). the government, donors and other stakeholders were enthusiastic to find out ways that could generate benefits at household level and to the poor. the enterprises establishment initiative of local people need strong moral, technical, institutional and financial support from the facilitating agencies. in both the cases, the enterprises establishment process was initiated by the cfugs and the achievement was reached through the support of various stakeholders. investment, employment and income the investment amount depends on the nature of the enterprises. the furniture enterprise requires higher (nrs 57,800) amount compared to the aipe (nrs 3600 per entrepreneur). since aipe requires no full time working and all the income (nrs 147 thousands) generated from aipe during past two years is an additional income to the entrepreneur households. similarly, out of nrs 720 thousands total income in furniture enterprise, nrs 288 thousands acharya and acharya 8 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 was additional income to the entrepreneur households due to the furniture enterprise. the entrepreneur households estimated that they could have earned 432 thousands as skilled wage labor even there was no furniture enterprise. the 100 % additional income from aipe and 67 % additional income signify the importance of enterprises promotion in cf. the findings support the argument that enterprises have a potential in contributing rural poverty through increased income to rural farmers. the commercialization of aipe indicates that forest management should not be considered in isolation but should be linked with existing livelihoods opportunities and farming systems promoting the use of local material and focused to provide employment to poor and vulnerable groups. raw material and production both of these enterprises use wood as raw material. although the major source of raw material is community managed forests, enterprises are utilizing resources from the private land and national forest. market characteristics both of these enterprises are intended for local market and the goods and services are targeted to local market. the furniture enterprise has faced competition from other 5-6 similar private enterprises where as apie are still selling products as farm gate markets. nature of enterprises both the enterprises are processing in nature. the furniture enterprise can be classified as workshop model employing relatively higher numbers. the apie is operating at household level as defined by the arnold 1994. key stakeholders and role the community based fbsses have five key stakeholders. these are the cfug, dfo, livelihoods and forestry program (donor) local people and the entrepreneurs. the willingness and commitment of the entrepreneurs are basic requirements. there should be a strong institutional, financial and material support from the cfug. the facilitation and institutional supports of the district forest office and the livelihoods and forestry program and the financial supports from the livelihoods and forestry program were instrumental for success. the enterprises promoting approach has demonstrated strong coordination mechanism among different stakeholders. a simple conceptual model for a community based enterprise is presented in the figure 1. linkages with forest management regulated harvesting the case studies also indicate that local people are able to modify the way of treating their forests. the production of raw wood from the cfug is regulated by the operational plan and excessive removal is restricted. in addition, increased numbers of farm trees are also supplying raw materials to the enterprises. the cfugs support enterprises through certain quantity of subsidized woody material to the enterprises. figure 1: conceptual framework for a community based enterprises market socio-economic condition demand and supply, prices, profitability, access to market well being, skills, infrastructure, occupation, forest and farm resources, species, development stages, management prescriptions, products availability resource condition policy, rules and enforcing, management ability, funding networking, support service policy and institution community based ssfbe improved livelihoods acharya and acharya 9 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 silviculture and species preferences: in earlier years of cf, users gave little attention in beneficial aspects of the species while selecting for plantation. they used to plant any species whatever the seedlings were available. however, they have now made criteria in choice of species for plantation. the utilitarian benefit of the species is the main criterion. during the removal of the plants in silvicultural operations, priority is given to maintain species such as chilaune in myagdi case study which is regarded as a best species for the production of agricultural tools. the cfug has started coppice management of chilaune linking with agriculture implements specifically for producing small sized various components of agricultural implements. promoting private tree planting: the fbsses have contributed to plant or maintained seedlings of selected species in the private land. the cfugs have established forest nursery to promote private tree planting. wood utilization: the harvesting mechanism such as sectioning of logs has been applied carefully so as to reduce wastage volume during the processing. in earlier days, saplings were used to prepare cylindrical shaped dandaa supportive component of halo. in this process, one danda requires one sapling. after the establishment of the aipe, it was realized that the practices is contributing in killing of huge amount of future trees. the modification resulted in the use of rectangular sawn wood, which means one log can produce several danda and one sapling can produce several logs in future. the use of sawn wood also has removed wrapping defects from saplings. policy and management implications policy issues include regulations that discriminate against harvesting of seven tree species on farm, transportation of products, location requirements for forest based enterprises, registration process that impede the development of fbsses. the cfugs are emerging as the most wide spread grass root level organizations to conserve, manage and utilize the forestry resources in nepal. under such circumstances, there is a greater role of organizations such as government and ngos in strengthening the capacity of cfugs members by providing technical, financial and managerial skills to develop forest-based enterprises at community as well as household levels. the findings show that both of the enterprises were operated by below poverty line households, and the enterprises were built on their traditional skills and knowledge. the cfugs funds and resources have started investing on the poor to establish and operate fbsses showing an opportunity to promote the enterprise development and contribute to poverty reduction the modification of forest management aspects would have substantial implications on forest structure and productivity. the most important among them is the implementation of active forest management leading to increasing forest products from the community forests. the increased output will improve forest productivity. the modified use of traditional tools such as dando will prevent felling of saplings and poles, most productive development stage; and improve forest production and productivity. the replication of enterprises by nearby cf not only contributes to reduce poverty but also to improve forest productivity and quality. this will have substantial implications for both the demand supply dynamics of forest products from cf. the selective removal or preferences of particular species during harvesting can also have knock-on effects on the forest that could affect its economic and ecological value including the biodiversity conservation. conclusion the case studies indicate that promotion and implementation of fbsses can affect the livelihoods of many people in the rural areas of nepal signifying the relevance of cf in broad strategic planning for poverty alleviation. the activities undertaken may vary and include a wide variety of forest products that are in demands ranging from subsistence based agricultural implements to furniture enterprises. the case studies indicate that wood based enterprises have a space in the cf and local people are able to modify the way of treating their forests to sustain the enterprises. the availability of local market, skills and local raw materials combined with a strong institutional support are keys for the successful community based enterprises. the selection of right entrepreneurs and enterprise options, provision of continuous follow up and counselling are the basic requirements for the success of fbsses. for the benefits of community based enterprises, there is a strong need for policy advocacy in favor acharya and acharya 10 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 of poor and marginalized community on the concept of right based approach to development rather than relying on relief and reform approaches. in addition, the facilitating agencies should initiate feasibility and identification of enterprises in each community forests. the scaling up of the best practices and experiences is equally important. the formation of inter-sectoral linkages is very important to maximize the potential benefits from the enterprises as the enterprises fall within the jurisdiction of different line agencies. references acharya, k. p. 2002. twenty-four years of community forestry in nepal, international forestry review 4 (2): 149-156. adhikari, b., 2005. poverty properti rights and collective actions : understanding the distributive aspect of common property resource management. environment and development economics. no. 10:-1-25. anglesen, a. and wunder s. 2003. exploring the forestpoverty link: key concepts, issues and research implications. cifor occasional paper no. 40. cifor, indonesia. arnold, j. e. m., 1994. working paper no. 11 pg 49. department of plant science oxford university, uk. arnold, j. e. m. 1998. forests and sustainable livelihoods. in sustainable rural livelihoods: what contribution can we make? (ed) carney, d. dfid, london. binayee, s. b., sapkota, i., subedi, b., and pun l. 2004. microfinance for small scale tree and forest products enterprises: opportunities and challenges for the local producers in forestry sector nepal microfinance case study, ansab, kathmandu. dof. 2006. management information system, community forestry division, kathmandu, nepal. gentle, p. 2000. the flow and distribution of community forestry benefits: a case study from pyuthan district, nepal. m. sc. (forestry thesis) new zealand, university of canterbury. gilmour, d. a. and fisher, r.j. 1991. villagers, forest and foresters: the philosophy, process and practice of community forestry in nepal, sahayogi press kathmandu. 212 pp. hobley, m. 1996. participatory forestry: the process of change in india and nepal. rural development forestry study guide 3. odi, london jackson, w. j. and ingles a. w. 1994. developing rural communities and conserving the biodiversity of nepal’s forests through community forestry. paper presented at a seminar on community development and conservation of forest biodiversity through community forestry: bangkok, thailand, 26-28 october 1994. kandel, b. r. and subedi, r. 2004. pro-poor community forestry: some initiatives from the field. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 4-6 august, 2004, kathmandu. kanel, k. r., 2000. analyzing policy for poverty alleviation: an example from non-timber forest product sub-sector, banko janakari, 10 (2):3 8. kanel, k. r. 2004. twenty five years of community forestry: contribution to millennium development goals. in twenty five years of community forestry (eds) kanel, k. r., mathema, p., kanel, b. r., niraula, d. r., sharma, a. r. and gautam, m. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 4-6 august, 2004, kathmandu. malla, y. b. 2000. impacts of community forestry policy in rural livelihoods and food security in nepal. unasylva 202: 38-45. mcneely, j. a. 2002. forest diversity at the ecosystem level: where do people fit in? unasylva 53: 3-9. mfsc. 2004. herbs and non-timber forest products (ntfp) development policy, 2061 (2004). ministry of forest and soil conservation, his majesty’s government of nepal. npc. 2002. the tenth five year plan (2003-2007). national planning commission, his majesty’s government of nepal. subedi, b. p. 2006. linking plant-based enterprises and local communities to biodiversity conservation in nepal himalaya adroit publishers, new delhi subedi, b. p., ojha, h. r., nicholson, k. and binayee s. 2002. community based forest enterprises in nepal: case studies, lessons and implications, asia network for sustainable agriculture and bioresources and the netherlands development organization, nepal sunderlin, w. d., angelsen, a., belcher, b., burgers, p., nasi, r., santoso, l. and wunder, s. 2005. livelihoods forests and conservation in developing countries : an overview, world development 33(9): 1383-1402. acharya and acharya final special issue.pmd 30 banko janakari, special issue updated status of nepal’s wetland birds h. s. baral1 wetland birds in nepal comprise significant portion of avian fauna of nepal. however, they are also highly threatened because of several factors. a thorough study on wetland bird communities is lacking which is hampering conservation of wetlands and bird communities dependent on them. proper management of the wetland beyond the protected areas is essential to conserve wetland birds in nepal. key words: wetlands, birds, threatened, management wetland birds comprise a group of birds which have been studied for a long time. north america and the european countries have led the research in this field significantly. wildfowl and wetland trust and its pioneering work through sir peter scott on the cygnus spp. are well known long term studies done on waterfowls. in the early 60s, number of wetland birds declined in the americas and european countries. the loss of wetland habitat, globally, is of prime concern and is the major driving force for developing a conservation strategy (denny 1994). as a result efforts by private, public and non profit organizations have helped to restore their numbers significantly in these countries. a total of 863 species of birds has been reliably recorded in nepal (bcn 2008). of these nearly 200 species of birds are considered to be heavily dependent on wetland habitats (grimmett et al., 2000). bhandari and shrestha (1994), sah (1997), bhandari (1998) made some pioneering studies on the wetlands of nepal. bhandari et al. (1994), karki (2002), bhandari (2005) and bhandari and gea (2007), karki et al. (2008). wetland bird communities have been studied at chitwan (halliday, 1982). many previous studies have looked on overall wetland biodiversity (bpp, 1995a, shrestha, 1993, bhandari, 1998, sah, 1997) and few studies particularly on wetland birds (baral 1998, 2004, gyawali, 2003, hungden and clarkson, 2003, tamang, 2003). so far the studies of wetland birds seem to have concentrated into a specific area or region but no study of all the status, distribution and their habitat requirements in the country. this paper aims to update status of wetland birds in nepal with facts based on recent observation. study area this paper touches all types of wetland birds in nepal. the main study areas include the various wetlands in lowland nepal including four ramsar sites. references have been taken from published literature on different high altitude lakes of nepal. methods every year in the month of january, midwinter water bird counting has been done in nepal since 1987. while the site coverage and number of participants have varied over the years, there are some consistent patterns deciphered from a careful analysis of these data. these data compared with other records sent by visiting birders in the lowland wetlands at different times of years and recent bird conservation nepal led projects are the main sources of our interpretation. population estimates are derived from maximum counts recorded on the above data sets multiplied by suitable wetlands. data on threatened wetland birds are derived from baral and inskipp (2004). results nearly 200 species of birds in the country are found heavily dependent on wetland habitats. of these almost all except seven species are found in the lowland nepal (bhandari, 1998). many of the wetland birds found in nepal are migratory in nature (inskipp and inskipp, 1991). although nepal receives 35 varieties of ducks, only five are known to breed in the country (table 1). 1 bird conservation nepal, kathmandu, po box 12465 e-mail: hem.baral@gmail.com 31 banko janakari, special issue table 1: list of breeding ducks in nepal with their estimated population and region species estimated no. region lesser whistling-duck dendrocygna javanica <10000 pairs terai wetlands ruddy shelduck tadorna ferruginea <100 pairs high altitude lakes comb duck sarkidiornis melanotos <50 pairs terai wetlands mallard anas platyrhynchos <5 pairs titi lake, mustang, midhills cotton pygmy-goose nettapus coromandelianus <1000 pairs terai wetlands water birds, both migratory and non-migratory, are important components of the biodiversity of wetland throughout the world (davidson and delany, 2000). the reduction of usable vegetative area reduces the food availability and the suitable breeding areas to birds (francl and schnell 2002). consequently, two species of possibly resident wetland birds have become extinct from the country as early as late 1800 (inskipp and inskipp, 1991, baral and inskipp 2004). these are pink-headed duck rhodonessa caryophyllacea and imperial heron ardea imperialis. the pink-headed duck is critically endangered and was once locally distributed in the wetlands of the nepal, india, bangladesh and myanmar (birdlife international 2001). nearly a dozen wetland species that are recorded in nepal have been listed as globally threatened (birdlife international, 2008). at a national level, as many as 44 wetland species have been considered threatened because of habitat loss and damage, water pollution, fish poisoning, hunting and trapping, food shortages due to overfishing, and disturbance and destruction of nesting and feeding sites (baral and inskipp, 2004). about two thirds of wetland birds at risk on national level are either critically threatened or endangered. these high threat categories are of big conservation concern for wetland birds. a revised list of nationally threatened species is given below (table 2). critically endangered species remarks comb duck sarkidiornis melanotos resident blyth's kingfisher alcedo hercules resident ruddy kingfisher halcyon coromanda summer visitor; possibly resident great thick-knee esacus recurvirostris resident * indian skimmer rynchops albicollis irregular visitor, has possibly bred gull-billed tern gelochelidon nilotica winter visitor and passage migrant caspian tern sterna caspia winter visitor and passage migrant river tern sterna aurantia resident and partial migrant black-bellied tern sterna acuticauda resident partial summer visitor brahminy kite haliastur indus resident lesser fish eagle ichthyophaga humilis resident great bittern botaurus stellaris winter visitor and passage migrant black-necked stork ephippiorhynchus asiaticus resident * greater adjutant leptoptilos dubius non-breeding visitor black-tailed crake porzana bicolor resident endangered species *swamp francolin francolinus gularis resident blue-eared kingfisher alcedo meninting resident *sarus crane grus antigone resident indian courser cursorius coromandelicus resident * pallas's fish eagle haliaeetus leucoryphus winter visitor and passage migrant white-tailed eagle haliaeetus albicilla winter visitor and passage migrant grey-headed fish eagle ichthyophaga ichthyaetus resident spot-billed pelican pelecanus philippensis non-breeding visitor * lesser adjutant leptoptilos javanicus resident vulnerable species falcated duck anas falcate winter visitor table 2: list of nationally threatened wetland birds with their status (adapted from baral and inskipp, 2004) baral 32 banko janakari, special issue conservation issues wetlands biodiversity in nepal and wetland birds face a wide range of threats in nepal (iucn nepal 2004). as well as habitat loss and damage, many species are suffering from food shortages due to over-fishing, fish poisoning, water pollution, invasive weeds, hunting and trapping, and disturbance and destruction of feeding and nesting sites. as a result the large percentage (64%) of wetland birds at risk (29 species) are considered critically threatened or endangered. some wetland species have shown precipitous declines over recent years, for example brahminy kite haliastur indus, caspian tern sterna caspia, black-bellied tern, s. acuticauda and river tern s. aurantia. the annual midwinter waterbird counts have highlighted the sharp drop in waterfowl numbers at the internationally important wetland at koshi tappu wildlife reserve and koshi barrage. this site is by far the most important wetland staging post for migrating waders and waterbirds in nepal (inskipp and inskipp, 1991) and one of the most important in asia (scott, 1989). bird richness and populations have declined in both ghodaghodi lake complex and bees hazaari tal in the recent years. jagdishpur reservoir, considered to be in the best form and with great diversity of birds only a year ago (baral, 2008), is now seriously threatened because of anthropogenic activities. bird monitoring data from the reservoir indicates a rapid decline in both richness and populations of wetland birds. wetland habitats at koshi are threatened by the large population of subsistence farmers and fishermen living in close proximity to the area. furthermore wetlands birds are heavily affected by the profound coverage of invasive weeds particularly by water hyacinth eichhornia crassipes, water lettuce pistia stratiotes and ipomoea carnea subspecies fistolusa in and around koshi tappu ramsar site (dahal, 2007). these invasive weeds pose serious threats to the wetlands birds since they cover the water surface of pools and lakes reducing the feeding areas for ducks and other wetland birds (baral et al 2004). in bees hazaari tal and ghodaghodi lake complex, wrong management prescriptions have resulted further decline of wetland birds. drainage for conversion to agriculture; disturbance and poisoning that not only kills fish, but also birds that feed on fish and aquatic insects are all causing wetland losses and damage (baral and inskipp, 2004). moreover increased incidence of hunting and changes in agriculture practice has also decimated the wetland bird populations all over nepal. increased and indiscriminate use of agrochemicals, direct disposal of industrial effluents to wetland system are also silently killing our wetland dependent birds. sharp decreases in wetland birds have also been recorded in the rivers, streams, lakes and ponds of chitwan national park, another important area for wintering, breeding and passage migrant wetland birds. for example, figures available over a ten year period from 1989 to 1999 for three wetlands in chitwan national park revealed a decline in wetland dependent birds (baral, 1999). tyabji (2002) detailed the disappearance of bird species and the steep drop in their numbers in chitwan’s rivers and streams over the past 15 years. water pollution from the untreated effluent from the towns of bharatpur and * baer's pochard aythya baeri winter visitor and passage migrant water rail rallus aquaticus winter visitor and passage migrant baillon's crake porzana pusilla winter visitor, passage migrant watercock gallicrex cinerea monsoon visitor * wood snipe gallinago nemoricola breeding resident eurasian curlew numenius arquata winter visitor and passage migrant ibisbill ibidorhyncha struthersii breeding resident long-billed plover charadrius placidus winter visitor and passage migrant yellow-wattled lapwing vanellus malarbaricus winter visitor grey-headed lapwing hoplopterus (=vanellus) cinereus winter visitor darter anhinga melanogaster breeding resident black-headed ibis threskiornis melanocephalus resident eurasian spoonbill platalea leucorodia passage migrant and winter visitor painted stork mycteria leucocephala non-breeding visitor asian openbill anastomas oscitans resident and summer visitor black stork ciconia nigra winter visitor baral 33 banko janakari, special issuebaral narayanghat and the bhrikuti paper and pulp mill; river poisoning to obtain fish; the increased use of pesticides, particularly on the rice crop; human disturbance, and the spread of water hyacinth on lakes and ponds, all threaten the habitat of chitwan’s water birds (dahal, 1999, subedi, 2001, roberts et al., 2002, tyabji, 2002). wetlands in the pokhara valley which are unprotected are even more at risk: from drainage, diversion, obstruction, siltation, encroachment, infrastructure development, land use changes, pollution and poison to kill fish (karki et al. 1997, karki and thapa 1999, subedi 2003) resulting in a marked reduction in bird numbers and species diversity since the 1970s (carol inskipp pers. obs.). the haphazard building construction and invasive alien species eg water hyacinth eichhornia crassipes are also major threats to lakes like phewa tal in pokhara. one important factor that is not touched by many is the effect of climate change to wetland habitat and the birds that depend on it. as many lakes and rivers are drying up, it is almost natural that many species of birds that depend on such habitats will be affected badly. there is much to study on the impact of climate change to birds in our country (baral, 2002). all these factors show a grave scenario for the existence of biologically rich wetlands and birds dependent on them. conclusion nepal has been a world leader in conservation often bringing some innovative, implementable and sustainable programmes and ideas. these include community forestry programme and participatory management of annapurna conservation area and kanchenjungha conservation area. nepal government has also shown commitments to conserve its exceptionally rich biological diversity by setting aside nearly 18% of the country’s land under protected or semi-protected status (karki et al., 2008). in current years, most innovative minds have taken into insurgency; some remaining brains have been drained outside. a world conservation leader before, now nepal is not even a good follower of its own invention. the capacity to look at problems with critical review do not seem to be occurring. because of lack of adaptation to a changing scenario especially during the insurgency, a great deal of nepal’s wildlife has been exterminated. the huge sum that was invested for nearly four decades to nature conservation dwindled in the last 10 years. this also surely has affected wetland fauna of nepal, birds are no exception. the birds and biodiversity of koshi tappu wetlands, ghodaghodi lake complex, jagdishpur reservoir and bees hazaari tal are thought to be limited within the boundaries. at koshi tappu, major waterfowls habitat in upstream and down stream of koshi river are not protected which poses a severe threats to birdlife within the reserve. this is where the biggest mistake has been created and so far not realized by authorities. as birds know no boundaries, they are dependent on the agricultural fields, smaller wetlands and human habitation as much as they do to these larger wetlands. they often move from one wetland to another wetland in search of food, mate and shelter. and if we just start thinking saving one wetland is going to protect all the birds there, then we are doing a failed attempt! a small island without any connectivity is always a threat for a viable population of wildlife (ausden 2004). so the lesson is to conserve the landscape and invest resources in education, awareness and livelihoods of local people that live in these landscapes. the other important issue is so called conservationists’ perception on how to manage the wetlands. with the increasing concern of global biodiversity values of the wetland habitat, nepal government developed and approved the national biodiversity strategy (hmg/n 2002) and nepal’s national wetland policy (hmg/n 2003) for the future conservation of wetlands. however there are no guidelines available yet to properly implement the policy. best wetland management may be done following the traditional knowledge and in some case promoting their management style. management of wetland habitat can be case specific and a good manager requires a detailed study of the sites involved. acknowledgements i would like to thank all the volunteer participants of midwinter waterbird count who have kindly sent data as part of wetlands international. bhagwan raj dahal, darwin project officer at koshi tappu wildlife reserve and suchit basnet, chairperson of nepal rare birds committee has kindly commented on this paper. 34 banko janakari, special issue references ausden, m. 2004. habitat management in sutherland, w. j., newton, i. and green, r. e. 2004. bird ecology and conservation (ed.). oxford university press, oxford, 329-369. baral, h. s. 1999. decline of wetland dependent birds in nepal with reference to chitwan. danphe 8(1): 4-5. baral, h. s. 2002. impact of climate change on nepal’s birds. danphe 11(4): 6. baral, h. s. 2004. population status, breeding and habitat preference of lesser adjutant in koshi tappu wildlife reserve and surrounding areas, east nepal. birding asia 2: 82. baral, h. s. 2005. avian fauna in high altitude lakes of nepal himalaya. high altitude wetlands of nepal: views and reviews on conservation (ed), bishnu bhandari. the proceedings of the national workshop on high altitude wetlands of nepal, kathmandu, 53-58. baral, h. s. 2007. ornithological importance of the gosaikunda area.. gosainthan: a sacred wetland in nepal.bhandari, b. and gea, j. j nepal wetland society, kathmandu, 45-49. baral, h. s. 2008. birds of jagdishpur reservoir, nepal. forktail 24: 115-119. baral, h. s. and inskipp, c. 2004. the state of nepal’s birds 2004. kathmandu: department of national parks and wildlife conservation, bird conservation nepal and iucn nepal. bcn press release 2008. new bird for nepal found in koshi tappu wildlife reserve. 4 june 2008. bhandari, b. 1998. an inventory of nepal’s terai wetlands. final report. wetlands and heritage unit, iucn nepal, kathmandu. bhandari, b. 2005. high altitude wetlands of nepal: views and reviews on conservation. the proceedings of the national workshop on high altitude wetlands of nepal, kathmandu. bhandari, b. and gea, j. j. 2007. gosainthan: a sacred wetland in nepal. nepal wetland society, kathmandu. bhandari, b., shrestha, t. b. and mceachern, j. 1994. safeguarding wetlands in nepal. (ed) proceedings of the national workshop on wetlands management in nepal, 3-5 march 1993. iucn nepal, kathmandu. birdlife international 2001. threatened birds of asia. cambridge, uk: birdlife international. bpp. 1995a. biodiversity assessment of terai wetlands. biodiversity profile project publication no. 1. department of national parks and wildlife conservation, ministry of forests and soil conservation, hmg, nepal. davidson, n. and delany, s. 2000. biodiversity impacts of large dams: water birds. wetlands international, netherland. pp. 1-16. dahal, b. r. 2007. effects of water hyacinth eichhornia crassipes on aquatic birds at koshi tappu wildlife reserve, south-east nepal. danphe 16(1): 64-65. dahal, m. 1999. poisoning in dhungre river, royal chitwan national park. danphe 8(1) denny, p. (1994). biodiversity and wetlands. wetland ecology and management, 3: 55-61. francl, k. e. and schnell, g. d. (2002). relationships of human disturbance, bird communities, and plant communities along the land-water interface of a large reservoir. environmental monitoring and assessment, 73: 67-93, gyawali, n.2003. population status and habitat preference of lesser adjutant leptoptilos javanicus in royal chitwan national park, central nepal. danphe 12(3/4):8. halliday, j. 1982. a study of the ecological distribution of resident and migratory birds along the rapti and narayani rivers in the royal chitwan national park, november december 1982. unpublished. hmgn/mfsc 2002. nepal biodiversity strategy. ministry of forests and soil conservation, his majesty’s government of nepal. singh durbar, kathmandu. hmgn/mfsc. 2003. national wetland policy 2003. ministry of forests and soil conservation, his majesty’s government of nepal. singh durbar, kathmandu. hundgen, k. and clarkson, c. 2003. field observations on the lesser adjutant leptoptilos javanicus at chitwan. danphe 12(3/4): 7-8. baral 35 banko janakari, special issue inskipp, c. and inskipp, t. 1991. a guide to the birds of nepal. second edition. christopher helm, london. iucn nepal 2004. a review of the status and threats to wetlands in nepal. iucn nepal, kathmandu. kafle, g., balla, m. k., baral, h. s. and thapa, i. 2007. ghodaghodi lake area: resources, opportunities and conservation. danphe 16(3): 16. karki, j. b. 2002. national report on status of high altitude wetlands, lakes and other water bodies above 3,500 meters in nepal. a report to the department of national parks and wildlife conservation. ministry of forest and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. karki, a. b. and thapa, k. b. 1999. khaste and other wetlands in pokhara valley. danphe 8(1):6. karki, a. b., shrestha, a. and rana, e. b. 1997. conservation perspective of deepang tal, pokhara. danphe: 6(2): 2. karki, j. b., siwakoti, m., pradhan, n. s. 2008. high altitude ramsar sites in nepal: criteria and future ahead. the initiation 1(1): 9-15. roberts, j., tamang, k. r., kumal, s. r., mahato, r. d., gurau, n. bdr., barlow, a., malakar, g., mcdougal, c. and cotton, m. 2002. wetlands international waterfowl census january 2001, west rapti and narayani rivers. danphe 11(1): 2930. scott, d. a. 1989. a directory of asian wetlands. international union for conservation of nature and natural resources. gland, switzerland and cambridge, u.k. sah, j. p. 1997. koshi tappu wetlands: nepal’s ramsar site. iucn, bangkok, thailand. shrestha, t. k. 1993. fauna of wetlands in nepal. in safeguarding wetlands in nepal (ed). b.bhandari, t. b. shrestha and j. mceachern. proceedings of the national workshop on wetlands management in nepal, 3-5 march 1993. iucn-nepal: 118-135. subedi, k. r. 2001. threat to the birds at royal chitwan national park. danphe 10 (3/4):4. subedi, p. 2003. waterbird diversity in pokhara valley, nepal. danphe 12(3/4):5-7. tamang, k. r. 2003. notes on the breeding of lesser adjutant leptoptilos javanicus in chitwan. danphe 12(3/4):9. tyabji, h. 2002. the crisis of the rivers and streams in royal chitwan national park. danphe: 11(1): 30-31. wetlands international. 2006. waterbird population estimates –fourth edition. wetlands international, wageningen, the netherlands. baral final vol 16-1.pmd 1 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal desertification: a global concern on the fifth june 2006, world environment day was celebrated all over the world with the slogan “don’t desert drylands!” that calls for every nation to protect and manage biological resource and their diversity in arid and semi-arid land. dry lands covering 40% of the earth are thought to be home of nearly 2 billion people i.e. one third of world’s population. the year 2006 has especial global importance while talking about the issue on land degradation and desertification. this year has been declared as the international year of desert and desertification and the tenth anniversary of the ratification of the united nations convention to combat desertification (unccd). the convention is considered as the internationally recognized and legally binding instrument that addresses the problem of land degradation in dry land and has universal memberships of 191 parties. the convention played a key role on global effort to eradicate poverty, achieve sustainable development and reach millennium development goals. in this regard, every year 17 june is celebrated as ‘world day’ to combat desertification. in june 1994, unccd was adopted and opened for signature, from october 1994 to october 1995. it entered into force on 26 december 1996, 90 days after the fiftieth instrument of ratification or accession was deposited. nepal participated in the preparatory process of convention and signed it on 12 october 1995 and deposited its instruments of ratification on 15 october 1996. consequently, the convention entered into force in nepal on 13 january 1997. nepal is facing severe environmental problems relating to land degradation. it has been reported that approximately 0.4,1.5 and 11.7 percent of the total watershed in nepal are in very poor, poor and fair conditions respectively. it is also estimated that about 1.8 million tons of plant nutrients are removed due to crop harvest and soil erosion processes. out of this, only 0.3 million tons of organic and mineral fertilizers replenish while the rest is permanently taken out of the soil thereby depleting land productivity. in nepal, land use changes have occurred as a result of both natural process as well as human activities. the forest area has deceased from 42.4% in 1988 to 2 39.6% in 1999. furthermore, nepal losses over 240 million cubic meter of fertile top soil every year. siltation problem has been seen in the plains due to loss of soil in the mountains leading to rise of riverbeds by 10 to 30 centimetres in the plain. restoring soil loss by erosion is a slow process; it takes almost 500 years for just 2.5 cm of soil to form. the expanding riverbeds and overlay of sand and silt on the productive land of the terai in the south are growing concern of the terai people. nepal’s himalayas are geologically young and fragile. although nepal has no desertification problems in the form of dry land, it is reported that about 10,000ha of land in the western himalayan districts such as dolpa and mustang features a process of desertification in the form of cold desert. the un millennium ecosystem assessment notes that it is easier to prevent desertification than to reverse it. population pressure and improper land management practices are the principal cause of land degradation leading to desertification. better management of crops, more careful irrigation, and strategies to provide non-farming job for people living in the dry lands could help to address the problem. being a party of unccd, nepal has done many efforts to mitigate environmental problems. in order to mitigate the problem of land degradation problem in nepal, the government has launched various preventive as well as remedial measures such as establishment of department of soil conservation and watershed management in 1974 and formulation of the soil and watershed conservation act (1982) and its regulation (1985). on the other hand, community forestry development programme has been a successful policy initiative in controlling land degradation problems especially in the mid-hills of nepal. besides, the forest act (1993) and the forest regulations (1995), the environmental protection act (1997) and the environmental protection regulations (1997) have also emphasised the need of environmental conservation and management in nepal. in recent years, nepal has shown significant progress in managing forests in the middle hills with continuation of the community forestry programme. on the contrary, only little efforts have been done in managing high altitude forests and dry land pasture, which provides 36% of the total digestible nutrient to the livestock and harbours unique biodiversity, rich cultural heritage, and fragile ecosystem. let’s commit ourselves to make aware everyone of this issue and take part in combating desertification in the world so as to fulfil the millennium development goal. final special issue.pmd 10 banko janakari, special issue wise use of wetlands in nepal b.b. bhandari1 wetland was a nascent term for common people until recently. the same holds true for nepal too. it is said that only in the 1970’s it appeared in the oxford dictionary. before that wetlands were known by different names such as lake, pond, marsh, swamp, bog, fen etc. wetlands were named according to the landscape in which they were found. therefore, even today, the term “wetland” does not have even a universally accepted definition because of the plurality of users, regional variations, biological diversities and richness in cultural values. the meaning vary from place to place and person to person. it has many forms but the common content, i.e. water, which is the bloodstream of wetland. some of the common meanings that are in use around the world are briefly presented below. 1. a wetland is simply an area that is covered with water for a part of the day or year. 2. wetland is a place where people can get their feet wet without being able to swim. 3. wetland is neither a firm “land” nor a body of open water; hence they occupy terrestrial position between land and water. the ecosystems that develop on such lands are dominated by the persistent presence of excess water, or saturated, or has the water table at, near or above the land surface. 4. the important feature is that a wetland has to be wet. however, they do not have to be wet all the time. they become biologically the most productive when they dry out periodically. 5. the convention on wetlands of international importance especially as waterfowl habitat (ramsar, iran, 1971) has defined wetlands in a broader sense. article 1 of the text of the convention stipulates, “for the purpose of this convention, wetlands are areas of marsh, fen, pet lands or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceeds six meters.” while designating suitable wetlands for inclusion in the list of wetlands of international importance, “the boundaries of each wetland shall be precisely described and also delimited on a map and they may incorporate riparian and coastal zones adjacent to wetlands and its lands or bodies of marine water deeper than six meters at low tide lying within the wetlands, especially where those have importance as waterfowl habitat” (article 2.1 of the text of the convention on wetlands). the paper is intended to acquaint the readers with the current status of the wetland activities in nepal, especially its global importance, distribution and factors responsible for their loss and deterioration. 1 chief technical advisor, conservation and sustainable use of wetlands in nepal (csuwn) project, ministry of forests and soil conservation, babar mahal, kathmandu, nepal. correspondence address: iucn nepal, p. o. box 3923, kupondole, lalitpur, kathmandu, nepal. telephone: 5526-391and 5528-781; e-mail: bishnu@iucn.org.np. the paper is based on the presentation and discussion with the key governmental officials of the ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc) and various departments in the interaction program organized on the 9th december 2008. the paper attempts to throw light on nepal’s stride towards the wise use of wetlands in the country. the paper begins with the statement that wetland is a nascent term, which means many things to many people. in general wetlands are taken as the area covered with water for a part of the day or year. biologically wetlands become the most productive when they dry out periodically. the ramsar convention defines wetlands as the “area of marsh, fen, peatlands or water”. the global importance of nepal’s wetlands are manifested by the presence of the rare and endangered species of flora and fauna, rest place for migratory birds, waterway for the migratory fishes and availability of wild native rice. nepal in its journey to the wise use of wetlands has passed through the four stages; primary, awakening, take-off and mass consciousness stages. nepal’s wetlands have been the victim of human conversion, over-exploitation, pollution of water, invasion of invasive species, human encroachment and deposition of sediments. nepal has already designated wetlands in the ramsar list and adopted a national wetland policy. the paper suggests that the loss of wetlands can be ameliorated by developing a national wetland act and national inventory, forming an interdisciplinary body to look over the issue, controlling invasive species etc. key words: wise use, ramsar site, wetlands, wetland loss, invasive species 11 banko janakari, special issue it also summarizes challenges and opportunities for catalyzing the wise use of wetlands in nepal. global importance of nepal’s wetlands nepal is a mountainous country dotted with small wetlands such as rivers, lakes, ponds, marshes, swampy lands, irrigation canal, fishponds and reservoirs. even though they are small, their strategic importance is no less than any other big wetlands. the global importance of nepal’s wetlands can be summarized as follows: 1. habitat for endangered species: several globally endangered and vulnerable species of fauna are found in the wetlands of nepal. some selected species are briefly described below • asiatic wild buffalo (bubalus bubalis) (iucn category = endangered and cites appendix i) is found only in the koshi tappu area in nepal. it is rare in asia and is the last surviving population of wild water buffalo in nepal. the wild buffalo is the progenitor of domestic water buffalo. • greater one-horned rhinoceros (rhinoceros unicornis): rhinoceros belongs to the iucn category of endangered species and falls in appendix i of cites. its habitat is marshy grasslands and riverine forests along the rivercourses of central and western nepal. they are terrestrial but spend considerable time wallowing during summer months. a healthy population is found in chitwan national park. • gangetic dolphin (platanista gangetica): dolphin is found in the karnali, koshi and narayani rivers. the construction of barrage and dams are the biggest threats to this animal. it is grouped as vulnerable in the iucn category and is in cites appendix i. • swamp deer (cervus duvauceli duvauceli): categorized as indeterminate in iucn category and included in appendix i, it is found surviving in the parks of chitwan, bardia and kailali. • gharial (gravialis gangeticus): the gharial is an endangered species throughout its range. gharial and mugger crocodiles are the largest reptiles. the later is threatened in nepal. • bull frog (rana tigrina): bullfrog has been listed in appendix ii of cites. himalayan newt (thakthake in nepali; tylototriton verrucosus) is endemic to nepal and the common otter (lutra perspicillata) is vulnerable under the iucn category. 2. rest place for migratory birds: the wetlands of nepal serve as rest areas for the migrant birds as well as habitat for some globally threatened birds. for examples, demoiselle crane (anthropoides virgo) is the guest bird of nepal. this bird breeds in mongolia, northern china and southern russia. they cross the himalayas to go to the indian sub-continent, especially in september and october. they stop over a few days in nepal. they travel about 300 km /day covering about 3,000-4,000 km in a year. their rest place is rice fields, floodplains and fords of bardia and kailali districts. other birds that use nepal as their short rest place are (1) cinereous vulture, (2) common greenshank, (3) common teal, (4) eurasian curlew, (5) godwall, (6) great cormorant, (7) greater spotted eagle, (8) imperial eagle, (9) kentish plover, (10) northern pintail, (11) northern shoveler, (12) pallas gull and (13) ruddy shelduck (hem sagar baral, per. comm.). the bar-headed goose (anser indicus) is reported to be flying above mt. everest at the altitude of 9,375 m, which is undoubtedly the highest flying migratory bird in the world and ibis ibis (ibidorhyncha struthersii), which breeds in the braided river valleys of himalaya is declining in the region and can be an indicator species for climate change in the himalayan region (baral, 2008). likewise, it was reported in the newspaper that the syke’s nightjar (caprimulgus mahrattenis) is a frequent visitor to nepal that breeds in pakistan and northwest india and winters in south of central china. 3. riverine wetlands: the salmon lives in the sea but spawns in the river. the eel lives in the river but spawn in the sea. likewise, fish and pawn need wetland for spawning and then migrate through river. nepal’s riverine wetlands are the waterways for the migratory fishes. similarly, himalyan trout (schizothoraz molesworthii) is found in the cold waters of the himalayas. 4. sources of genetic materials: rice is a staple diet of over 3 billion people. many commercially bred-varieties of rice are in use. wetlands harbour 3 species of wild rice: oryza rufipogan, o. officinales and o. nivara. these varieties are recorded in the ajingara swamp of kapilvastu. hygroryza aristata is the wild relative of rice varieties found in the bhandari 12 banko janakari, special issue terai. these species have the potential to provide genetic materials for the improvement of commercial varieties. a commercially bred crop variety has a life span of 5-10 years before new genetic materials are required to improve its ability to combat pests and diseases. evolution of wetland activities the wetland conservation in nepal was formally inaugurated in 1987 by dnpwc (department of national parks and wildlife conservation) when koshi tappu wildlife reserve was designated as the list of wetlands of international importance, popularly known as ramsar site. the reserve is the first site from nepal designated as ramsar site. a quick glance over the past history of wetland activities can be summarized as having passed through following four stages. 1. primary stage: the 1970’s is the primary stage at which koshi tappu wildlife reserve was established and gazetted in 1976 along the koshi river covering riparian areas of three districts of sunsari, saptari and udaipur in eastern nepal. the reserve was protected as the habitat of the last surviving species of asiatic wild water buffalo. the reserve later became the first ramsar site of nepal. 2. awakening stage: the awakening stage began in 1980’s with the designation of koshi tappu wildlife reserve as the first ramsar site in nepal. the designation highlighted nepal’s commitment to the conservation and wise use of wetlands. this was the first formal commencement of the wise use and conservation of wetlands and their resources in nepal. 3. take-off stage: during the 1990’s, wetland efforts took off the ground when the first national workshop was organized on wetland management. systematic efforts were underway to collect data and information on wetlands. a nepal-brewed methodology for inventorying wetlands of nepal’s terai wetlands was developed and employed to collect data. various action research works began in this period. this period is the watershed era in the history of wetland conservation and management in nepal. 4. mass consciousness stage: during this stage, i.e. 2000’s, eight wetland sites were declared as the ramsar sites of nepal; the government of nepal adopted national wetland policy in 2003; research works on high altitude wetlands were undertaken; gef grant was awarded to nepal for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands in nepal. despite our tremendous efforts, the loss and deterioration of wetlands and their resources is continuing in an alarming way. thanks are due to the efforts of scientists, planners, managers and practitioners. this is the reason why wetland has become cause ce’le’bre, not only in nepal but also in the international arena. major events on the wise use of wetlands are presented in box a. box a: milestones of wetland activities in nepal 1976 – ktwr established and gazetted as a habitat of asian wild buffalo 1987 – ktwr nominated for inclusion in the ramsar list 1988 – designation of ktwr as the first ramsar site of nepal 1992 – establishment of an informal wetland group under iucn nepal 1993 – national workshop on wetland management in nepal 1994 – publication of a treatise “safeguarding wetlands in nepal” 1996 – an inventory of nepal’s terai wetlands (interim report) 1998 – setup of wetland database in iucn 1998 – revision of aquatic life protection act of 1961 2003 – endorsement of the national wetlands policy 2003 – designation of three ramsar sites 2001 – publication of the inventory of glaciers and glacial lakes 2006 – publication of monographs on high altitude wetlands 2007 – designation of four high altitude wetlands in the ramsar list 2007 – five-year gef wetland project on board 2008 – designation of mai pokhari as the 9th ramsar site sources: various sources including personal knowledge bhandari 13 banko janakari, special issuebhandari loss of wetlands lakes and ponds are facing formidable threats to their survival because of the following problems, which are designated by the acronym of copies. c = conversion of wetlands for other purposes o= over-exploitation of resources p = pollution of water i = invasion of alien species e = encroachment to the area s = sedimentation of the water body i. conversion of wetlands for other purposes: nepal is a country whose staple diet is rice and its production gets the topmost priority. that is the reason why marshy and waterlogged areas are immediately converted into rice fields for paddies. in some places, they are converted into fishery ponds. in urban area they are filled-up and then used for real state or other purposes. they were left untouched only in places where neither rice could be grown nor fisheries raised. from this perspective it can be said that these waterlogged areas and marches are considered as the number one public enemy. previously, they were considered counter-cultural and counterproductive. every wetland was the victim of diversion, drainage, dredging (like many riverine wetlands) and development (conversions) due to above reasons for other purposes. those destroyers were regarded as the social heroes. ii. over-exploitation of resources: wetlands and allied resources have been over-used in many places due to conversion, pollution, invasion of alien species, encroachment and sedimentation. this is further aggravated by growing population, abject poverty and conflict of different nature. iii. pollution of water: many of our wetlands have become the victim of natural as well as socioeconomic pollutions such as direct discharge of sewage and domestic waste water, run-off from the surrounding areas, deforestation at the watershed scales and dumping of rubbish into the wetland sites. the burning examples can be seen in the bagmati river and sacred lakes like gosainkunda, where over 20,00 pilgrims take sacred bath on the day of janai purnima every year in the monsoon season. iv. invasion of alien species: wetlands are heavily infested by alien or invasive species of plants. this is a serious problem for the conservation of wetlands and their resources in nepal. some of the species that have invaded our wetlands are (1) water hyacinth (jal kumbhi, eichornia crassipes), (2) kumbhika (pistia stratiotes), (3) jaljambhu (alternanthera philoxeroides), (4) besharm (ipomoea carnea sub sp fistulosa), (5) karaunte grasses (leersia hexandra), (6) lahare banmara (mikania micrantha), (7) lajjawati (mimosa pudica) and (8) amla patte jhar (myriophyllum aquaricum). v. encroachment to the area: many of our wetlands have been in the state of claustrophobia primarily due to human intervention for human welfare. the burning examples can be seen in many sites, where they have been invaded for settlement and farming, especially rice field such as in the bagmati and ghodaghodi tal. vi. sedimentation of the water body: the gradual deposit of silt, sediments and debris in any wetland sites are threatening the survival of wetlands. the gradual deposit of moraine, debris and others in the lake like the tilicho of mustang district and the process of sedimentation have further exacerbated the conditions of many lakes and ponds in nepal’s terai as well as mid-hills. spatial distribution no documentation on the overall picture of wetlands and their resources in nepal is available. neither has any organization initiated this kind of work nor is it in the offing. only piece-meal works are available and these include the inventories of nepal’s terai, the kathmandu valley and the himalayan region. however, these bits and pieces of works are not enough to draw up the general picture of wetlands in nepal particularly their number, forms, types, extent, status etc. nor is it possible to develop a national classification system of wetlands in nepal. therefore, it is difficult to integrate wetland issues into national planning framework and processes. some of the piecemeal works related to inventorization of wetlands are briefly presented below. i) inventory of nepal’s terai an inventory of nepal’s terai was prepared by iucn nepal. the methodology was developed natively in collaboration with different agencies and organizations and was pre-tested before its adoption by iucn nepal to collect data from the terai. the 14 banko janakari, special issue glaciers glacial lake basins no area no area koshi 779 1,410 1,062 25 gandaki 1,025 2,030 338 12 karnali 1,361 1,740 907 37.6 mahakali 87 143 16 0.4 total 3,252 5,323 2,323 75 source: mool et al. 2001:75-110) development region frequency percent eastern development region 18 11% central development region 37 23% western development region 34 21% mid-western development region 12 7% far-western development region 62 38% total 163 100 source: bhandari (1998) data recorded in the inventory are the primary ones and were collected by teams of experts representing various disciplines. the inventory presents detailed information of 163 wetlands in the terai. although it is not a comprehensive inventory, it is the first attempt at gathering information with the help of an inter-disciplinary team. table 1 below presents the distribution of these wetland sites by development regions. the terai region of the far-western development region contains the maximum percentage of wetlands (38%) (bhandari, 1998). the inventory also records that kailali district has the highest percentage of wetlands (21%) with kanchanpur following with 16% of the sites in the terai (data not included in the table). table 1: the distribution of wetland in the terai similarly, iucn nepal has compiled a record of wetland sites covering all the ecological zones of nepal. the information was collected from secondary sources. their total number is 297 in which 133 (45%) are from low land. table 2: wetland distribution according to ecological zones district frequency percent bhaktapur 18 43% lalitpur 5 14% kathmandu 19 43% total 42 100 source: mope (2001) geographical zone n percent highland 78 26% mid-hills 86 29% lowland 133 45% ii) wetlands in the kathmandu valley the ministry of population and environment conducted a study of wetland sites of the kathmandu valley in 2001. the report summarizes the information of 42 sites in the valley. their distribution is given in table 2. kathmandu and bhaktapur have almost the same percentage of ponds (43%), slightly higher number of sites in kathmandu (19) than in bhaktapur (18). nagdah is the largest one (5 ha) in lalitpur. taudah and kamal pokhari are the second and third largest ones in kathmandu, having areas of 4 ha and 2 ha, respectively. the rest of the ponds are small and human constructed (data not presented in the table). table 3: wetlands in kathmandu valley iii) inventory of glaciers and glacial lakes icimod (international center for integrated mountain development) conducted a study on glaciers and glacial lakes (mool et al., 2001). the work is based on the digital data and images. according to the work, there are about 2,323 glacial lakes and 3,252 glaciers in nepal’s himalayas. these lakes and glaciers cover the total area of 5,428 km2 of which glacial lakes alone occupy only 75 km2 of the total glacial areas (mool et al. 2001). the highest freshwater lake is the tilicho at 4,917 m asl covering an area of 354 ha. this is probably the highest and the largest freshwater lake in the world. and there are many smaller glacial lakes above this altitude. for example, an unnamed lake at humla district is found at the altitude of 5,742 m (data not included in the table). table 4: basins, glaciers and glacial lakes in nepal’s himalayas nepal’s efforts towards wise use nepal made its first international commitment to the cause of wise use of wetland in nepal after it formally nominated the koshi tappu wildlife reserve for inclusion in the list of wetlands of international importance, popularly known as ramsar site in 1987 (table 1 for the overview of ramsar sites). since then nepal has been doing some wetland conservation activities in the country. as a contracting party it was involved in the revision of the definition of the phrase “wise use of wetalnds” in ramsar cop9 in 2005.the new revised definition is as follows: “wise use of wetlands is the maintenance of their ecological characteristics achieved through the implementation of bhandari 15 banko janakari, special issuebhandari sn name district area (ha) altitude (m) ramsar designation date 1 kosi tappu wildlife reserve sunsari 17,500 90 17.12.1988 2 beesh hazar tal chitwan 3,200 286 13.08.2003 3 ghodaghodi lake area kailali 2,563 205 13.08.2003 4. jagadishpur reservoir kapibastu 225 197 13.08.2003 5. gokyo lake complex solukhumbhu 7,770 975 23.09.2007 6. gosainkunda complex rasuwa 1,030 4,380 23.09.2007 7. rara lake mugu 1,583 2,990 23.09.2007 8. shey-phoksundo dolpa 494 3,612 23.09.2007 9. mai pokhari ilam 12 2,100 27.11.2008 table 5: an overview of the ramsar sites of nepal [note: it is learnt that the government of nepal has endorsed the proposal of designating khaptad lake as ramsar site and the instrument has already been submitted to the ramsar convention secretariat.] ecosystem approaches within the context of sustainable development” (ramsar convention secretariat, 2006). the additional guidance for the implementation of the wise use concept, which was adopted by the 5th meeting of the parties in 1995, made a recommendation to the contracting parties to: (1) adopt national policies (involving a review of legislation and institutional arrangement to deal with wetland matters; (2) develop the program of wetland inventory, monitoring, research, training, education and public awareness), and (3) take action at wetland sites (involving the development of integrated management plans covering every aspect of the wetlands and their relationships with the catchments (ramsar convention secretariat, 2006:49). since the accession to the convention on wetlands, nepal has made the following achievements: 1. designation of additional eight ramsar sites 2. development of an participatory methodology for inventorization 3. preparation of an inventory of some ecological zones 4. preparation of participatory site management plans 5. pilot project on collaborative management 6. integration of wetlands into national planning 7. capacity building at both national and local levels 8. mainstreaming of wetlands into production sectors the text of the convention on wetlands of international importance, especially waterfowl habitat (ramsar, iran 1971) properly known as the ramsar convention article 2.2 states, “wetlands should be selected for the list on account of their international significance in terms of ecology, botany, zoology, limnology or hydrology. in the first instances, wetlands of international importance to waterfowl at any season should be included”. in order to identify wetlands of international importance, nine criteria have been identified and reorganized into two groups; (1) group a: site containing representative, rare or unique wetland type and (2) group b: site of international importance for conserving biodiversity (criteria based on species and ecological communities, water birds, fish and other taxa). on the basis of these criteria, the wetlands are designated as ramsar sites by the convention on wetlands. until now, there are altogether 1,828 ramsar sites from 158 countries. challenges & opportunities the above-mentioned points help us come to a conclusion that efforts have been made towards the wise use of wetlands and allied resources in nepal but they are not adequate to catalyze their conservation and sustainable use. as is clear from the threats mentioned above, there is no royal road to the management and conservation of this invaluable resource. various fragmented laws and bylaws may not be useful to arrest the speed of wetland loss in nepal. when we want to solve the problem institutionally, non-coordination appears to be the biggest hurdle. however, theses obstacles should be seen as windows of opportunities. some of the problems we have faced while applying the wise use of wetlands on the ground give us opportunities for further championing the cause of wetland management and conservation. in the following table, the major problems and opportunities they provide us have been summarized for the benefit of readers. 16 banko janakari, special issue sn challenges opportunities 1 many fragmented and weak laws creating a lot of confusion on wetland management. gon/gef/undp has enumerated 31 acts and 17 policy, plans and strategies impacting wetlands. these laws deal only with some components of wetlands. and they contradict with one another. there is no single comprehensive wetland law dealing with wetlands. nor is there a legal definition of law in nepal. there is no legal basis for implementing national wetland policy. efforts should be made towards the development of a national wetland law 2 inadequacy of basic information about wetlands of nepal we have an inventory of the terai based on field observation & that of high himalayan wetlands based on digital mapping and images. these inventories do not cover the entire nepal. moreover, the mid-hills are void of any inventory and these inventories are not consistent with each other as they were prepared for different purposes. therefore, it is not possible to draw a general picture of nepal’s wetlands and integrate them into national planning process and framework. there is an urgent need of a comprehensive national wetland inventory 3 inadequacy of coordination among different government agencies and organizations. three ministries; mfsc, mac & mwr are directly related to the loss and gain of wetlands. besides the activities of other agencies and organizations also impact wetlands and their ecosystems. all have their claims on wetlands but none are responsible for their wise use. as a consequence, duplication, competition, stagnation and conflict are common on the ground. indeed, there is an institutional vacuum for the coordinated efforts at the implementation level. establishment of a national wetland committee at the apex & in order to catalyze coordinated efforts among various agencies and organizations, an inter-disciplinary body such as national wetlands committee at the apex and wetland development authorities at grass root levels should be established. continuation of loss, mismanagement, deterioration and loss of wetland resources humans and human actions are the primary cause for their degradation. improvement of human actions is the most important factor for the alleviation of wetland degradation. our approach should be to include human actions, i.e. promoting culture as a tool for managing wetland resources. 4 5 widespread prevalence of alien invasive species of plants wetlands are heavily infested by invasive species of plants mechanical removal is possible along with many cultural uses but still we lack concrete knowledge and information on their uses. participatory action research should be the agenda to understand their uses as resources. bhandari 17 banko janakari, special issuebhandari references baral, h. s. 2008. himalayan wetlands and birds. in water tower of asia: experiences in wetland management in nepal, edited by bishnu b. bhadari, seung oh suh and sung hoon woo. chanwon: gyeongnam ramsar environmental foundation (gref). belbase, n. and thapa, l. b. 2008. legislative and policy measures for conservation of wetlands: opportunities and challenges. in water tower of asia: experiences in wetland management in nepal, edited by bishnu b. bhadari, seung oh suh and sung hoon woo. chanwon: gyeongnam ramsar environmental foundation (gref). bhandari, b. 1998. an inventory of nepal’s terai’s wetlands. kathmandu: iucn nepal. gon. 2007. conservation and sustainable use of wetlands in nepal. gon/gef/undp karki, s. and thomas, s. 2004. a review of the status and threats to wetlands in nepal (ed). kathmandu: iucn nepal. mool, p. k., bajracharya, samjwal, r. and joshi, s.p. 2001. inventory of glaciers, glacial lakes and glacial lake outburst flood: monitoring and early warning systems in the hindu-kushhimalayan region. kathmandu: icimod. mope. 2001. wetlands of kathmandu valley: inventory and management strategy. final report. rcs. 2006. the ramsar convention manual: a guide to the convention onwetlands. 4th edition. gland: ramsar convention secretariat. corrected bankojanakari vol 17-2.pmd 1 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal conservation of red sandle wood (pterocarpus santalinus): need greater cooperation red sandle wood (pterocarpus santalinus) a small to medium-sized, deciduous tree is known to an endemic plant to india’s eastern ghats. the tree is slow-growing and highly valued for its heavily pigmented heartwood. the wood, with a deep red to purple colour, has greater economic importance. economically, the plant is well-known for its characteristic timber of exquisite colour, beauty and outstanding technical qualities the red wood yields a natural dye santalin, which is used in colouring pharmaceutical preparations and foodstuffs. it’s timber is highly prized for house posts and used for agriculture implements for poles, shafts and bent rims of carts and for picture frames, boxes and other joining purposes. the timber is especially used in the manufacture of musical instruments and carving into dolls and images. medicinally, the wood is reported to have a bitter in taste with a flavour, anhelmintic, aphrodisiac, alexiteric useful in vomiting, thirst, eye diseases, cures diseases concerned with blood, mental aberrations and ulcers. the wood of p. santalinus is considered astringent, tonic and diaphoretic. an infusion of the wood is used in the control of diabetes. a paste of the wood is used to give cooling effect, applied externally for inflammations and head-ache. the powder is excellent medicine for bilious affections and skin diseases. it has been also reported that the wood is used in treating headache, skin diseases, fever, boils, and scorpion sting and to improve sight. heart wood is known to possess isoflavone glucosidessavinin, calocedrin and triterpene. the lignan isolated from the heartwood is known to inhibit tumor necrosis factor–alpha production and tcell proliferation. the heart wood contains isoflavone glucosides and two antitumour lignans, viz., savinin and calocedrin. the ethanol extract of pterocarpus santalinus l.f. (fabaceae) showed gastroprotective effects. the species is classified as ‘endangered’ in the iucn red list, with threats involving a combination of over harvest and habitat alteration. hitherto, the species is not recorded in nepal but its handsome forest lies in the southern part of india. presently nepal is under rebuilding process of the nation and it is the transition period, people are waiting for permanent peace and development however the country is facing several problems notably timber smuggling from south to the north. nepal is a signatory member of cites, that compels it’s to 2 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 obey the rules and regulation mandated by the cites. red sandle wood is enlisted in appendix-ii of cites, it cannot be transported or marketed with taking especial permission from the country of origin. unless grater cooperation and collaboration among india and china nepal’s effort remains futile to combat smuggling of this valuable species. china, india and nepal are all parties to cites, and all three have legal and institutional instruments in place to address wildlife trade issues. however, illegal wood trade has become more organized, demand has increased for red sandal wood and their products and smugglers have more sophisticated systems for transporting consignments. in order to combat this worrying trend driven by increased, international demand, it is now high time for all the three countries to step up efforts such as enforcement at cross-national borders, regional level advocacy, policy analysis as well as collaboration with non-conventional stakeholders such as transport companies. final added vol 15-2.pmd 13 ethnoecology of natural environment in trans-himalayan region of west nepal m. b. rokaya1, m. r. shrestha1 and s. k. ghimire2 the present study was conducted during a period of two years from 2001 to 2003 in trans-himalayan region from mustang to dolpa region of west nepal. the indigenous people were found to be rich in ethnoecological knowledge regarding environment and plant resources. the locals catagorised six types of ecological land patterns such as nakri (forest land), penhri or pangri or thakri or dakri (land pattern), sim (marshy place or wetland), lung (agricultural land) and khangri (snowy land). the people also had the knowledge of plants in population level and species level and had their own way of classifying them on the basis of different criteria like presence or absence of flower, habit, habitat, morphology, etc. key words: ethnobotany; indigenous knowledge; folk nomenclature; folk classification the indigenous people in different parts of nepal himalayas have been utilizing physical and natural environment in various ways since the time immemorial. the indigenous people in a particular geographical area have perceived environmental component at the landscapes level, species level and population level in different ways and categorised and delimited these components according to their specific local systems and terms. ethnoecology, the applied field of ethnobotany, is a study of local knowledge with respect to surrounding environmental components. a broad definition given by toledo (1987) and modified by patton (1993) defined ethnoecology as ‘the study of all the knowledge, strategies, attitudes and skills that permit rural cultures to produce and reproduce the material conditions of their social existence through an appropriate management of natural resources.’ today in different parts of the world, participatory ethnoecological researches, have been directed towards the conservation and management of biological diversity. (aumeeruddy, 1998 cited in ghimire et al., 2001). the present paper highlights ethnoecological knowledge of indigenous people living in trans-himalayan region regarding the nomenclature of physical and biological environment. materials and metohds study site the study area lies in between 28º45’-29º45’n latitude to 82º20’-83º45’e longitude covering part of upper mustang and upper dolpa in trans-himalayan zone. the site is represented by its richness in alpine and arid flora with its phytogeographic uniqueness. areas are almost treeless and virgin, pristine with arid transhimalayan ecosystem (snellgrove, 1961; ghimire et al., 2001; rokaya, 2002; shrestha, 2004), located at the rain-shadow zone beyond the high mountain ridges formed by mt. dhaulagiri, annapurna and kanjiroba massif, which forms barrier to most of the monsoon precipitation that comes from southeast (hagen 1960). the climate is similar to tibetan plateau with higher solar radiation and extremely low precipitation, and it ranges from cool and humid to arctic and cold desert types (carpenter and klein, 1995; sherpa, 1992; yosida, 2002). annual rainfall drops 250-500mm along the tibetan borderland in western nepal because of rain shadow and distance from the bay of bengal (manandhar, 2002; rokaya, 2002; shrestha, 2004).the population is of tibetan origin hence follow tibetan culture, social, and religious systems (mcveigh, 1994; bista, 2000; rokaya, 2002) and speak tibetan language. religions include bon and buddhism. bon is the ancient religion prevailed in tibet prior to buddhism (cited in ghimire et al., 1999). data collection the fieldwork was conducted in the study area at two different periods during october 2001-july 2003. participatory methods such as rapid rural appraisal (rra), participatory rural appraisal (pra), 1. g.p.o.box no 15142, kpc 319, kathmandu, nepal 2. lecturer, central department of botany, t. u., kathmandu, nepal corresponding author’s : rokayamaan@gmail.com/rokayamaan@hotmail.com 14 participant observation, focus group discussion and key informant interviews (martin, 1995; rastogi et al., 1998; cunningham, 2001) were employed. the participatory assessment was done in parallel way by conducting through a group discussion with the people from different localities asking different questions related to identification of plants, their use, distribution, habitat, vernacular name or local name, to folk taxonomy and nomenclature. results and discussion the people of the study area were found to be exceptionally rich in their indigenous knowledge regarding the environmental factors, resources, and conservation and management aspects. they have their own terms for the level of categorization of land resources and for entire world of plants, which are cited below: indigenous knowledge at landscape level: there are various types of ecological zones differentiated by local people in different kinds of geographical settings. the major six land use categories based on local perception are as follows: a. nakri (forest land): it is differentiated into singhna (forest), na (shrubby land), singdong (forest with only large trees). b. penhri or pangri: it is differentiated into four categories pang (grassland), degha (big flat land), thang (a big field), ya (high alpine grass land). c. thakri or dakri: it has four different subcategories as: dza or dak (rocky land), ghyapa (land full of gravel and coarse stones), yama (a place with slippery stones) and chyanh (highly rocky slope). d. sim (marshy place or wet land): it is differentiated into different sub-categories as: tsangdam (a river bank), lungba (a river between two hills), nah jok (marshy land) and ya tsangdam (moist place of high mountain or himal). e. lung (agricultural land): it is differentiated into two sub-categories zhing or zingga (crop cultivated land) and luijing (homestead land). f. khangri (snowy land): it is also differentiated into two sub-categories which are dza (permanent map: the map showing routes taken by researchers in trans-himalayan parts of dolpo and mustang banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 rokaya et al. 15 snow melting zone) and ghya (a place above the snow line). different forests and shrub lands are named according to different landmarks erected by the people for religious purposes. for example, the two juniper forest patches in kalang named as lang-rok forest and gygao-chu forest, the three patches of shrub lands and nine pastures in dho-tarap area are named in accordance to the prominent landmarks, such as gombas (monastery), laptsai, mani or madong and chortens (stupas), etc. the pastures that are highly important resources for the survival of local livestock and other biotic agents are of two major types: summer pastures and winter pastures. among the eight pastures present in dho-tarap valley of dolpo, the one named as lang pasture is the only winter pasture. the summer pastures are shulak pasture, mirobo pasture, sorbo pasture, pen pasture, shorbu pasture, traye pasture, numala pasture that were named on the basis of landmarks. indigenous knowledge at plant population level: on the basis of plant population assessment, the local people defined population size as thick (thukpo), thin (tapo) and moderate (dingba) with respect to plant distribution patterns. for the specific distribution pattern, the terms used before the thin, thick and moderate patterns are everywhere (sane yongjok), somewhere (sane dingba), and few places (sane nyungnyung). indigenous knowledge at species level: the people of the study area are knowledgeable regarding biological component such as plants. their folk classification was on the based on various criteria such as presence or absence of flowers, habit, habitat etc. these are described below: a) on the basis of flowers: the whole plant kingdom or the plant world is called as ngo-men-ri. the flower bearing plants are named as metog bharyap (angiosperms) and non-flowering plants are called as metog menpa (mostly includes cryptogams). the higher plants are called as trees (sing dong), shrubs (singten), herbs (ngodum) and thrilsing (climbers). b) on the basis of habitat: the whole plant kingdom (ngho-men-ri) has been divided into different categories on the basis of the habitat of the plants: tshu ruk (aquatic), thangla haepa (terrestrial plants), sing bal (epiphytic plants), dhotak (plants growing on the stones). c) on the basis of the habit or structure: this classification system of plants is more comprehensive and gives the detail account of the whole plant kingdom, ngo-men-ri (fig 1). it is differentiated into two sub categories as ngo dhum (herbaceous plants) and sing (woody plants). the ngo dhum is further differentiated into tsa (grasses) and ngodhum (herbs). the herbs on the basis of size of fruits, roots, and flowers are differentiated into various categories such as debu tshae (plants the categories of plants defined by local people and amchis of trans-himalayan zone of west nepal ngo-men-ri (plant kingdom) tsa (grasses) ngo dhum (herbaceous plants) tserma chengi sing (with thorn) tersema mepe sing (without thorn) debu tshae (with big fruits) debu tshung (with small fruit) tsawa tshae (with big roots) tswa tshung (with small roots) metog haep-pa (flowers distinct) netog men pa (without/indistinct flowers) gangpo chen (fruits bean like) debu chen (fruits ovoid or spherical) debu num chen (fruits oil yielding) shin dong (trees) nak thong (small tree) shing ten (shrubs) thrill sing (climbers) banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2rokaya et al. 16 with big fruits), debu tshung (plants with small fruits), tsawa tshae (plants with big roots), tsawa tshung (plants with small roots), metog haep-pa (plants with distinct flowers), and metog menpa (plants with small or indistinct flowers). on the basis of the structure and the property of fruits the plants are further differentiated into gang po chen (plants with bean like fruits), debu chen (plants with ovoid or spherical fruits), debu num chen (plants with oil yielding fruits). the woody plants (sing) are differentiated into tserma chengi sing (thorn bearing plants) and tserma mepe sing (plants without thorns). they are further differentiated as sing dong (trees), na jok (small trees), singten (shrubs) and thrilsing (climbers). the folk system of nomenclature: the folk system of nomenclature of plants is based on the particular characteristics such as use, life forms, habitat, morphology, properties of plants etc. a) nomenclature based on plant habit: many plant names refer to plant habit or life form categories such as trees (sing), grass or grass like (tsa), small plants (tsungba), thorny (tser or tserma), etc. for example thesing (pinus wallichiana), tsa awa (carex sp.), tsa (juncus sp.), jiptsi tshungba (lamium tuberosum), thang na sing (abies spectabilis), chang tser (morina polyphylla). b) nomenclature based on habitat: plants are also named on the basis of the specific habitat as pang (meadows), drak (rocky mountain cliff), nak (forest), tshu (water), etc. for example, the plant name tshu bahal (spirogyra sp.) is given as the plant grows in the water (tshu) and looks like wool (bahal). the name tshu tsa is given for the aquatic grass. the term pang stands for grassland and thong for straight in habit, thus the plant growing straight in grass land is called as pang a thogn (= pang a tung), for example androsace strigillosa. likewise the name thsuma tsi or chumatsi (oxyria digyna) has been derived for the plant being aquatic (tshu) and growing in mass or in groups of many (tsi). the term drak refers to the layer or the accumulated rot. the term chudrak refers to a layer of small plants accumulated in the water; dhodrak for the layer of the plants on the rock and appearing as if it is a layer of rot; and sing drak refers to a rot like plants on the trees. the plant name kangla metog (saussurea sp.) is derived from different words as ‘kang’ meaning snowy place, ‘la’ meaning sloppy land and ‘metog’ meaning flower. thus kang la metog means a flower in the sloppy and the snowy place. likewise, the name pang ram (bistorta sp.) has been derived from two words ‘pang’ meaning grassland and ‘rabae’ meaning looking in dense population. so, pang ram means the plant appearing to be dense in the grassland area. c) nomenclature based on plant morphology: the system is based on the structure of plant in reference to colour and the special appearances. for example, ‘japo’ means cock and ‘tsi tsi’ means the comb and the plant with the flower resembling to the cock’s comb is named as japo tsi tsi (coleus barbatus). the different species of pedicularis are named with the prefix ‘lugru’ meaning sheep’s horn as the flowers has the coiled beak similar to horn of the sheep. the name kyiche karpo (gentiana robusta) has been derived as kyi dog, che – tongue and karpo white as the leaves of the plant are similar to the tongue of dog with the white flowers. sang dril serpo (primula sikkimensis) has been derived from different words as sang – bell, dril – to ring and serpo – yellow for the plant with the yellow flower in the shape of ringing bell. the suffixes karpo (white), serpo (yellow), ngon po (blue or violet), marbo (red) are used with reference to the colour of the flower. for example, balu marbo (rhododendron lepidotum red f lowered rhododendron), balu ngon po (rhododendron nivile dark red flowered rhododendron), lugru serpo (pedicularis klozschii yellow flowered pedicularis), etc. d) nomenclature based on plant use: the use of the plant is also a basis of naming plant. terms representing specific utilities of plants like m–n (medicine), dhuk tsa (poison), poe (scent or incence), etc. are given as suffixes or prefixes to name specific plants. for example, sila poe (jurinea dolomiaea) has derived from two words sila (meaning the avoidance of the bad smell) and poe (meaning scent or incense). thus the plant name sila poe stands for the scent used to avoid the bad smell. m–ntsa (medicinal grass) and dhuk tsa (poisonous grass) are also named according to the use of the plants. e) nomenclature based on plant property: the plants are also named based on their property. for example bitter is locally called tik (= tig) or kha. the plants with such taste are tikta (swertia sp.), bashakha (lagotis kunawurensis), g yatig (androsace strigillosa, swertia ciliata), zintik (ajuga lupulina). plants with acrid taste are known as tsa, for example chetsa (ranuculus sp.), and chumtsa (rheum sp.), etc. the name pang poe (nardostachys grandiflora) is given for the scented plant (poe) in the grassland (pang). banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 rokaya et al. 17 indigenous knowledge on the biology and life cycle stages of plants: the local people were found knowledgeable in biology and life cycles of plants. the identification of plant during its life cycle is very important because its potency depends on the different stages of the life cycle. the stages in the cycle based on the local perception are dheubu (seeds), khabui (seedling), dhurtsi or lomakae thuk (juvenile stage), thong bo kae thuk (mature plant), metog kae thuk (flowering stage), dubu kae thuk (fruiting stage). the plants that propagate through roots are called chab nae kae du and those through seeds are thap tae kae du. the people generally identify plants on the basis of taste of different plant parts, types of the root structures and different life cycle stages. the most important account is taken that of structure, fragrance, colour and the taste of the flowers and the seeds. the people are well aware of the conductance and the storage of the sap in the plants, and use the different parts of the plants according to the perception of nutrients level in different plant parts. thus, they use the various parts of the plants in different time of the year and at the various stages of the life cycle. for example people use seeds during december to january, shoots during february to april, flowers during may to august, and roots during september to november. the land categorization system is comparable to the scientific classification of the ecosystems as terrestrial, aquatic and artificial ecosystems. further these major categories are sub-categorized into smaller units. the classification is natural and is on the basis of the habitat of the plants that is similar to scientific classification of the ecosystems. the naming of the forest and the pastures are on the basis the presence of prominent landmarks and is similar to the other parts of nepal (ghimire et al. 2001; lama et al., 2001). folk nomenclature and classification system in some extent is comparable with the scientific classification system. however, the local classification of the plants is not so explicit so that there is lack of detail categorization of the plant up to specific level. locally the plants have been classified as metog bharyap (flowering plants) and metog menpa (non-flowering plants) and it is similar to the phenerogams (flowering plants) and cryptogams (non-flowering plants) of scientific classification. the life form and the intermediate levels between the folk ranks and the scientific taxa are not sharp. the life form categories such as tsa (grass) and ngodum (herbs) have some correspondence to monocotyledons (or scientific family – graminae and cyperaceae) and the herbaceous dicotyledons. the monocotyledons other than grass-like are grouped in ngodum (herbs). on the other hand tserma chengi sing (with thorns) and tserma mepe sing (with out thorns) or the plants with distinct flowers and the plants with indistinct flowers corresponds to angiosperms or gymnosperms. but the demarcation of this category is not distinct and prominent. in a systematic classification the family is a category comprising one of more genera or tribes of common phylogenetic origin and the plants have a common ancestor that have evolved into various species along and evolutionary process, but this sorts of criteria is not available in the local system of classification (ghimire et al. 2001). however, the system of classification is so large that the plants could be identified up to generic level with the systematic identification. the folk nomenclature of plants is similar to scientific nomenclature. in the folk nomenclature given name of the plant is based on different morphological and physical characteristics. the term representing these characteristics is given in the form or prefix or suffix. at the generic level and the varietal level the plants are named on the basis of different attributes as habit, habitat, morphology of the flowers, use, property of the plants, plant size, etc. the system of nomenclature is also in some places binomial. however, according to ghimire et al. (2001) the correspondence between folk nomenclature and the scientific nomenclature exist in a large scale. regarding the life cycle in indigenous concept the various steps are well differentiated right from seed (dhaebu) to the fruiting plant (dhaebu kaethuk). although the ethnoecological knowledge is rich, the identification of the plants is still not so scientific as the account of fragrance or the parts of the plants are taken into consideration. the level of perception on the potency of the plant based on nutrient concentration looks scientific because the local people use the plant parts according to the seasonal calendar. conclusion the present study focussed on ethnoecological knowledge of indigenous people of trans-himalayan region of west nepal showed good level of knowledge regarding natural environment at different levels. indigenous people have differentiated the ecological zones on the basis of land use categories. it was further found that folk nomenclature system and folk classification of the plants were based on the different aspects such as presence or absence of banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2rokaya et al. 18 flowers, habitat, habit and morphological structure, use and property. in this modern world, it is important to document indigenous knowledge regarding natural resources in order to make effective strategies to conserve natural resources for the future generation. acknowledgements we are grateful to a number of local people, amchis, phurba lama, norbu lama, karwang lama, amchi karma lama and amchi namgyal lama who shared their indigenous knowledge of utilizing plants as medicines. we are also indebt to yeshi c. lama, wwf nepal program, amchi gyatso bista, mustang, dhana p. shahi, n. kurrmbang and ppi/wwf nepal for their enormous help in the field. we thank wwf nepal program for providing financial support to carry out the present research. references aumeeruddy, y. 1998. ethonobotany, the culture and social division-linkages with conservation and development. in: shretha, k.k., p. k. jha, pei shengji, a. rastogi, s. rajbhandri and m. joshi (eds.), ethnobotany for conservation and community development. proceedings of national training workshop in nepal, ethnobotanical society of nepal (eson), p. 5-9. bista, d. r. 2000. people of nepal. 7th edition, ratna pustak bhandar, kathmandu, nepal. carpenter, c. and j. klein. 1995. plant species diversity in relation to grazing pressure in three alpine pastures, shey phoksundo national park, nepal. wwf nepal program report series no. 20. wwf nepal program, kathmandu, nepal. cunningham, a.b. 2001. applied ethnobotany: people, wild plant use and conservation. a people and plants conservation manual, earthscan, london, 300p. ghimire, s. k., d.b. parajuli, t.n. gurung and y. c. lama. 1999. conservation of the plant resources, community development and training in applied ethnobotany at shey phoksundo national park and its buffer-zone, dolpa. wwf nepal program report series no. 38, wwf nepal program, kathmandu, nepal. ghimire, s. k., y. c. lama, g. r. tripathi, s. schmit and y. aumeeruddy thomas. 2001. conservation of the plant resources, community development and training in applied ethnobotany at shey phoksundo national park and its buffer-zone, dolpa. fourth year. wwf nepal program report series no. 41, wwf nepal program, kathmandu, nepal. hagen, t. 1960. a brief survey of geology of nepal. united nations commissioner for technical consistence, department of economic and social affairs, prepared for government of nepal. lama y. c., ghimire, s.k. and y. aumeeruddy thomas. in collaboration with the amchis of dolpo. 2001. medicinal plants of dolpo amchis’ knowledge and conservarvation. people and plants initiatives, wwf nepal program, kathmandu, nepal. manandhar, n. p. 2002. plants and people of nepal. timber press, usa. p 18-27. martin, g. j. 1995. ethnobotany: a people and plants consevation manual. chapman and hall. mcveigh, c. 1994. indigenous resource management systems among tibetan-speaking herders in western nepal. report submitted to united states agency for international development (usaid), kathmandu. patton, d. 1993. ethnoecology: the challenge of cooperatiom. in: ethnoecologica vol i, no. 2. rastogi, a., godbole, a. and shengji, p. 1998. applied ethnobotany in natural resource managementtraditional home gardens. international centre for integrated mountain development (icimod), kathmandu, nepal. rokaya, m. b. 2002. ethnoecology of medicinal plants in dho-tarap area in buffer zone of shey-phoksundo national park, dolpa, nepal. unpubl. m. sc. dissertation, central department of botany, tribhuvan university, nepal. sherpa, n. w. 1992. operational plan: sheyphoksundo national park, nepal. wwf nepal program, kathmandu, nepal. shrestha, m. r. 2004. trans-himalayan dicot flora of northwest nepal: dolpo and its surroundings. unpubl. m. sc. dissertation, central department of botany, tribhuvan university, nepal. snellgrove, d. 1961. himalayan pilgrimage. oxford, 304 p. toledo, v. m. 1987. ethnoecology, peasant economy, and rural production in mexico. unpublished text of a speech presented at the university of california, berkeley. yoshida, t. 2002. additive strategies of alpine plants in nepal. in: noshiro, s. and k.r. rajbhandary (eds.) himalayan botany in the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries. the society of himalayan botany, university museum, university of tokyo, tokyo, japan. p. 105-111 banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 rokaya et al. final bankojanakari vol 17-1.pmd 32 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 collaborative forest management (cfm) is the youngest forestry program implemented so far, in nepal. cfm modality in nepal has been designed focusing on sustainable management of terai forest. several policies and strategies formulated and implemented in the past to manage terai forest resulted unsuccessful. operation forest management plan (ofmp) and community forestry (cf) are the latest example of such efforts. the ofmps were technically sound plans, but the plans did not address the interests and aspirations of the local people. these plans were formulated with little consultation and were consequently opposed by the local people (sharma et al., 2004). cf, a very successful model in the hills of nepal has brought social conflicts in some cases in the terai. various authors (poudel, 2002; dahal, 2003; nefug, 2005; maharjan, 1998; rdf/ n, 2004) have indicated that cf in the terai is far more complicated than in the hills. although, the cfm modality is also based on participatory approach, the concept within the terai context is different. it has been developed regarding management of big contiguous blocks of the terai hardwood forest. it has been developing as partnership approach rather than participatory. in general, it is defined as working partnership among the key stakeholders in the management of the given forest. the key-stakeholders being local forest users and state forest departments, as well as parties such as local governments, civil groups, non-governmental organizations and the private sectors (carter and gronow, 2005). cornwall (1996) and borrinifeyerabend (1997) have also defined cfm as a working partnership between the key-stakeholders in the management of the given forest. furthermore, berkes (1997) has clarified the nature of partnership stressing the importance of “trying to develop equitable partnerships, drawing upon the complementary strengths of the district forest offices (dfos) and the local users” in the comanagement of forest resources. although cfm in nepal is still in its initial stage, it seems to be addressing some constraints. cfm working group, (cfm-wg, 2003) which is one of the multistakeholder working groups under the ministry of forest and soil conservation (mfsc), defines the cfm as an approach of sustainable forest management in collaboration with the local people to achieve multiple benefits, maintaining ecological balance, generating economic returns and improving livelihood from the government-managed forest. the government of nepal intends to manage the terai forest through the involvement of the local government and people in decision making, implementation, benefit sharing and monitoring. according to the cfm-wg (2003), the main objective of the approach is to develop sustainable forest management in order to i) fulfill the needs for evaluating collaborative management of forest from rangapur cfm, rautahat mohan poudel1 collaborative forest management (cfm) is the youngest forestry program implemented so far in nepal focusing on sustainable management of the nepal’s productive terai forest. it has been defined as working partnership between the key stakeholders in the management of the given forest. cfm aims to manage the terai forest through involvement of the local people in decision making, implementation, benefit sharing and monitoring along with local government bodies (ddc, vdc) and national forest authority (dfo). rangapur is one of the three pilot cfm sites comprising 1472 ha forest with 22 vdcs and a municipality as command-area in rautahat district of nepal. despite several promising impacts, some weaknesses and threats of cfm have also been realized within its two years of implementation in rangapur. this paper assesses and evaluates major achievements, strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of cfm hoping useful towards sustainability. key words: sustainability, partnership, stakeholders, rangapur, pilot 1dfo, jumla 33 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 forest products, ii) help in poverty reduction by creating employment, iii) maintain and enhance biodiversity, and iv) increase national and local income through active management of the terai and inner terai forest. currently, cfm is operational in three districts: bara, parsa and rautahat in piloting phase. rangapur collaborative forest rangapur is one of the pilot collaborative forests in rautahat district of nepal. it is located in between rangapur, simrae bhawanipur and santapur vdcs. it is almost square in shape and comprises sal and asna as major tree species. based on the new forest policy 2000 and cfm directive 2003, the rangapur cfm unit was declared as a pilot cfm unit. however, the first five year (2003-2008) management scheme was approved on 22 dec 2004 along with other two pilot schemes (sabaya in parsa and sahajnath in bara). cfm scheme covers both constitution and management plan of the forest and other development of its command area. the rangapur cfm unit covers about 1472 ha of forest area. the total area is divided into different compartments and sub-compartments. there are together 12 compartments each having comprising 100 ha area. each compartment is further divided into four sub-compartments 25 ha each. about 270 ha area adjoining the villages is defined as fringe area. most of the fringe areas comprise degraded forest, open grazing land and encroached area. according to the scheme, the rangapur cfm unit comprises 141.1 cubic meters per ha of average growing stock. average annual increment is 2.6%. the management scheme defines 22 vdcs and a municipality as command-area of the cfm unit. the command-area extends from forest to the indian boarder. on the basis of accessibility and livelihood dependency on the forest, the command-area is divided into two types: close and distant. the users living at the vicinity of the forest (not more than 5 km distance from the forest) are called close users. it is believed that their livelihood system highly depend on the forest resources. there are five close vdcs i.e. chandranigahapur, santapur, dumaria, rangapur, and simra bhawanipur. other 16 vdcs and a municipality (gaur) are called distant vdcs. the scheme has also defined role and responsibilities seprately for both close and distant users. there are 27,011 households with a population of 162,611 people (ddc 2002). the male:female ratio is 51:49. average population growth rate is 2.2% (cencus, 2001). the scheme projected about 10 cft timber and 5,700 kg fuelwood demand per household per year. looking at the figures, there is a huge gap between the users’ demand and supply capacity of the forest. about 70% timber and 90% fuelwood deficits are projected by the scheme. regarding the facts, different managerial prescriptions have also been prescribed by the scheme. annual harvesting prescription, stand improvement activities, forest development in both the public and private land, promotion of ntfps, livelihood strategies, income generation activities etc are some important features of the scheme to meet the objectives. achievement so far towards institutional development and group mobilization from the initial days of bisept-st, cfm movement was also started in rautahat. there were series of seminars, workshops, field-visits, group meetings, discussions and group formation within and outside the district. major achievement towards institutional development and group mobilization so far are: • series of workshops and meetings have been organized to introduce and justify cfm concept and its modality among the local people, government officials, ddc members, local politicians, local ngos, media persons and cfm experts. • cfm constitution (rangapur cfm scheme 20032008) has been approved by the government of nepal. all social mobilization activities going on are directed by the scheme. • rangapur cfm adhoc committee has been formulated according to the cfm directive 2003. the adhoc committee has started several extension activities: organized meetings in each and every village, finalized command-areas (vdcs), miking, postering, radio programs, street drama etc. • different sectoral sub-groups have been formed and brought into action. protection sub-groups are developed in close vdcs regarding timber smuggling problem. other functional sub-groups developed so far are depot management subgroup and income generating activities (iga, women) sub-group. at present, the sub-groups are in course of their institutionalization. they have their own decision making, record keeping poudel 34 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 and patrolling system. they are free to determine firewood and small timber prizes for the purpose of internal use. so far, there are six protection, two depot management and an iga women subgroups. the adhoc committees in support of the dfo perform other regular activities of forest management and social mobilization. • a cfm implementation unit has been formulated and is now functioning. it has its own office at chandra nigahapur regular meeting, planning, implementing and progress reporting systems are going on. • group formation process is in progress. elections for the vdc/ward members have been completed. although it took long time, the first general assembly for the election of cfm committee members have also been completed. • two social mobilizers have been appointed since last year and are regularly working in their respective field. achievements towards sustainable forest management bisep-st has assisted in almost all steps of designing and establishing the rangapur cfm unit in rautahat. the rangapur forest area has always been under high pressure of illegal cutting of timber for smuggling, heavy grazing and encroachment mostly from new immigrants. as a result, most of the forest area is degraded and under stocked. however, within four years of cfm introduction and two years of scheme implementation, some important and remarkable achievements have been made. they are: • preparation and approval of cfm management scheme (2003-2008) from the forest authority of nepal is an important achievement towards sustainable cfm. the scheme comprises almost all data about forest, growing stocks, ecological condition, species composition, wildlife and their habitats. the scheme has divided the forest areas into different units recommending respective management prescriptions on the basis of forest condition. it has projected annual allowable cut, annual operation cost and annual income. it has also recommended other different important activities. most of the activities are focused on sustainability of cfm. some important activities are: forest development in public and private lands, income generation activities in fringe areas, social development, bio-diversity protection and livelihood strategies. • ground truthing of compartments and subcompartments has been completed. strips of 5m and 3m width between the compartments and sub-compartments are used for the purpose of patrolling and fire control. each compartment consists of four sub-compartments of 25 ha each. besides, there are few sub-compartments in the fringe area too. on the basis of growing stocks and regeneration status, some sub-compartments have been treated as regeneration-protection, seeding-felling and coppice-management plots. collection of dead/dying trees has been going on throughout the forest. • more than 20 ha open grazing field in the fringe area has been planted. with active participation of the local protection sub-group, plantation site has been protected enthusiastically. the sab-group members are not only protecting but also getting benefit from grass. furthermore, they are satisfied with the newly emerging green shoots around their village. similarly, 20ha shrub land near by the plantation site has also been set aside as regeneration-protection area. it has also resulted very impressive. • about 40ha public land has been planted in different vdcs of the command-areas during the last two years. most of the public lands are school or vdc-office compounds, road sides and canal sides. • timber smuggling, uncontrolled firewood collection and encroachment have significantly been controlled within the cfm area. it is mostly because of the joint venture of dfo staff and protection sub-group members. joint meeting of cfm adhoc committee and sub-committees have decided that only two days (sat&wed) in a week well be allowed to the local people to collect firewood. • regarding firewood problem in the distant vdcs, two firewood sales depot have been established and are running. • forest development programs in the private and public lands focussed mostly on distant vdcs has been started through ngos. • different skill-development trainings such as bamboo handicraft, small saving-credit, ntfp cultivation, tapari (from sal leaf), bee keeping etc. have been going on. the local ngos and women development offices (wdos) are mostly conducting such activities. poudel 35 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats the information and arguments presented here are mostly based on learning experiences gained from the field implementation of cfm in rangapur, rautahat. apart from this, the proceedings and reports of various meetings and workshops with the cfm adhoc committee members, sub-committee members (from bara and parsa districts also) and suggestions from the bisep-st officials have also been taken into consideration. strengths • cfm has addressed, incorporated and brought all the essential stakeholders deprived of essential rights into active management mode of the terai forest. the cfm-wg consists of both close and distant users. distant users are also benefiting from the revenues and other benefits from the forest (cfm unit). furthermore, cfm represents and involves wide range of people including ngos, women, dalits and poor in decision making. • cfm has been found to have created strong awareness and ownership among all the partners and stakeholders. the institutional system penetrates the grassroot-level for decision making. provision of public auditing and joint monitoring seems to have boost up the feeling of ownership. furthermore, the activities of the protection subcommittee and their initial impacts have been clearly leading towards better forest protection and more responsible management. • there will be a flow of revenues that can be used for development of the cfm command-area. income as a result of cfm scheme implementation can be used for livelihood options, social development, forest and greenery development, ntfp cultivation etc. • the forest and biodiversity will be managed in a sustainable manner under the guidance of technically sound and reliable management scheme. the production over time will increase as it is anticipated that the condition of forest will improve. the revenues derived will be legal and traceable, thus minimizing the illegal circuit. • cfm has already indicated that it will be very much capable to reduce encroachment and timber smuggling from the cfm unit (forest). weakness • the cfm institutional structure is big and seems conflicting. the command-area of rangapur cfm for example, consists of 21 vdcs and a municipality. selecting a group member from each ward from the remote and politically conflicted area is not an easy task. furthermore, election of cfm committee from cfm-wg assembly of more than 250 members require high skill of group facilitation. because of these problems, indeed, the adhoc committee has faced difficulties and taken long time to organize group assembly. provision of ddc nominating cfm committee chairperson seems to be creatitng more conflict among the committee members and thus, may not be so effective. • diverse needs and interests of huge population from close to distant. vdcs may be another weakness of cfm. • cfm may result better control and protection over the forest. because of better protection, potential conflicts and confrontations may occur between timber smugglers and cfm-wg member protecting the forest. • majority of the distant users are not aware of cfm and have not yet internalized the concept. because of the large area and huge population there are always possibilities of support-gap, which means that the close users may give full support whereas the district users may not towards cfm. • the production and distribution of forest products as per the demand is difficult to realize. bringing so many households with different needs and interests into common decision is not an easy task. fixing prize, establishing control mechanism for fire wood collection and rehabilitation of the encroached areas are some of the important issues in this regard. • cfm directives 2003 is not clear about the revenues sharing among partners of cfm. the limited proposed share for people and district could jeopardize participation. opportunities • cfm seems effective towards sustainable management of the terai forest through implementation of cfm scheme that has been developed through combine efforts of all the concerned partners and technical experts. it would be huge opportunity to stop the on-going forest poudel 36 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 degradation and institutionalization of illegal circuits. joint venture of the local people, local government and forest authority may create check and balance situation among all the stakeholders including forest officials, timber smugglers, firewood traders, saw millers and local users. • cfm has potential to contribute towards poverty reduction. revenues going to the users can be used for the purpose of poverty reduction through different income generating activities. the first five-year (2003-2008) plan of rangapur cfm has projected revenue of nrs 96,60,000. a part of the revenue derived from cfm can be used for different development activities in order to contribute development of social sector. • proper implementation of cfm scheme could create considerable employment opportunities. timber harvesting, scientific treatments, forest development, social mobilization etc. are some activities that require lots of both skilled and unskilled employees. people are involved in illegal cutting, timber smuggling, firewood trading can be employed in such activities, and their livelihood strategy may change towards sustainable cfm • cfm will fuel forest sector decentralization process and make it sustainable. • cfm will be able to address biodiversity in its area more effectively by identifying biodiversity hotspots. • cfm networking would increase and establish as a pressure-group advocating rights and responsibilities of the users leading towards sustainable cfm. • cfm offers an opportunity to promote and intensify private and public land forestry in distant vdcs. • cfm as a participatory and decentralized sustainable forest management model can be replicated in other districts of the terai. if resulted as anticipated, it could be another internationally appreciated model of nepal. threats • anti cfm campaign that has been led by the fecofun is one of the major threats of cfm to be established as sustainable participatory forest management model in the terai. it has been experienced in the rangapur cfm area also. they have started anti-cfm campaign mostly in close vdcs creating confrontation between the users, delivering anti-cfm messages. according them: i) unlike cf, cfm restricts users’ right of decision making and benefit sharing independently. ii) dfo will have more control over the resources, and iii) close users may loose their right to access the forest for their daily needs. • threats have also been realized because of the confusing views of some forestry experts and civil society. some are supporting the fecofun’s views. • the ongoing political crisis may hamper institutional strengthening and implementation of management scheme. • traditional (not consulting people) concept of field level dfo staff may bring cfm into conflicts. • people’s and government’s acceptance as well as commitment towards scientific forest management are still to be developed. for years there has been a ban on felling green trees. • the government normally applies rules and regulations in a rigid manner. if same happens during application of cfm directive 2003 and approved schemes in piloting phase, it may hamper cfm. at this stage, cfm should be treated in a flexible way. • confusion over revenue sharing between the government and the users seems to be a major threat to gear cfm in the terai. if the government is not willing to come forward with a more realistic benefit sharing mechanism, the cfm-wg members may loose interest towards the cfm modality. • if no alternative means are developed for the large number of households involved in fuel-wood collection for their survival, big social problems may arise. • strong network of timber smuggling may always try to fail cfm. discussion and recommendations the cfm model itself is not sufficient to ensure sustainability which always remains dynamic with the existing policies and practices. the existing policies and implementing strategies should always be socially acceptable, economically viable and environmentally appropriate. therefore, at this stage of cfm implementation, management should be flexible as per the existing policies and implementing strategies. the management should always be guided through learning by doing approach. the weaknesses and threats should either be converted into strength or avoided through possible alternatives. some suggestions in this regards are: poudel 37 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 • there is urgent need to develop basic criteria for cfm formation. looking at rangapur, there are some disputes regarding the cfm unit (forest) and its command-area. the cfm command area should be increased to reduce huge gap between users’ resource demand and supply capacity of the existing management unit projected by the scheme. there is also a need to define clear borderline between the close and distant users. • issues that are raised by different persons, institutions including the fecofun should be taken into account while implementing cfm programs. compensation for losing free assess of the close users can be given through the possibility of ntfp cultivation in the fringe-areas of the forest, giving them labor opportunities during harvesting operation. most importantly, the fringe-areas can be handed over to them (villagers near by) as small community forests under the cfm. • effective awareness campaign should always be carried out throughout the command-area to bond people with strong ownership feeling. • the institutional structure of the cfm-wg should be reviewed to make it small and efficient. the cfm chairperson should be elected from the users rather than nominated by the ddc. • in order to control illegal cutting and trade of fuel-wood and timber, efficient collection and distribution mechanism of forest products should be established throughout the command-areas. promotion of agro-forestry in private and public lands, promotion of bio-gas, promotion of igas by creating labor opportunities may change livelihood strategy and ultimately protect forest and optimize its production potential. • regulation of access is necessary, but the provision of the alternatives should be first before totally closing the forest. livelihood strategy for those who are involved in timber and firewood smuggling should be changed towards income generation from the fellow/public lands. ntfps cultivation, intercropping (cash crop), and pasture development for productive livestock farming could be the major activities in this regard. this issue can be addressed in the constitution based on the field reality. • the cfm scheme should be reviewed regularly and updated on the basis of the experiences and feedback from participatory-evaluating mechanism. • existing confusions over power and benefitsharing among the partners should be resolved as soon as possible so to avoid possible frustration among the users. a fair benefit-sharing mechanism between the government and the users should be developed. more revenues should stay within the district in order to sustainably address the nrm sector at grassroot level. • dfo staff (deputed to the cfm implementing unit) should be recruited along with the cfm committee and other related community mobilizers. they should internalize the theme of cfm to lead forward as they are responsible for the administrative, financial and management of the cfm scheme. conclusion although it would be early to say that cfm ensures its sustainability, it seems promising. from the experience gained so far, it has been realized that cfm is the model (approach) what the forest resources in the terai nepal is looking for. references berkes, f. 1997: new and not-so new directions in the use of the commons: co-management. the common property resource digest 42:5-7 bisep_st/rsu. 2005a: proceedings of rfcc meeting. biodiversity sector programme for siwalik and terai, regional support unit, hetauda bisep_st/rsu. 2005b: proceedings of collaborative forest management committee interaction workshop. biodiversity sector programme for siwalik and terai, regional support unit, hetauda bisep_st/rsu. 2005c: proceedings of collaborative forest management committee meetings. biodiversity sector programme for siwalik and terai, regional support unit, hetauda. bisep-st/rsu. 2006. present status of implementation of cfm schemes, bio-diversity sector programme for siwalik and terai, regional support unit, hetauda bisept-st report borrini-feyerabend, g. 1997. participation in conservation: why, what, when, how ? in beyond fences: seeking social sustainability in conservation. (ed) borrini-feyerabend, g., iucn, gland, switzerland 26-31. poudel 38 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 carter, j. & gronow, j. (2005). recent experiences in collaborative forest management. a review paper, cifor, occasional paper no. 43. cfmworking group of fscc, 2003. framework for collaborative forest management in nepal. ministry of forest and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. cornwall, a. 1996. towards participatory practice: pra and participatory process. in participation and health (ed). ddc. 2002. dekoning, k. rautahat at glance, brochure, ddc, rautahat hmg-mfsc. 2003. collaborative forest management manual 2003 hmg-mfsc. 2005a. draft collaborative forest management manual 2005 hmg-mfsc. 2005b. district forest coordination committee (establishment and operational) directive (2062) rangapure cfm 2004. management scheme for 2003-2008 of rangapure collaborative forest, rautahat, nepal poudel corrected bankojanakari vol 18-1.pmd 32 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 simple coppice management options for the sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) forests in the terai of nepal s. k. ojha1, k.p. acharya1, b. acharya2, r. regmi2 the paper examines simple coppice management options for sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) forest that maximizes total biomass production. the study is based on the data obtained from two non-replicated research blocks located at butwal and dharan, which were established in 1988 and 1989 respectively by the department of forest research and survey. out of four blocks in each site, one block was of simple coppice management option. simple coppice management option had four treatments, i.e. 1) 3 s/s, 2) 1 s/s, 3) 3-2-1 s/s, and 4) control, which were designed for fodder and fuelwood production in a short rotation of four years. the analysis was done to estimate the productivity of the treatments for the four successive rotations. in on average, it was found that treatment 32-1 s/s was the best to produce maximum biomass in short rotations. both treatments 1 s/s and 3-2-1 s/s were found best for foliage production. local community user groups benefit from the result to choose appropriate simple coppice management option in their sal forests, if fodder and fuelwood production in short rotations is the main objectives of the forest management. key words: biomass, coppice, nepal, regeneration, sal forests. sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) forests are widely distributed and cover largest area of forests in bhabar, terai and siwalik hills from east to western nepal. sal is the most valuable and high-price wood in nepal. the country mainly depends on this forest to meet the timber requirement (acharya et.al. 2002). in the past, sal forests was heavily exploited both for resettlement programs and for generating state revenue. moreover, this forest was heavily cut down to meet the forest product demand of continually increasing population. due to this, many of such forests have either become degraded in quality and quantity or converted into agricultural land. the forest policy of nepal has emphasized the protection of forests in terai during the past decades. this has led to passive management, producing overmature degraded forests and that eventually disappear (pesonen and rautiainen 1995). the rate of decline of the forest area is 1.3 percent per annum in the terai in the past 12 years (fris 1993). thus the total loss of forest area in the plains during that period has been found 99,000 ha. in spite of degradation, the forest resources of the terai are substantial and offer an excellent basis for sustainable management. an estimate has shown that a total of 3654 million ha of forest area is available for improved management. out of which sal occupies 13,20,000 ha of forest area in nepal (sowerine 1994, cited in acharya et. al. 2002). in the absence of active management of forests, uncontrolled felling, encroachment and land clearing exist. pesonen and rautiainen (1995) found that, about 70 percent of production forests would be suitable for the evenaged silvicultural system in terai. according to the pesonen and rautiainen (1995), most of the sal forests are over mature, since the best option for forest management is, initiating active management of natural forests based on natural regeneration of indigenous species. the production capacity of the sal forests can be improved considerably with a change in the forest management strategy and silvicultural systems. wood production can be enhanced threefold. young stands produce more foliage than old ones. the management system should be selected that would boost production such that local people benefit more from the new system than from the existing one. nowadays, people are interested to manage sal forests for multiple products as to meet local livelihood demands of forest products. this in fact needs to identify appropriate management system or 1 under secretary (tech.) dfrs, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal 2 assistant research officer dfrs, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal 33 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 silviculture regime. to design silviculture regimes for multiple-product management, it is important to have knowledge of stand growth and productivity (gautam and devoe 2006). natural forest management research program mainly focus on regeneration establishment in nepal and it studies the effect of different harvesting regimes on growth performance and biomass productivity of the stand. these long-term researches were started in the 1980s at the time when the national focus in forestry sector was on renovation of degraded sites (acharya et. al. 2002). these research plots were established in tropical sal forest type in the terai region of nepal and the objectives were: • to investigate best management practice to establish the natural regeneration through coppice management. • to identify best management option that can maximize fodder and firewood production from degraded terai forests of nepal. materials and methods study area the data used in this study was taken from two research sites established by the forest research division (frd) of the department of forest research and survey (dfrs). the experiment block was established at jogikuti, butwal of rupandehi district in western terai as a large unreplicated block which is representative of the area. the study site is about 5 km south of butwal town and accessible by vehicles. it is accessible from the butwal-bhairahawa road, which passes through jogikuti village. the plot is situated at latitude of 27°42’ and longitude of 83°28’ and at altitude of 263 masl. the forest was selectively logged by the authority and the remnant mature trees were removed gradually by illegal felling until 1987. the site was highly degraded and only two trees were present at the time of plot establishment in 1988 (frp 1989). in 1988, forest research project (frp) cleared all the existing patchy bushes by coppicing so that the resulting crop would be all the same age. there was substantial re-growth after the area was protected (previously it was a grass/grazing ground). this research site is located in a place which is near the city and surrounded by the highly crowded population. by the time very few patches of forest like this were left in the area because of deforestation and population pressure. the research block with the same management system and treatments was established at chaukibari, dharan of sunsari district in eastern terai and intended to be a replication of the experimental site mentioned above. the study site is located at about 1.5 km east of chaukibari of sunsari district (near dharan) and about 3 km south of dharan on the road to ghopa camp. the plot is situated at latitude of 26°49’ and longitude of 87°17’ and at altitude of 400 masl. it is located within the scrubland national forest of sunsari district. the site is situated in a dun valley of the terai bhabar zone of nepal and is accessible by the vehicles. the site is gently undulating. the forest was under selective logging and the remnant mature trees gradually removed by illegal felling until 1989. at the time of plot establishment, there were very few trees present within the plot. forest research project (frp) cleared the area in june 1990 to establish the permanent silviculture research plots (frp 1990). during plot establishment all the trees including felled trees were coppiced and after few month area got covered with profuse and vigorous regeneration. butwal and dharan research blocks are situated apart at a distance of about 350 km in the bhabar terai area of nepal as shown in figure 1. site conditions butwal site soil: butwal site is flat and fertile. the soil is loamy, deep, well drained and has adequate nutrient capability. according to the map of the land resource mapping project (lrmp), this area belongs to the class i, most suitable land for agriculture and forestry. actual landuse for this area is shown as degraded tropical mixed hardwood forest. soil physical and chemical properties are exceptionally good for forestry use (frp 1989). climate: the climate is sub-tropical and sub-humid with regular monsoon between june-august. frost occurs seldom and the annual average number of days with minus temperature is 0 (jackson, 1994). mean total annual precipitation is 2452 mm of which more than 80% falls from june to september. monthly mean maximum and minimum temperature are 31.4°c and 17.7°c respectively with an absolute minimum of 4.3°c (jackson 1994). vegetation: sal forest diversity consists of more than 80 percent sal (shorea robusta). other associated tree species in this forest are asna (terminalia alata), amala ojha et al. 34 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 ojha et al. http://ncthakur.itgo.com/districtmaps/rupandehi_district.htm http://ncthakur.itgo.com/districtmaps/sunsari_district.htm dharan research block (study area 2) butwal research block (study area 1 figure 1: location of the study area in the map of nepal. (phyllanthus emblica), barro (terminalia belerica), bhalayo (semicarpus anacardium) botdhairo (lagestroemia parviflora), harro (terminalia chebula), jamun (syzygium cumini), kalikath (myrsine semiserrata), karma (adina cordifolia), raj briksha (cassia fistula) and sindure (mallotus philipinensis). dharan site soil: dharan site is also flat and fertile. the soil is loamy, deep, well drained, and gravelly and has adequate nutrients. capability map of the land resource mapping project (lrmp) classifies the area as class i as most suitable land for agriculture and forestry. land use is defined as degraded tropical mixed hardwood forest. as previous site, physical and chemical properties of the soil are exceptionally good for forestry use (frp 1990). climate: the climate is sub-tropical and sub-humid with regular monsoon between june-august. frost occurs seldom and the annual average number of days with minus temperature is 0 (jackson, 1994). mean total annual precipitation is 2401 mm of which more than 80% falls from june to september. monthly mean maximum and minimum temperature 35 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 figure 2. layout design of the research block at dharan simple coppice high forest coppice with standards 50% coppice with standards 25% n m a n a g e m e n t sy st e m 4 1 s/s 16 control 10 early selection 15 m 5 clipping 30m 1 control 15 light ground thinning 11 late selection 7 late selection 3 3 s/s 14 light crown thinning 9 pollarding 8 pollarding 2 3-2-1 s/s 13 heavy crown thinning 12 clipping 6 early selection t re a tm e n ts figure 3. layout design of the research block at butwal n simple coppice coppice with standards 25% coppice with standards 50% high forest m a n a g e m e n t sy st e m 4 1 s/s 6 early selection 11 pollarding 2 0 m 16 control 25m 1 control 8 pollarding 9 clipping 14 heavy crown thinning 2 3 s/s 7 late selection 12 late selection 15 light crown thinning 3 3-2-1 s/s 5 clipping 10 early selection 13 light ground thinning t re a tm e n ts are 28.2°c and 17.1°c respectively with an absolute minimum of 5°c (jackson 1994). vegetation: the vegetation structure and composition of this site is similar to butwal site. research design and layout of the plots the block has been divided into four different management options: i) simple coppice, ii) high forest, iii) coppice with standards 25% and iv) coppice with ojha et al. 36 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 total biomass production from the butwal plots(in green weight) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 c o n tr o l 3 -2 -1 3 s /s 1 s /s c o n tr o l 3 -2 -1 3 s /s 1 s /s c o n tr o l 3 -2 -1 3 s /s 1 s /s c o n tr o l 3 -2 -1 3 s /s 1 s /s 1 2 3 4 rotations and treatments b io m a s s ( to n /h a) foliage wood total standards 50% (figure 2 and 3). each of these management options has four treatments. each treatment-plot was randomly located and demarcated apart with a buffer between them. all plots have equal size and dimension. each plot in dharan has an area of 450 m² (30 m * 15 m) and in butwal has an area of 500 m² (25 m * 20 m). fire-line around the block and buffers in-between the plots have width of 5 m. this paper analyses the simple coppice management option only. measurements total enumeration was carried out over plots during biomass measurement. field measurements were carried out mostly between november to march every year. the harvested biomass (foliage and wood) each year from the plots under the various treatments was weighed and recorded. a weighting apparatus was used to weight the green biomass. simple coppice management option regeneration of the crop in coppice systems is based on coppicing. this management system produces maximum productivity from the harvested stumps. the simple coppice option had the shortest rotation of four years. in the fourth year, re-growth of coppice was so vigorous that the plot was covered in a dense stand of sal trees reaching a height of four meters or more. coppices were either annually harvested or protected. the entire crop was harvested (clear felled) at the rotation age. the cycle was repeated for 4 rotations. the treatments are as follows (tamrakar, 1994) 1. 3-shoots per stool treatment (3 s/s) in the first year after clearfelling, the multiple shoots regenerated from the stump were singled to three best shoots per stump and the rest were harvested. these three shoots were maintained in the following years and new shoots were removed if there were any. clearfelling was carried out at the rotation in the fourth year. 2. 1-shoot per stool treatment (1 s/s) in the first year after clearfelling, this treatment involved singling to one shoot per stump and the rest were harvested. this one shoot was maintained in the following years. harvesting any new shoots was carried out every following year until the canopy closes and clearfelling was carried out in the fourth year. 3. 3-2-1 shoots per stool treatment (3-2-1 s/s) this treatment maintained three best shoots per stump for the first years. these were reduced to two shoots per stump in the second year and further reduced to one shoot per stump in the third year. the canopy closed at four years then the stand was clearfelled. 4. control plot, no treatment in this treatment only weeding is done to facilitate coppice growth for initial three years. the plot was harvested on the fourth year. silviculture history of the of the treatment plots from year 1988 to 2005 is presented in annex 1. results and discussion total biomass production the total biomass production from the treatment plots during four rotations in butwal and dharan is shown in figure 4 and 5 respectively (also in annex 2 and 3). the findings show that the management intervention increases biomass production. in both butwal and dharan, the biomass production in all treatment plots is increased in second, third and fourth rotations compared to the first rotation. in butwal, the biomass production from all treatment plots is significantly higher in the second rotation than in the first rotation. biomass production for all treatments except treatment 3-2-1 s/s is found higher in third rotation compared to second rotation. biomass production from all treatment plots except 3-2-1 s/s plot is lower in fourth rotation in comparison to the third rotation. however, decreased figure 4: total biomass production from the butwal plots. ojha et al. 37 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 total biomass production from the dharan plots (in green weight) 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 c o n tr o l 3 -2 -1 3 s /s 1 s /s c o n tr o l 3 -2 -1 3 s /s 1 s /s c o n tr o l 3 -2 -1 3 s /s 1 s /s c o n tr o l 3 -2 -1 3 s /s 1 s /s 1 2 3 4 rotations and treatments b io m a s s ( to n /h a) foliage wood total biomass production in fourth rotation compared to third rotation could have happened due to unfavorable weather and livestock disturbances in the period. the treatment 3-2-1 s/s has produced higher biomass compared to other treatments in the first, second and fourth rotations. however, due to highest foliage production, the treatment 1 s/s has produced higher biomass compared to other treatments in the third rotation. the lowest biomass production in first rotation compared to succeeding rotations could be due to unfavorable growing condition at the beginning of the first rotation. these degraded forests were under severe stress due to grazing, forest fire and human disturbances in the past. the protection of the site and development of root system with time could have increased biomass production. the study shows that wood biomass production was significantly higher compared to foliage in all treatments for each rotation. about 80 percent of the foliage produced was in the form of fodder. mean biomass production mean biomass production from the treatment plots for four rotations in butwal and dharan is presented in table 1. it is found that the mean foliage biomass production from the treatment 1 s/s is higher compared to other treatments in butwal. but, the treatment 3-2-1 s/s produced the higher mean foliage biomass compared to other treatments in dharan. the treatment 3-2-1 s/s produced the highest mean fuelwood biomass and mean overall biomass in both butwal and dharan. the value of standard error shows the extent of variation of biomass production in the rotations. the study reveals that, for maximum biomass or for maximum fuelwood production in short rotations under simple coppice management, 3-2-1 s/s treatment is the best among the tested ones. conclusion simple coppice management is one of the most suitable forest management options to produce fuelwood and fodder from sal forest in short rotations. in overall, the treatment 3-2-1 s/s is found better than other treatments for maximum biomass production. simple coppice management option is not suitable for timber production. however, it can in dharan, the biomass production from the treatment plots except 1 s/s plot is found lower in third rotation compared to second rotation. this is due to the lower foliage biomass production in all treatment plots in the third rotation compared to second rotation. this could have happened due to late measurement of the plots where already leaf shedding has been started. biomass production for all treatments is higher in fourth rotation in comparison to the third rotation. the treatment 32-1 s/s has produced higher biomass compared to other treatments in the second and third rotations. however, the treatment 3 s/s has produced higher biomass compared to other treatments in the first and fourth rotations. figure 5: total biomass production from the dharan plots. table 1: mean biomass production from the treatment plots in four rotations (butwal and dharan) site treatments rotations foliage wood total (green weight, ton/ha) mean s.e. mean s.e. mean s.e. butwal control 4 12.89 2.90 51.69 15.50 64.57 16.66 3-2-1 s/s 4 23.38 4.30 65.26 10.11 88.64 11.71 3 s/s 4 18.33 3.15 61.53 10.71 79.85 12.88 1 s/s 4 25.56 7.59 55.14 7.97 80.69 13.57 dharan control 4 11.04 4.32 65.20 9.74 76.24 12.14 3-2-1 s/s 4 16.44 3.87 73.13 11.13 89.57 11.50 3 s/s 4 13.77 5.00 71.04 9.55 84.81 12.71 1 s/s 4 14.29 4.12 66.47 10.17 80.76 10.60 ojha et al. 38 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 produce some wooden weaving materials (bhata) which can be used for house construction. the information produced in this study gives information to the forest user groups about the productivity of sal forest managed under different simple coppice management options in short rotations. the main limitation in this research design was the lack of replication of the treatments. due to this, advance statistical analysis such as testing the significance of difference between the treatments or analysis of variance was not possible. therefore, principles of experimental research design should be followed during further scientific research designing and planning. references acharya, k.p., tamrakar p.r., gautam g., regmi r., adhikari a. and acharya b. 2002. managing tropical sal forests (shorea robusta) of nepal in short rotations: findings of a 12-year long research, banko janakari, 12(1): 71-75 fris 1993. forest resources of the terai districts 1990/91. forestry sector institutional strengthening programme forest survey division. forest research and survey centre. ministry of forest and soil conservation. publication no. 57. kathmandu. frp 1989. research protocol for natural sal regeneration management, jogikuti, butwal. forest research project, katmandu. frp 1990. research protocol for natural sal regeneration management, chaukibari, dharan. forest research project, katmandu. gautam, k. h. and devoe, n. n. 2006. ecological and anthropogenic niches of sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) forest and prospects for multipleproduct forest management – a review, forestry, volume 79, number 1, january 2006, pp. 81101(21) jackson, j. k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. nepal-uk forestry research project, babarmahal, kathmandu. pesonen, p. and rautiainen, o. 1995. a strategy for managing terai national forest. banko janakari 5 (2): 59-63. sowerwine, d. 1994. forest sector potential and constraints. the forestry model and report prepared by consultant, unpublished report, kathmandu. tamrakar, p.r. 1994. management options for the degraded sal forests of nepal. forest research and survey centre. research leaflet no. 1. web-based references: h t tp ://nc thaku r. i t g o. com/d i s t r i c tmaps/ rupandehi_district.htm ht tp ://nc thaku r. i t g o. com/d i s t r i c tmaps/ sunsari_district.htm ojha et al. 39 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 a n n e x 1 : s il vi c u lt u re h is to ry o f th e p lo ts f ro m y e a r 19 8 8 t o 2 0 0 5 d h a ra n b u tw a l t re a tm e n ts r o t 1 r o t 2 r o t 3 r o t 4 r o t 1 r o t 2 r o t 3 r o t 4 a ge (y r) c o n tr o l 1 s/ s 3 s / s 321 s/ s r e m a rk s 19 89 19 88 0 co m p le te cl ea rf el l co m p le te cl ea rf el l co m p le te cl ea rf el l co m p le te cl ea rf el l 19 90 19 94 19 98 20 02 19 89 19 93 19 97 20 01 1 w ee d in g si n gl in g to le av e 1 sh o o t p er s to o l si n gl in g to le av e 3 sh o o ts p er s to o l si n gl in g to le av e 3 sh o o ts p er s to o l 19 91 19 95 19 99 20 03 19 90 19 94 19 98 20 02 2 w ee d in g 1 sh o o t p er s to o l 3 sh o o t p er s to o l 2 sh o o ts p er s to o l 19 92 19 96 20 00 20 04 19 91 19 95 19 99 20 03 3 w ee d in g 1 sh o o t p er s to o l 3 sh o o t p er s to o l 1 sh o o t p er s to o l 19 93 19 97 20 01 20 05 19 92 19 96 20 00 20 04 4 co m p le te cl ea rf el l co m p le te cl ea rf el l co m p le te cl ea rf el l co m p le te cl ea rf el l g re en b io m as s w ei gh ed ev er yy ea r af te r h ar ve st in g. r o t: r o ta ti o n ojha et al. 40 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 a n n e x 2 : b io m a ss p ro d u c ti o n , b u tw a l f ir st ro ta ti o n s ec o n d ro ta ti o n t h ir d ro ta ti o n f o u rt h ro ta ti o n t re at m en ts y ea r fo lia ge w o o d to ta l t o ta l y ea r fo lia ge w o o d to ta l t o ta l y ea r fo lia ge w o o d to ta l t o ta l y ea r fo lia ge w o o d to ta l t o ta l t o ta l b io m as s p ro d u ct io n u p to 4t h ro ta ti o n g re en w ei gh t, to n / h a g re en w ei gh t, to n / h a g re en w ei gh t, to n / h a g re en w ei gh t, to n / h a co n tr o l 19 89 0 0 0 19 93 0 0 0 19 97 0 0 0 20 01 0 0 0 19 90 0 0 0 19 94 0 0 0 19 98 0 0 0 20 02 0 0 0 19 91 0 0 0 19 95 0 0 0 19 99 0 0 0 20 03 0 0 0 19 92 7. 94 20 .0 1 27 .9 5 19 96 8. 78 81 .8 9 90 .6 7 20 00 20 .4 6 74 .4 94 .8 6 20 04 14 .3 6 30 .4 4 44 .8 t o ta l 7 .9 4 2 0 .0 1 2 7 .9 5 t o ta l 8 .7 8 8 1. 8 9 9 0 .6 7 t o ta l 2 0 .4 6 7 4 .4 9 4 .8 6 t o ta l 14 .3 6 3 0 .4 4 4 4 .8 2 5 8 .2 8 321 s/ s 19 89 2. 1 1. 1 3. 2 19 93 3 1. 2 4. 2 19 97 4. 5 4. 2 8. 7 20 01 5. 08 1. 58 6. 66 19 90 1. 4 1. 3 2. 7 19 94 1. 22 1. 09 2. 31 19 98 3. 58 6. 8 10 .3 8 20 02 3. 56 2. 62 6. 18 19 91 2. 9 5. 6 8. 5 19 95 2. 54 3. 85 6. 39 19 99 4. 26 10 .6 4 14 .9 20 03 4. 56 6. 56 11 .1 2 19 92 9. 64 29 .5 2 39 .1 6 19 96 9. 1 79 .9 89 20 00 17 .5 47 .4 64 .9 20 04 18 .5 6 57 .6 8 76 .2 4 t o ta l 16 .0 4 3 7 .5 2 5 3 .5 6 t o ta l 15 .8 6 8 6 .0 4 10 1. 9 t o ta l 2 9 .8 4 6 9 .0 4 9 8 .8 8 t o ta l 3 1. 7 6 6 8 .4 4 10 0 .2 3 5 4 .5 4 3 s/ s 19 89 2. 3 1. 1 3. 4 19 93 3. 8 1. 04 4. 84 19 97 3. 5 3. 8 7. 3 20 01 4. 4 1. 34 5. 74 19 90 0. 7 0. 3 1 19 94 0. 48 0. 19 0. 67 19 98 2. 5 1. 06 3. 56 20 02 0. 82 0. 1 0. 92 19 91 0. 4 0. 1 0. 5 19 95 0. 10 8 0. 00 4 0. 11 2 19 99 0. 08 0. 02 0. 1 20 03 0. 24 0. 06 0. 3 19 92 8. 92 28 .2 3 37 .1 5 19 96 9. 08 71 .3 2 80 .4 20 00 17 .2 4 70 .7 8 88 .0 2 20 04 18 .7 4 66 .6 6 85 .4 t o ta l 12 .3 2 2 9 .7 3 4 2 .0 5 t o ta l 13 .4 6 8 7 2 .5 5 4 8 6 .0 2 2 t o ta l 2 3 .3 2 7 5 .6 6 9 8 .9 8 t o ta l 2 4 .2 6 8 .1 6 9 2 .3 6 3 19 .4 12 1 s/ s 19 89 6. 7 3. 6 10 .3 19 93 4. 71 1. 75 6. 46 19 97 12 .8 10 .3 23 .1 20 01 6. 36 1. 98 8. 34 19 90 1. 2 2 3. 2 19 94 1. 53 0. 97 2. 5 19 98 4. 56 3 7. 56 20 02 2. 38 0. 72 3. 1 19 91 1. 2 0. 6 1. 8 19 95 0. 49 0. 29 0. 78 19 99 0. 34 0. 04 0. 38 20 03 1. 32 0. 2 1. 52 19 92 9. 2 25 .6 34 .8 19 96 4. 69 55 .8 9 60 .5 8 20 00 28 .8 2 54 .0 9 82 .9 1 20 04 15 .9 2 59 .5 2 75 .4 4 t o ta l 18 .3 3 1. 8 5 0 .1 t o ta l 11 .4 2 5 8 .9 7 0 .3 2 t o ta l 4 6 .5 2 6 7 .4 3 11 3 .9 5 t o ta l 2 5 .9 8 6 2 .4 2 8 8 .4 3 2 2 .7 7 ojha et al. 41 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 a n n e x 3 : b io m a ss p ro d u c ti o n , d h a ra n f ir st ro ta ti o n s ec o n d ro ta ti o n t h ir d ro ta ti o n f o u rt h ro ta ti o n t re at m en ts y ea r fo lia ge to ta l w o o d to ta l t o ta l y ea r fo lia ge to ta l w o o d to ta l t o ta l y ea r fo lia ge to ta l w o o d to ta l t o ta l y ea r fo lia ge to ta l w o o d to ta l t o ta l g re en w ei gh t in to n p er h a g re en w ei gh t in to n p er h a g re en w ei gh t in to n p er h a g re en w ei gh t in to n p er h a co n tr o l 19 90 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 19 94 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 19 98 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 20 02 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 19 91 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 19 95 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 19 99 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 20 03 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 19 92 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 19 96 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 20 00 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 20 04 0. 00 0. 00 0. 00 19 93 9. 03 37 .8 7 46 .9 0 19 97 9. 38 66 .5 0 75 .8 8 20 01 2. 63 73 .1 8 75 .8 1 20 05 23 .1 3 83 .2 4 10 6. 38 t o ta l 9 .0 3 3 7 .8 7 4 6 .9 0 t o ta l 9 .3 8 6 6 .5 0 7 5 .8 8 t o ta l 2 .6 3 7 3 .1 8 7 5 .8 1 t o ta l 2 3 .1 3 8 3 .2 4 10 6 .3 8 321 s/ s 19 90 0. 71 0. 31 1. 02 19 94 0. 79 1. 11 1. 90 19 98 0. 76 0. 97 1. 73 20 02 3. 00 1. 11 4. 11 19 91 1. 57 2. 23 3. 79 19 95 1. 10 1. 06 2. 16 19 99 0. 91 0. 27 1. 18 20 03 0. 29 0. 36 0. 64 19 92 3. 01 4. 05 7. 06 19 96 1. 68 11 .8 4 13 .5 2 20 00 1. 68 8. 26 9. 93 20 04 0. 18 1. 31 1. 49 19 93 9. 77 33 .8 0 43 .5 7 19 97 12 .0 2 70 .2 0 82 .2 2 20 01 4. 87 79 .8 0 84 .6 6 20 05 23 .4 4 75 .8 7 99 .3 0 t o ta l 15 .0 5 4 0 .3 8 5 5 .4 3 t o ta l 15 .5 8 8 4 .2 2 9 9 .8 0 t o ta l 8 .2 1 8 9 .2 9 9 7 .5 1 t o ta l 2 6 .9 0 7 8 .6 4 10 5 .5 5 3 s/ s 19 90 0. 97 0. 33 1. 30 19 94 0. 80 0. 82 1. 63 19 98 0. 69 0. 70 1. 40 20 02 2. 70 1. 17 3. 87 19 91 0. 80 0. 66 1. 46 19 95 0. 40 0. 23 0. 63 19 99 0. 05 0. 04 0. 10 20 03 1. 07 1. 87 2. 93 19 92 0. 29 0. 26 0. 55 19 96 0. 02 0. 03 0. 04 20 00 0. 08 0. 09 0. 16 20 04 2. 29 8. 69 10 .9 8 19 93 9. 95 44 .3 1 54 .2 6 19 97 10 .4 7 69 .5 2 79 .9 9 20 01 2. 90 75 .7 9 78 .6 9 20 05 21 .5 8 79 .6 7 10 1. 24 t o ta l 12 .0 1 4 5 .5 6 5 7 .5 7 t o ta l 11 .7 0 7 0 .6 0 8 2 .2 9 t o ta l 3 .7 2 7 6 .6 2 8 0 .3 5 t o ta l 2 7 .6 3 9 1. 3 9 11 9 .0 2 1 s/ s 19 90 1. 64 0. 31 1. 95 19 94 2. 45 3. 09 5. 54 19 98 2. 30 3. 03 5. 33 20 02 5. 66 3. 74 9. 40 19 91 1. 99 2. 57 4. 56 19 95 1. 40 0. 86 2. 26 19 99 1. 60 7. 00 8. 60 20 03 1. 27 1. 20 2. 47 19 92 1. 10 0. 70 1. 80 19 96 0. 14 1. 69 1. 84 20 00 0. 12 1. 56 1. 68 20 04 0. 56 2. 33 2. 89 19 93 8. 68 32 .8 9 41 .5 7 19 97 6. 11 70 .6 7 76 .7 7 20 01 3. 50 69 .5 5 73 .0 5 20 05 18 .6 3 64 .7 0 83 .3 3 t o ta l 13 .4 2 3 6 .4 8 4 9 .8 9 t o ta l 10 .1 0 7 6 .3 1 8 6 .4 1 t o ta l 7 .5 2 8 1. 13 8 8 .6 5 t o ta l 2 6 .1 1 7 1. 9 8 9 8 .0 9 ojha et al. cover 20-2 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 48 paudel and weiss economic potential of forest resources of nepal the contribution of forestry sector in nepal’s economy is significant. as 39.06% of the country’s area is forests, this sector has diverse economic potential. this sector can contribute towards achieving the millennium development goals in nepal (kanel, 2004). the country lies within tropical to alpine climates and hosts a wide diversity of plant and animal species. for instance, nepal has documented about 7000 species of flowering plants, many of which are important both commercially and for sustaining rural livelihoods. major goods include fuelwood, timber, fodder, wild food, medicines, fibres and non-timber forest products (ntfps). similarly, forests provide different ecosystem services such as climate regulation, carbon sequestration, and water regulation. the millennium ecosystem assessment identifies both the 'goods' and 'services' as ecosystem services and categorizes them into provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services.these forest goods and services would add up to a huge contribution to the nepalese economy, but there is a lack of a systematic accounting. the understanding of the economic potential of forest resources is sketchy and efforts to tap such opportunities are negligible. thus, the purpose of this paper is to assess the economic potential of forest resources in nepal, based on available data and other project level experience for interventions and income generation. such assessments can give some direction to the policy makers and development organizations on how to harness forest-based economic opportunities for national development. further, such assessments may reveal economic potentials of forestry sector that could be tapped fully for boosting up the nepalese economy and fostering the livelihood of forest dependent communities. methodology most of the information used in this paper are drawn from secondary sources like existing data, studies, project reports, and office records. however, there are only a few information on the economic aspects of forestry and only limited studies have been done for assessing such opportunities. a judicious use of these existing results of the project interventions have been employed to explore the economic potentials of the forest resources in this paper. results and discussion current contribution of the forestry sector the following sections present the main uses of forest products and services and their respective economic contributions in the form of the generation of revenue and employment. 1 ansab, kathmandu, nepal. * author for correspondance: shivapandey@ansab.org nepal’s forest resources underpin the livelihoods of rural people in important ways. during the country’s “planned development” over the past 50 years, the government, donors and policy makers have viewed these resources as a key vehicle for ushering in economic growth and for meeting basic needs. they underscore the potential value of forest resources for achieving conservation and socio-economic objectives. to what extent have economic incentives been generated to effectively harness these resources to meet the said objectives is an open question. to address this question, this paper reviews briefly and broadly the economic potential of the country’s forest resources in terms of forest goods and services. estimates of economic potential of timber and non-timber forest products and environmental services have been assessed. a number of recommendations for realizing the potential for achieving development and poverty reduction objectives is provided. key words: forestry, non-timber forest products, ecosystem services, economic potential, livelihood s.s. pandey1*, b.p. subedi1 and h. dhungana1 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 49 timber timber and fuelwood are amongst the most important forest products that generate cash earning and are critical to the livelihood of rural people. although revenue generation remains significant (table 1), the contribution has declined over the period of 2003-06. this declining trend must be examined to ascertain the level of illegal logging or corruption involved in the trade and transport of timber and fuelwood. non-timber forest products nepal records 161 species of ntfps harvested for commercial purposes (subedi, 2006). more than a 100 of these species are high value ntfps that are traded in national and international markets. the livelihood of the majority of population of himalayan and high mountain, especially in western nepal, is sustained by ntfp trade (subedi, 2006). the bulk of the ntfps, especially medical and aromatic plants (maps), are exported to india with the remaining sent to other countries such as the united states and those in europe. nepal’s ntfp export was estimated at over nrs. 2.5 billion ($35 million) in a single year 2001/2002 (subedi, 2006). the total tax revenue generated from the ntfps, according to records at the department of forests for the years 2003/04, 2004/05 and 2005/06 were rs. 44,272,692, rs. 77,840,603 and rs. 44,213,019, respectively (dof, 2005; 2006; 2007). there is, however, no system for systematically tracking the income and employment generated from ntfp nationally. environmental services another source of earning from forest relates to environmental services. as of now, the revenue from the environmental services generated from forest is confined to the fee charged on the tourists visiting the protected areas and to payment for watershed conservation services. the revenue from 14 protected areas (excluding annapurna conservation carbon sequestration from forestry sector—is still evolving globally. in nepal, small initiatives have taken place. for example, makwanpur district development committee (mddc) has been allocating 20 percent of the amount that it receives from nepal electricity authority for the location of hydro power plant in kulekhani of this district. at present, the mddc receives $55,000 annually and this is ploughed back to the upland communities for the environmental services of protecting the upland watershed. a greater effort is needed to devise enduring mechanisms that guarantee flow of benefits to those who sustain the valuable ecosystem services at local as well national levels. potential for forest based economic development the previous section presented the existing status of revenue generation from forest products and ecosystem services. these figures do not represent the full economic potential of the forestry sector in nepal. for instance, in ansab experience, the existing programme of community forestry provides important opportunities for rural people to use forest products in a sustainable way to generate employment and income. establishing communitybased enterprises and integrating them into responsible value chains can serve to achieve both economic and conservation goals. the potential economic opportunities of the forestry sector this is discussed below. pandey et al. area) charged against tourist arrivals is erratic. this was primarily due to great fluctuation in tourist arrival during the period of maoist insurgency but, in the post-conflict context, more stable revenues may be expected. moreover, the notion of payment for environmental services (pes)—primarily for such services as biodiversity conservation, watershed protection and institutions fy 2003/04 fy 2004/05 fy 2005/06 quantity revenue quantity revenue quantity revenue (cft) (rs) (cft) (rs) (cft) (rs) district forest office 1,981,503 488,213,617 1,227,739 314,119,778 924,843 47,072,160 community forests na 77,909,234 na 40,274,330 na 8,306,309 total 566,122,851 354,394,108 255,378,469 source: dof (2005, 2006, 2007). table 1: timber and fuelwood trade recorded by the department of forest, 2003-06 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 50 pandey et al. timber here we estimate the potential market value of timber, by using the data from the national forestry inventory of 1999. we assumed a 1.5% annual growth and allocated 40% of increment as allowable cut as per the forestry inventory guidelines of the department of forests issued in 2001. we also assumed that an average value for timber of all species at rs. 250/cft for the altitude range of 01000 m and rs. 150/cft for 1000-3000 m (table 2). with these assumptions, we estimated an annual harvest of 58.65 million cft of timber, with a value of rs. 12.78 billion. our experience in dolakha suggests that two-thirds of the total timber sales from a cfug go to generate local employment. assuming a daily wage rate of rs. 200 per person, the timber subsector can generate 42,593,850 persondays of employment for local people, or an equivalent of 180 days a year or 6 months employment for 236,632 people. non-timber forest products there is no inventory data for ntfps, on par with timber species, except in some areas under project support. for instance, the data from ansab projects in dolakha and bajhang districts suggest a very high potential for raising income and employment from the ntfp sub-sector if comprehensive support on market information, business development services, financial services and access to technology is availed to the local people. ten fsc-certified cfugs (with *assumptions 3521 ha of forest) in dolakha generated an annual income of rs. 1,255 per hectare from 24 unprocessed ntfps in 2006. these 24 species, however, were not the high value ntfps traditionally traded from mountain forests (e.g., yarsagumba, jatamasi, and atis). thus the economic value could be much more for other ntfp-rich community forests, especially in the mountain areas. we estimate that a potential income from the ntfp sub-sector at national scale comes to rs 5.31 billion per annum for a total cf 1) average value for timber (log) of all wood species: altitude class (0-1000) = rs. 250/cft altitude class (1000-3000) = rs. 150/cft 2) average incremental growth rate is 1.5% (for slow growing species the least value recommended is 1% and for the fast growing species, it is about 3%) 3) average allowable cut for all wood species is assumed to be 40% of the annual increment; the recommended least value for this is 40% for the poor forest site and 60% for the average forest site 4) for the altitudinal region of 1000-3000 m, 50% of the allowable cut is considered to be a realistic. 5) 1 m3 = 35.31 cft area of 1,057,827 hectares in hills and mountains. for this, we assumed that 40% of the total community forests have potential for ntfps. the estimate would go up if yarsagumba, jatamasi, atis and high volume products like resin are included. the value addition in marketing chains (processing, grading, and packaging) would further generate income and employment opportunity. similarly, the ntfp sub-sector can generate 26,550,000 person days of employment for local people or an equivalent of 6 month or 180 days a year employment for 147,500 persons. environmental services pes is another source of revenue that can grow in the years to come. in our study, we found that mountain forests provide such services as carbon sequestration, recreational use, scenic beauty, watershed protection (irrigation, drinking water, hydropower, flood and sedimentation control), biodiversity conservation, soil formation and table 2: estimated present value of logs by altitudinal class* 0-1000 1224.1 6637.59 99.56 39.83 39.83 9956.39 10003000 897.9 6270.60 94.06 37.62 18.81 2821.77 3000-above 57.2 2018.44 30.28 12.11 total 2179.2 14926.63 223.90 89.56 58.64 12,778.16 altitude reachable stem increment allowable realistic value in rs. (m) forest volume (million cut volume of (million) areas (million cft) (million cut (million ('000ha) cft) cft) cft) banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 51 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2pandey et al. replenishment of fertility, pollination, and colonisation (subedi and singh, 2008). these services have considerable potential for generating income to the local people. because of the growing popularity of nepal’s varied cultural and ecological diversities, eco-tourism would be an attractive option for some communities. carbon sequestration from forest biomass is another opportunity that can be tapped by nepal through carbon trading. after bali action plan 2007 and copenhagen accord 2009, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (redd) plus has evolved as an important mitigation tool for climate change, providing opportunities for income through conservation and sustainable management of forests and the enhancement of forest carbon stock. though redd is still at the initial stages, it provides a good opportunity for nepal to enhance forest carbon and claim payment for carbon credits. recommendations the harnessing of the potentials of the forestry sector requires concerted effort from the government, donors and other actors. the following are the main areas where interventions should be focussed. organize community for resource management and enterprises a first important step towards realizing the economic potential of forest resources can be the organizing of the local communities to initiate forest management and forest-based enterprise activities. organizing the community into an appropriate management structure facilitates the management to achieve conservation and economic goals. this is a rigorous process that requires significant time and resources. establish small and medium forest enterprises similarly, efforts should be directed towards supporting the local community to establish and run small and medium forest enterprises (smfes) in a sustainable basis. these enterprises should consider environmental and social aspects, market requirements and policy provisions. for the enterprises to work, development agencies should offer a package of business development services (bds) that include skills training, information services and financing. integrate community enterprises to rewarding value chains the enterprises will not benefit the local community if they are not linked to rewarding value chains. it is thus important, even if difficult, to foster and sustain business partnership of the community enterprises with the more powerful actors in the market. it is especially the responsible business entities that provide price premiums on conservation and community effort. thus, development organizations should identify those business entities and facilitate partnerships within fair and transparent value chain governance. the communities should be supported to explore most promising value chains and try innovative marketing strategy (especially through forest management and chain of custody certification as well as fair trade). address key policy bottlenecks similarly, policy revisions should be pursued on a continuous basis to address the barriers that hinder the operation and growth of forest enterprises. these barriers include, for instance, arbitrary royalty rates for forest products, lengthy and costly export formalities, the ban on collection and trade of ntfps, contradictions between forestry and other laws, and cumbersome formalities on enterprise establishment. the issues should be constantly identified through multi-stakeholder consultation processes and addressed in time. design and operationalize the redd plus mechanism redd plus has evolved as a promising opportunity, but requires considerable effort in clarifying how it works within the participatory forestry program of nepal. it requires resolving key technical and social issues—especially on how to make it rewarding to local communities. therefore, redd plus piloting in different social and ecological contexts should be designed and implemented for experiential learning and innovation. adopt a strategy for import substitution despite being considerably rich in forest resources, nepal currently imports a huge amount of finished forest products, particularly plywood, furniture, veneer, paper, wooden handicrafts, boards, and herbal products from several neighbouring countries. government of nepal should devise strategies to engage the corporate and co-operative sectors to invest in forest based industries to meet the needs banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 52 pandey et al. of local and global markets. laws, policies and support interventions should be designed to this end. references dof. 2006. hamro ban, annual report of the department of forests for fy 2061/62, department of forests, kathmandu, nepal. dof. 2007. hamro ban, annual report of the department of forests for fy 2062/63, department of forests, kathmandu, nepal. dof. 2005. hamro ban, annual report of the department of forests for fy 2060/61, department of forests, kathmandu, nepal. kanel, k. r. 2004. twenty-five years of community forestry: contribution to millenium development goals. in twenty-five years of community forestry: contributing to millennium development goals (eds.) kanel, k.r., mathema, p., kandel, b.r., niraula, d.r., sharma, a.r., gautam, m. proceedings of the fourth national workshop of community forestry, 4-6 august, 2004. community forestry division, department of forests, december 2004, kathmandu, nepal. subedi, b.p. and singh, s. p. 2008. ecosystem services of forests in nepal and uttarakhand himalayas: a few observations based on a pilot study. payment for environmental services, some concept and experiences, (ed.) bhatnagar, m. the icfai university press, hyderabad, india. subedi, b.p. 2006. linking plant-based enterprises and local communities to biodiversity conservation in nepal himalaya, adroit publishers, new delhi, india. corrected bankojanakari vol 17-2.pmd 40 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 role of interpretation in management: a case study of the protected area system in nepal barna bahadur thapa1 interpretation, as an educational activity along with enjoyment promised to increase awareness, appreciation and understanding of the protected areas. though relatively new concept to nepal it is widely used in western countries as a tool of park management. closely related to environmental education or conservation education in our context it also helps to manage natural resources and human resources. this study describes the role of interpretation in park management examining the interpretation theory using nepal as a case study. questionnaire survey was used to obtain the data and the results indicate that there is strong relationship between interpretation and park management. all of the survey groups reported positive links with park management. this study identifies the problems existing and improvements to be made in the interpretive facilities, training and equipment in relation to protected area management in nepal. key words: interpretation, conservation education, parks and protected areas, park management, nepal interpretation is an educational program and a transmission process of information about nature and natural resources and depends upon the perceptions and motivation of the person and on the organization which provides the service. it involves the communication of ideas and values about natural and cultural resources. in park management this concept assists visitors in developing a keener awareness, appreciation and understanding of the natural area. according to, tilden(1977), interpretation is an educational activity which aims to reveal meaning and relationships through the use of original objects, by first hand experience and by illustrative media, rather than simply to convey factual information. interpretation involves education through enjoyment because people generally visit natural areas for enjoyment rather than education. according to sharpe (1974) main reasons for interpretation are to develop awareness, appreciation and understanding of the total protected area environment, to use it as a management tool, by encouraging thoughtful use of the resources as a recreation area and by reducing the impact on certain fragile or overused area; and to promote a public understanding of parks and to improve public relations. interpretation involves not only communication of facts, but also includes the explanation, clarification and translation of meanings and relationships of both natural and cultural worlds and their interaction with each other (shiner, 1986). management of parks after establishment must be a dynamic and continuous process. in this regards, resource interpretation is considered as one of the important park management options. nepal does not have a long history of a national park system though it has grown substantially in the relatively short period of 33 years. the concept of national parks and protected areas in nepal was primarily initiated for the protection of wildlife, especially endangered species. the nature and species conservation movement was materialized by the establishment of royal chitawan national park in the year of 1973. since 1973, nepal has established an extensive network of protected areas, now covering 26,666 km2 or about 18.1% of the country area. currently this includes nine national parks, three wildlife reserves, two conservation areas and wildlife reserve and hunting reserve. park problems and management status in developing country like nepal, the park related problems are complex since it is a network including local people, tourists and natural resources. due to boosting tourism industry direst physical impact on a limited resource by local people and tourist are being open secrets. with more people and less resources, 1 warden: dhorpatan hunting reserve. e-mail: barnathapa@gmail.com 41 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 managers are facing many difficulties in maintaining parks and reserves. several different strategies have been developed for providing guidelines for nature conservation but most of these have not clearly stated in the specific park management system in nepal. national park and conservation acts 1973 is the main legislative framework of protected area establishment and administration. this emphasizes conservation and protection of natural resources rather than management. the national parks and wildlife general rules and regulations explain the legislative power of managers and the use of natural resources within the protected areas however in terms of providing conservation education for local people and interpretive facilities for visitors, they are vague and provide no indications and directions for interpretation structure and content to be developed and maintained. the third policy is the protected area plan. management plan developed at the early stage of park establishment have included conservation education as a management function. but due to lack of continued improvement and amendment, all the plans are outdated. role of interpretation existing park related core and management problems, continued loss of natural resources and its overuse propelled the need of interpretation in every sector especially in resource and park management. until now protected areas of nepal have used law enforcement for resource management rather than education. law enforcement is necessary in park management but it can motivate only a small percentage of people while interpretation has the power to educate general public because it tries to show the meaningful relationships. effective interpretation helps to communicate with local people by using different media and methods and obtains their support and cooperation for resource management. an application of effective interpretive media and methods is essential to our situation in order to communicate effectively with the local people and to maintain good public relations as well as to enhance protected area values. providing service is one of the most important aspects of park management in nepal and it is the manager’s job to make the visitor’s time enjoyable by providing facilities/ activities for interpretation minimizing the impact on the local people’s way of life and resources. with the help of effective interpretive media, methods and training, the existing conservation education program may be widened to some extent so that the scope of interpretation is very high for nepal. in the present situation, protected area managers have a big responsibility to preserve the nation’s natural, cultural, historical and landscape values for the enjoyment, education, inspiration and pace of humankind. in order to achieve these objectives, management requires a long term supportive management system that might combine resource interpretation with a well planned conservation education program. this program will assist managers to provide better management of the park. materials and methods quantitative and qualitative approaches were used for the data collection. the formal method used to collect data for this research was a postal survey because of the limits of time and money since study was carried out in nepal while studying in new zealand. qualitative data were gathered from structures survey questionnaires to provide specific statistical information related to the subject matter. qualitative data were gathered through semi structured open-ended questionnaires, nonparticipant observation and informal interviews. three different sample groups: 1) park wardens and rangers, 2) selected experts familiar with protected areas and 3) selected visitors familiar with nepal were selected for the research purpose. different questionnaire were used for each sample group to achieve the overall research objectives. the survey questionnaires for this research were designed with closed, open-ended structured and semi structured questions. 25 selected experts, 50 park wardens and rangers and 50 visitors form new zealand were surveyed for the research. among them 72 % of the experts, 60 % of park wardens and rangers and 74 % of selected visitors return the survey questionnaire. to enrich and crosscheck those formal questionnaire methods, informal interviews was used to collect information from those having knowledge and working experience in park and protected area management either in new zealand or in nepal. the first part of the open ended questions of the questionnaires was pre-coded for ease of analysis and thapa 42 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 interpretation of data and then entered into an excel 5.0 spreadsheet and then was transferred to spss. basic descriptive statistics were computed as well as the frequency distribution for each variable. for open ended questions, all answers were manually assigned to categories based on the similarity of answers. the categories of responses were analyzed in aggregate form. results and discussions it was found in the present study that all of the survey groups are generally positive about the role of interpretation in park management and the park wardens and rangers groups were quite familiar with the term interpretation and think there exists some kind of those facilities. respondents were found to be familiar with personal and non-personal techniques which are used more commonly in park interpretation. management problems in protected areas of nepal were recognized by all the survey groups. the findings of the study are presented and the issues are discussed below. existing facilities/ activities/ programs/ in protected areas of nepal a range of responses are provided by the different survey groups in terms of facilities, activities and programs. warden and rangers responds that school programs (100%), guided walks (47%) and exhibit and museums (37%) are the top three interpretive facilities or activities practiced here in nepal. experts ranked visitor centers(89%), exhibits and museum(72%), signs and labels(72%) as top three while visitors rated visitor center(73%), exhibits and museum (54%) and display boards (32%) as top three facilities. communication for visitors there are many sources form which visitors get information about parks and protected areas of nepal. according to selected visitors word of mouth (86%) was the primary source followed by tv/films (35%), travel agents (22%), park publications (19%) are the major sources of information. in wardens/ rangers view park publications (100%), interpretive talks (87%) were seen to be primary sources of information .the majority of respondents ranked park publications, newspaper/newsletters, tv/films and interpretive talks among the four most important media of communication with international visitors. interpretive programs for park management 90% of the wardens/ rangers have the knowledge of existence of a plan for interpretation, communication or public relations and 73% of them spend 10-30% of their time on such activities. only one spend (<10%) and two spend (>50%) time on these activities. facilities/ activities/programs for local people the facilities for visitors and locals may differ in terms of their needs and use. 100% of the park wardens and rangers indicated that forest resource distribution, school programs and public meetings were the main facilities and programs available for local people. buffer zone and community development meetings were regarded as a facility by 80% of them. respondents reported that interpretation was a means for introducing conservation education through school programs, training for resource use techniques, providing information about the grazing season, resource collection time, and improved public relations through buffer zones and public meetings. thus it can be concluded that interpretation related to the above activities is an integral part of their programs. constraints to program implementation developing countries like nepal have limited opportunities to implement interpretative programs. all of the respondent’s ranked lack of adequate funds as the most pertinent problems in program implementation. lack of training, lack of policy, lack of equipment is found out to be other constraints. need for and importance of interpretation the role of interpretation is discussed and investigated in this part along with the discussion regarding interpretation training, equipment, activities, and the skills and knowledge needed to improve the scenario in the future. results indicate that 97 % of park wardens and rangers agreed that interpretation should be applied as a management function for natural resource management.97 % agreed that interpretation provided communication and improved public relations and 93% agreed that it was a management functions for providing services to visitors. furthermore, 30% specified that interpretation was used to provide conservation education and 13% specified that interpretation has been used in a variety of other context too. thapa 43 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 importance of interpretation all park wardens, rangers and experts and agreed that interpretation is important for park management in the context of nepal.81.1% of visitors regarded it as important while 13.5% of them though it as not important. needs for facilities, activities and programs it is recognized by all survey groups that the role of interpretation is important for parks and protected area management in the context of nepal. a majority of respondents indicated that visitor centers, audio visual display, public meetings, school programs, park publications, exhibits and guided walks are the most important activities, facilities and programs needed for park management in nepal. the results indicated that all the survey groups ranked visitor centers as their first priority. selected visitors ranked school programs, interpretive talks, audio visual displays and exhibits as 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th priority. wardens/ rangers and selected experts ranked audiovisuals, public meetings, school programs and park publications as their 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th priority respectively. other ideal facilities for nepal respondents were asked to describe the equipment, programs, opportunities, facilities and training that they considered ideal for nepal. according to experts (n=18) and wardens/ rangers (n=30) the most important idea is to provide education/visitor centers with audio visual displays while visitors (n= 37) thinks that to provide visitor center in kathmandu and at each park office was the most important idea. training for interpretation park wardens and rangers were asked whether they had any training related to interpretation. 60% of park wardens/rangers indicated that they had training related to conservation education and interpretation in the course of their working center.40% of them had had no training even though they claimed that they had work experience in terms of conservation education and public relations.33.33% of park staff had involved in the training relating to conservation education /environment education, 22.22% had trained in the communication extension while 11.2% of them had training regarding public relation/a participation/ meetings.33.33% of them had training regarding orientation, nature guides, park management etc. a majority of respondents ranked short courses (1-3 months), workshops (1-2 weeks), and long courses (3-6 months) amongst their first three important training frameworks for interpretation. respondents indicates wildlife management techniques, park management techniques, conservation education, audio/visual handling and presenting skills and communication motivation and extension skills as the top five most urgently needed training topics for park staff in nepal. this study recommends that additional interpretation training in these topics is a priority for park staff. park staff responsible for interpretation a majority of respondents indicated that either rangers alone (37%) or wardens and rangers together (33%) are the park staff responsible for conducting conservation education and interpretation. however, 23% indicated that park wardens, rangers and other staff were responsible for interpretation. it means that conservation education and interpretation is important for other park staff such as senior game scouts, game scouts and administrative staff. conclusion the study shows that all of the respondents (park wardens, rangers, experts and visitors) are generally aware of the importance of interpretation for park management. they were also found to be familiar with the reasons for interpretation, for example; understanding and awareness of the park, interpretation as a management tool, awareness of communication and public relations, conservation education. all the respondents indicated an availability of interpretive facilities in protected areas of nepal for visitors and the public and make suggestions for the alternative activities and facilities regarding the issue. in addition to this, a great majority of the sample population were found to be familiar with techniques of interpretation like audio visual presentation, park publications, guided walks, visitor centers, display boards, interpretive talks and living interpretation, which can be used to minimize or reduce park problems. finally, the study concludes that interpretation can play a major role in park management in terms of conserving natural resources, managing visitors and preserving cultural and historic sites. interpretation can improve public understanding of the park by using a range of interpretive facilities and techniques. thapa 44 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 references sharpe, g. w. 1982. selecting the interpreting media. in g.w. sharpe(ed.), interpreting the environment (2nd ed.) (pp.100-122). new york, usa. john wiley and sons, inc. shiner, j. r. 1986. park ranger handbook. state college usa: slippery rock university, venture publishing inc. thapa, b. b., ochilo, j., pasi, t. t. and rongo, t. 1987. people or resources: establishing priorities for the management of protected areas. new zealand national parks and protected areas operational training course, an occasional paper 19th august4th december 1987. department of conservation, turangi, new zealand. thapa, b. b. 1996. the role of interpretation in park management: a case study report. department of parks, recreation and tourism, lincoln university, new zealand. tilden, f. (1977). interpreting our heritage (2nd ed.) chapel hill, usa: university of north carolina press. upreti, b. n. (1991). national parks and protected areas. background papers: to the national conservation strategy for nepal vol.2. kathmandu, nepal: the world conservation union (iucn). thapa cover 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 41 documentation of flora of rara lake and adjoining areas in mid-western region of nepal b. k. basnet1 rara national park is the smallest national park of the country. it is rich in floral and faunal diversity. rara is one of the sacred lakes and is listed as a ramsar site. the aim of the study was to compile the representative flora of rara lake and to present status of available vegetation. the research used both primary and secondary sources of data. field visit was conducted in june, 2010 during which more than 300 plant specimens were collected. the secondary data were collected from rara and adjoining area like gamgadi. these data were thoroughly analyzed to understand the composition of vegetation. the study revealed the existence of about 224 flowering plant species in the area, under 173 genera and 67 families. compositae was found to be the largest family (21 species and 17 genera) followed by rosaceae (19 species and 10 genera). key words: rara lake, ramsar site, floral composition, alpine flora, flowering plants m ugu district lies in karnali zone in the midwestern development region of nepal. it is inaccessible due the lack of motorable road. there is a newly established airport at talcha which is about two hours journey from rara lake and gamgadi, the district headquarters of mugu. there is regular flight from nepalgunj and surkhet, the regional headquarters of the mid-western region of nepal. the main attraction of mugu district is the rara national park (rnp). the park was established in 1976 with an objective of protecting the unique flora and fauna of the humla-jumla region of nepal. it was also declared as ramsar site (number 1695) in 2007. the park covers an area of 106 km2 as core area and 197.76 km2 as buffer zone. the park ranges in elevation from 1,800 m to 4,039 m at chuchemara peak on the southern side of rara lake. on the northern side, the peaks of ruma kand and malika kand exist (bhuju et al., 2007). despite being the country’s smallest national park, rnp encloses the largest lake of nepal (area: 10.8 km2, depth: 167 m). the lake belongs to alpine freshwater category and lies at an altitude of 2,990 m. it is oval-shaped with an east-west axis. it has a length of 5 km and a width of 3 km, and drains into mugukarnali river via nijar khola. the physiography of the study area comprises transhimalayan range covering entirely the temperate and sub-alpine flora. mountains above 4,000 m runs 1 department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu email: basnet_b@hotmail.com along west to east with different patches of vegetation composition in different aspects around rara lake. the botanical exploration of karnali zone started with the visit of col. bailey in 1956. he visited different parts of karanali zone including rara lake for botanical collection. fifteen years later, british scientists gathered a large number of plants from this area. stainton travelled the major parts of the zone in 1963 to explore its flora. similarly, itoh and rajbhandary in 1965, and other nepalese botanists also visited the zone on different occasions and assembled a large number of plants for herbarium, garden and other laboratory purposes (manandhar, 1984). ferro who visited it in 1979 has compiled limnological and biological data. morphological, physical, chemical and biological information of rara lake has already been published by tokio and yashiro in 1986. materials and methods the research is based on both primary and secondary data. for the primary information, a field visit was conducted in june, 2010 during which, more than 300 plant specimens under different families were collected as herbarium specimens, with collection number, locality and plant habit. the secondary data was based on herbaria collected from rara lake and adjoining areas by different collectors at different times, and deposited by them at national herbarium banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 42 basnet (kath). such data were further analyzed in accordance with family, generic and specific names. the collected specimens were thoroughly examined and identified by using relevant references as hooker (1883–1887), dpr (1994), polunin and stainton (1984). they were crosschecked with the herbarium specimens deposited at kath. the nomenclature given in latest taxonomic literatures (press et al., 2000; dpr, 2001) were adopted. the herbarium specimens are deposited at national herbarium kath, godawari, lalitpur, nepal. results and discussion the flora of the study area comprised a total of 224 species, 173 genera and 67 families of flowering plants (annex 1). the research found compositae to be the largest family (21 species under 17 genera) followed by rosaceae (19 species under 10 genera), and labiatae. they are followed by graminae (14 species under 11 genera), cyperaceae (13 species and 9 genera) and umbelliferae (9 species under 7 genera). twenty nine families were counted as least species number holding family. these included, acanthaceae, amaranthaceae, asclepiadaceae, balasminaceae, buxaceae, campanulaceae, cannabinaceae, coriariaceae, dioscoreaceae, dipsacaceae, holoragaceae, juglandaceae, lentibulariaceae, loranthaceae, menyanthaceae, onagraceae, orchidaceae, oxalidaceae, phytolacaceae, plantaginaceae, primulaceae, rubiaceae, rutaceae, tamaricaceae, taxaceae, thymelaceae, urticaceae,vitaceae and zigiberaceae. other 32 families had low number of species ranging from having two to eight species in each family. the family names followed by genus and species’ names are arranged alphabetically (annex 1). regarding the diversity of the species in the surrounding area, least number of species was observed under pine forests, especially in the planted area near milli chaur. high number of herbaceous plant was found in lower milli along the side of pasture land designated by the park. although collection of aquatic macrophyte remained the focus of interest during the field study, only a few numbers of such species could be collected because of difficult field situations. myroiphylum spicatum under the family holoragaceae, urticularia australis under the family lentibulariaceae and three species of potamogeton were recorded during the field survey. in addition, species like isolepis setacea under the family cyperaceae and rumex under the family ploygonaceae were observed in semi-aquatic habitats. more detailed survey of vegetation is required in order to deeply understand the availability of endemic and other endangered plant species. it is suggested that a comprehensive research be conducted in future in collaboration with academic universities within the budgetary frame of the department of national parks and wildlife conservation. acknowledgements i express my gratitude to mr. sahas man shrestha, director general, department of forest research and survey for his encouragement to conduct this study. i am grateful to mr. ramesh shakya, mr dipendra pokharel and mr. atul man joshi for their initiative to provide me the grant and necessary arrangement during the field visit. i am also thankful to the nepal army personnel and park staff for their support in providing medical services during the period of my illness. i express my sincere thanks to senior taxonomist dr. keshab raj rajbhandari for his valuable instruction during the identification of the collected specimen. references bhuju, u. r., shakya, p. r., basnet, t. b. and shrestha, s. 2007. nepal biodiversity resource book (protected area, ramsar site and world heritage sites). icimod and moest, kathmandu, nepal. dpr. 2001. flowering plants of nepal (phanerogams). bulletin of department of plant resources no 18, kathmandu , nepal. dpr. 1994. enumeratin of vascular plants of west nepal. bulletin of department of plant resources no. 12, kathmandu, nepal. ferro, w. 1979. some limnological and biological data from lake rara. journal of nepal research centre 2 (3): 241–261. hooker, j.d. 1883-1887. flora of british india. vol. i vii, reev and company, london, uk. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 43 manandhar, n.p. 1984. a contribution to the flora of jumla district and its environ, nepal. j. econ. taxon. bot. (india) 5 (3): 547-571. press, j. r., shrestha, k. k. and sutton, d. a. 2000. annoted checklist of the flowering plants annex 1: list of the family wise species and genera s.no. collection name of scientific name family name number collector 1. 0104 basnet, b.k. aechmanthera gossypina (wall.) nees acanthaceae 2. 0069 basnet, b.k. cyathula tomentosa (roth) moq. amaranthaceae 3. 0113 basnet, b.k. arisaema flavum (forsk.) schott araceae 4. 0114 basnet, b.k. acorus calamus l. araceae 5. 0219 basnet, b.k. arisaema consanguineum schott araceae 6. 0002 basnet, b.k. vincetoxicum hirundinaria medicus asclepiadaceae 7. p14 basnet, b.k. impatiens laxiflora edgew. balasminaceae 8. 0003 basnet, b.k. berberis chitria lindl. berberidaceae 9. p005 basnet, b.k. berberis koehneana c.k. schneid. berberidaceae 10. 0112 basnet, b.k. betula alnoides buch.-ham. ex d.don betulaceae 11. 0115 basnet, b.k. alnus nitida (spach) endl. betulaceae 12. 0110 basnet, b.k. buxus polystachya buxaceae 13. 0004 basnet, b.k. codonopsis campanulaceae 14. 0118 basnet, b.k. cannabis sativa linn cannabinaceae 15. 0005 basnet, b.k. triosteum himalayanum wall. caprifoliaceae 16. 0047 basnet, b.k. lonicera angustifolia wall caprifoliaceae 17. 20674 basnet, b.k. lonicera quinquelocularis hardw. caprifoliaceae 18. 206741 basnet, b.k. lonicera obovata royle caprifoliaceae 19. p008 basnet, b.k. lonicera acuminata wall caprifoliaceae 20. p008 basnet, b.k. lonicera lancelata wall caprifoliaceae 21. p008a basnet, b.k. lonicera spinosa jaquem. ex decne.) walp. wall caprifoliaceae 22. 0006 basnet, b.k. arenaria sikiimensis majumdar caryophylaceae 23. 0168 basnet, b.k. gypsophylla cerastioides d.don caryophylaceae 24. 7018 manadhar, n.p. stellaria lanata hook. f. ex edgew & hook.f. caryophylaceae 25. 8010 manadhar, n.p. cerastium fontanum baumg caryophylaceae 26. 0121 basnet, b.k. euonymus amygdalifolius franch. celastraceae 27. 0126 basnet, b.k. euonymus sanguineus loes.ex diels. celastraceae 28. 0220 basnet, b.k. euonymus fimbriatus wall. celastraceae 29. 0013 basnet, b.k. gnaphalium affine d.don compositae 30. 0010 basnet, b.k. gnaphalium hypoleucum dc. compositae 31. 0085 basnet, b.k. ligularia fischeri (ledeb.) turcz. compositae 32. 0092 basnet, b.k. morina polyphylla wall. compositae 33. 0117 basnet, b.k. anaphalis busua (buch. – ham. ex d.don) dc. compositae 34. 0124 basnet, b.k. conyza stricta wall. compositae 35. 0133 basnet, b.k. conyza leucantha (d.don) ludlow & raven compositae 36. 0134 basnet, b.k. aster peduncularis wall. ex nees compositae 37. 0135 basnet, b.k. cremanthodium arnicoides (dc. ex royle) r. good compositae basnet of nepal. natural history museum, london, u.k. polunin, o. and stainton, a. 1984. concise flowers of the himalaya. oxford university press. new delhi, india. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 44 38. 0156 basnet, b.k. dubyaea hispida dc. compositae 39. 0157 basnet, b.k. leontopodium stracheyi (hook.f.) c.b. clarke ex hemsley compositae 40. 0177 basnet, b.k. dipsacus inermis wall compositae 41. 0178 basnet, b.k. crassocephalum crepidioides (benth.) s. moore compositae 42. 7038 manadhar, n.p. cirsium verutum (d.don) spreng compositae 43. 8143 manadhar, n.p. carpesium nupalense less. compositae 44. p0, p013 basnet, b.k. erigeron acer linn compositae 45. p001 basnet, b.k. taraxacum officinale wigg. compositae 46. p002 basnet, b.k. artemisia caruifolia buch.-ham. compositae 47. p010 basnet, b.k. conyza canadensis (l.) cornq. compositae 48. p034 basnet, b.k. myriactis nepalensis less compositae 49. p18 basnet, b.k. conyza japonica (thunb.) less. ex dc. compositae 50. 0011 basnet, b.k. coriaria napalensis wall. coriariaceae 51. 0012 basnet, b.k. capsella bursa-pastoris (l.) medikus cruciferae 52. 0166 basnet, b.k. cardamine impatiens linn. cruciferae 53. 0181 basnet, b.k. cardamine macrophylla willd. cruciferae 54. 0194 basnet, b.k. cardamine loxostemonoids o.e. schulz cruciferae 55. p015 basnet, b.k. thlaspi arvense linn. cruciferae 56. 206712 basnet, b.k. juniperus indica bertol. cupressaceae 57. 0089 basnet, b.k. anthoxanthum hookeri (griseb.) rendle cyperaceae 58. 0122 basnet, b.k. cyperus squarrosus l. cyperaceae 59. 0127 basnet, b.k. carex hirtella drejer cyperaceae 60. 0130 basnet, b.k. cyperus cyperoides (retz.) kuntze cyperaceae 61. 0138 basnet, b.k. arundo donax linn. cyperaceae 62. 0139 basnet, b.k. cyperus difformis l. cyperaceae 63. 0145 basnet, b.k. cyperus niveus retz. cyperaceae 64. 0159 basnet, b.k. eleocharis congesta d.don cyperaceae 65. 0169 basnet, b.k. carex inanis kunth cyperaceae 66. 0173 basnet, b.k. isolepis setacea (l.) r.br cyperaceae 67. 0188 basnet, b.k. fimbristylis complanata (retz.) link cyperaceae 68. 0192 basnet, b.k. schoenoplectus juncoides (roxb.)palla cyperaceae 69. p027 basnet, b.k. arundinella setosa trin. cyperaceae 70. 0191 basnet, b.k. dioscorea deltoidea wall. ex kunth dioscoreaceae 71. 0171 basnet, b.k. dipsacus inermis wall. dipsacaceae 72. 0182 basnet, b.k. eleagnus kanaii momiyama elaeagnaceae 73. p009 basnet, b.k. eleagnus parvifolia wall. elaeagnaceae 74. 0014 basnet, b.k. rhododendron arboreum smith ericaceae 75. 0094 basnet, b.k. lyonia ovalifolia (wall.) drude ericaceae 76. 0176 basnet, b.k. gaultheria trichophylla royle ericaceae 77. 0015 basnet, b.k. rhododendron lepidotum wall. ex g.don ericaeae 78. 0105 basnet, b.k. quercus semicarpifolia sm. fagaceae 79. 0107 basnet, b.k. quercus griffithi hook.f. & thomas. ex miq. fagaceae 80. 0057 basnet, b.k. corydalis elegans wall.ex hook.f. &thomas fumariaceae 81. 0059 basnet, b.k. corydalis govaniana wall fumariaceae 82. 0016 basnet, b.k. gentiana pedicellata (d.don) griseb. gentianaceae 83. 0017 basnet, b.k. swertia bimaculata (sieb. & zucc.) c.b. clarke gentianaceae 84. 0165 basnet, b.k. swertia nervosa (g.don) c.b. clarke gentianaceae 85. p13 basnet, b.k. swertia chirayita (roxb. ex fleming) karstrn gentianaceae 86. 0190 basnet, b.k. geranium himalayanse klotzsch geraniaceae 87. 8091 basnet, b.k. geranium wallichianum d.don ex sweet geraniaceae 88. 6997 manadhar, n.p. geranium lambertii sweet geraniaceae 89. 0074 basnet, b.k. microstegium petiolare (trin.) bor. gramineae 90. 0080 basnet, b.k. oryzopsis lateralis (regel) stapf gramineae 91. 0116 basnet, b.k. cappilipedium parviflorum (r.br.) stapf. gramineae basnet banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 45 92. 0119 basnet, b.k. agrostis pilosula trin gramineae 93. 0120 basnet, b.k. agrostis stolonifera linn gramineae 94. 0136 basnet, b.k. elymus nayarii karthik gramineae 95. 0137 basnet, b.k. brachypodium sylvaticum (huds.) p. beauv. gramineae 96. 0140 basnet, b.k. agrostis petelotii (hitchc. ) noltie gramineae 97. 0163 basnet, b.k. themeda hookeri (griseb.) a. camus. gramineae 98. 0174 basnet, b.k. heteropogon contortus (l.) beauv. gramineae 99. 0189 basnet, b.k. eragrostis nigra nees & steud. gramineae 100. 0193 basnet, b.k. cymbopogon munroi (c.b. clarke) noltie gramineae 101. 0195 basnet, b.k. agrostis nervosa nees ex trin. gramineae 102. 0224 basnet, b.k. chrysopogon gryllus (l.)trin. gramineae 103. 0018 basnet, b.k. myriophylum spicatum linn. haloragacae 104. 7062 manandhar, n.p hypericum choisianum wall. ex n. robson hypericaceae 105. 0184 basnet, b.k. hypericum elodeoides choisy hypericaeae 106. 0019 basnet, b.k. iris goniocarpa baker iridaceae 107. 0072 basnet, b.k. iris kemaonensis d.don ex royle iridaceae 108. 0179 basnet, b.k. iris decora wall. iridaceae 109. 0148 basnet, b.k. juglans regia linn. juglandaceae 110. 0076 basnet, b.k. luzula muetiflora (retz.) lejeune juncaceae 111. 0141 basnet, b.k. juncus leucanthus royle ex d.don juncaceae 112. 0020, p025 basnet, b.k. thymus linearis benth. labiatae 113. 0021 basnet, b.k. nepeta laevigata (d.don) hand.-mazz. labiatae 114. 0022 basnet, b.k. verbascum thapsus linn. labiatae 115. 0073 basnet, b.k. clinopodium umbrosum (m.bieb.) c. koch labiatae 116. 0096 basnet, b.k. phlomis setigera falc. ex benth. labiatae 117. 0155 basnet, b.k. leonurus cardiaca linn. labiatae 118. 0175 basnet, b.k. coleus forskohlii briq. labiatae 119. 0200 basnet, b.k. salvia nubicola wall. labiatae 120. 206760 basnet, b.k. dracocephalum wallichii sealy labiatae 121. 206787 basnet, b.k. colquhounia coccinea wall labiatae 122. 5156 manadhar, n.p. phlomis bracteosa royle ex benth. labiatae 123. 7049 manadhar, n.p. elsholtzia fruticosa (d.don0 rehder labiatae 124. 8577 manadhar, n.p. elsholtzia blanda benth. labiatae 125. p003 basnet, b.k. salvia campanulata wall. labiatae 126. p12 basnet, b.k. origanum vulgare linn. labiatae 127. p4 basnet, b.k. salvia hians royle ex benth. labiatae 128. 0023 basnet, b.k. caragana gerardiana marquand leguminosae 129. 0024 basnet, b.k. astragalus melanostachys benth.ex bunge leguminosae 130. 0025 basnet, b.k. lathyrus luteus leguminosae 131. 0026 basnet, b.k. trigonella emodi benth. leguminosae 132. 6923 manadhar, n.p. caragana brevispina royle leguminosae 133. 7010 manadhar, n.p. vicia angustifolia l. leguminosae 134. 8136 manadhar, n.p. indigofera hebepetala benth. ex baker leguminosae 135. p019 basnet, b.k. lotus corniculatus l. leguminosae 136. 0147 basnet, b.k. urticularia australis r.br. lentibulariaceae 137. 0167 basnet, b.k. polygonatum verticillatum l. all. liliaceae 138. 0183 basnet, b.k. smilax menispermoidea a.dc. liliaceae 139. 0186 basnet, b.k. smilacina purpurea wall. liliaceae 140. 0199 basnet, b.k. scurrula elata (edgew.) danser loranthaceae 141. 0027 basnet, b.k. menyanthes trifolita linn. menyanthaceae 142. 0028 basnet, b.k. syringa emodi wall. oleaceae 143. 0029 basnet, b.k. jasminum humile linn. oleaceae. 144. p017/2 basnet, b.k. oenothera rosea l.herit & aiton onagraceae 145. 0172 basnet, b.k. epipactis helleborine (l.) crantz orchidaceae 146. 0031 basnet, b.k. oxalis cornuculata linn oxalidacae 147. 0063 basnet, b.k. meconopsis regia g. taylor papaveraceae 148. 0067 basnet, b.k. meconopsis napaulensis dc papaveraceae basnet banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 46 149. 0032 basnet, b.k. phytolaca acinosa roxb. phytolacaceae 150. 0008 basnet, b.k. pinus wallichiana a.b. jackson pinaceae 151. 0078 basnet, b.k. picea smithiana (wall.)boiss. pinaceae 152. 0158 basnet, b.k. tsuga dumosa (d.don) eichler pinaceae 153. 0170 basnet, b.k. cedrus deodara (roxb. ex d.don) g.don pinaceae 154. 0180 basnet, b.k. abies pindrow royle pinaceae 155. 0034 basnet, b.k. plantago major linn. plantaginaceae 156. 0088 basnet, b.k. polygala sibirica linn. polygalaceae 157. p017 basnet, b.k. polygala abyssinica r.br. ex fresen polygalaceae 158. p035 basnet, b.k. polygonum aviculare linn. polygonacae 159. 0009 basnet, b.k. oxyria digyna (l.) hill polygonaceae 160. 0164 basnet, b.k. bistorta amplexicaulis (d.don) greene polygonaceae 161. 0201 basnet, b.k. rumex acetosa linn. polygonaceae 162. 0035 basnet, b.k. potamogeton natans linn. potamogetonaceae 163. 0036 basnet, b.k. potamegeton pusillus linn. potamogetonaceae 164. 0102 basnet, b.k. potamogeton distintus potamogetonaceae 165. p032 basnet, b.k. primula denticulata sm. primulaceae 166. 0129 basnet, b.k. anemone rivularis buch.-ham. ex dc ranunculaceae 167. 0161 basnet, b.k. thalictrum javanicum bl. ranunculaceae 168. 0162 basnet, b.k. thalictrum virgatum hook. f. & thoms ranunculaceae 169. p015 basnet, b.k. thalictrum chelidonii dc ranunculaceae 170. p037 basnet, b.k. caltha palustris linn. ranunculaceae 171. p21 basnet, b.k. clematis connata dc ranunculaceae 172. 0007 basnet, b.k. sorbaria tomentosa (lindl.) rhed. rosaceae 173. 0001 basnet, b.k. rosa macrophylla lindl. rosaceae 174. 0040 basnet, b.k. potentilla argyrophylla wall. ex lehm. rosaceae 175. 0041 basnet, b.k. rubus foliolosus d.don rosaceae 176. 0043 basnet, b.k. potentilla nepalensis wall. ex hook rosaceae 177. 0060 basnet, b.k. cotoneaster nitidus jacques rosaceae 178. 0100 basnet, b.k. prunus domestica rosaceae 179. 0103 basnet, b.k. rosa brunonii lindl. rosaceae 180. 0106 basnet, b.k. pyrus pashia buch.-ham. ex d.don rosaceae 181. 0132 basnet, b.k. prunus cornuta (wall. ex royale) steud. rosaceae 182. a2/p004 basnet, b.k. potentilla griffithii hook. f. rosaceae 183. p004 basnet, b.k. agrimonia pilosa ledeb. rosaceae 184. p007 basnet, b.k. cotoneaster tibeticus klotz rosaceae 185. p014/0094 basnet, b.k. cotoneaster microphyllus wall. ex lindl. rosaceae 186. p020/p011 basnet, b.k. fragaria nubicola lindle. ex lacaita rosaceae 187. p021 basnet, b.k. rosa sericea lindl. rosaceae 188. p029 basnet, b.k. cotoneaster taylori yu rosaceae 189. p030 basnet, b.k. potentilla leuconota d.don rosaceae 190. p11 basnet, b.k. spiraea hypoleuca dunn rosaceae 191. p0 52 basnet, b.k. rubia manjith roxb. ex fleming rubiaceae 192. 0044 basnet, b.k. skimmia anquetilia n.p. tylor & airy shaw rutaceae 193. 0045 basnet, b.k. populus ciliata wall. ex royle salicaceae 194. 0046 basnet, b.k. salix daltoniana andress. salicaceae 195. 2067103 basnet, b.k. viburnum cotininfolium d.don sambucaceae 196. 206719 basnet, b.k. viburnum erubescens wall. ex dc. sambucaceae 197. 0093 basnet, b.k. bergenia ciliata (haw.) sternb. saxifragaceae 198. 0095 basnet, b.k. saxifraga parnassifolia d.don. saxifragaceae 199. 0097 basnet, b.k. astilbe rivularis buch.-ham. ex d.don saxifragaceae 200. 0098 basnet, b.k. parnacea nubicola wall. ex royale saxifragaceae 201. 0079 basnet, b.k. sopubia trifida buch.ham. ex d.don scrophulariaceae 202. 0101 basnet, b.k. hemiphragma heterophyllum wall. scrophulariaceae 203. 0108 basnet, b.k. mazus surculosus d.don scrophulariaceae 204. 0109 basnet, b.k. peducularis gracilis wall. ex benth. scrophulariaceae 205. 0146 basnet, b.k. verbascum thapsus l. scrophulariaceae basnet banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 47 206. 0083 basnet, b.k. datura stramonium linn. solanaceae 207. 0091 basnet, b.k. hyosymus niger linn. solanaceae 208. 0049 basnet, b.k. myricaria rosea w.w.sm. tamaricaceae 209. 0048 basnet, b.k. taxus contorta griff taxaceae 210. p019/2 basnet, b.k. stellera chamaejasme linn. thymelaceae 211. 0065 basnet, b.k. torilis japonica (houtt.) dc. umbelliferae 212. 0070 basnet, b.k. pleurospermum hookeri c.b. clarke umbelliferae 213. 0077 basnet, b.k. bupleurum longicaule wall. ex dc. umbelliferae 214. 0081 basnet, b.k. acronema tenerum (dc.) edgew. umbelliferae 215. 0082 basnet, b.k. bupleurum tenue wall. ex dc umbelliferae 216. 0084 basnet, b.k. heracleum nepalense d.don umbelliferae 217. 8561 manadhar, n.p. bupleurum candoleii wall. ex dc. umbelliferae 218. 8775 manadhar, n.p. pimpinella diversifolia dc. umbelliferae 219. p024 basnet, b.k. eryngium foetidum linn. umbelliferae 220. 0075 basnet, b.k. urtica dioca linn. urticaceae 221. 0058 basnet, b.k. dipsacus inermis wall. violaceae 222. 0062 basnet, b.k. viola biflora linn. violaceae 223. 0071 basnet, b.k. parthenocissus semicordata (wall) planch. vitaceae 224. 0052 basnet, b.k. roscoea alpina royle zingiberaceae basnet corrected bankojanakari vol 18-1.pmd 1 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal payment for environmental services: an emerging issue to be addressed globally, economic approach to environmental management has been receiving recognition in all sectors of the economy. forests provide ecosystem services such as pleasant landscapes, carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, watershed protection and so on. forest ecosystems provide a wide variety of environmental services such as water regulation, biodiversity conservation, carbon storage for climate change mitigation & so on. therefore, paramount importance is being given to forest management issues these days. environmental goods and services not only benefit the local communities, it will also provide benefits to the global communities. however, not all environmental uses generate financial, returns commensurate with their real economic value. environmental services are not traded in the market and have no observable price, which may be the reason. implementing payment for environmental service (pes) mechanisms can be a way for natural resource conservation, and achieve development goals and, especially in low-income regions. the use of gross domestic product (gdp) or gross national product (gnp) as indicators of economic performance, however, has been critically debated, not only because they do not account for many environmental values but more importantly because they do not provide correct measures of change in wellbeing. as a result, the natural resource and environmental accounting (nra) approach emerged to provide the operational framework for measuring and evaluating progress towards sustainable development by including all environmental values missing from the current systems of national accounts (sna). it is relatively easy to assess the value of tangible commercially exploited natural assets such as, timber and fuel wood compared to the non-traded and indirect services of ecosystems such as regulating climate, water purification, supporting for nutrient cycling, soil formation and biological diversity. 2 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 pes, therefore, develops mechanisms to capture environmental externalities and bring them into marketplace. the basic principles of pes are: beneficiaries of environmental services pay for their provision; and providers of environmental services get paid to provide them. it is important to identify the demand and supply side of the environmental services. the demand aspects include the questions such as what are the specific services? who benefits from these services’? how much benefit do they receive? similarly, some questions related to supply side are how are these services generated? how much more or less of these services would we receive if land use changed? who generates these services? before understanding and implementing pes, some crucial and pertinent questions need to be answered such as: • what is the willingness-to-pay of the beneficiaries of environmental services to help finance conservation (contingent valuation)? • how can their willingness-to-pay be translated into real resource flows? • how should the collected funds be used to structure payments to those who are doing conservation activities? • how do these questions differ when global and local pes are taken into consideration? people in nepal are not much aware of the intangible benefits of the forestry sector. there are enormous environmental benefits that forests can provide in a sustainable way. realizing such environmental values of forests locally and globally, concerned institutions need to start working on “payment for environmental services” with a concerted effort. in recent years, policy makers have been searching for different ways to mitigate the effects of rising green house gases (ghgs) concentration. particular interest has been directed towards carbon stocks in forests which are the main terrestrial sinks for carbon (balboa-murias et al., 2006; deng et al., 2011). each cubic meter of wood stores approximately 200 kg of carbon in forests, and for every ton of carbon sequestered in forest biomass, 3.667 tons of co2 are removed from the atmosphere (krcmar et al., 2001). globally, the quantity of carbon stored in terrestrial ecosystem is 2477 billion tons, where soil and vegetation accounts for approximately 81%, and 19%, respectively (ravindranath and ostwald, 2008). previous studies suggest that costs of carbon sequestration in forests are comparable to, and in some cases lower than, the costs of alternative mitigation and abatement approaches (matthews et al., 2002). their role in cost effective mitigation of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been widely recognized (richards and stokes, 2004; sohngen and brown, 2008; nepal et al., 2012). with the growth of community forests throughout the developing world, there is potential for them to play a significant role in sequestering and storing atmospheric carbon. there is growing interests among policymakers and others in receiving carbon offset payments through carbon trading mechanisms as a means of generating income for local communities. preliminary research findings from carbon monitoring surveys of selected community forests in nepal suggest that carbon stocks are increasing at the rate of 2 to 5 tons per hectare per year (dahal and banskota, 2009). thus, carbon offset payments could be another potential source of income to community forest users in addition to benefits from timber and resin. in this paper we have done a financial analysis of the management of chir pine (pinus roxburghii) forest plantations considering carbon offset payments, resin and timber using a hartman model to estimate the optimal rotation age and land expectation value (lev) at a range of carbon offset prices (in addition to timber and resin benefits). we have also estimated the impact of different assumptions of carbon emissions from the harvesting of wood products (or pickling rate) on the optimal rotation age and lev. finally, the impact that carbon offset payments would have on the optimal mix of forest products (timber and resin) from the plantation stand have also been estimated. the specific aim of this study is to estimate the magnitude of the impacts of carbon offset payments on chir pine plantations grown in a community forest context in nepal. a financial analysis was done for chir pine (pinus roxburghii) plantations that produce carbon offset payments, timber and resin in a community forest context in nepal. results indicate that the inclusion of carbon offset payments increases rotation age and land expectation value. the optimal rotation age is approximately 35 years without including carbon offset payments, while the rotation age can increase beyond 75 years with the inclusion of carbon offset payments. the substantial change in optimal rotation age also suggests that carbon offset payments will likely change the product mix produced from chir pine plantations. likewise, land expectation value increases significantly with carbon offset payments indicating that local communities could benefit from such payments. the results also indicate that different assumptions about the quantity of long term carbon storage (i.e. pickling rate) have a significant impact on rotation age and land expectation value. key words: pinus roxbughii, land expectation value, carbon offset payment, resin financial analysis of chir pine plantations for carbon offsets, timber and resin in nepal b. kc1 and g. a. stainback2 1 department of parks, recreation and tourism management, north carolina state university raleigh, n.c. 27695. e-mail: bkc@ncsu.edu 2 department of forestry, university of kentucky, lexington, ky 40546 3 banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 4 chir pine is a common coniferous species of the mid-hills regions (900–1950 m) of nepal, and growing up to 2700 m (jackson, 1994). it is found ranging from longitudes of 700 e to 930 e and latitudes of 260 n to 360 n (ghildiyal et al., 2009). naturally, it is distributed from bhutan (only in drier areas), northern india, nepal (south of tibet), pakistan, and afghanistan (dogra, 1985; yi and raven, 1999; gauli et al., 2009). it has standing volume of 6.3% of the total forest in nepal (dfrs, 1999); proportionally the fourth highest total tree volume in the country. establishing chir pine on heavily degraded forest sites and grazing lands is an integral component of community forestry activities in the hill regions. due to its high survival rate, it has proved to be a successful pioneer of most degraded sites (mohns et al., 1988). in nepal, chir pine is the only species tapped for resin, and currently resin tapping is being done in around 35 out of 75 districts of nepal. on average, one person can earn up to nrs. 30,000 ($400) in the eight months tapping period (upadhyay, 2008). according to resin tapping guideline of ministry of forests and soil conservation (2007), resin tapping could be done when the diameter at breast height (dbh) reaches 30 cm. resin is used for manufacturing of rosin and turpentine. rosin is used in manufacturing of adhesives, paper sizing agents, printing inks, detergents etc., while turpentine is used in disinfectants, cleaning agents, pharmaceutical preparations, perfumery industry and others (coppen and hone, 1995; wang et al., 2006; thakur, 2003). materials and methods in this section we discuss how timber volume and the quantity of sequestered carbon were calculated. we also discuss how we used the hartman (1976) model to estimate the optimal rotation age and economic returns from timber, resin and carbon offsets. this analysis makes use of thinning regime for a chir pine plantation (table 1). timber and resin yield the portion of the tree greater than 20 cm in plantation age (year) stems/ha stems/ha after thinning stems thinned/ha 5 1600 1600 0 10 1600 1600 0 15 1600 1400 200 20 1400 1050 350 25 1050 900 150 30 900 800 100 35 800 625 175 40 625 500 125 45 500 400 100 50 400 300 100 55 300 225 75 60 225 190 35 65 190 145 45 70 145 145 0 75 (last cut) 145 0 145 total 1600 table 1: chir pine plantation thinning regime used in the analysis source: dfrs, 2007 kc and stainback banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 5 diameter is considered big timber that is used in construction and similar purposes. timber of this size class usually gets a higher price than smaller timber. small timber was assumed to consist of the portion of the tree greater than 10 cm in diameter but less than 20 cm in diameter. the remainder of the tree volume was considered slash (not sold). to calculate the various timber product classes, first the whole tree volume was calculated followed by the volume up to 10 cm in diameter, and then subtracted from the whole tree volume. this gives the portion of tree stem that is considered slash. next the volume of the stem up to 20 cm in diameter was calculated and subtracted from the volume up to 10 cm. this gives the volumes of big and small timber. the volume of bark was subtracted from the volume of big and small timber and included as slash. all equations for volume calculations are based on the work of sharma and pukkala (1990) and are given in table 2. height and dbh were taken from growth and yield data from 219 trees in himachal pradesh, india (tewari, 1994)3. because the dbh and height data were only given in 10 year increments, total tree, big timber, and small timber volumes were fitted to the following functional form, using nonlinear regression to obtain continuous yield functions: v(t) = atbe-ct .............................................................................(1) where v (t) is the volume of timber per hectare for a particular stand age, t is the stand age in years and a, b, and c are parameters to be estimated. resin yield was assumed to be 4.25 kg per tree per year and begin when dbh equals 30 cm (mfsc, 2007). carbon offsets in general, carbon content is assumed to be 50% of dry matter (negi et al., 2003; lamlom and savidge, 2003; sharma and singh, 2010). however, a chir pine specific carbon content of 46.32%, based on the work of negi et al. (2003), was used in this analysis. the dry density of chir pine is 0.497 metric tons per cubic meter (chaturvedi and khanna, 1982). thus the carbon per cubic meter of chir pine can be estimated by multiplying the volume (in cubic meters) by 0.2302 (0.497 x 0.4632). since, co2 equivalents are traded in the market, not carbon, we converted the amount of carbon into co2 equivalents by multiplying by 3.67. hence, all the carbon benefits are presented as co2 equivalents. land expectation value (lev) calculation the present value of carbon was calculated using equation 2. kc and stainback 3the growth and yield data used in this analysis do not allow for variation in plant density or site quality. some publications on pinus roxburghii by applegate et al. (1988) and gilmour et al. (1990) provide some data in this regard. likewise, a working paper by rautiainen (1991) also provides some information regarding stocking, diameter and height for specific ages of plantations of pinus roxburghii in the nepalese context. however, they do not provide sufficient information to estimate yields. therefore, data from tewari (1994) was used in this study. s.no equations parameter definition 1. volume in (v)=a(-2.9770)+b(1.9235)*in(d)+c*1.0019)* v= total stem vol. with bark (dm3) in(h) d= diameter (cm) h= height (m) 2. proportion of tree top in (v1/v)=a(6.2696)+b(-2.8252)*in(d) v1= over bark vol.of tree top (beyond 10cm) v = total over bark stem vol. 3. proportion of timber in (v2/vt)=a(8.5662)+b(-3.0486)*in(d) v2=over bark vol. of the portion of beyond 20 cm dia.but timber beyond 20 cm in dia. > 10 cm in dia. but>10cm in dia. vt = total over bark vol. up to 10 cm in dia. 4. proportion of bark in in (pb)=a(1.1763)+b(-0.6997)*in(d) pb = bark proportion timber >10 cm in dia. 5. proportion of bark in in (pb)=a(1.2535)+b(-0.7194)*in(d) pb = bark proportion timber >20 cm in dia. table 2: equations used for timber calculations (sharma and pukkala, 1990) banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 6 pvc = t 0 ∑ pcα{v(t) v(t-1)}e-rtpcα(1-β)v(t) e-rt ...... (2) where, pvc is the present value of carbon over one rotation or harvest cycle in $/hectare, pc is the price of carbon ($/co2 equivalent), α represents the metric tons of carbon per cubic meter of tree biomass, v (t) is the volume of timber calculated at a particular stand age, β is the pickling rate or the amount of carbon sequestered long-term after harvest, and r is the discount rate. we did a sensitivity analysis of different carbon prices of $0, $2, $5, $10, $25 and $50. the discount rate is assumed to be 10%. this discount rate is based on a literature review as well as personal contacts with forest officers at department of forest, kathmandu, nepal. the analysis was done with different values of the pickling rate β (0, ½, and 1) for big timber. a pickling rate of 0 indicates that all the carbon sequestered during tree growth will be emitted back into the atmosphere through decay or burning soon after harvest. likewise, a pickling rate of 0.5 indicates that 50% of the sequestered carbon will be emitted back into the atmosphere soon after harvest and 50% will remain sequestered. a pickling rate of one indicates that all sequestered carbon remains sequestered after harvest. for small timber and slash the pickling rate was assumed to be 0. the present value of timber was calculated by using equation 3: pvt =prv(t)e-rt ............................................... (3) where, pvt is the present value of timber in $/hectare, pt is the price of timber in $/cubic meter, r is the discount rate, and t equals the stand age in years. we use a timber price of 50 (approximately $0.625) nepalese rupees per cubic foot for big timber and 50% of this price for small timber (gon, 2005). likewise, the present value of resin was calculated by using equation 4: pvr = t 0 ∑ prvr(t)e-rt ..................................... (4) where pvr is the present value of resin in $/hectare, pr is price of resin in $/ton, vr(t) is the volume of resin calculated at a particular age (t), r is discount rate, and t is the stand age in years. we are using resin price of 6 (approximately $0.075) nepalese rupees per kg for this analysis (gon, 2005). the cost of resin tapping is assumed to be borne by resin traders so are not included in the financial analysis. establishment cost (ec) is a cost associated with plantation in the plantation year which is assumed to be nrs. 3200/ha (approximately $43) based on personal communication with forest officers at department of forest. we assume forest management and thinning costs to be zero because it will be carried out with community labor or community participation. all of the harvesting costs are assumed to be paid by the timber buyer or timber harvesting company and therefore considered to be external to the community. finally, lev was calculated using present value of carbon, timber and resin along with establishment cost using equation 5: lev = (pvc+pvt+pvr-ec)/(1-e-rt) ........... (5) where, lev is the land expectation value in $/hectare assuming the forest stand is management in perpetuity for timber, carbon and resin. pvc equals the present value of carbon in $/hectare over one harvest cycle, pvt equals the present value of timber in $/hectare over one harvest cycle, pvr is the present value of resin in $/hectare over one harvest cycle, r is the discount rate and t equals the stand age in years. lev results are presented in us dollars based on the exchange rate of $1 = nrs. 75. results and discussion land expectation value (lev) figure 1 shows the relationship between carbon prices and lev. the lev increases significantly with an increase in carbon price. with a carbon price of 0 (i.e. only with timber and resin benefit), lev is $35.25 per hectare. as soon as carbon price increases from $2 to $ 50, lev increases from $51.18, $52.84, and $54.49 to $503.63, $538.19, and $572.75 at different pickling rates (β) of 0, 0.5, and 1, respectively. therefore, there would be a substantial increase in lev with the increase in carbon prices regardless of the assumption made about carbon emissions at harvest. similar results were observed (i.e. increased lev with inclusion of carbon benefit) by andrew stainback and alavalapati (2002) and dwivedi et al. (2009). lev is higher at larger pickling rates due to emission costs (i.e. higher kc and stainback banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 7 emission cost when pickling rate of 0, lower emission cost with pickling rate of 0.5, and no emission cost when pickling rate of 1) at the time of harvest. fig. 1: lev (us $) at different prices of carbon and emission assumptions (β) at harvest optimal rotation age figure 2 shows the overall results for optimal rotation as a function of carbon offset price at three different pickling rates. due to the uncertainty of carbon markets and future carbon offset prices, we considered a wide range of carbon prices from $2 to $50. all the results assume a discount rate of 10%. the optimal rotation age is 35 years when there is no income from carbon. when the price of carbon is $2 per ton and above, the optimal rotation age increases. therefore the price of carbon has significant effect on the optimal rotation age as well as lev. several other studies also concluded that optimal rotation age increases with the inclusion of carbon offset payments (romero et al., 1998; andrew stainback and alavalapati, 2002; kooten et al., 1995; price and willis, 2011). at a pickling rate of 0, rotation age will be higher than when pickling rate is 0.5 or 1. this result is more pronounced at higher carbon prices.4 a pickling rate of 0 means that all the carbon sequestered will be emitted back into the atmosphere when harvested. with this pickling rate, there would be higher emission costs at the time of harvest, which creates an incentive to delay harvest. in addition, carbon payments increase big timber supply and resin production due to extending the rotation age. however as the carbon price increases the supply of small timber declines. when the rotation age is increased due to carbon payments, then there are two effects on timber supply. as the trees age due to a longer rotation age, more timber is produced. however the stand is also harvested less frequently due to the longer rotation age. to account for both of these impacts, timber supply is calculated assuming a regulated forest by dividing the volume of timber produced at the end of the rotation by the length (years) of the rotation. figure 3 shows the amount of big timber and small timber volume produced at different carbon prices and pickling rates. only trees with a diameter of 30 cm dbh are considered capable of producing resin. thus, as the rotation age is lengthened resin production increases. fig. 3: big timber volume and small timber volume at different prices of carbon and emission assumptions (β) at harvest conclusion chir pine is a common forest type found in the mid-hills region of nepal managed both by communities and private enterprises. in this study we modeled how carbon offset payments would impact the optimal rotation age and lev of chir pine. in the community forestry context, where forests are managed for big timber, small timber and resin, carbon offset payments substantially increase the optimal rotation age and the lev. kc and stainback 4when the carbon price is $25 per ton then the rotation age is at or above the model maximum of 75 years at all pickling rates. fig. 2: optimal rotation age at different prices of carbon and emission assumptions (β) at harvest banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 8 the increase in lev could bring much needed cash income to local communities in the region. the increase in the rotation age would increase the amount of big timber and resin and decrease the amount of small timber produced from each harvest. since timber and resin is a primary source of income from chir pine plantation, carbon offset payment additionally could substantially increase economic benefit to the community. the increase in cash income due to carbon offset payment could also allow local communities to engage in more intensive forest management which would potentially bring additional benefits. future studies could investigate the impact that carbon offset payments would have on forest management variables other than rotation age (e.g. spacing and alternative thinning regimes). this study only considered forest management at the stand level. however, the substantial increase in lev due to carbon offset payments could induce local communities to plant and manage forest on more marginal land. thus, economic studies that included impacts on the extensive margin could be useful. finally, due to limited data, the growth and yield information utilized in this study comes from regions in india that have similar growing conditions to those in the mid-hills region of nepal. growth and yield information specific to the midhills region of nepal could improve future studies. acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge the university of kentucky for funding this study. also, we would like to thank the forest officers at the department of forest and department of forest research and survey for providing information. references andrew stainback, g., and alavalapati, j. r. r. 2002. economic analysis of slash pine forest carbon sequestration in the southern u. s. journal of forest economics 8 (2): 105–117. applegate, g. b., gilmour, d. a., and mohns, b. 1988. biomass and productivity estimations for community forest management: a case study from the hills of nepal – i. biomass and productivity of chir pine (pinus roxburghii sargent) plantations. biomass 17 (2): 115–136. balboa-murias, m. á., rodríguez-soalleiro, r., merino, a., and álvarez-gonzález, j. g. 2006. temporal variations and distribution of carbon stocks in aboveground biomass of radiata pine and maritime pine pure stands under different silvicultural alternatives. forest ecology and management 237 (1–3): 29–38. chaturvedi, a. n., and khanna, l. s. 1982. forest mensuration. international book distributors, dehradun, india. coppen, j. j. w., and hone, g. a. 1995. gum naval stores: turpentine and rosin from pine resin. natural resources institute, fao, rome, italy. dahal, n., and banskota, k. 2009. cultivating redd in nepal’s community forestry: a discourse for capitalizing on potential? journal of forest and livelihood 8 (1): 41–50. deng, s., shi, y., jin, y., and wang, l. 2011. a gis-based approach for quantifying and mapping carbon sink and stock values of forest ecosystem: a case study. energy procedia, 5 (0): 1535–1545. dfrs.1999. forest resources of nepal (1987–1998). publication no.47, .department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. dfrs. 2007. the thinning guidelines for plantation forest of pinus patula and pinus roxburghii in nepal. minsitry of forests and soil conservation, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. dogra, p. d. 1985. conifers of india and their wild gene resources in relation to tree breeding. indian forester 111 (11): 935–955. dwivedi, p., alavalapati, j. r. r., susaeta, a., and stainback, a. 2009. impact of carbon value on the profitability of slash pine plantations in the southern united states: an integrated life cycle and faustmann analysis. canadian journal of forest research 39 (5): 990–1000. kc and stainback banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 9 gauli, a., gailing, o., stefenon, v., and finkeldey, r. 2009. genetic similarity of natural populations and plantations of pinus patula and pinus roxburghii sarg. in nepal. annals of forest science 66 (7): 703–703. ghildiyal, s. k., sharma, c. m., and gairola, s. 2009. additive genetic variation in seedling growth and biomass of fourteen pinus roxburghii provenances from garhwal himalaya. indian journal of science and technology 2 (1): 37–45. gilmour, d. a., king, g. c., applegate, g. b., andmohns, b. 1990. silviculture of plantation forest in central nepal to maximise community benefits. forest ecology and management 32 (2–4): 173–186. gon. 2005. forest regulation 1995 (3rd amendment). ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. hartman, r. (1976). the harvesting decision when a standing forest has value. economic inquiry 14 (1): 52–58. jackson, j. k.(1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. forest research and survey centre, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. kooten, g. c. v., binkley, c. s., and delcourt, g. 1995. effect of carbon taxes and subsidies on baoptimal forest rotation age and supply of carbon services. american journal of agricultural economics 77 (2): 365–374. krcmar, e., stennes, b., cornelis van kooten, g., and vertinsky, i. 2001. carbon sequestration and land management under uncertainty. european journal of operational research 135(3): 616–629. lamlom, s. h., and savidge, r. a. 2003. a reassessment of carbon content in wood: variation within and between 41 north american species. biomass and bioenerg, 25 (4): 381–88. matthews, s., o connor, r., and plantinga, a. j. 2002. quantifying the impacts on biodiversity of policies for carbon sequestration in forests. ecological economics 40 (1): 71–87. mfsc. 2007. resin tapping guideline. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. mohns, b., applegate, g. b., and gilmour, d. a. 1988. biomass and productivity estimations for community forest management: a case study from the hills of nepal – ii. dry matter production in mixed young stands of chir pine (pinus roxburghii) and broad-leaved species. biomass 17 (3): 165–184. negi, j. d. s., manhas, r. k., and chauhan, p. s. 2003. carbon allocation in different components of some tree species of india: a new approach for carbon estimation. current science 85 (11): 1528–1531. nepal, p., grala, r. k., and grebner, d. l. 2012. financial feasibility of increasing carbon sequestration in harvested wood products in mississippi. forest policy and economics 14 (1): 99–106. price, c., and willis, r. 2011. the multiple effects of carbon values on optimal rotation. journal of forest economics 17 (3): 298–306. rautiainen, o. 1991. management of young chir pine stands: a case study in lele village, lalitpur district. forest management and utilization division/fmudp project, kathmandu, nepal. ravindranath, n. h. and ostwald, m. 2008. carbon inventory methods: handbook for greenhouse gas inventory. carbon mitigation and roundwood production projects: springer london, limited. richards, k. r., and stokes, c. 2004. a review of forest carbon sequestration cost studies: a dozen years of research. climatic change 63:1–48. romero, c., ros, v., rios, v., daz-balteiro, l., and diaz-balteiro, l. 1998. optimal forest rotation age when carbon captured is considered: theory and applications. the journal of the operational research society 49 (2): 121–131. sharma, d., and singh, m. 2010. assessing the carbon sequestration potential of subtropical pine forest in north-western himalayas – a gis approach. journal of the indian society of remote sensing 38 (2): 247–253. kc and stainback banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 10 sharma, e. r., and pukkala, t. 1990. volume equations and biomass prediction of forest trees of nepal. publication no. 47, ministry of forests and soil conservation, forest survey and statistics division, babar mahal, kathmandu, nepal. sohngen, b., and brown, s. 2008. extending timber rotations: carbon and cost implications. climate policy 8 (5): 435–451. tewari, d. n. 1994. a monograph on chir pine (pinus roxburghii sarg.). international book distributors, rajpur road, dehradun, india. thakur, r. b. 2003. a compendium of tree species of nepal. sarvottam offset printing press (p.) ltd. putalisadak, kathmandu, nepal. upadhyay, m. 2008. a term paper on economic analysis of resin tapping (unpublished). institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. wang, z., calderon, m. m., and carandang, m. g. 2006. effects of resin tapping on optimal rotation age of pine plantation. journal of forest economics, 11(4): 245–260. yi, w. z., and raven, p. h. 1999. flora of china, vol. 4. science press, st. louis, missouri botanical garden, beijing, china. kc and stainback final vol 16-1.pmd 57 economics of environment and development editor : pushpam kumar publisher : ane books, new delhi year : 2005 pages : 340+xiv price : irs 295.00 the existing literatures on economics of environment and development are scattered in the libraries of the developing countries like nepal. students of economics, development, environment and other allied fields are facing a problem of getting right literatures on this subject from a vast array of scattered literatures. in this connection, presenting excellent articles by renowned experts of the discipline from all over the world in a single book is the need of the hour. this book “economics of environment and development”, assembled by dr. pushpam kumar of the institute of economic growth, university of delhi, who has several years’ accumulated experience on teaching in the institute, provides an introduction of many new perspectives on links between environment and development in 13 chapters. chapter 1 introduces the subject matter. in chapter 2, mohan munasinghe, in a very innovative way, touches the concept of sustainomics, trandisciplinary metaframework for making development more sustainable. this chapter also speaks about cost benefit analysis and multi criteria analysis as tools for analysing sustainable development issues. the next chapter deals with actor-network model. in this chapter, peter soderbaun gives the emphasis on different models, theories and conceptual frameworks of social sciences. clive spash in chapter 4 emphasizes the various methods of cost and benefit analysis. m. n. murty in chapter 5 explains the use of economic instruments for pollution management and other spheres of environmental management including conserving biodiversity and ecosystem management. next two chapters i.e., 6 and 7 focus on the concept, methodology and examples of environmental and natural resource accounting. the eight chapter by kym anderson states the standard welfare economic policies affecting trade and the environment. the ninth chapter builds general models of environmental policy and foreign trade and the tenth spells out clearly the partial equilibrium models of trade and the environment. maichael rauscher in chapter 11 reviews optimal environmental policy for an open economy. pushpam kumar has presented environmental management in business firm in chapter 12 and chapter 13 by k. duraiappah comprehensively deals with poverty and environment degradation. on closer scrutiny, this excellent book aims to provide an introduction to the theoretical principles that need to be understood to work effectively and critically with economics, business and environment. however, it would be more beneficial, easily understandable and quick readable text and reference book to its readers if sufficient empirical examples are cited wherever appropriate and applicable. it is impossible to cover everything in one book but the scattered materials regarding the subject in one book definitely serve the purpose of many students, researchers, and practitioners working in this area. buddisagar paudel department of national park and wildlife conservation banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 book review final corrected banko janakari 19-2.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 15 change assessment of forest cover in ghodaghodi lake area in kailali district of nepal s. khanal1 ghodaghodi lake in far-west nepal has been listed as a ramsar site due to its significance as a habitat for several endangered species of flora and fauna. the wetland and its surrounding area is facing deforestation, forest degradation and encroachment. in this case study, unsupervised and finally supervised classification of multi-temporal landsat imagery covering the wetland area was applied. a post-classification comparison approach was used to derive forest cover change maps. the results depicted the loss of forest cover over a thirtyone year period, in three time slices. the highest rate of loss was observed in the 1990 to1999 time slice. keywords: change detection, forest cover, ghodaghodi lake, landsat land cover change detection and updating of land cover maps is a prerequisite to understand the land cover change dynamics and for the sustainable management of natural resources. since wetlands are a critical habitat for diverse flora and fauna, including endangered species, understanding of landuse dynamics would be useful for devising effective conservation and management activities. change detection, which encompasses identification of differences in the state of real-world entities or phenomena under consideration at different times, can be performed by comparing multi-date maps or remotely sensed images. its capability for providing synoptic coverage and the repeatability of the provided data makes earth remote sensing a cost effective (bauer et al., 2003) and widely used method for change monitoring (lu et al., 2004). the present study used multi-temporal remotely-sensed data for forest cover change detection in the ghodaghodi lake area of nepal. materials and methods study area ghodaghodi lake area is situated in the kailali district of far-west nepal. it is the largest inter-connected natural lake system of the terai region. it lies along the mahendra highway at 28° 41' 03" n and 80° 56' 43" e at an altitude of 205 meters above sea level (dnpwc, 2005). the study area (27,460 hectare) encompasses three village development committees (vdcs) of kailali district namely darakh, sandepani and ramshikharjhala (fig. 1). the area was recognized as a significant wetland ecosystem supporting an appreciable assemblage of rare, vulnerable, and endangered species, and was designated as a ramsar site of international importance under the wetlands convention in august, 2003 (baral, 1992, kafle, 2005). though, the study area is outside the protected area system, its location between two protected areas and extensive forests along the churia hills makes it an important corridor for wildlife as well as an important habitat for transient migratory species (kafle, 2005). ghodaghodi lake area was connected with the rest of the country by road only in 1993, following the completion of a bridge over the karnali river. since then, several anthropogenic activities that have become apparent around the lake area include: higher grazing pressure, illegal forest products extraction, deforestation and forest degradation, and encroachment (bhandari, 2009; diwakar et al., 2009; gurung, 2003; dnpwc, 2005, kafle et al., 2007). like in other parts of the western terai, the area has also received human migrants from the mountain zone and experienced greater deforestation, expansion of settlements and cultivation in and around the wetlands (sah and heinen, 2001). rampant deforestation and forest encroachment around the study area have been reported by mcn (2008). however, quantitative and synoptic assessments using standard methods such as remote sensing have been lacking. 1 assistant research officer, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. email: shiva_khanal@yahoo.com khanal banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 16 data four landsat images (table 1) were downloaded from the united states geological service, (usgs) glovis (http://glovis.usgs.gov) and glcf (http:// glcf.umiacs.umd.edu/) web sites on 12 december 2008 (figure 2). fortunately, the etm+ scene that covered the study area was free from slc-off defect. all scenes correspond to the peak of the growing season of vegetation, with 9 to 13 years in between acquisitions. high resolution satellite image of 2.5 m alos pan-sharpened of november 2007, aerial photographs of the year 1964 and 1992, as well as 1:25.000 topo-sheets of the nepal survey department were also acquired from the department of forest research and survey archives. image preprocessing one of the important factors determining the accuracy of change detection is the precise geometric registration between multi-temporal images (lu et al., 2004). histogram matching which converts the histogram of one image to resemble the histogram of another is useful for change detection (erdas, 2008). the resampling of multi spectral scanner (mss) data to 30 m pixel was done using cubic convolution. the satellite image set was preprocessed through geometric correction and histogram matching to enhance those images. all images were geometrically corrected to the everest 1830 datum using the rectified 2.5 m alos pan-sharpened imagery. image classification following unsupervised classification based on isodata clustering, field verification and training data acquisition was conducted using five-class output. in the post classification, which is the supervised one based on maximum likelihood, inputs from the verification as well as other secondary maps and information were incorporated. aerial photographs of the years 1964 and 1992 covering study area were scanned, geo-referenced with respect to imageries and used to aid classification of landsat thematic mapper (tm) and mss, respectively. similarly, field data in addition to topo-sheets of survey department and november 2007 alos pansharpened images aided classification of etm and etm+ images. this resulted in classified images each with two classes: forest and non forest. after completing classification of individual images, the majority, 3 x 3 filter was run on the classified image to remove the isolated pixels. fig. 1 : location of kailali district in nepal and of the three vdcs of the study area in the district sensor date path/row source spatial resolution (m) bands used etm + 2008 dec 03 144/040 glovis 30 1,2,3,4 etm 1999 nov 09 144/040 glcf 30 1,2,3,4 tm 1990 oct 23 144/040 glcf 30 1,2,3,4 mss 1977 jan 23 149/041 glcf 57 4,5,6,7 table 1: landsat dataset used fig. 2 : false colour composites (fcc) images of the study area of all dates used in this study khanal banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 17 khanal change detection the post classification, change-detection technique of image differencing was applied on subsequent pairs of the classified single date images so that image difference data was obtained for the three time interval (figure 3). accuracy assessment typical accuracy assessments involve verification of the randomly generated locations using reference data. for accuracy assessment, pixels in the classified image were compared to the reference pixels (erdas, 2008). in this study two major factors undermined this. firstly the datasets used were not recently acquired except for one. more importantly, there was a lack of reference data to compare the classification of earlier years. the aerial photographs, though distant in time to the image, were the only reference data available. for instance, the mss image of 1977 was classified and evaluated using aerial photographs of 1964, with the assumption that forest cover change before highway construction was not significant. however, in case of 2008 etm+, 50 randomly placed points were generated and compared with gps data from field. this gave a classification accuracy of 96%. results and discussion figure 3 shows the result of the post-classification comparison for 3 pairs of images. the figures each represent spatial location of deforested area and forest/non-forest area in each data set. the positive change in forest area was observed to be negligible; and, therefore, those were included in the stable forest class. the result suggests a decreasing trend for forest cover in the 3 vdcs of kailali district (figure 3). forest cover, as a percent of total land cover, had decreased in the sequence of 75%, 70%, 65% and 64% for the years 1977, 1990, 1999 and 2008, respectively. the loss of forest cover was observed to be highest in the period between 1990 and 1999. the annual rate of change in this period is even higher, since this occurred over only a nine year period (table 2). this trend supports the assumption that impact on forest intensified following the highway link. an almost equal area of forest was lost in the thirteen years between 1977 and 1990. on the other hand, the forest cover loss between 1999 and 2008 was remarkably less than other time frames. this may be due to the fact that, in earlier phases, the rampant fig. 3 : map showing changed and remaining forest between consecutive images for 3 vdcs of kailali district banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 18 land use change had already destroyed most of the accessible forests. still, forest loss could be continuous in a very low sustained degree, due to illicit tree removal rather than rapid area clearance. although from a very small study area, the results indicated that moderate to high resolution landsat imagery were useful in landcover studies, for instance, in getting a time series of forest cover data sets. forest cover change maps derived by classification of the imagery can provide information on the spatial distribution and amount of the change. reasonably high accuracy can be attained when applied to recent image classification with sufficient reference samples. knowledge of the detailed dynamics of multiple landuse categories can provide more clear understanding of the changes occurring. therefore future research should seek to address this. acknowledgement i would like to express my sincere gratitude to prof. dr. jos van orshoven, department of earth and environmental science, katholieke universiteit leuven, belgium for his kind comments and suggestions on the concept as well as the draft of this paper. my thanks also go to an anonymous reviewer for the comments. references baral, h.s. 1992. ghodaghodi lake system : a national treasure, nepal bird watching club, kathmandu, nepal. bauer, m.e., yuan, f and sawaya, k.e. 2003. “multitemporal landsat image classification and change analysis of land cover in the twin cities (minnesota) metropolitan area”, paper presented at mutitemp-2003, second international workshop on the analysis of multi-temporal remote sensing images, italy. bhandari, b.b. 2009. wise use of wetlands in nepal. banko janakari special issue: 10-17 diwakar, j., bajracharya, s. and yadav, u.r. 2009. ecological study of ghodaghodi lake. banko janakari special issue: 18-23 dnpwc. 2005. fact sheets wetlands of nepal department of national parks and wildlife conservation and wwf nepal program, kathmandu, nepal. erdas, 2008. erdas field guide volume two. leica geosystems geospatial imaging, llc gurung, s. b. 2003. education through learning by doing. in doing education at wetland sites: examples 20.68 19.24 17.76 17.50 1.44 1.49 0.26 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 mss (1977) tm (1990) etm (1999) etm+ (2008) a re a ( '0 0 0 h e c ta re s ) deforested area forest area the forest cover is shrinking particularly in the southern part of the study area while the hilly part of the north is almost intact with very low forest loss (see fig 2). according to the observations made during the field visit, the significant portion of change in the north was due to the natural calamity of flood and landslide. in contrast, the southern plain has predominantly high value productive sal (shorea robusta) forest, high population density and the resulting activities of cultivation, forest encroachment and illicit tree cutting. fig. 4 : total forest and deforested area in different time frame image forest area (% of total area) change (hectares) approx. rate of change (ha/year) mss 20683.9 (75.32) tm 19244.8 (70.08) 1439.1 110.70 etm 17758.1 (64.67) 1486.7 165.19 etm+ 17500.5 (63.73) 257.6 28.62 table 2 : multi-temporal forest areas, deforested areas and rates of change between 1977 to 2008 conclusion this study revealed that a very important wetland ecosystem in the western terai of nepal had lost significant forest cover from 1977 to 2008. results indicated that forest cover decreased most intensely in the period between 1990 and 1999, following the construction of a major access road. however, the deforestation process, though low in intensity was still being sustained up to 2008. since the integrity of wetland ecosystem and maintenance of forest cover are interlinked, it is crucial to prevent further forest loss and implement plantation and forest restoration activities. khanal banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 19 khanal and modalities from asia. (eds) bhandari, b., osamu a., masahiro t. and akihiro n. international institute for global environmental strategies (iges), ramsar center japan and mahidol university, japan. kafle, g. 2005. avifaunal survey and vegetation analysis focusing on threatened and nearthreatened species on ghodaghodi lake of nepal. a report submitted to oriental bird club (obc), united kingdom. kafle, g., balla, m. k., baral, h. s. and thapa, i. 2007. ghodaghodi lake area: resources, opportunities and conservation. danphe 16(3): 16. lu, d., mausel, p., brondízio, e. and moran, e. 2004. change detection techniques. international journal of remote sensing 25(12):2365 -2401 mcn. 2008. forest encroachment rampant in west terai. conservation watch-nepal, a fortnightly newsletter, volume-i issue-8 jan15, 2008 media consultancy nepal (mcn), bharatpur, chitwan, nepal (weblink: http:/www.onehornedrhino.org/ download/newsletter/mcn-conservation%20 newsletter_8.pdf, accessed on july 10, 2009) ramsar, 2004. list of wetlands of international importance designated by the contracting parties. ramsar, iran. sah, j. p. and heinen, j. t. 2001. wetland resource use and conservation attitudes among indigenous and migrant peoples in ghodaghodi lake area, nepal. environmental conservation 28(4): 345-356. corrected bankojanakari vol 17-2.pmd 62 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 function of organic matter (green manure) and the effect on soil properties geeta shrestha vaidya,1 k. shrestha2 and h. wallander3 trees and shrubs on the lower hillsides in nepal form symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal (am) fungi and these fungi are important for the uptake of mineral nutrients from the soil and the mycelia formed by the fungi have an important function in stabilizing the soil (wright and upadhyaya 1998, shrestha 1999 and shrestha vaidya et.al 2005a). the success of plantations of these eroded slopes is therefore highly dependent on the extent of mycorrhizal colonization of the plants. in this study we have investigated the role organic matter on growth of an arbuscular mycorrhizal (am) fungi in eroded slopes in nepal such as chalnakhel, kathmandu district. different types of organic matter (leaves of thitonia diversifolia, eupatorium adenophorum and lantana camara) were collected and were shade dried and finally powedered. nutrient analysis was done of these organic matter and soil of experimental site before plantation and after harvest. lantana camara was taken for plantation on their nutrient content basis. 100 nursery plants leuceania diversifolia plantation were done in chalnakhel . among these 50 plants with lantana camara and 50 plants were for control. we investigated the influence of organic matter or p amendments on production of arbuscular mycorrhizal (am) fungi in eroded slopes in nepal. organic matter addition enhanced the production of am fungal biomass as well as number of am spores . we suggest that the positive influence of such organic matter additions can make an important contribution to plant survival in plantations of eroded slopes in nepal, and thus to restoration success. key words : organic matters (lantana camara), arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, leuceania diversifolia and chalnakhel. organic matter is defined as a grouping of carbon compounds which have originated from living beings and deposited on or within the earth’s structural components. lal’s (1993) initial definition of soil quality as the capacity of soil to produce economic goods and services and to regulate the environment “ soil quality”. organic matter is a major source of plant nutrients and is the glue that holds soil particles together and stabilizes the pore structure. it makes soils less vulnerable to wind erosion and functions as a sponge for holding water and slowing down its loss from the root zone by drainage or evaporation. moreover, nutrients added to soils as organic residues are released more gradually than those from mineral fertilizers and are therefore less prone to leaching, volatization or fixation. a fertile soil should contain from 2.8 percent organic matter, most soils contain less than 2 percent. organic matter is a good source of phosphorus. 1 nepal academy of science and technology, khumaltar, lalitpur, nepal, e-mail: geetashrestha1@hotmail.com 2 natural history museum, swambhu, kathmandu, nepal 4 mycrobial ecology lab, lund university, lund, sweden in addition to supplying nutrients, soil organic matter improves soil fertility by imparting favorable chemical and physical attributes to soil. soil structure is influenced by the association of soil organic matter with minerals to form aggregates. aggregate formation improves soil structure and water infiltration and improves root growth and provide habitat for a diversity of soil organisms. soil organic matters (som) enhance nutrient cycling, provides habitat for a diversity of soil organisms, and creates a favorable environment for plant growth. som is considered to be a key attribute of soil quality (larson and pierce, 1991; gregorich et al., 1994) and also environmental quality (smith et al., 2000). so, soil quality is considered a key element of sustainable agriculture (warkentin, 1995). it is involved in and related to many soil chemical, physical, and biological properties. it has a physical 63 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 function in that it promotes good soil structure, thereby improving tilth, aeration and moisture movement and retention. usually the greater the amount of organic matter in the soil the better is the physical properties of the soil. the organic materials also improve the microbial activities of the soil, biological n fixation, organic matter decomposition, mineralization, nitrification and antagonism to soil borne pathogens and fermentation are the common features of microbial activities in soil system (s.m.alam, and m.a.khan 2001). the addition of organic matter such as green manure is a common practice used to improve soil nutrient content and soil structure. addition of organic matter such as green manure is a common practice to improve soil nutrient content and soil structure. organic residues from plants such as tithonia diversifolia and lantana camara have been found to be especially beneficial since they are reported to have a high content of n and p, which is mineralized rapidly from the organic material. nziguheba et al. (2000) found that p is released more rapidly from such organic residues than from triple superphosphate. most plants live in symbiosis with mycorrhizal fungi and these fungi improve water and nutrient uptake in exchange for carbohydrates supplied by the plant. arbuscular mycorrhizal (am) fungi form symbioses with most herbaceous and many woody plant species. successful colonization by mycorrhizal fungi is especially important in degraded soils where nutrient availability is low. materials and methods this field experiment was conducted in chalnakhel forest in central nepal. this forest is situated in southern part of kathmandu valley 12 km. south of kathmandu city near to pharping. study site was newly planted but there was too many spaces for plantation. experiment design the experiment plot size was about 2 m spacing from each other and dug about 1 ft. nutrient analysis of the samples fresh leaves of lantana camara, tithonia diversifolia, eupatorium adenophorum free from disease were collected from agro forestry and also from road side. these leaf materials were then shade dried and were finally powdered. the nutrient analysis were done of these green manures as well as soil of the plantation site also. these nutrient analysis was following nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, organic matter and ph and was done in national research council (narc), soil division, khumaltar, lalitpur table 1. the site was selected in chalnakhel. the am spores extraction of the experimental soil was done before plantation and after harvest. for plantation only one lantana camara was taken . total hundred replicates were taken . among these fifty replicates for control without organic matter and fifty with organic matter such as leuceania diversifolia. total hundred leuceania diversifolia one year old nursery plants were taken for plantation . these plants were six inches in height. among these plants , the one year old 50 nursery plant leuceania diversifolia was taken with organic matter (lantana camara ) and 50 plants were taken for control. these were planted in chalnakhel about an one meter to two meter distance on june 2006. 200 gms powedered of lantana camara was added. in each plant 50 plants in the field experiment. these were harvested on may 2007. vaidya et al. 64 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 5 extraction and identification was done in nepal academy of science and technology (nast), khumaltar, lalitpur with the help of dr.prof. nancy johnson, environmental and biological sciences, northern arizona university, usa fig. 4 – 7. spores were counted in each planted soil . results : after one year all these plantation were harvested . among control five plants were died due to poor soil quality and low organic matter but with organic matter all the plants were survived. the height of plants were measured control as well as with organic matter. before field experiment number of spores per 25 gms. of soil have only 40 spores in average. in this glomus species were more than that of acaulospora species. after harvest average number of spores in control were 50 and with organic matter number of spores were present 250 per 25 gms. of soil table 3. in this five species were found such as glomus macrcarpon, glomus constrictum , acaulospora spinosa ,acaulospora scobitulata and acaulospora spinosa (fig. 4-7) . average height of the plant with organic matter were 2.5 mt. and average height of plant in control were only 0.62 mt. table 2. table 1: nutrient analysis of organic matter and soil : sample type ph total n% available p kg/ha available k kg/ha organic matter % tithonia diversifolia 33.2 2,8 34.1 29.87 lantana camara 28.6 1.7 12.2 29.95 eupatorium adenephorum 36.7 2.6 22.6 14.94 soil before plantation 7.3 0.12 6.0 94.0 1.81 soil after plantation 8.2 0.5 33.4 188.0 2.93 table 2 : average height of the plant. no. treatment average plant height 1. plantation of nursery plant with lantana camara 2.5 mt. 2. plantation only nursery plant without lantana camara 0.62 mt. in this the plant with organic matter had more height than that of control. table 3: no. treatment spores present in 25 gms. of soil 1. plantation of nursery plant with lantana camara 250 2. plantation only nursery plant without lantana camara 50 in this the soil with organic matters (lantana camara) had many spores and control had only few. elemental anlysis of plant and soil materials the fresh leaves of the plant species were air dried and ground to pass a 0.5 mm sieve. the concentrations of k and p of dried plant leaves eroded soil were analyzed with icp-aes. n was analyzed with an elemental analyzer (elementar analysensysteme gmbh. modell vario max cn.). total nitrogen was determined using kjeldhal’s method. walkey-black’s method was used for determining organic matter contain by wet digestion with k2cr2o7 and concentrated h2so4. modified olson’s method was used for measuring available phosphorous ( with sodium bicarbonate) and p in leaves after digestion in nitric-perchloric acid (5:3) were determined by colorimetry, according to murphy and riley (1962s ). available potassium was determined using flame photometry after extraction by neutral and normal ammonium acetate solution. ph of the soil was determined with ratio of 1:1 (soil: water ratio). these data are reported in table 1. spore analysis the am fungal spores within 25 g of the soil of plantation site were extracted before plantation and after harvest and identified them. spores were extracted using wet sieving and sucrose density gradient centrifugation (mckinney and lindsey 1987). spores were mounted in polyvinyl alcohol on slides and examined using a compound microscope. species were identified to species using taxonomic characteristics described in invam (2005) and schenck and perez (1990). weigh 25 gm. of soil samples. soil is mixed in a substantial volume of water and decanted through a series of sieves (750 micron, 250 micron, 100 micron and 50 micron) after allowing heavy soil particles to settle for a few minutes. this washing and decanting process is repeated until the water is clear. roots and coarse debris are collected on a coarse. then these finely kaolin clay remaining last sieve (50 micron) transfer to centrifuge tube then was added water in equal weight of each four tube and then centrifuge it for 3 minutes at 2000 rpm. we should ensure that the centrifuge is properly balanced before switching it on. after this supernatant and floating debris was discarded. the next step involves re-suspending the pellet in 50% sucrose by vigorously shaking tightly stopper tubes. the samples were then centrifuged for 1 minute at 2000 rpm to separate spores from denser soil components. immediately after centrifugation, spores in the sucrose supernatant were poured onto the finest sieve (50 micron) and carefully were washed with water to remove the sucrose. after rinsing the spores, were washed them onto a pre-wetted filter paper in a buchner funnel before vacuum filtration. in this we used what man filter paper for spore counting. semipermanent microscope slide preparations of spores can be made using polyvinyl alcohol-lactoglycerol (pvlg) . spores on microscope slides were squashed to reveal inner –wall layers and then were used dissecting microscope for identification. (brundrett m et al 1996 and n.c.schenck and yvonne perez third edition 1990). these spore extraction and identification was done in nepal academy of science and technology (nast), khumaltar, lalitpur with the help of dr.prof. nancy johnson, environmental and biological sciences, northern arizona university, usa fig. 4 – 7. spores were counted in each planted soil. results and discussions after one year all these plantation were harvested . among control five plants were died due to poor soil quality and low organic matter but with organic matter all the plants were survived. the height of plants were measured control as well as with organic matter. before field experiment number of spores per 25 gms. of soil have only 40 spores in average. in this glomus species were more than that of acaulospora species. vaidya et al. 65 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 after harvest average number of spores in control were 50 and with organic matter number of spores were present 250 per 25 gms. of soil table 3. in this five species were found such as glomus macrcarpon, glomus constrictum, acaulospora spinosa, acaulospora scobitulata and acaulospora spinosa (fig. 4-7). average height of the plant with organic matter were 2.5 mt. and average height of plant in control were only 0.62 mt. table 2. discussion the beneficial role of organic matter may also be related to an improvement of physical properties like increased soil porosity and reduced mechanical resistance to hyphal growth through the soil (e.j.joner et al. 1995). giovanetti and avio (1985) found that additions of different materials, which increased the pore volume in soil, had a beneficial effect on mycorrhizal growth response, colonization and spore numbers. the production of recently formed extraradical am mycelia is an important parameter since it may be directly related to the capacity of the plants to take up nutrients and to improvements of the soil structure and stability in degraded soils. it is possible that nutrients such as n added with the organic matter have had a beneficial effect on the growth of am fungi. in laboratory studies it has been found that n-containing organic matter, such as baker’s yeast and bovine serum albumin, can have a stimulating effect on am growth, while organic matter with higher c:n ratios, such as cellulose and starch, can have inhibitory effects (ravnskov et al. 1999). geeta shrestha vaidya et al. 2007b have been found that lantana camara having a higher c:n ratio and lower n and p content than leaves from the other two agroforestry plants tithonia diversifolia and eupatorium adenephorum(green manure). furthermore it has been shown that the decomposition rates and n and p mineralization from litter of these and similar plants is highly correlated to total p content (kwabiah et al. 2001). species of am fungi (douds & schenck, 1990) and other soil microorganisms mckinley et al. (2005) differ in their responses to soil c, n and p availability. the addition of compost or green manure is an important way to improve the soil in degraded areas since nitrogen and other nutrients, as well as organic matter which improves soil structure, is added with the organic material (caravaca et al. 2002; muthukumar & udaiyan, 2000, nziguheba et al. 2000 and geeta shrestha vaidya et alm2007a). improved nutrient and water uptake by the planted trees can be expected in response to better am growth and the positive effect on the growth of am fungi is in good agreement with results obtained by other authors (douds et al. 1997; baby & manibhushanrao 1996; muthukumar & udaiyan, 2000; gryndler et al. 2002; harinikumar & bagyaraj 1989; jamil mohammed et al. 2003; jeffries & barea (2001). in addition, st john et al. (1983), frey & ellis (1997) and friberg (2001) found that am fungal hyphae grew best in soils with a high amount of organic matter. the present study provides the first information on a stimulating effect of organic material addition on extra-radical growth of am fungi in eroded slopes in nepal. these results show that organic matter addition can improve plant growth survival in such areas, and it also help for soil quality due to increasing rate endomycorrhiza (am spores). recommendation the interest in organic agriculture as well as in forestry in developing countries is growing because it requires 5 extraction and identification was done in nepal academy of science and technology (nast), khumaltar, lalitpur with the help of dr.prof. nancy johnson, environmental and biological sciences, northern arizona university, usa fig. 4 – 7. spores were counted in each planted soil . results : after one year all these plantation were harvested . among control five plants were died due to poor soil quality and low organic matter but with organic matter all the plants were survived. the height of plants were measured control as well as with organic matter. before field experiment number of spores per 25 gms. of soil have only 40 spores in average. in this glomus species were more than that of acaulospora species. after harvest average number of spores in control were 50 and with organic matter number of spores were present 250 per 25 gms. of soil table 3. in this five species were found such as glomus macrcarpon, glomus constrictum , acaulospora spinosa ,acaulospora scobitulata and acaulospora spinosa (fig. 4-7) . average height of the plant with organic matter were 2.5 mt. and average height of plant in control were only 0.62 mt. table 2. table 1: nutrient analysis of organic matter and soil : sample type ph total n% available p kg/ha available k kg/ha organic matter % tithonia diversifolia 33.2 2,8 34.1 29.87 lantana camara 28.6 1.7 12.2 29.95 eupatorium adenephorum 36.7 2.6 22.6 14.94 soil before plantation 7.3 0.12 6.0 94.0 1.81 soil after plantation 8.2 0.5 33.4 188.0 2.93 table 2 : average height of the plant. no. treatment average plant height 1. plantation of nursery plant with lantana camara 2.5 mt. 2. plantation only nursery plant without lantana camara 0.62 mt. in this the plant with organic matter had more height than that of control. table 3: no. treatment spores present in 25 gms. of soil 1. plantation of nursery plant with lantana camara 250 2. plantation only nursery plant without lantana camara 50 in this the soil with organic matters (lantana camara) had many spores and control had only few. table 2: average height of plants vaidya et al. 66 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 less financial input and places more reliance on the natural and human resources available. organic fertilizers offers comparative advantage in soil quality. in this we know that local wastages green manure materials could use for organic fertilizers . so, i want to highly recommended that this type of work should continue in future also. in the context of our country, farmers and growers should be educated to reduce the conventional chemical fertilizers all farmers should know the impact of those chemical fertilizers in the soil. it deteorated the soil quality. hopefully, the use of green manure in trial will be beneficial to the farmers to grow organic forest rendering no harm to the environment and the soil. conclusion organic amendments significantly increased am fungal biomass in eroded slopes of nepal. am fungi is an important parameter because it can be directly related to the capacity of host plants to acquire nutrients and improve soil structure and stability in degraded soils. in this case, the higher forest product with applications of the higher quality lantana are due to a combination of more p and n added and faster release patterns of p and n from lantana as compared to control. it has been shown that appropriate management of mycorrhizae in forest allows a substantial reduction in the use of chemicals, thus lessening the level of pollution and it keeps the soil in good quality and it has bio-control properties also. the use of green manure in forest and in turn contribute to the development of a healthy and sustainable soil and as well as environment so, finally it can conclude that organic matter (local wastages green manure) content is usually higher in organically fertility and stability of organic soils as well as moisture retention capacity from which it reduces the risk of erosion and desertification. acknowledgement we would like to thank dr.b.r.khadge,chief of plant pathology, division, national agriculture research centre (narc), khumaltar, lalitpur, nepal for his valuable suggestion and also thsnkful to staff of chalnakhel nursery to their help during the experiment. references alam s. m., and khan, m. a. 2001. organic and effective micro-organisms (em) technology, 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(2007). organic matter stimulates arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in bauhinia pur purea and leucaenia diversifolia plantations on eroded slopes in nepal accepted by restoration ecology , uk, in press. smith, s. e., and ready, d. j., 1997. mycorrhizal symbiosis. academic press san diego. st. john, t. v., coleman, d. c. and reid, c. p. p. 1983. association of vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizal hyphae with soil organic particles. ecology 64:957959. tisdall, j. m., oades, j. m. 1979. stabilization of soil aggregates by the root systems of ryegrass. austral j. soil res. 17, 429-441. van aarle, i. m., olsson, p. a. and soderstrom, b. 2002. arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi respond to the substrate ph of their extraradical mycelium by altered growth and root colonization. new phytopatholist. 155: 173-182. vaidya et al. 69 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 fig. 1 : before plantation (chalnakhel forest) fig. 3 : plantation after one year (with lantana camara) fig. 5 : glomus constrictum fig. 7 : acaulospora scobitulata fig. 6 : acaulospora spinosa fig. 2 : plantation after one year (control) fig. 4 : glomus macrcarpon vaidya et al. final corrected banko janakari 19-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 11 scores for effective forest conservation: a village-tovillage approach r. k. pokharel1 and h. o. larsen2 community forestry in nepal strives for forest conservation and sustainable forest management. evaluating progress towards this end requires periodic measurements, and currently there are no standard tools for undertaking evaluations in a participatory way. the purpose of this paper is to suggest a standardized way for measuring effective forest conservation through the use of locally set scores. a village-to-village approach was used to assign scores on criteria and indicators developed earlier for forest conservation. a total of eight small meetings with forest users were conducted to elicit their perspectives and quantify their progress towards conservation by means of scores. for the 14 criteria specified, local forest users assigned higher scores to four criteria: two for social and one each for socio-economic and environmental spheres. this paper argues that a score of 59 or above is an effective cut off for determining “effective” forest conservation. keywords: community forest, criteria, forest management, indicator, village, this paper attempts to address the issue about how to compare the performance of community forest management in terms of effective forest conservation. we use the criteria and indicators developed by pokharel and larsen (2007) as a basis for assigning scores to evaluate effective forest conservation. the criteria and indicators were developed to determine whether cfugs conserved forests effectively. indeed, effective forest conservation is expected to lead to a sustainable forest management, the ultimate goal of community forestry program (acharya, 2002), and that of nepal’s forest policy (hmg, 2000). the government has instituted a forest conservation award at the national level to recognize and encourage cfugs to manage their forests sustainably. every year, the government recognizes the three most successful cfugs according to a set of guidelines (mfsc, 2004) for this award. as one of the foundations of nepal’s community forestry is the participation of local forest users in the planning, implementation and general decision making (hmg, 2000; springatebaginski et al., 2003), arguably, the local perspectives on the performance indicators should also be accorded due recognition. in line with this thinking, some exploration of local perspectives have started (smith et al., 2003; shrestha and khanal, 2004; pokharel and larsen, 2007; pokharel and suvedi, 2007). however, none of the studies of comparison, proposed so far, have incorporated local priorities. local scoring of criteria and indicators is one way of providing some means for comparison that will take into account the local perspectives in the evaluation. a set of agreed criteria will furthermore allow evaluation to be highly transparent. transparency is important to motivate forest users, because in nepal, people often manipulate things in favor of afno manche (ones own people, friends or relatives) once in power. in this context, this paper is expected to contribute to the development of a transparent evaluation system for nepal’s community forests. furthermore, it is also expected to assist the villagers to examine the effectiveness of their forest conservation. materials and methods this paper uses the criteria and indicators developed by pokharel and larsen (2007) for evaluating effective forest conservation. scores are assigned by local people on their assessment of the criteria and indicators developed by the cfugs they visit. we chose village to village approach as this permits researchers to cross check the information, and to acquire the perspectives from males, females, and from different castes and so on, to foster a feeling of local ownership of the process. village to village approach requires visiting rural areas and offering 1 institute of forestry tribhuvan university, po box 43, pokhara, nepal; e-mail: ridishp@gmail.com 2 forest & landscape, copenhagen university, denmark; e-mail: hol@life.ku.dk banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 12 local people a chance to reflect on and analyze their experiences. in this study, we used a village-to-village approach by visiting cfugs and holding 20-30 minutes informal discussions for assigning the score along the given criteria and indicators. a total of eight small group meetings were conducted with cfug members separately (one meeting each in jaykot, kankali, rani, and malatimahila cfugs and two meetings each in thanimia and simalchaur cfugs). since only one individual attended the first meeting of thanimai and simalchaur cfugs, we decided to conduct additional meetings with these cfugs. locating individuals interested in participating in the discussion was relatively easy as good rapport had been nurtured through earlier visits and the researcher was also familiar with the local situation. we directly approached forest users for small group meetings since the first author was familiar with the local situation and cfugs. we first contacted a random individual in the field and then requested him or her to invite a few more individuals to a small group meeting. the meeting was conducted at chautaras (communal meeting/resting places under specific tree shades in a village) or at one of the respondents’ home, depending on the convenience of the respondents. the data was recorded in september 2006. results and discussions the meetings were conducted with an air of informal ambience. working together with small groups as indicated by schusler et al (2003) provided an opportunity for dialog among participants. at each meeting, we explained the purpose and objective of our visit and about the criteria and indicators. then, with a flip chart, the list of the criteria and indicators was expounded. we invited the participants to assign a score, between 1 and 10, for each application of the criterion and indicator in forest conservation in their own situations. ascribing a quantitative number or value for each of the criteria and indicators was not easy for forest users, and at first they could hardly agree on a common, assessed value. after discussing among themselves they finally reached consensus. so by applying the criteria and indicators to their own situations and assigning the scores accordingly, they were able to compare the effectiveness of forest conservation for different cfugs. each score was recorded onto the flip chart and read aloud so everyone could confirm what number was agreed on for a given set of criterion and indicator. after the recitation of the scores, the participants sometimes revised the scores for some criteria or indicators. table 1 lists the average scores and adjusted scores for the given criteria and indicators used in this study. the average scores and the adjusted scores are the sum of all scores divided by the number of meetings and the final score for each criterion and indicator, respectively. we computed the average score as the sum of the scores for each criterion and indicator assigned by local people divided by number of meetings. similarly, we computed the adjusted score by converting the total score into 100. pokharel and larsen (2007) identified two types of indicators – cumulative and non-cumulative. cumulative indicators meant more than one indicator could be assigned to a given cfug, but only one non-cumulative indicator could be assigned. as values for criteria could be assigned from 1 to 10 to calculate the total score of a cfug indicator, values proportionate to the value of the relevant criterion are summed. for example, if an area at the time of handover to a cfug was naked or barren the score value would be 9. when adjusted for the relative importance of the criterion, this value would be 7.63 out of 10, and this score is adjusted to 6.86. for cumulative indicators, the maximum total value that could be assigned was the value of the corresponding criterion. the indicator values assigned are reduced proportionately. for example, if community forest management had resulted in increased greenery and improved water quality, a score of 15.51 was assigned. the average criterion score was 8.38, the total assigned score of indicators was 32.25, and the adjusted score, therefore, came to be 4.03. the maximum total value of a cfug was 94.06, while the minimum was 23.84, with the average score being 58.95. the results indicate that local forest users perceived attendance of all users in the general assembly and development of healthy environment as the most important inputs for sustainable community forest management, whereas the size of the cfug fund and composition of the forest management committee were perceived as less important. the criteria and scores indicate that community forest users envision conservation as requiring a holistic perspective, assigning high scores to criteria on environmental, social and socio-economic spheres such as the use of cfug funds. pokharel and larsen banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 13 criteria indicators average criteria score average indicator score adjusted score attendance of all users in general assembly* 8.38 7.76 up to 50% 5.13 3.95 51 – 75% 7.63 5.89 above 75% 9.38 7.21 development of healthy environment 8.38 7.76 increased greenery 8.63 2.14 increasing availability of water source 8.38 2.07 reduced soil erosion/landslides 8.38 2.07 improved drinking water quality 6.88 1.70 forest management practices 8.25 7.64 block division in the forests 8.75 2.93 construction of fire line 7.63 2.55 regular silvicultural operation 7.5 2.51 state of forests at time of evaluation 8.25 7.64 presence of good shape trees 8.75 1.86 reappearance of spp. that were lost 8.25 1.75 appearance of wildlife 8 1.70 community access to fuel wood 7.88 1.67 financial transparency of cfug committee 8.13 7.53 presentation of financial report in ga** 8.75 2.14 access of all users to financial report 8.75 2.14 presentation of financial report in ph 8.13 1.99 formation of sub-committee for fm 7 1.71 use of cfug funds 8 7.41 community development works 7.88 1.56 forest improvement activity 7.88 1.56 self-employment skill development 7.63 1.51 literacy programs for forest users 6.13 1.21 soft loan for income generating 5.63 1.12 proportion of women in general assembly* 8 7.41 up to 25% 4.88 3.55 26 – 50% 7.25 5.33 51 – 75% 7.88 5.77 above 75% 8.63 6.37 performance of cfug committee 7.75 7.18 preparation of yearly cfug report 8.75 1.47 meetings are conducted regularly 8.63 1.45 effective information sharing 8.13 1.37 formation of sub-committee for ma 8 1.35 assessment of users’ needs 8 1.35 state of forest before hand over* 7.63 7.07 naked and barren hills 9 6.36 plantation areas 7.25 5.09 natural forests 6.5 4.59 forest protection system* 7.63 7.07 self-disciplines 9 6.36 users on rotational basis 7.38 5.16 hiring forest watchers 5 3.53 awareness of forest importance among users 7.38 6.84 cfug organizes tree planting activity 7.25 2.58 illegal cutting from forest is reduced 6.88 2.45 informal class on forestry issues 5.5 1.96 forest products distribution system* 7 6.48 equity – needy get more 7.75 4.98 equal – all get equal share 5 3.24 cfug fund size* 6.88 6.37 below nrs15,000 4.88 3.05 nrs15,000 – 24,999 6.13 3.88 nrs25,000 – 49,000 7.25 4.58 nrs50,000 and above 8.63 5.47 composition of cfug committee* 6.75 6.25 proportional representation of sexes 8.5 5.31 equal ratio of male and female 7.88 4.87 50% or more are women 7.25 4.50 domination of one group 4 2.50 only men 3.13 1.93 table 1: average score on criteria and indicators as perceived by local people *indicators under the criteria are non-cumulative **ph meaning public hearing; fm meaning financial monitoring; ga meaning general assembly; ma meaning monitoring activities pokharel and larsen banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 14 interestingly, the participants were reluctant to assign full scores to neither criteria nor indicators. this may be the acculturation spill over from experiences with the nepalese education system wherein students are rarely awarded a hundred per cent score on a test. this tendency introduces methodological problems for the interpretation of the evaluation. generally, criteria are assigned higher scores when they reflect current problems, for example, with regards to the distribution of forest products and gender inequality (agrawal, 2001; malla et al., 2003), financial transparency, and environmental aspects. the community forestry program is regarded as environmentally beneficial (gautam et al., 2002; karna et al., 2004). at this point an evaluation of cfugs according to the presented criteria and indicators would yield comparative quantitative information about the success of forest conservation. we propose that, for now, cfugs earning average or more of the possible score (score with 59 and higher) be designated as demonstrating “effective” forest conservation. the number of cfugs visited for this study was small. to develop a national list of criteria and indicators truly representing the views of forest users would call for more observations. in terms of methods, the village to village visit approach was found to be effective for fostering interaction with the local people and for gathering information. this approach allowed us to observe a village, get a sense of what was going on, and to compare the information with field reality. moreover, it was relatively easy to establish rapport with local people by demonstrating respect and interest. indeed, local people felt happy when their work was acclaimed and cited as one of the reasons for choosing the area. the village to village approach requires building trust with local people which is not an easy task. several visits and positive discussions regarding the local work would facilitate the build-up of trust. conclusions developing and scoring criteria and indicators for forest conservation assists local people to evaluate their own performances. they can use it as a transparent tool to evaluate themselves independently – whereas central evaluations are perceived to be opaque and often invite controversy and illegitimacy. this study has demonstrated that forest users can develop and score criteria and indicators for forest conservation, and that their perceptions of conservation are more holistic than narrow. some conceptual challenges were encountered regarding the reluctance to assign absolute maximum and minimum scores of 100 or 0 to indicators. in general, though, this experience has shown that forest users were able to discuss the evaluation of forest management competently and that the village to village visit approach was effective for gathering reliable information. references acharya, k. p. 2002. twenty five years of community forestry in nepal, international forestry review 4 (2): 149 – 156. agrawal, b. 2001. participatory exclusions, community forestry, and gender: an analysis for south asia and a conceptual framework, world development 29: 1623 – 1648. springate-baginski, o., dev, o. p., yadav, n. p. and soussan, j. 2003. community forestry management in the middle hills of nepal: the changing context, journal of forests and livelihoods 3 (1): 5 – 20. gautam, a.p., webb, e.l., and elumnoh, a. 2002. gis assessment of land use/land cover changes associated with community forestry implementation in the middle hills of nepal, mountain research and development 22: 63 – 69. his majesty’s government of nepal (hmg) 2000. revised forestry sector policy, hmg, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu/ nepal karna, b.k., gyawali, s. and karmacharya, m.b. 2004. forest condition change: evidence from five revisited community forests. in k. r. kanel, p. mathema, b. r. kanel, d. r. niraula and m. gautam (eds.), twenty five years of community forestry, proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, community forest division, department of forests, kathmandu: 118 – 123. malla, y.b., neupane, h.r., and branney, p. 2003. why aren’t poor people benefiting more from community forestry? journal of forests and livelihoods 3 (1): 78 – 93. pokharel and larsen banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 15 mfsc, 2004. 2059 salko ganeshman singh bansanrakchan puraskar 2054 kolagi 059/7/13ko chhalfalbata chhanaut samitile prastab gareko abedan faram (proposed application guidelines 2059 for ganesh man singh forest conservation award 2054 by selection committee meeting held on 2059/7/13), ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu. pokharel, ridish k. and larsen, helle o. 2007. local versus official criteria and indicators for evaluating community forest management, forestry: an international journal of forest research 80 (2): 183 – 192. pokharel, ridish k. and suvedi, murari 2007. indicators for measuring the success of nepal’s community forestry program: a local perspective, human ecology review 14 (1): 68 – 75. schusler, t.m., decker, d.j. and pfeffer, m.j. 2003. social learning for collaborative natural resource management, society and natural resources 16 (4): 309 – 326. shrestha, k. and khanal, p.n. 2004 forest certification: experiences from parbat district. seed tree nepal, integrated human ecology project, parbat. undp/gef small grants programme, kathmandu. smith, p.d., chhetri, b.b.k. and regmi, b. 2003 meeting the needs of nepal’s poor: creating local criteria and indicators of community forestry. journal of forestry 101 (5): 24 – 30. pokharel and larsen among the total eight species of tigers, only five species survive today (wikramanayake et al., 1998). due to loss of habitats, poaching, and trade of tiger body parts, its population across its range is decreasing sharply. royal bengal tiger, panthera tigris tigris (here in after referred to as tiger) survive only in small, isolated protected areas of india, nepal, bhutan, bangladesh and myanmar (bagale, 2005). tiger has been used as flagship species of wildlife conservation in several asian countries since the early 1970’s (shrestha, 2004). densities of tiger appear to be primarily a function of prey densities (karanth and nicholos, 2002). as the density of prey declines in a particular area, the number of breeding females decreases, which ultimately taper the population in smaller size than that particular area can support ecologically. wild ungulates are the major prey base of the tiger and these species have a key role in maintaining the tiger populations. spotted deer (axis axis), sambar deer (cervus unicolor), swamp deer (cervus duvauceli), hog deer (axis porcinus), barking deer (muntiacus muntjac), wild boar (sus scorfa), gaur bison (bos gaurus) and sometimes langur (semnopithecus entellus) comprise the main prey species for tigers in nepal. sometimes blue bull (boselaphus tragocamelus) and four horned antelope (tetracerus quadricornis) are also eaten but their distribution is very limited. domestic lives are occasionally preyed upon in peripheral habitats (bagale, 2005). the low prey densities within the habitat leads to lower encounter rates of tigers with their prey resulting in greater effort to find prey, and much higher energy expenditure per kill (sunquist and sunquist, 1989). so prey depletion should be explicitly recognized as a threat to persistence of tiger apart from other anthropogenic factors. although, tigers have been known to feed on wide variety of animals, a marked preference for medium to large sized ungulates has been documented in different habitats (schaller, 1967). medium to large sized ungulates comprise the bulk of the tiger’s diet, of which spotted deer and sambar constitute approximately 55%–65% (karanth and sunquist, 1995). materials and methods in order to determine abundance, distribution and habitat preference of tiger prey base, this study was conducted at bardia-katarniyaghat forest corridor of western nepal, which connects bardiya national park of nepal and katarniyaghat wildlife sanctuary of india. transect method modified from smith et al. (1998) was used to sample the prey base. each sampling unit was a 625 m long straight line transect with 25 circular plots spaced 25 m apart with 10 m2 plot size. pellet counts were done in a series of small sized plots along a line transect which is considered efficient in terms of its power and time required (neff, 1968). distance between adjacent and parallel transect was maintained at 100 m. a total of 40 transects and 1000 circular plots of 10 m2 were taken. ten transects were taken in each habitat type i.e. sal forest, riverine forest, khair-sissoo forest and grass land. detection probability was considered as 100%, because plots were small and searched carefully. following calculations were done to analyze the data. density: density of pellet groups per plot was taken as an index of abundance. density = total number of pellets groups present in all plots studied / total plots studied distribution: distribution pattern of ungulates was analyzed by calculating ratio of variance and mean (s2/ a) following (odum, 1996) (s2/a) = 1 (random distribution) (s2/a) <1 (regular distribution) (s2/a) >1 (clumped distribution) where s2 = variance = 1 /n ∑(x-a)2 x = sample value; a = mean value chisquare contingency test was used to find out significant differences in the distribution of prey in different studied samples. abundance and distribution of tiger prey base at bardiakatarniyaghat corridor forest, nepal a. karki1, s. r. jnawali2, s. adhikari3 and s. k sharma4 1 department of soil conservation and watershed management, babarmahal, kathmandu., nepal. e-mail: clickajaya@gmail.com 2 hariyo ban program, wwf nepal. 3 conservation and sustainable use of wetlands in nepal, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. 4 swedish university of agricultural science, sweden short note 53 banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 54 chi-square (λ2) = σ (x-a)2/a where x = observed (or sample) value; a = expected value (or mean value) habitat preference was calculated following (pokhrel, 1996) habitat preference (hp) = (ppe/tpp) x100 where, ppe = pellet present in each habitat type tpp = total pellet present in all the habitat type results and discussion prey abundance highest prey abundance was recorded for spotted deer, and the lowest for hog deer (fig. 1). in overall, lower prey abundance was recorded than the previous studies (adhikari and khadka, 2009); it could be due to conduction of study subsequent to rainfall or smaller geographic coverage during transect survey than the previous studies. fig. 1: overall abundance of prey species in all habitat types pellet group abundance highest prey base abundance was found in grassland with a mean of 0.56 pellet group (all prey species) per plot followed by khair-sissoo forest (0.3960), riverine forest (0.248) and sal dominant forest (0.192) (fig. 2). species and habitat wise abundance suggest that grassland and khair-sissoo forest are most important habitats for prey abundance. prey distribution figure 3 shows that most abundant prey of tiger is spotted deer which is highly found in grassland. the rabbit is only emergency food of tiger in this habitat and tiger attacks on it are rare. barking deer, hog deer and blue bull have very low abundance, so they have minimum chance of being attacked, although they are preferred food of tiger. wild boar and langur are staple food of tiger and feeds occasionally in deficiency period. karki et al. fig.2: habitat wise mean prey species abundance fig. 3: species wise prey distribution in different habitats banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 55 habitat preference the most preferred habitat of prey species was found to be grassland with 38.35% preference followed by 29.79%, 18.58% and 13.28% for khair-sissoo forest, riverine forest and sal dominant forest, respectively (fig.4). this also suggests that grassland is the most preferred habitat of prey base and important for maintaining the tiger population. fig. 4: habitat preference by prey species spotted deer’s preference was found the highest in grassland which is followed by khair-sissoo forest and riverine forest (fig. 5). spotted deer’s pellets were not recorded in sal dominant forest. the blue bull was distributed only in sal dominant forest and grassland. the most preferred habitat of barking deer was found to be khair-sissoo forest followed by grassland, sal dominant forest and riverine forest, respectively. besides, its sedentary and shy nature along with anti-predator strategy of being inconspicuous makes it to reside more in dense forest than in open and disturbed areas. similar result was found in this study. fig. 5: habitat preference (%) by prey species hog deer prefer grass-covered delta islands, or open phantas. during the day, hog deer shelter in tall grasslands (neff et al., 1991). hog deer usually inhabit grassland, and seldom seen in forest (pokhrel, 2005). present results also supported this statement since hog deer’s pellets were recorded only in grassland. wild boar was found in all habitat types. grassland and sal dominant forests were its preferred habitats whereas riverine and khairsissoo forests were the second preferred habitats. rabbit’s pellets were found the highest in khairsissoo forest followed by riverine forest and grassland. langur was found the highest in sal dominant forest followed by riverine forest and grassland (fig. 5). distribution pattern habitat influencing factors needs to be known for species conservation. distribution pattern of prey is one of the means for relating with distribution pattern of tiger. distribution pattern of prey in different habitat types was calculated and found to be of clumped type which was verified by calculating variance and mean ratio (s2/a). the value obtained was, s2/a = 4.15 since the value obtained is greater than 1. so we can conclude that distribution pattern of prey is of the clumped type. conclusion abundance of prey species was found higher in grassland and khair-sissoo forest. properly managed these habitats could help in stabilizing the tiger population. sal dominant forest was found with lowest abundance of prey species compared to other habitats. distribution pattern of prey species was found to be of clumped type with the highest pellet group recorded in grassland, this shows that prey base distribution is highest in grassland with clumped type. relative index of prey species was found to be 0.344 mean pellets per 10 m2. high distribution and abundance of prey species suggested that the grassland areas of this corridor are better habitats for wild ungulate species that explains presence of good number of tigers. references adhikari, s. and khadka, a. 2009. study on relative abundance and distribution of tiger prey base (ungulates) in khata corridor, bardia national park. journal of science, engineering and technology 5 (1): 121–135. bagale, r. p. 2005. a study on tigerprey relationship in chitwan national park, nepal. unpublished. karki et al. banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 56 karki et al. karanth, k. u. and nicholos, j. d. 2002. monitoring tigers and their prey. a manual for researchers, managers and conservationists in tropical asia. centre for wildlife studies, bangalore, india. karanth, k.u. and sunquist m. 1995. prey selection by tiger, leopard and dhole in tropical forest. journal of animal ecology 64: 439–450. neff, d. j.1968. the pelletgroup count technique for big game trend, census, and distribution: a review. journal of wildlife management 32: 597–614. odum, e. p.1996. fundamental of ecology, third edition, nataraj publishers, dehradun, india pokhrel, c. p.1996. food and habitat utilization of swamp deer (cervus duvauceli) in the bardia national park. m.sc. dissertation, tribhuvan university, nepal. schaller, g.b.1967. the deer and the tiger. university chicago press, chicago, usa. shrestha, m. k.2004. relative ungulate abundance in a fragmented landscape implication for tiger conservation. phd thesis, university of minnesota, usa. smith, j. l.d., ahearn, s. c. and mcdougal, c. 1998. landscape analysis of tiger distribution and habitat quality in nepal. conservation biology 12: 1338–1346. sunquist, m. e. and sunquist f. c.1989. ecological constraints on predation by large felids. in carnivore behavior, ecology and evolution (ed.) j. l. gittleman, chapman and hall, london, uk. wikramanayake, e. d., dinerstein,e, robinson, j. g., karanth, u., rabinowitz, a., olson, d., mathew, t., hedado, p., conner, m., hemley, g., and bolze, d. 1998. an ecologybased method for defining priorities for large mammal conservation: the tiger as a case study. conservation biology 12:865–878. final special issue.pmd 5 banko janakari, special issue wetland conservation in nepal: policies, practices, problems and possibilities b.s. poudel1 wetlands are among the most productive but threatened ecosystems on earth. wetlands provide many benefits – environmental, economic and social – yet there is a limited assessment of these multiple values and therefore, have little attention in national accounts. nepal has been transforming its resource management policies in favor of local people. this paper reviews existing policy framework and legal mechanisms involved in wetlands. there are several acts and regulations which have direct or indirect bearing on wetland conservation and management. it also discusses issues and possibilities of wetland management in nepal. finally, it recommends capacity building, wetland survey and inventory. key words: wetlands, policies, plans, acts, ramsar, ecosystem, values apart from these, now the wetlands are described as carbon dioxide sinks and climate stabilizers. furthermore, wetlands are important because they help to curb soil erosion, lessen the impact of flood and drought, support fishing activity, and regulate the water cycle. nepal’s endeavor nepal has demonstrated its commitment to wetlands conservation by signing the ramsar convention on december 17, 1987 and by designating koshi tappu wetland in the ramsar list. since then, the government of nepal has initiated the move for protection and management of wetlands. nepal presently has 9 sites designated as wetlands of international importance. these wetlands broadly represent high altitude, mid hills and lowland terai wetlands. so far, a total of 34,455 ha area has been designated as wetlands of international importance in nepal. wetland related policies in nepal conservation and management of wetlands is reflected in various conservation policies of nepal. national conservation strategy (1988) has emphasized the need for sustainable use of land and natural resources. the master plan for the forestry sector 1989, endorsed by government of nepal (1989), emphasizes the need to involve people in natural resources management. the plan stressed wetlands ecosystems cover about 6% of the total global land area (turner, 1991). they are considered to be one of the most threatened of all the major natural ecosystems and are argued to deserve a high priority for conservation. invasion of alien species, unsustainable harvesting of wetlands and nearby ecosystem products, overgrazing, water and industrial pollution, excessive use of agrochemicals draining to nearby streams and discharge of industrial effluents are identified as major problems of wetlands. wetlands are crucial for human survival and economic well-being, for ecosystem functions and for earth’s life support system. wetlands are amongst the most productive life support systems on earth and are of immense socioeconomic importance by providing food, fodder, fuel and water for domestic, irrigation and industrial purposes (kaul, 2003). they are critical for contributing to poverty reduction if managed and used properly. wetlands are valuable as services, sinks and transformers of a multitude of chemical, biological, and genetic materials. wetlands are sometimes described as “the kidneys of the landscapes” because of the functions they perform in hydrologic and chemical cycles and as downstream receivers of wastes from both natural and human sources. they have found to clean polluted waters, prevent floods and recharge ground water aquifers (anon, 2005). 1 asst. conservation officer, kanchenjungha conservation area, e-mail: bspoudel@dnpwc.gov.np 6 banko janakari, special issue that land and forest resources should be managed and utilized on a long-term basis so as to conserve the forests, soil, water, flora, fauna and scenic beauty. the nepal environmental policy and action plan (1993) (nepap) has timely prioritized the need to identify and protect biologically significant marshes, wetlands, and water bodies. this plan is an effective initiative for the protection of wetlands and provides a good policy foundation. nepap was further elaborated in 1998 (nepap ii) to address crosssectoral and sector plans which have identified fiftyfour environmental projects related, directly or indirectly, to the forestry sector that include wetland conservation programs. it states that wetlands in nepal have often been overlooked as an important habitat type and that many wetlands are suffering from land and water pollution while others have been drained and converted to agricultural land. the forestry sector policy (2000) stated that the soil, water, flora and fauna constitute the main elements of forestryn; nevertheless, it has been silent on wetland conservation. nepal biodiversity strategy (2002) explicitly addresses the wetland ecosystem. the strategy formulated a mixture of strategies to safeguard the wetland resources. it is the first government document that specifically catalogued and addressed wetland biodiversity and called for strategies to safeguard wetland habitats. its implementation plan for 2006 has outlined integrated wetland management as priority projects (p-iii) among the thirteen projects that will be implemented during the first phase of the plan (2006-2010) with the objective of developing integrated management plans at the watershed level to conserve wetland biodiversity and critical sites. the government of nepal has endorsed national wetland policy 2003 with the objective of involving the local people in the management of nepal’s wetlands and to conserve wetlands biodiversity with the wise use of wetlands resources. the primary goal as stated in the policy is to conserve and manage wetlands resources wisely and in a sustainable way with local people’s participation. emphasis is given to conserving wetlands by involving the local people, promoting awareness, using wetland resources wisely, preventing and controlling pollution and invasive species. the policy directed the government – in consultation with concerned stakeholders to formulate and implement integrated action plans that encourage multi-dimensional model and promote wetland conservation. the policy stated that the legal arrangements to make the wetland management activities effective should be formulated. the need to formulate acts, regulations and guidelines to ensure the jurisdiction and the capabilities of the bodies responsible for wetlands conservation and management is realized from all sides. wetland related legislations in nepal nepal does not have a specific law that deals with wetlands but wetland management would come within the purview of several resource laws. there are several acts and regulations which have relevance to wetland conservation and management. wetlands are not defined as a separate category of ecologically important areas under national parks and wildlife conservation act 1973 and other resource laws like the aquatic animal protection act 1961, soil and watershed conservation act 1982, water resources act 1992, electricity act 1992, forest act 1993, environmental protection act 1996, local self governance act 1999 and the existing regulations under them. aquatic animals protection act 1961 recognizes the value of wetlands and aquatic animals and identifies as offence activities to introduce poisonous, noxious or explosive materials into a water source or to table 1: wetlands of international importance in nepal sn ramsar site no. name location date of designation area (ha.) elevation (m asl) 1. 380 koshi tappu koshi 17.12.1987 17,500 75 – 81 2. 1313 beeshazari and associated lakes chitwan 13.08.2003 3,200 286 3. 1314 ghodaghodi lake area kailali 13.08.2003 2,563 205 4. 1315 jagadishpur reservoir kapilvastu 13.08.2003 225 197 5. 1692 gokyo and associated lakes solukhumbo 23.09.2007 7,770 4,700 – 5,000 6. 1693 gosaikund and associated lakes rasuwa 23.09.2007 1,030 4,000 – 4,700 7. 1694 phoksundo lake dolpa 23.09.2007 494 3,611.5 8. 1695 rara lake mugu 23.09.2007 1,583 2,990 9. 1850 mai pokhari ilam 28.10.2008 90 2,100 poudel 7 banko janakari, special issue destroy any dam, bridge, fish ladder, or water system with the intent of catching or killing aquatic life. national parks and wildlife conservation act 1973 prohibits blocking or diverting of any river, stream or other sources of water flowing into a national park or the introducing of any harmful or poisonous substance therein. the act lists many mammals, birds and reptiles in its appendix as protected animals that are wholly or partially dependant on wetlands. soil and watershed conservation act 1982 outlines the essential parameters necessary for the proper management of catchments areas, including rivers and lakes. it provides legislative measures concerning soil and watershed conservation to properly manage the catchments of nepal. it also empowers the government to declare any catchments area protected. within the protected watershed the government could resettle, or relocate industries, businesses, and settlements. there is a long list of prohibited activities, such as clearing the forest, quarrying stone, soil and /or sand, interfering with water bodies, establishing industries, allowing livestock to graze etc. water resources act 1992 strives to minimize environmental damage to wetlands, especially lakes and rivers, through environmental impact assessments. it states that the persons willing to make use of water resources for collective benefits on an institutional basis should form a water users association. electricity act 1992 prohibits blocking, diverting or placing hazardous or explosive materials in rivers, streams, or any water source. this act states that there should not be any substantially adverse effect on environment by way of soil erosion, flood, landslide, or air pollution while carrying out electricity generation, transmission or distribution. forest act 1993 defines ponds, lakes, rivers or streams and riverine lands within the forest as national forest. this act also empowers the government to declare any part of national forests as a protected area if the area has environmental, scientific and cultural significance. environmental protection act 1996 stressed that nobody can generate pollution in such a manner as to cause significant adverse impacts on the environment or likely to be hazardous to public life and people’s health. this act directed authority to the government of nepal, by a notification in the nepal gazette, to declare any place within nepal containing natural heritage or aesthetic, rare wildlife, biological diversity, plant, and places of historical and cultural importance, which are considered extremely important from the viewpoint of environment protection, as an environment protection area. it has made initial environmental examinations or environmental impact assessments mandatory for development proposals. local self governance act, 1999, provides immense autonomy to the district development committees (ddcs), municipalities and village development committees (vdcs) and they are required to plan and act for protection of forests, environment, and conservation of biodiversity. this act lists out natural resources as property of the vdc and empowers vdc to levy taxes on the utilization of natural resources. similarly, this act sanctions the ddc to formulate and implement plans for conservation and utilization of forest, vegetation, biological diversity and soil. the act allows ddc to bring to a halt environmentally unsound developmental projects. problems and possibilities legal and policy issues should include clear cut roles and responsibilities of local communities for the translation of national wetland policy provisions into actions through legislative measures. technical issues include documentation of wetland related indigenous knowledge system, coordination among various public and private institutions, research and capacity building. socio-economic issues include valuation, benefit sharing, investment and mobilization of financial resources, integration of poor peoples’ choices and voices in wetland management. ecological issues include building the understanding of ecological functioning and the application of ecological principles in decision making process. the current issues and future strategies of wetland conservation require a holistic view, keeping with the wise use of wetland resources for human welfare and economic upliftment as focal thrust areas. mid hills sites are of particular importance as this region represents only 0.26% of the total ramsar area in nepal. addressing this gap and challenge requires declaration of more ramsar sites in mid hills for ensuring comprehensive and stringent protection. although the number of ramsar sites has increased substantially since 2003, there remain gaps in the protection given to these mid hill sites. this highlights the need for better target management for future sites. poudel 8 banko janakari, special issue regarding the management and wise use, indigenous peoples and local communities who live in areas adjacent to wetlands should have their rights respected by increasing their involvement in wetland management activities. their relevant indigenous knowledge should be documented fully. the most pressing issue for nepal is poverty, which means that most resources are allocated towards education, employment, social welfare and development, with less allocated for conservation and wetlands. certainly, more resources and new initiatives are needed. new and innovative approaches need to be applied to wetland management. also, there should be increased financial investment in wetland management. wetlands provide many benefits – environmental, economic and social – yet there is a limited assessment of these multiple values. consequently, they are often not reflected in national decision making processes. wetlands provide critical ecosystem services, which are undervalued by many public and private institutions and markets, but which need to be reflected in national accounts and the market place. rational conservation begins with the surveying and inventorying of resources, so a national inventory of wetlands in nepal is needed. yet to date, there is no national inventory of wetlands. properly and timely formulated conservation plans followed by effective implementation strategy can lead to the sustainable use of our wetland (karki and chhetri, 2007). it is expected that once a number of future priority areas and project interventions have been agreed upon by all stakeholders, a more formal cooperation will need to be established. many organizations are working in wetland issues in nepal but there is lack of coordination and synergy amongst them. moreover, very few have specialist training and professional experience in the disciplines relevant to wetland management. therefore, scientific and technical capacity of front line people involved in wetland management should be enhanced. despite some efforts in wetland conservation and management, integrated management planning of important wetlands are needed to translate policy into actions. these include programmatic approach to wetland management, institutional coordination and legislative measures conclusions government commitment to increase the coverage of ramsar sites is essential. moreover, success requires engaging local communities and developing a common vision. the ramsar sites as well as nationally important wetland sites that lie outside the protected areas should be declared as environment protection areas and/or protected watersheds. the government of nepal has initiated the move for protection and management of wetlands. in an exemplary step, the government has approved the national wetland policy 2003 that aims to involve local people in the management of wetlands and conserve wetlands biodiversity with the wise use of wetlands resources. besides, the policy statements in nepal policy and action plan and nepal biodiversity strategy specifically addressed wetland biodiversity and offered categorical strategies for their management. in nepal, there is no one comprehensive legislation relating to wetlands but wetlands conservation comes within the purview of several laws. references anon. 2005. introduction to wetlands. in selected readings on wetlands and coastal habitat management. wildlife institute of india, dehradun, india. hmgn. 1961. aquatic animal protection act 1961. his majesty’s government of nepal, law books management committee, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 1973. national parks and wildlife conservation act 1973. his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 1982. soil and watershed conservation act 1982. his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 1988. national conservation strategy: building on success. his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 1989. master plan for the forestry sector nepal (main report). his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. poudel 9 banko janakari, special issue hmgn. 1992a. electricity act 1992. his majesty’s government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 1992b. water resources act 1992. his majesty’s government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 1993. forest act 1993. his majesty’s government of nepal, law books management committee, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 1993. nepal environmental policy and action plan 1993. his majesty’s government of nepal /environment protection council, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 1996. environment protection act 1996. his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of environment, science and technology, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 1999. local self governance act 1999. his majesty’s government of nepal, law books management committee, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 2000. revised forestry sector policy 2000. his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 2002. nepal biodiversity strategy 2002. his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 2003. national wetland policy, 2003. his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. gon. 2006. nepal biodiversity strategy implementation plan 2006-2010. government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. karki, s and chhetri, p.k., 2007, “nepal’s wetlands: a conservation plan for action” workshop proceeding by the nepal river conservation trust (nrct) and the environmentalists’ association of nepal (ean). kaul, s. 2003. wetland conservation and management: a national perspective. in chilika vol. 4. chilika development authority and wetland international south asia. orissa, india. turner, k. 1991. economics and wetland management. ambio 20, 59-63. poudel final corrected banko janakari 19-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 16 medicinal plants of nepal: distribution pattern along an elevational gradient and effectiveness of existing protected areas for their conservation k. p. acharya1, r. p. chaudhary2 and o. r. vetaas3 this study explores patterns of medicinal plant species richness along an elevational gradient in nepal and the effectiveness of existing protected areas for their conservation. we used published data on the distribution of medicinal plants. the number of medicinal plants and the number of protected areas present in each 100 m elevation band were collated by interpolation. we tested the number of protected areas and the number of species as the response variables against elevation as a predictor variable. to explain the relationship between the total medicinal plant richness and their different life forms with elevation and protected areas, we used generalized additive models (gams) and scatter plots. the elevational distribution of medicinal plants as a whole and disaggregated into different life forms revealed hump-shaped patterns. the maximum richness of medicinal plants was found at an elevation of 1100 m a.s.l. but the maximum numbers of protected areas were found at elevations between 3000-3500 m a.s.l. there was negative correlation between the altitudinal distribution of protected areas and medicinal plants in nepal. this study suggests that the protected areas of nepal were less concentrated where medicinal plants diversity was rich. key words: elevation gradient, generalized additive model, medicinal plants, species richness 1 p.o.box 15142 kpc 676, kathmandu, nepal. email: acharya.kamal@gmail.com 2 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, nepal 3 unifob-global, university of bergen, nygaardsgt. 5, n-5015 bergen, norway with a wide range of topographic features and climatic conditions in nepal, one can find large environmental variation (from the humid lowland forests to glaciated mountain tops). this variation has resulted in isolated localities that host a large number of plant species. so far, around 7000 species of flowering plants have been documented for nepal (dpr, 2001). of these, around 1792 species (including lichens and fungi) were used for medicinal purposes (baral and khurmi, 2006). however, the number of medicinal plants in nepal is still uncertain. almost 60% of the world population and 80% of the population in the developing countries rely on traditional medicines (shrestha and dillion, 2003). in a developing country like nepal, the majority of the people in the rural areas rely mostly on plants and plant products for their traditional “medicines” or drugs and primary health care needs. demand for medicinal plants have been increasing due to their having no side-effects, easy availabilities at affordable prices and sometimes being the only source of health care available to the poor. the source of medicinal plant is usually the nearby forest which is being depleted because of forest clearing for agriculture, land for settlement of the growing population, developmental activities and demand for forest based raw materials (manandhar, 1995; chaudhary, 1998) so many species are already threatened due to collection pressures (ghimire et al., 2005). the majority of the studies till date have focused on systematic documentation of useful plants but there is a lack of quantitative studies on the distribution pattern on medicinal plants, especially within existing protected areas. the study of the relationship between species richness and elevation is important for conservation and management of species diversity (grytnes, 2003) because the lack of detailed knowledge about distribution patterns of species and ecosystems leads to problems in conserving species (hunter and yonzon, 1993). relationship between species richness and elevation have been determined using different methods for variety of taxa in different parts of the world (see banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 17 rahbek, 2005; garu et al., 2007) and along the himalayan elevational gradient (vetaas and grytnes, 2002; bhattarai et al., 2004; carpenter, 2005; grau et al., 2007; acharya, 2008). but, studies on elevational pattern of medicinal plants and its relationship with protected areas have not been carried out. medicinal plants represent all life forms and taxonomic groups of plants. so, this study might document the patterns for the medicinal plants with different life forms. the main objectives of this study are: 1) to find out the distribution patterns of medicinal plants along the elevational gradients in the nepal himalaya, 2) to compare these patterns with patterns found for plants and plants groups from the same area, so as 3) to ascertain any relationship between the elevational distribution of protected areas and the elevational distribution of medicinal plants of nepal. materials and methods biogeographical location and climate of study area nepal (260 22’ n to 300 27’ n latitude, 800 40’ e to 880 12’ e longitude), the central himalaya is a narrow himalayan strip that consists of five east-west running ranges: terai, siwaliks, mahabharat, high mountains and high himalaya (lrmp, 1986). across this short north south distance, the elevation ranges from about 60 m to 8848 m (highest peak of the world) and comprises tropical to alpine climatic zones. the medicinal plants are distributed from 100 m to 6,000 m a.s.l. (dpr, 2007). nepal harbours a wide range of climatic conditions. however, the climatic conditions can be broadly divided into two types: dry winter period and wet summer period (shankar and shrestha, 1999). the climatic condition of nepal is dominated by the precipitation from the bay of bengal summer monsoon. the amount and distribution of this precipitation, the duration and altitudes of cloudiness vary considerably in different parts. the amount of rainfall gradually decreases from east to west, but increases from the plains to certain elevations between 800 to 2000 m a.s.l. to the north and then decreases. data source and interpolation we collected information of medicinal plants from secondary sources. the elevation ranges of medicinal plants were collected from dpr (2007). information on sixty species assigned to various risk categories: critically endangered, endangered, insufficiently known, nearly threatened, vulnerable, rare, threatened and data deficient were collected from dpr (2006). this was the latest book on medicinal plants of nepal with the information on their elevational distribution. the medicinal plants were distributed from 100 m to 6000 m a.s.l. to examine the relationship between species richness and elevation, the overall elevation range between 100 and 6000 m was divided into 60, 100-m elevation interval, vertical elevation bands. the number of species present in each elevation band was estimated by interpolation (vetaas and grytnes, 2002; bhattarai et al., 2004). a species was determined to being “present” in every 100-m intervals of its upper and lower elevation limits. for example, dactylorhiza hatagirea with its elevation limit between 2800 and 4000 m, was assumed to be present in each elevation band of 2800, 2900, 3000, 3100, 3200, and so on up to 4000 m (see bhattarai et al., 2004). we used the term species richness for the total number of medicinal plant species present in each 100-m elevation band. to find the number of protected areas occurring in each 100-m elevation band, the altitudinal range of each protected areas was determined from nepal biodiversity strategy (hmgn/mfsc, 2002). the interpolated elevation range was converted to dummy variable by ascribing “1” for presence and “0” for absence and the number of conservation sites per 100 m elevation band was estimated (crawley, 2005). statistical analysis this is an exploratory study with elevation (meters above sea level) as the main predictor variable, so we used generalized additive models (gams) (hastie and tibshirani, 1990) with up to four degrees of freedom to explore the overall pattern of species richness with elevation. we used elevation as an explanatory variable and species richness and the number of conservation sites as response variables. species richness data were considered to follow a poisson distribution as it is a count (discrete) data (crawley, 2005) which requires a logarithmic link. however, because of overdispersion, a quasi-poisson model was used (crawley, 2005) with a logarithmic link. we used an f-test to check the significance of models because this is more robust when there is overdispersion (crawley, 2005). we used r2.8.1 (r development core team, 2008) for regression analysis and graphical representations. acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 18 results and discussions life form spectrum of medicinal plants of nepal the latest report on the total number of medicinal plants and their elevational range counted 697 species (dpr, 2007). these medicinal plants belonged to different life forms: trees, shrubs, herbaceous, climbers and some were lichens and mushrooms (figure 1). herb 44 % shrub 23 % tree 23 % climber 7 % lichen 1 % mushroom 1 % parasite 0 % fern 1 % figure 1: different life forms of medicinal plants. east center west 67 % east 3 % center 5 % west 2 % eastcenter 12 % centerwest 11 % distribution of medicinal plants in different ecological regions and along the elevation gradients the medicinal plants were found growing between the elevations of 100 m to 6,000 m a.s.l. the distribution of medicinal plants along different ecological regions of nepal is tabulated in figure 2. figure 2: distribution of medicinal plants in different regions of nepal the variation in species richness of total and of different life forms of medicinal plants along the elevation gradient is presented in figure 3. the uppermost elevations for the growth of different life forms of medicinal plants were different. the uppermost elevation for the growth of trees, shrubs, herbaceous forms and climbers were 4500 m, 5000 m, 6000 m and 3300 m a.s.l, respectively. the total and different life forms of species showed humpshaped patterns of distribution along the elevation gradient of nepal. the optimum richness of different life forms was also different. the maximum richness of total medicinal plants was observed at an elevation of 1100 m a.s.l. similarly the maximum richness of trees, shrubs, herbaceous forms and climbers were found at elevations of 1000 m, 1000 m, 1300 m and 900 m a.s.l, respectively (figure 3). because of overexploitation, sixty species have been assigned to various conservation risk categories: critically endangered, endangered, insufficiently known, nearly threatened, vulnerable, rare, threatened and data deficient. the maximum richness or concentration of these threatened medicinal plants peaked at 3500 m a.s.l. (figure 3f). 0 1000 3000 5000 0 5 0 1 5 0 2 5 0 s p e c ie s ri c h n e s s a) 0 1000 3000 5000 0 2 0 6 0 1 0 0 b) 0 1000 3000 5000 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 s p e c ie s ri c h n e s s c) 0 1000 3000 5000 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 d) 0 1000 3000 5000 0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 elevation (m a.s.l.) s p e c ie s ri c h n e s s e) 0 1000 3000 5000 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 elevation (m a.s.l.) f) figure 3: relationship between different life forms a) total b) herbs c) shrub d) tree e) climber f) threatened of medicinal plants of nepal with elevation (m a.s.l.). (note: vertical axis has different scales). species richness we found hump-shaped patterns of medicinal plant species richness along the elevation gradient in nepal himalaya (figure 3a) peaking at 1100 m a.s.l, which was about 400 m below the prediction made by vetaas and grytnes (2002) for flowering plants. acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 19 similar unimodal patterns have been observed for flowering plants (grytnes and vetaas, 2002), ferns (bhattarai et al., 2004), liverworts and mosses (grau et al., 2007) and orchids (acharya, 2008). this suggests that hump-shaped pattern is the common pattern (rahbek, 2005). this result also supports the findings made by malla and shakya (1999), hamilton and radford (2007) and ghimire (2008) that maximum numbers of medicinal plants were found within the elevation of 1000-2000 m a.s.l. medicinal plants included plants of different life forms (trees, shrubs, herbs, climber etc.). when analyzed for different life forms of medicinal plants, the present study did not find results similar to bhattarai and ghimire (2006). the maximum richness of medicinal plants with different life forms: shrub, herbaceous and climber were found at lower elevations than those obtained from the analysis of bhattarai and ghimire (2006). this might be because they had included smaller numbers of species in their analysis (143 species vs 647 in this investigation). however, there was consistency in the maximum richness of medicinal plants ascribed to tree life forms as in the result of bhattarai and ghimire (2006). to explain the causes of these patterns, many hypotheses have been proposed; however, climatic variables seem to be the most important for explaining species-richness patterns with elevation, especially in broad-scale studies (odland and birks, 1999; bhattarai and vetaas, 2003; sanders et al., 2007). the maximum richness of species will occur at locations with maximum rainfall and optimum energy conditions. so, the maximum richness of medicinal plants at the elevation of 1100 m a.s.l. was due to the optimum water energy dynamics (bhattarai and vetaas, 2003). mid-elevation peak in species richness may be the result of large scale mass effect (shmida and wilson, 1985). the mid elevation receives inputs from both the lower elevations and higher elevations. so, mass effect or source sink dynamics may be important in influencing variation in species richness within an elevation gradient (grytnes and vetaas, 2002). this is the first comprehensive and quantitative study on medicinal plants of nepal where the maximum richness of plant species was observed at the elevation of 1100 m a.s.l. the peak of maximum richness of medicinal plants contrast with the richness peak of ferns at 1900 m and of vascular plants, which had a maximum richness between the elevations of 1500 to 2500 m a.s.l. medicinal plants vs conservation areas there are nine national parks, three wildlife reserves, one hunting reserve, three conservation areas and nine buffer zones covering a total area of about 19.42% of total area of nepal (table 1). the elevation (m a.s.l.) s.n. protected areas of nepal low high 1 annapurna conservation area 1000 8092 2 dhorpatan hunting reserve 2850 7000 3 kanchanjunga conservation area 1200 8598 4 khaptad national park 1000 3276 5 koshi tapu wildlife reserve 90 90 6 langtang national park 792 7245 7 makalu barun national park 435 8463 8 manaslu conservation area 1360 8163 9 parsa wildlife reserve 150 815 10 rara national park 1800 4048 11 bardia national park 152 1494 12 chitwan national park 150 815 13 shuklaphanta wildlife reserve 90 270 14 sagarmatha national park 2800 8848 15 shey phoksundo national park 2000 6885 16 shivapuri national park 1366 2732 source: hmgn/mfsc (2002) table 1: conservation areas of nepal and their altitudinal range in nepal 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 2 4 6 8 10 elevation (m a.s.l.) n um be r o f p ro te ct ed a re as figure 4: relationship between numbers of protected area with elevation along an elevation gradient in nepal. protected areas in nepal are distributed from 75 m to 8848 m a.s.l. maximum numbers of protected areas were found between 3000 m to 3500 m a.s.l (fig. 4). the number of protected areas increased up to 3000 m and then gradually decreased after 3500 m a.s.l. acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 20 there was a strong negative correlation between the total number of medicinal plants and the number of protected areas (r= 0.46) (fig. 5a). however, there is a positive correlation between the total number of threatened medicinal plants and the number of protected areas (r= 0.224) (fig. 5b). numbers of medicinal plants in their localities had declined in recent years (acharya and rokaya, 2005). some of the high value herbs were threatened with extinction. these included dactylorhiza hatagirea, nardostachys grandiflora, rauvolfia serpentina, valeriana jatamansi (chaudhary, 1999). the government of nepal had banned the collection and transportation of some species; however, these types of ban and restriction have not been effective in the conservation of species and the reduction of the collection amount. medicinal plants occur in good densities in national parks and reserves where harvest has been prohibited or restricted (sharma et al., 2004). however, ghimire et al. (2005) reported the collection of two threatened species, n. grandiflora and neopicrorhiza scrophulariiflora even from national parks and buffer zones. a complete checklist of flora present in each protected area of nepal has not yet been prepared (bhattarai and ghimire, 2006). if the species is distributed across a large number of middle hill districts, collection and trade of medicinal plants is too high from lowland districts or terai districts (olsen, 2005). if this collection situation continues, then a large number of medicinal plants will be threatened from lower belts where the diversity has been high. another reason for higher extraction of medicinal plants from lower belts is because these areas are easily accessible. for the solution for sustainable management, the government of nepal has given top priority to 12 rare and high priced plant species (out of total 30 medicinal plant species prioritized for research and development) (dpr, 2006). farming of these medicinal plants will help ease the supply problems, regularize their trade, provide certifiable products of uniform quality and offer a new source of income to the rural poor. the establishments of herbal farms in the royal botanical garden (godavari) and daman botanical garden (daman) have been successful in conserving medicinal plants found in the respective localities. however, these ex-situ conservation efforts are insignificant compared to the vast resources available to the country. besides, their methods of documentation are poor: the accession of conserved plants has not been maintained properly and methods of propagation have not been properly documented (sharma et al., 2004). the community forest program, one of the priority programs, aims to produce a wide range of forest products including medicinal plants. in community forestry, people specify their use rights figure 5: scatter plot showing the relationship between a) no. of medicinal plants b) no. of threatened medicinal plants with number of protected areas of nepal. protected area and medicinal plant species richness till date, there are nine national parks, three wildlife reserves, one hunting reserve, three conservation areas and nine buffer zones covering a total area of about 19.42% of total area of nepal (table 1). these protected areas were distributed from 75 m to 8848 m a.s.l. and the maximum numbers of these areas were found between 3000 m to 3500 m a.s.l. but the maximum peak of plant species was found below this elevational range. there was a negative correlation between number of protected areas and number of medicinal plants (figure 5a). this shows that our conservation efforts are less focused towards plant diversity. protected areas were located at higher elevations where diversity of plants was less. however, there was a positive correlation between number of threatened medicinal plants and the number of protected areas (figure 5b). ghimire et al. (2006) also found that the elevations between 3000 m to 4500 m a.s.l. harbour potential medicinal plants for national and international trade and these species are threatened. large numbers of medicinal plants in wild are being depleted due to the continuous and haphazard harvesting, without any plans to regenerate and sustain them (sharma et al., 2004). in nepal, medicinal plants were collected by people from rural areas; the majority of them do not possess adequate knowledge of natural regeneration and plant habitats. not only this, the collectors extracted even those medicinal plants which were banned for collection and transportation. according to local traders, the acharya et al. 2 4 6 8 10 0 5 0 1 0 0 1 5 0 2 0 0 2 5 0 no. of protected areas n o . o f m e d ic in a l p la n ts a) 2 4 6 8 10 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 no. of protected areas n o . o f th re a te n e d m e d ic in a l p la n ts b) banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 21 to the management, development and utilization of forest resources. in order to collect more revenue from community forests, community forest user groups are running silvicultural and harvesting activities (acharya et al., 2006). instead of growing all plant species in their forests, people are now focusing on a few selected fast growing species. the practice of using a few selected species for fuelwood and the absolute conservation of dominant species in community managed forests may affect the regeneration process and community structure of forests and may also destroy the habitat of valuable medicinal plants. so, community user groups should be well trained about the medicinal plants. conclusions as indicated by the distribution pattern of medicinal plants, the maximum richness of these was observed at the elevation of 1100 m a.s.l. but the maximum protected areas were found at elevations between 3000 to 3500 m a.s.l. the distribution pattern of protected areas did not correspond well with the distribution pattern of medicinal plants. if the medicinal plants of nepal are to be well protected, it is important that the elevational range where maximum richness of medicinal plants is found should be prioritized for conservation activities. references acharya, k.p. 2008. orchid species richness along a himalayan elevation gradient. ms thesis, department of biology, faculty of mathematics and natural sciences, university of bergen, bergen, norway. 42p. acharya k.p. and rokaya, m.b. 2005. ethnobotanical survey of medicinal plants traded in the streets of kathmandu valley. scientific world. 3(3): 44-48. acharya, k.p., gautam, k.r., nepal, b.k. and gautam, g. 2006. participatory assessment of biodiversity conservation in community forestry in nepal. banko janakari. 16(1): 46-56. baral, s.r. and khurmi p.p. 2006. a compendium of medicinal plants in nepal. mrs. rachana sharma, kathmandu, nepal. bhattarai, k.r. and ghimire, m. 2006. commercially important medicinal and aromatic plants of nepal and their distribution pattern and conservation measure along the elevation gradient of the himalayas. banko janakari 16(1):3-13. bhattarai, k.r. and vetaas, o.r. 2003. variation of plant species richness of different life forms along a subtropical elevation gradient in the himalayas, east nepal. global ecology and biogeography 12: 327340. bhattarai, k.r., vetaas, o.r. and grytnes, j.a. 2004. fern species richness along a central himalayan elevation gradient, nepal. journal of biogeography 31: 389-400. carpenter, c. 2005. the environmental control of plant species diversity on a himalayan elevation gradient. journal of biogeography 32: 999-1018. chaudhary, r.p. 1998. biodiversity in nepal (status and conservation). s. devi, saharanpur (u.p.), india and tecpress books, bangkok, thailand. crawley, m.j. 2005. statistics: an introduction using r. john wiley & sons ltd., england. dpr, 2001. flowering plants of nepal (phanerogams). his majesty’s government, ministry of forest and soil conservation, department of plant resources, kathmandu, nepal. dpr, 2006. plants of nepal: fact sheet. ministry of forest and soil conservation, government of nepal, thapathali, kathmandu, nepal. dpr, 2007 bulletin of the department of plant resources no. 28 medicinal plants of nepal (revised). department of plant resources, ministry of forest and soil conservation, government of nepal, thapathali, kathmandu, nepal. ghimire,s.k. 2008. medicinal plants in the nepal himalaya: current issues, sustainable harvesting, knowledge gaps and research priorities. in: medicinal plants in nepal: an analogy of contemporary research (eds.) jha, p.k., karmacharya, s.b., chhetri, m.k., thapa, c.b. and shrestha, b.b., ecology society (ecos), nepal, pp. 25-44. ghimire, s.k., maskey, d. and yildiz, a.t. 2005 conservation of himalayan medicinal plants: harvesting patterns and ecology of two threatened species, nardostachys grandiflora dc. and neopicrorhiza scrophulariiflora (pennell) hong. biological conservation 124: 463-475. acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 22 ghimire, s.k., mckey, d. and aumeeruddy-thomas, a. 2006. himalayan medicinal plant diversity in an ecologically complex high altitude anthropogenic landscape, dolpo, nepal. environmental conservation. 33(2): 128-140. grau, o., grytnes, j.a. and birks, h.j.b. 2007. a comparison of altitudinal species richness patterns of bryophytes with other plant groups in nepal, central himalaya. journal of biogeography. 34: 1907-1915. grytnes, j.a. 2003. species-richness patterns of vascular plants along seven altitudinal transects in norway. ecography. 26: 291-300. grytnes, j.a. and vetaas. o.r. 2002. species richness and altitude: a comparison between null models and interpolated plant species richness along the himalayan altitudinal gradient, nepal. the american naturalist. 159: 294-304. hamilton, a.c. and radford, e.a. 2007. identification and conservation of important plant areas for medicinal plants in the himalaya. plant life international, salisbury, uk and ethnobotanical society, kathmandu, nepal. hastie, t.j. and tibshirani, r.j. 1990. generalized additive models. chapman & hall, london. hmgn/mfsc, 2002. nepal biodiversity strategy. ministry of forest and soil conservation, hmg, nepal. hunter, m.l. and yonzon, p. 1993. altitudinal distributions of birds, mammals, people, forests and parks in nepal. conservation biology 7(2): 420-423. lrmp, 1986. land system report. land resource mapping project, hmg/n and government of canada, kathmandu, nepal. malla s.b. and shakya, p.r. 1999. medicinal plants. in nepal nature’s paradise (ed.) majupuria, t.c. and majupuria, r.k., m. devi, gwalior, india, pp. 261297. manandhar, n.p. 1995. a survey of medicinal plants of jajarkot district, nepal. journal of ethnopharmacology. 48: 1-6. odland, a. and birks, h.j.b. 1999. the altitudinal gradient of vascular plant richness in aurland, western norway. ecography. 22: 548-566. olsen, c.s. 2005. valuation of commercial central himalayan medicinal plants. ambio. 34: 607-610. r development core team, 2008 r: a language and environment for statistical computing. r foundation for statistical computing, vienna. rahbek, c. 2005. the role of spatial scale and the perception of large-scale species richness patterns. ecology letters. 8: 224-239. sanders, n.j., lessard, j.p., fitzpatrick, m.c. and dunn, r.r. 2007. temperature, but not productivity or geometry, predicts elevational diversity gradients in ants across spatial grains. global ecology and biogeography. 16: 640-649. shankar, k. and shrestha, p.b. 1999. climate. in nepal nature’s paradise (ed) majupuria, t.c. and majupuria, r.k., m. devi, gwalior, india, 39-44. sharma, u.r., malla, k.j. and uprety, r.k. 2004. conservation and management efforts of medicinal and aromatic plants in nepal. banko janakari. 14(2): 3-11. shrestha, p.m. and dhillion 2003. medicinal plant diversity and use in the highlands of dolakha district, nepal. journal of ethnopharmacology 86: 8196. shmida, a. and wilson, m.w. 1985. biological determinants of species diversity. journal of biogeography 12: 1-20. vetaas, o.r. and grytnes, j.a. 2002. distribution of vascular plant species richness and endemic richness along the himalayan elevation gradient in nepal. global ecology and biogeography. 11: 291301. acharya et al. cover 20-2 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 3 o rchids are notably diversified in the moist tropics of both hemispheres and the majority is epiphytes in forests. most of the temperate and almost all of the alpine genera are terrestrial, while some are lithophytes. the orchids (nepali name: sunakhari, sungava, jivanti; family: orchidaceae) are one of the largest family of flowering plants comprising more than 17,000 species in the world. in nepal 363 species of orchids are organized into 97 genera (rajbhandari and bhattarai, 2001). orchids are perennial or rarely annual, epiphytic, terrestrial or lithophytic herbs with roots having multi-layered spongy tissue. they are capable of absorbing and storing considerable quantity of moisture from the atmosphere. in terrestrial species, the roots are often swollen into tubers or stems from corms or rhizomes. stems of epiphytic species are often thickened to form a pseudo-bulb with adventitious roots. the first systematic orchid collection in nepal was done by hamilton in 1802 and wallich in 1820 from kathmandu valley (rajbhandari, 1976) and their collections were studied by david don in 1825-26. hara et al. (1978), banerji (1978) and banerji and pradhan (1984) have also listed and described orchids of nepal. since then, several orchids new to nepal have been reported by cribb and tang (1983); bailes (1985); wood (1986 and 1989); dupuy and cribb (1988); bajracharya et al. (1993); bania et al. (1993); rajbhandari and bhattarai (1995-96); pearce and cribb (1996); rajbhandari et al. (1997, 1998); shakya and bania (1998); shakya and chaudhary (1999) and shakya (2000). habitat loss, forest destruction and degradation and over exploitation have threatened the conservation of orchids in nepal. detailed studies to understand the conservation status of orchids of nepal are still orchids in rolpa district of western nepal: documentation, stock, trade and conservation p. n. koirala1, d. pyakurel2 and k. gurung3 orchids are perennial, epiphytic, terrestrial or lithophytic herbs with roots having multilayered spongy tissues. in nepal, 363 species of orchids are organized into 97 genera. orchids fall under the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (cites) appendix ii but do not fall under the legal protection of any existing national legislation. habitat loss, forest destruction and degradation and over-exploitation have posed threats to the conservation of orchids in nepal. the current study aims to document the orchids and estimate the stock of dendrobium denudans and dendrobium eriiflorum in a few potential locations of rolpa district. a total of 36 species were documented in the surveyed 17 village development committees (vdcs). among them, 31 species were identified up to species level, two species up to generic level and the remaining three were unidentifed. the total stock of d. denudans was highest in uwa vdc with 11018.08 kg followed by seram vdc with the stock of 9982.57 kg. similarly, d. eriiflorum stock in seram, siuri and jaimakasala vdcs were 22750.01 kg, 7039.67 kg and 4933.46 kg, respectively. this study recommends a systematic research on the propagation technique; complete indexing of orchids; and inclusion of orchids in the red data book on the threatened and endangered species. orchid reserves in orchid hotspots should be established for the preservation and promotion of regeneration activities. the rare and endangered species should be preserved in botanic gardens. in addition to scientific attempts, the country should launch and implement a very firm regulation for their protection. key words: orchids, dendrobium denudans, dendrobium eriiflorum, distribution, conservation, rolpa district 1 leasehold forestry and livestock programme, department of forests, babarmahal, kathmandu. email: koiralapn@yahoo.com 2 freelance botany consultant, kathmandu. 3 freelance botany consultant, kathmandu. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 4 unavailable. however, the government of nepal published notification on the gazette dated 2 baishakh, 2065 (14 april, 2008) stating the permit to collect wild orchids, which was banned before, was now open for trade. due to this notification, some rare and endangered orchid species have come under the threat of over-exploitation. study context up to the fiscal year 2063/064 b.s. (2006 a.d), 2353 kg of orchids had been traded from rolpa district, generating a revenue of rs 7459 (dfo rolpa, 2008). but the enumeration of orchid species, their status, hotspot mapping and the species that are traded have not been assessed to date. thus, this study intends to document orchids, identify the orchid hotspots and quantify the traded orchids for the selected village development committees (vdcs) of rolpa district. subsequently, the study has identified threat status of the species in the district and recommended conservation strategies. most of the terrestrial and a few epiphytic orchids were not in flowering stage so some of them could not be identified. current stock has been calculated for only the traded species (dendrobium denudans and d. eriiflorum). study area rolpa district lies in rapti zone of the mid western region, nepal. spread over 187150 ha, rolpa is located between 28o8’-28o38’n latitude and 83o10’84o9’e longitude, with altitudinal range of 701-3639 m, representing tropical, sub-tropical, temperate and sub-alpine types of climate. the district is surrounded by rukum to the north, baglung and pyuthan to the east, salyan to the west and pyuthan and dang to the south. of the total land area, 94097 ha (50.28%) is covered with forest and grazing land covers 32699 ha (17.47%) area of the district. the maximum temperature recorded was 31.2 oc and the minimum temperature was 3.6 oc. similarly, the maximum annual rainfall was recorded as 1836 mm and the minimum annual rainfall was 1388 mm. the ecological zones of the district encompass sal, chir pine, alder, himalayan oak-laurel, mixed rhododendron-oak, temperate mountain oak, rhododendron, sub-alpine scrub and sub-alpine meadow forests and vegetation types. this study focused on 17 vdcs of rolpa district (fig 1). koirala et al. fig 1: map of rolpa showing vdcs surveyed for orchids study methods primary data were collected using different tools like observation, measurement, interviews, consultation with key informants and other relevant participatory rapid appraisal (pra) tools. forest guards, herbs traders, hotel owners and farmers were the key informants interviewed. verbal open ended questions were used in interviews and discussions. secondary information was collected from related publications, research papers, data from district forest office (dfo) and other documents. the secondary data were collected for the verification of primary data and additional information. orchid sampling and observation were conducted in defined habitats. identification of orchid hotspots was done systematically by observing the abundance, habitat, forest types, moisture, altitude and aspects. global positioning system (gps) coordinates/data were recorded to locate the hotspots of orchids in their specific habitats. habitats of epiphytic orchids were identified on the basis of researchers’ knowledge. observed orchids were identified visually. unidentified species were collected and identified by consulting the reference literatures such as polunin and stainton (1984), stainton (1988), rajbhandari and bhattarai (2001), milleville and shrestha (2004). documentations of all available orchids were carried out according to rajbhandari and bhattarai (2001) and press et al. (2000). banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 5 abundance of terrestrial and epiphytic species is defined as the number of species “a” found in all plots to the total area of the plots per hectare. it was calculated by using the following formula of zobel et al. (1987): the following steps were carried out to find out the abundance of epiphytic orchids. steps followed to quantify the epiphytic orchids number of host plants was counted in a quadrat of 10 m x 10 m. number of orchid patches per tree (in a quadrat of 10 m x 10 m) was counted. total patches were calculated to find the mean value (patch per tree). number of plants per patch was counted and its mean value was calculated. finally the number of patches (and plant per patch of orchid) was calculated by multiplying the mean value of patch per tree to the density of host plant. quantification was done by multiplying the density with the dry weight of a plant. traded orchids were collected from the study sites in patches. number of individuals in each patch was counted. fresh weight of bulb/pseudo-bulb was recorded in the field with the help of a balance. they were sun dried for 15-20 days according to the nature of species and dry weight of each bulb/pseudo-bulb was measured with a digital balance. finally, the total stock of traded orchid species per hectare was calculated. total stock of traded orchids in each vdc was calculated by multiplying the availability (per hectare) to the area of corresponding forest type (expressed in ha) as per the data provided by dfo, rolpa. documentation of orchids in rolpa altogether 36 species of orchids were recorded and identified in the studied 17 vdcs of rolpa district. among them, 31 species were identified up to species level, two species were identified up to generic level and the remaining three were not identifiable. the list of recorded orchids is given in table 1. a total of seven species of dendrobium were recorded from the surveyed vdcs. similarly, four species of coelogyne were recorded. of all the recorded orchid species, two species of dendrobium (d. denudans and d. eriiflorum) are traded from the district. koirala et al. 10000 quadrat of area studiedquadrat ofnumber total speciesany ofplant ofnumber totalpl/ha abundance × × = fig 2: dendrobium denudans fig 3: dendrobium eriiflorum banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 6 koirala et al. table 1: orchid species in the surveyed vdcs of rolpa district sn scientific name habitat distribution (m) flowering remarks 1 aerides multiflora e 800-1100 may-jul 2 aerides odorata e 800-1200 may-jul 3 bulbophyllum careyanum e 800-2100 oct-dec 4 bulbophyllum viridiflorum e 1100-2300 jul-oct 5 calanthe tricarinata t 1500-3200 jun-jul 6 chiloschista usneoides e 1600-1700 feb-apr 7 cleisostema sp. e 1700 masina vdc 8 coelogyne corymbosa e, t 1500-2900 mar-may 9 coelogyne cristata e, t 1400-2500 feb-apr 10 coelogyne flaccida e 900-1400 apr-june 11 coelogyne ovalis e 1300-2100 sept-dec 12 cymbidium elegans e 2100-2500 sept-nov 13 cymbidium iridioides e 1300-2400 sept-dec 14 cypripedium himalaicum t 3000-3600 jun-aug 15 dactylorhiza hatagirea t 3000-4000 jun-jul 16 dendrobium aphyllum e 800-1500 apr-jun 17 dendrobium bicameratum e 1400-2400 jul-aug 18 dendrobium chryseum e 1200-2100 apr-jun 19 dendrobium denudans e, l 1000-2200 apr-sept traded species 20 dendrobium eriiflorum e 1500-2100 sept-oct traded species 21 dendrobium heterocarpum e 1000-1400 apr-may 22 dendrobium longicornu e 1300-2900 sept-nov 23 epigeneium amplum e, l 1300-2100 sept-nov 24 gastrochilus calceolaris e 900-2300 feb-mar 25 herminium lanceum t 1100-3500 jul-sep 26 kingidium taenialis e, l 1500-2300 apr-jun 27 oberonia acaulis e 600-2100 sept-dec 28 oberonia sp. e 1100-1700 siuri vdc 29 pleione hookeriana t 2200-3700 may-jun 30 rhynchostylis retusa e 800-1800 may-jul 31 satyrium nepalense t 1500-3600 july-sept 32 spiranthes sinensis t 800-3600 apr-aug 33 vanda cristata e 1200-2300 mar-may 34 unidentified e 1900-2200 liwang vdc 35 unidentified e 1900-2200 liwang vdc 36 unidentified e 1900-2200 liwang vdc e= epiphytic; t= terrestrial; l= lithophytic banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 7 koirala et al. distribution of orchids in the studied vdcs of rolpa the vdc wise list of recorded orchids are given in table 2. table 2: list of recorded orchids in the studied vdcs of rolpa district sn vdcs recorded orchid species abundant orchids 1 jhenam a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, c. ovalis, c. ovalis, d. denudans, d. aphyllum, d. bicameratum, d. denudans, d. longicornu, k. taenialis g. calceolaris, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, r. retusa,v. cristata, s. nepalense 2 dubring a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, c. ovalis, c. ovalis, d. aphyllum, d. aphyllum, d. bicameratum, d. denudans, d. longicornu, k. taenialis g. calceolaris, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, r. retusa, v. cristata, s. nepalense, cleisostema sp. 3 sakhi a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, c. ovalis, c. ovalis, c. corymbosa, d. aphyllum, d. bicameratum, d. denudans, d. longicornu, c. cristata g. calceolaris, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, r. retusa, v. cristata, s. nepalense 4 dubidanda a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, c. ovalis, d. aphyllum, d. denudans, d. aphyllum, d. bicameratum, d. denudans, d. longicornu, c. corymbosa g. calceolaris, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, r. retusa, v. cristata, s. nepalense, cleisostema sp., s. sinensis 5 masina a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, c. ovalis, c. ovalis, d. longicornu, d. aphyllum, d. bicameratum, d. denudans, d. longicornu, v. cristata g. calceolaris, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, r. retusa, v. cristata, s. nepalense, cleisostema sp. 6 nuwagaun a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, c. ovalis, c. ovalis, c. corymbosa, d. aphyllum, d. bicameratum, d. denudans, d. longicornu, c. cristata g. calceolaris, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, r. retusa, v. cristata, s. nepalense 7 gairigaun a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, c. ovalis, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, d. aphyllum, d. bicameratum, d. denudans, d. longicornu, d. aphyllum g. calceolaris, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, r. retusa, v. cristata, s. nepalense, s. sinensis 8 kotgaun a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, c. ovalis, c. corymbosa, d. denudans, d. aphyllum, d. bicameratum, d. denudans, d. longicornu, v. cristata g. calceolaris, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, r. retusa, v. cristata, s. nepalense 9 liwang a. multiflora, a. odorata, b. viridiflorum, c. usneoides, c. corymbosa, d. denudans, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, c. flaccida, c. ovalis, d. aphyllum, d. longicornu d. bicameratum, d. chryseum, d. denudans, d. heterocarpum, d. longicornu, e. amplum, g. calceolaris, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, o. acaulis, r. retusa, v. cristata, unidentified 3 species banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 8 koirala et al. sn vdcs recorded orchid species abundant orchids 10 khumel a. multiflora, a. odorata, b. viridiflorum, c. usneoides, c. corymbosa, d. longicornu, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, c. flaccida, c. ovalis, d. aphyllum, d. bicameratum d. bicameratum, d. chryseum, d. denudans, d. heterocarpum, d. longicornu, e. amplum, g. calceolaris, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, r. retusa, v. cristata 11 mijhing a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, d. bicameratum, r. retusa, d. aphyllum, d. bicameratum, d. chryseum, d. eriiflorum, v. cristata d. heterocarpum, d. longicornu, g. calceolaris, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, o. acaulis, r. retusa, v. cristata 12 jaimakasala a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. usneoides, c. corymbosa, d. denudans, d. eriiflorum, c. cristata, c. flaccida, c. ovalis, d. aphyllum, e. amplum,o. acaulis d. bicameratum, d. chryseum, d. denudans, d. eriiflorum, d. heterocarpum, d. longicornu, e. amplum, h. lanceum, o. acaulis, p. hookeriana, r. retusa, v. cristata, s. sinensis, oberonia sp. 13 seram a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. usneoides, c. corymbosa, d. bicameratum, d. denudans, c. cristata, c. flaccida, c. ovalis, d. aphyllum, d. bicameratum, d. eriiflorum, o. acaulis d. chryseum, d. denudans, d. eriiflorum, d. heterocarpum, d. longicornu, h. lanceum, o. acaulis, p. hookeriana, r. retusa, v. cristata, oberonia sp. 14 uwa a. odorata, c. tricarinata, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, c. flaccida, c. corymbosa, d. denudans, c. ovalis, c. himalaicum, d. hatagirea, d. aphyllum, e. amplum, o. acaulis d. bicameratum, d. denudans, d. heterocarpum, d. longicornu, e. amplum, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, o. acaulis, p. hookeriana, r. retusa, s. nepalense, v. cristata 15 siuri a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. usneoides, c. corymbosa, d. bicameratum,d. denudans, c. cristata, c. flaccida, c. ovalis, d. aphyllum, d. bicameratum, d. eriiflorum, o. acaulis d. chryseum, d. denudans, d. eriiflorum, d. heterocarpum, d. longicornu, h. lanceum, o. acaulis, p. hookeriana, r. retusa, v. cristata, s. sinensis, oberonia sp. 16 aresh a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, d. aphyllum, a. multiflora, c. cristata, d. longicornu, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, o. acaulis, r. retusa, v. cristata v. cristata 17 tewang a. multiflora, a. odorata, c. corymbosa, c. cristata, a. multiflora, c. cristata, d. aphyllum, d. longicornu, h. lanceum, k. taenialis, o. acaulis, v. cristata r. retusa, v. cristata banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 9 typically, two times a day the mid altitudes benefit from a ‘cloud bath’ resulting from the rising and falling of cloud line. as a result of such a daily weather cycle in the mid-hills, the medium bark of trees/shrubs decompose quickly into anaerobic sludge combined with lots of air movement and the strong light seems to make orchids sturdy and resilient. host plants of orchids most of the orchid species were found growing on angeri (lyonia ovalifolia), banjh (quercus leucotrichophora), katus (castanopsis indica), lali gurans (rhododendron arboreum) and kaphal (myrica esculenta) in sub-tropical and temperate regions. similarly, chiuri (diploknema butyracea), mauwa (engelhardtia spicata) and sal (shorea robusta). among all the host plants, angeri and lali gurans host more than 21 orchid species each. similarly, katus hosts 19 species, banjh hosts 18 species, kaulo hosts 13 species, mauwa, kaphal and chiuri host 12 species each. gymnosperms are not good hosts for orchids but khote salla (pinus roxburghii) hosts three species of dendrobium and rhynchostylis retusa. three species of orchids are lithophytic whereas nine species are terrestrial (table 1). hotspots of orchids orchid habitat comprises of undisturbed mixed broadleaved forest with good moisture content. this type of habitat harbours many kinds of orchids so, it is known as “orchid hotspot”. orchid hotspots have been identified in the forests of jhenam, dubring, dubidanda, masina, sakhi, nuwagaun, gairigaun, kotgaun, liwang, khumel, jaimakasala, uwa, seram and siuri vdcs. orchid hotspots of surveyed vdcs are shown in fig 4. habitat of orchids the mid altitudes between 1000-2300 m of the studied vdcs harbour the highest number of epiphytic orchid species in rolpa district. few terrestrial orchid species grow on meadows and underlying forest covers ranging from sub-tropical to sub-alpine regions in the studied vdcs. the suitability of luxuriant growth of epiphytic orchids in the mid-hills is due to the moisture rich, mossy habitat as a result of high cloud formation. koirala et al. traded orchids and their current stock according to the collectors and traders of orchids in rolpa district, two species of orchids are traded because they fetch higher price (nrs. 150-200/kg). they were d. denudans and d. eriiflorum. the abundance of d. denudans was highest in liwang vdc (15360/ha) with a current stock of 23.42 kg/ ha followed by seram vdc with an abundance of 13800/ha having a current stock of 21.04 kg/ha and uwa vdc with an abundance of 13150/ha and a current stock of 20.05 kg/ha (table 3). similarly, the abundance of d. eriiflorum was highest in siuri vdc (35530/ha) with the current stock of 54.18 kg/ha followed by seram vdc with the abundance of 31450/ha having a current stock of 47.96 kg/ha and jaimakasala vdc with abundance of 26640/ha and current stock of 40.62 kg/ha. fig 4: map showing orchid hotspots in rolpa district assessment of the threat the wild orchids having high horticultural values especially in the cross national sectors, are posing a continued threat to wild populations in the forests. as a result, the wild habitat is perceived to be depleting because of habitat destruction. since 2008, nepal government has lifted the ban on trade of wild orchids which were restricted before and has now permitted the export with cites certification. therefore, the over-exploitation of wild orchids by local vendors for sale to the traders/exporters has exerted a serious threat to mostly sub-tropical and few temperate epiphytic species. for this reason, the favourable orchid habitats are heavily disturbed and not given attention for conservation. degradation and depletion of the habitats are critical threats for orchids. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 10 strategies for conservation and management orchids fall under appendix ii category which is defined as species not yet threatened but which could become endangered if trade is not controlled. collection and trade of orchids do not fall under the jurisdiction of cites or any existing legislation. however, it is envisaged that with the development and enactment of regulations under the endangered species (protection, conservation and regulation of trade) act, illegal trade and uncontrolled harvesting of orchids will be addressed. sustainable conservation and protection of the orchid hotspots in-situ /ex-situ conservation habitat/species management areas (equivalent to iucn category iv) should be established where the similarly, weak legal enforcement and conservation gaps are other factors causing the threats to orchid species. the cites inland law has not been formulated yet for the country and very few field technicians are aware of the value of orchids. furthermore, very few forest technicians could identify orchids in the wild form. wild forest patches are the key habitat of orchids but rarely have such species been included in regular monitoring system under the dfo administrative mechanism. moreover, inventory (including abundance, harvestable stock and distribution) have not been mainstreamed in the community forestry operational plans and the district periodic plans. at the same time, high level policy makers also lack awareness on orchid status in the country. issuing permits for collection and transit is not user-friendly or environmentally sound as assumed by the high level policy makers and implementing the top-down orders by the dfo has created confusions for maintaining regulation and establishing a sustainable harvesting system. koirala et al. table 3: abundance and current stock of traded orchids sn name of traded no of no of stock area of estimated total vdc species plants/ plants kg/ha broad area of stock of patch /ha leaved orchid the area forest distribution (kg)* (ha) (ha) 1 liwang d. denudans 8 15360 23.42 646.49 258.60 6057.35 2 masina d. denudans 4 2320 3.54 325.92 130.37 461.24 3 dubring d. denudans 3 1170 1.78 524.55 209.82 374.32 4 dubidanda d. denudans 3 1560 2.38 249.95 99.98 237.85 5 sakhi d. denudans 3 2430 3.70 298.83 119.53 442.27 6 jhenam d. denudans 3 2610 3.98 353.36 141.34 562.55 7 nuwagaun d. denudans 3 2820 4.30 1089.85 435.94 1874.54 8 gairigaun d. denudans 5 11450 17.46 826.92 330.77 5775.54 9 kotgaun d. denudans 4 3960 6.04 195.37 78.15 471.94 10 khumel d. denudans 4 5880 8.97 250.30 100.12 897.78 11 mijhing d. eriiflorum 9 9810 14.96 232.49 93.00 1391.22 12 jaimakasala d. eriiflorum 18 26640 40.63 303.59 121.44 4933.46 d. denudans 6 9240 14.09 303.59 121.44 1711.15 13 seram d. eriiflorum 17 31450 47.96 1185.86 474.34 22750.01 d. denudans 6 13800 21.05 1185.86 474.34 9982.57 14 uwa d. denudans 5 13150 20.05 1373.62 549.45 11018.08 15 siuri d. eriiflorum 19 35530 54.18 324.81 129.92 7039.67 d. denudans 4 8000 12.20 324.81 129.92 1585.07 total 9996.17 3998.47 77566.61 * of the broadleaved forest area of the surveyed vdcs, it is assumed that only 40% of the forest area hosts orchids. based on this assumption, total stocks of orchids were calculated. however, total stock of orchids comprises all size and age classes and cannot be harvested in totality. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 11 ecosystems are healthy and a number of species present are threatened by proposed habitat alteration such as development or mining. for this, recovery/ management plan (zoning for hotspots) for endangered orchid species should be developed and implemented. for ex-situ conservation, a few rescue centres should be established: at least two rescue centres, to house illegally exported orchids because the illegally transported en-route species have a very high value in the market. in addition, a gene bank could preserve the endangered orchid species. from another perspective, encouraging the artificial propagation from seeds and tissue culture for commercial objectives could encourage private growers to invest if granted tax exemptions for export and import of such materials. in nepal, a large tracts of forests have been handed over to community users; therefore, the community level awareness and involvement for conservation and propagation is of utmost importance for the conservation of big habitat areas. strengthening regulatory mechanism conservation and management can be achieved through amendments of the forest act 1993 and plant protection act 2029 to incorporate the protection of endangered and endemic orchid species and establish quota restrictions on commercial species. the acts and by-laws should conform to the cites protocol. a periodic review of the orchids on the protected lists should be carried out for nomenclature changes and addition or deletion of the species. a detailed field collection policy should be developed for field level implementation to prevent over-exploitation of the wild orchids and incorporated into the national legislation. it can be regulated by creating an endorsement mechanism for the commercial exporters and importers. education and research technological information seems lacking in the whole hierarchical levels of forestry organization. in order to address this lacuna, firstly, training programmes for the identification of orchid species for dfo staff, customs officers, taxonomists, protected area rangers, plant quarantine officers and other relevant persons involved in the issuing of permits and security at airports should be organized regularly. secondly, the training should koirala et al. focus on artificial propagation of commercially viable species. thirdly, public education awareness campaign programmes should be organized through various extension methods and through mass media. finally, the government and research institutes, including educational institutions, should promote research on conservation modalities and scientific cultivation. conclusion and recommendation orchids are among the most beautiful ornamental plants with medicinal and horticultural importance as well. rolpa district is rich in orchid species resources, with 36 species of terrestrial, epiphytic and lithophytic orchids identified in the 17 vdcs studied in the district. orchid habitat hotspots and host plants were identified within the community forests as well as government managed forests at altitudes of 1000-2300 m in humid and moisture rich, mixed broadleaved forest of the surveyed vdcs. the assessment of the current stock of traded orchid species revealed that the abundance of d. denudans was the highest in liwang vdc (15360/ha) with a current stock of 23.42 kg/ha followed by seram vdc with an abundance of 13800/ha having a current stock of 21.04 kg/ha and uwa vdc with an abundance of 13150/ha and a current stock of 20.05 kg/ha. regarding abundance, d. eriiflorum was found to be the highest in siuri vdc (35530/ha) with a current stock of 54.18 kg/ha followed by seram vdc with the abundance of 31450/ha having current stock of 47.96 kg/ha and jaimakasala vdc with an abundance of 26640/ha and a current stock of 40.62 kg/ha. of the total broadleaved forest areas in the surveyed vdcs, it was assumed that only 40% of the forest areas hosts orchids. based on this assumption, the total stock of orchids was calculated. the total stock of d. denudans was recorded highest in uwa vdc with 11018.08 kg followed by seram vdc with a stock of 9982.57 kg and liwang vdc with a total stock of 6057.35 kg. similarly, the stock of d. eriiflorum was highest in seram, siuri and jaimakasala with the total stocks of 22750.01 kg, 7039.67 kg and 4933.46 kg, respectively. however, the total stock of orchids comprising of all size and age classes cannot be harvested in totality. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 12 record of orchid from nepal himalaya. in xv international botanical congress: abstracts, august 28september 3, 1993, yokohama, japan. banerji, m.l. and pradhan, p. 1984. orchids of nepal. j. cramer, vaduz, liechtenstein. banerji, m.l. 1978. orchids of nepal. bishen singh mahendra pal singh, dehra dun, india. bania, a.m.s., shakya, l.r., chettri, m.k. and bajracharya, d. 1993. coelogyne fuscescens var. veridiflorum u c pradhan, a new record of orchid from nepal himalaya. in xv international botanical congress: abstracts, august 28-september 3, 1993, yokohama, japan. cribb, p.j. and tang, c.z. 1983. the genus pleione. curtis’s bot. mag. 184: 93-147. dfo rolpa. 2008. annual monitoring and progress report, district forest office, rolpa, nepal. don, d. 1825. prodromus florae nepalensis. london, u.k. dupuy, d. and cribb, p. 1988. the genus cymbidium. christopher helm/timber press, london, u.k. hara, h., stearn w.t. and williams, l.h. j. 1978. an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal, vol. 1. british museum, natural history, london, uk. milleville, r.de and shrestha, t.b. 2004. nepal orchids in pictures. malla prakashan, kathmandu, nepal. pearce, n. and cribb, p. 1996.the indo-himalayan species of the genus oreorchis. j. orchid soc. india 10 (1-2): 1-12. polunin, o. and stainton, a. 1984. flowers of the himalaya. oxford university press, new delhi, india. press, j.r., shrestha, k.k. and sutton, d.a. 2000. annotated checklist of the flowering plants of nepal. the natural history museum, london, uk. rajbhandari, k.r. and bhattarai, s. 1995-96. cymbidium gammieanum king & pantl., a new record for nepal. nat. hist. soc. nepal bull. 5-6 (1-4): 2-3. rajbhandari k. r. and bhattarai s. 1998. a new record of orchid for nepal. plant research 1 (1): 12-13. koirala et al. due to the habitat loss, forest destruction, degradation and over-exploitation of beautiful and medicinal orchids for trade, there are threats to the conservation of orchids in the district. conservation has not been sensitive to the need of orchids. therefore, detailed assessment to understand the current stock and overall conservation status of orchids in the district should be conducted, and this is still lacking. how much stocking is the optimal for sustainable conservation has not been calculated yet; therefore, this needs to be researched. legal arrangements with mass awareness programme should be mainstreamed in the regular annual activities in dfo and other conservation oriented programmes. a field collection policy should be developed to prevent the over-exploitation of wild orchids and incorporate them into the management plan of community forests as well as government managed forests. similarly, artificial propagation and in-situ conservation may also have more importance in the conservation effort. for this, host plant species conservation and protection in natural form is necessary for arresting the depletion rate. the government should develop orchid hotspots areas for the eco-tourism promotion, so that the local stakeholders can earn some kind of income. for the local communities, it could be facilitated through beautiful orchids. a gene bank of endangered species should be established and maintained. awareness activities and training programmes on identification of the orchid species should also be organized. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge livelihoods and forestry programme (lfp) for funding this study. mr. p. budhathoki, district programme coordinator, lfp, dfo field staff and local community people of rolpa deserve our thanks for advising and assisting in the documentation of orchid species. references bailes, c. p. 1985. orchids in nepal. the conservationand development of a natural resource. advisory report and recommendations. royal botanic gardens, kew, london, uk. bajracharya, d., shakya, l. r. and chettri, m.k. 1993. uncifera lancifolia (king & pantl.) schtr.: a new banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 13 rajbhandari, k.r. and bhattarai, s. 2001. beautiful orchids of nepal. kathmandu, nepal. rajbhandari, k.r., bhattarai, s. and joshi, r. 1997. calanthe anjanii s. z. lucksom, a new record for nepal. nat. hist. soc. nepal bull. 7 (1-4): 18. rajbhandari, k.r. 1976. history of botanical explorations of nepal. j. bombay nat. hist. soc. 73 (3): 468-481. shakya, l.r. and bania, a.m.s. 1998. pachystoma senile (lindley) reichb. f., a new record for nepal. newsletter of himalayan botany 24: 10-12. shakya, l.r. and chaudhary, r.p. 1999. taxonomy of oberonia rufilabris and allied new species from the himalaya. harvard papers in botany 4 (1): 357363. koirala et al. shakya, l.r. 2000. oberonia jenkensiana griff. ex lndl., a new record for nepal. rheedea 10 (2): 149-151. stainton a. 1988. flowers of the himalaya: a supplement. oxford university press, new delhi, india. wood j. j. 1986. notes on asiatic and new guinea orchidaceae. kew bull. 41 (4): 811-822. wood j. j. 1989. eria extinctoria (lindl.) oliver in nepal. die orchidee 40 (6): 201-205. zobel, d.b., jha p.k., behan m.j. and yadav, u.k.r. 1987. a practical manual for ecology. ratna book distributors, kathmandu, nepal. final added vol 15-2.pmd 53 globally, deforestation, forest degradation, forest fires and burning of fossil fuel are playing a significant role in producing the green house gases (ghgs) (ipcc, 2000). hence, deforestation and forest degradation, caused by increasing population and land degradation, are major problems in developing countries; whereas burning of fossil fuel from industries is major problem mainly in developed countries. the conversion of forest area into nonforest area, which leads to the additional ghgs in the atmosphere, was recorded as 12.3 million ha between 1990 and 2000 in the tropical countries (fao, 2004). the increasing amounts of ghgs adversely affect the global environment. these effects are climate change, global warming, rising of mean sea level, alteration of weather and they threaten the life of living beings. hence, the relationship between the increasing amount of ghgs in the atmosphere and climate change was taken seriously in 1990 and many efforts were made to create awareness globally. one of the major achievements of such efforts was the third conference of the parties to the united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc), held in 1997 in kyoto, japan which issued a protocol, known as kyoto protocol (unfccc, 1998). its central concern was how to deal with the mitigation of the climate change for betterment of the global environment. for mitigation of climate change, the kyoto protocol has three different mechanisms. these mechanisms are clean development mechanism (cdm), emission trading, and joint implementation. among these, the most important flexible mechanism of kyoto protocol is the cdm, which primarily deals with the interest of developing countries. the first aim of the cdm is to account the carbon credit (positive as well as negative) through emission reduction and removal. so, the emission reduction projects primarily deal with energy efficiency and fuel carbon sequestration in community forests: an eligible issue for cdm (a case study of nainital, india) r. a. mandal1 and p. van laake2 though community forests have a vital role in environmental services and sustainable development in developing countries such as in india and nepal, the credit cannot yet to be claimed under the clean development mechanism (cdm). it is due to difficulties of assessing the biomass and carbon storage in the community forests for monitoring and verification. however, forest carbon monitoring is possible by the use of advanced technology such as leaf area index (lai) that is derived from hemispherical photographs using gap light analyser by establishing the relation with the biophysical characteristics of the vegetation. therefore, the study stepped towards the assessment of carbon sequestration in community forests using lai. to meet research tasks, which were to establish the relationship between biomass and lai and explore environmental benefit of community forest management approach, 70 samples from dhaili and 73 samples from guna chautara community forests were collected using stratified random sampling. the sample data included girth, height and canopy photos. canopy photographs were taken by use of hemispherical cameras. after biomass was estimated using allometric equations, lai values from canopy photos were analyzed by the use of gap light analyser. furthermore, for relationship development, the linear regressions analyses were carried out and cdm criteria were incorporated with forest management practice. main outputs of the research were carbon sequestration model based on lai and justification of cdm criteria with community forest management practice. keywords: carbon sequestration, leaf area index (lai), clean development mechanism (cdm), community forest, gap light analyser, hemispherical photographs 1 assistant forest officer in district forest office, mahottari, email: ramitc@hotmail.com 2 associate professor, department of natural resources, geoinformation for sustainable forest management, netherlands, email: vanlarke@itc.nl 54 substitution. moreover the emission removal projects also have afforestation, reforestation and deforestation activities. though community forests have a major activities similar to afforestation and reforestation project, community forests still do not qualify under cdm. the second aim of cdm is to assist the host countries in achieving their sustainable development (gundimeda, 2004). thus, the cdm intrinsically helps in achieving the kyoto protocol goal as well as helping developing nations. the intention of the kyoto protocol is to set legally binding target emission reduction by 5.2% of 1990 emission level. it is the fact that cdm activities under the kyoto protocol are restricted only to reforestation and afforestation which contribute in additional carbon sinks (unfccc, 1998). most of the developed nations have welcomed the cdm and approved the kyoto protocol. concept of carbon sequestration carbon sequestration in forest carbon dioxide has a vital role in environmental system. proportional increase in co2 results in steadily rising amount of ghgs. so, to check the ghgs is global grave concern and one of the significant measures is to sequester the carbon which is possible by either expanding forest resource or conserving them (houghton, 1996). in fact, carbon is held in the terrestrial ecosystems as vegetation and in soils. in addition oceans hold a large volume of carbon so does atmosphere. carbon sequestration is the process of removing additional carbon from the atmosphere and depositing it in other reservoir principally through changes in land use. in practical terms carbon sequestration occurs mostly through the expansion of the forests (houghton, 1996).therefore, the terrestrial carbon sequestration is the net removal of co2 from the atmosphere and storing it in terrestrial ecosystem (sedjo et al., 2003). so, the forest expansions and sustainable forests, as mitigation measure, have a significant contribution to the environmental benefit but any shrinkage of forests, as emission, has a long term influence and impact. therefore, the sustainable forest , as a carbon sinks, is the key factor to balance the ghgs emission (levy et al., 2004). the carbon sequestration process involved in individual tree is an important concern in environmental system. the carbon sequestration in tree represents the balance between the process of photosynthesis and respiration which uses and releases co2 respectively. the process of carbon sequestration is the most rapid during the early stage of the life of tree while, as tree reaches maturity the above two processes become increasingly similar. additionally, the rate of carbon sequestration is less particularly in over mature stage of the tree. hence, the tree or forest expands the capacity of carbon sequestration also increases and vice-versa (sedjo et al., 2003). forest has a prime role in sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. in reality, the forest is a reservoir, a component or components of the climate system where a green house gas is stored, as well as sink, any process which removes a green house gas from the atmosphere (pearce et al., 2003). thus the forest is the complement of carbon sequestration. conclusively, sustainable forests are reliable sinks of ghgs (levy et al., 2004). hence, the sustainable forest and the management system is key concern as sinks. generally, there are three broad categories of interventions such as management of the existing forest and trees source for instance community forest management in developing countries, expanding the forest area and tree cover for example afforestation and reforestation as well as using the renewable energy sources as a substitute for fossil fuel (baral et al., 2004). among these, the community forest management which is a successful example of sustainable forest management, is the preferable option of carbon sequestration, primarily in developing countries (klooster et al., 2000). community forest: yet to be eligible issue under the cdm the community forest management which is an essential part of life of local people in developing countries such as india and nepal has a high potential as carbon sink for cdm. in this management system, the local people have been working to transform the unsustainable forests to sustainable ones (klooster et al., 2000). the purpose of this is to meet their local forest product demands from dead trees and leaf litter and few amounts of medicinal and aromatic products without destroying the living forest biodiversity. in addition, this management system enables them to organise, develop and work institutionally. the institutional mechanism leads them to perform the sustainable development with reputation in their own local environment. banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 mandal and laake 55 as far as community forest management is concerned globally, it is an accepted fact that community forests are additional carbon sinks for environmental benefit and also support in sustainable development such as in india and nepal. however, since issues of leakage, permanence and additionality are still under debate and so community forest is not eligible yet under cdm. infact, the main purpose of the kyoto protocol “to think global and act local” will be robust (skutsch et al., 2003; garcia-quijano et al., 2004) possibly by community forests. therefore, the strategies of expansion of carbon sinks need to be extended towards the forest conservation as community forest management. reliable argument of comparison between the community forest management with afforestation and reforestation is that both have a role in additional carbon sinks but extra resources and open lands aren’t need for community forests. therefore if the decision regarding eligibility of forest management under cdm were to be reserved in future, the financial incentive provided by sale of carbon offsets could potentially swing the balance and encourage many communities to engage in this sort of forest management and thus promote the protection of tropical forests and avoidance the deforestation (skutsch et al., 2003). obviously, contributions of community forest can help to meet the binding target of emission reduction of kyoto protocol (gundimeda, 2004). conclusively, the community forest management has a global role in reversing the process of deforestation and sequestering carbon, and a local function of promoting rural development activities. these roles of community forests are the prime assurance for eligibility under cdm. however, the assessment of carbon in community forests (cfs) is a major difficult task (skutsch et al., 2003). carbon monitoring under cdm baseline and criteria for carbon monitoring cdm has a set of criteria to certify the project related to environmental benefit. so, the certification processes are based on monitoring and recording system of project activities which follow the baseline, additionality, permanence and leakage. therefore, cdm evaluates the emission and reduction of ghgs using the standard monitoring system. base line for a cdm project activity is the scenario that reasonably represents the anthropogenic emission by sources of ghgs. so, in kyoto term a baseline is not just the state of forest as it is now but it also involves the prediction about what would happen in the future “without a project”. thus it is possible that a standardized baseline might be accepted under unfccc guidelines such that for a whole ecological zone and typical managed forest. the standard baseline includes the present status of the emission sink and source as business as usual scenario (chomitz, 2002). the addionality is an important criterion of cdm project to monitor a carbon sink. so, additionality deals with a project that can only get cdm status if it is additional, which leads to carbon benefits, above business as usual scenario. practically, afforestation and reforestation are accounted as additive gain under cdm (chomitz, 2002). so far in community forests either expansion in areas or biomass is additional carbon sinks. permanence is another important criterion of monitoring the carbon for long time mitigation of climate change under cdm. so, the possibility of reliable guarantees of storing the carbon for a longtime (sathaye et al., 1999). the last but not least important criterion of monitoring and verification of carbon under cdm is the guarantees of no leakage. leakage is mainly concerned with the demonstration of the anticipated carbon benefits that do not suffer an unexpected loss due to displacement activities that result in carbon emission. one of the great difficulties in leakage is that carbon saved somewhere may be lost somewhere else. guarantee for no leakage of carbon is appreciated under cdm (chomitz, 2002). considering the above criteria under cdm different countries have different carbon monitoring, verification and recording mechanism. so, the monitoring and verification of carbon are basically done by field estimation of biomass (carbon), above and below ground of forest trees and soil carbon, as well as remote sensing based method which are described below. field based estimation of carbon: adopted by community banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2mandal and laake 56 estimation of carbon sequestration of the forest is an important concern for carbon monitoring under cdm. hence, the field biomass is used for carbon sequestration. therefore, it requires the delineation of forest area, survey of forest cover and recording of biomass parameter like girth, height and crown cover etc. moreover, field based techniques are significant for relation development as well as verification purpose of monitoring work. therefore this technique has still wide use in the developing countries to monitor the carbon. the communities in india and nepal have adopted standard method to estimate aggregate carbon in their community forests. so the aggregate carbon collectively includes the above ground biomass, below ground biomass, herb and shrub biomass and soil carbon. for this, the data for biomass quantification are carried by using the standard sampling, mostly stratified technique. generally, they use the allometric equations, which cover the species wise biomass. the allometric equation, developed by rawat and singh, includes the total biomass of branch, twig, leaves, stem and roots (rawat et al., 1988). in this way aggregate carbon has been estimated. lai based estimation of carbon: leaf area index based carbon estimation lai is a key variable that supports to understand energy and nutrient (water and carbon) exchange rate between the forest canopy and atmosphere. in addition the lai values represent characteristics of forest canopy cover and density. hence, the lai is related with the photosynthetically active surface (for photosynthesis etc.) which allows the tree to grow and accumulate the biomass. thus the lai is widely used as a reliable tool to develop the relationship with forest biomass (kiniry et al., 1999). some examples of monitoring the carbon under cdm the following examples are the demonstration of carbon monitoring scheme of some nations. the purpose of demonstration is to describe the use of technology in kyoto protocol. the netherlands government is very sincere and active in the kyoto protocol concern despite it’s own a small biosphere option. remote sensing techniques are used to monitor the carbon. the remotely sensed imagery is basically used to find the vegetation cover and land cover change. the carbon sequestration and reporting are frequently maintained by regularly updated data. the reporting includes the yearly increase of biomass in the forest and tree outside forest, corrected by yearly extracted wood (nabuurs et al., 2000). in this way, the recording is annually carried out for monitoring the carbon in the netherlands under kyoto protocol. similar system has been adopted by canada, new zealand (kurz, 1999). the one of the useful tool is lai which can be also used as a monitoring the carbon. india has some proposed criteria under the cdm like using the field base estimation method of forest biomass estimation and remotely sensed data for the land cover estimation (gundimeda, 2004). similarly, nepal has been also initiating same methods of carbon estimation for carbon monitoring (sharma et al., 2004). research methods study area some community forest users groups in nainital, india have been working for mitigation of climate change. in addition, this management practice has main strategies to increase the carbon sinks capacity of community forests. this is the purpose of selection of study area in nainital, india. two community forests were selected for this research. these community forests are dhaili and guna chautara. the geographical position of dhaili community forest is 290 32’ 52’’ n to 290 33’ 16’’ n and 790 43’ 54’’ e to790 44’ 22’’ e. the estimated area under this community forest is 24.01 ha. similarly geographical location of guna chauta community forest is 290 33’ 54’’ n to 290 34’ 13’’ n and 790 41’ 24’’ e to790 42’ 01’’ e. this forest covers 22.8 ha area. the altitude varies from 1500 m to 2000 m. the aspect of the study area is south west. the dominant tree species is quercus leucotrichophora. the associate species are rhododendron arborem, myrica nagi pinus roxburghii, pyrus pashia,etc. and other nontimber forest species are daphne volua, daphne paparaceae, delphinium himalayens, paris polyphylla, rheum arstrale, nordostachys grandiflora, valariana wallichii, morchella esculenta etc. but pyrus pashia is not common in guna chautara community forest. moreover, due to the major dominancy of quercus leucotrichophora, guna chautara cf characterized like a pure oak forest. banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 mandal and laake 57 sampling design and allocation stratified random sampling was carried in sampling purpose. but in case of guna chautara (pure oak) community forest, sample plots were randomly selected. generally, the circular plot is preferred because it is easy to establish and has less number of boarder line trees. the radius of sample plot was fixed to 5.64 (100 m2) from the centre. sample plots were allocated with the help of global positioning system (gps) finding coordinates. field data collection the field data collection was done in two steps which are followed, firstly recording the tree measurement and secondly taking the canopy photographs. as tree measurement, girth of trees were taken at breast height and secondly the canopy photographs were recorded with hemispherical camera. for this task, the camera, with fisheye lens, was set beneath the forest canopy in the centre of the sample plot at 1m height above ground. the canopy photos were recorded by the researcher. the photo number, ground feature and crown condition as well as weather condition in the beginning of the work were also included in record sheet. the this part answer how relation can be derived using lai with above ground biomass. data preparation for relation development the careful visual observation of data spread in a scatter plot can provide a fundamental base develop the relation. seven observations were found out of trend in both community forests plotting the lai against field biomass in both community forests. therefore only 63 and 66 observations in dhaili and guna chautara respectively, were used in study. half data set was used for relation development and remaining half was used for validation purpose. indeed the linear equation has benefits such as easy to estimate in simple computers or calculators (vanclay, 1999). therefore, in case of this study the linear model, which showed the better relationship, was used. data regarding forest management practice adopted some forest management practice in nainital, india can support to meet the criteria cdm. so, data regarding baseline, addionality, no leakage and permanency were collected from user group records. this answer the problem related to how these management practices assure and assemble the cdm criteria. results and discussion lai versus field based above ground forest biomass to meet the research task related to how relation can be derived using lai with above ground biomass for guna chautara and dhaili community forest, independently. analysis of forest canopy figure 1 canopy photo of sparse area banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2mandal and laake 58 figure 2 a canopy photo of dense area figure 3 analysed photo of sparse area figure 4 analysed photo of dense area the result from the canopy analysis showed that the higher and the lower values of lai (2.27 and 0.45 in figure 3 and 4 respectively) were caused by high and low forest tree densities respectively. basically, the good indicator of forest biomass is the crowns cover i.e. the proportional ground covered by the forest canopy on which the lai depends upon. hence, the importance of lai is not only to generate the relationship with the canopy, but also with the ecological processes such as rates of photosynthesis, transpiration and evapotranspiration. studies have indicated that the larger the canopy cover, the higher the rate of ecological processes (gong et al., 2003). it follows that, the larger the canopy cover, the higher the value of lai hence the more amount of forest biomass. relationship between biomass and lai in guna chautara correlation was observed between them. further, a linear model was fitted which revealed significant relationship with r2 of 0.55 as shown in figure 5. the linear model is represented by, y = 0.0189+2.0411x where, y is for above ground biomass and x is lai values. predicted over observed biomass in guna chautara cf the validation test equation obtained by plotting the predicted over observed (n = 33) biomass supported the lai-biomass model because r2 value was 0.525. it indicated that the lai-biomass model represents 52.5 % of observed biomass. in addition, the standard error was 0.43 while accuracy (-0.07) showed within the standard error. relationship between biomass and lai in dhaili cf lai over biomass in dhaili cf (adense mixed forest) a total of 32 sample plots of the above ground biomass estimated from the field and their corresponding lai values were used to derive the relate between them for dhaili cf. a positive correlation was observed between them. further, a linear model was fitted which revealed significant relationship with r2 of 0.54. the linear model is represented by, y = -0.6168+2.2928x. where, y is for above ground biomass and x is lai values. predicted versus observed biomass in dhaili cf the validation test of linear equation (n = 31) predicted versus observed biomass supported the lai-biomass relation because r2 value was 0.52. it indicated that the lai-biomass model can predict 52 % of field data. in addition the standard error was 0.37 and accuracy which had a value -0.07 showed within the standard error. canopy analysis results showed that there was a better positive relationship between lai and forest biomass in both pure and dense mixed forest. the estimated values of lai have been used to predict the future growth and yield including the carbon sequestration by using the forest canopy closure (houghton, 1996). therefore, the forest canopy is related with the individual tree crown characteristics. in this circumstance, the major tree characteristics are size, shape and structure of tree crown. the canopy of relationship between lai and biomass y = 0.0189+2.0411x r2 = 0.55 0 1 2 3 4 5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 lai b io m as s (t on ne ) scatter plot of lai and biomass in guna chautara cf(pure oak forest) figure 5 : scatter plot of lai and biomass in guna chautara cf a total of 33 sample plots of the above ground biomass estimated from the field and their corresponding lai values were used to co-relate between them for guna chautara cf. a positive banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 mandal and laake 59 green leaves and branches forms the trees crown in a forest. in addition, relationships that exist among the tree crown, diameter and height. a group of trees collectively form the forest canopy, which is related with the above ground forest biomass. however presence of stems, tree leaning also, weather condition affects the lai values. forest management practice for environmental benefit to meet the research task how the management practices assure and assemble the cdm criteria the community activities and their steps for environmental benefits are essential parts. both communities have adopted the same type of forest management practice. the major works are presented as follows: protection approach in community forest the communities themselves had been involved in protection against deforestation and forest degradation. for this purpose, they followed the daily calendar (unwritten) which was prepared by the committee monthly meeting. the calendar included person’s name and date of watching the forest. so, probably they had a rotation once a month to watch the forest. additionally, they had some rules to protect the forest for example they strictly prohibited any destructive activities such as grazing, cutting the tree, fuel wood and fodder collection, burning and other any damaging activities. if the people violated the community rules they were punished. therefore, these protection activities are the evidence of guarantees of permanence and no leakage. plantation work in community forest as a plantation work, community had planted some trees in open patch of the forest. for this purpose, seedlings were available free of cost from the central himalayan environmental association (chea) project. the record showed that they had planted 2.5 ha in open areas in their forest in 2004. before the plantation, the present status of community forest considered as base line (business as usual scenario). in addition the annual increment in community forest and plantation activities are additional carbon sinks which are the indications of additionality. utilization of forest products the community had strictly prohibited removing the live trees, leaves, firewood and fodder but people have a requirement of firewood, fodder and timber etc. therefore, they used the private forest to meet the demand of forest products. however the dead trees were collected and open auctions were called to sell them. if there is an emergency for users, the logs (dead logs) are freely available. this is the supportive role for the local community. conclusion the first research output was the method produced by the combination of lai and biomass. the remarkable fact in this relationship was the use of lai which was extracted from the canopy photos, taken by hemispherical camera and analysed by the use of gap light analyzer. therefore it can be concluded that the hemispherical photography techniques and gla software are the additional devices in assessment of biomass in community forests. another research outcome, i.e. forest management practice in india in uttaranchal, nainital have a successful example. the protection, plantation and management have effective efforts for environmental benefit. this management practice is not only contributing in increase in carbon sinks but also to prevent the deforestation and forest degradation. therefore, it can be concluded that community forest management practice will be one of the important concern of cdm. relevance forest management is an important carbon mitigation strategy in developing countries such as india and nepal. one of the effective forest management approaches is community forest management because it offers tangible local benefits while converting forests for carbon sequestration. according to central himalayan environmental association (chea) in uttaranchal, india project records, most of the communities involved in community forest management have been concerned with carbon storage. the record showed that there are 6777 community forests (tolia, 2004) in uttaranchal state only. similarly in nepal, according to record of community forest division 13,238 users groups have been involved managing 10, 82,165 ha forests. in this contest also community forests have been recorded as improving the forest stocks. this means that these community forests are capable to sink carbon and that the community forest management banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2mandal and laake 60 is a useful practice in carbon mitigation from the environment. though communities in both india and nepal have been started to assess the forest carbon, their methods and skills are still at an infancy level. however on the other hand, community forests are still not qualified under the cdm. this is due to the difficulties of assessment of carbon by the concerned community. it is expected that the assessment of forest carbon will be adopted as a regular process by the communities and will archive their records of forest carbon for monitoring. the success of this process has been due to training support to the community by chea , and king mahendra trust for nature conservation (kmtnc) in nepal (sharma et al., 2004). more forest area (than afforestation and reforestation), the community forests offer an easy and accessible alternatives for carbon sequestration. therefore, the community forest management practice will be a possible global key concern for kyoto protocol. acknowledgements the author acknowledges the followings for helps: dr. annapurna nand das, prem kanta jha, dr. i. c. dutta, s. m. mishra references baral, a. and g. s. guha (2004). “trees for carbon sequestration or fossil fuel substitution: the issue of cost vs. carbon benefit.” biomass and bioenergy 27(1): 41-55. binkley, c. s., d. brand, z. harkin, g. bull, n. h. ravindranath, m. obersteiner, s. nilsson, y. yamagata and m. krott (2002). “carbon sink by the forest sector—options and needs for implementation.” forest policy and economics 4(1): 65-77. chea, c. h. e. a.(2003), kyoto: think global, act local project. chomitz, k. m. (2002). “baseline, leakage and measurement issues: how do forestry and energy. dong, j., r. k. kaufmann, r. b. myneni, c. j. tucker, p. e. kauppi, j. liski, w. buermann, v. alexeyev and m. k. hughes (2003). “remote sensing estimates of boreal and temperate forest woody biomass: carbon pools, sources, and sinks.” remote sensing of environment 84(3): 393410. fao.(2004), global forest resources assessment update 2005: terms and definitions. retrieved 31st jan, 2005, from http://www.fao.org/ forestry/foris/webview/forestry2/index.jsp? siteid=4261&sitetreeid=13629&langid=1&geoid=0. garcia-quijano, j. f., g. deckmyn, e. moons, s. proost, r. ceulemans and b. muys (2004). “an integrated decision support framework for the prediction and evaluation of efficiency, environmental impact and total social cost of domestic and international forestry projects for greenhouse gas mitigation: description and case studies.” forest ecology and management in press, corrected proof. gong, p., r. pu, g. s. biging and m. r. larrieu (2003). “estimation of forest leaf area index using vegetation indices derived from hyperion hyperspectral data.” ieee transactions on geoscience and remote sensing 41(6): 13551362. gundimeda, h. (2004). “how ‘sustainable’ is the ‘sustainable development objective’ of cdm in developing countries like india?” forest policy and economics 6(3-4): 329-343. herzog, h. and d. golomb (2004). “carbon capture and storage from fossil fuel use.” encyclopedia of energy, in press. houghton, r. a. (1996). “converting terrestrial ecosystems from sources to sinks of carbon.” ambio 25(4): 267-272. ipcc.(2000), land use change and forestry, in a special report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. kiniry, j. r., c. r. tischler and g. a. van esbroeck (1999). “radiation use efficiency and leaf co2 exchange for diverse c4 grasses.” biomass and bioenergy 17(2): 95-112. klooster, d. and o. masera (2000). “community forest management in mexico: carbon mitigation and biodiversity conservation through rural development.” global environmental change 10(4): 259-272. kurz, w. a. (1999). “assessing options for measurement of verifiable changes in carbon stocks from reforestation, and deforestation and other potential forestry activities.” levy, p. e., m. g. r. cannell and a. d. friend (2004). “modelling the impact of future changes in climate, carbon dioxide concentration and land banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 mandal and laake 61 use on natural ecosystems and the terrestrial carbon sink.” global environmental change 14(1): 21-30. nabuurs, g.-j., f. mohren and h. dolman (2000). “monitoring and reporting carbon stocks and fluxes in dutch forests.” biotechnology, agronomy, society and environment 4(4): 308-310. pearce, d., f. e. putz and j. k. vanclay (2003). “sustainable forestry in the tropics: panacea or folly?” forest ecology and management 172(2-3): 229-247. rawat, y. s. and j. s. singh (1988). “structure and function of oak forests in central himalaya. i. dry matter dynamics.” annals of botany 62: 397-411. sathaye, j. a., k. andrasko, w. makundi, emilio lebre la rovere, n. h. ravindranath, a. melli, a. rangachari, m. imaz, c. gay and r. friedmann (1999). “concerns about climate change mitigation projects: summary of findings from case studies in brazil, india, mexico and south africa.” environmental science & policy 2(2): 187-198. sedjo, r. a. and g. marland (2003). “inter-trading permanent emissions credits and rented temporary carbon emissions offsets: some issues and alternatives.” climate policy 3(4): 435-444. sharma, b. d., b. s. karki, n. dahal, n. chapagain and b. basnet.(2004), prospects and challenges in bringing nepali community forestry under kyoto protocol’s carbon trading regime. skutsch, m. m. and e. zahabu.(2003), revised field protocol for measuring carbon sequestered in forest. tolia, r. s.(2004), utranchal tfc memorandum, revisiting van panchayats for carbon rewards triple drive and improving reforestation and avoiding deforestation. unfccc.(1998), report of conference of the parties on its third sessions, held at kyoto from 1 to 11 december 1997. retrieved 15, november 2004, from http://unfccc.int/cop3/07a01.pdf vanclay, j. k. (1999). modelling forest growth and yield: applications to mixed tropical forests, cabi publishing a division of cab international.0 85198 913 6. banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2mandal and laake corrected bankojanakari vol 18-1.pmd 25 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 potential role of sacred grove of lumbini in biodiversity conservation in nepal khem raj bhattarai1 and sushim r. baral2 this study was conducted in the sacred grove of lumbini to elucidate its potential role in biodiversity conservation in nepal. lumbini development trust enumerated tree species of the grove. we have assessed taxonomic validity by identifying the species. a total of 65 tree species, 39 are indigenous to nepal, were found in the grove. most of the species were tropical/subtropical elements that are found to be distributed in nepal from 100 to 2400m asl. among total indigenous trees, 64 % trees have their distribution in the whole nepal, whereas 19 %, 14 % and 3 % are limited to central, eastern, and both central and western part of nepal respectively. the indigenous species found in the grove accounts for 11 % of total tree diversity of nepal. of these tree species, five are of threatened, vulnerable and endangered categories. the forest formation of the grove conforms to dalbergia sisoo-acacia catechu type’s forest of nepal. however, majority of the trees in the grove were produced by plantation so it has contributed to ex-situ conservation of trees, and hence this reflects the importance of sacred grove. key words: conservation, distribution, indigenous trees, lumbini, sacred grove, sacred plants, tree species. 1 vegetation ecologist, national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari, lalitpur 2 senior scientific officer, national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari, lalitpur , gpo box 3722, katmandu, nepal. corresponding author: dr khem raj bhattarai, email: bhattaraikhemraj@gmail.com, tel: 977 9851085389 the sacred groves are small patch of forests conserved through man’s religious beliefs since human civilization that comprise valuable genetic resources (basu, 2000; jamir and pandey, 2003). they have become refuges for plants, birds, mammals, and other forest dwelling animals (dash, 2005), and local community depends upon them for various products used in everyday life (wadley and colfer, 2004). the sacred groves are found throughout the world in different temporal and spatial scales, and have contributed significantly for conservation of rare and endangered species (mgumia and oba, 2003). in the earlier centuries, conservation programs were based on religion and spiritual belief as reflected from the practices like i) people used to plant trees as an offering to god, ii) forests were used to preserve as religious sites, iii) new species used to introduce from pilgrimage tour and preserved them in sacred grove. some of the ruminants of forests were also preserved as sacred groves due to its historical significance and spiritual value (dash, 2005). although the sacred groves are economically and religiously important, these are getting pressure from local community through over harvesting for fuel wood, timber, fodder and grazing their cattle. these human pressures may possibly lead to decline in the species diversity and changing in f loristic composition. inventories of species preserved in the particular sacred grove may provide information about dynamics of plant communities, rationale of preservation in the past, history and socio-cultural values linked with particular species and societies (bhagwat and rutte, 2006). some of the sacred groves have emerged by planting species with medicinal, religious and aesthetic value (dash, 2005). these sorts of activities are still in practices and have existed in nepal since the historic periods of budha, lichhibi, mallas and rana. therefore, several sacred groves are expected to be found in nepal ranging from tropical to alpine climatic zone, but their inventories and potential role in the conservation of biodiversity have not been documented so far. nepal is richer in its ethnic diversity so there are diverse human societies with different social customs; myths and beliefs that are interconnected for the protection and conservation of fauna and flora. some of the sacred groves have been used as shrines and for spiritual worships (wadley and colfer, 2004). thus, 26 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 n e p a l 0 100 200 km mt everest china kathmandu mt annapurna india 80 82 84 86 88 27 28 29 30 500 km n lumbini sacred grove conservation of plant species by establishing sacred groves was one of the most widespread practices in the past, which helped to conserve cultural landscapes as well (e.g. odera, 1997; posey, 1999). the groves occur in different forms such as remnants of old forests, burial grounds, and sites of ancestral worship (githitho, 1998; mgumia and oba, 2003). however, the sacred groves and their role for conservation of rare and endangered species have been overlooked. lumbini has been considered one of the most sacred places on earth amongst hindus and budhists. because of birth place of lord budha and valuable historical importance, it has been enlisted by unesco as a world heritage site. the birth of budha has connection with gardens, flowers and trees (see kausalyayana, 1985). during 7th and 6th centuries bc, lumbini was a beautiful garden maintained by the sakya dynasty of kapilavastu and the koliyas dynasty of ramagrama (bidari 2004). in the budhist literature, lumbini is described as sacred grove with blooming sal trees and varieties of beautiful flowers (see kausalyayana, 1985). thus, introduction of sacred species in the grove of lumbini might be a regular practice after birth of budha. with the establishment of lumbini development trust in 1985, the area of the grove was extended and planted with hundreds of seedlings of trees belonging to various indigenous and exotic species. among them, some were rare and endangered (see shrestha and joshi, 1996). inventory of species, evaluation of distribution patterns, f loristic composition and adaptation of species in the sacred grove may provide key information useful to promote conservation of rare and endangered species. this study, therefore, intends to: (1) make an inventory of tree species growing in sacred grove of lumbini, evaluate their regional distribution patterns and floristic composition, (2) classify the trees species of grove according to their use (timber, ornament, medicine and religious purpose), (3) assess the particular forest types formation from existing tree population, and (4) discuss the implication of sacred grove for conservation in general. materials and methods study site this study was conducted in the sacred grove of lumbini in kapilvastu district, close to the indian boarder (fig. 1). it is situated at 180 m above sea level between 27o 28’ n fig. 1 location of study area latitude and 83o 430’ e longitude. it has a monsoon climate similar to that of indian plateau. the most of the rainfall occurs during summer (from june to september) whereas the winter is relatively dry. the lumbini belongs to tropical vegetation zone of nepal. major dominant forest forming species are: shorea robusta, terminalia spp., lagestroemia parviflora, and dalbergia sisoo. survey, data collection and analysis fieldwork was carried out in june 2007. in order to get information about master plan for conservation and development of lumbini, a preliminary discussion was done with project manager of lumbini development trust. vegetation data: botanical species, number of trees, and number of planted seedlings were collected from lumbini development trust which conducted tree census in 2000. to verify this census data, each and every parts of the grove was observed. some of the species could not be confirmed for the taxonomic identity in the field, so that sample was collected and identified by comparing with voucher specimens (herbaria) preserved in the national herbarium and plant laboratories at godawari, lalitpur. in order to obtain information of plant species, their use, religious value, mythological linkage to buddha, and purpose of introduction of species in the grove; an informal interview and focus group discussion was also conducted with local residents, staff of lumbini development trust and monks of monasteries. the distribution range and conservation status of the species were based on published literature (e.g. shrestha and joshi, 1996; press et al., 2000; dpr, 2001). in order to find the elevational range of tree species in the natural habitats, the range was interpolated (see bhattarai and vetaas, 2006). since nepal himalayas is divided into three phytogeographical regions: the east, central and west bhattarai and baral 27 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 (banerji, 1963), tree species found in the sacred grove of lumbini were also checked for their longitudinal distribution along these phytogeographical regions. the species found in the grove were categorized according to the red data book prepared by international union for conservation of nature and natural resources (iucn) as endangered, vulnerable, rare, commercially threatened and uncertain species (shrestha and joshi, 1996). scatter plot and descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data. results species composition and distribution a total of 65 species of tree (angiosperms and gymnosperms) including nine unidentified were found in the sacred grove of lumbini. these species totaled to 191,448 tree stands. most of the species were found to be tropical/subtropical element. among the indigenous trees, majority of them were produced by plantation in different periods of time. the regional distribution pattern of these species along the himalayan elevation gradient is presented in fig. 2. of the 65 species, 39 are indigenous and 17 are exotic (table 1 and 2) to nepal. regional distribution of these indigenous species was found ranging from 1002400 m along the elevation gradient of the himalayas. some of the exotic trees could not be identified. dalbergia sisoo was found to be most dominant tree species that accounted for 85 % of total tree stands, which was followed by callistemon citrinus and albizzia lebbek that accounted for 2.8 % and 1.98 % of total number of tree stands respectively. among the indigenous trees, five species fall under the categories of vulnerable, endangered and threatened (shrestha and joshi 1996; kurmi and bhatta 2003, see table 1). among the indigenous tree species of the grove, 22 were found to be distributed in nepal himalayas (wce), five were found limited only in the centre nepal (c), and seven species were found both in the centre and east (ce) nepal (fig. 3). however, pterocarpus marsupium was only species reported its natural distribution in the west (w) nepal (kurmi and bhatta 2003), and it was found in the sacred grove as well. the tree species of the grove were found to have medicinal, timber, fodder, religious, and ornamental values. significant number of tree species found in the grove did not found in the natural habitats. these species were found introduced in the grove. however, purpose of introduction of six tree species could not be ascertained (table 2). fig. 2 regional distribution pattern of indigenous tree species of lumbini sacred grove along elevation gradient in the himalayas fig. 3 proportional phytogeographical distribution of tree species in nepal fig. 4 proportion of different tree species and their use, t = timber, m = medicinal bhattarai and baral 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 o rn a m e n ta l t im b e r m e d ic in a l r e lig io u s f o o d b o th t /m f o d d e r u n kn o w n use n u m b e r o f s p e c ie s wce 64% c 14% ce 19% w 3% 28 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 table 1: indigenous trees of lumbini sacred grove and their distribution pattern in nepal himalayas tree species altitudinal distribution m asl biogeographical distribution conservation status acacia catechu 200-1400 wce ct accacia nilotica 1500 c n adina cordifolia 150-800 wce n aegle marmelos 300-1100 wce n albizia lebbek 250-800 wce n anthocephalus chinensis 290-800 ce n artocarpus heterophyllus 100-800 c n artocarpus lakocha 700-1400 c n azadirachta indica 300-1700 ce n bambusa sp 400-1200 wce n bauhania variegata 150-1900 wce n bombax ceiba 200-900 ce e butea monosperma 150-1200 wce e cassia fistula 150-1400 wce n cinnamomum camphora 1300-1500 c n dalbergia latifolia 300-1000 wce e dalbergia sisoo 200-1400 wce n delonix regia 200-1100 e n elaeocarpus sphaericus 700-1700 ce v eugenia formosa 300 e n ficus benghalensis 500-1200 wce n ficus racemosa 300 wc n ficus religiosa 150-1500 wce n lagestromia indica 1000-1500 wce n madhuca latifolia 300-1200 c n magnifera indica 100-1200 wce n mitragyna parviflora 150-200 wce n moringa oleifera 150-1100 ce un morus macroura 1200-1700 e n phyllanthus emblica 150-1400 wce n pinus roxburghii 1100-2100 wce n psidium guajava 200-1200 wce n pterrocarpus marsupium 100 w en saurauia napaulensis 750-2100 wce n sesbania orientale 600-2400 wce n shorea robusta 150-1500 wce n syzygium jambos 600-1400 ce n tamarindus indica 200-400 ce n trewia nudiflora 150-1800 wce n wce, w = west, c = centre, e = east, n = normal, en = endangered, ct = commercially threatened, v = vulnerable, un = status unknown discussion tree species richness and forest formation tree species found at sacred grove of lumbini accounted for ca. 11 % of total tree species of nepal. these species were distributed along the elevation gradient of the himalayas from 100 m to over 2000 m. there are total 614 tree species found in nepal, which are distributed from 100-4400 m (bhattarai and vetaas, 2006). although, grove was located at 180 m above sea level the tree species were distributed below and above this range (fig. 2.). this indicated that the species have wider distribution range. relatively, species having wider range of distribution are considered as more adapted in the natural habitats (subedi et al., 2007). bhattarai and baral 29 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 the dominant tree species in the grove were dalbergia sisoo, albizia lebbek, callistemon citrinus, and acacia catechu. except callistemon citrinus others were indigenous to tropical parts of nepal. majority of the trees of the grove were produced by plantation, so that the newly emerged forest patch could be assumed as tropical type with different species composition than the natural forest. according to forest classification based on species composition, the forest formation of the grove falls under the category of dalbergia sisoo-acacia catechu types of nepal (stainton, 1972), which is common in new alluvial deposit along the streams and rivers of terai and dun valleys. of all the tree species in the grove, dalbergia sisoo accounted for 85 % whereas rest of species accounted for only 15 %. the 15 % of various other species might be insignificant in number in order to maintain the integrity of ecosystem. the majority of species accounted for less than 1 % among the total stands, showed that this was almost monoculture plantation of dalbergia sisoo. there is a long-standing debate over whether to use monoor polyculture when establishing plantations. hartley (2002) reviewed the literature and found that polyculture was found to be beneficial against monoculture in many parts of the world. these benefits include: (1) more efficient nutrient use (2) site quality and yields are conserved over time (3) reduced risk of catastrophic damage from storms, insects, or disease outbreak (4) some species provide nurse effect to neighboring species and protect against shade, frost, etc. (5) enhance higher ecological integrity due to higher species diversity. research has shown that polyculture species are more resistant and can use nutrients more efficiently than monoculture do because of differences among species in rooting patterns, mycorrhizal associations (perry et al.,1992), phenology (keenan et al., 1995), nutrient demands (kelty, 1992), and soil mineralization rates (matthews, 1989). adhikari et al. (2006) have found that the major die back disease in monoculture plantation of dalbergia sisoo in lumbini was mainly caused by fungi (ganodorma lucidum and fussarium solani). table 2. exotic tree species and their purpose of their introduction in the sacred grove species purpose of introduction callistemon citrinus ornamental tectona grandis timber eucalyptus camaldulensis medicinal terminalia arjuna medicinal/religious leucaena leucochephala fodder polyalthea longifolia religious/ornamental acacia mollissima ? thuja compacta ornamental ficus sp. fodder oreodoxa regia ornamental mimusops elengi ? ficus idostics ? polyalthea barmige religious/ornamental pitheceolobium sp ? populus sp ornamental annona squamosa food jacaranda mimosifolia ornamental table 3: sacred species of the grove and their symbolization as deities botanical species local name associated god/goddess anthocephalus chinensis kadam god krishna azadiarachta indica neem goddes sita bauhinia variegata koiralo god bishnu butea monosperma palsh god shiva eragrostis cynosuroides* kush god vishnu ficus bengalensis bar god burhma ficus religiosa peepal god bishnu hibiscus rosasinensis** japapuspi goddes durga saraca indica ashok god kamadev ** shrub and * grass according to phytogeographical division of nepal, the sacred grove of lumbini is located at the boarder between central and western nepal. three species delonix regia, eugenia formosa and morus macoura which are found only in east nepal were also found in the grove. similarly, there were five species limited to central nepal and only one species of west were found in the sacred grove. these species were not found in the natural forests around the sacred grove (see stainton, 1972). such evidence may indicate that beside natural regeneration, tree species might have introduced from other parts of nepal. thus, sacred grove of lumbini has played an important role for ex-situ conservation of tree diversity in nepal. bhattarai and baral 30 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 sacred grove and conservation in nepal lord budha was born under the tree of saal (shorea robusta) which is considered sacred as a mother goddess (bidari, 2004). however, some people are in the opinion that the tree was ashoka (saraca indica) not a shorea robusta. according to budhist literature, maya devi (mother of budha) wished to be at the base of a tree and gazing upon the garden-grove in lumbini at the time of delivery. after birth of budha, people started to worship the tree and the worshipping become very popular and common among the people of that period. lumbini dvelopment trust has planted various religious trees in the grove and continued the religious tradition. at present there were ca. 9 % of trees species in the grove were considered as religious (fig. 4). various hindu deities and their forms have been symbolically associated with these species (table 3). majpuria (1999) have reported 56 sacred plant species from nepal. the most worshipped trees are flower bearing with medicinal values. beside tree, there is a sacred grass (eragrostis cynosuroides) and a sacred shrub (hibiscus rosasinensis ) species in the grove. these species have been preserved because of their associated religious and spiritual beliefs. hence, these plant species are worshipped. felling and destruction upon religious species is considered against the sprit of religion. such religious beliefs have played important role for conservation of these trees in the grove from centuries. now time has come to check what species have been preserved in the grove of lumbini. although dalbergia sisoo having no religious and ornamental value was still dominant tree in the grove. the plantation, which was done by lumbini development trust in the earlier days, might have focused to increase the greenery rather than beautifying the grove. some species, bombax ceiba, butea monosperma, dalbergia latifolia are endangered tree species are conserved in the grove. beside indigenous trees, 17 exotic tree species were introduced in the grove (table 2). some of the introduced species were highly valuable due to their medicinal properties (e.g. teminalia arjuna). recently, lumbini development trust is constructing a sacred pond around the periphery of birthplace of budha, which is going be a potential habitat for several species of birds and aquatic life forms. aquatic plant like nelumbium speciosum has been introduced in the aquatic habitats of the grove. this shows that grove may provide the habitat for endangered, rare and sacred species of plants. thus, potential role of sacred grove in biodiversity conservation of nepal would be realized and conservation programs would be formulated for the better management and conservation of grove. acknowledgements we thank mr subhash khatri for providing information and guiding trip to lumbini. the mr krishna dhakal, ram bahadur chhetri, harun mohamod khan, and kamlesh burma are acknowledged for their cooperation during fieldwork. mr. p.p. kurmi has helped to confirm three tree species. dr thakur upadhaya has corrected english and provided constructive comments. national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari, nepal supported fieldwork. references adhikari, m.k.; manandhar, v. and kurmi, p.p. 2006. die back of dalbergia sisoo roxb. ex. dc in western terai belt of nepal. plant resources, bull.dep.pl. res. 27:30-38. banerji, m.l. 1963. outline of nepal phytogeography. vegetatio 5-6:88-296. basu, r. 2000. studies on sacred groves and taboos in purulia district of west bengal. indian forester 121:1309-1318. bhagwat, s. and rutte c. 2006. sacred groves: potential for biodiversity management. frontiers in ecology and the environment 4:519-524. bhattarai, k.r. and vetaas, o.r. 2006. can rapoport’s elevation rule explains the tree species richness along the himalayan elevation gradient, nepal? diversity and distributions 12:373-378. bidari, b. 2004. lumbini a haven of sacred refuge. hill side press (p) ltd, katmandu. chalise, m.k. (1998) wildlife of nepal. nepal natural history society, katmandu, pp. 1-56. dash, s.s. 2005. kabi sacred grove of north sikkim. current science 89: 427-428. dpr, deparment of plant resources 2001. flowering plants of nepal. department of plant resources, katmandu, nepal. bhattarai and baral 31 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 hartley, m.j. 2006. rationale and methods for conserving biodiversity in plantation forests. forest ecology and management 155:81-95. jamir, s.a. and pandey, h.n. 2003. vascular plant diversity in the sacred groves of jaintia hills in northeast india. biodiversity and conservation 12:1497-1510. kausalyayana, ven. a. 1985. jataka (first part). hindi sahita sammlena, allahabad, india. keenan, r., lamb, d. and sexton, g. 1995. experience with mixed species rainforest plantations in north queensland. common for. rev., 74:315-321. kelty, m.j. 1992. comparative productivity of monocultures and mixed-species stands. in: the ecology and silviture of mixed-species forests, ed. m.j. kelty, pp. 125-141. kulwer academic publishers, the netherlands. kurmi, p.p. and bhatta, g.d. 2003. a survey report on pterocarpus marsupium roxb. from western, nepal. plant resources. bulletion of department of plant resources no. 22,89-96. matthews, j.d. 1989. sivicultural systems. clarendon press, oxford, 284 pp. wadley, r. l. and colfer, c.j.p. 2004. sacred forests, hunting, and conservation in west kalimantan, indonesia. human ecology 32:313-338. mgumia, f.h. and oba, g. 2003. potential role of sacred groves in biodiversity conservation in tanzania. environmetal conservation,30:259265. odera, j.a. 1997. traditional beliefs, sacred groves and home garden techonologies. adapting old practices for conservation of medicinal plants. in: conservation and utilization of medicinal plants and wild relatives of food crops, ed. a.m. kenyua, w.m. kofi-teskpo and l.b. dangana, pp. 19-28. nairobi, kenya. perry, d.a., bell t. and amaranthus, m.p. 1992. mycorrhizal fungi in mixed species forests and other tales of positive feedback, redundancy and stability. in: cannell, m.g.r. malcolm; d.c., robertson, p.a. (eds.), the ecology of mixedspecies stands of trees. blackwell scientific publications, oxford, pp.151-179. posey, d.a. 1999. cultural and spiritual values of biodiversity. a complementary contribution to the global biodiveversity assessment. nairobii, kenya: united nations environment programme. press, j.a.,srestha, k.k. and sutton, d.d. 2000. annotated checklist of the flowering plants nepal. the natural history museum, london. shrestha, t. and joshi, r.m. 1996. rare, endemic and endangered plants of nepal. wwf nepal program, katmandu, nepal. stanton, j.d.a. 1972. forest of nepal. john murray publishers, ltd.uk. subedi, s.c. , bhattarai, k.r. and chaudhary, r.p. 2007. distribution pattern of manang’s species along the whole himlayan elevation gradient and their fate against global warming. himalayan journal of science (accepted). bhattarai and baral final corrected banko janakari 19-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 37 depredation and deteriorating condition of shorea robusta and terminalia alata in bardia national park: an imperative to address park biodiversity sustainably g. r. acharya1, b. bhatta2, and a. r. gyawali3 the paradigm shift in park management from a fortress mentality to the participatory concept is represented as a major transformation in the conservation discourse in nepal. the involvement of local people in the management of resources in national parks has been significantly effective in attaining the conservation goals of conserving wildlife without compromising the basic forest resource needs of the local people. nevertheless, some economically important species have not been afforded due consideration during such management. this study investigates the species composition and regeneration status of shorea robusta (sal) and terminalia alata (saj) in 4 buffer zone community forests of bardia national park in thakurdwara vdc in 1999/2000, 2002/2003 and 2005. the results reveal that shorea robusta (sal) and terminalia alata (saj) both constituted a large proportion of species diversity but that their regeneration from seedlings to established stages were low, suggesting vulnerability of this forest and their sustainability at risk due to their dwindling conditions. immediate management concern of these economically important forest tree species is warranted. keywords: biodiversity, national park, shorea robusta, sustainability, terminalia alata bardia national park (bnp) covering an area of 968 sq.km is the largest protected area of terai and bhabar regions. it lies in the mid western development region and represents the subtropical climate of nepal. bnp is famous for its wild habitats that is home to animal species such as wild elephants, tigers, deers, and translocated rhinos (bhatta, 1994; gyawali, 1995). one of the largest rivers of nepal, the karnali flanks the western bank of the national park while many other rivers, including the babai, flow through it. these rivers provide habitats for aquatic animals and waterfowl as well as for the rearing of endangered amphibians and reptiles. the old concept of segregating people from the national park has been reconsidered to accommodate the participation of local people (acharya and dhungana, 2009). in this process the forest areas buffering the national park were declared as buffer zones in 1996 and the neighbouring people were mobilized to manage these forests properly by organizing them into user groups (ppp, 1999; karki, 1997). before the implementation of the buffer zone concept, the people residing in the vicinity were not granted access to the national park resources. the park was sealed from the people. later it was realized that such isolation of the national park from the people threatened the sustainability of the park and its resources. this notion has been validated in all kinds of community based natural resource managements (allendorf, 1999; acharya, 2007; tamrakar and sharma, 2002). with the declaration of buffer zone areas in the bnp, the concern for effective buffer zone community forest (bzcf) management is rising within the user groups. activities such as benefit sharing, non timber forest product (ntfp) promotion, forest species composition and management are gaining attention (acharya, 2002). knowledge about the species composition and their regeneration status is a necessary tool for managing the forests scientifically. this knowledge enables the selecting of species that have the most importance to the users and their sustainable management for the wildlife in the park. 1 natural resources management specialist, meh consultants (p.) ltd., kathmandu nepal. email: ganeshraj.acharya@gmail.com 2 director-research, alliance nepal 3 associate professor, institute of forestry, pokhara banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 38 materials and methods study site the study area is located in bardia district of mid western development region of nepal. the study was carried out in four bzcfs of bnp. of the four bzcfs, chidkaiya, thakurdwara and betani had areas of 62 hectares each whereas the area of bhudkaiya was 92 hectares, consisting of a 50 ha natural forest and a 40 ha plantation. only the natural forests were considered for this study. similarly bhudkaiya was a separate bzcf whereas the other remaining three bzcfs were contiguous with each other. all four bzcfs were part of the thakurdwara vdc. the bnp headquarter is located at thakurdwara and is accessible by a 13 km gravel road from ambasa, on the east-west highway of nepal. data collection and analysis tree species composition and regeneration survey of bzcf were carried using stratified systematic sampling method. stratification was done based on stand density and canopy cover. for the study of tree species composition, a 1% sampling intensity was conducted with plots of 10mx10m. within these plots, only tree species compositions were identified by counting the number of trees in each plot. later, tree numbers were tabulated as percentages. the total number of plots in chidkaiya, thakurdwara and betani bzcfs were 62 and in bhudkaiya, it was 50. similarly for regeneration survey, a 0.1% sampling intensity was used for plots of 2m x 2m within the (10m*10m) plots used for tree species composition. the total number of plots in chidkaiya, thakurdwara and betani bzcfs were 155 and in bhudkaiya, it was 125. the regeneration survey was carried out by recording the regeneration of the species into various categories as follows (khanna, 1996): • established (e): whose height should be in between 2.5 m to 4 m. • woody (w): unestablished seedling, whose height should be between 1.5 m to 2.5 m • whippy (u): unestablished seedling, whose height should be between 50 cm to 1.5m • sub whippy(s): unestablished seedling whose height is between 20 cm to 50 cm • recruit(r): current year’s seedling, whose height is up to 20 cm with six leaves maximum data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and presented graphically. results and discussions species composition figure 1 reveals that within all bzcfs, shorea robusta and terminalia alata were found to be the major species. tree species composition 64 40 62 55 17 34 18 35 19 26 20 10 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 chidkaiya bhudkaiya betani thakurdwara bufferzone community forests pe rc en ta ge shorea robusta terminalia alata other species figure 1: tree species composition on buffer zone community forests other species category in the figure 1 included: acacia catechu (khayer), adina cordifolia (haldu), bassia indica (mahuwa), cassia fistula (rajbriksha), ficus religiosa (peepal), garuga pinnata (dabdabe), lagerstr oemia par vif lora (botdhaire), mallotus phillippinensis (rohini), myraine semiserrata (kalikath), schleichera trijuga (kusum), semecarpus anacardium (bhalayo) and syzyzium cumini (jamun) among others. the management system needs to promote economically important species such as shorea robusta and terminalia alata, which are valued as timber for their durability and superior quality while species such as mallotus phillippinensis are economically less important but could still be used as fodder for animals. regeneration and species density figure 2 shows that in terms of the regeneration status, current year recruits seedling occupied the highest percentage of seedlings in all 4 buffer zone community forests, followed by other categories. regeneration status of tree species 0 50 100 seedlings category pe rc en ta ge chidkaiya bhudkaiya betani thakurdwara chidkaiya 3 1 3 4 89 bhudkaiya 9 13 3 0 75 betani 5 1 4 4 86 thakurdwara 7 3 1 6 83 e w u s r figure 2: regeneration status of tree species acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 39 figure 3: regeneration and tree status of the species figure 3 above shows that in all bzcfs, the numbers of trees per hectare were similar (222-277) but regeneration numbers differed significantly. chidkaiya cf had the highest number of regeneration (41,500) whereas bhudkaiya had the least (5714). fencing along the boundary and strict prohibition on grazing in chidkaiya forest contributed to its highest regeneration. the worst regeneration in bhudkaiya was due to unrestricted grazing allowed inside this forest. profuse regeneration of shorea robusta occurred under the open canopy. similarly, protection also contributed to the profuse regeneration. as chidkaiya and betani forests were controlled from grazing, the number of seedlings in these forests was comparatively higher. erecting fencing along the boundary is expensive and may not always be feasible. instead the prohibition of open grazing system can help in facilitating high regeneration like that in chidkaiya. condition of shorea robusta and terminalia alata in future table 1 reveals that there was no established seedlings “e” of shorea robusta in all the forests studied. table 2 shows the absence of “e” category from all the forests; this is an indication of the deteriorating status of shorea robusta and terminalia alata species. in particular, the absence of “w”, “u”, and “s” categories of terminalia alata seedlings reveals an even more vulnerable condition for this species. the absence of established seedlings of shorea robusta and terminalia alata in all the bzcfs underscores the high risk to the future sustainability of these forests. this absence also suggests that species management of bzcf has not been scientific. between these two species, the condition of terminalia alata is more vulnerable with zero established, woody and whippy categories. if this condition is not redressed in due time, eventually this species will head towards extinction in the bzcfs. shorea robusta and terminalia alata represent important species in the terai region of nepal. both species are not only economically but also ecologically very important. while managing these species, other species in the forest should also be given importance because of their ecological and economic significance (jackson, 1994; ojha et al., 2008, acharya et al., 2009). conclusions the findings on tree species composition and regeneration survey will be helpful in understanding the composition of forest. these findings will further help in selecting important species. shorea robusta and terminalia alata were found as dominant tree species in the bzcfs but their regeneration indicated an even lower representation in established form (e). both these species need immediate attention for their management and this research could serve as a benchmark for further investigations. acknowledgements we would like to thank ntnc team of bardia (formerly kmtnc/bcp) for partial funding to density of regeneration and trees 41500 5714 29194 20485 275 277 255 2220 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 chidkaiya bhudkaiya betani thakurdwara bufferzone community forests nu m be rs regeneration per hectare trees per hectare table 1: condition of established seedling of shorea robusta chidkaiya (%) bhudkaiya (%) betani (%) thakurdwara (%) e=0 e=0 e=0 e=0 w=0.12 w=0 w=0 w=0 u=0.5 u=0.48 u=0 u=0 s=0.95 s=0.93 s=0.89 s=0 r=97.5 r=97 r=93.15 r=50 table 2: condition of established seedling of terminalia alata chidkaiya (%) bhudkaiya (%) betani (%) thakurdwara (%) e=0 e=0 e=0 e=0 w=0 w=0 w=0 w=0 u=0 u=0 u=0 u=0 s=o s=o s=o s=o r=1.6 r=1 r=2.3 r=8.4 acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 40 undertake this research. we would also like to thank dr. shanta raj gyawali, mr. baban prasad kayastha and dr. rajendra prasad adhikari for their input, help and suggestions. inputs from anonymous reviewers are duly acknowledged. references acharya, g.r. 2007. conflict management in community forestry: a study of community forests in nepal. msc thesis, wageningen university, the netherlands. 105 p. acharya, g.r. 2002. a study of some factors related to sustainable management of buffer zone community forest in royal bardia national park. m.sc. thesis,pokhara university, nepal, 61 p. acharya, g.r., koirala, p.n., neupane, l. and devkota, s.c. 2009. livelihood option from minor forest produce: context of non timber forest product and poverty reduction in mid hills of nepal. journal of wetlands ecology 2: 56-65 acharya g.r. and dhungana, h.p. 2009. participatory planning formulation in conservation area. in biodiversity and livelihoods (ed) dhungana, h.p., ghimire, s. and adhikari, j. martin chautari, nepal, 317-332. allendorf, terling d. 1999. local residents perception of protected areas of nepal: beyond conflicts and economics. ph. d thesis, university of minnesota, usa. bhatta, s.r. 1994. beginning with buffer zone management: a case study from royal bardia national park nepal. m.sc. thesis, agricultural university of norway, norway. gyawali, s.r. 1995. population ecology of greater one-horned rhinoceros (rhinoceros unicornis) with particular emphasis on habitat preference, food ecology and ranging behaviour of the reintroduced population in royal bardia national park in low land nepal. ph.d thesis, agricultural university of norway, norway. jackson, j.k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal: volume 2. 2nd edition. forest research and survey centre, kathmandu. karki, j.b. 1997. effects of grazing, utilization and management of the grassland of the royal bardia national park, nepal. m.sc. thesis, wildlife institute of india, dehradun, india. khanna, l.s. 1996. principle and practice of silviculture, 6th edition. khanna bandhu publication, dehradun, india. ojha, s.k., acharya, k.p., acharya, b. and regmi, r. 2008. simple coppice management opt ions for the sal (shorea robusta gaertn.f.) forests in the terai of nepal. banko jankari 18 (1): 32-41 park people programme (ppp) 1999. biodiversity conservation initiatives in and around protected areas. park people programme, dnpwc nepal, 28p. tamrakar a. and sharma, b.k. 2002. conservation and development of local forest resources and wildlife through community forestry: a case study from baghmara community forest, chitwan. banko jankari 12 (1): 49-53. acharya et al. final added vol 15-2.pmd 34 biomass estimation of bambusa nutans subspecies cupulata grown at eastern terai, nepal b. n. oli1 and c. m. kandel2 with a view to prepare biomass table of bambusa nutans subspecies cupulata grown at belbari, morang district of eastern terai, a total of 150 culms were selected from nintyeight clumps. measurements of diameter at 15 cm of the base (d 15 ), vertical height of the culm and green weight of the culm, branches and foliage were taken in the field. the sampled green weight was oven dried in kathmandu. to estimate the biomass, regression model was developed on the basis of oven dry and green weight. the model used was w = a + b * (d2l). based on the oven dry weight, the r2 values obtained for culm, branch and foliage components were 90, 82 and 73 per cent respectively. similarly, r2 values for culm and foliage components on the basis of green weight were 90 and 73 per cent respectively. the r2 values obtained for branch and foliage components were slightly lower as compared to the culm. the validity is to be done before applying this equation to different site conditions. key words: biomass, bamboo, bambusa nutans subspecies cupulata, nepal bamboos are one of the most widely used products. it’s products are already in everyday use by about 2.5 billion people in the world (scurlock et al., 2000). it has over 1500 uses and has tremendous versatility (rai and chauhan, 1998). in nepal, they are one of the most common plant species grown on farmland. people perceive this species as an alternate to tree for fulfilling their demand of forest products (das and oli, 2001). with its varied uses such as construction materials, woven products, agricultural implements, fodder, vegetables and scaffolding and in stabilizing slip-prone slopes, bamboos are in great demand by the rural households in nepal. occurrence of bamboo is more common in the eastern half of the country from dhaulagiri to sikkim boarder, as high as 4000 m (stapleton, 1994). there are over 75 genera and 1250 species of the bamboos in the world (fao, 1978) and 80% of this resource is found in south and south east asia and china (sharma, 1988). in nepal, 12 genera and more than 50 species of bamboo have been recorded so far (tis, 2004). out of the 75 districts of nepal, 73 are known to have one or more species of bamboo. it has been estimated that the total growing stock of bamboo in nepal is around 15 million cubic metres with an approximate biomass value of 1060 million tons (karki and karki, 1995). bambusa nutans subspecies cupulata is one of the most commonly cultivated bamboos on the farmlands from the terai up to 1500 masl. it prefers well-drained moist site with moderate shade (tis, 2004, stapleton, 1994). it has strong culms, which are largely used for construction and scaffolding purposes. the culms are well apart and can reach a maximum diametre of 10 cm and a length of 23 m in good site conditions. culms are very straight with internode length of 3845 cm. leaves are linear lanceolate, 15-30 cm long and 2.5-4.0 cm broad with green colour. the leaves of this species are considered one of the best fodders for livestock both in the terai and midhills (tis, 2004). despite the multiple benefits obtained from bamboos, limited information has so far been published on its potential of biomass production. on the basis of oven dry and green weight, biomass table of bambusa nutans subspecies nutans and bambusa tulda has been prepared (oli, 2003; oli, 2005) earlier. however, previous studies have focused on distribution, growth performance and culm production aspects. it has been reported that survival, average height, average diameter and culms production of this species was found higher than other four bamboo species. (thapa et al., 1998). as there is a growing demand of bamboo products in the country, the information on estimation of biomass could be beneficial for managing the 1 department of forest research and survey, po box 3339, kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: bn_oli@yahoo.com 2 department of forest research and survey, po box 3339, kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: chintakandel@yahoo.com 35 bamboo resources in a more practical way. this study, therefore, aims at providing information on biomass of bambusa nutans subspecies cupulata, which is of use to forestry professionals, private growers, local forest user groups and other interested individuals. materials and methods a trial on establishment and management of bamboo was established by the department of forest research and survey at belbari, morang district of eastern region in 1991. bambusa nutans subspecies nutans (taru bans), bambusa nutans subspecies cupulata (mal bans), bambusa tulda (japhta bans), bambusa balcooa (dhanu bans) and dendrocalamus giganteus (rakshasi bans) were planted at belbari (thapa et al., 1998). of the five bamboo species planted, bambusa nutans subspecies cupulata was selected for the study purposes. the reason for selecting bamboo species for biomass estimation is due to its varied uses and wide occurrence in nepal and lack of comprehensive documentation on biomass estimation of this species. the site is located at an altitude of 155 masl, soil is loam to silt loam. there was sal (shorea robusta) forest 3 to 4 years before the establishment of the trial. the average annual rainfall is 1737 mm and average maximum and minimum temperature are 300 c and 18.20 c respectively (hmg/n, 1997). the plants produced from single node culm cuttings taken from belbari, morang was the source of parent materials of this species. these cuttings were propagated in the hetauda nursery, before being taken to planting site at belbari. soil heaping was carried out in each clump in 1993 and the oldest culms were cut and removed in the winter of 1996 (thapa et al., 1998). ninty-eight clumps representing varying age and diametre classes were chosen. the total number of culms from each clump was counted. from each clump, at least 1 culms totaling 150 were taken for the study. measurements of diameter at 15 cm of the base (d15), vertical length of the culm and green weight of the culm, branches and foliage were taken in the field. representative eighteen culms were selected for sub-samples of culm, branch and foliage. these sub-samples were brought into the laboratory in kathmandu and oven-dried at 105o c until a constant weight was attained. to convert the fresh weight of culm, branch and foliage components into oven dry weight, subsample’s percentage dry matter values were used. dry matter values = [(oven dry weight/fresh weight) x 100] with the use of above formula, a conversion factor of 0.44, 0.48 and 0.37 was used for converting fresh weight to oven dry weight of culm, branch, and foliage respectively. to estimate the biomass, regression model was developed on the basis of oven dry weight. biomass table for culm and foliage was also prepared on the basis of green weight. the model used was (w) = a + b * (d2l), where ‘w’ is the weight, ‘d’ is the diametre at 15 cm, ‘l’ is the vertical length of the culm, and ‘a’ and ‘b’ are the constants. results and discussion a total of 48 per cent dry matter content was found in the branch of bambusa nutans subspecies cupulata. the culm and foliage has 44 and 37 per cent of dry matter content values respectively. the dry matter content of culm, branch and foliage components of bambusa nutans subspecies nutans grown at the same site were found to be 47.3, 41.1 and 38.2 per cent respectively (oli, 2003). similarly, the dry matter content of culm, branch and foliage components of bambusa tulda grown at the same site were found to be 48, 53 and 36 per cent respectively (oli, 2005). using the regression model of (w) = a + b * (d2l), biomass of all the components (culm, branch and foliage) were calculated. based on the oven-dried weight, the r2 values obtained for culm, branch and banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2oli and kandel table 1: biomass table for culm on the basis of oven dry weight (in kg) height (m) d15 (cm) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 4 2.15 2.30 2.44 5 2.56 2.79 3.02 3.25 3.47 3.70 3.93 4.16 4.38 4.61 6 3.39 3.72 4.05 4.37 4.70 5.03 5.36 5.68 6.01 6.34 7 4.55 4.99 5.44 5.88 6.33 6.78 7.22 7.67 8.11 8.56 8 6.08 6.67 7.25 7.83 8.41 8.99 9.58 10.16 10.74 11.33 9 8.06 8.79 9.53 10.27 11.01 11.74 12.48 13.22 13.96 14.69 a= 1.426 b= 0.0091 se= 0.919 r2= 90% table 2: biomass table for branch on the basis of oven dry weight (in kg) height (m) d15 (cm) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 4 0.17 0.19 0.21 5 0.22 0.25 0.28 0.30 0.33 0.36 0.39 0.41 0.44 0.47 6 0.32 0.36 0.40 0.44 0.48 0.52 0.56 0.60 0.64 0.68 7 0.46 0.51 0.57 0.63 0.68 0.73 0.78 0.84 0.89 0.95 8 0.65 0.72 0.79 0.86 0.93 1.00 1.07 1.14 1.21 1.28 9 0.88 0.97 1.06 1.15 1.24 1.33 1.42 1.51 1.60 1.69 a= 0.0839 b=0.0011 se= 0.143 r2= 82% table 3: biomass table for foliage on the basis of oven dry weight (in kg) height (m) d15 (cm) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 4 0.039 0.045 0.051 5 0.057 0.067 0.077 0.087 0.097 0.106 0.116 0.127 0.137 0.147 6 0.093 0.107 0.122 0.136 0.151 0.165 0.179 0.194 0.208 0.222 7 0.144 0.163 0.183 0.203 0.222 0.242 0.261 0.281 0.301 0.320 8 0.211 0.237 0.263 0.288 0.314 0.339 0.365 0.391 0.416 0.442 9 0.298 0.331 0.363 0.395 0.428 0.460 0.493 0.525 0.557 0.590 a= 0.0067 b=0.0004 se= 0.061 r2= 73% biomass equations are normally prepared on an oven dry weight basis to facilitate comparison with other sites, species and seasons (hawkins, 1987). however, bamboo culms are sold on a fresh weight basis in both the rural and urban areas of nepal. so, biomass table for culm based on green weight was also prepared. bamboo leaves are used as fodder in some areas where there is fodder deficit. hence, biomass table for foliage was prepared on the basis of green weight. based on the green weight, the r2 values obtained for culm and foliage components were 90 and 73 per cent respectively. biomass tables based on green weight for culm and foliage are given in table 4 and 5 respectively. rao and nagarajaih (1991) reported from india that total biomass of planted bambusa arundinacea (retz.) wild of 3 years age was 8528 kg per ha. the total above ground biomass of dendrocalamus strictus in india was 4-22 tons/ha (tripathi and singh, 1994). on the other hand the figure ranges from 122-287 tons/ha for bambusa bambos in india (shanmughavel and francis, 1996). 36 banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 oli and kandel table 1: biomass table for culm on the basis of oven dry weight (in kg) height (m) d15 (cm) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 4 2.15 2.30 2.44 5 2.56 2.79 3.02 3.25 3.47 3.70 3.93 4.16 4.38 4.61 6 3.39 3.72 4.05 4.37 4.70 5.03 5.36 5.68 6.01 6.34 7 4.55 4.99 5.44 5.88 6.33 6.78 7.22 7.67 8.11 8.56 8 6.08 6.67 7.25 7.83 8.41 8.99 9.58 10.16 10.74 11.33 9 8.06 8.79 9.53 10.27 11.01 11.74 12.48 13.22 13.96 14.69 a= 1.426 b= 0.0091 se= 0.919 r2= 90% table 2: biomass table for branch on the basis of oven dry weight (in kg) height (m) d15 (cm) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 4 0.17 0.19 0.21 5 0.22 0.25 0.28 0.30 0.33 0.36 0.39 0.41 0.44 0.47 6 0.32 0.36 0.40 0.44 0.48 0.52 0.56 0.60 0.64 0.68 7 0.46 0.51 0.57 0.63 0.68 0.73 0.78 0.84 0.89 0.95 8 0.65 0.72 0.79 0.86 0.93 1.00 1.07 1.14 1.21 1.28 9 0.88 0.97 1.06 1.15 1.24 1.33 1.42 1.51 1.60 1.69 a= 0.0839 b=0.0011 se= 0.143 r2= 82% table 3: biomass table for foliage on the basis of oven dry weight (in kg) height (m) d15 (cm) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 4 0.039 0.045 0.051 5 0.057 0.067 0.077 0.087 0.097 0.106 0.116 0.127 0.137 0.147 6 0.093 0.107 0.122 0.136 0.151 0.165 0.179 0.194 0.208 0.222 7 0.144 0.163 0.183 0.203 0.222 0.242 0.261 0.281 0.301 0.320 8 0.211 0.237 0.263 0.288 0.314 0.339 0.365 0.391 0.416 0.442 9 0.298 0.331 0.363 0.395 0.428 0.460 0.493 0.525 0.557 0.590 a= 0.0067 b=0.0004 se= 0.061 r2= 73% biomass equations are normally prepared on an oven dry weight basis to facilitate comparison with other sites, species and seasons (hawkins, 1987). however, bamboo culms are sold on a fresh weight basis in both the rural and urban areas of nepal. so, biomass table for culm based on green weight was also prepared. bamboo leaves are used as fodder in some areas where there is fodder deficit. hence, biomass table for foliage was prepared on the basis of green weight. based on the green weight, the r2 values obtained for culm and foliage components were 90 and 73 per cent respectively. biomass tables based on green weight for culm and foliage are given in table 4 and 5 respectively. rao and nagarajaih (1991) reported from india that total biomass of planted bambusa arundinacea (retz.) wild of 3 years age was 8528 kg per ha. the total above ground biomass of dendrocalamus strictus in india was 4-22 tons/ha (tripathi and singh, 1994). on the other hand the figure ranges from 122-287 tons/ha for bambusa bambos in india (shanmughavel and francis, 1996). table 4: biomass table for culm on the basis of green weight (in kg) height (m) d15 (cm) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 4 4.90 5.23 5.56 5 5.83 6.35 6.86 7.38 7.90 8.42 8.93 9.45 9.97 10.49 6 7.71 8.46 9.20 9.95 10.69 11.44 12.18 12.93 13.67 14.42 7 10.34 11.36 12.37 13.38 14.40 15.41 16.43 17.44 18.46 19.47 8 13.84 15.16 16.49 17.81 19.14 20.46 21.79 23.11 24.44 25.76 9 18.33 20.01 21.68 23.36 25.04 26.72 28.39 30.07 31.75 33.42 a= 3.242 b= 0.021 se= 2.090 r2= 90% table 5: biomass table for foliage on the basis of green weight (in kg) height (m) d15 (cm) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 4 0.098 0.114 0.130 5 0.143 0.168 0.193 0.218 0.243 0.268 0.293 0.318 0.343 0.368 6 0.234 0.270 0.306 0.342 0.378 0.414 0.450 0.486 0.522 0.558 7 0.361 0.410 0.459 0.508 0.557 0.606 0.655 0.704 0.753 0.802 8 0.530 0.594 0.658 0.722 0.786 0.850 0.914 0.978 1.042 1.106 9 0.747 0.828 0.909 0.990 1.071 1.152 1.233 1.314 1.395 1.476 a= 0.018 b= 0.001 se= 0.165 r2= 73% applicability of the table considering the wide use of bamboos these days, these biomass tables may help provide useful information on above ground biomass to forestry professional, bamboo growers, forest user groups and other interested individuals. the biomass estimation is confined to the site condition of belbari of morang district. moreover, some management practices such as soil heaping and removal of the oldest culms were carried out in the past. hence, the above tables may not necessarily represent the bambusa nutans subspecies cupulata grown at other site conditions and management prescriptions. it is, therefore, recommended to pre-test the table before applying to other site conditions. acknowledgement we would like to thank mr. basanta sharma and mr. n. rai for assisting the field work. references das, a. n. and oli, b. n. 2001. tree growing practices on farmland: an option for sustaining rural livelihoods. banko janakari 11 (2): 8-12. fao. 1978. bamboo forest news for asia and the pacific. food and agriculture organizations, bangkok, thailand. foliage components were 90, 82 and 73 per cent respectively. the r2 values for branch and foliage were slightly lower as compared to the culm. it is argued that the prediction of leaf yield from biomass equations is less accurate and more site specific than for the components of stem, branch and total tree weight (satoo and madgwick, 1982). biomass tables for culm, branch and foliage components based on oven dried weight are presented in table 1, 2 and 3 respectively. biomass equations are normally prepared on an oven dry weight basis to facilitate comparison with other sites, species and seasons (hawkins, 1987). however, bamboo culms are sold on a fresh weight basis in both the rural and urban areas of nepal. so, biomass table for culm based on green weight was also prepared. bamboo leaves are used as fodder in some areas where there is fodder deficit. hence, biomass table for foliage was prepared on the basis of green weight. based on the green weight, the r2 values obtained for culm and foliage components were 90 and 73 per cent respectively. biomass tables based on green weight for culm and foliage are given in table 4 and 5 respectively. rao and nagarajaih (1991) reported from india that total biomass of planted bambusa arundinacea (retz.) wild of 3 years age was 8528 kg per ha. the total above ground biomass of dendrocalamus strictus in india was 4-22 tons/ha (tripathi and singh, 1994). on the other hand the figure ranges from 122-287 tons/ha for bambusa bambos in india (shanmughavel and francis, 1996). applicability of the table considering the wide use of bamboos these days, these biomass tables may help provide useful information on above ground biomass to forestry professional, bamboo growers, forest user groups and other interested individuals. the biomass estimation 37 is confined to the site condition of belbari of morang district. moreover, some management practices such as soil heaping and removal of the oldest culms were carried out in the past. hence, the above tables may not necessarily represent the bambusa nutans subspecies cupulata grown at other site conditions and management prescriptions. it is, therefore, recommended to pre-test the table before applying to other site conditions. acknowledgement we would like to thank mr. basanta sharma and mr. n. rai for assisting the field work. references das, a. n. and oli, b. n. 2001. tree growing practices on farmland: an option for sustaining rural livelihoods. banko janakari 11 (2): 8-12. fao. 1978. bamboo forest news for asia and the pacific. food and agriculture organizations, bangkok, thailand. hawkins, t. 1987. biomass and volume tables for eucalyptus camaldulensis, dalbergia sissoo, acacia auriculiformis and cassia siamea in the central bhabar-terai of nepal. o. f. i. occasional papers no. 33. oxford forestry institute, uk. hmg/n. 1997. climatological records of nepal 1991-1994. kathmandu, nepal. karki, m. b. and karki j. b. s. 1995. national bamboo and rattan information database, nepal, tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. oli, b. n. 2003. biomass estimation of bambusa nutans subspecies nutans grown at eastern terai, nepal. banko janakari 13 (1): 43-46. oli, b. n. 2005. biomass estimation of bambusa tulda grown at eastern terai, nepal. journal of bamboo and rattan 4 (1): 33-39. rai, s. n. and chauhan, k. v. s. 1998. distribution and growing stock of bamboos in india. indian forester 124 (2): 89-98. rao, n. s. and nagarajaih, c. 1991. evaluation of bambusa arundinacea (retz.) wild for growth and biomass production in dryland ecosystem. myforest 27 (1): 70-74. satoo, t. and madgwick, h. 1982. forest biomass. the hague: martinus nijhoff/dr. w. junk. 150 p. shanmughavel, p. and francis, k. 1996. biomass and nutrient cycling in bamboo (bambusa bambos) plantations of tropical areas. biology and fertility of soils 23 (4): 431-434. sharma, y. m. l. 1988. production and utilization of bamboos and related species in the south asian region in the rural sector. indian forester 114 (10): 603-609. stapleton, c. m. a. 1994. bamboo of nepal: an illustrated guide. royal botanical garden, kew, uk. scurlock, j. m., d. c. dayton and b. hames. 2000. bamboo: an overlooked biomass resource? ornl/tm-1999/264. oak ridge national laboratory, oak ridge, tennessee. 34 pp. thapa, h. b., das, a. n. and oli, b. n. 1998. growth performance and culm production of bamboo at the eastern terai, nepal. banko janakari 8 (1): 1318. tis. 2004. manual on bamboos of nepal. tree improvement and silviculture (tis). kathmandu, nepal. tripathi, s. k. and singh, k. p. 1994. productivity and nutrient cycling in recently harvested and mature bamboo savannas in the dry tropics. journal of applied ecology 31 (1): 109-124. banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2oli and kandel table 4: biomass table for culm on the basis of green weight (in kg) height (m) d15 (cm) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 4 4.90 5.23 5.56 5 5.83 6.35 6.86 7.38 7.90 8.42 8.93 9.45 9.97 10.49 6 7.71 8.46 9.20 9.95 10.69 11.44 12.18 12.93 13.67 14.42 7 10.34 11.36 12.37 13.38 14.40 15.41 16.43 17.44 18.46 19.47 8 13.84 15.16 16.49 17.81 19.14 20.46 21.79 23.11 24.44 25.76 9 18.33 20.01 21.68 23.36 25.04 26.72 28.39 30.07 31.75 33.42 a= 3.242 b= 0.021 se= 2.090 r2= 90% table 5: biomass table for foliage on the basis of green weight (in kg) height (m) d15 (cm) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 4 0.098 0.114 0.130 5 0.143 0.168 0.193 0.218 0.243 0.268 0.293 0.318 0.343 0.368 6 0.234 0.270 0.306 0.342 0.378 0.414 0.450 0.486 0.522 0.558 7 0.361 0.410 0.459 0.508 0.557 0.606 0.655 0.704 0.753 0.802 8 0.530 0.594 0.658 0.722 0.786 0.850 0.914 0.978 1.042 1.106 9 0.747 0.828 0.909 0.990 1.071 1.152 1.233 1.314 1.395 1.476 a= 0.018 b= 0.001 se= 0.165 r2= 73% applicability of the table considering the wide use of bamboos these days, these biomass tables may help provide useful information on above ground biomass to forestry professional, bamboo growers, forest user groups and other interested individuals. the biomass estimation is confined to the site condition of belbari of morang district. moreover, some management practices such as soil heaping and removal of the oldest culms were carried out in the past. hence, the above tables may not necessarily represent the bambusa nutans subspecies cupulata grown at other site conditions and management prescriptions. it is, therefore, recommended to pre-test the table before applying to other site conditions. acknowledgement we would like to thank mr. basanta sharma and mr. n. rai for assisting the field work. references das, a. n. and oli, b. n. 2001. tree growing practices on farmland: an option for sustaining rural livelihoods. banko janakari 11 (2): 8-12. fao. 1978. bamboo forest news for asia and the pacific. food and agriculture organizations, bangkok, thailand. final special issue.pmd 24 banko janakari, special issue habitat mapping and conservation threats to river dolphin in karnali river of nepal r. malla1 this study was carried out in the karnali river of nepal with the aims of preparing habitat map of dolphins in the karnali river and assessing conservation threats to dolphin at the local level. the habitat map of the dolphin was prepared on the basis of study and local sightings. altogether 100 households were surveyed around the karnali river living within 3 km from the river distance. questionnaire survey, group discussion, field observation and key-informants interviews were conducted to assess conservation threats to dolphin at the local level. statistical tools like pie chart and bar diagram were used to analyze the data. use of poison in the river, commercial and domestic consumption of fishes, and high dependency of people in the river are emerging as the threats to dolphin conservation. similarly, the increasing trend of using chemical fertilizer in the agriculture land is also adding up to long term negative impacts on dolphin population. regular habitat monitoring of the dolphins should be done in major areas to acquire timely information on status and distribution of dolphins for dolphin conservation. also, local people should be provided with alternate incentives by actively mobilizing them in dolphin conservation work key words: dolphins, habitat mapping, conservation threats, karnali river d olphins were once abundant in nepal throughout the koshi, narayani, karnali and mahakali rivers and their feeder streams (jnawali and bhuju 2000). due to construction of low gated dams across river systems for irrigation and flood control, over exploitation of prey species, illegal killing and a wide range of other human disturbances, the populations are now more or less restricted to karnali and koshi river systems (smith 1993). the only river in nepal that perhaps supports a viable population is the karnali, upstream of the girijapur barrage, but this population may become extinct in the absence of conservation action on both sides of the nepal/india border (smith 1996). dolphins are particularly threatened in the upstream reaches of the smaller tributaries, where populations are often isolated behind barrages and are more vulnerable to human activities because of the reduced habitat area and perhaps the most endangered populations are in nepal (sinha et al 2000). for nepal, smith et al (1996) summarized that in the karnali and narayani river basins aquatic species are threatened with local extinction from the effects of habitat degradation, segregation of breeding groups by down stream barrages, incidental catches during fishing operations and declines in prey fish populations. sinha et al. (2000) warn that the most threatened populations are those of nepal, with the only remnant groups in the karnali and koshi rivers. timilsina (1999) also reported that human disturbances like over fishing, harmful fishing techniques, motorized transport, rock mining, removal of woody debris, channelization etc were the problems facing the dolphin, along with these lack of conservation awareness among the people and not much emphasis by the park authorities add to the problem. materials and methods selection of the study area and respondents the study area was selected on the basis of distance i.e. up to 3 km from the river vicinity. people living within 3 km from the river distance were surveyed randomly. altogether one hundred households were selected for the study from different areas i.e. gola, manau, kothiaghat, suryapatuwa, pashupatinagar, shivapur, khairichandrapur and guptipur. reconnaissance survey preliminary survey was conducted prior to initiation of the detailed field survey to identify potential habitats of dolphins in the study area. the preliminary survey was then followed by detailed field survey. 1 asst. research officer, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu. e-mail: raj_malla@yahoo.com 25 banko janakari, special issue detailed field survey highly potential area for the dolphins was identified through participatory rural appraisal (pra) tool such as participatory resource mapping and interview with key informants. getting idea on potential habitat of dolphin, field survey was carried out in october, 2006 (post monsoon) along the geruwa river (tributary of karnali river) using raft. the raft was halted for 1525 minutes in highly potential areas. surfacing of dolphins was observed and the coordinates of the sighted points were marked by gps. these coordinates were then transferred to topo-maps of the study area and digitization was done thereafter. finally, using arc view gis 3.1 version software, the habitat map of dolphin in karnali river was prepared on the basis of both local sightings1 and study sightings2. questionnaire survey a set of semi-structured questionnaire was used as a tool to collect primary data in order to achieve the research objectives. the questionnaire contains two parts. first part includes socio-economic condition of the respondents and conservation threats prevailing in the study area. second part includes different statements to gauge the perceptions of the people on different aspects of dolphins. different categories of the respondents (i.e. by sex, distance and caste) were used for the conservation threats analysis and perception of people more accurately. the perception of different levels of respondents was measured in a strongly disagree to strongly agree (1-5) likert scale. the questionnaire was prepared in english first and then translated into nepali before the respondents were asked in the study area. key informants interview informal interview was made with different key respondents like village development committee chairman, bardia national park office staffs, nongovernmental staffs in order to get information on potential habitat of dolphins and its conservation threats at the local level. group discussion informal group discussion was conducted in the study area to acquire a rapid view of local people. female participants and disadvantaged groups were encouraged to take part in the discussion and to offer their opinion on related matter. direct observation direct observation was also done in the study area in order to understand people pressure on the river for their daily needs. people involved in activities like fishing, collecting and transporting forest products, washing and bathing were observed in the study area. this method helped to verify data offer by the respondents during questionnaire survey and informal discussion. secondary data collection secondary data were collected from official records of bardia national park office, bardia conservation project (bcp) office, participatory conservation program (pcp) office, wwf-nepal and other related publications. data analysis analysis of the final habitat map of the dolphin in karnali river was done using arc-view gis 3.1 software. all socio-economic data were categorised first in three categories, i.e. sex, caste and distance. within sex; male and female; within caste; ethnic and non-ethnic; and within distance; near3 and far4 sub-categories were made. based on these categories, conservation threats to dolphin conservation at the local level were analysed using descriptive statistical tools like percentage, bar diagram and pie chart. results and discussion habitat of dolphins the dolphins were observed in the 20 km stretch of karnali river from golaghat to kothiaghat during study period (i.e. post monsoon). they were sighted very often at golaghat, bindrabahi, saijanaghat and kothiaghat. the channel width and depth of sighted spots ranged from 100-150 m and 5-15 m respectively. these spots are regarded as primary habitats of dolphins during winter season. but, according to the people, they were also sighted at lalmatighat, sonahaphant, manaughat and orai dovan. shrestha (1989) observed dolphins within a range of 46 km during his survey in 1982 and 1983. shrestha 1 dolphin sighted by local people in the study area 2 dolphin sighted during study period in the study area by the researcher 3 within 1 km distance from the river 4 1 to <3km distance from the river malla 26 banko janakari, special issue (1995) during his survey in 1986 sighted dolphins in the same range. smith (1993) during his survey of 1990 observed within a range of 18 km from kothiaghat as compared to previous distribution range of 46 km. similarly, smith (1994) during his survey of 1993 observed dolphins within a range of 20 km from kothiaghat to golaghat. shrestha (1995) sighted these animals with a comparatively increased range of 36 km from kothiaghat during his surveys in 1994 and 1995. timilsina (1999) sighted dolphins in the range of 17 km and identified primary habitats of dolphins where the convergent streams create an eddy counter current system whereas marginal habitat had low or no eddy counter current. socio-economic condition of the people population by caste all castes have been categorized into two main categories for the study. one is ethnic (it includes chaudhary, thapa, gurung etc) and other is nonethnic (it includes brahman, chettri, thakuri). majority of respondents were from ethnic group. mainly, people from “tharus” caste are the dominant majority, with 38 percent and are indigenous to the area family size the average family size was found to be 8.7 numbers per household in the study area with minimum of 3, maximum of 21 and standard deviation of 3.41. average family size in the study area was larger than average family size of the country i.e.5.4 (cbs, 2003). education level the education level of the respondents was categorized into four groups i.e. illiterate, primary level, lower secondary and secondary level and higher secondary level. of the total, majority of the respondents (55%) were from ‘lower secondary and secondary level’ in the study area, followed by both illiterate and primary level and lastly by higher secondary level with 16% and 11%, respectively. occupation the occupation of the people was mainly divided into two categories i.e. agriculture and nonagriculture high majority of people (95%) were involved in agriculture for their livelihood. remaining five percent people were running their livelihood in other ways. dependency on agriculture is very high in the study area. involvement of people in fishing activities of the total households, 52 percent were involved in fishing activities and the rests were not involved. majority of the people depend on fishing for their livelihood. indigenous tharu and sonaha communities have majority in the area and are involved in intensive fishing due to their fishing skills and lifestyle. fishing is one of the major sources of income for these communities. thus, fishing is an indispensable part of their lifestyle. people involved in fishing activities by “distance” more than 58% of the total people living close (within 1 km from the river) to the river were involved in fishing activities. only 41% people were not involved. unlikely, only 35.71% of the total people living far (beyond 1 km from the river) were involved in fishing activities. the remaining 64.29% were not involved. it shows that majority of people living close to the river are dependent on fishing for their daily needs and it is just opposite in case of people living far. malla 27 banko janakari, special issue as a result, intensity of people involved in fishing activities is higher in the area within 1 km. from the river than that beyond 1 km. it means that as home distance from the river increases, intensity of people involved in fishing activities decreases and vice versa. people involved in fishing activities by “sex” of the total respondents, 51.56 and 52.77 percent people from male and female, respectively, were involved in fishing activities for their daily needs. slightly over half of the male and female populations are involved in fishing activities. the involvement of the male respondents and the female respondents in fishing is almost equal. it shows that the male and female are equally involved in fishing activities to run their livelihood. people involved in fishing activities by “caste” of the total respondents, 73.68 and 25.58 percent people from ethnic and non-ethnic categories respectively were involved in fishing activities for their daily needs. it shows that majority of people belonging to ethnic group are dependent on fishing for their daily needs and it is just opposite in case of non-ethnic. since, majority of people in the area belonging to tharu and sonaha communities (ethnic caste), these communities are heavily engaged in fishing activities because of their fishing skills, lifestyle and poor socioeconomic condition since earlier times. other communities arrived after successful eradication of malaria in 1950’s. they have now settled and deforested virtually all land above the flood plain, except for the area incorporated within the national park (smith, 1993). people involved in fishing by sex, caste and distance analyzing all categories of people involved in fishing activities, it was found that a high majority of the people engaged in fishing are from the male and female representing ethnic caste and living within 1 km from the river (i.e. mew and few). whereas, none of the people engaged in fishing are from the female representing non-ethnic caste and living outside 1 km from the river (i.e. fnm). where, few = female, ethnic caste, living within 1 km, mnw = male, non-ethnic, living within 1 km, mew = male, ethnic, living within 1 km, fnw = female, non-ethnic, living within 1 km, mnm = male, nonethnic, living within 1 km, fem = female, ethnic, living outside 1 km to < 3 km, mem = male, ethnic, living outside 1 km to < 3 km and fnm = female, non-ethnic caste, living outside 1 km to < 3 km purpose of going to the river people used to go to the river for different purposes such as fishing, washing and bathing, livestock wallowing and firewood transportation. the majority of the people in the study area go to the river for fishing, bathing, washing and their livestock wallowing. more than thirteen percent people go to river for transportation of firewood, which they collect from the national park area. these anthropogenic factors affect aquatic lives in long run by degrading their habitat quality. purpose of fishing people do fishing for different purposes such as domestic use and commercial use. it is categorized into 3 categories i.e. domestic use, commercial use and both domestic use and commercial use. of the total, 65.3 percent people do fishing only for domestic use followed by domestic use and commercial use (26.9%) and only commercial use (7.69%). it shows that most of the people in the area are involved in fishing at the subsistence level. domestic consumption of fishes is high in the area because of lack of alternate opportunities. killing of fishes for both domestic and commercial use is becoming a major threat of dolphin conservation as it highly contributes to the depletion of prey availability for dolphin. methods of fishing the local people around the karnali river use different methods of fishing. they use poison and other means like cast nets, gill nets and hook line for fishing. of the total households involved in fishing activities, 32.6 percent use poison and 67.4 percent use other means. the use of poison degrades water quality and kills large number of fishes and other aquatic faunal species as well. as a result, it causes depletion of prey availability and degradation of habitat quality of dolphins. besides the use of poison, gillnets also causes havoc to the dolphin population because malla 28 banko janakari, special issue dolphins fail to echolocate the nets and while trying to catch fishes, they were trapped in such nets, usually the young ones get entangled and drown. it is highly destructive as it accidentally entangles all size of fish fauna and thus poses a dire threat to breeding fish populations. cambodian mekong dolphin conservation project in 2004 reported 14 mortalities of irrawaddy river dolphin as a result of gillnet entanglement (wwf proceedings, may 2006). joshi (2004) also reported the use of hook line became cause of entanglement and death of a calf dolphin in mohana river. income from sale of fish the local people in the study area earn money through sale of fish to run their livelihood. they often sell fish nearby the market like thakurdwara, chisapani, kothiaghat etc. their earnings have been put into 3 categories for the study i.e. less then rs.2000/month, rs 2000 to <6000/month and rs.6000 to <9000/month. majority of people earns rs.2000 to<6000/month. selling of fish is one of the major sources of income for the local people. at the same time, it is one of the major threats of dolphin conservation because of depleting prey availability for dolphins. time spent in river dependent activities the local people spend few to several hours in the river for their daily activities. altogether, 4 categories have been made for the study i.e. occasionally, <5 hr/day, 5 to <10 hr/day and >10 hr/day. the majority of the people spend less than 5 hrs per day for their daily activities. involvement of the people in the river dependent activities like fishing, bathing, washing, taking livestock wallowing, firewood transportation and motorized boat directly affect the freshwater faunal species. human disturbances are becoming a cause of depletion of dolphin population in the river. dolphins had not been seen in former habitat areas above chisapani since the introduction of motorized boat in 1986 (shrestha 1995). and, review of secondary sources also shows a steep decline in population of dolphins after the introduction of motorized ferry at kothiaghat. use of fertilizer in agriculture land the majority of the people (57%) living around the river are using chemical fertilizer in their farmland. many people have also done agriculture practice in land adjacent to riverbank. the trend of using chemical fertilizers is rising to increase agricultural productivity. so leaching of chemicals to the river through agriculture run off probably exists. the close proximity of surviving pockets of dolphins to the agriculture land makes dolphins vulnerable to poisoning by toxic chemicals from these sources. these agrochemicals also harm dolphins both directly and indirectly through the food chain (behera, 2005). conclusions after the monsoon, the water level of karnali river drops low. as a result, dolphins are mostly confined to the area where channel width and depth are high. golaghat, saijanaghat, bindrabahi and kothiaghat are the major spots of dolphin during winter period along geruwa river. lalmatighat, manaughat, orai dovan, sonahaphant are also the potential habitat for dolphins based on local sightings. anthropogenic activities like fishing, washing, transporting forest products and livestock wallowing are the major river dependent activities being done by the people. the people used to spend lots of time in river dependent activities for their livelihood. they are becoming major threats to dolphin conservation as such activities create gradual disturbances on aquatic ecosystem. similarly, the trend of using chemical fertilizers around the river area is increasing and this will in turn pose great threat to dolphin conservation in long run. especially, the people living near (within 1 km) to the river are the major stakeholders since they are creating heavy pressures on the river for their daily activities. within them, particularly, the male stakeholders belonging to ethnic caste are heavily engaged in fishing activities. the low economic condition, big family size and lack of alternate opportunities are the major causes of intensive fishing for both domestic and commercial purposes. the people are not very careful to choose harmless methods of fishing. they use whichever fishing tools are handy. the use of poison and gillnets are becoming major threats of dolphin conservation as these deplete prey availability of dolphin to a great extent and cause mortality of dolphins by degrading habitat quality and by accidental entanglement. malla 29 banko janakari, special issue recommendations • frequent habitat monitoring of dolphins in the major spots should be done. • the habitat map of dolphins in the different seasons should be prepared. • giving them alternate opportunities i.e. making fishing pond, providing skill and employment should gradually reduce the dependency of the people on the river. • the trend of using much chemical fertilizer on the agriculture land (which is close to the river) should be discouraged and encourage people applying organic manure. • the people belonging to the ethnic caste and living within 1 km. distance from the river should be recognized as prime stakeholders during implementation of dolphin conservation activities. • the awareness raising programs regarding dolphin conservation should be implemented in the area, close to the river, focusing on the people from the ethnic caste. • ngos and ingos should work with the local people harmoniously in the dolphin conservation work. future research • intensity of chemical fertilizers being used in the area and its impact on water quality should be studied. • intensive fishing causes depletion of prey availability to dolphins. to reduce this pressure on dolphins, the breeding season of prey of dolphins should be identified in order to prescribe right season for fishing. • studies on dolphins, so far have been limited to status, distribution and conservations threats, further the study should focus on its ecological behavior and habitat suitability. • dolphin conservation and its impact on rural livelihood should also be a topic of study in future. acknowledgements i would like to acknowledge my advisor mr. shree prasad dhaubhadel for his continuous guidance during entire study. similarly, i am very thankful to mr. naresh subedi, mr. omkar joshi and mr. chiranjivi pokharel for their generous support during field study. references behera, s. k. 2005. conservation of ganges river dolphin in upper ganga river, project report, wwf india. cbs. 2003. statistical pocket book, central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. jnawali, s.r. and bhuju, u.r. 2000. the ganges river dolphin: current status and conservation threats. a paper presented in wwf regional workshop on the south asian river dolphins, 4-7 november, taunsa, pakistan. joshi, d. 2004. status, distribution and management of river dolphin (platanista gangetica) in lowland karnali. m.sc. thesis, pokhara university, nepal. shrestha, t.k. 1989. biology, status and conservation of the ganges river dolphin in nepal. pp70-76 in w.f. perrin (ed), r.l. brownell, jr. zhou kaiya and liu jiankang . occasional papers of iucn/ssc, no.3. shrestha, t.k. 1995. the ganges river dolphin. variety printers, kathmandu. shrestha, t.k. 1995. fish catching in the himalayan waters of nepal. kathmandu, nepal. 247 pp. sinha, r.k. 2000. status and distribution of ganges susu in the ganges river system of india and nepal. pp 54-60, in r.r.(ed) reeves, b.d. smith and t. kasuya. biology and conservation of fresh water cetacean in asia, iucn species survival commission occasional papers no. 23 smith, b. 1993. 1990. status and conservation of the ganges river dolphin (platanista gangetica) in karnali river, nepal. biological conservation. 66:159-170 smith, b. d., sinha, r.k., regmi u. and sapkota k. 1994. status of ganges river dolphin in carnal, mahakali, narayani and saptakosi rivers of nepal and india in 1993. marine mammal science. 10:368375. smith, b., bhandari, b. and sapkota, k. 1996. aquatic biodiversity in the carnal and narayani river basins. iucn. 62pp timilsina, n. 1999. present status and conservation of gangetic dolphin in the carnal river, western lowland of nepal. m.sc. thesis. tribhuwan university. katmandu. 45pp wwf. 2006. conservation and management of river dolphins in asia. proceedings of the regional meeting, kathmandu, nepal. 27pp malla cover 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 1 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal celebrating international year of forests 2011 approximately, one-third of the total land surface of the earth is covered with forests offering a wide range of ecosystem services including those of provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural. forests provide a multitude of economic, environmental and social services, all of which are invaluable for supporting human development. forests directly support the livelihood of almost three billion people in the world who are directly dependent on agriculture. they have been one of the major sources of revenue in many countries, both developed and developing. they contribute significantly to biodiversity conservation as half of the terrestrial species are found in forests. in recent years, forest as an effective means of climate change mitigation has been accepted by the world community. in view of these contributions of forests to the world population, the general assembly of the united nations (un) recognized in its resolution adopted in 2006 that forests can contribute significantly to sustainable development, poverty eradication and the achievement of internationally agreed development goals, including the millennium development goals. emphasizing the need for sustainable management of all forests, including the fragile forest ecosystems, the un declared 2011 as the ‘international year of forests’ with the aim of raising awareness at all levels to strengthen sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests for the benefit of present and future generations. the un has called upon governments, relevant non-government organizations and major groups to mark the year 2011 through voluntary contributions and linking their activities to the year. thus, various government and non-government organizations throughout the world are celebrating 2011 under the theme ‘celebrating forests for people’. un secretary-general ban ki-moon said during the ninth session of the united nations forum on forests (unff) “by declaring 2011 as the international year of forests, the un general assembly has created an important platform to educate the global community about the great value of forests – and the extreme social, economic and environmental costs of losing them”. nepal has diverse physiographic zones, climatic contrasts, and altitudinal variations which have created a rich and diverse forest resource base. forests are of immense importance in nepal considering their crucial role in maintaining ecological stability, socio-economic well-being, and biodiversity conservation. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 2 in the context of nepal, forestry is well integrated with the farming systems, and provides many inputs. people depend on forest to meet their requirements of food, firewood, fodder, timber and green manure. about 80% of the total population depends on forests for fuelwood. similarly, forest products contribute about 42% of the total digestible nutrients of cattle in nepal. apart from their contributions to agriculture, forests are also indelibly linked to two other important sectors of the nepalese economy viz. water resources and tourism. the government of nepal has enacted several policies and legislations for the protection of environment and conservation of forests. over 23% of the country’s land area is conserved under protected area system, and forest conservation through participatory forest management regimes like community forestry and leasehold forestry is promising. the forest resource assessment nepal (fra-nepal) project, implemented by the department of forest research and survey (dfrs), through the support of the government of finland, is working on the comprehensive assessment of the country’s forest resources. furthermore, the government of nepal is joining hands with local, national and international organizations for the conservation of valuable forest resource of nepal. recognizing that the forests provide multiple economic, social and environmental benefits and there is no substitute for the goods and services provided by forests, increased efforts should be made, from all sides at all levels, for sustainable forest management which contributes significantly to sustainable development and poverty reduction. this calls for scientific forest management, private forestry development, protection of forests against fire and encroachment, and promotion of greenery on degraded/unused public lands. the government of nepal aims to maintain the country’s forest cover at 40% which is also reflected in the 2010 draft concept paper of the committee on natural resources, financial rights and revenue sharing of the constituent assembly of nepal. the debates and consensus on forest resource governance models in the federal system is another topical and crucial issue. an obvious task is that there is no alternative than to conserve forest for prosperous nepal and wellbeing of the nepalese people. in 2011, we all should join hands for educating people on the need and importance of sustainable management of forest ecosystem and conservation of all types of forests in nepal. final special issue.pmd 40 banko janakari, special issue conservation and sustainable use of wetlands in nepal (csuwn nep/05/g01) nepal hosts great wetlands diversity covering a total of 7, 43,756 ha, which represents 5 % of the total landmass of the country. it has nine ramsar sites of international importance representing himalayas, mid hills & terai. nepal’s wetlands support a wide spectrum of nationally and globally important bio-diversity and harbor 42 globally threatened species. despite its significant biological as well as social & cultural values, wetlands of nepal are not getting sufficient concern and attention for its management and conservation, which has resulted into continuous loss and threats to wetlands biodiversity. the major threats to wetlands are: destruction & degradation of wetlands habitats, loss of wetlands ecosystem integrity & depletion of species abundance & diversity. therefore, in order to address these gaps & issues, government of nepal has launched conservation and sustainable use of wetlands in nepal (csuwn) since 2008. csuwn is a joint undertaking of the ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), global environmental facility (gef) and the united nations development programme (undp). the project is executed by mfsc. iucn nepal provides technical assistance to the project. csuwn aims to build the capacity, legal and policy frameworks (both related to conservation and development) for an ecosystem management for wetlands conservation and sustainable use. partnerships and capacity will be developed at both national and local levels to effect long term changes to the perception, value and sustainable management of wetlands in nepal and to ensure sustainability and replication of activities even after the cessation of the project. project goal the project goal is to ensure the maintenance and enhancement of wetlands biodiversity and environmental goods and services for improved local livelihoods in nepal. objective the objective of the project is to strengthen national and local capacity on ecosystem management and sustainable use of wetlands biodiversity in nepal. expected outcomes the project aims at producing three major outcomes: 1) the integration of wetlands biodiversity conservation values into national policy and planning frameworks, 2) strengthened national, institutional, technical, economic capacity and awareness for wetlands biodiversity conservation and sustainable use, 3) enhanced collaborative management of wetlands resources for conservation and sustainable livelihoods strategy and approach the project attempts to address the root causes of wetlands degradation and loss by: 1. strengthening national policy, capacity and awareness on wetlands 2. linking national actions at two demonstration sites 3. employing existing inter-sectoral and multistakeholder structures and mechanisms wherever possible. 4. planning activities to influence wetlands policy and practice the project will support to develop mechanism and procedures for mainstreaming wetlands issues in policy and planning at both national and local levels. a national wetlands committee (nwc) is being envisioned to address the cross sectoral needs of wetlands conservation and sustainable use. the project will also employ existing inter-sectoral & multi-stakeholder committees and networks where possible to promote integrated development. the project has also explicitly built in activities to test the relevance of its approaches and tools in other wetlands particularly in mid hills and high mountains. best practices and lessons learnt will be captured and up-scaled for the benefit of local communities as well as for global environmental benefits. the project will foster a strong learning-by-doing and adaptive management culture to be relevant and to capture the ground realities. the project will support community based user groups with targeted 41 banko janakari, special issue interventions to strengthen livelihood activities. equal attention will be paid to conservation & development issues by involving women, poor, indigenous/ marginalized & wetlands dependent communities (wdcs). promotion of traditional knowledge and practices will be an important aspect of its strategy. as far as possible, the project will use and strengthen existing structures & mechanism to forge synergistic and collaborative management for sustainable wetlands conservation. following approaches will be adopted while implementing the programs: using existing structures & mechanism focus on wetlands conservation forging partnership with ddcs, vdcs, bz institutions, cfugs, cbos, other institutions, undp supported projects [medep, drrp] & civil societies wetland dependent communities fostering a strong learning and doing culture adaptive management sharing of experiences management arrangement the project is being implemented under the national execution guidelines (nex). mfsc is the executing agency. the project management unit (pmu) under the leadership of national project director (npd) is responsible for the overall management of the project. the joint secretary of the mfsc is the designated npd. the npd is supported by a team of professional staff including national project manager (npm), wetland biodiversity specialist, indigenous communities & gender specialist and admin & finance associate. similarly, for field operation, a field management team comprising of field manager, social mobilizers and administration and finance assistant will be responsible to implement field activities. at the central level, the project outcome board (pob) chaired by the secretary, mfsc with representatives from various organizations (see organization chart) is responsible for policy and strategic guidance as well as for inter-sectoral coordination. the npd acts as the member secretary of the pob. in order to make necessary executive decision required for the implementation of the activities, a project executive board (peb) is formed under the chairpersonship of npd, with representatives from dnpwc, dof, undp and iucn. the npm serves as the member secretary. at the field level, a field advisory committee (fac) provides policy guidance and coordinates among all relevant stakeholders. the fac is chaired by the chairperson of district forest coordination committee (dfcc) in ghodaghodi tal and by the chairperson of buffer zone management committee (bzmc) in koshi tappu. other members come from the district forest office (dfo), district development committee (ddc), village development committee (vdc), regional directorate of forests, field manager and other projects working in the area. the dfo and warden act as the member secretary respectively in the ghodaghodi tal and koshi tappu areas. a field management committee (fmc) will be responsible for the implementation of activities at the demonstration sites as per the guidance of pmu. the fmc will be chaired by the dfo and the warden respectively in ghodaghodi tal and koshi tappu. members include the field manager and a representative from cfugs in ghodaghodi tal and the bzmc in koshi tappu. partners the project is working with different partners at different level. the main central level partners are department of forests (dof) & department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc). project management arrangement fmc npd npm, wbs, icgs, afa, driver chairperson: secretary mfsc members: representative, mof representative, moest representative, mowr representative, moac representative, mold representative, dof representative, dnpwc representative, addc-n drr (pro) undp representative, iucn representative, ntnc representative, ngos and cbos member secretary: npd,jointsecretary mfsc peb pmu pob responsible for overall management of the project ktwr-warden (chair), rep, bzmc & field manager glc-dfo (chair), field manager & cfugs (rep.) responsible for field activities implementation for strategic & policy guidance peb composition: chair, npd,mfsc undp dnpwc, dofand iucn key body for executing & monitoring fac 42 banko janakari, special issue similarly, project will work in collaboration with site level partners viz. koshi tappu wildlife reserve (ktwr), district forests office and its lower units, district development committees, village development committees, line agencies, i/n/gos, buffer zone institutions, community forest institutions, local community, civil societies & other conservation partners e.g. western terai landscape complex project (wtlcp), terai arc landscape (tal), bird conservation nepal (bcn) etc. demonstration sites two ramsar sites representing two different ecological systems and geographical locations: koshi tappu wildlife reserve and its buffer zone in the eastern part of nepal and the ghodaghodi lake complex in the western part have been chosen as project demonstration sites. ghodaghodi lake complex ghodaghodi is the largest natural lowland lake of nepal. the complex covers an area of 2563 hectares including 13 associated lakes & ponds. it has globally significant biodiversity value as it supports 11 globally threatened faunal species, 1 % of asian cotton pygmy-goose, endangered species of orchid, threatened species of lotus and rare wild rice. ghodaghodi lake complex (glc) also forms an important wildlife corridor between the terai and siwalik hills. glc area is spread over 3 vdcs of kailali district and covers around a total population of 44,000 from over 6,000 households with majority of them from tharu communities. the main threats for glc include encroachment, siltation, succession and reduced inflow of water and its diversion for different purpose. koshi tappu wildlife reserve (ktwr) koshi tappu wildlife reserve (ktwr) is the first ramsar site of nepal. it is a freshwater wetland site along the flood plain of koshi river, characterized by grassy marshes, oxbow lakes, swamp lakes and depressions which retain water throughout the year. it covers an area of 348 km2 including buffer zone. it is the largest heronry in nepal and provides habitat for 467 species of birds, 114 species of waterfowls and thousands of migratory birds. the reserve is the only remaining habitat of asian wild water buffalo in nepal. gangetic dolphin, elongated tortoise and many other aquatic species are also found in the area. ktwr covers 16 vdcs of three districts (sunsari, saptari & udaypur) with beneficiaries of about 106,000 from over 18,000 households. about 31% of the populations comprise wetlands dependent communities such as mallah, dusad, kewat, bantar, satar and jhangar. the major challenges and threats for ktwr include high number of feral cattle, ever changing river course, overharvesting of resources & poaching. for further information & correspondence please write to: conservation and sustainable use of wetlands in nepal (csuwn) training section building, second floor, forestry complex, babar mahal, kathmandu phone: 977-01-4226230/4229669 fax: 977-01-4229670 email: info@wetlands.org.np url: www.wetlands.org.np final added vol 15-2.pmd 63 the tenth five year plan (2002-2007) of nepal is focused on poverty reduction. bamboos are increasingly identified as one of the important renewable natural products that can help reduce poverty if grown and managed on sustainable basis (das, 2002; poudyal and das, 2002). bamboo has intimately been associated with human being since ancient time in nepal. very few species can match bamboo in terms of uses as virtually anything can be made of bamboos. bamboos are an important component of rural farming system, as they play critical role in rural economy and help sustain livelihoods of many rural households (das, 1992, 1999 a and b). bamboo handicrafts, furniture, woven products and shoots as vegetables are readily bought and sold and is a source of income for many rural households, that includes socially and economically disadvantaged groups (das, 1999a and 2002). bamboos are mostly grown on private farmlands and also occur in natural forests (das, 2002). they are also now increasingly introduced in community forests. fifty species of bamboos are already recorded in nepal (das, 2004). several studies have been conducted on the effect of taboos, beliefs and superstitions on tree planting and their positive and negative impacts on the conservation of forests both in asia and africa (wood, 1966; wilson, 1989; kwesiga and chisumpa, 1990; raintree, 1991; shepherd, 1992; ratikette et al., 1992). in many countries, certain species of tree or simply certain individuals with a special shape have distinctive religious or spiritual connotations. this can often influence people’s tree cultivation activities (foley and bernard, 1984; fao, 1985; chambers et al., 1989). the literature review suggests that there are many taboos, superstitions and beliefs associated with woody perennials in many parts of the world, including nepal. such taboos, beliefs and superstitions have both positive and negative impacts on the conservation of natural resources. bamboos are associated with ancient civilisation in south and south-east asia and are not so frequently associated with evil (superstitions, magic) and sadness as it is with youth, flexibility and love (piper, 1992). in bangladesh, when a villager is buried a small piece of bamboo is hung above the grave in order to scare away evil spirits (arens and beurden, 1978). gurung (1989) reported an unwillingness to plant bamboo amongst some villagers in the kakanikathmandu area, where it was associated with childlessness. according to carter (1991) the cultivation of bans was surrounded with considerable superstition in the midhills of central nepal. she was told that when planting bans it was essential to avoid its shadow falling on your body. if this happened, it was effectively an invitation to the god of death (yamraj). harvesting of bamboo was also restricted to certain days of the week (not tuesdays or thursdays) and times of the lunar month. according to her, this may be the main factor, which limited the amount of bamboo grown even though beliefs, superstitions and taboos associated with bamboos in nepal and its implications a.n. das1 and c.p. mitchell2 bamboos are one of the important natural resources of nepal. bamboos have multiple uses and are increasingly used as a replacement of timber for construction purposes. besides that, its use for craftmaking (woven and unwoven) and furniture has also significantly increased in recent years. for many rural households, which includes socially and economically disadvantaged groups; sale of bamboo and its products is an important source of income and sustaining livelihoods. the promotion of bamboo growing in nepal can help generate income and can be one of the means for reducing poverty in nepal. however, there are considerable beliefs, superstition, and taboos associated with bamboos in nepal, many of which have influenced decision making of households towards bamboo growing in nepal. the findings of the detailed study on taboos, beliefs and superstitions conducted in the terai and midhills and its implications on bamboo growing are discussed in this paper. 1research officer; department of forest research and survey; email: dasannapurna@enet.com.np 2professor; university of aberdeen (uk); email: c.p.mitchell@abdn.ac.uk 64 it seems so important to the rural people. the other major charges against bamboo are: it impoverishes the soil in which it grows and nothing grows under bamboos (carter, 1991), a similar finding like in kerala, india (boa, 1995; blowfield, 1995). this paper analyses the result of the detailed study conducted in eastern nepal on existing taboos, beliefs and superstitions associated with bamboos. this study is the first comprehensive attempt to investigate the taboos, superstitions and beliefs associated with bamboos, its extent (level of belief) and their possible effect on development of bamboo resources in nepal. research methods a multi-faceted research approach was adopted, combining techniques used in the social sciences such as rra/pra and those more familiar to biological scientists such as ranking, diagramming, and formal surveys. the use of different methods such as surveys with semi-structured interview, focus group meetings, key informant interviews and personal diaries of some served as a crosscheck (triangulation) on the reliability of information obtained from one method against another to collect the qualitative and quantitative information. the study was conducted in 13 village development committees (vdcs) of the terai and midhills (6 tharu villages (morang district) in the terai, 6 midhills villages (dhankuta district) and kerabari, a village near forests mostly settled by hill migrants(morang district )). a complete census was carried out in one ward randomly selected out of 9 wards in each of vdcs selected. households were categorised into growers and nongrowers, and wealth ranking was carried out on the basis of key informant interview with selected male and female residents. households were randomly selected on proportional basis from each category. altogether, 199 households in the terai, 208 in the midhills and 41 in kerabari were interviewed with semi-structured and open-ended questions. this information was crosschecked through 58 male and 61 female focus group meetings, and key informant interviews with local political leaders, social workers and teachers. results and discussions it was found in the present study that there are a considerable number of taboos, superstitions and beliefs regarding bamboo planting and harvesting in nepal. no other tree species has such a high level of beliefs as those associated with bamboos. the belief in superstitions and taboos associated with bamboos is higher among the households in the terai than in the midhills and kerabari. most of these taboos and superstitions do not have any rational explanation and only a few are positive toward the conservation of bamboos. the findings of the study are presented in table 1 and the issues are discussed below. table 1 beliefs, superstitions and taboos associated with bamboos in the terai, the midhills and kerabari terai midhills kerabari item hh. no. % hh. hh. no. % hh. hh. no. % hh • believe in taboos and superstitions 139 69.85 79 37.96 16 39.02 • types of beliefs, taboos and superstitions 1. reduces the productivity of the land 182 91.46 172 82.69 39 95.12 2. women must not plant. 171 85.93 138 66.35 17 41.46 3. only to be planted by the oldest male member of the households 108 54.27 104 50.00 12 29.27 4. make infertile, adult male must not plant. 106 53.27 106 50.96 13 31.71 5. invites snakes, and wild elephants (kerabari only). 116 58.29 0 0 19 46.34 6. cause of quarrel with neighbours. 66 33.17 7 3.37 23 56.10 7. ghosts and spirits live in clumps. 65 32.66 3 1.44 3 7.32 8. makes place dirty (litter). 38 19.10 0 0 6 14.63 9. thieves and robbers hide in clumps. 29 14.57 2 0.96 0 0.00 10. should not be planted in front of house. 23 11.56 10 4.81 1 2.44 11. those who plant will die early. 10 5.03 5 2.40 6 14.63 12. bamboo dies if planter’s shadow falls on bamboos. 2 1.01 64 30.77 9 21.95 13. planter will die if its shadow will fall on him. 2 1.01 79 37.98 13 31.71 14. not to be successfully propagated by women. 8 4.02 0 0.00 1 2.44 15. not to be planted in the broad daylight. 0 0.00 22 10.58 1 2.44 16. people steal bamboos have no future generation. 5 2.51 0 0 0 0.00 17. bamboo will not propagate if woman plants. 0 0 4 1.92 0 0 18. if bamboo does not grow well that means future generation will also have bleak future. 0 0 3 1.44 0 0 19. plants die after flowering and are inauspicious. 0 0 2 0.96 0 0 20. to be planted using male labourers only. 0 0 2 0.96 0 0 21. new bamboo shoots (esp.mal bans) must not to be broken by women and mature men. 0 0.00 1 0.48 2 4.88 22. not good if new shoot is produced in planting year. 0 0 1 0.48 0 0 23. ainjeru in bamboo indicates to be in loan. 0 0 1 0.48 0 0 24. one should not climb on roof carrying bamboos. 0 0 1 0.48 0 0 25. only good (pious) people are able to plant. 0 0 1 0.48 0 0 26. will not grow if young /kids plant it. 1 0.50 0 0 0 0.00 27. to be planted in march/april only. 0 0 1 0.48 0 0 28. if planted bamboos expands well then future generation of planter dies and vice versa. 0 0 1 0.48 0 0 key: hh =household the most commonly held belief in the terai was that women must not carry out bamboo planting. bamboo and banana are ekpurukhiya, which means in maithili or local tharu dialect “men without future generation”. both banana and bamboo grows from the dormant buds at the root or rhizome, i.e. no seed sown and therefore should not be planted by women. if women plant them, they will become infertile and the bamboo will not grow. some households mentioned that women must not plant bamboos because it is a customary practice that bamboo planting should not be done by women. during the study, through female focus group meetings, it was found that belief in this is very high among the women. women also mentioned that, in general, tree planting is the job of men however they can plant other trees (mostly fruit trees) if they wish to but they will not carry out bamboo planting. some of the households mentioned that women can carry out bamboo planting if they already have children, were old and have no middle aged or old males in the house. the other most commonly heard and held belief was that bamboo clumps invite vermin like poisonous and dangerous snakes, rodents and unwanted insects and therefore should not be planted very close to the home. households that believe this will not plant bamboos next to the home because of such a fear. over half the households mentioned that they have heard from their parents and forefathers that bamboo planting must be carried out only by the oldest male members, usually the household heads. many households mentioned banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 das and mitchell 65 the terai overwhelming majority of households (61.9%) in the terai believes in tabors and superstitions associated with bamboos. the most common belief associated with bamboos was that it reduces the productivity of the land where it grows. the households further elaborated that nothing grows under bamboos, an indication of reduced productivity of the land. they also mentioned that crop productivity declines considerably in the land adjoining bamboo clumps where its shade reaches. there is some rationality behind such beliefs but as the literature review suggests it is not totally true. singh et al. (1992) studied the effect of bamboo shade on the yield of some agricultural crops in the midhills of sikkim, india. the agricultural crops were grown on the terraces in the eastern side of the bamboo grove. the terrace was 2.5-3.0m wide and 18-20m long. details were given of light intensity and soil properties and yields of 10 crops at distances from 1 to 17 m from the bamboos. the results indicate that agricultural land near bamboos can be effectively utilised for growing ginger, turmeric, large cardamom, orchard grass and dinanath grass up to a distance of 11-15 m from the bamboo row. rice, fingermillet, soybeans, nandi setaria and fine stylo were suitable crops beyond this distance. available p increased whereas exchangeable k, ca and mg decreased with increasing distance from the bamboos, soil ph and soil organic matter did not vary with distance. bamboos are still planted but it is likely that they would be planted on a much larger scale if such beliefs were as not as strong. as there is some rationality behind this belief, this is not considered further. the most commonly held belief in the terai was that women must not carry out bamboo planting. bamboo and banana are ekpurukhiya, which means in maithili or local tharu dialect “men without future generation”. both banana and bamboo grows from the dormant buds at the root or rhizome, i.e. no seed sown and therefore should not be planted by women. if women plant them, they will become infertile and the bamboo will not grow. some households mentioned that women must not plant bamboos because it is a customary practice that bamboo planting should not be done by women. during the study, through female focus group meetings, it was found that belief in this is very high among the women. women also mentioned that, in general, tree planting is the job of men however they can plant other trees (mostly fruit trees) if they wish to but they will not carry out bamboo planting. some of the households mentioned that women can carry out bamboo planting if they already have children, were old or have no middle aged or old males in the house. the other most commonly heard and held belief was that bamboo clumps invite vermin like poisonous and dangerous snakes, rodents and unwanted insects and therefore should not be planted very close to the home. households that believe this will not plant bamboos next to the home because of such a fear. over half the households mentioned that they have heard from their parents and forefathers that bamboo planting must be carried out only by the oldest male members, usually the household heads. many households mentioned that bamboo planting is inauspicious and those who plant may suddenly die of unknown reasons and therefore should be carried table 1 beliefs, superstitions and taboos associated with bamboos in the terai, the midhills and kerabari terai midhills kerabari item hh. no. % hh. hh. no. % hh. hh. no. % hh • believe in taboos and superstitions 139 69.85 79 37.96 16 39.02 • types of beliefs, taboos and superstitions 1. reduces the productivity of the land 182 91.46 172 82.69 39 95.12 2. women must not plant. 171 85.93 138 66.35 17 41.46 3. only to be planted by the oldest male member of the households 108 54.27 104 50.00 12 29.27 4. make infertile, adult male must not plant. 106 53.27 106 50.96 13 31.71 5. invites snakes, and wild elephants (kerabari only). 116 58.29 0 0 19 46.34 6. cause of quarrel with neighbours. 66 33.17 7 3.37 23 56.10 7. ghosts and spirits live in clumps. 65 32.66 3 1.44 3 7.32 8. makes place dirty (litter). 38 19.10 0 0 6 14.63 9. thieves and robbers hide in clumps. 29 14.57 2 0.96 0 0.00 10. should not be planted in front of house. 23 11.56 10 4.81 1 2.44 11. those who plant will die early. 10 5.03 5 2.40 6 14.63 12. bamboo dies if planter’s shadow falls on bamboos. 2 1.01 64 30.77 9 21.95 13. planter will die if its shadow will fall on him. 2 1.01 79 37.98 13 31.71 14. not to be successfully propagated by women. 8 4.02 0 0.00 1 2.44 15. not to be planted in the broad daylight. 0 0.00 22 10.58 1 2.44 16. people steal bamboos have no future generation. 5 2.51 0 0 0 0.00 17. bamboo will not propagate if woman plants. 0 0 4 1.92 0 0 18. if bamboo does not grow well that means future generation will also have bleak future. 0 0 3 1.44 0 0 19. plants die after flowering and are inauspicious. 0 0 2 0.96 0 0 20. to be planted using male labourers only. 0 0 2 0.96 0 0 21. new bamboo shoots (esp.mal bans) must not to be broken by women and mature men. 0 0.00 1 0.48 2 4.88 22. not good if new shoot is produced in planting year. 0 0 1 0.48 0 0 23. ainjeru in bamboo indicates to be in loan. 0 0 1 0.48 0 0 24. one should not climb on roof carrying bamboos. 0 0 1 0.48 0 0 25. only good (pious) people are able to plant. 0 0 1 0.48 0 0 26. will not grow if young /kids plant it. 1 0.50 0 0 0 0.00 27. to be planted in march/april only. 0 0 1 0.48 0 0 28. if planted bamboos expands well then future generation of planter dies and vice versa. 0 0 1 0.48 0 0 key: hh =household the most commonly held belief in the terai was that women must not carry out bamboo planting. bamboo and banana are ekpurukhiya, which means in maithili or local tharu dialect “men without future generation”. both banana and bamboo grows from the dormant buds at the root or rhizome, i.e. no seed sown and therefore should not be planted by women. if women plant them, they will become infertile and the bamboo will not grow. some households mentioned that women must not plant bamboos because it is a customary practice that bamboo planting should not be done by women. during the study, through female focus group meetings, it was found that belief in this is very high among the women. women also mentioned that, in general, tree planting is the job of men however they can plant other trees (mostly fruit trees) if they wish to but they will not carry out bamboo planting. some of the households mentioned that women can carry out bamboo planting if they already have children, were old and have no middle aged or old males in the house. the other most commonly heard and held belief was that bamboo clumps invite vermin like poisonous and dangerous snakes, rodents and unwanted insects and therefore should not be planted very close to the home. households that believe this will not plant bamboos next to the home because of such a fear. over half the households mentioned that they have heard from their parents and forefathers that bamboo planting must be carried out only by the oldest male members, usually the household heads. many households mentioned banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2das and mitchell 66 out strictly by the oldest member of the household. if there are no old males (over 60 years) in the house then it can be carried out by a middle-aged man. the belief in this superstition was deep-rooted among the older households and women than the young families who were generally better educated. some of the households mentioned that they do not believe in this superstition but when they asked if they would carry out bamboo planting themselves, they pointed out, with hesitation, that they would prefer not to. one of the other most commonly heard or held belief was that bamboos should not be planted by young male adults, childless married couples and children. if such people plant bamboos then they will be infertile. it was found during the study that most of the bamboo planting was carried out only by the oldest members of the house and not by any young adult male members of the family who, however, can plant other tree species. this has an important implication as bamboo planting is considered a difficult job because the culm offsets of a 2 year old with rhizomes should be dug out from the ground without damaging buds and the planting pits used for such bamboo planting are usually bigger than for tree species. bamboos sow the seed for quarrels among neighbours and therefore should not be planted on the land close to neighbours. bamboo has the potential for transforming once good neighbours into enemies so one should be careful of such aspects before making the decision to plant bamboo. “ghosts and spirits lives in the bamboo clumps” and many households were very fearful of bamboo planting very close to the home. this belief is also associated with other tree species such as pipal (ficus religiosa) and bar (ficus benghalensis). other commonly held beliefs were (a) bamboo clumps makes the place dirty with exposed human wastes as many people prefer to use these clumps for toilets; (b) thieves and robbers hide in dense bamboo clumps; (c) its shade is bad and inauspicious and brings bad health so should not be planted very close to the house; (d) those who plant will certainly die early as “bamboos wish to grow very quickly so that it can carry the planter (serve the master) for the final journey to the cremation site”; (e) women have a menstrual cycle and are impure so bamboo cannot be successfully grown by them; (f) the person who steals bamboo from somebody else’s clumps will have no future generation or will fare badly; (g) men die if bamboo’s shadow falls on him during planting; (h) bamboo dies if planter’s shadow falls on bamboos during planting; and (i) bamboos will not grow if planted by young adults or children (mentioned by 0.50% or 1 household). the findings indicate that there are strong superstitions, taboos and beliefs that could have negative impacts on bamboo planting despite the fact that bamboo is an attractive land use option for many households. the midhills the level of beliefs in superstitions and taboos is significantly lower in the midhills than in the terai and is similar to kerabari. some 38% of the households believed in the superstitions and taboos associated with bamboos like in the terai, the most commonly held belief in the midhills against bamboo planting was that it reduces the productivity of land. bamboos were not planted near the wet khet land and even the rainfed bari land because of the fear that it will reduce the productivity of the land. the fallen, dry leaves of the bamboo on the ground were also mentioned by some as unhelpful in enhancing productivity. as mentioned early, there is some truth in this belief and therefore it was not considered further. the most commonly heard and believed taboos and superstitions, like in the terai was that women should not carry out bamboo planting (usually not applied to women whose menstrual cycle has stopped) as it can make them infertile and also because they have menstrual cycle and are too impure to carry out bamboo planting. many of the households also insisted that women should not carry out bamboo planting because traditionally it is not their job (men’s job) and one should not go against tradition. it was also found that the level of belief in such taboo/ superstition was not as strong as in the terai. the second most commonly heard and believed superstition was that bamboo planting should not be carried out by young adult male members as it can make them infertile. bamboo planting was considered inauspicious by some households and should not be carried by young members as it can bring bad health. however, not all of the households who heard such taboo/superstition believed the statement. banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 das and mitchell 67 the third most commonly heard and believed taboo or superstition was that only household heads older than 60 years should do bamboo planting. in the absence of old age members in the family it can be carried out by the middle aged household heads or members (40 years or over). many households said that only the oldest male members should carry out bamboo planting because of the superstition that bamboo planters do not survive long. the fourth most common superstition in the midhills was that a person who plants bamboo would die if the bamboo’s shadow falls on him at the time of planting. another superstition was that bamboos would die if the planter’s shadow falls on the bamboos at the time of planting. the best time for planting bamboos was at sunset time when planters and bamboos shadows do not fall on each other. other beliefs were (a) bamboo must not be planted at midday or early afternoon; (b) its shade is inauspicious and brings bad luck and health and therefore should not be planted in front of the home; (c) bamboos sow the seed of quarrel among neighbours and therefore should not be planted in the land close to neighbours; (d) bamboo planters will die very early; (e) bamboo does not grow if it is planted by women; (f) ghosts and spirits live in bamboo clumps and therefore should not be planted very close to the home; (g) if bamboo is planted and does not grow well that is an indication of a bleak future for the family; (h)thieves hide in clumps if it is very dense; (i) bamboo plants die after flowering which is inauspicious; and (j) bamboo should only be planted using male labourers and must not be planted by any family members. similarly, one household each mentioned beliefs such as new bamboo shoots of mal bans must not be broken by men or women as it will bring sorrow to the family; only good people are able to propagate bamboo successfully; too much expansion of bamboo will bring a dark future; bamboo propagation is successful only if it done in march or april (it is to be noted that bamboo from traditional method can be successfully propagated even in may, june or july); and ainjeru (massive aerial branching in the upper portion of standing culms) is an indication of future burdening with loans. kerabari almost all the households in kerabari vdc (morang district) are of hill ethnic origin most of whom had migrated in the last 40 years and the cultural and farming practices are similar to the midhills. the households also have similar beliefs against bamboo planting as in the midhills except some beliefs, which were site specific, being surrounded by sal forest. the percentage of the households who believed in superstitions and taboos was significantly lower than in the terai and just a little higher than in the midhills. like in the terai and the midhills, the most commonly held belief against bamboo planting was that it reduces the productivity of the land. bamboos sow the seed of quarrel among friendly neighbours and therefore should not be planted on land close to neighbours. as bamboo clump planted near the boundary will expand into neighbours land and the problems start when the planter claims the right of ownership. the other problem is that the commonly held belief like bamboo reduces the productivity of the soil can create suspicion in the mind of neighbours about the motive for bamboo planting. bamboo clumps invites wild elephants, poisonous snakes and insects. the households were more fearful of wild elephants than snakes as bamboo is one of the species favoured by wild elephants. kerabari lies on the migratory route of wild elephants and every 2-3 years wild elephants roam around kerabari and damage crops of the households and sometimes even attack men. as there is some rationality behind this statement it was not considered further. almost all the households that had migrated from the neighbouring midhills mentioned that women must not plant bamboos as it can make them infertile. the other most commonly heard and held taboos/ superstitions was that young and unmarried males must not plant bamboos as it can make them infertile and they will die unnaturally. the other most commonly held taboos/ superstitions/beliefs in kerabari were: (a) bamboo planters die if its shadow falls on him/her at the time of planting; (b) bamboo planting should be carried out only by the oldest male household members or the household head; (c) bamboo dies if the planter’s shadow falls on bamboos at the time of planting; (d) those who plant will die early; (e) bamboo makes place dirty as people use clumps for toilets; (f) ghosts and spirits live in bamboo clumps; banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2das and mitchell 68 (f) new shoots of mal bans should not be broken by men or women as it brings sorrow; (g) women can not propagate bamboo successfully; (h) its shade is bad and inauspicious so should not be planted in front of the house; and (i) it must not be planted in broad daylight. beliefs, superstitions and taboos associated with other aspects of bamboos it was found that there is a general belief among the households that bamboos should not be felled on tuesday and that the women must not cut bamboo culms. some households in the midhills mentioned that only males over 50 years of age should carry out harvesting of new shoots. it was also commonly believed, both in the terai and the midhills, that bamboo culms felled in the dark (no moon period) will not be attacked by termites and insect borers. it was found, however, that beliefs in such superstitions and taboos were not so strong among the younger generation but were still prevalent in the older age groups, both in the terai and the midhills. level of belief in superstitions and taboos in the study area the beliefs in statements, which do not have any valid scientific reason, or without any rational explanation were considered superstitions and taboos in the present study. the beliefs in superstitions and taboos, which can prevent households, or affect their decision, to plant or not plant bamboos, were identified. the most common superstitions and taboos which can affect bamboo planting were women must/should not plant bamboo as they will be infertile or because they were impure; young and unmarried male adults must not plant bamboos; planting should be carried out only by the oldest household male members of the household; the bamboos shadow is bad and inauspicious so they should not be planted in front of the home; if bamboo’s shadow falls on the planter then he will die. based on discussions with households and their responses, the beliefs in superstitions and taboos against bamboo planting were classified into five categories. they were (a) strongly believe, (b) believe, (c) do not know, (d) do not believe, and (e) strongly disbelieve (table 2). it can be seen that the percentage of the households who strongly believe in superstitions and taboos against bamboo planting was significantly higher in the terai than in the midhills and kerabari. in kerabari, there were no households who strongly believed in superstitions and taboos against bamboo planting. the percentage of the households who believed in the superstitions and taboos against bamboos planting but not very strongly in the terai, midhills and kerabari was significantly higher in the terai than in the midhills and kerabari. the percentage of the households in “do not know” category was higher in the midhills and kerabari than in the terai. more households said that they did not believe in the midhills and kerabari. there were no households in the terai who strongly disbelieved in the superstitions and taboos against bamboo planting. it is expected that those households who do not know or who do not believe in superstitions and taboos can be more easily motivated towards bamboo planting than those households who believe/strongly believe in those superstitions and taboos which inhibits bamboo planting. women as it brings sorrow; (g) women can not propagate bamboo successfully; (h) its shade is bad and inauspicious so should not be planted in front of the house; and (i) it must not be planted in broad daylight. beliefs, superstitions and taboos associated with other aspects of bamboos it was found that there is a general belief among the households that bamboos should not be felled on tuesday and that the women must not cut bamboo culms. some households in the midhills mentioned that only males over 50 years of age should carry out harvesting of new shoots. it was also commonly believed, both in the terai and the midhills, that bamboo culms felled in the dark (no moon period) will not be attacked by termites and insect borers. it was found, however, that beliefs in such superstitions and taboos were not so strong among the younger generation but were still prevalent in the older age groups, both in the terai and the midhills. level of belief in superstitions and taboos in the study area the beliefs in statements, which do not have any valid scientific reason, or without any rational explanation were considered superstitions and taboos in the present study. the beliefs in superstitions and taboos, which can prevent households, or affect their decision, to plant or not plant bamboos, were identified. the most common superstitions and taboos which can affect bamboo planting were women must/should not plant bamboo as they will be infertile or because they were impure; young and unmarried male adults must not plant bamboos; planting should be carried out only by the oldest household male members of the household; the bamboos shadow is bad and inauspicious so they should not be planted in front of the home; if bamboo’s shadow falls on the planter then he will die. based on discussions with households and their responses, the beliefs in superstitions and taboos against bamboo planting were classified into five categories. they were (a) strongly believe, (b) believe, (c) do not know, (d) do not believe, and (e) strongly disbelieve (table 2). table 2 level of beliefs in superstitions and taboos against bamboo planting in the terai, the midhills and kerabari terai (n=199) midhills (n=208) kerabari (n=41) level of belief in superstitions and taboos hh no. % hh. no. % hh. no. % strongly believe 28 14.07 16 7.69 0 0.00 believe 111 55.78 63 30.29 16 39.02 do not know 6 3.02 23 11.06 4 9.76 do not believe 54 27.14 102 49.04 19 46.34 strongly disbelieve 0 0.00 4 1.92 2 4.88 all 199 100.00 208 100.00 41 100.00 it can be seen that the percentage of the households who strongly believe in superstitions and taboos against bamboo planting was significantly higher in the terai than in the midhills and kerabari. in kerabari, there were no households who strongly believed in superstitions and taboos against bamboo planting. the percentage of the households who believed in the superstitions and taboos against bamboos planting but not very strongly in the terai, midhills and kerabari was significantly higher in the terai than in the midhills and kerabari. the percentage of the households in “do not know” category was higher in the midhills and kerabari than in the terai. more households said that they did not believe in the midhills and kerabari. there were no households in the terai who strongly disbelieved in the superstitions and taboos against bamboo planting. it is expected that those households who do not know or who do not believe in superstitions and taboos can be more easily motivated towards bamboo planting than those households who believe/strongly believe in those superstitions and taboos which inhibits bamboo planting. association between bamboo growing and superstitions and/or taboos against bamboo planting banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 das and mitchell 69 association between bamboo growing and superstitions and/or taboos against bamboo planting the present section will investigate whether there is an association between bamboo growing and superstitions and/or taboos against bamboo growing. bamboo growers and nongrowers were classified into two categories: (a) those who believed in the superstitions and/or taboos against bamboo planting; and (b) those who did not believe. the statistical significance of any association was examined using the chi-square test (appendix 1, 2 and 3). it was found that there was a statistically significant association between bamboo growing and superstitions and/or taboos against bamboo planting in the terai. those who believe in superstitions and/ or taboos are less likely to grow than those who do not believe. there is no strong association between bamboo growing and superstitions and/or taboos against bamboo planting in the midhills and kerabari. this means that bamboo growing was carried out even by those households, which believed in these superstitions, and/or taboos, which discourage bamboo planting. similarly, there were some bamboo nongrowers who did not believe but cannot carry out because of their poor economic situation. it was also found that in general those households or individuals who were educated (completed high school level study or over) were less superstitious than the non-educated and also have no or less belief in taboos against bamboo planting. the household heads of brahmin and chhetri ethnic origin in the midhills villages who were in general better off and more resourceful than other ethnic groups (except some households of matawalis ethnic groups whose family members are/were either in the british army or had worked overseas) believed more in superstitions and taboos that discourage bamboo planting. taboos like women should not plant bamboos were more strongly believed by brahmins and chhetri ethnic groups than matwalis (middle castes). the study also found that such beliefs were stronger in older age groups than in younger age groups. the findings of focus group studies suggest that beliefs in superstitions and taboos that discourage bamboo planting are stronger in women than men and less among educated than the uneducated. conclusion the study shows that superstitions and taboos against bamboo planting have some effect on bamboo growing in the terai but have no significant effect in the midhills and kerabari. it seems that households carried out bamboo planting despite having serious reservations along with many superstitions and taboos that discourage bamboo planting because the benefits that accrue from bamboo planting are far higher than so-called risks (superstitions like “will die early”, “infertility”) and disbenefits (“reduced production”). however, it can be said that had there been no superstitions and/or taboos that discourage bamboo planting, there would have been more bamboo clumps on private land than at present. any programmes aim at promoting bamboo development in nepal should take into consideration the effect of such taboos and superstitions on households’ decision-making. an increased literacy and education level in future will help people in the study area to overcome these superstitions and taboos. effective extension work by the development agencies and local non-governmental organisations to remove such superstitions and/or taboos from the minds of the people will be helpful to increase bamboo planting. references arens, j. and beurden, j. 1978. jhagrapur: poor peasants and women in a village in bangladesh. third world publications, birmingham, uk. 189 pp. blowfield, m. 1995. bamboo and poverty. working paper 2, integrated rural bamboo project, forestry research programme, dfid, uk. 4 pp. boa, e.r. 1995. knowing bamboo, knowing people. working paper 1, integrated rural bamboo project, forestry research programme, dfid, uk. 4 pp. carter, e.j. 1991. tree cultivation on private land on the middle hills of nepal. a thesis presented for the phd degree at the oxford university, uk. chambers r., saxena, n.c. and shah, t. 1989. to the hands of the poor : water and trees. intermediate technology publications, london, uk. 273 pp. das, a.n. 1992. the potential of bamboo growing in rural development forestry in nepal. m.sc. (forest management) dissertation, university of aberdeen. banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2das and mitchell 70 das, a.n. 1999 a. socioeconomics of bamboos in eastern nepal. phd thesis, university of aberdeen, uk. das, a.n. 1999 b. perception and attitudes toward tree growing in the terai and midhills of eastern nepal. banko janakari, 9 (2). das, a.n. 2002. bamboo growing and its market development potential for sustaining rural livelihoods and poverty reduction in eastern nepal. banko janakari, 12 (2). das, a.n. 2004. manual of bamboos in nepal. tisc/narmsap, danida, kathmandu, nepal. foley, g. and barnard, g. 1984. farm and community forestry. international institute for environment and development (iied). earthscan, london. 236 pp. gurung, s.m. 1989. human perception of mountain hazards in the kakani-kathmandu area: experiences from the middle mountains of nepal. mountain research and development, 9 (4): 353-364. kwesiga, f. and chisumpa, s.m. 1990. ethnobotanical survey in eastern province, zambia. draft report. icraf, nairobi. poudyal, s.k. and das, a.n. 2002. bamboo research and development in nepal. journal of forest and livelihood, 2 (1): 59-61, forest action, kathmandu, nepal. piper, j.m. 1992. bamboo and rattan . oxford university press, uk. 120 pp. raintree, j.b. 1991. socioeconomic attributes of trees and tree planting practices. community forestry note 9, fao, rome. 115 pp. ratikette, p, samsnasang, p., ratnapanya, s., and samarang, h. 1992. taboos and traditions: their influence on the conservation and exploration of trees in social forestry projects in northeastern thailand. in: y.s. rao, n.t. vergara and g.w. lovelace (eds.), community forestry: socioeconomic aspects. fao, rome. pp 363-369. shepherd, gill 1992. forest management for forest production by indigenous communities. in: f.r. miller and k.l. adam, wise management of tropical forests. proceedings of oxford conference, 29 march-1 april 1992, oxford. pp 111-124. singh, k.a.; singh, p. and roy, l.n. 1992. effect of bamboo (bambusa nutans wall. ex munro) shade on the yield of some agricultural crops at mid hills of eastern himalaya. indian journal of forestry, 15 (4): 339-341. wilson, k.b. 1989. trees in fields in southern zimbabwe. journal of southern african studies, 15: 369-83. wood, p.j. 1966. a guide to grow trees in sukumaland. technical note (new series), silviculture section, lushoto. banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 das and mitchell 71 appendix 1 association between bamboo growing and superstitions and taboos that discourages bamboo planting in the terai count % of row superstitions and taboos that discourages bamboo planting in the terai % of column do not believe believe nongrowers 19 21.84 31.67 68 78.16 48.92 grower 41 36.61 68.33 71 63.39 51.08 all col umn % 60 30.15 139 69.85 chi-square = 5.071, df = 1, p-value = 0.024 appendix 2 association between bamboo growing and superstitions and taboos that discourages bamboo planting in the midhills count % of row superstitions and taboos that discourages bamboo planting in the midhills % of column do not believe believe nongrowers 31 72.09 24.03 12 27.91 15.19 grower 98 59.39 75.97 67 40.61 84.81 all column % 129 62.02 79 37.98 chi-square = 2.335, df = 1, p-value = 0.126 appendix 3 association between bamboo growing and superstitions and taboos that discourages bamboo planting in kerabari count % of row superstitions and taboos that discourages bamboo planting in the terai % of column do not believe believe nongrowers 9 60.00 36.00 6 40.00 37.50 grower 16 61.54 64.00 10 38.46 62.50 all column % 25 60.98 16 39.02 chi-square = 0.009, df = 1, p-value = 0.923 banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2das and mitchell final corrected banko janakari 19-2.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 3 modelling height-diameter relationship for chir pine trees r.p. sharma1 tree height-diameter relationship can be used as an important input component in growth and yield models, and description of stand dynamics. this study aims at establishing robust height-diameter models for chir pine (pinus roxburghii) trees using regression techniques. among the twelve non-linear models fitted to height-diameter data from twentythree chir pine stands in parbat and shyangja districts, hossfeld’s model accounted for the largest proportion of height variations (r2 adj = 86%), and appeared to be biologically most realistic. this model can be applied to similar stand conditions from where study data were procured. keywords: chir pine, height-diameter models, model evaluation, stand attributes the accurate information of tree height is required for both forest management and research. diameter at breast height (dbh) and total height are the commonly measured variables in an inventory. unlike dbh, total height is less frequently used for construction or application of forest models because measurement of dbh is more cost effective, easy and accurate than total height. an estimation of total height from height-diameter models might be a reliable option where such models are available. for height-diameter models, a representative sample of accurately measured total-height is used as the response variable and dbh as the predictor variable. several of such models are available in the literature (e.g. curtis, 1967; wang and hann 1988; huang et al., 1992, 2000; moor et al., 1996; zhang; 1997; fang and bailey, 1998; sharma and portan, 2007; trincado et al., 2007; newton and amponsah, 2007; wagle, 2007). for a given species, height-diameter relationship differs from stand to stand due to different stand densities and site qualities, sometimes even within the same stand, variation might be high (calama and montero, 2004). also, height-diameter relationship may change over time (curtis, 1967). for more comprehensive and accurate height-diameter models, additional variables describing stand density (e.g. basal area or number of stems) and site quality (e.g. site index) should be included into the models (e.g. sharma and zhang, 2004; tremesgen and gadow, 2004; sharma and portan, 2007; newton and amponsah, 2007). however, getting information on such attributes demand a lot of resources, and therefore cannot be considered for general purpose models. chir pine (pinus roxburghii) forest is located in a subtropical region with an altitude varying from 1000 m to 2000 m, and its standing volume is 6.3% of the total forest in the country (nfi/finida, 1999). the economic contribution of chir pine forest to national and local level development is valuable; and, therefore, its management is useful. for scientific management, species-specific individual tree or stand level models such as height-diameter models, site index models, growth models, and biomass and volume models need to be developed. height-diameter models can be used as a sub-model (input) in the more comprehensive models such as biomass models, growth and yield models or their simulation systems. modelling works for chir pine forests in the country include joshi, 1984; joshi, 1985; rauntiainen, 1992; and sharma and pukkala, 1990. but, none of these are height-diameter models. this study, therefore, aims at constructing height-diameter models using data from various chir pine stands of two mid-hill districts. materials and methods data height-diameter data were obtained from chir pine stands located in different localities such as lunkhudeurali, pakhapani, kurgha, falamkhani, balakot, bhorledanda, ghantedeurali, bayale, karkineta, khanigaun in parbat and syanja districts. 1 department of ecology and natural resource management, norwegian university of life sciences (umb) e-mail: ram.sharma@umb.no sharma banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 4 sharma many of those stands, in that time, were managed in accordance with forest operation plans formulated by local users. the stands were visited during junejuly in 2005. to cover wider variations of altitudes, aspects, slopes, stand origins (natural and plantation), stand densities, stand age and size classes and stand treatments, the selection of stands was subjective instead of using any complex sampling technique. altogether twenty-three stands were selected for measurements. sample trees were chosen within each stand in such a way that the chosen trees would properly represent tree-population and micro-site of a subject stand. measurements of deformed, top broken, suppressed, leaning and wolf trees were avoided. the number of sample trees varied from 5 to 31 within a stand, depending on variation of stand attributes. the diameter was measured with a diameter tape and total height was measured directly with a vertex iii hypsometer. due to higher accuracy of this instrument, the measured heights would be more precise, even on the slope. because of not applying a plot inventory system, stand attributes such as stand density (basal area or number of stems), site index and stand ages were not recorded. the measurements of larger trees i.e., trees larger than 40 cm were mostly from old natural stands and those below 40cm were from young stands of plantation. data summaries are presented in table 1. models non-linear relationship between height and diameter was confirmed with a scattered plot diagram of height against dbh. twelve different non-linear models (table 2) were used to fit height-diameter relationship. all those models were parsimonious (possessing few parameters), mathematically robust, and therefore have been commonly used for modelling various tree and stand attributes (e.g. wang and hann, 1988; huang et al., 1992, 2000; fang and bailey, 1998; sharma, 2006; sharma and portan, 2007; newton and amponsah, 2007). the models in table 2 are of the following form: hi = 1.3+ƒ(di,b)+εi (1) where hi is the ith observation of the response variabletree height (m), di is the ith observation of the predictor variable-dbh (cm), b is a vector of model parameters, and εi is the unexplained error, and it is assumed to be independent and normally distributed with a zero mean and a constant variance. a constant, 1.3 was added to the model to avoid prediction of a hi less than 1.3 m when di approaches zero. analysis parameter estimation and model evaluation the parameters were estimated using a non-linear least-squares procedure with full information maximum likelihood (fiml) methods in sas/ets proc model (sas institute, inc. 2004). the fitted models were then evaluated using all of the following criteria: 1. significant parameter estimates: parameter estimates should be significantly different from zero (p<0.05). 2. akaike information criterion (aic): this is one of the most reliable criteria to compare the models with different parameter numbers (burnham and table 1 : data summary (dbh class (cm): 0-10 = 0-10.99, 11-20 = 11-20.99, and so on) variables (dbh, cm; height, m) number of observations mean minimum maximum dbh (0-10) height 71 7.6 7.9 0.8 1.6 10.9 13.9 dbh (11-20) height 227 16.1 14.6 11.0 7.0 20.9 24.3 dbh (21-30) height 210 24.9 20.5 21.0 13.9 30.9 29.5 dbh (31-40) height 96 36.4 25.6 31.0 18.0 40.5 31.3 dbh (41-50) height 35 44.0 28.5 41.0 23.2 50.9 34.0 dbh (51-60) height 5 56.2 29.4 53.6 26.5 60.1 33.0 dbh (overall) height 644 22.9 18.3 0.8 1.6 60.1 34.0 banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 5 table 2 : models considered models * references m1 badh += 3.1 arabatzis and burkhart (1992) m2 ⎟ ⎠ ⎞ ⎜ ⎝ ⎛ += d b ah exp3.1 buford (1986) m3 ( )cbdah ++= exp3.1 wang and hann (1988) m4 23.1 cdbdah +++= curtis (1967) m5 ( )2 2 3.1 cdbda d h ++ += huang et al. (1992) m6 ( )cdbadh ++= 3.1 this study m7 ( )2 2 3.1 bd ad h + += hossfeld (1822) m8 a a cdb d h + += 3.1 hossfeld (1822) m9 ( )[ ]cbdah −−+= exp13.1 richards (1959), chapman (1961) m10 ( )[ ]3exp13.1 bdah −−+= bertalanffy (1949) m11 ( )cdb a h −+ += exp1 3.1 logistic model, cited in zeide (1993) m12 ( )[ ]cbdah −−+= exp13.1 weibull model, cited in zeide (1993) *h = total height (m); d = dbh (cm); and a, b, c = parameters; exp = exponent anderson, 2002). the smaller the aic value, the better the model. it is defined as: aic = f(β) + 2p (2) where f(β) is negative of the marginal loglikelihood function, β is a vector of parameter estimates, and p is the number of parameters in a model. 3. root mean squared error (rmse): it is defined as: where hi and hi are the observed and predicted values for the dominant height of observation i, respectively; n is total non-missing observations used to fit the model; and p is the number of parameters in the model. 4. adjusted coefficient of determination (r2 adj): this shows a proportion of total variance explained by the model with the adjustment of the number of parameters, p and the number of non-missing observations, n. it is estimated as: where h is mean of the observed height, and other symbols are the same as above. 5. homogeneousness and independence of residuals: the residuals with predicted height, iĥ and observed height, hi were plotted against the predicted heights and examined. 6. biological realism: the curves generated with models were checked with respect to their biological realism, for example, height curves against dbh were assumed to demonstrate an approximately a sigmoid shape with clear inflection point (culmination of height growth) that occurred in an early stage and other height increment should be more than zero. the validation of models with splitting data set was not considered in this study. because, splitting a data set into two parts: one for calibration and the other for validation cannot be independent as they have ( ) pn hh rmse n i ii − − = ∑ = 2 1 ˆ ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) 2 1 2 12 adj ˆ1 1r ∑ ∑ = = −− −− −= n i i n i ii hhpn hhn (3) (4) sharma banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 6 t o t a l h e i g h t (m ) 0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 2 5 3 0 3 5 4 0 d b h ( cm ) 0 10 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 t o t a l h e i g h t (m ) 0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 2 5 3 0 3 5 4 0 d b h ( cm ) 0 10 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 t o t a l h e ig h t (m ) 0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 2 5 3 0 3 5 4 0 d b h ( cm ) 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 t o t a l h e i g h t (m ) 0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 2 5 3 0 3 5 4 0 d b h ( cm ) 0 10 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 t o t a l h e ig h t (m ) 0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 2 5 3 0 3 5 4 0 d b h ( cm ) 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 t o t a l h e i g h t (m ) 0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 2 5 3 0 3 5 4 0 d b h ( cm ) 0 10 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 t o t a l h e ig h t (m ) 0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 2 5 3 0 3 5 4 0 d b h ( cm ) 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 t o t a l h e i g h t (m ) 0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 2 5 3 0 3 5 4 0 d b h ( cm ) 0 10 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 g g ( ) table 3 : model parameter estimates and fit statistics (n = 644) parameter estimates fit statistics models a b c aic rmse (m) r2 adj m1 1.8182 0.722 1273 2.68 0.8321 m2 37.6799 -16.2513 1292 2.72 0.8265 m3 4.6453 -6.4669 -0.4156 1236 2.60 0.8420 m4 -0.3450* 0.9876 -0.0083 1216 2.56 0.8457 m5 2.0498 0.7682 0.0183 1231 2.59 0.8430 m6 0.7793 1.073 -0.0031 1221 2.57 0.8453 m7 46.104 13.638 1236 2.60 0.8421 m8 1.2479 1.6736 0.022 1111 2.36 0.8559 m9 35.032 0.0374 1.2075 1226 2.58 0.8445 m10 26.5123 0.0976 1352 2.85 0.8095 m11 28.2951 6.5214 0.106 1231 2.59 0.8432 m12 33.5721 0.0205 1.157 1221 2.57 0.8447 *non-significant (p> 0.05) identical statistical structures (yang et al., 2004). the validation with splitting data does not provide any additional information as compared to respective goodness of fit statistics obtained directly from models with entire data set (kozak and kozak, 2003). validating models with independent data would be the best alternative. but, it was not possible to get those data due to resource limitations. results and discussion except one with model m4, all parameter estimates of the models were significant (p<0.05). except m1, m2 and m10, other models described more than 84% (r2 adj> 0.84) of height variability (table 3). the model m8 showed the best fits (smallest aic and rmse, and largest r2 adj) followed by model m4. however, m4 was excluded from further analysis because one of its parameter estimates was non-significant (p>0.05). also, m1, m2 and m10 were excluded because they demonstrated relatively poorer fit statistics. other remaining models showed almost identical fit statistics (table 3). to identify the best model, graphical examination of fitted curves overlaid on observed data (figure 1), height increment curves and residual plots (figure 2) was performed. fig. 1 : fitted height curves (with selected models) overlaid on the observed data sharma banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 7 the height curves generated with models m6 and m11 appeared to be biologically less relevant as they indicated almost leveling-off trends against dbh even within the observed data range where such trends were not visible. also, m11 showed biologically illogical behaviour as its predicted heights at zero was more than 1.3 m. therefore, both m6 and m11 were excluded from further examination. the biological logics rather than attractive fit statistics of the model should be important for biological such as height growth models (e.g. vanclay and skovsgaard, 1997; ratkowsky, 1990; schabenberger and pierce; 2002) the height curves generated with models m5, m7, m8, m9 and m12 appeared to be identical up to 50 cm dbh. these models revealed biologically logical growth trends; for example, in early stage, height growth rate (change of height with respect to dbh) increased up to a certain dbh limit, but at the later stage it declined with increasing dbh (figure 2, top). in the later stage, diameter growth should be faster than height growth because that a tree needs more strength to firmly withstand itself against external forces like wind blow by the thickening of its bole as tree grows to bigger and taller sizes (khanna and chaturvedi; 1994; cato et al., 2006). most of the residuals were found within 95% confidence limits, and the residual histogram looked bell-shaped with symmetrical (normal) distributions (figure 2, bottom). thus, this hinted that there was no substantial heteroscedasticity problem with the promising models. there was different predicting performance with five different models beyond observed data range (figure 3). above 50cm dbh, predicted height with model m5 is the largest, followed by models m8, m7, m9 and m12. due to lack of independent test data, it was not possible to identify the best model that could be used for extrapolation. the most appropriate way to check a model’s predictive performance beyond range of calibration data is to test it against independent data from different tree populations over the widest possible range of size, site and stand conditions (e.g. vanclay, 1994; vanclay and skovsgaard, 1997; kozak and kozak, 2003; yang et al., 2004). validation of these models with independent data has been left to future forest modelers. the model m8, which described the data in the best way, can be used for the prediction of total heights only within observed data range (table 1). the heights not described by the models may be due to the absence of input variables like stand density (basal area or stem numbers) and site quality (site index) into the models. it is because stand attributes substantially affect height-diameter relationship (calama and montero, 2004; sharma and zhang, 2004; tremesgen and gadow, 2000; sharma and portan, 2007; newton and amponsah, 2007). more accurate and comprehensive height-diameter models would be possible where stand attributes are incorporated into the models. h e i g h t i n c r e m e n t (m / d b h ) 0 . 0 0 . 2 0 . 4 0 . 6 0 . 8 1 . 0 d b h ( cm ) 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 0 fig. 2 : height increment curve (top), and histogram of height residuals (bottom) with m8 pl ot m5 m7 m8 m9 m1 2 t o t a l h e i g h t (m ) 0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 2 5 3 0 3 5 4 0 d b h ( cm ) 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 9 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 fig. 3 : height curves beyond observed data range sharma banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 8 conclusion among the twelve models, hossfeld’s model (m8) demonstrated the best fit and accounted for the greatest proportion of total height variations (r2 adj = 86%). the model was mathematically flexible and biologically robust. the model’s update through recalibration and validation against independent data from widest possible ranges of size, site and stand conditions including stand attributes across the country would be important tasks for the future. references arabatzis, a.a. and burkhart, h.e. 1992. an evaluation of sampling methods and model forms for estimating height-diameter relationships in loblolly pine plantations. forest science, 38: 192198. bertalanffy, l.v. 1949. problems of organic growth. nature, 163: 156-158. buford, m.a. 1986. height-diameter relationship at age 15 in loblolly pine seed sources. forest science, 32: 812-818. burnham, k.p., anderson, d.r., 2002. model selection and inference. a practical information-theoretic approach, springerverlag, ny. calama, r. and montero, g. 2004. interregional nonlinear height-diameter model with random coefficients for stone pine in spain. canadian journal of forest research, 34: 150-163. cato, s. mcmillan, l., donaldson, l., richardson, t., echt, c. and gardner, r. 2006. wood formation from the base to the crown in pinus radiata: gradients of trachied wall thickness, wood density, radial growth rate and gene expression. plant molecular biology, 60: 565-58. chapman, d.g. 1961. statistical problems in dynamics of exploited fisheries populations. in proceeding 4th berkeley symposium on mathematical statistics and probability (ed.) neyman, j. 4: 153-168. curtis, r.o. 1967. height-diameter and heightdiameter-age equations for second growth douglas-fir. forest science, 13: 365-375. dfrs. 1999. forest resources of nepal. department of forest research and survey. ministry of forest and soil conservation, hmgn/ finida, report no.74, 48p. fang, z. and bailey, r.l. 1998. height-diameter models for tropical forests on hainan island in southern china. forest ecology and management, 110: 315-327. hossfeld, j.w. 1822. mathematik für forstmänner, pkonomen und cameralisten, pp. 310 [in german] huang, s., price, d. and titus, s.j. 2000. development of ecoregion-based height-diameter models for white spruce in boreal forests. forest ecology and management, 129: 125-141. huang, s., titus, s.j. and wiens, d.p. 1992. comparison of non-linear height-diameter functions for major alberta tree species. canadian journal of forest research, 22: 1297-1304. joshi, m.r. 1985. prediction of biomass in a plantation stands of chir pine (pinus roxburghii sarg.) in nepal. msc thesis, university of oxford, uk. joshi, r.b. 1984. total and merchantable volume equations for natural silver fir and chir pine of nepal. msc thesis, university of athens, georgia, usa, 35p. khanna, l.s. and chaturbedi, a.n., 1994. forest mensuration. international books distributors, dehradun, india. kozak, a. and kozak, r. 2003. does cross validation provide additional information in the evaluation of regression models? canadian journal of forest research, 33: 976-987. moore, j.a., zhang, l. and stuck, d. 1996. height– diameter equations for ten tree species in the inland northwest. western journal applied forestry, 11: 132–137. newton, p.f. and amponsah, i.g. 2007. comparative evaluation of five height-diameter models developed for black spruce and jack pine standtypes in terms of goodness-of-fit, lack-of-fit and predictive ability. forest ecology and management, 247: 149-166. ratkowsky, d.a. 1990. hand book of non-linear regression models. marcel dekker, inc. vol. 107, 241p. rauntiainen, o. 1992. observations on the growth of planted pinus roxburghii on high quality sites in kathmandu valley. banko janakari, 3 (3): 37-42. sharma banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 9 richards, f.j. 1959. a flexible growth function for empirical use. journal of experimental botany, 10: 290-300. sas institute inc. 2004. sas/ets1 9.1 user’s guide. sas institute inc., cary, nc. schabenberger, o. and pierce, f.j. 2002. contemporary statistical models for the plant and soil sciences. crc press, pp. 738. sharma, e.r. and pukkala, t. 1990. volume and biomass prediction equations of forest trees of nepal. forest survey and statistical division. ministry of forest and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal sharma, m. and portan, j. 2007. height-diameter equations for boreal tree species in ontario using a mixed-effects modelling apprach. forest ecology and management, 249: 187-198. sharma, m. and zhang, s.y. 2004. height-diamater models using stand characteristics for pinus banksiana and picea mariana. scandinavian journal of forest research, 19: 442-451. sharma, r.p. 2006. modelling growing space requirement for alnus nepalensis d. don in nepal. banko janakari, 16(2): 30-36. temesgen, h. and gadow, k.v. 2004. generalized height–diameter modelsan application for major tree species in complex stands of interior british columbia. european journal of forest research, 123: 45-51. trincado, g., curtis, l, shaaf, v. and burkhart, h.e. 2007. regional mixed effects height-diameter models for loblolly pine (pinus taeda l.) plantations. european journal of forest research, 126: 253-262. vanclay, j.k. 1994. modelling forest growth and yield. applications to mixed tropical forests. cab international, oxon, u.k., pp. 312. vanclay, j.k. and skovsgaard, j.p., 1997. evaluating forest growth model. ecological modelling, 98: 1-12 wagle, b. 2007. growth of bluepine (pinus wallichiana) in lete and kunjo of mustang district. msc thesis submitted to tu/iof, pokhara, 55p. wang, c.h. and hann, d.w., 1988. height–diameter equations for sixteen tree species in the central western willamette valley of oregon. oregon state university forest research laboratory, research paper, 51p. yang, y., monserud, r.a., and huang, s. 2004. an evaluation of diagnostic tests and their roles in validating forest biometric models. canadian journal of forest research, 34: 619-629. zeide, b. 1993. analysis of gorwth equation. forest science, 39: 594-616. zhang, l. 1997. cross-validation of non-linear growth functions for modelling tree heightdiameter relationships. annals of botany, 79: 251257. sharma final corrected banko janakari 19-2.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 42 dendrochronology and climate change study in nepal: a preview p. k. chhetri1, k. b. shrestha2 short note the needs for advanced studies on impacts of climate change have been realized. in this study, the major focus is on changing climatic pattern and increasing natural hazards and its environmental consequences in nepal. the climatic records of nepal extend back to a relatively short period and may not adequately represent the range of natural climatic variability. a long term climatic data is needed to understand ongoing climate change phenomenon. in the recent decades dendrochronological data have been widely used in the world as a long term, high resolution, proxy of climate change. dendrochronology is a branch of science which deals with the study of tree rings. dendroclimatology reveals the relationship between past climate events and annual tree growth. the annual rings of trees can be important sources of long-term paleoclimatic data if they are dated accurately. however, the properties of tree rings can vary in response to climate change. using trees growing in a particular sites where climate has been highly limiting to the process of tree growth, the features of dated rings can be averaged year by year to obtain a time series of the growth response to past variations in climate (frits, 1976). cook et al (2003) and sano et al (2005) have demonstrated the possibility of reconstructing past climate in nepal himalaya by using dendroclimatic techniques. therefore, dendrochronological study can not only come up with paleoclimatic information, but also help in understanding climate change phenomenon. current status of dendrochronological study in nepal dendrochronological work in nepal was started by rudolf zuber under the supervision of fritz schweingruber. this work was followed by many other research scholars (suzuki, 1990; bhattacharya et al., 1992; cook et al., 2003; sano et al., 2005). abies spectabilis has been the most studied species but there have been many other potential species, such as pinus roxburghii, pinus wallichiana, tsuga dumosa, picea smithiana, juniperus recurva, ulmus wallichiana, cedrus deodara, larix potanini . tree ring in climate change study in nepal in nepal, dendrochronological study began in late 70s but it was used in climate change study only after 2003. suzuki (1990) and bhattacharya et al (1992) hinted about the potentiality of different species for dendroclimatological studies. cook et al (2003) reconstructed february-june and october-february temperature, back to 1546 ad and 1605, respectively. this was considered as the first reconstructed temperature of nepal. each reconstruction confirmed the occurrence of unusually cold temperatures in 1815-1822, which coincided with the eruption of tambora in indonesia. the octoberfebruary climate reconstruction demonstrated evidence of late 20th century global warming trend whereas the february-june temperatures indicated cooling trend since 1960. sano et al (2005) reconstructed the past 249 years climate of western nepal using ring width and wood density of a. spectabilis. this reconstructed temperature for the past 249 years showed a warming trend from 1750s until approximately 1790, followed by cooling until 1810, then by a gradual warming trend well up to 1950. a notable cold period continued up to the present which did not support the consensus of recent global warming. since various studies considered dendrochronology as an appropriate and effective tool for prediction of past climatic information, only the systematic dendrochronological study can deal with the climate change phenomenon. the potential areas for future 1 graduate school of environmental science, hokkaido university, sapparo, japan. chhetri@www.geo.ees.hokudai.ac.jp 2 departments of biology, university of bergen, bergen, norway. krishna.shrestha@bio.uib.no banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 43 dendrochronological studies in nepal are discussed below. future focus western nepal climate is influenced by both eastern and western monsoon. so, there is a higher probability of finding potential climatic signals in western nepal than in eastern nepal. the southern margin of vegetation distribution (tropical to temperate margin) has p. roxburghii and p. wallichiana as highly potential tree species. more studies should be focused on tree line area to investigate the effect of recent global warming on tree line phenomena. the fluctuation of tree line position, growth dynamics pattern due to the climatic variability and the effect of human land-use can be of interest. for such studies tree line forming species like a. spectabilis, t. dumosa can be used as potential species. the responses of tree line species to the global warming over the last century have been detected in many parts of the northern hemisphere (e.g. rochefort et al. 1994; peterson et al., 2002) by evaluating tree seedlings, invading above the current tree line. only two studies (schmidt, 1993, schmidt et al., 1999) were found on archeological sites. many centuries old gumbas and temples. are widely distributed in nepal. dendrochronological studies focusing on wood samples from these monuments will help to reveal past environment. the protential for of isotopic tree ring study is also high in nepal. many isotopic tree ring studies have already been carried out in india. strong dendrochronological network is needed to be developed to understand the current phenomenon of climate change. it should cover a variety of species and ecological conditions. topography, relief, microcatchments should be considered while collecting samples. thus, constructed past climate will help us understand the climatic variability in nepal as well as the whole south asian region. conclusion nepal has a wide distribution of dendroclimatologically potential species; but in comparison to neighbouring countries and other mountainous regions, the related studies have been very limited in nepal although climate change is more pronounced in nepal himalayas and can have severe impacts on livelihoods. systematic climatic studies based on tree rings can help us understand the ongoing climate change pattern. so it is recommended that more micro-climate related dendrochronological researches are carried out. dendrochronology ought to be included in the university curriculum in nepal. references bhattacharyya, a., lamarche jr. v.c., and hughes, m.k. 1992. tree-ring chronologies from nepal. tree-ring bulletin. 52: 59-66. cook e.r., krusic, p.j. and jones. p.d. 2003. dendroclimatic signals in long tree-ring chronologies from the himalayas of nepal. international journal of climatology 23: 707-732. fritts, h.c. 1976. tree ring and climate. academic press, london. peterson, d.w., peterson, d.l., ettl, g.j. 2002. growth responses of subalpine fir to climatic variability in the pacific northwest. canadian journal of forest research 32: 1503–1517. rochefort, r.m., little, r.l., woodward, a. and peterson, d.l. 1994. changes in sub-alpine tree distribution in western north america: a review of climatic and other causal factors. holocene 4:89– 100. sano, m., furuta. f., kobayashi, o. and sweda. t. 2005. temperature variations since the mid-18th century for western nepal, as reconstructed from tree-ring width and density of abies spectabilis. dendrochronologia 23: 83-92. schmidt, b. 1993. dendrochronological research in south mustang. ancient nepal 130-131: 20-25. schmidt, b., wazny, t., malla. k., hofs, e. and khalessi, m. 1999. chronologies for historical dating in high asia/nepal. in tree ring analysis: biological, methodological and environmental aspects (ed) wimmer, r. and vetter, r.e. cabi international, uk, 205-211. suzuki, e. 1990. dendrochronology in coniferous forest around lake rara, western nepal. tokyo 103: 297-312. chhetri and shrestha final vol 16-1.pmd 32 the ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc) is in the process of developing operational forest management mechanisms for the terai and inner terai regions of nepal. in the process, the mfsc tested with woking scheme, operational forest management plan (ofmp) approaches and recently put forward the concept of collaborative forest management (cfm) through the forestry sector policy 2000. the policy statement envisaged cfm for the terai forests and states that contiguous large block of forests would be managed as cfm in collaboration with the local people and local governments. the programme has been in operation in terai eight districts including the parsa district with the support from the netherlands government. however, immensity of the government-managed national forest is dominated by strict protection objectives, which need immediate active management (acharya 2000). as a process to initiate active forest management, the sabaiya pilot scheme is in operation for two years. the two years of implementation witnessed important experiences in technical issues on forest management planning. the paper aims to present implementation experiences and provide analysis and insights for future management planning of terai forests. pilot sabaiya scheme the sabaiya pilot scheme was prepared in the fiscal year 2004/05 for the period of five years covering an area of 3,138.51 ha. the plan includes 15 village development committees (vdcs) and birgunj submetropolitan covering above 33,000 households totalling 197,011 populations. the technical proposal of the scheme proposes various harvesting operations such as regeneration felling, seeding felling and simple coppice management. similarly, silvicultural activities include cleaning, weeding, regeneration protection and fire line management. the following section concentrates on implementation experiences in subcompartment 17 b1 prescribed for regeneration felling. forest management planning in the terai: sharing experiences from sabaiya, parsa y.b. thapa,1 p.l. shaha2, b. ghimire3, arjun k.c.4 and s. karmacharya5 the ministry of forests and soil conservation is in the process of developing operational forest management mechanisms for the terai regions of nepal. the sabaiya pilot scheme in parsa is under implementation, which witnessed experiences in several issues in the process. the paper aims to share technical experiences with wider audiences. it highlights anomalies in scheme estimation and final enumeration in basic stand parameters such as basal area and volume. it presents possible reasons and provide analysis and insights for future management planning of terai forests. the paper concludes with a need for more technical information generation, analysis and utilisation approaches in forest management in nepal. key words: forest management, stand parameters, volume table, sabaiya dbh (cm) species economic classification 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 >50 total sal – shorea robusta 351 142 90 (70) 96 (72) 241 (176) 920 (318) asna – terminalia termentora 2 9 29 (18) 28 (26) 32 (25) 100 (69) satisal – delbergia latifolia 0 1 0 0 0 1 (0) misc 170 240 64 (47) 50 (39) 22 (19) 546 (105) total 523 392 183 (135) 174 (137) 295 (220) 1567 (492) basal area marked for felling n/a n/a 106.7 95.6 74.9 figure in parentheses indicate number of trees marked for felling table 1 : total enumeration in 17 b1 and marked trees for felling 1 district forest officer, parsa, birgunj, nepal 2 asst. forest officer, parsa, birgunj, nepal 3 asst. monitoring officer, parsa, birgunj, nepal 4 asst. forest officer, regional forest directoriate, hetauda, nepal 5 communications officer, bisep-st 33 the area of the sub-compartment is 12.5 ha. the recommend prescriptions include removal of 5d (dead, dying, diseased, deformed, decaying/decayed) with priority with a total 50 % basal area removal based on exploitable diameter (anon., 2005). the exploitable diameter defined for sal forest type is more than 40 cm dbh and for rest of the forest types is more than 30 cm dbh. the basal area of 5 d trees was 48.6 m2/ha. the total number of trees was 1567 and marked number of trees for felling was 492 whereas actual felling was made for 133 trees. the existing security and other causes have prevented felling of all marked trees. the allowed harvestable basal area for 17b1 was 109.8 m2. the total marked trees basal area in 17b1 was 106.8 m2 with a safe margin of 3 m2 in the sub-compartment. the more elaborated enumeration is presented in table 1. scheme projection vs final estimation table 2 shows the differences between scheme projection and final enumeration made prior to felling. the table indicates systematic overestimated trends in all estimated parameters like basal area, average diameter and volume during the scheme preparation ranging from 138 % to 262 % compared to final enumeration. the higher percentages of differences indicate gap and anomalies in forest inventory process and volume estimation models. the volume estimation in scheme was based on korhonen et al. (1994, cited in anon, 2005) model for the western terai whereas the volume estimation in the district forest office’s enumeration was based on local volume table. the validity and applicability of the korhonen model is not clear. on the other hand, the local volume table that district forest office uses lacks ownerships and identity. we were not able to describe who prepared this table, when and for which arealocal or whole of the terai as has been utilized in these days. in addition, the quality of the forest is significantly different that the time (must be more than 30 years) it was prepared. the more in-depth information will be generated after comparing actual volume harvested against projection in future. further analysis revealed that total volume estimation differs significantly on both fire wood and saw logs components. the information may indicate towards degraded quality of forests than was earlier projected or estimated based on diameter and height relationships. it means more trees are approaching to grade iii classification (government of nepal timber grading system) in the area and saw logs are converted into firewood (photo 1). in addition, best trees are retained during regeneration felling allowing lower grade trees to be harvested .the graph 1 shows distribution of all enumerated trees in 17 b1 where more than half of trees are of grade iii. the degraded quality of terai forests is in consistent with earlier findings (acharya, 2000; sharma, and suoheimo, 1995). the clear picture will emerge only after the availability of exact volume information from all harvested trees, which is not available presently. total in 17 b1 (m3)basal area (m2/ha) diameter (cm) gs volume (m3/ha) firewood saw logs scheme estimation 20.0 45.0 194.0 1345 1184 final enumeration 13.7 32.7 86.9 512@ 577* differences % 146 138 223 262 205 note: @one 20x5x5 chatta estimated to be 350 cu ft, *1 m3 = 27.73 hoppus cu ft. table 2 : projection vs final enumeration statistics of the sub-compartment (492 trees) photo 1 : section of the trees indicating lower quality of remaining trees figure 1 : distribution of trees in different grade banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1thapa et al. quality of marked trees for felling 28% 17% 55% grade i grade ii grade iii 34 implication of differences the differences will have some serious concerns and implications for future planning. firstly, it raises the issues, approaches and methodologies of data collection and validity of the information used for management planning purposes. the differences in enumeration and estimation would have impact on demand supply situation. in addition, differences in man days and revenue estimation would affect feasibility of the project. the lower yield against the estimation would rise needless questions on harvesting procedures and process due to variation in estimation. finally, the planning, budgeting, and cost estimation procedures would be affected. the unambiguous information on costs, royalty and man days estimation will be accessible only after the harvest and sell of all estimated volume. however, it should be clear that data quality can only be improved through the collection, analysis and interpretation of further quality data in future. hope for the future from technical perspectives, it was already demonstrated in small scale that active forest management in the terai region is promising (acharya and acharya, 2004; rautiainen, 1994). the regeneration after harvesting of old crop in sabaiya is shown in the photo 1. the sabaiya implementation indicates a hope for active management of terai forest. the subsequent monitoring of harvested plots and information would be useful in other areas specially balancing silviculture with socio-economic situation. such activity will enhance capacity and build confidence of implementing agencies. the delay to initiate active management will reduce genetic stock, vigor and productivity. conclusion there are significant differences in scheme estimation and enumeration on basic stand parameters. the causes are not always clear. the differences may be due to various data collection procedures and volume estimation models. the local volume table presently being used in the districts had serious questions of validity and applicability and the volume obtained in final harvesting is always less than the enumerated volume before felling. the differences in volume, revenues and man days will have implications on planning and budgeting, demand and supply projection and implementation process. the higher number of existing 5d trees indicates degrading forest stock requiring immediate active management. attention is necessary to maintain 10% of 5d trees for biodiversity conservation as recommended in the scheme. it is necessary to update volume tables and management plans components based on further data and experiences. on the other hand, most of our terai forest consists of mature and over mature trees with a little or negative growth of the existing growing stock in the forest. moreover, the regeneration from a more stressed and degenerated crop could result in a stressed crop susceptible to diseases with reduced genetic behavior. however, the sabaiya scheme implementation is expected to provide guidelines and information for future management planning. it also indicates for a remote hope for scientific management of remaining terai forest. the basic elements required are strong political and bureaucratic commitment and favorable environment. references acharya, k.p. and b. acharya 2004. early growth performance of natural sal (shorea robusta) forest in central nepal. department of forest research and survey, forest research leaflet 17. kathmandu, nepal acharya, k.p. 2000. unfavorable structure of forest in the terai of nepal needs immediate management, banko janakari 10(2):25-28. anon, 2005. sabaiya pilot forest management scheme, cfmg/dfo parsa. anon, 2000. concept paper for the management of terai and inner terai forest of nepal. the ministry of forest and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. dfo 2006. sabaiya collaborative forest management group: total enumerationsubcompartment 17 b1, document, district forest office (dfo), parsa. rautianien, o. 1994. natural regeneration of mixed sal forests. fmudp working papers no 10. forest management and utilisation development project/ national forest division, kathmandu, nepal. sharma, s and j. suoheimo. 1995. observation on rot in sal forests in the terai, fmudp working paper no 20, hmgn/finnida, kathmandu. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 thapa et al. cover 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 13 distribution and utilization of bamboos in the midwestern and the farwestern regions of nepal a. n. das1 and h. b. thapa2 the distribution and utilization of bamboo species in the mid-western and the far-western regions were recorded using various methods including rapid rural appraisal (rra) and participatory rural appraisal (pra) tools, field visits and specimen collection. of the eleven genera of bamboo recorded from the regions, most of the species were found to be of indigenous types. in the mid-western region, 48 bamboo species were recorded: 18 identified at species level and 11 at genera level. however, 19 species could not be identified, although their local names were recorded. similarly, in the far-western region, 31 species were recorded: 10 were identified at species as well as genera levels. in this region too, 11 species could not be identified, only local names were recorded. greater diversity of bamboos exists in the hills than in the terai belt of the regions studied. high mountain districts such as jumla, dolpa, and darchula contain considerably less quantity of large diameter sized bamboos (bans) than small sized diameter bamboos (nigalo). although, in these regions, 18 uses of bamboo were noted, many species are mostly used for weaving. the development of bamboo resources in the regions can help reduce poverty, generate employment and sustain rural livelihoods. key words: distribution, utilization, bamboo, district, region b amboos, the perennial woody grasses are among precious natural resource of nepal. they have intimately been associated with human being since time immemorial in the country and have become an integral component of rural farming system. they have pivotal role in the rural economy and thus, help sustain livelihoods of many rural households including socially and economically disadvantaged groups. it is difficult to imagine the rural economic scenario without them (das, 2001; 2002 and 2003). the natural range of bamboo species extends from the plains of the terai to the high mountains (4000 m). they are distributed both in natural forests and farm land (das, 1988). bamboos, which have versatile uses, are treated as multipurpose raw material from which almost anything can be manufactured both in the rural and the urban areas (carter, 1995; das and seeley, 1996; das, 2000). bamboos in the natural forests are valuable not only for the local people and communities of the terai and the mid hills but also for those of the high mountains. however, many of the bamboo species in natural forests have been over-exploited to the extent that some have already reached in the state of extinction. bamboos also serve as a good habitat and a source of food for various endangered wildlife species. but, due to biotic factors and grazing pressures in natural forests, bamboo forests have been decreasing continuously from many parts of the country. the problem is severe particularly in cases of those species that flower gregariously at an interval of 40 to 50 years. bamboos are among the important renewable natural resources that can reduce poverty if grown and managed on a sustainable basis. as such, their role in poverty reduction programme, which has been highly emphasised by the government of nepal (gon) right through the ninth and tenth five year plans to the subsequent periodic plans is very crucial. although potential of bamboos for socioeconomic and livelihood development has been recognised, no comprehensive study has been conducted to explore indepth knowledge and information on distribution, 1 planning and human resource development division, ministry of forests and soil conservation singh durbar kathmandu, e-mail: dasannapurna@hotmail.com 2 department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 14 use and identification of bamboos in nepal. some studies that have been carried out in scattered manners focussed only on the eastern and the central regions of nepal. the department of forest research and survey (dfrs) has initiated taxonomic work on bamboos from early eighties. however, such work is yet to be carried out in most parts of the mid-western and the far-western regions of nepal. in this pursuit, the present study has been carried out in these two regions with a view to identify bamboos existed in the regions and to understand their distribution and utilization patterns.the information obtained will provide valuable input for development and management of bamboos, technology transfer from one region to another, and adoption of best utilization practices. materials and methods this study was completed in two-years, between 2003 and 2005. the study area covered 19 of the 24 districts encompassed by the mid-western and the far-western regions of nepal. the study area also included khaptad and bardiya national parks. before initiating the fieldwork, rigorous discussion and interaction were made and species information sheets, semi-structured questionnaires, checklists for key informants’ interview and group discussion were developed. questionnaires were pre-tested in two districts: banke and surkhet, and some minor revisions were made before applying in the field. species information sheet was used to record the bamboo species that were located during the study. rapid rural appraisal (rra) and participatory rural appraisal (pra) techniques and their tools such as focus group discussion, key informants’ interview and semi-structured questionnaires were applied to collect required information. concerned officials at district forest offices, range forest offices and district soil conservation offices, community forest users, local knowledgeable persons, bamboo growers and craft-makers were consulted to gather information on distribution and utilization patterns of bamboos. four participatory discussions were held in different parts of each district of the study area. on an average, twenty persons took part in each discussion session. for the study purpose, the concerned districts were divided into two areas: forest land and farm land. geographical boundaries of village development committees (vdcs) were demarcated on the available maps and overlaid on the topographical and land use maps. based on the information available from the staff of district forest offices, forest lands were demarcated into bamboo growing and nonbamboo growing areas and were accordingly, delineated on the maps. in each district, at least two natural forest sites and four villages having bamboos were visited to crosscheck the validity of the information acquired from discussion and questionnaires. specimens of both identified and unidentified bamboo species were collected from all the nineteen districts representing all ecological regions. the herbarium samples were collected from each studied district and specimen collection sheet was used to document the necessary information. these samples were brought to kathmandu and identified with the help of local advisors and experts. a separate sheet was prepared for bamboos grown in national forests (community and government managed forests) so as to collect information on the distribution pattern. results and discussion distribution of bamboos in nepal, twelve genera and more than fifty species/ varieties of bamboo have been reported (das 1988; stapleton 1994; das 1999; das, 2004). although they have been believed to be widely distributed throughout nepal, they are not as common in the regions studied as in the eastern and central regions. however, these regions possess a good diversity of bamboos. the field study also revealed the presence of a large number of bamboo species in the regions. distribution and utilization of bamboos in nineteen districts of the mid-western and far-western regions are presented in table 1. in these regions, more than 60 local names were enlisted for different bamboo species. however, there is confusion with the local names. in many instances, two different species bear the same local name, and in other instances, same species bear different local names. das and thapa banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 15 distribution by district eleven genera identified during the field study included: dendrocalamus, bambusa, thamnocalamus, borinda, ampelocalamus, cephalostachyum, drepanostachyum, himalayacalamus, melocanna, yushania, and arundinaria. the genus for deu nigalo and kathe bans (masino) may be either yushania or chimnobambusa and phyllostachys nigra or borinda emeryi, respectively (table 1). further investigation is needed to identify the genus for these species. the inner terai as well as the terai districts such as kailali and bardiya mostly had big diameter sized bamboo species (bans) of genera bambusa and dendrocalamus. bamboo was more commonly found in districts like surkhet, dailekh, dang, baitadi, pyuthan and doti, which generally experienced comparatively wetter climate. greater diversity of bamboos was prevalent in these districts. in spite of the wetter climate in kailali and kanchanpur districts, there were fewer bamboo distributed on farm land, because most settlements were new and the forests were accessible for meeting the household needs of fuelwood, timber and fodder. bamboos found in different land categories of studied districts in two regions are presented in table 1. the most commonly distributed species in the terai districts were b. balcooa, b. nutans subsp. nutans, d. strictus, b. bambos, d. hamiltonii, b. tulda, and b. nepalensis. the other sparsely distributed species were b. alamii and m. bacciferra. bamboo species such as b. balcooa, b. nutans subsp. nutans, drepanostachyum sp., himalayacalamus sp. and thamnocalamus sp. were commonly distributed in baitadi, doti, dailekh, pyuthan and achham districts of the mid hills. the forests of the mid hills and high mountains had a large number of small diameter sized bamboo species of the genera drepanostachyum, himalayacalamus, thamnocalamus and yushania. jumla district is quite rich in nigalo species. out of nine nigalo species in jumla, only two species were identified at genera level. all these nigalo species were grown in natural forest. the list of bamboo species identified (genera and species level) is presented in table 2. distribution by region the far-western region had less diversity of bamboos in comparison to the mid-western region (table 1). more than 70 local names were enlisted in the midwestern region whereas only 40 local names were enlisted in the far-western region. this could be attributed to the higher forest cover and large number of new settlements particularly in the terai districts such as kailali and kanchanpur in farwestern region. fewer number of bamboo species existed in the farm land of this region. b. balcooa, d. strictus and b. bambos were the commonest species in the terai. the species such as b. nutans subsp. nutans was less frequently found in the districts of this region in comparison to the mid-western region. the midwestern region had b. nutans subsp. nutans clumps in sufficient quantity both in the terai and mid hills. forty-eight species were recorded in mid-western region, in which eighteen were identified at the species level and eleven species were identified at genera level. nineteen species were unidentified, although their local names were recorded in this region. thirty-one species were recorded in far-western region, in which ten were identified at the species level and ten only at genera level. eleven species were unidentified, only local names were recorded. distribution by physiographic region there was a greater diversity of bamboos in the hills than in the terai parts of the regions studied. this could be due to the fact that the cold climate of the hills is more suitable to the bamboos than the comparatively hotter climate of the terai areas. the cold districts such as jumla, dolpa, and darchula in the high mountains had very small amount of large diameter sized bamboos. however, the natural forests of high mountains (above 2200 m) were rich in bamboo resources and had several nigalo varieties. the large diameter sized bamboo species which were found in the terai were also found in the mid hills. districts like dailekh, pyuthan, rolpa, achham and baitadi of the mid hills regions also had large number of small diameter sized bamboo species. in the terai, farmers had mostly grown bamboos on homesteads. they were grown in home gardens in conjunction with fruit trees and other timber species. in the mid hills, bamboos were grown in gullies and edges of terraced land or homestead gardens in an intricate combination of fodder, fruit and multipurpose trees. b. nutans subsp. nutans, b. balcooa and drepanostachyum sp. were the most common species on farm land of the the mid hills. unlike in eastern nepal where farmers grow two to five species on farm land (das, 1999); farmers grow only one or two species in these regions. the choice das and thapa banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 16 of species was based on the household demand. usually, different bamboo species were grown to meet different household needs. this is to maintain supply even when flowering occurs. it was found that farmers often grew more than one bamboo species because of their different uses. the species such as d. hamiltonii was grown to produce edible shoots and fodder for livestock where as small diameter sized bamboos were grown for making woven-products. the natural bamboo resources in churia hills were depleted due to over-exploitation. the most commonly found species in the national forests of the churia hills were: d. strictus, d. hamiltonii, b. nutans subsp. nutans and b. nepalensis. the forests of the mid hills and the high mountains had large number of small diameter sized bamboo species of the genera drepanostachyum, himalayacalamus, thamnocalamus and yushania, etc. these forests were in better condition where the population pressure was low and the forests having bamboo patches were protected in community forests (cfs). distribution in different types of land most large sized bamboos (bans) were found on farm land and homestead in both regions. some large sized bamboo species found in such places included: b. nepalensis, b. balcooa, b. nutans subsp. nutans, b. nutans subsp. cupulata, b. tulda, b. bambos, d. strictus and d. hamiltonii. most nigalo species (drepanostachyum, yushania and thamnocalamus sp.) were distributed in natural forest and community forests. however, some species like kathe nigalo, deu nigalo, drepanostachyum sp. (dum nigalo), drepanostachyum sp. (tite nigalo), ghar nigalo, yushania maling (malingo), and h. spathiflorus (jarbuto) were also found on farm land. d. strictus var. wild, cephalostachyum latifolium, b. alamii, b. nepalensis were distributed in natural forests. many community forests had natural stands of bamboos. most of these community forests were found in the mid hills and high mountains. however, the community forests of the terai districts such as dang, bardiya, kailali and kanchanpur did not have any natural bamboo stands. many of such community forests were planted with bamboos of large diameter size. a high level of interest was found in bamboo planting amongst forest user groups in the community forests, both of the terai and the mid hills. utilization aspects the species utilised for making bamboo products in different districts of the mid-western and the farwestern regions are presented in table 1. there are no other species with as many uses as bamboos, except perhaps palms. bamboo is commonly used for house construction, walling of huts, thatching and roofing, grain storage (bhakari), scaffolding, walking sticks, mats, basket making of different types, furniture, fencing material, handles for agricultural implements, and tool handles (seeland, 1980; das, 2002). bamboo leaves are an important source of fodder. many bamboo species produce edible shoots, which are an important source of food. its pickles are very popular among both the rural and urban households in the mid-western and the farwestern nepal. bamboo also has many small but important uses such as pots and pipe for homemade millet beer (tongwa), fishing rods, fishing traps, handicrafts, packing cases for tea and fruits, cages for poultry, pipes for water supply and irrigation, cradles, cart yokes, bullock carts, ladders, winnows, and sieves for cleaning grains. bamboo shoots as vegetables and pickles are considered a delicacy by the people of hill ethnic origin in these regions and were becoming increasingly popular among the terai ethnic groups. however, in these regions, uses of bamboo shoots were not common as in other regions of nepal. demand for bamboo shoots for consumption in urban areas has increased considerably in recent years.the branches are used not only for fencing, but also for construction of walls, partition of houses and roofing. this study recorded eighteen uses of bamboo in these two regions. woven-products were commonly found in all the districts studied. many species of bans and nigalo were used for weaving. for instance, 36 species were used for making woven-products in the mid-western region. majority of nigalo species were found to be suitable for weaving. large bamboos: b. balcooa, b. nepalensis, b. bamboos, b. nutans subsp. nutans and nigalo species, deu nigalo, drepanostachyum sp. (putro nigalo), sadha nigalo were used in construction. there was a large variation in use pattern in these regions, yet the uses of bamboo were limited in the sense that only a few species were used for making many types of bamboo products. bamboos have medicinal value. in urban areas, bamboos are also planted as ornamental plants das and thapa banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 17 (seeland 1980; das 1988). however, ornamental uses of bamboos were not common in these two regions. bamboos are the best species for soil conservation as they form a mat-like structure above the ground and thus prevent seepage of soil water which, if it occurs at erodible sites, will result in mass movement of soil (narayana, 1988; howell et al., 1989). but, use of bamboo and nigalo species for soil conservation work was almost nil in these regions. the use of bamboo for house construction has considerably increased in recent years and its level of use varies with the availability and economic status of households (das and seeley, 1996). bamboobased furniture, which was rare, has increasingly become a common item, not only in rural areas but also in cities like nepalganj, dhangadhi, surkhet, mahendranagar and ghorahi of these regions. as the urban centres are expanding in size with increased industrialisation and migration of people from rural areas, more and more houses are being constructed in urban areas. as such, demand of bamboo had increased significantly for scaffolding and construction purposes in urban areas. conclusion the study suggested that there is a great potential for bamboo development in the mid-western and far-western regions of nepal as there are large number of bamboo growers, and forests have rich bamboo diversity. there is an increased interest among people in the use of bamboo for income generation. the development of bamboo resources can help to reduce poverty, generate employment and sustain rural livelihood. still, there are many unidentified species, which needs further study for their taxonomic identification. acknowledgement we would like to thank international plant genetic resources institute (ipgri) (now bioversity international) for providing financial assistance to accomplish this study. we are also thankful to the district forest offices and their staff, local ngos, political cadres, development agencies and the local people of the regions for their valuable support and information. thanks also go to the field staff, study team, field guides and key informants for their assistance during the field work. references carter, e. j. 1995. tree cultivation by farmers in dolakha district, nepal. in farm forestry in south asia (eds.) saxena, n. c. and ballabh, sage publications pvt. ltd, india, 104–143. das, a. n. 1988. bamboo research in nepal. in bamboos current research (eds.) rao, i. v. r., dhanrajan, r. and sastry, c. b. proceedings of the international bamboo workshop, 14–18 november 1988, cochin, india, 1–5. das, a. n. 1999 . socioeconomics of bamboos in eastern nepal. phd thesis, university of aberdeen, aberdeen, uk. das, a. n. 2000. perception on fodder plants at eastern terai and mid-hills of nepal. proceedings of workshop on agroforestry/fodder trees, 4 february 2000, kathmandu, nepal. das, a. n. 2001. “bamboo craft making in the terai and mid-hills of eastern nepal”, paper presented at the training workshop on bamboo handicraft techniques and its tools and small machines, 6– 19 october, 2001, zhejiang, sichuan, china. das, a. n. 2002. bamboo growing and its market development potential for sustaining rural livelihoods and poverty reduction in eastern nepal. banko janakari 12 (1): 8–19. das, a. n. 2003. bamboos in rural farming systems in the terai and mid hills of nepal. banko janakari 13 (2): 34–41. das, a. n. 2004. manual on bamboos in nepal. tisc/narmsap/danida, kathmandu, nepal. das, a. n. and seeley, j. a. 1996. bamboo use as the basis for wealth ranking in eastern nepal. banko janakari 6 (2): 89-92. howell, j. h., sunwar, i. and clark, j. e. 1989. role of vegetation in slope stabilisation on highways. department of roads, hmgn, nepal. narayana, v. v. d. 1988. watershed development and resource conservation for rangeland improvement. in rangelands resource and management (ed.) singh, p. proceedings of the national rangeland symposium, november 9–12,1987, igfri, jhansi, india, 229–237. das and thapa banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 18 seeland, k.t. 1980. the use of bamboo in rai village in the upper arun valley: an example of traditional technology. journal of the nepal research centre 4: 175-183. stapleton, c. 1994. bamboos of nepal: an illustrated guide. royal botanic garden, kew, london, uk. das and thapa table 1: distribution and utilization of bamboos in mid western and far western region a. mid western region 1. dailekh-mid hills sn local name latin name bamboo size utilization code* type of land+ nf cf fl h 1 ban/tama/khasre bans bambusa nepalensis large 1, 3, 4, 5, 14 * * * 2 ghar/chille bans/taru bans bambusa nutans subsp. nutans large 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 15 * * * 3 kande/hade bans bambusa bambos large 9, 12 * * 4 dhanu bans bambusa balcooa large 1, 4 * * 5 dhungre/gaun bans dendrocalamus sp. large 5, 6 * * 6 gopi bans cephalostachyum latifolium large 14 * * 7 nigalo/lebans ampelocalamus patellaris small 1, 4, 5 * 8 tite nigalo drepanostachyum falcatum small 1, 12 * * 9 deu nigalo** yushania/chimnobambusa sp. small 1 * 10 malingo/malinge himalayacalamus sp. small 1 * 11 ghar nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1 * 12 bhir nigalo small 1 * * 13 patane/dum nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1 * 2. surkhet-mid hills 1 chille bans/sata bans bambusa nutans subsp. nutans large 1, 4, 16 * * * 2 tama/khasre/ban bans bambusa nepalensis large 1, 3, 4, 16 * * * * 3 dhanu bans bambusa balcooa large 1, 3, 4, 16 * * 4 dhungre bans dendrocalamus sp. large 6, 7 * * 5 munger/kath bans dendrocalamus strictus large 4,9 * 6 kande bans bambusa bambos large 4,9 * * 7 kath bans dendrocalamus strictus var. wild large 2, 4, 12 * * * * 8 nigali bans bambusa alamii large 1 * * * 9 kali bans large 1, 2, 4 * * 10 bangali bans large 1, 4 * 11 pate bans large 1 * 12 ghusuwa/lahure /kalami bans melocanna baccifera large 1 * 13 phalame bans large 4 * 14 tite nigalo drepanostachyum falcatum small 1 * * * 15 ankhe nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1 * * 16 malinge/malingo himalayacalamus sp. small 1 * 17 deu nigalo** yushania/chimnobambusa sp. small 1 * * * 3. jumla-high hill 1 deu nigalo** yushania/chimnobambusa sp. small 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 * * 2 ghode nigalo thamnocalamus sp. small 1, 9, 10, 11 * 3 jhupre nigalo small 10 * * 4 dube nigalo small 5, * 5 sadha nigalo small 1, 4, 5, 10 * 6 thane nigalo small 1 * 7 edi nigalo small 1 * * * 8 bede nigalo small 5, * 9 duse nigalo small 1, 14 * banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 19 das and thapa 4. dolpa-high hill bans large 5 * * 2 malingo yushania maling small 1 * 3 ghodaino nigalo thamnocalamus sp. small 1 * 4 god nigalo small 1 * 5 jurmutho thamnocalamus spathiflorus subsp. nepalensis small 1 * 6 deu nigalo** yushania/chimnobambusa sp. small 1, * 7 dum nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1,9, 18 * 8 doko bunne nigalo small 1 * 5. pyuthan-mid hills 1 tama bans dendrocalamus hamiltonii var. hamiltonii large 3, 4, 5 * * * 2 kalame bans large 1, 7 * * 3 taru bans bambusa nutans subsp. nutans large 1, 4 * * * 4 dhanu bans bambusa balcooa large 1,4, 6, 9 * * * 5 linge bans large 1, 11 * * * * 6 nigalo small 1, 11 * * * * 6. salyan-mid hills 1 tama bans dendrocalamus hamiltonii var. hamiltonii large 3, 4, 6, 9 * * * * 2 dhanu bans bambusa balcooa large 1, 4, 6, 7, 9 * * * 3 dhungre bans dendrocalamus sp. large 6, 9 * * * 4 chille bans bambusa nutans subsp. nutans large 1, 4 * * 5 kath bans dendrocalamus strictus large 12 * * * 6 ban bans dendrocalamus strictus var. wild large 1, 4, 6 * * 7 khasre bans bambusa nepalensis large 1, 4, 6 * 8 nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1, 7, 6 * * * 7. rolpa-mid hills 1 dhanu bans bambusa balcooa large 4, 6, 9 * * 2 tama bans dendrocalamus hamiltonii var. hamiltonii large 1, 3, 4 * * 3 khasre bans bambusa nepalensis large 4, 9, 14 * * * 4 dhungre bans dendrocalamus sp. large 1, 9 * * 5 khakale bans large 4, 14 * * 6 nigale bans/mugi bans bambusa alamii large 1 * * 7 choya bans dendrocalamus hamiltonii var. undulatus large 1 * * * * 8 tite nigalo drepanostachyum falcatum small 1 * * 9 nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1 * * * * 8. jajarkot-mid hills 1 ghar bans bambusa balcooa large 1, 4 * * * * 2 ban bans dendrocalamus strictus var. wild large 1, 4, 14 * * 3 nigalo small 1 * * * 4 deu nigalo** yushania/chimnobambusa sp. small 1 * 5 malingo/malinge himalacalamus sp. small 1 * 6 ghode/ghodeno nigalo thamnocalamus sp. small 1 * banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 20 das and thapa 9. bardiya-terai/inner terai 1 khasre bans bambusa nepalensis large 1, 3, 4, 5 * 2 jabarjoto/jarbuto bans thamnocalamus spathiflorus large 4, 1, 3 * 3 chille bans bambusa nutans subsp. nutans large 1, 3, 5 * * 4 dhanu/bhalu bans bambusa balcooa large 4, * 5 kath bans dendrocalamus strictus large 1, 4, 12 * 6 panhelo bans bambusa vulgaris large 12 * 7 kaante/kaand bans bambusa bambos large 4, 9, 12 * 10. dang-terai/inner terai 1 munger bans/lathi bans/ lath bans dendrocalamus strictus large 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13,16, 18 * * * 2 khasre/tama bans bambusa nepalensis large 1, 3, 4, 5, 13, 18 * * * 3 chille bans bambusa nutans subsp. nutans large 1, 4, 13 * 4 dhanu bans bambusa balcooa large 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 13, 16, 18 * * 5 chav bans bambusa tulda large 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 13, 16, 18 * 7 kath bans dendrocalamus strictu var. wild large 1, 3, 5, 12 * * 8 lyas/liyo bans ampelocalamus patellaris large 1, 7 * * * 9 khasro nigalo small 1 * * * 10 nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1 * 11 tite nigalo drepanostachyum falcatum small 1, 7 * 11. banke-terai/inner terai 1 ban/kath bans dendrocalamus strictus large 1, 3, 5, 12 * * 2 murali bans cephalostachyum latifolium large 5, 14 * 3 dhanu bans/harauti bans bambusa balcooa large 1, 3, 4, 5, 13 * * 4 tama/khasre bans bambusa nepalensis large 1, 3, 5 * 5 chille bans bambusa nutans subsp. nutans large 1, 4 * * * 6 dhungre bans dendrocalamus sp. large 1, 4 * * 7 mal bans bambusa nutans subsp. cupulata large 1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 13 * * 8 kaante/kaand bans bambusa bambos large 4, 9, 12 * * 9 kathe/sano nigalo small 1 * * b. far western region 1. doti –mid hills 1 bans large 1, 4, 7, 9, 16 * * * * 2 ghar bans bambusa balcooa large 1, 4, 6 * * 3 ban bans dendrocalamus strictus var. wild large 1, 4, 6 * 4 bikase bans dendrocalamus sp. large 1, 4, 6 * 5 kath bans dendrocalamus strictus large 1,12 * 6 nigalo small 1, 4 * * 7 deule/baghbutte nigalo** yushania/chimnobambusa sp. small 1, 3, 4, 17 * 8 kathino/putro nigalo drepanostachyum spp. small 1, 4 * * 9 malingo yushania maling small 1, 4 * * 10 dume/ghordo/b hunnur drepanostachyum sp. small 12 * * 11 ghanse nigalo arundinaria sp. small 5 * 12 kuche nigalo yushania sp. small 10 * * banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 21 das and thapa 2. dadeldhura-mid hills 1 bhalu bans dendrocalamus hookerii large 4, 6, 9 * * 2 dhanu bans bambusa balcooa large 4, 6, 9 * 3 kandash bans bambusa bambos large 1, 5, 6 * * 4 ram bans large 1, 6 * * 5 kath bans dendrocalamus strictus large 1, 5, 6 * * 6 bikase bans dendrocalamus sp. large 1, 5, 6 * * 7 bans large 1, 4, 6, 16 * * * 8 kathe/putro nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1, 5, 6 * * * 9 deulo nigalo** yushania/chimnobambu sa sp. small 1, 5, 6 * * * 10 malingo yushania maling small 1, 5, 6 * * 11 kalame nigalo small 1, 5, 6 * 12 nigalo small 1, 5, 6 * * * * 3. baitadi-mid hills 1 bhalu bans dendrocalamus hookerii large 1,2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 * * 2 kath bans d. strictus large 4, 6, * * 3 mal/thulo bans bambusa nutans subsp. cupulata large 4, 6 * * 4 ban bans d. strictus var. wild large 4, 6 * * 5 bans (moto) large 6, * * 6 kathe nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1, 5 * * * 7 kalame nigalo small 7 * 8 deu nigalo** yushania/chimnobambu sa sp. small 1, 7, 14, 17 * * * 9 malinge/malingo himalayacalamus sp. small 1, 7, 14, 17 * 10 dum nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1, 5, 6, 7 * * 11 putro nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1 12 poshyar nigalo small 1 * * 4. darchula-high hill 1 ghar/moto bans bambusa balcooa large 4, 16 * * 2 kathe/gathe bans dendrocalamus strictus large 4, 5, 16 * 3 ban bans dendrocalamus hamiltonii var. wild large 4, 6 * * 4 bans large 1, 4, 5, 15, 16 * * * 5 sano bans large 4, 5 * * 6 nigalo small 1, 4, 11 * * * 7 malingo yushania maling small 1, 4 * * * 8 deu nigalo** yushania/chimnobambu sa sp. small 1, 4, 6 * * * * 9 putro nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1, 4, 6, 18 * * * * 10 ghorado/dum nigalo thamnocalamus sp. small 1, 4 * * * 11 bhuno/dum nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1, 4 * * * 5. achham-mid hills 1 ghar/moto bans bambusa balcooa large 4, 16 * * 2 kathe/gathe bans dendrocalamus strictus large 4, 5, 16 * 3 ban bans dendrocalamus hamiltonii var. wild large 4, 6 * * 4 bans large 1, 4, 5, 15, 16 * * * 5 sano bans large 4, 5 * * 6 nigalo small 1, 4, 11 * * * 7 malingo yushania maling small 1, 4 * * * 8 deu nigalo** yushania/chimnobambu sa sp. small 1, 4, 6 * * * * banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 22 das and thapa 6. bajhang-mid hills 1 latthi bans dendrocalamus strictus large 4, 12 * * * 2 kathe bans (moto) dendrocalamus sp. large 1, 4, 12 * * 3 kathe bans (masino)** phyllostachyus nigra/borinda emeryi large 1, 4, 12 * * 4 kalo nigalo borinda sp. small 1, 4 * * 5 deu nigalo** yushania/chimnobambu sa sp. small 1, 4 * * 6 dhanero drepanostachyum sp. small 1, 4 * * 7 putro nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1, 4 * * 7. kanchanpur-terai/inner terai 1 kath bans/guniya bans dendrocalamus strictus large 1, 3, 4, 5, 12 * * 2 dhanu bans bambusa balcooa large 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 * * 3 tama/khasre bans bambusa nepalensis large 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 * * 4 kath bans dendrocalamus strictus var. wild large 1, 4, 6 * 5 chille bans bambusa nutans subsp. nutans large 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 16 * * 8. kailali-terai/inner terai 1 dhanu bans bambusa balcooa large 4, 5, 13 * * 2 kath bans dendrocalamus strictus large 4, 5 * * 3 ghar/chille bans bambusa nutans subsp. nutans large 1, 5 * * 4 khasre bans bambusa nepalensis large 1, 4, 6 * * 5 gadaru bans large 1, 4, 6 * * 6 ban bans dendrocalamus strictus var. wild large 1, 3, 5 7 kaante/kaand bans bambusa bambos large 4,9,12 * 8 nigalo drepanostachyum sp. small 1,4,5 * 9 mal bans bambusa nutans subsp. cupulata large 1, 4,5,7, 9 * 10 kalo/bhalu bans dendrocalamus hookerii large 4, 6, 9 * *1: woven-products 2: soil conservation 3: shoots as vegetables 4: construction 5: fodder 6: furniture 7: handicrafts 8: ornamental 9: fencing 10: broom 11: rope 12: stick 13: scaffolding 14: flutes 15: fuelwood 16: dead body carrier 17: tobacco pipe and 18: support for vegetables +nf-national forest, cf-community forest, flfarmland and h-homestead; ** further investigation is needed to identify genus (yushania or chimnobambusa) for deu nigalo and phyllostachys nigra or borinda emeryi for kathe bans (masino) table 2: list of bamboo species recorded in mid western and far western regions of nepal local name scientific name location local name scientific name location nibha/gopi /le / lyas bans/ leyas bans ampelocalamu s patellaris mid western and far western mid hills, mostly cultivated. dum nigalo drepanostachy um sp. found in both dry and mo forest sites, and on farm la in far western mid hills. nigale/mugi bans bambusa alamii cultivated in mid western terai and lower mid hills. putru /putre/suru wal nigalo drepanostachy um sp. clump forming small diam bamboo species found in d dadeldhura, baitadi, darch and bajhang districts kaante bans/hade bans/kande bans/kanda sh bans bambusa bambos thorny bamboos cultivated in farm land of mid western and far western nepal. malinge nigalo himalayacala mus sp. found in cool/temperate broadleaved forests and als cultivated on farm land dhanu/ bholka/ harouti/ bambusa balcooa cultivated all over the terai region (flat plains) of nepal and in the lower mid hills. malinge nigalo h. cupresus found in temperate broadleaved forests of mid western nepal in dolpa an banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 23 das and thapa 12 ghar bans/moto bnas/bhalu bans jumla districts khosre/seto / phusre/ tama bans/ban bans bambusa nepalensis mid western mid hills and surkhet valley, found in both farm land and natural forest. tite nigalo himalayacala mus fimbriatus commonly cultivated species in mid western mid hills and also occasionally found in the broadleaved forest. mal/ ghanse bans bambusa nutans subsp. cupulata less commonly cultivated in mid western and far western districts. seto nigalo himalayacala mus porcatus found in cool broadleaved forest tharu/ ghar/taru/ chille/sate bans bambusa nutans subsp. nutans commonly cultivated and also occurs in the lower hills and foothill forests including bardiya national park. malingo nigalo himalayacala mus sp. broadleaved forests (oaks and rhododendrons) of khaptad national park in doti, dadeldhura, and baitadi districts. chav/ japhta/ ghar bans bambusa tulda one of the most commonly cultivated species all over the terai regions of nepal kalami/ ghusuiwa/ lahure/ nigale bans melocanna baccifera cultivated in dang and lower hills of mid western nepal pahenlo/bu tte bans bambusa vulgaris occasionally cultivated on farm land and private gardens ghoredo/ bhodar nigalo thamnocalamu s sp. high mountain forests of far western nepal kalo nigalo borinda emeryi commonly found bamboo in the high mountain forests. jarbuto thamnocalamu s spathiflorus subsp. nepalensis commonly found bamboo in the high mountain forests in mid western, nepal. gopi/ murali bans cephalostachy um latifolium farm land of mid western nepal kucho nigalo yushania sp. spreading bamboo found in temperate forests and open grazing lands, north of dhaulagiri in jumla, dailekh and kalikot districts. ban/choya/ tama bans dendrocalamu s hamiltonii var. hamiltonii cultivated all over hills of nepal but also found in natural forests. deo/deo ringal/ baghbutte nigalo yushania/ chimnobambus a sp. khaptad national park and also found in natural forests of dadeldhura, doti and baitadi districts. choya bans dendrocalamu s hamiltonii var. undulatus cultivated all over hills of mid and far western regions but also found in natural forests. sano maling arundinaria sp. spreading bamboo rarely found in temperate forests and open grazing lands of mid and far western regions. kalo bans/ bhalu bans dendrocalamu s hookerii cultivated sparsely in baitadi and surkhe districts ghanse nigalo arundinaria sp. reported to be found in of dolpa, humla, mugu, and darchula districts kath/guniy a/ laathi bans/mung er/lath bans dendrocalamu s strictus cultivated all over in the terai. nigalo/mali ngo yushania maling doti, dadeldhura, darchula, dolpa and achham districts kath/ban bans dendrocalamu s strictus var. wild dry siwalik forests, mainly in banke, bardiya, surkhet, kailali and kanchanpur districts. nigalo drepanostachy um sp. kailali, doti, dadeldhura, darchula, salyan, rolpa, pyuthan, jajarkot and achham districts bikase bans dendrocalamu s sp. distributed in doti and dadeldhura districts ankhe nigalo drepanostachy um sp. distributed in surkhet district mal/thulo bans bambusa nutans subsp. cupulata baitadi and kailali districts ghar nigalo drepanostachy um sp. distributed in dailekh district bans banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 24 das and thapa jurmutho/j arbuto thamnocalam us spathiflorus subsp. nepalensis bardiya and dolpa districts dhungre bans dendrocalamu s sp. cultivated species in both mid western and far western mid hills tite nigalo drepanostachy um falcatum drier sub-tropical forest and on farm land final added vol 15-2.pmd 6 growth performance of tectona grandis in the western terai of nepal h. b. thapa1 and s. k. gautam2 assessment of growth, biomass and volume of tectona grandis (teak) was done at a 13-year old plantation established at shankarnagar, rupandehi district. operations such as prunning, prunning and singling, and thinning were carried out at 4, 7.5 and 8.5 years respectively. diameter increment was 2.3 cm within one year of thinning. estimated average fresh wood production was 58.8 kg (87.6 tons ha-1) and 29.6 kg (16.1 tons ha-1) in thinned trees and 75.5 kg (71.4 tons ha-1) for trees after thinning. likewise green leaf production was 5.1 kg tree-1 (7.5 tons ha-1). above ground green biomass was 32.6 kg tree-1 (17.7 tons ha-1) for thinned trees, 63.9 kg tree-1 (95.1 tons ha-1) for trees before thinning and 81.9 kg tree-1 (77.2 tons ha-1) for trees after thinning. the mean over bark stem volume was 0.0707 m3. in thinning, 21 m3 per ha-1 volume was removed. the volume of standing trees before thinning at 7.5 years was 105.2 m3 ha-1. after thinning, per unit and mean basal area, biomass and over bark stem volume has increased considerably during 4-years from 7.5 years to 11.5 years. this rotation period could be applied for future plantations and already established teak plantations on good sites in the terai / inner terai of nepal to supply the wood for veneer and small timbers. keywords: tectona grandis, growth, biomass, volume, rotation, thinning, nepal teak is a multipurpose tree for agroforestry in many parts of asia, africa and tropical america (bhat and ma 2004). importance and value of teak timber was considered some 150 years ago by renowned german forester dietrich brandis. teak is distributed in south-east asia, the indian sub-continent, myanmar, thailand and the western part of laos. it touches the western part of cambodia. it is naturalized in the eastern part of java, indonesia. its northern limit is 250 n in myanmar and southern limit is 90 n in india. its longitudinal limits are 700 – 1000 e. it is widely planted in south-east asia, west africa and to some extent in central america, east africa and oceania (keiding 1993). teak covers seventy five percent of the world’s high-quality tropical hardwood plantations (keogh 1999). in nepal, governmental teak plantation began in 1960 in chiliya, rupandehi district (kayastha 1974) followed by some block plantations in sagarnath, sarlahi and ratuwamai, jhapa districts by forests products development board, few research plots at sagarnath and other places were established by the department of forest research and survey. this paper attempts to provide information on early growth, thinning yield and wood and foliage biomass, and aboveground biomass of tectona grandis at 7.5 years and subsequent years which will be useful to community and private plantations. materials and methods tectona grandis plot was established on 7th july 1992 in 0.50 hectare at a spacing of 2.5m x 2.5m by the plantation section of department of forest research and survey at shankarnagar, rupandehi district, in the western terai of nepal. the site consists of subtropical monsoon climate. its altitude is about 205 m above msl; latitude and longitude are 270 42' n and 830 28' e respectively. more than 90% of the rainfall occurs between june to october. mean maximum and minimum temperature were 30.210c and 20.210c respectively, absolute maximum temperature being 44.9oc in april and may and absolute minimum temperature 4.3oc in january (based on 15 years record, cited in jackson 1994). mean annual rainfall of this site was 2452 mm (20 years record cited in jackson 1994). this site, generally, remains dry from november to may, except for occasional light shower during winter. 1 research officer, dfrs 2 assiatant research officer, dfrs 7 the stumps were raised in district forest office nursery in bhairahawa, rupandehi district. spot cultivation was carried out at 0.5m radius around each plant twice a year for the first three years. there was no application of irrigation or fertilizers. growth assessment was carried out annually. pruning was carried out in the winter of 1996, pruning and singling in the winter of 1999. pruning was done up to one-third height of each tree. selection thinning operation was carried out in the winter of january/ february 2000. diameter at breast height (dbh) of all trees was measured before thinning. for thinning, 233 dead, dying, diseased, suppressed, poorly grown, few dominant and co-dominant trees were selected in the population and marked. out of these selected trees, 29 were used for biomass measurements. the samples covered the entire range of dbh in the population. the marked trees were cut down with a bow saw at about 10 cm from the ground level. after felling, the total length of the tree was measured. leaves along with small twigs were separated from branches and the stem was cut into 1.5 to 2 m sections. stem sections, branches, and foliage were weighed separately and recorded. representative six trees were selected for sub-samples of wood, and leaf. three to four pieces of the discs of about 5 to 10 cm width were taken from lower, middle and upper portions of the stem section and weighed. similarly, leaf subsamples were weighed and recorded. these subsamples were brought to the laboratory in kathmandu and stem and branch discs were oven dried at 1050c for 48 hours and leaf for 24 hours. during that period a constant weight of stem, branch and leaf was attained. percent oven-dry matter of the samples were used for the general data to convert fresh weight of tree components to dry weight the model (ln w or v = a+b* ln dbh where w stands for weight of wood and foliage, v for over bark stem volume, dbh for diameter at breast height, a and b regression constants), was selected to estimate the biomass of tree components (wood and leaf) and for estimation of over bark stem volume (see annex 1). the mean annual production was obtained by dividing the total biomass of tree components, total aboveground biomass and total over bark stem volume by the age of the plantation. results and discussion height and diameter growth mean height of t. grandis was 9.2m at 6.5 years at shankarnagar (see table 1) whereas that of dalbergia latifolia at belbari was 5.9 m at the same age. similarly mean diameter of teak was 10.3 cm at 7.5 years while it was 8.2 cm in d. latifolia at belbari (thapa 2004). it indicated that t. grandis grew faster than d. latifolia in the early age. the height and dbh of teak plantation, were 9.99m and 4.4cm respectively at the age of six years in solakhpur; slightly lower in height growth, but significantly higher diameter than at shankarnagar. at chilia, 14 years teak had 15.2m of height, periodic annual increment (pai) was 1.09m, significantly higher height growth in shankarnagar (kayastha 1974). the annual diameter increment was 2.3 cm within 1year of thinning (see table 1), which is mainly due to removal of inferior small-sized trees during thinning. despite that, the periodic diameter growth was found almost the same (1.3-1.5 cm) in different banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2thapa and gautam 5hvxowv�dqg�'lvfxvvlrq 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�7rs�khljkw������odujhvw�wuhhv�kd��� 7kurxjk�olwhudwxuh��lw�lv�irxqg�wkdw�jurzwk�udwhv�ri�7hfwrqd�judqglv�gliihu�iurp�sodfh�wr�sodfh��$w�6djduqdwk�� wkh�phdq�khljkw�ri����\hduv�rog�7��judqglv vlwh�zdv�����p��shulrglf�khljkw� lqfuhphqw�ehlqj����p��-rvkl� ������� 7khvh� jurzwk� udwhv� duh� htxlydohqw� wr� txdolw\� ,,� lq�/dxulh� dqg�5dp¶v� \lhog� wdeohv� exw� wkh� kljkhvw� txdolw\�lq�wkhvh�wdeohv�lv�prvwo\�iurp�%xupd��7kh\�idoo�zlwklq�txdolw\�,�ri�wkh�wdeohv�iru�1lodpexu�whdn�lq� .hudod��,qgld��7urxs��������+hqfh�wkh�jurzwk�udwhv�lq�wklv�sodqwdwlrq�duh�yhu\�vdwlvidfwru\��,w�lqglfdwhv�wkdw� kljk�txdolw\�7��judqglv sodqwdwlrqv�fdq�eh�jurzq�lq�fhuwdlq�vlwhv�ri�7hudl�dqg�%kdedu�uhjlrq�ri 1hsdo��7kh� jurzwk�ri�whdn�lq�6kdqnduqdjdu��5xsdqghkl�dqg�6djduqdwk��6duodkl�lv�vlplodu�wr�wkh�jurzwk�ri�vlwh�txdolw\�,,� lq�,qgld� $q�lqgljhqrxv�srsxodu�wuhh�vshflhv��'��vlvvrr�dwwdlqhg� wkh�gldphwhu�����fp�dw�����\hduv�dw�7dudkdud��7kh� shulrglf�dqqxdo�lqfuhphqw�gxulqj�wkdw�shulrg�zdv������fp��7kdsd�������zklfk�lv�wkh�vdph�dv�7��judqglv dw� wkh�djh�ri�����\hduv��vhh�wdeoh����,w�fdq�eh�lqihuuhg� wkdw�7��judqglv jurzv�dv�idvw�dv�'��vlvvrr lq�lwv�hduo\� vwdjh�ri�jurzwk��7kh�idvwhvw�jurzwk�uhfrughg�lq�whdn�sodqwdwlrqv�lq�wkh�zruog�lv�iurp�%dqjodghvk�dw�.dsdwl�� 7uhhv�ri����\hduv�djh�kdg�dyhudjh�khljkw�ri�����p��shulrglf�dqqxdo�lqfuhphqw��sdl��ehlqj����p�dqg�dyhudjh� gldphwhu�ri����fp��sdl�ehlqj����fp��*rjdwh������ 7kh�kljkhvw�jurzwk�xqghu�sodqwdwlrq�frqglwlrqv�lq�,qgld�zdv�vhhq�lq�+dogzdql�'lylvlrq��$w����\hduv�ri�djh� wkh�khljkw�jurzwk�zdv�����p��sdl�htxlydohqw�wr����p�dqg�gldphwhu�zdv�����fp��sdl�htxlydohqw�wr����fp���,w� lv�vdlg�wkdw�sodqwdwlrq�whdn�jurzv�vorzo\�diwhu�dq�djh�ri����\hduv���3dudphvzdudssd�������� table 1 : growth performance of teak at shankarnagar 8 years. there decreasing trend in annual diameter increment with the increase in tree age. it is obvious that the trees grow slowly when they get older. literature, show that growth rates of teak differ from place to place. at sagarnath, the mean height of 10 years old tree site was 15.3m, periodic height increment being 1.5m (joshi 1982). these growth rates are equivalent to quality ii in laurie and ram’s yield tables but the highest quality in these tables is mostly from burma. they fall within quality i of the tables for nilambur teak in kerala, india (troup 1921). hence the growth rates in this plantation are very satisfactory. it indicates that high quality teak plantations can be grown in certain sites of terai and bhabar regions of nepal. the growth of teak in shankarnagar, rupandehi and sagarnath, sarlahi is similar to the growth of site quality ii in india. an indigenous popular tree dalbergia sissoo (sissoo) attained 8.4 cm diameter at 5.5 years at tarahara. the periodic annual increment during that period was 1.5. cm (thapa 1998) which is the same as teak at 5.5 years (see table 1). it can be inferred that teak grows as fast as sissoo in its early stage of growth. the fastest growth recorded of teak plantations in the world is from kapati, bangladesh. trees of 21 years age had average height of 29.3m, pai being 1.4m and average diameter of 30 cm, pai being 1.4cm (gogate 1995) the highest growth under plantation conditions in india was seen in haldwani division. at age of 20, the height growth was 23.1m, pai equivalent to 1.2m and diameter was 23.1cm, pai equivalent to 1.4cm. it is said that plantation teak grows slowly after an age of 15 years (parameswarappa 1995). basal area the basal area of trees per unit area is mainly governed by the size and density of trees. at 10.5 years, t. grandis had a basal area of 22.1 m2 ha-1 at sagarnath, sarlahi, and periodic basal area increment was 2.1 m2 ha-1 year-1 (joshi 1982) whereas the basal area of teak in that age at shankarnagar was found to be 16 m2 ha-1, slightly lower than sagarnath. it may be due to lower stocking at shankarnagar. at 7.5 years, the mean basal area of thinned trees of d. latifolia was 0.0045 m2 at belbari (thapa 2004) whereas it was 0.0052 m2 for teak at the same age at shankarnagar. the results indicated that slightly larger-sized trees were thinned at shankarnagar. as the periodic annual increments of basal areas of d. sissoo at tarahara and t. grandis at shankarnagar were 0.0011 m2 (thapa 1998) and 0.0012 m2 (see table 2) respectively, which are almost similar. but the mean basal area of d. latifolia at 7.5 years was 0.0071 m2 tree-1 (0.0009 m2 tree-1 year-1) higher in t. grandis (0.0012 m2tree-1year-1) (thapa 2004). it indicated that both sissoo and teak grow at similar rate in early age and teak is faster than d. latifolia later. biomass the dry matter contents of wood and foliage of 7.5 years old t. grandis at shankarnagar were 40% and 33% respectively. previous study showed that the dry matter contents of wood of 5.5 years old d. sissoo at tarahara and 7.5 years old d. latifolia at belbari were 43.9% (thapa 2000) and 48.3% (thapa 2004) respectively whereas the dry matter content of wood of 3.5 years old c. siamea and euealyptus camaldulensis at tarahara, sunsari district were 45/1 and 45.4% respectively (thapa and subedi 2000). it indicated banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 thapa and gautam table 2: dbh, basal area and periodic annual increment of basal area of 7.5 years tectona grandis at sankarnagar %dvdo�duhd� 7kh�edvdo�duhd�ri�wuhhv�shu�xqlw�duhd�lv�pdlqo\�jryhuqhg�e\�wkh�vl]h�dqg�ghqvlw\�ri�wuhhv���$w������\hduv��7�� judqglv kdg�d�edvdo�duhd�ri������p� kd�� dw�6djduqdwk��6duodkl��dqg�shulrglf�edvdo�duhd�lqfuhphqw�zdv�����p� kd�� \hdu�� �-rvkl�������zkhuhdv�wkh�edvdo�duhd�ri�whdn�lq�wkdw�djh�dw�6kdqnduqdjdu�zdv�irxqg�wr�eh����p� kd� ���voljkwo\�orzhu�wkdq�6djduqdwk��,w�pd\�eh�gxh�wr�orzhu�vwrfnlqj�dw�6kdqnduqdjdu��$w�����\hduv��wkh�phdq� edvdo�duhd�ri�wklqqhg�wuhhv�ri�'��odwlirold zdv��������p� dw�%hoedul �7kdsd�������zkhuhdv�lw�zdv��������p� lq�7��judqglv dw� wkh�vdph�djh�dw�6kdqnduqdjdu��7kh�uhvxowv�lqglfdwhg�wkdw��voljkwo\�odujhu�vl]hg�wuhhv�zhuh� wklqqhg�dw�6kdqnduqdjdu� $v�wkh�shulrglf�dqqxdo�lqfuhphqwv�ri�edvdo�duhdv�ri�'��vlvvrr dw�7dudkdud�dqg�7��judqglv dw�6kdqnduqdjdu� zhuh��������p� �7kdsd�������dqg��������p� �vhh�wdeoh����uhvshfwlyho\��zklfk�duh�doprvw�vlplodu��%xw�wkh� phdq�edvdo� duhd�ri�'�� odwlirold dw� ����\hduv�zdv��������p� wuhh�� ��������p� wuhh�� \hdu���� �7kdsd�������� kljkhu�lq�7��judqglv ��������p�wuhh��\hdu�����,w�lqglfdwhg�wkdw�vlvvrr�dqg�whdn�jurz�dw�wkh�vdph�udwh�lq�hduo\� djh�dqg�idvwhu�wkdq�'��odwlirold�� 7deoh����'ek��edvdo�duhd�dqg�shulrglf�dqqxdo�lqfuhphqw�ri�edvdo�duhd�ri������\hduv�7hfwrqd�judqglv�dw 6dqnduqdjdu 6wdqglqj�wuhhv3dudphwhu 7klqqhg�wuhhv %hiruh�wklqqlqj $iwhu�wklqqlqj 0hdq�gek��fp�� ��� ���� ���� 0hdq�edvdo�duhd��p�� ������ ������ ������ 3hulrglf�dqqxdo�lqfuhphqw�ri�edvdo�duhd��p�kd��\hdu��� ������ ������ ������ %dvdo�duhd��p� kd��� ��� ���� ���� 2yhu�edun�vwhp yroxph��p� wuhh��� ������ ������ ������ 2yhu�edun�vwhp�yroxph��p� kd��� �� ����� ���� 6wrfnlqj��vwhpv�kd��� ��� ���� ��� 3hufhqwdjh�ri�wkh�ruljlqdo�vwrfnlqj ���� ���� ���� %dvdo�duhd�uhprydo������� ������� 5hprydo�ri�wuhhv�lq�iluvw�wklqqlqj���������� %lrpdvv ,w�zdv�irxqg�wkdw�wkh�gu\�pdwwhu�frqwhqwv�ri�zrrg��dqg�iroldjh�ri�����\hduv�rog�7��judqglv dw6kdqnduqdjdu� zhuh�����dqg�����uhvshfwlyho\��3uhylrxv�vwxg\�vkrzv�wkdw�wkh�gu\�pdwwhu�frqwhqwv�ri�zrrg�ri�����\hduv� rog�'��vlvvrr dw�7dudkdud�dqg�����\hduv�rog�'��odwlirold dw�%hoedul�zhuh��������7kdsd�������dqg������� �7kdsd� ������ uhvshfwlyho\�zkhuhdv� wkh� gu\�pdwwhu� frqwhqw� ri�zrrg� ri� ���� \hduv� rog�&�� vldphd dqg�(�� fdpdogxohqvlv dw�7dudkdud��6xqvdul�'lvwulfw�zhuh������dqg�������uhvshfwlyho\��7kdsd�������� ,w� lqglfdwhg� wkdw�prlvwxuh�frqwhqw�ri�zrrg�lv�pruh�lq�7hfwrqd�judqglv wkdq�$��fdwhfkx��'��vlvvrr���&dvvld�vldphd��(�� fdpdogxohqvlv dqg�'��odwlirold��$v�d�uhvxow��ryhq�gulhg�zrrg�elrpdvv�ri�7��judqglv�zrxog�eh�orzhu�wkdq�wkh� deryh�ilyh�vshflhv�� $w�6djduqdwk��6duodkl��dlu�gulhg�zrrg�zdv�irxqg�wr�eh�derxw�����ri�juhhq�zrrg��-rvkl� �������7kh�frqyhuvlrq� idfwru������ri�6djduqdwk�fdq�eh�xvhg� wr�frqyhuw�juhhq�zrrg� wr�dlu�gulhg�zrrg�dw� 6kdqnduqdjdu�dovr�� $w� ���� \hduv�� � �� wrqv� kd�� juhhq�zrrg�zdv� rewdlqhg� iurp� suxqlqj�vlqjolqj� rshudwlrq�� %hiruh� wklqqlqj�� hvwlpdwhg�dyhudjh�iuhvk�zrrg�surgxfwlrq�ri�����\hduv�rog�7��judqglv zdv��irxqg�wr�eh������nj�������wrqv�kd� ���dqg������nj�������wrqv�kd����lq�wklqqhg�wuhhv�dqg������nj�������wrqv�kd����iru�wuhhv�diwhu�wklqqlqj��vhh�wdeoh� ����:rrg�surgxfwlrq�ri�7��judqglv zdv�irxqg�kljkhu�wkdq�'��odwlirold��dv�lw�kdg�rqo\������nj�wuhh�� dw����� \hduv� �7kdsd��������6lploduo\�dqrwkhu�vwxg\��vkrzv�wkdw�dw�6djduqdwk�������\hduv�rog�whdn�dwwdlqhg������� wrqv�juhhq�zrrg��lq�d�khfwduh��-rvkl�������� parameter 9 that moisture content of wood is more in teak than acacia catechu, d. sissoo, c. siamea, e. camaldulensis and d. latifolia. as a result, oven dried wood biomass of t. grandis would be lower than the above five species. at sagarnath, sarlahi, air-dried wood was found to be about 67% of green wood (joshi 1982). the conversion factor 0.67 of sagarnath can be used to convert green wood to air-dried wood at shankarnagar also. at 6.5 years, 3 tons ha-1 green wood was obtained from pruning/singling operation. before thinning, estimated average fresh wood production of 7.5 years old t. grandis was 58.8 kg (87.6 tons ha-1) and 29.6 kg (16.1 tons ha-1) in thinned trees and 75.5 kg (71.4 tons ha-1) for trees after thinning (see table 3). wood production of t. grandis was higher than d. latifolia, (37.6 kg tree-1) at 7.5 years (thapa 2004). similarly, another study showed that at sagarnath, 10.5 years old teak attained 137.2 tons green wood in a hectare (joshi 1982). the estimated average green leaf production of t. grandis at 7.5 years was 5.1 kg tree-1 and 7.5 tons ha-1, while it was 5.4 kg/tree and 2.8 tons ha-1 in dalbergia latifolia (thapa 2004) of the same age. it shows that t. grandis had significantly higher foliage production per unit area than in d. latifolia at an early stage of its growth. it is mainly due to density of trees, as d. latifolia had a spacing of 4 x 2m whereas t. grandis had a spacing of 2.5 x 2.5 m. however, in both the species, average leaf content varied very little (see table 3). on an average, the contribution of green leaf in total aboveground biomass was 8% in t. grandis and 12% in d. latifolia (thapa 2004) (see table 3), slightly less than d. latifolia. less production of foliage in t. grandis may be due to smaller sized and less number of branches than d. latifolia. above ground green biomass was estimated 32.6 kg tree-1 (17.7 tons ha-1) for thinned trees, 63.9 kg tree-1 (95.1 tons ha-1) for trees before thinning and 81.9 kg tree-1 (77.2 tons ha-1) for trees after thinning in t. grandis as compared to 26.7 kg tree-1 (4.4 tons ha-1) for thinned trees, 43.0 kg tree-1 (22.5 tons ha-1) for trees before thinning and 51.8 kg (18.7 tons ha-1) after thinning in d. latifolia (thapa 2004). productivity productivity of green wood (stem and branch) of t. grandis was 11.7 tons ha-1 year-1 and rate of accumulation was found to be 7.8 kg tree-1 year-1 (see table 4); similar to the rate of accumulation of d. sissoo and acacia auriculiformis but less than a. catechu and e. camaldulensis but higher than d. latifolia. at tarahara, productivity of green wood of 5.5 years old d. sissoo, acacia auriculiformis, acacia catechu, and e. camaldulensis were 10.5, 13.0, 16.2, and 19.7 tons ha-1 year-1 and rate of accumulation of these species were 7.79, 7.35, 13.74, and 15.21 kg tree-1 year-1 (thapa 2000). similarly joshi (1982) found that productivity of green and air-dried-wood of 10.5 years old teak at sagarnath were 13.07 and 8.72 tons ha-1 year-1 respectively. estimated volume the mean over bark stem volume of t. grandis was 0.0707 m3. the volume of thinned trees was 21 m3 ha-1 whereas that of standing trees before thinning at 7.5 years was 105.2 m3 ha-1. about 20% of the total 7deoh�����$yhudjh�juhhq�dqg�ryhq�gu\�elrpdvv�ri�wklqqhg�dqg��vwdqglqj�wuhhv�ehiruh�dqg�diwhu�wklqqlqj�dw� ����\hduv 6wdqglqj�wuhhv��nj�wuhh��� 6wdqglqj�wuhhv��wrqv�kd���7klqqhg�wuhhv� �nj��wuhh��� %hiruh�wklqqlqj $iwhu�wklqqlqj 7klqqhg�wuhhv� �wrqv�kd��� %hiruh�wklqqlqj $iwhu�wklqqlqj3dudphwhu *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq ryhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ :rrg ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ���� ��������� ����� ����� ����� )roldjh ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� �������� ���� ���� ���� $eryh�jurxqg� elrpdvv ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ���� ����������� ����� ����� ����� )ljxuhv�lq�sduhqwkhvlv�lqglfdwh�wkh�shufhqwdjh�ri�vwhp�zrrg�dqg�iroldjh�lq�wrwdo�deryhjurxqg�elrpdvv� /lnhzlvh�hvwlpdwhg�dyhudjh�juhhq�ohdi�surgxfwlrq�ri�����\hduv�7��judqglv zdv�����nj�wuhh�� dqg�����wrqv�kd�� ��zkloh�lw�zdv������nj�wuhh�dqg�����wrqv�kd�� 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7deoh����3urgxfwlylw\�dqg�udwh�ri�dffxpxodwlrq�ri�juhhq�dqg�ryhq�gu\�elrpdvv�ri������\hduv�7��judqglv *uhhq�elrpdvv��nj�wuhh �� \hdu��� *uhhq�elrpdvv��wrqv�kd �� \hdu��� :rrg /hdi 7rwdo :rrg /hdi 7rwdo *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ %hiruh�wklqqlqj ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ���� ��� ��� ��� ���� ��� $iwhu�wklqqlqj ���� ��� ��� ��� ���� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ���� ��� (vwlpdwhg�9roxph 7kh�phdq�ryhu�edun�vwhp�yroxph�ri�7��judqglv zdv��������p���7kh�yroxph�ri�wklqqhg�wuhhv�zdv����p� kd�� zkhuhdv�wkh�yroxph�ri�vwdqglqj�wuhhv�ehiruh�wklqqlqj�dw�����\hduv�zdv�������p� kd���� $erxw�����ri�wkh� wrwdo�yroxph�zdv�uhpryhg�lq�wklqqlqj�rshudwlrq��7kh�ryhu�edun�vwhp�yroxph�ri�vwdqglqj�wuhhv�ri�����\hduv� rog�'��odwlirold dw�%hoedul�zdv��������p� wuhh��������p��kd���� �7kdsd��������0hdq�ryhu�edun�yroxph�ri�vwhp� ri�7�� judqglv zdv� irxqg� ohvv� wkdq�'�� odwlirold�� exw� shu� xqlw� duhd� yroxph�zdv� vljqlilfdqwo\� kljkhu� lq�7�� judqglv wkdq�'��odwlirold��,w�lv�pdlqo\�gxh�wr�wkh�gliihuhqfh�lq�vwrfnlqj�ri�wkhvh�wzr�vshflhv��$v�'��odwlirold kdg�rqo\�����vwhpv�kd�� zkhuhdv�7��judqglv kdg�d�vwrfnlqj�ri������vwhpvkd����/lnhzlvh�iuhvko\�ihoohg�vrolg� yroxph�\lhogv�zhuh�hvwlpdwhg�dw������p� kd�� \hdu�� iru������\hduv�rog�whdn dw�6djduqdwk��6duodkl��wkh�wrwdo� table 3: average green and oven dry biomass of thinned and standing trees before and after thinning at 7.5 years banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2thapa and gautam 7deoh�����$yhudjh�juhhq�dqg�ryhq�gu\�elrpdvv�ri�wklqqhg�dqg��vwdqglqj�wuhhv�ehiruh�dqg�diwhu�wklqqlqj�dw� ����\hduv 6wdqglqj�wuhhv��nj�wuhh��� 6wdqglqj�wuhhv��wrqv�kd���7klqqhg�wuhhv� �nj��wuhh��� %hiruh�wklqqlqj $iwhu�wklqqlqj 7klqqhg�wuhhv� �wrqv�kd��� %hiruh�wklqqlqj $iwhu�wklqqlqj3dudphwhu *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq ryhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ :rrg ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ���� ��������� ����� ����� ����� )roldjh ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� 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$w�7dudkdud��surgxfwlylw\�ri�juhhq�zrrg�ri�����\hduv�rog�'��vlvvrr��$fdfld�dxulfxoliruplv��$fdfld�fdwhfkx�� dqg�(�� fdpdogxohqvlv zhuh������� ������ ������ dqg������ wrqv� kd�� \hdu�� dqg� udwh� ri� dffxpxodwlrq�ri� wkhvh� vshflhv�zhuh��������������������dqg�������nj��wuhh�� \hdu�� �7kdsd���������6lploduo\�-rvkl��������irxqg�wkdw� surgxfwlylw\�ri�juhhq�dqg�dlu�gulhg�zrrg�ri������\hduv�rog�whdn�dw�6djduqdwk�zhuh�������dqg�������wrqv�kd�� \hdu��� 7deoh����3urgxfwlylw\�dqg�udwh�ri�dffxpxodwlrq�ri�juhhq�dqg�ryhq�gu\�elrpdvv�ri������\hduv�7��judqglv *uhhq�elrpdvv��nj�wuhh �� \hdu��� *uhhq�elrpdvv��wrqv�kd �� \hdu��� :rrg /hdi 7rwdo :rrg /hdi 7rwdo *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ *uhhq 2yhq� gu\ %hiruh�wklqqlqj ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ���� ��� ��� ��� ���� ��� $iwhu�wklqqlqj ���� ��� ��� ��� ���� ��� ��� ��� ��� ��� ���� ��� (vwlpdwhg�9roxph 7kh�phdq�ryhu�edun�vwhp�yroxph�ri�7��judqglv zdv��������p���7kh�yroxph�ri�wklqqhg�wuhhv�zdv����p� kd�� zkhuhdv�wkh�yroxph�ri�vwdqglqj�wuhhv�ehiruh�wklqqlqj�dw�����\hduv�zdv�������p� kd���� $erxw�����ri�wkh� wrwdo�yroxph�zdv�uhpryhg�lq�wklqqlqj�rshudwlrq��7kh�ryhu�edun�vwhp�yroxph�ri�vwdqglqj�wuhhv�ri�����\hduv� rog�'��odwlirold dw�%hoedul�zdv��������p� wuhh��������p��kd���� �7kdsd��������0hdq�ryhu�edun�yroxph�ri�vwhp� ri�7�� judqglv zdv� irxqg� ohvv� wkdq�'�� odwlirold�� exw� shu� xqlw� duhd� yroxph�zdv� vljqlilfdqwo\� kljkhu� lq�7�� judqglv wkdq�'��odwlirold��,w�lv�pdlqo\�gxh�wr�wkh�gliihuhqfh�lq�vwrfnlqj�ri�wkhvh�wzr�vshflhv��$v�'��odwlirold kdg�rqo\�����vwhpv�kd�� zkhuhdv�7��judqglv kdg�d�vwrfnlqj�ri������vwhpvkd����/lnhzlvh�iuhvko\�ihoohg�vrolg� yroxph�\lhogv�zhuh�hvwlpdwhg�dw������p� kd�� \hdu�� iru������\hduv�rog�whdn dw�6djduqdwk��6duodkl��wkh�wrwdo� table 4: productivity and rate of accumulation of green and oven-dry biomass of teak at 7.5 years 10 volume was removed in thinning operation. the over bark stem volume of standing trees of 7.5 years old d. latifolia at belbari was 0.0167 m3 tree-1 (8.8 m3 ha-1) (thapa 2004). mean over bark stem volume of t. grandis was found less than d. latifolia, but per unit area volume was significantly higher in t. grandis than d. latifolia. it is mainly due to the difference in stocking of these two species. as d. latifolia had only 493 stems ha-1 whereas t. grandis had a stocking of 1488 stemsha-1. likewise freshly felled solid volume yields were estimated at 14.5 m3 ha-1 year-1 for 10.5 years old teak at sagarnath, sarlahi, the total over bark volume was 152.5 m3 ha-1 whereas under bark volume was 119.3 m3 ha-1 (78% of over bark volume). so the bark content was found to be about 22% (joshi 1982). at haldwani division, india 20 years old t. grandis had 28.04 m3 stem volume (parameswarappa 1995). per unit area and mean basal area, biomass and over bark stem volume after thinning mean basal area of trees after thinning ranged from 0.0111 m2 at 7.5 years to 0.0185 m2 at 11.5 years, an increase of about 67% in 4-years, similarly 75.7 kg of green wood at 7.5 years to 146.2 kg per tree at 11.5 years, an increase of 93% in that period (see table 5). mean volume of over bark stem volume ranged from 0.0893 m3 at 7.5 years to 0.1588 m3 at 11.5 years, an increase of about 78% in 4-years. basal area increased from 10.4 m2 ha-1 at 7.5 years after thinning to 17.1 m2 ha-1, a significant increase of 64% in that period. all of these figures state that the growth of trees has been increased in a significant manner after thinning. similar trend is found in biomass and volume production. the remaining trees after thinning have got more space so that nutrient availability increased causing increased biomass and volume production during that period. during 4-years, an increase in wood production was higher than foliage production (see table 5) as former was 87% whereas the latter was 62% . it is also interesting to note that 3 tons and 21 tons and of green wood was removed in pruning/singling and first thinning respectively, which if sold as firewood, can fetch rs. 24,000 (re 1 per kilo). if preservative treatment is applied for the poles and posts obtained from thinning, the monetary value would be even higher. increase in basal area, biomass and over bark stem volume after thinning after thinning at 7.5 years, there was an increase of 62.1 tons of green wood and 3.6 tons of foliage in a hectare. periodic increments from 7.5 to 11.5 years were 15.5 and 0.9 tons ha-1 year-1 for wood and foliage respectively. in case of over bark stem volume, there was an increase of 60.8 m3 ha-1 in which periodic increment of stem volume was 15.2 m3 ha-1 year-1 (see table 6). these increased figures support the need of thinning in an appropriate time to promote the growth and production to shorten the rotation. soil and crop rotation as said earlier, teak grows faster in the early stage, although the subsequent growth very much depends on the nature of the soil. the growth is affected adversely, if the sub-soil has a heavy texture and suffers from water logging. so, texture, particularly of the sub-soil, must be identified in selecting the site for planting t. grandis in the terai. *uhhq�elrpdvv��wrqv�kd��� $jh�ri� sodqwdwlrq� �\hdu� 1xpehu�ri� \hduv�diwhu� wklqqlqj %dvdo�duhd�lqfuhdvh� �p� kd����diwhu� wklqqlqj :rrg )roldjh $eryh�jurxqg� elrpdvv 2yhu�edun� vwhp�yroxph� �p� kd��� ��� � ��� ���� ��� ���� ���� ��� � ��������� ����������� ��������� ����������� ����������� ���� � ��������� ����������� ��������� ����������� ����������� ���� � ��������� ����������� ��������� ���������� ����������� �%dvdo duhd��elrpdvv�dqg�re�yroxph�ri�����\hduv�lv�ghgxfwhg�iurp�wkh�edvdo�duhd��elrpdvv��dqg�re�yroxph�ri����������������dqg������ \hduv�7��judqglv��)ljxuhv�lq�sduhqwkhvlv�lqglfdwh�wkh�shulrglf�lqfuhphqw�diwhu�wklqqlqj�rshudwlrq�fduulhg�rxw�lq�wkh�zlqwhu�ri������ frxog� eh� dssolhg� iru� ixwxuh� sodqwdwlrqv� dqg� douhdg\� hvwdeolvkhg� lq� whdn� sodqwdwlrqv� rq� jrrg� vlwhv� lq� wkh� 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��whdn�fdq�surgxfh�wlpehu�ri�rswlpxp�vwuhqjwk�lq�uhodwlyho\�vkruw��h�j�����\hdu��urwdwlrqv��dqg �� idvw�jurzlqj� suryhqdqfhv�forqhv� fdq� eh� vhohfwhg� iru� whdn� pdqdjhphqw� zlwkrxw� uhgxflqj� wkh� vshflilf� judylw\� ri� zrrg�� +rzhyhu�� suryhqdqfhv� vkrxog� eh� pdwfkhg� zlwk� wkh� vlwh� frqglwlrqv�� )xuwkhu� surgxfw� uhtxluhphqwv�dsshdu�wr�eh�prvw�fuxfldo�lq�wuhh�lpsuryhphqw�surjudpv� &rqfoxvlrq 7khuh�lv�d�orw�ri�vfrsh�iru�surprwlrq�ri�whdn�sodqwdwlrqv�lq�vxlwdeoh�vlwhv�ri�7hudl�dqg�,qqhu�7hudl�uhjlrqv�ri� 1hsdo���7kh�uhvxowv�ri�jurzwk��elrpdvv�dqg�yroxph�surgxfwlrq�ri�7��judqglv dw�6kdqnduqdjdu��5xsdqghkl� glvwulfw�kdv�vkrzq�lwv�vxffhvv�lq�sodqwdwlrqv���2q�rqh�kdqg��ghpdqg�ri�iluhzrrg��srohv�dqg�vpdoo�wlpehu�fdq� eh�phw�iurp�wkh�wklqqhg�\lhog�lq�gliihuhqw�wklqqlqj��rq�wkh�rwkhu�wkh�uhpdlqlqj�wuhhv�zloo�kdyh�pruh�jurzlqj� vsdfh�iru�gldphwhu�lqfuhphqw�zklfk�uhgxfhv�wkh�urwdwlrq�shulrg�frqvlghudeo\�� �6kruwhu�urwdwlrqv�ri������� \hduv� dv� dssolhg� lq� rwkhu� frxqwulhv� lv� fuxfldo� iru� whdn� sodqwdwlrqv� lq�1hsdo� iru� erwk�yhqhhu� dqg� vdz� orj� surgxfwlrq�wr�jhw�txlfn�uhwxuqv� 5hihuhqfhv %kdw��.��0��dqg�0d�+zdq�2n�������,772�7urslfdo�)ruhvw�8sgdwh ���� ����� *rjdwh��0��*��������(ydoxdwlrq�ri�jurzwk�uhvsrqvh�ri�7hdn�wr�kljk�lqsxwv��,qgldq�)ruhvwhu ������� ������ ���s��-xqh������ (ydqv��-��������3odqwdwlrq�)ruhvwu\�lq�wkh�7urslfv��&oduhqgrq�3uhvv��7kh�8��.� table 6 : per unit area increment in basal area, green biomass (wood and foliage), over bark stem volume of standing trees after thinning banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 thapa and gautam table 5 : per unit area basal area, green and oven-dry biomass (wood and foliage), over bark stem volume of standing trees in different years 6 over bark volume was 152.5 m 3 ha -1 whereas under bark volume was 119.3 m 3 ha -1 (78% of over bark volume). so the bark content was found to be about 22% (joshi 1982). at haldwani division, india 20 years old t. grandis had 28.04 m 3 stem volume ( parameswarappa 1995 ).. per unit area and mean basal area, biomass and over bark stem volume after thinning mean basal area of trees after thinning ranged from 0.0111 m 2 at 7.5 years to 0.0185 m 2 at 11.5 years, an increase of about 67% in 4-years, similarly 75.7 kg of green wood at 7.5 years to 146.2 kg per tree at 11.5 years, an increase of 93% in that period (see table 5). mean volume of ob stem volume ranged from 0.0893 m 3 at 7.5 years to 0.1588 m 3 at 11.5 years, an increase of about 78% in 4-years. basal area increased from 10.4 m 2 ha -1 at 7.5 years after thinning to 17.1 m 2 ha -1 , a significant increase of 64% in that period. all of these figures state that the growth of trees has been increased in a significant manner after thinning. similar trend is found in biomass and volume production. the remaining trees after thinning have got more space so that nutrient availability increased which caused an increase in biomass and volume production during that period. table 5 : per unit area basal area, green and oven-dry biomass (wood and foliage), over bark stem volume of standing trees in different years green biomass (tons ha-1) oven dry biomass (tons ha-1)age (years) basal area (m2 ha-1) wood foliage total wood foliage total over bark stem volume (m3 ha-1) 7.5 10.4 71.4 5.8 77.2 30.32 2.08 33.0 84.2 8.5 12.2 86.7 6.8 93.5 36.81 2.41 39.23 99.9 9.5 14.9 111.8 8.3 120.2 47.60 2.94 50.55 125.0 10.5 16.0 123.5 8.9 132.4 52.75 3.17 55.92 136.1 11.5 17.1 133.5 9.4 142.9 58.55 3.43 61.98 145 during 4-years, an increase in wood production was higher than foliage production (see table 5) as wood production was 87% whereas foliage production was 62% . it is also interesting to note that 3 tons and 21 tons and of green wood was removed in pruning/singling and first thinning respectively, if the wood is used for firewood, one can get rs. 24,000 (re 1 per kilo) from this quantity. if preservative treatment is applied for the poles and posts obtained from thinning, the monetary value would be even higher. increase in basal area, biomass and over bark stem volume after thinning after thinning at 7.5 years, there was an increase of 62.1 tons of green wood and 3.6 tons of foliage in a hectare, periodic increments from 7.5 to 11.5 years were 15.5 and 0.9 tons ha 1 year -1 for wood and foliage respectively. in case of over bark stem volume, there was an increase of 60.8 m 3 ha -1 in which periodic increment of stem volume was 15.2 m3 ha-1 year-1 (see table 6). these increased figures support the need of thinning in an appropriate time to promote the growth and production to shorten the rotation. some other aspects (soil and rotation) teak grows quite faster in the early stage, although the subsequent growth very much depends on the nature of the soil. the growth is affected adversely, if the sub-soil has a heavy texture and suffers from water logging. so, texture, particularly of the sub-soil, must be identified in selecting the site for planting t. grandis in the terai. in the dry zones of india, teak plantations, where growth is slow, are managed on longer coppice rotations of about 40 to 50 years. the mean annual increment of t. grandis grown for 60-80 years in india is mostly between 4 and 8 m 3 ha -1 (evans 1982). the production of high-quality wood has been in long rotations of 50-70 years, when the world’s first teak plantation was established at nilambur in india’s kerala state in 1842. however, many farmers and other small landholders in many countries like malaysia, thailand, india, brazil and costa rica have adopted shorter rotations of 20-30 years for both veneer and saw log production for relatively quick returns (ball et al. 1999, quoted in bhat and ma 2004). this rotation period table 6 : per unit area increment in basal area, green biomass (wood and foliage), over bark stem volume of standing trees after thinning 11 in the dry zones of india, teak plantations, where growth is slow, are managed on longer coppice rotations of about 40 to 50 years. the mean annual increment of t. grandis grown for 60-80 years in india is mostly between 4 and 8 m3 ha-1 (evans 1982). the production of high-quality wood has been in long rotations of 50-70 years, when the world’s first teak plantation was established at nilambur in india’s kerala state in 1842. however, many farmers and other small landholders in many countries like malaysia, thailand, india, brazil and costa rica have adopted shorter rotations of 20-30 years for both veneer and saw log production for relatively quick returns (ball et al. 1999, quoted in bhat and ma 2004). this rotation period could be applied for future plantations and already established in teak plantations on good sites in the terai/inner terai of nepal to supply the wood for veneer and small timbers. preservative treatment should be applied in small timbers to lengthen their durability. further, recent research findings show that teakwood obtained in short-rotation is not significantly inferior in density and strength compared to natural-grown teak (bhat and ma 2004). the findings of the studies (summarised in bhat 2000 quoted in bhat and ma 2004) provide the following hope to plantationgrowers, including smallholders: • without altering timber strength, plantation managers can aim to produce timber with higher yields of naturally durable heartwood in each tree by enhancing growth in short rotations with judicious fertilizer application and genetic improvements on suitable sites; • the mai for teak plantations is generally relatively high in short rotations of 20–25 years. teak yield tables show that mai usually peaks within 20 years of plantation establishment; • teak can produce timber of optimum strength in relatively short (e.g. 21 year) rotations; and • fast-growing provenances/clones can be selected for teak management without reducing the specific gravity of wood. however, provenances should be matched with the site conditions. further product requirements appear to be most crucial in tree improvement programs. conclusion there is a lot of scope for promotion of teak plantations in suitable sites of terai and inner terai of nepal. the results of growth, biomass and volume production of t. grandis at shankarnagar, rupandehi district has shown its success in plantations. on one hand, demand of firewood, poles and small timber can be met from the yield in different thinning, which on the other, the remaining trees will have more growing space for diameter increment which reduces the rotation period considerably. shorter rotations of 20-30 years as applied in other countries is crucial for teak plantations in nepal for both veneer and saw log production to get quick returns. references bhat, k. m. and ma hwan ok 2004. itto tropical forest update 14/1 2004. gogate, m. g. 1995. evaluation of growth response of teak to high inputs. indian forester 121 (6): 578-580. evans, j. 1982. plantation forestry in the tropics. clarendon press, the u. k. jackson, j. k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal, second edition. forestry research and survey centre, nepal. joshi, m. r. 1982. preliminary estimate of the productivity of plantation grown tectona grandis and dalbergia sissoo at sagarnath, nepal. forest survey and research office. publication no. 36. kayastha, b. p. 1974. site suitability of trial plantations of teak (tectona grandis). forestry journal of the institute of forestry (4), 4-7p. keiding, h. 1993. tectona grandis. seed leaflet 4. danida forest seed centre, denmark. january 1993. keogh, r. 1996. teak, 2000: a consortium support model for greatly increasing the contribution of quality tropical hardwood plantations to sustainable development iied forestry and land use series no. 9, iied and atf. parameswarappa, s. 1995. teak how fast can it grow and how much can it pay? indian forester 121 (6): 563-565. thapa, h. b. 1998. growth of five fast growing tree species in the terai of eastern nepal. banko janakari 8 (2):14-22. thapa, h. b. 2000. biomass estimation of some fast growing trees in the eastern terai, nepal. banko janakari 10 (2):14-22. thapa, h. b. and subedi, n. 2001. growth and fuelwood production of cassia siamea and eucalyptus camaldulensis under short rotation in the eastern terai of nepal. banko janakari 11 (2):35-43. thapa, h. b. 2004. early growth, thinning yield and estimated biomass of standing trees of dalbergia latifolia roxb. in the eastern terai, nepal. banko janakari 14 (1):31-40. troup, r. s. 1921. the silviculture of indian trees. clarendon press, oxford. banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2thapa and gautam 12 $qqh[����5hjuhvvlrq�htxdwlrqv�iru�hvwlpdwlrq�ri�ryhu�edun�yroxph�dqg�juhhq�zrrg�dqg�iroldjh�ri�7hfwrqd� judqglv� 0rgho��/q�9�ru�:� �d�e /q'%+�zkhuh�:�vwdqgv�iru�juhhq�zhljkw�ri�zrrg�dqg�iroldjh�ru�9�iru�ryhu�edun� vwhp�yroxph��gek�iru�gldphwhu�dw�euhdvw�khljkw��d�dqg�e�uhjuhvvlrq�frqvwdqwv 5hjuhvvlrq�frqvwdqw3duwlfxodu d e 5� 6wdqgdug� huuru 0hdq�vtxduh� huuru 1r��ri� revhuydwlrqv 7rwdo�2yhu�%dun�9roxph ������ ������ ���� ����� ������ �� *uhhq�:rrg�%lrpdvv ������� ������ ���� ���� ������ �� *uhhq�iroldjh ������� ������ ���� ����� ������ �� banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 thapa and gautam annex 1: regression equations for estimation of over bark volume and green wood and foliage of tectona grandis model: ln v or w = a+b*lndbh where w stands for green weight of wood and foliage or v for over bark stem volume, dbh for diameter at breast height, a and b regression constants final vol 16-1.pmd 25 the collective approach for managing common pool resource valuable for livelihood and environment is evolving in many developing countries. side by side the freedoms and opportunities of the resource dependent occupational and oppressed groups are becoming increasingly recognised. however, the problems of socially oppressed and special need groups in this politico-ecological complex approach are little known. to enhance the knowledge this study examines the change in access to charcoal for kami (blacksmith) after the introduction of community forestry programme in nepal. the kami is traditionally a forest dependent occupational group (hobley, 1996). historically this ethnic group has played a key role in social civilization and sustaining small tool based mountain farming. this group makes and repairs agricultural tools, ornaments and other utensils in charcoal and local technology based workshops. the market supply and alternative maintenance service of the equipment, tools and other utensils are still unavailable in many parts of the country where the kami provides a low cost services working in traditional workshops. some mountain communities could have yet remained in nomadic life if the service had not been provided widely in the country that has been fragmented by rocky-mountains, high hills and high current rivers originated from glaciers. though the kami has provided a vital service to the society, this is a socially oppressed (so called an untouchable caste), and economically disadvantaged group in nepal. table 1: shows some socio-economic attributes of the dalit group in nepal. the kami belongs to the hill dalits’ (oppressed) group and most of the households have critical poverty. their the issues of oppressed groups’ access to collectively managed resources: an empirical analysis bhubaneswor dhakal1 oppressed groups’ problem in collective management of resource is examined in the case of kami’s (blacksmith) access to charcoal in community forests in nepal. a field survey shows that almost a half forest user groups have excluded the kami for charcoal collection. in the government policies, rights of households with special needs are not clearly defined and protected. in an econometric analysis of the user groups, this study identified forest size, group size, intensive external support and groups’ meeting frequency are the factors determining the charcoal distribution in community forests. key words: community forest, exclusion, livelihood, protected rights, and special need group by ethnicity human development indicators nepal (average) bahun chhretri newar hill janjati terrai ethnicity hill dalit muslim others life expectancy (years) 55 61 56 62 53 58 50 49 54 adult literacy (%) 37 58 42 55 35 28 24 22 28 mean years schooling 2 5 3 4 2 2 1 1 2 per capita income (nrs) 7673 9921 7744 11953 6607 6911 4940 6336 7312 table 1 : the dalit group’s comparative socio-economic status (source: npc, 2003) 1 ph.d scholar lincoln university, new zealand, email: bhubaneswordhakal@yahoo.co.nz 26 representations in political power and the government services are far smaller in comparison to their 3.9 percent of total population (npc, 2003). as a poor occupational group the kami needs regular supply of charcoal from community forests. however, there is little study done about the kami specifically for the charcoal distribution problem in nepal. therefore this study could make a contribution to both theory and policy. the institutional theories and oppressed groups since the community forestry development is an institutional change, the charcoal distribution problem could be explained better by distributive institutional theories. these frameworks are reviewed in this section. access to and control over resources the property rights are to be assigned to an appropriate common pool resource when societies face scarcity. bromley (1989) stated the property rights are socially recognized or legally enforced power to conserve, use and control over valuable object or worthy creation and exclude potential claimants. the right enable some and constrains others to access benefit of particular property or wealth. this right assignment is an act of distributing wealth that determines secured access to income for survival and enjoyment. access, on the other hand, defines as getting resource by bundles and webs of means such as material, cultural and politicoeconomic (property rights) powers and personality influences (ribot and peluso, 2003). this means access to resource is largely a matter of individual’s capability when property rights are not specified. scholars have propounded many principles and theories of property rights for secure access on a resource. social justice is a commonly agreed distributive principle. since the social justice is a socially defined reality (young, 1990), then how to define social justice for assigning property rights is a debatable issue. dobson (1998), however, argued need, desert and entitlement are justifiable distributive principles. the need principle is based on karl marx thesis that the resources should be distributed according to need and according to ability. the desert principles posit that the individual should be provided or honoured for what he or she gave to the society. the entitlement principle explains that the individual entitle to get the thing that the person has the relation on it in the original condition. rawls (1971) argue a greater benefit of the least advantaged parties or individuals is a fair practice and a social justice. bromley (1989) also listed many other theories: the first occupancy, the labour theory, the utility theory, the political theory and the moral enhancement. recently, the rights of traditionally resource dependent or aborigine people are becoming valued for resolving distributive conflicts and human right violation (vogt, 1998). ways of lifestyles, social behaviours and cultures of ethnic people have evolved and are attached to local resources. accessing the local resource is their human right to maintain the lifestyles and enjoy the cultures. groups with secure property right can have secure access and greater say about the resource. for example, maori some how lagged behind participating mainstream socio-political opportunities but have enjoyed access to natural resources greater than other new zealanders. contemporary aborigines of canada and australia have little say and less control over natural resources (challen, 2000; vogt, 1998) and are more vulnerable. the secure access is important to disadvantaged groups to cope with extreme situations. the freedoms and hedging opportunities of people should not be harmed while changing institution for benefiting other people. distributive problems and determinants of common property duncan (1996) stated as long as poor people live in their traditional communities their poor social (including community norms and class structures), human, physical, financial and natural capitals transfer from one generation to other and thus they suffer from oppression and poverty persistently. on the other hand, kothari (2003) explained the poor capitals reinforce the probability of deprived people to stay in the community. even if they migrate out, insufficiency of hedging capitals make them more likely to suffer. in this case they could be better off if local opportunities were increased to minimise their universal suffering. desirable distributive institutional arrangements are possible to achieve purposeful actions when the state authority enjoys superior bargaining position and acts benevolently in institutional changing processes (weimer, 1997). however, gender case based studies banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 dhakal 27 identified that government agencies make aggregative policies consciously or unconsciously to resolve their target problems, and ignore circumstances of oppressed or special need groups. these case-blind policies benefit privileged groups and marginalize special need people (kabeer and subrahmanian, 1996). these biased policies rather force the oppressed people to work in the interest of the privileged groups (young, 1990). studies indicated that intra community factors also determine distributive outcomes of a common property where the property rights are not clearly defined. these factors include leadership attributes, local conditions, beneficiaries’ capability (capital) and community size. the demand of users and the size of the resources are other determinants for benefit distribution (adhikary et al, 2004; vedeld, 2000; janvry et al, 1998). policies review historically the charcoal collection by the kami was free in the local forests based on the understanding that the kami’s service benefits communities (mahat et al, 1987). the forest act 1993 has given some rights to local user groups under the condition that the group should develop the forest management rules within given government policies and approved it by the state agency (hobley, 1996). the forest acts and bylaws stated to grant local forest use rights irrespective of political boundary but it has not specified the special provision of need based groups like the kami. the government has agreed and signed the declaration the rio declaration on environment and development. the principle 23 of the declaration state that ‘the environment and natural resources of people under oppression, domination and occupation shall be protected’. as per action plan stated in agenda 21, the government has formulated and revised many policies and programmes of natural resource management. however, there is no specified action plan or stated conditions to address the charcoal supply problem. above theories support the need of assigning special right to oppressed groups like the kami but the government policies are found silent on this issue. based on the literature review a research model explaining the access to charcoal is formulated as follows. the conceptual model the kami household could manage livelihood from various opportunities: private property, community property, cash assets and income from working outside the community. the kami households with little capital therefore could be better off being involved in the family occupation when there are little other better prospects. as an oppressed group, and one with legally no well defined and protected rights, the kami could lose access to charcoal in some community forests. that exclusion could be determined by some factors in their communities. for example, adhikary et al (2004) stated that the distributive problem in common property arises more in heterogeneity groups that consist diversified interests and power. the larger groups could have better heterogeneity, more difficult to communicate, and less cooperation. thus, the larger group is less likely to distribute the charcoal and, thus group size could posses negative relationship. similarly, the forests with larger forestland may have more resource. in resource scarcity condition, the likelihood of providing charcoal could be negative in small forests. vedeld (2000) found that the leadership is more important determinant for benefit distribution of collective action than the heterogeneity. the high power groups become more able to influence on the decision or to reap the benefits of common (adhikary et al, 2004). the concerns and voices of minority and oppressed groups could easily overhear in these collective complexities. brahmin, chhetri and newar are influential and well off ethnic groups in the society (bista, 1991). therefore, the likelihood of charcoal distribution is expected to be negative in the groups led by these dominating ethnic groups. the chairperson working longer period could have enough time to listen many issues of members and to improve the weaknesses. the charcoal providing probability could be higher in the user groups with chairperson having longer experience. the users in executive committee hold greater level of power to make decision on many issues and agenda setting for general assemblies. participation of an individual or groups in decision making provides greater opportunities to put their concern in the agenda of decision-making. if an executive committee has a representative of the kami there could be a greater chance that the charcoal issue are banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1dhakal 28 addressed. the female than that of male has dependency in forests (agrawal, 2001) and other local services. as a dependent on local resource and services, the female could care more to charcoal supply issue than counterpart. therefore it is expected that the higher percentage of female represented in executive committee the higher the probability of charcoal distribution. in quality aspect ghate (2003) found better institutions of forest user groups supported by nongovernmental organisations (ngos) than the government agency in india. the non-government development workers could give more time in community and influence on user group decision to distribute the charcoal for the occupational ethnicity group. thus the chance of distributing charcoal in intensive project supported groups could be positive. similarly, if user group meeting are held more frequently many issues including charcoal distribution are likely to be discussed. thus the probability of getting the charcoal could be positive for higher number of meetings. based on the above hypotheses the charcoal supply model is formulated as: charcoal = f (area, hhno, highsuprt, mfreq, dethnic, women, repres) …..(1) the definitions of the variables are as followings. charcoal = whether a kami gets charcoal from a community forest (if yes 1, no 0) logarea = logarithm of forest area (hectare) hhno = household numbers in the user group hhsq = squared of household numbers in the group highsuprt = intensive support district (project staff involved for user group support 1, otherwise 0) mfreq = executive committee meeting frequencies number in a year dethnic = chairperson of the executive committee is dominating casts (if brahaman, chhreti and newar is 1, otherwise 0) women = number of female representative in user groups’ executive committee repres = oppressed group representative (kami or other similar ethnic group) in executive committee (if yes 1, otherwise 0) expr = period of chairperson holding the executive power (experience year) the equation (1) is a model for empirical analysis. the data and the method of testing the model are discussed in the following section. data and methods it is costly to collect empirical data from large sample introduced in common property. therefore most of the studies in common property problems are done with smaller samples (agrawal, 2002). with the cost and time constraints, to analyse the charcoal distribution problem, a survey was completed in 64 forest user groups in three mid hills districts (kavre, dolakha and nuwakot) of nepal. these districts had some level of differences for institution building of district forest offices and user groups. dolakha and kavre districts have intensive supports of some donor-funded projects. nuwakot district has little external support. on an average 21 user groups were surveyed from each district representing various age group, type of forests, ethnic groups, size of households and size of forest areas. the user group representatives were asked about whether the group has kami workshops and how they had managed their charcoal need. the kami workshops were reported only in 40 user groups. the missing data for number of female representation in executive committee was collected from national database. the logit model is the most appropriate method to analyse binary (yes or no) qualitative dependent variable. it estimates good results even in small samples (long, 1997). results the community level data were analysed descriptively and econometrically. these results are presented below in separate sections. descriptive results out of 64 user groups surveyed about two-third of user groups have kami workshops and demand for charcoal. the charcoal is not distributed among almost 50 percent groups. kami workshops have been managed by begging or buying trees from rich households. some of them dug up roots of trees felled for firewood. the other workshops had managed coal from markets. the respondents told banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 dhakal 29 that their workshop activities were decreased and that had made their life more difficult. financial problem and availability of fuelwood in local market were the main problems to mange charcoal. in this field study, one user committee reported that kami started using the charcoal leftover after burning dead body of human though it is culturally unacceptable. however, noneof the user groups reported closing of the iron workshop completely due to the problem of charcoal supply. table 2 explains descriptive statistics of the variables of regression analysis. the value of area is transformed in logarithmic form. the figures only in decimal value indicate that they are the dummy variables. econometric results table 3 depicts eviews software outputs of logit analysis for the group level determinants. the model was passed through its essential econometrics attributes to explain the problem. the signs of all variables are consistent with expectation. however, only the variableslogarea, hhno, hhsq, highsuprt and mfeq are found significant at less than 10 percent and explained better for providing charcoal to the kami. the variables with little explanatory power are deleted from the model to precise the efficiency of significant variables’ coefficients. the result shows probability of providing charcoal by a forest user group increases significantly log linearly with the size of forest area. there is no reference to compare the result. however, the result is logical in the sense that the larger size of forestlands generally consist more resources. the increase in household size had positive effect on providing the charcoal but found decreasing as the size of the group increases after certain size. the result for group size is some how consistent with the common property literatures that the increase in size affects the cooperation in common (olson, 1965). similarly the probability of charcoal providing increases with increase in the number of meeting frequencies in general. the frequent meetings could provide sufficient time for a committee to think and discuss on many important agenda including the charcoal supply. the groups with high frequency meeting therefore could have given attention on the charcoal supply. mean variables dep = 0 (n = 21) dep = 1 (n = 19) average of all standard deviation for all logarea 1.75 2.06 1.89 0.39 hhno 213.62 187.63 201.27 130.55 hhsq 73278.76 39279.95 57129.00 76422.52 highsuprt 0.43 0.74 0.57 0.50 mfreq 9.09 10.47 9.75 4.81 dethnic 0.86 0.79 0.82 0.38 women 2.33 2.95 2.62 2.33 repres 0.62 0.76 0.67 0.47 table 2 : means and standard deviations of the variables variables coefficient std. error z-statistic prob. constant -15.69 5.46 -2.87 0 logarea 3.69 2.02 1.83 0.06 hhno 0.06 0.03 2.45 0.01 hhsq -0.01 0 -2.52 0.01 highsuprt 2.7 1.3 2.07 0.03 mfreq 0.23 0.11 1.98 0.05 hosmer-lemeso statistic (ch-sq 8) 3.3 (0.91) log likelihood -12.52 prediction percent correct 85 restricted log likelihood statistic -27.67 mcfadden r-squared 0.55 lr statistic (df = 5) 30.31 (prob.= 0.00) table 3 : the logit model for charcoal distribution banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1dhakal 30 the result also shows that the intensive external support is positive for charcoal supply. probably the service of the external organization could have aware communities to consider socially disadvantaged groups. interestingly this study little supports that the representatives of oppressive groups contribute to address own group interest in collective action. similarly there was no significant influence of the participation of women and socially influential groups on charcoal distribution. conclusion in principle, the kami as a forest dependent oppressive group need, deserve and entitle to get special property right. however, this group has lost access to charcoal in many community forests after the introduction of cf programme. the kami with the charcoal based livelihood have become further marginalised in many forest user groups. the right of the group has not been protected by the government. this study proved that the collective management abuses (restricting the people’s access to the resource though they have the right to use it) the powerless people of the society and further oppressed. this is a violation of the un rio summit commitment to protect the rights of dominated, occupational and oppressed groups. this study also identified that indigenous knowledge valuable for sustainable development of mountains has been threatened by the institutional changes. this study explained that the probability of the distribution of charcoal is less likely in large groups and small size of forests. the negative relation with household size and positive relationship with forestland size for the probability of distributing charcoal result indicate a pessimistic future prospect for kami. it is because the size of group increases as the population grows so the probability of access decreases. most of the forests are smaller in size and the size of the forests cannot increase. as a policy implication, their access to charcoal from community forests could be secured only if their special property rights are granted. the significant negative sign for group size, and non-significant results for oppressed group representative and leadership type, indicate the collective complexity of the resource management determines oppressed groups’ access to collectively managed resource. this study indicates the charcoal distribution is less likely in low intensive external support districts. in nepal, many districts have no intensive support. if the result coincides with the representative of other districts, then the community forestry programme has victimised many kami families in the country. group meeting is also a factor determining charcoal distribution. however, the community meeting frequencies are little changed by policy intervention in long term. the future of the kami’s access to their livelihood supporting resource is uncertain. other measures could have little effective to address this life threatening case. those kami currently getting the charcoal could also loose the access in future unless their property rights are well defined and specified. special policy enforcement instruments or compliances require protecting and increasing common property access to special need groups such as kami. references adhikari, b., falco1, s. and lovett, j. 2004. household characteristics and forest dependency: evidence from common property forest management in nepal, ecological economics, 48 (2): 245-257. agrawal, a. 2002. common resources and institutional sustainability. in drama of the commons. ostrom, e. (editor). washington, dc, usa: national academies press, pp41-85. agrawal, b. 2001. participatory exclusion, community forestry, and gender: an analysis of south asia and a conceptual framework. world development 29 (10): 1623-48. bista, d., 1991. fatalism and development: nepal’s struggle for modernization. orient longman, calcutta bromley d.w. 1989. economic interests and institutions. basil blackwell oxford challen, r. 2000. institutions, transaction costs and environment policy. institution reform for water resource. cheltanham, edward elgar. dobson, a. 1998. justice and the environment. oxford university press. duncan, c. 1996. understanding persistent poverty: social class context in rural communities. rural sociology. 61(1): 103-124. ghate, r., 2003. ensuring collective action inparticipatory forest management. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 dhakal 31 sandee working paper no 3-03. katmandu, nepal graner, e 1997. the political ecology of community forestry in nepal. saarbruken: verlag fur entwickungspolitik hobley, m. 1996. participatory forestry: the process of change in india and nepal. rural development forestry network, overseas development institute london janvry a., mccarthy, n. and sadoulet, elisabeth. 1998. endogenous provision and appropriation in the commons. american journal of agricultural economics: 80(3): 658-665 kabeer, n. and subrahmanian r. 1996. institutions, relations and outcomes: frameworks and tools for gender aware planning. ids paper 357, ids, brighton. england. kothari, u. 2003. staying put and staying poor? journal of international development. 15(5): 645-659 long, j.s. 1997. regression models for categorical and limited dependent variables. advanced quantitative techniques in the social sciences. thousand oaks : sage publications.. mahat, t., griffin, d. and shepherd, k. 1987. human impacts on some forests of middle hills of nepal. part3. forests in the subsistence economic of sindhupalchok and kavrepalanchok. mountain research and development. 7(1): 53-70 npc. 2003. the tenth plan 2002–2007 (poverty reduction strategy paper –summary). his majesty’s government. national planning commission, kathmandu, nepal. olson, m., 1965. the logic of collective action. harward university press, cambridge. rawls, j. 1971. a theory of social justice. oxford: oxford clarendon press. ribot, j. and peluso, n., 2003. a theory of access. rural sociology. 68 (2), 153—172 vedeld, t. 2000. village politics: heterogeneity, leadership and collective action. journal of development studies. 36(5): 105-134 vogt, r. 1998. whose property? the deepening conflict between private property and democracy in canada. toronto: university of toronto press. weimer, d. 1997. the political economy of the property rights. in the political economy of the property rights. (ed) david l. weimer. cambridge university press, new york. young, i. 1990. justice and the politics of difference. new jersey: princeton university press. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1dhakal final bankojanakari 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 9 measuring climate change vulnerability: a comparison of two indexes a.a. urothody1 and h.o. larsen2 climate change is predicted and currently observed to especially affect the rural poor, and some sort of support for adaptation is relevant. this paper tests two vulnerability assessment indexes in lete and kunjo vdcs in mustang district: the livelihood vulnerability index (lvi) and the livelihood effect index (lei). the indexes are completed based on primary data from 60 randomly selected respondents and the vulnerabilities at vdc and household levels are assessed. the figures resulting from the vulnerability assessments correspond with contextual information from the area elicited during key informant interviews and the methods are concluded useful in a nepalese context. both indexes validly reflect the relative differences between the two vdcs in terms of vulnerability to climate change impacts and factors contributing to it and both could therefore usefully form the basis for a nationally applicable index to identify and prioritise mitigation needs. however, a number of challenges to using indexes and basing them on respondents’ perceptions are recognised. key words: climate change, livelihoods, mustang, vulnerability the scientific community by now agrees that climate change is real, it will become worse, and the already poor and vulnerable will be affected the most (ipcc, 2007). based on temperature observations in nepal from 1977-1994, a warming trend increasing with altitude is concluded (shrestha et al., 1999) and an increase in the frequency of high intensity rainfall, leading to more flash floods and landslides, has been reported (chalise and khanal, 2001 and icimod, 2007). there is also evidence of more intense precipitation events and an increase in the number of flood days in some rivers while other rivers show reduction in flows in the dry season, with implications for both water supply and energy generation (shakya, 2003). significant and consistent increases in temperatures and annual precipitation rates are predicted for nepal in the years 2030, 2050 and 2100 across various climate models (agrawala et al., 2003). most of the nepalese population is engaged within agricultural systems that typically involve extraction of forest products (pokharel and byrne, 2009), and 31% of the population survive below the poverty line (adb, 2008). it is therefore feared that climate change will undermine the national development progress with most severe consequences for the poor who typically depend on climate-sensitive natural resources (moest and undp 2008). the capacity and scale of adaptation to climate change depends on the vulnerability of people and natural systems to the impacts, where vulnerability is susceptibility shaped by exposure, sensitivity and resilience (kasperson et al. 1996). in relation to climate change, vulnerability relates to direct effects such as more storms, floods, hot weather, lower/higher rainfall or sea level rises that lead to indirect effects such as lower productivity from changing ecosystems or disruption to economic systems. with the poor being more directly dependent on ecosystem services and products for their livelihoods, the vulnerability of natural systems has profound implications (iisd, 2003). vulnerability is defined by the ipcc (2001) as a function of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. exposure is the magnitude and duration of the climate-related exposure such as a warmer climate, drought, change in precipitation or natural hazards, sensitivity is the degree to which the system is affected by the exposure, and adaptive capacity is the system’s ability to withstand or recover from the exposure (ebi et al., 2006). human adaptation remains an insufficiently studied part of the subject of climate change (brooks and adger, 2003). emerging evidence indicates that adaptation and coping strategies by the poor in developing countries are highly varied and 1 college of forestry, kerala agricultural university, kerala, india, pin680 656, email: ashiquealiu@gmail.com 2 comform project, institute of forestry, trubhuwan university, and forest & landscape, university of copenhagen, email: hol@life.ku.dk banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 10 local-level studies are needed for development policies to be effective (smit et al. 2007). in nepal, a few studies have indicated that people do experience increased temperatures and changed rainfall patterns (e.g. chapagain et al. 2009; regmi et al. 2009), and that adaptive capacities of poor and marginalised households, and especially women, are low (oxfam 2009). vulnerability assessments are useful when, for example, deciding what regions or villages to target for with development programmes. this paper seeks to assess vulnerability induced by climate change in two rural communities in lower mustang district of nepal through application of two different indices, one proposed by hahn et al. (2009): the livelihood vulnerability index (lvi) and one based on the dfid (1999) sustainable livelihood framework approach: the livelihood effect index (lei). both the lvi and the lei provide a community based composite index, while the lei also provides a household based composite index. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in lete and kunjo village development committees (vdcs) in lower mustang. the altitude ranges from 2200 to 3000 m, the average annual precipitation is 1242 mm (1978–2007) and the rainfall peaks in june to september. the yearly average temperature is 12.3 °c (1978–2007) (department of hydrology and meteorology, 2008). the area is under the jurisdiction of annapurna conservation area project (acap). there are 174 and 189 households in lete and kunjo vdcs respectively, and total populations of 668 and 1019 (npc, 2001). agriculture and tourism are the major livelihood options in the area. rice, wheat, maize, barley, buckwheat, and potato are the major crops in the area. livestock herding is another important agricultural activity. the area is surrounded by alpine coniferous forests and many people depend on forest resources for their livelihood, in addition to labour migration. lete village is located on a major trekking and transport trail connecting lower lying parts of nepal with the tibetan border. more than twenty major tourist hotels operate in lete, serving approximately 26,000 over-night visitors in 2006 (christensen, et al., 2009). primary data collection primary data for calculating the lvi and lei according to formulas presented below were collected using key informant interviews and a structured household questionnaire. data for the lvi were collected using indicators provided by hahn et al., (2009) and eriksen and kelly (2006) (table 1). key informant interviews yielded contextual information and were used to identify locally relevant indicators of climate change impacts from a list compiled from hahn et al. (2009), lohani (2007), razafindrabe (2007), eriksen and kelly (2006), selvaraju et al. (2006), dahal (2006) and agrawala et al. (2003). the indicators selected were used to develop the lei (table 2). the questionnaire developed to yield information for both the lvi and the lei was administered to a total of 60 randomly selected households in the two vdcs. key informant interviews also provided contextual information for verifying the outcome of the vulnerability assessments. the livelihood vulnerability index (lvi) the lvi developed by hahn et al. (2009) is comprised of seven major components: (i) socio-demographic profile, (ii) livelihood strategies, (iii) social networks, (iv) health, (v) food, (vi) water, and (vii) natural disasters and climate variability. for each component relevant sub-components were identified during key informant interviews as described above (table 1). the lvi components reflect the ipcc (2001) contributing factors to vulnerability: adaptive capacity is covered by components (i)-(iii), sensitivity by (iv)(vi), and exposure by (vii). the lvi constructs a balanced weighted average where each sub-component contributes equally to the overall index. each of the sub-components is measured on a different scale, they are therefore first standardised as an index using equation 1 (hahn et al. 2009): indexsv = sv – smin smax – smin .................... eq. (1) sv: the original subcomponent or indicator value for vdcv, v = 1, 2. smax and smin: the maximum and minimum subcomponent values determined using all the subcomponent values from both the vdcs. after standardisation the value of each major component is calculated using equation 2: mv = ∑i=1 – indexsvi n n ................................eq. (2) urothody and larsen banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 11 mv: one of the seven major components for vdcv. indexsvi: the sub-component value of indicator i belonging to major component mv in vdcv. n: the number of sub-components in each major component, n = 1-5. the lvi is scaled from 0 (least vulnerable) to 1 (most vulnerable). the vdc-level lvi is calculated as the weighted average of the seven major components lviv = ∑i=1 – wmimvi 7 ∑i=1 – wmi 7 using equation 3: lviv: the livelihood vulnerability index for vdcv. mvi: the value of the ith major component in vdcv, i = 1-7. wmi: the weight of major component i, decided by the number of sub-components in the major component. the livelihood effect index (lei) the dfid (1999) sustainable livelihood framework approach is used for calculating the lei for each of lete and kunjo vdcs and for different wealth groups as defined by a participatory wealth ranking (better off, medium, poor and very poor). percentage values (for each vdc and livelihood group) of each effect indicator obtained from the household questionnaire were first standardised using equation 1 (minimum: 0, maximum: 100) and then used to calculate the index values for each capital (natural, human, social, physical and financial) using equation 4: .................... eq. (3) cv = ∑i=1 li n n cv: the value for each household capital for vdcv, v = 1, 2. ii: the effect indicator value for capital i, i = 1-5. n: the number of indicators forming the capital. .................... eq. (4) leiv = ∑i=1 – wicvi 5 ∑wi leiv: the livelihood effect index for vdcv. cvi: the value of capital i for vdcv. wi: the weight of each capital, decided by the number of indicators in the capital. lei values for the different wealth groups were calculated as for vdcs. results and discussion lvi values are presented for the vdcs of lete and kunjo separately in table 1. the lvi of lete vdc is lower than for kunjo due to its slightly higher adaptive capacity and lower levels of sensitivity and exposure. looking at the sub-components, the higher vulnerability of kunjo is caused especially by low levels of diversification, water problems and the presence of female headed households. .................... eq. (5) the lei is scaled from 0 (least effected) to 1 (most effected). the vdc-level lei is calculated as the weighted average of all capitals using equation 5: urothody and larsen banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 12 lei values show higher effects of climate change on households in kunjo vdc compared to lete (table 2). this is primarily a result of higher effects on physical capital, where kunjo was hit by a landslide that destroyed houses. also effects of climate change on fire, reduced access to roads, and the availability of aid were important. in lete vdc, on the other hand, natural water sources were being depleted and a relatively high level of outmigration was taking place. table 1 : indexed sub-components, major components, and overall livelihood vulnerability index (lvi)1 for lete and kunjo vdcs, mustang2 in 2009. sub-components lete kunjo major components lete kunjo dependency ratio 0.238 0.229 socio demographic profile 0.268 0.224 percent of female-headed households 0.167 0.367 percent of households where head of household has not attended school 0.500 0.267 percent of households with orphans 0.167 0.033 percent of households with family member working in a different community 0.667 0.433 livelihood strategies 0.365 0.359 percent of households dependent solely on agriculture as income source 0.100 0.233 average agricultural livelihood diversification index 0.330 0.410 percentage household had to receive help through social networks 0.333 0.200 social networks 0.400 0.400 percentage household borrowed money through social networks 0.300 0.267 percent of households that have not gone to their local government for assistance for the past 12 months 0.567 0.733 average time to health facility 0.590 0.286 health 0.297 0.162 percent of households with family member with chronic illness 0.200 0.133 percentage of household with members missed school/work in past two weeks due to illness 0.100 0.067 percent of households dependent solely on family farm for food 0.100 0.067 food 0.206 0.292 percentage of household struggle to find food to support whole year 0.367 0.367 average crop diversity index 0.398 0.727 percent of households that do not save crops 0.100 0.300 percent of households that do not save seeds 0.067 0.000 percentage of household reported to have water availability problem 0.233 0.667 water 0.210 0.467 percent of households that utilize a natural water source 0.187 0.267 average number of flood, drought, and landslides etc. events in the past 6 years 0.533 0.652 natural disasters and climate variability 0.489 0.520 percent of households that did not receive a warning about recent natural disasters 1.000 1.000 percent of households with an injury or death as a result of natural disasters 0.133 0.200 mean standard deviation of monthly average of average maximum daily temperature (2001-2007) 0.379 0.379 mean standard deviation of monthly average of average minimum daily temperature (2001-2007) 0.401 0.401 mean standard deviation of monthly average precipitation (2001-2007) 0.486 0.486 overall lvi lvi-lete 0.332 lvi-kunjo 0.353 1 following hahn et al. (2009). sub-components are based on hahn et al. (2009) and eriksen and kelly (2006). 2 data were obtained from key informants and a household questionnaire administered to 60 randomly selected households. lei values show higher effects of climate change on households in kunjo vdc compared to lete (table 2). this is primarily a result of higher effects on physical capital, where kunjo was hit by a landslide that destroyed houses. also effects of climate change on fire, reduced access to roads, and urothody and larsen banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 13 the availability of aid were important. in lete vdc, on the other hand, natural water sources were being depleted and a relatively high level of outmigration was taking place. table 2 : climate change effect indicator values, household capital indexes and overall livelihood effect index (lei) for lete and kunjo vdcs, mustang in 2009. n = 60. indicators lete kunjo household capitals lete kunjo percentage of household having reductions in nutrition 83.0 90.0 human capital 0.493 .513 percentage of household having mental and/or physical stress 86.7 90.0 percentage of household having loss of human life, injury or new diseases 20.0 13.3 percentage of household having public safety problems from forest/wild fire 26.7 43.3 percentage of household experienced out-migration of skilled members 30.0 20.0 percentage of household reported their natural resource base reduced 80.0 83.3 natural capital 0.827 0.773 percentage of household having crop losses or reduction in crop production 93.3 93.3 percentage of household having new insect/weed infestation and/or crop diseases 96.7 100.0 percentage of household reported loss from dairy and livestock production 77.6 85.8 percentage of household reported their natural water source is depleting 65.8 24.2 percentage of household having losses to housing or property 0.0 20.0 physical capital 0.050 0.283 percentage of household reported reduced access and use of roads and transport facilities 10.0 36.7 percentage of household reported to have some sort of financial crisis 20.0 13.3 financial capital 0.233 0.233 percentage of household reported to have unemployment from drought/natural hazard-related production declines 20.0 20.0 percentage of household reported to have some sort of losses from tourism industry 30.0 36.7 percentage of household received helps from their social networks (eg: friends, community, eco-clubs, ngo) to cope up with climate change 46.7 36.7 social capital 0.300 0.350 percentage of household received extra aid, remittance/commodity transfer from formal or other institutions (state, ngo, un etc) to cope up with climate change 13.3 33.3 overall effect index on household capitals lete 0.470 kunjo 0.494 when examining lei values for different wealth groups it is apparent that the very poor group is most affected and the medium group the least (table 3). especially the better off group is experiencing outmigration and high levels of mental stress, while the poor face financial deficits and possess lower quality physical capital more prone to be damaged by the changing climate. when examining lei values for different wealth groups, it is apparent that the very poor group is most affected and the medium group the least (table 3). especially the better off group is experiencing outmigration and high levels of mental stress, while the poor face financial deficits and possess lower quality physical capital more prone to be damaged by the changing climate. the lvi and lei come to the same conclusion regarding the relative vulnerability of the two vdcs, and follows the pattern provided from key informants. kunjo vdc is located off the main road wherefore people’s options for diversifying incomes is low while lete is located on a tourist trek and therefore having more opportunities. both vdcs face problems with lower agricultural production, with most negative effects on the poor who have little buffer capacity. main adaptation strategies include diversification of income generating activities, including outmigration. the vulnerability indexes arguably capture the main characteristics of the table 3 : climate change effect indicator values by household capital and wealth group of lete and kunjo vdcs, mustang in 2009. n = 60. effect index for different livelihood groups household capitals better off medium poor very poor human 0.533 0.493 0.520 0.507 natural 0.813 0.747 0.853 0.773 physical 0.067 0.200 0.233 0.267 financial 0.222 0.178 0.067 0.356 social 0.267 0.233 0.300 0.333 overall effect index 0.475 0.447 0.478 0.510 discussion the lvi and lei come to the same conclusion regarding the relative vulnerability of the two vdcs, and follows the pattern provided from key informants. kunjo vdc is located off the main road wherefore people’s options for diversifying incomes is low while lete is located on a tourist trek and therefore having more opportunities. both vdcs face problems with lower agricultural production, with most negative effects on the poor who have little buffer capacity. main adaptation strategies include diversification of income generating activities, including outmigration. the vulnerability indexes arguably capture the main characteristics of the situation validly, and developing a comparable index for a diverse country such as nepal could be useful to prioritise where aid is most needed to ameliorate effects of climate change. several issues need to be discussed, however. the indexes are using weighted averages attributing equal weight to all sub-components/indicators and thereby assign a value to the importance of these. it is by no means given that the indicators of mental and/or physical distress should carry the same weight as, e.g., outmigration of skilled members. further discussion on how to weigh different indicators is needed. furthermore, the inclusion of sub-components and indicators is necessarily subjective but if the list is the results of a consultative process the potential bias can be reduced additionally, the lvi values do not consider whether people were poor in the first place. here the combination of wealth rank and lei is arguably providing a more differentiated picture allowing targeting within vdcs as compared to targeting entire vdcs. the lei could also be argued problematic, as it only reports whether a household is effected or not but does not estimate effects or losses quantitatively. use of indicators and indices in these approaches oversimplify a complex reality and there is no easy way to validate indices comprised of unrelated indicators. directionality of indicators is also arguable for example higher percentage of female headed household increase or decrease communities’ vulnerability to climate change impacts. in terms of data interpretation, separating the consequences of climate change from other influencing factors is difficult, if not impossible. therefore the interpretation of lvi and lei data must be made with care. an important influence in the study area is, e.g., the recent construction of a motorable road where previously all transportation had taken place by donkey or man power. how the effects of the new road and effects of climate change correlate, cancel out or reinforce each other is not clear. a separate issue of no less importance is the ability of respondents to assign realistic importance to the influence of various factors influencing their lives and the propensity of assigning more importance to the subject investigated by the individual researcher approaching them with questions. conclusion this study applied two vulnerability assessment approaches in kunjo and lete vdcs of mustang districts, the lvi developed by hahn et al. (2009) and the lei based on the dfid (1999) urothody and larsen banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 14 situation validly, and developing a comparable index for a diverse country such as nepal could be useful to priorities where aid is most needed to ameliorate effects of climate change. several issues need to be discussed, however. the indexes are using weighted averages attributing equal weight to all sub-components/indicators and thereby assign a value to the importance of these. it is by no means given that the indicators of mental and/or physical distress should carry the same weight as, e.g., outmigration of skilled members. further discussion on how to weigh different indicators is needed. furthermore, the inclusion of sub-components and indicators is necessarily subjective but if the list is the results of a consultative process the potential bias can be reduced. additionally, the lvi values do not consider whether people were poor in the first place. here the combination of wealth rank and lei is arguably providing a more differentiated picture allowing targeting within vdcs as compared to targeting entire vdcs. the lei could also be argued problematic, as it only reports whether a household is effected or not but does not estimate effects or losses quantitatively. use of indicators and indices in these approaches oversimplify a complex reality and there is no easy way to validate indices comprised of unrelated indicators. directionality of indicators is also arguable for example higher percentage of female headed household increase or decrease communities’ vulnerability to climate change impacts. in terms of data interpretation, separating the consequences of climate change from other influencing factors is difficult, if not impossible. therefore the interpretation of lvi and lei data must be made with care. an important influence in the study area is, e.g., the recent construction of a motorable road where previously all transportation had taken place by donkey or man power. how the effects of the new road and effects of climate change correlate, cancel out or reinforce each other is not clear. a separate issue of no less importance is the ability of respondents to assign realistic importance to the influence of various factors influencing their lives and the propensity of assigning more importance to the subject investigated by the individual researcher approaching them with questions. conclusion this study applied two vulnerability assessment approaches in kunjo and lete vdcs of mustang district, the lvi developed by hahn et al. (2009) and the lei based on the dfid (1999) livelihoods framework approach. both indexes were assessed to validly reflect the relative differences between the two vdcs in terms of vulnerability to climate change and both could therefore usefully form the basis for a nationally applicable index. these indices could be used as a practical tool for the governments, policy makers and developmental organisations to identify vulnerable communities, understand the factors contributing to vulnerability at district or community level and also to prioritise the potential areas of intervention. challenges prevail, however, in terms of selecting suitable indicators and assigning appropriate weights to them, in distinguishing effects of climate change from other influences, and in collecting valid data. references adb. 2008. asian development bank & nepal: fact sheet. asian development bank, manila. http://www.adb.org/documents/fact_sheets/ nep.pdf (accessed 30th october 2009) agrawala, s., raksakulthai, v., aalst, m., larsen, p., smith, j. and reynolds, j. 2003. in development and climate change in nepal: focus on water resources and hydropower. organisation for economic cooperation and development, paris, 4-8. brooks, n. and adger, w.n. 2003. country level risk measures of climate-related natural disasters and implications for adaptation to climate change. tyndall centre working paper 26: http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/ working_papers/wp26.pdf (accessed on 10-102008) chalise, s.r. and khanal, n.r. 2001. an introduction to climate, hydrology and landslide hazards in the hindu kush-himalayan region. in landslide hazard mitigation in the hindu kush-himalayas, (eds.) tianchi, l., chalise, s.r., upreti, b.n., kathmandu: icimod, 51-62. chapagain, bk., subedi, r. paudel, n.s. 2009. exploring local knowledge of climate change: some reflections. forest and livelihood 8 (1): 106110. urothody and larsen banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 15 christensen, m., rayamajhi, s. and meilby, h. 2009. balancing fuelwood and biodiversity concerns in rural nepal. ecol modell 220: 522–532. department of hydrology and meteorology, 2008. climatological records of nepal. kathmandu, nepal. dfid. 1999. sustainable livelihood guidence sheet. department for international development, london, uk http:// training.itcilo.it/decentwork/staffconf2002/ presentations/sla%20guidance%20notes% 20section%202.pdf (accessed on 10-10-2008), dahal, n. 2006. “implications of climate change on biodiversity in nepal: some observations and opportunities”, paper presented at 23rd warden seminar november 2006 held in pokhara, nepal http://www.mtnforum.org/oldocs/626.pdf (accessed on 10-10-2008) ebi, k., kovats, r.s. and menne, b. 2006. an approach for assessing human health vulnerability and public health interventions to adapt to climate change. environmental health perspectives 114: 1930– 1934. eriksen, s. and kelly, p.m. 2006. developing credible vulnerability indicators for policy assessment. mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change, mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change, 12 (4): 495-524 hahn, m.b., riederer, a.m. and foster, s.o. 2009. the livelihood vulnerability index: a pragmatic approach to assessing risks from climate variability and change—a case study in mozambique. global environmental change (19): 74–88 available on http://www.sage.wisc.edu/pubs/articles/f-l/ hahn/hahn2009gec.pdf (accessed on 10-102008) icimod. 2007. flash flood hotspot mapping in the hindu kush-himalayan region (draft dvd rom). kathmandu: international centre for integrated mountain development icimod iisd. 2003. [online] “livelihoods and climate change, combining disaster risk reduction, natural resource management and climate change adaptation in a new approach to the reduction of vulnerability and poverty”, a conceptual framework paper prepared by the task force on climate change, vulnerable communities and adaptation, the international institute for sustainable development, manitoba, canada, http://data.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/2003034.pdf (accessed on 7-10-2008) ipcc. 2001. climate change 2001: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. intergovernmental panel on climate change, 2001 ipcc. 2007. summary for policymakers, in climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. (eds.) parry, m.l., canziani, o.f., palutikof, j.p., linden, p.j., and hanson, c.e. contribution of working group ii to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, cambridge, cambridge university press: 1000p kasperson, j.x., kasperson, r.e. and turner, b.l. 1996. regions at risk: comparisons of threatened environments. united nations university press, new york. lohani, s.n. 2007. climate change in nepal: shall we wait until bitter consequences?. agriculture and environment. 8: 38-45. moest and undp. 2008. national adaptation programme of action to climate change. ministry of environment, science and technology, government of nepal and united nations development programme. kathmandu. npc. 2001. population census 2001. national planning commission, central bureau of statistics, his majesty’s government/nepal. kathmandu, nepal. oxfam. 2009. even the himalayas have stopped smiling – climate change, poverty and adaptation in nepal. oxfam international, lalitpur. pokharel, b.k. and byrne, s. 2009. climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies in nepal’s forest sector: how can rural communities benefit? nscfp discussion paper 7. nepal swiss community forestry project, kathmandu. razafindrabe b.h.n. 2007. understanding livelihood security and climate change adaptation: a case study of environment, disasters, and human security in east central madagascar. international environment and disaster management laboratory, graduate school of global environmental studies, kyoto university, http:/ urothody and larsen banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 16 / w w w . i e d m . g e s . k y o t o u . a c . j p / bam_researchmethod_iedm.pdf (accessed on 7-10-2008) regmi, b.r., suwal, r., shrestha, g., sharma, g.b., thapa, l. and manandhar, s. 2009. community resilience in nepal. tiempo – climate and development 73: 7-10. selvaraju, r., subbiah, a.r., baas, s. and juergens, i. 2006. livelihood adaptation to climate variability and change in drought-prone areas of bangladesh. developing institutions and options, fao, rome. shakya, n.m. 2003. hydrological changes assessment and its impact on hydro power projects of nepal, in climate change impacts and adaptation options in nepal’s hydropower sector with a focus on hydrological regime changes including glof, department of hydrology and meteorology and asian disaster preparedness center, 5-6 march 2003, kathmandu. shrestha, a.b., wake, c.p., mayewski,p.a. and dibb, j.e. 1999. maximum temperature trends in the himalaya and its vicinity; an analysis based on temperature records from nepal for the period 1971 – 94, climate 12: 2775-2789. smit, b., pilifosova, o., burton, i., challenger, b., huq, s., klein, r.j.t. and yohe, g. 2007. adaptation to climate change in the context of sustainable development and equity. in climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability (eds.) parry, m., canziani, o., palutikof, j., linden, p. and hanson, c. contribution of working group ii to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, geneva. 876-912. urothody and larsen corrected bankojanakari vol 18-1.pmd 3 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 deforestation, one of the biggest environmental problems, need to be contained to conserve the diversity of trees as well as other plant and animal species in natural ecosystem (mishra, 1998). however, in nepal, in a period of about 15 years (1979 to 1994), nearly one and half million hectares of forest land were lost for fuel, agriculture activities and settlements giving a cumulative loss of about 1.7% of forest areas in an annual basis (dfrs, 1999). this process is still continuing in the remaining forest patches. this is quite an alarming situation for a mountainous country like nepal, whose economic output largely depends on agricultural and forest based activities. when the natural forests are in the verge of extinction, farmland plays significant role in the species conservation. as deforestation continues, along with the increase of population, it will be extremely difficult to conserve biodiversity in the isolated island of forest (wickramasinghe, 1995). due to natural habitat loss, several species have been threatened or reached to the point of extinction in the absence of immediate conservation action (brooks et al, 2001, mishra, 1998). as it has been difficult to contain deforestation except for those places where forests are protected, researchers are diverting their attention to farm lands as potential reservoir to maintain the biodiversity level in an area. traditional agro-ecosystems are particularly rich in sources of both biodiversity and indigenous knowledge about its management. farmers have different needs on resources. for example, they tend to fulfill their needs for fruits, fodder, fuelwood, timber, medicine, gardening, religious activities, and other environmental protection from bio-resources around them. therefore, such needs cannot be fulfilled by a few species only. also, as the farm size are small but supports the family’s economic and culinary activities, farmers tend to increase biodiversity to protect themselves against the risk of failing some species. halladay and gilmour (1995) found that such a traditional system could facilitate the conservation of genetic diversity outside the forested lands. biodiversity also helps in maintaining an estimation of tree species diversity in rural farmland of nepal deepak k. kharal1 and bishwa n. oli2 biodiversity is an important consideration in maintaining natural environmental balance in a particular habitat. this becomes particularly important in areas, where due to the encroachment of natural forests, biodiversity is depleting causing a potential loss in the natural habitat. in such a situation, biodiversity in the farmland becomes an important consideration. biodiversity is measured and analyzed using various indices. in this study, we present the result of our study through a field work in a rural village in nepal. the study was conducted through direct field observation and survey of sampled households. the status of tree biodiversity using species biodiversity index and species richness index for the case study are presented. the study has also identified the relationship between the tree species diversity and major socioeconomic factors. our analysis shows that tree species biodiversity in the rural farmland of study area are lower in comparison to the similar areas of countries like india, bangladesh and sri lanka. the lower biodiversity status is mainly due to the wide distribution of two dominating tree species of dalbergia sissoo and melia azederach. similarly, tree species biodiversity in the farm land has been found affected by the socioeconomic situation of the area. further study is suggested by involving more socioeconomic factors and covering a large sample size and time of study. key words: farmland, forest, homegarden, nepal, species diversity, species richness, trees. 1 forest survey officer, department of forest research and survey, p. o. box 3339 kathmandu, nepal. corresponding author, email: dkharal@wlink.com.np 2 forest research officer, department of forest research and survey p. o. box 3339 kathmandu, nepal. email: bn_oli@yahoo.com 4 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 stability and resilience. therefore, the policy planners would have to understand not only the biodiversity of the natural forests, but help to increase their index in the farmlands as well so that not only the natural habitat of species is extended, but also support the livelihood of the households in the rural areas. however, to implement such a policy, it is necessary to understand the existing biodiversity levels in terms of species diversity index and species richness index of trees on rural farmlands. such an index could also be linked to socioeconomic factors to better understand the impact of biodiversity on the rural population. materials and methods study area this study was conducted in a rural village of chitwan district in nepal. this village has been selected mainly due to diverse community structure and land use type so that comparison among the different categories of each socio-economic variable can be analyzed easily. the community is diverse particularly in terms of ethnic group, time of settlement, economic level and occupation. the village has natural forest mainly dominating by shorea robusta forest some part of which are managed by community forest user groups and remaining are controlled by government agency itself. east-west national highway of the country touches in southern part of the village with semi urban characteristics whereas typical rural settlements and natural forest are found in northern part. sampling methods the study was carried out in 98 households of the birendranagar village development committee (vdc) of the chitwan district, nepal. the vdc is the lowest unit of local government structure. the field work took about six months and completed in 2000. the preliminary field work was aimed to observe the community structure, land use type, vegetation and other socio-economic condition of the area. a semi-structure questionnaire was used for formal household survey under the stratified random sampling techniques. the study considered each ward number of the vdc as a single stratum resulting total nine strata in the whole study area. sampled household in each stratum was identified through random walk by which first household was selected randomly and subsequent households were selected in a regular interval of 20 to maintain 5% sampling intensity for the study. an interval of 20 households along the walk was maintained to avoid bias in responses and to obtain as much diversity in the responses as possible. field observation was done simultaneously to assess the distribution of tree species inside the farmland. all the individuals of each tree species (above 1.3 meters height) were counted regardless of their age in the farmland belonging to the sampled household. a group of early residents of the area in each strata of the study area was consulted to understand the dynamics of tree species in their farmland. problems and constraints, in terms of biodiversity of tree species in the area, were taken during the consultation. estimation of species diversity index (sdi) the species diversity index for the average farmland and total study area were calculated by using a specific method (h’ = -σpi x ln pi) as suggested by shannon and weaver (1949). h’ refers to the index value of biodiversity whereas pi refers to the proportion of all individuals of ith species against the all individuals of all tree species. the shannon diversity index for the natural communities is often found to fall between 1.0 to 6.0. the maximum diversity of a sample is obtained when all species are equally abundant and is represented as hmax (stilling, 1996). estimation of species richness index (sri) species richness are generally measured in terms of a ratio of total number of species and total number of individuals of all species of a specified area. it gives more priority to the number of species rather than number of individuals. by this method, increasing a few numbers of individuals within a species gives higher value of index than the increasing large number individuals within the species. it means higher the number of individuals in a species lowers the species richness index of a given community. this study used margelef (1969) method (r = s-1/ln n1) while assessing the sri of the trees both at individual farmland and the total study area level. here r stands for richness index of tree species, s stands for total number of tree species and n stands for total number of individuals of all tree species of the area. categorization of the variables we observed many socio economic variables to understand their relationship with the sdi and sri. annex 1 gives the list of variables and their categorization including the ranges and numbers of sampled households. variables were categorized into kharel and oli 5 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 different groups according to their distribution pattern found in the study area. most of the variables were categorized into three groups so that difference among them can be shown clearly. the critical values for categorizing the variable and their number of categories were identified after field survey during the analysis. data analysis the data were analyzed using ms-excel, minitab and ms-access for data compilation, regrouping and developing regression and correlation between various factors being examined. analysis of variance (anova) was applied to find the impact of variables on species diversity, species richness, tree density, tree per capita, average species holding and average tree holding. the results of the analysis are presented below. results status of tree species biodiversity species diversity index and species richness index of the tree resources of the study area were 1.80 and 5.01 respectively. table 1 below shows the descriptive information on species diversity, species richness, number of species and number of trees in the study area. a total of 60 tree species were found in all sampled farmlands in the study area. the analysis shows that average species per household is about 8 with a maximum value of 30. average number of individual tree within a species is about 2148 for all areas, whereas this figure comes to 9 in case of the average household level. the result shows that some households have higher value of diversity and richness indices compared to the value of all study area. the formula is designed in such a way so that the value of species diversity index comes higher once the number of tree individuals of all available species is nearly equal. diversity and richness indices by categories of tree species are provided in table 2. the principle uses of tree species were considered for their categorization. however, some tree species were accounted into two categories based on their prime use. both the sdi and sri of the fodder species were higher than other types of the tree species in the area. it is to be noted that species richness is directly proportional to the species number and inversely proportional to the tree number. socio economic impacts on biodiversity several factors determine the status of biodiversity at various levels. household and/or farmland are the smallest unit of biodiversity management. other level of the management could be a watershed/catchment area, natural landscape/seascape, topographical, physiographic and ecological region etc. some factors are crucial for species diversity management and others may affect less. socioeconomic factors are the most important to be considered in farm and/or kharel and oli table 2: diversity and species richness of tree species type species type description fruit fodder timber/ furniture fuel wood other species diversity index (h′) 0.20 0.37 0.31 0.20 0.05 species richness index (r) 2.87 4.40 0.12 0.47 1.43 number of species (s) 19.0 (2.6) 29.0 (4.9) 7.0 (0.5) 9.0 (1.4) 7.00 (0.3) trees per hh 5.40 23.3 38.90 51.70 0.60 s i ld table 1: species diversity and species richness of the area descriptive information on tree biodiversity description total average/hh min. max. std species diversity index (h′) 1.80 1.35 0.00 3.07 0.75 species richness index (r) 5.01 2.00 0.00 6.32 1.24 number of species (s) 60.0 7.70 0.00 30.00 5.69 number of trees (n) 128864 66.70 0.00 1514 183.20 source: field survey; 2000 hh= household, max. = maximum, min. = minimum, std = standard deviation, source : field survey, 2000 note : figure in bracket gives the average number per household : some species were ccounted in more than one category based on their prime use. 6 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 table 3: impact of socioeconomic factors on biodiversity variables categories of variables average value of sdi of each category of variable average value of sri of each category of variable farm size small medium large 1.12 1.54 1.63 (p = 0.016) 1.55 2.27 2.97 (p = 0.001) homegarden size small medium large 1.12 1.70 1.89 (p = 0.00) 1.52 2.55 3.71 (p = 0.00) livestock size small medium large 0.8 1.5 1.4 (p = 0.001) 1.2 2.1 2.3 (p = 0.001) fuelwood consumption low fair – high 1.21 1.31 1.67 (p = 0.082) 1.74 1.96 2.52 (p = 0.073) income class low medium high 1.26 1.53 1.26 (p = 0.25) 1.74 2.37 2.18 (p = 0.059) major income sources agriculture – labor business service pension 1.56 0.96 1.68 1.11 1.32 (p = 0.02) 2.38 1.36 2.44 1.55 1.85 (p = 0.01) forest distance near medium far 1.40 1.38 1.15 (p = 0.48) 2.00 2.05 1.82 (p = 0.80) caste bramin chhetri other lower 1.99 2.46 1.81 2.64 (p = 0.383) 7.8 10.5 6.8 7.0 (p = 0.341) settlement period early middle new 0.89 1.21 1.42 (p = 0.14) 1.19 1.83 2.10 (p = 0.12) households of nepal. although large number of trees are required to support the large number livestock, our study shows that livestock is also not a powerful determinant for tree biodiversity (r2 = 0.06, n = 98). large herds of livestock are found in higher income household and large farm holders. fuelwood consumption alone does not influence much in species diversity of the farmland, though little difference is found among the categories. even the linear relationship between fuelwood consumption and species diversity is not strong (r2 = 0.051, n = 98). although the difference is not significant, large number of trees and species are generally found in households with high fuelwood consumptions. as a result, high fuelwood consumption may be problem in other areas, but it encourages farmers to maintain large number of trees in the farmland. difference in the species diversity, species richness and tree density are not significant among the categories of the income group. income level of the households alone does not determine the species diversity (r2 = 0.004, n = 98). however, significant differences are observed in average holding of trees and tree species. lowest number exists in low-income households. larger farm size might have supported higher number of trees and tree species in medium and high-income household. in households where people work outside providing their labor (laborers), the species diversity and species richness is the lowest. this is due to the fact such household biodiversity management. species diversity, size, shape and plant density also vary from place to place depending on cultural, ecological and socio-economic factors (soemarwoto, 1987). tree planting and use were found to be correlated with socio-economic factors such as ethnic group, economic level and farm size (karki and karki, 1994). single factor hardly determines the level of biodiversity completely. however, it is also true that some factors could influence more than others. as shown in table 3, both species diversity index and species richness index are significant among the categories of the farm size, homegarden size, livestock holding size and types of income sources. whereas, both index are not significantly different among the different categories of income class, fuelwood consumption, settlement period, forest distance and caste. both sdi and sri are significantly different among the small, medium and large categories of farm size. however, no strong linear relationship exists between the species diversity and farm size (r2 = 0.028, n = 98). it implies that farm size alone is not the powerful determinant of the species diversity. home garden size significantly affects tree species diversity and species richness, even though no strong linear relationship exist between homegarden size and species diversity (r2 = 0.19, n = 98). livestock has great influence on species diversity, species richness, tree number and tree species number in rural kharel and oli source : field survey, 2000 note : sample numbers and ranges of each category is presented in annex 1 7 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 households have small farmland size and are not able to earn subsistence from their farmland alone. consequently, they have small home garden as well. therefore, the three factors, farm size, income and home garden size mostly determine the species diversity in the rural farm. as mentioned before, small farm size does not support large number of trees and tree species though highest tree density exists in such type particularly in labor based households. the linear relationship is also weak between species diversity and forest distance (r2 = 0.01, n = 98). number of tree holding and tree density is higher in households which are further away from the forested areas. therefore, in rural farmlands, where agriculture supports the subsistence, households closer to the forest are not worried much about having large number of tree in the farm as they can easily collect their requirements from the nearby forests. however, in some households at a distance from the forests, people have to spend whole day in collecting the household requirements such as fuel, fodder and timber from the forest areas. therefore, larger the distance from the forests, there is more incentive to plant more trees and with diversity in species. the data shows that the species diversity and species richness increase as the years of settlement of households increase, but the difference is not significant among the categories. even the linear relationship between settled time and species diversity is very weak. late settlers might not have sufficient time to grow and maintain large number of trees. they are still new for the area. but old settlers know quite more about their surrounding and environment. they have crossed the experimental stage to select the best and suited species in the farm while new settlers must start from the beginning. when a household decides to sell the farmland partially or wholly, they exploit the resources from the farm as much as possible before leaving it, which might be the possible reason to have less number of trees and species in late settlers’ farms. new settlers generally start the farm from nothing. in rural nepal, caste system is still prevalent and that is not an exception in the study area as well. the analysis of survey response to link caste with biodiversity did not show any correlation. the survey found that all households regarded the importance of tree species equally. however, in consistent with earlier findings, if the household with lower caste people have small farm size, small home garden size and low income then they generally have lower diversity and richness of trees in their farm. discussion the tree species biodiversity at the study site is very low as compared to the similar areas of other south asian countries particularly the bangladesh, india and sri lanka. bashar (1999) has found shanon diversity index of 3.24 for fruit species in bangladeshi homegardens. sellathurai (1997) found that for sri lanka the index was 3.93. wide individual distribution of few tree species was the main reason for lower biodiversity. some households contain higher level of biodiversity compare to all study area. it is therefore very important to consider the household level management for biodiversity conservation. das (1999) has found similar result in the farmland of eastern nepal who has recorded more than 60 species as grown by farmers on their farmland. carter (1992) recorded 101 tree species in a study conducted in middle hills of nepal. rusten (1989) found 127 tree species in the same elevation. it simply reveals that farmland in the hilly region conserve more tree species than the terai. the hill farming system is more fragile and sensitive than that of terai. hill settlers may need more resources and diversity for security in terms of fodder, fuelwood and land protection. forest and tree products can be replaced by alternative sources in case of terai but it is difficult in most part of the hill because of poor transportation and low income. average tree number per hectare and per household are consistent with the figure mentioned by karki (1988) in a study conducted in the same physiographic region. he estimated that smallholders planted and maintained an average of 60 trees on land holdings averaging 1.1 ha. tree types and their biodiversity species diversity is less important in fuelwood and timber/furniture species. household concerns are amount, not the diversity in terms of fuelwood and timber requirement while diversity is prime consideration in fodder and fruit species. may be the single tree species can meet the fuelwood requirement of a household. fuelwood and timber/furniture can be stored after harvest and used later on. fuelwood can be collected whenever needed. unlike fuelwood and timber/furniture trees, species richness is important for fodder and fruit trees. kharel and oli 8 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 of tree species diversity unless other socioeconomic factors are changed. conclusions the present study gives important information about biodiversity related to the tree species in rural households in nepal. although the result may not be generalized due to diverse eco-climatic zones in nepal, the result obtained from this study gives an important conclusion: the level of biodiversity in rural households in nepal does not depend on one socioeconomic factor. factors such as landholding size, homegarden size and livestock size have more influence on tree biodiversity than others at household level. settlements, which depend solely on fodder and fuelwood and are far from the forest areas generally plant large number of trees with varied species. also, households with large number of livestock generally have large number tree species. the frequent changes of land ownership and their divisions in smaller sizes are the discouraging factor for conservation of tree biodiversity in rural farm level. references bashar m.a. 1999. homegarden agroforestry: impact on biodiversity conservation and household food security. a case study of gazipur district, bangladesh. m. sc. thesis. agricultural university of norway. brooks t.m., mittermeier r.a., mittermeier c.g., fonseca gab d.a., raylands a.b., konstant w.r., flick p., pilgrim j., oldfield s., magin g., hilton-taylor c. 2001. habitat loss and extinction in the hotspots of biodiversity. conservation biology 16(4): 909-923. carter e.j. 1992. tree cultivation on private land in the middle hills of nepal: lessons from some villagers of dolkha district. mountain research and development. 12 (3): 241-255. das a.n. 1998. socio-economics of bamboos in eastern nepal. ph.d. thesis. aberdeen university, scotland, uk. dfrs. 1999. forest resources of nepal: 1987 – 1998. publication no. 74. department of forest research and survey. kathmandu, nepal. halladay p. and gilmour d.a. (eds). 1995. conserving biodiversity outside protected areas: role of traditional agro-ecosystems. iucn, gland, switzerland, and cambridge, uk. productivity and taste are the prime consideration in case of fruit trees while harvesting season is of concern in fodder trees. varieties of fruit species satisfy man with different taste in different seasons. furthermore, not all fruit trees produce good number of fruits and seeds every year and their diversity may compensate such variation. higher diversity might reduce the risk of production failure of single species. fruits are also the sources of income in critical situation. it can be sold in the market though it is uncommon in the rural context. sometime, it can be a matter of pride for household if they please the relatives, visitors, or higher status person serving fruits. fruit trees are also highly used for shading purposes in the summer as the temperature often soars to 40 degree celsius in the study area. fruit trees are mostly planted in nearby home either in the home garden or in the home yard. some fruit trees such as artocarpus heterophyllus and morus alba serve varieties of products at a time. all these factors may explain why rural farmland holds higher fruit species richness. different fodder trees are harvested in different seasons. large number of fodder tree species supports the livestock feeding longer. green tree fodder is the nutritious feed for stall-fed livestock. higher diversity of these tree species might supply the fodder resources round the year. in rural areas, where the purchase of livestock feed is out of question due first to non-availability in the nearby places and second due to the cost of feedstock in the main markets, the supply of green fodder becomes the most important nutrient source. as livestock rearing is an integral part of rural communities, sustainability of the rural farming system depends on proper combination of agricultural crop, livestock and tree/forest resources in nepal. socio economic impacts on tree biodiversity since the farmers’ priority is agricultural crops, small farm size may not be sufficient to grow large number of trees and species in the same unit of land, even though tree density is higher in such farm. panday (1987) reports that the farm size holdings are small for afforestation plots and on the other hand, there is no income incentive for tree planting as there is no timber market. the trend shows that the increased homegarden size increases the species diversity and richness continuously. therefore, complete loss of the system and reduction in size will lead to the loss kharel and oli 9 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 karki j.b.s and karki m. 1994. dalbergia: proceedings of an international workshop. westley s.b. and roshetko j.m. (eds.), nitrogen fixing tree association. nitrogen fixing tree research reports: special issue. karki m.b. 1988. impact of multipurpose trees on small-farm systems of nepal. a case study of karmaiya village. margalef r. 1969. diversity and stability: a practical proposal and a model of interdependence. cited in peter s (1996) ecology: theories and applications. prentice hall international inc. new jersey, u.s.a. mishra s.b. 1998. a compendium on environment statistics 1998, nepal. central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. panday k.k. 1987. some tenural aspects of environmental problem in nepal. raintree j.b. (eds.), land, trees and tenure. proceedings of an international workshop on tenure issues in agroforestry. may 27-31, 1985. icraf and land tenure centre, nairobi and madison. rusten e. 1989. an investigation of an indigenous knowledge system and management practices of tree fodder resources in the middle hills of central nepal. ph.d. thesis, department of forestry, michigan state university, usa. in: carter e.j. 1992. tree cultivation on private land in the middle hills of nepal: lessons from some villagers of dolkha district. mountain research and development. 12 (3): 241-255. sellathurai p. 1997. homegarden agroforestry and sustainability in kandy district, sri lanka. m.sc thesis. agricultural university of norway. shannon c.e. and weaver w. 1949. the mathematical theory of communication. university of illinois press, urbana. in: stilling p. 1996. ecology: theories and applications. prentice hall international editions. new jersey, usa. stilling p. 1996. ecology. theories and applications. prentice hall international editions. new jersey, usa. soemarwoto o. 1987. homegardens: a traditional agroforestry system with a promising future. steppler h.a. and nair p.k.r. (eds.) agroforestry: a decade of development, pp. 117-140. icraf, nairobi, kenya. wickramasinghe a. 1995. the evolution of kandyan home-gardens: an indigenous strategy for conservation of biodiversity in sri lanka. halladay p. and gilmour d.a. (eds.) conserving biodiversity outside protected areas: role of traditional agroecosystems. iucn, gland, switzerland, and cambridge, uk. kharel and oli 10 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 annex 1: socio economic variables, their categorization and sample distribution of the study area sn variables and unit category range sample # 1 farm size (katha) small medium large <= 15 >15 <=45 >45 47 40 09 2 home garden size (katha) small medium large <=1 >1 <=2 >2 62 28 08 3 livestock size (lu) small medium large <= 2 >2 <= 5 >5 23 38 37 4 fuelwood consumption (kg) low medium high <=1500 >1500 <=2250 > 2250 37 41 20 5 income class (nrs./year) low medium high <= 50,000 >50,000-<=100000 >1,00,000 57 33 08 6 forest distance (minutes) near medium far <=15 >15 – <= 45 >45 41 40 17 7 settlement period (years) new middle early <=5 >5 <=10 >10 08 13 77 unit conversion 1. 1 hectare = nearly equal to 30 kattha 2. 1 cow = 1 lu, 1 buffalo = 1.5 lu and 1 goat = 0.6 lu 3. 1 us $ = nrs. 68 kharel and oli cover 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 48 medicinal and aromatic plants network (maps-net) nepal: an open access digital database r. m. kunwar1*, k. p. thapa1, r. shrestha2, p. r. shrestha2, n. k. bhattarai3, n. n. tiwari4, and k. k. shrestha5 i n nepal himalaya, about 1800 medicinal and aromatic plants are used (shrestha et al., 2001; baral and kurmi, 2006) for subsistence and economy. the usage of the plants as subsistence for folk therapies was largely influenced from traditional medicinal health care systems namely ayurveda, amchi, chinese, etc. (bhattarai, 1998). up to 50% of the nepal’s rural household’s income is derived from collection and trade of medicinal plants (edward, 1996). medicinal plants from nepal were traded across the borders to tibet as early as 600 ad (sung and yiming, 1998). it was estimated that an average of 20000 tons of raw materials, made up of 125–178 medicinal plant species (srivastava, 2009). the challenge at hand for medicinal plant conservation in nepal himalaya is to use the information collected through ad hoc researches (kunwar et al., 2010) and to ensure that all stakeholders, from local communities and land managers, to national governments and regional policy makers, are aware of the importance of medicinal plants and their status, and to ensure that they act to prevent their destruction or damage through ignorance or indifference. in this connection, present database aimed to promote knowledge management, cross regional learning and information sharing among concerned stakeholders on conservation and wise use of the medicinal and aromatic plants and to identify, mobilize, and convene key stakeholders to develop a functional and forward looking network on information and knowledge sharing, research methodology development and awareness raising activities. medicinal andaromatic plants network (maps-net) nepal, an open access digital database aims to collect, collate, analyze, validate, verify, authenticate and serve the data/information of all medicinal and aromatic plants of nepal for promotion, knowledge management, cross regional learning and information sharing on conservation and wise use of medicinal and aromatic plant resources. it also aims to build a vibrant and active network among the stakeholders . materials and methods both desktop review and peer review were done for referencing about 500 documents related to maps cultivation, trade, markets, processing, etc. most items of literature were cited from the internet, journals and books, and they were considered as valid. theses, reports and brochures were also consulted. field visits and cross-checking were done in pokhara, chitwan and nepalgunj in october 2008. most of the institutions of medicinal and aromatic plants were visited and their publications were reviewed. the gleaned information were analyzed, cross-checked and verified by consulting the expert panel and advisor board member of maps-net, and uploaded with incorporating suggestion and feedback looped. regular data uploading and updating was moderated by ethnobotanical society of nepal. specimens of the selected medicinal plants deposited in tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch), national herbarium, godawari (kath), the natural history museum (bm), royal botanic garden edinburgh (e), and tokyo university herbarium (ti) were reviewed. based on the distribution records of the specimens, the gis maps of each specimen/species were plotted. workshops and meetings were held to collect 1. ethnobotanical society of nepal (eson), kathmandu, nepal 2. department of plant resources, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu 3. international center for integrated mountain development (icimod), lalitpur, nepal 4. department of ayurveda, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal 5. central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal * author for correspondence (email: ripukunwar@gmail.com) short note banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 49 feedback from various stakeholders and share progress among them. medicinal and aromatic plants network (maps-net) nepal as a consortium and its open access digital hub was developed during 2008 and 2009. medicinal and aromatic plants network (maps-net) nepal maps-net, an open access digital hub, was developed to promote knowledge management, learning and sharing on conservation and wise use of the medicinal and aromatic plants. the hub is accessible at http://www.eson.org.np/maps-net.htm, describing under following five headings; home page, activities, prioritized species, board members and databases. maps-net nepal home page the homepage describes a short note of medicinal and aromatic plants network (maps-net), nepal. maps-net nepal activities past, present and future activities of the maps-net nepal are available in this field. prioritized species although maps-net nepal has prioritized collection, collation and authentication of information of all medicinal and aromatic plant species of the country, a phase wise strategy has been made to incorporate all the medicinal plant species in the database. in the first phase, the most important 37 species were sorted and their database was prepared and uploaded. in the second phase, additional 34 species were prioritized in order to cover all the prioritized species of conservation assessment and management planning (camp) pokhara 2001 and research, cultivation, trade and conservation priority species identified by the government of nepal. maps-net board members maps-net nepal is a consortium of professionals working on promotion of medicinal and aromatic plants of the country. it coordinates cultivators, producers, collectors, traders, processors, exporters, academicians, policy makers and users. during technical data analysis, national experts as well as maps-net advisory board members were interacted. there are 11 maps-net nepal advisory board members in total. medicinal and aromatic plants database there are about 1800 vascular medicinal and aromatic plants in nepal (shrestha et al., 2001; baral and kurmi, 2006), the database incorporates minimum datasets: taxon name, family, vernacular names, synonyms, parts used, distribution, elevational range, pictorial presentation, etc. of about 1600 species of medicinal and aromatic plants. the database also contains full-fledged datasets of 71 important medicinal and aromatic plant species of nepal. the full-fledged datasets of each species have been managed to present in six different subheadings: taxonomy, ecology, uses, market, conservation and management, and references and remarks. each sub-heading has various sub-units. taxonomy incorporates authentic name of the taxa, author citation, synonyms, vernacular names, life form, habitat, key distinguishing features, description, macroscopic characters, chromosome number and phenology. ecology covers species origin, distribution worldwide, distribution inside nepal, gis maps and other distribution records. uses sub-heading narrates parts used of the species, medical system where it is used, ethnobotany and other uses, chemical constituents, pharmacological actions, ayurvedic products, organoleptic test, etc. market inside and outside country, trade volume, form and price, value addition, processing, published news and related links, etc of each species are under market sub-heading. conservation and management sub-heading infers conser vation status, government royalty for collection, ex situ and in situ conservation measures, sustainable harvesting guidelines, related stakeholders and publications of each species. reference and remarks sub-heading includes cited literatures, suggested readings, credits and acknowledgement s. each sub-heading was furnished with charts, photos and sketches. links and archives of the species were also managed. medicinal and aromatic plants database management medicinal and aromatic plant network (maps-net) nepal consortium was developed since june 2008. since, the consortium has been managed as an easily open access digital hub http://www.eson.org.np/ kunwar et al. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 50 maps-net.htm for assemblage and collation of medicinal and aromatic plants data and information. data collection, analysis and webpage moderation has been managed by ethnobotanical society of nepal, with support from international center for integrated mountain development (icimod). maps-net nepal has recently been endorsed by herbs and ntfps coordination committee (hncc), government of nepal and from 2010, the network activities were complemented jointly by eson and hncc, nepal. as there are similar digital hubs in other countries of south asia, network among them would be quite productive. references baral, s.r. and kurmi, p. p. 2006. compendium of medicinal plants in nepal. rachana sharma publishers; kathmandu, nepal. bhattarai, n. k. 1998. traditional medicines: role of medicinal plants in present and future health cure. in prospects of medicinal plants (eds.) gautam, p .l., raina, r., srivastava v., raychaudhuri s. p. and singh, b. b.. indian society of plant genetic resource, new delhi, india, 96–104. edward, d. m. 1996. non timber forest products from nepal: aspects of trade in medicinal and aromatic plants. forest research and survey centre monograph 1/96. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. kunwar, r. m., shrestha, k., dhungana, s. k., shrestha, p. r. and shrestha, k. k. 2010. floral biodiversity of nepal: an update. journal of natural history museum 25: 295-311. shrestha, k. k, tiwari, n. n. and ghimire, s. k. 2001. mapdon-medicinal and aromatic plant database of nepal. proceedings of nepal-japan joint symposium on conser vation and utilization of himalayan medicinal resources. department of plant resources and scdhmr, japan, 53–74. srivastava, d. 2009. resources of nepalese medicinal and aromatic plants: status and development. plant resources 31: 127–131. sung, w. and yiming, l. 1998. illegal trade in the himalayas. in ecoregional cooperation for biodiversity cooperation in the himalayas, icimod and wwf, kathmandu, nepal. kunwar et al. final vol 16-1.pmd 21 the concept of biosphere reserves (brs) was initiated by the united nations educational scientific and cultural organization (unesco) in the year 1970 to facilitate resolution of increasing conflict between people and the protected areas. the approach emphasizes the importance of the structure and functioning of ecological systems and their mode of reaction when exposed to human intervention including impact of man on the environment and vice-versa. man and biosphere is primarily a programme of research and training and seeks scientific information to find solution of concrete practical problems of management and conservation. by december 1998, 90 countries have designated 356 biosphere reserves all over the world. with the cooperation of state government, india has also designated 11 biosphere reserves till october 1999. in nepal man and biosphere reserve is a new concept. so far, no biosphere reserve has been declared yet. about 19.4% of the total area of the country (147,181 sq. m.) representing all ecological regions (terai, mid-hills, high mountains and himalayas) is under protected area system. there are 9 national parks, 3 wildlife reserves, 3 conservation areas, 1 hunting reserve and 9 buffer zones representing major ecosystems. recently, the unesco’s mab committee in nepal had initiated an activity to design the first biosphere reserve in the country. a working committee consisting of wellqualified personnel involved in the protected area management, forestry, university and other conservation sectors was formulated for this purpose. langtang national park was unanimously chosen as the potential biosphere reserve in the country based on the general criteria for an area to be qualified for designation as a biosphere reserve and is under process in the ministry for the declaration of biosphere reserve in nepal. what is biosphere reserve (br)? br is an international designation made by unesco for representative parts of natural cultural landscapes extending over large area of terrestrial or coastal/ marine ecosystems or a combination thereof. biosphere reserves (brs) are designated to deal with one of the most important questions of reconciling the conservation of biodiversity, the quest for economic and social development and maintenance of associated cultural values. these areas are internationally recognized within the framework of unesco’s man and biosphere programme after receiving consent of the participating country. objectives of biosphere reserve it may be noted that brs are not a substitute or alternative, but a re-enforcement to the existing protected areas. the objectives of the biosphere reserve programme, as envisaged by the core group of experts are as follows. • to conserve the diversity and integrity of plants and animals within natural ecosystems; • to safeguard genetic diversity of species on which their continuing evolution depends; • to provide areas for multi-faceted research and monitoring; • to provide facilities for education and training; and • to ensure sustainable use of natural resources through most appropriate technologies for improvement of economic livelihood of the local people. an overview of the biosphere reserve concept and its application to nepal shree gopal jha1 the present paper provides an overview on the concepts of biosphere reserves. the biosphere reserve concept has been developed within the framework of the unesco’s programme on man and biosphere (mab). the paper spells out definition, objectives, characteristics, function, beneficiaries, structure and design, and criteria for the selection of biosphere reserves etc. key words: biosphere reserve, conservation, ecosystem, conservation 1 deputy director general, department of foreset research and survey, gpo box 3339, kathmandu, nepal, e-mail: sgjha@yahoo.com 22 these objectives should be oriented in such a way that brs are the units wherein the biological, socioeconomic and cultural dimensions of conservation are integrated together into realistic conservation strategies. characteristics of biosphere reserves 1. biosphere reserves are protected areas of land/ or coastal environments wherein people are an integral component of the system. together, they constitute a world-wide network linked by international understanding for exchange of scientific information. 2. the network of brs includes significant examples of biomes throughout the world. 3. each br includes one or more of the following categories: (i) brs are representative examples of natural biomes. (ii) brs conserve unique communities of biodiversity or areas with unusual natural features of exceptional interest. it is recognized that these representative areas may also contain unique features of landscapes, ecosystems and genetic variations e.g. one population of a globally rare species; their representativeness and uniqueness may both be characteristics of an area. (iii) brs generally have a non-manipulative core area, in combination with areas in which baseline measurements, experimental and manipulative research, education and training is carried out. where these areas are not contiguous, they can be associated in a cluster. (iv) brs generally have a non-manipulative core area, in combination with area in which baseline measurements, experimental and manipulative research, education and training is carried out. where these areas are not contiguous, they can be associated in a cluster 4. each br should be large enough to be an effective conservation unit, and to accommodate different uses without conflict. 5. brs provide opportunity for monitoring, research, education and training on natural and managed ecosystems. they will have particular value as benchmarks or standards for measurement of long -term changes in the br as a whole. 6. a br must have adequate long-term legal protection. 7. in some cases, brs coincide with, or incorporate, existing or proposed protected areas, such as national parks, sanctuaries or nature reserves. the concept has the great advantage of being flexible and it is likely that it will continue to evolve as experience grows. 8. each br exemplifies voluntary cooperation to conserve and use resources for the well being of people at local, national, regional and global levels. 9. br is a system where planners, scientists, managers, and local people participate in evolving integrated programme to manage land and water to meet human needs and at the same time conserving natural processes and ecological resources through sustainable resources use, which does not reduce the future use potential of the resources. maintenance of long-term health of representative ecosystems is the ultimate goal of brs, which will ensure survival of future human generations. functions of biosphere reserves each biosphere reserve is intended to fulfill following three basic functions which are complementary and mutually reinforcing :(a) conservation: • to ensure the conservation of landscapes ecosystems, species and genetic variations; • to encourage the traditional resource use systems; • to understand the patterns and processes of functioning of ecosystems; • to monitor the natural and human caused changes on spatial and temporal scales. (b) development • to promote, at the local level, economic development which is culturally, socially and ecologically sustainable; • to develop the strategies leading to improvement and management of natural resources. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 jha 23 (c) logistics support • to provide support for research, monitoring, education and information exchange related to local, national and global issues conservation and development; • sharing of knowledge generated by research through site specific training and education; • development of community spirit in the management of natural resources beneficiaries beneficiaries of biosphere reserve are local people, scientists, government decision makers and the world community. structure and design of biosphere reserves to carry out the complementary activities of natural conservation and use of natural resources, biosphere reserves are organized or demarcated into 3 interrelated zones. these are (i) natural or core zone, (ii) buffer zone (iii) transition or restoration zone. (i) the core zone: the core zone is kept absolutely undisturbed. it must contain suitable habitat for numerous plant and animal species, including higher order predators and may contain centers of endemism. core areas often conserve the wild relatives of economic species and also represent important genetic reservoirs. the core zone also contains places of exceptional scientific interest. a core zone secures legal protection and management and research activities that do not affect natural processes and wildlife are allowed. strict nature reserves and wilderness portions of the site are designated as core areas of br. the core zone is to be kept free from all human pressures external to the system. (ii) the buffer zone in the buffer zone, which adjoins or surrounds core zone, uses and activities are managed in ways that protect the core zone. these uses and activities include restoration, demonstration sites for enhancing value addition to the resources, limited recreation, tourism, fishing, grazing etc which are permitted to reduce its effect on core zone. research and educational activities are to be encouraged. human activities are likely to continue if these do not adversely affect the ecological diversity. in buffer zone, manipulative macro-management practices are used. experimental research areas are used for understanding the patterns and process in ecosystem. modified or degraded landscapes are included as rehabilitation areas to restore the ecology in a way that it returns to sustainable productivity. (iii) the transition zone the transition area is the outermost part of a biosphere reserve. this is usually not delimited one and is a zone of cooperation where conservation knowledge and management skills are applied and uses are managed in harmony with the purpose of the biosphere reserve. this includes settlements, crop lands, managed forests and area for intensive recreation and other economic uses characteristics of the region. existing legally protected areas (national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, wildlife reserves/protected forests) may become part of the br without any change in their legal status. criteria for selection of sites for brs primary criteria :• a sites that must contain an effectively and minimally disturbed core area of value of nature conservation and should include additional land or water suitable for research and demonstration of sustainable methods of research and management; • the core area should be typical of a biogeographical unit and large enough to sustain viable populations representing all tropic levels in the ecosystem; • the management authority must ensure encouragement to research and monitoring and enlist cooperation of the local and regional understanding in planning and managing the area for conservation and human benefit. secondary criteria :• areas having rare and endangered species; • areas having diversity of soil and micro-climatic conditions and indigenous varieties of biota; • areas potential for preservation of traditional tribal or rural modes of living for harmonious use of environment. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1jha 24 conclusion nepal has, so far, 9 national parks, 3 wild life reserves, 3 conservation areas, 1 hunting reserve and 9 buffer zones representing major ecosystems. most of the national parks and reserve areas meet the criteria of the biosphere reserve developed within the unesco program. but before declaration of any protected areas as man and biosphere reserve in nepal, a separate clear act and legislation concerning this should be formulated first so as to declare the biosphere reserve which is not yet started in nepal. references dela jinie, silva asoka de, amarasinghe anusha and wijesinghe leslie (2002). the south and central asian man and the biosphere meeting of experts on environmental conservation, management and research -summary report. moef new delhi (1999). guidelines for protection, maintenance, research and development in the biosphere reserves in india. sacam (2003). south and central asia man and biosphere network newsletter, 2nd issue, october, 2003 banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 jha cover 20-2 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 1 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal forest carbon inventory it is widely accepted that global warming is a reality. increased concentration of greenhouse gases (ghgs) in the atmosphere is widely accepted as a single cause of global warming and the associated changes in other climate variables. forests act as both sink and source for carbon emissions. it has been reported that forest and land use change contribute about 17% of global anthropogenic ghg emissions. most of these emissions are caused by deforestation and forest degradation. to reduce emissions from the forestry sector, reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation plus (redd+) mechanism has been proposed as a promising climate change mitigation option in the international policy arena. to operationlize redd+, periodic forest carbon inventory is a crucial first step for obtaining benefits through carbon trading. for forest carbon inventory, the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) has identified five carbon pools that need to be monitored for deforestation and forest degradation: aboveground biomass, below-ground biomass, litter, deadwood and soil organic carbon. of these five carbon pools, carbon stored in the above-ground living biomass of trees is the largest and is most directly affected by deforestation and forest degradation. further, the ipcc has produced a set of guidelines for estimating greenhouse gas inventories at the national level. at the most basic level, measurements of tree diameter at breast height alone or in combination with tree height can be converted to estimates of forest carbon stocks using allometric relationships. ground-based forest inventory data must be collected using standardized sampling schemes appropriate for a forest type or a country. the ground-based and remote-sensing approaches could help refine forest carbon stock estimates for redd mechanisms for larger spatial scales. stratification using broad forest types and forest conditions can be developed. once the forest strata have been identified, the layout and number of plots needed to achieve a desired level of precision can be determined, based on standards of acceptable sampling error. there are established methods and guidelines for determining the number, size, and distribution of sample plots. consistency in the methodology of carbon inventory is one of the major issues in nepal as is the case around the globe. in nepal, various organizations and researchers are testing pilot methodologies for assessing forest carbon. in this connection, the asia network for sustainable banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 2 agriculture and bioresources (ansab), the international centre for integrated mountain development (icimod), and the federation of community forest users nepal (fecofun), with financial support from the norwegian agency for development co-operation (norad) have developed forest carbon stock measurement guidelines for measuring carbon stocks in community-managed forests of nepal. similarly, guidelines for forest carbon measurement have also been developed by the terai arc landscape (tal) project, wwf nepal and winrock international with financial support from the government of finland. in this process, the redd-forestry and climate change cell under the ministry of forests and soil conservation has been taking the lead to develop the most appropriate method for estimating forest carbon stock. overcoming the methodological challenges in this way facilitates countryspecific forest carbon inventory guidelines which could be consistent, comparable, complete and accurate. in addition, developing a common methodology to estimate carbon content of the trees outside forest (tof) is also equally important. the department of forest research and survey in collaboration with the government of finland, is now implementing the forest resource assessment nepal (fra-nepal) project. this project has been designed in such a way that national forest inventory and forest carbon inventory will go hand in hand. carbon inventory will be carried out in all the carbon pools of forest land described earlier. all the sample plots measured throughout the nation will be considered as permanent sample plots from where the variables used for carbon estimation can be periodically measured in the future. this will facilitate in the monitoring, reporting and verification (mrv) of forest carbon stock that is necessary for operationalizing carbon trade through the redd+ mechanism. final added vol 15-2.pmd 19 monitoring growth of uttis (alnus nepalensis) at a plantation cite at dhankuta, nepal t. p. barakoti1 a long-term growth monitoring experiment on uttis (alnus nepalensis) was conducted in the permanent sample plots of the agricultural research station (ars) pakhribas, dhankuta for 10 years (1992-2001). the average annual increment was diameter at breast height 2.14 cm in 8th year, and was 0.13 cm at 16th year of planting. the trees grew 44 cm to 130 cm per year irrespective of the age. the highest growth rate correspondend with higher rainfall during summer (march-april). estimated biomass of stem and branches increased by 2-2.5 times within the 10 years period. thinning and felling every year indicated need for timely management of the plantation to provide better growing environment. the data would be useful for growth modelling and proper management of uttis plantation in nepal . key words: nepalese alder vs uttis, height, diameter, biomass, pakhribas. a lnus nepalensis commonly known as uttis in nepal, few parts of india, pakistan and bangladesh, is an important multipurpose tree species. it grows in the cooler and moist areas of the northern temperate region of south-east asia, china, japan, and in south america. in nepal, it is distributed from 900 to 2700 m (lamichhaney, 1995) above sea level associated mainly with prunus and saurauria sp. in higher elevation and with schima and castanopsis sp. in the lower elevation. it is a pioneer species of degraded lands and is moderately shade tolerant (storrs and storrs, 1984) and colonizes well in gravel slip prone slopes (jackson, 1987). as a noduleforming non-legume, it has the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen and improve soil. its leaf alone can add 100 kg n ha-1yr-1 to the soil (postgate, 1978). endemic to nepal (burley and stewart, 1985) and other mountain countries, uttis is one of the most preferred forest tree species by the hill communities. it is fast growing, commonly used for fuel-wood, timber, furniture and leaf litter. it is also used for fodder and shade to large cardamom (ghimire, 1985) and teas (pac, 1985) in the eastern hills and for industrial purposes (ply, match, tanning, chest for tea etc). according to pac (currently arsp) annual record (1995), uttis accounted for more than 50 per cent of the tree seedlings distributed from pakhribas forest nursery for planting in the koshi hills. over the past 25 years, this species has been extensively planted throughout nepal (lamichhaney, 1984 and 1995). in spite of extensive plantings, there is little information on silvicultural management of this species. there is no record on thinning regimes or appropriate final plant spacing (lamichhaney, 1995). therefore, to quantify growing rates on yearly basis, need of a long-term growth monitoring trial was felt and that was established for regular measurements. the information is useful for community forest users and forest managers in planning and management of uttis in private and community forests. such information will enable estimation of current annual increment, mean annual increment and to derive suitable rotations. materials and methods the permanently established (planted in 1984 at 2x2m in collaboration of forest research division) sample plots of uttis (alnus nepalensis, d. don) in the north farm of ars pakhribas, dhankuta at the elevation of 1900 m was used for growth monitoring trial. three squared plots of 32 m x 32 m (0.1 ha) were selected and laid-out in february 1992. block i and block iii were located in slops, south facing, in upper and lower part or elevation respectively. block ii was in moderately slop between the above blocks but it was facing southeast. the trees within the boundaries and edge trees in the plots were marked and demarcated. location map and plot chart showing each tree and identity number, site description (altitude, topography, slope, drainage, soil texture, natural vegetation etc.) of each plot developed. 1 senior scientist, agricultural research station pakhribas, dhankuta. 20 periodic measurements (once every year in january) of diameter, and tree height were carried out in the trial blocks. diameter at breast height (dbh) measured over bark for all trees in each block (replication), while top heights were measured in 10 fattest selected trees/ block. dbh was measured before felling. the number of standing trees and felled trees are given in annex 1. height of trees and girth of logs were measured and wood yield was estimated. volume was calculated on the basis of mid-diameter of 3m logs. the biomass of the harvested trees was also recorded. the data on major parameters were taken since 1992 and continued for 10 years. fresh weight was converted into dry weight by multiplying with 0.41-a relationship derived by levenson (1979): y = 3.87 + 0.26 a, where, y = dry weight yield (kg), and a = dbh2 (cm). similarly, volume of stem was calculated according to volume equation (sharma and pukkala, 1990): ln (v) = (a+b) ln (dbh) + c x ln (h), where v is total stem volume with bark (dm3 ), a = -2.7761, b = 1.9006, and c = 0.9428 d is diameter (in cm) and h is height (in m). the number of stock trees and removed trees in each block was recorded every year. up to 50% trees based on height, canopy close, dbh and density were thinned. permanent ring was painted in each tree at the breast height. renumbering was also done where necessary. the tree growth rate and ratio were calculated every year. in 1995, the bushes were partially cleared as there was difficult to move and take measurements. tree height and dbh were measured that year in mid february only. in 1999, data were taken one week later than previously (first week of february). results and discussion the major growth parameters like diameter and height were recorded from 1992 to 2001 and presented in table 1 and table 2 respectively. diameter at breast height-the average dbh increased from 17.23 to 28.00 cm over the ten years period (table 1). the dbh was measured in all trees selected in each block. the average increment rate was from 0.13 to 2.14 cm (table 1). the higher rates were during the initial period, when the trees were small. the data showed that uttis trees had gradual increase up to the final year of observation (2001), however the differences were found in decreasing trend. average tree height the average height of uttis varied from 15.73 to 22.40 m over the 10 years. likewise, the average increment rates or differences were 0.44-1.30 m for different years (table 2). the trees attained 5 to 6m during the 9 years period. unlike diameter, growth rates found higher during later period than the initial period. the heights were measured in the same 10 fattest trees, where the dbh were measured. the detail of measurement record is given in annex 2. according to 1995 records, average number of trees ha-1 after thinning was 673.8, 546.9 and 439.5 in block i, ii and iii respectively. normal stand is considered to 900 trees ha-1 after thinning. a closer spacing might give a higher yield. the biomass was calculated based on the given table (kharel and mulder, 1984). biomass of stem, branch and leaf are estimated separately (table 3). the data revealed that stem and branches could produce similar yield (around 40 kg tree-1 each at 8th year and above 100 kg tree-1 in 16th year of planting). leaves had table 1. average diameter increment from 1992 to 2001 north farm, ars pakhribas, dhankuta dw� wkh� euhdvw� khljkw�� 5hqxpehulqj� zdv� dovr� grqh� zkhuh� qhfhvvdu\�� 7kh� '%+� wdnhq� lq� ploolphwhu� suhylrxvo\� zhuh� frqyhuwhg� lqwr� fhqwlphwhu� dv� yhuedoo\� vxjjhvwhg� e\� 'u� $pdw\d� �������� 7kh� wuhh� jurzwk� udwh� dqg� udwlr�zhuh� fdofxodwhg� hyhu\�\hdu�� ,q������� wkh�exvkhv�zhuh�sduwldoo\�fohduhg�dv� wkhuh� zdv�gliilfxow� wr�pryh�dqg� wdnh�phdvxuhphqwv��7uhh�khljkw�dqg�'%+�zhuh�phdvxuhg�wkdw�\hdu�lq�plg� )heuxdu\�rqo\��,q�������gdwd�zhuh�wdnhq�rqh�zhhn�odwhu�wkdq�suhylrxvo\��iluvw�zhhn�ri )heuxdu\��� 5hvxowv�dqg�glvfxvvlrq 7kh�pdmru�jurzwk�sdudphwhuv�olnh�gldphwhu�dqg�khljkw�zhuh�uhfrughg�iurp������wr������dqg�suhvhqwhg� lq�7deoh���dqg�7deoh���uhvshfwlyho\� 'ldphwhu� dw� euhdvw� khljkw�7kh� dyhudjh�'%+� lqfuhdvhg� iurp������� wr� ������ fp�ryhu� wkh� whq� \hduv� shulrg���7deoh�����7kh�'%+�zdv�phdvxuhg�lq�doo�wuhhv�vhohfwhg�lq�hdfk�eorfn��7kh�dyhudjh�lqfuhphqw� udwh�zdv�iurp������wr������fp��7deoh�����7kh�kljkhu�udwhv�zhuh�gxulqj�wkh�lqlwldo�shulrg��zkhq�wkh�wuhhv� zhuh�vpdoo��7kh�gdwd�vkrzhg�wkdw�8wwlv� wuhhv�kdg�judgxdo� lqfuhdvh�xs�wr�wkh�ilqdo�\hdu�ri�revhuydwlrq� ��������krzhyhu�wkh�gliihuhqfhv�zhuh�irxqg�lq�ghfuhdvlqj�wuhqg� 7deoh����$yhudjh�gldphwhu�lqfuhphqw�iurp������wr����� 1ruwk�)dup��$56�3dnkuledv��'kdqnxwd� 'ldphwhu��fp<hdu %orfn�, %orfn�,, %orfn�,,, 0hdq $yhudjh lqfuhphqw�\hdu ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� � ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� ���� )ljxuh�����$yhudjh�dqqxdo�lqfuhphqw�lq�gldphwhu $yhudjh� wuhh�khljkw � 7kh�dyhudjh�khljkw�ri�8wwlv�ydulhg� iurp������� wr�������p�ryhu� wkh����\hduv�� /lnhzlvh�� wkh� dyhudjh� lqfuhphqw� udwhv� ru�gliihuhqfhv�zhuh�����������p� iru�gliihuhqw�\hduv� �7deoh����� 7kh�wuhhv�dwwdlqhg���wr��p�gxulqj�wkh���\hduv�shulrg��8qolnh�gldphwhu��jurzwk�udwhv�irxqg�kljkhu�gxulqj� banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 barakoti smaller quantity of dry weight (5-11 kg/tree) at 12% moisture. 21 in ilam, wood yield of uttis was estimated to obtain 7.0 t/ha/yr from a 15-year rotation grown on a moist site. in kaskikot a 6-year old plantation was estimated to yield 6.0 t/ha/yr of fuel-wood (kharel and mulder, 1984). various researchers had assessed growth measurement of uttis in the past at different parts of the country. a summary of the result is presented here (table 4) for comparison with the present result. it is obvious that most of the data are close to the current findings. the dbh of the trees varied from odwhu�shulrg�wkdq�wkh�lqlwldo�shulrg��7kh�khljkwv�zhuh�phdvxuhg�lq�wkh�vdph����idwwhvw�wuhhv��zkhuh�wkh� '%+�zhuh�phdvxuhg��7kh�ghwdlo�ri�phdvxuhphqw�uhfrug�lv�jlyhq�lq�$qqh[��� $ffruglqj�wr������uhfrugv��dyhudjh�qxpehu�ri�wuhhv�kd�� diwhu�wklqqlqj�zdv��������������dqg�������lq� %orfn� ,�� ,,� dqg� ,,,� uhvshfwlyho\��1rupdo� vwdqg� lv�frqvlghuhg� wr����� wuhhv�kd�� diwhu� wklqqlqj��$�forvhu� vsdflqj�pljkw�jlyh�d�kljkhu�\lhog�� 7deoh����$yhudjh�khljkw�lqfuhphqw��lq�p� ri����idwwhvw�wuhhv�iurp������wr������ 1ruwk�)dup��$56�3dnkuledv��'kdqnxwd <hdu %orfn�, %orfn�,, %orfn�,,, 0hdq ,qfuhphqw�udwh ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� � ���� ���� ���� ���� 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���� ���� ��� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� ���� ���� ���� ���� ����� ����� ����� ���� ,q� ,odp��zrrg�\lhog�ri�8wwlv�zdv� hvwlpdwhg� wr�rewdlq����� w�kd�\u� iurp�d����\hdu� urwdwlrq�jurzq�rq�d� prlvw�vlwh��,q�.dvnlnrw�d���\hdu�rog�sodqwdwlrq�zdv�hvwlpdwhg�wr�\lhog�����w�kd�\u�ri�ixho�zrrg��.kduho� dqg�0xoghu�������� table 2. average height increment (m) of 10 fattest trees from 1992 to 2001 north farm, ars pakhribas, dhankuta table 3. biomass of uttis (kg/tree) estimated according to dbh table ars pakhribas, dhankuta 0.3 to 3.0 cm and the height from o.6 to 2.7 m, where the duration and age of trees are not identical. lamichhaney (1984 and 1995) emphasized the need of provenance identification within nepal. provenances from east nepal showed taller height than that of far-western region (clark, 1985). volume/wood production the volume or wood production was recorded from typical selected trees in block i and block ii of the experimental plot. the mean data showed that there banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2barakoti 5 various researchers had assessed growth measurement of uttis in the past at different parts of the country. a summary of the result is presented here (table 4) for comparison with the present result. it is obvious that most of the data are close to the current findings. as seen below dbh of the trees varied from 0.3 to 3.0 cm and the height from o.6 to 2.7 m, where the duration and age of trees are not identical. lamichhaney (1984 and 1995) emphasized the need of provenance identification within nepal. provenances from east nepal showed taller height than far-western provenances (clark, 1985). table 4. annual average diameter and height increased per year in uttis at different sites*. site altitude dbh (cm) per year duration, year height (m) per year duration, year reported by, in banepa , kavre 1975m 1.5 16 1.4 16 lamichhaney, 1981 nagarkot, bhaktapur 2150 m 1.1 7 1.5 2.5 nafp, 1980 godawari, lalitpur 1540 m 0.3 4 2.0 2.5 nafp, 1980 chalnakhel, kathmandu, 1500 m 3.0 9 2.7 9 lamichhaney, 1981 thankot, kathmandu 1630 m 2.2 17 1.5 17 lamichhaney, 1981 jayakot, kaski 918m 2.2 7 1.6 7 lamichhaney, 1984 palpa 0.6-1.0 4.5 fonzon, 1986 trisuli 7-10 5 source: (lamichhaney, 1995) volume/wood production the volume or wood production was recorded from typical selected trees in block i and block ii of the experimental plot. the mean data showed that there was 128 and 134 kg (table 5) of total wood per tree and the ratio of trunk and branch was 6-7:1 as following. similarly, volume was calculated based on the diameter and height of the trees. the result showed both positive and negative figures (table 6). table 5. wood production (in kg, average of 3 trees) ars pakhribas, dhankuta data recorded in 2000 block i block ii trunk branch total trunk branch total 129 24 153 106 11 117 147 23 170 135 10 145 58 4 62 115 26 141 mean 111 17 128 119 16 134 conclusion table 4. annual average diameter and height increased per year in uttis at different sites*. 22 was 128 and 134 kg (table 5) of total wood per tree and the ratio of trunk and branch was 6-7:1. similarly, volume was calculated based on the diameter and height of the trees. the result showed both positive and negative figures (table 6). conclusion the long-term growth monitoring data permit to draw the following conclusion and recommendations. • dbh increment rate decreased with the tree age. • no definite trend is followed in the rate of height increment. it may vary with growing environment. • better growth could be obtained preferably with regular and high precipitation during summer months. • diameter and height increment are inversely propotional. recommendations • thinning should be done in plantations with 2x2m spacing after 5-6 years. • thinning and felling of undesired as well as slow growing plants should be done regularly at an interval of 2-3 years. • study on the effect of thinning on diameter, height and volume of uttis is suggested to conduct for data confirmation. acknowledgements the author would like to acknowledge and extend sincere gratitude to the station chiefs (dr. k r regmi and mr. p l karna) and ex-director (mr. f. e. tollervy of the then pac) for their continuous support. thanks are due to all officers and staff of the station, who were directly involved in the conduction of this long-term experiment. lastly, i would like to thank mr. c m bhusal, who worked for the second half period of the research and involved in thinning, management, measurement and data recording. likewise, mr. h b thapa, scientific officer of the dfrs is thanked for helping analyse tree volume. references burley, j and stewart, j l (eds). 1985. increasing productivity of multipurpose species. iufro, vienna, austria. clark, j. 1985. alnus nepalensis provenance trial. report no.t-21/82, pakhribas agriculture centre, dhankuta, nepal. fonzon, p. 1986. forestry field trials, 1982-86. tinau watershed project, tansen, nepal. ghimire, m p. 1985. growing alnus tree over cardamom plantation for fuel-wood in ilam district. occasional paper no. 9, cfdp, kathmandu, nepal. jackson, j k. 1987. manual of afforestation in nepal. nepal-uk forestry research project, kathmandu, nepal. kharel, b..p. and mulder, r.p. 1984. fuelwood production in a plantation of alnus nepalensis in the phewa watershed, field document no.16, hmg/fao/undp, kathmandu, nepal. lamichhaney, b p. 1984. variation of alnus nepalensis d. don in nepal. m sc. thesis, trinitycollege, oxford, uk. lamichhaney, b p. 1995. alnus nepalensis d. don (a detailed study). foresc monograph 1/95. forest research and survey centre, kathmandu, nepal. levenson, b. 1979. fuelwood utilization: a study of the demand and available fuelwood resources at six selected villages. phewa tal technical report no.9. kathmandu, nepal. pakhribas agriculture centre (pac). 1985. a review of forestry and pasture trial work. pac, dhankuta, nepal. postgate, j. 1978. nitrogen fixation. the institute of biology, studies in biology: no.92, arnold, p 48-50. storrs, a and storrs, j. 1984. discovering trees in nepal and the himalayas. sahayogi press, kathmandu, nepal. 9dulrxv� uhvhdufkhuv� kdg� dvvhvvhg� jurzwk� phdvxuhphqw� ri� 8wwlv� lq� wkh� sdvw� dw� gliihuhqw� sduwv� ri� wkh� frxqwu\��$�vxppdu\�ri�wkh�uhvxow�lv�suhvhqwhg�khuh��7deoh����iru�frpsdulvrq�zlwk�wkh�suhvhqw�uhvxow��,w� lv� reylrxv� wkdw�prvw� ri� wkh� gdwd� duh� forvh� wr� wkh� fxuuhqw� ilqglqjv��$v� vhhq� ehorz�'%+�ri� wkh� wuhhv� ydulhg�iurp�����wr�����fp�dqg�wkh�khljkw�iurp�r���wr�����p��zkhuh�wkh�gxudwlrq�dqg�djh�ri�wuhhv�duh�qrw� lghqwlfdo�� /dplfkkdqh\� ������ dqg� ������ hpskdvl]hg� wkh� qhhg� ri� suryhqdqfh� lghqwlilfdwlrq� zlwklq� 1hsdo��3uryhqdqfhv�iurp�hdvw�1hsdo�vkrzhg�wdoohu�khljkw�wkdq�idu�zhvwhuq�suryhqdqfhv��&odun��������� 7deoh����$qqxdo dyhudjh�gldphwhu�dqg�khljkw�lqfuhdvhg�shu�\hdu�lq�8wwlv�dw�gliihuhqw�vlwhv �� 6lwh� $owlwxgh '%+��fp� shu�\hdu 'xudwlrq� \u� +hljkw��p� shu�\hdu 'xudwlrq�� \u� 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'dwd�uhfrughg�lq����� %orfn�, %orfn�,, 7uxqn %udqfk 7rwdo 7uxqn %udqfk 7rwdo ��� �� ��� ��� �� ��� ��� �� ��� ��� �� ��� �� � �� ��� �� ��� 0hdq ��� �� ��� ��� �� ��� &rqfoxvlrq table 5. wood production (in kg, average of 3 trees) ars pakhribas, dhankuta banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 barakoti data recorded in 2000 23 banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2barakoti 8wwlv�3hupdqhqw�6dpsoh�3orw��$56�3dnkuledv $qqh[��� '%+�dqg�+hljkw�ri����)dwwhvw�7uhhv 0hdvxuhg�rq��������������� %orfn�,� 7uhh�1r� '%+� �fp� 7uhh� khljkw��p� %orfn�,,� 7uhh�1r� '%+� �fp� 7uhh�khljkw�� �p� %orfn�,,,� 7uhh�1r� '%+� �pp� 7uhh� khljkw��p� � �� ����� ��� �� ����� �� �� ����� � �� ����� ��� �� ����� �� �� ����� �� �� ����� ��� �� ����� ��� �� ����� �� �� ����� ��� �� ����� �� �� ����� �� �� ����� �� �� ����� � �� ����� �� �� ����� �� �� ����� �� �� ����� �� �� ����� �� �� ����� ��� �� ����� ��� �� ����� ��� �� ����� �� �� ����� ��� �� ����� ��� �� ����� ��� �� ����� ��� �� ����� ��� �� ����� ��� �� ����� $qqh[��� 'hvfulswlrq�ri�wkh�qxpehuv�ri�wuhhv�lq�gliihuhqw�eorfnv� %orfn�1r�,� 2evhuydwlrq�<hduv�'hvfulswlrq ���� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� ���� 7rwdo�wuhhv�iurp� suhylrxv�\hdu ��� ��� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� 1r��ri��wuhhv�iru�uhprydo ��� �� �� � �� �� � � � � 1r��ri h[lvwlqj�wuhhv� ��� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� 5hpryhg�wuhhv��� ���� ���� ���� � ���� ���� ���� ��� � ��� $yj��gldphwhu��fp� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� :rrg�h[wudfwlrq��nj� ���� ���� ���� qrw�wklqqhg ���� ���� ���� � � � %orfn�1r�,, 2evhuydwlrq�<hduv�'hvfulswlrq �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� ���� ���� 7rwdo�wuhhv�iurp� suhylrxv�\hdu ��� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� 1r��ri��wuhhv��iru�uhprydo �� �� � � � � � � � � 1r��ri�h[lvwlqj�wuhhv� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� 5hpryhg�wuhhv��� ���� ���� ���� � ���� ���� ���� � ��� ��� $yj��gldphwhu��fp� ��� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� :rrg�h[wudfwlrq��nj� ���� ��� ���� qrw�wklqqhg ���� ���� ���� � � � %orfn�1r�,,, 2evhuydwlrq�<hduv�'hvfulswlrq �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� ���� ���� 7rwdo�wuhhv�iurp� suhylrxv�\hdu ��� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� 1r��ri�wuhhv�iru�uhprydo �� �� � � � � � � � � 1r��ri��h[lvwlqj�wuhhv� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� 5hpryhg�wuhhv��� ���� ���� ���� � ���� ���� ���� � � ��� $yj��gldphwhu��fp� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� ���� :rrg�h[wudfwlrq��nj� ���� ���� ���� qrw�wklqqhg ���� ���� ���� � � � bamboo is one of the important non-timber forest products (ntfps) cultivated widely in the world (fao, 1978). it has intimately been associated with human beings since time unknown. in nepal, bamboos are found in almost all its parts–natural or cultivated with twelve genera and more than fifty-three species (stapleton, 1994; karki et al., 1995; das, 1999; joshi and amatya 1999; das, 2004).they are the important component of rural farming system and play a critical role in rural economy helping to sustain livelihoods of the many rural households that include socially and economically disadvantaged group (das, 1992; thapa et al., 1998; das, 1999). cultivation of bamboos is a common practice on private farmlands. the multi-purpose species has been increasingly introduced in community forests (das, 2002). bamboo entrepreneurship is one of the key instruments for the upliftment of socio-economic status of poor and under privileged people in nepal. bamboo craft makers design various bamboo architectures in assistance with simple basic tools prepared locally. an estimation of about 3.3 million farming families are somehow involved with bamboo sub-sector either as producers or as users of bamboobased products (pant, 2006). development and encouragement of cottage industries based on bamboo thus have a very high potential of providing the locals with much needed cash income and making a very important contribution to their household economy (poudyal, 1992; karki et al., 1995; sherchan et al., 1996). further, it can contribute to the regional and national economy. however, due to the lack of conducive policy and government’s socio-economic impacts of bamboo enterprises in the mid-hills of nepal: a case study on pahari community at badikhel village, lalitpur m. shakya bajracharya1, s. rajbhandary2 and a.n. das3 the present study investigates the associate enterprises involving bamboobased weaving and handicraft making at badikhel village development commitee, lalitpur district, central nepal. it aims to assess the socio-economic importance of bamboo craft making on pahari community at badikhel. forty households were randomly selected for questionnaire survey from the areas with higher density of bamboo entrepreneurship practiced. perceived stakeholders were interviewed to examine their roles and to find out the contribution of bamboo enterprises to household income. group discussions on issues of bamboo cultivation and management were conducted following rra and pra techniques. it was found that badikhel impregnates four species of bamboo belonging to two genera viz. bambusa and drepanostachyum and are important and traditional source of livelihood for the paharis, one of the ethnic groups in the study area. an average bamboo handicraft maker obtained nrs. 1000 to nrs. 5000 per month from the cash sales of assorted handicrafts. however, no significant bamboo management practices were carried out by the entrepreneurs. three out of four community managed forests in the study area planted only bambusa nepalensis as per local demand. since stakeholders’ involvement in actual promotion of bamboo handicraft industry and bamboo management is meager there is an urgent need for the formation of a larger association of bamboo users for the growth and development of the bamboo entrepreneurship in the area. key words: socio-economics, bamboo entrepreneurship, paharis, bambusa, drepanostachyum 1 st. mary’s college, kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: merinashk@hotmail.com 2 central department of botany, kathmandu, nepal. 3 department of plant resources, kathmandu, nepal. 19 banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 20 shakya et al. support, disorganized market and limited skills, bamboo-based economy contributes only 1-2% to the national gdp (karki et al., 1998). the present study attempts to investigate the relationship between the bamboo-based enterprises and the paharis, the ethnic community at badikhel village development committee (vdc). the research thus brings out in light, the socioeconomic impacts of traditional craftsmanship in improving the living standard of these people. materials and methods study area badikhel vdc lies in the northern part of lalitpur district between 27°36’04.88”n latitude and 85°20’48.96”e longitude, occupying approximately 905.2 hectares with an elevation of 1290 – 1710m above sea level. it is bordered with godavari in the east and the north, jharuwarasi and chapagaon in the west and lele and chapagaon in the south (fig. 1). according to the cbs (2001), the total population of badikhel vdc is 3212. it has a predominant of an ethnic group, the paharis occupying approximately 55.22% (1774) of the total population. besides, brahmins and chettries cover about 40% while the rest 10% of the population comprises of the minor caste groups like newar, gurung, rai, magar, kami, damai and others (cbs, 2001). fig. 1: map showing the study area research methods the socio-economic survey was conducted in the study area in the year 2006/2007 during summer and rainy seasons (aprilaugust). the random sampling method was used as sampling frame. out of 300 pahari households (hhs), 40 hhs with 285 inhabitants were selected as sample units and interviewed. each hh was considered as a sample unit. selection of the areas was done on the basis of the high density of bamboo entrepreneurs as developed locally in a participatory way, which include bamboo craft makers, growers, traders and sellers (table 1). table 1: distribution of sampled households s.n. ward no. no. of hhs sampled hhs (%) 1. 4 10 25.0 2. 5 9 22.5 3. 6 8 20.0 4. 7 5 12.5 5. 8 8 20.0 total 40 100 source: field survey, 2006/07 participatory methods such as rra/pra, focus group discussion, semi-structured questionnaire and key informant interviews were used to obtain the qualitative and the quantitative data. the participatory assessment was done as a crosscheck by conducting group discussions in various wards asking different questions related to plant identification, their uses, habitat, distribution, local name, cultivation, harvesting period, products manufactured, methodology and technologies practiced, income generation and the existing bamboo conservation practices. bamboo specimens found in the area were collected in summer and rainy seasons from april to august in 2006. they were identified with the help of various standard literatures (stapleton, 1994; tiwari, 1992; das, 2004) and with the guidance of bamboo experts. preservation of these specimens was done using standard herbarium techniques of stapleton (1994) and poudyal (2006). results and discussion distribution of bamboo species from the survey, it was found that bambusa nepalensis and drepanostachyum annulatum occurred in natural as well as in cultivated forms, whereas bambusa balcooa and bambusa nutans subsp. nutans existed only in cultivated stands (table 2). banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 21 table 2: distribution of bamboos in badikhel vdc and their local names latin name local name distribution bambusa nepalensis tama bans wc bambusa nutans subsp. nutans taru bans c bambusa balcooa dhanu bans c drepanostachyum annalatum ban nigalo wc c: cultivated; w: wild; wc: wild as well as cultivated source: field survey, 2006/07 to state the pattern of bamboo distribution in the study area, five categories of frequency class stated by manandhar and bhattarai (1998) were used, which are given below. it was also noticed that bambusa nepalensis was the most commonly occurring species rating highest in abundance, followed by d. annulatum, b, nutans subsp. nutans and b. balcooa (table 3). table 3: distribution of bamboos in different wards of badikhel vdc ward no. b. nepalensis b. nutans subsp. nutans b. balcooa d. annulatum 2 c f r f 3 c c 4 a c 5 a c 6 a f f 7 c f 8 a f c 9 c c c source: field survey, 2006/07 a: abundant with more than 20 clumps; c: common with 10–19 clumps; f: few having 3–9 clumps and r: rare with 1–2 clumps; absent utilization of bamboo species bamboos are one of the very important sources of livelihood for the paharis. the traditional craftsmen had used all the existing bamboo species in one or the other ways. but their dependency towards b. nepalensis was higher than other existing species as this species was the main raw material they used for their bamboo-based craft making (table 4). table 4: bamboo species preferred among the respondents source: field survey, 2006/07 highest (* * *), medium (**), lowest (*), nil (-) various bamboo artifacts like nanglo (flat and rounded plate), chalno (sieve), doko (basket for carrying loads), dalo (basket for storage purpose), racks, dustbins, and few other products like photo frames, flower vase, hand bags, decorative items were made from b. nepalensis. stapleton (1994) considers it as a multipurpose species used for weaving, construction and for edible shoots. das (2004) has reported the use of this species for weaving different types of baskets and grain stores in the hills. besides craft making, the locals used bamboo resources for other benefits like in construction, soil stabilization, fencing, as fodder, vegetables and for many daily household purposes and field works. similar utilization of b. nepalensis has been reported from the mid-hills and the terai of eastern nepal and in central and western nepal by das (1999, 2004) and poudyal (2006), whereas b. nutans subsp. nutans and b. balcooa in the shakya et al. items b. nepalensis b. nutans subsp. nutans b. balcooa d. annulatum weaving material * * * * * racks * * * * edible shoots * * * fodder * * * * ** construction * * * * fencing * * * * soil stabilization ** * * ** banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 22 study area were scarcely used to their potency due to limited availability and little knowledge. in comparison, d. annulatum was found to be used a little more than sparingly yet its utility was secondary to b. nepalensis. socio-economic assessment of bamboo-based work in the study area bamboos had received high social and economical values for their role in the lives of the pahari community of the study area. it was found that not a single household had one-man entrepreneurship, rather, 100% employees belonged to their own family with each family having in average, three members involved in the business. this showed that the bamboo enterprises in the study area played an important role in employment generation. kattel et al. (2007) has also reported similar condition from eight municipal towns (biratnagar, birgung, dhading, dhankuta, dharan, nepalgunj, pohhara and surkhet) and surrounding areas of nepal. further, the study revealed that the literacy percentage of the bamboo entrepreneurs in the study area was 47.5% with the rest 52.5% illiterate whereas kattel et al. (2007) reported 87% of literacy level in his study areas. similar condition is reported from phongam village in thailand where nearly all the bamboo entrepreneurs are qualified with primary level education (thammincha, 1988). muraleedharan and rugmini (1988) have reported similar educational status among 47-80% bamboo entrepreneurs in kerala. thus, the facts clear out that it is a right choice for the educationally underprivileged paharis for self-interdependent and improving their living standard. desapite the bamboo entrepreneurship owed and governed by males the working team involved both sexes in an equal ratio. as bamboo craft making can be done in harmony with domestic tasks, it is taken as an extension of household activities. the situation is similar in the eastern nepal among many poor women (das, 1999). fao (1978, 1990) has reported the heavy involvement of women in forest-based smallscale enterprises (fbsses) in many developing countries. thus, the traditional business has been providing a means for upgrading the living condition of pahari women in male dominated society. about 80% of the bamboo entrepreneurs in the study area were found operating the business since last 30 years and more. this showed their dependence on bamboo resource. das (1999) reported similar condition in the people, especially the socially and economically disadvantaged group in the terai and the mid-hills of nepal. pun (2007) has reported the bamboo craft making business as life sustaining among the lower caste groups like dom, dalit, kami, damai, sarki, etc. in siraha district. availability of bamboo as the raw material like most of the traditional industries in the developing countries, the bamboo enterprises in the study area sufficient supply of raw materials. it was found the total annual production of the community managed forest ranged 200 – 405 culms whereas the annual consumption of the sampled 40 households reached only 6863–8850 culms. furthermore, the small size of landholding put constraints in bamboo growing. the average size of landholding per bamboo entrepreneur in the study area was only 0.43 hectares, while some were landless. karki et al. (1998) states that landholding is one of the main factors determining the household decision for bamboo cultivation. thus, few clumps grown in private lands are insufficient to meet the demand. with only 5% of the required raw material available in the area, the rest 95% was found to be fulfilled from the external sources. if only the raw material could be made available locally, the annual income of the bamboo entrepreneurs can improve tremendously because the maximum price per culm bought from the local village ranged from nrs.25–100 whereas that bought from outside ranged from nrs.150–200. there exists the traditional method of bamboo propagation by planting culm offsets with rhizomes in the study area, the method being expensive and time consuming, das (2004) has stated it to be unsuitable for large sized bamboo. based on the demand, the villagers had given preference to the plantation and conservation of b. nepalensis. this is due to poor knowledge of bamboo characteristics, properties and proper information flow; the craft makers are unaware of high end use of locally available species (das, 2001). shakya et al. banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 23 production and contribution of bamboobased enterprises majority of the entrepreneurs in the study area were found to deal with the traditional household appliances like nanglo, chalno, doko and dalo. few modern products like racks and dustbins had helped them to raise their economical status (table 5). table 5: major products dealt by the respondents and their demand items demand rank nanglo/ chalno 1 racks 2 doko / dalo 3 dustbin 4 photo frame, decorative items, and others 5 source: field survey, 2006/07 it was found that a profit of nrs.125 was made by selling a single piece of dustbin, which is equivalent to the profit made by selling 4-5 pieces of nanglo or chalno. likewise, even more profit was obtained by 12.5% of the total surveyed entrepreneurs dealing with innovative valueadded products like photo frame, bag, flower vase, etc (table 6). however, these entrepreneurs too were not fully involved as they suffered from the problem of poor marketing channels and lack of information flow. however, limited knowledge on marketable craftsmanship skill and lack of modern scientific tools and techniques also hindered the growth and development of their business influencing the productivity both quantitatively and qualitatively. the market of bamboo products and their sales were also linked to season. the highest sales were during october to december, the festive (tihar) and marriage seasons. april to december was the moderate selling months and january to march the low selling months. sales were also related to agricultural seasons. cultural diversification imposed a considerable amount of effect on the bamboo product sale in the market. the cash income generated from the sales of woven products and crafts was an important livelihood of the pahari community, however the monthly turnover being not more than nrs.5000/per month. maximum entrepreneurs (37%) had their monthly income ranging from nrs.2001–nrs.3000 (fig. 2). on an average, bamboo crafts makers worked for 9 months in a year and earned nrs.27,000. however, this income was in contrast to the income of terai crafts makers who earn an average of nrs.45,000 working for 9.9 months in a year (pun, 2007). likewise, the bamboo crafts makers of dhankuta earn an average annual income of shakya et al. table 6: economical account of some bamboo products name of items average cost price (nrs/ piece) production rate (piece/ person) average selling price (nrs/ piece) small nanglo (20” diameter) 15 ½ day 35 big nanglo (22” diameter) 25 1day 60 rack 80 1day 100 dustbin 100 2days 225 chalno 20 ½ day 40 small doko 50 1 ½ days 85 big doko 100 2days 150 small dalo 50 1 ½ days 85 big dalo 70 2 ½ days 115 photo frame 50 ¼ day 225 handbag 65 1/2 day 135 source: field survey, 2006/07 fig. 2: monthly turnover of bamboo entrepreneurs banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 24 nrs.5,500 working for 5.6 months in a year (das, 2002). further, kattel et al. (2007) has stated that the average yearly income of the bamboo entrepreneurs is nrs. 1,000,00. conclusion bamboo enterprise has been a livelihood strategy for paharis, one of the socially and economically disadvantaged groups of nepal residing in badikhel for decades. beside contributing significantly to the livelihood security, bamboo handicraft making based on their traditional practices is also assisting in promotion of indigenous knowledge and technology, development of craft-based cottage industry and improvement in socioeconomic condition of marginalized and poor paharis especially women and landless families in the area studied. such traditional utilization of bamboos for domestic as well as for commercial purpose is helpful in stimulation of indigenous entrepreneurship. the bamboo enterprises of the area studied, however, suffer from many problems. no profound bamboo management is practiced in both handicraft making and bamboo cultivation. consequently, the demand of raw material is unable to be fulfilled with its huge percentage (95%) found to have derived from the outer sources. further, lack of introduction of modern tools and technology and poor market information is found as another hindrance in further progress and promotion of this traditional business in the area. currently, except the community forest user groups, there are no other stakeholders working with the communities in sustainable management of bamboos. nevertheless, in spite of these drawbacks, the business helps the local bamboo entrepreneurs to generate an additional earning. under proper supervision and management of this traditional craftsmanship, the enterprises possess a tremendous potential in uplifting the socioeconomic condition of unprivileged rural lives of the paharis. this “green gold” should be recognized and user groups should be made well aware of its sustainable management and utilization. references cbs. 2001. statistical year book of nepal 2001. central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. das, a.n. 1992. the potential of bamboo growing in rural development forestry in nepal. m.sc. (forest management) dissertation, university of aberdeen, uk. das, a.n. 1999. socioeconomics of bamboos in eastern nepal. phd thesis, university of aberdeen, uk. das, a.n. 2001. bamboo: species for economic prosperity, environmental conservation and rural development in nepal. nepal bamboo update: 2 (1):3–4. das, a.n. 2002. bamboo growing and its market development potential for sustaining rural livelihoods and poverty reduction in eastern nepal. banko janakari, 12 (1): 8–19. das, a.n. 2004. manual on bamboos of nepal. community forestry component. tree improvement and silviculture, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. fao. 1978. bamboo forest news for asia and the pacific. food and agricultural organizations, bangkok, thailand. fao, 1990. case studies in forest based small scale enterprises in asia: rattan, matchmaking and handicrafts. campbell jeffery (edit.). community forestry case study no. 4. fao, bangkok, thailand. karki, m.b. and karki, j.b.s. 1995. national bamboo and rattan information database, nepal, tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. karki, m.b., sherchan, g.r. and karki, j.b.s. 1998. extensive bamboo production and consumption in eastern nepal: a case study. inbar working paper no. 17. inbar, beijing, china. kattel, a.,parajuli, b. and tuladhar, g.r. 2007. a study of the bamboo and rattan sub sector in eight municipal towns and surrounding areas of nepal. incon pvt. ltd., lalitpur, nepal. manandhar, r. and t. bhattarai. 1998. distribution of bamboo in kathmandu valley. banko janakari 8 (1): 19–23. muraleedharan, p.k. and rugmini, p. 1988. problem and prospects of traditional bamboobased industry in kerala: 328-333. in bamboos current research, proceedings of the shakya et al. banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 25 international bamboo workshop (eds.), rao, i.v.r., gnanaharan, r., sastry, c. b., cochin, india. pant, a. 2006. accessing competitiveness of bamboo sub sector. gtz psp/rufin, kathmandu, nepal. poudyal, p.p. 1992. bamboosfield manual for community and private forestry in nepal. part ii field document no 20, hmg/fao/ undp, community forestry development project (phase ii), kathmandu, nepal. poudyal, p.p. 2006. bans ko shikshya. (education on bamboo). swayambhu environmental education 171–202. pun, b.r. 2007. siraha as potential district for bamboo promotion in nepal. submitted to inbar for international seminar on bamboo for sustainable development, kathmandu, nepal. sherchan, g.p., karki, m.b., karki, j.b.s. 1996. case study in extensive collection, production, utilization and marketing of bamboo in eastern nepal. a report submitted to inbar/idrc, beijing, china. stapleton, c. 1994. bamboos of nepal: an illustrated guide. royal botanical gardens, kew, london, uk. thammincha, s. 1988. some aspects of bamboo production and marketing: . in bamboos current research. rao, i.v.r., gnanaharan, r. and sastry, c.b. kfri, india and idrc, canada, 320–327. thapa, h.b., das, a.n. and oli, b.n. (1998). growth performance and culm production of bamboo at the eastern terai, nepal. banko janakari 8 (1): 13–18. tiwari, d.n. 1992. a monograph on bamboo. international book distributors, rajpur road, dehradun 248001, uttaranchal, india. shakya et al. final bankojanakari 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 1 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal celebrating 2010 as international year of biodiversity biological diversity or biodiversity is the term given to the variety of life on earth and the natural patterns it forms. biodiversity provides a large number of goods and services to our lives. it also provides a range of ecological, economical, environmental, cultural and aesthetic benefits to human beings. human life, directly or indirectly, depends upon the existence of the biodiversity in the world. however, biodiversity is facing threats from several drivers of change including climate change, changes in land use, and socio-economic and development changes. the threats are aggravated by human activity such as deforestation, overexploitation of resources, illegal harvesting, and land conversion. in the context of climate change, biodiversity is facing additional threats. the inter-governmental panel on climate change (ipcc), in their 2007 report, projects that about 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species will be in danger of extinction if the rise in global average temperature exceeds 2.5°c. furthermore, threats to biodiversity are threats to the livelihoods of people, especially in the mountainous region where biodiversity plays a critical role in sustaining the life of local people and where biodiversity forms the basis of people’s culture and traditions. it has been estimated that 45 percent of the earth’s original forests have been cleared mostly during the past century. the united nations conference on environment and development held in rio de janeiro, brazil from june 2-14, 1992 , is regarded as important international effort taken in order to protect the biodiversity on earth. the convention on biological diversity (cbd is the first global agreement for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. the convention has three main goals: conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use and equitable benefit sharing. in order to tackle the common problems of biodiversity loss on which our life depends, the united nations general assembly proclaimed 2010 as the international year of biodiversity (resolution 61/203). this year coincides with the 2010 biodiversity target adopted by the parties to the cbd and by heads of states and governments at the world summit for sustainable development in johannesburg in 2002. the slogan for this year is “biodiversity is life, biodiversity is our life”. it aims to raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity through activities and events in many countries; to influence decision makers, and “to keep biodiversity issues on the top of the political banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 2 agenda. for the celebration of the international biodiversity year 2010, the secretariat of the cbd, based in montreal, canada, is coordinating the activities. although comprising only 0.09% of the global area, nepal possesses disproportionately large diversity of flora and fauna at genetic, species and ecosystem levels. nepal possesses over 2% of the world’s flowering plants, about 9% of world’s birds species, about 4% of the world’s mammalian species. a great deal of effort has been made over the past years to protect and manage biological diversity in nepal. it has been recognized that biodiversity is the mainstay of nepal’s economy and well-being of her people. expansion of protected areas, implementation of community and leasehold forestry programme, formulation of biodiversity conservation strategy, and its implementation plan, formulation of action plans of different endangered species are some noteworthy steps taken by the government of nepal in order to protect biodiversity. despite these achievements, fundamental problems such as, extreme poverty, population pressure, low level of awareness, poaching and smuggling of endangered species from natural forest and protected areas are still prevailing. nepal, as a signatory member of cbd, has important responsibility to celebrate this year as biodiversity year not only because of the international obligation but also because of the people’s dependency on biological resources and its contribution to local livelihoods. in this context, a high-level action committee under the auspices of the national biodiversity coordination committee of nepal has been formed to celebrate this year as the international year of biodiversity (iyb). the iyb is a unique opportunity to increase understanding of the vital role of biodiversity on earth. it is also a celebration of life on earth and of the value of biodiversity for our lives. thus, several programmes are being organized during the year 2010, some of these include: organizing international conference on biodiversity and climate change in the himalayas, organizing national conference on traditional medicine and medical practitioners, awareness campaigns involving school children, friends of zoo, ecoclubs, guest speeches in the college and universities, capacity building on biodiversity documentation, national biodiversity exhibition, establishment of gene bank. over 50 different stakeholders including civil society organizations, local community groups, academia, government and non-government organizations, and private sector are involved in organizing various programmes to celebrate the iyb 2010. let us join our hands together to celebrate 2010 as an international year of biodiversity in order to achieve cooperation, better collaboration, and wider networking. cover 20-2 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 21 s.k. gautam forest structure in the far western terai of nepal: implications for management s.k. gautam1*, y.p. pokharel1, k.r. goutam1, s. khanal1 and r.k. giri1 * author for corrspondance: shreek_gautam@yahoo.com 1 department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu forest inventory was conducted in 2009 in kailali and kanchanpur districts of the far western development region of nepal. altogether 282 circular plots were measured in 38 camp units equaling 0.02% sampling intensity. the average stocking (excluding regeneration) was 1201 number of stems per ha. the mean stem volume was 172 m3 h-1 and biomass was 186.6 tons h-1. among the important tree species, sal (shorea robusta ) exhibited the highest biomass of 89.8 t h-1 and constituted 48.12% of the total stand biomass, followed by asna (terminalia tomentosa) 41.0 t h-1 or 21.00% of the total biomass. the biomass portions of other major species were chirpine (pinus roxburghii) 6.50%; haldu (adina cordifolia) 3.23%; and miscellaneous species 11.57%. total air-dry biomass, including stem, branches and leaves, of the two districts was calculated at 51.88 million tons, with kailali having 37.26 million tons and kanchanpur 14.68 million tons. the total carbon, after conversion, in forest trees of these two districts was 35.02 million tons. change in mean stem volume, stocking and composition from earlier assessments underscores the need for appropriate silvicultural intervention. key words: volume, biomass, carbon, far western nepal, forest inventory and the average relative humidity is 74%. the elevation ranges from 150 to 1520 m asl. kailali district covers 3284 km2 area and is located between 80030' 81018' e longitude and 28022' 29005 n latitude (ddc kailali, 2002). similarly, kanchanpur district covers 1636.78 km2 area and extends from 28°32' to 29°08' n latitude and from 80° 03' to 80° 33' e longitude (ddc kanchanpur, 2002). fig 1: map showing study districts timely forest inventory is imperative to understand the existing forest condition and maintain the long-term health and vitality of this resource. quantitative information from forest inventory is of interest to a variety of stakeholders including forest managers, researchers, policy makers, and environmentalists. this inventory was carried in the winter of 2009 as a part of the nationwide inventory, a regular programme of the department of forest research and survey (dfrs). it aims to update the earlier information regarding the national forest status of kailali and kanchanpur districts of nepal (dfrs, 1999; dof, 2005). materials and methods study area the inventory was done in the forests of kailali and kanchanpur districts of the far western terai region of nepal (fig 1). the terai region experiences tropical to sub-tropical climate whereas there is temperate climate in the churia hills. maximum temperature reaches 460 celsius in summer and the minimum drops to 50 celsius in winter. average annual precipitation is around 1550-1650 mm with the maximum precipitation during july-september banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 22 gautam et al. sampling design the topographic map sets (1:25000) covering the two study districts were acquired from the department of survey. these maps consist of grids one kilometre apart. altogether 44 field sample units called ‘camp unit’ were laid to minimize time spent on travelling. each camp unit consisted of a group of four clusters forming a square of 1 km by 1 km. each cluster comprised of two plots, one main and one sub-plot at a distance of 100 m north of the main plot (fig 2). all the potential plots were laid out first on the topo-sheet at a spacing of 2 km by 2 km. those plots having less than three corners in the forest land use in the topo-sheet or located on the terrain having a hundred percent slope or located inside protected areas were excluded from the field inventory. using a 0.01 percent sampling intensity, 44 sample units (referred as camp unit) were selected from a total of 440. systematic sampling was used following a first sample drawn at random. gps was used to locate the plot centres. altogether 142 main plots were measured from 44 camp units. results and discussion number of stems per hectare by diameter classes the distribution of the number of stems into different diameter size class is presented in table 1. principally in natural forest, there is always smaller proportion of big size trees than small ones, and this is also true in kailali and kanchanpur districts. there are on an average 1201 stems/ha. earlier survey in 1990/91 recorded that the total number of stems per ha as 3843.7 in kailali and 3194 in kanchanpur district (dof, 2005). it is important to note here that these results are not comparable because in the 1990 inventory above measurements were taken only from terai belt of the district. on the other hand, this current 2009 inventory covered the entire area. however, the overall observation including the field visits suggested that the number of stems/ha is decreasing. the findings also reveal that not only does the natural forest stem density condition seems to be poor but also that there is a domination of inferior species in the forest. this means the domination of miscellaneous species in lower diameter class (310 stems/ha) may lead to our future forest structure to be dominated by inferior species. excluding miscellaneous (commercially less important trees found in mixed condition) species in the terai, sal (shorea robusta) dominates other species. in each dbh class, sal has the highest number of trees per ha. similarly, asna (terminalia tomentosa) comes in as the second dominant species in terms of number of stems per ha. volume the mean stem volume in kailali and kanchanpur districts was estimated to be 172 m3/ha. this figure concentric circular plots were laid out ( fig 3). all the seedlings (<1.3 m height) of tree species falling within 2 m radius were counted and recorded, while all the stems ( > 1.3 m height) falling within the same radius were measured and recorded. diameter of all the stems above 12 cm dbh and falling within 10 m radius; all the stems having 25 cm and above dbh and falling within 15 m radius; and all stems having 40 cm and above dbh and falling within 20 m radius were measured and recorded. volume and biomass of the measured trees were calculated by using the equation ln v = a + b*ln (d) + c ln (h). (sharma and pukkala, 1990a; sharma and pukkala, 1990b). volume was converted into biomass by multiplying the wood densities (hmgn, 1989). biomass was then converted into carbon with conversion factor as mentioned by brown (1997) and oli and shrestha (2009). measurement of trees fig 2: camp unit design fig 3: layout of the concentric circular sample plot 20 m 15 m 10 m 5 m banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 23 gautam et al. seems to be slightly less than the mean volume (178 m3/ha) for nepal and the mean stem volume of far western development region (200 m3/ha) computed in the earlier inventory (dfrs, 1999). of the total volume, sal was found to contribute 45.2% (77 m3/ha) followed by asna 16.8% (28.9 m3/ha) and miscellaneous species in terai 15.6% (26.8 m3/ ha) of the total stem volume. likewise, chirpine (pinus roxburghii) contributes 8.0% (13.8 m3/ha) of the total volume. significant share of 17.8% (26.85 m3/ha) occupied by miscellaneous species in the terai forest structures suggests the domination of low quality woods. we cannot present precise comparison regarding the species-wise stocking between this inventory and earlier inventory because the sampling frames for both the inventories were not identical. however, there is some indication of decrease in per hectare volume with respect to the 1990/1991 survey results which reported per ha volume 161.9 m3 in kanchanpur district and 173.7 m3/ha in kailali district. table 2 and table 3 show the volume and basal area distribution of the sample trees in kailali and kanchanpur districts. the mean basal area/ha was found to be 19.9 m2/ ha (table 3). the most dominating tree species in terms of the basal area was sal, constituting 38.2% (7.6 m2/ha) of the total basal area. the second biggest group was the miscellaneous species of the terai with 20.6% (4.1 m2/ha) share of the total basal area. the third dominant species was asna covering 16.1% (3.2 m2/ha) of the total basal area. biomass/carbon estimates the mean biomass was found to be 186.6 ton/ha. among the important species, sal exhibited highest biomass density (89.8 tons/ha) or 48% of the total stand biomass. it was followed by asna with 22% (41.0 ton/ha). other major species were chirpine 6%; haldu (adina cordifolia), 3%; and miscellaneous species, 12% ( table 4 ). the total air dry biomass including stem, branches and leaves was found to be 51.88 million tons (kailali: 37.26 and kanchanpur: 14.68). similarly, the total above and below ground carbon in the forests of both districts is estimated at 35.02 million tons (excluding grasses, regeneration, dead wood and soil). root carbon was estimated as 35% of above ground carbon in forest trees. conclusion and recommendation density, volume, basal area and biomass are the key parameters for understanding the existing condition of the forest. this information is expected to be useful for further future monitoring of the forests in both districts. on the other hand, the information acquired from this inventory is expected to be useful for management planning of the forest resources in the two districts until the next inventory is conducted in the near future. significant proportion (17.8%) of the volume occupied by the miscellaneous species suggests that the terai forest structures are being dominated by low quality trees. this result has important implication for the management of natural forest of this region. if we are going to focus on commercial timber species of high value, management must focus on promoting or providing a conducive environment for highly desirable species. this means removal of unwanted or less desirable species. controlled burning and opening for light and other silvicultural treatment could be crucial for the management and improvement of the natural stands in both the districts. one of the limitations of this inventory was the exclusion of protected areas as was done in the past, thus the mean estimates do not properly represent the protected areas. the concentric circular plot design is very convenient and appropriate for the terrain in nepal. regarding the accessibility, the terai is more accessible with vehicles reaching most of the plots. but the real challenge is the terrain of churia hills with steep slope and fragile surface to the north of the terai. considering the use of equipment, the hand held gps did not function well and there were the usual problems relating to linear tapes, slope correction, and movement between the plots within clusters. in the context of the ongoing forest resource assessment project, the demanding nature of the forest resource assessment in the hills and mountains need to be considered. the prospect of the project seems to be promising as it has planned to use laser equipment for distance measurement, latest gps devices, and detailed and illustrated field manual. it also includes protected areas for inventory and plans to provide proper training to the crew members. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 24 references brown, s. 1997. estimation biomass and biomass change of tropical forest: a primer: fao forestry paper 134. food and agriculture organization of the united nations, rome, italy. 81-90. ddc. kailali. 2002. district profile of kailali, district, development committee (nepali version), kailali, nepal. ddc. kanchanpur. 2059. district periodic plan of kanchanpur part i and ii. district development committee, kanchanpur, nepal. dfrs. 1999. forest resources of nepal (19871998). department of forest research and survey, publication no. 74, kathmandu, nepal. dof. 2005. forest cover change analysis of the terai districts (1990/91-2000/01). department of forests, kathmandu, nepal. table 1: number of stems/ha (mean + se) banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 gautam et al. hmgn. 1989. master plan for the forestry sector, nepal: forest resources information and status and development plan. mfsc. kathmandu,nepal. oli, b.n. and shrestha, k. 2009. carbon status in forest of nepal an overview. journal of forests and livelihood 8 (1): 62-66. sharma, e.r and pukkala, t. 1990a. volume equations and biomass prediction of forest trees of nepal. ministry of forests and soil conservation. forest survey and statistics division, kathmandu, nepal. sharma, e.r. and pukkala, t. 1990b. volume tables for forest trees of nepal. ministry of forests nd soil conservtion, forest survey and statistics division. kathmandu, nepal. s.n. species number of stems/ha 010 cm 10-20 cm 20-30 cm 30-40 cm 40-50 cm > 50cm 1 asna (terminalia tomentosa) 182.5±33.5 36.8±4.4 15.6±1 3.9±0.6 2.3±0.4 4.3±0.5 2 boddhaero (lagerstroemia parviflora) 42.1±8.2 16.6±2.1 5.5±0.5 1.5±0.4 0.8±0.2 0.5±0.1 3 chirpine (pinus roxburghii) 2.7±1.9 9.2± 1 6.5± 1 1.5± 0.7 1.2± 0.4 2.2± 0.3 4 dhauti (anogeissus latifolia) 10.3± 5.2 6.8± 2.1 2.0± 0.6 0.3± 0.2 0.2± 0.1 0.2± 0.1 5 haldu (adina cordifolia) 3.1±1.3 3.3± 0.6) 2.2± 0.3 0.3± 0.2 0.2± 0.1) 1.1± 0.2 6 jamun (eugenia jambolana) 12.6± 8.3 7.5± 1.4) 3.5± 0.7 0.8± 0.3 0.5± 0.1) 0.4± 0.1 7 misc. species in hill 20.6± 9.1 9.7± 1.5) 5.7± 1.3 1.1± 0.4 0.4± 0.1 0.6± 0.2 8 misc. species in terai 310.2± 39.9 81.2± 5.4) 28.4± 1.6 6.8± 0.9 2.4± 0.3 2.9± 0.4 9 quercus spp. 1.8± 8.1 2.2± 0.9) 1.1± 0.2 0.3± 0.3 0.1± 0.1 0.1 10 sal (shorea robusta) 184.7±30.9 63.0± 4.6) 39.9± 1.5 9.6± 1.3 7.5± 0.8 12.6± 1.2 11 sindure (mallotus philippinensis) 159.2±30.1 34.7± 3.9) 7.8± 1.6) 0.9± 0.3) 0.2± 0.1 0.1± 0.1 total 929.8± 90.1 152.9± 11.7 50.4± 3.2 27.1± 1.9 15.7± 1 25.1± 1.3 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 25 gautam et al. table 2: volume/ha by species and dbh class (mean + se) s.n. species volume (m3/ha) < 10 10 -20 20-30 30-40 40-50 > 50 total in % 1 asna (terminalia tomentosa) 1.3±0.3 1.8±0.4 1.8±0.4 3.1±0.5 3.4±0.6 17.5±2.0 28.9±2.5 16.8 2 boddhaero (lagerstroemia parviflora) 0.3±0.1 0.9±0.2 0.8±0.2 1±0.3 1±0.2 1.6±0.5 5.6±0.8 3.3 3 chirpine (pinus roxburghii) * 0.2±0.1 0.6±0.2 1.5±0.7 2.4±0.7 9.1±2.3 13.8±3.4 8.0 4 dhauti (anogeissus latifolia) 0.1±0 0.4±0.2 0.4±0.2 0.2±0.1 0.3±0.2 0.7±0.4 2.1±0.4 1.2 5 haldu (adina cordifolia) * 0.1±0.0 0.1±0.1 0.3±0.1 0.2±0.1 4.3±1.1 5±1.2 2.9 6 jamun (eugenia jambolana) * 0.3±0.1 0.4±0.2 0.5±0.2 0.5±0.2 0.9±0.4 2.6±0.7 1.5 7 misc. speices in hill 0.1±0 0.4±0.1 0.9±0.3 0.6±0.2 0.4±0.2 1.4±0.7 3.8±1.4 2.2 8 misc. species in terai 2±0.2 3.6±0.3 4.4±0.5 4.4±0.6) 2.9±0.4 9.5±1.7 26.8±2.3 15.6 9 quercus spp. * 0.1±0.1 0.2±0.1 0.2±0.2 0.1±0.1 0.2±0.1 0.8±0.5 0.5 10 sal (shorea robusta) 1.1±0.2 2.4±0.4 4.2±0.6 8.3±1.2 12±1.4 49.8±5.3 77.8±6.7 45.2 11 sindure (mallotus philippineusis) 0.9±0.1 1.7±0.2 1.6±0.4 0.5±0.2 0.1±0.1 0.1±0.1 4.9±0.7 2.8 total 5.8 11.9 15.4 20.6 23.3 95.1 172.1 100 s.n. species mean basal area (m2/ha) < 10 1020 20-30 30-40 40-50 > 50 total in% 1 asna (terminalia tomentosa) 0.4±0.1 0.3±0.1 0.2±0.0 0.4±0.1 0.4±0.1 1.6±0.2 3.2±0.3 16.1 2 boddhaero (lagerstroemia parviflora) 0.1±0.1 0.2±0.1 0.1±0.0 0.1±0.0 0.1±0.0 0.2±0.0 0.8±0.1 4.0 3 chirpine (pinus roxburghii) * * 0.1±0.0 0.1±0.1 0.2±0.1 0.6±0.2 1.1±0.3 5.5 4 dhauti (anogeissus latifolia) * 0.1±0 0.1±0.0 * * 0.1±0.0 0.3±0.1 1.5 5 haldu (adina cordifolia) * * * * * 0.5±0.1 0.6±0.1 3.0 6 jamun (eugenia jambolana) * 0.1±0.0 0.1±0.0 0.1±0.0 0.1±0.0 0.1±0.0 0.4±0.1 2.0 7 misc. speices in hill * 0.1±0.0 0.2±0.1 0.1±0.0 0.1±0.0 0.2±0.1 0.6±0.2 3.0 8 misc. species in terai 0.6±0.1 0.8±0.1 0.7±0.1 0.6±0.1 0.4±0.0 1.0±0.2 4.1±0.3 20.6 9 quercus spp. * * * * * * 0.1±0.1 0.5 10 sal (shorea robusta) 0.3±0.1 0.3±0.1 0.5±0.1 0.9±0.1 1.2±0.0 4.3±0.4 7.6±0.6 38.2 11 sindure (mallotus philippineusis) 0.3±0.0 0.4±0.1 0.3±0.1 0.1±0.0 * * 1.1±0.1 5.5 total 19.9 100 table 3: distribution of basal area (m2)/ha by dbh class (mean + se) s.n. species mean biomass (metric tons/ha) <10 10 -20 20-30 30-40 40-50 > 50 total in % 1 asna (terminalia tomentosa) 1.9±0.4 2.7±0.5 2.6±0.5 4.5±0.7 5.1±0.9 28.6±3.4 45.4±4.0 21.97 2 boddhaero (lagerstroemia parviflora) 0.4±0.1 1.2±0.2 0.3±0.1 1.3±0.3 1.3±0.3 2.3±0.7 7.6±1.2 3.27 3 chirpine (pinus roxburghii) * 0.2±0.1 0.5±0.3 1.3±0.6 2.0±0.6 7.8±2.0 11.8±2.9 6.05 4 dhauti (anogeissus latifolia) 0.1±0.1 0.6±0.2 0.6±0.2 0.3±0.2 0.4±0.2 1.0±0.6 3.0±1.0 1.23 5 haldu (adina cordifolia) * 0.1±0.0 0.1±0.1 0.3±0.1 0.3±0.1 5.0±1.3 5.8±1.4 3.05 6 jamun (eugenia jambolana) * 0.3±0.1 0.5±0.2 0.6±0.2 0.7±0.2 1.2±0.6 3.4±0.8 1.50 7 misc. species in hill 0.1±0.1 0.3±0.1 0.9±0.3 0.6±0.2 0.4±0.2 1.5±0.8 3.9±1.5 1.50 8 misc. species in terai 2.0±0.2 3.5±0.3 4.4±.4 4.4±0.6 3.0±0.4 10.5±1.9 27.8±2.4 11.57 9 quercus spp. * 0.1±0.1 0.3±0.1 0.3±0.1 0.2±0.2 0.2±0.2 1.2±0.7 0.42 10 sal (shorea robusta) 1.1±0.1 2.4±0.5 4.6±0.7 28.8±1.8 14.9±1.762.3±6.6 95.3±8.3 48.12 11 sindure (mallotus philippineusis) 0.8±0.1 1.7±0.2 1.5±0.4 0.5±0.1 0.0 0.1±0.1 4.7±0.7 1.29 table 4: biomass (metric tons/ha) with respect to dbh class (mean + se) * insignificant * insignificant * insignificant cover 20-2 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 41 implications of fiscal policy instruments in community forest management of nepal: issues and challenges a. paudel and g. weiss nepalese community forestry has unclear and inconsistent legal provisions related to fiscal policy instruments. based on the review of forest policy documents, and semistructured interviews and group discussions with individuals from government units, community forest user groups and traders from parbat, baglung and dolakha districts of nepal, this paper demonstrates that there are a number of issues and challenges related to fiscal policy instruments that have affected the promotion of sustainable and market-oriented management of forest resources, co-ordination between local and central government authorities, benefit sharing of forest resources, and the overall financial situation of community forest user groups. as a result, local communities do not fully benefit from their forest resources. we argue that a good co-ordination among government units, cfugs and non-governmental organizations, and their active participation in policy making process can help to make the fiscal policy consistent and unambiguous to mitigate the existing issues and challenges. key words: economic policy instrument, revenue sharing, multiple taxation, forest certification, income generation activities the community forestry (cf) programme in nepal began in 1978 as an attempt by the government and aid agencies to provide an alternative way for the department of forests (dof) to manage national forests by involving local people (gilmour and fisher, 1991). after a decade (in 1987), the concept of ‘forest users group’ in cf was introduced, and three years later (in 1990, after the dawn of democracy), the same group was called ‘community forest users group (cfug)’ (paudel and vogel, 2007). however, a legal and procedural base for local people to organize themselves into a cfug as an autonomous forest management institution was provided by the forest act (hmgn, 1993) and the forest regulation (hmgn, 1995). during the last 31 years of cf, nearly 1.23 million ha of forest (which is about 25% of total forest land) have been handed over to more than 14,400 cfugs (cfd, 2009). many organizations have been involved in supporting the cf programme in nepal. the ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc) is responsible for formulating forest policy in coordination with the national planning commission (npc), while the dof is responsible for its implementation. the community forestry division (cfd), which is under dof, is responsible for the implementation and facilitation of cf programme. the district forest office (dfo), also under dof, formalizes the incorporation of users into cfugs and hands over national forests to them. besides, many civil society organizations, private institutions, cf networks, development partners or donors are also involved in supporting the programme (paudel and vogel, 2007). the federation of community forest users, nepal (fecofun), which is one of the civil society organizations, has been a key player in the forestry sector policy development. in spite of the involvement of many organizations, the policy formation, implementation and field reality seem to be weakly connected in the forestry sector (larsen et al., 2000). this situation has created inconsistencies and confusions in the provisions mentioned in policy documents and consequently has raised several issues and challenge in their implementation. 1 freelance forester, windsor, ontario, canada. email: ambikapaudel@gmail.com 2 university of natural resources and applied life sciences, vienna, austria 1 2 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 42 policy instruments are usually classified into three broad categories: regulatory, economic, and informational (gautam, 2006; krott, 2005; jann, 1981). economic instruments are synonymously called financial (e.g. bruijn and hufen, 1998) or fiscal instruments (könig and dose, 1993). fiscal instruments such as royalty, tax, subsidy and market system for forest products are the core components of nepal’s cf policy, and have significant consequences on the management of the forest resources and their benefits to local communities. however, compared to other policy instruments, the forest act and the forest regulation are less explicit in terms of fiscal policy (kanel, 2001). we have reviewed the legal provisions of fiscal policy related to community forest management of nepal, and discussed in this paper the existing issues and challenges while implementing the fiscal policy instruments. materials and methods we reviewed the current forest policy documents: the master plan for the forestry sector (hmgn, 1989), the forest act (hmgn, 1993), the forest regulation (hmgn, 1995), the forestry sector policy (hmgn, 2000), the herbs and non-timber forest products (ntfps) development policy (hmgn, 2004), the local self governance act (lsga, 1998) and its regulation (lsga, 1999), the three-year interim plan of 2008-2010 (npc, 2007), and cf guidelines. in addition, semi-structured interviews and group discussions were conducted in 2008 in baglung, parbat and dolakha districts, nepal. interviews were conducted with individuals from dfo, district development committee (ddc), village development committee (vdc) and fecofun. in addition, seven forest product traders comprising four from baglung and three from dolakha were consulted. group discussions were conducted in eight cfugs (bhodkhore, jhauri and hampal from parbat; gorucharan, bongakhani and watawaran samrakchhan from baglung; kalobhir and bhitteripakha from dolakha) that are involved in forest product trade and/or in forest enterprises, and are therefore aware of the fiscal policy instruments. results and discussion revenue sharing between government units and cfugs there is a disputable issue related to the way the revenue from the sale of forest products is shared among the central and local government, and cfugs (kanel, 2007). although lsgr has mentioned that concerned ddc gets 10% of revenue obtained by the government as royalty from forest products, it is not specific in terms of type of forests, and is also unclear whether it is from only the government managed forests (gmfs) or from community forests as well. in case of terai cfugs the forestry sector policy (hmgn, 2000) mentions about the revenue sharing obtained from the sale of surplus timber. according to the policy, 40% of the earning from timber sale must be deposited in the government account (central government); but nothing is mentioned about the local government units. after that policy came into effect, concerned dfos began collecting a flat 40% tax from such sales, based on gross revenue but it is frequently referred to by forestry officials as a royalty (bampton and cammaert, 2007). this policy was strongly opposed by fecofun and after a long debate between the government authority and fecofun, this amount was reduced to 15% in 2004 and was restricted to only two timber species: sal (shorea robusta) and khair (acacia catechu). local government units do not get any share of income from the above mentioned tax (kanel, 2006). moreover, confusion exists on how the revenue from ntfps of community forest should be shared between the government and cfug (dhungana and dahal, 2004). it is recommended that policy provisions be amended by clearly defining the methodology on sharing of revenue obtained from community forest between government units and cfugs. seeing the discussions related to share of revenues (e.g. in reducing 40% to 15%), we recommend concerned stakeholders to get involved in formulating policy to come to a common agreement and get a clearer understanding about the revenue sharing mechanism. paudel and weiss banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 43 paudel and weiss multiple taxation in forest products trade there are contradictory provisions in controlling taxation system on forest products, between the forest act (hmgn, 1993) and the local selfgovernance act (lsga, 1998). the lsga provides authority to local government (ddc) to levy a local tax on forest product, while the forest act allows the central government to collect tax on them. in practise, both the central and local governments impose tax in forest products trade at different forms and levels. cfugs that sell surplus forest products have to pay 13% of royalty as vat on products sold, excluding medicinal and aromatic plant products (mfsc, 2005). in addition, they have been paying nrs 5 per cubit feet of timber to the concerned dfo as forest development fund. cfugs in terai pay additional 15% tax on sales of two timber species (sal and khair). in case of ntfps, the custom office levies 5% duty on their market price at the export point. besides, the persons/enterprise that use the forest resource for commercial purpose have to pay a local fee up to nrs 1,000 to the concerned vdc (lsgr, 1999). such multiple payments are also prevalent on the export of forest products through other districts. although the lsgr clarifies that when one ddc takes export tax on its local products, others cannot charge the same, traders have been paying levy at each district check posts while transporting the products through several districts (kunwar et al., 2009). this way, traders end up paying more money than they legally have to pay as tax. similar view was expressed by traders in the study area. contradiction between the forest act and the lsga is also observed in regulatory provision, with regards to control over forest resources (usaid, 2006). individuals from dfo and ddc stressed that both exercise their own legal right to control forest resources and taxation, and this has affected their co-ordination for forest management. moreover, ddcs collecting export tax on products passing through their districts, is clearly against the policy provision mentioned in lsgr. in this context, it seems necessary to develop a simple and transparent taxation system and define clear legal responsibilities of government units in controlling it. in addition, concerned authorities must be trained on the taxation system and motivated just to collect legal tax on forest products trade. benefit/revenue to cfugs from ntfps trade although the government has the authority to impose ban on only the products from gmfs (hmgn, 1995), in practice ntfps managed and harvested from community forests are also banned from exporting in unprocessed form. these include cordyceps sinensis, nardostachys grandiflora, valeriana jatamansi, parmelia spp., taxus baccata, abies spectabilis, rawolfia serpentina, cinamomum glaucescens and silajitmineral exudates. such regulation has affected the sale and export of commercial species which are abundant in community forest. in the study sites, parmelia sp. is abundant among the banned species in most of the community forests. the cfugs are compelled either to process themselves, or to find processing industries, both of which seem to be difficult for them. as a consequence, cfugs are prohibited from the benefit from ntfp trade, and are discouraged in their management. even the recent policy of the herbs and ntfps development (2004) states that ntfps cultivated in private land can be exported even in unprocessed form, but it mentions nothing about ntfps managed or cultivated in community forest land. hence, it seems important to develop such policy instruments that aim at sustainable management systems of ntfps and provide optimum benefit to forest users. another challenge for cfugs to get optimum benefit from ntfps trade is the lack of provisions for their management in the operation plan (op). many of those cfugs whose ops do not sufficiently account for ntfps management and marketing, have not been able to collect royalty from the ntfps trade (paudel et al., 2009), and this has lowered their gross revenue. until the end of 2008, most of the ops of community forests of baglung (including studied cfugs) did not have a detailed inventory and management plan for ntfps. furthermore, the dates of many ops had already expired. the expiry was due to lack of sufficient number of forest technicians (pers. comm. with dfo staff, baglung). as a consequence, cfugs faced problems to sell the surplus forest product and could not collect revenue. another situation that exists is the inclusion of management and marketing of just a few commercial species in op. for example, the cfugs from dolakha whose ops were recently revised, do not have details of management and marketing of all the commercial ntfps, except lokta (daphne spp.) and argeli (edgeworthia gardneri). banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 44 baral et al. in addition, royalty rate of mushroom is not mentioned in their op due to which they can not collect revenue from the sale of this species that has good local market. in the mpfs (hmgn, 1989), although ‘ntfps development’ is listed as one of its six primary programmes, the plan does not spell out research and inventory. although the cf inventory guideline of 2000 (dof, 2000) strictly mentions that only the qualified forest technicians could do the inventory, the revised guideline of 2004 (dof, 2004) allows social workers at local level to perform community forest inventories. with this provision, cfugs now can hire the social workers or local resource persons (lrp) and perform the inventory, and revise ops which were backlogged due to limited forest technicians. this guideline seems to be compatible with field reality as it was prepared by dof, involving ngos, fecofun and cfugs. during the time of field study, such a practise was seen in the cfugs of parbat and dolakha districts, where fecofun and/or other ngos have trained lrp to perform op revision. however, revising op with the inclusion of ntfps management and marketing does not overcome the problem of collecting optimum revenue. factors like low quantity production, inaccessibility of the sites for transportation, and lack of awareness of the legitimate ownership of the resources hinder their marketing. it is recommended that cfugs need to be aware about the legal ownership of their forest resources and include their detailed management and marketing in op to earn optimum revenue from ntfps trade. benefit to poor users from forest products according to the forest act and the regulation, cfugs can independently sell and distribute the forest products which are available, pursuant to the op, by fixing their prices. however, they have to inform the concerned dfo about the price of the products, and the cfugs feel it a cumbersome practise. in the studied cfugs, if any forest products are to be consumed by a users’ group itself, the distribution is either free of charge or is levied a price based on the consensus and it is usually found to be lower than the market price. in all of the cfugs, products like fuelwood, fodder and leaf litter are divided on equality basis. such forest product distribution system which does not provide more benefit to the poor has been criticized (malla, 2001). with regards to distribution of timber, it is found to be based on the need of timber (in terms of construction and maintenance) for users in all cfugs. it is often the case that better-off households frequently use (and buy) more timber compared to poor, as poor households rarely build new houses or have furniture made in rural areas of nepal. although some cfugs in our study sites have provision to provide timber for poor users free of charge (e.g. cfugs from dolakha) or in lower end of the price range (nrs 15 to 50 per cubic feet in bhodkhore cfug, parbat), hardly few poor users take this benefit because of their inability to construct/renovate houses or cattle sheds. similar result is found in a study conducted by overseas development group, nepal in 2003 in fourteen cfugs in nawalparasi and rupandehi districts, where mainly rich households with larger houses purchase timber in subsidized price (bampton and cammaert, 2007). it seems that the poor are less benefited from forest product sale and distribution system. in this context, it is recommended to make this system more favourable towards the poor users by formulating the policy that provides easy access to poor on more forest benefits so that they can improve their livelihoods. financial situation of cfugs the forest regulation allows cfugs to plant cash crops that can be the source of income generation. however, it remains silent about providing financial support to cfugs from the government. additionally, the forestry sector policy (hmgn, 2000) mentions that local communities be encouraged to grow commercial forest crops and establish forest-based processing enterprises outside of the community forest, but it does not mention about the management of financial and technical resources required for cfugs to establish such enterprises. this in-itself seems to be incomplete in defining the alternatives for cfugs in improving their financial situation. in some cfugs, external organizations have provided skill development trainings related to igas to users, however, users often can not utilize that skill as a profession because they can neither launch any enterprises on their own nor get any financial assistance from other organizations. such a condition has hindered cfugs to invest in forest-based igas. for example, in bhodkhore cfug, there is sufficient raw material and trained human resource to make sal leaf plate that has good local market. but the cfug is not banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 paudel and weiss banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 45 paudel and weiss running the enterprise mainly due to inadequate finance to purchase the moulding machine. cfugs from parbat and baglung are conducting ‘revolving fund programme’ with the financial support from donor organizations mainly for livelihood improvement of poor users from the past few years, however, this amount is very little considering the number of poor users in these cfugs, and the money has been distributed to them on priority basis to invest on igas. one of the favourable provisions for the poor is the recently revised cf programme development guideline (dof, 2009), according to which 35% of the cfug’ fund must be spent for poor users, either in terms of money or good, or for improvement of their livelihood. the forest act mentions that at least 25% of cfug’s fund has to be spent on forest development activities, which means the rest, can be spent in other activities. from the study area, cfugs of parbat and baglung, with higher expenses of their fund in community development activities (about 50%) and forest development works (about 30%), were found to be in relatively poor financial situation. in contrast, cfugs from dolakha, in addition to other income generating activities (igas), are also being involved in ntfps-based enterprise of their district through raw material supply and share investment. they have developed fund mobilization guideline, allocating 20% of the fund to enterprise development. it seems that financial situation of cfugs can greatly be improved by allocating higher investment in igas. furthermore, utilizing a greater portion of cfug fund in cultivation of high value ntfps and establishment of forest-based enterprises can provide direct economic return to cfugs in a sustainable manner. in addition, establishing ‘enterprise development revolving fund’ and providing orientation to cfugs about business accounting and fund mobilization (paudel et al., 2009) will also be important activities to improve the financial situation of cfug. progress on forest certification nepal does not export timber in international market but ntfps are exported mainly to india. typically, without certification, it is difficult to export the forest product to many foreign countries. targeting ntfps, 14,086 ha (of 21 cfugs) community forest land from dolakha (including the studied cfugs) and bajang districts were certified in between 2004 to 2006, under forest stewardship council group certification scheme. calculations show that the certification cost in nepal is us$ 35.5 per ha, which is higher in comparison to other countries (kandel, 2007). as cfugs do not have adequate finance and there is a lack of financial support from the government and/or other external organizations, the forests which would have the quality to be certified, may be not certified in time. for example, jhauri cfug of parbat has not been certified though the process began in 2002 by integrated human ecology project (ihep) under a ngo known as seed tree nepal. even after certification, high cost is involved in auditing, monitoring and management of certified forests (discussion with cfugs from certified forest of dolakha), which is difficult to manage by cfugs with poor financial situation. the mpfs had committed to enhance distribution of medicinal plants and ntfps to local and foreign market. however, the plan does not mention anything about certification. additionally, forestry sector policy of 2000 has emphasized on promoting the commercialization of ntfps and exporting them after value-addition, but it does not mention about forest certification which is crucial for exporting forest products. in addition, financial aspect is not mentioned in the herbs and ntfps development policy (hmgn, 2004) and three-year interim plan (npc, 2007). it seems that without financial aid to cfugs from government and/or other external agencies, certification can not be progressive and will remain a challenge for the commercial trade of valuable forest products in nepal. conclusion the review of the forest policy documents shows contradictions and confusions in their provisions related to fiscal policy in community forest management, and such provisions have created several issues and challenges in implementation. the policies does not optimally support the sustainable and market-oriented management of the forest resources and cfugs therefore do not benefit from their forests as much as they could. in addition, poor investments in igas, and lack of incorporation of ntfps management and marketing in op has also affected the financial situation of cfugs. we recommend amending contradictory and unclear provisions specifically on legal responsibility of government authorities regarding control over banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 46 paudel and weiss taxation system and revenue sharing mechanism, remove ambiguous and restrictive policies, and develop new policies to improve financial situation of cfugs. we recommend active participation of cfugs and non-governmental organizations during policy formulation so that aforementioned issues and challenges could be addressed properly. acknowledgements the authors acknowledge bishnu p. acharya, bidhur khadka and ganesh k. thapa for information collection; suman pokhrel, sony baral and kalyan gauli for their comments and birendra sapkota for reviewing the paper and providing valuable suggestions. references bampton, j. and 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267-281. lsga. 1998. local self-governance act of 1998. law books management board, fdp/hmgn/ usaid, kathmandu, nepal. lsgr. 1999. local self-governance regulation of 1999 . law books management board, kathmandu, nepal. malla, y. b. 2001. changing policies and the persistence of patron-client relations in nepal: stakeholders’ responses to changes in forest policies. environmental history 6 (2): 287-307. mfsc. 2005. a circular about ‘tax rate on sale of forest products’. published on aug 12, 2005. no. 59. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. npc. 2007. three-year interim plan of nepal (2008-2010). national planning commission, government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. paudel, a. and vogel, s. 2007. community forestry governance in nepal: a case study of the role of service providers in a community forest users group. a discussion paper (dp-34-2007). university of natural resources and applied life sciences (boku), vienna, austria. paudel, a.; subedi, b. p.; gyawali, s.; thapa, g. k. and sharma, m.b. 2009. value chain analysis of ntfps in baglung district, nepal. banko janakari 19 (2): 33-41. usaid. 2006. role of natural products in resource management, poverty alleviation and good governance. a case study of jatamansi and wintergreen value chains in nepal. united states agency for international development, usaid-nepal, kathmandu, nepal. cover 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 3 sharma above-ground tree biomass and allometric relationships of cinnamomum tamala grown in the western hill regions of nepal b. s. poudel1*, s.k. gautam1 and d. n. bhandari2 biomass regression models are presented describing total above-ground biomass, stem wood, branch wood, foliage and bark production for tejpat (cinnamomum tamala), a multipurpose tree which is found abundantly distributed and grown in western hill districts of nepal. a total of 56 tejpat trees between 6.2 and 16.5 cm diameter at breast height (dbh) from farmers’ farmland and marginal land in arghakhanchi, gulmi and palpa districts were sampled and harvested. mean fresh weight of total above-ground biomass, stem wood, branch wood, foliage and bark was 77.03, 36.39, 15.16, 17.53 and 8.2 kg tree -1, respectively. allocation of biomass was more in stem (47.24% tree-1) than in foliage (22.75% tree-1), branch (19.69% tree-1) and bark (10.31% tree-1). weight of tree component was estimated as a function of dbh. after removal of the outliers, data were randomly divided into two datasets: 70% for model calibration and another 30% for model validation. correlation analysis showed positive stronger linear relationship between dbh and biomass. five regression models (linear, logarithmic, quadratic, power and exponential) were developed. all models were statistically significant, with r2 ranging from 0.64 to 0.83. model validation was based on root mean square error (rmse). rmse percentage for the best-fit equation varied between 16.64% and 44.82%. linear model resulted in the least error and was selected as the best-fit model for prediction of biomass of bark, foliage, branch, stem and total above ground tree biomass. biomass models developed could be applied to obtain biomass of different tree components of tejpat grown in the study area and could even be applied to other areas which have similar conditions; but it should be validated before using them in new sites and conditions. key words: regression models, fresh weight, bark, foliage, branch wood, stem wood biomass is the total amount of living organic matter accumulation on a unit area at a specified point of time (brown, 1997; applegate et al., 1988). tree biomass, which is used to denote the total quantity of materials in a tree, can best be measured in terms of weight (poudel et al., 2003). biomass can be estimated by direct method, i.e., destructive techniques or by indirect method, i.e., developing an allometric relationship. destructive techniques for biomass estimation are time consuming and expensive (nath et al., 2009; verhijst and telenius, 1999). allometric relationships yield a non-destructive and indirect estimates of biomass and is often the preferred approach since it is less time consuming and less expensive (st clair, 1993) than the direct method. allometric equations are widely used for forest biomass assessment. allometric relationship through regression analysis has the advantage that once equations are developed and validated they can be used for similar forest types on a wide range of sites in a particular geographic region (satto and madgwick, 1982). biomass tables are similar to the volume tables in that they quantify the resources of interest (tree, stem wood, branch wood, foliage, bark) with reference to some measurement of the stand or tree, usually diameter at breast height (dbh). single tree biomass tables, which predict the weight of an individual tree from its diameter, have been found reliable (applegate et al., 1985; joshi, 1985; hawkins, 1987). previous biomass and volume tables in nepal have been oriented towards traditional forestry practices focusing largely on timber production. such tables are therefore largely concerned with only the timber species (sharma and pukkala, 1990). some biomass 1 department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu 2 practical action, kathmandu * corresponding author: bspoudel@dfrs.gov.np banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 4 information has been developed in the form of oven-dried forest products which makes it difficult to interpret by forest user group (fug) members, whilst other information provides stem volume figures (tamrakar, 1999) rather than branch, bark and foliage quantity which are equally important forest products for forest users. most of the non-timber forest products are traded in terms of weight, often air-dry weight (poudel et al., 2003). biomass tables are the best means of estimating biomass of such parts in terms of weight based on field measurement of one variable i.e. dbh only. cinnamomum tamala (buch.ham.) nees and eberm. under family lauraceae, locally called as tejpat, dalchini, sinkauli in nepali, is a moderate sized evergreen tree species . it is distributed in tropical and subtropical himalayas (edwards, 1996) and grown between 500 m to 2000 m asl in nepal (jackson, 1994). it grows on varieties of soils. however, it prefers well-drained moist soils. tejpat trees are extensively managed for leaf and bark production in nepal. bark and leaves are used as spices and medicine; wood as fuel wood, agricultural implements, and in some instances, as furniture and roofing material. tejpat contains etheral oil in the leaves and cortex of cells (rendle, 1979) that enrich the plant with aromatic flavour thereby making bark and leaves suitable for spices and medicine. leaves are used in colic, diarrhoea, rheumatism and found beneficial for cough and cold, diabetic patient and to reduce blood sugar level (kirtikar et al., 1992). harvesting is done at the age of 8 – 10 years. it coppices well and coppices are ready to harvest in the shorter period. cinnamomum tamala is one of the major non-timber forest product species in gulmi, arghakhanchi and palpa districts. its bark and leaves are sold easily at high prices and people are interested to plant this species and some stands already exist in their lands but they can not make precise estimation of the amount of bark and leaf (dfo arghakhanchi, 2001). tejpat is listed among 30 medicinal plants prioritized for research and development by the government of nepal (dpr, 2006). the aim of this study was to develop allometric equations to estimate biomass of foliage, bark, stem wood and branch wood, and prepare a biomass table including the stem wood, branch wood, bark and foliage for green condition and, bark and foliage biomass for green, air-dry and oven-dry condition. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in three hill districts i.e. gulmi, palpa and arghakhanchi of western development region, nepal where both natural and farmer raised stands of cinnamomum tamala exist. the bark and leaf are commercially traded from these districts to butwal and then exported to india. total area covered by these districts is 3,708 km2 (fig. 1). the climate of the study area is subtropical. fig 1: map showing study areas tejpat is widely distributed and frequently planted in narpani, thanda daha, sitapur, adguri, khidim, pokharathok, datibang and sidhdhara vdcs in arghakhanchi district (dfo arghakhanchi, 2001); tamghas, archale, damuwa, bharse, gwaga, purkot, musikot, mankot, arlangkot, malagiri and isma vdcs in gulmi district (dfo gulmi, 2001); and koldanda, dovan, gothandi, barlyangadi, styawati, bhuwanpokhari and masyam vdcs in palpa district (dfo palpa, 2001). the species is grown mainly in private lands especially on the terrace risers and marginal lands (grass fields and gullies). there are a few natural stands in community and national forests in these districts. village development committee (vdc) containing natural and planted tejpat stands were listed for each district separately by consulting respective district forest offices, potential traders and the secondary information. three vdcs in each district (narpani, thanda daha and adguri in arghakhanchi; tamghas, bharse and damuwa in gulmi; and koldanda, dovan and gothandi in palpa) were selected randomly from the list of vdcs. since the poudel et al. palpa argakhachi gulmi banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 5 community forests do not have sufficient trees to meet the objectives of the study. therefore, tejpat stands that have been grown in the private lands as part of agroforestry system or private woodlots were selected as study sites. biomass estimation biomass was determined destructively by harvesting randomly selected trees of different sizes. to make the data more representative, trees were classified into different size groups at the interval of 5 cm dbh class. trees representative to each dbh class were chosen randomly in each site. thus, a total of 56 (20 from palpa, 18 each from gulmi and arghakhanchi district) were harvested for this study. these trees were cut in summer (september) 2002, so that this would coincide with the bark harvest time, which in study area is preferably summer because of ease of extraction of bark. dbh over bark measured 1.3 m above the ground level of each tree was taken before felling. after harvesting, total height was measured. all trees divided into following components: stem wood, branch wood, foliage and bark. components were separated and fresh weight of each component was weighed in the field. for determination of airdry and oven-dry weight of bark and foliage, composite sub-samples of bark of six trees from 1.3 m above the ground level and composite subsample of foliage from several branches of six trees were taken to laboratory of institute of forestry, pokhara. fresh weights of the composite subsamples were measured. air-dry weight was obtained by drying the sub-samples in the sun for about one week. oven-dry weight was obtained after drying at 1050 c for about 48 hours in oven to constant weight. the dry mass of the bark and foliage components were then calculated. oven-dry weight to fresh weight ratio was used to convert fresh weight to oven dry weight. summing all the biomass components yielded the above-ground tree standing biomass. statistical analysis statistical analyses were carried out using spss 11.0. descriptive statistics, parameter estimates and regression coefficients were estimated. one-way anova was used. some candidate models (linear, logarithmic, quadratic, power, cubic and exponential) were analysed and compared. model performance was assessed on the basis of various indexes. first, the coefficient of determination (r2) of each model was computed. significance of regression coefficients were assessed by t-statistics and significance of regression model were assessed by f-statistics. besides, see, f-value and t-value of the parameters were computed. the best fit-model based on r2, see and f-value, was selected and used to predict biomass. regression lines between observed and predicted biomass values of sampled trees were compared. regression models were compared for their predictive accuracy by using root mean square error (rmse) (gill et al., 2000; leboeuf et al., 2007). rmse was calculated by using the following formulae (wallace and goffinet, 1989): rmse (%) = ( rmse / x )*100% where x i = measured biomass, y i = predicted biomass by the model, n = number of sample and x =mean of the validation data after the removal of three outliers, the 53 trees were randomly divided into two sets: 37 (70%) for model development as training dataset and another 16 (30%) for model validation as test datasets. the models were validated using 30% datasets for calculation of rmse. the r2 from the training and rmse% from the validation dataset was used to assess the strength of the model. results and discussion sample trees characterization box plot diagram was executed in spss program and a total of three datasets were found outliers and thus, removed from the data sets for correlation and poudel et al. regression analysis (fig. 2). bark foliage branch stemwood banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 6 table 1: descriptive statistics of tree characteristics and fresh weight of different tree components (n=37) variable mean std. deviation variance minimum maximum range dbh (cm) 10.86 2.13 4.55 6.90 15.50 8.60 height (m) 9.74 2.07 4.28 6.80 18.15 11.35 foliage (kg) 17.53 7.45 55.49 6.50 35.50 29.00 bark (kg) 7.95 3.28 10.73 1.75 16.00 14.25 branch wood (kg) 15.16 9.17 84.00 3.00 41.00 38.00 stem wood (kg) 36.39 15.79 249.24 7.00 66.00 59.00 total above ground tree (kg) 77.03 33.27 1106.85 23.25 153.50 130.25 fig 3: biomass partitioning in above-ground tejpat tree components dbh, height, green weight of bark and foliage of the validation datasets (n=16) ranged from 6.20 to 16.10 cm (mean 9.60), 6.20 to 12.10 m (mean 8.98), 3.0 to 13.0 kg (mean 6.67) and 6.0 to 32.5 kg (mean 16.22), respectively. the mean values of the model calibration data and validation data are similar. the highest share of above-ground biomass was contained in stem: 47.24%, followed by foliage: 22.75%, branch: 19.69% and bark: 10.31% (fig. 3). relationship between dbh and green weight previous studies demonstrated that dbh is the most reliable variable for biomass estimation (schroeder et al., 1997; popescu, 2007). the use of dbh alone for above-ground biomass estimation is common and it is one of the universally used predictors, because it shows a high correlation with all tree biomass components and easy to obtain accurately (zianis, 2008). tree dbh was significantly and positively correlated with green biomass of tree components. the coefficient of determination, ftest and standard error analysis indicated that the dbh was the best variable to use to estimate biomass of tree components. scatter plots of green biomass with dbh are shown in figure 4. scatter plots showed positive linear relationships. the pearson’s correlation coefficient was calculated using spss computer software to analyse the strength of linear relationship between dbh and biomass. poudel et al. mean dbh of the sampled trees (n=37) was 10.86 cm, with a standard error of mean of 0.35 and range of 8.60 cm. mean height was 9.74 m (standard error of mean: 0.34 and range: 11.35). mean green weight of foliage, bark, branch wood, stem wood and total above-ground tree biomass was 17.53, 7.95, 15.16, 36.39 and 77.03 kg, respectively. descriptive statistics of dbh, height, foliage, bark, branch, stem wood and total above ground tree biomass are shown in table 1. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 7 fig 4: relation between dbh and green weight of different tree components poudel et al. the correlation coefficient of dbh with bark, foliage, branch wood, stem wood and total above ground tree biomass was 0.84, 0.82, 0.82, 0.83 and 0.89, respectively. the relationship was found to be stronger for total above ground and bark biomass compared to other components. the correlation was highly significant (p<0.001) for all cases. the correlation coefficient of more than 0.70 is usually considered strong relationship (reimann et al., 2008). it shows that there is strong positive linear relationship between dbh and biomass of different tree components. green biomass allometric models the green weight of tree components per tree was calculated from models describing the correlation between dbh (cm) and green weight (kg tree-1), derived from data collected from field. five functions (linear, logarithmic, quadratic, power and exponential) were tested: w = b 0 + b 1 dbh (linear) w = b 0 + b 1 ln (dbh) (logarithmic) w = b 0 + b 1 (dbh)+ b 2 (dbh 2) (quadratic) w = b 0 dbh b1 (power) w = b 0 e b1dbh (exponential) where w = green biomass, kg tree-1 dbh = diameter at breast height measured at 1.3 m above the ground level, over bark, cm b 0 , b 1 and b 2 are parameters. these models were used to describe the relationship between dbh and green weight of tree components as such functions are often used when predicting banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 8 biomass (johansson and karacic, 2011; johansson, 1999; satoo and madgewick, 1982; payandeh, 1981). comparisons of the test statistics using different regression equations for different tree components in green condition are shown in table 2. all five models were found to be statistically significant (p<0.01) based on f-test. regression coefficients were tested for significance (p<0.05) using t-test. regression coefficients were significant (p<0.05) in linear, logarithmic, power and exponential table 2: regression models with model calibration and validation statistics relating tree dbh with green biomass of different tree components models parameter estimates model calibration (n=37) model validation (n=16) b 0 b 1 b 2 r2 see df f-value rmse (kg) rmse (%) foliage linear -13.671** 2.8725** 0.677 4.294 35 73.35** 4.07 25.11 logarithmic -55.041** 30.6655** 0.654 4.441 35 66.27** 4.42 27.25 quadratic 8.1104 -1.1653 0.1804 0.689 4.274 34 37.69** 3.97 24.49 power 0.2569* 1.7493** 0.693 0.232 35 78.97** 4.06 25.01 exponential 2.8197** 0.1606** 0.688 0.234 35 77.25** 4.23 26.13 bark linear -6.0773** 1.2911** 0.707 1.797 35 84.57** 1.21 18.16 logarithmic -25.459** 14.1159** 0.717 1.767 35 88.71** 1.27 19.03 quadratic -15.3480 3.0098* -0.0768 0.719 1.788 34 43.43** 1.24 18.57 power 0.0643* 1.9971** 0.745 0.233 35 102.04** 1.56 23.36 exponential 1.0436** 0.1785** 0.701 0.252 35 82.15** 1.94 29.11 branch linear -23.070** 3.5204** 0.672 5.326 35 71.60** 5.77 44.82 logarithmic -73.183** 37.3339** 0.641 5.572 35 62.41** 5.89 45.70 quadratic 12.9325 -3.1537 0.2981 0.694 5.220 34 38.49** 6.31 48.98 power 0.0293 2.5667** 0.674 0.356 35 72.28** 6.15 47.72 exponential 0.9711** 0.2369** 0.677 0.354 35 73.25** 7.38 57.28 stem wood linear -30.602** 6.1684** 0.695 8.843 35 79.75** 4.24 15.82 logarithmic -123..56** 67.5936** 0.708 8.655 35 84.79** 4.61 17.18 quadratic -80.004* 15.3266* -0.4091 0.709 8.764 34 41.40** 4.72 17.60 power 0.2018 2.1507* 0.732 0.259 35 95.61** 5.59 20.83 exponential 4.1068** 0.1912** 0.682 0.283 35 75.00** 7.85 29.29 total above ground tree biomass linear -73.421** 13.8525** 0.789 15.49 35 131.06** 10.41 16.64 logarithmic -277.25** 149.709** 0.782 15.76 35 125.45** 11.96 19.12 quadratic -74.309 14.0173 -0.0074 0.789 15.72 34 63.66** 10.41 16.64 power 0.5201** 2.0726** 0.831 0.186 35 172.20** 12.79 20.44 exponential 9.1694** 0.1874** 0.801 0.202 35 140.79** 17.37 27.76 models for the prediction of foliage, bark and total above ground tree biomass. the regression coefficients of quadratic models were not significant. this is because of deliberate introduction of collineariity between dbh and dbh2. similarly, coefficients of power model were not significant (p>0.05) for branch and stem wood prediction. r2 coefficient of determination, df = degree of freedom, see standard error of estimates, b 0 , b 1 and b 2 are parameter estimates, rmse root mean square error, ** p<0.01, *p<0.05 poudel et al. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 9 model comparison the quadratic model was found to have the least error for the estimation of foliage biomass whereas linear model was to have the least error for the prediction of bark, branch, stem wood and total above ground biomass compared to other models. however, linear model was selected for the prediction of foliage biomass because of its simplicity in use and more importantly, the difference in rmse for linear and quadratic was found minimal (25.11% vs. 24.49%). rmse for the prediction of biomass ranged from 15.82% for stem wood biomass to 44.82% for branch wood biomass. linear model was chosen for the prediction of total above ground biomass of tejpat tree based on significant regression coefficients and also due to its simplicity where rmse values for both models were equal. hawkins (1987) has used logarithmic transformation of the power model to predict biomass for eucalyptus camaldulensis, dalbergia sissoo, acacia auriculoformis and casia siamea in the central bhawar-terai of nepal. the same model was also used by thapa (2000) to estimate biomass of acacia auriculoformis, acacia catechu, dalbergia sissoo, eucalyptus camaldulensis, eucalyptus tereticornis and leucaena leucocephala planted at tarahara of sunsari district. linear regression indicated a small rmse of 1.21 kg, which is approximately 18% of the average bark biomass of the validation trees. the linear regression model explained 70% of the variance associated with the field-measured bark biomass. analyses showed that a high r2 and a low rmse value for all tree components including total above ground biomass except branch wood indicates a good fit between the model developed and sample data. the lowest rmse was found in the linear model, so it is not suitable to predict the branch wood biomass because of high rmse value (44.82%). satoo and madgwick (1982) found that the prediction of foliage biomass was less accurate than other components. but in our case, biomass prediction of branch (and foliage to some extent) was found less accurate. this may perhaps be due to site specific differences in quality and competition as explained by hawkins (1987). thus, the best prediction of green weight (w) of different tree components of tejpat tree are, w (foliage) = -13.671 + 2.8725 * dbh w (bark) = -5.8194 + 1.2700 * dbh w (branch wood) = 23.0700 3.5204 * dbh w (stem wood) = 30.6020 + 6.1684 * dbh w (above ground tree) = -73.4210 + 13.8525 * dbh air-dry and oven-dry biomass of foliage and bark based on laboratory analysis an air-dry weight to fresh weight ratio of foliage was 0.5543 and oven-dry weight to fresh weight ratio was 0.4309. similarly, air-dry weight to fresh weight ratio of bark was found to be 0.6369 and oven-dry to fresh weight ratio was 0.5429. model calibration and validation for air-dry and oven-dry weight of bark and foliage through regression analyses showed the same statistics because these only differ from the green weight equations by a constant factor. however, the parameter estimates are, obviously, different and are given in appendix. based on r2 value and rmse% obtained, the linear model was used to predict biomass of bark and foliage at air-dry and oven-dry conditions. the biomass table of bark and fresh foliage for fresh, air-dry and oven-dry conditions and branch wood, stem wood and total-above ground biomass at fresh condition is prepared by using above mentioned equations (appendix 1). application of the models biomass equations are normally prepared on an oven-dry weight basis to facilitate comparison with other sites, species and seasons (hawkins, 1987). tejpat is of immense potential to earn income from bark and foliage in the study districts. only the bark and foliage biomass at air-dry and oven-dry conditions is prepared. this will serve as a easyreference for the farmers to predict the fresh weight of their standing tejpat trees as well as air-dry and oven-dry weight of bark and foliage. the statistically significant equations are validated using tree biomass data obtained from the same area. models having the least rmse are selected for prediction of tree component biomass. the model and biomass table, accrued thereof, for branch wood are not suitable to predict biomass because of high error. biomass table in fresh weight are easy to validate. however, the best-fit equations can be further validated using tree biomass data obtained from other locations, as well as from coppice tree crops. conclusion tejpat stands have many values and uses and their management can provide several benefits at local, national and global level. farmers in the study districts have prioritized tejpat depending on their needs to poudel et al. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 10 generate income out of foliage and bark. biomass equations are developed from pole-sized trees. the stem component was the largest part of the aboveground biomass. however, this species is largely traded for their bark and foliage. tree dbh seemed to be the best predictor for above-ground biomass of tejpat. linear regression models could predict properly the biomass of tree components. biomass table can be prepared for individual trees using allometric equations. the results of this study demonstrate the usefulness of allometric equations for above-ground biomass estimation of individual tejpat tree and tree components with good accuracy except branch wood. management and utilization of tejpat stands is important as a major source of income for many rural farmers in the area and also as a potential source of carbon sink in the context of climate change. more investigation is needed to understand biomass production over time to determine the rotation age. climatic and edaphic factors affecting biomass need to be considered in further study. acknowledgements this study was supported by western region office of natural resource management sector assistance programme (narmsap) through silviculture working group (swg). the authors would like to thank dfo gulmi, arghakhanchi and plapa districts and their staff for assistance in field work. the authors are thankful to the tejpat growers for their cooperation during the field study. we are thankful to mr. hem aryal and mr. michael ollgard for their extended help during this study. references applegate, g.b., gilmour, d.a. and mohns, b. 1988. the use of biomass estimations in the management of forests for fuelwood and fodder production. commonwealth forestry review 67 (2): 141-148. applegate, g.b, hawkins, t. and thompson, i. s. 1985. preliminary guidelines for biomass studies in nepal. technical note 2/85. nepal australia forestry project, kathmandu, nepal. brown, s. 1997. estimating biomass and biomass change of tropical forests: a primer. fao forestry paper no 34. fao, rome, italy. dfo arghakhanchi. 2001. arghakhanchi jillama tejpat sarvekshana (in nepali). district forest office, arghakhanchi, nepal. dfo gulmi. 2001. jadibuti chinari pustika (in nepali). district forest office, gulmi, nepal. dfo palpa. 2001. jadibuti pahichan tatha namuna sankalan pustika (in nepali). district forest office, palpa, nepal. dpr. 2006. plants of nepal: fact sheet . government of nepal/ministry of forests and soil conservation, department of plant resources, kathmandu, nepal. edwards d. m. 1996. non-timber timber forest products from nepal: aspects of the trade in medicinal and aromatic plants. forsec monograph 1/96. forest research and survey center. his majesty's government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. gill, s.j., biging, g.s. and murphy e.c. 2000. modeling conifer tree crown radius and estimating canopy cover. forest ecology and management 126 (3): 405-416. hawkins, t. 1987. volume and weight tables for eucalyptus camaldulensis, dalbergia sissoo, acacia auriculoformis and casia simea. banko janakari 1 (2): 29-30. johansson, t. 1999. biomass equations for determining fractions of european aspen (populus tremula l.) growing on abandoned farmland and some practical implications. biomass and bioenergy 17: 471-480. johansson, t. and karacic, a. 2011. increment and biomass in hybrid poplar and some practical implications. biomass and bioenergy 35: 1925-1934. jackson, j. k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. 2nd edition. forest research and survey center, kathmandu, nepal. joshi m.r. 1985. prediction of biomass in a plantation stand of chir pine (pinus roxburghii) in nepal. m. sc. thesis. university of oxford, uk. kirtikar m.k. 1992 (ed). the wealth of india. a dictionary of indian raw materials and industrial products. vol-3. council of scientific and industrial research, new delhi, india. poudel et al. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 11 leboeuf, a., beaudoin, a., fournier, r. a., guindon, l., luther, j.e. and lambert, m.c. 2007. a shadow fraction method for mapping biomass of northern boreal black spruce forests using quickbird imagery. remote sensing of environment 110 (4): 488-500. nath, a.j., das, g., das, a.k. 2009. above ground standing biomass and carbon storage in village bamboos in north east india. biomass and bioenergy 33: 1188-1196 payandeh, a. 1981. choosing regression models for biomass prediction equations. forest chronology 57: 229-232 popescu, s.c. 2007. estimating biomass of individual pine trees using airborne lidar. biomass and bioenergy, 31: 646-655. poudel, b. s., bhandari, d. n. and gautam, s. k. 2003. preparation of biomass tables for tejpat (cinnamomum tamala). a research report submitted to narmsap, western region office, pokhara, nepal reimann, c., filzmoser, p., garett, r. and dutter, r. 2008. statistical data analysis explained: applied environmental statistics with r. wiley and sons. chichester, uk. rendle, a. b., 1979. the classification of flowering plants. vikas publishing house pvt ltd. gajiyabad, india. satto, t. and madgwick, h. 1982. forest biomass. martinus nijhoff/dr. w. junk. the hague, netherland. schroeder, p., brown, s., mo, j., birdsey, r. and cieszewski, c. 1997. biomass estimation for temperate broad leaf forests of the united states using inventory data. forest science 43: 424-434. sharma, e.r. and pukkala, t. 1990 . volume equations and biomass prediction of forest trees of nepal. forest survey and statistics division, ministry of forest and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. st clair, j.b. 1993. family differences in equations for predicting biomass and leaf area in douglas fir (pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii) forest science 39: 743-755. tamrakar, p.r. 1999. biomass tables for katuschilaune forest type. research leaflet no. 8. department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. thapa, h. b. 2000. biomass estimation of some fast growing trees in the eastern terai, nepal. banko janakari 10 (2): 15-20. vermijst, t. and telenius, b. 1999. biomass estimation procedures in short rotation forestry. forest ecology and management 121: 137-146. wallace, d. and goffinet, b. 1989. mean squared error of prediction as a criterion for evaluating and comparing system models. ecological modeling 44 (3-4): 299-306. zianis, d. 2008. predicting mean above-ground forest biomass and its associated variance. forest ecology and management 256: 1400-1407. poudel et al. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 12 poudel et al. appendix 1: biomass table of tejpat (cinnamomum tamala) green weight (kg) air-dry weight (kg) oven-dry weight (kg) dbh (cm) foliage bark branch stem total foliage bark foliage bark 5.0 0.69 0.38 -5.47 0.24 -4.16 0.38 0.24 0.30 0.21 5.5 2.13 1.02 -3.71 3.32 2.77 1.18 0.65 0.92 0.56 6.0 3.56 1.67 -1.95 6.41 9.69 1.98 1.06 1.54 0.91 6.5 5.00 2.31 -0.19 9.49 16.62 2.77 1.47 2.15 1.26 7.0 6.44 2.96 1.57 12.58 23.55 3.57 1.89 2.77 1.61 7.5 7.87 3.61 3.33 15.66 30.47 4.36 2.30 3.39 1.96 8.0 9.31 4.25 5.09 18.75 37.40 5.16 2.71 4.01 2.31 8.5 10.75 4.90 6.85 21.83 44.33 5.96 3.12 4.63 2.66 9.0 12.18 5.54 8.61 24.91 51.25 6.75 3.53 5.25 3.01 9.5 13.62 6.19 10.37 28.00 58.18 7.55 3.94 5.87 3.36 10.0 15.05 6.83 12.13 31.08 65.10 8.35 4.35 6.49 3.71 10.5 16.49 7.48 13.89 34.17 72.03 9.14 4.76 7.11 4.06 11.0 17.93 8.12 15.65 37.25 78.96 9.94 5.17 7.72 4.41 11.5 19.36 8.77 17.41 40.33 85.88 10.73 5.59 8.34 4.76 12.0 20.80 9.42 19.17 43.42 92.81 11.53 6.00 8.96 5.11 12.5 22.24 10.06 20.94 46.50 99.74 12.33 6.41 9.58 5.46 13.0 23.67 10.71 22.70 49.59 106.66 13.12 6.82 10.20 5.81 13.5 25.11 11.35 24.46 52.67 113.59 13.92 7.23 10.82 6.16 14.0 26.54 12.00 26.22 55.76 120.51 14.71 7.64 11.44 6.51 14.5 27.98 12.64 27.98 58.84 127.44 15.51 8.05 12.06 6.87 15.0 29.42 13.29 29.74 61.92 134.37 16.31 8.46 12.68 7.22 15.5 30.85 13.93 31.50 65.01 141.29 17.10 8.88 13.30 7.57 16.0 32.29 14.58 33.26 68.09 148.22 17.90 9.29 13.91 7.92 16.5 33.73 15.23 35.02 71.18 155.15 18.70 9.70 14.53 8.27 17.0 35.16 15.87 36.78 74.26 162.07 19.49 10.11 15.15 8.62 17.5 36.60 16.52 38.54 77.35 169.00 20.29 10.52 15.77 8.97 18.0 38.03 17.16 40.30 80.43 175.92 21.08 10.93 16.39 9.32 18.5 --------- sample location: arghakhanchi, gulmi and palpa districts diameter range (cm): 6.9 to 15.5 height range (m): 6.80 to 18.15 number of trees: 53 trees diameter at dbh: 1.3 m green weight (foliage): b0 + b1 dbh (b0=-13.6710, b1=2.8725, r2=0.677, f-value=73.35, mse%=25.11) green weight (bark): b0 + b1 dbh (b0=-6.0773, b1=1.2911, r2=0.707, f-value=84.57, rmse%=18.16) green weight (branch): b0 + b1 dbh (b0=-23.0700, b1=3.5204, r2=0.672, f-value=71.60, rmse%=44.82) green weight (stem): b0 + b1 dbh (b0=-30.6020, b1=6.1684, r2=0.695, f-value=79.75, mse%=15.82) green weight (total tree): b0 + b1 dbh (b0=-73.421, b1=13.8525, r2=0.789 f-value=131.06, se%=16.64) air-dry weight (foliage): b0 + b1 dbh (b0=-7.5779, b1=1.5923, r2=0.677, f-value=73.35, rmse%=25.11) air-dry weight (bark): b0 + b1 dbh (b0=-3.8706, b1=0.8223, r2=0.707, f-value=84.57, rmse%=18.16) oven-dry weight (foliage): b0 + b1 bh (b0=-5.8909, b1=1.2378, r2=0.677, f-value=73.35, rmse%=25.11) oven-dry weight (bark): b0 + b1 dbh (b0=-3.2994, b1=0.7010, r2=0.707, f-value=84.57, rmse%=18.16) numbers in italics are outside the sample dbh size. corrected bankojanakari vol 17-2.pmd 27 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 ecology and management issues of mikania micrantha in chitwan naitonal park, nepal loknath sapkota1 mikania micrantha, one of the worst invasive weeds in the world, is a plant of neotropical origin and threatening to the ecosystem of most countries within the moist tropical zones of south east asia. three habitat types were taken to study the ecology and management issues of the weed. the study was conducted from october, 2006 to february, 2007 taking random sampling intensity of 0.3%, 0.03% and 0.0012% of the invaded area for tree, shrub and herb, respectively and plot size were 20*25m, 5*5m and 1*1m, accordingly. the riparian, edge, grassland with sparse tree and shrub, low canopy area of natural and afforested forest were found to be highly invaded by the weed. a total of 102 plant species were affected in various degrees by the weed. the highest invasion was found in dalbegia sissoo tree in afforested land and the prevalent effect was observed in bombax ceiba of below 17 cm dbh. most of the trees of above 30 cm dbh were found to be low invasion. all the shrub species in invaded area were highly smothered and only some herbs like ageratum conizoides, aquisetum debile, eragrostis unioloides, diplazium esculentum and tectoria macrodonta were observed to be exposed. coevolved rust pathogen, puccinia spegazzini has been reported to be able to control the weed. managing grassland, the intensive and extensive production of ntfp in community forest, cutting of nutrients and moisture for climber and mulching on creeper of mikania and introduction of parasite plant like cuscuta reflexa have shown as appropriate measure to keep up the weed in acceptable level. keywords: invasive, puccinia spegazzini, mulching, control, threatening, smothered. m ikania micrantha h.b.k. (asteraceae) is a perennial, sprawling vine with a wide distribution in the neotropics, which extends from mexico to argentina (holmes, 1982). within this native range it is restricted mostly to riparian habitats, typically occurring around the margins of rivers, lakes and marshy terrain and is rarely invasive (cock 1982, bareto and evans, 1995). in sharp contrast, throughout its exotic palaeotropical range, mikania micrantha is an extremely serious weed with an exceptionally fast growth rate, 8-9cm/day (choudhury, 1972) and it justifiably has earned the common name of mile-a minute weed (holm et al., 1977). m. micrantha damages or kills other plants by cutting out the light and smothering them. it also competes for water and nutrients, but perhaps even more importantly, it is believed that the plant releases substances that inhibit the growth of other plants (ye and xia, 2001). mikania micrantha weed has been nominated as among 100 of “world’s worst” invader (lowe et al, 2000) and recently, march 2002 and 2004 oceania (pacific ocean countries), ranked among their top 10 worst weeds at two regional technical meetings on plant protection and insecurity (bhuju et al., 2006). further more, this weed is one of the three worst weeds of tea in india and indonesia and of rubber in sri lanka and malaysia. in samoa, incursions of m. micrantha have caused the abandonment of coconut plantations, and the weed has been reported to kill large bread fruit trees. it also causes serious problems in oil palm, banana, cacao and forestry crops, and in pastures (http://www.issg.org/ database/welcome/). likewise, mikania micrantha is assessed as one of the six high risk posed invasive alien species in nepal (tiwari et al, 2005) and later on, considered to be the most problematic in terrestrial ecosystem in eastern and central nepal (poudel et al., 2005). in chitwan national park (cnp), mikania micrantha was found to be the most serous weed among the eight invasive alien species (ias) in terrestrial ecosystem (sapkota, 2006). it has been well documented that ias are the second greatest threat to biological diversity globally and the 1 soil conservation officer, department of soil conservation and watershed management, kathmandu, nepal (sapkotaln@yahoo.com) 28 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 highest threat on many island ecosystems. there are also enormous economic losses incurred due to the impacts of invasive species. the convention on biological diversity (cbd) recognizes the importance of this global issue and calls on contracting parties to “prevent the introduction of, control or eradicate those alien species that threaten ecosystems, habitats and species” article 8 (h) (neville, 2001). ias are particularly serious in the developing world, where they are compounding a multitude of problems affecting livelihoods. however, in many countries and regions, lack of quantitative impact data and a measure of the scale of the problems is hindering appropriate actions at the national level. there is a need to establish cross-sectorial linkages on ias, in order to facilitate cooperation and share experiences in appropriate control technologies (ellison et al., 2005). the present study, thus, aims to assess the area of invasion and invasibility in the study area, and biomass of the weed along with diversity, composition, density and frequency of species in invaded area as well as management options for the weed. materials & methods site description cnp, covering the total area of 1682 km2 (core area 932 and buffer zone area 750 km2), lies in the lowlands of central nepal and is located between 27°16' 56" n to 27°42' 13"n latitude and 83°50' 23" to 84°46' 25"e longitude. the park established in 1973 as the first protected area in nepal has a long history of over 3 decades in park management and rich experiences in nature conservation (shrestha, 2006). it is an important habitat for a large number of endangered mammals like one horned rhinoceros, royal bengal tiger, asiatic elephant, sloth bear, gaur and a number of birds like the giant hornbill, bengal florican, lesser florican, and reptiles like the gharial and the mugger crocodiles. the park has over seven types of forests, six types of grasslands, three main rivers systems, a number of oxbow lakes and wetlands which support 50 species of mammals, 526 species of birds, 49 species of reptiles ands amphibians and 120 species of fishes. floral diversity encompasses over 600 species of which 50 are grasses, 16 orchids and 73 ferns. it provides a natural linkage to the mahabharat range on its north, the siwaliks hills and the terai forests towards the south and the parsa wildlife reserve in the east. the terai of chitwan bordered with indian territory making the transboundary linkage with the valmiki tiger sancuary, udaipur sanctuary and sohagibarwa sanctuary (dnpwc/hmgn, 2002). in recognition of its unique biological resources of outstanding universal value, united nations education, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) designated the park as a world heritage site and the beeshazari tal contained within the park system is included in a ramsar site (shrestha, 2006). the study was carried out in icharni island of core zone and jankauli buffer zone community forest in sauraha area of the park (latitude: 270 35’ north and longitude: 840 29’ east) which cover the total area of 459 hectares. the island is surrounded by rapti river in the east, south and west, and dhungre khola in the north whereas jankauli community forest lies at the north adjacent to the island and separated by dhugnre khola. the study area comprises various habitat types such as grassland (220 ha.), riverine forest (174 ha.) and afforested land (65 ha.). data collection reconnaissance survey was carried out to identify the invaded area of each habitat. the habitat wise coordinates recorded through geographic positioning system (gps) were transferred into satellite image available from google earth. then, the invaded areas of each habitat were isolated into blocks. one block of 56 ha from afforested land, three blocks of total area of 77 ha from grassland and five blocks of total area of 104 ha from riverine woodland were assessed as invasion of the weed. each block was divided into various quadrates of 20*25m and these quadrates were randomly selected from each block so that representing 0.3% sampling intensity of invaded areas as 4 from afforested land, 5 from grassland and 7 from riverine woodland for tree species and invasion ability of mikania. within these quadrates, two 5*5m quadrates were allocated randomly in two corners of each quadrate for the shrubs and mikania biomass representing 0.03% sampling intensity. likewise herbs and regeneration were recorded from nesting sampling of 1*1m quadrate within the 5*5m quadrate representing 0.0012% intensity. all plant species within each quadrate were identified and counted. since the countless number of branches with sufficient length, climbing, creeping and highly spreading nature and entangled form of mikania and its associate climbers: the actual discrete number of sapkota 29 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 all climber could not be assessed and indirect method as number of invaded tree and the climber species found in the tree were considered to be the number of plants and species accordingly. in case of grassland, mikania was assumed to be 25m2/plant in 100% coverage as reported by tiwari et al., (2005). the plant species were identified with the help of standard literature of plant identification in nepal and visual inspection by taxonomists. herbarium in national trust for nature conservation in sauraha, chitwan was consulted for the further identification of the species. invasion quantity of mikania on individual tree was ranked in 4 categories depending on percentage of smothering on the tree by the weed. following criteria were considered for the ranking: non invasion, low (01-30%), moderate (31-50%), high (more than 51%). the green biomass of mikania was taken with spring weight from each quadrate of 5*5m and 1% of green biomass sample was subjected to sun dry then oven dry at 700 celsius for 24 hours. electronic weight was taken before and after the oven dry. furthermore, the pulled out heap of mikania from four quadrates was used as mulching over the creeper of the adjacent weed, and thread like stems of parasitic plant (cuscuta reflexa) were introduced on mikania invaded area in four places. both of the measure were carried out simultaneously in separate places of jcf and their effects on weed were observed for four months (september, 2006 to january, 2007) to see whether these measure could be used as control option. in addition, open interview from local key person, farmers, nature guides and park personnel along with literature and document survey as well as consultation to invasive species specialist group (issg) and centre for agriculture and bioscience international (cabi) were consulted for other control options of the weed. statistical analysis simpson’s index of diversity 1 d in situ biomass of mikania derived from each quadrate of 5m*5m was interpreted to the whole biomass of the study area. results and discussions invasion of the weed the weed shows the interesting characters in relation of sun light. the invasion was observed decreases with the increases of canopy closure on one hand and almost absent in 100% open grassland (without tree and shrub) on the other. it was found intensely growing in open patches of woodland. 86% jankauli community forest (jcf) is invaded by mikania. entire grassland (without any tree and shrub) of the forest which lies in southern boundary along the bank of dhugre khola is free from the weed. the grassland without fence isolated from woodland seems to be left for open grazing is lacking the weed due to the heavy pressure of cattle. most of the woodland enclosed with barbed fencing (except small piece with turmeric farming in around the jcf office building and in western part isolated by wide road) received contiguous invasion of the weed. the contiguous invasion of mikania is attributed due to the regular (once a year) opening of canopy through thinning and pruning of the forest by forest user group (fug). in case of icharni island, 60% and 35% of woodlands and grasslands are affected by the weed respectively. the invasion of mikania was observed along the river bank and edge because these are the preferable habitats of the weed in its native range as stated by cock (1982), and bareto and evans (1995) and low canopy area of woodland. in contrast of jcf, the distribution of the weed was observed in various patches in the woodland due to the canopy closure ranges from more than 80% to less than 25%. whereas, the moist grassland with sparse tree and shrub was found to be highly favorable for the weed. the southern part of the grassland is less invaded as compared to northern and western part and it is attributed that the grass land is also used for grazing because of easy accessible due to the open boundary from community grazing land of kumrose buffer zone community forest. most of the small trees, shrubs and herbs were severely smothered in the invaded area and only some herbs like ageratum conizoides, eragrostis unioloides, d = simpson’s index n = the total number of plants of a particular species n = the total number of plants of all species d=∑n (n-1) n (n-1) density of species = total number of individuals of a species total number of quadrates sampled x size of a quadrate relative density = total number of individuals of a species total number of individuals of all species frequency = total no. of quadrates in which a particular species occurs × 100 total number of quadrates sampled relative frequency = frequency of a species × 100sum of frequency values for all species sapkota 30 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 aquisetum debile, diplazium esculentum, lepisorus bicolor and tectoria macrodonta were observed to be able to penetrate out through the entangled form of mikania. the former three are also considered as invasive plants and later three (ferns) are profoundly growing in their habitat. these could be the reasons behind the phenomena. imperata cylindrica and saccharum spontaneum, were found to be dead and no new culms were sprouting from the rootstock in the invaded area. the invasion quantity on major tree species were assessed as follows. sapkota 5 esculentum, lepisorus bicolor and tectoria macrodonta were observed to be able to penetrate out through the entangled form of mikania. the former three are also considered as invasive plants and later three (ferns) are profoundly growing in their habitat. these could be the reasons behind the phenomena. imperata cylindrica and saccharum spontaneum, were found to be dead and no new culms were sprouting from the rootstock in the invaded area. the invasion quantity on major tree species were assessed as follows. figure 1: showing the study area and distribution of mikania jankauli community forest icharni island 31 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 from the above table, dalbergia sissoo and acacia catechu are highly invaded and the impact of invasion is most serious on bombax ceiba of below 17 cm dbh. there is no regeneration observed on bombax in invaded area. dalbergia sissoo and acacia catechu are showing the same phenomena as no regeneration, were observed. litsea monopetala, trewia nudiflora, ehretia elliptica and murraya koenigii show the ability to compete with mikania in comparison with other species since all stages of plants from seedling to matured tree were observed in invaded area. the reason behind the death of bombax saplings could be hampering the sunlight and allelopathic effects due to the heavily smothered by the weed. the invasion of mikania on individual tree was found almost with its associate climbers like parthenocissus semicordata, tetrastigma serrulatum, trachelospermum fragrans etc and it was able to climb on small tree taking support of bushes beneath the tree and its associate climbers. whereas the ground floors of large trees were found unfavorable for the bushes due to the shade effect as well as absent of associate climber seems to be the main causes of less or no invasion of the weed on large trees. biomass of mikania the green biomass/ unit area was found to be variable depending upon habitat types. the highest and lowest biomass was in grass land and woodland of icharni island respectively. the green biomass ranges as 2.3 kg/m2 in icharni grassland, 1.4 kg/m2 in jankauli community forest and 0.56 kg/m2 in icharni woodland. the oven dry biomass decreased to 13.4% of its green weight. diversity, composition and frequency of species the diversity of species was found to be the highest in wood land of icharni island followed by second status in grass land and third in jankauli community forest. table 2 shows the simpson’s index of diversity of each habitat. there are total 102 species in 16 plots of three habitat types and out of which 24 species of tree, 23 species of shrub, 35 species of herb, 4 species of ferns and 16 species of climber and creeper recorded during the study. the major tree species found in the invaded woodland of jcf are trewia nudiflora, litsea monopetala, dalbergia sissoo, ehertia elliptica and bombax ceiba followed by pogostemon benghalensis, callicar pa macrophylla and achyranthus aspera etc in shrub, eragrostis unioloides, aquisetum debile, ageratum conizoides and diplazium esculentum etc in herb and associate major climbers are parthenocissus semicordata, trachelospermum fragrans and piper longum whereas the major tree species of icharni woodland are ehretia 6 table 1: assessment of invasion ability on major tree species. invasion quantities s.n. species none low medium high remark 1 bombax ceiba 18% 9% 2% 71% 18% of the highly invaded below 17cm. dbh were dead and most of the tree above 30cm.dbh were none or less invaded. 2 dalbergia sissoo 0 0 0 100% dbh ranges from 7 to 24cm and 15% were dead 3 trewia nudiflora 41% 9% 2% 48% no dead tree was found and the trees with more than 35cm dbh were low or none invaded 4 litsea monopetala 2% 3% 6% 89% no dead tree was found and all sizes trees were invaded 5 premna barbata 6% 13% 0% 81% no dead 6 ehretia elliptica 27% 3% 8% 62% no dead 7 acacia catechu 0% 0% 0% 100% 3% were dead 8 myrsine chisia 25% 4% 8% 63% no dead 9 murraya koenigii 20% 15% 0% 65% no dead from the above table, dalbergia sissoo and acacia catechu are highly invaded and the impact of invasion is most serious on bombax ceiba of below 17 cm dbh. there is no regeneration observed on bombax in invaded area. dalbergia sissoo and acacia catechu are showing the same phenomena as no regeneration, were observed. litsea monopetala, trewia nudiflora, ehretia elliptica and murraya koenigii show the ability to compete with mikania in comparison with other species since all stages of plants from seedling to matured tree were observed in invaded area. the reason behind the death of bombax saplings could be hampering the sunlight and allelopathic effects due to the heavily smothered by the weed. the invasion of mikania on individual tree was found almost with its associate climbers like parthenocissus semicordata, tetrastigma serrulatum, trachelospermum fragrans etc and it was able to climb on small tree taking support of bushes beneath the tree and its associate climbers. whereas the ground floors of large trees were found unfavorable for the bushes due to the shade effect as well as absent of associate climber seems to be the main causes of less or no invasion of the weed on large trees. biomass of mikania the green biomass/ unit area was found to be variable depending upon habitat types. the highest and lowest biomass was in grass land and woodland of icharni island respectively. the green biomass ranges as 2.3 kg/m 2 in icharni grassland, 1.4 kg/m 2 in jankauli community forest and 0.56 kg/m 2 in icharni woodland. the oven dry biomass decreased to 13.4% of its green weight. diversity, composition and frequency of species the diversity of species was found to be the highest in wood land of icharni island followed by second status in grass land and third in jankauli community forest. table 2 shows the simpson’s index of diversity of each habitat. 7 table 2: habitat types and their diversity index. habitat types jcf (afforested woodland) riverine forest of icharni island grassland of icharni island simpson’s index of diversity (1-d) 0.786 0.904 0.817 there are total 102 species in 16 plots of three habitat types and out of which 24 species of tree, 23 species of shrub, 35 species of herb, 4 species of ferns and 16 species of climber and creeper recorded during the study. the major tree species found in the invaded woodland of jcf are trewia nudiflora, litsea monopetala, dalbergia sissoo, ehertia elliptica and bombax ceiba followed by pogostemon benghalensis, callicarpa macrophylla and achyranthus aspera etc in shrub, eragrostis unioloides, aquisetum debile, ageratum conizoides and diplazium esculentum etc in herb and associate major climbers are parthenocissus semicordata, trachelospermum fragrans and piper longum whereas the major tree species of icharni woodland are ehretia elliptica, myrsine chisia, litsea monopetala, trewia nudiflora and murraya keinigii followed by pogostemon benghalensis, callicarpa macrophylla, colebrookia oppositifolia. in contrast, coffea benghalensis was found to be prominent shrub in absence of the weed. the herb species are eragrostis unioloides, aquisetum debile, diplazium esculentum, lepisorus bicolor etc and the associate climbers are bredelia retusa, parthenocissus semicordata, trachelospermum fragrans etc. likewise, major tree species in grassland are trewia nudiflora and litsea monopetala followed by callicarpa macrophylla, sida acuta and solanum torvum etc in shrub and imperata cylindrica, saccharum spontaneum, diplazium esculentum etc in herb. the associate climbers and creeper are coccinea grandis, parthenocissus semicordata etc. the overall highest frequency among the tree species was found as 93.75 in trewia nudiflora followed by callicarpa macrophylla as 65.625 among the shrubs, eragrostis unioloides as 43.75 among the herbs, diplazium esculentum as 59.375 among the ferns, and both of the mikania micrantha and parthenocissus semicordata showed the same status as 87.5 among the climbers. the most associate climber of mikania is parthenocissus semicordata showing the nature of highly invasive. density of the species the over all highest density of tree species was found in litsea monopetala as 0.5 plants/m 2 followed by myrsine chisia (0.15 plants/m 2 ) and murraya koinigii (0.13 plants/m 2 ). coffea benghalensis (21.44 plants/m 2 ) showed the most abundant shrub plant but confined to woodland of riverine forest. other abundant shrubs are clerodendron viscosum (3.16 plants/m 2 ), pogostemon benghalensis (3.15 plants/m 2 ), colebrookia oppositifolia (2.6 plants/m 2 ), artemisia vulgaris (2.52 plants/m 2 ) distributed, at least, in two habitats. the major herb species in grassland are saccharum spontaneum (9250 plants/m 2 ) and imperata cylindrica (6406.25 plants/m 2 ). however, the over all highest density was recorded in eragrostis unioloides (1296.875 plants/m 2 ) which is distributed in all habitats. the same nature of distribution was found in aquisetum debile (1296.87 plants/m 2 ), ageratum conyzoides (664.37 plants/m 2 ) which are considered to be invasive alien species. the highest density among the fern was recorded in lepisorus bicolor (1921.8 plants/m 2 ). parthenocissus semicordata (0.46 plants/m 2 ) stands the highest density among the climber and creeper followed by piper longum (0.44 plants/m 2 ) and mikania (0.13 plants/m 2 ). see annex-1 for details. control and management measures neighboring countries, such as india and china are also affected by the weed and much more work has been conducted in this regard. the collaboration of cabi with india to control sapkota 32 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 elliptica, myrsine chisia, litsea monopetala, trewia nudiflora and murraya keinigii followed by pogostemon benghalensis, callicarpa macrophylla, colebrookia oppositifolia. in contrast, coffea benghalensis was found to be prominent shrub in absence of the weed. the herb species are eragrostis unioloides, aquisetum debile, diplazium esculentum, lepisorus bicolor etc and the associate climbers are bredelia retusa, parthenocissus semicordata, trachelospermum fragrans etc. likewise, major tree species in grassland are trewia nudiflora and litsea monopetala followed by callicarpa macrophylla, sida acuta and solanum torvum etc in shrub and imperata cylindrica, saccharum spontaneum, diplazium esculentum etc in herb. the associate climbers and creeper are coccinea grandis, parthenocissus semicordata etc. the overall highest frequency among the tree species was found as 93.75 in trewia nudiflora followed by callicarpa macrophylla as 65.625 among the shrubs, eragrostis unioloides as 43.75 among the herbs, diplazium esculentum as 59.375 among the ferns, and both of the mikania micrantha and parthenocissus semicordata showed the same status as 87.5 among the climbers. the most associate climber of mikania is parthenocissus semicordata showing the nature of highly invasive. density of the species the over all highest density of tree species was found in litsea monopetala as 0.5 plants/m2 followed by myrsine chisia (0.15 plants/m2) and murraya koinigii (0.13 plants/m2). coffea benghalensis (21.44 plants/m2) showed the most abundant shrub plant but confined to woodland of riverine forest. other abundant shrubs are clerodendron viscosum (3.16 plants/m2), pogostemon benghalensis (3.15 plants/m2), colebrookia oppositifolia (2.6 plants/m2), artemisia vulgaris (2.52 plants/m2) distributed, at least, in two habitats. the major herb species in grassland are saccharum spontaneum (9250 plants/m2) and imperata cylindrica (6406.25 plants/m2). however, the over all highest density was recorded in eragrostis unioloides (1296.875 plants/m2) which is distributed in all habitats. the same nature of distribution was found in aquisetum debile (1296.87 plants/m2), ageratum conyzoides (664.37 plants/m2) which are considered to be invasive alien species. the highest density among the fern was recorded in lepisorus bicolor (1921.8 plants/m2). parthenocissus semicordata (0.46 plants/m2) stands the highest density among the climber and creeper followed by piper longum (0.44 plants/m2) and mikania (0.13 plants/m2). see annex-1 for details. control and management measures neighboring countries, such as india and china are also affected by the weed and much more work has been conducted in this regard. the collaboration of cabi with india to control mikania resulted in selection of co-evolved natural enemies (rust pathogen) puccinia spegazz ini to be the most appropriate long-term solution as for the control of mikania (ellison, 2004) and it is on the pace of success. cabi is an international organization which has conducted various researches and programs in member countries to control mikania and other alien invasive species. there are 40 member countries including india, china, bangladesh and sri lanka but unfortunately, nepal has not yet become a member of the cabi. there are other international organizations such as global invasive species program (gisp), issg etc. to address the invasive weed also seems to be not consulted and hence less effort has been implied in nepal to control the weed. managing the grassland without tree and shrub in protected area, the intensive and extensive use of land for the production of ntfp in community forest are found to be effective for the control of the weed. mikania plant could not sprout easily through the mulch as compared to other plant species. there were hardly 2 branch shoots/m2 recorded after one month of mulching with pulled out heap of mikania on adjacent creeper of the weed. the mulching material was stirred as upside down at the at the same time as first observation and no mikania shoot was observed after 3 consecutive months whereas, other plants were sprouting through the mulching. in addition, all the mikania branches in touch with interface and lying in between the face and ground found to be dead (see annex-2). these characteristics of the plant could be helpful to generate appropriate mechanical control in such a way that all the mikania climbers should be cut above the ground (1-1.5m) to disallow nutrient and moisture, and remaining creeper on the ground should be collected and used as mulching over adjacent creeper. in this method, relatively low labor input is required as compared to other mechanical control. the thread like stems of cuscuta reflexa on the smothered surface of mikania formed haustorium on all the plant species where the stem touches. c. reflexa coiled around the leafstalks, stems and branches of mikania and the stem of the parasitic plant was found to be exceptionally thick incase of haustorium on mikania (see annex-2), whereas the cuscuta stem sapkota 33 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 on other plants showed normal in thickness. the infected portion of mikania was found to be suppressed and all the dead and live plant communities beneath the smothered surface area of 3m2, on an average, were exposed out after three months of introduction. these phenomena of the cuscuta plat showed the highly parasitism on mikania. since the parasitic plant is native with higher growth rate (10 cm day-1) than mikania as stated by han et al,.(2002) and the plant is experienced as less problematic elsewhere as compared to mikania. furthermore, the cuscuta reflexa is reported to be the sources of triterpines and betunelic acid molecules with anti cancer and anti hiv properties (poudel, 2002 in upreti 2004). so the introduction of cuscuta plant on mikania invaded area could be the multiple benefits as safe and cheap control measure as well as source of producing substantial revenues. conclusion forest edge, riparian vegetation, afforested land and grassland with sparse trees and shrubs are being degraded due to high invasion of the weed. the nature of invasion and its preferred habitat show the serious threat to the environment as to alter the ecosystem unfavorable for native organism as well as reduce the resources for the subsistence user. the weed is compounding a multiple of problems affecting livelihoods and environment and furthermore, the knowledge based on the weed control and its used options is limited and the control of weed will run into serious problems if early steps are not taken to resolve the problem. so it is needless to say that mikania micrantha should be categorized as “most serious weed” of chitwan national park and it needs to take immediate action to control the weed. recommendations the study has come up with the following set of recommendations. § nepal government should give high priority to control and manage the weed. more work is needed to predict the spread of m. micrantha and the likely effectiveness of potential biological control agents. in the meantime local governments need to initiate actions to prevent the weed’s further invasion. public education will be an important activity. public participation in manual removal programs will also remain necessary. § international cooperation and communication should be taken as key aspect to tackle this weed and it is strongly recommended to be a member of cabi to get various supports for the control of the weed and other environmental assistance. § further study on mulching effects and accession of parasitic plant like cuscuta reflexa are recommended to explore sustainable control measure of mikania. acknowledgements i am indebt to my principal advisor prof. i.c. dutta and co-adviser dr. b.k. paudyal, iof, pokhara for their valuable guidance. i acknowledge nepalaustralia community resource management and livelihoods project (nacrmlp) for financial support, and department of national park and wildlife conservation for the permission to conduct study. i am indebt to dr. carol a. elison (principal scientist, invasive species management, cabieurope, uk), ms shyama pagad (iucn ssc invasive species specialist group, university of auckland, new zealand), ukesh raj bhuju (nepal nature dot com), shiva raj bhatta (former chief warden, cnp), surya bahadur pandey (conservation officer, dnpwc), bhawani kharel and dwarika aryal (iucn, nepal) for their co-operation and documents support, and national trust for nature conservation (ntnc), chitwan, nepal for providing facilities on oven dry and consultation of herbarium. sincere thanks are also due to dr. hem sagar baral (himalayan nature), mr. gopal prasad upadhya (former chief warden, cnp), mr. jhamak bahadur karki (ecologist, dnpwc) mr. ram kumar aryal (administration officer, ntnc), mr. lal bahadur bhandari (ranger, cnp), siva kanta lal karna suman (ranger, cnp) and lova jang thapa (cnp) for enthusiastic support. many thanks go to mr. harkaman lama and chandu (wildlife technician, ntnc) for instrumental support, mr. bal bahadur lama (former wildlife technician, ntnc), and mr. rudra bahadur sapkota (local resident) for their help in field work and data collection. this report would not have been possible without the overwhelming response and co-operation shown by the ug of jankauli community forest and other villagers of buffer zone, nature guides, park personnel and all the respondents who shared their ingenuity knowledge and ideas with me. sapkota 34 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 i am also thankful to mr. k. p. dhakal, mr. gandhiv kafle, mr. rajesh malla, mr. kedar baral, mr. nagendra prakash regmi and all my m.sc. colleagues who helped me during the sharing the idea about data interpretation and analysis. i would like to acknowledge those who are directly or indirectly involved in this research. references bareto, r. w. and evans h. c. 1995. the mycobiota of the weed mikania micrantha in southern brazil with particular reference to fungal pathogens for biological control. mycological research 99: 343352. bhuju, u. r., shakya, p. r. and shrestha, s. 2006. generating bio-income by curbing plant invasion: case study on jankauli buffer zone community forest, chitwan national park, nepal (october 31, 2006) draft report submitted to the iucn asia regional office (unpublished) choudhury, a. k. 1972. controversial mikania (climber) a threat to the forests and agriculture. indian forester 98:178-186. cock, m. j. w. 1982. potential biological control agents for mikania micrantha hbk form the neotropical region. tropical pest management 28:242-254. dnpwc/mfsc. 2002. state of conservation of specific world heritage properties, section ii. periodic reporting exercise on the application of the world heritage convention. department of national park and wildlife conservation. government of nepal. ellison c. a., murphy s. t and rabindra r. j. 2005. facilitating access for developing countries to invasive alien plant classical biocontrol technologies: the indian experience. aspects of applied biology 75, 2005. pathways out of poverty. ellison, c. a. 2004. classical biological control of mikania micrantha (mile a minute weed). case study. international journal of tea science, 3. han, s. c., li, k. h. and luo, l. f., 2002. mikania micrantha was destroyed by parasitic weed dodder, cuscuta chinensis, in guangdong. natural enemies of insects 24: 7–14 (in chinese). holm, l. g., plucknett, d. l., pancho j. v. and herberger, j. p. 1977. the worlds worst weeds. distribution and biology. university press of hawaii. honolulu. holmes, wc. 1982. revision of the old world mikania (compositae). botan jahres beitr systematik 103-211-246 lowe s., browne, m., boudjelas, s. and poorter, d. m. 2000. 100 of the world’s worst invasive alien species. a selection from the global invasive species database. neville, l. 2001. global invasive species program (gisp) update. aliens 13: 3-6. poudel, a., baral, h.s., ellison, c. a., subedi, k., thomas, s. and murphy, s. 2005. mikania micrantha weed invasion in nepal. a summary report of the first national workshop for stakeholders, held on 25 november, in kathmandu, nepal. poudel, y. b. 2002. phytochemical and biological studies on cuscuta reflexa of nepalese origin. [thesis]. kathmandu; central department of chemistry, tribhuvan university, nepal. 120p. sapkota, l. n. 2006. invasive alien species in chitwan national park, nepal. a special study report for the partial fulfillment of m. sc. forestrysubmitted to institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, pokhara, nepal (unpublished). shrestha, t. b. 2006. chitwan national park and buffer zone management plan (cnpbzmp) 2006-2011. under the process of approval. tiwari, s., adhikari, b., siwakoti, m. and subedi, k. 2005. an inventory and assessment of invasive alien plant species of nepal, iucnthe world conservation union, nepal. upreti, r. 2004. chemical research should be a national priority. himalayan journal of science. 2(3). 10. ye, w. h. and z. xia, 2001. the plant killer-mikania micrantha in south china. aliens 13: 7. sapkota 35 b anko janakari, v ol. 17, n o. 2 11 annex 1: density and relative density of plant species in invaded area section 1: density and relative density of trees (highest and lowest density values are highlighted) jcf (afforested land) icharni woodland icharni grassland overall s.n. botanical name local name density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel. density % 1. acacia catechu khayer 0.0155 0.021 0 0 0 0 0.004 0.005 2. adina cordifolia karma 0 0 0.0005 0.0008 0 0 0.0002 0.0003 3. albizia lucida padke 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.015 0.019 4. annona squamosa* sitafal 0.0005 0.0006 0 0 0 0 0.0001 0.0001 5. bombax ceiba simal 0.022 0.029 0 0 0.001 0.0009 0.005 0.008 6. cornea bichotoma bohari 0.01 0.013 0.006 0.010 0 0 0.005 0.007 7. dalbergia sissoo sissoo 0.016 0.021 0 0 0 0 0.004 0.005 8. disoccilum binecteriferum dhamina 0 0 0.02925 0.049 0 0 0.0145 0.019 9. duabanga grandiflora lampate 0 0 0.0025 0.004 0 0 0.001 0.001 10. ehretia elliptica dhadrung 0.012 0.016 0.04 0.066 0.0015 0.001 0.023 0.031 11. ficus hirta kashreto 0.0025 0.003 0 0 0.01 0.009 0.003 0.004 12. ficus semicordata khanayo 0 0 0 0 0.075 0.072 0.018 0.025 13. holarrhena pubescens dudhe 0 0 0.0085 0.014 0 0 0.004 0.006 14. hydrangea robusta* phirphire 0 0 0.00025 0.0004 0 0 0.0001 0.0001 15. litsea monopetala kutmero 1.0525 1.409 0.49125 0.822 0.007 0.006 0.5105 0.686 16. luculia gratissima kangiyo 0.0015 0.002 0.0002 0.0004 0 0 0.0005 0.0007 17. mallotus phillipinensis sindure 0 0 0.0205 0.034 0 0 0.010 0.014 18. melia azedirach bakaino 0.001 0.001 0 0 0 0 0.0002 0.0003 19. miliusa velutia kali kath 0 0 0.0065 0.011 0 0 0.003 0.004 20. morus alba kimbu 0.0255 0.034 0 0 0 0 0.006 0.008 21. murraya koenigii ashare 0.017 0.023 0.25175 0.4210 0.01 0.009 0.133 0.178 22. myrsine chisia bilauni 0.0055 0.007 0.30625 0.512 0.006 0.006 0.156 0.210 23. premna barbata ginderi 0.1185 0.159 0.011 0.018 0.01 0.009 0.0375 0.0504 24. trewia nudiflora veldar 0.042 0.056 0.09925 0.166 0.022 0.021 0.065 0.088 *single plant was found (botanical name ?). s ap kota 36 b anko janakari, v ol. 17, n o. 2 12 section 2: density and relative density of shrubs (highest and lowest density values are highlighted) jcf (afforested land) icharni woodland icharni grassland overall s. n. botanical name local name density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel density % 1 acacia rugata areli 0 0 0.5175 0.086 0 0 0.25875 0.035 2 achyranthus aspera apmarga 2.3 0.308 0 0 0 0 0.575 0.077 3 ageratina adenophora kalo banmara 0.35 0.0468 4.375 0.732 0.2 0.019 2.325 0.312 4 antidesma acidum jhutka amili 0.75 0.100 0 0 0.25 0.024 0.25 0.033 5 artemisia vulgaris pati 0 0 0.7 0.117 8.7 0.841 2.525 0.339 6 bohmeria platyphylla kamle 1.75 0.234 2.825 0.472 0.45 0.043 1.9625 0.263 7 calicarpa arborea guyalo 0.05 0.006 0 0 0 0 0.0125 0.001 8 callicarpa macrophylla dahikamala 2.5 0.335 3.125 0.523 1.15 0.111 2.475 0.332 9 chromolaena odorata banmara 0.95 0.127 3.225 0.539 0.3 0.029 1.925 0.256 10 clerodendron viscosum bhanti 0.65 0.087 6 1.003 0 0 3.1625 0.425 11 coffea benghalensis baramase 0 0 42.875 7.171 0 0 21.4375 2.88 12 colebrookia oppositifolia dhursul 0.55 0.074 4.95 0.828 0 0 2.6125 0.351 13 debregaesia velutina sano tusare 0 0 0.025 0.004 0 0 0.0125 0.001 14 hyptis suaveolens silam 0 0 0.025 0.004 0 0 0.0125 0.001 15 lantana camara lantana 0.4 0.053 0 0 0 0 0.1 0.013 16 mesoneuron cuculata boksi kanda 0.005 0.0006 0.1375 0.023 0 0 0.07 0.009 17 mimosa pudica lazzawati 0 0 0.775 0.130 0 0 0.3875 0.052 18 verbena hybrida galaiche bogate 0 0 0 0 0.1 0.009 0.025 0.003 19 pogostemon benghalensis rudilo 3.1 0.415 4.55 0.761 0.4 0.039 3.15 0.423 20 sida acuta balu 0 0 1 0.167 7 0.677 2.25 0.302 21 solanum torvum binhi 0.3 0.040 0 0 0.2 0.019 0.125 0.017 22 woodfordia fruticosa dhairo 0 0 0.025 0.004 0.05 0.005 0.025 0.003 23 ziziphus mauritiana bayer 0 0 0 0 0.5 0.048 0.125 0.0168 s ap kota 37 b anko janakari, v ol. 17, n o. 2 13 section 3: density and relative density of herbs (highest and lowest density values are highlighted) jcf (afforested land) icharni woodland icharni grassland overall s.n. botanical name local name density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel. density % 1 ageratum conyzoides gandhe 62.5 0.335 765.625 5.122 1063.75 4.118 664.375 3.571 2 aquisetum debile akhle 375 2.008 1265.625 8.468 2281.25 8.831 1296.875 6.971 3 canotis cristata kane ghans 812.5 4.350 343.75 2.300 375 1.452 468.75 2.519 4 centella asiatica ghodtapre 156.25 0.836 0 0 0 0 39.0625 0.210 5 cirsium walichii gainde kanda 0 0 0 0 156.25 0.605 39.0625 0.210 6 colocasia esculenta karkalo 343.75 1.840 46.875 0.314 0 0 109.375 0.588 7 curcuma species ban beshar 13.75 0.074 0 0 0 0 3.4375 0.018 8 cynodon dactylon dubo 187.5 1.004 578.125 3.868 0 0 335.9375 1.806 9 cyperus species mothe 0 0 109.375 0.732 156.25 0.605 93.75 0.504 10 desmodium species badam pate 0 0 31.25 0.209 0 0 15.625 0.003 11 digitaria species pani banso 0 0 93.75 0.627 0 0 46.875 0.252 12 digitaria species phurke banso 0 0 78.125 0.523 0 0 39.0625 0.210 13 eleusine indica kode banso 0 0 203.125 1.359 0 0 101.5625 0.546 14 eragrostis unioloides banso 7093.75 37.981 2778.125 18.587 4687.5 18.146 4334.375 23.298 15 flemingia strobilifera bhatmas pate 0 0 328.125 2.195 93.75 0.363 187.5 1.008 16 hemertheria comparusa ghode dubo 156.25 0.836 109.375 0.732 62.5 0.242 109.375 0.588 17 imperata cylindrica siru 0 0 0 0 6406.25 24.799 1601.5625 8.608 18 kalanchoe spathulata hatti kane 0 0 46.875 0.314 0 0 23.4375 0.126 19 oxalis latifolia chari amilo 1156.25 6.191 187.5 1.254 0 0 382.8125 2.057 20 phragmites karka narkot 0 0 1.875 0.012 0 0 0.9375 0.005 21 rernwardtia trigyan pauli ghans 312.5 1.673 0 0 0 0 78.125 0.420 22 rungia parviflora ukuchi jhar 0 0 140.625 0.941 0 0 70.3125 0.378 23 saccharum spontaneum kans 0 0 31.25 0.209 9250 35.808 2328.125 12.514 24 separis verticulata sali banso 0 0 0 0 31.25 0.121 7.8125 0.042 25 vitex cerdivus kutile kosa 31.25 0.167 0 0 0 0 7.8125 0.042 29 unknown1* amala jhar* 0 0 0 0 62.5 0.242 15.625 0.002 26 unknown2* chiple jhar* 0 0 31.25 0.209 0 0 15.625 0.084 30 unknown3* kamle ghans* 0 0 0 0 125 0.484 31.25 0.168 27 unknown4* khursani jhar* 0 0 0 0 1.25 0.005 0.3125 0.001 33 unknown5* mushroom* 0 0 46.875 0.314 0 0 23.4375 0.126 28 unknown6* pirrye jhar* 0 0 109.375 0.732 0 0 54.6875 0.294 31 unknown1** unknown1** 0 0 0 0 1.25 0.005 0.3125 0.001 32 unknown2 ** unknown2 ** 0 0 31.25 0.209 0 0 15.625 0.084 34 unknown3** unknown3** 0 0 109.375 0.732 0 0 54.6875 0.294 * identified local name only, ** unidentified both local and botanical name s ap kota 38 b anko janakari, v ol. 17, n o. 2 15 section 4: density and relative density of ferns (highest and lowest density values are highlighted) jcf (afforested land) icharni woodland icharni grassland overall s.n botanical name local name density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel. density% density pl/m2 relative density % 1 diplazium esculentum neuro 500 2.677 1671.875 11.186 0 0 960.93 5.165 2 lepisorus bicolor dhule uneu 2687.5 14.389 2500 16.726 0 0 1921.8 10.330 3 pterish vittata bish uniu 1156.25 6.191 187.5 1.254 0 0 382.81 2.058 4 tectoria macrodonta kale neuro 3500 18.740 796.875 5.331 343.75 1.331 1359.3 7.307 section 5: density and relative density of climbers and creepers (highest and lowest density values are highlighted) jcf (afforested land) icharni woodland icharni grassland overall s.n. botanical name local name density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel. density % density pl/m2 rel. density % 1 bridelia retusa gayo 0.001 0.001 0.03025 0.050 0.0215 0.021 0.02075 0.028 2 ceropegia pubescens ban simi 0 0 0.00025 0.0004 0 0 0.00012 0.0001 3 coccinea grandis golkakri 0 0 0 0 0.0105 0.010 0.00262 0.003 4 dioscorea bulbifera githa 0.0035 0.005 0.00025 0.0004 0 0 0.001 0.001 5 dioscorea deltoides ban tarul 0.0055 0.007 0 0 0 0 0.00137 0.002 6 jinospora sinensis batul pate 0.0015 0.002 0.0625 0.104 0 0 0.03162 0.042 7 mikania micrantha mile a minute 0.0225 0.030 0.2195 0.367 0.0405 0.039 0.1255 0.169 8 parthenocissus semicordata charchare 1.119 1.498 0.33475 0.560 0.036 0.035 0.45612 0.613 9 pericampylus glaucus pate lahara 0.016 0.021 0.1255 0.210 0.0015 0.001 0.06712 0.090 10 piper longum pipla 1.253 1.677 0.25325 0.423 0 0 0.43987 0.591 11 poncirus trifolia tin pate 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.002 0.628 0.608 0.15775 0.212 12 stephania elegans batule lahara 0.0055 0.007 0.00375 0.006 0.002 0.002 0.00375 0.005 13 tetrastigma serrulatum bakhre lahara 0.0055 0.007 0.021 0.035 0.002 0.002 0.01237 0.017 14 trachelospermum fragrans dudhe lahara 0.01 0.0134 0.14 0.234 0 0 0.0725 0.097 15 trichosanthes wallichiana indreni 0.0005 0.0006 0 0 0 0 0.00012 0.0001 16 unknown unknown 0.0005 0.0006 0 0 0 0 0.00012 0.0001 s ap kota 39 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 annex 2: some photo plates on mikania dead branches of mikania in touch with interface and laying in between the face and ground mikania invasion on sissoo tree forming shed cuscuta accession on mikania mulching on mikania creeper kept for three months ground surface after removing the mulch grassland smothered by mikania sapkota final corrected banko janakari 19-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 29 the frequency and relationship of flowering plants on the distribution pattern of ophiocordyceps sinensis (yarchagunbu) in the highlands of dolpa district, nepal s. devkota 1 ophiocordyceps sinensis (berk.) g.h. sung, j.m. sung, hywell-jones & spatafora is a highly valuable medicinal fungus. biologically it is an entomopathogenic, entomophagous or entomophilous fungus. in order to investigate different floral associations with o. sinensis, and to know different threats to pasture biodiversity, research was conducted in three pastures of raha and majphal village development committees of dolpa district. the study revealed that juncus thomsonii and bistorta macrophylla were the principal plant associates with o. sinensis as they dominated the alpine pasture vegetation. this research also highlighted the need for some proactive solutions along with conservation awareness program as important management initiatives to ensure ecological balance of o. sinensis. key words: alpine zone, flora, ophiocordyceps sinensis, pasture management, yarsagumba o phiocordyceps sinensis is a genus of entomophagous fungi (pyrenomycetes, ascomycotina) in the family ophiocordycipitaceae. this parasitic fungus is variously known as yarsagumba, yarchagunbu, kira, jeevanbuti, chyau, chyau kira and jara in nepali, yartsa gunbu in tibetan, dong chong xia cao in chinese, caterpillar fungus in english and cordyceps in botanical term (devkota, 2006, 2008a). sherpas call them walking herb (adhikari, 2000). there are about 300-400 species of cordyceps distributed all over the world (kobayasi, 1982; sung, 1996). about 68 species have been reported from china and 33 species have been recognized in the tibetan plateau and himalayan region (zang & kinjo, 1998). kobayasi & shimizu (1960, 1963) have worked on monographic study on cordyceps and its allied species. from nepal, 21 species of cordycepioid fungi (cordyceps and its allied species) have been reported (adhikari, 2008b). zang & kinjo (1998) have described distinct, closely related species (cordyceps gansuensis k. zhang, c. wang & m. yan, c. kangdingensis m. zang & kinjo, and c. nepalensis m. zang & kinjo) that in the past had been mistaken for c. sinensis. on the basis of molecular phylogenetic analysis sung et al., (2007) made taxonomic revision of clavicipataceous fungal group. according to them, the taxa fall in 3 monophyletic (clades) family. the family clavicipataceae (lindeu) earle ex rogerson (clade a) includes metacordyceps sung, sung, hywell-jones & spatafora; ophiocordycepitaceae sung, sung, hywell-jones & spatafora (clade b) includes elaphocordyceps sung & spatafora and ophiocordyceps petch. and cordycipitaceae kreisel ex sung, sung, hywell-jones & spatafora (clade c) includes cordyceps fr. ophiocordyceps sinensis fungus is endemic to the tibetan plateau including the adjoining high altitude areas of the central and eastern himalayas (nepal, bhutan and the indian states of uttaranchal, sikkim, himanchal pradesh and arunachal pradesh). the significance of the contribution of wild this edible fungus to rural livelihoods is acknowledged, but remains largely unexplored (christensen et al., 2008). o. sinensis, famous as the gold rush of nepal, has its niche in the alpine meadows/pastures between the altitudinal range of 3540 and 5050m (devkota, 2008a, 2008b). its distribution is limited to areas where precipitation is below 300mm per annum (winkler, 2008). ophiocordyceps sinensis is found mostly in dolpa, darchula, jumla, bajura, kalikot, mugu, humla, rukum, bajhang, manang, mustang, gorkha, lamjung, dhading, rasuwa, dolakha, sindhupalchowk, solukhumbu, sankhuwasabha, and taplejung districts of nepal (adhikari, 2008a, 1 asst. lecturer, central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal e-mail: devkotashiva@yahoo.com banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 30 devkota, 2008a). relative to mustang district, manang is far richer in the occurrence and distribution of o. sinensis within the annapurna conservation area (sherchan et al., 2005). some of the other eastern himalayan districts of nepal stricken with acute poverty may also harbour the potential for commercial harvesting of o. sinensis; however, detailed exploration of the availability of this species is still warranted. in the tibetan plateau, the grasslands providing habitat for hepialus moths and thus for ophiocordyceps sinensis are associated with kobresia sedges. the caterpillar of the moth lives in underground tunnels, emerging out at night to feed upon plant roots (winkler, 2008). among the sedges and grasses, kobresia setchwanensis, poa elanata, festuca rubra are common. while among forbs, potentilla anserina, anemone rivularis, primula sikkimensis, aconitum rockii, gentiana veitchiorum, polygonum viviparum, rheum alexandrae, nardostachys chinensis, pedicularis spp., anaphalis flavescens, meconopsis horridula are common (wu, 1997; zang & kinjo, 1998). larvae of hepialus also prefer to feed on young roots of plant species of the families of polygonaceae, fabaceae, cyperaceae, and poaceae (chen et al., 2000). although few studies on the wild status of some medicinal plants have been carried out, several others, particularly at the high altitude species, are yet to be evaluated (shrestha & joshi, 1996; iucn, 2000; lama et al., 2001). in this paper, floral associations of ophiocordyceps sinensis, threats to o. sinensis in three different pastures and the impacts on the occurrence of this himalayan treasure due to over grazing in dolpa, western nepal have been analyzed. this research will be useful to know and manage the floral associations of o. sinensis in the high altitude areas of dolpa. materials and methods study area the study was confined to two village development committees (vdcs), viz. raha and majphal of dolpa district. the district is located between 28° 24'-29° 43' n latitude to 82° 24’-83° 38' e longitude. shey-phoksundo national park, the largest national park of nepal (core park area of 3555 km2) covers a large part of this district. the first site is the village of raha located in the buffer zone of shey phoksundo national park (spnp) and its associated pastures. some principal ophiocordyceps sinensis collection sites in this village are palma ramana, patauti, duna, matey, sunsey, and gyalbara. among these, palma ramana was selected for the study. it is located at an altitude of 4260 to 4810m. the main o. sinensis sites in majphal vdc are ruppatan, majghari, saiquarry, pokeypani and chinarangshi. among them, pokeypani and saiquarry were selected for this study (fig. 1). methods based on participatory research appraisal (pra) techniques and drawings of participatory resource maps, 80 permanent monitoring plots of size 10x10m were established at different pastures of raha and majphal vdcs. the field study was conducted from may 25 to july 15, 2006. a stratified random sampling technique was adopted for inventory of the product. the sample plots were laid at 100m distances along transects. each individual map of nepal figure 1: showing study areas of raha and majphal vdcs of dolpa district. devkota banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 31 plot was marked permanently with enamels and stones. forty plots were established at palma ramana pasture of raha vdc, 10 at pokeypani and 30 at saiquarry of majphal vdcs were established. the plots were established between the altitudinal range of 3905m to 4894m. the floral specimens collected from each permanent plot were recorded. total numbers of ophiocordyceps sinensis extracted by the collectors from the plots in the entire collection period were recorded. herbariums of collected plant specimens were prepared following the standard techniques (martin, 1995; lawrence, 1967). the collected plant specimens were identified with the help of standard literatures (polunin & stainton, 1984; stainton, 1972; lama et al., 2001). all the herbariums were deposited in the tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch). results and discussions the frequency and relationship of flowering plants on the distribution pattern of ophiocordyceps sinensis during the collection period were recorded from the permanent plots of raha and majphal vdcs. the diverse groups of taxa are given in the table 1. altogether fifteen plant specimens belonging to ten families (primulaceae, ranunculaceae, polygonaceae, juncaceae, compositae, ericaceae, euphorbiaceae, rosaceae, scrophulariaceae, valerianaceae) were recorded from the study area. the grasslands providing habitat for ophiocordyceps sinensis were found to be predominantly of juncus thomsonii and bistorta macrophylla pastures. j. thomsonii covered most of the grasslands between the altitudinal range from 3000m to nearly 5200m, gradually rising from the southeast to the northwest of the pastures. chen et al., (2000) had also reported a similar distribution for tibetan o. sinensis. among the associated taxa, the top three plants with the highest frequencies were j. thomsonii, b. macrophylla and rhododendron anthopogon. these were observed in 79, 68, and 40 plots, respectively. within the 80 permanent plots, the least frequently associated plants were androsace robusta, primula macrophylla, aconitum sp. and rumex nepalensis, since they cropped up in only one, three, and four plots, respectively. the tender shoot of b. macrophylla resembled the fungal part of o. sinensis so the collectors were often confused. caterpillar fungus thrives in subalpine and alpine grasslands or meadows as well as open dwarf scrublands. in the study area, it was found naturally distributed from an altitudinal range of 3540 to 5050m asl. since the current actual tree line has been strongly influenced by human activities; wide swathes of forests in study areas have been replaced by pastures. similar phenomenon was also reported from the tibetan plateau (winkler, 2000) in the case of dolpa, no clear difference was found in the distribution pattern of ophiocordyceps sinensis on different aspects. collectors extracted from all sunny aspects. according to boesi (2003), in lithang china, caterpillar fungus was mostly found on northfacing slopes. however winkler (2008) reported its distribution in china on well-drained sunny slopes with lush grass vegetation. in dolpa, o. sinensis was confined to rich pastures and sites which were too wet or waterlogged did not harbor populations of o. sinensis. over grazing vs distribution of ophiocordyceps sinensis animal husbandry is a vital part of the economy of the local peoples. almost every household usually maintained a large herd of animals for manure, milk, meat and to plough their fields. these herds included mainly sheep, goats, horses, ponies, ass and zomo (hybrid of yak and cow) that foraged on pastures. people graze their livestock freely in the forest and on grasslands based on customary systems (ghimire, 2005). overgrazing leads to the loss of forest regeneration and the loss of grassland vegetation thereby inducing soil erosion (singh, 2001; jha, 2006). the animals destroy o. sinensis during grazing because they also feed on the host plants. the livestock annually brought onto the pastures by the local collectors destroy the ecological niche of o. sinensis. 1 3 4 4 9 13 16 18 21 25 26 36 40 68 79 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 androsace robusta prim ula macro phylla aconitum sp rumex nepalensis neopicrorhiza sc rophulariiflo ra nardostachys gradndiflora unidentifie d sp prim ula denticu lata euphorbia stracheyi oxygraphis polypetala anaphalis m onocephala potentilla fulgens rhododendron anthopogon bisto rta macro phylla juncus th omsonii flora nu m be r of p lo ts figure 2: number of sample plots and frequency of flowering plants. devkota banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 32 the collectors also reported that sites with less grazing effect had higher abundances of o. sinensis. juncus thomsonii, bistorta macrophylla, anaphalis monocephala, potentilla fulgens, were the plant species most affected by direct grazing and trampling effects. similar views were also testified by collectors from darchula district (chettri & lodhiyal 2008). this study also confirmed that the permanent plots affected by grazing impact had poorer densities of o. sinensis than the plots far from grazing areas. threats to the ophiocordyceps sinensis in growing pastures in dolpa a number of threats are annually posed to the habitat of ophiocordyceps sinensis growing pastures in dolpa and these threats are mainly of anthropogenic nature. it was found that more than 50,000 collectors romped around 25 or more pastures of dolpa during 2006. the major threats were haphazard and unscientific collection of o. sinensis; soil and water pollution, excessive use of fuel wood, hunting of wildlife, and intentional fires burns to procure fuelwood and better grass production for cattle. the collectors burn intentional fires for clearing the sites to facilitate the collection of o. sinensis and also to extract fuelwood for the next season. they have figured out that burned areas harbored more o. sinensis in the following year. the accidental and intentional fires have, however, had adverse effects on the forest biodiversity in the past. the plant species mainly used for fuel wood by the collectors were rhododendron lepidotum, r. anthopogon, juniperus sp., betula utilis, and quercus sp. almost 100% of their energy resources were met from the nearby forests. the majority of respondents (collectors/users = 74, traders = 25 and local healers = 3) surveyed in this study also complained that thousands of collectors posed negative impacts to the soil of pastures after leaving lots of non-degradable materials like plastics and batteries. similarly, increasing numbers of foot trails in the pastures were perceived to be deteriorating the virginity of the green pastures. illegal hunting of local fauna was also a common practice throughout the collection areas and had become one of the major threats for faunal biodiversity conservation. according to the respondents in 2005, some of the professional hunters hunted the wild animals to exchange the flesh or trophy for ophiocordyceps sinensis. pseudois nayaur (naur) was the species most targeted for hunting. maoists and pastures management the collection and trade of ophiocordyceps sinensis in dolpa was totally controlled by the maoist in the study year. realizing the potential destruction of o. sinensis, the local maoists had drawn up 17 points “code of conduct” regarding different aspects, including pasture management. some of the major codes related to pasture management were a) not to cut green trees for fuel; b) not to make a big hole in the pastures during collection c) not to release cattle in the pastures before collection (there was provision to allow cattle a week after the collection starts); d) not to discard plastics and batteries in the pastures; and e) not to hunt wild animals. though they have attempted to implement these strict regulations, there was no alternative to fuel except to cut more trees. conclusion from the study it can be concluded that juncus thomsonii and bistorta macrophylla exhibited a wide range of distribution in the pastures of dolpa during the ophiocordyceps sinensis collection period. it can be speculated that a healthy grassland environment is favorable for the caterpillar development as no informant reported abundant fruiting of the fungus in degraded areas. plantations of betula utilis, rhododendron spp, and juniperus spp. should be established at lower forests to supplement growing stock depleted by the extraction of fuelwood during collection seasons. to maintain a healthy pasture environment, over trampling effects and over grazing should be minimized and checked. acknowledgements i am indebted to late dr. d. p. parajuli, dr. k.c. paudel, dr. m. k. adhikari and dr. k. r. bhattarai from the ministry of forests and soil conservation, nepal for their ideas and suggestions prior to the field visits. dr. suresh k. ghimire from central department of botany, tribhuvan university, is to be thanked for offering editorial comments to the early drafts of this manuscript. i am thankful to mr. maan b. rokaya, mr. mani r. shrestha and mr. ram k. deo for their constructive assistance. wwf nepal program and safe concern, kathmandu provided financial and logistic supports for this study. devkota banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 33 references adhikari, m.k. 2000. mushrooms of nepal. p.u. printers, kathmandu, nepal. adhikari, m.k. 2008a. cordyceps in nepal. in: proceeding of second national seminar and fair on herbs. organized by herbs products and spices trade association, nepalgunj. pp.39-50 adhikari, m.k. 2008b. the diversity of cordycepioid fungi (ascomycotina: clavicipatales) reported from nepal. bulletin of department of plant resources. 30: 1-7. boesi, a. 2003. the dbyar rtswa dgun bu (cordyceps sinensis (berk).sacc): an important trade item for the tibetan population of the lithang country, sichuan province, china. the tibetan journal 28.3:29-42. chen, s.j., yin, d.h., li, l., zha, xi., shuen, j. h. and zhama, c. 2000. resources and distribution of cordyceps sinensis in naqu tibet. zhong yao cai 23.11:673-5. chhetri, r. and lodhiyal, l.s. 2008. collection of cordyceps sinensis (berk). sacc. (yarsagomba) and its implications to rural livelihood and biodiversity conservation: a case of darchula, nepal. in: medicinal plants in nepal: an antholog y of contemporar y research. (eds. p.k jha, s.b. karmacharya, m.k. chetri, c.b. thapa and b.b. shrestha). ecological society (ecos), kathmandu, nepal. pp. 214-223. christensen, m., bhattarai, s., devkota, s. and larsen, h.o. 2008. collection and use of wild edible fungi in nepal. eco. bot. 62(1) pp. 12-23. devkota, s. 2006. yarsagumba [cordyceps sinensis (berk) sacc.]: traditional utilization in dolpa district, western nepal. our nature 4 (48-52). devkota, s. 2008a. approach towards the harvesting of cordyceps sinensis (berk.) sacc. in pastures of dolpa, nepal. in: medicinal plants in nepal: an anthology of contemporary research. (eds. p.k jha, s.b. karmacharya, m.k. chetri, c.b. thapa and b.b. shrestha). ecological society (ecos), kathmandu, nepal. pp. 90-96. devkota, s. 2008b. distribution and status of highland mushrooms: a study from dolpa, nepal. jour. of nat. hist. mus. 23 (51-59). ghimire, s.k. 2005. the endemic flora in dolpa, north-west nepal: distribution patterns, life forms, habitat specificity and conservation status. botanica orientalis 5. 35-39. iucn. 2000. national register of medicinal plants. iucn nepal. jha, s. g. 2006. linkages between biological and cultural diversity for participatory management: nepal’s experiences with makalu-barun national park and its buffer zone. banko janakari. 16 (2): 37-44. kobayasi, y. 1982. keys to the taxa of the genera cordyceps and torrubiella. trans myco. soc. jap.. 23: 329-364. kobayasi, y. and shimizu, d. 1960. monographic studies of cordyceps. 1. group parasitic on elaphomyces. bull. of nat. scien. mus., tokyo. 5(2): 70-82. kobayasi, y. and shimizu, d. 1963. monographic studies of cordyceps. 2. group parasitic on cicadidae. bull. of nat. sci. mus., tokyo. 6 (3) 52: 286-314. lama y. c., ghimire, s.k. and aumeeruddy y. thomas. 2001. medicinal plants of dolpo: amchi’s knowledge and conservation. wwf nepal and people and plants initiative, kathmandu, nepal. lawrence, g. h. m. 1967. taxonomy of vascular plants. oxford & ibh publishing co. pvt. ltd., new delhi, india. martin, g. j. 1995. ethnobotany: a people and plants conservation manual. chapman and hall. polunin. o, and stainton, j.d.a.1984. flowers of the himalaya. oxford university press. india. sherchan, r., chapagain, n. r. and chhetri, m. 2005. distribution. conservation practices and trade of yarsagumba in manang district of annapurna conservation area, nepal. forestry (jour. of inst. of fore., nepal). 13. pp. 99-107. shrestha, t.b. and joshi, r. m. 1996. rare, endemic and endangered plants of nepal. wwf nepal program, kathmandu, nepal. singh, b. b. 2001. socio-economic study of makalu-barun landscape complex. final report submitted to nepal biodiversity landscape project, kathmandu, nepal. devkota banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 34 stainton, j. d. a.1972. forests of nepal. john murray, london. sung, j. m. 1996. cordyceps of korea. kyo-hak. publishing co. ltd., seoul. 299 pp. sung, g. h., hywell-jones, n. l., sung, j. m., luangsa-ard, j. j., shrestha, b. and spatafora, j. w. 2007. phylogenetic classification of cordyceps and the clavicipitaceous fungi. stud. in myco. 57:5–59. winkler, d. 2000. patterns of forest distribution and the impact of fire and pastoralism in the forest region of the tibetan plateau. in: g. miehe & zhang yili (eds.): environmental change in high asia, marburger geographische schriften 135: 201-227. winkler, d. 2008. yartsa gunbu (cordyceps sinensis) and the fungal commodification of tibet’s rural economy. eco. bot., xx(x), 2008, pp. 1–15. wu, n. 1997. ecological situation of high-frigid rangeland and its sustainability a case study on the constraints and approaches in pastoral western sichuan/china. abh. anthropogeo. 55: 1-281. zang, m. and kinjo, n.1998. notes on the alpine cordyceps of china and nearby nations. mycotaxon 66:215-229. devkota banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 35 table 1: frequency in associations of ophiocordyceps sinensis with flowering plants plants s.n plot no ju nc us th om so ni i p ot en ti lla fu lg en s e up ho rb ia st ra ch ey i a na ph al is m on oc ep ha la b is to rt a m ac ro ph yl la o x yg ra ph is po ly pe ta la p ri m ul a de nt ic ul at a r ho do de nd ro n an th op og on u ni de nt ifi ed sp n ar do st ac hy s gr an di flo ra n eo pi cr or hi za sc ro ph ul ar iif lo ra p ri m ul a m ac ro ph yl la r um ex ne pa le ns is a co ni tu m sp a nd ro sa ce ro bu st a t o ta l p la n ts sp ec ie s t o ta l fr eq u en cy o f o . si ne ns is 1 ry 01 + + + + + 5 5 2 ry 02 + + + + + 5 4 3 ry 03 + + + + + 5 4 4 ry 04 + + + + + 5 2 5 ry 05 + + + 3 1 6 ry 06 + + + + + 5 2 7 ry 07 + + + 3 3 8 ry 08 + + + + 4 4 9 ry 09 + + + 3 7 10 ry 10 + + + + 4 10 11 ry 11 + + + 3 5 12 ry 12 + + + 3 2 13 ry 13 + + + + + 5 3 14 ry 14 + + + + + 5 9 15 ry 15 + + + + 4 1 16 ry 16 + + 2 1 17 ry 17 + + + + 4 4 18 ry 18 + + + 3 2 19 ry 19 + + + + 4 9 20 ry 20 + + + + 4 3 21 ry 21 + + + 3 1 22 ry 22 + + + + 4 3 23 ry 23 + + + + + 5 2 24 ry 24 + + + + 4 10 25 ry 25 + + + + 4 2 26 ry 26 + + + + + 5 14 27 ry 27 + + + + + 5 1 28 ry 28 + + + 3 1 29 ry 29 + + + 3 1 30 ry 30 + + + 3 2 31 ry 31 + + + 3 13 32 ry 32 + + + + 4 9 33 ry 33 + + + 3 2 34 ry 34 + + + + + 5 2 35 ry 35 + + + + + + 6 1 36 ry 36 + + + + + 5 2 37 ry 37 + + + + + 5 2 38 ry 38 + + + + + 5 1 39 ry 39 + + + + 4 2 40 ry 40 + + + + + 5 2 41 my 01 + + + + + + 6 4 42 my 02 + + + + + + 6 14 43 my 03 + + + + 4 15 devkota banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 36 44 my 04 + + + + + + 6 19 45 my 05 + + + + + + + 7 5 46 my 06 + + + + + + 6 19 47 my 07 + + + + 4 19 48 my 08 + + + + + + + 7 20 49 my 09 + + + 3 20 50 my 10 + + + + + 5 21 51 my 11 + + + 3 18 52 my 12 + + + + 4 24 53 my 13 + + + + 4 18 54 my 14 + + + + + 5 11 55 my 15 + + + + + + 6 6 56 my 16 + + + + + + + 7 16 57 my 17 + + + + + + + + 8 10 58 my 18 + + + + + + 6 18 59 my 19 + + + + + 5 21 60 my 20 + + + + 4 10 61 my 21 + + + + + 5 11 62 my 22 + + + 3 11 63 my 23 + + + + 4 21 64 my 24 + + + + + 5 11 65 my 25 + + + + + 5 13 66 my 26 + + + 3 25 67 my 27 + + + 3 23 68 my 28 + + + + + + 6 11 69 my 29 + + + + + + 6 15 70 my 30 + + + + + 5 14 71 my 31 + + 2 6 72 my 32 + + + 3 5 73 my 33 + + + + + 5 16 74 my 34 + + + + + + + 7 15 75 my 35 + + + + + + 6 14 76 my 36 + + + + + + + 7 3 77 my 37 + + + + + + 6 5 78 my 38 + + + + 4 22 79 my 39 + + + + 4 4 80 my 40 + + + + + 5 12 total 79 36 21 26 68 25 18 40 16 13 9 3 4 4 1 note: ry = raha yarsagumba; my = majphal yarsagumba; + = present; = absent sunbuki, dhochi = juncus thomsonii; gorukajera = potentilla fulgens; peitei jasto = euphorbia stracheyi; jhullya = anaphalis monocephala; nimbu, nyakuri = bistorta macrophylla; pahelo tarey = oxygraphis polypetala; doeli phool = primula denticulata; paluwa = rhododendron anthopogon; narku = unidentified sp.; bhutley = nardostachys grandiflora; kutki = neopicrorhiza scrophulariiflora; katarey = primula macrophylla; halhaley = rumex nepalensis.; bikh = aconitum sp.; begarey jhar = androsace robusta. devkota corrected bankojanakari vol 17-2.pmd 55 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 generation and utilization of community fund in small-scale community forest management in the terai region of nepal maheshwar dhakal1 and misa masuda2 it has been widely recognized that constantly increasing community fund is one of the indicators of successful implementation of community forestry program in nepal. however, a very few people know how the fund is collected under the program and it has been utilized so far. the paper is based on the generation and utilization of community fund of two-community forests in the terai region. the community forests of the region have collected large amount of community fund annually from the sale of forest products and non-forestry sources as well. the study revealed that along with community fund increasing, office operation cost has been constantly increasing while utilizing the fund, whereas promotion of forest management and community development costs are essential for long-term sustainability of the program. therefore, the study concluded that only the minimization of office operation cost could increase the forest management and community development costs based on the principle of trade-off, which is crucial to keep the people intact in community forestry program and its long-term sustainability. keywords: community forestry, community fund, terai, nepal the past three decades have witnessed a significant growing concern on small-scale community forestry program in nepal. the program has leading positions among the government programs since its inception (kanel, 2004). the collection of community fund under the program has a number of synergetic effects on forest conditions and livelihood improvement. consequently, the program has widely recognized from government to non-government sectors as well. moreover, the collection of community fund from the sale of forest products and non-forestry sources as well has been taken as an indicator of successful implementation of the program (kanel and niraula, 2004). however, how does a community forest have colleted a fund and utilized it, a very few people know so far. the community fund has created a number of wider potentialities of further development of forests, support community development and regenerate income of poor people in the line of poverty reduction strategy of the country (npc, 2002; kanel, 2004). the empowerment of local people to conserve, develop, manage and utilize the forests, and sell and distribute by fixing the price of forest products independently has playing an important role to collect a community fund (government of nepal, 1993). in the discourse of forest management in nepal, formulation of forestry sector master plan in 1989, re-structure of forestry sector organizations in 1990, revise of forest act in 1993 and regulation in 1995, and continuous orientation and training to government officials have substantial impacts behind the successful implementation of community forestry program and community fund collection. the ever-increasing numbers of community forest user groups (cfugs) showed that one-fifth of the total forestland and two-fifth of the total country population covered by the program (cbs, 2003; kanel, 2004; kandel and kanel, 2006). the studies carried out on policy analysis, institutional stability and participation also claimed that the community fund has positive effects on forest conditions and livelihoods improvement (vurghese, 1999; malla, 2000; chokraborty, 2001; baral, 2002; gautam et al, 2004; bampton et al, 2004; kanel and niraula, 2004; kanel, 2004; agrawal and gupta, 2005; adhikari, 2006a; dhakal, 2006; gautam, 2006; iversen et al, 2006; maskey et al, 2006). moreover, the collection of community fund has vital role to local and national economy back up (mpfs, 1989; hill, 1999; adhikari, 2006b; dhakal and masuda, 2007). the positive effects of the program have been diffused to other domain of natural resource management sector such 1 phd student, graduate school of life and environmental sciences, university of tsukuba, japan, e-mail: maheshwar_dhakal@hotmail.com 2 graduate school of life and environmental studies, university of tsukuba, japan 56 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 2 utilization of community fund taking the example two-community forests of terai region, which is crucial to keep the people intact in sustainable community forestry program. 2. materials and methods the study was carried out in the nawalparasi district, which is located in the western terai region of nepal. the specific study sites were located in the eastern part of the district (figure 1). from the list of community forests of the district, two community forests i) dhuseri, and ii) sundari, community forests were selected based on the following criteria: i) community forests that have natural sal (shorea robusta) forests and ii) having relatively long experiences of community forest management (table 1). since the terai forests have higher economical potential, the study focused on how a community forest generate a community fund and utilize it to improve the forests conditions and livelihood of local people. since the majority of forests surrounding people have poor socioeconomic backgrounds in the region, the collection of community fund have substantial effects on forests and livelihood improvement of local people collectively. source: district forest office, nawalparasi figure 1. location of study sites the field survey was carried out in april 2005 and a supplementary visit was conducted in march 2006. a series of meetings with government officials, executive committee members, and user households were organized to understand the sources of community forest incomes and expenditures adopted by the cfugs. individual to group level discussion and direct field observation were accomplished in both forests. the annual auditing reports of annual incomes and expenditures from fiscal 1999 to 2004 were collected. the total expenditures items were categorized into three headings: forest management, community development and office operation for analyzing and comparison. table 1. basic characteristics of community forests source: operational plan of respective community forests, 2005 3. results and discussion 3.1. generation and utilization of community fund 3.1. sources of community fund collection forest area (ha) household forests/ household dhuseri 205 662 0.31 sundari 384 1,032 0.37 results and discussion generation and utilization of community fund sources of community fund collection although the fundamental aim of the community forestry program of nepal was to supply the forest products to the local users on a sustainable basis, community fund collection has becoming one of the raising issues in the recent years. in the discourse of program implementation, cfugs have created a number of forestry and non-forestry sources and collected a community fund. since the forest products have higher economic potential in the terai region, the case is more prominent to the region. the forestry sources include sale of timber, firewood, and fodder/ grasses, whereas non-forestry sources are registration fee, membership fee, penalty fee, and support from government and ngos. consequently, the collection of community fund and carry out of community development and livelihood improvement activities in the line of poverty reduction were becoming indispensable part of sustainable community forest management (kanel, 2004). in the case of sal dominated community forests of terai region, it has been observed that sal timber, bakal3 and green firewood (produced at the time of harvesting and logging of utilization works) were the main sources of community fund collection. dry firewood, fodder and grasses can be collected at free of costs in the designated time, and these forest products do not have financial contribution to the community fund collection. by community forestry rules, each community forests are independent to as watershed and protected area management as well (kanel, 2004; agrawal and gupta, 2005). however, how does a community forest generate a community fund and how it is utilized focusing to the sustainability of the program have seldom studied in the past. therefore, the study focused on generation and utilization of community fund taking the example two-community forests of terai region, which is crucial to keep the people intact in sustainable community forestry program. materials and methods the study was carried out in the nawalparasi district, which is located in the western terai region of nepal. the specific study sites were located in the eastern part of the district (figure 1). from the list of community forests of the district, two community forests i) dhuseri, and ii) sundari, community forests were selected based on the following criteria: i) community forests that have natural sal (shorea robusta) forests and ii) having relatively long experiences of community forest management (table 1). since the terai forests have higher economical potential, the study focused on how a community forest generate a community fund and utilize it to improve the forests conditions and livelihood of local people. since the majority of forests surrounding people have poor socio-economic backgrounds in the region, the collection of community fund have substantial effects on forests and livelihood improvement of local people collectively. were organized to understand the sources of community forest incomes and expenditures adopted by the cfugs. individual to group level discussion and direct field observation were accomplished in both forests. the annual auditing reports of annual incomes and expenditures from fiscal 1999 to 2004 were collected. the total expenditures items were categorized into three headings: forest management, community development and office operation for analyzing and comparison. source: district forest office, nawalparasi the field survey was carried out in april 2005 and a supplementary visit was conducted in march 2006. a series of meetings with government officials, executive committee members, and user households 1 the outer part of sawn timber, cfug sells it to the local people by weight. the average price of bakal is nrs. 125 at sundari forest and 75 at dhuseri forest. dhakal and masuda figure 1. location of study sites 57 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 4 sour ce: audi t repor ts (1999 to 2004) source: audit reports (1999 to 2004) figure 2. trend of annual income figure 3. sources of community fund moreover, when it was compared between annual income and forest area, it found that the per capita income of dhuseri community forest is higher (nrs. 5,027/ha) than sundari community forest (nrs. 3,434/ha); however, the forest does not have any income in the fiscal year 2003 because of corruption scandal. the repeated selection of same leadership in the forest, eventually not only led to the over-confidence at executive committee level to take a monopolistic decision on community fund generation and utilization, but also it institutionalized the corruption while generating and utilizing the community fund. taking to the issue on debate, the cfug of dhuseri community forest dissolved the executive committee in 2003 and formed new committee with a commitment not to repeat the corruption again in the following years. the case revealed that together with community fund collection and utilization, transparency in record keeping and reporting systems were equally crucial for successful community forest management. 3.2. utilization of community fund the annually collected community fund from 1999 to 2004 grouped into three types of costs based on the nature of expenditures namely: forest management, community development, and office operation. the forest management costs include all costs for plantation, regeneration, harvesting and logging works and salary of forest guards. similarly, the community development costs include expenditure related to education, primary health, and income generation. the office operation costs include stationery, salary of office secretary, meeting allowance, auditing costs, purchasing of capital items and regular office operation costs. 3.2.1. community fund for forest management in the initial stage of community forestry program volunteer participation was common. after the initiation of community fund collection the volunteer participation has replaced by labor works (table 3). once a forest handed over to the local people, cfugs have been carried out various activities of forest management. however, most of these activities were furnished from the budget of community fund, not as it was furnished by volunteer participation in the past in both forests. volunteer participation can be observed only in forest fire control and silvicultural operation work, whenever forest fire rarely occurred in the forest and motivation of large quantity of firewood is the main attraction while participating in silvicultural operation. other forest management activities such forest watcher salary, harvesting and logging works, nursery establishment, plantation activities were accomplished by the community fund. the study also revealed that the direct impact of community fund collection in the terai region is volunteer participation has gradually decreasing while implementing the community forestry activities. 0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 1,600 1,800 2,000 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 fiscal year a n n u a l in c o m e (n r s .) sundari cf dhuseri cf 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% sundari forest dhuseri forest s h a re o f s o u rc e s forestry sources non-forestry sources 4 sour ce: audi t repor ts (1999 to 2004) source: audit reports (1999 to 2004) figure 2. trend of annual income figure 3. sources of community fund moreover, when it was compared between annual income and forest area, it found that the per capita income of dhuseri community forest is higher (nrs. 5,027/ha) than sundari community forest (nrs. 3,434/ha); however, the forest does not have any income in the fiscal year 2003 because of corruption scandal. the repeated selection of same leadership in the forest, eventually not only led to the over-confidence at executive committee level to take a monopolistic decision on community fund generation and utilization, but also it institutionalized the corruption while generating and utilizing the community fund. taking to the issue on debate, the cfug of dhuseri community forest dissolved the executive committee in 2003 and formed new committee with a commitment not to repeat the corruption again in the following years. the case revealed that together with community fund collection and utilization, transparency in record keeping and reporting systems were equally crucial for successful community forest management. 3.2. utilization of community fund the annually collected community fund from 1999 to 2004 grouped into three types of costs based on the nature of expenditures namely: forest management, community development, and office operation. the forest management costs include all costs for plantation, regeneration, harvesting and logging works and salary of forest guards. similarly, the community development costs include expenditure related to education, primary health, and income generation. the office operation costs include stationery, salary of office secretary, meeting allowance, auditing costs, purchasing of capital items and regular office operation costs. 3.2.1. community fund for forest management in the initial stage of community forestry program volunteer participation was common. after the initiation of community fund collection the volunteer participation has replaced by labor works (table 3). once a forest handed over to the local people, cfugs have been carried out various activities of forest management. however, most of these activities were furnished from the budget of community fund, not as it was furnished by volunteer participation in the past in both forests. volunteer participation can be observed only in forest fire control and silvicultural operation work, whenever forest fire rarely occurred in the forest and motivation of large quantity of firewood is the main attraction while participating in silvicultural operation. other forest management activities such forest watcher salary, harvesting and logging works, nursery establishment, plantation activities were accomplished by the community fund. the study also revealed that the direct impact of community fund collection in the terai region is volunteer participation has gradually decreasing while implementing the community forestry activities. 0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400 1,600 1,800 2,000 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 fiscal year a n n u a l in c o m e (n r s .) sundari cf dhuseri cf 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% sundari forest dhuseri forest s h a re o f s o u rc e s forestry sources non-forestry sources fix the price of forest products. the study found that dhuseri forest has fixed nrs. 300/cu. ft., whereas sundari forest has fixed nrs. 250/cu. ft. of sal timber. on the other hand, dhuseri forest has fixed nrs. 75/100kg firewood and bakal, whereas nrs. 125/100kg by sundari community forest (table 2). the price table showed that dhuseri forest fixed higher rate for sal timber, whereas sundari forest has fixed higher rate for firewood and bakal. the situation revealed that community forests are independent to fix the price of forest products, but at the same time, there is no scientific reason behind the various rate of price fixation. considering to the fact, the reason behind the fixation of minimum and various prices was asked to the executive members. the respondents replied that low price is affordable to poor people. but the minimum price rate of high value forest products have negative effects on community fund collection as sale of forest products were the main sources of community fund. such minimum price rates always have possibility to create a separate room for corruption (which we can observed at dhuseri community forest in 2003), and possibility of elite capture of major forest benefits (iversen et al, 2006). the formal and informal discussion with executive members also revealed that the cfugs have fixed the minimum price of forest products based on the production costs, affording capacity of poor household, scope of community development at local level and minimum costs for cfug office operation. both dhuseri and sundari community forests have also followed same principle of ‘thumb rule’. when a household purchased the forest products, the money paid by the household goes to the community fund. the trend of community fund collection from 1999 to 2004 in both community forests have found low in the initial stage and gradually increasing in the recent years (figure 2). the ever-increasing community fund revealed that cfugs were gradually extracted greater quantity of forest products from the community forests. the discussion with executive members also revealed that the inventory system has making easier them to extract the larger quantity of forest products as they expected earlier. the non-forestry sources were registration fee, membership fee, penalty, and sanctions in both forests. when we compared between forestry and non-forestry sources, we found that forestry sources have higher contribution to the fund (figure 3). 3 although the fundamental aim of the community forestry program of nepal was to supply the forest products to the local users on a sustainable basis, community fund collection has becoming one of the raising issues in the recent years. in the discourse of program implementation, cfugs have created a number of forestry and nonforestry sources and collected a community fund. since the forest products have higher economic potential in the terai region, the case is more prominent to the region. the forestry sources include sale of timber, firewood, and fodder/grasses, whereas non-forestry sources are registration fee, membership fee, penalty fee, and support from government and ngos. consequently, the collection of community fund and carry out of community development and livelihood improvement activities in the line of poverty reduction were becoming indispensable part of sustainable community forest management (kanel, 2004). in the case of sal dominated community forests of terai region, it has been observed that sal timber, bakal3 and green firewood (produced at the time of harvesting and logging of utilization works) were the main sources of community fund collection. dry firewood, fodder and grasses can be collected at free of costs in the designated time, and these forest products do not have financial contribution to the community fund collection. by community forestry rules, each community forests are independent to fix the price of forest products. the study found that dhuseri forest has fixed nrs. 300/cu. ft., whereas sundari forest has fixed nrs. 250/cu. ft. of sal timber. on the other hand, dhuseri forest has fixed nrs. 75/100kg firewood and bakal, whereas nrs. 125/100kg by sundari community forest (table 2). the price table showed that dhuseri forest fixed higher rate for sal timber, whereas sundari forest has fixed higher rate for firewood and bakal. the situation revealed that community forests are independent to fix the price of forest products, but at the same time, there is no scientific reason behind the various rate of price fixation. considering to the fact, the reason behind the fixation of minimum and various prices was asked to the executive members. the respondents replied that low price is affordable to poor people. but the minimum price rate of high value forest products have negative effects on community fund collection as sale of forest products were the main sources of community fund. such minimum price rates always have possibility to create a separate room for corruption (which we can observed at dhuseri community forest in 2003), and possibility of elite capture of major forest benefits (iversen et al, 2006). table 2. forest products and their respective prices price of forest products forest product types dhuseri community forest sundari community forest timber (cu. ft.) 300 250 bakal (nrs./100kg) 75 125 firewood (green) (nrs./100kg) 75 125 source: respective community forests, 2005 the formal and informal discussion with executive members also revealed that the cfugs have fixed the minimum price of forest products based on the production costs, affording capacity of poor household, scope of community development at local level and minimum costs for cfug office operation. both dhuseri and sundari community forests have also followed same principle of 'thumb rule'. when a household purchased the forest products, the money paid by the household goes to the community fund. the trend of community fund collection from 1999 to 2004 in both community forests have found low in the initial stage and gradually increasing in the recent years (figure 2). the ever-increasing community fund revealed that cfugs were gradually extracted greater quantity of forest products from the community forests. the discussion with executive members also revealed that the inventory system has making easier them to extract the larger quantity of forest products as they expected earlier. the non-forestry sources were registration fee, membership fee, penalty, and sanctions in both forests. when we compared between forestry and non-forestry sources, we found that forestry sources have higher contribution to the fund (figure 3). 3 the outer part of sawn timber, cfug sells it to the local people by weight. the average price of bakal is nrs. 125 at sundari forest and 75 at dhuseri forest. figure 2. trend of annual income source: audit reports (1999 to 2004) source: audit reports (1999 to 2004) moreover, when it was compared between annual income and forest area, it found that the per capita income of dhuseri community forest is higher (nrs. 5,027/ha) than sundari community forest (nrs. 3,434/ha); however, the forest does not have any income in the fiscal year 2003 because of corruption dhakal and masuda figure 3. sources of community fund 58 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 scandal. the repeated selection of same leadership in the forest, eventually not only led to the overconfidence at executive committee level to take a monopolistic decision on community fund generation and utilization, but also it institutionalized the corruption while generating and utilizing the community fund. taking to the issue on debate, the cfug of dhuseri community forest dissolved the executive committee in 2003 and formed new committee with a commitment not to repeat the corruption again in the following years. the case revealed that together with community fund collection and utilization, transparency in record keeping and reporting systems were equally crucial for successful community forest management. utilization of community fund the annually collected community fund from 1999 to 2004 grouped into three types of costs based on the nature of expenditures namely: forest management, community development, and office operation. the forest management costs include all costs for plantation, regeneration, harvesting and logging works and salary of forest guards. similarly, the community development costs include expenditure related to education, primary health, and income generation. the office operation costs include stationery, salary of office secretary, meeting allowance, auditing costs, purchasing of capital items and regular office operation costs. community fund for forest management in the initial stage of community forestry program volunteer participation was common. after the initiation of community fund collection the volunteer participation has replaced by labor works (table 3). once a forest handed over to the local people, cfugs have been carried out various activities of forest management. however, most of these activities were furnished from the budget of community fund, not as it was furnished by volunteer participation in the past in both forests. volunteer participation can be observed only in forest fire control and silvicultural operation work, whenever forest fire rarely occurred in the forest and motivation of large quantity of firewood is the main attraction while participating in silvicultural operation. other forest management activities such forest watcher salary, harvesting and logging works, nursery establishment, plantation activities were accomplished by the community fund. the study also revealed that the direct impact of community fund collection in the terai region is volunteer participation has gradually decreasing while implementing the community forestry activities. the average budget allocated to forest management activities from 1999 to 2004 explored that 31.1% and 28.7% of total annual budget have been used for forest management activities at dhuseri and sundari community forest respectively. the sundari forest has allotted almost same amount of budget at each year, whereas the fluctuation ranges from 17.5% to 42.4% can be observed at dhuseri community forest (figure 4(i)). however, the major part of the budget has been used for harvesting and logging works in both forests. the budget allocated for forest development such as nursery establishment, plantation and introduction of medicinal and aromatic plants found very poor. in fact, the poor budget allocation for forest development activities raised the question of sustainability of the program as the population of the terai region is constantly increasing, and there is a possibility of increasing demands of forest products from community forests. considering to the possibility of poor priority of forest development, the government has made obligatory provision to invest at least 25% of total annual income on forest management and 5 table 3. forest management activities carried out by the community forests dhuseri community forest sundari community forest forest management activities community fund volunteer participation community fund volunteer participation forest watcher salary √ x √ x forest fire control x √ x √ forest road construction √ x √ x nursery establishment √ x √ x plantation √ x √ x forest road construction √ x √ x silvicultural operation x √ x √ harvesting & utilization √ x √ x field survey, 2005 and 2006 source: annual report of sundari and dhuseri community forests figure 4 (i, ii, iii and iv). trend of community fund allocation on forest management, community development, and office operation from 1999 to 2004 the average budget allocated to forest management activities from 1999 to 2004 explored that 31.1% and 28.7% of total annual budget have been used for forest management activities at dhuseri and sundari community forest respectively. the sundari forest has allotted almost same amount of budget at each year, whereas the fluctuation ranges from 17.5% to 42.4% can be observed at dhuseri community forest (figure 4(i)). however, the major part of the budget has been used for harvesting and logging works in both forests. the budget allocated for forest development such as nursery establishment, plantation and introduction of medicinal and aromatic plants found very poor. in fact, the poor budget allocation for forest development activities raised the question of sustainability community fund and office operation costs 58.6 62.5 33.234.9 18.2 48.3 67.6 0 65 56.4 33.4 48.4 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 fiscal year o p e ra ti o n c o s ts (% ) sundari cf dhuseri cf community fund for forest managment 23.5 0 28.8 26.4 29.129.7 34.5 42.4 31.7 17.5 27.3 36.5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 fiscal year f o re s t m a n a g e m e n t c o s ts (% ) sundari cf dhuseri cf community fund and community development 9.2 28.2 47.3 35.4 37.7 11.1 12.6 30.1 0.70 17.5 16.3 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 fiscal year c o m m u n it y d e v e lo p m e n t c o s ts (% ) sundari cf dhuseri cf utilization of community fund on an average 30.2 21.6 48.3 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 f o re s t m a n a g e m e n t c o m m u n ity d e v e lo p m e n t o ffic e o p e ra tio n forest management community development office operation dhakal and masuda 59 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 development activities. however, both community forests counted the salary of forest guards and harvesting and logging costs as a part of forest management and development, whereas pure forest development activities such as plantation have poorly been carried out. community fund for community development community development has becoming an integral part of community forestry program in nepal. kanel (2004) claimed that community fund collection and carried out community development activities have linear relation in community forestry program. however, the amount of community fund depends on forest conditions and may vary from forest to forest (malla, 2000). both sundari and dhuseri community forests have used 28.9% and 14.8% of total annual income for community development activities respectively from the fiscal 1999 to 2004 on an average (figure 4 (ii)). however, the ratio has frequently fluctuated to each year in both forests. the results showed that sundari forest has better allocation of community fund for community development activities compare to dhuseri forest. the major carried out community development activities were school support, drinking water scheme, rural road construction, and gravelling. however, poor households have taking poor benefits from community development activities for example irrigation support only benefit to the people who has irrigated land and gravelling of road who has transportation means such as motorbike, jeep and tractor. the trend of budget allocation reflected that both forests have allocated large amount of budget in the initial years and the rate has gradually decreased in the recent years. nonetheless, sundari community forest has allocated better amount of budget for community development activities in each year (figure 4 (ii)). the crucial part of community development activity is it benefits to the household even though the household does not benefited from the direct forest benefits such as timber and firewood. community fund for office operation the records of annual expenditures of both dhuseri and sundari community forests showed that 54.2% 5 table 3. forest management activities carried out by the community forests dhuseri community forest sundari community forest forest management activities community fund volunteer participation community fund volunteer participation forest watcher salary √ x √ x forest fire control x √ x √ forest road construction √ x √ x nursery establishment √ x √ x plantation √ x √ x forest road construction √ x √ x silvicultural operation x √ x √ harvesting & utilization √ x √ x field survey, 2005 and 2006 source: annual report of sundari and dhuseri community forests figure 4 (i, ii, iii and iv). trend of community fund allocation on forest management, community development, and office operation from 1999 to 2004 the average budget allocated to forest management activities from 1999 to 2004 explored that 31.1% and 28.7% of total annual budget have been used for forest management activities at dhuseri and sundari community forest respectively. the sundari forest has allotted almost same amount of budget at each year, whereas the fluctuation ranges from 17.5% to 42.4% can be observed at dhuseri community forest (figure 4(i)). however, the major part of the budget has been used for harvesting and logging works in both forests. the budget allocated for forest development such as nursery establishment, plantation and introduction of medicinal and aromatic plants found very poor. in fact, the poor budget allocation for forest development activities raised the question of sustainability community fund and office operation costs 58.6 62.5 33.234.9 18.2 48.3 67.6 0 65 56.4 33.4 48.4 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 fiscal year o p e ra ti o n c o s ts (% ) sundari cf dhuseri cf community fund for forest managment 23.5 0 28.8 26.4 29.129.7 34.5 42.4 31.7 17.5 27.3 36.5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 fiscal year f o re s t m a n a g e m e n t c o s ts (% ) sundari cf dhuseri cf community fund and community development 9.2 28.2 47.3 35.4 37.7 11.1 12.6 30.1 0.70 17.5 16.3 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 fiscal year c o m m u n it y d e v e lo p m e n t c o s ts (% ) sundari cf dhuseri cf figure (i) figure (ii) utilization of community fund on an average 30.2 21.6 48.3 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 f o re s t m a n a g e m e n t c o m m u n ity d e v e lo p m e n t o ffic e o p e ra tio n forest management community development office operation figure (iv)figure (iii) source: annual report of sundari and dhuseri community forests figure 4: (i, ii, iii and iv). trend of community fund allocation on forest management, community development, and office operation from 1999 to 2004 dhakal and masuda 60 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 and 42.6% of the total annual budget has been used for office operation purposes respectively. the trend of office operation costs have gradually been increased in the latest years (figure 4 (iii)). the average office operation costs of two forests also showed that around half of the community fund used for office operation purposes (figure 4 (iv)). the rate was declined in 2000 at 18.2% and 33.4% respectively at sundari and dhuseri forests; nonetheless, the ratio has always higher at dhuseri community forest and continuously growing up. the results showed that office operation costs have been ever increasing along with community fund collection. such costs have been reduced the opportunity costs of forest and community development activities. it has also raised the question of efficient and effective community forest management and reputation social leaderships of executive committee members. the overspending costs in office operation items have created disputes and a serious deadlock was occurred at dhuseri forest in the fiscal year 2003. conclusion beside regular supply of forest products, generation and utilization of community fund is the main attraction towards the community forestry program in the terai region of nepal. forestry sources have significant contribution to community fund collection. however, transparency is vital while generating the fund and its utilization in the line of objectives of the program. the corruption scandal at dhuseri forest revealed that people seemed more sensitive on transparency of collected fund than sharing of direct forest benefits such as timber and firewood. although forest products such as timber and firewood have characteristics of subtractability, (ostrom et al, 1994), the generation of community fund has crucial role to keep the people intact in forest management objectives even though the household has excluded from the direct benefits of the forests. the overspending office operation costs seem negative consequences to reduce the opportunity cost of forest management and community development. the trend showed that the office operation cost has constantly increasing, whereas efficiency is prerequisites for long term sustainability of the program. therefore, the study concluded that only the minimization of office operation cost could increase the forest management and community development costs based on the principle of trade-off, which is crucial to keep the people intact in community forestry program and its long-term sustainability. references adhikari, b. 2006a. local benefits from community forests in the middle hills of nepal. forest policy and economics 9 (5): 464-478. adhikari, b. 2006b. transaction costs and community-based natural resources management in nepal. journal of environmental management 78 (1): 5-15. agrawal, a., and gupta, k 2005. decentralization and participation: the governance of common pool resources in nepal’s terai. world development 33 (7):1101-1114. bampton, j., vickers, b., rana, b. and statz, j. 2004. community forestry in the terai. in twenty-five years of community forestry: contributing to millennium development goal (eds.) kanel, k. r. mathema, p., kanel, b. r., niraula, d. r., sharma, a. r. and gautam, m. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 4-6 august, 2004, kathmandu. baral, j. c. 2002. depleting forests, silent spectators: who should manage nepal’s terai forest? journal of forest and livelihood 2 (1):34-40. cbs, 2003. population census 2001. central bureau of statistics, kathmandu. chakraborty, r. n. 2001. stability and outcomes of common property institutions in forestry: evidence from the terai region of nepal. ecological economics 36:341-353. dhakal, m. 2006. participatory management of lowland forests for improving local livelihood: a case study of nawalparasi district, nepal. unpublished master’s thesis in environmental sciences, university of tsukuba, japan. dhakal, m. and masuda, m. 2007. community forest management in the terai region of nepal: contribution to the local and national economy. in cross-sector policy development in forestry, (eds) y.c. dube and f. schimithusen, food and agriculture organization of united nations, rome. gautam, a. p., shivakoti, g. p., and webb, e. l. 2004. a review of forest policies, institutions, and changes in the resources condition in nepal. international forestry review 6 (2): 136-148. dhakal and masuda 61 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 gautam, k. h. 2006. forestry, politicians, and power-perspectives from nepal’s forest policy. forest policy and economics 8:175-182. hill, i. 1999. forest management in nepal: economics and ecology. world bank technical paper no. 445, washington dc. iversen, v., chhetry, b., francis, p., gurung, m., kafle, g., pain, a. & seeley, j. 2006. high value forests, hidden economics, and elite capture: evidence from forest user groups in nepals’s terai. ecological economics 58: 93-107. kandel b. r. and kanel.k. r. 2006. achievements and challenges of community forests (nepali version). in hamro ban. the annual report of department of forest 2061/2062 b.s., kathmandu. kanel, k. r. and niraula, d. r. 2004. can rural livelihood be improved through community forestry? bank janakari, 14 (1): 19-26. kanel, k. 2004. twenty-five years’ of community forestry: contribution to millennium development goals. in twenty-five years of community forestry: contributing to millennium development goal (eds.) kanel, k. r. mathema, p., kanel, b. r., niraula, d. r., sharma, a. r. and gautam, m. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 4-6 august, 2004, kathmandu. malla, y. b. 2000. impact of community forestry policy on rural livelihoods and food security in nepal. unasylva 51: 37-45. maskey, v., gebremedhin, t. g., and dalton, t. j. 2006. social and cultural detriments, of collective forest management of community forest in nepal. journal of forest economics 11: 261-274. mpfs, 1989. master plan for forestry sector. ministry of forests & soil conservation, kathmandu. npc, 2002. poverty reduction strategy plan. national planning commission, kathmandu. ostrom, e., grander, r., and wakar, j. 1994. rules, games and common pool resources. the university of michigan press, usa. the government of nepal, 1993. forest act 1993. ministry of law and affairs, kathmandu. dhakal and masuda trees and shrubs are important component of rural farming system in nepal. this paper assesses tree diversity and carbon pool of trees and shrubs outside forests as well as their contribution in the rural economy of the study area. in the land use classification map derived from the high resolution alos pan-sharpened imagery, random selection was made among systematic grid in the agriculture class to find out the inventory plot. the plot was designed as nested plot. firstly, tree measurement was done and then leaves, branch samples as well as soil samples were collected from each sample plot. structured questionnaire survey was used to assess the contribution of trees and shrubs on rural livelihoods. the biomass and soil samples were analyzed using dry combustion method to estimate the carbon content. the amount of carbon stock difference between farmland with tof and without tof was found 26.56 mg (megagram) ha-1. there was 350,714.6 mg above ground carbon, 35,103.36 mg root carbon and 84451.18 mg soil carbon accumulated by total trees and shrubs on farms in the district. hence, the total carbon pool of the district in different agroforestry systems was estimated to be 470,269.18 mg. homegarden system was found to be a good agroforestry system in terms of having higher species richness, tree diversity and relatively higher amount of above and below ground carbon per unit area. the results also showed that the trees on farms contributed16.4% (nrs. 3689 per household/year) and 17.1% (nrs. 2613 per household/year) of farmland income and livestock income respectively. the results, thus, indicate that trees on farms have visible impacts on rural livelihoods, harboring rich plant diversity and sequestering substantial amount of carbon. key words: biomass, soil carbon, tree diversity, trees outside forest trees on farms: diversity, carbon pool and contribution to rural livelihoods in kanchanpur district of nepal s. k. baral1*, r. malla1, s. khanal1 and r. shakya1 nepal extends over an area of 147,181 sq. km. in the lap of the central himalayas in the south asia. geographically, nepal is an extremely diverse country. it includes the flat plains of the terai in the south and the sloping terrain of the mid-hills and snowy mountains in the north (hmg/n, 2003). this diversity combines and interacts with factors such as social organization, religious belief and access to land and markets to give rise to a wide variety of farming systems and great variances within them (mahat, 1987; gibbon and schultz, 1989; thapa, 1994) which in turn has resulted in several agroforestry practices. gilmour and nurse (1991) mentioned that farmers planted fodder trees on the nearest farmland in nepal. likewise, a large number of multipurpose trees and shrubs are deliberately retained or incorporated on farms in the subsistence farming systems on the steep slopes in different parts of nepal (fonzen and oberholzer, 1985). the farmers who cultivate land for crops production also raise livestock, and depend upon tree resources for the support of both components (mahat, 1987; thapa, 1994). tree growing practices in and around homesteads, and on farmland has long been associated in rural areas of nepal, and hence, considered as integral components of rural livelihoods (oli, 2002). these tree resources are considered as trees outside forest (tof) (gfra, 2000). the contribution of these trees and shrubs has high potential for livelihood improvement (regmi and garforth, 2010). a study carried out by kharal et al. (2008) found that the trees outside forest contain 3.3 m3ha-1 stem volume in nawalparasi district of nepal. on the other hand, socio-economic condition of the area affects farmland tree diversity (kharal and oli, 2008). hence, there is a growing interest in assessing carbon sequestration potential and biodiversity of trees and shrubs on farms and its impact on rural livelihoods. 1 department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal * corresponding author: sharadbaral@gmail.com 3 banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 4 although the nepalese tree resources outside forest can play a valuable role for enhancing sustainable development and people’s livelihoods (giri, 2004; fao, 2002), the main focus has always been more on trees in forests that are viewed as a resource and a store of biological diversity. in addition, trees outside forests (trees grown on farmland, in and around homesteads and human settlements, in road and canal side and in other land use categories) have not been included in national forest inventory, even though they have diverse functions for wellbeing of humankind and in maintaining the natural environment (oli, 2002). therefore, this study attempts to assess the different agroforestry systems under tof and their contribution on trees and shrub species diversity, rural livelihoods and climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration. materials and methods study area kanchanpur district lies in the far-western plain also known as terai, and covers an area of 161,740 hectares. it stretches between 85°24’ – 85°49’ e longitudes and 28°23’ – 29°8’ n latitudes. the district is rich in forest resources occupying 88,200 ha (including rivers) of the entire district whereas the cultivated land occupies 59,532 ha (ddc, 2005). the altitude of the area varies from 54 m to 465 m above mean sea level. the general climate of the area is subtropical. the mean daily ambient temperature varied from 6.96°c to 43°c; the mean annual temperature being 30.50°c. the area received an average annual rainfall of 1,575 mm. the relative humidity remains fairly high throughout the year except in the dry months of the pre-monsoon period. the terrain is almost flat, and is composed of alternate layers of clay and sand. kanchanpur district is shown in figure 1. a baseline study carried out by paudel et al. (2008) in 6 village development committees (vdcs) of kanchanpur district showed that agriculture was the main occupation of the people (83%). people used to make 85.3% of their income from agriculture. only 61.9% of the people were food self-sufficient for a year round. ninety nine per cent of the people possessed their own land and the average landholding per household was 27.3 kattha (9,100 m2). agriculture was supported by livestock farming. ninety six per cent of the household used to raise livestock and the average animal holding was 4.7 cattle equivalent. the main livestock rearing systems were grazing, stall feeding, and tethering. for stall feeding and tethering, people get fodder mainly (73%) from their own land. remote sensing data analysis and sample plot location for classifying landuse and obtaining agricultural area, satellite image (2007 alos pan sharpened: 2.5 m) from the department of forest research and survey (dfrs) archive was used. firstly, geometric correction and image enhancement was done. then unsupervised classification supported by ground truthing was done in may, 2009. in the post classification, maximum likelihood method supported by field verification data and other secondary maps were used. the accuracy assessment was carried out using error matrix. for this purpose 200 randomly placed points were generated by the software and compared with gps (global positioning system) data from field, aerial photographs and topographic map. this gave the classification accuracy of 85%. topographic maps and aerial photographs and satellite imagery were used as secondary data. sampling design once the coverage of the area, which includes agricultural area and other land uses such as forest, river, sand and water bodies, was generated from the classified image; square shaped systematic grids of four square kilometers were overlaid on the area outside forest and each sample point (intersection point of the grid) was selected randomly using the frame sampling tools of erdas imagine 9.1 (erdas, 2007; erdas, 2008). using fig. 1: location of kanchanpur district in the map of nepal baral et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 5 baral et al. the sample selection option, 45 sample plots (25%) out of the total 181 plots were randomly selected in the study site; 15 plots within the areas having agri-silviculture practices, 6 plots within the areas covered by roadside plantation, 4 plots within the areas under silvo-pasture (private plantation) practices, and the rest 20 plots within home-gardens. plot design the map showing the plot location as well as coordinate list of plots was printed for field visit. one hectare circular sample plots (radius = 56.4 m) were laid out in the field for measurement of tree height and diameter (at breast height, dbh). five sub-plots of circular shape with 25 m2 (radius = 2.82 m) size were established; four at the cardinal directions and one at the center for measurement of shrubs (fig. 2). within each subplot, one 1 m x 1 m plot was established for herb measurement. fig. 2: design of sample plots tree measurement and soil sample collection height (up to cm accuracy) and dbh (up to mm accuracy) of each tree and shrub present in the sample plots were measured using suntoclinometer and diameter tape respectively. soil samples were collected from the ground near the standing trees on the farms and the agriculture lands and also from the roadside plantation areas. soil samples (200 gm) were collected from 0–10 cm and from 10–30 cm horizons from the 30 cm deep pits for chemical analysis. besides, separate soil samples were collected using a sharp-edged iron cylinder (height 5 cm and diameter 7 cm) for bulk-density determination. the amount of litter present on the ground surface was estimated by collecting the same from each sub-plot using a 30 cm x 30 cm wooden-frame. for shrubs and other small undergrowths, destructive sampling was done. biomass samples (leaves, timber, shrubs, herbs, and litter) as well as the soil samples were transported to the soil laboratory of dfrs for laboratory analysis of carbon content. social survey semistructured questionnaire was used to collect the socioeconomic impact of the farm trees on rural livelihoods. other primary data were collected through field observation, field measurement, key informant’s survey and using checklist. the secondary data were compiled from the district profile and the baseline survey report prerpared by paudel et al. (2008). data analysis the tree and shrub diversity was determined using species richness, basal area ratio, and occurrence of rare and endangered species. tree diversity was calculated by using shannon-weiner index (equation 1). the higher number of species and more even distribution both increase diversity as measured by h’. the high values of h’ is representative of more diverse community. a community with only one species would have h’ value of 0, because pi would be equal to 1 and be multiplied by log pi which would equal to zero. so the h’ value allows us to know not only the number of species but also how the abundance of the species is distributed among all the species in the community (magurran, 1988). shannon-wiener index (h’) = ∑ = ×− s i pipi 1 log .. ......................................... (1) where, s = number of species, and pi = proportion of the ith species in a community. soil bulk-density (sbd) was calculated by using the following equation: sbd (g cm-3) = [dry soil mass (g)– stone mass (g)]/ [dry soil volume (cm-3)– stone volume (cm-3)] .. (2) above ground biomass, root biomass and carbon content were calculated using the following equations: dry wt. of tree biomass (agb) = e{-3.141+.9719ln(dbh*dbh*ht.)} (brown et al., 1989)....(3) i i banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 6 root biomass (mg ha-1) = e{-1.0587+.8836ln(agb)} (cairns et al., 1997).....………………. (4) carbon = biomass x carbon %................... (5) laboratory analysis the carbon content of different biomass such as stems, branches, leaves and soil samples were analyzed in the kathmandu university laboratory. for this purpose, 250 grams of biomass samples were collected from the particular stems, branches and leaves. the samples were used for carbon content analysis after drying at 70°c to a constant weight. soil bulk-density was determined by the core method. the soil organic carbon (soc) concentration was determined using the dry combustion method using oven-dry soil samples as the method was recommended by ipcc (2003) for carbon project. the carbon content of the samples was analyzed and estimated using equation (5). results and discussion landuse of kanchanpur district the largest land use of the district is occupied by the forest (48.49%) including protected area (pa) of the total area. agricultural land occupies 39.32%, grass/open land occupies 5.5% and the remaining area is occupied by sand/bolder, water and others (table 1). table 1: area occupied by different land uses s. n. land use area (ha) area (%) 1 forest 78,341.23 48.49 2 shrub 1,555.78 0.96 3 grass and open land 8,888.54 5.5 4 agriculture 63,592.86 39.32 5 sand/bolder 4,917.21 3.04 6 water 1,319.90 0.82 7 others 3,096.91 1.92 total 161,712.43 100 the total forest cover and other land uses were estimated using the satellite data (alos pan-sharpened) of 2007. the total forest cover of the district was reported to be 54% (88,000 ha) by forest resource information system project (frisp) (1994) which was decreased to 48.5% in this study. this may be due to shrub and grassland area which was zero in the frisp (1994) report; however, this study had indicated that 6.46% of the total land area of the district was occupied by shrub, grass and open land. from this fact, one could easily guess that about 6.5% of the forest land might have changed into shrub and grassland between 1994 and 2007 in the district. larger part of agricultural land is distributed in southern part of the churia (siwaliks), near the indian border (southern part of the district) and in dodhara and chandani vdcs. socio-economic conditions of the people the total population of the district is 377,899 (ddc, 2005). fifty households were randomly selected for socio-economic survey to get the information about impacts of farm trees on rural livelihoods. of the total sampled respondents, 72% were male and 28% were female. similarly, 87% were literate and the remaining 13% were illiterate. occupation majority of the people were dependent on both agricultural and non-agricultural activities for their livelihoods. fifteen per cent of the population was found to be entirely dependent on agriculture while only 7% on non-agriculture. food security the study found that the people had insufficient food production from their agricultural land because of low productivity and not having enough land to produce. half of the people had sufficient amount of food available for yearlong and remaining half were under the food crisis. twenty four households had enough land to produce food-grain for yearlong. however, the remaining 9, 10 and 7 households had the land that only can produce food grains for 6 to 12 months, 3 to 6 months and less than 3 months respectively. livestock distribution this study reveals that livestock distribution was dominated by goats (39%) and was followed by buffalo (31%) and cow (30%). livestock farming was one of the important income sources for the people. baral et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 7 baral et al. different income sources respondents were asked about their total and how the different income sources share the total. according to our field survey there were six types of major income sources. out of six sources of income, income from crop and vegetable farming, income from services and income from livestock farming played vital role, which makes three fourth of the total income (fig. 3). contribution of farmland tree on farmland and livestock income the average household income of the people in kanchanpur district was nrs.78,002.00 (cbs, 2004). from our field survey, it was found that the farmland income and livestock income shared 28.8% and 19.5% respectively of the total household income (i.e. average annual household income of the people in kanchanpur district). similarly, farmland trees contribute 16.4% (nrs. 3,689.00 per household/year) and 17.1% (nrs. 2613 per household/year) on farmland income and livestock income respectively (fig. 4). relative abundance of trees species on farmland dalbergia sissoo and mangifera indica were the most abundant species planted on the farmland. eucalyptus camaldulensis, populus deltoides, leucaena leucocephala, trewia nudiflora, syzygium cumini, melia azedarach, psidium guajava and artocarpus lakoocha are the common tree species planted by the farmers (fig. 5). kharal et al. (2008) has also found dalbergia sissoo and mangifera indica as the most abundant tree species in nawalparasi district. species richness, diversity index and biomass of trees planted on farms area under tof was grouped into four major tree planting systems such as homegarden, roadside plantation, private plantation and agrisilviculture. species richness, tree diversity index and biomass per unit area were assessed among the systems. homegarden system had the highest species richness, shannon weiner index for tree diversity and higher biomass per unit area. similarly, the silvo-pasture (private plantation) had the highest biomass per unit area, but it had the lowest species richness and tree diversity index. likewise, agrisilviculture system had relatively higher species richness but the lower shannon weiner index for tree diversity and biomass per unit area (table 2). the wide individual distribution of the few tree species was the main reason for lower tree diversity index which is similar to kharal and oli (2008). this study showed average above and below ground biomass of tof was fig. 4: contribution of tof on agriculture and livestock income fig. 3: types of income sources and their share in total income banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 8 baral et al. 8153 kgha-1 which is similar to the findings of a study in tanzania (giri, 2004). homegarden system and roadside plantation were the efficient agroforestry systems for maintaining higher tree diversity and higher biomass per unit area. soil orgainic carbon under different agroforestry systems/cultivation practices maintenance of biodiversity and carbon sequestration through the process of photosynthesis are two important and complementary environmental service functions of agro-ecosystems (henry et al., 2009). in this study, soc under different agroforestry systems were analyzed and compared separately, because it is an appealing option for sequestering carbon on agricultural lands and it can sequester significant amounts of carbon while leaving the bulk of the land in agricultural production (schoeneberger, 2009). homegarden system had higher soc followed by roadside plantation and agri-silviculture system respectively (table 3). in the upper layer of soil (0–10 cm soil depth) both homegarden and roadside plantation had the fig. 5: relative abundance of trees species on farmland table 2: species richness, tree diversity and biomass of trees planted on farms s. n. agroforestry system species richness shannon weiner index average above and below ground biomass (dry wt. kgha-1) 1 homegarden 51 0.67 9092.167 2 roadside plantation 19 0.41 8411.826 3 silvo-pasture (private plantation) 3 0.13 11817.090 4 agri-silviculture 39 0.18 3293.801 table 3: soil organic carbon under different cultivation practices s.n. agroforestry system soil depth bulk density soc (mg g-1) 1 homegarden 0-10 cm 1.09 18.85 (1.7) 10-30 cm 1.17 12.57 (1.8) 2 agri-silviculture 0-10 cm 1.17 7.29 (1.4) 10-30 cm 1.28 5.84 (1.3) 3 roadside plantation 0-10 cm 1.35 18.58 (1.6) 10-30 cm 1.33 9.18 (1.4) note: standard errors of the corresponding values are presented in parentheses. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 9 baral et al. same (18 mgg-1) soc however in deeper layer (10–30 cm soil depth), homegarden system had much higher amount (12.57 mgg-1) of soc. soil organic carbon stock down to 30cm soil depth in agriculture land and the area occupied by trees on farms soc in agricultural land without tree (23.48 mg ha-1) was calculated and subtracted from the average amount of soc (50.04 mg ha-1) under trees on farms to estimate the total amount of c-sequestration per hectare in soil by trees on farms i.e. 26.56 mg ha-1 (table 4). table 4: soil organic carbon stock up to 30cm soil depth in agriculture land and the area occupied by trees on farms s.n. landuse soc mg/ha-1 1 soc in agricultural land without tree 23.48 2 soc in trees on farms 50.04 c-sequestration in soil 26.56 total soil organic carbon stock by farm trees and shrubs it was estimated that the total trees and shrubs on farms in kanchanpur district had sequestered 350,714.6 mg above ground carbon, 35,103.36 mg root carbon and 84,451.18 mg soil carbon (0–30 cm soil depth). hence, the total carbon pool in the trees outside forest in kanchanpur district of nepal was estimated to be 470,269.18 mg (table 5). table 5: total soil organic carbon stock created by farm trees and shrubs s. n. details carbon (mg ha-1) total carbon stock (mg) 1 above ground 5.515 350,714.6 2 root 0.552 35,103.26 3 soil carbon 26.56 84,451.32 total 470,269.18 note: area occupied by trees on farms=3,179.643 ha was calculated by measuring crown diameter of each tree. trees planted on farmland contribute 16 and 17% to agricultural income and livestock income respectively. in addition, trees on farms have been recognized that it protects soil, water and biological diversity, provide shelter and shade for the local people. at the same time it contributes on climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration (26.56 mg ha-1). hence, the relationships of people, agriculture, and trees were found inseparably interlinked and interdependent. there is a tendency of choosing multipurpose tree species (legumes, fruits, fodder, timber and firewood) for planting trees outside the forest areas. this study recorded 51 species in homegarden system. still the total number of species seems fairly low compared to the study in north-eastern india that recorded 197 species in homegarden (tynsong and tiwari, 2010). it indicates that there are lots of other species that could be suitable for tof plantation (especially for agroforestry) for maintaining tree diversity and diversifying agroforestry products. this study also found that people were very interested to plant several species in homegarden because diversity is the prime consideration for fodder and fruit species as people want to have fruits of different taste in different seasons (kharal and oli, 2008). however, they were very selective when they had to plant a tree species in the crop field (agri-silviculture). it reveals the fact that people are more sensitive on agricultural production while managing agri-silviculture. moreover, the species diversity is less important for fuelwood and timber species (kharal and oli, 2008). therefore, before planting a tree species in an agricultural field, they just want to be sure that the tree species will produce maximum benefits and minimum negative effects on the yield of cereal crops. the high soc under homegarden and roadside plantation than agri-silviculture shows that there is relatively less organic matter deposition in agriculture (nair, 2009). soc estimate in homegarden system is comparable to a study in western kenya (henry et al., 2009). although, there was a positive relationship between tree diversity and carbon stocks (homegarden system), it was not a direct relationship. it just can be considered as an additive agro-ecosystem function. carbon sequestration projects that contribute to enhance biodiversity should be considered as more accurate and secure in the long term than other large scale plantation projects. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 10 baral et al. it, eventually, proves that tof resources are inevitable part of life of the local people in kanchanpur district. the role of tof has been increasing in the present context i.e. for supporting livelihood of the local people, biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, combating desertification, and mitigating climate change etc. however, it is necessary to recognize its social, economical and ecological role. conclusion trees on farms have visible and significant impact on rural livelihoods of the people in kanchanpur district. a wide diversity of tree species recorded shows that farmland are repository of high plant diversity as farm trees particularly in homegardens or scattered in and around homesteads. the trees contributed substantial amount of carbon storage. potentials of agro-forestry, along with the continued progress in our scientific understanding, will be imperative if they are to be included in future formulations of national-level carbon trading and other natural resource management strategies. therefore, further studies aiming at analyzing the feasibility of c-sequestration in farming systems focusing on the long-term resilience of c-storage and biodiversity, the potential for below ground c-sequestration and social factors that may influence adoption of c-sequestration practices by specifically designed sampling technique according to tree distribution pattern in the agroforestry systems are recommended. acknowledgements the financial support for the study from the livelihoods forestry programmeme (lfp), baluwatar, kathmandu is highly appreciated. we also acknowledge mr. yam prasad pokharel, mr. raj kumar giri and mr. devendra lal karna, dfrs for their company and support during the field work and mr. deepak 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thesis, university of wales, uk. tynsong, h. and tiwari, b. k. 2010. plant diversity in the homegardens and their significance in the livelihoods of war khasi community of meghalaya, north-east india. journal of biodiversity 1 (1):1–11. baral et al. final corrected banko janakari 18-2.pmd 53 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 epiphytic orchids of nepal m. ghimire1 this paper includes a list of 207 species of epiphytic orchids from nepal that belong to 49 genera including 5 endemic species (bulbophyllum ambrosia, eria baniai, e. nepalensis, oberonia nepalensis and pleione coronaria). phytogeographical distribution along with altitudinal ranges of all of these epiphytic species, phenology of flowering of 199 species and host plant(s) of 148 species have been reported herewith. the aim of this paper is to assess the distribution patterns, host-epiphyte relationship and phenology of flowering of nepalese epiphytic orchids. key words: epiphytic orchids, host range, phenology, nepal 1 ministry of forest and soil conservation, singha durbar, kathmandu e-mail: ghimire.madhu@gmail.com floral diversity of nepal is disproportionally rich owing to its geographical and climatic variations. these variations result in a number of ecological zones and a wealth of habitats. the habitat types, which favor this floral diversity, range from dense tropical monsoon evergreen forest of the terai to deciduous forest of subtropical, mixed broad-leaved forest of temperate region, followed by coniferous alpine scrub and snow covered himalayan peaks. regarding the nepalese floral diversity, there are 5856 species of flowering plants (annon, 2006) that have so far been documented. orchids represent one of the largest, successful and diverse groups of flowering plants which belong to family orchidaceae, in the plant group the monocotyledon. orchids differ from other plants by the mode of growth and morphological characters possessed by its members. there are two major modes of growth: i. sympodial growth: refers to the pseudobulbs or stem being jointed by a rhizome, and ii. monopodial growth : refers to the plant having no pseudobulb and have a single shoot producing leaves alternately. the special morphological characters of orchid flowers that are not shown by other group of plants are as follows: modification of a petal into plate-form like structure the “labellum” or “lip” for the visiting pollinators. union of male reproductive organ, the stamens and female reproductive organ, the pistil to form a single structure called ‘column’ or gynostegium. arrangement of pollen in a group called ‘pollinia’ usually presence of a single fertile stamen and always on one side of flower. lip always on lower side of the flower and the column on upper side. presence of numerous tiny seeds without endosperm or organized embryo symbiotic association of mycorrhiza is important for seed germination. epiphytic orchids are those found growing upon the bark of other trees or shrubs at least part of their life cycle and always have drooping inflorescence. epiphytism is shown simply by plants that grow upon another plant usually a shrub or tree at least for part of its life cycle. this habit of growth is by no means limited to the orchid, though it is one of the best known characteristics of the orchidaceae family. epiphytism occurs in 65 different families of vascular plants, involving about 850 genera and nearly 30,000 species of which about 500 genera and 20,000 species belong to orchid alone (madison, 1977). epiphytism is for support and exposure to sunlight, water and nutrients being absorbed through their absorbing roots which are provided with green tissue surrounded by velamen and epidermis acting as sponge. there are several important differences between epiphytes and terrestrial habitats. light and moisture availability is one important difference. other factors, such as better exposure to pollinators, greater seed dispersal and avoidance of slugs and other terrestrial herbivores, may also be favorable aspects of the epiphytic habitat (madison, 1977). on the other hand, mineral nutrients are usually in short supply for epiphytes and most orchids are tolerant of low substrate fertility (benzing, 1973). most of 54 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 the tropical species have epiphytic habit and are characterized by long roots. they used their roots to hold them to their host and to collect nutrients from around their root system and also moisture from the air. some epiphytes are provided with fleshy pseudobulbs, which are considered as store house since they help in perennation during dry season. in nepal, orchidaceae is the largest family in term of species richness comprising 377 species under 100 genera (rajbhandari and dahal, 2004). rajbhandari et al. (1999) reported about 185 species of epiphytic orchids from nepal. press et al. (2000) recorded 323 species including 175 epiphytic orchid species from nepal. hara et al. (1978) noted 313 species under 89 genera of orchid from nepal. however, numbers of epiphytic species were not distinguished. orchids are very beautiful and fascinating plants. most of the epiphytic orchids have very beautiful and attractive flowers, variously shaped pseudobulbs and shiny green leaves. due to their beautiful flowers, long blooming period, orchids have become great favorites in the horticultural trade and for internal decoration. the greatest threat to the conservation of nepalese orchids is due to habitat loss, forest destruction and degradation. these orchids are collected for medicinal purposes in large quantities from their natural habitat. due to over exploitation of these orchids for various purposes, many orchids have become rare. due to these reasons, the orchids have been categorized in the group of endangered plants, and are legally protected. despite the ban imposed by government of nepal for collection and trade, orchid species that have high medicinal values are being collected illegally. the paper provides a glimpse of the distribution and status of 207 epiphytic orchid species together with their flowering time and their host plant(s) for most of these species. west. = west nepal, i.e., from western boarder to 83 o e. cent. = central nepal, i.e., from 83 o e to 86 o 30' e. east. = east nepal, i.e., from 86o 30' e to eastern boarder. kath = (national herbarium and plant laboratories, kathmandu, nepal) objective the main objective of this paper is to assess the diversity of all epiphytic orchids from nepal along with their distribution pattern, phenology of flowering, and host-orchids relationship. it is hoped that this article will help to highlight the need and importance of the study of epiphytic orchid flora of nepal, and it will serve as baseline data for further research in this field. materials and methods the following methods were utilized for the achievement of the above objective: • field surveys carried out in different parts of kathmandu valley to explore orchids in the natural habitat. • study of orchids specimens collected from various parts of nepal and deposited at national herbarium (kath) with specific focus on host plant(s) and flowering time • use of information from secondary sources like hara et al. (1978), banerji and thapa (1978), banerji and pradhan (1984), malla et al. ed.(1986), paudyal (1982), rajbhandari et al. (1999), press et al. (2000), white and sharma (2000), bajracharya (2005), rajbhandari and bhattarai (2001), rajbhandari and dahal (2004), ghimire and pant (2006), etc. results and discussion a total of 207 species of orchids belonging to 49 genera were reported and enumerated as epiphytes (annex-1). bulbophyllum is the largest epiphytic genus comprising 34 species. dendrobium, eria and oberonia are second, third and fourth largest genus comprising 26, 22, and 19 epiphytic species, respectively. phytogeographical distribution of all 207 species, phenology of flowering for 199 species and host plants of 148 species are also provided. among the 207 epiphytic species, 81 species were reported from central nepal alone; similarly, 47 species are limited to east nepal. besides these, 69 species are found distributed in east and central nepal; 9 species ( otochilus lancilabius, ione bicolor, gastrochilus calceolaris, dendrobium denudans, d. transparens, cymbidium bicolor, coelogyne nitida, c. cristata and bulbophyllum reptans) are distributed throughout the country from east to west. only one species coelogyne ovalis is reported from west and central nepal (fig.1). ghimire 55 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 no. of species 64, 32% 13, 7% 12, 6%6, 3%36, 18% 48, 24% 14, 7% 6, 3% summer spring autumn winter aut-win spr-sum sum-aut win-spr 47, 23% 81, 40% 0, 0% 69, 33% 1, 0% 9, 4% east central west east/central central/west west/central/east no. of species 77 44 6 22 56 1 1 upto 1500m upto 2000m 500-2400m 900-3000m 1500-3000m 2200-4200m 3000-4200m fig.1: regional distribution of epiphytic orchid species. among 207 epiphytic orchid species, flowering time of 199 species were reported. the highest number of 64 species were found blooming in summer season (may-august), similarly 13 species in spring (march-april), 12 species in autumn(12) and the least number 6 species during winter season (novemberfebruary), (annex-1). many species are not limited to one particular season for flowering as, 48, 36, 14 and 6 species bloom during spring-summer, autumnwinter, summer-autumn and winterspring season respectively (fig.2). 2000 m.). about 22 species are found only in between 900 m-3000 m. similarly, 56 species are found only in between 1500 m.-3000 m. about 6 species (eria excavata, liparis viridiflora, pholidota articulata, p. imbriata, p. protracta and odontochilus crispus) are found distributed in tropical to temperate region (500-2400 m.). pleione hookeriana is found extended from 2200-4200 m, whereas diphylax urceolata is found in between 30004200 m. it indicates that epiphytic orchids are more concentrated in tropical and subtropical (upto 2000 m) region and slightly decreases towards temperate (2000-3000 m) and sub-alpine (3000-4000 m) region, and nearly nil in the alpine (above 4000 m) region. fig.2: flowering time of epiphytic orchid species of the total 207 epiphytic orchid species, host(s) plant of only 148 species were reported. schima wallichii, quercus sp.(q. glauca, q.semicarpifolia, q.lanuginosa and other qurecus species), rhododendron sp.(r. arboreum, r. barbatum and other rhododendron species), shorea robusta, and castanopsis sp. (c. indica, c. tribuloides, and other castanopsis species) are the major top five host(s) plant and represent 65, 42, 20, 18 and 18 epiphytic orchid species respectively (annex-1). this study shows that epiphytic orchids prefer to grow on the tropical to temperate tree accessories. epiphytic orchid species show the intermixed type of distribution in term of their phyto-geographical diversity (fig 3.). among the 207 epiphytic species, 77 species are found below 1500 m, similarly, without overlapping with previous data, 44 species are distributed in tropical and subtropical belts (upto fig. 3: phytogeographical distribution of epiphytic orchid species. nepal has a tremendous diversity of natural communities and several major vegetations type. the family orchidaceae in nepal consists of about 377 species under 100 genera (rajbhandari and dahal, 2004) and is the largest family in terms of species richness. among them, this paper enumerates a total of 207 epiphytic orchid species from nepal. rajbhandari et al. (1999) reported 185 epiphytic species from the whole of nepal. however he did not mention the name of epiphytic species. press et al. (2000), mentioned 175 epiphytic species out of total 323 species of orchid that belonged to 89 genera. press et al. included all the species of genus cymbidium under epiphytic habit, while some genera like diphylax, liparis etc. did not include epiphytic habit. but this study did not match with the reports of press et al. only 8 species of cymbidium out of 10 were reported as epiphytic, while genera diphylax and few species of liparis and many more were also reported as epiphytic. many more species remain to be explored further. in context to distribution of nepalese epiphytic orchids, central and eastern part of nepal harbors the majority of the orchid species. central nepal alone represents 81 species of epiphytic orchids, whereas east nepal represents 47 species. besides ghimire 56 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 these, 69 species are distributed from east to central nepal. about 9 species (bulbophyllum reptans (20002200 m), coelogyne cristata (1000-2450 m), c. nitida (1300-2400 m), cymbidium bicolor (900-1500 m), dendrobium denudns (1000-2200 m), d. transparens (7002000 m), gastochilus calceolaris (900-2700 m), ione bicolor (1500-2500 m) and otochilus lancilabius (1400-2500 m)), are distributed throughout the country from east to west. one species coelogyne ovalis (1300-1700 m) is limited to central and western nepal. the largest number (121 species) of epiphytic orchids are found limited to tropical and subtropical regions (upto-2000 m) of nepal, whereas 22 species (9003000 m) and 6 species (500-2400 m.) are extended from tropical to temperate regions of nepal. similarly 56 species (1500-30000 m.) are found distributed from subtropical to temperate regions. tropical, subtropical to temperate regions show the intermix distribution and represent the best place for epiphytic orchid diversity. sub-alpine (3000-4000 m) and alpine (above 4000 m) zones show poor distribution of epiphytic orchids, consists of only 2 species, diphylax urceolata (3000-4200 m, e./c.), pleione hookeriana (22004200 m, e./c.). the present study reports the host(s) plant of 148 species of epiphytic orchid. of them, 65 species of orchid select schima wallichii for the host. other host(s) plant species more important for epiphytic orchid are quercus spp (q. glauca, q. semicarpifolia, q. lanuginosa, q. griffithii etc.), rhododendron spp. (r. arboreum, r. barbatum etc.) shorea robusta, and castanopsis spp. (c. indica, c. tribuloides etc.) and they represent about 42, 20, 18, and 18 species of epiphytic orchid respectively. chiloschista parishii and c. usneoides are two leafless orchids, that select the smooth tree trunk of pyrus pashia and quercus glauca as their hosts. many species of bulbophyllum love to grow upon the inclined tree trunk of schima wallichiii with mossy bark. most of the species of the genus dendrobium grow on the tree trunk of schima wallichii, shorea robusta, quercus glauca, castanopsis indica, rhododendron sp. with roughed mossy bark. diphylax urceolata, a subalpine species selects rhododendron barbatum for their host. it also shows the lithophytic habit. some epiphytic species like gastrochilus affine and pleione hookeriana select some gymnosperm species like tsuga dumosa, abies spectabilis. likewise thrixspermum pygmaeum hosted upon the pinus roxburghii. ione bicolor was found growing on the small branch of quercus semicarpifolia with crustose and fructicose lichens. hence the report shows that ione bicolor was always associated with the lichen species. the genus vanda loves to grow upon the dalbergia sissoo and madhuca latifolia, schima wallichii. aerides multiflora and rhynchostylis retusa are some of the most beautiful orchids, that showed diverse host(s) ranges like schima wallichii, ficus sp., albizzia sp., madhuca latifolia, mangifera indica, lagerstroemia sp., eugenia formosa, bauhinia sp., mallotus philippensis, rhododendron arboreum. other important plants useful for epiphytic host are terminalia sp., artocarpus sp., cinnamomum tamala, dalbergia sissoo, lyonia ovalifolia, daphniphyllum himalense etc. the phenology of flowering of orchids species are variable throughout the year. of the implicated epiphytic orchid species, flowering time of only 199 species are recorded. of them, about 64 species were found blooming only in summer season. similarly 13 and 12 species found blooming only in spring and autumn season respectively, whereas at least 6 species (bulbophyllum hirtum, cleisostoma simondii coelogyne fuliginosa, dendrobium peguanum, eria baniai and otochilus fuscus) are found blooming only in winter season, as they required low temperature, rainfall and humidity. high temperature, rainfall and high humidity favor the orchid flowering. in the case of epiphytic orchids, many species are not confined in one particular season for flowering. but, altogether 48 species are found flowering during summer and spring season. similarly, 36 species are found flowering in autumnwinter season. though, summer-autumn and winterspring seasons are less favorable for orchid flowering, represent 14 and 6 species respectively. many epiphytic orchid species have high ornamental and medicinal values. they are highly extracted from their natural habitat for commercial purpose. however, those epiphytic orchids with no economic important are also exploited and their population has decreased day by day due to habitat loss. cutting of one individual tree in the forest is not a major problem but a serious concern is that, it is a loss of habitat of many epiphytic plants especially epiphytic orchids. there is the global demand of many orchid species with high medicinal value. developed countries pay an attention toward the developing countries like nepal with rich biodiversity. they knowingly or unknowingly import our valuable natural resources like medicinal orchids species in the form of raw material from our country day by day, using local traders. nowadays, many orchid species like coelogyne cristata, dendrobium aphyllum, dendrobium candidum, dendrobium chrysanthum, dendrobium cripidatum, ghimire 57 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 dendrobium dedudans, dendrobium heterocarpum, dendrobium transparens etc., with high medicinal value, are being collected in large amount by local people from various parts of country. traders collect them in large amount for commercial purpose and ultimately export them outside the country illegally. though, the family orchidaceae is under cites appendix ii, many orchids species with high global demand due to their medicinal values are extracted day by day from their natural habitats. conclusion this study documents a preliminary list of 207 species of epiphytic orchids that belong to 49 genera. it represents about 55% of the total existing species of family orchidaceae in nepal. phyto-geographical distribution of all species, phenology of flowering of 199 species and host plants of 148 species were also reported. orchids are cosmopolitan in distribution. most of tropical and subtropical species have epiphytic habit and hosted upon the tropical and subtropical vegetation accessories like shorea robusta, schima wallichii, castanopsis indica, quercus semicarpifolia, rhododendron sp. etc, whereas, subalpine and alpine region show the very poor distribution of epiphytic orchids. epiphytic orchids are mostly concentrated in central (81 species) and eastern (47 species) nepal alone, whereas 9 species are found distributed throughout the country. the western part of country represents very poor diversity of epiphytic orchids. tropical, subtropical to temperate regions (upto 3000s) are the best place for the epiphytic orchid diversity, as these belts represent almost all 205 species, among the total 207 epiphytic orchid species from the nepal. only two species diphylax urceolata and pleione hookeriana are found extended to subalpine region. summer and spring seasons are most favorable for orchid flowering as most of the epiphytic orchid species (125) were found blooming during summer-spring seasons whereas autumn and winter season is less favorable for orchid flowering. therefore, only 54 species were found blooming during autumn-winter season. of the remaining species reported, twenty were reported to bloom during summer-autumn and winter-spring seasons. many epiphytic orchids with high ornamental and medicinal value were found being extracted to a large extent. therefore, their status is being threatened day by day and required strict conservation measured from the concerned agency. recommendations based on the findings of this study following recommendations are proposed: • a systematic study of nepalese orchids should be undertaken in order to understand their natural habitat, which will provide the ecological requirements of different species. • detailed study on nepalese orchid flora should be done from the conservation point of view. • control illegal collection and trade of orchid species. • protection of natural forest, habitat of epiphytic orchid should be done, by preventing deforestation. • tissue culture technique for a regeneration of valuable orchids can be applied in order to fulfill its demands in local level. • promotion of local nursery should be done in order to increase orchid population by vegetative methods to fulfill the demand of selected orchid species. acknowledgements author is grateful to d. r. pant, lecturer, institute of agriculture and animal science, rampur, chitwan, for fruitful discussion and comments on this paper. i am very much grateful to my husband dr. balkrishna acharya for his encouragement and moral support. i am also thankful to dr. s. r. baral, chief, national herbarium and plant laboratories, for his suggestions. thanks to dr. k.r. bhattarai, vidya manandhar, sajan dahal, of the national herbarium and plant laboratories for suggestions and comments on this paper. references anonymous, 2006. bulletin, 4th international mountain day, 11th december, government of nepal, ministry of forest and soil conservation. banerji, m. l. and pradhan, p. 1984. the orchids of nepal himalaya. j.cramer germany. banerji, m.l. and thapa, b.b. 1978. orchids of nepal. today and tomorrow printers and publishers, new delhi. benzin, d.h. 1973. mineral nutrition and related phenomena in bromaliaceae of orchidaceae, quarterly review of biology, 48:277-290 ghimire 58 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 ghimire, m.d. and pant, d.r. 2006. orchid of bajrabarahi forest of lalitpur district. in:proceedings of the national seminar on natural resource management. feb.13-14, 2004. hara, h., stearn, w.t. and williams, l.h.j. 1978. an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal. vol.1, british museum (natural history), london. madison, m. 1977. vascular epiphytes:their systematic occurrence and salient features, selbyana 2:1-13 malla, s.b., rajbhandari, s.b., shrestha, t.b., adhikari, p. m., adhikari, s. r. and shakya, p. r. 1986. flora of kathmandu valley. bulletin 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tribhuvan rajpatha and chitawan jungle. white lotus co.ltd. bankok, thailand. ghimire 59 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 scientific name distriution flowering time host plants acampe papillosa e/c.200-1200 m sept.-oct. shorea robusta, terminalia chebula semicarpus anacardium, schima wallichii acampe rigida e/c.200-1500 m sept.-nov. schima wallichii, mitragyna parviflora, aerides multiflora e/c.200-1100 m may-june schima wallichii, madhuca latifolia, ficus religiosa, eugenia formosa, albizzia sp., cleistocalyx operculata, lagerstroemis sp., ficus bengalensis, mangifera indica, alnus sp. aerides odoratum e/c.200-1200 m may-july castanopsis indica, shorea robusta, mitragyna parviflora, schima wallichii, sapium insigne, albizzia sp agrostophyllum callosum e/c.2100-2200 m may-aug. quercus glauca, lyonia ovalifolia, schima wallichii agrostophyllum planicaule e.500-800 m sept.-dec. terminalia sp. ascocentrum ampullaceum e/c.150-900 m march-may shorea robusta, bulbophyllum affine e/c.600-1800 m june-july sapium insigne, rhododendron arboreum, schima wallichii, castanopsis indica b. ambrosia c.1400 m __ __ b. bisetum c.1500-2000 m sept.-oct. __ b. careyanum e/c.600-2100 m oct.-dec. quercus glauca, q. lanata, schima wallichii b. cariniflorum c.1300-1800 m. __ __ b. cylindraceum e/c.1600-2400 m sept.-oct. pyrus pashia b. elatum c.900-1500 m may-june schima wallichii b. eublepharum e.2000-2500 m july-aug. __ b. gamblei e.200-2000 m june-july __ b. guttulatum c.1100-2300 m july-aug. schima wallichii b. helenae e.900-1200 m may-aug. __ b. hirtum c.1000-2600 m jan.-feb. schima wallichii, quercus lanuginosa b. leopardinum e/c.1500-3200 m july-aug. quercus sp. b. moniliforme c.1450 m __ __ b. muscicola c.2100-2400 m feb.-march rhododendron sp. b. odoratissimum c.1000-2000 m june-july quercus semicarpifolia, schima wallichii b. otoglossum e.2400-2800 m april __ b. polyrhizum c.900-2100 m may-june englehardtia spicata b. reptans wce2000-2200 m march-april quercus semicarpifolia, rhododendron arboreum b. retusiusculum e/c.2100-3000 m sept.-oct. rhododendron arboreum, quercus semicarpifolia, lyonia ovalifolia b. rigidum c.1000-1500 m oct.-nov. quercus semicarpifolia, b. rolfei e/c.2000-2500 m june-july __ b. roxburghii e.300-500 m may-june shorea robusta b. sarcophyllum e.1000-1200 m may-june __ b. scabratum e.2000-2200 m march-may __ b..secundum c.2000-2200 m july-aug. quercus glauca b. sterile c.500-2000 m oct.-nov. engelhardtia spicata, schima wallichii, mangifera indica b. striatum c.2000-2300 m oct.-nov. __ annex-1 ghimire 60 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 b. triste e/c.1200-1400 m june-july engelhardtia spicata b. umbellatum e/c.300-1800 m march-april quercus glauca, castanopsis indica b. viridiflorum e/c.1500-2200 m june-aug. castanopsis indica, schima wallichii b. wallichii c.1000-2500 m april-may schima wallichii b. xylophyllum e.910 m sept.-oct. __ b. yoksunense c.2000-2600 m sept.-oct. quercus sp. ceratostylis himalaica e.1700-1900 m june quercus griffithii chiloschista parishii e.1000-1800 m march-april pyrus pashia chiloschista usneoides c.1500-1700 m feb.-april quercus glauca cleisostoma aspersum e.600-1800 m april-aug. __ cleisostoma filiforme e/c.150-1300 m aug.-sep. schima wallichii, ficus sp. cleisostoma racemiferum e.1400-2000 m july-aug. litsea sp., zyzyphus incurva cleisostoma simondii c.500-600 m nov.-march __ coelogyne corymbosa e.1500-2900 m march-may quercus semicarpifolia, lyonia ovalifolia, rhododendron sp. coelogyne cristata wce.1000-2450 m feb.-april castanopsis indica, schima wallichii, quercus glauca, eriobotriya dubia coelogyne flaccida c.900-1100 m april-june schima wallichii coelogyne fuliginosa c.900-1500 m dec.-jan. schima wallichii coelogyne fuscescens c.1200-1800 m oct.-dec. castanopsis tribuloides, schima wallichii, rhododendron sp. coelogyne longipes e.1500-2300 m may-june quercus sp. coelogyne nitida wce.1300-2400 m april-june schima wallichii, lyonia ovalifolia, rhododendron sp. __ daphniphyllum himalense, coelogyne ovalis w/c.1300-1700 m sept.-dec.. rhododendron sp., schima wallichii coelogyne prolifera e/c.1000-2300 m april-june schima wallichii, sapium insigne, , quercus sp, rhododendron sp., castanopsis indica, ficus sp., engelhardtia spicata coelogyne punctulata e.200-2000 m march-april __ coelogyne stricta e/c.1400-2000 m april-june schima wallichii cryptochilus lutea e/c.1200-2300 m july-sep. lyonia ovalifolia c. sanguinea e/c.1600-2400 m may-july castanopsis sp. cymbidium aloifolium e/c.300-1600 m may-june artocarpus sp., shorea robusta, mangifera indica, engelhardtia spicata lagerstroemis sp., ehretia sp. woodfordia sp., butea minor cymbidium bicolor wce.900-1500 m april-may terminalia sp. c. devonianum e.1500-1800 m april-june quercus sp. c. eburneum e.300-1700 m march-may mangifera indica c. erythraeum e/c.1500-2400 m sept.-nov. quercus sp. c. hookerianum e.1600-2600 m jan.-april schima wallichii c. longifolium e/c.1500-2500 m oct.-dec. rhododendron sp., daphniphyllum himalense c. iridioides e/c.1500-2800 m sep.-dec schima wallichii dendrobium anceps e.200-1400 m april-may schima wallchii, mitragyne sp. d. aphyllum e/c.200-1500 m april-june castanopsis indica, schima wallichii, sapium insigne, alnus nepalensis, acer sp., dalbergia sp engelhardtia spicata, bischofia javanica, d. bicameratum c.1400-2400 m july-aug. quercus glauca, lyonia ovalifolia, d. candidum e/c.1500-2500 m sep.-oct quercus glauca ghimire 61 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 d. chrysanthum c.1300-2000 m june-oct. shorea robusta d. chryseum c.1200-2100 m april-june castanopsis sp. d. crepidatum c.1200-1400 m april-may __ d. cumulatum e.150-700 m june-july __ d. densiflorum e/c.900-2900 m april-june schima wallichii, machilus gambeli, d. denudans wce.1000-2200 m april-aug. schima wallichii, shorea robusta d. eriiflorum e/c.1500-2100 m sep.-oct. quercus glauca, berberis sp, schima wallichii, alnus nepalensis d. farmeri e.150-700 m april-may __ d.fimbriatum e/c.200-2100 m april-may schima wallichii, shorea robusta d. formosum e/c.500-1500 m april-june shorea robusta, schima wallichii d. gibsonii e.900-2000 m may-june __ d. heterocarpum e/c.1000-1600 m april-may schima wallichii, quercus glauca, rhododendron sp. d .hookerianum e.300-2000 m june-july schima wallichii d. longicornu e/c.1300-2900 m sep.-nov. quercus glauca, rhododendron arboreum d. monticola c.2400-2700 m july-oct. __ d. moschatum c.200-1200 m may-july shorea robusta, schima wallichii d nobile e/c.400-1500 m april-may schima wallichii, ilex excelsa d. peguanum c.300-1200 m nov.-jan shorea robusta d. porphyrochilum e/c.1800-2500 m may-june __ d .primulinum c.1200-1400 m april-may __ d. pulchellum e/c.1200-1800 m __ __ d. transparens wce.700-2000 m may-june shorea robusta diphylax urceolata e/c.3000-4200 m sep.-nov. rhododendron barbatum epigenium amplum e/c.1300-2000 m sep.-nov. schima wallichii e. fuscescens e.600-1800 m march-april quercus semicarpifolia e. rotundatum e.1500-2000 m april-may rhododendron arboreum eria acervata e.300-1300 m oct.-dec. schima wallichii eria alba c.1500-2500 m april-june quercus griffithii, pinus roxburghii eria amica c.600-2100 m april-june schima wallichii eria apertiflora c.1600 m aug.-sep. quercus semicarpifolia, q. glauca, eria baniai c.1600 m january __ eria biflora c.500-1000 m sep.-nov. __ eria bipuncata c.1100-1700 m june-july quercus glauca eria bractescens e/c.300-1100 m april-may mangifera indica eria carinata c.1300-1500 m oct.-dec. eugenia sp. eria concolor e.500 m june __ eria coronaria e/c.1500-2300 m oct.-dec. quercus glauca, schima wallichii eria discolor c.150-1600 m april-june shorea robusta, schima wallichii eria excavata c.500-2400 m may-july maesa chisia, quercus semicarpifolia, shorea robusta eria extinctoria c.500-600 m march-april dalbergia sissoo, shorea robusta eria graminifolia e/c.1500-2500 m june-aug. quercus semicarpifolia, colebrokia oppositifolia eria lasiopetala e.1300-1600 m march-may shorea robusta, schima wallichii, madhuca latifolia eria muscicola e/c.1500-1800 m june-july schima wallichii, ilex sp. eria nepalensis c.200 m aug. __ eria obesa e.500 m aug. __ eria paniculata c.600-1800 m feb.-june schima wallichii, eria spicata e/c.900-2200 m july-aug. schima wallichii, quercus glauca, cinnamomum tamala ghimire 62 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 eria stricta c.300-1800 m nov.-april schima wallichii esmeralda cathcartii e.600-2000 m march-july rhododendron sp, lyonia ovalifolia esmeralda clarkei e.1500-1700 m oct.-nov. rhododendron sp. flickineria fugax c.800-1600 m may-july duabanga grandiflora, schima wallichii gastochilus acutifolius c.1200-2100 m oct.-dec. castanopsis indica, ficus sp. g. affinis e/c.2700-2900 m july tsuga dumosa g. calceolaris wce.900-2700 m feb.-march quercus glauca, ficus nenoralis g.dasyopogon c.100-1000 m __ dillenia indica g. distichum e/c.1700-2800 m march-july quercus sp. g.inconspicus c.1000-1500 m may-july __ g. obliquus c.600-1800 m oct.-dec. shorea robusta ione bicolor wce.1500-2500 m oct.-dec. lichen covered quercus semicarpifolia ione cirrhata c.1600-2200 m oct.-nov. __ liparis caespitosa e/c.1000-1400 m july-aug. ehretia sp, liparis resupinata e.1500-2600 m oct.-nov. eugelhardtia spicata, quercus sp., viburnum sp. liparis viridiflora e.700-2500 m sep.-nov. lyonia ovalifolia, schima wallichii luisia brachystachys c.1300-1900 m march-april __ luisia trichorhiza e/c.1000-1400 m march-may __ luisia zeylanica c.300-1400 m april-june schima wallichii monomeria barbata c.1400-1500 m oct.-dec. schima wallichii oberonia acaulis e/c.600-2000 m sep.-dec. schima wallichii, engelhardtia spicata oberonia bracystachys e.200-800 m april-may __ oberonia caulescens e/c.1600-2400 m july-aug. schima wallichii, eurya acuminata oberonia emarginata e.1600-2000 m sep __ oberonia ensiformis c.1400-1700 m oct.-dec. schima wallichii, mallotus philippensis oberonia falcata e/c.1300-2100 m june-july castanopsis sp. oberonia falconeri c.550-1000 m april-may sapium insigne, alnus nepalensis, eugenia sp. oberonia jenkinsiana c.400-1200 m sep.-nov. __ oberonia mucronata e.200-1800 m sep.-dec. shorea robusta, schima wallichii oberonia myosurus c.1000-1500 m aug.-oct. __ oberonia nepalensis c.750-1600 m march-april __ oberonia obcordata c.1100-1600 m sep.-oct. castanopsis indica, ficus sp. oberonia pachyphylla e.200-800 m march-april oberonia pachyrachis e/c.1000-1500 m march-april schima wallichii, mallotus philippensis alnus nepalensis, ficus sp. oberonia parvula c.450-1500 m feb.-march __ oberonia prainiana e.500-1500 m june-july ficus sp oberonia pyrulifera e.300-800 m june-july __ oberonia recurva c.200-1500 m oct.-feb. __ oberonia rufilabris c.300-1500 feb.-march __ odontochilus abbreviatus c.500-1000 m __ __ odontochilus crispus c.400-2400 m aug.-oct. quercus sp. odontochilus lanceolatus e/c.1400-1700 m aug.-sep. __ ornithochilus difformis e/c.1400-1800 m june-july schima wallichii, mallotus philippensis, otochilus albus e/c.1500-2400 m june-july rhododendron arboreum, otochilus fuscus c.1100-2000 m dec.-jan. myrsine sp., lyonia ovalifolia, eurya acuminata , castanopsis sp. otochilus lancilabius wce.1400-2500 m oct.-dec. quercus sp. panisea demissa c.1500-2400 m oct.-feb. quercus glauca, lyonia ovalifolia, pyrus pashia, eurya acuminata ghimire 63 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 daphniphyllum himalense, panisea uniflora c.1000-2300 m april-june shorea robusta, zizyphus incurva, schima wallichii, eugenia formosa papilionanthe teres e/c.200-2100 m march-june mitragyne parviflora, eugenia formosa, shorea robusta papilionanthe uniflora c.1500-2100 m july-oct. __ papilionanthe vandarum e.1600-1700 m may __ pelatantheria insectifera c.200-1000 m oct.-dec. __ phalaenopsis deliciosa e.200-500 m july-aug. __ phalaenopsis mannii e.150-600 m april-june shorea robusta, schima wallichii phalaenopsis taenialis e/c.1500-2300 m april-june castanopsis indica, ficus sp. pholidota articulata e/c.500-2300 m april-july schima wallichii, shorea robusta, quercus glauca mahonia nepaulensis, dalbergia sissoo pholidota imbricata e/c.600-2900 m june-july castanopsis tribuloides, schima wallichii pholidota protracta e/c.500-2200 m oct.-dec. quercus semicarpifolia pholidota recurva c.700-1800 m aug.-sep. __ pleione coronaria c.2850 m __ __ pleione hookeriana e/c.2200-4200 m may-june alnus nepalensis, abies spectabilis, tsuga sp pleione humilis c.1800-3000 m feb.-march quercus sp. pleione maculata c.1400-2700 m oct.-nov. __ pleione praecox e/c.1500-2500 m sep.-nov. rhododendron sp., quercus sp. podochilus cultratus c.400-800 m sep.-oct. schima wallichii porpax elwesii e/c.8001800 m april-aug. schima wallichii pteroceras teres c.200-800 m june litsea sp., shorea robusta rhynchostylis retusa e/c.300-1800 m may-july quercus glauca, schima wallichii, mangifera indica, rhododendron arboreum , quercus lanuginosa, bauhinia sp., mallotus philippensis schoenorchis gemmata e.1400-1800 m may-june __ smitinandia micrantha e/c.500-1400 m may-july sapium insigne, schima wallichii., bauhinia sp., engelhardtia spicata sunipia scariosa e/c.1200-1800 m oct.-jan. rhododendron arboreum, lyonia ovalifolia taeniophyllum scraberullum c.600-800 m sep.-oct. __ tainia minor e.2000-2300 m june-aug. __ thelasis longifolia c.800-1300 m __ __ thelasis pygmaea c.800-1100 m aug.-sep. __ thrixspermum pygmaeum c.1300-2000 m april-may pinus roxburghii thunia alba e/c.500-1800 m march-aug. schima wallichii, quercus lanuginosa trichotosia dasyphylla c.850-1500 m april-june shorea robusta trudelia alpina c.1100-1800 m may-july quercus lanuginosa, prunus cerasoides engelhardtia spicata, pyrus pashia trudelia cristata e/c.1200-2300 m march-may prunus cerasoides, eurya acuminata, schima wallichii, ficus neriifolia acacia catechu, quercus glauca, shorea robusta, mangifera indica trudelia pumila c.500-1500 m may __ uncifera acuminata e.1200-1600 m july-sep. __ uncifera lancifolia e.2000-2200 m june-july __ uncifera obtusifolia c.900-1100 m aug.-sep. __ vanda tessellata e/c.200-600 m july-aug. dalbergia sissoo, madhuca latifolia vanda testacea e/c.200-500 m april-july dalbergia sissoo, madhuca latifolia vandopsis undulata e/c.300-2100 m april-may schima wallichii, mangifera indica, castanopsis indica, ghimire cover 20-2 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 34 rajan and dhananjaya soil and vegetation carbon pools in two community forests of palpa district, nepal y. khanal1, r. p. sharma2 and c. p. upadhyaya3 forest plays a key role in the global and regional carbon (c) cycles, as they store large quantities of c in vegetation and soil, and exchange large quantities of c with atmosphere through photosynthesis and respiration. forest acts as a source of atmospheric c when there is disturbance due to anthropogenic and natural causes and as a sink when re-growth occurs after disturbance, therefore, forest can be managed to alter the magnitude and direction of fluxes (brown, et al., 1996). the goal of reducing c source and increasing c sink can be achieved through effective protection and conservation of c pools in the existing forest. the kyoto protocol of the united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc) has recognized the role of forestry as a reliable carbon sequestration vehicle to reduce green house gas in the atmosphere. after the unfccc conference of parties in bali, indonesia during december, 2007, the debate and discussion on reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation (redd) has emerged. this has created a good opportunity for studying c pools in forest ecosystem. vegetation and soil are viable sinks of atmospheric c and may significantly contribute to the mitigation of global climate change (lal, 2004; smith, 2004). carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems, especially into the soil, is a win-win strategy for developing countries, where land use change and agricultural intensification are most frequent (lal, 2004). to quantify the sequestered c in forest ecosystem, temporal stocks of c under various forest types must be assessed. estimating c pools in existing forests provides baseline data from which to project c sequestration over time (shrestha and singh, 2008). biological sequestration of co2 by forest has numerous benefits over other emission reduction strategies. first, it is considered the most costeffective approach (e.g. newell and stavins, 2000; stern, 2007; banskota et al., 2008). second, managing 1 far-western regional forest directorate, dhangadhi. email: yajnamurti@hotmail.com 2 department of ecology and natural resource management, norwegian university of life sciences, norway 3 institute of forestry, pokhara quantification of carbon in any vegetation and soil type is a basic step for evaluating the carbon sequestration potential of an ecosystem. for quantification, soil samples from varying depths (0–20, 20–40, 40–60, 60-80 and 80–100 cm) of each soil profile were collected for each sample plot laid out in jarneldhara and lipindevi thulopakho community forests (cfs) of palpa district. individual trees in the sample plots of both cfs were measured. biomass of standing trees, poles and saplings were estimated indirectly from diameter at breast height (dbh) and total height by using allometric relationships, while the biomass of grass, herb and litter were calculated directly from field measurements. above-ground and below-ground (root) carbon pools in jarneldhara cf were found to be 36.6 ± 3.4 t ha-1 and 10.5 ± 1.0 t ha-1 , respectively; while those on lipindevi thulopakho cf were 40.2 ± 4 and 11.4 ± 1.1 t ha-1 , respectively. soil organic carbon pool in jarneldhara and lipindevi thulopakho cf were 121.4 ± 7.4 and 94.6 ± 4.4 t ha-1 , respectively. this indicates that cfs have high potential to offset large portion of carbon emission through sequestration into both soil and vegetation, and act as a natural carbon sink. key words: carbon pool, community forest, soil organic carbon, vegetation carbon, biomass banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 35 khanal et al. forests in a sustainable way, especially in the tropical region, can substantially reduce c emission rate. for example, it was estimated that the global deforestation alone accounts for about 17.4% of the global greenhouse gas emission (ipcc, 2007). third, terrestrial ecosystems have the potential to store large amount of carbon due to high global deforestation rate in the past (upadhyay et al., 2005). thus, it seems that forest could be the most effective sink when forest is protected and managed in a sustainable way, and a huge amount of c is sequestered efficiently without requirement of large monetary investment. quantification of sequestered c in different forest types with different management regimes and soil profiles could be important for better planning of natural resources, and the making of good mitigation strategy for climate change effects. however, so far only a few studies on c sequestration have been carried out in nepal (shrestha and singh, 2008). most studies focused on carbon stocks in different land uses (e.g., gautam, 2002; shrestha and singh, 2008). similarly, few studies were focused only on organic carbon stocks in different forest soils of nepal (e.g., awasthi et al., 2002; shrestha et al., 2004a; sitaula et al., 2004). carbon sequestration potential of different forest types under different management regimes need to be explored. this study aims to quantify forest biomass, with both soil and vegetation c pools in two different cfs in a mid-hill region of nepal. materials and methods scattered plantation of pinus roxburghii along with natural schima-castanopsis forest whereas jarneldhara cf mainly consists of natural schima-castanopsis forest. according to forest users, the age of schimacastanopsis forest stands is about 10-15 years whereas pinus roxburghii is 20-25 years. average crown cover of the forest is about 40-60%. the major management activities undertaken in both cf were cleaning, bush land management, thinning, pruning and improvement felling. in addition to these, firelines were constructed in lipindevi thulopakho cf. similarly, on some blocks of lipindevi thulopakho cf, up to three thinning operations have been carried out after the handing over of cf. data collection and analysis forest sampling and measurement the studied cfs mainly consists of schima-castanopsis forest with varying tree size, density and species composition. in lipindevi thulopakho cf, there were also scattered plantations of pinus roxburghii. so, in order to represent all variations, approximately 2-3% sample of forest area was selected subjectively from each community forest. temporary plots were laid out in each selected forest type. within the main plot with size 25 m x 20 m for trees {diameter at breast height (dbh) > 30 cm}, nested plots of size fig 1: study area in palpa, nepal study area this study was carried out in lipindevi thulopakho and jarneldhara community forests of palpa district (fig 1). lipindevi thulopakho cf is located in tansen municipality-13 whereas jarneldhara cf is in barangdi vdc ward number 3. the area of lipindevi thulopakho cf is 26.23 and that of jarneldhara cf is 8.6 ha. they were handed over to the forest user communities in 1991 and 1994 a.d., respectively. both cfs were situated on moderate to steep slopes with altitude ranging from 1100 – 1400 m above mean sea level. jarneldhara cf mostly lies on northern aspect whereas lipindevi thulopakho cf lies on the north-eastern aspect. the soil type varies from sandy loam to clay loam and is mostly brown in colour. the average maximum and minimum temperature of the district was 23 0c and 14 0c with a mean annual rainfall of 1903 mm (dfopalpa, 2007). lipindevi thulopakho cf consists of banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 36 khanal et al. 10 m x 10 m for poles (dbh <10-30 cm), 5 m x 5 m for saplings (dbh 5-10 cm) were laid out (cfd, 2004). similarly, five 1 m x 1 m plots within the main plots (four in four corners and one at centre) were also laid out for regeneration (dbh < 5 cm), grasses, herbs and litters. the dbh and total height of all trees, poles and saplings above 5 cm dbh were measured. all herbaceous and woody vegetations (less than 5 cm dbh) inside the 1 m x 1 m plot were clipped and collected and the fresh weight of the samples were recorded and representative sub-samples of all woody, herbaceous plants and litters were taken to the laboratory for oven drying. biomass and carbon estimation based on the data of tree height and dbh measured for individual stands within the sample plot, total stem volume was calculated using the following relationship models (sharma and pukkala, 1990). ln (v) = a + b * ln(dbh) + c * ln(ht)...................... (1) where, v is the total stem volume with bark (m3), dbh is the diameter at the breast height (cm), ht is total tree height (m), and a, b, and c are species specific model parameters. the species-specific parameter values of model (1) are presented in table 1. the total stem volume obtained from (1) was multiplied with species-specific dry wood density to get the oven dry weight of stem biomass. the biomass of branches, roots and leaves were assumed to be 45%, 46% and 11% of the stem biomass following sharma (2003), which was later adopted by shrestha and singh (2008) for forest types identical to those in this study. samples of undergrowth vegetation (tree species with dbh <5 cm, herbs, grasses and litter) were oven dried at a constant temperature of 70°c until the weights of the samples became constant (macdicken, 1997) and the final constant weight was used as dry matter content. dry biomass was converted to c content using an assumption that c content is approximately 43% of dry biomass (negi et al., 2003). sampling soil and estimating soil carbon content a pit was made in the centre of each main plot with a maximum depth of 1 m or up to bedrock if it occurs at less than 1 m depth. if bedrock was present above 40 cm depth, the pit was dug in one corner of main plot. soil samples were collected from different depths such as 0-20 cm, 20-40 cm, 40-60 cm, 60-80 cm and 80-100 cm for carbon content analysis. similarly, metal core ring sampler (height 6 cm and inner diameter 4.8 cm) was used to collect samples for bulk density. soil organic carbon (soc) content in the soil samples were estimated using walkley and black’s wet oxidation method as described by page et al. (1982). soil ph was determined with ph electrode at soil/water ratio of 1:1 (w/w) (mclean, 1982). soil bulk density was determined using soil core samples and stone correction was made as per pearson et al. (2005). the corrected bulk density (g cm-3) was used for the estimation of soc density (t ha-1) and soc stock (pearson et al., 2005). bulk density (g cm-3) denotes soil particles less than 2 mm diameter whereas coarse fragments include particles greater than 2 mm diameter. the oven dry mass and mass of coarse fragments were measured in gram (g) and the volume of the cores in cubic centimetre (cm3). the density of rock fragments was assumed to be 2.65 g cm-3 (pearson et al., 2005). results and discussion vegetation carbon pool carbon pool in above-ground vegetation biomass of trees varies in different plots of same forest and within different forests due to variation in age and size of the trees, forest composition as well as tree density. the mean above-ground tree biomass in lipindevi thulopakho cf was found to be 89.7 ± 8.9 t ha-1 (mean ± se) which was higher than in jarneldhara cf (82.6 ± 7.8 t ha-1) (table 2). similarly, under-growth (live and dead) biomass of lipindevi thulopakho cf was found to be higher than that of jarneldhara cf (table 2), however, biomass difference was not significant (p>0.05). the share of under-growth biomass was only about 3% table 1: species-specific parameter estimates for model (1) (sharma and pukkala, 1990) tree species a b c alder (alnus nepalensis) -2.7761 1.9006 0.9428 chirpine (pinus roxburghii) -2.9770 1.9235 1.0019 chilaune (schima wallichii) -2.7385 1.8155 1.0072 miscellaneous in hills -2.3204 1.8507 0.8223 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 37 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2khanal et al. of the total above-ground biomass. the undergrowth biomass consisted mainly of litter biomass (by 65%) followed by biomass of regeneration (<5 cm dbh) trees and grass. above-ground carbon pool (both tree and undergrowth) in lipindevi thulopakho cf (40.2 ± 4 t ha-1) was found to be slightly higher than jarneldhara cf (table 3) due to larger sized trees which consequently have higher biomass values. carbon pool in above-ground tree biomass was 33 times larger than the carbon pool in the under-growth biomass in jarneldhara cf whereas it was 24 times larger in lipindevi thulopakho cf. various factors affect ecosystem carbon pool, including net primary productivity of plants and biomass decomposition. net primary productivity differs according to vegetation types, age of the stand and the surrounding environment (shrestha and singh, 2008). this study suggests that larger which was slightly higher than jarneldhara cf. shrestha (2009) found similar root carbon pools in the community managed schima-castanopsis forests of palpa district. soil carbon pool soil properties the soil was sandy loam with varying proportions of clay. the mean ph of surface soil (0-20 cm depth) of jarneldhara cf was found to be 4.3 while that of lipindevi thulopakho cf was 4.6. this suggests that all soil types were acidic a pattern noted by schreier et al. (1995) for soils in the mid-hill watersheds. mean soil bulk density (bd) at different soil depth is shown in fig 2. mean bd value ranged from 0.88 g cm-3 to 1.07 g cm-3. the mean bd increased slightly with increasing soil depth, but it did not differ significantly across layers of the soil profile (p>0.05). shrestha et al. (2004b) in their study of similar forest types of mardi watershed of kaski, nepal found relatively low bd with constant value of 0.7 g cm-3 in each layer of soil up to 40 cm depth. however, shrestha and singh (2008) found slightly higher bd values than those in this study in similar forest types of the mid-hills. shrestha (2009) found similar bulk density values for schima-castanopsis forest in palpa district. vegetation carbon pool in lipindevi thulopakho cf than jarneldhara cf is probably a function of the age and density of the stands and size of the trees. shrestha and singh (2008), oli and shrestha (2009), shrestha (2009) and baral et al. (2009) found more or less similar above-ground carbon pools in the midhill forests. root carbon pool root biomass of two cfs is shown in table 2. root biomass of lipindevi thulopakho cf was found to be 26.45 ± 2.6 t ha-1 which was higher than that of jarneldhara cf. since the stem biomass of lipindevi thulopakho cf was higher than that of jarneldhara cf, root biomass was also higher in lipindevi thulopakho cf. carbon pool in root biomass is shown in table 3. below-ground vegetation (root) carbon of lipindevi thulopakho cf was found to be 11.4 ± 1.1 t ha-1 table 2: vegetation biomass (mean ± se, t ha-1) table 3: vegetation carbon (mean ± se, t ha-1) above ground under-growth below ground cf tree (live &dead) (root) jarneldhara 82.6 ± 7.8 2.5 ± 0.2 24.4 ± 2.3 lipindevi 89.7 ± 8.9 3.9 ± 0.3 26.5 ± 2.6 thulopakho above ground under-growth below ground cf tree (live &dead) (root) jarneldhara 35.5 ± 3.4 1.1 ± 0.1 10.5 ± 1.0 lipindevi 38.6± 3.9 1.6 ± 0.1 11.4 ± 1.1 thulopakho fig 2: soil bulk density in different soil depth soil organic carbon soil organic carbon pool in different soil profiles of each cf is shown in table 4. carbon content was found to be inversely related with increasing soil depth. total mean carbon pool in the surface soil (0-20 cm) of jarneldhara cf was found to be highest banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 38 khanal et al. in this study (121.3 t ha-1 up to 1 m soil depth) for schima-castanopsis forest. total carbon pool total carbon pool in the two community forests is shown in figure 3. the mean carbon pool (soil plus vegetation) in jarneldhara cf was slightly higher than that in lipindevi thulopakho cf, although vegetation carbon pool was found to be higher in lipindevi thulopakho cf. due to the presence of large-size trees in lipindevi thulopakho cf, there was higher vegetation carbon pool compared to jarneldhara cf. similarly, higher soil bulk density and organic carbon content in the soil of jarneldhara cf has resulted in the higher soil carbon pool. low soil carbon pool in lipindevi thulopakho cf was also attributed to the presence of chir pine (pinus roxburghii) trees which attract frequent forest fire due to longer decomposition period of their needles. every year, there are occurrences of forest fires in lipindevi thulopakho cf which could be a possible reason for low carbon content in its soil. shrestha and singh (2008) also found lower soil carbon pool in pine mixed forest than in other forest types. the mean of the total carbon pool from the two cfs is comparable to that of shrestha and singh (2008) and shrestha (2009) in schima-castanopsis forest in the mid hills of nepal. shrestha and singh (2008) reported total carbon pool (vegetation plus soil) of 139 t ha-1, which was slightly lower than that found in this study, which might be due to the use of soil carbon up to 70 cm soil depth in their study, as well as the difference in site quality and stand structure. amount of soil organic carbon depends upon various biotic and abiotic factors such as microclimate, faunal diversity, land use and management. leaf litter and root litter inputs play major roles in forest soil carbon dynamics (shrestha and singh, 2008). the soil organic carbon pool in this study was comparable to the soil organic carbon pool values reported by shrestha and singh (2008) and shrestha (2009). shrestha and singh (2008) in their study (up to 70 cm soil depth) in the mid-hill watershed found soc density as 103 t ha-1 whereas shrestha (2009) found slightly higher soc density as 131.43 t ha-1 (up to 1 m soil depth) than that found (52.3 ± 3 t ha-1); the lowest mean carbon pool was found in the deepest soil layer (80 cm 100 cm) of lipindevi thulopakho cf (11.6 ± 0.5 t ha-1). carbon pool in each layer of soil profile differed significantly in both the cfs (p<0.05). mean carbon pool in each soil layer of both the cfs also differed significantly (p<0.05). the results indicated that with increase in soil depth, bulk density was found to be in increasing trend while the soc was found to be in decreasing trend. almost similar results were obtained by shrestha (2009). table 4: carbon stock in different soil profile soil depth organic carbon (mean ± se, t ha-1) (cm) 0-20 52.3 ± 3.0 31.6 ± 2.0 20-40 32.5 ± 1.8 21.8 ± 1.3 40-60 27.5 ± 1.4 19.2 ± 1.1 60-80 30.7 ± 0.2 13.9 ± 0.6 80-100 19.5 ± 2.7 11.6 ± 0.5 jarneldhara cf lipindevi thulopakho cf fig 3 : total carbon pool in two cfs jarneldhara cf banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 39 khanal et al. similarly, shrestha (2009) found total carbon pool as 178.5 t ha-1 which is slightly higher than the one uncovered in this study which might be due to different stand structures, site quality and intensities of management. conclusion vegetation carbon of jarneldhara cf was found to be lower than that of lipindevi thulopakho cf due to the presence of smaller-size trees. the share of under-growth vegetation carbon was very low on total above-ground vegetation carbon. soil organic carbon pool in 0-20 cm, 20-40 cm, 40-60 cm, 60-80 cm, 80-100 cm soil depths were found to be different. similarly, soil organic carbon pool in each depth of the soil profile of the two cfs were also different. with the increase in soil depth, bulk density was found to have increased whereas c content was found to have decreased. both soil organic carbon content and bulk density of jarneldhara cf were higher than those of lipindevi thulopakho cf, and this contributed to the higher soil organic carbon stock in jarneldhara cf. total carbon stock in jarneldhara cf was higher than in lipindevi thulopakho cf. on average, soil organic carbon contributed about 68 % in total carbon stock of community forests. however, this study has demonstrated that cfs help to offset a portion of the carbon emissions thereby contributing to climate change amelioration through the sequestration of atmospheric c to soil and vegetation and by acting as a natural carbon sink. acknowledgement this article is a part of the first author’s m. sc. (forestry) thesis. the study was financially supported by community based forest and tree management in the himalaya (comform) project, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. references awasthi, k. d., sitaula, b. k., singh, b. r. and bajracharya, r. m. 2002. land use changes and morphometric analysis using gis for two mountain watersheds of western nepal. land degradation and development 13: 1-19. banskota, k., karky, b. s. and dahal, n. 2008. creating a voluntary carbon market for promoting sustainable forest management. in shifting paradigms in protected area management (eds.) bajracharya, s. b. and dahal, n. national trust for nature conservation, kathmandu, nepal, 159-170. baral, s. k., malla, r. and ranabhat, s. 2009. aboveground carbon stock assessment in different forest types of nepal. banko janakari 19 (2): 10-14. brown, s., sathaye, j., cannell, m. and kauppi, p. e. 1996. mitigation of carbon emissions to the atmosphere by forest management. commonwealth forestry review 75 (1): 80-91. cfd. 2004. community forest resource inventory guideline (revised 2061). nepali version community forest division, department of forests, kathmandu, nepal. dfo-palpa. 2007. district-wise community forest monitoring report 2063/64. district forest office palpa, tansen, nepal. gautam, k. r. 2002. carbon sequestration in agroforestry and annual cropping system in inner terai, central nepal. m. sc. thesis. agricultural university of norway, aas, norway. ipcc. 2007. climate change 2007: synthesis report summary for policymakers. an assessment of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. accessed from http:// www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ ar4_syr_spm.pdf. lal, r. 2004. soil carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change. geoderma 123 (1-2): 1-22. macdicken, k. g. 1997. a guide to monitoring carbon storage in forestry and agroforestry projects. forest carbon monitoring programme, winrock international institute for agricultural development, littlerock, arkansas, usa. mclean, e. o. 1982. soil ph and lime requirement. in methods of soil analysis. part 2, (ed.) page, a.l. (2nd edition), 199-224. negi, j. d. s., manhas, r. k. and chauhan, p. s. 2003. carbon allocation in different components of some tree species of india: a new approach for carbon estimation. current science 85 (11): 1528-1531. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 40 khanal et al. newell, r. g. and stavins, r. n. 2000. climate change and forest sinks: factors affecting the costs of carbon sequestration. journal of environmental economics and management 40: 211-235. oli, b. n. and shrestha, k. 2009. carbon status in forests of nepal: an overview. journal of forest and livelihood 8 (1): 62-66. page, a. l., reuter, d. j. and robinson, j. b. 1982. methods of soil analysis part 2. chemical and microbiological properties. agronomy : 621-622. pearson, t. r., brown, s. and ravindranath, n. h. 2005. integrating carbon benefit estimates into gef projects: guidelines. capacity development and adaptation group, global environment facility, united nations development programme, new york, usa. schreier, h., brown, s. and shah, p. b. 1995. identification of key resources issues: discussions and recommendations. in challenges in mountain resource management in nepal: processes, rrends and dynamics in middle mountain watersheds. scheier, h., shah, p.b., and brown, s. (eds.), icimod, kathmandu, nepal, 247-252. sharma, e. r. and pukkala, t. 1990. volume tables for forest trees of nepal. ministry of forests and soil conservation, forest survey and statistics division, kathmandu, nepal. sharma, r. p. 2003. relationships between tree dimensions and biomass, sapwood area, leaf area and leaf area index in alnus nepalensis d. don in nepal. m. sc. thesis. agricultural university of norway, aas, norway. shrestha, b. p. 2009. carbon sequestration in schimacastanopsis forest: a case study from palpa district. the greenery (a journal of environment and biodiversity), 7 (1): 34-40. shrestha, b. m. and singh, b. r. 2008. soil and vegetation carbon pools in a mountainous watershed of nepal. nutrient cycling in agroecosystems 81: 179-191. shrestha, b. m., sitaula, b. k., singh, b. r. and bajracharya, r. m. 2004a. fluxes of co and ch in soil profiles of a mountainous watershed of nepal as influenced by land use, temperature, moisture and substrate addition. nutrient cycling in agroecosystems 68: 155-164. shrestha, b. m., sitaula, b. k., singh, b. r. and bajracharya, r. m. 2004b. soil organic carbon stocks in soil aggregates under different land use systems in nepal. nutrient cycling in agroecosystems 70: 201-213. sitaula, b. k., bajracharya, r. m., singh, b. r. and solberg, b. 2004. factors affecting organic carbon dynamics in soils of nepal/ himalayan regiona review and analysis. nutrient cycling in agroecosystems 70: 215-229. smith, p. 2004. carbon sequestration in croplands: the potential in europe and the global context. european journal of agronomy 20 (3): 229-236. stern, n. 2007. the economics of climate change: the stern review. cambridge university press, cambridge, u.k. upadhyay, t. p., sankhayan, p. l. and solberg, b. 2005. a review of carbon sequestration dynamics in the himalayan region as a function of land use change and forest/soil degradation with special reference to nepal. agriculture, ecosystems and environment 105: 449-465. 2 4 the eastern middle hills of nepal support a disproportionately large number of plant species in a country known for its floral diversity (tisc/narmsap, 2002), 5,636 species of gymnosperms and angiosperms and 534 pteridophytes have been recorded in nepal (dpr, 2001, 2002). although plant species in eastern nepal’s middle hills have been documented since 1848 (hara, 1966; stainton, 1972; rai, 1999) sampling has been patchy and incomplete, and there has been no quantitative assessment of plant community composition. since the late 18th century, nepal’s population has been steadily rising and markets for agricultural and forest products have greatly expanded. as land-use has intensified, primary forests have been converted to cropland and managed forests, or have experienced unsustainable resource extraction (blaikie, 1988; brown and shrestha, 2000; chaudhary, 2000). beginning in the 1950s, nepal’s government introduced numerous policies to address the decline in forest cover and increase revenues from the land (metz, 1991; chaudhary, 2000; hmgn/mfsc, 2000). because large contiguous protected areas are not feasible in the densely populated middle hills, the government has supported plantation establishment in community and leasehold forests on deforested state-owned lands. likewise, private landowners have adapted by establishing plantations and planting trees alongside their crops (gilmour, 1995; paudel and thapa, 2001; acharya, 2006). state-sponsored replanting programmes and private landowners’ efforts have offset the decline in forest cover in this region (branney and dev, 1994; shrestha, 1998; gautam et al., 2003). however, scant attention has been paid to the accompanying changes in composition of forests and the potential loss of biological diversity (undp, 1998; mikkola, 2002). introduced composition and structure of forest communities in a fragmented rural landscape: the middle hills of eastern nepal k. n. l. magraw1 and j. k. detling2 rising population and land use intensification in the middle hills (1,000-3,000 m elevation) of nepal have resulted in widespread conversion of primary forests, and there is limited understanding of the degree to which conversion affects plant community composition. this study describes and compares vascular plant communities in four vegetation types in the eastern middle hills of nepal: primary forests, deforested areas, large cardamom (amomum subulatum) plantations, and conifer plantations. we sampled nested plots in 18 stands and we analyzed indicators such as species richness and diversity, unique species, stand composition, and structure. primary forests and conifer plantations had significantly greater species richness than deforested areas and cardamom plantations (p≤0.001). primary forests exhibited complex structure and contained ~229 species, 30% of which were unique to this vegetation type. deforested areas contained sparse woody vegetation, many species suited to exposed habitats, and ~178 species. cardamom plantations contained ~174 species and were characterized by an alnus nepalensis overstory (82.4% of stems ≥3.2 cm dbh) and a. subulatum in the understory. conifer plantations were stocked with cryptomeria japonica, pinus wallichiana, or pinus roxburghii. of ~217 species encountered, only 16% were unique to this vegetation type, although species diversity was comparatively high (shannon-wiener index: 3.34). our findings indicate that vegetative composition was influenced by (a) the degree of disturbance and management and (b) aspect and elevation, and therefore plant community composition in primary forests is unlikely to be approximated in other vegetation types or in forests positioned differently on the landscape. key words: disturbance, forest conservation, ilam district, resource management, species richness 1 ecology and department of biology, colorado state university, fort collins colorado 80523-1878 usa. e-mail: kim_magraw@ios.doi.gov 2 department of biology and natural resource ecology laboratory, colorado state university, fort collins, colorado 80523-1878 usa 26 banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 27 conifers are often preferred for governmentsponsored plantation programs (schreier et al., 1994; branney and yadav, 1998; jackson et al., 1998). sitaula (2000) and others have reported that pine plantations exhibit lower plant species richness and diversity than primary or mixed broad-leafed forests in the central and midwest regions of nepal. similarly, ibscher (1999) found lower plant diversity in ‘disturbed’ forests than in ‘undisturbed’ forests. in central nepal’s middle hills, acharya (1999) recorded greater tree species richness in ‘intermediate disturbance’ plots as compared to ‘low disturbance’ and ‘high disturbance’ plots. plant community composition in private plantations has not been assessed. the objective of this research was to describe and compare the vegetative composition and structure of plant communities in four vegetation types in the northern lower temperate zone of ilam district. the vegetation types were: (a) primary forests, representing the natural vegetation; (b) deforested areas, which have experienced a high degree of resource extraction, primarily tree felling, fuel-wood cutting, and regular grazing; (c) large cardamom (amomum subulatum) plantations, private intensively managed cash-crop systems; and (d) conifer plantations, part of the government-supported afforestation effort. we hypothesized that primary forests would exhibit the greatest species richness and diversity, followed by conifer plantations, and that cardamom plantations and deforested areas would contain the lowest species richness and diversity. materials and methods study site the study site lies between 27°00’ and 27°05’n latitude and 87°55’ and 88°00’e longitude in the northern part of ilam district, nepal (fig. 1). we sampled stands within a ~30 km2 area in four village development committee (vdc) areas: sulubung, mabu, maimajhuwa, and maipokhari. sampling was carried out within 1,950–2,550 m elevation, corresponding closely with the limits of the lower temperate zone (tisc/ narmsap, 2002). northern ilam experiences a monsoon climate, with the majority of the ~2,500 mm annual precipitation occurring from june to october. mean daily temperature ranges from 10° c in winter to 15° c in summer. direct sunlight is limited due to the steep topography and frequent cloud-cover. fig. 1: map of nepal showing location of study site in the eastern middle hills primary forests are found in isolated patches surrounded by a complex mosaic of agriculture, deforested land, plantations, and human settlements. they contain elements of three vegetation types described by stainton (1972): (a) castanopsis tribuloides – castanopsis hystrix forests, ~1,850-2,150 m elevation; (b) quercus lamellosa forests, ~2,000-2,600m; and (c) lithocarpus pachyphylla forests, ~2,450-2,900 m, found only in far eastern nepal. these vegetation types are characterized by species in fagaceae and lauraceae, and are noted for their diverse understory, including ferns, epiphytes, climbing plants, and orchids (stainton, 1972; tisc/narmsap, 2002). for the purposes of this study, primary forests are those with a naturally generated overstory dominated by tree species commonly associated with the above vegetation types. sporadic human activity, such as livestock grazing or fuel-wood removal, was evident in all sampled primary forests. in deforested areas, wood cutting, frequent livestock grazing, and other resource extraction have removed the overstory and prevented regeneration. it is likely that some deforested areas were previously used to grow crops, but then left fallow. there are shrubs and occasionally trees, but the majority of the vegetation is herbaceous. cardamom plantations are common in riparian corridors on private land up to ~2,050 m. this cash-crop (a spice) is lucrative and the land can be used simultaneously to grow fodder, timber, and fuel-wood (sharma et al., 1998b). cardamom is usually planted underneath an alnus nepalensis (nepalese alder) canopy with a number of fodder tree species, such as ficus auriculata, leucoseptrum canum, and saurauia napaulensis, in the understory (sharma et al., 1998a; narmsaling community development center, 2002) magraw and detling banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 28 conifer plantations are community forests that were once deforested but have since been planted with one or more of cryptomeria japonica, pinus wallichiana, and pinus roxburghii. the conifer stands sampled in this study were immature (10–30 years) because community forest plantation efforts had only recently become widespread. at the study site, southand east-facing slopes have the greatest density of human settlements, and hence the majority of the cardamom plantations and deforested areas we sampled were southand east-facing. northand west-facing mountainsides have become the state-owned community-managed forests containing the primary forests and conifer plantations available for study. because population is denser and agriculture more intensive at lower elevation, and because cardamom cannot be grown profitably above ~2,050 m, primary forests are generally limited to higher elevation areas. among the stands sampled, the lowest elevation vegetation type was cardamom, averaging 1,960 m, and the highest was primary forest, averaging 2,250 m. methodology data were collected from august 1 october 6, 2002. we sampled 18 stands selected randomly from a list of potential sites: four primary forests, four conifer plantations, five deforested areas, and five cardamom plantations. political instability at the time of the study precluded visiting a fifth primary forest stand and a fifth conifer plantation. sampling followed the united states forest service’s forest inventory and analysis phase 3 vegetation indicator methodology (usda forest service, 2005) which utilizes nested plots to provide a multi-scale assessment of species richness and abundance (fig. 2). in each stand, data were collected in three 170 m2 circular plots. an effort was made to space the plots regularly within each stand. where there was significant relief (>100 m), the plots were stratified by elevation. from the center of each plot, three stakes were placed at 7.32 m horizontal distance along the 30°, 150°, and 270° azimuths to establish the plot boundaries. next, three 1 m2 square quadrats were demarcated 4.57 m from the center stake along these azimuths. within the 1 m2 quadrats we estimated total vascular plant cover and cover for each vascular plant species to the nearest 1% for all living plants <1 m tall. plants occupying <1% of a quadrat were recorded as 0.5% cover. percent subcanopy closure by cardamom was recorded between one and two meters above ground to the nearest 5% in quadrats of three cardamom plantation stands. fig. 2: sampling design for the united states forest service’s inventory and analysis phase 3 vegetation indicator methodology from the 170 m2 plots, a record was made of all vascular plant species not already encountered in the quadrats. elevation, aspect, slope, crowncover to the nearest 5%, and evidence of fodder cutting, trampling, and grazing were also recorded. diameter at breast height (dbh) was measured for all woody stems ≥3.2 cm dbh. stems ≥3.2 cm and <10 cm dbh were categorized as ‘small woody stems,’ while those ≥10 cm dbh were categorized as ‘trees.’ quadratic mean diameter at breast height was calculated for trees. shannon-wiener diversity indices (h′ ) (gurevitch et al., 2002) were calculated for each stand using plant species cover estimates in 1 m2 quadrats: h′ = -σ pilnpi s l=1 where s is the number of species in the sample and pi is the mean percent cover of each species in all nine quadrats in a stand. h¢ values reported herein are the mean of all stands in a vegetation type. species overlap among vegetation types was compared using jaccard’s coefficients (s) (jaccard, 1901): s = a / (a + b + c) where a is the number of species two vegetation types have in common and b and c are the number of species that are unique to each. magraw and detling banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 29 magraw and detling among the four vegetation types the following comparisons of means were calculated with systat (wilkinson, 2000) using two-way analysis of variance (anova) and tukey’s post hoc test for significance: species richness in 170 m2 plots and 1 m2 quadrats, vegetation cover in quadrats, h¢ in stands, mean dbh of trees in stands, densities of trees and small woody stems in stands, basal area (m2/ha) in stands, and species richness of climbing plants, epiphytes, and herbaceous graminoids in plots. nomenclature used in this study corresponds with that of nepal’s department of plant resources’ enumerations of vascular plants (dpr, 2001, 2002). results and discussion findings of the ~391 vascular plant species recorded (table 1), 248 were identified to species, 294 to genus, and 324 to family. our analyses include all species recorded, and thus numbers of species cited are often approximate (denoted by “~”). in total, 217 genera, 90 families, ~256 dicots, ~78 monocots, ~53 pteridophytes, and 4 conifers were enumerated. primary forests c. hystrix and symplocos ramosissima accounted for more than 82% of the stems of overstory tree species in primary forests (table 2). the two stands in which c. hystrix was present were at ~2,100 m elevation, whereas the remaining two stands were at ~2,400 m and ~2,500 m elevation and contained tree species such as alangium alpinum, l. pachyphylla, quercus glauca, and q. lamellosa. other overstory species encountered sporadically were ilex sikkimensis, lyonia ovalifolia, magnolia campbellii, rhus wallichii, and tsuga dumosa. there were ~40 woody understory species in primary forests, more than in any other vegetation type (magraw, 2004). in total, ~229 species were encountered in primary forests (table 1). richness of climbing and epiphytic plant species was significantly greater in primary forests than in the other vegetation types (table 1). deforested areas deforested areas had a nearly continuous carpet of herbaceous foliage usually less than 20 cm high. notable in this vegetation type are herbaceous graminoids and plants with a spreading growth table 1: vegetative statistics for four vegetation types in northern ilam district, nepal primary forests deforested areas cardamom plantations conifer plantations all stands (plots) sampled 4 (12) 5 (15) 5 (15) 4 (12) 18 (54) total species recorded 1 ~229 ~178 ~174 ~217 ~391 unique species 1,2 ~69 ~47 ~34 ~37 -unique species (% of total species) 30% 26% 21% 16% -mean vegetation cover (<1 m high) 82.7% (a) 87.0% (a) 68.0% (b) 69.7% (b) -shannon-wiener index (h¢) 3.10 (a,b) 2.98 (a,b) 2.57 (a) 3.34 (b) -mean species richness (no./170 m2) of selected functional groups climbing plants 14.5 (a) 2.3 (d) 5.9 (c) 9.8 (b) -epiphytic plants 10.2 (a) 1.3 (c) 3.9 (b) 2.9 (b,c) -herbaceous graminoids 2.3 (c) 9.5 (a) 2.5 (c) 3.7 (b) -within a row, a, b, c, and d are significantly different at p<0.05. 1 some species were not positively identified, thus numbers of species are approximate. 2 seven unique species to cardamom plantations and three unique species to conifer plantations were cultivated trees. banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 30 form (i.e., stoloniferous, rhizomatous, or otherwise prostrate). more than twice as many herbaceous graminoid species were encountered per 170 m2 plot in deforested areas than in any other vegetation type (p<0.001) (table 1). despite the predominance of herbaceous foliage, some woody understory species were encountered regularly, usually together in patches. l. ovalifolia, an overstory tree species, was present as regeneration (<3.2 cm dbh) in four of five stands. associated with patches of woody vegetation were various herbaceous species commonly associated with the forested treatments, including aconogonum molle, hypericum choisianum, impatiens graciliflora, lepisorus loriformis, persicaria chinensis, polypodiodes amoena, rubus macilentus, and rubus rugosus. deforested areas contained no trees (table 3). small woody stems were present in two stands, consisting only of berberis spp., which are large shrubs, and symplocos dryophila and viburnum erubescens, understory trees. cardamom plantations cardamom plantations had four distinct layers: (a) overstory trees, (b) understory trees, (c) the a. subulatum subcanopy, and (d) herbaceous groundcover. a. nepalensis was by far the most abundant overstory tree species, accounting for 82.4% of stems ≥3.2 cm dbh, while g. acuminatum and s. ramosissima together contributed an additional 13.5% (table 2). the understory table 2: most abundant overstory tree species in three vegetation types in northern ilam district, nepal primary forests cardamom plantations conifer plantations species ov stems (%) species ov stems (%) species ov stems (%) castanopsis hystrix miq. 44.1 alnus nepalensis d.don 82.4 crypromeris japonica d.don 67.7 symplocos ramosissimawall. 37.7 s. ramosissima wall. 7.4 pinus roxburghii sarg. 18.2 rhus wallichii hook.f. 3.9 glochidion acuminatum müll.arg. 6.1 pinus wallichiana a.b.jacks. 8.4 lyonia ovalifolia (wall.) drude 3.4 michelia doltsopa buch.-ham. ex dc. 2.0 c. hystrix miq. 3.2 total 89.1 97.9 97.5 table 3: stand structure in four vegetation types in northern ilam district, nepal primary forest deforested areas cardamom plantations conifer plantations mean dbh of trees 1 (cm) 34.3 (±19.7) (a) 20.4 (±3.9) (b) 19.5 (±2.7) (b) trees/ha 535.5 (±194.9) (b) 0.0 (±0) (c) 620.5 (±227.6) (b) 1130.5 (±212.3) (a) small woody stems/ha2 709.0 (±359.2) (a) 111.1 (±272.5) (b) 364.9 (±304.1) (b) 302.5 (±197.3) (b) basal area (m2/ha) 46.0 (±29.4) (a) 0.2 (±0.5) (c) 22.4 (±9.0) (b) 33.9 (±10.5) (a,b) ov stems = proportion of all overstory tree species stems (≥3.2 cm dbh) encountered standard deviation is given in parentheses. within a row, a, b, and c are significantly different at p<0.05. 1 trees are ≥10 cm dbh. 2 small woody stems are ≥3.2 and <10 cm dbh. magraw and detling banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 31 magraw and detling tree layer contained a large number of species planted to provide fodder for livestock, including l. canum, s. napaulensis, casearia graveolens, ficus auriculata, and ficus neriifolia (magraw, 2004). below the understory trees, cardamom formed a tight subcanopy between one and two meters high, averaging more than 70% canopy closure. conifer plantations c. japonica occupied the vast majority of the conifer plantation canopy in two stands, and shared the overstory with p. wallichiana in a third. in the remaining stand all but one tree were p. roxburghii. these three species accounted for almost 95% of overstory tree species stems, with c. hystrix contributing the majority of the remainder (table 2). several broad-leafed overstory tree species were present in the conifer understory, including a. alpinum, a. nepalensis, l. ovalifolia, and s. ramosissima. there were ~31 woody understory species found in conifer plantations (magraw, 2004). comparisons among vegetation types species richness in primary forests and conifer plantations was almost 50% greater than that in deforested areas and cardamom plantations in 170 m2 plots (p≤0.001) (fig. 3). in 1 m2 quadrats, however, the only vegetation type found to be significantly distinct (p≤0.001) was cardamom, which contained 40– 46% fewer species than the other vegetation types (fig.3). cover of vegetation <1 m above the forest floor was greater in primary forests and deforested areas than in conifer and cardamom plantations (p<0.05) (table 1). fig. 3: mean species richness (± s.e.) in 170 m2 plots and 1 m2 quadrats in four vegetation types in northern ilam district, nepal. a and b are significantly different at p≤0.001. a and b are significantly different at p≤0.001 conifer plantations had the highest shannonwiener index values and cardamom plantations had the lowest (p<0.01) with primary forests and deforested areas exhibiting intermediate, but statistically indistinguishable, diversity (table 1). conifer plantations had a higher species overlap with all other vegetation types than any of the remaining vegetation types had with one another (table 4). the lowest overlap (0.30) was between primary forests and deforested areas. primary forests had the highest proportion of unique species (30%) and conifer plantations had the lowest (16%) (table 1). table 4: jaccard’s coefficients of overlap, calculated from species encountered in 170 m2 plots, among four vegetation types in northern ilam district, nepal deforested cardamom conifer primary forest 0.30 0.38 0.47 deforested 1.00 0.34 0.43 cardamom -1.00 0.44 conifer --1.00 the density and size distribution of woody stems varied widely between vegetation types. primary forests had greater variability in dbh and greater basal area than conifer and cardamom plantations (table 3). there were fewer trees/ha in primary forests, but the density of small woody stems was roughly twice that of the plantations, and the largest trees in primary forests had approximately three times greater dbh than those in cardamom and conifer plantations. regarding canopy composition, there were nine species with stems larger than 20 cm dbh in primary forests, and four species each in conifer and cardamom plantations (three of the four were planted in both plantation types). discussion there were substantial differences in plant community composition among vegetation types, likely resulting from differences in the degree of management and disturbance as well as from patterns in the distribution of vegetation types on the landscape. the results support our predictions that primary forests and conifer plantations have greater plant species richness and diversity than deforested areas and cardamom plantations. the expectation that conifer plantations would be less diverse and species-rich than primary forests was banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 32 supported by some measures and not by others. lower replication in primary forests and conifer plantations is likely to result in underestimation of species richness and diversity, particularly among locally rare species, relative to cardamom plantations and deforested areas. some taxonomic groups, such as orchidaceae and araceae, were not well sampled in this study because many species were not present above ground during the two months of data collection. epiphytic species were likely undercounted because they were difficult to detect and identify in the canopy. other taxa were undercounted because, although recorded, they were not positively identified. aspect and elevation in eastern nepal, northand west-facing slopes contain distinct, and typically more diverse, plant communities than southand east-facing slopes (stainton, 1972). the elevation range of the stands sampled, 1,950 to 2,550 m, corresponds closely with the limits of the lower temperate zone (tisc/narmsap, 2002). nevertheless, canopy composition in primary forests showed differences along this elevation gradient among the stands sampled. thus, aspect and elevation likely contributed to the observed differences in plant communities. these confounding environmental factors limit the extent to which differences in plant community composition observed in this study can be correlated with vegetation type. they also suggest avenues for further study to understand the effects of human activities on the distribution of natural communities across the landscape. primary forests in eastern nepal’s lower temperate zone, and throughout the middle hills, primary forests have been increasingly restricted to higher elevations as the natural forests below 2,500 m have diminished. grazing, fodder cutting, or fuel-wood removal had visibly affected all primary forest plots sampled, and timber felling was evident in several. among overstory species, l. pachyphylla persisted only as regeneration and q. lamellosa was found only in the canopy. michelia doltsopa, a popular and lucrative timber species, had been recorded in the lower temperate zone in the past (stainton, 1972; tisc/narmsap, 2002), but was entirely absent from primary forest plots. relatively infrequent utilization by humans and the sheltered, mesic microclimate on north-facing slopes are likely responsible for the complex and diverse plant communities in primary forests. some characteristics of primary forests that illustrate this complexity are high understory and canopy species richness, high variability in size of woody stems, and abundance of unique species and specialized-niche functional groups. conditions in conifer and cardamom plantations are less favorable for these functional groups as dead trees and climbing plants are removed, and cardamom plantations are logged periodically (the conifer plantations were not sufficiently mature for logging). comparatively low species overlap among primary forests, deforested areas, and cardamom plantations likely results in large part from modification of forest structure and composition by humans in the latter two vegetation types. comparatively high species overlap between primary forests and conifer plantations can be explained in part by their shared characteristics: a lack of ongoing intensive management (as compared to cardamom plantations), similarity in structure (as compared to deforested areas), and their position on the landscape (predominantly on northand west-facing slopes). deforested areas without an overstory, there are opportunities in deforested areas for species unable to tolerate shade. deforested areas contained ~47 species not found in any other vegetation type, many of which were herbaceous graminoids and plants with a spreading growth form. woody vegetation in deforested stands was minimized by removal of fuel-wood and regular grazing. however, some woody species that were fast-growing or exhibited anti-herbivory adaptations (e.g., the spines of berberis spp., thorns of rubus ellipticus, and poisonous foliage of l. ovalifolia) were encountered regularly. these species persisted as islands of woody vegetation and appeared to provide refuge for plant species intolerant of exposure and herbivory. such islands might serve as important sources of diversity should forests become reestablished. previous research has found that the greatest causal factors for deforestation in this region are conversion to agriculture, livestock grazing, and removal of timber and fuel-wood (mahat et al., 1987; blaikie, 1988; chaudhary, 2000). none of the deforested sites were under cultivation at the time of sampling, though it is likely that some had been previously cultivated. all sites were grazed, and many containing woody vegetation were being magraw and detling banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 33 magraw and detling utilized as a source for fuel-wood. in contrast with deforested areas, both primary forests and cardamom plantations are well established with a damp, well-shaded understory. thus, the low species overlap between deforested areas and these vegetation types is to be expected. the conifer stands had been planted on deforested land 10–30 years previously, a possible explanation for the comparatively high species overlap between these two vegetation types. cardamom plantations intensive management appears to be the greatest factor affecting species richness and diversity in cardamom plantations. woody vegetation is controlled by farmers who prefer species that fix nitrogen and produce high quality timber and fodder. cardamom occupies a substantial proportion of the ground-surface and forms a second canopy between one and two meters above ground. the groundcover is thinned several times yearly to reduce interspecific competition and physical interference with cardamom flowers and fruit. sharma et al. (1998b) have described cardamom plantations as a successful combination of income generation and biodiversity conservation. this is reasonable when considering alternatives such as terraced cultivation and monoculture plantations. but, of the vegetation types we examined, cardamom plantations are among the least diverse and species rich, and so are not a viable conservation alternative to primary forests. conifer plantations conifer forests do not undergo intensive manipulation of the understory, as in cardamom plantations, or frequent, unregulated resource extraction, as in deforested areas. this, in combination with difference in aspect and elevation, may account for the significantly greater species richness in conifer plantations as compared to deforested areas and cardamom plantations. the expectation that conifer plantations would exhibit lower species richness and diversity than primary forests was not met. this prediction was based on the assumptions that (a) overstory and understory tree species richness in conifer plantations would be lower than that in primary forests, and (b) conifer leaf litterfall would alter the soil chemistry, inhibiting growth of understory plants (samra and raizada, 2002). the reduction in diversity of conifer plantations previously documented by sitaula (2000) and others may not have occurred here because the plantations were found predominantly on north-facing slopes and were only 10–30 years old. conifer plantations are established upon deforested lands, so as they mature they transition from a community dominated by species tolerant to exposure and grazing to one with an understory more typical of forests. as their high overlap with other vegetation types suggests, the conifer plantation understory contains a combination of species typical of other management types. the presence of many overstory and understory tree species in the conifer understory suggests the possibility of a mixed forest in the future. however, this is unlikely in these plantations due to the high density of even-aged conifers, occasional removal of undesirable species and undergrowth by community forest users groups, and alteration of soil chemistry by conifer leaf litter. several aspects of the undergrowth in conifer plantations differ remarkably from primary forests. even though species diversity and overall species richness were not significantly different, mean vegetation cover and richness of epiphytic and climbing species were lower in conifer plantations than in primary forests. moreover, the proportion of unique species in conifer plantations was the lowest of any vegetation type, whereas primary forests had the highest proportion of unique species. so, even though species richness and diversity in conifer plantations were comparable to that in primary forests, the species that occurred in conifer plantations were more likely to be found in other vegetation types as well. this study combined plantations consisting of two pinus species and c. japonica into one vegetation type. differences in the density of the canopy and leaf litter between c. japonica and the pinus species will likely result in distinct plant communities under a mature canopy. conclusion our findings suggest that plant communities in eastern nepal’s lower temperate zone are strongly influenced by the type and degree of management and by their location on the landscape. consequently, although estimates of total forest cover are useful in assessing the overall condition of the landscape and the resources available to rural communities, they should not be considered a gauge of the continued presence banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 34 of species-rich plant communities approximating those in primary forests. no single vegetation type contained more than 60% of the species encountered in this study. the most species-rich landscape, therefore, most likely consists of a patchwork of vegetation and land-use types. there are currently few direct incentives for rural nepalese to maintain natural vegetation types as part of the landscape mosaic. instead, as population has increased, primary forests near human settlements have diminished, being replaced by land-use types that serve the local people’s needs. future research should consider the likelihood of natural forest regeneration from deforested areas, loss of habitat on southand east-facing hillsides, and viability of forest plant communities in an increasingly patchy landscape. acknowledgements we are grateful to dinesh karki for his support, technical and otherwise, and to netra burja thapa and the family of dan bahadur rai in northern ilam. we would like to express our sincere thanks to a number of the employees of department of plant resources of nepal and to various faculty members at colorado state university. we are thankful to the peace corps masters/internationalist program, peace corps/ nepal, nepal’s ministry of forests and soil conservation, and colorado state university’s graduate degree program in ecology for their generous support to carry out this study. references acharya, b. 1999. forest biodiversity assessment: a spatial analysis of tree species diversity in nepal. international institute for aerospace survey and earth sciences, enschede, the netherlands. acharya, k.p. 2006. linking trees on farms with biodiversity conservation in subsistence farming systems in nepal. biodiversity and conservation 15: 631–646. blaikie, p. 1988. the explanation of land degradation. in deforestation: social dynamics in watershes and mountain ecosystems (eds.) ives, j., pitt, d.c. routledge, london, u.k, 132–158. branney, p. and dev, o.p. 1994. biodiversity implications of community management of forests in nepal. nepal-uk community forestry project report 12/nukcfp/04, kathmandu, nepal. branney, p. and yadav, k.p. 1998. changes in community forest condition and management 1994–1998: analysis of information from the forest resource assessment study and 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component, natural resources management sector assistance programme, kathmandu, nepal. undp. 1998. ecoregional co-operation for biodiversity conservation in the himalaya. report of the international meeting on himalaya ecoregional co-operation, kathmandu, nepal. february 16–18, 1998. united nations development programme, new york, usa. usda forest service. 2005. phase 3 field guide vegetation diversity and structure. forest inventory and analysis national program. u.s. department of agriculture. url: http:// fia.fs.fed.us/library/field-guides-methodsproc/docs/2006/p3_3-0_sec13_10_2005.pdf (accessed on 3-21-2012). wilkinson, l. 2000. systat. version 10. systat software, inc., point richmond, california, usa. cover 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 31 sapkota and meilby assessment of climate change and its impact on cashcrops in lwang ghalel of kaski district c. b. khadka1*, m. k. balla1 and k. r. tiwari1 this paper focuses on climate change, its impact on cash crop production, perception of local people and their adaptation measures against the impacts of climate change in lwang ghalel village development commitee (vdc) of kaski district. cash-crops such as tea, amriso (broom grass) and cardamom were the main products in the study area. primary data were collected through household survey with semi-structured questionnaires, interview with key informants, and formal and informal discussion. thirty years meteorological data (rainfall and temperature) were collected from narayani basin office, pokhara to study the rainfall and temperature pattern. the rainfall pattern seemed to be increased at the rate of 2.74 mm per year while the mean annual maximum and minimum temperature also seemed to be increased by 0.0640 c and 0.010 c per year, respectively. tea was affected more due to climate change than other cash-crops. amriso was the best adapted species against climate change due to its extended root system. key words: impact assessment, climatic condition, rainfall pattern, landuse pattern, adaptation strategy observed data in nepal indicates consistent warming and rise in maximum temperature at an annual rate of 0.04º – 0.06º c (moe, 2010). high mountains are warming faster (0.080 c per year) than lower hills and the plains (0.040 c per year). this change has brought about major new challenges; its severe impact is seen on local natural resources, biodiversity and environment, leads to changes in geophysical, biological and socio-economic systems (burton et al., 2002). various studies have shown that the impacts of climate change are evident on forests, water resources, agriculture and other sectors in nepal. the livelihood of more than 80% local people of mountain region is heavily dependent on climate sensitive sectors such as agriculture, forest, and livestock and on the other natural resources such as water and biodiversity. they derive food, fodder, fibre, medicine, water and income from forests, grasslands and agricultural land for their livelihoods. for these reasons, nepal is identified as highly vulnerable country to climate change (silwal, 2009). nepal is richly endowed with numerous agricultural crops and plants. the variation in temporal, altitudinal, topographical aspects has made such biodiversity possible in agricultural sector (shrestha, 2007). cashcrops occupy 18% of the arable land. important cash-crops include sugarcane, jute, tobacco, tea, cotton and cardamom (abtraco, 2008). understanding the potential impact of climate change on agriculture in nepal is critical for two reasons. first, the existing system of food production is highly climate sensitive because of its low level of capital and technology. second, agriculture is the main source of livelihood for majority of the population. if agricultural production is adversely affected by climate change, the livelihoods of even greater number of people will be at risk (dahal and khanal, 2010). the major cash-crops grown in lwang ghalel village development commitee (vdc) included: tea, coffee, cardamom and amriso (thysanolaena maxima). these cash-crops played a significant role in the economic upliftment of the local people. the impact of climate change on production of these cash-crops should be known. therefore, the study was carried out to assess the climate change and its impacts on agricultural crops production and to document the perception of the local people towards climate change and possible adaptation measures. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in lwang ghalel vdc of kaski district, nepal. the study area comprises 1tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara * corresponding author: deadlock10@gmail.com banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 32 four randomly chosen wards: 1, 2, 3 and 4 of lwang ghalel vdc. lwang ghalel conservation area management committee (lgcamc) consists of 993 households (aca, 2009). land-use wise, lgcamc is covered with 72.2 km2 of forest, 5.5 km2 of shrub-land, 25.3 km2 of grass-land, 10.2 km2 of agricultural-land, and 37.1 km2 of barrenland, 2 km2 of sand-gravel-land, 12.6 km2 of glacierland without ponds and snow, and 0.2 km2 of river (ntnc, 2009). data collection with the sampling intensity of 23%, a total of 101 households from the selected wards: 1, 2, 3 and 4 were chosen for the household survey. the respondents included 76 males and 25 females. required information and data were solicited through reconnaissance survey, key informant interview, formal and informal discussion, and direct observation. the rainfall and temperature data recorded up to the period of 1977 to 2009 in the nearest meteorological stations; ghandruk, lumle and siklesh were obtained from the narayani basin office, pokhara. they were analysed using the msexcel to determine rainfall and temperature trend, and regression. the information obtained from the questionnaire was analysed by using spss software. land-use map was used for the interpretation of the agricultural land-use (ntnc, 2009). results and discussion the majority of the respondents were gurungs (32.7 %). about 66 % were literate while the rest were illiterate. the main occupation of the majority (83.2%) of respondents was agriculture. rainfall analysis lumle, which lies at the southern part of aca, has observed an increasing trend in annual precipitation with increases in winter, post-monsoon, premonsoon and monsoon seasons by 4.3 mm, 32.7 mm, 48 mm and 205 mm per decade, respectively. siklesh, on the other hand, has shown a decreasing trend in annual precipitation by 125 mm per decade. ghandruk also showed tremendous decreasing trend of average annual rainfall with the rate of declination of nearly 333 mm per decade. the trend analysis based on annual rainfall record (1977–2007) at these stations revealed that lumle followed an increasing trend of rainfall whereas sikles and ghandruk followed the negative trend (pandit, 2009). the linear trend line of average mean annual rainfall of the nearest stations: ghandruk, lumle and siklesh (1977–2009) indicated that rainfall pattern had increased at the rate of 2.74 mm per year (fig. 1). fig 1: mean annual rainfall trend at ghandruk, lumle and siklesh station (dhm, 1977–2009) temperature analysis the trend of temperature increase at lumle was much higher in winter as compared to other seasons. the linear trend line (fig. 2) showed that mean annual maximum temperature and mean annual minimum temperature at lumle have increased by 0.0640 c and 0.010 c per year, respectively. this increase in temperature has supported the evidence of climate change. the temperature trend line of winter follows the steeper path making the difference of nearly 3.70 c during an interval of 30 years resulting in an average rate of 1.10 c per decade, while the other seasons show trend of 0.330 c per decade (pandit, 2009). fig: 3 mean annual maximum and minimum temperature at lumle station (dhm, 1977-2009) knowledge and perception on climate change according to 55% respondents, the major source of information about the climate change for them was media (extension) like radio, television and newspapers. however, 39 % reported that they knew about climate change through their own experiences. khadka et al. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 33 it was found that the major cash-crops grown by the majority of respondents (45.5%) were tea followed by amriso (17.8%) and both tea and amriso (7.9%). according to the majority of respondents i.e. 36.6%, the main reason for change in flowering, fruiting and harvesting time of cash-crops was snowfall. tea was the most affected cash-crop by snowfall. gandhe jhar (ageratum conizoides) was the major new species found in the farm land as reported by 62.4% respondents. 13.9% reported banmara (eupatorium adenophorum) and 14.9% reported both species as new species in the farm land. these tropical species are indicator of climate change since they are found in hotter areas. since some of the cash-crops like tea, and coffee are grown in small areas in farmland, these species affected the growth of cash-crops. according to 47% respondents the major source of water supply was forest streams, followed by water tanks (33%) and rainfall (20%). soil moisture has decreased in the study area. it was found that tea was grown in 11.2 ha with the annual production of 9,342 kg, amriso in 9.25 ha with 31,240 brooms and cardamom in 1.25 ha with 125 kg. the decrease in cash-crops has been reported in the area and the reasons are shown in figure 3. the major reasons for decrease in annual production of cash-crops as reported by 37.6% respondents were defective seedlings, lack of knowledge of planting and drought followed by combined effects of decrease in leaf and root and snowfall (10.9%). however, 48.5% respondents made no response. soil erosion and landslide. similarly, conserving forest streams and provision of water tanks were done to conserve the water sources in the study area. use of farm yard manure (fym), in situ manuring, use of compost and pesticides were the measures adopted to improve the soil fertility of farmland. study shows that due to climate change, tea was more affected than cardamom and coffee. out of 50% respondents that responded 24% respondents reported that tea was affected more from climate change than amriso (19%), cardamom (6%) and coffee (1%). according to 65% respondents, amriso was the best adapted cash-crops against the climate change because of its extended roots while only 22% reported tea as the adapted species. conclusion it was found that the rainfall pattern in the study area was irregular. there was increase in both mean annual maximum and minimum temperatures. the appearance of invasive tropical weeds like banmara and gandhe jhar in the farm land implied shifting of vegetation from temperate to tropical, thus indicated temperature rise in the study area. snowfall was the main reason for changes in flowering, fruiting and harvesting time of cash-crops. defective seedlings, drought and lack of planting knowledge were responsible for declining cash-crops. since tea was grown in larger area, it was affected more than other principal cash-crops like amriso and cardamom. the best adapted species from the climate change perspective was amriso. the plant has extended roots and, therefore, can absorb moisture from soil even in drier conditions. people also prefer amriso to other cash-crops as it has shorter rotation period and as it provides benefit within a year. fig 3: reasons for decrease in production of cashcrops annually impact assessment and adaptation strategies climate change impacts, their adaptation strategies and measures are illustrated in table 1. the construction of dam, plantation and terrace cultivation were done as adaptation measures against table 1: impacts, adaptation strategies and measures impacts adaptation strategies measures soil erosion / soil conservation construction of landslide activities dam, plantation, terrace cultivation water sources water resource conserving forest conservation provision of water tanks farmland soil fertility use of farm yard fertility management manure, in-situ manure, compost, pesticides khadka et al. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 34 khadka et al. references abtraco. 2008. country report on the state of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. available at: http://www.fao.org/ docrep/013/i1500e/nepal.pdf ntnc. 2009. management plan of annapurna conservation area (2009–2012). national trust for nature conservation, lalitpur, nepal. burton, i., huq, s., lim b., pilifosova, o. and schipper, e. l. 2002. from impacts assessment to adaptation priorities: the shaping of adaptation policy. climate policy 2:145–159. dahal, h. and khanal, d. 2010. food security and climate change adaptation framework: issues and challenges. available at: http:// www.moac.gov.np/poverty%20and%20food %20security%20updated.pdf dhm. 1977-2009. mean annual rainfall trend at ghandruk, lumle and siklesh station. narayani basin, department of hydrology and meteorology, kathmandu, nepal. moe. 2010. national adaptation programme of action (napa), government of nepal, ministry of environment (moe), kathmandu, nepal. pandit, a. 2009. understanding impacts of climate change on low income households in southern acap. m.sc. thesis, central department of environmental science, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal. silwal, p. 2009. assessment of climate change vulnerabilities and adaptation option for sustainable livelihood -a case study of baglung municipality, baglung district, nepal. b. sc. forestry project paper, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. shrestha, s.g. 2007. necessity of watershed conservation for nepal’s overall development (nepalko samasthigat vikashko lagi jaladhar sanrakshanko apariharyata in nepali). in hamro sampada february 2007. corrected bankojanakari vol 18-1.pmd 42 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 who is benefiting more from common property forest resources: poor or less poor? a.r. bhandari1, and h. uibrig2, this paper intends to assess the distribution of community forestry benefits among economic groups of the users comparing protected area buffer zone with the department of forests regime in nepal. following the case study approach two forest user groups of nawalparasi district, each from buffer zone of chitwan national park and department of forests regime were selected for the study. the study results suggest that the users in the buffer zone receive less benefit from community forestry than the users in the department of forests regime. analysis of inputs and outputs reveals that poor households receive less benefit than the better off households in both of the regimes. insofar the results counteract the principles of equity as expected from national forest policy goals and approaches. key words: benefits, buffer zone, community forestry, equity, heterogeneity, nepal. despite the arguments of the tragedy of the commons (hardin, 1968) in favor of privatization or government control over common goods for their protection, community based natural resource management strategies are growingly implemented in developing countries. community forestry (cf) is such an effort, in nepal, evolved as one of the main components of country’s forest development strategy during past two decades. nepal was one of the first countries to embrace fully community forestry as the main strategy of its national forest policy (bartlett, 1992). local communities have usufruct right over the forest resources through a forest user group (fug), group involving all members of the community that regularly use a forest to meet their household needs. the forest act 1993 and forest regulation 1995 have legitimized the roles, responsibilities and rights of fugs as an independent, autonomous and selfgoverning institution responsible to protect, manage and sustainable use the community forest. so far more than 14,000 fugs, which constitute about 35% of the population of the country, are managing about 1.20 million ha of forest, about 25% of the country’s total forest land (dof, 2007). master plan for forestry sector (mpfs), implemented in 1989, recognize about 60% of the country’s forest as potential community forests. nepal is actively involved in environment protection and biodiversity conservation through establishing network of protected areas in the country. till date 19.70% of the country’s total area has been declared as protected areas (icimod/moest, 2007). community participation in protected area management has been initiated through buffer zone program in the country since 1996. buffer zone (bz) is a designated area surrounding a national park or reserve within which the use of forest products by local people is regulated to ensure sustainability of the resources, environmental conservation and community development (nbs, 2002). so far 11 buffer zones have been declared in nepal constituting 17.52% of the protected areas and 3.45% of the total area of the country (dnpwc/pcp, 2006). in buffer zone, community forestry program has been implemented as one of the most important programs. the tenth plan (2002-2007) and poverty reduction strategy paper (prsp, 2002) provide the strategic vision, enabling policy framework for decentralization and legitimate the local efforts by devolving and sharing power of the state with the dependent communities. cf program in nepal is based on the principle of devolution, and it is an attempt to improve the socio-economic conditions of rural communities and halt environmental degradation. despite the successful development of cf in nepal there are instances when not all people receive the same benefits that could be conducive to discussion of equity issues within fugs (richards et al., 2003). equity in benefit distribution of community forest 1 general secretary, green governance nepal. email: anantarb@yahoo.com 2 professor, dresden university of technology, germany. email: druibrig@forst.tu-dresden.de 43 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 management is considered to be one of the major determinants of long-term sustainability. this study aims to assess the distributional implications of cf benefits among different economic groups of the users comparing protected area buffer zone with the department of forest regime in nepal. materials and methods this study was carried out in the buffer zone of chitwan national park and its vicinity in nawalparasi district of western nepal. kalika fug from buffer zone and choutari fug from department of forest regime were selected for the study considering similar forest types and socio-economic conditions of the users. structured questionnaire survey, most widely used and popular technique in social research (neuman, 1994), was conducted to collect the primary data. pretested questionnaire was filled up through visiting the households during the field visits between october 2006 and february 2007. a total of 131 households, 60 from kalika fug and 71 from choutari fug, about 10% of total, were selected through stratified random sampling based on wealth ranking for the survey. participants in the participatory rural appraisal exercise were asked to categorize all households into three different wealth groups, poor, middle class and better off based on the criteria that they considered important for such classification. six semi-structured interviews and four focus group discussions were conducted with the key informants to triangulate the data. numerous literatures and documents were reviewed to collect the secondary data. the data were analyzed through benefit-cost ratio, mann-whitney test, kruskal-wallis test and ç2approximation. benefits and costs were assessed at household level among different economic groups. benefit is defined as all direct and tangible products received by users’ household viz. timber, fuelwood, fodder, grass, leaf litter, and other non-timber forest products (ntfp). the valuation of the products was done based on the local market rates. cost is defined as all forest protection and management costs incurred by the users. forest protection and management costs involve product/operating costs and transaction costs. product/operating costs include fees or charges paid by the users to fug, time spent by the households in collecting forest products, and the labor input to protect and manage forests. transaction costs include time spent by the households in meetings and assemblies of the fug. labor costs and transaction costs were determined by the opportunity costs of labor at local level. the benefits and costs of individual households of different economic groups were quantified and averaged to determine the benefits and costs of the households of each group. results and discussion the main results of the study on costs and benefits referring to the two different regimes of management have been listed. table 1 provides an overview on the respective figures, which is explained and discussed in the following paragraphs. bhandari and uibrig table 1. community forestry benefits and costs of households average annual costs and benefits of household in us$* group of households better off middle class poor total average total 131.2 18.5 5.5 35.5 benefit net 79.3 11.6 0.2 20.8 product/operating 41.4 4.1 2.7 10.5 transaction 10.4 2.8 2.6 4.2 cost total 51.9 6.9 5.3 14.7 k al ik a f u g (b u ff er z o n e) benefit-cost ratio 2.53 2.69 1.04 2.19 total 486.4 175.8 24.3 183.3 benefit net 343.4 126.7 11.6 129.7 product/operating 133.2 43.7 9.2 48.0 transaction 9.8 5.4 3.6 5.6 cost total 143.1 49.1 12.7 53.6 c h o u ta ri f u g (d o f r eg im e) benefit-cost ratio 3.40 3.58 1.91 3.16 *1us$=rs 73 in 2006 44 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 community forestry costs average total costs of a household of kalika fug and choutari fug with regard to community forestry is us$ 14.7 and us$ 53.6 per year respectively. higher total costs in the dof regime is mainly due to the high product/operating costs. less forest products are extracted from the cf in the buffer zone and results in low product/operating costs. product/ operating costs of a household reflects the situation of products consumption by the household. average annual product/operating costs of better off household is fairly high in both of the fugs. it indicates that wealthier households consume more forest products than poor households. transaction costs is considered as an indicator of participation in cf process, particularly in decisionmaking. annual transaction costs of kalika fug and choutari fug is us$ 4.2 and us$ 5.6 respectively. the differences in transaction costs between the two regimes is a result of forest management activities. the lesser the management activities the lesser the transaction costs. transaction costs also varies between the economic groups of the users. better off household incur three times higher transaction costs than that of poor household in both fugs. it indicates that poor households have less influence in decision-making process in community forestry. management regimes and community forestry benefits household benefit from community forestry in the buffer zone is fairly less than the dof regime. average annual cf benefit of a household of kalika fug and choutari fug is us$ 35.5 and us$ 183.3 respectively. annual household net benefit from cf of kalika fug and choutari fug is us$ 20.8 and us$ 129.7 respectively. mann-whitney test suggests that annual total and net cf benefit significantly differs between the buffer zone and the dof regime (p<0.000). average benefit-cost ratio of a household of kalika fug and choutari fug is 2.19 and 3.16 respectively. mann-whitney test suggests that benefitcost ratio significantly differs between the two fugs (p<0.005). lower benefit-cost ratio of the users in the buffer zone implies their high contribution in the cf but less outputs as compared to the outside. this analysis reveals that cf benefits varied between the buffer zone and the dof regime; and fug members in the buffer zone obtain fewer benefits from cf than the members in the dof regime. buffer zone complements the national park in the conservation of biological resources and extension of wildlife habitat. it was observed that community forestry program in the buffer zone is focused, more prominently, on conserving forest resources. harvesting and extraction of forest products are regulated through a more restrictive rules and practices in the buffer zone. it is clearly seen in the studied cf that the duration of harvesting and extraction of forest products is lesser in the buffer zone than in the dof regime even though socioeconomic condition of the households and per unit stocking is comparable. extraction of fuelwood is practiced once a year (7-15 days) in kalika cf whereas it is practiced twice a year (15-30 days) in choutari cf. similarly, fodder and grass from cf is extracted during 3-6 months per year in kalika cf and up to 9 months per year in choutari cf. it is obvious that longer duration offers, to the users, in collecting more products from community forest. economic and livelihood opportunities through forest products are higher in dof regime since they can sell forest products elsewhere and generate fund for forest management and community development. but, in the buffer zone, rule 24 (7) of buffer zone management regulation 1996 prohibits to selling timber and fuelwood, the major sources of income for fug, outside the zone. government of nepal has implemented a pro-public policy in protected area management with the provision of 30-50% national park income allocating to buffer zone. this fund is aimed for resource management and community development in buffer zone through public participation. about us$ 2,330,000 has been spent in the buffer zone of chitwan national park during the last 8 years. this fund has been utilized for various community development activities such as maintenance of irrigation, water supply, rural road/trail, river training and bio-gas installation. although this fund does not contribute, substantially, to the household income of the users, it has a contribution in rural development and makes people’s attitude positive towards resource conservation (gurung et al., 2004). fug generate fund through charging products price to the members and selling surplus forest products (in the buffer zone product selling is not allowed outside the zone). kalika fug generates us$ 2687.03 while choutari fug generates us$ 18123.88 per year, bhandari and uibrig 45 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 although it oscillates. this fund has been utilized for forest management and community development activities focusing livelihood opportunities of the users. buffer zone fund contributes to the users in this aspect, and, shrinks the cf income gap between the buffer zone and the dof regime. the communities belonging to studied fug in the buffer zone received us$ 4470.90 during the fiscal year 2005/06 from the national park income, through buffer zone program, albeit it fluctuates year to year. in the past, local communities in the buffer zone relied on the national park for their forest products needs. after establishment of the national park, the extraction of resources is prohibited. however, national park authority opens up the park for 3 days in a year to the buffer zone people who can collect thatch grass/reeds. thatch grass is very useful, particularly for poor and indigenous households, to construct and repair houses and cattle shades. in the studied fug, it contributes roughly us$ 12 to a household in a year and complements to cf benefits in the buffer zone. total annual cf benefits of a household in kalika fug, after including per capita fug fund, per capita buffer zone fund and value of the products extracted from the national park, is us$ 77.76. similarly, total annual cf benefits of a household in choutari fug after including per capita fug fund is us$ 206.95. it reveals that the household level cf benefit of the fug members in the buffer zone is fairly less than the fug members in the dof regime. economic heterogeneity and community forestry benefits annual cf benefit of better off household is fairly large followed by middle class groups in both fugs. poor households receive fairly less amount of benefits per year from cf. annual total cf benefit of better off, middle class and poor household in kalika fug is us$ 131.20, us$ 18.50 and us$ 5.53 respectively while in choutari fug it is us$ 486.44, us$ 175.83 and us$ 24.25 respectively. the distribution of annual net benefits among economic groups is similar to the distribution of annual total cf benefits in both fugs. kruskal-wallis test suggests that total and net cf benefit significantly differs among economic groups of both kalika fug (p<0.000) and choutari fug (p<0.000). ç2approximation, a method of multiple pair wise comparison of mean rank (sachs, 1997), has been applied to identify which economic group significantly differs in terms of cf benefits. it suggests that total and net cf benefit significantly differs between better off and poor, better off and middle class and middle class and poor households in both fugs. benefit-cost ratio of the households of middle class group is higher than the poor and slightly higher than the better off households in both fugs. it implies that middle class households are more efficient. kruskal-wallis test suggests that benefit-cost ratio differs significantly between the three economic groups in kalika fug (p<0.002) and choutari fug (p<0.021). ç2-approximation suggests that it significantly varies between better off and poor, and middle class and poor while the difference between better off and middle class is not statistically significant in both fugs. this analysis indicates that the distribution of cf benefits is unequal and influenced by the economic heterogeneity of the users; consequently, poor receive lesser benefits from cf than the better off households in both of the regimes. in buffer zone poor people are suffering more. in the past, poor and indigenous people in the buffer zone were depending on national park for forest resources. after the restriction of resource extraction from national park, they were drawing their livelihoods from the forest resources in the buffer zone. when community forestry was brought as a major component of buffer zone program, in which they have limited influence, access has been controlled and regulated. better off households consume more forest products such as fodder, grass and leaf litter since they have larger number of livestock and bigger landholdings than the poor. however, forest products available in the private land complement, to some extent, to the better off households. the poor households have small landholdings and rely on community forest for such products albeit they consume less. wealthier households consume timber for constructing new houses or repairing the old ones, and cattle shades, and domestic furniture. on the contrary, poor households have low priority in constructing and improving the houses and furniture, and hence have less demand for timber. in the past, poor people in the locality used to collect fuelwood from the forest and sell to the market for their livelihood. but, after handing over the forests to the communities the extraction of the fuelwood has been regulated. it is bhandari and uibrig 46 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 observed that poor households are not able to internalize the benefits from forest products currently available in community forests. and, there is no any compensation mechanism in the cf to increase the benefits of the poor who utilize limited quantity of forest products. this finding supports the conclusion drawn by richards et al. (1999) that poor households are currently benefiting less from community forestry of nepal. another reason why poor people receive lower benefits is their lower participation in cf decisionmaking process. transaction cost, which is an indicator of participation in decision-making process, is less of the poor than that of middle class and better off households. the distribution of transaction cost is similar in the buffer zone and the dof regime. in addition, the poor bear less total costs, which indicate their less involvement in the entire process of community forestry. the less participation of the poor in community forestry process is due to high rate of time preference and high opportunity cost of time and labor which is allocated to secure immediate livelihood needs. conclusions this study reveals that users in the buffer zone obtain fewer benefits from community forestry than that of the department of forests regime. fugs of the dof regime are more autonomous than that of the buffer zones which are subjected to a higher level of restrictions. withdrawal and management rights are more restrictive in the buffer zone due to the emphasis on conservation of biological resources and extension of wildlife habitat. on the other hand, fugs in the dof regime are intended to maximize the product extraction. economic and livelihood opportunities through forest products are higher in the dof regime since they sell surplus products in the market, but, in the buffer zone, the sell of timber and fuelwood is prohibited outside the zone. however, 30-50% national park income that is ploughed back to the buffer zone contributes in resource management and development activities within the zone. this study suggests that current distribution practice of community forestry benefit is not equitable and counteracts national forest policy goals and approaches. poor households receive lesser benefits from community forestry than the better off households. furthermore, poor people in the buffer zone are suffering more due to the higher level of confines in community forestry. reference bartlett, a. g. 1992. a review of community forestry advances in nepal. commonwealth forestry review 71(2): 95-100. dnpwc/pcp. 2006. annual report. participatory conservation program. dnpwc/ undp nepal. dof, 2007. mis database of department of forest, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. gurung, h.; shah, s.g.; subba, c.; adhikari, s.p. and dhungana, s.k. 2004. impact assessment of buffer zone program in nepal. new era, kathmandu, nepal. hardin, g. 1968. the tragedy of the commons. science 162: 1243-1248 gon. 1973. national parks and wildlife conservation act, 1973. his majesty’s government of nepal (hmgn), kathmandu. gon. 1993. forest act, 1993. his majesty’s government of nepal (hmgn), kathmandu. gon. 1995. forest regulations, 1995. government of nepal (gon), kathmandu. gon. 1996. the buffer zone management regulations, 1996. government of nepal (gon), kathmandu. icimod/moest. 2007. nepal biodiversity resource book: protected areas, ramsar sites and world heritage sites. international center for integrated mountain development (icimod) and ministry of environment, science and technology (moest), government of nepal, kathmandu. mpfs. 1989. master plan for the forestry sector. his majesty’s government of nepal, kathmandu. nbs. 2002. nepal biodiversity strategy. ministry of forests and soil conservation, gon nepal. neuman, l.w. 1994. social research methods: qualitative and quantitative approaches. allyn and bacon boston. npc. 2002. poverty reduction strategy. the national planning commission (npc). government of nepal, kathmandu. bhandari and uibrig 47 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 npc. 2002. poverty reduction strategy. the national planning commission (npc). government of nepal, kathmandu. npc. 2002. the tenth plan (2002-2007). the national planning commission (npc). government of nepal, kathmandu. richards, m.; kanel, k.; maharjan, m. and davies, j. 1999. towards participatory economic analysis by forest users groups in nepal. overseas development institute, london, uk. richards, m.; maharjan, m.; and kanel, k. 2003. economics, poverty and transparency: measuring equity in forest user groups. journal of forest and livelihood 3(1). sachs, l. 1997. angewandte statistik, 8. auflage. springer-verlos, berlin. bhandari and uibrig final vol 16-1.pmd 35 community forestry in the hills of nepal is a more success story in terms of expansion on the forest cover area on the one hand and conservation of bio-diversity on the other. as the spill over effect of the community forestry on sphere like livelihood among others continue, it is less evident that whether forest user’s perception towards change in the crop production, grazing land area, number of tree species, water spring and time spent in collecting firewood and fetching water and on the occurrence of flooding, is well documented. people’s perception towards changing environment is important for several reasons. firstly, the perception on the environmental change may serve as a tool for further objective investigation on the environmental changes. the second reason is attributed to the influence of this perception in the participation of people in the environmental programme implementation such as community forestry activities aiming to make difference in the livelihood of rural people mostly relying on subsistence agriculture. thirdly, and most importantly, perception on the environmental change may have effect on the individual behavior. that is to say that increase in the soil fertility due to application of green manure produced from the fodder collected from the community forests motivate people to realize that community forestry is beneficial to them. the purpose of this study is to document the influence of socio-economic characteristics on perception of forest users towards the environments as stated above. available literature on environment degradation focuses more and relies on the aggregate data implying at macro level (e.g., large catchments area, country level). on the contrary, the study focused on the local context as it affects on the daily lives of local people where they are directly in touch with the environment. environment assets and nepal rural population in nepal relies on subsistence agriculture for their livelihood. it is supplemented by milk and meat from animal husbandry. to large extent, agriculture and animal keeping largely depend on the availability of forest products, for example, animal feed in the form of fodder comes from the forest, that is either under the control of state, or private or community. so it is imperative that the quality and productivity of forest at large, affect on the lives of rural dwellers. agrawal (1992) has rightly mentioned that the south asian studies focus on the population and environment nexus. similarly, part of the fuel requirement is fulfilled from the wood and it continues to be dominant in the rural area as no viable alternative energy source is available in most of the rural areas. united nations estimates that 84 percent of the household energy comes from firewood and the time taken to collect this biomass material ranges from 1.2 hrs to 2.5 hours per day (un, 1995). this is consistent with the recent study which reported that household characteristics and perception of users towards the environmental changes within community forests in the dhaulagiri hills of nepal ashok baniya1 this paper investigates how households’ characteristics, in light of community forestry intervention in the western hill of nepal, influence the perception of environmental quality. two types of data were used in this study, survey data on household’s characteristics and environmental perception from 212 households and individual level survey data. it was found, taking from the evidences from community forestry, that households’ characteristics are associated with perception of environment quality. perception on environment quality is important from two angles that is firstly, it indicates objective environment quality degradation; secondly, it pave the way for designing the programme aiming to change the environmental behavior of forest users within community forestry. key words: environment quality, perception, logistic regression, and variable 1research fellow, social development and research centre (sdrc), jwagal, kupondole, lalitpur, email:sdrc_org@yahoo.com 36 women spend between 1.27 and 2.04 hours per day for firewood collection (baniya, 2005). it is evident that poor have little land and virtually no land at all to cope with the survival stress primarily at the time of vulnerable context. they tend to keep few goats and chickens that don’t require more land. equally important is that common grazing land may be panacea for them as no fees is charged to graze their goats. theoretical framework although the data available is not sufficient to test the mechanism that tells us about the objective link between household characteristics and perceive change in the environment, it is assumed that a link exists between them. this is attributed firstly to the fact that idiographic characteristic such as education and family with comparatively large members influence on the perception entailing to changes on the environment. the second is that perception change is the direct result of change in environment. agrawal (1997), marx (1976) and barber & axinn (2003) indicated that there are links between socioeconomics facilities and environmental degradation. they argued that capitalist mode of production results in human interacting less directly with natural environment, which in turn leads to its exploitation. for example; a buyer of firewood living in urban areas doesn’t/needn’t bother about the prevailing condition of forest that meets the demand of firewood. thus he/she becomes less interactive with the forest. some analysis on the relationship between population and environment reveals that there is little agreement on this sort of relationship. according to panayotou (2000), empirical researches are unable to resolve the issue because of limited data, divergent methodologies, and varying levels of analysis. consequently, he has not been able to decide the relationships between population and environment, not only on magnitude but also on direction. barber & axinn (2003) have argued that there exist relationships between neighborhood facilities and perceived environmental degradation. they have further claimed that increasing neighborhood facilities are associated with environmental degradation such as depletion of common forest resources, increased chemical fertilizer requirement and lower water table. the available literatures focus more on development and environment; however, it does not tell us about the mechanism aiming at common property resource management and its effect on the environment. this study endeavours to fill this gap and intend to establish the links between the households’ characteristics and perceived environment changes not only on magnitude but also in direction. materials and methods households for the study were selected in two stages. first, community forestry user groups (cfug) were selected from each of the jyamrokkot and pulachaur village development committee (vdc) of myagdi district through purposive sampling with considering the sizable deciduous forest (>0.1 ha per household), deciduous forest, same altitude (10001500m) altitude categorized by district forest office myagdi and livelihood and forestry programme (lfp). the vdc selection was done with motive to cover both households from the animation and nonanimation areas and to compare the ‘with’ and ‘without’ situation. the lfp has implemented its animation programme in myagdi district after selecting the best non-government organizations that aims at strengthening the internal management system of cfugs. 45% of households were selected on the basis of systematic random sampling from each cfug of both the animation and nonanimation areas for questionnaire survey. accordingly, 212 households, including 125 animated households’ and 87 non-animated one were selected. the sample accounts for about 59% of all households in selected cfugs and 22 % of all two vdcs. considering the probability that some of the respondents might not be available for interview for various reasons, reserves of 15% were taken. some key characteristics of animated and nonanimated households are presented in table 1.the information is presented separately. with respect to various socio-economic characteristics (such as land holding, household size, education level), on average, the animated and nonanimated households were similar. however, animated and non-animated households were different considerably in term of non-irrigated land and goats. for example, the average non-irrigated land size was 3.76 for animation area and 1.96 for nonbanko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 baniya 37 characteristics animation area nonanimation area household size (mean) 5.49 5.39 poor 5.05 5.65 medium 5.54 5.15 rich 5.82 5.60 population engaged in agriculture % bhramin/chhetri 74.5 90.3 others (dks) 83.3 26.7 land holding (mean) irrigated (ropani) 4.49 6.13 poor 2.18 2.65 medium 4.41 4.98 rich 6.33 12.05 non irrigated 3.76 1.96 poor 1.82 0.98 medium 4.54 1.81 rich 4.37 3.31 mean schooling (yrs) 3.65 3.08 poor 2.17 2.0 medium 2.59 2.61 rich 2.94 2.95 bhramin/ chhetri 4.28 3.51 other (dks) 0.96 1.00 livestock size cattle 1.78 1.21 buffalo 1.47 1.45 goat 1.30 0.63 ethnicity % bhramin/chhetri 81.0 19.0 others 82.8 17.2 gender % male 40.5 59.5 female 50.6 49.4 mean age male 44.72 female 38.39 source: field survey, 2005 animation. this difference was significant (p=0.05). similar significant difference was observed between animation and non-animation area in terms of goat rearing. the rich forest users of animation area entitled large tract of land that was significantly different with other economic groups of animation and non-animation area. similar was observed in terms of number of school years between upper caste (bhramin/chhetri) and other caste (damai/kami/sarki) in both animation and nonanimation area. model specification the research is attributed to causal type of study on the pattern and the strength of the relationships between dependent and independent variables. for empirical analysis, five separate binary variables as dependent variables were taken into account assigning value ‘1’ if it is yes and ‘0’ if it is no. the first binary dependent variable is grain production (assigning value ‘1’ if production increase is yes and ‘0’ otherwise). other dependent variables include availability of grazing land, number of tree species, firewood collection time, number of water springs, landslides/flooding incidences and water fetching time. independent variables (inputs) are class, age, gender, caste, education, occupation, and household size. these variables are supposed to influence the environment attributes for this study. i. class is nominally defined as the economic status of the user groups. the operational definition involves the categorization of entire users into three main groups; rich, medium and poor based on agreed criteria set by them at the time of exercising wealth-ranking exercise. ii. age is defined as the age of the respondents at the time of household survey. iii. gender is nominally defined as all the socially given attributes, role and activities connected to being a male and female in a given society. the operational definition of gender involves two categories (i) male (ii) female iv. caste is nominally defined as the system of dividing hindu society into classes. operationally, the definition of caste is the categorization of forest users (bhramin/chhetri, kami, damai and sarki) based on social system prevailed in the forest user groups. v. household size is defined as the number of family members living together under the same roof and sharing common stoves for food. vi . education is nominally defined as teaching someone using formal system of school, or university, to give knowledge or particulate understanding of a particular subject. operationally it is defined as the capacity to read and write (i.e. literate/illiterate) vii. agriculture occupation is nominally defined as the farming that is designed to grow goods and services required to the survival of human being. operationally, it is the practice and process of growing food grains such as rice, maize, wheat etc. table 1 : key characteristics of project and non-project households banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1baniya 38 logistic regression equation for this study, logistic regression is employed owing to the yes/no binary variables and is of the form; ln[pi/1-pi] =b0 + b1x1i+..........................+bkxki where subscript i denotes the ith observation in the sample is the probability of the outcome, b0 is intercept term and b1 ,b2 ......... bk are the coefficients of the explanatory variables x1,x2.........xk the coefficients reflect the effects of individual explanatory variables on their log of odds ln[pi/1-pi]. if the log of odds is positively associated to an explanatory variable, odds are also positively related to the independent variables. in addition, log of odds are linear and non linear for odds. explanatory variables most of the variables in the table are self-explanatory. the sample was divided into three income groups based on household wealth ranking made by user themselves on their own rating and criteria. the income status is represented by the dummy variables poor and rich. likewise, education, caste and gender are also set as dummy variables, which are also hypothesized to influence in. household size and age are hypothesized to affect on the benefits collected from the community forestry. table 2 : explanatory variables benchmark-mean value 2forest users perceive that cereal crop over the past five years is decreasing as the computed value is less than 2. this happens owing to decrease in the fertility of soil. this happens because the bedding material necessary for making compost is restricted after the community forestry intervention and the result is that forest users compel to keep small size of livestock due to the unavailability of fodder on the one hand and grazing land on the other. hence, small number of livestock seriously constrained on the production of organic manure leading to decrease in soil fertility causing decline, virtually, in the yield of crops. availability of grazing land decreased after complete restriction imposed by the forest users themselves to let regenerate the grazing land. obviously, forest department implicitly encouraged forest users to plant seedling there and the result was the reduction in the availability of grazing land in the hilly area. table 3 : descriptive statistics (n=212, range 1-3) variables description income group rich or medium =1,0=otherwise gender sex, male=1,0=otherwise caste higher caste=1,0=otherwise occupation agriculture =1,0=otherwise age age of the respondents education literate=1,0=otherwise household size number of members in the family results and discussion quantitative analysis table 3 entails the descriptive statistics, which tells us about the different environmental conditions pertaining to whether these assets are increasing or decreasing. the likert scale entailing points ranging from 1 to 3 was employed resulting mean value 2 for each of the environmental assets. considering this environmental assets (condition) sum mean crop production 339 1.60 grazing land 215 1.01 tree species 597 2.80 decrease in time to collect firewood 527 2.47 water spring 409 1.93 decrease flood/landslide 481 2.27 decrease in time to fetch water 607 2.85 source: field survey, 2005 however, as the analysis on the numbers of trees species reveals that these environmental assets are perceived to be increased over the past five years as the computed value is greater than 2. this is due to the fact that forest users explored the ways to plant seedling in their private land for couple of reasons. first, to meet the growing demand for firewood and fodder to feed their livestock. second, the government encouraged farmers to plant seedling by providing seedling free of cost. hence, the number of trees increased in the private owned land in general and slopping terrace land in particular. forest users perceived that their time has been saved in term of collecting water and firewood over the past five years. the possible reasons for these happening include: easy availability of firewood in community forest, more production of firewood and fodder in their own land and investment of fug fund in drinking water schemes. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 baniya 39 cereal crop production time to collect firewood flooding time to fetch water tree species water spring household characteristics b ex (b) b ex (b) b ex (b) b ex (b) b ex (b) b ex (b) education (literate=1) -1.20 0.3* -2.04 .129* -2.213 .109* -.280 .756 2.046 7.736* .957 .384 occupation (agriculture =1) .495 1.64 .182 1.19 -.005 .995 .546 1.726 .041 1.042 -.304 .738 class (rich=1) .703 2.0 -.04 .959 -.006 .994 .186 1.204 -.182 .834 .063 1.065 caste (upper caste =1) .183 1.20 .590 1,80 .889 2.4 .528 1.696 -.590 .554 1.178 3.247* gender (male=1) .591 1.80* .458 1.58 .291 1.33 .909 2.481* -.096 .908 -.071 .931 age -0.13 .98 -.015 .98 -.007 .993 -.024 .976 -.458 .633 -.432 .649 hh size .068 1.07 .096 1.10 .157 1.17* .369 1.447 .015 1.015 -.001 .999 constant -.169 .845 1.316 3.7 .510 1.66 .112 1.118 -1.316 .268 2.305 10.022 * significant at 5% level perception of forest users towards decrease in the incidents of flood and landslide may be attributed to the result of the soil conservation practices adopted by forest users in their cultivated land (both irrigated and non-irrigated). the situation improved as the water drainage system improved and regulated by well managed community forest. qualitative analysis (logistic regression analysis) table 4 presents the bivariate relationship between the households’ characteristics and perceived environmental quality. all of 6 measures of environmental condition –cereal crop production, time to collect firewood, flooding incidence, water fetching time; number of tree species and water spring is related to the independent variables. cereal crop production it is found that the coefficient for education was most significant (p<0.05) in inverse manner. in other words, given the negative sign, literate respondents perceived a decrease in the cereal crop production. the possible reasons for this happening is that literate forest users are more exposed to theoretical knowledge based on text book knowledge claiming decrease in soil fertility. similarly, aged respondents perceived skeptical on the production of cereal crops. in contrary to this, respondents whose occupation is agriculture, who are rich with upper caste status, and are male perceive increase in the production of cereal crops over the five years. the plus sign to all these variables reveals that production is increased over the last five years not significantly. time to collect firewood it is found that perception towards decrease in the time to collect firewood is significant (p<0.05) but inversely associated with education level. in other words, educated respondents strongly disagreed with the notion that time for collecting firewood had decreased. remaining variables are non significant to odds ratio despite the direction varies. flooding literate respondents said that the incidences of flooding have significantly increased after community forestry intervention. but the family with large size did not agree with this saying. remaining variables are non significant to odds ratio despite the direction varies. water fetching time analysis on which variable is significantly associated with water fetching time reveals that male respondents are most likely to perceive decrease in the water fetching time. it is important to note that after the initiation of community forestry, forest users are aware of the fact that women’s plight in terms of collecting water is responded by diverting cfug fund in water scheme. other variables except age and education are positively, though not significantly, associated with the water collecting time. number of trees it is found that perception towards increase in the number of trees is significantly (p<0.05) associated with education level. in other words, educated respondents strongly agreed with the notion that table 4 : logistic regression estimates of bivariates relationship between households characteristics and environment quality (n=212) banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1baniya 40 number of trees in community forest has increased. remaining variables are non significant to odds ratio despite the direction varies. water springs it is found, of the variables, that the coefficient for caste was most significant (p<0.05) in positive manner .in other words, given the positive sign, upper caste respondents perceived an increase in the number of water springs. remaining variables are non significant to odds ratio despite the direction varies. chi-square test confirms that household and respondent characteristics and environmental quality is associated significantly (p<0.00) in all environmental attributes. conclusion measures used in these analyses are based on the respondent’s perception of environment degradation. it is more interesting that particular groups of people have different perception though all experience the same real environmental conditions. for example, educated respondents are convinced that environmental degradation is evident either in terms of production of cereal crop; time to collect firewood or flooding situation. similar is the case with age variable, which suggests that aged respondents are skeptical over the deteriorating environmental condition. however, educated men perceive that number of tree species in the farm land has increased significantly but poor, lower caste and women don’t, those not significant, think so. in other words, poor, women and lower caste do not agree with the notion that environmental quality has increased as perceived by upper caste, and rich people. one important factor that should not be neglected at all is that those who are pessimist are the real users in the sense that they have close touch with the environment whether they are women or lower caste or poor people. there is long way ahead to bring positive changes in the environment assets of rural dwellers. from the welfare perspective, it is necessary to take confidence of women, occupational caste, and more importantly poor in the ‘real’ planning cycle of community forest’s institutional arrangement at the micro level such augmented livelihood feeling that they are asked, their voiced is listened and virtually executed and witnessed by them. recent days are evident that some practices, in and within community forestry, are directed towards bringing the tested underprivileged groups into confidence in the banner of ‘social inclusion’ to bring justice. such efforts, though not sufficient, are and can be beneficial only if the power center of forest user groups-committee-is truly occupied by them. social mobilization is one of the viable options to do so. to sum up, findings in this study highlight the need for further research to better understand what shapes perception of environment. direct and objective measures of environmental degradation such as cereal crop production, number of flooding incidences, number of trees, number of water springs as well as time to fetch water and firewood collection will allow us to establish link between household and other characteristics supposed to have strong explanation power as the regression model presented in this study, to predict the effects of household’s characteristics for each environmental attributes, have little explanatory power in all cases because independent variables aren’t significantly affecting the dependent variables. therefore, there should be other strong variables, and so, further research incorporating direct and objective measures to assess those all and/or strong variables have been recommended. references agrawal, b. 1992. the gender and environment debate: lessons from india. feminist studies, 18(1): 119-158. agrawal, b. 1997. gender, empowerment, and poverty interlinks: regional variations and temporal shift in rural india, 1971-91.world development, and 25(1): 23-52 baniya, a. 2005. effect of community forestry on human development of women and poor: some evidences from the western hill of nepal. (unpublished master thesis), kathmandu university, nepal. barber j.s. and axinn, w. 2003. neighborhood social change and perceptions of environmental degradation. population and environment, 25(2): 77108. marx, k. 1976. capital: a critique of political economy, (vol.1). new york: vintage. panayotou, t. 2000. environment and development paper no. 2. center for international development at harvard university, usa. united nations. 1995. the world’s women: trends and statistics. new york: united nations. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 baniya final bankojanakari 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 30 forest cover monitoring of bara district (nepal) using remote sensing and geographic information systems c.m. kandel1, m. caetano2, and p. cabral3 this study uses landsat tm of 1989 and etm+ of 1999 and 2005 imagery to evaluate forest cover dynamics during 1989-2005 in the bara district of nepal. the aim of the study was to analyse the extent and trend of forest cover dynamics, spatial pattern of forest and their driving forces. forest cover change analysis was performed using objectoriented classification approach applying a standard nearest neighbour algorithm to classify the image in recognition. the overall classification accuracies were 85.71% and 88.23% for the year 1999 and 2005, respectively. land cover maps were produced with seven land cover categories and were further reclassified as forest and non-forest areas to analyse the forest cover dynamics. post-classification and time series analysis were carried out to detect the changes. spatial metrics were computed for detecting the spatial pattern of forest. the classifications suggested that the amount of forest land had decreased by 11.56% during 1989-2005. spatial metrics revealed that forest area has been fragmented and deforested with an annual rate of 0.72%. the overall result demonstrates that forest area has experienced a significant shrinkage and mostly transferred into agricultural and bare land. expected change for the year 2021 was projected using markov chain analysis (mca). the mca result showed that forest area would decrease by 8.5% in the period of 2005-2021. key words: forest cover dynamics, geographical information systems, landsat, remote sensing, spatial metrics satellite remote sensing is one of the viable techniques to monitor the changing pattern of forests. satellite data from several moments in time allows the creation of land cover maps over large spatial extents and more frequent time steps than with expensive and detailed field studies (nagendra, 2001). because these classifications are spatially explicit, they not only provide information on percent changes in forest cover, but also allow for evaluation of the spatial location of these changes and their association with environmental and biophysical landscape parameters that could be critical associates of this change (nagendra et al., 2004). nepal encompasses diverse ecological zones and occupies mentionable places in natural resources and richness of biodiversity in the world (fao, 2000). five major types of forest, i.e., tropical, sub-tropical, lowertemperate, upper-temperate and alpine forests are found in nepal (jackson, 1994). more than 75% of all households and 90% of rural households rely on 1 asst. remote sensing officer, department of forest research and survey, babar mahal, kathmandu, nepal, email: kandelcpd@gmail.com 2 associate professor at instituto superior de estatística e gestão de informação, universidade nova de lisboa and principal reseacher at instituto geográfico português, lisboa, portugal, email: mario.caetano@igeo.pt 3 associate professor, instituto superior de estatística e gestão de informação, universidade nova de lisboa, portugal, email: pcabral@isegi.unl.pt wood products for domestic purposes for their daily needs of timber, fuelwood, fodder, grasses, litter and traditional herbal medicines mainly from forests (hobley, 1996). nepal’s forest has been declining in both quantity and quality. several proximate causes and underlying driving forces (geist and lambin, 2002) are responsible for accelerating the deforestation and forest degradation. legal and illegal conversion of forest land for agriculture and infrastructure development, unplanned and overexploitation of forest products, free access for grazing and uncontrolled forest fire are the major causes that create deficit of forest products on one hand and accelerate soil erosion, downstream sedimentation and decrease in agricultural productivity on the other hand (hmgn/dfrs, 1999; fao, 2000). some ecologists have predicted that forests of nepal are at the threshold of degradation (shah, 1998). the present case study analyses the spatial and temporal patterns of forest cover change in the bara district during 1989– 2005 based on a time series landsat satellite images. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 31 materials and methods study site bara district is located in the south-central lowland terai of nepal which borders india on the south. the district is surrounded by rautahat in the east, parsa in the west, makawanpur in the north and bihar, india in the south (figure 1). it is located between the latitudes 26o 61’ and 27o 02’ n and the longitudes 84o 51’ and 85o 16’ e. it occupies 0.87% of the 14.7 million hectares area of nepal’s land surface, includes 1.8% of country’s farmland, and bears 1.9 % of nepal’s 24 million people with an average population of 7.5 per ha (cbs, 2001). temporal perspective for monitoring forest cover in the bara district. the 1989 and 1999 images were downloaded from the global land-cover facility site hosted by the university of maryland and 2005 image (landsat decadal, gls-2005) was downloaded using the usgs global visualization viewer. the ecognition, idrisi kilimanjaro, arcgis and fragstats softwares were used for object oriented image classification, time series change analysis/prediction, spatial data analysis and spatial metrics calculation, respectively. methods three landsat images were processed for evaluating the forest cover dynamics in bara district. image classification was carried out using object-oriented classification approach applying a standard nearest neighbourhood algorithm. forest cover change was analysed by post classification analysis, time series analysis of forest, and the spatial pattern of forest was quantified by calculating spatial metrics. all the images downloaded were already projected into universal zone 45 n using wgs, 1984 datum. 1989 and 2005 images were georeferenced using the image-to-image registration against the 1999 image that was geo-referenced with an rms error of 0.25 pixels. this enabled us to overlay information extracted from different satellite images within a geographic information systems (gis) to evaluate forest cover change. we realized that radiometric correction was not required for this study since there were not many radiometric distortions and also because we are doing a post-classification comparison of image derived maps. the land cover classes applied in this study were defined according to usgs landuse and land cover classification system (usgs, 1972) and land use land cover classification systems used in nepal. for this study, image classification was performed by emphasizing seven main land cover categories that were prevalent in the study area i.e. upper mixed hardwood (umh), mixed forest, shrub, scatter trees (st), agriculture, bare land and waterbodies. an object-oriented method was applied independently to the three satellite images to derive the land cover map for each date. for this study, colour was chosen as the main attribute to segment the image. different scale parameters were explored and a scale parameter of 10 was selected based on the visual interpretation of the image segmentation fig 1 : study area this study utilizes a geographical theme obtained from the department of survey (dos) of nepal to delineate the area of the district with an area of 127,292 ha. out of the total area, 6.3% was covered by undulated gravelly hills called the siwalik located in the north, while the other 93.7% lies in the south terai plain (mdm 1971), comprising 5% of nepal’s plain land area. most of the district’s forests are located in the north, with more extensive farmland in the southern plain. bara district has been witnessing rapid land use and land cover dynamics following the development of roads in 1960s. the population increased from 0.25 million in 1971 (mdm, 1971), 0.41 million in 1990 (cbs, 1995), to 0.55 million in 2000 (cbs, 2001). total population of the district is 559,137 with total households of 87,706 (cbs, 2001). data landsat tm and etm+ satellite images acquired in 1989, 1999 and 2005 were selected for forest cover change analysis of the bara district for the period of 1989-2005. this allowed us to provide an explicitly kandel et al. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 32 results and the characteristics of the land cover classes existent in the study area. seven land cover classes were created in a class hierarchy. after satisfactory segmentation, 440 training sample objects were determined using the topographic maps and google maps to calibrate standard nearest neighbour classifier. normalized differential vegetation index (ndvi) was calculated to improve the result and assist the classification. the accuracy assessment was carried out using 270 stratified random reference points. random reference points were created representing all the land cover classes proportionally for each class separately in idrisi. these points were verified with google earth and topographic maps (1:2500) from 1999-2001. although there are a wide variety of techniques, most land cover change detection analysis is performed using the simple techniques of post classification comparison (blaschke, 2005). post classification comparison that provide ‘from-to’ change information and time series analysis (cross tab) were applied for the change analysis. crosstab and markov chain analysis (mca) tools were used for change detection and prediction, respectively. forest cover changes can be described using information from spatial metrics. landscape metrics are quantitative indices used to describe the structure and pattern of landscape (herold et al., 2003). therefore, spatial metrics were applied in this study to quantify and analyze the spatial and temporal changes of the forest land cover changes during 19892005. six spatial metrics parameters were used for analysing the spatial pattern of forest viz class area (ca), number of patches (np), edge density (ed), largest patch index (lpi), mean euclidian distance neighbour (enn_mn), and area weighted mean patch fractal dimension (frac_am). results and discussion land cover mapping land cover maps for 1989, 1999, and 2005 produced within this study area are presented in the figure 2, 3 and 4, respectively. initially, the images were used to derive land cover maps with seven classes and then three maps were reclassified into binary maps: forest and non-forest. umh, mixed forest and shrubs were merged into forest whereas agriculture, bare land, st, and waterbodies into non-forest, respectively. fig 2 : 1989 land cover map fig 3 : 1999 land cover map kandel et al. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 33 had decreased rapidly with a loss of 11.49% upper mixed hardwood forest, 6.47 % mixed forest, and 3.21% shrub land, respectively. mixed forest has decreased by 5.61% followed by gradual decrease of upper mixed hardwood forest by 1.15%, and shrub by 5.89%, respectively during 1999-2005. similarly, upper mixed hardwood forest has decreased by 12.51%, mixed forest by 11.72%, shrub by 8.91% during 1989-2005. forest cover including shrub has decreased by 11.56 % during 1989-2005 (table 2). distribution of change land cover dynamics from 1989 to 2005 are presented in table 3. the most obvious changes were the conversion of forest land (upper mixed forest, mixed forest and shrub) into cultivated land (upper mixed forest563 ha, mixed forest3392 ha and shrub2305 ha were converted during 1989-2005). about 425 ha of mixed forest were also transferred to bare land. a mutual land conversion is observed among upper mixed hardwood, mixed forest and shrub, for example about 1285 ha of upper mixed hardwood to mixed forest, 2354 ha of mixed forest to shrub, 1231 ha of mixed forest to upper mixed forest and 776 ha of shrub to mixed forest were transformed during 1989-2005, respectively. some ha of forest land was transformed into other land use/cover categories but with a very low proportion of change. in both maps, there were some unclassified areas, and we present them as class-8 in table 3. distribution of change is illustrated in the figure 5. fig 4 : 2005 land cover map the overall accuracy and kappa index of classification results achieved for 1999 were 85.71 % and 0.72 and for 2005, 88.23 % and 0.76, respectively. these results are considered as good agreement in the literature. rate of change percentual change of land during 1989-2005 is presented in table 1. during 1989-1999, forest area table 1 : abundance of land cover classes and land cover changes in bara district within 1989-1999-2005 year 1989 (ha) 1999 (ha) 2005 % change (89-99) % change (99-05) % change (89-05) umh 4095 3625 3583 -11.49 -1.15 -12.51 mixed forest 41658 38963 36778 -6.47 -5.61 -11.72 shrub 3982 3854 3627 -3.21 -5.89 -8.91 st 1906 2073 1670 8.75 -19.44 -12.39 agriculture 70366 74687 75705 6.14 1.36 7.59 bare land 2282 2077 2793 -8.97 34.45 22.39 waterbodies 845 836 806 -1.12 -3.53 -4.61 classes table 2 : forest cover change in bara district within 1989-1999-2005 year 1989 (ha) 1999 (ha) 2005 (ha) % change (89-99) % change (99-05) % change (89-05) forest 49736 46442 43988 -6.62 -5.28 -11.56 non-forest 75399 79673 80974 5.67 1.63 7.39 classes kandel et al. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 34 6 in both maps, there were some unclassified areas, and we present them as class-8 in table 3. distribution of change is illustrated in the figure 5. table 3: land cover change in bara district within 1989-2005 1989/2005 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 total 1 1937 1231 156 13 221 6 12 7 3583 2 1285 33789 776 45 698 152 34 0 36778 3 194 2354 501 41 452 75 9 1 3627 4 37 167 162 102 1181 9 10 2 1670 5 563 3392 2305 1679 66267 728 545 227 75705 6 40 425 54 10 927 1218 115 2 2793 7 6 55 22 11 497 91 117 7 806 8 34 245 6 5 123 3 2 1879 2297 total 4095 41658 3982 1906 70366 2282 845 2125 127259 1-umh, 2mixed forest, 3shrub, 4-st, 5agriculture7, 6-bare land, waterbodies, 8-unclassified area. figure 5: forest cover change map, 1989-2005 spatial pattern of forest spatial pattern of the forest area was evaluated calculating landscape metrics in fragstats 3.3 for each individual time step. fragstats provides a very comprehensive set of spatial statistics and descriptive pattern metrics at the patch, class, and landscape levels (chopping and bauer, 1996). the forest class spatial metrics and their dynamics are presented in figure 6. spatial pattern of forest spatial pattern of the forest area was evaluated calculating landscape metrics in fragstats 3.3 for each individual time step. fragstats provides a very comprehensive set of spatial statistics and descriptive pattern metrics at the patch, class, and landscape levels (chopping and bauer, 1996). the forest class spatial metrics and their dynamics are presented in figure 6. the result of the ca analysis shows that a large area of forests was converted to non-forest area during 1989-2005. np is an excellent measure of the fragmentation of a given class within the landscape. quite simply, the greater the number of patches, the greater the degree of fragmentation. the number of patches increased sharply during 1989-1999 and gradually during 1999-2005. the lpi quantifies the percentage of total landscape area comprised by the largest forest patch. the lpi value of the forest area has decreased during 19892005 reflecting the isolation and fragmentation of the forest area. during 1989-1999, lpi index decreased sharply and gradually during 1999-2005. the enn_mn also follows the same trend of lpi table 3 : land cover change in bara district within 1989-2005 fig 5 : forest cover change map, 1989-2005 fig 6 : landscape structure change in bara district (1989-2005) kandel et al. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 35 and confirms that the fragmentation of the forest has decreased during 1999-2005. edge density (ed) can be defined as the length of the forest boundary divided by the total landscape. ed has increased sharply during 1989-1999, indicating the larger number of smaller patches that justifies the further fragmentation of forest area. during 1999-2005, gradual decrease of ed indicated lower rate of fragmentation. these results may be due to the conversion of smaller patches of forest into agriculture. the enn_mn represents the average minimum distance between the individual forest areas. the enn_mn has been reduced rapidly during 1989-1999, and slowly during 1999-2005. decreasing trends of enn_mn reflects that the forest patches are getting closer to each other. the fractal dimension index is calculated by regressing the log of patch perimeter against the log of the patch area for each landscape patch. frac_am value greater than 1 indicates the increase in shape complexity. gradual decrease in the frac_am and amplified later reflects that the shape of the patches is becoming simple. it may be due to conversion of forest patches into agriculture and bare land. land use change modelling based on the changes occurred during 1989-2005, changes of forest cover for the year 2021 were projected using the mca module in idrisi. results of the markovian module are presented in figure 7. forest area including shrub will be decreased by 8.5% during 2005-21. in terms of the ratio of the forest area to the total area of the study area, forest area will be decreased from 34.6% to 31.63% during 20052021. that small isolated and scattered fragmented patches (figure 9) will be cleared due to the excessive exploitation by rapidly grown population. fig 7 : projected forest cover for 2021 projected change was mapped using stchoice module in idrisi (figure 8). in the map, we can see fig 8 : forest cover projection map for 2021 fig 9 : projected change map kandel et al. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 36 conclusions the change analysis during 1989-1999-2005 in bara district carried out with maps derived from landsat images revealed two important phenomena: deforestation and fragmentation of forest area. the rate of fragmentation was higher during 1989-1999 and rate of deforestation was found to be higher during 1999-2005 and the rate of deforestation was higher during 1999-2005. rapid shrinkage of forest coverage had been experienced along highways and near settlements. this may be due to the concentration of migrants from the hill and proximity to highways (east-west and north-south). most of the forest area has been converted into agricultural land and bare land. annual rate of deforestation was 0.66%, 0.87% and 0.72% during 1989-99, 19992005 and 1989-2005, respectively. spatial patterns of forest changed considerably during 1989-2005. from the analysis of the six spatial metrics calculated for 1989, 1999, and 2005, we can conclude that forest has been deforested and fragmented considerably. we believe that the main factors responsible for fragmentation are: agricultural sprawl, rapid population growth, expansion of road networks, increased demand of fuelwood and forage, and immigration. if there is no change of government politics, and according to the simulations carried out within this study with mca, it is expected that forest area will decrease by 8.5% during 2005-2021 with a 0.53% annual rate of deforestation. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the european commission, erasmus mundus program, and msc in geospatial technologies, project no. 2007-0064, for providing financial support to conduct this study. references blaschke, t. 2005. a framework for change detection based on image objects. göttinger geographische abhandlungen, 113: 1-9. cbs. 1995. population monograph of nepal, hmg/n, cbs. 32, 46, 56p. cbs. 2001. statistical year book of nepal, hmg/ n, cbs, 76–85. chopping p.r. and bauer m.e. 1996. digital change detection in forest ecosystems with remote sensing imagery, remote sensing reviews, 13: 207-234. fao. 2000. global forest resources assessment. food and agricultural organizations of the united nations (rome, italy). geist, j.h. and lambin, e.f. 2002. ‘proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation’. herold, m., goldstein, n.c. and clarke, k.c. 2003. the spatiotemporal form of urban growth: measurement, analysis and modeling. remote sensing of environment, 86: 286-302. dfrs. 1999. forest resources of nepal (1987 – 1998), department of forest research and survey, ministry of forest and soil conservation, his majesty’s government of nepal, forest resource information system project. hobley, m. 1996. participatory forestry: the process of change in india and nepal (rural development forestry guide 3), overseas development institute (london). jackson, j.k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. forest research and survey centre, kathmandu, nepal. mdm. 1971. mechi dekhi mahakali (from mechi to mahakali), kathmandu, nepal. nagendra, h. 2001. using remote sensing to assess biodiversity. international journal of remote sensing, 22: 2377-2400. nagendra, h., munroe, d. and southworth, j. 2004. from pattern to process: landscape fragmentation and the analysis of land use/land cover change. agriculture, ecosystems and environment 101: 111– 115. shah, g. 1998. “the influence of community level institutions and their governance on use and management of natural resources in the hills of nepal”, paper presented on the seventh conference of international association for the common property (vancouver, canada). usgs. 1972. a landuse and land cover classification system for use with remote senser data, geological survey professional paper 964 (washington, usa). kandel et al. banko jankari.indd 3 morphological plasticity of corms in enhancing invasion of chromolaena odorata c. joshi1, j. van andel2, a. skidmore3, j. de leeuw4 and i. v. duren3 in this paper, the researchers investigate the vegetative growth of chromolaena odorata and the infl uence of light intensity on the understorey environment of shorea robusta forest at chitwan in south-central terai, nepal. c. odorata is a clonally growing shrub and typically consists of several clones with an underground “cormous organ” (a modifi ed stem to store food reserve; here after “corm”) belonging to an identical genet. in c. odorata, the biomass of such corms varied across the light gradient. the number of shoot demonstrated a strong logarithmic relation with biomass of corm. under open forest canopy environment, corm biomass was strongly correlated with the number of shoots and the corm’s age. however, under dense forest canopy, there was no signifi cant relationship between corm biomass and its age. this result shows that corms of c. odorata were capable of maintaining their viability for a long period even under closed canopy environment. any disturbances in forest canopy density would ultimately trigger its clonal growth capability. this plasticity of corms appeared to be a key strategy for invasion success of this species. comparison of these results further indicates the importance of canopy density in determining invasion success of c. odorata. key words: corm anatomy, “corm ring”, chromolaena odorata, clonal growth, invasion the establishment of invasive plant species starts with the advent of propagules, typically in the form of seeds (ridley, 1930). once established, invaders attain local dominance through sexual or vegetative regeneration (cousens and mortimer, 1995). it has been repeatedly acknowledged that vegetative reproduction may be as valuable as seed production, as it makes the species less dependent on germination chance (bunting, 1960). vegetative growth facilitates the penetration into adjacent vegetation under more stressful conditions (de antonio and joshi, 1993). clonal growth is a common type of vegetative regeneration and dominant growth form in many ecosystems (williams, 1975; harper, 1977; cook, 1983; callaghan et al.,1992; klimes et al., 1997). clonal species penetrate into un-colonized areas through dispersal of stolons, rhizomes, tubers or corms (klimes et al., 1997). clonal growers are typically strong competitors (auge and brandl, 1997; pysek, 1997). the combined ability of spreading and rising to dominance makes clonal growers invaders with a potentially strong influence on their direct adjacency. however, the role of clonal growth in invasiveness and invasibility has also been little explored ( shumway, 1995; pysek, 1997). 1embassy of finland, kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: joshi@itc.nl 2university of groningen, the netherlands 3university of twente, the netherlands 4international livestock research institute, nairobi, kenya environmental conditions influence the production of clonal dispersal organs (de kroon and hutchings, 1995; sachs and novoplansky, 1997). under suitable conditions, above-ground parts allocate resources to produce clonal reproductive organs. individuals growing under less favourable environmental conditions may not be able to allocate suffi cient resources. hence, heterogeneity in environmental conditions might generate spatial variation in the relative growth rate of clonal reproductive organs (hutchings and de kroon, 1994; hunt and cornelissen, 1997). spatial variation in environmental conditions are thus expected to result in spatial variability of the rates of clonal growth of plants, particularly when such factors are involved which infl uence their eco-physiology. native forest under-storey species live under shaded conditions. opening of forest canopy, due to logging or natural disturbances results in increased light intensities inducing changes in species composition (joshi et al., 2006 a ). typically, ruderal and heliophytic species rise to dominance when light intensity increases (bayfi eld, 1980; appleby, 1998; kobayashi and kamitani, 2000). a number of exotic plant species such as chromolaena odorata have successfully established as invaders 4   under conditions of degraded canopy and forest clearing. several of such clonal growers have been spreading vegetatively after initial establishment through seeds. the increased light intensities which postulates to trigger their rate of clonal growth. the use of remote sensing has frequently been used to map invasive species. applications have been restricted to localizing the distribution of invasive species (everitt and nixon, 1985; ustin et al., 2002). it has been argued that it would also be useful to a manager to know where invasive species spread into unoccupied areas through sexual or vegetative reproduction. it is possible to map seed production of a forest under-storey species c. odorata (joshi et al., 2006a), so far, no attempts have been made to map the rate of clonal growth in invaders. chromolaena odorata (l.) rm king and robinson (king and robinson, 1970) is one of the world’s one hundred worst invasive species (issg, 2004). originating from central america, it now occurs in the humid tropics around the world (muniappan and marutani, 1988; gautier, 1992b; kriticos et al., 2005). it has a ruderal strategy and occurs in a wide range of environments including road verges, neglected agricultural fi elds and as an understorey species in forest. as a heliophyte (gautier, 1992a), it requires suffi cient light to grow and produce seeds (witkowski and wilson, 2001). because of this characteristic, it becomes invasive in forest where the canopy has been broken up (de rouw, 1991). fig. 1: morphology of c. odorata consisting of a single clone (left) and a genet of multiple clones (right). photos taken at start of the rainy season show the corm, previous seasons’ and newly emerging shoots c. odorata plants grows throughout the tropical areas of east and central nepal (joshi et al., 2006b) and are composed of one or more genetically identical clones (fig. 1). every clone has its own root system supported by corm (an underground swollen stem base specialized for food storage) from which shoots emerge (fig. 1, left). buds located belowground on the corm allow c. odorata to escape the dry season with its frequent fi res. this strategy to escape the adverse season classifi es c. odorata as a geophyte (raunkiaer, 1937). single clone c. odorata plants develop into genets of multiple clones. after a number of years, clones begin to decay and split into two or more new clones at a spacing typically of 5 cm to 10 cm apart. as such, older plants consist of a dense crowd of clones together forming one genet that may reach up to several meters in diameter (fig. 1 right). stems of c. odorata grow up to 2 m in height. in this paper, we investigated and model the biomass of corms of c. odorata to light intensity and corm age in shorea robusta forests in southern nepal. corm age was established using “corm rings”, which we described in this article. we next used remote sensing image to predict light intensity in the forest under-storey. finally, we predict the spatial variation in clonal growth rate from the light intensity map. materials and methods study area the study was executed in a tropical forest corridor, north of chitwan national park (27° 31´ to 27° 44´ n and 84° 24´ to 84° 31´ e), 140 km south west of kathmandu, nepal. the forest was dominated by s. robusta, while the understorey was invaded by c. odorata. data collection the study was conducted between 2003 and 2011. in 2003, 275 plots were visited to measure forest canopy density percentage and light intensity at 1.2 m above the ground using hemispherical photography taken with fi sheye lens attached to a nikon digital camera. in april-may, 2005, we collected 237 corms of c. odorata plants. the researchers measured the diameter of the corm and recorded the number of new shoots. the 5  number of rings in the corm was counted on a transverse section. the corms were dried for 40 min in a microwave and dry biomass (g) measured. out of those 237 plots, 26 plots of 5x5 m were selected and marked as a permanent and visited every year between 2003 and 2011 in the months of september and october. morphology and phenology of c. odorata were described following several years of intensive study of the species. each year, the spatial spread of c. odorata was measured. meteorological data on the monthly maximum and minimum temperatures, relative humidity, precipitation and evapo-transpiration: recorded for an average of 36 years at rampur weather station, were obtained from the department of meteorology, government of nepal. anatomical analysis the anatomy of corms was further investigated at the federal research centre for forestry and forest products, institute for wood biology and wood preservation, hamburg, germany. the anatomical structure of the xylem of the shoots and of the corms was investigated by light microscopy in order to prove the suitability of tree ring analyses for age determination in c. odorata. the shoot/corm was divided into segments each of 1 cm length. the samples were fi xed in a faa solution. the samples were embedded in polyethylene glycol (peg 1500) with increasing concentration (peg 1500:h2o, 1:2, 1:1, 2:1, 1:0, 1:0). for light microscopy and for the histometrical analyses of the xylem cells, transverse and radial sections (10 μm) were prepared by a microtome (reichert, austria). for light microscopy, unstained and stained (safranine/ astrablue (1:1)) slides were used. histometrical measurements were carried out with an image analyser. data analysis total light intensity was calculated from the digital hemispherical photographs using gap light analyser software version 2 (frazer et al., 1999; frazer et al., 2001). for anova, we classifi ed the light intensity in the forest under-storey into three categories: high or full light (above 13 mj m-2 day-1, moderate light or semi-shade (7-13 mj m2 day-1) and low light or full shade (below 7 mj m-2 day-1). we used two way anova to investigate to what extent the biomass of c. odorata corm was related to light intensity and its age. we used curve expert (hyams, 2005) to select the best fi tting curve describing the relation between number of shoots and biomass of the corm. mapping light intensity field measurements on light intensity were combined with an etm+ image to produce a map of light intensity in the forest under-storey. a three-layer feed-forward back-propagation artifi cial neural network (ann) consisting of an input, a hidden and an output layer was used for image classifi cation (skidmore et al., 1997). the landsat etm+ image of october 24, 2001 was registered with sub-pixel accuracy (±17m). the fi rst seven bands were used as input to the network. light intensity calculated from the hemispherical photographs was used to train the ann. the total data set of 275 samples was randomly divided into two groups. one subset of 138 samples was used for training and the other 137 samples for testing. the best results were obtained with a learning rate of 0.9, a momentum of 0.7 and two hidden nodes. finally 20 iterations of 7000 epochs were performed (the rmse stabilized after approximately 7000 epochs) and the researchers selected the best classifi cation based on least root mean square error (rmse). forest canopy density in percentage was also calculated using the same data set and procedure. results climate and c. odorata phenology the season of heavy rainfall with precipitation higher than evapo-transpiration extends in southern central nepal from july to september (fig. 2) signifi cant rains may start in may and extend until november. the dry season extends from december to may. the season of active growth for c. odorata extends from may to october. flowering starts in december and seeds ripen in february. after seed ripping, the stems die and drop off. forest fi re frequently destroys this decayed above-ground growth. new shoots develop from the resources stored in the corm in april, just before the start of the rainy season. if not destroyed by fi re, old stems may persist. old bushes thus form a tangled mass of old and new stems. 6   fig. 2: monthly mean (1968-2004) precipitation and temperature for rampur station (27°37’ n, 84°25’ e). the numbers on the vertical line denotes degree centigrade for the temperature (mean temp) and centimetres for mean precipitation, maximum precipitation, minimum precipitation and evapotranspiration for the curves. corm anatomy distinct increment zones were found in the xylem of the shoot and in the xylem of the corms of c. odorata. increment zones in the xylem of c. odorata are labeled by fi bres and ray parenchyma with reduced cell lumina as well as by wider rays (fig. 3 a-c). the shoot/corm samples exhibited continuously developed increment zones (fig. 3 b, d). counting the number of increment zones found in the xylem at the shoot-root transition zone of plants of known age indicated the annual formation of “corm rings” in the xylem of c. odorata. corm ring analyses showed that the oldest plants considered in this study had an age of 5 years. however, due to a very inhomogeneous pattern of ring width over the stem cross section and along the corm axis, a corm ring analysis was not suitable to quantify the biomass allocation in the corms on an annual scale. corm and shoot dynamics the maximum age of corms observed under full light was fi ve years. parts of these corms had decayed, leaving fragmented living tissue supporting vital shoots. maximum observed corm age under full shade was also fi ve years. however, these corms looked rotten, with little live tissue remaining. fig. 3: cross sections (a/b) and radial sections (c/d) of the xylem of corm of c. odorata (sample 107). increment zones (arrows) are labelled fi bres and ray parenchyma with reduced cell lumina and dark stained accessory compounds within (ray parenchyma). scale bars: (a/c) = 500 μm, (b/d) = 100 μm. figure 4 shows corm biomass in relation to age and light intensity. log transformation was used because it equalized group standard deviations, which originally varied by more than an order of magnitude. the fi gure suggests that corm biomass increases when plants age under full light or semi shaded conditions, but not under full shade. fig. 4: corm biomass in relation to age of c. odorata and light intensity: = full light, = semi-shade, = full shade. this was confi rmed by analysis of variance. both light and corm age had a highly significantly effect. the signifi cant interaction implied that corm age (year) lo g 10 c or m b io m as s ( g) 7  the increase of corm biomass with age changed with light intensity. while corm biomass differed signifi cantly between two, three, four and fi ve year old plants in the semi-shade (one-way anova; p = 0.000) and in full sun-shine (p = 0.003), it did not in the full shade (p = 0.22). hence, corms do apparently not grow in full shade while they do under semi shaded and lighter conditions. one might expect that larger corms support larger plants. figure 5 reveals that the number of shoots (y) produced by of c. odorata increased with the biomass of its corm (x). the relation was best described by the following horel model (equation 1), that explained 82% of variation in shoot number: y=2.501*1.001x*x0.266 (equation 1) corm biomass fig. 5: relation between corm biomass (g) and number of shoots produced by c. odorata. if low light constrains the growth of corms and subsequently shoot numbers, one would expect no enlargement of shoot numbers over time under low light conditions. figure 6 reveals that this is the case indeed. the annual rate of increase of shoot numbers was signifi cantly related to light conditions. number of shoots increase with age only under semi shaded or full light conditions. anova analysis conformed that there is no signifi cant difference in shoot numbers between two, three four and fi ve year old shaded plants. while number of shoots differed signifi cantly between two, three, four and fi ve year old plants in the semi-shade (one-way anova; p = 0.000) and in full sun-shine (p = 0.000), it did not in the full shade (p = 0.29). these results indicate that number of shoots almost not increase in plants growing in the shade. it does increase for plants growing under semi-shade and full sunshine. corm age (year) fig. 6 : rela t ion between shoot number in relat ion to plant (cor m) age and l ight intensity: = ful l l ight, = semi-shade, = full shade in c. odorata. mapping forest under-storey light intensity figure 7 presents the performance of the artifi cial neural networks in scatterplots of observed versus predicted light intensity and the map produced by ann classifier. it revealed that the prediction of light intensity by the artifi cial neural network was unbiased. the t-statistic of the slope (b) and intercept (a) reveal that these did not differ signifi cantly from 1 and 0 respectively (a = 0.002, sea = 0.005, ta = 0.361, b = 1.003, seb = 0.035, tb = 0.086, r2 = 0.81). spatial prediction of rate of clonal growth of c. odorata number of shoots per year produced by the plant was utilized for spatial prediction of rate of clonal growth of c. odorata. the relation was best described by the following modifi ed power model (equation 2) which explained 73% of variation in clonal growth rate: y=0.251*2.258x (equation 2) where, y is rate of clonal growth and x is light intensity. n s ho ot n s ho ot 8   fig. 7: scatterplot of light intensity (mj/m2/day) reaching the forest floor observed in the field, against the predicted light intensity derived from a classifi cation of a landsat etm+ image we inverted this model to predict rate of clonal growth of c. odorata in the chitwan region of nepal. map (fig. 8) revealed that the current clonal growth rate of c. odorata was high along the forest edge and road, however, it has a high potential to substantially increase its range towards forest interior. it could potentially invade large areas of the forest interior which are climatically suitable for clonal growth in terms of size and number of corms as well as increase in occupied areas by stems. discussion the results presented in this study indicate that light intensity controls the growth of the corms of c. odorata. the study results further reveal that the size of the corms determines the number of next seasons’ shoots. plants growing under full light conditions thus enlarge their canopy, which in turn allows them to allocate more resources to the corm, which next year produces an even larger canopy. this positive feedback loop continues for a maximum of fi ve years, after which the clone splits in two or more offspring starting the cycle anew. over time, this leads to continuous enlargement of c. odorata genets. the study results reveal by contrast, that plants growing under shaded conditions do not enlarge their corm. consequently, their number of shoots remains stagnant and hence no enlargement takes place. the researchers’ observation on the decaying condition of fi ve-year old corms under shaded conditions suggests that they probably succumb within five years. the fact multiclone genets were never observed under shaded conditions fi ts into this picture. fig. 8: potential clonal growth rate of c. odorata. c. odorata thus manages to grow vegetatively under medium to full light conditions. these conditions rarely exist in natural forest. in forests, under shaded conditions one expects c. odorata populations to consist of young single clone genets, which is indeed the case. under canopy openings however, c. odorata would receive suffi cient light for vegetative expansion. conditions of canopy opening widely occur in s. robusta forests in the nepalese terai. not surprisingly, c. odorata populations here consist of multi-clonal genets, sometimes several meters in diameter. figure 9 summarizes the effect of light intensity at different stages of the development of c. odorata linking to clonal growth and its vegetative invasion. what makes c. odorata such a successful invader in the s. robusta forests of the nepalese terai? c. odorata invades through its huge production of achenes, and its corm production and vegetative spreading were promoted by human disturbances a predicted light intensity o bs er ve d lig ht in te ns ity 9  through altering forest under-storey light regime (opening up of forest canopy that benefit its competition and dominance among native plant communities). furthermore, deliberate fi re destroys native vegetation and most of the upper parts of c. odorata bush, leaving the basal stem unaffected. these stems regenerate shoots in the rainy season enabling the species to become the fi rst dominant in the next growing season (liggitt, 1983) grazing on neighbouring plant species further enhances its clonal growth by reducing inter-specifi c competition as the leaves and young shoots of c. odorata are poisonous to livestock (sajise et al., 1972). fig. 9: spatial and temporal dynamics of corm of c. odorata under high light environment. a) an establishment of a mother corm in a new environment by long or short distance seed dispersal. b) development and growth of daughter corms. c) growth and range expansion of daughter corms of the identical genet. d) death of mother corm and range expansion of new daughter corm populations. clonal reproduction in many species is determined by physical factors such as light, moisture nutrient availability or distance related seed dispersal mechanisms. spatial distribution of these factors are increasingly available or can be mapped using remote sensing (robinson and valentine, 1979; dennis and brusven, 1993; austin et al., 1996; stone et al., 1997; baker et al., 2000, corsi et al., 2000, guisan and zimmermann, 2000; kerr and ostrovsky, 2003). the present study showed how these physical factors, may linked to map the clonal growth rate of an invasive species. comparisons of the traits of different invaders suggest that some species are more invasive in a particular environment than others. a wide range of species traits may underline these differences, including ruderal nature, wide seed dispersal mechanism, producing large amount of seeds, or allocation of resource during favourable conditions or long survival in the system (grime, 1979; richardson and bond, 1991; roche et al., 1997). all these characters interact with each other and with the environmental factor making it diffi cult to identify the cause of invasiveness in individual cases. however, this study’s results show the primary importance of biomass allocation in c. odorata in determining spatial patterns of vegetative reproduction along light gradients. conclusion c. odorata’s ability to store energy enhances the early clonal growth in the next growing season. this competitive ability appears to be an important key to understanding its behaviour as an invader. if openings present in a stand, c. odorata becomes established and outcompetes previously established native species. incorporation of remote sensing techniques with species biometry yield instantaneous, useful, cost effective, multi-scale and temporal information on clonal growth dynamics of an invasive species. mapping clonal growth rate in c. odorata population could signifi cantly reduce control cost by allowing one to concentrate control efforts to manage habitats so as to curtail the spread of invasive species. mapping the rate of clonal growth could be well applied to other invasive species. in this respect, the immediate benefi t of this research has been to contribute to the knowledge base of land managers by providing improved information on the rate of spatial and temporal spread of clonal population c. odorata, which will support effi cient habitat ranking to restore invaded areas and protect non-invaded ecosystems. references appleby, m. w. a. 1998. the incidence of exotic species following clear felling of eucalyptus regnans forest in the central highlands, victoria. australian journal of ecology 23:457465. auge, h., and brandl, r. 1997. seedling recruitment in the invasive clonal shrub, mahonia aquifolium pursh (nutt.). oecologia 110:205-211. 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(eds.) de kroon, h.. van groenendael, j. and backhuys, leiden, the netherlands, 55-77 sajise, p. e., palis, r. k., norcio, n. v. and lales, j. s. 1972. chromolaena odorata imperils grassland. pasture newsletter 1:1-2. 12   shumway, s. w. 1995. physiological integration among clonal ramets during invasion of disturbance patches in a new england salt marsh. annals of botany 76:225–233. skidmore, a. k., turner, b. j., brinkhof, w. and knowle, e. 1997. performance of a neural network: mapping forests using remotely sensed data. photogrammetric engineering and remote sensing 63:501-514. stone, k. d., heidt, g. a., caster, p. t. and kennedy, m. l.1997. using geographic information systems to determine home range of the southern flying squirrel (glaucomys volans). american midland naturalist 137:106-111. ustin, s. l., dipietro d., olmstead, k., underwood, e. and scheer, g. 2002. hyperspectral remote sensing for invasive species detection and mapping. international geoscience and remote sensing symposium 24th canadian symposium on remote sensing, toronto, canada. williams, g. c. 1975. sex and evolution. princeton university press, princeton, usa. witkowski, e. t. f. and wilson, m. 2001. changes in density, biomass, seed production and soil seed banks of the non-native invasive plant, chromolaena odorata, along a 15 year chronosequence. plant ecology 152:13-27. final bankojanakari 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 24 most of the accessible forests in mid hills of nepal have been handed over to the local communities for protection, management and utilization in the form of community forests (cf). the cf provide multiple goods (e.g., timber, fuel wood, fodder/grass, leaf litter, and many non timber forest products) as livelihood sustenance for the local people, and also help support the national economy. cf also provide various ecosystem services such as watershed protection, biodiversity conservation, carbon storage and many others. these services could be of local, national, or even global importance, and have, therefore, been accorded due attention not only by local and regional communities, but also by the global communities over the recent years (powell, et al., 2002; scherr, et al., 2004). forests have major effects on hydrological processes, although the extent and value of these services vary with individual watershed circumstances. the major hydrological services of the forests include quantity and quality of water supply, flow regulation and aquatic productivity (johnson, et al., 2001; powell, economic valuation of water supply service from two community forests in palpa district y. khanal1, c.p. upadhyaya2 and r.p. sharma3 apart from physical products, community forests (cf) in nepal generate various ecosystem services that could be important not only to the stakeholders at local level, but also to the stakeholders at the regional and the global levels. water supply from cf would be one of the many ecosystem services whose benefits are provided to the stakeholders. considering the economic importance of water supply service from cf, this study aims to assess the economic value of the water supply as a service from two cfs and also identify the factors affecting an individual’s willingness to pay (wtp). contingent valuation method was applied to evaluate the water supply service based on the information of users’ wtp. data from 74 households (hh) in lipindevi thulopakho and jarneldhara cfs in palpa district (surveyed during may-june, 2008) were used. results indicated that the mean wtp of lipindevi thulopakho and jarneldhara cf users were us$ 36.62 and 25.62 hh1 yr-1, respectively. the economic value of water supply service from lipindevi thulopakho and jarneldhara cf were us$ 93.54 ha-1 yr-1 and 134.06 ha-1 yr-1, respectively. factors like distance of the house from water source, daily water consumption, wealth status and caste were associated with substantial influences on an individual’s wtp. this study concludes that there would be a high possibility for generating extra income with the development of a payment mechanism for water supply service from cf. key words: community forest, contingent valuation, economic valuation, water supply, willingness to pay et al., 2002). forests play an important role in global hydrological cycle; help stimulate rainfall, protect soils from erosion (echavarria, et al., 2005) and maintain water quality and stable water flow. forests store appreciably more water than agricultural soils or cleared land (kaiser and roumasset, 1999). cf play an important role in supplying water to the rural households in the mid hills of nepal. however, this role (service) has rarely been estimated in monetary terms (hermans, et al., 2005). therefore, proper identification and valuation of these roles are necessary to convince decision makers about the importance of managing upper catchments as a part of water supply reservoir. assessments have to be done to value the water for different uses (household consumption, irrigation, hydropower) and for different users (karna, 2008), so that the service providers can receive compensation from the service users. planners and decision-makers usually consider the easily quantifiable, material-product, forest benefits 1 asst. forest officer, far-western regional forest directorate, dhangadhi, email: yajnamurti@hotmail.com 2 professor, institute of forestry, pokhara 3 research fellow, norwegian university of life sciences (umb), norway banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 25 that could be traded in the markets. this creates a condition whereby intangible, environmental benefits from forests have been ignored and the total services provided by the forestry sector were underestimated. this has led to the under-valuation of forests and natural resources (niraula, 2004). the economic value of water supply services is important to policy makers, and planners for better planning and accounting of the inherent value of forest resources. under financial constraints, the governments often resort to curtailing conservation allocations from public investment funds for conserving and preserving the natural environment (kulshreshtha, et al., 2003). this may be a result of lack of information on the monetary worth of these intangible, environmental services. this study has been conducted to fill out a part of this knowledge gap. valuation of water supply service presents an opportunity to promote public awareness on the importance of forests for human well being and to provide an economic incentive for forest owners to own and manage forest resources sustainably. it also encourages ecological restoration and inspires individual efforts to reduce consumption of natural resources and minimize human impacts on ecosystems. this study has addressed the following objectives: ø to assess economic value of domestic water supply service of the community forests, and ø to identify the factors affecting individual’s willingness to pay (wtp). materials and methods study area the study was carried out in palpa district, a part of the mid hill region of nepal (figure 1). most of the forests in this district have been handed over to local users as cf. out of the 528 cfs (dfo records 2008); two cfs were selected on specific criteria and consultation with dfo staff. the chief criterion used was whether the cf was supplying water to at least 30 households (household may or not be users of that cfug). similarly, the other criterion was the proximity of the cf to a nearby local market, so the water users could easily express monetarily, their wtp for the value of water supply service. lipindevi thulopakho cf is located in tansen municipality-13 whereas jarneldhara cf is in barangdi vdc ward number 3 (figure 1). the area of lipindevi thulopakho cf was 26.23 ha with 158 user households whereas the area of jarneldhara cf was 8.6 ha with 58 user households. both cf areas were situated on moderate to steep slopes with altitudes ranging from 1100–1400 m above sea level. jarneldhara cf was mostly situated on the northern aspect whereas lipindevi thulopakho flanked the north-eastern aspect. the soil type varied from sandy loam to clay loam and was mostly brown in color. the average maximum and minimum temperatures of the district were 230c and 140c, with a mean annual rainfall of 1903 mm (dfo-palpa, 2007). lipindevi thulopakho cf consisted mainly of natural schimacastanopsis forest with some scattered plantations of pinus roxburghii whereas jarneldhara cf mainly consisted of natural schima-castanopsis forest. contingent valuation this study applied contingent valuation method (cvm), a form of “stated preference method”. cvm allows people who benefit from a particular resource to convey to the researchers directly through surveys, what they are willing to pay for the environmental services or some improvement in environmental quality (richards, et al., 2003; chaudhry, et al., 2007). it is also used for measuring the wtp for public projects designed to provide services such as safe fig 1 : study area 3 owners to own and manage forest resources sustainably. it also encourages ecological restoration and inspires individual efforts to reduce consumption of natural resources and minimize human impacts on ecosystems. this study has addressed the following objectives: � to assess economic value of domestic water supply service of the community forests, and � to identify the factors affecting individual’s willingness to pay (wtp). methodology study area the study was carried out in palpa district, a part of the mid hill region of nepal (figure 1). most of the forests in this district have been handed over to local users as cf. out of the 528 cfs (dfo records 2008); two cfs were selected on specific criteria and consultation with dfo staff. the chief criterion used was whether the cf was supplying water to at least 30 households (household may or not be users of that cfug). similarly, the other criterion was the proximity of the cf to a nearby local market, so the water users could easily express monetarily, their wtp for the value of water supply service. lipindevi thulopakho cf is located in tansen municipality-13 whereas jarneldhara cf is in barangdi vdc ward number 3 (figure 1). the area of lipindevi thulopakho cf was 26.23 ha with 158 user households whereas the area of jarneldhara cf was 8.6 ha with 58 user households. both cf areas were situated on moderate to steep slopes with altitudes ranging from 1100–1400 m above sea level. jarneldhara cf was mostly situated on the northern aspect whereas lipindevi thulopakho flanked the north-eastern aspect. the soil type varied from sandy loam to clay loam and was mostly brown in color. the average maximum and minimum temperatures of the district were 23 0 c and figure 1: study area khanal et al. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 26 drinking water and sanitation (ojeda, et al., 2007). one of the strengths of this method is that it can capture both the use value (e.g., drinking water use) and non-use value (protection of threatened aquatic species) (mitchell & carson, 1993). the current trend in cvm is towards the referendum formats using the dichotomous choice method (whittington, 2002). bidding game approach has also been used for bid collection. this study used the open-ended questionnaire survey approach to elicit the willingness to pay. this is the most common and simplest form of cvm (freeman iii, 2003). there are two main reasons for this choice. firstly, dichotomous choice questions tend to overestimate the wtp, especially for studies conducted in low-income countries (white and lovett, 1999). secondly, getting statistically reliable results from a dichotomous choice type of survey requires a large sample (white and lovett, 1999), not possible in the current study due to the population size, time and resource constraints. during the questionnaire survey, the form and frequency of payments were clearly explained to the respondents. the payment vehicle in this study was the annual membership fee for the water users from the particular cf to maintain at least the quality and quantity of water as it is. a strong criticism of cvm has been that answers obtained from surveys relying upon hypothetical propositions were subject to a variety of biases (diamond & hausman, 1994; baral et al., 2008). the primary sources of biases include hypothetical bias, information bias, strategic bias, design bias and embedding bias (mitchell and carson, 1993; hanley, et al., 2004; poudel and johnsen, 2008). this study was designed to reduce such potential biases by delivering clear and equal information to all the respondents, explaining a well-defined payment vehicle and using a thoroughly pre-tested questionnaire. to test the validity of the responses, the questionnaire contained questions about the respondents’ demographic and socio-economic backgrounds as well. sampling initially, all the households (hhs) using the forest as a water source were identified by informal discussions with the forest users committees. among the total hhs, 65 and 45 hhs were identified as water-users hhs in lipindevi thulopakho and jarneldhara cfugs, respectively. then 40 and 34 hhs from lipindevi thulopakho and jarneldhara cfugs were purposively selected to represent all the socioeconomic groups (i.e. wealth status and caste) and locations (hamlets). as each hh represented a sampling unit, one of the hh members taking decisions on economic activities was identified for survey. out of the 40 respondents identified for lipindevi thulopakho cfug, 28 were male and 12 were female. similarly, out of the 34 respondents identified for jarneldhara cfug, 22 were male and 12 were female. data analysis the individual wtp bid for water supply service from the cf were acquired from the questionnaire survey. the wtp bids were then fed to the statistical program for social sciences (spss) for further analysis. based on individual wtp bids, the mean wtp and the total wtp for each cfug were computed. the total wtp value of each cfug was divided by the cf area to arrive at a per hectare value of each cf. the wtp bid was modeled as a function of different potential, explanatory variables (age, sex, education, caste, wealth status, hh size, landholdings, livestock unit, daily water consumption, house distance from water source). for this, multiple linear regression model of the following form was used: wtp = ß0 + ß1x1 + ß2x2 + ß3x3 +...+ ßnxn + εi (1) where, wtp is the users’ willingness to pay for water supply services (dependent variable), ß0 – ßn ß0 – ßn were the parameters to be estimated, x1 xn = explanatory variables influencing wtp and εi = random error normally and independently distributed with zero mean and constant variance of one. results and discussion characteristics of the respondents and their households the mean age of the 74 respondents was 46 years and they were nearly evenly distributed between males and females. the household member mostly taking decisions on economic activities was identified as the respondent and the majority of these were male. about a third (32%) of the respondents had education up to secondary school level and very few (~9%) were illiterate. two-thirds of the respondents khanal et al. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 27 belonged to the medium wealth class. the average family size of the respondents was 6.1, which was higher than the district as well as national average (isrc, 2007). the mean land holding size of respondents significantly differed with their wealth status (p<0.05). the overall mean landholding size per household was 0.78 ha which was slightly higher than the district average of 0.71 ha (isrc, 2007) and lower than the national average of 0.96 ha (cbs, 2003). the average consumption of water per household per day was 253 liters and the average one way walking time from the respondents’ house to the water source was 18 minutes (table 1). table 1: characteristics of respondents (n = 74) age (years; mean, sd) 46 (7.39) gender (n, %) male 50 (67.6) female 24 (32.4) education of the respondents (n, %) illiterate 7 (9.45) primary 13 (17.56) lower secondary 19 (25.67) secondary 24 (32.43) college education 11 (14.86) wealth status (n, %) rich 17 (22.9) medium 49 (66.2) poor 8 (10.8) ethnicity (n, %) brahmin 8 (10.8) chhetri 45 (60.8) magar 21 (28.4) household size (mean, sd) 6.1 (2.47) landholdings (hectares; mean, sd) 0.78 (0.44) livestock holding (lsu; mean, sd) 2.75 (1.59) daily water consumption (litre; mean, sd) 253 (69.18) house distance from water source (average one way walking time in minute; mean, sd) 18 (10.6) sd = standard deviation, lsu = livestock unit where, 1 lsu = 1 buffalo = 1.2 cow = 4 goats = 5 sheep = 2 calves (thapa and poudel, 2000). mean wtp the mean annual wtp value of the different category of respondents for the water supply service is shown in table 2. the mean wtp values of the rich, medium and poor were significantly different in both the cfugs (p<0.05). lsd0.05 test indicated that only the mean wtp values of the rich and medium were significantly higher than the poor in lipindevi thulopakho cfug whereas the rich, medium and poor all differed significantly in jarneldhara cfug. however, there was no significant difference between the total economic value of lipindevi thulopakho community forest based on wtp came to us$ 2453.54 yr-1, which is equivalent to us$ 93.54 ha-1 yr-1. similarly, the total economic value of jarneldhara community forest totalled to us$ 1152.9 yr-1 which is equivalent to us$ 134.06 ha-1 yr-1. although the average wtp value of lipindevi thulopakho cf was high, its per unit area value was low because of the proportion of water source and the water users with forest area was low. these results were comparable to studies of similar types (reyes, et al., 2002 in costa rica) where they had focused on hydropower and domestic consumption, and found the value of water supply as us$ 137 ha-1 yr-1 based on replacement and maintenance costs. factors influencing wtp the wtp [see model form in (1)] was regressed against all potential explanatory variables (full model), and variables with non-significant estimates (p>0.05) were excluded. then, the wtp was regressed against the remaining variables (reduced model). table 3 presents parameter estimates and fit statistics. the best reduced model explained 56% of the total variability of wtp, indicating that the estimated model was fairly satisfactory. multi-collinearity problem among independent variables was not 7 mean wtp the mean annual wtp value of the different category of respondents for the water supply service is shown in table 2. the mean wtp values of the rich, medium and poor were significantly different in both the cfugs (p<0.05). lsd0.05 test indicated that only the mean wtp values of the rich and medium were significantly higher than the poor in lipindevi thulopakho cfug whereas the rich, medium and poor all differed significantly in jarneldhara cfug. however, there was no significant difference between the mean wtp values of male and female in both cfugs (p>0.05). table 2 : mean annual wtp per household for domestic water supply services from cf name of cf category mean wtp hh-1 (us$)* rich 41.19 (11.32) medium 36.13 (4.67) wealth status poor 30.92 (4.36) male 36.29 (5.67) sex female 37.38 (9.38) lipindevi thulopakho mean 36.62 (6.88) rich 30.15 (3.32) medium 25.49 (3.43) wealth status poor 16.15 (5.91) male 26.51 (4.71) sex female 24.00 (6.44) jarneldhara mean 25.62 (5.43) value in parenthesis indicates standard deviation * 1 us$ = nrs. 65 the total economic value of lipindevi thulopakho community forest based on wtp came to us$ 2453.54 yr -1 , which is equivalent to us$ 93.54 ha -1 yr -1 . similarly, the total economic value of jarneldhara community forest totalled to us$ 1152.9 yr -1 which is equivalent to us$ 134.06 ha -1 yr -1 . although the average wtp value of lipindevi thulopakho cf was high, its per unit area value was low because of the proportion of water source and the water users with forest area was low. these results were comparable to studies of similar types (reyes, et. al, 2002 in costa rica) where they had focused on hydropower and domestic consumption, and found the value of water supply as us$ 137 ha -1 yr -1 based on replacement and maintenance costs. factors influencing wtp the mean wtp values of male and female in both cfugs (p>0.05). table 2 : mean annual wtp per household for domestic water supply services from cf khanal et al. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 28 serious as variance influence factor (vif) was less than 10 (montgomery et al., 2001). most of the explanatory variables were not significant (p>0.05) but higher wtp bids were significantly associated with more daily water consumption while the users further from the water source had less wtp. wealth and caste status of the respondents also displayed significant influence on the individual’s wtp. education of the respondent, household size, livestock unit and landholdings were positively correlated with wtp; however, they were not significant. water users who were nearer to the water source were willing to pay more because the next best alternative for them would have been very far from their dwelling and, therefore, would cost high. on the other hand, the users who were very far from the current water source were willing to pay less because they could opt for the next best alternative with little extra cost. those users whose daily consumption of water was high were willing to pay more because they would have to bear higher extra cost to use the next best alternative. similarly categorical variables like ethnicity and wealth status influenced the wtp but sex did not. none of the aforementioned significant parameters are surprising. conclusion and implication this study illustrated a promising economic value of water supply from cf. on average the water users were willing to pay us$ 36.62 and 25.62 per household for lipindevi thulopakho and jarneldhara cfug, respectively. this suggests a possibility of generating extra income for cfug with the development of a payment mechanism. the users, who lived nearer to the water source and consumed more water, were willing to pay higher amounts for water supply services from the cf. similarly, people belonging to rich and brahmin/chhetri groups were also willing to pay higher amounts. the economic values are useful for the analysis of costs and benefits and for making appropriate decision for the conservation of natural resources. this study may help raise public and political awareness on the importance of cf, and help policymakers formulate appropriate green-economic policy. acknowledgement this paper is an output from a part of m. sc. (forestry) thesis. the study was conducted with a research grant from community based forest and tree management in the himalaya (comform), institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. references baral, n., stern, m.j. and bhattarai, r. 2008. contingent valuation of ecotourism in annapurna conservation area, nepal: implications for sustainable park finance and local development. ecological economics, (doi: 10.1016/ j.ecolecon.2008.02.004). 8 the wtp [see model form in (1)] was regressed against all potential explanatory variables (full model), and variables with non-significant estimates (p>0.05) were excluded. then, the wtp was regressed against the remaining variables (reduced model). table 3 presents parameter estimates and fit statistics. the best reduced model explained 56% of the total variability of wtp, indicating that the estimated model was fairly satisfactory. multi-collinearity problem among independent variables was not serious as variance influence factor (vif) was less than 10 (montgomery et al., 2001). most of the explanatory variables were not significant (p>0.05) but higher wtp bids were significantly associated with more daily water consumption while the users further from the water source had less wtp. wealth and caste status of the respondents also displayed significant influence on the individual's wtp. education of the respondent, household size, livestock unit and landholdings were positively correlated with wtp; however, they were not significant. table 3 : the parameter estimates and fit statistics of the full and the reduced model with possible explanatory variables for determining individual's wtp [model form used is presented in (1)] full model reduced model explanatory variables parameter estimates vif parameter estimates vif pearson correlation coefficient (r) constant 16.662* 17.928* age of the respondent 0.062 1.362 0.096 education of respondent 0.052 1.938 0.253 household size 0.098 2.295 0.156 livestock unit 0.011 1.457 0.054 landholdings 2.780 1.375 0.289 house distance from water source 0.277* 1.665 -0.233* 1.433 0.484* daily consumption 0.043* 2.045 0.049* 1.036 0.511* sex (dummy, female =1) 0.296 1.463 0.074 wealth status (dummy, rich =1) 5.330* 1.208 5.834* 1.029 0.250 ethnicity (dummy, brahmin/chhetri = 1) 5.208* 1.882 5.748* 1.402 0.504* model summary adj. r2 = 0.543, rmse=5.62, n=74 adj. r2 = 0.559, rmse=5.52, n=74 *significant (p<0.05) water users who were nearer to the water source were willing to pay more because the next best alternative for them would have been very far from their dwelling and, therefore, would cost high. on the other hand, the users who were very far from the current water source were willing to pay less because they could opt for the next best alternative with little extra cost. those users whose daily consumption of water was high were willing to pay more because they would have to bear higher extra cost to use the next best alternative. similarly categorical variables like ethnicity and wealth status influenced the wtp but sex did not. none of the aforementioned significant parameters are surprising. table 3 : the parameter estimates and fit statistics of the full and the reduced model with possible explanatory variables for determining individual’s wtp [model form used is presented in (1)] khanal et al. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 29 cbs. 2003. population census 2001. central bureau of statistics, kathmandu. chaudhry, p., singh, b. and tewari, v.p. 2007. nonmarket economic valuation in developing countries: role of participant observation method in cvm analysis. journal of forest economics, 13: 259-279. dfo-palpa. 2007. district wise community forest monitoring report 2063/64. district forest office palpa, tansen. diamond, p.a. and hausman, j.a. 1994. contingent valuation: is some number better than no number? journal of economic perspectives, 8 (4): 45-64. echavarria, m., vogel, j., alban, m. and meneses, f. 2005. protecting forests can improve water management. id21 natural resources highlights: water, 1-1. freeman iii, a.m. 2003. the measurement of environmental and resource values: theory and methods. second edition. resources for the future, washington dc. hanley, n., shogren, j.f. and white, b. 2004. environmental economics in theory and practice. reprint editon. macmillan india ltd, new delhi. hermans, l., halsema, g. and renault, d. 2005. developing economic arrangements for water resources management: the potential of stakeholder oriented water valuation. oecd workshop on agriculture and water: sustainability, markets and policies. south australia: http://www.oecd.org/agr/env. isrc. 2007. district profile of nepal. intensive study and research centre, kathmandu. johnson, n., white, a. and perrot-maitre, d. 2001. developing markets for water services from forests: issues and lessons for innovators. forest trends with world resource institute and the katoomba group, washington dc. kaiser, b. and roumasset, j. 1999. water management and the valuation of indirect environmental services. working paper no. 995. university of hawaii. karna, p.k. 2008. making payment for environmental services work: a case study of shivapuri national park, nepal. in shifting paradigms in protected area management (eds.) bajracharya, s. b. and dahal, n. national trust for nature conservation, kathmandu, 171-185. kulshreshtha, s.n., johnston, m. and lac, s. 2003. value of carbon sequestration in protected areas: a case study of saskatchewan provincial parks. prairie forum, 28 (2): 127-143. mitchell, r.c. and carson, r.t. 1993. the value of clean water: the public’s willingness to pay for boatable, fishable and swimmable quality water. water resources research, 29 (7): 2445-2454. montgomery, d.c., peck, e.a. and vining, g.g. 2001. introduction to linear regression analysis. third edition. wiley, newyork. niraula, d.r. 2004. integrating total economic value for enhancing sustainable management of community forests: a forward looking approach. in twenty five years of community forestry (eds.) kanel, k. r.; mathema, p.; kandel, p. r.; niraula, d. r.; sharma, a. r. and gautam, m. proceeding of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, community forest division, department of forest, kathmandu, 48-55. ojeda, m.i.; mayer, a.s. and solomon, b.d. 2007. economic valuation of environmental services sustained by water flows in the yaqui river delta. ecological economics (doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon. 2007.06.006). poudel, d. and johnsen, f.h. 2008. valuation of crop genetic resources in kaski, nepal: farmer’s willingness to pay for rice land races conservation. journal of environmental management,(doi: 10.1016/ j.jenvman.2007.12.020). powell, i.; white, a. and landell-mills, n. 2002. developing markets for the ecosystem services of forests. forest trends, washington dc. reyes, v., segura, o. and verweij, p. 2002. valuation of hydrological services provided by forests in costa rica. in understanding and capturing the multiple values of tropical forests (ed.) verweij, p. world bank and wwf, wageningen, the netherlands,101-106. richards, m., davies, j. and yaron, g. 2003. stakeholder incentives in participatory forest management: a manual for economic analysis. itdg publishing, london, uk. scherr, s., white, a. and khare, a. 2004. new finance for tropical forests: the emerging markets for ecosystem services from forests. forest trends, washington dc. thapa, g.b. and poudel, g.s. 2000. evaluation of the livestock carrying capacity of land resources in the hills of nepal based on total digestive nutrient analysis. agriculture, ecosystem and environment, 78: 223-235. white, p.c. and lovett, j.c. 1999. public preference and willingness to pay for nature conservation in the north york moors national park, uk. journal of environmental management, 55: 1-33. whittington, d. 2002. improving the performance of contingent valuation studies in developing countries. environmental and resource economics, 22: 323-367. khanal et al. corrected bankojanakari vol 17-2.pmd 11 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 growth performance of tectona grandis linn f. between two thinning operations at shankarnagar, western terai, nepal h. b. thapa1 and s. k. gautam2 tectona grandis plot was established on 7th july 1992 in 0.50 hectare at a spacing of 2.5m x 2.5m at shankarnagar, rupandehi district, in the western terai of nepal. estimated average fresh wood production of 14.5 years old teak was found to be 226 kg (201 tons ha-1) before thinning and 125 kg (53 tons ha-1) in thinned trees and 318 kg (148 tons ha-1) for trees after thinning. above ground green biomass was estimated to be 134 kg tree-1 (57 tons ha-1) for thinned trees, 240 kg tree-1 (214 tons ha-1) for trees before thinning and 337 kg tree-1 (157 tons ha-1) for trees after thinning. prior to thinning, the mean over bark stem volume was 0.2313 m3. in thinning, 59 m3 per ha-1 volume was removed. the volume of standing trees before thinning at14.5 years was 206 m3 ha-1. after thinning, per unit and mean basal area, biomass and over bark stem volume has been increased considerably during 7-years from 7.5 years to 14.5 years. shankarnagar community forest user group has earned nrs. 60,000.00 by selling thinned yield i.e. poles and fire wood keywords: tectona grandis, growth, biomass, volume, rotation, thinning, nepal in nepal, record of first governmental teak plantation was in 1960 in chiliya, rupandehi district (kayastha 1974). after that, forests products development board has established some block plantations at sagarnath, sarlahi and ratuwamai, jhapa. department of forest research and survey has established some research plots of teak at sagarnath, and private growers have planted teak on their private land in different parts of the country teak has high demand in national as well as international market because of its excellent quality wood. it is widely used for boat and ship building, construction, decorative veneers, joinery, furniture, cabinets, musical instruments, poles, branches for fire wood and handicrafts/wood carving due to its natural durability and dimensional stability. a third grade t. grandis plantation may be more profitable than a first graded plantation of a less valuable species (jackson 1994). the information on growth, predicted yield from second thinning would be valuable for community and private plantations as well. this paper attempts to provide information on growth, thinning yield at 14.5 years, growth, wood and foliage biomass, and aboveground biomass from 7.5 to 14.5 years. materials and methods teak was planted on 7th july 1992 in 0.50 hectare at a spacing of 2.5m x 2.5m at shankarnagar, rupandehi district, in the western terai of nepal. the site is located at latitude 270 42' n and longitude 830 28' e. its altitude is about 205 m above msl. the climate is sub-tropical monsoon with an average annual rainfall 2452 mm (20 years record cited in jackson 1994)). generally, the site is dry from november to may, however occasional light shower occurs in the winter. mean maximum and minimum temperature are 30.210c and 20.210c respectively, absolute maximum temperature being 44.9oc in may and absolute minimum temperature 4.3oc in january (based on 15 years record, cited in jackson 1994). the stumps were planted, which were raised in district forest office nursery in bhairahawa, rupandehi district. up to three years, spot cultivation (0.5m radius) was carried out twice a year. height and diameter were measured in each winter. prior to second thinning carried out in march, 2007, some operations were carried out in the winter of different years, for instance pruning in 1996, pruning and singling in 1999 and selection thinning in 2000. at 14.5 years, diameter at breast height (dbh) of all senior research officer, dfrs, email: thapahb@yahoo.com research officer, dfrs, email: shreek_gautam@yahoo.com 12 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 2 the stumps were planted, which were raised in district forest office nursery in bhairahawa, rupandehi district. up to three years, spot cultivation (0.5m radius) was carried out twice a year. height and diameter were measured in each winter. prior to second thinning carried out in march, 2007, some operations were carried out in the winter of different years, for instance pruning in 1996, pruning and singling in 1999 and selection thinning in 2000. at 14.5 years, diameter at breast height (dbh) of all trees was measured before thinning. out of total 445 trees, 213 dead, dying, diseased, suppressed, poorly grown, few dominant and codominant trees were marked for thinning. thirty-two trees, which were broken by wind, were not included in the study. out of these marked trees, 25 trees were used for biomass study. after felling, the total length of the tree was measured. wood (stem and branch) and foliage were weighed separately. nine discs were taken from bottom, middle and top portion of the tree (three discs from each portion). two diameters were measured and mean diameter was calculated for each disc with bark. the same method was applied to find out the diameter of the disc without bark. length of each disc was measured. each fresh disc with bark was weighed in the field. again, fresh discs were weighed after removing the bark. all the discs were kept in an oven drier at 105 0 c for 48 hours and weighed again. volume, weight of fresh and oven-dried discs (with and without bark) were summed up and average fresh and oven-dried density of disc was calculated. results and discussion height and diameter growth the growth results of height and diameter of teak planted at shankarnagar, rupandehi cover from 7.5 years to 14.5 years (table 1). in chilia, rupandehi district, 14 years teak had 15.2m of mean height, with periodic annual increment (pai) 1.09m (kayastha 1974), whereas the mean height was 17.2 m at shankarnagar at 14.5 years with pai 1.2m. height growth was found better at shankarnagar than chilia in rupandehi district. as mentioned by kayastha (1974) the roots in the chilia plantation were not able to penetrate the compact layer formed by higher percentage of silt and clay, which might have reduced the growth. such problem is not found in shankarnagar teak plantation. table 1: growth of tectona grandis after first thinning at 7.5 years age (year) stock ing (trees ha-1) mean height (m) std. error (m) cv (%) cai of height (m) pai of height (m) mean dbh (cm) std. error (cm) cv (%) cai of dbh (cm) pai of dbh (cm) 7.5 943 12.4 (7.2-17.5) 0.09 9.7 11.7 (6-17.8) 0.09 17.1 8.5 943 13.2 (7.6-18.8) 0.09 15.2 0.8 1.6 12.6 (6.5-19.4) 0.11 18.3 0.9 1.5 9.5 940 14.3 (9-20.8) 0.11 15.4 1.1 1.5 13.9 (8-22) 0.13 18.7 1.3 1.5 10.5 938 14.7 (9.5-22) 0.12 16.3 0.4 1.4 14.5 (8.5-23.4) 0.14 20.0 0.6 1.5 11.5 922 15.2 (6.1-23.2) 0.13 17.8 0.5 1.3 15.0 (4.9-25) 0.16 21.3 0.5 1.5 12.5 922 15.8 (6-24.3) 0.14 19.0 0.6 1.3 15.7 (4.8-26.5) 0.17 22.9 0.7 1.3 13.5 916 16.5 (9.8-25.8) 0.16 20.0 0.7 1.2 16.6 (8.8-28.5) 0.20 24.1 0.9 1.2 14.5 890 17.2 (9.2-28.8) 0.17 21.5 0.7 1.2 17.6 (8.1-32.5) 0.21 26.1 1.0 1.2 cai and pai refer to current and periodic annual increment. 7.5 years and 14.5 years results refer to results after thinning and before thinning respectively. the figures in the parenthesis refer to the range of height and dbh. height are estimated based on the model, ln height = 0.493531+0.82341* ln dbh (except for 7.5 years) (r2 = 81.9%, number of observations: 306). in this study, slight variation in periodic diameter increment (1.2-1.5 cm) is recorded in different years. it is decreased with the increase in age of the trees. periodic height increment is also similar to the rate of growth of diameter (table 1). obviously, rate of growth of trees becomes slow as the trees get older. in a teak plantation established at a spacing of 3m x 3m in june-july 1988 at 27km southeast of darwin on a reasonable level site with laterite/clay soil, mean dbh was 16.2cm at a stocking level of 621 stems ha -1 . a trees was measured before thinning. out of total 445 trees, 213 dead, dying, diseased, suppressed, poorly grown, few dominant and co-dominant trees were marked for thinning. thirty-two trees, which were broken by wind, were not included in the study. out of these marked trees, 25 trees were used for biomass study. after felling, the total length of the tree was measured. wood (stem and branch) and foliage were weighed separately. nine discs were taken from bottom, middle and top portion of the tree (three discs from each portion). two diameters were measured and mean diameter was calculated for each disc with bark. the same method was applied to find out the diameter of the disc without bark. length of each disc was measured. each fresh disc with bark was weighed in the field. again, fresh discs were weighed after removing the bark. all the discs were kept in an oven drier at 1050c for 48 hours and weighed again. volume, weight of fresh and oven-dried discs (with and without bark) were summed up and average fresh and oven-dried density of disc was calculated. results and discussion height and diameter growth the growth results of height and diameter of teak planted at shankarnagar, rupandehi cover from 7.5 years to 14.5 years (table 1). in chilia, rupandehi district, 14 years teak had 15.2m of mean height, with periodic annual increment (pai) 1.09m (kayastha 1974), whereas the mean height was 17.2 m at shankarnagar at 14.5 years with pai 1.2m. height growth was found better at shankarnagar than chilia in rupandehi district. as mentioned by kayastha (1974) the roots in the chilia plantation were not able to penetrate the compact layer formed by higher percentage of silt and clay, which might have reduced the growth. such problem is not found in shankarnagar teak plantation. in this study, slight variation in periodic diameter increment (1.2-1.5 cm) is recorded in different years. it is decreased with the increase in age of the trees. periodic height increment is also similar to the rate of growth of diameter (table 1). obviously, rate of growth of trees becomes slow as the trees get older. in a teak plantation established at a spacing of 3m x 3m in june-july 1988 at 27km southeast of darwin on a reasonable level site with laterite/clay soil, mean dbh was 16.2cm at a stocking level of 621 stems ha1. a handful of fowl manure was applied around each individual tree at planting (robertson et al. 2005). the diameter growth is higher at shankarnagar, indicating better site than the site at south west of darwin. the fastest growth recorded in teak plantations in the world is from chittagong district, bangladesh at kaptai. trees of 21 years old had average height of 29.3m with pai 1.4m and average diameter of 30cm with pai 1.4cm (parameswarappa 1995). at shankarnagar, pai figures of height and diameter of 14.5 years teak are 1.2m and 1.2cm respectively. the trend of present growth of teak in this site does not meet the growth of teak at kaptai, bangladesh. it indicates that growth of teak is greatly affected by the site quality. at 20 years of age the height growth was 23.1m with pai 1.2m and diameter was 23.1cm with pai 1.4cm in indo gangetic belt of haldwani division, u. p. india ( parameswarappa 1995 ). in this study, pai of height at 14.5 years is the same as the pai of height in haldwani division, but the pai thapa and gautam 13 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 of diameter (1.2cm) is less than that place. after thinning, the pai of height and diameter is changed from 1.2m and 1.2 cm to 1.4m and 1.4cm respectively. it is expected that the trend of height and growth will be similar to the height and diameter growth in harldwani division after this second thinning. in bastar of madhya pradesh, india, 24-years old teak acquired a diameter growth of 38 cm with pai 1.6cm, which is an appreciable growth (reddy 1995). in the districts of visakhapatnam and east godavari, in andhra pradesh, 11-years old teak plantation in rajaomangi reserve had attained dbh 23.1cm with pai 2.1cm and height 12.46m.. similarly, dbh and height of 13-years old teak in rajaomangi reserve forest were 24.7cm and 14m respectively (reddy 1995). diameter growth is certainly higher in bastar and rajaomangi, although height growth is higher at shankarnagar than these two places. teak plantation was established in 1986 by ichalkaranji co-operative spinning mills at ichalkaranji district kolhapur in the western maharashtra dry zone, india. in addition to the normal practices, the plantation was raised at a regular flood irrigation at an interval of 3 to 4 weeks, during the dry season. the firm used a lot of cotton waste/linter to fertilise the teak plantation. as a consequence to such high inputs, sampling attained average dbh of 9.1cm (28.5cm -gh o. b.) and 10.8m height at the age of 7-years (gogate 1995). the growth is better at shankarnagar , even without application of fertilizer and irrigation. it may be due to the moist condition and higher fertility of this site, which is favourable for the good growth of teak. teak was planted in 1963 in pakela reserved forest block of sukma range of south bastar division, india. topography is almost flat with an elevation of 171 m above msl. soil is rich alluvium, deep and sandy loam. at the age of 14-years, teak attained mean dbh of 15.5cm (5 to 25cm) with pai 1.1cm (suri 1984). the diameter growth is higher at shankarnagar. the study was undertaken at nimbia forest research situated at about 70km south of jos, in a small pocket of the derived savanna woodland, nigeria. its altitude is 640 m. the soil is of katchuk loam series derived from basement complex. at 7years the height and diameter of teak were 8.3m and 12.6cm at a spacing of 3.66 x 2.74 m (996 trees ha-1). at the same age, height and diameter were 7.7m and 12.1cm respectively (adegbehin 1982) at a spacing of 3.66 x 3.66 m (748 trees ha-1). diameter growth of teak at shankarnagar is slightly lower, but the height growth is higher than the nimbia forest reserve. based on the site quality ii in india, mean diameter and mean height of 15-years old teak are 15.75cm and 15.54m respectively (maslekar 1981), whereas the mean diameter and mean height of 14.5-years old teak at shankarnagar are 17.6cm and 17.2m respectively. the growth is slightly better than the site quality ii in india. so, it is obvious that the shankarnagar site is similar to site quality ii in india. due to removal of all suppressed trees in thinning at 7.5 years, remaining trees had more or less similar height, so the coefficient of variation (cv) was low (9.7%). cv of diameter was 17.1% at 7.5 years, which was 27% before thinning (thapa and gautam 2005). as expected, uniformity in height and diameter decreased gradually due to annual variation in height and diameter growth of individual trees after 7.5 years. cv of height ranged from 9.7% at 7.5 years to 21.5% at 14.5 years. in case of diameter, cv ranged from 17.1% at 7.5 years to 26.1% at 14.5 years (table 1). stocking ranges from 943 trees after thinning at 7.5 years to 890 trees before thinning at 14.5 years. the change in stocking from one year to another is mainly due to damage of trees by wind in different years. in this study 32 trees were found damaged by wind. it clearly indicates that teak plantations also need shelterbelt, if there is a problem of strong wind. basal area and other parameters of thinned and standing trees after thinning, mean height and dbh are increased 2.6m (15.1%) from 17.2m to 19.8m and 3.1cm (17.6%) from 17.6cm to 20.7cm respectively. particularly, such increase in size of trees has main role in accumulation of wood for timber. further it can increase the quality of wood and reduce the rotation period of trees. for trees prior to thinning and after thinning at 7.5 years, mean basal areas were 0.0089 m2 and 0.0111 m2 respectively (thapa and gautam 2005) whereas mean basal areas were 0.0258 m2 0.0345 m2 respectively at 14.5 years. the basal area is significantly higher at 14.5 years than the basal area at 7.5 years (table 2). it is mainly due to effect of first thinning on growth of trees. during 7 years, a significant increase in basal area per hectare 12.5 m2 ha-1 (120%) from 10.4 m2 ha-1 at 7.5 years to 22.9 thapa and gautam 14 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 m2 ha-1 is recorded. about 48% trees have been thinned and 30.3% basal area is removed in thinning at 14.5 years. over bark stem volume is increased 121.8 m3 ha-1 (145%) from 84.2 m3 ha-1 at 7.5 years to 206 m3 ha-1 at 14.5 years, which is a substantial volume accumulation during 7-years period (table 2). the mean over bark stem volume of teak was 0.2313 m3 before thinning at 14.5 years. the volume of thinned trees was 147 m3 ha-1 whereas the volume of standing trees before thinning was 206 m3 ha-1. about 28.6% of the total volume was removed in thinning operation (table 2). in a 14.4 years teak plantation near darwin, mean basal area was 13.1 m2 ha-1 at a stocking level of 621 stems ha-1 (robertson et al. 2005), whereas basal area of 14.5 years old teak is higher (22.9 m2 ha-1) at a stocking level of 890 stems ha-1 at shankarnagar. teak trial with nine provenances was established at a spacing of 3mx 2m in the top end of the northern territory on dark brown sandy clay with a high water table at humpty doo, 57 km southeast of darwin, in january 1973. approximately 100 grams of npk fertilizer was applied per tree at planting. in the trial of humpty doo, a provenance from kerala in india had a basal area of 24.08 m2 ha-1 with pai 2.5 m2 ha1 year-1 at age 9.6 years and basal area increased to 40.43 m2 ha-1 with pai 2.0 m2 ha-1 year-1 at 20-years (cracium 1973). stem timber volume of 21-years teak trees at kaptai, chittagong district, bangladesh was 34.09 m3 acre-1 (81.8 m3 ha-1) whereas small timber volume was 8.86 m3 per acre (21.2 m3 ha-1). at kaptai, bangladesh, the teak grows faster than nilambur first quality teak in india in general and attains higher volume per acre. (parameswarappa 1995). the total over bark stem volume is 145 m3 ha-1 at 14.5 years after thinning which is higher than kaptai. in 1963 plantation in pakela reserved forest block of sukma range of south bastar division, 14-years old teak has produced 92.2 m3 ha-1 of wood against the expectation of 70.4 m3 ha-1, which is estimated growth based on yield tables of site quality ii (suri 1984). the higher volume in this study may be due to over bark volume and inclusion of volume up to the top portion of tree. generally, stem volume is under bark and up to the certain part of the tree i.e. 4 cm or 10 cm top diameter of the tree. basal area of 14-years old teak in pakela reserved forest block of sukma range of south bastar division was 12.7558 m2 ha-1 (stocking: 550 trees ha1), against the expectation of 10.4569m2 ha-1 which is based on yield tables of site quality ii (stocking 477 trees ha-1) (suri 1984). basal area of 14.5 years teak after second thinning (stocking 464 trees ha-1) is slightly higher at shankarnagar. it indicates that the site quality of shankarnagar falls in the site quality ii in india. at nimbia forest research situated at about 70km south of jos, in a small pocket of the derived savanna woodland, nigeria, 7-years old teak planted at a spacing of 3.66 x 2.74 m attained the basal area 12.8 m2 ha-1 and volume 39.3 m3 ha-1. similarly, at the same age teak planted at a spacing of 3.66 x 3.66m attained the basal area 8.7 m2 ha-1 and volume 26.2 m3 ha-1 (adegbehin 1982). in a 20 years old teak plantation in teliamura forest division in tripura 4 basal area and other parameters of thinned and standing trees after thinning, mean height and dbh are increased 2.6m (15.1%) from 17.2m to 19.8m and 3.1cm (17.6%) from 17.6cm to 20.7cm respectively. particularly, such increase in size of trees has main role in accumulation of wood for timber. further it can increase the quality of wood and reduce the rotation period of trees. for trees prior to thinning and after thinning at 7.5 years, mean basal areas were 0.0089 m 2 and 0.0111 m 2 respectively (thapa and gautam 2005) whereas mean basal areas were 0.0258 m 2 0.0345 m 2 respectively at 14.5 years. the basal area is significantly higher at 14.5 years than the basal area at 7.5 years (table 2). it is mainly due to effect of first thinning on growth of trees. during 7 years, a significant increase in basal area per hectare 12.5 m 2 ha -1 (120%) from 10.4 m 2 ha -1 at 7.5 years to 22.9 m 2 ha -1 is recorded. about 48% trees have been thinned and 30.3% basal area is removed in thinning at 14.5 years. over bark stem volume is increased 121.8 m 3 ha -1 (145%) from 84.2 m 3 ha -1 at 7.5 years to 206 m 3 ha -1 at 14.5 years, which is a substantial volume accumulation during 7-years period (table 2). the mean over bark stem volume of teak was 0.2313 m 3 before thinning at 14.5 years. the volume of thinned trees was 147 m 3 ha -1 whereas the volume of standing trees before thinning was 206 m 3 ha -1 . about 28.6% of the total volume was removed in thinning operation (table 2). table 2: height, dbh, basal area, periodic annual increment of basal area, and over bark stem volume of 14.5 years tectona grandis standing trees parameter thinned trees before thinning after thinning mean height (m) 14.5 17.2 19.8 mean dbh (cm) 14.2 17.6 20.7 mean basal area (m2 tree-1) 0.0164 0.0258 0.0345 basal area (m2 ha-1) 6.9 22.9 16.0 periodic annual increment of basal area (m2ha-1year-1) 0.48 1.6 1.1 over bark stem volume (m3 tree-1) 0.1384 0.2313 0.3166 over bark stem volume (m3 ha-1) 59 206 147 periodic annual increment of over bark stem volume (m3ha-1year-1) 4.0 14.2 10.1 stocking (stems ha-1) 426 890 464 percentage of the original stocking (1600 trees ha-1) 26.6 55.6 29.0 basal area removal (%): 30.3 removal of trees in second thinning (%): 47.9 in a 14.4 years teak plantation near darwin, mean basal area was 13.1 m 2 ha -1 at a stocking level of 621 stems ha -1 (robertson et al. 2005), whereas basal area of 14.5 years old teak is higher (22.9 m 2 ha -1 ) at a stocking level of 890 stems ha -1 at shankarnagar. teak trial with nine provenances was established at a spacing of 3mx 2m in the top end of the northern territory on dark brown sandy clay with a high water table at humpty doo, 57 km southeast of darwin, in january 1973. approximately 100 grams of npk fertilizer was applied per tree at planting. in the trial of humpty doo, a provenance from kerala in india had a basal area of 24.08 m 2 ha -1 with pai 2.5 m 2 ha -1 year -1 at age 9.6 years and basal area increased to 40.43 m 2 ha -1 with pai 2.0 m 2 ha -1 year -1 at 20-years (cracium 1973). stem timber volume of 21-years teak trees at kaptai, chittagong district, bangladesh was 34.09 m 3 acre -1 (81.8 m 3 ha -1 ) whereas small timber volume was 8.86 m 3 per acre (21.2 m 3 ha -1 ). at kaptai, bangladesh, the teak grows faster than nilambur first quality teak in india in general and attains higher volume per acre. (parameswarappa 1995). the total over bark stem volume is 145 m 3 ha -1 at 14.5 years after thinning which is higher than kaptai. in 1963 plantation in pakela reserved forest block of sukma range of south bastar division, 14-years old teak has produced 92.2 m 3 ha -1 of wood against the expectation of 70.4 m 3 ha -1 , which is estimated growth based on yield tables of site quality ii (suri 1984). the higher volume in this thapa and gautam 15 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 state, india., the mean annual increment of bole was 7.919 m3 ha-1year-1, the total volume being 158.38 m3 ha-1 (stocking 414 trees ha-1) (negi et al. 1990). biomass before thinning, estimated average fresh wood and foliage production of 14.5 years old teak was found to be 226 kg (201 tons ha-1) and 14 kg (13 tons ha-1); 125 kg (53 tons ha-1) and 9 kg (4 tons ha-1) in thinned trees; 318 kg (148 tons ha-1) and 19 kg (9 tons ha-1) respectively for trees after thinning (table 3). in this study, the contribution of green foliage in total aboveground biomass was 6% only, whereas it was 8% at 7.5 years.. less foliage at 14.5 years may be due to more foliage fallen on the ground, as this thinning was done later than the first thinning at 7.5 years. so, the figure of fresh foliage presented in table 3 is less than the actual biomass figure of foliage. contribution of foliage in total above-ground biomass is mainly affected by three factors: leaf fall, smaller sized and less number of branches. in a 20 years old teak plantation in teliamura forest division in tripura state, india., the above-ground wood (twig, branch, bark and bole) accounted for 95% ( 108 tons ha-1) and the leaf accounted for 5% ( 6 tons ha-1) in oven-dried total above-ground biomass (114 tons ha1 ) (negi et al. 1990). the contribution of aboveground wood and foliage in above-ground total biomass of teak is almost the same in both the places. at shankarnagar, oven-dried total above-ground biomass of 14.5 years old teak before thinning is 89.7 tons ha-1, which is lower than tripura, as teak at shankarnagar is five years younger than tripura. it is expected to get that yield at 20-years at shankarnagar. from this thinning, shankarnagar community forest user group has sold 250 poles at the rate of nrs. 80 per pole and 100 quintals of fire wood at the rate of rupee 1 per kilo. so the total amount of money from poles and fire wood is rupees 60, 000 ( 1 us $ =nrs. 62.00) per hectare, in which the labour cost for felling, sectioning and transporting the materials is not included. it clearly indicates that one can get poles for sale after second thinning of teak. these poles can be used in house construction. the number of poles will certainly increase in subsequent thinning operations. if preservative treatment is applied for the poles and posts obtained from thinning, the monetary value would be even higher. it is essential to consider such aspect to get higher value in future. productivity and density before thinning at 14.5 years, productivity of green wood (stem and branch) of teak was 13.9 tons ha-1 year-1 and rate of accumulation was found to be 15.6 kg tree-1 year-1 (table 4). similarly joshi (1982) found that productivity of green wood of 10.5 years old teak at sagarnath was 13.07 tons ha-1 year-1. the productivity of green wood is more or less similar in both sites, shankarnagar and sagarnath. it indicates that both sites have similar features for the growth of teak. 5 study may be due to over bark volume and inclusion of volume up to the top portion of tree. generally, stem volume is under bark and up to the certain part of the tree i.e. 4 cm or 10 cm top diameter of the tree. basal area of 14-years old teak in pakela reserved forest block of sukma range of south bastar division was 12.7558 m 2 ha -1 (stocking: 550 trees ha -1 ), against the expectation of 10.4569m 2 ha -1 which is based on yield tables of site quality ii (stocking 477 trees ha -1 ) (suri 1984). basal area of 14.5 years teak after second thinning (stocking 464 trees ha -1 ) is slightly higher at shankarnagar. it indicates that the site quality of shankarnagar falls in the site quality ii in india. at nimbia forest research situated at about 70km south of jos, in a small pocket of the derived savanna woodland, nigeria, 7-years old teak planted at a spacing of 3.66 x 2.74 m attained the basal area 12.8 m 2 ha -1 and volume 39.3 m 3 ha -1 . similarly, at the same age teak planted at a spacing of 3.66 x 3.66m attained the basal area 8.7 m 2 ha -1 and volume 26.2 m 3 ha -1 (adegbehin 1982). in a 20 years old teak plantation in teliamura forest division in tripura state, india., the mean annual increment of bole was 7.919 m 3 ha 1 year -1 , the total volume being 158.38 m 3 ha -1 (stocking 414 trees ha -1 ) (negi et al. 1990). biomass before thinning, estimated average fresh wood and foliage production of 14.5 years old teak was found to be 226 kg (201 tons ha -1 ) and 14 kg (13 tons ha -1 ); 125 kg (53 tons ha -1 ) and 9 kg (4 tons ha -1 ) in thinned trees; 318 kg (148 tons ha -1 ) and 19 kg (9 tons ha -1 ) respectively for trees after thinning (table 3). table 3: mean green biomass of thinned and standing trees before and after thinning at 14.5 years standing trees (kg tree-1) standing trees (tons ha-1) parameter thinned trees (kg tree-1) before thinning after thinning thinned trees (tons ha-1) before thinning after thinning above-ground total wood 125 226 (94) 318 53 201 (94) 148 foliage 9 14 (6) 19 4 13 (6) 9 above-ground biomass 134 240 (100) 337 57 214 (100) 157 figures in parenthesis indicate the percentage of wood and foliage in total aboveground biomass. use the following figures to convert green wood and foliage to oven dry wood and foliage. green wood to oven dried wood=0.4232 green foliage to oven dried foliage =0.3586 the models were used from thapa and gautam (2005) green wood (lnw)= -1.9276+ 2.5206*ln dbh, green foliage (lnw) = -2.9556+1.9362*ln dbh in this study, the contribution of green foliage in total aboveground biomass was 6% only, whereas it was 8% at 7.5 years.. less foliage at 14.5 years may be due to more foliage fallen on the ground, as this thinning was done later than the first thinning at 7.5 years. so, the figure of fresh foliage presented in table 3 is less than the actual biomass figure of foliage. contribution of foliage in total above-ground biomass is mainly affected by three factors: leaf fall, smaller sized and less number of branches. in a 20 years old teak plantation in teliamura forest division in tripura state, india., the above-ground wood (twig, branch, bark and bole) accounted for 95% ( 108 tons ha -1 ) and the leaf accounted for 5% ( 6 tons ha -1 ) in oven-dried total above-ground biomass (114 tons ha -1 ) (negi et al. 1990). the contribution of above-ground wood and foliage in above-ground total biomass of teak is almost the same in both the places. at shankarnagar, ovendried total above-ground biomass of 14.5 years old teak before thinning is 89.7 tons ha -1 , which is lower than tripura, as teak at shankarnagar is five years younger than tripura. it is expected to get that yield at 20-years at shankarnagar. from this thinning, shankarnagar community forest user group has sold 250 poles at the rate of nrs. 80 per pole and 100 quintals of fire wood at the rate of rupee 1 per kilo. so the total amount of money from poles and fire wood is rupees 60, 000 ( 1 us $ =nrs. 62.00) per hectare, in which the labour cost for felling, sectioning and transporting the materials is not included. it clearly indicates that one can get poles for sale after second thinning of teak. these poles can be used in house construction. the number of poles will certainly increase in subsequent thinning operations. if preservative treatment is applied for the poles 6 and posts obtained from thinning, the monetary value would be even higher. it is essential to consider such aspect to get higher value in future. productivity and density before thinning at 14.5 years, productivity of green wood (stem and branch) of teak was 13.9 tons ha -1 year -1 and rate of accumulation was found to be 15.6 kg tree -1 year -1 (table 4). similarly joshi (1982) found that productivity of green wood of 10.5 years old teak at sagarnath was 13.07 tons ha -1 year -1 . the productivity of green wood is more or less similar in both sites, shankarnagar and sagarnath. it indicates that both sites have similar features for the growth of teak. table 4: productivity and rate of accumulation of green biomass of 14.5 years t. grandis green biomass (kg tree-1 year-1) green biomass (tons ha-1 year-1) total wood foliage total aboveground biomass total wood foliage total above-ground biomass before thinning 15.6 1.0 16.6 13.9 0.9 14.8 after thinning 21.9 1.3 23.2 10.2 0.6 10.8 use the following figures to convert green wood and foliage to oven dry wood and foliage. green wood to oven dried wood=0.4232 green foliage to oven dried foliage =0.3586 the productivity of oven-dried above-ground biomass (wood and foliage) of teak in tripura was 5.7 tons ha -1 year -1 (114 tons ha -1 at the age of 20 years) whereas it was. 3.4 tons ha -1 year -1 in u. p. (130 tons ha -1 at the age of 38 years) (negi et al. 1990). the productivity of oven-dried above-ground biomass of teak at shankarnagar is higher ( 6.2 tons ha -1 year -1 ) than both the places. it indicates that the performance of growth performance of teak is reasonable at shankarnagar. over bark (ob) and under bark (ub) density of green wood are found 1162 kgm -3 and 1236 kgm -3 respectively. density of ob and ub oven dried wood is significantly decreased (459 kgm -3 for ob wood and 444 kgm -3 for ub wood). per unit area and mean basal area, biomass and over bark stem volume after thinning the basal area of trees per unit area depends upon the size and density of trees. at sagarnath, sarlahi, table 5 : per unit area basal area, green and oven-dry biomass (wood and foliage), over bark stem volume of standing trees in different years green biomass (tons ha-1) oven dry biomass (tons ha-1) age basal area (m2 ha-1) wood foliage total wood foliage total over bark stem volume (m3 ha-1) 7.5 10.4 71.4 5.8 77.2 30.3 2.1 32.4 84.2 8.5 12.2 86.7 6.8 93.5 36.8 2.4 39.2 99.9 9.5 14.9 111.8 8.3 120.1 47.6 2.9 50.5 125.0 10.5 16.0 123.5 8.9 132.4 52.8 3.2 56.0 136.1 11.5 17.1 133.5 9.4 142.9 58.6 3.4 62.0 145.0 12.5 18.8 153.3 10.4 163.7 64.9 3.7 68.6 164.0 13.5 21.0 176.7 12.0 188.7 74.8 4.3 79.1 185.0 14.5 23.0 200.7 12.6 213.3 84.9 4.5 89.4 205.8 7.5 years results and 14.5 years refer to results after thinning and before thinning respectively. results from 7.5 to 11.5 years are from thapa and gautam (2005). the basal area of 22.1 m 2 ha -1 was recorded in 10.5 years old teak having its pai 2.1 m 2 ha -1 year -1 (joshi 1982) whereas its basal area in that age at shankarnagar was found lower (16 m 2 ha -1 ) than sagarnath. it may be due to lower stocking at shankarnagar. thapa and gautam 16 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 the productivity of oven-dried above-ground biomass (wood and foliage) of teak in tripura was 5.7 tons ha-1 year-1 (114 tons ha-1 at the age of 20 years) whereas it was. 3.4 tons ha-1 year-1 in u. p. (130 tons ha-1 at the age of 38 years) (negi et al. 1990). the productivity of oven-dried above-ground biomass of teak at shankarnagar is higher ( 6.2 tons ha-1 year-1) than both the places. it indicates that the performance of growth performance of teak is reasonable at shankarnagar. over bark (ob) and under bark (ub) density of green wood are found 1162 kgm-3 and 1236 kgm-3 respectively. density of ob and ub oven dried wood is significantly decreased (459 kgm-3 for ob wood and 444 kgm-3 for ub wood). per unit area and mean basal area, biomass and over bark stem volume after thinning the basal area of trees per unit area depends upon the size and density of trees. at sagarnath, sarlahi, the basal area of 22.1 m2 ha-1 was recorded in 10.5 years old teak having its pai 2.1 m2 ha-1 year-1 (joshi 1982) whereas its basal area in that age at shankarnagar was found lower (16 m2 ha-1) than sagarnath. it may be due to lower stocking at shankarnagar. basal area per unit area ranged from 10.4 m2 ha-1 at 7.5 years to 23 m2 ha-1, an increase of 121% during 7-years. similarly, green wood ranged from 71.4 tons ha-1 to 200.7 tons ha-1 ( 181% increase) at 14.5 years, green foliage from 5.8 tons ha-1 to 12.6 tons ha-1 (117% increase) and over bark stem volume 84.2 m3 ha-1 to 205.8 m3 ha-1 (144% increase) during that period (table 5). all of these figures state that the growth of trees has been increased in a significant manner after first thinning. similar trend is found in biomass and volume production. the remaining trees after thinning have got more space so that nutrient availability increased which caused an increase in biomass and volume production during that period. conclusion promotion of teak plantation can be successfully done in the terai region of nepal, as it is supported by the growth results of teak plantation at shankarnagar, rupandehi district. on the one hand, timely thinning certainly promote the growth of remaining trees, and on the other, farmers or communities get return by selling poles and fire wood from each thinning operation. references adegbehin, j. o. 1982. preliminary results of the effects of spacing on the growth and yield of tectona grandis linn. f. indian forester 108 (6): 423430. cracium, g. 1973. species testing results-hardwoods. position paper no. 3. northern territory administration branch. gogate, m. g. 1995. evaluation of growth response of teak to high inputs. indian forester 121 (6) : 578-580. jackson, j. k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal, second edition. forestry research and survey centre, nepal. joshi, m. r. 1982. preliminary estimate of the productivity of plantation grown tectona grandis and dalbergia sissoo at sagarnath, nepal. forest survey and research office. publication no. 36. 6 and posts obtained from thinning, the monetary value would be even higher. it is essential to consider such aspect to get higher value in future. productivity and density before thinning at 14.5 years, productivity of green wood (stem and branch) of teak was 13.9 tons ha -1 year -1 and rate of accumulation was found to be 15.6 kg tree -1 year -1 (table 4). similarly joshi (1982) found that productivity of green wood of 10.5 years old teak at sagarnath was 13.07 tons ha -1 year -1 . the productivity of green wood is more or less similar in both sites, shankarnagar and sagarnath. it indicates that both sites have similar features for the growth of teak. table 4: productivity and rate of accumulation of green biomass of 14.5 years t. grandis green biomass (kg tree-1 year-1) green biomass (tons ha-1 year-1) total wood foliage total aboveground biomass total wood foliage total above-ground biomass before thinning 15.6 1.0 16.6 13.9 0.9 14.8 after thinning 21.9 1.3 23.2 10.2 0.6 10.8 use the following figures to convert green wood and foliage to oven dry wood and foliage. green wood to oven dried wood=0.4232 green foliage to oven dried foliage =0.3586 the productivity of oven-dried above-ground biomass (wood and foliage) of teak in tripura was 5.7 tons ha -1 year -1 (114 tons ha -1 at the age of 20 years) whereas it was. 3.4 tons ha -1 year -1 in u. p. (130 tons ha -1 at the age of 38 years) (negi et al. 1990). the productivity of oven-dried above-ground biomass of teak at shankarnagar is higher ( 6.2 tons ha -1 year -1 ) than both the places. it indicates that the performance of growth performance of teak is reasonable at shankarnagar. over bark (ob) and under bark (ub) density of green wood are found 1162 kgm -3 and 1236 kgm -3 respectively. density of ob and ub oven dried wood is significantly decreased (459 kgm -3 for ob wood and 444 kgm -3 for ub wood). per unit area and mean basal area, biomass and over bark stem volume after thinning the basal area of trees per unit area depends upon the size and density of trees. at sagarnath, sarlahi, table 5 : per unit area basal area, green and oven-dry biomass (wood and foliage), over bark stem volume of standing trees in different years green biomass (tons ha-1) oven dry biomass (tons ha-1) age basal area (m2 ha-1) wood foliage total wood foliage total over bark stem volume (m3 ha-1) 7.5 10.4 71.4 5.8 77.2 30.3 2.1 32.4 84.2 8.5 12.2 86.7 6.8 93.5 36.8 2.4 39.2 99.9 9.5 14.9 111.8 8.3 120.1 47.6 2.9 50.5 125.0 10.5 16.0 123.5 8.9 132.4 52.8 3.2 56.0 136.1 11.5 17.1 133.5 9.4 142.9 58.6 3.4 62.0 145.0 12.5 18.8 153.3 10.4 163.7 64.9 3.7 68.6 164.0 13.5 21.0 176.7 12.0 188.7 74.8 4.3 79.1 185.0 14.5 23.0 200.7 12.6 213.3 84.9 4.5 89.4 205.8 7.5 years results and 14.5 years refer to results after thinning and before thinning respectively. results from 7.5 to 11.5 years are from thapa and gautam (2005). the basal area of 22.1 m 2 ha -1 was recorded in 10.5 years old teak having its pai 2.1 m 2 ha -1 year -1 (joshi 1982) whereas its basal area in that age at shankarnagar was found lower (16 m 2 ha -1 ) than sagarnath. it may be due to lower stocking at shankarnagar. thapa and gautam 17 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 kayastha, b. p. 1974. site suitability of trial plantations of teak (tectona grandis). forestry (4), 4-7. journal of the institute of forestry. maslekar, a. r. 1981. forester’s companion (indian forestry handbook). jugal kishore and company, dehradun. negi, j. d. s., bahuguna, v. k., and sharma, d. c.1990. biomass production and distribution of nutrients in 20 years old teak (tectona grandis) and gamar (gmelina arborea) plantation in tripura. indian forester 116 (9): 681-686. parameswarappa, s. 1995. teak how fast can it grow and how much can it pay?. indian forester 121 (6): 563-565. reddy, jagannath c. 1995. the bounty from the teak tree. indian forester 121 (6): 573-575. robertson, r. m. and reilly, d. f. 2005. performance of a 16-year-old stand of teak (tectona grandis l. f.) in the darwin area in relation to that in other trials in the northern territory. information booklet. department of primary industry, fisheries and mines. suri, s. k. 1984. a suggested model for quantitative assessment of plantations with particular reference to pakela teak plantations of south bastar division (m. p.). indian forester 110 (3): 253263. thapa, h. b. and gautam, s. k. 2005. growth performance of tectona grandis in the western terai of nepal. banko janakari 15 (2): 6-12. thapa and gautam final corrected banko janakari 19-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 1 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal biodiversity conservation nepal is rich in biological diversity (biodiversity) due to its varied climate and altitudinal ranges within short interval distance. nepal comprises only about 0.1 percent of the terrestrial area of the earth but it harbors high share of biodiversity. a total of 118 ecosystems with 75 vegetation types and 35 forest types. nepal has a global commitment to the nepali people and its government for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development within broad framework of convention on biological diversity (cbd). so, it is very crucial to conserve nature gifted biological resources to maintain diverse ecosystem of nepal. nepal has made lots of efforts to conserve biodiversity and in this regards, nepal biodiversity strategy (nbs), 2002 and nepal biodiversity strategy implementation plan (nbsip), 2006 have also been prepared. the nbs defines biodiversity as species diversity, ecological diversity and genetic diversity. the biological diversity in nepal is closely linked to the livelihoods improvement, economic development, agricultural/ forest productivity and ecological sustainability. furthermore, it relates to human health and nutrition, indigenous knowledge, gender equity, building materials, water resources, and the aesthetic and cultural well being of the society. conserving biodiversity cannot be achieved successfully under single sector approach. it needs proper co-ordination and co-operation from multi sectors and cross sectors whereby several cross sectoral issues can be addressed. the paradigm of conservation of biological resources in nepal is shifting from species level to ecosystem level and finally to landscape level. this effort of landscape level conservation is being carried out in some parts, especially focusing on protected areas, of the nation only. however, most of the forests such as community forest, leasehold forest, national forest, private forest still have not received much concern about biodiversity conservation. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 2 there is a need of effective implementation of the nepal biodiversity strategy in all sectors for the protection and wise use of the biologically diverse resources of the country, the protection of ecological processes and systems, and the equitable sharing of all ensuing benefits on a sustainable basis. at present context, climate change and its impacts on environment as a whole is a burning issue. the impacts on biodiversity due to climate change need to be addressed to conserve biodiversity. there are biodoversity hotspots which are vulnerable to climate change because they are rich in endemic species with restricted distribution. if we talk about species level conservation, which species will be lost if climate change takes place? biodiversity conservation in situ contribute towards carbon sequestration which could be another benefit through carbon financing on one hand while carbon financing mechanism that conserve forest and promote sustainable land use could have a adverse impact on biodiversity conservation on other hand. the rich biodiversity of the country has to be conserved by proper implementation of nepal biodiversity strategy implementation plan, and a high priority must be given for conservation and sustainable forest management. research in forests and flora, scientific forest management for conservation of biodiversity are areas of research for conservation of biodiversity. the focus on species level conservation should also be given at least for key stone species at present context. final bankojanakari 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 51 new addition of barleria prionites l. (acanthaceae) to the flora of nepal g.d. bhatt1, p.p. kurmi2 and s.r. baral1 short note while carrying out identification of barleria l. (family acanthaceae) collected from various places of nepal and preserved in national herbarium and plant laboratories, department of plant resources, godawari, lalitpur, nepal (kath), we came across some specimens belonging to one interesting species. during the identification, this species did not match with any species of barleria already reported from nepal (hara and shakya, 1982; press et al., 2000; bista et al., 2001). it has been identified as barleria prionites l. which is new addition to the flora of nepal. this species was collected from nepalganj, banke district, west nepal at 181m. description of the species barleria prionites l., sp. pl. 636 (1753). under shrub to 1.5m, bearing prominent, greyish, 3forked, interpetiolar spines. stem much branched. leaves elliptic-obovate, 3.5-13.5 x 15.1cm, acute, base attenuate, rugulose, glabrous above and beneath; petiole 0-1.8cm. flowers solitary in axils of upper leaves, becoming denser upwards and forming short terminal spikes. bracts oblong-ovate, 10-25mm, acute, spine tipped; bracteoles linear, 7-14mm spinescent. outer calyx lobes ovate, 12-15mm, spine tripped, glabrous; inner calyx lobes ovatelanceolate, 1013mm, spinetipped. corolla orange yellow, 1.53.9cm, pubescent, 2lipped, upper lip formed of 4 equal elliptic lobes 1-1.5cm, lower lip formed of 1 lobe 1.8-2.4cm; tube 1-1.5cm, slightly widened only. stamens 2, filaments, 2-2.5cm. stigma entire, cylindric, open, pitted. distribution: nepal, india, bhutan, sri-lanka, se asia, tropical africa. ecology: occurs in forest area. flowering: november. local name: kalabansa / kalpanath -sfnfjg;f / snkgfy_ specimens examined:west nepal: nepalganj, banke district, 181m, 1972.11.18, n. p. manandhar 9472. uses: the plant has medicinal value. its leaf and root is used against neurological disorders such as paraplegia, sciatica, etc. leaf juice is applied to purify blood and semen. it also helps heal ulcers, glandular swellings and skin diseases (sivaranjan and balachandran, 1999). 1 national herbarium and plant laboratories, department of plant resources, godawari, lalitpur, nepal. email:gdb742gdb@gmail.com 2 free lance botanist baraipur-5, kapilvastu district, nepal. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 52 acknowledgements we are grateful to dr. krishna chandra paudel, director general, dpr for his encouragement and facilities and dr. keshab r. rajbhandari, senior taxonomist, for his guidance and valuable suggestions. references bista, m.s., adhikari, m.k. and rajbhandari, k.r. (eds.) 2001. flowering plants of nepal (phanerogams). department of plant resources, kathmandu, nepal. hara, h. and shakya, p.r. 1982. acanthaceae. in an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal volume iii (eds.) hara, h., chater, a.o. and williams, l.h.j., british museum (natural history), london, u.k. 138-139. press, j.r., shrestha, k.k. and sutton, d.a. 2000. annotated checklist of the flowering plants of nepal. natural history museum, london, u.k. sivaranjan, v.v. and balachandran, i. 1999. ayurvedic drugs and their plant sources. oxford and ibh publishing co. ltd. new delhi. 570p. bhatt et al. final added vol 15-2.pmd 48 convention on biological diversity(cbd), is the first international attempt to provide a legal framework for ensuring conservation and sustainable use of the genetic resources in addition to addressing concerns of equity. this international convention promotes services to the communities involved in creation and conservation of biological resources, in the form of adequate reward and compensation and as an incentive to continue conservation. interest in access to genetic resources as an international issue grew in the early 1980s and got focused in the negotiations leading to the cbd. the livelihoods of millions of the rural people around the world depend on the biological resources and the associated traditional knowledge that has evolved over centuries of how best to manage and use those resources and the genetic material they contain. (bala et al, 2004). the cbd provides a minimum framework for regulating access to genetic resources and benefit sharing. following are the important provisions on regarding access and benefit sharing : • equitable share with local communities of the benefits from use of their traditional knowledge. (article 8j) • the states have the sovereign right to regulate access (article 15.1) • only the country of origin of a country that has acquired genetic resources in compliance with the cbs may grant access to genetic resources (article 15.3) • access must be on mutually agreed terms; (article 15.4) • access is subject to the prior informed consent of the party that is providing the resources. (article 15.5) • research to be carried out with full participation of the country providing the genetic resources (article 15.6) the cbd recognizes role of individual parties to decide what their regulatory frameworks will be to cover above mentioned provision. (i.e. sui generis system) principles applied in access to genetic resources and benefit sharing sovereignty of respective state it is the power of a state to independently regulate its own internal and external affairs. sovereignty is not ownership; it is the power to regulate ownership. ownership of biological resources may be established in countries constitution or in one or more laws governing natural resources. other obligations precautionlack of scientific certainty should not be used as an excuse to postpone action to avoid potentially significant or irreversible damage to biological diversity and its components; preventionpolicies and measures related to the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources should be based on anticipating and preventing damage to biological diversity and its components, rather than on attempting to remedy or compensate for damage; convention on biological diversity and access to genetic resources: international regime and our experiences o. joshi 1 traditional knowledge, community rights and access to benefit sharing of biological resources are emerging issues after convention on biological diversity (cbd) entered into force. this paper highlights legal system of access to benefit sharing in cbd and our efforts made so far to protect traditional knowledge by the legal documentation of biological resources and traditional knowledge associated with it. the paper advocates bioprospecting as a forward looking opportunity to convert natural resources into biological capital and highlights role and responsibility of local people to make equitable sharing of the benefits from the resource they conserve and knowledge they hold. key words: access and benefit sharing, traditional knowledge, bio-prospecting. 1 assistant environment officer, ministry of forests and soil conservation, environment division e-mail:omkarjoshi37@hotmail.com 49 other obligations precautionlack of scientific certainty should not be used as an excuse to postpone action to avoid potentially significant or irreversible damage to biological diversity and its components; preventionpolicies and measures related to the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources should be based on anticipating and preventing damage to biological diversity and its components, rather than on attempting to remedy or compensate for damage; equityall individuals and groups, particularly those such as women and traditional communities that in many countries have been historically marginalized, should have equal opportunity to participate in deciding hiow biological resources are conserved and used; cooperationcooperation should extend not only to other states, but to the non governmental\private sector nationally, regionally and internationally. (bala et al, 2004). accessibility of genetic resources in nepal ( pre-cbd scenario) prior to the cbd in 1992, genetic resources were considered as common property, and the exchange and exploration of genetic resources was taking place freely. most international organizations from developed countries working on crop genetic resources were allowed to explore, collect and research on resources available in any countries of the world. as a result, consultative group on international agriculture research (cgiar) developed considerable number of high yielding varieties of crops and sturdy breeds of animals in turn, increasing food production considerably. most of the known germ plasms of plants and animals have already been collected and stored at different international centers. it has been reported that more than 13,000 germ plasms of various crops had been taken by different agencies from nepal and deposited in various international and national gene banks. number of plant germ plasms collected from nepal by countries/agency and type of crops sn country/agency types of germplasm no. of germplasms collected 1 japan all crops(not specified) 8941 2 usa all crops(not specified) 1809 3 irri, philippines rice 1712 4 taiwan vegetables 498 5 cymmyt, mexico wheat 175 6 uk barley 160 7 india not specified 101 8 germany wheat and barley na total 13,396 source: upadhayay 2002. convention on biological diversity and our commitments nepal being a party to cbd is committed to the conservation of biological resources, sustainable use of natural resources and institutionalization of equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the biological resources and the traditional knowledge associated with biological resources. community based traditional knowledge of biological resources are plenty in a country like nepal which stands 25th in terms of global biodiversity ranking. this knowledge, however, has not been recognized and the rights over the benefits have not been adequately guaranteed. protection of traditional/indigenous knowledge of these communities is necessary to exercise provisions and obligations of article 15 and aritcle 8(j) of the cbd. his majesty's government of nepal (hmg/n) has implemented the nepal biodiversity strategy in 2002(nbs,2002) which provides a strategic planning framework for the conservation of biodiversity and equitable sharing of benefits out of the use of the genetic or biological resources. this document is an overall policy instrument for equityall individuals and groups, particularly those such as women and traditional communities that in many countries have been historically marginalized, should have equal opportunity to participate in deciding h1ow biological resources are conserved and used; cooperationcooperation should extend not only to other states, but to the non governmental\private sector nationally, regionally and internationally. (bala et al, 2004). accessibility of genetic resources in nepal ( pre-cbd scenario) prior to the cbd in 1992, genetic resources were considered as common property, and the exchange and exploration of genetic resources was taking place freely. most international organizations from developed countries working on crop genetic resources were allowed to explore, collect and research on resources available in any countries of the world. as a result, consultative group on international agriculture research (cgiar) developed considerable number of high yielding varieties of crops and sturdy breeds of animals in turn, increasing food production considerably. most of the known germplasms of plants and animals have already been collected and stored at different international centers. it has been reported that more than 13,000 germplasms of various crops had been taken by different agencies from nepal and deposited in various international and national gene banks. convention on biological diversity and our commitments nepal being a party to cbd is committed to the conservation of biological resources, sustainable use of natural resources and institutionalization of equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the biological resources and the traditional knowledge associated with biological resources. community based traditional knowledge of biological resources are plenty in a country like nepal which stands 25th in terms of global biodiversity ranking. this knowledge, however, has not been recognized and the rights over the benefits have not been adequately guaranteed. protection of traditional/indigenous knowledge of these communities is necessary to exercise provisions and obligations of article 15 and aritcle 8j of the cbd. his majesty’s government of nepal (hmg/n) has implemented the nepal biodiversity strategy in 2002(nbs,2002) which provides a strategic planning framework for the conservation of biodiversity and equitable sharing of benefits out of the use of the genetic or biological resources. this document is an overall policy instrument for sustainable use and conservation of biodiversity that places emphasis on the ecosystem, species that are indigenous and endemic. nepal biodiversity strategy (nbs) has outlined major threat to nepal’s biodiversity as ecosystem loss, species loss, and loss of agro-biodiversity and genetic resources. it identifies root cause of these threats and sectoral and cross-sectoral strategies of nation to address it. nbs focuses on the meaningful participation of local communities in development activities and advocates for landscape planning approach of conservation. the nbs envisions need for registration of the indigenous knowledge, local innovations and skills. this document gives due consideration to the protection and promotion of traditiional knowledge (tk), practices on skills of the local communities for biodiversity conservation and utilization in as sustainable manner. similarly nepal biodiversity strategy and implementation plan (nbsip) is under process of preparation to translate the vision of nbs into actionable framework within the spirit of cbd. this plan has considered the successful mechanisms of banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2joshi 50 conservation and development already in place, and on the other hand, it has projected planned actions for the development of new policies and initiatives to address the existing constraints and gaps. draft implementation plan has identified 12 priority areas such as forests, range lands, agro biodiversity, wetlands and mountain biodiversity. the ministry of forests and soil conservation (hmg/mfsc) drafted a bill on “access to genetic resources and benefit sharing” as required by the article 15(7) of the cbd. this draft bill aims to conserve and sustainable utilize biological and genetic resources, facilitate access to those resources, ensure equitable sharing of benefits and protect traditional knowledge associated with the resources and the knowledge holding communities’ rights. the bill proposes documentation and registration of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge as a sui generis system for the protection of traditional knowledge and the relevant knowledge holders. traditional knowledge and access to benefit sharing traditional knowledge (tk), used synonymously with indigenous knowledge (ik) is the knowledge, skills and practices possessed by a group of people or community developed around specific physical, ecological and cultural conditions in a practical geographical area transferred from one generation to the next over a period of time. tk is the collective knowledge possessed by the community and is embedded in their practices, institutions, relationships and rituals. the cbd defines tk as “the knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities around the world. developed from experience gained over the centuries and adapted to the local culture and environment, tk is transmitted orally from generation to generation. this knowledge tends to be collectively owned and takes the form of stories, songs, folklore, proverbs, cultural values, beliefs, rituals, community laws, local language and agricultural practices including the development of plant species and animal breeds. traditional knowledge is mainly of a practical development of plant species and animal breeds. traditional knowledge is mainly of a practical nature, particularly in such fields agriculture, fisheries, health, horticulture and forestry. (cbd,1992) documentation of biodiversity and associated tk is necessary to protect it from being lost and to protect the rights of communities over the knowledge they possess. documentation is also necessary to facilitate access and benefit sharing mechanism among the nation, the users of biological resources and associated tk and the documentation should, therefore be to preserve and promote tk for the benefit of present and future generations f the knowledge holding communities and of the wider public and to prevent misappropriation of biological resources and associated tk. the documentation should focus on assisting communities to recognize and appreciate the significance of their tk system as a viable strategy for the sustainable conservation and ensure further development of traditional innovations and practices.(shrestha et al,2004). assessment of intellectual property of the tk holders is central while initiating documentation exercise that would also lead to protect communities’ rights. access to genetic resource and benefit sharing (agrbs)/bill is only regulatory document developed in the country so far that deals with biodiversity related tk. this bill proposes preparation of community level biodiversity registers, which have to be registered with the proposed national genetic resource conservation authority. prior informed consent (pic) has been made mandatory before collecting tk related information from the communities. this is especially important if the documentation is carried out by institutions or parties other than the communities themselves to secure bioresources and knowledge from piracy. in the existing scenario, where globalization and scientific development has taken precedence, tk and the knowledge holding communities are facing threats and risks of extinction. besides, the tk is disappearing rapidly due to various reasons such as urbanization, mass migration from rural to urban areas, market forces, and adoption of modern technologies replacing traditional practices, destruction of forest and natural habitats and so on. on the other hand, misappropriation of biological resources and associated tk is also taking place due to the failure to recognize and exercise rights of local and indigenous communities over the resources and their tk. there are several cases where occupational caste and professional creeds are failing to sustain their tradition. it is, for the reason, necessary to find ways for the protection of tk. (shrestha et al., 2004). banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 joshi 51 efforts of mfsc to initiate a pilot phase biodiversity and tk documentation and registration programme were cornerstone to internalize documentation exercise in nepal. this documentation covered representative ecological regions of nepal in kaski and mustang district (paudel k.c, 2002). based on the learning consolidated from the pilot phase project, his majesty government of nepal has approved the format for documentation of biological diversity in april 2003. a number of institutions like nepal agricultural research council (narc), international union of conservation of nature (iucn), himwanti and several other ngos are now involved in documentation of biological resources and associated tk in nepal. following up the initiation of ministry of forests and soil conservation (mofsc), a joint project of mofsc in collaboration with iucn named “building capacity to protect biodiversity and indigenous rights through documentation and registration of traditional knowledge in nepal” is in process of handing over more than 25 community biodiversity registers (cbr) to different local communities of nepal. initiation in the direction of biodiversity documentation has raised awareness, and made recognition of traditional knowledge holders in nepal. article 8j of the cbd obliges each member state to take necessary policy, legislative and administrative measures to protect the biological resources and their diversity, associated indigenous knowledge, skills, technologies and values. at the same time the property rights and any benefits arising from the commercial and other use of genetic resources belonging to local communities, breeder and cbd member states are ensured through the legal registration of knowledge through an effective sui generis system.(paudel, 2003). some forthcoming opportunities and issues the term “biodiversity prospecting” also known as ‘bio prospecting’ is defined as ‘ the exploration of biodiversity for commercially valuable genetic resources and biochemical. (nbs, 2002). thus bioprospecting equates to the search for morphological, physiological, genetic or biochemical characteristics of plants, animals, fungi, microorganisms, and viruses, and their products, which may have commercial application. today approximately 80 percent of the world’s population relies on traditional plant based medicines for primary health care. the remaining 20 percent of the world’s population also depends on plant products for health care. these statistics reflect us clear learning that biological resources and associated traditional knowledge will be an important part of pharmaceuticals and other development project in the future. as cbd affirms the rights of genetically rich source countries over their biological resources, it provides ample opportunity for country like nepal to get equitable collaboration and compensation from the benefit generated by medicinal and other discovery and development of industrialized world. thus bioprospecting despite its criticism as one of the ways of commercial exploitation of bioresource has emerged as a well contested agenda in the field of access and benefit sharing. despite ample of opportunities our biological resources bring, we have still suffered from institutional to implementation drawbacks in operationalizing our plans into actions. nepal biodiversity strategy (nbs) envisioned nepal biodiversity trust fund (nbtf) as an autonomous legal entity by an act of parliament. nbsip further elaborates the responsibility of nbtf to provide financial and technical support to government agencies, non-government agencies, and other institutions involved in the conservation of biodiversity in nepal and enable them to undertake appropriate activities, programs or projects inside and outside the protected areas with priority to the nationally and globally significant projects that are currently under-funded. (draft nbsip, 2005). however, very less initiative have been taken to establish such trust fund. the draft bill on access has been has been on continuous discussion from more than three years and has been gone through criticism by the groups of indigenous communities now. postponement in enforcing this bill will delay in recognizing the tk rights of indigenous people, especially to refute and invalidate any claims of intellectual property right over their traditional knowledge, practice and innovation and that will ultimately leave the door open for biopiracy. conclusion the developing countries like nepal are rich in biological diversity however developed countries are banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2joshi 52 rich with mechanized technology. cbd is the first international legal instrument that brought out a radical change forming prevailing common perception on genetic resources as “common heritage of mankind” to a legally binding regime that confers “sovereign rights” to the states over their own biological resources. thus time has now come when our documentation system must be strong to make claim for equitable sharing of the benefits achieved by the traditional knowledge of local and indigenous communities. for this, commercial collaborators should recognize the potential of knowledge and must pay for it. indigenous communities who participate in the ethno botanical collection of the sample should only take part in these, after getting clear information about the information collectors and the project. similarly, local communities must be benefited by the remuneration and use of the indigenous knowledge, either such knowledge contributes any commercial product or it contributes to any research. very important among all these is that prior informed consent system must be institutionalized in national law to ensure the right of communities over biological materials and their knowledge to conserve it. references agrbs, 2002. draft bill on access to genetic resources and benefit sharing, hmg/n, ministry of forests and soil conservation, singhadurbar, katmandu access to genetic resources and bioprospecting: issues and experiences, background paper presented in asia regional bioprospecting training, 8-10 january, 2005. lucknow, india. bala pisupati et al, 2004. access to genetic resources and benefit sharing, key questions for policy makers, iucn regional biodiversity program, asia, srilanka. convention on biological diversity (cbd), 1992. cbd secretariat, rome. nbs, 2002. national biodiversity strategy, his majesty’s government of nepal(hmg/n), ministry of forests and soil conservation, supported by global environment facility and undp. nbsip, 2005. national biodiversity strategy and implementation plan, his majesty’s government of nepal(hmg/n), ministry of forests and soil conservation, supported by global environment facility and undp. paudel, k.c., 2002. biodiversity registration in nepal: proceeding of the second consultative workshop on documentation of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge in nepal: ‘‘sharing experiences from pilot phase documentation program’’, organized by hmg/ n, ministry of forests and soil conservation, katmandu, nepal. shrestha t.b. et al, 2004. traditional knowledge documentation and registration in nepal: challenges and opportunities; report on asia regional consultation on traditional knowledge, access and benefit sharing and the international regime. upadhyay, m.p (2002): experiences and lessons learned from the pilot testing of registration of biodiversity and its associated knowledge. in the proceedings of the seminar on ‘‘the access to he genetic resources and benefit sharing’’ for the judges of the district and appellate courts: organized jointly by justice society of nepal and iucn-nepal, october 4-6, 2002, kathmandu, nepal banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 joshi final special issue.pmd 1 banko janakari, special issuebanko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal conservation of wetlands in nepal: potential and constraints wetlands ecosystem cover about 6% of the total global land area. they are considered to be one of the most threatened of all major natural ecosystems and are argued to deserve a high priority for conservation. wetlands are crucial for human survival and economic well-being, for ecosystem functions and for earth’s life support system. wetlands are sometimes described as “ the kidneys of the landscapes” because of the functions they perform in hydrological and chemical cycles and as downstream receivers of wastes from both natural and human sources. apart from these, now the wetlands are described as carbon dioxide sink and climate stabilizers. nepal is a signatory of ramsar convention, 1987 and has 9 sites designated as ramsar sites, totaling area of 34,455 ha. national wetland policy, 2003 has been endorsed by the government of nepal (gon) with objective of involving the local people in the management of wetlands and to conserve wetlands biodiversity with wise use of wetland resources. the wetlands can be used for various income generating purposes. eco-tourism is one of the uses of wetlands which can generate direct and indirect benefits to local people. similarly, fishing or aquaculture is another potential income generating activity in the wetlands. the policy has given thrust in this aspect of income generation for rural poor people in reducing poverty in the country. the policy states that the legal arrangements to make the wetland management activities effective should be formulated. despite the policy instruments, there is still absence of rules, regulations and guidelines regarding wetland conservation and management in nepal. in some cases, there are overlapping in some of the provisions of existing rules and regulations related to the wetlands. focus has been given mainly for uses other than conservation of biodiversity and for sustainable use of the wetland for rural livelihood. 2 banko janakari, special issue so, harmonization of those provisions are necessary on the one hand, and promulgation of new rules and regulations on wetland conservation and management is a must on the other. there are some key issues which have to be addressed such as all streams and rivers are defined as wetlands in nepal. there are thousands of streams and rivers in nepal. so, here question arises that should we manage them for aquatic biodiversity conservation?. similarly, artificial large area of water bodies such as reservoir created for other purposes such hydropower and irrigation be used for natural biodiversity conservation? first of all we need to explore wetlands in nepal. so far, wetlands in terai region, kathmandu valley and himalayan region have been identified from various techniques such as direct counting, image analysis and from secondary sources. so a comprehensive inventory of wetlands in nepal is necessary. legislation and regulatory instruments are important elements for conservation and sustainable use of the wetlands. project like “conservation and sustainable use of wetlands in nepal” supported by global environmental facility and united nations development programme could be implemented in other wetlands as well. ministry of forests and soil conservation has formulated national wetland policy, 2003 and needs to initiate to promulgate legislation and regulatory instruments to implement the policy. further, the ministry also needs to take lead role in coordinating with other concerned government agencies to harmonize existing 49 laws and strategies related to the wetlands in nepal. 3 banko janakari, special issue this special issue of banko janakari contains six papers on different thematic issues on wetlands. the thematic issues covered by the papers are • policy and legislation • current status of wetland in nepal • ecological aspects • wetland as a habitat • wetland management projects the paper on policy and legislation is “wetland conservation in nepal: policies, practices and possibilities”. it highlights on values of wetlands, reviews existing policy framework and legal mechanisms involved in wetlands. it also deals with issues and possibilities of wetland management in nepal. finally, it recommends for capacity building, wetland survey and inventory. the paper “wise use of wetlands in nepal” presents common meanings of wetland that are in use around the world. it assesses importance of nepal’s wetlands and also highlights major wetland activities in nepal. wetlands in the country by physiographic and spatial distributions are also presented. an overview of ramsar sites in nepal are also presented. finally, challenges and opportunities of wetland conservation and management are outlined in the paper. the paper “ ecological study of ghodaghodi lake” focuses on physiochemical contamination and their effect on aquatic flora and fauna. the paper concludes the most important challenge to be faced to strike a balance between sustainable human exploitation and maintaining the ecological character of a wetland ecosystem. wetland special the paper “ habitat mapping and conservation threats to river dolphin in karnali river of nepal” presents habitats of river dolphin, which is an endangered species. it focuses on conservation threats such as use of poison, commercial and domestic conservation of fishes, high dependency of people in the river, chemical fertilizer, etc. finally, it prescribes measures to overcome the above mentioned conservation threats. the paper “updated status on of nepal’s wetland birds” focuses on avian fauna of nepal in the wetland. the paper discusses about conservation issues of wetland bird communities. finally, wetland management of wetland bird communities is highlighted. the paper “sustainable wetland management for wildlife and people in koshi tappu wildlife reserve” focuses on livelihood issues of local people related to the wetland resource. it also highlights about the impact on wetland bird such as waterfowl due to the livelihood issues related to the wetland. the concept of community wetland management is discusses at the end. conservation and sustainable use of wetlands in nepal is a joint undertaking of the ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), global environmental facility (gef) and united nations development programme (undp). project goal, objective, expected outcomes, strategy and approach and management arrangement, which includes partners, demonstration sites (ghodaghodi lake complex and koshi tappu wildlife reserve) are presented in the paper. final bankojanakari 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 3 fragile geology, rugged topography, and steep slopes combined with intense monsoonal rainfall regime and human activities create predisposing conditions for the occurrence of landslides in nepal. landslides are one of the most common natural hazards in the country (upreti and dhital, 1996). bhandary et al. (2006) reported that the average number of small and big landslides in nepal numbered up to 12,000 per year. an aerial counting of landslides along the flight line of an aeroplane covering about 3.5 km wide transect revealed that about 74% of landslides occurred under natural conditions, and only 26% of landslides were considered to be due to human activities (laban, 1979). the estimated landslides per 100 km2 in the high mountains, middle mountains and the siwaliks were 58, 34 and 35, respectively (sthapit, 1996, modified after laban, 1979). significant damage to life and property occurs as a result of landslides. disaggregated official data on lives lost due to landslides is not available, but floods and landslides together claimed an average of 304 human lives annually between 1986 and 2005. this figure represented a third of the total lives lost due to all natural disasters (upreti and thapa, 2007). such hazard figures call attention to an urgent need to stabilize the unstable slopes and mitigate landslide disasters. landslide treatment is carried out to mitigate landslide disasters. landslide treatment refers to the vegetative and structural measures applied to the landslide and its immediate catchment. properly designed and implemented landslide treatments can protect life and property as well as play an important role in soil conservation and watershed management. the department of soil conservation and watershed management (dscwm), government of nepal has been implementing landslide treatments through different watershed management projects (wmps) and district soil conservation offices (dcsos). the department has also published a guideline (dscwm, 2001) which spells out the scope and working strategy of all soil conservation and watershed management activities including landslide treatment. such activities are carried out with the participation of the local people organized into user groups. as such, only small-scale landslides are treated; treatment of large landslides has remained outside the scope of the departmental activities. by fiscal year 2006/07, 580 landslides had been treated (dscwm, 2007). it has been reported from the field that landslide treatment activities implemented by different wmps and dscos in the past seem to be effective in stabilizing the treated slopes. although many studies have been conducted on the topic of landslide hazards and damages, a systematic and detailed study on various aspects of landslide treatment has been lacking. it was realized that such a study would be useful to identify areas for improving the technological package for landslide treatment. in this context, this study on landslide treatment was assessment of small-scale landslide treatment in nepal p. mathema1 and j. joshi2 landslides are major natural hazards in nepal, and efforts are underway to treat smallscale landslides with people’s participation. the main purpose of this study was to assess various aspects of the prevalent practice of landslide treatment followed by the department of soil conservation and watershed management, government of nepal. questionnaire survey and case study methods were used to collect the necessary information. it appears that the landslide treatment has been successful in stabilizing the major portion of the treated landslides. however, landuse improvement above the treated landslides, and drainage management inside and around the treated landslide sites were found to be inadequate. also, the maintenance of constructed structures and vegetation was not satisfactory. the findings and recommendations of this paper will be useful in improving the landslide treatment in nepal. keywords: drainage management, landslide treatment, landuse improvement, people’s participation 1 department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: mathema7@yahoo.com 2 department of soil conservation and watershed management, kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: jagannathjoshi@hotmail.com banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 4 3 table 1: characteristics of the landslide at the case study sites sisneghari landslide treatment site naikap landslide treatment site kunchhal landslide treatment site landslide type rotational translational translational causal factor toe cutting by road and rainfall toe cutting by stream and rainfall toe cutting by gully and rainfall year of occurrence 1997 1997 with frequent re-occurrences 1988 year of treatment 1999 2001 1989 average length (head to toe, m) 42 20 45 average width (m) 39 46 40 surface area (m2 ) 1638 920 1800 slope (degree) 35 38 35 slope type concave concave concave this study covered only the landslide areas treated by dscos and/or projects within dscwm. field study was limited to the middle mountains physiographic zone of the central development region. although the landslide sites in other physiographic zones and development regions could not be examined for lack of time and budget constraints, the district soil conservation officers participating in the questionnaire survey represented several development regions and physiographic zones. results and discussion prevalent landslide treatment practices site selection: topographical and geomorphological criteria considered by the dsco staff for landslide treatment were: depth of debris or soil, and steepness of the slope. socio-economic criteria considered were: demand of local people, possibility of people’s participation, budget limitation, extent of impact on people’s livelihood, and the number of households that were vulnerable to landslide disaster. priority was given to the poor, dalit and janajati community's demands while deciding landslide treatment sites. the environmental criteria considered were: sensitiveness of the slope to erosion/mass movement, potential for downstream damage, mainly agricultural field, settlement, road and other infrastructure. only active and small landslides were considered for treatment; big and deep-seated landslides were not considered for treatment. priority was given to the sites where low cost bioengineering techniques could be effective for slope stabilization. survey, design and cost estimation: while surveying, the following parameters are measured: length and width of landslide, slope angle and length, and drainage length and width. after this a sketch map is prepared; detailed technical drawings are generally not prepared. nor are topographic maps used for locating the landslide sites. one or two dsco staff, mainly mid-level technicians (mlts), and two to five concerned users are involved in the field survey work. the district soil conservation officers reported that there was no systematic documentation system in dsco. only sketch maps, section drawings and treatment design drawings were included in the estimate file. topography, local geology, location of the landslide on the slope, steepness of slope, thickness of debris or soil, soil texture, biotic influence, and drainage system are mainly considered in designing landslide treatment. it was reported that the following items constituted the major part of treatment cost: toe wall construction, drainage construction, gabion box checkdam construction, grass/bamboo plantation, and protection of landslide site. selection of landslide treatment techniques: the initiative for landslide treatment is usually taken by the affected local people. sometimes, even dsco staff and local community leaders take the undertaken to examine the technical, institutional, economic and environmental aspects of landslide treatment currently practiced in nepal. methods two methods were used in this study: questionnaire survey and case study. district soil conservation officers participated in the questionnaire survey that provided information on site selection criteria; survey, mapping, design, and cost estimation; implementation process; and institutional, economic as well as environmental aspects of landslide treatment. for the case study, the selected sites were visited, and various dimensions of the landslide were recorded. the techniques used to treat the landslide were investigated carefully and their effectiveness to stabilize the site was assessed. semi-structured interviews were conducted to obtain detailed and specific information from the concerned group members or from individuals by using a checklist. secondary data and information were gathered from the available publications and photograph collection of dscwm and concerned dscos. the following landslide treatment sites were selected for case study: sisneghari landslide, gagalphedi-3, kathmandu; naikap landslide, naikap puranobhanjyang-9, kathmandu; and kunchhal landslide, bajrabarahi-3, makawanpur. table 1 shows the main characteristics of the landslides at the study sites. this study covered only the landslide areas treated by dscos and/or projects within dscwm. field study was limited to the middle mountains physiographic zone of the central development region. although the landslide sites in other physiographic zones and development regions could not be examined for lack of time and budget constraints, the district soil conservation officers participating in the questionnaire survey represented several development regions and physiographic zones. results and discussion prevalent landslide treatment practices site selection: topographical and geomorphological criteria considered by the dsco staff for landslide treatment were: depth of debris or soil, and steepness of the slope. socio-economic criteria considered were: demand of local people, possibility of people’s participation, budget limitation, extent of impact on people’s livelihood, and the number of households that were vulnerable to landslide disaster. priority was given to the poor, dalit and janajati community’s demands while deciding landslide treatment sites. the environmental criteria considered were: sensitiveness of the slope to erosion/mass movement, potential for downstream damage, mainly agricultural field, settlement, road and other infrastructure. only active and small landslides were considered for treatment; big and deep-seated landslides were not considered for treatment. priority was given to the sites where low cost bioengineering techniques could be effective for slope stabilization. survey, design and cost estimation: while surveying, the following parameters are measured: length and width of landslide, slope angle and length, and drainage length and width. after this a sketch map is prepared; detailed technical drawings are generally not prepared. nor are topographic maps used for locating the landslide sites. one or two dsco staff, mainly mid-level technicians (mlts), and two to five concerned users are involved in the table 1: characteristics of the landslide at the case study sites mathema and joshi banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 5 field survey work. the district soil conservation officers reported that there was no systematic documentation system in dsco. only sketch maps, section drawings and treatment design drawings were included in the estimate file. topography, local geology, location of the landslide on the slope, steepness of slope, thickness of debris or soil, soil texture, biotic influence, and drainage system are mainly considered in designing landslide treatment. it was reported that the following items constituted the major part of treatment cost: toe wall construction, drainage construction, gabion box checkdam construction, grass/bamboo plantation, and protection of landslide site. selection of landslide treatment techniques: the initiative for landslide treatment is usually taken by the affected local people. sometimes, even dsco staff and local community leaders take the initiative. the local people or the community submit an application to dsco, requesting landslide protection; then dsco staff visit the concerned site, carry out a simple feasibility study, and conduct meetings with local people/community. if dsco staff and local community reach an agreement, mlts and the people carry out survey of the area, and finally determine the activities and techniques to be implemented. techniques to be applied are determined based on the requirement of site to be treated. drainage construction/management is included if water is flowing inside the landslide area. toe wall/retaining wall construction is included if toe cutting problem exists. bamboo and grass plantation on exposed soil or debris deposition areas is also usually included. institutional aspects: both registered and informal local groups are involved in landslide treatment. there are some provisions for maintenance by using local resources. sometimes, resources of other agencies are also used. some user groups have also initiated other activities like: tree plantation on erosion prone areas, grass plantation, grazing control/stall feeding, and advocacy and extension of their work. poor, dalit and janajati groups are also included as group members if they are affected by the concerned landslide. environmental aspects: the district soil conservation officers reported the following beneficial effects of landslide treatment on the natural environment: slope stabilization; reduction in soil erosion; increase in vegetative cover/promotion of greenery; biodiversity enhancement (increased number of indigenous plant species); and improvement in downstream water quality at a microcatchment level. economic aspects: landslide treatment indirectly helps in income generation by protecting farm lands. some local people also find work as wage laborers while constructing the engineering structures. in addition, after the landslide has been treated, the people feel safe from future disasters. some district soil conservation officers have rightly pointed out the need for specific studies on the economic aspects of landslide treatment. case studies sisneghari landslide treatment site, gagalphedi-3, kathmandu this landslide damaged mr. mohan lama’s paddy field and about 40 m road section. the local people and bagmati watershed management project/dsco kathmandu agreed to stabilize the landslide. toe wall and surface drainage in herringbone pattern within the landslide were constructed, and broom grass (thysanolaena maxima) and bamboo were planted (photo 1). after the treatment, the major portion of the landslide has been stabilized due to the growth of broom grass, bamboo and local plant species (photo 2). unfortunately, a new landslide had set off mathema and joshi photo 1 and 2 : treated landslide in sisneghari, gagalphedi-3, kathmandu in 1998 and 2008 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 6 about 70 m above the head scarp of the treated landslide. mr. lama is still continuing paddy cultivation in his field just above the head scarp. there is an irrigation channel just 30 m above the head scarp of the treated landslide, water flows from west to east towards a natural drain. also, excess water from the paddy field has been flowing through the treated landslide. as a result, a parcel of sloping land, 20 m long and 17 m wide, has been destabilized at the western flank of the treated landslide due to unmanaged drainage. besides, numerous rat holes have sprung up at the western scarp where broom grass had grown well. rats had damaged the paddy field of the farmer, so he had burnt all the clumps of broom grass in march, 2008. but the grass had grown back after the rainfall in june 2008. no maintenance work seems to have been done in the treated landslide site. the main issue here is: how to change the landuse in the catchment of the landslide, and how to ensure regular maintenance? naikap landslide treatment site, naikap puranobhanjyang-9, kathmandu this landslide damaged valuable paddy fields above the head scarp area. the affected farmers approached bagmati watershed management project/dsco kathmandu for assistance. the project agreed to treat the landslide. toe wall and surface drain within the landslide were constructed. broom grass and utis (alnus nepalensis) were planted (photo 3). after the treatment, the major portion of the landslide had been stabilized. broom grass and local plant species had grown up. some utis trees were growing on the upper side of the landslide (photo 4). however, excess water from the paddy fields above had entered the treated landslide. as a result, erosion had started at the lower side of the treated landslide. no maintenance work seems to have been done in the treated landslide area. the main issue here is: how to change the present landuse in the catchment of the landslide, and how to ensure regular maintenance? photo 3 and 4 : treated landslide in naikap puranobhanjyang-9, kathmandu in 2001 and 2008 photo 5, 6 and 7 : treated landslide in kunchhal, bajrabarahi-3, makawanpur in 1989, 1995 and 2008 mathema and joshi this landslide damaged agricultural land and a section of the road to kulekhani hydroelectric reservoir (photo 5). kulekhani watershed management project treated the landslide by constructing a toe wall and a series of checkdams, and by planting utis seedlings (photo 6 and 7). after the treatment, the landslide was completely stabilized, and the utis trees and other indigenous plants grew quite well (photo 7). the agricultural land in the deposition zone just behind the toe wall had been reclaimed and the farmer had even started cultivation. the main issue here is related to the ownership, management and utilization of trees and grasses growing in the treated area. kunchhal landslide treatment site, bajrabarahi-3, makawanpur banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 7 techniques used for landslide treatment it was observed that different techniques had been applied to treat the various landslides, depending on site characteristics and type of landslides. § toe wall construction (loose stone and stone filled gabion boxes) § drainage management inside the landslide § checkdam construction § bamboo, grass and tree species plantation § protection of the treated area from grazing these techniques have proved to be effective in stabilizing the major portion of the treated landslides. however, landuse improvement and drainage management in the catchment area of landslide were not detected in any of the landslide treatment sites. also, grazing control was ineffective in some sites. although the scope of landslide treatment involves a complete package, (including construction of diversion channels around and inside the landslide, structural erosion control measures, vegetative measures, landuse improvement in the catchment area, construction of pond to store and divert excess run-off, protection of the site from grazing and other detrimental activities), such a complete treatment was wanting in all study sites. problems although a number of benefits—slope stabilization, increased greenery, protected farmland above and below the treated landslides—were observed, the following problems were noticed in the course of the field study: § inappropriate drainage management: drainage management was not done above the head scarp and crack zone of landslide (all sites). excess water from rice fields drained through the landslide area (all sites). § inappropriate landuse above the treated landslides: rice cultivation just above crack zone of landslide (all sites). § detrimental biotic interference inside the treated areas: burning of planted grasses on landslide treatment site (all sites); allowing goat grazing inside landslide areas (sisneghari and gagalphedi); road-cuttings without conservation measures (sisneghari, and gagalphedi). rat holes were noted on the head scarp of the landslide (sisneghari, and gagalphedi). § lack of regular maintenance (all sites). the major problems highlighted by the respondent district soil conservation officers were: insufficient budget to meet people’s demand and to cover the entire landslide area; lack of ownership of the treated areas by the local community resulting in inadequate maintenance; and inadequate implementation capacity due to insufficient number of mlts. conclusions and recommendations landslide treatment seems to be successful in stabilizing the major portion of the treated landslides. however, drainage management is still inadequate or improper thus resulting in erosion in the crack zone, main scarp and side scarps which could destabilize the slope in the future. in addition, maintenance of constructed structures and vegetation seemed to be less than adequate. the following recommendations are, therefore, made: § more detailed site investigation should be done before designing landslide treatments. details on site assessment method can be found in mathema and joshi (2008). § a complete technological package should be implemented to treat landslides with multi-year planning and intervention. § there is a need for training of mlts to improve the knowledge and skills regarding landslide treatments. a specific guideline in nepali language on landslide treatment is needed. this guideline could contain criteria for grouping landslides for different treatment options. a possible grouping could be as follows: – farm level landslides to be treated by the concerned farmer(s) with technical guidance of dsco staff; – small landslides to be treated by the local community in partnership with dsco/other organizations; – big landslides threatening nationally important infrastructure to be treated by dscwm, dsco and other concerned organizations, as a special programme with adequate budget allocation – huge landslides resulting from tectonic causes: treatment not advisable § above all, there is an urgent need for awareness raising programme to encourage the adoption of appropriate landuse practices in the catchment of landslides. mathema and joshi banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 8 references bhandary n. p., yatabe, r., hasegawa, s., inagaki, h. and shrestha, h.k. 2006. characterization of landslides and roadside slope failures along the highways in central nepal. proceedings of international symposium on geo-disasters: infrastructure management and protection of world heritage sites, 25– 26 november 2006, kathmandu, nepal. p. 135. dscwm. 2001. soil conservation and watershed management activities (definition, objective, scope and working strategy). department of soil conservation and watershed management, kathmandu, nepal. dscwm. 2007. annual report fy 2062/63. department of soil conservation and watershed management, kathmandu, nepal. laban, p. 1979. landslide occurrence in nepal. department of soil conservation/integrated watershed management, torrent control and land use development project, kathmandu. mathema, p. and joshi, j. 2008. study on landslide treatment. department of soil conservation and watershed management, kathmandu, nepal. sthapit, k.m. 1996. soil erosion problems in nepal. in: space informatics for mountain resources management. proceedings of the second space informatics seminar for sustainable development: mountain resources management. 2–6 december 1996, kathmandu, nepal, (ed. asikhia, o.), uncrd proceedings series, no. 21. united nations centre for regional development, nagoya, japan. 61– 90. upreti b.n. and dhital, m.r. 1996. landslide studies and management in nepal. international centre for integrated mountain development, kathmandu, nepal. upreti b.n. and thapa, p.b. 2007. reducing disaster risk for sustainable development and poverty alleviation in nepal. proceedings of international conference on emerging issues on research and development, april 4–6, 2007, kathmandu, nepal.. mathema and joshi final bankojanakari vol 17-1.pmd 46 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 much has been written about the equity aspect of community forestry (cf). a compendium of research papers published by winrock international-nepal in 2002 includes many papers on this aspect. the main concern expressed in these papers is that community forests are being handed over in a haphazard way without any consideration on equity aspect. larger tracts of forests (>100 ha) have been handed over to the forest user groups (fugs) comprising fewer households while a large number of households are included in smaller patches of community forests (<100 ha). this has led into a situation where material benefits are not accruing sufficiently to a large number of forest user households while a few households are using forests indiscriminately. it necessitates a serious empirical test on equity in community forestry. this paper aims to quantify the magnitude of inequality arising due to this discriminatory practice of hand over of community forests. materials and method a tool called gini concentration ratio or simply gini coefficient is used to assess inequality. the tool is named after the italian statistician who first formulated it in 1912. the tool is an aggregate numerical measure of inequality ranging from 0 (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality). the higher the value of the coefficient, the higher the inequality of distribution; or other way round. this tool is used to find out whether the distribution of community forests to the beneficiary households has remained equitable or as short note larger forests into fewer hands: how equitable is community forestry in nepal? anuja raj sharma1 this paper assesses the much talked equity aspect in community forestry. there is an increasing concern regarding the hand over of community forests without any threshold for per household forest area. using gini coefficient as a measure of inequality, this paper concludes that there is high inequality in the hand over of community forests to the beneficiary households. keywords: gini coefficient, inequality, community forests, household feared by many scholars (bhatta, 2002a,b; tiwari, 2002 etc) that larger tracts of forests are handed over to small group of households while a large number of households are accommodated in smaller patches of forest from which the latter can get almost no material benefit. for grouped data gini coefficient is calculated by using the following formula (kanel, 1993). g= ∑xi yi+1 ∑xi+1yi where xi denotes the cumulative proportion of the population in the ith class interval, and yi denotes the cumulative proportion of the population in the ith class interval. when the variables are measured as percentages, both of them have to be divided by 100. in this case the above equation has to be written as: g = 1/ (100)2 [∑xi yi+1 ∑x i +1 yi] results and discussion figure 1 shows the distribution of community forests by cumulative percentages of households and forest area. it is the construction of a lorenz curve for the distribution of community forests in nepal and is based on the national fug database. the further the curve from the diagonal line passing through the origin, the greater is the inequality in the distribution of community forests. the figure clearly shows that almost 70% of the households are accommodated within little more than 30% of the total community forest area while nearly 70% of the forest area is handed over to just about 30% of the forest user households. 1 forest officer, mfsc. email: anuj128@gmail.com 47 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 2 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 when the variables are measured as percentages, then both of them have to be divided by 100, in this case the above equation has to be written as: g = 1/ (100) 2 [∑xi yi+1 ∑x i +1 yi] results and discussion figure 1 shows the distribution of community forests by cumulative percentages of households and forest area. it is the construction of a lorenz curve for the distribution of community forests in nepal and is based on the national fug database. the farther the curve from the diagonal line passing through the origin, the greater is the inequality in the distribution of community forests. the figure clearly shows that almost 70% of the households are accommodated in little more than 30% of the total community forest area. while nearly 70% of the forest area is handed over to just about 30% of the forest user households. figure 1: distribution of community forests by cumulative percentage of households and forest area. the distribution of community forests in nepal by size of the forest is given in table 1. scrutinizing the table shows that 63% of the households have community forests less than 100 hectares and it constitutes only 29% of the total area of the community forest. the remaining 37% of the households have community forests larger than 100 hectares and such forests constitute 71% of the total area of the community forest. this suggests high inequality in the handing over of community forests to the local fugs and consequently the gini coefficient is 0.445. the detail of the calculation of gini coefficient is given in the annex 1. the larger sized community forests are in the hand of fewer households in comparison to smaller sized community forests in which a larger number of households are accommodated in the fugs. 3 table 1: gini coefficient of community forest distribution by size of the forest in nepal, 2004. community forest (1) no of fugs (2) total cf in ha (3) total # of hh (4) total area % (5) total hh % (6) less than 10 ha 2736 13,932.70 185,261 1.2 11.8 10 to 50 ha 5227 135,069.23 489,733 11.9 31.1 50 to 100 ha 2553 179,912.03 314,356 15.8 20.0 100 to 200 ha 1882 260,911.95 272,579 22.9 17.3 200 to 500 ha 1099 321,340.64 233,304 28.2 14.8 500 to 1000 ha 210 141,362.74 58,195 12.4 3.7 more than 1000 ha 51 86,683.71 21,883 7.6 1.4 total 13758 1139213 1304614 100.0 100.0 gini coefficient 0.445 source: author’s computation from national fug database, dof, 2004. table 2: statistics related with community forests in nepal. community forest group (1) average cf in ha. (2)* # hh in fug (3)** per hh forest in ha. (4)*** less than 10 ha 5.09 67.71 0.08 10 to 50 ha 25.84 93.69 0.28 50 to 100 ha 70.47 123.13 0.57 100 to 200 ha 138.64 144.83 0.96 200 to 500 ha 292.39 212.29 1.38 500 to 1000 ha 673.16 277.12 2.43 more than 1000 ha 1699.68 429.08 3.96 obtained from table 1 dividing * column 3 by column 2 ** column 4 by column 2 *** obtained by dividing column 2 of table 2 by column 3 of the same table. the basic statistics of community forestry in nepal by size of the forest is given in table 2. from table 2, we can see that per household community forest area ranges from 0.08 to 3.96 ha depending on the smallest and largest forest tracts. the table again justifies the claim that community forests are handed over on demand basis rather than any consideration of supply side. conclusion as a conclusion, it can be said that the calculated gini coefficient shows high inequality in the distribution of community forests. the distribution has remained largely inequitable. the larger tracts of the community forests are being handed over to the fugs comprising fewer households while a large number of households are being included in the smaller community forests. hence, it is strongly recommended that the concerned authority should initiate the practice of calculating gini coefficient of community forest distribution in nepal and compare whether community forests are becoming more inequitable. acknowledgement this paper is based on an ongoing research entitled "the impact of community forestry on income distribution in nepal". the author thanks winrock internationalnepal for the research grant. figure 1: distribution of community forests by cumulative percentage of households and forest area. the distribution of community forests in nepal by size of the forest is given in table 1. scrutinizing the table shows that 63% of the households have community forests less than 100 hectares and it constitutes only 29% of the total area of the community forest. the remaining 37% of the households have community forests larger than 100 hectares and such forests constitute 71% of the total area of the community forest. this suggests high inequality in the handing over of community forests to the local fugs and consequently the gini coefficient is 0.445. the detail of the calculation of gini coefficient is given in the annex 1. the larger-sized community forests are in the hand of fewer households in comparison to smaller-sized community forests in which a larger number of households are accommodated in the fugs. the basic statistics of community forestry in nepal by size of the forest is given in table 2. from table 2, we can see that per household community forest area ranges from 0.08 to 3.96 ha depending on the smallest and largest forest tracts. the table again justifies the claim that community forests are handed over on demand basis rather than any consideration of supply side. conclusion the calculated gini coefficient shows high inequality in the distribution of community forests. the distribution has remained largely inequitable. the larger tracts of the community forests have been handed over to the fugs comprising fewer households while a large number of households have been included in the smaller community forests. hence, it is strongly recommended that the concerned sharma 48 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 authority should initiate the practice of calculating gini coefficient of community forest distribution in nepal and compare whether community forests are becoming more inequitable. acknowledgement this paper is based on an ongoing research entitled “the impact of community forestry on income distribution in nepal”. the author thanks winrock internationalnepal for the research grant. references bhatta, b. 2002a. access and equity issues in high mountain region implications of community forestry programme. in policy analysis of nepal’s community forestry programme a compendium of research papers. winrock international-nepal. policy analysis in agriculture and related resource management (paarrm) programme. bhatta, b. 2002b. access and equity issues in terai community forestry programme. in policy analysis of nepal’s community forestry programme a compendium of research papers. winrock international-nepal. policy analysis in agriculture and related resource management (paarrm) programme. kanel, n. r. 1993. “lorenz curve and gini coefficient: conceptual considerations,” the economic journal of nepal, vol. 16(4) (octoberdecember), central department of economics, t.u. tiwari, s. 2002. access, exclusion and equity issues in community management of forests an analysis of status of community forestry in the mid-hills of nepal. in policy analysis of nepal’s community forestry programme a compendium of research papers. winrock international-nepal. policy analysis in agriculture and related resource management (paarrm) programme. 5 annex 1: calculation of gini coefficient of cf distribution by size of the forest. size of cf no of forest total area (ha) total # of hh less than 10 ha 2736 13,932.70 185,261.00 10 to 50 ha 5227 135,069.23 489,733.00 50 to 100 ha 2553 179,912.03 314,356.00 100 to 200 ha 1882 260,911.95 272,579.00 200 to 500 ha 1099 321,340.64 233,304.00 500 to 1000 ha 210 141,362.74 58,195.00 more than 1000 ha 51 86,683.71 21,883.00 total 13758 1139213 1575311 community forest group total area (%) total hh (%) ∑∑xi ∑∑yi ∑∑xi (yi+1) ∑∑(xi+1) yi less than 10 ha 1.2 11.8 7.61 1.4 38.67938 27.80731 10 to 50 ha 11.9 31.1 20.02 5.1 398.2228 245.1435 50 to 100 ha 15.8 20.0 48.23 19.9 1793.808 1414.973 100 to 200 ha 22.9 17.3 71.13 37.2 4065.084 3233.146 200 to 500 ha 28.2 14.8 86.92 57.2 7669.852 5645.273 500 to 1000 ha 12.4 3.7 98.78 88.2 9877.699 8823.972 more than 1000 ha 7.6 1.4 100.00 100.0 0 0 total 100.0 100.0 23843.34 19390.31 g=1/(100)2 (23843.34-19390.31) 0.445303 sharma banko jankari.indd 31 medicinal plant knowledge of the panchase region in the middle hills of the nepalese himalayas k. r. bhattarai1, i. e. måren2 and r. p. chaudhary3 use of plants as medicine has been practiced all over the world since the dawn of human civilisation. in the himalayas, many medicinal plants yield essential ecosystem services/ benefi ts for the subsistence farmers, many of which grow in the forest ecosystem. however, documentation of traditional medicine and medicinal plants used by local communities is rather poor in nepal. panchase forest, central nepal, is home of many wild plants, used in traditional medicine, and a livelihood source for many ethnic groups. this study was conducted to document medicinal plant knowledge and plant use in the treatment of different ailments. to explore the ethnobotanical knowledge interviews were conducted with local healers, plant traders and knowledgeable villagers. the study provides information on 45 plant species, belonging to 32 families under 44 genera. the studied medicinal plants were found to be useful for treating 34 different ailments. the study which has 57% resemblance with previous studies. we conclude that a wealth of ethnobotanical knowledge still persists in the panchase region. however, due to land use change and migration it needs to be preserved for the future through extensive publications and disseminations. key words: ethnobotany, panchase, medicinal plants, ailments the un-commissioned millennium ecosystem assessment (ma, 2005) finds that the increasing demands on ecosystem services over the past 50 years have been fulfi lled at the cost of ecosystem degradation and diversity loss. the ma stresses that immediate action is needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems to maintain their provisions/services to human well-being. population growth, increasing wealth and changing consumption patterns, combined with land use and climate change, are exerting strong pressures on biodiversity, thereby, this posessing a challenge to biodiversity conservation and consequently it’s provisioning of ecosystem services. nepal is part of the himalayan biodiversity hotspot and one of the poorest countries in the world with a growing population and increasing demands on ecosystem services. human settlement has existed in the himalayas for thousands of years and the use of medicinal plants and traditional medicinal practice has been developed over the same time. traditional medicinal practice has maintained its popularity in many parts of himalayas even after the introduction of western medicine. the traditional medicinal knowledge has been developed into a successful system of medicine, namely ayurveda, where hundreds of plant species were documented as medicinal plants almost 3000 years ago. the traditional herbal medicine possesses great signifi cance in nepal, and the interest in herbal medicine has gradually increased over recent years (burlakoti and kunwar, 2008). however, proper documentation of traditional medicinal knowledge within different ethnic communities and tribes has not yet been conducted. nepal biodiversity strategy (2002) has highlighted the urgent need for the documentation of indigenous knowledge for conservation of the himalayan biodiversity (hmgn-mfsc, 2002). within the himalayas, forests are the richest habitats for medicinal plants forming the basis for several ecosystem services (ives, 1987). panchase is a sacred region where many yogis used to live 1 national herbarium and plant laboratories, department of plant resources, nepal. email: bhattaraikhemraj@gmail.com 2 bjerknes centre for climate research, university of bergen, norway 3 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal 32   and where they practiced herbal medicines in the past. the tradition of yogis living at the top of panchase has been discontinued over the past years. consequently, the knowledge of the local villagers may also contribute to valuable information about the historical use of medicinal plants of the area. although some studies have been conducted to document biodiversity of this region (koirala, 1998), the documentation of ethnobotanical information has been lacking. the aim of this study is to explore the plant based indigenous knowledge of the people living in adjoining villages to the panchase forest. materials and methods study site panchase is situated in the middle hills of nepal, just west of pokhara, between the longitudes 830 45’ to 830 57’ e and the latitudes 280 12’ to 280 18’ n. altitude ranges from 855 masl at the harpan river to 2517 masl at the peak of panchase whereas the forest ranges from 1450 masl to the peak. the forest covers an approximate area of 10-12 km2. the panchase mountain is the origin of many rivers and tributaries supplying water to the villages and a primary source area for phewa lake. climate is subtropical at lower altitudes and moist temperate at elevation above 2100 m. the panchase forest is spread over three districts; kaski, parbat and syangja, and with fi ve different village development committees (vdcs). the ethnic composition of the area constitutes brahmin, chhetri, gurung, bishwokarma, nepali, pariyar, magar and thakali, where generally gurung communities inhabit higher elevation and brahmin and chhetri dominate the valley bottom. of these, gurung and magar are indigenous to the area and bishwokarma, nepali and pariyar are the disadvantaged groups. approximately 40000 people live in the adjoining villages and depend upon the forest for their livelihood (fodder, fi rewood, timber, edible and medicinal plants). this region is densely populated by subsistence farmers and livestock rearing is an integral part of their livelihood. sampling field study was carried out over three periods; march-april 2010, april 2011 and november 2011. primary data regarding plant species traditional knowledge used and treated ailments were collected through group discussions, informal meetings; cross-checking and field observations ( kunwar et al., 2010). field survey was conducted in all adjoining vdcs of kaski, parbat and syangja districts. in kaski district, local people from bhadhuare, damdame, kutmidanda, sidhane, tamagi, and bhaudhauredeurali were interviewed. the local people of bange of syangja district and chitre and aarthar of parbat district were consulted. among the respondents, knowledgeable women were the dominant group which was followed by knowledgeable older men and traditional healers. species were identifi ed on site by using reference literatures. unrecognized plants were identifi ed at the national herbarium and plant laboratory at godawari, lalitpur. plants were collected and displayed during group discussions, interviews and consultations. during group discussions and interviews information was sought about medicinal use, local names and any other uses of the particular plant species. ethnobotany and chemical properties of the species were checked with published literature (manandhar, 2002; baral and kurmi, 2006; bhattarai and ghimire, 2006; kunwar et al., 2010). whereas the ayurvedic system and the unani system of medicinal use was verifi ed with literature (kirtikar and basu, 1980). results and discussion medicinal plants and traditional medicine we found 45 medicinal plant species belonging to 32 families under 44 genera (table 1). these 45 locally used medicinal plants were found to treat 34 different ailments. the family namely, rosaceae include the highest number of medicinal species (four), followed by moraceae and asteraceae (each three) and pteridaceae (two). about 57% of the indigenous use of plant species at panchase resembled use documented by earlier ethnobotanical reports from other parts of nepal. the majority of plant species from the forested areas of panchase have more affi nity towards the ayurvedic system of medicine than the unani system of medicine (table 2). among the 34 different ailments reported in the present study wounds, dysentery and fever are 33  considered most common and the majority of the medicinal plants are used for the treatment of these ailments. the plant parts used for herbal remedies were bark, leaf, latex, rhizome and whole plant. in the majority of cases, whole plant or leaf extract is taken for treatment. among the 45 species there are four species which are used to prepare yeast. the yeast is used to ferment the local alcohol raksi for the gurungs and newars and other schedule casts like biswokarma, nepali and pariyar also prepare alcohol themselves. people of this region have deep knowledge on herbal medicine and traditional medicinal plant practice, practiced since ancient times. there is still a lack of modern hospital facilities and modern medicine so people heavily rely upon local medicinal plants for their primary health care. the present study showed that traditional plant based knowledge has fl ourished in the periphery of the panchase region. it might be not only be due to long travel and higher costs of using modern medicine, but traditional medicinal practice has been more culturally acceptable, globally (brown, 1994), as well as in nepal (chaudhary, 1998). many of the most used plant species in the present study area are also used in other parts of nepal (manandhar, 2002; baral and kurmi, 2006; bhattarai and ghimire, 2006). very few species, e.g. paris polyphylla and swertia chirayita, are harvested commercially; the majority of species are folkloric in importance. international treaties and policies have over the last decades emphasized the need to create greater awareness and a wider application of indigenous knowledge for sustainable biological resource management and nepal needs to contribute to this effort. pharmacology and chemical properties of medicinal plants some of the plants used as medicine in the panchase region are unknown to ayurvedic and unani practice. this might be due to the fact that the ayurvedic system of medicine where plants were documented as ayurvedic medicinal plants was developed a long time back and the use of undocumented plant species was developed later through the practices and experiences of local people. the unani system of medicine is mostly practiced in muslim communities which is lacking in the panchase region. in the literature relatively few species have been found with their unani use (kirtikar and basu, 1980,). documented chemical properties of all species could not be found. this indicates that traditional knowledge has existed and been practiced in rural areas but the knowledge has not been streamlined for pharmacological test and use yet. among the 45 medicinal plant species found in the study area only 20 species could be traced for their main chemical constituents. this shows that phytochemistry may be an essential component to research in this region. according to the ayurvedic system of medicine, some plants like artemisia dubia and cannabis sativa have been used as anthelmentic and to cure rheumatism but these are actually used to cure skin diseases and to control bleeding from wounds in the panchase region. phytochemistry studies need whether the chemical properties of the plant really document results in support of the traditional use. when comparing the ayurvedic system and the unani system, both have certain similarities and both systems have the affi nity towards to use of plant species for curing an array of ailments (kirtikar and basu, 1980). acknowledgements thanks to basudha gurung, dil bahadur bhattarai, lila n. sharma, bishnu chapagain, ashok chaudhary, kuber bhatta, rupesh gurung and keith mcinturff for fi eld work assistance, and to all the villagers around panchase who participated in the project. the machhapuchhare development organisation is acknowledged for its cooperation. financial support was received from the norwegian research council (190153/ v10) and grolle olsens legat. references agrawal, v. and chauhan, b.m. 1988. a study of composition and hypolipidemic effects of dietary fi ber from some plant foods. plant foods and human nutrition 38 (2): 377-381. ambasta, s.p., ramchandran, k., kashyapa, k. and chanda, r. 1992. the useful plants of india. council of science and industrial research (csir), new delhi, india. anonymous. 1976. medicinal plant of nepal. bulletin no. 3. his majesty government of nepal, departnment of medicinal plants, thapathali, kathamndu, nepal. 34   baral, s.r. and kurmi, p.p. 2006. a compendium of medicinal plants in nepal. mrs, rachana sharma, kathmandu-7, nepal. bhattarai, k.r. and ghimire, m.d. 2006. cultivation and sustainable harvesting of commercially important medicinal and aromatics plants of nepal. heritage research and development center, kathmandu, nepal. bhattarai, n.k. 1989. traditional phytotherapy among the sherpa of helambu. j. of ethnopharmacology 27(1/2): 45-55. brown, k. 1994. approaches to valuing plant medicines: the economics of culture or culture of economics? biodiversity and conservation 3: 734-750. buckingham, j. 1994. dictionary of natural products, vol.7. champan and hall, logndon, uk. burlakoti, c. and kunwar, r. m. 2008. folk herbal medicine of mahakali watershed area, nepal. in medicinal plants: an anthology of contemporary research (eds.) jha, p. k., karmarcharya, s. b., chhetri, m. k., thapa, c. b. snd shrestha, b. b. ecological society, kathmandu, nepal, 187-193. chapagain, d.j., joshi, s.d. and jnawali, s.r. 2004. indigenouse use of medicinal plants by tharu community in southern buffer zone of bardia national park, nepal. proceeding of national congress on science and technology 738-751. chaudhary, r. p. 1998. biodiversity in nepal: status and conservation . s. devi, saharanpur, india and tecpress books, bangkok, thailand. dpr. 2007. medicinal plants bull. of the department of plant resources no. 28. of nepal (revised). department of plant resources, kathamndu, nepal. hmgn-mfsc 2002. nepal biodiversity strategy. his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of forest and soil conservation., kathmandu, nepal. husain , a., viramani, o. p., popali, s. p., mishra, l.n., gupta, m. m., sirvatava, g. n, abraham, z. and singh, a. k. 1992. dictionary of indian medicinal plants. central institute of medicinal and aromatic plants, lucknow, india. iucn. 2004. nepal: national register of medicinal and aromatics plants of nepal. the world conservation union, nepal. ives, j.d. 1987. the theory of himalayan environmental degradation: its validity and application challenged. mountain research and development 7: 189-199. joshi, s. g. 2006. medicinal plants. oxford and ibh publishing, new delhi, india. kirtikar, r. k. and basu, b. d. 1980. indian medicinal plants vol.i.-vol. iv. bisen singh mahendra pal singh, dehradun, india. koirala, r. 1998. botanical diversity within the project area of machhapuchhare development organization, bhadaure/ tamagi, vdc vdc kaski district, nepal. kunwar, r. m., shrestha, k. p., and bussman, r. w. 2010. traditional herbal medicine in far-west nepal a pharmacological appraisal. j. of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine 6/35: 1-18. manandhar, n. p. 2002. plant and people of nepal. timber press, oregon, usa. rajbhandari, k. r. 2001. ethnobotany of nepal. ethnobotanical society of nepal, central department of botany,tu, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal. rastogi, r. p. and marhotra, b. n. 1979. in a compendium of medicinal plants, volume ii. central drug research institute, lucknow, publication and information directorate, new delhi, india. watanabe, t., rajbhandari, k. r., malla, k. j.,and yahara, s. 2006. a handbook of medicinal plants of nepal. ayur seed life environmental institute, japan. 35  scientifi c name family name local name plant parts used achyranthus aspera l. amaranthaceae apaamarga root aesculus indica (colebr. ex cambess) hippocastanaceae lekhpangra seed aloe vera (l) burm f liliaceae ghiukumari leaf artemisia indica willd. asteraceae titepati leaf, stem artocarpus lakoocha wall. ex roxb. moraceae badahar bark azadirachta indica a. juss. meliaceae neem leaf bauhinia variegata l. fabaceae koiralo flower boehmeria platyphylla d. don urticaceae kamle root cannabis sativa l. syn. c. indica cannabaceae bhang leaf, stem chelanthes tenuifolia (burm.f.)sw pteridaceae kalisinka rhizome cissampelos pareira l. menispermaceae batulpate root clematis montana buch.-ham.ex dc. ranunculaceae jungelahara root curcuma angustifolia roxb. zingiberaceae haldi rhizome daphne bholua buch-ham. ex d. don. thymeleceae kajapate seeds, root drymaria diandra bl. caryophyllaceae abijalo whole plant engelhardtia spicata leschen ex blume juglandaceae mauwa flower euphorbia hirta l. euphorbiaceae dhudhe plant latex ficus auriculata laur moraceae nibaro fruit, bark ficus plamata forssk moraceae bedulo latex, fruit fragaria nubicola lindl rosacae bhuikafal fruit hibiscus mutabilis l. malvaceae baramasephool leaf, fl ower innula cappa buch-ham. ex d. don.dc. asteraceae rasnaa leaf, twig lobelia pyramidalis wall . campanulaceae aklebir leaf, twig maesa chisia buch-hamex d. don myrsinaceae bilaune leaf, fruits myrica esculenta buch-ham ex d. don myricaceae kafal fruits, bark nephrolepis auriculata (l.) trimen nephrolepidaceae paniamala tuber oxalis corniculata l. oxalidaceae chariamilo whole plant paris polyphylla sm. liliaceae satuwa rhizome persicaria barbata (l) hara polygonaceae pirejhar leaf potentilla fulgens wall. ex hook. rosaceae bajardanti whole plant pteris biaurita l. pteridiaceae sotar leaves and rhizome pyracantha creulata (d don) m roemer rosaceae ghangaru fruits quercus lanata sm. fagaceae banjha hard resin rubus ellipticus sm. rosaceae auselu fruit sapium insigne (royle) benth. ex hook. f. euphorbiaceae khirro latex schima wallichii (dc.) korth. theaceae chilaune bark, young plant scutellaria discolor colebr. labiatae dampate leaf, twig smilax aspera l. smilaceae kukurdaino root solanum capsicoides all. solanaceae kantakari fruit spilanthes paniculata wall. asteraceae marathi flower head swertia chirayita (roxb. ex fleming) karsten gentianaceae chirayaito whole plant taxus wallichiana (zucc.) pilger taxaceae lothsalla leaf, twig tectaria caudunata (wall. ex j sm) c chr dryopteridaceae kuthkure rhizome tinospora sinensis (lour.) merr. menispermaceae gurjo stem vitex negundo l. verbenaceae simali leaf table 1: plant species used for medicinal purposes from the forest ecosystem at panchase, central nepal. 36   t ab le 2 : m ed ic in al p la n t sp ec ie s an d t h ei r d oc u m en te d u se s in t h e a yu rv ed ic a n d u n an i s ys te m o f m ed ic in e sc ie n ti fi c n am e f ol k u se a t p an ch as e f ol k u se in p re vi ou s st u d ie s m aj or u se in a yu rv ed a m aj or u se in u n an i k n ow n c h em ic al c on st it u en ts *a ch yra nt hu s a sp era r oo t d ec oc tio n; ty ph oi d fe ve r pl an t d ec oc tio n; p ne um on ia , co ug h an d ki dn ey st on e re na l dr op sy (b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ), (d pr , 2 00 7) ; pu rg at iv e di ur et ic a st ri ng en t us ed in d ro ps y an d pi le s (k un w ar et a l 2 01 0) u a r oo t; ec dy st er on e an d ol ea no le ic a ci d. s ee ds ;sa po ni ns sa po ni n a d im et hy l e st er ,d sa po ni b m et hy l e st er , o le no le ic ac id a nd e st er s a esc ulu s i nd ica o il ex tr ac te d fr om se ed is ap pl ie d to c ur e jo in t p ai n o il is us ed in sc ab ie s a nd sk in di se as e (m an ad ha r, 2 00 2) o il: r he um at ism u a se ed s; ae sc in (a m ix tu re o f tr ite rp en oi d sa po ni ns n am el y as ei n ia h a ii b & th ei r de ac yl de ri va tiv es ) ( d pr 2 00 7) a loe ve ra pl an t s ap is a pp lie d at fi re bu rn s a nd ju ic e; to c ur e di ab et es ex pe l i nt es tin al w or m s (b ar al a nd k ur m i, 20 06 ), it is ap hr od isi ac (d pr , 2 00 7) . pl an t i s b itt er sw ee t c oo lin g, pu rg at iv e al te ra tiv e, fa tt en in g to ni c, a ph ro di sia c, a nt he lm in tic , liv er c om pl ai nt s, fe ve r, a st hm a, bi lio us ne ss sk in d ise as e, ja un di ce br on ch iti s, en la rg em en t o f sp le en (k ir tik ar a nd b as u, 1 98 0) pl an t i s b itt er p ur ga tiv e ca rm in at iv e to ni c di ge st iv e sp le en in fl a m m at io n lu m ba go pa in in th e m us cl es o ph th al m ic (k ir tik ar a nd b as u, 1 98 0) le av es ; c at ha rt ic a nt hr aq ui no ne gl uc os id es , m ai nl y ba rb al oi n a gl uc os id e of a lo eam od in , ot he rs a re a lo es in a nd a lo es on e (h us ai n et a l. 19 92 ) *a rte mi sia in dic a fr es h le af sa p is ap pl ie d to tr ea t w ou nd s t o st op b le ed in g fr es h le af sa p; to st op bl ee di ng w ou nd s ( ba ra l & k ur m i, 20 06 ) a nt he lm en tic , s to m ac hi c, pu rg at iv e, a nt isp as m od ic , in se ct ic id e (d pr , 2 00 7) u a m aa ck ia in a nd e xi gu afl a va no ne a (w at an ab e et al 20 05 e ss en tia l oi l c on ta in in g al ph a an d βth uj on e (d pr 2 00 7) a rto ca rp us la ko och a ba rk e xt ra ct is g iv en to r ed uc e he at a nd fe ve r ba rk p ow de r; a pp lie d to so re s to d ra w o ut th e pu ru le nt m at te r (k ir tik ar a nd b as u, 19 80 ; b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ) r ip e fr ui t i s s ou r sw ee t, ap hr od isi ac , e nh an ce s t as te a nd ap pe tit e u a a za dir ac ht a in dic a r aw a nd d ry le av es ; f or fe ve r an d bl oo d di so rd er le av es ; a nt he lm in tic a nd g oo d fo r co ug h, a st hm a an d ur in ar y di sc ha rg e (iu c n , 2 00 4) le av es : s ki n di se as e an d bl oo d ci rc ul at or y de fe ct u a a za di ra ch tin z ed un in li m on oi ds l in ol ic a ci d n im bi n n im bi di n o le ic a ci d an d st er ic ac id (a gr aw al a nd c ha uh an 19 88 ) ba uh in ia va rie ga ta fl ow er /fl o ra l b ud s e at en re gu la rl y to c ur e le uc or rh oe a an d m um ps fl ow er ju ic e; d ia rr he a an d dy se nt er y (m an an dh ar , 2 00 2) fl ow er s: as tr in ge nt , d ia rr he a an d he m or rh ag e u a be tu in h en tr ia co nt an e le pu eo l n ic ot ifl or in o ct ac os an ol r ha m no py ra ns id bo eh me ria p lat yp hy lla r oo t p as te ; c on tr ol b le ed in g r oo t j ui ce ; s to m ac hi c (r aj bh an da ri , 2 00 1) a nd dy se nt er y (m an an dh ar , 2 00 2) pl an t j ui ce p oi so no us to fi sh u a a ce to ph en on e, c ry pt op le ur in e *c an na bis sa tiv a pl an t s ap is s to p bl ee di ng , se ed s a re u se d fo r c ol d le af ju ic e; h ea lin g w ou nd s, co nt ro l b le ed in g an d st om ac hi c (w at an ab e et al .,2 00 6, k un w ar et al .,2 01 0) pl an t j ui ce : r he um at ism u a c an na bi ge ro l, c an na bi di ol 37  * ju ic e of rh iz om e; p ep tic u lc er s ju ic e of rh iz om e; p ep tic u lc er s, pl an t p as te ; w ou nd s ( b ha tta ra i, 19 89 ; m an an dh ar ,2 00 2) u a u a u a c is sa m pe lo s p ar ei ra l f re sh ju ic e fr om ro ot is g iv en to tr ea t s to m ac h di so rd er le av es ; e xt er na lly fo r i tc h (r aj bh an da ri, 2 00 1; b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ) it de st ro ys " va ta & p itt a" , re m ov es p ai n, fe ve r, dy se nt er y sk in e ru pt io ns , b ur ni ng , i tc hi ng , vo m iti ng , a st hm a, re m ov es in te st in al w or m s, cu re s e nl ar ge d sp le en , u lc er s, ut er in e co m pl ai nt s (k irt ik ar a nd b as u, 1 98 0) u a u a *c le m at is m on ta na r oo t d ec oc tio n; tu be rc ul os is le av es a re m ix ed w ith in gr ed ie nt s t o pr ep ar e ye as t r oo t d ec oc tio n; tu be rc ul os is , ex tra ct ; s ki n di se as e (b ar al a nd k ur m i, 20 06 ) u a u a u a c ur cu m a an go st ifo lia r hi zo m e po w de r i s c oo ke d an d dr un k to c ur e co ug h an d co ld r hi zo m e pa st e; e xt er na lly ap pl ie d to b ru is es a nd in ju rie s (i u c n , 2 00 4) r hi zo m e is sw ee tis h fr ag ra nt co ol in g, a ph ro di si ac , f ev er to ni c bi lio us ne ss , l ep ro sy , bu rn in g, d ys pe ps ia , l os s o f t as te , br on ch iti s a st hm a, ja un di ce , an em ia ( k irt ik ar & b as u 19 80 ) u a a nt hr aq ui no ne , b or ne ol , ca m pe st er ol , c am ph en e, ca ry op lh yl en e ci ne ol e cu rc um in e cu rd io ne , cu rz er en on e, c ur lo ne u ge no l, lim on en e, li na lo ol tu rp en in e (r as to gi & m eh ro ta , 1 97 9) d ap hn e bh ol ua se ed s; st om ac h di so rd er s r oo t e xt ra ct ; i nt es tin al d is or de r (r aj bh an da ri, 2 00 1) u a u a u a d ry m ar ia d ia nd ra fr es h le af e xt ra ct ; r ed uc e fe ve r pl an t j ui ce ; g as tri c tro ub le , r oo t ju ic e; in ha le d to tr ea t s in us iti s (m an an dh ar , 2 00 2) u a u a 4 -m et ho xy ca nt hi n6on e (b ui ki ng ha m 1 99 4) * en ge lh ar di a sp ic at a fl ow er ju ic e: a bd om in al p ai n fl ow er ju ic e: a bd om in al pa in (b ur la ko ti et a l. 20 08 ; c ha pa ga in , e t a l,. 2 00 8) la te x is d em ul ce nt u a a la ni ne , a m yr in , c ys tin e *e up ho rb ia h ir ta pl an t l at ex ; w ou nd s pl an t j ui ce : b oi ls , c ut s, w ou nd s (m an an dh ar ,2 00 2) c ar di ov as cu la r d is or de r, as th m a an d sp le en d is or de rs (j os hi , 20 06 ) u a u a * fi cu s a ur ic ul at a u nr ip e fr ui ts a re e at en to c ur e dy se nt er y b ar k ju ic e an d ro as te d fi g s; di ar rh ea a nd d ys en te ry (m an an dh ar , 2 00 2) u a β si to st er ol e pi fr ie da no l fr ie de lin (r as to gi & m eh ro tra , 19 79 ) fi cu s p la m at a pl an t l at ex ; t o ge t r id o f t ho rn s fr om fl es h fr ui ts : c on st ip at io n, lu ng a nd bl ad de r d is ea se (b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ) fr ui ts a re ta ke n fo r l un g di so rd er s u a ta nn in s fr ag ar ia n ub ic ol a fr ui t p as te ; h ea lin g w ou nd s fr ui ts ju ic e; c ur e in fl a m m at io n of n er ve s a nd lu ng s ( b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ) fr ui ts a re a st rin ge nt a nd d iu re tic (a m ba st a et a l., 1 99 2) u a o le no lic a ci d *h ib is cu s m ut ab ili s fr es h le af a nd fl ow er ; g ro un d to a pa st e ap pl ie d to tr ea t b ile s le af p as te ; s w el lin gs (b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ) u a u a u a 38   in nu la c ap pa le af p ow de r i s u se d to m ak e ye as t le av es a nd ro ot s a re u se d as st om ac hi c a ro m at ic to ni c. r oo ts a re b itt er ac rid th er m og en ic st im ul an t an tis ep tic c ar m in at iv e r oo t; to ni c, st om ac hi c, a le ite ric , ca rm in at iv e, d is pe ls e ffe ct s o f sh oc ks , c ur es h ea rt pa in s, sp le en , liv er a nd jo in ts , e ar s, he m ic ra ni a (k irt ik ar & b as u, 1 98 0) u a lo be lia p yr am id al is pl an t s ap ; b od y ac he le av es a nd in fl o re sc en ce a re an tis pa sm od ic (m an an dh ar , 20 02 k un w ar e t a l., 2 01 0) le av es a nd fl ow er a re an tis pa sm od ic u a lo be lin e, ra di ca m in e m ae sa c hi si a le av es ; c le an m ilk c on ta in er to ki ll ge rm s. fr ui ts a re g iv en to st er ile fe m al e bu ffa lo /c ow pa st e of th e rip e fr ui t is u se d to tre at s ca bi es (m an an dh ar , 2 00 2; d pr , 2 00 7) u a u a u a m yr ic a es cu le nt a fr ui ts ; e at en fo r d ys en te ry , b ar k de co ct io n; b ro nc hi tis (i u c n 20 04 ) b ar k is u se fu l f or c ou gh , a st hm a an d si nu si tis (d pr , 2 00 7) ) u a u a fr ie de lin , m yr ic an on , m yr ic ad io l m yr ic an on , m yr ic itr in (c un ni ng ha m , 2 00 1) *n ep hr ol ep is au ri cu la ta fr es h tu be r; ea te n to re du ce fe ve r r oo t j ui ce ; i nd ig es tio n an d fe ve r (b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ) u a u a u a *o xa lis c or ni cu la ta le af in fu si on ; t o re m ov e op ac iti es o f c or ne a fr es h pl an t j ui ce ; c ur e dy sp ep si a pi le s, an em ia , a nd ty m pa ni tis le af in fu si on ; t o re m ov e op ac iti es o f c or ne a (d pr , 2 00 7; r aj bh an da ri, 20 01 ) pl an t i s a st rin ge nt e m m en ag og ue an tis ep tic , d ig es tiv e, c ar m in at iv e, liv er to ni c, d iu re tic , f eb rif ug e, an tib ac te ria l a nd a nt is ep tic (k irt ik ar & b as u, 1 98 1) u a u a pa ri s p ol yp hy lla r hi zo m e po w de r; jo in t p ai n r hi zo m e po w de r; to ni c (r aj bh an da ri, 2 00 1; b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ) r hi zo m e; a s a nt he lm in tic ex pe ct or an t a nt is pa sm od ic st om ac hi c u a sa po ni ns , a lp ha -p ar id in e al ph apa ris ty ph ni n, k ae m pf er ol 3ge nt io bi os id e, po ly ph yl lin a (b ha tta ra i & g hi m ire , 2 00 6) *p er si ca ri a ba rb at a st ea m ju ic e; b oi ls a nd p im pl es r oo t p as te ; s ca bi es w ou nd s an d sw ol le n pa rts (r aj bh an da ri, 20 01 : m an an dh ar , 2 00 2) st ea m d ec oc tio n; u lc er s (a m ba st a et a l . , 1 99 2) u a u a *p ot en til la fu lg en s d rie d ro ot s a re e at en fo r de nt ifr ic e r oo t p ow de r; to ot ha ch e (m an an dh ar , 2 00 2) r oo t p ow de r; to ot ha ch e u a c ar ot en e, p ol yp he no l *p te ri s b ia ur ita fr es h le af ju ic e is a pp lie d to st op b le ed in g pa st e of fr on ds is a pp lie d to w ou nd s ( m an an dh ar , 2 00 2) u a u a u a *p yr ac an th a cr eu la ta r aw fr ui ts ; d ys en te ry fr ui t w oo d po w de r; bl oo d dy se nt er y (m an an dh ar , 2 00 2; b ar al & k ur m i 2 00 6) u a u a py ra cr ei c ac id s or bi to l t an ni n (o su ka e t a l., 1 98 1) q ue rc us la na ta h ar dw oo d; a s t ea , l ax at iv e r es in ; s oo th in g bo dy a ch e (m an an dh ar 2 00 2) d ry re si n; dy se nt er y (b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ) u a u a c yc lo bl an on t rie de lin pe la go no di n si to st er ol ta nn in s (r as to gi & m ar ho tra , 1 97 9) *r ub us e lli pt ic us c on ce nt ra te d fr ui t d ec oc tio n; ty ph oi d fe ve r c on ce nt ra te d de co ct io n of ri pe fr ui ts ; t yp ho id fe ve r ( b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ) pl an t i s a st rin ge nt a nd to ni c fr ui ts a re c oo lin g (d pr 2 00 7) u a u a * sa pi um in si ne m ilk y la te x; fi sh p oi so ni ng b ar k la te x; to e xp el w or m s a nd ge rm s f or li ve st oc k (b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ) la te x is v es ic an t u a c or ilg in g ui ja ve rin n co tifl o rin (d ev ko ta , 2 00 9) 39  sc hi m a w al lic hi i b ar k pa st e; a pp lie d on w ou nd s to st op b le ed in g yo un g pl an t l ea ve s a nd ro ot st oc k; fe ve r ( b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ) b ar k is a nt he lm in tic a nd ru bi fa ci en t ( d pr , 2 00 7) u a o ct ac os en ol p hy to l, al ph asp in as te ro l a nd a sa po ni n sc hi w al lin (h us ai n, 1 99 2) sc ut el la ri a di sc ol or pl an t p as te ; c ur e w ou nd s pl an t j ui ce ; h ea da ch e an d fe ve r (r aj bh an da ri, 2 00 1) pl an t j ui ce ; r he um at is m u a w og on in (k un w ar e t a l., 2 01 0) sm ila x as pe ra r oo t d ec oc tio n; v en er ea l di se as es r oo t e xt ra ct c ur es sc ab ie s (m an an dh ar , 2 00 2) u a u a a sp ar ag en in , e ng el iti n, p ar al lin ps eu do ge ni n ru tin os id e, sm ilo ge ni n (b uc ki ng ha m , 1 99 4) *s ol an um c ap si co id es pa st e fr om se ed s; to ot ha ch e sm ok e fr om fr ui t; re liv e se ve re to ot ha ch e (r aj bh an da ri, 2 00 1; b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ) r oo ts a re e xp ec to ra nt ; c ou gh , as th m a, c at ar rh al fe ve r. st em fl o w er s a nd fr ui ts a re c rm in at iv e (d pr , 2 00 7) u a fr ui ts ; s ol as on in e, so la m ar gi ne βso la m ar gi ne a nd so la so di en e (h us ai n et a l., 1 99 2) sp ila nt hu s p an ic ul at a u se d as in gr ed ie nt in y ea st pr ep ar at io n pl an t i s a pp lie d to sn ak e bi te fl ow er h ea ds ; c he w ed fo r to ot ha ch e. it s j ui ce ; s to m ac h pa in (d pr 2 00 7) u a u a pl an t c on ta in s a lp ha a nd β -m yr in es te r m yr ic yl a lc oh ol st ig m at er ol an d 13 -d gl uc os id e (h us ai n et al ., 19 92 ) *s w er tia c hi ra yi ta pl an t e xt ra ct ; r ed uc e fe ve r pl an t e xt ra ct ; c hr on ic fe ve r (b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ; a no ny m ou s, 19 76 ) pl an t; bi tte r c oo lin g, an th el m in tic , a nt ip yr et ic , an tip er io di c, la xa tiv e, ga la ct ag og ue , c ur es th irs t, bi lio us ne ss , l eu co de rm a, bu rn in g, b ro nc hi tis , u rin ar y di sc ha rg e, p re gn an cy n au se a (k irt ik ar & b as u, 1 98 0) pl an t h as sh ar p bi tte r t as te as tri ng en t t on ic st om ac hi c le ss en s i nfl a m m at io n im pr ov es ey es ig ht se da tiv e to p re gn an t ut er us g oo d fo r p ai n in th e jo in ts sc ab ie s l eu co de rm a sk in d is ea se ch ro ni c fe ve r ( k irt ik ar & b as u, 19 80 ) c ha ra ci n, b itt er a ci d, o ph el ic ac id , a m ar og en tin , g en tio pi cr in sw er ch iri n (b ha tta ra i & g hi m ire , 2 00 6) ta xu s w al lic hi an a le af ju ic e; b ro nc hi tis b ar k an d le af ju ic e; a st hm a an d ca nc er (m an an dh ar , 2 00 2 ) d rie d le av es u se d fo r a st hm a, br on ch iti s a nd c an ce r u a b ac ca tin , 1 9hy dr ox yba cc at in ii i c ep ha lo m an ni ne 1 0de ac ty le ac ep ha m an ni ne , t ax ol ( d pr , 2 00 7) te ct ar ia c au du na ta d ec oc tio n of rh iz om es ; d ia rr he a an d dy se nt er y d ec oc tio n of rh iz om e; d ia rr he a an d dy se nt er y (m an an dh ar , 20 02 ) u a u a u a *t in os po ra si ne ns is st em ju ic e; c ur e di ab et es st em ju ic e; d ys en te ry , d ia be te s an d go no rr he a (i u c n , 2 00 4) st em ju ic e bi tte r, st om ac hi c, cu re s j au nd ic e, b ur ni ng se ns at io n, u rin ar y di se as e, ur et hr al d is ch ar ge s, di ab et es (k irk ik ar & b as u, 1 98 0) st em is b itt er a pp et iz er st om ac hi c to ni c an tip yr et ic ex pe ct or an t g oo d in c ou gh ja un di ce a ne m ia (k irt ik ar & b as u, 1 98 0) st em s; c ar di fo l tin os po rid in e tin os po rid e pe rb er ili n he pt co sa no l a nd β -s is to te ro l (w at an ab e et a l., 2 00 6) *v ite x ne gu nd o le af ju ic e; si nu si tis , s om e sm ok e dr y le av es to re lie ve si nu si tis le af ju ic e; u se d ex te rn al ly fo r fo et id d is ch ar ge a nd m ag go ts in ul ce rs (b ar al & k ur m i, 20 06 ) pl an t i s p un ge nt b itt er a ci d an th el m in tic , e xp ec to ra nt di ge st iv e, st om ac hi c, a nt is ep tic , an d to ni c (k irt ik ar & b as u, 19 80 ) u a le av es ; a lk al oi dni sh in di ne fl a vo no id s5hy dr ox y3 6 7 3' 4 '-p en ta m et ho xy fl av on ee an d ca tic in ir rid id g lu co si de sau cu bi n an gu si d (h us ai n et a l., 19 92 ) u a = u na va ila bl e * = tr ad iti on al u se fo un d in th e pr es en t s tu dy th at re se m bl es p re vi ou s s tu di es final bankojanakari vol 17-1.pmd 1 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal dwindling rhino population in nepal: national concern the great one horned rhinoceros (rhinoceros unicornis), one of the five surviving species in the world, has now been confined to about 2500 individuals in some protected areas of nepal and india. due to the decreasing population of rhino in the world, the world conservation union (iucn) has categorized this species in its red list. similarly, it has been listed in appendix i of cites. the government of nepal has classified it as one of the major protected species. nepal’s conservation effort in the past is regarded as noteworthy for the conservation of one-horned rhino. about one hundred population of rhino in the 1960s increased to 612 in 2000 because of effective implementation of the conservation measures. in recent years, the poaching of this species has been ever increasing in spite of various efforts carried out by the governmental as well as non-governmental organizations. the official record of the department of national parks and wildlife conservation shows that altogether 122 rhinos were found dead between 1998 to 2004 while more than 278 rhinos were found dead due to poaching and natural death during 2000-2007. decreasing rhino population is a major concern for conservation of rhino in perpetuity. it has brought major conservation threat and greater concern among the conservationist, civil society and academia as well as general public of nepal. recently, the government of nepal has approved rhino conservation action plan (2006-2011) which could be a significant step for conservation of rhino in nepal. habitat improvement and strengthening anti-poaching operations coupled with continued research, database upgrading, reintroduction, capacity building, trans-boundary cooperation, conflict minimization and sustainable development are the main features of the action plan. effective implementation of the conservation measures based on sound ecological principles will, no doubt, help in ensuring the future of rhino in nepal. for this, wider commitment and concrete actions from all stakeholders together with peoples’ participation is inevitable. final corrected banko janakari 18-2.pmd 18 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 challenges for service providers in community forestry governance: a case study of a community forest users group in parbat, nepal a. paudel1, s.vogel2 this study was carried out in bhodkhore community forest users group in parbat district, nepal with the overall objective to develop a clearer understanding of the challenges for service providers while working towards improving the community forestry governance. the primary data were collected through personal interviews, group discussions, key informant interviews and direct observations using a series of questionnaires and check lists. similarly, the secondary data were gathered from reports and records from community forestry user group and service providers, and from relevant scientific literature. the data were analyzed using qualitative and quantitative tools. the results show that the existing challenges for service providers mainly include financial resource management, time management and inadequate technical support for forest management. key words: community forestry, governance, service providers, challenges the introduction of community forestry (cf) programme in nepal is a courageous, innovative and promising step towards participatory forest management and this has been well recognized throughout the world as a successful people centred programme (gurung, 2007). the district forest office (dfo), which works under the department of forest (dof), is the responsible authority to hand over national forests as community forests to local communities and to provide them necessary services for the better management of their forests. however, it alone is not able to fully provide the supports needed. community forestry user groups (cfugs) are not fully capable of managing their forest on their own. thus, they have to depend on external organizations/institutions (ghimire, 2005). many of the non-governmental organizations (ngos) and civil society organizations (csos) which grew rapidly after 1990 with the change in political conditions in the country (edwards, 2001), are now involved in the promotion of cf programme (timsina, 2003). the support services provided by the government and other organizations have remained inadequate compared to the increasing demand of cfugs. as a result, several second–generation issues have emerged in cf all around the country; one such issue is good governance in cfug (bhatta and gentle, 2004). these emerging issues have made providing adequate support services to cfugs more challenging for the service providers (sps). one of the major challenges in cf of nepal is to ensure poor people’s meaningful involvement in its process, their access, rights and benefits for livelihoods (pokharel and niraula, 2004). acharya (2002) reports the following challenges that nepal’s cf is presently facing: redefining policy objectives from basic needs to poverty alleviation; mechanisms ensuring benefits and access in decision-making for disadvantaged groups; shift to active forest management; restructuring of dfo to deliver quality extension services; and reviewing cf process and practices to maintain people’s participation. the fourth cf workshop identified the following major challenges concerning cf governance: ensuring inclusion at every level of cf governance; unclear role of all stakeholders in policy-making; oneway flow of information; and lack of appropriate mentality for promoting good governance (dof, 2004). dfo, parbat (2006) has mentioned the following major issues which led to the challenges for sps to work in cfugs: low representation of 1 asia network for sustainable agriculture and bioresources (ansab), kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: ambipaudel@yahoo.com, phone: +977-98476-26827 2 institute for sustainable economic development, department of economics and social sciences, university of natural resources and applied life sciences, boku, vienna, austria. 19 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 service providers description dfo fecofun nesdo location district headquarter, kushma establishment 2042 b.s. 2054 b.s 2052 b.s staff 1-dfo, 1-afo, 11-rangers and 40 forest guards, no female staff 3-regular staff (2 male, 1 female) and 25facilitators (10 male, 15 female) 1-programme coordinator and 16animators (10 male, 6 female) working area and cfugs parbat district including 320 cfugs parbat district, 265 cfugs parbat district,145 cfugs major activities cfugs formation and forest handover; constitution and op preparation/amendment; trainings/workshops/tours conduction; technical support for annual plan preparation; facilitating cfug’s fund investment; and coordination with other organizations to provide support for cfug, etc. advocacy; conflict management; constitution and op preparation/amendment ; good governance; social mobilization; leadership and skill development; and fund mobilization, etc. support to hold committee meetings on regular basis; facilitate committee meetings and gas, facilitate participatory annual plan formulation; and facilitate cfug’s fund mobilization, record keeping and accounting; etc. women and dalit (the lower caste people which are also socially deprived) in community forest users group’s committee (cfugc) as well as passive participation of their representatives in decisionmaking; ineffective implementation of operation plan (op) and constitution; difficulty to amend op and cfug’s constitution on time; and passiveness of cfug to submit audit reports on time. in this study, the challenges for service providers while working towards improving the situation of community forestry governance in bhodkhore cfug are identified. in addition, these challenges are also analyzed from the users’ and service providers’ perspectives. materials and methods study site bhodkhore cfug of parbat district was selected as the study site considering the following criteria: legal tenure, direct involvement of sps, and cfug’s heterogeneity. in this district, cf is considered as a successful programme and 45% of the total forest has been handed over to 299 cfugs by the mid-2006, and consequently 24,908 households have benefited from this programme. the sps selected for this study are those which have been involved in bhodkhore cfug and conducting their activities including cf management and they are dfo, federation of community forest users, nepal (fecofun), and national educational and social development organization (nesdo). a brief introduction of each of the sps is presented in table 1. the bhodkhore cf covers 57 ha of land, is basically a pole stage, predominantly natural sal (shorea robusta) forest. it was traditionally managed under the talukdari (a talukdar was responsible for it and for controlling forest management) system of land revenue collection. in 1957, the forest was nationalized and the talukdar was no longer able to resist the state’s decision. as a result, the forest was accessible to all and used up without controls. such unrestricted access degraded the forest to a greater extent. only after the event of a large landslide in 1977, the villagers realized the importance of forest cover and agreed to protect this forest through indigenous forest management system. in april 1993, the forest was officially handed over to the cfug with its constitution and op. at present, the cfug has an executive committee so-called cfugc of 11 members including six women and five men who represent brahmin (6 members), newar (1 member), chhetri (2 members) and dalit (2 members). as mentioned in its constitution, the cfugc is reformulated every two years and bears the responsibility to implement the op and constitution. data collection and analysis primary data was collected through personal interviews, group discussions and direct observations. secondary data was obtained from op and constitution, minutes and other records of the cfug and records from the sps. related documents and reports, and relevant scientific articles were also reviewed in detail. during the field study conducted in 2006, 49 out of 115 households were selected and table 1: service providers in bhodkhore cfug paudel and vogel 20 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 one person from each household was interviewed. stratified random sampling was adopted to select respondents from the cfug. the total respondents interviewed from sps were 12 (6 were from dfo, 4 from fecofun and 2 from nesdo). purposive sampling was adopted for selecting respondents from sps. separate sets of questionnaires including both closed and open-ended questions were used for respondents from sps and cfug. additional method of data collection included key informants interviews and separate discussions held with each homogeneous group (consisting of 7 to 10 people) in the cfug and with the representative group from each sp. checklists were used to track discussions on given issues. one of the authors (a. paudel) also observed a general assembly (ga) and a cfugc’s meeting during the field study. nine key informants from cfug and sps were selected and interviewed using the open-ended questions. pre-testing of tools and questionnaires was done in neighbouring cfug to find out any ambiguities and inadequacies in the interview schedule. furthermore, the data collected by different methods and from different sources was cross-checked through triangulation to improve the reliability of the results. both qualitative and quantitative tools are used for data analysis. information from group discussions and open-ended questions is transcribed and presented in tabular and textual forms where appropriate. data from closed-ended questions was analysed using microsoft excel and the result is presented in the form of column diagrams. results all the respondents from cfug and sps were asked about the challenges that sps have been facing while working towards improving the situation of cf governance. out of the total 61 respondents (comprising 49 from users and 12 from service providers) about 70% of them expressed one or more challenges whereas rest of them either were unaware or could not see any challenges for sps. responses of similar concern are grouped under 9 different topics. these challenges and the total respondents’ number for each of them are presented in table 2. making cfug and cfugc more accountable sps had to organize some specific programmes to make illiterate users aware of their roles and responsibilities. moreover, they had to motivate some users who were aware but had not performed well being skeptical of getting any benefit from cf. some users were of the opinion that the committee has to be more responsible for forest development activities than the general members, and they would join such activities only if they were invited. such a perception of the users created an uneven sense of ownership among themselves. sps had difficulties in making these users aware of their equal rights in benefits from forest and their responsibility in forest management activities. in addition, monitoring and evaluation of executive committee’s performance by the cfug is still weak that has provided the committee an opportunity to hide the unwanted results of its activities. therefore, these conditions have created a challenge for sps in making cfug and its committee more accountable. financial resource management when sps organized supportive programmes related to cf management, especially poor users could not attend all of them. the reason behind this is that poor users can’t spend days in receiving the service at the expense of their work on which they depend for their daily diet and sps also can’t provide them both the free-of-service together with the allowance. s.n. challenges for sps total respondents no. 1 making cfug and cfugc more accountable 13 2 financial resource management 36 3 time management 34 4 developing good working environment 17 5 leadership development in target group 18 6 convincing rich users for effective launching of poor-focused programmes 23 7 providing adequate technical support in forest management 25 8 working with women and dalit 18 9 making fund management more transparent 22 10 no challenges 9 11 i do not know 10 (source: field study 2006), (n=61) table 2: challenges for sps while working towards improving the situation of cf governance paudel and vogel 21 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2paudel and vogel moreover, cfug itself can’t provide allowance to participants in such programmes as it does not have sufficient funds. thus, the financial resource management has been a challenge for sps. time management majority of the users are farmers who mainly work during the daytime. other users (service holders) are busy during the daytime in weekdays. when sps visited the cfug during the day in weekdays, few users were available. therefore, arranging time suitable to all users and sps has been a difficult task the sps. developing good working environment in cfug sps’ activities were duplicated sometimes because of the lack of good coordination among them. moreover, few members of the cfug did not support some of their programmes, thereby creating difficulty in launching them. this worsened the working environment for sps in the year 2061 b.s. and thus developing good working environment in cfug was a challenge. li-bird (2003) mentioned in its district level review report the lack of coordination, communication and linkage between and among the sps in parbat district. leadership development in target group usually, the elite group in the community have been dominating in decision-making (paudel, 2003). in this cfug too, elites had in the past captured the leadership positions in cfugc and thus dominated in decision-making process. as a result, target group had to remain passive during the discussions in assemblies and meetings, and there was clearly a lack of two-way communication. therefore, developing leadership skills for these socially deprived groups and bringing them in decision-making forum (cfugc) was a challenge for sps. still today, elites are influential in decision-making process especially in emergency meetings. convincing rich users for effective launching of poor-focused programmes to launch any programmes in cfug, an approval is needed from ga. when sps tried to launch poorfocused programmes, they found rich users pretending to be ignorant. this situation created difficulty for sps and thus effective launching of such programmes in cfug had been one of their challenges. in addition, they also faced difficulties when facilitating to identify poor users through well being ranking. providing adequate technical support in forest management cf programme is moving towards sustainable management from its conservation motive. for this, cfug needs scientific knowledge and skills of forest management that can be provided by forest technicians only. sps, with limited number of forestry professionals and broader working area, have difficulties in providing enough technical support to cfug. therefore, providing adequate technical support to forest management has been a challenge for sps. working with women and dalit because of discriminative social structure in terms of caste and gender, there is a lack of freedom for lower caste people compared to upper caste and they have higher chances of being dominated in decisionmaking (paudel, 2003). in this cfug, sps had to take permission from men before talking with women from their family. in addition, women also did not feel easy to talk with people, especially males whom they are not accustomed to. moreover, upper caste people looked down on sps if they worked with dalit people. the latter also felt uneasy to be hospitable for upper caste people and work together with them. in fact, these situations still persist but to a lesser degree. thus, working with women and dalit has been a challenge for sps. making fund management more transparent most of the users were not interested to be informed about the cfug’s fund management which easily caused difficulty for sps to create interest in them. in addition, record keeping system was not in a good shape. thus, sps had to facilitate cfug to improve record keeping system. moreover, they had to facilitate the discussions on the details of income and expenditure in some gas. therefore, making cfug’s fund management more transparent was a difficult task for sps in the past years, which has been easier nowadays. response to each of these challenges from both sps’ and users’ perspectives is graphically presented in figure 3.1. 22 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 fig. 3.1 shows that most of the respondents (> 80 %) from both the cfug and sps comprehend financial resource and time management as challenges for sps (challenges 2 and 3). sps have found it challenging to provide adequate technical support in forest management (challenge 7), and nearly half of the respondents from cfug affirm this difficulty. two-thirds of the respondents perceived challenges for convincing rich users for effective launching of poor-focused programmes, working with women and dalit and making fund management more transparent (challenges 6, 8 and 9, respectively). half of them comprehend as challenges for making cfug/c more accountable and developing leadership in target group (challenges 1 and 5, respectively). from users’ perspectives, all others except 2 and 3 are reported by less than half of the respondents as challenges for sps. discussion despite some achievements and contribution of cf, there are many unresolved issues and challenges in all areas of capital as well as governance (timsina, 2002). providing adequate technical support in forest management, financial resource and time management are still the major challenges for sps in this cfug. sps have difficulties providing both the free service and the allowance for poor users who do not attend sps’ programmes at the expense of their daily work. with the increasing number of cfugs in the district in recent years, the available financial resources of dfo has become insufficient to provide increasing and varied types of support as demanded by the cfugs (kanel and kandel, 2004). fecofun has also limited financial resources of its own (timsina, 2002). moreover, cfug itself can’t provide allowance to participants in such programmes as they do not have sufficient fund. thus, financial resource management is one of the major challenges for sps to work in this cfug. acharya (2002) reports that shift to active forest management from the existing passive management system have been one of the major challenges in nepal’s cf. pokharel (2007) has reported that lack of technical knowledge and some policy implementation constraints have resulted in relatively ‘passive’ managements of forest. in this cfug, sps have found challenging to provide adequate technical support to cfug for active management of forest. the limited capacity of the dof for generating positions to support cfugs has become a key constraint for the implementation and consolidation of cf (springate-baginski et al., 2003). managing the time suitable to all users and sps has been a difficult task for the sps. during weekdays, sps cannot assemble most of the users (both farmers and service holders). ghimire (2005) reports that most of the ngos have the scarcity of regular staff to work in cf, thus users have to wait for a long time to get services from them. the poorest cannot afford to participate and take leadership responsibility because they are not compensated for their time (pokharel and niraula, 2004). poor and lower caste users do not fully participate in community development activities because of their daily household, agricultural work and other livelihood requirements (uprety, 2005). kafle (2005) also highlighted the lack of proper management of time in meetings and assemblies in his study area. according to paudel (2003), most of the poor and dalit in cfugs of parbat district were not able to attain all meetings and gas of their cfugs and also not able to participate in programmes organized by external organizations mainly due to time constraint. this has not only lowered the overall leadership quality of the committees but also led to a degradation of forest condition. thus, to ensure poor people’s meaningful involvement in cf process is one of the major challenges in cf of nepal (pokharel and niraula, 2004). convincing people to mobilize local resources for the benefit of the poor, dalit and marginalized groups is difficult, and transfer of power from elites to the marginalized and poorer people is really a challenging task in cf (maharjan et al., 2004). this could be due to that rich users are usually not the primary beneficiaries of poor-focussed programmes and thus they show less interest in launching them. however, in this cfug difficulties in convincing rich users for effective launching of poor-focused programmes and developing good working environment have been fig. 3.1: challenges for sps in their own and users’ perspectives (source: field study 2006), (n=42 of which cfug=30 and sp=12) paudel and vogel 23 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2paudel and vogel reduced to a greater extent. making cfug/c more accountable and fund management more transparent, leadership development in target group, and working with women and dalit still exist as challenges but to a lesser degree. kanel (2004) supports this view stating that making cfug and its committee more accountable and responsive to all users including poor, women and disadvantaged groups is one of the major challenges in cf. conclusion since their involvement, sps have been facing several challenges while working towards improving the situation of cf governance. some of them have been successfully overcome; some still exist but to a lesser extent and the some are still intensive. developing good working environment in cfug and convincing rich users for effective launching of poor-focused programmes have been successfully overcome now. making cfug and cfugc more accountable; leadership development in target group; working with women and dalit; and making fund management more transparent still exist as challenges but to a lesser degree. financial resource management, time management and providing adequate technical support in forest management are still the major challenges for sps. references acharya, k.p. 2002. twenty-four years of cf in nepal. international forestry review, 4(2): 149-56. bhatta, b. and gentle, p. 2004. strengthening the internal governance of the cfugs: experience of samarpan project. twenty-five years of community forestry: contribution in millennium development goal. kanel, k et al. (eds), proceedings of fourth national conference of community forestry, august 4-6, 2004 in kathmandu, nepal, 587. dof. 2004. commitment and roles of different stakeholder groups. in: twenty five years of community forestry: contribution in millennium development goal. kanel, k et al. (eds), proceedings of fourth national conference of community forestry, august 4-6, 2004 in kathmandu, nepal, 587. edwards, m. 2001. the rise and rise of civil society. the international development magazine, development issue, (14): 5-7. ghimire, s. 2005. performance evaluation of local non-governmental organizations’ involvement in community forestry development in kaski and ramechhap districts, nepal. bachelor thesis, tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, nepal. gurung, b.d. 2007/undated. multi-partnership approach in cf. nepal swiss community forestry project of swiss development corporation (www.sdc.org.vn/resource). accessed on 17th july 2007. kafle, k.r. 2005. an assessment of internal democracy within cfugs in baglung district, nepal. bachelor thesis, tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, nepal. kanel, k.r. 2004. twenty five years of community forestry: contribution to millennium development goals. in: twenty five years of community forestry: contribution in millennium development goal. kanel, k et al. (eds), proceedings of fourth national conference of community forestry, august 4-6, 2004 in kathmandu, nepal. 587. kanel, k.r. and kandel, b.r. 2004. community forestry in nepal: achievements and challenges. forest and livelihood, 4(1): 55-69. li-bird. 2003. local initiatives for biodiversity, research and development (li-bird). animation programme review. a study report submitted to lfp programme co-ordination office baluwatar, in september 2003, kathmandu, nepal. maharjan, m.r., acharya, b., lamichhane, r.p.; sharma, n.n., pradhan, b.r. and paudel, t.p. 2004. operationalization of good governance in community forestry: an experience from sagun programme. in: twenty-five years of community forestry: contribution in millennium development goal. kanel, k et al. (eds), proceedings of fourth national conference of community forestry, august 4-6, 2004 in kathmandu, nepal. 587. pokharel, b. and niraula, d. 2004. community forestry governance in nepal: achievements, challenges and options for the future. in: twenty five years of community forestry: contribution in millennium development goal. kanel, k et al. (eds), proceedings of fourth national conference of community forestry, august 4-6, 2004 in kathmandu, nepal. 587. 24 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 pokharel, b.k. 2007/undated. contribution of community forestry to people’s livelihoods and forest sustainability: experience from nepal. world rainforest movement. (http:// www.wrm.org.uy/countries/asia/nepal.html). accessed on 4th august 2007. paudel, a. 2003. an assessment of leadership quality and its effect on community forest management. a case study from parbat district of nepal. bachelor thesis, tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, nepal. springate-baginski, o., dev, o. p., yadav, n. p. and soussan, j. 2003. community forest management in the middle hills of nepal: the changing context. journal of forest and livelihood, 3(1): 9-20. timsina, n. 2002. empowerment or marginalization. a debate in community forestry in nepal. jounral of forest and livelihood, 27-33. timsina, n. 2003. viewing fecofun from the perspective of popular participation and representation. journal of forest and livelihood, 2 (2): 67-71. paudel and vogel cop 18 on the unfccc and nepal the 18th conference of the parties (cop) on the un framework convention on climate change (unfccc) was held at doha, qatar during 26 november –7 december 2012 to address the current climate change issues at all levels. the conference concluded with a number of decisions including the green climate fund (gcf) and additional guidance to the least developed countries’ fund. the representatives from 195 parties had taken part in the convention. on behalf of the government of nepal, the ministry of science, technology and environment had led the delegation. the conference is an important forum especially for the least developed countries like nepal. the countries shared their experiences regarding the impacts as well as adaptation and mitigation of the climate change phenomena with the global communities. the conference produced a package of documents collectively titled as ‘the doha climate gateway’ containing the decisions of the conference. the important decision was made on the amendment of the kyoto protocol (to be ratified before entering into the force) to be continued until the second commitment period running from 2013 to 2020. the governments have agreed to establish the legal instrument for smooth implementation of the protocol. the conference realized the approaches that address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change to enhance adaptive capacity. it is noted that a range of approaches, methods and tools is available to assess the risk, and to respond to loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change. during the conference, the governments have agreed to make a universal climate change agreement covering all countries until 2020, to be adopted by 2015. for the purpose, the member countries will closely work together during 2013 to prepare the new agreement and to explore further ways in reducing the emission level. as per the agreement, the governments will submit their information, views and proposals on actions and initiatives regarding the emission cut to the un climate change secretariat, by 1 march 2013. the conference decided to develop the mechanism particularly needed for the smooth implementation of technology transfer and financial support to the developing countries. the gcf is expected to start from second half of 2013 so that activities can be launched in 2014. realizing the importance of the climate technology matters, the member banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal 1 parties further decided to establish a climate technology centre (ctc) as the implementing wing of the unfcccs technology mechanism and to endorse the constitution of the ctc advisory board. climate financing was the core part of the discussion in the conference though no such exciting agreements have been made so far as expected by the least developed and developing countries. developed countries only repeated their commitment to continue long term climate finance support to developing countries as promised during the cop 17. it is expected that the member countries will work on longterm financing mechanism during 2013 to support on-going efforts as well as to scale up existing mobilization of climate finance resources. the conference was important from the forestry perspective as well since the forum was used to clarify the ways and means to measure deforestation. more importantly, the global community has assured that the efforts against deforestation and forest degradation will be supported and compensated. nepal was successful to deliver its ideas on the climate change issues of the nation including the redd+ during the conference though outcomes from the discussion were not relatively satisfactory as expected for the least developed countries like nepal. nepal is a pilot country for the implementation of reducing emission through deforestation and forest degradation (redd) program, the presence of forestry professionals and the relevant government institutions in the conference is very important. in nepal, the department of forest research and survey under the ministry of forest and soil conservation is responsible for carrying out forest resource inventory at regional and national levels. it is equally responsible for mrv (monitoring, reporting, and verification of the forest resources) component of redd+ initiative in nepal. 2 final bankojanakari vol 17-1.pmd 25 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 limited grazing land is available in upper mustang (28°47’29°19’ n and 83°28’84°15’ e) where species such as cattle, yaks, dzos, sheep, goats, horses, mules and donkey are dependent on it. according to pokharel (2006a), grazing land comprises of 55.65% of the total area of upper mustang. high speed wind continuously blows which has eroded most of the top soil leading to sparse vegetation. the rangeland is unique in the sense that despite being very dry, fragile and most part being barren; it harbours a large number of transhimalayan f lora and fauna. vegetation such as caragana spp., lonicera spp., stipa spp., carex spp. and kobresia spp. dominate most of the the pasture land. these rangelands support unique assemblage of rare and endangered species – snow leopard (uncia uncia), lynx (lynx lynx isabellinus), himalayan brown bear (ursus arctos) and grey wolf (canis lupus). himalayan wooly hare (lepus oiostolus) and himalayan marmot (marmota bobak) are the common species that are dependent on rangeland. birds like golden eagle and lammageier are commonly seen. economically majority of the population of mustang rely on agro pastoral system. however agricultural production is limited due to lack of sufficient water for irrigation and harsh climatic conditions leading to one crop per year. forage production in the agriculture land is limited and very little forage is conserved as hay for winter feeds which only sustains for one or two months or even less in some of the areas. in the pasture grazing takes place throughout the year following traditional rotational system existing in the area. information regarding the pastures in rangeland of upper mustang is very limited. till date very limited research has been conducted on the species composition and its relations with the impact of grazing (miller, 2002). researchers have identified that overgrazing in the rangelands is the main factor causing deterioration of rangelands (miller, 1996; schaller and gu, 1994; wang et al., 2002). similarly it was also found that species diversity and productivity are maintained by livestock and wildlife grazing in many highland pastures (carpenter and klein, 1995). grazers alter landscape heterogeneity (belsky, 1992; mcnaughton, 1985), rates of nutrient cycling (frank et al., 1998; ritchie and tilman, 1995), vegetation composition, and productivity (dahlberg, 2000; eccard et al., 2000; shackleton, 2000). plant diversity increases with effects of grazing on plant species diversity and above ground biomass in a transhimalayan rangeland anita pokharel1, madhu chhetri2, chiranjibi p upadhyaya3 limited information is available on the species compositon, above ground biomass and its realations to grazing in a trans-himalayan rangeland. its assessment is essential for long term conservation and management. in the present study, we compared species composition, phenology, diversity index and biomass between controlled (without grazing) and open (free grazing) plots to assess the effects of grazing in the selected experimental sites of upper mustang during july and november 2005. species encountered were classified as high, medium, low and non palatable and in three lifeform categories-grasses, shrubs and forbs. the experimental sites are dominated by forbs (80%) followed by grasses (15%) and shrubs (5%). disturbance caused by grazing affects the phenological characteristics of the plant community. result also reveals that species diversity, maximum possible diversity, evenness and species richness was higher in the grazed plots during july and november. a comparison of the aboveground biomass in july showed that mean percentage biomass of high, medium and low palatable species is higher in ungrazed plots. in november, the percentage biomass of only medium palatable species was higher in ungrazed plots and rest of the category is higher in grazed plots. significant difference in july, a peak growing seasons for most of the plant species in the region reveals that the pasture has impact of livestock grazing. keywords: biomass, diversity, grazing effect, rangeland, species 1 department of biology, texas state univeristy, san marcos-tx 2 national trust for nature conservation/ annapurna conservation area project, hariyo kharka, pokhara 3 institute of forestry, pokhara campus, pokhara 26 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 grazing in productive systems and decreases in nutrient poor areas (huston, 2004). modifications in natural grazing regimes and land use change often lead to changes in biodiversity (chapin iii et al., 1997; mooney et al., 1996; vitousek et al., 1997) and vegetation structure (eckert and spencer, 1987; noymeir, 1979, 1993; walker and noy-meir, 1982). this paper describes how regularly grazed and totally ungrazed plots vary in species composition, phenology, diversity and above ground biomass. this work is a part of the broader ongoing research on rangelands conducted during 2005 in upper mustang. materials and methods study site the research was conducted in the panga pasture of lomanthang village development committee (vdc) of upper mustang. lomanthang vdc has forty four pasture units with a total area of 257.753 sq kms (pokharel, 2006b). the altitudinal range of panga pasture is 4,000 – 5,100 m. the climate of the area can be characterized as cold desert, desiccated by strong winds and high solar radiation. the climate is sub-alpine, and had a maximum and minimum temperature of 26.8°c and 9.9°c in july and 10.7°c and 5.8 °c in november of 2005. the whole area remains under snow for 4 – 5 months from november to march. total annual rainfall is less than 200 mm. more than half of the total precipitation occurs as snow during the winter months. the area is grazed every year by a flock of about 7000 including horse, lulu cow, yak, dzos, sheep, goat, mule and donkey. in addition to this, four nomads family reside in this pasture for four months during the summer season to graze yaks, sheep and goats. vegetation sampling for assessment of the plant communities three ungrazed (controlled) plots, each of size1 m x 1m, were studied which were established during 2003 and 2004 by national trust for nature conservation upper mustang biodiversity conservation project. for comparative assessment between ungrazed and grazed plots, each open plot (1m x 1m) are spaced at 100m towards the north of controlled plot with the help of gps. from each main plot, a sub plot one in north and one in south direction of size 20x20 cm were taken for study. altogether, six subplots of ungrazed and six of grazed were studied during july and in november 2005. floristic compositon, phenelogy, indices of species diversity, richness and evenness the floristic components in the controlled and open plots were studied and types of species were identified and categorized as high, medium, low and non palatable species based on previous records (chetri and gurung, 2004). phenological characteristics of the species encountered were recorded. the shannon diversity index (h´; shannon and weiner’s, 1963), h´ = 3.3219 {n log n σni log ni} n was used to measure diversity between controlled and open plots, where n = total number of individuals of all species, and ni = total number of individuals of a species. richness was calculated as the number of species recorded (stirling and wilsey, 2001). for measuring evenness there are several indices available (ricotta and avena, 2000). in the present study, the most frequently used one; the pielou index (j´; pielou, 1975) is used. the pielou index is described as j´ = h´/h max, where h´ is the shannon diversity index and h´max is the maximum value of h´ (maximum possible diversity) in the community, if all the plant species are equally frequent. h max = 3.3219 logk, where k is the total number of type of species recorded. index of similarity gives the degree of similarity in terms of which species are present. it was calculated by applying formula given by jaccard (zobel et al.,1987): isj = (c/a+b-c) x 100 where isj = jaccard’s index of similarity, a = total number of species in one sample, b = total number of species in another sample and c = total number of common species in both samples. biomass controlled vs. open plots plant species were cut close to the ground surface, separated on the basis of palatability and collected in plastic zipper bag. fresh weight of the species based on palatability was measured on the spot with the help of digital balance (denver instrument no: 98648-012-35). unidentified species were clipped separately. a herbarium of the unidentified plant pokharel et al. 27 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 species was prepared for later identification. in order to reduce the moisture contents, the collected samples were air dried for 48 hrs and transported to institute of forestry, pokhara for dry weight measurement. the samples were oven dried at 70°c for 24 hrs for dry weight measurement and the dry biomass percentage was calculated using the formula given by zobel et al.1987 % dry biomass = dry weight/fresh weight x 100 independent sample t-test was used at p<0.05 in order to test the differences in biomass between the controlled and the open plots based on palatability. spss version 13.1 was used to analyze the data. results and discussion in the experimental plots of panga pasture of lomanthang twenty species (17 belonging to 14 families: high-7, medium2, low – 6 and non palatable – 2 and 3 unidentified species) were recorded. according to lifeform, forbs is dominating (80%) the experimental plot site followed by grasses (15%) and shrubs (5%) (annex 1). during july majority of the species were in green stage (55%) followed by dry (19%) in controlled plots and in open 78% were green followed by 8% in flowering stage. the same pasture had 99 % and 100% species in dry condition in controlled and open plots respectively in november. the findings of the present study reveal that grazing also affect the phenelogical conditions of the species in the experimental sites. july is the peak flowering season for most of the species in upper mustang (chetri et al., 2006). during july in the controlled plot majority of the species has already reach maturity during the time of data collection whereas in the open plot species are encountered in the flowering stage. in november, observations are severely hampered by early snowfall. table 1 represents plant species diversity (h´ diversity, maximum possible diversity, and evenness and species richness) in the controlled and open plots in july and november. in the open plots during july and november, h´ diversity, maximum possible diversity, evenness and species richness was higher in comparison to controlled plots. the species richness based on palatability of the species is also different; higher numbers of palatability types are in open plots (figure1). the findings of the present study are in agreement with the generalization made by mcintyre et al. (2003) and sternberg et al. (2000) that grazing increases the species diversity at small scale. but pyeyo et al. (2006) reported that the plant community structure analysis is more sensitive than the diversity indices to grazing treatments. the overlap of species in the controlled and the open as measured by jaccard’s index was 44% in july and 71% in november. the high degree of overlap indicates that the controlled and open plots share many of the same species. biomass controlled vs. open plots in july mean percentage biomass of high (74.36 ± 11.31), medium (59.38 ± 15.05) and low (73.72 ± 6.08) palatable species is higher in controlled than in open plots: high (69.35 ± 5.67), medium (35.00±7.07), low (46.25±30.16) and non palatable species (25.00±23.75) (table 2). in july, non palatable species was recorded only in open plots. however in november the percentage biomass of only medium palatable species (62.17 ± 44.07) was higher in controlled plots where as the case is just reverse for high and low palatable species. a large standard deviation shows that the measurements of the biomass are widely spread out from the mean. independent sample t-test showed a significant difference in dry biomass between the controlled and open plots in july (t = 2.681, p<0.05) but no significant difference was found in november (t = -1.067, p>0.05) (table 3). the unexpected heavy snowfall during october has affected the vegetation composition of the pastures. samples were taken after twenty one days when snow melted from the experimental sites. thus actual biomass is underestimated as majority of the forbs which are in dormant stage are decayed by the melting snow and t-test failed to detect the differences between the compared plots. compared to july less number of species are encountered in the plots (see table 1 and annex 1). heaving grazing reduces aboveground biomass, which in turn decreases rainfall interception and increases infiltration and bare soil evaporation (aguiar and sala, 1999; klausmeier, 1999). another possibility is that changes in the aboveground litter inputs cause changes in the belowground flora and fauna, which have been shown to affect plant growth (hooper et al., 2000). changes in species distribution, compositon and structure have also possible implications for wildlife due to reduced forage bimass and higher relative abundances of unpalatable species (metzger et al., 2005). local people claim that rainfall is in decreasing trend since last two decades and snowfall does not occur on the right time of the year i.e november to february (pokharel, 2006b). these factors along with weak traditional rotational grazing practices have affected most of the pastures pokharel et al. 28 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 in upper mustang. as majority of the pastures in upper mustang are dominated by annual plants, forbs and sedges timely rainfall and snowfall are the critical factors for the growth of the good quality vegetation in the rangeland. conclusion in the panga pasture of lomanthang, species diversity, maximum possible diversity, evenness and species richness were higher in the grazed plots during july and november. percentage biomass of high, medium and low palatable species is greater in controlled plots. significant difference in july, a peak growing seasons for most of the plant species in the region reveals that the pasture has impact of livestock grazing. in addition, climate also played a critical role for maintaining good quality vegetations in the rangeland. in future similar type of studies is thought essential; experimental plots sites need to be distributed at different altitude and data need to correlate with other parameters such as soil and climate in order to draw a holistic conclusion. such type of research will give a wide picture on how range productivity and plant communities respond to soil and climate properties and also the affects or benefits from livestock grazing. these informations will be helpful for the managemet and conservation of trans-himalayan rangeland. acknowledgements financial support to this study for the first author was provided by national trust for nature conservation through its upper mustang biodiversity conservation project. rangers of lomanthang unit conservation office, community members and local people are acknowledged for their support during the field study. references aguiar, m. r. and sala, o. e. 1999. patch structure, dynamics and implications for the functioning of arid ecosystems. trends in ecology & evolution 14 (7): 273-277. belsky, a. j. 1995. spatial and temporal landscape patterns in arid and semi-arid african savannas. in mosaic landscapes and ecological processes (ed), chapman & hall, new york, 31–56. carpenter, c. and klein, j. 1995. plant species diversity in relation to grazing pressure in three alpine pastures, shey phoksumdo national parks, dolpa district nepal. field report. wildlife studies program, san francisco state university. chapin iii, f. s., walker, b. h., hobbs, r. j., hooper, d. u., lawton, j. h. and sala, o. e. 1997. 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sr isj controlled 2.01 3.17 9 0.63 2.01 3.46 0.58 11 open 2.79 4.09 17 0.68 44% 2.49 3.70 0.67 13 71% note: h´= shannon diversity index; hmax = maximum possible diversity; sr=species richness; j´ = pielou index and isj = jaccard index of similarity 6 33 4 7 4 3 22 5 6 3 1 0 00 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 controlled open controlled open july november months s p ec ie s high medium low non figure1: species richness based on palatability, panga pasture, lomanthang table 2: mean percentage of dry biomass (gms) in the controlled and open plots based on palatability, panga pasture, lomanthang (numbers in parenthesis indicate standard deviations) july november palatability controlled open controlled open high 74.36 (11.31) 69.35 (5.67) 66.88 (14.07) 79.76 (9.54) medium 59.38 (15.05) 35.00 (7.07) 62.17 (44.07) 62.00 (11.31) low 73.72 (6.08) 46.25 (30.16) 59.37 (10.99) 64.7 (16.23) non 25.00 (23.75) mean total 75.11 (5.21) 64.09 (9.77) 67.10 (12.37) 74.90 (5.87) table 3: result of independent sample t-test – biomass controlled vs. open, panga pasture, lomanthang months f sig. t df sig. (2 tailed) july 11.697 0.002 2.681 22 *0.014 november 0.772 0.389 -1.067 22 0.298 note: * significant difference, p<0.05 pokharel et al. 31 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 15 annex 1. list of species recorded according to life forms, palatability and phenelogy in controlled and open plots, panga pasture, lo manthang, during july and november 2005 (numbers in parenthesis indicate frequency percentage) july 2005 november 2005 s.n. species palatability controlled open controlled open grass 1 carex spp. high green/fruiting (12.90) green/fruiting (12.20) dry (13.89) dry (11.76) 2 kobresia spp. high dry/fruiting (6.45), green (12.90) dry (4.88), green (9.76) dry (16.67) dry (17.65) 3 pennisetum spp. high green/fruiting (12.90) green (4.88) dry (16.67) dry (2.94) shrubs 4 potentilla spp. high flowering (3.23), green (6.45) flowering (2.44), green (2.44), budding (2.44) dry (5.56), green (2.78) dry (8.82) forbs 5 anaphalis spp. high flowering (4.88), green (4.88) dry (2.78) dry (8.82) 6 anaphalis triplinervis (sims) c.b. clarke high flowering (2.44), green (2.44) 7 androsace spp. low flowering (2.44), fruiting (2.44) dry (2.78) 8 bistorta spp. low green (2.44) dry (2.94) 9 cortia depressa (d. don) norman low green (2.44) 10 euphorbia stracheyi boiss. non fruiting (2.44) 11 gentiana ornata (g. don) griseb. medium flowering (6.45) 12 lancea tibetica hook. f. & thoms. low flowering (3.23), green (9.68) green (12.20) dry (11.11) dry (11.76) 13 pedicularis spp. non green (2.44) 14 potentilla plurijuga hand. mazz. high flowering (6.45), fruiting (3.23) flowering (2.44) dry (8.33) dry (5.88) 15 saussurea nepalensis sprengel medium green (6.45) green (4.88) dry (5.56) dry (5.88) 16 saxifraga spp. low fruiting (3.23), green (6.45) green (4.88) dry (2.78), green (5.56) dry (5.88) 17 thalictrum spp. low dry (2.94) 18 unidentified spp. low dry (5.56) dry (11.76) 19 unidentified spp. i low green (4.88) dry (2.94) 20 unidentified spp. ii low flowering (2.44) pokharel et al. cover 20-2 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 14 mohan and giri diversity, distribution and host range of mistletoe in protected and unprotected areas of central nepal himalayas m.p. devkota1* , g.p. joshi1 and p. parajuli1 diversity, distribution and host range of mistletoe were assessed in protected and unprotected areas of the central nepal himalayas. this study recorded ten mistletoe species. occurrence of all ten mistletoe species within the shivpuri nagarjun national park (snnp) was a clear indication that national parks provide better habitat for mistletoe species richness and thus a better opportunity for biodiversity conservation than in unprotected areas. for these mistletoes, a total of 34 host species of 21 unrelated families were documented. scurrula genus of the loranthaceae family had the hightest number of species, the highest number of host species, and the widest altitudinal distribution. variation in climatic factors, edge effect, disperser behaviour, fragmented forests and the availability of suitable host species determine the occurrence of a particular mistletoe species in a particular habitat. key words: diversity, distribution, host range, mistletoe, nepal mistletoes are a highly specialized and successful group of flowering plants that exploit and (or) parasitize a wide range of host plants. they occur over a broad range of habitats all over the world. despite their harmful effects on the host plants, mistletoes have been considered as important components of plant diversity and forest ecosystems throughout the world (kujit, 1964; hawksworth, 1983; calder, 1983; polhill and wiens 1998). despite their large geographical distribution, the old world mistletoes have been studied little. nepal is no exception to this; as a result, there is an amazing gap of knowledge on the mistletoes of nepal himalayas, a biogeographically interesting transition zone between eastern and western himalayan flora (stearn, 1960). after adding five new, previously unrecorded, mistletoe species to the flora of nepal by devkota and glatzel (2005); devkota and koirala (2005) and devkota and joshi (2008), the inventory has been enriched from fifteen to twenty species. devkota and acharya (1996) reported 46 host species of mistletoes belonging to 25 families in kathmandu valley; devkota and glatzel (2005) documented 95 host species belonging to 45 families in the annapurna region and 69 host species of 38 families were recorded by devkota and kunwar (2006) from godawari-phulchowki area of kathmandu valley in central nepal. along with host species, the climatic factors also govern the mistletoe species diversity and distribution (hawksworth, 1959; ganguly and kumar, 1976; zakaullah and khan, 1982; xiao and pu, 1988). similarly, edge effect plays a significant role in mistletoe distribution as lopez et al. (2002); kujit (1964); polhill and wiens (1998); bach et al. (2005); and devkota and glatzel (2005) have reported that fragmented marginal forests had more adult mistletoe plants than the inner forest. landscape modification and habitat fragmentation are key drivers that affect mistletoe growth and distribution (kelly et al., 2000), and the limited degree of forest fragmentation improves reproduction in endemic mistletoes (lavorel et al., 1999) by promoting invasion. kujit (1964) reported that the occurrence of some mistletoe at higher elevation is limited by environmental factors and is not related to host preference. abulfatih and emara (1988) recorded mistletoes restricted to its specific host between 2000-2400 m. unlike these observations, kujit (1969) suggested the importance of bird’s behaviour and concluded that distribution of mistletoe entirely depends upon the habits of the birds that disseminate the seeds. this study attempts to explore and compare mistletoe diversity in protected and unprotected areas 1 botany department, amrit campus, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal. * author for correspodence: mdevkota@wlink.com.np banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 15 devkota et al. in the central himalayas of nepal. the results of the study will supplement information on nepalese mistletoe diversity, host range and distribution. as a spin-off, by documenting of mistletoes in the threatened ecosystems of central region of nepal, a biodiversity hotspot, the study will greatly contribute to the conservation of mistletoes. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in two national parks: langtang national park (lnp) and shivpuri nagarjun national park (snnp) in the central nepal himalayas. both parks provide a great diversity of vegetation types ranging from hot sub-tropical to sub-alpine, with changes in elevation and climate on the northern and southern slopes of the great mahabharat mountain range. snnp (159 km2) is situated at the northern boundary of the kathmandu valley and lies in the transition zone between subtropical and temperate climates. depending on altitude and aspect, the vegetation consists of a variety of natural forest types including pine, oak, and rhododendron. the southern slopes of snnp consists of schima-castanopsis forest and pinus wallichiana forest below 1800 m, whereas alnus nepalensis is the prevalent tree species along the streams. at higher elevations, various species of oaks and rhododendron dominate the vegetation. lnp (1710 km2) represents a meeting point between indo-malayan and paleartic realms. elevational gradient (ranging from mid hills to alpine) coupled with complex topography and geology have produced a rich biodiversity and a unique patchwork of vegetation. sub-tropical vegetation is characterized by dominant tree species, shorea robusta, under dipterocarpaceae family on the southern flank of the park which is gradually replaced by the hill forest (2000–2600 m) consisting of pinus roxburghii, rhododendron arboreum, schima-castanopsis and alnus nepalensis. the temperate zone (2600–3000 m) is dominated by oak forest (quercus semecarpifolia) fading to old growth forest of tsuga dumosa, abies spectabilis, betula utilis, juniperus indica, j. recurva and larix himalaica in the lower sub-alpine zone (3000–3600 m). further up, the vegetation is dominated by thickets and shrubs consisting of betula utilis and r. campanulatum. the explored area outside protected area lies between two national parks starting from magingoth (3220 m) and passing through kutumsang (2470 m), gulbhajyang (2130 m) and ending at chisapani (2215 m) (fig 1). this segment of trekking route passes through settlements and agriculture land with extensive farming practices. mistletoe inventory a mistletoe inventory was carried out along the trekking route starting at dhunche of lnp and ending at sundarijal of snnp passing through great altitudinal variation and different vegetation types (fig. 1). mistletoes were explored for ten days in april 2007. representative areas of various forest types and habitats were visited along the trekking route to uncover mistletoe diversity and host species within the protected and unprotected areas. forest trails developed by local people were used to explore a maximum possible area, representing different forest types at different elevations. undisturbed to moderately disturbed forests and degraded marginal forests along with community forests, orchards and vegetations surrounding agricultural fields were also explored. occurrence of all mistletoe species with their respective hosts were recorded along with the ecological features of habitat such as altitude, slope direction, availability of light and moisture, forest type, and phenology during the inventory. standard sized mistletoe specimens were collected carefully without endangering their local population, fig 1: study area showing two national parks and survey route banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 16 devkota et al. and herbaria were prepared. collected mistletoe specimens and host species were identified with the help of herbaria deposited at national herbarium at kathmandu and confirmed with the help of field notes and other standard literature (hara et al., 1978, 1979, 1982; malla et al., 1976; koba et al., 1994; press et al., 2000). the international plant name index (http://www.ipni.org) was accessed for the taxonomic nomenclature of mistletoe and host species. results and discussion mistletoe diversity and host range a total of ten mistletoe species, eight belonging to five genera in the family loranthaceae (macrosolen, taxillus, helixanthera, scurrula, and loranthus) and two belonging to one genus in the family viscaceae (viscum) were recorded in the study area. these ten mistletoe species were parasitizing 34 host plants belonging to 28 genera of 21 unrelated host families (table 1). protected areas revealed higher mistletoe species diversity than the unprotected areas. highest mistletoe species diversity was found in snnp as all ten mistletoe species were recorded in a smaller national park than lnp (fig 2). only five mistletoe species were recorded along the trekking route between dhunche to magingoth within lnp. this number was higher than the species number reported in the flora of langtang (malla et al., 1976). surprisingly, six mistletoe species, higher than in lnp, were recorded along the trekking route passing through the settlements and agriculture fields between kutumsang and chisapani in the unprotected area. similar to the previous studies in nepal by devkota and acharya (1996), devkota and glatzel (2005), and devkota and kunwar (2006), the genus scurrula (loranthaceae) had the largest number of species: s. elata, s. pulverulenta, s. gracilifolia and s. parasitica. scurrula genus was more aggressive than other genera in parasitizing a wide range of host plants of taxonomically unrelated families. scurrula elata parasitized the highest number of 22 host plants (fig 3). the loranthaceae family was found parasitizing on a much wider range of host species than the viscaceae family. a rare occurrence of s. elata was found parasitizing a gymnosperm host, pinus wallichiana; similarly, a case of hyperparasitism of s. gracilifolia was found on s. parasitica. distribution patterns the distribution of mistletoe species did not demonstrate any uniformity because it was governed by multiple factors such as forest disturbance, climatic factors (light, temperature, and moisture), abundance and availability of dispersers and host species. localized distribution pattern of mistletoes in warm and sunny slopes, forest edges and all along the trekking route was found to be similar to earlier reports in nepal by devkota and acharya, 1996; devkota and glatzel, 2005; devkota and kunwar, 2006. these observations are also similar to those of lavorel et al. (1999), kelly et al. (2000) and bach et al. (2005) who noted that marginal and fragmented forests not only provide better habitats for mistletoes but also promote invasion such habitats by mistletoes. occurrences of many mistletoe species in open and warm habitats along all the trekking routes was also found to be suitable habitats for mistletoe birds and for dispersal by them as in new zealand (ladley and kelley, 1996) and in kathmandu valley (devkota and acharya, 1996). climatic factors were found to be important in determining mistletoe distribution in fig 3: host number of each mistletoe species fig 2: number of mistletoe species banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 17 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2devkota et al. table 1: recorded host list of all mistletoe species family host species mistletoe species mc tv lo hi sg spa spu se va var no. anacardiaceae rhus javanica l. * 1 berberidaceae berberis asiatica roxb. ex dc * 1 betulaceae alnus nepalensis d. don * 1 caprifoliaceae viburnum erubescens wall. * * * 3 cornaceae benthamedia capitata (wallich) hara * 1 ericaceae gaultheria fragrantissima wall. * * * * 4 lyonia ovalifolia hort * 1 rhododendron arboreum sm. * * 2 fagaceae castanopsis tribuloides (sm.) a. dc. * 1 quercus lanata sm. * 1 quercus glauca thunb. * * 2 quercus semecarpifolia sm. * * 2 juglandaceae juglans regia l. * 1 labiateae leucoseptrum canum sm. * 1 loranthaceae scurrula parasitica l. * 1 meliaceae melia azederach l. * 1 moraceae ficus bengalensis l. * 1 myricaceae myrica esculenta buch.-ham.ex d. don * 1 myrsinaceae maesa chisia d. don * * 2 myrsine semiserrata wall. * * 2 myrsine capitellata wall. * 1 oleaceae ligustrum nepalense wall. * * * * 4 pinaceae pinus wallichiana a. b. jackson * 1 rosaceae prunus cerasoides d. don * 1 prunus cornuta (wall. ex royle) steud. * 1 prunus domestica (l.) schneid * 1 prunus persica (l.) batsch * * 2 pyrancantha crenulata (d. don) roem * 1 pyrus pashia buch.-ham. ex d. don * * * * 4 rutaceae citrus limon (l.) burm. f. * 1 zanthoxylum armatum dc. * * 2 salicaceae salix sp. * 1 symplocaceae symplocos ramosissima wall. * * 2 theaceae schima wallichii choisy * * 2 total number of parasitized host plants 1 2 1 7 6 9 2 22 2 2 mc: macrosolen cochinchinensis, tv: taxillus vestitus, lo: loranthus odoratus, hi: helixanthera ligustrina sg: scurrula gracilifolia, spa: scurrula parasitica, spu: scurrula pulverulenta, se: scurrula elata, va: viscum album, var: viscum articulatum, no: number of host species banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 18 devkota et al. undisturbed by human interferences because of their relative inaccessibility. therefore, two reasons for less mistletoe species diversity in lnp maybe due to: 1) domination of conifer vegetation at higher elevation, providing less opportunity for loranthaceae mistletoe to establish, and 2) little vegetation at higher elevation and extremely cold climatic condition, unsuitable for mistletoe and their avian dispersers. occurrence of higher number of mistletoe species (six) in unprotected area suggests that even the habitats outside the protected area can prove to be favourable mistletoe habitats. the trekking route between magingoth and chisapani traverses through unprotected area, passing through fragmented forest, orchards and the vegetation surrounding the agricultural fields. these human altered landscapes provide a suitable habitat for mistletoes to establish in such open habitats as per observations by kujit, 1964; calvin and wilson, 1998; lopez de buen et al., 2002. no habitats particularly rich in mistletoe diversity were found in either national parks. some areas dominated by broadleaved forest in the warmer southern slopes of snnp below 2500 m elevation sheltered habitats better suited for mistletoe establishment and growth. nepal’s forests are facing severe stress due to the ever increasing demand for agricultural land, timber, fuelwood and fodder, and settlements. deforestation and land degradation are serious problems in both protected and unprotected areas, and are thus major threats to mistletoe diversity. both national parks were facing severe problems of timber harvest, fuelwood and fodder collection and encroachment of forest area for agricultural land. increasing population has demanded new agricultural land and the increasing number of tourist have generated high demand for fuelwood in lnp for heating and cooking purpose. conclusion altogether ten mistletoe species were recorded along the trekking route within the protected and unprotected areas in the central nepal himalayas. despite being much smaller than langtang national park, shivpuri nagarjun national park displayed higher mistletoe species diversity as all ten mistletoe species were recorded there. s. elata demonstrated snnp as many species were noticed on warm and sunny southern slopes of snnp dominated by broadleaved forest below 2500 m. compared to viscaceae, loranthaceae mistletoes demonstrated a wider altitudinal distribution (fig. 4) similar to the observation noted in annapurna area of central nepal by devkota and glatzel, 2005. s. elata was recorded over a wider vertical swath of about 1 km favoured by its widest host range. the distribution pattern of scurrula species in the study area revealed an identical pattern of distribution of scurrula species in annapurna conservation area (devkota and glatzel, 2005). s. elata did not occur over 2800 m, a habitat usually considered inhospitable to their avian dispersers. devkota and glatzel (2005) reported that cold and moist habitats above 3000 m in nepal are generally considered unsuitable for mistletoe as such habitats are also avoided by mistletoe birds. all ten mistletoe species were recorded in snnp compared to only five species in lnp because snnp is in the transition zone between sub-tropical and temperate vegetation zones and thus provides a wider range of hosts in a variety of habitats. snnp also had more fragmented open canopy forests due to various anthropogenic disturbances and this wide variety of habitats favoured the growth of mistletoe according to similar observations of lavorel et al. (1999) and bach et al. (2005) in australia and kelly et al. (2000) in new zealand. despite a wider climatic variation and vegetation composition ranging from sub-tropical to sub-alpine in lnp, the record of mistletoe species was less than snnp. taxillus vestitus, scurrula elata, s. gracilifolia, s. parasitica and viscum articulatum were the only five mistletoe species recorded in lnp. the reason for less mistletoe species diversity in lnp was due to intact vegetation in most areas of lnp that are fig 4: altitudinal distribution pattern of mistletoe species banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 19 devkota et al. both higher number of host species and a wider altitudinal distribution range. distribution of mistletoe species was affected by climatic factors, forest edge, forest fragmentation, availability of suitable host species and behaviour of avian dispersers. three species of mistletoes, previously unrecorded, have been added to the flora of langtang by this study. no specific habitats particularly rich in mistletoe diversity were identified in both the national parks, and it was observed that deforestation and land degradation were the major threats to mistletoe diversity in the study area. acknowledgement the university grants commission, kathmandu is duly acknowledged for supporting the study. references abulfatih, h. a., and emara. h. a. 1988. altitudinal distribution of the hemiparasitic loranthaceae in south western saudi arabia. biotropica 20: 81-83. bach, c. e., kelly, d. and hazlett, b. a. 2005. forest edges benefit adults, but not seedlings, of the mistletoe alepis flavida (loranthaceae). journal of ecology 93: 79-86. calder, m. 1983. mistletoes in focus: an introduction. in the biology of mistletoes, (eds.) calder, m. and bernhardt, p., academic press, sydney, australia, 1-18. calvin, c. and wilson, c. 1998. comparative morphology of haustoria within african loranthaceae. in mistletoes of africa (eds) polhill, r. and weins d. the royal botanical garden, kew, london, uk, 17-36. devkota, m. p. and acharya, n. 1996. 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l. h. j. 1978. an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal. vol i british museum (natural history), london, u.k. hara, h. l. and williams, h. j. 1979. an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal.vol ii british museum (natural history), vol. ii., london, u.k. hara, h., charter, a. o., and williams, l. h. j. 1982. an enumeration of flowering plants of nepal. british museum (natural history), london, u.k. hawksworth, f. g. 1959. distribution of dwarf mistletoes in relation to topography on the mesacalaro apache reservation. new mexico. journal of forestry 57: 919-922. hawksworth, f. g. 1983. mistletoes as forest parasites. in the biology of mistletoes (eds) calder, m. and bernhardt, p., academic press. sydney, australia, 317-333. kelly, d., ladley j. j., robertson, a.w. and norton, d. a. 2000. limited forest fragmentation improves reproduction in the declining new zealand mistletoe peraxilla tetrapetala (loranthaceae). in genetics, demography and viability of fragmented population (eds) young, a.g. and clarke, g.), cambridge university press, cambridge, u.k., 241-252. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 20 devkota et al. koba, h. akiyama, s., endo ,y. and ohba, h. 1994. name list of the flowering plants and gymnosperms of nepal. the university museum, the university of tokyo, tokyo, japan. kujit, j. 1964. critical observation on the parasitism of new world mistletoes. canadian journal of botany 42: 1243-1287. kujit, j. 1969. the biology of parasitic flowering plants. university california press. los angeles, usa. ladley, j. j. and kelley, d. 1996. dispersal, germination and survival of new zealand mistletoes (loranthaceae): dependence on birds. new zealand journal of ecology 20 (1): 69-79. lavorel, s., smith, m. s. and reid, n. 1999. spread of mistletoes (amyema preissii) in fragmented australian woodlands: a simulation study. landscape ecology 14: 147–160. lopez de buen, l., ornelas, j. f., and garcia franco, j. g. 2002. mistletoe infection of trees located at fragmented forest edges in the cloud forests of central veracruz, mexico. forest ecology and management 164: 293-302. malla, s. b., shrestha, a. b., rajbhandary, s.b., shrestha, t. b., adhikari, p.m. and adhikari, s.r. 1976. flora of langtang and cross section vegetation survey, department of medicinal plants, hmg/n. kathmandu, nepal. polhill, r., and wiens, d. 1998 (eds.). mistletoes of africa. the royal botanic garden, kew, london, u.k. press, j. r., shrestha, k. k., and sutton, d. a. 2000. annotated checklist of the flowering plants of nepal. the natural history museum, london, u.k. stearn, w. t. 1960. allium and milula in the central and eastern nepal himalaya. bulletin of the british museum, natural history (botany) 2: 159-191. xiao, l., and pu, z. 1988. an exploration of the loranthaceae in xishuanghanna. acta botanica yunnanica 10: 69-78. zakaullah, m. and khan, h. 1982. survey and control of mistletoes in pakistan. pakistan forest institute, annual technical report. project pkfs-55.11, peshawar, pakistan. corrected bankojanakari vol 18-1.pmd 18 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 commercial utilization of allo (girardinia diversifolia) by the rais of sankhuwasabha for income generation tanka p barakoti1 and keshav p shrestha2 studies carried out during 1999 and 2000 on utilization of allo (girardinia diversifolia l.) in the eastern hills revealed that traditional knowledge was highly used in developing commercial enterprise of this species. surveys conducted on various aspects of this species through semi-structured interview identified that allo has become an established income generating commodity in bala, sisuwa, tamku and mangtewa vdcs of sankhuwasabha district. time line showed that allo activities were started by kulung rais from 1950, but increased after 1993. the community started to make fancy items, such as varieties of bags, jewellery purse to travel bags, coat cloth, and ladies items-shawl, brassier, when the outsiders took interest in allo products. dyeing was also practiced according to customers’ demand using local plants: majitho, banmara, chutro, dar. for spinning, bamboo made hand spindle called katuwa was used (94.8 % respondents). it is handy and easy to spin thread while walking. weaving was done in locally made wooden handloom. traditional processing method adopted was: green loktadrying (2-3 days), boiling with wood ash, washing, drying, dry fibremixing with micaceous clay (kamero). wood ash was used to boil easily (39 %) and also make the fibre soft (20.8 %). no idea about the use of caustic soda instead of ash. the quantity of ash for one dharni (2.5 kg) of lokta varied 4-24 manas (1 mana equals about 300g). white clay was used @ 2 kg for 2.5 kg dry lokta to make the fibre soft and easy for spinning (62.3 %). keywords: allo, enterprise development,indigenous knowledge, rai, sankhuwasabha. the himalayan giant nettle, girardinia diversifolia (friis, 1981), which belongs to the family urticaceae, is locally known as allo in nepali in the eastern and central regions, and puwa in the western part of nepal. there are several vernaculars to name it: bhangre sisnu, lekhko sisnu, thulo sisnu, potale, nagai etc (gurung, 1988). endemic to himalayan region, it is one of the historically important nontimber forest products (ntfps) for nepal. it grows in the hill districts from east to west between the altitudes of 1200 to 3000 meter and can be found in the tropical areas of asia and africa (friis, 1981, shrestha and hoshion, 1998). its fibre was previously used for weaving coarse cloths to make dhokro (long sack) for putting grains and flour, fishing net, bag, namlo (porter’s head band for carrying doko, dhokro), damlo (rope for tying cattle, buffalo, goat), bhangre topi (cap, hat), etc since generations. use of allo fibre had been declining before coming jute, synthetic and other products in the hills. there is a popular proverb in nepali “bhangra ko topi lai guyenli ko phool” means good flower on rough cap, i.e. odd or not matching. allo is an under-shrub about 1.5m to 4m tall, armed with stinging hairs. it naturally occurs in forests. the species prefers sparsely shade areas. as a result of increasing pressure of population, its availability is declining, especially at lower altitudes due to destruction of habitat. in sangkhuwasabha, natural stands are found beyond the normal area of the villages, in remote jungles. according to sinha (1989) declining trend of allo in the nearby areas for collection suggests need of planting to meet the increasing demand. as the species is shade loving, cultivation could be combined as an under-storey crop (singh and shrestha, 1989). in the eastern hills, sankhuwasabha district is well known for allo product. rais are famous for weaving allo cloths (joshi et al, 1989). shrestha (1994) reported that 95 percent out of 1029 families in four vdcs were using yarn spun from allo. they have been extracting bast and spinning fibre to weave fashionable bags, sacks, mats, jackets, porter’s headbands, cloths and castanets. most items are made 1 senior scientist (s-4), narc, ars pakhribas, dhankuta. 2 technical officer, narc, ars pakhribas, dhankuta. 19 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 allo activities in different years y e a rs 0 5 10 15 years percent for home use and are sold in melas, bazaars at dingla and bhojpur (dunsmore and dunsmore, 2000). the fashionable items have attracted the tourists and gained popularity. changing circumstances led higher demand of fashionable products of allo. hence the residents of sangkhuwasabha started to harvest it extensively for weaving different materials to fulfil outsiders/ tourists’ demand. as a result, natural stands have been declining despite the rules and regulation of the forest user groups, as they open for harvesting only from september to december (shrestha, 2000). the users have been applying local knowledge and implements for processing bast, for spinning and weaving. there is little information on ethno-botany, processing, weaving, marketing, and domestication practices. therefore identification of the existing situation needed for better planning research and development works, for management and sustainable utilization to meet the increasing demand. in order to make better of the allo business in a sustainable way, to identify the practices, constraints and opportunities through a study, surveys were planned with the following objectives in the proposed area. to understand the existing situation of allo works and its utilization to verify farmers’ knowledge on the allo growing environment to assess local processing techniques and materials for further improvement materials of methods the study on allo was conducted through the review of literature and field survey. the literatures available in the concerned libraries of different organizations in pakhribas, sankhuwasabha and kirtipur were consulted. for field study, an exploratory visit of a multidisciplinary team of socio-economist, agronomist, farming system specialist, soil scientist, cottage development specialist, entomologist, and plant pathologist was organized to allo areas in northern hills of sankhuwasabha district in 1999. as recommended by the team, a semi-structured questionnaire was developed and pre-tested. then surveys were conducted in 1999 and 2000 with 77 informants of bala, sisuwa, tamku, and mangtewa vdcs. these sites were selected based on the literature and information acquired. studies were undertaken on various aspects of allo: habitat, types, availability, agro-eco-requirements, socio-economy, cultural value, ratio of green and dry lokta, processing procedure, spinning, weaving, production of different products, use and marketing. the data were analyzed in the spss (statistical package for social science) computer soft ware package. result socio-economic value it was revealed that girardinia diversifolia has economic and cultural values for rai, gurung, sherpa, magar in the hills of nepal. kulung rais use it in their religious ceremonies. they offer allo cloth to god in their nagi puja. they have to wear bhangra cloth at the entry of new house, and upon demise of a family member. they also present cloth when the daughter gets married. allo has other values: it is a source of livestock feed, bedding material, fuel-wood (gibbon et al, 1988) and live fence. manandhar (1989) reported that decoction from leaf is used to treat headache, joints, and fever. it can be used for making blue dye and paper. the seed containing 10-12% oil could be used for soap and other oil based industries (dunsmore and dunsmore, 2000). time line of allo works in the study area utilization of allo was since generation in nepal from the early stage of nepalese civilization. however, the history of allo works was as early as 2007 bs in the study area i.e. from the advent of democracy. different informants had started the work at different years (table 1). few of them (4 persons) started earlier (2007-2023 bs), some of them (21 persons) during 2024-2040, and most of them (51 persons) started during 2041-2057, the maximum reached in 2050 b.s. the frequency/ percent showed no definite trend of allo works in the years (fig. 1). figure 1: allo work started by the respondents availability and growing allo is known to grow naturally in the middle and high hills partly from east to the west of nepal. it can be grown up to 3000 m above sea level however, barakoti and shrestha 20 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 green lokta collected from forest dry lokta purchased thread purchased more than one of above frequency percent it occurs beneath the forest canopy, mostly between 1500-2500m. its availability has been declining with the increasing pressure of population especially at lower altitudes due to the need for tree cover. in sankhuwasabha, natural stands found in forests are beyond the normal area around villages. in the remoter villages at higher altitudes it is available within day’s walking distance. habitat: altitude, aspect and soil allo is found from mid hills (1400m) and high hills (up to 2500m) areas. the study site lying between this ranges housed different pockets of allo from thin to dense populations. the natural stands are found commonly grown in relatively moist and shady land, which seems suitable habitat. the pockets located in the community forests of the study area represent it. allo is therefore available in many parts however, this forest species as a major ntfp is not utilized in other areas like in the study area. most of the respondents (80.6%) reported that the best altitude for allo is mid belt of mid to high hills (table 1). about 15 % mentioned mid altitude and its top region (2500m) to be suitable, but they were not confident about the exact altitude. similarly, the suitable aspect for allo mentioned by 48.7 per cent informants (table 2) was west followed by the east (17%). some informal respondents told north facing also to be suitable. as the aspects for allo vary in other parts of the country, the respondents might have depended just on their locality. therefore it is difficult to rely on this information only. study of the aspect in other parts will give clearer picture in this regard. in case of soil type, black and fertile soil is the prerequisite. above 93 % interviewees (table 2) expressed the need of black fertile soil, which must be deep and well drained. brown soil is also okay. similarly, bank of streamlets is good for better growth. collection of bark (bast) bast is collected from the community forests of each vdc in the study area. bast collection has become a regular business and this activity is carried in organized manner. members of the fugs and vdcs are confined to the concerned community forest for harvesting of allo. for example, farmers of bala vdc use turni, chhinka villages, and mudhe and benchhong villages use chitre forest. best time for harvesting is november to december. collection rule of fug has been recently adopted. one user should pay ncrs. 15 for a coupon to bring a bhari (about 30-40 kg) load on back from that community forest. the users have to pay double (nrs. 30) per coupon to use other’s community forest. extraction of bark or lokta from the stem is very tedious and time consuming job. it is hard due to nettle stings in the bark, so thick and hard glove required for warping. the extractors have to spend 3-5 nights in the allo forest and one can extract 1.5 (= 3 kg) to 3 dharni per day. females are also involved in this work. 44.2% informants expressed that they not only collect but also buy dry lokta and threads among each other (figure 2). of the respondents, 42.6% collect green lokta or bast from the forest. only 9.1% purchase yarn for making clothes. table-1: altitude, aspect, and soil for allo. altitude aspect soil description frequency % name frequency % type frequency % around 2000 m 32 41.6 west 37 48.7 blackish 59 76.6 1700-2500 m 30 39.0 east 13 17.1 fertile black 13 16.9 1100-1700 m 8 10.4 not known 9 11.8 not known 5 6.5 not known 4 5.2 north 6 7.9 around 1700 m 3 3.9 north-east 6 7.9 north-west 5 6.6 total 77 100 total 76 100 total 77 100 figure 2: source of materials used to produce yarn. barakoti and shrestha 21 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 figure 3: time to reach allo pockets from the houses of the respondents shade requirements allo is a shade loving plant. it can tolerate frost, but may die if frost remains more than 3-4 days. out of 77 interviewees, 50.6% mentioned that allo requires maximum shade, and 31.2% mentioned optimum requirement (figure 4). about 16 pols = 2.54 kg. the variation might be mainly due to maturity of allo stem, and time of collection. processing the villagers/ weavers have been using traditional methods for processing allo fibre. it follows a number of steps such as drying green lokta, boiling, washing, drying, mixing with kamero mato etc. they also mix wood ashes with raw bast while boiling in water. caustic soda is rarely used. out of 77 respondents only one used caustic soda. while querying the reason, 84.4% replied that its use is unknown (table 3), 13% mentioned that caustic soda is not available. the green lokta is dried for 2-3 days during sunny day before boiling. use of wood ash ash is the major processing material for cooking lokta. it is produced from fuel-wood, while cooking food and other product. as the population pressure has been resulting in degradation of the community forest, the quantity of wood ashes required for boiling raw fibre was assessed to examine future sustainability on this product. all the informants anonymously expressed that there was no problem of fuel wood for ash making at present. the result presented in table 3 shows various reasons of using ashes, of which most (39%) replied that it helps to make easy for boiling, whereas 20.8% said easily to boil as well as make jakhilma soft for spinning. it also eases to wash the yarn. it requires more ashes taking longer time for boiling. the quantity of ash required for boiling one dharni of dry lokta was 2 to 24 mana (table 3), where 38.4% respondents noted 16 mana, and 24.7% respondents noted 8 mana (one mana is about 250g). the extreme differences need to practically verify. respondents were asked for the time taken to reach allo growing areas for collection. 39.5% needed more than 4 hrs.,whereas 24% requires 1-2 hrs to reach in the allo pockets (figure 3). figure 4: shade requirement for allo ratio of lokta, fibre and thread the ratio or proportion of dry bark (lokta) from green was different as reported by the respondents. the ratio between jakhilma (fibre) and bast as well as between thread and jakhilma is presented (table 2). the farmers use their traditional measuring system, i.e. dharni and pol, where one dharni equals table 2: ratio of lokta, jakhilma, and thread from one dharni (2.5 kg) dry lokta from 2.5 kg green lokta jakhilma from 2.5 kg dry lokta thread from 2.5 kg jakhilma ratio freq. % ratio freq. % ratio freq. % 11 24 31.6 16 39 51.3 8 27 36.5 16 21 27.6 8 26 34.2 16 26 35.1 8 17 22.4 11 3 3.9 24 10 13.5 5 8 10.5 4 2 2.6 4 6 8.1 6 4 5.3 14 2 2.6 11 4 5.4 4 1 1.3 24 2 2.6 26 1 1.4 10 1 1.3 9 1 1.3 total 74 100 total 76 100 26 1 1.3 mean 14.8 barakoti and shrestha 14% 31%51% 4% lesser optimum maximum not required 24% 11% 8% 13% 39% 5% 1-2 hrs 1-3 hrs 2-3 hrs 2-4 hrs > 4 hrs not collecting 22 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 use of kamero mato (micaceous clay) the farmers use kamero to make the fibre soft and easier for spinning. it also gives the thread white in colour. the 62.3% respondents told both purpose of using kamero. quantity of kamero used for one dharni of dry lokta also varied from 2 to 16 mana, however the mean is about 9 mana. the result is presented in table 4. table 4: proportion of kamero for one dharni of dry lokta in mana spinning women are traditionally involved in spinning using lightweight hand spindles (called katuwa in nepali and wasnam in rai language) by their men folk. these are about 30-40 cm long, the shaft is usually made of bamboo and the whorl carved from bone or wood. 94.8% of respondents used hand spindle. only about 5% know about other spinning devices. such hand spindle is slower than spinning on a wheel device. reason for preferring local spindle katuwa was also assessed. it was understood that majority people prefer katuwa because it is easy for spinning whilst carrying out other work (table 5). dyeing the allo product makers of the study area have been gradually skilled and commercialized. they produce items according to the client demand. so some of them started to dye the thread and weave fashionable materials. in response to the query, 26.7% farmers found practicing to dye thread and cloths, while others still had not practiced at all. dyeing of yarn is done with different plant products for making different colours. the locally available plants are banmara to make light green or grey colour, majitho for red, dar for brown and dudhilo to make light yellow colour. dyes are prepared using bark and/or leaf of these plants with different proportion of copper sulphate, ferrous sulphate and potassium dichromate, which were made available by an ngo, eco-himal during training. proportion frequency percent 1 1 1.4 2 8 10.8 3 2 2.7 4 15 20.3 5 9 12.2 6 2 2.7 7 1 1.4 8 19 25.7 10 4 5.4 12 1 1.4 16 8 10.8 table 3: using ash for boiling dry lokta and quantity of ash required for 2.5 kg lokta. reason of ash use frequency % ash (mana) frequency % to cook easily 30 39.0 10 21 28.8 to cook easily and make jakhilma soft 16 20.8 7 4 5.4 to make jakhilma soft 9 11.7 4 9 12.3 it is traditional system 7 9.1 12 5 6.8 it is readily available 5 6.5 24 6 8.2 readily available and traditional 4 5.2 16 28 38.4 cook easily, make jakhilma soft & white 4 5.2 it makes thread white 2 2.6 total 77 100 total 73 100 the quality and color of fiber depends upon growing environment in the natural habitat. dyeing for whitening of fibre is not necessary if allo is grown under shady and moist places. washing and cleaning is also easier. from sunny areas, lokta fibre looks blackish in color and is difficult for washing. but the cloth from its yarn is strong. lokta can be extracted up to the tip of the stem, but the fiber from upper part is weak. table 5: reasons for preferring hand spindle by farmers reasons frequency % it can be used while walking and shepherding 56 74.7 it is traditional and no idea about other 13 17.3 it makes better quality of thread 3 4.0 it can be used while walking, shepherding and makes quality thread 2 2.7 it can be used while walking, shepherding and no idea about other 1 1.3 total 75 100 barakoti and shrestha 23 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 weaving and knitting weaving is done in locally made wooden handloom. one can weave 2-2.5 m of cloth per day if everything is ready. knitting is being popular due to its high demand. hand knitting of shawls, vests and other items by women found while walking for their farm work and by school girls while they go to and come from the school. marketing marketing of allo products is generally done as per demand locally in the country and from abroad. some products are exported to foreign country like uk, germany and usa etc. for the knitted products like shawls, vests and others have markets in other countries. marketing of products from the study area done through allo club and co-operatives formed in the villages. eco-himal and other ngos had supported the farmers of benchhong buying allo products and timely giving the payment. price of allo cloth in the club and co-operative was nrs. 160-200 per meter. the thread is marketed locally at rs. 600-800 per dharni based on quality and location. fine thread costs higher. a lorry of thread costs rs. 5 to 10 based on the size. one shawl costs nrs. 400-600 as per quality and size. conclusion and recommendations allo works traditionally started to fulfill the household needs around 1950 has gradually transferred into commercial enterprise after 1984. the exploitation rate of allo in the study area has been affecting availability and sustainability of raw material in the natural habitat. the situation indicates need of sustainable management through domestication and proper harvesting technique. need of introducing cost effective processing techniques and improved spinning and weaving methods have been realized. allo has become a major raw material for cottage industry in the remote areas like bala, sisuwa, tamku, mangtewa, yaphu vdcs of sankhuwasabha district. it grows naturally and can grow in upper mid to lower belt of high hills (1200 to 3000 m) having partial shade, black fertile soil, west and east aspects. there is gradual decline of allo production in areas, where over-harvested without considering regeneration. the situation is alarming/ demanding for sustainable harvesting and cultivation in the study area. extraction of bast and its processing method for quality yarn and thread is difficult, tedious, labor intensive and has low profit margin for the farmers. despite this, different products are sold in local bazaar, mela and to the buyers of kathmandu in reasonable prices. the users applied local skill and materials for processing, spinning and weaving. there is need of improved processing technique for cost effective and environmental points of views. traditional knowledge applied for income generation by the rais seems to disseminate in other parts of the country. exploring marketing channels of overseas markets for fashionable products is necessary to sustain the enterprise and enhance income generation. research and development works should focus on domestication, cultivation, regeneration and sustainable harvesting along with appropriate processing and spinning techniques for better utilization of allo. research in this line is being continued by ars pakhribas. supporting partners and stakeholders are welcomed. indications of declining availability in the natural forests and increasing distances and time needed for collection in the study area suggest that allo planting will be necessary to meet the rising demand. as allo cultivation may be combined with community forestry programs as an under-storey crop, we recommend the following research: • identify different types/ varieties of allo plant and fibre yields. • need to know the effects of various growing conditions and harvesting practices on fibre quality and quantity, so that optimum conditions can be employed • need to investigate ways in which allo might usefully find a places within existing farming and forestry system. harvesting/ fibre extraction, processing and spinning techniques are still traditional. it is tedious, labour intensive, health hazardous, requires more fuel and affect on forest and soil degradation. therefore appropriate technology for these purpose needs to be investigated so as to overcome the problems and increase the income generation of the rural communities residing in the remote villages of northern hills of nepal. barakoti and shrestha 24 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 1 there is not assured market of produces. sometime farmers get pay back of their produces even after nine months. according to exporter based at kathmandu, there is big demand of allo product that was never fulfilled. it seems that there is problem of appropriate marketing channels, and intermediates need to be identified for strengthening marketing system. references dunsmore, jr (1987). crafts, cash and conservation in highland nepal. community development journal 33, 1, 49-56. dunsmore, jr (1987). khardep. rural development in the hills of nepal. land resource study 36. london: lrdc/ overseas development administration. dunsmore, jr and dunsmore s (2000). identification of potential opportunity for income generation through himalayan nettle. preliminary draft report. dunsmore, s (1985). the nettle in nepal: a cottage industry. london: land resources development centre. dunsmore, s (1993). nepalese textiles. london: british museum press. friis, i (1981). a synopsis of girardinia (urticaceae), kew bulletin. 36(1), 143-157. gibbon, d, joshi yr, sharan kc, schultz m, thapa mb and upadhayay mp (1988). a study of the agricultural potential of chheskam panchayat. pakhribas agriculture centre. dhankuta. gurung, gv (1988). gtz/dddp allo (girardinia diversifolia) consultancy. field survey report. harberli, c (1984). allo (himalayan nettle). small scale and cottage industr y sector, technical report, charikot: integrated hill development project. joshi, yr, neupane rk, mainali mp and gurung gb (1989). feasibility of allo production in bala and sisuwakhola panchayat. pakhribas agriculture centre. dhankuta. manandhar, np (1989). useful wild plants of nepal. stuttgart: franz steiner verlag wiesbaden gmbh. rensburg, l van (1987). journey to the land of nettle and the rai. london: royal society of arts design bursaries competition report. rensburg, l van (1987). sankhuwasabha weaving centre; mid term report. dhankuta: women’s training centre. shrestha, b (1994). dye-yielding plants of nepal. kathmandu: recast. shrestha, kp (2000). identification of potential opportunity for income generation through himalayan nettle. trimester report, harp pp-48/99. shrestha, r and hoshion, t (1998). karyomorphological studies in girardinia diversifolia (link) friis (urticaceae) collected from nepal. journal of japanese botany 73(3), 125-127. singh, sc and shrestha, r (1987). extraction and chemical analysis of himalayan nettle fibre. kathmandu: recast, research and industry 32, 259-262. singh, sc and shrestha, r (1989). observation on ecodemes in girardinia diversifolia (link) friis, (urticaceae) in nepal. pakistan journal of botany 21. 185-190. sinha, f (1989). allo nettle processing in nepal. new delhi: economic development associates for intermediate technology. barakoti and shrestha final corrected banko janakari 19-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 3 diversity of vascular plant communities along a disturbance gradient in a central mid-hill community forest of nepal s. k. baral1 and k. katzensteiner2 the ‘community forestry program’ has been considered successful in improving the environmental situation in the hills of nepal by enhancing the vegetation coverage of degraded sites and by improving the supply of forest products to farmers. the restoration measures are considered sustainable if the ecosystems are self-supporting and resilient against perturbation. a community forest (cf) in the mid-hills of nepal has been assessed for restoration success based on the comparison of vegetation structure and species diversity along a disturbance gradient, using a semi-protected natural forest as a reference site. in general, the community forest management (cfm) was able to re-establish forests on formerly severely degraded sites. forest operations carried out during cfm have altered plant community composition, species richness and distribution, age class distribution of trees and vegetation structure. as a result, the cf was being transformed into a less diverse regular forest although the overall vascular plant diversity was retained with sufficient niches within the understorey vegetation. keywords: central mid-hills, community forest, disturbance regimes, nepal, plant diversity community forestry (cf) has proved to be an efficient approach in the forestry sector of nepal. in the mid-hills, it is credited with improving people’s livelihoods and conserving natural landscapes (satyal, 2004). also the cf program is noted for in increasing the vegetation coverage (greenery) of degraded sites, fostering local level institutions for resource management, improving the supply of forest products to farmers, and correcting the environmental situation in the hills of nepal (acharya, 2003). the agricultural system in nepal relies on the interdependence of arable land and livestock with forests (satyal, 2004). in the hills of nepal, farmers rely heavily on forest litter that is collected for animal bedding and then enriched with animal excrement to be incorporated as compost into the agricultural system. in this kind of interlinked hill farming system, cf has strived to supply forest products to local users and while conserving biodiversity with silvicultural techniques such as cleaning, weeding, thinning and pruning. padma (2007) reported that cf had positive impacts on biodiversity conservation by increasing the vegetation cover and the number of wildlife species, thereby averting the local extinction of species. however, his study revealed that cfugs tended to conserve only “useful” species i.e. low-quality timber trees, shrubs, climbers, grasses and herbs were removed, a practice that could have undesirable implications on biodiversity. such implications include a changed community structure, a reduction of understorey species, and even age stands with low biodiversities. the present case study tests a methodological approach for comparing and analyzing the impacts of silvicultural techniques and biomass extraction from community forests on vascular plant diversity. the investigations were carried out along a disturbance gradient in a cf in the central mid-hills of nepal. materials and methods study site the study was carried out in dhulikhel, the district headquarter of the kavrepalanchowk district, 30 km east of kathmandu. the district covers an area of 140, 486 hectares and stretches between 85° 24’ 85° 49’ e longitude and 27° 20’ 27° 85’ n latitude in the central mid-hill region. it has been one of the 1 assistant research officer, department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal e-mail: sharadbaral@gmail.com 2 assoc.prof., institute of forest ecology, department of forest and soil science, university of natural resources and applied life sciences, vienna, austria banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 4 pioneer districts for the implementation of the community forestry program (sharma 2000), a fact that provides an opportunity to interact with experienced forest user groups who have been involved for over 15 years in community forestry management activities (humagain 2003). moreover, the impacts of forest management activities on vascular plant diversity can be pronounced. the ‘gaukhureshwar community forest’ (hereafter cf) and an adjoining semi-protected natural forest (thulo ban) owned by the dhulikhel municipality (hereafter mf) have been selected for the study. the forests share similar climatic conditions, topographic features and belong to the same vegetation zone (webb and gautam, 2001). history of the forests historically, the study site was a dense forest till 1933. afterwards, the forest was gradually exploited. a series of natural calamities (earth quake, heavy rainfall) had disturbed the forest. additional pressures from population growth and urbanization have led to severe degradation. apparently, both the cf and mf were subjected to exploitation after 1934 to 1962. however, it is not clear which one of the two was more exploited in terms of resources (webb and gautam, 2001). although the forests were classified as cf and mf based on the rights of management and utilization, the land ownership of both forests remained with the government of nepal, according to the forest act 1993. gaukhureshwar community forest (cf) by 1981 the forest had been almost cleared for grazing pasture and only a few trees and bushes remained. in 1985 the local people made an effort to restore their forest by applying for support from the district forest office, kabhre for enrichment planting with pinus roxburghii and to employ a forest watcher. later on, the district forest office, kabhre formally handed over 21 ha of this forest to the local people, thereby formulating a forest user group in 1992. subsequently, secondary succession ensued (webb and gautam, 2001) and pinus roxburghii was outcompeted. the stands were about 20 years old by 2007. now the forest user group is managing this forest as a community forest and applying silvicultural techniques, according to their operational plan (personal communication with the head of the cfug badri jangam, 2007). dhulikhel municipality owned forest (mf) the remaining patch of the forest (thulo ban) has been protected by the residents of dhulikhel city since 1962 in order to conserve the watershed. after the establishment of the dhulikhel municipality in 1986, an important contribution to the protection of mf was the deployment of watchmen. no utilization activities had taken place since then (webb and gautam, 2001). data collection sampling design a cf and a mf were selected for the field survey in comparable topographic positions. the diversity status of vascular plants and forest structure were compared between forest areas facing a high pressure of biomass extraction through the community forest management activities (cf) and the better protected municipality owned forest, facing little anthropogenic pressure (mf) as a reference site. cleaning, thinning, pruning and litter raking activities had been carried out in the cf. although the collection of forest products in mf had not been allowed, there had been some illegal collection of forest products (such as dry branches, tree stumps and litter in some plots). a transect survey from the base to the top of the hill was conducted systematically to collect the primary data of each forest (cf and mf). in this transect, the survey was carried out in 8 systematically placed square-shaped composite plots of 10m×10m for poles, 5m×5m for shrubs and regeneration, and 1m×1m for herbs, a design which is a standard for contemporary community forest inventory in nepal. the sample plots were located at least 50 m apart and at least 20 m interior from the edges or roads. after conducting a rapid forest survey, the required number of sample plots to reach a confidence interval for the average weight of biomass in the cf of 10 % was calculated by using the following formula: number of plots (n) = (t * 100*sx/ w * e %)2 whereby t = tabulated value of student tdf-n-1, p=0.05, df = degrees of freedom sx = standard deviation of biomass w = average weight of biomass e = required accuracy [%] baral and katzensteiner banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 5 forest inventory tree height, diameter at breast height (dbh) and crown width were measured for each plot. a clinometer was used for measuring tree height, and a d-tape and a measuring tape were used for the determination of dbh and crown width (diameter), respectively. the number of species in the understorey was recorded. the amount of litter left on the forest floor was estimated from 30 cm × 30 cm plots. by interviewing the fug members, the quantity of litter collected from the cf was estimated. scaling the disturbance to compute the simple plant community-based indices (plant diversity indices) of forest disturbance, the level of disturbance was scaled from 1-4 in an ordinal scale, where 1 is the lowest and 4 is the highest level of disturbance, based on the visual observation of sample plots on the basis of the amount of litter left on the forest floor, trampling and tree lopping and felling (table 1). secondary data records of the forest management activities and the data related to the amount of forest products harvested/collected were drawn from the community forest user group’s office and district forest office records. data analysis calculation of above ground biomass, basal area and diversity indices the total above ground tree biomass was calculated by using the biomass table prepared by tamrakar (1999). basal area was calculated by using equation 4 below. three biodiversity indices for the vascular plant diversity were calculated from the information of the forest inventory. shannon wiener index was used as the index affected by both the number of species and the evenness of their population. this index increases as both values (number of species and evenness) increase. on the other hand, the simpson’s index was used as a dominance index. it is weighted towards the abundance of the most common species and measures the probability of two individuals randomly selected from a sample belonging to the same category. in this measure, as the index goes up, so does diversity. the following formulae were used to calculate the diversity indices (timberline forest inventory consultants ltd, 2003). shannon-wiener index h = ∑ = ×− s i ii pp 1 log .... 1 simpson’s diversity d = ∑ = − s i ip 1 21 ................... 2 evenness e = h / log (n ................................ 3 ba = 4/2dbhπ . ........................................... 4 where: s = number of species pi = proportion of the ith species in a community n = total number of species dbh = diameter at breast height (1.3 m) from the ground level statistical analysis descriptive statistics was used to describe stand structure, forest composition and forest management activities. the differences between diversity indices of the different forest types were subjected to a mann-whitney u test because these parameters were not normally distributed. basal area per hectare, number of plants in the understorey per hectare and estimated above ground biomass were subjected to independent sample t-tests. the level of significance used was α = 0.05. results and discussions forest management history, forest structure and diversity of vascular plants forest type and management activities the forest vegetation type belonged to the boundary line between the sub-tropical schima-castanopsis table 1: criteria for scaling the disturbance score s.n. criteria 1 2 3 4 overall score 1 amount of litter left on the forest floor (litter raking) >70% 50-70% 30-50% <30% 2 trampling low medium high very high 3 tree lopping and felling few medium high very high the overall score of the plot is: if the total scores 9-12=4, 6-9=3, 36=2 and <3=1. baral and katzensteiner banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 6 forest and the lower temperate forest. major species found in the forest were: castanopsis tribuloides, quercus glauca, rhododendron arboreum, myrica esculenta, myrsinia rivularis and schima wallichii etc. litter raking was the dominant method of biomass extraction activities from the forest. cleaning (removal of unwanted shrubs and weeds and singling of desired species) and thinning/pruning were the other silvicultural operations undertaken after the forest was handed over to the community. the intensity of thinning entirely depended on traditional knowledge. in this system, only the dead, dying, crooked, malformed and weak trees were preferentially removed. on average, 30% of polesized trees were removed in the thinning operations and the branches were pruned up to 50% of tree height. during winter, litter raking has been free for the users. grazing and illegal collection of forest products were totally prohibited. table 2 displays the record of quantity of biomass extracted at different time periods from the community forest. forest structure the mf had a higher stem density per hectare. however, the understorey density was higher in cf. in the mf, basal area was almost double that of cf, and the estimated above ground biomass was also slightly higher. similarly, both the maximum tree height (13.5 m) and the maximum dbh (29.5 cm) were significantly higher in mf (table 4). a larger part of the basal area in the mf was occupied by the trees with higher diameters but in the cf the 0.00 5.00 10.00 15.00 20.00 25.00 30.00 35.00 40.00 45.00 <5 cm 59. 99 cm 10 -1 4. 99 cm 15 -1 9. 99 cm >2 0 tot al b a s a l a re a (m 2 h a -1 ) community forest municipal forest figure 1: basal area distribution in different dbh classes 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 sw ci ra me ct qg mr o species b a s a l a re a m 2 h a -1 community forest municipality forest sw: schima wallichii ci: castonopsis indica ra: rhododendron arboreum me: m yrica esculanta ct: castonopsis tribuloides qg: quercus glauca mr: m yrsenia rivularis o: others figure 2: basal area distribution of tree species in the cf and mf larger part of the basal area was contributed by trees with 5-15 cm dbh since there were no trees thicker than 20 cm dbh (fig 1). forest product extraction s.n. year management activities product unit* quantity 1 1993 mg ha-1 3.7 2 1994 cleaning cleaning fuelwood with green foliage fuelwood with green foliage mg ha-1 2.8 fuel-wood m3 ha-1 1.2 timber m3 ha-1 0.4 3 1997 thinning/pruning (average thinning intensity = 30%) foliage mg ha-1 0.3 4 1999 cleaning fuelwood with green foliage mg ha-1 6.8 5 annually litter raking (82% of the total litter) litter mg ha-1 3.2 * the unit was calculated considering 1 bhari = 40 kg for green foliage and fire wood and 1 bhari litter = 25 kg of litter table 2: community forest management activities and quantity of forest biomass extracted table 3: density, basal area and estimated above ground biomass in different forest types forest type basal area m2ha-1 no. of stems ha-1 no. of plants in the understorey ha-1 max. tree height (m) max dbh (cm) estimated above ground biomass (kg m-2) cf 19.03a 2525 7050a 12.5 16.5 12.18a mf 38.19a 2725 4850a 13.5 29.5 17.72a castanopsis tribuloides and quercus glauca were the major dominating tree species in cf occupying the higher share (almost 80%) of the total basal area, whereas the basal area was distributed rather fairly among all the species that were found in the site in mf (fig 2). the average biomass in the mf was 17.61 kg m-2, se = 0.91, a sum significantly higher than the average biomass of the cf (12.08 kg m-2, se = 0.86). in the cf, almost 85% of the biomass was contributed by two major tree species castanopsis tribuloides and a significant difference between cf and mf in independent samples t-test at á=0.05. baral and katzensteiner banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 7 forest type / layer number of species total number of families shannon wiener index (h) simpson’s index (d) evenness (e) remarks cf tree layer under storey total 11 36 40 8 30 30 0.96a 1.96 0.48 a 0.84 0.60 a 0.91 mf tree layer under storey total 14 32 36 10 25 25 1.6 a 1.87 0.75 a 0.8 0.85 a 0.88 a denotes the significant difference between cf and mf in the mann whitney u test at α=0.05. quercus glauca but in the mf the biomass was distributed among the wider species composition typical to this forest type (fig 3). this observation suggests a tendency for species preference among forest users in community forest management. they probably preserved preferred species (castanopsis tribuloides and quercus glauca) and removed others. in the cf, they had also removed bigger and older trees during silvicultural operations to provide space for a future crop of younger trees of the preferred species. from this pattern it can be concluded that the number of plots was sufficient to describe the diversity within the two forest types. there were 40 vascular plant species of 30 families found in the cf but in the mf only 36 species of 25 families were recorded. the number of tree species was slightly higher in the mf (14 species of 10 families) than that of the cf (11 species of 8 families) (annex 1). the diversity index for the tree layer in the cf was 0.96 for shannon wiener, 0.48 for simpson and 0.6 for evenness, as opposed to 1.6 for shannon wiener, 0.75 for simpson and 0.85 for evenness in the mf. this result underscored the higher tree species richness and their more even distribution within the mf than in the cf (table 4). while the tree layer diversity was significantly higher in the mf than in the cf, the understorey vegetation diversity was slightly higher in the cf, although this difference was insignificant (table 4). castanopsis tribuloides and quercus glauca were the most abundant tree species found in the cf, whereas myrsinia rivularis, quercus glauca, rhododendron arboreum and myrica esculenta were the species having a higher abundance in the mf (fig 5). 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 sw ci ra me ct qg mr o species b io m a s s (k g m -2 ) community forest municipality forest sw: schima wallichii ci: castonopsis indica ra: rhododendron arboreum me: m yrica esculanta ct: castonopsis tribuloides qg: quercus glauca mr: m yrsenia rivularis o: others figure 3: biomass distribution of tree species in the cf and mf 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 number of plots n u m b e r o f s p e c ie s tree species in cf understorey in cf tree species in mf understorey in mf figure 4: cumulative number of species table 4: number of families and species in forest, shannon wiener diversity index, simpson’s index and evenness at study sites 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 ct qg ci me sw ra mr o species r e la ti v e a b u n d a n c e cf mf ct: castonopsis tribuloides qg: quercus glauca ci: castonopsis indica me: m yrica esculanta sw: schima wallichii ra: rhododendron arboreum mr: m yrsenia rivularis o: others figure 5: abundance of different tree species in cf and mf species richness, abundance and diversity indices the cumulative tree species number increased with the increasing number of plots. the number of understorey species rapidly increased in the initial plots but the increase declined after the fifth plot for both forests. the slope of the curve for understorey flattened after five to six plots (fig 4). baral and katzensteiner banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 8 this study indicated that the basal area per hectare, biomass and tree density were higher in the forest that was better protected (mf) than in the community forest. species diversity in the tree layer was also higher in the mf. forest biodiversity depends on even age class distribution, presence of various tree species and proper distribution of these species in the forest stand (hmg/n 2002). however, the number of plant species in the understorey vegetation (tree species<5cm dbh and other shrubby species) was found to be higher in the cf. this finding was similar to the findings of webb and gautam (2001) who observed that the mature, semi-protected forest had a substantially greater basal area while the community forest exhibited a higher density of small diameter trees, which was typical of a young successional forest. managed forests were more diverse in plant species than primary forests, and were also more heterogeneous in a study of sebastia et al. (2005) conducted in southern europe. research carried out in the boreal forests of canada had suggested that vascular plant species diversity peaked on moderately treated sites (heusler et al., 2002). likewise, diversity was rapidly restored through succession in community forests of nepal although the forest structure was not complex (webb and gautam, 2001). however, in this study, tree species were found to be less diverse in the cf than in the mf although the understorey was more diverse. this might be due to the silvicultural activities carried out by cfugs based on local knowledge and skills that focused on the promotion of preferred tree density (acharya, 2003) for economic benefits from tree species useful for timber (pandey, 2007). the most abundant species in the cf (castanopsis tribuloides and quercus glauca) were highly valued by farmers for their high yield of leaves, and as multipurpose trees usable for fodder, fuelwood, agricultural implements and timber (jackson, 1994). silvicultural activities change the tree species composition (schelhas and greenberg, 1996) and if they are not carried out with caution, they can jeopardize biodiversity (putz and blate, 2001). these findings confirmed that the tree diversity decreased in the cf. there were 40 species of 30 families in the cf while in the mf, there were only 36 species of 25 families. however, a contradictory finding of this study was the higher vascular plant species richness in the cf. low impact management mimicking natural disturbances enhances plant diversity (sebastia et al., 2005) and, therefore, the management that mirrors natural disturbances is recommended to sustain biodiversity (harvey et al., 2002). conclusions silvicultural techniques applied in cf affect forests by altering plant community composition, species richness and distribution, and age class distribution of the trees. from the study it can be concluded that the cf was changing into less diverse, uniform stands with a low number of species in the tree layer compared to a regular semi-protected forest. however, the overall diversity of vascular plants was maintained by providing proper niches for a rich understorey vegetation. from a biodiversity conservation point of view, special attention must be paid to the maintenance of species diversity in the forest composition when executing silvicultural operations in the community forest. to keep disturbance at an intermediate level would be an appropriate strategy for cf management to achieve the paradoxical twin objectives of i) supplying the basic needs for forest products to the forest users and ii) for maintaining the vascular plant diversity in forest ecosystems. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the gaukhureshwar community forest user group dhulikhel-1, kabhrepalanchok. we acknowledge the itto tree diversity indices according to different scale of disturbance the value of shannon wiener index and simpson’s index were plotted against the scale of disturbance in the plots. fig 6 shows that when the intensity of disturbance increased from 1 to 2, the tree diversity in the forest slightly increased but heavy disturbance (categories>2) was associated rapid decrease in diversity. 0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20 1.40 1.60 1.80 1 2 3 4 scale of disturbance d iv e rs it y in d e x shannon wiener index simpson's index 1= low 2 = medium 3 = high 4 = very high figure 6: value of diversity indices with respect to different scale of disturbance baral and katzensteiner banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 9 fellowship program, japan for providing financial support to conduct this study. we also would like to thank mr. bimal acharya, assistant research officer, department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu and mr. dil bahadur purja pun, ranger, department of forest, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal for their support during data collection. references acharya, k.p. 2003. conserving biodiversity and improving livelihoods: the case of community forestry in nepal. paper presented at the international conference on rural livelihoods, forests and biodiversity 19-23 may 2003, bonn, germany. hmg/n 2002. nepal biodiversity strategy. ministry of forest and soil conservation, his majesty’s government of nepal. haeussler, s., bedford, l., leduc, a., bergeron, y. & kranabetter, j.m. 2002. silvicultural disturbance severity and plant communities of the southern canadian boreal forest. silva fennica 36(1): 307– 327. harvey, b. d., leduc, a., gauthier, s. and bergeron, y. 2002. stand landscape integration in natural disturbance-based management of the southern boreal forest. forest ecology and management 155(13): 369-385. humagain, k. h. 2003. sustainability of community forest in terms of operational plan implementation: multiple case studies from central and western nepal. dissertation submitted to the institute of forestry, trbhuvan university, nepal for the partial fulfilment of the requirement of the master of science in forestry. jackson, j. k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. forest research and survey centre, ministry of forest and soil conservation, nepal second edition. volume 2. 824pp. padma, t. v. 2007. community forestry: the regreening of the himalayas. www.scidev.net accessed on 20th april 2008. pandey, s. s. 2007. tree species diversity in existing community based forest management systems in mid-hills of nepal. master thesis, no. 44, uppsala 2007, issn:1653-834x. putz, f.e. and blate, g.m. 2001. tropical forest management. conservation biology 15(1): 7-20 satyal, p. p. 2004. country profile reportforestry sector in nepal, forests monitor, cambridge (uk). schelhas, j. and greenberg, r. 1996. introduction: the value of forest patches, in forest patches in tropical landscapes: j. schelhas and r. greenberg (eds.). island press, washington, dc, pp. 15-35. sebastia, m. t., casals, p., vojnickvick, s., bogunic, f. and beus, v. 2005. plant diversity and soil properties in pristine and managed stands from bosnian mixed forests. forestry 78 (3): 297-303. sharma, s. k. 2000. management of pinus patula stands by the forest user groups in nepal. a thesis submitted to georg-august university goettingen, germany for the partial fulfillment of the master in tropical forestry. tamrakar, p. r. 1999. biomass tables for katuschilaune forest type. department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. research leaflet no. 8. timberline forest inventory consultants ltd. 2003. monitoring plant diversity: simpson’s index and species richness assessment. canadian forest products ltd. 5162 northwood pulp mill road, prince george, canada. webb, e. l. and gautam, a. p. 2001. effects of community forest management on the structure and diversity of a successional broadleaf forest in nepal. international forestry review 3(2):146-157. baral and katzensteiner banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 10 annex 1: list of plant species found in the forest at study sites occurrence family species habit community forest municipality forest acanthaceae thungbergia coccinea climber √ ampelidaceae leea robusta shrub √ anacardaceae rhus succedanea small tree √ √ asteraceae inula cappa shrub √ √ asteraceae eupatorium adenophorum shrub √ betulaceae betula alnoides tree √ campanulaceae lobelia alsinoides small tree √ caprifoliceae viburnum coriaceum shrub √ √ cyperaceae cyperus cyperoides herb/grass √ cyperaceae cyperus rotundus herb/grass √ √ dryopteridaceae dryopteris atrata herb/fern √ √ ericaceae rhododendron arboreum tree √ √ ericaceae lyonia ovalifolia tree √ fabaceae indigofera cylindracea shrub √ fagaceae castanopsis tribuloides tree √ √ fagaceae quercus glauca tree √ √ fagaceae castanopsis indica tree √ √ gleicheniaceae gleichenia glauca herb/fern √ √ lamiaceae scuttelaria discolor herb/grass √ √ lauraceae litsea citrate tree √ loranthaceae maesa chisia shrub √ √ melastomataceae osbeckia stellata herb √ √ melastomataceae melastoma normale shrub √ √ meliaceae walsura trijuga tree √ myricacea myrica esculenta tree √ √ myrseniceae myrsenia rivularis tree √ √ myrseniceae myrsenia semiserrata tree √ √ oleaceae fraxinus floribunda tree √ √ oleandraceae nephrolepsis cordifolia fern √ phyllanthaceae phyllanthus parvifolius shrub √ poyaceae digitaria sanguinalis herb/grass √ √ poyaceae eragrostis tenella herb/grass √ √ poyaceae athraxon lancifolius herb/grass √ √ poyaceae arundinaria intermedia grass/bamboo √ ranunculaceae clematis buchananiana herb √ √ rosaceae syzygium cumini tree √ rosaceae robus ellipticus shrub √ √ rubiaceae loranthus spps. tree √ √ smilacaceae smilax menispermoides climber √ √ symplocaceae symplococus ramosissima shrub √ √ thaeceae schima wallichii tree √ √ thaeceae eurya cerasifolia tree √ √ thaeceae cleyera ochnacea herb √ √ thaeceae camellia kissi shrub √ √ orchids species not determined epiphytes √ √ baral and katzensteiner final corrected banko janakari 18-2.pmd 10 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 improving the livelihoods of the poor and marginalized in nepal through leasehold forestry and livestock program: a review of institutional constraints and opportunities b.r. regmi1, a. albano2, c. kumar2, g.b. sharma1 the study looks at the opportunities and constraints of the contributions made by forest institutions to improve the livelihoods of the poorest, through an analysis of the leasehold forestry (lf) programme in nepal – a forestry programme that aims to help alleviate poverty of forest dependent communities by leasing degraded land to the poorest. data and analysis were primarily based from review of literature, consultations with key informants, field visits, and complemented by the authors’ direct involvement in the implementation of lf programme. although intended to improve the lives of the poorest, the lf programme could negatively affect the poorest when it excludes them or when it causes their displacement from the land that the poorest depend for their livelihoods. such negative impacts of lf program can be attributed to its improper implementation and design. to improve its effectiveness and impact, awareness campaigns should be improved using diverse modes of communication, more line agencies should be involved in the implementation by transferring the implementation responsibility to a district-level project coordination committee, and some programme provisions should be changed in favour of the poor. key words: forest institutions, leasehold forestry, poverty alleviation, nepal an increasingly popular school of thought on improving the livelihoods of the poor is to increase their access to the resources or “assets” they needed to make a living, by reforming institutions governing access, more favorable for the poor. this school of thought has been apparent in the trend of national forest policies of developing countries towards community-based forest management, which in principle, gives forest communities greater access rights to forest resources. however, despite changes in forest policies, it is a fact that many forest communities still have difficulty accessing forest resources. notwithstanding the complexity of improving the livelihoods of poor forest communities, such difficulty underscores the constraints in implementing new, and presumably, more favorable institutions. in nepal, the shift in national forestry policy towards greater access for forest users has resulted in the institutionalization of various community based forest management (cbfm) programmes. one of these programmes is the leasehold forestry programme (lfp) which aims to improve the livelihoods of the poorest, by offering them access rights over degraded forest land. although various studies have demonstrated the positive impacts of the lfp, other studies have also pointed out many of its limitations. one such limitation is in its ineffective implementation (thoms et al. 2006). this paper looks at the implementation aspect of institutional reform for the case of the lfp in nepal. this study aims to develop a better understanding of the processes in the formation and make up of forestry institutions as well as the constraints on their effective implementation. in doing so, this study describes the existing forest institutions in nepal, focusing on the lfp, in particular; identifies institutional constraints for its effective implementation; and recommends measures to improve the lfp or other similar forestry programmes in favor of the poorest. this study was conducted primarily through a review of related literature; consultations with key informants involved in the lfp; field visits to leasehold and community forest user groups; and from the authors’ experiences working with leasehold forestry user groups (lfugs). 1 li-bird, pobox 324, pokhara, kaski, nepal 2 centre for international forestry research (cifor), bogor, indonesia 11 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 materials and methods the study was carried out through a desk study of a number of published and unpublished literature on community forestry, leasehold forestry and other related subjects in nepal; supplemented with consultation of the stakeholders; and the collaboration/conflict, legitimacy, interest and power (clip) analysis. the review of forestry and livelihoods related key literatures focused on the critical analysis of the current situation and how different programs and approaches were addressing it. besides, various journal articles were also reviewed. workshop proceedings were important sources of information for analyzing recent research and development highlights in the forestry sector of nepal, and over viewing what is happening in forestry sector now? who is doing what? and what are the good practices and lessons learnt? program and project related papers, the review reports and technical papers were also relevant to the analysis. the documents of various projects and programmes were useful in analyzing the approaches and strategies for inclusion, governance and sustainable resource management in community forestry. consultations were made with government staffs, i/ ngos personnel and the cfugs working in community forestry and leasehold forestry in nepal. this was done through series of meetings with relevant stakeholders including government line agencies. a number of consultation meetings were organized both at individual and organizational levels during the preliminary stage of the study. the main objective of this consultation was to collect relevant literature, inform them about the study as well as to gauge their perceptions about the research problem. furthermore, a brief questionnaire was used to capture the perceptions of different stakeholders in understanding the current socio-structural context and their suggestions for improvement. one-day stakeholder meeting was organized whe major stakeholders of cf and lf were invited. the workshop venue was used to carry out clip analysis3. clip tool was used in this study in order to ascertain various opportunities and constraints as perceived by ‘key stakeholders’ in the forestry sector. the clip workshop included representation from cfugs, lfugs, researchers as well as partners and other stakeholders from government agencies. result and discussion the leasehold forestry programme the lfp is one of the community-based forest management (cbfm) programmes being implemented by the government of nepal. it was first initiated in 1993 through the implementation of the first leasehold forestry project called the hills leasehold forestry and forage development project (hlffdp). this was introduced primarily due to the widespread discrimination of the poorest, observed within the cfugs, formed in the earlier cf programme and the necessity to mainstream the poor and marginalized groups into the overall national development. basically, lf is similar to cbfm programmes wherein forest users are organized into forest user groups (fugs) and are awarded with rights and responsibilities to manage a patch of forest. the lfugs have the same organizational structure and institution-making process as cfugs. they prepare an operational plan (op) with substantial assistance from the forest rangers. the lfp, however, tries to target the poorest members of the forest community and hands over degraded ‘forests’ through a 40-year leasehold agreement. as the lfp specifically targets the poorest of the poor4, the groups are smaller in size, with around 5 to 15 members in one leasehold forest user group (lfug). due to the livestock promotion component, lfp involves the department of livestock (dols) and other local service providers besides department of forest (dof) in its implementation. impacts the programme demonstrated success in achieving its objective of improving the livelihoods of its targeted poorest. studies show that it (i) increased the assets of the poor, especially their livestock holdings (ii) improved the productivity of women and their participation in group activities and decision-making; and (iii) increased school attendance 3 collaboration/conflict, legitimacy, interest and power (clip) is a social analysis tool used in understanding the dynamics of stakeholders, their interest, power and legitimacy 4 the poorest are to be identified based on the national planning commission (npc)’s poverty threshold criteria which are based on type of dwelling, land/asset holding and food security. regmi et al. 12 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 and improved nutrition of the member-households especially of their children (ohler 2003; hlffdp 2003). the evidences of positive impacts provided a strong rationale for international fund for agriculture development (ifad) and the government of nepal to continue to support the approach of the programme, creating the leasehold forestry and livestock programme (lflp) which would continue to implement the strategies of the hlffdp and extending it further to 26 more districts. despite its achievements, several studies have also revealed constraints in the programme. although the programme intends to target the poorest communities, many studies have demonstrated that in reality many of such households were left out and as a result, were further impoverished (grinten and dhakal 1997; schuler 1997; joshi et al 2000; dhakal and yadav 2000; bhattarai et al 2003; baral and thapa 2003). the programme also resulted in conflict between lfug and non-lfugs, usually due to conflict over rights to the land being handed over and conflict over who are supposed to be included within the lfugs (see for example bhattarai, et al 2003; li-bird 2004).5 considering its further extension and expansion into a national programme, the obvious direction for improvement is to further increase its positive impacts while minimizing or eliminating its negative impacts. these require an analysis of the causes of its negative consequences and constraints. issues and constraints there are various issues and constraints about the lfp that are cited in the literature. given our focus on institutional constraints, we may limit the issues about the constraints on its implementation, and less on its provisions or design. we may present these issues at different levels of implementation i.e. at the community, programme and implementation, and policy level. constraints at community level a primary issue at the community level is about equity, particularly the exclusion of the poorest in the programmes and eventually from the benefits generated from it; in some cases, the displacement of the poorest, in case of communities involved in shifting cultivation, as a consequence of this programme. various reasons were offered to explain the exclusion of the poorest. one of these is the lack of awareness of the lf programme. the evaluation report of lflp shows that not all the poor households received prior information about the selection of lfug members. in many cases, these were reinforced by the remote geographical location of the poorest and poor infrastructure which limits the flow of information and mobility of the people (lflp, 2005). as a result, there are evidences where some middle class and even richer households are included in the lfugs (see baral and thapa 2003 and bhattarai, 2003). these studies support the earlier study by grinten and dhakal (1997) which revealed that many leaseholder households are large landholding farming families. in addition, some of the leasehold forest (lf) members have dropped out as they could not fulfill some requirements of lf membership such as regular attendance in meetings and other leasehold forestry activities which are required to maintain membership (li-bird, 2004). implementation constraints obviously, the exclusion of the poorest is the opposite of what the programme intended to do and do not follow the design of the leasehold forestry implementation process. many of the negative impacts of the programme can thus be attributed to its weaknesses in its implementation, particularly, the lack of capacity of its main implementing agency and weakness in monitoring implementation to conform to the appropriate process of implementation as designed. lack of capacity of dfos although a multi-partner programme, the lf is still primarily being implemented by the dof through its district forest office (dfos), who are also implementing other cbfm programmes. definitely for the dfos and their forest rangers, the implementation of another programme would mean additional work. with no additional multidisciplinary staff besides forestry added to implement the lfp, the dfo and their staff would have to juggle their time and resources to accommodate the lfp, often resulting in shortcuts in the processes; and consequently, to lesser quality output. in addition, rangers often manage to provide training to groups 5 the programme is also criticized for low impact (i.e. very few people benefited) considering the investment made of around us$ 17 million implemented within seven years (see yadav and dhakal 2000). regmi et al. 13 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 even without much experience and expertise in the subject matter. partly the problem lies in the limitation of both human and financial resources. lack of monitoring and weaknesses in evaluation in principle, the lfp process of handing over forests to the poorest tries to minimize exclusion of the poorest as it is for this reason that this programme was introduced in the first place. however, as was demonstrated above, in many cases, forest handovers and the selection of recipients were not done as was designed or intended. much of these constraints can be attributed to how programme implementation is monitored and outputs evaluated. although participatory monitoring and evaluation was mentioned as one of the features of the programme, in reality, this is hardly done. outputs are measured at the end of the project mostly based on quantity (e.g. number of households organized; area of degraded forests covered; number of training provided) rather than on quality (i.e. number of households getting off the poverty line; sustainability of livelihood projects implemented, and of lfug groups). communities often complain that the visit of rangers will be negligible immediately after the first year of implementation (li-bird, 2004). because of the emphasis on quantity outputs, line agencies often do not follow the ideal processes of implementation. instead, they do some ‘shortcut’ methods such as not consulting the whole community in the identification of degraded land or in identifying the poorest, which could then later result to conflicts and unfair community forest institution through the lfp6. design constraints the constraints in the effective implementation of the programme can also be further attributed to its design. lack of capacity of user groups many of the constraints earlier mentioned can be attributed to the fact that the people being targeted and organized are the poorest. being poor, they cannot afford to invest their time and resources to activities other than those that will give them immediate returns. they also lack the power to prevent other people from claiming their rights like the ones being provided through the lf programme. they are often illiterate, living remotely, or indebted to the better off households in their neighborhood7. these groups (particularly the genuinely poorest) need more than just two years of institutional and technical support but apparently, the project implementation is designed for such a short period of capacity building. the lack of capacity of the lfugs can also be attributed to their very small membership composition. the current leasehold groups range from 5-15 households, which are very small compared to cfugs or other farmers group. this is a disadvantage when accessing external support since ngos and other civil society organization look for a sizable community groups for collaboration and work. for example, there would be a problem registering lfugs with the district agriculture development office (dado) and other district line agencies which require larger membership for them to provide support services. limited livelihood options under lf under the lfp, the cultivation of cereal crops is prohibited; only grasses, fodder, and trees are allowed. for a poor farmer who cultivates vegetables or cereal crops on a ‘degraded’ land, converting the land as a leasehold forest would mean that he/she will no longer be allowed to cultivate them. growing grasses or trees would not be rational because it would take months or even years before they are harvested. on the other hand, once the land being cultivated by these poor farmers are identified as degraded land, they would have not much choice but to yield since they do not have ownership rights over these lands because according to law, these are government-owned land8. opportunities for interventions: a stakeholder analysis in identifying opportunities for interventions, it is important to have a better understanding of the lf institutions – the various interests in shaping them and their power to influence reform. in this regard, 6 for more discussion and empirical studies on this subject see thoms et al. 2003; bhattarai et al. 2003 7 if the degraded forests is open to any interested lessee/s (not excluding the better off households), implementation would have been faster (although it may no longer be a pro-poor endeavor). 8 an example for this case is the chepang communities that were reluctant to join the programme due to this policy which prohibits them from growing of agricultural crops in the sloping land. since these communities do not have any other alternative land for growing the crops, they feel insecure about joining the lf programme (li-bird, 2004). regmi et al. 14 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 npc lfugs, ngos, dado, ddc lflp, dfo, dlso, ifad interest (i) legitimacy (l) power (p) shifting cultivators, non-lfugs pil analysis of the stakeholders in lf was conducted through an analytical tool called clip9 analysis. this tool enables a better understanding of the relationship among the various stakeholders particularly, those who are bound to be in conflict or to collaborate. based on the general commonality in their interest and mandate on forestry, an initial list of lf stakeholders include the government through the ministry of forests and soil conservation (mofsc), with its various departments such as the dof the primary government agency that oversees forest in nepal, forest users including lfug and non-lfug members, donors including ifad, and the social mobilizers including local non-governmental organizations (ngos). most of these groupings could still, however, be further categorized into subgroups based on their differences in interest on the forest resources being handed over or over other benefits from the programme, their legitimacy to influence leasehold forestry institutions based on existing law, and their overall power to effect reform on leasehold forestry institutions. within the government, the interests, legitimacy and power of the central office is often different from the implementing line agencies. at the central office, the lf is managed by a separate office: the lflp office. the lflp office is obligated to coordinate the implementation of the programme under the dof. it has the power mostly on the implementation of the programme as well as partly on the policy or design of the programme. within this group is also included the national planning commission (npc) that is responsible for preparing the national poverty reduction strategy paper for nepal, which is then used as a basis in the design of poverty reduction programmes such as the lf. at the implementation level, the programme is mainly being implemented by the dfo and district livestock office. altogether, these three government offices (i.e. lflp central office, dfo, dlso) have the mandate to implement the programme and therefore have the legitimacy. they benefit from the implementation of the programme and therefore have high interest in lf. and they have the power to reform or not to reform the existing lf institutions. aside from them, there are also other government agencies that may have interest or legitimacy to get involved in the lf programme but currently lack the power to get involved and influence the implementation. these include the dado which has the mandate to implement agricultural related activities and the district development committee (ddc) which is the local government body at the district level authorized to manage district resources (including forest resources) through the local self-governance act of 1998. the forest users could also be further categorized into different stakeholders. foremost of these would be the lfug members as they are the recipients of the programme. another sub-group would be those who were left out particularly the shifting cultivators who often have claims over the degraded lands but have high probability of not being included, and the rest of the community members who would not be members of the lfugs, or non-lfug members. the list of lf stakeholders could then include the lflp office, dfo, dlso, dado, ddc, npc, lfugs, shifting cultivators, non-lfug members, ifad, and the various local ngo contracted as social mobilizers. these stakeholders and their relationship based on the analysis of their legitimacy, interest, and power can be illustrated in figure 1 below. fig. 1: lf stakeholder analysis from the above analysis, and as partially illustrated in figure 1, some important observations about the relationship of the stakeholders are: a) forest communities in general have high interest in lf but lack the legitimacy and power to influence lf institutions to their favor; b) although lfugs have 9 refer to http://www.sas-pm.com/ for details about the tool regmi et al. 15 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 high interest and legitimacy to influence lf policies, they lack power to do so. this is true for other line agencies such as the ddc and dado, and even the ngos involved in social mobilization process; and c) among the government line agencies, the highest stake, legitimacy and power over lf institutions is mostly concentrated with the dof through the lflp at the central office and the dfos at the districts. the npc also has the legitimacy and power to influence the design of the programme, but its interest in intervening with lf institutions is limited. other stakeholders that have high interest, legitimacy, and power to change lf institutions are ifad and dlso. this shows that most of the interventions towards institutional reforms can mostly be done by the government policy-makers and implementers. discussion and direction for interventions given the various institutional constraints at different levels and the analysis of the roles of the various stakeholders, various areas can be identified for interventions to improve the implementation and impact of the lfp. community level the dominant issue under at the community-level is exclusion of the poorest with the forest rangers not following the process of selection of the poorest and degraded land. intervention should be done to find out whether the process is strictly followed at the community level or not. one way to do this is to improve the awareness of the communities towards lfp. to do this, innovative means of information dissemination need to be considered. this may include placing posters (about the process of handover) in places frequented by the poorest, and use of local radio to reach out those at remote locations. it was also mentioned that lfugs do not have constitution that states these rights and responsibilities. in a way, this is due to the reality of preparing a constitution (which for lfugs would need heavy external assistance just like the preparation of their ops). on the other hand, lfugs are being organized into inter-groups and cooperatives which necessitate their preparation of their constitution and by-laws. intervention should target improving the awareness of lfug members of their rights and responsibilities, including support for the formation of inter-groups and common-interest associations. community awareness campaign may also target not just the recipients but also the wealthier and the privileged groups in the community, with the aim of changing their attitude to be more favorable for the poorest. programme implementation level both dfos and dlsos – the primary implementing agencies of the programme are limited in their capacity partly by their number of staff but especially their sectoral mandate, resulting in their limited collaboration with other line agencies. programme implementation then needs to involve other government line agencies in the implementation of the programme such as the dado, district soil conservation office, and the ddc. a district-level project coordination committee should be formed to manage or supervise the implementation of the lfp. this committee shall be under the chairmanship of the ddc chairperson. following the local self-governance act of 1998 which provides the ddc greater jurisdiction over forest resources, the ddcs have the mandate to implement government programmes at the district level and to coordinate various sectoral activities from various government departments. the dfo could be the secretary of the ddc while other district line agencies including representatives from ngos and user groups shall be members. this reorganization in the implementation of the programme is needed because the poorest have diverse needs (such as food and nutrition, education, health, income, etc.) and they need integrated and varying interventions to address these needs this recommended reorganization in the implementation of the lf programme surely would need clarification on the roles of the line agencies involved, or that shall be involved. a very important issue that would need to be resolved (as this would be the main source of controversy) would be the distribution of programme and project funds (i.e. what are the incentives for getting involved in the programme?). definitely, the dfo will oppose reducing their share of the budget while all other will want their share. since this is a controversial issue, further discussion involving the various stakeholders is recommended. on the other hand, we suppose that this re-organization would take some processes and time to be resolved. furthermore there exists a number of complications in coordination not just regmi et al. 16 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 among the line agencies but between them and other stakeholders such as the donor agency (ifad), national coordinating body (i.e. lflp), and lfugs. a way forward is to conduct a pilot project that would implement the programme with the proposed organizational structure to see how this recommendation can actually be realized. programme design level although many of the constraints discussed can be attributed to the design of the programme (e.g. limitations in land quality, cultivable crops, land area, membership composition), it is a fact that changing such design or provisions have their own rationale or purpose (e.g. to improve forest cover). changing legal provisions is not easy either because of the lengthy process of policy-making or because such provisions are often controversial. changing the provisions of the lfp has to start by facilitating a dialogue among the concerned stakeholders to discuss and compromise that ideally will satisfy the interests of the stakeholders, and particularly the poor. the smaller leasehold groups of the same locality or vdc (5-15 members) including other existing groups of discipline should be federated to a coordination committee so that it can minimize duplication and facilitate wise use of resources. these dialogues may be initiated by those representing the interest of the poorest such as the civil society organizations including the organization of forest users (eg. fecofun, nefug); or could better be initiated by ifad using its power to influence actions of the respective government agencies. conclusion institutional reform not only require changes in the rules or policy provisions but especially support to make sure that such changes are implemented properly. implementation of changes by the concerned forestry institutions has, however, become complex by the presence of various conflicting interests over forest resources. these interests are needed to be understood in order to understand how such institutions are shaped and how they can be made more favorable for the interest of the poor. furthermore, implementation of changes is made difficult by the lack of capacity of implementing agencies; for forest institutions and poverty alleviation programs, by the sectoral nature of government implementing agencies. institutional reform needs to be complemented by capacity building support. in the case of forestry programs with integrated approaches to livelihoods improvement, capacity building may mean implementing the programme alongside other sectoral agencies. acknowledgements the authors are grateful to the centre for international forestry research (cifor) and ifad for the opportunity awarded to carry out this study. the authors would like to highly acknowledge the guidance, supervision and technical input provided by govinda kafley, and brian belcher during the study. we would also like to appreciate the support provided by dr. pratap kumar shrestha, diwakar poudel, nirmal duwadi, santanu regmi, dhurba acharya, govinda sharma, gyan bandu sharma, erica udas, laxman gautam, arjun dhakal, arjun basnet, dr. bhuwon r. sthapit, anu adhikari and bir bahadur tamang. finally, the authors would like to extend their sincere thanks to all the stakeholders and professional experts for sharing their views and input. references baral, j. c. and thapa, y. 2003. nepal’s leasehold forestry for the poor: the other side of the coin’, in timsina, n. p. and h. ojha eds. (2004). case studies on equity and poverty in the management of common property resources in nepal. proceedings of the national workshop on management of common property resources and equity: exploring lessons from nepal, may 28, 2003. bardhan, p. 2005. institutions matter, but which ones?’ economics of transition, 13 (3): 499-532. bebbington, a. 2000. reencountering development: livelihood transitions and place transformations in the andes,’ annals of the association of american geographers, 90(3): 495-520. bhattarai, b., ojha, h. and humagain, y. 2004. is leasehold forestry really a pro-poor innovation? evidences from kavre district, nepal’, journal of forest and livelihoods. vol 4 (2), february 2005. bhattarai, b., ojha, h. and humagain, y. 2003. equity through exclusion? leasehold forest and livelihood of the poor, a case study of charpipal lfug, bhagavatisthan, kabre, kathmandu’, forestaction (unpublished draft). grinten, p. v.d. and dhakal, h. h.1997. household impact study ii volume: main report’, hills regmi et al. 17 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 leasehold forestry and forage development project, kathmandu, nepal. hlffdp. 2003. hills leasehold forestry and forage development project: interim evaluation, volume 1 main report. ifadoffice of evaluation, italy. lflp. 2005. leasehold forestry and livestock programme design document-appraisal’, main report. li-bird. 2004. documentation innovations in shifting cultivation areas of nepal. nepal case studies. ohler, f.m.j. 2003. the impact of leasehold forestry on livelihoods in nepal’, paper presented to the xiith world congress of forestry, quebec, canada, september 21-28, 2003. schuler, k. 1997. intent of integration of community forestry and leasehold forestry in ramechhap,’ seminar on leasehold forestry and forage development for the poor. august 24-28, hills leasehold forestry and forage development project, kathmandu. scoones, i. 1998. sustainable rural livelihoods: a framework for analysis,’ institute of development studies (ids), brighton. thoms, c. 2004. livelihoods forestry in rural nepal: the need for partnership,’ a paper presented at the 2004 rural sociological society’s 67th annual meeting in sacramento, california. yadav, r.p., and dhakal, a. 2000. leasehold forestry for poor: an innovative pro-poor programme in the hills of nepal’, policy outlook series no. 6, kathmandu: hmgn ministry of agriculture/ winrock international, programme on policy analysis in agriculture and related resource management. regmi et al. cover 20-2 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 53 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2shiva and hari new addition of sida spinosa l. (malvaceae) to the flora of nepal g. d. bhatt1* and p. p. kurmi1 1 national herbarium and plant laboratories, department of plant resources, godavari, lalitpur, nepal * author for correspondence: gdb742gdb@gmail.com the genus sida l. (malvaceae) is comprised of approximately 200 species distributed from tropical to subtropical region of the world (paul, 1993). up to five species (s. acuta, s. cordata, s. cordifolia, s. mysorensis and s. rhombifolia) are reported from nepal (whitemore, 1979; press et al., 2000; bista et al., 2001). during the course of plant collection this herbarium specimen was collected by p. p. kurmi from udayapur vdc, udayapur, kapilbastu district, central nepal at 150 m asl. during the identification this specimen did not match with any species of sida already reported from nepal. after the detailed study of specimens and available literatures (paul, 1993), it has been identified as sida spinosa l., which is a new addition to the flora of nepal (fig 1). the species is distinguished from others by its “stems with 1-2 spiny emergences at the base of petioles; mericarps with two divergent apical awns”. the herbarium specimens are housed at national herbarium and plant laboratories (kath), department of plant resources, kathmandu, nepal. description of the species sida spinosa l. sp. pl. 638.1753; masters in fl. brit. india 1: 323. 1874. annual or perennial, erect or diffuse herbs or under shrubs, up to 125 cm high; stems with 1-2 spiny emergences at the base of petioles; stems, petioles and pedicels cinereous with minute stellate hairs. leaves 6-30 x 3-16 mm, ovate to oblong, acute rounded or truncate at base and apex, serrate, 3-5 nerved at base, stellate-pubescent on both surfaces, sometimes glabrescent above; petioles 2-15 mm long; stipules 1-2.5 mm long, linear, hairy. flowers axillary, solitary or 2-3 clusters; pedicels 2-11 mm long, accrescent up to 5 mm, jointed above the middle. calyx 3-5 mm across, campanulate, lobes free above the middle, 1-2 x 1.5-2 mm, triangular adnate to acuminate with a prominent midvein, cinereous with minute stellate and scattered simple hairs outside, glabrous inside except for apical margins. schizocarps enclosed within calyx; mericarps 5, 2-3 mm long, trigonous with two divergent, 1-2 mm long awns, apex of mericarps and awns stellate-hairy, dorsal portion with prominent reticulation (fig 2 and 3). seeds 1-2 mm long, slightly trigonous, glabrous, brownish-black. distribution: india, nepal. ecology: as a weed in rahar / arhar (cajanus cajan) field. generally growing on open and dry places. flowering and fruiting: december may. local name: balu / gulsakaari -jfn' / u'n;sf/l_= sanskrit name: mahabala -dfxffjnf_. english name: prickly sida specimen examined: central nepal: kapilbastu district, udayapur vdc, udayapur, 150 m asl. 2010.4.18, p. p. kurmi 21(kath). fig 1: sida spinosa l. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 54 uses the leaves are emollient and refrigerant and are useful in gonorrhoea, gleets and scalding of urine. the fruits are astringent and cooling. roots are diaphoretic, antiperiodic, aphrodisiac and tonic. they are administered in debility, fever, malarial fever, hemorrhoids, swellings and in irritability of bladder (avs, 1994). bhatta and kurmi acknowledgements we are grateful to dr. krishna chandra paudel, director general, dr. sushim ranjan baral, scientific officer, department of plant resources and suraj ketan dhungana, senior research officer, national herbarium and plant laboratories godavari, lalitpur for their encouragement and facilities. we would like to thank dr. keshab r. rajbhandari, senior taxonomist, for his guidance and sincere interest on this paper.. references avs. 1994. indian medicinal plants, arya vaidya sala vol. v. orient longman, new delhi, india. 141-42. bista, m. s., adhikari, m. k. and rajbhandari, k. r. (eds.) 2001. flowering plants of nepal (phanerogams). department of plant resources, kathmandu, nepal. paul, t. k. 1993. malvaceae. in flora of india volume iii. (eds.) sharma b.d. and sanjappe, s. botanical survey of india, calcutta, india, 280-294. press, j. r., shrestha, k. k. and sutton, d. a. 2000. annotated checklist of the flowering plants of nepal. natural history museum, london, u. k. whitemore, t. c. 1979. malvaceae. in an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal volume ii. (eds.) hara, h. and williams i.h.j. british museum (natural history), london, u. k., 66-68. fig 2: ventral view of mericarp fig 3: dorsal view of mericarp final vol 16-1.pmd 14 sapindus mukorossi (rittha) gaertn. is considered as an important ntfps found in western nepal. it is large sized tree and primarily grows from 1000m to 1400m in nepal. it prefers open and sunny places. in rapti area, it is found in salyan, rukum, rolpa and pyuthan districts (efea 1998). it has been widely planted in nepal and many countries of tropical asia (jackson 1994). its importance mainly lies with the sale of fruits. its fruits are mainly sold in local markets. a number of farmers have benefited by selling and marketing the fruits from their planted trees. as the domestication and cultivation is being started the demand of quality seedling in proper planting time is very high. low, delayed and uneven germination have created problem in raising seedlings in nursery. the evidence of delayed and uneven germination was observed in jhanjhatpur nursery, kailali in 2001, where seeds were found to germinate even after ten months. delayed and uneven germination of seeds is very common in private, community or governmental nurseries in nepal. as a result, nursery naikes have got problem to produce the seedlings in a targeted quantity within the stipulated time. consequently, it is difficult for nursery naikes to meet the annual plan of seedlings production. according to some researchers, the improvement in germination of rittha seeds can be achieved by using pre-sowing treatments, cow dung slurry and acid (braham, sree and saxena 1996; sheikh 1979); hot water treatment (jackson, 1994 and campbell 1983). suitable pre-sowing treatments for even quicker and higher germination have not been identified yet. as a result there is normal practice of sowing seeds without pre-treatment in many nurseries in nepal. thus, identification of suitable pre-sowing treatment augmentation of germination in sapindus mukorossi due to acid scarification in jhanjhatpur nursery h. b. thapa1 and s. k. gautam2 the study on ‘effects of pre-sowing treatments on germination of sapindus mukorossi gaertn,’ was carried out in jhanjhatpur nursery, kailali district in april 2004. about 15months old healthy seeds were treated in one of thirty ways before sowing and sown from 1 to 7 april 2004 in drills in a nursery bed at a spacing of 5 cm x 10 cm. the analysis revealed that thirty pre-treatments significantly differed in germination in 1-month (4-weeks) and 2-months (9-weeks) but these pre-treatments did not vary in 3-months (13-weeks). in 4-weeks, the pre-treatment, 90-minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid significantly differed with twenty-five pre-treatments except the four pre-treatments of 15, 45, 60 and 75 minutes in concentrated acid. the highest germination (90%) was found in the pretreatment, 90-minutes in acid, which was followed by the germination (63%) in the pretreatment, 75-minutes in concentrated acid in 3-weeks. the highest non-germinated good seeds were in pre-treatment, 30% in 96 hours in cold water, followed by the pre-treatment, 27% in 5-minutes in boiled water and 72-hours in cold water. the highest non-germinated rotten seeds were in the pre-treatments, 3-minutes in boiled water and 72-hours in cold water and 10 minutes in acid, followed by the five pre-treatments, 3-minutes in boiled water and 120 hours in cold water, 5-minutes in boiled water then 24 and 72 hours in cold water, 5-minutes and 60-minutes in concentrated acid. the two pre-treatments, 75 and 90 minutes in concentrated acid can be used to get quicker and higher germination. the four pre-treatments, 3 minutes in boiled water and 48 hours in cold water, 5-minutes in boiled water and 120 hours in cold water, 144 hours in cold water and 120 hours in cow dung slurry are suggested as an alternative to acid treatments, if acid is not readily available in the market and there is a problem of handling the acid. key words: sapindus mukorossi, germination, acid, pre-treatment 1 research officer dfrs (e-mail: thapahb@yahoo.com) 2 asst. research officer dfrs (e-mail: shreekgautam@yahoo.com) 15 is necessary so that shortage of quality seedlings during plantation is greatly reduced. so, a study on ‘effect of some pre-sowing treatments on the seed germination’ was carried out in jhanjhatpur nursery located in far western nepal in order to test, identify, and recommend few suitable pre-sowing treatments of sapindus mukorossii (rittha). materials and methods the experiment was carried out in jhanjhatpur nursery in kailali district in april 2004. the nursery is situated in the terai region (flat land). it has subtropical climate and altitude is about 200 m. according to the climatic data (april-july 2004) of dhangadhi located at about 14 km south of the nursery, the mean maximum and minimum temperatures were 350 c (32.70c in july to 36.60c in may) and 22.80 c (19.50c in april to 24.80c in july) respectively. the mean daily temperature was 28.90 c during this period. the mean relative humidity was 76.6% (65% in april to 91.7% in july) at 08.45 hours and 59.3% (39.9% in april to 79.7% in july) at 17:45 hours respectively. the mean rainfall of four months was 210.4 mm ( 45.6-514.6mm) and the total rainfall was 841.4mm. the climatic data sheets were taken from department of hydrology and meteorology, babar mahal, kathmandu. the seeds were collected in january 2003 in surkhet district (frd seed lot number: 2125). about 15months old healthy seeds were selected manually and they were treated in one of thirty ways before sowing (see annex 1). the seeds were sown from 1 to 7 april 2004 in drills in a nursery bed at a spacing of 5 cm x 10 cm (seed to seed 5 cm and one line to another 10 cm). the bed consisted of three parts soil and one part sand. thirty seeds were sown in three replicates (ten seeds per replicate). germination record was done in an interval of seven days and continued up to 3.5 months i. e. 105 days. in june 21, 2004, nongerminated seeds were dug out and categorised into two classes: non-germinated good and rotten seeds. watering, and weeding were done as required. mean germination figures were calculated up to 3.5 months. the mean germination figures of 1, 2 and 3-months (28, 63 and 91 days) were transformed into arcsine figures and two-way anova was done at 5% level to detect the differences between germination figures of different pre-sowing treatments. a multiple comparison was done using tukey’s test. results and discussions the analysis revealed that thirty pre-treatments significantly differed in germination in 1-month (4weeks) and 2-months (9-weeks) but these pretreatments did not vary in 3-months (13-weeks). in 4-weeks, the pre-treatment, 75-minutes in acid significantly differed with the eighteen pre-treatments, 3-minutes in boiled water and 24, 72 and 96 hours in cold water; 5-minutes in boiled water and 24, 72 and 96 hours in cold water; 24, 48, 72, 96, 120, and 144 hours in cold water; 72, 120, 144 and 168 hours in cow dung slurry; 3 and 5 minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid but not significantly different with eleven pre-treatments, 3-minutes in boiled water followed by 48 and 120 hours in cold water; 5 minutes in boiled water and 48 and 120 hours in cold water; 120 hours in cow dung slurry; 10, 15, 30, 45 and 60 minutes in acid. the pre-treatment, 90-minutes in concentrated acid, was significantly different with twenty-five pre-treatments except the four pretreatments, 5, 45, 60 and 75 minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid. the pre-treatment, 90-minutes in concentrated acid was found superior to all of the pre-treatments. similarly, pre-treatments a to z (boiled and cold water, cold water only, cow dung slurry, 3, 5, 10, 15, and 30 minutes in concentrated acid) did not vary significantly in germination. pretreatments, 45-minutes and 60-minutes in concentrated acid varied significantly with pretreatment, 5 minutes in boiled water and 24 hours in cold water, and 60-minutes in acid) with the pretreatment, 24-hours in cold water and 168 hours in cow dung slurry) (annex 1). in 2-months (9-weeks), the two pre-treatments, 75 and 90-minutes in concentrated acid varied significantly with two pre-treatments, 48-hours in cold water and 10-minutes in acid. twenty-eight pretreatments a to ab (boiled and cold water, cold water only, cow dung slurry, 3, 5, 10, 15, 30, 45 and 60minutes in concentrated acid) were found similar in germination. among the nine acid pre-treatments, eight pre-treatments were significantly different in germination with 10-minutes in concentrated acid (annex 1). in 3-months (13-weeks), all the thirty pretreatments were similar in germination (annex 1). seeds did not germinate up to 2 weeks in all of the thirty pre-treatments. the highest germination (90%) was found in the pre-treatment, 90-minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid, which was followed by the germination (63%) in the pre-treatment, 75banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1thapa and gautam 16 minutes in acid in 3-weeks. it clearly indicated that these two pre-treatments were certainly better in germination than other pre-treatments in a shorter period. seeds germinated in twenty-five pretreatments in this period (annex 2) whereas all the pre-treatments germinated in 4-weeks. although, initiation of germination is not a key factor to select the pre-treatments, but the key factor is to get higher germination in a shorter period. as the most pretreatments had poor germination up to 4-weeks (annex 2). four acid pre-treatments, 45, 60, 75 and 90 minutes in acid, had germination range from 7397% in 5-weeks, which are highly promising germination results. excluding acid pre-treatments, 60% or higher germination was recorded in four pretreatments, 3-minutes in boiled water and 48 hours in cold water, 5-minutes in boiled water and 120 hours in cold water, 144 hours in cold water) and 120 hours in cow dung slurry in 7-weeks. these four pretreatments can be used as an alternative to acid pretreatments in those nurseries, where acid is scarce and problem in using acid properly. in 3-months (13 weeks), twenty-three pre-treatments had 70% or higher germination. seeds germinated well in that period except seven pre-treatments, 3 and 5-minutes in boiled water followed by 72 and 96 hours in cold water; 24, 96, and 120 hours in cold water and 10 minutes in concentrated acid (annex 2). the highest non-germinated good seeds were in pretreatments, 96 hours in cold water (30%), followed by the pre-treatment, 5-minutes in boiled water and 72-hours in cold water (27%). good seeds were not recorded in three pre-treatments, 45, 60 and 90 minutes in acid. the other seven pre-treatments, which had 20 or higher than 20% nongerminated good seeds, were 3-minutes in boiled water and 24hours in cold water; 5-minutes in boiled water and 72-hours in cold water; 24, 72, 96, 120 hours in cold water respectively), and 144 hours in cow dung slurry (annex 3). the highest non-germinated rotten seeds were recorded in two pre-treatments, 3-minutes in boiled water and 72-hours in cold water and 10 minutes in acid, followed by the five pre-treatments, 3-minutes in boiled water and 120 hours in cold water; 5-minutes in boiled water, then 24 and 72 hours in cold water; 5 and 60 minutes in acid. in general, the percentage of non-germinated rotten seeds was 10% or lower than it. none seeds were found rotten in six pretreatments, 96 and 144 hours in cold water; 144 and 168 hours in cow dung slurry; (75 and 90 minutes in acid and less than 5% in eight pre-treatments, 3minutes in boiled water, then 24 and 48-hours in cold water; 5-minutes in boiled water and 96-hours in cold water; 24, 48 and 72hours in cold water; 120 hours in cow dung slurry and 15-minutes in acid (annex 3). either concentrated hydrochloric acid or cow dung slurry stimulated germination in s. mukorossi (77-82%) in 21 days (braham, sree and saxena 1996). these promising germination results in acid scarification are similar to this study. germination ranged from 0 for 96 hours to 13% in 120 hours in cow dung slurry in this study. similar poor germination figures were recorded in one study done by thapa (2001). these results are very poor as compared to the germination figures stated by these researchers. the reason for poor germination in these studies is not clear, further verification is needed using fresh and old seeds for comparison. a lower germination (7-11%) was found in hot water treatment, which is similar to this study (0 to 17%) within that period. they recommended that cow dung treatment was found as an effective and cheap treatment. generally, their recommendations for pre-treatment, cow dung slurry, cannot be implied in nepal based on this study. the seeds soaking in acid for 20-minutes significantly improved the germination (sheikh 1979) and he found similar results in boiling water followed by cold water treatment the findings of the present study correspond to the results of sheikh (1979) in case of acid scarification. similarly, campbell (1983) reported the improvement in germination with the pre-sowing treatment of immersing the seeds in hot water and leaving for some days. but it is unclear about the temperature of hot water, number of days required for soaking the seeds and germination period. this pre-treatment also needs to verify, particularly in different temperatures of hot water and duration of soaking. although, jackson (1994) stated that the seeds should be put on hot water and left it for seven days. again the same question arises on the temperature and duration of soaking in hot water. in general, it was found that seeds germinated faster in acid pre-treatments than other pre-treatments (annex 1) indicating the positive response of acid to hasten the germination. again, germination increased with the increase in duration of soaking in acid, as there was 90% germination in 90-minutes soaking in acid in 3-weeks. soaking the seeds only in cold water for different periods (24, 48, 72, 96, and 120 banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 thapa and gautam 17 144 hours) did not improve the germination, as the germination ranged from 30 to 43% in 7-weeks. similar poor germination results were found in another study in that nursery (thapa 2001). soaking in cold-water for 120 hours or less is insufficient for the improvement of germination for this species. the germination was recorded as 63% in the pretreatment, 144 hours in cold water within that period (annex 2). it indicates the possibility of improvement in germination due to soaking seeds in cold water for longer periods (144 hours or more), although its confirmation is needed through study. conclusion and recommendations generally, acid scarification is the most effective pretreatment for quicker and higher germination of this species. the two acid treatments (75 and 90 minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid) can be used to have higher and quicker germination. in case of unavailability of acid and problem in using acid properly, the four pre-treatments, 3 minutes in boiled water and 48 hours in cold water, 5-minutes in boiled water and 120 hours in cold water, 144 hours in cold water and 120 hours in cow dung slurry are suggested as an alternative to acid treatments. the following recommendations are made, which are as follows: • a study is needed on duration of soaking in concentrated acid for 60, 75, 90 minutes or more and effects on germination due to diluted acid, soaking in cold water for 144 hours (6 days) or more, duration of seeds in boiled water for more than 5 minutes, followed by different duration of soaking in cold water and duration of soaking in cow dung slurry for 120 hours or more. • demonstration to nursery naikes on proper use of concentrated acid as a pre-treatment. acknowledgement we acknowledge dhan b. thing for his contribution in establishment of the experiment, recording, supervision, and data collection. references brahmam, m; sree, a. and saxena c. 1996. effect of pre-sowing treatments on the seed germination of sapindus mukorossi gaertn. and sapindus trifolintus l. (sapindaceae). advances in plant sciences 9(1): 137142. campbell, m. w. 1983 plant propagation for reforestation in nepal. revised edition. australian national university. nepal-australia forestry project. technical note 1/83. department of hydrology and meteorology, 2004. climatic data sheets of dhangadhi. april to july, 2004. efea 1998 ritha (in nepali). ban paidawar mala-8. environmental forestry enterprise activity. forestry enterprise – b. s. p. / new era, nepalgunj, banke. jackson, j. k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. volume 2. second edition. forest research and survey center, babar mahal, kathmandu. sheikh, m. i. 1979. tree seeds respond to acid scarification. pakistan journal of forestry 29(4): 253254. thapa, h. b. 2001. effect of some pre-sowing treatments on the seed germination of sapindus mukorossi gaertn. banko janakari 12(2): 65-68 banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1thapa and gautam 18 annex 1: arcsin germination figures and results of tukey’s test arcsine germination figures treatment type treatment code 1-month (28 days)* 2-months (63 days)* 3-months (91 days)* 3-minutes in boiled water and 24 hours in cold water a 21.9abc 53.1ab 66.1a 3-minutes in boiled water and 48 hours in cold water b 26.1abcd 50.9ab 61.7a 3-minutes in boiled water and 72-hours in cold water c 21.1abc 46.9ab 52.8a 3-minutes in boiled water and 96-hours in cold water d 21.9abc 55.9ab 70.1a 3-minutes in boiled water and 120 hours in cold water e 33.0abcd 50.9ab 59.2a 5-minutes in boiled water and 24-hours in cold water f 0a 49.2ab 63.9a 5-minutes in boiled water and 48-hours in cold water g 26.1abcd 51.1ab 63.9a 5-minutes in boiled water and 72-hours in cold water h 12.3abc 45.0ab 47.2a 5-minutes in boiled water and 96-hours in cold water i 21.1abc 46.9ab 53.1a 5-minutes in boiled water and 120 hours in cold water j 33.0abcd 61.9ab 64.6a soaking in cold water for 24 hours k 6.1ab 43.3ab 60.0a soaking in cold water for 48 hours l 15.0abc 40.9a 57.0a soaking in cold water for 72 hours m 12.3abc 45.0ab 62.0a soaking in cold water for 96 hours n 21.1abc 48.9ab 53.4a soaking in cold water for 120 hours o 21.1abc 44.7ab 55.4a soaking in cold water for 144 hours p 19.9abc 57.0ab 66.1a keeping in cow dung slurry for 72 hours q 12.3abc 51.1ab 63.8a keeping in cow dung slurry for 96 hours r 12.3abc 51.1ab 57.8a keeping in cow dung slurry for 120 hours s 26.1abcd 57.0ab 67.9a keeping in cow dung slurry for 144 hours t 21.1abc 45.0ab 60.0a keeping in cow dung slurry for 168 hours u 6.1ab 50.9ab 70.1a 3-minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid v 15.0abc 52.1ab 63.9a 5-minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid w 24.1abc 51.1ab 57.0a 10-minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid x 28.1abcd 39.1a 49.9a 15-minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid y 38.9abcde 53.2ab 70.1a 30-minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid z 32.0abcd 53.9ab 61.9a 45-minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid aa 45.0b 72.8ab 83.9a 60-minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid ab 46.9b 76.9ab 76.9a 75-minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid ac 93.4b 83.9b 83.9a 90-minutes in concentrated hydrochloric acid ad 77.7e 83.9b 90.0a * pre-treatments followed by the same letters do not vary significantly. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 thapa and gautam 19 annex 2: cumulative germination percentage of sapindus mukorossi under various pre-sowing treatments cumulative germination percentage number of days code 7 14 21 28 35 42 49 56 63 70 77 84 91 98 105 a 0 0 7 20 23 43 47 53 63 73 73 73 77 77 77 b 0 0 3 20 30 50 60 60 60 70 73 73 77 80 87 c 0 0 7 13 20 30 33 40 53 57 57 60 63 67 70 d 0 0 7 20 27 40 57 60 67 73 80 80 83 83 83 e 0 0 17 30 33 33 40 47 60 63 70 70 73 73 77 f 0 0 0 0 10 23 33 47 57 67 73 73 73 73 77 g 0 0 0 20 37 40 40 60 60 63 67 70 73 73 77 h 0 0 3 7 7 17 33 43 50 50 50 53 53 53 60 i 0 0 3 13 27 30 43 43 53 53 60 60 63 70 80 j 0 0 17 30 40 50 67 73 77 77 80 80 80 80 80 k 0 0 0 3 10 20 33 40 47 57 60 60 67 67 73 l 0 0 3 10 23 30 30 33 43 50 53 57 70 77 80 m 0 0 0 7 13 23 30 47 50 57 67 67 70 70 70 n 0 0 3 13 20 27 43 43 57 57 63 63 63 67 70 o 0 0 10 13 17 30 40 50 50 53 63 63 67 67 70 p 0 0 3 17 37 43 63 67 70 73 77 80 83 83 93 q 0 0 3 7 17 27 33 47 60 60 70 70 73 77 87 r 0 0 0 7 23 27 47 47 60 63 67 67 70 70 77 s 0 0 13 20 27 37 60 67 70 73 80 80 80 80 83 t 0 0 7 13 17 33 40 43 50 60 67 73 73 73 77 u 0 0 3 3 7 13 27 40 60 77 83 83 83 83 90 v 0 0 3 10 27 43 43 50 53 63 70 70 73 77 77 w 0 0 23 23 27 37 40 47 60 67 70 70 70 70 73 x 0 0 17 23 33 33 40 40 40 47 50 50 57 57 67 y 0 0 33 40 43 50 57 60 63 70 73 80 80 80 87 z 0 0 23 37 50 50 50 53 63 67 70 70 77 80 83 aa 0 0 30 50 73 87 87 87 87 90 93 93 97 97 97 ab 0 0 30 53 77 80 80 83 87 87 87 87 87 87 87 ac 0 0 63 80 90 93 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 ad 0 0 90 93 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 97 100 100 100 banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1thapa and gautam 20 annex 3: number of non-germinated good and rotten seeds with their percentages treatment code number of nongerminated good seed nongerminated good seed (%) number of rotten seed rotten seed (%) no. of nongerminated good and rotten seed non-germinated good and rotten seed (%) a 6 20 1 3 7 23 b 3 10 1 3 4 13 c 3 10 6 20 9 30 d 2 7 3 10 5 17 e 3 10 4 13 7 23 f 3 10 4 13 7 23 g 5 17 2 7 7 23 h 8 27 4 13 12 40 i 5 17 1 3 6 20 j 4 13 2 7 6 20 k 7 23 1 3 8 27 l 5 17 1 3 6 20 m 6 20 3 10 9 30 n 9 30 0 0 9 30 o 6 20 3 10 9 30 p 2 7 0 0 2 7 q 3 10 1 3 4 13 r 5 17 2 7 7 23 s 4 13 1 3 5 17 t 7 23 0 0 7 23 u 3 10 0 0 3 10 v 5 17 2 7 7 23 w 4 13 4 13 8 27 x 4 13 6 20 10 33 y 3 10 1 3 4 13 z 3 10 2 7 5 17 aa 0 0 1 3 1 3 ab 0 0 4 13 4 13 ac 1 3 0 0 1 3 ad 0 0 0 0 0 0 banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 thapa and gautam analyzing forest monitoring costs and accuracy of forest carbon stock estimates are important criteria in the framework of reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation (redd), because monitoring, reporting and verification (mrv) system has been seen as an investment that aims to generate financial benefits to forest owners. thus, comparisons of cost efficiency and accuracy were carried out between the lidar (light detection and ranging) assisted multisource programme (lamp) and the field-based multisource forest resource assessment (fra) applied in the 23500 km2 terai arc landscape (tal) of nepal in 2011 to estimate above ground biomass (agb). the model-based lamp was applied by integrating 5% lidar sampling, wall to wall rapideye satellite image and field sample plot inventory. the design-based fra was carried out to generate comprehensive forest resource information. administrative and initial variable costs of both approaches were calculated separately, and converted to unit costs for comparison. to compare the subsequent forest monitoring costs, cumulative costs were derived on the basis of the calculated present variable items and expenditures. the accuracies were calculated by using mean error of mean biomass estimates (tons/ha) at different spatial scales ranging from 1 to 350,000 ha forests. design-based fra was found to be cost-efficient (usd 0.22/ ha) as compared to the lamp approach (usd 0.28/ha) for baseline data collection, whereas administrative cost of multisource fra (usd 0.26/ha) was significantly higher. although a huge amount of data were generated through multisource fra in each cycle, the lamp approach appears to be cost-efficient to estimate agb in subsequent forest inventory. the mean errors in the lamp-derived mean biomass estimate were significantly smaller at all spatial resolutions than the fra-plotderived mean biomass estimate. the study concludes that spatial accuracy of lamp is good enough to estimate biomass stock of community forests (cfs) where average size of cf is 150 ha in the study area. key words: above-ground biomass, cost, accuracy, lidar, forest resource assessment monitoring above-ground forest biomass: a comparison of cost and accuracy between lidar assisted multisource programme and field-based forest resource assessment in nepal p. n. kandel 1 forests act as carbon sink, but turn into a source of carbon emissions when they degrade. as a consequence, political and public attentions to the world’s forests have drastically increased due to the significant role of forests in the global carbon cycle (fao, 2010; ipcc, 2007). tropical forests cover 15% of the world’s land surface, and hold about 25% of the carbon in the terrestrial biosphere, emit 15-20 % of the total carbon dioxide in the atmosphere every year due to deforestation and forest degradation (fao, 2010; ipcc, 2007). recognizing this prospect, the united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc) agreed to encourage reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from forests via redd+ programme (asner et al., 2010; fao, 2010; unfccc, 2009). as a result, redd+ has become an international policy instrument to mitigate climate change by reducing carbon emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation, and by increasing carbon uptake through forest restoration and sustainable forest management (herold and skutsch, 2011; 1 fra nepal project, department of forest research and survey, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: pkkandelnepal@gmail.com 12 banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 13 ipcc, 2006). however, effective implementation of redd+ strategy depends on cost-effective forest monitoring systems to generate accurate baseline statistics of forest biomass, carbon stocks and emission levels (asner et al., 2010; asner, 2009). forest inventory methods have changed in the course of time due to the continuous technological advancement (kandel, 2010; gatziolis and andersen, 2008). the key driving force behind the development of different fra methods is the goal of obtaining accurate forest information at low cost (tomppo et al., 2008; kangas and maltamo, 2006). in the past, intensive field-based fra focused on timber production and applied for estimating tree volume, growing stock and growth (hummel and o’hara, 2008). although traditional approach is accurate method, rigorous field measurement is time-consuming, costly, and difficult to implement in unreachable extensive forest areas. satellite remote sensing (rs) has become key tool to collect large amounts of image data over a wide geographical area with high temporal frequency and provide 2d (x, y) information on species composition. however, optical rs cannot penetrate through the forest canopy to generate information about forest structure (gautam et al., 2010). besides, intensive field inventory and ground verification are required to validate the data and to generate tree-level statistics (gautam and kandel, 2010). light detection and ranging (lidar) is an active rs technology that is able to penetrate the vertical profile of dense forest canopy and quantify its structure (asner et al., 2012; pascual et al., 2010; gatziolis and andersen, 2008). compared to traditional passive optical rs, lidar has the capacity to capture 3d (x, y, z) data of objects, and can precisely estimate height and size of individual trees or forest stands and thereby volume and agb (lim et al., 2003; nelson et al., 2003). however, a key obstacle in using lidar is due to its relatively high cost for scanning in challenging flying condition (asner et al., 2010; gautam et al., 2010; hummel et al., 2011; næsset, 2002a,b, and 2009). when combining lidar from sample areas with satellite data covering the entire area of interest and in-situ measurements at sample locations, high-resolution maps of forest carbon stocks and emission can be produced in an efficient way (asner et al., 2010; arbonaut, 2010). the integrated approach is known as the lamp – a term that was coined by the world wildlife fund u.s. (wwf us) and the arbonaut, finland in the early 2011. lamp has been tested in peru, laos, madagascar, colombia and nepal. however, a cost and accuracy analysis that would allow a comparison between the lamp approach and field-based forest inventory methods has not been carried out so far. comparison of cost and accuracy of different fra approaches applied for the same objective such as monitoring forest carbon stocks and emissions has become one of the key research areas in forestry in order to draw conclusions on their cost efficiency, robustness and accuracy (hummel et al., 2011). this paper presents the results of a study which compares the cost and accuracy of lamp and multi-source fra methods applied in tal-nepal for the estimation of agb. materials and methods study area the study was conducted within the terai arc landscape (tal) that extends between nepal and india, and includes two globally outstanding ecoregions viz. the terai-duar savanna grasslands, and the himalayan subtropical broadleaf forests (gurung and joshi, 2009). the tal covers an area of 23,500 km2 within nepal,and is bounded by bagmati river in the east, mahakali river in the west, siwalik ridge in the north and india in the south (fig. 1). fig. 1: map showing the study area in the terai arc landscape kandel banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 14 altitude varies from 300 m in the south to 1,500 m in the northern hills above mean sea level.the area is a spatial mosaic of tropical and subtropical forest types, and covers 75% of the remaining forests of terai and the foot hills of the siwaliks (hmgn/ mfsc, 2004; hmgn/adb/finnida, 1988). the region is home to the world’s most impressive wildlife species such as royal bengal tiger, the greater one-horned rhinoceros and the asian elephant (joshi and bhatta, 2010). the area is inhabited by 6.7 million people, and the majority of them are rural poor (gurung and kokh, 2011). as a result, forest resources have declined in extent and quality due to deforestation and degradation. inventory methods considered in the study lidar assisted multisource programme lidar-data were collected from 5% of the study area. for the lidar campaign, 20 rectangular forest blocks of 5 km × 10 km size were designed by a weighted random sampling. wall-to-wall airborne laser scanning (als) was conducted during march and april 2011 using a leica als50-ii scanner. average recorded point density was 1.26 pulses/m2. systematic cluster sampling was applied to collect field data in the lidar sample areas. six clusters were designed in each lidar block. altogether, 792 forest-located circular plots of size 500 m2 were measured in the field. the measurements at tree-level included all living trees and shrubs above 5 cm diameter within the plot area. plot volume and biomass were calculated using species-group specific volume and biomass equations prepared by sharma and pukkala (1990). lidar metrics describing the canopy height distribution are used to predict growing stock, biomass and other related characteristics of a forest stand (lim et al., 2003; næsset, 2002a). the lidar model is established by regressing field measurements with 30 lidar variables defined by junttila et al., 2010. the selection of variables is done using the sparse bayesian methodology (junttila et al., 2008). the arbolidar tools developed by arbonaut, finland were used to apply this method. field-based multisource fra approach the fra nepal project (2010–2014) has applied a stratified two-phase systematic cluster sampling. in the first phase sampling, 4 km by 4 km systematic grids were overlaid for visual interpretation. out of the total, 4883 (56%) points were located in the forests. altogether, 128 sample clusters consisting of 676 sample points which represent about 13.8% points of the first phase forest-area samples were selected for field inventory. in the terai region, each cluster consisted of a group of 4 sample plots while there were 6 plots per cluster in the siwaliks. a concentric circular sample plot with radii thresholds of 20 m, 15m, 8 m and 4 m was designed for tallying and measuring different size of trees. field inventory was carried out by a number of field inventory crews. the measured tree characteristics were used to calculate the volume of each species at plot-level, later extrapolated to the whole target area and finally estimated per unit area (sharma and pukkala, 1990). costs of forest inventory hardcastle and baird (2008) have described the cost of forest inventory under variable and fixed/ administrative costs. variable costs depend on methods, spatial coverage, required accuracy, sampling intensity, materials to be used and the capacity of the executing organization.the administrative costs include costs of planning and organizing sampling events such as staffing, formulating inventory tools and techniques, personnel/experts involved, procurements and other costs which do not much vary with sampling design and other variables of inventory, if system is well institutionalized. in the case of the projectbased fra, the total cost becomes the allocated budget to perform the task. extent of variable costs of lamp variable costs of lamp comprise the expenditure required for: wall-to-wall lidar scanning in 20 sample blocks, in situ measurements at 792 field plots; purchase of rapideye satellite imagery, data processing, modeling (lidar model and satellite-based model) and biomass estimation for the whole study area. the cost-related data were collected from the records of the fra nepal project and arbonaut, finland. the costs for data processing and model building were derived from the number of working days spent on these tasks and the respective hourly rates of the experts involved. kandel banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 15 variable cost magnitudes of field-based fra several variable costs were associated during the implementation of field-based fra. all relevant cost items, their composition and data sources are presented in table 1. the second phase field inventory was organized in a mission-wise approach by sending the crews to the locations of different field sample clusters. to derive the related costs, the average number of days spent by a crew for the field inventory and the average number of sample plots measured by a crew in each mission were calculated. on an average, the field inventory crews spent 24 days in a mission, and measured 12 sample plots. including all the expenditure items, the average total cost of each crew mission was computed. cost per plot was figured out by using the following formula: cost/plot= total cost per crew mission/12 plots the total cost was determined by adding the overall cost of all direct expenses. finally, perhectare cost for the study area was derived. estimation of subsequent monitoring cost subsequent forest monitoring is needed in successive cycle to update the forest information (fao, 2010; tomppo et al., 2008; kangas and maltamo, 2006). field-based fra approach necessitates repeating forest inventory in the same way during successive time periods. however, lamp needs to update the model by interpretation of new satellite images for successive years at least does not repeat other items up to certain cycles (asner et al., 2010; gautam et al., 2010; lim et al., 2003; næsset, 2002b). the lamp model can also be applied to estimate historical biomass from satellite imagery of the past. in the case of tal-nepal, after collecting the baseline data, three succeeding cycles of five year interval have been set by assuming that the lamp model does work up to the next 15 years. in this case, cost only requires for updating the model through interpretation and processing of new satellite images to produce agb estimates. in consequence, a postulation has been set that includes the base line data collection, forest monitoring up to the next three rounds is a single task required for mrv. an additional assumption is that both systems will be institutionalized within the department of forest research and survey (dfrs) of nepal thus, no cost is required to hire international experts. hence, calculation of cumulative cost is required for the set subsequent forest monitoring series. we approach this build up of activity cost so that each successive total cost includes activity costs table 1: details of cost items involved in field-based multisource fra expenditure items details under each items data sources • procurement of satellite imagery • cost calculated from actual price required to buy rapideye imagery. fra nepal project • training cost to train field crews • cost required for training the inventory crew members involved in field plot measurement. fra nepal project • first-phase sampling (image interpretation) • cost required for interpretation of the points within the study area. fra nepal project • second-phase field inventory (in situ measurement) • preparatory cost • hardship allowance for field crews and local staff paid by the project • expenses required for social survey • accommodation cost for field crews • cost for vehicles and fuel • salary for crew members • field-gear mission-wise record from fra nepal project salary-sheet • quality control of second-phase field inventory about 7% cost of second-phase sampling quality control team • data entry, processing analysis kandel banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 16 that precede it (jhingan, 2002). although the per hectare cost for consecutive inventory cycles could be significantly increased in the future, due to increasing prices of materials and labors, the given estimates of future inventory costs (table 4) were derived on the basis of the calculated present initial expenditures which reveal the indicative minimum cumulative cost required for successive cycles. the set of assumptions allow us to compare cost efficiency between the two approaches up to the defined sequence of measurement cycles. estimation of method accuracy the mean square error of an estimator, mse or me (θ) assesses the quality of an estimator in terms of its variation and unbiasedness. two or more statistical models applied for the same purpose can be compared using the values of the me (θ) to explain the reliability of two sets of observations (lebanon, 2010; moore and mccabe, 2001). for the purpose of this study, both field plot-based fra method and the lidar assisted lamp approach were compared with respect to their accuracy in estimating mean agb at different spatial scales. the me (θ) is calculated as the root of the sum of the variance and the squared bias of the estimator: me(θ )=√var (θ )+ bias(θ )2 ............. (1) in order to derive the mean error at different spatial scales, the formula was modified by replacing variance with the square of the standard error of the mean. the standard error of the mean is the standard deviation of the error in the sample mean relative to the true mean: .................................. (2) sex̄= s √n where s is the standard deviation of the sample and n is the sample size (number of observations). using the sample size as an indicator of the spatial scale (area) at which a mean estimate is produced, the scale-dependent mean error was calculated as: ................. (3) where s is the standard deviation of above-ground biomass in fra plots which was considered the true standard deviation of biomass, and n is the number of fra plots or lamp estimates respectively for a certain area. for the fra approach, n was scaled according to forest area, adopting an ideal case of equal spatial distribution of field plots over the forest: ................................ (4) where r is the forested area (ha) from which the mean estimate is produced, a is the total forested area (350,000 ha) according to the available vegetation map, and n fra is the total number of fra plots. for the lamp approach, n is equal to the area from which the estimate is produced. the lamp method produces biomass estimates at 1-hectare resolution. that means lamp produced 350,000 samples in 350,000 ha but field-based fra approach designed only 150 samples. the fra approach was considered an unbiased method because it is a design-based method that better follows to the laws of statistics, so that in this case the formula could be simplified to the formula for standard error of the mean (equation 2). the bias of lamp was calculated by comparing lamp estimates at fra-plot locations with the corresponding fra-based agb values. the accuracy of the lamp approach was calculated using equation 3. results and discussion total and administrative costs deducting the cost for lidar as indicated in the project document, the total budget of the fra nepal project is usd 7099973.00 allocated to conduct comprehensive national fra. on the other hand, the lamp was a sub-approach under the project conducted at sub-national scale to estimate agb. the total cost of lamp was usd 728957.00 which include usd 265320.00 allocated by the fra nepal project. the remaining budget was contributed by the wwf us/nepal and the arbonaut, finland. on the basis of the total allocated budget, the cost for the fieldbased fra was usd 0.48/ha; the cost for lamp being usd 0.31/ha. the administrative cost for the field-based fra becomes usd 0.26/ha as compared to usd 0.03/ha in the case of lamp. me(θ )n= √s2 n + bias (θ )2 kandel banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 17 initial variable cost model-based lamp approach in the study area, the total variable cost for lamp was usd 655037.00, indicating usd 0.28/ha. a break-down of the entire variable costs under each item and cost per hectare are presented in table 2. the result reveals that lidar scanning is the most expensive comprising 44% of the total cost, followed by the field inventory which forms 31.6% of the cost. table 2: initial cost of lamp over the entire study area cost items total cost, usd cost/ha, usd lidar scanning 290400.00 0.125 procurement of satellite imagery 18480.00 0.0079 field inventory 207240.00 0.089 modeling lidar data with field plots 23232.00 0.0099 lamp model building and data processing 115685.00 0.05 total cost 655037.00 0.2818 field-based multisource fra in comparison to lamp, the total variable expense for the multisource fra method amounts to usd 522450 for the same study area, which comprises usd 0.22 per hectare. a break-down of the total cost under each item and cost per hectare are presented in table 3. subsequent monitoring cost for future monitoring, the costs for lamp are only related to model updates and data analysis for each successive lamp cycle. these costs equal about usd 0.05/ha which was integrated in a cumulative figure for each successive cycle. table 4 lists the cumulative cost for lamp up to third consecutive series with usd 0.43/ha. in comparison, in the case of field-based multisource fra, almost the same variable costs are involved in every consecutive inventory. therefore, the initial cost of usd 0.22/ha was added for each inventory cycle. as a result, the cumulative cost per hectare (usd 0.44) for the approach is higher than the cost of lamp (usd 0.33) already from the second inventory cycle onwards. by the fourth cycle, the cost for the design-based fra approach reaches usd 0.88/ha compared to usd 0.43/ha for the lamp approach. table 4: cumulative cost of multiple inventory cycles* of lamp and field-based fra forest monitoring approaches estimated cumulative cost (usd) for successive baseline cost first cycle second cycle third cycle modelbased lamp 0.28 0.33 0.38 0.43 designedbased multisource fra 0.22 0.44 0.66 0.88 *one cycle = five years table 3: baseline cost (usd) of the multisource fra method in tal-nepal cost items total cost, usd cost/ha, usd procurement of satellite image 18480.00 0.0079 procurement of ancillary data and maps 2500.00 0.0011 first phase sampling 3000.00 0.0013 method development and testing 2000.00 0.001 training cost 8000.00 0.0034 cost for second phase field inventory 359219.00 0.15 data entry, processing and analysis 129250.00 0.055 total cost 522450.00 0.22 kandel banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 18 accuracy comparison table 5 demonstrates the behaviour of the mean error (me) in mean biomass estimates produced by fra and lamp approaches at different spatial scales. the larger the estimation area, the lower is the mean error of the estimate. table 5. mean error of mean biomass estimates at different scales for fra and lamp methods resolution (hectares of forest) mean error in fra-plotderived mean biomass estimate (tonnes/ha) mean error in lamp-derived mean biomass estimate (tonnes/ha) 1 6243.95 129.29 10 1974.51 40.97 100 624.39 13.21 1,000 129.26 4.90 5,000 88.30 3.26 10,000 62.44 2.99 50,000 27.92 2.76 100,000 19.75 2.73 350,000 10.55 2.71 the results indicate that mean error of lamp at 1 ha resolution is 129.29 tonnes/ha and after that it gradually decreases with increasing estimation area and reaches an asymptotic limit of 2.7 tonnes/ ha at a 350,000 ha spatial resolution, which is the bias detected in the method. after that limit, mean error of estimate remains the same, even when the estimation area is increased. in comparison, the mean error of the fra estimate at 1 ha is 6243.95 tonnes/ha which is very high, but afterwards slowly decreasing with increasing forest areas, and goes down to 10.6 tonnes/ha when estimation forest area reaches 350,000 ha. discussion nepal is in a redd-readiness/demonstration phase, and needs to pay special consideration to the cost-efficiency and accuracy of the proposed redd monitoring concepts. it is good practice to appraise alternative fra methods in terms of cost-efficiency and accuracy which eventfully facilitates to determine accurate and reliable methods required to meet higher tiers approach for the estimation of carbon stock changes in cost effective way (ipcc, 2006). this study evaluated and compared the cost-efficiency and accuracy between the lamp approach and the filed-based fra method applied in nepal’s tal area for the purpose. hardcastle and baird (2008) argue that the cost for forest inventory would be the total budget of a project, and in such case, variable and administrative costs are assumed to be equal. however, this study reveals that the administrative cost (usd 0.26/ha) for field-based fra is higher than the variable cost (usd 0.22/ha). the reason behind is that about 46% project cost goes to the salary of experts (international 39% and regional 7%) and about 16% is under operating cost (gon/ gof, 2010). it indicates that forest monitoring system has not been fully institutionalized, and the capacity of the executing agency needs to be further strengthened. the cost analysis explains that administrative cost of the fra nepal project appears to be significantly higher than the lamp, since the fra nepal project has been designed for five years (2010–2014) to conduct nationallevel fra; however, lamp was applied within three month-period for estimating only agb in the targeted area. the results presented in this study reveal that model-based lamp was more expensive in terms of variable cost (usd 0.06/ha) as compared to the design-based fra for collecting baseline data. although the cost difference between two approaches seems to be insignificant, the fieldbased fra process has collected data on more attributes as compared to the lamp approach. it is obvious that multisource fra is more cost efficient than the lamp in terms of baseline data collection for the whole tal area. the international panel on climate change (ipcc) estimates £0.025 – £0.30/ha cost of national forest carbon inventories (hardcastle and baird, 2008). lidar-based forest inventory has been recently applied in different parts of the world to estimate forest carbon stock. carnege institution for science, usa operated lamp in peru, madagascar and colombia to estimate forest carbon stocks and emission by using 2.8– 12% lidar sampling, freely available landsat thematic mapper (tm) image, limited field measurement and automated non-commercial claslite software at cost ranging from usd 0.20 to usd 0.06 ha-1 (asner et al., 2010, 2011; asner, 2009). for the 4.3 million ha peruvian amazon forest, 12% lidar sampling was used, and only 131 large field plots (radius 30 m, area kandel banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 19 per plot 0.2827 ha, total area 37 ha), and 37 small field plots (radius 3 m, area per plot 28.27 m2, total area 1,046 m2) were measured in the study area to calibrate lidar metrics of aboveground carbon at usd 0.08/ha (asner et al., 2010). this study discloses that the cost of lamp in nepal is higher than in those countries. one of the reasons for this is that the intensity of field sampling was significantly higher (radius 12.62 m, area per plot 500 m2, plot measured 792 and total area 39.6 ha) in nepal to represent the vegetation types and regional variation. field inventory did cost second highest amount (usd 0.089/ha) after lidar scanning. moreover, employing international experts for data processing and model building increased the cost. the analysis of variable cost of multisource fra (table 3) shows that the field inventory forms the most expensive component. on an average, the cost per plot was usd 531.50; the total estimated cost to measure 676 concentric circular plots being usd 359,219.00 (71%). data entry and processing needed approximately 23% of the total cost. the expenditure for the remaining items seems to be insignificant. the results of subsequent variable cost comparison (table 4) show that the minimum cumulative cost for field-based fra is significantly increasing from the first cycle of inventory, and reaches more than double the cost of lamp up to the third cycle. the reason for this is that all the variable cost items were included in every successive cycle for multisource fra processes, whereas in the case of lamp, the only cost required is for model updating through new satellite image interpretation. as a result, the lamp approach appears to be more cost efficient in subsequent forest carbon monitoring. multisource fra is a design-based method, whereas lamp is a model-based approach. the key difference between the two approaches lies in source of randomness they utilize (särndal, 1978). in designed-based sampling theory, the source of randomness is the probability introduced by sampling design to the various subsets of population. however, in a model-based approach, all the randomness in the inference is due to the population, and not due to the sampling method adopted as in a design-based approach (kangas and maltamo, 2006; kangas, 1993). to attain tier 3 in redd+, spatially explicit estimates are required to determine reliable forest carbon stock difference. lidar-assisted inventory is the most accurate method to provide higher-resolution biomass estimates and carbon stock (asner et al., 2012; arbonaut, 2010; ipcc, 2006; næsset, 2002a,b). the me of an estimate, me (θ) is a useful criterion to compare two estimators, the one with smaller me (θ) is said to be a more accurate approach than the other (kohl et al., 2011). for the purpose of this study, the dataset generated by lamp and multisource fra approaches were used to estimate mean agb. comparison of accuracy was done by calculating me (θ). table 5 presents the me of mean biomass estimates at different scales ranging from 1 ha to 350,000 ha forest for both inventory approaches. the results clearly disclose that the biggest difference between the two approaches is spatial resolution. the me in the lamp-derived mean biomass estimate is found to be significantly smaller at all spatial resolutions than the one in the fra-plot derived mean biomass estimate. the me at 1000 ha scale of field-based fra becomes 129.26 tonnes/ha as compared to the me at 1000 ha spatial resolution of lamp estimate (4.9 tonnes/ha). thus, accuracy of lamp is enough to estimate agb up to management regimes. community forestry (cf) is one of the key strategies of forest management in nepal, where national forests have been handed over to the local forest users groups (cfugs) for their autonomous management and use. cfugs are authorized local organizations, and possess right to claim for carbon credit gained due to the protection and management of handed over forests. to date, nearly 18,000 cfugs are managing about 1.7 million ha forest (22% of the total forest area) throughout the nation (dof, 2012). in the tal area, there are more than 1600 cfugs managing nearly 240,000 ha forest (dof, 2012; joshi and bhatta, 2010). the statistics shows that average size of community forest is 150 ha in the tal region. the results in table 4 illustrate that the mean error in lampderived biomass is 13.21 tonnes/ha at 100,000 ha spatial extent. however, the same accuracy is not possible through field-based fra. as a result, the accuracy of lamp is good enough to estimate biomass stock of community forests. kandel banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 20 conclusion selection of the most cost efficient and accurate forest monitoring method is a matter of optimization which demands comparative study between the approaches. this study tried to compare the costs and nepal. the administrative cost of the field-based fra is higher than its variable cost due to the involvement of international and regional experts in the project. this study concludes that the cost of forest monitoring greatly depends upon national capacity. national-level fra in nepal has been conducted on project-basis as the organizational capacity of the executing agency needs to be further strengthened. therefore, it is recommended that forest monitoring system in nepal should be periodic and mandatory, and ensured by policy instruments and national forestry programme. within the stipulated forest inventory schemes, variable expenses of the model-based lamp was found to be more costly in baseline data collection than that of the field-based fra. on the contrary, the model-based lamp is more cost efficient in subsequent forest monitoring. this study indicates that the model-based lamp is more cost efficient as compared to the field-based fra to monitor forest carbon stocks in short period of time, and at the same time, does not require whole processes up to certain inventory cycles. however, the cost required for the purpose within the tal area in nepal was found to be higher than that reported in other countries. hence, the intensities of lidar sampling and field-plot measurement seem to be further analyzed. theoretically, smaller the mean error of the estimate, higher is the accuracy. the result reveals that mean errors of lamp-derived estimates are significantly smaller than the mean error of the fra-plot-derived estimate at different spatial scales ranging from 1 to 350,000 ha forest area. for this reason, the study concludes that the lamp approach is highly accurate to estimate agb at small spatial scale even at managementlevel forest regime, e.g. community forests of nepal. the choice of inventory method should always be made depending on the expected outcomes and forest variables to be measured. through fieldbased multisource fra method, information about a vast number of target variables can be collected, ranging from tree-level characteristics to biodiversity and soil. a model-based lamp method covers much less forest variables, and cannot replace a multisource inventory. however, it produces biomass and carbon stock estimates at high spatial resolution suitable for ipcc tier 3 level, which is difficult to achieve with fieldbased multisource inventory. acknowledgements i am grateful to dr. kesab dutta awasthi, professor, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal for supervising the whole study. my gratitude goes to dr. tuomo kotimaki, associate professor, department of mathematics and physics, lappeeranta university of technology, finland for facilitating to conceptualize this highly demanded study. i am thankful to arbonaut, finland and its team for inviting me to attend a lamp training course which became exceptionally helpful to me to understand arbo lidar tool and lamp data processing processes. thanks also go to ms. katja gunia, mr. basanta gautam, ms. katri tegel and the scientific team of arbonaut, finland for providing substantial technical inputs during study period. i am thankful to mr. sahas man shrestha, director general (dg), and mr. hasta bahadur thapa, deputy dg of department of forest research and survey, nepal for reviewing the article. eventually, i must thank mr. michael hawkes, the existing chief technical 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rural farmland of nepal d. k. kharal1 and b. n. oli2 dynamics of species distribution, species composition and species number are very important areas to be understood for sustainable management of forest and tree resources. the paper endeavours to solicit information on dynamics of tree species in terms of their composition and number, and also assesses the relationship between socio-economic factors and tree species dynamics. the study was conducted through survey of 98 sampled households, focus group discussion and direct field observation. species composition and species number of tree resources of the study area are identified for different time period. the study found out that proportion of tree species loss on farmland was higher than that of species introduction. similarly, 20 species were found with very limited distribution in the study area while two of them are already under the threatened category at the national level. the reasons for species change in the farmland are also identified. farmers are now attracted to grow fast growing, multipurpose and easily available tree species. economic return is the major concern for them. such a situation may lead to further loss of tree species from the farmland. some species such as shorea robusta and phyllanthus emblica, which were among the widely distributed in the beginning, are now about to be lost because of easy availability in nearby forest, slow growth rate and limited uses. key words: composition, diversity, dynamics, farmland, socioeconomic factors, trees. the destruction and degradation of forests is now recognized as one of the greatest environmental threats and tragedies of all times (bist 1999). environmental degradation is one of the major challenges in nepal as well and deforestation is mainly responsible for this. biodiversity has a significant role not only in sustaining livelihoods of nepalese people, but also in environmental conservation. the forest and trees provide a vast array of goods and services to human beings (arnold 1991; das and oli 2001; kanel 1995; suresh kumar and ramasamy 2003). despite such benefits, many species have been lost and biodiversity is reduced from the deforestation process especially in the natural forest. agriculture is the mainstay of economy in the country as agriculture and forestry together has 39.3% contribution in total gross domestic product of the country (hmgn 2002). dwindling of forest resources at an annual rate of 1.7% over fifteen years period from 1978/79 to 1994 (dfrs 1999) and growing demand for forest products has motivated the local people to grow trees on their farmland. tree growing on farmland is gaining ground in the country as it provides immediate benefits and utilities to the rural people in sustaining their livelihoods. tree planting initiatives on degraded land in asia are often politically driven and aspire to achieve both economic and environmental benefits (sayer et al. 2004). the growing markets for tree products have encouraged farmers to grow trees on their private farmland (malla 1993; kanel 1995; das and oli 2001). changes in composition and number of tree species in rural farmland are widely noticed over a time. naturally grown tree species were common in the past and farmers were just maintaining them as it was. farming practices are being changed gradually. more recently, planted trees are replacing the naturally grown tree species. large and big tree species are being replaced by small and manageable size of tree species. single use tree species are being replaced by multipurpose tree species. some fast growing tree species for timber, fuelwood and furniture are also being introduced rapidly in the farm. inappropriate agricultural methods, indiscriminate and injudicious harvest of natural resources, fragmented population of species and introduction of alien species have all led to both quantitative and 1 forest survey officer, department of forest research and survey, p. o. box 3339, kathmandu, nepal, email: dkharal@wlink.com.np 2 forest research officer, department of forest research and survey, p. o. box 3339, kathmandu, nepal, email: bn_oli@yahoo.com 4 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 qualitative depletion of biodiversity (bist 1999). the threat of erosion of high levels of genetic diversity in many traditionally managed agroecosystems is a current conservation concern, motivating studies of how diversity can be maintained by in-situ conservation measures (alvarez et al. 2004). similarly, traditional agro-forestry system of the farmland are being modified or destroyed because of many reasons such as fragmentation of land, land tenure right, socio-economic change, introduction of alien species and climatic change as well. in this context, this paper aims at investigating the dynamics of tree species on farmland and also assessing the impact of socio economic factors on dynamics of tree species. materials and methods study area birendranagar village development committee (vdc) area of the chitwan district was selected for this study. the village is characterized with diverse community structure and various land use type and different settlement period so that comparison among the different categories of each socio-economic variable can be analyzed easily. the community is diverse particularly in terms of ethnic group, time of settlement, economic level and occupation. the village has natural forest mainly dominating by shorea robusta forest some part of which are managed by community forest user groups and remaining are controlled by government agency itself. east-west national highway of the country touches in southern part of the village with semi urban characteristics whereas typical rural settlements and natural forest are found in northern part. methods secondary data were gathered through village development committee office, district forest office, central bureau of statistics and other concerned offices, and also from various literatures. primary data were obtained through household survey and focus group discussion. the fieldwork of the area took about six months and observed the community structure, land use type, vegetation composition, structure and dynamics, and other socio-economic condition of the area. formal household survey of 98 households was conducted with a semi-structured questionnaire. first the distribution of household number in each vdc unit (ward) was obtained from the vdc office and numbers of sample households were divided accordingly. a stratified sampling was developed to identify the location for sample survey and then responses were obtained through random walk sampling. the first household was selected randomly. an interval of 20 households along the walk was maintained to avoid bias in responses and to obtain as much diversity in the responses as possible. field observations were done simultaneously to assess the distribution of tree species inside the farmland. in this way, the sample covered 5% of the households in the study area. during the field observation of each sampled household farm, all the tree species and their number of individuals were counted regardless of their age. few group discussions were also conducted at the local level to crosscheck and validate the information obtained from household survey. problems and constraints in the area, suggestions and recommendations for the future improvement were taken during the group discussion. for quantitative analysis, the gathered data were entered into computer and analysed through excel and minitab software whereas subjective and logical interpretation was made for qualitative analysis. results and discussion dynamics of tree species in rural farmland biological environment is the most versatile element of the earth. it changes in terms of number, composition and distribution over the period. changes occur sometime because of ecological processes and sometimes by human interference. changes of trees and forest resources were found in both natural forest stand and cultivated/farmland in the study area. forest is the main source of tree species in the farmland, even though many of them are already domesticated. useful and economical tree species are generally preferred by farmers and other species might be lost particularly from farmers’ land. economic benefit either in the monetary term or in other indirect form is the major driving force to determine the species type to be held by the farmers in their farmland. table 1 shows the list of top 10 tree species distributed in highest number of households at present time and at settled time. melia azederach and mangifera indica are found in farmland of majority households at present. both of them are multipurpose tree species. artocarpus heterophyllus, fruit kharal and oli 5 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 tree, is held by about 44 percent of the total household but its distribution was less at the beginning of the settlement and so is the case for dalbergia sissoo. dalbergia sissoo and melia azedarach dominate the whole distribution of tree numbers, covering about three-fourth of the total tree number. both of them are primarily used for timber/furniture and fuelwood purpose. dalbergia sissoo alone represents more than half of the total tree numbers. melia azederach is further used for fodder particularly for goat. karki (1994) found similar result in the chitwan and rupandehi district, central terai of nepal. they have mentioned that among the 20 tree species prevalent in the two districts, d. sissoo was more widely grown than any other native or exotic tree, representing 50 percent of the total number of trees planted. das (1999) has also found the mangifera indica, artocarpus heterophyllus, dalbergia sissoo and psidium guyajava as the most widely distributed tree species on the farmland in eastern terai of nepal. das and oli (2001) found that sissoo was one of the most widely distributed species, mainly grown on the homestead farmland and bunds at the edges of farmland. the study carried out in india indicated that poplar is the most preferred tree species for planting on farmland followed by eucalyptus spp and dalbergia sissoo (pant et al. 1999). at the beginning of the settlement, shorea robusta was distributed in highest number among households followed by terminalia belerica, garuga pinnata, and terminalia tomentosa respectively. t. tomentosa and t. belerica are the close associates of the shorea robusta forest. garuga pinnata and gmelina arborea are still exist in large number of households comparatively. among the widely distributed tree species at present, 40 percent are fruits and their presence was less at the time of settlement. there was only one fruit species named phyllanthus emblica at the beginning and rests were other types. more than half of the widely distributed species are fodder categories and its abundance was about 80 percent at the beginning. regarding timber/furniture trees, it also occupies 40 percent of the top 10 having same position as beginning. tree species that are principally used for fuelwood purpose is also about 40 percent. because of the multiple uses of some tree species, they are counted in all types separately so that sum does not become 100 percent. all trees can be used as fuelwood. farmers usually do not plant fuelwood species separately, even though few species are recognized as the best one. garuga pinnata and gmelina arborea are one of the widely distributed tree species of the farmland found in both the times; viz. settled and present time. both of them are good fodder. garuga pinnata is easily propagated by vegetative means, which may be reasons why it is so common. further, it is branchy and produces lot of fodder in a year. its size is not so big due to which even women and children can lop it. gmelina arborea is good for fodder, fuelwood and furniture as well. it also does not have negative interaction with crop in high level. their roots also do not compete with crops because of deep root system. one species was completely lost from the area, which was widely distributed at beginning. dillenia pentagyna is now confined only in the nearby forest. kharal and oli 10 table 1: list of widely distributed tree species in the study area percent of households with species holding sn widely distributed species at present at present 5 years ago 10 years ago at the beginning widely distributed species at settled time 1 melia azederach 60 (1) 29 (4) 3 (10) 0 (48) shorea robusta 2 mangifera indica 60 (2) 50 (16) 41 (26) 13 (44) terminalia belerica 3 artocarpus heterophyllus 44 (38) 39 (37) 28 (32) 5 (44) garuga pinnata 4 dalbergia sissoo 43 (5) 36 (5) 9 (7) 3 (38) terminalia tomentosa 5 psidium guyajava 39 (29) 30 (29) 16 (28) 9 (35) gmelina arborea 6 garuga pinnata 38 (0) 37 (13) 32 (13) 44 (35) ficus religiosa 7 dendrocalamus spp 35 (0) 37 (0) 22 (1) 18 (34) dillenia pentagyna 8 leucaena leucocephala 33 (1) 21 (0) 6 (3) 1 (32) phyllanthus emblica 9 prunus persica 31 (3) 15 (3) 6 (7) 0 (32) stereopermum tetragonum 10 gmelina arborea 29 (17) 28 (17) 28 (21) 35 (31) ficus glomerata source: field survey note: 1. left side figure in the table corresponds to the distribution of tree species presented in column 2 2. figure in parentheses corresponds to the distribution of tree species presented in last column. table 2: distribution of tree species by time series distribution of tree species by time series in percentage time series fruit spp. timber/furniture spp. fodder spp. fuelwood spp. other spp. total spp number at present 32 12 58 15 12 60 5 years before 22 15 54 18 12 72 10 years before 27 17 52 18 6 71 at beginning 16 17 61 17 9 69 source : field survey table 3: analysis of species lost and introduced in the study area category of spp. average minimum maximum standard deviation lost 6,02 0 24 7,13 introduced 6,03 0 21 4,64 p – value 0,991 result highly insignificant source : field survey 6 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 distribution of tree species distribution of tree species type in different period is presented in table 2. a total of 60 tree species were recorded in the study area. the highest number of tree species was found around 5 years ago. after then, species number started to decline. some tree species with few numbers were already there in the farm when early settlers were granted land for permanent settlement. all of them were naturally grown and found scattered all over the farm. there were more than 25 different tree species found on private farmland in the study village of chitwan district, 20 in sunsari and 12 in kanchanpur district (das and oli 2001). study from bangladesh revealed that farmers always try to incorporate as many tree species as possible in their homesteads to establish a sustainable productive system (mohiuddin et al. 1997). species loss and introduced establishment of two brick industries in the vdc was mainly responsible for the loss of large number of trees as well as species especially from ward number 6, 7, 8 and 9. since brick industry consumes lot of woods, it is now easy to sell trees from the farm. the industry buys any kind of trees for the kiln regardless of quality. since then, some households have sold trees for earning money. continuation of this situation might reduce the species diversity and species richness of the area. the diversity of fruit species is increased over time in the farm while diversity of other species type is decreased. it was found in china that farmers, forest farms and forestry authorities are actively engaged in the expansion of fruit and nut trees and bamboo plantations, which are considered more profitable than conventional timber plantations (ruiz perez et al. 2004). changes of the fodder species diversity is not big while tremendous changes have been observed in timber/furniture species. during the period of cultivation, some tree species were completely lost from the farmland and some new species are introduced. rate of changes may be different in different period depending on the socioeconomic and ecological factors. table 3 shows the figure of lost and introduced tree species in the farmland of the study area. average lost and average introduced tree species in the farm is almost equal with somewhat different level of standard deviation. new species generally replace the old one. characteristics of the tree species mainly determine their existence in the farm. for example, trees were large at the beginning while they are small and manageable at present. table 4 shows the list of lost tree species from the farmland area. since the beginning of the settlement, 14 new tree species have been introduced in the farmland while 26 other species have completely been lost. maximum number of lost species and introduced species by a household was 24 and 21 respectively. among the introduced tree species, more than half were fruits followed by fodder species and timber/furniture species respectively. on the other hand, fruit species, fodder species and timber/furniture species were lost by 12, 41 and 41 percent respectively. less number of fruit tree species were lost compared to others. in total, the number of lost and introduced tree species are almost in balance though timber/ furniture tree species were lost about 41 percent and only 7 such kind of tree species were introduced in the farm. farmers managed to hold all the fruit kharal and oli 10 table 1: list of widely distributed tree species in the study area percent of households with species holding sn widely distributed species at present at present 5 years ago 10 years ago at the beginning widely distributed species at settled time 1 melia azederach 60 (1) 29 (4) 3 (10) 0 (48) shorea robusta 2 mangifera indica 60 (2) 50 (16) 41 (26) 13 (44) terminalia belerica 3 artocarpus heterophyllus 44 (38) 39 (37) 28 (32) 5 (44) garuga pinnata 4 dalbergia sissoo 43 (5) 36 (5) 9 (7) 3 (38) terminalia tomentosa 5 psidium guyajava 39 (29) 30 (29) 16 (28) 9 (35) gmelina arborea 6 garuga pinnata 38 (0) 37 (13) 32 (13) 44 (35) ficus religiosa 7 dendrocalamus spp 35 (0) 37 (0) 22 (1) 18 (34) dillenia pentagyna 8 leucaena leucocephala 33 (1) 21 (0) 6 (3) 1 (32) phyllanthus emblica 9 prunus persica 31 (3) 15 (3) 6 (7) 0 (32) stereopermum tetragonum 10 gmelina arborea 29 (17) 28 (17) 28 (21) 35 (31) ficus glomerata source: field survey note: 1. left side figure in the table corresponds to the distribution of tree species presented in column 2 2. figure in parentheses corresponds to the distribution of tree species presented in last column. table 2: distribution of tree species by time series distribution of tree species by time series in percentage time series fruit spp. timber/furniture spp. fodder spp. fuelwood spp. other spp. total spp number at present 32 12 58 15 12 60 5 years before 22 15 54 18 12 72 10 years before 27 17 52 18 6 71 at beginning 16 17 61 17 9 69 source : field survey table 3: analysis of species lost and introduced in the study area category of spp. average minimum maximum standard deviation lost 6,02 0 24 7,13 introduced 6,03 0 21 4,64 p – value 0,991 result highly insignificant source : field survey 7 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2kharal and oli 11 table 4: list of lost tree species from the study area s.n. local name scientific name % of hh with spp till 5 years back % of hh with spp till 10 years back % of hh with spp at beginning 1 bodhdhayero lagerstroemia parviflora 0.0 2.2 19.5 2 dar boehmeria rugulosa 0.0 0.0 2.6 3 dudhilo ficus nemoralis 1.0 0.0 1.3 4 karang pongamia pinnata 4.1 3.3 11.7 5 karma adina cordifolia 0.0 1.1 10.4 6 khari celtis australis 0.0 0.0 1.3 7 koiralo bauhinia veriegata 0.0 0.0 1.3 8 kumhi careya arborea 0.0 0.0 1.3 9 patke gaultharia hookaris 1.0 0.0 5.2 10 palans butea monosperma 0.0 4.4 27.3 11 kusum schleichera trijuga 1.0 2.2 13.0 12 lampate duabanga grandiflora 1.0. 1.1 1.3 13 latikath cornus oblonga 0.0 0.0 2.6 14 rudhilo pogostemon glaber 0.0 0.0 1.3 15 sandan ougenia dalbergioides 2.1 1.1 1.3 17 siris albizia spp 0.0 8.9 2.6 18 tantari dillenia pentagyna 0.0 1.1 33.8 19 valayo rhus wallichii 0.0 2.2 18.2 20 teak tectona grandis 1.0 0.0 0.0 21 rabar ficus elastica 1.0 0.0 0.0 22 phaledo erithrina arborescens 1.0 1.1 0.0 23 masala eucalyptus spp 3.1 3.3 0.0 24 kalkiphool callistemon viminalis 1.0 0.0 0.0 25 ashok saraca indica 1.0 0.0 0.0 26 pakhuri ficus glaberrima 0.0 1.1 2.6 source: field survey table 5: impact of socio economic factors on species change variables categories of variables average of species lost average of species introduced farm size small – medium – large 3,36 – 8,00 – 8,22 (p = 0,001*) 3,89 – 7,00 – 10,44 (p = 0,000*) homegarden small – medium – large 4,80 – 7,18 – 11,50 (p = 0,026*) 3,72 – 8,96 – 13,62 (p = 0,000*) household size small – medium – big 4,94 – 10,37 –5,34 (p = 0,026*) 4,44 – 7,81 – 6,65 (p = 0,023*) livestock size small – medium – large 3,82 – 4,73 – 8,70 (p = 0,012*) 3,56 – 5,50 – 8,10 (p = 0,000*) fuelwood consumption low – medium – high 4,56 – 5,87 – 9,00 (p = 0,080**) 4,51 – 6,31 – 8,20 (p = 0,013*) forest visit less – fair – high 5,59 – 5,91 – 10,00 (p = 0,307**) 6,38 – 5,23 – 7,00 (p = 0,445**) forest distance near – fair – far 5,51 – 6,40 – 6,35 (p = 0,839**) 5,04 – 6,67 – 6,88 (p = 0,205**) fuelwood collection time quick – fair – late 5,67 – 5,95 – 6,59 (p = 0,903**) 6,17 – 5,25 – 7,54 (p = 0,155**) income level low – medium – high 4,51 – 9,12 – 6,50 (p = 0,005*) 4,34 – 8,09 – 8,87 (p = 0,000*) income source agriculture– labor – business – pension – service 7,64 – 2,73 – 5,66 – 4,82 – 6,90 (p = 0,127**) 7,47 3,42 7,66 -4,05 6,70 (p = 0,004*) caste brahmin – chhetri – others – lower 4,52 – 8,60 – 7,48 – 1,33 (p=0,097**) 6,21 – 8,30 – 5,15 – 7,00 (p=0,265**) settlement time early – middle – late 7,31 – 1,76 – 0,50 (p = 0,002*) 6,51 – 6,07 – 1,25 (p = 0,008*) source: field survey note: 1. * significant 2. ** not significant species for the last 10 years. instead, 50 percent new fruit species have been introduced. more fodder species were lost than their introduction until then. in addition, the situation was almost same for timber/ furniture tree species. there was almost balance between the lost and introduced tree species in total for the last 10 years. nevertheless, large numbers of tree species were introduced for the last 5 years. situation in the farmland changed afterward. from 5 years back to now, more species were lost compared to introduction of new species in the area. if the trend continues, further loss of tree species is expected from the farm. socio-economic impact on species dynamics socio-economic factors might not alone determine the species changes but it is the significant one in rural farmland situation. farmers’ decisions mainly determine which species to be retained and which one to be cleared from their farm. some ecological factors may affect to some extent for species change. the impacts of socio-economic factors on species dynamics in rural farmland are presented in table 5. farm size, homegarden size, household size, income level, livestock size and settlement period have significant impact on species dynamics. number of species lost and species introduced is different in each category of these factors. level of species changes continuously increases as the farm size increases and so is the case with income level and homegarden size. it is also found that larger and wealthier farmer in bangladesh tended to plant more trees on their farmland than poorer farmers (hocking et al. 1996). das and oli (2001) also found a positive correlationship between landholding and tree growing in all the three studied districts of nepal. although the impact of level of fuelwood consumption is not significant, the trend shows that higher changes occurred in high consumption level and lower changes occurred in lower consumption level. the situation is also similar for level of forest visit. business based household have introduced more tree species than other category of households (table 5). lowest species change occurred in labour-based household-farm. caste does not have any significant impact on species changes though loss of species is lowest in lower caste. as the settlement period increases level of species changes also increases. long duration of settlement allows farmers to change the species composition frequently. generally, the late settlers should spend some years just to introduce the species in the farm. 8 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 kharal and oli 11 table 4: list of lost tree species from the study area s.n. local name scientific name % of hh with spp till 5 years back % of hh with spp till 10 years back % of hh with spp at beginning 1 bodhdhayero lagerstroemia parviflora 0.0 2.2 19.5 2 dar boehmeria rugulosa 0.0 0.0 2.6 3 dudhilo ficus nemoralis 1.0 0.0 1.3 4 karang pongamia pinnata 4.1 3.3 11.7 5 karma adina cordifolia 0.0 1.1 10.4 6 khari celtis australis 0.0 0.0 1.3 7 koiralo bauhinia veriegata 0.0 0.0 1.3 8 kumhi careya arborea 0.0 0.0 1.3 9 patke gaultharia hookaris 1.0 0.0 5.2 10 palans butea monosperma 0.0 4.4 27.3 11 kusum schleichera trijuga 1.0 2.2 13.0 12 lampate duabanga grandiflora 1.0. 1.1 1.3 13 latikath cornus oblonga 0.0 0.0 2.6 14 rudhilo pogostemon glaber 0.0 0.0 1.3 15 sandan ougenia dalbergioides 2.1 1.1 1.3 17 siris albizia spp 0.0 8.9 2.6 18 tantari dillenia pentagyna 0.0 1.1 33.8 19 valayo rhus wallichii 0.0 2.2 18.2 20 teak tectona grandis 1.0 0.0 0.0 21 rabar ficus elastica 1.0 0.0 0.0 22 phaledo erithrina arborescens 1.0 1.1 0.0 23 masala eucalyptus spp 3.1 3.3 0.0 24 kalkiphool callistemon viminalis 1.0 0.0 0.0 25 ashok saraca indica 1.0 0.0 0.0 26 pakhuri ficus glaberrima 0.0 1.1 2.6 source: field survey table 5: impact of socio economic factors on species change variables categories of variables average of species lost average of species introduced farm size small – medium – large 3,36 – 8,00 – 8,22 (p = 0,001*) 3,89 – 7,00 – 10,44 (p = 0,000*) homegarden small – medium – large 4,80 – 7,18 – 11,50 (p = 0,026*) 3,72 – 8,96 – 13,62 (p = 0,000*) household size small – medium – big 4,94 – 10,37 –5,34 (p = 0,026*) 4,44 – 7,81 – 6,65 (p = 0,023*) livestock size small – medium – large 3,82 – 4,73 – 8,70 (p = 0,012*) 3,56 – 5,50 – 8,10 (p = 0,000*) fuelwood consumption low – medium – high 4,56 – 5,87 – 9,00 (p = 0,080**) 4,51 – 6,31 – 8,20 (p = 0,013*) forest visit less – fair – high 5,59 – 5,91 – 10,00 (p = 0,307**) 6,38 – 5,23 – 7,00 (p = 0,445**) forest distance near – fair – far 5,51 – 6,40 – 6,35 (p = 0,839**) 5,04 – 6,67 – 6,88 (p = 0,205**) fuelwood collection time quick – fair – late 5,67 – 5,95 – 6,59 (p = 0,903**) 6,17 – 5,25 – 7,54 (p = 0,155**) income level low – medium – high 4,51 – 9,12 – 6,50 (p = 0,005*) 4,34 – 8,09 – 8,87 (p = 0,000*) income source agriculture– labor – business – pension – service 7,64 – 2,73 – 5,66 – 4,82 – 6,90 (p = 0,127**) 7,47 3,42 7,66 -4,05 6,70 (p = 0,004*) caste brahmin – chhetri – others – lower 4,52 – 8,60 – 7,48 – 1,33 (p=0,097**) 6,21 – 8,30 – 5,15 – 7,00 (p=0,265**) settlement time early – middle – late 7,31 – 1,76 – 0,50 (p = 0,002*) 6,51 – 6,07 – 1,25 (p = 0,008*) source: field survey note: 1. * significant 2. ** not significant risk of species loss and its sustainability distribution of species and their individual number determine the possible loss or extinction of species from the area. widely distributed species are less vulnerable to be lost or extinct whereas less distributed species are threatened to be lost from the area. if species is distributed either in large number of household farms or in large number of individual in the area, they are said to be widely distributed. they are comparatively safe for not to be lost. once the species is found either in limited number of households or in limited number of individual, they are referred as threatened species to be lost. there is high risk with these species. they can be lost from the area in near future. here, list of threatened species is prepared based on their distribution in number of farm and number of individual. table 6 below presents the species name, which are threatened to be lost from the farmland. shrestha and joshi (1996) have mentioned 60 plant species of non-endemic taxa fall under various categories of threats in nepal. among them 22 species are rare because of their economic values as exportable items, because of their geographical range lying within human encroachments and also because of their over exploitation for local use. among the threats, 12 species are listed under endangered category and 11 species under vulnerable category. there are 3 taxa of ‘critically endangered’, 14 of ‘endangered’, 23 of ‘vulnerable’, 3 of ‘nearly threatened’, 1 of ‘least concern’ and 7 of ‘data deficient’ medicinal and aromatic plants (maps) in nepal (sharma et al. 2004). farmland of the current study area preserves only two species, which are found under the threatened category in nepal. butea monosperma is already lost from the area. acacia catechu and oroxylum indicum are still found in the area with very limited distribution. shorea robusta and phyllanthus emblica have lost their distribution very fast from the farmland. these species will completely be lost from the farm if present trend continues. in addition, the distribution of terminalia belerica, stereopermum tetragomumi, terminalia alata tree species are also decreasing rapidly in the farmland. conclusion as the forest degradation continues with more restricted access to the forest, increase in the price of the wood, threats in the rural farming system, farmers responds by increasing number of trees and tree species in the various places of the farmland. traditional agro-ecosystem (agroforestry) not only support the physical needs of the people but also 9 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 12 table 6: list of threatened tree species sn species name % of hh reporting at present number of individuals at present % of hh reporting till 5 years back % of hh reporting till 10 yrs back % of hh reporting at beginning 1 shorea robusta 1.0 2 4.1 10.0 48.1 2 phyllanthus emblica 1.0 1 0.0 3.0 32.2 3 bassia butyracea 1.0 1 1.0 0.0 0.0 4 grewia subinaequalis 1.0 1 1.0 1.1 0.0 5 sapium insigne 1.0 2 3.0 0.0 3.9 6 exbucklandia populnea 1.0 1 0.0 0.0 0.0 7 prunus domestica 1.0 1 0.0 0.0 0.0 8 eugenia operculata 2.0 4 2.0 5.5 18.1 9 cedrela toona 2.0 3 1.0 1.1 1.2 10 bredelia retusa 2.0 5 1.0 2.2 2.6 11 terminalia belerica 2.0 2 16.3 25.5 44.1 12 stereopermum tetragonum 3.1 4 3.0 6.6 32.4 13 cocus nucifera 3.1 4 1.0 0.0 0.0 14 holarrhena pubescens 3.1 30 1.0 2.2 2.6 15 machilus odoratissima 3.1 8 1.0 1.1 3.9 16 terminalia tomentosa 3.1 8 4.1 9.9 23.3 17 oroxylum indicum 4.1 7 4.1 3.3 22.0 18 acacia catechu 4.1 5 3.0 2.2 27.2 19 cleyera ochnacea 4.1 6 3.0 2.2 3.9 20 spondias pinnata 4.1 6 5.1 5.5 14.3 source: field survey kharal and oli plays vital role in conservation of significant elements of biodiversity found outside natural ecosystem. farming systems are mixed and complex. maintaining diversity of the species is an important aspect of traditional farming. twenty-six tree species were completely lost from the farm from the beginning of the settlement to date. further, twenty species were found with very limited distribution and two of them are already under the threatened category in national level. only 14 new species were introduced till now. farmers are now attracted to grow fast growing, multipurpose and easily available tree species. economic return is the major concern for them. such a situation may lead to the further loss of tree species from the farm. some species such as shorea robusta and phyllanthus emblica, which were among the widely distributed in the beginning, are now about to be lost because of easy availability in nearby forest, slow growth rate and limited uses. socio-economic factors were found responsible for species change from the farmland. species changes in terms of species lost and species introduced were found influenced by farm size, homegarden size, household size, livestock size, household income and settlement period. species changes (both lost and introduced) increases as the value of such variables increases. references alvarez, n., garine, e., khasah, c., dounais, e., hossaert-mckey, m. and mckey, d. 2004. farmers’ practices, metapopulation dynamics, and conservation of agricultural biodiversity on-farm: a case study of sorghum among the duupa in sub-sahelian cameroon. biodiversity and conservation 121 (4): 533-543. arnold, j. e. m. 1991. tree products in agroecosystems: economic and policy issues. gatekeeper series no. s.a.28. international institute for environment and development, london. pp. 21. bist, m. s. 1999. forest cover dynamics in nilgiri biosphere reserve. indian forester 125 (7) (6): 699706. das, a. n. 1999. socio economics of bamboos in eastern nepal. ph. d. thesis. university of aberdeen. uk. das, a. n. and oli, b. n. 2001. tree growing practices on farmland: an option for sustaining rural livelihoods. banko janakari 11 (2): 8-12. dfrs. 1999. forest resources of nepal (19871998). publication no. 74. kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 2002. the tenth plan (2002-2007). national planning commission secretariat, his majesty’s government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. 10 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 kharal and oli hocking, d., hocking a. and islam, k. 1996. trees on farms in bangladesh. agroforestry systems 33: 231-247. kanel, k. r. 1995. farmer and tree linkages in the terai of nepal. ph. d thesis. university of minnesota, usa. karki, m. b. 1994. impact of multipurpose trees on small farm systems of nepal. a case study of karmaiya village. kumar, a., babu, b. and ramachandarn, u. 1999. attitude of farmers towards agroforestry programme in kerala. indian journal of forestry 22 (2): 155-159. malla, y. b. 1993. changing role of the forest resource market: an ignored dimension of community forestry. banko janakari 4 (1): 28-31. mohiuddin, m., chowdhury, r. m. and mohsin, m. 1997. species diversity in homestead agroforestry system of chittagong district: an exploratory study. bangladesh journal of forest science 26 (1): 18-24. pant, k., pandit, a., tewari, a. and koshyari, r. s. 1999. agroforestry patterns in the tarai of central himalaya. indian journal of forestry 22 (2):123-128. ruiz perez, m., belcher, b., fu, m. and yang, x. 2004. looking through the bamboo curtain: an analysis of the changing role of forest and farm income in rural livelihoods in china. international forestry review 6 (3-4): 306-316. sayer, j. a., chokkalingam, u. and poulsen, j. 2004. the restoration of forest biodiversity and ecological values. forest ecology and management 201 (1): 3-11. sharma, u. r., malla, k. j. and uprety, r. k. 2004. conservation and management efforts of medicinal and aromatic plants in nepal. banko janakari 14 (2): 3-11. shrestha, t. b. and joshi, r. m. 1996. rare, endemic and endangered plants of nepal. world wildlife fund nepal program, kathmandu, nepal. suresh kumar, d. and ramasamy, c. 2003. role of agroforestry in the household economy of resource poor farmers. journal of tropical forest products 9 (1&2): 97-108. final corrected banko janakari 18-2.pmd 25 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 decentralization in the management of natural resources has proliferated in discourses, policies and practices since past three decades. this is with the recognition of the roles of natural resources such as forest, water, land, pasture, etc. in the livelihoods of the local people, poverty reduction and the creation of environmental services such as soil and watershed conservation, conservation of biological diversity and carbon sequestration. emphasis is being laid on participatory approach to common property resource (cpr) management, which entrusts local resource users with the rights and responsibilities to management the cpr (timsina and ojha 2004). thus, cpr is considered to be the most viable option for both ecological and economic sustainability of the commons. with this consideration, governments in more than 50 countries are pursuing community forest/ry (cf) initiatives that provide some sort of local users control over the resources (agrawal 2001). wider discussions are held as to the contribution of cf program in nepal to improve the forest condition and meeting the forest product requirements. it is interesting to note that firewood is the main source of cooking fuel in nepal, as almost seven tenth of total households use firewood as their primary source of cooking fuel (hmgn 2004, hmgn 1996). master plan for forestry sector and three year interim plan have also given due consideration to resource use, poverty reduction and rural development through community forest management practices in far-western lowlands of nepal b. shrestha1 wider discussions are held as to the contribution of community forestry program in nepal to improve the forest condition and meeting the forest product requirements. this paper presents findings from a study of six community forest user groups in far-western lowlands of kailali and kanchanpur in nepal. the groups with natural and plantation forests have varied experiences in forest conservation and distribution of products. some groups are resourceful in terms of availability of forest products from the natural forests. others with plantation forests are product scarce from their own and depend on government managed forest and other sources to meet their demands. the role of concerned government authorities and federation of groups would be instrumental to analyse demand and supply, and make provisions for distribution of forest products within and outside groups and district. key words: community forest management, forest products, distribution, far-western low land cf program (hmgn 1988, gn 2007b). these initiatives have been possible due to government’s progressive policies towards cf program and recognition of community forest user group (cfug) as an independent and self-governing local organization. more than 14,000 cfugs are managing 1.2 million hectares of cf, which comprises around 20 per cent of total forest area of nepal, and benefiting more than 1.6 million households, which constitute around 35 per cent of total population of nepal (gn 2007a). as of early 2005 in far-western development region of nepal, around 140 thousand hectares of forests, 13 per cent of total forest area in the region and 27 per cent of the total potential community forest area and 7 per cent of the total area of the region, were handed over to around 1984 cfugs (chhetri and pandey 1992, hmgn 2005). as of mid-2007 in far-western lowlands (kailali and kanchanpur districts), also referred to as terai, a total of 23,236 hectares of forest, which covers 9 per cent of total forest area, was handed over to 224 cfugs (dfo 2007a, dfo 2007b and dof 2005). despite increasing recognition of cf program, there is a growing concern facing development planners and the academia whether cf program has been successful in improving the livelihoods of the poor and marginalised people and equity aspects (bhattarai and ojha 2001, adhikari 2002, bhatta 2002a and 2002b, ojha et al. 2002, malla et al. 2003, sharma 1 phd candidate at central department of rural development, tu, kirtipur, nepal e-mail: basan_shrestha@yahoo.com 26 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 table 1: name, location and date of handover sn name of cfug district vdc/ municipality (mp)-ward date of handover 1 adarsha kailali dhangadhi mp-3 2002 2 gyanjyoti (women) kailali dhangadhi mp-3 2000 3 baijanath kanchanpur jhalari-4 2001 4 baitada kanchanpur daiji-4 1997 5 nawadurga kanchanpur krishnapur-4 2001 6 sayapatri kanchanpur krishnapur-6 2001 source: adarsha cfug (2002), baijanath cfug (2008), baitada cfug (2003), gyanjyoti cfug (2005), nawadurga cfug (2004) and sayapatri cfug (2004). 2005). bhatta (2002a), bhatta (2002b) and sharma (2005) have noted that larger tracts of forests have been handed over to the cfugs comprising fewer households while a large number of households are included in smaller patches of community forests, leading into a situation where material benefits are not accruing sufficiently to a large number of forest user households while a few households are using forests indiscriminately. these facts necessitate understanding different cf management practices. besides, studies have shown that forest management systems are widely distributed throughout nepal. however, most of the studies are confined to central and western nepal, thereby leaving a knowledge gap from other parts of the country (fisher 1991, chhetri and pandey 1992). therefore, studies from various parts are also needed to understand cf management typologies and develop appropriate policies and legal frameworks. in this context, a study was undertaken to understand contexts and different practices of cf management in far-western lowlands of nepal. this paper examines the historical background of the cf management, socioeconomic condition, forest condition, demand and supply of forest products and distribution of forest products. the issues raised in the study will have implications to policy discourse to devise policy, legal and institutional frameworks for different types of cf management schemes. materials and methods a study of six cfugs in far-western lowlands of kailali and kanchanpur of nepal was undertaken in december 2007 to january 2008. the cfugs that had completed five years from the date of cf hand over by district forest authority to respective groups, were selected for the study. these cfugs are listed in table 1. checklists were prepared before the field visits to the cfugs in order to elicit information in line with the objectives of the study. interactions were held with the executive committee members and general users. transact walks were undertaken along the forest tracts to observe the forest condition. the cfug documents such as forest operational plan (fop), constitution and financial and forest product distribution records were reviewed. the information collected during interaction, visit and reviews were tabulated in the excel software to analyse the content of study in the cfugs. the data collected from the field was analysed using statistical tools such as average and per cent to summarise data, which were describe in the text. results and discussion history of community forest management kailali and kanchanpur are parts of naya muluk2. prior to 1860, those districts were the parts of india. the districts were covered with dense forest and home to local tribes such as tharu3 (dfcc 2008a and 2008b). at the time of rana regime4 and after the eradication of malaria during early 1960s, the districts experienced massive flow of people. several groups of people migrated to those districts, including government employees privileged with land offerings from the government, families having linkages with the royal families, people in search of cultivable land and better life opportunities, people immigrating from india and myanmar. as a result, 2 the naya muluk (literally new country) areas, present kanchanpur, kailali, bardia and banke districts annexed by the british under the anglo-nepalese treaty of peace (sugauli treaty) in 1815 ad. in 1860, the naya muluk areas were restored to the ranas by the british as a reward for rana support in putting down the first war of indian independence in 1859 (actionaid nepal 2005). 3 an ethnic group of the terai plains in nepal. they were virtually the sole inhabitants of the terai. the tharu are present in contiguous areas across the border in india also (actionaid nepal 2005). tharu population constitutes 35.9 per cent in far-western terai and 6.75 per cent in nepal (gn 2008). 4 rana regime ruled nepal from 1846 to 1950. it was the time when rana rulers had distributed one-third of the forest to various rana families and others in the form of birta and jagir tenure (chapagain et al. 1999). shrestha 27 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2shrestha table 2: household and population distribution kailali kanchanpur name of cfug indicator (year) adarsha gyanjyoti (women) baijanath baitada nawadurga sayapatri number of household 81 (2001), 161 (2007) 77 (2007) 118 (2001), 232 (2007) 343 (1997), 415 (2003), 500 (2007) 295 (2001), 380 (2004) 127 (2001), 218 (2004) number of household growth per year (per cent) 16 16 3-5 10 24 caste/ethnic distribution (per cent) dalit5 36 0 7 20 16 17 janajati6 0 86 43 5 5 50 others 64 14 50 75 79 33 population (year) 885 (2007) 562 (2007) 600 (2001) 2000 (1997) 2676 (2004) 2021 (2004) men (year) 55 (2002) 49 (2007) 51 (2004) 50 (2004) women 45 51 49 50 average household size 5.5 7.3 7.0 9.3 huge patches of forests were cleared for establishing settlements and arable lands. the government established the resettlement company in kanchanpur in 1963 which started to resettle people by clearing forests. the forests were further cleared in resettling the landless, the flood victims and the political victims. the political movements in 1979 and 1989 also resulted in illegal felling and encroachment. the freed kamaiyas (bonded labour) and people displaced from wildlife reserves had also settled into the forest around the cf. besides, tharu and seasonal migrants from the hills used to shift their livestock during winter season. gradually, the migrants from other parts of the country increased (nawadurga 2004 and sapayatri 2004). with the increasing population pressure the cfug were not able to meet the demand of forest products. the users had difficult time to conserve forest from local encroachers, illegal collectors and landless households who had illegally settled into forest. later, the community members formed the group for conservation, control of illegal activities and utilising the forest products. in the given historical setting, the cfugs with natural and plantation forests have varied experiences in forest management including conservation, distribution and utilisation of forest products. some cfugs have long been conserving and utilising the forest products from the natural forests. they had experienced heavy felling of trees in the nearby government managed natural forests adjoining to churia range in kanchanpur and forests that the communities had been protecting since long time ago. the forests that the communities had been conserving were later handed over to the respective community without adequate participation of the communities to prepare constitution and operational plan, perhaps due to lack of adequate attention by the concerned authorities. this tendency could have serious implications to forest conservation and utilisation of products. the communities of cfugs in kailali undertook plantation in bare lands along east of mohana river, bordering between kailali and kanchapur, during late 1990s and promoted regeneration to meet their current and future requirements of the forest products. they had to rely on forest products from laljhadi forest block in kanchanpur along west of mohana river and dudhuwa national park fringe in indian boarder side south of nepal, to meet their requirements. the users were worried due to sweeping away of parts of their cf by flash flood in mohana river from time to time. irrespective of natural threats such as flood, they have conserved their best to cover the bare forests for present and future utilisation. socio-economic condition the number of households in cfugs varies widely from five hundred to less than 80 (table 2). the annual growth in number of households ranges from 5 the term dalit refers to “pani nachalne“ (untouchable) group or caste from whom water is not accepted in hindu social structure (dahal et al. 2002). 6 nationality (janajati) is that community which has its own mother tongue and traditional culture and yet do not fall under the conventional four fold varna of hindu or hindu hierarchical caste structure (national committee for development of nationalities 1996 cited in dahal 2001). 28 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 24 to three per cent. the groups closer to motorable roads and local towns have high flow of people from outside leading to increased number of households. the cfugs are composed of users from different caste/ ethnic groups. the proportion of dalit households ranges from around one third of total households to none. similarly, the proportion of janajati households ranges from more than eight tenth to none. janajati includes mainly tharu people. the proportion of other caste/ ethnic groups ranges from around two third to one sixth. the population size varies widely from more than two thousand six hundred to six hundred. the proportion of men ranges from 55 to 49 per cent. the average household ranges from more than nine to five persons. mostly, tharu live in extended family giving rise to high average household size. the cfugs are composed of users that have diverse well-being status. some user households are relatively well-off, others are of medium status and rest are poorest of the poor. the cfugs have different practices to identify poor. some cfugs have documented the detailed profile of users (name, address, land holding, and livestock holding) and others have conducted participatory well-being ranking to identify poor, medium and well-off users. for example, in a cfug with plantation forest the proportions of well-off, medium and poor households are around three tenth, half and one fifth of the total households. the executive committee (ec) of a cfug plays an important role in the decision making process. the size of ec reflects the population the cfug has covered and the volume of responsibilities the ec members bear in the group. the composition of an ec shows how it has represented different segments of the community. the size of ec ranges from 17 to 11 persons (table 3). the proportional representation by caste/ ethnicity reveals that representation of dalits ranges from 27 per cent of total ec members to none. similarly, the representation of janajatis ranges from around 65 per cent to nill. the representation of other caste/ ethnic groups than dalits and janajatis ranges from cent per cent to 36 per cent. some cfugs are not very sensitive to proportional representation of different segments of the community. there is high domination of men in the ec membership. the proportion of men members ranges from more than nine tenth to less than three tenth and that of women ranges from cent per cent in the exclusively women group to nine per cent. poor representation of different caste/ ethnic groups and women in the ec of cfugs could be due to less empowerment and leadership capability, and also domination of other caste/ethnic groups in decision making processes. the disproportional representation in the decision making positions could have implications to sustainable forest management. forest condition there is wide variation in cf area available with cfugs ranging between over five hundred hectares to 10 hectares. the average forest size per household ranges between more than one hectare to less than one fifth of it (table 4). population pressure on the forest ranges from more than 50 to less than three persons per hectare cf. most of the cfugs have forest area per household less than the average for kailali (0.38) and kanchanpur (0.4 hectare) as reported in dfcc (2008a) and dfcc (2008b) and national average as reported by gn (2007a). table 3: number of executive committee members kailali kanchanpur name of cfug indicator (year) adarsha gyanjyoti (women) baijanath baitada nawadurga sayapatri number of ec member 11 (2007) 11 (2007) 17 (2007) 17 (2007) 15 (2004) 11 (2004) caste/ ethnic distribution per cent dalit 27 0 12 12 0 15 janajati 0 64 29 0 0 46 others 73 36 59 88 100 39 gender distribution per cent men 27 0 82 65 73 91 women 73 100 18 35 27 9 shrestha 29 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2shrestha the proportion of natural forest ranges from cent per cent to less than one tenth. the proportion of effective forest patches ranges between almost nine tenth and one third of total cf area. accordingly, conservation area ranges between nearly seven tenth to more than one tenth. the number of blocks in a cf ranges between 5 to 2 (all but one). the area of a block ranges between around two hundred hectares and around four hectares. some cfugs have only natural forests and others have plantation forest patches. in the pursuit of community forest management practices, large tracts of natural forests along churia belt in kanchanpur were handed over to the adjoining communities for conservation and utilisation of forest products. the small patches of bare lands along mohana river in kailali were handed over to the adjoining communities for plantation, conservation and use of forest products. noticeably, the cfugs with natural forest have relatively more cf area per household and those having all or higher proportion of plantation forests have less per household forest area. sal (shorea robusta) is the predominant species in natural forests as observed by dfcc (2008a) and dfcc (2008b). other species include khayar (acacia catachu), sissoo/ sisam (dalbergia sissoo) simal (bombax ceiba), jamun (syzygium cumini) and haldu (adina cordifolia). in some cfugs trees are as old as 100 years. plantation forest has tree and non-tree species such as eucalyptus (eucalyptus spp.), bakaino (melia azadirach), badahar (artocarpus lakoocha), tanki (bauhinia purpurea), amala (phyllanthus emblica), bamboo (dendrocalamus spp.), mango, rattan, and kurilo (asparagus racemosus). besides, there is good regeneration of some species such as sissoo (dalbergia sissoo) and khayar (acacia catechu). the users undertake forest management measures for conservation and use of forest products. they harvest grasses during late monsoon in september and undertake silvicultural operations (thinning, singling, prunning and clearing) during december/ january. tree species such as sal and khayar have well regenerated in those cfugs. some cfugs have fenced parts of natural forest for conservation and planted non-timber forest products (ntfps) for income generation. it helps control open grazing, maintains biodiversity and helps grow timber and non-timber species. some cfugs have reduced the quota of firewood collection per household. the reduced mobility of people and carts to collect firewood from the forest also helps conserve regeneration of new plants due to less trampling effect. however, open grazing has been the major threats to regeneration of plant species in natural forests. this improper care could be because the communities having natural forests might not have developed ownership over the resources that they are endowed with. demand and supply of forest products the cfugs have increasing demand of forest products with the increasing number of households, human population, livestock population and consumption of forest products for household requirements. some cfugs have calculated the demand and supply of forest products in their fops (table 5). there is wide variation in annual allowable cut (aac) of forest products estimated by cfugs with natural and plantation forests. aac for timber ranges between 60 cft to less than one fourth of a cft, firewood from around four to less than one fifth of a tonne, and grass from around four to one quarter of a ton. table 4: community forest area and type kailali kanchanpur name of cfug indicator (year) adarsha gyanjyoti (women) baijanath baitada nawadurga sayapatri cf area (ha) 46 (2007) 13 (2005) 227 (2007) 505 (2003) 134 (2004) 40 (2004) average cf area per household (ha) 0.3 0.19 0.97 1.2 0.35 0.33 population per hectare cf 19 43 2.6 4 20 51 proportion of forest by type natural forest area (per cent) 9 31 100 100 80 90 plantation forest area (per cent) 91 69 20 10 proportion of forest by use conservation area (per cent) 69 13 12 21 effective area (per cent) 31 87 88 79 number of block (block area in ha) 2 (13.859.5) 2 (8.983.98) 2 (128.2589) 5 (198 32.75) 2 (81.552.25) 2 (66.57) 30 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 table 5: annual average demand and supply of forest products kailali kanchanpur name of cfug adarsha gyanjyoti (women) baijanath baitada nawadurga sayapatri demand per household timber (cft) 5 28 pole (number) 2 firewood (ton) 2.1 1.8 grass (ton) 13.7 3 annual allowable cut per household per year timber (cft) 4.5 0.4 33.1 59.7 4.9 1.4 pole (number) firewood (ton) 0.02 0.07 3.7 0.46 0.09 0.08 grass (ton) 3.5 0.24 in the cfugs with natural forests demand is less than aac. cfugs with plantation forests have less availability of forest products from their own indicating that demand exceeds the aac. annual average demand of timber per household varies between 28 to 5 cubic feet (cft); 2 poles; firewood from 2.1 to 1.8 tons, fodder grass from 13.7 to 3 tons. these figures are more or less consistent with average figures of kanchanpur, reported by dfcc (2008b), as timber (7.8 cft), pole (2.1 numbers), firewood (51.8 bhari7) and grass (68.4 bhari). of them, the demand of grass is considerably higher than the district average of kanchanpur. this could be due to relatively more number of livestock held in those cfugs. the above facts reveal that substantial differences are observed in grass/ forage. this could be because users in some cfugs have practiced stall feeding of cattle, buffalo and goats that require more grass to feed. of the total demand, some cfugs with natural forests, have estimated to supply all products from their cf and others having plantation forest have planned to partly supply from their cf and partly from private and other sources. this is varying with the scenario of kanchanpur, in which dfcc (2008b) reports that government forest is the prime source of grass, followed by own source and cf. there is variation in availability of forest products to a cfug. some cfugs holding natural forests have ample supply of forest products from their own forests. members of some other cfugs owning natural and plantation forests in kanchanpur are the users in other cfugs with natural forests. in a cfug of such type, around one fifth users have access to forest products from 2 cfugs with national forests at the rate of more than 2 hectares per household. similarly, in other two cfugs around half of users in some cfugs have access to forest products from 1.2 to 1.5 hectares per household. other cfugs that have plantation forests depend mostly on purchase of forest products from government managed forests, and illegal collection form nearby government managed forest block. this has increased dependency on other forests including government managed forest. this situation could result into the situation, as observed by sharma (2005), that the larger tracts of the community forests are handed over to the cfugs comprising fewer households while a large number of households have are included in the smaller community forests. distribution of forest products the cfugs harvest forest products to distribute outside and within the groups to raise income and meet the forest product requirements. in an interval of 2/3 years, the cfugs with natural forest harvest timber and firewood for distributing to outsiders. distribution of forest products outside or within the group is determined by the availability of forest products and objectives of harvesting. the cfugs have varying levels of income ranging from more than 2.3 million rupees in a cfug with natural forest to less than 20 thousand in a cfug with plantation forest. the cfugs with natural forest generate income mostly from the distribution of forest products to the outsiders. the share of income from distribution of forest products outside the group occupies more than nine tenth. accordingly, the share of income from distribution within the group covers less than 7 1 bhari = 30 kg firewood/ fodder / forage, according to discussion with cfugs. shrestha 31 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2shrestha one tenth. relatively, very low proportion of income generated from the distribution of forest products within the group is due to less quantity sold to the users and relatively lower price of forest products charged to the users, almost one quarter of the price for the outsiders. the cfugs distribute forest products to outsiders including neighbour cfugs and traders. they fix rates for neighbours higher than the users. they distribute forest products to the traders through competitive bidding process at the government rate (see hmgn 2003a). timber forms an important forest product for distribution. it occupies almost cent per cent of the forest products distributed outside and from seven tenth to half of it in case of distribution within the group. so, it forms an important forest product to generating income. in case of distribution within the group, some cfugs with natural forests set fixed quota per household for collection of firewood from the forest specify the collection period for few days in a year. the period is fixed during winter season (decemberjanuary). during that time, the users do not require to request the cgug in written. the users who own or can manage oxen/ buffaloes driven cart (dallap in local language) to transport firewood from the forest to their home yards collect during those open days. others who cannot manage the dallap collect of forest products after those open days. renting a dallap costs around rs. 400 per day. the collection afterwards requires the request to the cfug in written. then, the cfug verifies the request to confirm whether the applicant/ user has already collected the given quota of firewood and approves the request, if found unrepeated. the cfugs have maintained the records of users that have collected the forest products. this allows them to check or verify whether the users have already collected as per quota allowed to each user. this also helps to regulate the distribution of forest products to the users. sal trees are felled down mainly for high quality timber for construction works and furniture. besides, species such as asna (terminalia tomentosa), rohini/ sindure (mallotus phillipinensis) and jamun (syzygium cumini) are used as low quality timber for activities such as construction of livestock shed and fencing. the rate of sal ranges between rs. 70 to 60 per cft. and sissoo around rs. 60. the low quality timber costs rs. 30 to 25. a pole costs from rs. 8 to 2 per running feet. a low quality pole costs rs. 10 per pole. firewood costs rs. 40 to 30 per ton for those who collect firewood in bulk in a cart. the cfugs fix some charge rs. 100 per ton for those users who cannot afford or do not need cartful of firewood and wish to carry loads of firewood on their back from the forest to their homes. cfugs allow the poor, who are unable to pay for firewood, to collect dried twigs from the forest year round free of cost. however, the cfug warns such collectors not to use axe and other big weapons to harvest such forest products. they can use only the sickle. if those collectors are found using axes and other types of weapons, the forest watchmen seize such weapons from the collectors to penalise them. although the cfugs allow the poor to collect dried twigs on their head, they are not much sensitive to equitable distribution of forest products such as fixing different rates of forest products particularly focusing to poor and marginal users. even, the rate fixed for collecting firewood on their back is too high considering the volume of collection (rs. 100 versus 40 as discussed above). some cfugs even tried to address the concerns of poor. however, it is very difficult to implement the provisions made to improve the livelihoods of the poor. a cfug had a difficult experience on it. some years back, the cfug decided to purchase the firewood that the poor collect from the forest. it was intended to raise the income of poor, as for some poor households the collection and distribution of forest products has been the main source of income. accordingly, some poor households started to collect and deposit near the cfug building premise. later, other users than poor also started to collect from the forest and nearby places and deposit in the same place and asking for the money in the cfug. at that time, it was very difficult to administer who were poor. it was not possible for the cfug to purchase all whatever and was collected and whoever collected and deposited. the entire intention of improving the livelihoods of poor from distribution of forest products was deviated giving rise to abandoning that pro-poor scheme. conclusion the findings from the study of six community forest user groups reveal that the community members have long been involved in forest conservation, distribution and utilisation of forest products to meeting their household requirements. the groups are endowed with different by type of forests, namely 32 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 natural and plantation forests, resulting in different practices. some groups are resourceful in terms of availability of forest products from the natural forests. others with plantation forests are product scarce from their own and depend on government managed forest and other sources to meet their demands. the cfugs that have natural forests are relatively in the better-off position in terms of forest area available per user household, income generation from distribution of forest products outside and with in the groups. the cfugs that have plantation forests have relatively less forest area per household resulting in high population pressure on forest. thus, the cf area per household is an important indicator to assess the users’ access to forest and products. in addition, the forest should be assessed by its type, whether natural, plantation or conserved to ensure the availability of products to the users to meet the current and future demands to avoid the situation that the larger tracts of the community forests have been handed over to the cfugs comprising fewer households while a large number of households have been included in the smaller community forests. thus, the concerned authorities need to analyse the forest area per user household specifically for different types of forest before natural and plantation forests are handed over to the communities. analysis of demand and supply of forest products in cfugs and their networking will help meet the demand of various segments of the cfug and also neighbouring communities and distance users. the cfugs need to calculate the annual demand and supply of forest products and incorporate it into their fops and prepare their annual plans accordingly. this could enhance conservation and sustainable use of forest resources. the concerned authority, district forest authority and federation of cfugs could play important roles to administer the demand and supply within the groups and district and also outside the district in coordination with the concerned authorities. the demand of a cfug could be linked to the supply from a neighbouring cfug in the process that district forest authority approves the harvesting procedure of forest products in a cfug. external interventions to provide alternatives to forest product requirements such as biogas and improved cooking system would be an advantage for the communities that are resource scarce. promotion of ntfps in both natural and plantation forests would help conserve forest, generate income and develop ownership among the users for sustainable forest management. intra-group equity is another important dimension of equitable distribution of forest products to users of diverse well-being status. the cfugs need to organise discussions at different clusters representing various segments of the community to analyse their demand of forest products and supply from cfug and alternative sources. the cfugs and concerned authorities need to emphasise the distribution of forest products from the rights of users from different segments rather than simply distributing the products as demand arises. the cfugs need to undertake participatory well-being to identify the poor in the group. accordingly, the rate and quantity of forest product distribution need to be fixed. this facilitates the poor and marginal users to get their share and make use of them to improve their livelihoods. this allows enriching their ownership over the common resource for sustainable management. references action aid nepal. 2005. liberation is not enough: the kamaiya movement in nepal (ed) cheria, a., edwin, n. k. kandangwa and k. upadhyaya. kathmandu, nepal: actionaid nepal. adarsha cfug. 2002. ban bewasthapan karya yojana 2059 (forest management operational plan. 2002). adarsha community forest user group, kailali, nepal. adhikari, b. 2002. household characteristics and common property forest user: complementarities and contradictions. journal of forest and livelihood 2(1): 3-14. agrawal, a. 2001. common property institutions and sustainable governance of resources. world development 29 (10): 1649– 1672. baijanath cfug. 2008. ban karya yojana 2064 (forest operational plan 2008). baijanath community forest user group, kanchanpur, nepal. baitada cfug. 2003. ban karya yojana 2060 (forest operational plan 2003). baitada community forest user group, kanchanpur, nepal. shrestha 33 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2shrestha bhatta, b. 2002a. access and equity issues in high mountain region implications of community forestry programme. in policy analysis of nepal’s community forestry programme a compendium of research papers. policy analysis in agriculture and related resource management (paarrm) programme, winrock international-nepal, kathmandu, nepal. bhatta, b. 2002b. access and equity issues in terai community forestry programme. in policy analysis of nepal’s community forestr y programme a compendium of research papers. policy analysis in agriculture and related resource management (paarrm) programme, winrock internationalnepal, kathmandu, nepal. bhattarai, b. and ojha, h. 2001. distributional impact of community forestry: who is benefiting from nepal’s community forests?. forest action research series. kathmandu, nepal. chapagain, d.p., kanel, k.r. and regmi, d.c. 1999. current policy and legal context of the forestry sector with reference to the community forestry programme in nepal. a working overview. nepal-uk community forestry project, kathmandu, nepal chhetri, r.b. and pandey, t.r. 1992. user group forestry in the far-western region of nepal: case studies from baitadi and achham. international centre for integrated mountain development (icimod), kathmandu, nepal. dahal, d.r. 2001. social composition of the population: caste/ ethnicity and religion in nepal. in population monograph of nepal 2001. his majesty’s government of nepal, national planning commission, central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. dahal, d.r., gurung, y.b., acharya, b., hemchuri, k. and swarnakar, d. 2002. national dalit strategy report part i: situational analysis of dalits in nepal . national planning commission, nepal. action-aid nepal, care nepal and save the children us, kathmandu, nepal. dfcc.2008a. district forest sector plan, kailali. district forest coordination committee, kailali, nepal. dfcc.2008b. district forest sector plan, kanchanpur. district forest coordination committee, kanchanpur, nepal. dfo. 2007a. barshik pratiwedan 2063/64 bs (annual report 2006/07). district forest office, kailali, nepal. dfo. 2007b. barshik pratiwedan 2063/64 (annual report 2006/07). district forest office, kanchanpur, nepal. dof. 2005. forest cover change analysis of the terai districts (1990/01-2000/01). his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, department of forest, kathmandu, nepal. fisher, r.j. 1991. studying indigenous forest management systems in nepal: towards a more systematic approach. eapi working paper no. 30. east west centre, hawaii. gn. 2007a. nepalko ban chhetra ko lokatantrikaranka lagi gathit karya dalko pratiwedan (report of the working team for democratisation of forestry sector in nepal). government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. gn. 2007b. three year interim plan (2007/08 – 2009/2010). draft base document. government of nepal, national planning commission, kathmandu, nepal. gn. 2008. rastriya janaganana, 2058: jatjati ko janasankya (national population census, 2001: population of caste/ethnic groups). government of nepal, national planning commission, central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. gyanjyoti cfug. 2005. nabikrit ban karya yojana 2062 (renewed forest operational plan 2005). gyanjyoti community forest user group, kailali, nepal. gyanjyoti cfug. 2007. bidhan, samshodhit 2064 (constitution, amended 2007). gyanjyoti community forest user group, kailali, nepal. hmgn. 1996. nepal living standards survey report 1996: main findings, volume one. his majesty’s government of nepal national planning commission, central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 2003a. nepal gazette. his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. 34 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 hmgn. 2003b. population census 2001. national report. his majesty’s government of nepal, national planning commission, central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 2004. nepal living standards survey 2003/04. statistical report, volume two. his majesty’s government of nepal, national planning commission, central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 2005. statistical year book of nepal 2005. his majesty’s government of nepal, national planning commission, central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 1988. master plan for the forestry sector, nepal. main report. kathmandu, nepal: his majesty’s government of nepal (hmgn), ministry of forests and soil conservation. malla, y.b., neupane, h.r. and branney, p. j. 2003. why aren’t poor people benefiting more from community forestry? journal of forest and livelihood. 3(1): 78-92. national committee for development of nationalities. 1996. janajati. (volume 1-2). national committee for development of nationalities, kathmandu, nepal. nawadurga cfug. 2004. ban karya yojana 2061/ 66 (forest operational plan 2004/2009). nawadurga community forest user group, kanchanpur, nepal. ojha, h. pokharel, b., paudel, k. and mcdougall, c. 2002. stakeholder collaboration, adaptive management and social learning: a comparative review of eight community forestry sites in nepal. forestaction nepal and cifor, jakarta. sayapatri cfug. 2004. ban karya yojana 2061/66 (forest operational plan 2004/2009). sayapatri community forest user group, kanchanpur, nepal. sharma, a.r. 2005. larger forests into fewer hands: how equitable is community forestry in nepal? banko jankari 17(1): 46-48. timsina, n.p. and ojha, h.r. 2004. social justice in common poverty natural resource management: a conceptual framework. in case studies on equity and poverty in the management of common property resources in nepal (ed.) timsina, n.p. and h.r. ojha. forestaction, nepal, kathmandu, nepal. shrestha corrected bankojanakari vol 17-2.pmd 18 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 features and allometric relationships characterising trees on farmland – an example from chainpur vdc, chitwan henrik meilby1 and lila puri2 trees on farmland are important sources of fodder, food and a range of wood products and improve local climate and the ecological quality of agricultural landscapes. in spite of this, little is known about the composition of farm tree populations, farmer’s management and the resulting characteristics of the trees. in a case study in chainpur vdc, chitwan, all trees with diameter ³ 2 cm 0.5 metres above ground were enumerated and mapped within 8.44 ha of farmland. the total number of trees was 898, corresponding to a density of 106 ha-1. the basal area 0.5 and 1.3 m above ground were 2.00 and 1.42 m2ha-1, respectively, and the total crown cover was 8.76%. the number of species recorded was 63, most of which were represented by only a few individuals. the most frequent species were melia azedarach l. (bakaino, 238 individuals), bauhinia purpurea wall. (tanki, 111 individuals) and ficus hispida l.f. (khasreto, 87 individuals). measurements of diameter and height of crown and stem were done for a sample comprising 81% of the trees. in addition, ocular assessment of the lopping intensity was carried out. based on these observations, a set of allometric models relating stem diameter, tree height, crown width, crown length and lopping were developed and used for preparation of schematic tree silhouettes. marked differences between tree species were observed with regard to crown shape and the effect of lopping on shape. key words: allometric models, farmer’s tree species preferences, fodder tree species, lopping assessment, tree silhouettes in nepal, farmland without trees is difficult to imagine. traditionally, farmers have planted and protected a number of trees within their private land and on available marginal lands. these trees act as a source of recurrent flows of food, fodder and other useful materials, help meeting contingency needs for tree products, and provide shade around houses. in addition, farm trees can be seen as a means of biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration (acharya 2006, chamber et al. 1993, pandey 2002). trees on farmland are subjected to continuous interventions. simons et al. (2000) distinguished four types of such interventions: [1] replacement (when species a is felled and planted again), [2] substitution (when species a is felled and species b is planted), [3] expansion (when number of trees is increased through planting) and [4] management (taking care of existing trees through watering, fencing, pruning or lopping). people may increase or decrease the planting of a particular species or of trees in general depending on their perceived usefulness and/or the availability of planting sites. through management interventions, farmers shape and rearrange trees in the landscape to suit their needs. these needs change over time and the response of the farmers changes accordingly (gilmour et al. 1991). farm trees are managed in different ways depending on the main purpose for which they are grown. trees mainly used as fodder trees are lopped, whereas trees with a potential for production of construction timber are pruned to improve bole quality. generally, lopping and pruning decisions are made based on silvicultural characteristics of the tree species (growth rate, coppicing capability and natural crown and stem shape development), main products aimed at, age and size of the tree, and planting site (home garden/yard, roadside, along canals etc.). this implies that after reaching a certain size, farm trees are often tended to maintain crown size and shape. to accomplish this trees are lopped to a certain extent and in a certain way, influencing their growth, overall yield and the size distribution and composition of the yield with regard to branch wood, bark and foliage. in order to increase the knowledge on benefits derived by farmers from trees on farmland the 1 associate professor, university of copenhagen, faculty of life sciences, copenhagen, email: heme@life.ku.dk 2 research officer, comform, institute of forestry (iof) / tu, pokhara, email: puri07878@alumni.itc.nl 19 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 figure 1: stem map and diameter distribution for trees in the 8.44 ha sample area in chainpur vdc. roads are shown as unbroken lines. diameter of circles is proportional to stem diameter 0.5 m above ground. trees for which only the species was recorded are indicated by grey dots. the intensity of lopping practices was assessed by visually judging the percentage of the overall crown structure (branches) and foliage that remained. since the work was done in january, the assessment of foliage removal was in many cases based on foliagecarrying branches/twigs rather than foliage as such. an assessment of this type is inherently subjective and to limit the consequences of this we adopted the principle illustrated in figure 2. based on the present stem diameter and branching structure of the tree we tried to mentally reconstruct the natural expansion of branches and foliage and based on the resulting mental image we assessed the percentage of branches and foliage remaining, no matter whether these were part of the original crown or constituted a secondary crown formed as a consequence of lopping. out of the total number of species observed the 12 most abundant and, hence, important (fodder) species comform project, a research capacity development programme implemented jointly by institute of forestry (iof), tribhuvan university, and forest & landscape denmark at the university of copenhagen, is planning a general survey of trees on farmland at the project’s long-term research sites, aiming to assess the yield and value of products from such trees. this paper presents some outcomes of a preliminary survey. the objectives of the paper are to (1) describe the current species composition and density of trees within the study area and (2) develop a set of allometric models describing local relationships between stem diameter, lopping intensity, tree height and measures of crown size. materials and methods in january 2006 a preliminary survey was conducted in chainpur vdc, chitwan to investigate the spatial distribution, species composition and lopping practice of farm trees. within a small area of 8.44 ha all trees with a stem diameter e”2 cm 0.5 metres above ground were enumerated and mapped (figure 1). trees located along roads, ditches, canals, between fields and, generally, forming linear landscape features or dense clusters close to such features (e.g. trees growing in home gardens) were positioned by measuring distances along and across a series of line segments established in the field. for individual trees growing in isolated positions utm coordinates were recorded using a gps instrument. in a few cases plantings were so dense and homogeneous that measuring all individual trees was considered too time consuming in view of the information obtained and the area covered. in such cases it was decided to record the species for all individuals but to carry out measurements only for a systematic random sample including 20-25 per cent of the trees. the total number of trees recorded within the study area was 898. for all trees the species was recorded and for 728 trees (81%) the following measurements were done: stem diameter 0.5 metres above ground, stem diameter 1.3 metres above ground (dbh), total height, bole length (height to the lowermost prominent branch or branch thicker than 10% of the main stem), crown width in two perpendicular directions, and lopping percentages (see below) with regard to the main branch structure and foliagecarrying branches. for bamboo the circumference of each clump was measured 0.5 metres above ground and the percentage of culms that had been harvested was recorded. meilby and puri 20 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 were selected for a pilot preference survey. in this survey, which was conducted in january 2007, 13 farmers ranked the 12 species with regard to their perceived value for fodder, timber and fuelwood production and their cash income potential. analysis in the analysis it was decided to distinguish between species that are used for fodder, species primarily grown for fruit production, and other species. the last of these categories includes species mainly used for timber. furthermore, by forming species groups including some of the less abundant species we eliminated the problem that for some of the infrequent species the identification was presumably uncertain, particularly since the work was carried out in the dry season. summary statistics were calculated for individual species and species groups. for fodder species a set of regression models was developed to describe allometric relationships between the variables: diameter, lopping percentage, and total height, crown length, and crown width. crown length was estimated as total height minus bole length. in the models the estimated lopping percentage with respect to branches was used. in all cases it was decided to model the relationships using allometric power models including modifications that account for the effects of lopping: i lcc iii ixlbbay ε+++= + 10)( 10 (1) and for differences between species: i lcc ispmim spiii ixdd ddlbbay ε++ ++++= + 10) ( , 1,110 k , (2) where yi is the observed value of the dependent variable, i.e. total height, crown height or crown width, for tree i, xi is either diameter 0.5 or 1.3 metres above ground, li is lopping proportion (0 £ li £ 1) with respect to branches, di,spj (j = 1…m) are species dummies (di,spj =1 if the tree belongs to species j, otherwise di,spj = 0), a, b0, b1, c0, c1, and d1…dm are model parameters and the µis are random errors which are assumed to be independently and normally distributed with mean zero and homogeneous variance. the model parameters were estimated using the procedure nlin of the software package sas® (v. 8.02). results species composition and density within the mapped area the total density of stems was 106 ha-1. the basal area 0.5 m and 1.3 m above ground were 2.00 m2ha-1 and 1.42 m2ha-1, respectively, and the total crown cover was 8.76 per cent. the total number of species recorded was 63 but many were characterised by a very low density: 19 species were represented by only one individual, 13 species by only two, and altogether 47 species by less than 10 individuals. the diameter distribution of trees was found to have a marked tail to the right and largediameter trees were scarce (cf. figure 1). figure 2: lopping assessment approach. for any tree the percentage of the crown that seemed to be missing was judged by comparing with a hypothetical reference tree (left). the assessment was done for the main branching structure and for foliage-carrying branches. meilby and puri 21 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 summary statistics describing density of the tree vegetation and average tree size are shown in table 1. the species are categorised as ‘fodder species’, ‘fruit species’ and ‘other species’ and the table includes entries for 19 individual species and three residual groups: ‘other fodder (7 species)’, ‘other fruit (9 species)’ and ‘other species (28 species)’. the species listed individually in table 1 are those that seemed to be comparatively important and could always be assumed correctly identified. among species listed individually four are represented by less than 10 individuals per species but the other 15 species are more abundant (11-238 individuals). out of the whole population, 26.5 per cent were melia azedarach l. (bakaino) followed by bauhinia purpurea wall. (12.4%, tanki), ficus hispida l.f. (9.7%, khasreto), ficus lacor buch.-ham. (5.0%, kavro), leucaena leuocephala (lam.) de wit (4.2%, ipil ipil), and dalbergia sissoo roxb. ex dc. (4.2%, sissoo). among fruit trees psidium guajava l. (3.0%) and mangifera indica l. (2.9%) were the most common species. of the total basal area 0.5 m above ground, m. azedarach accounted for 25.2% followed by f. lacor (13.6%) and m. indica (11.6%). for fodder species altogether, the proportion of total basal area was 63.9% while for all fruit species it was 24.3%. the crown cover percentages of fodder and fruit tree species were 46.7% and 24.5%, respectively (table 1). accordingly, a major part of both basal area and crown cover was contributed by fodder and fruit tree species. it may be noted that because of lopping the percentage of total crown cover contributed by fodder species was considerably lower than the corresponding percentages of basal area and, particularly, stem number. farmer’s preferences the results of the preliminary preference survey can be summarised as follows. m. azedarach (bakaino) was the most preferred species for fodder and firewood and was also deemed to hold the greatest potential for income generation. for construction timber, d. sissoo (sissoo) was preferred to other species, including m. azedarach. in addition, d. sissoo was ranked second with regard to firewood production and overall income potential. other highly ranked species were l. leucocephala (ipil ipil, mainly for fodder), b. purpurea (tanki, mainly for fodder and firewood), and f. lacor (kavro, mainly with regard to construction timber and income potential). regarding planting sites, the farmers identified roadsides, home gardens/yards, fallow lands, and places along irrigation canals as most suitable for all trees species. however, the preferred site for fastgrowing fodder species was around the home yard, presumably because this implies easy access to cutting down branches and feeding them to the animals. planting in irrigated lands was considered undesirable for all species. for fodder species, planting in seasonally irrigated or non-irrigated lands was preferred. not surprisingly, the respondents preferred planting fruit trees in home gardens. lopping, height and crown size the lopping of trees for fodder and firewood was widely practised in the study area. the degree and nature of the lopping, however, varied between species. species categorised as fodder tree species were lopped most intensively while the crowns of fruit tree species were almost intact. thus, for fodder species on average, the lopping percentages were 59.7% (branches) and 66.0% (foliage), while for fruit species they were only 15.6% and 13.7% (cf. table 1). for other species the corresponding mean lopping percentages were 47.9% and 48.9%. for m. azedarach (bakaino) mean lopping percentages as high as 72.2% and 85.4% were observed. considering the large contribution of this species to total basal area (25.2%) it was clearly the most important fodder species. models describing the relationships between stem diameter 0.5 and 1.3 m above ground, lopping intensity (branches) and height, crown width and crown length were developed to describe the effect of lopping on the size and proportions of trees (table 2). figure 3 illustrates the nature of models predicting tree height and crown width. the figure includes models of a general nature (b1 and d1) and models including species effects (b2 and d2). the graphs clearly show that height and crown width of the trees were negatively related to lopping intensity, i.e. for a given stem diameter, predicted total height and crown width decreased with increasing lopping intensity. the reduction in crown width was more conspicuous than that of tree height. by contrast, crown length was not affected much by lopping intensities less than 50% but was reduced to about half when the lopping intensity reached 95-100%. for some fodder species like f. hispida (khasreto), litsea monopetala (roxb.) pers. and garuga pinnata roxb., the reduction in height, crown width and crown length was considerably greater than for fodder trees in general. by contrast meilby and puri 22 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 16 table 1 summary statistics for individual species and species groups. standard errors are given in rounded parentheses, percentages are in square parentheses, and number of trees recorded with regard to species but not measured are in curly parentheses. no. of trees n [ha-1] g1.3 [m2ha-1] crown cover [%] d0.5 [cm] d1.3 [cm] htotal [m] hbole [m] lopping (branch) [%] lopping (foliage) [%] fodder species artocarpus lakoocha 17 {1} 2.13 [2.0] 0.033 [2.4] 0.11 [1.2] 12.5 (2.5) 12.3 (2.3) 5.2 (0.6) 1.3 (0.2) 47.1 (7.8) 52.9 (9.4) bauhinia purpurea 61 {50} 13.15 [12.4] 0.041 [2.9] 0.35 [4.0] 5.6 (0.5) 5.1 (0.6) 3.2 (0.1) 1.0 (0.1) 47.6 (4.1) 51.4 (4.1) dalbergia sissoo 37 {1} 4.50 [4.2] 0.042 [3.0] 0.26 [2.9] 10.9 (1.4) 9.5 (1.4) 5.4 (0.6) 1.3 (0.2) 50.9 (5.7) 48.5 (5.7) ficus hispida 80 {7} 10.31 [9.7] 0.039 [2.8] 0.26 [3.0] 8.3 (0.6) 6.4 0.5 2.8 (0.1) 0.8 (0.1) 64.9 (2.9) 65.6 (3.0) ficus lacor 45 {0} 5.33 [5.0] 0.193 [13.6] 0.90 [10.3] 19.3 (2.1) 18.3 (2.1) 6.2 (0.6) 1.6 (0.1) 50.1 (4.8) 54.4 (5.1) ficus racemosa 8 {3} 1.30 [1.2] 0.035 [2.4] 0.19 [2.2] 21.6 (5.3) 15.3 (3.9) 6.3 (1.3) 1.5 (0.2) 33.1 (8.9) 36.3 (10.2) ficus semicordata 8 {0} 0.95 [0.9] 0.011 [0.8] 0.12 [1.4] 11.8 (3.1) 12.6 (2.8) 4.1 (0.8) 1.0 (0.3) 43.8 (13.5) 38.8 (11.7) garuga pinnata 18 {1} 2.25 [2.1] 0.030 [2.1] 0.08 [1.0] 12.4 (1.5) 11.5 (1.7) 4.6 (0.5) 1.2 (0.1) 56.7 (6.3) 60.3 (6.9) leucaena leucocephala 35 {3} 4.50 [4.2] 0.028 [2.0] 0.12 [1.4] 8.0 (1.1) 7.3 (1.0) 4.6 (0.3) 1.7 (0.1) 61.0 (5.5) 62.9 (5.7) litsea monopetala 30 {3} 3.91 [3.7] 0.054 [3.8] 0.09 [1.1] 13.7 (1.5) 11.2 (1.4) 3.8 (0.2) 1.7 (0.1) 63.3 (6.2) 70.3 (6.8) melia azedarach 182 {56} 28.20 [26.5] 0.358 [25.2] 1.28 [14.6] 13.9 (0.7) 11.0 (0.5) 4.9 (0.2) 1.5 (0.1) 72.2 (1.9) 85.4 (1.8) morus alba 15 {1} 1.90 [1.8] 0.007 [0.5] 0.09 [1.0] 7.1 (1.3) 6.3 (1.4) 3.9 (0.4) 0.8 (0.1) 34.7 (7.3) 40.3 (9.6) other fodder (7 species) 14 {3} 2.01 [1.9] 0.037 [2.6] 0.24 [2.7] 16.7 (2.7) 15.8 (2.1) 7.5 (1.1) 2.4 (0.4) 33.9 (5.7) 42.9 (8.5) fodder, all 550 {129} 80.45 [75.6] 0.908 [63.9] 4.09 [46.7] 11.9 (0.4) 10.2 (0.4) 4.5 (0.1) 1.3 (0.04) 59.7 (1.3) 66.0 (1.4) fruit species artocarpus heterophyllus 7 {14} 2.49 [2.3] 0.107 [7.6] 0.42 [4.8] 23.2 (4.2) 21.2 (4.1) 8.2 (1.2) 1.9 (0.2) 29.3 (8.8) 26.4 (8.9) mangifera indica 22 {4} 3.08 [2.9] 0.165 [11.6] 1.01 [11.6] 27.2 (3.3) 22.2 (3.0) 8.2 (0.7) 1.5 (0.1) 5.0 (1.9) 4.8 (2.0) psidium guajava 24 {3} 3.20 [3.0] 0.004 [0.3] 0.11 [1.2] 5.3 (0.5) 4.0 (0.3) 3.5 (0.2) 0.9 (0.1) 22.5 (5.0) 17.5 (4.2) zizyphus mauritiana 6 {0} 0.71 [0.7] 0.001 [0.1] 0.14 [1.6] 9.0 (2.3) 6.1 (0.9) 4.4 (0.5) 0.4 (0.1) 0.8 (0.8) 0.8 (0.8) other fruit (9 species) 17 {5} 2.61 [2.4] 0.068 [4.8] 0.46 [5.3] 16.2 (2.9) 14.3 (2.8) 6.9 (0.9) 1.5 (0.2) 19.1 (5.7) 19.1 (6.2) fruit, all 76 {26} 12.09 [11.4] 0.345 [24.3] 2.15 [24.5] 16.0 (1.6) 13.9 (1.5) 6.2 (0.4) 1.3 (0.1) 15.6 (2.5) 13.7 (2.3) other species bombax ceiba 6 {0} 0.71 [0.7] 0.059 [4.2] 0.41 [4.7] 23.7 (7.2) 26.8 (8.3) 11.5 (2.8) 6.0 (1.4) 1.7 (1.1) 1.7 (1.1) ceiba pentandra 6 {0} 0.71 [0.7] 0.024 [1.7] 0.11 [1.3] 24.9 (1.5) 20.5 (1.1) 7.6 (0.8) 1.7 (0.3) 50.0 (3.7) 51.7 (8.3) dendrocalamus strictus 10 {4} 1.66 [1.6] 1.45 [16.5] 13.7 (1.7) 37.0† (11.7) 32.5† (19.4) other (28 species) 80 {11} 10.78 [10.1] 0.084 [5.9] 0.55 [6.2] 10.7 (0.8) 9.0 (0.9) 4.0 (0.3) 1.2 (0.1) 52.7 (4.1) 53.2 (4.1) other species, all 102 {15} 13.86 [13.0] 0.167 [11.8] 2.52 [28.8] 12.4 (1.0) 11.4 (1.2) 5.6 (0.5) 1.6 (0.2) 47.9 (3.6) 48.9 (3.8) † percentage of culms removed the height and crown length of d. sissoo was not affected as much as other species, presumably reflecting that this species is mainly a timber species. based on models describing total height, crown width and crown length (table 2), the tree silhouettes in figure 4 were prepared, illustrating the combined effects of species, breast height diameter and lopping intensity. as will appear, the crowns of d. sissoo trees meilby and puri 23 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 17 table 2 estimated parameters of models describing relationships between (a,b) diameter, lopping and tree height, (c,d) diameter, lopping and crown width, (e,f) diameter, lopping and crown length. models are expressed as lcc spmmsp xddddlbbay 10)( 1110 +++++= k . standard errors are given in parentheses. variables: d0.5: diameter 0.5 metres above ground (cm), d1.3: diameter 1.3 metres above ground (cm), h: height (m), cw: crown width (m), cl: crown length (m), l: lopping proportion (branches), dsp1, …, dspm: species dummies. model a b0 b1 d1 d2 d3 d4 d5 c0 c1 model a: y = h, x = d0.5 d. sissoo f. hispida l. leucocephala l. monopetala other fodder a1 mse=2.16 0.5 1.394 (0.11) -0.836 (0.14) 0.559 (0.033) 0.143 (0.052) a2 mse=1.69 0.5 1.184 (0.072) -0.402 (0.049) 0.308 (0.052) -0.276 (0.047) 0.230 (0.060) -0.261 (0.051) 0.327 (0.067) 0.618 (0.019) ns model b: y = h, x = d1.3 d. sissoo f. hispida l. leucocephala l. monopetala other fodder b1 mse=2.07 1.3 1.128 (0.099) -0.720 (0.12) 0.637 (0.037) 0.150 (0.061) b2 mse=1.56 1.3 0.978 (0.067) -0.374 (0.047) 0.341 (0.051) -0.275 (0.048) 0.170 (0.055) -0.234 (0.046) 0.320 (0.061) 0.687 (0.021) ns model c: y = cw, x = d0.5 f. hispida f. lacor g. pinnata l. monopetala m. azedarach c1 mse=0.64 0.430 (0.15) 0.444 (0.090) -0.302 (0.054) 0.778 (0.056) ns c2 mse=0.55 ns 0.785 (0.47) -0.409 (0.035) -0.0526 (0.027) 0.0911 (0.026) -0.114 (0.039) -0.202 (0.032) -0.0650 (0.018) 0.615 (0.020) ns model d: y = cw, x = d1.3 f. lacor g. pinnata l. monopetala d1 mse=0.71 ns 0.953 (0.059) -0.595 (0.048) 0.598 (0.021) ns d2 mse=0.62 ns 1.028 (0.060) -0.612 (0.048) 0.152 (0.035) -0.148 (0.050) -0.198 (0.041) 0.557 (0.021) ns model e: y = cl, x = d0.5 d. sissoo f. hispida l. monopetala e1 mse=1.78 0.911 (0.20) 0.503 (0.12) -0.438 (0.098) 0.747 (0.064) 0.360 (0.050) e2 mse=1.54 0.858 (0.19) 0.533 (0.12) -0.425 (0.088) 0.106 (0.028) -0.0862 (0.024) -0.0994 (0.028) 0.746 (0.059) 0.289 (0.048) model f: y = cl, x = d1.3 d. sissoo f. hispida l. monopetala f1 mse=1.95 0.996 (0.22) 0.634 (0.15) -0.543 (0.12) 0.724 (0.064) 0.330 (0.061) f2 mse=1.71 0.927 (0.22) 0.684 (0.15) -0.527 (0.11) 0.156 (0.041) -0.117 (0.035) -0.140 (0.040) 0.720 (0.059) 0.244 (0.058) h = 1.3 + (b0 + b1 l) x d^(c0 + c1 l) h ei gh t [ m ] 0 3 6 9 12 15 18 100% 0% h = 1.3 + (b0 + b1 l + dsp) x d^c0; lopping intensity: 50% general level (g.l.) dalbergia sissoo (d.s.) ficus hispida (f.h.) leucaena leucocephala (l.l) litsea monopetala (l.m.) other fodder (o.f.) cw = (b0 + b1 l) x d^c0 dbh [cm] 0 10 20 30 40 50 c ro w n w id th [m ] 0 2 4 6 8 10 cw = (b0 + b1 l + dsp) x d^c0; lopping intensity: 50% dbh [cm] 0 10 20 30 40 50 general level (g.l.) ficus lacor (f.l.) garuga pinnata (g.p.) litsea monopetala (l.m.) 0% 100% lopping intensity lopping intensity f.l. g.p. l.m. o.f. d.s. f.h. l.m. l.l. g.l. g.l. c0+c1l c0 c0 c0 figure 3: predicted tree height (top) and crown width (bottom) as a function of breast height diameter. left: for lopping intensities from 0 to 100% (models b1 and d1). right: for different tree species (models b2 and d2) at a lopping intensity of 50% (cf. table 2). meilby and puri 24 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 become more slender with increasing lopping intensity, whereas the crowns of more important fodder species, such as m. azedarach, become considerably shorter. the species f. hispida, which was ranked as a mediocre fodder species in the preference ranking exercise and was not considered useful for anything else, appears to be lopped from all sides. in models c1, c2, d1 and d2 the c1 parameter was not significant (table 2). therefore, crown width is a linear function of lopping intensity (see also figure 3, bottom left). by contrast, in models e1, e2, f1 and f2 the c1 parameter was significant and it is therefore difficult to describe exactly how our lopping intensity measure is related to crown profile area or volume. this was examined as follows. assuming that the ellipsoidal crown shape used in figure 4 is a meaningful generalisation of crown shape, crown profile area and crown volume were estimated as for an ellipsoid for different species and stem diameters. this was done for the whole range of lopping intensities (0-100%) using models predicting crown width (d2) and crown length (f2). next the crown profile area or volume estimated for a given lopping intensity was divided by the corresponding values for an unlopped tree and plotted against lopping intensity (not shown here). based on these graphs it appeared that the estimated remaining crown profile area was in most cases somewhat greater, and the crown volume somewhat smaller, than expected in the ideal linear case. consequently, it appears that the applied assessment principle provides a lopping intensity measure that is linearly related to crown width and constitutes a reasonable compromise between ideal linear measures of the effect of lopping on crown profile area and crown volume. discussion in the study area the species composition was dominated by fast-growing multipurpose (fodder) and fruit tree species. the comparatively large number of species indicated that rural people traditionally plant and use a wide range of tree species for sustaining their livelihoods and agricultural production systems. for comparison das and oli (2001) observed 25 tree species (i.e. less than half of the number recorded in this study) in private farmlands of birendranagar vdc (chitwan), which borders on chainpur, and concluded that compared with sunsari (eastern terai) and kanchanpur (farwestern terai), chitwan was characterised by a greater species richness. they further reported that since disease started to spread in d. sissoo plantations (the sissoo decline) farmers increasingly replaced d. sissoo with other fast-growing multipurpose trees. in chitwan they mentioned m. azedarach (bakaino) as a popular alternative to d. sissoo. in the present study, m. azedarach was the most abundant tree species. furthermore, m. azedarach was preferred by farmers for fodder, fuelwood, and construction timber and was considered to hold the greatest cash income potential. another popular species in the study area was b. purpurea (tanki). results on the canopy biomass production and possible genetic improvement of this species were reported recently by jha et al. (2006) based on data from a breeding seed orchard at teel kane (chitwan). road sides, canal sides, field boundaries and homesteads were the most popular places for tree planting. because of the great importance of irrigated figure 4 : variation of tree proportions for selected tree species, depending on diameter at breast height and branch lopping intensity (percentage). based on models b2, d2 and f2 (cf. table 2). meilby and puri 25 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 lands for agricultural crop production, farmers generally avoided tree planting on such lands and, therefore, only a few scattered trees were observed in irrigated lands. for reasons of protection economically valuable species like fruit trees and bamboo tended to cluster around home yards and in gardens. the allometric models showed that the applied lopping pattern and its effect on crown size and shape depended on tree species. this can be interpreted as a consequence of the natural growth habits of the species in combination with their different roles and uses. however, whether the applied lopping intensities and patterns lead to the greatest possible yield and highest possible quality of fodder is an important matter that cannot be assessed based on the present dataset. an experiment carried out in rajasthan, india, revealed that the degree of lopping had no significant effects on year-to-year height and diameter growth and fodder yield. however, although not statistically significant, the mean annual diameter increment percentage was generally lowest in the case of complete crown lopping (kumar et al. 2000). similarly, in an experiment with tectona grandis l.f., viquez et al. (2005) reported that the cumulative growth (diameter or volume) of trees that were severely pruned at an early age was likely to remain lower than that of unpruned trees. the lopping intensity was assessed visually by judging the apparent reduction of the crowns in terms of foliage and larger branches. allometric models indicated that these inherently subjective estimates are linearly related to crown width. in addition, by modelling tree crowns as ellipsoids and comparing crown profile areas and volumes of lopped trees with those of undisturbed tree crowns it was found that our assessment technique appears to form a compromise between assessing the percentage reduction of crown profile area and crown volume. to test the practical reliability of the assessment technique we tried comparing our immediate visual estimates with estimates derived for the same trees by mentally dividing each tree crown into a number of components and doing an assessment for each of these. afterwards a compounded lopping intensity estimate was calculated and weighted by the stem crosssectional area at the base of each crown component. this test was carried out for a small sample of 16 trees and showed that the two ways of assessing lopping intensity yielded consistent results. as the assessment of each crown component was based on foliage loss, the compounded result compared best with the foliage loss assessment of the tree. in this case the coefficient of determination (r2) of a regression of simple lopping intensity estimates on compounded estimates was as high as 0.88. conclusion the farm tree population included a considerable number of species but for most species the number of individuals was low and a large proportion of basal area and crown cover was contributed by only a few fodder species preferred by the farmers. the applied ocular assessment of lopping intensity appeared to be quite reliable, linearly related to crown width, and form a compromise between ideal measures of crown profile area and crown volume. future work should investigate relationships between apparent lopping intensity and biomass, growth and fodder yield. acknowledgements we gratefully acknowledge the contributions of faculty members of the institute of forestry who participated in the five-day survey forming the basis of this study. we would also like to express our sincere thanks to sanjeeb bhattarai, who assisted in field work and data entry, and arun rijal who helped us with species identification. finally, we are deeply indebted to our local assistants and the community of kankali whose kindness and support made this study possible. the comform programme is supported by the danish development agency (danida). references acharya, k. p. (2006). linking trees on farms with biodiversity conservation in subsistence farming systems in nepal. biodiversity and conservation 15: 631–646. chambers r.; leach m; conroy c (1993). tree as saving and security for rural poor, gatekeeper series no. 3, international institute for environment and development, london. 13 pp. url: http:// www.iied.org/nr/agbioliv/gatekeepers/ documents/gk3.pdf (accessed 1 march 2007). das, a. n., oli, b. n. (2001): tree growing practices on farmlands: an option for sustaining rural livelihoods. banko janakari 11(2): 8-12. gilmour, g. a., nurse, m. c. (1991). farmer initiatives in increasing tree cover in central nepal. mountain research and development 11(4): 329-337. jha, p. k., dhakal, l. p., kjær, e. d., lillesø, j. p. b. (2006): improving productivity of bauhinia purpurea for tree planting farmers in nepal. agroforestry systems 67: 273-278. meilby and puri 26 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 kumar, v. s. k., tewari, v. p. (2000). effect of lopping on the top feed production and growth of prosopis cineraria. bioresource technology 74(2): 165-168. pandey, d. n. (2002). carbon sequestration in agroforestry systems, climate policy 2: 367-377. simons, a. j., jaenicke, h., tchoundjeu, z., dawson, i., kindt, r., oginosako, z., lengkeek, a., grande, a. de (2000). the future of trees is on farms: tree domestication in africa, sub-plenary papers and abstracts xxi iufro world congress 7-12 august, kuala lumpur, malaysia. víquez, e., pérez, d. (2005). effect of pruning on tree growth, yield, and wood properties of tectona grandis plantations in costa rica. silva fennica 39(3): 381–390. cover 20-2 banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 26 s.k. gautam social discrimination in community forestry: socio-economic and gender perspectives r. parajuli1, r.k. pokharel2 and d. lamichhane3 a study was carried out to analyze the existing social discrimination among community forest user group (cfug) members. two cfugs representing heterogeneous ethnic groups in syangja district were selected to examine the participation of cfug members in community forestry (cf) activities, benefit sharing and fund mobilization system. pra/rra tools like questionnaire survey, wealth ranking, key informant survey, triangulation, and informal discussion were employed to generate primary data. statistical parameters such as percentage, mean, anova, and contingency coefficient were used to interpret this data. the perception of local people was measured on the five point likert scale, and chi-square test was applied to interpret this result. the participation of the poor, disadvantaged group and women were minimal in cf activities but their presence was more at the time of forest product distribution. timber had been distributed less to the poor and disadvantaged group (dag) households than to others. more than 65% cfug members were unaware about cfug fund. their overall perceptions of cf management were not positive. the result clearly demonstrated discrimination between the rich and the poor, male and female, and dag and non-dag within the cfug. key words: community forest user group, discrimination, participation, disadvantaged group, poor 1 louisiana state university, baton rouge, la, usa. email: rparaj1@lsu.edu 2 professor, tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara. 3 district forest office, jumla. community forestry (cf) of nepal has been acknowledged as a successful, innovative and truly community-oriented programme (acharya, 1999; pokharel, 2004). it has been perceived as the most effective strategy for restoring and managing forest resources. cf was introduced with the aim of fulfilling the subsistence need for forest products among the rural people, and for controlling the deforestation in the country (adhikari, 1990). however, cf is criticized for failing to address the needs of women, low caste and poorer segments of society who are the real users of forest (hobley, 1991; baral, 1993; graner, 1997; timsina, 2001). a study conducted by kanel and subedi (2004) suggested that the contribution of cf towards supporting the poorest, most vulnerable and marginalized members of society had been limited. similarly a number of studies such as gentle (2000), and kandel and niraula (2004) concluded that the distribution of the forest products was inequitable and the interests of poor and disadvantaged groups (dags) had not been properly addressed while management decisions were made. decision making in most communities is skewed in favour of men, as women are culturally restricted i.e. they are often not allowed to be involved in decision making by their families. the poor, disadvantaged and socially marginalized groups were often ignored or excluded from participating in decision-making in most communities (gilmour and fisher, 1991; baral, 1993; graner, 1997). these groups were too preoccupied in just earning their livelihood. a number of studies has shown that elite members of the society tend to occupy all the key positions of the executive committee and to make decisions regarding harvest, product distribution and mobilization of fund (baral and subedi, 1999). the ordinary members of the group were hardly involved in the overall process and had virtually no idea about banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 27 parajuli et al. harvest and the financial matters of their community forest user group (cfug) (nightingale, 2002). by contrast, in a study from kabhrepalanchok and lalitpur district, sharma (2003) suggested that distribution of forest products system in community forestry had no any discrimination on the basis of wealth or caste. the current system of cf in nepal has helped in developing a mechanism for social cohesiveness among the forest users of different castes/ethnic groups, and helped to minimize the gap between high and low castes (acharya and oli, 2004). likewise, pokharel (2004) also claimed that cf had become a vehicle for ushering in changes in the social processes to empower the poor and dag members of the community. in this context, it is relevant to evaluate empirically how cf benefits are allocated among the different socioeconomic strata of the population and how far the poor and dag segments of the population were receiving benefits from this programme. such studies would help further development of the policies of forest management as a means to support the livelihoods of the rural poor and contribute to the reduction of discrimination between rich and poor, high and low caste people. the general objective of this study is, therefore, to assess the social discrimination in terms of social, economic and gender perspectives in different cf programmes. the specific objectives are: to document the different activities that are undertaken by cfug; to examine the participation of cfug members in cf related activities; and to uncover the benefit sharing and fund mobilization mechanism among cfug members. methods the research was carried out in two selected cfugs of syangja district. after discussing with dfo staff and reviewing cfug records in dfo, sahanle cfug and aahale masaswara cfug were selected for study sites. the sahanle cfug is located in ward numbers 2 and 3 of arjun chaupari vdc under arjun chaupari range post. the forest was divided into four blocks for scientific management. the forest area of 16 ha was dominated by katus (castanopsis indica)-chilaune (schima wallichi) forest. aahale masaswara cfug is situated in putali bazaar municipality12 of syangja district. the total number of households was 156 and the forest area was 50 ha. the cfug was economically and ethnically heterogeneous with damai, newar, magar, chhetri. valuable sal and salla were the dominant species in this cf. both qualitative and quantitative research techniques were employed to collect the data. different pra/ rra tools such as participatory wealth ranking, discussion with committee members, key informants survey and semi-structured questionnaire survey were used to generate the primary data. a total 61 households (20%) were selected from two cfugs through stratified random sampling based on participatory wealth ranking. the questionnaire was pre-tested and some necessary changes were made before conducting the household interview. secondary data relevant to the study were collected from relevant sources like cfugs, dfo, institute of forestry (iof) library and various published and unpublished literature. operational plan (op) and the book of cfug meeting minutes were also reviewed during discussions with the committees. this data was analyzed with qualitative and quantitative techniques. most of the interpretations were based on the categorization of respondents (table 1). the data was fed into the spss 11.5 and msexcel computer software programmes to generate different statistical parameters such as percentage, mean, anova and graphical displays, for both qualitative and quantitative data interpretation. the perception of respondents were measured along ‘a strongly agree to strongly disagree (1-5)’ likert scale format. pearson chi square tested the difference in the perception of the respondents according to their social, economic and gender status. other parameters such as correlation coefficient, contingency coefficient, one way anova were carried out to find the relationship and association among the variables. results and discussion cfug activities all cfugs are legally required to have and function by its own constitution and op. the op elaborates the forest inventory of the cf and its overall technical management. in reality, however, neither of the cfugs studied had followed their ops for most of their activities. these activities are discussed below: forest management activities forest management activities include plantation, tending operations and forest protection. in both cfugs, plantation was done with the participation banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 28 parajuli et al. of cfug members. seedlings were provided by syangja district forest office. tending operations including cleaning, thinning (mainly 3d: dead, dying and diseased trees) and pruning generated fuelwood. heralu (forest guard) was hired for protection of forest in both cfugs. to protect forest from fire, fire lines were cleared every year. the planted species were: dalbergia sissoo, pinus roxburghii, michelia species, artocar pus lakoocha, thysanolaena maxima for enrichment planting in aahale cf, and artocarpus lakoocha, alnus nepalensis, prunus cerasoides in open eroded area of sahanle cf. forest product collection and distribution system firewood and timber for house construction were the main forest products provided to all cfug members. one member of each household had to be involved voluntarily for firewood collection. the distribution system in both cfugs was on equal basis. though op had prescribed the annual allowable harvest (aah) from forest, committee (mainly key members) determined the quantity for each household. community development activities community development includes trail construction, gabion wall construction, drinking water, and micro hydro-electricity works. aahale cfug had already conducted such activities. the committee decides the activities that are to be undertaken in a particular year. however, in sahanle, no such community development activities had been conducted yet. the committee only focused on the protection of forest rather than distributing benefits to the community. table 2: different activities conducted by cfug activities cfug remarks aahale sahanle 1. plantation yes yes once 2. silvicultural operations yes yes yearly 3. forest protection by guard yes yes since beginning 4. fire line construction yes* no 5. fuelwood, timber distribution yes yes yearly 6. community development activities yes** no 7. income generation activities no*** no*** * yearly, ** as per required for local people, *** but described in op participation of cfug members in different meetings chi-square test confirmed that attendance of respondents differed significantly with social as well as economic conditions of respondents (table 3). income generation activities both cfugs had different income generation activities such as ntfp management, nursery preparation, and special programmes for the poor, dags and women, and these were clearly stated in their ops. but they had not implemented any such programmes in practice although aahale cfug professed interest in such programmes. likewise, in the meeting convened to form the fuc, only 16% dag, 14% poor and 36% female had participated. due to their lower participation, they were generally ignored and not included in forest user committees (fuc). even when included in the fuc, they did not express their views. nightingale table 1: analytical categories categories of respondents analytical categories social ndag dag economic rich medium poor gender male female in principle, every member of a cfug should participate in the meetings organized by the cfug. they have equal right to speak and participate in the decision making process. but in both cfugs studied, the participation of the poor, dag and women was less than the rich, male and ndag members. in both cfugs, only one general meeting had been organized to pass the op and constitution. only 22% dags, 7% poor and 32% female respondents had attended the meeting. they had not actively participated in the meeting, since most were unaware about the contents of the op and the constitution. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 29 fig 1: composition of present cfuc 60 households of dags? in reporting a similar situation, poudel (2003) concluded that presence of women and dag member in committee was only for attendance and not for discussion, suggestion and decision making. table 4: attendance of members in 2061 (2004 ad) cfug general assembly respondent’s aahale cfug sahanle cfug status count % count % dag 37 3 16 16 ndag 58 61 73 74 male 40 42 68 69 female 55 58 31 31 source: minute book of cfug (2005) (2001) also attributed the low participation of women and dag in decision-making processes as a major reason for their being ignored. participation in general assembly in both cfugs, the general assembly had been called once a year, prior to the tending operations to collect firewood. most of the women members of the cfug get involved in the general assembly because it has direct effect on forest products collection. despite their greater participation in such programmes, most of the dags and women did not feel free to express their opinions. the minute books of both cfugs revealed that more females (58%) had participated in aahale cfug and there was satisfactory attendance of dags also (table 4). but in case of sahanle cfug, only 16% of dags and 31% of female had attended the general assembly of 2061 b. s (2004 ad). from the informal discussions, it was also learned that women and dag had not taken part in the discussion although they were present in the meeting. they felt compelled to attend the general assembly because they were concerned about their access to forest products. these discussions also underscored how highly dependent the poor, dags, and mainly women were on cf for fulfillment of the requirements for forest products. participation in forest user committee in both cfugs, participation of dag, women and poor members was minimal in the committee and they never occupied key positions. they only served as general members. the same individuals have been holding the key posts since the hand over. in aahale masaswara cfuc, only two women of two dag families were involved in present 15-member cfuc (fig 1). how can two persons represent more than the same case was reported in sahanle cfug; only one dag and five female members were incorporated in the 15-member cfuc. there was no co-ordination among the committee members so committee meetings were irregular and inactive. dags and women believed that only the educated and experienced persons could contribute to the committee so they hesitated to participate in cfuc. as the representation of the poor and dags in the n um be r parajuli et al. table 3: participation in the meeting when op and constitution was finalized banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 30 table 5: participation in training, workshop and study tours executive committee was meager, the sharing mechanism could hardly fulfill the demands of forest products for the poor and dags (kanel and kandel, 2004). participation in training, workshops and study tours in aahale masashwara cfug, every member was allowed to get only 4 bita (10 bhari) firewood at the rate of rs. 5 per bita (1 bhari= 35 kg). in the case of timber, those people whose houses were to be constructed or renovated got timber. most of the dag and poor members complained that the price for timber was too high for them. there was also a provision of providing firewood for special purposes like weddings and funerals. but in sahanle, only 3 bita (8 bhari) were allowed for each household. the quantity of timber was provided in a number of trees basis, so price was fixed per tree. most of the dag and poor respondents (50%) stated that they had not got timber for their house construction because of the high cost of timber. as explained by (malla et al., 2003), there is equal distribution system, but wealthier households tend to benefit more in terms of the quantity of products they obtained from cf. table 6 depicts the average timber distribution to different status of cfug members. respondents were asked how much timber they had obtained since the handing over of cf. dag households had banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 parajuli et al. of each household had to be involved voluntarily in this operation. table 6: timber distribution to cfug members from beginning of cf status of respondents average timber test statistics collection in cft. (one way anova) social status ndag 11.93 fvalue = 17.25*, df =1,59; dag 5.44 sig. .000 economic status rich 11.57 medium 10.74 f-value = 4.41*, df = 2,58; poor 5.93 sig. .016 source: field survey, 2005 about 44% of the respondents had attended cf related training, workshops and study tours. among them, 56% were rich, followed by medium (30%) and poor (14%). most of the respondents had participated in at least one such event. similarly, 89% of the ndags and only 11% dag respondents had attended such events. the chi-square test also confirmed that the difference between dags and ndags members who attended the training and tours (table 5) was statistically significant . forest product sale and distribution system in both cfugs, firewood and timber for house construction were the main products available to all cfug members. all the forest products were distributed only among the cfug. the forest was opened for only one week in a year (poush/magh or december/ january) for firewood collection and grass cutting. silvicultural operations (cleaning, thinning, pruning, 3d removal) were the main sources for firewood. in both cfugs, one member banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 31 parajuli et al. perception of respondents on “product sale and distribution system is participatory” poor and dag respondents disagreed with the statement “product sale and distribution system is participatory” (mean value >3.5). they pointed that the elite and rich committee members had made all the decisions relating to timber distribution and providing only to those who could pay money fast. the rich and ndag respondents had a neutral view on the statement (table 7). the chi-square test demonstrated that perception on this statement differed significantly with social as well as economic conditions of respondents. fund mobilization the major sources for fund raising in both cfugs were forest products sale, levying fines, penalties and new membership fee. aahale cfug had around rs. 22, 000 (us$ 300) in its bank account while sahanle had about rs. 40, 000 (us$ 540) in its bank account (from audit report, 2005). although op prescribed that 25% of cfug income had to be allocated for forest development works, neither cfugs had adhered to such rules. in aahale cfug, cfug fund was utilized for different forest as well as community development works. the committee deliberated on all decisions about fund mobilization. this cfug had conducted depicted that aahale cfug had different community development activities conducted from beginning to now. received an average of 5.44 cft per household since the beginning of cf, whereas ndag had collected 11.93 cft. likewise, the rich and medium class people had obtained more timber than the poor members (table 6). one way anova test confirmed that timber flow to the rich and ndag members was significantly different for the poor and dag members in both study cfugs. the following forest and community development works with their funds. forest development works poor and dag members of cfug were assigned priority for wage works such as: · annual fire line clearance · plantations · wall fencing in forest boundary · salary to heralu rs.1200 per month (note: they have no record of how much money had been spent in such works but committee agreed that such amount was less than 25% of the total income) community development works most of the cfug income had been spent in community development works in aahale cfug. they had conducted such works in different toles (neighbourhoods) considering which programme was highly demanded by cfug members (fig 2). 1= strongly agree, 2= agree, 3= neutral, 4= disagree, 5= strongly disagree * significant at 95% confidence interval, ** not significant drinking water 8% bridge construction 24% gabion wall construction 17% trail improvement 17% electricity 34% fig 2: fund mobilization in aahale cfug table 7: perception on whether product sale and distribution system are participatory sig.variable category w banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 32 parajuli et al. to get it back. only 34% of total respondents were aware about their cfug fund that too not the exact amount. only 17% dag and 14% poor respondents had known about cfug fund (table 8). in aahale cfug, most of the dag respondents were not satisfied with fund mobilization. most of the poor dag respondents were interested in getting loans from their own cf fund for different income generation activities. one female respondent from dag household asserted that “we have drinking water problem here but the committee is working for road construction. we want drinking water first”. chi-square value for independence test confirmed that there was significant difference between the response of dag and ndags about the fund of their cf account. conclusion in both cfugs, most activities were protection oriented rather than oriented towards other forest management or community development. aahale cfug had conducted some community development activities but no any such activities had been conducted in sahanle cfug. the rich and ndag male members had captured most of the key positions of user committee as well as the opportunities for allowances and empowerment related activities such as trainings, workshops and study tours. the nominal presence of dags and acknowledgement poor members in the committee and the passive role in the assembly suggests that the decisions were not likely to benefit the poor and dags. although the cfugs were supposed to follow the equal distribution policy for forest products, the rich and ndag members were receiving more benefits from cf. most of the poor and dag respondents disagreed with current products sale and distribution system as the rule and the price allocated for the sale of forest products was not reasonable. the cfug fund and its mobilization were mostly controlled by ndag and rich committee members. almost all dag, poor and women (65%) respondents were unaware about their cf fund and where it was deposited. even though the op prescribed special incentives, the poor, women and dag individuals had little access to cfug funds and their mobilization. most of the fund was invested on the salaries for heralu , allowances and infrastructure development, while investment in forest development and income-generating activities were low. present cf practice in the study area was less favorable to the livelihoods of the poor and marginalized sections of the community. there exists discrimination among the cfug members from social and economic perspectives, but less disparity has been recorded from gender point of view. table 8: perception of respondents on cfug fund *significant at 95% confidence interval, ** not significant statement status of respondent response (%) df x2 value sig. yes no social dag 16.7 83.3 1 3.85 * do you know the ndag 41.9 58.1 deposited amount rich 42.9 57.1 2 3.45 ** of cfug fund? economic medium 36.8 63.2 poor 14.3 85.7 gender male 38.1 61.9 1 0.85 ** female 26.3 73.7 sahanle cfug had not spent their funds on any forest or community development works except the salary to heralu (rs. 1,100 per month). they were only concerned with collecting rather than mobilizing the fund. although both cfugs in their op had planned different income generation activities (igas) for the poor, dag and women empowerment by providing loans, such activities had not materialized. the committees hesitated to disburse loans to poor and dags since they believed it would be difficult the first author would like to express sincere gratitude to comform/local danida fellowship for providing financial support to carry out this study for the partial fulfillment of his bachelor’s degree in forestry. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 2 33 parajuli et al. references acharya, k.p. 1999. community forestry in nepal: a model of common property resource management. banko janakari 9 (2): 36-39. acharya, k.p. and oli, b.n. 2004. impacts of cf in rural livelihoods: a case study from bharkhore cf, parbat district. banko janakari 14 (1): 46-50. adhikari, j. 1990. is community forestry a new concept? an analysis of the past and present policies affecting forest management in nepal. society and natural resources 3 (3): 257-265. baral, j.c. and subedi, b.r. 1999. is community forestry of nepal’s terai in right direction ?banko janakari 9 (2): 20-24. baral, n. 1993. where is our cf? banko janakari 4 (1): 12-15. gentle, p. 2000. the flow and distribution of community forestry benefits: a case study from pyuthan district, nepal. m.sc forestry research thesis, university of canterbury, christchurch, new zealand. gilmour, d.a. and fisher, r.j. 1991. villagers, forests and foresters: the philosophy, process and practice of community forestry in nepal. sahayogi press, kathmandu, nepal. graner, e. 1997. the political ecology of community forestry in nepal. printshop, frensdorf, germany. hobley, m. 1991. from passive to active participatory forestry: nepal. in projects with people: the practice of participation in rural development (ed.) oakley, p. international labour office, geneva, switzerland. kanel, b.r. and subedi, r. 2004. pro-poor community forestry: some initiatives from the field. in twenty-five years of community forestry: contributing to millennium development goals (eds.) kanel, k.r., mathema, p., kandel, b.r., niraula, d.r., sharma, a.r. and gautam, m. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 4-6 august 2004, kathmandu, nepal, 229-237. kanel, k.r. and kandel, b.r. 2004. community forestry in nepal: achievements and challenges. journal of forest and livelihood 4 (1): 55-63. malla, y.b.; neupane, h.b. and branney, p.j. 2003. why are not poor people benefiting more from community forestry. journal of forest and livelihood 3 (1):78-90. nightingale, a. j. 2002. participating or just sitting in? the dynamics of gender and caste in community forestry. journal of forest and livelihood 2 (1): 17-24. pokharel, b.k. 2004. contribution of community forestry to people’s livelihoods and forest ustainability: experience from nepal. www.wrm.org.uy. access date: 15th jan. 2006. poudel, b.s. 2003. the rural poor and the forest resources: socioeconomic heterogeneity, benefit sharing and participation in community forest in nepal. m.sc thesis. tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. sharma, a.r. 2003. community forestry from wealth and caste perspective. banko janakari 13 (1): 39-42. timsina, n. 2001. empowerment or marginalization: a debate on community forestry in nepal. journal of forest and livelihood 2 (1): 27-33 final corrected banko janakari 19-2.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 25 modelling the growth of shorea robusta using growth ring measurements p. sapkota1 and h. meilby2 this paper presents distance-independent diameter growth models for sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) in kankali community forest, chainpur vdc, chitwan. as the basis for modelling, stem discs were cut 0.3 m above-ground for a sample of 80 trees that had recently been felled. growth rings were measured along four radii and, except for the outer part of a few discs originating from old trees, individual growth rings could be distinguished without major difficulty. supplementary data were gathered as a basis for preparing models relating [i] diameter under bark to diameter on bark and [ii] diameter 0.3 m above-ground to diameter 1.3 m above-ground. based on these data, auxiliary models were developed and used to convert growth ring measurements into diameter increment at breast height. the mean diameter increment was 0.87 cm/year (n = 1514) and the standard deviation was 0.33 cm/year. the relationships between diameter increment and current diameter, stem age, growth in previous years, rainfall and temperature were modelled. four different models were presented. rainfall during the growth season, particularly the months of may-july, proved to influence growth considerably and suggests a scope for dendroclimatological studies in sal. . key words: climate change, community forestry, diameter growth models, effect of rainfall, growth ring measurements with respect to its silvicultural characteristics, sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) has been described as ‘the most gregarious and aggressive’ tree species of the forest (troup, 1921). sal is a multipurpose species that can be used for timber as well as fuel and fodder and it is, therefore, considered a particularly important and attractive tree species (jackson, 1994). in nepal natural sal forests have been highly acknowledged for their economic potential (rautiainen and suoheimo, 1997). however, despite the economic potential of sal, few academic studies have been conducted on the growth of this species in nepal. as only a few forest growth models have been developed in nepal, the uncertainty of growth and yield estimates is often high. in order to safeguard against depletion of resources, community forests apply conservative estimates of productivity and allowable cut. a possible consequence of this is that forests are underutilised and provide less income to communities than could have been obtained with reliable information about annual increment. hence, the potential value of preparing growth models to communities is likely to be high. the impact of global climate change on forest growth remains uncertain, both because the exact changes with regard to temperature and rainfall patterns are unknown and because the responses of forest ecosystems to long-term changes are poorly understood. it has been argued that increasing co2 concentrations in the atmosphere might lead to carbon fertilization but examples of decelerating growth, e.g. feeley et al. (2007) indicate that temperature and rainfall patterns are often crucial. particularly for a semi-deciduous/semi-evergreen species like sal, growing in a region with distinct wet and dry seasons, growth is likely to be limited mainly by rainfall. future growth will remain uncertain but at least the observed effects of past climate on growth can provide a clue to what changes to expect in the short-medium term. annual growth rings are useful to determine the age and growth rate of trees, and tree ring analysis is widely used to study the effect of climate on growth (xiangding and xuzhi, 1991). the old belief that annual growth rings are not formed in most tropical trees has been proven wrong for many species and during the past decade, studies on growth rings in 1 freelance forester. e-mail: prativasapkota@hotmail.com 2 associate prof., forest and landscape denmark, university of copenhagen. e-mail: heme@life.ku.dk sapkota and meilby banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 26 sapkota and meilby tropical trees have been increasingly successful (brienen and zuidema, 2006; worbes, 2002). although not always easy to distinguish, sal usually produces one growth ring per year, thereby enabling growth ring measurements to be made (e.g. rautiainen 1999; vanclay 1994). the objective of this study is to develop local distance-independent diameter growth models for individual trees based on growth ring measurements. these models are meant for application in forest management planning. an additional objective is to prepare models including effects of past climate on diameter growth, thereby providing a basis for assessing likely short-term effects of climate change on growth. finally, the paper aims to act as a source of inspiration for further study into local growth models for sal. materials and methods study site the study was conducted in kankali community forest which is located in chitwan district, approximately 16 km north of bharatpur. the altitudinal range is 300-900 m, the total forest area is 760 ha and the main tree species is sal. data collection for a random sample of 80 stumps, a stem disc was cut 0.3 m above-ground (stump height). the discs were planed and sanded to enhance the visibility of growth rings. the growth rings were marked with a pencil and the radius from pith to each ring was measured along four perpendicular lines from pith to bark using a ruler (accuracy 1 mm). for each year, the four measured radii were averaged. the age of a stem was assumed equal to the number of growth rings counted. for young trees, an attempt was made to verify the age estimate by interviewing residents. in almost all cases the age estimates tallied with one another. growth was measured under bark but diameter is normally measured on bark, and it was therefore necessary to prepare the basis for a model relating diameters on and under bark. this was done by measuring diameter on and under bark for the 80 discs also used for growth measurements. for an additional random sample of 24 stumps, diameter measurements were carried out in the field using a girth tape (accuracy 1 mm). for the sample as a whole (n = 104) the minimum and maximum diameters on bark were 11.1 cm and 108.2 cm, respectively. due to the relative scarcity of large stumps the mean diameter on bark was as low as 30.8 cm. growth ring measurements were conducted at stump height. to allow the estimation of growth at breast height, it was necessary to prepare the basis for modelling the relationship between diameters 0.3 m and 1.3 m above-ground. therefore, a random sample of 176 trees was selected in various parts of the forest, representing different stand densities, slopes and aspects. for these trees the stem diameter was measured at both 0.3 m and 1.3 m above-ground using a tape measure (accuracy 1 mm). the minimum and maximum diameters at breast height (dbh) were 3.0 cm and 46.8 cm and the mean dbh was 17.5 cm. for the period 1998-2007 monthly precipitation, and minimum and maximum temperature observed at the meteorological station at rampur (27° 37' n; 84° 25' e), approximately 25 km to the southwest of the kankali forest were obtained from the department of hydrology and meteorology (dhm), government of nepal (figure 1). the mean annual rainfall recorded was 2298 mm (range 1736-2694 mm). the overall diameter distribution of sal in the kankali forest was obtained from comform, a collaboration project between institute of forestry in pokhara and hetauda, department of forest research and survey, forest and landscape denmark and several associated partners that had established permanent sample plots in the forest (meilby et al., 2006). january february march april may june july august september october november december r a in fa ll (m m ) 0 200 400 600 800 1000 t e m p e ra tu re (o c ) 0 10 20 30 40 maximum minimum fig 1 : climate at rampur approximately 25 km from kankali (1998-2007): mean monthly rainfall and mean monthly maximum and minimum temperatures. data provided by the department of hydrology and meteorology, government of nepal banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 27 models auxiliary models a total of 104 observations of stump diameter on bark and under bark were available for modelling. to describe the relationship between diameter under bark (dub) and diameter on bark (dob) the following regression models were tested: iiubiob dd εβα ++= ,, (1) iiubiob dd εβ γ += ,, (2) iiubiob dd εβα γ ++= ,, (3) where i = 1…104, α, β, and γ are model parameters to be estimated, and the ειs are random and normally distributed errors. parameters were estimated using the nlin procedure (non-linear model estimation) of the sas v. 9.2 software package (statistical analysis system; sas institute, 2009a). a total of 176 random trees were measured with regard to diameter at breast height and stump height (30 cm above-ground). the following model candidates were tested: iii dd εβα ++= ,3.0,3.1 (4) iii dd εβ γ += ,3.0,3.1 (5) iii dd εβα γ ++= ,3.0,3.1 (6) where i = 1…176, 3.1d and 3.0d are stem diameters measured at breast height (1.3 m) and stump height (0.3 m), respectively, α, β, and γ are model parameters to be estimated, and the ειs are random and normally distributed errors. again parameters were estimated using the nlin procedure. growth models based on the growth ring measurements, a total of 80 diameter growth series were available. these were used to parameterise a range of growth models where growth ( tid ,δ ) in a given year (t) was described as a function of diameter (di,t) and disc age (ti,t) before the growth season, diameter increment in the preceding growth season ( 1, −δ tid ), rainfall (rt), and minimum and maximum temperature. the models were developed from the two basic equations described by zeide (1993): increment = qp agesizek ×× and increment = )exp( ageqsizek p ××× , where k, p and q are model parameters. model parameters were first estimated under the assumption that growth observations were independent. this was done using the nlin procedure of the sas software package. next, models that performed particularly well were reformulated as mixed models including random, disc-specific effects. the parameters were estimated using the nlmixed procedure (non-linear mixed model estimation) of the sas v. 9.2 software package (sas institute, 2009b) and the following models were selected for further examination: tititiiti ddad ,,,, )exp()( εγα β +−+=δ (7) titititiiti tddad ,,,,, )exp()( εγα δβ +−+=δ − (8) titititiiti dddad ,1,,,, )exp()( εγα φβ +δ−+=δ − (9) tittitiiti rtdad ,,,, )exp()( ελα δβ ++=δ − (10) where the ais are random and normally distributed disc effects (i = 1…80), ),0(~ 2 ai na σ , the ti ,ε s are independently and normally distributed random errors, ),0(~ 2 , εσε nti , t is the year, and α, β, γ, δ, φ and λ are parameters to be estimated. results and discussion auxiliary models the three models, (1)-(3), describing the relationship between diameter on and under bark all fitted the data very well with r2 values of 0.998-0.999 (table 1). model (3) included three parameters and was thus the most flexible one. however, the power parameter, γ, could not be distinguished from 1 (pr>|t| = 0.58) and, hence, there seemed to be no reason to prefer model (3) over the linear model (1), particularly as the root mean squared error (rmse) of model (1) was the lower one. unfortunately, the dataset did not include stems with diameters of less than 8.4 cm under bark (11.1 cm on bark) and the estimated intercepts of models (1) and (3) implied that the predicted diameter on bark of a stem with an underbark diameter of 0 cm would be 2.5-2.7 cm. since this is not in agreement with reality and since the model would be used to predict on-bark diameters for under-bark diameters considerably smaller than 8.4 cm, model (2) was considered the best alternative. models (4)-(6) describing the relationship between on-bark diameter 0.3 m and 1.3 m above-ground all fitted the data very well with r2 values of 0.992-0.993 (table 1). in the three-parameter model (6), the intercept was not significantly different from zero sapkota and meilby banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 28 (pr>|t| = 0.64) and the power parameter, γ, was statistically indistinguishable from 1 (pr>|t| = 0.86). therefore, models (4) and (5) were preferred to model (6). the linear model (4) predicted a diameter of 0.25 cm at breast height for a diameter of 0 cm at stump height. since this is not realistic, model (5) was considered the most attractive alternative. diameter growth data as a basis for modelling diameter growth at breast height, the original growth ring measurements 0.3 m above-ground were transformed using models (2) and (5). hence, denoting the average radius from pith to perimeter of a growth ring in year t by rt , the onbark diameter at breast height (dbh) was estimated as: ( )[ ] )5()2( ˆˆ )2()5(,3.1 2ˆˆ γγββ tt rd = where )2(β̂ , )5(β̂ , )2(γ̂ and )5(γ̂ are the estimated parameters of models (2) and (5). subsequently, annual diameter increment was estimated as 1,3.1,3.1 −−=δ ttt ddd . the majority of the sample trees were 10-20 cm dbh (84%) and 11-20 years of age (75%), and only 6.3% were larger than 50 cm dbh. thus the composition of the sample clearly reflects that it is based on thinned trees. however, as all trees were once thinner than at the time of felling, the diameter increments and corresponding diameters before the growth season cover the diameter range up to 75 cm quite well (figure 2). for the kankali forest as a whole, comform estimated that as much as 81% of the sal trees were less than 10 cm dbh and the estimated effect of climate preliminary analysis showed that growth was only weakly correlated with whole-year climate variables. to identify the period of the year when weather had the greatest influence on growth, rainfall was totalled for periods of 3-6 months starting from march, april, may, june and july. average maximum and minimum temperatures were calculated for the same periods. coefficients of correlation between diameter increment and total rainfall, maximum and minimum temperature were estimated. it emerged that correlations between growth and minimum temperature generally were not significant at the 5% level. therefore, they have not been included in table 2. parameter estimates model (structural part) n rmse adj. r2 par. α par. β par. γ (1) ubob dd βα += 104 0.753 0.999 2.735 [0.111] 1.061 [0.0031] n.a. (2) γβ ubob dd = 104 0.891 0.998 n.a. 1.534 [0.0232] 0.9219 [0.0037] (3) γβα ubob dd += 104 0.756 0.999 2.541 [0.367] 1.093 [0.0592] 0.9935 [0.0116] (4) 3.03.1 dd βα += 176 0.751 0.992 0.2502 [0.123] 0.8499 [0.0054] n.a. (5) γβ 3.03.1 dd = 176 0.751 0.993 n.a. 0.8953 [0.0185] 0.9879 [0.0061] (6) γβα 3.03.1 dd += 176 0.753 0.993 0.1838 [0.398] 0.8625 [0.0725] 0.9965 [0.0198] table 1 : models describing the relationships between diameter on and under bark, (1)-(3), and between diameter at stump height and at breast height, (4)-(6). standard errors are given in square brackets. symbols: see text. units of measurement: d ob , d ub , 3.1d , and 3.0d : cm dbh (cm) 0 20 40 60 80 d b h in c re m e n t (c m /y e a r) 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 percentage of stems larger than 50 cm dbh was only 0.4%. fig. 2 : diameter increment vs. diameter at breast height before the growth season sapkota and meilby banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 29 the correlation between rainfall and growth was generally positive as expected, and it appears that to obtain a high coefficient of correlation the period for which rainfall is calculated must include the months of may, june and july. thus, the highest coefficients of correlation were observed for threeand fourmonth periods starting on the 1st of may, a five-month period starting on the 1st of april, and a six-month period starting on the 1st of march (table 2). correlations between maximum temperature and growth were generally negative, reflecting the fact that maximum temperature and rainfall were negatively correlated. for example, the coefficient of correlation between total rainfall and maximum temperature for the three-month period may-july was -0.653 (pr>|r| =0.041, n=10). the coefficients of correlation between growth and maximum temperature were generally lower in absolute terms than those calculated for growth and rainfall, and in the growth models it was therefore decided to include rainfall for the period may-july. the average total rainfall (1998-2007) for this period was 1215 mm with a minimum of 623 mm and a maximum of 1846 mm. growth models diameter increment was negatively correlated with age (r = -0.385, pr>|r| < 0.0001), negatively correlated with diameter before the growth season (r = -0.370, pr>|r| < 0.0001), positively correlated with diameter increment in the preceding growth season (r = 0.404, pr>|r| < 0.0001), and positively correlated with rainfall in may-july (r = 0.215, pr>|r| < 0.0001). parameter estimates of the four growth models, (7)(10), are shown in table 3. the final parameter estimates of the structural part of models (7) and (8) differed little from those estimated using ordinary non-linear least squares (sapkota, 2008). all parameters were significant at the 5% level or better, and except for the negative parameter estimate of β in model (9) the signs of the estimated parameters were as expected. thus, in agreement with the observed correlation patterns, growth generally decreased with increasing age, increased with increasing growth in the preceding growth season, and increased with increasing rainfall. models (7) and (8) showed that growth initially increased, culminated, and finally decreased with increasing diameter. the estimated variances of the random disc effects, s2(a), corresponding to standard deviations of about 0.1, were low compared with the estimated values of the fixed effects, α, which ranged from 0.97 to 1.12. the estimated variances of the error terms, s 2(ε), were similar for all four models (0.073-0.083) but since only part of the data can be used for models (9) and (10) direct comparison of the models must be based on a reduced dataset. for the 769 observations that can be used in all four models, the standard deviation of the prediction errors was observed to decrease from 0.32 cm for model (7) to 0.31 cm for model (8) and 0.30 cm for models (9) and (10). the annual diameter increment predicted by model (7) peaked at a diameter of only 4 cm and reached a maximum value of about 1 cm/year. beyond the table 2 : coefficients of correlation† between diameter growth, dδ , and climate variables (rainfall and maximum temperature) calculated for periods of 3-6 months starting from the 1st of march to july first month of the period considered period length march april may june july 3 months 0.131*** 0.160*** 0.215*** 0.188*** 0.089* 4 months 0.167*** 0.208*** 0.211*** 0.149*** 0.060ns 5 months 0.208*** 0.214*** 0.179*** 0.127*** 0.065ns r ai n fa ll 6 months 0.207*** 0.176*** 0.161*** 0.131*** 0.063ns 3 months -0.080* -0.126*** -0.147*** -0.080* -0.035ns 4 months -0.100** -0.134*** -0.181*** -0.067ns 0.020ns 5 months -0.097* -0.183*** -0.150*** -0.019ns 0.043ns m ax .t em p . 6 months -0.113** -0.156*** -0.114** 0.003ns 0.091* † levels of significance: ‘ns’: not significant, ‘*’: p<0.05, ‘**’: p<0.01, ‘***’, p<0.001 sapkota and meilby banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 30 maximum, the predicted diameter increment decreased slowly and at a diameter of 70 cm it was still 0.5 cm/year (figure 3). model (8) including stem age indicated that, particularly for young stems, the expected growth deviated considerably between stems that had reached a given diameter within comparatively few years and those for which it had taken a longer time. as size and age increased, the difference between the diameter increments predicted by models (7) and (8) tended to decrease. the minimum observed rainfall in the three-month period may-july (1998-2007) was 623 mm and the maximum was 1846 mm. the diameter increment predicted by model (10) for a rainfall of 500 and 2000 mm is shown in figure 4. it appears that growth was strongly influenced by rainfall but, like for model (8), it is also seen that the expected growth depended very much on the time that it had taken for a stem to reach a given diameter. growth patterns as expected, the diameter increment was strongly related to both diameter and age. but diameter and age were also strongly correlated and when variables such as diameter increment in the preceding year or rainfall during the growth season were included in a model, it therefore turned out that the decrease of growth after its culmination at diameters of 2-8 cm could either be modelled using diameter or age, but not both. the early culmination of growth may be related to the fact that in the kankali forest most young stems presumably originated from root suckers. all models include diameter at the beginning of the growth season. therefore, the effects of stem age in models (8) and (10) can be interpreted as effects of past growth success, reflecting differences between trees with regard to site conditions, competition and genetics. similarly, in model (9) the effect of diameter increment in the preceding growth season could be interpreted as an effect of past growth success in combination with weather conditions in the preceding year. growth and climate the correlation between growth and climate variables describing average weather conditions within a year proved low. higher correlations were obtained by considering the growth season only, estimating rainfall and average temperatures for periods of 3-6 months. within the growth season, rainfall and maximum temperature were negatively correlated and while diameter growth was positively correlated with rainfall it was therefore negatively correlated with maximum table 3 : diameter growth models. approximate standard errors are given in square brackets. symbols: see text. units of measurement: d, δd and δd t-1 : centimetres, t: years from pith, r: metres of rainfall (total for the months of may, june and july) estimates of fixed effects parameters model (structural part) n par. α par. β par. γ par. δ par. φ par. λ )(2 as )(2 εs (7) )exp( ddd γα β −=δ 1514 0.9680 [0.023] 0.0454 [0.013] 0.0118 [0.001] n.a. n.a. n.a. 0.0151 [0.003] 0.0785 [0.003] (8) δβ γα −−=δ tddd )exp( 1514 1.0496 [0.031] 0.2688 [0.056] 0.0084 [0.001] 0.2739 [0.066] n.a. n.a. 0.0102 [0.003] 0.0793 [0.003] (9) φβ γα 1)exp( −δ−=δ tdddd 1436 1.1094 [0.032] -0.0469 [0.018] 0.0051 [0.001] n.a. 0.2228 [0.026] n.a. 0.0105 [0.003] 0.0729 [0.003] (10) )exp( rtdd λα δβ −=δ 781 1.1206 [0.070] 0.2842 [0.072] n.a. 0.4575 [0.076] n.a. 0.1767 [0.035] 0.0093 [0.004] 0.0830 [0.004] dbh (cm) 0 20 40 60 80 d b h in c re m e n t (c m /y e a r) 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 model (7) model (8), t = 5 t = 15 t = 25 t = 35 t = 45 t = 55 fig. 3 : diameter increment predicted by models (7) and (8). for model (8) growth predictions are shown at ages t = 5, 15, …, 55 years sapkota and meilby banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 31 temperature. irrespective of the duration of the period considered, the correlation between growth and minimum temperature remained very low. model (10) included rainfall for a three-month period from may to july and showed a clear positive relationship between rainfall and growth. based on this model it may appear that if the observed average rainfall of about 1200 mm (may-july) was to be halved in the future, it would lead to a reduction of growth of about 10%. similarly, it appears that if rainfall was to be doubled, the expected diameter growth would increase by about 24%. unfortunately the climate series only covers 10 years and, although there is no doubt that long-term changes of precipitation would have considerably greater effect on growth than those predicted by model (10), the available data do not allow describing such long-term changes. limitations the models describing relationships between diameter under and on bark and between diameter 0.3 m and 1.3 m above-ground were prepared on the basis of static data and are therefore implicitly based on the assumption that the pattern observed for a cross-section of trees at a given point in time was identical to the one that might be observed for an individual tree over time. stem discs were cut from the stump of trees felled in the latest thinning. for middle-aged and old trees only limited numbers of thinned trees were available, and it was difficult to get a felling permit. therefore, only few middle-aged and old trees were included in the sample. potentially, this may be a source of error. in addition, since the sample trees were all trees that had been removed in thinning, there is no guarantee that the observed growth is representative of trees in the kankali forest in general. however, as trees selected for thinning appeared to include both healthy and weakened trees it is uncertain to what extent this might lead to bias. it is important to note that since the growth models do not take stand conditions into account, growth predictions will only remain unbiased to the extent that the basal area of the forest remains roughly unchanged. however, since its establishment as a community forest, the kankali forest has been in transition from a degraded to a more well-stocked state and the basal area can still be expected to increase somewhat in the coming years. hence, the models reported here must be considered preliminary and in the long term models taking stand basal area into account are needed. it may be argued that it would have been possible to account for stand conditions by measuring basal area of the forest within some neighbourhood around the sample trees. unfortunately, since the development of the surrounding trees and the likely removal of such trees in the past would not be known with certainty, it would be impossible to provide reliable estimates of past basal area for a period of more than a few years. as can be seen in figures 2-4, particularly for model (7), there is a clear indication that most trees in the area started as root suckers that did not have an initial establishment period characterised by slow growth. instead most stems grew fast from the outset. it is important to note that the low number of large discs in the sample implies that growth predictions for large-diameter trees are uncertain. growth ring measurements were generally observed to become more difficult with increasing age and diameter and the large discs that were included in the sample were those for which growth rings could actually be observed. in a few cases it was necessary to discard discs because rings could not be distinguished properly. since narrow rings are likely to be more difficult to distinguish than wider ones, the growth of the selected sample discs might be greater than average. consequently, the growth predicted by the models at large diameters may be biased. conclusion for sal in kankali community forest, growth ring measurements proved comparatively easy for young trees. for older, slow-growing trees it was more difficult to distinguish the growth rings. in addition, only few large trees were included in the sample. this may imply that model predictions are not true for large trees. sample trees were selected among trees that had been felled in thinning and if the thinned trees are not representative of the population with regard to growth, this may imply that growth predictions are biased. diameter growth was influenced considerably by rainfall during the growth season. but including rainfall in months outside the period from april to sapkota and meilby banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 32 august merely obscured the relationship between growth and rainfall. the observed significant relationship between climate variables and diameter increment in combination with the feasibility of growth ring measurements indicates that there may be scope for dendroclimatological studies in sal. acknowledgements this paper is based on an msc thesis prepared by the first author under the erasmus mundus programme sutrofor at the university of copenhagen. the field work was financed by danida. climate data were provided by the department of hydrology and meteorology, government of nepal. the contributions of staff of the comform project and the danish centre for forest, landscape and planning, university of copenhagen, and members of the kankali cfug are gratefully acknowledged. sincere thanks go to a number of individuals who provided help, suggestions, encouragement and support during various stages of the work. references brienen, r.j.w. and zuidema, p.a. 2006. the use of tree rings in tropical forest management: projecting timber yields of four bolivian tree species. forest ecology and management 226: 256– 267. feeley, k.j., wright, s.j., supardi, m.n.n., kassim, a.r. and davies, s.j. 2007. decelerating growth in tropical forest trees. ecology letters 10: 461-469. jackson, j.k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. vol. 2. kathmandu: forest research and survey centre, 2nd edition. meilby, h., puri, l., christensen, m. and rayamajhi, s. 2006. planning a system of permanent sample plots for integrated long-term studies of community based forest management. banko janakari 16(2): 3-11. rautiainen, o. 1999. spatial yield model for shorea robusta in nepal. forest ecology and management 119: 151-162. rautiainen, o. and suoheimo, j. 1997. natural regeneration potential and early development of shorea robusta gaertn. f. forest after regeneration felling in the bhabar-terai zone in nepal. forest ecology and management 92: 243-251. sas institute, 2009a. the nlin procedure. sas/ stat(r) 9.2 user’s guide, second edition. sas institute inc., cary, usa. url: http:// support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/statug/ 63033/html/default/nlin_toc.htm (accessed 11 november 2009). sas institute, 2009b. the nlmixed procedure. sas/stat(r) 9.2 user’s guide, second edition. sas institute inc., cary, usa. url: http:// support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/statug/ 63033/html/default/nlmixed_toc.htm (accessed 11 november 2009). troup, r.s. 1921. silvicultural systems (2nd ed.), (ed. e.w. jones). oxford university press, uk. 216 p. vanclay, j.k. 1994. modelling forest growth and yield: applications to mixed tropical forests. cabi publishing, wallingford. worbes, m. 2002. one hundred years of tree ring research in the tropics – a brief history and an outlook to future challenges. dendrochronologia 20: 217–231. xiangding, w and xuzhi, z. 1991. tree ring width and climatic change in china. quaternary science reviews, 10: 545-549. zeide, b. 1993. analysis of growth equations. forest science 39: 594-616. sapkota and meilby final added vol 15-2.pmd 43 c ommunity forestry, a community based development strategy, has been implemented for more than past two decades in nepal. this concept is primarily based on participatory mode of development in which local users themselves define and set their objectives and implement planned activities according to their needs and priorities. master plan for the forestry sector 1988 has recognized local users as the owners of the resources. as per the legal provisions, forest users are allowed to use and manage all types of forest resources, including ntfps in sustainable basis (hmg/n, 1988). with the fulfillment of subsistence needs of fodder, forage, litter and timber of forest users in the mid hills to a large extent, these fugs are moving towards a more commercial use of ntfps in an organized way. this new found interest in ntfps has been triggered by the potential impact of these hitherto neglected and under studied resources in rural poverty reduction and growing market demands. according to a study, this sector contributes 5% country’s gross domestic products (gdp), and ntfps worth us$ 26.8 million has been harvested in nepal annually (ansab, 1995; ansab, 1999). however, the ntfp trade is highly fragmented with low level of supply chain consolidations that results in high transaction cost and deprive indigenous collectors from the fair share of the trade. community based forest enterprise (cbfe) is a new evolution in community forestry practices to make sustainable use of ntfps for the economic betterment of fug members in general and poor and disadvantaged groups (dags) in particular. the concept can be defined as “those enterprises being operated at rural areas, usually near the resource base, that supplies the raw materials, which are planned and operated by local community who are also the primary beneficiaries of the enterprises” (ansab, 2001). the widespread belief is that the significance of the enterprise is directly linked to the local community and the major shares of the benefits go to the local people. such local initiative or micro enterprise is an organized activity for strengthening their economic conditions, better networking of their stakeholders and creating employment opportunities through value addition. in case of forest-based enterprise, it may include collection of the forest products, grading and sorting, labeling, processing, trading, transporting, and manufacturing undertaken either formally or informally. in this context, a study of three community based forest enterprises was undertaken to identify the impact of these enterprises to household economy, changes and management practices of resources, and assess different socio-economic impacts on the community, especially, equity in terms of decisionmaking, benefit sharing and gender. the enterprises selected for the study are bhitteri ban paidawar prosodhan pvt. ltd (bbpl)1, kamala pandit ban socio-economic impacts of community based forest enterprises in mid hills of nepal-case study from dolakha district r. p. acharya* this paper endeavors to assess the socio-economic impact of fug members affiliated with three community based forest enterprises (cbfes) in dolakha district. important socio-economic variables, especially household income, gender and equity, decision making process, benefit sharing and resource management were analyzed. the study concludes that the cbfes have created a positive impact on the socio-economic aspects of rural populace. key words: community based forest enterprises, gender and equity, benefit sharing, decision making, resource management, * program officer, ansab, email:ramachary@ansab.org 1 bbpl is owned by bhitteri fug boch vdc of dolakha district. the fug covers an area of 378 ha with 243 hh members. the company process argeli white-skin that is sold to paper exporter in kathamndu. 44 paidawar prosodhan pvt, ltd (kbpl)2, and deudhunga multipurpose co-operative ltd (dmcl)3which are located in dolkha district of the country. methodology the study was undertaken from january to march 2002. the selection of the enterprises was done purposefully. different participatory rural appraisal (pra) tools such as wealth ranking, focus group discussion, social and resource mapping and sample households survey. participatory observations were used for primary data collection. similarly, secondary information were collected through the review of documents from cfugs, and governmental and nongovernmental organizations. results & discussions household income the majority of the poor lives in the mountains or in the himalayan region of the country, the search for sustainable increases in income lies in diversification of economic activities from subsistence agriculture to off-farm activities (icimod, 1996 and 1999). prior to the establishment of the cbfes, agriculture and off farm activities such as wage labor, small trade, low-profile job and pension constituted the household income (ddc, 1995; ddc, 2001). the community based enterprises contributed to an average of 11% increment in the income at household level (hh). in the case of fug members associated with dmcl, 17% of their income was augmented from the enterprise (table 1). gender and equity the concept of gender acknowledges that women and men have different needs and power relationships and that these differences must be identified and addressed, if possible in such a manner that the imbalance between the sexes is rectified these small three enterprises created a total of 6312 man days (mds) for rural households in 2001 (table 2). compared to the alarming situation through out nepal for women employment (hrdc, 2005), the employment opportunities offered through enterprise was impressive. female workers constituted majority of the work force in bbpl (72 %) and dmcl (64%); whereas pbpl had the lowest percentages (20%) of women in its workforce amongst the sampled enterprises. the employment created in these enterprises can be categorized into three different activities viz. raw materials collection, fuel wood collection and value prosodhan pvt. ltd (bbpl) 1 , kamala pandit ban paidawar prosodhan pvt, ltd (kbpl) 2 , and deudhunga multipurpose co-operative ltd (dmcl) 3 which are located in dolkha district of the country. methodology the study was undertaken from january to march 2002. the selection of the enterprises was done purposefully. different participatory rural appraisal (pra) tools such as wealth ranking, focus group discussion, social and resource mapping, sample households survey participatory observations were used for primary data collection. similarly, secondary information were collected through the review of documents from cfugs, and government and non-government organizations. results & discussions household income the majority of the poor lives in the mountains or in the himalayan region of the country, the search for sustainable increases in income lies in diversification of economic activities from subsistence agriculture to off-farm activities (icimod, 1996 and 1999). prior to the establishment of the cbfes, agriculture and off farm activities such as wage labor, small trade, low-profile job and pension constituted the household income (ddc, 1995; ddc, 2001). the community based enterprises contributed to an average of 11% increment in the income at household level (hh). in the case of fug members associated with dmcl, 17% of their income was augmented from the enterprise (table 1). table 1: average annual household income from different sources household income from enterprise (rs.) name of enterprise raw materials fuel wood fug royalty employment dividends total other incomes (rs.) ratio enterprise vs. other sources bbpl 565 166 793 1524 20997 0.07:1 pbpl 100 50 10 150 34 344 8159 0.05:1 dmcl 1373 1369 274 533 74 3623 20997 0.17:1 total 2038 1585 284 1476 108 5491 50153 0.11:1 (source: field survey, 2001) gender and equity the concept of gender acknowledges that women and men have different needs and power relationships and that these differences must be identified and addressed, if possible in such a manner that the imbalance between the sexes is rectified these small three enterprises created a total of 6312 man days (mds) for rural households in 2001 (table 2). compared to the alarming situation through out nepal for women employment (hrdc, 2005), the employment opportunities offered through enterprise was impressive. female workers constituted majority of the work force in bbpl (72 %) and dmcl (64%); whereas pbpl had the lowest percentages (20%) of women in its workforce amongst the sampled enterprises. the employment created in these enterprises can be categorized into three different activities viz. raw materials collection, fuel wood collection and value addition/processing. it was noted that male highly participated in raw materials and fuel wood collection; female in processing and value addition. the processing and value addition was simple in nature i.e. drying, grading, sorting, labeling, quality control. 1 bbpl is owned by bhitteri fug boch vdc of dolakha district. the fug covers an area of 378 ha with 243 hh members. the company process argeli white-skin that is sold to paper exporter in kathamndu. 2 pbpl is owned by two fugs-bhatekhola kamalamai and pandit community forests users groups –of jhyanku vdc in dolakha district. these two fugs cover an area of 1254.5 ha with 550 hh members. the company produces lokta sheet paper that is sold to exporter in kathmandu. 3 dmcl is owned by 25 individuals and napke yanmara fug and located in lakuridanda vdc of dolkha district. the fug covers an area of 160 ha with 135 hh members. the company distills essential oil from machhino leaves. in cleaning process, women were found more efficient i.e. women can clean 7 to 8 kg of the argeli white skin per day but man can only clean 5-6 kg. there is, however, a wide spread discrimination in the wage structure-female workers received much less than their male counterparts despite their higher productivity. female workers earned around 65% of the total income in bbpl and dmcl. due to the low percentage of women in pbpl work force, their share of total income is as low as 18%. table 2: annual employment opportunities in 2001 enterprises employee (sex) employment by raw material collection(md) employment by fuel wood collection (md) employment in processing/ value addition (md) total (mds) total (rs) (%) by income male 150 40 240 430 43000 32 bbpl female 30 16 1080 1126 90080 68 male 250 30 540 820 82000 82 pbpl female 60 6 150 216 17280 18 male 197 420 720 1337 133700 35 dmcl female 1576 807 0 2383 238300 65 total 2263 1319 2730 6312 604360 na (source: field survey, 2001) benefit sharing community based enterprises subscribe to the notion that economic benefits, whether cash or subsistence, accruing to local people as a result of sustainable forest management, should be equitably shared among community members in a manner they consider to be fair. of particular importance is the issue of equitable access within communities to resources and opportunities for obtaining the greatest benefit in the collection, processing and marketing stages. table 3 shows the distribution of enterprise income to different wealth class. overall, 194 hhs are getting benefits from the enterprise activities. among them, 54% are extra poor, 36% poor, 8% medium and 2% are from rich category. these groups befitted from the sales of raw materials to the enterprises and the labor intensive employment opportunities. the table also indicates that benefits to rich households were very limited (2%), as the job opportunities in forest enterprises did not suit to their standard because of labor intensive in nature. moreover, the return compared to time investment to the rich households was insignificant. table 3: distribution of enterprise benefits over wealth classes benefited households subclass from enterprises enterprises rich medium poor extra poor bbpl 3 5 16 pbpl 3 45 72 dmcl 3 7 20 20 total 3 13 70 108 percentage 2 8 36 54 (source: field survey, 2001) decision-making decision-making is the key component that determines the benefit sharing among fucg members of different social and caste hierarchy and the executive committee responsible for the enterprise operations. even though most of the enterprises were found practicing inclusive decision making process (such as inclusion of the voice of the poor, and women through user group meeting, general assembles etc), in some cases the concern of these groups were not accommodated in the decision making. the representation of caste and women in the decision making process was not found proportionate to the caste and gender. for example, the ethnic group of bbpl that comprised 36% of the total of the cfug members occupied slightly over 50% of the enterprise management committee. in the case of 2 pbpl is owned by two fugs-bhatekhola kamalamai and pandit community forests users groups –of jhyanku vdc in dolakha district. these two fugs cover an area of 1254.5 ha with 550 hh members. the company produces lokta sheet paper that is sold to exporter in kathmandu. 3 dmcl is owned by 25 individuals and napke yanmara fug and located in lakuridanda vdc of dolkha district. the fug covers an area of 160 ha with 135 hh members. the company distills essential oil from machhino leaves. banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 acharya 45 addition/processing. it was noted that male highly participated in raw materials and fuel wood collection; female in processing and value addition. the processing and value addition was simple in nature i.e. drying, grading, sorting, labeling, quality control. in cleaning process, women were found more efficient i.e. women can clean 7 to 8 kg of the argeli white skin per day but man can only clean 5-6 kg. there is, however, a widespread discrimination in the wage structure-female workers received much less than their male counterparts despite their higher productivity. female workers earned around 65% of the total income in bbpl and dmcl. due to the low percentage of women in pbpl work force, their share of total income is as low as 18%. benefit sharing community based enterprises subscribe to the notion that economic benefits, whether cash or subsistence, accruing to local people as a result of sustainable forest management, should be equitably shared among community members in a manner they consider to be fair. of particular importance is the issue of equitable access within communities to resources and opportunities for obtaining the greatest benefit in the collection, processing and marketing stages. table 3 shows the distribution of enterprise income to different wealth class. overall, 194 hhs are getting benefits from the enterprise activities. among them, 54% are extra poor, 36% poor, 8% medium and 2% are from rich category. these groups benefitted from the sales of raw materials to the enterprises and the labor intensive employment opportunities. the table also indicates that benefits to rich households were very limited (2%), as the job opportunities in forest enterprises was and did not suit to their standard. moreover, the return compared to time investment to the rich households was insignificant. decision-making decision-making is the key component that determines the benefit sharing among fucg members of different social and caste hierarchy and the executive committee responsible for the enterprise operations. even though most of the enterprises were found practicing inclusive decision making process (such as inclusion of the voice of the poor, and women through user group meeting, general assembles etc), in some cases the concern of these groups were not accommodated in the decision making. the representation of caste and women in the decision making process was not found proportionate to the caste and gender. for example, the ethnic group of bbpl that comprised 36% of the total of the cfug members occupied slightly over 50% of the enterprise management committee. in the case of dmcl and pbpl, their representation in the enterprise management committee was 40% and 15% respectively (table 4). in the case of gender, women’s role in decision making was found passive, and they in cleaning process, women were found more efficient i.e. women can clean 7 to 8 kg of the argeli white skin per day but man can only clean 5-6 kg. there is, however, a wide spread discrimination in the wage structure-female workers received much less than their male counterparts despite their higher productivity. female workers earned around 65% of the total income in bbpl and dmcl. due to the low percentage of women in pbpl work force, their share of total income is as low as 18%. table 2: annual employment opportunities in 2001 enterprises employee (sex) employment by raw material collection(md) employment by fuel wood collection (md) employment in processing/ addition (md) total (mds) total (rs) (%) by income male 150 40 240 430 43000 32 bbpl female 30 16 1080 1126 90080 68 male 250 30 540 820 82000 82 pbpl female 60 6 150 216 17280 18 male 197 420 720 1337 133700 35 dmcl female 1576 807 0 2383 238300 65 total 2263 1319 2730 6312 604360 na (source: field survey, 2001) benefit sharing community based enterprises subscribe to the notion that economic benefits, whether cash or subsistence, accruing to local people as a result of sustainable forest management, should be equitably shared among community members in a manner they consider to be fair. of particular importance is the issue of equitable access within communities to resources and opportunities for obtaining the greatest benefit in the collection, processing and marketing stages. table 3 shows the distribution of enterprise income to different wealth class. overall, 194 hhs are getting benefits from the enterprise activities. among them, 54% are extra poor, 36% poor, 8% medium and 2% are from rich category. these groups befitted from the sales of raw materials to the enterprises and the labor intensive employment opportunities. the table also indicates that benefits to rich households were very limited (2%), as the job opportunities in forest enterprises did not suit to their standard because of labor intensive in nature. moreover, the return compared to time investment to the rich households was insignificant. table 3: distribution of enterprise benefits over wealth classes benefited households subclass from enterprises enterprises rich medium poor extra poor bbpl 3 5 16 pbpl 3 45 72 dmcl 3 7 20 20 total 3 13 70 108 percentage 2 8 36 54 (source: field survey, 2001) decision-making decision-making is the key component that determines the benefit sharing among fucg members of different social and caste hierarchy and the executive committee responsible for the enterprise operations. even though most of the enterprises were found practicing inclusive decision making process (such as inclusion of the voice of the poor, and women through user group meeting, general assembles etc), in some cases the concern of these groups were not accommodated in the decision making. the representation of caste and women in the decision making process was not found proportionate to the caste and gender. for example, the ethnic group of bbpl that comprised 36% of the total of the cfug members occupied slightly over 50% of the enterprise management committee. in the case of dmcl and pbpl, their representation in the enterprise management committee was 40% and 15% respectively (table 4). in the case of gender, women’s role in decision making was found passive, and they limited themselves in observing the meetings and rarely put forwarded their opinions. in all cases, women participation was low though they had received more opportunities in the decision making and more access to employment opportunities in study enterprises (table 5). compared to the national scenario, women in the study enterprises has had more opportunity to participate in the decision making process as nepali women discrimination through the denial of access to resources; having no control over resources or no benefits from resources; restricted mobility, and low representation in decisionmaking positions in all sectors (action aid, 2005). table 4: role in decision making by caste in fug and enterprise management enterprise caste in fug members no. in fug members (%) caste in fug executive members no. in executive members (%) caste in enterprise executive members no. in enterprise executive members (%) ethnic 88 (36) ethnic 6 (53) ethnic 1(50) bbpl bcn♣ 155 (64) bcn 7 (47) bcn 1 (50) ethnic 160 (60) ethnic 6 (40) ethnic 2 (40) dmcl bcn 90 (40) bcn 9 (60) bcn 3 (60) ethnic 23(17) ethnic 2 (15) ethnic 4 (15) pbpl bcn 112 (83) bcn 11 (85) bcn 22 (85) (source: field survey, 2001) (figures in parenthesis give the percentages of the figures) table 5: sex ratio in decision-making process of fug and enterprises enterprise name sex no. in fug (%) sex in fug executive members no. in executive members (%) enterprise executive members no. in enterprise executive members (%) % of employment male 127 (70) male 11 (84) male 2 (100) 32 bbpl female 53 (30) female 2 (16) female 0 (0) 68 male 201(80) male 12 (80) male 5 (100) 82 pbpl female 49 (20) female 3 (20) female 0 (0) 18 male 103 (84) male 8 (61) male 23 (88) 35 dmcl female 19 (16) female 5 (39) female 3 (12) 65 (source: field survey, 2001) resource sustainability in the case of enterprises oriented cfugs, resource sustainability ensures regular income to household level, employment opportunities and regular supply of raw materials. forest inventory was found to be the most commonly used tool to assess the forest products. for example in bhitteri fug, resource inventory of argeli was done and management plan was prepared accordingly. this community forest covers 378.5 ha with ten management blocks; however, lokta is available in three blocks only (effective area 21.5 hectares). the preliminary survey revealed that 41 kg to 187 kg (anon, 2001) of dry finished bark of argeli could be harvested annually. the availability was low compared to the enterprise target of 1000 kg dry argeli per year (bdp, 2000). as a result, argeli plantation in public and private land was encouraged and around 60,000 cuttings were planted in the forest and private area (anon, 2001). similarly, community based enterprises were found effective in checking premature harvesting of economically important spices. in bhatekhola (746 ha) outlined lokta management plan and provision to seriously dealt with pre mature harvesting to sustain the pbpl. in some cases, the enterprises provided opportunity make commercial use of ntfps hitherto unexploited. for example, commercial harvesting of machhino got momentum in napke fug, after the establishment of dmcl. in order to check over exploitation of the resources, a management plan was drafted and implemented jointly by the cfug and dmcl. ♣ bcn-bahun, chhetri and newar ♣ bcn-bahun, chhetri and newar banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2acharya 46 limited themselves in observing the meetings and rarely put forwarded their opinions. in all cases, women participation was low though they had received more opportunities in the decision making and more access to employment opportunities in study enterprises (table 5). compared to the national scenario, women in the study enterprises has had more opportunity to participate in the decision making process as nepali women discrimination through the denial of access to resources; having no control over resources or no benefits from resources; restricted mobility, and low representation in decisionmaking positions in all sectors (action aid, 2005). resource sustainability in the case of enterprises oriented cfugs, resource sustainability ensures regular income to household level, employment opportunities and regular supply of raw materials. forest inventory was found to be the most commonly used tool to assess the forest products. for example in bhitteri fug, resource inventory of argeli was done and management plan was prepared accordingly. this community forest covers 378.5 ha with ten management blocks; however, lokta is available in three blocks only (effective area 21.5 hectares). the preliminary survey revealed that 41 kg to 187 kg (anon, 2001) of dry finished bark of argeli could be harvested annually. the availability was low compared to the enterprise target of 1000 kg dry argeli per year (bdp, 2000). as a result, argeli plantation in public and private land was encouraged and around 60,000 cuttings were planted in the forest and private area (anon, 2001). similarly, community based enterprises were found effective in checking premature harvesting of economically important spices. in bhatekhola (746 ha) outlined lokta management plan and provision to seriously dealt with pre mature harvesting to sustain the pbpl. in some cases, the enterprises provided opportunity make commercial use of ntfps hitherto unexploited. for example, commercial harvesting of machhino got momentum in napke fug, after the establishment of dmcl. in order to check over exploitation of the resources, a management plan was drafted and implemented jointly by the cfug and dmcl. conclusion the study showed that cbfes could play an important role in socio-economic empowerment of the fug members in the mid-hills. the studied cbfs were providing a much needed opportunity for offfarm employment at the local level, and augmented household income. moreover, the poor, disadvantage groups and women were found to be the major beneficiary from cbfes, as the employment was labor intensive that suit their low skill profile. despite increasing representation of poor, women and ethnic groups in the enterprise’s executive committee, they were mute spectator to the decision making process. the study also revealed that women got an opportunity to engage in productive actives outside the house; however, discrimination in wage structure was still prevalent –in spite of their productivity. economic incentives that enterprises generated has had a positive impact on resource conservation by better management of existing resources; cultivating economically important species in forest and private land; and utilization of the species hitherto neglected. respectively (table 4). in the case of gender, women’s role in decision making was found passive, and they limited themselves in observing the meetings and rarely put forwarded their opinions. in all cases, women participation was low though they had received more opportunities in the decision making and more access to employment opportunities in study enterprises (table 5). compared to the national scenario, women in the study enterprises has had more opportunity to participate in the decision making process as nepali women discrimination through the denial of access to resources; having no control over resources or no benefits from resources; restricted mobility, and low representation in decisionmaking positions in all sectors (action aid, 2005). table 4: role in decision making by caste in fug and enterprise management enterprise caste in fug members no. in fug members (%) caste in fug executive members no. in executive members (%) caste in enterprise executive members no. in enterprise executive members (%) ethnic 88 (36) ethnic 6 (53) ethnic 1(50) bbpl bcn♣ 155 (64) bcn 7 (47) bcn 1 (50) ethnic 160 (60) ethnic 6 (40) ethnic 2 (40) dmcl bcn 90 (40) bcn 9 (60) bcn 3 (60) ethnic 23(17) ethnic 2 (15) ethnic 4 (15) pbpl bcn 112 (83) bcn 11 (85) bcn 22 (85) (source: field survey, 2001) (figures in parenthesis give the percentages of the figures) table 5: sex ratio in decision-making process of fug and enterprises enterprise name sex no. in fug (%) sex in fug executive members no. in executive members (%) enterprise executive members no. in enterprise executive members (%) % of employment male 127 (70) male 11 (84) male 2 (100) 32 bbpl female 53 (30) female 2 (16) female 0 (0) 68 male 201(80) male 12 (80) male 5 (100) 82 pbpl female 49 (20) female 3 (20) female 0 (0) 18 male 103 (84) male 8 (61) male 23 (88) 35 dmcl female 19 (16) female 5 (39) female 3 (12) 65 (source: field survey, 2001) resource sustainability in the case of enterprises oriented cfugs, resource sustainability ensures regular income to household level, employment opportunities and regular supply of raw materials. forest inventory was found to be the most commonly used tool to assess the forest products. for example in bhitteri fug, resource inventory of argeli was done and management plan was prepared accordingly. this community forest covers 378.5 ha with ten management blocks; however, lokta is available in three blocks only (effective area 21.5 hectares). the preliminary survey revealed that 41 kg to 187 kg (anon, 2001) of dry finished bark of argeli could be harvested annually. the availability was low compared to the enterprise target of 1000 kg dry argeli per year (bdp, 2000). as a result, argeli plantation in public and private land was encouraged and around 60,000 cuttings were planted in the forest and private area (anon, 2001). similarly, community based enterprises were found effective in checking premature harvesting of economically important spices. in bhatekhola (746 ha) outlined lokta management plan and provision to seriously dealt with pre mature harvesting to sustain the pbpl. in some cases, the enterprises provided opportunity make commercial use of ntfps hitherto unexploited. for example, commercial harvesting of machhino got momentum in napke fug, after the establishment of dmcl. in order to check over exploitation of the resources, a management plan was drafted and implemented jointly by the cfug and dmcl. ♣ bcn-bahun, chhetri and newar banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 acharya 47 references action aid. 2005. available at http:// www.actionaid.org/nepal/gender anon. 2001. operational plan of bhitteri community forest user group, boch 1-3, dolakha. ansab.1995. forest products market/ enterprise study report. asia network for sustainable agriculture bioresources, min bhawan kathmandu, nepal. subedi, b. p., binayee, s. b., ojha, h. r., and nicholson, k. 2001. an assessment of community based forestry enterprises in nepal: case studies, lessons and implications for new programs. asia network for sustainable and agriculture bioresources and netherlands development organization (snv). bdp, 2000. business development plan of bhitteri forest products processing pvt. ltd., boch, dolakha ddc.1995. district profile of dolakha. vol. 1. district development committee, charikot, dolakha. ddc.2001. district profile of dolakha. vol. 2. district development committee, charikot, dolakha. hmg/n. 1988. master plan for the forestry sector, ministry of forest and soil conservation, singha durbar, kathmandu. hrdc. 2005. available at http://www.hrdc.net/ sahrdc/hrfeatures/hrf43.htm icimod.1996. districts of nepal in indicators of development, international center for integrated maintain development kathmandu, nepal. banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2acharya final corrected banko janakari 18-2.pmd 44 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 conflict management strategy adopted in community forestry of nepal: a study of four community forests in midwestern region g.r. acharya1, y. yasmi2 this study focuses on two types of conflicts in community forest user group (cfug): conflict between user group committee (ugc) and user, conflict among users. users were found impaired from the ugc decisions and their pattern of benefit sharing. conflict also existed among users. major strategies adopted to manage conflict were found to be either avoiding or forcing; but avoiding is the most widely used strategy. moreover compromising and accommodating were found less frequently compared to forcing and collaborating that were rarely used. this study challenges the common perception that community forestry of nepal is successful in managing its conflict. the findings of this study do not support this claim because collaborating strategy has rarely been used in community forest (cf) conflict management. in contrast, this study shows that avoiding and forcing were more commonly used. the greater application of avoiding and forcing strategy in conflict management indicates that cf is still lagging in realizing the best possible option of collaborating. this finding also challenges the effectiveness of the existing conflict management mechanism in cf. this study also suggests collaborating strategy as a better option for managing conflict. on the other hand, this study also reveals that cf is not benefiting the poor of the community. though, many scholars trumpet cf as a successful programme in nepal, this study points out that cf has not yet been able to manage its conflicts in a more constructive way. the study also pinpoints short comings of existing conflict management strategies that could be addressed to improve its performance in the days to come. key words: benefit sharing, community forestry, conflict, strategy community forestry is the main strategy in nepal’s forestry sector policy (nightingale, 2003; chhetri, 2006; acharya, 2002b, acharya, 2007b). there is a close linkage between forestry and rural people in nepal where people from rural area mostly depend on the forest resource to meet their fuel wood, fodder and timber need. over 95% of the nepali populace directly depends on the forests for their need of timber and non-timber forest products (gautam, 2006). this high forestry dependency among people makes country’s forest sector always an important issue for the successful implementation of cf in nepal (bhattarai, 2006). cf is claimed by many as one of the most successful programmes in nepal (pokharel, 2001; pandit and thapa, 2004; gilmour and fisher, 1991; chhetri, 2006). it has become effective in addressing livelihood of the community and conservation issues together and received attention as a successful forest resource management model (pokharel, 2001; agrawal and ostrom 2001; chakraborty 2001) both nationally and internationally. despite the success in the implementation of cf, there are number of conflict related challenges. cf is not free from discussion and debate (banjade et.al. 2006, acharya, 2007a chakraborty, 2001). it has been a potential area for natural resource related conflict. it is true that cf is one of the successful programmes in nepal (pokharel, 2001; fisher, 1995) but different findings point out that there is an existence of different types of conflicts in the cf (rana, 2004; shrestha, 1996; joshi, undated, uprety, 2006). cf needs effective management (pandit and thapa, 2004; pokharel et.al. 2006) to manage these conflicts. “conflict is common in the use and management of these natural resources. therefore management of 1 natural resources management consultant, meh consultants (p) ltd. kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: ganeshraj.acharya@gmail.com 2 programme officer, recoftc, thailand. e-mail: yurdi2002@yahoo.com 45 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 conflict is crucial to improve the performance of natural resources management and to achieve sustainable use of natural resources” (uprety, 2001). materials and methods theoretical study conflict has always been a part of human life (yasmi, 2007; uprety, 2006; martin, 2005; takacs, 2001; hill, 1982) and it has been defined in different ways. some scholars perceive conflict as a potential for both positive and negative outcome with creative or destructive manifestations (abu-nimer, 2001; miall et.al.1999; swaminathan, 1999; van de vliert et.al., 1999; ayling and kelly, 1997; chan and yu, 1985; hill, 1982). similarly others claim it as mostly negative with certain context (banjade and timsina, 2005; upreti, 2004). blake and mouton’s managerial grid has strong influence on the conflict management study (song et.al., 2006; dyer and song, 1998) and is a leading thesis on conflict management (kabanoff, 1987; pheng and lee, 1997; pruitt and rubin, 1986; thomas, 1977; rahim, 1983; shockley-zalabak, 1988; van de vliert & prein, 1989: as cited in van de vliert and kabanoff, 1990). according to mcqueen (2005), the managerial grid also addresses improved decision making and problem solving; manages meetings; manages time; builds better team; gets the best answer instead of being simply adequate; and manages change effectively among others. blake and mouton’s managerial grid is empirically proven (holt and devore, 2005; pheng and lee, 1997; van de vliert and euwema, 1994; rahim 1983; thomas 1977). collaborating it is also known as problem solving. work accomplishment is from committed people; interdependence through a “common stake” in organization purpose leads to relationship of trust and respect (blake and mouton, 1968). compromising adequate organization performance is possible through balancing the necessity to get out work with maintaining morale of people at a satisfactory level (blake and mouton, 1968). avoiding it is also known as withdrawing. exertion of minimum effort to get required work done is appropriate to sustain organization membership (blake and mouton, 1968). accommodating it is also known as smoothing. thoughtful attention to needs of people for satisfying relationships leads to a comfortable friendly organization atmosphere and work tempo (blake and mouton, 1968). forcing it is also known as competing. individualistic choose forcing as a conflict style (holt and devore, 2005). data collection primary data was collected through semi structured interview (ssi), focus group discussion (fgd), expert’s consultation and observation. informal interview was also carried out to get more information. empirical research was carried out in four cfs of dang district where two cfs were relatively larger in size and other two were smaller. a number of interview also varied according to the size of cf. in large cfs, 30 interviews were conducted. similarly 20 interviews were taken in each small cf. altogether 100 respondents were selected randomly for ssi. the idea of saturation of interview is the point at which no new information or themes are obtained in data (guest et.al. 2006). the unit of the research was mostly the individual; and in case of existing or former ugc personnel they were represented as member of institution rather than just an individual. secondary data were collected from cf records in the study area, central bureau of statistics (cbs), dfo and ranger’s office in the area and other line agencies and libraries.(adapted from van de vliert and kabanoff, 1990) fig. 1: blake and mouton’s managerial grid acharya and yasmi 46 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 acharya and yasmi data analysis the interview text was condensed, categorized, coded and recorded according to the following themes: conflict between ugc and user, and conflict among user and strategies to manage conflict (five strategy instruments: collaborating, compromising, avoiding, accommodating, and forcing). the final code is looked like cfxyz-i-conflict type-theme -strategy which means: • cf is xyz • i th respondent from xyz community forest of study area • conflict types are conflict between ugc and users and conflict among users • strategies are avoiding (av), compromising (cm), collaborating (cl), forcing (fo) and accommodating (ac). understanding study area dang district lies in rapti zone of midwestern development region of nepal. altogether four cfs were studied for this research purpose. two of them namely pandaweshwor cf and raja cf are larger cfs whereas kartikerani cf and gadibara cf were smaller cfs in the area. similarly larger cfs were from churia region of dang district where as smaller cfs were from mahabharat region of same district. larger cfs in dang those were chosen for the study were found to be similar in character on many respects. firstly, they were from churia region; they were larger in size; more ethnic population of dang district, mostly tharus, were its users and cfs were in remote area. similarly smaller cfs chosen for study were also found similar in character. these forests were from mahabharata region; they were smaller in size; relatively lesser tharu ethnic people were their users and cfs were in accessible area comparatively. results and discussion strategy among user group committee and users the strategies adopted by larger and smaller cfs have been presented below on percentage. the former value on each category indicates the strategy adopted by larger cfs and the latter value on each category indicates the strategy adopted by smaller cfs. fig: 2 strategy on benefit sharing avoiding strategy is the mostly often used strategy in both larger and smaller cfs. especially in larger cfs, ugc preferred to use avoiding strategies in dalit related issues. they rarely admit the issues of dalit such as free access on grass, firewood and timber. ugc personnel also ignore their demands for reducing price on firewood and timber when available if free of cost to them. in one of the larger cfs, receipt for grass, firewood and timber used to be distributed only from chairperson’s home. ugc ignored the difficulty that users had to face on getting receipt. users had to spend a lot of time to receive it because it is not always possible to meet chairperson at home. if s/he is not available they could not get forest resource. ugc did not consider this inconvenience to the user as a problem. although users were not happy with such behaviour of the chairperson, they were indifferent and did not make this as an issue and protest against it. they simply wanted to get rid of such possible discussions with chairperson or they use avoiding strategy with ugc. a high level of fee (nrs 2500) imposed by ugc as an avoiding strategy by the ugc towards newly entered users. not all people can pay this amount because this is a large amount for subsistence living people. activities such as ‘penalizing money in cf’ was not preferred by users since they did not want to confront with ugc. so their preferred stance was always on avoiding or trying to put such conflicts under carpet. however, the ugc preferred to use forcing strategy in the resource use related issues. they imposed price on grass, firewood and thatch grass. the ugc preferred to implement regulations that they consider is ‘right’ at any cost. in the pandaweshwor cf (previously), the ugc also levied money on firewood used for last rites without being sensitve to the strategy on benefit sharing 40 35 8 9 8 62 22 8 6 2 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 avoiding forcing accommodating compromising collaborating pe rc en ta ge larger cfs smaller cfs strategy for benefit sharing 47 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 strategy for benefit sharing 56 34 3 5 2 48 28 12 8 4 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 avoiding forcing accommodating compromising collaborating pe rc en ta ge larger cf smaller cf humanitarian concern. recently this levy was relaxed by the new ugc and so users no longer have to pay money for cremation. in contrast to larger cfs, there was little grass available in smaller cfs. similarly other resources such as firewood and timber were also not much available in comparison to larger cfs. thus, this made lesser use of forcing strategy in smaller cfs. it was also revealed from the study that forcing strategy was more frequently in use on larger cfs than smaller cfs. the overall strategic mechanism to run cfs is based on its constitution. the work plans and constitution of cf were found more directed towards the penalizing a person if some one was found guilty or not cooperating with cf regulations. similarly if domestic animals of user enter into the cf, it is punishable by some money penalty. in the same way in almost in every situation, may it be a rule breaking or any other forms of behaviour; the response was oriented more towards the penalizing policy. the watcher of cfs had authority to snatch illegal wood cutter’s tools. forcing strategy by watchers towards its users is also a ugc strategy in a indirect way. sometimes ugc defends its approach that ugc adopts with users. the price on grass can be taken as its example. imposing money penalty on grass, a forcing strategy, was claimed by ugc as a necessary step to generate the salary of watchers. accommodation has been practiced by ugc in the social activities such as firewood for last rites and marriage and similar social rituals. for such social rituals, either users do not have to pay money for forest product or they have easier access on it. however in one of the larger cfs earlier, ugc used to impose money for users for the use of last rites but recent ugc formed has relaxed this provision. “if a user devotes his life in cf activity, is it wise to exact money from him, for his/her last rites?” a user was questioning about the rationale of this provision. these types of adjustments were available on both cfs. in larger cfs, these adjustments were made later because ugc of these cfs are gradually developing them into socially responsible. in the smaller cfs, it already existed because resource was lesser and focus of ugc was equally for forest concern and people concern. realizing this, a large number of users in raja cf, ugc have formed sub committees in different villages. these sub committees play crucial role on information dissemination between ugc and user. actually these sub committees are a kind of compromise between ugc and user about resource/ power sharing. similarly in smaller cfs, users who need firewood and timber discuss with ugc and come with a compromise about “who actually has a genuine need for timber and fuel wood.” finally they reach a conclusion on who should be provided timber and fuel wood at this time etc. already existing receipt distribution system in one of the large cfs where only chairperson was assigned the authority to distribute receipt was revised later by the new ugc formed. cf began to distribute receipts from different places of cf in accordance to constitution and work plan. this type of collaboration between ugc and user where humanitarian concern was also addressed became an example how users and ugc develop collaborating strategy through consensus. it also provided them opportunity to learn from past mistake. similarly one of the land disputes between ugc and user in kartike cf was resolved after ugc, dfo and fecofun talked about it and the encroached land was reclaimed back as cf. in this way ugc convinced the encroaching users to return its cf land. this conflict management mechanism followed the collaborating strategy where consensus was developed and intruding trespasser was also not penalized. strategy among the users the percentage of overall strategy adopted in larger and smaller cfs has been presented below. on each category below, former value indicates the strategy of the larger cfs and corresponding latter value indicates the strategy adopted by smaller cfs. fig. 3: strategy on benefit sharing general users show concern about the cf issues but they were found indifferent when it needs some concrete work to be undertaken by them. for an acharya and yasmi 48 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 example, they show concern on benefit sharing such as firewood and grass where they demand free access on these forest resources but they rarely raise voices against the user who are more powerful and whose voice can make change. people who feel impaired by firewood and grass concern do not want to raise these issues because they do not want to take issue ahead. this tendency of not trying to be involved in direct discussions has contributed higher percentage of avoiding strategy among users. users know that they have been impaired but they do not want to take any action against it. users living outside of cf considered people living inside cf as cf rule violators. while people inside the cf also feel that they are not getting much attention. they feel that other users outside the cf do not recognize the genuineness of their problem. some users of raja cf who were getting benefit from two cfs were also not willing to cooperate with rest of the users. these users were reaping benefit from two cfs but other users were simply being discarded. users who were getting double benefit were using avoiding strategy to neglect the concern of other users. the forcing strategy was mostly observed in dalit issues where people use positional and personnel power to influence them. imposing high amount of money (nrs 2500) for newly entered members in cf was also considered as impairment from new user’s perspective. they say such a large amount of money for them is not justifiable. however other users do not support this idea. the other users claim that new users must have to pay this amount if they are interested to join as cf as users. according to old users, forest has been protected by them and new users must have to pay for it. in this way older users impose money to new users. however older users claim that cf has been managed by them so it is justifiable to impose money for new users. this situation was observed both in larger and smaller cfs. distant users have been incorporated in cf recently. this is mostly meant to provide them opportunity for agricultural implements from cf. this situation has contributed accommodating strategy addressing distant user’s need in cf. however the stake of distant people is limited in comparison to close users where close users have relatively easier access to cf. similarly pandaweshwor cf has a provision of paying money for each head load of grass. each time they go to cf users have to pay money for grass. however this provision is not applied for the people who live inside the cf. such type of users has to pay a lump sum amount of money once (nrs. 100) for one year and they are eligible to take any amount of grass from the forest. this provision has been found arranged under accommodating provision where ugc want to make people inside the cf happy because if they are not provided such éasy’ provision they may create problem in cf. in smaller cfs, sometimes they have to sell their trees to meet salary of the watcher. it is mostly the case of small cfs where ugc does not get any revenue from cf such as grass, thatch revenue. for this reason, they make an adjustment to meet salary for watchers realizing compromising strategy. in kartikerani cf, watcher’s salary was paid selling eucalyptus tree species in cf. the problem of salary was resolved for the time being. it is not a lasting solution however. they have to create an income opportunity in cf to make a permanent solution for issues such as watcher’s salary. recent recruitment of forest watcher in pandaweshwor cf and appointment of office secretary were examples of collaborating approach. in the past this type of jobs also used to be serious issues among users. this time, during this recruitment, users were convinced in the selection process, it was based on standard norm developed through general assembly. discussion this relation of conflict related to benefit sharing in cf has been supported by number of literatures (gautam and devoe, 2002; straede and helles, 2000). one of the focuses of users on benefit sharing is thatch and grass because it is important for them. grass is also important for livestock in rural area (straede and helles, 2000). while analyzing the user’s concern about the demand of users for free allocation of grass from forest on one hand was right because cf was meant for meeting their livelihood. cf has been adopted basically to meet these objectives. on the other hand it is equally important to note that resource can not be allocated free of cost because of its possible misappropriation (hardin, 1968). if we look at imposing money for grass by ugc as a step that obstructs users from getting forest resource, probably it is not logical because ugc has to give salary for watchers and meet other office expenses acharya and yasmi 49 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 of cf. the money generated by selling grass is used for this purpose. it was really interesting to note that cf with more resource (i.e. larger cf) has more conflicts in comparison to cf with lesser resource (smaller cfs). such relation of resource and conflict has also been found widely supported (le billion, 2001; acharya, 2002a; de jong et.al., 2006; humphreys, 2005) where economic and political elites try to obtain control over forests trying to adjust to the legislation that favors communal forestry. the finding of this research that conflict exists due to uneven benefit sharing between rich and poor members is a critical point that needs to be discussed. it challenges a common notion that poor are benefiting from cf but also is a serious issue to be dealt. the uneven distribution of benefit is also supported by the findings of adhikari (2005) where he finds that poorer households in forest-dependent communities obtain much less value from cfs than middle-income and rich households. similarly the allocation of fire wood and timber receipt only from ugc chairperson’ home is not justifiable. it is not possible to visit chairperson’s home every time to get forest product and it is against the ‘equal access for all users’ mission. similarly the issue raised by some users on equal money imposing for both richer and poorer is logical. there should be special privilege on poor about benefit sharing issues. timsina (2003) and nightingale (2003) elaborate findings where the permits for timber and firewood in cf have added an extra burden to poor. concern for charcoal for iron workers are however genuine but equally it is a challenge meet their demand. iron worker claim that they were receiving firewood for coal in forest since distant past. the livelihood of these people depended upon the iron working so ugc needs to address this conflict issue. involvement of distant users is also critical issue in cf. distant users is also aware about their rights. the logic behind inclusion of distant user in community forestry recently is the counter strategy on government’s recent programme collaborative forestry which government is thinking alternative to cf in terai area (bampton, 2003; bhattarai, 2006). even if it is accepted that user’s demand to graze their cattle inside cf is genuine, it is most likely not a solution. an open cattle grazing is considered a serious issue in the cf. however most frequently used penalizing policy on animal’s entry on forest was also considered as an important triggering factor for conflict between users and ugc. there was a strict rule on cf that allowed ugc to impose money if animals enter into the cf. such types of rules also made people confronted towards the ugc. the imposing of an entry charge for the first time as a membership in cf is not uncommon. similarly it is natural to pay some amount of extra charge while entering into a position first time. the important thing is whether it is equal for rich new comer and poor new comer or it should be equity based considering special consideration to poor people, this needs to be answered. as far as cfug is concerned they are indifferent about it and impose equal money for all. conclusions conflict is not exclusive among two conflict types. conflict issues identified between ugc and user were also uncovered in conflict between users. cf benefit sharing is based on equality and it does not realize difference on economical condition between poor users and rich users. this tendency of not considering poor user has created uneven benefit sharing in cf. it is favoring rich users with more access on forest resource while lesser access for poor users. as a result this difference has generated conflict on benefit sharing among ugc and users. the concept of involving distant people also as its users has been found in cfs now. such kind of distant people’s involvement in cf is basically to meet user’s demand on firewood and timber. the success of distant people involvement was also challenging an existing debate that terai forest can not meet demand of distant users. in fact this study also suggests distant users can be allocated cf product as users. avoiding and forcing are dominant strategies in cf. mostly avoiding strategy was major strategy found to be on use in cf and second major strategy in use was forcing. the use of compromising and accommodation strategy is almost identical. these strategies were used in lesser number than avoiding strategy. collaborating strategy has been found a least used strategy to manage conflict in the cf. the claim that cf is managing its conflict well is now on question. the study reveals that collaborating strategy hardly been achieved on managing conflict in cf. acharya and yasmi 50 banko janakari, vol. 18, no. 2 recommendations poor members of the cf should be given priority in meeting their forest needs. this priority must be reflected in the documents such as cf work plan and constitution so that their benefit sharing is secured. study shows that distant users can be accommodated in cf. on one hand it meets their cf needs and on the other hand it guarantees their traditional rights. for this reason, cf should also involve distant users. realizing the high level of application of avoiding and forcing strategy, it is recommended that cf has to rethink about existing conflict management strategies so that it can improve performance. collaborating strategy is almost not in use. it is recommended that collaborating strategy should be adopted in the cf recognizing both outcome and human concern. similarly if blake and mouton’s managerial grid theory is used at higher scale covering larger area it will generate knowledge to assist natural resource policy makers and to improve cf performance better. acknowledgements we would like to acknowledge prof. dr. bas arts, wageningen university for his constructive comments, mr. pashupati nath koirala, department of forest; mr. shyam sundar sharma and mr. govinda man tamrakar, directors of meh consultants; and mr. bijendra basnyat, consultant, narma consultancy for their input, help and suggestions. references abu-nimer, m. 2001. conflict resolution, culture, and religion: towards a training model of interreligious peace building. journal of peace research 38 (36): 685-704. acharya, g.r. 2007a. influence of non state actor on state: a study of fecofun and government in nepal. msc thesis, wageningen university, the netherlands. acharya, g.r. 2007b. conflict management in community forestry: a study of community forests in nepal. msc thesis, wageningen university, the netherlands. 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(1990). towards theory based measures of conflict management. academy of management journal 33 (1), pp 199-209. yasmi, y. 2007. institutionalization of conflict capability in the management of natural resources: theoretical perspectives and empirical experience in indonesia. phd thesis, wageningen university, the netherlands. acharya and yasmi this study has assessed patterns and consequences of park revenue sharing and implementation effectiveness to reduce park-people conflict in the buffer zone of chitwan national park. to explore programme implementation practice and consequences, two-thirds (n=14) of user committees were selected from the four management sectors. from the sampled committees, a questionnaire survey was randomly taken from user groups (n=100) to collect income and expenditure data. the revenue disbursement trends were favoured in community development works (roads, community buildings and schools) than conflict reduction issues. fourty-two per cent of the total budget was allocated to infrastructures development, which was followed by conservation and conflict management (35%) and education (9%). only a small amount of the budget was allocated to alternative energy, construction of animal preventive infrastructures to control wild-animals entering farmland and settlement, and provisions for wildlife damage compensation schemes. a certain part of the revenue should be allocated to wildlife victims. furthermore, the process of providing relief funds should be shortened and simplified. key words: wildlife victims, infrastructures, compensation, buffer zone, nepal revenue distribution pattern and park-people conflict in chitwan national park, nepal t. silwal 1*, b. p. shrestha2 , b. p. bhatta2 and b. p. devkota1 chitwan national park (cnp), nepal’s first protected area, conserves wide diversities of complex ecosystem of churia hills and flood plains. in recognition of its unique biological resources of outstanding universal value, unesco designated it as a world heritage site in 1984, and enlisted its beeshazari lake as ramsar site in 2003. it harbours the endangered species like top carnivores and mega-herbivores in their natural habitat of central low land nepal (cnp management plan, 1975–1979). the large predators found in the area, are tiger (panthera tigris), leopard (panthera pardus), sloth bear (melursus ursinus) and wild dog (cuon alpinus) (thapa et al., 2013). similarly, the herbivores include rhinoceros (rhinoceros unicornis), elephant (elephas maximus), spotted deer (axis axis), hog deer (hyelaphus porcinus), barking deer (muntiacus muntjac), sambar (rusa unicolor), gaur (bos gaurus). among them tiger, elephant, rhino, sloth bear and wild boar are more responsible for human casualties (cnp, 2011); elephant, rhino, wild boar and deer(s) are responsible for damaging crops; tiger, leopard are blamed to livestock depredation; and particularly elephant is responsible for damages of houses. on the other hands, establishment of protected areas created direct conflict with local communities due to restrictions on traditional use rights on park’s resources to meet their basic needs of grazing, fuel-wood, fishing and wild vegetables (hmg/n, 2002). thus, human casualties, crop damage, livestock depredation and property damage as direct outcomes of wildlife moving out of parks are often referred to resentment by local people and retaliatory killing of wildlife, and ultimately the sources of park-people conflict (silwal, 2003). the government of nepal (gon) has made a bold decision in the fourth amendment of national park and wildlife conservation (npwc) act 1973 in 1996 by enacting legislation, which made provision to retain 30–50% revenue, generated by the respective park for community development and conservation purposes (hmg/n, 1996). a portion of the set-aside money should also be spent to compensate landowners for land loss on the park borders because of landslides and floods (hmg/n, 1973). buffer zone (bz) programmes have shifted management approaches from resource controlled to revenue sharing to the local communities since 1996. the gon has developed and implemented re-cycling 50% of park revenues for conservation and development activities,and 1 institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal 2 ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal * corresponding author: thakur.silwal@gmail.com 35 banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 36 disbursed approximately 42 million us$ in cnp till 2010 (dnpwc, 2012). illegal cases inside the park and wildlife damage compensation cases of communities are increasing annually (dnpwc, 2012). over the past one and half decades, very few researches have been conducted to assess contribution of allocated park revenue to minimize park-people conflict. some of them stated that increasing number of wildlife seems to be a growing source of resentment of local people towards the park (sharma, 1991). the loss of human life, livestock and crop from animal were main source of conflict in the vicinities of cnp. the buffer zone (bz) legal aspect has granted local participation, but the managerial structure remains largely top down (heinen and mehta, 2000). according to agrawal et al. (2000), resources were exploited by elite groups. however, the effectiveness of the programme in terms of policies in line with field practices of revenue distribution is still questionable, and has not been examined. this study has tried to address revenue distribution patterns as stated in the policy guidelines, priority activities of the communities within the budget categories and barriers in existing policy implication in programme planning and implementing activities. it also describes how revenue sharing mechanism can minimize park people conflict, and its implication can be replicated in other protected areas of the country. materials and methods the study was conducted in the bz of cnp in 2010. the revenue collection and disbursement trend was considered for the period of the fiscal year 2061/062 (2004/05) to 2066/067 (2009/10). the cnp is located in the central southern lowland of nepal, and covers parts of parsa, makawanpur, chitwan and nawalparasi districts with an area of 932 km2 in tropical and sub-tropical part of the country (fig. 1). the cnp and its bz has been divided into four management sectors (fig. 2). in order to have representative samples of reasonable size, prior information regarding the degree of heterogeneity, in terms of socio-economic and biophysical characteristics are desirable (silwal, 2003). this information was obtained from the records of the cnp and the department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc), followed by the purposive sampling technique for the selection of user committees from the lists of all four sectors (fig. 2). sectorwise list of user committees were taken from the official list of the park. the sectorwise respective user committees are: i) sauraha sector: fig. 1: chitwan national park and its buffer zone (dnpwc, 2006) silwal et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 37 lothar, khagendramalli, budhi rapti, mrigakunj and barandabhar; ii) kashara sector: meghauli, kerunga, patihani and kalabanzar; iii) madibagai sector: panchpandav, ayodhyapuri and nirmal-thori; iv) amaltari sector: sikhrauli, lamichaur, sisawar, amaltari, nanda-bhauju, daunne, gosaibaba and triveni. from the official list of 21 user committees (ucs), 14 were randomly selected for sample committees for the questionnaire survey. the selected committees were siswar, amaltari, nandabhauju, kagendramalli, lothar, budhirapti, mrigakunj, barandabhar, kerunga, patihani, panchpandav, ayodhyapuri, nirmal-thori and rewa. finally, 100 user groups were randomly selected from those 14 (66%) sample committees for questionnaire survey. the organizational set-up has been designated for programme planning and resource disbursement as shown in figure 3. more or less, bottom-up programme planning and top-down resource mobilization approaches have been adopted in the practices. executive members of the ucs and user groups, park and buffer zone management committee (bzmc) staff, the key informants were asked about the implementation of practices and policies. pra tools (key informant interviews, time lines, group-discussions) were conducted for obtaining information of programme planning and resource distribution practices. semistructured questionnaire was administered to collect particular data relevant to fund allocation and performed activities at community-level. the study was focused to capture needs and concerns of the key stakeholders like park authority, community-based organizations (cbos), bzmc, local leaders and planners. fig. 3: organizational structure for bzmc (adopted from hmg/n, 1999) results and discussion policies and processes under the bz provision, respective user committees have been allocating bz budget as per their community requirements and the programme’s norms. after the declaration of the buffer-zone, the communities have been receiving funds since 1996. the park has been generating about 70 million rupees per annum. out of the total budget generated by the park, bz programmes has received 50 per cent since 1997. figure 4 illustrates park revenue and budget released from the ministry of finance for fig. 2: management sectors of chitwan national park and its buffer zone (cnp, 2010) silwal et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 38 the fiscal years 2061/062 (2004/05) to 2066/067 (2009/10). fig. 4: park revenue vs. bz-released budget (nrs ‘000) (1usd = nrs. 70.00) the main source of the park revenue is visitors’ fee. during the insurgency period, the number of visitors decreased, and the revenue from the park also decreased till the fiscal year 2063/64 (2006/07). afterwards, it has gradually increased. it is obvious that the major conflicting issues from the park establishment are restriction on traditional use rights for forest resources and wildlife damages. after 50% budget allocation to the communities, it is also expected to address those conflicting issues. figure 5 illustrates comparisons between government’s criteria for investing received budget based on five major headings (hmg/n, 1999) and resource allocation by activities at field-level. fig. 5: guideline’s provision vs. budget disbursements by activities there are differences among the criteria to investment in community development works among different user groups. ninety per cent of the committees had used their 42% investments in public infrastructures (village roads, community houses, and schools) instead of 30% as provisioned by bz rule. these are popular development activities rather than directly related with wildlife issues. such development activities neither provide individual relief to the wildlife victims nor reduce conflicting issues. nevertheless, 35% of the budget was allocated for wildlife damage compensation, conservation and anti-poaching programmes. similarly, budget was not allocated for income generating activities (igas) and capacity building programmes as provisioned by bz guidelines, giving less priority to the poor households who are directly dependent on the park resources for subsistence daily livelihoods. this is one of the most conflicting issues between park and forest dwellers. the budget allocation was only 7% for this sector. thus, the activities should be focused on conflicting issues rather than popular development works. community development activities the bz programme has supported to develop common and household level physical capitals. from the group discussion and questionaire survey with cbos, it was reported that 42% budget of the total expenditure had been allocated for community development activities. within community development activities, highest investment (31%) was in roads followed by schools, community buildings, checkdams, health posts, irrigation and electricity (fig. 6). bz guideline has the provision of allocating 30% of the total budget for productive community development works. the expenditure ceiling has exceeded by 12% and only 2% for productive irrigation works in practice. similar study conducted by pokharel (2008) in community forestry (cf) reported that most of the income from cf were found to have gone to community developments while the beneficiaries were found to be non-poor. another similar study in cf conducted by chhetri et al. (2011) shows 75.1% of all public services and infrastructures have been financed by the high-income quartile user groups. out of those activities, poors are getting benefits from public services like roads, schools and health posts. silwal (2003) reported that there were no representation of poor, women and marginal communities to raise their voices at silwal et al. fig. 6: community development activities banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 39 higher-level of resource distribution committees. this could be a reason to allocate small portion of the budget for victim’s choice. the continuing exclusion of women and disadvantage groups from governance and mainstream development is reflected in their low-level of achievements (undp, 2002). the effectiveness of the programme in terms of policies is in line with field practices of revenue distribution leaving enough space for improvements. wildlife damages and relief fund the cases filed in the park office for compensation seems to be regular process for each year. there were 17 human deaths and 40 severely injured registered cases in a single year of 2009 (table 1). rhino was found to be responsible for highest casualties (10 deaths and 17 injures) followed by tiger and leopard. similarly, 13 persons were killed and 20 persons sustained injured from wild animals in and around the cnp in 2012 (cnp, 2012). out of the 13 killed persons, 6 were killed by tiger, 3 by rhino, 2 by elephant, 1 by bear and 1 by wild boar. likewise, 10 persons and 2 persons were killed by elephant and rhino respectively in 2011 (cnp, 2011). hence, the human casualties from rhino have reduced in later years, only 2 of 13 (cnp, 2011) whereas, the human casualties from elephant have increased by 80% in 2067/68 (2010/11) (cnp, 2012). according to paudel (2012), there were 3 to 10 human casualties and 213 livestock (including 113 goats) predated by tiger during the period of january 2008 to october 2012. since 2066 (2009/10), the government has been providing relief amount only for human casualties;maximum of nrs. 50,000 for injury and nrs. 150,000 for death. the relief practices were adopted from bz programmes including livestock damages whereas livestock compensation scheme was stopped after promulgation of the relief guideline 2066 [gon, 2066 (2009/10)]. the wildlife victims have bitter experience for getting relief fund even though there is a provision in the relief guideline 2066 (2009/10). the procedure for obtaining relief fund is lengthy and requires more paper works. the compensation amount provided for human death should be consistent with other compensation policies of the government (poudel, 2012). in the case of livestock damages, compensation should be placed as per market value. so, there is a need to revise the provision of certain percentage of park revenue for wildlife victims at fieldlevel. this provision could be helpful to provide immediate rescue/relief to the victims and build better relationship between park and people than the existing situation. sharma (1991) stressed that the park laws should be specific regarding the compensation for wildlife damages. during the fieldwork, it was observed that the relief guideline 2066 (2009/10) has addressed loss of human life and injuries, livestock, crops and property damages whereas there was no regular source of funds addressed in the government policy and programmes. the wildlife victims are more victimized physically, mentally and financially for getting nominal relief amounts. the allocated relief amount is also table 1. human casualties, livestock, loss of livestock and property damages in the cnp in 2009 responsible animals human deaths human injuries tiger 6 4 rhino 10 17 leopard — 7 wild boar — 5 bear – 6 elephant 1 1 total 17 40 loss of livestock and properties cattle 24 buffalo 7 goats 152 pig 14 ducks/chicken 15 house damage 34 source: park office, 2010. silwal et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 40 nominal, and at the same time is not clearly stated for crop and property damages. meanwhile, the government has recently promulgated the revised guideline 2069 (2012/13) which tries to make more clear for some issues (box 1). the revised relief guideline 2069 (2012/13) has made a provision of a fund, at the park, where immediate relief could be provided and reimbursed from the ministry of finance through dnpwc. conclusion the bz programmes have been promoting community developments at local-level. most of the budget allocation trends are favourable for infrastructures (roads, community buildings and schools) followed by conservation and education. the study showed that the small amount of budget had been allocated to introduce alternative energy, animal preventive infrastructures and provisions for wildlife damage compensation schemes. the provision of the wildlife damage relief is not applied except to human casualties. the revised guideline 2069 (2012/13) is on implementation process for shortening earlier practical difficulties. the bz related act, regulation, and guideline need to be revised in consultation with the stakeholders in line with priority given to address conflicting issues (wildlife damages) rather than development works. acknowledgements this paper is based on the research data funded by nufu-networking project, institute of forestry, pokhara. the revenue data were provided by the cnp and bzmc, kasara. the contributions of staff from the park and its bz together with the office bearers of the bz user groups and bz user committees are gratefully acknowledged. sincere thanks go to those individuals who provided information, suggestions and supported us during our research work. references agrawal, a., shah, s. g., karmacharya, m. and karna, b. k. 2000. conservation with communities: a research on the park people programme in nepal, kathmandu, nepal. chhetri, b. b. k., lund, j. f. and nielsen, q. j. 2012. the public finance potential of community forestry in nepal. ecological economics 73: 113–121. cnp. 2011. annual report. chitwan national park, kasara, chitwan, nepal. cnp. 2012. annual report. chitwan national park, kasara, chitwan, nepal. dnpwc. 2006 (2009/10). chitwan national park and its buffer zone management plan 2006–2011. government of nepal, department of national parks and wildlife conservation, kathmandu, nepal. dnpwc. 2012. annual report 2012. government of nepal, department of national parks and wildlife conservation, kathmandu, nepal. gon. 2066 (2009/10). wildlife damage relief guideline 2066. the government of nepal, department of national parks and wildlife conservation, kathmandu, nepal. box 1: salient features of recently revised wildlife damage relief guideline 2069 • the relief fund provision for incidents from only eight species (tiger, elephant, rhino, snow leopard, common leopard, wild buffalo, wild boar and bear) should be widened to all wildlife species. • the revised guideline also recognises for relief fund only to the nepalese citizens. it may not be rational since indians have ties with nepalese citizen by religious and social customs, they frequently come to nepal to meet their relatives in terai region of nepal. both indian coming to meet their relatives and other third-nation tourist could not be considered for relief fund. • the revised compensation amount to the victims is (nrs 10,000 to 300,000 for human casualties). however, the community expected that it should be equivalent to other compensation schemes of the country. • the park office has been authorised for providing immediate relief amount of nrs. 10,000 and nrs. 50,000 in the cases of human injuries and death respectively. • the lengthy process of receiving relief fund is revised and placed at office of the regional directorate instead of ministry of finance. silwal et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 41 gon. 2069 (2012/13). revised wildlife damage relief guideline 2069 (2012/13). the government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. heinen, j. t. and mehta, j. n. 2000. emerging issues in legal and procedural aspect of buffer zone management with case study from nepal. journal of environment and development 9 (1): 45–67. hmg/n. 1973. rastriya nikunja tatha banyajantu samrakshan ain, 2029. his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of law and justice (in nepali), kathmandu, nepal. hmg/n. 1996. the buffer zone management regulation. his majesty’s government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. hmg/n. 2002. nepal biodiversity strategy. his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of forest and soil conservation, supported by gef and undp, kathmandu, nepal. poudel, a. 2012. human-tiger conflict in chitwan national park, nepal. b.sc. thesis, institute of forestry, pokhara campus, pokhara, nepal. sharma, u. r. 1991. park-people conflict in royal chitwan national park, nepal. ph.d. dissertation, university of arizona, usa. silwal, t. 2003. rural livelihoods and diversity in buffer zone. a case study from royal bardia national park, nepal. m.sc. thesis. tribhuvan university/ institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. thapa, k., kelly, m. j., karki, j. b. and subedi, n. 2013. first camera trap record of pack hunting dholes in cnp, nepal (distribution notes). canid biology and conservation 16 (2): 4–7. undp. 2002. nepal human development report 2001. poverty reduction and governance. united nations development programme, kathmandu, nepal. silwal et al. final corrected banko janakari 19-2.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 33 value chain analysis of non-timber forest products in baglung district, nepal a. paudel1, b. p. subedi2, s. gyawali2, g. k. thapa3, and m. b. sharma3 this study was carried out in five village development committees of baglung district, nepal. the main objective was to assess the constraints and opportunities to run the non-timber forest products based enterprises, and to design business solutions to make their value chains more efficient and competitive with the best utilization of the available resources. primary data were collected through group discussions, key informants interview, informal meetings and direct observations, using open-ended questionnaires and checklists. similarly, secondary data were gathered from reports and records of community forest user groups, district forest office and other organizations. the data were analyzed using qualitative and quantitative tools. the identified major constraints concerning the selected value chains are: absence of detailed resource inventory; inadequate knowledge and skills with local people about modern technology and product quality parameters, local resource management policy and sustainable resource harvesting; insufficient finance with local processors; lack of sufficient information about market; and poor infrastructure development. in addition, the study also identified a number of opportunities such as the resource potential and monetary benefits to the local people; financial access through community forest user groups’ fund and financial institutions; growing market demand for quality products; involvement of service providers in forest resource management; and supportive policy for employment generation from locally available natural resources. this paper has suggested some business solutions for the effective value chain of selected products. key words: business solution, constraints, non-timber forest products, opportunities, value chain a value chain (vc) is a chain of value-creating activities which are not isolated from one another. rather, one activity often affects the cost or performance of the others (www.netmba.com). it is a sequence of productive processes from the provision of specific inputs for a particular product to primary production, transformation, marketing and distribution, and final consumption (amatya, 2009). the products pass through all activities of the chain in order, gaining value with each activity. the value chain analysis (vca) examines the full range of activities that are required to bring a product in a particular enterprise from its conception to its end markets. a good vca provides a snapshot of an enterprise at a particular time, while vc mapping indicates the way a product flows from raw material to end markets. most of the forest enterprises in developing countries are small and medium enterprises (smes) (elson, 2009), and in many of them, especially those from south asia, non-timber forest products (ntfps) have been identified as one of the potential, high value commodities (amatya, 2009). more than 700 species have been recognized as ntfps (edwards, 1996), and more than 100 types of these are being used in medicinal, aromatic and other industrial preparations are being collected in nepal for commercial purposes (poudel, 2009). about 42 thousand tons of over 100 ntfps are traded, generating over $30 million annually (gurung, 2009). ntfps are relatively abundant in rural areas where other income generating opportunities are limited (usaid, 2006). in those areas, ntfps-based smes offer good prospects for enhancing the livelihood and income of local communities (subedi, 2006). however, the development of an enterprise fulfilling environmental, market and legal requirements can only be facilitated through vca. to optimize 1 a. freelance forester, canada. e-mail: ambipaudel@gmail.com 2 asia network for sustainable agriculture and bioresources, kathmandu, nepal 3 bhimapokhara youth club, baglung, nepal banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 34 enterprise contribution towards the improvement of livelihoods of poor users, who have been mostly raw material suppliers, would require the identification of bottlenecks in vc and deconstricting them. in this study, ntfps refer to the traded parts of plants other than timber, fuelwood and fodder, as per the definition of master plan for the forestry sector (1989). the study foci were: to identify and select major ntfps in the study site; to classify major actors and their functions within the vcs; to identify potential service providers (sps), and to design commercially viable business solutions. this paper describes the methodology of vca and provides business solutions for efficient and effective vc of selected ntfps from enterprise perspectives. materials and methods five village development committees (vdcs) of baglung district, namely khunga, adhikarichaur, taman, khunkhani and bongadovan were selected for the study based on the availability of commercial ntfps, ecological connectivity and community interest. they were selected through a district level workshop, participated by governmental and nongovernmental organizations (gos/ngos) that have been involved in forestry-related activities within the district. some of these were: the district development committee (ddc), the district forest office (dfo), the federation of community forest users, nepal (fecofun), the cottage and small industry development board (csidb), the asia network for sustainable agriculture and bioresources (ansab), the bhaktapur craft paper (bcp), the livelihoods and forestry program (lfp), the nepal herbs management center (hmc) and the bhimapokhara youth club (byc). during the first field visit in february-march, 2008, the baseline information was collected from 31 community forest user groups (cfugs) of the selected vdcs. a group from each cfug was formed for discussion, and it comprised of the executive committee members, women, lower castes, youths and seniors. during the second field visit (april-june, 2008), information on ntfps vc was collected through a series of group discussions. checklists were used to track discussions on the given issues. key informant interviews were conducted with ntfps collectors/harvesters, middle-men, processors and traders, by using open-ended questionnaires. informal meetings were held with individuals from the district forest office (dfo) and concerned range post (rp), csidb, ddc, fecofun, lfp, bcp, ansab, byc, hmc, agriculture development bank, local financial institutions and community based organizations (cbos). the availability of ntfps resource was observed in most of the community forests (cfs). secondary data were obtained from operational plans (ops) and constitutions, minutes, and other records of cfugs, dfo and other organizations. the data collected through different methods and from different sources were cross-checked through triangulation to improve the reliability of the results. both qualitative and quantitative tools were used for data analysis. results and discussion ntfps selection several meetings and discussions with cfug members and other stakeholders were conducted and secondary data were reviewed to identify the potential ntfps of the study area. a total of 22 ntfps (excluding duplication) were identified and then narrowed down to 5, through the attractiveness matrix and ranking matrix analyses. the attractiveness matrix analysis was carried out with each cfug separately, by reckoning the number of beneficiaries and potential for increase in income and later compiled into a single matrix. the matrix revealed that lokta (daphne spp.) and allo (girardinia diversifolia) were the most attractive ntfps. following them were jhyau (lichen spp.), khoto (pine resin), and nigalo (arundinaria falcata). these five ntfps were ranked along a weighing scale of 1 to 5 (where 1 was for the least important criterion) and a rating value for each product to derive a cumulative score. the cumulative scores from each study site were averaged to derive a total weighted score for the district (table 1). the results suggested that the total weighted scores for lokta was highest at 73 while khoto received the lowest score of 37. in this paper, only the first two ntfps, lokta and allo, have been selected for the vc analysis of the major ntfps. lokta lokta is a wild shrub which grows gregariously and abundantly in most himalayan forests of nepal between altitudes of 2,000 to 4,000 m (subedi et al., paudel et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 35 collectors from cfugs gmfs cfs local harvesters/ cfug members local processors bhaktapur craft paper unicef table 1: results from ranking matrix proposed vc criteria weight allo lokta jhyau nigalo khoto growth potential (market, production, competition) 5 4 (20) 4 (20) 3 (15) 2 (10) 2 (10) scope (producer, area, income, consumption) 3 4 (12) 5 (15) 4 (12) 3 (9) 3 (9) poverty reduction potential, social benefits 4 3 (12) 5(20) 3 (12) 3 (12) 2 (8) prospects for success, conducive policy and social environment 2 4 (8) 5 (10) 3 (6) 3 (6) 3 (6) traditional knowledge and skill 2 4 (8) 4 (8) 2 (4) 4 (8) 2 (4) total weighted score 60 73 49 45 37 note: rating ‘1’ is the lowest and ‘ 5’ the highest 2006). it is a self-regenerating plant; once harvested, it takes about 6 to 8 years to be fully matured and ready for extraction. an estimated figure of 110, 481 mt (metric ton) of raw lokta is available in nepal; however, only about 800 to 1,000 mt are collected each year (handpass, 2003, quoted in banjara, 2007). in baglung district too, there is less collection of lokta than what was available. as reported by bcp, only about 5 mt is harvested each year from baglung and the two adjoining districts (parbat and myagdi) although there was a potential to harvest 90 mt. lokta paper, manufactured from the inner bark of the plant, is made in remote hilly areas by the local farmers at a household level or by entrepreneurs on a large scale. in recent years, many cfugs have also started to produce the paper on larger scales by establishing community-based enterprises (gauli and baral, 2008). the price of paper was found to vary in different locations depending mainly on the extent and type of transportation facilities to the market; quality and quantity of paper that can be supplied; and the dealings with contractors and local producers. lokta prices were higher in the capital because of the additional cost levied on them in terms of taxes and transportation (olsen and helles, 1997). during the field study, the average price per kori (200 sheets) paper, based on quality of the paper, ranged between nrs. 1400 and 1800 (us$1 is about nrs. 70) in kathmandu while the same ranged between nrs. 900 and 1500 in baglung. historically, lokta paper has been used for most of the government documents and religious texts in nepal. nowadays, it is used mainly for producing stationery products, wrapping papers, boxes and bags, greeting cards, thankas (tibetan paintings) and wallpapers. according to banjara (2007), 90 % of the paper products made in katmandu were exported mostly to europe and america while the remaining 10 % were consumed locally. allo allo is a fiber yielding wild herb also known as himalayan nettle. it grows in high mountain regions of nepal at an altitude of 1,200 m to 3,000 m flourishing under the shades of mixed deciduous forests (www.everesthandicraft.com). when harvested correctly, allo regenerates abundantly the following year. out of the many ntfps, it has been identified as one of the resources with potential for rural enterprise development and a base for sustainable livelihoods of the rural areas (medep, 2001). like the lokta paper, the price of allo products also varied with the market parameters and locality. during our study, the price of thread ranged between nrs. fig. 1 : value chain map of lokta paudel et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 36 300 and 400 per kg in baglung; and between nrs. 450 and 600 in parbat. this plant has provided raw material for making most of the textiles needed by households for generations. local people mainly spun the allo fiber to weave jackets, porter’s headbands, fishing nets, ropes, snacks bags, mats, etc. other uses of this plant were as vegetable of young shoots by poor people and for animal fodder with leaves and shoots. value chain map a two-phased process for developing the vc map was carried out: (a) initial basic mapping after the desk review and the first visit; and (b) adjusted mapping including revisions based on group discussions, key informants interview and feedback from groups and individuals brought into the analysis process. the vc maps of lokta and allo are depicted in figure 1 and figure 2. four main types of actor were involved in vc of these products: 1) collectors/harvesters 2) local processors 3) local traders/urban wholesalers and 4) national traders/urban exporters. each actor added value to the product along the vc from the transformation of raw material ultimately into marketable finished products. however, the share of benefits that collectors received was significantly lower than those received by other actors (biggs and messerschmidt, 2003). in the study site, lokta collectors sold dried bark to local paper producers, while few of them sold to traders who transported directly to the capital. in taman vdc, there were about 60 household-level paper producing units where entire family members were involved in paper making or collecting barks from their own forests. bcp, baglung purchased all the paper sheets from them and delivered to their head office in the kathmandu valley, where various products and supplies, most of them to united nations children’s fund (unicef), were manufactured. unicef’s greeting cards operation is bcp’s primary wholesale market, accounting for approximately 90 % of sales, under an exclusive contract. as per allo, only cfugs members harvested it from their own forests. sometimes, they along with the local people collected it from government managed forests (gmfs) and farm lands. most of the collectors sold dried bark to either processors or traders, but a few made thread themselves. thread was the final product of allo in the study site as there was no cloth weaving enterprise till now. local processors sold thread to either local traders or to cloth weavers in the nearby villages. the traders sold the thread to cloth weaving companies in the capital. the cloth weavers of the neighbouring village have been selling their products mainly during festivals and local exhibition programs and, therefore, do not have fixed markets. communities received almost all the required ntfpsbusiness development services directly from facilitating organization in remote parts of nepal (gyawali and panta, 2007). in baglung too, there were many sps involved in lokta and allo vcs. the department of forest (dof) and its sub-ordinates (dfo, rp) provided technical and legal support throughout the whole chain. similarly, the concerned cfugs were also active in raw material production and legitimate collection. other organizations such as byc, hmc, csidb, lfp, and fecofun were also providing support services to local people in processing. in addition, bcp, since its establishment in 1990, has assisted paper processors with input supply such as caustic soda. ansab started its work in baglung for lokta vc promotion from 2001. it has been active for the vc promotion during this study period mainly in ntfps inventory, enterprise plan development and marketing. opportunities and constraints vca can be used by grassroot organizations to increase knowledge of opportunities and constraints throughout the chain and it can also contribute to thread: nrs. 300 to 400/kg dry bark: nrs. 20/kg entry fee: nrs. 1/kg; royalty:-nrs. 3/kg cfs gmfs farm land local processors collectors from cfug local harvestors / cfug members cloth weavers local/district traders festivals /exhibitions national markets fig. 2: value chain map of allo paudel et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 37 strategic learning for enterprise development (mayou, 2003). in this study, major constraints for running lokta and allo-based enterprises were identified and possible opportunities were explored. business solutions have been recommended and are discussed under the following sub-headings of the major components of an enterprise. technology and product development rural people have been making lokta paper with traditional technology and have borne the relatively high cost of production. moreover, most of them were compelled to sell the paper at low prices mainly because of the low quality resulting from a lack of knowledge about quality parameters. subedi et al., (2006) had recommended training for paper producers on paper production and quality management. the promotion of quality papermaking has the potential to enhance their economic status (banjara, 2007). the authors had recommended refresher training about bcp paper quality to increase paper price, and the demonstration and promotion of modern technology such as the beater machine to reduce the cost of production. the presence of some trained persons, who could run beater machine manually in the nearby villages, is an opportunity. the allo processing system adopted in the study site was also a traditional one, consisting of self-made, hand-operated machines (firfire, hate charkha) which, according to key informants, were time consuming and increased the cost of unit production. the reasons for using them were their lack of knowledge about modern processing equipments, such as legoperated machine (khutte charkha) and spindle with a wheel for spinning fiber and also in understanding quality parameters. these constraints had prohibited them from reaping optimum monetary benefits. therefore, cost and benefit analysis of traditional and modern methods are recommended and then this information about efficient processing technology and quality parameters should be disseminated. in the study site, none of the processors had made clothes and other textile products as they were not well trained and so they hesitated to prepare them. sps were suggested to transfer knowledge and skills for product development by organizing trainings, workshops and exposure visits that provide rural people opportunities to learn about modern technology, exchange information, and develop commercial linkages with other actors of vc. market access the processors in the study site have been selling lokta paper to bcp for many years. bcp has its own quality grading categories and associated prices. one of the pricing strategies was the use of paper size (i.e. 19.5” * 26”), which was different from the usual size found in the capital. this has indirectly freed the processors to sell the paper exclusively to bcp. however, based on our quick survey, bcp price seemed reasonable considering other benefits provided to processors such as a subsidy on caustic soda and paper transportation costs. therefore, an alternative market to bcp is not necessary at present; however, the entrepreneurs were encouraged to be aware of the pricing strategy of bcp and to demand for alternative markets. there was no good local market for allo products and people were selling either allo bark or thread to interested buyers at their own prices which were usually lower than the market prices. poor links to markets, inadequate market information and weak bargaining power were some of the constraints for forest-based smes (elson, 2008). furthermore, pandit et al., (2004) pointed out that the inadequate market information was one of the challenges for ntfps-based enterprises in their study area. this situation was also hampering collectors to get appropriate price (poudel, 2009). sps were recommended to provide market information on buyer specification and standardization in regional and national markets and also provide access to new markets and outlets. according to maraseni et al. (2006), helping collectors with credit, training and market information could be instrumental in teaching them to deal directly with wholesalers, with increased bargaining power and risk-bearing capacity. it is recommended that sps facilitate the establishment of network among allo thread makers, cloth weavers, and some entrepreneurs from neighbouring district have been found to be ready to buy threads at good prices. input supply the abundance of resources with growing market demand suggests a great potential of ntfps for enterprise development in nepal (subedi et al., 2004). however, current practices or level of skills for ntfps harvest and post-harvest operations were not satisfactory (subedi, 1999). more than 90 % volumes of the commercial ntfps were collected from the wild, very often in unsustainable manner (poudel, paudel et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 38 2009). in the study site, abundant allo was growing naturally in the forest and surroundings, however, the collectors were harvesting without consideration for the season or the plant condition. similarly, lokta collectors also have been harvesting every type and quantity of raw material without considering the sustainability of the resources. this has resulted in low prices because of the poor quality and also the destruction of the resources. subedi et al., (2006) had recommended training on sustainable lokta harvesting and post-harvest handling for the collectors. the authors felt the immediate need for hands-on-training to collectors on sustainable harvesting and the formation of a network of collectors and processors for the regular supply of quality raw material without depleting the natural resources. lokta processors used caustic soda provided by bcp. allo processors would also like to use the same, but have been using ashes which they have better access to. however, they were recommended to continue using the same as it takes less time and foreign buyers preferred products cooked in ashes. financial access the remote areas of nepal have very few financial institutions, so financial service was a constraint for enterprise development in these areas (gyawali and panta, 2007). although sps had provided skill development trainings to poor users, often the users could not utilize that skill as a profession because they could neither launch any micro-enterprises on their own nor get any financial assistance from sps (paudel and vogel, 2007). in this study site, local processors were poor and had difficulty in managing funds for buying processing equipment. the ngos and cbos had not provided financial support in enterprise development. in terms of opportunities, lfp (donor) has provision for financial support for this sector through either ‘quick impact program’ or ‘machinery support’. likewise, adb and local cooperatives have provision to provide loan for forest enterprises. the ngos and cbos can disseminate information about these opportunities to communities and can help facilitate access to these loans and financial services. some cfugs with good savings had not being able to mobilize their funds for enterprises such as shares and money lending to poor users at low (or free) rates of interest. this was primarily due to lack of knowledge in investments and, additionally, due to the reluctance of rich users to support poor users. it has been difficult task to convince people to mobilize local resources for the benefit of poor (maharjan et al., 2004); however, such situation can be greatly improved with facilitation through sps, as mentioned in a case study in bhodkhore cfug, parbat, by paudel (2007). bhodkhore cfug had started a ‘revolving fund for poor’ program to invest in income generating activities like bamboo-basketry, goat-farming, and the like. we also recommend the establishment of ‘enterprise development revolving fund’ within enterprise groups or within cfugs, and to provide orientation to cfugs about business accounting and fund mobilization. this way, entrepreneurs can have easy access to financial services from all possible sources. regulatory policy the forestry sector policy (2000) had emphasized the promotion and commercialization of ntfps, including their export to foreign countries after valueaddition. the policy also encourages local communities to establish forest-based processing enterprises. the government has fixed royalty rates for ntfps through the forest regulation 1995, and these have been revised twice in line with market price of the products. the cfugs of study site usually sold the products at the government royalty rates. many cfugs were not aware of their selling rights, irrespective of the government royalty as mentioned in the forest bill of 1990 (shrestha, 1998). the government had also developed the herbs and ntfps development policy (2004) with the longterm goal to substantially contribute to nepalese economy by conserving and preserving high value herbs and ntfps. though the policy mentions simplification of tax system for privately grown ntfps, it das been silent on cfs. there is also a contradiction in controlling taxation system on forest products between forest act (1993) and local self governance act (1999). multiple taxation also exists due to taxes collected both by central and local governments on ntfps trade. most of the community people in rural parts of nepal including the site were unaware of the government policy about the use of natural resources. therefore, it is recommended that awareness raising programs on natural resources policy at local level be conducted. it also seems necessary to provide trainings on right-based approach. with regard to paudel et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 39 marketing, bcp has been helping in legal process because of an agreement with the government for marketing of lokta from national forest which also includes cf. for allo, dfo baglung seemed to be positive for its marketing. organizational management until this study was conducted, none of the ops of cfs had any detailed inventory or management plan for ntfps and most of them had already expired. not only was the case in this study site but similar results were also observed in several studies (e.g. pandit and thapa, 2004; kanel and kandel, 2004). most of the cfugs were not able to collect revenue from the ntfps trade, as their ops did not sufficiently account for their management and marketing. therefore, they were suggested to include detailed management plan for ntfps in ops and become aware about the legal ownership of their forest resources. as an opportunity, lfp had provisions for financial support for op revision through dfo/ ngos. likewise, ansab has also committed to get involved in this process mainly in ntfps inventory. cfugs were recommended to exploit these opportunities with the facilitation of sps. the collectors/processors in the study site seemed to work individually and were not organized. this has affected their bargaining power and benefits. according to poudel (2009), profit margins of collectors were less than 10 % of the final price. a formation of sub-group of ntfps collectors/ processors within cfugs was recommended to establish their village level network. social mobilization was also necessary to make the group stronger in organizational development. support for making an appropriate enterprise model with detail enterprise development plans for each individual enterprise has also been recommended. infrastructure development since many high-value ntfps were located in very remote areas, processing and marketing costs were generally high (subedi, 1999). poor infrastructure for product transportation has been one of the major hindrances to the marketing of ntfps (poudel, 2009). this also holds true for the study site. however, the construction of earthen roads to the nearby villages was on-going, and this will help for easier transportation. poor communication and electricity supplies were the other problems hindering the adoption of advanced technologies on enterprise development. the local government was active in supporting infrastructure development. sps were recommended to lobby for this process. conclusion lokta and allo were the two major ntfps of the study site. the detailed study of their vcs demonstrated that there was an urgent need for skill development trainings, mainly in sustainable harvesting, processing and products development, and exploring detailed information about the possible markets. the entrepreneurs could be more efficient, increase their productivity and reduce the unit cost of production by using appropriate technology. as local processors were poor, they need basic support services either from cfugs’ fund or from financial institutions. potential sps of the study site are suggested to consider the loopholes of vcs, and put an effort to make the ntfps-based business more competitive and profitable for the sustainable rural livelihoods development. references amatya, s. m. 2009. promoting industrial development through trade facilitation. 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(https://repository.unm.edu/ d s p a c e / b i t s t r e a m / 1 9 2 8 / 3 3 0 0 / 1 / krishnapoudel_ecolanalysisntfp.pdf).. paudel et al. banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 41 shrestha, b. 1998. changing forest policies and institutional innovations: user group approach in community forestry of nepal. paper presented in international workshop on community-based natural resource management, may 10-14, washington, d.c., usa. subedi, b. p. 1999. non-timber forest products subsector in nepal: opportunities and challenges for linking the business with biodiversity conservation. paper presented in the workshop on natural resources management for enterprise development in himalayas, august 19-21, nainital, india. subedi, b. p. 2006. linking plant-based enterprises and local communities to biodiversity conservation in nepal himalaya. adroit publishers, new delhi, india. subedi, b. p.; paudel, s. b. and gyawali, s. 2006. handmade paper value chain of nepal: prospects and challenges in growth, distributional equity and conservation. ansab, kathmandu, unpublished. usaid. 2006. role of natural products in resource management, poverty alleviation and good governance. a case study of jatamansi and wintergreen value chains in nepal. united states agency for international development. websites: http://www.netmba.com/strategy/value-chain/ http://www.everesthandicraft.com paudel et al. final corrected banko janakari 19-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 1 41 agrobiodiversity conservation to deal with climate change s. nepal short note climate change is real and the effects of climate change vary with different spatial scales. at a broader global scale, climate change may have negligible impact whereas at the local and regional scales, the impact may be severe and substantial. for instance, at the local/regional levels of an agricultural ecosystem, climate change may impact agricultural sustainability in two interrelated ways. first, it may reduce the long-term ability of the agroecosystem to provide enough food and fiber for the world’s population and second, it may induce alteration in agro-climatic conditions and spatially shift agroecosystems, thus endangering natural habitats and their floral and faunal diversities. climate change is, therefore, a serious concern for agricultural ecosystems and there is a need for an agrobiodiversity conservation approach to combat with these problems. agrobiodiversity comprises of all the components of biological diversity pertinent to food and agriculture present in agro-ecosystems, including microbes, insect pollinators, and the hedgerows that support soil stability and provide a home for wildlife. it also provides opportunities to develop and implement adaptation strategies to the biotic and abiotic stresses resulting from climate change, while mitigating the emissions of green house gases. so, agrobiodiversity can be the basis for reducing emissions of green house gases, sequestering carbon, suppressing pests and diseases, using water and nutrients efficiently and maintaining the productivity of agriculture as a whole. thus in the long run, agrobiodiversity can be the basis for enhancing food security, livelihood, and the conservation of resource base to mitigate climate change. agrobiodiversity based conservation approaches to address the climate change include: i) genetic enhancement of crops for a more changing and heterogeneous environment, ii) use of integrated pest management (ipm) with the best combination of cultural, biological and technological measures of pest control, iii) change in cropping patterns by promoting agroforestry, agroenergy and new crop species, and iv)organic and traditional farming systems with less dependence on energy-intensive fertilizers, chemicals, and concentrated feeds. recently, a new concept of agrobiodiversity conservation credit (acc) has been proposed to address climate change. climate change might consider exploring credits for carbon sequestration in soils through conservation tillage as well as agroforestry and other climate friendly practices (no use of fertilizers/pesticides) in agricultural landscapes. compared to orthodox methods of agriculture, these approaches offer higher productivity per unit area, easy management for agricultural systems and less harm to human health and environment. all these approaches have the potentials to address climate change. however, the most challenging job to implement these approaches is to convince people to accept these approaches. people’s participation at various levels of planning and policy making may be effective for addressing these people. a key to address climate change may be increasing participation of the general public, private sectors, policy makers and research institutions to integrate agrobiodiversity research in various national and international agenda and plans to revitalize conservation efforts in agrobiodiversity. in conclusion, climate change is real and inevitable; its effects cannot be completely controlled but large reductions of adverse impacts are possible when adaptation and mitigation measures are fully implemented. agrobiodiversity conservation supported by integrated systems of environmental, social and political sciences is one of the best approaches to climate change and to influence multiple ecosystem services such as agricultural productivity, water quality, energy conservation and human health. button1: text2: graduate research assistant, university of north dakota, e-mail: sandhya.nepal@nodak.und.edu banko jankari.indd 24 1 department of forest research and survey, kathmandu. email: deepak_kharal@yahoo.com 2 mid-western regional directorate of forest, surkhet, nepal 3 district forest offi ce, dang, nepal distribution and availability of raw materials for production of nepali handmade paper from daphne species in darchula district, nepal d. k. kharal1, b. n. oli2 and i. poudel3 the study, conducted in 2005 in darchula district of the far western region of nepal, aimed at assessing the distribution of lokta plants (daphne species) and the sustainable availability of their bark as a raw material for nepali handmade paper. stratifi ed random sampling design was adopted for collecting primary data from 340 circular shaped sample plots. the study revealed asymmetric distribution and production of lokta in different range post areas of darchula district. while the tree diameter at 30 cm from base (d30) varied from 1 to 18 cm, the maximum tree height varied from 2.1 to 6 m. on the basis of diameter class, about 87 % of the bark weight was found to be of exploitable category. for the entire district of darchula, the annual yield of lokta bark for six years rotation amounted only to about two-third of the four years rotation. the study concludes that the stock of lokta bark that prevails in the district can sustain promotion of nepali paper production enterprises. key words: annual yield, non timber forest product, rotation, range post, sustainable production non timber forest products (ntfps) have a pivotal role in the rural as well as national economic development of nepal (mpfs, 1989; mofsc, 2004; npc, 2010). in the country, approximately 10.13 thousand tons of ntfps was extracted contributing to revenue of nrs. 67.38 million in the fiscal year 2002/03 alone (dof, 2004). lokta (daphne bholua and d. papyracea) constitute one of the principal species among the limited ntfps identifi ed and traded in nepal. the species has also been identifi ed by the master plan for the forestry sector (mpfs) as one of the seven minor forest products available in the country (mpfs, 1989). the distribution of daphne bholua extends from uttar pradesh in india, through nepal, southern tibet, northern assam, bengal, sikkim and bhutan to south-west china. it occurs between 1800 to 3600 m, and occasionally extends up to 4000 m. similarly, the distribution of d. papyracea which extends from pakistan to central nepal occurs between 1600 m and 2500 m, and occasionally extends up to 3000 m (jackson, 1987). in nepal, lokta is mainly used on a cottage industry scale for manufacturing handmade papers. harvesting of lokta bark and manufacturing of local paper both provide opportunities for creating local employment, thereby, providing potentials for generating income to sustain livelihoods of the local people. realizing these facts, both the government and non-government sectors in nepal have long been pursuing to promote the sustainable management of lokta resources in the country. resource assessment is one of the important components of all sustainable management endeavours (fao, 2010). the assessment provides clues for careful management of natural resources which is highly needed for preventing the resources being exhausted from over-exploitation. haphazard practices of using resources without carrying out proper resource inventory only lead to exhaustion of such resources. this has happened with the lokta resources of nepal, which have been exploited heavily without carrying out any resource inventories in the past. without assessing the growing stock, growth and yield patterns, 25  lokta plants, were exploited heavily only to fi nd latter that no more raw materials are available for sustainable operation of paper factories. in nepal, many paper factories had to be closed due to the scarcity of lokta barks which are primarily used as raw materials for the paper factories (ansab, 2004). at present, only a few literatures on lokta resource assessment and management are available (pokharel, 1989; frd, 1991; jeanrenaud and thompson, 1986). moreover, most of such literatures remain case specifi c, focusing only on the matters of resource assessment and the methodologies. lokta resources exist in 24 of the total 41 village development committees (vdcs) of darchula district. the lokta containing 24 vdcs (including community forests) lie in the northern and eastern parts of the district. despite their great potential for generating income and employment, no resource assessment work has yet been carried out for lokta resources in darchula district. a study on distribution and availability of lokta plant (daphne spp.) in the district has thus become an imperative. the study primarily aimed at assessing the distribution of daphne species in darchula district and sustainable availability of their bark as a raw material for nepali handmade paper. since the range posts are the basic unit of forest management and administration, the study was focused in assessing the resources existed within the range post boundaries. it is anticipated that the study will provide meaningful guidance for sustainable and wise use of lokta resources for production of nepali handmade paper enterprises in the district. this will help enhance local as well as the national economy of the country through creation of increasing income generation opportunities for the local population. materials and methods study site darchula district is located in the far western development region of nepal. it covers an area of 2329.6 km2 with wide range of altitudinal variation ranging from 357 to 7132 masl (mprc, 2011). the district headquarter is situated in north 290 51' latitude and east 800 34' longitude. the district enjoys subtropical climate in the south to alpine and tundra in the northern belt. the topographic conditions vary from mid mountain in the south and middle part and to high himalayas in the north. of the total forest cover of 79,538 ha of the district, 20, 064 ha have already been handed over to 226 community forest user groups (cfugs) (dfo darchula, 2005). the district comprises eight range posts. however the study area encompasses only six of them: dethala, joljibi, khalanga, khandeshwari, khar and rapla. sampling design stratifi ed random sampling technique was used to collect information on distribution of lokta plant as well as on availability of bark materials for nepali handmade paper in the district. qualitative categories of lokta plants were considered as strata for the resources survey. based on area proportion, the total numbers of sample plots were distributed in each stratum of the lokta forest. using participatory process, high density, medium density and low density strata of lokta distribution areas were traced out in the topographic map of the district. like in baglung lokta inventory (mathema, 1990), circular plots of 25 m2 of 2.82 m radius were taken as sample plots for the measurement purposes. the fi rst plot was laid out where the lokta plant fi rst appeared. the subsequent plots were established at 1800 south at an interval of 100 m in each stratum. isolated patches and blocks of lokta plant were considered while allocating the sample plots. altogether, 340 sample plots were laid out in all study area and allocated them in different strata based on proportion to area principle. plot measurement the measurement was carried out in 2005. lokta plants smaller than 30 cm in height were considered as seedlings and as such, were only counted, without measuring. however, lokta plants greater than 1 m in height were measured at diameter: 30 cm from the base (d30); for bark biomass estimation. the height of the plants and d30 were measured to precisions of ± 0.1 m and to ± 0.1 cm respectively. randomly selected 20 26   plots were measured for bark biomass estimation. out of 6 range posts; 2 plots from dethala, 1 from joljibi, 6 from khalanga, 3 from khar and 8 from rapla were taken for bark biomass assessment. the number of stems and bark weight per plot were estimated at fi rst, and later, average fi gures were derived at per hectare level. lokta plants greater than 3 cm d30 were included for the harvestable lokta biomass estimation. green weight of the bark was used to estimate the lokta biomass. data analysis at fi rst, the compiled data were analyzed at plot level using the ms excel software. later on, per hectare fi gures were estimated using appropriate conversion. results and discussion stem distribution and density of lokta plant although, the participatory resource mapping phase had identifi ed 7 range posts and 24 vdcs as lokta distribution areas, the sample survey during the fi eld work could cover the data from 6 range posts and 16 vdcs only. stem distribution of lokta in the studied range posts is presented in table 1. the average number of stems per hectare was higher in khar range post and lower in dethala. however, the total number of stems was found highest in khandeswari range post and lowest in joljibi. table 1: stem distribution by range posts stem density of lokta by range post was found to be signifi cantly different at 5 % signifi cance level (p = 2.13-06; df = 5). the total number of stems in the studied areas was more than 12 million. stem distribution by diameter classes in range post in the study area, the diameter of the lokta plants ranged from 1 cm to 18 cm with about 5.1 cm mean value. distribution of lokta plant was divided into four diameter classes: < 2 cm, 2 4 cm, 4 6 cm and > 6 cm. stem densities greatly varied in different diameter classes. stem density of < 2 cm diameter was found as less as only about 10 % of the total stems density. whereas, stem density of diameter classes between 2 4 and 4 6 cm were found almost equal representing about 31 % of the total density by each one. table 2 depicts the stem density distribution by range post and different diameter classes in the study area. table 2 clearly indicates that the lokta distribution was highly dominated by bigger size diameter plants. there is a signifi cant difference in the average density of lokta by diameter classes (α= 0.05, p = 2.6 -11). table 3 presents stem distribution of lokta plant on the basis of exploitable and nonexploitable diameter sizes. range post lokta distribution area ( ha) no. of sample plot average stems/ha total stems in 000 unit dethala 862.5 34 376 325 joljibi 325.0 12 933 303 khalanga 3475.0 85 767 2666 khandeswori 5087.5 36 978 4974 khar 2575.0 99 1026 2643 rapla 2300.0 74 741 1703 total/average 14625.0 340 826 12614 27  table 2: stem distribution of lokta plant by range post and diameter classes range post per hectare stem density by diameter classes average < 2 cm 2-4 cm 4 6 cm 6 cm dethala 12 176 165 24 376 joljibi 0 400 367 167 933 khalanga 339 395 33 0 767 khandeswori 0 0 78 900 978 khar 8 327 493 198 1026 rapla 0 157 319 265 741 average/ total 88 260 259 219 826 table 3: stem distribution by exploitable and non-exploitable diameter classes range posts distribution per ha distribution in range post in 000 unit < = 3 cm > 3 cm < = 3 cm > 3 cm dethala 47 329 41 284 joljibi 133 800 43 260 khalanga 635 132 2208 458 khandeswari 0 978 0 4974 khar 105 921 271 2372 rapla 38 703 87 1616 total/average 207 619 2649 9965 acknowledging mathema (1990), who has advised not to harvest lokta plant with diameter of < 3 cm at d30, this study considered d30 > 3 cm as exploitable size for lokta. per hectare stem distribution and total number of stem distribution in all the range posts covered by the study are presented in table 3. it is evident from table 3 that per hectare wise, khandeswari range post contained highest number of stems > 3 cm. similarly, khalanga range post contained lowest number of stems with such sizes. stems of exploitable size were found in maximum number in khandeswari range post and in minimum number in joljibi range post. density wise, large sized lokta stems (exploitable size) is highest in khandeswari and smaller size lokta plants are highest in khalanga. table 3 also shows that more than three-fourth (about 79 %) of the total stems bear exploitable sizes. stem distribution by height classes in the past, it was a tradition to consider all stems > 2 m in height as exploitable size. however, this study has considered two categories of height: small (< 1.5 m) and tall (> 2 m). the reason for this is based on the fl owering height and the age. lokta plants fl ower when it reaches about a height of 1.5 m in about 7 years of time (ncfp, 1994). the height category wise number of stems per hectare as well as the number of stems present in range posts covered by the study is given in table 4. per hectare wise, the khar range post has the largest and khalanga range post, the lowest number of taller stems. altogether, 7.7 million taller category stems, with highest number in khandeswari and lowest number in joljibi range were found in all range posts covered by the study. 28   table 4: stem distribution by range post and height classes range posts stems/ha stems in range post in 000 < = 1.5 m > 1.5 m < = 1.5 m > 1.5 m dethala 82 294 71 254 joljibi 367 567 119 184 khalanga 659 108 2289 376 khandeswori 278 700 1413 3561 khar 162 865 416 2226 rapla 249 492 572 1131 average/ total 316 509 4881 7733 the number of tall size stems is relatively less than that of big size stems (table 3). the share of tall and small size stems is about 61 % and 39 % respectively. biomass of lokta bark the average weight of the lokta bark by diameter classes is given in table 5. the bark weight of an average stem was found to be about 112 grams. similarly, per hectare bark weight at district level was found to be equivalent to about 110 kg. a total of 1609 tons of lokta bark has been estimated for the entire areas covered by the study. fsro (1984) had estimated the lokta bark in five development regions of the country and found out less stocking in lower elevation (5000-7500 ft) and higher stocking in upper elevation (7500 – 10000 ft). the highest stocking was about 313 kg per hectare in the upper elevation of eastern developmentregion and lowest was about 0.268 kg per hectare in lower elevation of central development region. while the growing stock of lokta bark in the farwestern development region was just about 25 kg per hectare in upper elevation and about 11 kg table 5: biomass stock of lokta bark dia. classes average bark biomass total weight in district (tons) per ha (kg) per stem (gram) < = 2 cm 6.1 43.9 89.8 2 4 cm 31.6 65.8 461.9 4 6 cm 16.9 120.7 247.2 > 6 cm 55.4 251.8 810.2 average/total 110.0 112.3 1609.0 in lower elevation. but the study had remarked in its fi nding that per hectare fi gure may not be applicable for small areas due to very broad nature of survey. about half of the total bark from a randomly selected lokta distribution area comes from > 6 cm diameter class. around 30 % of the bark may come from 24 cm diameter class followed by 4 6 cm diameter class and < 2 cm diameter class. there is highly signifi cant difference in the mean per hectare bark biomass of different diameter classes in the district (α = 0.05, p = 7.8-6). exploitable bark biomass it would be convenient for managers if the total lokta bark is separated into exploitable and nonexploitable categories. lokta stems with more than 3 cm were considered as exploitable size in this study. in the earlier practices, the stems with more than 2 m in height were considered as exploitable size (fs, 1983). the exploitable and non-exploitable bark biomass of lokta plant in all studied range posts is given in table 6. 29  table 6: bark biomass of lokta plant by stem sizes range post area (ha) bark biomass (tons) total bark biomass (tons) non exploitable size exploitable size dethala 862.5 17.5 77.4 94.9 joljibi 325.0 6.6 29.2 35.8 khalanga 3475.0 70.4 311.9 382.3 khandeswari 5087.5 103.1 456.7 559.7 khar 2575.0 52.2 231.1 283.3 rapla 2300.0 46.6 206.4 253.0 grand total 14625.0 296.3 1312.7 1609.0 the per hectare average bark biomass of nonexploitable and exploitable categories were about 20 kg and 90 kg respectively, amounting to about 110 kg per hectare at district level. the total bark biomass from exploitable size of lokta stem was found higher in khandeswari range post and lower in joljibi (table 6). estimation of annual production two types of rotations: four years and six years, have generally been recommended for lokta bark harvesting (mathema, 1990; fsro, 1984; fs, 1983). a minimum of four years rotation should be maintained to provide minimum regeneration period for establishment. six years rotation ensures more sustainable production of lokta bark compared to four years rotation. the total production of the lokta bark from the exploitable annual production is based on per hectare annual yields of lokta bark which is about 22 kg in four years rotation period and 15 kg in six years rotation period. about 87% of the bark weight was found in exploitable category on the basis of diameter class. the annual yield of lokta bark from six years rotation for the whole district is only about two-third of the four years rotation. conclusion the distribution of daphne spp. varies greatly by range posts in darchula district, both in terms of per hectare and total stems. the per hectare average bark biomass from exploitable stem category was about 90 kg at district level which is about 87 % of the total bark biomass. the annual yield of lokta bark from six years rotation is about 15 kg per hectare for the whole district which is only about two-third of the four years rotation. nepali handmade paper production table 7: annual production of lokta bark based on 4 and 6 years rotation rangepost area (ha) annual production (tons) 4 years 6 years dethala 862.5 19.4 12.9 joljibi 325.0 7.3 4.9 khalanga 3475.0 78.0 52.0 khandeswori 5087.5 114.2 76.1 khar 2575.0 57.8 38.5 rapla 2300.0 51.6 34.4 grand total 14625.0 328.2 218.8 size of the stem based on diameter classes for four years and six years rotations are presented in table 7. enterprises can be developed in darchula district from annual yield production based on six years rotation which might support the livelihood and income level of the rural people in the district. 30   acknowledgement we are thankful to ansab for providing fi nancial support to conduct the study. we would also like to appreciate the district forest offi ce darchula for facilitating the fi eld work. references ansab. 2004. non timber forest products in newspaper (in nepali). asia network for sustainable agriculture and bioresources (ansab), kathmandu, nepal. dfo darchula. 2005. district forest office, darchula district, khalanga, nepal. dof. 2004. hamro ban (in nepali). department of forests. kathmandu, nepal. fao. 2010. global forest resource assessment. united nations food and agricultural organization. rome, italy. frd, 1991. annual report 1990/91. nepaluk forestry research project. kathmandu, nepal. fs. 1983. forest management plan for sustainable production and utilization of lokta biomass in hatia range post, baglung district, nepal. fsro, 1984. preliminary survey report of lokta vegetation. publication no. 41. forest survey and research offi ce, kathmandu, nepal. jackson, j. k. 1987. manual of afforestation in nepal. 2nd edition. forest research and survey centre, kathmandu, nepal. jeanrenaud j. p. and thompson, i. j.1986. daphne (lokta), bark biomass production: management implications for paper making in nepal. commonwealth forestry review 65 (2): 117-130. mathema, p. 1990. baglung lokta inventory report. forestry research division. forest research and survey centre, kathmandu, nepal. mofsc. 2004. herbs and non timber forest products development policy. ministry of forests and soil conservation. government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. mpfs. 1989. master plan for the forestry sector. hmg/ adb/ finnida, kathmandu, nepal. mprc. 2011. district development profi le of nepal (2010/11): a socio-economic database of nepal. mega publication and research centre, kathmandu, nepal. ncfp. 1994. lokta (daphne species): the supply situation in basantapur area. nepal-uk community forestry project. kathmandu, nepal. npc. 2010. three years plan (2010-2013). national planning commission. government of nepal. kathmandu, nepal. pokharel, r. k. 1989. production of hand-made paper from lokta in sankhuwasabha. banko janakari 2 (2): 145-148. final bankojanakari vol 17-1.pmd 49 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 decentralisation and state-sponsored community forestry in asia editors : henry scheyvens, kimihiko hyakumura, and yoshiki seki publisher : institute for global environmental strategies (iges), japan year : 2007 pages : 120+xiv isbn : 4-88788-031-6 this book is the outcome of the study on the transitions in forest governance in seven countries viz. india, nepal, cambodia, the philippines, thailand, viet nam and china conducted by the forest conservation project of the institute for global environmental strategies (iges). it includes eight chapters : chapter 1 is all about the introduction while the rest of the chapters deal with the individual studies in the seven countries. the introductory chapter on “forest governance in a state of transition” by henry scheyvens, kimihiko hyakumura, and yoshiki seki has been categorized into three parts viz. part a, part b and part c. part a describes historical context of forest governance transition, provides a concept of good governance, explains the elements of the transition and finally illustrates rationale and research methodology of the study. similarly, part b provides summary of the individual country studies. likewise, part c highlights the progress and shortcomings of the approach in seven country studies as well as suggests recommendations. the individual country chapter analyses history of forest management, forest governance at present, decentralization and community forestry policies and their impacts. case studies of each country illustrate the transitions in forest governance at the local level. each chapter concludes with policy recommendations to improve forest governance (decentralization processes and formal community forestry programs) to attain sustainable forest management in the concerned country. for instance, chapter 3 on “good forest governance in nepal” by k.r. kanel provides overview of good forest governance, political and socioeconomic situation, policies and institutions for forest management, decentralization of forest management with examples of different participatory forest management models and comprehensive description on community forestry. he has presented a case study of the ‘ghorlas community forest user group’ in western nepal as an illustration of good governance in community forestry. finally, some recommendations have been suggested to improve forest governance in nepal. there is no question that the book is a timely and welcome addition to the growing body of literature evaluating forest governance in transition. all the chapters on the comprehensive studies written by a large number of international authors highlight the transitions in the forest governance in the seven asian countries, and provide policy recommendations for sustainable forest management in the countries. the reference section of each chapter adds to the value of the book. with a wide-ranging insight into different forest management approaches in asian countries in a single volume, this book is indeed best suited as a useful reference for researchers, managers, and practitioners in the field of forestry and rural development. shiva khanal depaertment of forest research and survey babarmahal, kathmandu book review final corrected banko janakari 19-2.pmd banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 20 harvesting methods of cinnamomum tamala leaves in private land: a case study from udayapur district, nepal d. lamichhane1 and n.k. karna2 tejpat (cinnamomum tamala) leaf is commercially one of the important non-timber forest products of nepal. this paper attempts to elaborate and analyze the harvesting methods and techniques of tejpat grown by the farmers in their private land. the study was conducted in the villages of udayapur district where tejpat was widely cultivated and harvested for income generation and trading purposes. almost all farmers with private land had planted tejpat. complete lopping of leaves once a year was the exclusive practice for harvesting. the collection period for leaf was from ashoj (october) to magh (february) but the period for bark varied greatly, i.e. from kartik to poush (november to january) and baisakh / jestha (may / june). bark collection was done only from old, dying, diseased and low leaf producing trees. average number of trees per household ranged from 10 to 155. the mean diameter at breast height (dbh) of the trees was 39.58 cm. there was high positive correlation between the dbh and fresh weight of leaf. fitting of linear regression of fresh weight of leaf with dbh proved that the relationship was statistically significant at 5% level of significance. the minimum age and size of trees for leaf harvesting were found to be five years and 16.18 cm, respectively. keywords: fresh weight, harvesting, private land, tejpat tejpat (cinnamomum tamala, buch.-ham.) belongs to lauraceae family and is widely distributed throughout south asian countries. the tree is commercially known as indian cassia. it grows wild in nepal in between 450-2100 m elevation. it is commercially cultivated especially in udaypur and palpa districts (bhattarai, 2001). it has been used in traditional medicines as an astringent, stimulant and carminative. the leaves of c. tamala have been used in nepal for flavouring food and as medicinal ingredient. the leaves are used as a spice but can be employed with myrobalans during dyeing and in the manufacture of vinegar. it is also used as fodder. the essential oil from the leaves is also used as a flavouring agent. the components of tejpat leaf oil were constituted of linalool (54.66%), a-pinene (9.67%), p-cymene (6.43%), b-pinene (4.45%), limonene (2.64%) and sixteen minor components less than 2% (upadhaya et al., 1994). the leaf oil is a rich source of eugenol (krishnamurthy, 1996). the bark has been used as a substitute for true cinnamon, cinnamomum zelanicum breyn, which does not grow in nepal (jackson, 1994). tejpat leaf and bark fall under low value products in nepal, unlike jatamansi, chirayito, etc. (amatya and shrestha, 2003). both wild and domesticated cinnamomum species fulfill subsistence requirements of many people especially for members of minority ethnic groups living in economically disadvantaged and physically remote locations of nepal (parajuli, 1997). tejpat is generally harvested in dry and mild weather from october to december and in some places, the collection is continued till the month of march (upadhaya et al., 1994). tejpat leaves are 10-15 cm long, opposite with three veins running from the base to the apex and lanceolate with short blunt points. the leaves are collected once a year from young trees, and every other year from old and weak ones (krishnamurthy, 1996). in harvesting the tejpat leaf, the small branches are excised with the leaves and dried in the shade for 3-4 days. the leafy branches are then bundled for the market. on an average, 13 kg of dry leaves may be obtained from a tree but the quantity depends upon the local factors; a tree can yield from 8-20 kg of dry leaves in a year (tisc, 2003). according to bhattarai (2001) a tree produces 10-25 kg of dry leaves and its 0.2-0.4% oil can be extracted from leaves. timely collection of leaf is important since early and late collection may result in poor quality of the leaves or essential oil. generally, leaves should be harvested before flowering. high rainfall 1 assistant research officer, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. email: dhananjayalamichhane@ yahoo.com 2 assistant research officer, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. lamichhane and karna banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 21 table 1 : an overview of tejpat cultivation variable/particular mean std. dev. minimum maximum family size 8 5 12 trees/hh 72 10 155 annual income/ tree/hh (nrs.) 1200 200 2500 dbh (cm) 39.58 10.08 16.18 53.39 height (m) 8.17 1.72 5 12 fresh weight of leaf (kg) 110.35 57.41 16 205 reduces the aroma of leaves. since the cultivation cost is modest, this is a profitable crop (bhattarai, 2001). the price paid to the collectors has no relation to the wholesale price at the terminal market (khatri, 1994). edwards (1996) has documented tejpat as an important non-timber forest product nepal trades with india. although some studies have been carried out on tejpat inventory and leaf/bark biomass for some districts, studies on scientific harvesting methods are lacking and systematic researches on this species have not been done. the purpose of the study was to explore and analyze the harvesting techniques of tejpat leaf; and to relate the green weight of tejpat leaf with different ages. materials and methods the study was conducted on private forest lands and farmland plantation areas of udayapur district in eastern nepal. the forests in this district ranges from terai to mahabharat range. the forest types include tropical evergreen forest to alder forest. more than 80% area is in high temperature zone. the rest of the areas has temperate climate. most of this region are extremely sloped in the northern part of churiya. some of the district lies on plain lands. the study was confined to betani, huwas, ranibas, jyamirpakho, jyamitar and damling villages of khabu vdc ward no. 1, 2 and 8 of udayapur district. the total number of respondents (both male and female) was 200, and the main ethnic groups represented of the study area were magar, rai, and brahmin. the existing traditional and advanced techniques of harvesting methods were identified by social survey. a set of questionnaires was used for interviews with farmers who had grown tejpat trees on their private land and had been harvesting bark and leaf. after identifying the different harvesting techniques used by the farmers, a total of 42 trees with different ages were selected for the assessment of the existing harvesting methods by cutting and weighing of the leaves. field work encompassed social survey, trees selection, diameter at breast height (dbh) and height measurement, harvesting of leaf and weight measurements. the records of all activities were documented carefully and precisely. the main variables measured were: number of trees per household (hh), dbh, fresh weight of leaf, and height of the trees. the height of the trees was estimated sunto-clinometer. different groups of stakeholders such as primary producers/collectors, district cooperatives, community forest user groups, and the district forest office were consulted. informal discussions with selected collectors at local markets, group discussion with tejpat growing farmers, discussion with traders at the road head of gaighat were done. the district forest office staff including concerned field ranger and farmers were consulted for information relating to tejpat cultivation and harvesting. they were mainly asked questions relating to their experience and traditional knowledge on leaf harvesting methods for high productivity and sustainability of the trees. results and discussion cultivation of tejpat agriculture was the exclusive livelihood of the majority of the people in the area, although a few were involved in agriculture and shop keeping, and agriculture and labor. the family size ranged from 5 to 12 with an average of 8. almost all farmers were found to have owned private land and cultivated tejpat trees. the average number of trees per household was 72, ranging from minimum 10 to maximum 155 trees (table 1). most of the trees were of the age between 5-25 years. regarding dbh and frequency of the trees, the dbh range of harvestable trees was 16.18 cm to 53.59 cm and their corresponding height was 5 m to 12 m, respectively. they were grown mainly on marginal lands, risers, and farmlands. tejpat regeneration was from the seedlings collected from natural forest and then from self germination by seed dispersal from mother trees, but only a very few (about 10%) originated from nursery seedlings. the trees generally had not been planted but sprouted from the mother trees in the lamichhane and karna banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 22 locality. very few plantations had been done by collecting seedlings from natural forest of tejpat or from nursery seedlings. growth and productivity a linear regression line was fitted for fresh weight of leaves and dbh class. the regression coefficient of explanatory variable (i.e. dbh) was statistically significant (t = 13.22, p>|t| = 0.000 at 5% level of significance, table 4). the f-test indicated the variances between the two variables were significantly different. fitting a simple linear regression line by ordinary least square method (figure 3), the estimated regression equation was: y = a + b dbh or fresh weight (y) = -92.98 + 5.14 dbh, where: a = constant, b = regression coefficient the plotted data indicated that the deviation of the fresh weight values from the estimated line was higher for high dbh values of trees. table 2 : tree size and leaf production dbh class (cm) no. of trees average fresh weight (kg) 10-20 2 18 20-30 7 40 30-40 10 82 40-50 16 128 50-60 7 190 the harvesting of tejpat leaf and bark was dependent on the age and growth pattern of the trees. although the range of the tree age was from one year seedling to 25-year old, the harvesting of leaves began at five years age. the average productivity per tree could be classified into three categories: 100 kg for 5-10 years old tree as low, 100-200 kg for 10-15 years as medium, and more than 200 kg for 15 years and older trees as good (kilogram was estimated from bhari, 1 bhari = approximately 35 kg of fresh leaf). the trees grouped into different dbh classes depicted that most of them were of 40 cm 50 cm dbh (table 2). the average fresh weight of leaves per tree for different dbh classes ranged from 18 kg to 190 kg. the trees grown by the farmers revealed moderate negative skewness and a mean dbh of 39.58 cm (figure 1). biomass estimation correlation coefficients were calculated to find the degree of association between different variables. there were highly significant positive correlations between dbh, height and fresh weight of leaf (table 3) and also high positive correlation between the height and fresh weight of leaves. the correlation was good enough to estimate the leaf biomass. fig. 1 : frequency of trees according to dbh 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 10-20 20-30 30-40 40-50 50-60 dbh class n o . o f tr ee s table 4 : fitting of regression for dbh and fresh weight of leaf fresh weight coefficient std. err. t-value p>|t| 5% significance level, two tailed test dbh 5.14 0.38 13.22 0.000 constant -92.98 15.86 -5.86 0.000 f (1, 40) = 174.75, prob. > f = 0.000, r2 = 0.81 table 3: correlation between different variables variable dbh (cm) height (m) fresh weight of leaf (kg) dbh (cm) 1.0000 height (m) 0.9123 1.0000 fresh weight of leaf (kg) 0.9021 0.8955 1.0000 lamichhane and karna banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 23 lamichhane and karna harvesting and use both leaves and bark, called dalchini, were harvested once a year. the collection period of leaves was from ashoj (october) to magh (february) for all farmers. however, the time of bark collection varied from kartik-poush (december–january), baisakh-jestha (may/june) according to the respondents. the reason for choosing may to june for bark collection was for assessing the sprouting of new leaves on lopped trees and to decide whether or not to debark if any leaves had sprouted up. further, they revealed that the bark was collected from old, dying, diseased, and thinned trees and the trees producing few leaves. factors such as age, dbh, and height of tree and leaf collection time were considered for leaf harvesting. age and maturity were important considerations for bark collection. in most cases, handpicking was preferred for leaf collection because the tools could injure the trees. however, khukuri was used for older branches. the entire foliage were harvested at one go. karda (= knife) was a very common tool for debarking the tree from top to bottom as it was easy to debark from the top. sometimes trees were felled and debarked. leaf and bark were chiefly used as spice, cuisine flavor, fodder/ bedding for cattle, and for medicines. the small branches and debarked wood were used for fuelwood. handpicking drying sale was the sequence. the products were purchased by local traders. existing problems and needs lack of scientific knowledge on cultivation and harvesting of tejpat was the overriding problem. there were no training opportunities for the farmers. other common problems included: leaf and bark diseases, storage problem of harvested products, no regular or systematic markets, dependency and monopoly of traders, and no availability of market in the vicinity. other bottlenecks were low price, no processing, treatment and transport facilities, and cost ineffectiveness. warm, dry room with limited ventilation and jute sack were needed for storage. identification of suitable land for tejpat cultivation was a serious anxiety for farmers. the need for training to the farmers on tejpat cultivation is urgent. there is a need for training to the farmers on treatment of disease, high productivity, information on processing, market structure, etc. similarly, observation tours, trainings and other extension activities are equally important for introducing scientific management systems. provision of modern harvesting tools, market facility in the vicinity, seed, fertilizer and treatments, and proper product pricing system with no monopoly could be some measures to tackle the problems. market control for optimum pricing could be manipulated by the government. effective initiatives from the government and concerned agencies are required for the promotion of tejpat cultivation. conclusion the study on harvesting methods of tejpat leaf in private land of eastern nepal has come to the following conclusions: 1. almost all farmers who had private lands had planted tejpat trees. 2. the complete lopping of leaves was once a year; bark collection only from old, dying, diseased and low leaf producing trees. the collection period for leaves was from october to february but for bark, it varied from december to january and may / june. 3. the average number of trees per household ranged from 10 to 155. the mean diameter at breast height (dbh) of the trees was 39.58 cm. the minimum age and size of trees for leaf harvesting were found to be five years and 16.18 cm respectively. the average fresh weight of leaves per tree for different dbh classes ranged from 18 kg to 190 kg. 4. there was positive correlation between the dbh and fresh weight of leaf. fitting of linear regression between fresh weight of leaf and dbh showed that the estimate was statistically significant at 5% level of significance. 0 50 100 150 200 20 30 40 50 60 dbh (cm) fitted values fresh weight of leaf (kg) fig. 2 : linear regression between dbh and fresh weight of leaf banko janakari, vol. 19, no. 2 24 5. some technical and financial supports are needed in that area to enhance the capacity of the farmers and local communities for tejpat cultivation. there is a need for training to the farmers on treatment of disease, scientific harvesting/ processing, high productivity, market structure. references amatya, s.m. and shrestha, k.r. 2003. nepal forestry handbook. nepal foresters’ association, kathmandu. tisc 2003. biomass table of tejpat. tree improvement and silviculture component (tisc), department of forest, kathmandu. bhattarai, d.r. 2001. jadibuti manjari. mana, kathmandu. edwards, d. m. 1996. non-timber forest product from nepal: aspects of the trade in medicinal and aromatic plants. foresc monograph 1/ 96, forest research and survey center, nepal jackson, j.k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. 2nd edition. forest research and survey centre, kathmandu. khatri, d.b. 1994. nepal country report. in: non – wood forest products in asia. (eds.), p.b. durst, w. ulrich & m. kashio, fao regional office for asia and the pacific, bangkok. krishnamurthy, t. 1996. minor forest products of india. oxford and ibh publishing co. pvt. ltd., new delhi parajuli, d.p. (1997). cultivation of cinnamomum tamala on marginal lands for greater income at palpa district. banko janakari 8(1): 24-32. upadhaya, s.p., kirihata, m. and ichimoto, i. 1994. cinnamon leaf oil from cinnamomum tamala grown in nepal. journal of the japanese society for food science and technology 41(7): 512-514 lamichhane and karna final bankojanakari vol 17-1.pmd 39 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 a brief appraisal of existing main environmental issues in nepal and potential intervention to solve the perceived problems shree gopal jha1 in nepal, various developmental activities have created a number of environmental problems such as loss of forest, forest degradation, soil erosion, air pollution, water pollution and unmanaged solid-waste. it is imperative that environmental consideration and its management in development planning play a crucial role in enabling and sustaining poverty reduction. to overcome environmental problems, the government, ngos, & ingos have successfully applied and stressed for potential intervention through policy and legislative measures and various economic instruments. this paper highlights briefly the present main environmental issues in nepal, and stresses the potential intervention through various measures to mitigate the perceived environmental problems. key words: environment, pollution, measures, forest, degradation, soil, instrument plans, and programs, monitoring and evaluating programs and create public awareness. in the early 2005, the mope was dissolved and its environment division was merged with the then ministry of science and technology which was later renamed as the ministry of environment, science and technology (moest). environmental issues the causes and consequences of environmental degradation may be of different magnitude and scale, and are changing both in urban and rural areas. the urban environmental problems are more related to pollution and the resultant effects on human health is apparent whereas in the rural areas where about 90 percent of the total population resides, environmental problems are largely related to depletion of forest resources, loss of top soil, watershed disruption, landslides, decline in farm production, flooding, indoor pollution and misuse of pesticides and insecticides. all these have cumulative effects on physio-biological and socioeconomic environment and the quality of life. the environmental protection council has identified the following environmental issues for nepal: i) loss of forest use of forests and their products for different purposes has significantly changed forest cover during the last four decades in nepal. of the total 6.4 million ha of forest estimated in 1964, only 5.5 million ha nepal is one of the most ecologically wealthy but economically distressed countries in south asia. the country is rich in ecological diversities with slightly over 80 percent of the land covered by rugged hills and mountains. in nepal, various developmental activities have created a number of environmental problems due to inadequate consideration of the environmental aspects and management of natural resources in a sustainable manner. consideration of environment in development activities has evolved from the mid 1980s when the government of nepal (gon, then his majesty’s government of nepal) endorsed the national conservation strategy. the environmental campaign was geared up only after the restoration of democracy in the beginning of 1990s. particularly, since the country’s high-level participation in the rio earth summit in 1992, the value of environmental management has been realized at different levels such as political, developmental and socio-economical. the government of nepal has given mandate to the environmental protection council 1992 to advise the government on environmental affairs. realizing the need of the integration of the environmental aspects through institutional arrangement in development planning and administration, the gon has established the ministry of population and environment (mope) on 22nd september, 1995. during the period, the ministry focused its activities to prepare and enforce environmental legislation and guidelines, human resource development for the environmental sector, formulation and implementation of policies, 1 deputy director general, department of forest research and survey. email: shreegjha@yahoo.com 40 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 forest area was in natural stock. it was estimated that a total of 0.1 million ha forest in the siwalik and terai were cleared under the government settlement program during 1950-1985 (dfrs, 1999). depletion of forest area is further aggravated as a result overgrazing, excessive fuelwood collection, continued extraction of non-timber forest products, fire, conversion of forest land to cropland and infrastructure development such as road, canals and transmission line. according to the dfrs (1999), more than 120,000 ha forest has been cleared for infrastructure development. the terai and the middle mountain regions are severely affected by the change in forest cover (hmg/adb/finnida, 1988). about 15 percent of the forest area in the terai region has been lost during the period of 12 years between 1978/79 and 1990/91. based on this information, the present deforestation rate particularly in the terai has been estimated to be 1.3 percent per annum (foresc, 1994). forest is the principle source of fuel wood in nepal. according to the ministry of finance, energy consumption in nepal excessively depends on fuelwood which represents 78% of the total fuel consumption. in the rural areas, wood consumption exceeds 94% of the total fuel consumption thereby causing excessive depletion of the forest area (wecs, 2006). ii) loss of bio-diversity nepal is in the 25th position in terms of species richness at the global level. it covers only about 0.1 percent of the total land mass of the world but harbors about 2 percent of flowering plants, 3 percent of pteridophytes and 6 percent of bryophytes of the world’s flora. about 5 percent (246 species) of the total flora reported are endemic to the country (mfsc, 1997). in 1996, the trust for nature conservation (then king mahendra trust for nature conservation) reported that 48 species of plants, 26 mammals, 8 birds and 3 reptiles were categorized as being endangered. obviously, the primary reason behind the loss of biodiversity is habitat loss or disturbances. in general, species outside the protected areas are under great pressure due to habitat loss and or degradation, over-extraction and illegal collection of forest products and poaching & hunting of wild animals. wild animals are illegally hunted or poached due to increase in price of their products. for example, the sloth bear is hunted for its gall bladder, rhino for horn and tiger and leopard for skin and bones. altogether 63 rhinos were either illegally hunted or poached during the last two decades (mfsc, 1997; dnpwc, 2001). clearing and burning forests, draining and filling wetlands, converting natural ecosystems into agricultural land, and meeting the demand for fuelwood, fodder, litter, medicinal plants, and animals for meat and other requirements have resulted in a huge loss of biodiversity (adb/ icimod, 2006). iii) soil erosion over two-thirds of nepal’s total land area of 14.7 million hectares falls under the watersheds of the major river systems viz. koshi, gandaki and karnali. at present, about 0.4 percent, 1.5 percent and 11.7 percent of the watersheds are reported to be in very poor, poor, and fair conditions in terms of land degradation. apart from the soil loss due to natural causes, various human activities such as encroachment on the forest land, cultivation on steepland, improper farming activities and over grazing have ultimately led to heavy loss of soil and thereby declining soil fertility. intensity of soil loss is found to be less in the cultivated lowlands as compared to that in the rain-fed sloping terraces, ranging from as low as 7.8 tons/ha/year in the forested swanlike hills to as much as 570 tons/ha/year in the unforested mid-hills (cbs, 2004). the department of soil conservation estimates that on an average, 1.7 mm of topsoil is being eroded in each monsoon cycle (wagley, 1997). it has been reported that about onethird of the total area has either little or is devoid of vegetation cover, while two-third of the country is geologically fragile. in the middle mountains, the man : land ratio is comparatively high and soil erosion is pronounced due to the vegetative cover being replaced by annual crop as a part of subsistence living. iv) air pollution people are facing the problems of air pollution in two ways indoor air pollution in the rural areas and outdoor pollution in the urban areas. the rural areas are engulfed by heavy indoor air pollution that results from combustion of biomass in the poorly ventilated kitchen room. the smoke from biomass fuels is a complex mixture of aerosols containing significant amounts of carbon monoxide, suspended particulate matter, hydrocarbons, and nox (naeher et al., 2005). exposure to indoor air pollution carries severe health threats. exposure to the smoke from a day’s cooking is equivalent to smoking two packets of cigarettes directly affecting lungs, chest and other problems jha 41 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 the quality of the petrol and diesel fuel generally available in the market has also contributed to air pollution because of the low octane and high content of lead and carbon. the study showed that the lead concentrations in the ambient air in the municipal streets of kathmandu city are many fold higher than the background value found in the normal soil (<0.01 ppm for garden soil). when solid particles containing lead are inhaled, they are trapped in the blood system causing adverse effect on blood formation, vitamin metabolism and neurological process (bhattarai and shrestha, 1981). v) water pollution water resource is one of the major natural endowments of nepal. the country is drained by more than 6,000 rivers with considerable flow variation. the water is also highly contaminated with calceiform bacteria, iron and ammonia, and exceeds who standards. water pollution is the most serious public health issue in nepal. the rivers have become major places for urban solid waste disposal and dumping, and for industrial effluents, all of which are responsible for deteriorating the river-water quality and contributing to waterborne diseases e.g. diarrhea, dysentery, cholera and typhoid resulting from consumption of contaminated water. these water-related diseases are generally caused by poor sanitation and poor water quality (dohs, 2005). use of ground water for drinking purpose is extensive in the kathmandu valley. about 46 percent of water supply in kathmandu and lalitpur is from underground source. drinking water in most of the rural parts also experience biological contamination. river sources along the human settlements in the country are virtually unfit for human use. one year water quality monitoring record of the bagmati river indicates a high level of discharge and or disposal of oxygen-demanding-wastes in the river. most of the houses and industries in the kathmandu valley directly drain their sewage, animal waste and biomass into the streams or near the water sources. a water pollution study in the kathmandu valley reveals that domestic effluent is nine times greater than the industrial output (ness, 1995). the records at the sukraraj tropical infectious disease hospital in kathmandu show that about 16% of all deaths are due to waterborne diseases (stidh, 2004). vi) solid waste solid waste is a common environmental problem in urban areas. major cities have experienced high rate (warwick et al., 2004). studies have also been conducted to know the level and impact of indoor pollution on human health in the rural areas. a study revealed that women spend about 20 percent of their work time in cooking-related-activities and they are exposed to smoke with all the consequences of acute respiratory tract infection and chronic bronchitis. the prevalence of chronic bronchitis is maximum with 29.0 percent in jumla and 8 percent in the middle hill region of urban kathmandu. indoor pollution in industries also poses a considerable threat to the health of workers (pandey, 1985). the major concern of air pollution is outdoor pollution in urban areas. vehicular traffic in the towns like pokhara, kathmandu, biratnagar and birgunj has been increasing rapidly. the major sources of air pollution are vehicular and industrial emissions and combustion of fossil fuels. vehicular emission is much aggravated by leaded fuel, narrow streets, and poor traffic management, import of old vehicles and poor maintenance. the number of vehicles registered in nepal as of march, 1998 totals about 0.2 million comprising of more than 50% of two wheelers. among the vehicles, buses and trucks, tempos and two stroke motorcycles are probably the most significant contributors of air pollution. studies conducted on air quality in kathmandu valley have shown that ambient suspended particulate matter exceeded the who limits (devkota, 1998). nepal is now trying to control vehicular exhaust emission through color rating i.e. issuing green and red stickers as per vehicle performance and exhaust emission standards. it is notable that high number of diesel vehicles are not able to get green stickers. in the absence of continuous monitoring of ambient air quality, it is virtually impossible to derive any significant conclusion on quality scenarios. further deterioration of air quality is expected due to continuous increase of different types of vehicles in the city, complaints of fuel adulteration and inefficient vehicle repair and maintenance workshops. industries also contribute to increase the ambient load of air pollutants. an industrial pollution inventory carried out by the industrial pollution control management project indicated altogether 3,150 numbers of air polluting industries, which emit about 76,400 tons of total suspended particulate matter (tsp) annually. tsp load in the kathmandu valley atmosphere from medium and large sized industrial sectors is estimated to be 104 tons per day (devkota and neupane, 1994). jha 42 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 of population growth and unmanaged urban development resulting in an increasing volume of solid waste. the inappropriate solidwaste disposal on rivers has adversely affected the quality of water and aesthetic value of rivers and cities. in the kathmandu valley, the people from the settlement area wrap garbage in polythene bags and either throw it in open spaces or put it outside around their household boundaries so that municipal authorities collect the household wastes and dump them in the available open spaces or on river bank or in the sanitary landfill site. chemical, industrial and hospital wastes are hazardous. the fate of hazardous wastes is still unknown. generation of wastes in the health institutions is approximately 5.71 kg per patient per day and out of which nearly 30 percent is hazardous by nature. due to the lack of separate provisions for managing such wastes, they are mixed with municipal refuses. solid waste management problem is often experienced in the kathmandu valley and is gradually spreading in other municipalities like pokhara, biratnagar, birganj and nepalgunj. the solid waste problems are multifaceted because of the change in volume and characters of waste generation, inadequate technology transfer and adoption and lack of public awareness and proper management skills (khanal, 1993; adb/icimod, 2006). potential intervention for the perceived environmental problems the potential intervention for the recognized environmental issues initiated by the government of nepal in order to manage the environment are mainly policy measures, legislative measures and economic measures. they are as follows: i) policy measures the need for the integration of environmental aspects in the development planning was realized in the mid 1970s. the fifth plan (1975-1980) adopted policies and programs on land use, soil conservation and management of national parks & reserves. a national level environmental-friendly policy for the first time was included in the seventh plan (19851990). importance of public participation in the decision making process and the role of women and ngos was also emphasized for the management of the environment. a national conservation strategy and master plan for forestry sector were endorsed and implementation started during the plan period. the eight plan (1992-1997) re-enforced environment management with specific reference to sustainable economic growth, and poverty alleviation. the plan emphasized the need for internalizing the environmental impact assessment (eia) system particularly in development plan and programs. it emphasized the improvement of legislative measures and promotion of environmental awareness at different levels. during this period, master plans for irrigation and livestock were also prepared by integrating environmental aspects. similarly, environmental aspects in the polices of hydro-power, irrigation and industry were incorporated (epc, 1993; mope, 1998). the tenth plan (20022007) re-emphasized environment management as a national level policy. the 10th plan also focuses on internalizing eia system and encouraging participation of ngos and private sector in eia related works. the ninth plan has emphasized to discourage cultivation on unsuitable areas for farming like erosion-prone hills, develop a basis for the promotion of environmental activities of the ngos and the private sectors including expansion of environmental health programs, conservation and management of wetlands, promotion of community forestry through forestry user groups, leasehold forestry management and adoption of appropriate measures to make the city core area pollution-free even by restricting vehicle entry (npc, 2002) and regular testing of vehicular emission. in spite of these policy intervention and local people involvement, the environmental damage is still increasing. ii) legislative measures prior to the legal provisions on environmental assessment, the government of nepal implemented national eia guidelines for forestry and industry sectors in 1995 in order to facilitate the integration of the environmental aspects in the development projects and programs. the present constitution of nepal 1990 article 26 (4) exclusively mentions environmental consideration in the “directive principles of the state”. based on the constitution, a parliamentary committee on environment conservation has been constituted in may, 1998 to deal with the issues on environment, forest, soil conservation, industry, housing and physical planning. there are various sectoral legislations enacted after 1990 dealing directly or indirectly to environmental jha 43 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 issues. but after the establishment of ministry of population and environment in 1995, the gon promulgated the environmental protection act 1996 and its regulations in 1997, and has made it mandatory for most of the developmental projects. the project has been identified to undertake either an initial environmental examination (iee) or an environmental impact assessment (eia) study. whichever is undertaken, the environmental assessment process should explore baseline information about the project and its site, impact identification of socio-economic, biochemical, geophysical and cultural aspects, alternative options, and mitigation measures of adverse impacts. it is mandated that eia will be reviewed and passed by the ministry of population and environment whereas concerned ministries will deal with iee (mope, 1997). altogether, 216 types of developmental activities or projects should follow the environmental assessment process (iee or eia). the majority of such projects involve water resources utilization, industry establishment, and road construction. regarding pollution management, environment protection rule envisages an environmental permit system and the polluters shall have to comply with the environmental standards. a maximum penalty of 0.1 million rupees may be imposed upon any one who implement any project without receiving approval for the iee/eia report. since the government of nepal is lagging behind in monitoring the iee and eia granted projects, environmental assessment is limited to being an administrative tool, such as a license procedure. the present project orientation of the iee/eia process at the top level could hardly deliver its environmental message to the village level where the crux of problems exists. most of the village-level development programs can be economically feasible but are environmentally unfeasible. such development activities have to be carried on without due consideration of the environment due to political interest or pressure. the mechanisms to incorporate the environment into developmental activities at the local governmental level are virtually non-existent and the ministry of population and environment so far has not been able to address this agenda at the policy level (devkota, 1998). economic instruments along with the policy and legal measures, environmental management could be possible through the introduction of economic instrument to attract different stakeholders to comply with the standards. economic instruments like subsidies on biogas plants in the rural areas are likely to have positive impacts on the environment as majority of the local people depend on firewood to meet their energy demand as well as to minimize indoor air-pollution. the government has the policy of providing interest-free loan with a repayment period of seven years and direct subsidy of nrs. 5,000 per plant through agriculture development bank. from this incentive, it has been estimated that about 4.8 tons to 6.5 tons of annual fuelwood per household are being saved (mope, 1998). similarly, alternative energy promotion center in collaboration with ingos and private sector has initiated economic instruments like biogas plants to replace fuelwood for cooking and lighting thereby helping to conserve forests. the number of biogas plants has increased from about 200 in 1975 to 90,000 in 2002 in 66 districts of the country. likewise, economic instrument such as improved cooking stove program has been designed to increase the efficiency of firewood use and to reduce smoke. over 90,000 improved stoves of various types are being distributed throughout the country (adb/icimod, 2006). similarly, occurrence of chronic bronchitis and obstructive lung diseases would also be minimized which largely occur in the rural parts of nepal from firewood burning. the policy of subsidy on kerosene would also contribute to reduce pressure on forests. the environmental protection act 1996 has a provision to provide additional concession and facilities to encourage the industry and enterprises to adopt technologies and processes which cause positive impacts on the environment. the industrial policy also promotes the use of cleaner technologies to increase efficiency in resource use. the national parks and wildlife conservation act, 1973 (amended in 1993) provides a special provision to allocate 30 to 50 percent of the total revenue generated in the protected areas for community development. the promotion of community forests has also direct benefit to the local people to meet the demand of forest products and generated income would be used for community development. these recent economic instruments are expected to bring a positive change in socio-economic condition thereby improving the environmental condition as well (mope, 1998). jha 44 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 discussion and recommendations in order to deliver the message of environmental protection act, there should be a strong monitoring mechanism of environmental assessment (iee or eia) granted project. internalization of environmental assessment process should be encouraged to the line ministries and at district level. the responsibility of moest should be to monitor or even to audit national project. the moest as an environmental manager in the country should lead to manage environmental pollution either by itself or by establishing a competent and an independent body like “pollution control authority”. there is an inadequate facility for safe collection, segregation, transportation and disposal of domestic sewage and municipal waste. a recent policy on inviting the local community and private sector for waste management would possibly help to reuse the waste and show that the waste has a value. effectiveness of present color rating system of vehicles in terms of environmental health system needs to be examined. private sector should also be encouraged to take the responsibility of monitoring of exhaust emission. besides this, government should control numbers of vehicles entry each year with respect to carrying capacity of the roads within the municipalities. biodiversity outside the protected areas are under great pressure due to habitat loss, fragmentation and or degradation, unregulated collection of forest product, and poaching & hunting of wild animals. the gon has prepared a national biodiversity implantation plan (2006-2010) to proceed for biodiversity management. at present, incorporating environmental aspect in sectoral policies and sectoral legislation that are enacted or amended after 1990 has indicated the government’s commitments towards mitigating environmental issues in the nation. similarly, the environment protection act 1996 and the environment protection rule 1997 have been enforced since jun 1997. few economic instruments are also in place to encourage different stakeholders to conserve the environment effectively. besides all these, if the present trend of population growth is not controlled, poverty is not alleviated, political commitment is not ensured and if the continuation of the existing consumption pattern and resource constraints remain the same, environmental degradation are likely to continue in future too. conclusion major environmental issues have emerged from excessive dependence on the use of natural resources, land degradation, depletion of forest resources, unscientific urban development and discharge of untreated effluents, disposal of solid wastes and inadequate integration of the environmental aspects in development planning and implementation. development of the nation will not be sustainable unless the environment is integrated with development works and its management is ensured. references adb/icimod. 2006. environment assessment of nepal: emerging issues and challenges, 41 p. bhattarai, d. r. and shrestha, p. r. 1981. “lead content of the dust in kathmandu city” paper presented at the first annual meeting of nepal chemical society, kathmandu. cbs. 2004. handbook of environment statistics 2003. central bureau of statistics, kathmandu. devkota, s. r. and neupane, c. 1994. industrial pollution inventory of nepal. industrial pollution management project undp/unido/ nep, 29-91, kathmandu. devkota, s. r. 1998. environment management systems in nepal. ecological economic bulletin 3 (1): 16-20. dfrs. 1999. forest resources of nepal (19871998). department of forest research and survey, kathmandu. dnpwc. 2001. annual report (2000-2001). department of national park and wildlife conservation, kathmandu. dohs. 2005. annual report 2003/2004. department of health services, kathmandu. epc. 1993. nepal environmental policy and action plan. hmg/n, ministry of population and environment, singhdurbar, kathmandu, nepal. jha 45 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 foresc. 1994. deforestation in terai districts (1978/79-1990/91). forest survey division, foresc. publication no. 69, 9 p. hmg/adb/finnida. 1988. master plan for the forestry sector : main report. hmg/n, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu. khanal, r. k. 1993. solid waste management in kathmandu valley nepal (m.s. thesis), ait, bangkok. mfsc. 1997. national report on the implementation of the convention on biological diversity. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu. mope. 1997. environment protection act, 1996 and the environment protection rules, 1997. ministry of population & environment, kathmandu. mope. 1998. state of environment in nepal. hmg/n, ministry of population and environment, singhdurbar, kathmandu, nepal. naeher, l. p., smith, k. r., brauer, m., chowdhury, z., simpson, c., koenig, j. q., lipsett m. and zelikoff. j. t. 2005. critical review of the health effects of woodsmoke. university of california, berkley. ness. 1995. research on environmental pollution and management. nepal environment & scientific services, kathmandu. npc. 2002. tenth plan (2002-2007). national planning commission, kathmandu. chapter 2 and chapter 22. pandey, m. r. 1985. domestic smoke pollution and respiratory function in rural nepal. yokaij. exp.clin. med. 10: 471-481. stidh. 2004. records of waterborne disease 2004. sukraraj tropical infectious disease hospital, kathmandu. wagley, m. p. 1997. “policy and program response for combating desertification” report of the national seminar on desertification and land improvement mope/ unccd secretariat, kathmandu. warwick, h. and doig, h. 2004. smoke the killer in the kitchen, indoor air pollution in developing countries. itdg publishing, london. wecs. 2006. energy synopsis report. water and energy commission secretariat, kathmandu. jha final added vol 15-2.pmd 28 folk use of plant resource at madi valley of chitwan district, nepal b.k. bishokarma1, c.k. kinsey2, d.r. dangol3 and p. chaudhary4 the purpose of this study was to compare the use of the forest plant resources and folk nomenclature in the two communities of the madi valley a chitwan district. the information was collected during 2001 from 83 households in chirauli and 57 households in dhikurbari using semi-structured questionnaires. the folk nomenclature and relative importance of the plant species for medicine, firewood, fodder and timber differ in the two communities were recorded. a total of 128 species were reported in use by both communities, out of which 64 were common to both communities. the plant species used only in chirauli accounted for 44 and that in dhikurbari are 20. tharu community of chirauli reported higher number of plant species for medicinal, fodder and forage, fuel wood and timber than that of migrated people of dhikurbari. key words: chitwan is a district where existences of many ethnic groups make a web and offers opportunities to exchange knowledge on use of plant resources. this include naming, use and valuation of forest tree species for different purposes has now been transferred from one community to another. many indigenous plants have been reported for various uses by ethnic communities (khan, 1998; manandhar, 1990; rijal, 1994; shakya et al., 1995; dangol and gurung, 1991; muellerboeker 1993). dangol (2002) has described many forest plant species of this district and their economic value. however, the plant resources used by migrant communities, use-value, naming and relative importance and comparisons in those aspects are yet to the subject of study. hence, an attempt has been made here to document the species diversities that are used by two different communities of the madi valley that differ in social, economic and cultural settings. the study dug out the information on the variation in both the villages on naming, use values and valuation for different purposes. materials and methods survey site the study was conducted in two communities; tharu in chirauli and other migrants at dhikurbari of the madi valley of chitwan district. these villages differ each other in socio-economic and cultural aspects. the people rely on the forest and forest products for their social, economic and cultural requirements. churia hill range, which is rich in forest diversity, extends across the southern frontier of madi region and offers many useful medicine, fodder, fuel wood and timber tree species to the dependents. traditional norms still pervail in both the villages, as the madi area itself is not highly accessible to the big cities and market set up. information collection since the knowledge on the use of forest plant diversity is uniformly distributed among different communities within same ethnic groups, only one village each from tharu community and hill migrant community was purposively selected. in each village, a small tole (cluster) was selected to draw sample population. all the households in the selected tole were then interviewed using semistructured questionnaires. a total of 83 households in chirauli and 57 in dhikurbari were surveyed, each figure representing 80% of total households in each village. 1seed tree nepal, bharatpur, chitwan, nepal 2 executive director, seedtree, inc., usa 3institute of agriculture and animal science, rampur, chitwan, nepal 4the heller school for social policy and management, brandies university, usa 29 results and discussion relative importance of plant resources in two communities out of 128 plant species reported, 64 were common to both communities. forty-four species were reported from chirauli while 20 by dhikurbari. during the survey, it was revealed that neem (azadirachta indica), dudhkaraiya (holar rhena antidycentrica), jamun (syzyzium cumini), bel (agle marmelos) and med (viscum album), were the most commonly used species for medicinal purpose in chirauli, and those of dhikurbari were neem (azadirachta indica), hadchur (med) (viscum album), dahikamle (callicarpa macrophylla), tulsi (ocimum tenuiflorum) and harro (terminalia chebula). for fuelwood, sal (sorea robusta), bakaina (melia azedarach), botdhairo (lagerstromia parviflora), sisau (dalbergia sisoo) and panan (desmodium oojeinense) were most common in chirauli, and sindure (mallotus phillippensis), sal (shorea robusta) baira, piyal and botdhairo (lageresrtomia parviflora), were the most common in dhikurbari. however, many people put several species other than sal in “kukath” category (less important wood), the figures for different species might vary. likewise, people in chirauli valued bakaina, ipilipil (leuceena leucocephala), dumari (ficus racemosa), khanue (ficus semicordata) and panan for fodder, where as in dhikurbari, sajan (demodium oojeinense), galene (leea crispa), khannue (ficus semicordata), lampate (aesculus indica) and gayo (bridelia retusa) were the most valued tree species for fodder purpose. for timber, sal is the most common tree species followed by bakaina, sisoo, satisal (dalbergia latifolia) and panan in chirauli. in dhikurbari, sal is only one species that is used by large number of people followed by bakaina, saj (terminalia alata), gayo and jamun. results on use of each plant species for different purposes have presented in table (2). species use were higher for chirauli (108) while that of dhikurbari was 84 (appendix 1). it revealed that the tharu community used more plant species than did the migrant community. multipurpose trees many of the species reported in the two communities have more than one use, which further increase the importance of those species. in chirauli, a total of 35 species are reported as multipurpose, of which anp (mangifera indica) and jamun have fourfold uses, 11 species have threefold, and the rests 22 have twofold uses. in dhikurbari, only 12 species were reported as multipurpose, of which 5 have threefold uses and rest 7 have twofold uses. most of the multipurpose species reported in both the villages are used for firewood. the result shows that knowledge on naming, use methods and valuation of forest plant diversity in one community differs from another community due to, in part, variation in socio-cultural, economic and political situation. since indigenous people use greater number of forest species more commonly than migrants do, they hold better knowledge and table 1: number of species reported for different purposes in chirauli and dhikurbari. table 2: five most important species for each purpose based on household survey dqg� *d\r� �%ulghold� uhwxvd�� zhuh� wkh�prvw� ydoxhg� wuhh� vshflhv� iru� irgghu� sxusrvh�� )ru� wlpehu�� 6do� lv� wkh� prvw� frpprq� wuhh� vshflhv� iroorzhg� e\� %dndlqd�� 6lvrr�� 6dwlvdo� �'doehujld� odwlirold��dqg�3dqdq� lq�&kludxol�� ,q�'klnxuedul��6do� lv�rqo\�rqh�vshflhv� wkdw� lv� xvhg�e\� odujh�qxpehu�ri�shrsoh� iroorzhg�e\�%dndlqd�� 6dm� �7huplqdold� dodwd���*d\r�dqg� -dpxq�� 7khvh� krxvhkrogv� xvlqj� hdfk� sodqw� vshflhv� iru� gliihuhqw� sxusrvhv� kdyh� suhvhqwhg� lq� 7deoh� ���� dqg� � ����� +ljkhu� qxpehuv� ri� vshflhv� ������zhuh� uhsruwhg� iurp� &kludxol�iru�gliihuhqw�xvh�zkloh�wkdw�ri�'klnxuedul�zdv������dsshqgl[������)ru�doo�wkh�xvh�� kljkhu� qxpehuv� ri� vshflhv�zhuh� uhsruwhg� iurp�&kludxol� lq� frpsdulvrq� wr�'klnxuedul�� )urp� wkh� iljxuh�� lw�zdv� irxqg� wkh�7kdux�frppxqlw\�xvhg�pruh�sodqw�vshflhv� wkdq� wkh� pljudqw�frppxqlw\�glg�� 7deoh����7rwdo�qxpehu�����ri�vshflhv�uhsruwhg�iru�gliihuhqw�sxusrvhv�lq�&kludxol�dqg� 'klnxuedul��� &rppxqlwlhv 0hglflqdo )rgghu�dqg�irudjh )xhozrrg 7lpehu &kludxol ���������� ��������� ������� ��������� 'klnxuedul ���������� ��������� ������� ��������� )ljxuhv�lq�wkh�sduhqwkhvhv�uhsuhvhqw�shufhqwdjhv�ri�wkh�wrwdo�xvhg�vshflhv� 7deoh����)lyh�wrsprvw�lpsruwdqw�vshflhv�iru�hdfk�sxusrvh�edvhg�rq�krxvhkrog�vxuyh\� �qxpehu�ri�krxvh�krog�uhsruwhg��iurp�&kludxol 6�1� 0hglflqdo )rgghu�dqg�irudjh )xhozrrg 7lpehu � 1hhp����� %dndlqr����� 6do����� 6do����� � 'xgkndudl\d����� ,sho�,sho����� %dndlqr����� %dndlqr����� � -dpxq����� 'xpul����� %rwgkdlur����� 6lvdx����� � %ho����� .kdqqxh����� 6lvdx����� 6dwlvdo ���� � 0hg����� 3dqdq����� 3dqdq����� 3dqdq����� )ljxuhv�lq�wkh�sduhqwkhvhv�duh�wkh�wrwdo�krxvhkrogv�uhsruwhg�wkh�vshflhv� 4 ��������� �bridelia retusa ���� ������ � ������� ���� �������� ���� ������� ��������� ���� ������� ���� ��� ��� ��� � ������� ���� �������� ����� ��� ��� ��������� ������� �� ����� �dalbergia latifolia ������������� ���������!��"��������������� �������������������� �� � ��� �������� ���#������������������� ����� �����������������$� �terminalia alata ����������� %������ &����� ����������� ����#� ����� ���� � �������� ���� �������� � ��������� ����� ������ ��� ��� &����� �' � ���� � �( ��)�#���� �������� ��� �������� �*+, � ���� ����� ��� ����� �������������������� ����� ����� �� ����"���������� ����,��������.��* ���������� �������� ��#���� �������� ��� �������� ���� ����� ��� ����� �������� ��� ����������� ��"����������� ����� �����#����� � � ��� ������ ���&������������ ���������������� ��������� ���� ��� ��#��� �������� �������� � &�����*/�&� �����������0 ����������������� ��������������� ������������� ������������ "������������� communities medicinal fodder and forage fuelwood timber chirauli 56 (62.22) 43 (51.8) 45 (75) 18 (60.0) dhikurbari 34 (37.78) 40 (48.2) 15 (25) 12 (40.0) figures in the parentheses represent percentages of the total used species. � &�����'/������ ����� ������ �� ���������������������������������������������������� ��������������������������� �� ������ �������� s.n. medicinal fodder and forage fuelwood timber a. chirauli 1 neem (57) bakaino (80) sal (80) sal (75) 2 dudhkaraiya (36) ipel-ipel (75) bakaino (57) bakaino (38) 3 jamun (30) dumri (55) botdhairo (39) sisau (31) 4 bel (25) khannue (47) sisau (32) satisal (29) 5 med (22) panan (29) panan (22) panan (27) b. dhikurbari 1 neem (32) sajan (28) sindure (46) sal (50) 2 hadchur (28) goleni (20) sal (21) bakaino (15) 3 dahikamle (18) khanue (18) baira (18) saj (12) 4 tulsi (17) lampate (15) piyal (17) gayo (10) 5 harro (10) gayo (12) botdhairo (13) jamun (8) figures in the parentheses are the total households reported the species. � multipurpose trees 1������� ���������������� ������ ��� ��������� �������������� �������������������� �������� ������������� �������� �������� ��������������!�� ����������� � ������(2������ ��� banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2bishokarma et al. 30 understanding of using native plant species. since the several species used by one community differ from those used by another community, there is potential to repatriate planting materials and the knowledge from a place to another. the data also show that many people commonly use several species even though the species used in the two communities vary. more the commonly used for various purposes, higher might be the chance to be exploited and thus eroded. therefore, many species will get endangered if initiative is not taken to conserve and utilize them. this necessitates detailed studies in the indigenous knowledge on morphology, habit and habitat, propagation methods, and the methods of use. in addition to conservation efforts, the useful forest diversity needs to be promoted for the social, economic and ecological benefits in the communities. this is possible only with the active participation of all the concerned stakeholders including local communities, who rely on forest products. involving community forest users groups in problem identification, planning, implementation and evaluation processes can enhance management practices in the participatory action. the locally available species have to be registered using locally available methods and technologies, which will be helpful for certification process in future. there are several multipurpose tree species that need more attention than any other species in order to meet multiple needs of households and communities from a few thriving species where reforestation or tree planting activities can not be introduced. acknowledgements seed tree, inc. is duly acknowledged for financial support to undertake this study. references cited khan, m.h. 1998. documentation of indigenous knowledge in the chepang community of shaktikhor, vdc, chitwan. in: k.k. shrestha, p.k. jha, p. sheingji, a. rastogi, s. rajbhandary and m. joshi (eds.), ethnobotany for conservation and community development, ethnobotanical society of nepal, kathmandu, nepal, 96-101. dangol, d.r. and s.b. gurung. 1991. ethnobotany of the tharu tribe of chitwan district, nepal. int. j. pharmacognosy 29 (3): 203-209. dangol, d.r. 2002. economic uses of forest plant resources in western chitwan, nepal. banko janakari 12(2): 56-64. manadhar, n.p. 1990. folklore medicine of chitwan district, nepal. ethnobotany 2: 31-38. muller-boeker,u. 1993. ethnobotanical studies among the chitwan tharus. journal nepal research center 9: 17-56. rijal, a. 1994. ethnobotany of padampur: analysis of dependency and conflict, m.sc. thesis, norwegian center of international agricultural development. agriculture university of norway. shakya, s.m., d.r. dangol and a. shrivastava. 1995. exploration of under exploited vegetables of chitwan district, nepal. research report submitted to nemp-iucn, nepal.69-92. stn, 2002. annual progress report: integrated human ecology. seed tree nepal, chitwan, nepal. banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 bishokarma et al. 31 contd... banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2bishokarma et al. 8 appendix 1: use of plant species in two communities chirauli dhikurbari s.n. nepali and latin names habit medicine timber fuel wood fodder medicine timber fuel wood fodder 1 amala, phyllanthus emblica t x x 2 amaro, spondias pinnata t x x x 3 amriso, thysanolaena maxima h x x 4 ank, calatropis gigantea s x x 5 ankhlejhar (hadjorni), equisetum debile h x 6 anp, mangifera indica t x x x x x 7 archal, antidesma acidum t x x 8 (asidh) t x 9 babari, ocimum basilium h x 10 (babin) t x 11 babiyo, eulaliopsis binnata h x x 12 (babur), acacia nilotica t x 13 badahar, artocarpus lakoocha t x x x x 14 bakaino (bakena), melia azedarach t x x x x x x 15 banjhi, anogeissus latifolius t x x 16 balu (bariyar), sida rhombifolia h x x 17 bankera, musa nepalensis h x x 18 banso, digitaria spp. h x x 19 bar, ficus benghalensis t x 20 barro (baraiya), terminalia bellirica t x x 21 bayar (bahera), zyziphus nummularia t x 22 bel (bel), agle marmelos t x x 23 betlauri, (larkaiya), costus speciosus h x 24 bhalayo (bhela), semecarpus anacardium t x 25 (bhatte) t x x x 26 bhorla (malhan), bauhinia vahlii c x x 27 bhui amala, phyllanthus urinaria h x x 28 bojho (bach), acorus calamus h x x 29 bot dhairo, lagerstromia parviflora t x x 30 (charari) x 31 charchare lahara, parthnocissus semicordata c x 32 chiuri, aesandra butyracea t x 33 dabdabe (jhengra), garuga pinnata t x 34 dahikamle (dahigona), callicarpa macrophylla h x x 35 dalchini (tejpat), cinnamomum tamala t x x 36 datiun, achyranthes aspera s x 37 dhairo (dhaira), woodfordia fruticosa s x x x x x 38 (dhama) x 39 dhupi, thuja compacta s x 40 dhurseli, colebrookea oppositifolia s x 41 dudhe lahar, trachelospermum lucidum c x 42 dumri (dumari), ficus racemosa t x x x 32 contd... banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 bishokarma et al. 9 chirauli dhikurbari s.n. nepali and latin names habit medicine timber fuel wood fodder medicine timber fuel wood fodder 43 galene, leea crispa t x 44 gandhe jhar, ageratum conyzoides h x x 45 gaujo, milletia extensa s x 46 gayo, bridelia retusa t x x x 47 ghiu kumari, aloe vera h x x 48 ghod tapre, cassia tora h x x 49 ginderi, premna integrifolia t x 50 gudurgano h x x 51 gurjo ko lahara, tinospora sinensis c x x 52 gulmohar, delonix regia t x 53 hadchur (med), viscum album t x x 54 hadebayar (chhoti bayera), zyziphus incurva s x 55 harro (haraiya), terminalia chebula t x x 56 imili, tamarindus indica t x 57 ipil ipil, laeucoena leucocephala t x x x x x 58 jamun (jamu), syzygium cumini t x x x x x x x 59 (jhingad), lannea coromadelica t x x 60 kadam, anthocephalus kadamba t x x 61 kainyo, wendlandia puberula t x x 62 kalikath, glochidion velutinum t x x 63 kans (jhaksi), saccharum spontaneum h x 64 kapok, ceiba pentandra t x x x x 65 karma (haldu), adina cordifolia t x x x x x 66 katahar, artocarpus heterophylla t x x x x 67 khamari, gmelia arborea t x 68 khannue, ficus semicordata t x x x 69 khayar (kattha), acacia catechu t x x x x 70 khirro (dudhkaraiya), holarrhena pubescens t x 71 (khuja) t x x 72 kimbu (muslendi), morus alba t x x 73 koiralo (koirala), bauhinia variegata t x x x 74 (kumpadari) t x 75 kumvi, careya arborea t x 76 kurilo (khonta), asparagus racemosus h x x 77 kusum (athera), scleichiara oleosa t x x x x 78 kutmiro, litsea monopetala t x x x x 79 kyamun (kyamuna), cleistocalyx operculatus t x 80 lajjawati (lajapati), mimosa pudica h x x 81 lampate, aesculus indica t x 82 lankuri, fraxinus floribunda t x x 83 latikath, swida oblonga t x 84 lunde kanda, amaranthus spinosa h x x 85 main kanda, xeromphis spinosa s x 33 10 chirauli dhikurbari s.n. nepali and latin names habit medicine timber fuel wood fodder medicine timber fuel wood fodder 86 (morthaiya), deeringia celisiodes t x 87 mothe (motha), cyperus rotundus h x x 88 neem (nimi), azadirachta indica t x x 89 nimaro (pakadi), ficus roxbeurghii t x x x x 90 palans, butea monosperma t x x 91 patpate , physalis divaricata h x 92 pharsa, grewia pumila s x 93 pidalu (kachu), colocasia antiquorum h x 94 pidar, xeromphis ulignosa t x 95 pipal (pipar), ficus religiosa t x x x 96 pipla (pipari), piper longum h x x 97 piyal t x 98 rajbrikchhya (ahiroga), cassia fistula t x x x 99 rittha, sapindus mukorossi t x 100 rudilo (dlehi bhanthi), pogostemon benghalensis s x x 101 (sahoroti) t x x 102 saj (asna), terminalia alata t x x x 103 sajan (panwan), desmodium oojeinense t x x x x 104 sal (sekhuwa), shorea robusta t x x x x x 105 sal lahara, spatholobus parviflorus c x 106 sarpagandha (dharmaruwa), rauvolfia serpentina h x 107 satisal, dalbergia latifolia t x x x 108 satuwa, paris polyphylla t x 109 (sehuli) s x 110 simal (simar), bombax ceiba t x x x 111 sindure (roeni), mallotus phillippensis t x x x 112 (sinuri) x 113 siris albezia spp. t x x 114 siru, imperata cylindrica h x x 115 sisoo (sisuwa), dalbergia sisoo t x x x 116 sitalchini (sohajan), moringa oleifera t x 117 tanki, bauhinia purpurea t x x x 118 tatelo (patsan) oroxylum indicum t x x x x 119 tantari (tetari), dillenia pentagyna t x x x 120 tapre, cassia tora h x 121 teek (sawan), tectona grandis t x x 122 thakal (khajurati), phoenix humilis h x 123 thotne (kothaiya), ficus hispida t x x x 124 timur, zanthozylum armatum h x 125 titepati (pati), artemisia dubea h x x 126 tulsi, ocimum tenuiflorum h x x 127 (uchharinga) x 128 (vellar), trewia nudiflora t x total 56 18 45 43 34 12 15 40 word in parenthesis indicate tharu name; x indicates species use.� banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2bishokarma et al. final special issue.pmd 36 banko janakari, special issue sustainable wetland management for wildlife and people at koshi tappu wildlife reserve i. thapa1 and b.r. dahal1 koshi tappu wildlife reserve (ktwr) which lies in the lowlands of eastern nepal is the most important wetland for migratory water birds in nepal, and one of the most important in asia. it is surrounded by a buffer zone of 173 km2, in which over 80,000 people live, most of whom are dependent on the natural resource base for their livelihoods. uncontrolled fish harvesting has severely depleted fishery resources depriving local fishermen of their major source of subsistence. annual waterfowl count has indicated a rapid decline of bird species that are heavily dependent on fish populations. the darwin initiative project is assisting local communities around ktwr in managing buffer zone wetlands for sustainable livelihoods, whilst enhancing wetland biodiversity, thus reducing the pressure on resources within ktwr key words: ramsar site, globally threatened species, wetland, community, livelihood wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems on the planet. in addition to supporting exceptional levels of biological diversity, the ecosystem services provided by wetlands contribute to natural disaster prevention or mitigation, poverty reduction, socio-economic development, and water and food security, positively contributing to human health and well-being. however, wetland ecosystems have received less attention in nepal. unsustainable exploitation of resources and loss and degradation of habitat are the main threats to wetlands in nepal. root causes include inadequate capacity and awareness of wetland biodiversity conservation, and high local community dependence on wetland resources but low involvement in their management. nepal has established its first national wetlands policy (2003), the major objective of which is to ‘involve local people in the management of nepal’s wetlands and conserve wetlands with wise use of wetland resources’. to enhance the conservation and wise use of wetlands in nepal, the policy explicitly establishes the need for participatory management of buffer zones; benefit sharing; the development of sustainable wetland eco-tourism; the promotion of wetland conservation awareness, including through the establishment of small information centres; the development of income generating activities; and control. biodiversity conservation has a long history in nepal. early conservation measures involved creating strict protection areas, resulting in a strong protected area network. however, sudden restrictions imposed on people living around protected areas gave rise to discord between park management and local communities. as a result, it was recognised that conservation could not be balanced and sustained without reducing the dependency of local people on protected area resources, and that effective conservation would not be possible without the goodwill and support of local people. a 1994 amendment to the national parks and wildlife conservation act, 1973, allowed park authorities to declare buffer zones adjacent to existing protected areas. these buffer zones are designed as an interface between parks and people, to reduce the impact of a park on local communities, rather than only to protect the park from the impacts of outside intervention. the buffer zone regulations of nepal advocate a community-based approach to the conservation of park resources through the forging of partnership agreements between community organizations and park authorities (dnpwc/mfsc 1999). the objective is to stimulate new livelihood opportunities and the use and development of alternative natural resources. the regulations allow for a proportion of park income to be recycled into local communities 1 bird conservation nepal (bcn), lazimpat, kathmandu, e-mail: ishana@birdlifenepal.org 37 banko janakari, special issue for natural resource management and community development. however, the effectiveness of these regulations in improving local perceptions of protected areas is limited. these issues are brought into focus at koshi tappu wildlife reserve (ktwr) which lies in the lowlands of eastern nepal. the reserve comprises 175 km2, and was gazetted in 1976 to conserve the last remaining wild nepalese population of the globally threatened asiatic water buffalo bubalus arnee. it was declared a ramsar site in 1987, and is the most important wetland for migratory water birds in nepal, and one of the most important in asia (sah 1997; baral and inskipp 2005). it has the largest heronry in nepal (c. 30,000 breeding pairs in 1996). as many as 21 globally threatened bird species have been recorded in the koshi tappu and koshi barrage area which is especially important for some wetland species, notably swamp francolin francolinus gularis, baer’s pochard aythya baeri, pallas’s fish eagle haliaeetus leucoryphus, greater spotted eagle aquila clanga, imperial eagle aquila heliaca, lesser adjutant leptoptilos javanicus and spot-billed pelican pelecanus philippensis. the site is also important for nepal’s nearthreatened birds; 11 of the country’s 19 occur and eight of these are wetland birds (baral and inskipp 2005). other globally threatened species include ganges river dolphin platanista gangetica, nilgai boselaphus tragocamelus, smooth-coated otter lutrogale perspicillata, gharial gavialis gangeticus and redcrowned roof turtle kachuga kachuga. a total of 685 plant species has been recorded including 9 globally threatened plants and 284 wetland macrophytes (sah 1997). the site is surrounded by a buffer zone of 173 km2, in which over 80,000 people live, most of whom are dependent on the natural resource base for their livelihoods (iucn nepal 2004). over-fishing was identified as a major problem at koshi tappu in the nepal biodiversity strategy (hmgn/mfsc 2002). uncontrolled fish harvesting has severely depleted fishery resources depriving local fishermen of their major source of subsistence. fish-farming was initiated as a cage fishery pilot project in koshi tappu during 1994-1997, with support from the wetland conservation fund of ramsar convention, and since 1995-2001 the buffer zone development programme under the parks and people programme further encouraged establishment of fish ponds, just outside the reserve area. the annual waterfowl counts indicate that bird populations are declining and especially of those that are heavily dependent on fish stock with the possibility that this is due to the declining fishery of the reserve. for example, the population of river tern sterna aurantia and black-bellied tern sterna acuticauda shows a decline of 80-90% over the last 20 year period (baral and inskipp 2004). the most noticeable fact is that even after the site was declared as ramsar (1987), population continued to decline. similarly several other species of waterfowls and waders have had over 50% decline in the recent years. possibly as a result of the declining fishery in the reserve, fish-eating birds from the koshi wetlands come to feed at the fish ponds and this has lead to a significant conflict of interests: birds are being persecuted and fish farm stocks are threatened. current resource use in and around ktwr is unsustainable. pressures on people’s livelihoods mean that existing patterns of resource use bring people into conflict with the reserve because people perceive that the conservation of the site results in reduced benefits for them. on the other hand there is also an increased risk from human-wildlife conflict. as a result, the reserve is viewed negatively by many and there is non-compliance with reserve laws leading to unsustainable exploitation of resources within the reserve and associated disturbance. for the long term viability of the ktwr, people living adjacent to the site who depend on wetland resources for their livelihoods must be able to obtain a sustainable livelihood. with financial support from the uk government’s darwin initiative for the survival of species, bird conservation nepal (bcn) and the wildfowl and wetlands trust (wwt) is working around ktwr to address some of these issues, where many people’s lives are fundamentally dependent on wetlands. the main concept is to assist local communities around ktwr in managing buffer zone wetlands for sustainable livelihoods, whilst enhancing wetland biodiversity, thus reducing the pressure on resources within ktwr. objectives the overall goal of the project focuses on moving from a situation of unsustainable to sustainable use, and to increase the benefits to local people stemming from the conservation of biodiversity at ktwr. thapa and dahal 38 banko janakari, special issue thapa and dahal four main objectives of the project are: • train local community groups in a range of livelihood and associated management practices • prepare guidelines on managing wetlands for sustainable livelihoods • develop fisheries management plan for koshi tappu, recognising the key role that fisheries play in people’s livelihoods • establish information centre for wetland management. achievements a community action plan has been established through pra process, outlining actions required to achieve sustainable livelihoods from wetland management. an action plan committee consisting of members of local wetland user groups has been set up to oversee its implementation. the project is mainly involved in broadening the scope of livelihood benefits available to the most wetland dependent communities of the buffer zone area that are more diverse and, therefore, resilient to change, resulting in a reduced need to exploit resources unsustainably in times of need. the malaha people are the key wetland resource users around koshi tappu and their livelihoods are mainly based on fishing in the koshi river and surrounding wetlands. they are also the most disadvantaged, and often suffer rice shortages due to the unpredictability of their primary source of income (fish). in nepal, one of the most locally available wetland resource uses is the weaving of mats (called gundri in nepali) from cat-tail typha elephantine, a wetland plant common through much of lowland nepal. mats are used for various purposes: sleeping on, sitting on during meetings, storing crops, etc. this existing indigenous knowledge has a potential of securing alternative and sustainable sources of income to support livelihoods. however, malaha people are not traditionally involved in mat-weaving. so the project has facilitated in transferring this alternative skill to these groups. mat weaving has now become a good source of income for this fishing community. additionally the project is also supporting the local communities in producing briquette and compost from wetland resources. these activities have raised awareness of the value of wetland resources and their conservation. fisheries play crucial role in the lives of people living around koshi tappu and fish are also a key component of wetland biodiversity. the project has identified improving the access of landless, poor, wetland-dependent people to fish as one of the key requirements for sustainable wetland resource management. a fundamental element of this is providing training in fish farming techniques, in association with provision of enhanced access to fishponds. a number of fishponds have been leased to provide access to the project target groups. through objectives-based management, fisheries stakeholders are devising the best way to maximise the value of fisheries and aquaculture, whilst taking environmental and social limits into account. these are helping in the development of a sustainable fisheries management plan. eco-hydrological surveys of water bodies within the buffer and core zones of the wildlife reserve are undertaken for identification of physical water body characteristics that are potential barriers to local natural resource users obtaining sustainable livelihoods from buffer zone wetlands. a key element of biodiversity that has significant livelihood implications at koshi is invasive alien weeds (iaw). a sampling strategy has been developed for better understanding of their distribution to assess the impacts. as the primary audience for the sustainable wetland management advice are people living in the buffer zone, who are spread over a wide area, with poor transport infrastructure (particularly on the western side of the reserve), a more suitable approach is to establish a small number of ‘drop-in’ centres spread throughout the buffer zone rather than a single ‘wetland centre’ which is unlikely to deliver a facility of high utility to local people. linking them to locations where local people already go will enhance their impact. most importantly, they need to be viewed as resource centres – where there is information and advice that is of use to people to enable them to manage their livelihoods in more sustainable way. the project has established such drop-in wetland centres as part of existing businesses (e.g. tea-shops, fishing equipment shops), which will enhance their sustainability. conclusion many locally available wetland resources can provide a significant source of income if sustainable methods 39 banko janakari, special issue of utilization are known. however due to a lack of awareness of existing indigenous knowledge of wetland resource use as a means of securing alternative and sustainable sources of income to support livelihoods, these resources are often either neglected or underestimated. this can lead to the destruction of the resources through unsustainable use or poor management. increased awareness of the potential for utilizing these resources to improve living standards is likely to result in the sustainable management of these resources, and a wider appreciation of the economic values wetlands provide. community forestry in nepal stimulates local motivation for investment in natural resource management by providing tenure and legal user rights to villagers as they make their own operational plans. such mechanism for community wetland users could ensure long term wetland conservation. acknowledgements we would like to thank darwin initiative for funding this project. we are grateful to wwt our uk partner for their contribution in bringing this project and all the technical support. we are also grateful to ktwr and the ktwr-buffer zone management committee for their cooperation. references baral, h.s. and inskipp, c.2004. the state of nepal’s birds 2004. department of national parks and wildlife conservation, bird conservation nepal and iucn-nepal. kathmandu. baral, h.s. and inskipp, c. 2005. important bird areas in nepal: key sites for conservation. bird conservation nepal and birdlife international, kathmandu and cambridge. dnpwc. 1999. koshi tappu wildlife reserve management strategy framework. department of national parks and wildlife conservation, park and people programme. kathmandu. dnpwc/mfsc. 1996. buffer zone management regulation, 1996, department of national parks and wildlife conservation, hmgn, kathmandu, nepal. dnpwc/mfsc. 1999. buffer zone management guidelines, 1999. department of national parks and wildlife conservation, hmgn, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn/mfsc. 2002. nepal biodiversity strategy. his majesty’s government of nepal. kathmandu. hmgn/mfsc. 2003. national wetland policy 2003. ministry of forest and soil conservation, his majesty’s government of nepal, kathmandu. iucn-nepal. 2004. a review of the status and threats to wetlands in nepal. iucn wetlands and resources programme. sah, j. p. 1997. koshi tappu wetlands: nepal’s ramsar site. iucn, bangkok, thailand. thapa and dahal water and biodiversity the united nations’ conference on environment and development held in rio de janeiro, brazil from june 2–14, 1992, is regarded as important international effort taken in order to protect the biodiversity on the earth. the convention on biological diversity (cbd) is the first global agreement for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. the international day for biological diversity was established by the united nations to increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues. when it was first created by the second committee of the un general assembly in late 1993, 29th december (the date of entry into force of the convention of biological diversity) was officially designated to celebrate the event. however, it was not celebrated until december 2000. later on, the un general assembly changed the date to 22 may, commemorating the adoption of the text of the cbd which culminated on 22 may 1992 with the nairobi final act of the conference for the adoption of the agreed text of the cbd. now, we are at the verge of celebrating the international day for biological diversity on 22 may 2013 with the theme “water and biodiversity” which also coincides with the un year of water cooperation (2013). water is essential for life. no living-being on the earth can survive without it. it is a prerequisite for human health and well-being as well as for the preservation of the environment. unfortunately, we are facing water crisis at the global scale. moreover, climate change is anticipated to lead to increase water scarcity along with more frequent and more extreme flooding. rise in temperature due to global warming is accelerating glacial melt in the himalaya. glaciers and icecaps regulate and provide a steady flow of water. but the flow of water is reduced when the size of icecaps and glaciers is reduced. regular water supply is necessary for maintenance of the biodiversity. biodiversity or biological diversity is the term given to the variety of life on the earth and the natural patterns it forms. nepal is rich in biological diversity due to its varied climate and altitudinal ranges within short distance. nepal comprises only about 0.1% of the terrestrial area of the earth, but it harbours large diversity of flora and fauna at genetic, species and ecosystem levels. a total of 118 ecosystems with 75 vegetation and 35 forest types are found in nepal. over 2% of the world’s flowering plants, about 9% of the world’s birds species, and about 4% of the world’s mammalian species are found in those ecosystems. in nepal, this diverse banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 2 biological resource supports directly to the livelihood improvement of the people, agricultural/forest productivity, human health and nutrition. biodiversity, thus, has a stake with a valid claim on the nation’s limited water resource. regular flow of water will maintain biodiversity and water regulation will only be ensured by maintaining or restoring the ecosystems. more mouths to feed, more water and food we need in the years to come. hence, a strategy of ecosystem management that maintains all the ecosystem functions and services will reduce water crisis on the one hand, and support biodiversity conservation on the other hand. in mountainous areas including the himalayas, tree lines are expected to advance to higher altitudes due to global climate change affecting the distribution and growth of plant species. this study aimed at identifying the tree ring variability of abies spectabilis (d. don) and its response to the climate along an elevation gradient in the high himalayas of central nepal. tree core samples were collected from four sites in mustang district. all sites were located in the same valley and exposed to similar weather conditions. out of 232 samples collected from the sites, titi lower (2700 m), titi upper (2900 m), pangukhark (3100 m) and lete upper (3300 m), 44, 40, 39 and 41 series were successfully cross-dated and ringwidth chronologies including 168, 79, 138 and 156 years previous to 2012 were developed, respectively. statistically significant differences in average annual radial growth were noted among the four sites with the highest radial growth observed at mid-elevation sites. chronological statistics based on residual chronologies for the common period revealed that a. spectabilis at the upper elevation site was more climate sensitive than at the other three sites. at the highest-elevation sites the correlation between pre-monsoon precipitation and tree growth was positive, and for the month of may this was statistically significant (p<0.05). moreover, spring temperature (march-june) was negatively correlated with precipitation and with tree growth at all sites, and at the upper elevation site (3300 m) the correlation was significant for march, april and may. key words: climate change, dendro-climatology, himalayas, tree line species, tree growth tree ring variability and climate response of abies spectabilis along an elevation gradient in mustang, nepal d. k. kharal1, h. meilby2, s. rayamajhi3, d. bhuju4 and u. k. thapa5 growth response of trees to climatic variations can be studied through the measurement of annual rings of trees growing at a particular site where climate is a limiting factor. the principle of the limiting factor states that plant growth is controlled not by the total amount of resources available but by the scarcest resources (fritts, 1976; speer, 2010). at the margin of a species’ natural distribution range climate is usually a limiting factor for growth and, therefore, climatic effects on tree growth increase when approaching the very margin of the natural distribution range (fritts, 1976; schweingruber, 1996). for trees at very high altitudes (at the tree line) and in very cold regions temperature during the growth season are limiting their growth and therefore their growth is frequently found to be temperature sensitive (peng, 2008; körner and paulsen, 2004). the himalaya region is considered one of the most sensitive and vulnerable natural environments of the world (nbs, 2002; moe, 2010; npc, 2010; wecs, 2002). any changes in the climate of such regions are likely to have strong impact on their environment (icimod, 2010; moe, 2010 and 2011; nbs, 2002; wecs, 2002; wwf-nepal, 2006). however, knowledge of climate change in the high altitude himalayan region is very limited (borgaonkar et al., 2008; icimod, 2010; wwfnepal, 2006). glacier retreat has been taken as one of the indicators of himalayan climate change in the form of rising temperatures (icimod, 2010; moe, 2010). tree line advancement, change of vegetation structure and species composition at 1 department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal, email: deepak_kharal@yahoo.com 2 copenhagen university, denmark 3 institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, nepal 4 national academy of science and technology, nepal 5 golden gate international college, kathmandu, nepal 3 banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 4 the tree line, and stand growth dynamics are some of the biological indicators of climate change. moreover, tree rings of the woody vegetation, especially conifer species growing at tree line altitudes of the himalaya region, can be used to detect the climate signals that are recorded in their annual growth rings (bräuning, 2001; schweingruber, 1996; yadav et al., 2004). at high altitudes the strong relationship between climate variables and tree rings can be expected to provide a good basis for dendro-climatic studies (leal et al., 2007). hence, tree ring records of the high altitude himalayan region can provide valuable insight regarding himalayan climate change and its impact on the vegetation (borgaonkar et al., 2011). other than the climate observed at meteorological stations, the tree-ring variability can also be influenced by local factors such as altitude, species, tree size, site (soil, ground water), slope, and aspect, all of which may alter the effects of climatic change on tree growth (leal et al., 2007; oberhuber, 2004; urbinati et al., 1997). for example, in mountainous areas the relationship between observed climate at a meteorological station and tree growth at a site located in the vicinity of the station may vary with elevation as the actual temperature and precipitation at the site vary along the altitudinal gradient. generally a decrease of 0.6°c in temperature is expected on average for every 100 meter increase in elevation in alpine and sub-alpine regions (mani, 1981). previous studies have observed significant differences in climate-tree growth relationships along altitudinal gradients in tibet and china (chen et al., 2011; peng et al., 2008; wang et al., 2005).to understand patterns found on the southern side of the himalayan range it is equally important to examine the influence of climate on tree growth along altitudinal gradients in the nepalese part of himalaya. the number of dendroclimatic studies in nepal himalaya is increasing at a considerable pace (cook et al., 2003; sano et al., 2005; bhuju et al., 2010; chhetri and thapa, 2010; gaire et al., 2011; dawadi et al., 2013; thapa et al., 2013). however, so far no studies have focused on examining climate-tree growth relationships along elevation gradients in the nepal himalaya despite the marked gradients characterizing this region. a long annual ring width series can be an important source of reliable historical information for high altitude regions (esper, 2000; yadav et al., 1997), and therefore long-living woody species have a high potential for dendroclimatic studies. among the several himalayan conifers a. spectabilis has proved its dendroclimatic potential along the entire himalayan range (suzuki et al., 1990; bhattacharyya et al., 1992; sano et al., 2005; gaire et al., 2011; yadav and singh, 2002; yadav et al., 2004). a. spectabilis is a high altitude fir distributed from 2400 m to 4400 m and with a natural range extending from myanmar in east to afghanistan in west (jackson, 1994; stainton, 1972). therefore, the objective of this study is to examine the relationship between tree ring variability of a. spectabilis and climate along an elevation gradient in the high altitude central himalayas of nepal. materials and methods study area mustang district was selected for this research study since it includes many high-altitude areas where trees grow at the extreme limits of their distribution and should thus offer appropriate sites for establishing climate-tree growth relationships (schweingruber et al., 1992; schweingruber, 1989). the district is located in northern part of nepal (fig. 1) between two great himalayan ranges, annapurna himalaya in the east and dhaulagiri in the west. fig. 1: map of study area with sampled sites the district includes large rain shadow areas with less than 200 mm rainfall annually, maximum temperature of 26ºc in the summer and minimum temperature of -20ºc in the winter (ntnc, 2008). in fact the majority of the district’s area is located in the trans-himalayan region where a cold desert type with semi-arid climate prevails. kharal et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 5 kharal et al. however, these areas are too dry for a. spectabilis and the study sites are therefore located in the southern part of the district (lete and kunjo vdcs), which receives more rainfall (more than 1200 mm annually) and where trees and forests of conifer species are distributed across a wide elevation range. lete and kunjo vdcs of the mustang district were characterized by long term research area (2003–2014) under the community based forest management in the himalayas (comform iii) project with the establishment of 12 permanent sample plots for biophysical and socio-economic survey (meilby et al., 2006). only 3.24% of the total area is covered by forest and most of this forest is located in the southern part of the district around our sample sites. the forests are dominated by pine and fir in the cold temperate climatic zone, and high altitude conifer forests including a. spectabilis are found at different elevations. the natural resources of the areas are managed by the annapurna conservation area project (acap) since 1992 under the national trust for nature conservation, a national nongovernmental organization (www.ntnc.org.np). sampling design and sample collection study sites were established at four different elevations ranging from the lowermost margin of the distribution of a. spectabilis at around 2700 m up to 3300 m elevation at the mountain ridge. each site was identified in such a way that the site homogeneity could be maintained as suggested by schweingruber et al. (1992). for this purpose, a strip of land with a width of 50 m was established across the slope direction at intervals of 200 m along the slope. tree cores were collected at a height of 1.3 m above ground using stainless steel swedish increment borers of three different sizes (24”, 18” and 16” long and 5 mm diameter). descriptive details of the sampling sites and the number of samples collected are presented in table 1. the sites were located within the same valley and it is therefore assumed that all four sites are exposed to almost similar weather conditions and climatic variations from year to year. moreover, the major forest types in all sample sites were conifer-dominated, but the dominant conifer species varied between sites. thus, the lower elevation sites (titi lower and titi upper) were dominated by tsuga dumosa, whereas the upper elevation sites (pangu and lete upper) were mostly dominated by a. spectabilis. sample preparation and chronology development sample preparation was carried out following the standard method of tree ring analysis suggested by cook and kairiukstis (1992); fritts (1976) and schweingruber (1996). collected samples were air dried, mounted in wooden frames and polished using sanding papers of different grit size (80, 120, 240, 400 and 600) until the ring boundaries were visible under microscope. ring widths were measured using tsap-win software attached to a lintab measuring system (version 5) operating at 0.01 mm resolution. the calendar year of each ring was assigned by matching the ring-width patterns of the samples of each site in tsap-win. the program cofecha was used to check the accuracy of measurements and dating (holmes, 1983). successfully cross-dated samples were used for developing a ring-width chronology for each of the four sites located at different elevations (table 1). raw chronology, standard chronology, residual chronology and arstan chronology were developed using the arstan computer program (cook, 1985). the residual chronology was used for dendro-climatic analysis. this chronology was obtained after removing autocorrelation from the standard chronology by using autoregressive (ar) modelling. to obtain the standard ringtable 1: description of sampling sites and number of samples sampled sites elevation range of sampled sites (m) middle elevation of sampled sites (m) latitude (northern) longitude (eastern) aspect sampled trees/cores titi lower 2675–2725 2700 28.653217° 83.611113° north 30/57 titi upper 2875–2925 2900 28.648258° 83.612645° north 29/50 pangu khark 3075–3125 3100 28.657358° 83.661236° sw 30/58 lete upper 3275–3325 3300 28.612734° 83.613277° ridge 36/67 banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 6 width chronology, natural growth trends in the tree rings that are caused by factors other than climate were removed by fitting 30 year cubic smoothing splines to each of the ring width series. chronology characteristics were describedby estimating various statistics, including average ring width, standard deviation, mean sensitivity and autocorrelation for the entire period among all cross-dated tree ring series.the average ring width is a robust mean which was estimated by first averaging raw chronology ring widths for each tree and then averaging the individual tree averages, thus assigning equal weights to all sampled trees. these were also estimated for the common period and, in addition, correlations of ring width within each tree, between trees and among all series were determined for the common period. signal to noise ratio, expressed population signal and variability ‘explained’ were also estimated for the common period. climate of the study area temperature and precipitation data from local meteorological stations, common to all sample sites, were used for analysis of the climate-tree growth relationship. there are three meteorological stations in the vicinity of the sites. the stations are located in lete, thakmarpha and jomsom in mustang district. among these, the lete station is closest to all sample sites and located within a distance of less than 5 km. table 2 provides details on the three meteorological stations. temperature data from the station in lete are limited to 1998–2012 which is insufficient for this study and, therefore, the jomsom temperature data were applied for the climate-tree growth analysis. the correlation between the temperature data of lete and jomsom was found highly significant (p<0.01). precipitation data of the lete station covered the period 1969–2012 and were found sufficient for further analysis. figure 2 depicts the monthly distribution of temperature and precipitation in the study site. fig. 2: monthly distribution of precipitation and variation of temperature in the study area climate-growth relationship the response of tree rings to climate fluctuations was analyzed using pearson correlation coefficients. correlations of the residual chronology with temperature and precipitation in different months were calculated for all sample sites with the help of the statistical software package spss. results and discussion out of the total set of collected samples, 44, 40, 39 and 41 tree ring series from titi lower, titi upper, pangukhark and lete upper sites, respectively, were successfully cross-dated. samples that were broken during handling and those that were difficult to date were discarded. table 3 shows descriptive information on radial growth of a. spectabilis at the four sites at different elevations. the robust average of tree ring width of a. spectabilis was found to be higher at the two sites in the middle of the elevation range (titi upper and pangu khark) than at the other two sites at the ends of the elevation range. at the site at 3300 m elevation the average ring width was just about 1.54 mm. average annual radial increment was about 5% at the ‘titi upper’ site where the average annual rate of change in increment was only about -1.9%. the annual rate of change in radial growth was found to be smallest (-0.3%) at the site of highest elevation (3300 m), presumably kharal et al. table 2: meteorological stations in mustang district meteorological stations elevation (m) latitude (deg/min) longitude (deg/min) span of precipitation data (years) span of temperature data (years) lete, mustang 2384 28.38° 83.36° 1969 – 2012 = 43 1998 – 2012 = 14 marpha, mustang 2566 28.45° 83.42° 1967 – 2012 = 45 1969 – 2012 = 43 jomsom, mustang 2754 28.47° 83.42° 1957 – 2012 = 55 1959 – 2012 = 53 banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 7 kharal et al. reflecting the relatively low average annual radial increment (2.7%) and the long span of years covered by many series at this site. differences in average ring width along the elevation gradient were statistically significant (anova, p<0.001). hence climatic conditions, possibly including low temperature, associated with high elevations might be limiting the growth of the trees at the high-elevation site (3300 m) to a greater extent than at lower elevation sites. statistical information on the ring width chronologies prepared for a. spectabilis at the four different sites (elevations) is shown in table 4. based on the common period the mean sensitivity of the residual chronology was higher at the upper elevation site (3300 m) and lowest in lower elevation sites (2700 and 2900 m). however, the pattern of variation of mean sensitivity along the elevation gradient was found to be reversed for the overall period of the tree ring series. the reason for this presumably is that for three sites (2700, 3100 and 3300 m elevation) about half of the span of years covered by the chronologies were based on very few samples (<5 sample trees) leading to high fluctuation in the ring width data and presumably inflating the mean sensitivity statistic. nevertheless, this sort of pattern was also noticed in parts of china and europe (dittmar et al., 2012; cai and liu, 2013; liu et al., 2013). the variation of the mean sensitivity was found highly significant (anova, p<0.001). the standard deviations of the tree ring chronologies (common period) followed a table 3: descriptive information on ring width of a. spectabilis by elevation sample sites (m) n ring width (mm) mean annual radial increment (%) mean annual rate of change of increment (%)min max ave std. 2700 44 1.06 3.45 2.07 1.11 2.22 -2.52 2900 40 1.25 3.62 2.27 1.23 5.03 -1.95 3100 39 1.18 4.16 2.21 1.01 2.75 -2.62 3300 41 0.81 2.68 1.70 0.85 2.74 -0.29 table 4: statistics of ring width chronologies of a. spectabilis in four elevation sites statistics elevation sites (m) 2700 2900 3100 3300 overall period 1845 – 2012 1934 – 2012 1875 – 2012 1857 – 2012 tree/series 26/44 23/40 26/39 26/41 ms 0.248 0.172 0.140 0.156 sd 0.248 0.177 0.139 0.151 ac/sc 0.113 0.166 -0.002 0.102 common period 1961 – 2012 1964 – 2009 1961 – 2010 1941 – 2012 ms 0.209 0.205 0.209 0.227 sd 0.196 0.165 0.189 0.216 ac/sc 0.080 -0.175 -0.014 0.020 ra 0.371 0.231 0.235 0.283 rb 0.365 0.224 0.233 0.279 rw 0.631 0.572 0.310 0.508 snr 24.140 11.740 11.340 13.830 eps 0.960 0.922 0.919 0.933 var. explained 0.397 0.276 0.289 0.340 note: ms: mean sensitivity; sd: standard deviation; ac/sc: autocorrelation/serial correlation; ra: correlation among all series; rb: correlation between trees; rw: correlation within trees; snr; signal to noise ratio; eps: expressed population signal. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 8 similar trend along the elevation gradient as the mean sensitivity, i.e. the highest value was found at the upper elevation site (3300 m) and the lowest value at one of the lower elevation sites (2900 m). the first order auto-correlation varied greatly between sites. higher absolute levels of auto-correlation were observed at the lower elevation sites (2700 and 2900 m) and lower levels were found at upper elevation sites (3100 m and 3300 m). the mean values of ms, sd and ac for the common periods in standard chronology were different and the variation of these statistics was highly significant among the four sites (anova; p<0.001 for all values). the kharal et al. fig. 3: ring-width chronology of a. spectabilis in four sites along an elevation gradient in mustang banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 9 kharal et al. values of ms and sd observed for the common period indicate that trees at higher elevation sites are slightly more sensitive to the climate than trees at lower elevation. correlation coefficients of ring-widths among all trees and between trees were slightly higher at 2700 m (~ 0.37) than at the other three sites (~ 0.22–0.28). the correlation coefficient within tree was high and similar at three sites (~ 0.50–0.63) but comparatively lower (~ 0.31) at the 3100 m elevation site. similar correlation coefficients have been reported in other tree ring studies from the himalaya region (sano et al., 2005; bhuju et al., 2010; chhetri and thapa; 2010; gaire et al., 2011; dawadi et al., 2013; thapa et al., 2013). the expressed population signal (eps) of the chronologies of all four sites exceeded the suggested threshold limit of 0.85%, indicating that the chronologies developed from the available sample size represented the site chronologies of the respective elevations well (wigley et al., 1984). figure 3 depicts the distribution pattern of standard chronology in four elevation sites in the study area. climate-tree growth relationship a positive relationship was observed between tree growth and may precipitation in all elevation sites in the study area (fig. 4), but the relationship was statistically significant only at 3100 m (p=0.007) and 3300 m (p=0.011) elevation. similarly, correlation between tree growth and march precipitation was also positive in three elevation sites except 3300 m, whereas in april, positive association was only noticed in upper most elevation site (3300 m). in most of the previous studies in nepal and india himalaya, pre-monsoon precipitation was also found to influence radial growth of the species positively and significantly (sano et al., 2005; chhetri and thapa, 2010; gaire et al., 2011; dawadi et al., 2013; thapa et al., 2013; borgaonkar et al., 1999; pant et al., 2000; yadav and singh, 2002; yadav et al., 2004; borgaonkar et al., 2011; ahmed et al., 2011). figure 4 further reveals that the ringwidth showed a clear negative relationship with the precipitation of the june and july for all sites but no such clear and strong association were observed during the end of monsoon. the precipitation signal was captured more strongly at the higher elevation site (3300 m) than at lower elevations (both positive and negative effects). however, with regard to winter precipitation the relationships were weak and varied between sites. this indicates that the winter precipitation does not influence tree growth much in our study area. precipitation values of the october, november and december were considered from the previous year whereas rest of the precipitation values were taken from the current growth year. note: * = significant at the 5% level; ** = significant at the 1% level; py=previous year fig. 4: relationship between monthly precipitation and tree growth by elevation site figure 5 shows the relationship between temperature and tree growth in the study area. spring and summer temperatures (march, april, may and june) were negatively correlated with tree growth at all sites. however, the relationship was only significant (p<0.05) in three months of the pre-monsoon period (march-may) for the upper elevation site (3300 m) and in one month (april) for lower-elevation sites (2700–2900 m). in the late summer (august) the correlation between growth and temperature was only significant at the lower boundary of the species distribution (2700 m). fig. 5: relationship between temperature and tree growth by elevation sites note: * = significant at the 5% level; ** = significant at the 1% level; py=previous year pre-monsoon temperature was also found to be negatively correlated with growth of trees in other parts of the himalayan range (sano et al., 2005; chhetri and thapa, 2010; gaire et al., banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 10 2011, dawadi et al., 2013; thapa et al., 2013; borgaonkar et al., 1999; pant et al., 2000; yadav et al., 2004; borgaonkar et al., 2011; ahmed et al., 2011). fig. 6: correlation between monthly precipitation and average monthly temperature note: * = significant at the 5% level, ** = significant at the 1% level the only cases where temperature was positively but non-significantly correlated with growth were in the mid-winter (january) and mid-rainy seasons (july and august). immediately this may appear peculiar, in as much as we would expect high-altitude trees to respond positively to higher temperatures, particularly if higher temperatures are experienced in spring or late autumn and would therefore seem to lead to extension of the growth season of the trees. however, a possible (partial) reason for the observed pattern is that temperature is correlated with precipitation. therefore correlations between monthly precipitation and average temperature are explored in figure 6. it appears that correlations between monthly average temperature and monthly precipitation are generally negative before and after the monsoon but only significant for the months of february and march, implying that warm conditions are also comparatively dry conditions. this pattern is observed throughout the pre-monsoon season in the study area and the fact that trees appear to be responding negatively to temperature and positively to precipitation in the pre-monsoon period thus seems to indicate that growth is limited by water availability rather than temperature, at least in the pre-monsoon period. conclusion in the study area in mustang the lower and upper boundaries of the species distribution were characterized by lower radial growth rate compared to the mid-range of the species’ distribution. the annual rate of change in radial growth was found to be smallest at the upper elevation site (3300 m). trees at the upper boundary of the species distribution were more sensitive to the climatic conditions than trees at lower elevation sites (based on the common period of the residual chronology). the correlations between precipitation and growth were in most cases low, and while pre-monsoon correlations were positive for higher elevation sites, they were only significant in may, and only at the two highest-level sites. spring and summer temperature had negative correlation with the tree growth in all elevation sites. negative correlation between precipitation and temperature of the premonsoon season revealed that at this time of the year the precipitation is the main limiting factor for tree growth in all elevation sites. acknowledgements this research was pursued under a phd research scholarship funded by the community based forest management in the himalayas (comform iii) project, a joint initiative of university of copenhagen, denmark, institute of forestry and department of forest research and survey, nepal. we are very grateful to mr. rabindra maharjan, district forest officer, dolakha, for his company and help in map preparation, field work and sample preparation. we would also like to thank mr. narayan gaire, phd scholar, tribhuvan university, nepal for providing suggestions regarding organization of field work, sample collection, sample preparation and sample measurement. we are indebted to the national academy of science and technology (nast, nepal) who provided laboratory facilities for tree ring measurement. finally, we acknowledge the annapurna conservation area project (acap, nepal) for providing permission to carry out the field work. references ahmed, m., palmer, j., khan, n., wahab, m., fenwick, p., esper, j. and cook, e. r. 2011. the dendroclimatic potential of conifers from the northern pakistan. dendrochronologia 29: 77–78. bhattacharyya, a. and chaudhary, v. 2003. latesummer temperature 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commission secretariat, government of nepal. kathmandu, nepal. wecs. 2002. water resources strategy nepal. water and energy commission secretariat, government of nepal. kathmandu, nepal. wigley, t. m. l., briffa, k. r. and jones, p. d. 1984. on the average value of correlated time series, with applications in dendroclimatology and hydrometeorology. journal of climate and applied meteorology 23: 201–213. wwf-nepal. 2006. an overview of glaciers, glaciers retreat, and its subsequent impacts in nepal, india and china. kathmandu, nepal. yadav, r. r. and singh, j. 2002. tree-ring analysis of taxus baccata from the western himalaya, india, and its dendroclimatic potential. treering research 58 (1/2): 23–29. yadav, r. r., singh, j., dubey, b. and chaturvedi, r. 2004. varying strength of relationship between temperature and growth of highkharal et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 13 level fir at marginal ecosystems in western himalaya, india. current science 86 (8): 1152–1156. yadav, r. r., park, w. k. and bhattacharyya, a. 1997. dendroclimatic reconstruction of april–may temperature fluctuations in the western himalaya of india since a.d. 1698. quaternary research 48: 187–191. yasue, k., noda, m., kobayashi, o., sano, m., kato, t. and sweda, t. 2002. dendroclimatological potential of abies spectabilis at khurpudada pass, ganesh himal, central nepal. in geothermal/ dendrochronological paleo climate reconstruction across eastern margin of eurasia. proceeding 2002 international mastsuyama workshop, pp. 20. http://www. ntnc.org.np as of oct. 30, 2011. kharal et al. final special issue.pmd 18 banko janakari, special issue ecological study of ghodaghodi lake j. diwakar1, s. bajracharya1 and u.r. yadav1 wetlands comprise 5% of world’s total land areas of nepal. the present study ghodaghodi lake in the far-west nepal terai manifested the physicochemical contamination in the lake. all the parameters were within the who guideline values except for phosphate and dissolved oxygen. water depth varies form 1-4 m. high phosphate level suggested that the lake is hypertrophic. dissolved oxygen was low, ranging between 5.27-6.56 mg/l. the presence of high density of hemiptera (384.23 ind/m2) and ephimeripterae (273.66 ind/ m2) indicted that water was polluted due to high nutrient deposition both from the decaying of the abundant aquatic flora and from the surrounding area. the most important challenge that we have to face is to strike a balance between sustainable human exploitation and maintaining the ecological character of a wetland ecosystem. key words: ghodaghodi lake, phytoplankton, macroinvertebrates, phosphate, nitrate wetlands are lands transitional between terrestrial and aquatic systems where soil is frequently waterlogged, the water table is usually at or near the surface or the land is covered by shallow water. entire civilization developed around wetland-areas of immense value both economically and in terms of quality life. but over exploitation of wetlands impairs its sustainability. survival of human civilization in inextricably linked with wetlands. by sustaining the economic stability of hundreds of millions of people, the society is benefited from the wetlands in a different manner. on a shorter time scale, wetlands are usually useful as sources, sinks and transformers of a multitude of chemical, biological and genetic materials. they have been found to cleanse polluted water, prevent floods and recharge groundwater aquifers. furthermore, wetlands provide a unique habitat for a wide variety of flora and fauna. james (1995) has rightly called the wetlands as nature’s kidneys because of the natural functions they perform (poddar et al 2001). water, the most vital resource for all life on this planet is also the resource, adversely affected qualitatively and quantitatively by different of human activities on land, in air, or in water. today most of the surface and the ground water of the world receive millions of liters of sewage, domestic waste, industrial and agricultural effluents containing substances varying in characteristics from simple nutrients to highly toxic substances (trivedy and goel 1986). ghodaghodi lake is a natural freshwater oxbow lake on the lower slope of siwalik. it is a large and shallow 1 central department of environmental science, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, p.o. box: 9135, kathmandu, nepal e-mail: jasdiwa@gmail.com lake, having finger-like projections, with associated marshes and meadows surrounded by tropical deciduous forest on the lower slopes of siwalik range. there are thirteen associated lakes and ponds; some streams have separated lakes and ponds, and some streams are separated by hillocks situated on the periphery of ghodaghodi. the forest and wetland is a wildlife corridor between the low land and the siwalik. the lake is fed by surface flows from the watershed area, groundwater, springs and small streams. water depth varies from 1-4 m (dnpwc & wwf 2005). site description: it is situated at an altitude of 205 metres above the sea level. its latitude and longitude are 28042’06.6”n and 80056’44”e respectively. it is situated in sukhad, ward no. 5, darakh vdc, 1 km west of sukhad chouraha, kailali district in the terai region of far-western development region, nepal. it lies along the mahendra highway (100 m north of the east-west highway) with several ramifications caused by soil erosion and running water. the lake is owned by the state and surrounded by national forest. ghodaghodi lake is one of four ramsar wetland sites of international importance in nepal, and is part of the terai arc landscape. ghodaghodi lake (150 ha) is one of the 14 lakes of ghodaghodi lake complex (2563 ha) – a ramsar site of nepal (kafle 2006). many of the branches become disconnected from the main water body during low water seasons. the wetland has a permanent flow. recently, the temple of ghodaghodi deity has been built with the assistance from the local people and district 19 banko janakari, special issue development committee. the topography of the lake is palm shaped with many ramifications. among them, notches extending towards north are larger than those on other sides. the temperature rise is highest in the month of may, and drops to its lowest in the month of january. the mean maximum temperature of may was 37.20c while in 1995 it reached the highest to 40.40c. similarly, the mean minimum temperature of january was 7.540c; the lowest recorded temperature in 19 years was 70c in december 1994. pre-monsoon was the hottest season (average 34.430c) while the winter season was the coldest season (average 8.420c). the area receives an average annual rainfall of 1794.12 mm. dry and surplus year were almost similarly distributed (11:8) but of the total rainfall, 87.71% of rainfall occurred in monsoon season (juneseptember). this might be the reason for devastating flood in the monsoon season and dryness in the remaining seasons. the lake supports critically endangered red-crowned roofed turtle (kachuga kachuga); endangered tiger (panthera tigris), three-striped roof turtle (kachuga dhongka); vulnerable smooth-coated otter (lutra perpiscillata), common otter (lutra lutra), swamp deer (cervus duvaucelli), lesser adjutant stork(leptotilos javanicus) and marsh crocodile (crocodylus palustris); and endangered orchid (aerides odorata), religiously important and threatened lotus (nelumbo nucifera), and rare wild rice (hygrohiza aristata) (dnpwc & wwf, 2005). the lake is rich in floral diversity with excellent environment conditions for both lake and terrestrial (grassland and forest) vegetation. lake vegetation includes the free floating species (azolla, lemna, spirodela and ricclocarpus), the submergent species (hydrilla verticillata, chara fragilis, nitella spp and potamogeton sp.) the rooted floating species (leudwigia adscendens, potamogeton natans, nymphaeae stellata, nymphoides sp. and dictyospperum scaberrimum), the emergent species (limnophila indica and monochoria hastata) and marshland species (rannunculus, phragmites phalaris, oryza isachne, shcoenoplectus, ipomoea). the wetland and surrounding forests are renowned for their rich mammalian fauna too. the lake is a wintering area for sizeable numbers of several species of waterfowl, and provides a staging area for many species during their migration. the lake is also rich in herpetofauna and fishes. the lake area is a habitat for protected wildlife on nepal such as the marsh mugger, endangered golden monitor lizard, indian python and tortoise. the lake area housed common otter and indigenous species of fish. a large species of tortoise is also reported to be present in this area. about 140 species of birds, both migrant and resident, representing over 16% of national avifauna have been reported in the area. a few birds that breed in north asia are also reported to reside here. but the destruction and deterioration of the surrounding forest area have threatened their presence. it is the largest inter-connected natural lake system in the terai of nepal. the other lakes connected with it are nakhrodi lake, baishhawa lake, ojhuwa lake, chidiya lake, budhi nakhrodi lake, sunpokhari lake and ramphal lake. it is vulnerable and is exposed to tremendous anthropogenic activities. because of this the lake has always been in the top priority of iucn nepal’s wetlands and heritage unit. likewise, the nepal government has also listed it as a critical wetland habitat. due to these reasons, ghodaghodi lake along with other lakes at its catchment area was selected as the site for the study. materials and methods physicochemical and the status of aquatic flora and fauna was determined for the assessment of water table 1: test parameters, methods of analyses and instruments used s.n. parameters unit method of analyses 1 ph ph meter 2 temperature 0c mercuric thermometer 3 conductivity µs/cm conductivity meter 4 dissolved oxygen mg/l winkler’s iodometric method 5 total alkalinity mg/l titrimetric method 6 hardness mg/l edta titrimetric method 7 chloride mg/l argentometric method 8 free carbondioxide mg/l titrimetric method 9 nitrate-nitrogen mg/l phenol disulphonic acid method 10 phosphate mg/l ammonium molybdate method diwakar et al. 20 banko janakari, special issue quality of the lake. analyses of the physico-chemical parameters were done by following apha (1998). ph and conductivity of water samples were recorded at the site during the sampling period. other parameters were analyzed in the environment laboratory of cdes. the samples were analyzed on the same day immediately and always within 6 hours of collection. test parameters, methods of analyses and instruments used for analyses are shown in table 1. sampling of benthic fauna from different sites were carried out using the grab sampler of an area 0.02498 m2. during the collection of samples, grab sampler was locked initially and slowly dropped into the pond tying it with nylon thread, as the sampler touched the bottom it automatically unlocked itself grabbing the sediment within it. the sampler was pulled up and sediments were transferred into a bucket. to remove clay and organic matter, the sediments were sieved using sieve size number 106 micron. then the sieved samples were stored in labelled polythene sample bag along with little water and carried back to the laboratory at cdes. the sorting of samples were carried out in white enamel trays with the help of forceps, brushes, and dropper. results and discussion the temperature at various depths shows that the temperature gradually decreases with depths. the surface temperature at different sites ranged from 150c to 160c, temperature at 1.5 m depth was 150c at site 2, and temperature at 1 m depth was 160c at site 3. conductivity ranged from 106 ¼s/cm to 111 ¼s/cm. ph ranged from 6.9 to 7.4. dissolved oxygen (do) increased with depth. do of surface water ranged from 5.27 mg/l to 5.43 mg/l. do of site 2 was 6.40 mg/l at 1 m depth and do of site 3 was 6.56 at 1.5m depth.. total alkalinity ranged from 75 mg/l to 80 mg/l on the surface, 75 mg/l at 1.5 m depth of site 2, and 75 mg/l at 1m depth at site 3. table 2: physico-chemical parameters of ghodaghodi lake. site 1 site 2 site 3 parameters surface surface 1.5 m surface 1 m time 10:30 a.m 10:55 a.m 11:30 a.m air temperature (0c) 18 17 17.5 water temperature (0c) 15 15.5 15 16 15 conductivity (μs/cm) 111 111 110 106 108 ph 7.4 7.0 7.2 7.3 6.9 dissolved oxygen (mg/l) 5.35 5.43 6.56 5.27 6.4 phenolphthalein alkalinity (mg/l) 0 0 0 0 0 total alkalinity (mg/l) 80 80 75 75 90 hardness (mg/l) 52 51.2 51.4 58 58 chloride (mg/l) 12.78 15.62 13.49 17.81 17.04 free carbondioxide (mg/l) 13.2 8.36 12.32 14.08 15.4 phosphate (mg/l) 0.409 0.105 0.099 0.421 0.206 no. of individuals (x) site 1 site 2 site 3 site 4name of species a b c a b a b c a b c σx1 σx2 mean (x1) mean (x2) density (x1) density (x1) average density gossiphonidae 1 1 0 1 0 44.8 22.4 hemiptera 17 4 1 2 2 1 2 17 12 17 1.2 761.6 6.86 384.23 linmea 2 1 2 1 2 0.1 89.6 0.57 45.09 diptera 3 1 3 1 3 0.1 134.4 0.57 67.49 ephimeripterae 12 3 7 1 5 1 12 17 12 1.7 537.6 9.71 273.66 chronomidae 5 1 7 2 1 23 1 5 1 5 41 5 4.1 44.8 23.43 123.72 mosquito larvae 1 1 0 1 0 22.4 gyraulus 3 4 1 4 2 1 15 1.5 8.57 4.28 hydracarina 1 1 2 0.2 1.14 0.57 dragonfly 1 2 0.2 1.14 0.57 ceratopogonidae 1 1 0.1 0.57 0.29 neritidae 1 1 2 0.2 1.14 0.57 segnentina 3 3 0.3 1.71 0.86 bithinidae 1 1 0.1 0.57 0.29 corixa 1 1 0.1 0.57 0.29 isopteron isopteran 1 1 0.1 0.57 0.29 diwakar et al. 21 banko janakari, special issuediwakar et al. hardness ranged form 51.2 mg/l to 58 mg/l on the suface, 51.4 mg/l at site 2 and 58 mg/l at site 3. free carbondioxide ranged from 8.36 mg/l to 14.08 mg/ l on the surface, 12.32 mg/l at site 2 and 15.4 mg/l at site 3. phosphate ranged from 0.409 mg/l to 0.421 mg/l on the surface, 0.099 mg/l at site 2 and 0.206 mg/l at site 3. its concentration decreased with depth. regarding macroinvertebrates, higher density of hemiptera (384.23 no./m2) and the least density of isopteron isoptera, corix, bithindae and ceratopogonidae (0.285 no./m2 each). wetlands are full of mystery. these forgotten places are some of our beautiful heritages. nepal abounds in wetlands and has for centuries benefited form the wealth they have provided, timbers, fruits, firewood, fish and medicines. our wetland wealth has become even more valuable in the face of increasing development pressures. each year, uncontrolled development has been destroying scores of hectares of wetlands, the essential natural filters. pollution of water is responsible for a large number of mortalities and morbidities in the world. water no longer remains a “free good.” man has tried to cope up with this scenario and has rapidly advanced its efforts to counterpart this malady. over the past few decades, natural and polluted waters have been studied in detail all over the world and considerable data are now available on most kinds of pollutants and their effects on ecosystems as well as organisms. a regular monitoring of some of them not only prevents diseases and hazards but also checks the water resources from getting further polluted (trivedy and goel, 1986). temperature is an important limiting factor of an aquatic ecosystem and a good indicator of water quality. all metabolic and physiological activities such as respiration, circulation, and reproduction. are generally influenced by temperature. during the present investigation the temperature of surface water ranged form 150c to 160c. the present investigation did not show considerable changes in temperature. the depth-wise analysis of temperature showed that there was a decrease in the temperature as the depth increases. it might be due to high density of phytoplankton at the upper layers, which restricts the solar radiation to penetrate into the deeper layers. one of the most unusual properties of water is the fact that its density does not monotonically increase as the temperature drops. instead it has a maximum density at 40c. one result of this maximum density is that above 40c, the density of water decreases with temperature. dissolved oxygen is considered as an important parameter in water quality assessment. the concentration of oxygen in water depends mainly on two sources: diffusion from atmosphere, which depends on solubility of oxygen under the influence of temperature, salinity, water movement. and photosynthetic evolution, which is a biological process and depends on the availability of light and rate of metabolic process. the surface do of all three sites is greater than 5 mg/l while the depth wise analysis of do showed the increase in do. this might be due to decrease in temperature with depth that causes decrease in the metabolic activities. organisms have specific requirement for do, so the lower concentration may affect the survival of aquatic organisms. the present study revealed that the values for do in sample water from surface and depth wise analysis were above the who permissible value of 5 mg/l. the hardness of water is not actually a pollution parameter but indicates water quality. it is due to presence of dissolved salts of calcium and magnesium. it is expressed as an equivalent concentration of calcium carbonate in mg/l. hard water requires a considerable amount of soap to produce lather. scaling of hot water pipes, boilers and other household appliances is also due to the hard water. it was high at site 3 while least at site 2, this might be due to presence of agricultural land in site 3, which was more prone to pollution. carbon is usually found from a number of natural sources, including alkalinity, dissolved carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and decaying organic matter. so, it is not often a limiting nutrient. the carbon dioxide in water increased with depth; this might be due to decomposition of dead and decayed parts of plants and other organisms. the conductivity is a numerical expression of the ability of an aqueous solution to carry an electric current and depends on the presence of ions, their total concentration, mobility, valence and relative concentration and on the temperature measurement. it is an important criterion in determining the suitability of water for irrigation. since the values of conductivity in all the sites exceeded the limiting value, the water was suitable for irrigation. 22 banko janakari, special issue there is no substantial alteration in the value of ph in different sites. the phs at all the sites were within the specified range of water quality as prescribed by who guidelines 6.5-7.5. in natural fresh water high concentration of chloride is considered to be an indicator of environment pollution due to organic wastage of animal origin. the maximum permissible who standard of chloride for drinking water is 250 mg/l. the chloride concentrations at all the sites were within the specified range of water quality. alkalinity is the acid neutralizing capacity of water. in nature, due to the action of limestone in groundwater there occurs carbonates, bicarbonates, borate, silicates, and phosphates together with hydroxyl ions that contributes to alkalinity. the study revealed that phenolphthalein alkalinity was absent manifesting that the total alkalinity was only due to bicarbonates. phosphorus occurs in water mostly as phosphate. it is rarely found in high concentration at it is actively taken up by plants. natural source of phosphorus are mainly due to the weathering of phosphorus bearing rocks and the decomposition of organic matter. in most natural surface water, phosphorus ranges from 0.0055-0.020 mg/l as ortho phosphate. in the study, all the sites have exceeded this natural level. the deviation to some extent might be due to agricultural runoff from the surrounding area. transparency of water denotes the ability of light to pass through the water so that object situated at depth can be clearly seen. transparency is very important physical parameter, which directly influence the productivity status of water body. the presence of suspended dissolved organic, inorganic material and turbidity of water diminishes the sechhi disc transparency status and is essential a function of the reflection of light and restricts the penetration of light in an aquatic environment. all lakes gradually accumulate silt and organic matter as they undergo a natural aging process known as eutrophication. a young lake is characterized by low nutrient content and low plant productivity. such oligotrophic lakes gradually acquire nutrients from their drainage basins, which facilitates increased aquatic growth. over time, the increased biological productivity causes the water to become murky with phytoplankton, while decaying organic matter contributes to the depletion of available do. the lake becomes eutotrophic as the accumulating silt and organic debris cause the lake to become shallower and warmer, more plants take root along the shallow edges, and the lake slowly transforms into a marsh or bog, while such eutrophication is a natural process that may take thousands of years, it is possible to accelerate greatly the rate of change through human activities. algal blooms die and decay, causing unsightly, odorous clumps of rotting debris along the shoreline and thick mats of dead organic matter in the lake. the decomposition of dead algae uses up available oxygen, resulting in the same sort of oxygen depletion problems. among the first casualties are cold water fish, whose temperature sensitivity forces them to stay in the colder bottom waters of lake where the least amount of oxygen, but the toxicity of the water increases as hydrogen sulfide and metals, such as iron and manganese, which are normally tied up as precipitates in sediments, are dissolved and released into the lake. the bottom fauna plays an important role in the overall biological productivity of the lake. they serve as food for most of the bottom feeding fishes and are the nutritional sources. a total of 16 taxas were recorded from the lake. the density of hemiptera spp. (384.33 ind/m2) was the highest and that of corix sp., bithindae and isopteron isopteran sp. (0.2 ind/m2 each) was the lowest. the aquatic flora collected and identified during the study period are lidwigia agscendens, nymphoids sp., hydrilla sp., ceratophyllum sp. trapa sp., potamogetom natans, pistia sp. and hygorhyza sp. protection of these water sources and their effective sustainable management are all-critical strategies in maintaining and improving water quality. conclusion the present study disclosed the physicochemical contamination in the lake. all the parameters were within the who guideline value except phosphate and dissolved oxygen. water depth varies form 1-4 m. high phosphate level indicates the lake is hypertrophic. dissolved oxygen is low ranging between 5.27-6.56 mg/l. the presence of high density of hemiptera (384.23 ind/m2) and ephimeripterae (273.66 ind/m2) indicted that water is polluted due to high nutrient deposition from decaying of aquatic flora which were abundant and from the surrounding area. diwakar et al. 23 banko janakari, special issuediwakar et al. acknowledgements acknowledgements are due to central department of environmental science, kirtipur for the laboratory facilities and instruments provided for this work. we would like to thank people around ghodaghodi lake who helped us during water sampling in their localities. references apha. 1998. statistical method for the examination of water and waste water, 20th edition, american public health association, american water works association and water environment federation, united book press, inc. baltimore, maryland, usa. bpp. 1995. biodiversity assessment of terai wetlands, biodiversity profile project, publication no. 1, department of national parks and wildlife conservation, kathmandu, nepal. cbs. 1995. statistical analysis of nepal, hmg national planning commission secretariat, central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. dnpwc and wwf. 2005. fact sheet ghodaghodi lake area kailali, department of national parks and wildlife conservation and world wildlife fund, kathmandu, nepal. diwakar, j. 2007. environmental study of ghodaghodi lake, a field study report submitted to central department of environmental science, kirtipur, nepal. enpho. 1997. water resource monitoring program for the shivapuri watershed by assessing water quality (1st phase), environment and public health organization, kathmandu, nepal. iucn nepal. 1998. the ghodaghodi tal conservation area: a community centered management plan, ghodaghodi kshetra samrakshan, nahason and iucn nepal. james, e. j. 1995. managing the wetlands and their watersheds. yojana 39(182): 43-50. kafle, g. 2006. avifauna and vegetation of ghodaghodi lake (a ramsar site ) of nepal, nature conservation. poddar, p., puste, a. m. and sengupta, k., 2001. wetlands and their agronomic utilization. environment and agriculture and pollution in south asia. in: proceedings of the international conference on environment and agriculture, november 1-3, 1998, kathmandu. p.k.jha, s. b. baral, s. b. karmacharya, h.d. lekhak, p. lacoul and c. b. baniya, eds. ecological society (ecos), kathmandu. 2: 410-413. toalanur, s. 2004. practical soil science and agricultural chemistry, first edition, international book distributing co., india. trivedy , r. k. and goel, p. k. 1987. chemical and biological method for water pollution studies, 1st edition, environmental publication, karad, india. who. 1971. international standard for drinking water, world health organization. zobel, d. b., yadav, u.k.r., jha, p.k. and behn, m. j. 1987. a practical manual for ecology, ratna pustak bhandar, kathmandu, nepal. corrected bankojanakari vol 17-2.pmd 70 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 volume equation for populus deltoides plantation in western terai of nepal s. k. gautam1 and h. b. thapa2 allometric equations for estimating timber volume of populus deltoides in plantation trial of populus deltoides were developed. direct measurement of 60 trees in western nepal was done for this purpose. six models were tested with simple linear regression analysis technique. the best fit equation for volume was quadratic (0.1500 0.0205dbh + 0.00105*dbh2) with diameter at breast height as an independent variable. model recommended for estimating volume is based on diameter at breast height, because of the simplicity, easy to measure accurately in the field and the most common variable recorded in forest inventories. this model gave highest degree of determination (r2=0.88), and lowest standard error among the tested models. keywords: populus deltoids, volume, equation p opulus deltoides is an exotic species introduced from india into nepal in early eighties. plantation trials in the countries showed that it can be well grown in the terai region of nepal (jackson, 1994). the species posses many commercial characteristics such as easy to saw and work, good carving qualities, less insects and pest, which enable for its promotion in private forestry as well as community plantation (singh and negi, 2001). butwal plywood factory established trials of number of populus clones in 1986 (jackson, 1994) at jogikuti, near butwal. in 1998 it was handed over to department of forest research and survey (dfrs). in forestry practices volume prediction equation is useful when volume of specified part of tree is required for research , commercial utilization and valuation purpose. in nepal prediction equations of twenty one spp. (a. pindrow, a. catechu, a. cordifolia, a. nepalensis, a, latifolia, b. malabaricum, c, toona, d. sissoo, e. jambolana, h. excelsum, l. parviflora, m. champaca, p. roxburghii, p. wallichina, q. spp, s. wallichi, s. robusta, t. tomentosa, t. nudiflora, t. spp, ) were derived by sharma and pukkala (1990). thapa (1999) reported about the prediction equation of biomass of five spp (a. catechu, d. sissoo, e. comaldulensis and e. tereticonis). however there is lack of prediction volume equation of populus deltoids in plantation hence this study is carried out aiming to derive the best fit model for p. deltoides. materials and methods this study was carried out in plantation trial of p. deltoides at jogikuti which is located about 4-km southeast of butwal town in rupandehi district, in the western development region of nepal. it lies in the terai/bhabar region. the latitude and longitude of the site are 270 42’ n and 830 28’ e respectively. the site flat and elevation is 205 masl . the site contains well drained loamy soil with a ph range of 6 to 6.5. soil depth is very deep (>100cm). there is no gravel content on the top soil. the site falls in the sub-tropical zone .more than eighty per cent of the total rainfall occurs between june to october. average annual rainfall was 2452 mm. mean maximum and minimum temperatures were 300c and 200c respectively. april and may were the hottest months where as january was the coldest month (6 months dry season). the absolute maximum and minimum temperature at butwal were 450c in may and 4.30c in (average of 15 years record by department of hydrology and meteorology). the site was originally sal (shorea robusta) forest with tree associates like terminalia alata, terminalia belerica, lagerstroemia parviflora and shrubs like hollarhena antidyscentrica. we clear felled a hectare of poplar plantation stocks in april, 2005 with an objective of replacing the sites 1 research officer, department of forest research and survey, katmandu nepal e-mailshreek_gautam@yahoo.com 2 senior research officer, department of forest research and survey, katmandu nepal e-mailthapahb@yahoo.com short notes: 71 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 2 we clear felled a hectare of poplar plantation stocks in april, 2005 with an objective of replacing the sites with other research trials i.e. ntfps. the destructive sampling of p. deltoides was used to estimate the volume. in total 60 individual trees were harvested destructively for measurement. height and dbh (at 1.3m) were recorded before felling the trees. after felling each tree was divided into different sections up to 10 cm top diameter. diameter of upper end and lower end of each section was recorded in the field. sectional volume was calculated with using smalian's formula and then total volume of individual tree was obtained by adding sectional volume. data were fed into excel program and spss-11. six different models were tested in order to find out the best prediction model having greater r2, lesser standard error and higher f value. results and discussion descriptive statistics of measured 60 trees is given in table 1. average dbh is 20.12 cm while average height is 15.8 m. standard deviation of the dbh is 4.0 and height is 2.3. table 1: descriptive statics of the the measured tree dbh (cm) height (m) mean 20.12 15.80 std. error of mean .51 .29 median 18.70 15.05 std. deviation 4.01 2.31 variance 16.13 5.34 range 19 10.40 minimum 13 10.40 maximum 32 20.80 relationship between dbh and volume under bark volume was plotted against their respective dbh and scattered diagram (see fig 1) was plotted then abnormal data were sorted out which gave final diagram as follows. pearson correlation was found 0.968 (significant at 0.01 levels) between volume under bark and dbh. correlation coefficient indicates values and the number of cases or data sets. the absolute value (i.e. 0.968) indicates the strength of relationship and it seems significant, stronger and positive relationship between the diameter at breast height dbh and volume. diameter at breast height 40302010 v o l u m e u n d e r b a r k .6 .5 .4 .3 .2 .1 0.0 fig 1: scatter diagram volume under bark and dbh with other research trials i.e. ntfps. the destructive sampling of p. deltoides was used to estimate the volume. in total 60 individual trees were harvested destructively for measurement. height and dbh (at 1.3m) were recorded before felling the trees. after felling each tree was divided into different sections up to 10 cm top diameter. diameter of upper end and lower end of each section was recorded in the field. sectional volume was calculated with using smalian’s formula and then total volume of individual tree was obtained by adding sectional volume. data were fed into excel program and spss-11. six different models were tested in order to find out the best prediction model having greater r2, lesser standard error and higher f value. results and discussion descriptive statistics of measured 60 trees is given in table 1. average dbh is 20.12 cm while average height is 15.8 m. standard deviation of the dbh is 4.0 and height is 2.3. fig 1: scatter diagram volume under bark and dbh six different regression models were tested in order to select the best model, which predict most variability remained in the data. models were, linear; ý= a +bx ........................................................ (1) logarithmic, ý= a +lnx................................................ (2) quadratic; ý= a +bx +cx2 ........................................... (3) cubic; ý= a +bx +cx2+ dx3 ........................................ 4) power, ý= a xb .............................................................. (5) inverse, ý= aebx ............................................................. (6) where, timber volume (big wood stem volume as described by calliez , 1980)dependent variabl (y)and dbh independent variable (x), a, b, c, d are regression are parameter of estimate. relationship between dbh and volume under bark volume was plotted against their respective dbh and scattered diagram (see fig 1) was plotted then abnormal data were sorted out which gave final diagram as follows. pearson correlation was found 0.968 (significant at 0.01 levels) between volume under bark and dbh. correlation coefficient indicates values and the number of cases or data sets. the absolute value (i.e. 0.968) indicates the strength of relationship and it seems significant, stronger and positive relationship between the diameter at breast height dbh and volume. diameter at breast height 40302010 .6 .5 .4 .3 .2 .1 0.0 observed quadratic table 1: descriptive statics of the the measured tree dbh (cm) height (m) mean 20.12 15.80 std. error of mean .51 .29 median 18.70 15.05 std. deviation 4.01 2.31 variance 16.13 5.34 range 19 10.40 minimum 13 10.40 maximum 32 20.80 gautam and thapa 72 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 gautam and thapa diameter at breast height 40302010 .6 .5 .4 .3 .2 .1 0.0 -.1 observed linear our assumption is that valid model has always higher degree of determination, relatively lower standard error. thus no bias can be found with in the prediction (sharma et al., 1990). the residuals are normally distributed and their variance remains constant over the range of variation in diameter. our first criterion for model evaluation is adjusted r2 value which is the proportion of variation in the dependent variable explained by the regression model. we also calculated the value of adjusted r squared to correct r squared to more closely reflect the goodness of fit of the model in the population. model and parameters are presented in table 2. first tested model was linear and it has r2= 0.846 and adjusted r2= 0.84 where as logarithmic model has lesser adjusted r2 (0.79). among the six models the highest adjusted r2 value was obtained in power model i.e. 0.89. it was also found that quadratic and cubic model has equal adjusted r2 value (0.88). inverse model has least adjusted r2 i.e. 0.72. our second criterion of model evaluation is standard error the model which has lesser standard error has better predictability. table 2 depicts that power model has the highest standard error i.e. 0.178 even though it has higher adjusted r2= 0.89 while quadratic and cubic models have the least standard error i.e.0.037. regarding f statistic is the regression mean square (msr) divided by the residual mean square (mse). if the significance value of the f statistic is small (smaller than say 0.05) then the independent variables will do good job in explaining the variation in the dependent variable. table 2 shows that f statistic ranges from 145 of model cubic to highest 505 of power model. therefore all models revealed highly significant i.e. value (0.000). hence among six candidate models we have chosen, quadratic model diameter at breast height 40302010 .6 .5 .4 .3 .2 .1 0.0 -.1 observed logarithmic diameter at breast height 40302010 .6 .5 .4 .3 .2 .1 0.0 -.1 observed inverse 4 table 2: regression model and their regression parameters parameter of estimate model r2 adjr2 see f a b c d 1. linear 0.846 .0.84 .0.042 320.23 (.000) -.317 (.000) .02465 (.000) 2. logarithmic 0.797 0.79 .0481 228.11 (.000) -1.3006 (.000) .49587 (.000) 3. quadratic 0.887 0.88 0.037 218 (0.000) 0.150086 (.000) -0.0205 (.00007) 0.00105 (.000) 4. cubic 0.886 0.88 0.037 145 (.000) -0.25363 0.037 -0.00163 0.0000403 5. power 0.897 0.89 0.178 505 (.000) 0.000049 (.000) 2.6968 (.000) 6. inverse 0.731 0.72 0.056 158.35 (.000) .01474 (.000) .12735 (.000) fig in parenthesis shows significant value of the parameter our assumption is that valid model has always higher degree of determination, relatively lower standard error. thus no bias can be found with in the prediction (sharma et al., 1990). the residuals are normally distributed and their variance remains constant over the range of variation in diameter. our first criterion for model evaluation is adjusted r2 value which is the proportion of variation in the dependent variable explained by the regression model. we also calculated the value of adjusted r squared to correct r squared to more closely reflect the goodness of fit of the model in the population. model and parameters are presented in table 2. first tested model was linear and it has r2= 0.846 and adjusted r2= 0.84 where as logarithmic model has lesser adjusted r2 (0.79). among the six models the highest adjusted r2 value was obtained in power model i.e. 0.89. it was also found that quadratic and cubic model has equal adjusted r2 value (0.88). inverse model has least adjusted r2 i.e. 0.72. our second criterion of model evaluation is standard error the model which has lesser standard error has better predictability. table 2 depicts that power model has the highest standard error i.e. 0.178 even though it has higher adjusted r2= 0.89 while quadratic and cubic models have the least standard error i.e.0.037. regarding f statistic is the regression mean square (msr) divided by the residual mean square (mse). if the significance value of the f statistic is small (smaller than say 0.05) then the independent variables will do good job in explaining the variation in the dependent variable. table 2 shows that f statistic ranges from 145 of model cubic to highest 505 of power model. therefore all models revealed highly significant i.e. value (0.000). hence among six candidate models we have chosen, quadratic model (0.1500 0.0205dbh + 0.00105*dbh2) to be the best model because it has greatest adjusted r square ( r2 =.0.88), lowest standard error i.e. 0.037 (table 2). though power model seems highest r2 it has highest standard error i.e. 0.178. the volume, hence, obtained is the cubic meter volume of big stem lower cross cut at the smaller end on diameter at 4 cm. the volume predicted is without bark since the pricing of the timber is traditionally based on debarked logs in nepal (sharma and pukkala, 1990). however the equation above mentioned has some limitation such as it is derived from the even aged plantation crop and need to be verified on other sites because samples are taken from only one site in western terai. for this reasons the prediction may not be accurate in the case of individual trees such equations are found to work well when applied repeatedly on several trees and the result aggregated, such as computation of stand volume (jayaraman, 2000). conclusion volume function is suitable for quadratic ((0.1500-0.0205dbh+0.00105*dbh2) model although all above mentioned models seem statistically sound (f value highly significant) to predict the volume taking diameter as an independent variable. the diameter based populus volume equation presented in this paper provides a simple tool for volume estimation in field research and commercial calculation before harvest and valuation of the stand. acknowledgements 73 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 (0.1500 0.0205dbh + 0.00105*dbh2) to be the best model because it has greatest adjusted r square ( r2 =.0.88), lowest standard error i.e. 0.037 (table 2). though power model seems highest r2 it has highest standard error i.e. 0.178. the volume, hence, obtained is the cubic meter volume of big stem lower cross cut at the smaller end on diameter at 4 cm. the volume predicted is without bark since the pricing of the timber is traditionally based on debarked logs in nepal (sharma and pukkala, 1990). however the equation above mentioned has some limitation such as it is derived from the even aged plantation crop and need to be verified on other sites because samples are taken from only one site in western terai. for this reasons the prediction may not be accurate in the case of individual trees such equations are found to work well when applied repeatedly on several trees and the result aggregated, such as computation of stand volume (jayaraman, 2000). conclusion volume function is suitable for quadratic ((0.15000.0205dbh+0.00105*dbh2) model although all above mentioned models seem statistically sound (f value highly significant) to predict the volume taking diameter as an independent variable. the diameter based populus volume equation presented in this paper provides a simple tool for volume estimation in field research and commercial calculation before harvest and valuation of the stand. acknowledgements we acknowledge mr. talak bdr. mahat, keshav neupane, for assisting in tree measurements in the field while mr. r. c. sharma for data entry. reference caillez, f. 1980. forest volume estimation and yield prediction. vol (22) fao rome. hawkins, t. 1987. biomass and volume table for eucalyptus camaldulensis. ,dalbergia sisso, acacia auriculiformis and cassia siamea in the central/ bhabar terai of nepal. oxford forestry institute, department of plant sciences, university of oxford.ofioccasional paper. das, d. k. and chaturvedi, o. p. 2005. structure and function of populus deltoides agroforestry system in eastern india. agroforestry system 65: 215-221. jakson, j. k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. vol (2) forest research and survey center, kathmandu-668p. jayaraman, k. a. 2000. statistical manual for forestry research. forspa publication no. 25. forestry research support program for asia and pacific (forspa) . fao bankok188p. segura, m. 2005. allometric model for tree volume and total above ground biomass in tropical humid forest in costarica. biotropica 37 (1): 2-8. sharma e. r. and pukala t, 1990. volume equation and biomass prediction of forest trees of nepal, publication 47. forest research and statistics division, babarmahal kathmandu. singh, s. p. and negi, a. 2001. utilization of poplar for wood composites. the indian forester 127 (2): 154-159 thapa, h. b. 1999. prediction models for above ground wood of some fast growing trees of nepals eastern terai. banko janakari, (9): 28-35. gautam and thapa forest fire and its management strategies in nepal fire is one of the important tools in forest management when used in planned and controlled manner, but uncontrolled fires lead to serious degradation of forests, ecological changes, as well as deterioration of social and economical conditions in some land-use systems and natural vegetation types. uncontrolled forest fires in the fire season of 2009 alone caused 41 fatalities (civilians and fire-fighters) and destroyed hundreds of thousands of hectares of national forests, particularly in community forests, government managed forests, national parks and reserves. the major causes of wildfires are man-made. erratic climatic variation, prolonged dry season and very low winter rainfall in recent years have increased the incidences of wildfires in nepal. a study shows that about 58% forest fire is deliberate burning by grazers, poachers, hunters and ntfp collectors; 22% due to negligence and 20% by accident in nepal. by duration, more than 80% forest fire occurs in march and april whereas about 60% forest fire occurs in april alone. the institutional capacity to combat wildfires is very weak. the government has approved the forest fire management strategy which has given high priority to participatory forest fire management; public awareness programmes; legal reforms and capacity building of government and community institutions. there are various agencies, institutions and ngos working worldwide and in nepal such as un-isdr wildland fire advisory group (wfag) / the global wildland fire network (gwfn) and its secretariat the global fire monitoring center (gfmc) and the regional south asia wildland fire network (rsawfn). nepal forest fire management chapter (nfmc), an autonomous, non-profit, non-governmental organization, is working to institutionalize wildland fire management activities for sustainable forest resource management in the country. there are different methods and tools to prevent forest fires that demand much resources both in terms of technology and economy. the introduction of continuous education and training programmes with proper follow-up that can have a positive response to forest fire prevention and control is needed. coordination and cooperation must be required among wildlife clubs, environmental groups or eco-clubs, community forest user groups, youth clubs and fire management professionals. these groups can assist in detection and prevention of fires. use of mass media is one of the best means of public education in the prevention of wild fires in very short time duration.posters or pamphlets can also be used in market place, bus stands, public offices and schools. firebreakers or firelines may banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 2 be natural barriers, such as road or stream, or especially constructed barriers to limit the spread of fires and to provide an established control line in the case of firefighting. the most effective fire hazard reduction is to eliminate most of fuel from hazardous areas. this can be done by burning off all hazardous fuel through controlled burning or prescribed burning; it should be however, done before fire season. fire awareness and educational activities are very effective tools in involving the community and other groups in a fire management programme and in engaging the communities as responsible partners. those can assist in the prevention, detection and reporting of fires, work with fire personnel to control unwanted fires. besides, fire prevention training at schools and colleges is an important part of any prevention effort. however, there is a lack of existing national capability in fire research and management, including monitoring, early warning and ecological and socio-economic impact assessment, and facilitating international cooperation in fire management. now, there is an increasing interest in community-based fire management, and need for institutional and technological capability development at all levels. a reliable and timely fire detection and monitoring system is an important part of forest fire management. international centre for integrated mountain development, in close collabouration with the department of forests, has developed a forest fire detection and monitoring system for nepal based on moderate resolution imaging spectrora diameter data. the system currently sends email notification on fires throughout nepal to some 180 subscribers. furthermore, some 220 text message subscribes, including district forest officers and focal persons of the federation of community forestry users groups of nepal in all districts, receive fire alerts in their mobile if a fire incident is detected in the district of their subscription. the fire user database is currently managed by the department of forests through a customized web interface. it is a very high time to work on fire management towards the conservation of forest ecosystem as well as mitigating the consequences of climate change for which we need to develop synergies through coordinated and collective actions at local and national levels. final added vol 15-2.pmd 3 assessment of fodder yield from artocarpus lakoocha and bauhinia purpurea) tree planting in community forests in the western midhills of nepal s.k. baral and r. shakya this experiment assessed the yield and growth performance of the fodder tree planting in the community forest focusing on artocarpus lakoocha, bahunia purpurea. major variables analyzing the yield and growth of the species such as dbh, height, green weight of the foliage was measured. after analyzing the data, artocarpus lakoocha was found to be good yielding and growth performing species as compared to bahunia purpurea. preliminary result shows that yield of the both the species is significantly correlated with dbh and height. key words: artocarpus lakoocha, bahunia purpurea, fodder, plantation, community forest, yield tree fodder provides diverse needs of farmers, and contributes to the rehabilitation of degraded lands. the scarcity of fuelwood and fodder in nepal is felt not only because the limited area under forests and the rapidly growing population (25.4 million), but also the very low productivity. we have large area shrub land of over 10.6% of total area of the country, some of which could be utilized for growing fodder cum fuelwood trees in the degraded area of the community forests. tree fodder and green grasses contribute about 42 per cent of the total nutrients provided to the ruminants (panday, 1991). study that showed there is considerable fodder deficit in nepal -as much as 20% of the present level of demand (pandey, 1982)has in recent years favour the planting of fodder species like artocarpus lakoocha (badahar) and bahunia purpurea (tanki) in marginal lands as well as the degraded forestlands. it was also reported that badahar and tanki were top ranked species by the farmers in terms of feeding value to the animals (devkota, et al., 1995). badahar (artocarpus lakoocha) as described by vaidya and gautam, 1989, it is a medium sized tree, occurring naturally from the terai to about 1600m and grows best on deep permeable soil with a good supply of moisture. tanki (bahunia purpurea), as described by kharel et.al., 2000, a moderate light demanding tree species is found in all regions of nepal, up to 1600m altitude. it is one of the most important native fodder trees, which increases in milk, yield from feeding this fodder to buffalo. the main season for utilization of fodder in most places is from november to february but old trees can be lopped twice yearly, first in february-march and second in april-may from the new flush. because of limited private lands, farmers are bound to use the common property resources, particularly the forests to feed their livestock (singh, 2000). in this context, fodder trees planting in the community forest could be a viable option for fulfilling the green forage requirement for livestock. all the land available for planting fodder trees is marginal and abandoned farm or rangeland (karki and gold, 1992). planting, managing and utilizing of fodder trees in community forest are common practice by forest users in western region of nepal. there is lack of information about fodder yield planting in the degraded land of community forestry, which is necessary to determine its optimal use as a cultivated fodder tree. therefore, the study ‘assessment of fodder (artocarpus lakoocha and bahunia purpurea) yield planting in community forest in the hill region of western development region of nepal is carried out. main objectives of this experiment are to assess fodder production or yield from planting fodder tree in community forest and assess the role of fodder for the livelihoods of the users. preliminary result of this study was analyzed and interpreted in this paper. department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal 4 banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 baral and shakya methodology this study site is located in jayakot plantation area of the jayakot community forest, kahun vdc ward no: 2, kaski, which is being managed by joshila ama samuha (a sub-group of the community forest user group) and lies in the eastern part of pokhara valley having south-east aspect with 200 slopes.the site has annual rainfall 293.7cm and mean annual tempreture 220c. the study site is located at the open land adjoining the community forest and the users of the community forest had randomly planted the different fodder species (artocarpus lakoocha, bahunia purpurea, ficus cunia, ficus subincisa and litsea monopetala) in 1998/ 99 with the assistance of tree improvement and silviculture component (tisc), pokhara. the study was focused on artocarpus lakoocha, and bahunia purpurea therefore, in the first year 2061 and only these species were measured. major fodder trees of each species for the study were selected by taking criteria developed by researcher and local users, which were minimum three trees from each diameter class, should be measured. dbh and height was measured by using measuring tape and green weight of the foliage was measured by harvesting the selected tree as generally the users practicing i.e. lopping all the foliage of the tree. oven dry weight was measured taking the sample of each species and keeping into the oven at 600 for 5.6 hours to calculate the moisture content in the leaf and twigs. simple statistical tools-mean, percentage, standard deviation, correlation coefficient and coefficient of variation were computed to assess the growth performance variables viz. yield, diameter at breast height and height growth of the tree. results and discussion study variables relationship correlation coefficient is a measure of linear association between two variables. the correlation between dbh and yield of fodder twigs and height and yield of fodder twigs was calculated for each species. the table:1 shows that a significant, strong and positive correlation exists between dbh and yield and height and yield in case of both the species. yield and growth performance as described by vaidya and gautam, 1989, artocarpus lakoocha can be lopped for fodder after it is about four years old. estimation of fodder yields vary considerably from 36 to 270 kg of fresh matter per year for a mature tree; an average of 128 kg /tree/ year. the bahunia purpurea has the average yield from mature trees is in the range of 21 to 111kg and the crude protein content of its fodder is approximately 12.6 percent (kharel et.al., 2000). at the age of five years, yield and growth performance of artocarpus lakoocha was found better than that of bahunia purpurea (table 2). artocarpus lakoocha attained 4.5 cm mean dbh and 3.5 m height but bahunia purpurea attained 2.5cm mean dbh and 2.4m mean height. mean yield (green twigs) of artocarpus lakoocha is 5.14 kg, which is two times more than that of bahunia purpurea 1.94 kg. moisture content percentage of fodder with small twigs of artocarpus lakoocha was found 52.09% and fodder with small twigs of bahunia purpurea was found 51.12%. the result shows that the variability in both the species is high. the sources of variation, due to the inherent variability of the species and microenvironmental effect for growth and development correlation coefficient is a measure of linear association between two variables. the correlation between dbh and yield of fodder twigs and height and yield of fodder twigs was calculated for each species. the table:1 showed that there was significant, strong and positive correlation existed between dbh and yield and height and yield in case of both the species. table:1, correlation between height and dbh with yield (freshly cut twigs). s.n. species dbh and yield height and yield remarks 1 artocarpus lakoocha 0.9373 0.9260 all values showed significant relationships. 2 bahunia purpurea 0.9656 0.9762 yield and growth performance as described by vaidya and gautam, 1989, artocarpus lakoocha can be lopped for fodder after it is about four years old. estimation of fodder yields vary considerably from 36 to 270 kg of fresh matter per year for a mature tree; an average of 128 kg /tree/year. the bahunia purpurea has the average yield from mature trees is in the range of 21 to 111kg and the crude protein content of its fodder is approximately 12.6 percent (kharel et.al., 2000). at the age of five years, yield and growth performance of artocarpus lakoocha was found better than that of bahunia purpurea. artocarpus lakoocha attained 4.5 cm mean dbh and 3.5 m height but bahunia purpurea attained 2.5cm mean dbh and 2.4m mean height. mean yield (green twigs) of artocarpus lakoocha is 5.14 kg, which is two times more than that of bahunia purpurea 1.94 kg. moisture content percentage of fodder with small twigs of artocarpus lakoocha was found 52.09% and fodder with small twigs of bahunia purpurea was found 51.12%. table:2, growth performance and variation in total green weight of twigs(kg), at the age of five years, jan2005,n=30 for each species. s.n. species mean dbh (cm) mean height (m) mean yield of twigs (green wt. in kg) coefficient of variation moisture content remarks 1 artocarpus lakoocha 4.5 3.5 5.14 32.60 52.09% 2 bahunia purpurea 2.5 2.4 1.94 44.02 51.12% above table showed that the variability in both the species is found high. the sources of variation, due to the inherent variability of the species and micro-environmental effect for growth and development of the fodder tree should be examined. within inherent variability could break down as seed source, nursery stage and planting stage and similarly within the micro-environmental effect could break down as inherent soil properties, moisture level and configuration of the land. conclusion correlation coefficient is a measure of linear association between two variables. the correlation between dbh and yield of fodder twigs and height and yield of fodder twigs was calculated for each species. the table:1 showed that there was significant, strong and positive correlation existed between dbh and yield and height and yield in case of both the species. table:1, correlation between height and dbh with yield (freshly cut twigs). s.n. species dbh and yield height and yield remarks 1 artocarpus lakoocha 0.9373 0.9260 all values showed significant relationships. 2 bahunia purpurea 0.9656 0.9762 yield and growth performance as described by vaidya and gautam, 1989, artocarpus lakoocha can be lopped for fodder after it is about four years old. estimation of fodder yields vary considerably from 36 to 270 kg of fresh matter per year for a mature tree; an average of 128 kg /tree/year. the bahunia purpurea has the average yield from mature trees is in the range of 21 to 111kg and the crude protein content of its fodder is approximately 12.6 percent (kharel et.al., 2000). at the age of five years, yield and growth performance of artocarpus lakoocha was found better than that of bahunia purpurea. artocarpus lakoocha attained 4.5 cm mean dbh and 3.5 m height but bahunia purpurea attained 2.5cm mean dbh and 2.4m mean height. mean yield (green twigs) of artocarpus lakoocha is 5.14 kg, which is two times more than that of bahunia purpurea 1.94 kg. moisture content percentage of fodder with small twigs of artocarpus lakoocha was found 52.09% and fodder with small twigs of bahunia purpurea was found 51.12%. table:2, growth performance and variation in total green weight of twigs(kg), at the age of five years, jan2005,n=30 for each species. s.n. species mean dbh (cm) mean height (m) mean yield of twigs (green wt. in kg) coefficient of variation moisture content remarks 1 artocarpus lakoocha 4.5 3.5 5.14 32.60 52.09% 2 bahunia purpurea 2.5 2.4 1.94 44.02 51.12% above table showed that the variability in both the species is found high. the sources of variation, due to the inherent variability of the species and micro-environmental effect for growth and development of the fodder tree should be examined. within inherent variability could break down as seed source, nursery stage and planting stage and similarly within the micro-environmental effect could break down as inherent soil properties, moisture level and configuration of the land. conclusion table 1 : correlation between height and dbh with yield (freshly cut twigs). table:2, growth performance and variation in total green weight of twigs(kg), at the age of five years, jan-2005, n=30 for each species. 5 banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 of the fodder tree should be examined. within inherent variability could break down as seed source, nursery stage and planting stage and similarly within the micro-environmental effect could break down as inherent soil properties, moisture level and configuration of the land. conclusion artocarpus lakoocha was found better performer than bahunia purpurea. correlation between dbh and yield and height and yield was significant for both the species. between height or diameter at breast height, any variable could be used for assessing the yield of the fodder. co-efficient of variation was found wideranging due to inherent variability of the species and micro-environmental effect and these types of sources of variation should examine more in detail for this study. acknowledgement we acknowledge mr. shreekrishna gautam for his valuable suggestions in data analysis and interpretation of the result. refrences amatya s.m. and lindley d.k. 1992. sample size estimation for fodder biomass yields in nepal. banko janakari 3(3): 21-23. devkota, n.r., sapkota, m.p., yadav, j.l., pant, s.s. and pande, k.r.1995, indigenous management and nutrient analysis of fodder treesand feed mixtures in chitawan. iaas,105-116p. karki m.b. and gold m.a. 1992. evaluation of growth performance of ten commonly grown fodder tree species in central and west nepal. banko janakari 3(4): 21-26. kharel r.,amatya, s.m. and basukala, r. 2000, survival and growth of selected fodder species in dhading, kabhre and sindhupalchowk districts. in improved strategies for identifying and adressing fodder deficits in the mid-hills of nepal (ed) kharel, r., amatya, s.m.,kiff, l., regmi, b.n., dfrs, nepal,59-66. panday kk.,1982. fodder trees and tree fodder in nepal. swiss developement cooperation, bern and swiss federal institute for forestry research, birmensdorf, switzerland, 107p. singh s.b., 2000. mitigating fodder deficits in the mid-hills of nepal: strategies and approaches. in improved strategy for identyfying and adressing fodder deficits in the mid-hills of nepal. in improved strategies for identifying and adressing fodder deficits in the mid-hills of nepal (ed)kharel, r., amatya, s.m.,kiff, l., regmi, b.n., dfrs, nepal,105-111. vaidya, s.n. and gautam, y.p.(1989),cited in kharel r.,amatya, s.m. and basukala, r. 2000, survival and growth of selected fodder species in dhading, kabhre and sindhupalchowk districts. in improved strategies for identifying and adressing fodder deficits in the mid-hills of nepal (ed) kharel, r., amatya, s.m.,kiff, l., regmi, b.n., dfrs, nepal,59-66. baral and shakya seabuckthorn (hippophae salicifolia d. don.), an important multi-purpose tree, is found at altitudes of 2000–3600 m amsl in nepal, but so far no models have been developed for estimating the biomass of this species, thus hampering resource assessment and management planning. hence, the objective of this study was to develop local biomass models for wood, fruit, and leaves of seabuckthorn. in november 2006, a diameter-stratified sample of 30 trees was harvested in lete and kunjo village development committees at an altitude of about 2300 m amsl in the lower part of mustang district, nepal. the fresh weight of fruit and oven-dry weight of wood (stem and branches) and leaves were measured and used as a basis for developing biomass models. diameters of the trees were measured at 30 cm above ground whereas the heights were measured in terms of the total tree height (m). among several models tested, the models suggested for local use were: ln(woody biomass, oven-dry, kg) = -3.083 + 2.436 ln(diameter, cm), ln (fruit biomass, fresh, kg) = -3.237 + 1.346 ln(diameter, cm) and ln(leaf biomass, oven-dry, kg) = -4.013 + 1.403 ln(diameter, cm) with adjusted coefficients of determination of 0.99, 0.73 and 0.91 for wood, fruit, and leaves, respectively. the models suggested for a slightly broader range of environmental conditions were: ln (woody biomass, oven-dry, kg) = -3.277 + 0.924 ln(diameter2 × height), ln(fruit biomass, fresh, kg) = -3.146 + 0.485 ln(diameter2 × height) and ln(leaf biomass, oven-dry, kg) = -4.121 + 0.532 ln(diameter2 × height) with adjusted coefficients of determination of 0.99, 0.68, and 0.92 for wood, fruit, and leaves, respectively. the models can be used in assessment of seabuckthorn resources and above-ground carbon and in the management of these resources by communities and others. key words: allometric models, biomass functions, wood, foliage, fruit, leaves above-ground biomass models for seabuckthorn (hippophae salicifolia) in mustang district, nepal r. rajchall and h. meilby2 seabuckthorn is a general name for a group of shrubs or small trees belonging to genus hippophae linn., under elaeagnaceae family. all species of the genus hippophae are dioecious, deciduous, thorny and willow-like woody plants (lu, 1992). seabuckthorn is a fast-growing multipurpose species which has an extraordinary capacity to grow and survive under extreme conditions (-40 to +40º c), and has an extensive rooting system with strong soil binding capacity, making the species useful for soil stabilization, river bank control and water retention (tisc, 2001). seabuckthorn berries and leaves are rich sources of vitamins, antioxidants, and other nutrients and are widely recognized for their medicinal value (maertz, 2006). for farmers living in the mountains, seabuckthorn offers opportunities to maintain sustainable livelihoods by providing fuelwood, fodder, healthy foods, and medicinal products and protecting the land from soil erosion (lu, 1992; ansari, 2003). two species of hippophae are native to the mountain regions of nepal, h. salicifolia d. don and h. tibetana schlecht. (lu, 1990; lu, 1992; kharel, 1999; vaidya, 1999). according to gupta et al. (2000), h. salicifolia is found between 2000 m and 3600 m altitudes amsl, whereas h. tibetana is found at slightly higher elevations of 3300 – 4500 m amsl (ansari, 2003). the two hippophae species have been reported from the mountain areas of baglung, darchula, dolakha, dolpa, humla, jajarkot, jumla, kaski, manang, mugu, mustang, ramechhap, rasuwa, solukhumbu and taplejung districts (vaidya, 1999; gupta et al., 2000; tisc, 2001; baral, 2002). in mustang district, the species emphasized in this study, h. salicifolia, grows along the banks of rivers and 1 us geological survey, denver, colorado, usa. e-mail: rrajchal@hotmail.com 2 department of food and resource economics, university of copenhagen, denmark. 23 banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 24 streams, on flood plains, steep slopes, alluvial soils, and newly eroded colluvial deposits of lete, kunjo, and kobang village development committees (vdcs). despite widespread use of seabuckthorn and considerable worldwide attention, only few studies on the species have been conducted so far in nepal. some initiatives have increased local utilization of the fruit of seabuckthorn by promoting juice making, and it appears that local communities and development organizations are mainly concerned with product utilization issues. however, for commercial utilization and proper management of natural populations of the species, estimation of available resources is crucial. because of the strong allometric relationship typically observed between biomass and diameter/ height of a tree species, the use of regression estimates offers a reasonable, efficient and nondestructive approach to biomass estimation. additionally, because of the growing interest in above ground biomass estimation triggered by the need for assessment of carbon stocks in forests, biomass functions for seabuckthorn offers a useful tool for estimating carbon retention in other similar species for which only few studies have been made. therefore, the primary objective of this study was to develop local above ground biomass models for wood, fruit and leaves of seabuckthorn (h. salicifolia) in mustang district, nepal. the study should be useful not only to academic communities for estimating and comparing the biomass of seabuckthorn forests/thickets but also to the local communities of mustang district for assessing the current resource status as a basis for planning their resource extraction. materials and methods study area mustang is one of the main districts of the annapurna conservation area that covers most of the annapurna himal complex and the kali gandaki valley. the district, with jomsom as its headquarters, covers an area of 3,573 km2, and has a population of about 15,000 (hmg/n, 2001). it extends from 28º24′ to 29º20′ n latitudes and from 83º30′ to 84º10′ e longitudes. the terrain is rugged and ranges from 1372 m to 8167 m amsl, thus representing sub-tropical to alpine types of climate. the district is characterised by a very large biodiversity, unique landscapes and rich cultural heritage, and has, therefore, become one of the most important tourist destinations in the nation. the study area is located in lete and kunjo vdcs in lower mustang, and covers about 61 ha of seabuckthorn forest/thicket, the majority of which is located along the kali gandaki river (rajchal, 2007) (fig. 1). data collection selection of trees and measurements in november 2006, thirty seabuckthorn trees were selected on the banks of the kali gandaki and lete rivers, both in lete and kunjo vdcs. the trees were evenly distributed across nine diameter classes (each 5 cm wide); the diameters of the selected sample trees ranged from 1.4 cm to 43.2 cm at 30 cm above ground. the total height of the selected trees ranged from 1.8 m to 15.2 m. due to the shrub-like character of h. salicifolia and the occurrence of small individuals, the stem diameters were measured 30 cm above ground. dead, dying or malformed individuals were avoided while selecting the sample trees. the direction of felling was determined before felling the trees; the ground was cleared for shrubs and other obstacles, and a 20 m × 10 m tarpaulin was laid out in the direction of felling to prevent loss of leaves or dead branches. tree height, crown diameter, bark thickness and number of annual rings 30 cm above ground were measured after felling. at the analysis stage, these measurements were included in our search for the most suitable biomass model. tree height and crown diameters were measured to the nearest 10 cm, and diameter 30 cm above ground was measured to the nearest 1 mm. finally, the thickness of the bark was measured to the nearest 0.5 mm. fresh (green) weight measurement the thirty sample trees were cut both at 30 cm above ground and as close as possible to the ground to include the stump. all branches with leaves and fruit were separated, and the trunk and branches were cut into short, manageable segments. all the leaves were clipped off, and the fruit were collected safely from the branches which were added to the wood biomass. the woody parts were weighed to the nearest 0.1 kg in the fresh (wet) condition using a spring balance, rajchal and meilby banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 25 rajchal and meilby and the leaves as well as fruits were weighed in situ to the nearest gram using a battery-powered balance. sample collection for oven-dry weight wood discs of stems (approximately 1 inch thick) from different parts of the trees were sawn off in the field, and the fresh weight was determined to the nearest gram using a battery-powered balance. representative samples of leaves were collected, and weighed to the nearest gram. wood and leaf samples were kept in a dry and shady place prior to final oven-drying. oven-dry weight determination the wood samples were oven dried at a constant temperature of 105°c for 48 hours (fri, 1986) to obtain constant weight (weighing to the nearest 0.01 gram). the leaf samples were oven dried at 70°c (rayachhetry et al., 2001) for 12 hours, until no further weight loss was observed. for each sample, the dry matter content (dmc, in per cent of fresh weight) and the moisture content (mc, in per cent of dry weight) were calculated as: , and where, wfresh is fresh weight and wdry is ovendry weight. based on these values, average dmc and average moisture content (mc) were estimated for wood and leaves. using these estimates and the fresh weight measurements made for trunk and branch segments and piles of leaves, oven-dry weights were calculated for each tree for application in %100×= fresh dry w w dmc mc = x 100% wfresh – wdry wdry fig. 1: map of the study area and the locations of seabuckthorn (hippophae salicifolia) forests banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 26 regression models. for fruit, the fresh weight measured in the field was used directly in regression models. biomass models a range of different biomass models including some of the models commonly encountered in the literature were tested. the tested models are as follows: model 1: ln b = a + b ln d model 2: ln b = a + ln d2h model 3: ln b = a + b ln d + c ln h model 4: b = a + b d model 5: b = a + b h model 6: b = a + b d + c h model 7: b = a + b d2h model 8: b = a + b d + c d2 model 9: b = a + b cd where, d is diameter at 30 cm, h is total height of the tree, cd is the crown diameter, b is biomass of oven-dry wood, oven-dry leaves, or fresh fruit of seabuckthorn, and a, b, and c are parameters to be estimated. comparison of different models was based on: (i) adjusted coefficient of determination (adj. r2) which makes it possible to compare models with different numbers of parameters (montgomery et al., 2001); (ii) significance of parameter estimates when tested at the 5% level; (iii) homogeneity of residual variance and distribution of the residuals; (iv) standard error of the estimates or standard deviation of the residuals (see); and (v) simplicity and low requirements with respect to number of variables that need to be measured in the field. many biomass studies apply data splitting procedures when validating biomass models (e.g. poudel et al., 2011). however, due to the low number of observations, it would be too wasteful to split the data into separate calibration and validation datasets. instead, repeated crossvalidation was carried out where, in each of n validation runs, a single observation was omitted and the model parameters estimated on the remaining n-1 observations. each of the n resulting models was subsequently used to predict biomass for the tree that was omitted in each of the cases. the errors obtained through this leaveone-out cross-validation were summarised as per centage bias (pbias) and root mean squared error per centage (rmse%) as follows: ( ) obs n i iprediobs bn bb pbias ∑= − ×= 1 ,,%100 and ( )∑ = −= n i iprediobs obs bb nb rmse 1 2 ,, 1%100% where bobs,i is observed and bpred,i is predicted biomass and i = 1…n. limitations of the study h. salicifolia is a dioecious and biennial plant species and, therefore, only female trees bear fruit and only every second year. fruit ripening starts in autumn and remain on the branches until the following spring. in this study, only fruiting trees were considered as female, and were, thus, included in the estimation of the biomass model for fruit. fruits were collected in november during the peak ripening time of the autumn season, and the fruit biomass models, therefore, express the maximum amount of fruit in 2006. h. salicifolia is also a deciduous plant species, and the amount of leaves varies from season to season every year. the plant starts producing leaves in late spring; the leaf biomass reaches maximum during the summer. the leaves begin to fall in the autumn, and completely fall off the branches in the winter. since sample trees were felled in november, the biomass function for leaves expresses the amount of foliage after the annual peak, but before the minimum was reached. results and discussion results basic data as described above, average moisture and dry matter contents of wood and leaves were estimated for samples of wood discs and leaves. the estimated average moisture contents of wood and leaves were 137.4% (se 1.5%, n=10) and 186.2 % (se 0.5%, n=5) of dry weight, respectively. the corresponding average dry matter contents of wood and leaves were 42.1% and 34.9% of the fresh weight respectively. based rajchal and meilby banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 27 on these values and the fresh weights measured in the field, oven-dry weights of wood and leaves were estimated for each sample tree. the entire set of measurements of different variables is presented in table 1. development of models as expected, the biomass increased with increasing diameter and height. a preliminary examination of scatter plots showing the biomass of wood, fruit, and leaves against diameter and table 1. measurements of biomass components and other variables for 30 individual trees of seabuckthorn (h. salicifolia d. don.) sampled in lete vdc, mustang district, nepal in november 2006. sn diameter at 30 cm (cm) total height (m) oven-dry biomass (kg) fresh fruit biomass (kg) crown diameter (m) bark thickness (mm) no. of growth rings† sex‡ wood leaves 1 1.4 1.8 0.18 0.03 0 0.9 2 2 u 2 2.5 2.2 0.67 0.06 0 1 2.5 3 u 3 3.4 2.6 0.46 0.12 0 2.5 3 4 u 4 3.5 2.6 0.55 0.14 0.16 2.7 3.2 5 f 5 4.1 3.3 1.27 0.13 0.2 1.4 3.8 5 f 6 4.7 2.7 0.58 0.22 0.31 2.7 4 5 f 7 4.9 3.7 1.73 0.07 0 1.9 4 6 m 8 5.2 3.5 3.58 0.23 0.96 2.1 3.8 5 f 9 6.8 3.5 6.89 0.41 1.24 2.3 3.89 5 f 10 10.0 3.88 10.70 0.63 1.352 1.8 4.5 9 f 11 10.0 4.9 9.14 0.24 0.668 3.55 4 8 f 12 10.8 5.3 14.61 0.33 0.095 4.15 3.5 7 f 13 12.1 8.6 22.32 0.79 0.5 3.85 6 9 f 14 12.5 5.8 21.41 0.58 0 3.8 4.37 10 m 15 16.0 9.3 46.92 1.12 0.46 4.7 7.13 14 f 16 18.8 8.7 58.60 0.13 1.08 5.6 11.5 16 f 17 19.0 6.8 62.92 0.75 3.875 5.1 10 22 f 18 20.8 8.2 71.64 0.75 2.16 5.8 13.75 30 f 19 21.1 7.4 60.98 1.24 0.97 5 7 23 f 20 26.0 9.5 113.38 0.75 3.7 4.4 8 26 f 21 26.3 9.7 141.64 1.36 3.9 5.6 9 30 f 22 26.8 9.8 164.76 1.59 3.412 8.5 14.3 33 f 23 27.5 13.4 170.64 2.50 2.08 6.8 11.5 16 f 24 28.9 8.0 143.93 1.22 10.26 6.75 11 64 f 25 29.0 11.5 148.18 4.06 0 6.55 13.3 60 m 26 34.1 10.5 259.69 3.00 0 7.1 13.5 44 m 27 35.9 11.4 280.77 2.40 5.82 8.85 15.8 51 f 28 36.5 13.4 307.45 4.64 0 8.75 12 41 m 29 40.1 14.0 409.72 5.10 8.51 9.05 13.5 42 f 30 43.2 15.2 528.71 5.49 6.76 9.6 14 38 f † number of growth rings was counted 30 cm above ground ‡ sex: u: unknown (n=3), m: male (n=5), f: female (n=22) rajchal and meilby banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 28 height indicated that relationships between biomass and independent variables were nonlinear and characterised by heterogeneous variance. this is illustrated in figure 2. models were developed using stem diameter 30 cm above ground and total tree height as independent variables. a range of regression models were compared to identify the best possible model for which no deviations from the general assumptions of linear regression were observed and which provided the best possible statistical fit. among such models, the most attractive relationships between biomass and diameter and/or height was obtained when the logarithm of biomass, ln b, was regressed against the logarithm of diameter, ln d or the product of height and squared diameter, ln d2h. such double-logarithmic allometric models are widely used in tree biomass studies as they generally provide reliable results for many types of biomass measures (whitesell et al., 1988; crown and schlaegel, 1988; kadeba, 1991; termikaelian and korzukhin, 1997; ingerslev and hallbacken, 1999 and claesson et al., 2001). consequently, for the biomass of wood, fruit, and leaves, the selected models were: model 1: ln b = a + b ln d, and model 2: ln b = a + b ln d2h where ln is the natural logarithm, b is the biomass, d is the diameter at 30 cm above ground, and h is the total height of the tree. these models are log-transformed power functions, i.e. y = axb, but unfortunately, the transformation introduces bias to the estimated biomass (finney, 1941; beauchamp and olson, 1973; lee, 1982). sprugel (1983), therefore, proposed a correction factor (cf) which adjusts for the logarithmic bias: fig. 2: biomass of wood, fruit and leaves vs. stem diameter (30 cm above ground) and total tree height rajchal and meilby banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 29       = 2 exp 2seecfcf for the final selection between the two models, comparisons were made with respect to the significance of the parameters of the regressions, adj. r2, see, residual distributions (using scatter plots and histograms), cumulative probability plots and practical applicability of the models. for each of the three biomass components, one major outlier was detected and removed (#6 for wood, #12 for fruit and #16 for leaves, see table 1) before preparing the final models. parameter estimates of the models are presented in table 2. residual plots are shown in figure 3. all models were highly significant (pr>f < 0.001), and except for the fruit biomass models, all adjusted r2 values exceeded 0.8. in model 1, the estimated slope parameter (b) was generally greater than 1, indicating that the biomass of wood, fruit, and leaves all increase progressively with increasing diameter. furthermore, in agreement with the fact that leaves and fruit are attached to the same structures of the tree, the estimated slopes of the fruit and leaves biomass functions were similar. for wood and leaves, model 2 yielded a slightly better fit (lower see, higher adjusted r2) than model 1, but for fruit, the model fit was not improved by including tree height. cross-validation the cross-validation showed that both models 1 and 2 for wood and fruit produced small percentage bias values (between -2% and +2%), whereas numerically they were slightly larger (about -6%) for leaves (table 2). in agreement with the patterns observed for see and adjusted r2, the root mean squared error percentages for wood and leaves were slightly lower for model 2 than for model 1, whereas the opposite pattern was observed for fruit. moreover, in agreement with the wide scatter (relative to biomass) observed for fruit and leaves in figure 2, the root mean squared error percentage was much greater (51–68%) for fruit and leaves than for wood (14–18%). table 2: regression models describing above ground biomass components of h. salicifolia. units of measurement: diameter 30 cm above ground (d): cm, height (h): m, biomass (b): kg. sn variable (biomass) b param. estimates (and standard errors) adj. r2 see cf f value pr>f leave-one-out cross-validation errors a b pbias† % rmse‡ % model 1: models with d as independent variable (ln b = a + b ln d) 1 wood (dry) -3.083 (0.149) 2.436 (0.054) 0.986 0.269 1.037 2031.12 <0.001 -1.61 18.17 2 fruit fresh) -3.237 (0.512) 1.346 (0.181) 0.730 0.633 1.222 55.19 <0.001 0.18 62.09 3 leaves (dry) -4.013 (0.226) 1.403 (0.083) 0.910 0.423 1.093 282.72 <0.001 -6.03 56.70 model 2: models with d2h as independent variable (ln b = a + b ln d2h) 1 wood (dry) -3.277 (0.150) 0.924 (0.020) 0.987 0.264 1.036 2104.87 <0.001 0.89 13.68 2 fruit (fresh) -3.146 (0.563) 0.485 (0.074) 0.679 0.690 1.269 43.36 <0.001 1.99 68.27 3 leaves (dry) -4.121 (0.224) 0.532 (0.031) 0.915 0.409 1.087 303.56 <0.001 -5.57 50.95 note: number of observations: n=29 for wood and leaves and n=21 for fruit (one outlier omitted in each case) † bias: mean error in per cent of mean biomass ‡ root mean squared error in per cent of mean biomass rajchal and meilby banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 30 rajchal and meilby model 1, wood -2 0 2 4 6 s ta nd ar di se d re si du al -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 0 5 10 15 model 2, wood -2 0 2 4 6 0 5 10 15 model 1, fruit -2 -1 0 1 2 s ta nd ar di se d re si du al -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 0 5 10 model 2, fruit -2 -1 0 1 2 0 5 10 model 1, leaves predicted ln(biomass) -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 s ta nd ar di se d re si du al -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 frequency 0 5 10 15 model 2, leaves predicted ln(biomass) -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 frequency 0 5 10 fig. 3: standardized residuals for model 1 (left): ln biomass = a + b ln diameter; and model 2 (right): ln biomass = a + b ln diameter2 × height for oven-dry wood (top) and leaves (bottom), and fresh fruit (middle). discussion suitability of the models based on the results in table 2, the allometric model 2, ln b = a + b ln d2h, seems to be better suited for wood and leaves because the adj. r2 and see values are better (higher and lower, respectively) for this model than for the alternative, ln b = a + b ln d. conversely, for fruit, the most attractive model is ln b = a + b ln d. based on the graphs in figure 3, it appears that for all biomass components, i.e. wood, fruit, and leaves, the standardized residuals of the two alternative models were found to be approximately normally distributed with mean zero. most standardized banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 31 residuals are small, exhibit no clear pattern and only few values exceed ±2. a visual examination and comparison of the residual plots of the two model types did not reveal any major advantages of one over the other. line fit plots also showed that the predicted biomass do not deviate much from observed values for any of the biomass components (not shown). some seabuckthorn trees in the study area had lost a major proportion of their branches to firewood, berry and fodder collectors. others were damaged in other ways. when selecting the 30 sample trees, severely damaged or malformed trees were deliberately avoided, and the models presented here, therefore, describe the expected biomass of trees that are intact or almost intact. when applying the models to populations of trees that have lost part of their crowns, a biomass loss (in terms of percentage) assessment should also be done. fruiting presumably varies between years and given the fact that the models presented here are based on data gathered within a single year, observations made in other years may deviate markedly from model predictions. similarly, it should be noted that the amount of leaves in a given tree varies over the season and from year to year, and leaf biomass models based on data collected in a single year; therefore, the models may not produce central estimates of leaf biomass in other years, or at other times or locations. validation of the models due to the low number of observations, creation of separate calibration and validation datasets was considered inappropriate. instead, leave-oneout cross-validation was carried out, essentially simulating a situation where the final model was applied to a new observation from the same study site. since no data were available from outside lete and kunjo vdcs or from other years than 2006, it is impossible to state exactly how the models would perform outside this area and year, particularly for fruit and leaves. in agreement with the visual impression (fig. 2), the cross-validation showed that the validation errors (in per cent) obtained for fruit and leaves varied considerably more than for wood. however, average per centage bias was low for both wood and fruit, but slightly greater for leaves (approx. -6%). flowering, fruiting, and foliation are sensitive to time of year, and the current physiological state of the individual fruit is produced only to the extent that resources are available. by contrast, wood biomass is cumulative by nature. therefore, while the effect of fluctuating growth conditions are smoothened for biomass of wood, the biomass of foliage and particularly fruit vary considerably between individuals of the same size in a given year, as well as between years for a given individual. the relatively poor performance of models for fruit, both in terms of adj. r2 and rmse%, is, therefore, not unexpected. applicability of the models both models, ln b = a + b ln d and ln b = a + b ln d2h, are capable of describing the local variation of the biomass of wood, fruit, and leaves. the regression parameters, residual plots and line fit diagrams did not provide any strong arguments for choosing one model over the other. hence, the following conclusions can be drawn. for local model application, considering diameter only is a practical solution because including height did not lead to a much better explanation of the variation in biomass. the advantage of a model with diameter as the only independent variable is that it is simple, practical and easy to use (wang et al., 2000; ter-mikaelian and korzukhin, 1997). the biomass table in annex 1 is, therefore, based on models only including diameter. several researchers have concluded that tree biomass is primarily a function of diameter (onyekwelu, 2004; verwijst and telenius, 1999; rapp et al., 1999; wang et al., 2000; naidu et al., 1998; ter-mikaelian and korzukhin, 1997; kadeba, 1991). furthermore, considering the time that would need to be invested in obtaining height measurements in the field, the associated measurement errors, and the fact that the inclusion of height did not significantly improve the performance of the model, the application of diameter alone is easy to justify. growth conditions vary from site to site, and at sites that are poorer or drier than those where the trees were sampled, tree height for a given diameter is likely to be lower than in the dataset used for calibration of the biomass models. forouhbakhch et al. (2006) showed that the diameter and height are not only good indicators of the site conditions but are also dependent on other factors such as interspecies competition. feldpausch et al. (2011) stated that the relation between diameter and height varies significantly rajchal and meilby banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 32 rajchal and meilby depending on geographical region, climate, forest type and structure. hence, although the available data did not allow us to validate the models in other areas or for other years, it seems likely that among the two model types presented here, the model type that would be least sensitive to site conditions, and may, therefore, be somewhat safer to use at other sites, is model 2 with the independent variable d2h. however, before applying the model, local validation should always be carried out. conclusion based on a sample of 30 h. salicifolia trees, a range of allometric biomass models were tested, and two models for each biomass component (wood, fruit, and leaves) were proposed, one for local use and another that, after successful validation, may be suitable within a broader range of conditions (table 2). the entire dataset presented in table 1 should allow future studies to use the dataset for validation of models based on datasets from other stands with h. salicifolia. moreover, future studies may combine the dataset with their own data to prepare models including variation between sites. acknowledgments this paper is based on part of the first author’s m.sc. thesis. the community based natural forest and tree management in the himalaya (comform) project and the rufford small grants foundation provided financial support for the thesis work. we wish to thank dr. ram prasad sharma from norwegian university of life sciences, dr. bimal k. paudel, dr. santosh rayamajhi, and prof. dr. abhoy k. das from institute of forestry, pokhara, and mr. sanjeev bhattarai for their academic and practical support. finally, we would like to express our appreciation to mr. bishnu hari wagle, mr. rabin kadariya, and all those who assisted the first author in the field. references ansari, a. s. 2003. “seabuckthorn (hippophae spp.) a 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1990. seabuckthorn resouces and its unexploited potential in the himalayan region. international center for integrated mountain development (icimod). mfs series no. 12, kathmandu, nepal. lu, r. 1992. seabuckthorn a multipurpose plant for fragile mountains. international center for integrated mountain development (icimod). occasional paper no. 20. kathmandu, nepal. maertz, j. 2006. seabuckthorn nutritional properties: meet the little orange berry from the himalayas that’s interesting in your well-being. sibu: the seabuckthorn company. accessed on http://www.mysibu. com. 2006/08/25. montgomery, d. c., peck, e. a. and vining, g. g. 2001. introduction to linear regression analysis. third edition. wiley, new york. usa. naidu, s. l., delucia, e. h. and thomas, r. b. 1998. contrasting patterns of biomass allocation in dominant and suppressed loblolly pine. canadian journal of forest research 28: 1116–1124. onyekwelu, j. c. 2004. above ground biomass production and biomass equations for evenaged gmelina arborea (roxb.) plantations in south-western nigeria. biomass and bioenergy 26: 39–46. poudel, b. s., gautam, s. k. and bhandari, d. n. 2011. above-ground tree biomass and allometric relationships of cinnamomum tamala grown in the western hill regions of nepal. banko janakari 21 (1): 3–12. rajchal, r. 2007. biomass production of seabuckthorn (hippophae salicifolia) and its role in income generation. m.sc. thesis, tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. rayachhetry, m. b., vanb, t. k., centerb, t. d. and laroche, f. 2001. dry weight estimation of the above ground components of melaleuca quinquenervia trees in southern florida. forest ecology and management 142: 281–290. rapp, m., regina, i. s., rico, m. and gallego, h. a. 1999. biomass, nutrient content, litter fall and nutrient return to the soil in mediterranean oak forests. forest ecology and management 119: 39–49. sprugel, d. g. 1983. corrections for bias in regression estimates after logarithmic transformation. ecology 64: 209–210. ter-mikaelian, m. t. and korzukhin, m. 1997. biomass equations for sixty-five north american tree species. forest ecology and management 97: 1–24. tisc. 2001. proceeding of workshop on ecology and distribution of seabuckthorn (hippophae spp.) resource in northwest mountains of nepal. hmg/danida narmsap, tree improvement and silviculture component, hattisar, kathmandu, nepal. vaidya, b. b. 1999. seabuckthorn appropriate for himalayan region. hmgt/danida, tisc, kathmandu, nepal. verwijst, t. and telenius, b. 1999. biomass estimation procedures in short rotation forestry. forest ecology and management 121: 137–146. wang, j. r., letchford, t., comeau, p. and kimmins, j. p. 2000. above-and belowground biomass and nutrient distribution of a paper birch and subalpine fir mixed species stand in the sub-boreal spruce zone of british rajchal and meilby banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 34 rajchal and meilby annex 1. biomass table for wood (above-ground, dry weight), fruit (fresh weight) and leaves (dry weight) for seabuckthorn (h. salicifolia d. don.). model 1, cf. table 2. biomass† biomass† diam30 (cm) wood dry (kg) fruit fresh (kg) leaves dry (kg) diam30 (cm) wood dry (kg) fruit fresh (kg) leaves dry (kg) 1 0.048 0.048 0.020 26 132.9 3.853 1.911 2 0.257 0.122 0.052 27 145.7 4.053 2.015 3 0.690 0.211 0.092 28 159.2 4.257 2.120 4 1.391 0.310 0.138 29 173.5 4.463 2.227 5 2.396 0.419 0.189 30 188.4 4.671 2.336 6 3.736 0.535 0.244 31 204.1 4.882 2.446 7 5.438 0.659 0.303 32 220.5 5.095 2.557 8 7.529 0.788 0.366 33 237.6 5.310 2.670 9 10.03 0.924 0.431 34 255.5 5.528 2.784 10 12.97 1.065 0.500 35 274.2 5.748 2.900 11 16.35 1.210 0.572 36 293.7 5.970 3.017 12 20.21 1.361 0.646 37 314.0 6.194 3.135 13 24.57 1.516 0.723 38 335.1 6.421 3.254 14 29.43 1.675 0.802 39 357.0 6.649 3.375 15 34.81 1.837 0.883 40 379.7 6.880 3.497 16 40.74 2.004 0.967 41 403.2 7.112 3.620 17 47.22 2.175 1.053 42 427.6 7.347 3.745 18 54.28 2.349 1.141 43 452.8 7.583 3.871 19 61.92 2.526 1.231 44 478.9 7.821 3.998 20 70.16 2.706 1.322 45 505.8 8.062 4.126 21 79.01 2.890 1.416 46 533.7 8.304 4.255 22 88.50 3.077 1.512 47 562.4 8.548 4.385 23 98.62 3.267 1.609 48 592.0 8.793 4.517 24 109.4 3.459 1.708 49 622.4 9.041 4.649 25 120.8 3.654 1.809 50 653.8 9.290 4.783 † numbers in italics are outside diameter range of the calibration data models: wood: ln biomass = -3.083+2.436 ln diam30, see=0.269, adj. r2 = 0.986, n=29 fruit: ln biomass = -3.237+1.346 ln diam30, see=0.633, adj. r2 = 0.730, n=21 leaves: ln biomass = -4.013+1.403 ln diam30, see=0.423, adj. r2 = 0.910, n=29 calibration data: data collected at kali ghandaki and lete rivers, lete and kunjo vdcs (cf. fig. 1), november 2006. range of diameter 30 cm above ground (diam30): 1.4 – 43.2 cm range of total tree height: 1.8 – 15.2 m range of wood biomass (dry weight): 0.179 – 528.7 kg range of fruit biomass (fresh weight): 0.095 – 10.26 kg range of leaf biomass (dry weight): 0.0342 – 5.4929 kg colombia. forest ecology and management 130: 17–26. whitesell, c. d., miyasaka, s. c., strand, r. f., schubert, t. h. and mcduffle, k. e. 1988. equations for predicting biomass in 2to 6-year-old eucalyptus saligna in hawaii. usad forest. service research notes, psw402.5. this ethnomycological investigation explores the wild edible microfungi with their identification and documentation of nutritional potential and indigenous knowledge. the study area occupies 154.75 hectare-land, and lies within a narrow limit of altitude between 110 m and 165 m above sea level in tropical deciduous riverine forest. amanita caesarea, a. chepangiana, a. pantherina, agaricus augustus, coprinus comatus, c. plicatilis, macrolepiota fuliginosa, m. rhacodes, russula emetica, r. foetens, r. nigricans, scleroderma bovista, s. citrinum, termitomyces clypeatus and t. eurhizeus are found to be dominant. the collected samples represented 27 species of basidiomycetes belonging to 6 orders, 13 families and 18 genera. the dried specimens are housed in the tribhuvan university central herbarium, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal. the area embraces many mycophagous ethnic communities. the mycoelements prevailing in this area need sustainable conservation and utilization. key words: basidiomycetes, macrofungi, mushroom diversity, indigenous, mushrooms ethnomycological studies on some macro-fungi in rupandehi district, nepal h. p. aryal 1 and u. budathoki 2 nepal is considered as the homeland for the mushroom floral diversity (aryal et al., 2012). so far, 812 mushroom species have been identified (adhikari, 2009). out of them 228 edible (christensen et al., 2008), 66 poisonous (pandey, 2008; adhikari, 2009) and 75 medicinal species (adhikari, 2009) have been reported. the investigation and study on mushroom of nepal started since 19th century (lloyd, 1808; berkeley, 1838). since then, several papers have been published and several botanical investigations have been done. among these, very few reveal the studies and investigation on macrofungi from western nepal. this is a preliminary report on ethnomycological investigation carried out at baunnakoti community forest in rupandehi district. the area has not been previously investigated so far. this paper highlights the indigenous knowledge of the wild edible mushrooms in the district. presently, 27 species of the basidiomycetes belonging to 6 orders, 13 families and 18 genera have been reported from baunnakoti community forest, situated in the tropical climate. materials and methods study area the study area lies in rupandehi district of lumbini zone, and partial parts of chiliya, madhauliya, padsari and tikuligadh village development committees (vdcs) in the western terai of nepal (fig. 1). the total human population of the study area was 32,256 (ddc, 2007) with 5,531 households (dfo, 2012). the forest vegetation is dominated by species of the dipterocarpaceae, combretaceae and leguminosae families. the forest covered area of chiliya vdc is 96.85 ha (10.45%), followed by tikuligadh 46.1 (2.16%), padsari 9.9 ha (1.02%) and madhauliya 1.9 ha (0.15%). this study included 2.95% of forested land (dfo, 2012), and lies between 27.5421o – 27.5623o n latitudes and 83.40611o – 83.47643o e longitudes. the altitudinal range varies from 110 m –165 m above sea level. the average annual rainfall is 1,391 mm (gon, 2010). 1 paklihawa campus, bhairahawa, institute of agriculture and animal science, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: hahariprasadaryal06@gmail.com 2 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal. 51 banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 52 fig. 1 : map of the study area the area lies in tropical zone embracing different types of vegetation and soil composition. the tropical riverine belt is composed of khair (acacia catechu), karma (adina cordifolia), banjhi (anogeissus latifolia), simal (bombax ceiba), satisal (dalbergia latifolia), sissoo (dalbergia sissoo), sindure (mallotus philippinensis), kandel (phoenix sylvestris), sal (shorea robusta), kusum (schleichera oleosa), jamun (syzygium cumini), sagwan (tectona grandis), saj/asana (terminalia alata) and barro (t. bellirica) etc. (stainton, 1972; shrestha, 1998). the diverse phytodiversity and ecological conditions provide a good homeland for the growth of tremendous parasitic, saprophytic and mycorrhizal fungi (aryal and budathoki, 2012). the northern belt of the area is composed of loamy sand, while the southern belt consists of sandy loam to loamy soil. materials and methods altogether, 27 mushroom samples were collected, and the local informants were interviewed. indigenous knowledge survey was conducted from 15 to 31 may 2010, and specimens were collected from 1 june to 31 october 2011. the participatory rural appraisal (pra) technique was adopted with the local people aimed at getting information largely on nutritional aspects. data were obtained using combined semi-structured questionnaire, participatory discussions and field observations. mushroom samples were photographed in their natural habitat, and their morphological characters were noted. the samples were well dried and packed in wax paper bags with proper tag numbers. the habitat including ecological parameters viz. altitude, vegetation composition, soil type, soil ph, soil moisture, humidity, and temperature were recorded. the paper bags were brought to the central department of botany, tribhuvan university for further microscopic examination. the identification was done with the help of relevant literatures (bakshi, 1971; dickinson and lucas, 1979; singer, 1986, kumar et al., 1990) and websites (biodiversity library.org; index fungorum; jstor.org; mycobank.org; scircus; tropicos.org; agaricus in the pacific northwest; boletes in the pacific northwest). the voucher specimens were deposited in tribhuvan university central herbarium. results and discussion results during field survey, altogether, 27 species of basidiomycetes from 6 orders belonging to 13 families and 18 genera were recorded with their brief descriptions (annex 1). a notable frequency of amanita caesarea, a. chepangiana, a. pantherina, agaricus augustus, coprinus comatus, c. plicatilis, macrolepiota fuliginosa, m. rhacodes, russula emetica, r. foetens, r. nigricans, scleroderma bovista, s. citrinum, termitomyces clypeatus and t. eurhizeus were observed. out of the total collection, 55% mushrooms were found to be under agaricales order followed by polyporales, russulales, boletales, hymenochaetales and tricholomatales (fig. 2). indigenous knowledge and therapeutic use on the basis of the information collected, 92.5% of the mushrooms were found to be used as food, 5.5% as medicine, 1.5% as taste and flavor, and 0.5% as tonic. the food values of wild edible mushrooms were found to be more significant in the study sites. the consumption data revealed that mushrooms were found to be mostly used as food by 51% women followed by 31% children and 18% men. people were found to have used these mushrooms for the remedy of different aryal and budathoki banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 53 types of diseases and ailments. out of the 150 respondents, 30% people were found to have used it for the remedy of measles. similarly, 24% people were found to have used it for the treatment of yellow fever, 20% for the treatment of jaundice, 16% for the treatment of inappetence, 4% for the treatment of constipation, 4% for the treatment of mumps, ear pain and cut wounds, 2% for the treatment of skin diseases, 1.3% for the treatment of muscular pain, and 0.6% for the treatment of stomach pain. their medicinal uses for the treatment of different types of disease were found to have made them more significant for the people of the area. discussion wild edible mushrooms are not only an important source of food for local people, but are equally used for medicinal purpose. the present survey on the macrofungi revealed that there are plenty of edible species of mushroom. the most common among them such as cleroderma bovista, t. clypeatus, t. eurhizeus and volvorella volvacea are collected, sacked in bags and carried to market for selling. among 27 species identified, 15 are edible, 4 inedible, 4 poisonous and 4 species possess medicinal value. some of the edible species such as s. bovista, t. clypeatus and t. eurhizeus are also used for medicinal purpose. the medicinally important tropical polypore like pycnoporus cinnabarinus is used for the remedy of infectious disease (mump), ear pain etc. scleroderma citrinum, the medicinal species is also used as food. schizophyllum commune, the cosmopolitan inedible species is sometimes used for culinary purpose in food deficit condition. this species has religious value too, and is used as ‘sagun’ i.e. good luck in the marriage ceremony in newar community. during surveys, it was found that the mushroom flora of macrolepiota fuliginosa, m. rhacodes, r. nigricans, t. clypeatus, t. eurhizeus and v. volvacea is declining since the last two decades due to deterioration of forest lands. notable frequencies of species were found in abundance during sample collection. being saprophytic, obligatory symbionts as well as part of the mycorrhizal association, these microfungi play an important role in increasing soil fertility in the forest through biodegradation as well as decomposition of the lignocellulose compounds of leaf litter. the litter debris of vascular flora favours the regulation and maintenance of temperature and moisture in the soil for these microfungi. the toxic species listed are amanita pantherina, coprinus plicatilis, russula emetica and r. foetens. conclusion the reported mushrooms occur in tropical to temperate belts throughout the nation. extensive investigation is needed to find out their species richness, distribution pattern, species diversity index and ethnomycological uses. some of the important macrofungi such as macrolepiota, scleroderma, termitomyces and volvorella spp. need special attention to be conserved against threat to avoid their unmanaged and unscientific exploitation. besides, their harvesting should be done in scientific manner rather than using traditional methods. the mycoelements prevailing fig. 2: a graph showing the total no. of species (tns) and % of frequency of groups (sf%) of basidiomycotina aryal and budathoki banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 54 in this area need sustainable conservation and utilization. acknowledgments the authors would like to acknowledge nepal academy of science and technology for providing research grant to conduct this study. the authors are obliged to the central department of botany, tribhuvan university for providing laboratory facilities. the authors are also grateful to the institute of agriculture and animal science for granting study leave to one of them (mr. h. p. aryal). further, the authors would like to appreciate prof. dr. r. d. tiwari for his kind cooperation during the study period. last but not least, sincere thanks are extended to the local people of the study area for providing information to the authors. references adhikari, m. k. 2009. researches on the nepalese mycoflora. alka basti marga, kathmandu, nepal. aryal, h. p. and budathoki, u. 2012. macrofungi of karhiya community forest, western terai, nepal. nepalese journal of bioscience 2: 93–97. aryal, h. p., budathoki, u. and adhikari, m. k. 2012. mycodiversity in peepaldanda community forest, western terai region of nepal. plant resources bulletin 34: 13–17. bakshi, b. k. 1971. indian polyporaceae. indian council of agriculture resources, new delhi, india. berkeley, m. j. 1838. description of exotic fungi in the collection of sir w. j. hooker from memories and notes of j. f. klotsch with addition and correction. natural history 3: 375–401. christensen, m., bhattarai, s., devkota, s. and larsen, h. o. 2008. collection and use of wild edible fungi in nepal. ecology and botany 62 (1): 12–23. dickinson, c. and lucas, j. 1979. encyclopedia of mushrooms. orchid publication, london, the uk. ddc. 2007. rupandehi district profile. 2007, bhairahawa, nepal. dfo. 2012. district forest office, rupandehi: brief introduction and progress report 2012, bhairahawa, nepal. gon. 2010. climatological and agrometeorological records of nepal. government of nepal, ministry of environment, science and technology. department of hydrology and meteorology, kathmandu, nepal. kumar, a., bhatt, r. p. and lakhanpal, t. n. 1990. the amanitaceae of india. bishen singn and mahendra pal singh, dehradun, india. lloyd, c. g. 1808. mycological notes. mycology. cincinnati, ohio: llyod library and museum, usa. pandey, n. 2008. mushroom diversity in central nepal: an ethnomycological approach: doctorate thesis, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, nepal. shrestha, k. 1998. dictionary of nepalese plant names. mandala book point, kantipath, kathmandu, nepal. singer, r. 1986. the agaricales in modern taxonomy. 4th edition. bishen singh and mahendra pal singh, dehradun, india. stainton, j. d. a. 1972. forest of nepal. john murray ltd., london, uk. aryal and budathoki banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 55 annex 1: wild macrofungi collected from baunnakoti community forest, rupandehi district, nepal s.n. sample collection no. scientific name local name order family host/ substratum ecology application 1 100755 amanita caesarea (scop.) pers. suntale chyau agaricales amanitaceae soil mycorrhizae used as vegetable 2 100772 amanita chepangiana tulloss & bhandary salleu, kukhura phule-chyau agaricales plutaceae soil mycorrhizae used as vegetable 3 100773 amanita pantharina (d c.) kromb. bhut chyau agaricales amanitaceae soil mycorrhizae deadly poisonous 4 1209561 agaricus augustus fr. kaile chyau agaricales agaricaceae soil saprophytic used as vegetable 5 1010524 agaricus sylvicola (vittad.) peck. sal chyau agaricales plutaceae soil saprophytic not edible 6 1008149 armellaria mella (vahl.: fr.) kummer. todke chyau agaricales marasmiaceae on decayed log from crevices in moist shady areas parasitic used as vegetable/ soup 7 1007214 asterophora parasitica (bull.) sing. chyau mathi seto chyau tricholomatales tricholomataceae in moist shady place (above the russula) parasitic not edible 8 1008329 coltricia cinninenea (pers.) murrill. soli chyau hymenochaetales hymenochaetaceae on leaf mould soil saprophytic not edible 9 1009500 cpprinus comatus (o.f. mill.) pers. gobre chyau agaricales coprinaceae soil saprophytic edible at young stage; offered to child, in the form of powder mixed with rice or milk, for good sleep 10 100707 coprinus plicatilis (curtis) fr. payeje chyau agaricales coprinaceae on log (acacea catechu) saprophytic poisonous 11 100708 daldinia concentric (bolt.) ces et de not. dalle/ kale chyau polyporales polyporaceae on log (dalbergia sissoo) saprophytic not edible; used to treat burns 12 100954 flammulina velutipes (curtis) sing. patpate chyau agaricales marasmiaceae on soil/ decaying log saprophytic edible, but not popularly used 13 1007107 ganoderma lucidium p. karst. dadhu chyau polyporales ganodermataceae trunk (bombax ceiba) parasitic used for decorative purpose and for removing evil spirit 14 100759 lentinus tigrinus (bull.) fr. vedi chyau polyporales polyporaceae on stump (syzygium cumini) saprophytic edible, but not popularly used 15 1008118 macrolepiota fuliginosa (barla) bon. gobre chyau agaricales agaricaceae soil saprophytic used as vegetable 16 1008330 macrolepiota rhacodes (vittad.) sing. gobre chyau agaricales agaricaceae soil saprophytic used as vegetable 17 1008315 nigroporus vinosa (berk.) murrill jhule chyau polyporales fomotopsidaceae on log (syzygium cumini) parasite/ saprophyte not edible aryal and budathoki banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 56 18 100711 pycnoporus cinnabarinus (jacq.) p. karst. sindure chyau polyporales polyporaceae stump (syzygium cumini) saprophytic used for relief of ear pain and mumps 19 1007171 russula emetica (schaeff.) pers. ratteuo russulales russulaceae litter mycorrhizae poisonous medicine that causes vomiting 20 1008350 russula foetens pers. gandhe chyau russulales russulaceae soil mycorrhizae poisonous 21 100751 russula nigricans fr. handi chyau russulales russulaceae soil mycorrhizae edible; used as pickles 22 101002 schizophyllum commune fr.: fr. pankha chyau agaricales schizophyllaceae decayed wood (shorea robusta) saprophytic edible; used for culinary purpose; has religious/ cultural values 23 1009152 scleroderma bovista pers. alu chyau, ptteu bolatales sclerodermataceae soil mycorhizae edible; used as vegetable; has medicinal values 24 1007317 scleroderma citrinum fr. dalle chyau bolatales sclerodermataceae soil mycorhizae not edible; causes gastric disorders or acute indigestion 25 1010530 termitomyces clypeatus. r. heim. dhamere chyau, vemti agaricales tricholomataceae termites nest saprophytic edible; used for treatment of feaver and measles 26 1007119 termitomyces eurhizeus (berk.) heim. dhamere/ bagale chyau agaricales tricholomataceae termites nest saprophytic edible; used for treatment of feaver and measles 27 1109856 volvorella volvacea (bull.:fr.) sing. parale chyau agaricales plutaceae decomposed paddy straw saprophytic used as vegetable aryal and budathoki final bankojanakari vol 17-1.pmd 11 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 c ertification is one of the market based instruments that may contribute to improve management system of forests and support forestry sector development (fao, 2000). forest management certification is intended to improve forest management via market-based incentives (bass, 2002). it is based on the assessment of the social, environmental and economical aspects of forest management as per the predetermined set of standard. sustainable forest management (sfm) is the goal of any forest management to perpetuate social, ecological and economic functions of forest for ever. however, forest certification is a market driven approach to prove sustainability. thus, before deciding about forest certification, market system should be analyzed to determine whether green consumers demand certified forest products or not. nepal does not export timber in international market but ntfps are exported mainly to india. the department of forest (dof) and fugs collect us$15 million yearly revenue from the trading of ntfps (dof, 2006). targeting ntfps, 10,045 ha community managed forests were certified in february, 2005 in nepal under forest stewardship council (fsc) group certification scheme. interim standards were developed within the framework of fsc standard for implementing the forest management activities and assessing the performance of forest management. moreover, nepal interim guidelines were formulated for managing ntfps. smartwood2 made field assessment of the 11 community managed forests of bajhang and dolakha districts during september-october 2004 (subedi, 2004). based on the analysis and compilation of findings made by the smartwood assessment team, 11 community forests were certified in february 2005. forest certification was continued in community managed forests by following same processes. as a result, total number of certified community forests reached 21 and area increased to 14086 ha in 2006. the federation of community forestry users nepal (fecofun) has received fsc/smartwood forest management and chain of custody (fm/coc) certificates. the usaidnepal programme has provided us$ 5,00,000 fund for piloting fsc certification and asia network for sustainable agriculture and bioresources (ansab) implemented the programme in the support of concerned stakeholders. the objectives of certification were to verify sustainability of community-managed forests and piloting the approach to analyze how certification can be a vehicle to improve community forest management and enhance livelihoods of fugs. this effects of forest certification towards sustainable community forestry in nepal pem n. kandel1 in early 2005, 10,045 ha community forests (cfs) were certified in bajhang and dolakha districts of nepal by using the forest stewardship council (fsc) certification scheme. after two years of forest certification, subsequent questions are being asked such as: what benefits have certification brought for the forest users groups (fugs)? what tangible differences are there in forest management system because of forest certification? and what lessons have been learnt from the certified forests? in an attempt to answer these questions, a study was carried out in april 2007 in dolakha district where 11 (2,182 ha) community managed forests were certified in 2005. on the basis of field study from two certified forests (vitteripakha and suspa) of the district, this paper analyzes the effects of forest certification and its implications for enhancing sustainable community forestry (scf) in nepal. key words: sustainable forest management, forest certification, community forestry 1 research officer, ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), kathmandu, nepal, email: pemkandel@gmail.com 2 smartwood is one of the fsc accredited certified bodies based in united state of america (usa). 12 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 study explores the effects of forest certification and analyses its merits and demerits in ecological, economic and social fronts. material and method study area general about the district covering an area of 2181 km2 area, dolakha district is situated in the midnorth mountain of nepal. altitude of the district ranges from 732 meter to 7148 meter from the mean sea level. forest land covers 47.4 percent of the total district’s area whereas agriculture land comprises 26.5 percent. due to the latitudinal variation from south to north, district has got different forest types ranging from subtropical to alpine forests. the most important tree species found in the district are hill sal forest (shorea robusta) in lower altitude (600 -1000 meter), khote sallo (pinus roxbrghaii), utis (alnus nepalensis), rani sallo(pinus wallichiana), gurans (rhododendron arboretum) and launth salla (taxus baccata) are the principal tree species found at higher altitude. lokta (danphe bholua), argeli (d. papyraceae,), dhasingare (gultheria farantissima), girardiana diversiflora, parmelia nepalensis, angeri (layania ovalifolia) etc. are the principal ntfps found in the forest. community forestry is the key forest management strategy in the district. to date there are 289 cfs managing 30 percent of the total forest area in the district (dfo, 2007). comprising an area of 14085 ha area, 21 cfs have been certified in nepal during 2005 -2006. however, this study was conducted in selection of certified forests before approaching the actual field study, consultations and meetings were conducted with the personnel of dolakha dfo and district level fcofun to formulate the criteria for selecting the certified cfs. based on the consensus of the stakeholders, subsequent criteria were set up to select the certified forests for the field study (table 2): vitteripakha and sushpa community forests vitteripakha cf is situated in boch village development committee (vdc) ward no 2 which is 7 km west from district headquarter charikot. 3 only in 2005 to assess the effects of certification. further, study was confined in dolakha districts. the details of certified forests of dolakha district are presenting in table 1. table 1: detail cfs certified in dolakha district in different years source: dfo dolakha district, april 2007 selection of certified forests before approaching the actual field study, consultations and meetings were conducted with the personnel of dolakha dfo and district level fcofun to formulate the criteria for selecting the certified cfs. based on consensus of the stakeholders subsequent criteria were set up to select the certified forests for the field study (table 2): table 2: criteria formulated to select certified cfs for the field study s.n. criteria for selecting certified forests justification 1 forests certified in the year 2005. � to see the effects of forest certification; it needs certain time period. � after two years of forest certification, changes can be looked at in forest management system and socioeconomic dimensions. 2 certified cfugs having mainly ntfps-based enterprises. � forest certification is market driven approach, which assumes that buyers will show a preference for certified product. � it is important to evaluate the changes in production of forest-based raw materials, processing and pricing system at local level before and after certification. � thus, to know the value-chain system, a criterion was set to select certified cfugs having ntfps-based enterprises. 3 selection of at least two certified forests for comparison and validation of information. � at least two certified forests were suggested for the purpose of study so that comparisons and validation can be made between. � after knowing the limited time period (six days for whole study) and resources, relatively accessible forests were recommended by the stakeholders. on the basis of the stipulated criteria and justifications, vitteripakha and sushpa cfs (see table 1) were chosen by purposive sampling method. year of forest certification name of certified cfs certified forests (ha) no. of household vitteripakha 378 237 charnavati 385 315 thulo naagi 239 250 kalobhir 545 215 sushpa 635 303 2005 sub-total (5 cfs) 2,182 ha bolte setidevi 171 225 dhade singhadevi 340 311 jhareni 208 186 balemdamji 495 133 mjhkharka 146 206 2006 sub-total: 5 (cfs) 1360 total 10 3542 3 only in 2005 to assess the effects of certification. further, study was confined in dolakha districts. the details of certified forests of dolakha district are presenting in table 1. table 1: detail cfs certified in dolakha district in different years source: dfo dolakha district, april 2007 selection of certified forests before approaching the actual field study, consultations and meetings were conducted with the personnel of dolakha dfo and district level fcofun to formulate the criteria for selecting the certified cfs. based on consensus of the stakeholders subsequent criteria were set up to select the certified forests for the field study (table 2): table 2: criteria formulated to select certified cfs for the field study s.n. criteria for selecting certified forests justification 1 forests certified in the year 2005. � to see the effects of forest certification; it needs certain time period. � after two years of forest certification, changes can be looked at in forest management system and socioeconomic dimensions. 2 certified fugs having mainly ntfps-based enterprises. � forest certification is market driven approach, which assumes that buyers will show a preference for certified product. � it is important to evaluate the changes in production of forest-based raw materials, processing and pricing system at local level before and after certification. � thus, to know the value-chain system, a criterion was set to select certified fugs having ntfps-based enterprises. 3 selection of at least two certified forests for comparison and validation of information. � at least two certified forests were suggested for the purpose of study so that comparisons and validation can be made between. � after knowing the limited time period (six days for whole study) and resources, relatively accessible forests were recommended by the stakeholders. on the basis of the stipulated criteria and justifications, vitteripakha and sushpa cfs (see table 1) were chosen by purposive sampling method. year of forest certification name of certified cfs certified forests (ha) no. of household vitteripakha 378 237 charnavati 385 315 thulo naagi 239 250 kalobhir 545 215 sushpa 635 303 2005 sub-total (5 cfs) 2,182 ha bolte setidevi 171 225 dhade singhadevi 340 311 jhareni 208 186 balemdamji 495 133 mjhkharka 146 206 2006 sub-total: 5 (cfs) 1360 total 10 3542 the forests of dolakha district certified only in 2005 to assess the effects of certification. the details of certified forests of dolakha district are presented in table 1. kandel 13 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 however, sushpa cf lies in chhemawoti vdc ward no 9 and 10 km eastnorth from the district headquarter. these forests were certified in 2005 and both cfs have ntfps based enterprises. vitteripakha cf has bhimeswore ntfp production and processing private limited that produces handmade paper from lokta (danphe bholua) and argeli (d. papyraceae). in sushpa cf, there is deudhunga multipurpose co-operative producing essential oil by using dhasingare (gultheria farantissima). data collection method the main objective of the study was to assess the effects of forest certification in social, ecological and economic fronts. for the purpose, both secondary and primary data were collected from different sources and methods. the operational plans (ops) of both cfs were reviewed to understand the structure and content of the plans. a checklist was formulated to discuss with personnel of district level stakeholders, fugs, ntfp collectors and ntfp entrepreneurs to borrow the data and information about changes brought in different dimensions due to forest certification. plan formulation processes were discussed with the personnel of dfo, fecofun, ansab and fugs members as well. including personnel of fecofun and dfo, a team was formed to visit the selected cfs, fugs and enterprises. following data collection instruments were executed to gather primary data. 1. semi structured questionnaires were devised and executed to collect data from the local ntfps collectors, traders and entrepreneurs. 2. a comprehensive checklist was developed for gathering information regarding benefits and tangible differences in forest management, livelihoods and forest conditions before and after forest certification. data were collected from the fugs, the local level forest officials and the district level fecofun. 3. key informant interviews were carried out to understand the impact of forest certification at the institutional levels. 4. focus group discussions were conducted so as to have in depth knowledge about particular theme or issue such as the impact on gender, indigenous people and adjacent communities to know the change owing to forest certification. result and discussion the main aim of the study was to look at the effects of forest certification in sustainable community forestry in nepal. the study was carried out in vitteripakha and sushpa cfs of dolakha district. in general this study reveals that fsc certification has improved conservation status and enhanced system based management. participation of fugs has been substantially increased in planning and forest management processes. furthermore, members of fugs have felt better ownership of their cfs than before certification. forest certification has become a tool for institutional development of fugs. but this study disclosed that there is lack of market network to sell the handmade paper and essential oil, which are being produced by using raw materials from certified and uncertified forests. as a management intervention forest certification has resulted positive change in forest management systems. however, no economic benefits have been brought to the fugs and ntfps based entrepreneurs due to forest certification. overall findings of this study are presented under the successive sub-headings. increasing community participation in planning proper management planning is critical for sfm. participation of stakeholders, sufficient and reliable scientific data are crucial for formulation of scientific and coherent forest management plan essential for sfm and certification. to be certified for sustainable production of timber and ntfps, a management plan is even a prerequisite (fao, 1998). operational plans are basic instruments for managing timber, ntfps and other purposes in community managed forests of nepal. questions were asked to the district level stakeholders and members of fugs regarding how they formulated their community forest ops and what forest management standard did they use to depict on plan. according to the respondents, local standards were developed for sustainable community forestry with the involvement of key stakeholders at national and district levels by using the fsc principles and criteria (p&c). further, village and cluster meetings were organized to identify fug level issues. a sample framework of standards adopted for sustainable community forestry is presenting in figure 1. kandel 14 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 6 figure 1: a sample framework of standards adopted for sustainable community forestry in certified cfs fsc 10 principles and 57 criteria adopted at local level furthermore, participation of women, ethnic and deprived communities is significantly increased in forest management due to raising awareness and formation of sub group within the fugs. improving forest conservation and management before fc, timber and ntfps harvesting system was unsustainable. executive committee of cfugs issued the permit to users and contractors for felling the trees. however, dof issued the collection permit for ntfps. this is because the provision of ntfps management was not included in the operational plans. monitoring system was poor in community forest. in many cases users members and contactors harvested two to three times more quantity of timber and ntfps. as a result, forest resources were overexploited. after fc, executive committee collects the demand of timber for fugs and harvests the quantity without exceeding the annual allowable cut. timber depots are both in vitteripakha and suspa cfs. table 3: annual allowable harvest of timber and ntfps in two cfs source: respective operational plans (2005). name of cfs timber (cft) ntfps (kg) 1 2 3 4 vitteripakha 5835 360-2266 295-441 200 3965 sushpa 4679 847-9747 628-764 150 1133 note: 1 = dry lokta bark, 2 = dry argeli bark, 3 = dry chiraito, 4 = dry allo fiber fsc principles this study reveals that planning process is more participatory and rational in both certified forests than before. resource inventory including ntfps was carried out in the community managed forests and social data were adequately gathered by using different data collection tools. as a result, ops have become more scientific to balance social, ecological and economic facets of forest. annual allowable harvest of timber and ntfps has been calculated on the basis of growing stock (gs) and estimated mean annual increment (mai). table 3 presents the annual allowable harvest of timber and ntfps in the two cfs. furthermore, participation of women, ethnic and of deprived communities is significantly increased in forest management as result of increase in awareness and formation of sub group within the fugs. improving forest conservation and management before forest certification,, timber and ntfps harvesting system was unsustainable. the executive committee of fugs used to issue permit to users and contractors for felling trees while the dof issued collection permit for ntfps as the provision of ntfps management was not included in the ops. monitoring system was poor in community forest. in many cases users members and contactors harvested two to three times more quantity of timber and ntfps. as a result, forest resources were overexploited. after forest certification, executive committee firstly collects the information on demand of timber for fugs and then harvests the quantity without exceeding the annual allowable cut. both vitteripakha and suspa cfs have their own timber depots. they collect timber in depots and distribute according to demand at reasonable price. now, the management of ntfps are under the full control of cfugs. these initiatives have positive contribution to enhance the sustainability of community managed forests. effect on ecological dimensions community awareness is increasing to conserve water source, bio-diversity and soil. in addition, seed trees are left to ensure natural regeneration. free grazing is discouraged inside the community forests. poaching of wild animals has been totally banned. these strategies will have long term favorable impacts on sustainable community forestry in nepal. 6 figure 1: a sample framework of standards adopted for sustainable community forestry in certified cfs fsc 10 principles and 57 criteria adopted at local level furthermore, participation of women, ethnic and deprived communities is significantly increased in forest management due to raising awareness and formation of sub group within the fugs. improving forest conservation and management before fc, timber and ntfps harvesting system was unsustainable. executive committee of cfugs issued the permit to users and contractors for felling the trees. however, dof issued the collection permit for ntfps. this is because the provision of ntfps management was not included in the operational plans. monitoring system was poor in community forest. in many cases users members and contactors harvested two to three times more quantity of timber and ntfps. as a result, forest resources were overexploited. after fc, executive committee collects the demand of timber for fugs and harvests the quantity without exceeding the annual allowable cut. timber depots are both in vitteripakha and suspa cfs. table 3: annual allowable harvest of timber and ntfps in two cfs source: respective operational plans (2005). name of cfs timber (cft) ntfps (kg) 1 2 3 4 vitteripakha 5835 360-2266 295-441 200 3965 sushpa 4679 847-9747 628-764 150 1133 note: 1 = dry lokta bark, 2 = dry argeli bark, 3 = dry chiraito, 4 = dry allo fiber fsc principles indicator indicator indicator criterion verifier criterioncriterion verifierverifier kandel 15 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 fug fund mobilization and sub-group formation. before certification, stipulated enterprises were in the hands of individual entrepreneur. however, now those have been shifted to cooperative. the fugs and their members have become shareholders of enterprises which are being collectively managed. according to the shareholders, both the enterprises were below the breakeven point at this stage due to lack of market to sell their products. but new system will have multiplier impacts in the long run for sustainable use of raw materials and income generation as well. ultra-poor households have been identified and the dfo have started to lease forestland to them so that they can generate income through the support of dfo, ansab and other concerning programme. at national level, about 3 percent fug fund is allocated for pro-poor activities. however, in vitteri and suspa cfs more that 20 percent fund has been allocated to support pro-poor activities which is perhaps an example of significant change in economic dimension realized after certification. lesson learnt and direction for future as an instrument, certification has both strengths and weaknesses (fao, 2001, 2007). however, it varies according to the specific circumstances of the country, the ownership of the forests, the socioeconomic environment and most importantly the market system. this study from the two certified cfs of nepal discloses that degree of community participation, transparency and downward accountability have been increased in forest management system. however, some important questions regarding forest certification that have yet to be adequately addressed include: (i) which must be in priority whether sustainable forest management or forest certification? (ii) where is the market for certified products? and (iii) how certification can be a vehicle for poverty alleviation? subsequent lessons have been learnt from this study which are crucial to handle forest certification issue in nepal. sustainable forest management is an important goal of any forestry model e.g. community forestry of nepal. however, forest certification is a tool to verify management standard. in addition, certification is an important innovation in the market of forestry. thus, certification is a market-driven approach. a point that should be noted is that sfm is possible without certification, but certification is not possible without effect on institutional and social extents varieties of training were conducted in the fugs to adopt sfm and certification system. as a result, institutional capabilities of certified fugs have greatly increased. record system in certified fugs is far better than in uncertified ones. transparency is improving and fugs are becoming able for annual planning with projecting source of income and items of expenditure. sub-groups comprising women, poor, ethnic and untouchable castes have been formed within fugs in surveyed areas. sub-groups found to be contributing to enhance the social cohesion and increase the ownership towards their cfs, which has positive implications in sustainable forestry. it is claimed that communities, indigenous peoples, local communities and workers look to certification as a way to improve their social situation (fsc,2003). in the study areas, indigenous and traditional rights of yak herders have been secured. certain forest areas within the cfs have been allocated for cattle grazing. there is a provision to allocate certain amount of fug fund to cure victims, if fug members and other forest workers become injured in the forests. this reveals that awareness on social security has greatly increased. effects on economic aspects the aim of management certification is intended to improve forest management via market-based incentives (fsc, 2007). however, chain of custody certification has not been performed yet to export the ntfps from certified forests of nepal to increase the market share in national and international markets. although benefitcost analysis was beyond the scope of this study, financial investment was determined to know the cost of certification. ansab invested us$ 5,00,000 to build the national capacity on forest certification and certify 14,086 ha community-managed forest in two districts. the cost of forest certification was us$ 35.5 per hectare. this study unveils that no significant and tangible economic benefits have been gained so far by the ntfps collectors, entrepreneurs, ultra poor and others after certification. although there were no significant visible differences in economic aspects, some structural and institutional reforms have been made in enterprise development, kandel 16 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 sfm. sfm is the foundation of forestry but certification is used when markets demand certified products and certification provides incentives to forest managers and owners. hence, it is high time now to formulate our own forest management standard to apply in our forestry. certification process increases the cost (both financial and managerial). market analysis is prerequisite to know whether certified products are demanded at national and/or international markets. our main ntfp market is india and this country has no interest in certified products. if we want to export them beyond india, quantity and quality of certified forest products will be crucial. however before applying certification system in community forestry, new markets must be sought first. nepal is a country with high rate of poverty, which is the most serious challenge in achieving sustainable forest management. the nation is shifting its strategies to address more effectively the need for the forestry sector to contribute to poverty reduction. as a management intervention, certification should contribute to reduce the poverty. eventually, cost effectiveness is key to apply certification. certification cost in nepal shows us$ 35.5 per ha, which is higher compared to other countries. to reduce the cost, national capability must be developed towards sustainable forest management and certification. conclusion this study concludes that certification has brought tangible differences in forest management system. however, no positive chages have been found so far in employment and income generation for fugs after certification. as a result, certification has not shown any positive effect in rural livelihood yet. thus, initiation of sfm is the first step demanding for sustainable community forestry in nepal. certification comes later, when nepal will export substantial quantity of forest products from community managed forests and market mechanism will demand certified products at higher price. acknowledgements i am grateful to hideo sakai, professor of tokyo university japan for providing me invaluable guidance and encouragement to carry out this study. i would like to thank personnel of dolakha dfo and fecofun for their generous support during field study. i am indebted to people of vetteripakha and suspa cfs for their cooperation during field work. eventually, my thanks go to mr. s.m shrestha for his valuable suggestions to refine the article. references dfo. 2007. community database. district forest office (dfo), dolakha charikote, nepal. fao. 2000. certification and forest product labelling: a review. faoasiapacific forestry commission, eighteen sessions. secretariat note noosaville, queensland, australia, 15-19 may 2000. fao. 2007. state of the world’s forests 2007. food and agriculture organizations, rome 2007. subedi, b. p. 2004. fsc certification progress in nepal, a synopsis. asia network for sustainable agriculture and bio-resources (ansab). www.ansab.org bass, s. 2002. “the sustainable forestry hand book, earthscan publications ltd london.” dof. 2006. revenue record of forests products from department of forest (dof), kathmandu nepal. fao. 2001. state of the world’s forests. rome, food and agriculture organization of the united nations: 181. fsc. 2003. fsc websites links http:/www.fsc.org, forest stewardship council (fsc). 2003. fsc. 2007.www.fsc.org, a case study from fsc certified forest, forest stewardship council. kandel final bankojanakari 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 37 assessing the causes of conflict and its effect on livelihoods: a study from bardia national park and khata corridor, nepal. s.c. nepali1 the ten-year conflict in nepal can be viewed as the result of ignoring and failing to strengthen the state and nation building through political, economic and social integration. this study aimed to understand and assess the causes of conflict and their effects on livelihoods in and around bardia national park, nepal. crotty’s model has been used to collect the information and conduct non parametric wilcoxon test. chi-square test with descriptive tables has been used for data analysis. causes of conflict based on people’s perception revealed that 78% and 45% of the respondents agreed that weak governance was the cause of conflict before and after. 79% and 52% attributed economical instability as a cause while 78% and 49% believed disparity in resource use and distribution as the cause of conflict before and after. the overall impact on livelihoods due to the conflict had a weighted mean range 2.0-2.3, suggesting the medium impact on all the assets. the conditions of livelihood were better before and were negatively affected after the conflict. studying patterns of armed conflict and their impact in a country like nepal is not just of historical interest, but also a matter of current concern for development. key words: conflict, instability livelihoods, non parametric test conflict has been defined in various terms based on a range of categories, from serious disagreement to violence leading towards war and change in the society (homer-dixon, 1991 and warner and jones, 1998). in addition to the war with english east india company in 1814, nepal witnessed ten years of “people’s war” between the maoists and the state during 1996-2006. this war not only claimed the lives of thousands of people, but it also had a severe impact on conservation and livelihoods. though nepal was united into one country from several principalities, the autocratic rulers failed from the beginning to strengthen the state formation process; nation building through political, economic and social integration was completely ignored. collier and hoefler, (1998), arnson et al., (2005), jung (2003), upreti, (2004), upreti, (2007) ascribed the causes of conflict to poor socio-economic factors, differences in ideology, identity, geographical causes, international causes, environmental causes, poor governance, poverty and exclusion and inequalities. maybe a combination of these factors has triggered the conflict in nepal. the relationship of war and environment have been documented by homer-dixon (1991), homer and dixon (1994), collier and hoeffler (2004). materials and methods choosing a research approach within the natural and social sciences in a society influenced by post structural and post modern discourse is a different task today than it was in the past. research methodology framework adopted for this study was based on crotty’s (1998) model. this research has employed an interdisciplinary approach to be understood in terms of a process rather than a representation. as the study tried to look into the relation of natural and social science, research here involved the collection of empirical data from the field and extending the discussion to include those who are the foci of this study. this study, therefore, aims to understand and assess the causes of conflict and their effects on the livelihoods in and around bardia national park and khata corridor. 1 ph.d student, institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, nepal. e-mail: sushila_nepali@yahoo.com banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 38 source: adopted by crotty, 1998. data collection the collection of the data for the survey was based on multistage sampling technique. preliminary field visit and collection of secondary data from the park and projects working in the area was conducted. the data was collected from 10 vdcs of bagnaha, neulapur, magaragadhi/baniyabhar, thakurdwara, suryapatuwa, shivpur, dhodhari, gola and manau. 10% of the households from each vdc were randomly selected for detailed questionnaire survey. data processing and analysis as zar (1996) explains, there is a large body of statistical methods that comprises procedures not requiring the estimation of the population variance or mean and not stating hypotheses about parameters. these testing procedures are termed as nonparametric tests or distribution free test. data collected were processed and analyzed using spss/pc computer software. for testing the results that were mainly categorical, various non-parametric tests such as wilcoxon sign rank test2 and descriptive analysis with graphical representation have been applied for the analysis to measure significance zar, (1996); siegel et al., (1988). wilcoxon signed-rank test is applied to compute the differences between the two variables for all cases and classifies the differences as positive, negative or tied. then summation with the ranks having plus sign (t+) and the ranks with minus sign (t-) is done. for two-tailed test, ho is rejected if either t+ or tis less than or equal to the critical value, t±(2),n, from the given table. having calculated either t+ or t-, the other can be determined as t-= n(n+1)/2= t+p-value calculated is the probability of being wrong in concluding that there is a true effect (i.e., the probability of falsely rejecting the null hypothesis, or committing a type i error, based on w). the smaller the p-value, the greater the probability that there is a treatment effect. traditionally, it can be concluded that there is a significant difference when p<0.05. five point likert scale3 (likert, 1974) point ranking was used to analyze people’s perceptions of conflict and its impact in conservation and livelihoods. the perceptions of user in terms of changes in the communities during the conflict times: conflict before (1996-2000) and after (2001-2006) were recorded in five ordinal scales including “strongly agreeing/very high”, “agreeing/high”, “disagree/medium/don’t know”, “strongly disagree/low” and “very low/no change”. to measure the strengths or effects of the impact, classification was done as follows: very high degree impact meant >80%, high degree is 60-80%, medium degree is 40-60%, low degree meant 20-40% and very low degree as < 20%. results and discussion perception on causes of conflict total of 1118 individuals from the aforementioned 10 vdcs were invited to agree or disagree with the given statements based on the likert scale. statements used for analyzing the causes of conflict have been updated based on upreti (2004), upreti (2007) and sambaugh et al., (2001). causes of conflict have been classified into broader reasons and specific reasons as given in box 1. box 1, lists weak governance, economic instability and weak resource use and distribution as the broader reasons and these were further classified into specific reasons. the following result analyzes each broader category with specific reasons. weak governance perceived as a cause of conflict: majority of the respondents (78%) ‘agreed’ and ‘strongly agreed’ that conflict occurred because of weak governance (figure 1). in total, 17% and 5% of the respondents ‘did not know’ and ‘strongly disagreed’ with the statement that weak governance was the reason for causing the conflict, respectively, before. comparing the same statement after the survey researchqualitative & quantitative survey sampling, administer questionnaire, key informant interview, focus group discussion, field observation and statistical analysis epistemology theoretical perspective methodology methods constructionism postmodernism chart 1research methodology framework 2 frank wilcoxon (1892-1965), american (though born in ireland) chemist and statistician, a major developer of statistical methods based on ranks nepali banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 39 conflict revealed that only 51% of the respondents thought that weak governance was the cause of conflict, but 40% of them ‘did not know’ if this was the cause. analyzing the individual or specific reasons, figure 1 suggests that out of various specific reasons, 89% of the respondents ‘agree/strongly agreed’ that the government was lacking responsibility, accountability and transparency. when comparing after the conflict or during, 55% and 56% of the respondents agreed that inadequate forms of redressing grievances and disputes over revenue sharing were the causes of conflict. with the statement that the government did not have or lacked responsibility, accountability and transparency. the power struggle related to the fight for their identity and lack of development in the country was very prominent. one of the root causes of nepal’s slow development is “institutional problems”, a euphemism that covers a multitude of sins. they also strongly agreed that there was not a functioning regulatory or legal framework to tackle the issues of governance. the studies conducted by world bank institute governance index for nepal (1996-2006) also reported that the governing situation had witnessed a declining trend when compared with the south asia region as a whole (narayan manandhar, the kathmandu post 19 july 2007, cited by upreti 2007). over the years since 1990, governments had made promises to the people and distributed hopes and “dreams” of an improved quality of life. the misuse of funds, power results in wealth that is concentrated around the capital where most of the development stays. this situation can build the perception of the people who strongly agree that resource and revenues were not utilized properly. the results above revealed that the majority of the respondents agreed that lack of social inclusion was a cause of conflict. there is no doubt that existing literatures within the country and across region have confirmed that gender, social equity/inclusion and poverty considerations are still weak. 3 p-value calculated is the probability of being wrong in concluding that there is a true effect (i.e., the probability of falsely rejecting the null hypothesis, or committing a type i error, based on w). the smaller the p-value, the greater the probability that there is a treatment effect. traditionally, it can be concluded that there is a significant difference when p<0.05. five point likert scale3 (likert, 1974) point ranking was used to analyze people’s perceptions of conflict and its impact in conservation and livelihoods. the perceptions of user in terms of changes in the communities during the conflict times: conflict before (1996-2000) and after (2001-2006) were recorded in five ordinal scales including “strongly agreeing/very high”, “agreeing/high”, “disagree/medium/don’t know”, “strongly disagree/low” and “very low/no change”. to measure the strengths or effects of the impact, classification was done as follows: very high degree impact meant >80%, high degree is 60-80%, medium degree is 40-60%, low degree meant 20-40% and very low degree as < 20%. results and discussion perception on causes of conflict 1118 individuals from the aforementioned 10 vdcs were invited to agree or disagree with the given statements based on the likert scale. statements used for analyzing the causes of conflict have been updated based on upreti (2004), upreti (2007) and sambaugh et. al, (2001). causes of conflict have been classified into broader reasons and specific reasons as given in box 1. box 1, lists weak governance, economic instability and weak resource use and distribution as the broader reasons and these were further classified into specific reasons. the following result analyzes each broader category with specific reasons. box 1: causes of conflict broader and specific reasons broad reason code specific reason c1 the government was lacking accountability, responsiveness and transparency c2 lacking in functioning regulatory/legal framework c3 inadequate independent and neutral judiciary or other forms of redress of grievances c4 there are disputes among central, regional and local governments over the use of revenue c5 lack of community consultation in project planning can lead to community confusion, opposition & violence weak governance c6 lack of social inclusion in equal participation for management and decision making activities c7 increase in corruption c8 government providing inadequate basic services and not prioritizing economic instability c9 inequalities in wealth distribution c10 competing claims to land rights & natural resources c11 lack of education in resource management and distribution resource use and distribution c12 degrading environment having negative affect on livelihoods source: updated from upreti, 2004 and shambaugh, et al. 2001. weak governance perceived as a cause of conflict: 3 likert scaling is widely used format developed by rensis likert for asking attitude questions. respondents are typically asked their degree of agreement with a series of statements that together form a multiple indicator or item measure. 3 likert scaling is widely used format developed by rensis likert for asking attitude questions. respondents are typically asked their degree of agreement with a series of statements that together form a multiple indicator or item measure. 4 78% of respondents ‘agreed’ and ‘strongly agreed’ that conflict occurred because of weak governance (figure 1). in total, 17% and 5% of the respondents ‘did not know’ and ‘strongly disagreed’ with the statement that weak governance was the reason for causing the conflict, respectively, before. comparing the same statement after the conflict revealed that only 51% of the respondents thought that weak governance was the cause of conflict, but 40% of them ‘did not know’ if this was the cause. analyzing the individual or specific reasons, figure 1 suggests that out of various specific reasons, 89% of the respondents ‘agree/strongly agreed’ that the government was lacking responsibility, accountability and transparency. when comparing after the conflict or during, 55% and 56% of the respondents agreed that inadequate forms of redressing grievances and disputes over revenue sharing were the causes of conflict. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 b ef o re a ft e r b ef o re a ft e r b ef o re a ft e r b ef o re a ft e r b ef o re a ft e r b ef o re a ft e r b ef o re a ft e r the govern was lacking, lacking in functioning inadequate forms to disputes over lack of community lack of social inclusion in average r e sp o n se s in % strongly disagree/disagree don't know agree/strongly agree source: field data 2006, bardia figure 1weak governance as a cause of conflict the results also underscore that 68% of the respondents ‘agreed/strongly agreed’; however, the smallest portion attributed the lack of social inclusion in equal participation before as the cause of conflict. but after the conflict, the least portion (45%) agreed with the statement that the government did not have or lacked responsibility, accountability and transparency. the power struggle related to the fight for their identity and lack of development in the country was very prominent. one of the root causes of nepal's slow development is "institutional problems", a euphemism that covers a multitude of sins. they also strongly agreed that there was not a functioning regulatory or legal framework to tackle the issues of governance. the studies conducted by world bank institute governance index for nepal (1996-2006) also reported that the governing situation had witnessed a declining trend when compared with the south asia region as a whole (narayan manandhar, the kathmandu post 19 july 2007, cited by upreti 2007). over the years since 1990, governments had made promises to the people and distributed hopes and “dreams” of an improved quality of life. the misuse of funds, power results in wealth that is concentrated around the capital where most of the development stays. this situation can build the perception of the people who strongly agree that resource and revenues were not utilized source: field data 2006, bardia fig 1 : weak governance as a cause of conflict the results also underscore that 68% of the respondents ‘agreed/strongly agreed’; however, the smallest portion attributed the lack of social inclusion in equal participation before as the cause of conflict. but after the conflict, the least portion (45%) agreed nepali source: updated from upreti, 2004 and shambaugh, et al. 2001. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 40 economic instability as cause of conflict: figure 2 suggests that 79% and 52% of the respondents ‘strongly agreed’ that economic instability was the cause of conflict both before and after the conflict whereas 7% and 14% ‘disagreed’ and ‘did not know’ the cause before and 8% and 40% of the respondents ‘disagreed’ and ‘did not know’ after. there are three specific reasons within economic instability; and among them, 89% and 56% of the respondents ‘strongly agreed’ that increase in corruption within the system had led to conflict before and after, respectively. out of these three reasons, 73% of the respondents ‘strongly agreed’ with the saying that causes of conflict occurred because the government was not providing sufficient basic services. however, after the conflict, the least agreed, 49% of the respondents, ‘agreed’ that inequalities in wealth distribution were the cause of economic instability. people’s needs. in a series of studies, blaikie, et al., (1980) have extensively documented what they call ‘nepal in crisis’ and focussed on the economic inequality driving conflicts. it has been indicated and stressed that there has been an increase in inequality between socio-economic groups, leading to further exclusion of already marginalized groups, and this helped explain the expansion of civil conflict in nepal. it is important to focus on the variety of ways by which inequalities are managed by societies and the significance of varying kinds of inequality (cramer, 2003; robinson, 2001). unequal resource use and distribution as a cause of conflict: figure 3 suggests that resource use and distribution as cause of conflict was ‘strongly agreed’ by 78% of the respondents before and 49% after the conflict. 6% and 16% of the respondents ‘disagreed’ and ‘did not know’ that resource use and distribution were the causes of conflict before, but 9% and 42% of the respondents happened to ‘disagree’ and ‘did not know’ after the conflict. 85% of the respondents may have ‘strongly agreed’ with a specific reason such as inadequate education in resource use and distribution before, but 56% of the respondents mentioned degradation of the environment having an impact upon resource use and distribution causing conflict after. before the conflict, 74% of the respondents had ‘strongly agreed’ that competing claims on land and natural resources and degradation of the environment caused conflict. but after the conflict, 42% of the respondents thought competing claims on land and natural resources as the cause of conflict. the responses shown here definitely indicate that the understanding of the cause of conflict differs with the ethnicity, status, age group, literacy, employment, land holding and income of the respondents. 5 properly. the results above revealed that the majority of the respondents agreed that lack of social inclusion was a cause of conflict. there is no doubt that existing literatures within the country and across region have confirmed that gender, social equity/inclusion and poverty considerations are still weak. economic instability as cause of conflict: figure 2 suggests that 79% and 52% of the respondents ‘strongly agreed’ that economic instability was the cause of conflict both before and after the conflict whereas 7% and 14% ‘disagreed’ and ‘did not know’ the cause before and 8% and 40% of the respondents ‘disagreed’ and ‘did not know’ after. there are three specific reasons within economic instability; and among them, 89% and 56% of the respondents ‘strongly agreed’ that increase in corruption within the system had led to conflict before and after, respectively. out of these three reasons, 73% of the respondents ‘strongly agreed’ with the saying that causes of conflict occurred because the government was not providing sufficient basic services. however, after the conflict, the least agreed, 49% of the respondents, ‘agreed’ that inequalities in wealth distribution were the cause of economic instability. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 before after before after before after before after increase in corruption govt. not providing sufficient basic inequalities in wealth distribution average wt. mean economic instability r e sp o n se s in % strongly disagree/disagree don't know agree/strongly agree source: field data 2006, bardia figure 2: economic instability as a cause of conflict nepal as a country moving towards modernization has been making efforts to address the economic situation but got bogged down in the absence of the political space necessary for a system of performance based upward mobility while corruption is on the rise (singh et al., 2002; thapa and sijapati, 2003). nepal's gravest institutional problem is corruption, which seems to plumb new depths with each short-lived government (singh et al., 2002; khanal, 2006 and global witness, 2004). the neoclassical theory of greed (instead of focusing on grievances or developing economic agendas) by the previous rulers of nepal can be confirmed by the argument made by collier and hoeffler (2004). once nepal was known to the greater world, development in industries and health sectors became started, but this was mostly done in the top-down approach, instead of identifying or addressing people’s needs. in a series of studies, blaikie, et. al., (1980) have extensively source: field data 2006, bardia fig 2: economic instability as a cause of conflict nepal as a country moving towards modernization has been making efforts to address the economic situation but got bogged down in the absence of the political space necessary for a system of performance based upward mobility while corruption is on the rise (thapa and sijapati, 2003). nepal’s gravest institutional problem is corruption, which seems to plumb new depths with each short-lived government (khanal, 2006). the neoclassical theory of greed (instead of focusing on grievances or developing economic agendas) by the previous rulers of nepal can be confirmed by the argument made by collier and hoeffler (2004). once nepal was known to the greater world, development in industries and health sectors became started, but this was mostly done in the top-down approach, instead of identifying or addressing 6 documented what they call 'nepal in crisis' and focussed on the economic inequality driving conflicts. it has been indicated and stressed that there has been an increase in inequality between socio-economic groups, leading to further exclusion of already marginalized groups, and this helped explain the expansion of civil conflict in nepal. it is important to focus on the variety of ways by which inequalities are managed by societies and the significance of varying kinds of inequality (cramer, 2003; robinson, 2001). unequal resource use and distribution as a cause of conflict: figure 3 suggests that resource use and distribution as cause of conflict was ‘strongly agreed’ by 78% of the respondents before and 49% after the conflict. 6% and 16% of the respondents ‘disagreed’ and ‘did not know’ that resource use and distribution were the causes of conflict before, but 9% and 42% of the respondents happened to ‘disagree’ and ‘did not know’ after the conflict. 85% of the respondents may have ‘strongly agreed’ with a specific reason such as inadequate education in resource use and distribution before, but 56% of the respondents mentioned degradation of the environment having an impact upon resource use and distribution causing conflict after. before the conflict, 74% of the respondents had ‘strongly agreed’ that competing claims on land and natural resources and degradation of the environment caused conflict. but after the conflict, 42% of the respondents thought competing claims on land and natural resources as the cause of conflict. the responses shown here definitely indicate that the understanding of the cause of conflict differs with the ethnicity, status, age group, literacy, employment, land holding and income of the respondents. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 before after before after before after before after competing claims on land and natural res inadequate education in resource use and degrading environment average wt. mean resource use and distribution r e sp o n se s in % strongly disagree/disagree don't know agree/strongly agree source: field data 2006, bardia figure 3: unequal resource use and distribution as a cause of conflict studies of violent conflicts do show that they begin with the political economy and the mechanisms of access, control, and struggle over resources. studies carried out in nepal regarding resource use conflict and leading to park-people conflict or conflict with forest officers have been documented by upreti, 2007. these findings revealed that, on average, 74% agreeing with the statements reasoning the facts that there were competing claims to land rights & natural resources; environmental degradation in the area had affected the traditional livelihood of the community; there were projects which had not felt responsible to tackle environment problems and encourage people to participate; people had perceived the importance of natural resources source: field data 2006, bardia fig 3: unequal resource use and distribution as a cause of conflict nepali banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 41 8 table 2 : summary table showing the significance and linear combination of the independent variables to the causes of conflict broader reasons causes of conflict periods wt. mean difference w t+ tp-value changes impact before 2.9 c1 after 2.3 0.58 -144033.00 210.00 -144243.00 <0.001 b> or + before 2.7 c2 after 2.4 0.31 -88028.00 38786.00 -126814.00 <0.001 b> or + before 2.7 c3 after 2.5 0.26 -66872.00 44824.00 -111696.00 <0.001 b> or + before 2.7 c4 after 2.9 -0.16 48607.00 105101.50 -56494.50 <0.001 b< or before 2.8 c5 after 2.3 0.47 -143556.00 26975.00 -170531.00 <0.001 b> or + before 2.6 w ea k go v er n an ce c6 after 2.3 0.31 -100737.00 52833.00 -153570.00 <0.001 b> or + before 2.9 c7 after 2.5 0.36 -79028.00 14891.50 -93919.50 <0.001 b> or + before 2.6 c8 after 2.4 0.17 -42749.00 65208.50 -107957.50 <0.001 b> or + before 2.7 ec o n o m ic in st ab il it y c9 after 2.4 0.30 -83065.00 41844.00 -124909.00 <0.001 b> or + before 2.7 c10 after 2.3 0.33 -97296.00 44835.00 -142131.00 <0.001 b> or + before 2.8 c11 after 2.4 0.40 -110302.00 29094.00 -139396.00 <0.001 b> or + before 2.7 r es o u rc e u se an d d is tr ib u ti o n c12 after 2.5 0.21 -55303.00 52579.00 -107882.00 <0.001 b> or + source: field data, bardia, 2006 with respect to economic instability, resource use and distribution, all respondents agreed that the causes of conflict were greater before than after. the respondents perceived some changes after and identified different causes of conflict than before. analyzing the conditions of livelihoods before and after the conflict after analyzing all the causes of conflict and their impacts on livelihood assets, the conditions of livelihood assets based on their perception before and after the conflict were queried. table 3 demonstrates that 83% of the respondents recalled that social assets were good before and 65% mentioned that they got bad after the conflict intensified. in the case of financial assets, 87% of the respondents perceived the condition as good before and 66% of them felt it was bad after. similarly, physical assets were perceived to be good by 77% of the respondents before but bad by 68% of the respondents. 85% of the respondents reckoned natural assets to be good before the conflict and 71% of the respondents saw them to be bad after. finally, human resource assets were perceived to be good by 81% before, and 67% mentioned it be bad after the conflict. studies of violent conflicts do show that they begin with the political economy and the mechanisms of access, control, and struggle over resources. studies carried out in nepal regarding resource use conflict and leading to park-people conflict or conflict with forest officers have been documented by upreti, 2007. these findings revealed that, on average, 74% agreeing with the statements reasoning the facts that there were competing claims to land rights & natural resources; environmental degradation in the area had affected the traditional livelihood of the community; there were projects which had not felt responsible to tackle environment problems and encourage people to participate; people had perceived the importance of natural resources and their impact on livelihoods; they had also seen the negative effects due to unmanaged natural resources on their livelihoods and that this has impacted social and cultural trends. the influence of society, state, corporate and various powers has an impact on degrading the environment or influencing environmental policies. the inter relation between power groups monopolizing policy, legitimizing their power to seize common resources can be understood through “political ecology” theory. upreti, 2007, has cited various studies, most of which have stressed the relationship between armed conflict and natural resources. the government and community forestry areas have been misused for their camps. upreti, (2004); blaikie et al., (1980), have addressed that structural global political economy approach to explain social marginalization and environmental degradation. civil war can limit the access to resources and only few groups or people will have access and power to use them for their own benefit. the study by le billon (2000) documents how armed groups can gain economically and exploit natural resources. in the case of nepal, it may be difficult to document what and how much natural resources were diminished. determining the associated factors with causes of conflict and its perceived effect on livelihoods this section analyses the factors associated with the causes of conflict and their relation to livelihoods. table 2 shows that understanding among the respondents differed in agreeing about the causes before and after the conflict. in the case of weak nepali banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 42 governance becoming the cause of conflict, most of the respondents agreed the causes to be greater before than after the conflict except for the cause where respondents agreed that disputes over revenue sharing got worse than before. thus, it is significantly different with p-values <0.001 and signifies that after the conflict, respondents’ perception of conflict and its causes changed showing positive impact. with respect to economic instability, resource use and distribution, all respondents agreed that the causes of conflict were greater before than after. the respondents perceived some changes after and identified different causes of conflict than before. analyzing the conditions of livelihoods before and after the conflict after analyzing all the causes of conflict and their impacts on livelihood assets, the conditions of livelihood assets based on their perception before and after the conflict were queried. table 3 demonstrates that 83% of the respondents recalled that social assets were good before and 65% mentioned that they got bad after the conflict intensified. in the case of financial assets, 87% of the respondents perceived the condition as good before and 66% of them felt it was bad after. similarly, physical assets were perceived to be good by 77% of the respondents before but bad by 68% of the respondents. 85% of the respondents reckoned natural assets to be good before the conflict and 71% of the respondents saw them to be bad after. finally, human resource assets were perceived to be good by 81% before, and 67% mentioned it be bad after the conflict. all livelihood issues deal with communities being poor, deprived and their well being attached to various assets and access to resources and services. as rakodi and lloud-johnson (2002) put it, livelihood approaches propose to think in terms of strengths or assets, or who has access to what in terms of savings; if not, have other materials or non material assets distinguishing between poor, deprived or the better off. as the livelihood framework addresses human links to various assets such as social, financial, natural, human and physical, when these assets become vulnerable, livelihoods deteriorate. therefore, when the country is in crisis the first impact is seen on these livelihood assets. conclusion weak governance, economic instability and inequality in resource use and distribution as the perceived causes of conflict before and after persisted and were highly significant. the 10-year long conflict made the country’s economic, political and social situation very miserable and this is revealed in impacts on livelihoods which were perceived as better before and worse after the conflict. this study could be a lesson for learning how to cope with such situation in future by addressing the livelihood options 9 table 3conditions of livelihood assets before and after or during the conflict social financial physical natural asset human res asset before after before after before after before after before after condition freq. % freq. % freq. % freq. % freq. % freq. % freq. % freq. % freq. % freq. % bad 12 1 723 65 14 1 737 66 17 2 765 68 12 1 789 71 17 2 748 67 same 174 16 151 14 130 12 173 15 243 22 163 15 155 14 103 9 196 18 185 17 good 932 83 244 22 974 87 208 19 858 77 190 17 951 85 226 20 905 81 185 17 source: field data, bardia, 2006 all livelihood issues deal with communities being poor, deprived and their well being attached to various assets and access to resources and services. as rakodi and lloud-johnson (2002) put it, livelihood approaches propose to think in terms of strengths or assets, or who has access to what in terms of savings; if not, have other materials or non material assets distinguishing between poor, deprived or the better off. as the livelihood framework addresses human links to various assets such as social, financial, natural, human and physical, when these assets become vulnerable, livelihoods deteriorate. therefore, when the country is in crisis the first impact is seen on these livelihood assets. conclusion weak governance, economic instability and inequality in resource use and distribution as the perceived causes of conflict before and after persisted and were highly significant. the 10-year long conflict made the country’s economic, political and social situation very miserable and this is revealed in impacts on livelihoods which were perceived as better before and worse after the conflict. this study could be a lesson for learning how to cope with such situation in future by addressing the livelihood options references: arnson, c.j and i. w. zartman, 2005. rethinking the economics of war-the intersection of need, creed and greed. woodrow wilson center press. washington d.c and the john hopkins university press, baltimore. blaikie, p.m., cameron, j. and seddon, d. 1980. nepal in crisis: growth and stagnation at the periphery. oxford, uk: oxford university press. collier, p. and a. hoeffler. 1998. on the economic consequences of civil war. oxford economic papers 50:563-573. collier, p. and hoeffler, a. 2004. greed and grievance in civil war. oxford economic paper 56, p. 563-595. cramer, c., 2003. does inequality cause conflict? journal of international development 15, 397412. crotty, m. 1998. the foundations of social research. meaning and perspective in the research process. australia. homer-dixon, t.f. 1991. on the threshold: environmental changes as causes of acute conflict. international security, 16 (2): 76-116. table 3 : conditions of livelihood assets before and after or during the conflict source: field data, bardia, 2006 nepali banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 43 references arnson, c.j and zartman, i.w. 2005. rethinking the economics of war-the intersection of need, creed and greed. woodrow wilson center press. washington d.c and the john hopkins university press, baltimore. blaikie, p.m., cameron, j. and seddon, d. 1980. nepal in crisis: growth and stagnation at the periphery. oxford, uk: oxford university press. collier, p. and hoeffler, a. 1998. on the economic consequences of civil war. oxford economic papers 50: 563-573. collier, p. and hoeffler, a. 2004. greed and grievance in civil war. oxford economic paper 56: 563-595. cramer, c., 2003. does inequality cause conflict? journal of international development 15: 397-412. crotty, m. 1998. the foundations of social research. meaning and perspective in the research process. australia. homer-dixon, t.f. 1991. on the threshold: environmental changes as causes of acute conflict. international security, 16 (2): 76-116. homer-dixon, t.f. 1994. environmental scarcities and violent conflicts: evidence from cases, international security, 19 (19): 5-40. jung, d. 2003. shadow globalization, ethnic conflicts and new wars. a political economy of intra-state war. routledge taylor and francis group, london and new york. khanal, d.r. 2006. sasastra dwandama samudayik ban (community forestry in armed conflict), kathmandu: federation of community forestry users of nepal. le billon, p. 2000. the political ecology of transition in cambodia, 1989–1999: war, peace and forest exploitation. development and change, 31 (4): 785805. rakodi, c. and johnson, t. 2002. urban livelihoods: a people-centered approach to reducing poverty. sterling, va: earthscan. robinson, 2001. social identity, inequality and conflict. journal of economics of governance 2: 8599. siegel, s and castellan. jr., n.j. 1988 nonparametric statistics for the behavioral sciences. mcgraw-hill book company, singapore. shambaugh, j. oglethorpe, j. and ham, r. (with contributions from sylvia tognetti) 2001. the trampled grass: mitigating the impacts of armed conf lict on the environment. washington dc, usa: biodiversity support program. thapa, d. and sijapati, b. 2003. a kingdom under siege: nepal’s maoist insurgency, 1996 to 2003. kathmandu: printhouse. upreti, b.r. 2004. the price of neglect: from resource conflict to maoist insurgency in the himalayan kingdom. bhrikuti academic publication. kathmandu. upreti, b.r. 2007. crisis beyond the battlefield: a rapid impact assessment of the armed conflict on environment and biodiversity in nepal. unpublished. kathmandu. zar, j.h. 1996. biostatistical analysis, third edition, prentice hall, upper saddle river, new jersey 07458. nepali the nepalese community forestry programme is internationally well known – it has a long history and it is considered largely successful (chhetri, 2006). many studies on community forestry in nepal have focused on the economic contribution from the forest and aspects related with the distribution of benefits (adhikari, 2005; chhetri, 2010), while fewer have looked at forest growth. the general perception is, however, that community forestry succeeds on conserving the forest while allowing local users to extract forest products primarily for subsistence (pandit and bevilacqua, 2011). however, the community forestry programme also allows for commercial harvest of forest products, including timber through sustainable forest management. the community based natural forest management in the himalaya (comform) project is a research capacity development programme implemented in collaboration between the institute of forestry, pokhara and hetauda, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, and plots in four forests under community-based management to monitor the development and use of the university of copenhagen, denmark. the project has established a system of permanent sample forest to assess the sustainability of forest management in terms of woody biomass yield. the present paper reports results from plot measurements in 2005 and 2010, including descriptive data from 2010, the most recent situation, and data on the increment between 2005 and 2010. the objective of the paper is to make the plot network known to a wider audience, to inspire similar work elsewhere and to provide baseline data that can be used by future studies. materials and methods study sites permanent sample plots were located at the southern edge of the middle hills, in the middle hills, and in the lower trans-himalayan zone representing three physiographic zones of central nepal. the forests were kankali community forest (27.65° n, 84.57° e) in chainpur village development committee (vdc), chitwan district, tibrekot community forest (28.29° n, 83.93° e) in hemja vdc, kaski district, and the forests of lete and kunjo (28.64° n, 83.62°e) vdcs, mustang district in the annapurna conservation area. the dominant vegetation types represented are tropical shorea robusta forest in kankali (760 ha), subtropical schimacastanopsis forest in hemja (79 ha) and temperate pinus wallichiana forest in lete and kunjo (501 and 677 ha, respectively). plots were allocated to forest strata according to the principles of stratified random sampling described by meilby et al. (2006). within each growth and volume based on permanent sample plots in forests managed by communities l. puri1*, h. meilby2., s. rayamajhi1, y. p. timilsina1, n. p. gautam1, r. subedi1 and h. o. larsen 2 in order to monitor the woody biomass yield 241 permanent sample plots were established in four forests (total 2017 ha) across three physiographic regions of nepal. tree species identification, tree positioning and diameter at breast height (dbh) for all trees and height for a sample of trees were measured in 2005 and 2010. results presented are density and volume by forest, species and diameter class in 2010 and the species-wise increment between 2005 and 2010 by forest. standing volumes were between 134 and 311 m3ha-1, and annual volume increment was 2.5-7.6 m3ha-1. these plots may be utilized for future research, teaching and for local planning purposes. key words: community forestry, forest growth, stratified sample 1 tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. 2 forest & landscape, university of copenhagen, 1958 frederiksberg c, denmark * corresponding author: puri07878@alumni.itc.nl 11 banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 12 stratum, plots were distributed spatially using a principle known as a ‘coffee-house’ design, which is a restricted random approach where the location of the first plot is totally random and each additional plot is located such that the minimum distance to neighbouring plots is maximized (müller, 2001). plots that could not be established at the point initially selected, because this point was inaccessible (precipitous slope, gorge), were moved in steps of 50 metres in a random direction until an accessible point was reached. measurements were undertaken in a total of 241 permanent 20 x 25 m sample plots in the four forests in the spring of 2005 and repeated in 2010 (fig.1). plots were marked using concrete pillars, painted numbers and sign boards but the permanence of these was not in all cases satisfactory. nevertheless, all plots except one in kunjo were found again in 2010. due to the establishment of a maoist encampment in five plots and the clearing of a dalbergia sissoo plantation with four plots in kankali, two new plots were established in that forest and measured for the first time in 2010. furthermore, one extra plot was established in tibrekot forest and measured for the first time in 2010. the basic plot design was based on mfsc (2000) and included three nested levels: trees with a diameter at breast height (dbh) of at least 10 cm were measured within the whole 20 x 25 m2 plot, trees with dbh 4–9.9 cm were measured within an interior 10 x 15 m2 plot, and trees with dbh 2–3.9 cm were measured within an interior 5 x 5 m2 plot. parameters measured included species identification, positioning and dbh for all trees. tree height was measured for a set of panel trees (speciesand diameter-stratified; 1258 trees in 2005, 1146 trees in 2010). in 2010 the health and quality was also assessed for these panel trees. stumps of trees that had disappeared between 2005 and 2010 were registered as felled trees. crown cover was assessed at 30 points in a regular 5 x 5 m grid across each plot. to provide an overview, not only of standing biomass but also its potential value, stand density and volume were estimated for trees in 10 cm diameter classes. to include estimates of firewood, volume of trees with a diameter lower than 10 cm was included. total volume was estimated using volume functions developed by sharma and pukkala (1990). spatial interpolation was carried out using kriging and maps showing the spatial variation of standing volume in 2010 were prepared. results and discussion for 2005 and 2010 a total of 9603 trees were registered, 7111 were alive in both years, 1023 trees had grown into the sample by reaching the minimum diameter in 2010, and 1412 trees had been harvested in the period between the two measurements. only seven trees were missing from the database, meaning that their presence was registered but they had not been measured in 2005 or 2010. fifty trees that were registered in 2005 were recorded as standing dead trees in 2010. ! fig.1: location of permanent sample plots (rectangular symbols) in the four forests. stratification is indicated by shading and numbers. for detailed information on the strata please refer to meilby et al. (2006). data describing the state of the forest in 2010 are presented in table 1. standing volumes were high in lete and kunjo vdcs, lower in tibrekot community forest (cf) and even lower in kankali cf, most of which is young regeneration forest (stratum 2 in fig.1) that used to be severely degraded and has regenerated after the establishment of the community forest user group (cfug) in 1995. periodic annual volume increment was slightly higher in kunjo than in puri et al. banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 13 lete, presumably because part of the forest in lete (strata 2 and 3, fig. 1) is relatively open, even though this is not indicated by the overall basal area and volume estimates. the estimated volume increment was highest in kankali, possibly because – as mentioned – most of the forest is very young. the standard errors (not shown) of dbh and height are generally 2–7% of the estimates, those of stem number, basal area and volume are 5–15%. the standard errors are low for kunjo, tibrekot and kankali, but for lete they are somewhat higher due to the large variation of the forest around lete with strata characterised as open pine forest, dense pine forest, degraded pine and tsuga, rhododendron forest, and dense oldgrowth forest with very large old tsuga trees and large pines. meilby et al.(2006) estimated that about 50 plots in lete would lead to a precision of about 10% on basal area, and with 59 plots established this estimation was confirmed with a standard error of basal area of 11% of the mean. based on data from 2010, figure 2 and table 2 present height-diameter regressions for the most important tree species and the corresponding regression parameter estimates, respectively. tree species were similar in lete and kunjo and there was almost no difference within species between diameter-height relationships in the two forests. models were therefore prepared for the material as a whole. compared to tibrekot, the maximum height of trees in lete, kunjo and kankali was considerably higher. in kankali, the tallest tree species were terminalia alata and shorea robusta, in lete and kunjo, the tallest species were tsuga dumosa, abies sp. and pinus wallichiana, and in tibrekot the maximum height of schima wallichii exceeded that of other species. figure 3 presents diameter distributions of trees in the four forests in 2010. in all forests the distributions were reverse j-shaped with low densities of large-diameter trees, and the density is therefore shown on a logarithmic scale. lete was characterized by relatively high densities table 1: results from permanent sample plots in 2010 (n=240) village / forest number of plots stem number [ha-1] dbh [cm] height [m] basal area [m2ha-1] standing volume [m3ha-1] periodic ann. volume increment† [m3ha-1yr-1] lete 59 821 24.6 12.9 31.8 274 3.9 kunjo 63 662 28.6 16.8 32.9 311 4.9 tibrekot 52 1170 19.5 11.0 28.8 178 2.5 kankali 66 2110 12.0 8.4 20.0 134 7.6 † nb: estimates include recruitment of trees that were previously too small, but trees that were felled between 2005 and 2010 are not considered as the year of felling is unknown. estimates are thus likely to be conservative. puri et al. fig. 2: height-diameter regressions for the most important tree species found in the permanent sample plots in the three physiographic regions (n=1146, measurements conducted in 2010) banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 14 for very small and very large trees, indicating that certain parts of the forest are regenerating (strata 2 and 3 in fig.1) and other parts were highly stocked old-growth forest (stratum 4 in fig.1). in kunjo medium-sized trees were relatively abundant while the number of small trees was not particularly high, indicating that most of the forest is either medium-aged or mature forest. in tibrekot the diameter distribution is depicted as almost linear on the logarithmic density axis, except that there were still more large trees left than would be expected if the diameter distribution had been exponential. finally, the forest in kankali was clearly characterised by large densities of trees less than 20 cm in diameter. fig. 3: diameter distributions in 2010. error bars indicate standard errors. please note that vertical axes are logarithmic puri et al. table 2. regressions of tree height (h, metres) on diameter (d, centimetres): h = 1.3 + (d / [a + b*d])3, where a and b are parameters to be estimated (n=1146, measurements conducted in 2010) parameter estimates model statistics site species a se(a) b se(b) n rmse r2 kankali shorea 2.226 0.255 0.312 0.008 85 5.15 0.924 lagerstroemia 1.505 0.468 0.364 0.033 31 3.16 0.921 terminalia 5.410 1.346 0.245 0.025 17 5.83 0.922 cleistocalyx 1.217 0.291 0.390 0.016 31 2.35 0.962 dalbergia 1.586 0.509 0.345 0.030 11 2.56 0.968 holarrhena 1.296 0.262 0.431 0.020 20 1.04 0.985 other species 1.608 0.202 0.378 0.012 81 2.67 0.934 all species 2.443 0.127 0.314 0.005 276 4.08 0.917 tibrekot schima 2.050 0.174 0.343 0.006 135 3.29 0.953 castanopsis 1.611 0.212 0.389 0.011 105 2.86 0.933 engelhardia 1.984 0.293 0.391 0.014 61 2.42 0.940 myrica 1.310 0.337 0.457 0.018 47 1.79 0.955 other species 0.595 0.447 0.483 0.035 23 2.83 0.899 all species 2.260 0.128 0.355 0.005 372 3.33 0.923 lete and kunjo pinus 2.219 0.141 0.307 0.004 251 4.36 0.950 tsuga 3.849 0.588 0.279 0.010 39 6.37 0.936 cupressus 3.236 0.548 0.307 0.012 43 4.75 0.931 abies 3.336 0.628 0.288 0.018 33 4.82 0.927 rhododendron 1.656 0.522 0.450 0.028 27 2.22 0.925 other species 2.937 0.355 0.373 0.012 105 3.30 0.893 lete all species 2.933 0.237 0.319 0.007 249 5.42 0.873 kunjo all species 2.697 0.177 0.299 0.005 249 4.98 0.936 mv2010kank mv2010kank kankali diameter class mid-point (cm) 5 15 25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95 105 kunjo tibrekot 5 15 25 35 45 55 65 75 85 95 105 s tem num ber (ha -1 ) 0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000 10000 lete 0.1 1 10 100 1000 banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 15 figure 4 presents the standing volume of the four forests in 2010, by species. as indicated above the forests of lete and kunjo were quite similar but the species composition was different. in kunjo two-thirds (65%) of the volume was contributed by p. wallichiana and most of the remaining one-third was distributed to t. dumosa (21%) and cupressus torulosa (7%), but in lete the contributions of pinus (43%) and tsuga (35%) were almost similar, cupressus (0.02%) was only found in a single plot, and a large group of ‘other’ species contributed about one-sixth of the total volume. in tibrekot two-thirds of the volume was contributed by s. wallichii (65%) and most of the remaining volume was contributed by the other dominant species, castanopsis indica (23%). the forest of kankali was dominated by s. robusta, the volume of which constituted as much as 74% of the total standing stock. fig. 4: standing volume by species in 2010, error bars indicate standard errors figure 5 presents the distribution of volume to diameter classes for each forest. in lete , very few large trees contributed a large proportion of total volume, and the remaining volume was distributed evenly to almost all other diameter classes. in kunjo most of the volume was concentrated in diameter classes from 20–60 cm, in tibrekot there was little volume outside the diameter classes from 10–50 cm and in kankali more than one-third of the volume was concentrated in the diameter class 10–20 cm, and two-thirds of the volume was found in diameter classes below 30 cm. figure 6 presents the distribution of volume increment from 2005 to 2010 to the most important species. in lete the majority of the increment was contributed by p. wallichiana (70%), followed by t. dumosa (24%) and rhododendron sp. (5%). fig. 6: distribution of periodic annual volume increment (2005–2010) to species (see also table 1) in kunjo pinus contributed 88% and, collectively, the relative contribution of pinus and tsuga was 98% and thus even greater than in lete. in kankali the relative contribution of s. robusta (86%) was as large as that of pinus in kunjo, and in tibrekot increment was distributed more evenly with a bit less than half (46%) to s. wallichii, one-third (34%) to c. indica and one-tenth (11%) to engelhardia spicata. finally figure 7 shows the spatial distribution of the standing volume in the four forests in 2010. in lete and kunjo vdcs the volume surface was truncated at 700 m3ha-1 because estimates became unrealistically large in some parts of the forests. this was caused by only two plots that happened to include a few very large (>100 cm dbh) tsuga trees, leading to volume estimates of 1220 and 1460 m3ha-1 for these plots, thus forcing up the volume surface in the surrounding area. puri et al. fig. 5: distribution of standing volume (2010) to diameter classes, error bars indicate standard errors banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 16 fig.7: interpolated spatial distribution of standing volume in the forests, 2010 in lete the largest volumes were found at some distance south of the village. in kunjo the pattern was less clear with patches of dense forest close to some populated areas and open forest close to others. in tibrekot the largest volumes were mainly found in the younger forest stratum in the southwest and on the slopes to the northeast, and in kankali the largest volumes were found at the centre and in the north, while a dalbergia sissoo plantation and patches with maoist encampments along the edge of the forest have been cleared or have low remaining volumes. a preliminary evaluation of the data from the permanent sample plots shows that all four forests have large densities in the lowest diameter intervals, indicating good regeneration of trees. the species-level volume estimates illustrate that the dominant species are the ones expected for the respective zones. volume to diameter distributions show that there are relatively many large old trees in mustang, while stands in the middle hills and lowlands are presently (2010) dominated by younger trees. forests in the mountains of mustang were at the time of measurement not connected to the road network, and this may be one of the reasons why large old trees are still present there. another reason could be the difficulties of timber harvest in the topographically challenging area. in kankali the predominance of young trees is explained by the fact that the area handed over for community forestry in 1995 was quite degraded; therefore it is now being protected for regeneration. biomass accumulation is not entirely dependent on distance to settlement. the expected pattern of less accumulation close to settlement was found in some patches in lete and kunjo, whereas in kankali the forest area closest to the settlement is being protected while regenerating. different patterns of utilization also emerged from the sites. in lete and kunjo the biomass was distributed across diameter classes, meaning that forest management can include timber harvest in the near future. in tibrekot and kankali the predominance of biomass in the smaller diameter classes indicated that the forests need some time for regrowth before significant amounts of timber will be available. large tracts in kankali are dedicated to the regeneration of forest from barren hill (stratum 2 in fig.1), while in tibrekot regeneration needs to take place within the standing forest. based on the pilot survey conducted in 2005, the stratification of the four forests and the allocation of plots to the strata shown in figure 1 constitute compromises that, with available resources, were intended to enable complete coverage of the forests, and to the extent possible minimize standard errors of standing stock and extraction measures. that a compromise is seen from the fact that minimization of standard errors of standing stock measures would often imply allocating most of the effort to areas quite far from villages, while minimization of the standard error of, e.g., subsistence firewood extraction would imply that most plots should be located close to villages. in lete and kunjo the survey did not include areas at elevations exceeding 3000 masl, thus leaving out forests at the tree line, and in tibrekot an area on a steep slope (cliff) to the north-east was omitted as it was deemed inaccessible. furthermore, in lete and kunjo it turned out that the strata surveyed in 2005 (meilby et al. 2006) had to be supplemented as it emerged that certain patches of forest, not mentioned during the first field visits, were actually managed and used by the villages. the resulting plot network offers good coverage of most parts of the forests and should be useful for many types of forest-level studies. but for studies emphasizing particular forest types or individual species it may be necessary to supplement the existing network using temporary plots. puri et al. banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 17 additional data from permanent plots/sites a number of studies have already made use of the plot network. additional data collected in the permanent sample plots include a one-year litter survey with traps in kankali (2007/08), a shrub and herb species survey (2006/07), a survey of fungi in mustang (2005/06), a soil survey (2007), a survey of edible mushrooms in tibrekot (2005), and repeated deadwood surveys in mustang (2005/06 and 2010). in addition, in the forests but outside the permanent plots, above-ground biomass measurements were done for shorea in kankali (2007), and work of the same type was recently completed for schima and castanopsis in tibrekot (2011), and in mustang a b. sc. thesis was prepared on the population structure of taxus baccata subsp. wallichiana (jensen, 2007). furthermore, the permanent plots in mustang formed the partial basis for two phd theses (christensen, 2008, and rayamajhi, 2009), and m. sc. thesis work was carried out on growth of p. wallichiana (wagle, 2007; wagle and sharma 2011, 2012) and s. robusta (sapkota 2008, sapkota and meilby, 2009), biomass of hippophae salicifolia (rajchal, 2007), and on the relationship between climate and the growth of p. wallichiana (shrestha, 2012). finally, outside the forests of tibrekot and kankali surveys of trees on farmland were conducted in 2009. the data from the permanent plots rests with the institute of forestry pokhara and may serve as baseline data for future work, as teaching material and as the basis for information to the forest user groups for their planning. conclusion data from permanent sample plots in four forests of three research sites from three physiographic regions of nepal have been analysed. results include standing volume and periodic mean annual increment. in two forests stocking is presently (2010) very good; in the other two forests regrowth is required. the permanent sample plots have already been used for a range of different research studies and may serve as a baseline for future work. acknowledgements we owe thanks to the forest user groups that agreed to participate in this study and to the local community members who assisted the field data collection. moreover this work was possible only through the hard and backbreaking work of iof faculty and students. the danish ministry of foreign affairs provided funding 104. dan.8.l.716. references adhikari, b. 2005. poverty, property rights and collective action: understanding the distributive aspects of common property resource management. environment and development economics 10: 7–31. chhetri, b.b.k. 2010. livelihoods, forests and poverty in the nepal himalaya. phd thesis. faculty of life sciences, university of copenhagen, denmark. chhetri, r.b. 2006. from protection to poverty reduction: a review of forestry policies and practices in nepal. journal of forest and livelihood 5: 66–77. christensen, m. 2008. interaction between humans and biodiversity in nepal’s forest. phd dissertation, faculty of life sciences, university of copenhagen, denmark. jensen, l.p. 2007. population structure, regeneration and utilisation of himalayan yew, taxus baccata subsp. wallichiana – a vulnerable conifer in central nepal. b. sc. thesis, faculty of life sciences, university of copenhagen, denmark. meilby, h., puri, l., christensen, m. and rayamajhi, s. 2006. planning a system of permanent sample plots for integrated longterm studies of community-based forest management. banko janakari 16 (2): 3–11. mfsc.2000. guideline for inventory of community forests. ministry of forests and soil conservation, department of forests, community and private forest division, kathmandu, nepal. müller, w. g. 2001. collecting spatial data: optimum design of experiments for random fields. heidelberg: physica-verlag. pandit, r. and bevilacqua, e. 2011. forest users and environmental impacts of community forestry in the hills of nepal. forest policy and economics 13: 345–352. puri et al. rajchal, r. 2007. biomass production of seabuckthorn (hippophae salicifolia) and its role in income generation. m.sc. thesis, tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. rayamajhi, s. 2009. forest dependency, livelihoods and conservation of high altitude forests in nepal. phd dissertation, faculty of life sciences, university of copenhagen, denmark. sapkota, p. 2008. growth of sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) and its economic potential in community forest. m. sc. thesis, faculty of life sciences, university of copenhagen, denmark. sapkota, p. and meilby, h. 2009. modelling the growth of shorea robusta using growth ring measurements. banko janakari 19 (2): 25–32. sharma, e.r. and pukkala, t. 1990. volume tables for forest trees of nepal. publication no. 48. ministry of forests and soil conservation, forest survey and statistics division, hmg/ nepal. shrestha, n.m. 2012. response of pinus wallichiana tree ring to climate variability in mustang, nepal. m. sc. thesis, tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. wagle, b.h. 2007. growth of blue pine in lete and kunjo of mustang district. m. sc. thesis, tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. wagle, b. h. and sharma, r.p. 2011. modelling height diameter relationship for pinus wallichiana trees for lete and kunjo of mustang district. banko janakari 21 (2): 13–23. wagle, b. h and sharma, r.p. 2012. modelling individual tree basal area growth of blue pine (pinus wallichiana) for mustang district in nepal. forest science and technology 8 (1): 21–27. puri et al.banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 18 a landslide also referred to as mass movement, slope failures, slope instability, and terrain instability is the mass movement, usually sudden, of soil and debris down a steep slope (cruden, 1991). they are caused by a variety of factors such as heavy rains, earthquake ground shaking or geological forces. different types of landslides move down slope at a wide range of speeds (varnes, 1978). most of the terrain in the mountainous areas has been generally subjected to slope failure under the influence of a variety of causal factors and triggered by events such as earthquake or extreme rainfall (hmg/n,1999). heavy rainfall and ground water on the hills saturate rocks and soil that decreases shear strength. these phenomena not only cause loss of life and property, they also pose severe threats to physical infrastructure, lake and disrupt social and economic development (pradhan, 2007). the more rapidly moving landslides may pose a greater hazard to life because they can destroy dwellings or damage roads quickly and with little warning. slower moving landslides will gradually cause increasing amounts of damage, but the expected movement can be anticipated (undro, 1991). several landslides occur every year in himalayan region; damage caused by landslides is estimated to cost more than us $ 1 billion in economic losses and landslides cause more than 200 deaths every year (pradhan, 2007). main factors responsible for triggering the landslide are lithology (rock type), slope, fault, land use, presence of motorable road, presence of rivers, streams, and aspect. geologically, the high and very high hazard class areas are primarily associated with surfacial deposit, southward aspect and the linear triggering factors like presence of fault, motorable road and river and streams, and indiscriminate soil quarrying (maharjan, 2006, and poudel et al., 2006). steep slopes, topographical variation and geological characteristics, together with torrential rain during the monsoon season, the country frequently experiences landslides and debris flows that result landslide hazard zonation, mapping and investigation of triggering factors in phewa lake watershed, nepal p. basnet1*, m. k. balla1 and b. m. pradhan1 the landslide triggering factors were investigated followed by the thematic maps and landslide distribution map prepared and classified using the gps and gis softwares like cartalinx, arcview and erdas imagine in sarangkot and kaskikot village development committees, kaski district. in analytical hierarchy process, the factors for zonation were compared by couple comparison method and their weights were determined using arithmetic mean method and earned weight values of each factor. the landslide hazard zonation model was employed to prepare landslide hazard zonation map of the study area, and then classified into five relative hazard classes using the equal interval classification method. finally, the landslide hazard zonation map was crossed with the landslide distribution map and the model applicability was confirmed by determining the per hazard class percent of area covered by the landslide. in the land hazard zonation map, 0.44% of the study area was in very low hazard, 2.11% in low hazard, 54.92% in moderate hazard, 21.34% in high hazard and 21.19% in very high hazard area. the major portion of the study area was on the moderate zone whereas the least portion was on the very low hazard zone. in the study area, most of the high and very high hazard class areas were found occupying the areas closer to the linear triggering factors like presence of linement and fault, presence of motorable road and presence of rivers and streams. the landslide density of the study area was found to be 0.44 per km2 indicating the higher hazard susceptibility of the area. key words: landslide, hazard zonation, analytical hierarchy process, fault, geographic information system, global positioning system, linement 1 institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal *corresponding author: prakash.nature@gmail.com 43 banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 44 floods in downstream location. the landslides and resulted floods, is thought to contribute to an annual soil loss of 20–25 t/ha (jica, 2001). the frequency and the magnitude of slope failures can increase due to human activities such as deforestation, cultivation in marginal lands or urban expansion. landuse such as shrublands, grasslands and valley cultivation lands are more hazardous compared to level terrace, forest and sand/gravel/boulders areas (maharjan, 2006). the mahabharat range of nepal have rugged mountains topography, complex and fragile nature of the geological formations and soft soil cover, high intensity rainfall in the monsoon season, deforestation, surcharge loads of vegetation and frequent earthquakes, the mountains are thus vulnerable to the landslides (upreti, 1996). the zonation of landslide hazard may be the basis for any landslide disaster mitigation work and can supply planner and decision-makers with adequate and understandable information (hmg/n, 1999). landslide hazard analysis is a complex task. it requires large number of input parameters and techniques for analysis. the process involves both cost and time (tianchi, 1996). geographic information system (gis) is a powerful set of tools for collecting, retrieving at will, transforming, and displaying spatial data from the real world for a particular set of purposes can help overcome this problem burrough (1986). since the landslide hazard zonation is very much related to spatial information e.g. topography, geology, land cover, rainfall, etc, gis can be effective in analyzing these factors at various location of a given area. it is also possible in gis to make digital representation of the topography of the area which is very useful for the analysis of landslide hazard and their zonation (lan et al, 2004). materials and methods study area the study was carried out in two village development committees (vdcs) namely; sarangkot and kaskikot of phewa watershed (which spans an area of 123 km2) located in kaski district. those vdcs occupy an area of 42.68 km2 lying at the heart of the phewa watershed. the location map of the study area is presented in figure 1. fig.1: location of study area (source: ddc, kaski, 2010) major land uses in the study area are forests, agriculture land, grasslands, valley cultivation, shrub lands and sand/gravel/boulder areas. among these, forest covers the maximum percentage of the area. the rugged terrain is drained by a number of streams and rivers among which harpan khola draining into phewa lake is the major one (ddc, 2010). the drainage pattern of the watershed is dendritic. geologically, most of the area falls under the fragile lesser himalayan meta-sedimentary zone with discontinuities in covering rock strata, folding, faulting and intense monsoon rainfall events, landslides, soil erosion, rural road construction and sedimentation in upstream and downstream location especially in phewa lake are the major causes of land degradation. it includes the rock types of kunchha formation along with the rocks of ghachok formation and the non active alluvial fan deposits. the majority of area falls under the dip angle class ranging from 200 to 450 (engineering and environmental geological map of pokhara valley, 2003). data collection for capturing the data in digital format topographic maps (1:25,000) of 1998 and 1999, geological map (1:50,000) of 2003, satellite image of phewa watershed of 2009 and meteorological data (paudur meteorological station 2000 to 2009, kaski) were used and analyzed with the geographic information system (gis) software (cartalinx , arc view, arc view spatial analyst and erdas imagine). global positioning system (gps) was used for boundary survey of landslides, abney’s level for measurement of the slope of the landslide area and silva compass for determination of the aspect, dip and strike of the rock beds for field data collection. basnet et al. banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 45 a preliminary survey, with the assistance of the local people was carried out to select the existing active landslides. key informant interview (kii) and morphometric study of the landslides was carried out during boundary survey. the morphometric data of the landslide includes the location of landslides, lithological structure, vegetation cover, type of land use around the landslides, slope, road construction, river and water ways, altitude, aspect, etc. data analysis the geographic location data of landslide boundary was downloaded to prepare digital landslide distribution map, which was then converted to grid for the spatial analysis. to investigate triggering factors, different factor maps (rainfall, rock type, slope, fault, landuse, motorable road, rivers and streams and aspect) were prepared using the gis software and relational analysis was carried out. the area (i.e. number of the grids) of the landslide in a particular class of each of factor maps was determined by using the histogram by zones function in the arcview spatial analyst. after the number of the grids of landslide area in a particular class was determined, the percentage of area of the factor class covered by landslide area for each factor class of the different factors was computed by simple mathematical calculation. and, subjective relational analysis between the percentages of area covered by landslide and the factor classes carried out. the particular factor was considered as the actual triggering factor, if there was relation between the factor classes and the percentages of landslide covered area. zonation using analytical hierarchy process (ahp) satty (1980) developed the ahp to standardize the multi-factor decision-making process. ahp provides a hierarchical structure by reducing multiple variable decisions into a series of couple/pair comparisons and develops subjective priorities based upon the user’s judgment. while applying ahp, factors were compared with each other to determine the relative preference of each factor in accomplishing the overall goal and numerical values were assigned to each pair using the guidelines established in fundamental satty’s scale. preference of one factor was compared with other and if two factors contribute the landslide equally (equally preferred) then giving the numerical value 1. if experience and judgment slightly favour one factor over another results the value 3, strongly preferred giving value 5, very strongly preferred giving value 7, extremely preferred giving value 9, and the intervals between preferences is compromise between two factors is needed then giving 2, 4, 6 and 8. if a factor has one of the above numerical values assigned to it when compared with another factor, then the second factor has the reciprocal value when compared with the first factor results reciprocal of above numerical values. couple comparison of the triggering factors and their prioritization based on their derived weight values the couple comparison method was used to determine the preference of the triggering factors. the factors identified as the actual triggering factors in the above step was arranged in the form of the matrix and were subjectively compared with each other as a couple and their preference was expressed in the numeric values in the adjacent cells i.e. the factors preferences were quantified. once the preferences determined, alternative weight of the couple comparison matrix was calculated using arithmetic mean method. in this method, values of each column of couple comparison matrix were summed up. then values in each cell of the matrix was divided by the summed value of the same factor column, and the factor mean values were derived in each row as mean of the values in each row. these mean values of each row are the weight values (‘w’) of each factor. weight values to each factors class the weight values from 0-100 (let us say ‘m’ values) were given to each class of factors on the basis of the percentages of area covered by the landslide area in each of them. the class of each factor having the maximum percentage of area covered by the landslide area was given the maximum value i.e. 100 and the class having the minimum coverage was given the minimum value i.e. 0 and then other classes whose coverage was in-between them was given a intermediate values on proportional basis. for investigating the triggering factors and zonation of landslide hazard method employed by esmali (2003) was used, landslide hazard zonation model for the zonation basnet et al. banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 46 of the watershed: m=w1*x1+w2*x2+…......................................(i) where, m = cumulative weight value = susceptibility coefficient x1, x2 … = ‘m’ values related to the triggering factors x1, x2 … and w1, w2… = weight values related to x1, x2 … factors based on the calculated susceptibility coefficient, the study area was classified into 5 classes of hazard zones: m≤30: very low hazard; m=30–45: low hazard; m=45–62: medium hazard; m=62–89: high hazard and m≥89: very high hazard. finally, the landslide hazard zonation (lhz) map of the study area was prepared using ahp method. the map was further analyzed using the histogram by zones function in the arcview spatial analyst and the hazard susceptibility conditions of the different classes of the different triggering factors were computed. results and discussion a total of 16 landslides were found located at different parts of the study area. the overall landslide density in the study area was found to be 0.44 per km2. out of 16 landslides, nine were located in sarangkot vdc and seven in kaskikot vdc (table 1). the largest (95,312 m2) landslide was located in sarangkot vdc, whereas the smallest (160 m2) landslide was at kaskikot vdc. the final landslide distribution map prepared by combining the landslide digitized from the topographical map and the boundary survey data collected by gps is given in figure 2. fig 2: landslide distribution map factors triggering landslide occurrences from the analysis it was found that percentage area covered by landslide varied with the variation in the rock type, land use and aspect, increased with the increase in the slope and decreased with the increase in the distance from the features like road, rivers and streams, linement and fault. thus, eight factors i.e. lithology, land use, linement and fault, rainfall, slope, aspect, road and stream were identified as the actual factors triggering the landslide in the study area and considered for the lhz map preparation. preferences and weight values of the triggering factors the pair wise comparison between the factors on the vertical column and the factors on the horizontal row are presented and the preferences of the factors are shown in their corresponding intersecting cells in table 2. when the factor lithology was compared with the horizontal row factors, lithology being the same in column and row hence, equally preferred. therefore, the cell was assigned the numerical value 1, meaning that the two factors in the vertical column i.e. lithology and horizontal row i.e. lithology are equally preferred. similarly, the factor in the vertical column i.e. lithology when compared with the factor aspect in the horizontal row, the rock type factor was judged to be extremely preferred over the aspect factor, thus cell was assigned the numerical value 9 meaning that the lithology factor in the vertical column was extremely preferred in comparison to the aspect factor in the horizontal row. in the similar fashion all the cells, diagonally in the upper half of the matrix, were filled and rest half was filled by their reciprocals. then, the numerical values assigned in the cells were summed up column-wise and were recorded in the last row as sum. the values in each cell in table 2 were first divided by their corresponding column sum and then results were recorded in the corresponding cells of table 3. finally, the mean values for each factor were calculated row-wise which represents the factor weight value. the priority of each factor based on earned weights in connection with landslides hazard in the study area is shown in the last column of table 3 basnet et al. banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 47 weight values of the factor classes the weight values of the different factor classes were determined based on the percentages of area of each class of different factors covered by the landslide area. in lithology factor, the highest percentage of area of colluvial soil class was covered by the landslide area thus it was given highest factor class weight value of 100, which when multiplied with the factor weight gave the actual weight value of 32.84. whereas the lowest percentages of area group class covered by the landslide area were given the lowest factor class weight value of 0, which on multiplication with the factor weight yielded the actual weight value of 0. similarly, the weight values of the other factor classes were also determined and the details presented in table 4. basnet et al. table 1: number and density of landslide within the study area by vdc name of vdc total area (km2) no. of landslide landslide density (no./km2) sarangkot 13.88 9 0.65 kaskikot 22.64 7 0.3 study area (whole) 36.51 16 0.44 table 2: matrix showing the couple comparison of the factors factor lithology land use linement and fault rainfall slope aspect road stream lithology 1 5 5 7 4 9 9 8 land use 1/5 1 3 3 5 8 7 1 linement and fault 1/5 1/3 1 5 3 7 3 3 rainfall 1/7 1/3 1/5 1 4 7 8 4 slope 1/4 1/5 1/3 1/4 1 5 6 6 aspect 1/9 1/7 1/3 1/8 1/6 1/5 1 3 road 1/9 1/7 1/3 1/4 1/6 1/3 1/3 1 stream 1/8 1 1/3 1/4 1/6 1/3 1/3 1 sum 2.14 8.13 10.34 16.76 17.53 37.53 39.33 29 table 3: arithmetic mean method for calculating the factor weight values factors lithology land use linement and fault rainfall slope aspect road stream mean (w) lithology 0.47 0.62 0.48 0.42 0.23 0.24 0.23 0.28 0.33 land use 0.09 0.12 0.29 0.18 0.29 0.21 0.18 0.03 0.16 linement and fault 0.09 0.04 0.10 0.30 0.17 0.19 0.08 0.10 0.12 rainfall 0.07 0.04 0.02 0.06 0.23 0.19 0.20 0.14 0.11 slope 0.12 0.03 0.03 0.02 0.06 0.13 0.15 0.21 0.18 aspect 0.05 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.13 0.10 0.04 road 0.05 0.02 0.03 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.10 0.03 stream 0.06 0.12 0.03 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.03 0.03 banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 48 basnet et al. table 4: details of the determination of the weight values of eight factors classes s.no. factors class area of the class % of ls covered area weight by % of ls covered area (m) factor weight (w) actual weight (m) (grid) (1 grid=4m*4m) lithology 1 residual soil 91158 0 0 0.33 0 2 talkot formation 15168 0 0 0.33 0 3 colluvial soil 15379 0.63 100 0.33 32.84 4 non active alluvial fan deposit 47084 0 0 0.33 0 5 ghachok formation 5189 0 0 0.33 0 6 kuchha formation 2108170 0.06 10.27 0.33 3.37 linement and fault 1 0 – 800 1232240 0.09 100 0.12 11.85 2 800 – 1500 434132 0.06 72.48 0.12 8.59 3 1500 – 2300 234019 0 0 0.12 0 4 2300 – 3000 289777 0 0 0.12 0 5 3000 – 3800 91980 0 0 0.12 0 river and stream 1 0 – 370 1727456 0.07 100 0.03 3.22 2 370 – 730 368101 0.02 21.5 0.03 0.69 3 730 – 1100 133668 0 0 0.03 0 4 1100 – 1470 48150 0 0 0.03 0 5 1470 – 1830 4773 0 0 0.03 0 motorable road 1 0 – 700 1181755 0.1 100 0.03 2.81 2 700 – 1500 527182 0 3.92 0.03 0.11 3 1500 – 2200 296092 0.04 41.17 0.03 1.16 4 2200 – 3000 238193 0 0 0.03 0 5 3000 – 3700 38926 0 0 0.03 0 slope 1 < 10 834770 0.04 17.72 0.08 1.45 2 10 – 30 1269824 0.04 18.69 0.08 1.53 3 30 < 177554 0.24 100 0.08 8.2 aspect 1 north 152515 0 0 0.04 0 2 south 342351 0.13 100 0.04 3.98 3 east 1380999 0.04 28.84 0.04 1.15 4 west 406283 0.1 82.89 0.04 3.3 land use 1 swampy land 60370 0.03 34.46 0.16 5.35 2 forest land 1036814 0.05 48.15 0.16 7.47 3 sediment and boulder 57950 0.02 17.09 0.16 2.65 4 agriculture 689417 0.1 100 0.16 15.51 5 settlement 422780 0.03 27.18 0.16 4.22 6 water bodies 14817 0 0 0.16 0 rainfall 1 paudur station 2282148 0.06 100 0.1 10.47 banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 49 triggering factors kunchha formation soil class covered the highest percentage of landslide area i.e. approximately 98% of the total landslide area found in study area. it might be because the kunchha formation soil constitutes (greenish – greyphyllite, argillaceous phyllites, gritty quartzitic phyllites) the weak rock type like conglomerates and the deposition of sand, silt and gravel which are of the recent origin (i.e. quaternary to recent) in comparison to other groups. here 92 % of rock types constitute the kunchha formation soil followed by 0.04% of residual soil, so majority of study area is dominated by kunchha formation (fig. 3). fig. 3: lithological map fig. 4: distance from linement and fault map the study area was classified into 5 equal class interval of distance from linement and fault (fig. 4). the classes closer to the linement and fault covered the higher percentages of landslide area compared to the classes far from the fault i.e. 80% of landslide area covered by the 0–800m distance close to the linement and fault and 20% of landslide area covered by the 800–1500m. this might be because several faults occur in the study area and most of the streams run along these fault lines. the study area was classified into 5 equal class interval of distance from river and stream (fig. 5). the classes closer to the rivers and streams covered the higher percentages of landslide area compared to the classes far from the rivers and streams i.e. up to 0–370 m (i.e. 51% of the study area) distance from river and stream 99% of the landslide area was occupied. rivers and streams promote mass movements by undercutting the base of the slopes and can also transport and deposit large volumes of debris. this is perhaps the reason why mass movements were very much influenced by the proximity to drainage lines, especially in case of debris slides. fig. 5: distance from rivers and stream map fig. 6: distance from motorable road map the study area was classified into 5 equal class interval of distance from motorable road (fig. 6). factor classes closer to the motorable road covered the higher percentages of landslide area compared to the classes far from the motorable road. the distance 0–700 m (i.e. 51.7% of the study area) from the road covered 99% of the landslides area. this might be because with the increase in distance from the road tremor caused due to the vehicle movement goes on decreasing and at the same time presence of road triggers the landslide by under cutting of the slope. basnet et al. banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 50 the study area was classified into 3 slope classes i.e. 0–100 (36% of the study area), 10–300 (55% of the study area) and >300 (9% of the study area) (fig. 7). it was found that 43% of landslide area was covered by 10 – 300 slope class, 31% covered by >300 slope class and 26% of the landslide area covered by <100 slope class. in this study, the slope factor has been taken as an independent factor. but in practicality it is found very much associated with the dip of the rock beds. if the topographical slope direction and the dip direction of the rocks are in the same direction, then that particular area is considered most susceptible to the sliding and if the slope direction is not in direction of the dip then that area may be considered relatively stable and less susceptible to the sliding. thus, it would have been very effective if the cumulative parameter representing the effect of these two factors i.e. slope and the dip could have been taken as the factor triggering the landslide occurrence. fig. 7: slope map fig. 8: aspect map in this case the study area was classified into 4 aspect classes i.e. north (6.6% of the study area), east (60.5% of the study area), south (15% of the study area) and west (17.9% of the study area) (fig. 8). south-facing slopes covered the highest percentage i.e. 37% of the landslide area, 36% covered by east-facing slopes and 27% by the west-facing slopes while north-facing slopes did not cover any of the landslide area in this study. this finding supports the finding of shrestha et al. (2004) that the slides were dominant in the south-facing slopes and were least in case of north-facing slopes. this might be because of the drier environment, sparse vegetation and steeper slope gradients of southward areas. land use map of the study area as shown in figure 9 shows that agriculture land (30.2% of the study area) covered the highest percentage i.e. 51% of landslide area and 33% of the landslide area covered by the forest land (45.4% of the study area) while swampy land (2.64% of the study area), settlement (18% of the study area), sandy/gravelly/boulders (2.5% of the study area) and water bodies (1.26% of the study area) covered the lowest percentage i.e. altogether 16% of landslide area. this might be because in the study area most of the agriculture practices are conducted without considering the soil conservation point of view and the lands are with high degrees of slope with very sparse randomly distributed shrubs and trees. fig. 9: landuse map for rainfall factor the whole study area was found to fall under paudur meteorological station of kaski. when the average monthly rainfall was computed from the monthly rainfall data of the station for the period of 10 years i.e. from 2000 to 2009, it was found that the average monthly rainfall of paudur station was 410.38 mm/month. so the average monthly rainfall throughout the study area was assumed to be the same. hence, the triggering effect of the rainfall factor was assumed to be uniform throughout the study area. in the study area maximum rainfall occurred during july and minimum rainfall fall occurred during the december (fig. 10). average rainfall pattern (2000 2009) 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 ja n fe b m ar a pr m ay ju n ju l a ug s ep o ct n ov d ec month r ai nf al l basnet et al. banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 51 the study area was classified into 3 slope classes i.e. 0–100 (36% of the study area), 10–300 (55% of the study area) and >300 (9% of the study area) (fig. 7). it was found that 43% of landslide area was covered by 10 – 300 slope class, 31% covered by >300 slope class and 26% of the landslide area covered by <100 slope class. in this study, the slope factor has been taken as an independent factor. but in practicality it is found very much associated with the dip of the rock beds. if the topographical slope direction and the dip direction of the rocks are in the same direction, then that particular area is considered most susceptible to the sliding and if the slope direction is not in direction of the dip then that area may be considered relatively stable and less susceptible to the sliding. thus, it would have been very effective if the cumulative parameter representing the effect of these two factors i.e. slope and the dip could have been taken as the factor triggering the landslide occurrence. fig. 7: slope map fig. 8: aspect map in this case the study area was classified into 4 aspect classes i.e. north (6.6% of the study area), east (60.5% of the study area), south (15% of the study area) and west (17.9% of the study area) (fig. 8). south-facing slopes covered the highest percentage i.e. 37% of the landslide area, 36% covered by east-facing slopes and 27% by the west-facing slopes while north-facing slopes did not cover any of the landslide area in this study. this finding supports the finding of shrestha et al. (2004) that the slides were dominant in the south-facing slopes and were least in case of north-facing slopes. this might be because of the drier environment, sparse vegetation and steeper slope gradients of southward areas. land use map of the study area as shown in figure 9 shows that agriculture land (30.2% of the study area) covered the highest percentage i.e. 51% of landslide area and 33% of the landslide area covered by the forest land (45.4% of the study area) while swampy land (2.64% of the study area), settlement (18% of the study area), sandy/gravelly/boulders (2.5% of the study area) and water bodies (1.26% of the study area) covered the lowest percentage i.e. altogether 16% of landslide area. this might be because in the study area most of the agriculture practices are conducted without considering the soil conservation point of view and the lands are with high degrees of slope with very sparse randomly distributed shrubs and trees. fig. 9: landuse map for rainfall factor the whole study area was found to fall under paudur meteorological station of kaski. when the average monthly rainfall was computed from the monthly rainfall data of the station for the period of 10 years i.e. from 2000 to 2009, it was found that the average monthly rainfall of paudur station was 410.38 mm/month. so the average monthly rainfall throughout the study area was assumed to be the same. hence, the triggering effect of the rainfall factor was assumed to be uniform throughout the study area. in the study area maximum rainfall occurred during july and minimum rainfall fall occurred during the december (fig. 10). average rainfall pattern (2000 2009) 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 ja n fe b m ar a pr m ay ju n ju l a ug s ep o ct n ov d ec month r ai nf al l fig.10: average monthly rainfall susceptibility coefficient of the study area the susceptibility coefficient of the study area derived from the combination of all eight factor maps employing the lhz model shown in equation (i) was found to range from 20 – 100 (table 5). the area was classified into 5 relative hazard classes by equal interval classification method. thus, the resulting lhz map includes the 5 classes of susceptibility coefficient i.e. 20– 36 as very low hazard class, 36 – 52 low hazard, 52 – 68 moderate hazard, 68 – 84 high hazard and 84 – 100 very high hazard (table 5). majority of the study area (54.92%) lied under moderate hazard zone followed by high hazard (21.34%), very high hazard (21.19%), low (2.11%), and very low (0.44%). the final lhz map derived is presented in figure 11. table 5: details of landslide hazard zonation map hazard class susceptibility coefficient (m) area (grid) (1grid= 4m*4m) % of area occupied very low 20 – 36 10049 0.44 low 36 – 52 48172 2.11 moderate 52 – 68 1253324 54.92 high 68 – 84 486910 21.34 very high 84 – 100 483693 21.19 conclusion landslides were mostly found in sarangkot vdc. the overall landslide density in the study area was found to be 0.44 per km2. sarangkot vdc had the highest landslide density of 0.65 per km2, thus making it the most hazard prone vdc. main factors responsible for triggering the landslide in the study area are lithology (rock type), land use, presence of linement and fault, presence of motorable road, aspect, slope, rivers and streams and rainfall. geologically, the high and very high hazard class areas are primarily associated with kunchha formation. the majority of the study area (54.92%) were under moderate hazard zone while only the small portion (0.44%) of the area were under very low hazard zone. very high hazardous zones were present in agriculture land, followed by forest land, settlements, swampy land and sediments and boulders. most of the high and very high hazard class areas occupied the areas closer to the linear triggering factors like presence of linement and fault, motorable road, rivers and streams. the majority of the areas in the southward aspect belonged to the high and very high hazard classes. it is expected that the results of this study, though limited to a preliminary and conceptual level, can provide decision-makers with useful insights into the trade-offs embedded in the complex landslide hazard zonation process. references burrough, p. a. 1986. principles of geographic information system for land resources assessment. clarendon press, oxford, uk. cruden, d. m. 1991. a simple definition of a landslide. iaeg bulletin 43: 27–29. ddc. 2010. kaski district – an introduction, district development committee (ddc), pokhara, nepal. esmali, a. 2003. using gis and rs in mass movements hazard zonation –a case study in germichay watershed, ardebil, iran. ph. d. thesis, tehran university, karaj, iran. basnet et al. fig. 11: landslide hazard zonation map banko janakari, vol. 22, no. 2 52 hmg/n, 1999. a technical guideline on landslide mitigation work. ministry of water resources, kathmandu, nepal. jica. 2001. interim report on the development study on the environmental preservation of phewa lake in pokhara, kathmandu, nepal. lan, h. x., zhou, c.h., wang, l.j., zhang, h.y. and li, r. h. 2004. landslide hazard spatial analysis and prediction using gis in the xiaojiang watershed, yunnan, p. r. china. http://www.sciencedirect.com. maharjan, s. k. 2006. investigation of triggering factors on landslide occurrence and landslide hazard zonation – a gis based approach. b. sc. thesis, institute of forestry, pokhara, kathmandu, nepal. paudel, p. and dhital, m. r. 2006, landslide hazard and risk zonation of thankot – chalnakhel area, central nepal. journal of nepal geological society 31: 43–50. pradhan, b.k. 2007. disaster preparedness for natural hazards: current status in nepal, icimod, kathmandu, nepal. satty, t. l. 1980. the analytical hierarchy process. mcgraw-hill; cited in ahp.pdf. new york, usa. shrestha, d. p., zinck, j. a. and ranst, e. v. 2004. modeling land degradation in the nepalese himalaya. http://www.sciencedirect. com. elsevier 57(2): 135–156. amsterdam, netherlands. tianchi, l. 1996. landslide hazard mapping and management in china. icimod, kathmandu, nepal. undro. 1991. mitigation natural disaster: phenomena, effects and options a manual for policy makers and planers office of the united nations disaster relief coordinator, geneva, switzerland. upreti, b.n., dhital, m.r. 1996. landslide studies and management in nepal. icimod, kathmandu, nepal. varnes, d. j. 1978. slope movement types and processes. in landslide analysis and control (ed.) clark, m. national research council, transportation board, washington, d.c. usa, 11–33. basnet et al. participatory resource assessment of aegle marmelos was carried out in six community forests (cfs) of the jamune vdc of tanahun district to find out potentiality for establishing community-based a. marmelos processing enterprise in the locality. circular sample plots of 500 square meters were laid down taking 5% sampling intensity. the dbh (diameter at breast height) and height of trees on the sample plots were measured and classified them into three dbh classes (10–20 cm, 20–30 cm and more than 30 cm). the number of the fruits on the three branches of each a. marmelos tree – one lower branch, one middle branch and one top branch were counted, the average number of fruits on the three branches calculated and multiplied with the number of the branches of the tree to find out the average number of fruits per tree. by calculating the weighted mean of the three different dbh-class trees, the total number of the fruits was estimated. the study found 54,830 kg of harvestable amount of a. marmelos fruit in the studied six cfs which can produce 19190.5 kg of pulp per year. thus, establishment of juice processing enterprise was found to be feasible in the locality. nevertheless, some shortcomings related to the management of a. marmelos resource, such as lacking of information and management options for a. marmelos trees in the operation plans (ops), lower regeneration status of a. marmelos trees, higher incidences of forest-fire and open grazing in the cfs, were also recorded. the study suggests for carrying out awareness-generating activities targeted to the cf user group members, revision of ops and incorporation of a. marmelos resource information and management options and preparation and implementation of regeneration protection plan against forest fire and grazing. k e y w or d s : aegle marmelos, enterprise, regeneration protection resource assessment of bel (aegle marmelos) and potentiality to establish its processing enterprise in tanahun district of nepal k. baral1 and b. r. upreti2 aegle marmelos (l.) correa is a mediumsized deciduous tree. its local names are bel (nepali), vilva, biranab (sanskrit) bengal queen (english) etc. it belongs to the rutacae family and aurantioideae sub-family. its branches are thorny and the bark is gray in color. the leaves are trifoliate with numerous oil glands. flowers of a. marmelos are greenish white and bisexual in nature. flowering starts during april-june, fruiting occurs from april to july of next season (parajuli et al., 1998; kunwar, 2006; pathak et al., 2015). a. marmelos trees are generally found in the outer himalayas, siwaliks and tarai with altitudes up to 1500 m. in nepal, a. marmelos is distributed abundantly in the siwalik region, inner tarai, and lower valley region mostly at riverside having sandy soil at 150–1,220 m altitude (shrestha and shrestha, 2005). it prefers comparatively drier and sunny or warmer aspect with well-drained loamy soil. it is found growing naturally in the mixed stands of shorea robusta, terminalia tomentosa, adina cordifolia and so on in the tarai, bhabar and the mid-hills. it copes with a wide range of soil conditions (ph range 5–10), is tolerant to water-logging and has an unusually wide temperature tolerance (from 7°c to 48°c). it requires a pronounced dry season to give fruit (bhattrai, 2001; poudel, 2005). a. marmelos has both medicinal and religious values. the ripe fruit is taken scientifically as brain tonic and energetic, and it improves eternal power and longevity. moreover, it is considered as a very good medicine for the patients suffering 1 district forest office, baitadi, nepal. e-mail: baralkedar@hotmail.com 2 district forest office, tanahun, nepal 32 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 33 from constipation. unripe a. marmelos fruit is prescribed for curing cholera, diarrhea, worms and other stomach diseases because of its antibacterial, antiviral and anthelmintic properties. the leaves are excellent medicine for the diabetic patients (shrestha, 2003). furthermore, a. marmelos fruit contains highvalued chemical compounds including alkaloids, coumarone, steroids, mucilage pectin, sugar, and tannin whilst the leaves produce an essential oil. the fruit has high nutritional value containing tonics, vitamins, carbohydrates, proteins, fats and a range of medicinal substances (bhattrai, 2001). juice, jam, candy, sweets and other food products can be made from the fruit in addition to a range of ayurvedic medicines. no substance poisonous to humans has been found in a. marmelos fruit (poudel, 2005). juice of the ripen a. marmelos fruit has very good market in nepal and india. a. marmelos is identified as a major highvalued non-timber forest product (ntfp) which has great potentiality to improve the livelihood of the community forest user groups (cfugs) members in nepal. considering this fact, a few a. marmelos juice factories have been established in different parts of the nation in the initiation of district forest offices (dfos), the federation of community forestry users nepal (fecofun), community forests (cfs) and other organizations. the tamakoshi bel juice processing company of eastern nepal and the nabadurga community bel juice factory of bardiya district in midwestern nepal are some successful examples of a. marmelos enterprises run by the cfugs (baral and khadka, 2007). the cfs of the jamune village development committee (vdc) of tanahun district is reported to have substantial number of a. marmelos t re e s , and the local people are energetic to establish a. marmelos processing enterprises to support the livelihood of the members. in this regard, the current study was carried out in 2014 with the objectives of carrying out resource inventory of the a. marmelos trees, finding out the total number and annual fruiting trees, assessing the total and annual harvestable weight of fruits and finding out the potential to establish a. marmelos processing factory at jamune vdc of tanahun district by estimating pulp production potential of the six cfs. materials and methods study site tanahun is a hilly district with altitude ranging from 187–2,325 m above the mean sea level. this district is located between 27o36’ 28o05’ north latitude and between 83o57’ and 84o34’ e longitude. the area of the district is 1,560 square kilometers out of which the forest area occupies 50.5% (788 sq. km). altogether, 545 cfs have been handed over to 52,989 households covering 37689.71 hectares (ha) of forest land in the district (dfo, 2014). jamune vdc lies almost at the centre of the district. till now, 12 cfs have been handed over to the 1951 households covering 1,105.21 ha of forest land in this vdc (dfo, 2014). among them, the six cfs selected for the study purpose (table 1) were reported to have higher number of a. marmelos trees, and thus have ample potentialities to run the a. marmelos processing enterprise. these cfs lie in a cluster which is approximately 15 km far from damauli, the district headquarters (fig. 1). baral and upreti table 1: brief descriptions of the six studied cfs s.n. name and address of cfs total area (ha) number of households population reference 1. poseli cf, jamune-1 48.75 93 489 cfop 2008a 2. barchyang cf, jamune-2 160.00 93 596 cfop 2008b 3. jantang pandhera cf, jamune-3 104.90 134 815 cfop 2008c 4. bhirpani cf, jamune-4 124.00 156 930 cfop 2008d 5. uma chwok cf, jamune-5 94.50 181 996 cfop 2008e 6. siddha batasan cf, jamune-6 115.7 90 495 cfop 2008f total 647.85 747 4,321 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 34 fig. 1: map showing the location of the study area the forests in all the studied cfs are, moreover, sub-tropical mixed-hardwoods with s. robusta, t. tomentosa, a. cordifolia, acacia catechu, bombax ceiba, schima wallichii and castanopsis indica as the major tree species. apart from a. marmelos, other important ntfps found in the cfs are asparagus racemosus, t. bellirica and t. chebula. the major wildlife species found in the cfs are leopard, jackal, fox, monkey, rabbit, squirrel, civet and jungle cat. sampling design a participatory resource inventory was carried out involving the members of the cfugs and the tanahun dfo field staff. the blocks of the studied cfs were stratified into the a. marmelosdominant blocks and nona. marmelos-dominant blocks; all the blocks having more than 50% a. marmelos trees out of the total trees were categorized as a. marmelos-dominant while the blocks having less than 50% a. marmelos trees were categorized as nona. marmelos -dominant blocks. in course of the stratification of the forests into such blocks, full observation of the blocks and consultation with the concerned cfug members were done rigorously. in the a. marmelos-dominant blocks, inventory was carried out following the rules mentioned in the ntfps inventory guidelines, 2013 (dof, 2013). in the case of the non-dominant blocks, all the a. marmelos trees counted and their measurements were taken. plot measurement i. a. marmelos-dominant blocks first of all, 5% sample out of the whole area of the blocks was taken, and a total of 117 circular sample plots of 500 square meters were laid. transect lines were drawn on the map of blocks and first sample plot was laid down on the starting point of transect line. remaining sample plots were taken on the transect line and plot to plot distance was fixed by following the ntfp inventory guidelines published by department of forest (2013). then, the diameters (at breast height) and heights of all the a. marmelos t re e s were measured and recorded; the a. marmelos trees were classified into three diameter (dbh) classes viz. 10–20 cm, 20–30 cm and more than 30 cm. after that, the number of the fruits, on the three branches (of each a. marmelos tree)one lower branch, one middle branch and one top branch, were harvested, counted and weighed separately as per the above mentioned dbh classes. then the pulp content of all the harvested fruits were weighed and the average number of fruits and their pulp content per tree within each of the aforementioned three dbh classes were calculated. finally, the total number of the fruits and pulp content of the blocks were found out. ii. non-a.marmelos-dominant blocks in the case of the non-a. marmelos-dominant blocks, all the a. marmelos trees were first counted and classified into the aforementioned three dbh classes. the classified numbers of the trees were then multiplied with their corresponding average figures per dbh class calculated earlier in the case of the a. marmelos-dominant blocks so as to find out the total amount of fruits and their pulp. results and discussion assessment of the fruiting a. marmelos trees altogether, 7,832 a. marmelos trees were found in the six cfs. out of this number, only 5,483 trees (70%) were found to be fruiting, and the rest 2,349 (30%) were non-fruiting (fig. 2). this result is similar to those of baral and khadka (2007) who found 24% non-fruiting a. marmelos trees in the cfs of bardiya district. most of the trees located under the sal canopy and steep sloppy area were found to be non-fruiting. baral and upreti banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 35 baral and upreti fig. 2: presence of fruiting and non-fruiting trees in the studied cfs out of the total area of 647.85 ha of all the six cfs, only 117.0 ha (18%) had the a. marmelos trees both in the a. marmelos-dominant and non-a. marmelos-dominant blocks (table 2). in the case of the dominant blocks, the entire blocks were incorporated as effective areas; however in the case of the non-a. marmelos-dominant blocks, consultation with the concerned cfug members and field observation were done so as to estimate their areas. in this regard, the siddha batasan cf had highest number of a. marmelos trees (1,738) whereas the poseli cf had the least (778 trees). on an average, 8 fruiting a. marmelos t re e s w e re found per ha in the cfs. the maximum number of fruits found in a a. marmelos tree was recorded as 450 and the minimum as 50. the number of seedlings and saplings together was found to be almost half the number of mature trees, and only 33 seedlings and saplings together per hectare were observed (table 2). this indicated the very poor regeneration status of a. marmelos trees in the studied cfs on the one hand and higher threat to the conservation as well as sustainability of the species on other hand in this locality. availability of a. marmelos fruits and pulp the weighted mean of a. marmelos fruits in different dbh class was found 150. hence, a total number of 822,450 a. marmelos fruits are estimated in the six studied cfs which are equal to the 137,075 kg at the average rate of 6 fruits per kg weight. likewise, average production of fruits was calculated 212 kg per hectares (table 3). harvesting amount of a. marmelos fruits and production of pulp the total estimated numbers of a. marmelos fruits available in the six cfs was 822,450. nevertheless, due to the difficult terrain and inaccessibility, large quantity of fruits could not be harvested. in the fruiting season, monkeys and bears used to damage the fruits. on the other hand, some fruits should be left in the trees for full ripening and dispersal so as to promote natural regeneration. the cfug members were found to have long experience on a. marmelos fruit harvesting. based on the rigorous discussion with the cfug members who have been actively participating in its harvesting, we concluded that only 40% of the total fruits could be harvested. hence, the total amount of harvestable a. marmelos fruits was estimated to be 328,980 (54,830 kg). different literatures (kunwar, 2006; baral and khadka, 2007) show that the pure pulp is only 35% (on an average) of the total weight of the a. marmelos fruits while the remaining 65% belong to the bark, fibers, seeds and the wastage. thus, pulp production potential of the six cfs was found to be 19,190.5 kg per year (table 3). table 2 : description of a. marmelos trees in the studied cfs s.n. name and address of cfs total area (ha) effective area (ha) no. of a. marmelos trees no. of fruiting trees no. of fruiting trees /ha no. of seedlings + saplings 1. poseli cf, jamune-1 48.75 9.0 778 545 11 910 2. barchyang cf jamune-2 160.00 32.0 1,340 938 6 520 3. jyantang pandhera cf jamune-3 104.90 18.0 1,330 931 9 610 4. bhirpani cf jamune-4 124.00 20.0 1,423 996 8 615 5. umachock cf jamune-5 94.50 15.0 1,223 856 9 460 6 siddha batasan cf jamune-6 115.70 23.0 1,738 1217 11 850 total 647.85 117.0 7,832 5,483 8 3,965 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 36 baral and upreti information deficiency in the cfops the ops of the studied cfs were found to have resource assessment summary of different tree species. however, most of the ops were found to have information gap on a. marmelos and other ntfps although the cfs were reported to possess a plenty of these resources. the reason behind was that a. marmelos and other ntfps were ignored and higher priorities were given to acacia catechu, shorea robusta, terminalia tomentosa and other timber-yielding species during field inventories. conservation threats poor regeneration due to the higher incidences of forest fire and grazing were observed in the cfs, which were found to be serious threats for the conservation of this species. besides, the thorny nature of this species creates difficulty in carrying out its tending and harvesting operations; so, some cfugs were found to have even tendency to remove a. marmelos trees from their cfs. availability of a. marmelos trees in the adjoining cfs and vdcs the study was concentrated in the cfs of jamune vdc. however from the discussion with the cfugs, field staffs of dfo and field observation, we came to know that plenty of a. marmelos t re e s were also found in the cfs of the adjoining vdcs such as kotdarbar, manpang, ghansikuwa etc. of the district. according to the cfug members, every alternate year is a good seed-year for a. marmelos; some literatures (baral and khadka, 2007; poudel, 2005) also support this fact. perception of different stakeholders the perception of the major stakeholders was found to be extremely positive towards the conservation and sustainable use of a. marmelos resource to support the livelihood of the cfugs. in this regard, the tanahun dfo together with the fecofun/cfugs and all the other local organizations were found to be very much committed to playing active role in conservation and sustainable use of a. marmelos resource in the district. conclusion the cfs of the jamune vdc were found to be rich in the a. marmelos resource; however, there was no proper utilization of the resource. the six studied cfs were found to have possessed 54,830 kg annual harvestable amount of a. marmelos fruits with the potential of 19,190.5 kg of pulp production per year. with this annual production amount, the cfugs can establish a small-scale a. marmelos processing enterprise in the locality. moreover, other cfs in the adjoining vdcs were also reported to have possessed massive numbers of a. marmelos trees. thus, a higher potentiality was observed for the development a. marmelos processing enterprise in the locality so as to support the livelihood of the cfug members in the jamune vdc of tanahun district. however, further resource assessment of the table 3: total and harvestable amount of a. marmelos fruits and pulp s.n. name and address of cfs total amount of a. marmelos fruits harvestable amount of a. marmelos fruits total no. of fruits weight of fruits (kg) production (kg/ha) no. available for harvesting weight of fruits (kg) pulp content (kg) 1. poseli cf, jamune-1 81,750 13,625 279 32,700 5,450 1,907.5 2. barchyang cf jamune-2 140,700 23,450 147 56,280 9,380 3283 3. jyantang pandhera cf jamune-3 139,650 23,275 222 55,860 9,310 3,258.5 4. bhirpani cf jamune-4 149,400 24,900 201 59,760 9,960 3486 5. uma chock cf jamune-5 128,400 21,400 226 51,360 8,560 2996 6. siddha batasan cf jamune-6 182,550 30,425 263 73,020 12,170 4,259.5 total 822,450 137,075 212 328,980 54,830 19,190.5 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 37 baral and upreti adjoining cfs is necessary to find out the actual pulp production potential so as to sustain the proposed a. marmelos processing enterprise. on the other hand, higher threat to conservation of this species has been noticed due to the poor regeneration status of this species caused by forest fire and open grazing in the studied six cfs. therefore, awareness generating activities among the concerned cfugs should be carried out as soon as possible. besides, preparation and implementation of regeneration protection plan with forest fire and grazing control activities are extremely necessary for management and sustainable use of a. marmelos resource in the jamune vdc of tanahun district. acknowledgments we are grateful to mr. d. r. gautam together with the care nepal, hariyo ban program for their financial support to conduct this study. similarly, we are thankful to mr. r. b. poudyal (district forest officer of tanahun, dfo), mr. g. pandey, assistant forest officer of tanahun dfo, b. k. shreshta, chairman of the siddha batasan cf and the members of the cfugs for their kind support during the study period. references baral, k. and khadka, d. 2007. resource inventory of bel (aegle marmelos) in bardiya district. council for commerce and industry (cci), bardiya, nepal. bhattrai, d. r. 2001. jadibuti manjari. (text in nepali). shubhash printing press, kathmandu, nepal. cfop. 2008a. community forestry operational plan (cfop), poseli community forest, jamune vdc-1, tanahun, nepal. cfop. 2008b. community forestry operational plan (cfop), barchyang community forest, jamune vdc-2, tanahun, nepal. cfop. 2008c. community forestry operational plan (cfop), jantang pandhera community forest, jamune vdc-3, tanahun, nepal. cfop. 2008d. community forestry operational plan (cfop), bhirpani community forest, jamune vdc-4, tanahun, nepal. cfop. 2008e. community forestry operational plan (cfop), uma chowk community forest, jamune vdc-5, tanahun, nepal. cfop. 2008f. community forestry operational plan (cfop), siddha batashan community forest, jamune vdc-6, tanahun, nepal. dfo. 2014. annual report (2014). district forest office (dfo), tanahun, nepal. dof. 2013. non-timber forest products inventory guidelines (2013). department of forest (dof), kathmandu, nepal. kunwar, r. m. 2006. non-timber forest products of nepal: a sustainable management approach. centre for biological conservation nepal and international tropical timber organization, japan. parajuli, d., gyanwali, a. r. and shrestha, b. m. 1998. manual of important non-timber forest products of nepal. international tropial timber organization/institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal, 6. pathak, l. n., k. c., r. and chaudhary, c. l. 2015. cultivation practice of major tropical non-timber forest products of nepal. food and agriculture organization of the united nations, kathmandu, nepal, 121–127. poudel, d. 2005. including the excluded: a propoor bel fruit juice making enterprise in nepal. international tropical timber organization (itto), community forestry training center for asia and the pacific (recoftc), forest trends, rri, thailand, 10–19. shrestha, r. 2003. importance of aegle marmelos in nepal. nepal foresters’ association, kathmandu. the nepal journal of forestry xii (2): 68–69. shrestha, u. b. and shrestha, s. 2005. major non-timber forest products of nepal. (text in nepali). bhundi puran publication, kathmandu, nepal. key word page no. asian wild elephant 47 biomass 14 carbon 23, 34 castanopsis indica 14 climate change 3 crop damage 47 dendro-climatology 3 elephant killings 47 field plots 23 geospatial 34 habitat encroachment 47 himalayas 3 human killings 47 juvenile 14 lamp 23 lidar 23 model 14 key word page no. nepal 14, 23, 47 nitrogen 41 nutrient 41 phosphorus 41 phytomass 34 potassium 41 rangeland 41 redd+ 23 reference level 23 sampling 34 satellite data 23 sub national 23 tree growth 3 tree line species 3 trof 34 upper mustang 41 key word index to vol. 24, no. 1, may 2014 59 cover 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 35 dependency of tharu communities on wild plants: a case study of shankarpur, kanchanpur district s. bhattarai1, b. pant 2, c. p. upadhyaya3 tharu communities are rich in indigenous knowledge of managing environmental resources and coping with environmental stress. the dependency pattern of these communities on wild plants and their role in conservation of wild plants should be identified and explored. this study was carried out with the purpose of assessing dependency pattern of these communities on wild plants and understanding their attitude as well as role in conservation. both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from concerned stakeholders. primary data were supplemented and verified from key informants, field observation and secondary sources. among the four categories of dependency, majority of the respondents were found under category dependent followed by most dependent and somewhat dependent, respectively, but minority of them were found under category not dependent. almost all of the respondents were found to have played some role in wild plant conservation. their attitude towards forest and resource conservation was positive, yet they were not satisfied with the traditional mechanism of forest conservation. the traditional approach of managing forest should, therefore, be modified and a new community-oriented approach should be promoted. key words: tharu, wild plants, dependency, role, attitude, conservation n epal is well recognized internationally for forest management. however, passive participation of community in decision making for the management of conservation areas has brought serious implication to the livelihood and cultural dynamics of the local people (mclean and straede, 2003). moreover, population pressures, particularly the expansion of urban areas and agriculture, has caused conservation areas to become islands or increasingly fragmented habitats (molnar, 2006). existing provisions and arrangements deprive the people living outside the national parks and reserves from using forest products which they had been doing traditionally, much before the parks or reserves were created (dhungel and adhikari, 1994). tharu are the disadvantaged groups and even the urbanization process has not made much impact in their livelihoods (sharma, 2006). the indigenous skills, technologies, and expertise of the tharus are ageold, which they are still capitalizing as one of their coping strategies. shuklaphanta wildlife reserve (swr), covering an area of 305 km2, was established in 1976 to preserve the habitat of the swamp deer, bengal tiger and a variety of flora and fauna. the buffer zone area of swr which is spread over 243.5 km2, covers 11 village development committes (vdcs) and one municipality. it constitutes a unique inheritance that supports both marginalized indigenous tribes and endangered flagship animals (dnpwc, 2003). it consists of laljhadi corridor linking dudwa national park of india and shuklaphanta wildlife reserve of nepal (cbs, 2003). the indigenous tharu communities have been living in the area even before the establishment of swr. nowadays, these tharu communities are facing complex problems and threats to their livelihood. not only are they confronted with dispossession of their lands and resources, and physical persecution, but they are also faced with the loss of their collective 1 university of copenhagen, denmark, email:bhattarai.sushma@gmail.com 2 international centre for integrated mountain development, nepal 3 institute of forestry, pokhara campus, pokhara, nepal banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 36 knowledge developed through the ages. traditional knowledge of medicinal plants and crops is being invaded by multinational companies, while traditional songs and designs are being commercialized for tourism industry. the issue of indigenous cultural property rights is becoming more and more urgent for these indigenous people (bengwayan, 2003). therefore, this study endeavoured to assess the sociocultural association and dependency of tharu community on plant resources and, identify the attitude and critical role of the community in conservation of the wild food crops and plants. materials and methods the study was conducted among indigenous tharu communities of shankarpur vdc of kanchanpur district. the vdc comprises about 720 households, with a total population of 6,538 (male 51.15% and female 48.85%) (cbs, 2003). this area has long been marginalized due to its remoteness. the study was supported by different social analysis tools. both qualitative and quantitative data were collected from concerned stakeholders. one hundred and seventeen households, representing 20% sample from each nine wards, were taken purposively. various pra tools were used to obtain primary data. the collected data were supplemented and verified from key informants, field observation and secondary sources. at first, harvest frequency of each type of resource was calculated. based on harvest frequency, resources were assigned importance values. the weight of seven to one score was applied in descending order; seven was assigned to the resource having the highest frequency. the weighted scores of types of resources harvested in a household were summed to calculate a resource use score that could theoretically range from 0 to 28. the higher the score, the more dependent were respondents. based on an equal interval, the resource use score was categorized into four categories: not dependent, somewhat dependent, dependent, and most dependent (baral, 2005). to measure a relationship between resource use score and quantitative socio-economic variables, spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (ñ) was used. for attitude assessment, a series of statements were presented and respondents were asked to agree or disagree. if the respondent agreed with the statement one point was given, otherwise no point was given. the reverse was true for a negative statement. the scores of all statements were summed to derive an attitude score that could theoretically range from zero to six. the higher the attitude score, the more favourable attitude the respondents had towards conservation. regression model taking the conservation attitude, score as dependent variable; and demographic, socio-economic and resource use score as independent variables. all categorical independent variables in the model were recorded as dummy variables, each with two categories: ‘yes’ and ‘no’. the selected indicators were plotted in radial graphs. to standardize i.e., bringing into unit less factor, the scales for each assets were measured out of ten. this involved, for each indicator, assuming the maximum variable as 100, dividing the maximum value by ten to give appropriate standardizing factor, and then multiplying each value of the indicator by this factor. for the indicator, average value of each capital was determined and plotted in the radial graph. results and discussion socio-economic features there were two types of tharu groups: rana and chaudhary. majority of the respondents were rana and the minority group was chaudhary. among these, most were male respondents. regarding age group, the majority of the respondents were from middle-aged (36–54) class. less than a half of the population was found to be illiterate, followed by primary and secondary education, while some had college education. the average family size of 9.76 per household of shankapur was found to be remarkably higher than the national average of 5.6 persons and district average of 6.2 (pant, 2007). agriculture is the prime source of income for tharu people. rice, wheat, mustard are the main food crops. according to the respondents, they get enough food from their agricultural land. the large land owners sell the surplus food whereas small land owners do not even get enough food for a full year. majority of the respondents were found to be middle class land owners (0.5 to 2 hectare of land) followed by large (more than 2 hectare) and small land owners (less than 0.5 hectare), respectively. the comparison of land and income inequality between chaudhary and rana tharu revealed that there exist higher inequalities among chaudhary than rana. the average bhattrai et al. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 37 income per household of both rana ($1368, converted at the rate of 73.27 nepalese rupees for 1 us dollar) and chaudhary ($12158) was found to be higher than the national average ($1093) (cbs, 2004). dependency assessment dependency on fuelwood the analysis revealed that majority of the respondents used firewood for cooking and other purposes. majority of respondents used simple mud stove (93.16%), 5.13% of respondents used biogas and 1.71% of respondents used improved stove. ten major species; shorea robusta, terminalia tomentosa, adina cordifolia, schleichera oleosa, syzygium cumini, trewia nudiflora, syzygium cerasoides, zizyphus mouritiana, mallotus phillippensis and bombax ceiba, were used as fuelwood . majority of the respondents (94.87%) used protected laljhadi forest, as a main source of fuelwood. besides this, 5.13% depended on buffer zone for their fuel wood needs. furthermore, analysis among the respondents consuming fuelwood showed that 78.63% of respondents got sufficient fuelwood while 21.37% of them did not get sufficient fuelwood. this is significant at 0.01 level of significance. the study revealed that among the respondents having insufficient fuelwood, majority (68%) believed controlled collection of fuelwood from the forest as the best technique to fulfill the demand. this was followed by 24% of respondents agreeing on husk made stove and improved stove. only 8% of respondent were found in favour of biogas. dependency on fodder the common types of livestock found in the study area included: cattle, buffalo, goat/sheep, and pig. the farm animals were kept mainly for manure, milk and traction. as the values of different livestock and their impacts on natural resources vary, the number of livestock per household was expressed using the livestock size unit (lsu). the average lsu of cow, ox, she-buffalo, he-buffalo, goat and pig was 0.41, 1.61, 0.64, 0.73, 0.76, and 0.36, respectively. cows were the most preferred livestock than others. lsu per household ranged from 0 to 17.35. as there was no grazing land within the village and nearby forest was being protected by the forest protection committee, majority (56.64%) of the respondents opted for stall feeding the livestock. this was followed by 30.97% respondents practicing both free grazing and stall feeding. only 12.39% respondents were found adopting free grazing only. those respondents grazed their livestock illegally inside the forest. dalbergia sissoo, dendrocalamus strictus, bauhinia purpurea, cynodon dactylon, impereta cylindrica, saccharum spontaneum, ficus glumerata, trewia nudiflora, holar rhena pubescens, and floscopa scandens were identified the major fodder species. regarding the source of fodder, 54.87% respondents claimed their own land as the main source of fodder for their livestock, followed by 40.71% and 4.42% respondents claiming protected forest and buffer zone forest as sources of fodder, respectively. regarding sufficiency of fodder, a greater portion, 59.3% of the respondents replied that they had shortage of fodder whereas 40.7% replied that they had sufficient fodder supply (chi-square value of 3.90 and p-value of 0.048). to meet the fodder deficiency problem, majority (41.79%) respondents suggested plantation of improved grass species on private land as the best alternative, followed by 28.36% suggesting to reduce the number of livestock, 20.90% to allow free grazing in the forest and 8.96% suggesting using straw, husk and other feeding materials as alternative strategies. non-parametric correlation between land size and lsu showed that there is positive correlation (coefficient= .044, p=.000) between land size and lsu per household which signifies that large land owners kept more number of livestock than small land owners. dependency on wild food most of the respondents in the study area consumed wild food. tharu people have been using wild food since long time in different forms. wild food plants are basically considered as famine food, the consumption of which is linked to times of scarcity (santayana et al., 2005). most species were consumed in raw form with no preparation. the collection of these wild foods varies according to the season and their availability. the majority of wild food plants were valued for their green leaves and young shoots and used as vegetable, which were gathered vigorously at the start of monsoon season. bhattrai et al. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 38 study revealed that 52.80% respondents consumed wild plants as vegetables followed by 28.20% consuming mushroom, 15.35% and 3.65% respondents consuming wild foods in the form of fruits and roots, respectively. among different types of wild plants taken as food, ten major plants were trewia nudiflora, ganoderma spp. aegle marmelos, bauhinia purpurea, cannabis sativa, emblica officinalis, syzygium cumini, ophioglossum nudicaule, morus alba, and ficus bengalensis. majority (67.3%) of the respondents, gathered wild food in the monsoon season because at that period vegetables found in home garden were insufficient to support their family. as far as the purpose of collecting wild food is concerned, 85% respondents said because of taste, followed by 9.40% respondents to earn money, and the rest 5.13% saying due to unavailability of other alternatives. most of the respondents liked the taste of wild food and they collected only for their own use while 11 respondents collected wild food mainly for selling . among those respondents who sold wild plants, 81.82% did so because of low income status and 18.18% because of surplus. dependency on medicinal plants since tharu people believe in traditional knowledge, they first try to cure their disease by consulting guruwa (the local faith heater) in the beginning. if this fails, they go for modern medical treatment. the analysis revealed that the local people did not have sound knowledge about medicinal plants. information about the identification and distribution of these plants was purely confined to the guruwas and their family. with passage of time and the advancement of technology, tharu people are now using both allopathic medicine and traditional methods. majority of the respondents i.e. 88.03% used both traditional and allopathic medicine while 6.84% and 5.13% respondents used only allopathic medicine and traditional medicine, respectively. to utilize these wild plants for their daily subsistence needs, tharu communities have travelled mean distance of 2.56 + 1.67 km, ranging from 0.1 km to 8 km. the list of major medicinal plants are: adina cordifolia, viscum articulatum, emblica officinalis, terminalia chebula, terminalia belerica, mallotus philippinensis, datura metel, piper longum, calotropis gigantea, aegle marmelos. resource use patterns and dependency fuelwood is the main source of energy in the study area. local people use thatch as roofing material, and grasses and fodder as livestock feed. mushrooms, fruits and vegetables are supplementary to staple diet. green leaves are used to make leaf plates and in religious ceremonies. dry leaves are harvested to use as bedding material for livestock and which is later on composted. mainly seven types of resources were extracted from the forest (fig.1). majority of the respondents harvest fuelwood having weighted factor of 9.74 followed by wild food (9.49), thatch (5.47), timber (5.38), leaf litter (5.21), fodder (4.36) and medicinal plants (1.88). fig 1: resource use score of respondents the non-parametric correlation of continuous variables with the resource use score showed that there was a significant negative correlation between the resource use score and total land (p = 0.02), resource use score and total income (p = 0.01) and negative correlation between resource use score and education of the respondents (p = 0.07). based on resource use score, 41.03% respondents belonged to most dependent, 48.72% to dependent, 8.55% to somewhat dependent and only (1.71% belonged to not dependent. trend and status of sustainable resource use apart from the findings of household survey, selected indicators such as dependency on forest resources, alternative energy use, forest promotion activities, erosion and landslides, importance of wild plants, difficulties in use, and income from wild plant sale (fig. 2) were used to assess the trend and status of sustainable resource use. the study revealed positive bhattrai et al. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 39 impacts in terms of alternative energy use and forest promotion activities. however, it also indicated that status of erosion and landslides, importance of wild plants, resource use difficulties, and income from wild plant sale had decreased. fig 2: status of sustainable resource use the causes of the positive change are: shift in resource use pattern for subsistence livelihood; the adoption of alternative way to earn their requirements; increase in awareness level with the passage of time; and ban on free access to the forest. the reason behind negative effect were increase in deforestation; lack of sound knowledge regarding the identification and distribution among youths; decrease in quantity of wild plants availability inside the forest. knowledge tharus are tribal people whose social cultural and economic conditions distinguish them from other communities. a number of local practices and technologies are in existence among the tharu communities for natural resources management. these have been developed over the years through accumulated knowledge, experience and testing. respondents were found to have significant table 1: knowledge about biodiversity sn statements yes (%) no (%) x2 p s/ns 1 knowledge about biodiversity 58.97 41.03 3.77* 0.05 s 2 importance of wild plants 70.94 29.06 20.52* 0.00 s 3 knowledge about medicinal plants 42.74 57.26 2.47 0.12 ns 4 distribution of rare wild plants 48.72 51.28 0.08 0.78 ns 5 knowledge about conservation 76.92 23.08 33.92* 0.00 s 6 processing of wild food 87.18 12.82 64.69* 0.00 s 7 effects of deforestation 83.76 16.24 53.34* 0.00 s 8 knowledge about forest conservation 97.44 2.56 105.31* 0.00 s knowledge on biodiversity (table 1). the study revealed that the respondents did not have sound knowledge about medicinal plants and the distribution of rare wild plants (type of species, their sources and use). conservation attitudes six questions were asked to the respondents regarding conservation of wild foods, forest conservation, medicinal plants, prohibition of deforestation, necessity of forest, and continuity of traditional forest conservation practices. the overall attitude towards nature conservation was found to be positive. it is very important to note that this asset of local acceptance should be considered in any kind of management intermention. role due to the awareness of the deteriorating condition of laljhad forest, people of shankarpur vdc have strictly protected their forest by forming a forest protection committee. most of the households are involved in the protection of the forest mainly by guarding the forest. the main problem of the deterioration of the forest was due to illegal cutting of trees and transportation to neighbouring vdc. thus, they guard the forest day and night. the survey showed that various efforts had been done by the communities in order to conserve wild plants. apart from guarding, other efforts included plantation of wild plants, forest protection against fire, reporting of illegal felling of trees and others (protection of ntfps, etc). as many as 95.72% of respondents were involved in these different activities whereas 2.56% didn’t participate in any of the above activities and 1.71% did not respond. among the respondents performing significant role, majority (41.03%) were found to be involved in guarding the forest, 20.51% in reporting about illegal tree felling, 20.51% in protecting from forest fire and 15.38% in plantation. s=significant, ns = non significant bhattrai et al. banko janakari, vol. 21, no. 1 40 bhattrai et al. conclusion and recommendations seven types of wild resources, namely fuelwood, wild foods, thatch, timber, leaf litter, fodder and medicinal plants, were used by the respondents. the weighted dependency score identified the majority of the respondents were under category dependent followed by most dependent and somewhat dependent but minority of the respondents were under category not dependent. this dependency pattern is affected by change in total income, total land and education status of the respondents. respondents having low total income, low education status and lesser amount of land were found to be more dependent on wild resources. majority of respondents were found to be knowledgeable about biodiversity, but not about wild medicinal plants and the distribution of rare wild plants. majority of the respondents have positive attitude towards forest resource conservation. but they were found to be against the traditional mechanism of conservation. almost all of the respondents have played significant role in conservation of wild resource. it is strongly suggested that socially and culturally important species be promoted and their status and distribution be investigated through biophysical analysis. since the respondents having lesser amount of land, low income and low education were found to be more dependent on wild resources, more community-oriented programmes should be initiated. training on identification and occurrence of wild medicinal plants and rare wild resources should be imparted to young and middle aged people. references baral, n. 2005. resource use and conservation attitudes of local people in the western terai landscape, nepal. m.sc. thesis, florida international university, miami, florida, usa. bengwayan, a. m. 2003. intellectual and cultural property rights of indigenous and tribal peoples in asia. minority rights group international, uk. cbs. 2003. statistical year book of nepal 2003. central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. cbs. 2004. statistical year book of nepal 2004. central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. dhungel, s. and b. adhikari. 1994. buffer zone vital to minimize people park conflict. in kathmandu post national daily newspaper, kathmandu, nepal. october 30, 1994. dnpwc. 2003. royal shuklaphanta wildlife reserve and buffer zone management plan. department of national parks and wildlife conservation, kathmandu, nepal. ellis, f. 2000. rural livelihoods and diversity in developing countries. oxford university inc., new york, usa. mclean, j., and s. straede. 2003. conservation, relocation and the paradigms of park and people management. a case study of padampur village. royal chitwan national park, chitwan, nepal. molnar. 2006. people and protected areas: new agendas for conservation. id21 insights, pp-1. institute of development studies, uk. pant, b. 2007. impact of human relocation program on rural livelihood: a study from shuklaphanta wildlife reserve, nepal. a report submitted to institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal and the rufford maurice laing foundation, rufford small grant for nature conservation, uk. santayana, m., tardio, j. and morales, r. n. 2005. the gathering and consumption of wild edible plants in the campoo (cantabria, spain). international journal of food sciences and nutrition 56 (7): 529–542. sharma, s. 2006. ngos in reshaping socioeconomic status of tharus of dang district in nepal. tharu indeginous ngos federation, lalitpur, nepal. comparison of forest cover mapping results of two successive forest resource assessments of nepal s. khanal1*, b. s. poudel1, p. mathema1, y. p. pokharel1 and d. k. kharal1 in nepal, the first national-level forest inventory was carried out in the 1960s (frs, 1967). since then, several forms of forest resource assessment activities have been carried out in different periods, each different in terms of purpose, scale, scope, design and technology used. six nationallevel forest cover assessments were carried out in the last four decades (dfrs, 1999; 2015). results of nation-wide forest resource assessment (2010–2014) of nepal were recently published (dfrs, 2015). as per the assessment, foresta covers 5.96 million ha (40.36%), other wooded landb covers 0.65 million ha (4.38%) and other landc covers 8.16 million ha (55.26%). forest and owl together comprise 44.74% of the total area of the country. the previous nation-wide forest resource assessment (nfi, 1994) was done in 1990s (dfrs, 1999). the forest area as estimated by nfi (1994) was 29% (4.27 million ha) and shrub 10.6%, making a total of 39.6% of the geographical area of the country. both of these nation-wide forest resource assessments were conducted by the department of forest research and survey, with support from the government of finland. one of the key interests after successive assessments is the change in forest parameters between the assessment periods. in this context, the forest area estimated by the recent fra is more than that of the nfi of 1990s which may be attributed to three factors: (1) higher mapping resolution of fra (ii) abandonment of agricultural land, which in turn changed to forested land, and (iii) the community forestry interventions (dfrs, 2015). however, given the methodological differences between nfi and fra, it is difficult to conclude that the forest area has increased between the two assessments. this paper aims to briefly highlight the problems associated with comparison of results between the two assessments. one key issue is the difference in materials and methodologies used. with the development of science and technology, newer methods are being developed and are improving the accuracy of forest parameters estimation. the latest assessment applied a set of materials and methods more advanced than the previous one. the comparison of the results in terms of forest resource estimates is problematic due to differences in methods, materials, duration of assessments as well as validation approach used. one analogous example includes a recent global estimate of total tree number as 3.04 trillion which is more than seven times the previous estimate done in 2008 (crowther et al., 2015). certainly, this doesn’t necessarily imply increase in tree number, but could be attributed to improvement in the methodology adopted. the fra of 2010s has some key differences as compared to the nfi of 1990s. all the sample plots measured in the recent fra have georeferenced locations, and are set up as permanent sample plots (psps). besides, the recent fra is more comprehensive with a scope of reassessment. furthermore, the recent fra is a multi-source forest resource assessment, as it included additional variables (soil characteristics, soil carbon, litter and dead wood, stump and disturbance) in addition to tree parameters. unlike the previous assessment, which excluded 1 department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu, * e-mail: skhanal@dfrs.gov.np a forest is defined as an area of land at least 0.5 ha in area and a minimum width/length of 20 m with a tree crown cover of more than 10% and tree heights of 5m at maturity; b other wooded land (owl) includes: (i) the land not classified as forest spanning over more than 0.5 ha, having at least 20m width and with 5-10% tree canopy cover, (ii) the land with less than 5% tree canopy cover, but the combined cover of more than 10% shrubs, bushes and trees; and (iii) the areas of shrubs and bushes where no trees are present; and c other land (ol) refers to all other land areas that are not classified as forest or other wooded land 97 short note banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 98 the protected areas (pas), this assessment had sample plots across the entire country including the pas. the key differences between the two national forest assessments of 1990s and 2010s can be summarized under materials, methods, duration of assessment and verification approach (table 1). scale of the base data used for mapping is one important determinant of the comparability of output products. since the resolution of the image (landsat tm) used in the 1990s for a portion of nepal is 30m, the smaller forest patches could have been excluded from forest cover mapping. however, high-resolution image offers several advantages over low-resolution images for forest cover mapping, e.g. the ability to map smaller patches. on the other hand, the season of image acquisition has impact on the detectability of vegetation. one potential issue with the aerial photographs acquired in december–january in the 1990s could be snow cover that could affect the interpretation of forest cover especially in the high mountains and the high himal physiographic regions, while the issue with march–april image used in the 2010s assessment could be the defoliation of some deciduous tree species that makes forest cover mapping challenging. method of forest mapping is probably the most important issue when we want to look for changes. the results of the two assessments are not directly comparable due to the differences between the pixel-based and the object-based image analysis. further, point sampling using aerial photographs potentially offers quick and cost effective method for area calculation, but the accuracy depends on appropriate sample design. on other hand, the hybrid approach used in the recent assessment has been recommended as simple, robust and costeffective (gofc-gold, 2008). the compilation of results from different sources in the 1990s nfi posed yet another challenge to compare results against a uniform approach applied in the recent fra (table 1). consistency in data collection and analysis may be an important issue in assessment involving compilation from different sources. a minimum mapping unit (mmu) is defined as “the smallest size areal entity to be mapped as a discrete entity” (lillesand et al., 2014). as the mmu determines the extent of detail in the map (saura, 2002), it is one of the most critical issues in comparing the two assessments. the fra had a much smaller mmu than the nfi. the higher mapping resolution (or lower mmu) generally results in increased forest area as compared to the lower mapping resolution since small patches that are not visible on lower-resolution images can be mapped on higher-resolution ones. this could be one of the reasons why the estimate of forest area was more in the latest assessment. despite the difficulty in direct comparison with previous assessment, the latest assessment did establish a baseline for a range of forest resource assessment parameters. khanal et al. table 1: comparison of forest assessments in the 1990s and 2010s nfi 1990’s fra 2010’s description materials base data for forest area mapping and interpretation combination of aerial photos and satellite image (landsat tm); aerial photo covered 83.7% of nepal’s area while satellite image covered 16.3% wall-to-wall coverage of rapideye images the differences in data sets used to map forest cover makes comparison difficult. scale aerial photo at 1:50000 scale and remaining area covered by landsat tm satellite image of 30 m spatial resolution 5 m spatial resolution the resolution determines the ability to map smaller patches. d at a acquisition month december–january march–april season of image acquisition affects the detectability of vegetation. methods forest area estimation point sampling using aerial photos and visual interpretation of grid system for 51 districts. wall-to-wall mapping through integration of advanced object-based the methods used for forest area estimation are entirely different. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 99 image classification; classification and regression tree (cart) and extensive visual interpretation using high-resolution google earth image. sources of data compilation of work done by different organizations (satellite image analysis: nfi16.3% of area, district forest inventory 8.5% of area, churia forest inventory3.1% of area and the remaining 51 hill districts72.1% of area) fra nepal single work consistency in data collection and analysis would pose an important issue in comparison. minimum mapping unit (mmu) varied based on methods used, ranging from 1 to 25 ha. satellite image analysis: >9 ha (assumed 10 pixels); district forest inventory: 6.25 ha and 25 ha as 1:25000 and 1:50000 scale aerial photos were used; churia forest inventory: 6.25 ha; remaining hill districts: 1 ha. 0.5 ha marked differences in mmu will have implications on the mapping output, leading to difficulty in comparison between the assessments. duration assessment period 1987–1998 (12 years) 2011–2014 (4 years) changes might have occurred due to the long duration of assessment in the case of nfi. verification field verification not done the mapping results were validated against field data for terai, churia, middle mountains; for high mountains and high himal, verification done by using high resolution images in google earth. field verification is important to assure validity and reliability of any mapping work; it was lacking in nfi (1994), was conducted field verification in 3 physiographic regions in fra (2010–2014). accuracy assessment done for hilly area (72.09 % of total area with 7,685 grids; the forest and shrub area combined estimate being 37.7% with a 95% confidence limit of 1.1%; thus, in terms of percentage, the area can vary from 36.6% to 38.8%. the forest cover mapping accuracy was evaluated in terms of overall accuracy (85.16%) and kappa (0.72 with standard error of 0.0175). this assessment, however, doesn't provide confidence limits of area estimates. the confidence limit of forest statistics could not be determined due to wall-towall mapping in the fra (2010–2014). verification with independent approach not done; the results reported from the point sampling only. the results were also obtained by using independent method through visual interpretation of regular grids of points (>55,358) at 4 km interval throughout the country. the estimates from the latest assessment seem reliable as the mapping was verified with extensive visual interpretation and field verification (dfrs, 2015). khanal et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 100 subsequent future assessments will produce information on forest cover change. however, to measure changes and track the impact of forestry sector policy and programme interventions, it is necessary to compare forest cover with consistent methods and datasets in at least smaller areas, if not possible for the whole country. references crowther, t. w., glick, h. b., covey, k. r., bettigole, c., maynard, d. s., thomas, s. m., smith, j.r., hintler, g., duguid, m. c., amatulli, g. and tuanmu, m. n. 2015. mapping tree density at a global scale. nature 525 (7568): 201–205. dfrs. 1999. forest resources of nepal (1987– 1998). department of forest research and survey (dfrs), kathmandu, nepal. dfrs. 2015. state of nepal’s forests. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey (dfrs), kathmandu, nepal. frs. 1967. forest statistics for the terai and adjoining regions. publication no. 4. forest resources survey (frs), kathmandu, nepal. gofc-gold. 2008. reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries: a sourcebook of methods and procedures for monitoring, measuring and reporting, gofc-gold report version cop132. global observation for forest cover and land dynamics project office, natural resources canada, alberta, canada. lillesand, t., kiefer, r. w. and chipman, j. 2014. remote sensing and image interpretation. john wiley and sons, new york, usa. saura, s. 2002. effects of minimum mapping unit on land cover data spatial configuration and composition. international journal of remote sensing 23 (22): 4853–4880. khanal et al. banko jankari.indd 13 modelling height-diameter relationship for pinus wallichiana trees for lete and kunjo of mustang district b. h. wagle1 and r. p. sharma2 quantifi cation of height-diameter relationship helps in better understanding of stand dynamics. height-diameter models can be used as necessary inputs to growth and yield models and growth simulation systems. the researchers developed height-diameter models with 364 blue pine (pinus wallichiana) tree data from lete and kunjo village development committees (vdcs) of mustang district. eighteen non-linear models were calibrated, among which, weibull model described the largest proportion of height variation (r2 adj = 0. 9362). gunary and chapman-richards’ models also appeared almost identical to weibull model in terms of fi t statistics and graphical appearance. the researchers recommend weibull model for predicting total heights of blue pine trees for the vdcs covered by the study. key words: blue pine, height-diameter models, modelling, mustang district the measurements of individual tree height and diameter are essential component of forest inventories. tree heights are used for estimating volume, site index, growth and yield, succession and carbon budget models (peng, 2001). although, theoretically, height can be measured on standing trees, practically, it is expensive, tedious and time consuming due to stand conditions and land confi gurations. therefore, with many permanent or temporary sample plot systems, diameters for all trees, but height of only a few sample trees are measured. alternatively, indirect estimation of tree heights can be made from diameter at breast height (dbh) which can be easily and accurately measured in relatively low cost. but for this, a site-and species-specific model describing a height-diameter relationship is necessary. heightdiameter model can be developed using accurately measured heights and diameters from individual trees sampled from every stand within a forest. height-diameter models are used to predict missing heights on the stands or permanent sample plots (hasenauer and monserud, 1997; nordlarsen, 2006; nord-larsen et al., 2009; sharma et al., 2011). for height prediction purpose, several height-diameter models have been developed (fang and bailey, 1998; huang et al., 2000; huang et al., 1992; moore et al., 1996; newton and amponsah, 2007; sharma, 2009; trincado et al., 2007; zhang et al., 2004). for a given species, height-diameter relationship differs from stand to stand due to variations in site quality and silvicultural treatments, and even within the same stand, due to variations in competition among individuals (calama and montero, 2004; pretzsch, 2009; vanclay, 1994). the climatic changes, changes of stand attributes (stand density), species provenance and combination of genetic potential, physiological and morphological response to environmental factors also affect height-diameter relationship. however, modelling height-diameter relationship by incorporating all those measures would be very complicated (thornley, 1999; and literatures cited therein) would become costly. heightdiameter relationship is highly site-dependent and, therefore, not constant over time even within the same stand (curtis, 1967). a single height-diameter curve cannot be used for prediction of all possible height-diameter relationships that may exist within a forest. the level of this variation can be signifi cantly reduced through incorporation of individual stand dynamics (stand density, site index, dominant height, mean diameters, competition index) into height-diameter models (adame et al., 2008; crecente-campo et al., 2010; dorado et al., 2006; newton and amponsah, 2007; schmidt et al., 2011; sharma and parton, 2007; sharma and zhang, 1 institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, nepal. email: bhwagle@gmail.com 2department of ecology and natural resource management, norwegian university of life sciences, norway 14   2004; temesgen and gadow, 2004). this approach, also known as comprehensive approach, may avoid a possibility of establishing stand-specifi c height-diameter relationship (schmidt et al., 2011). however, getting all stand-based attributes would not be easy and cost effective, and therefore, are rarely considered for the general purpose models (fang and bailey, 1998; huang et al., 2000; leduc and goelz, 2009; lu and zhang, 2011; sharma, 2009). blue pine (pinus wallichiana) constitutes one of the most important vegetation types in mustang district (chhetri et al., 2004). it occurs between 1800 m and 3600 m elevation, and very occasionally up to 4400 m (jackson, 1994). a strong light demanding tree species in the youth onwards, it grows under moderate shade for many years. it is very sensitive to fi re. while the saplings are frequently killed by fi re, the large trees often succumb. the species which constitutes a total stem volume of about 4.1 million m3 (1.1 %) in nepal (dfrs, 1999) is a prominent tree species for afforestation at higher elevations. its growth rate is slower than that of chir pine (pinus ruxhurghii). however, its wood is comparatively much stronger. while the wood is used as a major timber source in mid hills, the bark is also used as roofi ng material (kyastha, 1986). it offers a good economic share to communities in mid hill region. the community based natural forest and tree management in the himalaya project (comform project) has started a long-term study on development of local communities and their interaction with blue pine forests as the main livelihood resource in mustang district (meilby et al., 2006). there are only a few literatures reporting quantitative researches on blue pine forest in mustang (wagle and sharma, 2012; wagle, 2007). thus, the researchers intended to develop heightdiameter models for blue pine forests in lete and kunjo vdcs of mustang district by using height-diameter pairs as modelling variables. the height-diameter models will be used for prediction of heights, so that volume and yield estimation could be made easy. the heightdiameter models thus developed will serve as important tools for forest management in the district. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in blue pine forest of lete and kunjo vdcs of mustang district, which are located between 28° 24' n and 29° 20' n latitude, and between 83° 30' e and 84° 10' e longitude (fig. 1). the study area lies within the working area of the annapurna conservation area project (acap). the elevation varies from 1372 m to 8167 m, representing sub-tropical, temperate and alpine climate types. vegetations cover about 4.05 % of the district. among eight vegetation types of the district, blue pine is the most important one (chhetri et al., 2004). lete and kunjo vdcs have also been included into the study area of the community based natural forest and tree management in the himalaya project (comform project). for long term study purpose, this project has divided forests of lete and kunjo vdcs into 12 strata (meilby et al., 2006). the present study focuses only on blue pine dominated stands, irrespective of physical boundary of the strata. fig. 1: study area data some 27 to 35 blue pine trees were selected from each diameter class (with 10 cm interval) from lete and kunjo vdcs, with representation of all possible stand densities and site qualities, and were numbered. the diameter at breast height (dbh) and total height of each sample tree were measured in precisions of 0.1 cm and 0.1 m, respectively. in this way, 184 trees from lete and 180 trees from kunjo were measured. diseased, deformed, moribund, and top broken trees were discarded from sample. 15  data summary is presented in table 1. table 1: data summary modeling approach the graphs of observed height against dbh showed a clear non-linear relationship. altogether, 18 different non-linear mathematical functions were tested (table 2). theoretically, height-diameter relationship increases monotonically in the beginning and then increases asymptotically in the later stage (lei and parresol, 2001 cited in schmidt et al., 2011). the functions chosen in the study possess such properties. many of them have previously been used by researchers for modelling tree or stands (fang and bailey, 1998; huang et al., 2000; huang et al., 1992; leduc and goelz, 2009; newton and amponsah, 2007; sharma and parton, 2007; sharma, 2006; sharma, 2009; sharma et al., 2011). each function in table 2 can be derived from the following general form: hi=1.3+f9di ,b)+ei (1) where hi is total height of tree i (m), di is dbh of tree i (cm), b is a vector of parameters to be estimated, and ei is a random error, and assumed to be independent and normally distributed with zero mean and a constant variance. a constant value 1.3 was added to avoid the prediction of hi shorter than 1.3 m when di approaches zero. 16   table 2: mathematical models considered note: hi is total height of tree i (m), di is dbh of tree i (cm), b1, b2, b3 are parameters to be estimated, and ei is an error term. designation mathematical forms references m1 � �� � i b ii dbbh ����� 3 21 exp13.1 chapman-richards [richards (1959), chapman (1961)] cited in sharma (2009) m2 � � i i i i dbb dh �� � � � � �� 3 21 3.1 näslund (1936) m3 � � i b i i i db dbh �� � � � � �� 3 2 13.1 näslund (1936) m4 � � i b i i i dbb dbh �� � � � � ��� 3 21 1 13.1 näslund (1936) m5 � �� � i b i idbbh ����� 3 21 exp13.1 weibull (1951) cited in zeide (1993) m6 � � i ii i i dbdbb dh �� �� � 321 3.1 gunary (1970) cited in ratkowsky (1990) m7 � � iii b dbbh ���� 3 21 exp3.1 this study m8 � �� � iii dbbh ����� 21 exp13.1 mayer (1940) cited in calama and montero (2004) m9 � � i i i dbb bh ���� 32 1 exp13.1 huang and titus (1992) cited in leduc and goelz (2009) m10 � � i i i i bd dbh �� � � 2 2 2 13.1 hossfeld (1822) cited in sharma (2009) m11 ib i b i i dbb dh �� � � 1 1 32 3.1 hossfeld (1822) cited in sharma (2009) m12 i i i i db dbh ���� 2 13.1 this study m13 � � i ii i i dbd dbh ����� 2 1 13.1 batts and watts (1980) cited in calama and montero (2004) m14 � � i ii i i dbdbb dh �� �� � 2 2 321 3.1 curtis (1967) cited in huang et al. (1992) m15 � � i i i i dbb dh �� � � 2 21 2 3.1 huang and titus (1992) cited in leduc and goelz (2009) m16 i b i i db bh �� � � � � � � � � 3 2 1 11 3.1 ratkowsky and reedy (1986) cited in huang et al. (1992) m17 � �� � i i i dbb bh ����� 3exp13.1 2 1 huang et al. (2000) m18 � �� � i i i dbb bh ����� 32 1 exp13.1 ratkowsky (1990) meyer (1993) (1993) bates two locations, lete and kunjo, were coded with dummies (0 and 1) to represent both by a single model. this was reasonable because no large difference was seen between the ranges of most of the height-diameter pairs for two locations (fig. 2). smaller difference was due to site-specifi c productivity difference, and it could be described by dummy variables used as site-specifi c variables. for best performance, we assumed a parameter 17  (b1) of each model (table 2) as a linear function of location variable (site-specifi c variable) as below: bi=ci + c2 location (2) where c1, c2 = parameters to be estimated, and location variable comprises dummies (0 for lete, 1 for kunjo).the parameters related to location variable (i.e. site-specifi c parameters) and other parameters in the models were all simultaneously estimated (huang et al., 2000; wagle and sharma, 2012). parameter estimation and model evaluation the parameters of the models (table 2) were estimated with non-linear least square regression using proc model in sas (sas institute inc., 2008). the fi tted models were evaluated on the basis of various criteria such as (1) signifi cance of parameter estimates at 1 % level or even less (i.e., p d” 0.05), (2) logical and biological consistency of the estimated parameters, (3) histograms and probability plots of residuals, (4) graph of residuals against fi tted values, (5) root mean squared error (rmse) and adjusted coeffi cient of determination (r2 adj) (montgomery et al., 2001), (6) akaike information criterion (aic): it is one of the most reliable criterion to compare the fi tted models with differing parameter numbers. smaller the aic value, better would be the model (burnham and anderson, 2002), and (7) model curves overlaid on observed data. the examination of graphs helps understanding about whether models are based on theoretical basis and biological logics (alder, 1995; fang and bailey, 1998). the curves generated with models were checked with respect to their biological realism. like many others (soares et al., 1995; vanclay and skovsgaard, 1997), the researchers also believe that validation is an important part of modelling, because validation increases the credibility and confi dence about the developed models. however, the researchers did not perform that as they lacked independent data. also, the researchers did not consider validation by splitting data as they had too small data set. the validation by data splitting does not provide any better information as compared to that obtained directly from the model fi tted to the entire data set (kozak and kozak, 2003). nevertheless, validating model with independent data is the best option, but it certainly becomes costly (vanclay, 1994). results and discussion the models (table 2) were fi tted to the data, and parameter estimates and fi t statistics are presented in table 3. the parameter estimates of each model including parameters related to location variable (site-specifi c variable) were all signifi cant at 1 % level or even less (p d” 0.01), and the estimated parameter values and signs are logical. in general, all models fi tted to the data well with almost identical fi t statistics. among all, m5 showed the best fi ts (smallest rmse and aic and largest r2 adj) followed by m6, m1, m16, m3 and so on, and m18 and m17 showed the poorest fi ts (largest rmse and aic, and smallest r2 adj) followed by m9, m12 and so on. 18   table 3: parameter estimates and fi t statistics the researchers also examined each model’s residual graphs (graphs of individual residuals and mean residuals calculated by height and dbh classes) and model curves overlaid on the observed data. here, due to brevity of space, we present the graphs of the fi rst three best models (m5, m6 and m1) and one poorest model (m18) (fig. 2,3). except models m9, m17 and m18, residual graphs of all other models showed no systematic bias across the observed dbh and height classes, and their fi tted curves showed biologically logical properties. most of the individual residuals of each model were found within 95 % confi dence limit, and histogram of residuals looked like a bell shape. this indicates there is no sign of heteroscedasticity attributed to the models. the fi rst three best models (m5, m6 and m1) seem to be very identical in terms of residual graphs also (fig. 2). the logistic type of models (m9, m17 and m18) showed larger over-prediction for very small trees and under-prediction for very larger trees. the logistic types of functions seem to be less appropriate for more accurate height-diameter models (sharma, 2009). the height-diameter relationship increases monotonically in the beginning, reaches to infl ection point and increases asymptotically in the later stage (lei and parresol, 2001 cited in schmidt et al., 2011). in the later stage, diameter needs to grow faster in order to fi rmly withstand whole stature of tree against the external force such as wind blow (cato et al., 2006; khanna and chaturbedi, 1994). height position of curve after about 20 cm dbh for kunjo (location = 2) might be due to faster growth of both diameter and height as compared to those in lete (location =1) (fig. 3). it also suggests that height-diameter relationship may be site-specifi c, and therefore a single curve cannot be used for the prediction of all possible height-diameter relationships for larger forest area. but, this level of variations could be reduced by incorporating the individual stand dynamics (stand density, site index, dominant height, mean 19  fig. 2: mean residuals in dbh class and mean residuals in height class m ea n re si du al s (m ) -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 height class (m) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 m1 location 1 2 m ea n re si du al s (m ) -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 dbh class (cm) 0 20 40 60 80 100 m1 location 1 2 m ea n re si du al s (m ) -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 height class (m) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 m5 location 1 2 m ea n re si du al s (m ) -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 dbh class (cm) 0 20 40 60 80 100 m5 location 1 2 m ea n re si du al s (m ) -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 height class (m) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 m6 location 1 2 m ea n re si du al s (m ) -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 dbh class (cm) 0 20 40 60 80 100 m6 location 1 2 m ea n re si du al s (m ) -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 height class (m) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 m18 location 1 2 m ea n re si du al s (m ) -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 dbh class (cm) 0 20 40 60 80 100 m18 location 1 2 diameters, competitions) into the height-diameter models (adame et al., 2008; crecente-campo et al., 2010; dorado et al., 2006; newton and amponsah, 2007; schmidt et al., 2011; sharma and parton, 2007; temesgen and gadow, 2004). each of the promising models (except m9, m17 and m18) showed almost identical prediction behaviors within the observed data range. because of fewer observations, validation with data-splitting was not considered even though that validation is an important part of modelling 20   h ei gh t ( m ) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 dbh (cm) 0 20 40 60 80 100 m5 location 1 2 h ei gh t ( m ) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 dbh (cm) 0 20 40 60 80 100 m1 location 1 2 h ei gh t ( m ) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 dbh (cm) 0 20 40 60 80 100 m18 location 1 2 h ei gh t ( m ) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 dbh (cm) 0 20 40 60 80 100 m6 location 1 2 fig. 3: model curves overlaid on observed data 1997; yang et al., 2004). but getting such data, in general, would be very costly, and therefore are rarely attempted. conclusions among eighteen models calibrated, weibull model (m5) showed the best fi ts (smallest rmse and aic, and largest r2 adj) followed by m6, m1, m16, m3 and so on. weibull model (m5) is recommended for the prediction of total height of blue pine trees for lete and kunjo. since the present models are site-specifi c, they may not necessarily be representative to the same species grown in other sites even within the same district. prior to the application for blue pine forests in places other than lete and kunjo, testing of this research’s models is crucial. formulation of the same dummy codes as in eq. (2) is necessary while applying the models. the follow-up research on our models (i.e. recalibration, verifi cation, and validation) with data from the widest possible tree sizes, ages, site qualities and stand conditions of blue pine forests across lete and kunjo forest areas in mustang district would be useful. acknowledgements this paper is based on a part of the first author’s msc thesis submitted to tribhuwan university (tu), nepal. the community based natural forest and tree management in the himalaya project (comform project) provided fi nancial support to this work. we wish to thank (soares et al., 1995; vanclay and skovsgaard, 1997). some of the models might be fl exible enough to be used for extrapolation purpose. however, it would be risky to do so without validation and verifi cation. most reliable way of checking model’s prediction behavior beyond the ranges of the calibration data would be to test the fi tted models against newly acquired data from different tree populations over a wider ranges of size, site qualities and stand conditions (kozak and kozak, 2003; vanclay, 1994; vanclay and skovsgaard, 21  dr henrik meilby in copenhagen university of life sciences, denmark, and both dr bimal k. paudel and dr santosh rayamajhi at the institute of forestry, tu, nepal for their academic supports. we are thankful to those all who supported to fi eld works. we thank the anonymous reviewer for constructive comments on earlier version of the manuscript. references adame, p., del rio, m. and canellas, i. 2008. a mixed nonlinear height-diameter model for pyrenean oak (quercus pyrenaica willd.). forest ecolog y and management 256 (1-2): 88-98. alder, d. 1995. growth modelling for mixed tropical forests. in tropical forestry paper no.30. nuffi eld press, oxon, 231. bates, d. m. and watts, d. g., 1980. relative curvature measures of nonlinearity. journal of royal statistical society 42: 1-16. burnham, k. p. and 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in nepal. forest science and technology (in press). weibull, w., 1951. a statistical distribution function of wide applicability. journal of applied mechanics 18: 293 -296. yang, y. q., monserud, r. a. and huang, s. m. 2004. an evaluation of diagnostic tests and their roles in validating forest biometric models. canadian j. of forest res. 34 (3): 619-629. zeide, b. 1993. analysis of growth equations. forest science 39 (3): 594 616. zhang, l.j., bi, h.q., cheng, p. f. and davis, c. j. 2004. modeling spatial variation in tree diameter-height relationships. forest ecology and management, 189 (1-3): 317-329. banko jankari.indd 45 1 forest resource assessment (fra) nepal. email: sigdelshalik@gmail.com 2 department of ecology/botany, faculty of sciences, charles university, praha, czech republic utilization of plant resources in dang district, west nepal s. r. sigdel1 and m.b. rokaya2 this paper aims to highlight the uses of forest resources in purandhara, panchakule and goltakuri village development committees (vdcs) of dang district, western nepal. the ethnobotanical data was collected through participatory rural appraisal (pra) that involved discussion with local people and key informants, through semi-structured questions and informal conversations. vulnerability of plants used in the study area was assessed by adapting the rapid vulnerability approach (rva). altogether 85 plant species belonging to 79 genera and 56 families were recorded in the study areas. twelve plant species were found to be used for various purposes other than medicinal. they were used as food, fodder, in construction, in religious purposes and even in yielding dyes. seventy three plant species were found to be medicinal in properties for treating 144 different ailments. remedies for 27 ailments were reported as new uses. the most common way of admission of medicine was oral (76.71 %) followed by external or topical (35.6 %) and nasal (1.27 %). the rva test showed dalbergia sissoo (with 15 scores) and terminalia alata (with 14 scores) as most vulnerable ones. key words: dang district, ethnobotany, medicinal plants, vulnerability test there are many researches related to ethnobotany carried out in dang district (manandhar, 1985; acharya, 1996; adhikari, 1997; adhikari, 1998; poudel, 2000). such researches are found to be focused mainly on uses of the plants for medicinal purpose only. however, a study related to uses of plants for various purposes (including medicinal) would also be of great importance in the fi eld of ethnobotany. furthermore, use of analytical tools to prioritize certain species for conservation is instrumental in ethnobotanical studies (lama et al., 2001; rokaya, 2002; ghimire and aumeeruddy-thomas, 2005; wagner et al., 2008; rokaya et al., 2010). such tools play important role in setting conservation goals. in this study, the researchers attempted to collect and document indigenous ethnobotanical information from dang district of western nepal. the researchers specifi cally, focused on seeking the answers for: (i) what is the diversity of plants in dang district? (ii) what are the different uses of plants and how are they administered for herbal medicine? and (iii) what are the most important medicinal plants that are needed for conservation? materials and methods study area the study was carried out in the purandhara, panchakule and goltakuri vdcs lying in dang district of western nepal. the population of the area is 21258 people (cbs, 2001). the altitudinal variation ranges from 200 to 1400 m above sea level. the vegetation comprises mainly of tropical type (chaudhary, 1998). major vegetation of the zone includes: sal (shorea robusta) forest, tropical deciduous riverine forest and tropical evergreen forest. sal forest has mainly pure stands of shorea robusta. some of the other species, inter alias, include: terminalia bellirica, t. chebula, and adina cardifolia. along the streams and valleys, sal forest is replaced by the tropical deciduous riverine forest. tropical deciduous riverine forest and tropical evergreen forest compose tress like: aegle marmelos, albizia spp, bauhinia variegata, dalbergia latifolia, symplocas ramosissima, lagerstroemia parvifolia, toona serrata, justicia adhatoda, hypericum cordifolium, clerodendron viscosum and bauhinia vahlii, bombax ceiba, zizyphus mauritiana. in poorly drained areas, large stretches of saccharum bengalense and saccharum spontaneumi are predominantly found studded with clumps of acacia catechu and dalbergia sissoo (chaudhary, 1998). 46     data collection the field visit was carried out in november 2007 for 9 days. the data were collected through participatory rural appraisal (pra) which included discussion with local people and key informants, through semi-structured questions and informal conversations (martin, 1995). the information collected was on: uses of plants, modes of preparation, administrations and the parts used. the vernacular names were determined with the help of local people. the informants were around 50 people including traditional healers, fi rewood collectors, farmers, teachers, household heads and many villagers. the age of the informants ranged from 20 to 69 years. the information on plants were cross-checked twice or thrice for each plant at different places. herbarium specimens were not collected for the commonly known plants. however such specimens were collected for all dubious species and were pressed and dried in the fi eld. scientifi c names were determined by using different literatures (polunin and stainton, 1984; lama et al., 2001; manandhar, 2002; baral and kurmi, 2006). nomenclature of press et al. (2000) was followed. the ethnobotanical information was categorized into seven classes: medicinal, food, fodder, construction, fi ber, religious and others (colouring, dyes). the medicinal uses were further classifi ed into nine diseases: circulatory, digestive, excretory, muscular, nervous, respiratory, reproductive, skeletal systems and others (cough cold, cuts, wounds, lactation, eye problems, etc.) data analysis there are many tools that are used in selecting the most used plants (lama et al., 2001; rokaya, 2002; hoffman and gallaher, 2007; wagner et al., 2008; rokaya et al., 2010). here, the researchers used rapid vulnerability assessment (rva) technique to identify plants that were vulnerable to over-exploitation. the technique, originally developed by cunningham (2001) in uganda, has been used by many researchers in nepal (lama et al., 2001; rokaya, 2002; ghimire and aumeeruddy-thomas, 2005; wagner et al., 2008). here, the researchers adopted the modifi ed rva method of wagner et al., (2008) that included six indicators: plant parts used in local medicine, life form, local frequency, distribution, intensity of use in tibetan medicine; and use value: single vs. multiple use. endangerment value was based on numerical values obtained by adding the fi nal threat values (table 1). table 1: threat value by indicator and category indicator category threat value life form annual/ biennial 1 perennial 2 woody 3 parts used leaves 1 generative organs, whole above-ground plant parts, bark 2 whole plant, whole below-ground plant parts 3 distribution wider distribution 1 himalaya-endemic 2 nepal-endemic 3 local frequency frequent 1 moderate frequent 2 rare 3 intensity of use rare 1 occasional 2 frequent 3 use value single 1 multiple 2 results and discussion indigenous people included in the study area were: bramin, chhetri, newar, magar, rai, kami, and bhujel. these communities fulfi ll their daily needs, depending directly or indirectly upon the forest resources. this fi nding is similar to other fi ndings from different parts of nepal (joshi and edington, 1990; uprety et al., 2010; rokaya et al., 2010). a total of 85 plant species belonging to 79 genera and 46 families were recorded in the study areas. twelve plant species were used for various purposes other than medicinal. they were used as: food, fodder, in construction, in religious purposes and even in yielding dyes. 47    altogether 73 plant species were found to bear medicinal properties for treating 144 different ailments. when comparing with different literatures (manandhar, 1985; acharya, 1996; adhikari, 1997; adhikari, 1998; poudel, 2000; joshi and joshi, 2001; rajbhandari, 2001; manandhar, 2002; baral and kurmi, 2006; dpr, 2007), the researchers found remedies for 27 ailments as new uses (table 2). none of the plants, recorded in the study, were identifi ed as new medicinal plants, as they have already been reported from different parts of nepal. the similar kinds of remedies reported from different plants of dang (three vdcs of the study area) and also from other parts of nepal show that the information documented in this research are reliable. as the plants are also found to be used in some life threatening ailment such as diabetes (e.g. aegle marmelos, syzygium cumini) and asthma (e.g. datura stramonium, piper longum), further investigation should be carried out in depth, to fi nd the possibility of such plants being used in broader scales. the ethnobotanical information was categorized into seven classes: medicinal, food, fodder, construction, fi ber, religious and others (colouring, dyes). the medicinal uses were further classifi ed into nine diseases: circulatory, digestive, excretory, muscular, nervous, respiratory, reproductive, skeletal systems and others (cough cold, cuts, wounds, lactation, eye problems, etc regarding the categories of medicinal uses, the highest number of plants belonged to the category: others; followed by the category: digestive system; and the category: muscular system (fig. 1). the category: nervous system; had only one species (semecarpus anacardium). medicinal plants were also used for various other purposes such as food, fodder, fi ber, construction, religious and others (colouring, dyes). the different plant parts: roots/rhizomes/bulbs/ tubers, young shoot; stem/bark, leaves, fl owers and seeds/fruits were used for different ailments. the medicinal plants were used in different forms of preparations; and the most widely used form was juice (24), followed by soup or tea or food (13), and paste or decoction (12 each). the smoke (2) is the least used type of form; and is used for treating sinusitis (e.g. colebrookea oppositifolia, flemingia procumbens, woodfordia fruticosa). the most common way of admission of medicine was oral (76.71 %) followed by external or topical (35.6 %) and nasal (1.27 %). this fi nding which is similar to other fi ndings (e.g. rokaya et al., 2010) indicates that people usually follow the easiest means of mode of admission of medicine. there are some plants, which are widely used as medicinal plants in various parts of nepal but not in this study sites. for this reason, such plants were deliberately excluded from medicinal plant category in the results of this study. examples of such plants are: elsholtzia fl ava that is used as condiment in dang, but is used against scabies (rajbhandari, 2001; manandhar, 2002); lawsonia inermis leaves are crushed to obtain dye for colouring hands, feet and hair in dang, but the plant is used in toothache, cracks in skin, skin diseases, burns (manandhar, 2002), jaundice, spleen, skin diseases, leprosy, headache, increase sperms, sore throat, hair tonic (dpr, 2007); leucaena leucocephala is only used as fodder in dang, but bark and roots are aborifacient and seeds are emollient in nature (manandhar, 2002); and thysanolaena maxima is used only to make broom in dang, whereas its root paste is applied to treat boils (rajbhandri, 2001; manandhar, 2002). in the present study, many plants were reported as having only a limited number of medicinal uses (usually one or up to three). however, several other studies have found such plants to possess a wide range of uses. for example, acacia catechu is reported to be used against intestinal worms only, but its stem is also used by the tharus to treat cough in dang (rajbhandari 2001), to treat body pain and skin diseases in rukum, dhading, sindhuli, makwanpur, chitwan and sankhuwashava, morang (manandhar, 2002; rajbhandari, 2001), construction in bara (rajbhandari, 2001), and to treat indigestion ulcer in some other parts of nepal (dpr, 2007) (table 1). the rva result showed that scores ranged from 7-15. dalbergia sissoo is found to be highly vulnerable with 15 scores. it was followed by terminalia alata (14 scores). three species: calotropis gigantea, euphorbia thymifolia, and oxalis corniculata each with the least score 1 were widely distributed (table 2). wagner et al. (2008) found that there were 7 species of plants out of 102 species with high potential 48     endangerment whereas lama et al. (2001) pointed out that there were 24 species to be potentially vulnerable out of 136 species of absolutely needed by traditional health care centre in lower dolpa and rokaya (2002) pointed out that there were 21 plant species as potentially vulnerable from upper dolpa. the rva-test in the present analysis showed that possibly 9 plant species with high scores are potentially vulnerable. a detailed study is needed for formulating a pragmatic plan to conserve these vulnerable plants. the plan should be formulated in accordance with local interest as well as the available resources. uprety et al. (2010) prioritized 10 plant species (out of 101) plant species from bardiya, terai region similar to dang. conclusion the forest resources play vital role in daily life of the people of dang district. they need domestication and commercialization in boarder scale. till today, indigenous knowledge has continued to be transferred verbally. now, it needs proper documentation. phytochemical or pharmacological studies have also become necessary to explore the potential of plants used for medicinal purposes. in order to develop sustainable harvesting techniques, proper techniques and awareness programmes are necessary. any benefi ts that are obtained from the present knowledge should be equally shared with indigenous people because the documented knowledge in the present paper is actually their valuable asset. acknowledgements the authors are thankful to the local people for their hospitality and sharing their information on indigenous knowledge about uses of plant resources and also authorities of national herbarium and plant laboratories (kath), godawari for their help in the identification of unknown plant species. we also appreciate invaluable suggestions and help of binu timsina during manuscript writing. references acharya, s. k. 1996. folk uses of some medicinal plants of pawannagar, dang district. j. of nat. hist. museum 15: 25-36. adhikari, k. 1997. indigenous healing practices in nepal: a case study of the tharus in amrai village, dang. m. a. dissertation, central dept. of sociology/anthropology, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, nepal. adhikari, s. m. 1998. health care by local herbal resources (sthaniya jadibuti dwara swasthya racchya). mahendra sanskrit university, dang, nepal. baral, s. r., and kurmi, p. p. 2006. a compendium of medicinal plants in nepal. mrs rachana sharma, kathmandu, nepal. cbs. 2001. statistical year book. central bureau of statistics, government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. chaudhary, r. p. 1998. biodiversity in nepal: status and conservation. know nepal series no. 17, s. devi, saharanpur, india. cunningham, a. b. 2001. applied ethnobotany: people, wild plant use and conservation. a people and plant conservation manual, earthscan, london, uk. dpr. 2007. medicinal plants of nepal (revised). bull. dept. plant resources. no. 28, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu nepal. ghimire , s. k., and aumeeruddy-thomas, y. 2005 . approach to in situ conservation of threatened himalayan medicinal plants: a case study from shey-phoksundo national park, dolpo. in himalayan medicinal and aromatic plants: balancing use and conservation (eds) aumeeruddythomas, y., karki, m., parajuli, d. and gurung, k., idrc canada, wwf nepal, and unesco/wwf people and plants initiative, 209-234. hoffman, b. and gallaher, t. 2007. importance indices in ethnobotany. ethnobotany research and applications 5: 201-218. joshi, k. k. and joshi, s. d. 2001. genetic heritage of medicinal and aromatic plants of nepal himalaya. buddha academic publishers and distributors pvt. ltd., kathmandu, nepal. 49    joshi, a. r. and edington, j. m. 1990. the use of medicinal plants by two village communities in the central development region of nepal. economic botany 44: 71–83. lama, y.c., ghimire, s. k., aumeeruddythomas, a. 2001. medicinal plants of dolpo: amchis’ knowledge and conservation. people and plants initiative and wwf nepal program, kathamandu, nepal. manandhar, n. p. 2002. plants and people of nepal. timber press portland, oregon., usa. manandhar, n.p. 1985. ethnobotanical notes on certain medicinal plants used by tharus of dang-deokhuri district, nepal. int. j. crude drug. res. 23 (4): 153-159. martin. g.j. 1995. ethnobotany: a methods manual. chapman and halls, london, uk. polunin, o. and stainton, a. 1984. flowers of the himalaya. oxford university press, new delhi, india. poudel, s.k. 2000. ethnobotanical study of the tharus living in central part of dang (mid-western nepal). m. sc. dissertation, central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, nepal. press, j. r., shrestha, k. k., and sutton, d. a. 2000. annotated checklist of flowering plants of nepal. the natural history museum, london, uk. rajbhandari, k.r. 2001: ethnobotany of nepal. ethnobotanical society of nepal, kathmandu , nepal. rokaya, m. 2002. ethnoecology of medicinal plants in dho-tarap area in the bufferzone of shey phoksundo national park, dolpa, nepal. m.sc. dissertation. central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, nepal. rokaya, m. b., munzbergova, z. and timsina, b. 2010. ethnobotanical study of medicinal plants from the humla district of western nepal. journal of ethnopharmacology 185 (3): 485–504. uprety, y., boon, e.k., poudel, r.c., shrestha, k.k., rajbhandary, s., ahenken, a. and tiwari, n. n. 2010. non-timber forest products in bardiya district of nepal: indigenous use, trade and conservation. journal of human ecology 30 (3): 143–158. wagner, a., kriechbaum, m. and koch, m.a. 2008. applied vulnerability assessment of useful plants: a case study of tibetan medicinal plants from nepal. botanische jahrbücher für systematik 127 (3): 1-29. 50     t ab le 2 : e th n ob ot an ic al ly im p or ta n t p la n ts in t h re e v d c s of d an g d is tr ic t, w es t n ep al sc ie n ti fi c n am e (f am ily ) vo u ch er n u m b er l oc al n am e p ar ts a n d m od e of u se l oc al fr eq u en cy in te n si ty o f u se u se ca te go r y v u ln er a b ili ty sc or es a ca cia ca tec hu (l .f. ) w ill d. (l eg um in os ae ) s rs 2 2 k ha ir ba rk d ec oc tio n is ta ke n or al ly to k ill in te st in al w or m s fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l m ul tip le 11 r ed d ye u se d fo r c ol or at io n. a ca cia ru ga ta (l am .) v oi gh t. (l eg um in os ae ) s rs 2 3 si ka ka i m ix tu re o f l ea ve s a nd p ee pe rs is ta ke n to tr ea t j au nd ic e. b m od er at e fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 11 a ch yra nt he s a sp era l . (a m ar an th ac ea e) s rs 2 5 a pa m ar g ro ot p as te is ta ke n or al ly to tr ea t f ev er o r u rin e pr ob le m s. fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 9 a cor us ca lam us l . ( a ra ce ae ) sr s 27 bo jh o d rie d ro ot s ar e ch ew ed to tre at co ug h, co ld an d br on ch iti s. m od er at e fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt m ul tip le 13 a egl e m ar me los (l .) c or r. (r ut ac ea e) s rs 2 9 be l le av es p ow de r or l itt le a m ou nt o f fr ui t ju ic e is ta ke n to tre at d ia rr he a, dy se nt er y an d di ab et es . le av es a nd f ru its ar e al so u se d in re lig io us c er em on ie s. m od er at e fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt m ul tip le 13 a esa nd ra b ut yra cea (r ox b. ) ba eh ni (s ap ot ac ea e) s rs 3 1 c hi ur i se ed o il is us ed f or m ak in g so ap a nd b en ef ic ia l f or s ki n di se as es . ra re ra re sin gl e 12 a loe ve ra l . ( li lia ce ae ) s rs 32 g hu e k um ar i le av es d ec oc tio n is ta ke n or al ly to tr ea t j au nd ic e. ra re oc ca sio na l sin gl e 10 a br us p rec at or iu s l . (l eg hu m in os ae ) s r s 33 ra tig ed i fr ui ts a re k ep t i n th e ey es to c le an th em . f ru its a re u se d as w ei gh in g go ld . m od er at e fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt m ul tip le 13 a rte mi sia in dic a w ill d. (c om po sit ae ) s rs 3 4 ti te pa ti ro ot ju ic e is ta ke n or al ly to tr ea t s to m ac h pa in . fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 9 a rto ca rp us la ko och a w al l. (m or ac ea e) s rs 3 5 ba da ha r ba rk ju ic e is be ne fic ia l f or sk in d ise as es . u se d as fo dd er . fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt m ul tip le 12 a sp ar ag us ra cem osu s w ill d. (l ili ac ea e) s rs 3 6 k ur ilo r oo ts a re a lso u se fu l fo r la ct at io ns , co ns tip at io n an d st om ac ha ch e. fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 12 a za dir ac ht a in dic a a . j us s. (m el ia ce ae ) s rs 3 7 n ee m le av es , b ar k an d se ed p as te a re u se fu l i n in te st in e an d fo r sk in d ise as es . l ea ve s o r b ar ks a re a lso u se d as in se ct ic id es . m od er at e fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l m ul tip le 13 ba uh in ia pu rp ur ea l . (l eg um in os ae ) s rs 3 9 k oi ra lo po w de r o f b ar k is ta ke n fo r s to m ac h pa in a nd d ia rr he a. fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 10 ba uh in ia va hli i w ig ht & a rn . (l eg um in os ae ) s rs 4 0 m al u/ bh or la ro as te d se ed s a re ta ke n as to ni c. fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 10 y 51    bo mb ax ce iba l . (b om ba ca ce ae ) s r s 41 si m al le av es d ec oc tio n is us ed a s a nt ise pt ic m od er at e fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 9 bu tea m on osp erm a (l am .) k un tz e (l eg um in os ae ) s rs 57 pa la ns fl ow er s a re u se fu l i n di ar rh ea . m od er at e fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 11 le af p as te is e xt er na lly a pp lie d to tr ea t c ut s a nd w ou nd s.b ca lam us a ca nt ho sp at hu s g rif f. (p al m ae ) s rs 5 8 be t st em is u se d to m ak e ba sk et o r a s s tic ks . fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt sin gl e 10 ca lli ca rp a ma cro ph yll a v ah l. (v er be na ce ae ) s rs 5 9 g un ya lo ro ot ju ic e an d fr ui t j ui ce is ta ke n or al ly to tr ea t f ev er . i t i s al so e xt er na lly fo r c ut s a nd w ou nd s. fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 11 ca lot ro pis gi ga nt ea (l .) d ry an d (a sc le pi ad ac ea e) sr s 60 a nk w ar m ed le av es a re u se d to r el ie ve b od y pa in o r pa in d ue to rh eu m at ism . fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 7 ce las tru s p an icu lat us w ill d. (c al as tra ce ae ) s rs 6 1 m al ka gu n o o il fr om fr ui t i s e xt er na lly u se d fo r b od y ac he .b m od er at e fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 9 ce nt ell a as iat ica (l .) u rb an . (u m be lli fe ra e ) s rs 6 2 g ho dt ap r e le af ju ic e is ta ke n to tr ea t f ev er . w ho le p la nt is a lso u se fu l fo r u rin e an d sk in p ro bl em s. fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt sin gl e 11 ci nn am om um ta ma la (b uc h. h am .) n es s & e be rm . (l au ra ce ae ) s rs 6 3 te jp at le av es a re c he w ed to in cr ea se b od y he at .b ra re oc ca sio na l sin gl e 11 ci ssa mp elo s p ar eir a l. (m en isp er m ac ea e) s rs 6 4 ba tu l p at e tu be r p as te is ta ke n to tr ea t g as tri tis . fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 10 co leb ro ok ea op po sit ifo lia s m . (l ab ia ta e) s rs 6 5 d hu rs ul le av es p as te i s ap pl ie d ex te rn al ly t o tre at s na ke bi te o r bu rn s.b fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 8 cu rcu lig o o rch ioi de s g ae rtn (h yp ox id ac ea e) s rs 6 6 m us al i rh iz om e ju ic e is be ne fic ia l f or p ep tic u lc er . ra re oc ca sio na l sin gl e 12 cu rcu ma a ng us tif oli a ro xb . (z in gi be ra ce ae ) s r s 67 h al ed o tu be r pa st e is m ix ed , co ok ed w ith po rr id ge an d co ns um ed to re lie ve b od y ac he . fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 10 cu scu ta re fle xa r ox b. (c on vo lv ul ac ea e) s rs 7 9 a ak as be li p la nt ju ic e is ta ke n or al ly to tr ea t j au nd ic e. ra re fr eq ue nt sin gl e 12 cy no do n da cty lon (l .) pe rs . (g ra m in ae ) s rs 8 1 d ub o w ho le p la nt p as te i s ap pl ie d on c ut a nd w ou nd a nd re lig io us c er em on ie s fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt m ul tip le 12 d alb erg ia sis soo r ox b. (l eg um in os ae ) s rs 8 3 si ss o ro ot s a re ta ke n fo r s to m ac h pr ob le m s. fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt m ul tip le 15 52     d at ur a str am on iu m l. (s ol an ac ea e) s rs 90 d ha tu ro ro ot ju ic e is ke pt in e ar to tr ea t e ar ac he . d rie d le av es a re sm ok ed to tr ea t a st hm a an d sin us iti s. fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 10 d esm ost ac hy a bip in at a l. (g ra m in ae ) s rs 9 5 k us h ro ot j ui ce i s ta ke n or al ly t o tre at u rin e pr ob le m s or to ot ha ch e. w ho le p la nt is u se d fo r r el ig io us p ur po se s. fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt m ul tip le 13 d ios cor ea b ulb ife ra l . (d ia sc or ea ce ae ) s rs 1 02 ba n ta ru l tu be rs a re u se d as to ni c in th e fo rm o f f oo d. m od er at e fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 11 d ryo pt eri s c och lea ta (d .d on .) c . c hr . ( a sp id ia ce ae ) s rs 10 3 g hu e ni ur o y ou ng sh oo ts a re u se d as to ni c an d ve ge ta bl es . fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 9 e lae oca rp us sp ha eri cu s g ae rtn . k . s ch um (e la eo ca rp ac ea e) sr s 10 5 ru dr ak sh a fr ui t po w de r is us ed in co ug h. u se d in ce re m on ia l pu rp os es . ra re oc ca sio na l m ul tip le 13 e lsh olt zia fl av a ( be nt h. ) be nt h (l ab ia ta e) s rs 1 06 ba n sil am se ed s a re u se d as c on di m en ts . m od er at e fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 9 e up ho rb ia th ym ifo lia l . (e up ho rb ia ce ae ) s rs 1 09 d ud he jh ar la te x is us ed e xt er na lly fo r e ye in fe ct io n. b fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 7 fe ro ni a lim on ia (l .) sw in gl e (r ut ac ea e) s rs 1 10 k ar au nt e k an da fr ui ts a re e di bl e an d be ne fic ia l f or st om ac h. fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 10 fi cu s b en ga len sis l . (m or ac ea e) s rs 1 11 ba r le av es a re u se d in h in du ri tu al s. m od er at e fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt sin gl e 11 fi cu s b en jam in a l. (m or ac ea e) sr s 11 2 sw am i le av es a re u se d in h in du ri tu al s. m od er at e fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt sin gl e 11 fi cu s r eli gio sa l . ( m or ac ea e) sr s 11 3 pi pa l le av es a re u se d in h in du ri tu al s. m od er at e fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt sin gl e 11 fl em in gia p ro cu mb en s r ox b. (l eg um in os ae ) s rs 1 14 te nd u d rie d le av es a re sm ok ed to tr ea t s in us iti s.b fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 8 g rew ia scl ero ph yll a r ox b (t ili ac ea e) s rs 1 15 ph or so fr ui ts a re e di bl e. l ea ve s a re u se d as fo dd er . m od er at e fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt sin gl e 13 ich no ca rp us fr ut esc en s ( l. ) r . br . ( a po cy na ce ae ) s rs 1 16 sa riv a la te x or r oo ts a re c on su m ed t o in cr ea se l ac ta tio n. t he y al so h el p in s to pp in g vo m iti ng , cu rin g fe ve r an d bl oo d pr ob le m s. m od er at e fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 11 in ula ca pp a d c . (c om po sit ae ) s rs 1 17 g ai ti ha re ro ot j ui ce i s ta ke n or al ly t o tre at f ev er , dy se nt er y an d he ad ac he . fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 9 ja tro ph a cu rca s l . (e up ho rb ia ce ae ) s rs 1 18 sa jiw an tw ig s ar e us ed a s to ot h br us h. l at ex is a pp lie d ex te rn al ly on c ut s a s a nt ise pt ic . fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 10 ju sti cia a dh at od a l. (a ca nt ha ce ae ) s rs 1 19 a su ro ro ot j ui ce i s ta ke n ab ou t fiv e da ys t o tre at f ev er a nd ty ph oi d. fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 11 la ws on ia in erm is l. (l yt hr ac ea e) s rs 1 21 m eh an di le av es a re c ru sh ed to o bt ai n dy e fo r co lo rin g ha nd s, fe et an d ha ir. ra re fr eq ue nt sin gl e 12 53    le uc ae na le uc oce ph ala (l am .) d e w it (l eg um in os ae ) s rs 12 2 ip il ip il le av es a re u se d as fo dd er . m od er at e fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt sin gl e 11 li nd era n ees ian a (w al l e x. n es s.) k ur z (l au ra ce ae ) sr s 12 3 si lti m ur se ed s a re u se d as c on di m en ts a nd u se fu l f or st om ac h. m od er at e fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 10 m ad hu ca lo ng ifo lia (k oe ni g. ) m ac . ( sa po ta ce ae ) s rs 1 37 m ah uw a fl ow er d ec oc tio n is dr un k to t re at c ou gh a nd c ol d. s ee d oi l i s a pp lie d ex te rn al ly to tr ea t s ki n pr ob le m s. m od er at e fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 10 m all otu s p hil ipp en sis (l am .) m ue ll. -a gr . ( e up ho rb ia ce ae ) sr s 14 0 ro hi ni /s i nd ur e le av es a re c ru sh ed a nd u se d fo r sk in d ise as es a nd a s fo dd er . fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt sin gl e 10 m an gif era in dic a l. (a na ca rd ia ce ae ) s rs 1 43 a m p ba rk p as te i s co ns um ed t o tr ea t st om ac ha ch e. i t is al so us ef ul fo r r he um at ism a nd w ou nd s. fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 10 m im osa p ud ica l . (l eg um in os ae ) s rs 1 46 la jja w at i ro ot ju ic e ta ke n or al ly to tr ea t i nd ig es tio n. b fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 9 n yct an th es ar bo r-t ris tis l . (o le ac ea e) s rs 1 49 pa rij at le av es d ec oc tio n is dr un k to tr ea t f ev er . fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 10 b ar k ju ic e is us ed fo r t oo th in fe ct io n. b o ph iog los su m pe tio lat um l . (o ph io gl os sa ce ae ) s rs 1 61 jib re sa g w ho le p la nt is c on su m ed a s v eg et ab le s.b m od er at e fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 10 o ro xy lum in dic um (l .) v en t. (b ig no ni ac ea e) s rs 1 62 ta te lo ba rk d ec oc tio n is ta ke n or al ly to tr ea t j au nd ic e. m od er at e fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 11 o xa lis co rn icu lat a l. (o xa lid ac ea e) s rs 1 63 c ha ria m il o le av es ju ic e is ta ke n or al ly to tr ea t d ia rr he a an d dy se nt er y. fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 7 ph yll an th us em bli ca l . (e up ho rb ia ce ae ) s rs 1 65 a m al a fr ui t po w de r or d ec oc tio n is ta ke n to t re at d ia rr he a, dy se nt er y an d ja un di ce . fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt m ul tip le 13 pi nu s r ox bu rgh ii sa rg en t. (p in ac ea e) s rs 1 66 k ho te sa ll o re sin is a pp lie d on b od y pa rt to t re at m us cu la r pa in s or cr am ps .b m od er at e fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 11 w oo d is us ed fo r f ur ni tu re a nd a s f ire w oo d. pi pe r l on gu m li nn . (p ip er ac ea e) s rs 1 67 pi pl a fr ui t an d ro ot p ow de r or p as te i s us ed t o tre at a st hm a, br on ch iti s a nd c ou gh . m od er at e fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 10 po go ste mo n be ng ale ns is (b ur m .f. ) ( la bi at ae ) s rs 1 68 ru dh ilo ba rk ju ic e is us ed to tr ea t t oo th p ro bl em s.b m od er at e fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 9 ra uv olf ia ser pe nt in a (l .) be nt h. e x k ur z (a po cy na ce ae ) s rs 1 69 sa rp ag an d ha ro ot p as te is u se d to tr ea t sn ak eb ite s an d bl oo d pr es su re co nt ro l. m od er at e fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt sin gl e 12 it is a lso b en ef ic ia l f or u lc er .b ri cin us co mm un is l. (e up ho rb ia ce ae ) s rs 1 70 a rin le av es d ec oc tio n is us ed is c on su m ed to tr ea t g ou t. fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 9 54     sa pin du s m uk or oss i g ae rtn . (s ap in da ce ae ) s rs 1 71 ri tth a fr ui ts ar e us ed as al te rn at iv es of so ap s an d av oi d da nd ru ff s. m od er at e fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt sin gl e 12 sc hle ich era ol eos a ( lo ur .) o ke n (s ap in da ce ae ) s rs 17 2 k us um ri pe n fr ui ts a re ta ke n to tr ea t u rin ar y pr ob le m s.b m od er at e fr eq ue nt ra re m ul tip le 11 se me ca rp us a na ca rd iu m l. f. (a na ca rd ia ce ae ) s rs 1 73 bh al ay o fr ui ts a re c on su m ed o ra lly i n fe ve r, st om ac h pr ob le m s an d pi le s. m od er at e fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 10 it is al so us ed fo r ne rv es , co ns tip at io n an d le pr os y. e xc es siv e us e of f ru it ju ic e is co ns id er ed to c au se s te ril ity in w om en .b sh or ea ro bu sta g ae rt n. (d ip te ro ca rp ac ea e) s rs 1 74 sa l re sin is us ed a ga in st d ys en te ry . w oo d is va lu ed f or co ns tru ct io n an d fu rn itu re . le av es a re u se d fo r m ak in g pl at es . fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt m ul tip le 12 sp on dia s p in na ta (l . f .) k ur z (a na ca rd ia ce ae ) s rs 2 77 a m ar o ba rk j ui ce i s ta ke n or al ly o r fr ui ts a re c he w ed t o tre at co ug h ra re oc ca sio na l sin gl e 12 sy mp loc os ra cem osa r ox b. (s ym pl oc ac ea e) s r s 27 9 d ab da be , lo dh ba rk ju ic e is us ed fo r b lo od c lo tti ng .b m od er at e fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 10 sy zy giu m cu mi ni (l .) sk ee ls (m yr ta ce ae ) s rs 2 81 ja m un se ed d ec oc tio n is ta ke n or al ly to tr ea t d ia be te s. m od er at e fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 11 ta ma rin du s i nd ica l . (l eg um in os ae ) s rs 2 83 im li d ec oc tio n of l ea ve s dr un k an d he lp s to j oi n fr ac tu re d bo ne s o r t re at sp ra in .b m od er at e fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 10 te rm in ali a ala ta h ey ne e x. ro th . ( c om br et ac ea e) s rs 28 5 sa j ba rk ju ic e is us ed a ga in st c ut s a nd w ou nd s. m od er at e fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt m ul tip le 14 te rm in ali a be lli ric a (g ae rtn .) ro xb . ( c om br et ac ea e) s rs 28 7 ba re la fr ui t po w de r is co ns um ed or al ly to tre at st om ac h pr ob le m s, di ar rh ea , d ys en te ry a nd c ou gh . m od er at e fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 11 te rm in ali a ch eb ula r et z. (c om br et ac ea e) s r s 28 9 h ar el a fr ui t de co ct io n is co ns um ed or al ly to tre at di ar rh ea , dy se nt er y, st om ac ha ch e an d co ug h. m od er at e fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 11 th ysa no lae na m ax im a (r ox b. ) o .k un tz e (g ra m in ae ) s rs 39 1 a m ris o u se d to m ak e br oo m . m od er at e fr eq ue nt fr eq ue nt sin gl e 11 ti no sp or a sin en sis (l ou r.) m er r. (m en isp er m ac ea e) sr s 39 2 g ur jo tu be r or s te m in fu sio n ta ke n or al ly t o tre at g as tri tis a nd di ar rh ea . m od er at e fr eq ue nt ra re sin gl e 10 w oo dfo rd ia fru tic osa (l .) k ur z. (l yt ha ra ce ae ) s rs 3 93 d ha ye ro fl ow er p ow de r i s t ak en th ro ug h no se to tr ea t s in us iti s.b fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 9 t he p ow de r i s a lso ta ke n or al ly to tr ea t f ev er . zi zy ph us m au rit ian a la m . (r ha m na ce ae ) s rs 4 01 ba ya r ba rk ju ic e is ta ke n or al ly to tr ea t d ia rr he a an d dy se nt er y. fr eq ue nt oc ca sio na l sin gl e 10 b n ew m ed ic al re m ed ie s o r e th no bo ta ni ca l u se . final bankojanakari 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 17 the national conservation strategy (1988) and other policies had recognized the churia hills as a fragile and environmentally sensitive ecosystem that must be preserved. similarly, the lrmp (1986) had classified the churia hills as ‘protection forest’. but the churia hill forest resources and watershed conditions have been rapidly degraded due to its overexploitation for timber, firewood, non-timber forest products such as bamboo; over-grazing; and frequent forest fires in a classic case of ‘the tragedy of commons’ (hardin, 1968). due to their rapid degradation, the churia hills have turned into a source of siltation. consequently, valuable agricultural lands of the terai, considered the ‘granary for nepal’ have been rendered into unproductive river-beds. this study assesses how the over-exploited land use of the upstream churia hills resources has negatively affected the downstream terai people along the perspective of the environmental services linking the churia hills to the terai plains. the costa rican forest law 7575, cited in mayrand & paquin, 2004, provides a definition of environmental services as follows: “those services provided by forests and forestry plantations that have an impact on environmental protection and improvements. they are: mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions (fixing, reduction, sequestration, warehousing and absorption); protection of water for urban, rural or hydroelectric use; biodiversity protection to conserve it and for sustainable, scientific and pharmaceutical use; genetic research and improvement; protection of ecosystems, life forms and natural scenic beauty for tourism and scientific ends”. further, wunder (2005) classified payment for environmental services (pes) schemes into four services: (i) carbon sink functions: such as an electricity company paying farmers in the tropics for planting and maintaining additional trees, (ii) hydrological functions: downstream water users paying upstream farmers for adopting land uses that limit deforestation, soil erosion, flooding risks, (iii) biodiversity: conservation donors paying local people for setting aside or naturally restoring areas to create a biological corridor, and (iv) landscape aesthetics/ecotourism: tourism operators paying a local community not to hunt in a forest being used for tourists’ wildlife viewing. wunder had defined the principle of pes as a voluntary, conditional agreement between at least one “seller” and one “buyer” for well-defined environmental services or a land use presumed to produce those services i.e. if the provider continuously secures the assessment of the upstream churia hills and downstream terai plains linkage: an environmental services perspective b.k. singh1 the terai, considered the granary of nepal, is facing serious threat from siltation originating from the churia hills mainly due to heavy deforestation together with forest and watershed degradation. discussions with local community people revealed that no such problem existed 5-6 decades ago when the churia forest was intact. all the forestry sector policies had recognized the churia hills as fragile and environmentally sensitive, but the concerned government agencies and the local community people have not been able to conserve this region effectively. there is heavy exploitation of the churia hills for the extraction of timber, firewood, non-timber forest products, and for grazing resources. in addition, gravel, sand and boulders are also being extracted for the sake of revenue to the local governments. jalad river of dhanusha district originating from the churia hills has been converting fertile and productive agriculture lands into barren river beds at the rate of 25 hectares a year. the churia hills should be conserved for the environmental services of the watershed to the entire terai region rather than for provisioning tangible forest products services only to the upstream local communities. key words: environmental services, churia-terai linkage, pes, upstream-downstream 1 a free-lance forestry consultant working in nepal. email: singhbk@ntc.net.np banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 18 provision of the service (conditionality). this concept suggests that pes schemes can enable both sellers and buyers of environmental services to be better off and at the same time help to better conserve the resource base. with the need for ecosystem management to ensure a supply of ecosystem goods and services, a number of innovative financing mechanisms have been adopted in different countries because public budgets for this purpose have fallen short. pes is a kind of voluntary contractual arrangement that is implemented as a conservation financing mechanism to achieve the dual goal of environmental conservation and poverty reduction in developing countries. for pes to work, the downstream benefits must be more than the opportunity costs of the land use changes upstream. how much the downstream beneficiaries should pay depends on the quantity of benefits they receive or damage they suffer as a result of change in upstream land uses while how much the upstream service providers should be willing to bear as compensation depends on opportunity costs to them. upstream land uses are the issues that are addressed and payments are made to bring changes in improved land use practices that can contribute to the watershed services. out of the four environmental services, the discussion is focused on watershed services. practices of pes financed by the users and/or government in other countries include: ecuador (wunder and alban, 2007), pes in costa rica (pagiola, 2007), the payments for hydrological environmental services (psah) program in mexico (muñoz et al., 2007), payments for watershed services in pimampiro, cauca valley watershed management, colombia (wunder and alban, 2007), and sukhomajri, india. pagiola (2007) reported that costa rica had pioneered the use of payments for environmental services (pes) in developing countries by establishing a formal, country-wide program of payments (pago por servios ambientales, psa). the psa has been partly credited for helping the country, once known for having one of the world’s highest deforestation rates, to achieve negative net deforestation by the early 2000s. in the beginning of 1997, costa rica developed an elaborate pes program. the forest law no. 7575, enacted in 1996, explicitly recognized four environmental services provided by forest ecosystems: (i) mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions; (ii) hydrological services, including provision of water for human consumption, irrigation, and energy consumption; (iii) biodiversity conservation; and (iv) provision of scenic beauty for recreation and ecotourism. materials and methods this research was carried out in the upstream and downstream vdcs of the jalad river in dhanusha district, nepal (figure 1). three sub-watersheds regions of the jalad river namely: jagadhar, chamainiya and jalad streams itself were selected. jagadhar stream flows in the eastern part and jalad stream in the western part whereas chamainiya in the middle part of the watershed area. these three streams meet at the churia foothills and flow down to bhabar and terai region as the jalad river. the total length of the jalad river is 55 km from its origin to the indian border. the jalad river, originating from the churia hills, is a seasonal river. the study was conducted during 2006-2008. of the total 1635 riveraffected households, 627 households (~38%) in 10 vdcs were surveyed and interviewed to assess the effects of the river. sample design was based on simple random sampling method. analysis of household data was also done on upstream, midstream and downstream vdcs. in the upstream, there were two vdcs namely pushpalpur and hariharpur. the upstream vdcs had forest resources and the households were within 5 km distance and had easy access to the churia forest resources such as fodder, grazing, firewood, timber and non-timber forest products. some also had access to and control over community forests. four vdcs namely digamberpur, sakhuwa mahendranagar, tarapatti sirsiya and gopalpur were part of the midstream, within 5-10 km distance from the churia foothill. the midstream households had limited or no access to government forest resources of the churia hills such as firewood, timber and some nontimber forest products. the downstream (beyond 10 km distance from the churia foothills) covered four vdcs of baniniya, bainga shivpur, kachuri thera and andupatti katharait. the households of the downstream vdcs did not enter the forests of the churia hills for any forest products. they did not have access to any kind of forest products. but one commonality shared by all the households from the upstream, midstream and downstream was the negative effects of the jalad river: either by riverbank cutting and/or by siltation. singh banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 19 source: department of survey/gon, topographic map, 1996 fig 1 : study area in dhanusha district, nepal 3 source: department of survey/gon, topographic map, 1996 figure 1: study area in dhanusha district, nepal analysis of household data was also done on upstream, midstream and downstream vdcs. in the upstream, there were two vdcs namely pushpalpur and hariharpur. the upstream vdcs had forest resources and the households were within 5 km distance and had easy access to the churia forest resources such as fodder, grazing, firewood, timber and nonsingh banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 20 forest inventory was done to assess the density of the forest (seedlings, saplings, poles, and trees per hectare) in the jalad sub-watershed area, according to the guideline for inventory of community forests, 2004. geographical information system (gis) and global positioning system (gps) were used to measure the width of the river and inventory the forest. further, gis enabled the comparison of river width with past records and to measure how much productive agricultural land area had been converted into unproductive river beds due to river-cutting in upstream and deposition of silts in downstream. results and discussion forest stocking in the upstream watershed area of the jalad river in the churia hills were: 19 trees, 351 poles, 2539 saplings and 4346 seedlings per hectare (table 1). the forest condition was poor due to overextraction of trees and poles for fuel wood and timber. the seedlings and saplings were negatively affected by frequent forest fires and heavy grazing. according to the community forest inventory guidelines (2004), 2000-5000 seedlings per hectare is categorized as ‘fairly good’ more than 2000 saplings per hectare is categorized as ‘good’ (cpfd, 2004). however, the number of trees and poles per hectare were found to be considerably low. table 1 : forest condition in the churia hills of jalad watershed area of the jalad river could commute within a day. but the study revealed three grazing patterns in the watershed areas. they were: (i) the local community people grazed their animals to the extent that they could return home in a day. such grazing was practiced throughout the year within 6 km of the outer face of the churia hills. (ii) during the rainy reason, grazing was prohibited in some terai villages after rice planting in julyaugust. some of the households in the midstream constructed temporary animal-sheds in the churia foothills outside the forest and grazing was done to the extent they could commute in a day. this type of grazing was carried out mainly during the 4 months of the rainy season. (iii) the third type of grazing was done in the interior area of the sub-watersheds for 8 months other than the rainy season. the people of the dhanusha district and sindhuli districts kept their animal sheds inside the forest. this has greatly damaged the interior watershed. there were at least 8-10 such animal sheds in the watershed area of the jalad river. heavy grazing in the watershed has negative impact on forest resources of the watershed area by contributing directly and indirectly to soil erosion and landslides. in total, about 1400 animals (goats, cows and buffaloes) grazed in the jalad sub-watersheds daily, contributing to the degradation of the watershed. three villages viz. (i) magar tole of pushpalpur vdc, (ii) chheri pokhar village of digamberpur ward no. 4 and (iii) the kathrait village down to jalad bridge, on the dhanushadham-janakpur had been completely displaced by river-bank cutting. according to the local people, about 150 households had been affected due to river-bank cutting. three wells and a bridge can be observed on the middle of the jalad river as evidence of the effects of river-bank cutting in the villages. of the 627 households interviewed, 107 households (17%) had completely lost their lands. a total of 440 hectares of private lands, 138 hectares of public land and 101 hectares of trustee land had been converted to river-beds. this had negative impacts on the economy of poor households, their livelihoods and food security. 4 timber forest products. some also had access to and control over community forests. four vdcs namely digamberpur, sakhuwa mahendranagar, tarapatti sirsiya and gopalpur were part of the midstream, within 5-10 km distance from the churia foothill. the midstream households had limited or no access to government forest resources of the churia hills such as firewood, timber and some non-timber forest products. the downstream (beyond 10 km distance from the churia foothills) covered four vdcs of baniniya, bainga shivpur, kachuri thera and andupatti katharait. the households of the downstream vdcs did not enter the forests of the churia hills for any forest products. they did not have access to any kind of forest products. but one commonality shared by all the households from the upstream, midstream and downstream was the negative effects of the jalad river: either by river-bank cutting and/or by siltation. forest inventory was done to assess the density of the forest (seedlings, saplings, poles, and trees per hectare) in the jalad sub-watershed area, according to the guideline for inventory of community forests, 2004. geographical information system (gis) and global positioning system (gps) were used to measure the width of the river and inventory the forest. further, gis enabled the comparison of river width with past records and to measure how much productive agricultural land area had been converted into unproductive river beds due to river-cutting in upstream and deposition of silts in downstream. results and discussions forest stocking in the upstream watershed area of the jalad river in the churia hills were: 19 trees, 351 poles, 2539 saplings and 4346 seedlings per hectare (table 1). the forest condition was poor due to over-extraction of trees and poles for fuel wood and timber. the seedlings and saplings were negatively affected by frequent forest fires and heavy grazing. according to the community forest inventory guidelines (2004), 2000-5000 seedlings per hectare is categorized as 'fairly good' more than 2000 saplings per hectare is categorized as 'good' (cfdp, 2004). however, the number of trees and poles per hectare were found to be considerably low. table 1: forest condition in the churia hills of jalad watershed area of the jalad river sn category no. /ha 1 trees (more than 30 cm diameter) 19 2 poles (10-30 cm diameter) 351 3 saplings (more than 1 meter tall with diameter below 10 cm) 2539 4 seedling or regeneration (less than 1 meter seedling of tree species) 4346 source: forest inventory by sirf, 2008 both observation and forest inventory confirmed that the churia hill forest resources were rapidly deteriorating both in quality and quantity due to heavy grazing, over-exploitation of forest products for firewood and timber and by frequent fires. the people of madhubasa village were gradually encroaching on the forest. the heavy pressures on the forest resources and over-extraction of the forest products had significantly degraded the watershed area of the jalad river. initially, it was assumed that the local community people grazed their animals only in the areas they could commute within a day. but the study revealed three grazing patterns in the watershed areas. they were: both observation and forest inventory confirmed that the churia hill forest resources were rapidly deteriorating both in quality and quantity due to heavy grazing, over-exploitation of forest products for firewood and timber and by frequent fires. the people of madhubasa village were gradually encroaching on the forest. the heavy pressures on the forest resources and over-extraction of the forest products had significantly degraded the watershed area of the jalad river. initially, it was assumed that the local community people grazed their animals only in the areas they singh banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 21 6 table 2: stream-wise loss of private lands by river-cutting and siltation stream-wise group of vdcs total land loss in ha (approx) total households hh mean land loss in ha/hh max land loss in ha/hh upstream vdcs 100 116 0.86 7.33 midstream vdcs 105 212 0.49 2.67 downstream vdcs 236 299 0.79 5.33 total 441 627 0.71 source: social survey, social inclusion research fund (sirf), 2008 community level discussions on the loss of common property in each vdc reported that irrigation canals, schools, common land, trustee land, pond, road, wells, bridges, culverts, club houses and hand pumps had also been destroyed. environmental services of the jalad river irrigation in the midstream and downstream is a clear environment service of the jalad river. about 16 km south of the churia foothills, hardinath irrigation canal was constructed in the midstream of the jalad river. the hardinath irrigation canal was inaugurated on 24 september 1967. designed for 2000 hectares of gross command area, only 1694 hectare area has actually been serviced. 21 committees in the western branch, 13 committees in the eastern branch and one main committee together regulate this irrigation system. the discharge capacity was 1 cubic meter (1000 liter) per second and it covered 12 vdcs with 3000 households or a population of about 18,000. the total length was 14.5 km. currently, the deposition of silts and sands by the flood waters in this canal has become very high compared to the past (evrec, 1998). the proportion of the total land holding with perennial irrigation facility was 19.5% while 31% of the land was partially irrigated, the rest was rain fed. commonly grown crops in the irrigated area were early and monsoon paddy, wheat, potato, oilseeds and pulses. almost 100% of the irrigated land during the monsoon season was reserved for paddy. wheat was the second crop for the irrigated area, followed by pulses, potato and oilseeds. table 3 presents the production of major crops in the fully irrigated, partially irrigated and rain fed areas. for example, rice production was 2.8 tons per hectare per year in the irrigated land but only 2.0 tons per hectare per year in the partially irrigated land and 1.4 tons per hectare per year in the rain fed lands. table 3: difference in agriculture production in the command area of hardinath irrigation system average production in metric ton/ha types of land paddy wheat potato pulse oil seed irrigation facility for the whole year 2.8 1.75 12.0 0.97 0.87 partial irrigation facility 2.0 1.25 8.7 0.80 0.75 rain fed land 1.4 0.00 0.0 0.67 0.53 source: everest research center (evrec), 1998 availability of water for irrigation from the rivers in the terai is an environmental service. though the source of water was from the churia hills, this has not been acknowledged as an environmental service of the churia hills by neither the government agencies or by the local communities. similarly, annual flooding, sedimentation or siltation, and/or river-bank cutting in the bhabar and/or the terai have not yet been causally linked as a negative environmental impact due to over-exploitation of natural resources and degradation of watershed in the churia hills. the local people reported that the river carried large amounts of sediments during the rainy season. in the past, the jalad river was deep; now, it has become shallow and overflows table 2 summarizes private land loss due to riverbank cutting and siltation. the 627 households sampled had lost 440 hectares of private lands. of the private lands, average land loss per household was 0.70 hectare. the maximum loss of the land of a household was 7.33 hectares. land is a prime property for sustaining livelihoods in the terai. land ownership is also a source of social status for wealthy families in the terai. analysis of data shows that the upstream and the downstream households had lost more private lands (on an average) than the midstream households. community level discussions on the loss of common property in each vdc reported that irrigation canals, schools, common land, trustee land, pond, road, wells, bridges, culverts, club houses and hand pumps had also been destroyed. environmental services of the jalad river irrigation in the midstream and downstream is a clear environment service of the jalad river. about 16 km south of the churia foothills, hardinath irrigation canal was constructed in the midstream of the jalad river. the hardinath irrigation canal was inaugurated on 24 september 1967. designed for 2000 hectares of gross command area, only 1694 hectare area has actually been serviced. 21 committees in the western branch, 13 committees in the eastern branch and one main committee together regulate this irrigation system. the discharge capacity was 1 cubic meter (1000 liter) per second and it covered 12 vdcs with 3000 households or a population of about 18,000. the total length was 14.5 km. currently, the deposition of silts and sands by the flood waters in this canal has become very high compared to the past (evrec, 1998). the proportion of the total land holding with perennial irrigation facility was 19.5% while 31% of the land was partially irrigated, the rest was rain fed. commonly grown crops in the irrigated area were early and monsoon paddy, wheat, potato, oilseeds and pulses. almost 100% of the irrigated land during the monsoon season was reserved for paddy. wheat was the second crop for the irrigated area, followed by pulses, potato and oilseeds. table 3 presents the production of major crops in the fully irrigated, partially irrigated and rain fed areas. for example, rice production was 2.8 tons per hectare per year in the irrigated land but only 2.0 tons per hectare per year in the partially irrigated land and 1.4 tons per hectare per year in the rain fed lands. availability of water for irrigation from the rivers in the terai is an environmental service. though the source of water was from the churia hills, this has not been acknowledged as an environmental service of the churia hills by neither the government agencies or by the local communities. similarly, annual flooding, sedimentation or siltation, and/or riverbank cutting in the bhabar and/or the terai have not yet been causally linked as a negative environmental impact due to over-exploitation of natural resources and degradation of watershed in the churia hills. the local people reported that the river carried large amounts of sediments during the rainy season. in the past, the jalad river was deep; now, it has become shallow and overflows into the neighboring agriculture fields during floods. the jalad river has eroded the upstream and downstream banks and large amounts of sediments have been deposited as a delta in front of the headwork. the discharge capacities 6 table 2: stream-wise loss of private lands by river-cutting and siltation stream-wise group of vdcs total land loss in ha (approx) total households hh mean land loss in ha/hh max land loss in ha/hh upstream vdcs 100 116 0.86 7.33 midstream vdcs 105 212 0.49 2.67 downstream vdcs 236 299 0.79 5.33 total 440 627 0.70 7.33 source: social survey, social inclusion research fund (sirf), 2008 community level discussions on the loss of common property in each vdc reported that irrigation canals, schools, common land, trustee land, pond, road, wells, bridges, culverts, club houses and hand pumps had also been destroyed. environmental services of the jalad river irrigation in the midstream and downstream is a clear environment service of the jalad river. about 16 km south of the churia foothills, hardinath irrigation canal was constructed in the midstream of the jalad river. the hardinath irrigation canal was inaugurated on 24 september 1967. designed for 2000 hectares of gross command area, only 1694 hectare area has actually been serviced. 21 committees in the western branch, 13 committees in the eastern branch and one main committee together regulate this irrigation system. the discharge capacity was 1 cubic meter (1000 liter) per second and it covered 12 vdcs with 3000 households or a population of about 18,000. the total length was 14.5 km. currently, the deposition of silts and sands by the flood waters in this canal has become very high compared to the past (evrec, 1998). the proportion of the total land holding with perennial irrigation facility was 19.5% while 31% of the land was partially irrigated, the rest was rain fed. commonly grown crops in the irrigated area were early and monsoon paddy, wheat, potato, oilseeds and pulses. almost 100% of the irrigated land during the monsoon season was reserved for paddy. wheat was the second crop for the irrigated area, followed by pulses, potato and oilseeds. table 3 presents the production of major crops in the fully irrigated, partially irrigated and rain fed areas. for example, rice production was 2.8 tons per hectare per year in the irrigated land but only 2.0 tons per hectare per year in the partially irrigated land and 1.4 tons per hectare per year in the rain fed lands. table 3: difference in agriculture production in the command area of hardinath irrigation system average production in metric ton/ha types of land paddy wheat potato pulse oil seed irrigation facility for the whole year 2.8 1.75 12.0 0.97 0.87 partial irrigation facility 2.0 1.25 8.7 0.80 0.75 rain fed land 1.4 0.00 0.0 0.67 0.53 source: everest research center (evrec), 1998 availability of water for irrigation from the rivers in the terai is an environmental service. though the source of water was from the churia hills, this has not been acknowledged as an environmental service of the churia hills by neither the government agencies or by the local communities. similarly, annual flooding, sedimentation or siltation, and/or river-bank cutting in the bhabar and/or the terai have not yet been causally linked as a negative environmental impact due to over-exploitation of natural resources and degradation of watershed in the churia hills. the local people reported that the river carried large amounts of sediments during the rainy season. in the past, the jalad river was deep; now, it has become shallow and overflows table 2 : stream-wise loss of private lands by river-cutting and siltation table 3 : difference in agriculture production in the command area of hardinath irrigation system singh banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 22 of the main canals have been diminished due to the deposition of sediments. this has negatively affected the irrigation of the agriculture land leading to low production of crops and ultimately to food insecurity. currently, irrigation areas have been reduced from 1600 hectares to about 1200 hectares during monsoon and to 300 hectares during the nonmonsoon period (evrec, 1998). when queried why the jalad river had negatively affected more land now than 5-6 decades ago, the local people offered some cogent explanations. in the past, three streams of jalad rivers namely: chamainiya, jagadhar and jalad itself used to flow separately. chamainiya stream used to meet about 2 km south from the point where they currently meet. similarly, jagadhar stream used to meet about 15 km south in jalad stream just before the hardinath irrigation dam but at present it meets at the churia foothills. the meeting of jagadhar and chamainiya streams at the churia foothills augmented the flood water volume and caused serious negative impacts such as river bank cutting and over flooding. in the past, the downstream people had collected the forest products from the jalad watershed for their basic needs only. now they harvest forest products both for the fulfillment of their basic needs and for commercial purposes and did not hesitate to fell trees, poles and saplings. the gorges of the churia hills were choked with bamboo clumps and the forest canopy and ground cover was so thick in the past that they not only slowed the speed and energy of the flood but also absorbed huge amounts of water into the churia hills. thus, only a small amount of water flowed out into the streams and this caused less floods and river-cutting effects in the bhabar and the terai. moreover, the river beds of the jalad and jagadhar streams were covered with dense forests of sissoo (dalbergia sissoo) and khair (acacia catechu) that served as filters. presently, there are no such forests in the upstream to serve this purpose. the bhabar with only sub-surface water plays an important role for the terai. river water cannot be detected in the bhabar zone. nine kilometers of jalad river flows through the dense foothills. according to the local people, 6-7 decades ago, the bhabar zone was covered with dense forest that soaked the percolating water at sub-surface level and released only small amount of overland flow so there was only nominal negative effect in the terai zone. currently, there is only a small patch of community forest in the western bank of the bhabar zone along the jalad river. a small amount of rain water directly flows into the creeks and streams loaded with heavy quantities of sand, gravel and stone, and turns into a big flood when it comes to the river. even in a small rain, it causes a lot of damage in the bhabar and the terai zone. thus, there is a direct linkage between upstream and downstream. according to the freeman’s stakeholder theory (2001), the stakeholders are “groups and individuals who benefit from or are harmed by, and whose rights are violated or respected by corporate actions”. any group or individual who can affect, or is affected by, are considered stakeholders. although downstream communities were victims of the jalad river, they have not been recognized as stakeholders and so they have been excluded in the conservation and management of the upstream churia hills resources. there was a lack of awareness among the river-affected downstream people, communities and government and/or nongovernment organizations and community-based organizations that they were also key stakeholders of the jalad river. the major problems/issues related with the environmental services were: (a) lack of explicit government policy on environmental services, (b) lack of accounting system developed and approved by the government agencies for environmental services, (c) lack of awareness among the public and most of the stakeholders on environmental services, (d) environmental services were neither recognized nor institutionalized in the concerned agencies, and (e) lack of research evidence to convince the policy makers to recognize and institutionalize the environmental services. some of the challenges concerning pes set up in nepal are: • lack of scientific evidences establishing linkages between watershed ecosystem management and hydrological services generated despite its efforts on watershed management; • lack of awareness regarding pes concept among people, resource managers and policy makers and lack of recognition in national policies; and • lack of property rights in the hills which complicates the design and implementation of pes schemes. singh banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 23 the ministry of forests and soil conservation ought to develop a comprehensive policy and laws to launch programs for upstream-downstream linkage between the churia and the terai, in close consultation with the local government and other concerned agencies. recognizing churia as a fragile ecological zone, the chure-bhabar and the terai should be considered as one management regime within one administrative and political unit. ecologically, the churia and the terai should be considered as one landscape for protecting terai. changing the behavior of the people living nearby must be a priority to reduce the extraction of tangible products. over-exploitation of churia resources should be reduced to protect terai, the granary of the country. given that food products are now imported, the terai food production cannot be sustained without the conservation of churia. it is a must for national food security. investment on the chure conservation must be done for its environmental services to terai agriculture. conclusion ecologically, churia, bhabar and terai zones are interlinked. they should not be separated for management purposes in the restructuring of state boundary based on settlement of hill or terai originpeople. the downstream communities are the key stakeholders for the conservation and management of the churia hills. their roles and responsibilities should be recognized and well defined. this study has determined that upstream land use change including deforestation, forest degradation, agriculture, ranching and/or over-grazing were major problems responsible for watershed degradation leading to major environmental problems in terms of siltation downstream. siltation in the terai should be viewed as a breakdown of environmental services by watersheds of the churia hills. this has not yet been recognized by the government agencies or by the local communities due to a lack of awareness, knowledge, skills and also due to acute poverty in the upstream churia hills and the downstream terai agricultural communities. similarly, annual flooding, sedimentation or siltation, and/or river-bank cutting in the bhabar and/or the terai have not yet been considered as negative environmental products nor has its harmful impact due to over-exploitation of natural resources and degradation of watershed or sub-watersheds in the churia hills been acknowledged. in a nutshell, churia hills and the terai should be interlinked along the perspective of environmental services. acknowledgements the author would like to express his sincere gratitude to prof. dr. abhoy kumar das and dr. binod bhatta for their guidance and to dr. s. n. rai and mr. sahas man shrestha for their inputs. the social inclusion research fund (sirf) of the winrock international, kathmandu and the indigenous peoples foundation, kathmandu provided funding for this study. references cpfd. 2004. revised guideline for inventory of community forests. community and private forest division, department of forest, kathmandu, nepal (nepali version). 47p. evrec. 1998. diagnostic study of hardinath irrigation system (final report). everest research center, kathmandu, nepal, 39-41. freeman, r.e. 2001. a stakeholder theory of modern corporation. in business ethics (3rd ed.) (eds) snoeyenbos, almender and humber, newyork, prometheus books, 101-114. hardin, g. 1968. the tragedy of commons. science 162: 1243-1248. lrmp. 1986. land resource mapping project report, kathmandu, nepal. muñoz g., guevara, a., torres j.m., and braña, j. 2008. paying for the hydrological services of mexico’s forests: analysis, negotiations and results. ecological economics 65: 725-736. www.elsevier.com or www.sciencedirect.com pagiola, s. 2008. payments for environmental services in costa rica. ecological economics 65: 712724. www.sciencedirect.com wunder, s. 2005. payments for environmental services: some nuts and bolts. cifor occasional paper no. 42, bogor, indonesia, 2-3. wunder, s. and albán, m. 2008. decentralized payments for environmental services: the case of pimampiro, ecuador. ecological economics 67: 685-698. www.sciencedirect.com. singh churia conservation: efforts and challenges in nepal the churia range (also called siwaliks) rises steeply from the terai plains and extends as a contiguous landscape from east to west. it is bordered by the mahabharat range in the north and by the terai in the south. the churia is young and composed of unconsolidated loose materials originated from soft rocks such as mudstone, sandstone, silt stone and shale. soils are mostly formed on sedimentary rocks with shallow and coarse textured soils. steep slopes and weakly consolidation of different layers is prone to severe surface erosion. it is stretched in 36 districts of the country, and incorporates about 12.76% of the total area, where more than 15% of the total population of the country reside. despite with nearly 72.37% of the churia under forest cover and rich in biodiversity, it is alarming and considered vulnerable to natural disasters such as landslides, erosions, flood and climate change impacts. vulnerability of fragile ecosystem is further aggravated by numerous anthropogenic interventions such as settlement through encroachment, clearing of forests for cultivation, over exploitation of timber and other forest products through illegal logging, uncontrolled grazing, excavation and extraction of sand and gravel thereby rapidly changing the face of the region. it can be seen that around 6.5 million cubic metre of gravel, stone and sand are legally extracted every year from the region and the illegal extractions are expected to be twice as much. in addition, the water flowing from the churia range usually brings an immense amount of debris and deposits them in the main river channels downstream. these deposited debris reduce the carrying capacity of the rivers, which causes riverbed rising, river bank cutting, flashfloods and desertification of agricultural lands, siltation of reservoirs and barrages, and breaching of roads and bridges usually causes loss of life and properties in churia as well as downstream terai. recent researches observed that rivers from churia range have widened and shifted from their original course to a greater extent such as in the koshi, balan, ratu, lakhandehi, bangeri dudhaura and mohana. there are many government, nongovernmental and international organizations involved in churia conservation namely terai arc landscape (tal) project and western terai landscape complex project (wtlcp), world wildlife fund (wwf), german technical cooperation (gtz) of germany, international union for conservation of nature (iucn), cooperative for assistance and relief everywhere (care)-nepal and department banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 2 for international development (dfid). however, no desired objectives of soil and water conservation and natural resources management could yet be achieved because of their individualistic approach. the government of nepal (gon) has promulgated necessary acts and regulations, strategies and plans in which an urgent need of churia conservation is placed on the highest priority. in this regard, the ministry of forests and soil conservation (mofsc) has been working on “president chure conservation programme” since 2011. more than three years after its launch, the ‘iconic’ president chure conservation programme became unable to address the issues to protect the fast denuding chure and the inner terai range. the mofsc is leading and implementing this programme in 27 districts through its two departments namely department of forests and department of soil conservation and watershed management. the lack of commitment from the political parties and their local representatives, lack of adequate support from the bureaucratic level and lack of performance-based analysis of the current status of the region are some challenges in the implementation aspect of the programme. having realized such intricacy in addressing the challenges in churia conservation, the gon has recently established the president chure terai madesh conservation committee under the development committee act, 2013 to address the issues in integrated approach. environmental degradation in the churia region is not only limited in the upstream areas rather it has created more severe disasters in the downstream areas of the terai region as well. a good understanding and interaction between the people of upstream and downstream must be established to have the conservation and mitigation activities implemented. these might be achieved by forming community organizations and networking in the river system. integrated watershed management could be optimal option to address the aforementioned issues through identified conservation activities implemented effectively and strong coordination among all the concerned stakeholders. baseline survey of both the socio-economic and bio-physical situation need to be known before any conservation and development activities start in the region. the research, survey and study programmes are equally important in this regard since, in one hand, they provide references for monitoring, supervision and evaluation of the programme implementation while, on the other hand, they justify the priorities, significance and urgency of the conservation activities in a scientific way. utilization of land reclamation area offers the potentiality of increasing greenery as well as providing forest products. this study refers to the identification of the land reclamation areas and potential plantation areas on the bagmati river-basin in the terai region of nepal, and recommends appropriate species for plantation in order to rehabilitate such areas. multi-temporal landsat satellite images (landsat 7 and landsat 8) were acquired for 2002 and 2014. object-based image classification method was used to classify the land cover classes into four broad categories: i) water, ii) sand and gravel, iii) plantation potential (open areas suitable for plantation) and iii) others (forest, agriculture, built-up areas etc.). the mean normalized difference water index (ndwi) values and mean brightness values were found to be helpful in identifying the water and sand & gravel areas from the other land cover classes. the overall classification accuracy was 0.97 with a kappa coefficient of 0.89 in the case of the 2014 image classification. in this study, the land reclamation area referred to the areas occupied by water, sand & gravel on the river-beds that were converted into plantation potential and other classes between 2002 and 2014. similarly, the potential plantation area referred to the summation of the area of reclaimed land, the area of ‘others’ class converted into ‘plantation potential’ class and the area that remained to be plantation potential on the bed of the bagmati river and its tributaries between 2002 and 2014. altogether, 4,819.10 ha land was reclaimed in the study area, and a total of 5,395.10 ha land was found to be potential for plantation within the study area. k e y w or d s : bagmati river basin, land reclamation, object-based image classification, potential plantation area, terai identification of land reclamation area and potential plantation area on bagmati river-basin in the terai region of nepal a. k. acharya1*, a. k. chaudhary1 and s. khanal1 land use and land cover data are essential for planners, decision makers and managers for natural resources management. up-to-date land use and land cover information are required for monitoring and analysis of natural resources to support their sustainable management (xian, 2009). remote sensing and geographic information system (gis) techniques have been recognized as an effective tool for the classification of land use and land cover data and assessment of trend, rate, nature, location and magnitude of the changes (adeniyi et al., 1999). the remote sensing technology has offered a wide variety of satellite imagery that covers most of the earth’s surface. the multi-sensor and multitemporal satellite data is a promising tool for producing accurate land cover maps (yoon et al., 2004). water resources assessment and coastal management (xu, 2006) is one of the many field of applications of remotely sensed imagery. land reclamation area is, in general, the land created by river after changing its course. in nepal, most of the rivers debouch into the terai plains at the foot hills of the churia, and provide water for livelihood of the people living in the terai. during the monsoon months from june to september, all these rivers get inundated with bank-full discharges, and cause flooding in several parts of the terai. most of the rivers in the terai are prone to change their course frequently. in many cases, these rivers find new paths, and enter into the cultivated lands leaving the old courses (adhikari, 2013). most of the flooded river-side areas are in unutilized state due to low availability of nutrients in the sandy soil. plantation could be a better option to manage such land reclamation areas. it will be helpful to fulfill the growing demand for forest products of the local people. it will not only 1 department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal * email: acharya.amulkumar@gmail.com 53 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 54 provide goods but also several ecosystem services such as landscape beauty, carbon sequestration, water table recharge, creation of wildlife habitat, prevention of river-bank erosion and so on. the government of nepal has recently promulgated “forest policy 2015” which emphasizes on plantation program in forest as well as public and private lands. the ministry of forests and soil conservation (mofsc) expends its fund in plantation activities through its departments. recently, the mofsc has declared “forest decade program (2014–2023)” for growing greenery through massive plantation. thus, land reclamation area will be potential sites for plantation to support the forest decade program. so far, no adequate number of gis-based studies that deal with identification and mapping of the land reclaimed areas have been conducted in nepal. therefore, study on land reclamation has great importance for future plantation activities. the objectives of this study were to identify the land reclamation areas and the potential plantation areas on the bagmati river-basin in the terai region, and recommend appropriate species for plantation in order to rehabilitate such areas. materials and methods study area the study was confined to the bagmati river basin in the terai physiographic region (fig. 1). geographically, the study area extends from 26°44’30” n to 27°12’22” n latitude and from 85°15’59” e to 85°34’02” e longitude. it includes 34 village development committees (vdcs) of rautahat district and 37 vdcs of sarlahi district, and covers 61,279.78 ha area. the bagmati river originates from the midhills (shivapuri hill situated in the north of the kathmandu valley), and drains the gangetic plain flowing across the mahabharat range and the churia hills. it covers an area of 3,640 km2. the basin of this river, thus, transects three distinct latitudinal physiographic zones viz. mountain, siwalik and terai of nepal (paudel, 2001). the study was conducted in february to june 2015. fig. 1: map showing the location of the study area methods the methodology used in this study is highlighted in fig. 2. the data analysis steps are explained in the subsequent sections. fig. 2: flow chart of methodology acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 55 data the multi-temporal satellite imageries of landsat 7 (etm+) and landsat 8 were used for the purpose of the study (table 1). both the imageries were stacked in layers with the help of arcmap software. the stacked imageries were merged with higher-resolution panchromatic image (band 8 for both landsat 7 and 8) so as to create a single higher-resolution (15 m) color image. the bagmati river-basin boundary and the lrmp physiographic boundary layers were also used to define the study area extent. object-based image classification object-based image analysis (obia) is a technique developed to overcome the problem of traditional pixel-based image analysis. pixelbased image analysis is based on the information in each pixel whereas the object-based image analysis is based on information from a set of similar pixels called objects or image-objects. obia reduces the local spectral variation caused by crown textures, gaps, and shadows. in addition to this, both spectral values and spatial properties, such as size and shape, can be explicitly utilized as features for further classification with spectrally homogeneous segments of images. in this process, spatially adjacent pixels are grouped into spectrally homogenous objects first, and then conduct classification on objects as the minimum processing units (yu et al., 2006). basically, there are two steps involved in obia. they are: (i) image segmentation to produce image objects (or segments) that are the relatively homogeneous groups of pixels, and (ii) image classification based on these image-objects (dorren et al., 2003; meinel and neubert, 2004; addink et al., 2007). two image segmentation methods viz. chessboard segmentation method and multiresolution segmentation are frequently used in obia. chessboard segmentation splits the pixel domain or an image-object domain into square image-objects whereas multi-resolution segmentation method is an optimization procedure which locally minimizes the average heterogeneity of image-objects for a given resolution (su et al., 2009). the normalized difference water index (ndwi) developed by mcfeeters (1996) was used to delineate water features in the study. ndwi is derived using the principles similar to the normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi), and is defined as follows: ndwi = (green – nir)/(green + nir), where, green is green band and nir is near infrared band. the reason behind the selection of these bands is to: (i) maximize reflectance of water by using green wavelengths; (ii) minimize the low reflectance of nir by water features and (iii) take advantage of the high-reflectance of nir from vegetation and soil features. as a result, water features have positive values whereas vegetation and soil usually have zero or negative values (mcfeeters, 1996). for both the landsat imageries of 2002 and 2014, the object-based image analysis was executed using the ecognition developer 8.7 software. the thematic layer of the study area was used in chessboard segmentation. multi-resolution segmentation was performed at scale parameter of 20 with shape 0.5 and compactness 0.5. blue, green, red, near infrared, short-wave infrared-1 and short wave infrared-2 bands were used in multi-resolution segmentation. the segmented images were classified into four land cover classes viz. i) water ii) sand and gravel, iii) plantation potential (open area suitable for plantation) and iii) others (forest, agriculture, built-up areas etc.) using the following parameters: a) mean brightness values, b) mean ndwi, and c) mean relation border to neighbors. in the first step, sand and gravel were separated using the mean brightness values of the images. ndwi was used to separate water bodies. all the water bodies outside the bagmati river and acharya et al. table 1: characteristics of landsat image satellite sensor path-row date resolution (m) band landsat 7 etm+ 141–41 nov 5, 2002 30, 15 (band 8) band 1 to 8 landsat 8 oli and tirs 141–41 nov 28, 2014 30, 15 (band 8) band 2 to 8 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 56 its tributaries were categorized into ‘others’ class. ‘plantation potential’ was separated using mean relation border to neighbors. in this study, ‘plantation potential’ referred to the open area for plantation near the river (near water and sand and gravel classes). the remaining areas were categorized into “others”. the classified images were exported for further analysis. visual interpretation and change detection to improve the classification, the classified polygons were visually interpreted with pansharped landsat images of 15 m resolution in arcmap 10. ‘union’ function was applied on classified data to find out the changes between 2002 and 2014. accuracy assessment using new and innovative methodology which represents new area of ecological data, it is important to test accuracy of data being produced (mathieu et al., 2007). a greater effort should be made for checking how much ‘misclassification’, e.g. omitted classification has occurred in course of land use classification. in the case of our study, the user’s accuracy, the producer’s accuracy, the overall accuracy as well as the kappa coefficient were used to test the accuracy assessment result. training-samples were selected systematically to assess the accuracy of classification. point-grids at a spacing of 500 m x 500 m were generated systematically over the entire study area. these point-grids were spatially joined using the already classified polygons. from each class, 10% sample was selected; altogether, 243 sample points (6 from ‘water’, 6 from ‘sand and gravel’, 11 from ‘plantation potential’ and 220 from ‘others’) were verified with the help of high-resolution image i.e. google earth. some representative samples from the river reclamation areas were also verified through field observation. social survey focus-group discussion is one of the widely used methods to collect data in social survey. in this study, focus-group discussion was organized for identification of suitable species to rehabilitate the land reclamation areas through plantation. a total of four local-level focus-group discussions, 2 in rautahat district and 2 in sarlahi district, and one district-level focus-group discussion were organized in rautahat district. results and discussion the landsat images of 2002 and 2014 were classified into four types of land cover classes viz. i) water, ii) sand and gravel, iii) plantation potential and iv) others. the land cover maps of the study area for the years2002 and 2014 are presented in fig. 3. fig. 3: land cover map of the bagmati riverbasin in the terai region in 2002 and 2014 the change detection matrix showing the regional change in hectares between 2002 and 2014 are given in table 2. acharya et al. table 2: change detection matrix showing the change in the areas of the classes (in ha) between 2002 and 2014 2002\20014 water sand and gravel plantation potential others total water 628.84 347.99 495.60 1,114.60 2,587.42 sand and gravel 685.82 949.10 1,227.30 1,981.60 4,843.81 plantation potential 42.79 90.60 229.29 952.65 1,315.34 others 298.01 203.84 346.66 51,685.09 52,533.60 total 1,655.45 1,591.53 2,299.25 55,733.94 61,279.78 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 57 in this study, the land reclamation area referred to the area previously occupied by ‘water’ and ‘sand and gravel’ classes in 2002 and later converted into ‘plantation potential’ and ‘others’ classes in 2014. altogether, 4,819.1 ha land was reclaimed within the study area over the last 12 years (2002–2014), out of which 2,708.8 ha and 2,110.3 ha lands were reclaimed in rautahat and sarlahi districts. a total of 1,114.6 ha and 495.6 ha areas under ‘water’ were converted into ‘others’ and ‘plantation potential’ classes, respectively (table 2). similarly, 1,981.6 ha and 1,227.3 ha ‘sand and gravel’ areas were converted into ‘others’ and ‘plantation potential’ classes, respectively. the map of land reclamation area is presented in fig. 4. this study was confined to identification of land for plantation on the bagmati river-basin in the terai region of nepal. only the land reclamation study during the aforementioned period (2002– 2014) is not enough to assess the actual area suitable for plantation, the existing plantation potential area should also be detected. in this study, the potential plantation area referred to the summation of the area of the reclaimed land, the area of ‘others’ class converted into ‘plantation potential’ class and the area that remained as ‘plantation potential’ on the basin of the bagmati river and its tributaries between 2002 and 2014. over the period of 12 years, a total of 5,395 ha land was found to be potential for plantation (table 3). out of this, 3,054.12 ha area was found acharya et al. fig 4: map of the land reclamation area (2002–2014) banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 58 to be potential for plantation in rautahat district whereas 2,340.93 ha was found to be potential for the same in sarlahi district. table 3: potential plantation areas in the two districts district river potential plantation area area (ha) total area (ha) rautahat bagmati 2,383.51 3,054.12paurahi 572.46 chadi 98.15 sarlahi bagmati 2,340.93 2,340.93 total area 5,395.05 5,395.05 suitable species for plantation in the land reclamation area focus-group discussions were organized among the local people for identification of suitable species for the purpose of plantation in the potential land reclamation areas. most of the participants of the focus group discussions preferred khayer ( acacia catechu), sissoo (dalbergia sissoo), babul (acacia nilotica), gutel (trewia nudiflora) together with eucalyptus and bambusa spp. for plantations in such land reclamation areas. the identified potential land reclamation areas were either publicor private-owned. in the private lands, the participants desired to adopt agroforestry model by growing watermelon, peanut and gourd together with trees. however, the ecological characteristics of tree species and the need of the local people should also be considered in the selection of suitable species for plantation in such land reclamation areas. accuracy of the classification results the overall accuracy in the case of the classified landsat 2014 image was found to be 97.9% with a kappa coefficient of 0.89 (table 4). in the classification, the producer’s accuracy ranged from 75% in the case of ‘sand and gravel’ class to 100% in the case of ‘water’ and ‘others’ classes whereas the user’s accuracy was just the opposite, ranging from 83.3% in the case of ‘water’ class to 100% in the case of ‘sand and gravel’ class (table 4). conclusion this study indicates that the rivers in the terai region change their courses over time periods, resulting in significant land reclamation. over the last 12 years (2002–2014), a total of 4,819.1 ha land area was found to be reclaimed on the bagmati river-basin within the study area. such area could be planted with the suitable tree species along with the possible cash crops such as water melon, pea-nut and gourd. this will, no doubt, fulfill the local demand for fuel-wood and fodder on the one hand and provide income to the local people to some extent. however, further research should be done to determine suitable species and appropriate agro-forestry model before executing plantations over large land reclamation areas. nevertheless, the proposed method is promising, and can be replicated to other river-basins too for table 4: accuracy assessment of the classified landsat 2014 image classes ground truth water sand and gravel plantation potential others total user's accuracy (%) error of commission (%) water 5 1 6 83.33 16.67 sand and gravel 6 6 100.00 0.00 plantation potential 1 10 11 90.91 9.09 others 3 217 220 98.64 1.36 total 5 8 13 217 243 producer's accuracy (%) 100.00 75.00 76.92 100.00 error of omission (%) 0.00 25.00 23.08 0.00 overall accuracy (%) 97.94 kappa coefficient 0.8904 acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 59 mapping the potential reclamation areas. these results can be further improved by using highresolution satellite images together with sufficient field validation. references addink, e. a., de jong, s. m. and pebesma, e. j. 2007. the importance of scale in objectbased mapping of vegetation parameters with hyperspectral imagery. photogrammetric engineering and remote sensing 72 (8): 905–912. adeniyi, p. o. and omojola, a. 1999. landuse/ landcover change evaluation in sokoto-rima basin of north-western nigeria on archival remote sensing and gis techniques. journal of african association of remote sensing of the environment 1: 142–146. adhikari, b. r. 2013. flooding and inundation in nepal terai: issues and concerns. hydro nepal 12: 59–65. dorren, l. k. a., maier, b. and seijmonsbergen, a. c. 2003. improved landsat-based forest mapping in steep mountainous terrain using object-based classification. forest ecology and management 183: 31–46. mathieu, r., freeman, c. and aryal, j. 2007. mapping private gardens in urban areas using object oriented techniques and very highresolution satellite imagery. landscape and urban planning 81: 179–192. mcfeeters, s. k. 1996. the use of normalized difference water index (ndwi) in the delineation of open water features. international journal of remote sensing 17 (7): 1425–1432. meinel, g. and neubert, m. 2004. a comparison of segmentation programs for high-resolution remote sensing data. international archives of photogrammetry and remote sensing 35 (b): 1097–1105. paudel, a. 2001. environmental management of the bagmati river basin. in unep eia training resource manual: case studies from developing countries, 269–279. su, w., zhanx, c., zhu, x. and li, d. 2009. a hierarchical object oriented method for land cover classification of spot 5 imagery. wseas transactions on information science and applications 6 (3): 437–446. xian, g., homer, c. and fry, j., 2009. updating the 2001 national land cover database land cover classification to 2006 by using landsat imagery change detection methods. remote sensing of environment 113 (6): 1133–1147. xu, h. 2006. modification of normalised difference water index (ndwi) to enhance open water features in remotely sensed imagery. international journal of remote sensing 27 (14): 3025–3033. yoon, g. w., cho, s. i., chae, g. j. and park, j. h. 2004. automatic land-cover classification of landsat images using feature database in a network. international archives of photogrammetry remote sensing and spatial information sciences 35 (2): 564–568. yu, q., gong, p., clinton, n., biging, g., kelly, m. and shirokauer, d. 2006. object-based detailed vegetation classification with airborne high spatial resolution remote sensing imagery. photogrammetric engineering and remote sensing 72 (7): 799–811. acharya et al. role of trees and forests in disaster risk reduction and mitigation disaster, as defined by the united nations office for disaster risk reduction, is a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources. in recent years, the frequency and severity of both natural and man-made disasters have increased resulting in significant human casualties and loss of property. according to the international emergency disasters database (emdat), 22,773 people were killed and 98.6 million people affected in 346 disasters reported worldwide in 2015. the economic damage totaled usd 66.5 billion in the year 2015. floods, storms and droughts were the three most frequent natural disasters in 2015. other common disasters were: landslides, earthquake and tsunami, wildfires and extreme temperatures. nepal is susceptible to various kinds of disasters like earthquake, flood, landslide, fire (including forest fire), avalanche, epidemic, extreme rainfall, wind-storm and glacial lake outburst flood (glof). every normal year, about 500 people are killed and many people get injured due to such disasters. according to the data of the ministry of home affairs, the total property loss was usd 12 million in 2012. as per the post disaster needs assessment (pdna) report prepared under the leadership of national planning commission, the earthquake of april 2015 and its aftershocks caused a total of 8,790 human casualties, over 22,300 injuries, and property damages and loss worth usd 7 billion. the emdat reported this as the biggest natural disaster of the world in 2015. there are various preventive and curative mechanisms against natural and manmade disasters. most of them are highly technical, externally designed, needing huge investments and difficult to implement. in this context, the conservation and management of forests can provide locally available, relatively less expensive but significant contribution in protecting against disasters and in reducing the negative impacts of disasters. trees and forests can contribute in disaster risk reduction and mitigation mainly in four ways. first, forests and trees can offer physical barrier against natural disasters such as floods, landslides and tsunamis, thereby preventing loss of lives, property and livelihoods. trees provide protection against floods, landslides and windstorms. roots of the trees reduce soil erosion and land degradation by binding soils and banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 2 soil nutrients. by reducing the speeds of the wind and water, forests and trees can diminish the magnitudes of disasters. in this context, bamboos, due to their fast growth and extensive root system, have a powerful role in controlling soil erosion and protecting landscapes. the physical barriers created by mangroves against cyclone and tsunami are extensively reported in literature. likewise, tree plantations and conservation along the rivers have been considered as a measure to prevent river scouring and protection against floods. the role of trees and forests in water storage and recharge is widely regarded as the good strategy against drought. trees on our hills have also been found to prevent human casualties and injuries by stopping stone falls. second, forests provide building material for shelter and infrastructures in the recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction phase to build back better. forests provide the most convenient and locally available building materials for quick construction of shelters to the affected households and communities. the uprooted or damaged trees can be harvested to build temporary and permanent houses. forests, therefore, have significant roles in the rehabilitation of communities affected by natural disasters. third, forests support people by providing various kinds of foods before, during and after disasters. several forestry products can be used as safety nets in the case of emergency and food shortages. fourth, in the context of climate change contributing to increased frequency and severity of disasters, conservation of forests, reforestation/afforestation programmes, and sustainable forest management can minimize disaster risk by mitigating climate change through the reduction of greenhouse gases emissions and through enhanced carbon sequestration. in nepal, an estimate of department of forests showed that 52 million cubic feet of logs are required for the reconstruction of infrastructures destroyed by the 2015 earthquake. the government of nepal has also eased the process of transportation of timber salvaged from old and damaged houses within the 31 earthquake affected districts of nepal. moreover, the government has been planning to increase the production and manage the supply of timber for postdisaster reconstruction in nepal. in this direction, prevalent community-based forest management regimes (community forestry, leasehold forestry, and collaborative forest management) should also be managed with ample emergency provisions for providing wood in any likely event of disaster. in addition, the forestry sector should have an emergency plan for responding promptly to any future disasters. furthermore, there is a need for research on the role and effectiveness of trees and forests in preventing and mitigating various kinds of disasters in nepal. antibacterial properties of nepalese plant species myrica esculenta, mahonia nepaulensis, madhuca longifolia and schima wallichii were evaluated on human pathogenic microorganisms: salmonella typhi, staphylococcus aureus and escherichia coli. the plants were found to possess phytochemicalssaponins, glacosides, flavonoids, tannins and alkaloids. methanolic extract from these plants showed antimicrobial activity against tested organisms. similarly, brine shrimp lethality test of extracts showed the lc50 values of 15.4 ppm, 136.4 ppm, 76.9 ppm and 76.0 ppm for m. esculenta, m. nepaulensis, m. longifolia and s. wallichii respectively, which suggests that these plants are less toxic to human consumption for drug purpose. key words: nepalese plants, phytochemicals, antimicrobial and cytotoxic activities, human pathogens antimicrobial and cytotoxic properties of selected medicinal plants from kavrepalanchowk, nepal r. gyawali1*, s. adhikari1, s. gautam1, p. guragain1, s. pokharel1, n. pradhan1, s. sijapati1 and t. m. shrestha1 the history of medicine and medicinal plants in nepal can be traced back to the vedic period where nepal himalaya has been mentioned as a sacred heaven of potent medicinal and aromatic plants. the original “sanskrit nighantu,” written on palm leaves in newari script and sanskrit verses during mandeva era 301 (879 ad), is said to be the oldest of these books. the usage of the plants as subsistence for folk therapies was largely influenced from traditional medicinal health care systems mainly for treating or preventing various ailments. a major part of total population in developing countries uses folklore medicine obtained from plant resources (fabricant and farnsworth, 2001). medicinal plant usage forms the backbone in many rural communities for treating ailments with varying severity (wyk et al., 1997). the utilization of medicinal plant remedies in preventing or curing various ailments were the sole source of ensuring human welfare until the development of chemistry and organic compound synthesis in the 19th century (kong et al., 2003). the research on biologically active compounds from natural sources has always been of great interest for scientists looking for new sources of useful drugs against infectious diseases. in recent years, interest to evaluate plants possessing antibacterial activity for various microbes is growing. this is because of the increase in the resistance by microorganisms to new antibiotics as compared to the past. in general, bacteria have the genetic ability to transmit and acquire resistance to drugs which are utilized as therapeutic agents (gislene et al., 2000). plant parts such as fruits, leaves, stems and barks are used in traditional medicinal practice for curing cough and cold, tonsillitis, headache, malarial fever and neck pain; to reduce blood pressure, chest pains, lung diseases, bronchitis and respiratory diseases; and for treatment of animals affected by different kinds of insects, scabies and wounds (gyawali et al., 2008). several medicinal plants have been screened to identify the possible natural antibacterial agents from medicinal plants (gyawali et al., 2013, 2014). myrica esculenta buch–ham ex d. don (myricaceae) bark is useful for cough, asthma, sinusitis and chronic bronchitis, diarrhea and dysentery (baral and kurmi, 2006; watanabe et al., 2005). mahonia nepaulensis dc (berberidaceae) bark juice is traditionally used in many communities to treat infections and wounds. the barks of madhuca longifolia (j. koeing ex l) j.f. macbr (sapotaceae) are said to possess antibacterial 1 department of pharmacy, kathmandu university (ku), dhulikhel, kavrepalanchowk, nepal, * email: gyawali@ku.edu.np 15 banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 16 activity, bleeding and spongy gums. the barks of schima wallichii (dc) korth (theaceae) are used as an antiseptic for cuts and wounds, vermicide, mechanical irritant and to cure gonorrhea. the barks juice is given to animals infested with liver flukes. decoction of barks is good for fever and effective against head lice (gurung, 2002). due to specific climatic and geographical conditions of the himalaya, medicinal plants offer greater possibilities of having novel antimicrobial property with large quantities of the active compounds. based on the ethno-pharmacological information, the authors have recently documented several medicinal plants found in the various geographical locations of nepal so as to evaluate the phytochemical profiles and efficacy of traditional medicines. all these conditions were taken into account while conducting the research aimed to assess phytochemical and biological properties of nepalese medicinal plants. materials and methods study area the plant materials were collected from 1400 to 1600 m altitudes within khopasi village development committee of kavrepalanchowk district of central nepal. plant materials some barks of m. esculenta, m. longifolia, m. nepaulensis and s. wallichii were collected as samples for the purpose of this study. each sample was pulverized by using home blender, and the powdered sample was initially soaked in methanol for 7 days with occasional shaking. after 7 days, the mixture was filtered, and the process was repeated two times more. the filtrates were combined and the methanol was evaporated from the extracts. phytochemical screening the crude methanolic extracts of the barks of different plants were screened to detect the presence of phytochemicals, as per the standard screening procedure (trease and evans,1996). antimicrobial assays in this study, strains of human pathogenic microorganisms viz. salmonella typhi, staphylococcus aureus and escherichia coli, collected from dhulikhel hospital, kathmandu university and teaching hospital, were used to investigate the antimicrobial potential of the extracts with the help of disk diffusion method. required amount of bark extract of all four plants were dissolved in methanol to give methanolic extract solution of concentrations of 0%, 3%, 6% and 9%; sterile, 6 mm diameter grade i whatmans filter paper discs were impregnated with the already prepared methanolic solution. ciprofloxacin (30 µg) was used as positive control while methanol (30 µl) was used as negative control. triplicates of each extract were impregnated in 6 mm diameter disc. to evaporate the methanolic residue from discs, they were placed over the water bath for 1 hour. each microorganism, at a concentration of 1.5 × 106 cells/ml (adjusted to the 0.5 mcfarland turbidity standards), was inoculated on the surface of the respective media. after holding the plates at room temperature for one hour to allow diffusion of the test samples into the agar, they were incubated at 37oc for 24 hours. the results thus obtained were recorded by measuring the zones of growth inhibition around the disc, and presented as the arithmetic average. inhibition zone values were corrected i.e. the disk diameter was subtracted from the value of the inhibition zone. overall, cultured microorganisms with zone of inhibition equal to or greater than 7 mm were considered susceptible to the samples tested. brine shrimp lethality test methanolic extract of the samples were evaluated for lethality to brine shrimp larvae (a. salina leach) according to the published procedure (meyer et al., 1982). brine shrimp eggs were suspended for 48 hours in a conical flask containing 300 ml. of artificial seawater for hatching (the eggs). the flasks were well aerated with the aid of an air pump, and kept in a water bath at 29–30°c. the extracts were dissolved in 1% aqueous dmso, and then in sea water to obtain a concentration of 500 ppm, 250 ppm, 100 ppm, 50 ppm, 25 ppm and 10 ppm. an aliquot of each concentration (1 ml) was transferred, in triplicate, into clean sterile vials with pipette, and aerated seawater (9 ml) was added. ten brine shrimp nauplii were transferred to each vial. thymol 1% aqueous solution and 1% dmso in seawater were used as positive and negative controls, respectively. after 24 hours, the numbers of survivors were counted, and the mortality percentage was calculated. the lethal gyawali et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 17 gyawali et al. concentration for 50% mortality after 24 hours of expo-sure, the chronic lc50 and 95% confidence intervals were determined using the probit method (finney, 1971) as the measure of toxicity of the extract or fractions. the extracts were considered as toxic unless the lc50 was found to be less than 10 ug/ml (setzer et al., 2001). results and discussion the randomly selected barks of the plants subject to phytochemical screenings were found to contain different compounds viz. alkaloids, tannin, saponins, flavonoids and glycosides. the methanolic extract of m. esculenta barks exhibited antimicrobial activity against all the test-microorganisms. the methanolic extract of m. esculenta barks exhibited the highest activity against e. coli with the mean growth inhibition zones of 10.33±1.52 mm, 12.33±1.15 mm and 15±1 mm at 3%, 6% and 9% concentrations respectively (table 1). similarly, it exhibited the highest significant antibacterial activity against salmonella typhi with the mean inhibition zone of 9.33±0.57 mm at 9% concentration. the methanolic extract of m. nepaulensis barks exhibited maximum effect against staphylococcus aureus with the mean growth inhibition zones of 10.33±1.52 mm and 12.67±1.53 mm at 6% and 9% concentrations respectively (table 1). the methanolic extract of m. nepaulensis barks showed a broad spectrum of antimicrobial activity which might be due to the presence of alkaloids and flavonoids. the methanolic extract of the s. wallichii barks exhibited highest activity against s. aureus and e. coli with 8.67±0.57 mm and 10.33±0.57 mm mean growth inhibition zones respectively at 9% concentration (table 1). the hydroalcoholic extract of the s. wallichii bark has been found to exhibit the highest sensitivity against e. coli while the least activity against the selected gram positive strains (dewanjee et al., 2008). s. aureus, being gram positive, supports our results. the methanolic extract of m. longifolia bark also revealed its antibacterial property. it exhibited maximum effect with the mean growth inhibition zone of 12.67±2.08 mm and 15±1 mm against e. coli at 6% and 9% concentrations respectively (table 1). the barks of m. longifolia chiefly contain oleanolic acid, caprylate, lepeolacetate, α-amyrin acetate, erythrodiolmonocaprylate, betulinic acid and α-spinasterol compounds (khare, 2007). the antimicrobial property of m. longifolia bark found in our study could be due to the effects of lepeolacetate, α-amyrin acetate, erythrodiolmonocaprylate, betulinic acid, α-spinasterol and/or other methanol soluble constituents. lupeol acetate belongs to lupane type triterpenes, and was reported to have antimicrobial activity (prachayasittikul et al., 2010). based on the brine shrimp bioassay analysis, the lc50 value of the bark of m. esculenta plant was found to be 15.5 ppm (table 2). similarly, the lc50 values of the barks of m. nepaulensis, m. longifolia and s. wallichii plants were found to be table 1: mean growth inhibition zones (mm) of the barks of different plants plant name/ std. drug staphylococcus aureus escherichia coli salmonella typhi concentration of extract concentration of extract concentration of extract 3% 6% 9% 3% 6% 9% 3% 6% 9% myrica esculenta 5±0 5±1 7.33±1.52 10.33±1.52 12.33±1.15 15±1 4.33±1.15 6.67±0.57 9.33±0.57 madhuca longifolia 5.67±1.15 7.33±0.57 9.33±0.57 8±2 12.67±2.08 15±1 6±1 7.33±1.15 8.67±1.52 mahonia nepaulensis 7±3 10.33±1.52 12.67±1.52 0 0 7.67±0.57 0 2.33±1.15 5±1 schima wallichii 3±1 5.33±0.57 8.67±0.57 2. 67±0.57 6.67±0.57 10.33±0.57 0 0 0 ciprofloxacin, 30 mcg 25.67±2.83 35.67±1.10 18.29±1.98 methanol, 30 μl 0 0 0 note: the mean growth inhibition zones (mm) are presented as the mean ± sd in the above table. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 18 136.5 ppm, 76.9 ppm and 76.0 ppm respectively. this indicates that the bark of m. esculenta plant is moderately toxic, the barks of m. longifolia and s. wallichii plants are mildly toxic and the bark of m. nepaulensis plant is non-toxic. for the purpose, the results were compared with the available previous results: highly toxic plants (having lc50<1.0 ppm); toxic plants (having lc50 of 1.0–10.0 ppm); moderately toxic plants (having lc50 of 10.0–30.0 ppm); mildly toxic plants (having lc50 of 30 -100 ppm) and non– toxic plants (having lc50 > 100 ppm) (meyer et al., 1982). the barks of all the selected plants viz. m. esculenta, m. nepaulensis, m. longifolia and s. wallichii were found to possess flavonoids, an important antimicrobial phytochemical (table 3). the barks of m. esculenta and m. longifolia plants were found to possess saponins, glycosides and tannins too. similarly, the bark of m. nepaulensis plant was found to possess alkaloids too while that of s. wallichii was found to possess saponins and glycosides too. conclusion the analysis of randomly selected nepalese medicinal plants indicated that most of the plants are rich in antimicrobial phytochemicals. methanolic extracts from the barks of these plants showed antimicrobial activity against human pathogenic microorganisms. so, attention to these medicinal plants can be drawn for herbotherapeutic treatment or antimicrobial plant principles in the case of infection by selected microorganisms. acknowledgements this study was conducted with the support of the kathmandu university (ku). the authors would like to particularly acknowledge, head of the department of pharmacy, ku for her generous support to accomplish this study. references baral, s. r. and kurmi, p. p. 2006. compendium of medicinal plants in nepal. rachana sharma publishers, kathmandu, nepal. dewanjee, s., maiti, a., majumdar, r., majumdar, a. and mandal, s. c. 2008. evaluation of antimicrobial activity of hydroalcoholic extract of schima wallichii bark. pharmacology online 1: 523–528. fabricant, d. s. and farnsworth, n. r. 2001. the value of plants used in traditional medicine for drug discovery. environmental health perspective 109: 69–75. finney, d. j. 1971. probit analysis. 3rd edition. cambridge university press, cambridge, uk. gislene, g. f., locatelli, n. j., paulo, c. f. and giuliana, l. s. 2000. antibacterial activity of plant extracts and phytochemicals on antibiotic resistant bacteria. brazilian journal gyawali et al. table 2: brine shrimp bioassay results of methanolic extract of some nepalese medicinal plant barks plant lethal concentration, lc50 (ppm) 95% confidence interval lower limit (ppm) upper limit (ppm) myrica esculenta 15.452 3.388 70.631 mahonia nepaulensis 136.458 6.324 490.907 madhuca longifolia 76.913 5.272 1119.438 schima wallichii 76.032 2.864 2013.724 table 3 : phytochemical screening of different plant barks (+ = presence, -= absent) plants saponins glycosides tannins alkaloids flavonoids myrica esculenta ++ ++ ++ -++ madhuca longifolia ++ ++ ++ -++ mahonia nepaulensis ---++ ++ schima wallichii ++ ++ --++ banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 19 gyawali et al. of microbiology 31: 247–256. gyawali, r., jnawali, d. and kim, k. s. 2008. phytochemical screening of some species of nepalese medicinal plants. in medicinal plants in nepal: an anthology of contemporary research (eds) jha, p. k., karmacharya, s. b., chhetri, m. k., thapa, c. b. and shrestha, b. b. ecological society (ecos), nepal, 43–49. gyawali, r., bhandari, j., amatya, s., piya, e., pradhan, u. l., paudyal, r., shrestha, r. and shrestha, t. m. 2013. antibacterial and cytotoxic activities of high altitude essential oils from nepalese himalaya. journal of medicinal plant research 7 (13): 738–743. gyawali, r., dahal, b., gautam, r., shrestha, s., joshi, s., luitel, a. and khanal, d. 2014. phytochemical studies traditional medicinal plants of nepal and their formulations. international journal of biology, pharmacy and allied sciences 3 (2):189–203. gurung, b. 2002. the medicinal plants of the sikkim himalaya. 1st edition (ed) gurung, j. b. maples, chakung, west sikkim, india. khare, c.p. 2007. indian medicinal plants: an illustrated dictionary. springer science, new york, usa. kong, j. m., goh, n. k., chia, l. s. and chia, t. f. 2003. recent advances in traditional plant drugs and orchids. acta pharmacologica sinica 24 (1): 7–21. meyer, n., ferrigni n. r. and putnam, j. e. 1982. brine shrimp: a convenient general bioassay for active plant constituents. planta medica 45: 31–32. prachayasittikul, s., sarabam, p., cherdtrakulkiat, r., ruchirawat, s. and prachaysittikul, v. 2010. new bioactive triterpenoids and antimalarial activity of diospyros rubra lec. experimental and clinical journal 9: 1–10. setzer, m. c., setzer, w. n., jackes, b. r., gentry, g. a. and moriarity, d. m. 2001. the medicinal value of tropical rainforest plants from paluma, north queensland, australia. pharmaceutical biology 39: 67–78. trease g. e. and evans w. c. 1996. pharmacognosy. alden press, oxford, uk. watanabe, t., rajbhandari, k. r., malla, k. j. and yahara, s. 2005. a handbook of medicinal plants of nepal. ayur seed life environmental institute, japan. wyk, v. b. e., van, o. b. and gericke, n. 1997. medicinal plants of south africa. 1st edition. briza publications, pretoria, south africa. mikania micrantha is considered to be the most problematic in terrestrial ecosystem in eastern and central nepal. despite the current situation of the mikania invasion, quantitative data on the impacts and scale of the problems are lacking for the country. due to the lack of information regarding scale of invasion, the stakeholders have not put forwarded the proper control mechanism of the species. this paper has made an attempt to analyze the scale of invasion through the comparison of plant biodiversity and basal area per hectare as the significance of stand structure between mikaniainvaded and non-invaded tropical shorea robusta forest areas. this study was conducted in barandabhar buffer zone forest of chitwan national park. sampling and measurement was conducted in both the invaded and non-invaded forest areas. the stand structure of both the invaded and non-invaded areas were compared in terms of different parameters like seeding density, sapling density, pole basal area per hectare and tree basal area per hectare. statistical analysis showed that there is significant impact of mikania on plant diversity at seedling and sapling stages. there is negative effect of mikania on stand structure of the forest. hence, there is urgent need to control the invasive weed so as to control further invasion and to conserve biodiversity and productivity. k e y w or d s : basal area, invasion, mikania micrantha, plant diversity plant diversity and stand structure comparison of mikania micrantha invaded and non-invaded tropical shorea robusta forest s. basnet1*, d. b. chand1, b. h. wagle2 and b. rayamajhi1 nepal is well known for its diverse flora and many plant species are endemic to the country. however, some of them have been introduced unintentionally owing to the landlinked situation of the country. in a country like nepal, an infestation of plant invasive species makes rural livelihoods more vulnerable because economy of farming community heavily depends upon forest resources (adhikari et al., 2004), and an introduction of such invasive plants are likely to influence upon the native ecosystem. in nepal, altogether 166 alien plant species are invading different ecosystems including forest, grassland, agricultural land and wetlands (tiwari et al., 2005). mikania micrantha (kunth), a tropical plant belonging to the family asteraceae, is a perennial, sprawling vine with a wide distribution in the neo-tropics, which extends from mexico to argentina (holmes, 1982). it is one of the top 10 worst weeds in the world (holm et al., 1977). it is a fast growing, perennial climber, commonly called mile-a-minute weed, because of its vigorous and rampant growth habit. it has been reported to grow to 27 mm a day (issg, 2005). it is a pernicious weed in crops such as rubber, cacao, oil palm, coconut, banana, pepper and tea, and usually grows profusely in places receiving high rainfall or humid habitats (holm et al., 1977). in nepal, mikania was first reported in 1963 in the eastern part of nepal (tiwari et al., 2005). later on, it started spreading towards the western part, and now it has been recorded in the 20 terai districts (rai et al., 2012). m. micrantha is assessed as one of the six high-risk-posed invasive alien species in nepal (tiwari et al., 2005). in the chitwan national park (cnp), m. micrantha was found to be the most serious weed among the eight invasive alien species (ias) in terrestrial ecosystem (sapkota, 2006). the species is considered as the most problematic terrestrial invasive species in the tropical parts of 1 international union for conservation of nature, lalitpur, nepal. *e-mail: fr.sanyogbasnet@gmail.com 2 institute of forestry, hetauda, nepal 78 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 79 nepal (poudel et al., 2005; siwakoti, 2007). in nepal, this plant is known by different names such as lahare banmara and lahare, and is found up to 1,300 m altitude. the plant has very low use values except as fodder during the lean period; cattle only consume it if nothing else is available, and people collect edible ferns that grow under the canopy of mikania (baral, 2004). at present, the weed has vigorously invaded the core and buffer zone of the chitwan national park, threatening to biological diversity and ecosystem. the plant spreads appallingly fast in the moist part of the park, becoming dense within 8–10 years (tiwari et al., 2005). mikania is spreading freely without any hindrance in the lowland of nepal. despite the current situation of the weed, quantitative data on the impacts and scale of the problems are lacking for the country. therefore, this study aimed at comparing the effects of mikania invasion on understory and over story plant diversity. the information regarding impact level could be useful to the stakeholders for common understanding. so, this paper also aims to create stakeholders’ concern in such a serious biodiversity threat in the nation. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in barandabhar buffer zone forest of chitwan national park (cnp) which is located at 27o37’02” n latitude and 84o26’15” e longitude. the cnp is renowned for its unique diversity of flora and fauna. recognizing its unique ecosystem of international significance, the unesco declared it as world heritage site in 1984 (mfsc, 2014). barandabhar forest corridor is the only remaining natural forest with an area of 161 km2 that connects the cnp and the mahabharat range. the human population around the corridor is over 50,000 (cbs, 2011), imparting excessive pressure on its ecosystems. retention and restoration of such ecological corridors, linking protected areas, are considered essential in maintaining and restoring wildlife populations across the landscape. the invasion is reported to have invaded the park and the adjoining area in the 1980s and within the last 45 years, mikania has colonized in large geographical area of the park as well as the surrounding forest and the shrub-land, mikania is being economically serious in and around the study area (rai et al., 2012). sampling design stratified systematic sampling method was adopted for data collection. first of all, almost equal two distinct strata of mikania-invaded and non-invaded areas were delineated visually with the help of gps hand receiver. then, systematic sample plots were allocated on both the strata for the collection of sample. both the strata were of almost similar soil condition and stand age. sample plots were established in both invaded and non-invaded areas for comparing the stand structure and plant diversity at species level. the study area comprises the tropical shorea robusta forest. the major tree species found are shorea robusta, terminalia tomentosa, bombax ceiba, dalbergia sissoo, trewia nudiflora and so on. data collection fourteen nested circular sample plots were established in each stratum for the measurement of tree, pole, sapling and regeneration (fig. 1). thus, a circular plot of 500 m2 area (12.6 m radius) was established for tree (a) within which nested plots of 100 m2 (5.6 m radius), 25 m2 (2.8 m radius) and 10 m2 (1.8 m radius) were established for pole (b), sapling (c) and regeneration (d), respectively (dof, 2004). species-wise diameters at breast height (dbhs) and heights were measured and recorded in the case of trees and poles. similarly, dbh was measured and recorded in the case of saplings whereas species-wise plant numbers were recorded in the case of regeneration. fig. 1 : a nested circular sample plot basnet et al. d banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 80 basnet et al. data analysis the data collected from the field were analyzed by assessing the regeneration status together with the sapling diversity and density. the basal areas of the trees and poles per hectare was computed to assess the over-story tree density. for the calculation of plant diversity of the study area, simpson’s index (d) was adopted. simpson’s index (d) = ∑ (pi)2, where, pi = proportion of individual species in the community i. species distribution and tree basal area were calculated as follows: 1. species density (n per ha) = no. of regeneration x 10000 area of a plot 2. individual tree basal area (ba) = πd2 4 where, d = diameter at breast height. after the calculation of various attributes (density, basal area per ha) of growing stock, the two strata were compared using various statistical tests (t-test, independent sample test). results and discussion plant diversity at seedling and sapling stages the simpson’s index values of the mikania invaded and non-invaded strata at regeneration i.e. seedling level were found to be 0.1806 and 0.0681, respectively while those at sapling level were found to be 0.3406 and 0.3192, respectively. as simpson’s index values are inversely related to the plant diversity, the plant diversities at sapling and seeding stages were found to be higher in the non-invaded area. the climber and shoots of mikania was found to be totally obstructing the opening to ground level which might have restricted germination and growth of its saplings and seedlings. seedling density the per hectare density of the seedlings in the noninvaded area (19,000/ha) was found to be almost six times more than that in the invaded area (3,214/ ha). independent sample t-test revealed that the seedings per hectare was significantly higher in the non-invaded area than in the invaded area at 5% level of significance (p < 0.001; n=14). the coverage of m. micrantha was found to have reduced the growth as well as germination of the tree species, resulting in the poor density of the seedlings and saplings of the tree secies. the lower seedling density in the invaded area showed the adverse effects of mikania on the growth and regeneration of forest crops; the invasion of mikania was found to have created shade and lack of openings on the ground, resulting in the low density of the seedlings. sapling density the per hectare density of the saplings was found to be higher in the non-invaded area (149/ha) than in the invaded area (60/ha). this showed that the growth of the understory was severely affected by the invasion of mikania. independent t-test revealed that the saplings per hectare was significantly higher in the non-invaded area than in the invaded area at 5% level of significance ( p = 0.015; n=14). the difference could be due to the effect of the invasion of mikania on the germination of the plants as well as the growth of the seedlings, resulting in the lower density of saplings in invaded strata. basal area of pole per hectare the basal area of the poles per hectare was more than three times higher in the non-invaded (5.6 m3/ha) area than in the invaded area (2.2 m3/ha). also, it was found significantly higher in the noninvaded area than in the invaded area at 5% level of significance (p = 0.002; n=14). the diameter growth and basal area formation was found to be significantly less in the invaded area than in the invaded area. the invasion of mikania might have affected upon the phenological process of the plant species, its development and cambium formation might have been also affected. that is why the density of poles and its individual size was found to be comparatively lower in the invaded area. tree basal area per hectare the non-invaded area had more than two times more basal area per hectare than in the invaded area (invaded: 2.2 m3/ha; non-invaded: 5.6 m3/ banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 81 ha). it was also found to be significantly higher in the non-invaded area at 5% level of significance ( p = 0.024; n=14), indicating significantly higher basal area growth in the non-invaded area than in the invaded area. as in the case of the pole basal area, the invasion might have great impact upon the phenological process of the trees, resulting in the slow growth in the overall basal area of the forest stand in the invaded area. conclusion the study has revealed the current scenario of plant diversity and stand structure in mikaniainvaded and non-invaded areas. it this study, the plant diversity and composition at undergrowth level was found to be significantly affected from the invasion whereas the non-invaded area had better growth condition. the invasion of mikania had created serious ecological problem in forest management, both in terms of diversity and productivity. the findings of the study have, therefore, clearly indicated the adverse impact of mikania invasion on forest growth. therefore, regular treatment and control mechanism should be developed so as to control invasion of mikania and other invasive species in a forest invaded by such invasive species and to improve the forest condition. acknowledgements we sincerely thank chitwan national park and baradhabar buffer zone forest management committee for their support in data collection during field works. we would also like to thank md. yusuf ansari, campus chief, institute of forestry, hetauda campus and mr. rajiv kumar jha for their guidance and recommendation. references adhikari, b., di falco, s. and lovett, j. c. 2004. household characteristics and forest dependency: evidence from common property forest management in nepal. ecological economics 48 (2): 245–257. baral, h. s. 2004. mikania micrantha weed invasion in nepal. paper presented at first national stakeholders’ workshop, kathmandu, nepal, 25 nov, 2004. bhatta, s. r. 2006. grassland management in royal chitwan national park: biodiversity conservation effort in nepal. international centre for integrated mountain development, lalitpur, nepal. cbs. 2011. nepal population census report, 2011. central bureau of statistics (cbs), kathmandu, nepal. dof. 2004. community forest inventory guidelines. government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, department of forests (dof), kathmandu, nepal. holm, l. g., plucknett, d. l., pancho, j. v. and herberger, j. p. 1977. the world’s worst weeds: distribution and biology. university press of hawaii, usa. holmes, w. c. 1982. revision of the old world mikania (compositae). botanische jahrbücher 103 (2): 211–246. issg. 2005. ecology of mikania micrantha. invasive species specialist group database. http://www.issg.org/database/species// ecology.asp?si=42 accessed on 4 april, 2015. mfsc. 2014. nepal biodiversity strategy and action plan (2014–2020). government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), kathmandu, nepal. poudel, a., baral, h. s., ellison, c. a., subedi, k., thomas, s. and murphy, s. 2005. mikania micrantha weed invasion in nepal. a summary report of the first national workshop for stakeholders held on 25 november, kathmandu, nepal. rai, r. k., scarborough, h., subedi, n. and lamichhane, b. 2012. invasive plants do they devastate or diversify rural livelihoods? rural farmers’ perception of three invasive plants in nepal. journal for nature conservation 20 (3): 170–176. sapkota, l. n. 2006. invasive alien species in chitwan national park, nepal. m.sc. thesis, institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, pokhara, nepal. siwakoti, m. 2007. mikania weed: a challenge for conservationists. our nature 5: 70–74. tiwari, s., adhikari, b., siwakoti, m. and subedi, k. 2005. an inventory and assessment of invasive alien plant species of nepal. iucn-the world conservation union, kathmandu, nepal. basnet et al. this paper focuses on the ecological status and diversity indices: simson’s index (c), simson’s index of dominance (d) and shannon-weaver index (h) of dactylorhiza hatagirea and its associatesrheum australe and rumex nepalensis in lete village of mustang district within the annapurna conservation area. the study was conducted during the monsoon season (june/july) of 2013 in the lete vdc of mustang district. the study site possessed an area of 4.5 ha. altogether, 100 circular plots, each with 25 m2 area, were laid out purposively within the study area; the sampling intensity being 5.55%. the relative frequency, the relative density, the abundance, the relative coverage and the important value index of the species were found to be 61.11, 53.91, 1,061.54, 72.2 and 187.24 respectively. similarly, the simson’s index (c), the simson’s index of dominance (d) and the shannon-weaver index of the species were found to be 0.41, 0.59 and 3.27 respectively, indicating relatively even and relatively diverse community. the study showed relatively higher values of all the parameters of d. hatagirea as compared to its associates indicating good ecological value. however, threats remain due to the illegal harvesting of this valuable orchid and overgrazing in the study site. k e y w or d s : biodiversity, community, conservation, medicinal plants ecological status and diversity indices of panchaule (dactylorhiza hatagirea) and its associates in lete village of mustang district, nepal c. b. khadka1, a. l. hammet2, a. singh3, m. k. balla3 and y. p. timilsina3 nepal constitutes a unique and enormous diversity of flora and fauna within a relatively small geographical area due to variations in topography, altitude and climate. in spite of being a small country, it possesses around 7,000 species of vascular plants with 2,000 species of medicinal plants (shrestha and shrestha, 1999). baral and kurmi (2006) have compiled and described 1,792 medicinal plants. according to bhattarai and ghimire (2006), 49% of the traded medicinal plants are herbs, 29% trees, 14% shrubs and 8% climbers. so, nepal is a veritable treasure trove of medicinal plants (phoboo et al., 2008). during the last 10 years, a great interest has been given for the promotion of non-timber forest products (ntfps) throughout the world. huge sums have been invested in exploring the potential of ntfps (wollenberg, 1999). nepal is also not far from this condition. the master plan for forestry sector (1988), forest policy (2015) and the thirteenth plan (2013–2016) had emphasized the development and commercialisation of medicinal and aromatic plants (maps) as a priority programme for poverty alleviation. this shows the commitment of the government for conservation and management of medicinal plants in the nation. rare and high-priced medicinal herbs are on the top priority for their domestication, research and cultivation, processing and marketing. maps of high altitudes are invaluable resources not only to the local communities and the nation, but also to the global community at large. they have high ecological as well as economical values, and so the poor rural communities are highly dependent on them for their livelihoods. out of many maps, dactylorhiza hatagirea (d. don) soo under the family of orchidaceae commonly known as “panchaunle” in nepali has been listed in appendix ii by the convention on international trade in endangered species 1 chitwan national park, chitwan, nepal. email : chhatra10@gmail.com 2 virginia polytechnic institute, virginia, usa 3 institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal 45 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 46 of wild fauna and flora (cites), vulnerable species listed by the conservation assessment and management plan (camp) and threatened species by the international union for conservation of nature (iucn) (samant et al., 2001). this himalayan endemic medicinal orchid is found in hindu kush himalaya range (iucn, 2004). it occurs in the sub-alpine and the alpine zones between 2,800 m – 4,200 m altitude above the mean sea level (iucn, 2004). other than nepal himalayas, it occurs in the same altitudinal ranges of india, pakistan, bhutan and china too. it is a terrestrial-ground-dwelling perennial herb. its stem is erect, hollow and obtuse, and bears palmately lobed and lanceolate leaves with sheathing leaf-base. the cylindrical and terminal spike bears rosy purple flowers with green bracts (fig. 1). flowers are 1.7–1.9 cm long with curved spur. the inflorescence consists of a compact raceme with 25 to 50 flowers developed from axillary buds. the dark purple spotted lip of the flower is rounded and lobed (1 to 5). the plants store a large amount of water in their tuberous roots to survive in arid conditions (chaurasia et al., 2007). fig. 1: d. hatagirea plant the government of nepal has prioritized 30 important medicinal plants for the purpose of their research and management. among those, 12 plants have been selected for agro-technology. d. hatagirea is one of them (dpr, 2006). according to forest act 1993 and forest regulation 1995, the government of nepal has banned the collection, trade and processing of the rhizome of d. hatagirea. as with many other terrestrial orchids, the populations of d. hatagirea have decreased due to their habitat loss. another threat to d. hatagirea is the collection of their tubers to make salep (paste made to cure wounds), used as food and medicine. this is a particularly important threat in the himalayas (srivastava and mainera, 1994), where d. hatagirea is judged critically endangered (camp, 1998) due to their overcollection. thus, several species of d. hatagirea are declining, and some are already protected at a national scale, e.g., in belgium, luxembourg, nepal, and the united kingdom (pillon et al., 2005). the concept of diversity, including biodiversity itself as well as the narrower concept of species diversity, is a human reflection without any unique mathematical meaning. the simplest measure of species diversity is species richness, but a good case can be made for giving some weight to evenness as well. diversity indices are mathematical functions that combine richness and evenness in a single measure, although usually not explicitly. although there are many others, the most commonly used diversity indices in ecology are shannon diversity, simpson diversity, and fisher’s alpha. both shannon and simpson diversities increase as richness increases, for a given pattern of evenness, and increase as evenness increases, for a given richness, but they do not always rank communities in the same order. simpson diversity is less sensitive to richness and more sensitive to evenness as compared to shannon diversity, which, in turn, is more sensitive to evenness than is a simple count of species richness (s) (colwell, 2009). there are very few studies conducted especially regarding ecological status and diversity of d. hatagirea. there is a lack of management and conservation plan from the government side. similarly, lack of awareness of importance regarding d. hatagirea among the rural villagers is leading towards the extinction of this valuable species. although it is a banned species, its unwise harvesting, unscientific use and illegal trading are in practice which in turn is resulting in the khadka et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 47 reduction of net income of the primary collectors and the government revenue. the objectives of the research study were: i) to document the ecological status of d. hatagirea and its associates in the study site, and ii) to calculate diversity indices of d. hatagirea and its associates in the study site. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in paplekharka, a grass land situated in the lete village development committee (vdc) of mustang district (fig. 2) which lies in the annapurna conservation area (aca). mustang district lies between 28o24’ n to 29o20’ n latitude and 83o30’ e to 84o15’ e longitude. the altitudinal range varies from 1,372 m to 8,167 m above the mean sea level representing subtropical, temperate and alpine types of climate (ranapal, 2009). the lete vdc lies within the jomsom unit conservation office (uco) of the lower mustang which is a transition between the trans-himalaya and the inner himalaya. the vdc receives 1,545 mm annum rainfall (acap, 2009). it consists of deep gorges made by the kaligandaki river. fig. 2: landuse map of the study site sampling design the inventory was carried out in 4.5 ha during the monsoon season (june/july) in 2013. a 21 m x 21 m grid (plot to plot distance) was laid on the map and, altogether, 100 plots were established using the arc map geographical information system (gis) software of version 10; the sampling intensity being 5.55% (the greater intensity was due to the small area of the study site). among the 100 plots, the plants of d. hatagirea were found in 34 plots only. the sample plots were chosen purposively so that the plots where the plants of d. hatagirea and its associates were found would not be left during the field inventory as the topography in some plots was either rocky or stiff or with dense forest cover or barren (fig. 3). fig. 3: google image (20-11-2014) of the lete vdc showing the location of the sample plots for the inventory of d. hatagirea all the plants of d. hatagirea found in 26 plots were measured. the number of plots in which d. hatagirea was absent was 15 (in which other herbs were also present) excluding the plots with barren, forest, rocky and stiff topography. similarly, out of the total 100 plots, 20 plots included barren area, 16 plots forest area and 23 plots rocky and stiff area in which inventory was not possible. study methods primary data collection the primary data was collected through reconnaissance survey and herb inventory. first of all, a reconnaissance survey was carried out for general field observation, rapport building with the local people and the acap personnel about the trail of the location where d. hatagirea w as found. besides, a sketch map was also prepared for carrying out the field inventory smoothly. khadka et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 48 generally, 1 m × 1 m sample plots are used for inventory of herbs. however, as d. hatagirea is a low abundant herb, circular sample plots of 25 m2 were established as recommended by ravindranath and premnath (1997). all the plants of d. hatagirea and its associate species were counted and their mean height, mean collar diameter (5 cm above the ground) and mean age were measured within the sample plots. the mean age of d. hatagirea was calculated by summing up all the ages of d. hatagirea plants and dividing by the number of plots where d. hatagirea occurred. similar process was repeated to calculate the mean height and the mean collar diameter of the species. a global positioning system (gps) set was used to locate the plots, and a 20–meter reel tape was used to measure the radius of the plot. similarly, vernier calliper was used to find out the collar diameter of the herb whereas a 5– feet steel tape was used to detect the height of the herb. an inventory sheet was developed to record the details for calculating the ecological status and the diversity indices of the species. secondary data collection the secondary data were obtained with the help of the annual reports, newsletters, bulletins, journals, dissertations, publications, maps and so on available in the acap libraries as well as at the department of forest research and survey (dfrs), the institute of forestry (iof) and the international centre for integrated mountain development (icimod). additional information were also acquired through internet. data analysis and interpretation the information obtained from the herb inventory was analyzed using the statistical package for social science (spss) software version 19. the results were then presented in the form of tables, graphs and charts. the quantitative data was analyzed as follows: a) frequency = no. of plots where species occcurs x 100 total no. of plots b) relative frequency = frequency of species x 100 sum of all frequency c) density = no. of species in all plots x 10,000 m2 total no. of plots x area of a plot d) relative density = no. of species in all plots x 100 total no. of individuals of all species e) abundance = no. of species in all plots x 10,000 m2 no. of plots in which a species occurs x area of a plot f) coverage (%) = area occupied by a species x 100 area of a sample plot g) relative coverage (%) = coverage of a species x 100 total coverage of all species h) important value index (ivi)=relative frequency+relative density+relative coverage i) simson’s (1949) index (c) = ∑ (pi) 2 and j) simson’s index of dominance (d) = 1 ∑ (pi) 2, where, pi is the proportion of the important value of the ith species (pi = ni/n, ni being the ivi of the ith species and n being the important value of all species) the simpson’s index values range from 0 to 1. the closer the value of simpson’s index to 0, the more diverse the plot will be. a plot with only one species would have a simpson’s index value of 1. trends are opposite to those found for shannonweaver values since simpson’s index values decrease with increased diversity (reich et al., 2001). in practice, the values below 0.5 indicate a relatively even community, while high values are indicative of communities dominated by one or a few species. k) shannon-weaver (1949) index (h) = – ∑(i=1)(pi) x ln (pi), where, h = index of species diversity, and pi = the proportion of the important value of ith species (pi = ni/n, ni is the important value index of the ith species and n is the important value of all species) due to its logarithmic nature, the shannonweaver index is sensitive to uncommon plant species and less sensitive to very common species (krebs, 1989). the shannon-weaver index can, theoretically, range from zero (a community with only one species, which is technically just a “population”) to infinity. in practice though, a value of 7 indicates an extremely rich community while values under 1 suggest a community with low diversity. often, values above 1.7 are taken to indicate a relatively diverse community. the qualitative data was analyzed descriptively. khadka et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 49 table 1: list of identified herbs in the sample plots s.n. local name english name scientific name family nature of plant 1. panchaunle himalayan orchid dactylorhiza hatagirea (d. don) soo orchidaceae herb 2. padamchal himalayan rhubarb rheum australe d. don polygonaceae herb 3. halhale nepal dock rumex nepalensis spreng. polygonaceae herb results and discussion distribution of d. hatagirea a total of two scientifically identified herbs viz. himalayan rhubarb (rheum australe) and nepal dock (rumex nepalensis) were found in the project site with dominance of d. hatagirea (table 1). the altitudinal range of habitat distribution of d. hatagirea in the study site was from 3,200 m to 3,600 m above sea level, which was similar to the study done by ranapal (2009). the aspect of habitat distribution of d. hatagirea in the study site was south-west. mean height, collar diameter, number of leaves and age of d. hatagirea the height, collar diameter and age of each d. hatagirea plant were measured in each plot in which a total of 69 d. hatagirea plants were found in 26 measured plots. from the inventory, it was found out that the mean height of d. hatagirea was 91.08 cm which was greater than 41.97 cm found by ranapal (2009) and 60 cm by dutta (2007). ranapal (2009) used three individual plants (tall, medium and short) to calculate the mean height of d. hatagirea. similarly, the diameters (at 5 cm above the ground) of d. hatagirea plants were measured, and the mean diameter was calculated. the mean collar diameter at 5 cm above the ground was found to be 1.63 while the mean age was found to be of 2 years and the mean number of leaves was found to be 5. the difference in height might be due to the methodology used as well as the age/topographic/soil/climate factors. the greater number of d. hatagirea was found in the southwest aspect. frequency of d. hatagirea and its associates the study shows 72% occurrence of d. hatagirea in the sample plots. however, ranapal (2009) has indicated the occurrence of d. hatagirea in paplekharka as 71%. similarly, rheum australe was found to have an occurrence of 8% as compared to 65% found by ranapal (2009). on the other hand, rumex nepalensis had an occurrence of 20% (fig. 4). fig. 4: frequency of d. hatagirea and its associates relative frequency of d. hatagirea and its associates relative frequency is the frequency of a species in relation to other species. the relative frequency of d. hatagirea was high (69%) as compared to its two associates. however, according to ranapal (2009), it was 17%. the species having the lowest frequency were rumex nepalensis (22%) and the rheum australe (9%). density of d. hatagirea and its associates this study showed the highest density of 276 per ha of the himalayan orchid (d. hatagirea) as compared to its associates (table 2). this was comparatively far lower than the one (1,671 per ha) indicated by ranapal (2009). the big difference might be due to the smaller area (4.5 ha) of the project site taken during the research period. the least number was that of nepal dock with 80 per ha which might be due to the least khadka et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 50 distribution of this species in the plot and heavy grazing pressure. the density of d. hatagirea w as reported to be 0.2 individuals per m2 in samar lek of the upper mustang (chhetri and gupta, 2006). the next reported density of d. hatagirea was 2.66 per m2 in the grazed sites and 3.2 per m2 in the ungrazed sites at tungnath, india (nautiyal et al., 2004). the low density in the unprotected areas might be due to heavy grazing pressure. table 2: density of d. hatagirea along with its associates s.n. species density per ha 1. d. hatagirea 276 2. rheum australe 156 3. rumex nepalensis 80 relative density of d. hatagirea and its associates relative density is the density of a species with respect to the total density of all species (ranapal, 2009). in the study site, d. hatagirea was found to have the highest relative density (53.91%) as compared to those of its associates (table 3). however, the study conducted by ranapal (2009) indicated the relative density of d. hatagirea to be quite low, only 9% or 0.09. the big difference in the relative density of this species might be because of the smaller area (4.5 ha) of the project site taken during the research period. table 3: relative density of d. hatagirea along with its associates s.n. species density per ha 1. d. hatagirea 53.91 2. rheum australe 30.47 3. rumex nepalensis 15.62 total 100.00 abundance of d. hatagirea and its associates rumex nepalensis was found to have the highest abundance of 2,666.67 per ha followed by rheum australe with 2,228.57 per ha with the himalayan orchid having the least abundance of 1,061.54 per ha. however, the abundance of d. hatagirea as reported by ranapal (2009) was higher (2,367 per ha) than the one found in this study; the difference might be due to the least number of himalayan orchid plants found in the study area. coverage and relative coverage of d. hatagirea and its associates d. hatagirea was found to have the highest coverage (26%) and highest relative coverage (72.2%) as compared to those of rheum australe and rumex nepalensis (table 4). the highest coverage of d. hatagirea was due to the highest number of plots in which it occurred as compared to its associates. table 4: coverage and relative coverage of d. hatagirea along with its associates s.n. species coverage (%) relative coverage (%) 1. d. hatagirea 26.00 72.22 2. rheum australe 7.00 19.45 3. rumex nepalensis 3.00 8.33 total 36.00 100.00 important value index of d. hatagirea and its associates d. hatagirea was found to have the highest ivi (187.24) as compared to its two associates (table 5), indicating its dominance in the study site. table 5: important value index of d. hatagirea along with its associates s.n. species ivi 1. d. hatagirea 187.24 2. rheum australe 69.35 3. rumex nepalensis 32.29 total 288.88 diversity indices for d. hatagirea and its associates the simson’s index (c) and the simson’s index of dominance (d) were found to be 0.41 and 0.59, respectively (table 6), indicating relatively even community and higher dominance of one species i.e. d. hatagirea in the study site. similarly, the shannon-weaver index (h) was found to be 3.27, indicating relatively diverse community in the study site. the difference was due to the presence of the greater number of d. hatagirea individuals as compared to its two associates. the diversity of the species in the study site was, therefore, not satisfactory. khadka et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 51 table 6: simson’s index of dominance and shannon-weaver index for d. hatagirea and its associates diversity index value remarks simsons' index (c) 0.41 relatively even community simsons' index of dominance (d) 0.59 higher dominance of one species i.e. d. hatagirea shanon-weaver index (h) 3.27 relatively diverse community conclusion the study revealed that frequency, relative frequency, relative density, relative abundance and relative coverage of d. hatagirea w e re higher as compared to its two associatesrhuem australe and rumex nepalensis. this indicated the good ecological status of d. hatagirea in the study area. however, the value of simson’s index (c) indicated the relatively even community and the simson’s index of dominance (d) indicated the dominance of one species i.e. d. hatagirea while the value of the shannon-weaver index (h) indicated relatively diverse community i.e. the plant diversity was found to be not satisfactory, suggesting for necessary actions for the conservation of the diversity of d. hatagirea in the study area. further research is recommended on an annual basis so as to maintain database on the population dynamics and the harvesting level of this valuable medicinal plant. research on genetic diversity using molecular marker technique is also recommended to compare the genetic diversities of the populations of this orchid at different locations of nepal. although the occurrence of d. hatagirea was found to be higher than its two associates, the illegal harvesting of this valuable orchid and overgrazing in the study site are likely to bring it to extinction. therefore, awareness programmes about the in-situ and exsitu conservation of the endangered medicinal orchid d. hatagirea should be conducted in the study area. acknowledgements we are obliged to the rufford small grants foundation, united kingdom for financial support to conduct the study. we are grateful to the research assistants, the community people of ghasa and annapurna conservation area project for their necessary support, and department of national parks and wildlife conservation for allowing permission to conduct the research in the study area. references acap. 2009. management plan of annapurna conservation area (2009–2012). annapurna conservation area project, pokhara, nepal. baral, s. r. and kurmi, p. p. 2006. 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bhattacharyya, b. and banerjee, r. 2010. environmental biotechnology. oxford university press, new delhi, 338p. connolly, a. 2010. 101 ways to score higher on your gmat: what you need to know the graduate management admission test explained simply. jaico publishing house, lucknow, 288p. christopher, d. 2010. successful project in visual basic. bpb publications, new delhi, 248p. chakraborty, p. 2006. computer architecture and organization: a journey through evolution. jaico publishing house, kolkata, 105p. cheremisinoff, n. p. 2001. biotechnology for waste and wastewater treatment. prenticehall of india private limited, new delhi, 231p. corbett, j. 1999. the man-eating leopard of rudraprayag. oxford university press, calcutta, 191p. challa, s. n. m. 2002. water resources engineering: principles and practice. new age international publishers, india, 306p. chaudhari, n. c. 2008. the heart of india. jaico publishing house, new delhi, 350p. chand, d. 2002. essays on development of nepal. chandani publication pvt. ltd., kathmandu, 149p. desai, a. 1989. environment and entrepreneur. s. b. nangia, new delhi, 247p. dubash, n. k. 2012. handbook of climate change and india: development, politics and governance. oxford university press, new delhi, 400p. datta, s. 2010. amazing adaptations. national book trust, new delhi, 188p. dubash, n. k. 2012. handbook of climate change and india: development, politics and governance. oxford university press, new delhi, 400p. evans, p. 2006. information technology: for everybody-volume 1. bpb publications, new delhi, 232p. gupta, m. p. 2009. crisis management. essential books, new delhi, 286p. george, k. j. 2003. operating system: concepts and principles. shroff publishers and distributors, navi mumbai. 363p. hill, n. 2012. the master-key to riches. maanu graphics, new delhi, 231p. hammett, m. 2006. dictionary of international trade finance terms. biztantra, new delhi, 266p. hay, p. 2002. a companion to environmental thought. rawat publications, new delhi, 400p. heathcote, p. m. 2008. computing. bpb publications, new delhi, 208p. heathcote, p. m. and richards, r. p. 2001. information technology: for everybodyvolume 2. bpb publications, new delhi, 218p. kala, c. p. and silori, c. s. 2013. biodiversity communities and climate change. teri the energy and resources institute, calcutta, 330p. sheth, r. p. 2008. the sun. national book trust, india, 124p. central forest library acquisition list no. 62, may 2014 acquisition banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 58 lakshmikanthamma, s. 1997. sustainability of dryland agriculture in india (a case study of watershed development approach). md publication pvt. ltd., new delhi, 339p. marcum, b. d. and george, g. 2006. digital library development. libraries unlimited, london, 269p. mishra, s. k. 1994. sustainable growth of agriculture in india. m d publications pvt. ltd., new delhi, 123p. padma, t. and rao, k. p. c. 2010. the principles of environmental law. alt publication, hyderabad. 335p. puri, b. 2009. new illustrated computer course. a.i.t.b.s. publishers, india. 439p. rashid, s. m., ishtiaq, m., hashia, h. and rahman, a. 2008. environment, resources and sustainable development. rawat publication, new delhi, 430p. rabb k. and shamshur, m. 2012. ugc-net/ set: computer science and applications. ramesh publishing house, new delhi, 708p. rao, m. s. 1995. encyclopedic dictionary of geography vol. 2. anmol publications pvt. ltd., new delhi, 611p. sinha, j. and bhardwaj, a. 2011. environmental science. galgotia publication pvt, ltd., new delhi, 270p. saxena, g. 1990. the forest crisis. natraj publishers, dehra dun, 182p. saxena, n. c. 1995. forests, people and profit: new equations for sustainability. natraj publishers, dehra dun, 276p. shephard, d. r. 2001. introduction to computers and technology. crest publishing house, new delhi, 344p. sidhu, k. s. 2013. methodology of research in education. sterling publishers private limited, new delhi, 308p samual, c. k. 2007. poverty, social capital and natural resource management. rawat publications, new delhi, 260p. williams, n. 2005. fury of natural disasters moving stories of struggle and survival. epitome books, new delhi, 234p. yadav, r. p. 2009. statistical methods. asmita books and publishers pvt. ltd., kathmandu, 427p.  notice  the central forest library hereby requests all researchers, academicians and students to send one copy of their thesis and research papers related to forestry, wildlife, botany, soil conservation, socioeconomic studies, medicinal plants, environment and biodiversity to this library. central forest library department of forest research and survey, p.o. box : 3339, kathmandu, nepal e-mail: info@dfrs.gov.np tel. no. 4220482/4269491 acquisition 44 dualistic development and economic benefits: experience from community forestry in nepal a. r. sharma1* and r. b. dangi1 almost one third of the forest areas (1.71 million hectares) throughout nepal has been handed over to the local communities as community forests for ensuring the communities primarily to fulfill their basic needs of forestry products, besides their active participation on conserving biodiversity, and instigating social development at local level. more than 18,000 community forest user groups (cfugs) have been managing forests throughout the country and implementing different programmes related to forest conservation and livelihoods improvement. with wide spread community forestry, there is dilemma regarding further development of community forestry: should the future course be “traditional sector enrichment” or “modern sector enlargement”? with this backdrop, the authors resort to give introduction of this paper to our readers. this paper analyses how community forestry can affect income distribution in a dualistic economy when aid to one sector induces effect on the other. it further discusses how development fund should be channeled in community forestry keeping in mind the dualistic development. the economy is comprised of a modern sector mainly concentrated in urban areas and have export focus while traditional sector is predominated by agriculture often termed as “backward sector”. suppose, a development fund originating from the national treasure or from foreign aid mainly streaming from development partners, is made available for use in either of the two ways in community forestry: (1) to expand production and employment in the economy’s modern sector (a process termed as modern sector enlargement) for hypothetical example: ausaid assistance to establish a pole treatment plant at panchkhal in kavre district of central nepal with export focus or (2) to enhance productivity in the domestic sector (a process termed as traditional sector enrichment, for example, say dfid support to improve agriculture through the use of compost making use of leaf litters collected from community forests). this paper dwells on the possible effect on income distribution on dualistic development and without spearheading a specific approach, intends to garner a policy discourse on the stylized and dualistic development approach in community forestry. nepal’s ex-finance minister in his budget speech of fiscal year 2013–14 has vowed to transform nepal into a developing country by the year 2022, that demands a renewed dialogue on future pathway of community forestry (gon, 2013). methodology this paper is mainly based on the field experiences of the authors, who worked in different districts of nepal at the initial development stages of community forestry. the two examples, namely pole treatment plant and compost making using the leaf-litters are two case studies that represent modern sector enlargement and traditional sector enrichment respectively. the paper is mainly based on the stylized typology used by gary (1992) and is based on the theoretical framework, mainly to assess impact of dualistic development on income distribution. discussion as already mentioned, in this short paper, the authors have used gary fields’ stylized development typologies (todaro and smith, 2004) to explain shifting of lorenz curves and consequent impact on income distribution: 1. the modern-sector enlargement typology in which two-sector economy develops by enlarging the size of modern sector. while maintaining constant wages in both sectors 1 department of forests, nepal. * corresponding author: anuj128@gmail.com short note banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 45 as depicted by the lewis model, the authors have attempted to assess effect on income distribution, eg. development of enterprises or rapid industrialization due to forward and backward linkages of community forestry development in nepal; one real example of modern sector enlargement in community forestry is presented in box 1. 2. the modern sector enrichment growth typology, in which the economy grows but such growth is limited to a fixed number of households in modern sector, with both the numbers of farmers and their incomes held constant in the traditional sector, eg. development of industries like saw-mill due to forward linkages of community forestry. 3. traditional sector enrichment growth typology, in which all the benefits of growth are divided among traditional sector households, with little or no growth occurring in the modern sector. this process roughly describes the increased production of cereal crops and livestock due to increased availability of farm-inputs (leaf-litters, fodder etc) from the community forests. it helps in policies focused on achieving substantial reductions in absolute poverty even at very low incomes and with relatively low growth rates. box 1: chaubasbhulmu saw mill chaubas-bhulmu community saw mill, which was established with australian assistance in 1996. the sawmill figured as an exemplary forest management in the book “in search of excellence” published by fao. however, in less than a decade, the mill became dysfunctional. nevertheless, the mill provided a total employment of 13,308 man days and us$ 15,243 in wages from 1997 to 2004 (timsina, 2005). reflections the authors have attempted to use three stylized cases and lorenz curves to demonstrate the validity of the following propositions. they have just reversed the order presented above. 1. in the traditional-sector enrichment typology, growth in the traditional sector results in higher income of farming households. it leads to a more equal relative distribution of income, and that culminates into reduced poverty. thus, the traditional-sector enrichment growth ultimately causes lorenz curve to shift uniformly towards the line of equality. it shifts closer toward the line of equality, as portrayed in figure 1 which explains reduced poverty with traditional sector enrichment. percentage of income recipient households fig.1: traditional-sector enrichment and consequent poverty reduction (modified from todaro and smith, 2004) 2. in the modern-sector enrichment growth typology, growth results in higher incomes of households in urban areas. however, it leads to a less equal relative distribution of income among the urban and rural sector. it will produce no change in poverty. modern-sector enrichment growth causes the lorenz curve to shift downward and farther from the line of equality as shown in figure 2. this aggravates inequality with households with lower scale of income and having reduced share of income which will either have no effect or aggravate poverty. sharma and dangi banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 46 percentage of income recipient households fig. 2: modern-sector enrichment with no change in poverty or even aggravated poverty (modified from todaro and smith, 2004) 3. finally, in the case of modern-sector enlargement growth propelled by lewis, absolute income of the urban household rises sharply, and absolute poverty in urban locality is reduced. however, the lorenz curve will always cross somewhere in the midway so that we cannot make unambiguous statement about the changes in relative inequality among the households. the inequality in income distribution may improve or worsen at the long run. according to fields, if this style of growth experience is predominant, inequality is likely first to worsen in the early stages of development and then to improve at later stages which is more similar to kuznets’ inverted u hypothesis. the crossings of the lorenz curve as suggested by fields is demonstrated in figure 3. percentage of income recipient households fig. 3: modern-sector enlargement with initial aggravation and subsequent reduction of poverty we can give the explanation for the crossing of the lorenz curves in figure 3 as follows: the poor households who remain in the traditional sector have their incomes unchanged, mainly because there are no investments of development fund in this sector. hence, these incomes now represent a smaller fraction of the larger total income accrued due to modern sector enlargement. so the new lorenz curve, l2 , lies below the old lorenz curve, l1, at the lower end of income distribution scale. each modern-sector household receives the same absolute income as before, but now the share received by the richest income group is smaller than before. it explains why the new lorenz curve lies above the old one at the higher end of income distribution scale. hence, it can be safely interpreted that somewhere in the middle of the distribution, the old and new lorenz curves must cross each other. conclusion these three typologies offer different predictions about what will happen to inequality in the course of economic growth in community forestry. with modern-sector enrichment, inequality would rise steadily, while under traditionalsector enrichment, inequality would fall steadily and under such circumstances, allocating the development fund for purposes of traditional sector enrichment might be a better option. in contrast, under modern-sector enlargement, inequality would first rise and then fall. if this admittedly highly-stylized process of development were occurring, we would not be concerned about the temporary rise in inequality for two reasons. firstly, in addition to being temporary, it would be reflecting a process rather than the phenomenon itself. secondly, increased resources availed due to community forestry will result in a situation in which the member households of forest user group are, one by one, achieving incomes above the poverty line. these observations tell us that we have to come to conclusion that inequality is bad in general sense. in particular, in some cases, inequality may increase on temporary basis as we have observed in the case of modern-sector enlargement growth. it is due to the causes that will eventually make everyone better off and ultimately lower inequality in the long run. on the other hand, with modern-sector enrichment growth, the sharma and dangi pe rc en ta ge o f i nc om e banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 47 increase in inequality is not later reversed, and the poorest households of the forest user group do not escape from their poverty. as a result, we need to be careful about drawing conclusion from short-run changes in economic statistics of community forestry before we get insights about the underlying changes in the real economy that have given rise to these statistics. the process of modern-sector enlargement growth suggests a possible mechanism that could give rise to kuznets “inverted-u” hypothesis which has been established in the course of development; however, the hypothesis itself is disputable. different theoretical perspectives on dualistic development suggest different ways of allocating such a development fund. those who follow lewis, fei and ranis, jorgenson and others might tend to regard modern sector as the leading sector and the trade as the engine of growth. if this path is followed establishing a sawmill or pole treatment plant at panchkhal can be a good option to be pursued in community forestry. the underlying assumption is that the best use of additional development resources is to stimulate the modern sector, thereby achieving export-led growth. while the others believing traditional sector enrichment would tend to argue just opposite. if we follow schultz and adelman, we are inclined to believe that traditional sector (agriculture) has been deprived of resources and availability of community forests and will complement the resources need of this sector. an influx of development fund in traditional sector would have a higher marginal product than in the modern sector besides reducing risk of higher unemployment (search unemployment) in the latter sector due to crowding effect. it ultimately leads to aggravating unemployment in urban areas while simultaneously lowering output in rural areas. those who favor panchkhal pole treatment plant and advocate development resources to the modern sector tend to presume that economic growth is best achieved by shifting the locus of economic activity towards modern sector activities. the crux of development of modern sector lies on a number of assumptions: the marginal product of additional resources allocated to the modern sector is high; the labour required for production expansion is available; the additional products have market; merely little output is foregone, and, finally, job opportunities will attract job seekers that aggravate unemployment. at the other end of the spectrum, the proponents of dfid’s compost making training to the farmers to enhance agriculture, presume that economic growth is best achieved by targeting economic activity in traditional sector which is starving for additional resources. the cruxes of argument; marginal product of additional resources allocated to the traditional sector is high; plenty of labour available (underemployment); increased agriproducts have multiplier effect on the local economy; market is ensured and investment in agriculture ensures holistic development of the economy. the preferred allocation of development resources between sectors visibly depend on the amount of modern sector enlargement and traditional sector enrichment that could be achieved under alternative resources allocations and structure of labour market. one of the practical significances of initiating such a discussion is as follows: using additional development resources to expand modern sector exports and employment is most efficient when marginal product of the capital in modern sector is high and trend of migration is low. at the other paradigm, when the marginal product of capital is higher in the traditional sector as compared to modern sector and wide-spread unemployment/underemployment, allocating development fund for enrichment of the traditional sector might be a better option. on the eve of sixth national community forestry workshop, a policy discourse is much needed for the destination of community forestry: traditional sector enrichment or modern sector enlargement? it requires discourse and, perhaps, only the stakeholders of community forestry will be able to direct an answer at this point is beyond the scope of this paper. references gary, s. b. 1992. modern sector enlargement or traditional sector enrichment? gnp effects with induced migration. population economics 5 (3): 185–201. gon, 2013. public statement on income and expenditure for the fiscal year 2013–14. ministry of finance, nepal. http://www. mof.gov.np/ajw/uploads/uploaded_image/ budget%20speech%2014%20july%20 sharma and dangi banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 48 2013%20final%20review%2015%20july. pdf timsina, n. p. 2005. supporting livelihoods through employment: the chaubasbhumlu community sawmill, nepal. itto, forest trends, recoftc, rights and resources. todaro, m. p. and smith, c. s. 2004. economic development. 8th edition. pearson education, india. . sharma and dangi final bankojanakari vol 17-1.pmd 17 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 shey-phoksundo national park (spnp) and its buffer zone area covering nine villages of dolpa and two villages of mugu district, is located in the midwestern himalayan region of nepal. sheyphoksundo, the largest national park of nepal, including shey monastery at 4480 m height and magnificent phoksundo lake at 3150 m, the nepal’s deepest and second largest lake, accounts unique trans-himalayan ecosystem. the ecosystem along with sprawling landscape and large meadows provides critical habitat for unique biodiversity and natural beauty and harbors many endemic, threatened and ethnobotanically useful medicinal plants (kunwar and duwadee 2003). owing to these unique ecological characteristics along with socio-cultural systems (oldest tibetan culture bon po, traditional health care system amchi and a human settlement at the highest altitude at dho tarap valley, dolpa), the area (park) has been proposed to enlist in world heritage site (whs) and ramsar site. agriculture, animal husbandry and trade of medicinal plants are major livelihood portfolios in spnp and buffer zone areas. forest and pasture resources are important ones in the himalayas (ives 2006) for energy, fodder, and timber needs of local people. poaching, illegal and unsustainable harvesting of ntfps, inadequate data for management of biodiversity resources, limited park resources and unfavorable political situations posed constraints for conservation and management of these natural resources. wwf nepal and care nepal have jointly launched strengthened actions for governance in utilization of natural resources (sagun) program to sustainably manage the natural resources. principally, it ensures that the natural resources are managed in a democratic way, the performance of selected institutions is improved to meet the principles of good governance and participation and in particular, the benefits derived from natural resources are dispersed/distributed in accountable and transparent way to the local communities. further, the program envisions that there is increased productivity of natural resources under local management. in this context, the present study aimed at assessing the natural resource management (nrm) practices of local communities and institutions particularly focusing on good governance fundamentals. methodology the area chosen for study was shey-phoksundo national park and its buffer zone area. reconnaissance field visit was carried out in between november 2006 to december 2006. local communities/individuals and institutions from the sampling sites:dunai, raha, phoksundo and tripurakot vdcs (representing field sites and program office of sagun/northern mountain conservation project-nmcp, dolpa) were consulted. altogether, 105 respondents representing various organizations, government counter parts, line agencies, federations and associations, were good governance in natural resource management: a case study from dolpa district, nepal ripu m. kunwar1* and rudriksha rai parajuli2 present paper analyses good governance practices of community based organizations of dolpa district in management of natural resources. adequate participation, fund mobilization for livelihood diversification and transparent & accountable financial transactions were efficient proponents. however, participatory monitoring, post formation supports and incentives for income generation and entrepreneurship were imperative for sustainable natural resource management and livelihoods which are possible through clarifying resources, roles, responsibilities, rules and rights among stakeholders. key words: good governance, natural resource management, participation, livelihood, dolpa 1 centre for biological conservation, nepal. 2 wwf nepal, kathmandu nepal * author for correspondence: e-mail: rkunwar@gmail.com 18 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 interacted. few of them were taken as key respondents to verify and cross check the information. stakeholder analysis was done for secondary data collection and recording. individual as well as group/community level consultations together with formal and informal interviews, discussion, interactions, attitude and behavioral assessments, and observations were carried out to acquire the necessary information. besides, progress reports, research papers, management plans, baseline study, brochures, bulletins, working documents, etc. were reviewed. the schedule matrix used to account the efficacy of the individuals and institutions in this study was adopted from samarpan/care nepal and it was slightly modified for gathering information in convenient way. results & discussion governance and good governance-history governance is the practice of power for the management of economic and social resources in the development of the state (kafle 2060). it integrates the mechanisms, processes and institutions through which all the stakeholders (the state, private sector and civil society) and citizens articulate their interests. it is all about the rules (undp 1999) that answer the questions who, what and how decisions are made and enforced. nepal’s history and civilization was started before 5561 bc. in earlier days, the governance was procured by the guidance of scripture and tutors with considering the rules of vaba, mahabharata, upanishada, geeta, ramayan, etc. during the reign of ranas in 1846-1950, some liberal rules and regulations were sanctioned. after the initiation of democracy in 1950, there were more liberal policies, rule and regulations and gradual progress/increase in efficacy of governance system since then. during 1960-1990 the panchayat system was established and the country was administered under five regions, 14 zones and 75 districts as a form of decentralization. multiparty democracy system was reinstated with the king as a constitutional monarch after 1990. good governance is at forefront in natural resource management and development discourse (mc dougall et al. 2004). it accounts for the sustainable management of resources and livelihoods. the striking features in good governance are effectiveness, responsiveness, accountability, participatory, predictability, transparency and equitability; and social justice, economic liberalization, political pluralism, and administrative accountability (fowler 1998). the good governance was first used in nepal in human development index (hdi) report of nepal –1997 (undp, 1997). later on, the word has frequently been used. devolution of forest resource management policies is presented in table 1 and 2. table 1: historical timeline of the forest resource management policies in nepal up to 1846 conversion of forests into agricultural lands 1846-1950 exploitation and privatization of forests 1957 private forest nationalization act 1961 forest act 1967 forest preservation act 1976 national forestry plan 1973 national park and wildlife conservation act 1978 panchayat forest regulation 1981 forestry sector policy 1982 decentralization act 1984 decentralization regulation 1988 master plan for the forestry sector 1993 forest act 1995 forest regulation 1998 local self governance act source: joshi (1997) the tenth five year plan (2002-2007) and the poverty reduction strategy paper (prs-2002) of nepal have envisioned good governance as one of the strategic pillars of development. devolving and sharing of power with forest-dependantcommunities as forest good governance was started from enactment of master plan for the forestry sector (mpfs, 1989) and forest act 1993 (table 1&2). as the need of forest governance is to turn into more inclusive and pro poor in order to ensure well being of poor people (arnold, 2001), nrm governance in dolpa is in line with maintaining good governance fundamentals and well being of people and nature. institution building altogether, 193 community based organizations as nrm groups have been formed in shey-phoksundo national park and buffer zone areas (table 3). the community forest users groups, buffer zone user groups/committees, eco-clubs, snow leopard conservation committees, medicinal plant management committees, traditional health care centers/myongkhang management committees (thccs), rangeland management committees, and kunwar and parajuli 19 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 different siter groups were developed and strengthened. unlike other areas, users and managers of natural resources of dolpa district are greatly varied. because of heterogeneous civil societies adopting varied resources and geographical complexities, governance interventions on resource management were less identical. traditional health care centres/myongkhang management committees with amchis and local people were found to be effective to sustainably manage the medicinal plant resources (lama et al. 2001) whereas community forest user groups and eco-clubs were efficient in managing the forests and creating greater awareness level in lower dolpa. sister groups were mean to empower the women and disadvantaged/marginalized groups while thccs were meant to provide basic health care service in upper dolpa through sustainable management of medicinal and aromatic plants (maps). the snowleopard conservation committees were efficient in raising awareness and mobilizing the local communities towards wildlife (snow-leopard) conservation. eco-clubs were sensitive to create awareness/education among the local communities about environment management while the forest user groups were responsive to sustainably manage the resources (kunwar 2006). however, the buffer zone user committees were found to be less experienced and passively working. capacity building the basic knowledge of nrm was endowed with several environmental education and awareness raising programs. trainings/workshops/cross visits related to good governance, right based approach (rba) and advocacy were important for building awareness on policies and regulations and advocating for policy dialogue at all levels. public hearing together with public auditing and financial management interventions were instrumental in maintaining transparency within organizations. furthermore, interventions helped participants to develop facilitation skills in delivery of rights and advocacy. the interventions related to medicinal plants, their processing and marketing are crucial for livelihood of the local people particularly of the upper dolpa. nursery, cultivation and plantation related trainings led the communities to initiate to domesticate or cultivate useful and medicinal plants in their own private lands, which was imperative in dolpa district (kunwar, 2002). some community led medicinal farms of selected species: delphinium himalayai (atis), valeriana jatamansii (sugandhwal) etc. have been initiated in raha vdc as inference of trainings. traditional health care centers (thccs) were effective in raising awareness and monitoring sustainable harvesting and conservation of medicinal plants in phoksundo, tinje, vijer, dho and saldang villages. free grazing was found to be controlled in from enactment of master plan for forestry sector (mpfs 1989) and forest act 1993 (table 1&2). as emphasized the need of forest governance to turn into more inclusive and pro poor in order to ensure well being of poor people (arnold 2001), nrm governance in dolpa is in line with maintaining good governance fundamentals and well being of people and nature. table 2: forest resource management policies and their strategies type 1978 regulation 1979 amendment 1987 amendment 1995 regulation % of benefit to the communities 40 75 100 100 use of community fund 50% for forestry 50% for forestry 100% for forestry surplus amount for forestry plan preparation dfo dfo community community management responsibility government of nepal government of nepal user committees user groups source: joshi (1997) institution building altogether 193 community based organizations as nrm groups have been formed in sheyphoksundo national park and buffer zone areas (table 3). the community based organizations: sister groups, eco clubs, buffer zone user groups/committees, community forest users groups, mother groups, sister groups, snow leopard conservation committees, medicinal plant management committees, traditional health care centers/myongkhang management committees (thccs), rangeland management committees, etc were developed and strengthened. unlikely to the other areas, users and managers of natural resources of dolpa district are greatly varied. because of heterogeneous civil societies to adopt varied resources and geographical complexities, governance interventions on resource management were less identical. traditional health care centres/myongkhang management committees with amchis and local people were found to be effective to sustainably manage the medicinal plant resources (lama et al 2001) whereas community forest user groups and eco-clubs were efficient in managing the forests and creating greater awareness level in lower dolpa. sister groups were mean to empower the women and disadvantaged/marginalized groups, and thccs were meant to provide basic health care service in upper dolpa through sustainable management of medicinal and aromatic plants (maps). snow leopard conservation committees were efficient in creating awareness and mobilizing local community towards wildlife (snow leopard) conservation. eco-clubs were sensitive to create awareness/education to local community about environment management, and forest user groups were to sustainably manage the resources (kunwar 2006). however, buffer zone user committees were less experienced and passively working. table 3: community based organizations for natural resource management of spnp and buffer zone area s no. name of community-based organizations total number 1 buffer zone user committees 17 2 buffer zone user council 1 3 community forest user groups 21 4 eco-clubs at community level 19 5 eco-clubs at school level 28 6 medicinal plant management committees 3 7 myongkhang management committees (thcc) 2 8 rangeland management committees 41 9 sister groups 52 10 snow-leopard conservation committees 9 total 193 capacity building the basic knowledge of nrm was endowed with several environmental education and awareness programs. training/workshop/cross visits related to good governance, right based approach (rba) and advocacy were important for building awareness on policies and regulations and advocating for policy dialogue at all levels. public hearing and public auditing and financial management interventions were instrumental in maintaining transparency within organizations. furthermore the interventions helped participants to develop facilitation skills in delivery of rights and advocacy. the interventions related to medicinal plants, their processing and marketing are crucial for livelihood of local people particularly of the upper dolpa. nursery, cultivation and plantation related trainings led community to initiate to domesticate or cultivate useful and medicinal plants in their own private lands, which was imperative in dolpa district (kunwar 2002). some community led medicinal farms of selected species: delphinium himalayai (atis), valeriana jatamansii (sugandhwal), etc. have been initiated in raha vdc as inference of trainings. traditional health care centers (thccs) were effective in raising awareness and monitoring sustainable harvesting and conservation of medicinal plants in phoksundo, tinje, vijer, dho and saldang villages. free grazing was found to be controlled in the areas where medicinal plants are abundant. dactylorhiza hatagirea (hathajadi, panchaunle), neopicrorhiza scrophulariflora (katuko), atis, sugandhwal, nardostachys grandiflora (vulte, jatamansi), snow leopard, musk deer, etc are priority species of thccs for conservation. other successful implementations after capacity building programs were silvicultural operations; update record keeping, minuting, auditing, monitoring, participatory decision making and benefit sharing, resource management and community development under the operational plan, adequate representation of women and disadvantaged groups in committee and key position. the active involvement of local institutions motivated locale to participate in management activities and spell out without hesitation. the voice of primary users and local populace reflect the needy interventions that to be accomplished. kunwar and parajuli 20 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 the areas where medicinal plants were abundant. plants like dactylorhiza hatagir ea (hathajadi, panchaunle), neopicrorhiza scrophulariflora (katuko), atis, sugandhwal, and nardostachys grandiflora (vulte, jatamansi), and animals such as snow leopard, musk deer, etc are priority species of thccs for conservation. apart from capacity building programs, other successful implementations were silvicultural operations; record keeping, minuting, auditing, monitoring, participatory decision making and benefit sharing, resource management and community development as per the operational plans, adequate representation of women and disadvantaged groups (dags) in the forest user group and key positions. the active involvement of the local institutions motivated the local people to participate in management activities and spell out without hesitation. the voice of primary users and local populace reflect the needy interventions to be accomplished. the increment of women and disadvantaged beneficiaries in capacity building programs was found to be the most (table 4). beneficiaries of the women and disadvantaged community members increased from 21% in 2002/03 to 31% in 2004/05 and 12% in 2003/04 to 23% in 2004/05 to 22% respectively. annual review, reporting as well as public hearing and public auditing were initiatives from the communities as indicating positive impact of capacity building programs upon the individuals and community groups. public hearing and auditing were carried out in more than 10 cbos (cfugs, bzucs, and sister groups). the replication of public hearing and auditing and other financial management and administrative activities in other organizations was substantial because there were new 10 cbos who were preceded to have auditing. similar trend of practice and replication of good governance fundamentals was observed in banke district by bhatta and gentle (2004) and thapa (2005). decision making process in dolpa was usually on consensus basis. local level conflicts were resolved and small scale planning, monitoring and implementation of knowledge in the field were observed in the participatory manner. human capital has significantly been increased by investment in education and capacity building programs. although the communities participated well in capacity enhancement activities and appreciated good governance, transparency and right based approach, they were more ease to have infrastructure development activities (construction and maintenance of bridges, roads, trails, water supply, mills, electricity etc.). there was regular system of record keeping, minuting and monthly meeting. however the participation of women and disadvantaged groups was not satisfactory (13.33% and 8.66% respectively as compared to 86.66% by men) in monthly meetings (paudel 2004). 54% users were found to be the regular attendant in the partidipatory meetings. there was punishment/rewarding system to motivate and encourage users to adopt in conservation and discourage to avoid rules and act illegal activities. punishment and rewarding system was effectively carried out in cfugs and bzucs. the committee charges nrs 500 for criminals for the first time and up to nrs 5000 next time who performs illegal activities e.g. cut immature and pole-size trees. special provisions and subsidy (1-2%) to disadvantaged groups to promote/encourage them to participate actively in nrm were scheduled by cfugs and bzucs. participation because of the knowledge and idea of good governance, self-confidence and empowerment, community forest users have greatly promoted and ultimately accounted to have greater participation. participation was found to be the most in capacity building and nrm programs. involvement of women and dags in working groups was noticeable. there were respectively of 37.04% and 34.22% women and 8.77% and 7.44% disadvantaged group’s particularly the increment of women and dalit beneficiaries in capacity building programs was the most (table 4). beneficiaries of the women and dalit community members increased from 20% to 31% and 11% to 22% respectively. annual review, reporting and public hearing and public auditing were initiatives from the communities as impact of capacity building activities and had positive impacts to the individuals and community groups. public hearing and auditing were carried out in more than 10 cbos (cfugs, bzucs, and sister groups). the replication of public hearing and auditing and other financial management and administrative activities in other organizations was substantial because there were new 10 cbos who were preceded to have auditing. similar trend of practice and replication of good governance fundamentals was observed in banke district by bhatta and gentle (2004) and thapa (2005). decision making process in dolpa was usually on consensus basis. local level conflicts were resolved and small scale planning, monitoring and implementation of knowledge to the field were observed at equitable and participatory mechanism. table 4: number of beneficiaries of the capacity building programs beneficiaries sub-groups 2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 men 148 (79.14%) 679 (59.77%) 312 (68.57%) women 39 (20.85%) 457 (40.19%) 143 (31.42%) community member dag (na) 138 (11.83%) 104 (22.85%) men 111 (82.83%) 309 (93.92%) 269 (81.02%) women 23 (17.16%) 20 (6.07%) 63 (18.97%) project staff dag (na) 2 (0.60%) 14 (4.21%) human capital has significantly been increased by investment in education and capacity building programs. although community appreciated and participated well in capacity enhancement activities and good governance, transparency and right based approach, they are more ease to have hardware activities/infrastructure development (construction and maintenance of bridges, roads, trails, water supply, mills, electricity etc.). there was regular system of record keeping, minuting and monthly meeting. however there was low participation of women and disadvantaged groups. there was 86.66%, 13.33% and 8.66% participation of men, women and disadvantaged groups respectively in monthly meetings (paudel 2004). of the participants in meetings, total 54% users were regular attendant. there was punishment/rewarding system to motivate and encourage users to adopt in conservation and discourage to avoid rules and act illegal activities. punishment and rewarding system was effectively carried out in cfugs and bzucs. the committee poses nrs 500 for criminals in first time and up to nrs 5000 in next time who opt the illegal activities: cut immature and pole size trees, etc. especial provisions and subsidy (1-2%) to disadvantaged groups to promote/encourage them to participate actively in nrm were scheduled by cfugs and bzucs. kunwar and parajuli 21 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 representation in executive committees and key positions (president, vice president, general secretary, treasurer and secretary) (table 5). prioritization and inclusion of disadvantaged groups, ethnic groups and women in newly formed and renewed operational plans were most. gender, equity and good governance issues have been addressed in the newly formed and renewed operational plans. particularly, the increment of women and disadvantaged groups in renewed operational plans was important (table 6). similar observations were also noted by pokharel and nurse (2004), maharjan et al (2004), bhatta and gentle (2004), chowdhary (2004) and dhital et al. (2004) from different areas of nepal. such adequate and increasing trend of representation of women and disadvantaged groups in committees and key positions were noticeable. the increment due to good governance system was more remarkable in other areas than dolpa district (table 7) owing to awareness level of users and complex physiography. equity of the total 1863 households of cfugs in dolpa district, 33.76% households including 3.97% households of disadvantaged groups are found to be benefited from the equitable distribution of the resources. they have been benefited and received subsidy to install the eco-friendly devices. moreover, more than 20% disadvantaged groups and 30% women users of the total beneficiaries have been benefited from the capacity building programs (table 4). most of the participants of the capacity building programs were used to share knowledge within participants and family members. as a result, awareness and capacity on nrm (especially species and forest conservation) was greatly generated. to maintain equity on resource access, some criteria have been adopted by sister groups to select the users/ participants such as one representative from key positions, one representative from committee members and others from users; rotational basis; importance given to interested, subject matter related and disadvantaged groups and women and priority to the location/local situation. though there was progressive trend of participation and access to the resources/opportunities of disadvantaged and women groups, their role in decision making to benefit sharing and equity was inadequate. empowerment as well as more exposures and scopes are requisite for women and disadvantaged groups for their confidence, and active participation in decision making. fund mobilization mobilization of group fund in cfugs was important. groups were found to be mobilized their group fund to the various community development and forest management activities as major headings (figure 1). the highest percentage of investment was found in community development and empowerment to women and disadvantaged groups. community participation participation was most in community forest user groups. because of the knowledge and idea of good governance, self-confidence and empowerment in community forest users have greatly promoted and ultimately accounted to have greater participation. participation was most for capacity building and nrm programs. involvement of women and dags in working groups was noticeable. there were respectively of 37.04% and 34.22% women and 8.77% and 7.44% disadvantaged group’s representation in executive committee and key positions (president, vice president, general secretary, treasurer and secretary) (table 5). table 5: representation of men, women and disadvantaged groups in management committee and key position executive committee member (%) key position (%) user group men women dag men women dag cfugs (21) 72.80 27.10 11.40 88.88 11.11 6.17 bzucs (17) 85.00 15.00 9.10 96.70 3.12 6.45 all cbos (193) 62.95 37.04 8.77 65.77 34.22 7.44 prioritization and inclusion of disadvantaged group, ethnic group and women in newly formed and renewed operational plans were most. gender, equity and good governance issues have been addressed in the newly formed and renewed operational plans. particularly the increment of women and disadvantaged groups in renewed operational plans was important (table 6). similar observations were also noted by pokharel and nurse (2004), maharjan et al (2004), bhatta and gentle (2004), chowdhary (2004) and dhital et al (2004) from different areas of nepal. such adequate and increasing trend of representation of women and disadvantaged groups in committees and key positions were noticeable. the increment due to good governance system was more remarkable in other areas than dolpa district (table 7) due to awareness level of users and complex physiography. table 6: number of users and committee members in renewed operational plans before renewal after renewal % of increase men women dag men women dag men women dag ecm 27(87%) 4 (13%) 1 (3.2%) 30 (77%) 9 (23%) 3 (7.6%) 11.11% 125% 200% user 292 26 319 35 9.42% 34.61% ecm = executive committee member, dag = disadvantaged group table 7: number of executive committee member sagun nepal program nmcp/sagun dolpa program user type 2002/03 2003/04 2004 2005 women 38% 42% (4%↑) 27.10% 27.18% (0.08%↑) dag 8% 13% (5%↑) 10.80% 12.13% (1.33%↑) poor 68.50% 54.36% (14.14% ↓) equity participation participation was most in community forest user groups. because of the knowledge and idea of good governance, self-confidence and empowerment in community forest users have greatly promoted and ultimately accounted to have greater participation. participation was most for capacity building and nrm programs. involvement of women and dags in working groups was noticeable. there were respectively of 37.04% and 34.22% women and 8.77% and 7.44% disadvantaged group’s representation in executive committee and key positions (president, vice president, general secretary, treasurer and secretary) (table 5). table 5: representation of men, women and disadvantaged groups in management committee and key position executive committee member (%) key position (%) user group men women dag men women dag cfugs (21) 72.80 27.10 11.40 88.88 11.11 6.17 bzucs (17) 85.00 15.00 9.10 96.70 3.12 6.45 all cbos (193) 62.95 37.04 8.77 65.77 34.22 7.44 prioritization and inclusion of disadvantaged group, ethnic group and women in newly formed and renewed operational plans were most. gender, equity and good governance issues have been addressed in the newly formed and renewed operational plans. particularly the increment of women and disadvantaged groups in renewed operational plans was important (table 6). similar observations were also noted by pokharel and nurse (2004), maharjan et al (2004), bhatta and gentle (2004), chowdhary (2004) and dhital et al (2004) from different areas of nepal. such adequate and increasing trend of representation of women and disadvantaged groups in committees and key positions were noticeable. the increment due to good governance system was more remarkable in other areas than dolpa district (table 7) due to awareness level of users and complex physiography. table 6: number of users and committee members in renewed operational plans before renewal after renewal % of increase men women dag men women dag men women dag ecm 27(87%) 4 (13%) 1 (3.2%) 30 (77%) 9 (23%) 3 (7.6%) 11.11% 125% 200% user 292 26 319 35 9.42% 34.61% ecm = executive committee member, dag = disadvantaged group table 7: number of executive committee member sagun nepal program nmcp/sagun dolpa program user type 2002/03 2003/04 2004 2005 women 38% 42% (4%↑) 27.10% 27.18% (0.08%↑) dag 8% 13% (5%↑) 10.80% 12.13% (1.33%↑) poor 68.50% 54.36% (14.14% ↓) equity kunwar and parajuli 22 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 development and the nrm activities were comprehended with the way of transparent and accountable use of the resources and group fund. particularly, the community development and nrm and environmental education and awareness programs were run by the sister groups and forest and buffer zone user committees and by the ecoclubs and snow leopard conservation committees respectively. species conservation, habitat management and medicinal plant management were effective in upper dolpa. (kunwar and adhikari, 2005). alternative energy devices (solar, improved cooking stoves) that reduce the drudgery of the rural population by cutting down the time required to collect and use traditional forms of energy such as fuelwood, animal wastes etc. and harmonize people and nature, have been gaining momentum in dolpa district. however, there was lack of technical manpower for proper handling and maintenance of the devices. the contribution from solar sets was important to reduce health and socioeconomic impacts (khatri, 2005) and there was 22% reduction in fuelwood consumption after using the improved cooking stoves (dhital, 2005). forest/species conservation participatory forest inventory and monitoring were effective in dolpa district. in order to encourage local communities for forest/species conservation and to increase production of fodder, fuelwood and timber, some forest nurseries have been established at local level. sallo, loti (olea sp.), apple (malus sp.), juglans regia (okhar), bains (salix) spp., etc. were produced and grown in nurseries. active involvement of sister groups, eco-clubs, buffer zone user committees and community forest user groups was noticed in nursery management, and seedling/sapling transplantation. the involvement was of 60% of poorer communities and 10% of disadvantaged groups. of the total plantations, 72% were found to be successful (spnp/ nmcp, 2005). besides plantations, forests were sustainably conserved with the active participation of user groups. forest area under active management was found to have increased significantly from very beginning. the area under active management was 54 ha in 2002/03, 211 ha in 2003/04 and 236 ha in 2004/05 (spnp/nmcp, 2005). however, weak technical and managerial capacities in community forest user groups (sharma and acharya, 2004) have weakened the good governance efficacy. there were community based maps nurseries in tripurakot and pahada vdcs to propagate and multiplicate the maps cultivation at community level. the seedlings of panchaunle, jatamansi, sugandhwal, atis and okhar species have been produced and transplanted. medicinal plant management committees (mpmc) were established to overall manage the medicinal plant conservation. significant number (20.5%) of disadvantaged users from community forest user groups have been involved in cultivation and sustainable harvesting of ntfps. maintenance and construction of school, road, trail, bridge, drinking water, mill, etc. were major community development activities. many community development works such as awareness and education, plantation and care, support to maintain community hygiene, prohibit/control the use of polythene bags and pollution, and activities regarding cultural development, participation in fair/special day, antipoaching and hunting programs were carried out by sister groups and cfugs with the help of ecoclubs. nursery development, plantation, seedling production, collection and harvesting, etc. were major activities of cfugs. grants and loan for users for income generation activities, support school programs, employment to the users and disadvantaged groups, etc. were also observed. the increasing trend of stall feeding and participatory protection in the district have led to sustainable forest resource management. but, as in community forestry in the other areas of nepal, strong conservation approach in community forests of buffer zone areas of dolpa district has posed some difficulties in sustainable uses of natural resources (singh and bajracharya, 2002). limited forest resources of dolpa district have been exacerbated due to increasing human pressures namely forest fire, grazing, irrational collections, etc 30 22 19 17 12 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 community development women and disadvantaged group empowerment partic ipation forest m anagement saving and credit actitivities % o f i nv es tm en t figure 1: mobilization of resources/fund kunwar and parajuli 23 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 constraints and recommendations there were very limited field movements that impeded program implementation, follow up and monitoring. because of the limited movements, there was lesser involvement of local community in various activities. the lesser involvement was also due to the lack of awareness in the local communities. conflict mediation sometimes became complex because of the lack of knowledge and understanding the relevant policies, regulations and guidelines and stakeholders’ roles, rights and responsibilities. capacity building campaigns and implementation procedures (as suggested by pokharel and niraula, 2004) for local community would be instrumental for sustainable management. more emphasis/initiatives to encourage/empower disadvantaged groups to participate in various activities and join in user groups are imperative. to assist the user groups to gain confidence, the partner organizations need to provide adequate post formation supports. the delivery of knowledge/skills on sustainable and optimum use of resource and effective utilization of community fund should be through community based approaches and collaborative initiatives. communication, coordination and network of users to make their voice heard in policy considerations should be strengthened. despite the plantation was common to all user groups, very few plantations succeeded due to lack of post management supports. particularly, the least survival rate of transplanted seedlings and saplings was due to inadequate fencing, irrigation and post plantation management regimes. fencing and irrigation facility should equally be given priority in plantation areas as post management support. community based organizations have been formed but there was no platform or support or environment to internalize the acquired knowledge. because of inadequate support and follow up actions, the efficacy of users and cbos has come down leading to deterioraties of infrastructures. the severely affected infrastructures were water mills of phoksundo, plantations in rumo, maddu and raha, and vegetable farming in raha and maddu, etc.). participatory monitoring practice should be well encouraged for maintaining and developing the plantation areas. conservation/plantation of transitional lands (lands between agricultural land and forest) would be better than carrying out plantation in bare and open areas. livelihood of the people will be improved by providing adequate interventions in income generating activities and entrepreneurship. particularly, carpet weaving, sheep/goat farming, livestock rearing and cheese production, medicinal plant cultivation and enterprise development/ entrepreneurship are potential income generating activities. following operational strategies are required to make a shift to achieve the sustainable good governance practice. conclusion in conclusion, nrm in dolpa is in line with maintaining good governance fundamentals and well being of people and nature. however, participatory monitoring, post formation support and additional incentives for income generating activities are imperative. acknowledgement wwf nepal sagun program is gratefully acknowledged for providing financial support to carry out the study. references arnold, j. e. m. 2001. forests and people: 25 years of community forestry. fao rome. bhatta, b. and gentle, p. 2004. strengthening the internal governance of cfugs: experience from samarpan project. in twenty five years of community forestry (eds) kanel, k. r., mathema, p., kandel, b. r., niraula, d. r., sharma, a. r. and gautam, m. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 4-6 august, 2004, kathmandu, 508-514. chowdhary, c. l. 2004. governance in community forest user groups in the perspective of post formation support. in twenty five years of community forestry (eds) kanel, k. r., mathema, p., kandel, b. r., niraula, d. r., sharma, a. r. and gautam, m. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 4-6 august, 2004, kathmandu, 515-520. dhital, b. 2005. ecological and socioeconomic impacts of adopting alternative energy improved cooking stoves in shey-phoksundo national park and its buffer zone area, nepal (thesis, cis). purbanchal university, kathmandu, 22p. dhital, r. m., rai, c. b. and regmi, n. p. 2004. governance in community forestry: field experiences from churia forest development project. in twenty kunwar and parajuli 24 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 1 five years of community forestry (eds) kanel, k. r., mathema, p., kandel, b. r., niraula, d. r., sharma, a. r. and gautam, m. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 4-6 august, 2004, kathmandu, 521-530. fowler, a. 1998. striking a balance: a guide to enhancing the effectiveness of ngos in international development. earthscan publications, london, uk. ives, j. d. 2006. himalayan perceptions: environmental change and the well being of mountain peoples. himalayan association for the advancement of science (himaas), lalitpur, nepal. joshi, a. l. 1997. empowering local users in the forest management of nepal. a paper presented at the workshop on economic globalization and environment sustainability in south asia. 2-6 june, 1997, india. kafle, s. 2060. nepalma sthaniya shusan ra garibi niwaran. kathmandu, nepal. khatri, n. b. 2005. ecological and socioeconomic impacts of adopting alternative energy solar plant in shey-phoksundo national park and buffer zone area, nepal (thesis). trichandra campus, tribhuvan university, nepal, 45p. kunwar, r. m. 2002. some threatened medicinal and aromatic plants: status, trade and management practice in dolpa district, mid-west, nepal. journal of natural history museum 21:173-186. kunwar, r. m. and duwadee, n. p. s. 2003. ecology and economy of ntfps in nepal: a case study from dolpa and jumla district, nepal. botanica orientalis, 3: 89-97. kunwar, r. m. and adhikari n. 2005. ethnomedicine of dolpa district, nepal: the plants, their vernacular names and uses. lyonia 8(1): 43-49 www.lyonia.org. kunwar, r. m. 2006. case studies of impacts of strengthened actions for governance in utilization of natural resources (sagun) program implementation in shey-phoksundo national park and buffer zone area, nepal. [report], wwf nepal programme, kathmandu, nepal. lama, y. c., ghimire, s. k. and thomas, y. a. 2001. medicinal plants of dolpo: amchi’s knowledge and conservation. people and plants and wwf nepal, kathmandu, nepal. maharjan, m. r., acharya, b., lamichhane, r. p., sharma, n. n., pradhan, b. r. and paudel, t. p. 2004. operationalisation of good governance in community forestry: an experience from sagun programme. in twenty five years of community forestry (eds) kanel, k. r., mathema, p., kandel b. r., niraula d. r., sharma a. r. and gautam m. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 4-6 august, 2004, kathmandu, 531-537. mc dougall, paudel, k. p. and pandit, b. h. 2004. effective adaptive capacity: a missing link in good governance in community forest user groups? in twenty five years of community forestry (eds) kanel, k. r., mathema, p., kandel b. r., niraula d. r., sharma a. r. and gautam m. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 4-6 august, 2004, kathmandu, 358-370. mfsc. 1989. master plan for forestry sector. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. paudel, b. c. 2004. community forests and sustainable resource utilization: a study of cfugs in sheyphoksundo national park, dolpa, nepal. trichandra campus, tribhuvan university (thesis). kathmandu, nepal. pokharel, b. k. and niraula, d. r. 2004. community forestry in nepal: achievements, challenges and options for future. in twenty five years of community forestry (eds) kanel, k. r., mathema, p., kandel b. r., niraula d. r., sharma a. r. and gautam m. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 4-6 august, 2004, kathmandu, 298-316. pokharel, b. k. and nurse, m. 2004. forests and people’s livelihood: benefiting the poor from community forestry. journal of forest and livelihood 4(1):19-29. sharma, n. n. and acharya b. 2004. good governance in nepal’s community forestry: translating concepts into actions. in twenty five years of community forestry (eds) kanel, k. r., mathema, p., kandel b. r., niraula d. r., sharma a. r. and gautam m. proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry, 4-6 august, 2004, kathmandu, 422-432. spnp/nmcp. 2003. annual technical progress report (2002-2003). department of national park and wildlife conservation, wwf nepal program, kathmandu, nepal. spnp/nmcp. 2004. annual technical progress report (2003-2004). department of national park and wildlife conservation, wwf nepal program, kathmandu, nepal, 81 p. spnp/nmcp. 2005. annual technical progress report (2004-2005). department of national park and wildlife conservation, wwf nepal program, kathmandu, nepal. thapa, k. b. 2005. an assessment of governance status of cfugs in banke district, nepal. (thesis). institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, 58p. undp. 1997. nepal human development index report. undp, kathmandu, nepal . undp. 1999. report on governance of third world. undp, kathmandu, nepal. kunwar and parajuli 30 forests play an important role in absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide. broadleaf forests absorb more carbon as compared to the pine forests. quantification of carbon in any vegetation and soil type is a basic step for evaluating the carbon sequestration potential of an ecosystem. to quantify the vegetation and soil carbon stocks in oak and pine forests, above and below-ground biomass of both forests were estimated using stratified random sampling. individual trees in the sample plots of both forest types were measured. above-ground biomass of trees and saplings were estimated by using different models, while the biomass of grass, herb and litter were calculated directly from field measurements. to determine the soil carbon stock, soil samples from three depth levels (0–10 cm, 10–20 cm, and 20–30 cm) of each soil profile were collected for each sample plot laid out in both forest types. total vegetation carbon stocks in oak and pine forests were 90.37 and 24.82 mg c ha-1, respectively. similarly, the soil carbon stocks in the oak and pine forests were 60.82 and 46.12 mg c ha-1, respectively. key words: carbon sequestration, soil organic carbon, vegetative biomass, forest types carbon stocks in the oak and pine forests in salyan district, nepal b. p. shrestha1 and b. p. devkota2 forests play an important role in the global carbon cycle. they can be both sources and sinks of carbon, depending on the specific management regime and activities (ipcc, 2000). the goal of reducing carbon sources and increasing the carbon sink can be achieved efficiently by protecting and conserving the carbon pools in existing forests (brown et al., 1996). forest vegetation and soils share almost 60% of the world’s terrestrial carbon (winjum et al., 1992). vegetation and soils are viable sinks of atmospheric carbon (c) and may significantly contribute to mitigation of global climate change (bajracharya et al., 1998; lal, 2004). estimating c stock under existing forest land, and their distribution within the soil profile, provides baseline data to enable us to project c sequestration over time (shrestha and singh, 2008). the carbon stock in a forest ecosystem can be broadly categorized into biotic (vegetative carbon) and pedologic (soil carbon) components. as trees grow, they sequester carbon in their tissues, and as the amount of tree biomass increases, the atmospheric carbon dioxide (co2) is mitigated. about 43–50% of the dry biomass of trees is carbon (malhi et al., 2002; negi et al., 2003). soil contains the major part of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. trees, both above and below-ground, continue to accumulate carbon until they reach maturity; at that point about half of the average tree’s dry weight will be carbon (anonymous, 2004). on the other hand, trees are long-lived plants that develop a large biomass, thereby capturing large amounts of carbon over a growth cycle of many decades. thus, forests can capture and retain large amounts of carbon over long periods. these stocks are dynamic, depending upon various factors and processes operating in the systems, the most significant being land use, land-use changes, soil erosion, and deforestation (ipcc, 2000). the carbon stock in forest vegetation varies according to geographical location, plant species and age of the stand (van noordwijk et al., 1997). estimates of the biomass contained within forests are critical aspects of determination of the carbon loss associated with a wide range of land use and land-cover change processes. in order to assess the impact of deforestation and re-growth rates on the global carbon cycle, it is necessary to know the stocks of carbon as biomass per unit area for 1 ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, email: bishnu_stha@yahoo.com 2 tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 31 different forest types. the above-ground biomass and below-ground root biomass both need to be measured to enable better calculations of total forest carbon (hamburg, 2000). quantification of sequestered c in different forest types with different management regimes and soil profiles could be important for better planning of natural resources, and the making of good mitigation strategy for climate change effects. most studies on carbon sequestration have focused on carbon stocks in different land uses (gautam, 2002; shrestha and singh, 2008). others have focused only on organic carbon stocks in different forest soils of nepal (awasthi et al., 2002; shrestha et al., 2004; sitaula et al., 2004). nepal is a member of forest carbon partnership facility (fcpf), an innovative approach to financing efforts to combat climate change. nepal is now preparing redd strategy. carbon sequestration potential of different forest types under different management regimes need to be explored. this study quantified forest biomass c stocks as well as soil c stocks in oak and pine forests of salyan district. it provides baseline data for implementation of the redd+ mechanism. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in gerupani oak (quercus spp.) forest and pakhapani pine (pinus roxburghii) forest of salyan district, nepal. gerupani oak forest and pakhapani pine forest are located in kotmaula village development committee (vdc) ward number 7 of salyan district. the areas of the gerupani oak forest and pakhapani pine forest are 16.91 ha and 25.85 ha respectively. the gerupani oak forest is natural while the pakhapani pine forest is man-made planted in 1997. the pakhapani pine forest has been handed over to the local community whereas the gerupani oak forest has not been formally handed over to the local community so far but, this forest is conserved and managed by the local community since 1993. the gerupani oak forest is situated on moderate to steep slopes with altitude ranging from 1,950–2,100 m above mean sea level whereas the pakhapani pine forest is situated on moderate to steep slopes with altitude ranging from 1,800–1,960 m. the gerupani oak forest mostly lies on northern aspect whereas the pakhapani pine forest is situated on the southern aspect. the soil type varies from sandy-loam to clay-loam and is mostly brown in color. the management activities undertaken in both the forests are cleaning, thinning and pruning. data collection and analysis sampling design and biophysical measurement simple random sampling with 0.6% sampling intensity was used to measure the forest biomass and carbon. both the forests were found to vary with tree sizes and density. permanent circular nested plots were laid out in each selected forest type. within the main plot, 8.92 m radius was taken to measure above-ground tree biomass {diameter at breast height (dbh) ≥ 5 cm}, nestedplots with 5.64 m radius for above-ground sapling biomass (1–5 cm dbh), 1 m radius for regeneration (less than 1 cm dbh) and 0.56 m radius for litter, herb, grass and soil organic carbon were laid out for collecting biophysical data (mfsc, 2010). the dbh and total height of all the trees ≥ 5 cm dbh were measured. regeneration within 1 m radius plot were counted. all the litters, herbs and grasses inside the 0.56 m radius plot were clipped and collected, and the fresh weights of the samples were recorded and representative subsamples were taken to the labouratory for oven drying. biomass and carbon pool estimation above-ground tree biomass and carbon the total above-ground tree biomass was calculated using the equations (models) developed by chave et al. (2005). for moist forest stand, agtb = 0.0509* ρd2h .................. (i) where, agtb = above-ground tree biomass (kg); ρ = wood specific gravity (g cm-3); d = tree diameter at breast height (cm); h = tree height (m). above-ground sapling biomass and carbon the following regression model was used to calculate biomass of saplings: log(agsb) = a +b log(d) ........................ (ii) where, log = natural log (dimensionless); shrestha and devkota banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 32 agsb = above-ground sapling biomass (kg); a = intercept of allometric relationship for saplings (dimensionless); b = slope allometric relationship for saplings (dimensionless); and d = over bark diameter (cm) at breast height (measured at 1.3 m above-ground). leaf litter, herb, and grass (lhg) biomass in the case of herbs, grass, and litter, the amount of biomass per unit area was calculated by using the formula: lhg = ......... (iii) where, lhg= biomass of leaf litter, herbs, and grass (t ha-1); wfield = weight of the fresh field sample of leaf litter, herbs, and grass, destructively sampled within an area of size a (g); a = size of the area in which leaf litter, herbs, and grass were collected (ha); wsubsample,dry = weight of the oven-dry sub-sample of leaf litter, herbs, and grass taken to the labouratory to determine moisture content (g); and wsubsample,wet = weight of the fresh sub-sample of leaf litter, herbs, and grass taken to the labouratory to determine moisture content (g). the carbon content in biomass (above-ground tree, sapling, leaf litter, herb and grass) was calculated by multiplying the respective biomass with the ipcc (2006) default carbon fraction of 0.47. below-ground biomass the following relationship was used to estimate the root biomass developed by macdicken (1997). below-ground biomass = 0.15 × above-ground biomass ...............(iv) the carbon content in below-ground biomass (bb) was calculated by multiplying bb with the ipcc (2006) default carbon fraction of 0.47. soil sampling and estimating soil organic carbon (soc) soil samples were taken from 0.56 m radius plot. profile was dug out at the centres of all the plots up to 30 cm depth. for the purpose of estimating bulk density, three individual soil samples of approximately 100 cm3, one each from three depths (0–10 cm, 10–20 cm, and 20–30 cm) were collected with the help of a standardized 100 cm3 metal soil sampling corer. soil samples from three different depths were collected. similarly, one composite sample was collected mixing soils from all the three layers in order to determine concentrations of organic carbon and then weighed at a precision of 0.1 g. around 100 g of composite samples were collected from one plot. soil bulk density was determined using soil core samples and stone correction was made as per pearson et al. (2005). the corrected bulk density (g cm-3) was used for the estimation of soc density (mg c ha-1) and soc stock (pearson et al., 2005). bulk density (g cm-3) denotes soil particles less than 2 mm diameter whereas coarse fragments include particles greater than 2 mm diameter. the density of rock fragments was assumed to be 2.65 g cm-3 (pearson et al., 2005). the carbon stock density of soil organic carbon is calculated as (pearson et al., 2007): soc = p × d × %c ………………… (v) where, soc = soil organic carbon stock per unit area (mg ha-1), p = soil bulk density (g cm-3), d = the total depth where the sample was taken from (cm), and %c = carbon concentration (%). total carbon stock density the carbon stock density of a stratum was calculated by summing the carbon stock densities of the individual carbon pools of that stratum except carbpn in dead wood and stumps using the following formula: c(lu) = c(agtb)+c(agsb)+c(bb)+c (lhg) +c(dws)+ soc ............. (vi) where, c(lu) = carbon stock density of a stratum (mg c ha-1), wfield wsubsample, dry 1 a wsubsample, wet 10000× × shrestha and devkota banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 33 c(agtb) = carbon in above-ground tree biomass (mg c ha-1), c(agsb) = carbon in above-ground sapling biomass (mg c ha-1), c(bb) = carbon in below-ground biomass (mg c ha-1), c(lhg) = carbon in litter, herb and grass (mg c ha-1), c(dws) = carbon in dead wood and stumps (mg c ha-1), and soc = soil organic carbon (mg c ha-1) results and discussion vegetation carbon stock above-ground vegatation and carbon stock biomass of trees varies in different plots within same forest and different forests due to variation in age and size of the trees, forest composition as well as tree density. the mean above-ground tree biomass in the gerupani oak forest was found to be 167.21 mg c ha-1 which was higher than in the pakhapani pine forest (45.7 mg c ha-1) (table 1). similarly, the lhg biomass in the gerupani oak forest was found to be higher than that in the pakhapani pine forest. however, the above-ground sapling biomass was found to be a little higher in the pakhapani pine forest than that in the gerupani oak forest. carbon stocks in above-ground vegetation in the gerupani oak forest and the pakhapani pine forest was found to be 78.58 and 21.37 mg c ha-1 respectively (table 1). various factors affect ecosystem carbon pool, including net primary productivity of plants and biomass decomposition. net primary productivity differs according to vegetation types, age of the stand and the surrounding environment (shrestha and singh, 2008). the above-ground carbon stock was found to be higher in the gerupani oak forest than that in the pakhapani pine forest due to function of age, vegetation type, density of stand and largersized trees. shrestha and singh (2008), oli and shrestha (2009), shrestha et al. (2009), baral et al. (2009) and khanal et al. (2010) found more or less similar above-ground carbon stocks in the mid-hills forests. carbon stocks in below-ground vegetation (roots) biomass and carbon stocks in below-ground vegetation (root) is shown in table 2. belowground vegetation carbon stocks in the gerupani oak forest and the pakhapani pine forest was found to be 11.79 ± 0.43 and 3.21 ± 0.93 mg c ha-1 respectively. shrestha et al. (2009) found similar root carbon in the community-managed schimacastanopsis forests in palpa district. khanal et al. (2010) also found more or less similar root carbon stocks in the community-managed forests in the mid-hills of nepal. table 2: below-ground biomass and carbon stock (mean ± se, mg c ha-1) forest below-ground biomass carbon stock in below ground biomass gerupani oak forest 25.08 ± 0.63 11.79 ± 0.43 pakhapani pine forest 6.82 ± 1.36 3.21 ± 0.93 soil carbon stock bulk density the bulk density (bd) depends on several factors such as compaction, consolidation and amount of soc present in the soil, but it is highly correlated to the organic carbon content (morisada et al., 2004). there was a large variation in the bd with respect to the forest types. similarly, there was a gradual increase in the bd with increase in soil depth in both the forests, but it did not differ significantly across the layers of the soil profile table 1: above-ground vegetation biomass and carbon stock (mean ± se, mg c ha-1) forest agtb carbon agsb carbon lhg biomass carbon total ab biomass carbon in ab vegetation gerupani oak forest 164.24 ± 1.63 77.19 ± 1.12 0.49± 0.26 0.23± 0.16 2.48± 0.60 1.17 ± 0.41 167.21 78.58 pakhapani pine forest 43.58 ± 3.49 20.48 ± 2.39 0.55 ± 0.18 0.26± 0.18 1.34 ± 0.40 0.63 ± 0.28 45.47 21.37 shrestha and devkota banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 34 (p>0.05). the range of bulk density in both the forests based on the profile (0–30 cm) depths is shown in figure 1. the mean bd value ranged from 0.64 to 1.13 g cm-3. the minimum bd (0.64 ± 0.04 g cm-3) was found at the top soil (0–10 cm) in the gerupani oak forest while the maximum bd (1.13 ± 0.05 g cm-3) at the depth of 20–30 cm in the pakhapani pine forest (fig. 1). fig. 1: bulk densities in different depth of forests shrestha et al. (2004) in their study from the mid-hill forest of the mardi watershed of kaski district, nepal found relatively low bd with constant value of 0.7 g cm-3 in each layer of soil up to 40 cm depth. however, shrestha and singh (2008) found slightly higher bd values than those in this study in the similar forest types of the mid-hills. khanal et al. (2010) and shrestha (2009) found similar bulk density values in their studies carried out in palpa district, nepal. soil organic carbon amount of soil organic carbon depends upon various biotic and abiotic factors such as microclimate, faunal diversity, land use and management. leaf litter and root litter inputs play major roles in forest soil carbon dynamics (shrestha and singh, 2008). the soil organic carbon (soc) was found to be higher at the upper layers and gradually decreased as soil depth increased (fig. 2). the soc stocks in different soil profiles of both the forests are presented in table 3. the total mean carbon stocks in the surface soil (0–10 cm) of the gerupani oak forest was found to be the highest (23.17 ± 1.28 mg c ha-1); the lowest mean carbon stock was found in the deeper soil layer (20–30 cm) of the pakhapani pine forest (12.0 ± 1.55 mg c ha-1). the carbon stock in each layer of the soil profile differed significantly in both the forests (p<0.05). the mean carbon stock in each soil layer of both the forests also differed significantly (p<0.05). the results indicated that with increase in soil depth, bulk density was found to be in increasing order while the soc was found to be in decreasing order. similar results were obtained by khanal et al. (2010) and shrestha (2009). the soil organic carbon stock in this study was comparable with the soil organic carbon pool values reported by shrestha and singh (2008). shrestha and singh (2008) also found lower soil carbon pool in pinemixed forest than in other forest types. fig. 2: soc in different depth of forests table 3. soc stock in different depths of oak and pine forests (mean ± se, mg c ha-1) soil depth gerupani oak forest pakhapani pine forest 0–10 cm 23.17 ± 1.28 20.19 ± 1.83 10–20 cm 21.12 ± 1.30 13.9 ± 1.52 20–30 cm 16.53 ± 1.29 12.03 ± 1.55 total 60.82 46.12 total carbon stock total carbon stock is the sum of above-ground vegetation carbon, root carbon and soil organic carbon. the total carbon stocks in both the forests are shown in table 4. the total carbon stocks in the gerupani oak forest and the pakhapani pine forest were found to be 151.19 mg c ha-1 and 70.70 mg c ha-1 respectively. shrestha and singh (2008) have reported that the total carbon stock (vegetation plus soil) in the mid-hill forests is 139 mg c ha-1. similarly, shrestha (2009) found the total carbon stock in the schima-castanopsis forest of palpa district as 178.5 mg c ha-1 and khanal et al. (2010) found the total carbon stock in the two community-managed forests of palpa shrestha and devkota b d (g c m -3 ) so c (m g c ha -1 ) banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 35 district as 168.48 mg c ha-1 and 146.16 mg c ha-1 respectively. these results were slightly different due to difference in site quality, stand structure and intensity of management. table 4: total carbon stock in oak and pine forests carbon stock gerupani oak forest (mg c ha-1) pakhapani pine forest (mg c ha-1) aboveground carbon 78.58 (52 %) 21.37 (30 %) root carbon 11.79 (8 %) 3.21 (5 %) soil carbon 60.82 (40 %) 46.12 (65 %) total 151.19 70.70 the total carbon stocks in the gerupani oak forest was found to be 40% in soil, 52% in the above-ground and 8% in root (table 4). similarly, the total carbon stock in the pakhapani pine forest was found to be 65% in soil, 30% in above-ground and 5% in root (table 4). shrestha (2009) reported that the total carbon stock in the schima-castanopsis forests of palpa district as 74% in soil, 20% in above-ground and 6% in root. conclusion soil offers a more promising sink for carbon over longer time period under forest cover. total carbon stock in forest vegetation varies depending on forest types. the vegetation carbon stock was higher in the oak forest than in the pine forest due to the presence of larger sized trees, age and density of stand. the share of under-growth vegetation carbon was very low. the soil organic carbon in 0–10 cm, 10–20 cm, 20–30 cm soil depths were found to be different. the soil organic carbon was higher in oak forest than in the pine forest due to higher amounts of leaf litter and under storey biomass. with the increase in soil depth, bulk density was found to have increased, whereas, the carbon content was found to have decreased. the average soil carbon comprised 52.5% of the total carbon. both the forests seem to be good for vegetation and soil carbon stocks. references anonymous, 2004. forest carbon sequestration. catalyst, the magazine of the union of concerned scientist 3: 1–4. awasthi, k. d., sitaula, b. k., singh, b. r. and bajracharya, r. m. 2002. land use changes and morphometric analysis using gis for two mountain watersheds of western nepal. land degradation and development 13: 1–19. bajracharya, r. m., lal, r. and kimble, j. m. 1998. soil organic carbon distribution in aggregates and primary particle fractions as influenced by erosion phases and landscape position. in: soil processes and the carbon cycle (eds.) lal, r., kimble, j., follett, r. and stewart, b. a. crc press, boca raton, florida, 353–367. baral, s. k., malla, r. and ranabhat, s. 2009. above-ground carbon stock assessment in different forest types of nepal. banko janakari 19 (2): 10–14. brown, s., sathaye, j., cannell, m. and kauppi, p. e. 1996. mitigation of carbon emissions to the atmosphere by forest management. commonwealth forestry review 75 (1): 80–91. chave, j., andalo, c., brown, s., cairns, m. a. chambers, j. q. and eamus, d. 2005. tree allometry and improved estimation of carbon stocks. oecologia 145 (1): 87–99. gautam, k. r. 2002. carbon sequestration in agroforestry and annual cropping system in inner terai, central nepal. m. sc. thesis. agricultural university of norway, aas, norway. hamburg, s. p. 2000. simple rules for measuring changes in ecosystem carbon in forestryoffset projects. mitigation adaptation strategy global change 5 (1): 25–37. ipcc. 2006. good practice guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories. switzerland: intergovernmental panel on climate change. ipcc. 2000. the intergovernmental panel on climate change, special report on land use, land-use change and forestry. cambridge university press, cambridge, uk. khanal, y. m., sharma, r. p. and upadhyaya, c. p. 2010. soil and vegetation carbon in two community forests of palpa district, nepal. banko janakari 20 (2): 34–40. shrestha and devkota banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 36 lal, r. 2004. soil carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change. geoderma 123 (1–2): 1–22. macdicken, k. g. 1997. a guide to monitoring carbon storage in forestry and agroforestry projects. forest carbon monitoring programme, winrock international institute for agricultural development, littlerock, arkansas, usa. malhi, y., meir, p. and brown, s. 2002. forests, carbon and global climate. phil. trans. r. soc. lond. a 360, 1567–1591 mfsc. 2010. forest carbon estimation guideline, 2010. ministry of forests and soil conservation, singhdurbar, kathmandu, nepal. morisada, k., ono, k. and kanomata, h. 2004. organic carbon stocks in forest soils in japan. geoderma 119: 21–32. negi, j. d. s., manhas, r. k. and chauhan, p. s. 2003. carbon allocation in different components of some tree species of india: a new approach for carbon estimation. current science 85 (11): 1528–1531. oli, b. n. and shrestha, k. 2009. carbon status in forests of nepal: an overview. journal of forest and livelihood 8 (1): 62–66. pearson, t. r., brown, s. and ravindranath, n. h. 2005. integrating carbon benefit estimates into gef projects: guidelines. capacity development and adaptation group, global environment facility, united nations development programme, new york, usa. pearson, t. r., brown, s. l. and birdsey, r. a. 2007. measurement guidelines for the sequestration of forest carbon. northern research station, department of agriculture, usa. shrestha, b. m. and singh, b. r. 2008. soil and vegetation carbon pools in a mountainous watershed of nepal. nutrient cycling in agroecosystems 81: 179–191. shrestha, b. m., sitaula, b. k., singh, b. r. and bajracharya, r. m. 2004. fluxes of co and ch in soil profiles of a mountainous watershed of nepal as influenced by land use, temperature, moisture and substrate addition. nutrient cycling in agroecosystems 68: 155–164. shrestha, b. p. 2009. carbon sequestration in schima-castanopsis forest: a case study from palpa district. the greenery (a journal of environment and biodiversity) 7 (1): 34–40. shrestha, b. p., awasthi, k. d. and bajracharya, r. m. 2009. variation in carbon stock in community forests of mid-hills of nepal: a case study from palpa district. the natural resource management: reviews and research in the himalayan watershed (special publication of nufu himunet project): 18–29. sitaula, b. k., bajracharya, r. m., singh, b. r. and solberg, b. 2004. factors affecting organic carbon dynamics in soils of nepal/ himalayan regiona review and analysis. nutrient cycling in agroecosystems 70: 215–229. van noordwijk, m., cerri, c., woomer, p. l., nugroho, k. and bernoux, m. 1997. soil carbon dynamics in the humid tropical forest zone. geoderma 79 (1–4): 187–225. winjum, j. k., dixon, r. k. and schroeder, p. e. 1992. estimating the global potential of forest and agro-forestry management practices to sequester carbon. water air soil pollution 64 (1–2): 213–227. shrestha and devkota corrected bankojanakari vol 17-2.pmd 45 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 non-timber forest products from community forestry practices, problems and prospects for livelihood strategy in jumla mohan paudel1 jumla is highly rich in its vast and valuable non-timber forest products (ntfp) including different kinds of valuable medicinal and aromatic plants. however, in recent years, a significant decrease in availability of commercially traded ntfp species has been experienced. nevertheless, some important initiatives have also been started to manage ntfps in a sustainable basis. community forestry (cf) is one of these. this study aims to suggest practical and sustainable ntfps management approach in jumla analyzing existing roles in livelihood strategy. study covers cfugs in eastern part of the district comprising about 70% cf area and contributes more than 60% of exported ntfps. pra and rra tools were used for data collection in the field. ntfps were found an integral part of the livelihood strategy in the district. more than 90% food deficit people (57%) were having income from ntfps as a second source of food arrangement to sustain their livelihood. the average annual income from ntfps per hh was 18,565. no significant correlation was observed between different social groups and income from ntfps. but, male were found mostly involved in ntfps collection comparing female. beside some promising efforts towards control harvesting of ntfps, no significant impact of cf was observed. awareness level of the users and governance aspect of cfugs were found very poor. there was huge gap between management objectives and management prescriptions of most of the community forests. key words: ntfps, livelihood, management, cfugs jumla is one of the remote and himalayan districts in the karnali zone of nepal. altitude ranges from 2076 m. to 6387 m. from mean sea level. district headquarter khalanga is located almost in the centre of the district. it is divided into 30 vdcs. air service from nepalganze and surketh is only the way of access to this district so far. jumla is characterized by acute poverty and illiteracy with high growth rate of population. agricultural production in the high hills and mountains are insufficient to sustain the livelihood of growing population (ceci 1997). the situation is not so much different in jumla. it is defined as a food deficit district. nevertheless, jumla is known as a rich district for its highly diversifying natural resources. it is highly rich district in its vast and valuable non-timber forest products (ntfp) including different kinds of valuable medicinal and aromatic plants. about 41% of the district area is covered by the forest and rangeland. not only the dense forest; steep rocks, open rangelands and seasonal snow lands are also equally important consisting different types of ntfps with them. people are using ntfps especially the medicinal and aromatic plants (map) as an alternative source of income. ntfps play a crucial role in the livelihood strategy of these people (subedi 2003). yarchagumba (cordyceps sinensis) for example, is one of the most valuable ntfp find in open rangeland cover with snow in winter. other important ntfps that are found and traded from jumla are morel (morchella conica) called guchchi chau, jatamasi (narostachys grandifolia), sugandhawal (valeriana wallichii), atis (delphinium himalayai), nirbishi (pernacia nubicola) etc. according to the district forest office (dfo), in average, 16 hundred thousands rupees of royalty are collected from hundreds of tons of different ntfps exported from the district annually. community forestry (cf) is one of the major initiatives to manage natural resources with active involvement of resource dependent people of nepal. because of cf, total growing stock and the level of regeneration has increased and improved overtime. the program has also impacted positively on building 1 dfo, jumla, email: mpp_38@hotmail.com 46 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 local institutions. if cfugs mobilize in proper way, they can be the most appropriate institution for local development that can be used by the other line agencies besides forestry. the program has also social and economic status of the local users. it has given emphasis on empowering the women, poor, and the disadvantaged groups. most of the cfugs have increased employment and income in rural areas mostly through the ntfps (mfsc 2004). to some extent, similar impacts of cf have also been observed in jumla too. so far, more than 13% of the total forest area i.e. 15445 ha has been handed over to the 105 cfugs in jumla. in the recent years, some community forest user groups (cfug) have also generating income from their forest exporting ntfps. problem statements and justifications in recent years, a significant decrease in availability of all ntfps and especially those of commercially traded species has been experienced in jumla. dfo records since last few years indicate that production capacity of the forest has gradually been decreased. for example, 124 tons of jatamasi exported in 2056 was reduced to 37.7 tons in 2058 and further reduced to 28 tons in 2063. the same trends have also been observed with other species too. informal reports from the collectors and entrepreneurs have also justified that the valuable resources are being depleting day by day. but however, collection and trade of ntfps cannot be controlled partly because of administrative difficulties and largely because it is only the main source of cash income for the local people (bhandari 2003). if this trend continue, it would create sever threat to the depletion of valuable ntfps. apart of negative ecological consequences, it will also have socioeconomic consequences in the district. poor collectors will lose their traditional livelihood assert loosing goods and services. moreover, the whole district will lose its identity of rich in natural diversities. therefore, without delaying, it is time to identify root causes of resource depletion indeed. on the basis of which appropriate management modalities should be developed and implemented effectively. but, it doesn’t mean that no thing has been done so far. several initiatives for effective resources management have already been implemented and shown promising result too. cf and leasehold forestry (lf) are major initiatives with promising impacts in jumla district too. besides the conservation efforts, cfugs have initiated some important efforts to raise the economic status of the resource poor people through collection and marketing on some known ntfps however, some gaps have been realizing between cf management practices and its goal towards sustainability. different authors i.e. subedi, 2003; bhandari, 2003; gurung & pandey, 2003; ojha et al, 2003 and mfsc, 2004 have also reported same experiences from their studies in different parts of nepal including jumla. the cf programs’ livelihood contribution to the poor, women and disadvantage groups has not been so successful. the major part that cf should effectively address in this district are livelihood and equity; governance; sustainability; high altitude forest management; and revenue sharing among. it is often observed that local elite make the decision and make capture most of the benefits from the forest. and as a result, different doubt and debates have also been coming up regarding existing approach of cf to achieve goal. further more, it is urgent to assess existing practices and analyze issues thoroughly. root causes behind the doubt and debates that might have resulting cf not being as much effective as expected should be assessed and analyzed. existing cfugs operation plan should be reviewed and adjusted addressing the needs and interests of poor, women and disadvantages in the group. this study aims to assess and evaluate all of those issues experienced indeed. it has assessed and analyzed cause and effect relationships behind the success and failure impression of cfugs in jumla. findings indicate gaps between the needs and interests of women, poor, disadvantages groups (defined as gender) and existing practices of cfugs management. moreover, research findings suggest practical and possible ways of cfug to promote rural livelihood towards income generation through sustainable management of ntfps. objectives the main objective of this study is to suggest practical and sustainable ntfps management approach through community forestry analyzing its roles in existing livelihood strategy in jumla. specifically, study aims as follows: • to assess importance of ntfps on the rural livelihood strategy in jumla. paudel 47 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 have you made income trading ntfps ? 87% 13% yes no do you get suffficient food from your farm ? 57% 43% yes no • to assess and analyze interrelationship between gender (sex, cast, ethnic groups) and their access to ntfps for income generation in jumla. • to assess and evaluate existing cf practices in the field of sustainable ntfp management in jumla. • to identify gaps towards sustainable management of ntfps through cf in jumla. methods and materials study area: regarding availability and trading potential of ntfps, study was conducted in different cfugs located eastern upper land of the jumla district. according to the dfo jumla, more than 60% of the exported ntfps come from the study area. map 1 given below shows coverage and location of the study area in the district. map 1 showing study area in shade discussions were also performed regarding relevancy and validity of the findings on the basis of which research was concluded with some recommendations. result and discussion this section presents the study findings with appropriate discussions comparing other related (and available) findings published. different tests and comparisons have been made to meet objectives answering designed questions. importance of ntfps in the livelihood strategy forest resources are an integral part of the livelihood support in nepal, where overwhelming majority people live in the interface between forest and agriculture. there are very few economic opportunities for the population of the hills and mountainous areas. ntfps play a crucial role in the livelihood strategy of these people (subedi, 2003). findings of this research totally support the statement above. figure 1 data collection and analysis methods out of the total cfugs in the study area, more than 50% (23) were randomly selected for the purpose of data collection visit. study team comprising an expert with two rangers and local mobilizers collected required information in the field using different pra and rra tools. cfugs operation plans and their other related documents were reviewed. district forest office and other related social groups and ngos were also consulted to get required information to meet the objectives of the research. analysis of the data started with organizing them in tabular forms in excel working sheet. using the same software, data were categorized according to their compatibility to the designed questions. final results were presented in the form of different charts and figures with appropriate analysis. analytical figure 2 paudel 48 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 figure 1 shows that 57% of the total households (hh) are living under food deficit from their farm production. to meet rest of the needs, most of them (> 90 %) are getting income from ntfps as a second alternative to sustain their livelihood. however, it does not mean that only food deficit hh involve trading ntfps. figure 2 shows that 87% hh of the study sites have been involving in this business. it clearly indicates that not only the poor (food deficits) are involving but the people having sufficient food from their farm are also equally tapping the ntfps as an indifference part of their livelihood strategy. similar finding was reported by the gurung and pandey 2003. according to them, in the most of the study areas, people collect ntfps as main income source and land lord people also involved in this field. the average annual income from ntfps per hh is 18,565 rupees in the study area. however, according to the respondents from dillichaur, patrasi and guthichaur, annual income from ntfps ranges from 5000 to 1, 50,000 rupees. but it is not same in lower villages like depalgaun and garjangkot. basically, it is because of the distance between the village and the most valuable resource like yarcha, guchhi and jatamasi (vulte) to be collected. and second important factor is family size. bigger the family size, more the income from ntfps. ntfps collectors and their respective gender based on the responses of the semi structured interview, interaction and other verified indicators in the field, ntfps and its gender aspect was scaled as a measure of interrelationship between them in course of livelihood strategy. comparing both figures given above (1&2); one can easily understand that ntfp is the second source of food arrangement. ntfps contribute about 30 to 40 % food and 60 to 70% other livelihood asserts in the study area. however it differs in different villages. it is only the way of making cash income for most of the people living high altitude and near to the natural habitats of most of the valuable ntfps (maps). for example, livelihoods in patrasy, dillichaur and guthichaur vdcs in the study area are more depended in ntfps comparing depalgaun and garjyangkot. however, figures above do not make clear whether specific cast, sex and other types of social groups (gender) have specific association with ntfp collection and other related activities or not. looking at sex, more then 95% ntfp collectors in the study site are male. it is basically because of the distance (more than at least two days walking) from the village and work division between male and female in hh level. women look after the children, kitchen and other farm related activities and as a result they can not leave home for long time and collection of ntfps need at least 15 days even for the nearest village to the collection sites. however in low altitude, women and children also collect some ntfps. guchichau (mushroom) is one of them. similar findings were reported by pandey 2000 and edward 1996 too. regarding other aspects of gender association with collection and trade of ntfps, figure 3 given below shows average annual income generated by different cast groups from ntfps. average annual income made by the marginalized group (also called lower cast) is less then the average of total in the study area. it indicates no significant correlation between lower cast people and ntfp collectors. however, it doesn’t mean this result totally contradicts with the report by subedi, 2003. he has reported that most of the ntfp collection is done by the poor and marginalized. still, about 42% of them are making money more than average of the area in total. despite this, finding does not indicate that the governing factor in this regard is social discrimination like cast. figure 3 can not leave home for long time and collection of ntfps need at least 15 days even for the nearest village to the collection sites. however in low altitude, women and children also collect some ntfps. guchichau (mushroom) is one of them. similar findings were reported by pandey 2000 and edward 1996 too. regarding other aspects of gender association with collection and trade of ntfps, figure 3 given below shows average annual income generated by different cast groups from ntfps. average annual income made by the marginalized group (also called lower cast) is less then the average of total in the study area. it indicates no significant correlation between lower cast people and ntfp collectors. however, it doesn’t mean this result totally contradicts with the report by subedi, 2003. he has reported that most of the ntfp collection is done by the poor and marginalized. still, about 42% of them are making money more than average of the area in total. despite this, finding does not indicate that the governing factor in this regard is social discrimination like cast. figure 3 instead, family size and distance between village and collection sites are found major governing factors. looking at patracy, dillichaur and guthichaur vdcs, average income made by lower cast is not below the average but it is in depalgaun and garjangkot. in these vdcs, although they know very well about the income from ntfps, normally, they do not want to leave their traditional livelihood system i.e. ironsmith and tailoring along with other labor works in the village. in these areas, people having more livestock are found earning more money from ntfps. in high altitude, shepherds harvest ntfps simultaneously with pastoral practices. gurung and pandey (2003) have also reported that shepherds collect more ntfps than other people. however, people in the study area reported that most of them (shepherds) harvest premature plants during pastoral period (rainy season). jatamasi and yarchagumba are the species mostly the shepherds collect and make handsome money. and the upper cast groups normally own more livestock comparing lower cast. 5.3 existing cf practices and sustainability issues of ntfps governance: several authors and /or institutions working at cf and related field have often reported that cf has initiated great effort towards sustainable management of ntfps boosting income of resource dependent poor, women and marginalized users. bhandari 2003, gurung and pandey 2003, and usaid 2003 have reported similar situation in jumla district too. however, result of the study does not totally support the argument indeed. figure 4 and 5 given below show how decisions are made by fugs as an indicator of existing governance status in the study area. 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 total upper cast average annual income from ntfp lower cast paudel instead, family size and distance between village and collection sites are found major governing factors. looking at patracy, dillichaur and guthichaur vdcs, average income made by lower cast is not below the average but it is in depalgaun and garjangkot. in these vdcs, although they know very well about the income from ntfps, normally, they do not want to leave their traditional livelihood system i.e. ironsmith and tailoring along with other labor works in the village. in these areas, people having more livestock 49 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 figure 4 figure 5 who make cfug's decisions? 48% 14% 38% chairman committee no decision what decisions have they done? 5% 32% 63% yes yes but no most of the decisions in 48% of the total cfugs are made by the chairman. 14% cfugs are found completely functionless where no decisions are made.38% of them are making decisions by the committee. regarding social inclusion, in average, 25 to 40% committee members are female. different social groups are also found to be included according to their population size within the groups. however, they were found to be included just for the shake of inclusion. especially female members were found largely unknown about the policies and plans of their own. most of the female members were even unknown what rights and responsibilities do they have. figure 5 shows their level of understanding. result was drawn on the basis of interaction with female members of sample cfugs. 63% of them easily replied that they do not know what decisions have been written in their minute book at their last meeting. normally, they do not take part in the meeting (instead, their husbands attend the meetings) but their names are registered and signs are taken bringing minute books into home. only 5% female members were found to be taking part regularly with influential role. most of them were either chairman or secretary of the committee. despite talking part in the meeting, 32% of the female members can’t either express their views or convinced other members towards their concerned and as a result they remain passive. resource condition and management practices: figure 6 and 7 given below show existing resource condition, management plans and practices of ntfps in the study sites. looking at figure 6, 35% cfugs still comprise considerable resources (ntfps) in their forest. out of them, 8% cfugs think that they have still enough resources. lumteli and syalapatal cfugs for example think ‘if they restrict outsiders (from other vdcs) to collect ntfps, they will never have resource crisis’. figure 6 figure 7 condition and potential of ntfp in the community forests at study sites 8% 24% 0% 41% 27% yes, abundent yes but decreasing yes but no significant potential to develop no at all provision and practices of ntfp management in fugs opreatinal plan 16% 24%60% detail plan with inventory simple plan, no inventory goal, no thing else figure 4 figure 5 who make cfug's decisions? 48% 14% 38% chairman committee no decision how much female mambers know what decisions have they done? 5% 32% 63% yes yes but no most of the decisions in 48% of the total cfugs are made by the chairman. 14% cfugs are found completely functionless where no decisions are made.38% of them are making decisions by the committee. regarding social inclusion, in average, 25 to 40% committee members are female. different social groups are also found to be included according to their population size within the groups. however, they were found to be included just for the shake of inclusion. especially female members were found largely unknown about the policies and plans of their own. most of the female members were even unknown what rights and responsibilities do they have. figure 5 shows their level of understanding. result was drawn on the basis of interaction with female members of sample cfugs. 63% of them easily replied that they do not know what decisions have been written in their minute book at their last meeting. normally, they do not take part in the meeting (instead, their husbands attend the meetings) but their names are registered and signs are taken bringing minute books into home. only 5% female members were found to be taking part regularly with influential role. most of them were either chairman or secretary of the committee. despite talking part in the meeting, 32% of the female members can’t either express their views or convinced other members towards their concerned and as a result they remain passive. resource condition and management practices: figure 6 and 7 given below show existing resource condition, management plans and practices of ntfps in the study sites. looking at figure 6, 35% cfugs still comprise considerable resources (ntfps) in their forest. out of them, 8% cfugs think that they have still enough resources. lumteli and syalapatal cfugs for example think ‘if they restrict outsiders (from other vdcs) to collect ntfps, they will never have resource crisis’. figure 6 figure 7 community forests at study sites 8% 24% 0% 41% 27% yes, abundent yes but decreasing yes but no significant potential to develop no at all provision and practices of ntfp management in fugs opreatinal plan 16% 24%60% detail plan with inventory simple plan, no inventory goal, no thing else figure 4 figure 5 who make cfug's decisions? 48% 14% 38% chairman committee no decision what decisions have they done? 5% 32% 63% yes yes but no most of the decisions in 48% of the total cfugs are made by the chairman. 14% cfugs are found completely functionless where no decisions are made.38% of them are making decisions by the committee. regarding social inclusion, in average, 25 to 40% committee members are female. different social groups are also found to be included according to their population size within the groups. however, they were found to be included just for the shake of inclusion. especially female members were found largely unknown about the policies and plans of their own. most of the female members were even unknown what rights and responsibilities do they have. figure 5 shows their level of understanding. result was drawn on the basis of interaction with female members of sample cfugs. 63% of them easily replied that they do not know what decisions have been written in their minute book at their last meeting. normally, they do not take part in the meeting (instead, their husbands attend the meetings) but their names are registered and signs are taken bringing minute books into home. only 5% female members were found to be taking part regularly with influential role. most of them were either chairman or secretary of the committee. despite talking part in the meeting, 32% of the female members can’t either express their views or convinced other members towards their concerned and as a result they remain passive. resource condition and management practices: figure 6 and 7 given below show existing resource condition, management plans and practices of ntfps in the study sites. looking at figure 6, 35% cfugs still comprise considerable resources (ntfps) in their forest. out of them, 8% cfugs think that they have still enough resources. lumteli and syalapatal cfugs for example think ‘if they restrict outsiders (from other vdcs) to collect ntfps, they will never have resource crisis’. figure 6 figure 7 community forests at study sites 8% 24% 0% 41% 27% yes, abundent yes but decreasing yes but no significant potential to develop no at all provision and practices of ntfp management in fugs opreatinal plan 16% 24%60% detail plan with inventory simple plan, no inventory goal, no thing else are found earning more money from ntfps. in high altitude, shepherds harvest ntfps simultaneously with pastoral practices. gurung and pandey (2003) have also reported that shepherds collect more ntfps than other people. however, people in the study area reported that most of them (shepherds) harvest premature plants during pastoral period (rainy season). jatamasi and yarchagumba are the species mostly the shepherds collect and make handsome money. and the upper cast groups normally own more livestock comparing lower cast. existing cf practices and sustainability issues of ntfps governance: several authors and /or institutions working at cf and related field have often reported that cf has initiated great effort towards sustainable management of ntfps boosting income of resource dependent poor, women and marginalized users. bhandari 2003, gurung and pandey 2003, and usaid 2003 have reported similar situation in jumla district too. however, result of the study does not totally support the argument indeed. figure 4 and 5 given below show how decisions are made by fugs as an indicator of existing governance status in the study area. figure 4 most of the decisions in 48% of the total cfugs are made by the chairman. 14% cfugs are found completely functionless where no decisions are made.38% of them are making decisions by the committee. regarding social inclusion, in average, 25 to 40% committee members are female. different social groups are also found to be included according to their population size within the groups. however, they were found to be included just for the shake of inclusion. especially female members were found largely unknown about the policies and plans of their own. most of the female members were even unknown what rights and responsibilities do they have. figure 5 shows their level of understanding. result was drawn on the basis of interaction with female members of sample cfugs. 63% of them easily replied that they do not know what decisions have been written in their minute book at their last meeting. normally, they do not take part in the meeting (instead, their husbands attend the meetings) but their names are registered and signs are taken bringing minute books into home. only 5% female members were found to be taking part regularly with influential role. most of them were either chairman or secretary of the committee. despite talking part in the meeting, 32% of the female members can’t either express their views or convinced other members towards their concerned and as a result they remain passive. resource condition and management practices: figure 6 and 7 given below show existing resource condition, management plans and practices of ntfps in the study sites. looking at figure 6, 35% cfugs still comprise considerable resources (ntfps) in their forest. out of them, 8% cfugs think that they have still enough resources. lumteli and syalapatal cfugs for example think ‘if they restrict outsiders (from other vdcs) to collect ntfps, they will never have resource crisis’. figure 6 paudel figure 5 50 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 figure 4 figure 5 who make cfug's decisions? 48% 14% 38% chairman committee no decision what decisions have they done? 5% 32% 63% yes yes but no most of the decisions in 48% of the total cfugs are made by the chairman. 14% cfugs are found completely functionless where no decisions are made.38% of them are making decisions by the committee. regarding social inclusion, in average, 25 to 40% committee members are female. different social groups are also found to be included according to their population size within the groups. however, they were found to be included just for the shake of inclusion. especially female members were found largely unknown about the policies and plans of their own. most of the female members were even unknown what rights and responsibilities do they have. figure 5 shows their level of understanding. result was drawn on the basis of interaction with female members of sample cfugs. 63% of them easily replied that they do not know what decisions have been written in their minute book at their last meeting. normally, they do not take part in the meeting (instead, their husbands attend the meetings) but their names are registered and signs are taken bringing minute books into home. only 5% female members were found to be taking part regularly with influential role. most of them were either chairman or secretary of the committee. despite talking part in the meeting, 32% of the female members can’t either express their views or convinced other members towards their concerned and as a result they remain passive. resource condition and management practices: figure 6 and 7 given below show existing resource condition, management plans and practices of ntfps in the study sites. looking at figure 6, 35% cfugs still comprise considerable resources (ntfps) in their forest. out of them, 8% cfugs think that they have still enough resources. lumteli and syalapatal cfugs for example think ‘if they restrict outsiders (from other vdcs) to collect ntfps, they will never have resource crisis’. figure 6 figure 7 community forests at study sites 8% 24% 0% 41% 27% yes, abundent yes but decreasing yes but no significant potential to develop no at all provision and practices of ntfp management in fugs opreatinal plan 16% 24%60% detail plan with inventory simple plan, no inventory goal, no thing else of some major species. but most of them are lacking resource information, annual allowable harvesting quantities etc. they have not yet started taking responsibilities over it. immature and haphazard collections have also been going on. and as a result degradation of some valuable species like jatamasi and kutki is going on. several other studies (edward 1994, 1996a, 1996b, malla et al 1995, hertog 1995, karki 1996, sharma 1996, subedi 1997) have also reported similar findings that certain ntfp species or groups of species are being overused and degraded. according to them the reasons for this degradation are complex but include the lack of knowledge and local control over these resources, rural poverty, increasing external market demand and social and cultural tradition. despite intangible descriptions, 60% management plans in the area are completely silent about the ntfps. it means, majority of the handed over community forests are either lacking ntfps or they are unaware about it. looking at the total cf area (13%), one can easily understand that very little forest area has handed over to the fugs so far. most of the cf areas are sporadic small patches of forest near to the villages that are primarily been managed to get basic household needs rather than income generation. more than that, most of the area consisting valuable ntfps are far from the village and are still under the government management. hobley & shah (1996) have given higher priority on users’ knowledge as an indicator of groups’ effectiveness. poor awareness level of users’ in the study area is another underlying reason behind the silent feature of cf management plans towards ntfp management. majority of the committee members do not know that they have rights to harvest and trade ntfps. they think, only the dfo is authorized to give collection and release permit. apart of this, price always found to be fluctuated. and as a result, markets remains unstable, unpredictable and irregular. pandey and gurung (2003) have also reported similar findings from different parts of nepal including jumla. according to them the price fluctuation affects to all involved in this business. no body feels secure. sometimes local collectors get high benefit and middlemen are in loss and in other time vice versa. the marketing of ntfps are fully controlled by external demands, which is the prime reason for its uncertainty. and as a consequence, no enthusiasm towards development of ntfps has resulted in the cfug level. 27% of them however think that they are losing their resources because of uncontrolled and unscientific harvesting practices. but it does not mean that rests of them do not worry about. all respondents (100%) in the field were expressing their concern about resource degradation in the district. 24% cfugs are not taking ntfps as a major resource to be managed in their forest though their forest consists some of the most valuable species like guchichau (morel). most of such fugs are in depalgaun and garjangkot area. 41% cfugs in the study area are lacking any valuable ntfps naturally but most of them have potential to cultivate. and cultivating some valuable ntfps in community forests has already been started in jumla. jatamasi and kutki domestication have successfully been tested through research undertaken by different projects. for example dabur nepal recommended kutki and jatamasi as the most potential species to be domesticated. figure 7 given above shows how the fugs are practicing towards management of ntfps through their management plan. 16% cfugs have their management plan with detail of the resource condition and harvesting prescriptions. they have started issuing harvest and export order in accordance with their approved plan. according to the secretary (b.b. sarki) of lumteli cfug, lumteli have earned more than 3 lakhs rupees trading ntfps since it’s handed over time (five years before) but because of political crisis (maoist) they have lost most of it. they can’t even say where they have spent that much money. similar situations were observed in other cfugs too. 24% cfug’s management plan consist simple description about ntfp harvesting including price figure 7 paudel 51 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 different social aspects of community forestry are connected each other (they are not completely independent) with cause and effect relationship. better awareness increases good governance; good governance promote ownership and willingness. willingness explores different options towards development and sustainable management of the resources. from the above, it is clear that governance and gender inclusion aspects of cfugs in the study area are weak. most of the members including female and marginalized groups are passive and as a result groups are either not functioning properly or elites are doing what they want. such conditions prevent feeling ownership and ultimately, resources are mismanaged towards overuse and degradation. in that situation community forestry will only contribute to the reproduction of rural poverty and lead to division and disharmony among those affected (ostrom, 1999). gaps between objectives and practices of cf in the study area one of the main aims of resource management is the avoidance of resource degradation. in this regard, resource management goals should be a level of ecological sustainability “that gives future generations the option to continue such management or liquidate the resource” (bromley, 1996 cited in pokheral 1998). looking at goals and objectives of the cfugs in the study area, all of them are aiming to manage forest resources to meet needs and interests of the users in a sustainable basis through different activities of protection and development. in addition to timber and fuel wood, almost all of them aim to manage ntfps. even more, ntfps are given high priority sector of management for income generation. however, ground realities of existing practices don’t support those written objectives. figure 7 makes it clearer. despite written objectives, 60% cf operational plans in the study area are lacking any activities related to protection, development and management of ntfps. it means, running practices are not guided by the management guidelines which can be considered as a major gap between the goal and the ground reality. sustainable cf is essentially about sustainable management of resource and resource dependent people. society depends on forest for number of goods and services. the forest has to serve as a resource to supply goods and services required by the society and for the maintenance of the production potential of the ecosystem are necessary. the two way interaction determines the relationship between forest ecosystem and the society. in this sense, the meaning of sustainable management of forest is simply the sustainability of that interrelationship. however, ground reality in most of the cfugs indicates no consideration about the interrelationship between social and ecological part of the cf. in one hand, looking at figure 4&5, awareness and governance level of the user groups are poor and discriminating. majority of the users are unaware about the rights and responsibilities of them and as a result few influencing elites are making their own decision neglecting needs and interests of majority resource dependents. on the other hand, figure 6 & 7 indicate that there are either plenty of resources or potential to develop but in reality ongoing practices are not matching to what should have done. objectives have been stetting without proper resource assessment. people are making their efforts to harvest ntfps in their own way, unscientifically; especially the local herbal collectors and traders are involved in such unsustainable exploitations. pandey (2000) has also reported similar finding that the local inhabitants in the remote mountains are unaware of the facts that they are going to loose their inherited natural resources as the source of income very soon. from the above, it is very much clear that there is a big managerial gap in between the needs and interests of the groups and the resources they have to manage to meet objectives. in addition, gaps have not only been experienced in users’ level, it has also realized in the level of supporting stakeholders (gos and ngos). technical supports that should have provided by the dfo have not been performed properly and timely. users could not get required knowledge and skills to be aware about their rights and responsibilities. situation has found very much worse since last ten years. within this period, coordination and cooperation between dfo and cfugs has found almost nil. although, some ngos have kept themselves touching with users, but however, no significant achievements have been realized in course of good governance. federations of community forest user groups nepal (fecofun) and surya social service sector (4s) have found approaching their services into the study area. problems and constraints given time to complete this study was a main constraint realized. result would be more reliable and valid for whole district if more time and samples paudel 52 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 could have been taken for data collection. targeted some workshops and field visits were also cancelled because of short time to inform people in the remote areas like patracy and guthichaur. political conflicts and instability also affected field trips. and even more, interaction could not be held in a friendly environment. most of the respondents were not openly taking part in discussion. a kind of fear was noticed inside them while talking about the activities they have been compelled to do against the approved rules. field trip was also affected by snowfall. other constraints encountered during data collection were unavailability of required official records. most of the user groups were lacking their constitutions, operational plans and other official records. dfo also could not provide all information of all groups. unavailability of required and related literatures in jumla was another constraint to prepare the report in light of similar study reports. conclusion in general, ntfps are found very much associated with the rural livelihood strategy in jumla. majority (57%) of the people are living under food deficit. most of them (>90%) are having income from ntfps as a second source of food arrangement to sustain their livelihood. but, it does not mean that only food deficit hh involve trading ntfps. result clearly indicates that the people having sufficient food from their farm are also equally tapping the ntfps as a main source of cash income. however, it differs from village to village. villagers nearer to the collection sites of jatamasi and yaarchagumba earn more. the average annual income from ntfps per hh is 18,565 rupees in the study area. therefore, without any doubt, ntfp can be defined as an integral part of the rural livelihood in jumla. in overall, no significant correlation observed between social groups (cast) and income drawn from ntfps in the study area. but however, direct and significant correlation is observed with sex and family size. males are mostly involved collection and transportation of ntfps from remote collection sites. women look after the children, kitchen and other farm related activities and as a result they can not leave home for long time and collection of ntfps needs at least 15 days even for the nearest village to the collection sites. nevertheless, they play major role in processing and packaging at home. however, in low altitude, women and children also collect some ntfps. result clearly indicates that bigger family collect more ntfps and earn more money than small size family. family having more livestock (goat and sheep basically) also collect more and all types of ntfps and earn more money because they normally spent more time in the ntfp rich areas for the pastoral activities. users are found to be aware about the importance of ntpf in their livelihood. but, however, most of them don’t know what rights and responsibilities do they have to manage such important resources. governance part of the cfugs is very poor. most of the decisions are made by chair man and majority of the users do not know what decision have been taken for what purposes. even more, executive members although considerable numbers are included, most of the female members either do not take part or remain passive during meetings. most of them do not know about the constitution and operational plan. in overall, users’ awareness level in the study area is very low. most of the operational plans in the study area, although aim to manage ntfps as a source of income, are however lacking detail about the management prescriptions of ntfps. although having huge potential to develop (cultivate), no initiatives have been noticed toward development (propagation and cultivation) of ntfp sector through community forestry. very few of them are having annual allowable amount of resources to be harvested in their management plans. however, looking at existing practices, all of them are violating plans and prescriptions. uncontrolled and immature harvesting, poor record keeping, irregular meetings and haphazard decisions are prominent in most of the cfugs. and as a result, groups are not functioning as expected and resource degradation is going on. jatamasi and kutki for example are important and valuable species in the study area found depleting significantly. but nevertheless, it does not mean that no things have been started so far. some groups, although are still negligible, have started their own system to control immature and over harvesting of ntfps. regarding existing awareness level, cfugs need external supports to manage groups and their resources in a sustainable basis. however, neither dfo nor other related ngos at present are providing such supports to them significantly. first and significant gap is realized between management objectives and management paudel 53 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 prescriptions of the cfugs’ operational plans. management prescriptions are not compatible with management objectives and that means are not compatible with the needs and interests of resource dependent users. unavailability of resource information is another apparent gap towards sustainable management of community forests in the study area. despite simple statement, cf management plans are lacking reliable information about the growing stock of different ntfp species. similarly, a significant gap has also been realized in between existing and required skills to manage user groups and corresponding resources. existing knowledge and skills of users’ may not lead cf towards livelihood promotion through sustainable ntfp management. furthermore, apparent coordination gap between users and supporting agencies i.e. dfo, ngos has also been realized in the study area. recommendations • inventory of ntfp must be undertaken to develop resource map of the district that can serve as an information bank of different ntfp species, their natural habitats, ecology, production capacity, potential to domestication, and market values. • district level forestry sector plan (dfsp) must be developed on the basis of the resource map to ensure sustainable management of ntfps. sustainable ntfps management in jumla context should deal with income generation and poverty reduction through optimum use of the resources without jeopardizing production capacity. dfsp should explore possible options to improve production from the wild and domestication through improved harvesting technologies. • ntfps should be included as an integral part of the community forest operational plans to promote sustainability of resource and livelihood of resource dependent people. • existing cf operational plans should be revised periodically regarding ecological condition of the valuable ntfps such as jatamasi, kutki and atis in the natural habitat. • ntfp rich forest and pasture lands should be given higher priority while handing over community forests. • process of monitoring and evaluation of cfugs and other related stakeholders should be established to facilitate smooth implementation of rules and regulations. • awareness campaign regarding policy, good governance, users’ rights and responsibilities of all cf stakeholders must be launched throughout the districts. • trainings and other skill development activities should regularly be conducted to improve technical skills of forest user groups. priority should be given towards in-situ management, cultivation, harvesting, post harvesting, processing and marketing. • communication, coordination, and linkages between cfugs and other organizations (gos & ngos) involved in ntfp development should be established. • equitable distribution of benefits should be ensured within cfugs by empowering women and other disadvantaged sub-groups. sub groups of such disadvantage people should be formed and assigned certain area of community forests to them with a complete package of support to empower their socioeconomic condition in long run. references bhandari, n. b. 2003. cultivation and domestication of ntfps: an experience from jumla,nepal. the nepal journal of forestry, ntfps special edition/ vol.xii no.2/nfa 3338p. ceci 1997. non-timber forest products in nepal: opportunities for sustainable harvesting and income generation in jumla. dfo jumla, 2002. fifth year working plan for district forest office jumal 2059-2064. edwards, d. m. 1994. non timber forest products and community forestry. project report g/ nukcfp/12-36p. edwards, d. m. 1996a. non timber forest products from nepal: aspects of the trade in medicinal and aromatic plants. foresc monograph 1/96, forest research and survey center, ministry of forest and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal edwards, d. m. 1996b. non timber forest products and community forestry: are they compatible? banko janakari 6 (1) 3-8. paudel 54 banko janakari, vol. 17, no. 2 gurung, s. b. and pandey, s. s. 2003: study on sustainable livelihood based bio-diversity conservation, with a focus on ntfps’ enterprise approach in nepal. the nepal journal of forestry, ntfps special edition/vol.xii no.2/ nfa 39-54 hertog, w.den. 1995. hidden values: ntfps in dolpa district. kldp/ netherlands development organization (snv-nepal), kathmandu. hobley, m. & shah, k. 1996. what makes a local organization robust? evidence from india and nepal. odi natural resource perspective series, no. 11. karki, s. 1996. investigating non-timber forest products (ntfps) oppretunities in nepal. nepal austrslia community foresstry projects. cited in subedi, b.p. 2003. non-timber forest products sub-sector in nepal: opportunities and challenges for linking the business with biodiversity conservation. the nepal journal of forestry, ntfps special edition/vol.xii no.2/ nfa 18-32p. malla, s. b., shakyya, p. r, rajbhandari k. r., bbhattarai, n.k, subedi, m.n. 1995. minor forest products (ntfps) of nepal: general status and trade. fris project paper no. 4. hmgn/ finnida 27p+ mfsc, 2004. forestry sector: achievement and oppretunities. a paper presented at nepal development forum ojha, h. r., subedi, b. p. and dangal, s. p. 2003. management of non-timber forest products:recent innovations in resource assessment and sustainable harvesting. the nepal journal of forestry, ntfps special edition/ vol.xii no.2/nfa 55-65p. ostrom, e. 1999. self governance and forest resources. cifor occasional paper no. 20. pandey, s. s. 2000. an assessment of ntfps in community forest/potential community forest in high altitude areas. a dissertation paper for b.sc. forestry degree in institute of forestry pokhara, nepal. pattton, m. q. 1988. how to use qualitative methods in evaluation.uas:sage publications. pokheral, b. k. 1998. common property regimes: the criteria to assess their effectiveness. paper presented in workshop on sustainable forest management, pokhara, nepal sharma, p. 1996. non –wood forest products and integrated mountain development: observations from nepal. business seminar on medicinal herbs, essential oils and other non timbers forest products, kathmandu, december 1996. deg/ngcci. 11pp. subedi, b. p. 1997. utilization of non-timber forest products: issues and strategies for environmental conservation and economic development. theme paper presented in the workshop on “ the utilization of ntfps for environmental conservation and economic development in nepal” organized by ansab on march 29, 1997 in kathmandu. subedi, b. p. 1999: socio-economic and institutional impact of community based ecosystem management project in humla nepal. socioeconomic monitoring report to bcn. ansab/ enterprise works worldwide. subedi, b. p. 2003. non-timber forest products subsector in nepal: opportunities and challenges for linking the business with biodiversity conservation. the nepal journal of forestry, ntfps special edition/vol.xii no.2/nfa 18-32p. usaid, global conservation program (gcp) 2003. mid term evaluation report of enterprise-based biodiversity conservation_nepal project. implemented by eww and ansab. paudel bently, l. and sherman, b. 2003. intellectual property law. oxford university press, new delhi, 1051p. chhokar, k. b., pandya, m. and raghunathan, m. 2004. understanding environment. sage publications, new delhi, 331p. dash, m. c. and dash, s. p. 2010. fundamentals of ecology. tata mcgraw hill eduction private limited, new delhi, 562p. dubash, n. k. 2012. handbook of climate change and india development, politics and governance. oxford university press, new delhi, 400p. gore, a. 2006. an inconvenient truth : the planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it. rodale, new york, 325p. gupta, m. p. 2009. crisis management. essential books, new delhi, 286p. gyawali, c. k. 2010. federalisn in the world. chandra kanta gyawali, lalitpur, 468p. hitchcock, d. and willard, m. 2006. the business guide to sustainability : practical strategies and tools for organization. earthscan. usa publisher, washington dc, 292p. ingnam, k. 2009. an introduction to world trade organization. kathmandu school of law, bhaktapur, 654p. kala, c. p. and silori, c. s. 2013. biodiversity communities and climate change. the energy and resources institute (teri), new delhi, 330p. kaarthikeyan, d. r. 2006. commentary on anti – corruption laws : with exhaustive commentaries on the prevention of corruption act, 1988. ashoka law house, new delhi, 1756p. khatiwada, p. p. 2065 b.s. problem of human disappearances in nepal (a study with the solution measures). centre for conflict studies, kathmandu, 340p. lakshmikanthamma, s. 1997. sustainability of dryland agriculture in india : a case study of watershed development approach. md publications pvt. ltd., new delhi, 339p. miller, r. w. and donahue, r. l. 1997. soils in our environment. prentice hall of india private limited, new delhi, 649p. murty, c. and narayan, s. 2002. water resources engineering : principles and practice. new age international publishers, new delhi, 306p. majupuria, t. c. and majupuria, r. k. 2006. wildlife and protected areas of nepal [resources and management] (most up to date and correct description of mammals of nepal together with recent delineation of wildlife protected areas, conservation and management) opposite saharanpur club, saharanpur (u.p.) india, 549p. ojha, e. r. 1999. dynamics and development highland ecosystems. walden book house, kathmandu, 278p. ojha, h. r., timalsina, n. p., kumar, c., banjade, m. r. and belcher, b. 2008. communities, forests and governance policy and institutional innovations from nepal. adroit publishers, new delhi, 247p. parks, p. j. 2004. global warming : the lucent library of science and technology. lucent books, new york, 112p. padma, t. and rao, k. p. c. the principles environmental studies [based on revised syllabi of 5 year law degree course]. alt publications, hyderabad, 338p. padma, t. and rao, k. p. c. 2010. the principles environmental law [based on revised syllabi of 5 years law degree course] alt publications, hyderabad, 335p. pandit, a. 2010. watershed development inputs and social change : understanding the changing culture of child nutrition. rawat publications, jaipur, 168p. prakash, a., sarvanan, v. s. and chourey, j. 2012. intlacing water and human health case studies from south asia. sage publication, new delhi, 470p. central forest library acquisition list no. 60, may 2013 61 banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 62 rajagopalan, r. 2011. environment : an illustrated journey. oxford university press, new delhi, 236p. roth, d. and vincent, l. 2013. controlling the water matching technology and institutions in irrigation management in india and nepal. oxford university press, new delhi, 400p. rao, p. v. 2003. textbook of environmental engineering. prentice-hall of india private limited, new delhi, 268p. sethi, v. k. 2009. disaster management. essential books, new delhi, 325p. satyal, y. r. 2000. essentials of tourism. adroit publishers, new delhi, 126p. subedi, b. p. 2006. linking plant – based enterprises and local communities to biodiversity conservation in nepal himalaya. adroit publishers, new delhi, 244p. tamrakar, n. k. 2011. practical sedimentology. bhrikuti academic publications, kathmandu, 232p.  notice  the central forest library hereby requests all researchers, academicians and students to send one copy of their thesis and research papers related to forestry, wildlife, botany, soil conservation, socioeconomic studies, medicinal plants, environment and biodiversity to this library. central forest library department of forest research and survey, p.o. box : 3339, kathmandu, nepal e-mail: info@dfrs.gov.np tel. no. 4220482/4269491 acquisition 3 land degradation is a major challenge in nepal. a lot of degraded land is available within the community forests in the mid-hills which are being aimed to be utilized for ecological restoration as well as supporting livelihoods of the local people. in this context, the study was conducted in the chautaradanda community forest (27o44’05’’ n and 85o04’60’’ e) of thakre village development committee of dhading district in the lower mid-hills of central nepal to test the survival capacity and growth performance of different tree species (native, naturalized as well as exotic) that can be used for the rehabilitation of degraded sites. firstly, stylo (stylosanthes spp.), a leguminous grass, was introduced on a degraded site for enriching nutrients in june 2008. secondly, six different native, naturalized as well as exotic tree species (sapindus mukorossi, prunus cerasoides, choerospondias axillaris, melia azedarach, pinus patula and robinia pseudoacacia) were planted in a randomized complete block design with 4 blocks (6 species × 4 blocks) in july 2008. the results showed that the growth and survival rate of exotic species, p. patula was outstanding; however, the performance of its native and naturalised counterparts p. cerasoides, c. axillaris and m. azedarach was found to be satisfactory. r. pseudoacacia was not found to be a suitable species for rehabilitating degraded sites in the lower mid-hills of nepal. therefore, it would be wise to select the native or naturalized species for the rehabilitation of degraded sites in the mid-hills, as sometimes the introduction of exotic species may have pessimistic ecological consequences; however, p. patula can be used as it has not shown any invasive nature since its introduction (around 1980s) in the mid-hills of nepal. hence, the study shows the possibility of introducing the tree species such as p. cerasoides, m. azedarach and c. axillaris for ecological restoration of degraded sites in the community forests in the mid-hills of nepal. key words: land degradation, growth performance, native species, naturalized and exotic species restoration of degraded sites with suitable tree species in the mid-hills of nepal r. k. jha1*, s. k. baral1, r. aryal1 and h. b. thapa1 nepal is a mountainous country in the world with about 83% hills and mountain area (lrmp, 1986). such hills and mountains are very fragile and susceptible to various land degradation processes. the moest (2008) has estimated that over 28% of the lands in nepal are in degraded condition. similarly, according to bai et al. (2008), nepal has nearly 39% of degrading areas from 1981 to 2003. hence, land degradation is becoming a major challenge for economic and natural ecosystems of nepal. many consequences of land degradation such as flooding and sedimentation can be noticed in the terai, and frequent landslides are noticed in the hills, mostly caused due to loss of forest cover. according to the united nation conventions to combat desertification (unccd), desertification/land degradation is defined as “the reduction or loss of the biological or economic productivity of the terrestrial bio-productive system that comprises soil, vegetation, or other biota and the ecological and hydrological processes that operate within the system”. global land assessment of degradation (glasod) has mentioned that land degradation could indeed be a potentially serious threat to food production and rural livelihoods by the year 2020, particularly in more densely populated pockets of rural poverty (scherr and yadav, 1996). land degradation may occur through different physical, chemical and biological processes directly or indirectly induced by human activities such as deforestation, shifting cultivation, overgrazing, steep slope farming, over use of chemical fertilizers and forest resources (acharya and kafle, 2009). about 2,000 million hectares 1 department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal * corresponding author: rajeevk.jha2010@yahoo.com banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 4 of soil, equivalent to 15% of the earth’s land area (an area larger than the united states and mexico combined); have been degraded through human activities. the causes of soil degradation include overgrazing (35%), deforestation (30%), agricultural activities (27%), overexploitation of vegetation (7%) and industrial activities (1%) (gacgc, 1994). more than 9 million hectares of forests are being converted into non-forest land, and at least double that amount of forest ecosystem is being fragmented and degraded each year over the world (uhl and buschbacher, 1985; uhl, 1987). according to frs (1967), the forest and shrub cover in nepal was around 45.5% which was reduced to 39.6% in 1994 (dfrs, 1999; fig. 1). converted land is generally agriculturally unproductive, biologically impoverished, and more flammable than the forests (uhl and buschbacher, 1985; uhl, 1987). human activities are responsible not only for the degradation of land but also important for improvement of land through prevention, rehabilitation and reclamation (moest, 2008). in order to address this problem the government of nepal (gon) has initiated handing over of the large areas of forest land including the degraded lands as community forests (cfs), particularly in the mid-hills, to the community forest user groups (cfugs) for restoration of forests and supply of subsistence forest products to local communities (kanel and shrestha, 2001). cf programme is considered as one of the most successful natural resource management programmes in nepal in terms of restoring degraded land and habitats, conserving biodiversity, increasing supply of forest products, empowering women, poor and the disadvantaged groups, generating rural income, and developing human resources (gilmour and fisher, 1991; acharya, 2003; springate-baginski et al., 2003); however, there are lots of degraded lands available in these cfs which need to be utilized for ecological restoration as well as supporting livelihoods of the local people. this will also fulfil one of the major objectives of cf. the impressive re-greening of most degraded sites seems unlikely to be reversed, provided that grazing; forest fire bans are maintained (http:// www.ifad.org/events/reducingpoverty/nepal.html accessed in october 2013). however, it takes time to come up with desired species, and there is growing interest in establishing plantations of native species in recent years (gonzalez and fisher, 1994; montagnini, 2000; piotto et al., 2002). therefore, this study aims to test the survival capacity and the growth performance of different tree species (native, naturalized and exotic) for the rehabilitation of degraded lands. materials and methods study area the chautaradanda cf (27o44’05’’ n and 85o04’60’’ e) located at thakre village development committee (vdc) ward no. 3 of dhading district in the lower mid-hills of central nepal was selected as a restoration site (fig. 2). the restoration site is located at an altitude of 1000 m with 30 to 35% slope facing southern aspect. the climate is sub-tropical with mean monthly temperatures ranging from 13 to 27o c, mean monthly rainfall from 7 to 341 mm, and average annual rainfall of nearly 1,700 mm. more than 80% of the total rainfall occurs from june to september, as recorded at the nearest meteorological station of dhunibeshi (baul et al., 2013). there are three distinct seasons: rainy (wet); winter; and hot or humid summer (tiwari, 2008). the drainage condition is good but with excessive run-off, resulting in deficiency of soil moisture. the soil is, moreover, shallow and stony, and at some places, eroded leaving only the bare rocks. initially, the study area was barren; however, the cfug had tried to afforest that area in july, 2006 by planting nursery-grown seedlings of various species such as: shorea robusta, alnus nepalensis, choerospondias axillaris and pinus roxburghii but their growth was not satisfactory except a. nepalensis in moist sites. but, now s. robusta is appearing sporadically naturally in that area that may be attributed to the enriched soil condition and easy availability of its seed from the surrounding natural s. robusta forest. soil characteristic of the study site the soil condition before the commencement of the study was analysed by taking representative composite soil samples from three depths fig. 1: change in forest and shrub cover in nepal jha et al. note: frs: forest resources survey, lrmp: land resource mapping project, mpfs: master plan for the forestry sector, dfrs: department of forest research and survey frs lrmp mpfs dfrs banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 5 jha et al. (0–15 cm, 15–30 cm and 30–50 cm). efforts made for soil enrichment after land preparation, the seeds of stylo (stylosanthes spp.), a leguminous grass, were sown just one month before planting seedlings of the tree species; and 4 kg of farmyard manure was applied around each seedling every year during april–may for three years so as to enrich the soil. a trench was constructed around each pit in order to conserve moisture because of the dry soil condition. species selection the species for this study were selected on the basis of discussion with the cf members and experts. in addition, other criteria used were user groups’ preference, site quality, market possibilities, economical or financial viability, and identified nursery and cultivation techniques, availability of seedlings and short rotation or quick harvest. the selected species were prunus cerasoides (paiyu), choerospondias axillaris (lapsi), sapindus mukorossi (ritha), melia azedarach (bakaino), pinus patula (pate sallo) and robinia pseudoacacia. about 30 cm tall seedlings, grown in 4”×7” polythene pots in the chalnakhel nursery of the department of forest research and survey (dfrs), were planted at a spacing of 2.5 m by 2.5 m in july, 2008. experimental design randomized complete block design with four replicates (blocks) and six treatments (species) were applied. the blocks were constructed from east to west along the contour and divided into six plots. location of the plot for each species within the array was determined randomly for every block, and then the seedlings were planted. each species was represented by one plot per block, and 25 individuals per plot for a total of 100 trees per species in the experiment. data collection and analysis the soil samples were brought to the soil labouratory of the dfrs for analysis to get idea about soil features such as texture, ph, nitrogen (n), phosphorous (p), potassium (k), cation exchange capacity (cec) and organic matter content. survived seedlings were counted, and their heights were measured using a stick and simple measuring tape, and recorded in the tally-form each year during february–march. simple statistical technique (mean, standard deviation) were used for data analysis in spss 16. two-way analysis of variance (anova) technique at 5% fig. 2: map of the study area banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 6 level was applied to know whether height growth and survival were significant. however, as the data for survival showed more than 20% variation, an angular (arcsine) transformation technique was used before employing anova test. further, post-hoc test was applied using tukey hsd test for multiple comparisons in survival of species; however, due to only one value for a species (r. pseudoacacia), this technique was not applied for height of the species. results and discussion soil features the results of soil analysis showed that the soil type was sandy loam to loam with 6.35 average ph values. other soil features such as n, p, k, cec and organic matter content were 0.69 mg/g, 0.31 μg/g, 20.58 μg/g, 2.03 meq/100g and 1.6% respectively (table 1). the soil features of this site were compared with the findings of baral (2008) from a well stocked cf in kavreplanchowk district. the comparison showed that the availability of both nitrogen and potassium at this site was about one third of those available in the well stocked cfs. on the contrary, the availability of phosphorous was found to be nearly three times more than that available in the well stocked cfs, indicating the poor condition of the site. common soil problems in the deforested tropics include aluminium toxicity, low ph and phosphorous fixation (fisher, 1995 cited in carpenter et al., 2004). excess phosphorus may cause micronutrient deficiencies, especially iron or zinc (available online at: http://www.cartage. org.lb/en/themes/sciences/botanicalsciences/ planthormones/essentialplant/essentialplant. html accessed in october 2013). growth performance of stylosanthes spp. the growth performance of stylosanthes spp. was found to be satisfactory in the first year; however, it showed poor results afterwards, which could be due to shade provided by the adjoining grown tree species. survival the survival per cent of p. patula, p. cerasoides, s. mukorossi, m. azedarach, c. axillaris and r. pseudoacacia after three years were found to be 82, 77, 70, 64, 52 and 1% respectively (fig. 3). the exotic species are at extremes (highly survived and least survived i.e. almost failed). among the native species, p. cerasoides showed the best result followed by the native species, s. mukorossi, and the naturalized species, m. azedarach (fig. 3). after angular (arcsines) transformation, anova test indicated that there was significant difference (p≤ 0.05) in survival of selected species (table 2). the significant difference in survival was found between p. patula and c. axillaris; and r. pseudoacacia with all species (annex 1). a lot of plantations of p. patula have been established since 1980s in the mid-hills of nepal. in most of the sites; it shows over 80% survival (jackson, 1994). on an average, the survival of p. patula at the age of three years was recorded jha et al. table 1: soil characteristics parameters min. max. mean std. error of mean ph (1:1) 5.70 7.70 6.35 0.46 available nitrogen (mg/g) 0.52 1.08 (٭1.825) 0.69 0.13 available phosphorous (μg/g) <0.05 0.68 (٭0.095) 0.31 0.16 available potassium (μg/g) 11.14 39.50 (٭64.20) 20.58 6.51 organic matter (%) 1.13 2.33 1.60 0.29 cation exchange capacity (meq/100g) 1.93 2.15 2.03 0.05 texture sandy loam to loam *source: baral (2008) banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 7 jha et al. as 73% in 1981–1982, and the same in 1983 at tistung (1,800–2,000), makwanpur district (cfdp, 1984); 87% at lopre (2,300 m), parbat district of nepal (paudel et al., 1996). similarly, a study on poor site at an altitude of 1,100 m in syangja district shows the survival rate of 83% at an age of 4.7 years (neil, 1989). likewise, other survival results from the trial plots of forest research division are 58% at the age of four years in lauke (1,450 m); 81% and 100% at the age of 6.8 and 2.4 years respectively in tistung (2,000 m), makwanpur district; and 69% and 85% at the age of 2.7 and 1.4 years respectively in kharidhunga, dolkha (neil, 1989). according to joshi and wyatt-smith (1982), the survival rate of p. patula in the plots established by the nepal-australia forestry project in the late 1970s is 92% after seven years at the lower nagarkot (1,700 m), and 76% at the upper nagarkot (2,000 m). also, the survival results of this species from tistung (1,900 m) are 97% and 81% after 4.5 and 6.8 years respectively (jackson, 1994). the result of this study is also in line with all those studies. however, p. patula has been listed as category 2 invader in south africa (invaders with certain qualities, e.g. commercial use or for woodlots, animal fodder, soil stabilisation, etc) and are allowed in certain areas under controlled conditions as they have significantly reduced water availability and also have a very negative impact on plants in the fynbos, an area of global biodiversity significance (bionet-eafrinet: key and fact sheets). nevertheless, it has not yet been reported such nature of this species in nepal, despite, a study on “regeneration establishment of native broadleaves in pine plantations in nepal” reveals the positive results in the regeneration establishment of natural broadleaved species (gautam et al., 1996). however, the plantation of this species needs long-term specific results from their trials before going for large-scale plantations. in a plantation done by community forestry development project (cfdp) in 1983, the survival rate of r. pseudoacacia was found to be less than 10% (cfdp, 1984). jackson (1994) suggests for research on this species in smallscale trial plots for three to four years before attempting for large scale plantations. similarly, a study from st. neots and aldewood, britain shows very poor survival rate even on better quality sites (willoughby et al., 2007). on the contrary, the survival rate of this species is 83% after second growing season on a site with high ph, high nutrient content, high electrical conductivity and high sodium concentrations ( h t t p : / / w w w. i b a f . c n r. i t / p h y t o / s c h e d e / robinia%20pseudacacia%20-%20zn,%20 cd,%20pb,%20na.pdf assessed in november 2013) and is considered as an ideal tree for erosion control and soil stabilization, and an excellent farm forestry tree in pakistan (sheikh, 1993). the cfdp reports the survival rate of s. mukorossi is only 27% in the plantation sites and 43% in the farmers’ land for the years 1981 and 1982 (campbell and bhattarai, 1983). a bareroot planting of this species, in darchula district, shows 30 to 50% survival only (wilson, 1988). the survival per cent, however, in this study is very much promising that may be because of increasing soil nitrogen availability due to application of farmyard manure and stylosenthes plantation. the survival per cent of p. cerasoides is 92% at the age of seven years at the upper nagarkot, bhaktapur district at an altitude of 2,000 m (joshi and wyatt-smith, 1982); and 86% at an altitude of 1800 m near lumle in parbat district (shrestha and gautam, 1991). according to shakya (1991) the survival of p. cerasoides is 100% at kadambas (1,440 m), sindhupalchowk district, 89% at naldung (1,600 m) and 97% at nagarkot (1,700 m), bhaktapur district after 18 months, 78% at kadambas (1,440 m) after 30 months. in general, the survival rate of this species in nepal is over 80% at the age of two years (jackson, 1994). a very contradictory result is found on a degraded watershed area (18° 52’n, 94° 51’e, 1,207–1,310 m above mean sea level) in doi suthep-pui national park of thailand, where the survival rate of p. cerasoides plantation with four fertiliser (npk 15–15–15) treatments over one growing season are recorded as 85.7%, 61.5%, 80.0% and 62.5% respectively with an overall average of 72.4% (elliott et al. non-dated). the survival rate of 28 months old c. axillaris is 80% at kadambas (1,500 m), sindhupalchowk district (jackson, 1994). shakya (1991) states that the survival rate of c. axillaris is 83% after 18 months and 71% after 30 months at kadambas (1,440 m) and 78% after 18 months at nagarkot (1,700 m). however, these results contradict with the findings of this research as it showed the banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 8 jha et al. survival rate of c. axillaris as 52% after three years. this contradictory result may be attributed to poor site condition. height growth the growth of m. azedarach is influenced by soil depth and fertility, and it is capable of achieving very rapid growth on deep, well-drained and reasonably fertile soil (jackson, 1994). a study from northwest india, on a calcareous soil in a semi-arid part (annual rainfall about 350 mm), shows the survival rate of m. azedarach in 3 years as 100% (tomar et al., 2003). in nepal, the survival rate of this species is 90% in 13 months from taungya plantation in dang, and 55% in the 1981and 1982cf plantations and 37% in the 1983cf plantations (jackson, 1994). however, the findings of this research, though from degraded site, shows the better result than the 1981, 1982 and 1983 results of the community forestry development project. these results indicate that if care is applied to m. azedarach plantation, it would be a better option to rehabilitate degraded sites in the lower mid-hills; however, a detailed study needs to be conducted in other areas so as to know the real causes of these contradictions. the heights of p. patula, p. cerasoides, s. mukorossi, m. azedarach, c. axillaris and r. pseudoacacia at the age of three years were found to be 2.63 m, 1.59 m, 0.62 m, 1.88 m, 1.43 m and 0.51 m respectively (fig. 4). (anova) test indicated that there was significant difference (p≤ 0.05) in height growth of the tested species (table 3). on a good site, p. patula trees may reach 2 m in height after two years (http://www.forestrynepal. org/resources/trees/pinus-patula accessed in november 2013). a study from tistung (1,800– 2,000 m), makawanpur, district on infertile sites shows the height gain of p. patula as 3.4 m at the age of three years (jackson, 1994). similarly, seven-year-old trees of this species at lower (1,760 m) and upper (2,000 m) nagarkot, bhaktapur district have attained the height of 10.6 m and 9 m, respectively (joshi and wyattsmith, 1982). likewise, the mean height growth results from forest research division trials are 3.6 m at the age of 4.7 years in syangja district (1,100 m); 3.6 m in 4 years at lauke (1,450 m), nuwakot district; 9.8 m and 2.3 m at the age of 6.8 and 2.4 years respectively at tistung (2,000 m), makawanpur district; and 1.0 m and fig. 3: survival per cent of different tree species in three years table 2: anova table for survival of the tested species source degree of freedom sum of squares mean square f sig. species 5 1863.188 372.638 57.025 0.000 block 3 25.738 8.579 1.313 0.307 error 15 98.019 6.535 total 23 1986.946 r2 = 0.951 (adjusted r2 = 0.924) banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 9 jha et al. 0.7 m at the age of 2.7 and 1.4 years respectively at kharidhunga (2,700 m), dolkha district (neil, 1989). a study from india shows the average height of p. patula as 11.78 m in 12 years at devidhura, uttarakhand and 8.24 m in 8 years at lohaghat reserve, uttaranchal (chaturvedi and dwibedi, 1982). the height growth of this species in this study was found to be similar to those from other studies. r. pseudoacacia has shown higher growth rate of 53 cm after second growing season on a site with high ph, high nutrient content, high electrical conductivity and high sodium concentrations (http://www.ibaf.cnr.it/phyto/schede/robinia %20pseudacacia%20-%20zn,%20cd,%20 pb,%20na.pdf accessed in november 2013) which is comparable to the findings of this research (51 cm after three years), even though it is from poor site. it can grow up to about 25 m at maturity. in general, the growth performance of this species is poor in nepal. therefore, jackson (1994) has envisaged that it needs appropriate amount of winter rainfall or snowfall to grow well, as it has shown better performance in the northwest himalaya of kashmir and himachal pradesh, india. s. mukorossi has proved successful in the afforestation of eroded hill slopes at elevations below 900 m in the western himalayas in india (http://www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/ sea/products/afdbases/af/asp/speciesinfo. asp?spid=1767 accessed in november 2013). in pakistan, this species showed the height and diameter growth of 9 m and 10 cm in five years respectively (sheikh, 1993). the growth rate of this species was found to be poorer in this study as compared to the one in plantation. it may be due to dry and poor site condition as it requires moist site (sheikh, 1993) and it does not grow on very poor and rocky sites. p. cerasoides has attained the height of over 2 m in seven years at the upper nagarkot (2,000 m), bhaktapur district (joshi and wyattsmith, 1982) and it gained the mean height of 1.3 m at another site with the same age at an altitude of 1,800 m near lumle in parbat district (shrestha and gautam, 1991). in general, the mean height of this species in nepal is about 1 m in two years (jackson, 1994). the best height attained from unfertilized plantations in open area is 1.75 m at 2.4 years at banduk (1,450 m), myagdi district (joshi, 1985); 1.6 m at 2.2 years on a poor site with northern aspect at nisikot (1,400 m), dhading district (rimal, 1992), and 2.8 m at four years at 1,800 m in parbat district (shrestha and gautam, 1991). according to jackson (1994), the growth of c. axillaris is rapid only on good fertile soil, averaging about 1 m in height per year; but in general, its growth is much slower. one of the best results in trials is from kadambas (1,500 m), sindhupalchowk district where 28 month-old trees have attained a mean height of 101 cm. jackson (1994) reported the average height of this species as about 60 cm after two years, and 90 cm after three years. however, the finding of this study contradicts with the others as it shows the height growth of c. axillaris as 1.43 m in three years. this contradictory result may be due to application of manure. nevertheless, a detailed study needs to be conducted to know the real causes. the growth of m. azedarach is influenced by soil depth and fertility, and it is capable of achieving very rapid growth on deep, well-drained and reasonably fertile soil (jackson, 1994). in thailand, on a deep red loam, at 1,000 m, and with about 1,500 mm annual rainfall, trees have attained 3 m height within a year. similarly, the height growth of this species recorded is 4.5 m in 13 months under taungya plantation in dang district, nepal (jackson, 1994). but, a study on a calcareous soil in a semi-arid part (annual rainfall about 350 mm) in northwest india shows the height growth of m. azedarach in three years as 3.86 m (tomar et al., 2003). the findings of this current research showed slow growth rate of this species in degraded sites in spite of manuring. therefore, a detail study needs to be conducted in other areas so as to know the real causes of these contradictions. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 10 jha et al. conclusion this study showed that the native species can grow very well on degraded sites. though, p. patula, the exotic species, showed the outstanding results, we have to be cautious when recommending it as it is an exotic species and may have a chance to be invasive like in africa. native and naturalised species such as p. cerasoides, c. axillaris and m. azedarach were found to have performed relatively better. another exotic species r. pseudoacacia was not successful in this study, and also not in other parts of nepal. therefore, it is recommended to prefer the native or naturalised species for the rehabilitation of degraded sites in the mid-hills. it would be wise to conduct a preliminary study before planting these species in other parts of the mid-hills for the rehabilitation of degraded land. acknowledgements we would like to thank the members of the executive committee of chautaradanda community forest user group, thakre vdc, dhading district for providing the site for establishment of trial plot and mutual cooperation for establishing, managing and protecting the trial plot. our thanks also go to district forest office, dhading for their coordination. references acharya, a. k. and kafle, n. 2009. land degradation issues in nepal and its management through agroforestry. the journal of agriculture and environment 10: 115–123. acharya, k. p. 2003. “conserving biodiversity and improving livelihoods: the case of community forestry in nepal” paper presented in international conference on rural livelihood, forests and biodiversity, bonn, germany. bai, z. g., dent, d. l., olsson, l. and schaepman, m. e. 2008. global assessment of land degradation and improvement. 1. identification by remote sensing. report 2008/01, isric – world soil information, wageningen, netherlands. fig. 4: height growth of different species in three years table 3: anova table for height of the tested species source degree of freedom sum of squares mean square f sig. species 5 156.528 31.306 68.956 0.000 block 3 4.367 1.456 3.2073 0.023 error 341 154.811 0.454 total 349 317.149 r2 = 0.512 (adjusted r2 = 0.500) banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 11 baral, s. k. 2008. impacts of forest management on selected ecosystem properties. master thesis, boku, vienna, austria. baul, t. k., ullah, k. m. a., tiwari, k. r. and mcdonald, m. a. 2013. people’s local knowledge of climate change in the middle-hills of nepal. indian journal of traditional knowledge 12 (4): 585–595. 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middle mountain watershed of central nepal. m.sc. thesis, norwegian university of life sciences, ås, norway. tomar, o. s., minhas, p. s., sharma, v. k., singh, y. p. and gupta, r. k. 2003. performance of 31 tree species and soil conditions in a plantation established with saline irrigation. forest ecology and management 177: 333–346. uhl, c. 1987. factors controlling succession following slash and burn agriculture in amazonia. journal of ecology 75: 377–407. uhl, c. and buschbacher, r. 1985. a disturbing synergism between cattle ranch burning practices and selective tree harvesting in the eastern amazon. biotropica 17: 265–268. willoughby, i., victoria stokes, v., poole, j., white, j. e. j. and hodge, s. j. 2007. the potential of 44 native and non-native tree species for woodland creation on a range of contrasting sites in lowland britain. forestry oxford journals 80 (5): 531–553. available online at: forestryforestry.oxfordjournals.org accessed in october, 2013. wilson, a. 1988. community forestry development in darchula district. miscellaneous document. 49. websites: h t t p : / / w w w. c a r t a g e . o rg . l b / e n / t h e m e s / sciences/botanicalsciences/planthormones/ essentialplant/essentialplant.html accessed in october 2013 jha et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 13 http://www.forestrynepal.org/resources/trees/ pinus-patula accessed in november, 2013. http://www.ifad.org/events/reducingpoverty/ nepal.htm accessed in october, 2013. h t t p : / / w w w. i b a f . c n r. i t / p h y t o / s c h e d e / robinia%20pseudacacia%20-%20zn,%20 cd,%20pb,%20na.pdf accessed in november, 2013. http://www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/sea/ products/afdbases/af/asp/speciesinfo. asp?spid=1767 accessed in november, 2013. annex 1 multiple comparisons for survival using tukey’s hsd p. cerasoides s. mukorossi p. patula c. axillaris m. azedarach r. pseudoacacia p. cerasoides ns ns ns ns * s. mukorossi ns ns ns ns * p. patula ns ns * ns * c. axillaris ns ns * ns * m. azedarach ns ns ns ns * r. pseudoacacia * * * * * * the mean difference is significant at 0.05 level; ns – not significant jha et al. bamboo is a versatile gift of nature. it has direct link to the socio-economic and cultural conditions of the nepalese people. the aim of the study was to assess the status of bamboo production in private land, its contribution to socio-economic condition and marketing trend of bamboo culms and bamboo products. this study was conducted in 10 village development committees (vdcs) of rautahat district during july to october, 2010. data were collected through household (hh) survey using semistructured questionnaires, key-informant survey through interviews, focus group discussion, market survey, and bamboo stock measurement. two wards in each vdc were selected purposively based on availability of bamboo. the hhs in the selected wards were categorized into three well-being classes (rich, middle and poor) through participatory approach. the average number of bamboo clumps per hh was found to be 3.4 in the three categories of hhs within the study area; 5.7 (highest) in the rich-class hhs followed by 3.9 in the middle-class hhs and 0.5 (lowest) in the poorclass hhs; there were, on an average, 80 culms per bamboo clump in the study area. on the contrary, the income from the bamboo sector was found to be just opposite 73.85% in the poor-class hhs followed by 2.37% in the middle-class hhs and 0.85% in the rich-class hhs. the prices of bamboo culms, basket and nanglo winnow were found to have increased by 51.6%, 41.0% and 36.4% respectively during the last 4 yearsfrom 2006/07 to 2010. no fixed market, no fixed price and no guarantee in sealing the products were found to be the major problems for market development of the bamboo products in the district. awareness-raising through trainings and studytours on plantation techniques to the bamboo-growers as well as the craft-makers and production of high-prized products are essential for increasing bamboo plantations and for the development of bamboo market in the district so as to make bamboo-culm supplier in the near future. the findings of this study will help the concerned agencies to inform about the status and future prospects of bamboo sector in the district. key words: bamboo culms, bamboo clumps, marketing, price trend, socio economic, livelihood economic potential and marketing trend of bamboo in nepal: a case study from rautahat district r. k. jha1,2 and j. n. yadava1 bamboo is an integral part of forestry and the backbone of nepal’s rural culture (das, 2002). it is one of the important renewable natural resources that can bring people above the poverty line if grown and managed on a sustainable basis (das, 2002; poudyal and das, 2002); the importance of bamboo in the predominantly agricultural economy, particularly the rural economy of nepal is well recognized (bista 2004; das 2001; karki et al. 1998; karki and karki, 1996; storey, 1990). bamboos are in great demand among the rural people for construction materials. they are equally demanded by bamboo artisans and the rural as well as the urban enterprises for making various bamboo products and for a host of household uses including weaving. in terms of utilization, weaving of bamboo strips is most popular, as 70% of the farmers grow bamboo on their farms and around the homesteads for the purpose (karki, et al. 1998). thus, bamboo-based enterprises are some of the options to reduce poverty by creating employment for both the rural and urban work-force (karki and karki, 1996). farmers grow bamboo in their private farmlands (das, 2002). it has been introduced in many community forests adopting the traditional methods of production, management and 1 institute of forestry (iof), tribhuvan university (tu), hetauda, nepal, email: rajeevk.jha2010@yahoo.com 2 department of forest reseach and survey, kathmandu, nepal 63 banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 64 marketing of their products (tis, 2004). most producers are poor and cannot venture for commercial production and marketing. the ethnic communities of panjiyar of the hill-origin and dom and mahali of the terai-origin heavily depend on bamboos for their survival (das, 2002). most of the marginalized people like magar, chepang, tharu, dalits (e.g. dom, dushad and mushar) are involved in bamboo crafts in the terai region (adhikari, 2008). these people make different types of bamboo woven-products, handicrafts, and furniture for their income. these locally-produced bamboo products are readily bought and sold in the local market, but its trade is not satisfactory in the national market due to the lack of transportation network and well-established marketing system (adhikari, 2008). marketing of bamboos and their products (bamboo crafts) is one of the important sources of income for the poor people, especially for the people who are socially and economically underprivileged (das, 2002; mdbrpp/dfrs, 2010). however, only 10% of the traditionally processed products are competitive in the international market. the remaining 90% of the products face threats from other substitutes or international products (mdbrpp/dfrs, 2011). bamboo-based enterprises are important source of employment for both the rural as well as the urban workforce. however, due to the lack of favourable policy and government’s support, disorganized market and limited skills, bamboobased economy contributes only 1-2% to the national economy (karki et al., 1998). in nepal, the use of bamboo has been only for subsistence, and its modern market is not well developed. however, with the growing bamboo demand in the world, abundant availability of the resources, vast traditional knowledge-base and cultural affinity of this material in nepal, there is a tremendous potential for it to contribute to the people’s livelihood (adhikari, 2008). it has been recognized that bamboo plays an essential role in the socio-economic development of the rural people, especially the poor (dom, dushad and mushar) of rautahat district of nepal. so, for its overall development, more attention needs to be given for enhancing opportunities of employment as well as income generation for the specific target groups in the district. keeping this into consideration, this study was conducted to assess the economic potential and market trend of bamboo in rautahat district of nepal in general, and to assess the status of bamboo production in private land, the contribution of bamboo in socioeconomic condition of the people, and marketing trend of bamboo and some of its products in particular. materials and methods study area rautahat district is located between 26o44’ to 27o14’ n latitudes and 85o14’to 85o30’ e longitudes in the terai region of central nepal (figure 1), and covers an area of 1038.12 sq. km (survey department, 2001). in 2010, it consisted of 96 village development committees (vdcs) and one municipality, but now it comprises 94 vdcs and three municipalities. its district headquarters is gaur. it extends over three physiographic regions viz. i) siwaliks (hills), ii) bhawar (undulating land) and iii) terai (plain), and experiences tropical and sub-tropical type of climate. subsistence farming is the main source of income of the large portion of the population of the district. according to the cbs (2001), the total population of the district was 545,132 (male: 282,246; female: 262,886) in 88,162 households (hhs); and 686,722 (male: 351,079 and female: 335,643) and in 106,668 hhs in 2011 (cbs, 2012). fig. 1: map of study area jha and yadava banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 65 data collection and analysis out of the total 96 vdcs of the district, ten vdcs were selected randomly through formal and informal discussion with the officials of the government as well as the non-government organizations (ngos) and the contractors. the ten selected vdcs were auraiya, rajpurfrahadawa, brahampuri, ganga-pipra, bhalohiya, katahariya, birtipraskota, simra-bhawanipur, chandranigahpur and paurai. in each vdc, two wards (high and low bamboo stocking wards) out of nine were selected purposively by consulting the local people based on the criteria (maximum and minimum bamboo plantation area, maximum and minimum bamboo production and supply, dependence of hhs on bamboo, and condition of clumps and easy accessibility). reconnaissance survey was conducted in july, 2010 to get information on community structure, land use type, vegetation, and other socio-economic conditions of the area. all the hhs in the ten selected vdcs were categorized into three well-being classes (rich, middle and poor) through participatory ranking (annex 1 ); equal number of hhs were selected randomly from each category to get 10% of the total hhs in each ward. altogether, 144 hhs (48 from each category) were selected from the 20 selected wards. the survey of 144 hhs through semi-structured questionnaires, key informants and five focusgroup discussions was conducted during augustoctober, 2010 to collect data on the production of bamboo (number of clumps per hh), market situation, price trend, demand and supply, uses of raw bamboo and its products together with the problems associated with its production and marketing. altogether, 33 bamboo entrepreneurs, 10 district officials, six bamboo contractors and 30 customers were interviewed as key informants. in addition to this, various market centers in the district were visited to acquire information on market prices of raw bamboo and its products. altogether, five bamboo clumps were selected randomly and the clump diameters were measured at two sides (north-south and east-west) perpendicular to each other. young (< 1 year), middle-aged (1– 3 years) and mature (> 3 years) culms were counted from a plot (1 m × 1 m) laid out at the central part of each clump. estimation of vdc-wise bamboo production step i: first of all, the area of each clump was determined using the formula: a=πd²/4, where, d is the diameter of the clump. step ii: the number of bamboo culms per clump was estimated by multiplying the area of the clump by the number of culms per plot. step iii. the average number of bamboo clumps per hh in each selected ward was determined by dividing the sum of the weighted mean of high bamboo stock (c1) and low bamboo stock (c2) as follows: av. no. of clumps/hh = [c1n1+c2n2]/ [n1+n2], where, n1 = no. of hhs in the ward with high bamboo stock n2 = no. of hhs in the ward with low bamboo stock step iv. the total number of bamboo clumps in each vdc was calculated by multiplying the average number of bamboo clumps per hh by the total number of hhs in the vdc. step v. finally, the total number of culms produced in each vdc was calculated by multiplying the average number of clump per hh (based on the hh survey) by the average number of culms per clump (based on the plot) and then by the total number of hhs in the vdc. the data were analyzed using ms excel and spss 11.2. results and discussion out of the total number of hhs (144) surveyed, 77.1% hhs (111) were found to have planted bamboo on their farmlands (table 1), of which only 9.9% had planted bamboo for self use while 75.7% had planted bamboo for self use as well as for selling. similarly, 0.9% had planted bamboo for processing and self use, 3.6% for processing and selling, and 9.9% for self use and all other purposes. about 23% hhs had not planted bamboo due to either limited or no land for plantation. these hhs were involved in bamboo-based enterprises. however, the selling of the bamboo was not regular. according to the respondents, they used to sell their bamboo culms to the contractors and to some villagers at their farm gates. jha and yadava banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 66 bamboo farming and bamboo enterprise favour the development of small landholders and the use of intensive labour suited to the nepalese quest of eliminating poverty by improving the means of livelihood of the rural poor (tis, 2004). therefore, bamboo farming can be a powerful tool to foster rural development. table 1: purpose of bamboo growing on private land purpose bamboo grower (%), n = 111 total hhs (%), n = 144 self use 9.91 7.64 self use and selling 75.68 58.33 processing and self use 0.90 0.69 processing and selling 3.60 2.78 all 9.91 7.64 hhs without bamboo clumps 22.92 total 100.00 100 .00 the rich-class hhs were significantly different from the middleand the poor-class hhs in terms of bamboo-clump holding (p<0.05) (annex 2). the rich hhs had higher percentage of bamboo clumps (58.6%) than the middle-class (37.4%) and the poor (4.0%) hhs (figure 2). the higher percentages of bamboo clumps in the rich and the middle-class hhs is mainly due to the availability of their land for bamboo planting. fig. 2: distribution of bamboo clumps by wealth categories according to the study conducted by das and seely (1996) in eastern nepal, the levels of bamboo growing varied significantly according to wealth. the land size is directly proportional to the amount of bamboo plantation; usually, the rich hhs with large landholdings plant more bamboos than the poor hhs with less land (karki et al., 1998). similar findings were found in this study. ghimire (2008) found that the richer hhs had relatively more land and had more bamboo clumps but not in significant numbers, only 2-5 clumps per household while most of the poor hhs had no bamboo clumps in their homesteads, and only some poor hhs had hardly 1-2 bamboo clumps in their homesteads. the findings of this study showed that there were, on an average, 3.4 bamboo clumps per hh within the study area (10 vdcs); the poor hhs with 0.5 clumps per hh, middle-class hhs with 3.9 clumps per hh and the rich hhs with 5.7 clumps per hh (table 2). bhalohiya vdc had the highest number of bamboo clumps per hh (4.67) followed by ganga pipra vdc (4.33) and brahampuri vdc (3.67). chandranigahpur and paurahi vdcs had the lowest number of bamboo clumps per hh (2.33). the average number of clumps per hh in paurai, birtipraskota, simrabhawanipur and was lower than that of overall average (table 4). the number of bamboo clumps per hh varied in different vdcs (table 2) that might be due to high population with limited lands. based on the field survey conducted in 2010, there were, on an average, 80 culms per bamboo clump in the study area. there was significant difference in the distribution pattern of bamboo clumps among the three categories of hhs [f(at 2 and 141 degree of freedom (df)) = 86.02, p<0.05] (table 3). bamboo stocking rajpur frahadawa vdc had the highest stock of bamboo (585,392) followed by chandranigahapur vdc (512,579) and auraiya vdc (392,931) (table 4). paurai, kathaiya, bhalohiya and simrabhawanipur vdcs had almost equal number of bamboo culms while britipraskota vdc had the lowest stocking of bamboo (111,481), about one-fifth of the bamboo culms found in rajpur frahadawa vdc. the total stocking of the middle-aged culms (1,391,469) and the mature culms (1,401,238) were nearly equal whereas that of the young ones (174,260) was comparatively quite low (table 4). this indicates the poor management practice for bamboo. for the sustained yield of bamboo culms, the mature and middle-aged culms need to be urgently thinned so as to provide sufficient space for the young ones as well as the new shoots. it will not only provide sufficient income to the farmers but also provide better growth of bamboo in future. jha and yadava banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 67 dry bamboo culms were found in all the vdcs (figure 3) indicating urgent bamboo management practice need which is crucial for the sustainable yield of bamboo. rajpur-frahadawa vdc with highest bamboo stock had also highest number of dry bamboo culms (28,691) followed by chandranigahpur vdc (25,122) and auraiya vdc (19,258); ganga pipra vdc had the lowest number of dry bamboo culms (7,776) (figure 3). bamboo planting methods rhizome planting was the most common method of bamboo propagation in the study area. stapleton (1987) found rhizome planting as the most common bamboo propagation method which may be due to the lack of sufficient table 4: stocking of bamboo culms of different age categories name of vdc young (<1 year) middle (1-3 years) mature (>3 years) total auraiya 23,078 184,280 185,573 392,931 paurai 15,274 121,960 122,816 260,050 rajpur-frahadawa 34,382 274,541 276,469 585,392 brahampuri 10,839 86,551 87,159 184,550 ganga pipra 9,319 74,413 74,935 158,667 bhalohiya 13,235 105,680 106,422 225,336 kathariya 16,916 135,073 136,021 288,009 birtipraskota 6,548 52,283 52,650 111,481 simrabhawanipur 14,564 116,296 117,112 247,972 chandranigahpur 30,105 240,393 242,080 512,579 total 174,260 1,391,469 1,401,238 2,966,967 average 18887 150813 151872 337332 jha and yadava table 2: vdc-wise number of clumps per household by wealth categories s.n. vdc no. of clumps by wealth categories poor middle-aged rich average 1. auraiya 1 4 7 4.00 2. paurai 0 4 3 2.33 3. rajpur frahadawa 1 4 5 3.33 4. brahampuri 0 4 7 3.67 5. ganga pipra 1 4 8 4.33 6. bhalohiya 1 4 9 4.67 7. kathariya 0 4 6 3.33 8. birtipraskota 1 4 4 3.00 9. simrabhawanipur 0 4 4 2.67 10. chandranigahpur 0 3 4 2.33 total 5 39 57 33.66 average 0.5 3.9 5.7 3.37 table 3: one-way anova showing the distribution of clumps in the three wealth categories no. of clump sum of squares d. f. mean square f sig. between groups 715.85 2 357.92 86.02 < 0.001 within groups 586.71 141 4.16 total 1302.56 143 banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 68 technical information to the bamboo growers (das, 1999; 2002). only some of the farmers (10%) were aware of production of bamboo plants through bamboo seeds as well as bamboo culmor branch-cuttings. propagation through seed is technically sound method of bamboo propagation, but the propagation method adopted in the study area has not been checked so far. according to the respondents, the success rate of propagation through rhizome planting was better as they received large bamboo culms right from the beginning. however, a few farmers had introduced techniques of bamboo culm-cuttings for bamboo propagation with the technical support from the district soil conservation office, rautahat. these bamboo culm-cuttings had been planted in the degraded sites of their community forests. bamboo harvesting the culms of 2-3 years of age were harvested for crafts making whereas the harvesting of the culms of more than 3 years of age was done mainly for construction purpose. in general, more bamboos were harvested during the months of september– april due to high use of bamboo culms (for making various products) in chhath (a holly festival of the hindus) and marriage ceremonies. most of the farmers (about 82% in the district) had only a few bamboo clumps (<5) in their homesteads, and they had not applied any silvicultural operation in their bamboo clumps so far. it might be because of the lack of technical knowledge at farmer’s level. as a result, most of the clumps were dense leading to the very limited production of new shoots due to unavailability of space in the centre part of the clump. however, people had applied some management practices on bamboo clumps, such as mounding, composting (decomposed straw and dung) and pruning during the growing stage. such practices were only in a small-scale. further, they had not carried out cultural operations at the later stage. constraints in bamboo production some major constraints in bamboo production in rautahat district reported by the respondents are as follows:  insufficient knowledge regarding the improved method of bamboo plantation (90% respondents),  no subsidy provided by the government during bamboo plantation (83% respondents),  poor technical knowledge in the management of bamboo clumps (82% respondents),  obstructions from the neighboring farmers who believed that bamboo would hamper their agricultural production (94% respondents), and  insufficient knowledge regarding the importance and market value of bamboo and its products (63% respondents). fig. 3: vdc-wise green and dry bamboo culms jha and yadava banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 69 the traditional beliefs and superstitions also affect on bamboo plantation. the common belief associated with bamboos is that it reduces the productivity of land where it grows and considerably reduces the crop productivity due to its shading-effect (ghimire, 2008). but the agricultural land near bamboos can be effectively utilized for growing ginger (zingiber officinalis roscoe), turmeric (curcuma longa linn.), large cardamom (amomum subulatum roxb.), orchard grass (dactylis glomerata l.) and dinnanth grass (pennisetum pedicellatum trin.) up to a distance of 11-15m from the bamboo row (singh et al., 1992, cited by ghimire, 2008). in this study, most of the people did not know the cultivation techniques of shade-loving agricultural crops along with bamboo plantation. so, the farmers had planted only bamboos in the marginal and degraded lands, gullies, slopes and private forests. so far, the farmers had not applied agro-forestry system. contribution of bamboo in the socioeconomic condition of the people income from bamboo and other sources bamboo was the major source of income to the poor families, contributing nearly 74% to the yearly family income. however, its contribution to the rich-class families (about 0.9%) and middle-class families (about 2.4%) was insignificant (table 5). the other source of income were agriculture, business, government/ private job and wage labour. das (2002) reported that the total annual income from the sale of bamboo crafts, on an average, was nrs. 45,000/ (nrs. 74.70 = 1 us$), around 74% of the total annual household income, for dom and mahali (economically poor) hhs. the finding of this research is also similar (table 5). table 5: income sources wealth categories % income from bamboo other sources poor 73.85 26.15 middle 2.37 97.63 rich 0.85 99.15 distribution of labour in bamboo enterprises bamboo crafting is the traditional occupation of dom and chamar who are considered to be the socially as well as economically disadvantaged ethnic group in the terai region of nepal. more than 77% (n=37) of the poor hhs were found to be involved in bamboo enterprise and they had been producing only traditional crafts such as nanglo (winnow), bhakari (large storage bin), basket, fan, etc. now-a-days, such products are facing high competition with plastics and steel products, so the entrepreneurs are not getting reasonable benefits from these goods. most of the hhs involved in bamboo cultivation had run small-scale enterprise throughout the year by utilizing their own traditional skills and knowledge by using their family members as the main labour source (figure 4); sometimes exchanged and hire labour were also used. thus, bamboo crafting had created self-employment opportunities to the family members. fig. 4: distribution of labour for bamboo enterprise (n=37) men, women and children were found to be involved in bamboo enterprise; however, the proportion of time spent varied considerably (table 6). generally, men were involved more in crafts-making, harvesting bamboo and other silvicultural treatments. besides, due to the lack of bamboo raw materials on their own land and the vicinity, men had to spend more time in acquiring raw materials and transporting bamboo products to the market. women had to spend most of their time in household activities, and so, their involvement in bamboo enterprise was less as compared to men. in some families, children were also involved in bamboo enterprise, especially in transporting and selling the bamboo products in the local market. jha and yadava banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 70 table 6: time spent by the family members in bamboo enterprise family member time spent (%) involvement % (n=37) men <25% 5.40 25-50% 10.81 50-75% 27.03 >75% 56.76 women <25% 24.32 25-50% 29.73 50-75% 24.33 >75% 13.51 not involved at all 8.11 children <25% 48.65 25-50% 2.70 not involved at all 48.65 demand for bamboo culms per household per annum the poor families were found to have used more bamboo culms annually. they had used bamboo culms mainly for craft-making, but the use of bamboo culms by the rich and middle-class families was considerably found to be less (table 7), which might be due to the increasing use of plastic and steel-made materials and the use of brick, concrete and cement in construction of houses. in addition to this, only poor hhs were involved in bamboo enterprise, especially in craftmaking for which, on an average, 284 bamboo culms were required per hh per year (table 7). table 7: demand for bamboo culms per hh per year for various purposes wealth categories self use craftmaking total poor 26 284 310 middle 23 0 23 rich 20 0 20 average 23 95 118 there was significant difference [f(at 2 and 141 d. f.) = 4.455, p<0.05] in the requirement of bamboo culms for self-use between the poor and the rich hhs (table 8 and annex 3). unit cost analysis of some bamboo products the unit cost and benefit analysis of some bamboo products (fan, nanglo, basket and bhakari) made by dom hhs was performed. the income from bhakari (nrs. 418) was more than that from the other traditional crafts (table 9). however, according to the bamboo craft-makers, the demand of bhakari was not that high and uniform. price trend of bamboo culms and few products the price of culms increased by 51.6% whereas the price of basket and nanglo increased by 41% and 36.36%, respectively during the last four years from 2006 to 2010 (figure 5). the price of culms increased more than that of basket and nanglo, which may be due to the high demand of culms in urban areas of nepal and locally for the purpose of scaffolding. according to poudyal (1991), the demand for tama bans (dendrocalamus hamiltonii) and taru bans (bambusa nutans subsp. nutans) for scaffolding is quite high in the kathmandu valley, and the price has increased by about 300% in the past 20 years (1990–2010). this study also showed the increasing trend in the bamboo-culm price. in fact, it might be a significant increase within a short period of the last four years. such increase in the bamboo-culm price may be due to the limited resources, high demand both in the urban as well as the local areas for house construction, and increasing transportation facilities. similarly, the price of bamboo products also increased which might be due to the increase in labour cost as well as culms price. jha and yadava table 8: one-way anova for demand for bamboo culms for self use no. of culms sum of squares d. f. mean square f sig. between groups 1093.847 2 546.924 4.455 0.013 within groups 17309.146 141 122.760 total 18402.993 143 banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 71 fig. 5: price trend of bamboo culm and its products demand trend for bamboo culms for self use the trend in use of bamboo culms by rich and middle-class hhs decreased during the last seven years from 2003/04 to 2010 while there was no change in the use of bamboo culms in the poor hhs during the same period (figure 6). the decrease in the use of bamboo culms in the rich and the middle-class hhs might be due to the influx of plastic and steel-made materials for their domestic purpose and the use of brick and cement instead of bamboos for the construction of their houses. on the other hand, the constant demand for bamboo culms in the poor hhs showed insignificant change in their family income. in 2010, the demand for bamboo culms in the rich and the middle-class hhs was found to have decreased by 10 and 7 (by number) respectively due to the increase in the family income i.e. the demand for bamboo culms for self use was impersonally proportional to the family income. fig. 6: demand trend for bamboo culms in different wealth categories for self use supply of bamboo culms bamboos grown on the private lands had met the demand for bamboo culms at small-scale locally in the vdcs. the stocking of bamboo was found to be higher in the southern parts (e.g. auraiya, rajpur frahadawa, brahampuri, ganga pipra and bhalohiya vdcs) than in the northern parts (e.g. chandranigahpur and paurai vdcs) of the district (table 4). according to the respondents, the demand for bamboo culms was found to have fulfilled only in the southern parts of the district and not in the northern parts. demand for bamboo products people in the study area had used different bamboo products for their domestic purposes. however, we collected the data related to the annual demand for basket and nanglo per hh. the demand for basket from the poor and the middle-class hhs was the same during the last seven years from 2003/04 to 2010 (figure 7) although the number of culms required for self use varied in these hh classes (figure 6). further, the demand for basket from the rich hhs slightly decreased (figure 7). similarly, the demand for nanglo from the rich and the middle-class hhs table 9: unit cost analysis of some bamboo products (price is in nrs.) s.n. product no. of labour no. of bamboo quantity produced total cost unit cost selling price income remarks 1 fan 1 1 12 243 20.25 25 4.75 rs 2 for colouring 2 nanglo 2 2 12 532 44.33 75 30.67 rs 50 for plastic 3 basket 25 18 100 5388 53.88 85 31.12 4 bhakari 1 2 1 332 332.00 750 418.00 jha and yadava banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 72 was the same during this period. the decrease in demand of basket may be due to preference of people for plastic and aluminum materials, which do not damage easily, and there is no danger of termites and weevils. as the average requirement of basket and nanglo per hh was 13 and 2 in 2010, respectively, thus, the total requirement of basket and nanglo in rautahat district was estimated to be 11, 46,106 and 1,76,324 in 2010 respectively; the assumption is that each hh needs these products every year. according to the entrepreneurs, the demand of bamboo products increased for handicrafts, and racks but the demand of traditional bamboo products decreased (figure 7). however, the bamboo entrepreneurs are able to produce the products in demand but they are facing the problem of low income, and lack of design and technologies. constraints in marketing of bamboo and bamboo products the major constraints in marketing of bamboo culms and products as stated by the respondents were lack of fixed market, lack of fixed price and lack of guarantee in selling the bamboo products (table 10). according to them, other constraints in marketing aspects were lack of management information system (mis), lack of institutions in marketing and lack of government policy. according to ghimire (2008), the major constraints in marketing of bamboo and bamboo crafts in lalitpur district were lack of guarantee of the bamboo crafts and lack of fixed price. the constraints in marketing aspects of bamboo and bamboo crafts found in this study were similar to the constraints stated by ghimire (2008). however, one of the major constraints found in this study was lack of fixed market for bamboo culms and bamboo products. table: 10. constraints in marketing of bamboo culms and products constraints percentage no fixed price 13.9 lack of guarantee in selling the products 13.2 lack of fixed market 36.8 lack of mis 7.6 lack of institution in marketing 2.8 no support from the government 0.7 all 25.0 total 100.0 conclusion bamboo farming can be a powerful means for the government to foster rural development. bamboo farming favours the development of small landholdings and the use of intensive labour suited to the nepalese quest of eliminating poverty by improving the living standard of the rural people. there is a high potentiality of rautahat district in supplying large amount of bamboo culms and bamboo products provided the bamboo growers are supported by those concerned (gos/ngos/ingos) for improved methods of bamboo plantation and management fig. 7: trend of demand for few bamboo products in different wealth categories jha and yadava banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 73 of the existing clumps and provided the bamboo entrepreneurs are supported for training and tours on craft-making. the price of bamboo culms is increasing day by day, and so does the price of bamboo products, but the demand for traditionally used products like nanglo and basket is decreasing. besides, the demand for bamboo culms from both the rich and the middle-class families for self use purpose is decreasing. the poor families are highly dependent on bamboo for their livelihood as compared to the rich and the middle-class families. therefore, the poor people, especially bamboo dependent ones, should be supported by those concerned in producing new modern marketing products. the bamboo dependent people are highly vulnerable to the changing market situation, and so the stakeholders have to take quick step to support them to adapt with the new market situation. in order to improve the economic potential and marketing trend of bamboo in nepal, the following provisions should be made by those concerned (gos/ngos/ingos): l training on the new improved method of bamboo plantation and management of bamboo clumps should be provided to the bamboo producers, as most of the bamboo clumps are not managed well; l as the number of young culms are less compared to the middle-aged and the mature ones, there is urgent need of silvicultural treatment in the clumps for sustained production of bamboo culms; l provision of study tours and advance skill development trainings should be made to the bamboo entrepreneurs for new varieties of bamboo products, as there is high demand of new varieties of bamboo products in the market and low (decreasing) demand of traditional products; l bamboo enterprise cooperatives should be formed for effective and efficient marketing of the bamboo products so as to support the rural livelihood; l bamboo income generation activities should be promoted at best by the concerned stakeholders for rural poverty reduction; l in-depth study on the demand and supply of bamboo and its products should be carried out; and l bamboo products should be guaranteed for selling. references adhikari, n. 2008. economic potential of bamboo in nepal for the traditional bamboo users in the modern economy available at (http:// abari.org/economic-potential-of-bambooinnepal). accessed on: 20 november 2010. bista, d. b. 2004. people of nepal. ratna pustak bhandar, kathmandu nepal. cbs. 2001. nepal in figure. national planning commission secretariat, central bureau of statistics, ramshahpath, kathmandu, nepal. cbs. 2012. national population and housing census 2011 (village development committee/ municipality). central bureau of statistics, kathmandu nepal. volume 2. das, a. n. and seeley, j. a. 1996. bamboo use as a basis for wealth ranking in eastern nepal. banko janakari 6 (2): 89–92. das, a. n. 1999. socio-economics of bamboos in eastern nepal. phd thesis, university of aberdeen, u.k. das, a. n. 2001. bamboo: species for economic prosperity, environmental conservation and rural development in nepal. nepal bamboo update 2 (1): 3–4. das, a. n. 2002. bamboo growing and its market development potential for sustaining rural livelihood and poverty reduction in eastern nepal. banko janakari 12 (1): 8–19. ghimire, a. 2008. an assessment of the dependency of farmers on bamboo resource for rural livelihood in lalitpur district, nepal. m.sc. boku university, vienna, austria. karki, j. b. s. and karki, m. 1996 . bamboo production, use and trade in eastern nepal: a case study. in the role of bamboo, rattan, medicinal plants in mountain development (eds.) karki, m., rao, a. n., rao, v. r. and williams, j. t., 144–155. proceedings of a workshop held at the institute of forestry, jha and yadava banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 74 pokhara, nepal, 15–17 may, 1996. inbar technical report no. 15. karki, m. b., sherchan, g. r. and karki, j. b. s. 1998. extensive bamboo production to consumption systems in nepal: a case study. inbar working paper no. 17. international network for bamboo and rattan, beijing, china. mdbrpp/dfrs. 2010. review of developed western markets for bamboo and rattan commodities of nepal. market development of bamboo and rattan products with potental (mdbrpp) project, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. mdbrpp/dfrs. 2011. review of traditional designs and technologies of bamboo and rattan products in nepal. market development of bamboo and rattan products with potential (mdbrpp) project, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. poudyal, p. p. 1991. utilisation of bamboo in the kathmandu valley of nepal. in proceeding of the 4th international bamboo workshop on bamboo in asia and the pacific. forestry research support programme for asia and the pacific (forspa), chiangmai, thailand. publication no. 6: 258–262. poudyal , s. k. and das, a. n. 2002. bamboo research and development in nepal. journal of forest and livelihood 2 (1): 59–61. stapleton, c. m. a. 1994. bamboos, gramineae in manual of afforestation in nepal (ed) jackson, j. k. forest research and survey centre. kathmandu, 2nd edition, 401–427. storey, p. 1990. bamboo: a valuable crop for the hills. helvetas. kathmandu, nepal. survey department. 2001. national topographical base maps. kathmandu, nepal. tis. 2004. manual on bamboos of nepal. tree improvement and silviculture (tis), natural resources management sector assistance programme (narmsap), department of forests, series no. 107. kathmandu, nepal. jha and yadava banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 75 jha and yadava annex 1 checklist for wellbeing ranking rich households (high bamboo growers) middle-class households (fair bamboo growers) poor-class households (low bamboo growers)  food (from agricultural production) sufficiency for more than nine months  government, corporate or ngo service holder  access to education  landholding: more than 2 bigha (1.36 ha)  bank account and personal saving  cemented house  more than 5 clumps of bamboo in the farm  food (from agricultural production) sufficiency for 3-6 months  skilled and employed family members with simple jobs in government/private sector  schooling children  celebrating festivals without taking loan  land holding: 10 kattha 2 bigha (0.34–1.36 ha)  house roofed with gi sheet and wooden wall  3–5 clumps of bamboo in the farm  food security < 3 months from agricultural production  problem in schooling their children  house roofed with thatch grass and mud wall  dependency on wage laborer in nepal and india  difficulty in celebration of festival without taking loan  land holding < 10 kattha (<0.34 ha)  3 or less clumps of bamboo in the farm annex 2 multiple comparisons by lsd showing the distribution of clumps in 3 wealth categories wealth categories (i) wealth categories (j) mean difference (i-j) std. error sig. 95% confidence interval lower upper poor middle-class -3.31 0.42 0.00 -4.136 -2.489 rich -5.42* 0.42 0.00 -6.240 -4.594 middle-class poor 3.31 0.42 0.00 2.489 4.136 rich -2.10 0.42 0.00 -2.927 -1.281 rich poor 5.42* 0.42 0.00 4.594 6.240 middle-class 2.10 0.42 0.00 1.281 2.927 *the mean difference is significant at 0.05 level annex 3 multiple comparisons by lsd showing the requirement of bamboo culms for self use wealth categories (i) wealth categories (j) mean difference (i-j) std. error sig. 95% confidence interval lower upper poor middle-class 3.27 2.262 0.150 -1.2 7.74 rich 6.75* 2.262 0.003 2.28 11.22 middle-class poor -3.27 2.262 0.150 -7.74 1.2 rich 3.48 2.262 0.126 -0.99 7.95 rich poor -6.75* 2.262 0.003 -11.22 -2.28 middle-class -3.48 2.262 0.126 -7.95 0.99 *the mean difference is significant at 0.05 level loss and degradation of biodiversity is continuing despite the past conservation efforts in nepal. out of many potential causes, this study strives to investigate the effects of a road project on biodiversity in the middle hills of nepal. information about floristic composition was collected from the adjoining community forests using group of 30 circular sample plots, each located at 50 m and 20 m far from the edge of the road. results provide evidence that rural road projects are contributing to reduction of biodiversity which may be due to the removal of low-yielding timber species near the road-edge. the study also suggests that proximity to road-edge reduces understorey vegetation which will lead less capable forest to sustain its original biodiversity. however, silvicultural operations have potential to minimize the indirect loss of biodiversity caused by road projects. k e y w or d s : community forests, middle hills, rural road, woody plant species’ diversity impact of roads on biodiversity: a case study from karekhola rural road in surkhet district of nepal j. k. kc1 and a. p. gautam2 d iversity of species plays an important role in ecosystem functions and services. nepal possesses a disproportionately high diversity of flora and fauna at genetic, species and ecosystem levels due to its unique geographic position and altitudinal variations. the government of nepal (gon) is committed to the protection and management of biological resources and their diversity on a sustainable basis (mfsc, 2014). as a signatory country of the convention on biological diversity (cbd), the gon has revised the country’s national biodiversity strategy and action plan (nbsap) in 2014. in addition, the gon has put a lot of efforts in the past regarding implementation of international agreements as well as formulation of strategies to include the local communities in biodiversity conservation. however, the efforts made so far mainly relate to reducing poaching, trade and illegal activities within the protected areas. other threats like unplanned road projects, the key causes of habitat loss and fragmentation, are usually underestimated. the problem is not restricted to motorways. however, narrow country roads occupy less area per kilometer, and are more frequent than motorways, so their combine effect upon the landscape can be considerably larger (seiler, 2001). road provides a basis for long-term development in the rural areas, but the environmental consequences cannot be neglected only foreseeing economy. unplanned and wrongly designed economic development can cause destabilization of the natural environment, which is evidenced by many past efforts in nepal and elsewhere. earlier studies (wwf, 2013; mfsc, 2014) have found that unplanned rural roads constructed by the local governments are one of the major threats to environment and biodiversity. the department of roads estimates that around 25,000 kilometers rural road tracks had been opened in nepal by 2010, most of which have been constructed without any environmental safeguard (dor, 2010). forest roads are termed as “ecosystems” as they occupy ecological space (hall et al., 1992) and provide habitat for associated plants and animals (lugo and gucinski, 2000). road infrastructure causes direct and indirect loss in forest ecosystem. direct loss refers to the reduction of forest area and indirect loss of roads refers to fragmentation and degradation of the ecosystem (geneletti, 2003). one of the major effects of roads relates to its edge effects, which can be defined as the alternation to habitat quality due to proximity to edge. it can cause indirect loss of habitat by changing species composition, temperature, moisture, light availability and wind speed and, therefore, alteration in original biodiversity (gysel, 1951). the effect of edge on plant 1 building climate resilience of watersheds in mountain eco-regions project, dadeldhura, nepal. e-mail: jibeshkc2012@gmail.com 2 kathmandu forestry college, kathmandu, nepal 70 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 71 diversity can occur up to 30 m far from the road or even beyond (seiler, 2001). the study was, moreover, a descriptive research limited to investigating the impacts of road projects on diversity of woody plant species. in order to assess the impacts of roads on diversity of woody plant species, the effects mainly upon the species diversity and the structural diversity were investigated. these indirect effects of road projects were assessed by comparing and analyzing woody plant species distribution in between two effect-zones (20 m and 50 m far from road-edge). materials and methods study area the study area is located between 28°36’14” n and 28°36’20” n latitude and between 81°38’19” e and 81°38’58” e longitude in the adjoining forests of the karekhola rural road. the road connects jarbuta village development committee (vdc) and birendranagar municipality of surkhet district situated in the middle hills (fig. 1). the earthen road is 5 m wide and 1.46 km long. the study was conducted in 2012. fig. 1: map showing the location of the study area in western nepal the road is the main pillar in the development of jarbuta vdc area. all kinds of traffic are being used to transport essential goods to meet livelihood requirements of the people of jarbuta vdc. the road passes through neware community forest (cf) in the northern part and devis than cf in the southern part. the adjoining cfs are managed by the local community forest user groups (cfugs) according to the respective operational plans. the fugs have deployed the locally-hired forest guards for protection of the forests. methodology systematic sampling was used for the collection of primary data on diversity of woody species in the cfs. first of all, reconnaissance survey was carried out and the karekhola road was surveyed with the help of gps (global positioning system) device. preliminary data analysis was done using gis (geographical information system) software. the forest area lost due to road construction was determined by multiplying the length of the road with its width. similarly, the spacing between the two successive plots (45 m) was determined on the basis of different factors, such as length of the road (1.46 km), maximum coverage of the road in the study area and the possibility of intersection of the area of the sample plots on the road bends. then from the starting point (on the road), 45 m distance was marked on the road-length with the help of a measuring tape. making perpendicular to the road length, concentric circular sample plots (ccsps) with 1 m, 3 m and 10 m radii were laid out at 20 m and 50 m distances from both the edges of the road (fig. 1 and 2) with the help of the measuring tape. the sampling protocol developed and used by the international forestry resources and institutions research network (ifrirn) was used for assessing the forest conditions (ifri, 2013). this research protocol has been widely used by the researchers in the past (gautam, 2002; gautam, 2006). in the innermost circle of the plot (1 m radius), all the woody seedlings were identified and counted. in the next circle (3 m radius), all the shrubs, saplings, and climbers were identified and counted, and also the diameters and the heights of the woody stems having diameter at breast height (dbh) in 2.5–10 cm class were recorded. in the largest circle (10 m radius), all the stems with 10 cm or greater dbh were counted, and their diameters and heights measured. the same kc and gautam banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 72 process was repeated from the opposite edge of the road. again, at the distance of 45 m from the previous location, the same process was repeated. in this way, altogether 30 circular sample plots were laid at 20 m and 50 m distances from the road-edge throughout the study area. fig. 2: a concentric circular sample plot the woody plant species’ diversity was assessed and compared using the simpson’s diversity index (d) and the sorenson’s similarity index (ssi). simpson’s diversity index (d): it gives the probabilities that the two randomly chosen individuals drawn from a population belong to the same species. higher the probabilities that both the individuals belong to the same species, lower the diversity. for finite communities (where all members have been counted), simpson’s diversity index (d) = ∑ pi² (baral and katzensteiner, 2009), where, pi is the proportional abundance of the ith species i.e. the proportion of individuals of a given species relative to the total no. of individual in an effect-zone (i.e. forest stand). sorenson’s similarity index (ssi): it is a very simple measurement of beta diversity. the ssi value ranges from 0 where there is no species overlap between the effect-zones to 1 when exactly the same species are found in both the effect-zones. sorenson’s similarity index (ssi) = 2c / (s1 + s2) (magurran, 1988), where, s1 = total no. of species found in the ccsp located at 20m distance from the road edge, s2 = total no. of species found in the ccsp located at 50 m distance from the road edge, and c = no. of species common to both the effectzones. structural diversity in order to compare the structural diversity of the two effect-zones, the dbh and height distribution classes were prepared. the diameters (at breast height) were categorized into the classes of 0–5 cm, 5–10 cm, 10–15 cm, and above 15 cm. then, the dbh class distributions between the two zones were compared, and analyzed. similarly, the heights were categorized into the classes of 1–5 m, 5–10 m, and above 10 m, and the heights between the two zones were also compared and analyzed. results and discussion plant species found in the two types of effectzones altogether, 23 plant species including 18 tree species, 3 shrub species and 2 woody climber species were found in the study area. a total of 19 plant species were found in the effect-zone at 20 m distance while a total of 16 plant species were found in the effect-zone at 50 m distance. seven tree species, three shrub species and two woody climbers were common in both the effect-zones (table 1). the difference in species richness between the two zones could be due to the edge effects, which often results higher species richness and greater numbers of exotic species at the edges (ranney et al., 1981), and potential ecosystem processes and productivity function alters (laurance et al., 1997). the calculated sorenson’s similarity index (ssi) value of the two effect-zones was found to be 0.69 (near to value 1) which indicated that the species found in both the effect-zones were more or less similar. shorea robusta w as found to be the dominant tree species in both the effect-zones. other common tree species noticed were dalbergia sissoo, terminalia alata and buchanania latifolia. similarly, argemore maxicana was found to be the principal shrub species in both the effect-zones. kc and gautam banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 73 species diversity of trees altogether, 11 plant species were found to be at tree stage in the effect-zone at 20 m distance while a total of 10 plant species were found to be at that stage in the effect-zone at 50 m distance (table 1). for the higher plant species diversity, the number of plant species present in an effectzone is not so important, but the even distribution of each individual plant species within the zone is important. in the effect-zone at 50 m distance, the plant species were found to be evenly distributed as compared to the one in the effect-zone at 20 m distance. the simpson’s diversity index (d) was found to be 0.6057 in the effect-zone at 50 m distance while it was 0.7113 at 20 m distance (table 2). thus, the value of d was found to be slightly less within the effect-zone at 50 m distance as compared to the one within the effectzone at 20 m distance, which showed that the effect-zone at 50 m distance was rich in plant diversity as compared to the effect-zone at 20 m distance due to the road-edge effects. table 2: simpson’s diversity index values in the two effect-zones s.n. forest stand (effect-zone) stage of the plants simpson's index (d) 1. at 20 m distance tree 0.7113 sapling 0.7187 seedling 0.4449 2. at 50 m distance tree 0.6057 sapling 0.6850 seedling 0.3881 species diversity of saplings altogether, 7 plant species at sapling stage were found in the effect-zone at 20 m distance while a total of 9 plant species at that stage were found in table 1: list of the plant species found in the two effect-zones s.n. local name botanical name 20 m distance 50 m distance 1. sal (t) shorea robusta √ √ 2. sissoo (t) dalbergia sissoo √ √ 3. jamun (t) syzigium cumini √ √ 4. khirro (t) wrightia arborea √ 5. tate (t) sapindus mukorossi √ 6. ranisalla (t) pinus roxbughii √ 7. khannyu (t) ficus semicordata √ 8. pyar (t) buchanania latifolia √ √ 9. tilka (t) wendlendia appendiculata √ √ 10. bhorla (w) bauhinia vahlli √ √ 11. bhalayo (t) rhus wallichii √ 12. bot dhanyero (t) largerstromia parviflora √ 13. gaitihare (t) inula cappa √ 14. saj (t) terminalia alata √ √ 15. imili (t) tamarindus indica √ √ 16. kyamuno (t) syzigium cerasoides √ 17. mauwa (t) madhuca indica √ 18. amba (t) psidium guajava √ 19. latimauwa (s) engelhardia spicata √ √ 20. kutmero (t) litsea monopetala √ 21. mainfalkada (s) catuna regamspinosa √ √ 22. badulpate (w) cissampelos pareira √ √ 23. thakkal (s) argemore maxicana √ √ note: t = tree, s = shrub and w = woody climber kc and gautam banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 74 the effect-zone at 50 m distance. a total number of 167 and 225 saplings of s. robusta w e re recorded in the effect-zones at 20 m distance and 50 m distance, respectively. s. robusta was found to be unevenly distributed in the effect-zone at 20 m distance than in the effect-zone at 50 m distance; other plant species were found to be in very few numbers. on the contrary, other species were found to be evenly distributed in the effectzone at 50 m distance in spite of the dominancy of s. robusta. the simpson’s diversity index was found to be 0.7187 in the effect-zone at 20 m distance and 0.6850 in the effect-zone at 50 m distance, indicating a little bit higher plant diversity in the effect-zone at 50 m distance than in the effect-zone at 20 m distance. the result also showed that the forest stand (effect-zone) at 50 m distance was richer in species diversity at sapling stage as compared to the one at 20 m distance. species diversity of seedlings altogether, 10 plant species were found at seedling stage in the effect-zone at 50 m distance while 11 plant species were noticed at that stage in the effect-zone at 20 m distance. a total of 242 seedlings of s. robusta were found to be distributed in the effect-zone at 20 m distance while a total of 205 seedlings of this species were found in the effect-zone at 50 m distance. the simpson’s diversity indices were found to be 0.4449 and 0.3881 in the effect-zones at 20 m and 50 m distances, respectively (table 2). the result showed that the effect-zone at 50 m distance possessed more plant diversity at seedling stage as at tree and sapling stages than the effect-zone at 20 m distance due to the proximity to the roadedge. in the community-managed forests, removal of bigger and older trees is carried out during silvicultural operations so as to provide space for preferred species of younger trees (baral and katzensteiner, 2009). due to the removal of older trees, appropriate environment is created to regenerate new crop and also establishment of the younger ones which leads the forest towards more diverse in undergrowth. suding (2001) carried out one of the several studies which also documented proportionate relationship between species richness and light availability on the forest floor. structural diversity moreover, dominant trees with 10–15 cm dbh class and 5–10 m height class were found to be distributed in the study area. trees with higher dbh classes (10–15 cm and above 15 cm) and higher height classes (5–10 m and above 10 m) were found to be distributed more in the effectzone at 20 m distance than in the effect-zone at 50 m distance (fig. 3 and 4). on the contrary, plants with lower dbh classes (0–5 cm and 5–10 cm) and lower height class (0–5 m) were found to be distributed more in the effect-zone at 50 m distance than in the effect-zone at 20 m distance. the study indicated that the under-storey vegetation in the effect-zone at 20 m distance was comparatively lesser than that in the effectzone at 50 m distance. this reveals that the roads affect not only upon plant species’ diversity but also have potential impact on structural diversity. this also reveals that proximity to road edge reduces under-storey vegetation and results less sustainable forest. fig. 3: plant distribution in terms of dbh classes in the two effect-zones fig. 4: plant distribution in terms of height classes in the two effect-zones several studies show that silvicultural practices can have a positive or neutral effect on understorey plant species richness (jenkins and parkers, fr eq ue nc y dbh class fr eq ue nc y height class kc and gautam banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 75 1999). so, proper silviculture practices can, to some extent, reduce the effects of road-edge on the forests. nevertheless, the number of plant species is not only one component of biological diversity that should be considered; under-storey species composition, spatial scale, number of endemic species and taxonomic singularity of the elements must also be taken into consideration (ojeda et al., 1995; zavala and oria, 1995). distribution of major plant species s. robusta, t. alata, syzigium cumini, d. sissoo, a. maxicana and engelhardia spicata w e re categorized as major species and the rest were categorized as others for the purpose of the study. at tree stage, s. robusta was found to be unevenly distributed in the effect-zone at 20 m distance than in the effect-zone at 50 m distance (fig. 5a), and other major species were either almost equally distributed (e.g. t. alata) in both effect-zones or more distributed (s. cumini and d. sissoo) in the effect-zone at 50 m distance (table 5b). at sapling stage, all the major plant species were found to be distributed higher in the effect-zone at 50 m distance than in the effect-zone at 20 m distance. the distribution of other species at sapling stage was higher in the effect-zone at 20 m distance. at sapling stage, only catunaregam spinosa was found to be distributed in the effectzone at 50 m distance, but fodders like ficus semicordata and listea monopetala were not detected at sapling stage in the effect-zone at 20 m distance. at seedling stage, s. robusta, t. alata, s. cumini and c. spinosa were found to be in higher distribution in the effect zone at 20 m distance than in the effect-zone at 50 m distance. on the other hand, all the three shrub species viz. e. spicata, c. spinosa and a. maxicana w e re found to be equally distributed at their seedling stage in both the effect-zones. on the other hand, the two species of woody climber viz. cissampelo spareira and bauhinia vahlli were also found to be less distributed in the effect-zone at 20 m distance. fig. 5a: distribution of s. robusta at different stages in the two zones fig. 5b: distribution of major plant species except s. robusta at different stages in two zones communities are highly promoting and protecting timber yielding trees like s. robusta even in mixed s. robusta forest (ojha and bhattarai, 2001; acharya, 2003) at the expenses of low quality timber-yielding species and shrubs (kandel, 2007 cited by shrestha et al., 2010; acharya et al., 2007; shrestha, 2005), which may be one of the causes behind the less woody plant species’ diversity in the effect-zone at 20 m distance. proximity to road-edge makes easy to remove other valuable species from the forest. conclusion the study indicates that roads bring about adverse impacts upon the woody plant species diversity in the adjoining forests. proximity to road-edge reduces species diversity due to removal of lowyielding timber species. the findings of the study also reveal that the effects of road-edge cause reduction in under-storey vegetation. however, the removal of over mature, dead, dying, diseased and deformed trees can have positive effects upon the species diversity in the forest. therefore, silvicultural operations should be carried out syzigium cumini dalbergia sissoo terminalia alata argemore maxicana kc and gautam shorea robusta banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 76 in the forests nearby roads so as to mitigate the adverse impacts caused by the roads. references acharya, k. p. 2003. conserving biodiversity and improving livelihoods: the case of community forestry in nepal. paper presented in international conference on rural livelihood, forests and biodiversity, bonn, germany, 9–13. acharya, k. p., gautam, k. r., acharya, b. k. and gautam, g. 2007. participatory assessment of biodiversity conservation in community forestry in nepal. banko janakari 16: 46–56. baral, s. k. and katzensteiner, k. 2009. diversity of vascular plant communities along a disturbance gradient in a central mid-hill community forest of nepal. banko janakari 19 (1): 3–10. dor. 2010. statistics of strategic road networks (2009/10). department of roads (dor), kathmandu, nepal. gautam, a. p. 2002. forest land use dynamics and community-based institutions in a mountain watershed in nepal: implications for forest governance and management. ph.d. dissertation, asian institute of technology, thailand, xi–174. gautam, a. p. 2006. combining geomatics and conventional methods for monitoring forest conditions under different governance arrangements. journal of mountain science 3 (4): 325–333. geneletti, d. 2003. biodiversity impact assessment of roads: an approach based on ecosystem rarity. environment impact assessment review 23 (2003): 343–365. gysel, w. l. 1951. borders and openings of beechmaple woodlands in southern michigan. journal of forestry 49: 13–19. hall, c. a. s., stanford j. a. and hauer, r. 1992. the distribution and abundance of organisms as consequence of energy balances along multiple environmental gradients. oikos 65: 377–390. ifri. 2013. international forestry resources and institutions (ifri) network: research methods. http:/ www.ifriresearch.net (accessed on: 12 december, 2015). jenkins, m. a. and parker, g. r. 1999. composition and diversity of groundlayer vegetation in silvicultural openings of southern indiana forests. the american midland naturalist 142: 1–16. laurance, w. f., laurance, s. g., ferreira, l. v., merona, j. m. r., gascon, j. m. r. and lovejoy, t. e. 1997. biomass collapse in amazonian forest fragments. science 278: 1117–1118. lugo, a. e. and gucinski, h. 2000. function, effects and management of forest roads. forest ecology management 133: 249–262. magurran, a. e. 1988. ecological diversity and its measurement. princeton university press, princeton, usa. mfsc. 2014. national biodiversity strategy and action plan. ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), kathmandu, nepal, 20–28. ojeda, f., arroyo, j. and maranon, t. 1995. biodiversity components and conservation of mediterranean heathlands in southern spain. biological conservation 72: 61–72. ojha, h. r. and bhattarai, b. 2001. understanding community perspectives of silvicultural practices in the middle hills of nepal. forests, trees and people newsletter 40: 55–61. ranney, j. w., bruner, m. c. and leenson, j. b. 1981. the importance of edges in the structure and dynamics of forest islands. in forest island dynamics in a man-dominated landscape (eds) burgess, p. l. and sharp, d. m. springer-verlag, new york, usa, 67–95. seiler, a. 2001. ecological effects of roads: a review. introductory research essay no. 9. department of conservation biology, swedish university of agricultural science, upsalla, sweden. shrestha, b. b. 2005. fuelwood harvest, management and regeneration of two kc and gautam banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 77 community forests in central nepal. himalayan journal of science 3: 75–80. shrestha, u. b., shrestha, b. b. and shrestha s. 2010. biodiversity conservation in community forests of nepal: rhetoric and reality. international journal of biodiversity and conservation 2 (5): 98–104. suding, k. n. 2001. the effects of gap creation on competitive interactions: separating changes in overall intensity from relative rankings. oikos 94: 219–227. wwf. 2013. chitwan-annapurna landscape: drivers of deforestation and forest degradation. hariyo ban programme, world wildlife fund nepal, kathmandu, nepal. zavala, m. a. and oria, j. a. 1995. preserving biological diversity in managed forests: a meeting point for ecology and forestry. landscape and urban planning 31: 363– 378. kc and gautam wildfire trends in nepal based on modis burnt-area data s. khanal1 fire, a commonly used traditional tool across south-asia to support activities such as agricultural land and pasture management, often becomes uncontrolled, escapes those landuse mainly during dry season (sharma, 2008). nepal has experienced occasional extreme fire events in recent years including trans-boundary wildfire and haze pollution (gon, 2010). fire is recognized as an important ecosystem process globally (hurteau et al., 2014). though, fire had a key role in evolution as well as current distribution of current ecosystem, human activities and climate change have resulted in changes in fire regimes globally making some ecosystems more threatened due to altered fire activities (pausas and keeley, 2009). in case of nepal as well, human-induced forest fire is considered as one of the main reasons for changes in forest ecosystems and loss of biodiversity (hmgn/mfsc, 2002). wide range of challenges related to institutional, policy and legal frameworks have been identified as lacking for wildfire disaster management in nepal (gon/mfsc, 2010). increasing fire events has been identified as one of the impacts of climate change (gon/moe, 2010) and, thus, more frequent and severe fire events can be expected in future. lack of sufficient fire statistics for nepal has also been recognized (bajracharya, 2001). understanding fire regime is important in order to make decisions regarding fire management. thus, information such as hot spots of fire activity, the spatio-temporal pattern of fire distribution as well as the total amount of burnt-area across nepal are some of the essential information for planning and implementing fire management activities. however, detecting as well as monitoring the impact of fire on vegetation over large and often remote geographical area is challenging. use of satellite data offers a feasible option to monitor forest fire at a national scale as frequent and intense field validation is impractical due to difficult terrain, weather conditions and importantly huge amount of cost and time involved. satellitebased observations have been used to quantify spatio-temporal distribution of fire up to global scale (dwyer et al., 2000; giglio et al., 2006). in this study, i used modis-based estimates of the burnt-area data to examine the spatio-temporal pattern of the fire activity across nepal. this study covered the area of nepal (26o 20’ 53’’ – 30o26’ 51’’ n latitudes and 80o3’ 30’’ – 88o 12’ 5’’ e longitudes). the information on fire activity across nepal was derived from the modisbased estimate of the time series burnt-area. the modis burnt-area product (mcd45a1collection 5.1) which is a monthly 500 m spatial resolution gridded burnt-area product (boschetti et al., 2009) was used for the purpose. the product is based on bi-directional reflectance (brdf) model-based change detection approach to map burnt-areas (roy et al., 2006). the algorithm used detects the approximate date of burn based on the observed changes in daily modis reflectance product. each of the date of burn has associated quality assessment information. using modis package (matteo et al., 2013), monthly data from the modis tiles h24v05, h24v06, h25v05 and h25v06 were downloaded from usgslpdaac (united states geological survey land processes distributed active archive center), re-projected, clipped and converted to geotiff format. in this analysis, pixels belonging to all confidence levels (1 to 4) were considered. since, climate is generally understood as a key parameter in initiating and driving fire events, the burnt-area from modis were compared against the climate data. understanding climatic control on fire regime across nepal is essential in order to understand the climate-fire relationship as well as for predicting how the fire-hazard may behave in the future with altered climate. the climatic datasets were acquired from world clim which is a set of global climate layers in the form of 1 km spatial resolution raster grids (hijmans et 1 department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu, e-mail: skhanal@dfrs.gov.np 76 short note banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 77 al., 2005). the monthly average temperature and rainfall layers were downloaded, re-projected and clipped to nepal extent using raster package (hijmans, 2015) in r (r core team, 2013). burn frequency was obtained as a count of how many times a pixel was burnt annually (figure 1). it is clearly visible that the fire is dominant as well as frequent in the western nepal as compared to the central and the eastern nepal. in particular, the fire events are more frequent as well as extensive in the mid-western churia region. since, it is recognized that uncontrolled fires can make a serious threat to churia and higher elevation area (gon/mfsc, 2014), the results suggest that fire management activity has to put primary focus in this region. the histogram in inset shows the distribution of pixels by their burn frequency. the pixels recorded as burnt more than 10 times during the study period are, in fact, few (less than 50) compared to others. fig. 1: map showing the number of times each pixel burnt during 2001–2014 with the histogram of pixels in inset the analysis examined the monthly burnt-area over the study period from 2001 to 2014 (figure 2). it can be observed that the period between july to october has too low fire activity while the other months have higher fire activity. the analysis showed april as the month with the largest burnt-area during the study period. comparing the pattern of burnt-area versus mean monthly precipitation and temperature provided a valid backup to the general understating on fires in nepal. from june to august, the rainfall in nepal is higher, thus the fire activity is lower. however, from november onwards, the average rainfall amount declines while the temperature starts to rise, providing suitable condition for fire to happen. the ecological explanation to this trend could be fuel accumulation following high vegetation growth during rainy season, followed by dry and hot periods making condition favorable for burning. fig. 2: box-plot of burnt-area (’000 ha) by months, and mean monthly ppt. (mm) and temp. (°c * 10) annual burnt-area also varies distinctly with some years having much higher values as compared to others (figure 3). on an average, during the study period, the mean burnt-area over nepal is around 372,000 ha with the range of less than 163,000 ha to 760,000 ha. during the analysis period, 2001, 2009 and 2012 had the peak burntarea. those years were reported to have high fire incidences in the news headlines. in 2012, more than 220 forest fire events were reported across nepal (bbc, 2012). similarly, nasa also reported large–scale forest fire in 2009 (nasa, 2009). while calculating the annual burnt-area, all the pixels burnt more than once in a calendar year were summed up to get the annual burntarea. thus, there is some likely overlap, if an area experiences fire events more than once in a year. khanal fig. 3: annual burnt-area (in ‘000 ha) during 2001–2014 banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 78 this study provided a general insight into spatiotemporal pattern of fire activity in nepal, and attempted to relate the observed trends in the burnt-area with the climate data. analysis of the number of times a pixel burnt as an indicator of spatial pattern of fire activity showed that the western nepal experienced more frequent fires. the burnt-area varied annually with some years having larger burnt-area. the monthly trend also varied during decembermay experiencing larger fire activity with the peak in april. the comparison of the monthly burnt-area with the average precipitation and temperature conditions revealed the strong relationship of climatic variables with fire activity. given the importance of understanding fire activity pattern over space and time for management intervention, future research should focus on providing more in-depth understating on fire regime in nepal. this can be achieved by integrating observations from other satellites, validating modis burnt-area, using field data and including better climatological data in the analyses. references bajracharya, k. m. 2001. fire situation in nepal. in fra global forest fire assessment, 1990– 2000 (ed) goldammer, j. g., fao, 2001. bbc. 2012. more than 220 forest fires spread across nepal on april 26. british broadcasting corporation, london, uk. http://www.bbc. com/news/world-asia-17859358. accessed on: 30th june, 2015. boschetti, l., roy, d. and hoffmann, a.a. 2009. modis collection five burned area product-mcd45. user’s guide, version 2. dwyer, e., pinnock, s., grégoire, j. m. and pereira, j.m.c. 2000. global spatial and temporal distribution of vegetation fire as determined from satellite observations. international journal of remote sensing 21 (6–7): 1289–1302. giglio, l., csiszar, i. and justice, c. o. 2006. global distribution and seasonality of active fires as observed with the terra and aqua moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (modis) sensors. journal of geophysical research: bio-geosciences (2005–2012) 111 (g2). hmgn/mfsc. 2002. nepal biodiversity strategy. ministry of forests and soil conservation, his majesty government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. gon/mfsc. 2010. forest fire management strategy 2010. ministry of forests and soil conservation, government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. gon/mfsc. 2014. nepal biodiversity strategy and action plan, 2014–2020. government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. hijmans, r j. 2015. raster: geographic data analysis and modeling. r package version 2.3-40. http://cran.r-project.org/ package=raster. hijmans, r.j., cameron, s.e. parra, j.l. jones, p.g. and jarvis, a. 2005. very high-resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. international journal of climatology 25: 1965–1978. hurteau, m. d., bradford, j. b., fulé, p. z., taylor, a. h. and martin, k. l. 2014. climate change, fire management and ecological services in the south-western us. forest ecology and management 327: 280–289. matteo mattiuzzi, verbesselt, j., stevens f., mosher s., hengl, t., klisch, a., evans b. and lobo a. 2013. modis: modis acquisition and processing package. r package version 0.10-9/r464. http://r-forge.r-project.org/ projects/modis/. accessed on: 30th june, 2015 gon/moe. 2010. national adaptation programme of action to climate change. ministry of environment, government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. nasa. 2009. forest fires in nepal. http:// earthobservatory.nasa.gov/naturalhazards/ view.php?id =37518. accessed on: 30th june, 2015. pausas, j. g. and keeley, j. e. 2009. a burning story: the role of fire in the history of life. bioscience 59 (7): 593–601. r core team, 2013. r: a language and environment for statistical computing. in. khanal banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 79 vienna, austria: r foundation for statistical computing. roy d. p., lewis p., schaaf c., devadiga s., boschetti l. (2006). the global impact of cloud on the production of modis bi-directional reflectance model based composites for terrestrial monitoring. ieee geosci remote sens lett 3 (4): 452–456. sharma, s. p. 2008. wildland fires: part iv regional focus. crisis | respo+ nse 4 (3): 54–55. khanal final bankojanakari 20-1.pmd banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 44 development of community infrastructure through community forestry funds: what infrastructure gets priority? r.k. pokharel1 community forestry is a well established management form in nepal. the success of community forestry in improving the forest condition encouraged the government to initiate some developmental works beyond the fulfillment of only basic forestry needs. this paper seeks to explore the investment made by cfugs in community infrastructures and their priorities as well. primary data from three mid-hill districts of nepal were collected from questionnaire survey of 100 cfugs. the results suggested that community infrastructure was the largest category of expenditures of cfug funds wherein the majority of the cfug accorded investment priority to schools. this paper concludes that higher cfug income has led to a proportionately higher investment in community infrastructures and suggests that it was necessary to increase cfug income to promote investment in community infrastructures. investing cfug funds on schools is a good harbinger of local development that contributes to the achievement of the millennium development goal of universal primary education. key words: cfug, cfug funds, community forestry, community infrastructures community forestry is a well established forest management form in nepal (pokharel, 2009). it is a major program of the nepal government in the forestry sector and is being implemented throughout the country. as of october 2009, over one million hectares of forest lands were being managed by 14,439 community forest user groups (cfugs) involving 1.65 million households (dof, 2009). in fact, nearly two-fifth of nepal’s households2 was involved in managing these forests. income generation is one of the major spin-offs of nepal’s community forestry. community forest user groups (cfug) earn income from the sale of forest products, membership fees and through fines levied from rule violators, and by renting out halls and utensils. the generated income need not be shared with the government so it accumulates within the cfug funds. the annual income of the cfugs in nepal was estimated at nrs. 914 million (kanel and niraula, 2004). a recent study conducted by pokharel (2008) also suggested that the average annual income of a cfug was nrs. 63, 202. the generated fund requires investing 25 and 35 per cent of it in forest development and maintenance and pro-poor programs, respectively, but the remaining money can be used for whatever the community likes, depending on their needs and interests (mfsc, 2009). the success of community forestry in improving the forest condition (schreier et al., 1994; virgo and subba, 1994; jackson et al., 1998; tachibana et al., 2001; gautam et al., 2002) encouraged the government to initiate some developmental works as it realized the potentiality of the community forestry to contribute to the national development. such realization made the government decide on community forestry as a vehicle for rural development rather than limiting the community forestry only for the fulfillment of basic forestry needs. consequently, many cfugs started conducting different developmental works, including the construction of community infrastructures with their own funds. for many donors such as the world bank, community driven development is a growing area for making an investment. the concept of community driven development is being internalized by nepal’s community forestry. the communities in the community forestry known as cfugs have an opportunity to choose projects through cfug funds and also have control over its resources. this is 1 institute of forestry tribhuvan university, nepal 2 total households of nepal is 4,253,220 (nidi, 2006) baral et al. banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 45 � in the western development region; among them, over one-quarter (27%) lies within this study area (dof, 2007). figure 1 map of the study areas the cfugs were classified into three categories depending on the information about fund size available at the district forest office. cfugs with less than nrs20,000 were not included in this study as there was a general tendency in rural areas not to start financial activity with a common fund until it reached the size of nrs20,000 or more (pokharel, 2008). cfugs were then categorized into three groups based on the fund size: (1) nrs20, 000 – nrs49, 999; (2) nrs50, 000 – nrs99, 999; and (3) nrs100, 000 and above. a total of 100 cfugs were selected from three mid-hill districts (33 from each district i.e. lamjung and tanahu, and 34 from kaski). a total of 11 cfugs for each category of each district were selected randomly. an additional cfug from the group of nrs100, 000 and above of kaski district was also selected randomly to fulfill the required number of cfugs for this study. information was gathered from the cfugs through a structured questionnaire. the chairperson of the cfug executive committee, the secretary and the treasurer were invited to a small meeting where the questionnaire was administered. the community driven development as defined by a number of authors (dongier et al., 2000; narayan, 2002; mansuri and rao, 2004). in this context, this paper tries to explore the investment made by cfugs in different community infrastructures and their priorities as well. materials and methods study area and data collection this study covers three different mid-hill districts i.e. lamjung, tanahu, and kaski of the western development region of nepal. these districts have been pioneers in the mid-hills where community forestry was initiated in the early 1980s. the total forest area in the study area is 211,561 hectares and one quarter of this had been handed over to cfugs as community forestry. as of january 2007, over onequarter (29%) of the cfugs of the country were located in the western development region; among them, over one-quarter (27%) lies within this study area (dof, 2009). the cfugs were classified into three categories depending on the information about fund size available at the district forest office. cfugs with less than nrs. 20,000 were not included in this study as there was a general tendency in rural areas not to start financial activity with a common fund until it reached the size of nrs. 20,000 or more (pokharel, 2008). cfugs were then categorized into three groups based on the fund size: (1) nrs. 20, 000 – nrs. 49, 999; (2) nrs. 50, 000 – nrs. 99, 999; and (3) nrs 100,000 and above. a total of 100 cfugs were selected from three mid-hill districts (33 from each district i.e. lamjung and tanahu, and 34 from kaski). a total of 11 cfugs for each category of each district were selected randomly. an additional cfug from the group of nrs 100, 000 and above of kaski district was also selected randomly to fulfill the required number of cfugs for this study. information was gathered from the cfugs through a structured questionnaire. the chairperson of the cfug executive committee, the secretary and the treasurer were invited to a small meeting where the questionnaire was administered. the mean group size was 1.67 along with the standard deviation of 0.87. this data was collected between april to november 2006. results and discussion cfugs in three mid-hill districts in nepal the cfugs in the study districts were quite typical of what is found in this part of nepal. communities in this areas practiced subsistence farming, mostly depended on paddy, maize and forests. the forest per household in this area was 0.85 ha which is slightly higher than the national average of 0.73 ha (dof, 2009). about 65% of the forests in this area was dominated by sal (shorea robusta), an important species for timber and valuable as well. the remaining (35%) fig 1 : map of the study areas pokharel banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 46 of the forests was typical chilaune-katus (schimacastanopsis), and less valuable timber species (table 1). the average maturity of the cfug in the study areas was 9.65 years. this suggests that they were relatively experienced in managing forest resources. over onehalf (54%) of the forest users households belonged to advantaged groups such as brahmin, chhetri and newar, followed by disadvantaged groups such as gurung, tamang, and magar (28%) and dalits such as damai, kami, and sarki (18%). dalits are members of occupational castes. they are generally disadvantaged in nepal as compared to other castes such as brahmin and chhetri (kunwar, 2003). income from community forests income generation is one of the important activities of the cfugs in nepal. this study measures the annual income to understand the income of cfugs. the study defines income as the total amount generated by the cfugs in a year from different sources such as selling of forest products, membership fees, and penalties. it calculates annual income as the total investment made by the cfug over the last five years divided by five plus annual saving. from the questionnaire, the information on the current balance of the cfugs account was obtained and the annual saving calculated as the current balance divided by the age of cfug, i.e. number of years of cfug formation. in the study areas, the average annual income of cfugs and average annual saving was nrs. 63,202 and nrs. 11,629 respectively. cfugs investment in community infrastructures investments in this study refer to the total amount spent in a year for different activities. the cfugs spent the generated income by deliberating on a project depending on their needs and interests. the cfugs in the study areas had spent the generated income on many activities such as community infrastructures, pro-poor programs, and forest development works. this study focuses on investment made by cfugs only on community infrastructures. the annual investment was estimated by assessing the cfug investment. annual investment was estimated as the total investment over the last five years divided by five. the average annual investment of a cfug was nrs. 51,573. in the study areas, over one-half (55%) of the cfug’s investment was on community infrastructure which implies that cfugs accorded highest priority to community infrastructures and invested their funds accordingly. scholars (dongol et al., 2002; acharya 2003; kanel and niraula 2004; pokharel 2008, 2009) have also observed that community infrastructures constituted the major allocation of cfug funds’ expenditures. the cfugs on an average had spent nrs. 28,142 on community infrastructures annually. the cfugs expenditures had gone to schools, temples, roads/trail construction, vdc/cfug offices and community buildings, extending electricity/mills, water reservoirs/irrigation canals, grants to schools and support for teachers’ salary. however, the most important expenditures were towards offices/community buildings, schools, and roads. we further disaggregated the annual expenditures of the community infrastructures to understand what percentage of the expenditure had gone into what activities and also what number of � mean group size was 1.67 along with the standard deviation of 0.87. this data was collected between april to november 2006. cfugs in three mid-hill districts in nepal the cfugs in the study districts were quite typical of what is found in this part of nepal. communities in this areas practiced subsistence farming, mostly depended on paddy, maize and forests. the forest per household in this area was 0.85 ha which is slightly higher than the national average of 0.73 ha (dof, 2009). about 65% of the forests in this area was dominated by sal (shorea robusta), an important species for timber and valuable as well. the remaining (35%) of the forests was typical chilaune-katus (schima-castanopsis), and less valuable timber species (table 1). table 1 : basic characteristics of the sampled cfugs (n = 100) basic characteristics mean percentage age of cfugs (years) 9.65 number of households using community forests 131.32 forest area (hectare) 83.03 sal dominant forests in the study area 65 schima-castanopsis dominant forest in the study area 35 households from advantaged group 54 households from disadvantaged group 28 households from dalit group 18 the average maturity of the cfug in the study areas was 9.65 years. this suggests that they were relatively experienced in managing forest resources. over one-half (54%) of the forest users households belonged to advantaged groups such as brahmin, chhetri and newar, followed by disadvantaged groups such as gurung, tamang, and magar (28%) and dalits such as damai, kami, and sarki (18%). dalits are members of occupational castes. they are generally disadvantaged in nepal as compared to other castes such as brahmin and chhetri (kunwar, 2003). income from community forests income generation is one of the important activities of the cfugs in nepal. this study measures the annual income to understand the income of cfugs. the study defines income as the total amount generated by the cfugs in a year from different sources such as selling of forest products, membership fees, and penalties. it calculates annual income as the total investment made by the cfug over the last five years divided by five plus annual saving. from the � figure 2 number of cfugs and the percentage of annual investment in different community infrastructures when we look at the number of the cfugs contributing their income to cfug office building, it appears that only one-third of the cfugs had contributed part of the income to office and community buildings whereas three-fifth of the cfugs allocated income to schools although this amount was less than on office and community buildings. spending cfug funds in school building is a good indicator of local development as it provides access to education. similarly, about one-half (46%) and two-fifth of the cfugs had contributed part of the cfug funds to temples and water reservoirs/irrigation canals, respectively, although the spent amount was small (figure 2). besides school buildings, the cfugs also gave grants to schools and provided salary funds for school teachers. over the past five years, the expenditures on schools, roads, and the water reservoirs/irrigation canals in the study area were nrs2.6 million, nrs2.5 million, and nrs667, 000, respectively. thus, the cfugs had spent approximately nrs6 million on local infrastructures. the cfugs had also provided a total amount of nrs804, 055 and nrs1, 998,300 as grants and salaries, respectively, over the last five years. education and literacy are important factors for development. in many cases in nepal, rural people do not receive public services due to a lack in basic infrastructures. there has been a tendency of some families to leave the village fig 2 : number of cfugs and the percentage of annual investment in dif ferent community infrastructures pokharel banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 47 cfugs had made investments onto what activities. figure 2 indicates that about one quarter (24%) of the annual investment of community infrastructures had gone to office and community buildings. similarly, about one fifth (18%) of the annual investment of the community infrastructures had gone to schools and roads. when we look at the number of the cfugs contributing their income to cfug office building, it appears that only one-third of the cfugs had contributed part of the income to office and community buildings whereas three-fifth of the cfugs allocated income to schools although this amount was less than on office and community buildings. spending cfug funds in school building is a good indicator of local development as it provides access to education. similarly, about one-half (46%) and two-fifth of the cfugs had contributed part of the cfug funds to temples and water reservoirs/ irrigation canals, respectively, although the spent amount was small (figure 2). besides school buildings, the cfugs also gave grants to schools and provided salary funds for school teachers. over the past five years, the expenditures on schools, roads, and the water reservoirs/irrigation canals in the study area were nrs. 2.6 million, nrs. 2.5 million, and nrs. 667,000 respectively. thus, the cfugs had spent approximately nrs. 6 million on local infrastructures. the cfugs had also provided a total amount of nrs. 804,055 and nrs. 1,998,300 as grants and salaries, respectively, over the last five years. education and literacy are important factors for development. in many cases in nepal, rural people do not receive public services due to a lack in basic infrastructures. there has been a tendency of some families to leave the village for urban areas, if it was affordable. the cfugs expenditures in the community infrastructures would facilitate making the public service available at the village level and induce people to remain in the villages. to better understand whether annual income size differs in the investment made in the community infrastructures, we classified annual incomes into three categories: up to nrs. 24,000, nrs. 24,001 to nrs. 52,000 and above nrs. 52,000. we ran anova with annual income size and the cfugs expenditure in different community infrastructures to understand the association between income categories and investment choices among the different community infrastructures. the anova results suggested that the mean differences between the cfug income size and expenditure in school buildings (f = 8.323; p < .000), roads (f = 4.367; p < .015), temples (f = 3.058; p < .052), office and community buildings (f = 9.209; p < .000), water reservoirs/irrigation canal (f = 7.353; p < .001), and grants to school (f = 3.980; .p < 022) were statistically significant. the results also indicated that the cfugs with higher income tended to spend the cfug funds on schools, roads, temples, office and community buildings, water reservoirs/irrigation canals, and grants to schools. the cfug income size did not make any differences over spending cfug funds on salaries for school teachers. decision making in cfugs there are two tiers of organizational structures in cfugs: general assembly (ga) and executive committee (ec), also known as community forest user group committee (cfugc). ga represents all members of the cfugs and the ec is composed of some 9-15 persons, depending on the size of cfugs. the ec members were either elected or unanimously nominated by the users as representatives. generally, ga meets once a year during mid january to february and the ec meets about once a month. ga is invested with the mandate to make any decision related to forest management such as framing rules on forest use, decision on penalties for rule violators, fixing schedule for silvicultural operations, and managing generated funds with simple majority. however, there has been an increasing practice of ec decision-making, particularly over the use of cfug funds. � figure 3 different groups representing in the executive committee in the study areas, the average size of ec was 11 (±2) members. overwhelmingly, the cfugs had selected ec members through consensus and only a few (4%) had election for the key posts such as chairperson and secretary. over one quarter (27%) of the ec members were female. similarly, about two-thirds of the members in the ec were from advantaged groups, followed by disadvantaged groups and dalits (figure 3). this suggests that the cfugc were inclusive in terms of representation from different groups. however, the advantaged group was likely to influence the decisions in their favour since the number of disadvantaged groups and dalits represented in the executive committee was low and also because they do not oppose decisions. women and members from disadvantaged groups participated in the meetings passively as their numbers were low in the committee and because their opinions did not carry much weight in the decisions (rasaily, 1996; thapa et al., 1998). several studies have commented on the membership of cfugs and the related benefits favouring economically advantaged groups (graner, 1999; kanel and varghese, 2000; malla, 2000; malla et al., 2003). discussions the cfugs had generated substantial income from community forestry and spent the major part of the generated income on community infrastructures. cfugs spent more than one-half of their fig 3 : different groups representing in the executive committee in the study areas, the average size of ec was 11 (±2) members. overwhelmingly, the cfugs had selected ec members through consensus and only a few (4%) had election for the key posts such as chairperson and secretary. over one quarter (27%) pokharel banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 48 of the ec members were female. similarly, about twothirds of the members in the ec were from advantaged groups, followed by disadvantaged groups and dalits (figure 3). this suggests that the cfugc were inclusive in terms of representation from different groups. however, the advantaged group was likely to influence the decisions in their favour since the number of disadvantaged groups and dalits represented in the executive committee was low and also because they do not oppose decisions. women and members from disadvantaged groups participated in the meetings passively as their numbers were low in the committee and because their opinions did not carry much weight in the decisions (rasaily, 1996; thapa et al., 1998). several studies have commented on the membership of cfugs and the related benefits favouring economically advantaged groups (graner, 1999; kanel and varghese, 2000; malla, 2000; malla et al., 2003). the cfugs had generated substantial income from community forestry and spent the major part of the generated income on community infrastructures. cfugs spent more than one-half of their income on community infrastructures, which were basic foundations for development. the cfugs chose the projects themselves and implemented them accordingly. in the study areas, cfugs had given first priority to education by supporting school building and this finding is different from the findings of shrestha (2007). she had conducted a study on one of the mid-hill districts to investigate the local need and priority and had found that the first priority was motor roads. in this study area, however, the cfugs seemed to be more concerned about education since three-fifth of the cfugs had allocated part of their income to school buildings. they were also continuing to make the investments on school building as their fund grew and also provided grants to schools as well. paying for the salaries of school teachers was not significantly correlated with the cfug income size. the probable reason could be that people in the village realized the importance of education and that made the cfugs spend the cfug funds for paying salaries to school teachers irrespective of the cfug fund size. as many schools in the rural areas suffer from the lack of teachers because the fund available from the government was not good enough to pay the required teachers’ salaries. spending the cfug funds on school is a good supplement for local development. education and literacy are extremely important factors for development. female literacy has been the foundational feature of kerala’s political culture and crucial in the creation of public opinion (dreze and sen, 1997; sen, 1999). we may argue that the decision to spend cfug funds on schools was likely influenced by the advantaged groups since people in nepal often made the argument that poor cannot afford to send their children to school so they may not accord school in their priority list. spending the cfug funds on schools provides an access to education as many people in nepal’s rural areas are illiterate because they did not have access to schools. spending money on schools would benefit poor as well in the long run as poor in many cases were not getting key positions in the executive committees because of illiteracy. foster and rosenzweig (2003) conducted a study in india and argued that roads were pro-poor, irrigation investments were pro-rich and schools were neutral. spending cfug funds on schools would benefit not only the poor but also contribute to the achievement of nepal’s millennium development goal of universal primary education. nepal government has called for local and international commitment on “education for all”. conclusions the cfugs are contributing to local economic development by allocating the generated income in various activities. some form of infrastructure investment is a major category of expenditures of the cfug income. the majority of cfug expenditure was for the community infrastructures within the village. the cfug expenditures in majority of the cases were going towards improving school infrastructures suggesting that cfugs accorded school infrastructures as a priority which is considered a good harbinger for local development. although nepal government had made local and international commitment of education for all, it has not been able to expand the required number of schools into rural areas due to the paucity of resources. cfugs priority investment on school building will help reduce the government burden to expand access to schools in the rural areas. there is an increasing trend of people moving into urban areas for education in nepal so the cfugs expenditure in education may induce the people to stay back in their villages. moreover, the access to education also facilitates the achievement of the commitment of nepal’s government to education and also the millennium development goal of universal primary education. pokharel banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 49 acknowledgements funding support from south asia network for development and environmental economics (sandee) for conducting this study is greatly appreciated. the author would like to acknowledge the people from number of villages who participated in the research. references acharya, k.p. 2003. sustainability of support for community forestry in nepal, forests, trees and livelihoods 13: 247 – 260. department of forests (dof). 2009. community forest user groups database. community forestry division, department of forests, kathmandu. dongol, c.m., hughey, k.f.d. and bigsby, h.r. 2002. capital formation and sustainable community forestry in nepal, mountain research and development 22 (1): 70 -77. dongier, p., domelen, j., ostrom, e., ryan, a., wakeman, w., bebbington, a., alkire, s. esmail, t. and polski, m. 2000. “community driven development.” in the poverty reduction sourcebook, chapter 9. washington, d.c.: the world bank. dreze j. and sen, a. (eds.). 1997. indian development – selected regional perspective, delhi: oxford university press. foster, a. and rosenzweig, m. 2003. democratization, decentralization and the distribution of local public goods in a poor rural economy. bread working paper no. 010. gautam, a.p., webb, e.l. and eiumnoh, a. 2002. gis assessment of land use cover changes associated with community forestry implementation in the middle hills of nepal, mountain research and development 22 (1): 63 – 69. graner, e. 1999. forest policies and access to forests in nepal: winners and losers. in anthropology and sociology of nepal: culture, societies, ecology, and development, (eds.) chhetri, r.b. and gurung, o.p., kathmandu: sociological and anthropological society of nepal (sason), 212-224. jackson, w.l., tamrakar, r.m., hunt, s. and shepherd, k.r. 1998. land use changes in two middle hills districts of nepal, mountain research and development 18: 193 – 212. kanel, k.r. and niraula, d.r. 2004. can rural livelihood be improved in nepal through community forestry? banako jankari 14 (1): 19 – 26. kanel, k. and varghese, g. 2000. “quantifying the benefits of community forestry in nepal towards development of a participatory methodology of economic valuation”, paper presented at 8th biennial iascp conference, indiana university, usa. kunwar, k.b. 2003. the himalayan poverty through rural development (1st edition 2001), kathmandu, nepal: meena prakashan. malla, y.b. 2000. impact of community forestry policy on rural livelihoods and food security in nepal, unasylva 51 (3): 37 – 45. malla, y.b., neupane, h.r. and branney, p. 2003. why aren’t poor people benefiting more from community forestry? journal of forests and livelihood 3 (1): 78 – 93. mansuri, g. and rao, v. 2004. community based and driven development: a critical review, the world bank research observer 19 (1): 1 – 39. mfsc. 2009. directive for community forest development program. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. narayan, d. 2002. empowerment and poverty reduction: a source book, poverty reduction and economic management. washington, d.c., usa: the world bank. pokharel, r.k. 2008. nepal’s community forestry funds: do they benefit the poor? working paper no. 31-08, kathmandu: south asian network for development and environmental economics (sandee). pokharel, r.k. 2009. pro-poor programs financed through nepal’s community forestry funds: does income matter? mountain research and development, 29 (1): 67 – 74. rasaily, l. 1996. benefit sharing and social and institutional decision making process within selected forest user groups. project report b/nuckfp/33, dhankuta, nepal: nepal-uk community forestry project. pokharel banko janakari, vol. 20, no. 1 50 schreier, h., brown, s., schmidt, m., shah, p., shrestha, b., nakarmi, g., subba, k. and wymann, s. 1994. gaining forest but losing ground: a gis evaluation in a himalayan watershed, environmental management 18 (1): 139 – 150. sen, a. 1999. development as freedom. oxford university press. shrestha, s. 2007. basic infrastructure service planning for rural development: understanding local need and priority, nepalese journal of development and rural studies 4 (1): 83 – 91. tachibana, t., upadhaya, h.k., pokharel, r.k., rayamajhi, s. and otsuka, k. 2001. common property forest management in the hills region of nepal, in land tenure and natural resource management: a comparative study of agrarian communities in asia and africa (eds.) otsuka, k. and place, f., baltimore: the johns hopkins university press, 273 – 314. thapa, s., shrestha, r.n., yadav, k.p. 1998. socioeconomic aspects of the follow-up forest resource assessment study. nepal-uk community forestry project report b/ nukcfp/55, kathmandu, nepal. virgo, k.j. and subba, k.j. 1994. land use change between 1978 and 1990 in dhankuta district, eastern nepal, mountain research and development 14: 159 – 170. pokharel key word page no. above-ground biomass 12 accuracy 12 allometric models 23 basidiomycetes 51 biomass 3 biomass functions 23 buffer zone 35 compensation 35 cost 12 ecosystem services 42 foliage 23 forest resource assessment 12 fruit 23 indigenous 51 key word page no. infrastructures 35 leaves 23 lidar 12 macrofungi 51 mushrooms 51 mushroom diversity 51 nepal 35, 42 payment for environmental services 42 soil carbon 3 tree diversity 3 trees outside forest 3 wildlife victims 35 willingness to pay 42 wood 23 key word index to vol. 23, no. 1, may 2013 63 the research examines the value of ecosystem services in baghmara buffer zone community forest of nepal determining willingness of local users and tourists for sustainable management and conservation of natural resources as well as recreational and aesthetic services, during september of 2010. the contingent valuation survey was administered to 95 users and 100 tourists. for users, the distance to forest, family size, nature of residence, gender and size of land holding seem to be the prominent factors that affected upon their willingness to pay. the projected average willingness to pay by all users for recreational and aesthetic services was nrs. 33,347 (about us$ 460) per year. the tourists were divided into domestic and international to elicit willingness to pay for ecosystem services. the responses were found varied according to the nature of tourists. for domestic tourists, income was only factor that affected their willingness to pay, but for international tourists along with income, gender, travel group and education were major determinants of willingness to pay. the average projected willingness to pay by all tourists was us$ 3,806,468 per year.the research highlights that the conservation area systems in nepal has a high potential to generate additional resources against ecosystem services provided additional services to the tourists and a mechanism to tap such contribution. key words: ecosystem services, payment for ecosystem services,willingness to pay, nepal economic valuation of ecosystem services in protected areas: a case study from nepal b. kc1 , p. n. kandel2 and s. adhikari3 ecosystem provides a wide range of goods and services to human-being which range from the relatively simple, such as reliable flow of clean water to complex such as carbon sequestration. ultimately the human life depends on ecosystem services (es) for fundamental necessities such as clean air, clean water and food production. thus, es are the provision of natural resources and healthy ecological systems that produce environmentally and economically valuable goods and services (warner, 2008). according to millennium ecosystem assessment (mea, 2005), the es are ‘the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems’. the mea further classifies them into provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural services. the benefits that the human-beings are receiving depend on the flow of es and are non-existence, if these services stop to flow (maskey, 2008). at present, however, many of these services provided by ecosystem are either undervalued or have no financial value due to lack of economic valuation practices at all. according to costanza et al. (1997), the es are worth many trillions of dollars annually, yet most of these benefits carry no price-tag that could help alert societies to change in their supply or deterioration of the ecosystems that generate them. the missing market for es adds to the problem, because most of the vulnerable segments of society, primarily in developing countries, depend upon those services directly or indirectly for their livelihoods. therefore, any decision proves to be inefficient and infeasible from a social perspective, causing problems for sustainability and human well-being (costanza et al., 1997). the mea, 2005 reported that 60 to 70% of the ecosystem services are deteriorating faster than they can recover such as the forest provides bundles of es, and there exists a different level of beneficiaries of these services. these unique features of most of the services, although acknowledged by people, are unaccounted, un-priced and, therefore, remain outside the domain of the market (kumar, 2005). hence, quantification and monitoring the flows of es is important for their valuation. 1 hariyo ban programme, care nepal, e-mail: bhawanakc@gmail.com 2 fra nepal project, babarmahal, kathmandu 3 csuwn, babarmahal, kathmandu 42 banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 43 protected areas (pas) are commonly established to conserve biodiversity, protect ecosystems and maintain ecological processes; many pas are also expected to contribute to sustainable development and poverty reduction (neto, 2003; scherl et al., 2004; rogerson, 2006). numerous pas throughout the world, however, are not financially self-sufficient; as a result, they are unable to meet either conservation or development objectives (iucn, 2005). a number of potential mechanisms have been identified for enhancing the financial sustainability of pas in which one of them could be the pes (emerton et al., 2006) and also a tool to academics, policy makers and programme implementers to bring win-win approach for reducing poverty and ecosystem degradation (pattanayak et al., 2010). payments for ecosystem services (pes) have become a vital mechanism to translate external, non-market values of the environment into real financial incentives for the local actors to provide ecosystem services (engel et al., 2008). the concept of pes relies on the assumption that assigning economic value to ecosystem services and exchanging them under a market system can produce efficient environmental outcomes (engel et al., 2008; pagiola et al., 2002; wunder, 2005). the quebec declaration has emphasized that ecotourism can be a valuable means for promoting the socio-economic development of host communities while generating resources for the preservation of natural and cultural assets. further, it helps to protect the ecologically fragile areas, and even rehabilitate natural capital with the financial returns of ecotourism activities and, thus, contribute to the preservation of biological diversity and ecological balance (collins, 1999; gossling, 1999; neto, 2003). furthermore, various attempts were made in national and international regimes to gather the support for biodiversity conservation. community based pes is a logical approach to ensure service provision and incentive to local mangers and to contribute to address both development objective and build management capacity at communitylevel, where communities have control over the quality or quantity of environmental services (sommerville et al., 2010). from the pes, especially in developing countries, the poor households (hhs) and communities have very much potential to gain benefit as they have control on environmental services (milder et al., 2010). similarly, this mechanism also seems to have greater scope in developing countries like nepal where the state’s fund is inadequate and the poverty and conservation issues are to be addressed together (karna, 2008). but, due to lack of economic valuation of ecosystem services, it is very difficult to establish a benefit sharing mechanism. pas have to generate their own fund for sustainable conservation and development in the developing countries like nepal. so, tourism can be a source with the potentiality of balancing both conservation and development. in nepal, meager research has been carried out on tourism. therefore, there is a gap to explore the opportunities of tourism instead of being playing inevitable role in the livelihoods of the local communities of the nation. similarly, the valuation of ecosystem services is least studied and not in practice. thus, for the sustainable and rational use of biodiversity and sustainable development, for creation of awareness, and to provide compensation to environmental service provider, further research, analysis and field practice must be conducted to explore the economic value of ecosystem services. in this regard, this article tries to explore the economic valuation of the ecosystem services in baghmara buffer zone community forest (bbzcf) through determining willingness to pay (wtp) for sustainable management and conservation of natural resources and recreational and aesthetic services by users and tourists respectively. materials and methods study area this study was conducted in baghmara buffer zone community forest of chitwan national park (cnp) in september 2010. it lies in bachhauli village development committee (vdc) of chitwan district, nepal. it is located in subtropical region of lowland of nepal between 27o14’ n to 27o42’ n latitudes and 83o50’ e to 84o45’ e longitudes. the climate of study area is sub-tropical monsoon type with relatively high humidity at an elevation of 200 to 250 m above sea level. monsoon rain prevails from late june to september and amount of annual rainfall ranges from 14.04 mm to 602.2 mm (tamrakar, 2002). heavy flooding occurs during monsoon. the average daily maximum temperature of the area in hot summer days is about 36.8oc. spring starts from march and is immediately followed by summer and that ends in june (pant, 2003). kc et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 44 kc et al. the maximum temperature is about 7.8oc in cool dry winter season which occurs from october to february. the buffer zone of cnp was handed as bbzcf in 15 june, 1995. the users of bbzcf are disbursed in 4 wards namely badhrani, malpur, padaria and sauraha. the bbzcf was selected to conduct this study due to the following reasons: i) critical to prove the relationship between es and the users/tourists; ii) rich in biodiversity in spite of having small area; and iii) accessibility. out of the total area, 133 ha is covered with forest, 67 ha grassland, and the rest 15 ha wetland (bbzcf operational plan, 2003–2007). this is a secondary riverian forest rich in biodiversity with certainty of viewing one-horned asian rhinos, varieties of deer and beautiful birds. in addition to this, its relatively easy access makes it one of the popular destinations visiting the cnp (singh and sharma, 2008). though it claims to be a small area, it is a good combination of grazing land, wetland and mixture of bushes and trees for hiding places providing an excellent habitat for wildlife (singh and sharma, 2008). as a result, it has reduced the pressure of tourists in the cnp, and extended habitat for wildlife outside the national park. the research followed a mixed-method approach which was based on pragmatism paradigms which enhances the validity of the research findings by using complementary qualitative and quantitative methods, and enabling triangulation of data from the two methods (johnson et al., 2007; mcmurray et al., 2004; tashakkori and teddle, 2003). the approach also bridged the gap between the scales of social realities, as qualitative methods often explore behavioral aspects of social life at a micro-level, while quantitative methods enabled investigation of social perspectives at a macrolevel (bryman, 2006). contingent valuation this study applied contingent valuation method (cvm), a form of “stated preference method” to identify these: i) willingness to pay and ii) quantify and convert services into the monitory value. the contingent valuation (cv) is a standardized and widely used survey method for estimating wtp or willingness to accept (wta) compensation for use, existence and bequest values for resources (loomis, 1996). the fact that cvm is based on asking what people say they would do (stated) as opposed to what people are observed to do (revealed) is the source of its greatest strength as well as its greatest weakness (iied, 2003). a two-fold survey was conducted; one with the users and another with the visitors. detail information on independent variables for user and tourists are presented in table 1 and 2 respectively. during the survey, a bid amounts were posed to both the users and the visitors to elicit the wtp. as part of quantitative method, questionnaire survey was administered to 100 tourists (returned rate 70%) and 95 local user group members. the visitors used self administered process to fill the questionnaire, and returned to the researcher while a face to face survey was conducted to administer the questionnaire for the local users. the survey was conducted with the users to know wtp for the sustainable use and management of bbzcf as their conservation efforts with factors affecting their wtp while the visitors to know their wtp for the recreational and aesthetic services and factors affecting their wtp. likewise, 4 events of focused group discussions (fgd) were conducted as part of qualitative and in-depth group interview. sampling the local people of four wards namely badhrani, sauraha, malpur and padaria were concerned with bbzcf. so, the total users were stratified into four wards. a number of local user groups were selected according to the weightage of population in each ward (i.e. wards with large-size contained large number of hhs and vice versa). out of the total hhs within each ward, 10% were selected randomly from each ward stratum. thus, stratified random sampling was applied to select interviewees among the local users. in case of tourists, respondents were purposively selected those who visited bbzcf. multiple linear regression model the following multiple linear regression model was developed to find out the relationship between the wtp and the factors affecting the wtp for both the users and the visitors (baral et al., 2008; khanal et al., 2010). wtp = β0 + β1x1 + β2x2 + β3x3 + .................+βnxn + error, where, wtp is willingness to pay by the visitors for the experience they had from the aesthetic and recreational services of the bbzcf and by banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 45 the users for the sustainable management and conservation of the bbzcf (dependent variable); β0 to βn are parameters to be estimated; and x1 to xn are explanatory variables influencing wtp. for users, probability (wtp) = β0 + β1distance + β2 family size + β3 gender +β4 landholding + β5 occupation + β6 residence + error for visitors, probability (wtp) = β0 + β1 gender + β2 age + β3 education +β4 environmental membership + β5 income + β6 guide residence + β7 travel size + β8 travel group + error results and discussion wtp by users out of total users, 16% were willing to pay nrs. 5.05(us$ 0.07) and less per hh per month, 50% in the range of nrs. 5.08 – nrs. 50.14 (us$ 0.07 -0.69) per hh per month, 13% were in range of nrs. 43.3 – nrs. 100.28 per hh per month (us$ 0.69–1.38) and remaining 21% were willing to pay more than nrs. 100.28 (us$ 1.38)per hh per month. the mean wtp was nrs. 2.91 (us$ 0.04) per hh per month. according to the records of the bbzcf, the total number of hhs was 956. therefore, the projected average wtp by all the users would be nrs. 2778.9 (us$ 38.24) per hh per month and nrs. 33346.81 (us$ 458.88) per hh per year. factors affecting wtp by users the table 3 shows the results of multiple regressions on wtp by the users for their efforts towards sustainable management and conservation of the forest resources. the results table 1: definition and description of the independent variables for users independent variable description variable type distance hhs distance from the bbzcf (in meter) continuous family size number of member in hhs continuous gender respondent sex (0=male and 1=female) binary land holding land holding size owned by a hh (katha) (1 katha = 0.007 hectare) continuous occupation main income source of hh (0 = agriculture and 1=other than agriculture) binary residence permanent residence (0=yes and 1=no) binary table 2: definition and description of the independent variables used for tourists variable name description variable type gender respondent sex (0=male and 1=female) binary age respondent age in years (below 25=0 and others=1) ordered education education level (0= high school and 1= others than high school) binary environmental membership member of environment organization (yes=0 and no=1) binary guide hire a guide (yes =0 and no=1) binary travel group nature of group (0=alone, family=2, friends=3, friends and family 4) continuous travel size no of people in a travel group continuous income income of respondent ordered kc et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 46 kc et al. of a multiple regression show that land holding and family size were significant (p≤0.01) with positive regression coefficient. that means the wtp increases with increase in land holding size and family size. the same result was obtained through focus group discussion. similarly, the distance and residence were significant (p≤0.01) with negative regression coefficient. the negative regression coefficient of distance indicates that wtp decreases as the distance from the forest increases. likewise, the users with old residences (with negative coefficients) were found to be more willing to pay as compared to the recently migrated ones. however, the positive coefficient in gender indicates that the females are more willing to pay as compared to the males (53 out of the 95 surveyed were male). table 3: results of the multiple regression model on wtp for sustainable management and conservation from user’s perspective variables coefficient std. error z-value constant 1.390 .246 5.663 distance* -0.00007 .000 -4.231 family size* .209 .039 5.293 gender** .461 .190 2.427 land holding* .011 .003 3.144 occupation*** .086 .048 1.769 residence* -.666 .219 -3.048 * significant at 10% level ** significant at 5% level *** significant at 1% level willingness to pay by tourists for ecosystem services the tourists visiting the bbzcf were divided into three groups 1) nepali 2) tourists from saarc countries except nepal and, 3) tourists from other countries. the average wtp per tourist per visit on the basis of different zones (1, 2 and 3) for recreational and aesthetic services were us$ 52, 96 and 104 respectively. the average number of tourists on the basis of different zones (1, 2 and 3) from the records (fiscal years: 2003/04 – 2008/09) of bbzcf office were 8,237, 4,518 and 28,487 respectively. so, the projected average wtp on the basis of different zones (1, 2 and 3) would be us$ 425,194, us$ 432,870 and us$ 2,948,405 respectively per tourist per visit per year. therefore, the total projected wtp by all tourists was found to be $ 3,806,468 per year. factors affecting wtp by tourists while doing the regression analysis of various independent factors on wtp for the recreational and aesthetic services, the tourists were divided into two groups viz. domestic and international. the table 4 shows only the results of multiple regression of domestic tourists only. the income was significant (p≤0.05) with positive regression coefficient, suggesting that wtp increases with the increase in the level of income. the guide and member of environmental organization was not significant; however; the negative coefficient suggests that respondents who had hired a guide and were members of any environment organization were more willing to pay than those who had not hired a guide and were not members of any environmental organization. the negative sign of travel size indicates that higher the travel group, the lower the probability of wtp. table 4: results of the multiple regression model of domestic tourists on wtp (nrs.) [1 us$= nrs. 72.67] variables coefficient std. error t-value constant 4352.483 2295.736 1.896 gender -662.451 909.692 -.728 age 66.019 225.754 .292 travel size -29.986 80.408 -.373 travel group -517.514 420.109 -1.232 education 89.683 321.520 .279 environmental membership -994.054 799.573 -1.243 income ** 718.602 280.048 2.566 guide -775.182 832.943 -.931 ** significant at 5% level the table 5 indicates the results of multiple regression model of international tourists. in terms of individual significance of the explanatory variables, the education and income were significant (p≤0.01) with a positive regression coefficient, suggesting that higher the income and education, the higher the probability of selecting bigger bid amount. similarly, the gender and travel group were also significant (p≤0.01) with banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 47 the positive sign, indicating that females were more wtp than males and the visitors who were with their family or with friends and family were more willing to pay as compared to solitary visitors. the negative regression coefficient on guide suggests that the tourists who had hired guide were more willing to pay than the tourists who had not. table 5: results of the multiple regression model of international tourists on wtp ($) variables coefficient std. error z-value constant 21.655 11.264 1.923 gender* 18.073 5.796 3.118 age 2.423 1.487 1.629 education* 11.874 1.973 6.017 environmental membership** -18.373 7.721 -2.380 income * 11.269 1.732 6.507 guide -8.134 5.551 -1.465 travel size -.797 .847 -.941 travel group* 4.388 1.612 2.722 * significant at 10% level ** significant at 5% level discussion the total wtp for the sustainable management and conservation of bbzcf by users was calculated as us$ 459 per hh per year. however, in a similar research conducted by chand (2010) in ghodhaghodi wetland of far-western nepal, the maximum wtp for sustainable use and management was us$ 31,453 per year. though the bbzcf constitutes the greater area in comparison to ghodhaghodi wetland, the value of wtp calculated for bbzcf is low. the survey revealed that people from the bbzcf who had diversified livelihood options in addition to subsistence farming were also willing to contribute voluntarily although they had capacity to contribute higher amounts. one of the reasons for this may be due to the negative impacts of wildlife on crop damages and human casualties. except in gyaneswor cf, the wtp value calculated in three cfs was found to be lower than in bbzcf. in addition to the lower income of the households, another reason of low wtp by the user group members of the cfs may be due to their inadequate awareness and knowledge about various services of community forests. the higher value of wtp in bbzcf might be due to the fact that the users of the bbzcf were getting better benefits owing to high movement of tourists and diversified livelihoods options in the former one. the study revealed that the local respondents were willing to pay for the sustainable use, management and conservation of the bbzcf. the result of multiple regression shows that wtp decreases as per the decreased proximity of user group hhs from the buffer zone forest. this indicates that the users who are living near the forests are more willing to pay as compared to the ones living far. this may be due to the higher level of benefits to the hhs living close to the forests because of tourist flow and other benefits. this shows that the buffer zone community forest user committee should emphasize to distribute the benefits among all users equitably. in terms of gender, women were more willing to pay as compared to men. this may be because women have to spend more time in domestic chores such as collecting grass, firewood, fodder, bedding materials etc. which they get from the bbzcf. in addition, they can be benefited from the management of bbzcf. so, the policy makers and other stakeholders should consider bringing the women in the frontline of the bz management programme. surprisingly, hhs with more members was more willing to pay. this may be due to the dependency of larger families over the forest was high in comparison to the hhs with smaller family size. similarly, the people having larger farms were more willing to pay as they had relatively higher per capita income as compared to the users having smaller ones. the residents who were living in the same locality for a longer period had higher willingness to pay than the new migrants as the older residents were already receiving various services and benefits from the bbzcf. the total projected wtp for the recreational and aesthetic services provided by bbzcf by all tourists was us$ 3,806,468 per year. rana (2004) estimated the opportunity cost of establishing the cnp. the net direct use value of the park was equal to us$ 9.4 million annually. on the basis of the unit values of watershed function, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity from a study conducted by verma (2000) in himachal pradesh (india), the total environmental value of the cnp was estimated to be us$ 1.06 billion annually. kc et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 48 kc et al. the income level of both domestic and international visitors had a significant association with wtp as visitors with high income had higher wtp for recreational and aesthetic values. the visitors who were accompanied by the local guides were found to be willing to pay more than those without the local guides. as reported, the guided tourists had better orientation and exposure to various tourist attractions and destinations. in comparison to the domestic tourists, the international tourists had high income-level, higher education and better value to recreational services. similarly, the tourists who were accompanied by their families and friends had higher level of wtp. the tourists who had higher wtp were based on their recreation during elephant riding, jungle walk, bird watching, staying in the machans (watching tower) and canoeing. therefore, the protected area manager should try to maintain the quality of the recreational benefits and sustainable natural resource management. however, according to baral et al. (2008), the most visitors were found to be willing to pay an entry fee considerably higher than the current fee of us$ 27 in annapurna conservation area. the mean and median wtp were us$ 69 and us$ 74 respectively. the larger visitors’ groups, use of guides, and their satisfaction seemed to have most positive influences on their willingness to pay for higher entry fees. conclusion this study shows that the users and the visitors of the bbzcf have shown their willingness to pay for recreational and aesthetic services as there are good conservation efforts within the area. the study has revealed that females were more willing to pay as compared to the males, which indicates that females can be benefited more from management of the bbzcf. so, the policy makers and other stakeholders should consider bringing females in the frontline of the bz management program. the willingness to pay by tourists suggests that there is a possibility of generating extra income with the development of appropriate payment mechanism and equitable benefit sharing for better resource management, to enhance the quality of recreational benefits and for community welfare. though there are different types of ecosystem services, this research only takes into account of recreational and aesthetic services. the study suggests that there is high potentiality to generate extra fund for financial sustainability in protected areas of nepal. references bbzcf. 2007. operational plan, 2003–2007. baghmara buffer zone community forest user groups baghmara, bachhauli, chitwan, nepal. baral, n., stern, m. j., and bhattarai, r. 2008. contingent valuation of ecotourism in annapurna conservation area, nepal: implications for sustainable park finance and local development. ecological economics 66: 218–227. bryman, a. 2006. integrating quantitative and qualitative research: how is it done? qualitative research 6 (1): 97–113. chand, k. p. 2010. economic valuation of wetland. a case study of ghodaghodi wetland. m.sc. thesis, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal. collins, a. 1999. tourism development and natural capital. annals of tourism research 26 (1): 98–109. costanza, r., agre, r. d., groot, r. d., farber, s., grasso, m., hannon, b., limburg, k., naeem, s., neill, r. v., paruelo, j., raskin, r. g., sutton, p. and belt, m. 1997. the value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. nature 387: 253–260. emerton, l., bishop, j. and thomas, l. 2006. sustainable financing of protected areas: a global review of challenges and options. the world conservation union (iucn), gland, switzerland and cambridge, uk. engel, s., pagiola, s. and wunder, s. 2008. designing payments for environmental services in theory and practice: an overview of the issues. ecological economics 65 (4): 663–674. gossling, s. 1999. ecotourism: a means to safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem functions. ecological economics 29 (2): 303–320. iied. 2003. valuing forests: a review of methods and applications in developing countries. international institute for environment and development banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 49 environmental economics programme, 3 endsleigh street, london wcih 0dd, uk. iucn. 2005. benefits beyond boundaries. proceedings of the 5th iucn world parks congress. durban, south africa 8–17 september 2003. the world conservation union (iucn), gland, switzerland and cambridge, uk. johnson, r. b., onwuegbuzie, a. j.and turner, l. a. 2007. toward a definition of mixed methods research. journal of mixed methods research 1 (2): 112–133. karna, p. k. 2008. making payment for environmental services (pes) work: a case study of shivapuri national park, nepal. in shifting paradigms in protected areas management (eds) bajracharya, s. b. and dahal, n., ntnc, kathmandu, nepal, 171–185. khanal, y., upadhyaya, c. p. and sharma, r. p. 2010. economic valuation of water supply services from two community forests in palpa district. banko janakari 20 (1): 24–29. kumar, p. 2005. market for ecosystem services. international institute for sustainable development (iisd), winnipeg, manitoba, canada. loomis, j. 1996. measuring the benefits of removing dams and restoring the elwha river: results of a contingent valuation survey. water resources research 32 (2):441–447 maskey, n. a. 2008. investing in ecosystem services: opportunities and challenges for shivapuri national park, nepal graduate thesis. lund university master of environmental studies and sustainability science, lund, sweden. mcmurray, a. j., pace, r. w. and scott, d. 2004. research: a commonsense approach. thompson social science press. isbn: 0170122352, melbourne, australia. milder, j. c., scherr, s. j. and bracer, c. 2010. trends and future potential of payment for ecosystem services to alleviate rural poverty in developing countries. ecology and society 15 (2): 4. 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s. and ferraro, p. g. 2010. show me the money: do payments supply environmental services in developing countries? review of environmental economics and policy 4 (2): 254–274. rana, a. s. 2004. the opportunity cost of biodiversity conservation in nepal: a case study of royal chitwan national park, m.sc. thesis, kathmandu university, nepal. rogerson, c. m. 2006. pro-poor local economic development in south africa: the role of propoor tourism. local environment 11: 37–60. scherl, l. m., wilson, a., wild, r., blockhus, j., franks, p., mcneely, j. and mcshane, t. 2004. can protected areas contribute to poverty reduction? opportunities and limitations. iucn, gland, switzerland and cambridge, uk. singh, b. k. and sharma, n. 2008. “an analysis of payment for environmental services from biodiversity perspective in nepal” paper presented on fifth community forestry national workshop, kathmandu, nepal. kc et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 50 kc et al. sommerville, m., jones, j. p. g., 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8–11. wunder, s. 2005. payments for environmental services: some nuts and bolts. cifor occasional paper, no. 42, cifor, bogor, indonesia. final vol 16-1.pmd 3 commercially important medicinal and aromatic plants of nepal and their distribution pattern and conservation measure along the elevation gradient of the himalayas khem raj bhattarai1 and madhu ghimire2 this study aims to assess and evaluate the number of commercially important medicinal and aromatic plants (maps) found in the trade and explore their distribution pattern and conservation measures along the himalayan elevation gradient of nepal. the species data for this study are based on primary as well as secondary sources, where as elevation range data are based only on secondary sources. the number of maps species and number of conservation sites present in each 100 m elevation band is estimated by interpolation. the assessed numbers of commercial maps are assigned in to different life forms group to find the life form spectrum of commercial species. the number of maps species and conservation sites present in each 100 m elevation band are evaluated as a response variable where as elevation gradient is the predictor. the relationship between them is elucidated by scatter plot as well as generalised liner models. in this study, we have assessed 143 species as commercial maps. the variation of maps species is found related to elevation. the maps species richness increases with increasing the elevation up to 1000 m then decrease with further increasing the elevation thus unimodal type of pattern is observed. the maximum numbers of maps are found at 1000 m but maximum numbers of conservation sites are found above this elevation range. we did not find the significant pattern between conservation sites and maps species richness along the elevation gradient of the himalayas. the conservation sites of nepal are less concentrated where maps species diversity is rich. key words: medicinal and aromatic plants, elevation gradient, species richness, generalised linear model nepal contains diverse physiographic and climatic variation along the elevation gradient and harbours different ecosystems with valuable floral wealth. nepal is ranked 9th among the asian countries for its floral wealth as more than 9,000 species of flowering plants are estimated. among total floral wealth of nepal, about 10 % of species are reported with medicinal and aromatic properties. various parts of these annuals, biennials and perennial plants have been used as medicines, perfumes, and food. pandey (1961) for the first time reported 73 medicinal and aromatic plants (maps). then, department of medicinal plants (dmp, 1970) reported 483 species; malla and shyaka (1984) reported 690 species of maps in nepal. manandhar (2002) has reported ethno-botanical information of 1,500 plant species, majority of them have medicinal value. before implementation of master plan for the forestry sector (1988), this group of plants have been termed as minor forest products and these were relatively neglected from the state. later, due to their high volume and commercial value in no way is described as minor. they were recognised as important because of their diverse uses and high commercial value. every year thousands of collectors and gatherers of hilly region sustain their livelihood from the collection and sales of maps. the sustainable collection of maps can provide valuable cash for rural people therefore government should focus to this sector for research and conservation to bring out it in to competitive world. although, the collection and trade of maps have been a source of income for rural people of nepal, the literatures concerning assessment of commercial species, distribution pattern and their conservation measures are not well addressed. there is lacking on quantitative assessment of their natural population 1 vegetation ecologist, national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari, corresponding author: bhattaraikhemraj@hotmail.com gpo box 7426, sundhara, kathamndu, nepal. 2 asst. botanist, national herbarium & plant laboratories, godawari 4 and testing their pattern along the climatic elevation gradient. natural forests are decreasing due to ever increasing human population in the himalayan region so diversity pattern should be examined before their clearance (bhattarai, 2005). many species of maps are already threatened from collection pressure (ghimire et al. 2005). the natural populations of commercially important maps might have disappeared or might be under the serious risk of extinction, so it is urgent to explore their patterns and find out factors controlling upon the patterns, so that effective conservation measures can be implemented. different methods and approaches have been applied to describe the variation in vascular plants species diversity and composition along elevation gradients in different floristic areas of the world (shmida and wilson, 1985; oland and birks, 1999; vetaas and grytnes, 2002; bhattarai and vetaas, 2003, 2006) but study in the medicinal and aromatic plants along the elevation gradient has not been done so far. these plants are belonging to wide range of families so it might represent all life forms as well as taxonomic groups. although, this sector contributes significant amount in the nepalese economy documentation has not been done how many of those commercially important medicinal and aromatics plants are belong to different life forms groups like trees, shrubs, climbers and herbs. factors causing variation in species diversity may differ between life forms of plants, which may provide the finer resolution on how patterns are exist and what are the underlying factors behind the distribution mechanism (bhattarai and vetaas, 2003). thus, this study will ask the following three major questions: (1) which species of maps are in the trade and commercially important for nepal? (2) how is the distribution pattern of these commercially important maps along the elevation gradient of the himalayas; nepal? and, (3) is there any trend between conservation measures and maps diversity along the elevation gradient? materials and methods location of study area and its elevation gradient the study considers the whole central himalayas, nepal, (26º 22’ to 30º 27’ n and 80º 4’ to 88º 12’ e), an area 800 km east west by 150-200 km north south. there is the indo-gangetic plain in the south, hills and valleys in the middle and ice-carved mountains in the north. in the northern part of the indogangetic plain there is a flat plain about 30-40 km wide from east to west, which is called terai in nepal. after a 30-40 km north-south extension of this flatland, the siwalik hills rise abruptly to an average elevation of 1300 m. the himalayan elevation gradient extends from ca. 60 to more than 8,000 m within 150-200 km and includes compressed tropical/ subtropical, temperate, sub-alpine, and alpine climatic zones. data sources and interpolation we have collected data from the primary as well as secondary sources. the elevation range data for maps are collected from dpr (2001); press et al. (2001), ansab and snv (2003). the functional group data were based upon press et al. (2001) that is a most reliable and up-to-date source about the flora of nepal as is based on extensive field studies, reviews of published literature, and examinations of herbaria. to examine the relationship between species richness and elevation, the total elevation gradient between 100 and 5500 m was divided into 55 100-m elevation intervals (vertical elevation band). the number of species presences in each elevation band is estimated by the interpolation (bhattarai and vetaas, 2006). a species was defined as being present in every 100-m interval between its upper and lower elevation limits. for example, swertia chirayita with its elevation limit between 1500 and 3000 m, was assumed to be present in each elevation band of 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800 and so on up to 3000 m (rahbek, 1997; vetaas and grytnes, 2002). the term species richness is defined as the total number of maps species found in each 100 m elevation band (grytnes and vetaas, 2002). the maps species were assessed as commercially important based on extensive visits of the trade centres and interviewing of traders from kathmandu, dolakha, trisuli, pokhara, butwal, pyuthan, nepalgunj, hetaunda between 1996-1998, and secondary sources (malla et al. 1993; edwards 1996; bhattarai and acharya, 1996a; bhattarai and acharya, 1996b; ansab and snv, 2003; dof, 2002; hncc, 2005). the samples of maps sent by different district forest offices to national herbarium and plant laboratories for identification also contributed to make a decision whether these species are in trade or not. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 bhattarai and ghimire 5 to find the number of conservation activities occurring per 100 m elevation band along the elevation gradient of nepal, the altitudinal range of each conservation area, national park, wild life reserve and hunting reserve of nepal are taken from biodiversity profile project (1995). the interpolated elevation range is converted in to dummy variable by considering 1 for presence and 0 for absence and number of conservation sites per 100 m elevation is estimated (crawley, 2002; see table 2). numerical analysis to examine the relationships between species richness and elevation we have used generalized linear models (glm; mccullagh & nelder, 1989; dobson, 1990) (see table 1). the response variable, species richness, is a discrete data type (counts) and may follow a poisson error distribution (mccullagh & nelder, 1989), which requires a logarithmic link. the models were checked with up to third-order polynomial regressions. we used a f-test to check the significance of models, as this is more robust (crawley, 2002). we used s-plus (version 4.5) for all the regression analyses and graphical representations. results lifeforms spectrum of commercial maps neither all species reported in the different literature as medicinal and aromatic plants are found in the trade, nor all species found in the trade are reported as medicinal and aromatic plants. a total of 143 species are assessed as commercial maps in nepal. these commercial maps are belonging to different life forms such as tree, shrub, climber and herbaceous groups (fig. 1). distribution of maps along the elevation gradient the maps are found growing between 100 m to 5500 m along the elevation gradient in nepal. the uppermost range of distribution is different for different life forms groups. the variation in species richness of maps belonging to each life forms group is shown in table 1 and fig. 2. the maps belonging to trees life form group are found up to 4400 m a.s.l. but the the maps species belong to shrub life forms group are found up to 5100 m a.s.l. similarly climbers are found up to 3200 m a.s.l. and herbaceous maps are found up to 5500 m a.s.l. all life form groups when regressed separately and in combination against elevation significant trend was observed in the second order term in the glm and confirm the hump shaped relationship along the elevation gradient of himalayas (table 1). thus, the pattern of distribution along the elevation gradient is almost similar for all life forms groups. the maps species richness increases with increasing the elevation up to certain elevation range and then decreases with further increasing the elevation. thus optimum maps species richness observed at the middle of the gradient. this optimum richness site is different for different life forms of maps. the maps belonging to trees and climbers life forms are found optimum at 1000 m; shrubs are found optimum at 2000 m and herbaceous are found optimum at 2500 m a.s.l. the optimum richness site is 1000 m a.s.l for these combination (total maps). thus a total maps species richness increases up to 1000 m and decreases afterwards showing a midelevation peak in richness (fig. 2, table 1). relationship between conservation sites and richness of maps to date, there are nine national parks, three-wildlife reserves, one hunting reserve, three conservation areas and one protected forest (table 2). when a relationship between number of conservation sites and elevation gradient is sought, the unimodal type trend is observed (fig. 2). these conservation sites are distributed along the elevation gradient ranging from 75 m to 8,848m, highest the peak in the world. this is a longest bio-climatic gradient in the world. the numbers of conservation sites are increased with increasing elevation up to 1400 m and decreases afterwards with further increasing elevation. thus trees 29 % shrubs 14 % herbs 49 % climbers 8 % fig. 1 : diagramme shows composition of commercial maps species richness belong to each life form. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1bhattarai and ghimire 6 maximum numbers of conservation sites are found around 1400 m a.s.l. (fig. 2). although, there are large numbers of conservations sites available in nepal, unfortunately, no positive trend could be observed between commercial maps species diversity and number of conservation sites (r = -0.32, fig. 3) along the elevation gradient. when these conservation sites are ordinate, the length of gradient i equal ± 05.5 in sd unit, (fig. 5).when we took only 12 prioritise maps of nepal and sough the same relationship we did not find the trend (r = 0.05), as the generalised additive model (gam) smoother also could not detect the pattern. discussion variation in maps species along the elevation gradient this study found a mid-elevation peak for maps species richness along the elevation gradient, which is consistent with several other studies (terborg, 1977; grytnes & vetaas, 2002). this study also supports the results obtained by bhattarai and vetaas (2003, 2006), bhattarai et al. (2004) along the elevation gradient of the himalayas. malla and shakya (1984) also reported mid elevation peak richness for maps of nepal. although, maps life forms polynomial order degree of freedom resi. deviance %-deviance explained p-value trees maps 2 41 47.75 86 p = 0 shrubs maps 2 47 19.66 84 p<0.001 climbers maps 2 32 8.00 89 p<0.001 herbs maps 2 52 30.18 91 p = 0 total maps 2 52 74.56 92 p = 0 res. deviance = residual deviance fig. 2 : scatter plots show the relationship between maps species (belongs to different life forms), conservation sites and elevation gradient. the x-axis represents the elevation in m above sea level. table 1 : summary of generalised linear models (glm) for each life forms of maps banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 bhattarai and ghimire elevation n u m b e r o f tr e e s p e c ie s 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 2 5 3 0 elevation n u m b e r o f s h ru b s p e c ie s 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 2 4 6 8 1 0 1 2 elevation n u m b e r o f c lim b e r s p e c ie s 0 1000 2000 3000 2 4 6 8 1 0 elevation n u m b e r o f h e rb s p e c ie s 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 0 5 1 0 1 5 2 0 2 5 3 0 elevation n u m b e r o f to ta l s p e c ie s 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 elevation n u m b e r o f c o n s e rv a ti o n s it e s 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 2 4 6 8 1 0 7 number of conservation sites n u m b e r o f m a p s p e c ie s 4 6 8 10 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 due to the wider climatic tolerances of high-altitude species. the location of herbaceous maps richness is different from the total maps species richness (including herbs, shrubs, climbers and trees) as observed by bhattarai and vetaas (2003). along the elevation gradient. this discrepancy might be associated with different limits of distribution i.e. different hard boundaries for tree species and nontree species. herbaceous species in the himalayas are reported up to 6500 m (miehe, 1989), but tree species hardly extend beyond 4300 m, i.e. the timberline. fig. 3 : scatter plot shows the relationship between number of conservation sites and maps diversity along the elevation gradient. belong to heterogeneous group plants consisting of angiosperm, gymnosperm as well as cryptogrammic plants thus this mid-elevation peak might be true reflection of total floral diversity of nepal. rahbek’s (1995) review concluded that the mid-elevation peak is a common pattern. however, this study does not support monotonically decreasing species richness with increasing elevation, as suggested by stevens (1992). he predicts that elevation range will increase with increasing elevation s.n. name of the protected areas conservation type altitudinal range (m asl) 1 rara national park national park 2800-4048 2 shey phoksundo national park national park 2000-6883 3 langtang national park national park 792-7245 4 makalu barun national park and conservation area national park 435-8463 5 sagarmatha national park national park 2845-8848 6 shiva puri national park national park 1336-2732 7 khaptad national park national park 1400-3300 8 royan chitwan national park national park 150-815 9 royal bardia national park national park 152-1441 10 11 koshi tapu wildlife reserve royal shuklaphanta wildlife reserve wildlife reserve wildlife reserve 75-90 90-270 12 parsa wildlife reserve wildlife reserve 100-950 13 dhorpatan hunting reserve hunting reserve 2850-5500 14 annapurna conservation area conservation area 1151-8091 15 kanchanjunga conservation area conservation area 1200-8586 16 manaslu conservation area conservation area 1360-8163 17 nagarjun royal forest protected forest 1300-2200 sources: biodiversity profile project (1995) table 2 : national parks, wildlife reserves, hunting reserve, conservation areas and protected forest and their altitudinal range in nepal banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1bhattarai and ghimire 8 bhattarai & vetaas (2003) from field sampling found maximum tree species richness around 800 m, therefore this mid-elevation peak is close to that found by bhattarai & vetaas (2003). the range of a species along an elevation gradient is constrained by these hard boundaries. these boundaries present at the two ends of an elevation gradient produce some degree of resistance to dispersal. although variation of species richness is influenced by several factors like aspects, forest types, canopy cover, slope, conservation sites, grazing, competetion etc, the influences of these factors depends upon the scale of the study. these factors influence the species richness pattern only at local scale (bhattarai and vetaas, 2005). this is a macro-scale study so such local factors can not influence upon the species richness pattern. several suggestions have been proposed to explain the mid-elevation peak in richness; in particular climatic factors have received more attention (oland & birks, 1999; md. nor, 2001; bhattarai et al. 2004). bhattarai & vetaas (2003) found that the mid-elevation peak in richness is a function of water-energy dynamics. the maximum species richness will be found at locations with maximum rainfall and optimal energy conditions (o’brien, 1993, 1998). we propose that the maximum maps species richness around 1000 m might be associated with optimum energy and maximum rainfall (bhattarai and vetaas, 2003). species from the lower elevation and the higher elevation (montane-flora) (shmida & wilson, 1985). the mid-elevation receive input from both directions. thus, mass effects or source-sink dynamics may be important to influence variation in species richness within an elevation gradient (grytnes & vetaas, 2002). this study did not support the claim made by malla and shakya (1984) as a 1000-2000 m is rich for diversity of maps. they did not separate the maps in to each life form as well as they did not make any statistical test about the distribution pattern of the maps. most plant groups excluding ferns have optimum richness around 1000 m asl (bhattarai and vetass, 2003, 2006; bhattarai et al. 2004). this is a first report that the optimum richness for maps is found at 1000 m asl. conservation sites n o. of p rio rit iz e m a p s 4 6 8 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 the increase in maps species richness from lowland up to 1000 m is in contrast with report of decreasing tree species richness with higher elevation (yoda, 1967). the mid-elevation peak in maps species richness may result from large-scale mass effects, of fig. 4 : relationship between conservation sites and number of prioritized maps species. the line is fitted by gam smoother, which is fitted only to guide the reader’s eye -2 6 -4 6 chitwa n parsa wakoshitasuklapan khaptad lantang rara nat shy pho annapurn dhorpata makalu sagerma shivapur kanchan manaslu nagarjun bardia n commercial maps of nepal regarding the number of maps species, there is no same consensus how many species are actually present. it might be due to several systems of medicine (e.g. ayurved, tibetan, chinese, sidha, & unani) are being practiced in nepal and, have been considered maps differently. if we take an account of these different systems of medicine in terms of plant use, then large number of species would fall under the maps’ category. thus, the number of fig. 5 : the ordination of conservation sites of nepal. the conservation sites are distributed in the dca diagram according to their respective elevational range from terai to higher himalayas. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 bhattarai and ghimire 9 maps actually depends on system of medicine and degree of their uses. although, several authors have reported different numbers of maps in nepal (dmp, 1970; malla and shakya, 1984; malla et al. 1993; manandhar, 2002; watanabe et al. 2005), this paper does not emphasize upon the listing the maps as it has been found in most of the nepalese literature. the important issue is to assess and evaluate how many commercial maps species are found in the trade, how is their diversity pattern and conservation measures in their natural habitats. among the maps, only commercial species are being collected for trade. due to their high commercial value, maps are threatened by large-scale exploitation for trade (ghimire et al. 2005). according to forest regulation (third amendment 2005) there is a list of 188 ntfps but taxonomically there are less species. these days national herbarium and plant laboratories have been receiving ntfps samples from district forest office for identification. these most samples are arrested due to illegal trade. about 20-25 % of the species from those samples have not been found included in the royalty list. this suggests that, there might be more than 188 species of ntfps in the trade so several species may not have been incorporated in to royalty list. shrestha and shrestha (2061) have reported 101 ntfps as major commercial species of nepal. similarly ansab and snv (2003) reported 125 commercial species of ntfps in the trade. both reports could not evaluate how many commercial species are actually found in the trade. some of the species of ntfps, which ansab and snv (2003) have reported as a commercially importance is not found in the trade at all e.g. sapium insigne, dalbergia sissoo and toona ciliata. however, these species might have subsistence use only. we have observed some additional species of maps in the trade, which have not been yet reported as commercial maps (see appendix 1). our judgement upon the commercial species is largely based on volume of trade, frequency of trade occurrence, royalty rate, revenue collection, market rate, market demand, and threats status. even though there might be more species in the trade, we have only assessed 143 maps species as commercially important (appendix 1). some species, which are occasionally found in the trade with low price and low volume, are not considered as commercial species of maps. although we could assess only 143 maps as a commercially important, it is not a final list for commercial maps, still there might be several species left to be incorporated. however we have not considered other non-timber forest product (ntfps) like canes (bet), babiyo etc. in this study so that number of species might be more than 150. if there were a complete list of commercial maps, then it would be possible to find out where these species are distributed, and what might be threats upon them. conservation areas and maps species richness there are 17 protected areas in nepal (table 2). these are distributed from terai to the highest peak in the world (8848 m). the protected areas, including six declared buffer zones cover 27,874 km2 or, 19.21% of the total area of the country. the maximum numbers of protected areas are located between 1400 to 4500 m a.s.l. (see fig. 2). unfortunately, the maximum diversity of flowering plant is found below 1400 m a.s.l. (bhattarai & vetaas, 2003, 2004, 2006). the maximum diversity of maps are also found around 1000 m along the elevation gradient. although, the main aim of these protected areas is to conserve the overall biodiversity of the region but this study did not find the trend between the diversity of maps and protected areas. this may indicate that nepalese conservation activities might have focused to conserve the flagship animal species like onehorned rhinoceros, tiger, indian elephant, snow leopard, musk deer, swamp deer and gharial rather than plant species. in nepal there are several endangered plant species (e.g. ceropegia pubescens, cyathea spinulosa, cycas pectinata, podophyllum hexandrum, gnetum montanum, talauma hodgsonii, tetracentron sinensis) but there are no special declared plant conservation sites for these species. it is surprising that complete checklist of flora present in protected areas of nepal has not yet been prepared. this indicates that our conservation efforts are less focused towards plant diversity (bhattarai, 2004). hunter and yunzon (1993) have made remarks that conservation activities are focused to higher elevations where diversity of plant is less. however, there are 60 maps species categorised as threatened (shrestha and joshi, 1996; bhattarai et al. 2002) in nepal. government of nepal has selected 30 species of maps and all species of genus lichen for research and management, and 12 species of maps are prioritised for development of agrotechnology (sharma et al. 2004; and bhattarai et al. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1bhattarai and ghimire 10 2004). there is no breeding programme for maps to select best genotype to adapt at the man made conditions (bhattarai et al. 2004). this may indicate that sufficient attention is lacking for overall development of maps. moreover, there is no special project undertaken to solve the agricultural related problem for these wildly growing plant species. however, tissue culture has been initiated in the national herbarium and plant laboratories for micro propagation of kutki, sughandhawal, serpagandha, pipla and chiraito, (rajkarnikar et al. 2004), which are all belongs to commercial maps as well as prioritise species of the country. the vitro planting material developed in the laboratory generally is not brought in the field for their performance test (pers. comm. with gd bhatt). the laboratory works alone cannot solve the domestication and other cultivation problems of wild species. even though, maps is one of the prioritised sectors by tenth plan of the government of nepal, it has not received proper attention for the up-liftment of the poor rural people through the development of maps. acknowledgements we are thankful to dr. p.r. shakya, and mr. puran prasad kurmi for stimulating discussions during the preparation of the manuscript. we acknowledge mr. hari krishna saiju, director general of department of plant resources, and our immediate boss dr mk adhikari for their cooperation to bring out this publication. references ansab & snv 2003. commercially important non timber forest product (ntfps) of nepal. asia network for sustainable development (ansab), kathmandu, nepal. pp. 168. biodiversity profile project. 1995. biodiversity profile project, publication no 12-14. departmetnt of national parks and wildlife conservation, ministry of forests and soil conservation. his majesty’s government of nepal, kathmandu. bhattarai, k.r. & acharya, n. 1996a. various aspects of ntfps in tipling and its adjoining areas of upper dhading, central, nepal. report submitted to asia network for small scale agricultural bioresources (ansab), kathmandu, nepal (unpublished report). bhattarai, k.r. & acharya, n. 1996b. identification, qualitative assessment, trade and economic significance of chraito (swertia species of nepal). report submitted to asia network for small scale agricultural bioresources (ansab), kathmandu, nepal (unpublished report). bhattarai, k.r. & vetaas, o.r. 2003. variation in plant species richness of different life forms along a subtropical elevation gradient in the himalayas. globe ecology and biogeography, 12: 327-340. bhattarai, k.r. 2004. variation in species richness at the fine scale and at the broad scale in the himalayas, nepal. dr scient. thesis submitted to department of botany, university of bergen, allegaten 41, n-5007, bergen, norway. bhattarai, k.r. 2005. variation in species richness and spatial turnover among different vegetation types along an elevation gradient in east nepal. banko janakari,15(1): 25-32. bhattarai, k.r. & vetaas, o.r. 2005. local factors influencs herbaceous species diversity in macro-scale. banko janakari, 15(2): 26-32. bhattarai, k.r., acharaya, n., & adhikari, m.k. 2004. domestication of medicinal plants in nepal: an overview. bulletin of deparment of plant resources no 26. department of plant resources. kathmandu, nepal. bhattarai, k.r. and vetaas, o.r. 2006. can rapoport’s rule explains tree species richness along the himalaya elevation gradient, nepal?. diversity and distribution (in press). bhattarai, n.k., tandon, v. & ved, d.k. 2002. highlights and outcomes of the conservation assessment and management planning (camp) workshop, pokhara, nepal. in: sharing local and national experiences in conservation of medicinal and aromatic plants in south asia (eds bhattarai, n.k. and karki, m.). idrc south asia regional office, new delhi, india. pp. 46-53. crawley, m.j. 2002. statistical computing: an introduction to data analysis using s-plus.john wiley and sons, ltd, england. department of medicinal plants (dmp). 1970. medicinal plants of nepal. bulletin no. 3. kathmandu. department of forest (dof) 2002. hamro ban. babarmahal, kathmandu. dobson, a.j. 1990. an introduction to generalized linear models. chapman and hall, london. dpr. 2001. flowering plants of nepal (phenerogams). department of plant resource, nepal. 339. edward, d. m. 1996. nontimber forest products from nepal. aspect of trade in medicinal and aromatic plants. foresc monograph no.1/96forest research and survey center. ghimire, s.k., mckey, d.; 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conservation and management efforts of medicinal and aromatic plants in nepal. banko janakari, 14: 3-11. shrestha, t.b. and joshi, r.m. 1996. rare, endemic and endangered plants of nepal, pp. 244. shmida, a. and whittaker, r.h. 1981.pattern and biological microsite effects in two shrub communities, southern california. ecology, 62: 234-251. shmida, a. and wilson, m. w. 1985. biological determinants of species diversity. journal of biogeography, 12: 1-20. shrestha, u. b. and shrestah, s. 2061. major nontimber forest products of nepal. bhundi puran prakasan, kathmandu, nepal, 411. stevens, g. c. 1992. the elevational gradient in altitudinal range, an extension of rapoport’s latitudinal rule to altitude. american naturalist, 140: 893-911. terberg, j 1977. bird species diversity on an andean elevational gradient. ecology 58: 1007-1019. wantanabe, t., rajbhandari, k. r., malla, k.j., and yahara, s. 2005. a hand book of medicinal plants of nepal. bangkok and kobfaii publishing project, 262. wilson, m.v. and shmida, a. 1984. measuring beta diversity with presence-absence data. journal of ecology, 72: 10551064. yoda, k. 1967. a preliminary survey of the forest vegetation of eastern nepal. journal of art and science. 5: 99-140. vetaas, o.r. & grytnes, j.a. 2002. distribution of vascular plants species richness and endemic richness along the himalayan elevation gradient in nepal. global ecology and biogeography, 11: 291-301. banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1bhattarai and ghimire 12 sn species local name 1 abies spectabilis talispatra 2 acacia catechu khayar 3 accacia rugata sikakai 4 aconitum ferox bisma 5 aconitum heterophylloides nirmasi 6 aconitum heterophyllum atish 7 aconitum spicatum bikha 8 acorus calamus bojho 9 aegle marmelos bail 10 aesculus indica lekhpangra 11 agave americana ketuki 12 aloe vera ghiukumari 13 allium hypsisturm jimbu 14 allium wallichii ban lasun 15 amomum subulatum aalainchi 16 andrographis paniculata kalmegh 17 artemisia indica titepati 18 asparagus racemosus kurilo 19 astilbe rivularis thulookhati 20 atropa belladonna belladona 21 azadirachta indica neem 22 bassia butyracea chiuri 23 bauhania vahlii bhorlo 24 bauhania varigata koiralo 25 berberis aristata chutro 26 berberis asiatica chutro 27 bergenia cialita pakhanbet 28 bergenia purpurascens pakhanbet 29 betula utilis bhojpatra 30 bombax ceiba simal 31 brachycorythis obcordata 32 butea monosperma palanshbeej 33 calotropis gigantea aank 34 cannabis sativa bhanga 35 cassia fistula rajbrksha 36 cedrus deodara debdar 37 centella asitica godtapre 38 chlorophytum borivilianum setomusli 39 choerospondias axillaris lapsi 40 cinnamomum camphora camphor 41 cinnamomum tamala tejpat sn species local name 42 citrulus lanatus 43 coleus barbatus 44 cordia dichotoma bonori 45 cordyceps sinensis yarshagumba 46 cucuma zedoraria kachur 47 curculigo orchioides kalomusli 48 curcuma angustifolia haledo 49 cymbopogon flexousus lemongrass 50 cymbopogon jwarancusa 51 cymbopogon martini pamaroja 52 cymbopogon winterianus citronella 53 cyperus rotundus nagemothe 54 dactlorhiza hatagirea panchaunle 55 dalbergia latifolia bijaya sal 56 datura metel dhatura 57 delphinium denudatum nirmbisi 58 delphinium himalayai mauremulo 59 desmotichum fimbriatum 60 dioscorea deltoidea githa 61 dioscorea bulbifera tarul 62 dioscorea pentaphylla bhayakur 63 dioscorea spp 64 diospyros melanoxylon tendu 65 daphnephyllum himalens raktachandan 66 embelia ribes bayobidanga 67 elaecarpus sphaericus rudrachha 68 ephedra gegardiana somlata 69 eulophia dabia kalodana 70 gaultheria fragrantissima dhashingare 71 gentiana kurroo karu 72 gigardiana diversifolia allo 73 glycyrhiza glabra jesthimadhu 74 grewia optiva bhimal 75 guizotia abyssinica jusetil 76 hippophae salicifolia dalechuk 77 hippophae tibetna dalechuk 78 holarrhena pubescens indrajau 79 iris decora padampuskar 80 jatropha curcas sajiban 81 juglanus regia okhar 82 juniperus indica dhupi appendix 1 : commercial medicinal and aromatic plants of nepal banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1 bhattarai and ghimire 13 sn species local name 83 jurinea dolomiaea dhupjadi 84 justicia adhatoda asuro 85 leuucas cephalotes dornapuspi 86 lobelia pyramidalis yaklebir 87 lycopodium clavatum nagbeli 88 madhuca longifolia mauha 89 maesa chisia bilaune 90 mallotus philippensis sindure 91 mentha arvensis patena 92 mesua ferrea nageswori 93 mimosa pudica lajbattijhar 94 morchella conica guchhichyau 95 morchella spp guchhichyau 96 mucuna pruriens kauso 97 nardostachys gandiflora jatamasi 98 neopicrorhiza scrophulariiflora kutki 99 ocimum basilicum babari 100 ocimum sanctum tulshi 101 panax pseudo-ginseng nepali ginseng 102 paris polyphylla satuwa 103 parmelia nepalensis jhauau 104 parmelia spp jhauau 105 persea odoratissima kaulo 106 phyllanthus emblica amala 107 pinus roxburghii khotesalla 108 piper chaba chaba 109 piper longum pipla 110 pistacia chinensis kakersinga 111 podophyllum hexandrum lagupatra 112 polypodium vulgaris bisfez 113 prinsepia utilis dhatelo sn species local name 114 pyrus pashia mayal 115 rauvolfia serpentina sepagandha 116 rheum australe padamchal 117 rhododendron anthopogon sunpati 118 rhododendron arboreum laligurans 119 ricinus communis ader 120 roscoea purpurea phasel 121 rubia manjith manjitho 122 sapindus mukorossi rithaa 123 satyrium nepalense gamdol 124 saussurea lappa kuth 125 schleichera oleosa kusum 126 selenium wallichinum bhutkesh 127 semicarpus anacardium bhalayodhela 128 shorea robusta sal 129 sida cordifolia balu 130 solanum virginianum bini 131 swertia angustifolia bhalechiraito 132 swertia chirayita chiraito 133 swertia multicaulis sharmaguru 134 taxus baccata lauthsalla 135 terminalia arjuna arjun 136 terminalia bellirica barro 137 terminalia chebula harro 138 trichoxanthus palmata indrayani 139 tinospora sinensis gurjo 140 trigonella foenum-graecum methi 141 valeriana jatamansii sugandhawal 142 woodfordia fructicosa dhayaro 143 zanthoxylum armatum timur banko janakari, vol. 16, no. 1bhattarai and ghimire tree diameter-height relationship can be used as a key input component in forest growth and yield models, and description of stand dynamics. various models of stem diameter and height relation were developed. those were formulated and implemented during terai forest inventory data calculations in the forest resource assessment (fra) nepal project. the field inventory was conducted from december, 2010 to march, 2011. the concentric circular sample plot was designed where the diameters at breast height of all the tallied trees and the heights of the sampled trees were measured. the data were handled with r-script in r programme to generate non-linear mixed effects models in ‘lmfor’ package of forest biometrics functions of mehtatalo. different non-linear models were used to fit the diameter-height relation, which performed well in describing the relationships between the diameters and the heights of the terai tree species depending on the sample size. the models were selected as the best fitted based on the statistical results such as standard error, adjusted r2, rmse and residuals. the best models for shorea robusta and terminalia alata were generated using wykoff’s and naslund’s functions, respectively. key words: growth, model, non-linear mixed effects, yield diameter-height models for the terai tree species a. khadka1*, t. subedi1, m. ghimire1, b. p. dhakal1 and h. parikka2 the terai forests of nepal are highly productive and economically important, yet underutilized resource in southern belt of nepal. they represent around 20.41 percent of the terai physiographic zone. the forests are characterized by sub-tropical forests consisting of shorea robusta associated with the species like terminalia tomentosa, t. bellirica, t. chebula, anogeissus latifolia, adina cordifolia, albizia spp., syzygium cumini, acacia catechu and dalbergia sissoo (dfrs, 2014). in order to fulfill the project purpose to improve the provision of adequate forestry data and its processing for national forest policy development and for national level forestry sector decision making, the forest resource assessment (fra) nepal project conducted the terai field inventory from december, 2010 to march, 2011. developing diameter-height models of non-linear mixed effects was one of the tasks during data calculations. accurate measurement of tree height is time consuming. prediction of total tree height becomes very important in terms of regular monitoring of the forest resources as well as in conducting scientific forest researches. diameter at breast height (dbh) is the most common variable measured easily and promptly, and can be used to predict tree-height. predicting total tree-height based on observed diameter at breast height outside bark is routinely in practical management and silvicultural research work (meyer, 1940). the estimation of tree volume, as well as the description of stands and their development over time, relies heavily on accurate height-diameter functions (curtis, 1967). diameter-height relationships are used to estimate the heights of trees measured for their diameters at breast height. such relationship describes the correlation between height and diameter of the trees in a stand on a given data, and can be represented by a linear or non-linear mathematical model. however, for diameter-height models, more care is needed, and a representative sample of accurately measured total-height is used as the response variable and dbh as the predictor variable (mamoun, 2012). mixed models estimate both fixed and random parameters simultaneously for the same model. the introduction of random parameters into the model, specific for every sampling unit, enables us to model the variability detected for given phenomena among different locations, after defining a common fixed functional structure 1 department of forest research and survey (dfrs), babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal, * e-mail: anandakhadka@gmail.com 2 finish forest research institute, joensuu, finland 50 banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 51 (lindstrom and bates, 1990). mixed models give an unbiased and efficient estimation of the fixed parameters of the model. furthermore, mixed models improve predictive ability if we are able to predict the value of the random parameters for an unsampled location. this is possible if complementary observations of the dependent variable are available. determining the minimum size of this sub-sample to get the reliability required by forest managers is a basic decision to be confronted in inventory design since height measurement involves high costs (houghton and gregoire, 1993). the objective of the study was to develop the diameter-height models and predict the heights for the major tree species of the terai region, which were to be used in further calculations regarding volume and biomass. materials and methods the study area covers the whole terai region of nepal. two-phase cluster sampling method was applied. at the first-phase, a grid of 4 km × 4 km was established, and at each grid point, a cluster of four plots was established. at the second phase, a sub-sample of the clusters was drawn for field measurements. concentric circular sample plot (ccsp) was designed for field inventory. the ccsp consisted of four circular plots (figure 1) with different radii per various tree diameter thresholds, respectively. all the established circles were centered at the same point. the outermost plot was used for tallying the bigger trees, whereas the inner plots were used for measuring the trees belonging to smaller-size classes. the dbh of all the tallied trees and the heights of the sampled trees were measured during the field inventory. the dbh of the trees were measured at breast height (1.3 m from the ground-level) using diameter tape while their heights were measured with the help of vertex iv and transponder t3. the terai forests of nepal host more than 100 tree species dominated by sal (s. robusta), teraimixed hardwood and khair-sissoo (a. catechu-d. sissoo) forests. fig. 1: layout of a concentric circular sample plot note: symbols r1, r2, r3 and r4 are for radii 20 m, 15 m, 8 m and 4 m respectively. the selection of the species for the study was mainly based on the hierarchy in total count of the tallied trees in the sample plots (table 1). the data for the selected species consisted of khadka et al. table 1: terai species taken for study purpose s.n. species local name fra database code number of sampled trees 1. shorea robusta sal 6615 1218 2. terminalia alata asna/saj 6660 246 3. mallotus philippensis sindhure 6419 243 4. lagerstroemia parviflora botdhangero 6369 131 5. anogeissus latifolia banjhi 6113 112 6. syzygium cumini jamun, jamuno 6651 110 7. buchanania latifolia piyari 6147 103 8. dalbergia sissoo sissoo 6239 67 9. trewia nudiflora gutel/velor 6676 51 banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 52 the dbh >5 cm and the total tree heights of the sampled trees whose total heights were measured in the field inventory. the data were handled with r-script in r programme to generate non-linear mixed effects models in ‘lmfor’ package of forest biometrics functions of mehtatalo (2012). different nonlinear models were used to fit the height-diameter relationship. all these models ensure that dbh is taken at 1.3 m. different non-linear models were used to fit the diameter-height relation, which performed well in describing the relationships between the diameters and the heights of the terai tree species depending on the species and the sample sizes. the models were selected to be the “best fitted” based on the basis of the statistical results such as standard error, adjusted r2, rmse and residuals results and discussion the best fitted models for estimating the volumes of the different terai tree species are presented in table 2, and are further represented in various graphs (figures 1-10). in table 2, the best fitted model functions are presented for each species, where a, b and c are values for coefficients in the equation. s.e. is standard error and rmse is root mean squared error. also h (d), bh and d stand for predicted height for diameter (d), breast height and dbh respectively. the fitted model for s. robusta and t. alata were generated from wykoff and naslund functions with standard errors of 3.1 and 2.4, and adjusted r2 of 0.8 and 0.9 respectively. besides, the minimum standard error of 1.8 was achieved in the meyer model for a. latifolia whereas the maximum error of 3.1 was obtained in the wykoff model for s. robusta. the graphs for standardized residuals vs. stand-wise standardized diameters and the graphs for the predicted vs. the measured heights are presented in figures 2–10. fig. 2: shorea robusta (6615) fig. 3: terminalia alata (6660) khadka et al. table 2: the best fitted models and their statistical validities s.n. species model function equation a b c s.e adj. r2 rmse 1. shorea robusta wykoff h(d) = bh + exp (a + b/ (d + 1)) 3.5034 -13.7750 3.1 0.805 4.9720 2. terminalia alata naslund h(d) = bh + d^2/(a + b d)^2 2.2859 0.1529 2.4 0.931 4.6606 3. mallotus philippensis michailoff h(d)=bh + a e^(-b d^(-1)) 13.2790 6.1941 1.9 0.675 3.2543 4. lagerstroemia parviflora meyer h(d) = bh + a (1-exp(-b d)) 17.3817 0.0719 2.0 0.933 4.6776 5. anogeissus latifolius meyer h(d) = bh + a (1-exp(-b d)) 26.5472 0.0407 1.8 0.958 4.7934 6. syzygium cumini naslund h(d) = bh + d^2/(a + b d)^2 2.0245 0.2038 2.6 0.801 4.2454 7. buchanania latifolia meyer h(d) = bh + a (1-exp(-b d)) 17.4584 0.0522 2.0 0.958 3.6739 8. dalbergia sissoo ratkowsky h(d) = bh + a exp(-b/(d + c)) 22.4656 10.2333 3.699245 2.5 0.603 4.2237 9. trewia nudiflora naslund h(d) = bh + d^2/(a + b d)^2 1.0270 0.2388 2.5 0.507 3.9661 banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 53 fig. 4: mallotus philippensis (6419) fig. 5: lagerstroemia parviflora (6369) fig. 6: anogeissus latifolius (6113) fig. 7: syzygium cumini (6651) fig. 8: buchanania latifolia (6147) fig. 9: dalbergia sissoo (6239) fig. 10: trewia nudiflora (6676) based on the results of this study, different nonlinear functions were found to have performed well in describing the relationships between the diameters and the heights of the terai tree species depending on the sample size. among the nine species, meyer’s function gave the best model for l. parviflora, a. latifolius and b. latifolia. similarly, naslund’s function was found to be best suitable for t. alata, s. cumini and t. nudiflora. likewise, the functions of wykoff, michailoff and ratkowsky gave the best models for s. robusta, m. philippensis and d.sissoo respectively. only ratkowsky’s function has three regression coefficients (a, b, c), while the rest have only two (a and b). however, the fra nepal project had used the mixed model, in which the plot location was also used as a random variable, for estimating the volume of the terai tree species. conclusion although the above mentioned functions are generated for only one independent variable (diameter), they can be used for estimating the volume of the terai tree species as per the findings of this study. khadka et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 54 references curtis, r. o. 1967. height-diameter and heightdiameter-age equations for second-growth douglas-fir. forest science 13: 365–375. dfrs. 2014. terai forests of nepal. forest resource assessment nepal project/ department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. houghton, d. r. and gregoire, t. g. 1993. minimum subsamples of tree heights for accurate estimation of loblolly pine plot volume. southern journal of applied forestry 17: 124–129. lindstrom, m. j. and bates, d. m. 1990. nonlinear mixed effects for repeated measures data. biometrics 46: 673–687. mamoun, e. i. and osman, h. 2012. modelling height-diameter relationships of selected economically important natural forests species. journal of forest products and industries 2 (1): 34–42. mehtatalo, l. 2012. forest biometrics functions package ‘lmfor’. retrieved from: http://joyx. joensuu.fi/~lamehtat/documents/lmfor.pdf. accessed on: 25th may 2012. meyer, h. a. 1940. a mathematical expression for height curves. journal of forestry 38: 415–420. khadka et al. effects of fertilizer application on fruiting-yield of jatropha curcas linn. k. r. aryal1*, a. k. das2, y. p. timilsina3 and s. k. baral1 sajiwan (jatropha curcas linn.) is one of the widely used plant species for bio-fuel production. it is a drought-resistant shrub or tree belonging to the family euphorbiaceae, which is cultivated in central, and south america, southeast asia, india and africa (martınezherrera et al., 2006). it can also grow out to the size of a tree as large as 12 m high (sirisomboona et al., 2007).the plant is believed to be a native of south america and africa but later distributed to other continents of the world by the portuguese settlers (gubitz et al., 1999). katwal and soni (2003) described that it is able to thrive in a number of climatic zones with rainfall ranging from 250 mm to 1200 mm. in nepal, it is found in all districts of terai, mid-hills, and low lying areas of mountains. the fruits of sajiwan are used to produce biofuel. it reaches its maximum productivity in five years, and can live up to 50 years (sirisomboona et al., 2007). it has been reported that the dry seed of sajiwan would yield about 30–38% of crude oil using an engine-driven expeller (forson et al., 2004). acceptable thermal efficiencies of the engine are obtained with blends containing up to 50 per cent volume of sajiwan oil (pramanik, 2003). multiple benefits of sajiwan plants are not only useful in saving environmental pollution but also supports for employment generation and entrepreneurship developments. some studies have been carried out on raising the fruiting-yield of sajiwan in the world. for example, pruning (beckford, 2008) and application of chemical fertilizers (yong et al., 2010; ghosh et al., 2011) can increase the fruitingyield while maintaining the same intrinsic seed-oil content, but in nepal, limited studies have been conducted on sajiwan, and they only deal with the socio-economic aspect of sajiwan plantation (eg. parajuli, 2010; ranabhat, 2009). meanwhile, nepalese farmers are suffering from the poor fruiting-yield of sajiwan. we still do not know the true factor that limits the fruiting-yield of sajiwan in nepal. in this context, we hypothesize that the fruiting-yield of sajiwan in nepal is limited due to the status of poor soil-nutrient contents. to test this hypothesis, this study was designed and different treatments (types of fertilizer) were applied in a site where the planting materials were from two different origins (i.e. seeds and branch cuttings). materials and methods study area the trial was conducted within eight-year-old plantation of sajiwan located at khairenitar village development committee (vdc) of tanahun district of nepal. the site covers 45 hectares of the land under which only 22 hectares was cultivated with sajiwan in 2003. the elevation of the site ranges from 501 m to 505 m above mean sea level, and exhibits subtropical type of climate. soil characteristics of the site three points were selected randomly from the entire plantation site. soil samples were collected from three different depths (0–10 cm, 10–20 cm and 20–30 cm) from the ground surface in each point. soil analysis was carried out at soil test centre (lab), pokhara. design of experiment and treatment application the experiment was designed as two blocks of different planting materials (seedlings and branch cuttings), with seven replications of 1 department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal 2 nepal foresters association, kathmandu, nepal 3 institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal * corresponding author: e-mail: kamalrajaryal2003@gmail.com 57 short note banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 58 10 m x 10 m plots with three different treatments (control, compost, and chemical fertilizers). the trial plot was established in april 2008. twenty kg of compost was applied to each plant in april for two years. a dose of chemical fertilizers consisting of 300 gm potassium (k2o), 350 gm urea, 250 gm phosphorus (p2o5, dap), 30 gm boron and 30 gm zinc was applied to each plant as a treatment of chemical fertilizers. insecticides were sprayed uniformly to all blocks before flowering and fruiting to protect from insect damage. data collection and analysis one row was selected randomly in each plot. counting of fruits was done in each plant on the selected rows in july 2010. two-way anova was used to test whether there was significant difference in the average fruiting yields between blocks (seedling and branch cutting) and among treatments (control, compost, chemical fertilizer) at 5% level of significance. multiple comparisons (lsd test) were done to find out the best treatment type. results and discussion soil features the soil in the research site was found to be very poor in nutrient contents, and was alkaline i.e. ph 7.81. nitrogen content in the top layer up to 10 cm was found to be high whereas potassium, boron and zinc were low (table 1). the constituents of the chemical nutrients in the soil were: 2.51% organic matter, 0.12% available nitrogen, 48.78 kg/ha available phosphorus (p2o5), 889.78 kg/ ha available calcium, 17.56 kg/ha available potassium (k2o), 0.46 ppm available boron, and 0.35 ppm available zinc. table 1: soil characteristics parameter soil depth: (0–10 cm) soil depth: (10–20 cm) soil depth: (> 30 cm) soil ph alkaline alkaline alkaline om (%) moderate low low n (%) high medium low phosphorus low low low potassium low low low calcium high high high boron low low low zinc low low low fruiting-yield on the basis of types of planting material fruiting yields of sajiwan varied according to the types of planting materials (seedlings and branch cuttings). the maximum number of fruits in the plants originated from the seedlings was found to be 312 whereas it was 357 in those originated from the branch cuttings (table 2). similarly, the mean number of fruits of the plants established using branch-cuttings was 46 fruits per tree whereas that of the plants established using seedlings was 28 per tree; the pooled average yield of fruits per plant being 36. the variation of the fruiting yields in the plants originated from branch cuttings was 1.6 times higher than that of the seedling-originated plants. this may be due to the fact that the plants propagated from stemcuttings established quickly and start producing fruits faster (heller, 1996; gosh and singh, 2010). the plants propagated from stem-cuttings are also more competitive for nutrients, because they have more lateral roots than those from the plants originated from seeds (heller, 1996). kochhar and kochar (2008) also observed that the plants propagated from stem-cuttings were able to grow faster and produce more fruits in the first year as compared to the ones propagated from seeds, which is in line with the findings of this study. prajapati and prajapati (2005) found that fruitingyield of sajiwan per tree ranged from 1.2 kg under rain-fed condition to 3.2 kg under irrigated condition. similarly, a study conducted in florida estimated as 25–42 pounds (11–19 kg) of seeds per shrub per year (beckford, 2008), but the yield of present study (0–0.85 kg; calculated from table 2 where 1 fruit = 3 seeds, and oven dry weight of a seed=0.79 gram which was obtained from the measurement of this study) was found to be too low as compared to the above mentioned studies. the reason could be due to the effect of less availability of water and nutrients (achten et al., 2010; laviola and dias, 2008; yong et al., 2010; abdrabbo et al., 2009), un-adapted provenances (heller, 1996; tewari et al., 2007) and other site factors viz. soil conditions, altitude, sunlight and temperature (ghosh et al., 2007; openshaw, 2000). fruiting-yield in the plants originated from seedlings the mean number of fruits of the plants yield in the control plot was 21. similarly, the mean number aryal et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 59 table 2: fruiting-yield on the basis of the types of planting material types of plants total no. of plants no. of fruits/plant min max average originated from seedlings 220 0 312 28 originated from branch-cuttings 172 0 357 46 of fruits with the application of compost and chemical fertilizer were 29 and 34 respectively (fig. 1). this indicates that the mean fruitingyield was increased by 38% with the application of compost and by 62% with the application of chemical fertilizers; however, statistically there was no significant difference in the mean fruiting-yield with the application of compost and chemical fertilizers (fig. 1). the duration of our study might not be enough to get significant difference in the annual fruit-production per tree grown from the seedlings as the seedlings take longer time to get mature (heller, 1996; gosh and singh, 2010) and also less competitive for nutrients (heller, 1996). fruiting-yield in the plants originated from branch cuttings the mean number of fruits of the plants developed from branch-cuttings in control, compost and chemical fertilizer used plots were 34, 43 and 65 respectively (fig. 1). this shows that the mean fruiting-yield was increased by 26% with the application of compost and by 91% with the application of chemical fertilizers. the statistical test showed the significant difference in mean yield. while performing the multiple comparisons (lsd), only the average fruitingyields of treatment pairs i.e. control and chemical fertilizer treatments differed significantly (fig.1). this may be due to the fact that chemical fertilizers are soluble and immediately available to the plants. therefore, the effect of chemical fertilizer is usually direct and fast. there is a surprising evidence that fruiting-yield of sajiwan can even be increased by 330% (3.3 fold) with the use of 6-benzyladenine (160 ml/lit) (bang and zeng, 2011). conclusion the research concludes that the fruiting-yield of sajiwan in the study area was very low, and varied with the mode of regeneration. fruitingyield in the plants originated from seedlings did not vary significantly even with the treatments they received, but it differed significantly with the application of chemical fertilizers in the plants established from branch-cuttings. this may be due to the fact that plants established from seedlings takes more time to get maturity than the plants established from branch cuttings. therefore, caution must be provided when the result is generalized. acknowledgements the authors are thankful to the community based natural forest and tree management in the himalayas (comform) project, iof, pokhara for providing financial support to conduct the study. local employees of khairenitar vdc of tanahun district deserve special thanks for their help during the research period. references abdrabbo, a., abou, k. and nahed, m. m. a. 2009. response of jatropha curcas l. to water deficits: yield, water uses efficiency and oilseed characteristics. biomass and bioenergy 33 (10): 1343–1350. fig. 1. fruiting-yield in the plants originated from seeds and branch cuttings with different treatments. errors bars correspond to 95% level of confidence intervals. the letter ‘a’ indicates significant differences (p<0.01) according to multiple comparison lsd test. aryal et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 1 60 achten, w. m. j., maes, w. h., reubens, b., mathijs, e., singh, v. p. and verchot, l. 2010. biomass production and allocation in jatropha curcas l. seedling under different levels of drought stress. biomass and bioenergy 34 (5): 667–676. bang, z. p. and zeng, f. x. 2011. benzyladenine treatment significantly increases the seed yield of the biofuel plant jatropha curcas. journal of plant growth regulation 30:166– 174. beckford, r. 2008. jatropha curcas from potential to kinetic energy. university of florida, usa. forson, f. k., oduro, e. k. and donkoh, e. h. 2004. performance of jatropha oil blends in a diesel engine. renewable energy 29 (7): 1135–1145. ghosh, a., chaudhary, d. r., reddy, m. p., rao, s. n., chikara, j. and pandya, j. b. 2007. prospects for jatropha methyl ester (biodiesel) in india. international journal of environmental studies 64 (6): 659–674. ghosh, a., chikara, j. and chaudhary, d. r. 2011. diminution of economic yield as affected by pruning and chemical manipulation of jatropha curcas l. biomass and bioenergy 35 (3): 1021–1029. gosh, l. and singh, l. 2010. study of factors influencing vegetative propagation of jatropha curcas. indian forester 136: 1637–1648. gubitz, g. m., mittelbach, m. and trabi, m. 1999. exploitation of the tropical oil seed plant jatropha curcas l. bioresource technology 67 (1): 73–82. heller, j. 1996. physic nut jatropha curcas l. promoting the conservation and use of underutilized and neglected crops. ph.d. thesis, institute of plant genetic and crop plant research, gatersleben, germany and international plant genetic resource institute, rome, italy. katwal, r. p. s. and soni, p. l. 2003. biofuels: an opportunity for socioeconomic development and cleaner environment. indian forester 129 (8): 939–949. kochhar, s., sing, s. p. and kochar, v. p. 2008. effect of auxins and associated biochemical changes during clonal propagation of the biofuel plant jatropha curcas. biomass and bioenergy 32 (12): 1136–1143. laviola, b. g. and dias, l. a. a. 2008. nutrients concentration in jatropha curcas l. leaves and fruits and estimated extraction at harvest. revista brasileira de ciencias do solo 32: 1969–1975. martinez-herrera, j., siddhuraju, p., francis, g., davila-ortız, g. and becker, k. 2006. chemical composition, toxic/antimetabolic constituents, and effects of different treatments on their levels, in four provenances of jatropha curcas l. from mexico. food chemistry 96 (1): 80–89. openshaw, k. 2000. a review of jatropha curcas: an oil plant of unfulfilled promise. biomass and bioenergy 19 (1): 1–15. parajuli, a. b. 2010. scope of managing jatropha curcas and its impacts on rural livelihood in vicinity of khairenitar vdc in tanahun district, nepal. b.sc. thesis, tribhuwan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. prajapati, n. d. and prajapati, t. 2005. a hand book of jatropha curcas linn. (physic nut). asian medical plant and health care trust, jodhpur, india. pramanik, k. 2003. properties and use of jatropha curcas oil and diesel fuel blends in compression ignition engine. renewable energy 28 (2): 239–248. ranabhat, r. 2009. potentiality of jatropha curcas cultivation in community forest in madanpokhara vdc in palpa district, nepal. b.sc. thesis, tribhuwan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. sirisomboona, p., kitchaiyab, p., pholphoa, t. and mahuttanyavanitcha, w. 2007. physical and mechanical properties of jatropha curcas l. fruits, nuts and kernels. biosystems engineering 97 (2): 201–207. tewari, j. p., dwivedi, h.d., pathak, m. and srivastasa, s.k. 2007. incidence of a mosaic disease in jatropha curcas lin. from eastern uttar pradesh. current science 93: 1048–1049. yong, j., ng, y., tan, s. and chew, a. 2010. effect of fertilizer application on photosynthesis and oil yield of jatropha curcas l. photosynthetica 48 (2): 208–218. aryal et al. ethnobotanical study in a village at rukum district, nepal l. r. bhatta1 the present study gives information on the indigenous use of various plants locally available at vijayashori village development committee (vdc) of rukum district. fortyfour species have been reported to be used for various purposes that include medicine, food, furniture making, agricultural implements, etc. keywords: ethnobotany, rukum district, nepal p lant have been utilised for various purposes in nepal since prehistoric times. majority of rural population depend on plants for fodder, construction, food, firewood and to cure ailments. the country has more than 800 species reported to be of medicinal value; about 100 for fodder; 70 for fibre and 450 species for food or as a food substitute by the country’s rural communities (manandhar 1995) . in developing country such as this, majority of population depend on traditional remedies. this is party due to poverty, and partly because the traditional systems are more culturally acceptable. however, not always plants used by the local community for a variety of purposes may suited them, but they are the one best available locally. it is therefore, compulsion, rather than choice become sometimes, the factor for a particular use (jain 1991). previous studies on ethnobotany have been carried out at different places of nepal. important among them are that of banerjii (1957), sacherer (1979), manandhar (1980, 1992, 1995, 1996), shrestha (1987), kaphle (1988), bhattarai (1989, 1993) etc. but, the same for the rukum district, especially that of vijayashori village development committee (vdc) was lacking. the present study is, therefore expected to fill this gap for the district. methods site rukum, a hilly district (area is 2877 sq. km) of mid western development region, is situated between 754 to 6072 m. vijayeshwari vdc lies at the southern most part of the district. most part of the vdc is occupied by a small valley of chaurjahari. population of the vdc is 6897 with 1248 households (sharma and vaidya 1997) and is inhabited by several ethnic/caste including brahmin, thakuri, kshetri, magar, kumal, kami, damai, sharki etc. rural economy is based on agriculture and animal husbandry. people depend upon forest resources for fuel, fodder, construction, furniture, fibre, medicine, basketry, etc. the vegetation consists of riverine forest which includes bombax malbericum, acacia catechu, syzygium cum ini, shorea robusta, mallotus philippensis etc. along with hill sal and pinus roxburghii forests. much of the forest has been degraded by forest fire which is accelerated at an alarming rate in recent years especially after the maoist activities in the district. the information on indigenous use of plants were gathered from local people especially from traditional healers, elderly people of households, women and other knowledgeable persons. in addition, group discussions, individual interviews were also carried out. for reliability, further crosschecking of data was also done. specimens were examined and identified with the help of available literature and was cross-checked at the national herbarium, godawari. herbarium of the cited species have been deposited at the department of botany, patan multiple campus, lalitpur. the plant species have been arranged in alphabetical order with botanical names followed by family and local names. results and discussions forty-four species were reported to be used by the local people for various purposes. eighteen of them are used as medicinal uses; twelve for fodder; ten for construction, furniture and making agricultural implements. leucaena leucocephala, grewia oppositaefolia and litsea monopetala were preferred for fodder. shorea robusta, toona ciliata, syzygium cunini, bassia butyracea and dendrocalamus hamiltonii are used for 1 department of botany, patan multiple campus, lalitpur banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 bhatta construction whereas dalbergia sissoo, mangifera making. engelhardtia spicata, mortis alba are used for indica, pinus roxburghii are used for furniture making agricultural implements (table 1). table 1: plants used for various purpose by the local residents s. no. species family local name use medicinal plants 1. acacia catechu leguminosae khayar red thick syrup from boiled wood used for 2. adhatoda vasica acantheceae ashuro body pain and skin diseases (externally), relaxed sore throat, loss of voice. dried leaves are smooked and eaten by the 3. aegle marmelos rutaceae bel patient of asthma. thich pulp is eaten for curing diarrhoea, 4. barberis asiatica barberidaceae chutro dystentery constipation and abdominal disorders. leaf for diabetes. root decoction is eaten during abdominal 5. bassia butyracea sapotaceae cheuri pain. seed oil is applied on skin to prevent 6. bauhinia varicgata leguminosae koiralo dryness during winter; oil is edible flowers are boiled and eaten in diarrhoea 7. bombax malabaricum bombacaceae simal and dysentery, bark used in skin diseases. leaf decoction used in cut, wound. 8. calotopis gigantea asclepiadaceae ank sap is used in case of bone sprain. 9. centella asiatica umbelliferae ghorta fresh leaves have marked stimulating and 10. mangifera indica anacardiaceae pre anap healing action and sarbat (cold drinks) for summer season. fruits edible; bark extract is used in 11. mentha spicata labiatae pudena haemorrhages. leaves stimulant, stomachic 12. myrica esculenta myricaceae kaphal fruits for diarrhoea and dysentery. bark 13. phyllathus emblica euphorbiaceae amala decoction used in bronchitis. thirst, cooling and refrigerant an astringent 14. punica granatum rosaceae darim medicine in diarrhoea, haemoptysis, laxative rind decoction with cloves used in 15. sapindus mukorossi sapindaceae rittho diarrhoea and dysentery. fruit pulp is used for hair tonic. 16. semecarpus anacardiaceae bhala fruit rind used in piles and skin diseases 17. anacardimn solanum solanaceae kande, fruit is used in headache, body pain, 18. xanthocarpum woodfordia fruiticosa lythraceae bhatkan de dhange teethache, root decoction used in abdominal pain. flower decoction used in fever. 19. zizyphus mauritiana rhamnaceae ri bayar bark juice used in diarrhoea. fodder plants 1. bassia butyracea sapotaceae cheuri tree 2. bauh in la variegata leguminosae koiralo > j 3. engelhardtia spicata juglandaceae mauwa ,, 4. f.semicordata khanyu 5. ficus auriculata moraceae nibaro >> 6. garuga pinnata ransin ,, 7. grewia oppositifolia tiliaceae bhimal 5 1 8. leucaena leucocephala leguminosae epil-epil 41 banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 bhatta 9. litsea monopetala lauraceae kothemouro > > 10. mai lotus philippensis euphorbiaceae ruino >> 11. syzygium cumini myrtaceae jamun >> 12. toona ciliata meliaceae tuni >> construction works, furniture and agricultural implements 1. bassia butyracea sapotaceae cheuri tree 2. dalbergia sissoo leguminosae sisso > > 3. dendrocalamus hamiltoni gramineae bans > 5 4. engelhardtia spicata juglandaceae mauwa >> 5. mangifera indica anacardiaceae amp )) 6. morus alba moraceae kimu 7. pinus roxburgii pinaceae sallo > j 8. shorea robusta dipterocarpaceae sal y y 9. syzygium cumini myrtaceae jamun y y 10. toona ciliata meliaceae tuni y y edible fruits 1. aegle marmelos rutaceae bel tree 2. bassia butyracea sapotaceae cheuri tree 3. bauhinia vahlii leguminosae malu climber 4. berberis asiatica berberidaceae chutro shurb 5. f. palmata moraceae bedu tree 6. f. semicordata moraceae khanyu tree 7. ficus auriculata moraceae nibao tree 8. grewia oppositifolia tiliaceae bhimal tree 9. morus alba moraceae kimu tree 10. myrica esculenta myricaceae kaphal tree 11. phyllanthus emblica euphorbiaceae amala tree 12. prunus persic a rosaceae aru tree 13. punica granatum rosaceae darim tree 14. rubus ellipticus rosaceae ainselu shrub 15. semecarpus anacardium anacardiaceae bhala tree 16. syzygium cumini myrtaceae jamun tree 17. zizyphus mauritiana rhamnaceae bayar shurb plants for miscellaneous uses 1. a brus precatorius leguminosae ratgedi climber 2. arundinaria falcata gramineae nigalo shrub 3. bauhinia vahlii leguminosae malu climber 4. colebrookea oppositifolia labiatae dhuesd shrub 5. f. religiosa moraceae pipal tree 6. ficus benghalensis moraceae bar tree 7. grevillea robusta proteaceae kangio sallo tree 8. thysanolaena maxima gramineae amriso shrub ^plants used for basketry, fibre yielding religious and cultural purposes, fish poisoning, ornamental etc. 42 banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 bhatta references banerjii, m. l. 1957. some edible and medicinal plants from east nepal. j. bomb. nat. hist., 53: 153-155. bhattarai, n. k. 1989. ethnobotanical studies in central nepal: the ceremonial plant foods. contribution to nepalese studies, 16(1): 3541. bhattarai, n. k. 1993. folk herbal medicines of dolkha district, nepal. fitoterapia, 64(5): 387-395. jain, s. k. 1991. dictionary of indian folk medicine and ethnobotany. deep publicaions, india. kafle, s. k. 1988. nepal ka kehi upyogi rukhharu {some useful trees of nepal). kafle publication, 186 p. (in nepali). manandhar, n. p. 1995. ethnobotanical notes on unexploited wild food plants of nepal. ethnobotany. 7(1-7) : 95-101. manandhar, n. p. 1980. some lesser-known medicinal plants of rasuwa districts (nepal) int. j. crude drug res., 18(3): 147-151. manandhar, n. p. 1992. folklore medicine of dhading district, nepal. fitoterapia, 63(2): 163-177. manandhar, n. p. 1996. ethnobotanical studies in nepal conservation of economically important plants by rural people. in, jain, s. k. (ed.), ethnobiology in human welfare. deep publications, india, pp.30-34. sacherer, j. 1979. the high altitude ethnobotany of the rolwaling sherpas. contribution to nepalese studies, 4(2): 45-64. sharma, h. and vaidya, s. 1997. nepal district profile. national research associates, 3rd edition, kathmandu. shrestha, k. 1987. report on edible wild plants from pokhara and its northern region. j. nat. hist. mus., 11(1-4): 85-98. 43 community forestry in nepal: a model of common property resource management k. p. acharya1 the management of common forest land as community forest in nepal is in practice since 1978. studies showing the linkages between community forestry and common property resource are scanty in the country. this article discusses characteristics of common property resources and the principles and practices of community forestry in nepal which is an example of common property resource management between government agencies and users (co-managers). forest user groups (fugs ) are the institutions responsible to manage the common property. keywords: community forestry, common property, use rights, fugs g ibbs and bromely (1989) defined property as the result of a secure claim to a resource or the services that resource provides. it is not an object rather it is a social relation that defines the property holder with respect to something of value (the benefit stream) against all others. property is as a social institution and not to any inherent natural or physical qualities of the resource (bromely 1992; mckean and ostrom 1995). four types of property are recognised namely private property, state property, common property, and nonproperty (bromely 1992; fenny et al. 1990; ciriancy-wantrup and bishop 1975). the essence of property is exclusion of non-owners. the primary difference among first three property regimes is the decision-making process whereby rules of access and use are set. with open access resources (non property), there is no owner and thus no rights of use or duties of maintenance. therefore, without defined ownership there can be no rights of exclusion, hence, any one may harvest the benefits of open access resources. berkes and farvar (1989) identified two important characteristics of common property as being exclusion and substractability. they have provided idealised types of property rights relevant to common property resource (cpr) as: 1. open-access: free for all; resource use rights are neither exclusive nor transferable; these rights are owned in common but are open access to every one (and therefore property to no one). 2. state property: ownership and management control is held by the nation, state or crown; public resources to which use rights and access rights have not been specified. 3. communal property: use-rights for the resources are controlled by an identifiable group and are not privately owned or managed by governments; there exist rules concerning who may use the resource, who is excluded from using the resource, and how the resource should be used; community based resource management system: common property. forest of nepal as cpr any management of natural resources needs the establishment of property rights (cox 1992). this is more important in the case of cpr because the management of commons without property rights may become “the tragedy of the commons”. according to karki et al (1994) use rights in most of the forests of nepal are ill-defined and are being managed as open access property regimes; a situation comparable to what flardin (1968) called 'the tragedy of the commons'. large scale deforestation in the past was largely due to everchanging and illdefined property rights, flawed government policies and a lack of proper management. realising this, community forestry (cf) aims to establish the property rights of users over the resources which were either in the state of open access or are managed by local people in the form of de facto property rights situation so that all users (owners) are made co-partners in terms of use-rights. in this connection, jackson and ingles (1995) have rightly defined this situation as 'community forestry refers to the situation where forests are controlled and managed as common property by groups of rural people who agree to use them to support their farms and households . the forestry legislation presently, the forest act (1993) and the forest regulations (1995) are governing the functioning of 1 assistant research officer, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal acharya cf in nepal. the act defines the main policies and the regulations at operational level. according to these act and regulations, the land managed under cf belongs to the state and the land use rights and forests are owned and managed by the users (hmg 1995a). important characteristics of formal cf legislation are: • land ownership remains with the state, but the land use rights along with the forest resources except wildlife products, soils, sands, etc. belong to fugs. • each member of the fug is a co-owner and has equal rights over the resources, and 'outsiders' are denied access. • fugs will not be affected by political boundaries • state acts as a facilitator by providing technical supports and advise to users. field planning process the cf field planning process starts formally with the identification of co-owners of the resource through a procedure similar to participatory rural appraisal (pra). the community is then organised as a fug and the district forest office (dfo) issues a certificate of recognition to the fug. through the series of meetings and discussions among the users the followings arrangements are made by consensus of the users: • identification of users and recognition of mutual userights • preparation of a constitution describing the conditions for collective action • formulation of operational rules describing the terms and conditions for managing resources (an operational plan) having done the above procedures, the forest is then formally handed over to the fug. review and revision of the op could be done as and when needed (hmg 1995 b). the existing policy and practice are directed to the hand-over of national forests to identified users. present legal documents recognise local peoples’ rights and responsibilities over the resource formally. use rights and land ownership of the forest is allocated to the local people and support/advice is provided to them in order to protect, manage and use their forests (tiwari 1996). this is how the community forest becomes, in a real sense, a common property. these are resources with an identifiable user group; they have finite, subtractive benefits and are potentially subjected to degradation when used beyond sustainable yield limits. furthermore, community forests are rarely effectively divisible. moreover, _______________ banko janakari, vol. 9. no. 2 effective collective actions are shown by users when they realise that the forest resource is their "own" property. emergence of common property resource institutions the emergence of forestry for rural development in the 1970's challenged the timber-bias profit-oriented industrial forestry and stressed the importance of the participation of the rural people in forestry and the formation of a social organisation capable of sustainable forest management (wiersum 1989). these social organisations are the non-government local institutions known as common property resource institutions (cpris). ostrom (1992) defined an institution as “the set of rules actually used (the working rules or rules in use) by a set of individuals to organise repetitive activities that produce outcomes affecting those individuals and potentially affecting others" it was further noted that the development literature defines institutions in three ways (ostrom 1992); • as a specific organisation in a particular country, • as established human relationships in a society, and • as roles that individuals use to order specific relationships with one another. such institutions are capable of functioning independently as a viable alternative to government organisations for the management of forest resource in varoius circumstances, (e. g. self-emerging indigenous forest management systems; fisher 1990, externally-sponsored groups such as fugs formed under cf in nepal; e. g. hobley 1996; karki et al 1994). fugs as common property resource institutions forests in the hills of nepal provide many goods and services to the livlihoods of rural people. forests, being renewable natural resources should be regarded as capable of sustaining people and being sustained. flowever, the potential depends on many factors including institutional arrangements and the technical environment. who controls and how the techniques are applied refers to the institutional arrangements. tools and knowledge explaining the use of resources refers to the technical environment. for efficient and sustainable functioning of cpr both institutions and technology must complement each other. in the absence of effective institutions resources are degraded and destroyed (gibbs and bromely 1992). 37 banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 acharya search for appropriate institutions in community forestry earlier, the local political unit (the panchayat) was assigned as the institution for forest management. since it was politcally oriented, was unable to represent the real users. furthermore, only a limited area could be handed over to such committees. studies have shown that political units like panchayats were unable to enforce any regulations about cprs, rather they played decisive roles in converting cprs into open access (jodha 1989; bromley and cernea 1989). initially, the panchayat was considered to be an appropriate organisational unit however, it was found that forests were controlled at a lower operating level than the panchayat. the panchayat being a bigger, social and political unit consensus could not be reached regarding management of the forest and distribution of benefits. fugs at sub-village level with unrestricted administrative boundaries are now recognised as the optimum functional institutions for implementing cf (hobley 1996). the cf policy along with cf legislation has been continuously reformed over time. fugs emerged as an alternative type of group which is more cohesive and purposeful than the panchayat. the present policy and legislation recognise fugs as the appropriate local level institutions to establish the partnership with the state. fugs are empowered through legislation and are responsible for forest management. fugs are institutions at the grass roots level and are viewed as the main mechanisms through which all cf activities will be conducted. the possibility of law enforcement and mutual control is higher in smaller groups like fugs which helps reduce the potential problem of free-riders in cpr management (karki et al 1994). decision making arrangements in the present system, control of forest rests with fugs. the assembly of a fug is supreme in making all decisions. assemblies prepare constitution and op, define and recognise use rights, decide all kinds of rules, and make forest management decisions including protection, harvesting, benefit sharing, and mobilisation of fug funds for community development works. the assembly elects a fuc for the execution of fugs decisions and to conduct day to day work. however, development of an appropriate mechanism to aviod dominance of rural elite and active participation of women and disadvantage group will only in real sense can empower local people in the decision making process. conclusion the importance of the transfer of property rights from state to forest users was realised after large scale deforestation in the past. this compelled the government to reallocate use rights to forest user groups. initial policy and legislation have gone under several changes since it was officially adopted in 1978. the formal establishment of a fug with identified forest area provides the base for institutional development. this partnership accepts mutually recognised use-rights among the users, though land ownership remaining with the state. each member of the fug has equal rights over the resources and making all kinds of decisions. in future, it is expected that cf can demonstrate an excellent example of co-management of common property resource in the forestry sector. however, for it’s successful functioning, benefit sharing mechanism must involve rural poor and women. moreover, sustainable management of forest of nepal can be assured only when community forestry management activities meet the criteria and indicators for the sustainable management of forests. references berkes, f. and farvar, t. 1989. introduction and overview. in berkes, f. (ed) common property resources: ecology and community based sustainable development. belhaven press, london bromley, d. (ed) 1992. making the commons work: theory, practice and policy. ics press, san francisco. bromley, d. w. and cernea, m. m. 1989. the management of common property natural resources: some common conceptual and operational fallacies. world bank discussion paper no. 57, the world bank, washington dc. ciriacy-wantrup, s. v. and bishop, r. c. 1975. common property as a concept in natural resource policy. natural resources journal 5(4):713-727. cox, susan, j. b. 1989. multi-jurisdictal resources: multitesting a typology for problem structuring. in berkes, f. (ed.) common property resources: ecology and community based sustainable development. belhaven press, london. 38 acharya fenny, d., berkes, f., mccay, b. j. and acheson, j. m. 1990. the tragedy of the commons: twenty-two years later. human ecology, 18(1): 1-9. fisher, r. j. 1991. studying indigenous forest management systems in nepal: towards a more systematic response. environment and policy institute, working paper no. 30. eastwest centre, honolulu. gibbs, c. and bromley, d. w. 1989. institutional arrangements for management of rural resources: common property regimes. in berkes, f. (ed) common property resources: ecology and community based sustainable development. belhaven press, london hardin, g. 1968. the tragedy of the commons. science, 162:1243-1248. fimg 1995 a. forest act 2049 (1993) and forest regulations, 2051 (1995), (official translation). ministry of forests and soil conservation, forestry development projects, kathmandu. hmg 1995 b. operational guidelines of the community forestry programme. cpfd/hmg/fdp/usaid, kathmandu. hobley, m. 1996. participatory forestry: the process of change in india and nepal. rural development forestry study guide 3. odi, london jackson, w. j. and ingles, a. w. 1995. developing rural communities and conserving the biodiversity of nepal’s forests through banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 community forestry. in proceedings of a seminar on community development and conservation of forest biodiversity through community forestry, october 26-28, 1994. recoftc report no. 12, bangkok. jodha, n. s. 1989. common property resources: a missing dimension of development strategies. world bank discussion series no. 169. the world bank, washington dc. karki, m., karki, j. b. s. and karki, n. 1994. sustainable management of common forest resources: an evaluation of selected forest user groups in western nepal. icimod, kathmandu. mckean, m. and ostrom, e. 1995. common property regimes in the forest: just a relic from the past? unasylva, 180(46):3-15. ostrom, e., gardner, r. and walker, j. (eds) 1994. rules, games and common-pool resources. the university of michig press. •an ostrom, e. 1992. crafting institutions for selfgoverning irrigation systems. ics press, san francisco. tiwari, s. 1996. community forestry in nepal: a property rights approach. m. sc. dissertation. university of edinburgh. wiersum, k. f. 1989. forestry and development: an overview. netherlands review of development studies, 2:7-16. 39 microbial inoculants (mi), a biofertilizer, composed of many different beneficial microorganisms has positive role on seed germination and growth of plants. in the present study, its efficacy on seed germination and seedling growth of albizia lebbeck in the nursery was studied. the seeds were sown in polybags filled with a mixture of forest soil and cow dung (3:1) and treated with 0.1%, 0.5%, 1%, 2%, 5% and 10% concentrations of mi. most of the parameters studied (seed germination, shoot and root lengths, dry weights of shoot and root, collar diameter, leaf number etc) were found maximum in 2% of mi . although the highest vigor index, volume index and quality index (7053, 3738 and 1.106, respectively) were found in 2% mi, but the highest sturdiness (65.95) was found in 1% mi solution. the nodule number was higher at a very low (0.5%) concentration of mi but it normally decreased with the increase of concentration. total pigment content in leaf was recorded highest (112.86 mg.l-1) in 2% of mi. therefore, mi influences seed germination and seedling growth of a. lebbeck and the low concentration (2%) of the inoculant can be recommended for getting maximum seed germination and seedling growth of the species studied. k e y w or d s : albizia lebbeck, germination, microbial inoculant, seedling growth microbial inoculant influences the germination and growth of albizia lebbeck seedlings in the nursery b. m. khan1*, m. a. kabir2, m. k. hossain1 and m. a. u. mridha3 albizia lebbeck (l.) benth [kalo sirish in nepali, kala koroi in bengali], is a moderate to large deciduous tree with a straight bole and broad crown under the family leguminosae (mimosoideae). the species is widely spread in the world, and is native to asia, africa and northern australia. it grows naturally in nepal, bangladesh, myanmar and pakistan and has been cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions in northern africa, the west indies, south america, and south asia. extensive plantations had been established in nepal and in south india (luna, 1996; kumar et al., 2010; elzaki et al., 2012; missanjo et al., 2013). the wood is excellent for furniture and timber for general uses, post, piles, fuel wood and charcoal. the tree is used as ornamental and nurse tree for tea gardens, coffee and cocoa orchards (mishara et al., 2010; missanjo et al., 2013; shaikh et al., 2014). it is a soil improver because of its inherent ability to fix nitrogen (qadri and mahmood, 2005). the leaves are excellent fodder for livestock. the species is also very useful for the rehabilitation of degraded lands because of its rapid growth, ability to fix nitrogen and tolerance for a range of soil conditions (luna, 1996; qadri and mahmood, 2005; mishara et al., 2010; bobby et al., 2012; shaikh et al., 2014). the plant has already been proven successful for afforestation, reforestation, social forestry and agroforestry programs in bangladesh (zabala, 1990; dey, 2006). to fulfill the high demand, many organizations are producing a. lebbeck seedlings in the nursery in bangladesh to supply those in the plantation programs. because the plants are grown mostly in unfavorable soil conditions, beneficial soil microorganisms can play a significant role in early establishment and better growth of the inoculated seedlings under field conditions. the microbial inoculant (mi) in this study, with the commercial name “effective microorganisms” or em was developed at the university of ryukyus, okinawa, japan, in the early 1980s by a distinguished professor of horticulture, dr. teruo higa (kyan et al., 1999). the main species comprising mi are lactic acid bacteria ( rhodopseudomonas spp.), photosynthetic bacteria (lactobacillus spp., streptococcus 1 institute of forestry and environmental sciences, university of chittagong, chittagong-4331, bangladesh. *e-mail: bmkhan2004@yahoo.com 2 department of agroforestry, patuakhali science and technology university, patuakhali-8602, bangladesh. 3 plant production department, king saud university, kingdom of saudi arabia. 82 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 83 spp.), yeast (saccharomyces spp., candida spp.), actinomycetes (streptomyces spp.) and beneficial fungi (aspergillus spp., penicillium spp.). the microorganisms are added into the inoculant in the manufacturing process and can survive in the inoculant liquid at ph 3.5 or below. the density of most of the above mentioned microbes is in the range of 1 × 106 to 1 × 108 ml-1 (xu, 2000). mi can be applied as inoculant to increase the microbial diversity of soils. it has been used with considerable success to improve soil quality and yield of crops, particularly in nature farming and organic farming systems (xu, 2000). inoculation of mi culture can improve photosynthesis and fruit yield (xu, 2000; wang et al., 2000). although a. lebbeck is used for wide range of purposes and even planted intensively in the field, the initial growth potential under the influences of mi was not studied. therefore, the aim of this study was to observe the effectiveness of mi on germination of seed and the growth of seedlings of a. lebbeck and also to find out the best concentration of mi solution for ensuring maximum seedling development in the nursery. materials and methods collection of seeds and soils the experiment was carried out in the nursery of the institute of forestry and environmental sciences; university of chittagong, bangladesh (lies approximately at the intersection of 91o50´e and 22o30´n) (fig. 1). the seeds of a. lebbeck were collected from the seed orchard division of bangladesh forest research institute (bfri) where the source of seed was a mother tree of 25 years old. the soils collected from the degraded hills of the university campus was sieved well (<3 mm) and mixed thoroughly with decomposed cow dung in a ratio of 3:1. the brown hill soils (rashid, 1991), are sandy loam to sandy clay loam, moderately to strongly acid and poorly fertile with ph <5.5, organic matter <2.0%, cec <10 me/100 g, bsp <40% (osman et al., 2001). the white polybags of 15 cm x 10 cm in size were filled with the prepared mixture and a thin layer of coconut husk was added to each bag as top layer to reduce evaporation and to supply organic matter. fig. 1: map showing the location of the nursery of ifescu (institute of forestry and environmental sciences, university of chittagong) in bangladesh where the experiment was conducted. treatment design the experiment was conducted in 03 march to 02 august 2015. there were seven treatments including control and 25 replications for each treatment. seeds were sown in polybags (filled with soil and cow dung) with no added mi but water only for control treatment. other treatments included; sowing the seeds in polybags with the concentrations of 0.1%, 0.5%, 1%, 2%, 5% and 10% of mi, respectively. for preparing 0.1% of mi solution, 0.1 ml stock solution of mi was added with 99.9 ml of water while for preparing 0.5% of mi solution, 0.5 ml stock solution of mi was added with 99.5 ml of water and the same formula was used for preparing the other solutions. for each treatment, 50 ml of mi of required concentration was poured in each polybag (filled with soil and cow dung) before a week of sowing the seeds while another 50 ml was poured after a week of sowing the seeds. five seeds were sown in each polybag to observe the influence of mi on germination in the nursery conditions (temperature, 28oc; humidity, 75%). after completion of germination, only one seedling (the best one) per polybag was managed to observe growth performance and nodulation status of the seedlings. partial shade and cover was ensured using polythene sheet on the nursery roof to protect the seedlings from strong sunlight and rains. khan et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 84 khan et al. growth measurement germination was recorded daily from the date of seed sowing to the last of germination. the seedlings were allowed to grow altogether for five months from the time of seed sowing. after five months, five representative seedlings from each treatment were selected for measuring growth parameters. the recorded parameters were shoot and root lengths, collar diameter, leaf number, fresh shoot and root weights, dry shoot and root weights, and nodulation status. for recording dry weights, shoots and roots were oven dried at 80oc for 48 hr. to assess the seedling vigor, total height (from the soil surface to seedling tip) of each seedling in each sub-plot was measured using a ruler to the nearest 0.1 cm. vigor index was calculated according to abdulbaki and anderson (1973) as germination percent x seedling total length i.e. total shoot and root length. volume index was obtained by multiplying shoot height or shoot length (cm) with the square of collar diameter (mm)2 of the seedling. quality index was developed following dickson et al. (1960) to quantify seedlings morphological quality. the formula for calculating quality index is as follow: h s dw qi = t dw / ( + ) d c r dw where, qi is quality index, t dw is total dry weight (g), h is seedling height or shoot length (cm), d c is collar diameter (mm), s dw is shoot dry weight (g), r dw is root dry weight (g). sturdiness was obtained by dividing shoot height or shoot length (cm) with collar diameter (cm) of the seedling. measurement of pigment contents the pigment contents (chlorophyll-a, chlorophyll-b, and carotenoid) were determined from the fresh leaves of seedlings in different treatments (wettstein, 1957; khan, 2012). ten leaf discs were cut with a cork borer (inside diameter of 5 mm), weighed immediately after cutting, and dipped in 100% acetone in 5 ml in test tube with stopper. after 24 hr of incubation, the supernatant-colored solution from the top was decanted carefully into a 25 ml volumetric flask. the leaf discs were then crushed with a blunt glass rod gently and 5 ml fresh acetone was added to the test tube and left for 15 min. then the supernatant-colored solution from the top was again decanted to the same volumetric flask very carefully, avoiding the fragmented plant tissues. the process was repeated until the leaf fragments became colorless. finally, the volume was made up to 25 ml with fresh acetone and the measurement was taken immediately after preparation of the solution. the measurement of chlorophyll-a, chlorophyll-b, and carotenoid were made at 662 nm, 644 nm, and 440.5 nm respectively, with a spectrophotometer (spectronic-20). the pigment contents in the extract were calculated following the formula of wettstein (1957). ca = (9.784e662 – 0.99e644) x v x d (1) 1000 fw cb = (21.426e644 – 4.650e662) x v x d (2) 1000 fw cc = [4.695e440.5 – 0.268(ca+cbe662)] x v x d (3) 1000 fw where, ca is the chlorophyll-a (mg.l-1); cb the chlorophyll-b (mg.l-1); cc the carotenoid (mg.l-1); v the total volume (25 ml); d the dilution factor; fw the fresh weight of leaf disc (g); and e is the absorbance at a particular wavelength (440.5, 644 and 662 nm). statistical analysis all data were analyzed statistically using computer software spss (version 20, spss incorporation, chicago, usa). possible significant variations among the treatments were explored by duncan’s multiple range test (dmrt). prior to statistical analysis, the normality of each data set was tested using an anderson-darling test, in case a transformation was necessary. log base 10 transformation was done where required. means were separated by ms excel (ms office 2010). results and discussion germination and seedling growth the highest (77%) seed germination was recorded in 2% of mi, while the lowest (61%) was recorded in control treatment (without inoculation). shoot (54.0 cm) and root (37.6 cm) lengths were also highest in 2% of mi (table 1). with the application of 2% of mi, shoot length increment was 33% compared to control (fig. 2). collar diameter was maximum (8.32 mm) in 2% of mi and was significantly (p=0.015) different banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 85 from the control. seedlings treated with mi had more leaf compared to the control (table 1). fig. 2: influence of microbial inoculant on shoot length increased to decreased (%) with respect to control in albizia lebbeck. cont. = control. both fresh (21.4 g) and dry (6.95 g) shoot weights were maximum in 2% of mi. both fresh and dry root weights were also maximum (9.1 g and 3.01 g, respectively) in 2% of mi and were significantly ( p<0.001 and p=0.026, respectively) varied from control (table 2). though maximum vigor index, volume index and quality index (7053, 3738 and 1.106, respectively) were found in 2% of mi (table 2 and fig. 3), the maximum sturdiness (65.95) was found in 1% of mi treatment (fig. 4). the total dry biomass increased gradually with the increase of the concentrations of mi up to 2% while decreased gradually from its maximum point as the concentrations of mi increased above 2%. increased biomass production might be due to the better root development in the treated seedlings (khan et al., 2011, 2014). such promotion might also be due to the biological active substances in the inoculant (lim et al., 1999), such as indole acetic acid (iaa) and gibberellins produced by lactobacillus spp., rhodopseudomonas spp., aspergillus spp. and saccharomyces spp. which enhance plant growth (chowdhury et al., 1994). however, germination rate was below 80% which was probably due to the quality of seeds as well khan et al. table 1: influence of microbial inoculant on germination, shoot and root lengths, collar diameter and leaf number of albizia lebbeck in the nursery concentration of mi (%) germination (%) length (cm) collar dia. (mm) number of leafshoot root total control 61c 40.6b 27.8b 68.4b 6.41b 16.8b 0.1 65b 45.3ab 31.2ab 76.5ab 6.95b 17.6b 0.5 72a 48.4a 33.5a 81.9a 7.42a 18.0a 1 74a 52.3a 35.7a 88.0a 7.93a 19.6a 2 77a 54.0a 37.6a 91.6a 8.32a 20.2a 5 68b 47.1ab 32.3ab 79.4ab 7.47a 18.4a 10 65b 42.9b 29.4b 72.3b 6.94b 17.2b p value <0.001 0.002 <0.001 <0.001 0.015 0.006 f value 137.18 16.37 74.82 104.51 6.35 9.21 note: a-c = mean values with different lowercase superscripts in a column are significantly different at p<0.05, according to duncan’s multiple range test (dmrt). table 2: influence of microbial inoculant on fresh and dry weights of shoot and root, vigor index and volume index of albizia lebbeck concentration of mi (%) fresh weight (g) dry weight (g) total dry biomass increment (%) index shoot root total shoot root total vigor volume control 14.9b 5.9b 20.8b 4.48b 1.89c 6.37b 00.00 4172c 1668c 0.1 15.7b 6.7b 22.4b 4.72b 2.25b 6.97b +9.42 4973b 2188b 0.5 16.5b 7.3a 23.8ab 4.65b 2.37b 7.02b +10.20 5897a 2665a 1 19.3a 8.0a 27.3a 5.88a 2.58a 8.46a +32.81 6512a 3289a 2 21.4a 9.1a 30.5a 6.59a 3.01a 9.60a +50.71 7053a 3738a 5 20.7a 8.8a 29.5a 6.29a 2.92a 9.21a +44.58 5399b 2628a 10 17.6b 7.8a 25.4ab 5.16a 2.57a 7.73a +21.35 4700b 2066b p value <0.001 <0.001 <0.001 0.017 0.026 0.021 -<0.001 <0.001 f value 146.12 114.09 127.65 6.19 4.83 5.27 -57.65 88.34 a-c = mean values with different lowercase superscripts in a column are significantly different at p<0.05, according to duncan’s multiple range test (dmrt). banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 86 khan et al. as the environmental factors regulating seed germination. fig. 3: influence of microbial inoculant on quality index of albizia lebbeck. cont. = control. fig. 4: influence of microbial inoculant on sturdiness of albizia lebbeck. cont. = control. microbial inoculants are being applied in japan, china, thailand, united states, france, brazil and many other countries of the world. application of mi can play a role in enhancing germination, growth, and yield of various agricultural crops and vegetables (vongprachanch, 1995; zacharia, 1995; iwaishi, 2000; chowdhury et al., 2002). mi with organic fertilizer and other chemicals is also reported to enhance germination, growth, and yield of different grains (ahmed et al., 1995; anuar et al., 1995; xu, 2000). but the influence of mi on forest crops has not been studied widely (khan et al., 2006, 2011). from this study, it has been observed that soil amended with different concentrations of mi can also improve the seedling growth of forest crops. mridha (2005), khan (2012) and khan et al. (2011, 2014) also reported enhanced seed germination rate and seedling growth with the application of low concentrations of mi. specially, applying 2% of mi enhanced seed germination and seedling growth at an optimum level which might be due to the presence of microbial population in such a density within this concentration which was cable to produce optimum level of growth enhancing hormones and other chemicals. however, as the concentration of mi increased, seed germination and seedling growth was depressed, which may be due to the perniciousness exerted by the higher concentrations of the inoculant (mridha, 2005; khan et al., 2014). nodulation status although most of the parameters were highest in 2% of mi, the highest (134) nodule number was in 0.5% of mi while the lowest (95) was in 10% of mi (table 3). both fresh and dry nodule weights were maximum (2.07 g and 0.67 g, table 3: influence of microbial inoculant on nodule number and their fresh and dry weights of albizia lebbeck concentration of mi (%) nodule number weight (g) weight increased or decreased (%) fresh dry fresh dry control 127a 1.77a 0.56ab 0.00 0.00 0.1 131a 2.01a 0.65a +13.56 +16.07 0.5 134a 2.07a 0.67a +16.95 +19.64 1 121a 1.89a 0.61a +6.78 +8.93 2 116b 1.75a 0.54ab -1.13 -3.57 5 104b 1.57b 0.51ab -11.30 -8.93 10 95c 1.42b 0.44b -19.77 -21.43 p value <0.001 0.013 0.019 --f value 51.42 6.68 5.3 --a-c = mean values with different lowercase superscripts in a column are significantly different at p<0.05, according to duncan’s multiple range test (dmrt) banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 87 respectively) at 0.5% of mi and lowest (1.42 g and 0.44 g, respectively) were in 10% of mi. the rate of nodule increment was positive in case of 0.1% and 0.5% of mi, while negative for all other treatments compared to control (fig. 5). the nodule dry weight increment rate was positive for 0.1%, 0.5%, and 1% of mi while negative for all other treatments, with respect to control (table 3). the number of nodule in soybean root was also not changed significantly due to application of low concentrations of mi (thach et al., 1999) while decreased in higher concentrations in dalbergia sissoo and acacia auriculiformis (khan et al., 2011, 2014). the higher concentrations of mi solution in the substratum may affect the growth of plants because of toxic effect of secretion of toxic metabolites. fig. 5: influence of microbial inoculant on nodule number increased to decreased (%) with respect to control in albizia lebbeck. cont. = control. content of leaf pigments effects of mi on the content of leaf pigments (chlorophyll-a, chlorophyll-b, and carotenoid) were also determined (table 4). chlorophyll-a was highest (56.12 mg.l-1), in 2% of mi and lowest (37.39 mg.l-1) in the control treatment. chlorophyll-b was highest (15.67 mg.l-1) in 2% of mi, followed by 14.98 mg.l-1 in 5% and 13.59 mg.l-1 in 1% of mi, and was significantly ( p<0.001) varied from control. carotenoid was maximum (41.07 mg.l-1) in 2% of mi. total pigment was recorded highest (112.86 mg.l-1) in 2% of mi and was significantly (p<0.001) different from control. the results are in agreement with the findings of xu (2000), wang et al. (2000), mridha et al. (2002), khan et al. (2006, 2011) and khan (2012) that low concentrations of mi with organic fertilizer promote root growth and enhance photosynthetic efficiency and yield of seedling. conclusion microbial inoculant influences seed germination and seedling growth of a. lebbeck and the low concentration (2%) of the inoculant can be recommended for getting maximum seed germination and seedling growth of the species in the nursery conditions that may also be effective for seedling development in the field. references abdul-baki, a. and anderson, j. d. 1973. vigor determination in soybean seed by multiple criteria. crop science 13: 630–633. ahmed, r., hussain, t., jilani, g., shahid, s. a., akhtar, s. n. and abbas, m. a. 1995. use khan et al. table 4: influence of microbial inoculant on pigment contents in fresh leaves of albizia lebbeck concentration of mi (%) pigments concentration of leaf (mg.l-1) total pigment increment (%)chlorophyll-a chlorophyll-b carotenoid total control 37.39c 10.34b 28.41c 76.14c 0 0.1 41.51b 11.75ab 32.97b 86.23b +13.25 0.5 43.34b 12.06ab 34.02b 89.42b +17.44 1 50.02a 13.59a 37.18a 100.79a +32.37 2 56.12a 15.67a 41.07a 112.86a +48.23 5 54.17a 14.98a 40.84a 109.99a +44.46 10 47.49b 12.32ab 31.49b 91.30b +19.91 p value <0.001 <0.001 <0.001 <0.001 -f value 38.26 49.58 91.63 61.47 -a-c = mean values with different lowercase superscripts in a column are significantly different at p<0.05, according to duncan’s multiple range test (dmrt) banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 88 of effective microorganisms for sustainable crop production in pakistan. in effective microorganisms (em) (eds) sharifuddin, h. a. h., anuar, a. r. and shahbudin, m. f. proceedings of the 2nd international conference on effective microorganisms (em). kyusei nature farming center, saraburi, thailand, 15–27. anuar, a. r., sharifuddin, h. a. h., shahbudin, m. f. and zaharah, a. r. 1995. effectiveness of effective microorganisms (em) on maize grown on sandy tin tailings. in effective microorganisms (em) (eds) sharifuddin, h. a. h., anuar a. r. and shahbudin, m. f. proceedings of the 2nd international conference on effective microorganisms (em). kyusei nature farming center, saraburi, thailand, 42–54. bobby, n., wesely, e. g. and johnson, m. 2012. hptlc profile studies on the alkaloids of albizia lebbeck. asian pacific journal of tropical biomedicine 1–3:1–6. chowdhury, a. r, hussain, m. m., mia, m. s., karim, a. m. m. s., haider, j., bhuyan n. i. and shifuddin, k. 1994. effect of organic amendments and em on crop production in bangladesh. in kyusei nature farming (eds) parr, j. f., hornick s. b. and simpson, m. e. proceedings of the 2nd international conference on kyusei nature farming, piracicaba, brazil, 155–163. chowdhury, m. h. u, mridha, m. a. u., khan, b. m. and xu, h. l. 2002. effects of effective microorganisms on seed germination and seedling growth of oryza sativa l. nature farming and environment 3 (1): 23–30. dey, t. k. 2006. useful plants of bangladesh. the ad. communication, anderkilla, chittagong, bangladesh. dickson, a., leaf, a. l. and hosner, j. f. 1960. quality appraisal of white spruce and white pine seedling stock in nurseries. forestry chronicle 36: 10–13. elzaki, o. t., khider, t. o., omer, s. h. and shomeina, s. k. 2012. environment friendly alkaline pulping of albizia lebbeck from sudan. nature and science 10 (4): 76–82. iwaishi, s. 2000. effect of organic fertilizer and effective microorganisms on growth, yield and quality of paddy-rice varieties. journal of crop production 3 (1): 269–273. khan, b. m., hossain, m. k. and mridha, m. a. u. 2014. improving acacia auriculiformis seedlings using microbial inoculant (beneficial microorganisms). journal of forestry research 25 (2): 359–364. khan, b. m., hossain, m. k. and mridha, m. a. u. 2006. effect of microbial inoculants on albizia saman germination and seedling growth. journal of forestry research 17 (2): 99–102. khan, b. m., hossain, m. k. and mridha, m. a. u. 2011. nursery practice on seed germination and seedling growth of dalbergia sissoo using beneficial microbial inoculants. journal of forestry research 22 (2): 189–192. khan, b. m. 2012. environmental biology: growth improvement of forest seedlings using beneficial microbial inoculant (effective microorganisms). lap lambert academic publishing, germany. 160 pp. kumar, s., bansal, p., gupta, v., sannd, r. and rao, m. 2010. the clinical effect of albizia lebbeck stem bark decoction on bronchial asthma. international journal of pharmaceutical sciences and drug research 2 (1): 48–50. kyan, t., shintani, m., kanda, s., sakuria, m., ohashi, h., fujisawa, a. and pongdit, s. 1999. kyusei farming and the technology of effective microorganisms. international nature farming, bangkok, thailand and research center, atami, japan and asia pacific natural agriculture network. lim, t. d., pak, t. w. and jong, c. b. 1999. yields of rice and maize as affected by effective microorganisms. in kyusei nature farming and effective microorganisms (eds) senanayake, y. d. a. and sangakkara, u. r. proceedings of the 5th international conference on kyusei nature farming and effective microorganisms for agricultural and environmental sustainability. bangkok, thailand, 92–98. luna, r. k. 1996. plantation trees. international book distributors. dehra dun, india. mishara, s. s., gothecha, v. k. and sharma, a. 2010. albizia lebbeck: a short review. khan et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 89 journal of herbal medicine and toxicology 4 (2): 9–15. missanjo, e., maya, c., kapira, d., banda, h. and kamanga-thole, g. 2013. effect of seed size and pretreatment methods on germination of albizia lebbeck. isrn botany 1: 1–4. mridha, m. a. u, khan, b. m., hossain, m. k., tasnim, h. and rahman, m. f. 2002. effective microorganisms (em) for neem tree. apanews 20: 5–6. mridha, m. a. u. 2005. growth improvement of seedlings of a tropical forest species, khair (acacia catechu willd.) using beneficial microbial inoculant (effective microorganisms). saudi journal of biological sciences 12 (1): 67–73. osman, k. t., rahman, m. m. and barua, p. 2001. effects of some forest tree species on soil properties in chittagong university campus, bangladesh. indian forester 127 (4): 431– 442. qadri, r. and mahmood, a. 2005. ultrastructural studies on root nodules of albizia lebbeck (l.). pakistan journal of botany 37 (4): 815– 821. rashid h. 1991. geography of bangladesh. university press ltd. dhaka, bangladesh. shaikh, f. k., gadge, p. p., shinde, a. a., padul, m. v. and kachole, m. s. 2014. characterization of the a1t113 protein from indian siris ( albizia lebbeck) that inhibits the growth of cotton bollworm (helicoverpa armigera). journal of asia-pacific entomology 17 (3): 319–325. thach, n. q., long, c. a., liet, v. v., trung, n. v., thanh, n. x., dich, t. v., duong, n., tuna, n. k., xuan l. t. h. and dan, p. v. 1999. preliminary results of effective microorganisms (em) application in vietnam. in kyusei nature farming and effective microorganisms (eds) senanayake, y. d. a. and sangakkara, u. r. proceedings of the 5th international conference on kyusei nature farming and effective microorganisms for agricultural and environmental sustainability. bangkok, thailand, 254–260. vongprachanch, b. 1995. the use of em fermented materials in farm trials. in effective microorganisms (em) (eds) sharifuddin, h. a. h., anuar a. r. and shahbudin m. f. proceedings of the 2nd international conference on effective microorganisms (em). saraburi, thailand, 90–94. wang, r., xu, h. l. and mridha m. a. u. 2000. effect of organic fertilizer and em inoculation on leaf photosynthesis and fruit yield and quality of tomato plants. journal of crop production 3 (1): 173–182. wettstein, d. 1957. formula of chlorophyll determination. exp. cell research 12 (3): 427–489. xu, h. l. 2000. effect of a microbial inoculants and organic fertilizer on the growth, photosynthesis and yield of sweet corn. journal of crop production 3 (1): 183–214. zabala, n. q. 1990. silviculture of species. development of the professional education in the forestry sector, bangladesh. undp/ fao bgd/85/011, field document no. 14. 174 pp. zacharia, p. p. 1995. studies on the application of effective microorganisms (em) in paddy, sugarcane and vegetables in india. in effective microorganisms (em) (eds) sharifuddin, h. a. h., anuar, a. r. and shahbudin, m. f. proceedings of the 2nd international conference on effective microorganisms (em). kyusei nature farming center, saraburi, thailand, 31–41. khan et al. the study aimed at assessing the nutrient status of rangeland in upper mustang. the assessment is necessary to know about the soil quality or productivity of soil of rangeland. livestock rearing is one of the main occupations in upper mustang but nowadays due to lack of palatable species for livestock, people are leaving the occupation which is directly affecting their livelihood status. therefore this research was carried out to find out if the soil nutrient is the reason behind the lack of availability of palatable species in the rangeland. for soil sampling, north and south aspects were taken. in case of altitude, 3850 m, 3650 m and 3450 m were taken. soil samples were taken from soil profile up to 60cm depth at interval of 20 cm. available phosphorus and available potassium were found to be high at north aspect but total nitrogen was found to be high at south aspect. both total nitrogen and available phosphorus were found to be high at 3650 m. available potassium was gradually decreased with increasing altitude. total nitrogen, available potassium and available phosphorus were gradually decreased with increasing soil depth. nutrient status was high at top soil (0-20 cm).the soil nutrient (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) status was found to be good in the study area. further research on biophysical and ecological aspect of rangeland in upper mustang is necessary to manage it properly. key words: nutrient, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, rangeland, upper mustang nutrient status of rangeland in upper mustang m. maharjan1, k. d awasthi2, k. r pande3 and n. thapa4 rangelands of upper mustang are major source to sustain livestock as well as people’s livelihood as they are rich in medicinal and aromatic plants and transhimalayan biodiversity. they are also sources of other natural resources, tourism, carbon sink, valuable cultural landscape, place for recreation and aesthetic value, and beautiful scenery. much of the mustang landscape is dominated by pastures but the prevailing harsh climatic condition does not permit to grow sufficient grasses in these lands (kunwar, 2003). agricultural production in these areas is very limited due to scarcity of water, lack of proper irrigation, low temperature for longer periods and low rainfall (thakali, 1994). very limited research work carried out in the field of soil properties/quality/ nutrient in rangeland especially in upper mustang. the study will be beneficial to find out the status of soil nutrient which is beneficial for improving livelihood of local people through proper management of rangeland. the objective of the study was to find out the status of nutrient of rangeland in upper mustang. materials and methods study area upper mustang, particularly lo-manthang lies in the northern part of mustang district approximately at 83o 45’ to 84o 15’ e and 29o 04’ to 29o 18’ n (fig. 1). the climate of the area can be characterized as cold desert, desiccated by strong winds and high solar radiation. the total area of lo-mangthang vdc is 282.25 sq. km. with total population of 800 (mop, 2009). the altitude range of lo-manthang vdc ranges from 3200 m to 6500 m. sampling method the stratified sampling method was adopted for the study. the starting point was selected randomly and considered as centre point. after selecting the center point, two plots each having 50 m perpendicular distance from center line were 1 tribhuwan university, institute of forestry, hetauda, nepal, email: menuka48maharjan@gmail.com 2 tribhuwan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal 3 tribhuwan university, institute of agriculture and animal science, rampur, nepal 4 annapurna conservation area project, pokhara, nepal 41 banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 42 fixed. for soil sampling, north and south aspects were taken. soil samples were collected from three different altitudes (3850 m, 3650 m and 3450 m). three replication of soil samples were taken from each strata for computing nutrient as well as carbon stock measurement. for nutrient profile, soil was dug at the centre part of the plot up to 60 cm depth. soil samples at different depths (0–20 cm, 20–40 cm, 40–60 cm) were collected. a core ring sampler (4.8 cm diameter and 10 cm long) was used for estimation of bulk density. soil properties under study with methods of measurement soils are generally categorized into three categories. they are i) acidic soils (with ph values less than 6.5), ii) nearly neutral soils (with ph value 6.5–7.5), and alkaline soils (with ph values more than 7.5) (narc, 1993). different methods are used to determine the soil properties (table 1). the soil texture was measured using hydrometer method whereas the soil chemical properties: the ph, the total nitrogen (tn), the available phosphorus (ap) and the available potassium (ak) were measured using the glass calomel ph meter, kjeldahl method and olsen’s and somers method (1982) and the frame photometer method respectively. the soil samples were analyzed at the regional soil laboratory, situated at lumle, kaski district, to assess the status of the major physico-chemical properties.the textures of the soil were determined on the basis of the relative distribution of sand, silt and clay in the sample. table 1: soil properties under study with their methods of measurement soil properties methods physical texture hydrometer method chemical ph glass calomel ph meter total nitrogen(tn) kjeldahl method (bremner and mulvaney, 1986) available phosphorus (ap) olsen’s and somers method (1982) available potassium (ak) flame photometer method interpretation of different soil properties table 2 shows that ph range in soil according to ph value. if ph value is less than 4.5 then soil is strongly acidic. it’s value is between 4.5 to 5.5, soil considers as moderately acidic. if ph value is between 5.5 and 6.5 then soil is weakly acidic in nature. if the value is between 6.5 and 7.5 then soil is nearly neutral. if the value is greater than 7.5, soil is alkaline in nature. table 2: interpretation for soil ph ph range <4.5 strongly acidic 4.5–5.5 moderately acidic 5.5–6.5 weakly acidic 6.5–7.5 nearly neutral >7.5 alkaline table 3 shows that level of different nutrients (tn, ap and ak) in soil. if tn (%) is less than 0.1, soil has low level of tn whereas if it is higher than 0.2 then soil has high level of tn. if ap (kg/ ha) is less than 31, soil has low level of ap and if it is more than 55 then soil has high amount of ap. regarding ak (kg/ha), if the range is less than 110 then soil has low level of ak and if it is more than 280 then soil has high amount of ak. maharjan et al. fig. 1: study area (source: mop, 2009) banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 43 table 4: physico-chemical properties of soil at different aspect and altitudes aspect/ altitude ph particle size distribution (%) tc* sand silt clay mean ± se mean ± se mean ± se mean ± se n**/3850 m 8.4± 0.1 77.53± 2.5 20.99± 2.61 1.47± 0.95 ls s***/3850 m 8.6± 0.06 71.32± 0.29 27.22± 0.29 1.46± 0.0 sl n**/3650 m 8.7± 0.05 71.65± 0.48 27.05± 0.53 1.3± 0.98 sl s***/3650 m 8.6± 0.05 73.76± 0.48 24.39± 1.13 1.85± 0.72 ls n**/3450 m 8.5± 0.88 70.65± 0.86 27.78± 0.77 1.57± 0.11 sl s***/3450 m 8.7± 0.88 74.43± 1.63 4.33± 1.57 1.24± 0.72 ls * tc=textural class; ls= loamy sand; sl= sandy loam, **n=north, ***s=south table 3: interpretation table for soil fertility tn (%) ap (kg/ha) ak (kg/ha) range level range level range level <0.1 low <31 low 110 low 0.1–0.2 medium 31–55 medium 110–280 medium >0.2 high >55 high >280 high source: narc, 1993 the texture of the soil was determined from the relative distribution of sand, silt and clay in the sample. statistical analysis data analysis was carried out using spss and microsoft excel. descriptive statistics used to produce tables while inferential statistics also used to test the relationships between different variables under study. one-way anova was carried out to test the variation of different properties of soils with respect to different factors under study. multiple comparisons of means were carried out using lsd0.05. results and discussion physico-chemical properties of soil ph (8.7) was high at north(n)/3650 m and south (s)/3450 m followed by s/3850 m and s/3650 m (8.6) and n/3450 m (8.5), n/3850 m (8.4) as shown in table 4. the soil of the study area was basic in nature. due to low rainfall the soil of the arid region is basic in nature. the dominant texture classes were sandy loam and loamy sand. loamy sand texture class was found at n/3850 m followed by sandy loam text class at s/3850 m. similarly, sandy loam texture class was found at n/3650 m, n/3450 m and loamy sand texture class at s/3650 m, s/3450 m. status of nutrients at different aspects, altitudes and soil depths total nitrogen total nitrogen was higher at south aspect (0.20%) than north aspect (0.19%) as shown in table 5. due to high clay content and biomass, high nitrogen stock was found in the southern aspect. table 5: total nitrogen (%) at different aspects aspect mean max. min. range standard error north 0.19 0.23 0.16 0.07 0.008 south 0.20 0.34 0.14 0.20 0.021 mean 0.19 tn was high at 3650m (0.22%) followed by 0.19% at 3450 m and 0.17% at 3850 m as shown in table 6. there was fluctuation in tn at different altitude. due to presence of deep rooted vegetation, tn was high at 3650 m altitude. table 6: total nitrogen (%) at different altitudes altitude (m) mean max. min. range standard error 3450 0.19 0.23 0.16 0.07 0.01 3650 0.22 0.34 0.16 0.18 0.02 3850 0.17 0.23 0.14 0.09 0.01 mean 0.19 maharjan et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 44 total nitrogen was high at 0–20 cm (0.23%) followed by 0.20% at 20–40 cm and 0.16% at 40–60 cm soil depth as shown in table 7. tn was gradually decreased with increasing soil depth. vegetations present in the top soil were the main cause of this result. table 7: total nitrogen (%) at different soil depths soil depth mean max. min. range standard error 0–20 cm 0.23 0.34 0.19 0.15 0.02 20–40 cm 0.20 0.28 0.16 0.12 0.02 40–60 cm 0.16 0.19 0.14 0.05 0.01 mean 0.20 one way anova test revealed that tn was significantly different at different soil depth (p value =0.04). lsd0.05 test showed that tn was significantly different between 0–20 and 40–60 cm soil depth but no significant different was found with other soil depth as shown in table 8. total nitrogen in the soil is solicited because the nitrogen in the soils occurs in several forms band it takes into account all the nitrogen in organic and inorganic forms. some scientists argue that tn does not give good indication of soil fertility because only a small portion of tn is available to plants. about 2 to 3% of tn is in the inorganic form, mostly ammonium (nh4+) and nitrate (no3-) which are only available to the plants (bandel et al., 2000). others present different views that organic and inorganic forms of nitrogen are always interchangeable and it would be better to consider the total nitrogen to investigate soil quality. determination of nitrate (no3-) and ammonium (nh4+) would not give an overall picture of the fertility, but give a snapshot of the n availability not only for plants but also, for micro-organisms in the soil (truelsen and lundsby, 2001). available phosphorus available phosphorus was high at north aspect (71.86 kg/ha) followed by south aspect (60.01 kg/ha) as shown in table 9. this table showed that ap was found higher at north aspect than south aspect. table 9: available phosphorus (kg/ha) at different aspects aspect mean max. min. range standard error north 71.86 93.30 46.70 46.60 5.72 south 60.01 86.70 23.30 63.40 7.18 mean 65.93 ap was varied at different altitude found high at 3650 m (77.78 kg/ha) followed by 69.46 kg/ha at 3850 m and 50.55 kg/ha at 3450 m. both tn and ap were found high at 3650 m as shown in table 10. high clay content at this altitude caused to show high tn and ap. table 10: available phosphorus (kg/ha) at different altitudes altitude (m) mean min. max. range standard error 3450 50.55 23.30 93.30 70.00 9.86 3650 77.78 66.70 90.00 23.30 3.82 3850 69.47 50.00 86.70 36.70 5.80 mean 65.93 one way anova test revealed that ap was significantly different at different altitude (p value = 0.04). lsd0.05 test showed that ap was significantly different between 3450 m and 3650 m altitude where no significance difference found with other altitude (p≤0.05) as shown in table 11. maharjan et al. table 8: lsd0.05 for total nitrogen (%) at different soil depths factors paris compared (cm) mean difference standard error significance tn 0–20 and 20–40 0.33 0.24 1.85 0–20 and 40–60 0.68* 0.24 0.01 20–40 and 40–60 0.35 0.24 0.17 * denotes the mean difference at p≤0.05 banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 45 table 11: lsd0.05 for available phosphorus (kg/ha) at different altitudes factors paris compared mean difference standard error significance ap 3450 and 3650 m -27.23* 9.85 0.01 3450 and 3850 m -18.92 9.85 0.07 3650 and 3850 m 8.32 9.85 0.42 *denotes the mean difference at p≤0.05 ap was gradually decreased with increasing soil depth. ap was found 75 kg/ha at 0–20 cm followed by 65.01 kg/ha at 20–40 cm and 57.78 kg/ha at 40–60 cm soil depth as shown in table 12. awasthi (2004) reported that nutrient stock was found high at top soil which was found true in this study also where ap was high at 0–20 cm soil depth similarly ak and tn was also found high at the same soil depth. table 12: available phosphorus (kg/ha) at different soil depths soil depth mean max. min. range standard error 0–20 cm 75.00 43.30 93.30 50.00 7.44 20–40 cm 65.01 36.70 86.70 50.00 8.20 40–60 cm 57.78 23.30 80.00 56.70 8.42 mean 65.93 available potassium available potassium was high at north aspect (742.90 kg/ha) followed by south aspect (531.37 kg/ha) as shown in table 13. this result showed that ak status was quite good in the study according to table 13. table 13: available potassium (kg/ha) at different aspects aspect mean max. min. range standard error north 742.90 266.70 1643.00 1376.30 147.93 south 531.37 283.30 1083.00 799.70 102.91 mean 637.13 ak was gradually decreased with increasing altitude. ak was high at 3450 m (753.22 kg/ha) altitude followed by 666.62 kg/ha at 3650 m and 491.57 kg/ha at 3450 m as shown in table 14. from table 14 it was concluded that ak status was good at all altitudes. table 14: available potassium (kg/ha) at different altitudes altitude (m) mean min. max. range standard error 3450 753.22 283.30 1643.00 1359.70 218.95 3650 666.62 283.30 1083.00 799.70 134.15 3850 491.57 266.70 1003.00 736.30 107.71 mean 637.13 ak was gradually decreased with increasing soil depth. ak was high at 0–20 cm (1052.50 kg/ ha) followed by 20–40 cm (528.90 kg/ha) and 40–60 cm (330 kg/ha) soil depth as shown in table 15. the decreasing trend of ak was quite high according to depth of the soil but ak status was good at different soil according to table 15. table 15: available potassium (kg/ha) at different soil depths soil depth mean max. min. range standard error 0–20 cm 1052.50 503.00 1643.00 1140.00 147.69 20–40 cm 528.90 360.00 870.00 510.00 77.58 40–60 cm 330.00 266.70 486.70 220.00 33.13 mean 637.13 one way anova revealed that ak was significantly different at different soil depth (p value=0.00). lsd0.05 test showed that ak was significantly different between 0–20 and 20–40 cm, 0–20 and 40–60 cm soil depth but no significant difference was found with other soil depth as shown in table 16. table 16: lsd0.05 for available phosphorus (kg/ha) at different altitudes factors paris compared mean difference standard error significance ak 3450 and 3650 m 523.60* 138.87 0.00 3450 and 3850 m 722.50 138.87 0.00 3650 and 3850 m 198.90 138.87 0.17 *denotes the mean difference at p≤0.05 maharjan et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 46 conclusion sandy loam and loamy sand are dominant soil texture found in the study area. basic nature of soil was found in the study area. soil properties like tn, ak and ap were found significant different. nutrient status was high at top soil (0–20 cm). the soil nutrient (n, p, k) status was good in the study area. further research on biophysical and ecological aspect of rangeland in upper mustang is necessary to manage it properly. references awasthi, k. d. 2004. land use change effect on soil degradation, carbon and nutrient stocks and greenhouse gas emission in mountain watersheds. ph.d. thesis, agricultural university of norway, norway. bandel, a. b. r. and meisinger, j. j. 2000. basic principles of soil fertility i: plant nutrients. maryland cooperative extension. university of maryland, maryland, usa. bremner. j. m. and mulvaney, c. s. 1986. nitrogen total. methods of soil analysis, chemical and microbiological properties. asa, sssa, madison, wisconsin, 595–624. kunwar, p. b. 2003. people-wildlife conflict in the upper mustang of annapurna conservation area. m.sc. thesis, tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. management operational plan (mop) 2009. conservation area management committee, lomangthang. national trust for nature conservation-annapurna conservation area project, nepal. national research council. 1993. soil and water quality: an agenda for agriculture. national academy press, washington dc, usa. olsen, s. r. and somers, l. e. 1982. phosphorus. p. methods of soil analysis. chemical and microbiological properties. asa, sssa, madison, wisconsin, 403–430. truelsen, o. m. and landsby, p. 2001. application of the nutrient balance concept to the traditional subsistence farming system in the middle hills of nepal. m.sc. thesis, university of royal veterinary and agriculture, denmark. thakali, s. 1994. regenerating tradition: tourism and cultural invention in nepal. m.a. thesis, roehampton institute, university survey, u.k. maharjan et al. final added vol 15-2.pmd 72 a hand book of medicinal plants of nepal authors : t. watanabe, k.k. rajbhandari, k.j. malla and s. yahara publisher : kobfa publishing project, bangkok, thailand price : nrs. 2200/pages : 262 year of publication : 2005 isbn : 974-7799-58-8 some of the oldest known medicinal systems of the world such as ayurveda of the indus civilization, arabian medicine of mesopotamia, chinese and tibetan medicine of the yellow river civilization of china and kempo of the japanese are all based mostly on plants. interestingly, allopathy-today’s most familiar medical system which is primarily based on synthetic chemicals for medication, has these days, shown greater interest in using chemicals derived from plants. this explains how important is, and will remain the medicinal use of plants for the mankind. the central himalaya is a huge repository of such medicinal plants. nepal for being located at this portion of the himalaya, has always remained a place of great interest to the botanists and phytochemists involved in researching medicinal herbs. it would be a matter of great surprise for the readers to know that the first botanical exploration was done in nepal in 1802/3 ad by a medicinal practitioner mr. buchanan hamilton. this was followed by mr. n. wallich in 1820/2 1. both of these had brief ethnobotanical notes, which were recorded by d. don and wallich himself. since then workers from all around the world are actively involved in researching medicinal uses of plants from the nepal himalaya. many drugs have been formulated, marketed, and patented. the japanese are among those who have not only contributed to the medico-botany of nepal, but also other areas of botanical science. of the expected 7000 species of flowering plant in nepal, 10 percent are reported to be medicinal. proper documentation of this resource would mean a great contribution to nepal’s meteria medica. the present hand book is one such contribution. amongst the four authors of this handbook, dr. takashi watanabe--the first author, had served the then department of medicinal plants (now department of plant resources) as a japanese volunteer during the ’80s. after completion of his ph.d in pharmacy from kitasato university, tokyo, he continued to work in medicinal plants of nepal. with the help of two sincere and renowned botanists of the department, namely dr. k.k. rajbhandary and mr. k.j. malla, along with an experienced phyto-chemist-dr. s. yahara (associate professor of kumamoto university), dr. watanabe might have found medicinal plants a better topic for writing a book. this is undoubtedly a welcoming step. the book contains systematic account of 108 naturally occurring medicinal plants of nepal. the text of each plant is divided into two major portions: the first devoted to distribution, illustration, botanical description, useful parts and medicinal uses of plants. and the second but more important is the inclusion of chemical constituents of the plants used in medicine. the work is thus of a too comprehensive character for one author to complete. hence, it is none other than a result of a successful team effort of pertinent disciplines. i have no idea who amongst the team, has originally designed the book, but i am glad to see a team of professionals--two nepali botanists and the same number of japanese pharmacists have produced such a tremendous work. the work, which seems to be originally designed to serve more specifically for the botanists and phyto-chernists, will help uplift our understanding on nepali medicinal plants thereby serving the mankind. no wonder that serious readers and libraries will find it as a valuable reference material. dr. sushim ranjan baral dept. of forest research & survey banko janakari, vol. 15, no. 2 book review 37 the study was conducted in the pragatisil community forest, kaski district, nepal in 2012 to assess the regeneration status of sal (shorea robusta) seedlings, its growth and plant diversity. a plot size of 25 m × 20 m was employed for trees, 10 m ×10 m for poles and 5 m × 5 m for regeneration. the growth parameters measured were dbh and height. a factorial arrangement of treatments was employed; the treatments being slope and aspect. the results showed that there was significant (p<0.05) effect of slope on dbh and basal area whereas there was no effect of aspect on growth parameters measured in the pragatisil community forest. the regeneration of sal was satisfactory (6,126 seedlings/ha), and there were 32 plant species in this forest. as there was higher basal area per ha in the pragatisil community forest, it is recommended to have thinning of 40% of basal area for enhancing growth of remaining stems. key words: thinning, basal area, regeneration, diversity, structure regeneration, growth of hill sal and plant diversity in community forest: a case study from pragatisil community forest in kaski district, western nepal b. k. paudyal1 sal (shorea robusta) is one of the most important timber species of india and nepal. the forest found in this region is basically moist sal (stainton, 1972; shrestha, 1989). in nepal, sal occurs in the extended gangetic belt, the siwaliks and also at the foot-hills of the himalayas. sal forms dominant composition, usually greater in number (80 to 90%) than all the rest put together. sal forests in nepal cover one million ha, representing more than 16% of the total forest of the country (gon, 1989). sal forest is dominant in the bhabar zone, except in the areas of very high rainfall, where it is replaced by mixed forest. it also covers most of the siwalik hills, and the duns between them. the maximum upper limit for its occurrence is 1,500 m, but it is not common above 1,000 m (jackson, 1994). sal forms extensive forests and is highly gregarious. when other factors are favourable, the upper limit of sal is probably regulated to a greater extent by frost. in excessively dry localities, such as on southern aspects, it gives way to more xerophytic species and in waterlogged areas, it is unable to compete with evergreen species. natural regeneration is adversely affected in moist siwalik sal forests because of external factors such as extensive lopping and grazing. the invasion of weeds and climbers takes place due to excessive opening of canopy by lopping. fire is another problem in this region due to topography and dry layer of fallen leaves. the regeneration of sal in moist bhabar natural forest is really a problem. however, this is not the case for community forests as they are well protected from fire, grazing and lopping activities. the livelihood of rural people is very much dependent on forest products such as timber, fuel wood, fodder and small poles. sal is the most important tree species in the terai and also in the mid-hills. it has a great potential to contribute to poverty alleviation by providing multiple uses. forest management in nepal has to address this issue properly. for estimating sustainable future harvests from a given forest area in reliable manner, growth and yield models are prerequisite. shrestha (1992), on his report on sal regeneration, has stated that sal regeneration is prolific wherever openings are made and protected, but protection of natural regeneration is more difficult than protection of plantations. a detailed information on sal in india is provided by joshi (1986). 1 institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. e-mail: bimalpaudyal0@gmail.com banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 38 skarner (1995) has highlighted on research on sal forest management in nepal. the author has reported on works by the finnish international development agency (finnida) aided forest management and utilization development project (fmudp) on sal. the management trials by the fmudp using large regeneration openings in natural forest have shown very promising results. the most obvious needs of forest products for rural people are fuelwood, fodder and timber. sal can serve these multiple uses. the multiple use management concept can be applied for sal in community forests. however, there is a need of growth studies in sal forest, especially for hills as most of the works have been done for the plains. some works on growth of tree species have been published (lamichaney, 1982). korhonen et al. (1991) have reported on the diameter growth models for the forests of the kapilvastu district to be used in the national forest inventory. the growth and yield models for uniform sal forest in the bhabar-terai in nepal have been described by rautianen (1995). however, research on sal forest management is relatively recent in nepal and the growth and yield of this species also remain insufficiently studied. rai et al. (1999) have highlighted on the ecology and growth of sal in central nepal. thus, this study was an attempt to assess regeneration, plant diversity and growth of hill sal in community forests. materials and methods site selection the study was conducted in the pragatisil community forest of kaski district. the district falls under the western development region of nepal. fig.1: map of study site the site selection in the mid-hills in kaski district (fig. 1) was done in consultation with forestry personnels from western regional forest directorate, pokhara and district forest office kaski, pokhara. potential sites in the region and in the kaski district were explored to match the research objectives. after careful study on all potential sites, the pragatisil community forest at tallo gagan gaunda in kaski district was selected for the purpose. pragatisil community forest, kaski this community forest (cf) is situated in ward no. 13 lekhnath municipality, kaski district. the total area of the cf is 57.74 ha; the total number of household being 341. the forest was handed over as cf to the user group in 1993, and the present community forestry operational plan (cfop) was renewed in 2002 and 2007. before being handed over as cf, the forest was protected and used by the local people since 1977. the elevation of the area is 827 m from mean sea level. the mean daily temperature is 20.2o c, and the yearly precipitation is 3,388 mm which is nearly 50 km from the lumle meteorological station. the cf has three main divisions 1. kamardhik forest: this forest is dominated by sal as the main species with few chilaune (schima wallichii). the area of this forest is 21.87 ha, and is now 30-year-old. 2. rani ban: the area of this forest is 5.20 ha. in 1976, sissoo (dalbergia sissoo) and khair (acacia catechu) were planted, and there is abundant regeneration of khair. previously, this area was full of natural khair forest. 3. satpatre ban: the area of this forest is 11.25 ha. in 1976, sissoo and khair were planted, and now, there is good regeneration of khair. previously, this area was also full of natural khair forest. experimental layout while establishing the plots, some reference points near the forest boundary were taken, and systematic sampling was carried out, the plot to plot distance was generally 40 m. there were, altogether, 20 plots established in kamardhik forest. the treatments were aspect and slope each at two levels (2×2). the aspects of the terminals paudyal banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 39 paudyal were east and west with the slope ranging from 25o to 40o. thus, there were four treatments and five replications with 10 plots each with 25 m × 20 m size established in the east and 10 plots in the west. all the trees having over 30 cm dbh were measured. within every 25 m × 20 m plots, a 10 m ×10 m sub-plot was established for measuring poles (dbh: 10–29.9 cm) and within this, a 5 m × 5 m subplot was established for regeneration of sal and other plant species.within 5 m× 5 m subplot, saplings (>4 cm <10 cm diameter) were measured for diameter and height. seedlings less than 4 cm diameter were recorded for regeneration. data collection the growth parameters collected include dbhs of all the trees, heights of six trees per plot, regeneration of sal and density of other associated plant species. dbh was measured using diameter tape and the height with the help of abney’s level. the heights of six trees (>10 cm dbh) representing all diameter classes in the plot were measured. data analysis the growth parameters were analyzed using msexcel and spss. anova was used to assess the effect of slope and aspect on the growth parameters. index of dominance, simpson’s diversity index and shannon index were calculated. for calculating density of sal and other plant species, the total number of each species in all the plots were determined, and was converted into plants per ha. results and discussion diameter, height and volume growth the effect of slope and aspect on growth parameters are shown in table 1. the results showed that slope had significant (p<0.05) effect on dbh and basal area only. there was no significant (p<0.05) effect of aspect on growth parameters. table 2 indicates that the forest is predominantly a pole-sized one. the higher basal area per ha (48.67 m2) indicates high stocking per ha and which in turn indicates a need for thinning the stand down to 40% basal area. the regeneration of sal was found to be 6,126 seedlings/ha which can be considered as satisfactory. the mean annual increment (mai) for dbh and height was 0.6 cm and 0.6 m respectively. this was based on the assumption by the community people that the average age of the stand was 30 years. similarly, the mai in terms of volume was 6.71 m3/ha. table 1: effects of slope and aspect on growth parameters a. effects of slope growth parameters number f-value significance dbh (cm) 325 3.184 0.005 xx ht (m) 113 2.004 0.071 ns b.a. (m2/ha) 325 3.405 0.005 xx volume (m3/ha) 113 0.317 0.729 ns regeneration of sal (seedlings number/ha) 291 0.066 0.936 ns ns: not significant xx: significant (p<0.05) b. effects of aspect growth parameters number f-value significance dbh (cm) 325 1.302 0.274 ns ht (m) 113 0.002 0.998 ns b.a. (m2/ha) 325 0.984 0.321 ns volume (m3/ha) 113 0.258 0.812 ns regeneration of sal (seedlings number/ha) 291 0.108 0.856 ns ns: not significant xx: significant (p<0.05) for assessment of the growth of sal in the pragatisil community forest, the results of 2007 when the cfop, 2002 was renewed and those of the present study conducted in 2012 need to be compared. the operational plan, 2002 indicated that there was a stand with an average dbh of 13.95 cm whereas the present study provided a result of the stand with an average dbh of 18.05 cm. these two results may not be comparable as the number of plots were different. however, the results indicated that there was roughly 4 cm dbh increment during the last five years. this is for the whole stand, irrespective of the diameter size. similar is the case in the case of height increment too. there was an increment of nearly 4 m height (from 13.42 m mentioned in the operational plan of 2007 as compared to 17.20 m in the present study) during five years interval. in the case of volume growth, amatya and amatya (1995) observed the mai of 9.7 m3/ha in 5 to banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 40 9 years old sal forest in three protected areas: sagarmatha national park, chitwan national park and banke national park. the present study indicated the mai in terms of volume as 6.71 m3/ha in the pragatisil community forest. this gives an indication that as the stand advances, the mai in terms of volume slows down. skarner (1995) reports that due to annual die-back process in sal seedling, seedling height may reach just 1 m after 10 years and 2 m only after 25 years. thus, at the initial phase, slow growth seems to be a tendency in sal forest. the low figure (11) for saplings (>4<10 cm diameter) in the pragatisil community forest in future. density and plant diversity the results showed that the index of dominance was 0.41 (sal representing 41% in the stand). the simpson’s diversity index was 0.59 and shannon index (h) was 8.64 (table 2) showing higher diversity in the forest. pandey and shukla (2003) recorded a total of 208 plant species representing 165 genera and 72 families in a sal forest in gorakhpur, india. similarly, timilsina et al. (2007) reported, altogether, 131 species in the sal forest of the western terai, nepal. shankar (2001) in a report from sal-dominated forest in the eastern himalayan lowlands of mahanand sanctuary, darjeeling, india observed 156 species in the area. in the two sal forests in western nepal, gautam (2001) observed 94 and 120 plant species. similarly, according to shrestha (2005), sal was found to be the dominant tree species with 909 trees/ha in a community forest of gorkha district and in dhading district, sal was found to be mixed with other species. paudyal (2011) observed 58 plant species in the sal-dominated lamindanda community forest of tanahu district. the regeneration of sal was found to be satisfactory with 6,126 seedlings/ha. the results (table 3) showed that in the pragatisil cf, sal with higher density 291 stems/ha was dominant. there were 32 plant species observed in the area, which showed higher species diversity in hill sal forest. structure of forest in the present study, the structure of the forest in the pragatisil forest showed (table 4) that it was mainly dominated by pole-sized trees. the number of trees (>30 cm dbh) was thus 12 trees/ ha only whereas in the case of poles, it was 1595 trees/ha. according to cfop 2007 of the cf, there were 26 trees/ha and 831 poles/ha. these two figures could not be compared directly as the size and the location of the plots were not the same. however, the number of trees in the present study was found to be in increasing order but in the case of poles, it is in decreasing order. thus, it may be assumed that during the period, many pole-sized trees might have turned into trees. pande (1999) has reported that not only disturbance and stand age, but also the compactness of the stand due to the presence of old and big trees affect upon the regeneration of sal in the moist areas. bellingaham and tanner (2000), in a study in tropical montane forest of jamaica, observed that mortality was higher on northern aspect while growth and recruitment rates were not table 2: summary statistics of kamardhik forest growth parameters no. range min. max. mean sum mse dbh (cm) 325 52.00 4.30 56.30 18.05 0.3351 height (m) 113 35.70 5.60 41.30 17.20 0.4578 b.a.(m2/ha) 325 1.30 0.01 1.31 0.1497 48.67 0.0064 volume(m3/ha) 113 26.90 0.14 27.04 1.78 201.30 0.2585 regeneration of sal(seedlings number/ha) 291 6,126 spp. density (stem number/ ha) 703 note: index of dominance-0.41, simpson’s diversity index-0.59, shannon index-8.64 paudyal banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 41 paudyal significantly different among positions (north, south and hill ridgetop). the effect of slope on diameter and height growth was shown by robert and moravie (2003) whereas there was no effect of slope and aspect on ground cover (sabhasri and ferrel 1960). basnet (1992) reported that trees were significantly related to topographical variables. similarly, according to yang et al. (2006) temperature, aspect, precipitation and soil thickness all significantly influence forest growing stock. the present study had some limitations. the study was carried out only for one time, and as such, the increment part could not be assessed. however, the information can give an idea on the effect of slope and aspect the growth of sal forest. the soil properties on various slopes and aspects might also have effect on growth status. this factor was not considered in the present study. table 3: density of plant species s.n. local name botanical name no. of species/ha regneration/ha 1. sal shorea robusta (t) 291 6126 2. latikath cornus oblongum (t) 6 126 3. chilaune schima wallichii (t) 39 821 4. bhant clerodendronviscosum (s) 9 189 5. sindure mallotus phillippinensis (t) 7 147 6. gindari premna antegrefolia (t) 7 147 7 kantkari solanum xanthocarpum (h) 1 21 8. botdhairo lagerstroemia parviflora (t) 7 147 9. khirro sapium insigne (t) 5 105 10. ankhatare trichillia connaroides (t) 2 42 11. nilkanda duranta repens (s) 2 42 12. bilaune maesachisia (t) 3 63 13. jamun syzygium cumini (t) 9 189 14. amala phyllanthus emblica (t) 1 21 15. areli hypericum cordifolium (s) 2 42 16. arkhu acacia intsia (t) 6 126 17. nundhiki osyris santalaceae (t) 13 274 18. rudilo pogostemon benghalensis (s) 2 42 19. kharseto phyllanthus parvifolius (s) 1 21 20. tiju picrasama javanica (t) 2 42 21. archal anfidesma spp. (s) 15 316 22. githa dioscorea bulbifera (c) 110 2316 unidentified plant species (10) 163 3,438 total 703 14,797 note: t-tree, s-shrub, c-climber table 4: structure of the forest stand dbh class (cm) number of stems/ha 0–10* 58 10–20 1153 20–30 442 30–40 10 40–50 1 50–60 1 note-*signifies saplings greater than 4 cm diameter banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 42 conclusion in the pragatisil cf, the slope had significant (p<0.05) effect on dbh and basal area whereas aspect did not have any significant effect on the growth parameters. references amatya, s. m. and amatya, d. b. 1995. plantation vs protection: the choice is yours. banko janakari 5 (1): 31–35. basnet, k. 1992. effect of topography on the pattern of trees in tabonuco (dacryodes excelsa) dominated rain forest of puerto rico. biotropica 24 (1): 31–42. bellingham, p. j. and tanner, e. v. j. 2000. the influence of topography on tree growth, mortality, and recruitment in a tropical montane forest. biotropica 32 (3): 378–384. cfop. 2002. pragatisil community forest operational plan, kaski, nepal. cfop. 2007. pragatisil community forest operational plan, kaski, nepal. gautam, k. h. 2001. lopping regimes in community managed sal (s. robusta) forests of nepal: prospects for multiple product silviculture for community forestry. ph.d. dissertation, school of forestry, university of canterbury, christchurch, new zealand. gon. 1989. master plan for the forestry sector nepal. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. jackson, j. k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. 2nd edition. forest survey and research division, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. joshi, h. b. 1986. troup’s silviculture of indian trees. volume 11. dipterocarpaceae. dehradun, india. korhonen, k. t., sharma, e. r. and rajbhandari, m. d. 1991. diameter growth and height models for forest trees in kapilbastu district. mimeograph. forest survey and statistics division. ministry of forests and soil conservation. lamichaney, b. p. 1982. growth and reproduction experiment in natural sal (s. robusta) forest, ramnagar, chitwan, nepal. nepal forestry technical bulletin 6: 23–24. pande, p. k. 1999. comparative vegetation analysis of sal shorea robusta regeneration in relation to their disturbance magnitude in some sal forests. tropical ecology 241: 223-234. pande, s. k. and shukla, r. p. 2003. plant diversity in managed sal shorea robusta gaertn. forests of gorakhpur, india, species composition, regeneration and conservation. biodiversity conservation 12: 2295–2319. paudyal, b. k. 2011. regeneration, plant diversity and growth of hill sal (s. robusta) in community forests (a case study from lamidanda community forest from tanahu). natural resources management: reviews and research in the himalayan watersheds (special publication of nufu himunet project). institute of forestry. pp. 82–90. rai, s. n., dutta, i. c., haque, s., khanal, b. b., chaurasia, j. p. and indu, i. p. 1999. “ecology and growth of s. robusta in central nepal” paper presented at institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. rautiainen, o. 1995. growth and yield models for uniform sal (s. robusta) forests in the bhabar terai in nepal. fmudp technical report no. 17. department of forest, national forest division, kathmandu, nepal. robert, a. and moravie, m. a. 2003. topographical variation and stand heterogenity in a wet evergreen forest of india. journal of tropical ecology 19: 697–707. sabhasri, s. and ferrel, w. k. 1960. invasion of brush species into small stand openings in the douglas-fir forests of the willamette foothills. northwest science 4 (3): 77–88. shankar, u. 2001. a case of high tree diversity in a sal (s. robusta) dominated lowland forest of eastern himalaya: floristic composition, regeneration and conservation (www.ias.ac.in/currsci./oct102001/776.pdf). shrestha, b. b. 2005. fuelwood harvest management and regeneration of two community forests in central nepal. himalayan journal of science. 3 (5): 75–80. shrestha, b. p. 1989. forest plants of nepal. educational enterprises pvt. ltd., kathmandu, nepal. paudyal banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 43 paudyal shrestha, b. p. 1992. evaluation of sal (s. robusta), sissoo (dalbergia sissoo) management in nepal through publications and field experience. forest management and utilization development project. technical report no. 2, fmupp, kathmandu, nepal. skarner, g. a. 1995. research on sal (s. robusta) forest management in nepal. a consultancy report for the nepal-united kingdom forestry research project, kathmandu, nepal. stainton, j. d. a. 1972. forests of nepal. john murray, london, uk. timilsina, n., ross, m. s. and heinen, j. t. 2007. a community analysis of sal (s. robusta) in western terai of nepal. forest ecology and management 241 (1-3): 223–234. yang, y. m., li, f., watanbe, z., zhang, j. and zhai, z. 2006. factors affecting forest growth and possible effects of climate change in the taihang mountains, northern china. forestry 79 (1): 135–147. banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal urban forestry in the federal context of nepal with rapid urbanization throughout the world, urban and peri-urban forestry (upf) has become a priority area for policy makers and development planners.upf simply refers to the management of trees, shrubs and other vegetation in urban areas. it includes urban parks and gardens, roadside plantations, trees along the banks of rivers, streams and canals, surrounding houses and private properties and forests in peripheral of urban areas. upf is valued for its psychosocial, cultural, environmental and economic benefits to the urban dwellers. it is regarded as the symbol of civilization and prosperity of any city. the concept of upf was emerged worldwide in response to the adverse environmental effects due to increased urban population and infrastructure. in nepal, the practice of urban forestry dates back to the malla reign. a review of historical documents reveals that king jayasthiti malla (1380-1395 ad) issued an order to his officials and commoners to plant trees alongside walking streets and wells. this practice continued; and even some exotic trees were planted alongside streets and in the premises of palaces in the rana regime. during the panchayat regime, the government introduced modern urban-environment planning in the 1960s and 1970s, and renovated roads and trails in kathmandu with massive plantation along the sides. for example, the plan of the ring road had included green belts on both sides, where thousands of fast growing trees were planted. now, the government has emphasized urban forestry through its various programs, including 'nepal clean environment grand expedition 2075 ad' and the 'forest decade program (20142023), the latter promoting afforestation in public and private lands with the theme of 'one house: one tree, one village: one forest and one town: several parks'. despite several efforts as mentioned above, we have not been much successful to achieve expected results in upf development, mainly due to three reasons. first, most cities have been built haphazardly and in a piece meal approach, rather than through planned and holistic approaches. with rapidly growing prices of land in the urban areas, the private interests have played a key role in city planning; and spaces for trees have been rarely considered. second, the open spaces like riverbanks and other public lands, in which urban forests could be developed, have been encroached for gray infrastructure. third, the distinct values of forests in and around urban areas have been hardly recognized; i.e. no specific policies and plans have been in place for the management of urban and peri-urban forests. these have resulted in what we see and feel while living in crowded and polluted cities like kathmandu today. with the promulgation of the constitution of nepal in 2015, the nation has adopted the federal system of governance. the federal structure includes three tiers of government, i.e. banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 2 a federal government, seven provincial governments, and 753 local governments. the local governments include 6 metropolitan cities, 11 sub-metropolitan cities, 276 municipalities and 460 rural municipalities. the first elected governments are functioning in all the three tiers of governance. sustainable development, in which protection of environment is one of the key considerations, is the main goal of the governments in all levels. in the context of rapid urbanization, developing and managing urban and peri-urban forests are one of the key functions of local governments, particularly metro/sub-metropolitan cities and municipalities. it will also address at least a part of fundamental right of every citizen to live in clean environment as ensured by constitution of nepal. the local governments have both opportunities and challenges for upf in their territories. there could be little room for developing upf in the already crowded cities with narrow roads and limited open spaces like kathmandu, but there are ample opportunities for the new municipalities. the only thing they need to do is to introduce holistic urban plans, consisting of parks, gardens, and green belts along the roadsides and riverbanks, and implement them strictly. one of the main challenges they would face is the fragmentation of lands coupled with their high prices; this can be addressed through a land pulling mechanism as we have already experienced in city planning in some areas around kathmandu. not planting trees now would not be a big issue, but not having a space for planting trees would be a very big issue for our cities in the future. climate change is now recognized as one of the most serious challenges facing the world– its people, the environment and its economies. rural people are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change due to its high dependence on climatesensitive sectors like glaciers, agriculture and forestry, and its low financial adaptive capacity. this study was carried out with the aim of assessing and documenting vulnerability and adaptation strategies of forest-dependent people to climate change effects in mid-hills of nepal. primary data were collected from household survey, interview with key informants, and focused group discussion. the results showed that the average annual rainfall was decreasing at the rate of 18.02 mm whereas the average annual mean temperature was increasing at the rate of 0.07°c per year. the major climatic hazards, of the study area, identified were long drought and landslide. the chi-square test shows that the poor forest-dependent people are more vulnerable to long drought, landslide and floods as compared to the rich rural people. indigenous adaptation practices such as cultivation of vegetables and other crops that are less susceptible to droughts, and rearing of hybrid-varieties of livestock are mostly used to cope with climate change impacts. the results indicate that 15% of the respondents have changed their cropping pattern from paddy to off-seasonal vegetables crops because of more income from vegetable farming. raising awareness and sharing information as well as increasing income from farming among the locals by applying new technologies should be done in order to build their capacity to cope with climate change impact. key words: vulnerability, livelihood, adaptation, climatic hazard, impacts assessing vulnerability and adaptation strategies of forest dependent people to climate change in the mid-hills of nepal k. acharya1, k. r. tiwari2, y. p. timilsina2 and s. pc3 climate change refers to a “statistically significant variation either in the mean state of the climate or in its variability which may be due to natural process or external forcing, or to persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use” (ipcc, 2001). there has been an unprecedented warming trend during the 20th century. the average temperature of the earth’s surface has risen by 0.74°c since the late 1900s (ipcc, 2007). the present average global surface temperature of 15°c is nearly 0.6°c higher than it was 100 years ago. most of the increase is because of the consequences of human activities. a further increase of 1.5–6.0°c is projected by the year 2100. the average atmospheric co2 concentration has increased from 280 ppm in 1,850 to 365 ppm at present, and could exceed up to 700 ppm by the end of the present century, if emissions continue to rise at the current rates (ipcc, 2001). climate change is now recognized as one of the most serious challenges facing the world and its people, the environment and its economies. the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc, 2007) has mentioned that global warming is mostly due to man-made emissions of green house gases (ghgs), mostly co2. it is believed that most global warming that we can now observe is attributable to emissions of ghgs that result from human activities, in the land use changes such as deforestation particularly in the developing countries, and the burning of fossilfuels specifically in the developed countries. there is consensus among many scientists that the anthropogenic cause of increment of ghgs in the atmosphere is the main cause of the climate changes incidences experienced (louman et al., 2009). global ghgs (co2, ch4, n2o, hfcs, pfcs and sf6) emissions due to human activities 55 1 nepal foresters’ association, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal, e-mail: kkamal.acharya@gmail.com 2 institute of forestry (iof), tribhuvan university (tu), pokhara, nepal 3 national research institute for earth science and disaster prevention (nied), tsukuba, japan banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 56 have grown since the preindustrial time with increase of 70% between 1970s and 2004 (ipcc, 2007). vulnerability is the extent to which a natural or social system is susceptible to sustaining damage from climate change, and is a function of the magnitude of climate change, the sensitivity of the system to changes in climate and the ability to adapt the system to changes in climate. the ipcc has defined vulnerability as “a measure of system’s susceptibility to climate change, which is a function of the system’s exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity”. the capacity to adapt to climate hazards and stress depends on a country’s wealth, resources and governance. the himalayan region is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change in the world, not only because of more rapid increase in temperature but also due to the inhabitants being among world’s poorest groups. adaptation to climate change includes all adjustments in behavior or economic structure that reduce the vulnerability of society to changes in the climate system (smit et al., 2000). furthermore, it is argued that human and natural systems will, to some extent, adapt autonomously, and that planned adaptation can supplement autonomous adaptation. nepal as a part of the globe cannot remain untouched to this global change. although nepal is responsible for only about 0.025% of the total annual greenhouse gas emissions of the world (karki, 2007), the nation is now experiencing the increasing trends and the associated effects of climate change. various studies have shown that the impacts of climate change are evident on forests, water resources, agriculture and other sectors in nepal. observed data indicates consistent warming and rise in maximum temperature at an annual rate of 0.04–0.06ºc (gon/moe, 2010). a report published by the department of hydrology and meteorology shows that the temperature in nepal is increasing at the rate of 0.06°c, on an average, per annum (dhm, 2008). between 1977 and 1994, the nation’s average temperature rose at the rate of 0.03-0.06°c per annum, with a higher rate in the mountains than in the lowlands (shrestha et al., 1999). another report of the government of nepal based on an analysis of the temperature recorded between 1981 and 1998, shows an increase of 0.41°c per decade (mope, 2004). the temperature in the himalayas, however, is increasing at the faster rate than that in the lower lands. on the other hand, there is no distinct trend regarding precipitation changes in nepal. observations show that the high-rainfall-regions and seasons are experiencing increase in rainfall and are getting wetter, whereas the low-rainfallregions and seasons are experiencing decrease in rainfall and are getting drier (mope, 2004). besides, extremes in monsoon have also been observed in the recent years. the meteorological station at nepalgunj in western nepal recorded the ever highest rainfall of 336.9 mm within 24 hours on august 27, 2006 (soham, 2006). developing countries are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change due to their high dependence on climate-sensitive sectors like glaciers, agriculture and forestry, and their low financial adaptive capacity (karki, 2007). countries like nepal are more susceptible to the climate change and its impacts due to their limited capacity to cope with hazards associated with the changes in climate (kates, 2000). the ongoing climatic changes which are projected to occur in the future are likely to occur in the different sectors like, water resources (that include glacial fluctuation, hydrological regime and glof), agriculture sector, flora and fauna, health sector and livelihood (moest, 2008). forest and water resources, the major natural resources of nepal, are at the forefront of climate change vulnerability (pan, 2009). because of the climate change and rising temperatures, nepal could face the drier phases during the dry seasons with wetter monsoon (as much as three times the current level of rainfall) with chances of flood and landslides during the rainy season with subsequent impacts on agriculture, forestry and livelihoods (alan and regmi, 2005). nepal is one of the most vulnerable countries from the view point of climate change. this phenomenon of climate change has directly affected upon the natural resources like land, water and forest resources. those people who directly depend on these resources, particularly forest resources, are becoming more vulnerable day by day. while there is much anecdotal evidence of climate change, no comprehensive studies have yet been conducted on vulnerability and adaptation strategies of forest-dependent people. studies on vulnerability of the local livelihoods and adaptation strategies can provide basis for the concepts and methods for assessing acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 57 climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation. this study is focused on how the rural forest-dependent people perceive and understand climate change in their local context, what class and level of people are more vulnerable, and what major adaptation strategies are adopted by the rural forest-dependent people to cope with climate change impacts in the mid-hills of nepal. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in khanchikot village development committee (vdc) of arghakhanchi district, nepal. khanchikot vdc is located on the southern belt of the district (figure 1). the altitudinal range of the vdc varies from 1,000 m to 2,500 m above the mean sea level, and so climate also varies from sub-tropical in the south to temperate in the north. the total area of the vdc is 1563.1 ha of which forest is the major land use type (61.22%) followed by cultivated land (26.55%), shrub (11.45%) and others (0.78%) (dfo, 2010). the total population of the vdc is 4,091 with 69.15% brahmin/chhetri, 21.7% dalit and 9.16% janajati (kvdc, 2010). fig. 1: map showing the study area sampling design and data collection altogether, 55 forest-dependent households (hhs), which is about 11% of the total hhs within the khanchikot vdc, were taken as samples for the study purpose. in each ward of the vdc, economic-classes (rich, medium and poor) were identified using participatory wellbeing ranking method to analyze the degree of vulnerability on the basis of the economic status of the respondents. the major variables used for well-being ranking were physical, human, social, financial and natural capitals. in vulnerability analysis, the conceptual framework provided in the third assessment report of the ipcc, 2007 was used, where vulnerability of a system has been defined as a function of three elements viz. i) exposure to climate change effects, ii) sensitivity and iii) adaptive capacity. mathematically, vulnerability is expressed as: v = ƒ (exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity) …………….. (1) major climatic hazards of the study area were identified on the basis of the people’s exposure on their livelihood assets (physical, biological, financial, human and social capitals) to adapt with the climate change effects, through discussions with the key informants, community forest users, farmers and community leaders. climatic hazards were further ranked on the basis of their exposure and sensitivity on five capitals and their adaptive capacity to adapt these climatic hazards. the following hypothesis was made to analyze the vulnerability of different economic status of the respondents. h0: different levels of vulnerability due to major climatic hazards are not associated with economic status of the rural people. h1: different levels of vulnerability due to major climatic hazards are associated with economic status of the rural people. the primary data were solicited through reconnaissance survey, key informants interview, formal and informal discussion, household survey and direct observation while the secondary data were collected through review of literature available in the form of journal articles, thesis, publications and websites. the climatic data (temperature and rainfall) of the vdc between 1978 and 2009 were acquired from the department of hydrology and meteorology, kathmandu. the maximum and minimum monthly temperatures as well as the mean monthly rainfall data were used as the major indicators of climate change in the study area. microsoft excel 2007 was used to analyze the temperature and rainfall data. on the other hand, the qualitative data were analyzed using chisquare test. acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 58 results and discussion socio-economic status of the respondents altogether, 55 hhs of the vdc were selected for the purpose of the study, of which 53% of the hhs belonged to brahimin/chhetri, 25% to dalit and 22% to janajati as shown in figure 2. out of the total hhs sampled, 14% were rich, 22% were of middle-class and the rest 64% were poor as shown in figure 3. majority of these hhs were engaged in agricultural activities. fig. 2: ethinicity of the respondents fig. 3: wealth being status of the respondents analysis of climatic variables analysis of temperature data change (increase or decrease) in temperature of any area is a direct indicator of climate change in the area. for the purpose of this study, the monthly maximum and minimum temperature data of the last 31 years (1978–2009) were used. the linear trend line (figure 4) shows that the mean annual temperature over the last 31 years was in increasing trend at the rate of 0.07°c per annum, a slightly higher than the national average of 0.06°c per annum, with the highest temperature of over 18°c recorded in the year 2002. fig. 4: average annual mean temperature (1978–2009) considering 1978 as the base year (when the average annual temperature was 15.78°c), figure 5 below indicates the increasing trend of temperature during the period of 1978–2009 with the average decade temperatures of 15.82°c, 15.91°c and 17.10°c during 1979–1988, 1989– 1999 and 2000–2009 respectively with the highest increment of 17.1°c in the last decade i.e. in 2000–2009. fig. 5: mean decade temperature and its trend analysis of rainfall data rainfall is another major factor to indicate climate change in any area. the annual rainfall data of the last 30 years (1978–2008) were taken for the study. the average annual rainfall over the past 30 years shows its decreasing trend with erratic pattern (r2 = 0.12) at the rate of 18.02 mm per annum during the period (figure 6). acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 59 fig. 6: average annual rainfall and its trend (1978–2008) rainfall data were analyzed on the seasonal basis like winter (december–february), spring (march– may), summer (june–august) and autumn (september–november) during the three decades. the result showed that the average rainfall on the seasonal basis was also in decreasing trend except for the spring season as shown in figure 7. fig. 7: average seasonal rainfall in decades vulnerabilities of forest dependent peoples to major climatic hazards the major climatic hazards of the study area were identified in a participatory way i.e. on the basis of the people’s exposure and sensitivity to these hazards. the major climatic hazards as reported by them werelong drought and landslide. long drought impact and vulnerability according to the local people’s experiences, the cases of droughts in the study area were in increasing trend. according to them, most of the droughts cases were experienced when there were needs of rainwater. one third of the respondents expressed that the long drought has directly affected upon the germination and growth of the forest species leading to the unavailability of some preferred fodder species in the study area. besides, the water levels in various water sources such as natural springs and wells were also found to have gone down year by year. there had been scarcity of water, especially during the period ofseedbed preparation, flowering stage of the paddy, irrigating wheat and other winter crops. it was found that frequent droughts had destroyed and eroded the social assets, the very means for adaptation. similar was the case observed in the mid-hills of dhading district where natural springs, wells and other water sources had dried since the last 7-8 years due to decreased amount of rainfall to recharge these sources (sagun, 2009). when frequency and intensity of climatic hazard increase, poor communities are left with no time to recover from previous impacts through either asset accumulation or acquiring skills and knowledge necessary for adapting to future climate changes. consequently, they are subjected to continuous hunger and deeper vicious circle of poverty and vulnerability. this shows that rural forest-dependent people are highly vulnerable to long drought. however, the degree of vulnerability varies according to the economic class of people. the results of this study reveals that poor forest-dependent households are highly vulnerable to long drought as compared to the well-off rural people (χ2 = 16.69 with 4 d.f. at 5% level of significance, is significant). landslide impact and vulnerability it was found that erratic rain, floods, droughts and other natural calamities were the common phenomenon in the study area, and the local people experienced such unusual situations for more than 15 years in the past. same case was reported by shrestha et al. (2000) that all the national as well as the regional precipitation series showed significant variability on annual and decadal time scales. these situations invite new fear and trauma. when a community is hit by natural calamities, all of its social institutions (local clubs, ethnic or cultural groups, educational institutions, health care center etc.) are likely to be affected. the landslides have affected livestock, agriculture, land, crop and mobility of the people. the landslide has occurred in sloppy and fragile forest land. households near to the unstable slopes and fragile area are highly vulnerable to landslides. this vdc is situated on the acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 60 steep topography making it more vulnerable to landslide. around 70% of the forest-dependent hhs live in fragile, steep and marginal lands. the local infrastructures like health post, vdc office, post office and secondary school are also vulnerable to landslide and to some context floods too due to their spatial arrangement. this shows that locals are at higher degree of vulnerability due to landslide. however, the degree varies with the different economic classes. local indicators were developed for these criteria in a participatory manner. the chi-square test has verified that the degree of vulnerability was higher in the poor forest-dependent hhs than the well-off hhs (χ2 = 12.31 with 4 d.f at 5% level of significance, is significant). adaptation strategies though, people have poor knowledge on the technical matters of climate change, they have shown several evidences, which demonstrate that they have perceived, felt and experienced its effects. the major adaptation strategies adopted in different sectors are as follows: agriculture and forest resources in order to escape from continuous crop failure owing to unusual rain and frequent droughts, people are forced to seek some alternatives. for instance, some people have been trying to reduce their paddy lands and introduce vegetables, other than crops, that are less susceptible to droughts in additional land. the results revealed that 15% of the respondents had changed their cropping pattern from paddy to off-seasonal vegetables crops because of more income from vegetables farming. people were not willing to change from their traditional agricultural practices to offseasonal agricultural practices, but the changing climate had forced them to do so. for instance, late cultivation of paddy hampered the cultivation season of wheat and mustard. on the other hand, people used to transplant hybrid-paddy quiet earlier, otherwise it would be affected by insecticides and pests. the results showed that 30% of the forest dependent-households had started to raise the fodder species in their agricultural lands due to unavailability of fodder species in the nearby forest. some of the households also use biogas as an alternative to firewood. much of the significant adaptation practices are still based on the indigenous knowledge and technology that needs to be enhanced. livestock rearing with the changing pattern of climate, 20% of the households had started to raise the improved variety of livestock instead of the local variety. hybrid and improved varieties of cow and buffalo are common emphasizing milk production. more milk yielding livestock are popular as selling milk is quite easier due to market development and reasonable price. with the continuous flood, the river banks look like desserts. now, people have group approach to reclaim the degraded lands for fodder promotion, income generation activities through cash crops and community plantation through community forestry approach. water resources the traditional water ponds are getting lost gradually. according to the respondents, 2 water ponds were lost in the recent year. some ponds had problem of siltation while others are either encroached or have dried up. but now with the implication made by the absence of traditional ponds, people are building awareness on the importance of traditional ponds. through the initiation of community forest user groups, peoples are engaged in the conservation and maintenance of water ponds to harvest monsoon rain and also to be used by their cattle for consuming water and taking bath. landslide khanchikot vdc is highly vulnerable to landslide due to its steep topography, human settlement on fragile lands and lack of infrastructure for prewarning. ward no. 2, 8 and 9 are more vulnerable to landslide. to deal with the problem of landslide, the locals have started to construct check dam with gabions and bamboos, and gabion spurs along the ravines and streams. conclusion based on the meteorological data, it was found that both the minimum and the maximum temperatures in the study area were found to be in the increasing trend with 0.092oc and 0.05oc per year respectively. in addition, rainfall pattern in the study area was irregular with decreasing pattern every year at the rate of 18.02 mm/ year. the results of the study revealed that the acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 61 climate change had severely affected upon the rural households. the study area was exposed to different climatic hazards like long drought, landslide, floods, forest fire, and pest and disease outburst in the forest. long drought was identified as the most threatening hazard among all the climatic hazards. landslide was identified as the second most threatening climatic hazard in the study area. this study explored that the locals were vulnerable to long drought. however, the degree of vulnerability differs among the different economic classes. this study concludes that the poor people are in higher degree of vulnerability than the well-off rural people to different climatic hazards. majority of the respondents were not found to have adopted proper adaptation practices to cope with these climatic hazards. some of the respondents were found to have changed their cropping pattern and planted hybrid variety of crops. the locals were found to have been using indigenous practices in agriculture, livestock rearing and forest resource management. but these indigenous practices are short-term solution for sustainable resource management and for coping with the adverse effects of climatic hazards. raising awareness and sharing information with technology as well as increasing farm income among the locals should be done to build their capacity to cope with the impact of climate change. improved agriculture technology, training and awareness to farmers, initiating mixed cropping pattern, improved and drought-resistant varieties of crops must be introduced to cope with the effects of climate change. furthermore, preparation and execution of local adaptation plans integrating with the local development activities cannot be overlooked. acknowledgements the first author is grateful to the comform/ local danida fellowship program for providing financial support to carry out this study for the partial fulfillment of his bachelor’s degree in forestry. references alan, m. and regmi, b. r. 2005. “adverse impacts of the climate change on development of nepal: integrating adaptation into policies and activities, capacity strengthening of least developed countries for adaptation to climate change (clacc)”, working paper no. 3. bangladesh centre for advanced studies (bcas), dhaka, bangladesh. dfo. 2010. annual report on monitoring and evaluation of community forests. district forest office, arghakhanchi, nepal. dhm. 2008. climatological records of nepal, 1979–2009. government of nepal, ministry of water resources, department of hydrology and meteorology, kathmandu, nepal. ipcc. 2001. climate change synthesis report: third assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. cambridge university press, cambridge. ipcc. 2007. climate change 2007, adaptation and vulnerability, summary for policymakers. intergovernmental panel on climate change, geneva, switzerland. karki, m. b. 2007. “nepal’s experience in climate change issues”. fourteenth asia pacific seminar on climate change, sydney, australia. also available on www.apnet.org/ docs/14th_seminar/karki.pdf kates, r. w. 2000. cautionary tales: adaptation and the global poor. climate change 45 (1): 5–17. kvdc. 2010. village profile. khanchikot village development committee, arghakhanchi, nepal. louman, b., santoso, h. and parrota, j. a. 2009. forest ecosystem services: a cornerstone for human well-being. in adaptation of forests and people to climate change (eds) seppälä, r., buck, r. and katila, p. global assessment report prepared by the global forest expert panel on adaptation of forests to climate change, iufro world series 22. mope. 2004. initial national communication to the cop of unfccc. government of nepal, ministry of population and environment, kathmandu, nepal. gon/moe. 2010. national adaptation programme of action (napa). government of nepal, ministry of environment, singh acharya et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 62 durbar, kathmandu, nepal. moest. 2008. national capacity selfassessment for global environment management. government of nepal, ministry of environment, science and technology, kathmandu, nepal. pan. 2009. promoting adaptation to climate change in nepal. practical action nepal, kathmandu, nepal. sagun. 2009. climate change impacts on livelihoods of poor and vulnerable communities and biodiversity: a case study in banke, bardia, dhading and rasuwa districts of nepal. strengthened actions for governance in utilization of natural resources project, care nepal, kathmandu, nepal. shrestha, a. b., wake, c. p. mayewski, p. a. and dibb, j. e. 1999. maximum temperature trends in the himalaya and its vicinity: an analysis based on temperature records from nepal for the period 1971–1994. journal of climate 12: 2775–2789. shrestha a. b., wake, c. p., dibb, j. e. and mayewski, p. a. 2000. precipitation fluctuations in the nepal himalaya and its vicinity and relationship with some largescale climatological parameters. international journal of climatology 20 (3): 317–327. smit, b., burton, b., klein, r. j. t. and wandel, j. 2000. an anatomy of adaptation to climate change and variability. climatic change 45: 223–251. soham. 2006. newsletter, society of hydrologists and meteorologists, kathmandu, nepal. 6 (2). acharya et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 51 bryophytes are very important parts of ecosystem however their study is done less as compared to vascular plants in nepal. there are 766 taxa of mosses in nepal (pradhan 2000, 2006). the genus bryum hedw. represents the taxon of bryaceae (bryophyta). bryum medianum mitt. has been reported from meghalaya, from khasia hills (gangulee 1969-1980) as well as thailand and malayasia. however, the specimen of this species has not been deposited in nepal (pradhan 2000, 2006); is a new addition to the specimens of bryoflora in natural history museum, nepal when compared with other specis of the same genus in the = natural history museum, nepal. the study sites was tsum valley located in manaslu conservation area of gorkha district. the species was observed during the biodiversity assessment. this species was recorded from natural forest of pinus wallichiana, quercus semicarpifolia, rhododendron arboreum, rubus peniculatus, hedera nepalensis, thallictrum reniforme, etc were associated in the site. the locality of this species consisted of moist environment with ca 10 cm litter deposition at the time of collection of the specimen. the species was photographed. it was then put in envelop and pressed along with other angiosperm. the specimen was dried and identified in the lab of natural history museum, nepal. in this short note, the taxonomy based on the specimen of the species has been described. taxonomy bryum medianum mitt. j. proc. linn. soc., bot., suppl. 1: 74 1859. plants small, closely tufted, bright green, reddish brown when dry. rhizoids are reddish brown. shoots erect, 4-4.5 cm long. stems slender, short, branched. leaves numerous, more crowded in the lower part of stem, erect, 1.5-2 × 1 -1.2 mm, oblong-lanceolate, sharply acuminate; margins entire, with distinct mid-vein. seta erect, 3-7 cm long, dark reddishbrown. capsule thick, cylindrical, 2-3 mm; operculum conical; peristome well developed (fig.1). fig. 1: collection site: a map of nepal; b gorkha district and locality specimen examined: central nepal, gandaki zone, gorkha district, above dumje, opposite to the trail to chum valley, 2600 m, 12 september notes on bryum medianum mitt. (bryaceae) collected from tsum valley, central nepal j. p. gajurel2,* 4, s. k. rai 1, 4, n. pradhan3 and c. scheidegger4 1 department of plant resources, ministry of forests and soil conservation, government of nepal. *e-mail:jpgajurel2010@gmail.com 2 tribhuvan university, central department of botany, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal. 3 natural history museum, tribhuvan university, swayambhu, kathmandu, nepal 4 swiss federal institute for forest, snow and landscape research, wsl short note banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 52 2012, j. p. gajurel, s. k. rai, bibas rai & bhim rai, coll no: bry 37a (natural history museum). distribution: central nepal (dumje, tsum valley, gorkha district,fig. 2), south india, thailand, malayasia. fig. 2: habit; a entire plant (moist); b entire plant (dry); c. capsule; d leaf; the scale on margin represent mm. discussion bryophytes are less studied in nepal as compared to higher plants. there are 766 taxa of mosses in nepal (pradhan 2000, 2006) which do not include bryum medianum mitt. this species have been collected and preserved in india, thailand and malayasia (frahm et al. 2013; gangulee 19691980). the potential distribution of this species was reported by gangulee (1969-1980) in nepal; however, there are no records on the specimen collected or deposited in nepal. the present study, confirms his distribution range. this note on the bryum medianum mitt. concludes the new addition to bryoflora to nepal and make contribution to existing checklist of bryoflora. as the number of specimens were localized in small area, it further recommends for conservation of the species in the natural habitat in tsum valley. acknowledgement we are grateful to krishna kumar shrestha (former head, the central department of botany, tribhuvan university) for coordinating the project in nepal. we are also thankful to the swiss national science foundation (grant jrp iz70z0_131338/1 to christoph scheidegger), central department of botany, tribhuvan university, nepal for providing logistics to the field trip. we are thankful to mr. shiva devkota, phd scholar of bern university, switzerland and to the staff of kath and wilderplaces treks, kathmandu, for their cooperation. references frahm, j.p., schwarz, u. & manju, c.n. 2013. a checklist of the mosses of karnataka, india. archive for bryology 158 : 2—15. gangulee, h.c. 1969-1980. mosses of eastern india and adjacent regions. vols. i-iii, (fasc. 1—8), bsi, calcutta. pradhan, n. 2000. materials for a checklist of bryophytes of nepal. british museum, london. uk. pradhan, n. and joshi, s.d. 2006. a checklist of fissidens species (musci: fissidentaceae) of nepal. our nature 4 : 61—68. gajurel et al. estimation of total biomass and carbon sequestration in any forest is crucial as it gives ecological and economic benefits through various environmental services. with an aim to quantify the carbon stock densities in the two different ecological regions–the hills and the terai, two community forests (cfs) having the dominance of shorea robusta were selected from gorkha (in the hills) and chitwan (in the terai) districts for the purpose of the study. systematic random sampling with 1% sampling intensity was used to collect necessary data. the total carbon stock in the cfs of the hills and the terai were found to be 234.54 t ha-1 and 479.29 t ha-1, respectively. the biomass carbon stock density in the cf of the terai was found to be higher (384.20 t ha-1) than the one in the hills (123.15 t ha-1). carbon densities of different carbon pools such as tree; sapling; leaf litter, grass and herbs were significantly higher (p<0.05) in the terai than in the hill forest whereas dead wood and stumps and the soil organic carbon density were found to be not significantly different in these regions. similarly, the highest amount of soil organic carbon (soc) was found in the uppermost soil horizon in the forests of both the regions. these results revealed that the biomass carbon stock density was higher in the terai s. robusta forest than in the hill s. robusta forest. however, the soc obtained was in inverse relation to that of the biomass carbon stock in both the ecological regions. it would not be biased if different ecological regions with similar forest types are intervened with different management strategies for having more carbon stocks and for the conservation of biodiversity in the days to come. k e y w or d s : biomass carbon, carbon stock density, ecological regions, shorea robusta, soil organic carbon a comparative study on carbon stock in sal (shorea robusta) forest in two different ecological regions of nepal h. p. pandey1 and m. bhusal2 carbon stock is the absolute quantity of carbon held within a pool at a specified time whereas carbon sequestration is the process of increasing the carbon content of a carbon pool other than the atmosphere (fao, 2011). in other words, carbon sequestration is understood as the removal of carbon from the atmosphere by storing it in the biosphere (ipcc, 2000). forests play a profound role in reducing ambient carbon dioxide (co2) levels as they sequester 20–100 times more carbon per unit area than croplands (brown and pearce, 1994). hence, vegetation and soils play role of viable sinks of atmospheric carbon and may significantly contribute mitigation of global climate change (bajracharya et al., 1998; lal, 2004). biological sequestration of co2 by forest has numerous benefits to other emission reduction technologies. firstly, it is considered to be more effective than other carbon sequestration methods (banskota et al., 2007), and so it has become a least cost-solution in the world. secondly, managing forests sustainably in tropical areas will greatly reduce carbon emissions as it is estimated that global deforestation alone accounts for about 17.4% (ipcc, 2007) of the global greenhouse gases emissions. thirdly, there is a high potential for enhancing the carbon sequestration in the vegetation and soils of the himalayan region through improved management of degraded lands (upadhyay et al., 2005). soil organic carbon (soc) stocks display a high spatial variability (cannell et al., 1999). in fact, most of the studies concern only the topsoil (e.g. 0–30 cm), although carbon sequestration or loss may also occur in deeper soil layers (bird et al., 2002; fontaine et al., 2007). soc is an important index of soil quality because of its relationship to 24 1 redd implementation centre, kathmandu, nepal. email: pandeyhp123@gmail.com 2 nepal herbs and herbal products association, kathmandu, nepal banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 25 crop productivity (lal et al., 1997). in this regard, soc sequestration has numerous economic as well as ecological implications in terms of trading carbon credits, improving quality of soil and water resources, and achieving food security. sal (shorea robusta) is the most dominant species of the tropical and subtropical broadleaved forests of nepal (jackson, 1994). the shorea robusta forest in nepal is confined to the hills and terai ecological regions. it shares the highest tree volume i.e., 109.4 million m3 (28.2% of the total tree volume) (amatya and shrestha, 2010). s. robusta forests not only have higher economic value, but also serve as an important ecological benefit in the form of abating global warming and climate change through conserving atmospheric co2 (shrestha, 2008). about 1.45 million households or 35 percent of the population of nepal are involved in community-based forest management program through forming 17,685 community forest user groups (cfugs) who are managing 1,652,654 hectares of national forest handed over to them (dof, 2015). among these cfugs, few of them have got reward for the carbon enhancement in their forests (adhikari, 2016) as pilot programs. there is still a hope that the financial resources required to assist the developing countries in undertaking mitigation, and adaptation activities will become more and more significant in the future (unfccc, 2015) including nepal. to ensure the carbon credit getting from one or other programs, it is very crucial to account carbon accumulation in forest to make the communities get benefited from carbon credits and biodiversity conservation. in spite of the protection of forests from local communities for 33 years, only a little attention has been paid so far to forest and soil inventories considering carbon stocks. hence, amount of soil and biomass carbon sequestrated is unknown (shrestha, 2008) in these forests. in nepal, most of the studies have been conducted in forests for their tangible economic benefits whereas a very few studies have been done on intangible benefits such as carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation. information on carbon stocks in different forest ecosystems in nepal is still lacking (shrestha and singh, 2008). the participation in reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation plus (redd+) mechanism has brighter prospect for nepal so as to generate carbon revenues as well as non-carbon benefits for the nation and her people where preliminary estimates show that redd+ may bring between $20-86 million per year to nepal (un-redd, 2014). to provide somewhat base-line information regarding redd+ and to improve the carbon sink of the forests (reddic, 2015), this study could be a reference document since forest reference level is yet to be finalized in the national scenario. therefore, the first step is to estimate the amount of carbon stocks in the forests of different conditions and types for getting credits from forest carbon in days to come. hence, the present study aims to quantify and compare the carbon stock densities and to compare the soil carbon densities with at different depths in the community forests having dominance of s. robusta in the two different ecological regions of nepal. materials and methods study area located between 27o15’ and 28o45’ n latitude and between 84o27’ and 84o57’ e longitude, gorkha district lies in the hilly region of central nepal. the total area of the district is 3,610 km2 with an altitudinal variation of 228–8,163 m above the mean sea level (amsl) (cbs, 2006). the district exhibits wide range of climate, from sub-tropical in the south to alpine in the north, with 23.1oc mean annual temperature and 1,500.20 mm average annual precipitation (dhm, 2015). two community forests having the dominance of s. robusta were selected from gorkha (in the hills) and chitwan (in the terai) districts for the study (fig. 1). one of the two cfs selected for the purpose was ghaledanda ranakhola cf situated in the bunkot village development committee (vdc) of gorkha district. the cf selected for the purpose lies in the sub-temperate region with an area of 181.63 ha and with 750–1,000 m altitudinal variation amsl (cbs, 2006). most of the land is plain consisting of clayey loam soil; the soil is reddish under the s. robusta cover and blackish near the water holes. the cf is managed by a total of 459 households with 3,014 family members. the forest is consisted of medium-sized trees and dominated by s. robusta associated with schima wallichii, castanopsis indica and lagerstroemia parviflora. pandey and bhusal banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 26 pandey and bhusal another cf selected for the purpose was nawajyoti buffer zone cf situated in the barandabar corridor forest of geetanagar vdc in chitwan district. located between 27o21’ n and 27o52’ n latitude and between 83o54’ e and 84o48’ e longitude, chitwan district lies in the inner–terai region of central nepal; the total area of the district is 2,205.90 km2 with an altitudinal variation of 141 m to 1,947 m amsl (cbs, 2006). moreover, subtropical type of climate prevails in the district with the yearly average temperature of 26oc and 1,512 mm average annual precipitation (dhm, 2015). the total area of the cf is 44.7 ha with an altitudinal variation of 175 m to 250 m amsl, and is managed and conserved by the buffer zone community forest user group (bzcfug) with a total of 302 households with 1,791 family members. most of the land is plain consisting of clayey loam soil. the soil is reddish under the s. robusta cover and blackish near the water holes, similar to the one in the cf of gorkha district. likewise, there are yellowish fertile alluviums in some parts of the forest. the community forest is primarily dominated by s. robusta with a number of broad-leaved associate species including sapium insigne and bombax ceiba. forest sampling and plot allocation for forest carbon inventory, systematic random sampling technique with 1% sampling intensity was used. for the purpose of plot allocation, both the forests were stratified on the basis of species composition, and then, on the basis of proportion allocation, concentric circular sample plots (ccsps) were allocated randomly in each stratum. a total of 75 and 20 ccsps with the radii of 8.92 m (for measuring trees and poles), 5.64 m (for measuring saplings), 1 m (for measuring seedlings) and 0.56 m (for taking the samples of the leaf litter, herbs, grass and soil) (fig. 2) were laid out in the cfs of gorkha and chitwan districts, respectively using the method described by ansab (2010). fig. 2: layout of a ccsp in the field measurement of sample plots the diameter (at breast height) and height of all the trees, poles and saplings were measured using d-tapes and suunto-clinometers, respectively fig. 1: location map of two study areas in chitwan and gorkha districts of nepal banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 27 while the seedlings were counted in the respective sample plots and all the herbaceous and woody vegetation inside the innermost 0.56 m–radius plots were clipped and collected separately to take the fresh weights; the representative subsamples of 300 m of all the herbaceous plants, woody vegetation, leaf litters and grasses were taken to the soil laboratory of the institute of forestry (iof), pokhara for oven drying. soil sample collection the soil samples from various depths (0–20 cm, 20–40 cm, 40–60 cm, 60–80 cm and 80–100 cm) were collected using the methodology adopted by awasthi et al. (2005). all the samples were bagged, labeled and sent to the soil laboratory for further analysis. the pit method was used for determining the bulk densities (pearson et al., 2005) of the soil samples. besides, several published and unpublished information were also collected from the secondary sources so as to fulfill the objectives of the study. data analysis the biomass and carbon stock density from each site were analyzed using the allometric equation and the guidelines mentioned in “forest carbon inventory directives, 2011” prepared by the redd implementation centre under the ministry of forests and soil conservation of the government of nepal (gon, 2011). the analysis of the soil samples were performed, adopting walkey and black method (jackson, 1958), in the regional soil testing laboratory of pokhara. the aggregates of all the sources of carbon pools were added to obtain the total carbon stock. the carbon content was assumed to be 47% of dry biomass (ipcc, 2006 cited in gon, 2011). the carbon stock density was calculated by summing the carbon stock densities of the individual carbon pools. in order to compare the carbon stock densities between the two ecological regions, t-tests were performed at 5% level of significance with the help of r statistical package version 2.11.1 (rdct, 2012). the graphs and tables were constructed using ms-excel 2010. results and discussion biomass carbon stock density the total carbon stock density of the forest vegetation including carbon in the trees, saplings, leaf litters, herbs and grass together with the dead wood and stumps was found to be 123.15 t ha-1 and 384.20 t ha-1 in the shorea robuta forests of the hills and the terai, respectively. the above ground biomass carbon stock density comprised of 91% among the total biomass carbon stock density and the rest 9% belonging to the below ground (root) in both the ecological regions (table 1). the bulk amount of carbon was found to be stored in the trees (including poles) followed by the leaf litters, herbs and grasses in both the regions. the t-test showed that there was significant difference (p<0.05) in the carbon stock densities of these pools with respective to the ecological regions; the amount of carbon density was found to be significantly higher in the terai forest than in the hill forest. on the other hand, the dead wood and stump carbon stock density had no significant difference (p>0.05) with respect to the ecological regions (table 1). this signifies that same sorts of rules prevailing in the cfs that the users extract forest biomass one or other ways for fulfilling their daily needs. pandey and bhusal table 1: biomass carbon stock densities in the study areas carbon pools df hill cf terai cf mean p-value remarks tree carbon density (t ha-1) 114.004 115.22 359.69 237.455 0.000031 * sapling carbon density (t ha-1) 36.298 0.28 0.39 0.335 0.002886 * herbs, grass and leaf litter(t ha-1) 14.977 7.51 23.92 15.715 0.000016 * dead and stump carbon(t ha-1) 32.151 0.14 0.20 0.170 0.135100 total of biomass carbon density 123.15 384.20 253.675 soil organic carbon (t ha-1) 5.678 111.39 95.09 103.240 0.558200 total carbon density 234.54 479.29 356.915 remarks: * = significant at p<0.05 carbon on branches, leaves, and roots is included in their respective pools banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 28 soil organic carbon the soil organic carbon (soc) of shorea robusta dominant cf was found to be higher in the hill s. robusta forest (111.4 t ha-1) as compared to the one in the terai s. robusta forest (95.1 t ha-1) (table 1). the soc contained in the topmost layer of soil (0–20 cm depth) in the hill forest was found to be highest (28.45 t ha-1) and lowest (16.9 t ha-1) within the horizon of 60–80 cm depth (fig. 3). similarly, the soc of the topmost layer of soil in the terai forest was found to be highest (36.6 t ha-1) and lowest (9.4 t ha-1) within the end horizon of 80–100 cm. even though the cumulative value of the soc is quite different in these community forests, there was no significant difference ( p>0.05) in storing organic carbon per unit area with respect to the ecological region (table 1). the overall trend of the soc showed the gradual decrease in carbon density with the increase in the soil depth in the hill forest but there was no such significant trend in the terai forest. however, the soc density was found to have decreased from top to bottom with the increase in the soil depth in both the ecological regions (fig. 3). fig. 3: ecological region-wise soc density at different soil depths although the trend line was found to have decreased drastically within the lowest horizon (80–100 cm depth), it was quite fluctuating within the middle horizons (40–60 cm and 60–80 cm depths) in the terai forest. this clearly indicates the seepage of soc from the water holes in the s. robusta forest of the terai ecological region. the main reason of difference in the soc density is because of the difference in their bulk densities and the alluvial deposition in the soils of the terai forest. total carbon stock density the combined carbon stock density is the sum of biomass carbon stock density and the soc stock density (table 1). the total organic carbon in the shorea robusta dominated forest was found to be 234.54 t ha-1 in the hill s. robusta forest while it was 479.29 t ha-1 in the terai s. robusta forest. a study conducted in the kusumdanda community forest in palpa district which is also situated in the hill ecological region of nepal, showed the carbon stock density in a shorea robusta forest to be 186.95 t ha-1 (nepal, 2006) and later, 235.95 t ha-1 shrestha (2008), which are almost similar to the results of this study conducted in the same ecological region. another study conducted by ansab in the same cf (ghaledanda ranakhola cf in gorkha) in 2011 estimated 211.184 t ha-1 of carbon stock whereas the soc was calculated only up to 30cm depths (ansab, 2011). the total organic carbon in the terai (479.29 t ha1) was found to be far greater than the average carbon stock of the tropical forests (285.0 t ha-1) of the world (jina et al., 2008) although lower than the mean carbon stock estimation of the cf in nepal (acharya et al., 2009). this might be the reason of the availability of greater average diameter and height classes of the trees in the s. robusta dominated forest in the terai as compared to the one in the hills. the carbon stock density estimated in this study was higher than the average carbon stock in nepalese forest (161.1 t ha-1) estimated by the global forest resource assessment report of fao (2006). the reason behind might be because of the use of the projected forest inventory data of 1994 by the fao in its report. however, the soc in the terai s. robusta forest was found to be lesser than that in the hill s. robusta forest. besides, the soc content was also found to be low as compared to the biomass carbon content in the terai forest whereas it was almost equal in the forest situated in the hill region. in the case of soc, it is highly dependent on bulk density, content of organic matters, type of soil and parent material since bulk density depends on several factors such as compaction, consolidation and amount of carbon present in soil (morisada, et al., 2004 and leifeld et al., 2004 cited in ranabhat et al., 2008). also, this clearly indicates the higher collection of leaf litter and plant residues by the community forest users from the terai s. robusta forest, or the alluvial deposition in the soils of the terai s. robusta forest, because of which the organic matter content in the soils is significantly decreased. pandey and bhusal banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 29 in the case of the hill s. robusta forest, both the above ground biomass and the soc were found to possess 48% of carbon and the below-ground biomass (4%) whereas in the case of the terai s. robusta forest, more than two third of the carbon was found to be accumulated in the aboveground biomass (72%) followed by soc (21%) and the least (7%) in the below-ground biomass (fig. 4). the above-ground biomass carbon in the terai forest was almost 1.5 times more than that in the hill forest whereas the soc content was in reverse order as the terai s. robusta forest contained less than half proportion of soc than the hill s. robusta forest. fig. 4: different carbon pools in the hill and terai s. robusta forests conclusion the total biomass carbon density was found to be significantly higher in the terai s. robusta dominated cf (384.2 t ha-1) than in the hill s. robusta dominated cf (123.2 t ha-1). however, the soc in the hill cf (111.4 t ha-1) was found to be more than the one in the terai cf (95.1 t ha-1). it was found that the soc decreased with the increase in soil-depth in both the ecological regions. the soc contributed 48% of the total carbon pool in the hill s. robusta forest whereas it accounted for 21% in the case of the terai cf. similarly, the total carbon stock density was found to be significantly higher in the terai cf (479.3 t ha-1) than in the hill cf (234.5 t ha-1). these results reveal that the communities have been conserving remarkable amount of carbon in their forests through proper forest management. however, replications of similar types of research on both the ecological regions are crucial to get valid inferences for the generalization of the result throughout the nation. acknowledgements the authors are thankful to eng. kausal raj gnyawali for his gis work and the anonymous reviewer for his/her constructive feedbacks in the preliminary version of the manuscript. references acharya, k. p., dangi, r. b., tripathi, d. m., bushley, b. r., bhandary, r. r. and bhattarai, b. 2009. ready for redd ? taking stock of experience, opportunities and challenges in nepal. nepal foresters’ association, kathmandu, nepal. adhikari, s. 2016. growing money from carbon. kathmandu. http://communityredd.net cited on 16 february, 2016. 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28 no. 2, 2018, pp 23-31 23 nepal has succeeded in granting better protection for its asian rhino population that has become exemplary in the world. effective law enforcement along with community participation has been acclaimed as a reason for this achievement. however, there have been very few studies to assess the effectiveness of current anti-poaching strategies. in this study, we assessed the performance of smart patrolling and population trend of rhino in chitwan national park (cnp). the patrol data collected through patrolling logbooks were used to visualize the coverage of smart in the cnp and its buffer zone by dividing it into 1km*1km grid cell. logistic regression models were used to analyze whether or not the patrol effort and patrol frequency correlate with the reduction in occurrences of illegal activities. a total of 6,593 patrols were conducted within the last fifteen months. logistic regression models revealed that sites with a greater frequency of patrols, rather than the combined distance walked, had a lower probability of occurrence of illegal activities (βpatrol.frequency= -8.6428 & βpatrol.effort= -4.1804). this implies that patrol frequency was found more significant than patrol efforts in reducing prevalence of illegal activities in and around the cnp. the poaching activities were found high during insurgency period. the trend in rhino poaching was found to be decreased with increase in number of security posts, community-based anti-poaching unit formation, conservation education and sweeping/camping operations.to maintain the continuous success in the long-run, it is crucial to regulate and enhance effective law enforcement capability and more advance techno-based modality in close coordination with stakeholders including community institutions. key words: anti-poaching, one-horned rhino, patrol efforts, patrol frequency, smart patrolling impact of anti-poaching approaches for the success of rhino conservation in chitwan national park, nepal d. mahatara1*, s. rayamajhi2 and g. khanal3 about 133,968 hectares of forests were cleared from tarai region of nepal alone for the settlement as well as for the eradication of malaria during 1950s and 1980s (hmg, 1988). after the eradication of malaria during 1954, people from mid-hills shifted to lowland of tarai region for settlement and agricultural expansion, which resulted to the destruction and fragmentation of the habitat altering the natural ecosystem and biodiversity (smith et al., 1998). most of the wild animals, especially large mammals are now restricted to the few pockets of small protected areas in a small number because of the ongoing fragmentation of its habitat (pradhan, 2007). besides habitat degradation and loss of prey, large mammals like rhinoceros, tiger and elephant population severely depleted by poaching for traditional medicines as well as for entertainment to the rulers (mills and jackson, 1994). poaching of wild animals including one-horned rhinoceros, tiger and prey species was widespread before the enforcement of national parks and wildlife conservation act 1973 and designation of chitwan national park (cnp) and had remained the serious problem throughout nepal, including all of the protected areas (maskey, 1998). during rana regime (1845–1947), large scale hunting was done every year by the rana rulers who were in times accompanied by the dukes, viceroys, and 1. forest research and training center, kathmandu *e-mail: honeystar73@gmail.com 2. institute of forestry, pokhara nepal 3. department of national park and wildlife conservation, kathmandu banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 23-31 mahatara et al 24 princes and also by the king of england. though mega species in nepal were protected from 1845, the members of ruling class not only hunted them but they at times made profit also by selling to animal collectors, and tigers could be shot legally by paying rupees 500 prior to 1970 (bhatta, 1977). poaching is one of the major threats to biodiversity conservation in nepal. not only poaching affects the population status and demographic structures of wild flora and fauna, it also means that the entire ecosystem functions are affected by the removal of a species (chungyalpa, 1998). in nepal, over 800 rhinos were believed to be living in the chitwan valley until 1950 (dinerstein, 1979) based on their head counts. the number of rhinoceros dropped to less than 100 at the mid 1960’s because of poaching and habitat loss for agriculture (adhikari et al., 1999) and ignorance of conservation significance. chitwan national park (cnp) was gazzeted as a park in 1973 and from then until 1998, 2.6 rhinoswere poached annually (martin, 1998). at the peak of the insurgency period (1998–2006) army posts and law enforcement patrol was curtailed, which created favorable environment for poachers, as a result around 150 rhinos were poached (martin and martin, 2010). however, the cases of poaching declined from 2007 with the end of decade long conflict and now nepal has achieved new milestone in its conservation history by slowing down the numbers of rhino poaching incidents to zero for few years which might be due to resume of the army posts again and effective patrolling. and also, from 2010–2014, there was smart (spatial monitoring and reporting tool) patrolling in addition to handling of intelligence by protection unit, nepal army/park staff as well as involvement of community based anti-poaching operation by local community institutions that resulted in decreasing trend of rhino poaching and has been successful to maintain almost zero till now except single incidence in 2011, 2013 and 2017. now, nepal’s rhino population has increased by 21% based on the rhino count data released by the government of nepal on may 5, 2015. according to that survey report, there are 645 rhinos in total as compared to the 2011 estimate of 534 rhinos in nepal’s rhino range landscape range in tarai arc landscape (dnpwc/mfsc, 2015). in recent days, smart patrolling has been transformed to more advanced system of technology-based realtime monitoring. studies have shown that increase in the number of army posts, high penalties for wildlife crime, involvement of the ngo’s with local participation, establishment of crime control bureau, increase in revenue collection are the supporting factors for decline in rhino poaching in nepal (martin et al., 2013). during the maoist insurgency from 1995 to 2006, the army withdrew many of the scattered posts from chitwan np, bardia np and suklaphanta wildlife reserve to concentrate their men for greater security. according to martin and martin (2010), shift of the army and the park staff from the core area and reduction of the posts to just 32 in 2009 were the main causes of massive loss of rhinos in the cnp. however, many previous studies do not give clear figure regarding the influence of law enforcement patrolling guided by reports from local informants or community based anti-poaching, so in this study we try to analyze the impact of law enforcement interventions for rhino conservation. linkie et al.(2015) figured out that understanding the ability of current strategies to suppress the patterns of illegal activities over space and time is critical to prevent the implementation of well-intended but ineffective strategies and ongoing losses of rhinos. continuity of success story of zero poaching is still challenging until and unless the modality or approach used to combat poaching is sustainably implemented and institutionalized. through this study, we have assessed the performance of the existing modality used for current anti-poaching operations of rhino in the cnp, which helps to bridge the research gap and to develop adaptive management strategies. we have analyzed the performance of patrolling to decline the illegal activities and also figured out the past 10 years activities in order to decrease and increase the number of rhinos. from this study, we have recommended the park authorities and other conservationists to make priority for particular anti-poaching activities in order to sustain the present success in rhino conservation. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in cnp which is situated mahatara et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 23-31 25 in south central nepal (fig. 1), covering 932 sq. km. in the subtropical lowlands of the inner tarai. the geographic location of the park is between n 27° 34’ 23” and 27° 68’ 98” latitude and e 83° 87’ 79” and 84° 74’ 30” longitude whereas the geographic location of buffer zone is between n 27° 28’ 23” and 27° 70’ 38” latitude and e 83° 83’ 98” and 84° 77’ 38” longitude (cnp management plan, 2012–2016). the altitudinal range is from about 100 m (330 ft) in the river valleys to 815 m (2,674 ft) in the chure hills (bhuju et al., 2007). the park shares its eastern boundary with the parsa national park, southwest part with narayani river, northern with rapti river and reu river in the south. the topography of the cnp is quite diverse and unique with flood plains, river valleys and gorges and churia hills. the floral diversity of the park consists of more than 600 plant species which include 3 gymnosperm, 13 pteridophytes, 415 dicotyledons, 137 monocot, 16 species of orchids (unesco/iucn, 2003). the park harbors a more than 55 species of mammals, over 600 species of birds and 55 species of reptiles and amphibians (dnpwc/mfsc, 2013). fig. 1: map showing chitwan national park and its buffer zone methodology the study was primarily based on secondary data which were analyzed using different techniques. ten years annual and monthly reports regarding anti-poaching activities were taken as a major source of information. besides, records of legal cases of the cnp, various published and unpublished documents, reports, annual reports of different stakeholders, journals, articles and other relevant literatures were reviewed during the study. to study the efficiency of smart patrol, patrolling logbooks and ranger data sheets collected from each of the 53 anti-poaching units were considered. database for the study of smart patrol to create a database from the analysis, the cnp and its buffer zone (bz) area was divided into 1 km * 1 km grid cell using gis tools because in general this is the average distance that a hunter or a patrol team might cover in a day. each of these grid cells constituted a sampling unit for this study (hines et al., 2010). the detail patrol data from each of the 53 park posts and army camp of the cnp was then collected. each of these patrolling camps was fallen under one of the sampling units that were used for this study. the data from each of these anti-poaching units included the distance (km) patrolled per year, number of patrols conducted per year and travel routes for each of those patrols to deter various illegal activities. then these data were used to know the coverage of the park and its bz by the patrol units and also to figure out the probability of occurrence of illegal activities with patrol frequency and patrol efforts. detection of snares traps or tools used for rhino hunting, rhino poaching cases revealed, poachers arrested and rhino shot dead incidence reported from the beginning of implementation of smart patrolling in every anti-poaching camps was included as illegal activities. however, poachers were very rarely encountered in person by a patrol team except other invaders. therefore, the effectiveness of law enforcement patrolling was assessed using an occupancy framework that accounts for imperfect detections (mackenzie et al., 2002).  patrol frequencynumber of times that each patrol team of an anti-poaching camp visited and area covered.  patrol effortsnumber of kilometers patrolled by each of the patrolling team of anti-poaching camps. the statistical analysis was based on the logic that the law enforcement patrols for the conservation intervention could stimulate the suppression of illegal activities through removing snare traps or tool sets for rhino poaching and deterring the unauthorized mobility inside the park and buffer banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 23-31 mahatara et al 26 zone area, which in turn could influence help to protect and comfort the status of rhinoceros. the effectiveness of law enforcement patrolling was analyzed using logistic regression and the coverage of the smart patrol was assessed using arc gis. qualitative and quantitative data were analysed using spss 19.0 and ms excel 2007 and presented in the tables, bar diagram and line chart. results and discussion smart patrolling the intensive joint patrolling by nepal army and park staff together on a regular basis and on the basis of reports from local informants is considered as a crucial factor for the decline of the poaching incidences. patrol team layout their patrolling route based on the information provided by the informers, which are not only increased by their numbers but also trained effectively to improve their ways of collecting information on potential rhino poachers and traders.the data regarding illegal activities include detection of snares traps/ tools used for rhino hunting, finding out of rhino poaching cases, arrest of poachers, discovering of rhino shot dead incidence from the beginning of implementation of smart patrolling in every anti-poaching units. on an average, each patrol unit conducted one patrol per day which shows that there were around 20,000 patrols per year from 53 patrol units and these teams were successful to arrest as much as 176 offenders including rhino during the period of 2010–2015.the maximum patrol activities were recorded near and around the bz (fig. 3), where the poaching incidences were higher in the past than core area and patrol intensity was found high on thefringes of core area and the bz which may be due to high accessibility of road networks. our study stresses the importance of expanding patrol coverage and augmenting this with a carefully cultivated and widespread informant network. linkie et al. (2015) also found that sampling sites/grid cells with a greater frequency of patrols, rather than the combined distance walked (patrol effort), would have a lower occurrence of poaching cases in succeeding years. table 1: rate of occurrence of illegal activities with patrol frequency & patrol efforts model aic value β1 b2 logit(p)= (b1+b2)* patrol frequency 10.475 0.6153 -8.6428 logit(p)= (b1+b2)* patrol efforts 20.186 0.3804 -4.1804 from logistic regression, both patrol frequency and patrol efforts are significant with occurrence of illegal activities i.e. with the increase in patrol frequency as well as patrol effort, the probability of occurrence of illegal activities declines (fig. 2). among them, patrol frequency has more negative relationship with occurrence of illegal activities (β patrol. frequency= -8.6428) than with patrol effort and β patrol. effort= -4.1804) (table 1) and this indicates that patrol efficiency is highly significant as compared to patrol efforts. this shows that smart patrolling team should be more focused to increase the patrol frequency. unified patrolling involving community people, nature guide and park staff should be made more effective. it should not be only concentrated to park headquarter and bz periphery but also inside the core area.park staff especially rangers and game scouts should be equipped with arms so they can patrol themselves with greater security. fig. 2: rate of occurrence of illegal activities with patrol intensity and patrol effort mahatara et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 23-31 27 the figure 2 shows that both patrol frequency and effort have significant relationship with the probability of occurrence of illegal activities, however, the graph indicates that illegal activities drop faster with increase in patrol frequency than patrol effort. fig. 3: map showing the coverage of smart patrolling in cnp increase in security posts earlier, during the maoist insurgency from 1995 to 2006, the army field camps were with drawn from the cnp to concentrate their men for high security. for instance, at the peak of insurgency period from 2001–2005, the army and the park staff had only sevenout posts in the cnp which resultedin significant loss of wildlife and other biological resources. in the cnp in late 2009, the army and the park staff had only 32 posts which was the main cause of massive loss of rhinos in the cnp (martin and martin, 2010). martin et al. (2013) concluded that the re-occupy of more previousarmy posts by nepal army in the cnp is the vitally determinant to decline poaching incidences. our results also showed that the incidences of poaching cases declined with the re-establishment of security posts within the cnp from 2007 (fig. 4). the main policy change that brought dramatic improvement in the rhino conservation approaches is the operational shift in anti-poaching strategy. mist, a unified database management system designed as a full suite of tools and services for conservation,applies the technology-based law enforcement real-time smart monitoring system designed by the wildlife conservation society (thapa et. al., 2013)which provides regular and rapid communication of information on illegal activities and other reports of protected area. fig. 4: rhino poaching vs. security posts in cnp increase in the security posts has negative correlation with rhino poaching number.the figure 4 shows that the maximum rhino poaching was in 2002 due to decrease in the number of security posts and very few poaching incidents were detected as the number of security posts increased only from 2009. it showed that the upsurge of rhino poaching from 2001 to 2006 was disappointedly increased, as the army decreased its soldiers within the cnp to prevent maoist attacks on them. the army decided to withdraw 25 posts to concentrate their soldiers to only eight guard posts along with the government’s declaration of emergency and with increasing threats of maoist attack, which made easier for poachers to violate the legal procedures and operate poaching in and around the cnp and there was loss of around 100 rhinos from 2001– 2007. arrest of rhino poachers arrest of offenders, whocommit the wildlife crime, is another one of the major activities of the cnp. through cooperative joint effort of park and army staff, 51 rhino poachers and traders were arrested during 2010/2011 in and around the cnp, which is the highest number of offenders arrested in case of rhino poaching till date. in october 2012, officials arrested an entire chain of rhino poaching gang. the poaching gang consisted of 17 people, all were arrested from the chitwan area, including two women in the gang, being less likely to suspect though. banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 23-31 mahatara et al 28 fig. 5: number of rhino poachers arrested vs. rhino poaching there was no poaching incident in 2011 as the number of offenders arrested in that year was maximum in comparison to other years. the cnp arrested more than 250 rhino poachers within the last nine years (fig. 5). the government of nepal has stepped up efforts against dismantling the network of poachers and wildlife criminals within and outside the protected areas through its enforcement agencies and collaboration with conservation partners such as wwf and local communities. the capture and jailing of nepal's most wanted poacher show how serious the government is about tackling wildlife crime and this results the decline in poaching activities. impact of conservation education the bz concept was promulgated for nepal’s protected areas in 1993 by an amendment to the national parks and wildlife conservation act of 1973 to help the local community who are relied on bz products rather than park resources and to gain their support for conservation. the bzs were mostly funded by 30–50% of the revenue raised by the respective protected areas (baral et al., 2007). out of the total budget allocated for bz, the buffer zone management committee (bzmc) in chitwan allocates 30% for capacity enhancement and conservation education (especially for anti-poaching operations, awareness, youth mobilization and formal and informal education) which significantly helps to conserve rhino and other wildlife. martin et al. (2013) also showed that the co-operation of ngo with local people living near the fringes of the protected areas is the key step to harmonize them to ensure the protection of rhino population. fig. 6: budget for conservation education in different fiscal years in general, the budget for conservation education was found in an increasing trend from 2008, after the end of a decade long conflict in the country. the money allocated for conservation education is often spent on projects to capacitate and aware the local community about the importance of protecting wildlife, especially rhinos, and to get actively involved in the wildlife conservation with due responsibility and stewardships. community instructors visit schools to teach the youth about the importance of conservation and also to recruit youth into anti-poaching mission, which has helped to decline the rate of park-people conflict with win-win situation and finally to achieve the positive results in the conservation of rhino. special operation: sweeping and camping operations, shortand long-range patrolling, operation maha-hunt one of the new strategies adopted in recent days is ‘sweeping operation’. it puts together a large group of men from the park and army to patrol intensively when a problem is perceived. the patrollers use some of the park’s domesticated elephants, motor vehicles, motor boats and bicycles. the men may stay out for a week, camping in ‘hot spots’ where rhino poaching is likely to occur. sweeping/camping operation is specially conducted in suspected areas which are highly vulnerable in terms of wildlife poaching and other illegal activities and also in those areas where there is difficulty for regular patrol by vehicles especially during monsoon. the number of staffs in the sweeping/camping team was found to be varied based on the location and information. each sweeping and camping operation consisted of five to seven army personnel, two park staff mahatara et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 23-31 29 and six elephant staff regularly and sometimes 10–20 elephantswereused to sweep the larger area. the cnp intensified efforts to curb wildlife poaching in the region with an operation involving a special security force deployed by nepal army. the campaign named ‘operation maha hunt’ runs till may each year as animals particularly the royal bengal tiger and one-horned rhino in this park are at high risk of falling prey to poachers during november to may each year. a joint team from the special force and the cnp-based batuk dal battalion were trained for the operation. winter is marked as sensitive season for poaching wild animals in the cnp with open tourist path accessible to its inner part and the bz, the forests becoming deserted and the access of people’s easy movements with receding river water levels. the cnp conducted about 225 sweeping/camping operations from 2007 to 2014 (fig. 7). fig. 7: sweeping/camping operations in cnp basically, sweeping and camping operations were carried out on the basis of local informants and at the hotspots where the probability of detection of illegal activities was high and consequently it helpedin decrease in the number of poaching incidents due to the risk factor for offenders. community approach in almost all of the countries around the world where poaching exists, there have been the antipoaching teams to act as a counter measure. as poaching increased, the youth became more concerned about the issue and organized themselves in groups in an effective way to lessen illegal poaching, thus brought about to the establishment of the community-based anti-poaching unit (cbapu) concept. the cbapu is as a sub-committee of buffer zone user committee (bzuc). the cbapu, a loose forum of youths for conservation initiative, aims to motivate and engage local youths in conservation, plays a crucial role in collecting information about the poaching activities and controlling illegal activities. regular training and capacity enhancement programs are important to mobilize them effectively in wildlife conservation. realizing this, 22 cbapus were formed for the effective implementation and to address the various issues of community, and now they are effectively functioning in chitwan. the cbapus are replicated to other parts of the country also. to meet the objective of the cbapu mission, local youths are main streamed in the institutional mechanism with their active participation to minimize the human wildlife conflict, forrescuing of problem animal and quick response at community. rapid response team (rrt) of five members in each cbapu is also working in the team. the major activity of the cbapo is to aware the local communities and eco-clubs about protection of wild animals from poaching and curbing illegal wildlife trade. awareness programs are held on regular intervals. these include street dramas, house-to-house visits, distribution of pamphlets and posters, rallies, hoarding boards and games such as football and marathon. additionally, as most of the local people were ignorant of conservation and formal education, an effective way of attracting their attention could be through popular folk songs, who are dedicated to wildlife conservation. radio programs, in tharu and nepali languages, are also aired regularly. the poachers offer money to the indigenous people of the region like majhi, mushar and bote in order to assist them as their daily lives and cultures are directly linked with wild animals. interaction programs with them are therefore important in making them understand the significance of saving wild animals. in this way, the cbapos are playing a very effective role in controlling poaching and illegal wildlife trade in their locations through regular patrolling, keeping vigilance on poachers and traders, and collecting information on criminals and furnishing the same to the enforcement agencies for timely action. they are playing banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 23-31 mahatara et al 30 crucial role in generating awareness to the public and providing information to enforcement agencies to control wildlife crime. conclusion this study indicated that most of the poaching activities of rhino in the cnp were observed during the insurgency period. nepal lost 177 rhinos from poaching in the cnp between 1997/98 and 2010/11 (dnpwc/msfc, 2011). however, the combined efforts of different stakeholders including across the park and buffer zone boundary initiatives and the stringent enforcement of country’s law (conservation education, increase in security posts, cbapu mobilization, increase in total revenue collection, successful rate of arresting offenders, sweeping and camping operations) are seen as major effective tools adopted by the cnp to grab the success of zero-poaching. also, the introductions of mist and smart patrolling using real time monitoring for regular patrolling are major tools adopted by the park and nepal army protection unit to decline poaching activities. in order to maintain this achievement, it is recommended to focus on increased patrol frequency by covering the maximum area of the national park and anti-poaching units should be made more effective in grass root level in and around the national park and buffer zone to strengthen the collaborative way of conservation with benefit sharing mechanism. close coordination, collaboration and cooperation mechanism should be regularly encapsulated with other concerning government, security and non-government agencies, conservation partners, local community institutions, and transboundary counterparts. acknowledgements this paper is a part of the author’s b. sc. thesis dissertation at institute of forestry, pokhara campus. we are obliged to the national trust for nature conservation (ntnc) for providing financial support to accomplish this study. we sincerely thank department of national park and wildlife conservation for allowing permission to conduct the research and also to the chitwan national park family for their support in data collection during field work. references adhikari, t. r., pradhan, n. m. b. and poudel, n. 1999. a strategy to combat poaching in chitwan valley. department of national parks and wildlife conservation, kathmandu, nepal. baral, n. and heinen, j. t., 2007. resources use, conservation attitudes, management intervention and park-people relations in the western terai landscape of nepal. environmental conservation, 34 (1), pp.64–72. bhatta, d. d. 1997. natural history and economic botany of nepal. bhuju, u. r., shakya, p. r., basnet, t. b. and shrestha, s., 2007. nepal biodiversity resource book: protected areas, ramsar sites, and world heritage sites. international centre for integrated mountain development (icimod). chungyalpa, d. 1998. anti-poaching operations: a report on anti-poaching operation in rbnp, rcnp, pwr, swr (1992–1998). wwf nepal program, kathmandu, nepal. dinerstein, e., 1979. an ecological survey of the royal karnali-bardia wildlife reserve, nepal. part ii: habitat/animal interactions. biological conservation, 16 (4), pp.265–300. dnpwc/mfsc. 2011. annual report, 2011. department of national park and wildlife conservation, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. dnpwc/mfsc. 2013. annual report, 2013. department of national park and wildlife conservation, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. dnpwc/mfsc. 2015. annual report, 2015. department of national park and wildlife conservation, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. hines, j. e., nichols, j. d., royle, j. a., mackenzie, d. i., gopalaswamy, a. mahatara et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 23-31 31 m., kumar, n. s. and karanth, k. u., 2010. tigers on trails: occupancy modeling for cluster sampling. ecological applications, 20 (5), pp.1456–1466. hmg. 1988. master plan for the forestry sector of nepal. main report. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. linkie, m., martyr, d. j., harihar, a., risdianto, d., nugraha, r. t., leader-williams, n. and wong, w.m., 2015. editor's choice: safeguarding sumatran tigers: evaluating effectiveness of law enforcement patrols and local informant networks. journal of applied ecology, 52 (4), pp.851–860. mackenzie, d. i., nichols, j. d., lachman, g. b., droege, s., andrew royle, j. and langtimm, c. a., 2002. estimating site occupancy rates when detection probabilities are less than one. ecology, 83 (8), pp. 2248–2255. martin, e., 1998. will new community development projects help rhino conservation in nepal ? pachyderm, 26, pp. 88–99. martin, e. and martin, c., 2010. enhanced community support reduces rhino poaching in nepal. pachyderm, (48), pp. 48–56. martin, e., martin, c. and vigne, l., 2013. successful reduction in rhino poaching in nepal. pachyderm, 54, pp.66–73. maskey, t. m., 1998. sustaining anti-poaching operations and illegal trade control. wwf nepal program report series, 37. mills, j. a. and jackson, p., 1994. killed for a cure: a review of the worldwide trade in tiger bone. cambridge: traffic international. pradhan, n. m. b., 2007. a landscape approach in conserving large mammals: a case study from western terai, nepal. the initiation, 1, pp. 44–55. smith, j. l. d., ahearn, s. c. and mcdougal, c., 1998. landscape analysis of tiger distribution and habitat quality in nepal. conservation biology, 12 (6), pp. 1338–1346. thapa, k., nepal, s., thapa, g., bhatta, s. r. and wikramanayake, e., 2013. past, present and future conservation of the greater onehorned rhinoceros rhinocerosunicornis in nepal. oryx, 47 (3), pp. 345–351. unesco/iucn. 2003. enhancing our heritage project: monitoring and managing for success in natural world heritage sites. initial management effectiveness evaluation report, royal chitwan national park, nepal, august 2003. in the recent years, object-based image analysis (obia) approach has emerged with an attempt to overcome limitations inherited in conventional pixel-based approaches. obia was performed using landsat 8 image to map the forest types in kapilvastu district of nepal. systematic sampling design was adopted to establish sample points in the field, and 70% samples were used for classification and 30% samples for accuracy assessment. landsat image was pre-processed, and the slope and aspect derived from the aster dem were used as additional predictors for classification. segmentation was done using ecognition v8.0 with the scale parameter of 20, ratios of 0.1 and 0.9 for shape and color, respectively. classification and regression tree (cart) and nearest neighbor classifier (k-nn) methods were used for object-based classification. the major forest types observed in the district were ks (acacia catechu/ dalbergia sissoo), sal (shorea robusta) and tropical mixed hardwood. the k-nn classification technique showed higher overall accuracy than the cart method. the classification approach used in this study can also be applied to classify forest types in other districts. improvement in classification accuracy can be potentially obtained through inclusion of sufficient samples from all classes. k e y w or d s : landsat, machine learning algorithm, object-based classification forest type mapping using object-based classification method in kapilvastu district, nepal a. k. chaudhary1*, a. k. acharya1 and s. khanal1 remote sensing provides a useful source of data from which land-cover information can be extracted for assessing and monitoring vegetation changes. in the past several decades, air-photo interpretation has played an important role in detailed vegetation mapping (sandmann and lertzman, 2003), while applications of medium spatial resolution satellite imagery such as landsat thematic mapper (tm) and spot high-resolution visible (hrv) alone have often proven insufficient or inadequate for differentiating species-level vegetation in detailed vegetation studies (harvey and hill, 2001). recently, object-based image analysis (obia) approach has been widely utilized for remote sensing studies as an alternative and also comparatively better classification approach to the conventional pixel-based image classification techniques. successful launch of very highresolution (vhr) commercial imaging satellites in the late 1990s are helpful for resource inventory and monitoring (ehlers et al., 2003; ehlers, 2004). the vhr imagery is anticipated to be an alternative option to aerial photographs for characterization of forest structure and dynamics through automatic image classification technique. in the recent years, ikonos imagery has been frequently used for vegetation mapping using pixel-based image classification methods (wang et al., 2004a; wulder et al., 2004; metzler and sader, 2005; souza and roberts, 2005). pixelbased method, however, has constraints with vhr image classification because of decrease in classification accuracy due to high-spectral variability within classes (yu et al., 2006; lu and weng, 2007). it also ignores the context and the spectral values of adjacent pixels (townshend et al., 2000; brandtberg and warner, 2006). various image classification techniques have been developed such as object-based, textural, and contextual image classifications in order to reduce the limitations associated with vhr images (guo et al., 2007; lu and weng, 2007). the geographic object-based image analysis (geobia) technique emerged since the late 1990s, to overcome human interpreters’ ability to identify and delineate features of interest (benz et al., 2004; meinel and neubert, 2004). the geobia technique could be useful to solve the problems of high-spectral variability within the 1 department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal * e-mail: chaudharyashok1@gmail.com 38 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 39 same land-cover classes in vhr imagery (yu et al., 2006; lu and weng, 2007). to overcome the high-resolution problem and salt-and-pepper effect, it is useful to analyze groups of contiguous pixels as objects instead of using the conventional pixel-based classification unit. this will reduce the local spectral variation caused by crown textures, gaps, and shadows. in addition, with spectrally homogeneous segments of images, both spectral values and spatial properties, such as size and shape, can be explicitly utilized as features for further classification. the basic idea of this process is to group the spatially adjacent pixels into spectrally homogenous objects first, and then conduct classification on objects as the minimum processing units. the object-based classification procedure includes image segmentation, training sample selection, classification feature selection, tuning parameter setting and, finally, algorithm execution. the accuracy of image classification is influenced by segmentation quality (dorren et al., 2003; meinel and neubert, 2004; addink et al., 2007). dorren et al. (2003) stated the importance of image object-size in forest classification and mapping. there are no specific guidelines to take optimal segmentation size and it is a matter of trial-anderror methods which influence segmentation quality (definiens, 2004; meinel and neubert, 2004). kim et al. (2008) emphasized spatial autocorrelation analysis to determine optimal segmentation size for forest stands. in the recent years, pixel-based classification with texture information has been employed to improve the accuracy of forest/vegetation mapping (ferro and warner, 2002). therefore, this study was carried out to map forest types using objectbased classification technique and recommend the appropriate classification technique for other districts. materials and methods study area kapilvastu district is situated in lumbini zone of western development region of nepal. geographically, it extends from 27o25’ n to 27o84’ n latitude and from 82o75’ e to 83o14’ e longitude (fig. 1). it spreads ranging from 93 to 1,491 m above sea level. the district enjoys tropical and sub-tropical climate. kapilvastu district covers 1,738.00 km2 land representing with forest cover area of 63,438.42 ha. fig. 1: map of study area preliminary work the field crew members were trained on the collection of global positioning system (gps) location of sample points, basal area calculation, crown cover measurement and forest type signature collection in the field through various trainings. consultation was done with district forest office (dfo), sector forest offices and ilaka staffs for delineation of major forest types. data multi-spectral satellite imagery of landsat 8 was obtained from united states geological survey (usgs). the characteristics of the image are presented in table 1. the aster dem of 30 m resolution was obtained from usgs (2015) and terrain parameters (slope and aspect) were calculated which were used in classification and regression tree (cart) analysis. table 1: characteristics of landsat 8 image satellite sensor path-row date band landsat 8 oli and tirs 142–41 13 feb, 2014 2–7 landsat 8 oli and tirs 143–41 19 jan, 2014 2–7 sampling design systematic sampling design was employed to establish sample points in the field. a forest mask chaudhary et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 40 for the study area was taken from the recent forest resource assessment (fra) of the terai (dfrs, 2014). since, fra forest cover was done on physiographic region scale, there were some minor discrepancies. those were manually edited using high resolution google earth image. a systematic grid at the interval of 500 m was generated within the district and all of the generated sampled points in regular grid (n= 213) were visited in the field using gps and dominant species in the plot identified based on the species basal area. point sampling horizontal point sampling was used to estimate basal area for forest type mapping purpose. in this sampling a series of sampling points were selected systematically distributed over the entire area to be inventoried. trees around this point were viewed through any angle-gauge at breast height and all trees forming an angle bigger than the critical angle of instruments were counted. the basal area per hectare was calculated by multiplying basal area factor (baf) of instrument with number of tally trees to identify the forest types in the field. the particular species representing basal area greater than 60% corresponds to the same forest type as the species. based on the dominance of species basal area, the three major forest types namely khair/sissoo (ks-acacia catechu/ dalbergia sissoo), sal (s-shorea robusta) and tropical mixed hardwood (tmh) (dfrs/fra, 2014) were found in the district. the sample plot distribution according to their categories is shown in figure 2. the total sample points (n=213) were divided into training data sets (70%) for forest type classification and 30% sample points for evaluating classification accuracy. fig. 2: field sample points image analysis and mapping the landsat 8 images acquired were preprocessed (layer stacking, image enhancement and mosaic king). before image segmentation and classification, non-forest areas such as agriculture, grassland, built up, river etc. were masked out since the main concern of this proposed study was to focus on forest types. spectral bands (band 2–band 7) of landsat 8 along with slope and aspect derived from aster dem were used in the segmentation. segmentation was done using ecognition version 8.0 with a scale parameter of 20. the values of 0.1 and 0.9 were chosen for the ratios of shape and color, respectively. spectral signatures of individual forest types were extracted from the different bands of the masked image by using training data and then classification was performed by standard nearest neighbor classifier (k-nn) and classification and regression tree (cart) method which takes into consideration of spectral parameters and ancillary data (definiens, 2004). the cart algorithm is one of the most commonly used decision trees that works as a binary recursive partitioning procedure by splitting the training sample set into subsets based on an attribute value (set) and then by repeating this process on each derived subset. the tree-growing process stops when no further splits are possible for subsets. the maximum depth of the tree is the key tuning parameter in the cart, determining the complexity of the model. in general, a larger depth can build a relatively more complex tree with potentially higher overall classification accuracy. therefore, in this study the tree depth was set at 10. the k-nn algorithm uses an instance-based learning approach and does classification by assigning class based on the class attributes of its k-nearest neighbors. the cart technology is recently applied in ecology; it provides a low-cost, high quality alternative to approximate the human learning process and make accurate generalizations concerning the relationships of input variables and the value of the target feature, without such difficulties (maniezzo et al., 1993). accuracy the overall accuracy was calculated for summary measures (gong et al., 1992), which can be used to compare individual class difference between distinct classifications (coburn and roberts, 2004). chaudhary et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 41 results and discussion forest types the forests of kapilvastu district were classified into three major forest types namely khair/sissoo (ks), sal (s) and tropical mixed hardwood (tmh). forest types classification results based on cart and k-nn nearest neighborhood classification methods are presented in fig. 3 and 4. fig. 3: forest type classification using cart method fig. 4: forest type classification using k-nn method blaschke (2003) observed that the optimal size of segmentation is critical and challenging task in geobia. therefore, as the optimum segmentation size increases the classification accuracy, it is likely that the classification results can be further improved by evaluating and selecting the optimal size. qian et al. (2015) evaluated and compared the performance of four machine-learning classifiers namely support vector machine (svm), normal bayes (nb), cart and k-nn using an objectbased classification procedure, and found that cart method was superior to the k-nn classification. the results from this study were, however, in contrast which might be due to the less number of field samples as well as limited number of predictor variables (forest types). the areas of different forest types were calculated using the cart and the k-nn classification methods. the areas of ks (2,865.4 ha) and s (11,427.7 ha) calculated using the cart classification method were found to be higher as compared to those (ks 1,944.9 ha and s 9,365.1 ha) obtained using the k-nn classification method. on the contrary, the area of the tmh (52,128.4 ha) computed using the k-nn classification was higher than the one (49,145.3 ha) worked out using cart method (table 2). table 2: area of three forest types calculated using cart and k-nn methods s.n. forest type cart k-nn area (ha) area (ha) 1. ks 2,865.42 1,944.90 2. s 11,427.70 9,365.13 3. tmh 49,145.30 52,128.39 accuracy assessment the accuracy assessments of the two classification methods were accomplished to assess the qualities of the classified map products. the overall accuracy (69.7%) using the cart classification method was found to be slightly lower than the one (72.7%) obtained using the k-nn classification method whereas the user’s accuracies for sal (20.0%) and tmh (84.3%) were recorded higher in the cart classification than those (s: 14.3% and tmh: 80.7%) recorded in the k-nn classification (table 3). on the contrary, the user’s accuracy for ks (50%) using the k-nn classification method stood higher as compared to the one (20%) obtained using the cart method. on the other hand, the producer’s accuracy for tmh (82.7%) based on the cart method was found to be lower than the one (88.5%) based on the k-nn method whereas the producer’s accuracy for ‘s’ based on the cart method was found to be exactly two times more (18.2%) than the one (9.1) based on the k-nn method. both the classification methods gave the same result of 33.3% producer’s accuracy for ks. the classification accuracy as reported by czaplewski and patterson (2003) was only 40% chaudhary et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 42 or less for thematic information extraction at the species-level based on the landsat tm and spot hrv images. the results of this study however higher accuracy although there were only three classes. conclusion the proposed methods offer a reasonably accurate forest type classification approach. out of the two classification algorithms, the k-nn classification technique showed higher overall accuracy than the cart method. the approach combining image segmentation and machine learning method can be applied for mapping the forest types in other terai districts and potentially in other areas as well. more detailed classification can be potentially obtained through inclusion of adequate number of samples in more classes and also inclusion of smaller patches of forests by adjusting the sampling approach so that they are included in the training and test samples. references addink, e. a., de jong, s. m. and pebesma, e. j. 2007. the importance of scale in objectbased mapping of vegetation parameters with hyperspectral imagery. photogrammetric engineering and remote sensing 72 (8): 905–912. benz, u. c., hofmann, p., willhauck, g., lingenfelder, i. and heynen, m. 2004. multi-resolution, object-oriented fuzzy analysis of remote sensing data for gisready information. isprs journal of photogrammetry and remote sensing 58: 239–258. blaschke, t. 2003. object-based contextual image classification built on image segmentation, proceedings of the 2003 ieee workshop on advances in techniques for analysis of remotely sensed data, 27–28 october, washington d.c., usa, 113–119. brandtberg, t. and warner, t. 2006. high resolution remote sensing. in computer applications in sustainable forest management (eds.) g. shao and k. m. reynolds, springer-verlag, dordrecht, netherlands, 19–41. coburn, c. a. and roberts, a. c. b. 2004. a multiscale texture analysis procedure for improved forest stand classification. international journal of remote sensing 25 (2): 4287–4308. czaplewski, r. l. and patterson, p. l. 2003. classification accuracy for stratification with remotely sensed data. forest science 49 (3): 402–408. definiens, 2004. ecognition user guide 4, definiens ag, germany. dfrs. 2015. state of nepal’s forests. department of forest research and survey (dfrs), kathmandu, nepal. dfrs/fra. 2014. standard guidelines for forest cover and forest types mapping. chaudhary et al. table 3: accuracy assessment of cart and k-nn methods ground-truth field samples cart k-nn classes ks s tmh total user's accur. 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international journal of remote sensing 25 (24): 5655–5668. wulder, m. a., white, j. c., niemann, k. o. and nelson, t. 2004. comparison of airborne and satellite high spatial resolution data for the identification of individual trees with local maxima filtering. international journal of remote sensing 25 (11): 2225–2232. yu, q., gong, p. n., clinton, g., biging, m. k. and shirokauer, d. 2006. object-based detailed vegetation classification with airborne high spatial resolution remote sensing imagery. photogrammetric engineering and remote sensing 72 (7): 799–811. chaudhary et al. in preparation for participation in funding mechanisms established under the united nations’ framework for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (redd+), the government of nepal has developed a sub-national reference level (rl) for the 12 districts of terai arc landscape (tal) in partnership with the wwf-nepal, wwf-us and arbonaut ltd., finland. the reference level was established using lidar–assisted multisource programme (lamp), an innovative effort that utilizes existing national forest and survey data, field sampling, satellite imagery, and airborne lidar data to measure deforestation and forest degradation, regrowth and maintenance of forests, and the resulting emissions and sequestration of co2 in the project districts for the period 1999–2011. this effort was designed to create a sub-national rl that meets the highest international standards for integrity and transparency and followed closely the guidelines of the methodological framework (mf) defined by the forest carbon partnership facility (fcpf) at the world bank and guidelines defined by intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc).the present analysis shows that during the 12-year period between 1999 and 2011 a net total of 52,245,991 tons co2 (tco2e) was emitted from the forest sector in the tal, an average emission of 4,353,833 tons co2e per year. the results presented here reflect the first iteration of the tal rl and a major milestone in an on-going process that will further refine and improve the rl in the months ahead based on external review and input and additional field verification and data analysis. key words: redd+, sub national, reference level, lidar, satellite data, field plots, lamp, carbon, nepal an accurate redd+ reference level for terai arc landscape, nepal using lidar assisted multi-source programme (lamp) a. r. joshi1, k. tegel2, u. manandhar3, n. aguilar-amuchastegui4,e. dinerstein5, a. eivazi2, l. gamble4, b. gautam2, k. gunia2, m. gunia2, d. hall4, j. hämäläinen2, m. hawkes6, v. junttila7, s. k. gautam8, y. kandel3, p. kandel9, t. kauranne2, a. kolesnikov2, p. latva-käyrä2, s. lohani4, s. m. nepal3, j. niles10, j. peuhkurinen2, g. powell4, p. rana2, t. suihkonen2 and g. j. thapa3 greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions from tropical deforestation and forest degradation contribute about 15–20 % of total annual global ghg emissions, making them the second largest source globally (ipcc, 2013). to reduce especially co2 (carbon dioxide) emissions from the forestry sector, the united nations has established a programme that would provide payments for the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (redd+). redd+ will provide countries performancebased payments for reduced emission rates tied to an agreed reference level or baseline. the baseline reference level (rl) is the estimated amount of co2 that is emitted and sequestered from the forest sector in a business-as-usual (bau) scenario. the bau scenario for emissions must be based on historical emissions and, in a limited number of cases, adjustments based on national circumstances. the guidance on modalities relating to development of reference levels (rls) was provided in late 2011 by the unfccc. the unfccc explicitly stated that rls would be the essential metric to assess performance and must 23 1 conservation biology program, university of minnesota, minneapolis, usa, email: joshi002@umn.edu 2 arbonaut ltd., joensuu, finland 3 world wildlife fund (wwf), kathmandu, nepal 4 world wildlife fund (wwf), washington dc, usa 5 biodiversity and wildlife solutions program, resolve, washington dc, usa 6 forest resource assessment (fra) nepal project, kathmandu, nepal 7 lappeenranta university of technology (lut), lappeenranta, finland 8 department of forest research and survey (dfrs), kathmandu, nepal 9 department of soil conservation and watershed management (dscwm), kathmandu, nepal 10 university of california, san diego, usa banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 24 be reported in tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year (tco2e/year).the process to develop a rl must be transparent, complete, consistent, and verifiable at national and sub-national scales (unfccc, 2011). the forest carbon partnership facility (fcpf) at the world bank recently published a methodological framework (mf) to guide development of emission reduction programmes. submitted rls should be based on intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) good practice guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories (ipcc, 2006), which provide further guidelines for building countrylevel redd+ readiness activities to gain credits for emission reductions (fcpf, 2013). at its core, the reference level (rl) is calculated as emission factors multiplied by the activity datafor change in forest cover (deforestation, degradation, regrowth, and enhancement). therefore to generate a rl we need to know 1) emission factors which is amount of carbon emitted or sequestered when the forest class changes from one activity to another. to calculate emission factor, we first need to know the amount of biomass in each forest type and structural class; 2) activity data which is how muchland changed from one structural class to another in a given period of time. combining remotely sensed data with a forest resource inventory data provides practical means to generate emission factors (gofc-gold, 2010). however, no current remote sensing system directly measures forest biomass and sequestered carbon. hence, in a joint effort, arbonaut, the forest resource assessment nepal project and wwf carried out a landscape-level lidar-assisted forest biomass inventory in the terai and siwaliks region of nepal in 2011. in recent years, the high potential of airborne lidar for redd-related biomass inventories has been well demonstrated (asner et al., 2009; gautam et al., 2010; asner et al.,2012; asner et al., 2013; gautam et al., 2013; peuhkurinen et al., 2013). the lidar-assisted multi-source programme (lamp) is a feasible approach to carbon accounting that requires lidar coverage of only a small percentage of the area of interest (sah et al., 2012; gautam et al., 2010). these data can be combined with data from field plots and satellite imagery to develop an aboveground carbon density map over the entire study area. the resulting accurate, high-resolution forest carbon baseline together with activity data helps to derive rls and supports forest carbon monitoring activities (meridian institute, 2011). changes in forest conditions and/or land use in the past 10 years are necessary to generate activity data, the second component used to calculate a rl. nepal, like many developing countries, lacks regular forest mapping and monitoring required for this process. in absence of these data, remote sensing tools analyzing satellite imagery have been used to generate historic forest change data retro-prospectively (morton et al., 2011; monteiro and souza jr., 2012; souza jr. and siqueira, 2013). thereby yielding the activity data required to develop the rl. nepal is one of the first countries to receive redd+ funds from the fcpf to achieve redd+ readiness and has now completed the preparation of the final redd+ readiness document including the development of this sub-national baseline rl.the purpose of this paper is to summarizethe process being utilized for this sub-national redd+ programme in the tal to develop rl in accordance with the ipcc gpg and the fcpf’s methodological framework. the process is documented inmore detail in nepal’s emission reductions –program idea note to fcpf carbon fund (redd-cell, 2014). materials and methods study area the study area (fig. 1) includes 12 districtsof the teraiarc landscape (23,300 km2),which is home for 6.7 million people. tal is situated in the southern part of nepal, extending from the lowlands of the terai region up to the southern slopes of the himalayas in churia hills. the altitude in the study area varies from 100 to 2,200 meters and the area is influenced by subtropical climate. about half of the study area is covered by subtropical, mainly deciduous forests. the dominating forest types are sal (shorea robusta), terai mixed hardwood, khair-sissoo (acacia catechu/dalbergia sissoo) and chirpine (pinus roxburghii). the tal is one of nepal’s priority landscapes, both for the conservation of its biodiversity and the protection of the ecological services it provides. joshi et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 25 joshi et al. lidar data airborne discrete-return lidar data were acquired in 2011 from 20 blocks of size 5 km by 10 km, which covers about 5% of the study area (fig. 1). to produce a lidar sample that reflects the full range of variation in biomass over the study area and that covers both common and rare forest types, different vegetation types were weighted by utilizing the forest classification of tal (joshi et al., 2003). probability proportionalto-size sampling (sarndal et al., 1992) was used to select the areas for lidar data collection. fig. 1:study area showing 12 districts interai arc landscape (tal)and the lidar block sample ground-truth plots for modelling above ground biomass (t/ha) and for results validation the ground-truth plots for modelling were sampled in systematic clusters within lidar blocks. each lidar block contained six clusters of eight sample plots each (fig. 2). in total, treelevel measurements (diameter, height etc.) were conducted in 2011 from 738 circular plots with fixed radius of 12.62 meters (500 sq. m.).in addition, a set of 46 field plots with a radius of 30 meters (2826 sq. m.) for independent validation were collected in 2013 from 2 lidar blocks. for both data sets, plot-wise aboveground biomass (t/ha) was computed using species group-specific volume equations published by sharma and pukkala (1990). fig. 2: lidar block with six clusters of eight field plots each satellite data medium-resolution, geo referenced land sat satellite images (usgs, 2012) for the entire study area from 1999, 2002, 2006, 2009 and 2011 were obtained from the usgs website (http://glovis. usgs.gov). forest cover map the government of nepal (1998) topographic and land cover, land use maps with forest and non-forest classes were used as the forest mask for each time period between 1999 and 2011. forest classification map the carbon stocks in the forest vary by both forest types and forest structures. the forest type boundaries were obtained from afield-verified forest classification of terai arc landscape (tal) by joshi et al. (2003). the original classes were regrouped into 4 major forest classes: sal forest (s. robusta), sal dominant mixed forest, riverine forest, and other forest (“other mixed forest”). the accuracy assessment for the four major forest classes were recomputed with the field data collected from 2002 (olofsson et al., 2013). it was assumed that forest types are not likely to change from one type to another in 10–20 years but forest condition within each forest type (intact, degraded, and deforested) may change due to human activity (activity data). remote sensing validation data the rapid eye imagery from 2010 was used to validate forest cover classification and the mda information services llc persistent change monitoring (pcm) global dataset to verify areas of change for 2011. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 26 forest structural classification spectral matrix analysis (sma) uses linear mixture models to provide physical representations of reflectance in satellite imagery from different land surfaces as continuous fields of spectral endmember abundance (small, 2004; souza jr. et al., 2005). we used imgtools software developed for identifying forest disturbance in brazilian amazon forests (souza jr. et al., 2005; souza jr. and siqueira, 2013) to classify forest into structural classes. imgtools has been successfully used for studying historical emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in brazil (morton et al., 2011; monteiro and souza jr., 2012). the pixel reflectance values in satellite imagery are often a mixture coming from more than one source. for example, one 30 m x 30 m landsat pixel might represent reflectance from both vegetation and bare soil. imgtools decomposes this spectral mixture into pure members of each signature known as the “endmembers” using built-in generic spectral library for landsat imagery and also generates a composite index called normalized difference fractional index (ndfi). we looked at the spectral curves of the green (photosynthesis) vegetation (gv), nonphotosynthesis (senescent/dead) vegetation (npv), bare soil (s), and shade normalized gv (gvs) to find natural breaks, and to build threshold values to identify intact, degraded and nonforest areas. these threshold values were used to develop a decision tree for classifying forest into three structural classes, intact, degraded and nonforest and generating forest structural map. generating a forest types and conditions map the four forest types in forest classification map were overlaid on the forest structural map to generate forest types and conditions classes for each time period. lidar-to-agb model a sparse bayesian method was used to develop a regression model to estimate above ground biomass (t/ha). the model utilizes the relationship between lidar metrics (tables 1 and 2) and field measured agb (t/ha) (junttila et al., 2008; junttila et al., 2010) and achieved a strong coefficient of determination (r2) of 0.9 while no significant bias was present, as validated against the independent field data. full validation results are shown in figure 3 and table 3. table 1: final selection of lidar variables for predicting above-ground biomass (t/ha) using sparse bayesian regression lidar metrics description l1 height of the 10% percentile for first pulse heights l8 height of the 80% percentile for first pulse heights l11 ratio of last pulse points with height lower than 1.5 m and the total number of last pulse returns l15 ratio of last pulse points with height lower than 13.5 m and the total number of last pulse returns l16 ratio of last pulse points with height lower than 16.5 m and the total number of last pulse returns l27 mean of the largest three heights within first pulse returns l29 the ratio of first pulse points under 5 m and all first pulse returns table 2: coefficients of the linear model for predicting above-ground biomass (t/ha) from lidar variables model parameter coefficient intercept 288.936 l1 8.808 l8 2.157 l11 149.906 l15 -237.074 l16 -116.254 l27 1.802 l29 -105.539 joshi et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 27 fig. 3: validation of lidar model estimates (t/ha) against independent field data with 30 meters radius table 3: statistics for the lidar estimates of above-ground biomass (t/ha) validated against independent field data with 30 meters radius standard deviation of estimates 103.1 standard deviation of reference plots 108.5 mean of reference plots 180.4 mean of estimates 183.3 rmse 34.5 relative rmse (%) 19.1 bias 2.9 relative bias (%) 1.6 r2 0.9 lidar-assisted multi-source programme (lamp) estimation for calculating above ground biomass (t/ha) for different forest types and conditions the forest types and conditions map from 2011 was overlaid on all lidar blocks. in the next step, nearly 1,000 forest type and conditionspecific “surrogate plots” (simulated field plots) of 1-hectare size were randomly generated inside the forest mask within lidar blocks, and above ground biomass was predicted for them using regression model based on lidar features. if a surrogate plot has multiple forest type and condition classes, then weighted average mean for only the dominant class was recorded (table 4). the mean biomass values calculated from lidar area for each forest condition bytype were applied for respective classes in the classified satellite imagery, to map biomass over the whole study area. table 4: forest type and condition-specific statistics for above-ground biomass (t/ha) from surrogate plots of size 1 ha class no. of surro gates mean min max std 1. sal intact 988 235.6 20.4 509.5 84.1 2. sal degraded 969 173.2 0.0 425.3 72.9 3. salmix intact 966 183.2 0.0 556.9 84.7 4. salmix degraded 946 146.4 0.0 539.6 106.2 5. othermix intact 985 186.1 5.5 479.5 94.0 6. othermix degraded 943 143.2 0.4 461.6 86.8 7. riverine intact 934 171.1 0.0 405.5 46.8 8. riverine degraded 979 99.4 0.0 505.6 57.9 time series analysis – generation of activity data to delineate areas of deforestation, degradation and regeneration, we completed a time-series analysis of forest change for the project districts on tal for four time periods, 1999–2002, 2002– 2006, 2006–2009 and 2009–2011, using the classified satellite images (structural classes) in erdas imagine to produce a change matrix at pixel level. this resulted in a 25-class matrix for the first set of image pairs, time periods t1 and t2. any forested area under the cloud and cloud shadow (cloud/shadow class) was considered as unchanged between the two periods for the purpose of this study. likewise areas remaining in same classes between the two periods were also considered unchanged. the change classes derived from the change matrix are listed below (table 5) as deforestation 1-3, degradation, and regeneration 1-3. table 5: new classes derived from the change matrix change matrix change class intact forest to non-forest deforestation 1 intact forest to degraded forest degradation degraded forest to non-forest deforestation 2 non-forest to dense regenerating forest regeneration 1 non-forest to sparse regenerating forest regeneration 2 degraded forest to regenerating forest regeneration 3 regeneration forest to non-forest deforestation 3 joshi et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 28 for the subsequent time-series analysis the base classified image for that series (time t1) was adjusted to reflect changes in the previous time period; for example change classes derived in table 5 as a change between t1 and t2 were delineated and re-coded in the t2 scene. all three types of deforestation were merged into one deforestation class because they represent areas going from forest to non-forest. therefore, each base image potentially has nine classes: intact forest, degraded forest, non-forest, water, cloud/shadow, deforestation, and regeneration 1–3. the change analysis between 2002 and 2006 resulted in a 45-class change matrix with nine classes (described above) representing actual change in forest conditions. these nine change classes were adjusted in the base image (2006) for analyzing time series 2006 to 2009. the same process was repeated for 2009 to 2011 series. the areas under each activity (deforestation 1–3, degradation, and regeneration 1–3) for each time series analysis were used to generate activity data. activities regeneration 1–3 were combined to a single regeneration activity because all these activities were differentiated only based on activities in the previous time period that resulted in regeneration in the current period, thus their growth rates and mean carbon content are assumed to be same. calculation of emission factors the emission factors for each forest type and condition were calculated multiplying the agb (t/ha) by 47% (table 6), as consistent with gpg (chapter 4, table 4.4, ipcc, 2006). when the forest changed from intact or degraded forest to deforestation all carbon was assumed to be released. but when forest wentfrom intact to degraded the difference in the mean carbon contents between intact and degraded forest was assumed to be emitted. emissions factors were derived by calculating the difference between the carbon and co2e values in table 6 to reflect the loss of carbon or amount of emissions when land area containing various forest types transitions from one structure to another. for the emission factors for regeneration forest changing to deforestation or degradation, and sequestrations due to regeneration we used the ipcc default value of 6.0 tons of dry biomass per hectare per year,which equals to 2.82 tc/ha/yr (ipcc, 2006, volume 4, table 4.9). the below ground biomass was estimated as 20% of above ground biomass (ipcc, 2006). table 6: the mean emission factors and co2e values for different forest types and conditions forest type and condition c and co2e values tc/ha tco2e/ha sal intact 110.7 406.0 sal degraded 81.4 298.5 salmixed intact 86.1 315.7 salmix degraded 68.8 252.3 othermix intact 87.4 320.7 othermix degraded 67.3 246.8 riverine intact 80.4 294.9 riverine degraded 46.7 171.3 generating reference level (rl) the rl is generated by multiplying areas changed under each activity by the appropriate emission factor. rl = activity data × emission factors the amount of co2 released due to loss of forest carbon resulting from deforestation and degradation is termed as gross emissions while intake of co2 by growing plants during forest regeneration is called sequestration. therefore, net carbon loss is equal to gross emissions minus sequestrations. the reference level (rl) for tal is based on net carbon accounting process. following formula was used to calculate rl for each forest type in tal. reference level = ∑emdef1+∑emdef2+∑emdef3+∑emdeg– ∑seqreg y where, ∑emdef1 is the sum of emissions from deforestation of intact forest over “y” years, ∑emdef2 is the sum of emissions from deforestation of degraded forest over “y” years, ∑emdef3 is the sum of emissions from deforestation of regenerated forest over “y” years, ∑emdeg is the sum of emissions from degradation over “y” years, ∑seqreg is the sum of sequestrations from regeneration over “y” years. results and discussion reference level (rl) the rl analysis shows that during the 12-year period between 1999 and 2011 a net total of 52,245,991 tons co2 (tco2e) was emitted from joshi et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 29 the forest sector in the tal, an average emission of 4,353,833 tons co2e per year (table 7). in the period 2006–2011, emissions averaged 6,879,686 tco2e per year, an increase of 58% over the 12-year average, and in the period 2009–2011, emissions increased even more dramatically, averaging 11,412,396 tco2e per year or 162% higher than the 12-year average (fig. 4). table 7: forest-related co2 emissions in tal between 1999 and 2011 period co2 emissions (tco2e) aboveground belowground total 1999–2002 13,136,430 2,627,286 15,763,716 2002–2006 1,736,537 347,307 2,083,845 2006–2009 9,644,698 1,928,940 11,573,637 2009–2011 19,020,661 3,804,132 22,824,793 total 12-yr 43,538,325 8,707,665 52,245,991 average annual 3,628,193.79 725,639 4,353,833 fig. 4: average annual net co2 emissions (tco2e) in tal between 1999 and 2011 accuracy assessments, errors and uncertainties accuracy assessment for emission factors a non-stratified regression model was used to generate lidar-based biomass estimates for all forest classes. thus, the within-class uncertainty in predictions was considered by calculating the mean error of an estimator me (θ) for each class. the me (θ) assesses the quality of an estimator in terms of its variation and unbiasness (moore and mccabe, 2001). it is calculated as the root of the sum of the variance and the squared bias of the estimator: me (θ) = √(var(θ) + bias(θ)2) eq.1 spatial scaling of error measures scaling of the mean error by size of estimation area decreases the error associated with corresponding average agb (t/ha). in order to reveal maximum level of error for each forest type and condition class, the mean error was spatially scaled up to the area thateach class had on the lidar blocks (table 8). bias was calculated from 738 field verified plots for classes intact and degraded and assumed to be close to each other between the four forest types. monte carlo analysis of the emission factors prediction errors we ran a monte carlo analysis for accuracy of emission factor estimation. the estimation process starts from the field measurements and then proceeds on to the lidar model that is built upon them. for the combined error of both field measurements and lidar model construction we can use cross-validation. by cross-validation, we obtain an empirical distribution of the combined lidar model, plot measurement and field sampling error that can be used as the starting point of the monte carlo analysis for emission factor errors. thisprio rerror distribution was estimated table 8: confidence intervals (ci) and mean error (me) of lidar-estimated mean agb(t/ha) for each forest type and condition class on the minimum area of each class on 5 km x 10 km lidar blocks class mean agb, (t/ha) area on blocks (ha) ci, agb (t/ha) ci, % of the mean agb (t/ha) me, agb (t/ha) sal intact 235.6 36549 0.14 0.06 6.36 sal degraded 173.2 1661 0.65 0.37 4.01 sal mixed intact 183.2 11074 0.25 0.14 6.36 sal mixed degraded 146.4 946 0.86 0.58 4.02 other mixed intact 186.1 1129 0.78 0.42 6.37 other mixed degraded 143.2 125 2.35 1.64 4.18 riverine intact 171.1 478 1.20 0.70 6.39 riverine degraded 99.4 58 3.46 3.48 4.37 joshi et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 30 by randomly simulating 1,000 sub-samples of size 538 field plots from 738 field measurements. each sub-sample was used to create a lidar-toagb model and the results were cross-validated with the remaining 200 field plots. a new model was created each time. thus, we obtained 1000 × 200 predicted plots, from which the plot level residual distribution and mean statistics could be estimated (fig. 5 and 6, and table 9). table 9: mean statistics for the simulated lidar estimates of aboveground biomass (t/ha), the results are validated with iterative cross-validation. standard deviation of estimates(t/ha) 113.08 standard deviation of reference plots(t/ha) 143.0 mean of estimates(t/ha) 189.8 mean of reference plots(t/ha) 188.98 rmse(t/ha) 89.5 relative rmse (%) 47.0 bias(t/ha) 0.82 relative bias (%) 0.00 r2 0.61 adj. r2 0.61 fig. 5: above-ground biomass (t/ha) from field data against the simulated lidar– estimates fig. 6: residual histogram of 1000 simulations with random training set of 538 plots accounting for stratification error in forest conditions stratification error was evaluated at regional level only. the histograms of agb(t/ha) estimations were scaled into spatially larger units in order to establish a level of spatial resolution for each forest type where the two forest condition classes, intact and degraded, could be confidently separated. by using the scaled plot biomass values the histograms get narrower the higher the spatial scale is. the point where the histograms are not overlapping indicates a spatial scale where condition classes can be separated with confidence. at initial level of 1 hectare, the distribution of intact and degraded forest overlap heavily but cease to overlap at the level of 70 hectares and larger (fig. 7). this means that rl results are confident at district level. joshi et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 31 fig. 7: histograms of estimated agb (t/ha) for two forest condition classes at different spatial scales. the mean biomass of each class is indicated with a circle. accuracy assessment of activity data the accuracy assessment of activity data is limited to the last time period (2009–2011) due to lack of affordable reference data for previous time periods. the first accuracy assessment was done by dividing the activity data classes into polygons of size 5 hectares or larger. for each activity: intact, deforested, degraded, and regenerated areas, 5% of the polygons were chosen using a random function. these polygons were visually interpreted against high-resolution satellite scenes. the accuracy assessment accounts for the proportion of each category based on mapped area as per referenced data (olofsson et al., 2013). conclusion the technical process we used in developing rl for a sub-national redd+ program, tal in nepal demonstrates that historical deforestation and degradation rates can be generated retroprospectively, even in countries lacking regular forest monitoring data, to develop a creditable rl that is reliable and transparent. the rl for the tal has been subjected to rigorous review and accuracy assessment, and the results are highly reliable for reporting carbon flux at scales above 70 ha. in the tal, the rl provides highly accurate estimates of historical carbon emissions for the 12 administrative districts and will enable stakeholders in nepal to better target interventions to curb deforestation 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accessed on 1st august 2012. joshi et al. this study analyzed how the environmental conditions constrained the species richness and composition in the four river valleys of central nepal i.e. two from manaslu conservation area (mca) and two from sagarmatha region. topographical, bioclimatic and measured variables were used to analyze their effects on the vascular plant diversity along elevation and land use gradients. altogether, 148 plots were established at five elevation levels between 2,200 m and 3,800 m above the mean sea level. four land use types namely crop field, meadow, exploited forest and natural forest were sampled at each elevation level. altogether, 790 species of vascular plants belonging to 114 families were recorded; asteraceae had the highest number of species (84) followed by rosaceae (52) and poaceae (50). explorative data analysis of species composition by canonical correspondence analysis (cca) showed that the topographical variables explained the composition better than both the bioclimatic set of variables and the logger data. however, all groups of variables revealed significant effects on species composition. generalized linear model (glm) also revealed significant effects of elevation, land-use types, slope angle, aspect, temperature and precipitation on species richness. k e y w or d s : canonical correspondence analysis, elevation, generalized linear model, land use types, multivariate analysis, species richness effects of the environment on species richness and composition of vascular plants in manaslu conservation area and sagarmatha region of nepalese himalaya s. k. rai1,2,3, s. sharma2, k. k. shrestha2, j. p. gajurel2,3, s. devkota3, m. p. nobis3 and c. scheidegger3 species diversity patterns are governed by a varied set of biotic and abiotic factors. keeping biotic interactions at one end, the abiotic environmental drivers of species distribution has gained much attention in recent studies (guisan and zimmermann, 2000). there are several environmental relationships that can be used to describe patterns of species distributions as well as species richness. changes of species distributions along the latitudinal and elevation gradients are well known since the advent of modern biogeography (lomolino, 2001; colwell et al., 2004). the effect of latitude on species richness has been known for a long time (pianka, 1966; stevens, 1989). stevens (1989) has compiled the published literatures showing the effect of latitudinal gradients in the species richness at regional as well as local scales. species richness and their distribution are also affected by the elevation gradients (stevens, 1992; mccain and grytnes, 2010), for example, in mammals (mccain, 2007), birds (island, 2012) and vascular plants (trigas et al., 2013). however, both latitude and elevation alone cannot elucidate all the causal biological factors, instead they are proxy for numerous variables such as temperature, moisture energy and so on that change along the elevation (körner, 2007), topography (hofer et al., 2008) and latitude (carpenter, 2005). land use and geographic factors such as aspect and slope also play important roles in distribution of species in any area (sanders and rahbek, 2012). in the himalaya of nepal and adjoining countries, the species richness along the elevation gradients have shown the mid-elevation peaks for vascular plant species (vetaas and grytnes, 2002; bhattarai and vetaas, 2003), ferns (bhattarai et al., 2004), bryophytes (grau et al., 2007), lichens (baniya et al., 2010) and reptiles (chettri et al., 2010). those studies have often focused on elevation 1 department of plant resources, kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: sanjeevkrai4@gmail.com 2 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal 3 swiss federal institute for forest, snow and landscape research, switzerland 3 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 4 pattern in the species richness taken as proxies of changes in temperature, energy and water availability (bhattarai et al., 2004). in contrast, the topographical variables such as slope angle, aspect or regional differences were rarely analyzed in the himalayan region (paudel and vetaas, 2014).the same hold for microclimates such as point temperature and water availability which might affect upon the species distribution (geiger et al.,1995). in addition, different land use types also indicate different species communities with varying species richness and pattern. the settlements in the mountains of the himalaya chiefly rely on agro-pastoral system. the shifting and open grazing system is practiced in the mountain areas. besides crop farming, the mountain people keep herds of cattle for the supply of food and economic needs. their energy source is mainly the firewood collected from the nearby forests. all the above activities can lead to the degradation of the natural habitats which affect upon the species diversity in different ways (cousins, 2009; honnay et al., 2005). in most of the cases, the species diversity declines in the degraded area due to the fragmentation of the natural forests (tilman et al., 1997; maitima et al., 2009). these losses are linked with the disturbances and changes in the nutrient cycling processes such as organic carbon in the soil (maitima et al., 2009), and available nitrogen (li et al., 2006). this study aims to find out the effects of most widely used environmental variables such as temperature, precipitation and topography at local as well as regional scales. we have also selected four land use types with an aim to show that species distribution pattern are also the function of land use types. the principle research questions are: (i) how the species richness and composition vary along the altitudinal, precipitational and other topographical indicators?, (ii) how the species are distributed in the different land use types? and (iii) which types of environmental variables are most suitable to explain the species richness and composition in the himalaya? materials and methods study area the study was conducted in the four river valleys of the two regions of nepal: manaslu conservation area in gorkha district and sagarmatha region in solukhumbu district (fig. 1). the study was conducted during 2011 to 2013. fig. 1: map of nepal showing the study districts gorkha at the center and solukhumbu in the east in manaslu conservation area (mca), two river valleys viz. the nubri and the tsum (fig. 2a) were studied. the nubri valley starts from the confluence of budhi gandaki river and siyar khola (river) near lokpa. this valley runs along the budhi gandaki river upwards in north-west direction. our study area started from gap (2,200 m) to samagaun (3,700 m) located between 28˚31’48.9” n and 28˚35’22.5” n latitude and between 84˚38’29.6” e and 84˚49’51.9” e longitude. the vegetation on the bank of the river near 2,200 m is broad leaved consisting of species such as benthamidia capitata, michelia kisopa, pinus wallichiana and quercus semicarpifolia. above 2,500 m altitude, there is a dense forest of tsuga dumosa, and above 3,000 m altitude, the forest is changed into larch forest (larix himalaica). at 3,400 m altitude near shyala, exists a dense forest of abies spectabilis associated with hippophae salicifolia and cotoneaster spp. similarly, the tsum valley is oriented towards the north-east along the siyar khola after the confluence with the budhi gandaki river. our study area is located between 28˚26’19.3” n and 28˚36’56.2” n latitude and between 84˚54’44.3” e and 85˚06’40.4” e longitude. the lower elevation consists of alder (alnus nepalensis) and pine ( pinus wallichiana) forests. they are replaced by hemlock (tsuga dumosa) and himalayan fir ( abies spectabilis) at around 3,000 m altitude. the north facing slope of the valley harbors dense vegetation. larix himalaica forest is dominant at around 3,400 m altitude near rachen gumba. the north facing slopes possess more vegetation cover than the south facing slopes. betula utilis is found upto 3,800 m altitude near kalung. most of the south-facing slopes consist of open meadows rai et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 5 intersected by small human settlements such as chumling, gho, chhekampar and nile. fig. 2a: map of gorkha district with plots overlaid on nubri river valley on the left and tsum river valley on the right fig. 2b: map of solukhumbu district with plots overlaid on dudhkunda river valley on the left and dudhkoshi river valley on the right in sagarmatha region, we studied the dudhkoshi and the dudhkunda (fig. 2b) river valleys. the region is famous for the world’s highest mountain, sagarmatha (mt. everest, 8,848 m) and the sagarmatha national park. the dudhkoshi river valley runs northwards along the bank of dudhkoshi river. the studied plots are located between 27˚40’18.1” n and 27˚49’48.3” n latitude and between 86˚42’3.2” e and 86˚44’25.2” e longitude. the plots located at 2,200 m at surke and nakchung and those at muse and sengma at 2,600 m elevation are outside the sagarmatha national park whereas the rest of the plots are within the boundaries of the park. the vegetation of the site starts from schimacastanopsis and alder (alnus nepalensis) at 2,200 m and is replaced by pinus-rhododendron at mid elevation (3,000 m) and is further replaced by silver fir-birch-rhododendron at khumjung (3,800 m). the study area at dudhkund valley is located between 27˚30’39.9” n and 27˚39’49.1” n latitude and between 86˚34’34.5” and 86˚37’01.6” e longitude, and lies towards the west of dudhkoshi river valley; the two valleys are separated by a chain of mountains. the dudhkund valley does not fall inside the sagarmatha national park area. the plots, laid at 2,200 m and 2,600 m elevation, are near the settlements and the forests are managed by the local community forest user groups (cfugs). the forests above 3,000 m elevation are managed by the government as national forest. the crop fields are not found at and above 3,000 m altitude except one at taksindu. the study started at boldok-kholaghari (2,200 m). going upwards from phera (2,600 m), taksindu (3,000 m) and sarkaripati (3,400 m), our highest plot was located near sasarbeni (3,800 m). the vegetation at 2,200 m is schima-castanopsis-alnus, pinus and then followed by pinus-quercus-rhododendron at mid-elevation. abies spectabilis forest can be noticed at sasarbeni (3,800 m). study design five elevation levels were investigated with a regular elevation interval of 400 m starting from 2,200 m to 3,800 m. at each elevation level, four land use types were considered viz. (i) natural forest, (ii) exploited forest, (iii) meadow and (iv) crop field (scheidegger et al., 2010). the category of the land use types were based on the visual observation in accordance with the methods of fao (gregorio and jansen, 2000). the crop fields are cultivated areas where the vegetative cover is created by anthropogenic activities, and so become bare during off-crop season. the meadows are isolated patch or wide area of grazing land where the tree species are less than 20%, and they are also affected by anthropogenic activities such as livestock grazing and grass rai et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 6 collection. the natural forests are far from the human settlements which are rarely intervened by anthropogenic activities. the exploited forests comprise the vegetation not planted by humans but influenced by their actions. this does not require human activities to be maintained in the long-term as compared to the crop fields. all the four land use types were assessed for species records on both sides of the river. two sample plots (25 m x 2.5 m) were selected randomly per land use type at each elevation level (e.g. 2,200±50 m) on the one side of the river, and the same number were replicated on the another side of the river (scheidegger et al., 2010). each plot was divided into 5 m x 2.5 m sub-plots for species record. thus, each elevation level consisted of eight sample plots (fig. 3). crop fields were not found at the elevations of 3,400 m and 3,800 m except a few in some valleys. a total of 148 plots were sampled during the study period of 2011 – 2013. fig. 3: schematic diagram of sampling plot design of the study per land use type in all elevation (c= crop field, e = exploited forest, m = meadow, f = forest and the straight line at the center represents the river) all the species within each plot were recorded. if the same species occurred in the next plot, it was recorded as “1” (in the presence of the species). the species recorded in the first plot but not in the second plot were recorded as “0” (in the absence of the species). two replicate plots of the same land use type were later merged into one. each plot was visited twice in order to record as many species as possible. to reduce the sampling bias caused by spatial auto-correlation, the replicate of each plot was established at least 50 m away from the first plot (magurran, 2004). data source plant species records as response variable most of the flowering plant species were identified in the field by using the books written by polunin and stainton (1984) and stainton (1988). the specimens unidentified in the field were identified at the national herbarium and plant laboratories (kath), godawari, lalitpur. the voucher specimens were submitted to the kath herbarium. for nomenclature of the species, we followed the angiospermic phylogenetic group (apg iii) system (chase et al., 2009). in the case of the unresolved names (according to apg iii), the nomenclature of press et al. (2000) was adopted. on the other hand, the nomenclature of iwatsuki (1998) and fraser-jenkins (2008, 2011) were used in the case of pteridophytes. the individual species’ presence/absence data in each studied plot were used as the response variable in the current study. environmental variables as predictor variables the following sets of environmental variables were selected as predictor variables (table 1). i. the first set of predictor variables included the microclimate (temperature and humidity) data recorded by the logger installed in the field, from 2011 to 2013. the hobos (onset computer corporation, bourne, ma 02532, usa) were used to record air humidity and air temperature 2 m above the ground level in each plot. the hobos recorded data in every 30 minutes interval. the soil temperatures were recorded at 10 cm below the ground level using button (maxim integrated, san jose, ca 95134, usa) in each plot. the soil temperature data were recorded after every 3 hours. the mean, minimum and maximum values of the year-round data were derived using the recorded data afterwards (table 1). the non-available (na) values of the data were replaced by the mean of the respective variables so that there would be no loss of data rows in the data frame. ii. the second set of predictor variables included the bioclimatic variables extracted from the worldclim-global climate data (hijmans et al., 2005). the data were obtained in 30 arc rai et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 7 seconds (0.93 km x 0.93 km= 0.86 sq. km.) resolution. the latitude and longitude of each plot recorded with the help of garmin 60s gps were supplied in the diva gis ver. 7.5.0. the software extracted the interpolated values of the bioclimatic variables from the world clim database for each plot. out of the 19 bioclimatic variables as defined by the usgs data series 691 (o’donnell and ignizio, 2012), only 10 less correlated variables were chosen for further analysis (table 1). iii. the third set of data contained the information of the topography of the studied area, and were directly recorded in the field. garmin gps 60s was used to record the elevation of the plots. brunton compass was used to record the aspect while clinometer was used to record the slope angle of the sample plots. the land use types, the regions and the valleys were considered as the categorical variables and all the others were taken as the ratio variables (table 1). the above set of variables contained large number of variables. the hmisc (harrell et al., 2016) package was used to check the collinearity among the environmental variables. the pearson correlation coefficient was used to describe the relationships between the variables. the highly correlated variables (r> 0.7) were taken for analysis (dormann et al., 2013). data analysis initial data recording and management were done using ms excel and ms access. the further analyses were performed on the r ver. 3.1.2 (r core team, 2015). r-package vegan (oksanen et al., 2015) was used for the multi-variate ordination analysis. detrended correspondence analysis (dca) was performed for the species data (hill and gauch, table 1: the list of environmental variables selected from three sets set variable acronym contained information (1) loggers’ data maxt.h maximum air temperature recorded by hobo maxt.ib maximum soil temperature recorded by ibutton meant.ib mean soil temperature recorded by ibutton mint.ib minimum soil temperature recorded by ibutton maxh.h maximum air humidity recorded by hobo meanh.h mean air humidity recorded by hobo minh.h minimum air humidity recorded by hobo (2) bioclimatic bio1 annual mean temperature bio3 isothermality of temperature bio5 maximum temperature of warmest month bio6 minimum temperature of coldest month bio8 mean temperature of wettest quarter bio10 mean temperature of warmest quarter bio14 precipitation of driest month bio15 precipitation seasonality bio17 precipitation of the driest quarter bio19 precipitation of the coldest quarter (3) spatial reg two regions (manaslu and sagarmatha) val four valleys habie exploited forest habif natural forest habim meadow altg recorded elevation asp aspect slop slope angle rai et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 8 1980) showing the gradient length of the first ordination axis higher than 2.5 standard units. therefore, we used the constrained ordination method, the unimodal model of the canonical correspondence analysis (cca) (ter braak, 1986). the inertias of all the predictors were compared among each other in order to find out the amount of variances explained by them. the diversity indices like shannon-wiener, simpson and inverse simpson indices were calculated using “vegan” r package (oksanen et al., 2015). generalized linear model (mccullagh and nelder, 1989) with quasi-poisson distribution for counts were used to evaluate the relationships between the species richness as response variable and different environmental predictors. the model was fitted against the null model to check for its robustness and performance. the second order polynomial function was also tested, but fisher’s alpha was not significant. thus, we proceeded with the first order linear model. results and discussion the study revealed 790 vascular plant species of 337 genera within 114 plant families. the highest number of species were recorded for asteraceae (84 spp.) followed by rosaceae (52 spp.), poaceae (50 spp.) and fabaceae (38 spp., fig. 4). fig. 4: bar diagram showing the representative families, number of species on the y-axis and families on the x-axis (families representing more than 10 spp. are included) species composition the detrended correspondence analysis (dca) of the species values against the plots studied was performed. all of the dca axes were more than 2.5 standard units; therefore, the data were further analyzed using cca. the species data were further constrained separately by the logger data, bioclimatic data and topographical variables for cca analysis. the performances of the variables are presented in table 2. the cca plots show the effect of the environmental variables on the species composition (fig. 5, 6 and 7). the distribution of the species were found to be affected by the temperature along the cca axis-1 and the humidity along the cca axis-2 (fig. 5) this clearly showed that the temperature and humidity were controlling environmental factors for the distribution of the species (table 2). in terms of percentage, the variation explained by the cca axis-1 and the cca axis-2 were ~41.8% and ~27.7%, respectively; thus, 69% of the variation were explained by the two cca axes (table 3). fig. 5: cca plot showing the species composition constrained by humidity and soil temperature; the crosses indicating the species, the circles indicating the plots and the arrows showing the predictors the precipitation seasonality (bio15) possesses the longest gradient length to shape the species distribution. isothermality (bio3) refers to the percentage of the mean diurnal range divided by the annual temperature. thus, the growing days and length of the days which shape the temperature pattern has also significant contribution for species distribution. precipitation of the driest month (bio14) is another contributor for species distribution. annual mean temperature (bio1), mean temperature of coldest month (bio6), mean temperature of the warmest quarter (bio10) and mean temperature of the wettest quarter (temperature combined with the precipitation, bio8) were found to have the significant effect on the species composition in the study areas (table 2 and fig. 6). rai et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 9 the cca axes of the bioclimatic variable were found to have performed less than the cca axes obtained from the logger data. the cca axis1 was found to have explained 24.39% of the variation followed by the cca axis-2 (20.19%), the cca axis-3 (14.82%) and the cca axis-4 (12.24%). thus, a total of 72% of the variation was found to be explained by these four axes (table 3). fig. 6: cca plot showing the species composition constrained by the bioclimatic variables; the crosses indicating the species, the circles indicating the plots and the arrows showing the predictors the results obtained by constraining species with the annual temperature and precipitation mean and their derivatives show that not only the mean, minima and maxima of the temperature and precipitation are important but also their combined effect are equally important to shape the distribution of the species in the given environmental hyper-volume (hutchinson, 1957). the predictor variables constructed with the derivatives of temperature and precipitation alone and combined have the physiological role in the germination, growth and proliferation (wright et al., 2006). soil temperatures are important for the physiology of the cell, water availability and nutrient uptake from the soil (korner, 2003). temperature is related with the energy balance as well (scherrer et al., 2011). topographical variables also show significant effect upon the species composition (fig. 7, table 2). table 2: the test statistics expressed by the environmental variables while constraining the species composition (by “margin” i.e. each marginal term analyzed in a model with all other variables) variable set code df chi square f pr(>f) significance codes loggers meant.ib 1 0.1385 1.7665 0.001 * * * mint.ib 1 0.1450 1.8498 0.001 * * * maxh.h 1 0.1187 1.5135 0.002 * * minh.h 1 0.1303 1.6617 0.001 * * * residual 143 11.2110 bioclimatic bio1 1 0.1259 1.6474 0.001 * * * bio3 1 0.1664 2.1761 0.001 * * * bio6 1 0.1078 1.4100 0.001 * * * bio8 1 0.1132 1.4808 0.001 * * * bio10 1 0.1185 1.5506 0.001 * * * bio14 1 0.1617 2.1150 0.001 * * * bio15 1 0.1458 1.9071 0.001 * * * residual 140 10.7033 spatial reg 1 0.2408 3.2757 0.001 * * * val 1 0.2368 3.2217 0.001 * * * habi 3 0.5225 2.3695 0.001 * * * altg 1 0.3770 5.1288 0.001 * * * asp 1 0.1242 1.6903 0.001 * * * slop 1 0.1109 1.5089 0.001 * * * residual 139 10.2174 significance codes: ‘***’ for p=0.001, ‘**’ for p=0.002 rai et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 10 fig. 7: cca plot showing the species composition as shaped by the topographical variables; the crosses indicating the species, the circles indicating the plots and the arrows showing the predictors elevation (altg) was found to be one of the significant variables for the species composition in our study (table 2). it is a surrogate of a number of environmental factors,e.g. temperature, which in turn stands for energy, water etc. slope angle (slop) and aspect of the plots were also found to be significant contributors for the species composition (table 2). more than 60% of the variation was found to be explained by the three cca axes produced by constraining species composition with the topographical variables. the cca axis-1 explains ~25% followed by the cca axis-2 (~21.8%) and the cca axis-3 (~15.2%) (table 3). the valleys (val) were also found to be significant for species composition (table 2). the sagarmatha region receives more annual precipitation (average 1,640.95 mm) as compared to the mca region (average 545.36 mm, hijmans et al., 2005). the valleys in the sagarmatha region are geographically nearer to the bay of bengal, the origin of the monsoon rain system, and are less rain-shadowed by the high mountains. in contrast, the mca valleys are geographically farther from the bay of bengal and rain-shadowed by mt. ganesh (7,422 m). species richness for each environmental variable, annual model was first created and was tested with the first order generalized linear model (glm). transect-wise species richness was taken as response variable which regressed against different environmental variables as predictor. these included land use types (lut), elevation (altg), precipitation seasonality (bio15), annual precipitation (bio12), slope angle (slop) and aspect (asp) of the plots. these developed models were tested table 3: percentage of variation explained by the cca axes when species richness were constrained with the predictor variables data set constrained inertia cca axes eigenvalues percentage variation explained cumulative variation % loggers' set 0.750 cca1 0.3132 41.77 cca2 0.2076 27.68 69 cca3 0.1223 16.31 86 cca4 0.1072 14.30 100 bioclimatic set 1.258 cca1 0.3068 24.39 cca2 0.2539 20.19 45 cca3 0.1864 14.82 59 cca4 0.1539 12.24 72 cca5 0.1512 12.02 84 cca6 0.1081 8.60 92 cca7 0.0975 7.75 100 spatial set 1.744 cca1 0.4344 24.97 cca2 0.3780 21.72 47 cca3 0.2643 15.19 62 cca4 0.2277 13.09 75 cca5 0.1937 11.13 86 cca6 0.1073 6.17 92 cca7 0.0846 4.86 97 cca8 0.0542 3.11 100 rai et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 11 among each other by using “f” statistics. overdispersed residual of errors were standardized after application of “quasipoisson” family of distribution of error. the significant environmental variables with deviance and “f” values are indicated in table 4. the graphics of some more interpretable and statistically significant variables are shown in fig. 8a–8d. fig. 8a: species richness versus elevation of the plots fig. 8b: species richness versus land use types fig. 8c: species richness versus precipitation seasonality fig. 8d: species richness versus annual precipitation note: in fig. 8b, c = crop field, e = exploited forest, f = natural forest and m = meadow; in fig. 8c, units are precipitation coefficients and in fig. 8d, precipitation is in mm. the species richness increased with the increase in the elevation of the plots studied. the previous studies in nepal showed the unimodal richness pattern with elevation (baniya et al., 2010; grau et al., 2007; vetaas and grytnes, 2002). those studies analyzed long elevation gradients whereas this study considered relatively short elevation gradient between 2,200 m and 3,800 m above the table 4: test statistics of the generalized linear model (glm) of species richness against the individual environmental variables code predictors resid. df resid. dev. deviance f pr(>f) significance codes lut land use types 144 1460 75445 2608.9 < 2.20e-16 * * * altg elevation 146 1357 75547 8574.1 < 2.20e-16 * * * bio15 precipitation seasonality 146 1373 75532 8460.7 < 2.20e-16 * * * bio12 annual precipitation 146 1462 75443 7934.5 < 2.20e-16 * * * slop slope angle 146 1464 75441 7928.0 < 2.20e-16 * * * asp aspect 146 1467 75437 7895.5 < 2.20e-16 * * * significance codes: ‘***’ for p< 0.001 rai et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 12 mean sea level. the short gradient in our study was not sufficient to test the species richness humps. however, there are studies which show the plateau of species richness of birds at high elevation (patterson et al., 1998). an elevation limit of species occurrence is expected for high mountains e.g., the himalaya, always covered with snow and the permafrost. the hump shaped unimodal distribution of species richness are expected for such restriction in the absence of any environmental gradients (colwell and lees, 2000; colwell et al., 2004) or isolation from other zonal communities (lomolino, 2001). however, hump is a union of linear segments at local scale. the result was obtained from only 1,600 m elevation. thus, the result from this study could be a local phenomenon rather than the large-scaled unimodal pattern found by the earlier researchers. this interpretation resembles quite similar to that of baniya et al. (2012). four land use types namely (i) crop field, (ii) meadow, (iii) exploited forest, and (iv) natural forest were studied. the exploited forests were more species-rich, followed by the meadow, the natural forest and the crop field. the soil use intensity and fragmentation are thought to be loss of biodiversity (cousins, 2009; honnay et al., 2005; maitima et al., 2005). this explains the less richness in the crop field. the species richness in the exploited forest is described by the intermediate disturbance hypothesis (connell, 1978) and some empirical studies (townsend and scarsbrook, 1997). in our study, the species richness was found to have increased significantly with the increase in the annual precipitation and seasonality (fig. 8c and 8d). precipitation seasonality is the coefficient of variation of the monthly precipitation. the four valleys studied have different precipitation seasonality, which is explained by this study. the different valleys receive varying degree of precipitation shaping different scale of species richness and their pattern (o’brien, 1993; pauses and austin, 2001). the species richness and composition pattern are also affected by the slope and aspect of the sampling plots (nuzzo, 1996). the south-facing and steeper slopes are drier than the north-facing slopes, and more number of species is expected towards the wet areas (kassas and zahran, 1971; pook and moore, 1966). the temperature is also significantly affected by the aspects in the mountain environments at point-scale (kroner, 2003; parker, 1991). the variation in the slope and aspect, thus, result in the variation of the soil moisture, nutrient cycling and availability of energy dissipation (mohammad, 2008) resulting in different composition and richness (carmel and kadmon, 1999). conclusion altogether 790 vascular plant species belonging to 114 families were recorded from six river valleys studied. asteraceae (84 spp.) was the most dominant family among them. the three sets of environmental variables were used to study their effect on the species composition and species richness of vascular plants. the loggers recorded the microclimate data of each plot. soil temperature and humidity of the plots affected the plants composition significantly. out of 19 bioclimatic variables only seven showed significant effect on the plant composition. annual mean temperature (bio1), isothermality of the temperature (bio3), minimum temperature of the coldest month (bio6), mean temperature of the wettest quarter (bio8) were the temperature related variables. precipitation of the driest month (bio14) and precipitation seasonality (bio15) also were significant variables. the topography of the plots (elevation, aspect and slope) affected the vascular plant composition significantly. nearly 50 percents of the variations were explained by two axes of the cca in all three sets of environmental variables. four land use types were considered during the study. these land use types also affected the species richness and composition significantly. the results of the study are in accordance with the previous studies. however, the unimodal hump of the species richness distribution was not revealed due to shorter elevation gradient in this study. acknowledgements we are grateful to the cdb-wsl project run by the central department of botany, tribhuvan university, nepal for providing the fund and logistics for the field trip. we are also thankful to the swiss federal institute for forest, snow and landscape research, wsl, switzerland for providing us scholarships for data management and processing. this study was funded by the swiss national science foundation (jrp rai et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 13 iz70z0_131338/1 to cs). the first author is indebted to the ministry of forests and soil conservation, the government of nepal for granting him a three-year study leave to accomplish the study. our sincere thanks go to dr. keshab raj rajbhandary, dr. khem raj bhattarai and rita chhetri for identification of plants at the national herbarium and plant laboratories (kath), godawari. the employees of kath and wilder places treks, kathmandu are duly acknowledged. we appreciate the contribution of ms. laxmi sankhi, ms. srijana shah and mr. hem b. katuwal in data collection during the field-work. we acknowledge dr. chitra baniya for sharing his ideas and analysis methods while developing this paper. references baniya, c. b., solhøy, t., gauslaa, y. and palmer, m. w. 2010. the elevation gradient of lichen species richness in nepal. the lichenologist 42 (1): 83–96. baniya, c. b., solhøy, t., gauslaa, y. and palmer, m. w. 2012. richness and composition of vascular plants and cryptogams along a high elevation gradient on buddha mountain, central tibet. folia geobot 47: 135–151. bhattarai, k. r. k. and vetaas, o. r. 2003. variation in plant species richness of different life forms along a subtropical elevation gradient in the himalayas, east nepal. 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global ecology and biogeography 11 (4): 291–301. wright, i. j., reich, p. b., atkin, o. k., lusk, c. h., tjoelker, m. g. and westoby, m. 2006. irradiance, temperature and rainfall influence leaf dark respiration in woody plants: evidence from comparisons across 20 sites. the new phytologist 169 (2): 309–19. rai et al. . i ■ ./ i o 1 book review banko janakari, vol.9,no.2 ___________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________ introduction to forestry publisher: vikash publishing house pvt. ltd., india year: 1998 pages: 262 price: irs 135 there has always remained a constraint of reading materials particularly in the technical subjects such as forestry in the libraries of the third world countries. nepal is not an exception to it. there could be no argument that the limitation of reading materials limits the standard of education for a given country. students at the institute of forestry at pokhara and at hetauda have felt a greater need of text as well as reference books. and, forestry which is not a single subject, rather is the aggregation of various applied sciences, there could be no single book dealing with the forestry subjects for beginners. at such circumstances, a n introductory book on forestry is always felt needed by the students to save their time from searching a vast literature i t f i i improvement, wood technology, social forestry, forest policy and law, forestry research and future trends in forestry, etc. seems to serve not only the students at the college level, but is of briefly described, will particularly attract the siudcnts of the region. however, nepali students may be a little bit disappointed for not seeing any thing on participatory fores dr. m. b. shrivastava of the department of forestry, the papua new guinea university of technology, who has almost thirty years of experience at various capacities in the field of forestry, has done a commendable job of writing a book entitled introduction to forestry. the book that covers the broad spectrum of forestry and includes silviculture, mensuration, forest survey and inventory, management, utilisation, protection, tree reference value to the practitioners. distribution of forests types depends on the distribution and characteristics of climate types. in this context, the author has, wisely started with three chapters of his book with the climate of the world thereby linking it with the world vegetation types in the fourth chapter. forests of the indian subcontinent, though management. the subject which has drawn attention of the forestry managers in the third world countries, and in nepal it has remained in the top priority. sushim ranjan baral ph.d. department of forest research and survey 20 this study was aimed to establish regression models for the relationship of canopy projection area (cpa) with carbon stock of intermingled canopy trees of dominant species for the prediction of above-ground carbon stock. manual delineation of cpa of intermingled canopy trees of the dominant species was carried out using geoeye satellite image. diameter at breast height of trees were measured in 56 sample plots. the above-ground dry biomass of trees was calculated from the field measured dbhs using allometric equation while the above-ground carbon stock of the trees were obtained by multiplying their dry biomass with the factor 0.47. individual basal area of intermingled canopy trees was calculated separately and was summed up (σba) along with the summation of their carbon stock (σcarbon). correlation analysis was carried out to assess the linear relationship between cpa, dbh, ba, biomass, and carbon stock. four types of functions, viz., simple linear, quadratic, logarithmic and power were used to fit the data using least square regression method. shorea robusta, schima wallichii and terminalia alata were found dominant tree species in the study area. the relationship of cpa with σba and σcarbon of intermingled canopy trees of shorea robusta was found to be linear with r2 of 0.29 and 0.25 respectively. simple linear regression model resulted in the least error for the prediction of carbon stock of intermingled canopy trees. the identified simple linear regression models having the least error are not applicable for the prediction of above-ground tree carbon stock of broadleaf forest in hilly terrain. key words: crown projection area, intermingled canopy trees, basal area, biomass, above-ground carbon stock, geoeye satellite image modelling the relationship between canopy projection area and above-ground carbon stock of intermingled canopy trees using high-resolution satellite imagery s. k. shah1* and h. acharya1 forest has an important role in global carbon cycle that covers over one-fourth of the world’s geographical area. it accounts for 289 gigatonnes (gt) of carbon in its biomass (fao, 2013). nevertheless, deforestation and degradation of forest especially in developing countries for agriculture are causing 20–25 per cent carbon emission (cifor et al., 2009). abatement of forest-based emission is critical to limit global warming that contributes to unprecedented climate change. redd and redd+ mechanism have become central efforts to combat climate change due to anthropogenic activities in developing countries (unfccc, 2010). in addition, forest carbon would be traded as commodity goods in an emerging international voluntary carbon market to offset carbon emission by corporate or business houses (gibbs et al., 2007). different methods have been piloted and tested to estimate forest carbon at large scale that requires for effective implementation of redd+ and carbon trade among others. highresolution satellite image has been researched for the estimation of forest carbon using regression models. remote sensing (rs) has been used as an important technique to estimate biomass at a larger scale. it acquires data using different sensors, e.g., optical or radio detection and ranging (radar) or light detection and ranging (lidar) aboard satellite or aircraft. the strengths of the techniques are to provide spatially explicit information and repeated coverage including the possibility of covering large areas as well as remote areas that may be difficult to access. three major rs techniques have been evolved 1 department of national parks and wildlife conservation, babarmahal, kathmandu. * corresponding author: shyamkumar_shah@yahoo.com banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 21 to estimate forest carbon, viz. i) optical rs, ii) radar rs and iii) lidar rs. high resolution satellites such as quick bird, ikonos and world view are capable of sensing biophysical parameters of trees such as crown dimension which correlate directly with biomass (gonzalez et al., 2010). high resolution satellite data have become available anywhere in the world because of rapid advances and decreasing cost (asner, 2009). the cost is further justifiable for the initial carbon stock estimation and to meet intergovernmental panel on climate change ipcc ‘tier 3’ standard which ensures the higher level of accuracy and lower level of uncertainty (patenaude et al., 2005). it has potential to higher financial returns for monitoring and verifying carbon stock and emissions (gibbs et al., 2007). this study investigated the relationship between canopy projection area (cpa) of intermingled canopy trees manually delineated from the image and their above-ground carbon stock using correlation and regression analysis. the intermingled canopy trees can be defined as a group of trees whose canopies overlap or mix together. individual tree in intermingled canopies has the competition for crown expansion from the branches of adjoining trees. regression models were established using cpa as a predictor for the prediction of above-ground carbon stock of intermingled canopy trees. materials and methods study area this study was carried out in khayarkhola watershed located in chitwan district of central nepal (fig. 1). the area is characterized by subtropical broadleaved forest with shorea robusta as the dominant species. major associate species are terminalia alata, terminalia bellirica, lagerstroemia parviflora, schima wallichii, semicarpus anacardium and mallotus philippensis. there were 15 community forests in the area. the area is drained by khayarkhola stream having many small tributaries feeding into it. the climate is subtropical monsoon with average annual precipitation of 1,830 mm. annual mean temperature is 24oc that ranges from 18oc to 36oc (panta et al., 2008). the altitude of the site ranges from 300 m to 1,200 m above mean sea level. research hypothesis ho: there is no significant (95% confidence level) relationship between the cpa and the σba, the cpa and the σbiomass, the cpa and the σcarbon of two or more intermingledcanopy trees. field data collection stratified random sampling was followed to design sample plot (mitchell and popovich, 1997). individual community forest was considered as a stratum. the sample size was calculated at probability level of 5% and allowable error of 10%. the sample size was allocated to the individual community forests proportional to their areas and at least two sample plots were maintained in each stratum; altogether, 63 sample plots were laid out. sample plots to each stratum were located randomly using arcgis 2010. at sample plot location, circular plots with 12.62 m (500 m2 area) radius were demarcated (husch et al., 2003). within the circular plot, dbh (≥ 10 cm) of intermingled canopy trees recognized in the image (brown, 2002; clark and clark, 2000) were measured and coordinates were recorded using ipaq. measurement of trees was carried out in 56 sample plots out of the total 63 sample plots. the remaining sample plots could not be reached due to inaccessible terrain and time limitation. cpa delineation orthorectified geoeye images acquired on 02 november, 2009 were used. the panchromatic fig. 1: the study area, chitwan district of central nepal shah and acharya banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 22 image of spatial resolution 0.50 m and mss images of spatial resolution 2 m were fused using erdas imagine 2010. the 3x3 low pass filter was applied to the fused image to enhance image information content. filtered images were rotated to 180o to have better view of tree crown. sample plot shapefile and tree point shapefile were overlaid in the image. the cpa of intermingled canopy trees was digitised at 1:250 scale manually using polygon construction tool in arcgis 2010. there was about 10–11 months lag between image acquisition and field data collection. data was collected in september-october, 2010. it was assumed that diameter at breast height (dbh) of the tree (≥10 cm) would not have increased significantly in the period. data analysis the above-ground dry biomass of intermingled canopy trees of the dominant species was calculated from their field-measured dbhs using allometric equation. among the biophysical parameters of trees, dbh is an important predictive variable (leboeuf et al., 2007) which alone explains more than 95% variation in biomass (gibbs et al., 2007). biomass of all trees in one intermingled canopy group was summed up (σbiomass). the total carbon (σcarbon) of intermingled canopy trees was calculated from σbiomass using the conversion factor 0.47 (ipcc, 2006). individual basal area of interminlged canopy trees of the dominant species were calculated from their dbhs separately using the formulae (hedl et al., 2009). basal area of all the trees in one intermingled group was summed up (σba). the data were observed in scatter plot using cpa as the predictor and σba, σbiomass, σcarbon as response variables. scatter plots can reveal nonlinearity, suspected outlier and unequal variance. the dataset were randomly divided into two sets: 60% for model building and another 40% for model validation after excluding the outliers (gill et al., 2000). pearson’s productmoment correlation coefficient was calculated to see the strength of linear relationship between cpa and σba, σbiomass, σcarbon. simple linear, quadratic, logarithmic and power function were used to develop regression models for the relationship of cpa with σba, σbiomass, σcarbon. the significances of regression coefficients were assessed by t-statistic and the significance of regression models were assessed by f-statistics at 95% confidence level. root mean square error (rmse) was used for the comparison of predictive accuracy of the models (gill et al., 2000). the identified significant model based on f-statistics were validated using 40% independent dataset for the calculation of rmse. results and discussion a total of 146 trees of 12 different species were found in a two-intermingled canopy situation in the sample plots in the field. out of total the two-intermingled canopy trees, 122 trees were pure intermingled canopy trees and the rest 24 were mixed (different species) intermingled canopy trees. a total of 6 species, namely, adina cordifolia, l. parviflora, s. wallichii, s. anacardium, s. robusta and t. alata were found to have occurred in pure intermingled canopy situation. the other 6 species were intermingled with different species. in the category twointermingled, s. robusta species had the largest number followed by s. wallichii and t. alata. the dominant s. robusta trees were found to be in pure intermingled canopy situation with two trees, three trees and four trees. the set of two, three, and four intermingled canopies were 51, 23 and 2 respectively. the total number of trees resulted in 102, 69 and 8 trees with two, three and four intermingled canopy situation respectively (fig. 2). no other species were found to be in pure intermingled canopy situations especially with more than two trees. the two and three intermingled trees of s. robusta was the only trees taken for analysis. the two and three-intermingled canopy trees were treated as one set of data as it was not possible to differentiate between two and three-intermingled canopy situations in satellite image. fig. 2: number of intermingled canopy trees of s. robusta shah and acharya banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 23 exploratory data analysis the descriptive statistics of σba, σbiomass, σcarbon and cpa of intermingled (two and three together) canopy trees of s. robusta are presented after removing outliers in table 1. graphical analysis of the relationship between cpa, ba, biomass and carbon using scatter plot the scatter plots of explanatory variable cpa with response variables σba and σcarbon of two and three intermingled trees of s. robusta are shown in figure 3. the overall pattern of the scatter plots show that there was positive linear relationship of cpa with σba and σcarbon. nonlinear pattern was not found distinctly. the strength of relationship between them would be confirmed by calculating correlation coefficient. correlation analysis pearson’s correlation coefficient was calculated using r software to analyse the strength of linear relationship of σba with σbiomass and σcarbon. the correlation of σba with σbiomass and σcarbon are presented in table 2. the correlation of σba with σbiomass and σcarbon was found to be highly significant (p< 0.001). in addition, the calculated t-values are higher than tabulated t-values at 5% significance level (winer, 1962). according to t-test, the null hypothesis is rejected. therefore, there is significant relationship between the cpa and σba, the cpa and σbiomass, the cpa and σcarbon of two and threeintermingled canopy trees. however, the strength of linear relationship between them was not found to be strong (<0.7). the tabulated t-values for 40 degrees of freedom are taken into account as t-values are mentioned for 40 and 50 degrees of freedom in student’s t distribution table and the t values are not mentioned for degrees of freedom between 40 and 50 (winer, 1962). regression analysis table 3 shows the regression models for the relationship of cpa with σba, σbiomass and σcarbon of s. robusta. the randomly divided 60% dataset were used to fit linear, quadratic and logarithmic function regression models using spss software. similarly, power function regression model was developed from the data using xlstat 2010 software. the regression models were validated using 40% independent dataset. the regression coefficients of quadratic and power function models were found to be not significant. the power function was not taken for further analysis whereas the quadratic function model was taken because of deliberate introduction of collinearity between cpa and cpa2. the simple linear, quadratic and logarithmic models table 1: descriptive statistics of σba, σbiomass, σcarbon and cpa of intermingled canopy trees of s. robusta species number minimum maximum mean std. deviation std. error basal area (cm2) 74 733.91 14950.75 4559.42 2424.87 281.88 biomass (kg) 74 335.56 12117.83 2966.26 1913.55 222.45 carbon (kg) 74 157.72 5695.38 1394.14 899.37 104.55 cpa (m2) 74 48.10 252.53 122.87 46.316 5.38 fig. 3: scatter plot of cpa with σba and σcarbon of intermingled canopy trees of s. robusta shah and acharya banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 24 table 2: pearson’s correlation between cpa, σba, σbiomass and σcarbon of intermingled canopy trees of s. robusta species variables t df r 95 % confidence limit p-value sal (s. robusta) cpa and σba 4.096 41 0.54 0.285 0.722 <0.001 (intermingled canopy trees) cpa and σbiomass 3.673 41 0.50 0.234 0.694 <0.001 cpa and σcarbon 3.673 41 0.50 0.234 0.694 <0.001 the correlation results rejected the hypothesis ho: there is no significant (95% confidence level) relationship between the cpa and σba, the cpa and σbiomass, the cpa and σcarbon of two and three intermingled canopy trees. table 3: regression models with the calibration and validation statistics for the relationship of cpa with σba, σbiomass and σcarbon of intermingled canopy trees of s. robusta regression models constants calibration (n = 43) validation (n = 29) a b c r2 rmse rmse % ba = a +b.cpa 2073.45** 20.90*** 0.29 1896.28 49.25 ba = a+b. cpa+c.cpa2 -747.32 63.80* -0.14 0.29 1940.80 50.40 ba = a+b. ln(cpa) -9700.66** 3025.203*** 0.33 1902.23 49.40 ba=a.cpab 298.27 0.57* coefficient not significant (p>0.05) biomass = a +b.cpa 1221.25* 14.51*** 0.25 1407.18 58.52 biomass = a+b. cpa+c.cpa2 -985.447 48.074* -0.109 0.25 1453.34 60.62 biomass = a+b. ln(cpa) -7048.59** 2120.59*** 0.28 1415.22 58.85 biomass =a.cpab 163.223 0.6095* coefficient not significant (p>0.05) carbon = a +b.cpa 573.99* 6.82*** 0.25 661.39 58.52 carbon = a+b. cpa+c.cpa2 -463.16 22.595* -0.051 0.25 685.25 60.62 carbon = a+b. ln(cpa) -3312.839** 996.675*** 0.28 665.15 58.85 carbon = a.cpab 76.715 0.610* coefficient not significant (p>0.05) for quadratic function model, adjusted r2 is mentioned because r2 get inflated by increasing the parameters in the model. in the other models, r2 is mentioned since they have only one parameter. significance levels are p< 0.05*, p < 0.01**, and p < 0.001***. regression coefficients were tested for significance (p<0.05) using t test. shah and acharya banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 25 were found to be significant (p<0.05) based on f statistics. the simple linear model was found to have the least error for prediction of carbon compared to the other function models. scatter plots with the linear regression equations regression equations with coefficients of determination are shown in scatter plots (fig. 4) for the selected simple linear models. the scatter plots revealed that relationships between the parameters were weak. these plots do not show any distinct nonlinear pattern. fig. 4: linear regressions of σba, σbiomass and σcarbon on cpa of intermingled canopy trees of s. robusta the regression coefficients of power function models were not found to be significant (p<0.05). this suggested that there was no significant and strong power function relation between the parameters. the regression coefficients in simple linear and logarithmic were found to be significant (p<0.05). however, the coefficients in quadratic model were not found to be significant. this could be because of deliberate introduction of collinearity between cpa and cpa2. based on the lowest value of rmse, the regression results suggested simple linear relationship between cpa, σba, σbiomass and σcarbon separately (table 3). the scatter plots of regression equations do not show any distinct nonlinear pattern between the parameters. the cpa and σba relation was found to be comparable with the study done by mitchell and popovich (1997). he analysed the relationship between basal area of trees per unit land area and canopy cover (%) in ponderosa pine forest and demonstrated a straight line relationship between them below 60% canopy. bartelink (1996) also found the linear relationship between cpa and ba of douglas fir in single tree situation, whereas this study found a linear relationship between cpa and σba in intermingled canopy trees. simple linear relationship was shown applicable to the above-ground biomass estimation (ton/ha) of forest stands using ba (m2/ha) of forest stands (chiba, 1998). however, there is no literature available that investigated the relationship between cpa, σba and σbiomass or σcarbon in intermingled canopy situation. in order to explain the query, why linear relationship was found between σba and cpa in intermingled canopy situation? the authors would like to strengthen their understanding based on field experiences and some logic. it is important to understand stand alone and intermingled canopy trees situation in the field. the stand alone and two-intermingled trees are shown in figure 5. the degree of intermingle has not been taken into account. once tree canopies were not visible as stand alone (completely separated canopy from any other canopies surrounding to it), those were considered as intermingle canopy even without their branches considerably intermixed together like in the situation in figure 5. this degree of intermingle affects the cpa considerably but has no effect on the dbh. another important factor could be the competition or crowding between the trees. trees crown development was found to be negatively affected by competition from neighbouring tree crowns (larocque, 2000). it is reasonable to assume shah and acharya banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 26 that a group of intermingled canopy trees is similar to a stand alone in terms of competition and cpa. when branches of trees touch or intermingled with one another, they fall under intermingled group. since the forest in the study area did not have 100% canopy cover, most of the intermingled trees were isolated as a group without competition from surrounding trees. it can be assumed that due to the intra competition within intermingled canopy trees for canopy expansion, they start extending canopy on edges in order to compensate for the overlap area. this is shown in figure 5 where they are extending their canopies even with larger area than the overlapped one. it is thus plausible that canopy area is still growing without diminishing the rate of growth when we consider cpa of intermingled group as a whole. (a) (b) (c) fig. 5: (a) stand alone trees; (b) and (c) two intermingled canopy trees following the logic mentioned in above paragraph for cpa and σba relation, the linear relationship between cpa and σbiomass or σcarbon is also maintained. further, it appears that intracompetition in intermingled situation affects individual canopy area as well as diameter of trees. as a result, different sizes (dbh) of trees are found in the intermingled group. therefore, the sum of carbon of all individual trees relate linearly with their intermingled canopy area. model comparison and error in prediction of carbon the difference of rmse between the three regression models, viz., simple linear, quadratic and logarithmic in intermingled canopy trees of s. robusta was not large. nonetheless, simple linear regression model was found to predict, viz., σba, σbiomass or σcarbon with the least error (table 4). the prediction of carbon from cpa was found to have high error with rmse 58.52% (table 4). this error increased substantially compared to the prediction of basal area, i.e., from 49.25% to 58.52% (table 4). it is further evident that the use of allometric equation for the calculation of biomass is an important factor for this incremental error including the error in the vertical projection area of cpa in the image and cpa delineation. table 4: predictive accuracy of different models for intermingled canopy trees of s. robusta models cpa versus σba cpa versus σcarbon r2 (n=43) rmse% (n=29) r2 (n=43) rmse% (n=29) simple linear 0.29 49.25 0.25 58.52 quadratic 0.29 50.40 0.25 60.62 logarithmic 0.33 49.40 0.28 58.85 the models for cpa versus biomass are not mentioned as r2 and rmse% value are same with the models of cpa versus carbon (table 4). error in cpa delineation a set of rule, i.e., rotating image to 180o, visualized in rgb 132, fixing scale at 1:250 was followed consistently for the manual delineation of cpa on low pass filtered pansharpened image. but precise digitisation also depends on canopy architecture (browning et al., 2009). the shape of crown of the broadleaf species (fig. 6) is very irregular compared to needleleaved trees. because of irregular pattern, manual digitisation becomes too difficult to avoid error. in intermingled canopy situation, where the crowns of two or more individual trees touched or overlapped, it was found difficult to identify from a top-down perspective whether the image object represent two, three or more tree crowns. this problem was handled with the help of information of sample plot location, intermingled canopy trees outline in the jpeg print out of image and the coordinates of the measured trees. another important point that caused error in cpa delineation was the fuzziness of boundary of the canopy (fig. 6) in the image. in the forest, reflectance of other vegetation, i.e., ground cover, understory shrubs, trees further creates noise for the reflectance of top canopy dominant trees. the boundary of the dominant trees is no longer remained crisp. we can imagine the crisp boundary of tree crown in the case of roadside plantation where trees are usually lopped, well trained and surrounded with man-made geographic objects. shah and acharya banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 27 the month of image acquisition also contributed to fuzziness of the boundary of dominant tree canopy. the image was acquired in november when the selected dominant species, which are semi-deciduous, start shedding their leaves. as the amount of leaves in the tree crown decreases, understory vegetation reflectance get space to appear in the scene. this further exacerbates the fuzziness of tree crown edges. the third important point is the presence of shadow in the image (fig. 6b). mountainous topography further causes to increase the shadow in the scene. shadow particularly obscured canopy area (wulder et al., 2004) as shown in figures 6 (a) and (b). sources of error and its influence on modelling steps table 5 indicates the sources of error and its influence on different steps of modelling the relationship between cpa and above-ground tree carbon. propagation of error in modelling steps from different sources causes poor prediction of carbon from cpa. conclusion the above-ground carbon stock of intermingled canopy trees cannot be estimated by using manually delineated cpa from geoeye satellite image. the simple linear regression models having the least error are not applicable for the prediction of above-ground tree carbon stock of broadleaved forest in hilly terrain as the models have poor r2 which is mainly caused by error in vertical projection area of tree canopy because of low sun angle and shadow in the scene. this is further exacerbated by the mountainous topography of the study area. in addition, manual delineation of cpa has been affected by the fuzziness tree crown boundary in the image. recommendations • local species specific allometric equation should be used to improve model accuracy for the prediction of above-ground tree carbon. • it is recommended to validate cpa (delineated from very high resolution satellite images) using field measured cpa. • large dataset of tree parameters need to be (a) (b) (c) fig. 6: (a) cpa; (b) stand alone tree cpa digitised on filtered image; (c) the stand alone tree cpa on unfiltered image table 5: sources of error and its influence on modelling steps modelling steps sources of error and its influence on the modelling steps image acquisition high sun angle shadow (oblique image) shadow (mountainous topography) cpa delineation irregular crown shape understory vegetation / fuzziness of canopy boundary shadow satellite image cpa versus dbh satellite image cpa delineation cpa versus carbon allometric equation cpa versus dbh shah and acharya banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 28 collected for the development of reliable regression models. • further studies are required to estimate aboveground carbon stock of trees accurately using other remote 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and acharya banko jankari-2017(5).1.1 snow leopard (panthera uncia) is the striking symbol as well as an indicator of intact eco-regions of high mountains it inhabits. despite the advancement in new methods, scholars argue that signs are still a reliable indicator for the purpose of habitat use study of snow leopards. the relative abundance of snow leopard and its major prey species such as blue sheep (pseudois nayar) and himalayan tahr (hemitragus jemlahicus) in the chhekampar village development committee within the tsum valley of the manaslu conservation area was determined by sign survey using snow leopard information management system (slims) and block survey using vantage point method, respectively. we also assessed human snow leopard conflict through household and key informant survey. the encounter rate of snow leopard signs were 3.57/km on an average, indicating low abundance, whereas prey species such as blue sheep and himalayan tahr had 3.8 and 1.8 animals/ km2, respectively. the livestock depredation rate was 1.29% with snow leopard accounting to only 0.32% of the total. due to the low abundance of snow leopard but sufficient number of large-sized wild prey species, livestock predation by snow leopard was minimum, and therefore, the local people had positive perception towards snow leopard conservation. though the present situation including the local religious tradition and social norms is supportive in conservation of snow leopard, it may not sustain unless incentive programs are encouraged timely.. key words: blue sheep, conflict, himalayan tahr, livestock depredation, predator, prey density abundance of snow leopard (panthera uncia) and its wild prey in chhekampar vdc, manaslu conservation area, nepal b. p. devkota1*, t. silwal1, b. p. shrestha2, a. p. sapkota2, s. p. lakhey3 and v. k. yadav3 the snow leopard (panthera uncia) is one the least known and most endangered of the world’s large cat species, and the striking symbol of world’s highest place, predating in the high mountains of central and southern asia (schaller, 1977). the distribution of the snow leopard extends between elevations of 3,000 m to 5,500 m in 12 asian countries, encompassing a total potential habitat area of 1,835,000 km2 (mccarthy and chapron, 2003). in nepal, it is found in the northern chain of himalayan frontier along the tibetan border (hmgn, 2005), with the largest populations in dolpa, mugu, manang, and mustang districts (bajimaya, 2001). its distribution has been confirmed in the mountain protected areas (pa) of nepal viz. the langtang national park, the shey-phoksundo national park (spnp), the annapurna conservation area (aca), the sagarmatha national park (snp), the kangchenjunga conservation area, the api nampa conservation area, the dhorpatan hunting reserve and the manaslu conservation area (mca), and also possibly in the makalubarun national park (hmgn, 2005). it has been fully protected by national parks and wildlife conservation act 1973 of nepal (hmgn, 1973). because of decline in its population due to habitat loss and other factors, it has been listed in the international union for conservation of nature and natural resources (iucn) red list of endangered species since 1986 (jackson et al., 2008) and included in appendix i of the convention on international trade in endangered species of fauna and flora (cites) since 1975, and hence, all international commercial trade in the species, its parts and derivatives is prohibited (mccarthy and chapron, 2003), to support snow leopard conservation. 1 tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. *e-mail: devkota.bishnu@gmail.com 2 ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal 3 tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, hetauda, nepal 11 banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 12 the presence and survival of the snow leopard is also an indicator of intact eco-regions they inhabit (jackson and hunter, 1996). based on the habitat use analysis aided by empirical studies, the total snow leopard habitat in nepal is estimated to be about 13,000 km2 with the estimated population of 301–400 snow leopards (wwf nepal, 2009; gon, 2013). unfortunately snow leopards are declining throughout their range due to various threats including habitat and prey loss and persecution (nowel and jackson, 1996). the himalayan region continues to experience problems of illegal hunting, humanwildlife conflicts, and habitat degradation and fragmentation (wegge et al., 2012; devkota et al., 2013). knowledge of snow leopard prey species is essential to understand the ecology of this predator, and thereby, provide better conservation options of this endangered species. status of the species is one of the parameters of greatest intrinsic interest to biologists studying snow leopard population dynamics (krebs, 1985; buckland et al., 1993; turchin, 1998 cited in maheshwari, 2006). large carnivores may face important trade-offs between habitat features, and knowing how these factors influence habitat use is critical to the conservation of snow leopard (wolf and ale, 2009). study on snow leopard by sign methods are easy and less expensive (fox et al., 1991). despite the criticisms on the accuracy of this method (mccarthy, 2000), scholars have concluded that signs are reliable indicator of the habitat use by snow leopard (ahlborn and jackson, 1988; wolf and ale, 2009). population distribution and availability of prey influence the quality of a predator’s habitat and the health of a predator population, and thereby, can strongly influence predator density. therefore, knowledge of important prey species is essential to understanding predator ecology. knowledge of prey density and predator-prey ratios can help give insight into snow leopard numbers in a particular area. there must be sufficient prey to support the predicted predator population (jackson and hunter, 1996). the snow leopard is an opportunistic predator capable of killing prey more than three times its own weight (schaller, 1977). throughout the himalayan range, because of livestock depredation, the snow leopard enters into conflict, and this intensity is inversely proportional to availability of wild prey species (oli et al., 1994), and is one of the main challenges for snow leopard conservation (jackson et al., 2010). the snow leopard feed on large range of natural prey, but it prefers the larger ungulates because of the net energy gain per unit effort expended (wegge et al., 2012). thus, blue sheep (pseudois nayar) and himalayan tahr (hemitragus jemlahicus) are considered to be important primary prey species for snow leopards in nepal and elsewhere in the himalayan region (oli, 1994). previous studies (oli, 1994; ale et al., 2007; upadhyaya, 2010; wegge et al., 2012; devkota et al., 2013) have attempted to address issues on snow leopard conservation in other protected areas of nepal. however, no studies have been conducted in the manaslu conservation area, especially in the chhekampar village development committee (vdc) within the tsum valley so far to explore status of snow leopard and its prey species updating existing knowledge for its wise conservation. to implement appropriate strategies of snow leopard conservation, the impact of snow leopard predation on its natural prey and livestock is required (wegge et al., 2012), and this requires the knowledge on availability of natural prey and livestock depredation beforehand. therefore, this study explores the abundance of snow leopard, its prey species, and people’s perceptions on snow leopard in the chhekampur vdc within the tsum valley of the mca, fulfilling the existing gap in this important but unexplored area. materials and methods study area the mca is located between 28o 21’ n to 28o45’n latitudes and 84o29’ e to 85o11’e longitudes in gorkha district in the northern-central himalaya of nepal (fig. 1). the mca was gazetted in 1998 with an area of 1663 km2. fig. 1: map of the study area devkota et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 13 devkota et al. biogeographically, the mca corresponds to the tibetan plateau of the palearctic region, and represents trans himalayan ecosystem (ntnc, 2016). himalayan black bear (ursus thibetanus), blue sheep, musk deer (moschus chrysogaster), himalayan serow (naemorhedus sumatraensis), himalayan tahr, goral (naemorhedus goral), assamese monkey (macaca assamensis) and snow leopards are the main wild animals recorded in the area (ntnc, 2016). besides these wildlife species, this area is also rich in high-value medicinal plant species such as yarsagumba (cordyceps sinensis), pakhanved (bergenia ciliate), nirmasi (delphinium denudatum), panchunle (dactylorhizia hatagirea) and satuwa (paris polyphylla). bordering the annapurna conservation area to the west, the tibetan plateau to the north and east, and the mid-part of gorkha district to the south, the manaslu region popularly known as ‘tsum valley’ was restricted to tourism until 1991. since then, the region has been opened up for organized tourism. this study was carried out in the chhekampar vdc within the tsum valley lying in the northern part of the mca. the total area of the chhekampar vdc is 317 km2 situated at the altitude of 2,959 m above sea level (asl). there are several buddhist monasteries including renowned mu gumba in the tsum valley. the lamas (boudhist monk) and amchis (traditional buddhist healers) are very positive towards wildlife species and their conservation. most of the local inhabitants are of buddhist origin. they have strong social norms and values for maintaining non-violence traditional culture and practices over the region. if someone violates the rules, s/he will be punished as per the existing norms. the total human population in the chhekampar vdc was 983 people within 263 households, distributed in 11 hamlets (cbs, 2012). the livelihood patterns are based on small agriculture (e.g. potato, wheat, buckwheat and millet), livestock productions (e.g. manure, drought power and sources of food and protein) and seasonal migration for labor work. lopping of tree branches for fodder together with collecting fire-wood, leaf-litters and other high-value forest resources are basic components of the daily livelihoods of the local communities. cow, yak, jhopa (cross breeds of yak and cow), and horses are the main livestock reared by the villagers. these livestock heard used to graze across the pasture land with temporal coral for most of the time. during the study period, livestock depredation was reported to have been occasionally occurred by the snow leopard. study design we performed sign survey, and carried out key informants interview and household questionnaire survey to collect primary information about snow leopard and prey species. the study was conducted in the chhekampar vdc of the tsum valley between november, 2010 (pre-winter) and may, 2011 (post winter). secondary information were obtained from various sources such as documents of the mca office at local level and the related literatures. sign survey of snow leopard the field surveys were conducted twice: during pre-winter (november to december 2010) and post-winter (april to may 2011) periods. after consultation meeting with the key informants (local people, previous researcher, mca staffs), the study area was divided into three blocks comprising the potential habitat of the snow leopard. as snow leopards are extremely difficult to sight directly, indirect sign survey was conducted to estimate their density. for this purpose, transects routes were established by randomly selecting feasible landforms where snow leopard signs were likely to be found, e.g. along ridgelines, cliff bases, river bluffs (jackson and hunter, 1996; bajimaya, 2001). these transects were ≥1 km apart with a maximum of 5 km separation (janecka et al., 2008). each transect was searched for sign within a 5 m-wide strip on either side. the type of signs (scrapes, feces, pugmarks, spray/ urine, or claw marks), the sign measurements, the estimated age of sign and whether the sign was relic or non-relic were recorded. within 20 m radius of the signs, slope, aspect, elevation, habitat type, landform ruggedness, dominant topographic feature as mentioned in the slims manual were recorded (thapa, 2006). to ensure whether the signs were authentically of the snow leopards, we relied upon more than single type of signs such as scrapes and scent sprays or claw rakes. geographic coordinates (gps points) were taken for all snow leopard evidences (observations/ banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 14 signs) in order to map snow leopard distribution. following the field surveys for snow leopard signs, the potential area of the snow leopard occurrence was mapped in the whole vdc. topographic maps at the scale 1:50000 were used to delineate survey blocks and to layout transects within each block; the gps points taken in the field were overlaid on these maps. then, on the basis of the information collected from the local people regarding the snow leopard potential area and field verification, a map showing the snow leopard signs and its prey species distribution was prepared. density estimation of prey species the major prey species of the snow leopard were identified on the basis of the discussion with the conservation area staff and the local people as well as the available literature. block count method was used to estimate the density of prey species. in each block, direct observations were done in the morning (06:00–10:00 hrs) and the evening (14:00–17:00 hrs) from the trails and fixed point method (vantage point) so as to identify the prey species such as blue sheep and their number (schaller, 1977; oli, 1996). monitoring from the trails (jackson and hunter, 1996) was done as the main sampling method for determining the status of the prey species of the snow leopard. the visible area from the trail was scanned using binoculars (8–30×) and a spotting scope (15–60×) to identify the prey species and their number. in order to make the study easier, the study area was divided into three blocks, and the total counting of the prey species was done. assessment of livestock loss and people´s perception towards snow leopard conservation livestock depredation was assessed by household surveys (sharma et al., 2006). from the randomly selected 50 households out of the total 262, we used questionnaire at household level to record livestock damage during the last one year period. we assessed the conflict and collected the information on livestock damages by wild animals. the household surveys were focused on quantifying information that was measurable overtime in terms of conflict imparted by snow leopards and other predators. the household heads, either male or female, were considered as the respondent. we cross-checked their answers to minimize intentional exaggeration. the local teachers and the mca committee members faciliated in rapport building with the local people and also in translation work when needed. the people´s perception towards snow leopard conservation was measured in likert scales (1– 5). results and discussion abundance of snow leopard signs the snow leopard signs were observed within the 14 transects that were laid both in the high and low potential areas within the entire chhekampar vdc. the type, total length and the mean length of transects along with the number of signs observed were recorded (table 1). a total length of 8.12 km distance was observed within the 14 transects; the average length of a transect being 580.07 m within a range of 420 m to 725 m. shorter transects were laid out so as to save time and also more importantly to represent the whole site (study area). out of the 14 transects, only 6 (42.85%) had snow leopard signs whereas the remaining 8 transects (57.15%) had no evidence of snow leopard signs. among the different types of snow leopard sign, only scrapes, pugmarks and feces were recorded in the sites. of the total 29 signs recorded, 14 (48.28%) were feces followed by scrapes and pugmarks. the average encounter rate was 3.57 signs/km indicating low snow leopard density. the snow leopard signs were categorized into three classes based on their age which was guessed on the basis of wetness, integration, coloration, odor and their appearance; a sign was categorized as “very fresh”, if it was between one week and one month old and categorized as “old” if it was more than one month old. most of the signs (78.57%) observed were of old age (fig. 2). this indicated that the area had relatively little snow leopard activity at the time of the survey. the human activities and the livestock population were found to be high in the area, and so the snow leopard habitat was highly disturbed. the scrapes and the old feces were found to be more frequent, because they were not damaged by human disturbance as compared to the other signs; scrapes, in particular, tend to be very long lived in the protected areas and the areas where there is no disturbance from livestock. devkota et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 15 fig. 2: age of signs habitat feature of snow leopard the area with snow leopard signs and its surrounding area are considered to be potential habitat of snow leopard. according to dominant topographic features, about three fourth signs were recorded on the ridgelines (fig. 3). snow leopard use ridgelines more frequently to travel across the landscape and is considered to be the potential habitat. ruggedness landform appears to be a determining factor for the presence of snow leopard, and could indicate suitable habitat. along the ridgelines, majority of the signs were found in the rolling areas, with slightly broken to moderately broken landform, indicating snow leopard’s preferred land form habitat (fig. 4). fig. 3: sign distribution according to topographic features fig. 4: distribution of snow leopard sign according to landform ruggedness in chhekampar vdc, mca primary vegetation type is another important factor that determines the use of the site by snow table 1: snow leopard signs transect number transect length (m) sign types and their numbers scrapes pugmarks feces total 1 626 0 2 1 3 2 725 0 0 0 0 3 420 0 0 0 0 4 620 3 2 2 7 5 550 0 0 0 0 6 600 0 3 2 5 7 520 0 0 0 0 8 600 0 0 0 0 9 612 0 0 0 0 10 480 0 0 0 0 11 522 0 0 0 0 12 588 2 0 2 4 13 721 2 0 3 5 14 537 1 0 4 5 total 8.12 km 8 7 14 29 encounter rate (sign/km) 0.99 0.86 1.72 3.57 devkota et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 16 devkota et al. leopard. in this regard, grassland forms the major land use type preferred by snow leopard (fig. 5). based on the above parameters, the potential habitat of snow leopard seems to be more than 3,000 m asl. based on the distribution of snow leopard sign overlaid on the vegetation map (fig. 6) abundance was highest in the alpine pasture lands. fig. 5: snow leopard sign distribution according to vegetation type fig. 6: distribution of snow leopard signs in different habitat in mca prey species abundance blue sheep, himalayan tahr, musk deer, himalayan marmot (marmota himalayana), himalayan serow, hare (lepus oiostolus), royle’s pika (ochotona roylei) and impeyan pheasant (lophophorus impejanus) were found to be the major wild prey species of snow leopard in chhekampar area. forty-five herds of blue sheep were sighted in block ii (103.6 km2) and block iii (89.6 km2), with an estimated total population of 733 animals; the density of blue sheep being 3.8 animals/km2. block ii and block iii were located at the north-west and north-east parts of the study area, respectively. next to blue sheep, himalayan tahr was the another major prey species found in the area, but the herd of himalayan tahr was sighted only in block i (124.2 km2) which is located at the southern part of the study area with comparatively lower elevation range. altogether, nine herds of himalayan tahr with an estimated total population of 223 were observed in block i; the average herd size being 25 (range 2 to 74 individuals); the density of himalayan tahr in this area being 1.8 animals/km2. there was no habitat overlap of these two species. majority of the himalayan tahr herd were sighted in the hillside among the different topographic features. the blue sheep herds were sighted in different topographic features including the cliff-base (15.56%), the hillside (35.56%) and were most abundant on the ridgelines (48.89%) whereas himalayan tahr were most abundant in the hillside (66.67%) followed by the ridgeline (22.22%) and the cliff-base (11.11%). four habitat types barren land, grassland, shrubland and forest have been mostly used by blue sheep, with higher distribution in the shrubland (48.89%) and none in the forest. similarly, the highest abundance of himalayan tahr was found in the shrubland (55.56%) but none in the barrenland. among the rugeddness landform that includes flat, rolling, slightly broken, moderately broken and very broken lands; the rolling land had the highest density of blue sheep herds (57.78%) followed by the slightly broken land (20.00%), the moderately broken land (8.89%), the flat land (6.67%) and the very broken land (6.67%). on the other hand, the slightly broken land (55.56%) was preferred by the himalayan tahr followed by the rolling land (22.22%), flat land (11.11%), the moderately broken land (11.11%) and none in the very broken land. himalayan monal (danphe), himalayan marmot, royale’s pika and wooly hare were the other prey species recorded in the field. livestock loss and people´s perception towards snow leopard conservation we found 933 livestock heads with the average holding of 18.66 heads/hhs in the chhekampar vdc. the major livestock were cow/bull, horse/mule and yak/chauri. the yak/chauri was the dominant livestock followed by cow/bull. however, there were no records of goat/sheep and dogs. twelve livestock were found to be lost because of snow leopard and other factors banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 17 devkota et al. (starvation, diseases and sliding) but only three yak/chauri were found to be killed by snow leopard in 2010. this figure accounted for 1.29% of the total livestock. the snow leopard was the only predator believed to damage the livestock in this region. of the total 12 livestock lost (1.29% of total herd), the snow leopard was responsible for 25% (3 yak/chauri). of the total livestock, predation by snow leopard was only 0.32%. although jackals were reported to be found in the chhekampar vdc, no losses by jackals was recorded. in addition, no wildlife attacks on human or injuries by predators were noticed in the last year. in the four seasonssnow leopards killed two livestock in winter and one in summer. there was no record of livestock killed in spring and autumn seasons. a loss in winter is attributed to seasonal migration of people towards lower regions along with their livestock to avoid extreme cold weather. during this period livestock are prone to attack by predators, particularly snow leopards, and in the pastures where livestock are mostly left unguarded overnight. it is quite interesting to mention that snow leopards and their main preys himalayan tahr and blue sheep together with the other wild animals also conduct the same seasonal movements during winter. the loss in summer (april–june) is attributed to the engagement of the people in collecting yarsagumba and they cannot spend more time guarding their livestock at the pasture land. the likert scale attitude survey revealed that 80% of the local people had a positive attitude towards snow leopard conservation. thirty six percent of the local people strongly liked snow leopards whereas 31% strongly liked blue sheep/ himalayan tahr and 24% strongly liked wildlife in general. respondents with strongly positive attitude towards wildlife were basically lamas and amchis. the presence of himalayan tahr and blue sheep were found to be good indicators for snow leopard conservation signifying that there was no immediate threat of its main prey. according to the respondents, the blue sheep and himalayan tahr used to frequently enter their croplands, and damaged crops. however, none of the respondents disliked or strongly disliked the himalayan tahr and blue sheep. the positive attitude of the people towards wildlife including snow leopards in this study area is associated with religious ties and traditional cultural and social norms. the majority of the local people who have faith in buddhism believe that snow leopards are ambassadors of god and feel that the presence of snow leopards in their area is a matter of dignity. traditionally, killing and hunting is strictly enforced in the restricted zone. if any one uses violence against snow leopards this goes against their social norms, and they must be punished by lamas and socially ostracized. discussion though fecal dna analysis is the most promising method for monitoring snow leopard population, snow leopard information management system survey method can be improved by rigorous training of observers and designing sampling schemes (mccarthy et al., 2008). the result of this study may have some methodological errors, but are useful in reveling the primary information of snow leopards in an unexplored area like the chhekampar vdc. the result of this study indicated that the sign density of snow leopard (3.57 signs/km2) was quite less as compared to similar studies in other parts of the snow leopard range. in the mustang region of nepal, upadhyaya (2010) recorded 10.83 signs/km2, and concluded that the area had good density of snow leopard. similarly, 8.22 signs/km2 in the kanchanjunga conservation area, and 12.7 signs/km2 in the spnp have been recorded (thapa, 2006). in humla and sagarmatha regions of nepal, the highest percentages of scrapes (10.64±2.50% and 58.7% respectively) were recorded during the sign surveys (lama, 2015; wolf and ale, 2009). however, the highest number of scats were encountered in the field survey in western nepal (59.6% in humla and 61% in dolpa region) (fon, 2014; ggn, 2014). in this study too, the highest percentage of scats were encountered in the signs (table 1; figure 2). in our study, the presence of old scats indicated that the area had not been used by the snow leopard recently, and this might be because of the heavy disturbance of human activities in the area. the ridgelines were found to have been excessively used by the snow leopards not only to detect prey species, but also might have been used for easy escaping when needed. there seems to be not much preferences in the use of landform ruggedness by the snow leopard, though the flat and very broken land form are less used. the grassland and shrub land are banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 18 devkota et al. almost equally used by the snow leopard because of the availability of prey species in these habitat types. because of the habitat destruction and other anthropogenic activities, snow leopards are at high risk (wegge et al., 2012; devkota et al., 2013), so knowing how these factors influence habitat use is critical to the conservation of snow leopard (wolf and ale, 2009). the density of blue sheep (3.8 animals/km2) in the study area as compared to other regions of nepal, is higher than in the spnp (2.27 animal/km2; devkota et al., 2013) and upper region of mustang district (0.86 animal/km2; aryal et al., 2014). however, the density of the blue sheep in this study area is quite less than that of 8.4 animals/km2 in the phu valley of manang district (wegge et al., 2012). similarly, shrestha (2006) had observed the mean herd size of 18.7 animals of himalayan tahr in the snp, which is less than the mean herd size of 25 animals found in the present study. our results shows that the livestock depredation rate (1.29%) is lower than the similar studies conducted in other parts of nepal. the livestock loss was 2.6% in the annapurna conservation area (oli et al., 1994) and 11.1% in the spnp (devkota et al., 2013). this could be because of the low abundance of snow leopards and high abundance of wild prey species like blue sheep and himalayan tahr. the percentage of livestock loss is found to be less than 7.1% due to snow leopard and wolf in ladakh (namgail, 2004) while the loss is 18% because of wolf and snow leopard in kibber wildlife sanctuary in india (mishra, 1997). a study by kunwar (2003) in the aca also recognized the snow leopard as the principal predator where it was responsible for 58% of the total livestock loss. however, he reported seven wild predators in the aca and devkota et al. (2013) also reported snow leopard as the principal predator where it was responsible for 45.6% of the total livestock depredation in the spnp, which is quite higher than in our study. the loss to snow leopards in winter is comparable to the results revealed in the aca by oli et al. (1994), where 39% of the feces of snow leopards collected in winter contained the remains of livestock. however, another study in the same area by jackson et al. (1996) reported predation losses throughout the year, but with a peak in spring and early summer (apriljune). this result of the assessment of the people’s perception towards snow leopard conservation is contradictory to the result explored by other researchers; kunwar (2003) in the upper-mustang, oli et al. (1994) in the annapurna conservation area; where majority of the respondents strongly dislike snow leopards. similar perception was reported for blue sheep (kunwar, 2003). because of the negligible human snow leopard conflict in the study area, people have positive perception towards snow leopard and its prey species in this region. the religious belief of buddhism has very positive impact upon the wildlife conservation in the tsum valley. our study has explored the abundance of snow leopard signs and its prey species in new sites, opening opportunities for further studies. the religious belief of the local people is the major factor in accepting snow leopard conservation. however, since the people of the locality are poor and much depend on the natural resources, and if alternatives to their livelihoods are not available, the present condition may not go a long way. incentives programs such as relief and insurance programs for livestock depredation coupled with other incentive programs for crop damages should be encouraged timey to keep on gaining local peoples’ support in snow leopard conservation in the landscapes of the tsum valley of the mca. acknowledgements this research would not have been possible without the financial, technical and logistic support of memorial centre of excellence, institute of forestry, pokhara: we express our gratitude to the project and supporting staffs. we also would like to thank manaslu conservation area project, gorkha and field office, phidim. we appreciate the tremendous support of the people of chhekampar vdc, gorkha, nepal. references ahlborn, g. and jackson, r. m. 1988. marking in free-ranging snow leopards in west nepal: a preliminary assessment. in proceedings of the fifth international snow leopard symposium (ed freeman, h.), pp. 25–49. international snow leopard trust, seattle, washington, dc and wildlife institute of india, dehradun, india. ale, s. b., yonzon, p. and thapa, k. 2007. recovery of snow leopard uncia 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blue sheep (pseudois nayaur) in the annapurna conservation area, nepal. mammalia 60 (2): 187–194. oli, m. k., taylor, i. r. and rogers, m. e. 1994. snow leopard panthera uncia predation of livestock: an assessment of local perceptions in the annapurna conservation area, nepal. biological conservation 68: 63–68. schaller, g. b. 1977. mountain monarchs: wild sheep and goats of the himalaya. university chicago press, chicago, usa. sharma, s., thapa, k., chalise, m. k., dutta t., bhatnagar y. v. and mccarthy, t. m. 2006. the snow leopard in himalaya: a step towards their conservation by studying their distribution, marking habitat selection, coexistence with other predators, and wild prey-livestock-predator interaction. in conservation biology in asia (eds mcneely, j.a., mccarthy, t. m., smith, a., whittaker, l. o., and wolraamayale, e. d.). society for conservation biology asia section and resources himalaya foundation, nepal, pp. 184–196. shrestha, b. 2006. status, distribution and potential habitat of himalayan tahr (hemitragus jemlahicus) and conflict areas within livestock in sagarmatha national park. nepal journal of science and technology 7: 27–33. thapa, k. 2006. study on status and distribution of the snow leopard and blue sheep including people interactions, kanchanjungha conservation area and shey phoksundo national park. report submitted to wwf nepal. turchin, p. 1998. quantitative analysis of movement: measuring and modeling population redistribution in plants and animals. sinauer associates, sunderland, uk. upadhyaya, m. 2010. relative abundance, habitat preference and threats of snow leopard uncia uncia in upper mustang, nepal. m.sc. thesis. tribhuvan university/ institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. wegge, p., shrestha, r. and flagstad, o. 2012. snow leopard panthera uncia predation on livestock and wild prey in a mountain valley in northern nepal: implications for conservation management. wildlife biology 18: 131–141. wolf, m. and ale, s. 2009. signs at the top: habitat features influencing snow leopard uncia uncia activity in sagarmatha national park, nepal. journal of mammalogy 90 (3): 604–611. wwf nepal. 2009. estimating snow leopard populations in the nepal himalaya. world wildlife fund (wwf) nepal. pp 1–31. monitoring deforestation and forest degradation is essential for forest conservation and sustainable management. those activities have become more relevant in order to get reference emission level required for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (redd) initiative. the study aimed to assess forest degradation and deforestation in the churia region of eastern nepal using claslite approach. this approach is based on spectral mixture analysis and provides highly automated technique for forest cover, deforestation and forest degradation mapping. the landsat imageries of 2002 and 2013 were processed for estimation of deforestation and forest degradation. the validation of results based on the high-resolution multi-temporal google earth imageries and the field sample plots indicated that claslite approach could be feasible approach to monitor forests for deforestation and degradation. the results can be further improved by including more frequent time-series observation from landsat. k e y w or d s : churia, claslite, deforestation, forest degradation, spectral mixture analysis mapping deforestation and forest degradation using claslite approach in eastern churia of nepal s. khanal1* and a. khadka1 the importance of forest resources has been well understood because of their important services to the society such as supporting rural livelihood, carbon storage, climate change mitigation, and biodiversity conservation. the issue of forest conservation is more directly relevant in the case of nepal, as forest resources are significant for ecosystem balance and people’s livelihood (birch et al., 2014). further, because of pertinent issue of deforestation and degradation (panta et al., 2008) timely monitoring forest resources is very essential. successful design and implementation of programs to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and promote reforestation (redd+) would require periodic monitoring of deforestation and forest degradation (goetz et al., 2015; herold and johns, 2007). nepal is divided into five physiographic regions: high himalaya, high mountain, middle mountain, siwaliks or churia and terai (lrmp, 1986). churia is a belt of hilly region stretching from east to west in the entire length of southern nepal. this region is ecologically diverse, and as it provides several ecosystem services to the areas downstream, it has direct influence on the quality of the environment. however, the churia hills are structurally weak (khanal, 1989) since this area is the youngest mountain range in the himalayas and have high potential of erosion hazards. the significance of churia conservation has been highlighted for quite some time. for instance, gurung and khanal (1986) reported the significant land use change in churia, and recommended for detailed study of forestry among other sectors. according to the latest forest resource assessment (2010–2014) results, this region has 73.0% (1,384,445 ha) of the total area under forests; majority of the forest area (76%) falling outside the protected areas with the annual rate of forest cover change of –0.21% between the period 2001–2010 (dfrs, 2014). till now, much focus has been given to quantify and monitor deforestation, but the understanding as well as mapping of spatial distribution of forest degradation has remained far behind. furthermore, for deforestation monitoring, several standard methods have been tested and are available for user community. however, getting reliable estimates of forest degradation remains a challenge (defries et al., 2007). forest degradation is generically defined as the “reduced capacity of a forest to provide goods and services” (fao, 2002). some major causes of forest degradation can be one or the combination of processes such as selective logging, conversion 17 1 department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. *e-mail: skhanal@dfrs.gov.np banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 18 of land cover and natural disturbances (such as landslide, fire, flood etc.). thus, the time-scale of processes leading to forest degradation can range from few years to a few decades. grainger (1993) has defined forest degradation as a process leading to a “temporary or permanent deterioration in the density or structure of vegetation cover or its species composition”. the ultimate consequence of degradation is, therefore, reduced productivity of forests due to impact of disturbances. reduction in the canopy cover is observed to indicate forest degradation while the estimates of forest canopy cover is estimated on the basis of remotely sensed observations (wang et al., 2005; souza et al., 2003). this study was conducted under the broad theme of the department of forest research and survey (dfrs) to map and monitor nepal’s forests with advanced forest monitoring technology. given the challenges associated with mapping forest degradation, it is very essential to validate and apply the available forest degradation and deforestation monitoring approaches. the outcome of such studies has a high relevance to decide on the robust approach that can be applied for other parts of nepal and also to integrate forest assessment systems for periodic monitoring of deforestation and forest degradation. claslite has been demonstrated as an applicable tool to support redd+ initiative for reliable forest cover estimation in order to support sub-national to national reference levels (reimer et al., 2015). however, most of the studies on applicability of claslite approach has been conducted on ecosystems much different than in nepal (allnutt et al. 2013; bryan et al. 2013; carlson et al. 2012). this study examined the applicability of claslite approach for assessment of deforestation and forest degradation in nepal’s churia forest. materials and methods study area the study area encompasses the churia in the eastern development region (edr) of nepal (fig. 1). the major portions of the churia belt in the edr are located in siraha, udayapur, saptari, sunsari, morang, dhankuta, jhapa and ilam districts. fig. 1: map showing the churia in the eastern development region of nepal method for forest degradation monitoring different methods have been tried for forest degradation monitoring ranging from use of lidar (jubanski et al., 2013), radar (ryan et al., 2012) and landsat time series analysis (healey et al., 2005). the spectral mixture analysis (sma) approach has been developed to extract information at sub-pixel level. it decomposes mixed pixels into fractions of end-members, and has been proposed to overcome the mixed pixel problem found in degraded forests (souza et al., 2003). the sma approach (equation 1) has been applied with spot satellite data (souza et al., 2003) and landsat data (asner et al., 2005; souza et al., 2005; negron-juarez et al., 2011) with varying success for purposes ranging from canopy gap detection and biomass estimation to delineation of logged areas. ....................... (1) where, rb = reflectance for each band b in the image, n = no. of end-members, fi = fraction of end member “i”, ri,b = reflectance of end-member “i” in band b, and e b = unmodeled residual. souza et al. (2005) developed normalized difference fraction index (ndfi) to combine the information from sma significant for forest degradation monitoring into one band, and attained 94% accuracy in detecting forest areas with canopy damage. intact forests have high ndfi values because of higher green vegetation while non-photosynthetic vegetation as well as soil fraction increase as forests are degraded, and thus ndfi values become lower. khanal and khadka banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 19 one of the tools that support the implementation of sma is claslite program. it includes a set of tools that automate radiometric correction and use monte carlo unmixing (mcu) to produce estimates of the percentage cover of soil, photosynthetic vegetation (pv), and nonphotosynthetic vegetation (npv) in every image pixel (asner et al., 2009). thus, the output raster would have three fractional cover classes: i) photosynthetic vegetation (pv) i.e. live vegetation ii) non-photosynthetic vegetation (npv) i.e. dead or senescent vegetation and iii) bare substrate (s) i.e. soil. we used claslite version 3.2 package (claslite team, 2014) for the purpose of our study. default threshold values were used for the estimation of forest as well as detection of forest cover loss (deforestation) and degradation (areas of persistent forest disturbance). datasets used landsat images were selected in two time periods for detecting deforestation and forest degradation. the available scenes were filtered to be within close months and have the least cloud cover as much as possible. the details on the landsat scenes used in the analysis are presented in table 1, while the footprints of those scenes are shown in fig. 2. the resulting deforestation and degradation outputs were generalized by filtering the pixel groups that were less than 0.5 hectare. this was done in order to avoid the scattered pixels and also to identify larger areas that underwent through changes so that the implementation agencies could identify the areas requiring restoration interventions with the help of the outputs obtained. table 1: details on the landsat images used satellite sensor pathrow date cloud cover landsat 7 etm+ 139-041 2002-12-16 8.62 140-041 2002-12-23 3.88 landsat 8 oli /tirs 139-041 2013-12-06 5.86 140-041 2013-11-11 5.22 fig. 2: footprint of landsat scenes over the study area. the images shown are fractional cover derived from landsat 8 of 2013 results and discussion the outputs from the analysis provided the map of the areas that had deforestation and forest degradation between 2002–2013 (fig. 3). khanal and khadka fig. 3: map showing the deforested and degraded areas in the studied churia region between 2002–2013 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 20 the district-wise area of deforestation and degradation in the churia region was calculated. for comparison, the data from hansen et al. (2013) was used which has analyzed time series landsat images to estimate global-level forest extent and change from 2000 to 2013. the result for the study area extent is presented in the table 2, so as to make general comparison. the last column is the deforestation estimated based on hansen et al., 2013. however, it is important to note that the analysis was done at global scale, and thus requires local-level validation. udayapur district was found to have the highest area of deforestation and forest degradation (table 2). table 2: district-wise area of forest degradation and deforestation estimated district deforestation (ha) degradation (ha) deforestation (ha) (hansen et al. 2013) dhankuta 27.36 17.01 1.44 ilam 95.22 111.51 137.07 jhapa 28.71 61.47 36.81 morang 28.35 228.15 36.09 saptari 242.64 254.61 352.35 siraha 921.33 500.31 412.83 sunsari 96.39 171.54 13.68 udayapur 2,904.48 1,420.11 680.31 the degradation and deforestation map produced was validated in the field using 40 sample sites. those plots were generated randomly over the detected deforestation and degradation sites. the deforested areas were also cross-examined using the available high-resolution multi-temporal imageries. several examples of interesting observations of deforestation were made. one of the examples is presented in figure 4. the forest cover loss was more clearly detected (fig. 5a,b,c) as compared to the forest degradation as it required more field observation to identify why a certain pixel was recorded under the category of degraded areas. the observations indicated that the areas identified as degraded had some major characteristics of disturbance such as the areas with lopped-trees, the areas with selective logging and the areas covered by dense invasive shrubs (fig. 5a,b,c). some natural disturbances on those sites included landslide, fire impact and river deposition. fig. 4: example of a deforestation site mapped in sukrebaray area of jhapa district on the google image of nov 2002 (upper panel) and dec 2013 (lower panel). the polygon with white boundary in the lower panel shows the mapped deforested area. fig. 5a fig. 5b khanal and khadka banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 21 fig. 5c fig. 5a,b,c: degraded forest observed at the north of bengari in saptari district. the area in the fig. 5b (apr, 2014) and the white polygons show the mapped degraded sites since may, 2003 (fig. 5a). field observation indicated trees removed and the area covered with dense invasive shrubs (fig. 5c). spectral libraries derived from extensive field databases and satellite imageries have been used to represent tropical forests ranging from lowlands to mountain ecosystems in the newer version of the claslite software package (claslite team, 2014). this could be the reason behind the interesting performance of the package in spite of being originally developed for different ecosystem than a mountainous country like nepal. however, future studies should test and identify proper threshold of parameters and select the best ones based on the validation results. further, there are always challenges associated with shadows in the case of a mountainous country like nepal. these issues can be potentially addressed through more frequent time-series observations of cloud-free satellite imageries. conclusion the findings from this study indicate that claslite-based analysis can be one potential approach to monitor forests for deforestation and forest degradation. in this study, some areas that underwent through such changes could not be accounted for due to the lack of information induced by clouds and shadows in the mountainous regions. this issue can be possibly minimized by incorporating cloud-free image composites. however based on validation with high-resolution multi-temporal google earth imageries and as observed in some interesting examples of changes, the approach seems to be promising and would need further in-depth analysis. the results can be potentially further improved by including more frequent time-series observations which are becoming more practical option with the availability of newer images including landsat. the information generated through this study are expected to be useful for identifying the deforested areas and or degraded forest areas on the one hand and for identifying the areas to be reforested or planted on the other hand. references allnutt, t. f., asner, g. p., golden, c. d. and powell, g. v. 2013. mapping recent deforestation and forest disturbance in north eastern madagascar. tropical conservation science 6 (1): 1–15. asner, g. p., knapp, d. e., cooper, a. n., bustamante, m. m., and olander, l. p. 2005. ecosystem structure throughout the brazilian amazon from landsat observations and automated spectral unmixing. earth interactions 9 (7): 1–31. asner, g. p., knapp, d. e., balaji, a., and páezacosta, g. 2009. automated mapping of tropical deforestation and forest degradation: claslite. journal of applied remote sensing 3 (1): 033543. birch, j. c., thapa, i., balmford, a., bradbury, r. b., brown, c., butchart, s. h., gurung, h., hughes, f. m., mulligan, m., pandeya, b. and peh, k. s. h. 2014. what benefits do community forests provide, and to whom? a rapid assessment of ecosystem services from a himalayan forest, nepal. ecosystem services 8: 118–127. bryan, j. e., shearman, p. l., asner, g. p., knapp, d. e., aoro, g., and lokes, b. 2013. extreme differences in forest degradation in borneo: comparing practices in sarawak, sabah, and brunei. plos one 8 (7): e69679. carlson, k. m., curran, l. m., ratnasari, d., pittman, a. m., soares-filho, b. s., asner, g. p., trigg, s. n., gaveau, d. a., lawrence, d. and rodrigues, h. o. 2012. committed carbon emissions, deforestation, and community land conversion from oil palm khanal and khadka banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 22 plantation expansion in west kalimantan, indonesia. in proceedings of the national academy of sciences 109 (19): 7559–7564. claslite team, 2014. claslite forest monitoring technology: version 3.2 user guide. carnegie institution for science, stanford, ca. http://claslite.carnegiescience. edu accessed on 23 dec, 2015. defries, r., achard, f., brown, s., herold, m., murdiyarso, d., schlamadinger, b., and de souza, c. 2007. earth observations for estimating greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation in developing countries. environmental science and policy 10 (4): 385–394. dfrs. 2014. churia forests of nepal. forest resources assessment nepal project, department of forest research and survey (dfrs), kathmandu, nepal. fao. 2002. proceedings: second expert meeting on harmonizing forest-related definitions for use by various stakeholders. 11-13 september 2002, rome. http://www.fao.org/ docrep/005/y4171e/y4171e00.htm accessed on 23 dec, 2015. goetz, s., hansen, m., houghton, r. a., walker, w., laporte, n. t. and busch, j. 2015. measurement and monitoring for redd+: the needs, current technological capabilities, and future potential. center for global development working paper, 392. grainger, a. 1993. controlling tropical deforestation. earthscan publications, london, uk. gurung, h. and khanal, n. 1986. landscape processes in the chure range central nepal. himalayan review 17: 1–39. hansen, m. c., potapov, p. v., moore, r., hancher, m., turubanova, s. a., tyukavina, a., thau, d., stehman, s. v., goetz, s. j., loveland, t. r., kommareddy, a., egorov, a., chini, l., justice, c. o. and townshend, j. r. g. 2013. high-resolution global maps of 21 s t -century forest cover change. science 342: 850–853. healey, s. p., cohen, w. b., zhiqiang, y. and krankina, o. n., 2005. comparison of tasseled cap-based landsat data structures for use in forest disturbance detection. remote sensing of environment 97 (3): 301–310. herold, m. and johns, t. 2007. linking requirements with capabilities for deforestation monitoring in the context of the unfccc-redd process. environmental research letters 2 (4): 045025. jubanski, j., ballhorn, u., kronseder, k., franke, j. and siegert, f. 2013. detection of large above-ground biomass variability in lowland forest ecosystems by airborne lidar. biogeosciences 10: 3917–3930. khanal, n.r. 1989. morphometric properties of the drainage basins in the chure range, nepal. himalayan review 20: 59–65. lrmp. 1986. land system report. land resource mapping project (lrmp): kenting earth science, canada. negron-juarez, r. i., chambers, j. q., marra, d. m., ribeiro, g. h. p. m., rifai, s. w., higuchi, n. and roberts, d. 2011. detection of subpixel treefall gaps with landsat imagery in central amazon forests. remote sensing of environment 115: 3322–3328. panta, m., kim, k. and joshi, c. 2008. temporal mapping of deforestation and forest degradation in nepal: applications to forest conservation. forest ecology and management 256 (9): 1587–1595. reimer, f., asner, g. p., and joseph, s. 2015. advancing reference emission levels in subnational and national redd+ initiatives: a claslite approach. carbon balance and management 10 (5). doi: 10.1186/s13021015-0015-8. ryan, c. m., hill, t., woollen, e., ghee, c., mitchard, e., cassells, g., grace, j., woodhouse, i. h. and williams, m. 2012. quantifying small-scale deforestation and forest degradation in african woodlands using radar imagery. global change biology 18 (1): 243–257. souza jr., c., firestone, l., silva, m. l., roberts khanal and khadka banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 23 and d.a. 2003. mapping forest degradation in the eastern amazon from spot 4 through spectral mixture models. remote sensing of environment 87: 494–506. souza jr., c., roberts, d. a. and cochrane, m. a. 2005. combining spectral and spatial information to map canopy damage from selective logging and forest fires. remote sensing of environment 98: 329–343. wang, c., qi, j., and cochrane, m. 2005. assessment of tropical forest degradation with canopy fractional cover from landsat etm+ and ikonos imagery. earth interactions 9 (22): 1–18. khanal and khadka most of the castanopsis indica forest of nepal in the midhill region was degraded in the recent past especially due to policy conflict between government and local users. but after the introduction of community forestry system, these forests have been rejuvenated gradually. therefore, the proportion of the juvenile plants in forests is very high and the contribution of juvenile plants on total biomass production cannot be overlooked. therefore this study was carried out to develop juvenile biomass models. we measured diameter at 10 cm above ground level (d), total height (h), density (ρ) and total biomass (w) of indica juveniles. the models were estimated using “library (minpack.lm)” in r. the estimated models were evaluated by using numerical fit statistics and graphical analyses. the selected model ŵi = 52.28 (di 2hi) 0.89 explained >95% juvenile biomass of indica with rse=42.34g, aic=406.8 and average deviation=13.26. key words: biomass, castanopsis indica, juvenile, model, nepal allometric equations for estimating the above-ground biomass of castanopsis indica at juvenile stage s. k. bhandari1 and h. neupane2 castanopsis indica (roxb.) miq. (family fagaceae), commonly known as indian chestnut, is a broadleaved evergreen tree species of middle hills of nepal. it is generally found in association with schima wallichii in high rainfall area of annapurna region and eastern nepal. this species is found between 1200 m to 2900 m above the mean sea level (jackson, 1994). the main stem of this species is commonly used as construction timber, leaves as fodder and raw materials for local plates, branches as fuelwood and fruits as food. most of the c. indica forest of nepal in the midhill region was degraded in the recent past specially due to policy conflict between government and local users. but after the introduction of community forestry system, these forests have been rejuvenated gradually. therefore, the proportion of the juvenile plants (defined as a plant ≥30 cm in height and <10 cm in stem circumference at 10 cm above ground surface (chaturvedi et al., 2012)) is very high. almost 5% contribution was recorded from juvenile stage plants in total biomass production (francis, 2000). juvenile plants also contribute significantly for the protection of land through minimization of soil erosion. therefore, juvenile plants play a vital role in maintaining the balance in overall ecosystem of forest and cannot be overlooked in forest biomass and carbon assessment. the study of size-correlated variations in organic form and process in biological sciences is traditionally called “allometry” (greek allos,“other” and metron, “measure”) (niklas, 1994). the allometric equations can be used to estimate the above ground biomass and carbon of the particular forest area (hosoda and iehara, 2010; chaturvedi et al., 2012; subedi and sharma, 2012). however some other direct methods (cutting of plants and weighing of their parts to estimate biomass) can also be used to estimate the biomass and carbon in a forest stand (ketterings et al., 2001; basuki et al., 2009). since the area of the forest is large (in most of the cases), the estimation of biomass through destructive felling is not possible and not beneficial also in all cases. therefore uses of indirect methods such as using allometric equations are considered better option in comparision to direct methods (hosoda and iehara, 2010; chaturvedi et al., 2012; subedi and sharma, 2012). large sized forest plants have been extensively used in biomass estimation and preparation of allometric equations (keith et al., 2000; segura and kanninen, 2005; zianis et al., 2005; muukkonen, 2007). but very few studies can be found in which small sized plants have been used for biomass studies (wagner and ter-mikaelian, 1999; geudens et al., 2004; chaturvedi and 1 department of social forestry and forest management, institute of forestry, nepal, email: shesu15@yahoo.com 2 department of forests, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal 14 banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 15 raghubanshi, 2013; chaturvedi et al., 2012; chapagain et al., 2014). in most of the cases, biomass and carbon are estimated by excluding the juvenile plants and therefore underestimation is also realized. one of the reasons for this is the unavailability allometric equations for juvenile stage plants. therefore, it is worthwhile to include juvenile plants in biomass studies. though tamrakar (2000) has developed biomass table for c. indica and shrestha (2013) has developed biomass models for large sized c. indica, so far, to the authors’ knowledge, no biomass studies have been conducted for juveniles of c. indica in nepal. therefore this study was carried out to develop allometric equations for juveniles of c. indica which is expected to contribute to the carbon trade programs of nepal in front of the international community. materials and methods study site this study was carried out in bhakarjung community forest of dhikurpokhari village development committee (vdc) of kaski district (fig. 1) (28o06’ n to 28o36’ n latitude and 83o40’ e to 84o12’ e longitude) western nepal. the total forest area in the district is 93,649.85 ha (46.43%) out of which 65,073.61 ha (69.49%) area is covered by annapurna conservation area (aca) and the remaining 28,575.48 ha (30.51%) is managed by district forest office (dfo), kaski. the altitudinal range of this district varies from 490 m to 8091 m from the sea level. its average maximum temperature is 33oc and average minimum temperature is 5.6oc and the mean annual precipitation is 3,068 mm to 3,353.3 mm. the forest has been managed as community forest. the forest is natural uneven and mixed in composition of s. wallichii (chilaune), c. indica (dhale katus), alnus nepalensis (utis), quercus semecarpifolia (khasru), rhododendron spp. (laliguras), bombax ceiba (simal) and others. data collection the existed variation in the population was detected from operational plan of the community forest. we selected 39 juveniles of c. indica purposively from the whole study area to represent existed variation of site, mode of origin, density, age and size (adinugroho and sidiyasa, 2006; dorado et al., 2006; edwards jr et al., 2006). vernier calliper (precision 1 mm) was used to measure diameter of each individual juvenile at 10 cm above the ground level by following the rules of chaturvedi and khanna (2011). similarly, the linear tape (precision 1 cm) was used to measure the total length from base to tip of the plant after destructive felling. the stem, leaves and branches were isolated and weighed (precision 0.1g) after felling. samples for oven dry weight was collected from stem, leaves and branches and dried at 105oc at the laboratory of institute of forestry, pokhara. the volume of stem was estimated using the principle of water displacement. the descriptive statistics of the data used for modeling is given in table 1. bhandari and neupane fig.1: location of study site banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 16 bhandari and neupane table 1: descriptive statistics of the data used for modelling diameter class variables mean ± std. error (range) 0–1 diameter (cm) 0.873±0.022 (0.82-0.96) height (m) 1.26±0.073 (0.91-1.4) wood density (gcm-3) 0.46±0.045 (0.36-0.60) biomass (g) 48.12±4.834 (34.00-61.43) number 6 1–2 diameter (cm) 1.50±0.051 (1.03-1.92) height (m) 2.07±0.096 (1.22-3.01) wood density (gcm-3) 0.48±0.007 (0.42-0.54) biomass (g) 211.28±19.948 (54.71-477.91) number 26 2–3 diameter (cm) 2.33±0.090 (2.09-2.73) height (m) 2.47±0.113 (2.04-2.90) wood density (gcm-3) 0.46±0.017 (0.39-0.53) biomass (g) 570.78 ±46.996 (481.85-816.63) number 7 overall diameter (cm) 1.55±0.078 (0.82-2.73) height (m) 2.02.±0.088(0.91-3.01) wood density (gcm-3) 0.48±0.008 (0.36-0.60) biomass (g) 249.72 ±30.187 (34-816.63) number 39 data analysis dimensional analysis, the most common method, is used to predict individual tree biomass (whittaker and woodwell, 1968). this method basically depends on the consistency of an allometric relationship between plant dimensions (usually dbh and/ or height) and biomass for a given species, group of species, or growth form. the juvenile biomass of c. indica was modeled by using diameter alone (d, d2), diameter and height combined (dh, d2h), diameter and wood density combined (ρd, ρd2) and diameter, height and wood density combined (ρdh, ρd2h). juvenile biomass models were designated by applying each of the eight independent variables and termed first model category for a model with d alone, second model category for a model with d2 and third model category for a model with dh and so on resulting in eight different model categories in total and these eight model categories consist 13 models of different forms (i.e. 8 × 13 = 104 alternative models, see table 2 for details). the least square regression technique was used to develop biomass models. the models were estimated using “library (minpack.lm)” package in which lm (for linear models), nls and table 2: candidate models considered specification model form references m1 wi= β0xi β1+εi huxley and teissier (1936) m2 wi= β0exp(β1xi)+εi rizvi et al. (2008) m3 wi= β0exp(-β1/xi)+εi schumacher (1939) m4 wi= β0[1-exp(-β1xi)]3+εi bertalanffy (1949) m5 wi=β0exp(β1/xi)+εi modified after schumacher (1939) m6 wi=β0+β1xi+β2xi 2+εi brown (1997) m7 wi=β0+β1xi 2+εi sharma (2011) m8 wi=β0+β1/xi+β2xi 2εi sharma (2011) m9 wi=β0+β1xi+εi spurr (1952) m10 wi=β0+xi β1+εi subedi and sharma (2012) m11 wi=xi/(β0+β1xi)+εi hosoda and iehara (2010) m12 wi=xi 2/(β0+β1xi)+εi modified after hosoda and iehara (2010) m13 wi=xi 2/(β0+β1xi 2)+εi modified after hosoda and iehara (2010) note: wi = biomass of individual i (g), xi = independent variable for juvenile i [eight independent variable alternatives such as (1) d; (2) d2; (3) dh; (4) d2h; (5) ρd; (6) ρd2; (7) ρdh; and (8) ρd2h], di = diameter (cm); hi= height (m); ρ= wood density (gcm-3), and b1, b2, b3 = parameters to be estimated, and εi = unexplained error. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 17 nlslm (for non linear models) commands in r (r core team, 2012). the models were evaluated by applying various criteria such as significance of parameter estimates, residual standard error (rse), adjusted coefficient of determination (r2adj), akaike information criterion (aic), average deviation and graphs of residuals, scaled and quantile-quantile (q-q). comparing the equations to previously published equations we used model of chapagain et al. (2014) to the current data to compare with the best selected model. the allometric equation developed by chapagain et al. (2014) for juvenile of shorea robusta, acacia catechu and terminalia tomentosa is: wi = 49.415+(dia*height)^(1.239-0.033/ (dia*height)) for s. robusta wi = 47.904+(dia*height)^(1.239 -0.033/ (dia*height)) for a. catechu wi = 50.926+(dia*height)^(1.239-0.033/ (dia*height)) for t. tomentosa where wi is total above ground biomass in gram/ juvenile, dia is the diameter (cm) measured 10 cm above the ground level and height is the total length (m) of plant from ground level to top of the juvenile. the equation of chapagain et al. (2014) was constructed from the data collected from 40 juvenile individual for each species of s. robusta, a. catechu and t. tomentosa. the diameters used to establish this equation ranged from 0.22 to 3.17 cm (s. robusta), 0.17 to 3.15 cm (a. catechu) and 0.23 to 3.17 cm (t. tomentosa). results and discussion developing allometric equation parameter estimates of 83 models out of 104 models (8*13=104 models or 13 models in each model category, table 2) were found to be significant at 95% confidence interval. this shows that 79.8% of the models (83 significant models) tested in this study are more likely to be genuine and unlikely to have occurred by random chance to the data. rse = 42 g i.e. unexplained error by the models was still left unexplained inspite of well fitting of the models to the modelling data. table 3 shows the fit statistics and parameter estimates of the best models from each model category. m1 from fourth model category, m7 from first model category and m9 from second model category showed the best fits (smallest rse, aic, average deviation and largest r2adj) among the models. the model m1, appeared in the fourth, third, first, first, second, first, first and first rank within the models from the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth model category, respectively, which is the most widely used model to develop biomass model (termikaelian and korzukhin, 1997; sharma, 2011; miksys et al., 2007). from the evaluation of fit statistics, m1 seems to be the most accurate and precise among the fourth model category and followed by the model m7 of the first model category, m9 of the second model category, m1 from the eighth model category, m1 from the third model category, m1 from sixth model category, m1 from seventh model category and m3 from fifth model category. graphs of model residuals, scaled and normal q-q were also examined. bhandari and neupane table 3: the value of coefficient and fit statistics of the best model of each model category model category model explanatory variable* parameter estimates fit statistics β0 β1 r2 adj. rmse aic average deviation (%) 1 m7 d -35.73 109.7 0.9338 49.15 418.43 19.02 2 m9 d2 -35.73 109.7 0.9338 49.15 418.43 19.02 3 m1 dh 40.20 1.45 0.9198 50.08 425.89 15.09 4 m1 d2h 52.28 0.89 0.9508 42.34 406.8 13.26 5 m14 ρd 3137.95 1.94 0.8169 81.73 458.09 24.00 6 m1 ρd2 186.05 1.18 0.9033 59.38 433.17 19.53 7 m1 ρdh 111.11 1.51 0.8407 76.25 452.67 20.57 8 m1 ρd-h 91.11 0.97 0.9310 50.15 420 14.67 banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 18 bhandari and neupane the unstandardized residuals against the fitted values with a smooth superimposed curve for model m1 from model category fourth, model m7 from model category first and model m9 from model category second is shown in figure 2. here we are looking for evidence of curvature and outliers. the graph of m1 from category fourth shows negligible curvature and outliers in comparison to remaining two models. absence of curvature in m1 category fourth suggests us the absence of local bias in the model. the figure 3 shows the square root of the standardized residuals against fitted value along with smooth line. departure from horizontal lines signify heteroskedasticity contradicting the model assumption “εi have constant variance”, (robinson and hamann, 2011) but the model m1 from category fourth shows the less heteroskedasticity than other models. similarly, figure 4 shows a q-q plot of the standardized residuals against the normal distribution. here the ideal plot is a straight line, although modest departures from straightness are often acceptable (due to large-sample theory). departures from a straight line in this plot may indicate non-normality of the residuals or non-constant variance, or both (robinson and hamann, 2011). but in our analysis, we found all the points are in a reasonably straight line which indicates the normal distribution of residuals. the independent variable d2h (combination of diameter and total height) demonstrated strong capacity to predict juvenile biomass in case of model m1 from model category fourth in comparison to others. therefore, the following model m1 was selected for the estimation of juvenile biomass of c. indica from the first stage of model development. here after this selected model is referred as m14 for further analysis and comparision with previously published models. ŵi = 52.28(di 2hi) 0.89 ................................... m14 comparison of m14 with previously published equations table 4: the average deviation and aic values of various models model average deviation (%) aic m14 13.26 406.8 chapagain et al. (2014) s. robusta 64.85 428 chapagain et al. (2014) a. catechu 65.41 428 chapagain et al. (2014) t. tomentosa 64.29 428 the average deviation for individual trees of the model m14 is smaller than that of previously published models (table 4). similarly, the aic value for the model m14 is also smaller than that of previously published models (table 4). the aic values of the model of chapagain et al. (2014) for all three species is same because of the same fig. 2: residual vs fitted value fig. 3: scale location banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 19 bhandari and neupane form of the model except for the difference in the values of intercept and coefficients. when the equations of chapagain et al. (2014) for all three species were applied to our data, the predicted values were underestimated. this proof can be seen from confidence interval (ci) values given in table 5. at 95% ci, upper and lower limit of the mean biomass from the model of chapagain et al. (2014) for all three species were smaller than the observed values. while analyzing the lower and upper limit of ci, the model m14 is closer to the mean value of the observed biomass (table 5). a possible justification for lower prediction when applying the model of chapagain et al. (2014) to the data from this study is the differences in the species and their form. though data for both of the studies were collected from nepal, the variation in site and tree form might have some role in variation in total biomass. apart from this, the analysis of paired sampled t-test from table 6 shows that for two tailed at 95% confidence interval, the mean of the observed data and the proposed model is statistically significantly different from the predicted mean using the model of chapagain et al. (2014) for all the three species. but there is no statistical significant difference between the observed data and the model m14. on the other hand the model m14 has statistical significant difference with the model of chapagain et al. (2014) for all three species. table 6: paired t-test at 95% confidence interval of the mean biomass pairs t-statistic significance (two tailed) observed – chapagain et al. 2014 (s. robusta) 6.672 0.00 observed – chapagain et al. 2014 (a. catechu) 6.723 0.00 observed – chapagain et al. 2014 (t. tomentosa) 6.621 0.00 m14 – chapagain et al. 2014 (s. robusta) 6.923 0.00 m14 – chapagain et al. 2014 (a. catechu) 6.977 0.00 m14 – chapagain et al. 2014 (t. tomentosa) 6.869 0.00 observed – m14 0.592 0.558 from the analysis of application of proposed models and previously developed models, it would be better to consider site specific model for precise estimation of forest biomass. similar findings were reported by basuki et al. (2009), cairns et al. (2003) and nelson et al. (1999) when they applied previously published models to their data. in contrast to these results, chave et al. fig. 4: normal quantile-quantile plot table 5: the confidence interval (ci) of the mean from various models parameters observed m14 chapagain et al. (2014) s. robusta chapagain et al. (2014) a. catechu chapagain et al. (2014) t. tomentosa mean biomass (g) 252.47 248.48 53.99 52.48 55.50 95% ci lower limit of mean biomass (g) 193.24 192.47 53.08 51.57 54.59 95% ci upper limit of mean biomass (g) 311.70 304.49 54.89 53.38 56.40 the number of juvenile plants 39 39 39 39 39 banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 20 bhandari and neupane (2005) stated that local species specific models are not needed; instead, generalized allometric relationships can be employed. the effective way might be the grouping of species by broad forest types or ecological zones than developing models for specific species because the local species specific equations do not improve the accuracy significantly. the prediction using chapagain et al. (2014) showed that the upper limit of prediction is much lower than the observed values (table 5) at 95% confidence interval. the upper boundaries of the observed data, prediction using model m14 and prediction using chapagain et al. (2014) are 816.63, 805.82, and 62.28 (s. robusta), 60.77 (a. catechu) and 63.79 (t. tomentosa) respectively. the table 5 paired sampled t-test supports the ci mentioned above. the mean of the observed and m14 are significantly higher that the mean of the models of chapagain et al. (2014) for all three species. therefore, from the analysis of fit statistics while developing the models and comparision of developed model with previously published models, the m14 is selected for the estimation of above ground biomass of juvenile stage plants of c. indica. conclusion the most suitable allometric equation to estimate the above ground biomass of juvenile plants of c. indica is m14 i.e. ŵi = 52.28 (di 2hi) 0.89. this model explained >95% juvenile biomass of c. indica with rse=42.34 g, aic=406.8 and average deviation=13.26. on the other hand, the selected model m14 is comparatively closer to the observed values than the other models. acknowledgements we are thankful to anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions to earlier version of manuscript. this study was financially supported by ecosystem based adaptation (eba) program in mountain ecosystem in nepal. references adinugroho, w. c. d. and sidiyasa, k. 2006. biomass estimation model of above-ground mahogany 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ter-mikaelian, m. t. and korzukhin, m. d. 1997. biomass equations for sixty five north american tree species. forest ecology and management 97 (1): 1–24. wagner, r. g. and ter-mikaelian, m. t. 1999. comparison of biomass component equations for four species of northern coniferous tree seedlings. annals of forest science 56 (3): 193–199. whitataker, r. h. and woodwell, g. m. 1968. dimension and production relations of trees and shrubs in the brookhaven forest, new york. journal of ecology 56: 1–25. zianis, d., muukkonen, p., makipa, r. and mencuccini, m. 2005. biomass and stem volume equations for tree species in europe. silva fenn. monogr. bhandari and neupane 14 this study aims to understand the influence of climate on radial growth of abies pindrow growing in the plateau of mixed forest in khaptad national park in western nepal himalaya. based on the dated tree-ring samples, 362-year long tree-ring width chronology was developed dating back to 1650. the studied taxa of this region was found to have dendroclimatic potentiality that was evident from the chronology statistics calculated. the tree-ring chronology was correlated with climate (temperature and precipitation) data to derive the tree-growth climate relationship. the result showed significant negative relationship with march-may temperature and positive relationship with march-may precipitation. this indicates that the availability of moisture is the primary factor in limiting the tree growth. key words: abies pindrow, tree-ring, climatic influence, khaptad national park, pre-monsoon influence of climate on radial growth of abies pindrow in western nepal himalaya u.k. thapa1*, s. k. shah2, n. p. gaire3, d. r. bhuju4, a. bhattacharyya2 and g. s. thagunna1 earth’s climate has never been static and has shown great variability since its origin, the recent change, however, is accelerated by enhanced greenhouse effect causing abrupt temperature rise and unpredictable patterns of precipitation (houghton, 2004). feedbacks of climate change are reflected in several components of earth including air, water, ice, land and vegetation which have distinctive response time to the changing climate and the natural archives like tree rings, ice cores, sediments, pollens, etc can be used as proxies to reconstruct the past climatic variations (ruddiman, 2000). tree rings, in particular, the ring-widths respond to the climate and hence provide the basis for reconstructing past climatic variation (fritts, 1976). in order to explore year-to-year as well as seasonal variation in climate, tree rings are most suitable proxies as they provide absolute dates with high annual resolution rather than giving relative estimates like other proxies (fritts, 1976; hughes and diaz, 2002). in the last decade, a number of dendro chronological studies from nepal himalaya have been conducted. however, most of these studies are from central and eastern nepal himalaya (cook et al., 2003; bhuju et al., 2010; chhetri and thapa, 2010; gaire et al., 2011; dawadi et al., 2013). there is a dearth of such works in western nepal himalaya, though this part of nepal himalaya has huge potential for tree-ring research (suzuki, 1990; bhattacharyya et al., 1992). abies pindrow has been reported to have dendroclimatic potential in western himalaya (borgaonkar et al., 1994; borgaonkar et al., 1999; bhattacharyya et al., 2001; yadav and singh, 2002). it has been reported that radial growth of a. pindrow in western himalayan region are limited by pre-monsoon climate (borgaonkar et al., 1999; yadav and singh, 2002). similar response has been noted in the ring-width analysis of a. spectabilis in nepal himalaya (sano et al., 2005; gaire et al., 2011). a. pindrow is a low altitude himalayan fir 1 goldengate international college, tribhuvan university affiliate, kathmandu, nepal 2 birbal sahni institute of paleobotany, lucknow, india 3 nepal academy of science and technology, lalitpur, nepal 4 central department of environmental science, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, nepal * corresponding author: nepuday@gmail.com banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 15 stretching from afghanistan to pakistan distributed in the range of 7,000–10,000 ft above sea level, it is confined to northern and western aspects of the slopes (stainton, 1972). unlike a. spectabilis, it does not extend up to tree line. in nepal himalaya, it is most abundant in humla district found either in a single stand or with other taxa such as picea smithiana and betula utilis (stainton, 1972). despite of its abundance in western nepal, only few preliminary attempts have been made till date to explore the dendroclimatic potential of this taxa. this study was carried out in order to extend the scientific information in western nepal himalaya with defined objectives of developing the ringwidth chronology of a. pindrow and examining the influence of climate on its radial growth. materials and methods study site and sample collection the tree core samples of a. pindrow were collected from the khaptad plateau forest in the khaptad national park (knp) in far-western nepal located at an altitude of 3,000 m (fig. 1). sampling was carried out in september 2012 where 60 cores from 30 trees (two cores from each) were extracted at breast height (1.37 m) using swedish haglöf increment borer. fig. 1: development region map of nepal showing study area with tree ring sampling site and meteorological stations sample preparation and tree-ring chronology development the collected samples were air dried in the treering labouratory at nepal academy of science and technology (nast). the dried samples were mounted in the wooden frame with the cross-sectional view facing upward followed by sanding and polishing the surface manually through grades of progressively finer grit sand papers until the ring boundaries were clearly visible under binocular microscope. each ring was counted and dated to the calendar year of their formation using skeleton plot technique of crossdating (stokes and smiley, 1968). ring width of each series was then measured using lintab measurement system with a lintab moving stage and a stereomicroscope, attached to pc having tsap-win program. accuracy of measurement and dating was examined using program cofecha (holmes, 1983) and the corrections were again re-examined to check the presence of any further error. each series was standardized using computer program arstan in order to remove the age trends in the dated series. a 30-year cubic smoothing spline was fitted for standardization and finally a standard ring-width chronology was developed. autocorrelation present in the standard chronology was removed with the help of autoregressive (ar) modelling to develop residual chronology. climatic data the climatic record was obtained from jumla station (29°28’n, 82°16’e) located at 2300m which is around 92 km east from the study site. both the temperature and the precipitation of this station contained sufficient period of record ranging from 1969 to 2012 and from 1956 to 2012 respectively, but with some missing data. therefore, the climatic record from mukteshwar station (29°28’n, 79°39’e) located at an altitude of 2,311 m in india which is around 140 km west from the sampling site and has relatively longer period of climate data (1897–2011) was also collected. correlation between the climate data of these two stations revealed that temperature and precipitation were significantly correlated at 0.05 confidence level (n = 43) and 0.01 confidence level (n = 55) respectively. thus, climate data from mukteshwar station was used for further analysis. the climate record of mukteshwar station for a period of 1897–2011 showed that may, june and july were the warmer months whereas november and december were the cooler months. similarly, higher precipitation was experienced in july and august whereas lesser rainfall occurred during november and december (fig. 2). thapa et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 16 fig. 2: mean monthly temperature and total monthly precipitation at mukteshwar meteorological station based on the data of 1897–2011 tree growth / climate relationship correlation analysis was used in order to derive the relationship between ring growth and climate. for this, temperature and precipitation data were used as predictor and residual ring-width chronology as predict, and analysis was carried out in dendroclim2002 (biondi and waikul, 2004). the degree of association was measured in terms of correlation coefficient and its significance was tested using difference between 97.5 and 2.5 percentile. results and discussion tree-ring chronology characteristics and statistics among the 60 cores collected from a. pindrow, 36 cores from 22 trees were successfully cross dated. the cores which were broken during collection and transportation were difficult to date and were discarded for analysis. a 362-year long ring-width chronology of a. pindrow was developed extending from 1650 to 2012 which is shown in figure 3. the average annual radial growth of a. pindrow was 1.361 mm. the values of mean sensitivity were 0.176 and 0.194 for standard and residual chronologies respectively. first order autocorrelation decreased to 0.047 in residual chronology, as autocorrelation was removed from standard chronology to get residual chronology. the value of first order autocorrelation in standard chronology was found to be 0.426. the standard deviations were 0.219 and 0.191 for standard and residual chronologies respectively. the dated series had a mean correlation of 0.435 with the master chronology. the number of absent rings encountered was 13, amounting to 0.193% of the total rings analyzed. other statistical parameters were also calculated for the common period (1871–2006) of the chronology. the mean correlations within the trees, between the trees and among all radii were estimated. high values of correlation coefficients within the trees were recorded for both the chronologies (about 0.6); however, the coefficient was less for between the trees and among all radii (<0.2). both chronologies well exceeded the expressed population signal (eps) limit of 0.85 indicating that the site chronology well represented the population chronology (wigley et al., 1984). though, the ring-width chronology extended since 1650; however, it crossed the eps limit of 0.85 only after 1843 with 24 core series. signal to noise ratio (snr) in standard chronology was found to be 6.948 which increased to 7.592 after applying ar modelling. the variance explained in first eigen-vector was 23.5% and 25% respectively for standard and residual chronologies indicating strong common signal. the chronological statistics of both standard and residual chronology for the entire period as well as for the common period are given in the table 1. climate influence on tree-growth the correlation analysis carried out between residual ring-width chronology and climate revealed significant negative relationship with the temperature of march, april and may whereas positive relationship with the precipitation of the same three months (fig. 4). climate data showed that there was abrupt rise in temperature with sharp decline in rainfall during the beginning of pre-monsoon (fig. 2) thapa et al. fig. 3: tree-ring width chronology of a. pindrow extending from 1650 to 2012 along with the number of radii n um be r o f r ad ii banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 17 making soil moisture stressed during the entire pre-monsoon season limiting the growth. similar climatic response has also been recorded in the ring-widths of same as well as other species in western india himalaya (borgaonkar et al., 1994; borgaonkar et al., 1999; pant et al., 2000; yadav et al., 2004). even, a. spectabilis in western and central nepal (sano et al., 2005; chhetri and thapa, 2010; gaire et al., 2011) as well as b. utilis in central nepal (dawadi et al., 2013) have recorded the similar climatic signals in their ringwidths. however, different responses were also shown by several conifers in eastern india himalaya and tibetan plateau as compared to that shown by a. pindrow in this site. in eastern himalaya, bhattacharya and chaudhary (2003) reported that temperature was positively related with radial growth of a. densa. similarly, in tibetan plateau, temperatures of various seasons were found to be directly correlated with the growth whereas precipitation was either insignificant or indirectly limiting the growth of several species examined (liang et al., 2008; li et al., 2011). this might be due to different monsoon system and rain shadow effect in the tibetan plateau. conclusion tree-ring width chronology of a. pindrow spanning over 362 years dating back to 1650 was developed from western nepal himalaya and its dendroclimatic potentiality was discussed on the basis of chronology statistics. pre-monsoon climate was found to be detrimental in the growth of this species; however, further study with increased sample size is essential for further reconstruction of pre-monsoon temperature as well as precipitation in western nepal himalaya. acknowledgements the authors are thankful to nast for facilitating the use of its tree-ring labouratory. this study was partially supported by institute for social and environmental transition-nepal (iset-n). department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc) is acknowledged with thanks for allowing the authors to carry out this study in the khaptad national park. thapa et al. table 1: chronological statistics of site chronology of a. pindrow from khaptad national park chronology statistics standard chronology residual chronology chronology span (years) 1650-2012 (362) 1650-2012 (362) number of trees (radii) 22 (36) 22 (36) mean sensitivity 0.176 0.194 standard deviation 0.219 0.191 1st order autocorrelation 0.426 0.047 common period analysis (1871-2006) correlation among all radii 0.193 0.207 correlation between trees 0.180 0.196 correlation within trees 0.628 0.589 signal to noise ratio (snr) 6.948 7.592 expressed population signal (eps) 0.874 0.884 variance in pc1 (%) 23.5 25.0 fig. 4: correlation function plot of a. pindrow showing tree-growth climate relationship. significant climatic months influencing the growth is shown by * marks banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 18 references bhattacharyya, a. and chaudhary, v. 2003. latesummer temperature reconstruction of the eastern himalayan region based on tree-ring data of abies densa. arctic, antarctic and alpine research 35 (2): 196–202. bhattacharyya, a., chaudhary, v. and gergan, j. t. 2001. tree ring analysis of abies pindrow around dokriani bamak (glacier), western himalayas, in relation to climate and glacial behaviour: preliminary results. paleobotanist 50: 71–75. bhattacharyya, a., lamarche jr, v. c. and hughes, m. k. 1992. tree-ring chronologies from nepal. tree-ring bulletin 52: 59–66. bhuju, d. r., career, m., gaire, n. p., soraruf, l., riondato, r., salerno, f. and maharjan, s. r. 2010. dendroecological study of high altitude forest at sagarmatha national park, nepal. in contemporary research in sagarmatha (mt. everest) region, nepal (eds) jha, p. k. and khanal, i. p. nepal academy of science and technology, lalitpur, nepal, 119–130. biondi, f. and waikul, k. 2004. dendroclim2002: a c++ program for statistical calibration of climate signals in tree-ring chronologies. computers and geosciences 30: 303–311. borgaonkar, h. p., pant, g. b. and kumar, k. r. 1994. dendroclimatic reconstruction of summer precipitation at srinagar, kashmir, india, since the late-eighteenth century. the holocene 4 (3): 299–306. borgaonkar, h. p., pant, g. b and kumar, k. r. 1999. tree-ring chronologies from western himalaya and their dendroclimatic potential. iawa journal 20 (3): 295–309. chhetri, p. k. and thapa, s. 2010. tree ring and climate change in langtang national park, central nepal. our nature 8: 139–143. cook, e. r., krusic, p. j. and jones, p. d. 2003. dendroclimatic signals in long-tree chronologies from the himalayas of nepal. international journal of climatology 23: 707–732. dawadi, b., liang, e., tian, l., devkota, l. p. and yao, t. 2013. pre-monsoon precipitation signal in tree rings of timberline betula utilis in the central himalayas. quaternary international 283: 72–77. fritts, h. c. 1976. tree rings and climate. academic press, london, uk. gaire, n. p., dhakal, y. r., lekhak, h. c., bhuju, d. r. and shah, s. k. 2011. dynamics of abies spectabilis in relation to climate change at the treeline ecotone in langtang national park. nepal journal of science and technology 12: 220–229. holmes, r. l. 1983. computer assisted quality control in tree-ring dating and measurement. tree-ring bulletin 43: 69–78. houghton, j. 2004. global warming: the complete briefing. cambridge university press, cambridge, uk. hughes, m. k. and diaz, h. f. 2002. dendrochronology in climatology ± the state of the art. dendrochronologia 20: 95–116. li, z. s., zhang, q. b. and ma, k. 2011. treering reconstruction of summer temperature for a.d. 1475–2003 in the central hengduan mountains, northwestern yunnan, china. climatic change. doi: 10.1007/s10584-0110111-z. liang, e., shao, x. and qin, n. 2008. tree-ring based summer temperature reconstruction for the source region of the yangtze river on the tibetan plateau. global and planetary change 61: 313–320. pant, g. b., kumar, k. r., borgaonkar, h. p., okada, n., fujiwara, t. and yamashita, k. 2000. climatic response of cedrus deodara tree-ring parameters from two sites in the western himalaya. canadian journal of forest research 30: 1127–1135. ruddiman, w. f. 2000. earth’s climate: past and future. w. h. freeman and company, new york, usa. sano, m., furuta, f., kobayashi, o. and sweda, t. 2005. temperature variations since the mid-18th century for western nepal, as reconstructed from tree-ring width and density of abies spectabilis. dendrochronologia 23: 83–92. stainton, j. d. a. 1972. forests of nepal. the camelot press ltd and southampton, london, uk. thapa et al. banko janakari, vol. 23, no. 2 19 stokes, m. a. and smiley, t. l. 1968. an introduction to tree ring dating. university of chicago press, chicago, usa. suzuki, e. 1990. dendrochronology in coniferous forests around lake rara, west nepal. botanical magazine tokyo 103: 297–312. wigley, t. m. l., briffa, k. r. and jones, p. d. 1984. on the average value of correlated time series, with applications in dendroclimatology and hydrometeorology. journal of climate and applied meteorology 23: 201–213. yadav, r. r. and singh, j. 2002. tree-ring analysis of taxus baccata from the western himalaya, india, and its dendroclimatic potential. treering research 58 (1/2): 23–29. yadav, r. r., singh, j., dubey, b. and chaturvedi, r. 2004. varying strength of relationship between temperature and growth of highlevel fir at marginal ecosystems in western himalaya, india. current science 86 (8): 1152–1156. thapa et al. poudel & acharya banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 45-51 45 in nepal, non-timber forest products (ntfps) have high potentiality in contributing to local and national economy. studies have shown that the potentiality of ntfps has not been realized yet. this paper aims to explore the number of ntfps species and quantity collected against the number of ntfps species and quantity specified in the five year forest management plans of three districts (baglung, parbat and myagdi) in dhaulagiri region. the data related to number of ntfps species and the quantity collected in fiscal year 2016/2017 were acquired from three district forest offices (baglung, parbat and myagdi) and compared them as specified in the five year forest management plans. the ntfps species specified for collection in the plans were 90 in baglung, 50 in myagdi and 13 in parbat district. only 21 species from baglung, 16 species from myagdi and none species from parbat were collected in fiscal year 2016/2017. the annual total quantity of the ntfps specified in the plans of three districts was 454.21 tons with the royalty of us$ 78,500. but the harvested quantity of ntfps was only 31.18 tons with the royalty of us$ 4,610 in fiscal year 2016/2017. the quantity of harvested ntfps was 9.59% and 3.64% of their supply potential in baglung and myagdi districts, respectively, while there was no collection of ntfps from parbat district. on an average, only 6.87% of ntfps specified in the plans were collected, generating only 5.87% of the total royalty specified in the plans. the study revealed that remoteness of the area, lower quantity of ntfps for commercial harvesting and lack of site specific plan of ntfps are the major causes for under harvesting. networking of local people and ntfps traders and formulating site and species specific ntfps conservation, management and utilization plan are necessary to collect ntfps in a sustainable manner from these districts. key words: allowable harvest, extraction, management, potentiality, under harvesting higher estimation, lower harvesting: case of ntfps from dhaulagiri region, nepal g. paudel1* and r. acharya2 1 department of forests and soil conservation, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal * e-mail: ecopaudel@gmail.com 2 department of national parks and wildlife conservation, nepal harvesting of non-timber forest products (ntfps) has been a long history in the human civilization (delgado, 2016). nepal's ntfps are harvested from ancient time due to their medicinal values and other livelihood activities largely in the subsistence form rather than in the commercial scale. people have been using ntfps as medicine. till 1980s, the timber dominated in the forestry considering it as the only commercially viable forest product. the value of ntfps came into surface when a group of scientists estimated the higher value of the ntfps than that of the timber. peters et al. (1989) estimated higher value of ntfps than timber even in the amazonian rainforest and after that the forest policies started worldwide to emphasise the ntfps as the important forest product (banjade and paudel, 2008). ntfps have significantly lower life span than the timber (lawrence, 2003) so that it could be the product of comparative advantage in the forestry sector. low volume high value of ntfps as compared to the high volume low value in case of the timber makes the ntfps as the product of comparative advantage from forest. diverse geography and climatic conditions result in richness of biodiversity in nepal. the recorded floral species are 11,971 in nepal, which constitutes 3.2% of the world's total flora banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 45-51 poudel & acharya 46 (gon, 2014). the plant species found in nepal have different medicinal values. over 1000 plant species have known uses, of which over 700 species are medicinal plants, 440 wild foods, 30 spices and other 71 fibre yielding (subedi et al., 2014). the sustainable utilization of highly diverse and valuable ntfps can be the pathway of prosperity for nepali people. although nepal is rich in bio resources and famous in some forest management approaches notable community forestry (paudel, 2014; paudel, 2015) harnessing its potentiality to contribute to the national economic development remains always lacking. likewise all forest products, ntfps sector in nepal is lagging behind to significantly contribute to the local and national economy. banjade (2012) stated that it is due to the fact that forestry sector in nepal is not harnessing its full potential. in the changing international context, nepal has given emphasis to the ntfps through formulation and implementation of various policies and legislations (banjade and paudel, 2008). on the one hand, ppolicies related to ntfps promotion and field reality is different and on the other hand implemented policies do not harmonize with the policy objectives in nepal (larson et al., 2000). recently scholars try to help for systematizing the ntfps cultivation and harvesting by formulating locally suited criteria and indicators of ntfps certification (paudel et al., 2018). these initiatives are yet to be approved from government and still the transaction cost is high especially due to poor governance and corruption in trading of forest products (subedi et al., 2014) which led to the under utilization of the forest product.value chain of the ntfps involves different stakeholders viz. small scale harvesters, local traders, transporters, exporters and consumers (ingram et al., 2012). inappropriate policy and legal framework are creating hurdles in collection and trading of timber and ntfps locally (baral et al., 2016). in case of ntfps in nepal, over-exploitation of resource was perceived without any qualitative studies on ecological condition of the ntfps (larsen et al., 2000). nepal's ntfps are thought as over-exploited considering them as the open access property but in fact nepal's ntfps are not open access resources (dof, 2017) and managed by local communities and government under the legal framework. under utilization of the resources has been discussed less than over exploitation of resources but due to lack of quantitative assessment of the ntfps, the actual status of ntfps is still unknown in many forests of nepal. forest act, 1993 stipulates the preparation of five year forest management plan of the district by department of forests which should be approved from the ministry of forests and soil conservation. this management plan then should be implemented by the district forest office (dfo). this provision has been changed and now the responsibility of preparing and implementing the management plan is through dfo and the department has the authority to approve the management plan submitted by the dfo. the management plan is one of the guiding documents for harvesting forest products including ntfps from the national forests. it is a technical as well as legal document, which the dfo has to follow both to carry out the technical and other works. dfo has the right to grant permission to conduct work specified in the five year forest management plan. dfo can provide license to collect the forest products including ntfps not exceeding the quantity specified in the management plan. the quantity of ntfps specified in the management plan denotes the supply potential of the ntfps from the district. generally that value was considered to highlight the importance of ntfps in income generation and contribution to the local as well as national economy. actual collection of ntfps from the district could be different than the quantity specified in the management plan. unsustainable exploitation of the ntfps has been observed in various places while in some places there is little extraction of ntfps as compared to their potentiality. researches regarding the actual extraction of forest products including ntfps in line with the quantity specified in the forest management plan is lacking in nepal. in this context, this study was carried out with the objective of analysing the collection status of the ntfps as compared to their supply potential specified in the five year forest management plan. this paper also aims to explore the obstacles of the ntfps collection in these districts. materials and methods study area dhaulagiri region consists of four districts, namely baglung, parbat, myagdi and mustang. poudel & acharya banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 45-51 47 this study was carried out in three districts (baglung, parbat and myagdi) of this region. mustang district was excluded from the study, as there is no district forest office. the latitude of baglung district ranges from 28o5' n to 28o15' n and longitude from 82o45' e to 83o36' e. the area covered by the baglung district is 182,486 hectares (dfo baglung, 2014). likewise, the latitude of myagdi district varies from 28o20' n to 28o47' n and longitude from 83o08' e to 83o53' longitude and the area is 229,706 ha (dfo myagdi, 2014). parbat district is situated between 27o28' n and 28o39' n latitude, 83o34' e and 83o59' e longitude and has an area of 53,668 ha (dfo parbat, 2015). two largest projects, livelihoods and forestry program (lfp) and the multistakeholder forestry program (msfp), worked in these three districts. investments have been made to assess resource and promote ntfps in these districts through these projects and government fund. these districts are considered very rich in ntfps resources. map of the studied districts is given in figure 1. fig. 1: map of the studied districts desk review the approved district five year forest management plans of baglung, myagdi and parbat districts were reviewed. the growing stock of the ntfps, their annual allowable harvestable quantity and the estimated royalty were recorded from these management plans. the data related to type of ntfps species and the quantity collected in fiscal year 2016/2017 was acquired from records of the respective district forest offices. consultation the officials of the district forest offices of these three districts were consulted to know about the current trend in ntfps collection. ntfps collectors, traders and the local people related to the ntfps were also consulted to understand their views on the trend and obstacles in ntfps collection in these districts. data analysis the data were fed into ms-excel and analysed accordingly. extracted quantity of ntfps was compared with estimated annual allowable harvest in the five year forest management plans of the respective districts. likewise the actual royalty was compared with the estimated royalty from ntfps collection in the five year forest management plans. results and discussion number of species ninety ntfps species were listed and the annual quantity to be collected was specified in the management plans of these three districts (fig. 2). among them less than half or only 36 ntfps species were found to be collected (40% of total) in these three districts in fiscal year 2016/2017. in baglung district, 90 ntfps species were specified in the management plan, but only 21 species were collected in fiscal year 2016/2017. in myagdi and parbat districts 50 and 13 ntfps species were specified in the management plans but only 16 species were collected in myagdi district but none species were collected in parbat district. species of myagdi and parbat district are contained in baglung district list and therefore total number of species is 90 in the management plan. 90 36 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 management plan harvested n um be r o f s pe ci es fig. 2: number of species specified for harvesting in management plans and actually harvested species in three districts in fiscal year 2016/2017 banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 45-51 poudel & acharya 48 quantity of ntfps five year forest management plan of the district contains information on annual allowable harvest (aah) of the ntfps species. the quantity of ntfps to be harvested annually from the natural forests mentioned in the plans of three districts was about 454.21 tons (265.76 tons from baglung, 156.47 tons from myagdi and 31.98 tons from parbat district). the actual quantity of harvested ntfps was only 31.18 tons in fiscal year 2016/2017 in three districts (fig. 3), which is equal to 6.86% of the total harvestable quantity of ntfps species specified in the management plan. the actual quantity of ntfps collected from baglung and myagdi districts was 25.49 tons and 5.69 tons, respectively. but there was no collection of ntfps from parbat district. this revealed that the large quantity of ntfps is remained in the forest, which is unutilized. 454.21 31.19 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 management plan harvested q ua nti ty o f n tf ps (t on ) fig. 3: quantity of ntfps specified in management plans of three districts and actually harvested royalty the estimation of annual royalty collection from harvesting of ntfps as stated in the management plants of three districts was $78,500 (1us $=nrs. 100) (fig. 4). the estimated royalty from harvesting ntfps as stated in the plans of baglung, myagdi and parbat districts was $ 45619.65, $ 26150.98 and $ 6729.77, respectively. the royalties of $ 2806.25 and $ 1808.53 was obtained from ntfps collection in baglung and myagdi districts, respectively. but no royalty was obtained in parbat district. the total royalty of harvested ntfps in baglung and myagdi districts was $ 4610 (fig. 4), which was only 5.88% of the estimated royalty in the plans. 78.50 4.61 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 estimated royalty actual royalty ro ya lty fr om n tf ps (u s$ th ou sa nd ) fig. 4: estimated royalty in the management plans and actual royalty obtained this study showed that the ntfps are less used as compared to their availability in the national forest. this finding is consistent with the findings of the subedi et al. (2014). they reported that the supply potential of the ntfps could be five times higher in the optimistic scenario and two times higher even in the conservative scenario than the current supply of the ntfps in nepal. the estimated royalty is higher in the management plan and thus the people judged that there could be higher contribution of ntfps in the national economy assuming that the quantity of ntfps specified in the official document of the district forest office would be collected. among the studied high valued 10 ntfps species, 8 species were well stocked with low level of harvesting as compared to their potential (dof, 2017). according to the officials of the district forest offices, the lower extraction of ntfps is due to lack of commercial trading. for collectors and traders, the quantity should be considerably higher to get benefit from ntfps collection. availability of high valued ntfps in remote areas was also responsible for collection of ntfps in low quantity. further, local traders said that the transportation cost of ntfps collected from remote areas is too high. they also said that the low level of extraction of ntfps is due to lack of site specific plan for ntfps management and utilization. local traders and even district forest office do not have information on availability of the ntfps in different parts of the district. the quantity of different species was specified in the plans without indicating the forests for quantity of ntfps to be harvested for a particular species. it has created confusion to the officials of the dfos to grant permission for ntfps collection, mainly for collection of a certain quantity of poudel & acharya banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 45-51 49 particular ntfps to be collected from particular forest area in a sustainable manner. it indicates that the comprehensive study is needed related to the availability of ntfps in different parts of the districts to facilitate the ntfps collection. local people lack knowledge regarding commercial utilization of the ntfps. in remote areas of the districts, they are using ntfps for their household needs; however, ntfps remained unutilized in many cases. awareness creation among the local people about potentiality of the ntfps for income generation can expedite collection and commercial trading of ntfps. networking of the local people and the ntfps traders is helpful in collecting and trading the ntfps from a particular region. recognizing the importance of networking of local people and ntfps traders, department of forests has allocated budget for establishing and strengthening the network of the local people and ntfps traders at the district level. this programme was not found adequately implemented in these districts due to which the network was not effective. ineffective networking of local people and the ntfps trader lead to under utilization of the ntfps. due to lack of networking, traders cannot identify the ntfps pocket area on the one hand and on the other hand local people cannot find market of ntfps nearby them. therefore, strengthening network of local people and traders can be helpful in sustainable utilization of the ntfps based on their potentiality in the district. zivojinovic et al. (2017) identified that organizations at the national level (public and semi-public) have indirect role in ntfps trading as they are involved only in formulation and implementation of policies for business support. the prime actor for ntfps collection and trade is the local people in the form of collector and the traders. government has role to formulate policies in order to utilize the ntfps resources for income generation at local level as well as to contribute to the national economy. the main reasons of low level collection of ntfps in these districts are low level of awareness on ntfps collection and lack of business orientation of local people. subedi (2010) stated that the potentiality of forestry sector as a whole and especially ntfps sub-sector is not tapped properly due to various reasons including remoteness of the area and other various policy issues. little intervention from the government and the buyer's monopoly can also be attributed as the cause of lower extraction of ntfps (banjade and paudel, 2012). high transaction cost to acquire collection and trade permit may lower the rate of ntfps collection and trade complying with the regulations (foundjem-tita et al., 2014). in nepal, license of the ntfps collection should be obtained at first from the district forest office for trading of the ntfps. after collecting the ntfps not exceeding the quantity specified in the license, traders should get transportation permit of the specified quantity of permitted ntfps species. traders identified the cumbersome process of ntfps collection and trade as main causes of demotivating ntfps collectors. the official record in dfo parbat showed that there was no collection of ntfps in fiscal year 2016/2017. based on the discussion with the officials of the district forest office, parbat and other stakeholders, it was known that there was no extraction of ntfps in previous fiscal years also. the northern part of the parbat district is rich in ntfps resources. the local people of that area suspected that the ntfps collected from that part of the parbat district could be mixed with the ntfps collected from baglung and myagdi districts in order to reduce cumbersome official process and transaction cost. low production amount, difficulty and expensive transportation and large number of actors involved in the collection and trading process increase the transaction cost of ntfps (baral et al., 2016) which lead to the under utilization of the ntfps. trade of the ntfps in many cases takes place through informal market which underestimates the contribution of ntfps in economy and gets low attention in policy formulation (shackleton and pandey, 2014). low level of extraction in one place may lead to over exploitation of ntfps in other places to meet the demand of market. if we ensure harvesting of the ntfps in a sustainable manner in these districts, then there will be little chance of resource degradation. untapped potentiality of ntfps is both technical and governance problem. the problem of governance can be improved after having the technical information. problem is also associated with the unrealistic management plan. preparation of field based district forest management plan could banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 45-51 poudel & acharya 50 help to harvest the specified quantity of ntfps in the plan. technical problem is that there are no scientific studies regarding the availability and supply potential of different ntfps species in different parts of the district. therefore the study should be conducted to estimate the supply potential of the ntfps from different parts of the district. after conducting the study, site and species specific plan for the ntfps management and utilization should be prepared to ensure the better utilization of ntfps resources based on their supply potential at the district level. conclusion we conclude that the lower quantity of the ntfps has been harvested from the national forests in comparison to the quantity specified in the management plans. due to under harvesting of ntfps, the collected amount of the royalty is low. the identified main causes related to low level of extraction of ntfps in comparison to their potentiality and availability are remoteness, lower amount of ntfps, expensive transportation and high transaction cost and lack of site-specific plan of ntfps. networking of local people and ntfps traders can be helpful for collection of ntfps from different parts of the forest and therefore it is deemed necessary to strengthen the networks of local people and ntfps traders. formulation of site and species specific plans for the conservation, management and utilization of the ntfps resources is recommended. references banjade, m. r. 2012. discourse and discursive practices over timber in nepal. journal of forest and livelihood 10 (1): 58–73. banjade, m. r. and paudel, n. s. 2008. economic potential of non-timber forest products in nepal: myth or reality. journal of forest and livelihood 7 (1): 36–48. baral, s., khanal, r., malla, y., bolin, a., buffle, p., pathak, b. and poudel, j. 2016. increasing private sector involvement and investment in forestry in nepal. the international institute for environment and development (iied) policy brief april, 2016. delgado, t. s., mccall, m. k. and lópez-binqüist, c. 2016. recognized but not supported: assessing the incorporation of nontimber forest products into mexican forest policy. forest policy and economics 71: 36–42. dfo baglung. 2014. district five year forest management plan. district forest office, baglung, nepal. dfo myagdi. 2014. district five year forest management plan. district forest office, myagdi, nepal. dfo parbat. 2015. district five year forest management plan. district forest office, parbat, nepal. dof. 2017. status study/mapping of important medicinal and aromatic plants (maps) of nepal and preparation of document for jadibuti program. department of forests, kathmandu, nepal. foundjem-tita, d., speelman, s., d'haese, m., degrande, a., van huylenbroeck, g., van damme, p. and tchoundjeu, z. 2014. a tale of transaction costs and forest law compliance: trade permits for non timber forests products in cameroon. forest policy and economics 38: 132–142. gon. 2014. nepal national biodiversity strategy and action plan (nbsap) (2014-2020). ministry of forests and soil conservation, singh durbar, kathmandu nepal. ingram, v., ndumbe, l. n. and ewane, m. e. 2012. small scale, high value: gnetumafricanum and buchholzianum value chains in cameroon. small-scale forestry 11 (4): 539–56. larsen, h. o., olsen, c. s. and boon, t.e. 2000. the non-timber forest policy process in nepal: actors, objectives and power. forest policy and economics 1: 267–281. lawrence, a. 2003. no forest without timber? international forestry review 5 (2): 87–96. poudel & acharya banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 45-51 51 paudel, g. 2014. analysis of equity, poverty and sustainability aspects of community forests of nepal. vikas 36 (1): 89–96. paudel, g. 2015. forest resource income variation in mid-hills of nepal: a case study from two cfugs of parbat district, nepal. international journal of environment 4 (3): 1–10. paudel, g., shrestha, t. k., baniya, c. b., lamsal, r. p., baral, s. r., kandel, d. l., kalikote, b. b., shrestha, m. and parajuli, a. 2018. local criteria and indicators for non-timber forest products certification in nepal. international journal of forestry and horticulture 4 (3): 25–32. peters, c. m., gentry, a. h. and mendelsohn, r.o. 1989. valuation of an amazonian rainforest. nature 339 (6227): 655–656. shackleton, c. m. and pandey, a. k. 2014. positioning non-timber forest products on the development agenda. forest policy and economics 38: 1–7. subedi, b. p. 2010. "policy and regulatory environment for the conservation and sustainable use of ntfps in nepal" paper presented at the profor-world bank nepal forest sector review project workshop, kathmandu, nepal. subedi, b. p., ghimire, p. l., koontz, a., khanal, s. c., katwal, p., sthapit, k. r. and mishra, s. k. 2014. private sector involvement and investment in nepal's forestry: status, prospects and way forward. multi stakeholder forestry programme (msfp)service support unit, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. zivojinovic, i., nedeljkovic, j., stojanovski, v., japelj, a., nonic, d., weiss, g. and ludvig, a. 2017. non-timber forest products in transition economies: innovation cases in selected see countries. forest policy and economics 81: 18–29. with the large scale plantation commenced in the early 1980s, nearly 370,000 hectares of plantations have been successfully established in nepal. pinus patula is one of the dominant species of these plantations aiming to maximize biomass productions in degraded hills. the growth rate of 15 m³ ha-1yr-1 estimated in 1995 was reduced to 7 m³ ha-1yr-1 in 2011. as it is an exotic species to nepal, the effect of management practices on its growth was not clear because of specific ecologic condition which is hindering in developing a management plan with a high confidence. dendrocronological assessment taking sample cores of 120 trees was conducted in plantations age between 1975 and 1990. the study found that the growth rate decreased after 10 years and the rate was high in the higher density class. the cumulative increment, which was found to be higher in the lower density class, was found to have retarded faster after 15-17 years of age in the higher density class as well as in the informally managed plantations. the study recommends conducting planned thinning from the early age of 8-10 years while the final felling is recommended to be executed at the age of 30-35 years for maximizing its volume. however, a vast area of the current stock, which has already crossed or nearly crossed the rotation age of this species, should be removed in two phases ensuring the establishment of the new crops. they should be clear felled when they reach the age of 45 years. key words: management practice, plantation, growth-rate, density, age effects of management practices on growth rate of pine plantations in nepal s. p. dangal1 and a. k. das1 large-scale plantations in the hilly regions of nepal were initiated from the early 1980s (gilmour et al., 1990). since then, nepal could successfully establish more than 370,000 hectare of plantations in the bare hills. most of the plantations were dominated by pine species (dof, 2012) including chir pine (pinus roxburghii), blue pine (p. wallichiana) and patula pine (p. patula) that maximize biomass production (gilmour et al., 1990) as pine was one of the few species which survived and grew well on the areas with very poor soil which were the only sites then available for forest plantations in the hills. pines withstand grass and weed competition better than some other species (jackson,1994) as they are morphologically adapted in contrasting disturbance, temperature, precipitation and poor nutrient soil (knight et al., 1994). nacrmlp (2006) reports that a total of 23,404 hectares of plantations have been established in sindhupalchowk and kavrepalanchowk districts since the late 1970s, and they were mostly dominated by pine species (hunt et al., 2001) among which 40% is shared by kavrepalanchowk district. eri (2011) estimates that p. patula covers almost 75% of the total pine plantations. until late 1970s, the chaubas ridge of kavrepalanchok was a severely degraded overgrazed barren land. with the support of the then nepal australia forestry project (nafp), the department of forests and the local community jointly started reforestation from the late 1970s. since then, nearly 400 hectares of degraded land have been reforested mainly with p. patula, p. roxburghii and p. wallichiana (eijnatten et al., 2001). after the establishment of community saw mills in 1997, intensive thinning using the thinning guidelines was commenced in chaubas. since then,two to three thinnings, adopting the thinning prescriptions, were carried out in a few community forests in the chaubas ridge (timilsina, 2005). p. patula, native to mexico, grows considerably faster than other two indigenous pine species (jackson, 1994), is likely to be sustainable on most sites where good standard silviculture practices are carried out (evans, 2000). this three-needled plant, introduced in nepal back in the 1970s normally grows at the altitude between 1,650 m and 3,000 m from the mean sea level (msl) where rainfall ranges from 1000 mm to 30 1 mewar university, chittorgarh, rajasthan, india, email: shambhudangal@hotmail.com banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 31 1500 mm. it grows up to 30 m height and 22 cm in diameter (dbh). it is fairly tolerant of poor soils and frost-tolerant, and its thin bark is sensitive to fire up to the pole stage (jackson, 1994). the maximum annual average growth rate for p. patula recorded in 1995 in sindhupalchok and kavrepalanchok districts was 9.5 ton ha-1 yr-1 (nacfp, 1996) which is equivalent to 15 m³ ha-1 yr-1 for which ladley (1995) had strongly recommended for timely and appropriate application of silviculture as greater rate of diameter growth is usually obtained in trees after thinning (dwivedi, 1993). there is an evidence of 27.97 m³ ha-1 yr-1 growth from adoption of such practices (fox et al., 2007) but due to absence of proper thinning,the growth of these plantations now has been reduced to 7.06 m³ ha-1 yr-1 (eri, 2011). with the passing of age, density of the stand influence growth rate (dwivedi, 1993), and similarly,with the advancement of age, the growth relations of the plantation undergo profound changes (wilde, 1969). larger the gap, larger will be the mean diameter of edge trees (berg, 1973), and hence, the selection of stand-level treatment was found to have an important role (bricenoelizondo, 2006). defined thinning concepts are neglected within forest management plans, and scientific knowledge about thinning effects on plantation stands is missing (nenninger et al., 2013). as a result of delayed thinning,an annual loss was estimated to be us$ 180 ha-1 from the plantation in the study area (hunt et al., 2001). most of these plantations have crossed 25 years. this time, there was a need for concrete plan for final felling and establishment of second rotation crop. due to delayed thinning, an extended rotation age of 40–45 years was recommended in 2006 (nacrmlp, 2006). however, thinning and final felling prescriptions were not adopted in most cases as there is a lack of confidence due to limited knowledge on the growth pattern of p. patula in nepal. hence, the objective of this study was to assess the effects of management practices, density and age on the radial growth rate of p. patula that convince and enable the plantation managers to develop appropriate and adoptable silviculture prescriptions for the management of pine plantations. materials and methods study the study was conducted in the four community forests viz. lankuri rukh community forest (cf), dharapani cf, bihani cf and lamrang cf on the chaubas ridge of kavrepalanchowk district of central nepal during may-june 2014. out of the four cfs, two were thinned as per the respective plans while the remaining two were thinned without any plan i.e. as per the need (table 1 and figure 1). all the community forests were situated on the swand se-facing slopes of 20o–30o at the altitude of 1,800–2,000 m from the mean sea level within a span of 3 km in the subtropical region. the soil is dominated by clay, red in color, mostly shallow in depth and mixed with small rocks. the precipitation recorded to the nearest hydrological station is 1,923 mm which falls between june to september (nea, 2011). according to the concerned communities,more than 400 ha of forest plantations have been established in the aforementioned cfs since 1970s with an average initial plantation stocking of 1600 ha-1. sampling design and sample collection the study was conducted as a part of “effect of growth on economic opportunities in pine plantations in nepal”. a clear geo-referenced map of the community forests was not available in all the cases which were essential to exactly estimate the area of the study sites and allocation of sample plots. hence, boundary survey was carried out dangal and das table 1: details of the study area age of plantation (yrs) formally managed plantations informally managed plantations name of the cf stand density (tree/ha) area (ha) name of the cf stand density (tree/ha) area (ha) 30-35 lankuri rukh 323 12.0 bihani 579 16.0 25-30 dharapani (chaubas-7) 570 35.0 lamrang 544 19.0 banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 32 dangal and das using gps, and the maps were prepared using arc view software. a total of 15 sample plots, each with the area of 250 m2, were allocated to each of the four selected cfs; the plots were first located systematically on the maps using computer software and then navigated in the forest with the help of gps. thus, altogether 60 plots were established within the four cfs to measure the overall growing stock on the chaubas ridge; in each plot, one dominant and one co-dominant trees were identified by measuring their heights with the help of vertex in order to assess the growth rate. the measurement method used by hunt et al. (2001) was adopted throughout the study. from each site, a total of 30 core samples (0.5 cm round) were collected with the help of 30 cm long haglof increment borer. the core samples were collected from the most cylindrical section of the stem 20–30 cm above the ground level (two cores were taken so as to take the average if the tree bole was not cylindrical); the borer was screwed right to the pith, and repeated until the pith could be seen in the core steak. the cores were inserted into straw used for beverage drinking so as to ensure their safety,and were recorded, e.g. l.3.1 (lankuri forest, plot no. 3 and core no. 1). all the cores were then kept into a 5 cm diameter and 45 cm long polythene pipe with caps on both ends to protect from seasoning defect, breaking and missing of the cores. within each sample plot, one dominant and one co-dominant trees were selected, and two 100 m2 nested circular plots were established keeping the dominant and the co-dominant trees at the centres (figure 2) so as to estimate the stand densities around the mas the trees were growing with different densities. to understand the maximum growth potentiality of the area, a total of 6 biggest trees were selected and their diameters at breast height (dbh), heights and densities along with their core samples were taken and recorded. selection of one dominant and one co-dominant trees within a 250m2sample plot establishment of two 100m2 nested circular plots with the dominant and co-dominant trees at their centres fig. 2: selection of one dominant and one codominant trees and establishment of two 100 m2 nested circular plots within a sample plot for the measurement of core-length, each core was placed in a wooden frame of half circle (half of 0.5 cm) perpendicular channel. the core was first well sanded to increase the visibility of rings and then starting from the pith, the length of each section of the core was measured (in mm) with the help of vernier caliper, and recorded in a format for statistical analysis. a number of forest managers and planners including the concerned cf users, the staff of the concerned district forest offices and the department of forest, who had past experiences in fig. 1: map of the study area banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 33 plantation management in nepal, were consulted as the key informants so as to understand the key issues and challenges for implementation of appropriate management options. statistical analysis statistical analysis was performed using microsoft excel program. the analysis in terms of different perspectives of growth response, age, density and management was performed. the stand density was divided into three stocking classes: i)high density class (600–900 trees ha-1), ii) medium density class (300–600 trees ha-1) and iii) low density class (<300 trees ha-1). no sample was found to have over 900 ha-1. for simplification, the first ring was considered to be one year old although it was two years old since it takes one year to reach the sapling stage of 20–30 cm height results and discussion the analyses of the field data were done for effect on growth of three variables viz. age, density and management regime. the findings of the analyses are as follows: effects of age on growth over density the aggregated analyses of radial growth with different densities over passing age showed that with the increase in age, the radial growth rate decreased in all the density classes. the reduction in radial growth rate was found to be almost equal until the age of 8–10 years in all the density classes. however, the decreasing rate was noticed higher (600–900 trees ha-1) in the high density class forest plantations after 10 years (figure 3). fig. 3: variation in annual increment with age the sharp increase in annual increment in the second year in the two density classes might not be due high density but could be due to the quality of seedling as well as the micro-climate during the plantation. however, there was a continuous fall in increment in the high density class except a small increment after 11 years. the fluctuations after 12 years and 14 years in the low and medium density classes respectively could be due to the effects of two to three thinnings carried out as reported by the key informants as well as on the basis of the available records of the communities. the overall result indicates that the thinning which is carried out in the plantations of the aforementioned species at the age of age of 8–10 years will increase its growth rate. effects of density on growth over age the mean annual increments (mais) in the three density classes were estimated to be almost similar up to the age of 13–15 years (figure 4). after this point, the mai was found to be distinct in the stand density class of 600–900 ha-1, but there was no significant difference in the mai in the stand density class of 300–600 trees ha-1. in the low density class (<300 trees ha-1), the mai was found to be higher up to the age of 7 years as compared to the other two density classes,and then there was no difference in its mai until the age of 16 years. after 16 years, the mai in the low density class slightly exceeded those in the other two density classes (figure 4). these differences and similarities, no doubt, affect upon the management practices. it clearly indicates that the density of a stand should be maintained below 600 trees ha-1 during its age of 15–18 years to attain a maximum mai. fig. 4: variation in mean annual increment (mai) with density over age in order to maximize the volume production, analysis of the cumulative increment (mai) is one of the determining factors for thinning and final felling. the cumulative increment could not be differentiated in the stands until 16 years of dangal and das banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 34 age, but after 16 years,it decreased more in the high density class than in the other two density classes (figure 5). this has brought up the similar result as the mai was found to be almost similar in all the density classes until the age of 16 years. similarly, the mai and the cumulative increment in the low and the medium density classes were found to be similar until the age of 30 years after which the mai,in terms of cumulative increment, in the low density class exceeded those in the other two classes. this indicates that the rotation of 30 (±5) years could be the best for a stand to attain maximum volume of wood. fig. 5: variation in cumulative increment with density over age growth response in formally and informally managed plantations it was notable that the mais in the three different density classes were very distinctive in the stands managed under formal and informal management practices (figure 6 and figure 7). the reductions in the mais between formally and informally managed plantations were found to be almost similar until 12 years. the fluctuations in the mais in the density classes could be due to the site factors in both the cases and also due to the removal of trees in the informally managed plantations. it indicated that there was no effect of density until 12 years of age. after 12 years, the mai in the informally managed plantations was found to have declined; higher decline in the mai noticed in the high density class and almost similar decline noticed in the medium and low density classes. similar pattern was indicated in the high density class in the formally managed plantations, but, fluctuations (sharp increase and decrease)in the mais were noticed in the other two density classes. this could be the impact of thinning carried out formally after the age of 12 years until 25 years in the different blocks of the plantations on rotational basis. the cumulative increment showed a distinct pattern in the formally and informally managed plantations(figure 8 and figure 9). in the formally managed plantations, the cumulative increment was found to be the same up to 17 years of age in all the three density classes, but it was lower in a high density class as compared to those in the other two density classes. similarly, the cumulative increment rate was higher in the low density class than in the medium density class after 22 years of age. this could be due to the effects of competition for light, and availability of nutrients and ground water as thinnings were conducted from 12 years onwards and the thinning intensity as well as the years of thinning were different due to block management and rotational thinning cycle. this clearly indicated the need for reduction of density below 600 trees ha-1 around 15 years. in the plantations under informal management, the dangal and das fig. 6: variation in annual increment in formal management with age over density fig. 7: variation in annual increment in informal management with age over density x y banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 35 cumulative increment was the same upto 22 years in all the three density classes, and after then, the increment rate was low in the high density class, but no difference was noticed in the remaining two density classes. it was obvious that although density was similar but the cumulative increments estimated were different between the two managements. this could be due to the planned way of creating space in the formally managed plantations while the haphazard removal of trees in the informally managed ones without looking space, quality of trees and gap. normally, big trees are found to be removed in the stands managed under informal management leaving the trees with inferior quality which naturally grow slower than the qualitative ones. this becomes opposite in the case of formally managed stands where the dead, diseased, dying, suppressed and inferior trees are removed first leaving the healthier big trees meant for natural regeneration and high return in future. the cumulative increment rate was almost similar in all the three density classes in the informally managed plantation as well as in the low density class in the formally managed plantations. this suggests for reduction of trees in the plantation stands in a planned way from the beginning. overall increment and potentiality to gauge the maximum growth potentiality in the study sites, measurement of biggest trees were taken. the average density around the biggest trees was estimated to be 310 trees ha-1. the analysis found that there was a big difference between the overall cumulative radial increment (76 mm) and the cumulative radial increment among the biggest trees (106 mm) at the age of 31 years (figure 10). fig. 10: variation in cumulative increment between overall and biggest trees the cumulative increment was found to have retarded after 11 year in overall measurement whereas it was steady among the biggest trees and again retarded after 31 years of age. the high increment in the biggest trees could be due to the availability of sufficient space to grow. the reduction in the mai seemed to have similar pattern upto the age of 8 years after which the reduction on the growth in overall measurement was higher than the measurement of biggest trees (figure 11). however, the gap between the two annual increment curves was found to be narrowed after the age of 23 years, and was quite close after 31 years. as the measurement of a few rings was very difficult after this age, it can be presumed dangal and das fig. 8: variation in cumulative increment in formal management fig. 9: variation in cumulative increment in informal management banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 36 that these two curves meet around the age of 3540 years, and will further retard. this implicates that whether there is a reduction in density or not, the growth rates becomes almost stagnant after the age of 35–40 years, and this could be best age for final felling and time to replace by a new crop. fig. 11: variation in average increment between overall and biggest trees the findings of the analyses showed that the decrease in radial growth with passing age was found to be unavoidable but decreasing the stand density in planned way can reduce the decreasing trend of radial growth rate. it can be concluded that the formal management practice gives better radial growth than the informal management. similarly, the comparison of disaggregated data of individual trees showed that the radial growth in the early thinning was found to be higher in comparison to the late thinning. gerelbaatar and baatarbileg (2011) have concluded that the radial growth of scotch pine do not vary by site but more intensive annual increment and radial growth improve in the plantation of 8–15 years of age. the amount of annual height increment and radial growth improve regularly up to 9–11 years of age, and then the intensity of annual increment declines due to competition for light and nutrients. the result suggests for reduction in a stand density after 9–11 years of plantation that avoid restriction of growing conditions. based on the input and output ratio, the late thinnings have limited impact on radial increment. because of low intensity thinning, the increase in radial growth rate is found to be effective for the period of only 4–5 years after thinning which again remains similar to the pre-thinning conditions. this implicate that planned thinning is essential from the early age before canopy closes as recommended by briceno-elizondo (2006), and if the intensity of thinning is low, the thinning cycle should be shorter. the present issue ahead is how to manage the current plantations of the study sites and other similar plantations. the thinning guidelines developed by nacrmlp (2006), does not explicit the application of thinning regime when the current age is between 25 and 35 years, but reference to nearest age (20–25 years) recommends that stocking at current stage should be 150 trees ha-1 for 31–35 year-old plantations and 220 trees ha-1 for 26–30 year-old plantations maintaining rotation periods of 40 and 45 years respectively. the guideline suggests one additional thinning for 26–30 year old plantations at the age of 40 years. similar recommendations were made by dangal and arrentz (2002). they recommended extended rotation period up to 55 years for the plantations where thinnings and final felling were delayed. they suggested retaining 150, 200 and 300 trees ha-1 to follow the rotation periods of 45, 50 and 55 years respectively. hunt et al.(2001) suggested a rotation age of maximum of 45 years, and thin to 150 tree ha-1 when they reach the age of 30–35 years. these all are extended rotation age than the actual recommended rotation age in normal forest management situation. a rotation age of 35 years with 4 high intensity thinning has been practiced in kenya (fd/kefri, 1997) whereas in the usa, p. radiata stands are managed up to three regimes depending on potential productivity. this involves two thinnings to give a final crop stocking of 200 stems ha-1 and clear felling occurs at the age 30 year (berg, 1973). in native habitat, p. patula grows up to 30 m height and 22 cm diameter (jackson, 1994), but this study found a maximum of 64 cm diameter with a similar height of 30 m. this indicates that there is a competition for light due to which trees gain height but not diameter. looking at the financial aspect, the mfc (2007) estimates an income of 9,250 us$ ha-1 from a plantation stock of 1000 trees ha-1 on a normal site quality at the age of 10 years and with two thinnings at the age of 15 and 22 years and the final felling at the age of 35 years. in the study sites, there was no specific plan for the final felling of the plantations. the case of mississippi suggests that the plantations in the study area has now reached the final harvesting stage as most of the plantations have already dangal and das banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 37 crossed thinning age leading to an annual loss of almost us$ 180 ha-1 (hunt et al., 2001). to reduce the further loss from the delayed thinning and final felling,there is an urgent need to develop proper plan to manage these plantations. despite after 25 years, a negligible growth is estimated by the study, it would not be wise to conduct final felling at this stage as there is a need for proper replacement of this crop by a new one. hence, in spite of a negligible increment, it is wise to maintain rotation period of 40–45 years on the basis of the existing density. one or two thinnings would be required to retain 100–150 stems ha-1 for final felling based on the existing stock which can be removed after new crop has been established conclusion based on the findings of the analysis and discussions, the study draws a number of conclusions. with passing age, the growth rate decreases regardless of density until 10 years of age, and the rate of declination increases in high density class. there is a significant effect of density on the growth rate after 10 years. the increasing retardation on mai and cumulative increment in the medium density class (600–900 trees ha-1) than in the other two density classes after 16 years of age demands for retaining density less than 600 trees ha-1 at the age of 15– 17 years. the overall increment in the formally managed plantations is higher than those under informal management. however, the effect of formal management is slightly higher than that of informal management which is highly distinctive only after 15–17 years of age. the study further concludes that both the age and density have significant effects on growth, and so, formal management practice is necessary to maintain required density in the plantations. the following recommendations could be useful for plantation managers including government, private sector, academia and the cf users of nepal: • to reduce the cost of plantation and initial competitions among the trees for light and nutrients and in such areas where early thinning cannot be ensured, planting stocking of around 1000–1100 stems ha-1 will be sufficient. plantation spacing could be 3.25 m × 3.25 m or 3 m × 3 m. in such case, thinning can be carried out at the age of 12–15 years. • late thinning has less effect on radial increment. the reduction of plantation stock in systematic and planned way from earlier stage will be highly beneficial. for new plantations, a 30-year rotation period is generally recommended to receive bigsize timber; however, for pole size timber, a rotation period of 22–25 years would be ideal. four thinnings are recommended for bigsize timber production. the regime proposed for new plantations with plantation stock of 1,600/ha is presented in table 2 below: table 2: proposed thinning regimes for new plantations age (years) 8–10 13–15 19–21 26–29 30–35 stand density to be retained (ha-1) 800– 1000 500– 700 200– 400 100– 150 0 • for the existing plantations of the study sites and similar conditions, it is less likely that thinning will significantly increase the radial growth. but, due to slope terrain, the final felling without establishing new crop is not recommendable. so, phase-wise reduction and final felling is ideal. the current stocking needs to be maintained at 100–150 trees ha-1 for next 5–10 years so as to allow natural regeneration or plantation to be established. once new crops are established, the remaining trees can be removed. references berg, p. 1973. silviculture of pinus radiata stand edge trees at wood hills forest. nz journal of forestry 18: 115–123. briceno-elizondo, e. 2006. stand level analysis on the effects of management and climate change on the growth and timber yield with implication on carbon stocks in boreal forest ecosystem: a model based approaches. the finnish society of forests science; finnish forest research institute; faculty of agriculture and forestry, university of helsinki; faculty of forestry, university of joensuu. dissertation forstales 24: 1795– 7389. dangal, s. and arentz, f. 2002. management of pine plantation in the nepal-australia community resources management dangal and das banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 38 project. nepal-australia community resources management project, kathmandu, nepal. dof. 2012. community forest data base. community forestry division, department of forest, ministry of forest and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. dwivedi, a. 1993. a text book of silviculture. dehra dun, india. eijnatten, j. v., acharya, h., and shrestha, s. 2001. organizational change in four fugs: operating the chauba-bhumlu community sawmill. nepal australia community resources management project, kathmandu, nepal. eri. 2011. a feasibility study report to establish pine wood treatment plant in the middle hills of nepal. environmental resources institute pvt. ltd. and micro enterprise development programme of undp, kathmandu, nepal. evans, j. 2000. sustainability of productivity in successive rotation. in timber plantation development (ed) manila, philippines, 321– 344. fd/kefri. (1997). silviculture regimes for plantation forest in kenya. forest department karura, kenya. retrieved from: http://www.fernis.net/system/files/current_ silviculture_regime.pdf. accessed on: 2nd may, 2013. fox, t. r., jokela, e. j. and allen, h. l. 2007. the development of pine plantation silviculture in the southern united states. journal of forestry 105: 337–347. gerelbaatar, s. and baatarbileg, n. 2011. growth of scotch pine (pinus sylvestris l.) plantation in northern mongolia. journal of agriculture and technology (b1): 1205–1210. gilmour, d., king, g., applegate, g. and mohns, b. 1990. silviculture of plantation forest in central nepal to maximize community benefits. forest ecology and management 32: 173–186. hunt, s., dangal, s. and shrestha, s. 2001. the impact of stocking on the growth of pine plantations in the mid hills of kabhrepalanchok and sindhupalchok. nepal australia community resource management project, kathmandu, nepal. jackson, j. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. forest research and survey centre, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. knight, d. h., vose, j. m., baldwid, v. c., ewel, k. c. and grodzinska, k. 1994. contrasting pattern in pine forest ecosystems. ecological bulletins 43: 9–19. ladley, j. c. 1995. opportunities for income generation from pine plantations in kavrepalanchowk and sindhupalchowk. nepal australia community forestry project, kathmandu, nepal. mfc. 2007. how much is your plantation worth? mississippi forestry commission, jackson, mississippi. nacfp. 1996. a feasibility study for timber processing by forest user groups in the middle hills of nepal. nepal australia community forestry project, kathmandu, nepal. nacrmlp. 2006. thinning guidelines for pinus patula and pinus roxburghii plantations in nepal. nepal australia community resource management and livelihood project, kathmandu, nepal. nea. 2011. initial environmental examination. nepal electricity transmission expansion and supply project, kathmandu, nepal. nenninger, a., kateb, h. e., fetene, m. and mosandl, r. 2013. functional ecology and sustainable management of the munessa forest, ethiopia. retrieved from http:/www. soils.uni-hannove.de/foreschung/monessa. com. accessed on 1st may, 2013 timilsina, n. 2005. supporting livelihood through employment: the chaubas bhumlu community sawmill, nepal. itto, forest trends, recoftc, right and resource initiative. wilde, s. a. 1969. pine internodes as indicators of non-determinable environmental influences. wisconsin academy of science, arts and letters, madison, usa. dangal and das nymphaea tetragona (nymphaeaceae) a new record for flora of nepal b. b. raskoti1, g. d. bhatt2 and r. ale2 the genus nymphaea comprises 50 species around the world and distributed in south east asia (dezhi et al., 2001). nymphaea tetragona georgi is also known as pygmae water lily and distributed in china, india, japan, kashmir, kazakhstan, korea, russia, vietnam; north america, europe (dezhi et al., 2001). there are three species of nymphaea in nepal, namely n. nouchali n. l. burm., n. rubra roxb. ex andrews and n. lotus var. pubescens (wild.) hook. f. and thoms. distributed in the tropical region (press et al., 2000; rajbhandari and bhatt, 2011; raskoti et al., 2011). n. tetragona is not previously reported so far from nepal (hara et al., 1978; press et al., 2000; bista et al., 2001). there is no record of herbarium specimen in the national herbarium and plant laboratories (kath) and tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch). in this study, n. tetragona have been collected by b. b. raskoti and rita ale from the banke district, of mid-western nepal and the specimen is deposited at kath. 1(a) 1(b) fig. 1(a)flowering plant n. tetragona. bherbarium specimen of n. tetragona. n. tetragona georgi, bemerk. reise russ. reiche 1: 220. 1775. (figure1 a,b). rhizomes not branched, erect. leaves cordateovate, 5–12 × 3–8 cm, dorsal side glabrous, weekly peltate, base deeply cordate, margin entire. flower floating, white, 3–5 cm in diam. sepals persistent, inserted on receptacle, tetragonous, broadly lanceolate, 2–4 cm, apex subacute. petals 10, white, obovate, 2–3 cm, alternate to stamens, apex acute. filament of inner stamens wider than anther, connecting apically without appendages. carpels united ovary inilocular. stigma rays 1 pokharathok 9, arghakhanchi, nepal, email: bbraskoti@gmail.com 2 national herbarium and plant laboratories department of plant resources, godawari, lalitpur, nepal 55 short note banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 56 several; carpel appendages ovate. fruit globose, 2–3 cm in diam. seeds smooth, ellipsoid, 2–4 mm long. flowering: october-november. habit and habitat open shallow ponds near roadsides, at an altitude of 160–300 m. population of the n. tetragona is decreasing due to its habitat destruction, overexploitation for ornamental and religious use. distribution nepal (mid-western nepal), china, india, japan, kashmir, kazakhstan, korea, russia, vietnam; north america, europe. specimen examined mid-western nepal, banke district, nepalgunj at altitude of about 160 m, oct 22, 2010, b. b. raskoti and r. ale 210 (kath). acknowledgements the authors are thankful to the chief of the national herbarium and plant laboratories godawari, lalitpur (kath) and tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch) for allowing us to examine herbarium specimens. references bista, m. s., adhikari, m. k. and rajbhandari, k. r. 2001. flowering plants of nepal (phanerograms). department of plant resources, kathmandu, nepal. dezhi, f. u., wiersema, j. h. and padgett, d. 2001. flora of china. vol. 6. missouri botanical garden press, missouri, usa. hara, h., stearn, w. t. and williams, l. h. j. 1978. an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal. british (natural history) museum, london, uk. press, j. r., shrestha, k. k. and sutton, d. a. 2000. annotated checklist of the flowering plants of nepal. the natural history museum, london, uk. rajbhandari, k. r. and bhatt, g. d. 2011. nymphaeaceae. in: catalogue of nepalese flowering plants-ii (eds.) rajbhandari, k. r., bhattarai, k. r. and baral, s. r. national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari, lalitpur, nepal, 27–28. raskoti, b. b., ale, r. and bhatt, g. d. 2011. a new record of nymphaea (nymphaeaceae) for flora of nepal. botanica orientalis 8: 105–107. raskoti et al. banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 32-44 pathak et al 32 rhododendron (ericaceae) is a large genus of woody plants and consists of c. 1000 species divided into eight sub-genera (chamberlain et al., 1996). in nepal, 31 species of rhododendron are distributed in the montane to the alpine zones near to the vegetation limit (rajbhandari and watson, 2005), from the subtropical region (r. arboreum) to the nival region (r. nivale). most species have an altitudinal range of 1000 m, usually corresponding to a vegetation zone and four species r. lepidotum, r. anthopogon, r. arboreum, and r. setosum are distributed in an altitudinal range of 2000–3000 m, covering more than one vegetation zone (noshiro and suzuki, 1989). among them, r. arboreum is found as low belt rhododendron (1200 m in western nepal), while r. nivale is reported from the tundra region at the vegetation limit (5600 m). when considering the elevation gradients, it is useful to remember that, elevation by itself is not an environmental factor for the change in vegetation pattern and even anatomy of individual plant species (keer, 2001). the change in anatomical characters also depends on the size of plant and elevation (liang et al., 1993). however, elevation is the proxy terms for the numerous variables that change with elevation in different ways (bass et al., 1983; noshiro and bass 1998; 2000). thus, the present study is focused on the structural and functional trade-offs in stem anatomical characters of the plant (pores, a wide range of habitat conditions including elevation determine adaptative variation in a species. the study was carried out to investigate the anatomical variation of two common species of rhododendron (r. anthopogon and r. lepidotum) growing between 3200 and 4700 m asl in gokyo valley of sagarmatha national park, khumbu, eastern nepal. seven anatomical characters viz. pore area (pa), pore density (pd), vessel element length (vel), fiber tracheid length (fl), ray density (rd), uniseriate ray height (urh) and uniseriate ray cell number (urcn) of twenty-three samples for two species (12 samples of r. anthopogon and 11 of r. lepidotum) were studied by making permanent slides of transverse, tangential longitudinal and radial longitudinal stem sections. in r. anthopogon, out of three nonanatomical characters (plant height, soil nitrogen and leaf nitrogen) the nitrogen content in leaf increased with increasing elevation. however, the plant height and nitrogen content in soil did not vary significantly with elevation. out of the seven wood anatomical characters three characters such as pa, vel and fl decreased with increasing elevation. the other four characters, pd, rd, urh and urcn did not vary significantly with elevation. in r. lepidotum, plant height decreased with increasing elevation and nitrogen content of soil and leaf increased with elevation. the pd, pa, vel and fl decreased along the elevation gradient. however, rd, urh and urcn did not vary significantly with elevation. these variations in the anatomical features of both species have been attributed to the adaptative strategies of the plant in the hostile environment at high elevation. key words: adaptation, ecological anatomy, elevation, nepal, rhododendron anatomy of two rhododendron species along the elevational gradient, eastern nepal m. l. pathak1, 4*, b. b. shrestha2, l. joshi3, x. f. gao4 and p. k. jha2 1 national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari, lalitpur, *email: youngecologist@gmail.com 2 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu 3 tahachal, kathmandu 4 chengdu institute of biology, chinese academy of sciences, postal code 610041, chengdu, sichuan, china pathak et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 32-44 33 vessels, fibers, rays, etc) and their quantitative and qualitative analysis along the elevation gradient. soil water is the most limiting ecological resource responsible for the distribution of higher plants. the degree of water stress in plants is controlled by the relative rate of water absorption and water deficit (farquhar et al., 1989). it may be caused either by lack of available soil moisture or too slow absorption or too rapid loss of water, or most often by a combination of all three. the decline in tissue moisture content is due to lower resistance to withdrawal of water from turgid plant tissue than to uptake through the root (kramer and kozlowski, 1979). plants, which can save water, must have a number of characteristics such as, less negative osmotic potential, more rigid cell walls, narrow xylem vessels capable of embolism prevention in severe drought and strong stomatal control to minimize water loss through transpiration (levitt, 1972). in this context, we have tried to analyze the variation in stem anatomical features according to the elevational range in two rhododendron species to investigate the possible adaptative strategies by wood parameters along elevation gradient in different ecological aspects. for this we hypothesized that, along the elevation gradient plants change the shape, size and function of wood parameters to adjust or adopt on their exiting environment. materials and methods after getting the permission from concerned authorities, stem samples of the two rhododendron species were collected in 2008 from gokyo valley of sagarmatha national park (snp), eastern nepal (fig. 1). lying in the central himalayas, the snp encompasses the southern half of mount everest. the area was gazetted as national park in july 19, 1976 and listed as a world heritage site in 1979 by the united nations educational scientific and cultural organisation (unesco). study area climate the climate of snp area is semi-arid, with seasonal monsoon rains during some 56% of the past years, and a temperate dry season which has occurred twice in a year for 35% of the past years (joshi, 1982). on an average, 80% of the annual precipitation falls between june and september. the remaining months of the year are moderately dry. fires are hazard in spring. precipitation is low as the park is in the rain shadow of the karyalung-kangtega range to the south, 733 mm in khumjung, 984 mm in namche bazar, and 1043 mm in thyangboche; but the tibetan side of the mountains in the rain shadow of the crest is almost like desert. winters are very cold. the mean temperature lowers up to 0.4°c and there are occasional heavy snowfalls (garratt, 1981). fig. 1: map showing the study area (where species 1= r. anthopogon and species 2 =r. lepidotum) rhododendron species in snp the flora in the park includes 160 species of flowering plants (bhuju et al., 2007). the park and the buffer zone consist of the following major vegetation zones: temperate mixed forest, lower and upper sub-alpine forest, lower and upper alpine zone, and sub-nival, and nival zone (jha, 2010). there are fourteen species of rhododendron in the snp and its buffer zone (shrestha and jha, 2010), which are r. anthopogon, r. arboreum, r. barbatum, r. campanulatum, r. campylocarpum, banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 32-44 pathak et al 34 r. cinnabarinum, r. dalhousiae, r. hodgsonii, r. lepidotum, r. lindleyi, r. nivale, r. setosum, r. triflorum and r. wallichii. among them, nine species (r. anthopogon, r. arboreum, r. campanulatum, r. lepidotum, r. nivale, r. setosum, r. campylocarpum, r. barbatum and r. triflorum) were recorded in the gokyo valley. study species out of nine species recorded in the gokyo valley of the snp, two widely distributed species r. lepidotum and r. anthopogon were selected for the study. rhododendron lepidotum wall. ex g. don. r. lepidotum locally called ‘bhale sunpati’ is a resinous shrub up to 1 m or more with pink, dull purple or pale yellow flowers. it has the widest altitudinal range of distribution of all rhododendron species (2300–4700 m asl) in the study area. it prefers sloping and open terrain with bushes of various plants in the temperate forest and high elevation pastures. except the r. setosum and r. anthopogon, it is associated with the mountain bushes such as potentialla species, clematis species, etc. blooming of this species occurs from mid may to july. rhododendron anthopogon d. don. r. anthopogon locally called ‘sunpati’ is a strongly aromatic small shrub up to 60 cm with 4-6 white or yellowish translucent petals in a cluster. r. anthopogon is the most common species of all rhododendron species in the alpine region of the snp. this species was common in the gokyo valley and was found from the dole to gokyo lake system. it grows on rocky and grassy mountainous terrain frequently associated with r. setosum on alpine meadows. it blooms from mid may to july. stem samples and measurements stem samples of r. lepidotum and r. anthopogon were collected from the snp, eastern nepal at an altitude of 3200 to 4700 m asl. though, these species are found both in the gokyo and khumbu valley of the snp (shrestha and jha, 2010). the collection of stem samples was limited to namchegokyo region. sampling was done along the trekking route at an elevation difference of about 200 m asl between namche and gokyo valley. at some places the elevation difference between successive sampling sites was up to 400 m asl due to physical inaccessibility. a total of 11 samples of r. lepidotum and 12 samples of r. anthopogon were collected. in some sites, the plants were grown in the rock, so the number of soil samples and leaf varied. three samples were collected from each sampling site for each species. the internodes of the main stem above the base were collected in polythene bag separately for each sample and were brought to the laboratory. the stem samples were preserved in formalin acetic acid (faa) alcohol solution for two weeks. to make it friendly, the samples were transferred to 70% alcohol before starting work in laboratory. thin microtome sections of 25 µm thickness were prepared. for vessel element and fiber-tracheid length, the stem samples were cut longitudinally into thin pieces using blade and were kept in the solution of nitric acid (10%) and chromic acid (10%) for 24–48 hours to macerate. when the small pieces of wood samples were dissolved in the solution, length of vessel elements (vel) and fibers (fl) were measured in temporary slides under compound light microscope. the seven wood parameters (pa, pd, vel, fl, rd, urh and urcn) were measured using a calibrated ocular micrometer (annex 1). for each parameter, 20–25 elements were measured for each sample; and their means and sd have been presented. collection of soil and leaf samples soil samples were collected from near the base of the same individual plant from which stem samples were collected. at each sampling site, three sub-samples of soil were collected from 30 cm depth, and they were mixed to make single sample (200 gm). corresponding to the stem samples, there were 23 soil samples (11 samples from below the canopy of r. lepidotum and 12 from r. anthopogon). the samples were air dried in shade for one week and packed in air tight plastic bags (zipper plastic) until laboratory analysis. samples of leaves were collected from main twigs of the plant from which the stem samples were collected. altogether, 20 leaf samples of r. anthopogon and r. lepodotum each were collected. leaf samples were collected for leaf pathak et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 32-44 35 nitrogen content in leaf. in some sites, the plants were grown in the rock, so the number of samples of soil and leaves varied. leaves were dried by placing between newspapers in the field and were brought to the laboratory. analysis of nitrogen content in soil and leaf nitrogen content of the collected soil and leaf samples were analyzed using micro kjeldahl method (gupta, 2000). the soil analysis methods included the digestion, distillation and titration steps. the same process as in the soil analysis was repeated to estimate the nitrogen content of leaves, 0.25 gram of leaf was taken for each sample. the chemicals used for leaf nitrogen were the same except the small amount of selenium powder (0.25 gm) as catalyst. total nitrogen content (n %) was calculated. data analysis results of all individuals were compared in relation to different non-anatomical factors (elevation, stem diameter and plant height). correlation coefficients among these three factors and seven wood anatomical characters (pore area, pore density, vessel element length, fiber length, ray density, uniseriate ray height, number of cells in uniseriate ray and nitrogen content in soil and in leaf) were determined. non anatomical and anatomical characters (plant height, nitrogen content in soil and leaf, pore area, pore density, vessel element length, fiber tracheid length, ray density, uniseriate ray height and uniseriate ray cell number) were then analyzed by simple linear regression. analysis was done separately for two species. mean values of all anatomical characters between two species were compared by independent sample t-test. these stastistical analyses were done using statistical package for social sciences (spss ver. 11.5). coefficient of variation (cv %) was calculated using the formula= sd x 100/mean. the average air temperature and precipitation of the study year were noted down. these data were extracted from climatology resource for agro climatology which covers a grid of 1° latitude by 1° longitude (https://power.larc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/ solar/agro.cgi; retrieved on 25th september, 2017) results and discussion general anatomical features stem anatomical features of r. anthopogon and r. lepidotum were fundamentally similar in transverse section. cuticle was conspicuous in both species. epidermis was one cell thick. cortex was not distinguishable. pericycle was narrow, made up of small sclerenchymatous cells and irregular in shape. phloem consisted of very small elements but xylem was found wide in relation to the total diameter of the stem in both species. pith was heterogeneous with different cell size and composed of parenchyma cells. parenchyama cells of pith were larger in r. lepidotum than in r. anthopogon. the annual rings were distinct in r. lepidotum than in r. anthopogon (plate 1a and 2a, annex 2) and the mean number of annual rings was five in r. lepidotum but the ring was not clear in all samples of r. anthopogon. crystals in parenchymatous pith were more common in r. anthopogon (plate 1b, annex 2) than in r. lepidotum (plate 2b, annex 2). both uniseriate and multiseriate rays were found in the secondary xylem. in r. lepidotum, uniseriate rays were more common than multiseriate rays (plate 2c, annex 2), the cells in the rays were heterogeneous; some of them were round and others narrow and elongated (plate 1c and 2c, annex 2). multiseriate rays were common in r. anthopogon (plate 1d, annex 2). thickening of vessels was found scalariform in both species. the number of rays and number of cells in uniseriate ray were higher in r. anthopogon than in r. lepidotum (table 1). the mean vessel element length (vel) was 260 µm in r. lepidotum and 268 µm in r. anthopogon. for both parameters (vel and fl), the coefficient of variation was higher in r. lepidotum than in r. anhopogon (table 1). a larger variation in both vel and fl of r. lepidotum could be related to wider elevation range of sampling sites, which ranged from 3200 to 4700 m asl for r. lepidotum and 4100 to 4900 m asl for r. anthopogon. variation in wood anatomical features mean pore density was quite higher in r. anthopogon than in r. lepidotum (table 1), and their difference was not significant at 5% level (table 2). mean pore area was higher in r. lepidotum banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 32-44 pathak et al 36 table 1: measurements of all anatomical characters of both species (cv: coefficient of variation) parameters rhododendron anthopogon rhododendron lepidotum range mean (cv) range mean (cv) pore density (per mm2) 135 200 161 (15.43) 109-174 143 (14.18) pore area (µm2 ) 320-509 417 (14.00) 400.-465. 429 (4.54) vel (µm) 239-294 268 (5.54) 208-345 260 (16.17) fiber length (µm) 315-385 346 (5.95) 275-360 318 (8.28) ray density (per mm2) 6.6 10.2 8.7 (13.8) 6.5 7.1 6.88 (2.50) usr height (µm) 570 1107 716 (22.32) 427 1240 804.72 (27.91) usr cell no 6.6 22.7 15.5 (35.1) 6.1 19.4 9.65 (46.87) *mean values of these parameters differed significantly between the two species. table 2: results of t-test for comparing mean of wood characters between two species parameters t value degree of freedom significance level (p) pore density 1.9 21.0 0.064 pore area -0.6 13.6 0.519 vessel element length 0.6 21.0 0.542 fiber tracheid length 2.9 21.0 0.008 ray density 5.1 11.4 0.000 ur height -1.0 21.0 0.286 usr cell no 2.7 21.0 0.011 and their difference was not significant. mean vessel element length was longer in r. anthopogon and their difference was not significant (table 2). fibers were longer than vessel elements. the mean fl of r. anthopogon (347 µm) was significantly (p = 0.008) higher than r. lepidotum (318 µm) (table 1 and 2). mean ray density was higher in r. anthopogon and their difference was highly significant. mean uniseriate ray height was higher in r. lepidotum (table 1), and their difference was not significant (table 2). the mean number of cells in uniseriate ray was higher in r. anthopogon and their difference was significant (table 2). the mean width of the multiseriate rays was higher in r. anthopogon than in r. lepidotum. the mean number of cells in tail of multiseriate rays was seven in r. anthopogon and eight in r. lepidotum. though the multiseriate rays were not observed in all the samples of r. lepidotum, the height of multiseriate rays ranged between 225– 1170 µm in r. lepidotum and 180–1200 µm in r. anthopogon. the number of cells in width of multiseriate rays was two to seven in both species. relations among anatomical and nonanatomical features in r. anthopogon, plant height did not vary significantly with increasing elevation (fig. 2). in r. lepidotum, out of three nonanatomical characters (plant height, nitrogen content in soil and leaf), plant height decreased with increasing elevation (p=0.002, fig.2). the decrease in plant height of both rhododendron species along the elevation gradient is a common phenomenon and could be interpreted as an adaptation to greater environmental stresses at higher elevation. summer drought and winter cold are the main factors limiting plant growth in the himalaya (mitrakos, 1980). both factors also affect the xylem structure (fritts, 1976). in r. anthopogon, out of three nonanatomical characters (plant height, nitrogen content in soil and leaf); the nitrogen content in leaf was found pathak et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 32-44 37 fig. 2: plant height along the elevational gradient (r2 = 0.20 and p= 0.147 for r. anthopogon, and r2 = 0.68 and p = 0.002 for r. lepidotum) to be increased along the altitudinal gradient and the relation was significant (p=0.001, fig.3). the increase in nitrogen content in leaf along the elevation gradient in r. anthopogon and r. lepidotum may be due to occurrence of the nutrients (nitrogen) more and for longer time in biomass of the plant species than in soil. in r. lepidotum, out of the seven anatomical wood characters, pore density and pore area decreased significantly (p=0.03) along the elevation gradient (fig. 4 and fig. 5). there was significant decrease in pore area, vessel element length and fiber tracheid length along the fig. 3: nitrogen content in leaf along the elevational gradient. (r2 =0.77 and p = 0.001 for r. anthopogon and r2 =0.568 and p = 0.007 for r. lepidotum) fig. 4: pore density along the elevational gradient. (r2 =0.039 and p = 0.536 for r. anthopogon and r2 = 0.39 and p = 0.038 for r. lepidotum) elevation gradient for both species (fig.5, 6 and 7). the other four characters such as, pd, rd, urh and urcn did not vary significantly with elevation. the correlation among nitrogen content in soil and leaf, all anatomical characters of both species with environmental factors (temperature and rainfall) were analysed. the positive significant relation of nitrogen content in soil and rainfall (p=0.03; fig. 8) are interrelated and might depend on nitrogen cycles in the habitat. the nitrogen content in soil can vary widely with litter fig. 5: pore area along the elevational gradient. (r2 =0.69 and p = 0.001 for r. anthopogon and r2 =0.41 and p = 0.03 for r. lepidotum) banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 32-44 pathak et al 38 fig. 6: vessel element length along the elevational gradient. (r2 = 0.72 and p = 0.001 for r. anthopogon and r2 = 0.64 and p = 0.003 for r. lepidotum) fig. 7: fiber tracheid length along the elevational gradient. (r2 =0.78 and p= 0.004 for r. anthopogon and r2 =0.665 and p= 0.002 for r. lepidotum) decomposition, effects of mesofauna, microclimate, rainfall, altitude and even slope position (post et al.,1985; garten et al.,1994; enoki et al., 1997; tateno and takeda, 2003). the positive significant relation was observed between nitrogen content in soil and rainfall (p=0.03; fig. 8), rainfall along the elevation (p=0.008; fig. 9) and pore density with fiber length (p=0.02; fig. 10). however, uniseriate ray height shows decreasing trend with increasing pore density (p=0.01; fig. 11). pore area of both rhododendron species was found to be increased with increasing rainfall (p= 0.04; fig.12) and higher vessel element length was observed with increasing leaf nitrogen (p=0.02; fig. 13). fig. 8: the relation between rainfall and soil nitrogen (p=0.03 for both species) fig. 9: the relation of rainfall along the elevation (p=0.008 for both species) pathak et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 32-44 39 fig. 10: the relation of pore density with fiber length(p=0.02 for both species) length of vessel elements as well as fibers declined with increasing elevation in r. lepidotum and r. anthopogon (noshiro and suzuki, 2001; fig. 6 and 7). a decrease in the mean diameter of fig. 11: the relation of pore density with uniseriate ray height(p=0.01, for both species) fig. 12: the relation of rainfall with pore area (p=0.04, for both species) the conduits (tracheids and vessels) have been associated with a reduction of water availability in the soil or lower temperature (carlquist, 1975; baas et al., 1983). altitude appears to be an important factor governing the wood anatomical variation in rhododendron. more than a dozen fig. 13: the relation of leaf nitrogen with vessel element length (p=0.02, for both species) banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 32-44 pathak et al 40 of wood anatomical features of 26 rhododendron species varied significantly with altitude (noshiro et al., 1995). some variation in wood anatomical features has been attributed to the adaptive strategies of the plant in the hostile environment at high elevation (noshiro and suzuki, 2001). decline in length of vessel elements and fiber has also been reported for ilex species, and many other widespread genera (baas et al., 1983). however, ray density, uniseriate ray height and number of cells per uniseriate ray did not vary significantly along the elevation (p>0.05). nitrogen content in soil and leaf the nitrogen content in leaf of r. anthopoggon and r. lepidotum was higher than nitrogen content in soil (table 3). the t-test showed that there was no significant difference in mean nitrogen content in soil between two species while there was significant difference in mean nitrogen content in leaf between two species (table 4). the principal component analysis shows the important presence of elevation, habit and temperature, plant height, vessel length, ray density and pore density with eigen values greater than 0.5 (table 5; fig.14). table 3: nitrogen content in soil and leaf soil and leaf n2 r anthopogon r. lepidotum range (mg/kg) mean (cv),% range (mg/kg) mean (cv),% soil n2 (%) 0.29 0.59 0.40 (31.32) 0.23 0.56 0.37 (28.71) leaf n2 (%) 0.95–2.90 1.51 (8.77) 1.10– 2.30 1.43 (16.61) table 4: results of t-test for comparing mean of nitrogen content in soil and leaf in two species parameters t value degree of freedom significance level (p) soil n2 0.7 21.0 0.487 leaf n2 -3.3 13.3 0.005 table 5: principal component analysis (pca) elevation habit temperature vessel element length plant height ray density pore density 4.954 3.326 2.534 1.073 0.986 0.613 0.526 fig. 14: principal component analysis among all anatomical and environmental characters for rhododendron species among the seven wood anatomical characters in r. anthopogon, there was a positive correlation between pore area and vessel element length, ray density and number of cells in uniseriate rays (p=0.009), vessel element length and fiber tracheid length (p=0.003). there was a negative correlation between the ray density and uniseriate ray height (p=0.003), and uniseriate ray height and uniseriate ray cell number (table 6). table 6: correlations among different wood parameters of r. anthopogon (n= 12) parameters pore density pore area vessel element length fiber length ray density uniseriate ray height pore area 0.34 vessel element length 0.10 0.60* fiber length -0.28 0.40 0.78** ray density 0.12 -0.23 -0.10 -0.18 uniseriate ray height -0.17 0.30 0.80 0.05 -0.77** uniseriate ray cell no 0.21 -0.14 0.09 -0.15 0.94** -0.71** * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). (n= number of samples) pathak et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 32-44 41 in r. lepidotum, among the seven wood anatomical characters, positive correlation was found between vessel element length and fiber length (p=0.01) and vessel element length and number of cells in uniseriate ray (p=0.001). there was negative correlation between vessel element length and ray density (p=0.04), vessel element length and number of uniseriate ray cell (p=0.001), fiber length and ray density and uniseriate ray height (table 7) table 7: correlations among different wood parameters of r. lepidotum (n=11) attributes pore density pore area vessel element length fiber length ray density uniseriate ray height pore area 0.46 vessel element length 0.35 0.53 fiber length 0.21 0.58 0.72* ray density −0.48 -0.05 -0.62* -0.62* uniseriate ray height -0.04 -0.69* -0.44 -0.70* 0.13 uniseriate ray cell no 0.06 0.23 0.85** 0.56 -0.52 -0.17 * correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). ** correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). (n= number of samples) some other research also revealed that the decreasing size and diameter of vessel along the elevation indicating that vessel diameter is determined both by genotype (parental population) and environmental factors (fisher et al., 2007). the data of all measured anatomical and environmental parameter is given in annex 1. conclusions the anatomical differences between the r.anthopogon and r. lepidotum were less prominent. variation in vessel and pore characters along elevation gradient reveals that vessels, fiber and tracheid play important role to adopt in harsh environment. though important presence of elevation, temperature and plant height was observed by pca, however, only on the basis of this could not be explained adaptive strategy of anatomical features. acknowledgements we are very much grateful to hindu kush– karakoram–himalaya (hkkh) partnership project (evk2-cnr, italy) for research grant to pramod kumar jha. we acknowledge the chief of national herbarium and plant laboratories (nhpl) at that time for administrative support in anatomical study at national herbarium and plant laboratory, godawari, lalitpur. we also thank s noshiro and m suzuki for providing relevant literatures. references bass, p., werker, e. and fahn, a. 1983. some ecological trends in vessel characters. international association of wood anatomists bulletin 4: 141–159.doi: 10.1163/2294193290000407. bhuju, u. r., shakya, p. r., basnet,t. b. and shresha,s. 2007. nepal biodiversity resource book: protected areas, ramsar sites and world heritage sites. kathmandu:icimod. carlquist, s 1975. wood anatomy and relationships of geissolomataceae. bulletin of the torrey botanical club 102 (3): 128–134. chamberlain, d., hyam, r., argent, g., fairweather, g. and walter, k. s.1996. the genus rhododendron, its classification and synonymy. royal botanic garden, edinburgh. garratt, k. 1981. sagarmatha national park management plan. hmg/new zealand cooperation project. department of lands and survey, wellington, new zealand. enoki, t., kawaguchi, h. and iwatsubo, g. 1997. nutrient-uptake and nutrient-use efficiency of pinus thunbergii parl. along a topographical gradient of soil nutrient availability. ecol res banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 32-44 pathak et al 42 12:191–199. gupta, p. k. 2000. methods in enviromental analysis: water soil and air. agrobios, new delhi, india. fritts, h. c. 1976. tree ring and climate. academic press, new york, usa. fisher, j. b., goldstein, g., jones, t. j. and cordell, s. 2007. american journal of botany. wood vessel diameter is related to elevation and genotype in the hawaiian tree metrosideros polymorpha ( myrtaceae). 94 (5):709–715. doi: 10.3732/ajb.94.5.709. farquhar, g. d., ehleringer, i. j. r. and hubick, k. t. 1989. carbon isotope discrimination and photosynthesis. annu. rev. plant physiol. plant mol. biol. 40: 503–537. garten, c. t., huston, m. a. and thoms, c. a. 1994. topographic variation of soil nitrogen dynamics at walker branch watershed, tennessee. for sci 40: 497–512. jha, p. k. 2010. contemporary research in sagarmatha (mt. everest) region, nepal. nepal academy of science and technology (nast). khumaltar, lalitpur, nepal. joshi, d. 1982. the climate of namche bazar: a bioclimatic analysis. mountain research and development 2: 399–403. keer, j. 2001. global biodiversity patterns: from description to understanding. ecology and evolution 16: 424–425. doi: http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/s0169-5347(01)02226-1 kramer, p. j. and kozlowski, t. t. 1979. physiology of woody plants. academic press, new york, usa. liang, c. b., bass, p., wheeler, e. and shuming, w. 1993. wood anatomy of trees and shrubs from china. vi. magnoliaceae. iawa 14 (4): 391–412. doi: 10.1163/2294193290000594 levitt, j. 1972. response of plants to environmental stresses. academic press, new york, usa.. mitrakos, k. a. 1980. a theory for mediterranean plant life. acta oecol. 1: 245–252. noshiro, s. and suzuki, m. 1989. altitudinal distribution and tree form of rhododendron in the barun valley, east nepal. j. phytogeogr. and taxon. 37: 121–127. noshiro, s., suzuki, m. and ohba, h. 1995. ecological wood anatomy of nepalese rhododendron (ericaceae): 1 interspecific variation. journal of plant research 108:1– 9. doi:10.1007/bf02344347 noshiro, s. and baas, p. 1998. systematic wood anatomy of cornaceae and allies. iawa 19 (1): 43–97. doi: 10.1163/2294193290000652 noshiro, s. and baas, p. 2000. latitudinal trends in wood anatomy within species and genera: case study in cornuss.l. (cornaceae). american journal of botany 87 (10):1495– 1506. doi: 10.2307/2656876 noshiro, s. and suzuki, m. 2001. ontogenetic wood anatomy of tree and subtree species of nepalese rhododendron (ericaceae) and characterization of shrub species. amrican journal of botany 88 (4): 560–569.doi: 10.2307/2657054. post, w. m., pastor, j., zinke, p. j. and stangenberger, a. g. 1985. global patterns of soil nitrogen storage. nature 317 (6038): 613–616. rajbhandari, k. r. and watson, m. 2005. rhododendrons of nepal. fascicle of flora of nepal 5 (6). shrestha, b. b. and jha, p. k. 2010. rhododendrons in sagarmatha national park, nepal. in contemporary research in sagarmatha (mt. everest) region,nepal (eds.) jha, p. k. and khanal, i . nepal academy of science and technology (nast), lalitpur, nepal, 189– 198. tateno, r. and takeda, h. 2003. forest structure and tree species distribution in relation to topography mediated heterogeneity of soil nitrogen and light at forest floor. ecol res 18: 559–571. pathak et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 32-44 43 a nn ex 1 : d at a of a ll m ea su re d an at om ic al a nd e nv iro nm en ta l p ar am et er s sp ec ie s pl _h t (c m ) e le v (m ) st em _ di am (c m ) po re _d n um be r/ m m 2 po re _a (μ m 2 ) ve ss el _l (μ m ) fi be r_ l (μ m ) r ay _d (n um be r/ m m 2 ) u r _h t (μ m ) u r _c _n o so il_ n 2 (m m /k g) l ea f_ n 2 (m m /k g) te m pr (o c ) r ai nf al l (m m /in ch ) r . a nt ho po go n 50 41 00 3 13 5. 1 42 7. 95 29 4 38 5 9. 2 69 3 18 .4 0. 29 1. 1 7. 5 0. 00 5 r . a nt ho po go n 45 41 00 3 15 9. 9 44 9. 32 28 2 37 3. 5 8. 1 61 9 14 .8 0. 29 1. 1 7. 6 0. 09 4 r . a nt ho po go n 42 41 00 3 19 1. 2 50 9. 22 26 6. 5 34 5 8. 8 59 7 13 .6 0. 29 1. 1 11 .7 2 0. 68 r . a nt ho po go n 44 43 00 4 20 0. 2 48 3. 25 27 6. 5 33 0 9. 3 71 5. 5 22 .7 0. 42 0. 95 15 .8 1. 13 r . a nt ho po go n 40 43 00 3 19 0. 2 42 9. 63 27 1 34 8. 5 10 .2 66 0 20 .4 0. 42 0. 95 18 .1 4 3. 5 r . a nt ho po go n 33 43 00 2 13 5 41 3. 91 27 9 36 5 9. 7 61 8 19 .3 0. 42 0. 95 19 .7 2 3. 4 r . a nt ho po go n 40 45 00 3. 5 13 6 47 0. 26 26 5 34 0. 5 7. 2 11 07 8. 7 0. 59 1. 12 19 .8 3. 48 r . a nt ho po go n 26 45 00 3 15 0 38 8. 57 26 1. 5 34 8 6. 9 86 7 6. 9 0. 59 1. 12 18 .9 3 4. 85 r . a nt ho po go n 25 45 00 3 17 5 42 3. 76 27 3 35 5 6. 6 89 4 6. 6 0. 59 1. 12 18 .1 2 3. 81 r . a nt ho po go n 40 49 00 5 14 1. 2 34 2. 7 24 9. 5 31 5. 6 9. 5 57 0 17 .9 0. 31 2. 9 14 .5 2 2. 11 r . a nt ho po go n 38 49 00 3 18 2. 1 32 0. 1 25 8. 5 32 0. 4 9. 4 63 9 19 .2 0. 31 2. 9 10 .4 4 0. 12 r . a nt ho po go n 32 49 00 2 14 1. 2 34 8. 35 23 9 33 5. 5 9. 6 61 6 17 .7 0. 31 2. 9 6. 75 0. 06 r . l ep id ot um 50 32 00 3 14 9. 9 42 5. 1 34 5 36 0 6. 5 68 4 19 .4 0. 24 1. 1 0 0 r . l ep id ot um 31 32 00 2 14 9. 7 46 5. 65 33 0 34 5 6. 9 63 0 17 .7 0. 24 1. 1 0 0 r . l ep id ot um 48 36 00 3 15 1. 5 43 5. 91 25 6. 5 33 5 6. 7 53 6 7 0. 38 1. 5 0 0 r . l ep id ot um 42 36 00 3 14 7. 3 44 8. 9 26 6. 5 33 9. 5 7 42 7 6. 1 0. 38 1. 5 0 0 r . l ep id ot um 38 36 00 2 14 5. 6 42 9. 2 24 8 32 8. 5 6. 8 87 4. 5 6. 9 0. 38 1. 5 0 0 r . l ep id ot um 28 38 00 4 12 3. 4 42 8. 78 24 0 32 5 7 82 7 9. 2 0. 35 1. 1 0 0 r . l ep id ot um 25 38 00 3 15 7. 7 40 0. 09 24 5. 5 29 4 6. 8 12 40 .5 9. 2 0. 35 1. 1 0 0 r . l ep id ot um 20 38 00 2 17 3. 5 44 5. 13 25 9 29 2 6. 9 95 7 6. 8 0. 35 1. 1 0 0 r . l ep id ot um 13 43 00 3 15 4. 3 42 5. 01 21 7. 5 24 9 7 85 3. 5 7. 3 0. 29 1. 2 0 0 r . l ep id ot um 13 47 00 4 10 9. 6 40 8. 68 20 8. 5 30 7. 5 7 93 4. 5 8. 2 0. 56 2. 3 0 0 r . l ep id ot um 12 47 00 2 10 9. 2 40 7. 21 21 7 27 5 7 88 8 8. 4 0. 56 2. 3 0 0 banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 32-44 pathak et al 44 plate 1 (a–d) :rhododendron lepidotum; a: ts of stem showing pith and vessels (15×10), b) ts showing pith (15×40), c) tls showing uniseriate rays (15×40), and d) tls showing both uniseriate and multiseriate rays (15×40) plate 2 (a–d) rhododendron anthopogon; a) ts of stem showing pith (15×10), b) ts showing pith with crystals (15×40), c) tls showing uniseriate rays (15×40), and d) rls of r. anthopogon(15×40) plate 3 (a–d): rhododendron anthopogon; a) vessels and fibers (15×40), c,d) rhododendron lepidotum – vessels and fibers (15×40) annex 2: plates of different species of rhododendron scientific forest management is an emerging need for managing existing natural forests of nepal on the basis of silvicultural intervention. the study was carried out in lumbini collaborative forest at rupandehi district of nepal, where sal (shorea robusta) forests are being managed under irregular shelterwood system with eighty years of cutting cycle since 2011–2012. the study was purposed to find out the intial effects of silvicultural intervention on plant species diversity and regeneration of sal forest. the vegetative sampling was done using quadrate method based on the principle of simple random sampling both in the managed as well as the unmanaged parts of forest. the study found out remarkable increase in regeneration as well as decrease in plant diversity in the managed first and second-year stands (block i and block ii respectively) as compared to the unmanaged stand (block iii) at its initial level of implementation. the mean value of diversity, richness, evenness, dominance index and regeneration of s. robusta varied significantly (p≤0.05) between the managed blocks (stands). the seedling density of s. robusta was found higher in the managed blocks (block i and block ii) as compared to the unmanaged one (block iii) in terms of height class. the study recommends implementation of irregular shelterwood system for managing the existing degraded sal forests of the terai region of nepal, however, its long term effects on plant species diversity should be further studied in detail. key words: silvicultural intervention, regeneration, plant diversity, irregular shelterwood system does scientific forest management promote plant species diversity and regeneration in sal (shorea robusta) forest? a case study from lumbini collaborative forest, rupandehi, nepal n. awasthi1*, s.k. bhandari1 and y. khanal2 the regeneration status of a forest indicates its health and vitality while healthy forest ensures good future regeneration. the regenerating and productive character of forest is determined by presence of different age-group of seedling, sapling and tree (chauhan et al., 2008). moreover, regeneration of sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f., family dipterocarpaceae) is a complex and baffling problem (bisht, 1989). regeneration is measured to determine whether it meets the objective of sustainable forest management, and in particular, whether the productive capacity and biological diversity of forest are maintained (lutze et al., 2004). scientific forest management aims to regulate the sustained yield by improving the degrading nature of a forest on the one hand and ensures its regeneration through replacement of old stocks by new ones in future. scientific forest management follows appropriate silvicultural system while tree felling and regeneration activities are integral part of it. to be silviculturally sustainable, forest management must ensure good regeneration, maintain proper age class (age-gradation), normal increment and normal growing stock (subedi, 2011). various efforts have been made on developing suitable silvicultural systems while mostly in building judicious canopy opening for regeneration of sal (troup, 1986). information on the implication of different types of silvicultural system or forest management on regeneration and tree diversity could be significant to predict future trends in species composition and stand structure in order to optimize the possible forest management strategies. in nepal, such information is very scanty. however, the 1 institute of forestry (iof), tribhuvan university (tu), pokhara, nepal * email: nripeshawasthi@gmail.com 2 district forest office, rupandehi, nepal 20 banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 21 regeneration status of sal forest in nepal has been assessed in the terai region. in this regard, this study is expected to generate necessary data for active forest management at micro level. the study was focused on rigorous comparison of scientific management of sal forest in the terai region of nepal through silvicultural intervention on the vegetation attributes with its traditional management, where scientific forest management has been a wide demand for a long time. this may help to understand the differences or similarities in stand structure, diversity and species composition, which will justify the need of preparing scientific forest management plans in future. materials and methods study site the study was conducted in the lumbini collaborative forest which is located in saljhandi and rudrapur village development committees (vdcs) of rupandehi district of western nepal (figure 1). the study area occupies an area of 1321 ha, and is located between 27o40’32’’ n to 27o45’13’’ n latitudes and 83o12’55’’ e to 83o14’24’’ e longitudes. the elevation of the study area ranges from 100 m to 1,229 m above mean sea level. people living in the 16 vdcs, from saljhandi in the north to aama in the south, are the users of this collaborative forest (lcfmg, 2014). the forest has been managed under irregular shelterwood system which is a compromise between shelterwood group system and group selection system (parkash and khanna, 1979). simply, the trees of exploitable diameter are removed leaving behind the mother trees for seeds; the mother trees will be removed after regeneration is established. regeneration felling is in the pattern of group system, but as the regeneration period is long, the crop produced is uneven-aged or irregular. weeding, cleaning, thinning, pruning, girdling, climber or bush cutting and artificial planting are carried out as per the need. the whole forest has been divided into eight periodic blocks for the purpose of the management of sal forest under 10-year regeneration period and 80-year rotation period. area control method of yield regulation has been adopted; so, each periodic block has been subdivided into 10 annual sub-blocks (asb) where regeneration felling activities will be carried out each year (lcfmg, 2014). the study was conducted in the periodic block (pb) i where regeneration felling operation was carried out in its two annual sub-blocks asb1 and asb3 in 2012/13 and 2013/14, respectively while eight sub-blocks would be successively managed in the coming years as per the management plan. for the study purpose, the two annual sub-blocks were studied as managed blocks viz. block i (asb 1, first-year stand) awasthi et al. fig. 1: map of the study area banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 22 awasthi et al. and block ii (asb 3, second-year stand) while the other sub-blocks within the periodic block i were studied as unmanaged block (controlled/ no regeneration felling) i.e. block iii to analyze the effect of silviculture intervention in the forest. the areas of block i and block ii were 9 ha each whereas the area of block iii (with 8 annual sub-blocks) was 72 ha (lcfmg, 2014). block i was managed under regeneration felling with post-harvesting operation while block ii under regeneration felling only with no post harvesting operation till our field study in 2014. the whole area of pb i was fenced to minimize the effect of grazing and human disturbance. similarly, pb i was divided into two 45 ha parts with 3 m wide inspection path from the centre, and the whole pb was surrounded by 5 m-wide fireline for fire protection (lcfmg, 2014). sampling method the data were collected in the year 2014-15. individual plants were categorized into seedling (ht < 1.3 m), saplings (dbh < 10 cm and ht > 1.3 m) and trees (dbh > 10 cm). vegetation sampling was based on quadrate method (mishra, 1968). the quadrants of 10 m × 10 m were laid out in the study area for trees based on the principle of simple random sampling with the help of arcgis 10, and each quadrate was divided into four equal sub-quadrates, each 5 m × 5 m in size, from the centre and two opposite sub-quadrates were used for studying saplings and seedlings, as determined by the species area curve method (mishra, 1968). the heights and dbh of all the trees and saplings were measured using abney’s level and diameter tape (for trees) or vernier caliper (for saplings) in each sampling unit. similarly, the heights of seedlings were measured. altogether, 40 quadrates for trees and 80 sub-quadrates for regeneration in the unmanaged block while 9 quadrates for trees and 18 sub-quadrates for regeneration in each managed block were studied with 0.55% and 1.00% sampling intensities respectively. data analysis the plant community composition both in the managed and unmanaged blocks were studied, and density, basal areas, frequency were calculated for each species to determine the importance value index (ivi), adopted by mueller–dombois and ellenberg (1974). plant diversity was studied using shannon wiener’s index, simpson’s dominance index, margalef’s species richness index, equitability or evenness index and jacard’s similarity index which excludes herbs or climber layers. both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. the mean values of all the indices mentioned and the plant densities among the three blocks were studied using one way anova and lsd test. importance value index, ivi = relative frequency + relative basal area + relative density shannon wiener’s index, h’ simpson’s index of dominance, c = margalef’s species richness index, d = equitability or evenness index, e = jacard’s similarity index, ji = , where, s = number of species, n = total number of individuals of species and pi = proportion of all individuals that are of species ‘i’ the ratio of abundance to frequency distribution was considered regular, if < 0.025, random, if it is within 0.025 – 0.05 and contiguous, if > 0.05 (whitford, 1949). results and discussion plant species composition and distribution pattern the total number of plants recorded in block i and block ii (both managed) were 14 and 23 respectively while it was 29 in block iii (unmanaged). based on the calculation, s. robusta was found to be the dominant species with highest ivi of 180.09, 124.08 and 133.73 in block i, block ii and block iii respectively (figure 2). similarly, terminalia tomentosa was found to be the co-dominant species in the managed area (block i and block ii) (figure 2 and figure 3) while mallotus philippensis was found to be co-dominant species in the unmanaged area (block iii) (figure 4). the terai forest inventory carried out by the dfrs (2014) found s. robusta as prominent species followed by t. tomentosa. similar results were noticed in the case of managed blocks (block i and block ii) in this study too. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 23 fig. 2: dominance diversity curve in the managed block i fig. 3: dominance diversity curve in the managed block ii fig. 4: dominance diversity curve in the unmanaged block iii note: grey and dark black dots represent contagious and randomly distributed species respectively. all plant species recorded in the managed block i were found to be contagiously distributed while few species in the managed block ii and unmanaged block iii were found to be randomly distributed. the ratio of abundance to frequency of tree species greater than 0.05 showed clumped (contagious) pattern of species distribution which reveals that most seedlings were adapted to grow closer to the mother plants, observed in all the species within the managed block i. similar results were depicted by ndah et al. (2013) in the disturbed rainforest of cameroon. odum (1971) has emphasized contagious distribution pattern as the most common patterns in nature. plant species diversity species diversity refers to the frequency and variety of species within a geographical area (hmgn/mfsc, 2002). it refers to the species richness and evenness within an area which describes the structure of plant community. plant species are directly affected by the harvesting or management practices operated in a stand. the study showed low mean shannon weiner’s diversity index in the managed block as compared to the unmanaged block of forest, affecting both species richness and evenness indices. species diversity and concentration of dominance are generally inversed in relation. thus, concentration of dominance of managed blocks (block i and block ii) was found to be higher as compared to the unmanaged block (block iii) due to lower diversity within the species, and revealed s. robusta to be the dominated species in the managed stands. the mean value of shannon weiner’s index, simpson’s concentration of dominance and margalef’s species richness index varied significantly between block i and block ii as well as between block i and block iii. similarly, the mean value of evenness index was found to be significantly different between block i and block iii at 0.05 level of significance. this shows low diverse in tree species in managed stands as compared to unmanaged or natural stands as a result of initial effect of intervention. sapkota et al. (2010) found decline in the tree diversity while dominance of s. robusta increases linearly along the disturbance gradient in nepalese sal forest, similar to our study (table 1). smith et al. (2005) compared changes in diversity under different management regime over 35 years in the sub-tropical rainforest of australia, and found that species richness in natural condition varied slightly over this period, and also found that the richness per plot in the logged area generally declined after intervention and then gradually increased to greater extent as compared to the original diversity. diversity measures of understory were significantly higher in the logged forest than in the unlogged forest after it was performed for 10 years in beech forests of shafarood in guilan (pourbabaei and ranjaver 2008). similarly, awasthi et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 24 awasthi et al. mohammadi et al. (2008) observed low value of shannon weiner’s index (tree species diversity) in the natural stand as compared to the managed stand with shelterwood system in loveh forest of iran. since block i was managed with regeneration felling followed by post-harvest performed in the first and second successive years as compared to block ii where management was carried out with only regeneration felling during our study period, the mean shannon wiener’s index was found to be higher (1.44± 0.06) in block ii than in block i (1.05 ± 0.05), quite similar to the unmanaged area (block iii with the mean shannon wiener’s index: 1.49 ± 0.04) of the forest (table 1). in addition, halpern and spies (1995) found other management activities (fertilization, herbicide application, grazing) could affect upon the species composition of vegetation in addition to the initial effect of logging and site preparation. forest structure and diversity varied with different silvicultural treatments applied on it. battles et al. (2001) found total species richness higher in plantation and shelterwood regime than in single tree and reserves stands while diversity varied from year to year under group selection system. as disturbances played leading role in species diversity, robert and gillium (1995) argued with intermediate-disturbance hypothesis as most applicable for forest management which prevents few species from dominating resources. species richness relies on two separate aspects of silviculture: i) canopy cover and ii) seed bed characteristics. canopy cover is a function based on timing and amount of wood harvested while seed bed characteristics is related with post harvesting site preparation at the same time. block i is a stand managed under both aspects of silviculture while block ii is a stand managed with no seed-bed treatment (only harvesting). in the case of temperate forest, management effect reports either no reduction, short-lived reduction or increase in species diversity following silvicultural practices (battles et al., 2001). jacard similarity index was used to find similarity and diversity of species among the region (pourbabaei, 2004). high similarity was noticed in the species between block ii (managed) and block iii (unmanaged) in the study area (table 2). on the other hand, high dissimilarity was detected between block i (managed block) and block iii (unmanaged) which may occur as a result of postharvesting of unwanted species in course of weeding and cleaning. table 2: jacard’s similarity index (in percentage) study area jacard’s index (%) managed block i with managed block ii 47.82 managed block i with unmanaged block iii 43.33 managed block ii with unmanaged block iii 73.33 regeneration status the study found higher seedling and sapling densities in the managed areas (block i and block ii) which could be the result of regeneration felling as compared to that in the controlled i.e. unmanaged area (block iii) with no regeneration felling. block i (managed) was found to have 21,022 seedlings/ha followed by block ii (managed) with 16,555 seedlings/ha while block iii (unmanaged) had the lowest 13,035 seedlings/ ha (figure 5). suoheimo (1999) observed 50,000 – 100,000 seedlings/ha after regeneration felling of sal forests under uniform shelterwood system. both shoot and root development of s. robusta was also observed better in open space rather than under shade (troup, 1986). however, tree density was found to be higher in the controlled area (block iii) with 552 trees/ha as compared to the managed ones (block i with 66 trees/ha and block ii with 133 trees/ha). table 1: mean and standard errors of plant species diversity, and evenness and richness indices block no. of plot h' c e s block i (managed) 9 1.05 ± 0.05 0.52 ± 0.02 0.59 ± 0.02 1.14 ± 0.13 block ii (managed) 9 1.44 ± 0.06 0.39 ± 0.07 0.64 ± 0.02 1.88 ± 0.11 block iii (unmanaged) 40 1.49 ± 0.04 0.35 ± 0.09 0.67 ± 0.01 1.97 ± 0.07 note: h’ : shannon wiener’s index; c : simpson’s dominance index/concentration of dominance; e : evenness index and s : species richness index. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 25 awasthi et al. fig. 5: seedling, sapling and tree density in the forest comparison of regeneration of s. robusta with other species the seedling density of s. robusta was found to be higher in the managed area (block i with 13,977/ ha and block ii with 9,311/ha) and low (6,445/ ha) in the unmanaged area (block iii) (fig. 6). similarly, its sapling density was also found to be higher in the managed area (block i with 3022/ha and block ii with 1,644/ha) and low (1,055/ha) in the unmanaged area (block iii). compared to other species, the seedling density of s. robusta was found to be higher in the managed area (block i and block ii) while it was almost similar to that of other species in the unmanaged area (block iii). the mean seedling and sapling densities of s. robusta per hectare varied significantly between management blocks at 0.05 level of significance, revealing significance of scientific forest management in promoting its regeneration. while the mean seedling density of other species remained insignificant between the managed blocks in response to intervention, their mean sapling density was found to be slightly higher in the controlled i.e. unmanaged area (block iii) in the study area as shown in figure 6. in nepal, sustainable regeneration of s. robusta has been reported from both the terai (rautiainen, 1996) and the hills (rai et al., 1999) which was not observed among natural dense forest with a high density of larger trees. regeneration of most of the species is favored by disturbance of moderate intensity, which may be subjected to poor in low and heavily disturbed forest (sapkota et al., 2009). s. robusta has been facing a serious threat to its existence in the tropical and subtropical belts of india due to infestation by sal borer (hoplocerambyx spinicornis) and also to moisture stress caused by the combined effects of intensive grazing, repeated fire, lopping and indiscriminate harvesting (negi et al., 2002). the area of periodic block i have been fenced supported by constructing fireline in order to minimize effects of intensive grazing, repeated fire and indiscriminate harvesting of trees. sal is light demanding species and complete overhead light is needed in most cases from earliest stage of development (champion and seth, 1968). opening of canopy in the forest stand promotes regeneration and the growth of understorey seedlings and saplings (troup, 1986). hence, the regeneration of s. robusta in the study site was found higher in the managed area (block i & ii) of forest. fig. 6: regeneration status of s. robusta in contrast to other species per hectare seedling density of shorea robusta with different height classes the density distribution of s. robusta seedlings in block i, block ii and block iii were constructed based on height measurement. height was classified into interval of 15 cm. the mean heights of s. robusta seedlings in block i, block ii and block iii were approximately 73 cm, 71 cm and 65 cm respectively. the highest seedling density was noticed in the height class of 85–99cm in block i (managed) (figure 7). besides, the highest seedling densities were also noticed in the height class of 70–84 cm in block ii (managed) and in the height class of 40–54 cm in the unmanaged area (block iii). at each height class, the seedlings density was found to be higher in block i (managed) followed by block ii (managed) and block iii (unmanaged), indicating effects of intervention on growth performance of the seedlings. khan et al. (1986) found survival and better growth of s. robusta seedlings in the forest periphery compared to those under dense canopy, which illustrates the better growth and regeneration in presence of banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 26 awasthi et al. canopy opening or threshold light intensity for the process of photosynthesis in seedlings. the figures indicated decreased in density of the existing seedlings of s. robusta beyond 40–54 cm height class successively, which in turn signifies the problem in growth of s. robusta seedlings in the unmanaged area. 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 10-2 4 25-3 9 40-5 4 55-6 9 70-8 4 85-9 9 100-1 14 115-1 29 heig ht c la sses (c m) d e n s it y ( n u m b e r/ h a ) b loc k 1 b loc k 2 b loc k 3 fig. 7: density of seedlings of s. robusta with different height classes survivorship and mortality curve of s. robusta in the unmanaged area the survivorship and mortality curve of s. robusta was prepared on the basis of static life table in accordance with the method described by qiaoying et al. (2008). static life table has been suggested as one of the silvicultural tools in listing distribution of all individuals in a population by age-class or other form of development. in this case, size classes were used as the surrogates of the age-classes. the curve showed mortality of s. robusta seedlings as 83.6% (figure 8) which became peak during their population development in their life period. only 16.4% of the seedlings were found to have developed into sapling stage which is indicated by highest density of seedlings rather than saplings. this reveals the need of management for the promotion of regeneration in the study area. since s. robusta requires overhead light for their growth, the canopy should be opened for their survival. trees of dbh class 30–40 cm exhibited highest life expectancy population structure of s. robusta from seedlings to matured stage, which indicated that the regeneration of s. robusta had been hampered due to various biotic and abiotic factors although the trees were found to have produced abundant number of viable seeds. the mortality of abies georgei on the north facing slope of sw china was 88% (qiaoying et al., 2008), higher than the one found in this study. a wide range of biotic and abiotic factors are responsible for large scale death of seedlings and saplings of s. robusta leading to its poor regeneration. since, the area under pb i was fenced i.e. protected against biotic factors, it can be assured that abiotic factor was dominant in growth of seedlings in the unmanaged area of the forest, and so, further detailed study is needed to come into conclusion. fig. 8: survivorship and mortality curve of s. robusta i) change in proportion (×1000) of individual surviving (lx) with different dbh classes of s. robusta ii) mortality (qx) curve with different dbh classes of s. robusta. conclusion foresters have been facing challenges in developing effective management strategies in conserving regional biodiversity, sustaining the forest resources and meeting the ever increasing demand for wood and wood products, especially in the developing countries. they need to design suitable management options for protection as well as production of their forest resources. for this, maintaining regeneration of many valuable tree species has become a difficult task now. in this regard, an irregular shelterwood system, a strategy adopted in the terai region of nepal, could be an alternative for promoting regeneration of s. robusta, a valuable tree species in the world. besides the density of seedlings and saplings, the growth performance of the seedlings of s. robusta and its dominance has been found to be remarkable in the managed areas than in the natural stands. the distribution pattern of this species in the managed areas was found to be moreover contagious, exhibiting the clumped pattern of their growing. according to smith et al. (2005), the regeneration felling followed by post harvesting decreases species diversity in the managed stands as management banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 27 awasthi et al. is based on irregular shelterwood system at its initial stage, which will increase in the long run than in the natural stands. various studies recommend removal of moderate number of trees for maintaining tree diversity and regeneration in long run (smith et al., 2005; sapkota et al., 2009). hence, this study recommends implementation of irregular shelterwood system for managing existing degraded sal forest, while its long-term effects on plant species diversity should be further studied. references battles, j. j., shlisky, a. j., barrett, r. h., heald, r. c. and allen-diaz, b. h. 2001. the effect of forest management on plant species diversity in a sierran conifer forest. forest ecology and management 146: 211–222. bisht, a. p. s. 1989. microsite mosaic and under canopy vegetation dynamics of sal communities in east and west dehradun forest division. ph.d. thesis. garhwal university, srinagar, garhwal, india. champion, h. g. and seth, s. k. 1968. a revised survey of forests types of india. publication division, government of india, new delhi, india. chauhan, p. s., negi, j. d. s., singh, l. and monhas, r .k. 2008. regeneration status of sal forests of doon valley. annals of forestry 16 (2): 1781–82. dfrs. 2014. terai forests of nepal. forest resource assessment nepal project/ department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. halpern, c. b. and spies, t. a. 1995. plant species diversity in natural and managed forests of the pacific northwest. ecological application 5 (4): 913–934. khan, m. l., rai, j. p. n. and tripathi, r. s. 1986. regeneration and survival of tree seedlings and sprouts in tropical deciduous and subtropical forests of meghalaya, india. forest ecology and management 14: 293–304. lcfmg. 2014. scientific forest management plan of lumbini collaborative forest. lumbini collaborative forest management group, bhaisahi, rupandehi, nepal. lutze, m., ades, p. and campbell, r. 2004. review of measures of site occupancy by regeneration. australian forestry 67: 164– 171. mishra, r. 1968. ecology workbook. oxford and ibh publishing company, calcutta, india. mohammadi, j., shataee, s., habashi, h. and amiri, m. 2008. effects of shelterwood logging on diversity of tree species in loveh forest, gorgan. iranian journal of forest and poplar research 16 (2): 241–250. mueller–dombois, d. and ellenberg, h. 1974. aims and methods of vegetation ecology. wiley, new york, usa. hmgn/mfsc. 2002. national biodiversity strategy of nepal. ministry of forests and soil conservation, his majesty government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. ndah, n. r., andrew, e. e. and bechem, e. 2013. species composition, diversity and distribution in disturbed takamanda rainforest, south west, cameroon. african journal of plant science 7 (12): 577–585. negi, j. d. s., shah, d., kukreti, p., negi, m., basera, h. s., kambaj, s. k. and chauhan, p. s. 2002. an ecological assessment of shorea robusta mortality in uttaranchal. annals of forestry 10 (2): 193–203. odum, e. p. 1971. fundamental of ecology. w. b. saunders co., philadelphia, usa. parkash, r. and khanna, s. l. 1979. theory and practice of silvicultural system. periodical expert book agency, new delhi, india. pourbabaei, h. 2004. statistical ecology: a primer on methods and computing (by ludwig, j. l. and reynold, j. f.), guilan university press, iran (translated in persian). pourbabaei, h. and ranjaver, a. 2008. effect of shelterwood silvicultural method on plant species diversity in beech (fagus orientalis lipsky) forests in shafaroud, guilan province. iranian journal of forest and poplar research 16: 61–73. qiaoying, z., peng, l., yunchun, z., fusun, s., shaoliang y. and ning, w. 2008. ecological characteristics of abies georgei population at banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 28 timberline on the north facing slope of baima snow mountain, southwest china. acta ecological sinica 28: 129–135. rai, s. n., dutta, i. c., haque, s., khanal, b, b., chaurasia, j. p. and indu. i. p. 1999. ecology and growth of shorea robusta in central nepal. in sustainable forest management (eds) mathema, p., dutta, i. c., bala m. k. and adhikari, s. n. proceeding of international seminar, aug 31-sept.2, 1998. pokhara (nepal), institute of forestry, tribhuvan university. 117–125. rautiainen, o. 1996. regenerastion status of sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) in bara district, nepal. banko janakari 6 (1): 26–32. robert, m. r. and gilliam, f. s. 1995. disturbance effects on herbaceous layer of vegetation and soil nutrients in populus forests of northern lower michigan. journal of vegetation science 6: 903–912. sapkota, i. p., tigabu, m. and oden, p. c. 2009. spatial distribution, advanced regeneration and stand structure of nepalese sal (shorea robusta) forest subject to disturbance of different intensities. forest management and ecology 257: 1966–1975. sapkota, i. p., tigabu, m. and oden, p. c. 2010. changes in tree diversity and dominance across a disturbance gradient in nepalese sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) forest. journal of forestry research 21 (1): 25–32. smith, r. g. b., nichols, j. d. and vanclay, j. k. 2005. dyanamics of tree diversity in undisturbed and logged subtropical rainforest in australia. biodiversity and conservation 14 (10): 2447–2463. subedi, v. r. 2011. forest management opportunities and challenges in nepal. the nepal journal of forestry 14: 95–110. suoheimo, j. 1999. natural regeneration of sal (shorea robusta) in the terai region, nepal. university of helsinki, helsinki, finland. troup, r. s. 1986. the silviculture of indian trees. international book distributors, dehradun, india. whitford, p. b. 1949. distribution of woodland plants in relation to succession and clonal growth. ecology 30: 199–208. awasthi et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 29 annex i list of plant species in the study area s.n. scientific name family managed block i managed block ii unmanaged block iii 1. shorea robusta dipterocarpaceae + + + 2. terminalia tomentosa combretaceae + + + 3. litsea monopetala lauraceae + + + 4. adina cordifolia rubiaceae + + + 5. glochidiom velutinum euphorbiaceae + + + 6. mallotus philippensis euphorbiaceae + + + 7. aegle marmelos rutaceae + + 8. rhus javanica anacardiaceae + + + 9. lagerstroemia parviflora lythraceae + + + 10. mitragyna parviflora rubiaceae + + 11. anogeissus latifolia combretaceae + + 12. grewia subinaequalis malvaceae + + 13. schleichera oleasa sapindaceae + + + 14. lannea coromandelica anacardiaceae + + 15. terminalia bellirica combretaceae + + 16. cassia fistula fabaceae + + 17. diospyros tomentosa ebenaceae + + 18. dillenia pentagyna dilleniaceae + + + 19. syzygium cumini myrtaceae + + 20. cleistocalyx operculatus myrtaceae + + 21. pterocarpus marsupium fabaceae + + 22. stereospermum chelonoides bignoniaceae + 23. buchanania latifolia anacardiaceae + + 24. semecarpus anacardium anacardiaceae + 25. madhuca latifolia sapotaceae + 26. bombax ceiba bombacaceae + 27. miliusa tomentosa annonaceae + + + 28. hymenodictyon flaccidum rubiaceae + 29. anthocephalus chinensis rubiaceae + 30. butea monosperma leguminosae + 31. bauhinia purpurea leguminosae + + awasthi et al. tropical forest continues to decline in nepal’s lowlands, with a serious negative consequence for biodiversity conservation. even a strict natural reserve is subjected to have some degree of human disturbances. the newly established banke national park of nepal provides an excellent context to evaluate effects of human disturbances on the forest regeneration status. this article assesses the regeneration status of the park. a total of 1,067 plots were laid out within the park area. in each plot, three concentric rings of radii of 10 m, 5 m, and 1 m were established. data of seedling/ sapling and human disturbance variables were collected from each of the concentric plots. principal component analysis (pca) of all disturbance variables was carried out to generate a disturbance index. the findings of this study alienates with intermediate disturbance hypothesis. cut wood, lopped tree, human/livestock trails, people number are the significant variables for the impact of sapling and seedling density in the park. the induced human disturbances up to the limit avails the highest regeneration status in the park. these human disturbances might have induced the spatial heterogeneity and internal dynamics which help in the regeneration. the main challenge for the forest managers and scientists is to identify the indicators of environmental damage of forest and their threshold levels at which human disturbances will result in an irreversible decline of the vegetation and its regeneration. key words: regeneration, human disturbances, impacts, banke national park response of natural forest regeneration to human disturbance in banke national park r. napit1 and p. k. paudel2 deforestation and forest degradation are the human impediments to the forest’s biological ability to reproduce itself. forest resources are altered either by natural or by human induced factors. however, human induced activities are more aggressive and have influenced forest depletion in variety of ways. disturbance also influences processes that can either augment or erode the ecological functions of a forest community (sagar and singh, 2005). both natural and human disturbances influence forest dynamics and tree diversity at local and regional scales. frequently, human individual disturbance factors e.g., selective logging have been highlighted in attempts to explain the structural attributes of forests (vetaas, 2000; sapkota et al., 2009). despite multiple factors simultaneously altering ecosystem functioning, frequent and fluctuating disturbance factors e.g., grazing, browsing, firing, fuel wood and fodder collection have often been overlooked in explanations of post disturbance changes in forest ecosystems. in nepal, deforestation is a critical problem that cannot be solved so easily without appropriate policy and enforcement of strict rules. in the terai and siwalik regions, deforestation is quite common due to government resettlement programs and illicit clearing of forest for agriculture. in general, the main causes of deforestation in nepal are conversion of forest areas for resettlements and cultivation, need for timber and fuel wood, forage for livestock as well as local unemployment and lack of management from the government. besides, forest fire, shifting cultivation, natural process, forest rewards, attitude of individuals, donors role and government policy are other reasons for deforestation in the nation (joshi et al., 2000). share of forest land in the terai was decreased by about 12% from 1986 to 2000 (from 0.2 ha in 1986 to 0.12 ha in 2000), (panta, 2009). despite 1 department of environmental science, khwopa college, tu, bhaktapur, nepal, e-mail: renu.napit1@gmail.com 2 reseach scientist, conservation nepal 39 banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 40 the initiation of community forest management system, human disturbance continues in various forms including setting fire (kuwar et al., 2004). about 90% of the terai forests were affected due to fire (sharma, 1996). moreover, the governmentmanaged forests of dang, banke, kailali and kapilbastu districts were found to be severely affected by fire (unece, 2008). however, some studies have showed that the disturbance maintains the species diversity (loucks, 1970; huston, 1979; petraitis et al., 1989). connell (1978) and grime (1979) had hypothesized that diversity, richness of communities is found highest at intermediate levels of disturbances because species that thrive at both early and late successional stages can coexist. connell (1978) proposed that relatively low disturbance leads to decreased diversity and high disturbance causes an increase in species movement. similarly, another study had showed that the anthropogenic and natural disturbances interacted to affect upon the pattern of plant species diversity and composition. the species diversity was sustained by the dynamic attributes of the patches which were generated and modified by disturbances originating from human activities and natural processes (bhuju and ohsawa, 2000). according to levenson (1981), the richness of woody species in isolated woodlots is largely a function of disturbance, whether natural or human induced. he found that the heavy human usage of the urban islands maintains a continual state of disturbance resulting in an increased edge effect (levenson, 1981). prior to the establishment of the banke national park (bnk), the area was under the jurisdiction of the banke district forest office, and it went through a series of disturbances such as illegal logging, cattle grazing, cutting and lopping of fodder species which otherwise could have reached the succession stage as in many other protected areas (pas) of nepal. thus, the present study was conducted to: i) assess the regeneration pattern of the bnp, and ii) inspect the impact of human disturbances on natural regeneration of the forests in the bnp, and suggest for the implication of conservation. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in the bnk of western nepal which was established on 12th july, 2010 as the tenth park of the nation. it is located between 81°39’29” to 82°12’19” east longitudes and 27°58’13” to 28°21’26” north latitudes (figure 1). the total area of the bnk is 550 sq km with the buffer zone of 343 sq km, and with its headquarters at obary (mahadevpuri vdc) and sector offices at kusum vdc of banke district and chepang vdc of dang district. the park is linked with trans-boundary landscape that joins suhelwa wildlife sanctuary of india through national and community forests towards south. it is connected with bardia national park of nepal towards west which further links with katerniaghat wildlife sanctuary of india via. khata corridor. most of the park area (77%) lies in banke district and some part (23%) lies in bardia, dang, and salyan districts of the nation. fig. 1: location of banke national park in the map of nepal the topography of the bnk is very diversewith flood plains, river valleys, gorges and the churia hills in between rapti river in the south and babai river in the north. its highest elevation is 1,247 m at kuine ridge/phurksalli and the lowest elevation is 153 m near dhakeri. this park has a sub-tropical monsoonal climate with summer monsoon from mid-june to early october followed by a relatively long, cold and dry winter. the temperature variation is high ranging from 10o c to 45o c in may/june with an average temperature of 23o c. the hot humid days gives way to monsoon rains that lasts until september. this park has two bioclimatic zonestropical and sub-tropical with an array of eight ecosystem types (sal forest, deciduous riverine forest, mixed hardwood forest, flood-plains of terai, bhabar, foot-hills of churia range, savannahs and grasslands. the park encompasses 90% natural napit and paudel banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 41 forest coverage composed of mainly sal, karma, khair and sissoo (mfsc, dnpwc and wwf, 1998). altogether, 124 species of plants (88 trees and climbers and 36 shrub species), 34 mammals, more than 300 birds, 24 reptiles, 7 amphibians and 58 fish species are found in the park. the core area of the park is enclosed all around by buffer zone lying in the 14 vdcs of banke, dang, salyan and surkhet districts. there are about 4,861 households with 35,712 populations residing in the buffer zone. about 90% of the economy of the people depends on agriculture while the rest 10% on trade and labor. the major issues found in this area are deforestation, encroachment, remoteness and poverty. sampling design the park area was divided into 17 grids (8 km × 8 km) (figure 2), and each grid was further divided into 16 sub-grids (2 km × 2 km) (figure 3); each grid having 8 sub-grids. in each alternate subgrid at equal spacing of 200 m (figure 4), three concentric circular plots with 10 m, 5 m, and 1 m radii were laid out (figure 5). altogether, 1,067 sample plots were laid out in the 107 sub-grids excluding the settlement areas. the locations of the sample plots were detected with the help of gps. all the trees falling within the 10 m-radius plots were recorded. similarly, all the saplings and seedlings in the plots with 5 m-radius and 1 m-radius respectively were recorded. a set of disturbance variables (table 3), were recorded in every 10 m-radius circular plots. these variables encompass all the visible signs of disturbance seen around the study site. data regarding topography, terrain type, vegetation quantitative data and disturbances were recorded. regeneration of tree species was calculated by counting the seedlings (height < 20 cm) and saplings (height < 20 cm but dbh < 10 cm) as adopted by sundriyal and sharma (1996). fig. 3: grid design for vegetation sampling fig. 4: plot location in a sub-grid fig. 5: layout of the sample plots analysis of regeneration status of the forest first of all, the densities (number of individuals per hectare) of all the individual trees, saplings and seedlings of tree species were determined. then, the diameters (dbh) of all the tree species napit and paudel fig. 2: division of the entire park into 17 grids and 16 sub-grids banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 42 napit and paudel were categorized into diameter classes of 10 cm interval, and then these dbh classes and their densities were used to develop size-class distribution diagram. on the other hand, the relative densities of each tree, sapling and seedling of each tree species were also determined to estimate the population structure of ten dominant tree species of the park. analysis of human disturbance and its impact on forest regeneration data on human disturbance were collected from each of the 107 sub-grids. the correlations among 18 disturbance variables were tested using the kendall test. bonferroni correction was used to maintain the family-wise error rate. it allows to correct significance level of correlation by testing each individual at a significance level of α/n, α being significance level and n number of sample plots (dunnett, 1955). as none of the disturbance variables was highly correlated (r < 0.7), all the variables were retained in principal component analysis (pca) to derive a habitat disturbance index (table 2). the eigen value analysis suggested that a single principle component be retained as a measure of disturbance. to examine relationships between the disturbance variables and natural forest regeneration, a multiple linear regression with forward selection procedure of disturbance variable in the model was used to see the most important variables for seedling and sampling densities. as the objective of this study was to find out whether there is a curvilinear relationship between disturbance index and regeneration status (i.e. seedling and sampling density), a nonlinear regression with a second order polynomial of the form (y = pr1+pr2*x1+pr3*x1^2) was used. for it, observations either with zero disturbance (no disturbance) index or zero regeneration status (no seedling and sampling density) were removed. results and discussion forest regeneration status the size-class distribution of the stems of the park showed a right skewed and reverse j-shaped distribution with continuous declining frequency in succeeding higher size-class except for size class 20–30 cm (figure 6). fig. 6: tree diameter distribution sapling/seedling density altogether, 58 species of sapling and 40 species of seedling of tree species were recorded in the study area. all the sapling density (sd), the seedling density (sed) and the relative density (rd) were found to be highest for shorea robusta (sd 200.49 /ha, sed 27,153.4/ha and rd 58.5) (see annex 1 attached at the back). in terms of the sapling densities and their relative densities, s. robusta was followed by murraya koenigii (sd 125.36/ha and rd 16.88) and terminalia alata (sd 92.62/ha and rd 12.47), while in terms of the seedling and the relative densities, s. robusta was followed by t. alata (sed 5,375.32/ha and rd 11.58) and by mallotus philippinensis (sed 4,652.06/ha and rd 10.02). figure 7 (i-x) depicts the population structure of ten dominant tree species on the basis of their relative densities. the dominant tree species, s. robusta exhibited higher proportion of seedling and comparatively low density of sapling and tree population. same was the case for m. philippinensis while anogeissus latifolius, acacia catechu, buchanania latifolia, ouigenia dalbergoides, lagerstroemia parviflora and garuga pinnata were found to have more proportions of trees than seedlings and saplings. on the other hand, t. alata and diospyrus malabarica had equal proportion of seedlings, saplings and trees. the findings of this study indicated that the regeneration status of s. robusta was better than that of all the other species in the bnp. thus, the ten dominant tree species differed greatly in terms of the densities of seedlings, saplings and trees. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 43 fig. 7 (i) fig. 7 (ii) fig. 7 (iii) fig. 7 (iv) fig. 7 (v) fig. 7 (vi) fig. 7 (vii) fig. 7 (viii) fig. 7 (ix) fig. 7 (x) fig. 7 (i-x) : population structure of ten dominnant tree species of banke national park napit and paudel tree sapling seedling tree sapling seedling tree sapling seedling tree sapling seedlingtree sapling seedlingtree sapling seedling tree sapling seedling tree sapling seedling tree sapling seedling tree sapling seedling banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 44 human disturbance analysis during the study period, the frequencies of different 18 evidences such as no. of stumps, no. of lopped trees, no. of cultivated patches, no. of fires occurred, no. of cattle grazing and no. of fodder collection noticed during the fieldwork were chosen as disturbance variables for the analysis of human disturbance in the park (table 1). the correlation matrix for 18 disturbance variables measured during sampling period in the bnk is presented in table 2. the matrix reveals that the trails noticed inside the park have positive relationship with the cut-wood found in the forested areas of the park. similarly, the matrix indicates that the people (carrying weapons) noticed inside the park area, livestock noticed in the park area and the permanent constructions, e.g. huts, sheds etc. made by the people inside the park area have also positive relationship with the cut-wood noticed in the park. likewise, there is some relationship between the lopped trees and the stumps seen inside the park area. similarly, the disturbances like fire has positive relationship with lopped tree and stumps found there but negative relationship with wood cutting, temporary and permanent constructions, trails found, livestock and cultivation. disturbance factors like human settlement has positive relationship with cutting of wood, cultivation, livestock, temporary and permanent constructions, trails found while has negative relationship with lopped tree found, stumps found and fire. likewise grazing has positive relationship with livestock, trails found, people seen, lopped tree and temporary construction. it has negative relationship with cutting wood, human settlement, stumps found, cultivation and fire. similarly, a disturbance factor like wood pilling has positive relationship with cutting of wood, stumps and trails. it has negative relationship with lopped tree, cultivation, temporary and permanent construction, lopped tree, fire, and human settlement. while stone mining has positive relationship with cutting wood, stumps and trail found in the area. it has negative relationship with the disturbance factors like lopped tree, stumps, temporary and napit and paudel table 1: disturbance variables used in the analysis sn variables symbol description 1. cut-wood cw pieces of cut-wood found in each sample plot 2. lopped-tree lt no. of lopped-tree found in each sample plot 3. stump st no. of stump found in each sample plot 4. temporary construction tc no. of temporary constructions made by people , e.g. huts, sheds etc. 5. trails tr no. of distinguishable path (trail) through vegetation due to frequent human and livestock movement 6. people seen ps no. of people observed in each sampling period 7. livestock ls no. of livestock i.e. cattle seen during the sampling period 8. permanent construction pc no. of permanent constructions made by people in the sampling site 9. cultivation cu no. of cultivation sites in each sample plot 10. fire fi no. of fire signs in each sample plot 11. people with weapons pw no. of people seen with chopping weapons during the sampling period 12. human settlement hs no. of human settlement found in the sampling site 13. fodder collection fc no. of fodder collection seen during the sampling period 14. cut-tree (live) ct no. of people seen, cutting tree/s, during the sampling period 15. grazing gr no. of grazing seen during the sampling period 16. hunters hu no. of people seen, with hunting weapons, during the sampling period 17. stone mining sm no. of stone loading seen during the sampling period 18. piled-wood pw no. of wood piled up in each sample plot banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 45 ta bl e 2: c or re la tio n m at ri x fo r 18 d is tu rb an ce v ar ia bl es m ea su re d du ri ng sa m pl in g pe ri od in b an ke n at io na l p ar k va ri ab le s c w lt st t c t r ps l s pc c u fi pw h s fc c t g r h u sm pw c w -0 .1 3 -0 .0 7 -0 .0 7 0. 24 1 0. 32 5 0. 23 3 0. 24 5 0. 07 5 -0 .1 40 0. 13 0 0. 00 7 -0 .1 24 0. 09 0 -0 .0 05 0. 03 0 0. 16 0 0. 05 7 lt 0. 28 0. 14 -0 .0 67 0. 04 7 0. 03 2 -0 .0 73 -0 .1 63 0. 14 6 -0 .0 17 -0 .1 53 0. 10 4 0. 10 3 0. 15 2 0. 08 2 -0 .1 33 -0 .0 17 st 0. 02 -0 .0 39 0. 04 6 0. 04 8 0. 05 1 0. 00 1 0. 06 7 0. 04 9 -0 .1 39 0. 01 0 0. 08 1 -0 .0 07 0. 03 9 -0 .1 12 0. 12 4 t c 0. 03 0 0. 10 0 -0 .0 64 -0 .0 27 -0 .0 62 -0 .0 15 -0 .0 35 0. 07 8 0. 02 3 0. 24 2 0. 16 6 0. 11 6 -0 .0 50 -0 .0 35 t r 0. 37 0 0. 34 9 0. 25 7 0. 11 8 -0 .0 83 0. 07 4 0. 16 7 0. 11 3 0. 02 5 0. 15 3 -0 .0 31 -0 .0 38 0. 02 5 ps 0. 54 0 0. 44 8 0. 24 2 -0 .1 90 0. 04 4 0. 09 3 -0 .0 68 0. 07 8 0. 13 8 0. 07 4 0. 03 8 -0 .0 69 l s 0. 59 0 0. 20 2 -0 .0 67 -0 .0 50 0. 06 4 -0 .0 57 -0 .0 50 0. 07 1 0. 15 0 -0 .0 71 -0 .0 50 pc 0. 37 8 -0 .0 77 -0 .0 43 0. 09 6 -0 .0 23 -0 .0 43 -0 .0 62 -0 .0 76 -0 .0 62 -0 .0 43 c u -0 .0 71 -0 .0 16 0. 11 9 -0 .0 41 -0 .0 16 -0 .0 23 -0 .0 29 -0 .0 23 -0 .0 16 fi -0 .0 41 -0 .1 39 0. 08 7 -0 .0 41 -0 .0 58 -0 .0 71 -0 .0 58 -0 .0 41 pw 0. 26 0 -0 .0 23 -0 .0 09 -0 .0 13 -0 .0 16 -0 .0 13 -0 .0 09 h s -0 .0 80 -0 .0 32 -0 .0 46 0. 12 6 -0 .0 46 -0 .0 32 fc -0 .0 23 -0 .0 33 -0 .0 41 -0 .0 33 -0 .0 23 c t -0 .0 13 -0 .0 16 -0 .0 13 -0 .0 09 g r -0 .0 23 -0 .0 19 -0 .0 13 pw -0 .0 23 -0 .0 16 sm -0 .0 13 pw napit and paudel banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 46 napit and paudel permanent construction, trails, fire, livestock and cultivation. the analysis of the forward selection multiple linear regression of the sapling density with human disturbance variables showed significant positive association between the sapling density and the human disturbance variables (f=10.981, r2=19.3, p < 0.0001) and the similar association between the seedling density and the human disturbance variables (f=8.223, r2=24.2, p < 0.0001) (table 3 and 4). the significant disturbance variables selected by a forward selection procedure in multiple linear regressions were cut-wood, livestock, trails and people in the case of sapling density while cut-wood, livestock, trails and stone loading in the case of seedling density. a non-linear regression model of disturbance index against sapling density showed a humpshaped relation with a peak in sapling density in the intermediate disturbance index (figure 7). it shows that the sapling density of the trees increases with the increase in human-induced disturbances up to a certain limit, and then decreases with further increase in human-induced disturbances. so, the expected curvilinear effect was obtained for the relationship of sapling density and the disturbance index (figure 8). however, there was no non-linear relationship between disturbance index and seedling density (figure 9). the expected curvilinear effect was not obtained as it showed only the increase in seedling density with the increase in human disturbance variables. table 3: analysis of multiple linear regression of sampling density with human disturbance variables source df sum of squares mean squares f pr > f model 3 0.036 0.012 10.981 < 0.0001 error 103 0.112 0.001 total (corrected) 106 0.148 table 4: analysis of multiple linear regression of seedling density with human disturbance variables source df sum of squares mean squares f pr > f model 3 0.794 0.265 8.223 < 0.0001 error 103 3.316 0.032 total (corrected) 106 4.110 fig. 8: a nonlinear regression of disturbance index with sapling density (r² = 0.125) fig. 9 : a nonlinear regression of disturbance index with seedling density (r² = 0.052) forest regeneration an inverse j-shaped form of size-class distribution of stem indicates a good regenerating capability of the forest. studies on the size-class structure of forest stands required the full tally method over substantial areas to receive representative results (schmelz and lindsey, 1965). koop (1989) and piovesan et al. (2005) suggested that 25–40 ha area was required to represent the shifting pattern of the forests. therefore, small areas might not truly reflect the proportions of the successional stages and over-represent certain structural features. besides grazing, canopy cover of dominant trees is also important factor for the establishment of seedling. in high-canopy cover, seedlings cannot disturbance index banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 47 survive because of the lack of sufficient light while in low-canopy cover, they cannot survive due to high solar radiation. on the other hand, open canopy promotes sapling recruitment and tree growth at early stage. in our study sites, more light was available for the seedlings of s. robusta because of lower density as well as lower canopy cover of trees. hence, s. robusta had abundant regeneration under the partially open canopy. the regeneration status of tree species like madhuca butyraceae, psidium guajava, dalbergia latifolia, terminalia bellirica, bauhinia variegeta was found to be very poor. this indicates that these species could be replaced in near future with other associated species. although the forests in the park area had high regeneration potential, all the established seedlings did not get chance to develop into sapling stage due to high human interference like grazing, trampling, forest fire, lopping and unsustainable harvesting of the forest resources. however, all the seedlings cannot survive due to harsh environmental condition and cannot compete with grasses for limited resources. human disturbance and its impact on the regeneration of the park the influence of seedling and sapling densities on the development and maintenance of any forest is well known. in our study sites, only two of the most dominant tree species, viz. s. robusta and had high seedling and sapling density. this could have a serious conservation implication for forest structure. the findings of our study showed that the intermediate disturbance favored high sapling density; however, the level of disturbance had a positive effect on the seedling density. increased sapling density in disturbed forests compared to undisturbed forests is in accordance with the intermediate disturbance hypothesis (connell 1978; hobbs and huenneke 1992). intermediate disturbance hypothesis suggests that disturbances can promote the coexistence of species (grime 1973; connell 1978; huston 1979) and promote high diversity. this does not hold true for seedling density as seedlings occur widespread in every season and they are produced in mass, and are yet to be subjected to disturbance. thus, sapling density is a good measure to notice influence of human disturbance on forest regeneration status. we found out that the cut-wood, lopped-tree, human/livstock trails and people noticed in a forest area were the most significant variables affecting upon the sapling and seedling densities of the forests in the bnp. these factors create spatial heterogeneity leading to gaps in the forest allowing space for light penetration which favors regeneration to come up. however, the less number of saplings or seedlings even in the relatively undisturbed forests in the park area could be either due to the competition among the intra-species to grow or due to the dense canopy cover causing lack of light for regeneration. conclusion despite the forest was open for grazing as well as other human disturbances, the regeneration potential of the park was found to be high. the obtained result from the size class distribution of the trees resembling inverse ‘j’ shape indicates the good regenerating capability of the forest in the park. the findings of 58 species of saplings and 40 species of seedlings of trees in the park also resemble the fairer status of the natural regeneration in the park. further, the domination of the shrub stratum by some tree saplings indicated good regeneration and self-maintenance ability of the forest. the findings of our study showed that human disturbance were found to have helped in regeneration of the forests in the bnp only upto certain limit as the sapling densities were found to be low in the forest areas with both low as well as high human disturbances so, this study supports the general hypothesis that intermediate human disturbance, upto certain limit, in a forest affects upon its regeneration status. acknowledgments we are grateful to wwf nepal for providing techniques, tools and volunteers for conducting this study. we express our sincere thanks to dr. prakash kumar paudel for his precious advice and technical support to complete this study. we are thankful to mr. sanuraja maharjan and ms. sabita malla for their valuable suggestions. we appreciate the support of all those who helped us in the fieldwork. references bhuju, d .r. and ohsawa, m. 2000. patch implications in the maintenance of species richness in an isolated forest site. biological napit and paudel banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 48 conservation 98: 117–125. connell, j. h., 1978. diversity in tropical rain forests and coral reefs. science 199: 1302– 1310. dunnett, c. w. 1955. a multiple comparison procedure for comparing several treatments with a control. journal of the american statistical association 50: 1096–1121. grime, j. p. 1973. competitive exclusion in herbaceous vegetation. nature 242: 344–347. grime, j. p. 1979. plant strategies and vegetation processes. wiley, chichester. hobbs, r. j. and huenneke l. f. 1992. disturbance, diversity, and invasions: implications for conservation. conservation biology 6: 324–337. huston, m. a. 1979. a general hypothesis of species diversity. journal of the american naturalist 113: 81–101. joshi, a. l., shrestha, k. and sigdel, h. 2000. deforestation and participatory forest management policy in nepal. koop, h., 1989. forest dynamics-silvi-star: a comprehensive monitoring system. springer-verlag, berlin, germany. kunwar, r. m. 2004. forest fire and livelihood linkage in terai arc landscape, nepal. report wwf nepal program, kathmandu, nepal. levenson, j. b. 1981. woodlots as biogeographic island in southern wisconsin. in: r. l. burgess and d. m. sharpe (editors), forest island dynamic in man-dominated landscape. springer-verlag, new york, usa. pp.13–40. loucks, o. l. 1970. evolution of diversity, efficiency, and community stability. american society of zoologists 10: 17–25. mfosc. 1998. royal bardia national park extension area five year operational plan, 1998-2003. ministry of forests and soil conservation, department of national parks and wildlife conservation and world wildlife fund kathmandu nepal, 2–12. panta, m. 2009. socioeconomic perspective of deforestation and forest degradation in nepal. a phd thesis, department of geoinformatic engineering, inha university, korea. petraitis, p. s., latham, r. e. and niesenbaum, r. a. 1989. the maintenance of species diversity by disturbance. quarterly review of biology 64: 393–418. piovesan, g., d’ filippo, a., alessandrini, a., biondi, f. and schirone, b. 2005. structure, dynamics and dendroecology of an oldgrowth fagus forest in the apennines. journal of vegetation science 16 : 13–28. sagar, r. and j. singh. 2005. structure, diversity and regeneration of tropical dry deciduous forest of northern india. biodiversity and conservation 14 (4): 935–959. sapkota i. p., mulualem, t. and christer, p. 2009. species diversity and regeneration of oldgrowth seasonally dry shorea robusta forests following gap formation. journal of forestry research 20 (1): 7–14. sharma, s. p. 1996. forest fire in nepal. international forest fire news 15: 36-39. schmelz, d. v. and lindsey, a. a. 1965. sizeclass structure of old-growth forests in indiana. forest science 11: 258–264. sundriyal, r. c. and sharma, e. 1996. anthropogenic pressure on tree structure and biomass in the temperate forest of mamlay watershed in sikkim. forest ecology and management 81: 113–134. unece. 2008. international forest fire news. united nations economic commission for europe. food and agriculture organization of the united nations. 34: 54–52. vetaas, o. r. 2000. the effect of environmental factors on the regeneration of quercus semicarpifolia sm. in central himalaya, nepal. plant ecology 146: 137–144. napit and paudel banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 49 annex1 per hectare sapling and seedling densities vs. relative densities of the tree species in banke national park sapling seedling species density (trees/ha) relative density species density (trees/ha) relative density acacia catechu 13.33 1.8 acacia catechu 375.02 0.81 acer oblongum 1.31 0.18 aeglem armelos 282.75 0.61 adina cordifolia 0.48 0.06 annona reticulata 35.72 0.08 aegle marmelos 2.86 0.38 anogeissus latifolius 1872.14 4.03 annona reticulata 0.71 0.1 bauhinia variegata 5.95 0.01 anogeissus latifolius 39.41 5.31 buchanania latifolia 1556.64 3.35 anthocephalus cadamba 0.24 0.03 cassia fistula 29.76 0.06 psidium guajava 0.83 0.11 chitana 89.29 0.19 bauhinia variegata 0.71 0.1 dadrung 44.65 0.1 bire 0.12 0.02 dalbergia latifolia 2.98 0.01 bisaindha 0.12 0.02 dillenia pentagyna 264.9 0.57 bredelia retusa 1.67 0.22 diospyro stomentosa 2095.36 4.51 buchanania latifolia 14.29 1.92 feroni alimonia 193.46 0.42 careya arborea 0.6 0.08 ficus hispida 104.17 0.22 cassia fistula 2.86 0.38 ficus nimarolis 130.96 0.28 chhitaina 13.57 1.83 gaipaile 5.95 0.01 chittabayer 30.24 4.07 ganaune 14.88 0.03 dadrung 0.95 0.13 garuga pinnata 35.72 0.08 dillenia pentagyna 7.02 0.95 katkute 2.98 0.01 diospyro stomentosa 37.15 5 kerauta 5.95 0.01 dudkhirro 0.95 0.13 lagerstroemia parviflora 74.41 0.16 ficus bengalensis 0.24 0.03 litsea monopslata 125.01 0.27 ficus hispida 3.57 0.48 luhati 5.95 0.01 ficus nimarolis 1.55 0.21 madhuca butyraceae 5.95 0.01 ficuss emicordata 1.43 0.19 mallotus philippinensis 4652.06 10.02 garuga pinnata 0.71 0.1 murraya koenigii 580.39 1.25 jangali bayer 0.36 0.05 myrsine semiserrata 193.46 0.42 katkute 1.07 0.14 ougeinia dalbergiodes 172.63 0.37 lagerstroemia parviflora 2.14 0.29 parula 2.98 0.01 litsea monopslata 2.74 0.37 phyllanthus emblica 59.53 0.13 madhuc abutyraceae 0.12 0.02 schleichera obleosa 89.29 0.19 mahuli 0.12 0.02 semicarpus anacardium 172.63 0.37 main kanda 46.67 6.28 shorea robusta 27153.4 58.5 makare 0.12 0.02 syzygium cumini 398.83 0.86 mallotus philippinensis 44.65 6.01 anthocephalus chinensis 5.95 0.01 melia azedarach 4.41 0.59 terminalia alata 5375.32 11.58 morus alba 0.36 0.05 terminalia bellirica 2.98 0.01 murraya koenigii 125.36 16.88 terminalia chebula 29.76 0.06 myrsinese miserrata 7.38 0.99 unidentified seedling 2.98 0.01 ougeinia dalbergiodes 2.98 0.4 zizyphus jujuba 166.68 0.36 phyllanthus emblica 0.83 0.11 total 46419.43 100 pipari 0.24 0.03 psidium guajava 0.12 0.02 sano gayo 0.24 0.03 schleichera obleosa 0.6 0.08 semicarpus anacardium 1.43 0.19 shorea robusta 200.49 26.99 sidaura 0.83 0.11 sterculi avillosa 1.9 0.26 surain 0.12 0.02 syzygium cumini 11.79 1.59 anthocephalus chinensis 0.12 0.02 terminalia alata 92.62 12.47 terminalia bellerica 0.48 0.06 terminalia chebula 1.19 0.16 unidentified 0.48 0.06 wendlandia exserta 4.52 0.61 zizyphus jujuba 9.41 1.27 total 742.78 100.00 napit and paudel 21 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 in nepal, a lot of resources have been invested for establishing plantations. due to lack of assessment of the survival status of planted seedlings, we have inadequate information about how many successful plantations that we have established in the country. this study was carried out in fourteen community forests (cfs) of parbat district with the aim of analyzing survival status of the planted seedlings. plantation was done in june/july 2015 and total count of the seedlings was done in june 2016. in the studied cfs, eleven species were planted comprising 20,172 seedlings in which 58.57% seedlings were survived at the end of first year. the cause of seedling mortality was identified through observation, judgment and interaction with local people. the main causes of seedling mortality (52%) were due to small size and unhealthy seedlings, lack of care during transportation and handling. forest fire, weeds, drought, disease and grazing were found to be responsible for the mortality of 17%, 12%, 10%, 7% and 2% seedlings, respectively. regular monitoring of plantation area with the involvement of local community members is recommended for policy makers and assessment of survival rate of different species in different ecological regions is recommended for researchers. key words: plantation, mortality, seedlings, survival survival status of young plantations in parbat district, nepal g. paudel1* and r. acharya2 large-scale government programmes have been implemented to improve the forest resource concentrating on the creation of a new forest resource through plantation establishment (carter and gilmour, 1989). forestry development is a long-term endeavour and long time is needed to get economic benefit from investment. human patience would be exhausted to wait for until final felling of trees (campbell and bhattarai, 1983). evaluation of the success of the project is required to justify the investment in the forest development. the reasonable compromise is to select short-term indicators that are as closely related to the longterm objectives as possible while still remaining measurable (campbell and bhattarai, 1983). the survival rate of seedlings planted in private and government land have proved to be the most important key indicators of the success of forestry activities (fonzen, 1986). ghimire and erling (1985) have similar opinion for plantations on community land in evaluating the success of the plantation project. it is necessary to track the survival rate and farmers’ preference of planted seedlings to determine the effectiveness of district forest office planting and seedling distribution programmes (bashyal and denmanski, 1990). not only do they measure programme achievement, but they also point out the technical and social problems that remain to be overcome (fonzen, 1986). in addition, survival rates by species provide an indispensable guide to the species selection for plantations in the absence of scientific research (fonzen, 1986). various technical and social causes regarding seedling mortality have been identified by researchers (campbell and bhattarai, 1990; fonzen, 1986; ghimire and erling, 1985). the main technical reasons identified for seedling mortality are small size and unhealthy seedlings, mismatching species to site conditions, lack of weeding and poor plantation techniques. the main social reason in mortality of seedlings is livestock grazing, although this accounted for less mortality than technical reasons (campbell and bhattarai, 1983). field level detailed analysis of the causes of mortality is essential to increase the survival rate of plantations in future which ultimately is important for justifying the investment in afforestation and reforestation activities. 1 department of forests, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. *e-mail: ecopaudel@gmail.com 2 freelancer forester poudel 22 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 nepal has planted millions of ha. of land in the past decades. but due to lack of assessment of the survival status of planted seedlings, we have inadequate information about how many successful plantations that we have established in the country. at present, there is dearth of literatures regarding the survival status of plantations. every year millions of seedlings have been planted in nepal. for the fiscal year 2016/17, the government of nepal has allocated budget of around nrs. 170 million to the departments of forests to produce around 23 million seedlings (dof, 2016). due to lack of assessment whether our plantations are successful or not, we have been unable to improve our plantation techniques. to fulfill this gap, assessment of the survival status of plantations is necessary on a regular basis. the objective of the study was to find out the survival status of different species and analyse causes of seedling mortality in community forest plantations in parbat district. materials and methods study area parbat district is a hilly district of dhaulagiri zone, nepal (fig. 1). it is situated between 27° 28’ n to 28° 39’ n latitude and 83° 34’ e to 83° 59’ e longitude (dfo, 2016). the altitude varies from 520 m to 3,300 m whereas the annual rainfall is 2400 mm to 2600 mm. the maximum temperature in summer exceeds 32.3°c and the normal winter temperature is about 7.5°c. the soils are medium to high in organic matter and are hardly suitable for agriculture in many areas. land-slides and soil erosion are severe in parbat district during rainy season. the total area of parbat district is 53,668 ha, out of which agriculture land, grazing/pasture land, forest land cover 16.8%, 28.22%, 37.25%, respectively and other land types cover 17.73%. major forest types in this district are hill shorea robusta forest, schima-castanopsis forest, pinus roxburghii forest and quercus spp. forest. most of the national forests in this district have been handed over as community forest (dfo, 2012; paudel, 2015; acharya and paudel, 2016) and till now, 12, 963.56 ha of forest area has been handed over to 382 community forest user groups (dfo, 2016). pits of standard size 30 cm * 30 cm *30 cm were prepared in april/may, 2015 and plantation was carried out in june/july, 2015. single year seedlings provided by the district forest office (dfo) parbat were planted. the plantation sites were protected from grazing. the forest users had monitored and weeded planted seedlings. fig. 1: map of the study area data collection the plantations done in fourteen community forests in 2015 were identified from the records of the district forest office (table 1). concerned cfs members were consulted and discussed on the assessment of the survival of planted seedlings. total count of seedlings was done in june/july 2016 involving the users. causes of mortality of seedlings were identified through observation, discussion with officials and interaction with local users. the data were analysed in ms-excel. results plantation survival eleven tree species were planted in 14 community forests (table 2). altogether 20,172 seedlings were planted of which only 11,814 (58.57%) were survived at the end of first year (table 2). causes of mortality the main reasons identified for seedling mortality (52%) were due to small size and unhealthy seedlings, lack of care during transportation and handling (fig. 2). similarly, the natural as well as anthropogenic factors were responsible for the seedling mortality. due to fire and drought, paudel and acharya 23 banko janakari, special issue no. 4paudel and acharya table 1: number of different species planted in 14 cfugs in parbat district sn name of the cf local name scientific name seedlings planted 1 kharsubas louth salla taxus baccata 500 2 reshpatal louth salla t. baccata 500 3 samekhoriya badhahar artocarpus lakoocha 400 4 dhulepalsing badhahar a. lakoocha 800 5 kalibanjar ketichou badhahar a. lakoocha 300 6 banpala bhumesthan khanyu ficus semicordata 400 7 khaharesalyan khayer acacia catechu 4000 8 tandibisauna lapsi choerospandias axillaris 200 9 samekhoriya lapsi c. axillaris 500 10 gairakharka lapsi c. axillaris 100 11 banpala bhumesthan lapsi c. axillaris 200 12 ek salle lekchamp michalia champaca 5000 13 paitedhanda lekali salla pinus wallichiana 600 14 tandibisauna nimaro ficus auriculata 50 15 chihandanda nimaro f. auriculata 200 16 gairakharka nimaro f. auriculata 250 17 banpala bhumesthan nimaro f. auroiculata 400 18 paitedhanda khanyu f semicordata 350 19 dhulepalsing khanyu f. semicordata 365 20 kalibanjar ketichou khanyu f. semicordata 50 21 samekhoriya tejpat cinnamomum tamala 500 22 thulatauka tejpat c. tamala 200 23 gairakharka tejpat c. tamala 200 24 banpala bhumesthan tejpat c. tamala 500 25 musurabari timur zanthoxylum armatum 1457 26 rolah timur z. armatum 2000 27 banpala bhumesthan tuni toona ciliata 150 total 20,172 table 2: species wise number of planted, survived seedlings and survival per cent scientific name number of planted seedlings number of survived seedlings survival (%) taxus baccata 1000 450 45.00 artocarpus lakoocha 1500 510 34.00 ficus semicordata 1165 411 35.28 acacia catechu 4000 2000 50.00 choerospondias axillaris 1000 429 42.90 michelia champaca 5000 3750 75.00 pinus wallichina 600 0 0.00 ficus auriculata 900 655 72.78 cinnamomum tamala 1400 850 60.71 zanthoxylum armatum 3457 2670 77.23 toona ciliata 150 89 59.33 total 20,172 11,814 58.57 24 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 17% and 10% seedlings died, respectively. the percentage of mortality of seedlings due to grazing and diseases was less than others, which were 2% and 7% , respectively (fig. 2). fig. 2: causes of seedlings mortality discussion plantation survival the overall survival percentage of the planted seedlings was found only 58.57% which was quite lower than the findings of fonzen (1986). the average survival rate of two-years plantation was 73.7% with a range of 42% to 94% in palpa district (fonzen, 1986). bashyal and demanski, (1990) found that the survival rate of seedlings planted in private lands of dang and salyan districts was 60.5% after three years. according to ghimire and erling (1990), overall survival percentage of seedlings was 63.8% in 14 districts. the average survival percentage of seedlings recorded by sherpa (1996) was 66.9%. the survival rate of four-years and one-year a. lakoocha in farmer’s land varied from 15% to 60% in community forestry development project (campbell and bhattarai, 1983). jackson (1994) stated that a. lakoocha is more suitable for planting by individual farmers than in community plantations. in our study, the survival rate of a. lakoocha was just 34% at the end of first year which is similar to jackson (1994), as it requires fertile soil for good growth and a lot of care and attention after planting. neil (1990) found that survival percentage of f. semicordata plantation in palpa district was 77%. the survival rate of f. semicordata planted during monsoon was about 90 % but it was only 58% for this species planted in winter (sherpa et al., 1992). in contrast to these findings, very low survival rate (35.28%) of f. semicordata was found in our study. as f. semicordata is a palatable species and in our case the plantation was damaged by browsing. from the discussion with the local people, it was also found that seedlings of this species were not in good condition at the time of planting due to transportation from long distance. at kadambas (1500 m), sindhupalchok district, the survival of 28-months old c. axillaris plants was higher (80%) (jackson, 1994) but our study recorded only 42.9% survival which could be due to poor quality of seedlings. the survival of the m. champaca seedlings was found good (75%) in our study which is similar to the findings of shrestha and gautam (1991). they found that the survival rate of five and seven year old m. champaca plants was 79% and 75%, respectively in parbat district. the survival of p. wallichiana has been good at altitude over 2000 m but moderate to poor below 1600 m (jackson, 1994). according to joshi (1985), the survival of p. wallichiana was 89 % at thulo chaur (2250 m), mustang district. further, the survival rate of p. wallichiana was found 64%, 89% and 91% at lower nagarkot (1700 m), tistung (1900 m) and upper nagarkot (2000 m), respectively (jackson, 1994). this trend shows that survival rate greatly decreases with decrease in altitude from 2000 m. in our study site, the seedlings of p. wallichiana were completely damaged due to fire but discussion with local people revealed that there was considerable good survival before fire occurrence, as the plantation site is around 2000 m. at tistung (1900 m), field trials of f. auriculata established up to 1985 failed completely while the later plantations had 50% and 87% survival rate in open land and under shade of pines, respectively (jackson, 1994). he also mentioned that the survival rate of this species found higher if planted under the shade of pine than in the open area. joshi and sherpa (1992) found that the survival rate of this species also varied with the time of plantation. they recorded 100% survival for seedlings planted in may, june, august and september; 75% in october and 41% in april at pakhribas (1700 m), dhankuta district. in our study site, plantation of f. auriculata was carried out in june/july and hence fairly higher rate of survival (72.78%) was found. our finding is similar to jackson (1994) where he stated 70% survival of 28 months old f. auriculata planted paudel and acharya 25 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 under pine at sangachowk, sindhupalchok district. as f. auriculata seedlings were planted in an open area of four cfs without applying fertilizer. the survival rate of this species can be increased further by planting under pine and applying fertilizer. the survival rate of t. ciliata (59%) in our study is similar to the findings of grob (1982) and ghimire and nielson (1985). according to grob (1982), the survival percentage of t. ciliata was 75% in march for seedlings planted in the previous monsoon, while the survival rate was only 43% in 1983/84 at the same plantation (ghimire and neilson, 1985). this species grows well in moist fertile soil (jackson, 1994), hence the lower survival rate (59.33%) in our study could be due to drought and infertile soil. the survival percentage of 50% and above is considered as satisfactory by pakistan forest institute (pfi, 2013). our study showed 58.57% survival percentage, which could be considered as satisfactory. discussion with officials of the district forest office revealed that in this case seedlings were distributed to plant in selected cfug sites only after field verification whether sites and pits were prepared or not. but in most of the other cases plantation was carried out without preparing sites and pits. they mentioned that survival rate in other communities could be lower than the studied cfugs. causes of mortality among the various factors identified for seedling mortality, small size and unhealthy seedlings and careless in transportation and handling of seedlings caused 52% mortality. this result was found similar to findings of the survey carried out by the community forestry development project in 1982/83, where the causes of about 40% seedling mortality were due to small size or poor health of the seedlings at the time of planting (campbell and bhattarai, 1983; jackson, 1994). moisture stress was the leading cause of seedling mortality, as this accounted for 76 % in dang and 68 % in salyan districts (bashyal and demanski, 1990). our finding was contrasted with their findings as drought only accounted for 10 % mortality of seedlings. the sites had sufficient moisture for seedlings so moisture stress was not the leading cause of mortality in our study. sherpa (1996) identified livestock damage as the main cause and other causes were drought, unsuitable site, fire, landslide and frost. ghimire and erling (1990) identified the three main causes for seedling mortality which were species selection, size of seedling and livestock damage. the factors such as poor quality seedlings, improper site selection, improper planting methods and transportation damage contribute directly to moisture stress (sherpa, 1996), however, these factors are difficult to determine and were not recorded. bashyal and demanski (1990) found that the grazing accounted for 20% and 18% seedling mortality in dang and salyan districts, respectively. in our study, grazing was not found a serious problem for seedling mortality as compared to the other factors. protection of plantation carried out under pine forest from fire can improve the survival. planting of healthy and vigorous seedlings can improve the survival rate of seedlings, so care must be given to produce such seedlings. similarly care should be taken during handling and transportation to increase the survival of seedlings. conclusions and recommendations the overall survival rate of different species in fourteen cfs in parbat district was found to be 58.57%, which is satisfactory but there is variation in survival rate among eleven species. care must be given to improve the survival rate of those species with low survival rate. poor health of seedlings, and carelessness in transportation and handling were found the most influencing factors in mortality of the seedlings. other factors viz. forest fire, weeds, drought, disease and grazing were also affected the survival of different species in plantations. to improve the survival status of the plantations, regular monitoring, use of large sized seedlings, site preparation and protection from fire, grazing and regular weeding are recommended. assessment of the survival status of different species in different ecological range is also recommended for further studies. references acharya, r. and paudel, g. 2016. implementation status of community adaptation plans: a case study from parbat district, nepal. international journal of environment 5 (3): 119—126. bashyal, h. p. and demanski, s. s. 1990. report paudel and acharya 26 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 on the private planting survival survey in dang and salyan districts of rapti zone. report submitted to the project coordinators office of the rapti development project. campbell, j. g. and bhattarai, t. n. 1983. plantation survival, private planting, improved stove use and knowledge increase in community forestry, results from on-going evaluation surveys 1982– 1983. community forestry development project, nepal hmg/undp/fao. carter, a. s. and gilmour, d. a. 1989. increase in tree cover on private farm land in central nepal. mountain research and development 9 (4): 381–391. dfo. 2016. monitoring and evaluation report of community forests. district forest office, parbat, nepal. dof. 2016. annual development programs for the fiscal year 2016/2017. department of forests, kathmandu, nepal. dfo. 2012. monitoring and evaluation report of community forests. district forest office, parbat, nepal. fonzen, p. 1986. survey of the afforestation survival rates in palpa district, 1985/86. district forest office, palpa, tinau watershed project, nepal. ghimire, m. p. and erling, m. n. 1985. plant survival and private planting results from on-going evaluation surveys 1983–1984. community forestry development project, nepal hmg/undp/fao. ghimire, m. p. and nielson, e. m. 1985. plantation survival and private planting results from on-going evaluation surveys, 1983–84. miscellaneous document no. 31. community forestry project, kathmandu, nepal. grob, p. 1982. bare root planting in pokhara forest division. report submitted to the community forestry and afforestation division, department of forests, nepal. jackson, j. k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal volume i and ii. second edition. forest research and survey center, ministry of forests and soil conservation, nepal. joshi, l. and sherpa, s. l. 1992. “preliminary results of some fodder research activities at pakhribas agricultural centre” paper presented at the fourth working group meeting on fodder trees, forest fodder and leaf litter, kathmandu, 3–5 december, 1991. joshi, r. b. 1985. an interim report on tree species trials in rcup area. unpublished report. paudel, g. 2015. forest resource income variation in mid-hills of nepal: a case study from two cfugs of parbat district, nepal. international journal of environment 4 (3): 1–10. pfi. 2013. plantation survival rate and impact assessment of watershed management interventions for the past 10 years (1995– 005) in azad jammu and kashmir. pakistan forest institute, pakistan. neil, p. e. 1990. some promising early species results from the bhabar terai. banko janakari 2 (3): 223–228. sherpa, s. l. 1996. tree survival as a means to evaluate private block plantations in the midhills of eastern nepal. banko janakari 6 (2): 74–78. sherpa, s. l., joshi, l. and upadhyay, m. 1992. interim report on silvicultural research trials. working paper, pakhribas agricultural centre, dhankuta, nepal. shrestha, r. k. and gautam, n. 1991. evaluation of lrarc community planting in parbat district. technical paper no. 2/91, lumle agricultural research centre, kaski, nepal. paudel and acharya banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal forest health: context of forest pests and pathogen in nepal forests form an integral part of life on earth, and provide a range of benefits at local, national and global levels. in nepal, forest is an important component of the livelihood of majority of people particularly living in rural areas. moreover, forests provide several ecosystem services, including provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural services. considering such multiple roles of forests, the government of nepal has focused on the effective management of forest resources under its various programmes. government realizes that the continuous supply of multiple goods and services largely depends on the health and conditions of the forests. forest health is a very important part of the sustainable forest management system. in the utilitarian approach, it is defined in terms of a forest's capacity to satisfy human needs, whereas the ecological approach considers resilience, recurrence and persistence of a forest and all biological processes involved in. nevertheless, both approaches are not competing, but are complementary to each other. in essence, they emphasize on sustainable delivery of forest goods and services without deteriorating its quality. however, forests experience plenty of natural and anthropogenic disturbances, such as fire, extreme weather, harsh climate, illegal felling, grazing and encroachment as well as the rampant competition from weeds and invasive/alien species and infestation of various insect pests and pathogens. these disturbances lead to poor forest health, which can exert moderate to devastating negative impacts. the forest resource assessment of nepal (2010-2014) collected data related to the extent and severity of various forest disturbances, including grazing, forest fire and tree cutting. however, information related to forest pests and pathogens were not captured. there is a clear gap on comprehensive understanding on the various issues and status of forest pests and pathogens in the national scenario. general observations show that infestation of insect pests and pathogens is a serious problem in nepal, particularly in plantation and forest nurseries. a recent field survey by the then department of forest research and survey (dfrs) and fao mission in some of the forest sites in the terai and the mid-hills of nepal found that both natural and plantation forests have been, in many cases, seriously affected by the infestation of insect pests and pathogens. seedlings in forest nurseries were also found in feeble condition due to various fungal diseases. diseased seedlings act as the vectors and are likely to carry pathogens from one place to another and may cause outbreak of diseases in plantation sites in future. nepal has already witnessed a huge economic loss, though not precisely estimated, due to pathogenic attacks in commercial timber-yielding species like banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 2 dalbergia sissso and shorea robusta. controlling insect pests and pathogens in the forests is a critical task of forest managers; but it requires expertise in many disciplines; such as plant pathology, entomology, ecology, dendrology, mycology, taxonomy, silviculture, and forest management. it is more difficult in natural forests compared to plantation forests. use of chemicals to control forest insects pests and pathogens is in practice; however, it is limited to forest nurseries or in small forest patches. it is extremely difficult to control them once they spread over a larger area. therefore, producing insect and pathogen-free robust planting materials is important to keep a forest plantation healthy. the proper consideration on selecting healthy and robust genetic materials may limit the future infestation of insect pests and pathogens on forest crops; ultimately increasing the profits from plantations. in the case of natural forests, controlling insect pests and pathogens before they spread over a larger area is an efficient and effective way to keep them healthy besides implementing various tending and silvicultural operations. a widely known nepalese proverb "prevention is better than cure" can be a guiding principle in controlling forest insect pests and pathogens. it is the cheapest and most effective technique to maintain better forest health and conditions ensuring the regular and increased supply of forestry goods and services. nevertheless, forest health has been one of the most neglected issues in the forestry discourse in nepal for a long time. in this context, nepal requires upgrading the existing laboratory facilities, conducting training programmes for capacity development of the forest technicians, raising awareness among various forest stakeholders, and strengthening capacities of customs and quarantine offices. it is equally important to build strong functional networks of multiple stakeholders at multiple levels in order to stop several insect pests and pathogens entering into the country and conduct various control measures. moreover, application of remote sensing technology could be effective in monitoring of forest pests and pathogens. integrating forest health monitoring as a component of national and local level forest resource assessments and collecting data related to forest insect pests and pathogens could be important. it helps us to know the trend of infestation of forest insects, pests and pathogens in time intervals and also to predict areas susceptible to be infested in the future. similarly, the mapping and documentation of the extent and magnitude of the infestation followed by action research on prevention and control should be undertaken by the government and other sectors. the results of the action research can be implemented in wider areas at the time of needs forests of nepal, undoubtedly, are infested by insect pests and pathogens. prevention and control of forest insect pests and pathogens should be a priority program of the government in the forestry sector of nepal. banko jankari-2017(5).1.1 balancing the trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service delivery is a colossal challenge in the areas of the globe with high productivity and high demand, such as in south asia. in order to meet this challenge, we need enhanced knowledge of the species constituting these semi-natural systems. this paper reports the country-level preliminary conservation assessments for 153 woody plant species from the middle hills in central nepal based on the iucn criteria. distribution maps and threat categories are provided for all species. ten species are categorized as near threatened, two as endangered and one as vulnerable. conservation assessments could not be completed for 24 species because of insufficient distribution data. key words: conservation assessments, forest species, himalayas, species distribution distribution and preliminary conservation assessments of commonly used forest species in the nepalese himalayas in the global north, it is widely recognised that the conservation of semi-natural landscapes and their associated species are of paramount importance for the conservation of biodiversity, but these landscapes do not receive the same recognition in the global south. in south asia, traditional semi-natural landscapes are still the backdrop for rural livelihoods, and cover large land areas. however, many of the region’s traditional land uses are changing due to agricultural intensification or abandonment caused by socioeconomic change (sharma, 2016) in these tightlylinked social-ecological systems. enhanced knowledge of the dynamics between land use and biodiversity will be critical for future successful biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service delivery. the shift towards a system’s view where humans are seen as part of the system (berkes, 2004; folke, 2006; sharma, 2016) will benefit both biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service delivery in nepal and other countries in the region. a recent study on species diversity, forest structure, ecosystem services and forest management practices both in the community forests (cfs) and government managed forests (gmfs) at panchase, situated towards the west of pokhara (måren et al., 2013) found that the cfs had greater species diversity and less degradation than the gmfs, which in practice acts as a resource which is open for unrestricted exploitation by all. the community forest user groups (cfugs) at panchase manage their forests so as to improve their condition by removing undesirable species in favour of the growth of the species with high value for fuel, fodder, fibre and medicine. however, it is not clear whether greater species diversity has any relationship with the numbers of rare species growing in the forest. nepal’s flora is believed to comprise around 7,000 species of flowering plants (press et al., 2000; watson et al., 2011; miehe et al., 2015), but only few of its species have been evaluated for their conservation status. the distribution data which are used to generate conservation assessments is derived primarily from herbarium specimens (rich and lewis, 1999; antonovics et al., 2003), but these collections are very unevenly spread across nepal (watson et al., 2011), so the distribution patterns of most species are inadequately known. in this study, we examined six locations in central nepal, the three of which are within the protected areas (national parks or conservation areas) and the rest three are outside the protected areas, in order to further examine the effects of different legal frameworks on maintenance of forest biodiversity. this paper reports the preliminary conservation assessments for all the species 1 royal botanic garden edinburgh, 20a inverlieth row, edinburgh, eh3 5lr, scotland uk. *e-mail: b.adhikari@rbge.ac.uk 2 arboretum and botanical gardens, the university museum, university of bergen, allegt. 41, 5006 bergen, norway 3 sheridan davis campus, 7899 mclaughlin rd, brampton, on l6y 5h9, canada 4 himalayan resource & development center, gpo box 7426, kathmandu, nepal 5 research centre for applied science and technology (recast), tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal 43 b. adhikari1*, c. a. pendry1, i. e. måren2 , k. r. bhattarai3,4 and r. p. chaudhary5 banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 44 found in this study. materials and methods study sites three forested areas in central nepal are studied, each with a study site within the protected area (national park or conservation area) and an equivalent study site outside the protected area. these areas were annapurna (ghorepani inside the annapurna conservation area and panchase outside the protected area), the kathmandu valley (shivapuri-nagarjun national park inside and chandragiri outside the protected area) and langtang (langtang national park inside and bhalche outside the protected area) (fig. 1). the study was conducted in the pre-monsoon season from february to june, 2010. both the cfs and the gmfs (excluding plantations) were sampled using stratified random sampling. sample plots of 10 m x 10 m size were laid out across the study sites with similar the biophysical factors and elevation (måren et al. 2013 for further details). in each study site, equal numbers of plots (180) were sampled, totalling 540 plots in the three regions (six sites). results from ph and loss on ignition (loi) analyses indicated only small differences in the soil conditions of the sites and the regions. in the mid-hills, oak-laurel forests are situated at higher elevations while the mixed schimacastanopsis forests are found at lower elevations. these forests differ considerably in their floristic composition and ecology (dobremez, 1976). quercus semecarpifolia sm. is the dominant tree species in the oak-laurel forests with the species of laurel such as lindera pulcherrima (nees) hook. f., neolitsea pallens (d. don) momiy. & h. hara ex h. hara, machilus duthiei king ex hook. f. and m. odoratissima nees. the schimacastanopsis forests are dominated by schima wallichii (dc.) korth., castanopsis indica (roxb.) miq. and c. tribuloides (sm.) a.dc. other species which are also commonly found in the mid-hill forests include several species of rhododendron, acer spp., prunus spp., quercus glauca thunb., quercus lamellosa sm., quercus lanata sm., lyonia ovalifolia (wall.) drude, eurya acuminate dc., ilex dipyrena wall., symplocos ramosissima wall. ex g. don and daphniphylum himalense (benth.) mull. arg. pinus wallichiana a. b. jacks. is found at the higher elevations while p. roxburghii sarg. is noticed at the lower altitudes. the less commonly occurring species include magnolia doltsopa (buch.-ham. ex dc.) figlar, taxus wallichiana zucc., edgeworthia gardneri (wall.) meisn. etc. these forests are home to a number of important species of wildlife such as himalayan black bear (ursus thibetanus), tiger (panthera tigris), indian muntjak (muntiacus muntjak), common leopard (panthera pardus), jackal (canis aureus) and several species of bats (aryal and dhungel, 2009; miehe et al., 2015). fig. 1: map showing the localities of the six study sites within the three regions in central nepal, the himalayas calculation of conservation assessments the herbaria at the royal botanic garden edinburgh herbarium (e), the natural history museum london (bm) and the national herbarium and plant laboratories, kathmandu (kath) were consulted for specimens of the 153 woody species recorded during the study. all the specimens were photographed and data-based in the ‘padme database’, which is used to manage all information for the flora of nepal project. altogether, 4,374 herbarium specimens (1,927 specimens recorded from the e, 1,239 specimens from the bm and 1,208 from the kath) together with the occurrence-records in the present study and unvouchered field records of the occurrences of the unambiguously identified common species in the ‘padme database’ were used for the assessments. in addition to this, the distributions of species in the neighbour countries were also taken into consideration while assigning the categories. the assessments were based mostly on criteria b and a of the iucn categories and the criteria using extent of occurrence (eoo) adhikari et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 45 and area of occupancy (aoo) plus evidence (or inferring) of decline in the habitat (iucn, 2016). species which are very close to qualifying or likely to qualify for a threatened category (critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable) in the near future were categorized as near threatened (nt). evidence of population size and/or reduction was, generally, not available. the eoo was calculated using geocat (bachman et al. 2011; http://geocat.kew.org/) while the aoo using a facility in the ‘padme database results and discussion one hundred and fifty-three woody plant species were recorded from the six study sites, comprising 80 species of trees, 48 shrubs and 25 woody climbers (annex i). the highest species richness of trees and climbers were recorded at the annapurna sites (trees 53; climbers 21), followed by the kathmandu valley (trees 44; climbers 18) and the langtang sites (trees 26; climbers 11). there was a greater diversity of shrubs in the kathmandu sites (30) and the annapurna sites (30) followed by the langtang sites (16). the most commonly recorded family was rosaceae (26 species) followed by lauraceae (9 species), fagaceae and ericaceae (both 7 species). preliminary conservation assessment two species, taxus wallichiana zucc. and hoya edenii king ex hook. f. were categorised as ‘endangered’ (en), one species, hypericum cordifolium choisy as ‘vulnerable’ (vu), ten species as ‘near threatened’ (nt) and 116 species as ‘least concern’ (ls). there were insufficient data to calculate conservation assessments for 24 species, and so those species were categorised as ‘data deficient’ (dd) (table 1). the complete list of the species (trees, shrubs and climbers) found in the study sites along with their preliminary conservation assessments is presented in annex i. tree species: among the 80 species of trees, seven were categorised as ‘near threatened’ (nt) based on the iucn criteria; the species being abies spectabilis (d. don) mirb., acer caudatum wall., aesculus indica (colebr. ex cambess.) hook., camellia kissi wall., eriobotrya elliptica lindl., euonymus pendulus wall. and litsea doshia (d. don) kosterm. t. wallichiana is the only tree species listed as ‘en’ (a2 a, c, d). the population of this species is decreasing at an alarming rate because of commercial demand (liu et al., 2011; poudel et al., 2012; gajurel et al., 2013), and it has been listed in the cites appendix 2 since 1995. fifty eight species were fairly well distributed, and were categorized as ‘lc’ while 14 species were placed under ‘dd’. shrubs: one species, h. cordifolium choisy was recorded as ‘vu’ (b1 a, b). three species, d. bholua buch.-ham. ex d. don, d. papyracea wall. ex steud. and edgeworthia gardneri (wall.) meisn. were recorded as ‘nt’ while thirty-seven species fell into ‘lc’ category, and seven were categorized as ‘dd’. climbers: one species, hoya edenii king ex hook. f. was assessed as ‘en’, (b1 a, b) while 21 were recorded as ‘lc’, and three were categorized as ‘dd’. conclusion this study clearly reflects the limitations of the data which are currently available. almost 15% of the species were classified as ‘data deficient’ as their distributions were too poorly known to confidently assign them to any category. several of these species have very limited distributions, and are known only from a few specimens, and so it is quite possible that a significant number of them are actually under threat of depletion or extinction. looking at the maps of some of the common species, such as p. roxburghii and p. wallichiana (annex ii), it is evident that these species are certainly under-recorded and the data set is insufficient to make accurate conservation assessments for these species. clearly, more distribution records are needed before we can adhikari et al. table 1: preliminary conservation assessments based on the iucn criteria for 153 woody plant species recorded at the ghorepani, panchase, shivapuri, chandragiri, langtang and bhalche sites in central nepal data deficient (dd) least concern (lc) near threatened (nt) vulnerable (vu) endangered (en) critically endangered (ce) 24 116 10 1 2 0 banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 46 be certain of the conservation status of these commonly occurring and widely utilized nepalese woody plants. many natural resource systems, here exemplified by forests, fall under collective management or are subject to use by multiple individuals, often for a variety of purposes (poteete and ostrom, 2004). sustaining these resources in the face of economic and demographic pressures depends upon an array of interdependent components including legislation and local engagement. in order to facilitate evidence-based natural resource management, we need to enhance our knowledge regarding the species richness, composition and dynamics of these systems. pandey (2007) found comparatively higher species richness in the community forests than in the national parks and government forests he investigated, and in the sacred groves of the western ghats of india. bhagwat et al. (2005) found informal protection traditions to contribute to successful biodiversity conservation. we see similar trends in some of our material; however, we cannot see this as an overriding trend for the data set as a whole. in other words, these dynamics within social-ecological systems are context-dependent which call for enhanced knowledge in order to manage both ecosystem service delivery to the local people, and contribute to biodiversity conservation. acknowledgements we would like to thank mr. bishnu chapagain, mr. ashok chaudhary, mr. kuber bhatta, mr. rupesh gurung, ms. lila sharma, ms. asha suwal, mr. rajesh shrestha and ms. keith mcinturff for their assistance in our fieldwork. we are thankful to all the villagers who helped us in our fieldwork. we acknowledge machhapuchhre development organisation (mdo) and ms. bashuda gurung for providing insightful information on the panchase area. we are grateful to the norwegian research council (190153/ v10) and grolle olsens legat for their financial support to accomplish this study. references antonovics, j., hood, m. e., thrall, p. h., abrams, j. y. and duthie, g. m. 2003. herbarium studies on the distribution of anther-smut fungus (microbotryum violaceum) and silene species (caryophyllaceae) in the eastern united states. american journal of botany 90: 1522–1531. doi:10.3732/ajb.90.10.1522 accessed on 14 june, 2016. aryal, a. and dhungel, s. k. 2009. species diversity and distribution of bats in panchase region of nepal. tigerpaper 36 (2): 14–18. bachman, s., moat, j., hill, a. w., de la torre, j. and scott, b. 2011. supporting red list threat assessments with geocat: geospatial conservation assessment tool. zookeys 150: 117–126. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.3897/ zookeys.150.2109 accessed on 14 june, 2016. berkes, f. 2004. rethinking community-based conservation. conservation biology 18 (3): 621–630. bhagwat, s. a., kushalappa, c. g., williams, p. h. and brown, n. d. 2005. the role of informal protected areas in 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cross-species amplification and development of new microsatellite loci adhikari et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 47 for taxus wallichiana (taxaceae). american journal of botany 98: e70–e73. måren, i., bhattarai, k. r. and chaudhary, r. p. 2013. forest ecosystem services and biodiversity in contrasting himalayan forest management systems environmental conservation. published online doi:10.1017/ s0376892913000258 accessed on 15 october, 2016. miehe, g., pendry, c. a. and chaudhary, r. 2015. nepal: an introduction to the natural history, ecology, and human environment of the himalayas. royal botanic garden edinburgh, edinburgh, uk. pandey, s. s. 2007. tree species diversity in existing community-based forest management systems in central mid-hills of nepal. swedish biodiversity centre, swedish university of agricultural sciences, uppsala, sweden. poteete, a. r. and ostrom, e. 2004. heterogeneity, group size and collective action: the role of institutions in forest management. development and change 35: 435–461. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7660.2004.00360.x accessed on 9 january, 2017. poudel, r. c., möller, m., gao, l. m., ahrends, a., baral, s. r., liu, j., thomas, p. and li, d. z. 2012. using morphological, molecular and climatic data to delimitate yews along the hindu kush-himalaya and adjacent regions. plos one 7 (10): e46873. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0046873 accessed on 16 december, 2016. press, j. r., shrestha, k. k. and sutton, d. a. 2000. annotated checklist of the flowering plants of nepal. the natural history museum, london, uk. rich, t. c. g. and lewis, j. 1999. use of herbarium material for mapping the distribution of erophila (brassicaceae) taxa sensu filfilan and elkington in britain and ireland. watsonia 22: 377–385. sharma, l. n. 2016. the disturbance-diversity relationship: integrating biodiversity conservation and resource management in anthropogenic landscapes. phd thesis, department of biology, university of bergen, norway. watson, m. f., akiyama, s., ikedo, h., pendry, c., rajbhandari, k. r. and shrestha, k. k. 2011. flora of nepal (vol. 3). the royal botanical garden edinburgh, edinburgh, uk. adhikari et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 48 adhikari et al. annex i: list of the species recorded in the annapurna (a) region (panchase and ghorepani), the kathmandu (k) valley region (chandragiri and shivapuri) and the langtang (l) region (bhalche and langtang], and their preliminary conservation assessment s.n. scientific name family recorded from p. con. asses. a k l trees 1 abies spectabilis (d.don) mirb pinaceae  near threatened (nt) 2 acer caesium wall. ex brandis sapindaceae  data deficient (dd) 3 acer campbellii hook. f. & thomson ex hiern sapindaceae  least concern (lc) 4 acer caudatum wall. sapindaceae  near threatened (nt) 5 acer sterculiaceum wall. sapindaceae  least concern (lc) 6 actinodaphne angustifolia nees lauraceae  data deficient (dd) 7 actinodaphne sikkimensis meisn. lauraceae  data deficient (dd) 8 aesculus indica (colebr. ex cambess.) hook sapindaceae  near threatened (nt) 9 alnus nepalensis d.don betulaceae  least concern (lc) 10 benthamidia capitata (wall.) h. hara cornaceae  least concern (lc) 11 betula alnoides buch.-ham. ex d.don betulaceae    data deficient (dd) 12 camellia kissi wall. theaceae   near threatened (nt) 13 carpinus viminea lindl. betulaceae  least concern (lc) 14 castanopsis tribuloides (sm.) a.dc. fagaceae  least concern (lc) 15 cotoneaster frigidus wall. ex lindl. rosaceae  least concern (lc) 16 daphniphyllum himalense (benth.) mull. arg. daphniphyllaceae    least concern (lc) 17 deutzia staminea r. br. ex wall. hydrangeaceae  least concern (lc) 18 dodecadenia grandiflora nees lauraceae   least concern (lc) 19 elaeagnus parvifolia wall. ex royle elaeagnaceae    least concern (lc) 20 eriobotrya dubia (lindl.) decne. rosaceae   data deficient (dd) 21 eriobotrya elliptica lindl. rosaceae  near threatened (nt) 22 euonymus pendulus wall. celestraceae   near threatened (nt) 23 eurya acuminate dc. pentaphylacaceae    least concern (lc) 24 euryacer asifolia (d.don) kobuski pentaphylacaceae   least concern (lc) 25 ficus neriifolia sm. moraceae   least concern (lc) 26 ficus pumila l. moraceae  data deficient (dd) 27 fraxinus floribund wall. oleaceae  least concern (lc) 28 garuga pinnata roxb. burseraceae  data deficient (dd) 29 hydrangea heteromalla d.don hydrangeaceae  least concern (lc) 30 ilex dipyrena wall. aquifoliaceae    least concern (lc) 31 juglans regia l. juglandaceae  least concern (lc) 32 leucosceptrum canum sm. lamiaceae  least concern (lc) 33 ligustrum confusum decne. oleaceae   data deficient (dd) 34 lindera pulcherrima (nees) hook. f. lauraceae    least concern (lc) 35 litsea doshia (d.don) kosterm. lauraceae   near threatened (nt) 36 lyonia ovalifolia (wall.) drude ericaceae    least concern (lc) 37 lyonia villosa (hook. f.) hand.-mazz. ericaceae  least concern (lc) 38 macaranga pustulata king ex hook. f. euphorbiaceae  least concern (lc) 39 machilus clarkeana king ex hook. f. lauraceae  data deficient (dd) 40 machilus duthiei king ex hook. f. lauraceae    least concern (lc) 41 machilus odoratissima nees lauraceae   least concern (lc) 42 magnolia doltsopa (buch.-ham. ex dc.) figlar magnoliaceae   data deficient (dd) 43 maytenus rufa (wall.) h. hara celastraceae  least concern (lc) 44 myrica esculenta buch.-ham. ex d.don myricaceae    least concern (lc) 45 myrsine semiserrata wall. primulaceae    least concern (lc) 46 neolitsea pallens (d.don) momiy. & h. hara ex h. hara lauraceae    least concern (lc) 47 osmanthus fragrans lour. oleaceae  data deficient (dd) 48 photinia integrifolia lindl. rosaceae  least concern (lc) banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 49 adhikari et al. 49 pieris formosa (wall.) d.don ericaceae    least concern (lc) 50 pinus roxburghii sarg. pinaceae   least concern (lc) 51 pinus wallichiana a.b. jacks. pinaceae  least concern (lc) 52 prunus cerasoides d.don rosaceae    least concern (lc) 53 prunus cornuta (wall. ex royle) steud. rosaceae  least concern (lc) 54 prunus napaulensis (ser.) steud. rosaceae  data deficient (dd) 55 prunus rufa hook. f. rosaceae  least concern (lc) 56 prunus undulata buch.-ham. ex d.don rosaceae  least concern (lc) 57 pyrularia edulis (wall. ex roxb.) dc. santalaceae   least concern (lc) 58 pyrus pashia buch.-ham. ex d.don rosaceae   least concern (lc) 59 quercus glauca thunb. fagaceae   least concern (lc) 60 quercus lamellosa sm. fagaceae    data deficient (dd) 61 quercus lanata sm. fagaceae   least concern (lc) 62 quercus semecarpifolia sm. fagaceae    least concern (lc) 63 rhamnus purpureus edgew. rhamnaceae  least concern (lc) 64 rhododendron arboretum sm. ericaceae    least concern (lc) 65 rhododendron barbatum wall. ex g. don ericaceae  least concern (lc) 66 rhododendron campanulatum d.don ericaceae  least concern (lc) 67 rhus javanica miller anacardiaceae  least concern (lc) 68 rhus succedanea l. anacardiaceae   least concern (lc) 69 salix obscura andersson salicaceae  data deficient (dd) 70 saurauia napaulensis dc. actinidiaceae  least concern (lc) 71 schima wallichii (dc.) korth. theaceae  least concern (lc) 72 skimmia arborescens t. anderson ex gamble rutaceae  least concern (lc) 73 sorbus vestita (wall. ex g.don) lodd. rosaceae   least concern (lc) 74 symplocos ramosissima wall. ex g.don symplocaceae    least concern (lc) 75 symplocos theifolia d.don symplocaceae   least concern (lc) 76 taxu swallichiana zucc. taxaceae  endangered (en) 77 tsuga dumosa (d.don) eichler pinaceae  least concern (lc) 78 viburnum erubescens wall. ex dc. adoxaceae    least concern (lc) 79 viburnum grandiflorum wall. ex dc. adoxaceae  least concern (lc) 80 zizyphus incurva roxb. rhamnaceae   least concern (lc) shrubs/bushes 1 eleutherococcus cissifolius (griff. ex seem.) harms araliaceae   least concern (lc) 2 arundinaria maling gamble poaceae   data deficient (dd) 3 berberis aristata dc. berberidaceae    least concern (lc) 4 berberis asiatica roxb. ex dc. berberidaceae   least concern (lc) 5 berberis insignis hook. f. & thomson berberidaceae  least concern (lc) 6 berberis napaulensis (dc.) laferr. berberidaceae    least concern (lc) 7 berberis wallichiana dc. berberidaceae  least concern (lc) 8 boenninghausenia albiflora (hook.) rchb. ex meisn. rutaceae   least concern (lc) 9 colebrookea oppositifolia sm. lamiaceae  least concern (lc) 10 colquhounia coccinea wall. lamiaceae  least concern (lc) 11 cotoneaster acuminatus lindl. rosaceae   least concern (lc) 12 cotoneaster microphyllus wall. ex lindl. rosaceae   least concern (lc) 13 daphne bholua buch.-ham. ex d.don thymelaeaceae    near threatened (nt) 14 daphne papyracea wall. ex steud. thymelaeaceae   near threatened (nt) 15 desmodium elegans dc. leguminosae  least concern (lc) 16 desmodium multiflorum dc. leguminosae  least concern (lc) 17 drepanostachyum falcatum (nees) keng f. poaceae  data deficient (dd) 18 edgeworthia gardneri (wall.) meisn. thymelaeaceae  near threatened (nt) 19 gaultheria fragrantissima wall. ericaceae   least concern (lc) 20 hypericum cordifolium choisy hypericaceae  vulnerable (vu) 21 hypericum hookeranum wight & arn. hypericaceae    least concern (lc) 22 indigofera heterantha wall. ex brandis leguminosae   least concern (lc) banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 50 adhikari et al. 23 inula cappa (buch.-ham. ex d.don) dc. compositae  least concern (lc) 24 lonicera ligustrina wall. caprifoliaceae  data deficient (dd) 25 maesa chisia buch.-ham. ex d.don primulaceae  least concern (lc) 26 mussa endatreutleri stapf rubiaceae  least concern (lc) 27 neillia rubiflora d.don rosaceae  least concern (lc) 28 phyllanthus clarkei hook. f. euphorbiaceae   least concern (lc) 29 piptanthus nepalensis (hook.) d.don leguminosae  least concern (lc) 30 prinsepia utilis royle rosaceae  least concern (lc) 31 randia tetrasperma (roxb.) benth. & hook. f. ex brandis rubiaceae   least concern (lc) 32 ribesacum inatum wall. ex g. don grossulariaceae  least concern (lc) 33 rosa brunonii lindl. rosaceae   least concern (lc) 34 rosa macrophylla lindl. rosaceae  least concern (lc) 35 rosa sericea lindl. rosaceae  least concern (lc) 36 rubus calycinus wall. ex d.don rosaceae least concern (lc) 37 rubus ellipticus sm. rosaceae    data deficient (dd) 38 rubus pentagonus wall. ex focke rosaceae  least concern (lc) 39 rubus sumatranus miq. rosaceae  data deficient (dd) 40 sarcococca saligna (d.don) mull. arg. buxaceae   data deficient (dd) 41 sarcococca wallichii stapf buxaceae   least concern (lc) 42 spiraea canescens d.don rosaceae  data deficient (dd) 43 swidao blonga (wall.) sojak cornaceae  least concern (lc) 44 viburnum cylindricum buch.-ham. ex d.don sambucaceae   least concern (lc) 45 viburnum mullaha buch.-ham. ex d.don sambucaceae   least concern (lc) 46 wikstroemia canescens meisn. thymelaeaceae  least concern (lc) 47 zanthoxylum armatum dc. rutaceae    least concern (lc) 48 zanthoxylum oxyphyllum edgew. rutaceae    least concern (lc) woody climbers 1 ampelocissus rugosa (wall.) planch. vitaceae  least concern (lc) 2 aristolochia griffithii hook. f. & thoms. ex duch. aristolochiaceae    least concern (lc) 3 ceropegia longifolia wall. apocyanaceae    data deficient (dd) 4 cissampelos pareira l. menispermaceae  least concern (lc) 5 clematis connata dc. ranunculaceae  least concern (lc) 6 clematis montana buch.-ham. ex dc. ranunculaceae  least concern (lc) 7 cochlianthus gracilis benth. leguminoceae  data deficient (dd) 8 euonymus echinatus wall. celastraceae   least concern (lc) 9 hedera nepalensis k. koch araliaceae    least concern (lc) 10 hedyotis scandens roxb. rubiaceae  data deficient (dd) 11 holboellia latifolia wall. lardizabalaceae    least concern (lc) 12 hoya edenii king ex hook. f. apocyanaceae   endangered (en) 13 jasminum humile l. oleaceae   least concern (lc) 14 jasminum officinale l. oleaceae   least concern (lc) 15 piper mullesua buch.-ham. ex d.don piperaceae   least concern (lc) 16 rubia manjith roxb. ex fleming rubiaceae    least concern (lc) 17 rubus acuminatus sm. rosaceae  least concern (lc) 18 rubus paniculatus sm. rosaceae    least concern (lc) 19 sabia campanulata wall. ex roxb. sabiaceae   least concern (lc) 20 schisandra grandiflora (wall.) hook. f. & thomson schisandraceae  least concern (lc) 21 smilax aspera l. smilacaceae   least concern (lc) 22 smilax elegans wall. ex kunth smilacaceae   least concern (lc) 23 smilax ferox wall. ex kunth smilacaceae    least concern (lc) 24 smilax menispermoidea a. dc. smilacaceae  least concern (lc) 25 tetrastigma serrulatum (roxb.) planch. vitaceae    least concern (lc) banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 51 adhikari et al. annex ii: distribution maps of the species recorded from the three mid-hills regions of nepal, based on the herbarium specimens deposited at the rbge, bm and kath annex ii: distribution maps of the species recorded from the three mid-hills regions of nepal, based on the herbarium specimens deposited at the rbge, bm and kath trees abies spectabilis acer caesium acer campbellii acer caudatum actinodaphne angustifolia acer sterculiaceum actinodaphne sikkimensis aesculus indica alnus nepalensis benthamidia capitata betula alnoides camellia kissi trees carpinus viminea castanopsis tribuloides cotoneaster frigidus daphniphyllum himalense deutzia staminea dodecadenia grandiflora elaeagnus parvifolia eriobotrya dubia eriobotrya elliptica euonymus pendulus eurya acuminata eurya cerasifolia trees ficus neriifolia ficus pumila fraxinus floribunda garuga pinnata hydrangea heteromalla ilex dipyrena juglans regia leucosceptrum canum ligustrum confusum lindera pulcherrima lyonia ovalifolia litsea doshia trees lyoni avillosa macaranga pustulata machilus clarkeana machilus duthiei machilus odoratissima magnolia doltsopa maytenus rufa myrica esculenta neolitsea pallens myrsinesemis errata photinia integrifolia osmanthus fragrans banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 52 adhikari et al. trees pieris formosa pinus roxburghii prunus cerasoides pinus wallichiana prunus cornuta prunus napaulensis prunus rufa prunus undulata pyrularia edulis pyrus pashia quercus glauca quercus lamellosa trees quercus lanata quercus semecarpifolia rhamnus purpureus rhododendron arboreum rhododendron barbatum rhododendron campanulatum rhus javanica rhus succedanea saurauia napaulensis salix obscura schima wallichii skimmia arborescens trees sorbus vestita symplocos ramosissima taxus wallichiana symplocos theifolia tsuga dumosa viburnum erubescens viburnum grandiflorum zizyphu sincurva shrubs eleutherococcu scissifolius berberis aristata berberis asiatica berberis insignis berberis wallichiana berberis napaulensis boenninghausenia albiflora colebrookea oppositifolia colquhounia coccinea cotoneaster acuminatus cotoneaster microphyllus daphne bholua banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 53 shrubs daphne papyracea desmodium elegans desmodium multiflorum edgeworthia gardneri hypericum cordifolium gaultheria fragrantissima hypericum hookeranum indigofera heterantha inula cappa lonicera ligustrina maesa chisia mussaenda treutleri shrubs neillia rubiflora phyllanthu sclarkei piptanthus nepalensis prinsepia utilis randia tetrasperma ribes acuminatum rosa brunonii rosa macrophylla rubus calycinus rosa sericea rubus ellipticus rubus pentagonus shrubs sarcococca saligna sarcococca wallichii spiraea canescens swida oblonga viburnum cylindricum viburnum mullaha wikstroemia canescens zanthoxylum armatum zanthoxylum oxyphyllum climbers ampelocis susrugosa aristolochiagriffithii ceropegialongifolia cissampelospareira clematis montana clematis connata cochlianthus gracilis euonymus echinatus hedera nepalensis hedyotis scandens holboellia latifolia hoya edenii adhikari et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 54 climbers jasminum humile jasminum officinale piper mullesua rubia manjith rubus acuminatus rubus paniculatus sabia campanulata schisandra grandiflora smilax aspera smilax elegans smilax ferox smilax menispermoidea climbers tetrastigma serrulatum adhikari et al. 150 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 restoration of degraded land through moso bamboo (phyllostachys pubescens) plantation in the mid-hills of nepal g. p. gautam1*, r. r. aryal1 and p. lamichhane1 bamboo is basically a perennial grass with woody culms from rhizomes. the growth rate of bamboo is approximately 121 cm in 24 hrs, which is recorded as one of the fastest growth plant on earth (ueda, 1974 cited by adhikari, 2008). it matures within 3—5 years depending on the type of species, ecological as well as the prevailing edaphic and climatic factors. due to its fast growing nature, it is acting as remedial materials for reducing land degradation through fast recovery. bamboos have the dense surface root, large network of rhizomes which form a mat-like structure that prevent seepage of soil water and provide good protection during sheet and gully erosion for soil conservation (stapleton, 1994; narayana, 1988; howell et al., 1989). land degradation results in decrease in land quality and its productivity which initiate longterm loss of ecosystem function caused by direct and indirect human induce disturbances from which the land cannot recover unaided (bai et al., 2008). it is a major environmental problem in nepal. deforestation, shifting cultivation, overgrazing, steep slope farming, over use of chemical fertilizers and abandon of fallow land alter the bio-physical and chemical properties of land (acharya and kafle, 2009).such human induced activities need to be altered to reclaim the degraded land. mechanical approaches for degraded land restoration are not sustainable as compared to biological approaches which are economically sound due to better soil protection capacity. however, the combination of both approaches is effective in restoring degraded land. biological approaches, such as plantation of tress, are adaptive as a better remedial process for improving land degradation. among them, plantation of bamboo help for rapid colonized in degraded land due to their adaptability as fast growing nature and nutrient conservation ability maintaining microclimate through thick layer of bamboo litter. there are about 90 genera and 1200 bamboo species in the world (fao, 2005). likewise, 12 genera and 53 species of bamboos are found in nepal (das, 2002). the distribution of bamboo in nepal is from terai to high mountain (60– 4000 m) in natural forest as well as on farmland. both tropical bamboos of south-east asia and temperate bamboos of tibet and bhutan are found in nepal (karki, et al., 1995; ghimire, 2008). there are three types of bamboo in nepal. they are differentiated based on their rhizomes. (1) sympodial/ pachymorph/ clumper, (2) amphipodial or intermediate/amphimorph, and (3) monopodial / leptomorph/runner/nonclumper or diffuse. most of the bamboo species in nepal have sympodial/pachymorph type rhizomes (clumpforming). they have short and thick rhizomes. they cluster together. large bamboo species under two genera (bambusa and dendrocalamus), and other smaller ones (thamnocalamus and drepanostachyum) fall in this category (jackson, 1994). the rhizomes of amphipodial bamboos exhibit both running (leptomorph) and clumping (pachymorph) habits such as in melocanna species. monopodial bamboo has thin and longrhizomes such as species of phyllostachys which run parallel to the ground, and produce isolated shoots at an interval of up to 3 m. among them, monopodial bamboo has shown the best performance for restoration of degraded land. moso bamboo (phyllostachys pubescens) is a light demander species. it possesses short note 1 department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. *e-mail: gopalgt@yahoo.com 151 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 monopodial character; grows in scattered state, and can spread over a large distance and areas. within the moso bamboo distribution zone, soil types vary from red soils over yellow soils to yellowish brown soils. red soils are dominant in the distribution area, whereas suitable conditions include 60 centimeters of deep fertile loam with a ph ranging from 4.5 to 7.0. moist conditions are favourable, but not water-logged soil. the growth of moso bamboo is seriously affected if the salt content of the soil solution is higher than 1% or if the ph value exceeds 8.0 (chen and wang, 2016). southern slopes offer better growth conditions for moso bamboo than northern and south eastern slopes, even though these are still more favorable than north western slopes. ravine, piedmont and gentle slope are favorable sites for moso growing (chen and wang, 2016). materials and methods study area the research plot is located at dhaneshwor baikiwa community forest in kavrepalanchok district in mid-hills of nepal (fig. 1). its altitude is 1520 m above sea level. the latitude of the plot varies from 27° 37’ 00” to 27° 37’ 30” n and the longitude ranges from 31’ 22”– 85° 32’ 00” e. the average annual rainfall is 1300 mm and seven months are dry from november to may. the mean maximum temperature and minimum temperature are 33°c and 4°c, respectively. the average slope is 20° and the aspect is northeast. the forest adjoining to the plot is schimacastanopsis and pine mixed forest with frequent shrubby patches and poles. this site consists of brown clayey and sandy loam soil with good drainage. the moisture content and soil thickness of the plot is higher on southern side than northern side, which is exposed and dry. the ph value of the plot ranges from 4.5 to 5.05 and organic matter per cent ranges from 1.75 to 4.37 and nitrogen percent from 0.13 to 0.18. fig. 1: map showing moso bamboo research plot acquisition of seeds and seedlings production of moso bamboo the seeds of moso bamboo were acquired from china in 2006 for research purpose and seedlings were raised in chalnakhel nursery of department of forest research and survey (dfrs). establishment of trial plot the following activities were carried out before plantation. • site clearance (bush cleaning) • fencing using cement poles and barbed-wire • digging out of pits with size of 45 cm x 45 cm x 45 cm • grading of moso bamboo seedlings in nursery • use of cow dung manure (2 kg per pit) five-hundred moso bamboo seedlings were planted in an area of 0.5 ha at a spacing of 3 m x 3 m in august 2007 to test the survival and growth. weeding was done two times a year up to three years. the activities carried out after planting moso bamboo were as follows: gautam et al. 152 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 gautam et al. • replacement in september, 2007 (42 plants) • watering on the plants during dry season; the pipes were used to carry the water from the tank near to the plot. • the plants started to wilt and die after one month of planting due to white grubs; use of insecticide,phorate (powder form) 5–7 gram by making small 3–4 holes around the plant, controlled. • use of cow dung manure (3 kg per plant) in march 2008 • use of cow dung manure (3 kg per plant) in may 2009 • thinning carried out in 2014, 2015, 2016 and found 1980, 2142 and 2438 number of culms as intermittent yield, respectively. • rodents control from 2012 and up to date by using mortein power guard. • mesh wire fencing to control wild boars in 2015. dead, dying and drying culms were removed every year. new shoots were counted; diameter at breast height (dbh) and height were measured in different years. results and discussion at 4.5 months, 96% moso bamboo seedlings were found to be survived and the mean height was 21 cm. the survival percentage of seedlings reduced to 92% at 1.75 (1 year 9 months) years and the average height was 1.2 m at that age. the average number of total culms and new culms per clump at 1.75 years was 9 and 4, respectively. still, the moso bamboo plants were grown in a clustered form i.e. clump. after five years of plantation, 6383 individual culms were recorded whereas it was 6327 individual culms excluding thinned culms. the number of thinned culms was 1980, 2142, 2438 in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively. these results indicated that the moso bamboo has produced significant number of new culms in such a degraded site. similarly, the maximum dbh of the new culm was found to be 8.6 cm in 2017, i.e. after 10 years. besides its ecological and economical values, it is taken as biological measures for soil conservation due to its silvicultural characteristics. evergreen leaves with dense foliage, production of numerous culms, a capacity for rainfall interception and a thick layer of litter maintains a microclimate in the understory for soil moisture retention. water holding capacity of the litter layer enhances the soil infiltration properties. better infiltration capacity of moso bamboo reduces the surface flow and peak run-off. development of rhizome, culm and stand are related to the overall growth of moso bamboo. its active rhizomatous clonal growth produces rapid, widespread expansion of ramets to develop the below-ground lateral rhizome system. young culms are formed by the elongation of internodes from buried rhizome into the soil. that individual clump produces a multiple culms in the following year and forms a stand with differently aged culms distributed throughout to make an uneven aged bamboo forest structure. conclusion the recorded stand density reflects that the degraded land of dhaneshwor baikiwa community forest is converted to productive forest land through restoration from moso bamboo plantation. after the successful establishment of moso bamboo in a research plot on the degraded site of community forest land, it is recommended as a suitable bamboo species for the ecological restoration and reclamation of degraded land in the mid-hills of nepal. due to soil binding capacity, moso bamboo can be introduced for the treatment of earthquake induced landslide and soil liquification. the side effect of exotic species should be examined before introducing it to the new site. more intensive research, investment and up scaling is recommended in other parts of nepal. references acharya, a. k. and kafle, n. 2009. land degradation issues in nepal and its management through agroforestry. journal of agriculture and environment 10: 115–123. adhikari, n. 2008. economic potential of bamboo in nepal: for the traditional bamboo users in the modern economy (http://abari.org/ economic-potential-of-bamboo-innepal). bai, z. g., dent, d. l., olsson, l. and schaepman, m. e. 2008. global assessment 153 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 of land degradation and improvement. 1 . identification by remote sensing. report 2008/01, isric world soil information, wageningen. usa chen, t. and wang, d. 2016. the trend of growth characteristics of moso bamboo (phyllostachys pubescens) forests under an unmanaged condition in central taiwan. taiwan j for sci 31(2), pp. 75–87. das, a. n. 2002. bamboo growing and its market development potential for sustaining rural livelihood and poverty reduction in eastern nepal. banko janakari 12 (1): 8–19. fao. 2005. state of the world’s forest. food and agriculture organization of the united states, rome, italy. ghimire, a. 2008. an assessment of the dependency of farmers on bamboo resource for rural livelihood in lalitpur district, nepal. m.sc. thesis, boku university, vienna, austria. howell, j. h., sunwar, i. and clark, j. e. 1989. role of vegetation in slope stabilisation on highways. department of roads, hmgn, nepal. karki, m. b and karki, j. b. s. 1995. national bamboo and rattan information database, nepal. tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. narayana, v. v. d. 1988. watershed development and resource conservation for rangeland improvements. in rangeland resource and management (ed.) singh, p., proceedings of the national rangeland symposium. november 9–12, 1987, igfri, jhansi, india, 229–237. stapleton, c. m. a. 1994. bamboos. in manual of afforestation in nepal, volume 2 (ed.) jackson, j. k., forest research and survey centre. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, 401–426. ueda, k. 1974. bamboo. kenshu-in 31: 13–20. gautam et al. banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 sharma chi-square test was employed mainly to determine the significance of the differences but the validation rule often required other tests such as the fisher’s exact test. observations “new strategy” : myth or reality the study area is undergoing a rapid socio-economic transformation due to a strong market influence. the following are the major observations that cast doubt over the existence of the ‘new strategy’: 1) off-farm employment: the out-migration of people, due to the off-farm employment opportunities elsewhere, is rather rare. selfemployment through betbans (bamboo-saddler) work, is pursued even by the male members, and therefore contributes substantially to the farmhousehold income. however, the market alone does not control the adaptation of such works by the households. the brahmin households differ significantly from the paharis in self-employment, mainly in the betbans works. 2) growing cash crop: only one household in the study area, was found growing grapes for sell. no other cases of growing cash crops in substantial quantities were reported. however, fruit trees, mainly choerospondias axillaris are being increasingly planted for cash income. the cereal crops are being still cultivated widely. 3) reducing number or type of animal: a study at ghusel on rural transformation from a subsistence to a cash economy reported on the increased pressure on ecosystem for increased supply of fodder and firewood (bhatt et al., 1994). however, such a trend did not exist in the study area. only one household was reported raising livestock in larger numbers for cash income. the brahmins kept cows for subsistence consumption of milk. the rich households, generally keep cows but the poor households mostly the paharis keep goats. hence, the caste has a bearing on livestock-type being raised, though statistically not significant, than merely the market signals. table 1: purchasing of chemical fertiliser using various sources of income (pearson’s chi-square value in paranthesis) source of off-farm income self em <nrsl000 ployment > nrs 1000 salary < nrs 1000 > nrs 1000 wage income < nrs 100 > nrs 100 < nrs 100 forestry income nrs 100>nrs300 300 annual purchase % of households <nrs 500 23.8 42.9 50.0 16.7 57.1 31.0 21.4 21.4 23.8 > nrs 500 14.3 19.0 16.7 16.6 9.5 2.4 14.3 7.1 12.0 (0,202) (2,625)a (0,454)b (0,675) farm source of income cereal crops tree crops animal husbandry <nrs500 >nrs500 < nrs200 > nrs200 < nrs200 >nrs 200 annual purchase % o f h o u s e h o l d s <nrs 500 47,6 1 9 45,2 21,4 57,1 9,5 >nrs 500 4,8 28,6 19,1 14,3 14,3 19,1 (12,218)*** ______________________ (0,467) ______________________ (8,400 c)* a. fishers exact test; two tailed significance = 0,165; b. fisher’s exact test; two tailed significance = 0,650; c. fisher’s exact test: two tailed significance = 0,009; significance level *<0.05 **<0.01 ***<0.001 table 2: purchase of chemical fertiliser from total monthly income, wealth class, caste, literacy and land resource _______ perspectives (pearson's chi-square value within brackets) ___________________________________________________ monthly income (nrs) wealth caste literacy land resources (literate) khet bari (ropani) <5000 >5000 rich poor no pahari <2 >2 yes no <4 >4 ____________________________________________ pahari __________________________________________________________ annual purchase _____________________________________ % of h o u s e h o l d s _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ <nrs 500 52.4 14.3 21.4 42.5 19.1 45.2 42.9 23.8 33.3 33.3 52.4 14.3 >nrs 500 11.9 21.4 28.6 4.8 21.4 14.3 4.8 28.5 33.4 0 16.7 16.6 missing 2.4 _____________ (7.467)** _____ (10.714)*** ______ (3.385a) ________ (9.355)** ______ (10.714b)** _______ (3.565c) a-fisher’s exact test; two tailed significance = 0,084 bfisher’s exact test; two tailed significance = 0,003 cfisher’s exact test; two tailed significance = 0,082 significance level * < .05 ** < .01*** < .001 11 sharma banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 significantly more cash in purchasing chemical fertiliser than those who do not own kbet. however, having more bari is not significantly related with the investment on chemical fertiliser on fisher’s exact test (see table2). 4) abandoning cultivation of crops that demand high labour inputs: the institutionalisation of voluntary exchange of labour such as parma, nogar, etc. is still evident in many parts of nepal. the parma is similar to a form of traditional work party or mwethya reported from machakos district of kenya, by which a person is called in neighbourhood to help with a special project, such as building a hut (mortimore et al.y 1995). these indigenous institutions are as much efficient as the government sponsored co-operatives (messerschmidt, 1981). parma and similar arrangement do not incur any direct cash to the employing household. the rich households having substantial cash income are still found abiding by the parma (see table3). furthermore, if an institution like parma is manifested in an area lying so close to the urban kathmandu, the assumption that the farmers are abandoning cultivation of crops that demand high labour input, is rather difficult to accept. 5) cash income to purchase chemical fertilisers: the availability of cash definitely encourages investment in chemical fertilisers. however, cash scarcity alone cannot be a determinant of application of organic manure in fields, which is rather highly influenced by the cultural factors. the cash income from all the sources is not equally spent on purchasing chemical fertilisers (table 1). the households getting substantial incomes from off farm sources such as self-employment, wage income and community forest income, do not invest much in chemical fertilisers. the non-farm income from salary may be used but is insignificant on the chitests. only the households having income mainly from farm sources such as the cereals and animal husbandry, significantly invest in purchasing the chemical fertiliser. however, the households with a substantial farm income from the tree crops do not purchase it much. therefore, the assumption that under the marketing influence, use of chemical fertiliser increases and pressure on forest decreases, may not be true. the use of fertiliser and organic manure in fields may also have another dimension, for that reason table-2 presents the purchase of chemical fertiliser from wealth, caste and literacy perspectives. the rich and more literate households significantly purchase more fertiliser than the poor and less literate households. (the operational definition of literacy is the number of household members having one time access to the formal education.) the pahari households purchase less chemical fertilisers than the rest, though not in a significant extent. the increased income accruing from self-employment, salary and wage, is not significantly related with the increased purchase of chemical fertiliser, rather it is related to the farm income, wealth class and literacy. furthermore, the households owning khet (low land crop field) invest table 3: the practice of parma by wealth and caste fuel for cooking ___________ wealth class _____ rich poor 6) leav ing marginal land uncultivated: if population growth is the cause of agriculture change, not the result, and that the principle change is the intensification of land use (boserup, 1965), then the marketing influence should intensify the cultivation resulting into an intensive land use. this idea is traced back to the work of j. h. thunen, who argues that the intensity of land use diminished away from a market centre (hall, 1966). it is noted that farmers in the study area are practising multiple cropping of maize with soya bean. they have further intensified land use by planting chorespondias axillaris on field boundary. __________________________________ % of households _____________________ caste _____________________ brahmin pahari yes 31 26.2 14.2 42.9 no 19 23.8 26.3 16.6 (0.389) (5.567)* significance level *<0.05 **<0.01 ***<0.001 ; (pearson’s chi-square value within brackets). table 4: main source of fuel for cooking by wealth and caste % of households fuel for cooking wealth class caste rich poor brahmin pahari firewood 32.5 33.3 21.0 47.4 kerosene 17.5 16.7 13.2 18.4 (0.011) (0.433*) a: validation rule: fisher’s exact test (2-tailed significance = 0.714); (pearson’s chi-square value within brackets). 12 banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 sharma 7) sending children to school: these days, there is an increasing tendency to send children to schools. however, it is a complex decision process that involves a lot of factors (foster, 1980; shrestha, 1984; kasaju et al.} 1985). the economic calculations alone do not bring the children to schools. the increased opportunities of cash income, in fact, has resulted into early drop-outs of some children from schools as reported elsewhere in the literature (hunt, 1978; foster, 1980). even the free education opportunity is not contributing to reduce the early drop-out of the children from schools. it is widely claimed that with increased cash income, firewood will be either purchased as it will no longer be a free commodity or substituted with kerosene (malla, 1993). however, it is observed that neither the rich households significantly differ from the poor regarding the use of fuel for cooking nor this difference is evident among the brahmin and pahari households (see table 4). reflections on one hand, the government of nepal is blamed for ignoring the commercial aspects of community forestry (malla, 1993) while on the other, social forestry is criticised for omitting the subsistence need of the villagers (monech et al., 1986). the argument for commercialisation of community forestry stems from an unfounded belief that under strong market influence villagers are interested in cash income and not on subsistence living. the assumption that under socioeconomic transformation the pressure on the forest decreases, is in fact, only a rosy depiction. the depiction that ‘uncultivated marginal lands, reduction of livestock, stall feeding’ subsequently reduces pressure from common forest (malla, 1993) may not be true because some of the critical assumptions are unfounded. this study also justifies foster’s (1980) question regarding the role of economic factors on children’s education. some poor brahmin households are sending children to school despite the hardship, whereas some pahari are retaining children in homes so that they can earn income through betbans works. hence, the decision regarding the schooling of children is not determined by the economic factors alone. the increased earning opportunity through betbans work results into more dropouts of pahari children from the school and even a free education opportunity is unable to retain them. this finding firmly agrees with observations elsewhere (hunt, 1978; foster, 1980) and is in contrast with malla’s (1993) expectation that an increased cash earning opportunity will place a larger number of children in the school. it is also fallacious that under stronger market influence, the cultivation pattern shifts from the cereal to the cash crop. in principle, this study agrees that with increased cash income, people spend much on purchasing chemical fertilisers. however, saying that “a strong market orientation eventually leads to a reduction of pressure on the forest” is deceptive. it is assumed that under strong market influence, villagers may face acute labour-scarcity and that may encourage for shifting to cash crop (malla, 1993). however, it is observed that the parma is institutionalised to cope with labour scarcity during peak agriculture season or under severe cash-scarcity. the rich and poor households do not differ significantly regarding the use of parma. nevertheless, the pahari households differ significantly from the rest. hence, the existence of such institutions is culturally determined and the market influence may not be decisive. such institutions may accommodate the scarcity of labour therefore, the so called ‘new strategy’ may not exist. thus ‘the rosy depiction’ on reducing pressure from the forest (malla, 1993) is just a mirage. conclusion the so-called new strategy, supposedly adopted by the villagers in the wake of market influence, is hardly evident. community forest still plays a significant role in sustaining agriculture in the study area. the socio-economic transformations under increasing influence of the market not necessarily minimise the role of community forest as it still contributes substantially in sustaining the subsistence living. many households still depend on community forest for basic forest products such as firewood, fodder, grasses, and leaf-litters; therefore commercialisation should be only at an amble pace. acknowledgements the study, a part of m sc thesis entitled “the impact of community forestry on income distribution” and submitted at wageningen agricultural university, was funded by a grant from the netherlands fellowship programme with additional suppoit from the narmsap. the author would like to thank the chairman of kumari ban fug chairman, mr. b. m. pahari and all the fug members for their hospitality and co-operation. references anonymous 1988. master plan for forestry sector, main report, ministry of forest and soil conservation, hmg, nepal. 13 sharma _________________________________ aprosc 1980. rapid baseline survey. agriculture project service centre, kathmandu, nepal. banskota, m. c. 1989. hill agriculture and the wider market economy: transformation processes and experience of the bagmati in nepal. icimod occasional paper no. 10. international centre for integrated mountain development, kathmandu, nepal. bhatt, n. and slayter, t. 1994. land, livestock, and livelihoods: changing dynamics of gender, caste, and ethnicity in a nepalese village. human ecology 22(4): 467-494. boserup, e. 1965 the conditions of agriculture growth: the economics of agrarian change under population pressure. allen and unwin. london. foster, p. 1980. education and social inequality in sub_saharan africa. journal of modem african studies 18: 201-236. hall, p. j. 1966. von thunen’s isolated state. oxford: pergamon press. hunt, d. m. 1978. rural poverty and the viability of basic needs strategies. ilo, ganeva. kasaju, p. and manandhar, t. b. 1985. impact of parents’ literacy on school enrolments and banko __ janakari,vol. 9, no. 2 retention of children: the case of nepal. iiep, unesco; paris; france malla, y. b. 1993. changing role of the forest resource market: an ignored dimension of community forestry. banko jankari 4(1): manandhar, p. k. 1980. introduction to policy, legislation and programmes of community forestry development in nepal. community forestry development project. kathmandu, nepal. messerschmidt, d. a. 1981. nogar and other traditional forms of cooperation in nepal: significance for development. human organisation 40 (1): 40-47. moench, m. and bandyopadhyaya, j. 1986. peopleforest interaction: a neglected parameter in himalayan forest managemet. mountain research and development 6 (1): 3-16 mortimore, m. and m. tiffen 1995. population and environment in time perspective: the machakos storey. in binns, t., (ed.) people and environment in africa. john wiley & sons ltd. shrestha, g. m. 1984. determinants of educational participation in rural nepal. cerid/wei project (main report) kathmandu, nepal. 14 nepal earthquake: need to quantify impact on forest ecosystem forest ecosystems are affected by many kinds of disturbances which are recognized as natural and integral part of their development. however, when the normal range of variation due to a disturbance is exceeded, it could result in largescale destruction of forest ecosystem structure and its functioning. geophysical disturbance such as earthquakes and volcanoes can be cited as examples of such disturbances. although earthquakes commonly occur in tectonically active regions, large-magnitude earthquakes can have serious disturbance in forests over large areas. the extent of the damage is, however, determined by the distance from the epicenter of the earthquake. nepal is situated in a tectonically active region in south asia. on 25th april 2015, nepal experienced a major earthquake followed by numerous aftershocks. these events resulted in the loss of thousands of lives, severe-injuries and devastating damages to buildings and infrastructures. the districts in the central part of nepal that were close to the epicenter were the hardest hit. the earthquake triggered landslides in many districts of nepal. these landslides have not only damaged houses and farmlands but also impacted the forest areas on the mountain slopes. the impact of landslides include removal of surface vegetation, damage to trees during the movement of debris from higher-slopes to down-slopes as well as final deposition which either completely cover forested-areas or cause partial damage to forest stand. the landslide impacts have the potential to get worse during the monsoon season. the impacts on forest can also include physical impact to tree roots, shift in ground level due to soil liquefaction and even water table. thus, in addition to immediate mortality, trees may suffer longer-term impact of disturbance in terms of wood quality, regeneration and stand structure. another impact of the kind disaster on forests would be increased demand for timber for reconstruction of damaged buildings. also, there is a likelihood of encroachment in forest areas as they often provide open-access land for people to build temporary shelters. forest administration has to be vigilant of this possibility and should, therefore, adopt appropriate strategies to manage this possibility. landslides can influence forest biodiversity and services through their impact on forest structure, composition and function. maintaining biological diversity and banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 2 other ecosystem services are significant in the context of nepal where many people are dependent on forest resources. in order to build our scientific understanding of the impact of abiotic disturbance such as landslides, more information is required regarding the nature and extent of forest disturbance. therefore, there is an immediate need to quantify earthquake-induced impact on forest resources in nepal so as to plan and implement appropriate actions to mitigate damages as well as to support forest restoration in future. recently, the ministry of forests and soil conservation, in coordination with the ministry of science, technology and environment has contributed to the preparation of environment and forestry component of the post-disaster need assessment. this exercise has provided important baseline information for identifying major issues, and direct and indirect impacts on environment and forests. with the development of remote sensing methods/algorithms as well as availability of high-resolution satellite imageries, monitoring of the impacts of disasters such as earthquake, flood and forest-fire on forest resources over larger areas have become feasible. besides, a joint effort amongst the concerned organizations is needed to better understand the impacts of such disasters on forest resources. banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 52-59 dhakal et al 52 forestry sector has potential to contribute to the growth of local and national economy (ludvig et al., 2016). nepal is rich in forest resources. based on the latest inventory, 44.74% area is occupied by the forest and other wooded land in nepal (dfrs, 2015). high biodiversity, significant forest coverage, forest dependency, and access to larger transnational markets (such as china and india) are the opportunities of forestry sector of nepal to contribute to the economic growth in both local and national levels (rai et al., 2014). forest sector in nepal has less contribution to national economy in comparison to its potentiality as forestry sector is not harnessing its economic potential (banjade, 2012). frequently changing policy in utilization of forest products (e.g. ban on tree felling, ban on collection of ntfps) has discouraged the investors to invest in forestry related enterprises (subedi et al, 2014). community forestry in nepal has been initially started for meeting the people's basic needs and checking the rate of deforestation (barlett, 1992; malla, 2000; ojha et al., 2009). now community forestry is one of the dominant forest regimes in nepal. around 23% of the forest area has been handed over as community forest. it has been recognized as successful programme for forest resource management especially in the mid-hills of nepal (paudel, 2014; paudel, 2015). the role of community forestry has been gradually widening. community forests in nepal are operating various types of forest-based enterprises. these enterprises are generating considerable amount of income and employment at the local level contributing to the local and national economy. comprehensive assessment of these enterprises is needed to improve their condition in the future. there is lack of assessment on the investment and benefits associated with these enterprises. we collected the data from 195 community-based enterprises in 23 districts of nepal representing all geographic and development regions. for the analysis purpose, we categorized the enterprises into four categories viz. non-timber forest products (ntfps), wood, ecotourism and agriculture enterprises. we analysed the investment, income, households benefitted and employment generation from these enterprises and compared with each other. mean investment in ecotourism (us$ 22805.09) and wood (us$ 11252.42) based enterprises was found higher than the mean investment in ntfps (us$ 2628.03) and agriculture (us$ 3383.63) based enterprises. mean annual income from the enterprises was found us$ 1982.56 and was significantly different between the types of enterprises (p<0.05). on an average 115 households were benefitted per enterprise. employment generation from wood based (2527 man-days) enterprises was found the highest followed by ecotourism (1490 man-days) enterprises. the mean employment generation from ntfp (1093 man-days) and agriculture-based enterprises (978 man-days) was found significantly lower (p<0.05) than timber and ecotourism-based enterprises. examination of community-based forest enterprises contribution in local economy and household economy is recommended for future researchers. key words: community forestry, ecotourism, employment, income investment and benefits associated with community based forest enterprises in nepal s. r. dhakal1*, a. r. sharma2 and g. paudel1 1 department of forests, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. *email: sanjeevdhakal99@gmail.com 2 community forest division, department of forests, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. dhakal et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 52-59 53 issues ranging from governance to livelihood and climate change to enterprise development have to be addressed through community forestry. with respect to climate change, community forests are implementing climate change adaptation activities (acharya and paudel, 2016) and contributing to carbon sequestration (tripathi et al., 2017) for mitigating climate change. community forestry users in community forests have already been involved in enterprise development in a small scale. enterprise development has been raised as one of the issues of discussion in the fifth community forestry national workshop held in 2008. various legislation and policies also emphasize to the development of forest-based enterprises. enterprise development in the community forest is highlighted in various forums but it has not been effective at the community level. forest products including non-timber forest products (ntfps) can contribute to the local livelihood and national economies (shackleton and pandey, 2013). this contribution can be increased through the enterprise development and value addition. ntfps farms have to pay certain level of royalty to the government while the other agricultural products have no royalty which the scholars recognized needs to be removed for developing the forest-based enterprises (subedi et al., 2004). primarily local people are benefitted from the community based forest enterprises (cbfes) in terms of income and employment (nurse et al., 2004). veneer, incense sticks, leaf plates, biobriquette, saw mill, nepali papers, girardinia diversifolia (himalayan nettle-allo), fabric products, aegle marmelos (bel) juice, bamboo crafts and furniture are the major forest-based products produced in nepal from the forest-based enterprises (neupane, 2014). study conducted by the multi stakeholder forestry programme (msfp) estimated that around 41,062 forest-based enterprises including timber, ntfps, ecosystem services (ecotourism) and forest bioenergy are being operated in nepal (subedi et al., 2014). enterprise development has significant potentiality in income generation and livelihood improvement but this opportunity has been missed (nurse et al., 2004) in nepal. forest based enterprises have role in securing food security, improving livelihood and poverty alleviation (neupane, 2014). in nepal forest-based enterprises are operated especially in two ways, private enterprises and the community enterprises. cbfes are the enterprises operated by either a single community forest or a group of community forests. in fact, it is an organized activity for strengthening economic conditions, strengthening stakeholder's networks and creating employment opportunities at the local level through value addition (acharya, 2005). although community forests have various opportunities in terms of raw materials and resources, there are various challenges for the development of the cbfes. for the development of the cbfes pokharel et al. (2006) identified that the low capacity in using improved technologies and inadequate access to market are the major problems. forest product-based enterprises especially ntfp based enterprises established by the communities are not competitive in this age of globalization as they cannot compete with the products of the market (banjade and paudel, 2008). inherent uncertainty and risk has been remained as the limiting factor for increasing investment in the forest based enterprises in nepal (subedi et al., 2014). to remove the obstacles and grab the opportunities of forest enterprise development, nepal has formulated and implemented various policies and legislative documents. community forestry development guideline, 2014 has the explicit provisions on forest-based enterprise development in the community forestry (dof, 2014). forest policy, 2015 and forest sector strategy (20162025) emphasize the forest product-based enterprise development (gon, 2015; gon, 2016). nepal's forestry sector policy has the provision of promoting the forest-based enterprises. gaps remain in translating these provisions into operation to achieve the desired targets. few studies have been conducted regarding the investments and benefits of the community-based forest enterprises. research and studies on different aspects of these enterprises are the pre-requisite for the development of these enterprises. due to few studies of the cbfes we have no idea on how to make them competitive in the age of globalization by removing weaknesses and grabbing opportunities. therefore, this study was conducted with the objective of assessing the investment and benefits including income, households benefitted and employment generation from the community based forest enterprises in nepal. banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 52-59 dhakal et al 54 materials and methods study area the study was conducted in 195 communitybased enterprises in 23 districts (table 1 and fig. 1) of nepal. a consultation meeting was done with the officials of the department of forests and community forest federations representatives for selection of the districts to be studied. identified 23 districts cover all the physiographic and development region of nepal. table 1: studied districts in terai, midlle mountain and himal physiographic region district terai jhapa, morang, sunsari, rauthat, rupendehi, banke middle mountain dhankuta, bhojpur, khotang, makawanpur, kaverepalanchowk, kathmandu, bhaktapur, palpa, syangja, gulmi, arghakhanchi, pyuthan, salyan, surkhet, dadeldhura himal taplejung, sankhuwasabha fig. 1: map showing study districts data collection a data collection format was developed at the community forest division of the department of forests (dof). discussion was held with the officials of the then dof and ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc) prior to conducting the research. data collection format was designed to collect the data on investment (installation and operation costs) in the enterprises, annual income, households benefitted, and the employment generation from the enterprises. pre-test of the format was done in two enterprises of the kavre district and found satisfactory. enterprises were categorized into four types namely (1) wood based enterprises that include timber, veneer, and furniture, (2) ntfp based enterprises that include storage, processing and value addition (3) ecotourism based enterprises that include picnic spots, recreation site, trekking and hiking and (4) agriculture based enterprises that include bee hiving, fruit plantation, and goat rearing. data were collected from 195 enterprises comprising 109 ntfp-based enterprises, 35 wood-based enterprises, 15 eco-tourism based and 36 agriculture-based enterprises on the year 2016 and 2017. data analysis the data collected formats were reviewed and then data were fed into ms-excel and statistical package for social sciences (spss) was used for analysis. investment of each type of enterprise was calculated by adding the costs of the installation and operation of that enterprise. likewise mean annual income, households benefitted and the employment generation were also calculated for each type of enterprise. analysis of variance (anova) was conducted to test the siginificane of mean difference in income, investment, number of benefitted households and employment generation from different types of enterprises. further, least siginificane difference (lsd) test was conducted as post-hoc test to identify the significance on mean differences between these enterprises. results and discussion investment in enterprises since the establishment time, a total of us$ 1,144,177 (1 us$ = nrs. 100) was found to be invested in the studied enterprises in 23 districts. the mean investment of all the studied enterprises was us$ 5,868. the mean investment was found higher in ecotourism-based enterprises (us$ 22,805) followed by timber-based enterprises (us$ 11,252). the mean investment in ntfp and agriculture-based enterprises were found to be us$ 2,686 and us$ 3,384, respectively (fig. 2). dhakal et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 52-59 55 2,628.03 11,252.42 22,805.09 3,383.63 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 ntfp wood ecotourism agriculture in ve st m en t ( u s$ ) fig. 2: mean investment in four types of enterprises one-way anova showed that mean investment was significantly different (p<0.05) in four types of enterprises. based on the lsd test, the mean investment of enterprises was significantly different between ntfps and wood, ntfps and ecotourism, wood and ecotourism, agriculture and wood, agriculture and ecotourism-based enterprise. there was no significant difference between ntfps and agriculture-based enterprises (table 2). table 2: results of lsd test of mean difference in investment (p-value) ntfp wood ecotourism agriculture ntfp .000* .000* .725 wood .000* 0.001* .003* ecotourism .000* 0.001* 0.000* * significant at 0.05 level ecotourism is regarded as a tool to provide economic benefits to the local communities maintaining ecological integrity especially through the lowimpact, nonconsumptive use of local resources (stem et al., 2003). investors are motivated to invest in the tourism sector considering tourism as one of the successful businesses in nepal. community forests were used for tourism facilities like picnic spot, bird watching, hiking, etc. wood based enterprises require the machinery and equipment for their establishment, operation and maintenance, thus investment in these enterprises was higher than that of the ntfps and agriculturebased enterprises. income from enterprises the studied enterprises had total annual income of us$ 386,599.21 with us$ 1982.56 per enterprise. the mean income of timber-based enterprises was higher (us$ 6378.57) followed by ecotourism-based enterprise (us$ 2247.70). the mean income of the ntfp based and agriculturebased enterprises was found to be us$ 828.94 and us$ 1091.08 respectively (fig. 3). 828.94 6,378.57 2,247.70 1,091.08 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 ntfp wood ecotourism agriculture in co m e u s$ /y ea r fig. 3: mean income from four types of enterprises one-way anova revealed that the mean income of different types of enterprises was significantly different (p<0.05). lsd test showed that mean income was significantly different between ntfps and wood, wood and ecotourism and wood and agriculture-based enterprises (table 3). table 3: results of lsd test to test mean income of enterprises (p-value) ntfp wood ecotourism agriculture ntfp .000* .409 .827 wood .000* 0.033* .000* ecotourism 0.409 0.33 0.546 * significant at 0.05 level based on other studies (e.g. acharya, 2005; pokharel et al., 2006 and pun and shrestha, 2008), enterprises operated by the community are generating significant income at the community level. acharya (2005) reported that there was 11% increment in the household level income from cbfe of the dolakha district. the mean income of the ntfps based enterprises in this study was significantly lower than other enterprises. different types of technologies are needed to obtain the desired product from different ntfp species rather than the use of similar technology as in case of wood-based enterprises. in microenterprise development program (medep), percapita income has been increased by 26.6% after involvement in the forest based micro-enterprises banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 52-59 dhakal et al 56 and at the same time per-family income has been increased by 46% (pun and shrestha, 2008). in this study, the mean income from the ntfps based enterprises was found lower than other enterprises. technology development for ntfps collection and processing is not adequate (pokharel et al., 2006). this study revealed that especially timber is the forest product of comparative advantage in woodbased enterprises and such enterprises operated by the community are significantly contributing to the poverty reduction (acharya and acharya, 2007). according to banjade (2012), the timber has a significant contribution to the national and local economy as compared to other products, although it gets lower priority in policy discourses. ntfps has dominated in the policy discussion while at the same time researchers suggest that timber has higher potentiality to contribute to the economy. therefore, emphasis should be given to the timber and wood-based forest products in forest policies and programmes. if we use the timber from community forests in a sustainable way, substantial income can be generated at the community level. households (hhs) benefitted from enterprises the mean number of households benefitted from four types of enterprises was found to be 115. the mean number of hhs benefitted from ecotourism enterprises was higher (335 hhs), followed by the wood-based enterprises (121 hhs). the mean number of hhs benefitted from ntfps and agriculture-based enterprises were 93 and 84, respectively (fig. 4). 93 121 335 84 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 ntfp wood ecotourism agriculture n um be r o f h ou se ho ld s fig. 4: mean number of households benefitted from four types of enterprises one-way anova revealed that the mean number of hhs benefitted from four types of enterprises was significantly different (p<0.05). lsd test showed that mean number of hhs benefitted from the ecotourism-based enterprise was found significantly different than other enterprises. ntfps and wood, ntfps and agriculture, wood and agriculture-based enterprises were similar in mean number of hhs benefitted (table 4). table 4: results of lsd test to test mean number of households benefitted from enterprises (p-value) ntfp wood ecotourism agriculture ntfp .439 .000* .604 wood .439 0.008* .239 ecotourism .000* 0.008* 0.001* *significant at 0.05 level in urban area, the number of hhs of the community forests is usually higher than the number of hhs of the community forests in rural area. the higher number of households benefitted from the ecotourism enterprise may be mainly due to the fact that the communities in urban area are operating ecotourism-based enterprises. ntfps and agriculture-based enterprises were operated by a small number of members in the community forest, which resulted in lower number of hhs benefitted from these enterprises. employment generation from enterprises the employment generation from the studied enterprises was found to be 1362 man-days per year per enterprise. the wood-based enterprises generated higher employment (2527) than other enterprises, while the employment generation from agriculture enterprises was found to be the lowest (978). the employment generation from ecotourism and ntfp based enterprises were found 1490 and 1093 man-days, respectively (fig. 5). 1093 2527 1490 978 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 ntfp wood ecotourism agriculture em pl oy m en t ( m an d ay s) fig. 5: mean employment generated from four types of enterprises dhakal et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 52-59 57 one-way anova showed that the mean employment generation from four types of enterprises was found significantly different (p=0.000). further, the lsd test showed that mean employment generation from woodbased enterprise was significantly higher than that of ntfp, ecotourism and agriculture-based enterprises (table 5). table 5: results of lsd test to test mean employment generation from enterprises (p-value) ntfp wood ecotourism agriculture ntfp .008* .600 .829 wood .008* 0.223 .019* ecotourism .600 0.223 0.545 this study revealed that four types of enterprises had generated employment at the community level. thus, it is obvious that operating cbfes have tremendous scope in generating employment at the local level. the main activities in generating employment in cbfes were collection of raw materials, fuel wood and value addition/processing (acharya, 2005). employment has been generated in two ways from the forest-based enterprises in the rural area such as, working in processing factories and generation of self-employment through collection or production and sale of raw materials (nurse et al., 2004). employment generated at the local level can help to raise income of the local people and thereby reducing poverty in a sustainable way. cbfes are playing vital role in poverty reduction through generation of employment opportunities for the poor people (pandit et al., 2015). in this research woodbased enterprise generated more income than other types of enterprises. promoting woodbased enterprises through simplification of the timber extraction process would be helpful in employment generation at the community level which ultimately helps to achieve the goal of poverty reduction. while giving priority to the wood-based enterprise, at the same time emphasis should be given to the establishment and operationalization of enterprises based on the potentiality of availability of the raw materials for operating enterprise. this could be the pathway to achieve prosperity through utilization of forest resources in nepal. conclusion this study analysed the investment and benefits of the community-based forest enterprises of nepal. the study revealed that the highest investment was in ecotourism-based enterprises, followed by the wood-based enterprises. the mean annual income of wood-based enterprises was significantly higher than other enterprises. the mean number of households benefitted from ecotourism enterprises was found to be higher. the members from large community forests had operated ecotourism-based enterprises, whereas the members from small community forests had operated ntfp and agriculture-based enterprises. wood based enterprises had generated more employment than other enterprises. it can be concluded that the wood-based enterprises are comparatively more advantageous and emphasis should be given to the promotion of such enterprises. the raw material availability and market access are the determining factors in enterprise development. the contribution of the cbfes at the community level is significant through employment opportunities and income generation, though its contribution at the national level is nominal. for the nationwide promotion of the cbfes, we should be able to show the values of these enterprises; their contribution in national and local economies should be explored. detail analysis of cbfes contribution to the local economy and household income is recommended for further research. references acharya, r. and paudel, g. 2016. implementation status of community adaptation plans: a case study from parbat district, nepal. international journal of environment 5 (3): 119–126. acharya, k. p. and acharya, s. 2007. small scale wood based enterprises in community forestry: contribution to poverty alleviation. banko janakari 17 (1): 3–10. acharya, r. p. 2005. socio-economic impacts of community based forest enterprises in mid hills of nepal-case study from dolakha district. banko janakari 15 (2): 43–47. banjade, m. r. 2012. discourse and discursive banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 52-59 dhakal et al 58 practices over timber in nepal. journal of forest and livelihood 10 (1): 58–73. banjade, m. r. and paudel, n. s. 2008. economic potential of non-timber forest products in nepal: myth or reality? journal of forest and livelihood 7 (1): 36–48. bartlett, a. g. 1992. a review of community forestry advances in nepal. the commonwealth forestry review 71 (2): 95–100. dfrs. 2015. state of nepal's forests. department of forest research and survey (dfrs), kathmandu, nepal. dof, 2014. community forestry development guideline, 2014. department of forests (dof), nepal. gon, 2015.forest policy, 2015. government of nepal (gon), ministry of forests and soil conservation, nepal. gon, 2016. forestry sector strategy (2016-2025). government of nepal (gon), ministry of forests and soil conservation, nepal. ludvig, a., tahvanainen, v., dickson, a., evard, c., kurttila, m., cosovic, m., chapman, e., wilding, m. and weiss, g. 2016. the practice of entrepreneurship in the nonwood forest products sector: support for innovation on private forest land. forest policy and economics 66: 31–37. malla, y. b. 2000. impact of community forestry policy on rural livelihoods and food security in nepal. unasylva 51 (202):37– 45. neupane, r. p. 2014. forest based enterprises for food security and poverty alleviation: implications for community forestry and agroforestry development in nepal. in proceedings of the sixth national workshop on community forestry (eds.) mandal, r. a., dhakal, s. r. and hamal, n. community forest division, department of forests, nepal. nurse, m., khatri, d. b., paudel, d. and pokharel, b. 2004. rural entrepreneur development: a pro-poor approach to enterprise development through community forestry. in twenty-five years of community forestry, proceedings of the fourth national workshop on community forestry (eds.) kanel, k. r., mathema, p., kandel, b. r., niraula, d. r., sharma, a. r. and gautam, m. community forest division, department of forests, nepal. ojha, h., persha, l. and chhatre, a. 2009. community forestry in nepal: a policy innovation for local kivelihoods. international food policy research institute. pandit, b.h., albano, a. and kumar, c. 2009. community-based forest enterprises in nepal: an analysis of their role in increasing income benefits to the poor. small-scale forestry 8 (4): 447. paudel, g. 2014. analysis of equity, poverty and sustainability aspects of community forests of nepal. vikas 36 (1): 89–96. paudel, g., 2015. forest resource income variation in mid-hills of nepal: a case study from two cfugs of parbat district, nepal. international journal of environment 4 (3): 1–10. pokharel, b., paudel, d., branney, p., khatri, d. b. and nurse, m. 2006. reconstructing the concept of forest-based enterprise development in nepal: towards a pro-poor approach. journal of forest and livelihood 5 (1): 53–65. pun, l. and shrestha, r. b. 2008. opportunities and challenges of forest based microenterprises. in proceedings of the fifth national workshop on community forestry. community forest division, department of forests, nepal. rai, j. k., chapagain, s. p. and pathak, a. 2014. the context and significance of value chain analysis of forest products in nepal. in value chain analysis of forest products in koshi hill districts of nepal: challenges and opportunities for economic growth dhakal et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 52-59 59 (eds.) rai, j. k. and chapagain, s. p. forest action nepal and rrn, kathmandu, 1-15. shackleton, c. m. and pandey, a. k. 2014. positioning non-timber forest products on the development agenda. forest policy and economics 38: 1–7. stem, c. j., lassoie, j. p., lee, d. r., deshler, d.d. and schelhas, j.w. 2003. community participation in ecotourism benefits: the link to conservation practices and perspectives. society & natural resources 16 (5): 387–413. subedi, b. p., ghimire, p. l., koontz, a., khanal, s. c., katwal, p., sthapit, k. r. and mishra, s. k. 2014. private sector involvement and investment in nepal's forestry: status, prospects and way forward.multi stakeholder forestry programme (msfp)service support unit, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. tripathi, s., thapa, c. b., sharma, a. and paudel, g. 2018. biomass carbon content in schima-castanopsis forest of mid-hills of nepal: a case study from jaisikuna community forest, kaski. international journal of environment 6 (4): 72–83. banko jankari-2017(5).1.1 forest conversion has been identified as one of the several bottlenecks affecting upon the major infrastructure projects in nepal, especially in the energy and transport sectors. nepal’s policy requires at least 40% of its land cover under forest. this means if any forest land is converted to non-forest land, it must be compensated with an equivalent area, preferably in the similar ecotype in the nation. in addition, a specified number of trees must be planted for the number of trees felled in the project site, and the site must be managed and protected for five years by the developers. these provisions have led to growing resentment between the developers and the ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), leading to delay in providing forest lands for infrastructure projects. with a view to develop mechanisms for the government to rapidly provide forest land for nationally important infrastructure projects, the government databases were examined to analyze the forests handed over to the developers for non-forestry uses. the data showed that a total of 14,028.4 ha of forest area were handed over to the developers for non-forestry uses until the end of 2015. on an average, 263.8 ha forest area was found to be handed over to the developers between the period of 2010–2013. however, there is a declining trend of forest handed over for non-forestry purposes in the recent years. the decline could be due to the strict enforcement of the legal provision which limits the conversion of forest areas to non-forest areas except in the case of the “national priority projects”. it has been recommended that the conversion of forest for infrastructure development should be examined with a holistic perspective by taking all the related components of forest conversion into consideration, from providing forest land for replacement planting. it is recommended that the forest product development board (fpdb), a parastatal organization under the mfsc, should be entrusted with the work of plantation related to forest conversion. the fund for this work should flow directly from the developers to the fpdb. the possibility of forming a land bank to facilitate the work of the fpdb is also recommended. key words: forest clearance, forest conversion, infrastructure, land bank, plantation use of forest land for national-priority infrastructures in nepal u. r. sharma1 nepal’s 40.3% of land is covered with forest (dfrs, 2015). forest has remained the backbone for development, especially for the sectors such as agriculture, environment, tourism and infrastructure. forest sector contributes significantly to the national economy, but the contributions are mostly in the form of intangible benefits. “land acquisition, right-of-way and forest clearance delays” has been identified as one of the several bottlenecks affecting upon major infrastructure projects in nepal, especially in the energy and transport sectors (appiic, 2016). these bottlenecks affect upon the nationalpride projects. with regard to the three subcomponents of the bottleneck related to land, the topic of discussion in this paper is related to forest clearance and land replacement. forest lands are managed by two separate government agenciesthe department of forests (dof) and the department national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc), both under the ministry of forests and soil conservation. the dof manages its forest areas under the provisions of the forest act, 1993 (mfsc, 1993) while the dnpwc manages its forest areas under the provisions of the national parks and wildlife conservation act, 1973 (mfsc, 1973). as the 1 freelance researcher, kathmandu, nepal email: udayshar@gmail.com 60 banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 61 provisions in these two acts in providing land for non-forest uses are different or non-existent, the processes of seeking clearance are different. there are several ambiguities and lack of clear directions if such lands can be converted for nonforestry uses in the case of protected areas. the forest policy of nepal states that the nation will maintain at least 40% of its land under forest (mfsc, 2014). it creates a situation that forest cannot be converted for non-forestry uses unless at least an equivalent area, preferably of similar ecotype, are added somewhere else in the nation. in addition, the developers are required to plant 25 times the number of trees felled in the leased forest land (mfsc, 2006). the number of trees required to be planted for one tree (>10 cm diameter) felled is usually 25. however, the number has been reduced to 2 in the case of the hydro power projects keeping in view the energy crisis in the nation. several officials share their views that modalities of doing this type of swapping areas and planting trees are being done on ad hoc basis without any specific policy or legislative support. there is a growing resentment from developers against the requirement of procuring equivalent private land in the similar ecological zone, plant trees on that land, manage and protect the site for five years (appiic, 2017). the investment board of nepal (ibn) and several other government agencies associated with the development sectors have expressed that this requirement of the mfsc should be revised, and the mfsc should accept cash compensation for the use of forestland (appiic, 2017). several attempts have been made in the past to resolve these issues mentioned in the forest land handover guidelines, 2006 of the government of nepal. the objective of this study was to develop mechanisms for the government to rapidly provide forest land for nationally important infrastructure projects, and to effectively manage the new sites received as compensation. materials and methods the information needed for this study was gathered from the analyses of data available in the government databases, especially setup for the forests handed over for non-forestry purposes. the deliberations in the consultation workshop jointly organized by the mfsc and the accelerating private and public investment in infrastructure component (appiic), department for international development (dfid)on january 5, 2017 in kathmandu also provided materials for discussion. results and discussion forest lands handed over for non-forestry uses the cases of handing over of the forestlands for non-forestry uses have been recorded in the dof database, 2015. the database consists of the records from the fiscal years 2005/06 to 2015/16. during this period, there were 385 such cases, totaling 14,028.3 ha (table 1). the database does not seem to be complete; however, it provides an indication of demand for forest for non-forestry uses over the periods. table 1: forest land handed over for various purposes during the period of 2005/06–2015/16 s.n. category area (ha) 1. tourism-related: resorts, hotels, cable-cars and parks 199.4 2. plantations 1690.4 3. energy: hydropower plants, transmission lines and tunnels 1460.9 4. herb plantations and gardens 256.0 5. office buildings and municipality/vdc projects 3724.6 6. cement industries and quarries 340.8 7. wildlife farms 256.4 8. resettlements 2,816.5 9. communication towers 11.8 10. nepal army 1,291.3 11. police 379.1 12. social work, hospitals and schools 856.5 13. drinking water, roads and irrigation channels 744.6 total 14,028.3 source: dof database, 2015 similarly, the mfsc database (2015) shows the size of forest areas handed over for non-forestry uses during the period of 2010–2013; the forest areas so handed over ranged from 0.003 ha to 147.610 ha. the forest patches were handed over for different purposes such as hydropower generation, transmission lines, public buildings, waste disposal, city parks, mining for cement sharma banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 62 industries, landfill sites, settlements, sites for factory, drinking water supplies, cableway construction, construction of towers for communication, irrigation canals and roads. the analysis of the data showed that the area of forest converted to non-forestry uses was 263.8 ha per year, on an average, ranging from 84.1 ha in 2010 to 518.7 ha in 2011 (fig. 1). fig. 1: forest patches handed over for infrastructure projects during 2010–2013 (mfsc database, 2015) table 2 reflects a declining trend of forest handover for non-forestry uses. this may be because the forest patches handed over in the recent years are less for resettlement purposes, and the government seems strictly enforcing the provision of not providing forest land for projects that cannot qualify as “nationally important”. also, a close examination of data between the two databases (mfsc and dof) shows that none of the two databases is entirely complete and there are several entries missing in both the databases. nevertheless, the data can provide an overview of the situation, and throw lights on emerging trends. table 2: total forest/forest land handed over to non-forestry uses during the period of 2011/12–2014/15 s.n. fiscal year number of reported cases area (ha) 1. 2011/2012 19 642.5 2. 2012/2013 19 447.5 3. 2013/ 2014 20 245.9 4. 2014/2015 16 137.5 total 1473.4 source: dof database, 2015 there were only a few cases of handing over the forest patches for infrastructure development projects; infrastructures are defined as nationally important roads, bridges, irrigation canals, drinking water supplies, telecommunication towers, transmission lines, hydropower dams, sites for industries and alike. so far, the largest areas of forest handed over for infrastructure development projects were in the f.y. 2011/12 (598.1 ha) followed by the f.y. 2008/09 (502.8 ha, table 3). the handover of the forest areas had sharply declined during 2014–2016. table 3: total forest land handed for infrastructure development during the period of 2006/2007–2015/2016 s.n. fiscal year number of reported cases area (ha) 1. 2006 /2007 10 231.7 2. 2007/2008 6 77.1 3. 2008/2009 21 502.8 4. 2009/2010 2 7.0 5. 2010/2011 5 38.2 6. 2011/2012 14 598.1 7. 2012/2013 14 353.5 8. 2013/2014 15 238.3 9. 2014/2015 10 79.8 10. 2015/2016 4 10.3 total 1473.4 average 231.68 source: dof database, 2015 discussion and recommendations problem context the mfsc, in the recent past, had a field-based evaluation of the execution of forest conversion decisions with respect to the infrastructure development. it was found that the agreed terms and conditions between the infrastructure projects and the gon were not fully implemented. the sites received from the developer for plantation as compensation were mostly never planted. several sites were illegally encroached by squatters. the promised investment for plantation and supervision hardly materialized with the responsible district offices. on the other hand, the lease payments were overdue (mfsc, 2014). all these lapses have prompted the mfsc to review the entire process of providing forest land on lease for infrastructure development. sharma banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 63 the forest act, 1993 has a provision of article 68, to make forest land available for infrastructure development if the project meets the following three criteria: (i) it is a nationally important project, (ii) it makes no significant environmental impact, and (iii) there is no alternative other than using the forest land. these provisions are further clarified in the guidelines entitled, “work policy to make forest land available for other purposes” (mfsc, 2006). the implementation of the guidelines has greatly helped, but still there are delays due to ambiguities as explained above. the national parks and wildlife conservation act, 1973 has not made a very explicit provision for granting protected area (pa) land for infrastructure development. the article 6 of the act has been interpreted for granting pa land for this purpose. another guidelines entitled “work policy on infrastructure development and operation within protected areas” (mfsc, 2009) has been under implementation; pa land can be granted under the provisions of this guidelines. however, there are several issues related to this guidelines, which need to be resolved. conversion of forest land for infrastructure development should not be only viewed from the perspective of infrastructure project. unless all the components of forest conversion, from providing forest land to replanting and managing the new sites received or procured as compensation are addressed, it would be incomplete. in the absence of such a holistic approach, the problems of delayed forest clearance will continue to prevail. with the holistic approach, the project can avoid creating a large ecological footprint despite cutting down trees and removing vegetation from the ground. this is because an equivalent private land is added somewhere else in the country, most likely in the lowlands, where the growth of vegetation is faster than the one in the mountains. in the case of hydropower projects, there is an added carbon sequestration benefit as the use of power in the country reduces the consumption of firewood. plantation management through forest product development board to resolve the issue of forest conversion and to make it a complete package, the role of forest product development board (fpdb) becomes important. the fpdb has been an institution under the mfsc which has extensive experience in block planting and managing the plantations over several decades. one of its successful projects is the sagarnath plantation (falling mostly in the sarlahi and mahottari districts located in the southern part of the central development region of nepal), where it had planted trees in more than 10,500 ha of land, and has been managing the site since 1981 (fpdb, 2016). in 2017, the appiic has proposed a management model (fig. 2), which provides key functions of planting trees and managing such sites for the fpdb. the model proposes that the fund for such work would directly go to the fpdb from the developers who are required to provide land compensation for using forest land. sharma fig. 2: proposed mechanism of land replacement (source: appiic, 2017) banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 64 establishment of a land bank the mfsc is also exploring the possibility of creating a land bank to facilitate the work of the fpdb. the land bank, if approved by the gon, would be established after acquiring about 100 ha of private land in a block from the money fpdb would receive as soft loan or as disbursement from the government. the proponents of infrastructure, who are required to make land compensation, would buy land from the land bank and would enable fpdb to gradually pay back loan and recover the administrative expenses. this modality would greatly help cut down delays in obtaining forest land for national priority projects. recommendations in order to rapidly provide forest land for nationally important projects, the mfsc must act to harmonize procedures within the ministry and with the other related ministries. it should undertake legal reforms in the relevant acts, regulations and work policies in order to facilitate the concerned departments (dof and dnpwc) to process requests without any delay. tree-planting and the management of plantations including procurement of private land for exchange of forest land should be entrusted to an independent institution, such as the fpdb. besides, the capacity of the concerned officials, especially the officials of the district forest offices and the fpdb should be enhanced, and the offices of the protected areas should be built for effectively executing the work of forest clearance, land bank and management of new plantation sites. references appiic. 2016. inception report. accelerating private and public investment in infrastructure component (appiic). imc worldwide, kathmandu, nepal. appiic. 2017. report on stakeholder consultation on the use of forest land for national priority infrastructure. accelerating private and public investment in infrastructure component (appiic). ministry of forests and soil conservation/ department for international development (united kingdom), kathmandu, nepal. dfrs. 2015. state of nepal’s forests. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal project, department of forest research and survey (dfrs), kathmandu, nepal. dof. 2015. database (electronic) on forests handed over for non-forestry uses. department of forests (dof), kathmandu, nepal. fpdb. 2016. official records (as of november 16, 2016). forest products development board (fpdb), kathmandu, nepal. mfsc. 1973. national parks and wildlife conservation act, 2029 b.s. ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), kathmandu, nepal. mfsc. 1993. forest act, 2049 b.s. ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), kathmandu, nepal. mfsc. 2006. work policy to make forest land available for other purposes. ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), kathmandu, nepal. mfsc. 2009. work policy on infrastructure development and operation within protected areas. ministry of forests and soil conservation, (mfsc), kathmandu, nepal. mfsc. 2014. forest policy, 2071. ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), kathmandu, nepal. mfsc. 2014. report on the forests handed over to other non-forestry uses in nepal. ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), kathmandu, nepal. mfsc. 2015. database (electronic) on forests handed over for non-forestry uses. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu (mfsc), nepal. sharma 113 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 government of nepal has adopted different models like community forestry, leasehold forestry, collaborative forestry, buffer zone community forestry and public land agroforestry for management of forest resources. poor focused leasehold forestry is only the approach adopted since early 1990 that has two major objectives: livelihood improvement and environmental conservation. forest user groups of 5–15 households (hhs) are provided with part of national forests for a period of initial lease of 40 years. leased forests are managed mainly with forestry crops, forage and non-timber forest products (ntfps) to meet the dual objectives. past studies and researches have indicated that leasehold forests are better than the hand over time however they are inadequate in dealing with silvicultural aspects in leasehold forestry (lf). this research paper has highlighted the significance of silvicultural aspects of leasehold forestry for overall socio-economic benefits to the poor and vulnerable forest users. review of the existing policy and legal documents, studies and progress reports of the leasehold forestry projects implemented during the last two decades, consultation with leasehold forest user groups from five districts (tehrathum, makawanpur, tanahun, pyuthan and doti) formed the main source of data for this article. further, author’s own experiences in the sector were taken as supporting reliable information for the study. the study found that silvicultural practices, except plantations and weeding, were not adopted in leasehold forest but there was great potential for such practices to maximize the socio-economic benefits. proper use of silvicultural practices might have increased contribution to currently realized benefits like (i) increased income of members i.e. poorest families (having less than 3 months secured foods) were reduced over years, (ii) group members had increased access to different networks and cooperatives, (iii) participation of women, poor and indigenous people increased in the decision-making process, and (iv) forest coverage was increased with respect to the hand over time. some issues on silviculture aspects included proper guidelines for silvicultural methods, capacity of staff and leasehold forest user group members, smaller sizes of leasehold forests, and promotion of appropriate species. key words: benefits, leasehold forestry, poor, silviculture, socio-economic, women vulnerable communities k. k. yadav1*, g. p. kafley2 and k. p. yadav3 community based forest management modalities like community forestry (cf), collaborative forest management and leasehold forestry (lf) have been recognized by the nepal’s forest act 1993 and forest regulation 1995 (hmgn, 1993 and 1995). out of these modalities, lf is only the modality which exclusively involves poor segments of forest dependent people. poor focused lf implemented with dual goals of reducing national poverty and ameliorating the environment is spreading nationwide. the poor focused lf has been the priority (p1) programme of the government of nepal (gon), which is based on the principles of the positive discrimination in favor of the people living below the poverty line (dof, 2014). the master plan for the forestry sector (mpfs) 1989 (hmgn, 1989) included the lf as a primary programme, however, that lf programme was conceptualized mainly for the supply of forest products for the wood-based industries, in other words the mpfs focused to lease the forests to private sectors. later, the lf for the poor was 1 undp, lalitpur, nepal. *e-mail: yadav.forester@gmail.com 2 nepal foresters’ association, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal 3 green nepal, lalitpur, nepal linking silvicultural aspects of pro-poor leasehold forestry for socio-economic benefits to the poor and 114 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 included in the forest act 1993. leasehold forest policy 2002 (mofsc, 2002), approved by the gon, has explicitly divided lf into lf for the people living below the national poverty line and lf for industry and institution and lf for ecotourism. the development plans such as the tenth five-year plan (2002–2007), interim plans (2007–2010, 2010–2013), thirteenth three year plan (2013–2016) and fourteenth three year plan (2016–2019) have considered and categorized the poor focused leasehold forestry programme as one of the priority programme of forestry sector to achieve the national objective of poverty alleviation and has been implemented in a larger scale. at operational level, the poor focused leasehold forestry commenced with the launching of hills leasehold forestry and forage development project (hlffdp) by the department of forests (dof) in 1992 with financial assistance from international fund for agriculture development (ifad). after that other forestry projects namely, livelihoods and forestry programme (lfp), biodiversity sector programme for siwaliks and terai (bisep-st) and western uplands poverty alleviation programme (wupap) also scaled up the concept. further, the concept has also been mainstreamed into community forestry in the form of land allocation for a short period lease. nationwide, there are 7,419 leasehold forest user groups (lfugs) comprising 75,021 households (hhs) involved in utilizing the forest resources developed on their leased forests of about 42,835 ha, initially of low productivity, for their sustainable livelihoods (dof, 2014). currently, the dof has been implementing the leasehold forestry programme using government’s own fund. in the process of forest hand over, the hhs in each lfug below the national poverty line are organized in a small group of 5–15 hhs. participatory well-being ranking process is followed by the dof staff with active participation of the local communities and priority is given to women, dalits (untouchables), janajatis (indigenous) and other excluded hhs (dof, 2009). district forest officers (dfos) hand over a part of national degraded forests to lfugs on lease for first 40 years’ tenure, with possibility of extending the lease period for another 40 years and lease fee is waived for these poor groups (mofsc, 2002). in terms of species composition, leasehold forests are developed with combination of forest crops and forage crops in the ratio of 70% and 30%, respectively, thus the model results into an agroforestry – silvo-pastoral system as the objective of promoting forage crops is to support the forest users for livestock rearing. forests below 20% crown cover are generally handed over to the groups. the lflp baseline study 2006 showed that the lease land has poor vegetative cover; about 92% of the leased land has less than 20% coverage whereas 5.7% has 21–50% vegetative cover at the hand over time (dof, 2006). however, the forests have grown over time and forest conditions have improved. experiences, results and achievements from the last 25 years of leasehold forestry have shown positive and commendable contribution in reducing the national poverty and in ameliorating the environment. different studies (dof, 2006; fao, 2011; fao, 2012; fao, 2014; ohler, 2000) have indicated that forest conditions inside the leasehold forests have improved as compared to the hand over time. however, these studies have not described about the silvicultural practices inside lf and their significances; only plantation, weeding and collection of forage and fuel wood from the leasehold forests have been explored, which has formed a big knowledge gap. with assumptions that the benefits from the lf can be maximized if proper management of leasehold forests, especially for forest crops, is undertaken adopting silvicultural options. this paper has tried to link the silvicultural systems with socioeconomic benefits for pro-poor. leasehold forests are handed over to the forest dependent poor people for uplifting their socioeconomic benefits. the forests having crown cover up to 20% are identified and handed over to the lfugs who grow both forest and forage crops. the lf management guideline recommends for planting forest and forage crops in the ratio of 70% to 30% (dof, 2009). the latter is mainly encouraged to produce forage/grasses for rearing goats and other livestock to raise farmers’ income. thus, silvo-pastoral based agroforestry modality has been adopted in lf and this model of silvopastoral system of agroforestry model has been proved to be a scientific model. yadav et al. 115 banko janakari, special issue no. 4yadav et al. materials and methods study area ten sample lfugs, two each from tehrathum, makawanpur, tanahun, pyuthan and doti districts, were selected for the research purpose. focus group (members of lfug committees including women) discussions were held in each sample lfug and bio-physical information of forests were collected. existing policy and legal documents, studies, progress reports and database of leasehold forestry projects implemented during the last two decades and other related literatures/ articles available were reviewed. the staff of the dof working in leasehold forestry as well as regional and districts were consulted to integrate their experiences and learning into this study. the authors’ experiences in the lf were also taken as sources of information for the paper. results and discussion leasehold forest management: existing practices and silviculture majority of the leasehold forests are in open and degraded land having less than 20% crown cover (dof, 2006) and thus, lfug members’ first task becomes to raise forest and forage coverage inside their leased plots. the study found that major species inside the leasehold forests were: simal (bombax ceiba), barro (terminalia belerica), chilaune (schima wallichii), karam (adina cordifolia), bakaino (melia azedarach), siris (albizzia spp.), ipil ipil (leucaena spp.), sal (shorea robusta), pines (pinus spp.), asna/saj (terminalia alata), bhimal (grewia optiva), lankuri (fraxinus floribunda), khair (acacia catechu), dabdabe (garuga pinnata), amala (phyllanthus emblica), amriso – broom grass (thysanolaena maxima), napier, masala (eucalyptus sp.). among these, multipurpose and forage species like bhimal, ipil ipil, broom grass and guila were planted by the groups. for forage and grasses, stylo, molasses, napier and other grasses were planted as well. the lfug members were trained on leased forest land development and the training included sessions to orient members on raising forest crops and forage species. a-frame was introduced to plant forest/forage crops along the contour line on the hill slopes to protect land from soil erosion. the trainings also oriented the members on selection of good mix of forage and forest species. table 1 shows that, 70% of leasehold forests had increased number of species compared to the hand over time, the results are in line with the table 1: species composition in leasehold forests s.n. lfug name hand over year district species at hand over time species now (at study time) changes 1. simalgauri "ga" 2007 tanahu simal, barro, chilaune simal, barro, chilaune no 2. ghusi tole 2006 tanahu karam bakaino, thotne, siris, ipil 4 new 3. gajlat 2006 doti sal, pines bakaino, sal, pines, ipil 2 new 4. badhane mandir 2008 doti sal, pines sal, pines, asna/saj, bhimal 2 new 5. ujjwaal 2005 makawanpur sal, asna, khair sal, asna, khair no 6. sarsawati 2005 makawanpur sal, asna sal, asna no 7. arnachaur 2010 pyuthan salla, lankuri, utis lankuri, utis, bamboo, dabdabe, chilaune 3 new 8. dhuwaghat 2006 pyuthan utis, tiju, chilaune, salla, amala utis, tiju, chilaune, salla, amriso, napier 2 new 9. padepakha women 2002 tehrathum utis utis, pines 1 new 10. sanishchare 2003 tehrathum utis, chilaune masala, utis, chilaune 1 new 116 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 past findings (ohler, 2000; npc, 2005 and yadav et al., 2014). according to ohler (2000), species diversity of leasehold forest increases steadily over time (57% and 86% increases over 5–6 years recorded). the leasehold forest also becomes more structured, multi-layered, and develops a good ground cover, increasing from 32% in new lfugs to 78% in 6 to 7 years old lfugs. the lfugs receive patta (lease certificate) from the respective district forest officer and then lfugs prepare their operational plans (ops) with technical support from the district forest office. review of the ops of the ten lfugs from different regions revealed that the ops were more focused on plantation of forage and forest species including ntfps. silvicultural aspects or tending operations were hardly mentioned in any of the ops. weeding and plantations were the main forest management activities being carried out by the lfugs. based on the ten sample lfugs from five districts, trends of both weeding and plantation were found to be increasing over time (weeding: 50% in 2012/13 to 80% in 2014/15 plantation: 40% in 2012/13 to 60% in 2014/15) (fig. 1). fig. 1: lf management activities these findings are similar to the earlier studies (fao, 2012, yadav et al., 2014, and fao, 2014) in which the percentage of the lfugs carrying out weeding and plantation were 28% and 23% in 2007/08 and 65% and 49% in 2013. thus, current management practices of lf management have not emphasized the silvicultural systems though users have practiced knowingly or unknowingly few tending operations like weeding and cleaning. the lfugs do plantations inside the lfs and the trend of plantation is increasing over time. the dof has developed a guideline and training manuals that guide lfug members and forest technicians for carrying out leased forest land development activities such as plantation of forest crops and forage crops, balancing their composition ratios, plantations, etc. however, these guidelines do not clearly provide guidance for silivicultural treatments or operations to be carried out in the lfs. consultations with the staff and facilitators (group promoters, lf rangers, assistant forest officers, experts) revealed that the staff and local resource persons were not trained specifically on silivicultural practices inside the lf. however, they agreed that these practices inside lf would benefit the forest users. some guidelines/manuals developed e.g. lopping guidelines in 2012/13 but they were not in use. changing crown cover and future scope of silvicultural practices inside leasehold forests contexts of lf have changed with respect to the start of the concept in 1992. many changes are visible on the ground; leasehold forests handed over in the beginning consist of mix of regeneration, poles and trees. these leasehold forests have enough potential to accrue additional benefits to the lfug members because health of the forests is improving. out of the ten sampled leasehold forests, six leasehold forests had less than 25% crown cover yadav et al. table 2: leasehold forest cover change over time no. of leasehold forests by crown cover category (%) at hand over time no. of leasehold forests by crown cover (%) category in 2015 0–25 26–50 51–75 >75 0–25 6 0 3 3 0 26–50 3 0 2 1 0 51–75 1 0 0 1 0 >75 0 0 0 0 0 total 10 0 5 5 0 117 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 at the time of hand over but three of them were shifted into 25–50% and the remaining three into 50–75% crown cover category (table 2). these findings are similar to the past studies. yadav et al. (2014) found that the leasehold forests having less than 25% crown cover at the time of hand over have graduated into upper categories i.e. more than 25% crown cover. similar findings were found by fao, 2012 and fao, 2014 during outcome monitoring surveys. some of the leasehold forests need silvicultural practices now whereas some need silvicultural practices in near future to maximize benefits to the users. the leasehold forests had poles and trees at the time of hand over and they have now become either at exploitable size or are in need of management. the leasehold forests of shaktikhor in chitwan and some in doti have sal (shorea robusta) as major species and they have reached at pole stage which need tending operations for their proper growth and development (field observation by author in 2012). by applying the silvicultural practices, not only the condition of the forests will be improved but it will also give more socio-economic benefits to the poor and vulnerable communities. npc (2005) found that there was substantial improvement in the condition of forests both in area coverage (area and crown) and composition (density, quality, types and species diversity). the zero grazing approach has made all the area conducive for natural regeneration and enrichment plantation. ninety-five per cent of households had practiced stall feeding with less than one month free grazing. most of the forestbased income generating activities, especially herbal plants production and establishment of leguminous forage species, were not successful in most of the sites due to poor site conditions and lack of technical backstopping. pandit (2009) found that on an average, 69% of the leased land was almost without trees, grass or other species (degraded land 95%) at the time of hand over. the lf has positive results for environmental conservation in many ways: increased regeneration, increased green ground coverage, increased crown density, increased biodiversity, reduced pressure on national forests for fuel wood and fodder, awareness increase in organic fertilizers use, developed greenery in shifting cultivation areas (crfd, 2010). leasehold forestry contributing for socioeconomic capital formation the lf has provided an extended benefit of social cohesion and networking for the poor involved in the process. women, dalits, janajatis and poor households have become more capacitated to lead the process. especially women and dalits who had great hesitation to speak with people (field discussion, 2015) and put forward their needs, are now leading the groups; they can speak with visitors and they can access services and benefits from other support organizations as well. yadav et al. (2014) found that the participation of women and poor in the lfug committees and decision making positions increased over the time. the findings showed that proportions of women and the poorest in lfug committees had increased from 39% to 42% and 22% to 30%, respectively for a period of 2010 to 2013. the lfp has adopted the concept of building economic capital of the users starting from goat rearing. goats were distributed to each hh and forage production was expected to support goat rearing and graduating towards cattle rearing. the average size of goat herd was increased from three goats per hh at hand over time to six goats per hh in 2014. this study showed the size of goat herd was increased from 3.1 goats per hh to 5.5 goats per hh. further, each lfug member saved in a range of rs. 5 to rs. 50 or more in group’s saving credit scheme. about 97 % of the lfugs had saving/credit scheme and 91 % of members had saved on a monthly basis. monthly saving rate per hh was also increased from nrs 18 to nrs 25 between 2010 and 2014. about 77% of saved amount was mobilized within the groups as soft loans. further, the lfugs were associated with cooperatives, each cooperative (rural finance associations) consisting of 10–15 lfugs. lfug members had increased access to financial services i.e. soft loan. such soft loans were being mobilized within the poorest households for increasing their household income. leasehold forests benefiting the poor and vulnerable communities the lfp has been adopted to uplift their socioeconomic status and at the same time to increase environmental conservation through their active participation. the impacts are now visible and poor people are benefitted from the leased forests, yadav et al. 118 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 which ultimately contributes toward reducing national poverty. though all the lfug members were poor, they were further categorized into poor, poorer and poorest. the proportion of poorest households was found to be decreased over years. yadav et al. (2014) found that the proportions of poorest hhs in lfugs were 41.4%, 29%, 23% and 19%, respectively in 2006, 2010, 2011 and 2013. these changes are partly contributed by the lf activities and depend on the way forest resources are managed. thus, silvicultural practices have great potential to diversify livelihood options for poor hhs. issues, concerns and way forward from this study it is found that the lf has been fruitful in achieving dual objectives of environmental conservation and poverty reduction. the results and achievements are commendable as these are being obtained in the scenario where silvicultural aspects are not considered and followed. the following subsections provide some issues and concerns along with the actions that could be taken as ways forward. review and revision of lfug ops: lfug ops do not cover in detail the silvicultural aspects to be followed by the group members. it merely describes about plantation of tree species and forage crops. so, review and revision of ops of the lfs which have potential of management could be done in phase-wise basis. capacity building: capacities of both lfug users and staff are to be enhanced through trainings, workshops and exposures. technical staffs of dfos have been capacitated with the technical prescriptions and their applications in the field and they are doing for community forests (including land allocation practices), national forests, public land agroforestry, etc. they should be oriented to apply their knowledge and skills in revising lfugs ops and practice inside the lfs. similarly, the capacities of lfug members and local resource persons need to be enhanced with trainings, orientations and exposure visits to the cfs, national forests where such practices have been done. conclusion this paper found that overall condition of leasehold forests is improving over time and the lfug members are benefiting from it. however, silvicultural aspects of leasehold forest management are not adequately addressed in practices, technical capacities of staff and communities are to be enhanced. it concludes that socio-economic benefits for poor are linked with the products obtained from lf and so, lf management should be promoted inside leasehold forests. references crfd. 2010. annual monitoring and evaluation report 2010. central region forest directorate, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. dof. 2014. regional workshop on pro-poor leasehold forestry (eds.) k.c. rajendra, baral, j. c. and kafley, g.p., 11–13 june, 2014, kathmandu. department of forests, kathmandu, nepal. dof. 2009. programme implementation guidelines. leasehold forestry and livestock programme, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. dof. 2006. baseline report. leasehold forestry and livestock programme. department of forests, kathmandu, nepal. fao. 2014. a synthesis of project progress 2010– 2013. technical assistance for leasehold forestry and livestock programme, fao, nepal. fao. 2014. an assessment of outcome of leasehold forestry and livestock programme 2013. technical assistance for leasehold forestry and livestock programme, fao, nepal. fao. 2012. an assessment of performance of lfugs: lfugs stratification. technical assistance for leasehold forestry and livestock programme, fao, nepal. fao. 2011. an assessment of outcome of leasehold forestry and livestock programme 2010/11. technical assistance for leasehold forestry and livestock programme, fao, nepal. mofsc. 2002. leasehold forest policy 2002. ministry of forests and soil conservation, (mofsc) kathmandu, nepal. yadav et al. 119 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 hmgn. 1995. forest regulation 1995. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 1993. forest act 1993. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. hmgn. 1989. master plan for the forestry sector (mpfs) 1989. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. mofsc. 2007. forest sector gender and social inclusion strategy. ministry of forests and soil conservation,(mofsc) government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. npc. 2005. impact evaluation of hills leasehold forestry and forage development project (hlffdp). national planning commission, kathmandu, nepal. ohler, frits m. j. 2000. impact of leasehold forestry on livelihoods and environment. technical assistance phase 2 to hills leasehold forestry and forage development project (gcp/nep/052/net), fao, nepal. pandit, b. h. 2009. effectiveness of leasehold forestry to poverty reduction. a study report for technical assistance for leasehold forestry and livestock programme, food and agriculture organization of the united nations, nepal. yadav, k. k, kafley, g. p., hancock, j. and shono, k. 2014. results and impacts of leasehold forestry for enhancing livelihoods of poor farmers in mid-hills of nepal. in pro-poor leasehold forestry (eds.) k. c. rajendra, baral, j. c. and kafley, g. p., regional workshop on pro-poor leasehold forestry, 11–13 june, 2014, kathmandu. department of forests, kathmandu, nepal, 209–220. yadav et al. 120 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 this paper explains what we term the ‘silvo-institutional model’ for a more productive, sustainable and equitable management of community forests in nepal. the paper draws on four years of action research in six research sites of kavre and lamjung districts, complemented by the review of silviculture-based forest management by government of nepal in various parts of the country. the findings indicate that first, early silviculture-based forest management initiatives have failed because they did not adequately consider the policy and institutional dimensions. second, current initiatives, while looked promising for the active utilisation of community forests, have faced with complex regulatory and institutional barriers. we argue that a new ‘silvoinstitutional model’, which combines technological and institutional dimensions, has a potential to increase the prospect of successful implementation of silviculture-based forest management. key words: community forestry, forest management, institutions, nepal, policies, silviculture, silvo-institutional model towards active utilisation of community forestry: silvo-institutional model for sustainable forest management in nepal n. s. paudel1*, h. ojha2, k. shrestha2, e. cedamon3, r. karki1, g. paudel1, m. basyal1, i. nuberg3 and s. dangal4 the community forests are not actively managed and its potential has not been realised despite growing need for timber and other forestry products (yadav et al., 2009; thoms, 2008). in nepal, with about 45% of forest in the country, it’s strongly argued that forest has potential to contribute to local livelihoods and national economy. however, studies have shown that nepal’s forests have not provided economic benefits to its full potential (subedi et al., 2014; thoms, 2008). the central reason is that there is little or no management of these forests based on adopting silvicultural principles (paudel et al., 2014; subedi, 2012; yadav et al., 2008; springate-baginski et al., 2003). the question is then why these forests remain not actively managed, what are the causes and consequences and how these forests can be better managed. the paper explains one of the attempts we made as part of an action research project5 which tested what we term ‘silvo-institutional model’ (sim) as a potential strategy to catalyse active management of community forests in the hills of nepal. in the past, the government of nepal (gon) has made several attempts to manage its forests through employing silviculture-based interventions. however, most of these initiatives were either not implemented at all, or when implemented, failed to achieve stated objectives mainly because of weak political will, low institutional capacity and poor governance. currently, the government is piloting an initiative within the brand of “scientific forestry”. although the government is keen to scale out the piloting programme, there are serious oppositions to scientific forestry on the grounds of inadequate consideration of institutional aspects. therefore, it is important to analyse the previous efforts as well as review the current initiatives so as to identify and understand key issues, explore possible solutions to these issues and support active forest management through silviculturebased sustainable forest management practices for materialising economic potential along with social and environmental benefits. 1 forest action, nepal. *e-mail: nspaudel@gmail.com 2 university of new south wales, australia 3 university of adelaide, australia 4 recoftc, nepal 5 the action research project was implemented during five years period in 2013-2018 in kavre and lamjung. the primary objective of the project is to enhance livelihood and food security from agroforestry and community forestry in the mid-hills of nepal. 121 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 this paper investigates key governance and institutional elements of silviculture-based forest management practices in nepal’s community forestry. in doingso, it will seek to answer the following questions surrounding silvicultural interventions in community forestry. what are the historical attempts to introduce silviculture in nepal’s forest management ? how successful were those interventions ? how can technical aspects of silviculture be combined with institutional aspects of decision making and implementation? what can sim offer in realising the benefits of forest management by the local communities? before presenting the sim, we reviewed past attempts of active forest management in nepal. we then analysed the challenges of active forest management in the two case study districts. then we analysed the cases to present the sim in our discussion and conclusion. quest for active forest management: a historical overview despite about 45% of the country’s area under forests, the contribution of the forest sector to local and national economy has remained much less than the potential in nepal (chhetri et al., 2012; banjade et al., 2011; thoms, 2008). as the national mood have switched towards active forest management through developing and scaling out silviculture innovations, several attempts for active forest management have been made. these have stimulated debates in scientific forest management, though outcomes on the ground have remained limited. a case from the piloting attempt in bara forest, in terai region by enso, a finish company in 1996 reveals some interesting insights. the piloting was to introduce a modern sustainable forest management in nepal and boost local and national economy. however, it triggered widespread opposition. federation of community forestry users nepal (fecofun) and many civil society organisations launched protest campaigns across the country against the pilot project arguing that the project would convert the natural sal forests into a barren land due to poor regeneration plan. the protesters also argued that the pilot failed to recognise the interdependencies of local communities, local livelihoods and forests. when a stakeholder consultation was conducted, it appeared that community-based organisations (cbos) and many local political representatives were against bringing the foreign company to manage forests. the forest officials in kathmandu were divided as some mentioned that rather the government should manage the forest, not by a foreign company. finally, the pilot project ended as enso gave up the project (hurtig, 1998). operational forest management plan (ofmp) proposed for 17 terai districts in 1996 is another case of failure in an attempt to manage the forest more actively. while, these were good technical plans to manage the terai forests, these plans remained only in the paper. they did not go ahead due to lack of adequate financial resources to implement the plan, together with problems coming from the opposition of local communities and lack of political will from the government. little engagement with local communities and stakeholders resulted in a widespread opposition from feocfun and cbos. many district forest offices (dfos) were not aware of the plans which were prepared by the project’s hired consultants. dfos were largely excluded in the process. consequently, dfos were not sure about technical as well as administrative and financial details of the plans. therefore, dfos were not prepared to implement the plan. technical quality of the plans seemed to be poor, while dfo’s capacity to implement the plan remained weak. most importantly, there was lack of financial resources to implement the plan. neither the donor, who supported the planning process, nor the gon provided funding or commitment to implement the programme at a larger scale. consequently, these plans remained only in paper. another interesting example is the sagarnath forestry development project, which originally covered about 10,000 ha of prime sal forest in nepal’s central terai region, initially started with support from asian development bank (adb) and oil producing and exporting countries (opec) in 1978. the project shows challenges with governance and institutional aspects of active forest management in nepal. the project was intended to increase supply of fuelwood to kathmandu and other major cities in the context of serious fuelwood crisis of the 1970s. unfortunately, the project could not go as planned due to three reasons. first, it was driven by outsiders’ ideas, funding and technology. as a result, it had no local ownership of the project. secondly, forest products development board – a semi government entity – was supposed to function independently outside the everyday paudel et al. 122 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 government functioning. however, it was highly politicized because of the overt influences of politicians and senior bureaucrats in the strategies and functioning of the project. third, over 3,000 ha of the plantation area was encroached by the landless people and the management of land conflict was a chronic political challenge in this project and beyond, across the terai. based on the above analyses, it is clear that most of these initiatives were promoted by high profile international agencies; they were purely driven by so-called ‘objective science’, and had sophisticated technical plans. however, these initiatives failed to give due attention required to anticipate, recognise and address governance and institutional aspects,which undermined the objective of those initiatives. engagement with local actors remained limited, while it is most critical. in most cases, programmes could not garner needed local support and in some cases these even faced severe opposition. protest of fecofun in bara case is in point where there was lack of local support in sagarnath and the absence of political will and institutional capacity of the department of forests (dof) undermined the implementation of those initiatives. the challenges faced by these initiatives provide a strong rationale for the exploration of innovative approach to silviculture-based forest management that integrates technical assessment and planning with institutional process in practice. recent initiatives of scientific forestry in terai silviculture-based forest management, usually referred as ‘scientific forest management’ has been practiced in collaborative, national and community forests in the terai. the concept has been slowly rolling out in some of the foothills districts. to direct the process for scientific forest management, a guideline for scientific forest management has been approved by the ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc) in 2015, which details social and technical process in site selection and development of management plans. though, the guidelines outline a simple social process for site selection, vision and objective mapping, the technical processes have been observed to be too complex among most of the foresters and especially the local communities. the participation of local communities and local level foresters has been a ritual only. this is due to limited understanding on the complex process of management plan development. a handful of foresters have been serving as experts in the development of most of the management plans. this has resulted limited ownership among the government official-foresters and community members at field level. ownership of local community and local forest official is crucial for continuation of these initiations. for this, they should involve and or understand all the steps and process. similarly, knowledge management within the community and government institutions has been critical for sustainability of the initiation. for example, if a person involving in the process is transferred, there will be nobody to undertake the activities as well as very limited information are remained within the institution. to retain institutional memory, mechanism will have to develop at institutional level. currently, while the technical process of developing management plans and their implementation is progressing fast, there are several gaps in associated institutional elements including governance, capacity and ownership of local institutions in the process. silviculture in community forests we have closely observed and documented silviculture operation in six research sites in kavre and lamjung districts, where forest management operations are strongly linked with deeply rooted institutional challenges. there were problems at all three levels. at the national level, public discourse is heavily influenced by protection oriented forest management. in particular, media, political actors and commission for the investigation of abused of authority (ciaa) actions were largely restrictive to any improvements in forest management. policies, laws and regulation were designed accordingly. at the district level, there is no incentive for forest officials to actively promote silviculture in their respective constituencies because of feeling of insecurity and threat to their office that silviculture-based operation might bring. these fears are then passed on to operational plans (op), harvesting permits, sale and transportation permits. quite often, officials interpret and adapt the regulatory instruments on their own benefit. at the community level, community forest (cf) members are conditioned not to fell trees; there is serious mistrust between different groups within community forest user group (cfug). paudel et al. 123 banko janakari, special issue no. 4paudel et al. silvicultural operation simply adds risks to those cfugs, which are suffered by poor governance, internal conflicts, and weak institutional capacity. in addition, when the research team first visited the forests, we observed several technical errors related to thinning, pruning, singling and other regular silvicultural activities. in addition to institutional challenges, there is stark gap in technology and skills among the local forest managers. as reflected in the past attempts of the government, or the widespread challenges in current forest management efforts by the cfugs, the policy environment and socio-institutional contexts are not very conducive to silviculture. the predominant response to this situation is anything cannot be done unless a favourable policy regulatory environment is established at the centre. however, given the prolonged political transition, frequent changes in the government and the short-term tenure of officials in any particular role indicate that policy environment cannot be changed overnight. at the same time,we cannot wait for getting the policy and institutional environment getting perfect; as they may never be perfect even in the best case scenario. since the last 21 years of bara forest case or an attempt in implementation of ofmps, little change has been seen either in policy and legal framework or in the institutional environment of our forest agency or related other stakeholders. on the other hand, there have been studies showing a huge annual loss from non-management of nepal’s forest (hill, 1999; subedi, 2012). in this context, a pragmatic strategy is to explore available windows in policies, laws, institutions through which one expands space and get through. in recent years, at least in the discursive level there has been an increased appreciation of the forest management which will provide forest officials and others a moral support to go ahead. the above cases show that all past initiatives on silviculture-based forest management have failed to fully implement and achieve their stated outcomes. the cases also show that these initiatives were undermined by poor governance and inadequate considerations of institutional dimensions of active forest management. these include lack of proper engagement with local communities and concerned stakeholders, lack of transparency in the process, weak ownership of the relevant actors, and inadequate financial and other support mechanisms. institutional challenges in community forest management in kavre and lamjung forest management, particularly timber management, is at the heart of community forestry process. yet, forest management in cf is seriously undermined by a series of governance and institutional challenges , when one considers the issue of timber management. these include intra cfugs conflict, lack of trust between the leadership and cfug members, the delivery of support from dfo, and legal cases at dfo, court or with ciaa. table 1 presents a few sample cases from kavre and lamjung districts that have blocked or seriously hindered timber harvesting, transportation or sale. table 1: governance challenges in community forest management sites year legal case dharapani 069/70 financial embezzlement by ec chair, ciaa case, and auctioned timber could not be sold and fire damaged 950 cft of timber later in the year. chappani 072/73 timber harvested after receiving dfo permit could not be sold. reconstruction related circular was cited as a reason. later 800 cft of timber damaged by fire. langdi hariyali 073/74 round wood were taken to saw mill after harvest as per the permit, police confiscated it and a legal case was launched. dfo is looking at the case at the time of writing this paper. langdi hariyali 071/72 few trees were felled due to mid-hill highway construction; the road authority was much higher and powerful, and therefore, cfug was not involved at all in tree felling. yet, dfo took action against cfug. that demoralises forest management enthusiasm and plan of the cfug. aapchaur 071/72 difference between chapan and actual harvest volume lead to a legal case that delayed release of timber for trade. damaged timber sold at cheap price. it resulted in conflict between cf members and leaders and also with dfo staff. kalopani 072/73 despite harvesting permit, cfug leaders could not harvest trees, as people were yet to construct houses due to delayed release of grants by the reconstruction authority. 124 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 paudel et al. as shown in table 1, a range of governance and institutional issues have hampered active forest management initiatives at the local level. in most cases, issues such as poor transparency, embezzlement, lack of trust among cf members and their leaders, and weak institutional capacity of cfugs in handling are evident. this is particularly visible where there is a potential to earn substantial revenue from the sale of timber. the second types of issues are related to the technical and administrative support from dfo. in many cases, cfugs are not getting the expected constructive support from dfos. however, dfo actions have often resulted in loss of timber from fire, financial and physical costs, psychological torture and alienation from being actively involved in forest management. the third types of issues are related to national policies and legal framework such as cases from ciaa, or that of circulars from national reconstruction authority. most of the studied sites have a good stock of pine forest. there was a massive plantation in the early 1980s by an australian forestry project. if one follows the best silviculture advice, these forests must have been harvested by now. unfortunately, policy, governance and institutional related issues we discussed above have seriously hinder the forest management activities in these forests. this provides a strong rational in exploring innovations that can address these rather subtle issues while advancing silviculture-based forest management initiatives. below we present how technical and institutional aspects can be integrated through a sim that we developed in the research sites. developing silvo-institutional model through integrating technical science with institutional processes in this section, we describe our integrated approach to establishing silviculture demonstration plots in three research sites: two in kavre and one in lamjung. this is what we term ‘silvo-institutional model’ in this paper, in which we have combined technical aspects of resource assessment, establishing demonstration plots, actual felling and timber distribution with the institutional aspects involving various levels of consultation, developing governance safeguards, prepare required documentation and getting the institutional process right. while this is timeconsuming and costly, especially in establishing demonstration plots, it provided a secure, effective and sustainable pathway to silviculturebased sustainable forest management in the respective sites. this approach builds on works that have emphasised integration of science and participation, adaptive and collaborative learning (king et al., 1990; banjade, 2006; mcdougall et al., 2007) and deliberative scientific practice in nepal’s forest management (ojha et al., 2010). in many cases, it has spill over effect to neighbouring groups. a summary of step-by-step process is given in figure 1 and detailed stories of the process in the text that follows. fig. 1: process adopted in establishing demo plots in research sites in kavre and lamjung 125 banko janakari, special issue no. 4paudel et al. while the above process provides generic steps taken in all research sites, there were some minor variations in specific sites based on particular socio-ecological characteristics. the above process can be clustered into four broader aspects which are elaborated below: i) creating favourable institutional environment: initially when we started early consultation with the dfo and cfugs, they indicated a number of risks and expressed feeling insecurity and therefore reluctant to go ahead. we organised a series of informal and formal meetings with dof officials, dfo staff, fecofun and cf leaders. we presented the technical details of how we wanted to proceed, showed the policy and legal windows of secure operation and benefits of taking this initiative. we also organised meetings with media and political leaders in the district and forged meaningful and productive dialogue amongst these actors. these meetings resulted in collective commitment, increased enthusiasm and confidence. these processes provided us a strong but cautious mandate to go ahead with the proposed plan. ii) resource assessment and planning: next we carried out a participatory rapid assessment of the resources, particularly the forest stock, regeneration status and assessed it against the management priorities of the cf members (cedamon et al., 2016 for details). gradually, we arrived at preferred management objectives and treatments which were turned into demonstration plots. at the same time, we discussed on the potential threats such as loss of endemic species, fire, wind, grazing, heavy drought, etc. similarly, we also discussed on the expected inputs and distribution of potential harvest among the cf members. iii) endorsement and approval: while relatively informed cf leaders were involved in the above process, the plans had to be discussed and endorsed by larger mass of cf members. this has political as well as instrumental and mandatory objectives. accordingly, the plans were presented; feedback and comments were received and adjusted. as the plans were approved along with few comments, these were then finalised and submitted to the respective authorities for approval. some field visits and small meetings with the cf members and dfo staff were organised. iv) action and monitoring: after the approval, tree felling was carried out, measurements done and products were distributed. a proper documentation was made. the ecological responses (regeneration, etc.) and social responses (responses from cf members, hhs, media) were regularly/periodically monitored. later on actions were refined based on these responses. we now bring specific cases, where these principles were experimented with some minor variations based on their particular contexts and needs. application of silvo-institutional models: processes and outcomes lampata cfug, lamjung lampata cfug in madhya nepal municipality has 84 ha of mixed sal (shorea robusta) forest in lower belt and chilaune-katus (schimacastanopsis) in upper belt. they used to practice low thinning that neither helped growth of matured trees nor provided required timber to the cf members. cf members were frustrated with low annual harvest volumes of the forest and huge gap between demand and supply. in this context, we established a demonstration plot there. the establishment of silviculture demonstration plots in lampata cfug involved intensive engagement with diverse actors at various levels. after an initial meeting and understanding with the cfug executive committee (ec), we identified the types of treatments, identified the site for demonstration plot and worked out preparatory work.the chairperson of the ec was assigned with the responsibility to oversee the overall silviculture activities, make arrangements for the harvesting and plantation related activities, including mobilizing user group members in ground preparation, digging the pits, and planting.in addition, the staffs of project entitled, ‘enhancing livelihoods and food security from agroforestry and community forestry in nepal (enlift)’, including a local resource person (lrp), supported cfugs in seedling supply and plantation. while the labour required for the plantation was managed by the cfug. 126 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 fodder trees were planted in rows in the demontration plots which are mostly covered with hill sal trees. during the three day long plantation event, a total of 16 cfug members were involved, including four women. the members also discussed on ways to protect the plantation sites from grazing and fire. as a decision, grazing was banned, while road/trails around the plantation sites were considered as fire lines. besides, the cfug members were involved during the plot establihsment, selection of trees, and harvesting, which ensured that they could continue the work in the future as well. apart from the engagement with cfug members, the process of establishing demonstration plots involved the dfo in order to obtain harvesting permits. moreover, series of discussions with the concerned stakeholders including the dfo and fecofun were held to seek their views. prior to preparing the memorandom of understanding with the cfug, a rapid silvicultural appraisal was carried out in order to have a better understanding of the type of species in the forest. following the establishment of demonstration plots, a management plan was prepared incorporating the details of harvesting within the plots, which was later endorsed by the general assembly of lampata cfug. the tree felling was carried out following the permission from the dfo. besides, visit from the department of forests, including the director general (dg) and dfo was organized, which was primarily aimed at seeking on-site feedback for enhancing the effectiveness of the demonstration plots. kalopani cfug, kavre kalopani cfug in dhungkharka has 175 ha of naturally regenerated thingre pine (abies pindrow) and khasru forest (quercus semicarmifolia). the pine forest is 20 years old and really dense (1300 poles/ha). it needs a heavy thinning, but there is no such provision in the op and therefore dfo did not provide permit. it has seriously hampered growth of the poles. similarly, a considerable area of the khasru forest, a key source of fodder to contribute to the dairy enterprise, is heavily infected by mistletoe parasite and is gradually killing trees. after initial discussion with the ec and the assistant forest officer of the area, different plots were established as a step on silviculture management, where one plot was established in the mature stand to demonstrate shelterwood system, and two plots were established in the young stand to demonstrate selection silviculture. plots with size of 60 m x 70 m with a total area of 0.42 ha were established for thingre salla. likewise, 40 trees were selected in order to demonstrate silviculture options for khasru. the enlift team members held meetings with the cfug ec and other members to mainly discuss on the establishing demonstration plots in kalopani. the plots were mainly targeted for khasru and thingure salla management and three different types of treatments were applied. as a result, the kalopani cfug members opted for its management by establishing demonstration plots. most importantly, the cfug members were involved right from the initial phase of plot establishment, selection of the mother trees, harvesting techniques among others. in addition to the support, the enlift team organized a visit of the dg of dof to kalopani cf which provided a type of confidence among the cfug members to carry out silviculture intervention in their forest. moreover, people had a sense of fear when it came to felling trees, however following the visit of the dg, the misconception that felling of trees is not always illegal as long it is under the op has been established. dharapani cfug, kavre dharapani cfug in bhumlu gaupalika has 40 ha of plantation pine forest (pinue patula). it is already 35 years old, reached to its rotation cycle. unfortunately, the forest management has been limited to removal of 4d trees. the cgug is weakened due to its poor internal governance, embezzlement and is suffering from a legal case at ciaa. last time, it could not get dfo permit to sell its harvest and lost about 950 cft of timber due to fire. this has been an unfortunate group which has been unable to benefit its good and mature forest stock. the case of dharapani is another illustration of how technical and institutional aspects should be integrated for silvicultural intervention. realizing the need for proper forest management around chaubas area, a visit of dg of dof was organized by the enlift project. the visit team had an impression that there is a need paudel et al. 127 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 for silvicultural intervention in the forests of chaubas including dharapani cf. following this, a training programme was organized by the dfo. kavre along with enlift project, where cfug members of dharapani were invited along with other user groups in the region. shelterwood system was demontrated in chapani cf. citing the relevance of the treatment in their forest, cfug members of dharapani expressed their interest in carrying out the intervention to the enlift project. the time was perfect in the sense that the op of dharapani had expired and there was a space to incorporate the silviculture management aspect in the document. the ec called for a meeting and decided to incorporate silviculture management in dharapani cf, which was later endorsed by their general assembly. the cfug members were involved during the selection of mother trees in addition to applying harvesting techniques. the members were previously applying negative thinning, which did not properly follow the guideline. however, following the introduction of shelterwood system, the user groups are optimistic on growth of the trees. with the onsite training provided by the enlift, the user group members are now capable to apply the treatments in the future. key issues and lessons as described above, our action research in kavre and lamjung tried to develop a silvo-institutional model that integrates technical measurement and assessment with institutional process towards effective and sustainable outcomes of silviculturebased forest management. as presented in table 1, it includes four major elements: • first, creating a supportive institutional environment at all levels through formal and informal engagement with range of actors beyond forest officials and cf members. this provides a secure working environment and increases the confidence of the officials and cf leaders. • second, measurement, assessment and planning that involve science and civic perspectives. unlike the dominant practice, where technicians carry our technical assessment, prepare plan and share with cf members, we integrate these rather technical measurement and assessment with civic participation and consent. this is not only to inform the people about science, but at the same time, the assessment and plans being influenced by indigenous and local knowledge, practice and priorities. • third element – endorsement and approval is to align technical assessment and plans with administrative, legal and institutional practice for their refinement, legitimacy and authenticity. • fourth, action and constant monitoring is because, we take the silviculture science not as static end product, instead a moving, dynamic science which has rooms for improvement and refinement. the experimentation with sim in kavre and lamjug have shown a promising early success not only in garnering local support, stakeholder support, assurance to the forest officials, but also getting the technology right, relevant to local needs and aspiration. sim also works by building capacity of forest technicians and cf leaders. the rigorous process of decision, measurement, assessment, planning and implementation help develop both technical and institutional capacity of the relevant actors. the experimentation with the sim is on-going. we continue to monitor, measure and document the biophysical (regeneration, growth, viability of the stock, fire, grazing, wind) and institutional (cfug governance, management of increased funds, distributional arrangement, stakeholder responses, future planning of cfug) responses. as these processes are conducted locally with a low cost, we do not foresee major challenges in terms of replication. of course, there is a need of better appreciation of the model by the forest officials, fecofun and other support agencies. in fact, some of these new practices have been replicated by the neighbouring cfugs on their own. examples include: one cfug in methinkot, three cfugs in dhungkharka and two cfugs in tandrang-taxar have used these technologies in management and harvesting their forests. the sustainable forest management practices can be scaled out by putting a clear incentive structure within the department of forest. for example, if we link dfo’s achievement in implementing forest management with his/her periodic performance review that would encourage them to actively implement it in the field. reforms in all concerned agencies like government institutions, forest user groups and other service paudel et al. 128 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 providers are vital to bring a national momentum on silviculture-based forest management. the sim option we have presented can help overcome unproductive polarisation of forest management approach among various lines. a new wave of intensive forest management initiatives including a ‘scientific forestry’ have been piloted and expanded in various part of the country. as these initiatives are in their early stages, they must be carefully monitored, documented and lessons should be drawn. we should be careful for not to be a die-hard fan of any particular approach and instead be open, reflective and prepare to reform and revise. underpinning sim is an adaptive learning approach that integrates scientific, technological aspects with civic consent. this approach is helpful to learn from past and current initiatives and tackle ongoing challenges to develop and promote silvicultural innovations towards productive, sustainable and equitable forest management in nepal not only in cf but across the national forests. it is notable that the sim described in figure 1 does not include elements of equitable benefit sharing. this is because most cfugs have existing equitable sharing of resource and benefits arrangement governed by existing forestry rules and laws. we have observed that from the first cycle of sim in our research sites that the increase of timber and product flows from the community forests resulting from silviculture-based management satisfied the forest users’ demand particularly the poor and disadvantaged groups. additionally, the cash flows of cfugs have been increased resulting from sales of timber from relatively smaller forest areas boosting cfug’s financial position. conclusion this paper has introduced the silvo-institutional model, as it was practiced in kavre and lamjung in few research sites. informed by the past failures and recognising the continuing challenges of intensive forest management in the project areas, we piloted an approach to promote active and equitable forest management, which we now call sim. we considered four key elements in the sim: creating favourable institutional environment; integrating science and civic consent during measurement, assessment and planning; scrutinise and legitimise the planning process through endorsement and approval processes; and action and continuous monitoring, documentation and reflection. while sim may appear to be costly and time-consuming, all but the silviculture demonstration plots establishment are part of usual operation plan revisions and implementation process. what makes sim different is bringing up the need for silviculturebased forest management at the front and centre of existing cfug operations and activities. the initial result shows that a thorough and integrated approach to technical and institutional process, which underpinned sim has led to a good silvicultural-based forest management in action research areas. though these are very small and specific cases, these processes do not involve huge transaction cost and can be scaled out elsewhere. this means adopting a genuinely engaging process that brings scientific process into public scrutiny and community consent with proper documentation and periodic reflective learning amongst stakeholders that feeds into the policy process and help achieve sustainable forest management objectives. this research further points to the fact that more works need to be done to explore and identify sim pathways that can work best for the poor and disadvantaged groups in the community. what is also needed is to test sim tools that can work for various forest products and services which are marketable and have the potential to raise incomes to the unemployed rural youths. acknowledgements this paper is a product of a five-year action research project entitled, enhancing livelihoods and food security from agroforestry and community forestry in nepal (enlift), funded by the australian centre for international agriculture research (aciar). references banjade, m., paudel, n. s., karki, r., sunam, r. and paudyal, b. 2011. putting timber into the hot seat: discourse, policy and contestations over timber in nepal. discussion paper series 11: 2. forest 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management. a memo from embassy of finland, kathmandu. memo no. 1122; 8 dec 1998. king, g. c., hobley, m. and gilmour, d. a. 1990. management of forests for local use in the hills of nepal: towards the development of participatory forest management. journal of world forest resource management 5 (1): 1–13. mcdougall, c., ojha, h., pandey, r. k., banjade, m. r. and pandit, b. h. 2007. enhancing adaptiveness and collaboration in community forestry in nepal: reflections from participatory action research. adaptive collaborative management of community forests in asia, 52. ojha, h. r., paudel, n. s. banjade, m. r., mcdougall, c. and cameron, j. 2010. the deliberative scientist: integrating science and politics in forest resource governance in nepal. in beyond the biophysical: knowledge, culture, and politics in agriculture and natural resource management (eds.) german, l. ramisch, j. j. and verma, r. dordrecht, hiedelberg, london and new york, springer, 167–191. paudel, n. s., paudel, g., karki, r. and khatri, d. b. 2014. revenue and employment opportunities from timber management in nepal’s community forests. policy brief no. 29, forest action, kathmandu, nepal. springate-baginski, o., dev, o. p., yadav, n. p. and soussan, j. 2003. community forest management in the middle hills of nepal: the changing context. journal of forest and livelihood 3 (1): 5–20. subedi, b. p., ghimire, p. l., koontz, a., khanal, s. c., katwal, p., sthapit, k. r. and s. khadka m. 2014. private sector involvement and investment in nepal’s forestry: status, prospects and ways forward. study report. multi stakeholder forestry programme services support unit, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. subedi, v. r. 2012. forest management: opportunities and challenges in nepal (in nepali). hamro ban sampada 10 (1): 61–68. thoms, c. 2008. community control of resources and the challenge of improving local livelihoods: a critical examination of community forestry in nepal. geoforum 39: 1452−1465. yadav, b. d., bigsby, h. and macdonald, i. 2008. “who are controlling community forestry user groups in nepal? scrutiny of elite theory”. paper presented at the new zealand agricultural and resource economics society conference, august 28–19, 2008. nelson, new zealand. yadav, n. p., yadav, k. p., yadav, k. k. and thapa, n. 2009. facilitating the transition from passive to active community forest management: lessons from rapti zone, nepal. journal of forest and livelihood 8 (2): 51–66. paudel et al. we estimated tiger and wild prey abundance in the bardia national park of nepal. tiger abundance was estimated from camera trap mark recapture in 85 days between december, 2008 to march, 2009 by placing 50 camera trap pairs in 197 trap locations with a sampling effort of 2,944 trap nights. we photo captured 16 individuals (≥1.5 year old) tigers identified on the basis of their unique stripe patterns. the number and density (per 100 km2) of tiger was 19 (se 3.3) and 1.31 (se 0.32), respectively. distance sampling was used to assess the prey abundance on 170 systematically laid line transects between may–june, 2009. the density of all the wild prey (individuals/km2) was 56.3 (se 6.5). the density (individuals /km2) of chital was 29.3 (se 4.3). the density of barking deer, wild pig and sambar were in higher to medium, medium and medium to low range as compared to other protected areas in south asia respectively. the study indicated decline of tiger in bardia national park even though the existing level of the prey population appears to be adequate to support higher tiger numbers. there is hope of meeting the ambitious goal of doubling the tiger population by 2022 set by the tiger range countries which was evident in 2014 with 50 tigers in bardia national park and khata corridor. the tiger habitats outside the protected areas should be managed with the local communitybased initiatives to ensure the acceptance of low density tiger movement. key words: bardia, camera trap, density, line transect, tiger, wild prey estimating tiger and its prey abundance in bardia national park, nepal j. b. karki1, y. v. jhala2, b. pandav2, s. r. jnawali3, r. shrestha4, k. thapa5, g. thapa5, n. m. b. pradhan6, b. r. lamichane7 and s. m. barber-meyer8 terai arc landscape (tal) nepal encompasses an area of 23,199 km2, covering 14 terai districts from rautahat in the east to kanchanpur in the west, and consists of over 75% of the remaining forests of the terai and the foot hills of churia. the protected areas (pas) are part of the global tiger conservation landscape and are source to maintain the wildlife. the corridor and connectivity within and between the countries are vital for the long-term maintenance of wildlife. thus, the regular monitoring of the forest resources and wildlife is important for the management of the wildlife. the bardia national park (bnp) has been listed as category ii tiger conservation landscape in global tiger conservation scenario (dinerstein et al., 2007). over the past 200 years, wild tiger populations have declined by more than 98% in the indian subcontinent (mondol et al., 2009) and probably by the same percentage through the rest of the tiger’s range (seidensticker, 2010). the current global tiger population is comprised of <5% of what was estimated just a century ago (dinnerstein et al., 2007) with the current adult number estimated to be mean 3643, distributed in bangladesh 440, bhutan 75 (67–81), cambodia 10–30, china 45 (40–50), india 1,411 (1,165– 1,657), indonesia 325 (250–400), lao pdr 17 (9–23), malaysia 500, myanmar 85, nepal 155 (124–229), russia 360 (330–390),thailand 200 and vietnam 10s (estimated) (gtis, 2011). historically, tigers were distributed continuously across the lowland himalayan forests in nepal but the surveys, between 1987 and 1997, documented only three isolated tiger populations (smith et al., 1998); bnp being one. 1 kathmandu forestry college, kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: jbkarki@gmail.com 2 wildlife institute of india, dehradun, india 3 wwf nepal hariyoban program 4 wwf canada 5 wwf nepal 6 bird conservation nepal 7 national trust for nature conservation nepal 8 wwf us, present address: us geological survey, ely mn 55731, usa 60 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 61 in nepal, the oldest population estimates of tiger come from chitwan national park (cnp). the estimates until the mid 1990’s were mainly based on either radio-telemetry (sunquist, 1981; smith, 1993; smith et al., 1999) or pugmark surveys (mcdougal, 1999). although they provide a minimum estimate, these methods face the issues of incomplete spatial sampling of the area of interest and incomplete detection of animals even within the area that is sampled. thus, population sampling approaches that explicitly deal with these two problems by employing appropriate statistical models are essential for robust estimation of animal abundance (seber, 1982; williams et al., 2002; thompson, 2004). this study uses the spatially explicit capture-recapture likelihood approach. chital (axis axis), sambar (cervus unicolor), swamp deer (cervus duvauceli duvauceli), wild pig (sus scrofa), hog deer (axis porcinus) and barking deer (muntiacus muntjak) are major prey species of tiger in the bnp. the quantification of these prey species is of utmost importance in these pas that are supporting different carnivores species including tiger, leopard (panthera pardus) and wild dog (cuon alpinus). in this paper, we have described the use of camera-trap mark-recapture method to obtain the abundance estimate of tigers, and line transects to obtain the density of the tiger wild prey. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in the bnp situated in the terai plains and the siwaliks of the mid-western nepal. established in 1969 and extending over an area of 968 km², the park is located between 28°15’ n and 28°35.5’ n latitude and between 80°10’ e and 81°45’ e longitude. the terrain of the park ranges from 152 m to 1,440 m from the mean sea level. most of the park area is occupied by the lowland flood plains and the inner valley; about 80% of the park area is covered by forests. field methods camera trap survey (karanth and nichols, 1998 and 2002; dnpwc, 2005 and 2008; dhakal et al., 2014) was conducted in 20 blocks of 50–100 km2; altogether, 197 traps were located (fig. 1) at different points covering a total area of 1,456 km2 (½ mean maximum distance moved: mmdm area) in 2,944 trap nights. each block was camera trapped for 15 days between december, 2008 and march, 2009 by employing stealth cam and moultrie passive camera traps placed around 16:00 hours and removed after 09:00 hours to avoid theft. camera traps were rotated between blocks to cover the entire area. at each site, paired cameras were deployed using 15-day sampling period in fig. 1: map showing the line transects and the location of camera traps within the study area (bnp) karki et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 62 each of the camera locations. the trap distance between the two trapping stations was 1.5 km. care was taken not to leave any potential gaps in the sampling area of interest. transects were laid out systematically using distance software (thomas et al., 2009) with the random start option for tiger’s wild prey. we determined minimum two temporal replicates and 170 spatial replicates (127 in the karnali flood plains and the churia foot hills and 43 in the babai valley) (fig. 1). computer-generated transect points were laid on the map and uploaded on the gps. during may–june after the burning heat, two observers, on elephant-back, moved between 06:00–09:00 hours and 16:00–19:00 hours when the prey-animals were most active along the line transect recording all the prey species, the number of individual animals, the radial sighting distance to the animal (or the centre of the animal cluster) and the sighting angle between the transect line and the animal or the centre of the cluster of the animals observed (buckland et al., 2001). data analysis photographic capture-recapture analysis (karanth and nichols, 1998; pollock et al., 1990) was undertaken to estimate tiger population parameters. capture histories (x matrices) were developed on individual tigers identified on the basis of the stripe pattern on the body flanks, legs and face (karanth, 1995; mcdougal, 1977; schaller, 1967; dnpwc, 2005). data were analyzed using the capture 2 interface program (otis et al., 1978; rexstad and burnham, 1991; white et al., 1982) for estimation of the number. we used spatial density analysis (maximum likelihood spatially explicit capture recapture, density software (efford, 2009) to overcome the issue of geographical closure using tiger habitat. tiger wild-prey was first analyzed as one group for the whole park along a total of 559.2 km distance within the three distinct strata viz. i) the karnali flood plains (kfp, along 211.9 km distance), ii) the foot hills (fh, along 273.1 km distance) and iii) the babai valley (bv, along 74.2 km distance) and followed by species having more than 40 observations afterwards. for selecting the best model (or models) to use for generating density estimates, model robustness, relative akaike information criterion (aic) values, various goodness of fit tests, relative estimate precision and the detection function shape (wide shoulder near the y axis) were considered. the more robust group approach (buckland et al., 2001) prior to analyses was performed in case of spiked data. results and discussion tiger abundance in the 197 trap locations throughout the bnp, 16 individual tigers (5 male, 8 female and 3 gender unknown) were identified. about 70% of the total individual tigers were recaptured more than once with a mean maximum distance between the two capture events of 8.9 km (sd 10). no new tigers were trapped after the 10th night (pooled across blocks), while the total number of captures increased steadily until the 14th night (pooled across blocks). nearly 65% of the total individual tiger captures were made during the first 5 days of camera trapping. the estimated tiger number was 19 (se 3.3 with range 17.2–36) from the model mh-jackknife from capture. the density was 1.31 (se 0.32) and 0.87 (se 0.28) tigers/100 km2 from ½ mmdm and mmdm of program density (table 1). the density from spatial explicit capture-recapture of maximum likelihood provided 0.61(se 0.15) table 1: number and density in tigers in bardia national park, nepal best model capture score camera trap nights pop. estimate n (se) d (se) from ½ mmdm eta (km2) d (se) (mmdm) eta (km2) d(se)ml secr all area mask mh-jacknife 0.98 2,944 19 (3.3) 1.31 (0.32) 1,456 0.87 (0.28) 2,182 0.61 (0.15) 0.94 (0.23) note: pop. estimate n (se) = population estimate number (standard error); d (se) mmdm eta = density (standard error) mean maximum distance moved effective trapping area; ml secr = maximum likelihood spatially explicit capture recapture. karki et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 63 ranging from 0.37–0.99. habitat mask was used and density was estimated at 0.94 (se 0.23) 95% ci 0.58–1.52 with the area of 1,896 km2 from the density program. for density analysis, the likelihood approach (efford et al., 2004) seems to be appropriate being comparatively less sensitive to buffer width as it is directly based on parameters estimating density unlike bayesian and is faster, and both spatial methods (royle et al., 2009) have not shown any significant difference in terms of density estimation (kalle et al., 2011). thus, the likelihood approach was interpreted for discussion. during 1990, there were 28 tigers estimated based on 1994–96 (basnet et al., 1998). the drastic decline in the tiger population in the bnp was consistent till this study period from 42 (bhatta et al., 2002) to 18 in 2010/011 (table 2). this study strongly shows that the decline is not due to prey loss as compared to the dense tiger bearing pas (table 3) but may be due to poaching of tiger and its prey (check, 2006; gopal et al., 2010; karki et al., 2008; chundawat et al., 2011). the current government’s effort to reinforce the protection of the park and trans-boundary initiative is very positive and the government’s commitment to make the 2010 tiger population double by year 2022 could be achieved provided these areas are supplemented with additional prey species particularly in the babai valley of the park. the doubling of the tiger population by 2022 (t x 2) is possible from the population of 37 adult breeding tigers (15 male and 22 female) in the bnp (bnp, 2012) and 50 (45–55) in bnp and khata corridor (forest) (dhakal et al., 2014). dhakal et al. (2014) found the density of tiger to be 3.38 /100 km2, which was quite higher than the one found in 2009 (0.9/100 km2) in the bnp. the improvement of tiger prey density as well as the tiger population in the bnp indicates the success of control of poaching and illegal wildlife trade including the control of poaching and illegal wildlife trade (dhakal et al., 2014). the candidate species for introduction in the babai valley are wild water buffalo and swamp deer to supplement the prey-animals and rhino to build table 2: population of tiger in bnp nepal during the period of 1998–2013 year density/100 km2 number 19872 1998/993 2000/013 19981/(area km2) 1999/2000 2005 2009 2010 2011 2013 bnp 2.7 2.08 2.18 25/50 32–40 32–40 18 18 37 50 1smith et al., 1998; 2smith et al., 1987; 3wegge et al., 2009 table 3: number and densities of tiger and their wild prey in the pas of nepal and india name of pa tiger number (se) tiger density (d)/100 km2 (se) ml secr d_prey/km2 corbett tr* 109 (5.4) 16.23 (1.63) 72.4 ramnagar fd* 27 (1.5) 13.8 (2.74) 72.4 kaziranga np* 69 (0.5) 12.63 (1.5) 56.1 kishanpur (dudwa, tr)* 19 (7.31) 4.64 (1.11) 25 katerniaghat (dudwa, tr)* 20 (2.61) 4.82 (1.19 25 dudhwa np (dudwa, tr)* 21 (5.47) 4.79 (1.28) 25 pilibhit fd* 12 (0.17) 3.78 (1.17) 25 chitwan np (karki et al., 2013) 126 (21) 2.30 (0.31) 51.7 valmiki tr* 8 (2.1) 1.12 (0.52) bnp, 2009 ps 19 0.9 (0.23) 56.3 suklaphanta wr, 2009 ps (karki et al., 2015) 7 2.1 (0.8) 144.8 parsa wr-ps (karki, 2011) 4 0.61 (0.32) 6.6 *jhala et al., 2011 note: tr = tiger reserve; fd = forest division; np = national park; wr = wildlife reserve and ps = present study karki et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 64 viable population in the bnp. a regular habitat management for ungulates by cutting grass in the early winter (karki, 1997; peet, 1997), and control burning to regulate succession in the relocated villages are essential. the current prey abundance in the bnp can support about 100 tigers assuming the removal of the current abundance of 10% per year (the annual removal of 50 ungulates/yr/tiger ranging from rhesus to wild elephant in size). the past highest tiger abundance did not cover the babai valley for estimation. it links with katerniaghat (india) via. khata corridor, and with the suhelwa wildlife sanctuary (india) via. banke national park which further supports tiger in this landscape. the number of tiger was found to have increased in bnp (dnpwc, 2013; dhakal et al., 2014); the new tigers probably entering from the south eastern part. one tigress was found to have regularly used the khata corridor while another tiger was found to have routinely visited the corridor from the flood plains of the bnp (bnp, 2012). ungulate estimates the density estimates for the wild-prey of tiger (individuals/km2) in the year 2009 were 56.3 (se 6.5); 50.5 (se 8.4); 21.8 (se8.4) and 19.2 (se 5.2) for the entire bnp, the karnali flood plains, the churia foot hills and the babai valley of the bnp, respectively (table 4). the half normal model was found to best fit for the data of the bnp, the karnali flood plains and the babai valley while the uniform cosine was best for the data of churia foot hills. the average density estimates (chital/km2) based on the model were 29.3 (se 4.3), 50.5 (se 8.4), 21.8 (se 8.4) and 19.2 (se 5.2) for the whole bnp, the karnali flood plains, the churia foot hills and the babai valley, respectively. besides, the half normal model was also found to be best fit for the data for chital. the density estimates (number/km2) for sambar, wild pig, barking deer, langur, rhesus macaque and barking deer and hog deer combined were 3.07 (se 0.7), 2.4 (se 0.6),1.4 (se 0.3), 9.2 (se 2.3), 10.6 (se 2.8) and 2.3 (se 0.58) barking deer and hog deer, respectively based on the global detection function and cluster size (table 4). we could not have sufficient data for the swamp deer points for the bnp due to their narrow distribution range in the karnali flood plains. table 4: density of tiger’s prey species (individuals/km2) in the karnali flood plains, churia foot hills and babai valley of the bnp, nepal species species model esw (se) cluster size (±se) ds (±se)/ km2 d (±se)/ km2 encounter rate (±se/ km) total effort cut point l, r (m) bnp_t. half n. 43.6 (1.4) 5.6 (0.3) 12.9 (1.3) 56.3 (6.5) 1.1 (0.1) 559.16 88, 0.2 kfp half n. 47.0 (1.9) 6.0 (0.3) 21.0 (2.2) 103.7 (12.8) 2.0 (0.2) 211.93 85, 0.2 foot hills unif. cos. 37.6 (2.7) 7.4 (1.1) 3.7 (0.8) 22.2 (6.5) 0.3 (0.06) 273.08 65.3 b. valley half n. 47.7 (3.5) 2.4 (0.2) 16.8 (2.7) 37.3 (6.6) 1.6 (0.2) 74.16 100 chital half n. 49.4 (2.4 ) 7.0 (0.4) 5.4 (0.7) 29.3 (4.3) 0.22 (0.03) 559.16 91 ch-kfp half n. 50.0 (3.0) 6.5 (0.5) 9.7 (1.4) 50.5 (8.4) 1.0 (0.1) 211.93 87 ch-fh unif. cos. 39.5 (6.1) 10.5 (1.6) 2.2 (0.7) 21.8 (8.4) 0.2 (0.05) 273.08 80 ch-bv half n. 42.0 (5.4) 3.2 (0.5) 6.6 (1.5) 19.2 (5.2) 0.6 (0.1) 74.16 82 sambar half n. 41.7 (4.9) 2.3 (0.2) 1.3 (0.3) 3.0 (0.7) 0.1 (0.02) 559.16 67 wild pig half n. cos. 40.6 (6.8) 2.2 (0.3) 1.0 (0.2) 2.4 (0.6) 0.08 (0.02) 559.16 98.1 bk. deer unif. cos. 31.8 (3.4) 1.2 (0.07) 1.1(0.2) 1.4 (0.3) 0.07 (0.01) 559.16 54 langur unif. s.p. 53.6 (3.2) 7.6 (0.8) 1.4 (0.3) 9.2 (2.3) 0.1 (0.02) 559.16 77.7 r. macaque unif., cos. 44.8 (3.6) 8.5 (1.0) 1.2 (0.2) 10.6 (2.8) 0.1 (0.02) 569.12 77.7 b + h. deer half n. 32.8 (3.5) 1.5 (0.1) 1.6 (0.3) 2.3 (0.5) 0.1 (0.02) 569.16 65.4 note: bnp_t. = total of the bnp; kfp = karnali flood plains; b. valley = babai valley; ch-kfp = chital karnali flood plains; ch-fh = chital foot hills; ch-bv = chital babai valley; bk. deer = barking deer; r. macaque = rhesus macaque; b + h. deer = barking and hog deer combined; n. = normal; unif. = uniform; cos.=cosine; s.p. = simple polynomials ; esw = effective strip width, se = standard error; ds = group density, d = density; l = left; r = right karki et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 65 the overall density of the park had increased from 56.3 animals/km2 in 2008 to 92.6 animals/km2 in 2013 (dhakal et al., 2014), which is in the higher range as compared to those (5.3–107 animals/ km2) in some pas of the south asia region. the improvement was found to have been contributed mainly by chital. nominal decrease in the densities of barking deer, sambar and wild pig was because of the larger area covered in current study compared to the earlier studies conducted in the karnali flood plains (wegge and storaas, 2009 wegge et al., 2009; dinerstein,1980). the combined density (19.9/km2) of langur (9.2) and rhesus macaque (10.7) was found to be slightly higher than the one (16.7±6.6) found out by malla (2009). in both the karnali flood plains and the babai valley of the bnp, the wild prey density was comparable with that of malla (2009), but that of chital was slightly lower in the karnali flood plains. however, this study had covered large area in the karnali flood plains as compared to the studies conducted by wegge et al. (2009) and malla (2009). the density (individuals/km2) of chital (29.3) was similar to the one found by malla (2009) in the babai valley. however, the density of chital in the entire bnp was found to in the moderate range as compared to the one table 5: density of prey-animals (individuals/km2) in the pas of south asia pa/prey habitat d_prey tot d±se density of chital sambar wild pig barking deer bardia np, 2009 ps 56.3 56.3 (6.5) 29.3 (4.3) 3 (0.7) 2.4 (0.6) 1.4 (0.3) bardia np, 2014 (dhakal et al., 2014) 92.6 92.6 (8.8) 53.99 (10.3) 4.45 (0.8) 4.8 (0.5) 1.97 (0.5) babai, bnp, 2009 (malla, 2009) 1.2 2.5 karnali, bnp, 2009 (malla, 2009) 50.5 3.1 3.1 karnali, bnp, 1976 (dinerstein, 1980 ) 33.9 3.5 4.2 1.7 karnali, bnp, 1993 (wegge et al., 2009) 1 2.6 chilla range, rajaji np, 2005 and 2006 (harihar et al., 2006) 76.2 6.5 ± 4.1 43.5 19.6 chitwan np, 1982 (tamang, 1982) 16.8 2.7 6.6 chitwan np, 2008, 2009, 2010 (thapa, 2011) 113.8 113.8 86.3 8 10.5 4.1 chitwan np, 2009 (karki, 2011) 51.7 52.88 ±4.9 32.3 3.5 3.4 2.1 dudwa,valmiki, pilibhit, katerniaghat 2010 (jhala et al., 2011) 24.92 24.92 (3.75) 13 (2.17) 0.14 (0.02) 1.99 (0.55) 0.72 (0.23) gir ls, 1997 (khan and vohra,1997) 50.8 2 2.1 kanha np, 1987 (newton, 1987) 55.5 57.3 ± 4.07 3.2 0.9 0.5 0.4 kaziranga (jhala et al. 2011) 56.1 58.1 ± 6.51 melghat (jhala et al. 2011) 5.3 5.3 ± 0.76 nagarhole, 2092 (karanth and sunquist, 1992) 52.9 56.1 ± 3.95 50.6 5.5 4.2 4.2 parsa wr, 2009 (karki, 2011) 6.6 6.6 ±1.1 pench tr, 2000 (karanth and nichols, 2000) 51.3 9.6 rajaji-corbett, 2010 (jhala et al., 2011) 72.4 72.4 ±13.0 46.71 (13.25) 7.49 (1.78) ranthmbore, sariska, 2010 (jhala et al., 2011) 107.7 107.7 ±10.0 31.62 (10.4) 8.24 (1.8) 4.86 (7.7) suklaphanta wr, 2009 (karki, 2011) 144.8 144.8 ±22.8 79 melghat, pench, tadoba, 2010 (jhala et al., 2011) 107.74 107.74 (9.95) 37 (6.06) 5.34 (0.57) 5.83 (1.11) 0.61 (0.15) karki et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 66 (5.3–107) in the indian pas (table 5), indicating the availability of adequate prey-animals of tiger in the park. on the other hand, the density of sambar (3) in the park was in the lower range as compared to the one (0.14–19.6) in the indian pas. similarly, the density of wild pig (2.4) in the park was in the medium range as compared to that (0.5–5.8) in the indian pas. likewise, the density of barking deer (1.4) in the park was in the medium range as compared to that (0.4–4.2) in the indian pas. the density of swamp deer could not be determined due to the limited data points, but significantly preferred (hayward et al., 2012; wegge et al., 2009) by tiger owing to largebodied wild prey-animals (sambar and nilgai) in the karnali flood plains of the bnp. conclusion the population of tiger in the bnp was found to have increased from 18 in 2009 to 50 in 2013. the reason behind is the habitat management of wild prey-animals of tiger in the park and control in poaching and illegal trade of wild animals from the park. therefore, habitat management of wild prey-animals of tiger together with the control in poaching of wild animals and illegal wildlife trade will result in further increase in the population of tiger. in order to support the tiger doubling aim of nepal by the end of 2020, it is recommended to improve the prey-base. one of the ways to improve the prey-base in the bnp is to increase the number of swamp deer in the babai valley, study the feasibility of introducing gaur and wild water buffalo in bnp. acknowledgements we are grateful to save the tiger fund (stf), us fish and wildlife services (usfws), world wildlife fund (wwf) us, wwf-uk, wwfinternational for providing financial support to accomplish this study. we would also like to thank all those involved in the fieldwork of this study. references basnet, k., shrestha, k. m., sigdel, r. and ghimire, p. 1998. bardia extension area: biodiversity survey. wwf nepal program, kathmandu, nepal. bhatta, s. r., bajimaya, s. and jnawali, s. r. 2002. status, distribution and 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analysis and management of animal populations. academic press, san diego, california, usa. karki et al. land use and land cover change has immense impact on the global environment and ecosystem. geospatial technologies are very important for monitoring these changes. this research aims to find out the land use land cover dynamics and drivers of ambung vdc, tehrathum district. the landsat images of the year 1990 and 2013 were used for quantifying the changes. household survey, key informant interview, focus group discussion, training samples collection and direct field observations were carried out to gather socio-economic and bio-physical data. supervised classification was performed to prepare land cover maps. change on land use was calculated by using post classification change detection. during 1990–2013, forest cover was found to have increased by 6.6%, agriculture decreased by 5.9% and others (barren, settlement, grass, rock and water bodies) decreased by 0.7%. the vdc was found to have severe problem of rapid drying of water resources in spite of the increase in forest cover, and so research should be carried out to find out the reason and solve the problem before it is too late. k e y w or d s : forest cover, geographic information system, remote sensing, supervised classification drivers and dynamics of land use land cover in ambung vdc of tehrathum district, nepal d. pandey1*, b. p. heyojoo1 and h. shahi2 land use and land cover (lulc) dynamics are widespread, accelerating and significant process driven by human action which produces some changes that impact humans (agarwal et al., 2001). land cover corresponds to the physical condition of the ground surface, such as forest, grassland, agriculture land and so on while land use reflects human activities like the use of the land for different purposes such as industrial zones, residential zones, and agricultural fields. this definition shows that there is a direct link between land cover and the actions of people in their environment, i.e. land cover change may result from land use (phong, 2004). changes in land-use and land cover have impacts on soil and water quality, biodiversity, and global climatic systems and, thus, have important consequences on natural resources (awasthi et al., 2002). remote sensing and geographic information system (rs/gis) technologies can greatly facilitate the collection, analysis and presentation of resource data (gautam, 2007). repeated satellite images and aerial photos are useful for visual assessment of natural resource dynamics occurring at a particular time and space, physical features such as land use, soils, vegetation, stream networks, and landforms at different time scales (awasthi, 2004). satellite images and aerial photos are useful for quantitative evaluation of lulc changes over time (balla et al., 2007). there are regional variations in terms of changes in forest conditions, e.g. the forest area in the terai was found to have decreased with the annual rate of 1.3 percent during 1978/79-1990/91 (dof, 2005). a recent assessment of forest cover by the forest resource assessment (fra) project showed that the terai forest had decreased by 0.44 percent and 0.40 percent per annum during the periods of 2001–2010 and 1991–2010, respectively (fra/dfrs, 2014). the fra findings indicate a declining rate of forest loss in the terai region in more recent years (mofsc, 2014). human intervention in forest environment is generally accepted as the main trigger behind forest conversion (phong, 2004). moreover, the mountain region of nepal is subjected to deforestation and agriculture expansion in the marginal lands (awasthi et al., 2005). some programs, such as community forestry have carried out exemplary work on conserving forest resources, but there are also some activities responsible for the dwindling of forest resources in the country (unep, 2001). in this context, it is important to understand the status of land use, 1 institute of forestry, pokhara campus, nepal, *email: dpdelite22@gmail.com 2 district forest office, pyuthan, nepal 90 banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 91 measures undertaken to manage the forests, and programs laid down for the future by the national government. the available land use and forest cover data are both scanty and scattered (unep, 2001) most of which is not updated; a very few data have been reported for middle mountain region of nepal (awasthi, et al., 2005). keeping this into consideration, this study was carried out in the ambung vdc of middle mountain region which lacks studies on the land use dynamics and its driving factors. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in the ambung vdc situated in the northern part of tehrathum district of koshi zone of eastern nepal (fig. 1). the vdc lies within the middle mountain ecological region, and is at a distance of 3 miles from myanglung, the district headquarters. it is located between 27˚6’ and 27˚56’ n latitude and between 87˚25’ and 87˚45 e longitude. the terrain rises from 600 m to 2,900 m above the mean sea level; grassland and pasture are found at the higher altitudes, forests at the middle and settlements at the lower altitudes. the district exhibits subtropical type of climate at the lower altitude to temperate at the higher altitudes with an average temperature of 15˚– 25˚c and 1,650 mm annual average rainfall. this vdc is an important part of biologically very important tinjure-milke-jaljale forest, which is considered as the capital of rhododendron. the major portion of the vdc is covered by forests with major tree species like alnus nepalensis, schima wallichi, pinus roxburgii, pinus wallichiana, quercus lanata, quercus floribunda, castonopsis tribuloides and rhododendron arboretum. the total population of the vdc is 3,613 with 1,681 males and 1,932 females; the total households being 790 (cbs, 2012). majority of the people in the vdc are limbu followed by gurung, magar, kami, brahmin, chhetri and newar. most of the people depend upon the integrated system of farming, forests and livestock for their livelihood as in other hilly areas of nepal. however, in the recent years, especially the younger people are gradually leaving their traditional occupation and are attracted to foreign employment; particularly, mongolian communities are attracted towards national as well as foreign security services. fig. 1: map of study area data collection both primary as well as secondary data were collected for the purpose of the study. the socioeconomic data and information pertaining to research issues were collected through field observation, household survey, key informant interview and focus group discussions conducted with key persons and different groups of people like community forest user groups (cfugs), disadvantaged groups and mother groups. biophysical data, satellite images (landsat-5 tm of 1990 and landsat-8 of 2013), topographic map (at the scale 1:25000) of the study area, climatic data and statistical data were collected from other sources such as the institute of forestry, the district forest office, tehrathum, the federation of community forest users of nepal, the department of forest research and survey, the central bureau of statistics and the rural reconstruction nepal, tehrathum. purposive sampling with 10% intensity i.e. 80 households incorporating different aspects of socio-economic condition especially the people including gender, ethnicity, education and geographic location were selected for the purpose of household survey. the ground-truth data were collected with the help of a gps set. data analysis was done using spss and ms excel 2013 packages while the satellite image analysis was performed with the help of arcgis 10 and erdas imagine 8.4 softwares. digital image processing and classification the study area was separated from the whole scene of the landsat satellite images of both pandey et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 92 the dates (1990 and 2013) using vdc shape file. the “extract by mask tool” of arcgis was used for this process to separate area of interest (aoi) for the study. ten training sites for each class were collected and merged to give the best representation of the class spectral reflectance. the ancillary data were converted from shape file format to arc/info format which is readable in remote sensing software. these files were then displayed over the landsat scenes to aid in picking representative training sites. supervised classification with maximum likelihood classifier was utilized for image classification and for the preparation of base maps for change detection (lillesand et al., 2004). the data of different classification items (land use types) obtained from the field study were used as training samples for supervised classification of 2013 image and that of the topographical map were used for supervised classification of 1990 image. the land use classes used for image classification were forest land, agriculture land, and others (grassland, rocks, settlement, and barren land and water bodies). land use change detection the raster grids of 1990 and 2013 images were overlaid using “spatial analyst” of arcgis 10 software. the land use changes in terms of areas were detected using the raster calculator. finally, the areas converted from one class to another (class) were computed. the analysis and interpretation of different aspects of the numeric data of land use change were performed with the help of microsoft excel 2013. social data analysis the analysis and interpretation of different aspects of the social data were performed using spss 14 and microsoft excel 2013. results and discussion land use land cover change detection the classification of the landsat tm 1990 scene showed that forest was the major land use covering 1,066.23 ha (54%) followed by others (barren, settlement, grass, rock and water bodies) 457.83 ha (23%) and agriculture 455.04 ha (23%) in the study area (fig. 2). fig. 2: classified map of the study area in 1990 similarly, the landsat tm 2013 scene showed that forest was the major land use with 1,195.02 ha (61%) followed by others 337.59 ha (22%), and agriculture 443.61 ha (17%) (fig. 3). fig. 3: classified map of the study area in 2013 the study revealed that forest cover had increased whereas agriculture and others had decreased during the period of 23 years between 1990 pandey et al. l e g e n d banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 93 and 2013. the change was found to be highest in forest, from 53.9% to 60.5%, an increase by 6.6% (table 1). gautam et al. (2002) and balla et al. (2007) also observed similar results in their studies conducted at the upper rosi watershed in the middle mountain region of nepal and the galaudu and pokhare khola watersheds in the mid-hill region of nepal, respectively. agriculture was found to have decreased by 5.9%, from 23.0% to 17.1%. similarly, others were found to have decreased by 0.6%, from 23.1% to 22.5%. the forests in the middle mountains are, in general, better managed and in many places forest cover have increased in recent years mainly due to the community forestry programme (gautam et al., 2002; niraula et al., 2013). land use change map the table 2 and figure 4 below highlight the dynamics on land use change in the vdc within the period of 23 years. the agriculture cover was found to have decreased in the study area due to less favorable climatic condition and shortage of labor as most of the young people migrated to cities or foreign countries. this led people to shift the land use from agriculture to planting trees like alnus nepalensis in private land, resulting increase in forest cover; this result corresponds with the previous studies. the national biodiversity strategy and action plan (2014–2020) states that private forest has increased throughout the country. currently (as of august 18, 2013), there are 2,458 registered private forests in the country with a total of 3,329,885 trees grown in 2,361 ha of private land (mfsc, 2014). table 2: dynamics on land use change between 1990 and 2013 land use forest agriculture others total, 1990 forest 917.19 131.58 142.83 1,191.60 agriculture 75.69 155.07 105.21 335.97 others 68.13 165.15 208.89 442.17 total, 2013 1061.01 451.80 456.93 1,969.74 fig. 4: the lulc change map of the study area between 1990 and 2013 the results in table 3 below indicate that the performance of the classification methodology is quite good, reaching an overall accuracy of table 1: land use land cover change land use/ cover type landsat 1990 landsat 2013 increase decrease area (ha) % cover area (ha) % cover area (ha) % cover area (ha) % cover forest 1,066.23 53.88 1,195.02 60.47 128.79 6.6 agriculture 455.04 22.99 337.59 17.08 117.45 5.91 others 457.83 23.13 443.61 22.45 14.22 0.68 total 1,979.10 100.00 1,976.22 100.00 128.79 6.6 131.67 6.59 table 3: accuracy assessment of classification classes producer’s accuracy user’s accuracy 1990 2013 1990 2013 forest 97.14 100.00 98.55 93.33 agriculture 74.42 77.78 94.12 89.74 others 93.48 90.24 76.79 86.05 pandey et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 94 89.94% and 90.14% for the 1990 and 2013 images respectively and overall kappa statistics of 0.85 for both the images. both the accuracy assessments indicate high cohen’s kappa values which are close to one (1). considering the individual classification accuracies, the forest in 2013 was most accurately classified with 100% for producer’s accuracy and 93.33% for user’s accuracy. the higher accuracy of the maps could be possibly due to small study area as well as purposively selected smaller number of validation sites. the forest cover in the study area was found to have increased annually at the rate of 0.5% during the period of 1990–2013 (table 4). on the other hand, the agriculture land and the others lands were found to have gone down by 1.3% and 0.1% per annum. table 4: rate of lulc change of the study area during the period of 1990–2013 s.n. land use/cover rate of change (%) 1. forest 0.50 2. agriculture -1.29 3. others -0.14 rate of change (%) = ((a2/a1) (1/n)-1) x 100 (fao, 2000), where, a2 = end-year data, a1 = base-year data and n = numbers of years. social characteristics of the respondents out of the 80 respondents, 60% respondents were male and 40% were female. the respondent’s categories included the middle-aged (40-60 years) with 70% of the total sampled population followed by 15% young-aged (below 40) and 5% old-aged (over 60 years) belonging to all ethnic groups such as limbu, tamang, gurung, chhetri, brahmin, newar and kami). the study was focused on the accumulation of past experience of almost 30 years back from the present, therefore the sampled population was rather purposive as the middle-aged category was focused. the questionnaire survey revealed that 42.5% of the respondents were involved in farming (crop and livestock), 20% in business, 12.5% in wage labor and 7.5% involved in others; the rest 17.5% were found to be dependent upon remittance and pension (after retirement from service). out of the total respondents, 62.5% were illiterate and only 37.5 % were literate. majority of the respondents (77.5%) were dependent on fuel-wood while the rest (22.5%) had used lpg as major sources of energy. change in forest cover and its causes majority of the respondents (90%) believed that the forest cover was in increasing order in the vdc as compared to the previous decades. about 7.5% respondents felt that it was in decreasing order while the rest (2.5%) believed that it was intact. majority of the respondents (52%) believed that community forestry programme was the principal cause for the increase in forest cover. the community forestry programme has been generally successful in controlling or reversing the trends of deforestation and forest degradation in the middle mountains where 66.5 percent of nepal’s cfugs are managing 910,379 ha (53.5% of the total community forest area), whereas the programme is less successful in the terai and high mountain regions (mfsc, 2014). about one third (28%) of the respondents believed that the change in consumption pattern was responsible for the increase in forest cover. according to them, previously the local people had used forest as major source of fuel-wood and fodder, but now they had shifted their consumption pattern and had started growing trees on their own land mainly for producing and selling products like timber and ntfps and secondly for producing fuel-wood and fodder for their household consumption. some (13%) of the respondents believed that awareness had helped in increasing the forest cover. nowadays, people are more aware of the ecological and economical benefits that forests provide, and thus the activities that can damage forests are avoided by the local people. a few (7%) of the respondents believed that population growth (mainly due to influx of people from the higher parts to the lower of the vdc) had caused for decrease in the forest cover in some parts of the vdc. pandey et al. banko janakari, vol. 26, no. 1 95 land use change and driving factors majority (75%) of the respondents claimed that the land use of the vdc was changing and the rest (25%) of the respondents did not have any idea about it. respondents were asked about the possible drivers responsible for causing the lulc change. the result showed that 55% of the respondents believed that migration from the vdc to city areas or abroad for several purposes had led to change in land use. many youths had migrated to other areas so as to earn more money resulting in scarcity of working manpower in the village. so, most of the households changed their agricultural lands from cultivating agricultural crops to growing trees like alnus nepalensis (utis) and cardamom (alainchi) under the tree cover, resulting in the increase in the forest cover and decrease in the agriculture area within the vdc. a slightly more than half (52%) of the respondents believed that infrastructure development like road was responsible for the change in the lulc of the vdc. nearly half (45%) of the people felt that policies like introduction of community forestry programme, energy-efficient stoves, stall feeding system and so on in the vdc were responsible for the change in the lulc. similarly, almost half (41%) of the respondents claimed that climate change was directly or indirectly responsible for the change in the lulc of the vdc while some (10%) of the respondents believed that increase in population of the area was responsible for the change in the lulc of the vdc. analyzing the population of three decades, it was found that there had been decrease in the total population of the vdc in the recent years. both the male and female populations had increased from 1981 to 2001, but the total population had decreased from 2001 to 2011 as there was decrease in the male population from 1,973 in 2001 to 1,681 in 2011. it was verified by the local people that many young males had left the village in search of jobs and opportunities. conclusion out-migration, infrastructure development, climate change and policy are the major driving forces for the change in land use and land cover. however in the case of the ambung vdc of tehrathum district, the main reasons for the same were unfavorable climatic condition, drying of water resources and lack of labor owing to outmigration. during the period of 23 years (19902013), the land use of the ambung vdc of tehrathum district was found to have an increase of 128.8 ha (6.6%) cover in forest cover but a decrease of 117.5 ha (5.9%) in agriculture and 14.2 ha (0.7%) in others (barren, settlement, grass, rock and water bodies). the results of the study showed that unfavorable climatic condition, drying of water resources and lack of labor owing to out-migration from the vdc resulted in diverting the local people of the vdc from agriculture to planting trees like a. nepalensis in their agriculture lands as well as in other lands within the vdc. the vdc was found to have a severe problem of rapid drying of water resources in spite of the increase in forest cover, and so research should be carried out to find out the reason and solve the problem before it is too late. besides, the use of remote sensing and gis should be increased and diversified for monitoring natural resources for better results and easy updates. further, the local people especially the local youths should be provided with incomegenerating activities for their livelihood so as to retain them in their villages, which in turn might cease drastic land use changes in the rural areas causing adverse effects. acknowledgements this paper is based on a part of the author’s b.sc. forestry thesis submitted to the institute of forestry, pokhara campus, nepal. we are thankful to rural reconstruction nepal/multi stakeholder forestry program (rrn/msfp) and wwf, nepal for providing financial and technical support to conduct the study. we express our cordial thanks to dr. krishna raj tiwari, mr. yajna prasad timalsina, mr. navin kumar yadav for their critical suggestions during the study. similarly dfotehrathum, fecofun, forest action and rrn, tehrathum and all the respondents of ambung, tehrathum are also duly acknowledged for their cooperation in accomplishing the study. references agrawal, a. and ostrom, e. 2001. collective action, property rights, and decentralization in resource use in india and nepal. politics and society 29 (4): 485–514. awasthi, k. d., sitaula, b. k., singh, b. r., balla, m. k., 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kathmandu, nepal, 2. dof. 2005. forest cover change analysis of the terai districts (1990/91-2000/01). department of forests (dof), kathmandu, nepal. fao. 2000. global forest resources assessment 2000. food and agriculture organization of the united nations, rome, italy. fra/dfrs. 2014. terai forests of nepal (2010 – 2014). forest resource assessment nepal (fra), department of forest research and survey (dfrs), kathmandu, nepal. gautam, a. p., webb, e. l. and eiumnoh, a., 2002. gis assessment of land use-land cover changes associated with community forestry implementation in the middle hills of nepal. mountain research and development 22 (1): 63–69. gautam, a. p. 2007. land use dynamics and landscape change pattern in a mountain watershed in nepal. http:// www.gisdevelopment.net/application/ envi ronment /overv iew/envo007.h tm accessed on 18 oct, 2014. lilisand, t. m. kiefer, r. w. and chipman, j. w. 2004. remote sensing and image interpretation. john wiley and sons, new york, usa. mfsc. 2014. national biodiversity strategy and action plan (2014–2020). government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), kathmandu, nepal. niraula, r. r., gilani, h., pokharel, b. k. and qamen, f. m. 2013. measuring impacts of community forestry programme through repeat photography and satellite remote sensing in dolakha district of nepal. journal of environment management 126: 20–29. phong, l. t. 2004. analysis of forest cover dynamics and their driving forces in bach ma national park and buffer zone using remote sensing and gis. msc thesis submitted to the international institute for geo-information sciences and earth observation, enschede, the netherlands. unep. 2001. nepal: state of the environment 2001. united nations environment program, regional resource centre for asia and the pacific, thailand. pandey et al. population structure and distribution of vegetation are often affected by elevation induced climate variation in the himalaya. this research aims at assessing the population structure and distribution of abies spectabilis in three different elevation sites within the forests areas in manang district of central nepal. vegetation sampling was conducted during sept-oct 2012 and the population information of all the woody vegetation from a total of 59 concentric circular sampling plots of 10 m radii along the transect line were collected. the middle elevation site was characterized by the highest density of seedlings (15,044/ha), saplings (1,629/ha), poles (272/ha) and trees (179/ ha) of all woody vegetation. in this elevation, the highest proportion was contributed by a. spectabilis (54%) at combined-level in spite of the lack of large-sized stems (dbh > 70 cm). the proportion of a. spectabilis stem was nearly one-fourth of all the woody vegetation while its lowest proportion (15.5%) was found at the lower elevation at combined-level. on the contrary, its basal area proportion was nearly the half of all the woody vegetation at the lower elevation site, nearly one-third at the middle elevation site and less than 10% at the upper elevation site. there was a significant variation in mean density and basal areas of all stem categories among the sampled sites except the seedling density of all the woody vegetation between the lower and the middle elevations. the stem distribution of all the woody vegetation including a. spectabilis demonstrated the characteristics of normal (sustainable) forest in manang district. the presence of only small-sized trees with good recent regeneration of a. spectabilis in the upper treeline ecotone revealed stand densification as well as its potential for upward migration in response to environmental change including climate change in future. key words: basal area, ecology, forests, stems distribution population structure and distribution of abies spectabilis (d. don) in central nepal himalaya: a comparison with the total woody vegetation of the forests at the three different elevation ranges in manang district d. k. kharal1,2, d. r. bhuju3, n. p. gaire3,4, s. rayamajhi1, h. meilby5, and a. chaudhary2 forest is one of the crucial resources for providing various kinds of goods and ecosystem services to the large proportion of the people in the himalaya. environmental change including rapidly happening climate change has widely affected forest ecosystems (ipcc, 2014). community structure, composition and vegetative function are the most important ecological attributes of forests, which show variations in response to environmental as well as anthropogenic variables (wangda and ohshwa, 2006; moktan et al., 2009; shaheen et al., 2012). the himalaya region is very sensitive and vulnerable to environmental changes in the world and, therefore, exposed to strong environmental impacts from any changes in its climate (hmgn/ mfsc, 2002; wecs, 2002; wwf nepal, 2006; icimod, 2010; gon/moe, 2010). climate change is a major concern in the himalaya because of its adverse impacts on the economy, ecology and environment of the region including down-stream areas. studies have revealed that the temperature rise in nepal is more pronounced at higher elevation (shrestha et al., 1999). rapid climate change has many biophysical impacts (ipcc, 2014) including change in species composition of ecological communities, 1 institute of forestry (iof), tribhuvan university (tu), pokhara, nepal. e-mail: deepak_kharal@yahoo.com 2 department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal 3 nepal academy of science and technology, lalitpur, nepal 4 central department of environmental science, tu, kathmandu, nepal 5 university of copenhagen, denmark 3 banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 4 range and distribution shift of species as well as changes in phenology of the organisms (root et al., 2003; parolo and rossi, 2008; chen et al., 2011; gottfried et al., 2012; webb et al., 2012). although several studies have analyzed the altitudinal and latitudinal forest zones in relation to climate of the himalaya, very little is known on the comparative ecology and regeneration dynamics of the forests along the elevation gradient in nepal himalaya. studies along the elevation gradients are important, because many abiotic factors including temperature change with elevation. abies spectabilis (d. don) is a high altitude himalayan fir found in central to western nepal, up to afghanistan in the west, between 2400– 4400 m elevations at temperate and alpine zones (stainton, 1972; jackson, 1994; yadav et al., 2004; ghimire et al., 2008). it extends up to the treeline, and betula utilis forest succeeds at higher altitudes (ghimire et al., 2008; sujakhu et al., 2013). among the several himalayan conifers, a. spectabilis is proved for its dendroclimatic potential along the entire himalayan range (suzuki, 1990; bhattacharyya et al., 1992; yadav and singh, 2002; yadav et al., 2004; sano et al., 2005; gaire et al., 2011, 2014). trees at treeline often respond to climatic warming with increase in recruitment or tree-density, as well as upward advances in the treeline (bradley and jones, 1993; camarero and gutiérrez, 2004; kullman, 1998; gaire et al., 2014; chhetri and cairns, 2015). at the margin of a species’ natural distribution range, climate is usually a limiting factor for growth and, therefore, climatic effects on tree growth increase when approaching the very margin of the natural distribution range (fritts, 1976; schweingruber, 1996). the a. spectabilis at the treeline is responding to climate change with increase in tree density as well as upward shifting of upper distribution limit (gaire et al., 2011, 2014; chhetri and cairns, 2015). however, little is known about its ecological response with climate change, considering regeneration dynamics along an elevation gradient. this tree line species could be important source for understanding of past climate in the himalayas and, hence, it is necessary to understand the distribution pattern of this species and in particular the current regeneration status and its growth trend in the manang valley of nepal. the specific goal of present study was to investigate regeneration dynamics of a. spectabilis based on their population structure, seedling/sapling densities along the elevation gradient of manang district. materials and methods study area manang district with an area of 2,246 sq. km and located between 28o 27’ n to 28o 54’ n and 83o49’ e to 84o 34’ e was selected for the study purpose. it lies in the tran-himalayan region characterized by semi-arid cold desert condition like the tibetan plateau. the southern part is a deep and narrow u-shaped valley surrounded by the high mountains all aroundannapurna on the south, choya and himlung on the north, manaslu on the east and muktinath on the west, and receives minimum level of precipitation (ntnc, 2008). the district received about 344 mm average annual rainfall (at 3420 m asl) in manangbhot and 942 mm (at 2680 m asl) in chame, district hq during 1975–2012 period whereas the yearly temperature in the district varied from -2.6oc (average minimum) in january to 21.5oc (average maximum) in july during 1977–2012 in chame (dhm, 2014). the famous annapurna trekking route passes through this valley. human settlements are sparsely distributed along the marsyangdi river, originating from tilicho lake (a second highest lake in the world), and flows from the center of the valley. barren land is the largest land-use category (68%) of the district followed by grassland (22%), forests (7%), shrub-land (2%) and cultivated land (<1%) (lrmp, 1986). the high altitude coniferous forests are found at the upper slope of the valley whereas numerous grasslands are concentrated on the undulating terrains of the northern belt. a. spectabilis can be seen throughout its natural distribution range in the district. selection of sampled sites following a reconnaissance survey, three different elevation zones; the lower elevation zone, the middle elevation zone and the upper elevation zone were identified and a sample site was selected within each elevation zone as shown in the location map of the study area (figure 1). all the sampled sites were located within the prominent natural distribution range of a. spectabilis within the forests land. the lower elevation sampled site (2,700–3,100 m) was kharal et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 5 laid out in the chame forest of chame village development committee (vdc), the district headquarters, starting from the bottom of the hill up to the top. similarly, the middle elevation sampled site (3,000–3,400 m) was laid out in the pisang forest of pisang vdc, about 15 km apart from the lower elevation site in the north-west. the upper elevation sampled site (3,500–3,900 m) was laid out in the khangsar forest of khangsar vdc starting from the bottom of the hill up to the treeline. the vegetation sampling was conducted along the transect line in each sampled site during sept-oct 2012. sampling design, data collection and data analysis a 400 m long transect line along the elevation gradient was established in each sampled site, and divided into four different elevation groups, each with 100 m length for establishing the sample plots. the locally used trail was followed as the transect line for sample survey, and the sample plots were laid out 10 m apart from the trail to avoid the direct anthropogenic disturbances. each transect line in each sampled site was started from the bottom of the hill and ended to the top. it was not possible to create a new transect at the study sites due to steep topography and, therefore, the original plan of five sample plots in each elevation group could not be achieved in some places. the plots located at the terrain with greater than 45o slopes were avoided for sampling. table 1 highlights the distribution of sample plots at the three different sites within the study area. a total of 59 concentric circular sample plots (ccsps) of 10 m radii were established at the three elevation sites wherein the dbh (diameters at breast height) of all the poles (with dbh >10–25 cm) and the trees of a. spectabilis (with dbh > 25 cm) were measured for the estimation of basal area. on the other hand, all the saplings (height > 1.3 m and dbh < 10 cm) were counted within 5 m radii and the seedlings (height < 1.3 m) table 1: sampling design and sample distribution sampled sites elevation range (m) no. of sample plots distribution of sample plots by elevation groups i-100 m ii-100 m iii-100 m iv-100 m lower elevation 2,749–3,145 20 4 6 4 6 middle elevation 3,015–3,393 19 4 5 4 6 upper elevation 3,528–3,935 20 5 4 3 8 total 59 13 15 11 20 fig. 1: location map of the study area and the sample sites kharal et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 6 were counted within 2 m radii for the purpose of density estimation. stem numbers of poles and trees were further analyzed by making diameter classes of 10 cm interval. per hectare stem density and basal area were calculated for each sampled site and compared with one another. in addition to a. spectabilis, all the other woody vegetation within the sample plots were also measured and counted in the same way. mean, standard error of the mean, anova were used while analyzing the result. data were analyzed using spss-16 and microsoft office excel (2007). results and discussion forest structure along the elevation gradient there was a significant difference among the elevation zone in stem density distribution (p = 0.003, α = 0.05, anova). the highest density of woody vegetation was found at the middle elevation site where seedling density reached more than 15,000 per hectare whereas the upper elevation sites hosted just about 5,000 stems/ha (table 2). however, there was almost a uniform pattern of seedling distribution at the lower and the middle elevation sites and, therefore, did not show significant difference in the sampled mean (p = 0.78, α = 0.05, anova). the sapling density was found to be the highest (1,629 stem/ha) in the middle elevation site, and the difference with the other sites is highly significant among the groups (p = 0.004, α = 0.05, anova). the standard errors were found to be within the range of 10% of the sampled mean for trees, poles and sapling at combined-level while the standard error for the seedling distribution was a little bit higher (nearly 12%) (table 2). there was a decreasing trend in the basal areas of the average woody plants as well as a. spectabilis with the increase in elevation. the proportion of seedling density varied from about 84% in the upper elevation to 89% at the middle elevation whereas the proportion of tree density was just about 0.7% at the middle elevation to 1.7% at the lower elevation. the tree density and the basal area varied between the sites as well as between the regions depending upon the geographical and climatic conditions in the area. the currently recorded tree density at the upper site was found to be both higher as well as lower than the one recorded in some other studies in the himalayan region. gaire et al. (2010) found the average tree density of 734 stem/ha and the average basal area of 20.56 m2/ha in the treeline ecotone of langtang national park. in another study, bhuju et al. (2010) recorded a density of 445 stems/ha and total basal area of 11.2 m2/ha from the treeline region while a density of 1,034 stems/ha and a basal area of 18.6 m2/ha from the treeline region of the sagarmatha national park. in a study conducted in dolpa region, kunwar and sharma (2004) found the total stand density of 2100 trees/ha (dbh >10 cm) and the basal area of 90 m2/ha in amaldapani community forests while the stand density of 2,090 trees/ha (dbh >10 cm) and the basal area of 152 m2/ha in juphal community forests. shaheen et al. (2012) found the average tree density of 151 stems/ha and the basal area of 68.8 m2/ha in a western himalayan moist temperate forest in kashmir (pakistan). similarly, sharma et al. (2014) found the mean stand density of 613 stems/ha (552–710 stems/ ha) and the mean basal area of 84.37 m2/ha (75.18–92.07 m2/ha) from an assessment of forest structure and woody plant regeneration on the ridge at the upper bhagirathi basin in garhwal himalaya (india). they also found slightly an inversely j-shaped dbh class distribution with gaps in some dbh classes. the tree species in the forests of manang district table 2: summary statistics of woody vegetation and a. spectabilis by elevation sites vegetation types elevation sites parameters seedlings/ha saplings/ha poles/ha trees/ha stems/ha ba(m2/ha) woody species lower 14,013 1,032 135 140 15,320 35.8 middle 15,044 1,629 272 179 17,124 27.2 upper 5,056 586 104 100 5,846 22.6 average 11,308 1,073 168 139 12,689 28.5 a. spectabilis lower 2,070 242 25 40 2,377 15.9 middle 8,255 784 139 60 9,239 8.5 upper 1,154 166 40 13 1,373 1.4 average 3,751 391 67 37 4,246 8.6 kharal et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 7 demonstrated continuous regeneration at all elevations with inversely j-shaped size class distribution (figure 2d), despite some gaps in some diameter classes at individual elevation sites (figure 2a and figure 2c). an inversely j-shaped stem distribution showed that the forests at the lower elevation possessed both the recent regeneration as well as the very old growth stem (dbh > 100 cm). the forests at the middle elevation lacks the large-sized trees (dbh > 80 cm). the size class structure (age, dbh and height) indicates the regeneration condition in the forest (wangda and ohswa, 2006; lv and zhang, 2012; gaire et al., 2011, 2014). based on size class structure, the woody species can demonstrate three types of regeneration: unimodal, sporadic, and inversely j-shaped (wangda and ohshwa 2006). gaire et al. (2010) observed an inversely j-shaped size class distribution in the treeline ecotone of langtang national park. maren et al. (2015) found almost similar regeneration condition based on the dbh class distribution (inversely j-shaped) of pinus wallichiana and juniperus indica in the forests situated on the north and the south-facing slopes in the manang valley. similarly, wangda and ohshwa (2006) found continuous to sporadic regeneration of different tree species along the altitudinal gradient in a dry valley slope of bhutan himalaya. population structure of a. spectabilis the densities of a. spectabilis as well as the other woody plants were found to be the highest at the middle elevation while their basal areas were found to be the highest at the lower elevation and were found to have decreased with the increase in elevation (table 2). the matured trees were found to have contributed for the highest basal area at the lower elevation as the average density was less than that at the middle elevation. such decreasing trends in the density and the basal area were also observed at the other sites of the nepal himalaya (shrestha et al., 2007; bhuju et al., 2010). in another study conducted along the altitudinal gradient in a dry valley slope of the bhutan himalaya, wangda and ohshwa (2006) found the basal area in the range of 15.2–145.6 m2/ha with the highest total basal area in abies densa-tsuga dumosa dominated forest at the middle elevation. the average seedling density of a. spectabilis was about 3,751 plants/ha (about one third of total seedling) in manang forest with the lowest density status at the upper elevation (1,154/ha.) and the highest at the middle elevation (8,255/ fig. 2: stem density distribution by diameter classes at different elevation sites kharal et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 8 ha) (see table 2). the stems (saplings, poles and trees) of a. spectabilis were densely present at the middle elevation (figure 5) like the total woody vegetation structure (table 2). the statistics shows that the average densities of all stem categories are significantly different among the elevation sites. the ses of a. spectabilis distribution were found to be higher (>10%) than the ses of total woody species at combined level indicating higher variation of sample mean among the plots. forest survey in nepal generally follows the 10% error margin at 95% ci (dfrs, 2014a,b). the tree, sapling and seedling density of a. spectabilis recorded in this study is comparable with the density in the other parts of the nepal himalaya. a. spectabilis sapling density was 648 stems/ha in manaslu conservation area (sujakhu et al., 2013) and the sapling density declined with increase in elevation. in the same area, a. spectabilis tree density is 412 stem/ha and basal area is 11.64 m2/ha. the total tree density was more in the mixed forest (2,054 stems/ha) than in the pure forest (1,707 stems/ha) (sujakhu et al., 2013). kunwar and sharma (2004) found out a. spectabilis density ranged from 250 to 510 trees/ha in amaldapani and juphal community forests of dolpa district. they found an inversely j-shaped dbh class distribution in both the sites. the average trees, saplings and seedlings densities of a. spectabilis in the treeline ecotone of langtang national park were 236, 255 and 350 stems/ha respectively (gaire et al., 2011). the per hectare tree stem density of a. spectabilis in the treeline ecotone of sagarmatha national park was found to be 120 and 359 respectively (bhuju et al., 2010). in the treeline ecotone of the rolwaling valley, schickhoff et al. (2015) also found the highest seedling density of all the species including a. spectabilis at the middle elevation of the north-east slope but seedling density decreased with the decrease in elevation on the north-west slope. the variation in the densities along the elevation gradient might be the result of the variations in the soil nutrients and other abiotic as well as climatic factors. the population structure of a. spectabilis was quite different (figure 3) than the total woody vegetation in each elevation site (figure 2). however, the structural composition at combined level looks uniform (figure 2d and figure 3d). the combine dbh class distribution shows nearly an inversely j-shaped distribution indicating sustainable regeneration of a. spectabilis along elevation bands. considering the individual bands, gaps in some diameter class was observed which might be due to some anthropogenic disturbances in the past or episodic regeneration. this structure indicates the characteristics of normal forests in the study area. however, a huge gap between seedling and sapling distribution was found mainly due to the class interval of stem diameter during the measurement period. ghimire and lekhak (2007) found absence of higher girth class of a. spectabilis trees (above 45 cm diameter) in pisang annapurna region but present study recorded the diameter greater fig. 3: structural composition of a. spectabilis by elevation sites kharal et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 9 than 100 cm for same species. gaire et al. (2010) found inversely j-shaped to bell shaped diameter class distribution of a. spectabilis in the treeline ecotone of langtang national park while an inversely j-shaped to bimodal bell-shaped distribution in the treeline ecotone of manaslu conservation area (gaire et al., 2014). similarly, from a study of high altitude forest, bhuju et al. (2010) observed bell-shaped diameter class distribution of a. spectabilis at the treeline (pangboche) and inversely j-shaped pattern at the treeline (debuche) of sagarmatha national park. lv and zhang (2012) found inversely j-shaped to uni-multimodal bell-shaped dbh distribution of a. spectabilis along the elevation gradient in the tibetan side of mt. everest. a noticeable variation in stem distribution pattern was found between the elevation gradients in the study area (figure 4). the large number of seedlings and saplings of a. spectabilis found at the upper elevation including the treeline ecotone of the study area indicates its stand densification as observed by gaire et al., (2011 and 2014) and chhetri and cairns (2015) at the other treeline ecotones of nepal. the results show that a. spectabilis is responding to the recent environmental change and revealing its potential for upward migration in the future. there was a great variation in the proportion of a. spectabilis as compared to the total number of stem (including those of the other woody vegetation too) within the same elevation sites (figure 4). however, such proportions of a. spectabilis were found to be the highest at the middle elevation. more than half (about 55%) of the total seedlings at the middle elevation was occupied by a. spectabilis alone. on the contrary, the lower elevation site was characterized by lesser proportions of a. spectabilis seedlings (14.8%) and saplings (23.5%) (figure 4). fig. 4: proportion of a. spectabilis with respect to the total stem in the study area fig. 5: stem distribution of a. spectabilis by elevation sites in the study area kharal et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 10 out of the total stem distribution, more than two third of the a. spectabilis seedlings were found at the middle elevation alone, and only about 10% was observed at the upper elevation (figure 5). the trend was almost similar in the case of saplings and pole-sized stems. even more than half of the total tree stems were found at the same elevation. the middle and the upper elevation sites were lacked of large sized trees (>70 cm). according to the concepts of ecological amplitude, environmental condition of the middle distribution range of a species would be generally favorable for the growth (fritts, 1976). therefore, higher values of plant density might be associated with this. the comparisons of the proportions of seedlings, saplings and trees including all size class along the elevation-gradient revealed almost synchronous recent regeneration of a. spectabilis despite a minor difference in the recruitment pattern in the past history. minor difference in the regeneration pattern might be due to the fluctuations in soil nutrients and other abiotic parameters along elevation gradient (shrestha et al., 2007). lv and zhang (2012), however, found asynchronous recruitment history of a. spectabilis along an altitudinal gradient (3,410–3,920 m) in the tibetan side of mt. everest region. that study also found high tree (>10 cm dbh) density at the middle elevation as compared to the upper and lower elevations with density ranging from 344–1,106 stems per ha. on the contrary, lv and zhang (2012) found good regeneration of a. spectabilis at the treeline area, but did not find its regeneration at the middle elevation (3,520–3,700 m). at the treeline ecotone of mansalu conservation area, the regeneration of a. spectabilis is positively correlated with the precipitation of august and monthly maximum temperature of most of the months of the current year (gaire et al., 2014), indicating low temperature limits for the recruitment of this species in cold environment like treeline. lv and zhang (2012) also reported that recruitment of fir trees at the treeline was sensitive to summer (june–september) temperatures, but that was mainly controlled by episodic disturbances at lower altitudes. the high moisture in spring and summer months also has significant role for fir recruitment in the treeline area of tibetan side of mt. everest region (lv and zhang, 2012). the climatic factors affecting upon the recent regeneration of a. spectabilis along the elevation gradient including the treeline area of the present study area need to be further studied. however, the recent synchronous recruitment along the elevation gradient shows wider sensitivity of a. spectabilis towards the recent climatic change, especially temperature change, in the area. stem basal area of a. spectabilis the per hectare basal area was found to be the highest (15.9 m2/ha) at the lower elevation as compared to the other two elevation sites fig. 6: per hectare basal area of all woody vegetation including a. spectabilis by diameter classes kharal et al. a. spectabilis banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 11 with standard error (se) of 5.6 m2/ha (table 2). the distribution of large-sized trees at the lower elevation site had caused for the high per hectare basal area while the number of trees and pole-sized stems were lowest at the upper manang which in turn had caused for the highly significant differences in the mean basal areas of the trees and the poles among the elevation sites (table 2). the error margins of the per hectare basal areas at combined level was found to be quite high (>20%) as compared to the per hectare stem density (<10%). absence of trees and pole sized stems in some sampled plots as well as great variation in plot to plot distribution of a. spectabilis might have caused the high level of error margin in the basal area estimation. the results showed that a. spectabilis shared about 30%of the total basal area, of all the three sites, ranging from 44.3% at the lower elevation to 6.2% at the upper elevation (figure 7). conclusion the himalayan forest of manang district contains a good population of a. spectabilis with high variation in its occurrence along the elevation gradient. a. spectabilis is found at the altitude of 2,700–4,000 m, i.e., up to the treeline ecotone. the high density of all stem categories of the species was observed at the middle elevation sites though its stem basal area was found to be significantly higher at the upper part of lower manang. the stem distribution of this species at combinedlevel at the three elevations sites indicates the characteristics of normal (sustainable) forest in the study area although there is a lack of largesized trees at the middle and the upper elevation sites. the high stem density may hinder the growth of large-sized trees at the middle elevation while the harsh climatic and topographic conditions at the upper elevation sites may not be suitable for the natural distribution of the species. however, the presence of only small-sized trees with good regeneration of a. spectabilis at the upper site shows its potential for the upward migration with environmental change including climate change in the future. acknowledgements this research was accomplished under a phd research scholarship funded by the communitybased forest management in the himalayas (comform iii) project, a joint initiative of the university of copenhagen (denmark), institute of forestry, pokhara and the department of forest research and survey, kathmandu. we are thankful to mr. rabindra maharjan, district forest officer, dolakha, for his support in map preparation as well as in the fieldwork. we acknowledge annapurna conservation area project (acap, nepal) for providing permission to carry out the fieldwork. references bhattacharyya, a., lamarche, v. c. j. and hughes, m. k. 1992. tree-ring chronologies from nepal. tree ring bulletin 52: 59–66. bhuju, d. r., carrer, m., gaire, n. p. soraruf, l. riondato, r. salerno f. and maharjan, s. r. fig. 7: basal area proportion of a. spectabilis compared to total woody vegetation kharal et al. banko janakari, vol. 25, no. 1 12 2010. dendroecological study of high altitude forest in sagarmatha national park, nepal. in contemporary research in 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chaturvedi, r. 2004. varying strength of relationship between temperature and growth of highlevel fir at marginal ecosystems in western himalaya, india. current science 86 (8): 1152–1156. kharal et al. is community forestry of nepal's terai in right direction ? jagadish chandra baral1 and bodh raj subedi2 the paper which is based on the study visit of twenty districts of the terai has attempted to describe some descrepancies of community forestry in the region. although, it is argued that the trend of forest degradation has decreased since handover, but at the same time a number of unintended social anomalies have also arised. such anomalies essentially constitute of inequity and unfairness in the local and national level and in terms of long-term sustainability of forest resources. to minimise such irregularites a steady and 'process oriented' handover is suggested instead of those based on inadequate field works. keywords: community forestry, terai, nepal s ince inception, the community forestry in the terai has drawn controversy in some form or other. questions have also been raised whether or not this form of forest management which emerged from the experiences gained from hills, is suitable in the terai. differences in opinion amongst the country's forestry professionals prevail. the forest act (hmg, 1993) and forest by-law (hmg, 1995) have stipulated the provision of handing over but, the forestry policy (1989) is not very precise in this particular matter. nonetheless, large tracts of commercially important forests are being handed over without having an explicit idea on its destiny. in such predicament, the present paper attempts to depict the existing issues prevailing in the community forestry in the terai so that the informed people of the country could have better understinding of the present form of community forestry in the terai. the findings of the paper is based on direct observation of the fields; informal interviews with the executive members of the various community forestry user groups and government forestry professionals of the twenty districts of the terai (viz.) while there is a conspicuous degree of positive change in forest condition after handover, but several practical and social anomalies also prevail. it was found that forests are being conserved ever since the official handovers. the elite members in particular, who often occupy the executive positions, tend to put restrictions in the forest use thus causing protection or rejuvenation of the resource. it was amazing that several degraded areas have been converted into green forests which were otherwise degraded bush lands. the siwalik of siraha, saptari, udyapur and dhanusha districts are examples of such alterations. while one can hardly deny the efficacy of the local protection regime, the social anomalies regarding the handover are conspicuous. we intend to deal few such issues in brief. issues 'land grab' issue at many places, the house holds (hhs) situated near rich forests have shown a tendency to claim a large tract of forests, not even thinking properly whether they can actually manage such areas. the chhatiwan community forest of kaliali district is a burning example of this kind. four thousands hectares of dense sal-sisoo-khair (shorea robusta dalbergia sissoo and acacia catachu) forest has been officially handed over to merely 1,600 hhs, majority of which are newely migrated to kailali from achham, a hill district. such shift has affected the use rights of a large number of tharu ethnic communities of rajapur (bardiya district) across karnali river. only the ones who were located close to the bank had a luck of being incorporated into the group owing to their perceived protection potential. as many as eleven village development committees from this area had been intensively using this forest in the past because their area has virtually no forests. they did use the forest when current of the mighty river calmed down in the post monsoon period. a serious blow on their traditional use rights meant that they are at present fighting a case with the official user groups, but have little hope to win. this is firstly because they are the i 2 & department of forest, kathmandu banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 baral & subedi weaker ethnic community and secondly because the district forest office (dfo) has already formalised the handover. they need to fight a battle not only with the official group but also with the dfo, a government entity. federation of communitity forestry user groups nepal (fecofun) though has shown some degree of concern about the equity issue within the recognised groups, they are understood to limit their consern within them and do not wish to persue an issue where there is a total loss of use right an issue which is even more serious. in jhapa district more than fifty percent of the total forest area has been handed over to communities. the rest too are in the control of local people and seems ready to be handed over as community forests for being pressurised by the fecofun. what is unfortunately evident is that, all those who depend upon these resources since long have not been involved so far. the ethnic rajbamsi who are situated at some distance from the forests seem to be the most sufferer. non transparency the normal trend in community forestry has shown us that the elite members of the society tend to take all positions of the executive committee, and make decisions regarding harvest, product distribution and mobilisation of fund accrued. the other (ordinary) members of the group are least involved in the overall process and have virtually no idea whatsoever related to harvest, and the financial matters of their community forest. the executives in chhatiwan community forest have imposed several ban against collection of forest products to the user group members and that most of the products are sold to the contractors. even the period of selling some timber at a subsidised rate does not allegedly suited to the user group members. the period is such that, the members are in hardship because of their investment in agriculture and/or they have to pay the annual fees of their children. these indicated poor involvement of the ordinary users in decision making. the forest user committee (fuc) records show that 27000 cubic feet of timber and substantial quantity of other products such as honey, sikakai and fish have been collected by the group which is equivalent to more than ten million rupees. however, a building is under construction, but, it is indeed amazing to note that the group has a balance of only rupees seven thousand in their account. when asked about the detail where rest of the money had been spent, the committee members could not answer satisfactorily. they have not maintained their monetary records for last six months as they say that they were too busy to do so. while, rest of the people in the group do not believe that the amount has been used properly, but, they were too hesitant to make any inquiry. the hachumasa community forest user group in jhapa district had taken an exceptional decision of exchanging a substantial quantity of timber for a powerful tractor. in this case, amazingly, not even other members of the executive committee knew about it. the 'major five' the chairman, vicechairman, secretary, joint secretary and the treasurer tend to take all vital decisions. these are few examples that typically indicate the misconduct in nepal's terai community forestry, to which neither the government nor the responsible agencies such as (fecofun) have answer. forests in the hands of encroachers the rudrapur community forest user group (fug) of rupandehi district was found to be handed over to illegal settlers. while trying to dig out the underlying reasons for the handover a strange picture appeared. it was learnt that the dfo tried hard to evict the illegal settlers. he, instead found the encroachment rate increasing, and in his desperation, he decided to handover forests to the same group of encroachers thinking that further encroachment would be halted. and he was right as the newly formed executive committee put restriction into the forest to allow regeneration. but it may be noted that the supposedly lawbreacher were not only supported by giving a consent to live on but also that they were handed over with vast amount of rich forest. this obviously has a serious philosophical implication. besides, the act is sure to set a precedence that would help encouraging similar encroachments elsewhere. implication for the government treasury forestry sector's contribution to the national treasury has been progressively dropped for the last three years. these periods correspond eith the time since forest handover has taken a momuentum particularly in the terai. the department of forest's sources has shown that the sell of products like timber, fuelwood, herb, etc. has accounted for over 335.4 million rupees in the year 1995/96 (nepali fiscal year 052/053). in the subsiquent years this figure dropped down to around 31906 million in '96/97 and 242.7 milion in '97/98. while there may be more than one reason for such decline, handing over of community forestry seems clearly one of them. with the progression of hand over, baral & subedi banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 contribution of forestry sector to the national treasury will obviously decrease. one can of course, argue that the local people can take development initiatives on their own out of the generated funds which will compensate the government’s future liability to conduct developmet progammes in the areas. but, the lack of tansperancy in account keeping system allows the limited groups of elite a pretty good chance to reap benefit out of the system. this can be either by way of fiddling the accounts or by carrying out the development activities that serves their vested interest than that of the general people. the case of chhatiwan is an example to this. there is one other point to consider. even if one transparency can be achieved, a stark concern that would still remain, is that can the nation entrust resources to a group of people only ? it may be noted particularly in the context of the terai that many of the people who are located near the huge tract of forest lands are the migrants from the hills. they have advertently or inadvertently displaced the ethnic groups of people who now have settled in a place far away from the forests. the open question that can the government entrust the resource and the resulting income to someone who happened to be located near the forest patches by fluke ? does the act of handing over such resource to these people do a justice to others who have not had a chance to settle in an area next to such huge resources ? the analogue is some thing such as allowing a group of households situated near the tribhuwan international airport in kathmandu to collect duty on all the imports ? they would, of course, be a good alternative to the prevailing government system of duty collection if looked from the viewpoint of effectiveness. however, this alternative will have to be rejected plainly because the fund raised from the duty has a much more liability than developing the areas around the airport. it has to serve the nation as a whole by way of being a source of fund for the headings like paying salary to civil servants or for constructing a primary school at the most remote areas of the country. it is therefore, the rich forests of the terai is expected to serve not only those who are next the resource but to the nation as a whole. this is the crux the stakeholders should always bear in mind. shift of pressure to public forests as soon as any forest area is handed over to a community, the first reaction the local community shows is to protect 'their' community forest. while doing so the pressure of harvesting forestry products is normally diverted to the adjacent public forest. the churia forest north of dhalkebar bazaar of dhanusha district is its typical example. immediately after handing over as community forest, the elite members of the user committee put a ban against the use of forest products. consequently, the local users started harvesting the state forest with such an intensity that it culminated the exchange of firing between the district forest office and the local citizen. carrying away green wood, poles and other forestry products from government forests is a common sight everywhere, and subsequently the state forest is depleting elsewhere. proper thought should have been there to save the state forest while increasing the productivity of the community forests. sustainability in question as already stated, after handing over, protection of forests starts immediately. in most of the cases, it is through coercion than through the willing participation of the general users. the committee deputes watchers who are paid from the fund available by selling forest produce. this is contrasting to the hill situation where people normally voluenteer to watch their forest. in the case of chhatiwan community forest, the miniscule amount of rupees seven thousand is not enough to pay the eighteen employed watcher even for a month. the only way for them to continue the watching arrangement is to collect more money so as to pay for the watchers. in the lack of other alternatives, the committee has no option but to do more intensive harvesting to pay watchers, which seems not sustainable in the long run. several fugs in dang district have been selling their valuable khair at an unimaginably low rate. they are selling the product to the contractors at around rupees two per kg whereas the minimum rate fixed by the government is rupees ten and that the market price stands at around rupees fifteen. whatever amount have been accrued from the sale of such products had already been spent in some way or other. this clearly indicates that a long term sustainability is questionable irrespective of the fact that the protection regime at the moment is reasonably effective for maintaining the greenery. this is a simple example that shows the long term sustainabilty is in question. discussions community forestry in the terai in its present form seems problematic from social and the humanitarian viewpoint. loss of use rights due to the land grabbing by more influential group; the lack of 22 banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 baral & subedi transparency within the groups, etc. are amongst the most sentimental problems existing at present. while these situation may apply everywhere in the country, it is more serious in the terai where the hill migrants have normally settled near the rich patches of forest, and tend to manipulate the situation for their benefit. at a general glance, forest degradation may seem to have been controlled at present, there is, however no guarantee in the future essentially because of the coercive principle rather than on general consensus (see also gronow and shrestha (1990) and fisher et. al. (1989). the employment of paid watchers does not seem sustainable simply because the committee people may not be able to employ watcher any longer after the fund ceases, and that people are not ready to co-operate. it may be pointed out that we do not have enough experience in implementing community forestry in the terai, unlike in the hills where we tried different concepts as early as 1970s. this may be the precise reason why the new forest policy (hmg, 1989) does not speak of any provision of handing over community forests in the terai. it is only the forest act (hmg, 1993) which had opened the avenue for the forest handover in this region of the country (baral et al 1998, baral, 1998). also, the donor supported projects which are so involved in developing community forestry in the hills since early 1970s are hardly animated to do a similar venture in the terai. the only major welcome exceptions are the gtz supported churia hills project in the east and the usaid supported eafea project in the west which have quite recently embarked on working in the terai condition. while the concerned donors might have their own constraints that might restrict them from supporting a community forestry project in the terai. but, one of the apparent reasons for them not to embark on this activity could be the intricate problems underlying in the terai community forestry which is difficult to solve. having said that, the authors do not want to suggest that the community forestry in the terai is conceptually wrong. it is right indeed. but care must be taken to protect the traditional use right of those in the region who depend on forest for meeting their subsistence needs. however, we must make sure that the use rights of a group of hhs must not be affected while we try to show our benevolence by allowing one particular community to take a control of large tract of forest land. neither, it is ethical to handover forest to a group by considering equity as a secondary issue rather than a primary one. definitely our purpose is not to favour those who are already more advantaged in the existing class system. the danger to nepal's community forestry seems not related to the government's hesitation to handover community forests in the terai as seen by shrestha (1999), but could be clearly connected to the lack of proper home work before speedy handover. it seems more logical to criticise the government’s move for not checking the hasty handover rather than to criticise its move for a delayed handover, as gilmour and fisher (1989) have also opined that community forestry handover is essentially a social process which requires a lot of consciously made field efforts. shrestha (1999) has also shown his concern over the recent amendment made in the forest act where the dfos have been authorised to take action against the irregularities carried out by the executives. his logic that each members of the fug is strong enough to counter balance the elite has not been evident in the present study. elite tend to manipulate the situation in their favour. the question that who will look after such cases has still remained unsolved. while shrestha's scepticism over the ability of the dfo to form a suitable intervener cannot be denied, he has failed to provide a more viable alternative to minimise irregularities done by the elite. it is of course, right to point out that a delayed handover may result into a more extensive harvesting through the implementation of government’s operational forest management plan (ofmp). the country which still lacks scientific forest management is keen to start it at least in some parts of the productive forest of the terai and, that a number of mature trees might have to be harvested during the implementation of ofmp. but it may be pointed out that implementation of ofmp does not affect community forestry process as a careless handover does. the ofmp enables scientific management (at least in theory) and thereby generating revenue for the country as a whole. on the other hand, a prompt handover in a race to overtake the ofmp implementation will result into transferring the control to an illegitimate authority causing infringement of traditional use rights and equity related problems both inside and the outside the forest user groups. let us not be tempted to theorise that government control is always bad and that devolution of control is always good, inappropriate form of devolution will result into unintended consequences whereby the privileged groups or individuals may get an undue benefit at the cost of the poor or the under-privileged. the hue and cry made against the government's slow pace of hand over forests in the terai could be a voice of those who intend to make undue profit out 23 baral & subedi banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 of the state's production forest. attempt to rectify the problem in the handed over sites is neither easy nor philosophically consistent (baral, 1999). government may decide to handover any forest to the community though a new decree. nepal's government has demonstrated its supportive attitude towards devolution throughout the history of community forestry development (see gilmour and fisher 1989; baral 1999).on the other hand once the forests are handed over as community forestsm we as an outsiders ae not likely to rectify the problem situation in such a straight forward way. once this is done, an endeavour to rectify the problem situation will take the form of 'interfering in the busigness of others'. there are a number of issues. whether to start a scientific management plan is the one very important. while such plan is urgently needed, our attempt to embark on it through ofmp completed from one slot survey is not likely to address the basic aspiration of the local communities. so the real issue is to find a way whereby scientific forest management plan can be implemented without affecting the local communities' aspiration. the other important issues are ensuring use right of genuine users; ensuring equity within the members of the recognised community forestry groups; ensuring community forestry's contribution to the national treasury without affecting local enthusiams for participation, etc. research on such important topics are underway and will be published later. references baral, j. c. 1999. government intervention and local process in community forestry in the hills of nepal. ph. d. thesis (draft), the university of western sydney, hawkesbury, n.s.w., australia. baral, j. c., paudyal, b. r., kafle, r., lamsal, p., k.c. arjun, adhikari, b. r. and paudyal, a. r. 1997. an internal report on the terai community forest (submitted of the depertment of forest, nepal) baral, s. r. 1998, where is our terai community forestry? banko janakari, 8 (2): 47-48. fisher, r. j., singh, h. b., pandey, d. r. and lang, h. 1989. the management of forest resources in rural development: a case study of sindhu palchok and kabhre palanchok districts of nepal. gilmour, d. a. and fisher, r. j. 1991. villagers, forests and foresters the philosophy, process and practice of community forestry in nepal, sahayogi press, kathmandu. gronow, j. and shrestha, n. k. 1990. from policing to participation: reorientation of forest department field staff in nepal. research report series no 11, pimg ministry of agriculture winrock international, kathmandu. hmg. 1995. ministry of forest and soil conservation 2052 (1995), forest act 2049 (1993) and forest rules 2051 (1995), kathmandu. hmg. 1989 (a). master plan for the forestry sector nepal-revised forestry sector policy. ministry of forest and environment, kathmandu. shreshtha, n. k. 1999. community forestry in nepal in danger. forests, trees and people, newsletter, no. 38: 33-34. 24 banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 20 tree species are the dominant component of forest ecosystems which influence most structural and functional attributes of these ecosystems. this study aims to document distribution pattern of forest types and their composition from tropical region at hetauda (550 m asl) to temperate region above simbhangyang (2500 m asl) of makawanpur district, central nepal. the carbon stock in the living biomass of tree species was estimated using an allometric equation while the biodiversity index was calculated using shannon-wiener biodiversity index. a total of 62 species of trees belonging to 51 genera was recorded. shorea forest was dominant in lower elevation while quercus forest, alnus-rhododendron, quercus-lyonia and quercus-symplocos forests at higher elevation. similarly, castanopsis tribuloides has the widest distribution range (570 m to 2240 m asl) followed by shorea robusta, lagerstroemia parviflora, trichilia connaroides, syzigium jambos, castanopsis indica, schima wallichii etc. the highest number of tree species was recorded at 550 m elevation. estimated carbon stocks were ranged from 0.85 — 53.37 t/ha with the mean value 24.98 t/ha. the values of shannon-wiener biodiversity index ranged from 1.23— 2.78. there was positive relationship between carbon stock and biodiversity index (r2 = 0.40, p = 0.03). people have been practicing community forest management to support sustainability of harvesting in the study area. keywords: allometric equation, biodiversity index, daman, forest, hetauda, species distribution pattern of tree species from tropical to temperate regions in makawanpur district, central nepal s. bhattarai1*, b. bhatta1 and r. tamang2 vegetation is the reflection of physiographic and climatic condition of an area. nepal is a small country in terms of area, though it is rich in floristic composition. being a mountainous country, altitudinal gradient is quite common feature of physiography which ultimately creates microclimatic condition that supports vegetation diversity. floristic or inventory is the systematic enumeration and documentation of all plant species in a given geographic region and ideally provides keys, description and often illustration (naik, 1998; simpson, 2006). exploration is the most important step of systematic study. in montane nepal, altitude and aspect are the paramount importance in determining the type of forest found at particular place (stainton, 1972). altitude, one of the major factors determining the climatic condition, affects directly the distribution of species of an area. along with the increasing altitudinal gradient, the temperature and rainfall differ markedly so the species should adapt to the particular condition to sustain their life. however, majority of the species cannot adapt the major change in climatic conditions and become restricted to a limited elevation. forests being standing stores of sequestered atmospheric carbon can serve as valuable carbon pool. it is thus, the global communities become progressively more concerned with forest ecosystem as a tool to mitigate the impacts of climate change. this study focused on the distribution pattern of forest types and their composition along altitudinal gradient. materials and methods study area this research work was carried out from hetauda to simbhangyang of makawanpur district. all 1. faculty of forestry, agriculture and forestry university, hetauda, nepal, ∗e-mail: sbhattarai@afu.edu.np 2. district plant resources office, makawanpur banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 21 together 12 spots were fixed at different altitude (550 m to 2500 m) and forest types from hetauda to simbhangyang to cover maximum tree species as far as possible. the study area comprises tropical, subtropical and temperate climatic zones (ddc, 2015). tropical zone comprises sal and riverine forests at southern lower belts where shorea robusta, terminalia chebula, terminalia bellirica, adina cordifolia, acacia catechu, dalbergia sissoo, bombax ceiba etc. flourish very well. subtropical region consists of mainly schima-castanopsis, chir pine and alder forests comprising schima wallichii, castanopsis indica, castanopsi stribuloides, pinus roxburghii as dominating species. similarly, rhododendron arboreum, myrica esculenta, lyonia ovalifolia, quercus lanata as dominating species in the temperate forests. sample plots of the study area is given in figure 1. fig. 1: dots representing the sample plots of study area sampling design a stratified random sampling method was used for locating the sample plots. the forest types were considered as strata. altogether, 12 spots were fixed at different altitude (550 m to 2500 m) and forest types from hetauda to simbhangyang to cover maximum tree species as far as possible. at each spot, a square quadrate of 20m×20m was set up. then, each sample plot was characterized by altitude, slope, aspect, crown canopy cover (%) and geographic location. data collection diameter at breast height (dbh) of tree standing at least a 1.3 m, and the height of individual trees of ≤ 5 cm dbh were measured. species and their distribution were identified using relevant literature like hara et al. (1978, 1979, 1982), malla et al. (1986), pande (1967), press et al. (2000), stainton (1988), suwal (1969) while a few specimens were also confirmed by tallying with specimens deposited at kath. data analysis distribution pattern of forest types and tree species along altitudinal gradient was analyzed using detrended correspondence analysis (dca) (hill and gauch, 1980). since the mean annual precipitation of the study area is 2206 mm, the carbon stock in the living biomass of tree species was estimated using an allometric model for 'moist forest' (annual precipitation 1500—3500 mm) developed by chave et al. (2005) while the biodiversity index was calculated using shannonwiener biodiversity index as allometric equation the aboveground biomass (kg) of a tree = 0.0509 × ρd2h where, ρ is wood density (g cm−3), h is height of tree (m), d is diameter of tree at breast height (cm) as proposed in forest carbon stock measurement guidelines (subedi et al., 2010). for dry wood density, the global database was used (zanne et al., 2009). the biomass stock (kg/m2) of each sampling plot was obtained by dividing the sum of all the individual biomass by the area of sampling plot (400 m2) and converted to tonnes per hectare. later, biomass value was converted into carbon stock by multiplying with carbon fraction of 0.47 (ipcc, 2006). total biomass = above ground biomass × 1.15 carbon stock = total biomass × 0.47 shannon-wiener biodiversity index h'= −σpi lnpi where, h' is the diversity index, pi is the proportion of ith species individuals to total species individuals, and ln is natural logarithm. bhattarai et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 22 results and discussion sixty two (62) tree species belonging to fifty one(51) genera was recorded. among them, albizia, quercus and terminalia were the largest genera with three species each followed by castanopsis, pinus, premna, rhus and vibernum with two species each while remaining genera were monotypic ones (fig. 2). fig. 2. number of species per genera distribution pattern of forest along altitudinal gradient the dca axis i and ii represent elevation and forest type, respectively. species found towards the left and negative end of dca axis i like albizia procrea, s. robusta, trichilia connaroides are highly abundant at lower elevation representing shorea dominant forest (fig. 3). the positive and right end of dca axis i represents species abundant at high elevation. quercus forest, alnusrhododendron, quercus-lyonia and quercussymplocos forest were dominant at higher elevation. similarly, pinus and alnus-macaranga were common at middle elevation (fig. 3). fig. 3: dca diagram showing environmental variation (elevation) represented by arrow and nominal variable (forest types) represented by bold words diversity index, carbon stock and altitude the carbon stock in this study ranged from 0.85 — 53.37 t/ha with the mean value 24.98 t/ ha. similarly, shannon's diversity index ranged from 1.23 — 2.78. the diversity index of species and carbon stock significantly decreased along altitudinal gradient (fig. 4 and fig. 5). however, there was no significant difference in density along elevational gradient. fig. 4: relationship between altitude and species diversity index bhattarai et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 23 fig 5: relationship between altitude and carbon stock forest carbon stock and diversity index the relationship between shannon's diversity index and carbon stock in these plant communities was significant with a positive linear relationship (r2 = 0.40, p = 0.03). both carbon stock and shannon-weiner diversity index were gradually decreased with increase in elevation (fig. 6). fig. 6: relationship between carbon stock and diversity index vegetation of an area is largely affected by various factors including temperature, rainfall, humidity, and soil characters, etc. which in turn get affected by altitude. the study area ranging altitudinal gradient from 550 — 2500 m provides a unique habitat for both flowering and non-flowering plants. in this study, albizia, alstonia, mallotus, shorea, garuga, terminalia, holarrhena, etc. were the common species at lower elevation whereas acacia, dalbergia, bombax, etc. were common along river side. similarly, betula, quercus, pinus, sorbus, rhus, macaranga, prunus, symplocos, etc. represented the mid-hill forests. makawanpur district comprises 1068 species of flowering plants consisting of 210 tree species, 211 shrubs and remaining herbs (chapagain et al., 2016). the study area represents a total number of 62 tree species belonging to 51 genera i.e. about one third of the total number of tree species of makawanpur district. shorea forest is dominant at lower elevation followed by pinus and alnusmacaranga forest at the middle elevation and quercus, alnus-rhododendron and quercuslyonia forest at the higher elevation. similarly, c. tribuloids had the widest distribution range (570 m to 2240 m asl) followed by s. robusta, l. parviflora, t. connaroides, s. jambos, c. indica, s. wallichii, wendlandia coriacea, l. ovalifolia and alnus nepalensis. though the standing biomass of tree species tended to concentrate in species of large trees, it seems that overall biomass values differed more due to species richness than species composition. a positive relation was found between shannon's diversity index and carbon stock (r2 = 0.40, p = 0.03). the lower belt was suitable for biodiversity to flourish well thus preserving much biomass and also carbon stock. the result showed that both biodiversity index and carbon stock were significantly higher in lower elevation and decreased along altitudinal gradient. the diversity-biomass relationship is affected by the environment (guo and berry, 1998). when environments are homogeneous, linear relationships are present, and when environments are heterogeneous, inverted u-type curvilinear relationships occur. although hump-shaped or unimodal relationships between biomass and species diversity (waide et al., 1999; roy, 2001; alhamad et al., 2010) have been frequently observed in mature vegetation, recent findings show positive relationship in establishing vegetation (hooper et al., 2005; spehn et al., 2005). this mechanism of changing relationship has been mainly discussed in terms of facilitation and competition i. e. when biomass is relatively low, diversity increases due to interspecific facilitation; whereas when biomass accumulates to a certain level, competition leads to lower diversity (guo and berry, 1998; weiner and thomas, 2001; guo, 2007). conclusion in the present study, the tropical forest represents the greatest value of both diversity index and bhattarai et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 24 carbon stock whereas these values get decreased along elevational gradient. this also indicates that species richness is positively related with biomass and carbon stock value thus conserving biodiversity is not only important in terms of conservation but also in mitigating the negative impacts of climate change issues. in other words, the present result has provided empirical support for the argument that increases in the biodiversity index could increase carbon stock if other anthropogenic and environmental factors are not limiting. references alhamad, m. n., oswald, b. p., bataineh, m. m., alrababah, m. a. and gharaibeh, m. m. 2010. relationships between herbaceous diversity and biomass in two habitats in arid mediterranean rangeland. faculty publication (stephen f. austin state university) 12. chapagain, n. h., pandit, r. k. and tamang, r. 2016. flowering plants of makawanpur. district plant resources office, makawanpur, nepal. chave, j., andalo, c., brown, s., cairns, m. a., chambers, d., eamus, d., . . . yamakura, t. 2005. tree allometry and improved estimation of carbon stocks and balance in tropical forests. oecologia, 145: 87–99. ddc.2015. district development plan of makwanpur. district development committee, makwanpur, hetauda, nepal. guo, q. and berry, w. l. 1998. species richness and biomass: dissection of the humpshaped relationships. ecology79 (7): 2555—2559. guo, q. 2007. the diversity—biomass— productivity relationships in grassland management and restoration. basic and applied ecoloty 8 (3):199—208. hara, h., chater, a.o. and williams, l. h. j.1978. an enumeration of flowering plants of nepal. vol 1. british museum (natural history), london, uk. hara, h., chater, a.o. and williams, l. h. j.1979. an enumeration of flowering plants of nepal .vol 2. british museum (natural history), london, uk. hara, h., chater, a. o. and williams, l. h. j.1982. an enumeration of flowering plants of nepal. vol 3. british museum (natural history), london, uk. hill, m. o. and gauch, h. g. 1980. detrended correspondance analysis: an improved ordination technique. vegetation 42 (1— 3): 47—58. hooper, d. u., chapin, f. s. iii, ewel, j. j., hector, a., inchausti, p. and lavorel, s., lawton, j. h., lodge, d. m., loreau, m., naeem, s., schmid, b., setälä, h., symstad, a. j., vandermeer, j. and wardle, d. a. 2005. effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning: a consensus of current knowledge. ecological monographs 75 (1) : 3—35. ipcc. 2006. good practice guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories. switzerland : intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc). malla, s. b., rajbhandari , s. b., shrestha, t. b., adhikari, p. m., adhikari, s. r. and shakya p. r. 1986. flora of kathmandu valley. bull. dept. med. plants nepal, no. 11. department of medicinal plants, thapathali, kathmandu, nepal. naik, v. n. 1998. taxonomy of angiosperms. tata mcgraw-hill publishing company ltd, new delhi, india. pande, p. r. 1967. notes on flora of rajnikunj (gokarna forest). bull. dept. med. plants nepal no. 1. department of medicinal plants, thapathali, kathmandu, nepal. press, j. r., shrestha, k. k. and sutton, d. a.. 2000. annotated checklist of the flowering plants of nepal. the natural history museum, london, uk. roy, j. 2001. how does biodiversity control primary productivity ? in terrestrial global bhattarai et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 25 productivity (eds.) roy, j., sangier, b. and mooney, h. a., san diego, academic press. simpson, m. g. 2006. plant systematics. elsevier academic press. spehn, e. m., hector, a., joshi, j., schererlorenzen, m., schmid, b., bazeley-white, e., beierkkuhnlein, c., caldeira, m. c., deimer, m., dimitrakopolous, p. g., finn, j. a., freitas, h., giller, p. s., good, j., harris, r., högberg, p., huss-danell, k., jumpponen, a., koricheva, j., leadley, p. w., loreau, m., minns, a., mulder, c. p. h., o' donovan, g., otway, s. j., palmborg, c., pereira, j. s., pfisterer, a. b., prinz, a., read, d. j., schulze, e. -d., siamantziouras, a. -s. d., terry, a. c., troumbis, a. y., woodyard, f. i., yachi, s. and lawton, j. h. 2005. ecosystem effects of biodiversity manipulations in european grassland. ecological monograph 75 : 37—63. stainton, j. d. a. 1972. forests of nepal. john murray, london. stainton, a. 1988. flowers of the himalaya. a supplement. oxford university press, new delhi, india. subedi, b. p., pandey, s. s., pandey, a., rana, e. b., bhattarai, s., banskota, t. r., charmakar, s. and tamrakar, t. 2010. forest carbon stock measurement : guidelines for measuring carbon stocks in community-managed forests. published by ansab, fecofun, icimod and norad, nepal. suwal, p. n. 1969. flora of phulchoki and godawari. bull. dept. med. plants of nep. no. 2. department of medicinal plants, thapathali, kathmandu, nepal. waide, r. b., willig, m. r., steiner, c. f., mittelbach, g., gough, l.,dodson s. i., juday, g. p. and parmenter, r. 1999. the relationship between productivity and species richness. annu. rev. ecol. syst. 30 : 257—300. weiner, j. and thomas, s. c. 2001. the nature of tree growth and the "age-related decline in forest productivity". oikos 94 (2): 374— 376. zanne, a. e., lopez-gonzslez, g., coomes, d. a., ilic, j., jansen, s., lewis, s. l. and chave, j. 2009. towards a worldwide woods economic spectrum. retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10255/dryad.235. bhattarai et al this study aims to estimate above-ground phytomass and carbon of trof ecosystem in part of bijnor district in uttar pradesh state of india using irs p6 lissiv satellite image by geo-spatial approach coupled with field sampling. chacko’s formula was referred to compute number of samples in each trof types and the sample plot size in each stratum was adopted from vegetation carbon project (vcp) under national carbon project (ncp). with the help of field data consisting mainly the height and girth information, volume of each individual tree per plot was obtained using site and tree species-specific standard volumetric equations. the phytomass was calculated by multiplying volume with biomass expansion factor (bef) then with regional specific gravity of the individual species and summed up in each plot to get total phytomass per plot. the total phytomass per plot was reported to be maximum 544.00 t/ha for linear trof followed by 121.89 t/ha for block trof. the carbon from phytomass was obtained by multiplying the total phytomass by a conversion factor that represents the average carbon content in phytomass. spectral modeling for phytomass with different bands and indices were established and the best fit curve (r2 = 0.552) with red band was applied to generate phytomass and carbon distribution map of the study area. key words: trof, sampling, geospatial, phytomass, carbon estimation of above-ground phytomass and carbon in tree resources outside the forest (trof): a geo-spatial approach b. p. heyojoo1 and s. nandy2 global warming has been common topic widely talked everywhere and it is reality. its impact to all forms of life is inevitable. scientists have estimated that the average global temperature is likely to rise by 1.4 to 5.8oc (unfccc, 1998). increasing green house gases (ghgs) particularly co2 in atmosphere has alerted scientist community to think over different solutions to lower it. inter-governmental panel on climate change (ipcc) estimates that the level of co2 in the atmosphere today is 31% higher than what it was about 250 years back, at the time of the start of industrial revolution and expected to rise 90 to 250% over pre-industrial. the beauty of forest is that it provides significant sink for carbon in addition to providing economic, ecological and socio cultural values. the world’s forests and forest soils currently store more carbon than entire atmosphere (fao, 2006). it is therefore carbon management through forest will probably be the important agenda in the context of ghg effect and mitigation of global climate change. the global initiative of redd, redd+ by the united nation (un) is collective effort to lower the co2 by reducing deforestation in developing countries. the kyoto protocol to the united nation framework convention on climate change (unfccc) requires that member countries reduce their human–induced emission of co2 by at least 5% below their emission levels of 1990 and allows carbon emission to be balanced by carbon sinks represented by vegetation by 2008-2012 (unfccc, 1998). although the contribution of tree outside forest (trof) has been appreciated, little is known about the resources itself (fao, 2006). in india, trofs are an important source of wood, other products and environmental services. such trees include roadside plantings, woodlots, scattered trees in the landscape, trees in fields, home 1 department of forest products and engineering, institute of forestry, pokhara campus, nepal, email: bheyojoo@hotmail.com 2 forestry and ecology division, iirs, dehradun-248001, india 34 banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 35 gardens and orchards. furthermore, about 80% of the requirements of the wood-based industries are met from trofs (chave et al., 2004). depending on prevalent land-use patterns and ecological and economic landscape attributes, trofs also play a role in carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, pollution control and erosion control. trof is a dynamic resource and its assessment over large areas, in a relatively shorter period, necessitates use of remote sensing (rs) and geographic information system (gis). the needs for reporting carbon stocks and stock changes under the kyoto protocol have placed additional demands for accurate surveying methods that are verifiable, specific in time and space, and that cover large areas at acceptable cost (dadhwal et al., 2009). so, accurate estimation of trof biomass is also required for ghg inventories and terrestrial carbon accounting at local to regional scale. in this regard rs especially high spatial resolution satellite imagery has opened effective way to estimate trof biomass and carbon content. phytomass and carbon assessment for trof have been carried out based on different methodologies for different purpose over last three decades (adhikari, 2005). tree pattern in trof is linear, scatter and block. trof have relatively low density that makes assessment by conventional methods costly and time-consuming. the very high resolution satellite image is best for trof assessment, however for large area it is cost prohibitive (chave et al., 2004). similarly low resolution satellite image owing to minimum mappable area has scale limitation to accurate trof mapping. based on the above discussion, it is imperative to explore different methods on assessment of phytomass and carbon on trof ecosystem. the present study is one of such attempt using geo-spatial approach to assess the above-ground phytomass and carbon using moderate spatial resolution irs p6 liss-iv satellite image coupled with field sampling. materials and methods study area the study area lies between geo coordinates 29o 21’00” to 29o 37’00” n and 77o 59’30” to 78o 11’30” e on bijnor district of up state of india covering 385 km2 geographical area. the ganga river having significantly rich biodiversity and religious importance passes through the western part of the study area flowing north to south as shown in figure 1. the area, dominantly agrarian, is falling in tarai bhabar agro-climatic region and is suitable for large scale production of fruits like mango, guava and papaya, vegetables (tropical and subtropical vegetables) and flowers (gladiolus, roses, tube rose). nearly 75% of the people are dependent on it. of the total area of 38,500 ha, net cultivated area is 33,100 ha forming 86% of the total area. the area with plain topography has no forest but includes reasonable size of trof. trofs are an important source of wood, fuel and fodder, other products and environmental services in the area. such trees include roadside plantings, woodlots, scattered trees in the landscape, trees in fields, home gardens and orchards. dalbergia sissoo, eucalyptus spp, terminalia arjuna, mangifera indica, syzygium cumini, terminalia rebecca, etc. are major plant species in the study area. fig. 1: study area data, tools and software used the study utilized remote sensing data, ancillary data and extensive field data.the multi-spectral high spatial resolution data of irs-p6 liss-iv sensor was procured from the national remote sensing agency (nrsa), hyderabad in a digital form (fig. 2). the irs-liss-iv sensor uses a ccd-linear push broom scanning system and provides data in three spectral bands: green, red heyojoo and nandy banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 36 and near-infrared with a resolution of 5.8 m. the reason to select the liss-iv data is mainly due to its high spatial resolution characteristics, which generally portrays more natural representations of objects that assist to map trof from this data. it can also be used to demarcate small patches of trof along the agricultural plots easily with the supplement of logical rule and interpretation keys. the present study carried out the analysis of the available single scene of irs-p6 liss-iv for the bijnor district mainly due to limited satellite swath and to avoid the merging of different temporal datasets. pre-processing and georeferencing of procured satellite data was done in erdas imagine 9.2 software where arcgis 9.2 was used for creating and merging the spatial and non-spatial database. the well defined and evenly distributed ground control points (gcp) from the field and topo sheets have been used for the geo-referencing of the raw image. it helped to achieve the rms error of 0.378, which comes within a pixel. the ancillary datasets such as topographical map (sheet number 53k/2, 53k/3, 53g/14 and 53g/15) , google image of 0.50 m spatial resolution of the study area acquired on april 18, 2010 downloaded from the internet using cgutil tools were substantially used for visual interpretation. extensive field work was conducted to collect sampled plot data on species types, number of tress, their diameter and gps coordinates of the sample plot. among other secondary data used in the study includes, digital boundary map of the bijnor district. historical data of the study area available from state government department website (www.bijnor. nic.in, www.forest.up.nic.in, www.ict.agri.net.in) was also referred in the study. research approach the whole research was completed through three different steps as pre-field work, field work and post-field work following the conceptual framework (fig. 3). the pre-field work included preprocessing of satellite data, visual interpretation for trof classification map. the field work included the sampling inventory for all types of trof and the post-field work comprised of processing of field data, spectral reflectance analysis for developing relationship with phytomass and satellite parameter. radiometric and geometric correction satellite data (irs p6 liss -iv, march 2010) classified map linear scattered block trof google image visual interpretation/editing statistical model/regression phytomass & carbon map phytomass/carbon density trof linear trof block trof scattered field sampling/observation ancillary data (topo-sheet/fcc image/google) volume sampling phytomass specific gravity volume eqn. fig. 3: conceptual methodological framework image rectification, interpretation and trof classification image to image registration was carried out using georeferenced geotiff image of landsat etm+ of study area as a master image. well distributed ground points were chosen throughout the imagery and resampling of the image was done using first order polynomials and nearest neighborhood algorithm in erdas imagine software. image registration was carried out with utm 44 n projection, wgs 84 spheroid and wgs 84 datum. radiometric correction was applied for radiometric defects and improving fig. 2: irs p6 liss-iv, 16 march, 2010 heyojoo and nandy banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 37 heyojoo and nandy visual impact of false color composites (fcc). after geometric and radiometric corrections and image to image co-registration, the area of interest (aoi) i.e. part of bijnor taluk was extracted by overlaying the digitized boundary shape file of the study area. the liss iv satellite image was visually interpreted to segregate in different landuse/land cover map of the study area. standard methodology using image key elements such as tone, texture, shape, association, etc were used for visual interpretation in arc gis 9.3. reconnaissance field visit and high resolution satellite images download from google earth became great help in visual interpretation for different types of trof mapping of the area. sampling design non-destructive stratified random sampling approach was adopted in different trof strata produced from the satellite image. a grid of 2 km × 2 km was overlaid on the topo sheets of the study area. the sampling frames for all types of trof were defined based on the grids containing particular trof types under the study. the sample size by chacko’s formula (chacko, 1964) was computed based on pilot survey measurement of the variance of tree number per plot (250 m × 250 m) for six spatially distributed plots. the thirty samples obtained from the formula was adopted for all trof types and randomly distributed by using random table (page 18/26, random table by tippett). all together 90 plots were laid in the field with 30 of 250 m × 250 m for scattered trof, 30 of 32 m × 32 m for block trof and 30 of 50 m × width of linear feature trof (fig. 4). garmin 12 channel gps was used for recording coordinates in the middle of all the sampled plots. detailed data like enumeration of trees, tree species name, average tree height, circumference at breast height (cbh) and altitude were collected from the sample plots. organization of field data and phytomass and carbon estimation the entire field database was organized in ms excel. the necessary parameters like volume equation, specific gravity, conversion factors etc. were added in database for further processing. species and site specific volume equations and specific gravity for respective tree species were noted from literature mainly the publication of fsi (1996) and forest research institute (fri). general volume equation of same region was used for tree whose volume equations were not available. the volumes of individual tree were summed up to compute volume per hectare in all types of trof. fig. 4: sample plot location regression analysis and spectral modeling the plot wise total phytomass with its spatial location taken by gps readings during the fieldwork were co-related with different parameters of liss-iv data such as individual bands pixel value, ndvi, vi to establish best fit equation. radiometric correction of the image was carried out by dark pixel subtraction method before regression analysis. the regression equation showing highest r2 was used to predict the phytomass and carbon of the study area. about one third of sample data collected in the field was used to test the performance of the best fit regression equation by coefficient of determination (r2) and root mean square error (rmse) calculation. results and discussion landuse and land cover map the lulc map of the study area included agriculture containing scattered trof, linear banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 38 trof, block trof, settlement, river and water body classes (fig. 5).the young plantation along linear trof having crown size less than minimum mappable unit and dry deciduous tree mostly dominated by populus deltoides could not be mapped due to low spatial resolution and season of the data available. fig. 5: lulc of the study area tree statistics and carbon estimation in different trof the study found wide variation in terms of number, diameter size of trees in block and linear types (table 1) whereas number of trees in scattered was nearly same. the number of trees/ha in linear pattern was varying from 240 to 2680 and that in block plantation was from 160 to 2560. the diversity of tree species was high in linear than that of block types. the number as well as diameter sizes of tree in linear trof are high followed by block trof. the trees planted along the road side and railways are found to be matured and dense as well. m. indica is primarily dominant followed by e. spp. in block plantation and e. spp. is dominant followed by mixed species. the calculations indicates high value in linear followed by block and scattered type (fig. 6). it is however the total volume for block type is high in the study area followed by linear and scatter types. (a) (b) fig. 6: phytomass and carbon per hectare trof wise (a) share of total pytomass and carbon in the study area (b) phytomass (plant biomass) has direct relationship with amount of carbon present in that plant biomass. westlake (1963) has observed that there is 47% carbon present in dry plant biomass, while intergovernmental ipcc reported that the carbon present in plant biomass is 45% of it (ipcc, 1995). based on the results of different studies related to estimation of carbon in wood, it was observed that carbon varies between 45% to 50% for different ecosystems and thus 47.00% carbon has been considered for deriving carbon estimation. spectral modeling the attempt made in this study showed possibility of using spectral response-based models for biomass estimation. gps readings taken during the field work at each sample plot were fed into table 1: statistical table of tree and carbon information in different trof types trof types number of trees/ha avg. dia. (m) min dia. (m) max dia. (m) average growing stock (t/ha) average phytomass (t/ha) average carbon (t/ha) block 160–2560 0.20 0.08 0.90 208.57 121.89 58.51 linear 240–2680 0.34 0.10 1.21 958.84 544.00 261.12 scattered 0–12 0.24 0.08 1.17 0.54 16.48 7.91 heyojoo and nandy banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 39 heyojoo and nandy excel file and later the file was converted into dbf format to generate point shape file. this shape file was overlaid to individual band images, ndvi image, vi image to extract pixel level phytomass. the regression based models with dn value of all individual bands, ndvi, vi were established for 1×1 window and 5×5 windows. the various types of equations were tried to find out the best suitable correlation for the given data set i.e. linear, logarithmic, exponential and power. initially, about 70% of the sample plots were taken for generating the equations but the corelation was not good. hence some outlier plots yielding poor co-relation value were removed and the equations were re-established. the model based on red band with biomass was found to be strongest with the co-relation value (r2) of 0.552 (fig. 7). the phytomass of the whole study area has been calculated by the linear equation as follow; y = 19.12x + (-752.9) m = 19.12 c = -752.9 x = input red band green band vs phytomass red band vs phytomass nir vs phytomass fig. 7: regression analysis phytomass with different bands phytomass and carbon distribution map based on the best model derived from spectral modeling between red band and biomass, the phytomass (fig. 8a) and carbon map (fig. 8b) of linear and block trof of the study area were generated by masking the riverbed, settlement and waterbody classes. the range of phytomass and carbon in the study area ranges dominantly 200–400 t/ha and 100–200 t/ha respectively. the model has correctly predicted large value of phytomass and carbon along the linear type trof followed by block type. fig. 8: phytomass ( a) and carbon (b) distribution map of the study area banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 40 conclusion the roles and impacts of biomass on carbon cycles, soil nutrient allocations, fuel accumulation, and habitat environments in terrestrial ecosystems have long been recognized. the significance of trof resources particularly like in the study area where no forest exists, becomes high to provide economical, ecological and social service. this study to estimate above ground phytomass and carbon in trof ecosystem using combined geo-spatial approach and ground sampling using moderate spatial resolution satellite data is one of the few conducted so far. the integration of remote sensing techniques with ground surveys will provide wide area coverage in shorter time spans saving costs. the method can be effectively employed using multi spectral and high-resolution satellite imageries to stratify the trof resources in such a way that the classification system of trof resource remains valid. it is however felt that it may not be possible to altogether eliminate ground based data collection looking at information requirements of trof assessments. it is noteworthy that remote sensing-based agb estimation is a complex procedure in which many factors such as atmospheric conditions, mixed pixels, data saturation, complex biophysical environments, insufficient sample data, extracted remote sensing variables, and the selected algorithms, may interactively affect agb estimation. the empirical models with satellite measured spectral response and biomass indicate that there is a moderate relationship with spectral responses. these relationships have seasonal dependency in varying phonological conditions. the relationship is strongest in red band and poor with vegetation indices. this is attributed to season of data. in addition to that liss-iv data, having relatively low spectral resolution, has little options to establish robust model as using higher wavelength band like middle infrared bands. this could be more reliable as compared to the visible bands as the later spectral regions are less sensitive to atmospheric changes. acknowledgments the authors gratefully acknowledge centre for space science and technology education in south asia (cssteap) at indian institute of remote sensing (iirs), dehradun for financial assistance to conduct this study and the organizer of international conference on forest, people and climate at pokhara in 2013 where constructive feedbacks were received while presenting this paper. references adhikari, m. 2005. a non-destructive approach for quantitative assessment of tree resources outside the forest. m.sc. thesis, international institute for geo-informatics science and earth observation, enschede, the netherlands. chave, j., condit, r., aguilar, s., hernandez, a., lao, s. and perez, r. 2004. error propagation and scaling for tropical forest biomass estimates. philosophical transactions of the royal society of london 359: 409–420. dadhwal, v. k., singh, s. and patil, p. 2009. assessment of phytomass carbon pools in forest ecosystems in india. nnrms bulletin no. 41, 57p. fao. 2006. global forest resources assessment 2005: progress towards sustainable forest management. fao forestry paper 147. food and agriculture organization of the united nations, rome, italy. fri. 1996. volume equations for forester of india, nepal and bhutan. forest research institute, dehradun, ministry of environment and forests, government of india. unfccc. 1998. ‘the kyoto protocol to the unfccc’, in unfccc. report of the conference of the parties third session, kyoto, unfccc, 4–29. heyojoo and nandy 76 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 volume and taper equations are used for estimating timber volume and biomass of a tree. despite their usefulness, precise and site specific equations are still lacking for commercially important tree species in nepal. the study was carried out at chandak chatiya mahila community forest in bardia district and lumbini collaborative forest of saljhandi in rupandehi district in western terai of nepal. a destructive sampling method was used and selected fifteen sal trees (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) from saljhandi (site 1) and eighteen trees from bagnaha (site 2) randomly to calibrate an individual tree volume and a stem taper function. at first, a non-linear stem taper function was calibrated using stem diameters outside bark at different heights above ground as response variable and d (diameter at breast height), h (total height), h (height of interest) as predictors. then, effect of crown characteristics on stem taper was evaluated. as stem hcb (height to crown base) was found to affect stem taper, its usefulness in existing stem volume equation was tested. empirical relationships between v (stem volume) as a response variable and d, h, hcb and sites in bardia and rupandehi districts as predictors were established using a linear mixed modeling approach. our result showed that, instead of h, use of hcb in stem volume equation increased model prediction accuracy and reduced prediction bias. applicability of the suggested models for predicting individual s. robusta tree volume and stem taper is discussed. key words: crown characteristics, non-linear mixed model, shorea robusta, taper, volume modeling taper and volume of sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) trees in the western terai region of nepal r. silwal1*, s. k. baral2 and b. b. k. chhetri3 tree volume and taper equations are vital for forest management, and they are lacking for commercial tree species (e.g. sal-shorea robusta gaertn. f.) in nepal. currently, there is a growing interest in multiple-product timber harvesting. this requires precise stem taper and volume equations for improved prediction of volume at individual tree and stand levels. we also need to know what portion of a tree can be used for specific products, and need to identify the entire array of products that can be obtained from a specific stand. despite their usefulness, volume and taper functions have been rarely studied in nepal. sharma and pukkala (1990) have developed volume equation for twenty one species of nepal including s. robusta. the volume equations compiled by tamrakar (2000) and developed by dfrs (2006) are from small-sized trees. elsewhere, a considerable amount of work on modeling tree volume and stem taper has been done (clutter et al., 1983; kozak et al., 1969; max and burkhart, 1976; newnham, 1988). although various methods have been proposed for developing taper equations (bennett and swindel, 1972; demaerschalk, 1973; demaerschalk and kozak, 1977; goulding and murray, 1976; kozak et.al., 1969; kozak and smith, 1966; max and burkhart, 1976), the information is either theoretical or limited primarily to softwood species (martin, 1981). specifically, in the nepalese context, there are no available stem taper functions for s. robusta. hence, this study aimed at (1) evaluating stem taper profile to identify tree characteristics that affect stem taper, and (2) use this information for improving existing stem volume equation for s. robusta. materials and methods study area the study was carried out at chandak chatiya mahila community forest in bardia district 1 national reconstruction authority, singh durbar, kathmandu, nepal. *e-mail: rmshsilwal@gmail.com 2 northern hardwoods research institute, university of moncton, campus d’ edmundston, nb, canada 3 institute of forestry, pokhara campus, tribhuvan university, pokhara, nepal. 77 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 and lumbini collaborative forest of saljhandi in rupandehi district in western terai of nepal (fig. 1). rupandehi is slightly warmer and wetter (higher average annual rainfall) than bardia (table 1). fig. 1: map of the study area: (a) physiographic map of nepal indicating location of study districts (b) study sites showing gps points of trees in administrative map of vdcs climate, soil and vegetation saljhandi, rupandehi district the climate of the site is sub-tropical and subhumid with regular monsoon between june and august. frost occurs seldom and the annual average number of days with minus temperature is zero (jackson, 1994). mean total annual precipitation is 2452 mm of which more than 80% falls from june to september. monthly mean minimum and maximum temperature are 17.8°c and 31.4°c, respectively with an absolute minimum of 4.3°c (jackson, 1994). saljhandi site is flat and fertile. the soil of this site is loamy, deep, well drained with adequate nutrients. according to the map of the land resource mapping project (lrmp), this area belongs to the class i, most suitable land for agriculture and forestry. actual land use for this area is degraded tropical mixed hardwood forest. soil physical and chemical properties are exceptionally good for forestry use (frp, 1989). this site has sal forest, which consists of more than 80% sal trees. other associated tree species are terminalia belerica, terminalia chebula, terminalia alata, anogeissus latifolia, phyllanthus emblica, semicarpus anacardium, lagerstroemia parviflora, syzygium cumini, adina cordifolia, mallotus philippinensis, myrsine semiserrata and cassia fistula (ojha et al., 2008). chandak chatiya mahila cf, bagnaha, bardia district this site has a sub-tropical monsoon climate with three distinct seasons in the annual cycle: hot season (march–june), monsoon (july–october) and winter (october–february). about 90% of the precipitation occurs from july to september. the absolute maximum temperature (41°c) and minimum temperature (3.1°c) were recorded in may 1996 and january 1987, respectively. the recorded highest and lowest rainfalls were 2798 mm and 1592 mm in 1990 and 1992, respectively. mean annual rainfall at chisapani at the foot of the chure hill is 2230 mm whereas it is 1560 mm at gularia, in an agricultural area to the south of the study site. most of the areas of karnali and bardia fall into bhabar which is broad alluvial plain that slopes gently away from the base of the churia to india. bhabar deposits are composed of cobbles, boulders, and coarse sand layers amidst clay and silt (hmgn, 1971). the soils are well drained and relatively deep. the study area is predominantly underlain by sandy loams and followed by sands and gravels. (dinerstein, 1979) more than 70% of the forest is covered by sal trees. a vegetation study conducted by dinerstein (1979) classified six major vegetation types. it was later modified by jnawali and wegge (1993) to seven major vegetation types. major associated species are t. alata, buchanania latifolia, dalbergia sissoo acacia catechu, s. cumini, m. phillippensis, bombax ceiba, a. cordifolia, casearia tomentosa, mitragyna parviflora, phragmatis karka and arundo donax. silwal et al. 78 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 sampling and measurement thirty-three trees were felled and measured from may to june 2013. the data were collected from trees growing in natural forests of two different locations in western terai region of nepal. representative healthy and undamaged trees of different dbh classes were selected as sample trees. fifteen trees from saljhandi (site 1) and eighteen trees from bagnaha (site 2) were selected randomly. dbh (1.3 m above ground level), and crown diameter of the sample trees were measured and a photograph was taken before felling the tree. total height and height to the base of live crown (hcb) were measured separately. stem profile data (diameter outside bark and height above ground) was obtained at eight points on the bole: stump (30 cm above ground) and approximately at 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, 4/8, 5/8, 6/8, and 7/8 of the total height (martin, 1981). the stem section of the tree (total height minus stump height) was divided into sub-sections of maximum three meter length and measured the diameter at three points (diameter at two ends and middle of the subsection). the large branches were treated as poles and measured by using above process for volume estimation in the stem analysis. average sample tree characteristics are presented in table 1. modeling approach modeling stem taper at first, base model for stem taper was calibrated using ormerod function (ormerod, 1973), in which ‘tree’ and ‘site’ factors were considered as random effects component of a non-linear mixed effect model using nlme package (pinheiro et al., 2017) available in r (rstudio team, 2015). auto-correlation due to repeated stem diameter measurement within a tree was modelled using corar(x) function. fig. 2: relationship between tree level random effects and height to crown base (hcb) observed heteroscedasticity was accounted for with a variance function (varpower function). an akaike information criteria (aic) was used to assess usefulness of the covariates in fixed as well as random effect components of the model. site was dropped from the random effect component, as aic did not justify its usefulness in the model. tree level random effect (bi) showed that there was significant tree to tree variation on stem tapering. therefore, we extracted tree level random effect for each tree, and correlated it with several tree variables e.g. height to crown base, crown diameter, crown projection area, crown volume to identify the important tree characteristics that influence stem taper. hbc was found to be positively correlated with tree level random effect (re) parameters (fig. 2). addition of hcb in stem taper equation as a covariate reduced mean bias of the estimation (table 3). ...........(t1) where, table 1: sample tree and site characteristics (standard deviation of the corresponding values is provided in parenthesis) attributes saljhandi, rupandehi bagnaha, bardia average range average range number of trees 15 na 18 na dbh (cm) 55.04 (17.61) 37.5-91 38.69 (27.45) 5.2-92.5 height (m) 30.97 (3.27) 25-37 21.07 (9.44) 4.5-34.2 hcb (m) 11.1 (4.39) 3.32-17.9 4.4 (2.23) 1.05-10.4 rainfall (mm) 2296 na 2230 na temperature (˚c) 24 na 19.5 na na not applicable silwal et al. fig. 2: reletionship between tree level random efffects and height to crown base (hcb) 79 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 dij = diameter of tree i at height j (cm) di = diameter at breast height of trees i (cm) hi = total height of tree i (m) h = height of interest from the ground (m) εij = error component of the model b0 and b1 = fixed effect parameters to be estimated. bi = tree level random effect parameter for tree i .......... (t2) where, hbci = height to base of live crown of tree i (m) modeling total stem volume modeling stem volume was started with the calibration of sharma and pukkala (1990) equation using our data (equation v1). as tree height was not significant in the model, it was dropped from the model and then the resultant model was presented as equation (v2). stem taper analysis showed that trees of lower hcb had more tapered stem, thus, we suspected that such trees might have smaller volume for the given diameter. therefore, hcb was added to equation (v2) to test if the addition of hcb improves prediction ability of total stem volume or not. eventually, equation (v3) was evaluated as final model. since our data were collected from two different sites, we adopted mixed modeling approach to account site as random effect in the model. an aic criterion was used to assess usefulness of the covariates in fixed as well as random effect components of the model. effect of site as random effect was tested for intercept as well as for slope parameters. however, aic and anova test justify the usefulness of random effect only for slope parameter. once the models were fitted, assumptions of the regression analysis were checked. the plot for the standardized residuals versus the fitted values showed that the final models did not violate any model assumptions (diagnostic plots not shown). modeling was done in r (rstudio team, 2015) using nlme package (pinheiro et al., 2017). ln(vij) = (a + ai) + bln(di) + cln(hi) + εij ......(v1) ln(vij) = (a + ai) + bln(di) + εij ....................(v2) ln(vij) = (a + ai) + bln(di) + cln(hcbi) + εij .....(v3) where, vij = total stem volume (m3) of a tree i in site j a,b,c = fixed effect parameters to be estimated ai = site level random effect parameter to be estimated results and discussion stem taper since we had a hierarchical dataset which was grouped as ‘multiple diameter measurements within a tree’ and ‘trees were clustered in a site’, mixed modeling approach was used. the model was parameterized several times keeping the fixed-effect and random effect specification constant. we first included correlation structure, then the variance function. according to aic statistics, every additional covariance feature, i.e., the correlation structure, and the variance function significantly improved the likelihood ratio (table 2). then, we added new covariate in the final model. stepwise model building process was shown in table 2. table 2: aic (akaike information criteria) comparison of different model forms of stem taper equation (note: the smaller the aic, the better the model) models aic likelihood ratio nlme 1326 na nlme+ corar 1323 4.97 nlme + corar + varpower 1103 222.4 final model (nlme + corar + varpower + hcb) 1102 2.6 sequential improvement is on distribution of residuals through different predicted values (fig. 3). figure 3 (a and b) shows that bias increased with increasing stem diameter. however, no such trend was found in figure 3 (c and d) besides a few extreme values and slightly increasing bias towards smaller diameter values. as smaller diameter section of a tree stem mostly belongs within the crown, this bias might have introduced by branches or stem swelling at the lower part of the branch junctions. silwal et al. 80 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 parameter estimates of two final models (with hcb and without hcb as covariate) are presented in table 3. as eq. (t2) was less biased, it is advised to use this equation, when hcb information is available along with dbh and tree height (table 3, mean bias). we can see that how hcb influences stem taper in figure 4. all three lines are the predicted stem taper profiles of three trees that have almost the similar d (40–43 cm) but different total height and hcb. it clearly shows that trees with lower hcb generally have more tapered stem, which is similar to the results observed by adu-bredu et al. (2008), and macfarlane and weiskittel fig. 3: residuals of the taper model (a) nlme base model, (b) model with autocorrelation function, (c) model with autocorrelation and weight function, (d) final model table 3: parameter estimates of stem taper equations. pseudo r-squared=1-(residual sum of squares/total sum of squares), mean bias=average (observed value-predicted value) parameters model with hcb (eq. t2) model without hcb (eq. t1) estimates se p-value estimates se p-value b0 1.9682 0.01416 <0.01 1.9873 0.0084 <0.01 b2 0.0025 0.0015 0.09 b1 1.4798 0.0373 <0.01 1.481 0.0376 <0.01 re parameters σi 2 0.00091 0.00104 σij 2 0.00037 0.00037 pseudo r-squared 0.95 0.94 mean bias -0.0859 0.1107 silwal et al. 81 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 (2016). even if hcb in our model found to be marginally insignificant (p=0.09), we still keep in the model as it reduced prediction bias. we also suggest future studies to prove its usefulness in predicting stem taper as our study was limited to a sample of 33 trees only. fig.4: predicted stem taper profiles for trees of given diameter, height and height to crown bases. d=diameter at breast height, h=total tree height, hcb=height to crown base stem volume modeling tree stem volume showed that tree height was not found to be significant at the local level (table 4, eq. v1). instead of h, hcb was found significant in stem volume equation (table 4, eq. v3) and reduced mean bias (table 4, eq. v2 and eq. v3) and increased pseudo r-squared (table 4, eq. v2: pseudo r-squared=0.94 and eq. v3: pseudo r-squared=0.95). this must be due to the positive correlation between branchiness and main stem taper (ver planck and macfarlane, 2014). inclusion of site as random effect might have explained the variation on stem volume for different height trees at tree height for a given diameter tree is related to site factor (feldpausch et al. 2011). we observed that lower hcb contributed on reductions in the main stem volume for a given diameter tree, but we were not able to explain the associated volume shifted away from the main stem (into branches). therefore, future research should focus on this issue as it is necessary to assess branch wood volume, estimate total biomass and quantify carbon stock more precisely. bias correction the models (v1), (v2) and (v3) predict stem volume on a natural logarithmic scale. we need to back transform it to the original scale. since a linear back transformation of predicted values are associated with a log-transformation bias (baskerville, 1972), a correction factor (cf) that accounts this log-transformation bias was presented in table 4. for the bias correction, the predicted values should be multiplied by the correction factor provided in table 4. conclusion general volume equation in nepal developed by sharma and pukkala (1990) needs calibration with local data before using it at local level. in addition, height to crown base was found to be an important variable that affects main stem volume of s. robusta for a given diameter tree at a site. thus, we recommend to use hcb in stem volume equation for increasing prediction ability table 4: parameter estimates for stem volume equations (ai : bardia =-0.0891 and rupandehi = 0. 0891). pseudo r-squared=1-(residual sum of squares/total sum of squares), mean bias = average (observed value-predicted value), cf (correction factor for log transformation bias) = exp (σi 2 + σij 2 )/2 parameters equation (v1) equation (v2) equation (v3) estimates se p-value estimates se p-value estimates se p-value a -9.095 0.4737 0 -9.1664 0.33198 0 -9.3124 0.2727 0 b 2.5601 0.2188 0 2.51635 0.07189 0 2.4202 0.0810 0 c -0.073 0.3422 0.83 0.2694 0.1077 0.02 re parameters σi 2 0.0847 0.07958 0.0220 σij 2 0.0775 0.07519 0.0681 pseudo r-squared 0.94 0.94 0.95 mean bias -0.0190 -0.0074 0.0023 cf 1.08 1.08 1.05 silwal et al. 82 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 and reducing prediction bias. the derived stem volume equation is recommended to produce local volume table of s. robusta in rupandehi and bardia district. the stem taper equation is useful for forest managers to calculate stem volume up to any desirable merchantable limit (e.g. 10 cm or 20 cm top diameter). these models can be applied to similar stand condition (basal area, canopy cover, stand age) from where the study data were obtained. as this is the first model for s. robusta stem taper, it is recommended to test in other sites too. care must be provided when using this model in other sites and predicting beyond the observed range of tree size. acknowledgements this research was accomplished under an msc research grant funded by the forest resource assessment (fra) nepal. we are thankful to mr. sahas man shrestha, director general and team of department of forest research and survey for technical inputs. we also thank mr. michael david hawkes, chief technical advisor and fra nepal team for financial and logistic support. we express our deep gratitude to district forest officers: dipak gyawali, rupandehi, dhananjaya lamichhane, bardia and their team for generous cooperation in the field. we appreciate the contribution of mr. shovit koirala and mr. nav raj shahi in data collection during the field-work. we are grateful to the lumbini collaborative forest user group and chandak chatiya mahila community forest user group for providing support to carry out the fieldwork. we also thank an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments that improved the manuscript. references adu-bredu, s., bi, a. f. t., bouillet, j. p., me, m. k., kyei, s. y. and saint-andré, l. 2008. an explicit stem profile model for forked and unforked teak (tectona grandis) trees in west africa. forest ecology and management 255 (7): 2189–2203. baskerville, g. l. 1972. use of logarithmic regression in the estimation of plant biomass. canadian journal of forest research 2 (1): 49–53. bennett, f. a. and swindel, b. f. 1972. taper curves for planted slash pine. usda forest service, 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murray, j. c. 1976. polynomial taper equations that are compatible with tree silwal et al. 83 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 volume equations. new zealand journal of forest science 5 (3): 313–322. hmgn. 1971. soil survey of bardia division, forest resources survey office, department of forest, his majesty’s government, nepal, kathmandu, nepal. jackson, j. k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. second edition. forest research and survey center, babarmahal, kathmandu,nepal jnawali, s. r. and wegge, p. 1993. space and habitat use by a small re-introduced population of greater one-horned rhinoceros (rhinoceros unicornis) in royal bardia national park in nepal. in rhinoceros biology and conservation. zoological society of san diego, san diego, usa, 208–217. kozak, a. and smith, j. h. g. 1966. critical analysis of multivariate techniques for estimating tree taper suggests that simpler methods are best. the forestry chronicle 42 (4): 458–463. kozak, a., munro, d. d. and smith, j. h. g. 1969. taper functions and their application in forest inventory. the forestry chronicle 45 (4): 278–283. macfarlane, d. w. and weiskittel, a. r. 2016. a new method for capturing stem taper variation for trees of diverse morphological types. canadian journal of forest research 46 (6): 804–815. martin, a. j. 1981. taper and volume equations for selected appalachian hardwood species. broomall, pa: u. s. department of agriculture, forest service, northeastern forest experiment station, usa. max, t. a. and burkhart, h. e. 1976. segmented polynomial regression applied to taper equations. forest science 22 (3): 283–289. newnham, r. m. 1988. a variable-form taper function. petawawa national forestry institute, canada. ojha, s. k., acharya, k. p., acharya, b. and regmi, r. 2008. simple coppice management options for the sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) forests in the terai of nepal. banko janakari 18 (1): 32–41. ormerod, d. w. 1973. a simple bole model. the forestry chronicle 49 (3): 136–138. pinheiro, j., bates, d., debroy, s. and sarkar, d., 2007. linear and non-linear mixed effects models. r package version, 3. r studio team. 2015. rstudio: integrated development for r. rstudio, inc., boston, ma, viewed on 20/02/2017. http://www. rstudio.com/. sharma e. r. and pukala t. 1990. volume equation and biomass prediction of forest trees of nepal, publication 47. forest research and statistics division, kathmandu, nepal. tamrakar, p. r. 2000. biomass and volume tables with species description for community forest management. ministry of forests and soil conservation, natural resource management sector assistance programme (narmsap), tree improvement and silviculture component, kathmandu, nepal. ver planck, n. r. and macfarlane, d. w. 2014. modeling vertical allocation of tree stem and branch volume for hardwoods. forestry 87 (3): 459–469. silwal et al. percepetion and attitude towards tree growing in east nepal annapurna n. das1 information on existing tree growing practices were collected from seven villages of morang district and six that of dhankuta through rural appraisals. the tree species that the rural households were willing to introduce into their farmland have been listed. results indicated that there is a common interest among rural households of both the terai and middle hills towards growing bamboo in private farmlands. rural households in the terai preferred timber species such as sissoo (dalbergia sissoo) and fruit trees which have high commercial values, whereas middle hills households preferred fodder trees. keywords: dalbergia sissoo, alnus nepalensis, bamboo, terai, middle hills, fodder, fruit trees. he scarcity of forest products and the price increase of wood products in market and the regulatory policies of the forest products in the adjoining areas, etc. have led to an increase in tree cultivation in the terai (soussan et ai, 1991; kanel, 1995). the perceived shortage of trees and forest products also changed the attitude of farmers towards tree planting which increased in tree cover in many private farms of eastern and central nepal (carter, 1991; carter and gilmour, 1989; hobley, 1990; carter and gronow, 1992). nepal's master plan for forestry sector has given emphasis to private forestry and community forestry programmes (hmgn, 1988). it is now increasingly realised that for any intervention which is aimed towards promoting private tree planting, households perception and attitudes should be taken into consideration. the present study aims to collect information on the existing trends and preferences of rural households towards tree planting on private farmland. methods selection of sites six village development committees (vdcs), viz. dangraha, sidhraha, lakhantai, tetariya, motipur and banigaon of morang district in the terai and six (ankhisalla, hattikharka, pakhribas, murtidhunga, parewadin and bhirgaon) that of dhankuta district in the middle hills were selected for the present study. one ward out of nine in each vdc was randomly selected for household survey. kerabari, a village at morang district which is close to national forest is purposively selected to note any differences in the farmers perception and attitudes towards tree growing. people of different ethnic groups who have migrated within the last forty years from the bordering hill districts of east nepal have settled in here. the study sites of dhankuta district have diverse ethnic groups such as rai, limbu, gurung, magar, brahmin, chhetri, damai and sarki, and at morang there are tharu, rajbansi, khawas, bantas and mushar. to enhance the quality of data, a multi-faceted research approach was adopted, combining techniques used in the social sciences such as rural appraisals (rra and pra) and those more familiar to biological scientists such as ranking, diagramming, and formal surveys. the use of different methods such as surveys with semistructured interview, focus group meetings, key informant interviews and personal diaries of some households served as a cross-check (triangulation) on the reliability of information obtained from one method against another. they were chosen carefully to combine the collection of qualitative and quantitative information, and permit comparisons between the two. the male and female focus group meetings were conducted along with household survey to build trust between researcher and rural households and to generate additional information which are not possible to obtain through household surveys alone. research officer, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu das banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 sampling and survey procedure upon making a list of all households and their members, the households were categorised into five different wealth ranks with the help of local informants. twenty five households were randomly selected from the total households with the proportional representation of all the five wealth ranks. the flexibility adopted to incorporate more households from those categories helped to get a broader picture of the village and household characteristics. the total sample in vdcs was thus between twenty nine to forty-one households. the questionnaires were administered to these selected households. in some cases where the households were not available, another one from the list representing that wealth rank was randomly selected for the study. altogether, 199 households were selected for the sample from the 6 tharu dominated villages at morang district, 41 households at kerabari and 208 at dhankuta district, thus making a total of 448 households. results and discussions existing woody perennials in the farmland of the terai villages households in the terai villages showed high interest in tree planting. those with larger farms have more woody perennials than smaller farms. in general, they have introduced multipurpose tree species. the multiple production of any single tree species was an important criterion of selection. tree species grown are also considered a source of income. households with large farms planted a wider variety of tree species than those with smaller farms. even some of the sukumbasi (landless) had planted a few trees on the very small patch of public land that they have illegally occupied. most wealth rank 1 households, which usually have more than 3 hactares of land, had planted woody perennials in baginchha (home garden) and in blocks. more than sixty species grown on farmlands were recorded. the commonest place to grow trees was the homestead where they can be regularly supervised. they were not generally seen on the boundaries of paddy fields which were usually far. the commonly grown woody perennials in the six terai villages are given in table 1. bamboo are the most widely distributed species in these villages followed by dalbergia sissoo. other than bamboo and sissoo, most other tree species on the farmland were the sources of edible fruits. the most common are mangifera indica, artocarpus heterophyllus, anthocephalus cadamba and cocos nucifera. in all villages except motipur, bamboo are the most widespread species followed by sissoo and mango. bamboo were considered valuable in terms of construction materials and income they provide during hardship. table 1 : the most widely distributed woody perennials on private farmlands species local name main uses dang raha hh nos. (35) sidh raha hh nos. (38) lakhan tari hh nos. (32) teta riya hh nos. (32) moti pur hh nos. (32) bani gaon hh nos. (30) all 6 vill hh % of nos. total (199) rank bambusa/dendro calamus sp. bamboo many uses 24 21 14 21 17 16 113 56.78 1 dalbergia sissoo sissoo t, fu 22 19 12 19 20 13 105 52.76 2 mangifera indica aanp/aam fr, t, fu, fod 19 20 8 16 11 9 83 41.71 3 a rtocarpus heterophyllus katahar fr, t, fu, fod 18 17 1 13 6 3 58 29.15 4 anthocephalus cadamba kadam fr, t, fu, fod 4 11 5 9 7 2 38 19.10 5 cocos nucifera nariyal fr, orn 5 5 1 6 2 5 24 12.06 6 bombax ceiba simal t, fu, fod 7 3 0 4 1 3 18 9.05 7 areca catechu supari fr, orn 2 5 1 3 0 3 14 7.04 8 a rtocarpus lakoocha badahar fr, fod 5 2 0 4 1 2 14 7.04 8 litchi chinensis litchi fr, fu 5 3 0 1 0 1 10 5.03 9 celtis australis khari fod, fu 0 0 0 9 0 1 10 5.03 9 psidium guajava ambaa fr, fu 0 1 0 2 2 4 9 4.52 10 trewia nudiflora pithari fod, fu 0 1 0 0 4 2 7 3.52 11 keys: hh= household, t = timber, fu = fuelwood, fod= fodder, fr= fruit, orn = ornamental 4 banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 das most of these woody perennials are important sources of fruits and timber than as fuelwood or fodder. however, they are also a source of fodder and fuel during scarcity. as there is a shortage of timber and other forest products, the interest of tree planting, including bamboo which take a short time to establish and grow, has considerably increased in recent years. even though kerabari is surrounded by public forest, there are many woody perennials on the farmland (table 2). bamboo were the most widely distributed followed by mango, sissoo, tanki (bauhinia purpurea), and coconut. the commonest fodder trees were bauhinia, artocarpus lakoocha, ficus lacor, litsea monopetala and garuga pinnata. adina cordifolia and terminalia bellerica, the wild species were also seen in the farmland. most widely distributed woody perennial was alnus nepalensis followed by bamboo (table 3). the majority of households had introduced more than one bamboo species for multiple uses, including fodder. the other most common species on farmland were ficus nemoralis, schima wallichii and ficus semicordata. majority of the species were introduced specifically for fodder. seven of the top ten common species were grown primarily for fodder. because of forest degradation, restricted access to forest and with exceeding demand, the interest in tree planting has considerably increased in recent years. the other driving force is the increased market value of construction materials. the choice of species might have been affected by these factors. the other factor governing the choice of species is table 2: the most widely distributed woody perennials on the farmland at kerabari ___________________________ species local name uses hh no. (41) % of total rank bambusa/dendrocalamus sp. bans many uses 24 58.54 1 mangifera indica aanp/a am fr, t, fu 23 56.10 2 dalbergia sissoo sissoo t, fu 21 51.22 3 bauhinia purpurea tanki fod, fu 16 39.02 4 cocos nucifera nariyal fr, orn 14 34.15 5 a rtocarpus heterophyllus katahar fr, t, fod, fu 13 31.71 6 areca catechu supari fr, orn 13 31.71 6 artocarpus lakoocha badahar fr, fod, fu 10 24.39 7 ficus lacor kavro fod, fu 9 21.95 8 psidium guajava ambaa fr, fu 7 17.07 9 litsea monopetala kutmiro fod, fu 7 17.07 9 garuga pinnata dabdabe fod, fu 7 17.07 9 adina cordifolia karma t, fu, fod 6 14.63 10 terminalia bellerica barro t, fod, fu 3 7.32 11 the middle hills villages in the middle hills, the commonest place to grow woody perennials is land near settlements, usually the edge of bari (upland) and gullies. the other common place were the edge of terraced land and some scattered trees on khet (lowland). block planting was very rare in the middle hills. tree growing was more common than in the terai with the majority of households having at least some woody perennials on the farm. a large number of fodder trees were also found on the farmland. the the ethnic composition and cultural practices. the settlers at kerabari migrated from dhankuta and neighbouring hill districts might have brought with them, the farming practices of the middle hills. bamboo existing on farmland the majority of the households in the terai, middle hills and kerabari were bamboo growers. bamboo were the most commonly grown species on the private farmland in the terai and kerabari and the second most commonly grown woody perennial in the middle hills (table 4). 5 das table 3: distribution of banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 species local name uses ankhi salla hh nos. (35) hatti khark hh. nos. (29) pakhri bas hh nos. (33) murti dhunga hh nos. (38) parewa din hh nos. (35) bhir gaon hh nos. (38) all hh nos. (208) villages % of total hh rank alnus nepalensis utis fu, t 24 26 28 35 32 32 177 85.10 1 bambusa/dendro calamus sp. bans many uses 22 23 24 32 31 33 165 79.33 2 ficus nemoralis dudhilo fod 14 26 30 34 30 4 138 66.35 3 schima wallichii chilaune t, fu 22 18 23 27 27 15 132 63.46 4 ficus semicordata khanyu fod 5 9 22 26 10 31 103 49.52 5 ficus roxburghii nimaro fod 8 13 19 30 18 1 89 42.79 6 prunus cerasoides painyu fod, t, fu fod 3 4 20 27 25 5 84 40.38 7 bauhinia purpurea tanki 7 5 3 6 27 33 81 38.94 8 litsea monopetala kutmiro fod 4 8 5 2 9 24 52 25.00 9 ficus lacor kabhro fod 3 2 0 3 14 10 32 15.38 10 saurauia nepalensis gogan fod 4 0 2 24 1 0 31 14.90 11 artocarpus lakoocha badahar fod, fr 11 5 2 1 2 9 30 14.42 12 pyrus communis naspati fr 1 6 3 6 9 0 25 12.02 13 pinus roxburghii khote salla t, fu 0 0 0 3 1 12 16 7.69 14 castanopsis hystrix patle t,fr, fod,fu 0 0 0 7 6 0 13 6.25 15 erythrina sp. faledo fod 0 0 0 0 5 5 10 4.81 16 grewia optiva ghotli fod 5 0 5 0 0 0 10 4.81 16 evodiafraxinifolia babis fod 0 0 0 0 0 9 9 4.33 17 mangifera indica aanp fr, t, fu 3 0 0 0 1 5 9 4.33 18 celtis australis khari fod 6 1 0 0 0 0 7 3.37 19 engelhardtia spicata mauwa fu 0 0 0 2 0 2 4 1.92 20 keys: hh= household, t= timber, fod = fodder, fu = fuelwood, fr=fruit. showing the popularity of this versatile species. the most common bamboo species was malbans (bambusa nutans) which can grow in a wide range of climatic conditions from the terai to 1800 metres. however, the best growing conditions for this species are in the altitudinal range 1000-1500 m. among the bamboo growers, 92% in the terai have at least one bamboo clump of malbans on their farmland. in the middle hills and at kerabari, it was even higher with 96.4% and 100% respectively, in the tharu villages, malbans was grown in combination with japhta bans (bambusa tuldd) and bholka bans {bambusa balcooa) near home in bansbari/bansbitti (bamboo garden) and homegarden by the wealthier households and in the backyards or small homegarden by the poorer households. in the middle hills, other than malbans, eight other table 4: the most widely distributed bamboo species on the farmlands of the study sites speices terai % of growers middle hills kerabari uses bambusa nutans 91.96 96.36 100.00 construction, fencing, fodder, weaving, fuel b. tulda 64.29 0.00 0.00 construction, fencing, shoots as vegetables, weaving, fuel. b. balcooa 44.64 0.61 0.00 construction, fuelwood, fodder d. strictus 1.79 0.00 3.85 sticks, fuelwood dendrocalamus hamiltonii 0.00 65.45 0.00 weaving, ropes, fodder d. hookerii 0.00 49.70 0.00 construction, fodder, shoots as vegetables d. hamiltonii varedulis b. nepalensis 0.00 16.97 0.00 shoots as vegetables, weaving, ropes, fodder d. hamiltonii var. undulatus 0.00 9.09 0.00 construction, shoots as vegetables, fodder. drepanostachyum sp. 0.00 6.06 0.00 weaving, fodder a mpelocalamus patellaris 0.00 4.24 0.00 weaving, fodder 6 banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 table 5: species preferred for planting in the terai das species preference score no. of % of dangraha sidhraha lakhantari tetariya motipur banigaon all rank responses total score bambusa/ dendrocalamus sp. 283 320 256 dalbergia sissoo 259 278 250 mangifera indica 242 270 235 artocarpus heterophyllus 180 171 135 litchi chinensis 108 124 93 anthocephalus cadamba 82 103 110 cocos nucifera 55 80 82 areca catechu 41 62 56 a rtocarpus lakoocha 28 33 21 bombax ceiba 67 11 6 psidium guajava 23 25 32 melia azedarach 8 6 7 256 265 261 1641 1 198 99.5 0 252 260 231 1530 2 196 98.4 9 221 209 189 1366 3 196 98.4 9 176 161 156 979 4 179 89.9 5 103 110 98 636 5 158 79.4 0 61 71 63 490 6 125 62.8 1 65 82 80 444 7 128 64.3 2 33 45 46 283 8 111 55.7 8 35 32 37 186 9 53 26.6 3 40 39 22 185 10 47 23.6 2 18 34 20 152 11 52 26.1 3 12 27 42 102 12 43 21.6 bamboo species were grown on farmland (table 4). it is evident that the majority of growers have introduced more than one bamboo species in relation to altitudinal range. malbans was grown on the farmland below 1800 m. whereas kalo bans was grown above 1500 m. nigalo (arundinaria sp.) was introduced above 1900 m. other than nigalo and kalo bans, all other species were common in the altitudinal range of 1200-1800 m. where most of the settlements were found. the most popular combination of bamboo species being grown in the farmland was malbans, choya bans and kalo bans. the commonest place for growing bamboo was gullies followed by the edge of bari. the introduction of more than one bamboo species seemed related to different uses. for example, the tama bans was meant for making vegetable from new shoots and choya bans for tying splits and joints and in house construction. kalobans and dhungre bans are used for support poles in house construction. at kerabari only malbans was grown. one household had planted laathi bans (d. strictus). choice of species for planting it is now widely accepted that any successful intervention for the promotion of tree planting programmes will need the support of the people. hence, their perception and attitude towards species is an important aspect of study. in the terai, bamboo was the most preferred species by all. it received the highest score in all sampled villages except motipur where it was ranked second to sissoo. the species closest to bamboo were sissoo and mango followed by katahar, coconut and litchi (table 5). the majority of households mentioned two or three different bamboo species. malbans was the most preferred for planting. the individual preference scores of jaftha bans and bholka bans were higher than many of the species. the choice of fodder appears not to be so important. this is in contrast to the middle hills and kerabari with a large number of fodder species in the top ten. the much less preferred species for private planting were leucaena leucocephala, syzygium cumini, albizzia sp., citrus sp., citrus sp., tectona grandis, and acacia nilotica. the least preferred (5%) species for planting is shorea robusta. the species preferred for planting in the middle hills are given in table 6. bamboo was the most preferred and received the highest score in all sampled villages except murtidhunga and parewadin where it was second to utis. species preferred after bamboo were utis, chilaune, dudhilo, nimaro and khanyu. other than utis and chilaune, all other species in the top ten are important sources of fodder. there are no fruit species in the top ten. majority of households also ranked different bamboo species in the top nine rather than just mentioning bamboo. malbans was the species most preferred by almost all households. 7 das banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 table 6: species preferrence for planting in the middle hills preference score no. of % of speices ankhihattipakhrimurtiparewabhirtotal rank responses total salla kharka bas dhunga din gaon score bambusa/dendro 240 217 223 208 180 239 1307 1 197 94.71 calamus sp. alnus nepalensis 164 142 167 232 194 216 1115 2 185 88.94 schima walichii 114 93 117 174 190 205 893 3 162 ' 77.88 ficus nemoralis 52 103 112 202 154 7 630 4 135 64.9 ficus roxburghii 51 103 141 186 97 6 584 5 109 52.4. ficus semicordata 52 127 140 102 61 87 569 6 134 64.42 bauhinia purpurea 133 28 40 31 120 189 541 7 102 49.04 prunus cerasoides 12 69 66 96 98 37 378 8 107 51.44 litsea monopetala 89 94 13 7 22 117 342 9 73 35.10 ficus lacor 37 30 0 20 75 50 212 10 52 25.00 the less preferred species for private planting were pyrus communis, sauarauia nepalensis, pm&s roxburghii, gelds australis, grewia optiva, artocarpus lakoocha, castanopsis hystrix, albizzia sp., bauhinia variegata, evodia fraxinifolia and eucalyptus sp. percent of households mentioning these species were in the order of 20, 16, 15, 14, 11, 9, 7, 6, 5 and 5 households. the lowest percentage (4%) of households preferred madhuca indica for planting. there is a sharp distinction between the terai and middle hills in terms of preferrence for fodder. the households in the terai hardly mentioned fodder species nor ranked them in the top ten, whereas these species were much preferred in the middle hills. species preferrence at kerabari the species preferred for planting at kerabari are given in table 7. bamboo was the most preferred species for planting with malbans. the species was popular amongst all wealth ranks and ethnic groups followed by sissoo. the less preferred species for private planting at table 7: species preferred for planting at kerabari kerabari were tectona grandis, terminalia alata, bombax ceiba, shorea robustas dalbergia latifolia, terminalia bellerica, lagerstroemia paruiflora, and psidium guajava. the percentage of households preferring these species were 17, 15, 15, 12, 12, 10, 10 and 10 respectively. the least preferred species (7% each) were pterocarpus marsupium, grewia optiva and citrus sp. households ranked fruit trees such as mango, katahar, coconut and litchi in the top ten. timber species other than sissoo are less preferred. bamboo are considered both an important source of construction materials and for fodder. at kerabari the majority of households preferred malbans. many species of fodder were also found growing. conclusion the findings suggested that rural households, both in the terai and the middle hills, grow a large number of tree species or woody perennials on the farmland for meeting their various need. such species preference score rank no. of responses % of total bambusa nutans. 321 1 39 95.12 dalbergia sissoo 306 2 39 95.12 mangifera indica 183 3 34 87.18 bauhinia purpurea 143 4 26 60.98 a rtocarpus heterophyllus 125 5 28 68.29 litsea monopetala 95 6 24 56.1 garuga pinnata 72 7 20 48.78 cocos nucifera 71 8 19 46.34 ficus lacor 70 9 17 41.46 litchi chinensis 69 10 17 41.46 a rtocarpus lakoocha 59 11 12 29.27 areca catechu 46 12 15 36.59 banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 das species are important sources of timber/construction material, fodder and fuelwood, fruits and vegetables. woody perennials are also an important source of income when in need. bamboo is important for households at both the terai and middle hills. however, preferrence for the tree species varied between the terai and middle hills. in the terai, fruit trees were preferred over fodder trees whereas in the middle hills the case is just reverse. fodder trees in the terai is not important partly because of availability of crop residues and because of easy access to markets. fruit trees are maintained not only for household consumption but also for additional income. even though sissoo, pines and utis is promoted in the past over bamboo by the department of forests, fruit trees are more preferred by the rural households of the terai. the preference for sissoo may decrease in the near future due to the outbreak of its dieback disease in the terai (parajuli et al., 1999). once the access increases in the middle hills through road network, the middlehill farmers' preference of growing trees is expected to change. they will probably grow species of high commercial value which has a readymade market such as bamboo and fruit trees. references carter, a. s. and gilmour, d. a. 1989. increase in tree cover on private farmland in central nepal. mountain research and development, 9 (4): 381391. carter, e. j. 1991. tree cultivation on private land on the middle hills of nepal. a thesis presented for the ph d degree at the oxford university, uk. carter, e. j. and gronow, c. j. v. 1992. strategies for supporting tree cultivation on private land in the middle hills of nepal. banko janakari, 3 (4): 1318. hmgn 1988. master plan for the forestry sector in nepal : main report. ministry of forest and soil conservation kathmandu, nepal. hobley, m. e. a. 1990. social reality, social forestry: the case of two nepalese panchayats. a thesis submitted for the degree of doctor of philosophy of the australian national university, australia. kanel, k. r. 1995. farmer and tree linkages in the terai of nepal. phd thesis, univ. of minnesota, usa. malla y. b. 1993. changing role of the forest fesource market: an ignored dimension of community forestry. banko janakari, 4 (1): 24-27. parajuli, a. v., bhatta, b., adhikari, m. k., tuladhar, j. r., thapa, h. b. and juwa, g. b . 1999. die-back disease of sissoo in eastern tarai of nepal. fimg ministry of agriculture/winrock international, kathmandu, nepal. report no. 39. soussan, j., gevers, e., ghimire, k. and o’keefe, p. 1991. planning for sustainability: access to fuelwood in dhanusha district in nepal. world development, 19 (10): 1299-1314. 9 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal plantation campaign in nepal plantation campaign is the plantation in an organized and active way towards a particular goal, typically a political or social one. large-scale plantations have not been executed in the recent decades. scattered plantations activities were conducted by frontline forestry organizations, community forestry user groups and individual farmers. however, the precise data about the number of plantations and their establishments are still missing. the government has recently declared the fiscal year 2019/020 as the “year of plantation” with an aim of accomplishing a massive plantation campaign through economic policies and annual programs by planting of 50 million trees in this fiscal year as part of a nationwide campaign, maintaining the current forest coverage and contributing towards reducing deforestation and impacts of climate change. forests cover 30.6% of the earth’s land surface. in nepal, forests comprise 40. 36% (5.96 million hectares) of the total area of the nation. despite the sharp decline in the rate of deforestation in the past, pressure on forests for timber, fuelwood, fodder, grazing and infrastructure development has been increased tremendously in the recent years which adversely impacts delivery of forestry goods and services to the people. plantation of various species has a long history in nepal dating back to the vedic period when saints used to plant religious, fruit-bearing and shade-providing trees in public places. plantation is often carried out to minimize the pressure on forests and accelerate regular supply of the forestry goods and ecological services. it is the most convenient method to establish forests of desired characteristics in a shorter period. planting trees provide numerous advantagesfrom providing nutritious food to the people to controlling soil erosion and balancing the ecosystem by improving environmental condition, yielding diverse range of wood, fiber, fuel and non-wood forest products. besides, trees provide a number of social and environmental services ranging from rehabilitation of degraded land, combating desertification, soil and water protection, absorption of sewage water, carbon sequestration and storage, recreation, landscape amenity and many more. furthermore, forests contribute towards sustainable development as well as disaster risk reduction, and also conserve genetic resources, provide shelter as well as shade for wild-lives and fodder for livestock. in the recent years, the government has been focusing on afforestation programs by regularly allocating budgets for plantations and their establishment. as a result, several plantation programs have been regularly conducted throughout the nation. a number of afforestation and reforestation projects were carried out in the past. some projects were successful in establishing plantations while many of them failed. the reforestation programs of many https://doi.org:10.3126/banko.v29i2.28091 hilly districts such as kavrepalanchok and sindhupalchok are among the few successful examples of established plantations. the government has planned to establish high-tech nurseries in several parts of the nation to produce quality seedlings, especially fast growing and multipurpose tree species. forest nurseries have been built and operated by the divisional forest offices, community forest user groups (cfugs), non-governmental organizations (ngos) and private sectors. quality seedlings of the demanding tree species have been produced and distributed free of cost for plantation. the government has also issued directives to plant at least 30% of horticulture species out of the total number of planted trees. as part of the plantation campaign, tree saplings will be planted in and outside the forest areas by with the provision of saplings and other resources from the government for the purpose. trees will be planted in school, college and government premises, open spaces, river banks, fallow areas, community and collaborative forests, public lands, along the roads and canals. the act of planting fruit and herb saplings in degraded forest areas, river reclaimed areas, public land and private forests will be undertaken as part of the campaign. the massive campaign is being conducted by mobilizing civil servants, community leaders, local forest users, private land owners and volunteers. the ministry of forests and environment has established a 'plantation secretariat' within the department of forests and soil conservation by involving all major government, non-government and civil society organizations as the members. the major roles of the secretariat are to coordinate all stakeholders involved in plantations, record keeping and data management, reporting as well as resource leveraging. the government will maintain and strengthen data-base and records of the plantations. participatory monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning approach would be the foundation for obtaining the results as expected within this 'plantation year'. the office of the prime minister and council of ministers has urged all the stakeholders including cfugs, ngos, private sectors and volunteers, to actively participate in the campaign and make it a grand success establishment of a planted forest is a long-term investment that requires awareness and diligence not only in policy and planning but particularly in management practices. this includes selection of suitable germplasm, qualitative seeds and production of qualitative seedlings, site preparation, plantation of seedlings, tending, weeding and other silvicultural operations and harvesting. unfortunately, planted forests have not always lived up to their potential. the causes of failure of the plantations in the past include inappropriate governance frameworks and insufficient application of established knowledge, technology and techniques. the campaigns like this will have positive impression on our future generation as well. so, it is the duty of every citizen to contribute and play his/her effective roles by participating in these sorts of campaign. we, therefore, urge all the concerned stakeholders, civil society organizations, local people and volunteers to support government in making the 'plantation year' historic and successful in its mission. together, we can make it possible. editors banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 the study was carried out in and around the two protected areas of central terai, nepal with the primary aim of assessing the socio economic losses due to human-wild elephant conflicts. the field work was conducted during may 2010 to april 2011 through field observation, household survey, focus group discussion and key informant interviews. loss of 50 houses and 15 lives were noticed during the study period in the study sites whereas five wild elephants were killed during 2005–2010. an estimated amount of about nrs. 2,000,000 (us$ 25,165) was found as the economic loss due to crop raiding by elephants in parsa district for the year 2009; whereas it was slightly less to a level of about nrs. 1,600,000 (us$ 20,289) in the year 2010. however, the economic loss due to crop damage by wild elephants raiding in the buffer zone (bz) of the chitwan national park (cnp) was nearly half of the parsa district. the per household economic loss from crop damages were estimated to be around nrs 5,000 (us$ 65.96) and nrs 6,135 (us$ 77.67) in parsa district and the bz of the cnp respectively. about 1000 hectares of forestland have been found to be occupied by about 650 families in and around the buffer zone of the cnp and parsa wildlife reserve (pwr). compensatory relief for victimized families are the immediate solution in reducing the conflict whereas cultivation of unpalatable crops in and around the elephant routes as well as practice of agro-forestry are some of the long term solution in the habitat of wild elephants. key words: asian wild elephant, habitat encroachment, crop damage, human killings, elephant killings, nepal human-asian wild elephant (elephas maximus) conflicts and its socio-economic consequences in and around the protected areas of central terai, nepal b.r. yadav1, i. c. dutta2, m. k. chalise3 and c. williams4 asian elephant is the only living species of the genus elephas and is distributed in southeast asia from india in the west to borneo in the east. since 1986, elephas maximus has been listed as an endangered by iucn since the population has declined by at least 50% over the past three generations (estimated to be 60–75 years). the species is pre-eminently threatened by habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation (chalise, 2008; williams, 2002; yadav and chalise, 2013; hoare, 2000; sukumar, 2006). at least one million human population and approximately 147–171 asian wild elephants in nepal are severely affected among each other (yadav, 2002; gopali, 2007; 2005; pradhan, 2006; yadav and chalise, 2013). elephants were once distributed in low land terai of nepal. they were abundant in central part around the area that is now cnp (oliver, 1978). a total of wild and captive elephants are 353–385 surviving in and around the protected areas and in the captivity. a population of wild elephants estimated by yadav (2002); pradhan (2007), based on the personal communication with personnel of the bardia np (2011), and the pwr (2009); petra (1999); yadav and chalise (2012) is 147–171 distributed in different geographical sub-populations: 12–13 in eastern, 40–50 in central, 75–90 in mid-western and 12–18 in farwestern regions in nepal. these wild elephants inhabit in a total forest area of 10,982 km2 and out of this total habitat, a 4,281.8 km2 areas are under the protected area in nepal (dnpwc/ ecap, 2009). in most places the mega herbivores are now compressed into protected areas which in general are too small for long term population persistent (owen-smith, 1988; sukumar, 1989a). nepal is well recognized internationally for forest 47 1 institute of forestry, pokhara campus, nepal, email: yadav.baburam@gmail.com 2 tribhuwan university, kathmandu, nepal 3 central department of zoology, tribhuvan university, nepal 4 area wwf international banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 48 management. however, passive participation of community in decision making for the management of conservation areas has brought serious implication to the livelihood and cultural dynamics of the local people (mclean and straede, 2003). moreover, population pressure particularly the expansion of urban areas and agriculture, has caused conservation areas to become islands or increasingly fragmented habitats (molnar, 2006). existing provisions and arrangement deprived the people living outside the national parks and reserve from using forest products which they had been doing traditionally, much before the parks and reserves were created (bhattrai et al., 2011; dhungel and adhikari, 1994 ). the human exploited the elephant’s habitat for a variety of plant resources such as fruits, barks, fodder, climbers, grasses firewood and timber (sukumar, 1991). the growing human population collected the edible foodstuffs like wild bananas, wild bamboos, climbers and wild cassava from the habitat of elephants (yadav, 2002; yadav and chalise, 2012 and 2013). one of the most serious case of human wildlife conflict is the fear of being killed by wildlife (thirgood et al., 2005). attitude of local people is vital in wildlife conservation and the attitude may vary according to gender, age, education and past experience with the particular species of wildlife (hill, 1998; røskaft et al., 2007). matured and older people generally have more negative attitudes as do people who have experienced damage from wildlife while people with higher levels of education tends to be more positive towards wildlife (røskaft et al., 2007). hec occurs wherever people and elephant coincide, which is an obvious challenges for wild elephant conservation (hoare, 2000; sitati et al., 2003; sukumar, 2006). the elephant population in central nepal has come in conflict with human relatively less than eastern population (dnpwc, 2009). this study concentrates in assessing the socio economic consequences of human-wild elephant conflicts in and around the protected areas of cnp and pwr (yadav, 2005a, yadav, 2005b, yadav, 2005c, yadav, 2005d). materials and methods study area the study area represents five districts (chitwan, parsa, bara, rautahat and sarlahi) of central terai in nepal. however, our field research was only concentrated in two districts (chitwan and parsa). chitwan national park (cnp) and parsa wildlife reserve (pwr) cover a total area of 1,682 km2 and 797.17 km2 including buffer zone respectively. cnp the first protected areas of nepal, was declared in 1973 and designated as unesco world heritage site in 1984. pwr was declared in 1984 with the aim of preserving the population of residential asian wild elephants (e. maximus). the cnp core areas is located between 27o34’ 23”n to 27o68’98”n latitude and 83o87’79” e to 84o74’30”e longitude and the geographical location of the buffer zone of the cnp is located between 27o28’23”n to 27o70’38”n latitude and 83o83’98”e to 84o77’38”e longitude (fig. 1). pwr is located within 27o15’n to 27o33’n latitude and 84o41’e to 84o58’e longitude (fig. 1). the temperature perceived was of 50oc in winter and 40oc in summer season. the rainfall in the eastern section gets on an average of 170 cm whereas the central section receives 150 cm annually. fig. 1: location of the study area the purposive sampling was adopted for this study. individual households, settlements and wards of the village development committees (vdcs) were considered as the sampling units yadav et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 49 for different cases. the study team made inquiries with villagers to find out the affected households by wild elephants raiding. most of the affected areas in and around the buffer zone of the pwr and the cnp were selected for the study. we further visited and collected data at the affected sites in wards, settlements and cultivated land. affected vdcs of parsa district both in and around the buffer zone as well as affected vdcs in chitwan district around the buffer zone of cnp were selected for data collection. the direct field observation and measurement of the sites were done to get information on crop damage by wild elephants. most of the affected sites were visited and recorded for crop damage as well as indirect sign of elephant’s foot prints and dung. crop raiding was monitored in 13 vdcs of two districtschitwan (n=4) and parsa (n=9). crop depredation by elephants were monitored following a standardized data collection protocol (hoare, 1999) and modified to avoid the problem of exaggeration by farmers (tchamba, 1996; hedges et al., 2005). the collected data included date, location characteristic of damage and size class, sex and social grouping of elephant’s involved. results and discussion economic loss in buffer zone of chitwan national park during 12 months of the study period 105 incidents of crop damage were recorded around the cnp. most of such incidents were found to have occurred between may 2010 and april 2011 due to persistent groups of raiding elephants. four vdcs, (ayodhyapuri, bagauda, gardi and klayanpur) of chitwan district were found to be most affected areas. out of these vdcs bagauda vdc had severe damage and gardi had little damage (table 1). a total of 30.4 hectares farmland was affected by elephants raiding. the elephants raided the different crops equivalent to about nrs. 1,000,000 (us$ 12,791.77) in 2010, while a total crops damage raided by elephant equivalent to about nrs 547,000 (us$ 69,125.95) in 2009. table 1 indicates that the damage by wild elephants raiding is increasing annually in the settlements, wards and vdcs of the buffer zone of cnp. the crops damage by elephants raiding in 2010 was about double of the damaged occurred in 2009. affected areas are surrounded by forest land. these vdcs are prone to wildlife damage and human casualties /injured by wild elephants. damage in buffer zone of chitwan national park by crops five types of crops (rice, wheat, maize, lentil and banana) were raided by wild elephants in the buffer zone of cnp. the damage was estimated at around about nrs. 497,000 (us$ 6,292) for rice, about nrs. 34,000 (us$ 444) for maize and nrs. 15,000 (us$ 190) for wheat for the year 2009. whereas, the damage was about nrs.784,300 (us$ 9,928) for rice, about nrs 136,000 (us$ 1,178) for wheat and nrs. 45,000 (us$ 479) for maize in 2010. figures 2 and 3 show that depredation was very high in rice crop both in 2009 and 2010. the results indicate that the rice is more preferable to wild elephant than wheat and maize. economic loss by elephants raiding in parsa district a total of 116.42 hectares of crops were raided by wild elephants in nine vdcs of parsa district crops damage by wild elephants raiding in parsa district was estimated to be around about nrs. 1,600,000 (us$ 20,228.86) and about nrs. 2,000,000 (us$ 25,164.68) in 2010 and 2009 respectively. severe damage was found in table 1: crops depredation in the bufferzone of cnp vdcs year 2009 year 2010 affected area (ha) investment (nrs.) production (nrs.) damage (nrs.) affected areas (ha) investment (nrs.) production (nrs.) damage (nrs.) ayodhyapuri 4.7 83,000 271,450 190,000 6 105,400 318,650 268,500 bagauda 3.8 46,700 326,000 248,000 8.2 130,900 591,000 455,750 gardi 0.9 12,300 53,450 27,000 3.6 58,000 220,700 191,800 kalayanpur 1.4 22,500 99,150 82,150 1.9 28,500 137,500 94,500 total 10.7 164,500 750,050 547,150 19.7 322,800 1,267,850 1,010,550 sources: field work, 2010 (currency nrs. 79 = 1 us$) yadav et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 50 sonbarsa (us$ 5,527.34), madhuvan mathawal (us$ 4,474.68) and gadi vdcs (us$ 4,357.2) in 2010 (table 2). these vdcs are contiguous to the national forest and the national forest of parsa district is contiguous to the pwr. economic loss in parsa district by crops rice, maize, wheat and lentil cereal crops were raided by wild elephants in parsa district. rice damage was found to be higher in both years that were about nrs. 1,900,000 (us$ 24,171) for the year 2009 and about nrs. 1,019,000 (us$ 12,896.4) in 2010 in nine vdcs of parsa district. the rice damage was followed by the wheat crops in both years (fig. 4). fig. 4: economic loss by crop damages in parsa district comparison of economic loss between chitwan and parsa districts table 3 indicates that the crop damages in chitwan and parsa districts are in different trend. table 2: crops depredation in parsa district vdcs year 2009 year 2010 affected areas (ha) investment (nrs.) production (nrs.) damage (nrs.) affected area (ha) investment (nrs.) production (nrs.) damage (nrs.) sonbarsa 6.93 319,104 570,435.48 252,400 11.51 412,025.71 728,600.24 441,400 subarnpur 16.40 223,600 903,800 350,660 3.23 157,418.41 283,271.04 148,700 nirmalbasti 5.83 284,002.28 511,056 349,800 2.43 118,469.52 213,183.36 71,800 gadi 8.10 369,754 660,316.64 261,300 9.55 404,211.55 714,910.56 344,219 m.mathwal 13.23 156,260 881,761.6 242,000 13.27 139,800 518,100 353,500 s.saraiya 2.97 144,435.44 259,908.48 60,700 0.93 45,440.364 81,768.96 30,000 biruwaguthi 2.53 123,338.13 221,944.32 105,650 0.80 38,948.884 70,087.68 30,000 bagbana 6.53 294,165.15 527,766.72 175,100 1.07 48,087.494 85,743.84 15,500 thori 6.60 313,825.19 570,719.76 190,400 4.50 216,451.25 395,277.48 167,700 grand total 69.13 2,228,484 5,107,709 1,988,010 47.29 1,580,853 3,090,943 1,602,819 sources: field work, 2010 (1 us$ = nrs. 79) yadav et al. fig. 2: crop wise economic loss (nrs.) in chitwan district 2009 fig. 3: crop wise economic loss (nrs.) in chitwan district 2010 banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 51 economic loss due to elephants raiding in chitwan looks much lesser than that of economic loss in parsa district in 2009 and 2010. the losses cover four vdcs in the buffer zone of the cnp while losses cover nine vdcs inside bz and outside the bz in parsa district. the economic loss in chitwan district was found to be in increasing trend (nrs.547,000–1,011,000) while economic loss in parsa was found to be in decreasing trend (nrs. 2,000,000–1,600,000). the table 3 also indicated that the total estimated crop production (us$ 74,148.5) was more than the total damage of crops (us$ 32,090.63) in 2009. likewise the total production of crops was more than total damage (us$ 33,080.62) in 2010. the estimated total surplus value of crops was found to be us$ 42,058.22 in 2009, while the estimated total surplus productions of the crops in 2010 was found equivalent to us$ 22,093.97. these results showed that the total production was greater than the total damage, but the remaining income was not sufficient for a person for the whole year. altogether 429 households were found to have been affected elephants’ raiding in parsa and chitwan districts. the economic loss due to crop damage per hhs by wild elephants raiding were estimated to be about nrs 5,000 (us$ 65.96) and nrs. 6,000 (us$ 77.67) in chitwan and parsa districts respectively. the table 4 indicates that the surplus amount per hhs was estimated to be nrs. 1,900 (us$ 24.46) and nrs. 9,600 (us$ 121.88) in chitwan and parsa districts respectively. the estimated surplus amount could not fulfill the daily demand of food supply for the affected people. the result showed that the people living in the vicinity the pwr and the cnp were severely affected by elephants raiding of crops. on the other hand, the wild elephants were found to be also victimized by the local people. sometimes the local people killed the wild elephants using shot gun, and by poisoning and through electrocution. the victimized people were found to be having suffered from the problems of compensation. human casualty and elephants mortality twenty five houses were demolished and 15 persons were killed in the buffer zone of pwr and cnp in the two districts whereas four elephants were killed during the study period. human casualty is increasing annually in central nepal by wild elephants. mostly the male elephants killed the human during guarding their crops and properties. elephant mortality is also very high in nepal. five wild elephants have killed out of 22 wild elephants within 2004–2009 in central nepal. a total of 52 wild elephants have been dead (natural and retaliatory) during 1994–july 2013. table 3: food deficit in the affected areas around the cnp and pwr district year 2009 year 2010 remark tp (nrs.) td (nrs.) ts tp (nrs.) td (nrs.) ts affected hh chitwan 750,050 547,150 202,900 1,267,850 1,010,550 257,300 105 parsa 5,107,709 1,988,010 3,119,699 3,090,943 1,602,819 1,488,124 324 grand total 5,857,759 2,535,160 3,322,599 4,358,793 2,613,369 1,745,424 429 grand total us$ 74,148.85 32,090.63 42,058.22 55,174.59 33,080.62 22,093.97 total production (tp), total damage (td), total surplus (ts); 1us$ =nrs. 79 table 4: surplus per household in chitwan and parsa districts district surplus /hhs nrs. annually per person (family size 5.5)/annually surplus per person per month needed per person annually at least for livelihood nrs chitwan 1,932.38 (us$ 24.46) 351.34 (us$ 4.44) 29.27 (us$ 0.37) 72,000 (us$ 911.39) parsa 9,628.70 (us$ 121.88) 1,750.67 (us$ 21.16) 58.35 (us$ 0.74) 72,000 (us$ 911.39) note: if a person spends nrs. 200 for food per day they need nrs.72,000 /year yadav et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 52 crops seasons and damage the crop damage by wild elephant in nepal follows a seasonal pattern with two peak seasons of crop damage (june-july), during maize and wheat maturing period and september-november during rice maturing time (pradhan et al., 2011). rice is the major crop in the terai region of nepal. generally, rice farming is in two seasons i.e., summer and winter, where there the irrigation is available whole year. a similar crops raiding was observed in india where crops damage take place during june to august and october to november, two peak seasons for two types of rice, on cultivated in shallow water and the other in deep water levels (lahkar et al., 2007). yadav (2002) investigated crop damage in eastern nepal by wild elephants that people are severely affected by loss of crops and their life. he also mentioned there is very limited habitat for wild elephants that’s why the damage is higher in eastern nepal. habitat fragmentation many settlements have been occupied the biological corridors habitat of asian wild elephants by migrating people and the current increasing human population. national and international biological corridors of wild elephants have been encroached by about 570 households were in the core and buffer zone of the cnp and the pwr. about 500 hectares of forestland encroached by the people in the bz of cnp at ayodhyapuri vdc-9, bandarjhulla settlement. similarly about 324 hectares of forestland which is international corridors among pwr, cnp and balmiki tiger reserve in nirmalbasti vdc of parsa district has been encroached by about 100 families. 20–25 families have been living in hadikhola vdcs at bhiman. a total of about 1000 hectares (bandarjhulla, nirmalbasti and bhimanchuria areas) of forest lands are occupied by the people. about 2000 people in bandarjhulla, 500 people in nirmalbasti (syaulibazar) and 100–150 people are living illegally in these areas (cnp and pwr offices, 2010). exaggerate damage records in parsa district the quantities of the crop damaged records were found in some vdcs seem as exaggerate in 2009 compared to the crop damage in 2010 in parsa district. the estimated damage in 2009 was us$ 25,165 (nrs. 79 = 1 us$) whereas the crop damage estimated in 2010 was us$ 20,229. in the case of chitwan district the trend of crop damage is in increasing order e.g. damage in 2009 was us$ 6,926 whereas the damage in 2010 was us$ 12,792. in the case of parsa district, respondents might not have provided real damage records to studyteam for 2009, as they might have expected that whatever damage might be compensated by the government. on the other hand the study team might not have clearly explained about the objectives of the research to the respondents during the data collection period in some vdcs. conclusion forty to fifty asian wild elephants were reported to be harboring in central development region of nepal during the study period. now the wild elephant’s population is facing severe problems due to habitat fragmentation in the central terai of nepal. remaining habitat has been also used by the local people for their cattle grazing and collection of fodder and grasses. unscientific exploitation of their habitat has created scarcity of forage for the wild elephants. insufficient forage in the forest compels the elephants to raid the crops in settlements surrounding the habitat. the above activities done by local people and elephants create human-elephant conflict. the poor people living near the elephant’s habitats are severely affected by elephants raiding and demolishing their huts annually. sometimes the elephants were found to be having killed/ injured the local people guarding their crops in their conventional thatched-watching huts.at the same time the affected farmers had also killed the wild elephants through poisoning, using shut gun and through electrocution. government of nepal enforced the relief guidelines, 2010 amended in 2013 to compensate for human casualties and crop damage which are not sufficient to motivate them towards conservation of asian wild elephants. edible and palatable crops preferred by elephants should be discouraged in the cultivation of problematic areas. simultaneously the government should manage the palatable agricultural crops like sugarcane, bananas maize and plenty of fodder trees inside the habitat of elephants. references chalise, m. k. 2008. nepalka samrakshit banyajantu, (nepal’s protected wildlife yadav et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 53 in nepali). shajha prakashan, (a corporate publishing house) lalitpur, kathmandu nepal. dhungel, s. and adhikari, b. 1994. buffer zone vital minimize people park conflict. in kathmandu post national daily newspaper, kathmandu, nepal. october 30, 1994. dnpwc. 2009. the 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series cambridge-9, 13. williams, a. c. 2002. elephants (elephas maximus), and their habitats in rajaji-corbet national park, northwest india. a thesis for the degree of doctor of philosophy in wildlife science, saurashtra university rajkot, india. yadav, b. r. and chalise, m. k. 2013. nepalma jangali hatti ra manis bicha dwanda (conflict between elephant and human in nepal). 18th wildlife week, 2070 bs. dnpwc/govt. of nepal. yadav, b. r. and chalise, m. k. 2012. jangali hatti ra manis tatha dwanda (wild elephant and human and conflicts). world environment day june 05. hamro sampada 12 (1): 84–89. yadav, b. r. 2005a. asian wild elephant-human conflicts and measures to reduce the damage due to elephants in eastern nepal. 10th wildlife week. department of national park and wildlife conservation, babarmahal kathmandu, nepal. yadav, b. r. 2005b. assessment of crop damage by asian wild elephants in jhapa district eastern nepal. banko janakari 13 (1): 50– 56. yadav, b. r. 2005b. asian wild elephant (elephas maximus) in eastern nepal. the journal of forestry 12 (3): 68–81. yadav et al. banko janakari, vol. 24, no. 1 54 yadav, b. r. 2005d. “human-elephant relationship and conflicts in eastern nepal”, endangered elephants, past, present and future. proceedings of the symposium for human-elephant relationships and conflicts sri-lanka, colombo, august 2005, 90–92. yadav, b. r. 2002. elephant (elephas maximus) – people interface in east nepal. m.sc. thesis, agricultural university of norway, norway. yadav, g. 2007. human-elephant relationships and in eastern nepal. environment conservation 1 (1): 93–99. yadav et al. 144 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 the spread of mikania micrantha is causing a serious threat to native ecosystem in the tropical and sub-tropical parts of nepal. the main objective of the study was to analyse the effectiveness of different control measures applied in the grasslands of chitwan national park (cnp) by comparing number and coverage of m. micrantha and native grass species. the three experimental sites were grassland of the cnp. these sites were delineated from etrex 30, global positioning system (gps) and gis 10.3.2 in april, 2013. a block with size of 100 m x 100 m was separated by fire line on all sides for each treatment in each site. systematic sampling with random start was used to establish sample plots within each block. six sample plots were established in each block. the size of each plot was 2 m x 0.4 m (0.8 m2). the distance between one sample plot to another sample plot was 40 m. three treatments applied in three blocks of each site were controlled fire, manual cutting and control (no treatment).seedlings of m. micrantha and native grasses were counted and their coverage assessed in each plot. the coverage and number of native grass species were higher in controlled fire plot than in manual cutting and control plots. the study concludes that controlled fire is better than manual cutting and control treatments for the management of grassland. this study will help to different stakeholders to control its outreach, make polices, proper management of grasslands that are being affected by the invasion of m. micrantha. key words: control measures, grassland, mikania micrantha, national park, native grass species effectiveness of control measures of mikania micrantha on grassland: a case study from grassland in sauraha area of chitwan national park u. aryal1*, b. h. wagle2, b. lamichhane3, a. parajuli1 and p. thapa1 mikania micrantha, a perennial vine native to tropical, central and south america, is a pest in plantation crops and commercial forests, from mauritius to west africa and across asia (hills, 1999). it is one of the top 100 worst weeds in the world (holm et al., 1977). it is a fast growing, perennial climber, commonly called mile-a minute weed, because of its vigorous and rampant growth habit. it has been reported to grow to 27 mm a day (www.issg.org/database). m. micrantha is listed as one of the worst invaders (holm et al., 1977; lowe et al., 2000). it has been called a plant-killer since it causes native species to disappear and homogenize the invaded landscape (zhang et al., 2004). in nepal, m. micrantha was first reported in 1963 in the eastern part (tiwari et al., 2005) and spreading towards the western part, which now recorded in 20 terai districts of nepal (rai et al., 2012 a). likewise, m. micrantha is assessed as one of the six high risk posed invasive alien species in nepal (tiwari et al., 2005) and later on, it is considered to be the most problematic in terrestrial ecosystem in eastern and central nepal (poudel et al., 2005). in chitwan national park (cnp), m. micrantha was found to be the most serious weed among the eight invasive species in terrestrial ecosystem (sapkota, 2006). since 1960s, various attempts have been made to control m. micrantha by applying mechanical, biological and chemical methods (bogidarmanti, 1989). in practice, spraying chemicals may be the easiest way to control m. micrantha. however, the possibility of environmental contamination and public health risks, if chemicals are used to control the widespread weed m. micrantha,is of 1 department of forests, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal *e-mail: aryal.upendra37@gmail.com 2 institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal 3 national trust for nature conservation-biodiversity conservation center 145 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 great concern. using biological control may have a risk that the agent may convert into invasive itself in long-term. herbicides are effective in controlling this weed but they cause serious environmental problems (zhang et al., 2004). consecutive cutting of the vines (mechanical technique) is found appropriate to control the growth of m. micrantha, without having any ecological negatives (kuo et al., 2002). mechanical control is very labour intensive and uneconomical. the manual operation is becoming quite popular to control the growth of m. micrantha in many asian countries. to control the m. micrantha, these options are suitable (i) the government can implement a large-scale control programme due to availability of cheap labour, (ii) local forest users are managing about one-fourth of the country’s total forests, so they can participate in the m. micrantha cutting operation, and (iii) manual cutting has no side effects, so they are the causes for appropriateness for manual cutting in nepal. uprooting, cutting and burning by local forest user groups failed to produce the expected results in the buffer zone of the cnp, nepal (rai et al., 2012a). employing regular cutting operations can modify understorey shade enhancing regeneration of native species, which is a desirable condition to constrain proliferation of m. micrantha. competitiveness of m. micrantha was reduced by periodic cuttings regardless of canopy openness, but native ground cover should be retained (rai et al., 2012b). in order to improve native ecosystem, targeting only to eliminate invasive species would not work properly, hence it needs to be addressed by an effective management strategy. thus, manual cutting could be an appropriate strategy; however, it demands significant amounts of labour and time (rai et al., 2012b). control burning is considered as one of the cheapest and most effective ways to rejuvenate pasture and rangeland. fire can improve wildlife habitat, decrease hazardous fuels by reducing litter accumulation, and decrease undesirable woody shrubs and “invader” plants. at the same time, fire improves the productivity and nutritive quality of forage grasses (kjellsen and higgins, 1990). the grassland conservation council supports a balanced approach to restoring and maintaining grassland with prescribed fire is an important tool for restoring and maintaining grassland. increasingly, prescribed fire is major aspect of using fire as a habitat restoration tool; its role in the management of invasive plants, which can include annuals, perennials and woody species. managing invasive plants focuses on the use of fire (ditomaso et al., 2006). despite there have been various efforts to control the m. micrantha, there is lack of information to put forward the proper control mechanism of the most problematic terrestrial invasive species of the country. this paper analyses the effectiveness of different control measures applied in the grasslands of the cnp through comparison of number and coverage of both invasive (m. micrantha) and native grass species. even though, the survey was carried out after short period (5 months) of treatments applied, this study attempts to answer two research questions: i) it considers which control measure is most appropriate to control m. micrantha in grassland ? and ii) which control measure will promote native grass species most ? materials and methods study site the study was carried out at sauraha area in eastern sector of the chitwan national park (latitude: 27°35’ north and longitude: 84°29’ east) (fig. 1). permanent plots were established by national trust for nature conservation (ntnc) for using and estimating the effectiveness of different control measures of m. micrantha in the grasslands located at padampur and icharni islands near to rapti and dungre rivers. this area has monsoon dominated sub-tropical climate with average monthly maximum temperature 24°c–38°c, monthly minimum temperature 11°c–26°c, average rainfall 2,437 mm/year and relative humidity 89–98% (thapa, 2011) and comprises the grassland habitat with major native tree and grass species clerodendrum infortunatum (bhant), trewia nudifloria (gutel), saccharum spontaneum (kans), imperata sp. (siru), etc. table 1 depicts the description of treatments applied in the experimental sites. aryal et al. 146 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 fig. 1: study area table 1: description of treatments applied treatment name description controlled fire controlled burning was carried out within the block in april and then the block was protected from fire and grazing. manual cutting all vegetation (i.e. both m. micrantha and native grasses) within the block were removed from ground level by manual cutting in april and the area was protected from fire and grazing. control (no treatment) treatment was not applied within the block and it was also protected from fire and grazing throughout the period. design for application of treatments the three experimental sites were delineated from etrex 30, global positioning system (gps) and gis 10.3.2 in april 2013. within each experimental site, three blocks were designed for three different treatments (table 1). each block was comprised of 1 ha (100 m x 100 m) and it was separated by fire line on all sides. the three different treatments in each block were applied as shown in figure 1. systematic sampling with random start was used to establish sample plots where six sample plots of size 2 m x 0.4 m were designed in each block having same treatment. the plot to plot distance was 40 m and the plot layout is shown in figure 2. thus, number of replication and total number of sample plots for each treatment were 3 and 18, respectively. data collection number of m. micrantha seedling and native grass were counted and their coverage was assessed through visual examination in each sample plot. the treatments were applied in april, 2013 and the inventory was carried out after five months i.e. in september. fig. 2: experimental design and lay-out of sample plots data analysis the data were analysed by assessing average number and coverage of both invasive (m. micrantha) and native grass species. one way anova followed by post hoc least significant difference(lsd) at 5% level of significance was used to compare the effect of different treatments on the variables considered in this study. results and discussion effects on regeneration of m. micrantha summary statistics of number of m. micrantha seedlings and its coverage in different blocks are presented in table 2. zero value of m. micrantha in minimum value column suggests that there was at least one plot without any m. micrantha. the number of m. micrantha seedlings was found the least in controlled fire block (7.9 per plot) followed by manual cutting (19.6 per plot) and the highest in control block (30.1 per plot). coverage of the m. micrantha seedlings also followed the same pattern as that of number i.e. the least in controlled fire plot followed by manual cutting and the highest in control plot. analysis of variance (anova) showed that the effect of treatments on number of m. micrantha seedlings was significant and least significant aryal et al. 147 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 difference (lsd) test revealed that the number of m. micrantha seedlings in controlled fire block was significantly lower than in control block (p=0.016, n=18) (table 3). the difference between the average number of seedlings of m. micrantha in control and controlled fire blocks (-22.7) suggests that the regeneration of m. micrantha can be reduced by 73.8% by controlled fire. similarly, it can be reduced by 34.9% in manual cutting block. the coverage of m. micrantha was 58% less in controlled fire and 18.8% less in manual cutting than that of the control block. however, one way anova at 5% level of significance failed to reveal a significant difference in coverage of m. micrantha among the blocks (p= 0.299). table 3: statistics of lsd test on number of m. micrantha seedlings treatment mean difference p-value controlled fire control -22.7* 0.016* manual cutting -11.7 0.193 control (no treatment) controlled fire 22.2* 0.016* manual cutting 10.4 0.245 manual cutting controlled fire 11.7 0.193 control -10.4 0.245 * significant at 5 % level of significance rai et al. (2012b) concluded that manual cutting could be an appropriate strategy to maintain the native ecosystem in an invaded area by constraining the growth of m. micrantha but in case of grassland it seems different. the lowest number and the least coverage of m. micrantha in controlled fire block suggest that controlled fire is more effective than manual cutting in controlling m. micrantha in grassland. similarly, more coverage and number of m. micrantha vines in control (no treatment) block could be due to its vigour growth in natural situation (kuo et al., 2002). effects on regeneration of native grass the summary statistics of number and coverage of native grass in all blocks are presented in table 4. in contrast to m. micrantha, the number of native grasses were found the highest in controlled fire block (513.7 per plot) followed by manual cutting block (279.1 per plot) and the lowest in control block (243.7 per plot). one way anova at 5% level of significance revealed that the difference in number of native grass species among the three blocks was significant and then lsd test was also performed. the number of native grasses in controlled fire block was more than double (2.1 times) as compared to the control block and the difference was significant (p=0.031, n=18) (table 5). similarly, regeneration of the native grass was 1.1 times higher in manual cutting than in control block. the difference between the manual cutting and the control block was not significant at 5% level of significance, but significant at 10% level of significance (p= 0.059, n=18). table 2: descriptive statistics related to number and coverage of m. micrantha treatment total number of plots (n) number per plot coverage (%) mean st. dev. min. max. mean st. dev. min. max. controlled fire 18 7.9 12.7 0 43 10.0 23.4 0 90 control 18 30.1 32.0 0 106 23.9 27.8 0 90 manual cutting 18 19.6 30.7 0 124 19.4 29.4 0 90 table 4: descriptive statistics of number and coverage of native grass treatment total number of plots (n) number (per plot) coverage (%) mean st. dev. min. max. mean st. dev. min. max. controlled fire 18 513.7 491.3 5 1780 67.6 32.9 5 99 control 18 243.7 246.3 16 941 56.1 30.5 6 98 manual cutting 18 279.1 312.8 22 1277 50.4 29.2 10 98 aryal et al. 148 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 the coverage of native grasses was found the highest in firing block (67.6%) followed by control block (56.1%) and the lowest in manual cutting (50.4%). analysis of variance failed to show significant effect of treatments in coverage of the native grasses (p=0.569). table 5: statistics of lsd test on number of native grass treatment mean difference p-value controlled fire control 270.1 0.031** manual cutting 234.7 0.059* control (no treatment) controlled fire -270.1 0.031** manual cutting -35.4 0.772 manual cutting controlled fire -234.7 0.059* control -10.4 0.245 *significant at 10% level of significance ** significant at 5% level of significance according to bot and benites (2005), fire is considered as the best management tool for grassland management which promotes native grass species. in initial phase, burning destroys the litter layer and so diminishes the amount of organic matter returned to the soil. and, our results also support it. the finding of this study is in line with many literatures like grassland management with prescribed fire by stubbendieck et al. (2007) and grasslands: benefits of management by fire by kjellsen and higgins (1990) which states about fire and its importance in grassland management as well as positive effects of fire in regeneration on grassland. conclusion this study has compared the effectiveness of treatments applied to control m. micrantha invasion in the grasslands of chitwan national park. controlled fire was found better than the manual cutting to control invasion of m. micrantha. controlled fire not only constrains the growth of m. micrantha but also promotes the growth of native grass species. therefore, we concluded that controlled fire could be an appropriate strategy to maintain the m. micrantha invaded grassland in the cnp. since the present study was based on one-time data and few treatments, further study with the data from different seasons of the year and with various treatments would be useful. references bogidarmanti, r. 1989. impact of mikania spp. on forestry and agriculture land (in indonesian). bulletin penelitian hutan 511: 29–40. bot, a. j. and benites, j. 2005. the importance of soil organic matter: key to droughtresistant soil. fao soils bulletin 80. ditomaso, j. m., brooks, m. l., allen, e. b. and minnich, r. 2006. control of invasive plants with prescribed fire. in the use of fire as a tool for controlling invasive plants. cal-ipc publication 2006-01. california invasive plant council: berkeley, ca. 56 pp. chapter 2, page no. 7. hills, l. 1999. mile-a-minute url http://www. nt.gov.au/dpif/pubcat/agntes/535.htm. accessed on 03/1/2017. holm, l. g., plucknett, d. l., pancho, j. v. and herberder, j. p. 1997. the world’s worst weeds, distribution and biology. university press of hawaii. kjellsen, m. l. and higgins, k. f. 1990. grasslands: benefits of management by fire (book fs857). u.s. fish and wildlife services south dakota cooperative fish and wildlife research and south dakota cooperative extension service southdakota state university, u.s. department of agriculture. usa kuo, y. l., chen, t. y. and lin, c. c. 2002. using a periodic cutting method and allelopathy to control the invasive vine, mikania micrantha h. b. k. taiwan j for sci. 17: 171–181. lowe, s., browne, m., boudjelas, s. and poorter, d. m. 2000. 100 of the world’s worst invasive alien species. a selection from the global invasive species database. published by the invasive species group a specialist group of the species survival commission of the world conservation union. new zealand: hollands printing ltd. aryal et al. 149 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 poudel, a., baral, h. s., ellison, c. a., subedi, k., thomas, s. and murphy, s. 2005. mikania micrantha weed invasion in nepal. a summary report of the first national workshop for stakeholders held on 25 november, kathmandu, nepal. rai, r.k., scarborough, h., subedi, n. and lamichane, b. 2012a. invasive plants – do they devastate or diversify rural livelihoods? rural farmer’s perception of three invasive plants in nepal. journal of nature conservation 20 (3): 170–176. rai, r. k., sandilya, m. and subedi, r. 2012b. controlling mikania micrantha hbk: how effective manual cutting is? journal of ecology and environment 35 (3): 235–242. sapkota, l. n. 2006. invasive alien species in chitwan national park, nepal. m. sc. thesis. institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, pokhara, nepal. stubbendieck, j., volesky, j. and ortman, j. 2007. grassland management with prescribed fire the board of regents of the university of nebraska. (book ec07-148). university of nebraska extention. unl.edu/publication. thapa, t. b. 2011. habitat suitability evaluation for leopard (pantherapardus) using remote sensing and gis in and around chitwan national park, nepal. ph.d. thesis. wildlife institute of india, dehradun. india. tiwari, s., adhikari, b., siwakoti, m. and subedi, k. 2005. an inventory and assessment of invasive alien plant species of nepal. iucn-the world conservation union, nepal. zhang, l. y., ye, w. h., cao, h. l. and feng, h.l. 2004. mikania micrantha h. b. k. in china – an overview. weed research 44 (1): 42–49. aryal et al. banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 37 community based forestry is seen in many countries as a way to enhance sustainable forest management through close involvement of local people. this paper aims to develop understanding of local perspectives on criteria, indicators and verifiers for evaluating sustainable community based forest management practices. this study includes ten different forest user groups ranging from full autonomy to semi-autonomy in making decisions regarding forest management practices covering three districts from three physiographic (mid-hill, inner-tarai and tarai) regions of nepal. a village to village approach was used to acquire the perspectives from male, female and different castes. the findings show that local people identified four criteria, 26 indicators and 60 verifiers for evaluating sustainable community based forest management practices. three locally identified criteria were found to be identical with the institutional topdown criteria. the paper concludes that understanding local knowledge, local practice and associated institutions are important to manage forest resources in a sustainable manner. there is also a need to have continuous collaborative works between forest professionals and local people to enhance sustainable forest management. key words: community based forestry, criteria and indicator, evaluation, local people, sustainable forest management locally identified criteria, indicators and verifiers for evaluating sustainable community based forestry: a case from nepal r. k. pokharel1* and k. r. tiwari1 the paper contributes in developing an understanding of local perspectives on criteria, indicators and verifiers for evaluating sustainable community based forestry. it illustrates the people’s perspectives from three different community based forest management practices ranging from full autonomy to semi-autonomy in making the decisions regarding forest management practices. this paper defines semi-autonomy and full autonomy as an executive body composed of local people with and without representation from the government officials, respectively. we assume that people make the decisions independently regarding forest management practices if there is no representation from the government official in the executive body. it is likely that representation from the government in the executive body may have some kind of influence in making the decisions, particularly in managing forest resource with an interest of the government officials rather than people’s interests. local people considered government officials as an expert in the respective areas and often trust and accept their views accordingly (kumar, 2000; pokharel, 2000). managing forest resources in a sustainable way is a challenge in a country where people are dependent on forest resources for their livelihoods. people use forests for a number of things such as grazing for livestock, fuel wood for cooking, timber for construction of houses and agricultural tools, and ntfp collection, processing and sale. munang et al. (2011) reported that about 410 million people are highly dependent on forests for subsistence needs and income. they also estimated that 1.6 billion people indirectly depend on forest goods and services for their livelihoods. community based forestry is seen in many countries as a way to enhance sustainable forest management through close involvement of local people. principally, community based forestry invites local people to join their hands in the management of forest resources and encourage them to involve in different levels of management. however, inviting 1. institute of forestry, tribhuban university, ∗email: ridishp@gmail.com banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 38 people to involve in different levels of management varies from one place to another depending on the context. around one-quarter of forests in developing countries is under the community based forestry (white and martin, 2002 cited by sikor, 2006; shyamsundar and ghate, 2011). the concept of sustainable development was adopted at the united nations conference on environment and development (unced) in 1992 where sustainable forest management has been considered as an integral part of sustainable development (bebarta, 2004). sustainable forest management is the aim of nepal’s community forestry programme (acharya, 2002) and adopted it as one of the models of community based forestry. community forestry is a pioneer and well-established management form of community based forestry in nepal (pokharel, 2009) which is seen as a way to enhance sustainable forest management through direct involvement of local people. evidences show that deforested and degraded forest lands under the community forestry have been reforested and improved in quality. community forestry in nepal has improved biophysical environment / tree generations (gautam et al., 2002; yadav et al., 2003; gautam et al., 2004; nagendra et al., 2008; gautam, 2009; tachibana and adhikari, 2009). sustainability of community based forestry can be understood as the condition of utilization, development, and conservation of forest resources under which the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and future generation of the local people are maintained and enhanced. there is an increasing trend of transferring management responsibility of forests from the government to local community. transferring the management responsibility to local people is seen as one way of making the forests sustainable. however, simply by transferring management responsibility to local people alone cannot guarantee the sustainability of community based forestry. a self-monitoring tool is essential that allows local people to track the progress of forest management towards the goal of sustainability. criteria and indicators are being promoted internationally as a basis of user group self-monitoring (louisa and edwards, 1995). although some studies (such as pokharel, 2005; pokharel and larsen, 2007, 2009; pokharel and suvedi, 2007; pokharel and tiwari, 2013; pokharel et al., 2015) have focused on local knowledge for developing criteria and indicators, little attempts have been made to make the evaluation system transparent. there is a trend of manipulating things by the people in power in favour of afno manche (relatives or friends) in nepal (pokharel and larsen 2009) which makes transparency important to motivate forest users and to encourage people to join in the work being done. the paper identifies criteria, indicators, and verifiers for evaluating sustainable forest management practices as perceived by local people. materials and methods study area and data collection this study covered ten different forest user groups from three community based forest management (cbfm) practices (community forestry, buffer zone community forestry and collaborative forest management) of three different districts (tanahu, chitwan and bara) representing mid-hills, innertarai and tarai regions of nepal (fig. 1). fig. 1: map of the study areas three different districts from three different physiographic regions (one district from each region) were chosen as study sites to observe the difference in perceptions and management practices. among three districts, tanahu represents mid-hills, chitwan lies in innertarai region, and bara represents tarai. tarai is characterized as flat area which stretches from east to west of nepal. two forest user groups from community forestry were chosen from each district and two forest user groups each from buffer zone community forestry and collaborative forest management were chosen from chitwan and bara districts, respectively. forest user groups pokharel and tiwari banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 39 from different forest management models were selected by using three key criteria: i) user group managing natural shorea robusta (sal), ii) user groups have less intra group conflicts, and iii) user groups are interested to share their ideas. s. robusta is a major timber species that generates high income and is considered one of the important aspects for sustainability of community based forestry (pokharel et al., 2015). a series of discussions were held with district forest offices of the respective districts on user group selection criteria. two community forest user groups (sapankot odare and kyamin hariyali) from tanahu district, four forest user groups (two buffer zone community forest user groups – bandevi barandabhar, and chitrasen and two community forest user groups – dhudhakoshi and jaldevi) from chitwan district, and four forest user groups (two collaborative forest management user groups – balkhoriya and sahajnath and two community forest user groups – pragatishil and thanimai) from bara district were selected as study sites. a village to village approach suggested by pokharel and helle in 2009 was used for gathering information, particularly to cross check the information and acquire the perspectives from male, female and different castes. ten meetings were conducted with ten different forest user groups (one meeting for each forest user group) individually. one of the meetings held with thanimai community forest user group (cfug) is given in figure 2. fig. 2: meeting with thanimai cfug the participants for the meeting were selected with the assistance of the chair or secretary of the executive committee. the duration of the meeting was from 2 to 4 hours. the meeting venue was office buildings mostly except in one forest user group (kyamun hariyali) as people from kyamun hariyali felt comfortable to hold meeting in an open place rather than in office building. we directly approached forest users for small groups meetings since the authors were familiar with the local situation and the cfugs. we first contacted a random individual in the field and requested him or her to take us to chair/secretary or invite a few more individuals for small group meeting including chair or secretary. the average group size of the meeting was 13.77 (±7.21). during the meeting, they were asked to identify criteria, indicators and verifiers for a sustainable community based forest management. the criteria and indicators were listed by researcher on a flip chart until no criteria and indicators were suggested. after finishing the list of criteria and indicators, the researcher read out the list aloud and the participants discussed the relevance among themselves. the researcher encouraged especially women to voice their opinion during the discussions. an effort was made to include women for the meeting. results and discussion size of forest user groups and participants’ characteristics the size of households of ten forest user groups ranged from 210 to 27,121. they had managed forests in a range of 84 to 2,058 hectares of natural forests along with small areas of plantation. among the participants in the meeting, one-fifth (20%) was female and the remaining (80%) were male. the average age of the participants was 44.09 years (±11.59 years) and the average age of female and male found to be 37.68 years and 45.71 years, respectively. getting involved women and poor in the meeting was challenging. generally, women and poor feel comfortable relatively to attend a public meeting if they are invited by their relatives, neighbours or local leaders rather than an outsider. although the researcher made the effort to include women for the meeting the result was not satisfactory. in few cases, women's presence in the meeting was nil. this may be due to their busy schedule as it was the season for rice harvesting. pokharel and tiwari banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 40 criteria, indicators and verifiers the montreal process (1995) defines a criterion as a category of conditions or processes by which sustainable forest management may be assessed. the process also defines indicator as a measurement of an aspect of the criterion. prabhu et al. (1999) defines an indicator as any variable or component of the forest ecosystem or management system used to infer the status of a particular criterion. indicators are often used to measure changes, particularly when changes cannot be measured directly (who, 1981). for this study, we defined criterion as an aspect of forest management that is considered important by which sustainable forest management may be assessed. similarly, we defined an indicator as a quantitative, qualitative or descriptive attributes that indicates direction of change in a criterion when measured or monitored periodically. and verifiers are the data or specific information collected for assessing an indicator. local people considered four aspects that are considered important in managing their forests and identified them as criteria which obviously helped them to assess or judge the sustainable forest management practices. they are i) extent of resources, ii) economic and social benefits, iii) forest management practices, and iv) institutional framework and governance. similarly, itto (2005) stated that a total of seven criteria [ (1) extent and condition of forests (2) biological diversity (3) forest ecosystems health (4) forest productions (5) soil and water protection (6) socio-economic benefits and needs and(7) legal, policy and institutional framework] were agreed globally for sustainable forest management which may be seen as institutional top-down criteria. these criteria are related to environmental, socioeconomic, institutional, and social aspects. the locally identified criteria are related to environmental, socio-economic, social and institutional aspects. the identified three criteria (number 1, 2 and 4) found to be identical with other studies (fao, 1999a, 1999b; undp, 1999; itto, 2005; ccfm, 2006; pokharel and larsen, 2007; jalilova et al., 2012). however, they are presented in a different way. the criteria number 3 is similar with the findings of pokharel and larsen (2007) and also matches with the criterion number 4 of institutional top-down criteria (such as undp, 1999; itto, 2005) as both focus on social aspect. however, it is presented differently in the institutional top-down criteria as forest production. maintaining forest production requires management so it can be grouped as same i.e., forest management practices. local people considered forest management practices as one of the criteria for sustainable forest management as it is the only way of legally fulfilling basic forestry needs of rural people in a community managed forests and also improving the forest health. similarly, local people identified the total of 26 indicators and 60 verifiers for evaluating sustainable community based forest management practices. they identified six and eight indicators and 13 and 18 verifiers under the first and second criterion, respectively (table 1). similarly, they identified seven indicators and 11 verifiers for the third criterion. for the fourth criterion five indicators and 18 verifiers were generated locally (table 1). while discussing, they related it with their day-to-day and identified criteria, indicators and verifiers. people identified forest condition, forest growth and harvest, greenery, forest ground coverage, changed forest area over time, and wildlife in forest as indicators for the first criterion i.e., extent of forest resources. status of tree species, regeneration status, trees with different classes, canopy cover, good shape trees, forest area with destructive weeds were identified as verifiers to determine forest condition. the findings of this study, particularly, verifiers to determine the forest condition are similar with other studies table 1 locally identified criteria, indicators and verifies for a sustainable cbfm sn criteria no. of indicators no. of verifiers 1 extent of forest resources 6 13 2 economic and social benefits 8 18 3 forest management practices 7 11 4 institutional framework and governance 5 18 total 4 26 60 pokharel and tiwari banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 41 (pokharel and larsen, 2007; pokharel and suvedi, 2007). status of valuable tree species is important for motivating people towards management as people may require less walk to find timber for construction of their houses and furniture and also facilitate to maintain diversity in the forest. higher diversity of tree species is likely to maintain resource level in forests leading to sustainability. higher species diversity is associated with their long term stability, allowing for niche diversification and low extinction rates (stebbins, 1974). frequency of seedlings and tree distribution per unit area is considered as a major indicator of stand structure. and stand structure with capacity of supplying diverse products in a sustainable basis is an indicator of sustainable management. destructive weeds and climber were increasingly seen in the forest and people perceived it as verifier to determine forest condition. destructive weeds and climber are the threat to tree species and may displace them as people explained during the discussion and they are in an increasing trend in their forests which may pose threat to the sustainability as well. people were conscious about how much forest products especially timber is being harvested from forest and put it as an indicator to determine whether forest management practice is sustainable or not. determining the sustainable forest management practice requires knowing how much timber is available and how much being harvested and replanted each year (ccfm, 2006). forest land conversion into other land-use is one of the problems in nepal and people identified it as an indicator for the extent of forest resources. higher the conversion of forest land into other land use is likely to make less availability of forest resources. forest land conversion is driven primarily by the expansion of agriculture and urbanization. the construction of permanent roads has also converted the area of forest land into other landuse in nepal. the number of verifiers varied from one to six for each single indicator under the extent of forest resources (annex 1). people feel that socio-economic issues are important and need to be addressed to motivate rural people towards forest management and its sustainability as well. community based forestry is essential about sustainable management of both people and forest resources which may lead resource degradation if it is not managed properly. social sustainable is important to consider for sustainable management in community based forestry. the management system in a common property like forest is likely to break down if it is not socially sustainable resulting in environmental degradation (arnold and steward, 1998).the distribution of costs and benefits are equally important to make people adhere to rules and regulations. if costs and benefits are equally distributed among the members, adherence to regulation is more likely (singh, 2002). awareness of people towards the importance of forestry, participation of people in forestry works, access to benefits, distribution of benefits, motivational works towards forestry, employment through forestry, generating common funds through forestry, and mobilization of forestry funds are identified as indicators to decide economic and social benefits. benefit sharing is considered as an important indicator for the sustainable management of community based forestry (hobley, 1996; pietrowicz, 2000; james and karan, 1997). for each indicator, the number of verifiers varies from one to four under the criteria of economic and social benefits (annex 1). local people perceived forest management practices as an important activity that allows extraction of forests products legally from the forest and considered it as one criterion for sustainable forest management. pokharel and tiwari (2013) argue that forest management is an essential activity that not only makes the forest healthy and productive but also allows local people to extract forest products legally by ensuring their participation in the management practices being applied. operational plan at community forestry is a required document which explains the ways of managing the forests focusing to different activities such as real forest condition, forest protection systems, and forest product extraction and distribution. mismatch between the real forest conditions and adopted management plan is likely to lead ineffective management practices. studies (such as pietrowicz, 2000; hobley, 1996) argue that most of the failure cases in resource management are because of mismatch between the real condition of the resource and adopted management plan. local people identified silvicultural operations, plantation activity, incidence of forest fires, block divisions, wetland in forest, grassland in forest, and pokharel and tiwari banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 42 recreation area in forest as indicators to determine forest management practices. although forest fire is considered as essential element of forest management, it is often seen by local people as destructive in nepal’s community based forestry and identified forest fire as indicator to determine forest management practices. forest fires are an essential element of forest renewal as they help control insect and disease damage and eliminate litter that has accumulated on forest floors (ccfm, 2006). some species of trees actually require the intense heat generated by forest fires to release their seeds (ibid). local people see institutional aspect as important criteria for evaluating sustainable community based forestry. an institutional framework and governance is essential to put the policy into practices and also sharing the benefits. a favourable community based forest management policy is likely to attract people in the management. during the discussion, local people reflected that a favourable government policy made them to get involved in community based forestry. they realized the necessity of local institution in order to manage forest resources for a long run and also emphasized the need of good governance. good governance is considered necessary in realizing the full potential of community forestry in contributing towards the goal of poverty reduction (pokharel and tiwari, 2013a). local people think that governance is equally important for effective forest management and also giving the continuity to the management for long run by involving local people. local people identified policy, leadership, composition of executive body, transparency and office management as indicators for tracking the progress on institutional aspect of forest management towards the goal of sustainability. organizational leadership behaviors have a direct influence on actions in the work environment that enable change (drucker, 1999; gilley, 2005; howkins, 2001). the verifiers ranged from two to six for different indicators under institutional framework and governance (annex 1). wetland, grassland, recreation area in forest, motivational works towards forestry and office management are new indicators suggested by this study for a sustainable cbfm. wetland and grassland indicators were reported only by forest user groups from buffer zone community forestry. local people think wetland is important for wildlife. loss of wetland in a forest may indicate loss of habitat, food, and shelter for wildlife. wetland is important as it provides essential habitat to a myriad of wildlife species including migratory birds (ccfm, 2006). the report also states that forest wetlands are major sources of recharge for ground water and also for regulating flows of surface water. conclusions understanding local knowledge, practice, and associated institutions are important to manage forest resources in a sustainable manner. there is a need to have continuous collaborative works between local people and forestry professionals for sustainable management. there is also a need to develop self-monitoring tool that allows local people to track the progress of forest management towards the goal of sustainability. criteria, indicators, and verifiers are considered as self-monitoring tool to evaluate a sustainable community based forest management practices. local people identified four criteria, 26 indicators and 60 verifiers for evaluating sustainable community based forest management. the identified criteria are found to be identical with the institutional top-down criteria. similarly, wetland, grassland, recreation area in forest, motivational works towards forestry, and office management are new indicators suggested by local people to evaluate a sustainable community based forest management practices. locally developed criteria, indicators and verifiers for sustainable community forest management can provide a local picture of what to consider for assessing a sustainable cbfm. since the identified indicators are common mostly in buffer zone community forestry, community forestry and collaborative forestry they can be combined together to develop a single set of c&i and verifiers as a monitoring tool for evaluating a sustainable community based forest management practices. references acharya, krishna p. 2002. twenty-four years of community forestry in nepal. international forestry review 4: 149 — 156. arnold, j. e. m and steward, w. c. 1998. community property resource management in india. report to the pokharel and tiwari banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 43 india agriculture division of the world bank,washington dc, usa. bebarta, kailash c. 2004. forest resources and sustainable development: principles, perspectives and practices. concept publishing company, new delhi, india. canadian council of forest ministers (ccfm). 2006. criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management in canada: national status 2005. canadian forest service, natural 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1981. development of indicators for pokharel and tiwari banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 45 monitoring progress towards health for all by the year 2000, geneva. world health organization, rome, italy . yadav, n. p., dev, o. p., springate-baginski, o. and soussan, j. 2003. forest management and utilization under community forestry. journal of forest and livelihood 3 (1): 37— 50. undp. 1999. criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management in sadc countries within the framework of the dryzone africa process. in undp/fao/sadc meeting, lilongwe, malawi, december 1998, un development programme, new york. pokharel and tiwari banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 46 annex 1: locally identified criteria, indicators and verifiers criteria and indicators verifiers criterion 1. extent of forest resources • forest condition • composition of tree species • regeneration status • trees with different age classes • canopy cover of forest • good shape trees in forest • forest area covered by destructive weeds and climber • forest growth and harvest • amount of timber and fuel wood harvested from forest in a year • presence of greenery • area covered by vegetation • number of springs in forest • forest ground coverage • open area in forest floor • changes in forest areas over time • changed forest area into other land use over time • wildlife in forest • occurrence of wildlife in the area • livestock killed/attacked by wildlife in the area criterion 2. economic and social benefits • awareness of people towards the importance of forestry • households showed up voluntarily to participate in forest related works • number of meeting conducted for awareness • trees on private land • participation of people in forestry activities • households showed up in general assembly • households showed up in forest management activities • access to benefits • households obtained benefits • distribution of benefits • poor/marginalized households received benefits • wood received by forest dependent people • motivation works towards forestry • welfare funds/allowance through forestry funds • financial support through forestry funds to forest dependent people for income generation activities (iga) • subsidy received through forestry funds for alternative energy • scholarship through forestry funds • employment through forestry • local people hired as labour or staffs • received skill oriented training • households involved in iga through forestry funds • generating common funds through forestry • amount of income generated through forest products • amount of income generated through other sources such as recreation and tourism • mobilizing of forestry funds • investment through forestry funds criterion 3. forest management practices • silvicultural operations (ban godne) • silvicultural operations (ban godne) conducted regularly • promoting valuable tree species • plantation activity • conducted plantation activity • incidence of forest fires • occurrence of forest fires in forest areas • fire lines in forest pokharel and tiwari banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 47 • block divisions • block divisions in the forest • wetland in forest • prevalence of wetland in the forest • ponds created artificially • grassland in forest • prevalence of grassland in the forest • grassland created artificially • recreation area in forest • forest area allocated or created for recreation criterion 4. institutional framework and governance • policy • existence of national policy • rules exist for forest products collection • leadership • punctuality in pre-determined programmes • democratic mindset • performed activities • knowledge on forest policy • sensitive on forest operational plan and cfug constitution • healthy • nature of the executive committee • inclusive (gender and marginalized people) • transparency • citizen charter • public notice • public hearing • performed activities • sub-committee • office management • office building • office outlook • office assistant • meeting held pokharel and tiwari prediction models for above-ground wood of some fast growing trees of nepal's eastern terai h. b. thapa1 biomass study of acacia auriculiformis, acacia catechu, dalbergia sissoo, eucalyptus camaldulensis and eucalyptus tereticornis was conducted on a five and half years old 'fuelwood species trial under short rotation' through destructive sampling at tarahara, sunsari district of nepal. the lowest furnival index (fi) was the main criteria for selecting a model. among the six models tested, the transformed model ln w= a + b ln dbh from a power equation w = a dbhb (w = weights of stem or branch or aboveground wood in kg, dbh= diameter at breast height in cm) was selected. selected prediction models of tree components and above-ground wood (green as well as oven dry), and their coefficient of determination (r2) values, regression constant and coefficient, correction factor, precision and bias percent of five species are presented. with the exclusion of branchwood models, r2 is higher in a range of 88.7% for oven dry stemwood of acacia catechu to 99.3% for above-ground wood model of dalbergia sissoo. however, r2 is less than 80% in branchwood (green and oven dry) of acacia auriculiformis, eucalyptus camaldulensis, and eucalyptus tereticornis showing moderate relationship between branchwood and dbh. in the case of e. tereticornis, precision is more than 49% which leads to low reliability in biomass estimation resulting in true biomass deviation in a range of about 49.51% to 56.74%, so biomass model's could not be used for estimation of tree components and above-ground wood. despite it, generally, precision percent of the selected models has been found less than 15%. bias percent was found quite large for allometric branchwood model comparatively to stemwood and above-ground wood models. d. sissoo had less than 10 % bias. bias percent was the highest (23.11%) for green branchwood of acacia auriculiformis. others had in a range of 0.5% for green aboveground wood model of d. sissoo to 18.4% for green and oven dry branchwood models of e. tereticornis. keywords: prediction models, wood biomass, fast growing trees, terai, nepal e stimation of biomass yield is an important tool in the management of forests both for the large scale plantations and the small village woodlot. the established plantations always require appropriate estimates of growth and production so that forest managers and plantations owners can make decisions for further planning and management. growth models and development of biomass (stem, branch, above-ground wood, leaf, root) tables based on these may help quantify and compare firewood production of various fast growing tree species of a particular locality. moreover, keeping in view of increasing number of forest user groups (fugs) in the terai, there is an acute need to develop an above-ground wood (stem and brance) model for established community plantations to quantify the wood biomass for distribution and sale. this will ensure the productivity of the site for further management. the exiting situation of plantations based on short rotations in the terai region is still in infancy (hawkins 1987). although, the forestry research and sagarnath forestry development projects have identified some promising fast growing firewood species for plantations and smaller community woodlots under short rotations (white 1986) in the central terai/bhabar region of nepal. however, the results of this region may not be applicable without verification for the eastern terai where no biomass models for the fast growing tree species have been developed yet. and, to achieve it a fuelwood species trial under short rotation' was set up in july 1985 at tarahara in the eastern terai with the five fast growing fuelwood tree species acacia auriculiformis, acacia catechu, dalbergia sissoo, eucalyptus camaldulensis and eucalyptus tereticornis. it is expected that the result of the present study will fill the gap, in quantifying established plantations. 1 research officer, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 thapa methods the reliability of green weight regressions is higher when trees are harvested during the winter months. the data (dbh, height, green weights of stem and branch) were collected in january 1991 from five and half years old trees planted at a spacing of 2.5 m x 2.5 m at tarahara (for description of the study site see thapa,1998). twenty trees each of acacia auriculi formis and dalbergia sissoo, twenty two trees of acacia catechu, twenty one trees of eucalyptus camaldulensis and seventeen trees of eucalyptus tereticornis were cut down for this purpose from the four replicates. percentage dry matter values of the samples were used to convert fresh to oven dry weights for the general data for the development of oven dry wood models. green weights of tree components were kept outside for about one month to find out the conversion factor to change green weight to air dry weight figures. regression analysis of variance was performed on six models using minitab for green and oven dry weights of tree components and above-ground wood of five species to find out the values of regression constant a and coefficient b, coefficient of determination (r2), fvalue, residual mean squares. the regressor variables used were diameter at breast height (dbh), square of dbh, square of dbh and height (d2h), ln dbh, ln dbh and ln height; dbh and height independently to find out the best model. the relation was determined to select the best fitted prediction equation for green and ovendry weights of tree components and above-ground wood. this method was based on the assumption that the two variables are connected by a straight line relationship (mountford and bunce 1973). the following six models (linear and allometric) were chosen on the use of these for biomass study by many researchers: model i w=a+bx (i) model ii w=a+bxj + cx2 (ii) model iii w=a+bx2 (iii) model iv w = a+bx (iv) model v w=a+xb after logarithmic transformation, lnw = a'+blnx (v) model vi ln w = a' + b ln x, + c ln x2.... (vi) where: w= estimated green or oven dry weight of tree components (stem and branch) and above-ground wood (stem plus branch) in kg. x = diameter at breast height in cm (overbark) x] = diameter at breast height in cm (overbark) x2= total height (m) to the tip of tree a' = ln a in model iv x = square of diameter at breast height (cm2) times height (m) i. e. d2 h the standard deviation and coefficient of determination are not suitable to compare weighted and transformed models having different dependent variables (unnikrishnan and singh 1984). so comparisons of the above six models were made by an index developed by furnival (1961). since the logarithmic transformation changes the distribution of residuals causing a slight underestimation in biomass prediction (meyer 1941; baskerville 1972; mountford and bunce (1973), pukkala et al. (1990), and sprugel (1983), a correction factor was added to the equation as follows: 0= exp (s2/2) i. e. es s/2 where s2 = residual mean square of the regression equation 0 = correction factor bias (%) was calculated using the formula given by brown (1976) uncorrected biomass (green and oven dry tree components and above-ground wood) was calculated using the model exp^a + b ln dbh^ whereas corrected biomass was calculated using the model exp (a + b ln dbh + c. f.) wjiere c> £ stands for correction factor (annex 2). results close relationship were determined between the green and oven dry wood biomass of branches (including twigs without leaves), stemwood including bark and total above-ground wood respectively and the breast height diameter (logarithmic transformed) for all the five species. £ ■o w figure 1: regression of ln above-ground wood (green) 5 5 versus ln dbh of acacia auriculiformis 5 4.5 4 ; *•* 3 2.5 2 1 5 actual ln aboveground wood regression line 1.5 2.5 ln dbh (cm) 29 thapa banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 the transformed logarithmic model v, ln w = a + b ln dbh with dbh as independent variable was selected for biomass estimation of above-ground wood and tree components, since it has the lowest fi in most cases (annex 1). the regression lines with observed values of green above-ground wood of acacia auriculiformis, a. catechu, d. sissoo and e. camaldulensis are shown in figure 1 to 4. the actual green above-ground wood (agw) weights of a. auriculiformis were found to be less than the predicted values in lower diameters (up to about 7.5 cm) indicating a slight bias. actual green agw weights of a. catechu were found more than the estimated values (13 out of 22 data i. e. 59% of the total sample data) in lower and higher diameters (figure 2). coefficient of determination (r2) is higher in a range of 88.7% for oven dry stemwood of a. catechu to 99.3% for agw of d. sissoo in selected regression equations. however, r2 is less than 80% in branchwood (green and oven dry) of a. auriculiformis, e. camaldulensis, and e. tereticornis showing moderate relationship between branchwood and dbh (annex 2). figure 2: regression of ln aboveground wood (green) 2 o) u) 6 5.5 5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 versus loge dbh-acac/a catechu actual ln above-ground wood _ regression line 1.5 2.5 ln dbh (cm) 3.5 figure 3: regression of ln above-ground wood (green) versus ln dbh of dalbergia sissoo < 5 1 1 .5 ; lndbi i 2 h (cm) .5 : with the exclusion of e. tereticornis, precision percent ranged 11.28 for green stemwood of acacia catechu to 16.24 for oven dry stemwood of d. sissoo, 14.20 for oven dry branchwood of e. camaldulensis to 19.62 for green the inclusion of height as an additional variable did not improve the precision as well as r^ and residual mean squares significantly, and similar case for exclusion of outliers. bias percent was quite large for allometric branchwood model in comparison to stemwood and agw models. d. sissoo had less than 10 % bias. bias percent was the highest (23.11%) for green branchwood of a. auriculiformis. others had in a range of 0.5% for green agw model of d. sissoo to 18.4 for green and oven dry branchwood models of e. tereticornis (annex 2). branchwood of d. sissoo, 12.84 for green agw of a. catechu to 16.81 for oven dry agw of d. sissoo. precision percent of branch wood models was found quite lower than the models of stemwood and agw. precision percent of selected models used for branch, stem wood and agw (green and oven dry) of e. tereticornis was found more than 49 percent (annex 2) resulting in an unreliable estimates of tree components and agw. discussions hawkins (1987) useing both dbh and height as predictor variables for biomass estimation of some species in the central/bhabar terai of nepal, he found that measurement of total height was time consuming and also created large errors. there was only a small increase in the precision of regressions with the inclusion of height, while the time increased three times due to height measurement in the field inventory. dbh is the preferred predictor variable of biomass per unit area for practical reasons and simplicity of measurement in the field (applegate et al. 1988). an additional variable height is not necessary as a predictor variable from the cost point of view, if equally efficient prediction models are available with dbh alone (tondon et al. 1988). obviously, various researchers findings clarify the benefit of using predictor variable dbh alone. so far the biomass equation (ln w = a + b ln dbh) could be used elsewhere for these species with conditions similar to tarahara, but may not be appropriate to a wide geographical area. however, these equations need to be tested for validation by destructive sampling for each of these species but prediction error should be under 15 % (hawkins 1987) of actual weights. if the prediction error is within 15 % of the actual weights, the models can be used safely in that place. oven dry and green wood biomass models are produced for single tree species 30 banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 thapa separately but not for mixed stands. no such mixed plantations in large scale have yet been established at the district level, however, such models may have importance in future. on the one hand, wood biomass models developed using the single predictor variable, dbh, which could be measured easily with less error than height, may increase the utility of these models to develop weight tables to the forestry sector as well as to the community and interested individuals. on the other hand, single tree biomass tables developed using dbh as the only variable have been found to be reliable for undamaged trees of a number of species in nepal (raeside 1986 quoted in thompson 1990; hawkins 1987). however, the benefit of dbh use lies in the fact that if the relationship (weight and dbh) is valid for a sufficiently large plantation area and if it does not change over a period of time, then the model can be used in subsequent inventories. again this relationship breaks down if the tree has been lopped or pruned, in such situations, a new set of models for the development of biomass tables are essential for the pruning operation (thompson 1990). the above equetion is necessary to change the nonlinear power equation (w = a dbh11) to a linear form. moreover, in the above power equation, the relation between w and dbh is non-linear, the transformed variables ln w and ln dbh are connected by the straight line relationship (mountford and bunce 1973). for weighted and transformed models with different dependent variables, the standard deviation and coefficient of determination are not suitable to compare these models (unnikrishnan et al. 1984). in such case, furnival index can be used for comparing and selecting the models with the lowest fi. it has the concept of maximum likelihood and reflects both the size of residuals and possible departures from linearity, normality and homoscadasticity (mohd 1988). the precision is lower in the equation of branchwood of a. catechu and d. sissoo except e. tereticornis as compared to the stemwood and agw equation. it is subjected to large variation in the sample data from the mean (i.e. standard error of the mean being large). in the case of e. tereticornis, it is more than 49% which accounts for low reliability in biomass estimation resulting in true biomass deviation in a range of about 49.51% to 56.74% (annex 2). the sample data of this species did not represent the 10-15 cm diameter class. due to a big gap in the sample data and low precision of the selected models, biomass tables need to be developed only after validation. biomass estimation in other species is reasonably accurate, since precisions are mostly under 15 % i.e. actual yields are within 15 % of the estimated wood biomass. before using the air dry weight conversion factors for stem and branchwood of these five species, they may need to be verified for confirmation, if the duration of drying for green stem and branchwood of these species is less than or more than one month, or samples are dried, or are in large quantity, etc. most of the equations of tree components and agw consists of a coefficient of determination greater than 90% indicating a strong relationship between tree dbh and component weights and agw. however, r^ in branchwood equation of a. auriculiformis, e. camaldulensis and e. tereticornis was found to be quite low, which indicates a reasonable relationship between branch weight and dbh. furthermore, it indicates more variability in the form of trees. the general assumption of increasing branchwood with the increase in size of trees is not true here. the predictive biomass equations developed in this paper are an early attempt to estimate the tree components of these species in the eastern terai of nepal. as suggested by hawkins (1987) the models need to be revised and improved in due course when more data and new establishment methods and management techniques will be developed. however, these models have importance in providing reliable estimates of existing plantations of these species at present. conclusions and recommendations selected model ln w = a + b ln dbh (green as well as oven dry) would be valuable for forest managers, forest user groups and private growers to quantify the yield in their plantations managed on short rotations in the eastern terai to make informed decisions for further management, distribution, and sale of products. but, it is necessary to validate these models before using them elsewhere. if the prediction error is within 15 % of the actual weights, the models can be used safely in that place. due to low precision of the regression models of tree components and agw (oven dry and green) of £. tereticornis, caution should be taken in the apply these models elsewhere. the models need to be tested and improved in due course time when new management methods and management techniques will be developed. references applegate, b., gilmour d. a. and mohns bernhard 1988. biomass and productivity estimations from community forest management: a case study from the hills of nepal-i. biomass 31 thapa banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 and productivity of chir pine [pinus roxburghii sargent) plantations. biomass 17: 115-136. baskerville, g. l. 1972. use of logarithmic regression in the estimation of plant biomass. canadian journal of forestry research 2 (1): 49-53. beauchamp, john j. and olson, jerry s. 1973. corrections for bias in regression estimates after logarithmic transformation. ecology 54 (6): 1403-1407. autumn 1973. brown, k. 1976. estimating shrub biomass from basal stem diameters. canadian journal of forestry research 6 (2): 153-158. chippandale, g. m. and wolf, l. 1981. the natural distribution of eucalyptus in australia. australian national parks and wildlife service, canberra. furnival, m. 1961. an index for comparing equations used in constructing volume tables. forest science 7 (4): 337-341. hawkins, t. 1987. biomass and volume tables for eucalyptus camaldulensis, dalbergia sissoo, acacia auriculiformis and cassia siamea in the central/bhabar terai of nepal. oxford forestry institute, department of plant sciences, university of oxford. ofi occasional paper no. 33. kojak, a. 1970. methods of ensuring additivity of biomass components by regression analysis. forestry chronicle 46, 402-404. meyer, h. a. 1941. a correction for a systematic error occurring in the application of the logarithmic volume equation. pa. state forest school research. paper 7, 3 p. mohd, w. r. 1988. modelling the tree growth in mixed tropical forests i. use of diameter and basal area increment. journal of tropical forest science 2:114-121. mohns, b., applegate, g. b. and gilmour, d. a. 1988. biomass and productivity estimates for community forest management: a case study from the hills of nepal-ii. dry matter production in mixed young stands of chir pine [pinus roxburghii) and broad-leaved species. biomass 17: 165-184. mountford, m. d. and bunce, r. g. h. 1973. regression sampling with allometrically related variables with particular reference to production studies. forestry 46 (2): 203-212. pukkala, t.; sharma, e. r. and rajbhandari, m. d. 1990. a guide to biomass modelling for forest inventory in nepal. publication no. 51, forest survey and statistics division, ministry of forests and environment, kathmandu. sprugel, d. g. 1983. correcting for bias in log transformed allometric equations. ecology 64 (1): 209-210. thompson, i. s. 1990. biomass tables and inventory. banko janakari (a journal of forestry information in nepal) 2(4): 356-362. forest research division, babar mahal, kathmandu, nepal. tondon, v. n, pande, m. c. and singh, r. 1988. biomass estimation and distribution of nutrients in five different aged eucalyptus grandis plantation ecosystem in kerala state. indian forester 114 (4): 184-199. unnikrishnan, k. p. and singh, r. 1984. construction of volume tables: a generalised approach. indian forester 110: 561576. white, k. 1986. tree farming practices in the bhabar terai of central nepal. manual no. 2. sagarnath forest development project. ministry of forests and soil conservation. 32 thapa banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 annex 1: furnival indices for six models of oven dry weights of four species models are as follows: model i: w = a + b d model ii: w = a+ bd + ch model iii: w = a + b d2 model iv : w = a + b d2h model v: ln w = a + b ln dbh model vi: ln w = a + b ln dbh + c ln h where: w = tree component weights; dbh = diameter at breast height (cm); h = intercept; b = slope total height (m); a = species models i ii iii iv v vi acacia auriculiformis stem wood 6.02 5.79 6.28 4.25 3.34 2.18 branch wood 5.61 ___ 15.90 19.26 2.08 2.13 above-ground wood 5.30 3.99 4.13 3.41 2.46 acacia catechu stem wood 5.96 6.11 4.47 4.20 4.15 4.49 , branch wood 6.52 5.83 4.45 5.26 1.74 1.75 above-ground wood 10.77 10.49 5.74 7.00 5.41 5.44 dalbergia sissoo stem wood 3.59 3.69 1.82 1.45 1.44 0.73 branch wood 2.33 2.01 1.62 1.90 1.00 1.00 above-ground wood 5.12 5.13 1.73 1.97 1.37 0.93 eucalyptus camaldulensis stem wood 6.78 6.89 5.10 5.10 4.90 4.85 branch wood 1.40 1.31 1.31 1.45 0.79 0.89 above-ground wood 6.85 6.83 4.79 5.20 4.60 4.70 furnival indices for six models of green weights of five species i ii iii iv v vi acacia auriculiformis stem wood 14.10 13.60 14.70 10.00 7.80 14.70 branch wood 13..08 12.05 11.71 4.85 4.92 above-ground wood 12.41 12.73 9.33 9.64 8.00 5.66 acacia catechu stem wood 12.92 13.27 9.70 9.73 9.65 9.50 branch wood 14.93 13.35 10.20 12.04 3.94 3.92 above-ground wood 24.12 23.39 12.81 15.72 6.55 6.56 dalbergia sissoo stem wood 11.70 11.70 4.00 4.47 3.13 2.12 branch wood 5.34 4.60 121 4.32 2.41 2.41 above-ground wood 8.16 8.40 4.13 2.75 2.60 1.58 eucalyptus stem wood 16.24 16.43 12.23 12.23 5.50 13.75 camaldulensis branch wood 16.46 16.33 11.39 12.47 10.60 14.32 above-ground wood 3.60 3.38 3.40 3.73 2.06 2.09 eucalyptus tereticornis stem wood 15.78 14.73 6.00 2.00 1.92 1.08 branch wood 5.43 4.73 3.05 1.97 1.05 0.06 above-ground wood 21.07 19.36 8.77 2.83 1.94 1.53 single underline indicates the lowest furnival index followed by the second lowest by double underline. 33 banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 thapa annex 2: intercept, slope, r , precision (%), correction factor, bias (%) and conversion factor from green weight to air dry and oven dry weight regression model for green and oven dry weight for all species: ln w = a + b ln dbh, where: dbh = diameter at breast height (cm) w = weights of tree components and above-ground wood species green weight oven dry weight acacia auriculiformis stem branch stem + branch stem branch stem + branch intercept -1.64 -3.97 -1.63 -2.49 -4.85 -2.48 slope 2.28 2.75 2.40 2.28 2.76 2.41 r2 (%) 92.5 77.7 95.9 92.4 77.6 95.9 precision (%) 13.02 16.46 13.85 13.04 16.6 13.95 correction 0.041 0.211 0.024 0.041 0.213 0.024 factor (s.e.2/2) bias (%) 4.0 23.1 2.4 4.1 19.2 2.4 conversion factor for green to oven dry weight conversion factor for green to air dry weight stem branch stem branch 0.426 0.429 0.74 0.57 species green weight oven dry weight acacia catechu stem branch stem + stem branch stem + branch branch intercept -4.300 -6.02 -1.517 -2.15 -6.91 -2.51 slope 0.434 3.56 2.33 2.17 3.58 2.43 r2 (%) 95.3 87.9 92.0 88.7 87.6 92.7 precision (%) 12.3 19.51 14.50 11.35 19.55 15.10 correction 0.0405 0.118 0.0318 0.0405 0.1225 0.0314 factor (s.e.2/2) bias (%) 4.0 11.1 11.1 4.0 11.2 11.2 conversion factor for green to oven dry weight conversion factor for green to air dry weight stem branch stem branch 0.460 0.437 0.52 0.67 species green weight oven dry weight dalbergia sissoo stem branch stem + stem branch stem + branch branch intercept -2.30 -5.12 -2.28 -3.15 -5.88 -3.13 slope 2.58 3.25 2.69 2.59 3.22 2.70 r2 (%) 98.7 93.0 99.3 98.7 93.7 99.3 precision (%) 16.16 19.62 16.73 16.24 19.23 16.81 correction 0.0055 > 0.0895 0.0055 0.010 0.078 0.0055 factor (s.e.2/2) bias (%) 0.6 8.9 0.5 0.9 7.5 0.6 conversion factor for green to oven dry weight conversion factor for green to air dry weight stem branch stem branch 0.438 na 0.79 0.68 34 thapa banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 species green weight oven dry weight eucalyptus stem branch stem + branch stem branch stem + camaldulensis branch intercept -1.9353 -3.57 -1.739 -2.8094 -4.52 -2.6204 slope 2.5799 2.25 2.539 2.5806 2.24 2.5397 r2 (%) 91.1 79.5 92.0 91.1 79.5 92.1 precision (%) 14.65 15.80 14.50 14.89 15.75 14.40 correction 0.0694 0.138 0.0595 0.0690 0.138 0.0588 factor (s.e.2/2) bias (%) 6.7 12.9 5.8 6.7 12.6 5.7 conversion factor for green to oven dry conversion factor for green to air dry weight weight stem branch stem branch 0.418 0.387 0.62 0.55 species green weight oven dry weight eucalyptus stem branch stem + stem branch stem + branch tereticornis branch intercept -2.03 -4.53 -1.91 -3.02 -5.53 -2.90 slope 2.47 2.75 2.49 2.47 2.75 2.49 r2 (%) 98.2 80.5 98.7 98.2 80.5 98.7 precision (%) 50.79 56.74 51.24 49.51 56.09 50.60 correction i 0.012 5 0.2035 0.0095 0.0125 0.2035 0.0095 factor (s.e.2/2) bias (%) 1.3 18.4 0.9 1.2 18.4 0.9 conversion factor for green to oven dry conversion factor for green to air dry weight weight stem branch stem branch 0.37 na 0.61 0.58 na not available 35 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 62‒63 62 rajbhandari and amatya zanthoxylum rhetsa (roxb.), a new record for nepal k. r. rajbhandari1* and g. amatya2 1. g. p. o. box 9446, kathmandu, nepal. *e-mail : krrajbhandari@yahoo. com 2 tahachal, kathmandu, nepal zanthoxylum l. is a genus belonging to the family rutaceae. it is represented by 200 or more species distributed in the pantropical region and extending to the temperate latitudes in e. asia and e. north america. it is characterized by evergreen or deciduous shrubs, trees or woody climbers, leaves alternate, odd-pinnately 3to many foliolate or sometimes digitately 3-foliolate, inflorescence panicle, fruit follicular (zhang and hartley, 2008). eight species of zanthoxylum have been reported from nepal (press, 1979; press et al., 2000; phuyal, 2011; rajbhandari et al., 2015). recently, a specimen of zanthoxylum collected from surkhet district of west nepal has been identified as zanthoxylum rhetsa, (fig. 1) this species has not been reported before from nepal and is a new addition to the flora of nepal. fig.1 herbarium specimen of zanthoxylum rhetsa zanthoxylum rhetsa (roxb.) dc. prodr. 1 : 728 (1824). fagara rhetsa roxb., fl. ind. 1 : 438 (1820). nepali name : rukhboke timur, gaai simal rukh. english name : indian pepper, indian prickly ash. evergreen or deciduous trees, up to 25 m high; main trunk with conical prickles; branchlets sparsely prickly. leaves alternate, compound, paripinnate or imparipinnate, 30-45 cm long; petiole and rachis usually prickly; leaflets 5-33, opposite and subopposite, ovate-oblong or lanceolate, base oblique, apex caudate-acuminate, acumen 1. 5-3 cm long, margin entire to remotely crenate with glands in sinuses of crenatures, 7-19 x 3. 0-6. 5 cm, chartaceous to coriaceous, glabrous; petioles 2-7 mm long. panicles terminal or pseudoterminal (from uppermost leaf axil), 10-25 cm long, peduncle and axes glabrous to puberulent, sometimes prickly. male flowers 1. 5-2. 5 mm long; pedicels 1-2 mm long; sepals 4, ovate-triangular, obtuse, subentire or fimbriate along margins; petals 4, valvate, elliptic-oblong, obtuse, white or creamy yellow; stamens 4; anthers oblong, yellow; disk pulvinate; pistillode solitary. female flowers 1. 5-2. 5 mm long; pedicels, sepals, petals as in male flowers; staminodes absent; disk pulvinate; gynoecium 1-carpellate; stigma truncate; fruiting pedicels 1-4 mm long; follicles single, globose, apiculate, 5-7 mm across; seeds globose, 4-6 mm across, bluish-black. distribution : india, nepal, bhutan, bangladesh, sri lanka, myanmar, vietnam philippines, indonesia. short note banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 62‒63 63 rajbhandari and amatya ecology : occurs in the forest; 950-1100 m. fl. : april june. fr. : sept. -nov. specimen examined : west nepal : surkhet district, chaukunne rural municipality, 28o52’n, 81o20’e, 996 m, 2018. 9. 15, g. amatya s. n. (kath). use : fruits are used as a spice. the wood is used for light construction of agriculture tool handle. leaves are used for livestock fodder in acute shortage period. references phuyal, n. 2011. rutaceae. in : catalogue of nepalese flowering plants – 2 : dicotyledons (ranunculaceae to dipsacaceae) (eds). rajbhandari, k. r., bhattarai, k. r. and baral, s. r. (eds.), national herbarium and plant laboratories, department of plant resources, godawari, lalitpur, nepal, 63‒65. press, j. r. 1979. rutaceae. in : hara, h. and williams, l. h. j. (eds.), an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal vol. 2. british museum (natural history), london, 81‒83. press, j. r., shrestha, k. k. and sutton, d. a. 2000. annotated checklist of the flowering plants of nepal. natural history museum, london. rajbhandari, k. r., bhatt, g. d., chhetri, r. and rai, s. k. 2015. catalogue of nepalese flowering plants supplement 1. national herbarium and plant laboratories, department of plant resources, godawari, lalitpur, nepal. zhang, d. and hartley, t. g. 2008. zanthoxylum l. in : flora of china vol. 11 (eds) wu, z., raven, p. h. and hong, d., science press, beijing, china and missouri botanical garden press, st. louis, u. s. a., 51‒66. 130 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 migration borne depopulation has been emerging as a new dimension of conservation challenges. existing body of knowledge, however, lack in-depth understanding of this emerging dynamics of depopulation and its forestry implications. aiming to analyze implications of migration borne land use transition, this study investigated the nature and impacts of migration in rural communities involved in managing community forestry and other tree resources this study was grounded in the experiences and perceptions of community forest users groups in parbat and lamjung districts and applied a pragmatic approach to social science, involving the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data. a total of 218 semi-structured interviews, two focus group discussions and three stakeholders’ consultations were conducted. spatial changes in land use were analyzed using landsat images of 2000 and 2016 and other existing land use maps.the study found decreasing trend of population growth and identified out-migration of local youth as the main driver. identified underpinning causes motivating for migration include desire of higher education, employment and resettlement, poverty and poor access to education, markets and other opportunities. this study found negative correlation between migration and farming activities but positive correlation between forest and tree coverage. forests and other woodland increased but none forest area, most of which were farmlands, decreased. community forests were getting denser but they lack proper management, abandoned farmlands were turning into bushes, which have increased the risk of forest fire. this study showed very poor understanding of redd+ and related issues at community level and suggests substantial gaps in policies and procedures to translate migration borne land use transition into opportunities for generating multiple benefits including carbon finance as an additional benefit. key words: community forestry, land use, migration, redd+ linking land use and forestry transition with depopulation in rural nepal m. poudel1*, g. kafle2, k. khanal3, s. dhungana1, b. n. oli4, a. dhakal5 and u. acharya6 depopulation refers substantial reduction in population (cambridge dictionary) and migration is considered the major reason behind ((wikipedia). human migration is the movement of people from one place to another with the intentions of settling, permanently in the new location in most cases (dietz and rosa, 1994). migration from rural areas to urban areas has been substantially contributing depopulation in rural areas globally (okhankhuele and opafuns, 2013). as reported by todaro (1997) movement of people from the country sides to cities of africa, asia and latin america has been considered as an unprecedented phenomenon in the history. such movements are often over long distances and from one country to another. bremner and hunter (2014) reported an estimation of 230 million international migrants by 2013 and projected to over 400 million by 2050. in addition to transcountry (international) migration, internal (within country) migration is also prominent across the globe; indeed, this is the dominant cause of rural depopulation globally (todaro, 1997). analyzing coupled social and ecological systems are crucial for deeper understanding of human migration. studies have identified several causes and consequences of human migration. todaro (1997) reported that poverty and insecurity prevailing in rural areas are the primary reasons for migration. he warned huge environmental consequences of human migration across the globe. an investigation by henry et al. (2004) in burkina faso found migration as a coping 1 redd implementation center, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal; *e-mail: mohanprasadpoudel@gmail.com 2 freelancer forester 3 wwf/hariyo ban project,nepal 4 ministry of forests and environment 5 freelancer rs gis expert 6 freelancer economist 131 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 strategy of poverty and environmental stresses. warner (2010) argued that migration and displacement are multi-causal issues and interact with environmental factors which affect social and environmental outcomes. deforestation and forest degradation in many cases are believed to be outcome of human migration. meeting migration borne demand of fuel wood, timber, agricultural lands and other resources has been considered a major challenge in tackling deforestation and forest degradation and conserving biodiversity and providing environmental services in a sustainable manner particularly in urban and sub urban areas. contrary to the above studies (e.g. basnet, 2013; chidi, 2015; henry, 2004; knight, 2003; poudel et al., 2014) highlighted a different consequence of depopulation arguing as an emerging dimension of conservation challenge globally. knight (2003) argued that depopulation leads to changes in local patterns of land uses due to agriculture contraction, increase in fallow lands and wild vegetation with far reaching ecological consequences and food deficit. migration borne conservation concerns have been dramatically changed in nepal in the last two decades. in the past, expansion of agriculture land because of rapid population growth was considered one of the main causes of growing environmental degradation in nepal (ekholm, 1975) but in the last two decades heavy outmigration of population from rural hill and mountain areas has resulted growing land conversion and abandonment (chidi, 2015). a study undertaken in gorkha, nepal by poudel et al. (2014) showed that youth migration for employment and education from rural communities has reduced labour force and the implication is that traditionally cultivated lands have been turning either into bare land or unmanaged bush. basnet (2013) and gautam (2008) also highlighted this issue as a new conservation challenge in nepal’s rural landscape. poudel et al. (2014) revealed positive association between depopulation and tree cover and argued that reduced farming activities as a consequence of youths’ out-migration from rural nepal is likely to offer conducive environment for effective redd+ implementation. despite indicating an existence of correlation, the above mentioned scholars, however, have argued that existing body of knowledge in nepal lack indepth understanding of this emerging dynamics of depopulation and its forestry implications including redd+.the main objective of this study was to reflect emerging depopulation borne issues of land use and forestry transition in the landscape of rural nepal and the specific objectives were: i) to assess what correlation do exist between depopulation and land use practices in rural nepal and explain underpinning reasons, ii) to explain opportunities and challenges of the land use and forestry transition linking redd+, and iii) to provide policy inputs for the government of nepal in the context of redd+ readiness. materials and methods study sites two criteria used in site selection were (i) study sites under the hariyo ban project and (ii) persistence of migration. so the basis of study area selection was that districts under hariyo ban project with persistence of migration issues. study team consulted hariyo ban project staffs and related district forest offices (dfos) and concluded that parbat and lamjung districts are areas of high migration among the hariyo ban project districts. two village development committees (vdcs) namely, arthur in parbat and maling in lamjung were selected as the study sites. dfos and district development committees (ddcs) recommended these sample vdcs based on their official records particularly on migration trend and understanding on other social and environmental contexts driving migration. arthur vdc, parbat district the vdc, also known as arhur dandakharka, is situated (28.21°n 83.78°e) in eastern part of parbat district covering an area of 1,446 ha (fig. 1). walking distance from the district head quarter “kusma” takes about 6 hours and road travel is about 25 kilometer. the area can also be accessed from pokhara and syangja. climate varies from sub-tropical to temperate. the vdc was characterized by a heterogeneous society with mixed castes and ethnicities. major castes living in the area were bramin/chhetri, indigenous (janajati) and dailt comprising 60%, 30% and 10%, respectively. population composition of male and female was 55% and 45%, respectively, poudel et al. 132 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 with average family size of 3.72. the total population of the vdc was 2,818 in 2011 (cbs, 2011). fig.1: location of arthur vdc in parbat maling vdc, lamjung district it is located at western part of lamjung (28.23°n 84.29°e) district covering an area of 2,070 ha in the middle hill region of nepal (fig. 2). climate varies from sub-tropical (sal forest) to temperate (quercusrhododendron forest). walking distance from district head quarter, besi sahar to maling is 5 hours and the road travel is about 40 kilometer. majority of the population belonged to indigenous groups (gurung and magar, 74%), followed by dalit (24%) and other (brahmin/ chhetri, 2%). the total population and households of the vdc were 1,224 and 308, respectively. the female population (54%) was higher than the male (46%) population (cbs, 2011). fig. 2: location of maling vdc in lamjung study methods design this study primarily applied a cross sectional research design that provides the opportunity for an in-depth examination of many viewpoints in the case study sites, at one point in time (kumar, 2011;neuman, 2006). a mixed methods research approach that combines qualitative and quantitative data in a single research design was applied. mixed research approach can be understood as a synergy of both qualitative and quantitative approaches to obtain the complete picture of the phenomenon investigated (bickman and rog, 2009). data collection the research questions demanded diverse data types including qualitative (perceptions and experiences of local people, civil society, development agencies and government agencies), quantitative (demography, income, land and other property holding, etc) and spatial data (images, maps, location, etc). meeting such a diverse data requirements, the study applied the following data collection techniques: household survey: a comprehensive semi structured questionnaire was used for the household survey. total of 218 households (112 from maling and 106 from arthur vdcs) were interviewed using experienced local data collectors. households were selected randomly from vdc record. the research assistant involved and supervised the survey process. other members of the study team also partly joined the survey. household survey was conducted between july and september, 2016. community consultation: a community level consultation meeting was held in each site in october, 2016. community forest user group (cfug) committee members participated in the consultation meetings. two committee members (a male and a female) from each cfug that were functional in the study sites took part for one day consultation meeting. in case of maling where only few cfugs were functional, additional participants from proposed cfugs, local women and dalit representatives were also invited. poudel et al. 133 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 district level and policy level consultations: a district level stakeholder consultation meeting was organized in each district after completing the survey and community level consultations. district level government offices dealing with forestry, agriculture, livestock, local development and social welfare; civil society organizations like federation of community forestry users nepal (fecofun), nepal federation of indigenous nationalities (nefin), himalayan grassroots women’s natural resource management association of nepal (himawanti), federation of nepalese chambers of commerce and industries (fncci), and other related agencies in consultation with dfos were invited for the consultation meetings. the policy level consultation meeting was organized in kathmandu in november, 2016. this consultation meeting shared preliminary findings of the study and sought feedbacks from the participants. spatial data collection: landsat images of 2000 and 2016 were assessed for land use trend analysis. spatial data available in vdc and ddc profiles were used to verify changes in land use and forestry. google maps/images were also used to verify spatial analysis. data analysis data collected using different tools were first organized into a excel sheet so they could be systematically analyzed in detail. this process involved (i) bringing all recordings and notebook entries together (aggregate) (ii) identifying the main themes, (iii) classifying responses under the main themes (disaggregation). qualitative data analysis descriptive information related to each research question were categorized (aggregated) and analyzed to draw findings. the following paragraphs describe the qualitative data analysis process used to address different issues raised by this research. analysis of drivers of migration: local social and economic contexts that might have motivated local people to migrate from their place of origin were assessed. perceptions of local people were noted/recorded during survey, consultation meetings and informal talking were primary data sets for the analysis. migration drivers from each respondent were listed and prioritized based on the frequency (i.e. more the respondents reporting, highest the priority). analysis of forest transition: this analysis drew information on changing activities, values and priorities of forest management (e.g. community, leasehold and private forests) linking with depopulation, particularly focusing on out-migration of youths. experiences and perceptions expressed by the local communities, relevant districts and national level stakeholders were interpreted in the light of the literature. analysis of opportunities and challenges: given that one objective of the study was to understand how out-migration might have offered opportunities and challenges for managing forests and related resources. this study explored livelihood strategies /practices being practiced in the case study sites, and assessed how those livelihood practices have been influenced by migration. identified causes and effects of livelihood practices were interpreted to explore opportunities and challenges emerging for different forest management regimes. analysis of economic potentials of private forestry: this analysis focused on economic prospects of trees grown in private land. accessibility, timber prices, procedural hurdles and availability of skilled human power were some major variables analyzed to understand economic potentials of tree growing and retaining in private land. analysis of potential linkages with redd+: outcomes of all the above analysis were linked with redd+ policy regimes and interpreted its linkages with depopulation that have been experiencing as a result of youth out-migration from rural communities. conclusions and policy recommendations were drawn based on identified linkage between redd+ and depopulation in rural landscape in nepal. collected quantitative data were first arranged and tabulated in spreadsheets of microsoft excel. spreadsheets were then used to display descriptive statistics, to develop figures, charts and graphs from variables of interest. poudel et al. 134 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 those figures and graphs were then used to substantiate related qualitative data. spatial data (land use trend analysis) landsat images of year 2000 and 2016 covering the case study sites were orthorectified for geometric corrections using rigorous mathematical model (toutin’s model) with collected ground control points (gcps) and high resolution digital elevation model (dem). geometrically and atmospherically corrected (for haze and cloud) and classified using object based image analysis (obia) method. rule based classification was done on the segmented image objects using spectral and textural properties. forest and non-forest areas were classified by defining a ‘containment membership function’ for a threshold values for the defined spectral and textural properties of image objects. the gcps were collected using national topographical datasets like road and river vector features. the dem was generated using contours and spot levels from the national topographical data. independent check points (icps) were collected for assessing the accuracy levels of the orthorectification process. results and discussion land use and forestry transition land use transition was assessed comparing landsat images of 2000 and 2016 and complementing from recent google maps, ground controlled points and experiences of local people. overall accuracy of the classification was 93.67% on comparing the forest/non-forest classes with the visually interpreted points. the user’s accuracy was 91.71% in the forest class only. similarly, producer’s accuracy was 79.70% for forest class. this is, however an indication of accuracy based on visual interpretation of google earth images using human judgment. results showed that forest area was increased by 6 % (77 ha) in arthur vdc and 5% (75 ha) in maling vdc between 2000 and 2016. figures 3 and 4 and table 1 show land use and forestry transition in the studied sites. although overall forest area appeared to be increased, there were both way shifts in the land use (table 1). for example, 82 ha under forest in 2000 in arthur shifted into non forest in 2016. on the other hand, 158 ha non forest area was converted into forest area. situation was not very much different in maling also; 66 ha under forest fig. 3: showing changes in forests area in arthur vdc, prabat district fig. 4: showing changes in forests area in malingvdc (2000–2016) poudel et al. 135 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 in 2000 appeared to be converted into non forest while 139 ha non forest area converted into forest. other woodland increased from 17 ha to 24 ha in arthur while changes in other woodland found to be increased by 3 ha in maling. none forest area decreased by 84 ha and 75 ha in arthur and in maling, respectively. fig. 5: illustrating forest loss in case study sites in between 2000 and 2016 figure 5 illustrates spatial locations of land use changes occurred between the two time points 2000 and 2016. looking at forest loss areas, they are mostly in linear fashion suggesting road construction was the main reason behind. spatial alignment of the increased forests and tree cover also, to some extent, appeared to be in linear trend suggesting that marginal land and property boundaries were the first choice for retaining tree in the previously cultivated areas. experiences and perception of local people in the case study sites were very much similar to the outcome of the above spatial (images) analysis. ninety per cent of the survey respondents reported reduced farming activities and increased tree cover in the landscape. participants of the consultation meetings in both sites confirmed the outcome of the spatial analysis of the land use transition. they reported that tree cover in cultivated lands has been increased more rapidly in recent years and most of the newly developed tree cover is in marginal land and around the land parcel boundaries. overall result of the forestry transition analysis is that tree cover has been increased in the study sites. the following section analyses underpinning reasons of the tree cover increasing trend. underpinning reasons behind the trend of forestry transition: this study found reducing trend of human population in the both case study sites. it was reduced by 26% and 34% between 2000 and 2010 in arthur and maling, respectively. total population of 3,436 in 2000 decreased to 2,618 in arthur. for the same period, total population of 1,857dropped to 1,224 in maling. figure 6 illustrates trend of population changes in both sites. research participants also reported table 1: wall to wall land use change matrix in the case study sites wall to wall change matrix (area in ha): 2000-2016 forest non forest other woodland total 2000 site forest 507 82 7 596 arthur non forest 158 555 10 723 other woodland 8 2 7 17 total 2016 673 639 24 1336 forest 840 66 2 908 maling non forest 139 480 6 580 other woodland 4 1 2 7 total 2016 983 505 10 1495 poudel et al. 136 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 similar trend and stated youth migration as the major reason of depopulation in the area. fig. 6: showing population trend in the case study sites responding a concern related to the causes of depopulation, research participants reported “youths out-migration” as the main causes. they also reported that ongoing trend of out-migration has underpinned the increased tree cover in the study sites. there were two categories of human migration in the study sites, namely permanent and temporary. permanent migration involved shifting the whole family from their original place to the new destination. this type of migration found to be negligible comparing to the temporary one. temporary migration involved short term migration with no intention to settle down somewhere else, at least at the time of leaving home at the beginning. education and job seeking were the main reasons of leaving home by youths. seventy-seven per cent youths from maling and 55% youths from arthur (i.e. 69% on an average) were out of their home for temporary employment and most of them were working in golf countries. permanent job holders (government job) were 13% in maling and 36% in arthur (i.e. 69% on an average). fig 7: illustrating reasons of migration from the study sites figure 7 illustrates reasons and percentages of temporary migration. this figure does not reflect youth migration for higher education. on an average, one youth from every two households was leaving home to pursue higher education. the desire to seek higher education was found as one of the factors behind the migration of people from the case study sites. however, trend of leaving home for education was found higher in arthur than that of maling. temporary migration for seeking jobs was higher in maling. most of the participants in the cfugs consultation meeting reported that youths have no choice, so they have to leave their home if they would like to pursue further education after high school. higher secondary level education was started in some cases, although, villagers’ first choice was cities for their children’s higher education. one participant, who has recently sent his son to kathmandu for further education in college, said “the school in the village lacks qualified teachers and teaching materials”. in addition, marginal farm productivity and lack of employment in the village had also forced young people to migrate. in response to a question “what underpins villagers to leave their family?” 55% participants from arthur and 50% from maling reported poverty and 80% from arthur and 75% from maling reported lack of employment opportunities as the main reason underpinning migration. however, these figures do not incorporate migration for higher education. participants stated low productivity, difficult access to market, lack of support in income generating activities and lack of family respect as the underpinning reasons motivating youth to migrate. all of these reasons underpinning migration appeared to be influencing land use practices. almost all research participants reported that farming activities such as crop growing and capacity of livestock holding have been largely affected by the migration. research participants described both positive and negative influences of migration on forest condition. positively, migration reduced farming activities, hence reduced resources consumption. 63% of the household respondents (n=218) believed that the pressure in the forest has been decreased due to reduced number of livestock and firewood demand. according to them, extent of traditional farming has been shrinking each year. an elderly farmer from arthur vdc, parbat said, for example: poudel et al. 137 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 “…because of migration, either old (retired) or disabled people are remaining in the village. this has resulted in a decrease in farming activities hence reduced fire and grazing in the forest…”. on the negative side, however, with so many people migrating, villages lack the manpower to deal with emergency situations like forest fire. a village leader, who has been supporting villagers in establishing community forests in maling vdc. district level stakeholders such as dfos, fecofun leaders and other line agencies totally agreed with the experiences and perceptions reported by the community forest users. local people did not only report an increase in forest but they also reported some losses in existing forest area. explaining reasons behind the forest loss, consulted cfug, members from both sites reported two main reasons (i) road construction and (ii) landslides. one participant of age 34 representing dalit group in maling said “recent trend of road construction in our village has not only destroyed our forests but also increased land slide and soil erosion”. linear features of the deforested area as shown in the classified maps also justify this argument. it was also found that most of the trees being retained in the cultivated land were in linear arrangement and overall crown cover was not exceeding 10%. it was noticed during field visit that trees were mostly coming up in unproductive, marginal and sloppy land. supporting to this, one of the women respondents from arthur vdc argued that villagers prefer to retain tree in less productive, sloppy and marginal land. she said, “productive land parcels are still cultivated and i do not think anyone in the village would like to retain trees there soon”. to sum up, profound out-migration in both study sites resulted several social and environmental outcomes. desire of higher education, poverty, lack of employment opportunities and inaccessibility were some major reasons motivating local people to leave their home. most of the villagers migrated seeking better income and employment. migration has both positive and negative influences in land use and forestry transition. opportunities of emerging forestry transition: findings discussed earlier suggest that migration has not only supported forest protection but also resulted into increased tree cover beyond the forest boundary. land use transition from agriculture to agro-forestry, if not fallow-forestry, has offered several opportunities for managing mountain landscapes in a sustainable manner. opportunity has also been generated in contributing emissions reduction and climate change mitigation. this section examines emerging opportunities and challenges of improved and increased tree cover in the landscape. opportunities for community forestry: reduced demand of forest products has created opportunities for better and diversified management of community forests. high demand of forest products like fodder, firewood, timber and farming tools to meet subsistence requirements are considered major drivers of deforestation and forest degradation (mfsc, 2010). consulted participants including local communities, district level stakeholders and policy actors reported that community forests around the villages have been getting better because of reduced grazing and less firewood and fodder collection. survey data showed that livestock keeping strategy has drastically changed from all time grazing (throughout the year) to stall feeding in most of the households. data showed that average livestock size (including buffalo, cow, goat and sheep) per household were reduced by 36% between 2000 and 2016. average livestock size per household in 2000 and 2016 were 7.5 and 4.5, respectively. looking separately, livestock holding (i.e. 6.5/ hh) in maling was significantly higher than in arthur (i.e. 3/hh). firewood collection from forest was also reportedly reduced in recent years comparing 15 years back. local people from both sites reported three important reasons behind: (i) reduced demand (ii) availability of tree resources in farmland and (iii) use of energy efficient stoves and alternative energy. poudel et al. 138 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 local perception was that grazing, fodder and firewood collection and boundary encroachment for farmland expansion were the major reasons challenging better protection of community forests. they believed that migration has provided an opportunity for making community forestry more sustainable and beneficial for local communities rather than just meeting subsistence requirements. they can sale surplus forest products like firewood, timber and ntfps to the market; they can go for pes such as royalty for drinking water supply; biodiversity and ecotourism. survey result substantiates the above arguments. ninety-four per cent respondents believed that migration has positive effects on community forestry (fig. 8). fig 8: showing local peoples’ perceptions on migration effects to cf responding a concern on potential opportunities of migration on community forestry, district level stakeholders from both districts argued that reduced livelihood dependency on forest opens expanded scope like focusing on income generation through sustainable harvesting and marketing of forest products, benefiting from carbon trading project (i.e. redd+) and other pes projects in the long run. research participants witnessed increased women leadership in rural communities as a result of young male migration. they argued that absence of young male in communities opens more opportunities for women in decision making. opportunities for government managed forests: as in community forestry, migration has directly and indirectly supported forest conservation. dfo officials working in the study sites reported that incidents of illegal activities like timber smuggling, pole cutting, firewood and fodder collection and forest fires have been reduced in recent years. local participants also agreed with the dfo staffs and added that reduced demand as a result of reduced human and livestock population and limited farming activities automatically reduced pressure in the forest. opportunities for private forests: depopulation mostly because of out-migration of youths opens opportunities for expanding tree cover outside the traditional forests in government land. as discussed earlier, so many previously cultivated land parcels have now been converted into forest . although all of such land parcels in the landscape do not fall under the forest definition, they can be considered as tree dominated areas. such a transition opens an opportunity for developing private forestry and exploring economic and ecological potentials. although, assessing opportunity costs of private forest and comparing economic benefits of farming with private forestry was beyond the scope, this study explored local experiences and perceptions on likely economic implications. study participants from both vdcs believed that tree growing in marginal and sloppy areas may be beneficial than that of farming. however, most of them argued that tree growing in productive farmland may not be so unless commercial and multipurpose tree species are planted with easy market access. fifty per cent respondents believed cultivation is the best economic option in most of the previously cultivated areas (i.e. paddy field and other flat terraces) and 38%, however, suggested tree plantation as the better economic option in the previously cultivated areas. they argued that effective and regular cultivation needs intensive daily inputs, which is almost unlikely to be happened because of lacking labourers. rest 12% respondents could not stand themselves to either sides hence said no idea (fig. 9). fig. 9: showing local peoples’ perceptions on economically potential land use practices poudel et al. 139 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 challenges of emerging land use transition for sustainable forestry: this study found several challenges of migration borne depopulation and land use transition for development and sustainable management of forests and tree resources in the case study sites. the following paragraphs describe identified challenges for different management regimes. challenges for community forestry: sustainable management of community forests requires active involvement of local communities throughout the process of its development and implementation. lack of young population in communities appears to be a huge challenge for managing community forests as an approach to deliver multiple benefits including timber, nontimber, medicinal, economic, biodiversity, environmental and social. study participants argued that denser (high density) community forests have high risk of fire not only in the forest but also in the village. increasing tree resources in the farmlands are connecting villages to the forests in many cases. responding a concern “how do you link migration with forest fire incidents”, one of the cfug, chair persons from arthur vdc said: “...if forest fire occurs during the season of migration (winter and early spring) that could be devastating because the village lacks young fire fighters...” he also reported that seasonal migrants sometime access the forest illegally to get required resources (firewood in particular), because they usually miss the regular (annual) distribution. lack of technical understanding on forest management operations like thinning, pruning, and application of fire safety measures has been identified another challenge for effective management of community forests. seventy per cent of the respondents identified migration as one of the main reasons behind lack of proper management of community forests. they argued that elderly people taking care of cfugs lack required energy, skill and enthusiasm to plan and implement silvicultural operations in their forests. so they simply impose tight rules and protect forests rather than utilizing sustainably. challenges were also identified in capacity building. despite delivering several capacity building activities like training, communities were lacking skilled human power like harvesting operators, nursery workers and ntfp collectors. consulted local communities reported that most of the trained youths have migrated and as a result activities could not be implemented effectively and efficiently. income generating activities also could not be undertaken effectively because there were no young and interested people available in the village. challenges for government managed forests: this research could not find many migration borne challenges for government managed forests. forest fire was one of the few challenges. as discussed earlier, access to forests for grazing and other activities reduced in recent years mainly because of migration. as a result, mostly understory forest become dense and increase fire hazard. another challenge reported was the wildlife human conflict. local people reported that wildlife (e.g. monkeys, leopard and wild pig) population have been increased in the forest, so there are incidents of crop damages and cattle losses. government agencies will have to find better solution of these challenges. challenges for private forests: despite increased tree coverage in the landscape and associated opportunities as discussed earlier, this research identified several challenges for private forestry. ninety per cent of the respondents were worried about possible degradation of their land, fire occurrences, wildlife attacks and other crimes hiding behind the bushes. it was observed during field visit that abandoned cultivated lands were partly covered by bushes and bamboos and partly remained fallow. despite having potentials of growing multiple tree species and income generation, land owner were getting nothing from it. inaccessibility and procedural hurdles were also found to be challenging private forest development. although both vdcs were connected with seasonal road network, substantial areas in the vdcs were still out of road access to export timber to market. seventy-eight per cent of the respondents appeared reluctant to retain tree in their land. they argued that there is no meaning of retaining trees in the farmland if there is no scope of marketing. it was not only inaccessibility demotivating landholders to retain trees in their land but also procedural hurdles. poudel et al. 140 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 they reported several steps to be followed to get timber harvesting permission from district forest offices. all of the participants including survey respondents and other committee members reported that getting permission and delivering timber to the market is beyond the scope of the villager. local contractors can only manage to get through and as a result tree grower are forced to sell their trees to the local contractors. implication is that tree growers lacked bargaining power and forced to sell at the lowest price. few contractors operating in these sites were also not facing problems mainly because of unavailability of labours and high production cost. one local contractor in parbat reported that per unit cost in less accessible areas gets higher than the timber available in the market. policy gaps in addressing migration borne forestry transition: importance of private sector in addressing land use, forestry and climatic issues as discussed have been realized in recent years. recent policy shows that various initiatives to onboard private sector at the policy and institutional level have been undertaken. in the last few years some major policies like the climate change policy (2011), the land use policy (2014), the rangeland policy (2012), forest encroachment control strategy (2012), biodiversity strategy and action plan (2014), forest policy (2015) and forestry sector strategy (2016) have been approved with recognition of private sector in managing environmental services. all of these policies pave important pathways towards sustainable forest management and reducing deforestation and degradation through. however, most of the legal, regulatory and institutional arrangements are not revised in the spirit of these newly promulgated policies. at the same time the transition towards a federal governance system would further delay the process. full implementation of the policies may be compromised until these regulatory and institutions are reformulated. based on current practices, this study found a huge policy gap in main streaming private forestry, migration borne forestry transition in particular. first and foremost gap identified was lack of promotional private forestry policy. as discussed in the challenges section earlier, existing policies and practices of private forestry are not easy to comply with. private forestry activities are regulated under private forest policy. the policy has regulatory provisions like registration of each and every tree, harvesting procedures to be followed and the requirement of transportation permission. however, local communities and tree growers were found unaware of policy provision. ninety percent of the survey respondents had no idea about the policy provisions. participants in the consultation workshops reported that local people know nothing about legal procedures to be followed while harvesting and marketing tree products. implications are that they cannot fix the price of their tree products. the contractors fix the price and tree growers have no option to agree with that. consulted district level stakeholders, entrepreneurs, civil society representatives and some policy level officials agreed that existing policy on private forestry regulates but does not promote tree growers. an entrepreneur operating a small saw mill and furniture shop in besisahar said for example: “ steps to be followed for getting harvesting and transporting permits from district forest offices is discouraging not only for tree growers but also for contractors and entrepreneurs” (a small forestry entrepreneur, besisahar). although the government has recently amended forest act, 1993 and added several provisions favouring private forestry, local communities, tree growers and small entrepreneurs found to be unaware about it. this shows a huge gap in information dissemination. lack of incentivized policy on planting and retaining trees in private land appeared to be limiting private forest. research participants argued that unless tree growers are ensured that trees in their farmlands generate additional benefits, they will not be motivated to retain trees in it. so far there is no such an incentivizing policy in nepal. farmers with limited land have to sustain from regular farm income but tree planting does not generate immediate income. on an average, one should wait more than 20 years to get income from trees. this has been demotivating villagers to plant trees in their land. instead they prefer to keep it fallow, so they can start farming again. many participants reported that if the farmland is converted into bush or forests, then it will be difficult for them to cultivate there again. they will have to put more efforts to cut the trees/bushes, remove roots from the soil and make terraces for cropping again and all of poudel et al. 141 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 these increase production cost. unless trees are insured, incentives (considering alternative land use income) are provided and access to market is eased, establishing forests in private land in the case study is unlikely. increased tree cover as shown in the image analysis may no longer remain unless policies to incentivize tree grower are put in place. policy level experts and forestry officials also agreed that, to some extent, the existing forests and environmental policies have undermined possible scale of farm forestry and its’ multiple scopes. in particular, gaps are reported in identifying private and farm forestry potentials in addressing climatic issues, promoting ecotourism, biodiversity and redd+ policy. available research findings and policy documents are mostly focusing on government forests in dealing with the said issues. potentials of tree resources outside forests are not properly explored and reflected in the policy documents. conclusion this study assessed migration borne forestry transition in arthur vdc, parbat district and maling vdc, lamjung district and explained emerging outcomes, opportunities and challenges linking redd+ policy mechanism. based on the findings discussed earlier, the following conclusions are drawn. research concludes that traditional farm focused land use practices have been changing towards tree dominated farm forestry systems in the rural landscape of nepal. forests and tree cover is found to be increased. land use change was even pronounced in private lands where substantial areas under cultivation in 2000 were either converted into fallow land or partially covered by perennial plants, trees and bamboos in particular. research confirms decreasing trend of rural population and concluded that migration is the only reason causing population shrinking. drivers motivating local youths to leave their home included (i) desire of higher education and (ii) seeking employment. only few were leaving their original area for resettlement, mostly in big cities and productive terai areas. out of the total migrants, 20% to 30% migrants ever come back to the village. identified implications of depopulation include (i) farming activities were reduced in the area, (ii) productivity of the land degraded, (iii) development activities were affected due to lack of vibrant local leadership, (iv) social security could not be maintained, (v) forests could not be managed and utilized of its potentials, and (vi) local capacity in managing natural resources could not be built on. opportunities emerging from migration borne forestry transitions for community forestry are: (i) reduced products demand (ii) enhanced forest condition (94% research participants confirmed enhanced cf condition) (iii) enhanced availability of ntfps and biodiversity, and (iv) controlled illegal harvesting and encroachment for farm land expansion. opportunities for private forestry are (i) better use of marginal and sloppy areas, (ii) production of multiple products including crops, forages, timber, firewood and fodder, (iii) establishment of forest based small enterprises, (iv) soil and water conservation, and (v) climate change adaptation. migration borne forestry transition also appears to be supporting environmental services like water, biodiversity, ecotourism and redd+. challenges for participatory management of forest resources include: (i) lack of vibrant leadership, (ii) degradation of management practices (planting, harvesting etc), (iii) increased fire risk, and (iv) human wildlife conflicts. lack of promotional private forest policy was the key policy gap. existing private forest policy appears regulating rather than promoting land owner to grow trees. provisions of incentives for tree growing in private land and required insurance for any losses like insect, pests, fire, market failure, etc. were lacking. policy hurdles were also realized in harvesting, transporting and marketing forest products from private lands. despite recent amendments in policies that acknowledge importance of private forestry in supporting sustainability of forests and delivering better environmental services, regulating laws, bylaws, procedural guidelines and mind set of executing agencies at local level remained unchanged. this research found migration borne forestry transition (i.e. increased forest area/ tree coverage and enhanced forest condition) offering conducive poudel et al. 142 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 environment for reducing emissions and enhancing carbon sequestration. however, a lot yet to be done in developing local understanding, revising rules, regulations and service delivery approaches and providing necessary tools, skills and incentives, so tree growers and managers remain motivated in managing tree crops in their lands. recommendations based on the findings and the conclusions, this study provides the following recommendations: 1. recommendations for land holding migrants • do not leave your land unattended and fallow. in case of not being able to continue farming, plant multipurpose trees and perennial medicinal and aromatic herbs. • explore what benefits could be generated from the selected species and develop marketing networks. • consult related experts (technicians) available in government offices (dfo, district soil conservation office-dsco, district agriculture development officedado, district livestock development office-dldo, etc.), civil society organizations and ngos and get their supports. • insure your tree/herb crops as far as possible 2. recommendations for community forest users groups • capacitate women and elders so they can provide effective leadership in managing community forestry (both users and forest). • undertake cleaning, pruning, thinning and harvesting operations as planned in the operation plan. cfugs can contract out these operations to local entrepreneurs. this will not only reduce fire hazard in the forest but also generate income by selling the products. however, a regular and close monitoring is must to make sure that contractors do not violate rules. • seek regular support from local forestry authority. 3. recommendations for local government officials • implement capacity building activities targeting women and elders regularly. • provide incentives for planting trees in public and private lands. introduce incentive packages and insurance policies. • provide all required technical inputs in developing, managing, harvesting and trading forest products from community managed and privately owned forests. • provide fire fighting tools, techniques and incentives. develop fire lines and undertake regular monitoring. development of fire fighting teams and networking them could be a smart way to keep local people connected, vigilant and alert. • make sure that children are getting better education in the local schools, so parents are not forced to migrate to city center seeking better education for their children. • make sure that basic services like agriculture, livestock husbandry, health, market, transportation, legal, administrative, etc. are easily accessible to the villagers. • encourage youths to engage in developing local resources based enterprises and income generating activities. 4. recommendation for policy level stakeholders • identify drivers of migration and their underlying causes at different social and environmental contexts and consolidate at national scale. • develop an in-depth understanding on migration borne social and environmental implications. • identify policy gaps in translating migration borne land use transition into sustainable landscape management opportunities. • identify opportunities and challenges for translating migration borne forestry transition into sustainable forestry and effective redd+ policy intervention. • develop necessary policies and mechanisms addressing identified gaps and challenges. poudel et al. 143 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 • continue consultation and outreaching activities targeting tree growers and community forest users groups. references basnet, b. s. 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change and migration: governance challenges. global environ. change, doi:10.1016/j. gloenvcha.2009.12.001. poudel et al. banko jankari-2017(5).1.1 climate change has emerged as a global concern despite its differential impacts across geographical, social and economic gradients. understanding perceptions of local communities towards climate change is important as it advances the knowledge, and is the driver of autonomous adaptation and behavioral responses. the livelihood of the agro-pastoralists in the trans-himalayan regions of nepal depends on the natural resources, and is highly sensitive to the change in climatic variables. although there are indications of pronounced climate change in terms of their important variables in the high-altitude compared to the lowland of nepal, there is limited information on how communities living in those areas have perceived to the change. realizing the significance of such information, perceptions of the agro-pastoralists towards the change in climatic variables were studied in the two important highand trans-himalayan districtsdolpa and mustang. the results of the study revealed that the perceptions of the agro-pastoralists correspond with the increasing trend of temperature and the changing (both increasing and decreasing) trends of precipitation. moreover, the agropastoralists have perceived the decrease in snowfall and reported appearance of new forage and pasture species in rangelands. the findings will be useful to understand about the climate change in the highand trans-himalayan region, and to devise adaptation strategies in these areas. key words: agro-pastoralists, climate change, impacts, nepal, perceptions and trends perceptions of agro-pastoralists towards the change in temperature and precipitation in the trans-himalayan regions of nepal s. aryal1*,2, s. k. ghimire2, y. r. dhakal2,3, n. p. gaire2,3,4 and s. bhandari4 although impacts of climate change differ across geographical, socio-political and economic gradients, climate change has emerged as a global concern (mea, 2005). small island, leastdeveloped and mountainous countries are more vulnerable to climate change (klein, 2009). due to its geo-political conditions and its potential impact on the economy, ecology, and environment, climate change is a major concern in the himalayas (liu and rasul, 2007). the rate of increase in temperature is higher than the global average in the region, and the form of precipitation will be changed in the higher himalayas where more rainfall will be expected than the snowfall (ipcc, 2007). nepal is both the mountainous and the least developed country of the himalayan region which is socio-politically, geographically and economically fragile. climate change has emerged as a systematic threat compounding with other threats challenging the livelihood of people and sustainability of the traditional systems. the trends of temperature suggest that warming is more pronounced in the high-altitude areas than in the lower elevations of nepal, and the nature of precipitation has also been changing (napa, 2010; shrestha and aryal, 2011). previous studies (gentle and maraseni, 2012; aryal et al., 2014a; macchi et al., 2014) suggest that the climate change has affected the livelihood of the people in the mountainous areas of himalayas. but, people living with high-poverty in the region have limited capacity to adapt with the climate change. over two million nepalese depend upon climate sensitive sectors like agriculture and forestry for their livelihood (garg et al., 2007). even with a slight change on climatic variables, there would 1 institute for agriculture and the environment, university of southern queensland, qld 4350, australia; *e-mail: aaryalsuman@gmail.com 2 siddhartha environmental service, kathmandu, nepal 3 tree ring society of nepal, lalitpur, nepal 4 nepal academy of science and technology (nast), lalitpur, nepal 21 banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 22 be a greater impact over the natural and human systems of nepal. agro-pastoralism is practiced in those areas which are most affected by global climate change (kullman, 2004; zomer et al. 2014) and are likely to be affected by the timing of rainfall, agricultural seasons, persistence and melting of snow in rangelands, availability of water near grazing spots and so on. the agropastoralists may be disproportionately more vulnerable due to climate change (dong et al., 2011) and the situation could be even more severe when the flexibility is restricted (tyler et al., 2007; fu et al., 2012). the observations of local people often relied on holistic ways of knowing their environment that integrate a number of variables and relationships between them (pretty et al., 2009). local people use physical environmental indicators such as rain, first snowfall, melting of snow and biological indicators such as spring budding, leafing, blooming flowers and fruiting (turner and clifton, 2009). perceptions in some instances, however, can be affected by their belief on climate change (howe et al., 2013; niles and mueller, 2016). the indigenous and marginalized communities whose subsistence livelihoods depend upon direct utilization of natural resources might have different experiences and knowledge than the people adopting a modern lifestyle and living in urban areas (tucker 1986; wolf and moser 2011; howe et al., 2014). many scholars (petheram et al., 2010; alexander et al., 2011; sánchezcortés and chavero, 2011) have noted that indigenous knowledge could be better applied to the assessments of climate change. it has also been acknowledged for its role in advancing the understanding of climate change (nelson et al., 2006; chaudhary and bawa, 2011; klein et al., 2014). in these contexts, agro-pastoralists of the high himalayas have to respond to nature’s rhythm for characteristic seasonal movement of livestock and crop plantation and harvesting. their perceptions and meaningful observations could be interesting in climate change studies and to understand impacts of climate change to the climate sensitive agro-pastoral systems. therefore, this study aims to explore the perceptions of the agro-pastoralists towards change in climatic variables, validate perceptions with the trends and impacts of climate change to the agro-pastoralism in the high-altitude and trans-himalayan regions of nepal. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in the dolpa district of the mid-western development region and the mustang district of the western development region of nepal. both the dolpa and mustang districts are mountainous districts of nepal, and represent the trans-himalayas. the field visits at the study sites were conducted by a team including one expert in climate change and agro-pastoralism, and three research assistants. the same team conducted the study in both the sites. the field visit in the mustang district was conducted during september october, 2015 whereas it was conducted in april in the dolpa district. preliminary consultation was done with the staff of the annapurna conservation area project (acap) site office and the members of the conservation area management committee in the case of mustang district and the staff of the shey phoksundo national park office in the case of dolpa district. as this paper is a part of a broader research project entitled “treeline shift in the central nepal himalaya and the climate reconstruction of the past millennia”, the local people who frequently visit the forest area especially for yak movement and sheep rearing were consulted to identify the study sites. data collection after the selection of the study sites for dendrological and ecological study, the local people who were using the forests and rangelands near the dendrological study sites were selected for survey and focus group discussions (fgds). based on the criteria described above, three sites viz. marpha settlement of the marpha vdc, kodekhola danda and kosari ban were selected in the case of mustang district whereas rigmu and chhekpa of the phoksundo vdc in the dolpa district were selected for the survey and fgds (fig. 1). a total of 21 agro-pastoralists in the dolpa district and 15 in the mustang district were surveyed using semi-structured questionnaire. a purposive sampling method was applied for the selection of the respondents for the survey as no prior list of the agro-pastoralists was available. at first, the secretaries of the selected vdcs were approached to identify the initial contacts of some agro-pastoralists, and then the contacted agropastoralists were asked to identify the other agroaryal et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 23 pastoralists. fig. 1: district map of nepal showing the study areas a face-to-face and semi-structured interview was done with the selected respondents, and the perceptions of the herders about the two major climatic variablestemperature and precipitation were collected, asking whether the particular variable was changing or not. the responses were categorized in the ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘don’t know’ columns. if the answer was ‘yes’, the trend of change (increasing or decreasing) was also noted. two focus groups discussions (fgds) were also conducted in each site in a group of 6–8 agropastoralists per fgd. the likely impacts of climate change to the agro-pastoralism were also discussed during the fgds. the temperature and precipitation data for trend analysis were collected from the meteorological stations under the department of hydrology and meteorology (dhm). the nearest meteorological stations from the study sites were dune in the dolpa district and jomsom in the mustang district. therefore, the temperature and rainfall data during the last 30 years (1984–2014) in those stations were analysed. the data on these parameters were found to be normally maintained at jomsom in the mustang district, but there were many missing values in the case of temperature at the dune station and therefore, the trends only in the precipitation were analysed in the case of this station. general linear regression was used to calculate the annual and seasonal trends of temperature and rainfall. the annual trends of temperature and rainfall were obtained using the data of all months. for the analysis of seasonal trends, the months under each season winter (december to february), monsoon (june to september) and summer (march to may) were used (shrestha and aryal, 2011). results and discussion trends of temperature and rainfall the temperature of the study sites showed increasing trends in between 1984 and 2014. the rate of increase was much higher in the winter season than in the summer season (fig. 2). the trends of rainfall were not similar in the two sites. there were decreasing trends of rainfall in the dolpa district whereas the increasing trends in the same were observed in the mustang district. the aryal et al. fig. 2: temperature trends during the period of 1984–2014 recorded at the jomsom meteorological station in mustang district banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 24 decreasing trends in the dolpa district were more pronounced as compared to the increasing trends in the mustang district (fig. 3). perception of agro-pastoralists toward change in the climatic variables majority of the agro-pastoralists from both the study sites had perceived change in the temperature, and they reported that the temperature was increasing. their perceptions towards the change in rainfall, however, differed from the one site to the another site. majority of the respondents in the dolpa district perceived that the rainfall was decreasing whereas those in the mustang district had perceived increasing trends in rainfall (table 1). all the surveyed agropastoralists from both the sites had also perceived that the number of days with snowfall and the total amount of snowfall per year had decreased during the period (table 1). trends of change in key climatic variables and perceptions of agro-pastoralists the increasing trend of temperature and higher rate of increase in temperature in the winter season compared to the those in the summer season (fig. 2) are consistent with the previous studies (shrestha et al., 1999; shrestha and aryal, 2011) and reports (ipcc, 2007; napa, 2010) for nepal and the himalayan region. the trends for precipitation were not similar in the two sites. the one in the dolpa district showed the decreasing trend whereas the another in the mustang district showed the increasing trend (fig. 3). the results of this study also support the statement that no distinct and long-term pattern for the precipitation has been reported in the himalayan regions of nepal (shrestha et al., 2000; napa, 2010). the trends of the temperature and precipitation recorded in the meteorological sites almost perfectly correspond with the perceptions of the agro-pastoralists in the study areas. there was a difference in the precipitation trend across the sites, however, the perceptions of the agropastoralists from each area matched with the trends of that particular site. the rising summer temperature as perceived by the agro-pastoralists is consistent with the findings of the previous studies (shrestha et al., 1999; biggs et al., 2013; aryal et al., 2014b; aryal et al., 2016). this aryal et al. table 1: perceptions of agro-pastoralists towards change in climatic variables during the period of 1984–2014 s. n. change in no. of respondents yes no don’t know if yes increased decreased dolpa district (n = 21) 1. temp. of summer season 12 (57.14) 6 (28.57) 3 (14.28) 12 (100) 0 (0) 2. temp. of winter season 12 (57.14) 6 (28.57) 3 (14.28) 9 (75) 3 (25) 3. total amount of rainfall in a year 21 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 21 (100) 4. total rainfall in monsoon season 18 (85.71) 3 (14.28) 0 (0) 0 (0) 18 (100) 5. total rainfall in winter season 21 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 21 (100) 6. total no. of snowing days 21 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 21 (100) 7. total amount of snowfall in a year 21 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 21 (100) mustang district (n = 15) 1. temp. of summer season 15 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) 15 (100) 0 (0) 2. temp. of winter season 14 (93.33) 0 (0) 1 (6.66) 14 (100) 0 (0) 3. total amount of rainfall in a year 13 (86.66) 2 (13.33) 0 (0) 13 (100) 0 (0) 4. total rainfall in monsoon season 15 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) 15 (100) 0 (0) 5. total rainfall in winter season 12 (80) 3 (20) 0 (0) 12 (100) 0 (0) 6. total no. of snowing days 15 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 15 (100) 7. total amount of snowfall in a year 15 (100) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 15 (100) note: figures in the parentheses represent percentage of respondents. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 25 indicates that the perceptions and observations of the agro-pastoralists can compliment modern science, and provide a chance to cross-validate the findings from scientific observations. this can have great implication in the data-deficit regions such as the higher himalaya which has been declared as ‘white spot’ due to limited observations and understanding (ipcc, 2007). the studies from the other regions of the world (martello, 2008) have indicated that local people who directly interact with the nature will better and accurately perceive the changes in climatic variables. local people use physical and biological indicators such as rains, frost, first snowfall, melting of snow, budding, fruiting etc. (turner and clifton, 2009) to compare trends. moreover, these people develop effective adaptation strategies to combat effects from changing climate (yeh et al., 2013). in addition to the changes in climatic variables, the agro-pastoralists have reported rapid melting of snow and appearance of new plant species in the rangelands (table 1). the drying of water resources and appearance of new livestock diseases were also reported. those observations of the agro-pastoralists are in line with the findings of the previous scholarsxu et al. (2009) and aryal et al. (2015) reporting phonological changes. perception of change in climate and biophysical indicators, and impacts of climate change are important due to several reasons. firstly, it may be a driver of autonomous adaptations and behavioral response (howe et al., 2013; zheng and dallimer, 2016) that could, for example, include changes in the grazing and agricultural calendar. secondly, the increased knowledge aryal et al. fig. 3: rainfall trends during the period of 19842014 recorded at the meteorological stations at jomsom in mustang district (a) and dunai in dolpa district (b) banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 26 sharing between scientists, policy-makers and resource users may be one means of reducing vulnerability because new adaptation strategies could be generated from the combinations of knowledge and experiences (lebel, 2013; strand 2016). thirdly, it can be a form of citizen science or social science, confirming or challenging the modeled-changes in climate. this is more significant for the himalayan region as the region lacks empirical data of climate change. effects of climate change on agro-pastoralism climate change has potential to impact upon different areas, communities and sectors. mountainous regions are comparatively more sensitive to climate change (paudel and andersen, 2011; rangwala and miller, 2012). climate change poses both direct and indirect effect to the agro-pastoralism. climate change can directly affect upon two most important agricultural production factorsprecipitation and temperature (deschenes and greenstone, 2007). crop growth, development, water use and yield under normal conditions are largely determined by the weather during the growing season. climate change can indirectly affect upon agriculture by influencing emergence and distribution of crop pests and livestock diseases, exacerbating the frequency and distribution of adverse weather conditions, reducing water supplies and irrigation, and enhancing severity of soil erosion (ipcc, 2014). the majority of respondents of the present study reported that the total amount of snowfall has decreased, and it melts faster in the rangelands. with higher amount of snow, it would melt gradually and provide moisture for a longer duration than rainfall. the decreasing amount of snowfall in combination with the increasing temperature can decrease soil moisture. this can affect upon both the quality and quantity of crop production in agricultural field as well as grass production in the rangelands. the decreasing trend of rainfall can lead to the drying of water resources (springs, rivers) and reduce water availability in the rangelands (aryal, 2015). the impacts of climate change upon the rangelands could be more complex as it can alter the competition between plants and their growth habits, productivity and the plant-animal interactions (ipcc, 2007; ipcc, 2014) and decrease rangeland quality (klein et al., 2007). the drying of water resources can lead to the abandonment of rangelands which in turn can lead to grazing pressure in other rangelands. the appearances of non-native and unpalatable species indicate the poor quality of rangelands and ultimately affect upon livestock production. the increase of such unwanted species can be related to different factors. some species that were located at the adjacent lower elevation might have moved upslope due to an increase in temperature and associated range shift (klanderud and birks, 2003; gaire et al., 2014; zomer et al. 2014) or some shrub species might have encroached the alpine rangelands due to an increase in drought, cessation of fire and range abandonment (brandt et al., 2013). some ruderal species such as iris goniocarpa and euphorbia stracheyi might have benefited due to increased nitrogen in highly -grazed patches (bauer, 1990; aryal, 2010). the increase in drought can lead to the early maturity of the grasses in the rangelands extending the duration and severity of grass shortage. due to climate change, pastoralists might have to decide in an environment of greater uncertainty. changes in weather can affect upon other agricultural activities, such as planting and harvesting crops, and thus ultimately disturb their seasonal calendar. such changes in the calendars of the local people might also have implications upon ecosystem and ecosystem management (franco, 2015). the increase in temperature and longer growing season can increase the upper limit of grasslands and grass production. according to the agro-pastoralists of the study areas, different types of pests are increasingly widespread, and their livestock frequently suffer from waterand vector-borne diseases. it has been reported that livestock may be more susceptible to diseases due to increase in temperature. the increasing incidences of livestock diseases might be related to climate change as the population dynamics and distribution ranges of many diseases causing vectors are largely determined by climatic variables (gage et al., 2008; aryal, 2015). conclusion the perceptions of the agro-pastoralists of the study areas in the two districts (dolpa and mustang) were consistent with the rising trends of temperature and changing rainfall pattern. the aryal et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 27 trends and perceptions of the agro-pastoralists of this study are in line with the previous studies and predictions for the himalayan region. the agro-pastoralists have also observed change in biological indicators such as emergence of new plant species, appearance of new livestock diseases, and change in physical indicators, such as fast melting of snow in rangelands and drying of water resources. the findings of this study suggest that direct and indirect impacts of climate change are becoming apparent in agropastoralism, and the perceptions and experiences of the agro-pastoralists can be useful in climate change studies. studies on perceptions and identification of possible impacts of climate change would help to design adaptation plan and intervention strategies for the sustainability of traditional farming systems, such as agropastoralism and livelihood improvement of the people involved in such systems. acknowledgements this study was supported by the asian development bank supported-project entitled “management of climate change risk management in development project” (ta 7984 nep) under the nepal academy of science and technology (nast), lalitpur, nepal. we are oblized to the department of national parks and wildlife conservation of the government of nepal (gon), the acap and the shey phoksundo national park for providing us permission to conduct our research work. we are grateful to the department of hydrology and meteorology of the gon for providing us temperature and precipitation data. we appreciate the project office team of the nepal climate change knowledge management center and the nast for their generous support. we are thankful to mr. rishi ranabhat, ms. neeru thapa, mr. 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no. 4 harvesting of mature forest crop, regenerating the harvested area and tending of young crop are major silvicultural operations in forest management. silvicultural system provides a framework for carrying out these silvicultural operations in a systematic manner. yield is the annual amount of produce that can be realized sustainably. similarly, thinning is the principal tending operation carried out in immature crop, is more often complicated in natural forest. this paper attempts to review silvicultural system applied in terai region of nepal under scientific forest management in order to regulate yield and to suggest new methods of thinning in natural forests. the study was conducted in buddha shanti collaborative forest in nawalparasi district, western terai nepal. data related to implementation status of cfm plan were collected through field observation. harvesting data were collected during harvesting operation. the collected harvesting data were analyzed for yield regulation. irregular shelter-wood system was applied in buddha shanti cfm. the applied method of yield regulation is combination of area and stem control. area control is applied for regeneration period. annual harvest is controlled by number of stems. tree harvesting area is fixed for ten years and annual harvesting amount is fixed by number of tree. in this method annual numbers of trees for harvesting are fixed. total enumeration method was applied for thinning to find out the most frequent size of pole in selected sub compartment. during the enumeration process; distance between the every stem and fore bearing was also recorded with the help of laser distance meter and compass. a stem map was prepared with the help of arc-gis and the grid distance was fixed based on the most frequent size of stem. then, one stem from each grid was selected for retaining after harvesting and remaining stems were cut down. this method provides appropriate guideline for implementing it objectively by reducing subjective judgment and provide more systematic method for thinning. the field practices of application of silvicultural system and yield regulation were found in accordance to the scientific forest management procedures 2014 in buddha shanti cfm. the method for thinning applied in the cfm was found applicable to other similar type of forests. key words: silvicultural system, stem mapping, thinning, yield regulation application of silvicultural system, yield regulation and thinning practices in natural forests: case study from western terai v. r. subedi1*, k. d. bhatta2, i. p. poudel3 and p. bhattarai4 a silvicultural system is a procedure or treatment that includes all of the management functions which meet the landowner’s present and long-range objectives. it sets the stage for the next regeneration cut. silviculture prescriptions include harvesting to promote growth, quality, or regeneration of a timber stand(michigan, 2008). silvicultural system provides framework for carrying out different silvicultural operations. scientific forest management is “the systematic application of forestry science for the management of forests. it is based on the correct assessment of attributes of forest crop to maximize and sustain benefits (including indirect benefits such as environmental and ecosystem services) accruing from the forest. scientific forest management essentially follows silvicultural system” (mfsc, 2014). scientific forest 1 district forest officer, nawalparasi * e-mail: vijayasubedi@yahoo.com 2 district forest officer, kapilbastu 3 under secretary, department of forests 4 assistant forest officer, district forest office, nawalparasi 93 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 management is in implementation for last seven years (since fy 2011/2012) in different districts of nepal. the fifth national district forest officers’ (dfos) workshop declared the need of application and continuation of silvicultural system based management and scientific forest management in all forest management regimes (dof, 2014). scientific forest management emphasizes; application of silviculture system, measurement based decisions, application of principles of forestry, analysis of economic efficiency and promotion of good governance. it’s main objective is to promote sustainable management of forest. silvicultural system is a planned program of silvicultural treatments designed to achieve specific stand structure and characteristics to meet site objectives during the whole life of a stand. this program of treatments integrates specific harvesting, regeneration, and stand tending methods to achieve a predictable yield of benefits from the stand over time (british colombia, 2003).the current level of forest productivity is much lower than the potential in nepal. the cost of not having scientific forest management and silvicultural operations is estimated nrs 100 billion per year (mfsc, 2014). revised forest policy 2000 has prioritized silvicultural system based management of block forests (forests greater than 500 ha in area) in terai and inner terai of nepal. similarly it has indicated the need of collaborative management of terai forests to include distance users in forest management (mfsc, 2000). there is no specific guideline to conduct thinning in natural forest and it is a matter of ocular judgment which depends on person and experience, thus, influence the crop stock and productivity. until today, thirty forest patches are under collaborative forest management based on silvicultural system. the research site, buddha shanti cfm is one among them (dof, 2017). therefore, this study reviews the silvicultural system applied in study site, under scientific forest management to regulate yield and thinning. materials and methods buddha shanti collaborative forest is situated in nawalparasi district of western development region of nepal. geographically, it extends from 27o 30’00” n to 27o 40’00”n latitude and from 83o 35’00” e to 83o 40’00” e longitude. the site does have tropical climate with elevation from 190 meters to 225 meters above sea level (dfo, 2010). the location map, compartment, sub compartment of the study area (fig. 1.) total area of forest is 1781.32 ha, out of which, 1204.10 ha is core managed area and 577.22 ha is considered as fringe area. core managed area is divided into three compartments and 24 sub compartments. the major species are sal (shorea robusta), saj (terminalia tomentosa) and karma (adina cordifolia) (dfo, 2014). core area is an area allocated for management and further divided into compartment and sub-compartments. fringe area is area surrounding the core area, which is not divided into compartments and subcompartments, and management is limited to protection and fallen tree collection. the purpose of fringe area is to provide protection to core area and address social issues such as encroachment, surrounding community interests. fig. 1:study area location with compartment and sub compartment division map subedi et al. 94 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 literature review concerned policies and legislative documents of government of nepal, study reports, journal articles , and websites relating to silvicultural system were reviewed. specifically, this study reviews the approved management plan of buddha shanti collaborative forest. the plan was reviewed for the purpose of comparing with the scientific forest management procedure, 2014 and compare the actual practices in the field against the approved management plan. field observation field observation was carried out to understand field situation and proposed management activities on silvicultural system, yield regulation and thinning. during the field observation, implementation status of silvicultural system and yield regulation was observed, photographed, measured and noted during the study. specifically, information on plan implementation status was obtained during the field observation. data collection in order to design appropriate method of thinning; total enumeration of sapling and pole was conducted in related sub compartment. global positioning system (gps),compass, laser distance meter and diameter tape were used to capture the position, distance and diameter data of stem. data were analyzed by classifying, grouping, tabulating and frequency analysis techniques. microsoft excel and arc-gis was used for data analysis and exploration. results and discussions silviculture system silviculture systems are based on felling intensity. the major silviculture systems are; clear felling, shelter wood and selection system. – 100% felling intensity = clear felling system – 70–90% felling intensity = shelter wood system – 10–30% felling intensity = selection system each silviculture system has its specific framework for harvesting of mature crop, regenerating and tending of young crop. in buddha shanti cfm, shelter wood (irregular) system has been applied for its management and rotation period is 80 years. recommendation of this system is based on species i.e. terai sal (shorea robusta) forest. forest area is divided into compartment and sub-compartments for the implementation of different silviculture operation. in buddha shanti cfm, there are three compartments and each compartment has eight sub-compartments. number of compartment were based on forest area (max. area = 400 ha). number of subcompartments (periodic blocks) was calculated based on the rotation (r) and regeneration period (rp). – number of sub compartment = r/rp = 80/10 = 8 (of equal area) major silviculture operations recommended in buddha shanti cfm are regeneration felling, preparatory felling, thinning and improvement felling, climber cutting in grown up stands and regeneration promotion. regeneration felling is concentrated in one sub-compartment of each compartment where majority of over mature trees exist and regeneration is in comparatively poor condition. preparatory felling is recommended in one sub-compartment of each compartment where majority of over mature trees are in second position, regeneration is fewer and regeneration felling is targeted after the completion of existing plan. thinning and improvement felling is designed in four sub-compartment of each compartment where pole and sapling were in dense condition. climber cutting in grown up stands is recommended in two sub-compartments of each compartment to increase growth and improve quality of tree. subedi et al. 95 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 table 1: the management plan of buddha shanti cfm has the following ten years plan of different silviculture operations in different sub-compartments year silviculture operations 1st regeneration felling and regeneration promotion in c1s1, c2s2 and c3s1 2nd regeneration felling and regeneration promotion in c1s1, c2s2 and c3s1 thinning and improvement felling in c1s8, c2s8 and c3s8 3rd -regeneration felling and regeneration promotion in c1s1, c2s2, c3s1 thinning and improvement felling in c1s7, c2s7 and c3s7 4th -regeneration felling and regeneration promotion in c1s1, c2s2, c3s1 climber cutting in grown up stands in c1s3, c2s3 and c3s3 5th -regeneration felling and regeneration promotion in c1s1, c2s2, c3s1 preparatory felling in c1s2, c2s1 and c3s2 6th -regeneration felling and regeneration promotion in c1s1, c2s2, c3s1 thinning and improvement felling in c1s6, c2s6 and c3s6 7th -regeneration felling and regeneration promotion in c1s1, c2s2, c3s1 climber cutting in grown up stands in c1s4, c2s4 and c3s4 8th -regeneration felling and regeneration promotion in c1s1, c2s2, c3s1 thinning and improvement felling in c1s5, c2s5 and c3s5 9th -regeneration felling and regeneration promotion in c1s1, c2s2, c3s1 10th -regeneration felling and regeneration promotion in c1s1, c2s2, c3s1 field observation revealed that the above silvicultural activities were implemented according to the plan to a greater extent except slight lag in thinning activities. the plan activities are also according to the scientific forest management procedure, 2014, of the department of forests. it was observed that the silviculture operations and treatments are based on tree size and age; treatments are clearly assigned to each sub-compartment, silviculture operations are clear and scheduled for plan period. after the proper implementation of this plan; there will be creation of different eight age classes in every compartment, forest will be converted uneven aged and in the longrun forest will be changed into normal forest. yield regulation yield is the total amount that can be harvested per period, or the total amount that could be removed at any time (florida forest stewardship, 2010). yield is realized through carrying out silviculture operations as planned. yield regulation in buddha shanti cfm is based on area and number of stem per unit of area. stem mapping has been conducted in regeneration felling sub compartment (periodic block) to find out total number of tree, number of mother tree (seed tree) and number of felled trees in sub compartment. stem map has been prepared, mother trees and annual harvestable trees are shown below (fig. 2) for regeneration felling sub compartment. sample of stem mapping, mother tree and harvestable tree are shown in following figure. fig. 2: stem mapping and selection of mother tree and felled tree subedi et al. 96 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 in buddha shanti cfm, mother trees were identified by using 22 m x 22 m grid in stem map, one tree nearest from centre of grid was fixed as mother tree. during the tree chhapan (stamping tree) for felling; mother tree has been verified, if the mapped mother tree is found not suitable (i.e. dead, dying, diseased, deformed, over mature, etc.) in field verification then appropriate tree ( i.e. middle aged tree of size 40 cm to 70 cm diameter, straight bole, good crown condition, healthy tree, species composition, etc) nearest that was replaced as mother tree. mother tree has been separated by four inch circular ring paint in bole above four feet from the ground. yield regulation by area and number of stem methods used in buddha shanti cfm (for first compartment) was as follows. • area of sub-compartment (c1s1) = 50.49 ha • total number of trees in c1s1= 3026 • identified mother trees by using 22 m x 22 m grid= 808 • identified trees for felling in c1s1= 3026– 808 = 2218 • trees harvested annually in c1s1= 2218/10 = 221.8 yied is regulated by harvesting 221 trees in c1s1 (50.49 ha) sub compartment, 204 trees in c2s2 (50.49 ha) sub compartment and 226 trees in c3s1 (47.38 ha) annually. the annual volume yield of forest was equivalent to the volume of 651 trees. priority of harvesting is given in area where regeneration is poor and majority of trees are old. as explained earlier; tree harvesting area is fixed for 10 years and annual harvesting amount is fixed by number of tree hence the yield regulation method is area and stem control. in this method number of mother tree and annual harvesting trees are fixed for 10 years which is technically less complicated and required less skilled human resources.. this yield regulation method is in accordance to the cfm plan and scientific forest management procedure, 2014. thinning thinning is considered as principal tending operation. the aim of thinning is to achieve appropriate stand density and enhance diameter growth. in buddha shanti cfm, the provision of thinning is in four sub-compartments of each compartment. the thinning is targeted for sapling, pole and young tree within the subcompartments. the sub compartment provisioned for thinning are c1s8, c1s7, c1s6, c1s5, c2s8, c2s7, c2s6, c2s5, c3s8, c3s7, c3s6 and c3s5. the retaining number of stem after thinning is explained in management plan based on the size of stem. however, proper method for such thinning operation is lacking. if the nature of stand is uneven aged (old trees to young pole and saplings); the challenge is to apply appropriate method. in buddha shanti cfm, the size of stem (diameter distribution) is heterogeneous. the spacing between the stems depends upon the size of stem to be retained after thinning. number and average size of stem need to be assessed to fix the required number of stem in sub-compartment. for this objective; the condition of pole and sapling in four sub compartments of each compartment were assessed through sampling method. this helps to maintain age class after thinning. one subcompartment is selected in second compartment with field verification for thinning. during the selection process, the denseness of stand and the targeted size of 15-20 cm diameter were considered. total enumeration was done to find out the most frequent size of pole in selected subcompartment. during the enumeration process; distance between the every stem and fore bearing was also recorded with the help of laser distance meter and compass. based on recorded data, the most frequent size of stem was identified and the required number of stems in the sub-compartment was fixed. a stem map was prepared with the help of arc-gis and the grid distance was fixed based on the most frequent size of stem. then, one stem from each grid (grid size depending upon size of stand to be retained, in this case 15–20 cm; distance2.5 m) was selected for retaining after thinning and remaining stems were cut down. the designed method is presented in table 2, which shows the desirable number of stems per hectare by age (size) for sal forest. this table is based on the management plan prescription (in other forests namely dumkibas-arunkhola block forest plan). this method of thinning has merits as well as some constraints. it is easy to fix the required distance, more objective, technically standard and reduces the personal error but it demands relatively more skilled human resource for enumeration and subedi et al. 97 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 measurement especially for identifying stems to be retained with the help of gis. conclusion applied silviculture system in buddha shanti cfm is irregular shelter-wood system. the silviculture operation and method of yield regulation is clearly defined and it has provided clear framework for carrying out different silviculture operations (harvesting of mature crop, regeneration and tending of young crop) systematically. the applied method of yield regulation is combination of area and stem control. area control is applied for regeneration period (= plan period = 10 years). annual harvest is controlled by number of stems. tree harvesting area is fixed for ten years and annual harvesting amount is fixed by number of tree. this is based on area and stem for yield regulation and control. in this method, annual numbers of trees for harvesting are fixed. thus, it is technically less complicated and easier to complete. thinning is complicated in natural forest. however explained method provides appropriate guideline for implementing it objectively while reducing subjective judgment and providing more systematic method. hence, it is useful for maintaining uniformity and reducing personal bias. references dfo, nawalparasi, 2010. collaborative management scheme of buddha shanti forest. district forest office (dfo), nawalparasi, nepal. dfo, nawalparasi, 2014. collaborative management scheme of buddha shanti forest. district forest office. nawalparasi, nepal: dof 2014. community forestry bulletin no 16, department of forests (dfo), kathmandu nepal. pp 41–46. d0f 2017. community forestry bulletin no 17, department of forests (dfo), kathmandu nepal. pp 13–21. florida forest stewardship, 2010. university of florida. florida, u.s.a. www.sfrc.ufl. edu/extension/florida_forestry_information/ forest management/growth_and_yield.html. accessed on 12 december, 2017. mfsc, 2000. revised forest policy 2000. ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), kathmandu nepal. mfsc, 2014. scientific forest management working procedure (2071 b.s.). ministry of forest and soil conservation (mfsc). kathmandu, nepal. michigan forests forever teachers guide, mfd. dsisd.net/balance/msaf/guide/silvsystems. htm. accessed on 12 december 2017. british columbia. ministry of forests. forest practices branch. 2003. silvicultural systems handbook for british columbia. for. pract. br., bc. min. for., victoria, bc.canada. table 2: the designed method for thinning s.n. dbh class (cm) approx. no of stems approx. age (yrs) distance (m) principal silviculture operation 1 10-15 3000-4000 10 1.6 thinning (and/or improvement felling) 2 15-20 1500-2000 20 2.2 thinning (and/or improvement felling) 3 23-28 750-1000 30 3.2 thinning (and/or improvement felling) 4 30-35 375-500 40 4.5 thinning (and/or improvement felling) 5 35-40 200-250 50 6.3 thinning (and/or improvement felling) 6 40-45 200-250 60 final thinned stand 7 45-50 150-200 70 preparatory felling 8 50-55 15-25 80 regeneration felling (seeding felling) subedi et al. banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal contribution of nwfps in national economy nepal retains very high biodiversity, including that of non-wood forest products (nwfps). over 1600 nwfps have been reported from nepal, including 819 species of medicinal and aromatic plants. nonwood forest products are defined by various organizations and authors differently, that makes difficult in direct comparing these statistics. some, whether included into or excluded from nwfps, depend largely on which definitions have been used. food and agriculture organization (fao 1999) defines nwfps as "goods of biological origin other than wood, derived from forests, other wooded land and trees outside forests". for example, the fao (1999) definition brings the cardamom (amomum subulatum), cultivated together with the utis (alnus nepalensis) as agroforestry crops in nepal, under the category of nwfps, which is intentionally debated by other institutions as an agriculture product. the forest act, 1993 and forest regulation, 1995 have several provisions of the collection and trade of nwfps from the wild. the forest regulations 1995 have categorized 267, nwfp items into eight categories: roots and rhizome (60), bark (25), leaves (36), flowers and flosses (17), fruit and seed (70), whole plant (26), gums and resin (9) and other (24) (gon, 2018). various parts of same species have been repeated at two or more categories as the total number of listed nwfp species becomes lower. non-wood forest products has played very important role in supporting rural livelihoods and national economy. the rural livelihoods of mountainous regions of the nation, particularly karnali and sudurpaschim (far west) provinces, have largely relied on the collections and trade of nwfps. about 10-100% of the households of many villages depend solely on the collection and trade of nwfps of these regions, of which human development index is also among the poorest of the country. over 60% of the nepalese people usage medicinal and aromatic plants (maps) for the healing of various diseases. besides, a total of 20% (1.1 million) houses out of 5.4 million houses in nepal are built by using bamboo. bamboo is widely considered as the poor man's timber and rich man's passion. the trade of nwfps including medicinal plants is important for revenue to the government and major sources of cash income to the rural people. their collection, transportation, and sales have been generating steady sources of off farm employment opportunities in remote where majority of the people are poor. over 100 species are in the regular trade in nepal. but, the volume and value of this trade is lopsided, as 20 top species covered over 80% of the whole trade by volume and value. every year thousands of tons nwfps are exported to neighboring countries. the trade & export promotion center (tepc) of government of nepal shows the export of nwfp data ranging from 14,950 tons (in 2010) to 41,164 tons (in 2014) per year in between 2009 and 2017. that includes the export of rosin and resin, broom grass, cardamom, medicaments, cinnamon, soapnut, rudraksha, battisa, handmade paper, argeli bark, bamboo basketwork, essential oil, natural honey, olive oil, yarshagumba (cordyceps sinensis) etc. this figure excludes the export of the huge quantity of kattha extracted from khair (acacia catechu). a total of 1158 tons of khair kathha, with the value of rs. 690 million, was exported from nepal in year 2017. the medicaments manufactured here in nepal use large parts of imported nwfp items.similarly, the export data of some expensive nwfps such as yarsagumbha have under recorded. the yarshagumba export for the years 2016 and 2017 has been reported to be just 95 kg and 54 kg respectively from the customs which is manifold less than the records of the department of forests and soil conservation. simultaneously, the price declared at customs by the exporters are also unusually low. the yarshagumba price declared at customs ranges from rs. 174,434 to rs.718,675 between 2011 and 2017 which were about 10 to 25% of actual market price. this shows the huge value of the nwfps at present and high potentiality to harness in days to come. besides providing income and employment opportunities to local people, the nwfps sector also contribute in the national economy. however, the government revenue is not a big enough but it generates huge income to the rural people of the remote district and areas. for example, the government revenue from the sale of 681,979 kg of 19 different nwfps at jumla district was less than rs. 5 million however its market value at the district headquarters was over rs. 615 million in fy 2011/2012.it further contributes significantly in reducing trade deficits. the proportion of nwfps in the overall export of the country is about 8-11%. the total monetary value from nwfps exported in 2015 was rs. 8.74 billion (11.6%) out of the total export of rs. 75.5 billion whereas it was rs. 7.26 billion (9.7% of total) and 7.67 billion (9.9%) in 2016 and 2017, respectively. the country has very high potentiality of the development of nwfp sector in the country. as the country has huge climatic and elevational variations, the diversity of nwfps is tremendous. almost all of the plants and their parts available in the country bear medicinal properties, if properly investigated. this shows the huge potentialities to explore various components from these plants in future. various studies show that there is over 250 nepalese nwfps for the possibility of commercial trade. it is also estimated that the essential oil can be extracted from about 200 plant species found in nepal. the global trend is increasing towards the use of ayurvedic medicines, natural therapy, herbal cosmetics and natural food supplement. the demand of the nwfps is ever growing despite number of hurdles. the demand for himalayan herbs and medicines is very high in all over the world. there is very high potentiality to increase the local and national income by processing and value additions of the product. it will be very much important to produce the end products in nepal and sell to the world at higher price. by doing this, the sector can significantly contribute in achieving the nation's goal, "prosperous nepal, happy nepali" there are several constraints in the development of nwfps sector in nepal. a number of problems exist in cultivation and sustainable management, promotion of businesses and trades, development of entrepreneurship and establishment of manufacturing units in nepal. frequently fluctuating market prices, uncertain availability markets, various obstacles from neighbor countries in free and fair trade, inclinations towards selling raw materials than processing, low input and investment, overexploitation and premature harvesting, lack of storage facilities and illegal collection and trade of the nwfps are among the key problems that the sector facing. nepal has provided due priority in the development and sustainability of nwfps sector in nepal. nwfps have received high importance in nepal’s forest policies and in overall development planning. the forest policy 2019 has placed very high priority in the processing, value addition, tertiary productions and sustainability of the resources in the country. the specific policy for the promotion of the nwfps was mandated with the promulgation of herbs and development and nwfp development policy 2004. governmental agencies, nongovernmental organizations and yearly plan of forestry sector also emphasized on the promotion of nwfps. besides, forest act, 1993 and environment protection act, 1995, nepal has recently promulgated an act to regulate and control international trade in endangered wild fauna and flora; popularly called as cites act, 2017. with the wise implementation of these policies and legal measures, the nwfps sector can be developed. the engagement and investment of private sectors and cooperatives in technology promotion, value addition and marketing are very crucial. the government can provide the conducive environment for their proper functioning. sectors. rajendra k. c., phd editor banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018 banko jankari-2017(5).1.1 the aggressiveness of invasive alien plant species has been amidst the changing climate, which has necessitated further research in this area. the impact of invasive alien plant species in the panchase area of nepal was assessed through the forest resource assessment and other methodologies such as, household survey, group discussion, direct field observation, participatory cluster mapping, quadrat sampling, laboratory analysis, and gis mapping. a total of nine major invasive species, in which ageratum houstonianum and ageratina adenophora were found spread throughout the ecosystem. the invasion was fueled by anthropogenic disturbances such as leaving the agricultural lands, fallow and degradation of habitat. as a consequence, native species such as artemisia indica and urtica dioica were outcompeted mostly in the fringes of fallow lands, agricultural lands and in the disturbed sites. the intrusion was, however, less in the forest area, implying that community-managed dense canopy forests are less susceptible to invasion and routine management can offset the negative effects of invasion. even though many negative consequences of the invasion were observed in the study sites, the possibility of the economically exploiting the biomass of invasive alien plant species for generating income locally was noticed. key words: climate change, disturbances, ecosystem, invasive plants, nepal, panchase invasion of alien plant species and their impact on different ecosystems of panchase area, nepal s. baral1*, a. adhikari2, r. khanal2, y. malla2, r. kunwar3, b. basnyat4, k. gauli5 and r. p. acharya6 invasive plants are exotic species that threaten native ecosystems, habitats or species (cbd, 2008). introduced plant species and livestock spread like invasive or associated species, by displacing native species (matthews and brand, 2004; mooney et al., 2005). the emergence of invasive alien plant species (iaps), which are commonly referred to as weeds, is a major threat to the biodiversity and ecosystem services (burgiel and muir, 2010). the iucn (2000) defines iaps as exotic plants that have established themselves in natural or semi-natural ecosystems or habitats, and are agents of change, and threaten native biological diversity. on the other hand, the ipcc (2007) identifies climate change as one of the factors for the emergence of invasive plant species. increase in atmospheric temperature and carbon dioxide concentrations are likely to increase invasion of plant species because of their adaptability and ability to disturb a broad range of biogeographic conditions and environments (mooney and hobbs, 2000). lodge et al. (2006) concluded that iaps endanger the environment, economy and human welfare. they also reduce the population of native or replace them all together, necessitate increased investment in agricultural activities and silviculture operations (ricchardi et al., 2000), and disrupt prevailing vegetation dynamics and nutrient cycling (richardson & higgins, 1998). the estimated worldwide damage from iaps is estimated to be about us $1.4 trillion a year, which is nearly 5 percent of the global economy (stern, 2006). the iaps impacts on the wide range of sectors including agriculture, forestry, aquaculture, trade and recreation. since from the 17th century, iaps are the agents for nearly 40 percent of different animal extinctions for which cause is known (cbd, 2002). 31 1 university of natural resources and life sciences, vienna, austria. *e-mail: sonybaral@gmail.com 2 international union for conservation of nature, nepal 3 department of geosciences, florida atlantic university, us 4 institute of forestry and university of copenhagen, denmark 5 resource identification and management society (rims) nepal 6 practical solutions, kathmandu, nepal banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 32 the cbd (1992) has set global priorities, and guidelines on collecting information and on coordinating international actions on invasive alien species. the fifth iucn world park congress, 2003 underlined the need for managing iaps as an “emerging issue”, which was further emphasized at the sixth world park congress, 2014. nepal, being a signatory of the convention on biological diversity (cbd), is required to prevent the introduction of iaps and to control or eradicate those iaps that threaten ecosystems, habitats and species (cbd, 1992). the approaches taken to combat invasive species, as well as the data on which they should be based, are, however, clearly inadequate to deal with the onslaught of invasive species in the country. similarly, from a conservation perspective, there is little point to addressing the climate change if the biodiversity we are trying to protect has already been lost to invasive species. the introduction and aggressiveness of iaps are increasing especially on different land uses, in the changing climate. the problem of invasion is quite high in farmland and forests compared to other ecosystems (iucn, 2014; suwal et al., 2016). a total of 166 iaps of nepal are reported (tiwari et al., 2005); however, effects of invasion and initiatives to manage iaps and studies to research their dynamics have been very limited (bhattarai et al., 2014). although the first study of the iaps of nepal was carried out nearly five decades ago (banerji, 1958), studies focusing on impacts and management of iaps at species-, ecosystemand socio-economic levels through eco-friendly approaches are few. poudel and thapa (2012) admit further research on the impacts of iaps by focusing on the ecosystem and land use types from the reviewed of 43 similar studies related to iaps in nepal. hence, the present research was carried out to assess the extent of iaps invasion and their impacts in the panchase area in western nepal. research site and methods study area the study was carried out in the panchase protected forest site high occurrence of the invasive at the junction of kaski, parbat and syangja districts in the western development region of nepal it lies between latitudes 28o 12’ and 28o 18’ n, longitudes between 83o 45’ and 83o 57’ e, and altitude ranging from 815 m to 2,517 m. considering its high natural resource significance, as well as its potential for eco-tourism, it has been the focus of national, regional and local development strategies and plans (gon, 2012). the panchase protected forest was gazetted as a ‘protected forest’ on february 27, 2011, under article 23 of the forest act 2002 in recognition of its rich biodiversity, forest resources, as well as its cultural and spiritual values (suwal et al., 2013). panchase, which literally means ‘five seats’ is the meeting place of five hills, and it represents the mid-hills of nepal. the area received an average annual rainfall of 338 mm over the period of 25 years from 1985 to 2010, with the highest rainfall occurring in the monsoon of 1988 with the total rainfall of 4,936.6 mm (undp/mdo, 2006). the area has great biological, cultural and religious diversities as well as natural beauty. the panchase lake is considered as a famous site for religious pilgrimage for the people of the area in november (bhattarai et al., 2014). although the area has a great diversity of ecosystems and plant species (aryal and dhungel, 2009), the likelihood of invasion of different ecosystems is increasing either due to depopulation or erratic rainfall. all the 17 villages of the panchase area have been invaded by the iaps such as ageratina adenophora, ageratum conyzoides, a. houstonianum, chromolaena odorata and eichhornia crassipes (kunwar and acharya, 2013). bhadaure tamagi village development committee (vdc) (fig. 1) of the panchase protected forest was selected considering rich biodiversity, altitudinal variation, high outmigration, an expanse of fallow lands, and record of historical invasion. furthermore, the village has a high occurrence of the invasive alien plant species, with apparent impacts on connected ecosystems (undp/mdo, 2006). the vdc covers 2,504.3 ha and has a population of 3,257. the average family size is four, which is less than the national average of 4.88 (gon, 2012). this is due to the out-migration of more than 50 percent of the local working age population for various purposes. baral et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 33 fig. 1: location map of the study area for this study, the vdc was divided into four ecosystem types, namely agriculture, forest, wetlands and grasslands for spatial analysis of the distribution and impacts of invasive plant species (fig. 2). forest was found to be the dominant ecosystem, forest, along with grassland covers 76.13%, followed by agro-ecosystem (22.86%) and wetland (1.01%). the khahare khola and harpan khola are the major river systems that constitute the majority of the wetland ecosystem, followed by the transitional grassland ecosystem (sharma et al., 2013). the lower belt of the study area, characterized by the dense settlement is used for settlements and farming whereas the upper belt, mostly covered by forest, is traditionally used for herding livestock and pasture. fig. 2: the study area with different ecosystems study methods the required information was collected through mainly two approaches; ecological assessment and participatory methods such as community consultation, household questionnaire survey, direct field observation, and group discussion. the spatial analysis was performed using participatory cluster mapping and geographical information system (gis), and the ecological assessment. furthermore, stakeholder consultations were organized to know the history and intensity of impacts of iaps; the representatives from the district forests office (dfo), panchase development committee as well as the other knowledgeable persons participated in the consultations. participatory assessment while collecting data, prior informed consent was obtained at different levels. a total of 28 households (nearly 5% of the total 570 of households) were interviewed using household questionnaires to understand the impact of iaps on the different ecosystems of the panchase area and problems of invasion. six focus group discussions (fgds) were conducted with farmers cfugs, club members, ngo representatives, panchase protected forest council members and the mothers’ group members to gather additional information on the status and effects of iaps on the different ecosystems. altogether, 58 respondents participated in the fgds. participatory resource mapping was conducted with the locals to identify the most affected areas. in addition, a historical timeline was prepared during the fgds to document the extent of invasion and its impact of invasion. the study largely relied on the recall method to elucidate the history of introduction, trends and distribution of invasion. information was validated with the help of the key-informant interviews, especially with the elderly and forest guards. after participatory mapping, an ecological assessment was carried out representing the different ecosystems of the panchase area. ecological assessment a rapid ecological assessment was carried out based on the participatory resource mapping representing different ecosystems. the assessment was carried out in december 2012. depending upon the terrain condition, perpendicular transects within a distance of 50–100 m length were laid on the ground. on either side of the transect, two quadrats, each measuring 10 m x 10 m were laid (fig. 3) ensuring the requisite distance and spiral in spinning; thus, one quadrate was feasible in each perpendicular transect and two in each baral et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 34 baral et al. parallel transect. altogether, 108 plots were laid in the field. in each quadrant, two sub-plots measuring 1 m x 1 m for annual and 2 m x 2 m for biannual iaps, respectively were laid. for conducting the ecological study, different sites situated at the different altitudes were sampled (table 1). fig. 3: lay out of the quadrants and subquadrants in the field table 1: study sites and elevation s.n. site elevation (m) no. of quadrats 1 ghatichina 821–975 13 2 thulakhet 929–959 19 3 chainpur 1,036–1,136 9 4 harpan 1,214–1,441 12 5 damdame 1,288–1,292 2 6 sidhane 1,326–1,390 6 7 kutmidada 1,337–1,361 12 8 deurali 1,410–1,822 7 9 tamagi 1,440–1,908 6 10 bhadaure 1,502–1,699 8 11 ahaldada 1,860–2,096 2 12 bhanjyang 2,001–2,048 2 13 chisapani 2,058–2,063 10 total 108 the soil samples were collected to assess the relationship between the soil and the invasive species. the physio-chemical properties (texture, ph and moisture) of the five soil samples collected were studied to determine whether the iaps correlated with the soil characteristics. the available climatological records (rainfall and temperature) obtained from the meteorological station nearby lumle, for the period of 1981– 2011, were correlated with the ecological data. the plant species were identified by following stainton and polunin (1984), stainton (1988) and gon (2001). data analysis the quantitative data obtained from the household interviews was analyzed using the spss 16.0 software. the climatic characteristics of the study area were assessed in terms of average annual maximum and minimum temperatures and annual precipitation. the suitability analysis was carried out on the basis of the distance and the frequency of the existing species in relation to the landuse, rivers and roads. similarly, the analysis of the species distribution was conducted by using the importance value index (ivi) as introduced by cottam and curtis (1956) for comparison of the species dominance. the ivi provides a quantitative basis for the classification of community, which reflects the overall importance of a species; the ivi for a species is calculated as the sum of its relative frequency, relative density and relative dominance, as follows: relative frequency is the frequency of a species in relation to the frequency of all the other species, and is expressed as, relative frequency (%) = frequency of a species x 100 total frequency of all the species (source: raunkiaer, 1934) relative density is the density of a species with respect to the total density of all species, and is expressed as, relative density (%) = density of individual species x 100 total density of all the species (source: zobel et al., 1987) finally, the importance value index (ivi) is calculated by using the following formula: ivi = relative frequency (rf) + relative density (rd) + relative dominance (rdo) results and discussion invasive alien plant species and invasion trend invasive species have long been ethno-identified, recognized and locally managed by the local banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 35 baral et al. communities. tiwari et al. (2005) have identified, altogether, 166 invasive alien plants species in nepal. however, we found as many as 194 invasive plant species after updating the record of the panchase area. of these, 52 were recorded in the panchase area alone and 28 were the newly recorded invasive plants. altogether, 18 invasive plant species were found to be with higher occurrence in the study area. of these, 12 (ageratina adenophora, ageratum houstonianum, borreria alata, chromolaena odorata, conyza japonica, eichhornia crassipes, lantana camara, parthenium hysterophorus, phalaris minor, grevillea robusta, leucaena leucocephala and xanthium strumarium) species were of high risk of spreading which has been also reported by tiwari et al. (2005). the local communities were, however, only aware of the impact of nine species out of which a. adenophora and ageratum conyzoides were more frequent and dense in distribution. they are noted for aggressive and rampant spread. a. conyzoides and a. adenophora were found to be beyond control, causing detrimental impact upon the local biodiversity by reducing the regeneration of a number of valuable plant species and, thereby, causing negative impact on the livelihood of the local communities. their ecological importance value index (ivi) showed that a. adenophora (135) and a. houstonianum (104) possessed higher values. the higher ivi values indicated that these were the most abundant and notoriously propagated species in the study area; their rampant growth was also observed along the trails. the ecological analysis showed that a. adenophora was present throughout the study area. it was, however, more abundant at higher elevations (above 1,500 m). the transition lands between the agricultural land and forest lands, fallow lands and roadsides above 2,000 m exhibited the greatest degree of invasion; where the preventive and controlling measures were limited in these areas. the low land of the study area was co-dominated by a. adenophora and a. houstonianum. a. adenophora was sparsely distributed in all the types of soil and environment throughout the study site; however, the nearby wetlands and grasslands were the most favorable environments for invasion. in the study site, the impact of iaps had been apparent over the past three decades; notably, conyza japonica became problematic twentyfive years ago (fig. 4). according to the local communities, c. japonica, phalaris minor, b. alata, a. adenophora, a. houstonianum and c. odorata were the primary invaders assaulting the native biota of all the subject habitatsagricultural lands, wetlands, forests lands and ruderal lands. the extent of invasion of the species, however, differed by ecosystem. the agricultural lands were notoriously confronted by c. japonica, and further aggravated by the invasion of p. minor and b. alata. the latter was found to be more common at the banks of the farmlands. the invasion of a. adenophora in panchase was reported fifteen years ago (iucn, 2013), and its invasion continued to dominate the habitats in the proximity of the wetlands. about 20% of the forest land, particularly forest fringes were found to be invaded by the iaps in panchase. fig. 4: graph showing the year of introduction of iaps in the study area driving factors of invasion both anthropogenic and natural factors are responsible for the introduction and spread of iaps (rai et al., 2012). during the consultations with the local communities, it came into our notice that the major factors of invasion were the ecology of the invasive plants and their adaptability, outmigration and shift in occupation, agronomic practices followed in the area, topography and soil characteristics, climate change and unplanned road construction. panchase is facing a high rate of out-migration, causing an acute scarcity of human resources for agriculture (bhattarai et al., 2014), leaving the entire agricultural lands fallow. as a result, the iaps got opportunity to grow in open spaces and spread throughout the agricultural ecosystem. more than two-thirds of the respondents claimed that, all of the above causes except climate change and unplanned road construction were responsible for the invasion of a. houstonianum while the invasion of a. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 36 baral et al. adenophora occurred due to all the causes other than the agronomic practices in the study area (table 2). as the roots of a. houstonianum are densely fibrous and branched, the species tightly anchors the soil, and grows in all ecosystem types including agricultural lands, disturbed sites and degraded areas. it has a high adaptive capability, as it can complete its life-cycle in less than two months, and reproduces mainly from seeds (iucn, 2013) which are easily dispersed by livestock and wild animals, human clothes, water and agricultural seeds and equipment. the local communities were quite aware about the increasing temperature, and the increase in invasive species was perceived as an aftermath of increasing temperature and rainfall. the plant invasion was found to be positively but not significantly correlated with the soil ph (r=0.577) and soil moisture (r=0.738), table 3). the soil ph in the study area was found to have ranged from 4.6 to 6.5, which is suitable for the growth of iaps (borland et al., 2009). the negative correlation value (r = -0.84, p = 0.05) between the altitude and the ivi revealed that the invasion of the alien plant species (in the study area) decreased with the increase in the altitude. the temperature varies with the altitudes. the average annual maximum and minimum temperatures in last 30 years (1981–2011) at lumle, the nearby station, were 20.22oc and 11.99oc, respectively. the field observations showed that the species were mostly abundant at the lower elevations (1,000–1,500 m) where their growth was also relatively high as a result of comparatively high temperatures. this coincides with the relationship between the altitude and the iaps as mentioned above. impacts of invasion the threat, impact and management problems because of the invasions were severe in the study area. the edges of the forests, agricultural lands and wetlands had severe iaps intrusion. the grasslands and agricultural lands, as well as the fallow lands and roadsides were found to be highly susceptible to the iaps (fig. 5). although most of the community-managed forests were worth in controlling the spread of iaps, the ecosystems particularly the forests, wetlands and grazing lands of the vdc were found to be deteriorated most due to the invasion of alien species. the species such as artemisia indica, solanum surattense and u. dioica in the fallow lands and digitaria spp. (banso), echinochloa colona (samo), eriophorum comosum (phurke), ischaemun rugosum (mallido) and imperata cylindrica (siru) in the agricultural lands were threatened by the iaps within the study site. all the ecosystems were found to be susceptible to invasion, the ecosystems intertwined with higher level of human interventions. grazing, table 2: causes for the spread of iaps in the study area s. n. causes respondent % (n = 28) a. houstanianum a. adenophora 1. biology of iaps and their adaptability 78.6 85.7 2. out-migration and shift in occupations 92.9 89.3 3. agronomic practices 78.6 53.6 4. topography and soil characteristics 78.6 82.1 5. climate change 64.3 78.6 6. unplanned road construction 53.6 85.7 source: field survey, december 2012 table 3: indicators for the spread of iaps in the study area indicators average range correlation coefficient altitude (m) 1,307 1,000–1,500 -0.84* soil ph 5.2 4.6–6.5 0.577 soil moisture 42% 34–45% 0.738 note: * significant at 95% confidence level banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 37 agriculture and fallow lands and roadsides were highly susceptible to invasion. fig. 5: different ecosystems susceptible to iaps in the study area in the agricultural fields, iaps, namely a. houstonianum, b. alata, and p. minor were known to replace the native species, as well as preventing their natural regeneration. many forb species, such as a. indica, s. surattense and u. dioica in the fallow lands and hypoxis aurea and scrophularia species on the agricultural lands were imperilled by the invasion of a. houstonianum, b. alata, and p. minor. a. houstonianum has adverse impacts on most of the agricultural crops, as it exploits the nutrients and fertilisers supplied to the main crops. agricultural crops, particularly ginger, millet, rice and grasses, were outcompeted by ageratum. the invasion of a. conyzoides, a. adenophora, and c. odorata has reduced the production of cereal crops and grasses in the panchase area, causing economic losses from agriculture business. the local communities reported that usually, about 273 kg of rice was produced in a ropani (500 m2) of agricultural land in chainpur, but after the invasion of a. houstonianum, rice production reduced to about 182 kg. forest fringes, roadsides and fallow lands were previously dominated by a. indica, s. surattense, and u. dioica. these species failed to maintain their biomass in the changing climatic and land use conditions, and their dominance was overtaken by opportunistic and invading alien plant species. besides their ecological traits, their chemical traits also made them fetid and unpalatable, supporting notorious growth. ageratina contains cadinene sesquiterpenes which is allelopathic, and controls associated vegetation (kundu et al., 2013). it is also poisonous to horses (bohlmann and gupta, 1981; baruah et al., 1994). similarly, in agricultural fields, grasses such as banso, samo, phurke, mallido and siru have been threatened because of invasion of a. conyzoides, b. alata, and p. minor in the agriculture fields. the lower area of the bhadaure tamagi vdc was densely populated by subsistence farmers, and livestock rearing was an integral part of their livelihood (bhattarai et al., 2012). according to the local communities, the impact of a. houstonianum on livestock was more severe; in the last five years, there were five cases of livestock mortality, particularly of buffalo. in general, buffalo and other livestock, except goat, do not forage on a. houstonianum, but sometimes they inadvertently feed on the iaps while feeding on other grasses and forbs. the cases generally occur in the spring, when the plant’s flowers are in full bloom. according to their version, the animal’s abdomen enlarges after feeding on a. houstonianum compelling it to defecate, but the animal sometimes looses its life too. the local communities reported that along with the adverse impacts, iaps had some positive impacts too. a. adenophora had been used as a green energy resource for composting and soil fertility enhancement in the locality. the practice of using a. adenophora as green manure had been increasing at the study site. invasion out of the 100 invasive alien worst weed species found in the world (lowe et al., 2000), eleven are found in nepal (sankaran et al., 2005). the seven important alien invasive species (arundodonax, chromolaena odorata, eichhornia crissepes, hedychium gardnerianum, hiptage benghalensis, imperata cylindrica, lantana camara, leucaena leucocephala, mikania micrantha, opuntia stricta and rubus ellipticus) found in the asia pacific region are also found in nepal, and all the species except m. micrantha are found in the panchase area. among the 14 worst species, nine species were prevalent in the bhadaure tamagi vdc, of which a. conyzoides and a. adenophora were found to be the most problematic species. the determinants of plant invasiveness per se are extremely complex (rejmanek, 2005). although the iaps are found in all the ecosystem types, the results showed that a. adenophora was dominant in all the ecosystems except the agricultural land. it is found that open areas were found to be conducive for the establishment of a. adenophora. this is because most of the iaps are light demander and cannot be found inside dense forests. therefore, baral et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 38 their diversity and distribution were found to be homogenous throughout the study site. a. adenophora was also the first species to colonize the degraded areas and prevent other plants from establishing themselves. in the study area, the open grazing system had been practiced since a long time ago. in this system, generally the cattle are left free in the area for grazing without human-care mainly during summer (3–4 months), the land is frequently browsed by these cattle, as well as other wild animals. therefore, the area had become more prone to biological invasion, and the trampling by the domestic and wild animals had accelerated high invasion proliferation in the grasslands. according to the local farmers, hypoxis aurea began to spread aggressively in the agricultural fields of the area seven years ago due to excessive use of nitrogen chemical fertilizer. biologists, ecologists and conservationists have failed to manage the invasive species for a long time (bhagwat et al., 2012). in the study area, the plant invasion was found to be fueled by anthropogenic interferences such as habitat degradation, and abandoned of the agricultural lands, as a result of youth outmigration, had provided adequate space for the invasion of iaps. this had created space for the proliferation of several invasive species in the area, which is consistent with the findings of maren et al., 2013. furthermore, the agronomic practices in the study area was found to be changing, for instance, the use of organic compost manure in agricultural farming was found to be decreasing while the use of chemical fertilizer increasing. similar observation was also reported by timsina et al., (2011) in their studies in majhuwa deurali of the gorkha district, majhitar of the nuwakot district and kirtipur of the kathmandu district in the central part of nepal. as reported by dukes and mooney (1999), the findings of this study shows that several iaps had quickly established in a new soil, and thus had covered almost all the open areas and newly constructed roadsides (yasuyuki et al. 2010). impact although all the ecosystems in the study area were found to be susceptible to invasion, the ecosystems exposed to a higher level of human interventions such as agricultural lands and grasslands were more susceptible to invasion of iaps, which is consistent with the findings of yelenik et al., (2007). forest lands were found to be the least affected in the study site as they were more diverse, (bhattarai et al., 2012), closecanopied and distantly located. the invasive plant species are often shaded by trees and lianas in forests (rouw, 1996), and their invasion is slowed (tjitrosemito, 1996). as a result, dense and diverse forests are more resistant to ecological invasion (pimm, 1984). however, only about 20 percent of the forests, particularly at their edges in the study area were found to be invaded by the invasive plant species as being light demander species. the invasive plants were found to be growing in a wide range of soils in the open areas. the soil texture in the agricultural lands in the study area was found to be silt-clay. the highest population of a. houstonianum in the agricultural land showed that they preferred siltclay whereas the abundance of a. adenophora in the roadside and rangeland shows that the species preferred coarse soil. a. houstonianum has adverse impacts on most of the agricultural crops, as it exploits nutrients and fertilizers supplied to the main crops. iaps affect the dynamics and composition of soil and affect the ecosystem functions, such as soil nutrient cycling (yelenik et al., 2007) and soil chemistry (randall and marinelli, 1996). the local communities were living in the lower area of the study site where livestock rearing was an integral part of their livelihoods (bhattarai et al., 2012; rai and scarborough, 2015). for this reason, fodder collection was the second most important biomass out-take, especially in dry and lean periods when on-farm fodder particularly sparse. the species preferred by the local people for lopping fodder were brassaiopsis hainla, ficus lacor, f. glaberrima, f. hispida, streblus asper, eurya accuminata, prunus species, quercus lamellosa and q. semecarpifolia (bhattarai et al., 2012). their productivity was, however, constrained by a. houstonianum, because both use the resources base of hedgerows and embankments of farms. the inadequate labour in the study site had also led the agriculture lands and grasslands to be less unattended, resulting into rampant spread of invasive plant species. according to the local inhabitants, the indigenous agricultural crops such as ginger, millet, rice and grasses were outcompeted by ageratum whereas the forestry species were outpaced by ageratina. the invasion of a. conyzoides, a. adenophora, and c. odorata had reduced the production of baral et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 39 cereal crops and grasses in kaski district (bhusal, 2009). according to oerke et al., (1995), there was a loss of 13% of the agricultural output due to weeds. usefulness of alien invasive plants most of the alien invasive plants have adverse effects both on forests and agriculture lands. nevertheless, they also have some use values, such as medicinal, edible as a vegetable, fodder for cattle, preparing manure, hedge fencing and erosion control. the practice of using a. adenophora as a green manure is increasing the study site. green manure of a. adenophorahas contributed to increasing nutrient supply to the agricultural land thereby increasing yields of rice (bhattarai et al., 2006). sun et al.,(2004) has found that the manure contains 0.372% of total nitrogen, 0.062% of total phosphorus and 0.580% of total potassium, as well as calcium, magnesium, iron, sulphur, silicon, zinc, boron (sun et al., 2004). therefore, promotion of the use of a. adenophora as a green manure is important. traditionally, a. adenophora has long been used as a cattle-bedding material, in several parts of the country (shrestha, 1989). the leaves of a. adenophoraare used for controlling bleeding from cuts. its medicinal properties have already been documented (oladejo et al., 2003). in addition, a. adenophora is being used in the study site to produce bio-briquettes. the richness and distribution of invasive plants in the study area can be a good resource for an invasive-plantbased entrepreneurship. however, bhagwat et al., (2012) recommend cautious use of invasive species through adaptive management approach, which provides a favorable environment for non-timber forest species from which the local communities can benefit. conclusion as seen elsewhere, biological invasion of iaps causes destruction and out-competition with indigenous species. the replacement of native species by iaps is a gradual process, so it is difficult to show the evidence of direct replacement, but we succeeded in tracing the history of increasing the spread of invasive species in the panchase area. artemisia indica, solanum surrattense and urtica dioica were threatened by the invasion of a. houstonianum, borreria alata, and phalaris minor showing the complexities of the local ecology and socioeconomy. the invasion was more severe at the edges of the forest and agricultural lands and also the wetlands where the onslaughts of a. adenophora were persistent. the invasion was less in dense forests, implying that close canopy forests are less sensitive to invasive species, and routine management can check the threats of invasive species. nevertheless, iaps can also be managed tactfully by using the resources wisely instead of destroying them haphazardly. in addition, the bare ground should be minimized to control further spread of iaps (feng et al., 2002) as far as possible. in the context of climate change, social transformation, and cultural evolution, cautious use of non-indigenous resources is often touted, and controlled use of invasive species can be a positive asset for the management of the site. however, to put it in practice, the local communities along with the forest officials should be taught to include iapss management activities in their management plans. references aryal, a. and dhungel, s. k., 2009. species diversity and distribution of bats in panchase, a region of nepal. tiger paper 36 (2): 14–18. banerji, n. l. 1958. invasion of eupatorium glandulosum (e. adenophorum) in east nepal. bulletin of botanical society 10 (1, 2): 14–18. baruah, n. c., sharma, j. c., sharma, s. and sharma, r. 1994. seed germination and growth inhibitory cadinene from 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yasuyuki, k., bhaskar, s., tasong, m., hui, t., tomo, r. and kazuo, a. 2010. roadside distribution patterns of invasive alien plants along an altitudinal gradient in arunachal himalaya, india. mountain research and development 30 (3): 252–258. yelenik, s. g., stock, w. d. and richardson, d. m. 2007. functional group identity does not predict invader impacts: differential effects of nitrogen-fixing exotic plants on ecosystem function. biological invasions 9: 117–125. zobel, d. b., yadav, u. k., jha, p. k. and behan, m. j. 1987. a practical manual for wcology. rani printing press, kathmandu, nepal. baral et al. 54 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 following a case study approach, this paper explains how scientific forest management plans were developed and implemented in community forests of a mid-hill district in nepal. field observations were carried over a period of two years (december 2014 to december 2016) in two community forests. user group members, forest officials, forest technicians and executive committee members were consulted. the plans were prepared simply by compiling the administrative requirements where management prescriptions were defined either based on forest technicians’ knowledge or taken directly from the guidelines with little reference to the actual site quality, management objectives, and forest stand conditions. apart from harvesting of trees, users hardly implemented the plans’ silvicultural prescriptions and forest restoration activities. moreover, forest officials administratively reduced the number of trees that users could harvest to around half of what the plans allow. accordingly, forest user groups face a paradoxical forest administration that promotes timber harvesting according to so-called scientific principles, which it then brushes aside to satisfy bureaucratic demands. the study concludes that the concept of scientific forestry is merely used as a “brand” or a seemingly sound “narrative” in community forestry, while it is of little practical relevance because administrative decisions are more powerful in guiding forest management decisions. hence, the study suggests a replacement of the current schizophrenic mix of so-called “scientific forest management” and sweeping administrative orders with adaptive management practices in community forests. key words: nepal, relevancy, scientific management, silviculture system, silvicultural madness: a case from the “scientific forestry” initiative in the community forests of nepal b. basnyat1&2, t. treue2 and r. k. pokharel3 community forestry involves shifting of forest management authority from the central state to local communities while state ownership of the forest land continues (ojha, 2014) and the state forest bureaucracy determines management requirements as per the principles of scientific forest management (scifm) planning (ribot, 2002). the plan is a precondition for transferring rights to communities and plays a central role in community forestry of nepal (nightingale, 2005). the legacy of scientific forestry still dominates community-based forests management across the world (ribot, 2002) including nepal. the forest bureaucracy in nepal often attaches great value to scientific management because of dispositional (habitual), political (for fear of losing power), and knowledge-related reasons (ojha et al., 2007). as a result, scifm is promoted in nepal’s forestry sector for several more or less interrelated reasons. in recent years, the ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc) has reoriented the priorities in scifm, especially after the revised forest policy, 2000. furthermore, recently released policies and strategies, such as the forest policy, 2014, the national biodiversity strategy and action plan, 2014, the forests sector strategy, 2015, and the thirteenth three year periodic plan (2013—2015), including the fourteenth three year periodic plan (2016—2018) and forestry decade, 2015 have given high priority to expand the concept of scifm throughout the country, even within community-based forest management systems. as a result, the mfsc introduced a technically complex, silvicultural management system in community forestry in 2014, which is popularly known as “scientific forest management”. aiming to ensure a sustained yield of timber from the forests, it involves a 1 institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, nepal. email: bbasnyat@yahoo.com 2 department of food and resource economics, copenhagen university, denmark 3 tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal 55 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 division of the forest into compartments and subcompartments based on rotation age; adoption of a particular silvicultural system; systematic harvesting in sub-compartments, and marking and systematic harvesting of marked trees including detailed cost-benefit analysis (mfsc, 2014). the scifm creates a need for specific expertise (nightingale, 2005) and puts the forest bureaucracy in a superior position, redefining communities’ participation in forest management (nightingale, 2005; nightingale and ojha, 2013). though the plan provided exclusive competence to manage forest resources according to ‘scientific principles”, it is often used for asserting the bureaucracy’s control over forests (ribot, 2002; nightingale 2005) by claiming superior knowledge. the concept supports expanding state control over decentralised forest resources, blocks the transfer of power (gauld, 2000; ribot, 2002; nigthingale, 2005; nigthingale 2009; hull et al., 2010; maryudi, 2012; faye, 2015), and works against the interests of the forest users (krott et al., 2014). furthermore, the plans have little consequence for forest management practices (bhattacharya and basnyat, 2003; nightangle, 2005; rutt et al., 2015) and are often considered a series of superfluous and burdensome bureaucratic measures in participatory forestry (rutt et al., 2015). some scholars already (rutt et al., 2015; toft et al., 2015) questions on the practical relevance of the scientific management, considering poor use in management decisions. despite this, the concept of scifm is expanding in nepal and being promoted in nearly one-third of the country’s districts (dof, 2015). few scholars question the theoretical relevance of scientific knowledge in decentralised forest management and promotion of community participation, but a growing number of studies show its darker side of strengthening elite control of other groups’ access to forest resources and revenues (green and lund, 2015; ribot, 2002; sunam et al., 2013; rutt et al., 2015; ojha, et al., 2014). how the recently introduced concept of scifm in the community forests of nepal works and for whom, however, remains elusive. this apparent begs the question of “how scientific forest management prescriptions were developed, how they are implemented in practice, and with what effects”? taking scifm in community forests as a case, we explore (a) how scifm plans were prepared ? (b) how forest management prescriptions in the plans were determined ? on what basis management treatments are proposed ? and (c) how plan/ management prescriptions are implemented in practice ? materials and methods the case – scientific forest management we followed a case study approach since it allowed for an in-depth study on knowledgerelated challenges from the perspective of participants (gerring, 2007; collis and hussey, 2009) and relied on multiple sources of evidence (yin, 2014). taking scifm in community forestry as a case, we explored operational plan preparation and implementation processes in a randomly selected mid-hill district4 of nepal. out of eight community forests with scifm in the district, we conducted an intensive case study in two community forests4. though the scifm guideline, 2014 has recommended implementing scifm in forests of at least 100 ha in the hills, only one community forest in the district had an area of 100 ha (dfo-a, 2014). hence, we selected the one above 100 ha and randomly selected another among the remaining seven. the first community forest (site i) is 45.92 ha with 61 dependent households (x-cf, 2014) while the second is 112.02 ha with 93 households (site ii) (y-cf, 2014). both community forests had over-mature natural sal (shorea robusta) dominated forests with high commercial potential. it almost took three years to prepare and implement the scifms (table 1). the plans were prepared in 2014 while tree stem mapping and harvesting plans (2015) were ready in the second year. finally, harvesting of the tree was carried out in the third year (2016). basnyat et al. 4 for reasons of research ethics, the district and community forest identities are not disclosed as the political sensitivity of the study required that we had to promise our informants not to disclose their identity. 56 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 table 1: scientific forest management practices in community forests year phases key activities 2014 planning • selection of the community forest • interaction with users • scientific management plan preparation and approval • exposure visits to users to observe scientific management • establishment of revolving fund 2015 harvesting plan preparation • tree stem mapping and harvesting plan preparation and approval • interaction with cfugs leader 2016 implementation of plan • forest protection (similar to the past) • harvesting of trees methods the first author conducted intensive field observation in the two study sites over a period of two years (december 2014 to december 2016). at the beginning of the field work in december 2014, the plans were just approved and harvesting plan preparation processes had not commenced. hence, the first part of our data collection concentrated on plan preparation processes with the communities, technicians and other concerned personals. after understanding the plan preparation processes, the first author, along with users and local-level forest bureaucrats5 were able to identify three crucial periods in a year where implementation of the plans had taken place. this includes annual planning (may – june); harvesting (december – february), and management (january to march). the first author observed implementation processes as a passive observant. likewise, the first author also observed general assemblies and executive committee meetings of users along with a series of communications, especially among users and executive committee members; local-level forest bureaucrats and executive committee members. our objective was to understand the underlying decision-making processes of the written plans. we followed a content analysis method in reviewing the plans, records and minutes of the community forests. the reviews mostly focused on the expected role of actors in scifm, the provisions mentioned in the plans regarding scientific management, forest product harvesting quantity, and decisions in the community forests. we conducted five focus group discussions with women, poor, and marginalised community members, executive committee members, and general users in each community forest to understand the plan preparation processes and its subsequent implementation. in addition to this, we conducted a semi-structured interview with locallevel forest bureaucrats (12 persons), technicians involved in plan preparation (4 persons), executive committee members (17 persons), users involved in the plan preparation related work (11 persons) and other key informants (13 persons). information was validated and triangulated through the interactions with different groups of stakeholders and often exploring the reasons for the findings to get an in-depth understanding of the context. we also conducted a rapid survey of users in the two sites to understand their involvement in planning and plan implementation. given the small number of user households in the study sites, we surveyed/interacted with 101 households (nearly two-thirds of all relevant households) using a structured questionnaire. the survey focused on exploring reasons for adopting scifm, users’ involvement in the plan preparation including plan preparation processes and users’ perception of their capacity to implement the plan when taking their skills, finances, and human resources into consideration. results and discussion plan preparation process local-level forest bureaucrats had selected community forests with a commercial potential, good forest condition, accessibility, and tree species composition (preferring sal) when promoting scifm. the users did not know why their community forests were selected. but locallevel forest bureaucrats organised meetings with the user group leaders and informed about likely benefits they would get from adopting scifm. according to the chairpersons, they informed basnyat et al. 5 local level forest bureaucrats include forest officials working at the district and ilaka forest office. this includes forest officers, rangers, forester and forest guards. 57 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 users/executive committees on potential benefits, especially on timber harvest quantities, revolving fund contributions, employment opportunities, and proclaimed that it would ensure sustainable forest management. they also asked leaders to organise general assembly to decide about the scientific management along with the request letter to the district forest office for necessary support. both users and executive committees decided to adopt scientific forest management, agreeing to the bureaucrats’ proposaleither “now” or “never”. according to the users, they got an ‘offer they could not “refuse’. they got technicians for plan preparation at free of cost; payment of wage for user’s involvement, especially on forest inventory work; material/ financial support for plan implementation; exposure visits to nearby districts together with the permission for harvesting forest products, especially timber and firewood as per the plan. the first and second community forest user group received a revolving fund contribution of nrs 279,000 and nrs 114,000, respectively for implementation of the plan (dfo_a, 2015). the user groups’ trust in the local forest bureaucrats and the incentives they provided were the two main reasons for adopting the scifm in both community forests. the local forest bureaucrats recruited technicians to prepare both plans, quite contrary to the directions of the community forestry development guidelines, 2014, which require users to prepare their plan following participatory processes with support from the local-level forest bureaucrats (dof, 2014). according to the executive members of both community forests, their roles were mostly confined to logistic arrangements such as organising meetings, arranging accommodation, and participation in forest inventory work as observers. the technicians prepared the plans following a “blueprint approach” complying with the technical parts of the scifm guideline, 2014 while local people’s voices and concerns were largely ignored or undermined. executive members in both the studied community forests reported that consultations during the plan preparation were hardly carried out and voices of users often ignored or unheard. according to users, the technicians divided compartments, designed and conducted the inventory, selected sub-compartments and prescribed management interventions. they were asked to participate in the inventory, but they were not consulted on any forest management decisions. they could not understand what the technicians were doing. another user said, the technicians’ work was mostly confined to inventory works and did not bother much for other aspects. they wrote in the plan whatever they think right. when interviewed about the plan preparation processes in both the studied community forests, the technicians responded: “we followed guidelines and suggested management prescription accordingly. the guidelines are of a very prescriptive nature and provide little room for consultations. we involved users and their leaders during the inventory. they do not have knowledge on the scientific management, but we worked closely with the local-level forest bureaucrats. users and executive committee members were passive participants in the processes and often involved as labourers. more than two-thirds of users responded that forest technicians prepared their plan and they were simply involved in endorsing the plan at the general assembly. nearly three-fourth of the users reported that the plan was not even discussed at the general assembly. bhattacharya and basnyat (2003) made a similar observation in community forests of nepal where the forests technicians prepared a plan, and the real users were either observers or passive participants. hence,“a forest-centric or forester knows best about forest” approach was institutionalised in our case community forests while people’s voices and concerns were ignored. knowledge, skills and experience of the users and executive committee during the plan preparation were largely ignored. the chairperson of one of the groups said they [the user group members] performed all the necessary rituals necessary to endorse the plan, such as organising a general assembly, participating in inventory work, providing information sought by the technicians and endorsement of the plan without knowing what is written in the plan. the plan was prepared without consulting with the users, not only on technical forest management issues but also on the governance issues, such as fees, fines and penalties and forest product fee and forest product distribution mechanisms. both the users and executive members could hardly recall whether any such consultations had taken place. nevertheless, forest bureaucrats sent the draft plan to the committee and asked for endorsement by the general assembly. according to one of basnyat et al. 58 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 the chairpersons, they endorsed the plan without caring to read it since it was highly technical and written by the “expert”. they endorsed the plans in a hurry since the government fiscal year was about to end and they would lose the contribution to their revolving fund if they could not do in time. hence, the plan preparations were like rituals performed only to comply procedural and legal requirements. ribot (2002), makes a similar observation and mentions that scientific plans circumscribe rural populations’ opportunities and obligations with a lack of new rights, but rather provide them with an opportunity to participate in a project, not of their design. silvicultural prescription the silvicultural prescription should be defined considering the management objectives, forest stand conditions including estimated growth rates, and topography (gilmour, 2017). however, users reported that the technicians simply referred the scifm guidelines, 2014 while deciding on management prescriptions. the technicians designed and carried out forest inventories with a predefined objective of “timber production”. neither users’ priority nor participatory forest assessment was carried out before deciding the management objectives. one of the chairpersons said, “when decisions are made by the heart, it’s hard to use the brain. the guidelines appeared like a religion to the technician and dreaded to questions, whether they trust or not”. whenever the user raised the concerns, the technicians simply referred the guidelines and responded that their plan should be done similarly. as a result, users stopped to question the technician’s work and became rather submissive. when the first author enquired with one of the technicians about the basis of deciding management prescriptions, the response was “mr x is the father of the scientific forestry in nepal, who recommended this practice. the government has already approved this concept, and our plan should be prepared similarly. we cannot go beyond that approach”. the technician simply followed whatever was written in the guidelines, whether or not this made sense in the local context. for example, the scifm guidelines, 2014 require a fire line of 6 m and 4 m width for compartments and sub-compartments, respectively. the technician proposed this for both community forests even though the sizes of the sub-compartments were very small (0.5 ha and 1.4 ha, respectively). nearly one-tenth of the forests within the subcompartments should be clear-felled if fire lines to be constructed. the construction of fire lines in very steep terrain might also cause severe soil erosion, but these obvious factors were not taken into account during the preparation of the plans. however, the fire lines were never established, and nobody seemed to have pushed for that to happen. hence, the fire line instructions of the guidelines were, in practice, ignored -mainly because it would lead to a permanent removal of trees from a conspicuously large part of the forests, which could create trouble for the locallevel forest bureaucrats. as local forest bureaucrat explained: harvesting more trees is more trouble. we would have to go to the field to comply with all procedural requirements which are quite demanding. further, local media would write unnecessarily that we clear felled the forests for our benefits. we would have to give justification everywhere despite our good faith. but if we do not work, our life is easy. the user groups leaders were not aware of the fire line prescriptions within their plans. the chairperson of one group said: “we have much more jobs to do apart from the community forests. we hardly find time to read the plan and follow it as prescribed. we simply do what the forest bureaucrats ask us to do. mercifully, the combination of users’ ignorance about ‘required’ fire line constructions and locallevel forest bureaucrats’ active resistance to this part of the guidelines prevented devastation of the forests. scott (1998) provides many examples of how local people, who know their environment, manage to save themselves and prevent the most damaging effects of centrally-ordered, wellintended, but incredibly ill-considered plans and procedures by not following these to the letter while relying on local knowledge and common sense. our study suggests that we might add local-level forest bureaucrats to the ranks of every-day heroes, who prevent top-down orders from laying waste to the land and their own as well as ordinary people’s livelihoods. management prescriptions are “text book science” rather than “research generated knowledge”. the rotation age, regeneration period, silvicultural system, number of seed trees to be retained was prescribed based on the “guidelines”. however, the origin of this knowledge was not explored. in fact, they are based on lessons from the basnyat et al. 59 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 terai but virtually replicated in the hills, which differ regarding climatic conditions, forest age, topography and species composition. when we discussed this with forest bureaucrats and technicians, the common answer was either (i) the prescription was obtained from the guidelines or (ii) similar prescriptions were proposed in another comparable community forest. the scifm guidelines, 2014 recommend that a community forest should be considered as a single block and then divided into compartments and sub-compartments. it suggested to implement scifm at-least forests with 100 ha, but 200 ha are preferable. it further assumed that compartments and sub-compartments within the forest are generally homogenous stands, especially regarding species composition, size classes and age of the forests. however, the guidelines remained silent on different forest types which can be found within the small block or in the compartments. for example, the forest type and vegetation composition differ by aspect and altitude (cf above), such issues were not taken into account, while proposing silvicultural operations. in our two case study sites, the consultant simply divided the forests into eight compartments considering the rotation of the sal tree, despite north and south aspects had two different vegetation types with two distinct rotation ages. forests in the mid hills generally consist of s. robusta dominated stands on south facing slopes and schima/castanopsis on north facing slopes. of the eight compartments in site i, two compartments are dominated by schima/ castanopsis forests while this forest type only dominated in one compartment in site ii. however, such obvious differences in vegetation composition did not result in proposing two different silvicultural prescriptions in the plans. rather the plans’ management interventions were exclusively based on, s. robusta. the rotation period for the final harvesting was fixed at 80 years which makes sense for the sal dominated compartments but seems less relevant for the schima/castanopsis dominated stands, which is likely to reach maturity earlier (when the commercial value of growing stands begin to decrease as a result of increasing rot and defects). the forest technicians imitated the “principle of the compartment and sub-compartment division, but ignored on forest type in deciding on the layout of compartments or sub-compartments in the community forests. in fact, there should be at-least two blocks in the community forests, given the two-distinct forest types (s. robusta and schima/castanopsis forest) in each community forest with different rotation age, similarly, single species were considered in defining the forest management system though the species composition varies by aspect. this situation had appeared partly because of the technical flaws within the scifm guideline, 2014 itself, which is silent on the division of the compartments and sub-compartments considering the vegetation type and partly because of the technicians’ application of the guidelines, without considering the-ground reality. accordingly, we are concerned about the technical and scientific quality of the guidelines as well as the technical soundness of how technical ‘experts’ apply the guidelines in practice. consequently, silvicultural prescriptions were proposed without considering forest types and management objectives. our case also illustrates that management interventions were decided giving preference to the species, sal for producing the timber. this finding is similar to gauld (2000), who found that the new policy discourse of community-based forestry policy in the philippines was shaped by efforts to maintain centralised control over forest management and a political economy orientated towards commercial timber production using the principles of ‘scientific’ management. further, the “irregular shelterwood system” proposed in the plans did not consider the local context. more than one-fourth of forest area in both sites is located on steep slopes (above 30o). intensive harvesting should, therefore, be discouraged in these areas (fao n.d). however, the plans still prescribe the removal of all trees above 30 cm diameter at breast height, except mother trees. as a result, local-level forest bureaucrats introduced their preferences considering the geographical sensitivity of the area, especially the risk of soil erosion and landslides and also to limit the harvesting volume. the scifm guideline, 2014 recommend 15 to 25 mother trees per ha, but local-level forest bureaucrats increased the number of mother trees to 27 to 29 trees per ha in the harvesting plan. hence, in practice, silvicultural management prescriptions, quite sensibly override the rigid scifm prescriptions, but why then go through the trouble of developing plans that even the forest basnyat et al. 60 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 bureaucrats, who promote the underlying concept of scifm, do not dare to implement in practice? it is indeed a paradox that scifm in nepal promotes a “one size fit all” silvicultural system (c.f. gelo and koch, 2012) after which local-level forest bureaucrats must ‘save’ the forests, the down hill environment, and ultimately their careers by rejecting to implement the concept in practice. the technicians divided each of the community forests into eight compartments, conducted a forest inventory in each compartment, and proposed harvesting within one compartment while prescribing forest protection activities in the remaining seven compartments. of the total forest, only a very small area (1/80th) is harvested every year, only 0.5 ha in site i and 1.4 ha in site ii per year. furthermore, the forest was very intensively harvested in small sub-compartments, even though mature and overmature trees were plentiful in compartments that should not be harvested in the coming 40-50 years according to the plans. further, of the total marked trees in the two case study sites, nearly two-thirds (64.3%) were either of medium quality, at cull stage, or of poor quality (dfo-a, 2015). the economic madness of leaving currently valuable trees to rot because a forestry ‘expert’ has devised a ‘scientific’ management is obvious. the fundamental flaw is that the approach ignores the initial distribution of species and diameter classes across the entire forest. an analogy might clarify our point: like forest compartments, the tables in mr kafle’s restaurant have numbers to facilitate clear communication between the waiters and cooks. the customers, however, choose tables according to their preferences among the ones that happen to be free when they arrive. during opening hours, the guests are, therefore, scattered all over the restaurant. some are eating dessert; some are having drinks and snacks while others are just getting ready to order their meals. the restaurant is successful, and most customers pay tips in appreciation of the good food, exellent service, and reasonable pricelevel. suddenly, a government decree orders the certification of all restaurants according to official standards, or else the authorities will close them down. coincidently, a donor-funded hotel and restaurant development project happens to offer free-of-charge assistance by ‘experts’ who will help streamline the restaurants’ operational procedures after which they can get certified, so mr kafle is ever so thankful when the government inspector, whom he has known for many years, facilitates an ‘expert’ to assist with the certification process. unfortunately, however, a fundamental certification criterion is that guests at tables 2-30 cannot be served before the guests at table 1 have finalised their entire meal irrespective of who came first and which courses they had completed. unless this principle becomes part of the restaurant’s written operational procedures, which only the management ‘experts’ know how to fill out correctly, it cannot get certified. what will mr kafle do? close down, implement the new procedure to the letter (and then close down), or pretend to follow the new procedure, get certified, and continue his business as before? what will the government inspector do when he comes to verify whether mr kafle’s restaurant follows the certification criteria ? implementation more than two-third (70%) of the users were unaware of the plan. for them, it simply means as a tool to access “harvesting of the marked trees every year”. they considered the plan “a bureaucratic requirement and of little relevance”. as a result, forest management operations, such as forest protection, silviculture and tending operations were largely ignored and rarely implemented. neither users nor local-level forest bureaucrats pay much attention to this part of the plans. though the scifm plan emphasises active involvement of forest technicians in management decisions, they neither supported nor referred the plan. when users mostly request locallevel forest bureaucrats to support during plan implementation, the indifference was either lack of technical competency or inadequate financial support. one of the local-level forest bureaucrats said, “we graduated from the forestry school almost 30 years ago, we have almost forgotten what we were taught there. therefore, what we do is simply to regulate harvest rather than guiding them in other matters. if we were competent enough, we could have guided them”. another responded “they did not have the adequate budget or programme to facilitate implementation. the implementation responsibilities lie with the users since the “plan was prepared by them, for them, and to them”. these findings resonate those of toft et al. (2017) who reported that the operational plan was of little consequence in practical forest management, but more important to users as a basnyat et al. 61 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 source of “legitimacy around forest management decisions”. the users and local forest bureaucrats blamed each other for the poor implementation of the plans. users perceived that they received poor implementation support while forest bureaucrats perceived that communities should mobilise their fund to implement the plans. consequently, the plans often remained on the “shelf” and were only referred to at the time of harvesting, especially to identify the marked trees. neither the users nor the local-level forest bureaucrats could recall when they had referred to the plans other than during harvesting of trees. as a result, the silvicultural prescriptions of the plans were hardly implemented. the user committees organized annual weeding operations for two days to clean the harvested block in both the study sites and did not bother to implement other management prescriptions in the block. the users simply carried out protection measures which include deployment of a forest watcher; monitoring forests based on a rotational basis by users; permission to collect dead firewood, grasses and fodder at free of cost. no specific activities prescribed in the plan were implemented apart from the removal of debris/cleaning of harvested compartments. this is similar to the findings of the rutt et al. (2015) who found that technical forest management plans in nepal were haphazardly elaborated and that local communities base their management on other sources of knowledge. the plans emphasised the involvement of the local-level forest bureaucrats and mentioned that users should strictly follow their advice. likewise, they recommended to recruit or hire a forestry graduate to implement the plan and allocate part of the budget for the use of technical support. however, the users and executive members in both sites seemed unaware of these plan details. the plans were prepared ambitiously without considering the capacity of the local community and forest bureaucrats. likewise, users felt that they were not competent enough to implement the plan. of the 161 users from two community forests, only three have received training on scifm while six users have observed scifm practices in neighbouring districts. in addition, the plans predicted annual investment requirements in each forest, but the user groups do not have sufficient funds to implement the plans. they had already utilised their revolving fund for paying wages to users that were involved in plan preparation and service fees to the technicians. for example, in one of the study sites, the executive committee paid the wage of nrs 41,000 for involvement in tree stem mapping. a large majority of users (above 90%) expressed their unwillingness to contribute financially, though very few were willing to contribute voluntary labour of two days a year as in the past. hence, future implementation of the plan remained in question. the scifm plans of both study sites were prepared in 2015, but local-level forest bureaucrats did not allow for harvesting of timber until harvesting plans were approved in 2016. furthermore, the users can also collect fallen trees from all compartments of the forests after obtaining written consent of local-level forest bureaucrats. however, the local-level forest bureaucrats betrayed and deferred from the promises which they made in the plan. they do not allow users to collect fallen trees as well as to harvest trees according to the plan (fig. 1) as a result, harvesting quantity is almost half of what the plans ‘allow’. this further raised the concerns on the need and use of scifm if harvesting rules are, in any case, grounded on administrative rationalities and common sense, c.f. above. fig. 1: planned versus officially allowed harvesting quantity of growing stock at the time of tree felling, the local-level forest bureaucrats increased the diameter of trees eligible for harvest from 30 cm to 40 cm with the intention to reduce the harvest of standing trees. while local-level forest bureaucrats gave justifications like conserving forests, reducing soil erosion risks, user committees silently accepted the decisions since they had not been getting timber for last two years due to the lengthy planning process. one ex-chair of the community forests responded “we were getting pressure from both sides, users and local-level forest bureaucrats. the users wanted timber immediately while local-level forest bureaucrats were imposing basnyat et al. 62 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 several restrictions verbally. we agreed because we wanted to harvest and distribute trees as early as possible”. another executive member said “forest bureaucrats would do no wrong in forests. they are more knowledgeable than us. instead of resisting their decision, we cooperated with them since we need their support, especially on the harvesting of trees”. users generally followed the instructions given by forest bureaucrats without questioning whether or not it made sense. this parallels the findings of pulhin and dressler (2009), who find that real transfer of management and use rights and decision-making power from the state to local communities have not occurred. likewise, the powerful actors exert significant influence over the processes and outcomes of community forestry (schusser et al., 2015). conclusion the scifm plans were prepared simply by compiling the guidelines and other administrative requirements with little consideration of the actual site quality, management objectives, and forest stand conditions. users appeared as passive participants or beneficiaries in the processes where users’ local knowledge were largely ignored and undermined. the trust in the local-level forest bureaucrats and the incentives they provided were the two main reasons for adopting scifm in both community forests. it is very unclear, however, for whom the plans were prepared as both the users as well the local-level forest bureaucrats were reluctant to implement them. users often consider the plan as a bureaucratic requirement, because of which the silvicultural prescriptions and forest restoration activities were hardly implemented. however, adoption of scifm by the users have facilitated and supported technobureaucratic domination in the community forests. the plans simply guide the harvesting of the trees, yet the users are not allowed to harvest the volumes prescribed in the plans. what is the need and use of scientific forest management if harvesting rules are grounded on administrative rather than scientifically documented silvicultural rationalities ? it appears that the local-level forest bureaucrats are using the scifm narrative to regain power in the community forest. users accepted the resulting patron-clients’ relationship with the local-level forest bureaucrats and agreed on the “rules of game” without understanding technical complexities and their own competencies might bring community forest gradually under the control of the forest bureaucracy. our analysis shows that local-level forest bureaucrats have used the scifm narratives to hold both de-jure and defacto forest management rights in the community despite that forest act 1993 devolve authority to the users in forest management decisions. our findings further illustrate that forest bureaucrats in some instances undermined the silvicultural prescriptions of the so called “scifm guidelines, 2014” by devising their own rules of thumb, wherever they thought the prescriptions did not fit the local conditions. these thumb rules included (i) increasing the number of mother trees to be retained after timber harvesting and (ii) ignoring the prescriptions for establishing fire lines between subcompartments. accordingly, the local-level forest bureaucrats used their common silvicultural senses and ‘saved’ the forests by not implementing the plans to the letter. they ignored written prescription of the plan where they did not allow to fell the marked tree in the sloppy area or construction of fire line of 4-6 width in small sub-compartments of 0.5 to 1.4 ha. in fact, this probably prevented otherwise likely adverse environmental consequences such as landslides and soil erosion. however, this raised the concern on requirement and relavancy of such expensive scientifc plan, prepared by the forestry experts, which are not situated with the ground reality. it eventually did not came under enforcement within a year of preparation. apparently, study concludes that scifm is merely used as a “brand” or a seemingly sound “narrative” in community forestry, but, it has little practical relevance. the administrative decisions which are either formal or verbal appeared more powerful in guiding forest management decisions rather than the plans. the study argues for promoting the adaptive forest management practices while considering the selection of appropriate management operations depending on the ecological and socio-economic contexts in community forests rather than the current mix of so-called “scientific forest management” and sweeping administrative decisions. acknowledgments we are thankful for the ‘science and power in participatory forestry’ (13-05ku) funded by the consultative research committee for development research under the danish basnyat et al. 63 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 ministry of foreign affairs. we are also grateful to the forest bureaucrats, service providers and community forest user groups for sharing information without which this research would not be possible. references bhattacharya, a.k and basnyat, b. 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(2014). case study research: design and methods. newbury park. sage publications . basnyat et al. banko jankari-2017(5).1.1 the newly described species, ziziphus budhensis was confirmed as chinese jujuba, z. xiangchengensis on the basis of their dna analyses. z. budhensis was explained as a new species on the basis of some morphological differences in 2015. in the year 2016, the dna samples were collected from the type locality of nepal, and the molecular analyses were carried out. the type specimens and the other available images from the different herbariums were examined. besides, the protologue and the type images were studied carefully. the result showed that though there were some differences in the habit and the habitat of the plant, the previously described new species, z. budhensis was found to be same as the chinese species, z. xiangchengensis. this study also showed the importance of the molecular work of z. budhensis and confirmed it morphologically distinct although it was very close to the chinese species. key words: molecular conformation, rhamnaceae, ziziphus budhensis, z. xiangchengensis molecular conformation of then published ziziphus budhensis and its religious and economic values the genus, ziziphus is characterized as warmtemperate and subtropical plant. the plants are mostly shrubs or small to medium-sized trees, erect or straggling, often climbing, evergreen or deciduous, often spinose with alternate leaves (chen and schirarend, 2007). there are about 100 ziziphus species reported throughout the world (mabberley, 2008); the number has been reported up to 170 species (islam and simmons, 2006). among them, 17 species are reported from india (bhandari and bhansali, 2000), 12 from china (chen and schirarend, 2007), 7 from bhutan (grierson and long, 1991) and 7 including z. budhensis are reported from nepal (bhattarai and pathak, 2015; nhpl, 2011; nhpl, 2012). so far, about 275 names (including all taxa) under the genus, ziziphus have been reported (tpl, 2013). most of the ziziphus fruits are edible (outlaw jr. et al., 2002). the most commonly named “bodhichitta” or “buddha mala”, a new and endemic species to nepal in 2015 was described as ziziphus budhensis. the name was honored to lord buddha, the light of asia, born in lumbini, nepal before 2500 bc. at that time, the species was also compared with some species reported from china. however, due to some morphological differences, the species was explained as a new species. this year, the dna samples were collected from the type locality of nepal, and the molecular analyses were carried out. the type images and the other available images together with the specimen from china were re-examined. the result showed that though there are some differences in the habit and habitat, the previously described new species was found to be the same as the chinese species, ��� xiangchengensis. taxonomic description and distribution ziziphus xiangchengensis y. l. chen and p. k. chou, bull.bot. lab. n. e. forest. inst., harbin 5: 88. 1979. ziziphus budhensis bhattarai and m.l. pathak. indian j. pl. sci. [jaipur] 4 (2): 73. 2015 z. xiangchengensis is a spinose 2–3 m, sometimes up to 8m tall small trees or shrub. stemglabrous; young branchesred-brown, densely pilose whereas old branchesgray-brown, flexuose, glabrous, old branches without spines. leaves alternate, or 2 or 3 in fascicles; stipular spines 2, both erect or one recurved, 1–1.6 cm, slender; petiole 5–8 mm, sometimes up to 10 mm, sparsely pilose; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, ovate or ovate-oblong, 2–4 cm × 55 1 chengdu institute of biology, chinese academy of sciences, chengdu, post code: 610041, china. *e-mail: mitra@cib.ac.cn 2 department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal 3 freelance researcher, godawari municipality, lalitpur m. l. pathak1*, h. c. li1, b. xu1, x. f. gao1, k. k. pokharel2 and a. b. nagarkoti3 banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 56 1.5–3 cm, papery, abaxially glabrous to clustered hairy in vein axils, adaxially glabrous, 3-veined from base, veins prominent on both surfaces, mid-vein without conspicuous secondary veins, base asymmetric, sub-rounded, margin crenateserrate, apex obtuse or rounded. flowers yellowgreen, fewto 10, sometimes up to 14, fascicled in axils of leaves, without peduncles. pedicel 4–5 mm, ferruginous pilose. sepals ovate-triangular, densely ferruginous pubescent, apex acute. petals 5, creamy white, spatulate, cuccullate clawed, ca. 2 mm, initiated along with stamen; stamens shorter than petals. stamens pentandrous extrose, exserted, ca. 2 mm, anther 2 lobed cordate dorsi fixed. ovary globose, glabrous; style 2-fid (rarely 3-fid), drupe yellow-green, globose, generally 1.2 (sometimes 0.6 cm) x 1.5 cm in diam; apex mucronulate, with persistent calyx tube at base; fruiting pedicel 5–7 mm, sparsely pilose; mesocarp thin (0.5–1 cm), corky; endocarp cartilaginous; stone ca. 4 mm, 2-loculed and with 2 seeds. seeds compressed, convex on one face, obovoid, ca. 6–10 mm, sometimes up to 15 mm. flowering in march–april and fruiting in july– august (fig. 1a and 1b). z. xiangchengensis is rarely distributed in west sichuan (xiangcheng) and the yunnan province of china (2,200–2,800 m) and a few places of central nepal (1,000–2,000 m). one of the interesting facts about the distribution is that, this plant is reported only in the two places of china, viz. the sichuan province and the yunnan province, and there are only four specimens (including types) at chengdu institute of biology (cdbi), six specimens at kunming herbarium (kun) and very few are at national herbarium of china (pe). the distribution is very limited; however, the presence of this plant in the tibet autonomous region is under investigation. due to this, the previous fact regarding the evolution of this species is quite mysterious. note: the description of the plant is based on the type literature of z. xiangchengensis (chen and chou, 1979), the type literature of z. budhensis (bhattarai and pathak, 2015) and the flora of china (2007). fig. 1: a tree of z. budhensis (a) and its flowering branch (b), kharpakot (1,900 m), kavrepalanchok district, nepal specimen examined the holotype and the isotype of z. budhensis, kath, c. n. 20701, kharpakot (1,900 m), kavrepalanchok district, (fig. 2) and holotype and isotype of z. xiangchengensis, cdbi, c. n. 2994, xiancheng, sichuan (2,800 m), 1979, china. (fig. 3) pathak et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 57 pathak et al. fig. 3: the type images of z. xiangchengnensis deposited at the cdbi, cn 2994 chengdu institute of biology, chengdu, china (a and b) and its three faced-seed (c) (source: www.cvh.org.cn) fig. 2: fertile branch of z. budhensis with flowers (a); leaf dorsal side x1 (b); leaf ventral side x1 (c); flower x6 (d); sepal x6 (e); petal x6 (f); gynoecium and ovary x6 (g); stamen x6 (h); a flower with sepals and petals with stamens x6 (i) and longitudinal section of a flower x6 (j), kath holotype: c.n. 20701 (1,900 m), source: bhattarai and pathak (2015) methodology a small piece of young leaves sample was collected from the type locality of z. budhensis, kavrepalanchok district of central nepal (kath holotype: c.n. 20701, 1,900 m). dna was extracted from the silica-dried material fragments using the tiangen plant genomic dna extraction kit (tiangen biotech., beijing, china) following the manufacturers’ protocols. the internal transcribed spacer (its): its-a and its-b were used as primer in this study. pcr was carried out following the same methods as xu et al. (2013).the amplified fragments were purified with the tian quick mini purification kit (tiangen). the sequencing of the purified pcr products was done by the help of invitrogen (shanghai, china). the sequencher 4.1 (gene codes corp., ann arbor, mi, usa) was used to assemble and edit complementary strands. the sequences obtained for each fragment were initially aligned using clustal x 1.8181. the dna sequences obtained from the company were edited using the sequencer 4.4. the edited sequence was blasted in ncbi (www.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov) and aligned. for phylogenetic tree, the model suggested by tamura and nei (1993) was selected. the aligned sequences were used to make a phylogenetic tree using mwga6 (tamura et al., 2013). a maximum likelihood tree (fig. 4) was constructed, and the maximum parsimony was also observed. a b c d e f g hi j a b c banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 58 results to show the genetic differences, maximum likelihood methods are shown in fig. 4. table 1, below demonstrates the pair-wise distances among the different ziziphus species. the genetic difference between z. budhensis and z. xianchengnensis was found to be only 0.004. the molecular result was also compared with that of li et al. (2009). the findings revealed that they were almost the same species. later on, the type specimens of z. xianchengnensis (fig. 3: a, b, c) were examined at the chendgu institute of biology (cdbi), which were almost the same as that of z. budhensis from nepal. when this species was described for the first time, there was no any information about the flower characters. this time, a full description has been provided with flower and fruit characters. though there were some differences about the habit, distribution and shape of some flowering parts between the two type descriptions, the important charactersthe faces of the seeds and the convex shape on one side of the seeds were remarkable. the dna analysis showed almost no difference at all while the morphological differences might be due to the different habitats and the other environmental factors. the detail description of the species is given under the taxonomic description. fig. 4: molecular phylogenetic analysis using the maximum likelihood method the evolutionary history was inferred by using the maximum likelihood method based on the tamura-nei model [1]. the tree with the highest log likelihood (-2050.2307) is shown. the initial trees for the heuristic search were obtained pathak et al. table 1: pair-wise distances among the ziziphus species banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 59 pathak et al. automatically by applying the neighbor-join and bionj algorithms to a matrix of pairwise distances estimated using the maximum composite likelihood (mcl) approach, and then selecting the topology with the superior log likelihood value. the tree is drawn to scale, with branch lengths measured in the number of substitutions per site (next to the branches). the analysis involved 29 nucleotide sequences. all the positions containing gaps and missing data were eliminated. there were a total of 498 positions in the final dataset. the evolutionary analyses were conducted with the help of mega6 [2] software. acknowledgments we are thankful to the local people of the kharpakot vdc of kavrepalanchok district, nepal for their cooperation during our field visit in june, 2016. references bhandari, m. m. and bhansali, a. k. 2000. flora of india (oleaceae-connaraceae) (ed) singh, n. p., vohra, j. n., hajra, p. k. and singh, d. k., botanical survey of india, calcutta, india 5: 221–245. bhattarai, k. r. and pathak, m. l. 2015. a new species of ziziphus (rhamnaceae) from nepal himalayas. indian journal of plant sciences 4 (2): 73. chen y. l. and chou, p.k. 1979. materiae ad floram rhamnaceae sinica rum. northeastern forestry institute, harbin. bulletin of botanical laboratory 5: 88. chen, y. l. and schirarendin, c. 2007. ramnaceae. in flora of china (hippocastanaceae through pentaphylaceae), vol. 12 (eds) wu, z. and raven, p. h., st. louis missouri botanical garden press. http://flora.huh.harvard.edu/ china/mss/volume12/rhamnaceae-mo_ edited.htm accessed on 19 december, 2016. grierson, a. j. c. and long, d. g. 1991. flora of bhutan, rhamnaceae. royal botanic garden, edinburgh 2, uk (part 1), 136–141. islam, m. b. and simmons, m. p. 2006. a thorny dilemma: testing alternative intrageneric classifications within ziziphus (rhamnaceae). systematic botany 31 (4): 826–842. li, l., peng, j. y., bai, r. x. and zheng, b. q. 2009. the phylogenetic relationships of genus ziziphus mill. native to china based on rapd analysis. acta horticulturae (840): 107–116. mabberley, j. d. 2008. mabberley’s plantbook: a portable dictionary of plants, their classification and uses. third edition, cambridge university press, uk. nhpl. 2011. catalogue of nepalese flowering plants-ii (eds) rajbhandari, k. r., bhattarai, k. r. and baral, s. r., department of plant resources, national herbarium and plant laboratories (nhpl), godawari, lalitpur nepal, 210. nhpl. 2012. catalogue of nepalese flowering plants-iii (ed) rajbhandari, k. r., bhattarai, k. r. and baral, s. r., department of plant resources, national herbarium and plant laboratories (nhpl), godawari, lalitpur nepal, 255. outlaw jr, h. w., zhang, s., riddle, k. a., womble, a. k., anderson, l. c., outlaw, w. m., outlaw, n. n., outlaw, e. c. and thistle, a. b. 2002. the jujube (ziziphus jujuba mill.): a multipurpose plant. economy botany 56 (2): 198–200. tamura, k. and nei, m. 1993. estimation of the number of nucleotide substitutions in the control region of mitochondrial dna in humans and chimpanzees. molecular biology and evolution 10: 512–526. tamura, k., stecher, g., peterson, d., filipski, a. and kumar, s. 2013. mega6: molecular evolutionary genetics analysis version 6.0. molecular biology and evolution 30: 2725– 2729. xu, b., gao, x. f. and zhang, b. 2013. lespedeza jiangxiensis, sp. nov. (fabaceae) from china based on molecular and morphological data. systematic botany 38 (1): 118–126. tpl. 2013. the plant list: a working list of all plant species, version 1.1 (september, 2013). www.theplantlist.org accessed on 17 december, 2016. banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 60-71 dhungana et al 60 intergovernmental panel on climate change report (2007) states that climate change is universally accepted fact and is already having discernible impacts. increasing green house gases (ghgs) emission has contributed to increasing atmospheric temperature. the available data shows that atmospheric air temperature has increased by 0.85o c from 1880 to 2012. it has been estimated that it could be increased as much as 6.4o c on an average during the 21st century (ipcc, 2014). south asian countries including nepalare already experiencing climate change climate change has negatively impacted the underdeveloped and developing countries including nepal due to low adaptive capacity and higher dependency in agriculture. forests are important component of the lives and livelihoods of the community in nepal, which can offer an important source of climate-resilient livelihood. it is crucial to know the fact that climate change was in the past, which will continue to change in the future. it is essential to understand how communities perceive and adapt to climate change. a study was carried out in kirepani, jagreni and kalika community forest user groups (cfugs) in lamjung district with an objective of assessing their perceptions on impacts of climate change. the survey was carried out in 62 households along with participatory appraisal to understand the perception of local people on climate change and its impacts. focus group discussion was held in each cfug. climatic data of 29 years (1987–2015) acquired from khudi, kuncha and gharedgunga metereological stations and analysed to supplement the results. data were analysed using ms-excel as major computer software and presented as table, trend lines and graphs. the study showed that the locals correctly perceived change in temperature, unpredictable occurrence of rainfall and increased incidence of change in crops phenology, an increase in drought.based on the perceptions of the community forest users, climate change has affected the biodiversity and societal system differentially. drought has higher impact to the people affecting their lives and livelihoods. they perceived that the increase in drought, floods, landslide have affected their lives and livelihoods. the results revealed that minimum temperature was increased at the rate of 0.01º c per year whereas the maximum temperature was increased by 0.056° c per year. from the rainfall data of khudi meteorological station, it was found that annual rainfall was highly decreased at the rate of 25.8 mm per year, which alarms for more disaster such as drought and fire in the area. our findings suggest that for the innovative climate change adaptation planning and policy it is crucial to incorporate and acknowledge the role of community forest in climate change adaptation. key words: cfugs, climate change, impact, perception local people’s perception and awareness of climate change: a case study from community forests in lamjung district, western nepal n. dhungana1*, n. silwal2, s. upadhaya3, s. k. regmi4 and s. adhikari5 1 care nepal, country office, 4/288 samata bhawan, dhobighat, p.o. box 1661, lalitpur, nepal. * e-mail: nabindhungana.2007@gamil.com 2 institute of forestry, pokhara campus, pokhara, nepal. 3 integrative conservation of nature and forestry, warnell school of forestry and natural resources, the university of georgia, athens ga usa. 4 winrock international nepal, house # kha 194, p.o. box 8975, sanepa, lalitpur, nepal 5 department of forests, district forest office, chitwan dhungana et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 60-71 61 and increasing frequency of climate-related hazards, such as droughts, floods, and landslides. nepal is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change and climate variance in the world not only because of more rapid increase in temperature but also because of the inhabitants being among the world’s poorest groups (smith et al., 2000). nepal has experienced an average maximum annual temperature increase of 0.06o c per year which is higher in the mountains than other places of nepal (practical action nepal, 2009; moe, 2011). despite having only 0.4% of the global population in nepal, and being responsible for only 0.025% of ghgs emissions in the world, it is likely that nepal will be affected disproportionately from increasing atmospheric temperature changes in the annual rainfall and longer droughts (moe, 2011). over one-third of the nepalese population depends on climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture and forestry for their livelihood and has limited capacity to cope with disasters associated with climate change (garg et al., 2007). the main adverse impacts of climate change in nepal have been noticed in agriculture and food security, water resources, forest and biodiversity, health, tourism, and infrastructures (moe, 2011) and its impacts differ in different sectors due to variability in local environmental conditions (manandhar et al., 2011; baral, 2011). forests have many functions and provide a range of goods and services such as climate regulations, protection from extreme events, carbon sequestration, and multiple provisioning ecosystem services such as food, wood, and fiber (anderegg et al., 2013). forests are important component of the lives and livelihoods system of the community in nepal, which can offer an important basis for creating and safeguarding more climate-resilient livelihoods (dahal, 2009). nepal’s forests are particularly important to the nation’s rural in habitants, as most of their livelihoods depend upon them for daily survival (stapp et al., 2016). despite the important role, forests play in maintaining essential ecosystem services and contribute to climate regulation, globally we are losing forest cover where conversion of existing forestlands to agricultural land is increasing (keenan et al., 2015). climate change has also wide range of impacts on natural resources and biodiversity causing threats to forest conservation, species extinction and occurrence of pests and diseases (ipcc, 2007). almost 75% of the forestland is in high income and uppermiddle-income countries, but deforestation rates are higher in low-income countries (keenan et al., 2015), where majority of the local people’s livelihoodis depended on the forest. the livelihoods of forest based people are projected to become increasingly more challenging due to climate change that results in loss of lands and productivity (macqueen and vermeulen, 2006 cited in dahal, 2009). forests being the important resources, the policy instruments are well adopted for their protection. the community forest is one of the most successful forest management models in nepal. stapp et al. (2015) found positive impacts of forest management policies and community level institutions in protecting forest cover. the study by shrestha et al. (2018) suggested that districts with the larger number of community forests have a minimum loss in tree cover. there are 22, 266 (dof, 2018) community forest usersgroups (cfugs) in nepal and the community forests are being managed by them. these users groups not only manage the forest but equally contribute to community development, poverty reduction to climate change adaptation, etc. however, little attention has beengiven to documentingits role in climate change adaptation and mitigation. in this context, it is critical to understand the perceptions of the most affected, vulnerable users of the community forest. likewise, developing country like nepal lacks the scientific database on climate change in different levels including community forest; and the community forest sector lacks comprehensive study and knowledge gap on what actually forest-dependent communities perceive climate change. it is crucial to know the fact that climate change was in the past, which will continue to change in the future. it is essential to understand how communities perceive and adapt to climate change (deressa et. al., 2011). to improve the ability of communities, households and individuals to adjust to ongoing and future climate change, it is crucial to improving understanding of the risk they face (dhungana et al. 2017). we aim to assess anecdotal evidence and trends of climate change on the cfugs and analyse the user’s perceptions on climate change and its impacts in lamjung district of nepal. banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 60-71 dhungana et al 62 materials and methods study area the study was carried out in lamjung district (fig. 1), which is located in gandaki province of nepal, extending from middle hill to the northern himalaya. it lies near to the middle of nepal and its area is 1692 km2. the population of the district in 2011 was 167,724 (cbs, 2011). it is one of the biodiversity rich fragile hills of nepal. lamjung district is bordered with gorkha district in the east, kaski in the west, manang in the north and tanahu in the south. the latitude of the district is in a range of 28º03’–28º30’ n, and longitude from 84º11’–84º38’ e, and altitude ranges from 385 m to 8162 m from mean sea level. lamjung is one of the nine districts classified by the national adaptation program of action (napa) as highly vulnerable to climate changeregardingglacial lake outburst flood (glof) (moe, 2010a). likewise,the increasing rate of mean annual temperature and rainfall are 0.060c and 13.25 mm, respectively (moe, 2010b). due to mountain terrain with unstable geological structure, the district has a high risk of landslides fig.1. map of lamjung district showing study area and floods too. the district disaster preparedness and response plan identified flood/landslide, fire, earthquake and lightening as the major disaster risks in the district (ddrc, 2011). out of the seven cfugs, three representative cfugs (kirepani, jagreni and kalika) (table 1) were selected for the research purpose. data collection data were collected from primary and secondary sources. the questionnaire was designed to capture the perceptions of climate change and climaterelated events. the focus group discussion (fgd) was held in each cfug. thirty-two participants of the fgd were categorized on the basis of gender, caste and economic class (table 2) for further analysis. out of 616 households (hhs) in three cfugs, 62 households (10.08%) were selected randomly for primary data table 2: details of the participants in focus group discussion location of fgd total participants gender caste/ ethnicity well being m al e fe m al e bc t1 da lit ja na ja ti w ell -o ff m ed iu m po or ul tr apo or kirepani cfug 12 5 7 7 2 3 3 4 3 1 jagreni cfug 9 3 6 3 3 3 2 4 1 3 kalika cfug 11 5 6 4 2 5 1 3 5 2 total 32 13 19 14 7 11 6 11 9 6 1bctbrahman, chhetri and thakuri table 1: details of the cfugs description name of cfugs kirepani jagreni kalika address besishahar5, lamjung besishahar4 and 5 lamjung besishahar1 and 2 lamjung area (ha) 47.34 83.87 63.27 registration 2052 b.s. 2059 b.s. 2052 b.s housholds 192 273 141 total population 1008 ( 483 female and 525 male) 1473 ( 688 female and 785 male) 833 (427 male and 406 female) indigenous people gurung and dalit dalit and janajati gurung and dalit education status 55% educated 70% educated 60% educated dhungana et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 60-71 63 collection. but age criterion was used because young respondents would not have enough years of experiences to reflect properly on climate change (manandhar et al., 2011). the respondents consisted of 59% female and 61% male with an age range of 30 to 90 years. they are residing permanently in that area since more than 30 years. the respondents were categorized on the basis of caste, gender, agegroup, and economic class also (table 3). the information related to understanding climate change (meaning and causes of drought, very less rainfall, warmer winter temperature, drying of water sources, polluted environment and unusual change of nature), perception on the indicators of climate change and seven statements, were captured from the respondents. the indicators are temperature, water sources, forest fire frequency, flood frequency, drought frequency and variation in river flow. the data on impacts of climate change were collected from the respondents by categorizing them into caste, gender, age-group and economic class. secondary data were collected through literature review and from different organizations. the meteorological data on temperature and rainfall (1987–2015) were acquired from three stations of department of hydrology and meteorology (dhm) (table 4). table 3: disaggregate details of the respondents name of cfug total no. of households total respondents caste/ethnicity well being m al e fe m al e to ta l b c t d al it ja na ja ti w el l-o ff m ed iu m po or u ltr apo or kirepani 192 8 12 20 11 3 6 4 7 9 4 jagreni 273 11 16 27 18 4 5 3 6 6 5 kalika 151 9 6 15 8 3 4 1 7 7 3 total 616 28 34 62 37 10 15 8 20 22 12 table 4: climatic data of different stations station name type of data year source remarks khudi (0802) temperature 1987–2015 dhm daily data rainfall 1987–2015 dhm daily data kuncha (0807) temperature 1987–2015 dhm daily data gharedhunga (0823) rainfall 1987–2015 dhm daily data banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 60-71 dhungana et al 64 field observation direct observation was made in three cfugs for additional information and field verification to observe the local adaptation measures. observation was made in kirepani cfug to observe eroded land in the sloppy area, jagreni cfug to observe dry, harsh agricultural land and kalika cfug to observe forest area mainly affected by forest fire. the observation was aimed to identify impact of climate change in community forest area. data analysis the indicators of climate change were analysed in five levels – highly increasing (5), increasing (4), same as before (3), decreasing (2) and highly decreasing (1). similarly, seven statements were asked to the same respondents so that their responses could further support our results in five levels again. the statements on impacts of climate change were analysed in five levels i. e., strongly agree (5), agree (4), same as before (3), disagree (2) and strongly disagree (1). the analysis was done on the basis of caste, gender, age-group and economic class also. climatic data (temperature and rainfall) acquired from the dhm was entered in microsoft excel 2010 and presented through trend lines. least squares curve fitting technique was used to find a linear trend in the data. the linear trend between the time series data (y) and time (t) is given in the equation below. y = a + bt where, y = temperature or rainfall, t = time (year), “a” and “b” the constants estimated by the principle of least squares) (practicle action nepal, 2009). similarly, the likert scale test was used for analysis of perceptions of the respondents of cfugs on the climate change and its impacts. likert scale test si= ∑fi n = number of votes ×weight for each column total number of votes where, si= satisfaction index fi= frequency of scale n= number of responses five responses (strongly agree, agree, same as before, disagree, strongly disagree) were rephrased and their satisfaction index was calculated. for example, the number of responses who strongly agreed for all the climatic indicators, caste, economic class, age-group and gender were calculated separately for each term. it was multiplied by the weight of each column, which we had selected (5, 4, 3, 2, and 1) and then divided by the total number of votes or respondents in the area. the obtained satisfaction index value for each column were summed and finally calculated the weighted mean. weighted mean = ∑si on the basis of calculated weighted mean, we concluded our results. any climatic indicator with the highest weighted mean referred to the strong feeling of the respondents on it. the same process was followed for all the criteria and statements. results and discussion cfugs knowledge of climate change understanding climate change: it’s meaning and causes majority of the community forest users (cfus) had heard the term climate change, however, understanding of the term by the respondents varied (fig. 2), which are as follows: • longer drought period for growing agricultural crops (69.35%) • decrease in monsoon rainfall season (59.68%) • drying of water sources (53.23%), • increase in winter temperature (32.26%) • unusual change of nature (24.19%) • increasing pollution in environment (16.13%) dhungana et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 60-71 65 69.35 59.68 32.26 53.23 16.13 24.19 0.00 10.00 20.00 30.00 40.00 50.00 60.00 70.00 80.00 drought very less rainfall warmer winter temperature drying of water resources polluted environment unusal change of nature r es p o n se s in % understanding climate change fig. 2: understanding climate change: its meaning and causes it seems that cfus interpreted the term ‘climate change’ based on the particular climatic event they normally faced in their areas. ninety per cent of the respondents believed that the climate change was due to increased drought period and drying of water sources. likewise, fgd concluded that media has played supportive role to capacitate the users. the major sources of gaining knowledge on climate change and its impacts, the process of mitigation and adaptation with the current situations were through television, radios, workshops/seminars conducted by different organizations, such as care nepal, district forest office, district soil conservation office. likewise, 75% of the total respondents agreed that human beings were responsible for the climate change. people are responsible for climate change by deforestation, poor management of the waste products, firewood burning, establishing the industries and increasing vehicles. ipcc fifth assessment report explicitly revealed that human influence has impacted climate system (ipcc, 2014). respondents felt that the winter temperature is increasing in a rapid way, incident of drought is increasing, rainfall pattern is unpredictable, seasons are changing, hail storm occurs abnormally, water sources are decreasing, wind storm is getting stronger, changes in flowering and fruiting time, invasion of new plant species e.g lantana camara (dahal, 2009) and reduction of some indigenous flora and fauna (regmi et al. 2008 cited in manandhar and schmidt, 2011). according to similar study in india and ilam district, nepal (chaudhary and bawa, 2011), there is a widespread feeling of warmer weather, drying water sources and the onset of summer and monsoon has advanced during the last ten years. according to dhruba dev joshi, president of kalika cfug, previously owl, black-capped bulbul (jurelipycnonotus melanicterus), etc. were commonly found, but now they are not seen in the area. increased dryness is due to increase in drought in premonsoon season, which has exposed forest for wild fire. they also shared their experiences that there used to be maghe jhari (rainfall in magh month) in magh (from mid-february to mid-march) previously and it used to be very cold. but, nowadays, there is not a drop of rain in that month and days are being warmer due to increase in temperature. likewise, people used to know the time for starting to grow maize in their land when there was leaf fall from ficus lacor (locally known as kabhro) tree. but now people are observing multiple incidents of leaves falling from this tree, which is not normal for this species and it has created uncertainty of time for growing maize. the impact of climate change is in biodiversity and agriculture like early budburst and flowering, new agricultural (chaudhary and bawa, 2011) pests and weeds, etc. as per the community knowledge. at present, cfus are experiencing drought as a major climatic hazard, due to which there was gradual reduction in crop production and income sources as well, loss of local land races of both crops and domestic animals, changes in cropping sequences, drying up of wells, and increasing incidences of disease and pest (regmi et al. 2008 cited in manandhar and schmidt, 2011). perception on the indicators of climate change the community had noticed different indicators of climate change. among the discussed major six climatic indicators with the respondents, drought frequency ranked the first. similarly, temperature ranked the second and forest fire ranked the third (table 5). these results indicated that increase in drought frequency, temperature and fire frequency are more responsible in impacts of climate change. banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 60-71 dhungana et al 66 table 5: perception of the cfugs based on climatic indicators s.n. indicators highly increasing increasing same as before decreasing highly decreasing wt. mean rank 1 temperature 1.69 2.13 0.29 0.06 0 4.17 ii 2 water sources 0 0.13 0.48 1.19 0.21 2.01 vi 3 forest fire frequency 0 1.35 1.35 0.42 0 3.12 iii 4 flood frequency 0 1.48 1.06 0.55 0 3.09 iv 5 drought frequency 1.85 2.13 0.24 0.05 0 4.27 i 6 variation in river flow 0 0.45 0.34 1.23 0.16 2.18 v the first, second and third ranking of the statements were incidences of drought during rainy season, the annual rainfall not supporting the crop production as before, and drying up of natural water resources, respectively (table 6). most of the respondents agreed that water bodies are highly affected by the climate change followed by natural water resources are drying up. though, they agreed that there is change in water level of the rivers but they were not much agreed on increase in river flow over a period of time. majority of the respondents agreed that the programme related to conservation and management of water resources and climate change adaptation is necessary. according to haque et.al (2012) climate variability is perceived to have changed and resulted to increase in climate variability sensitive diseases, human health issues and agricultural problems and livelihood. table 6: perception on the basis of agreed statements s.n. statements st ro ng ly ag re e (5 ) a gr ee (4 ) sa m e as be fo re (3 ) d is ag re e (2 ) st ro ng ly di sa gr ee (1 ) w ei gh te d m ea n r an k 1 the weather is becoming dry due to climate change 3.06 0.52 0.24 0.19 0.06 4.07 v 2 natural water resources (ponds) are drying up 2.9 0.77 0.19 0.23 0.05 4.14 iii 3 highly decrease in grasslands due to rise in temperature and evaporation rate 2.58 0.71 0.39 0.19 0.08 3.95 vi 4 the annual rainfall is not supporting the crop production as before 2.74 1.09 0.19 0.16 0.03 4.21 ii 5 incidences of drought have been increased during rainy season 3.06 0.84 0.29 0.13 0.02 4.34 i 6 climate change has led to the decline of forest resources 2.74 0.9 0.29 0.13 0.05 4.11 iv 7 climate change is likely to bring various diseases in the community 1.69 0.26 0.97 0.23 0.16 3.31 vii dhungana et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 60-71 67 differential impact of climate change the impact of climate change is on the basis of caste, gender, age-group and economic class also. the first ranking of dalit indicated that they were highly affected by the climatic hazards like floods, landslides, drought, etc. which is followed by janajati and bct (table 7). table 7: impacts of climate change by caste s.n. caste st ro ng ly ag re e (5 ) a gr ee (4 ) sa m e as be fo re (3 ) d is ag re e( 2) st ro ng ly di sa gr ee (1 ) w ei gh te d m ea n r an k 1 dalit 3.23 0.65 0.24 0.16 0.03 4.31 i 2 janajati 1.21 1.29 0.97 0.16 0.03 3.66 ii 3 bct 0.81 0.97 1.45 0.16 0.03 3.42 iii 4 others 0.56 0.65 1.11 0.48 0.11 2.91 iv single women were highly affected by the impacts of climate change, which is followed by women and girls (table 8). similar study showed that poor and women, in particular, are highly table 8: what different categories of female thinks about impacts of climate change ? s.n. categories of female strongly agree (5) agree (4) same as before (3) disagree (2) strongly disagree (1) weighted mean rank 1 women 2.42 0.65 0.73 0.09 0.06 3.95 ii 2 girls 0.81 0.97 1.21 0.32 0.03 3.34 iii 3 single women 3.23 0.97 0.24 0.03 0.02 4.49 i vulnerable to climate change due to their high levels of poverty, their dependence on natural resources and their already high exposure to floods, landslides and drought in mountain region (dahal, 2009). respondents also shared that water scarcity has hit hard to poor households and increased the workload of women. the people in old age group were mostly affected by the impacts of climate change, which is followed by the people in young age-group and middle age-group (table 9). table 9: impacts of climate change by age-group s.n. age group strongly agree (5) agree (4) same as before (3) disagree (2) strongly disagree (1) weighted mean rank 1 m i d d l e age 0.81 0.97 0.97 0.48 0.03 3.26 iii 2 young 1.45 0.77 0.82 0.42 0.03 3.49 ii 3 old 3.22 0.65 0.24 0.16 0.03 4.3 i on the basis of economic class, ultra-poor people of any caste, gender, or age class, were highly affected by the impacts of climate change. then, poor people were in second ranking, followed by medium and well off people in third and fourth ranking, respectively (table 10). banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 60-71 dhungana et al 68 table 10: impacts of climate change on the basis of economic class s.n economic class strongly agree (5) agree (4) same as before (3) disagree (2) strongly disagree (1) weighted mean rank 1 ultra-poor 3.63 0.65 0.16 0.13 0 4.57 i 2 poor 2.02 1.29 0.73 0 0.03 4.07 ii 3 medium 0.81 0.97 1.69 0.03 0.02 3.52 iii 4 well off 0.4 0.65 1.45 0.32 0.27 3.09 iv climate change impact will vary according to age, social class, occupation and gender (haque et. al, 2012) and within poor, particularly, women will be affected (stott, 2010). the results further support the finding of previous research (gentle et al., 2014) that climate change vulnerability differs in terms of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity across different well-being groups, gender, age and household location. comparison between local people’s perceptions of changes in temperature and rainfall variation in temperature the overall trend of mean annual maximum, minimum and average temperature recorded at khudi meteorological station from 1987 to 2015 showed an increment by 0.056 °c, 0.01°c and 0.03°c, respectively (fig. 3). similar analysis of climatic data (1976 – 2005) showed the highest trend (practical action nepal, 2009) of mean temperature with more than 0.06° c/year. the trend of increase in temperature was high in pre-monsoon season and low in winter season. it indicated that summer is getting longer and hotter. most of the common perceptions of the community on climate change are that the winter temperature is highly increasing and its duration becomes short as well, and water sources are drying. it means that the annual rainfall is highly decreasing in the study area. these results are in line with the results from the climatic data of dhm. it showed that general increase in hotness and decrease in coldness of the study area. y = 0.0512x 75.062 r² = 0.2513 y = -0.0402x + 96.026 r² = 0.0839 y = 0.0055x + 10.482 r² = 0.0054 0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0 35.0 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 te m pe ra tu re (º c ) year max temp min temp average linear (max temp) linear (min temp) linear (min temp) linear (average) linear (average) fig. 3: trend of mean annual maximum, minimum and average temperature at khudi met. station (1987–2015) similarly, the trend of rainfall and temperature in three meteorological stations is presented in table 11. variation in rainfall the trend analysis of annual rainfall was based on the data recorded for a period of 29 years (1987– 2015) at three stations. the rate of annual rainfall was found to be decreased over a period of 29 years at khudi and gharedhunga meteorological stations, which were 25.8 mm and 16.42 mm, respectively. but the rate of annual rainfall was increased at kuncha meteorological station (table 11, figs. 4, 5 and 6). the khudi and gharedhunga meteorological stations are closer to the study area, so we can conclude that the study area has negative trend of rainfall. table 11: trend of rainfall and temperature in three meteorological stations station variation in rainfall variation in temperature khudi met. station decreasing at 25.8 mm per year rising at 0.03o c per year kuncha met. station increasing at 2.82 mm per year na gharedhunga met. station decreasing at 16.42 mm per year na dhungana et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 60-71 69 y = -25.8x + 54881 r² = 0.1901 0.00 1000.00 2000.00 3000.00 4000.00 5000.00 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 r ai nf al l ( m m ) year fig. 4: average annual trend of rainfall at khudi met. station (1987–2015) y = 2.8165x 2994.1 r² = 0.004 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 r ai nf al l ( m m ) year fig. 5: average annual trend of rainfall at kuncha met. station (1987–2015) y = -16.423x + 35900 r² = 0.1886 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 r ai nf al l ( m m ) years fig. 6: average annual trend of rainfall at gharedhunga met. station (1987–2015) we found that the highest decrease in rainfall was in monsoon season, which was at the rate of 17.60 mm/year (table 12). due to late in monsoon, people were compelled to leave their agricultural land fallow. crop production was found to be decreased due to drying of water sources. according to the respondents, at present the monsoon rainfall is with higher intensity and large quantity in a short period, which has washed away fertile land and crops. table 12: comparison of trend of rainfall in different seasons s.n season year trend of rainfall in mm 1 winter 1987– 2015 -2.93 2 premonsoon 1987– 2015 -4.02 3 monsoon 1987– 2015 -17.60 4 postmonsoon 1987– 2015 -0.42 conclusion most of the respondents have perceived climate change personally and they are aware that climate change is happening through various sources and impacting them in different means and media. the impact of climate change is more for ultra-poor communitydue to high levels of poverty, their dependence on natural resources and high exposure to floods, landslides and drought and lower adaptive capacity. in addition, dalit, marginalised janajati, and another group of people are further vulnerable and at risk as a result of ongoing poverty, inequality, and marginalisation. furthermore, the study indicated that climate change, particularly increase in mean and maximum temperature and decrease in rainfall greatly influence the experiences and perceptions of the local people regarding climate change and related events. the understanding and perceptions of climate change of cfugs and sharing their experiences related to climate change are very important for climate change adaptation and its planning. as users have already geared towards implementing adaptation activities in cfugs, it is necessary to implement specific area focus programme for better targeting the activities and addressing the differential impact on biodiversity and livelihoods.moreover, we need to acknowledge the role of forest in climate change adaptation and treat adaptation as part of development; considering forest management as a part of climate change adaptation is crucial. thus, we suggest that climate change impact should not be generalised rather it should be critically analysed and link with gender, youth, caste/ ethnicity and well-being in dealing with the climate change impact and adaptation planning. awareness and adaptation initiatives should thus be conducted focusing on climate change scenarios, its potential risk and adaptation measures to be adopted with considering socio-economic specifications of the community. the policy should ensure and focus on capacity enhancement of more vulnerable and marginalised community. thus this study provides baseline information and knowledge regarding the local community forest user group’s perceptions of climate change and their impacts to help reinforce local adaptation. this kind of information is useful for policymakers who need to understand and facilitate climate change adaptation strategies at a local level in the rural areas of lamjung as well as in other places of the country. banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 60-71 dhungana et al 70 references anderegg, w. r. l., kane, j. m. and anderegg, l. d. l. 2013. consequences of widespread tree mortality triggered by drought and temperature stress. nature climate change 3 (1): 30–36. https://doi.org/10.1038/ nclimate1635. baral, j. c. 2011. climate change adaptation in nepalan overview of the initiatives and impending issues. the nepal journal of forestry14 (1): 75–84. cbs. 2011. population statistics of nepal. central bureau of statistics (cbs), kathmandu, nepal. chaudhary, p. and bawa, k. s. 2011. local perceptions of climate change validated by scientific evidence in the himalayas. biology letters, rsbl20110269. dahal, n. 2009. impact of climate change on forests and livelihoods: issues and options for nepal. livelihoods and forestry programme. ddrc. 2011. disaster preparedness and response plan. district disaster relief committee (ddrc) district administration office, lamjung, nepal. deressa, t. t., hassan, r. m. and ringler, c. 2011. perception of and adaptation to climate change by farmers in the nile basin of ethiopia. the journal of agricultural science 149 (1): 23–31. dhungana, n., khadka, c., bhatta, b., & regmi, s. (2017). barriers in local climate change adaption planning in nepal. jl pol'y& globalization, 62: 20–24. dof. 2018. hamro ban. ministry of forest and soil conservation, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. garg, a., shukla, p. r. and kapshe, m. 2007. from climate change impacts to adaptation: a development perspective for india. natural resources forum 31 (2): 132–141. gentle, p., thwaites, r., race, d. and alexander, k. 2014. differential impacts of climate change on communities in the middle hills region of nepal. natural hazards 74 (2): 815–836. haque, m. a., yamamoto, s. s., malik, a. a. and sauerborn, r. 2012. households' perception of climate change and human health risks: a community perspective. environmental health 11 (1): 1–12. ipcc. 2014. summary for policymakers: working group contribution i, ii and iii to the ipcc fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change [core writing team, (eds.) panchauri, r. k. and meyer, l. a.]. ipcc, geneva, switzerland. ipcc. 2007. climate change 2007: adaptation and vulnerability, summary for policy makers, intergovernmental panel on climate change, geneva, switzerland. keenan, r. j., reams, g. a., achard, f., de freitas, j. v., grainger, a. and lindquist, e. 2015. dynamics of global forest area: results from the fao global forest resources assessment 2015. forest ecology and management 352: 9–20. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.foreco.2015.06.014 manandhar, s., vogt, d. s., perret, s. r. and kazama, f. 2011. adapting cropping systems to climate change in nepal: acrossregional study of farmer’s perception and practices. regional environment change 11: 335–348. manandhar, s. and schmidt, d. 2011. adapting cropping systems to climate change in nepal : a cross-regional study of farmers’ perception and practices. regional environmental change 11 (2): 335–348. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-010-0137-1 moe. 2010a. climate change vulnerability mapping for nepal. ministry of environment, singh durbar, kathmandu, nepal. dhungana et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 60-71 71 moe. 2010b. national adaptation programme of action to climate changes. ministry of environment, singh durbar, kathmandu, nepal. moe. 2011. climate change policy of nepal. ministry of environment, singh durbar, kathmandu, nepal. practical action nepal. 2009. spatial and temporal variability of climate change over nepal (1976–2005). kathmandu, nepal. shrestha, s., shrestha, u. b. and bawa, k. 2018. socio-economic factors and management regimes as drivers of tree cover change in nepal. peerj, 6, e4855. https://doi. org/10.7717/peerj.4855 smith, b., burton, i., klein, r. j. and wandel, j. 2000. an anatomy of adaptation to climate change and variability. climatic change 45 (1): 223–251. stapp, j. r., lilieholm, r. j., leahy, j. and upadhaya, s. 2016. linking attitudes, policy, and forest cover change in buffer zone communities of chitwan national park, nepal. environmental management 57 (6): 1292–1303. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s00267-016-0682-6. stapp, j. r., lilieholm, r. j., upadhaya, s. and johnson, t. 2015. evaluating the impacts of forest management policies and community-level institutions in the buffer zone of chitwan national park, nepal. journal of sustainable forestry 34 (5): 445–464. https://doi.org/10.1080/1054981 1.2015.1025080 stott, r. 2010. population and climate change: moving toward gender equality is the key. journal of public health 32 (2): 159– 160. banko jankari-2017(5).1.1 spatial mapping of forest soil organic carbon in nepal’s terai district s. khanal1*, s. paudel1 and s. chaudhary1 periodic forest resource assessment is one of the key activities for the forestry sector. it is essential to get the updated information for supporting policy formulation and management decisions. further, in the current context of climate change, international initiatives such as redd+ requires periodic reporting of different forest carbon pools using standard set of scientifically valid methods. the carbon in forests is stored in different carbon pools both above as well as below ground. considering the significance of soil carbon to the total carbon pool, recent forest resource assessment of nepal has included comprehensive soil carbon sampling so as to provide estimates of this carbon pool (dfrs, 2015a). often forest resource assessments including soil sampling are also conducted on smaller scale sub-national areas such as districts. the findings from such assessments contribute to understanding of soil carbon and its contribution to total carbon pools. research gaps exist in different aspects of forest soil organic carbon (soc) such as management impact on soil carbon and factors driving its spatial variability. understandings on such concepts are very imperative for better forest management prescriptions so as to enable more carbon sequestration in forests. with the objective to identify better methods of resource assessment in district level, dfrs had implemented comprehensive forest resource assessment in selected terai district of nepal. the forest type mapping results has already been published (chaudhary et al., 2015). this short note presents the spatial mapping forest soil organic carbon (soc). the study was conducted on kapilvastu district in terai region of central nepal (fig. 1). forest, other wooded land and shrub land cover 59.02 thousand hectares, 1.78 thousand hectares and 0.17 thousand hectares respectively (dfrs, 2015a). kapilvastu district is situated in lumbini zone of western development region of nepal. it spreads ranging from 93 to 1491 m above sea level. the forest area mask was obtained from recent forest cover mapping done (dfrs, 2015b). on the forested area the sampling grid was generated at the spacing of 500 m. out of the 2451 regular plots, random sample of 184 were taken for field measurement (fig. 1). fig. 1: map showing the kapilbastu district, the forested area and the sample plots measured over the forested area of the district. four soil pits were dug in each cardinal direction at the distance of 21 meters from the plot center. the 100 mm long soil corer with a lower diameter of 37 mm (at its cutting edge) and an upper diameter of 40 mm was used to collect separate soil samples from three layers i.e., 0–10 cm, 10–20 cm and 20–30 cm depth. the fresh mass of composite sample was determined onsite. the relative volume occupied by stones in the soil was estimated occularly by observing the soil pitwalls by using the fao guidelines (fao, 2006). 72 short note 1 department of forest research and survey. *e-mail: khanalshiva1@gmail.com banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 73 the composite soil samples were first air-dried and later oven-dried to constant weight. the oven-dried sample was immediately weighed for total bulk density and then sieved through a 2 mm sieve and soil fine fraction (ff) obtained. the volume of coarse fraction (not passing the sieve) was determined from water replacement method. the bulk density of the soil fine fraction was then calculated by eliminating the volume of the coarse fraction. the bulk-density of the fine soil fraction for each soil layer was used to calculate the organic carbon stock in each of the 10 cm soil layers. the partial wet combustion method (walkley and black, 1934) was used to estimate soc with a correction factor of 1.3. the soil organic carbon (soc) stock was calculated by multiplying the dry soil bulk density (g/cm3) by the proportion of oc as analyzed in the fine fraction (ff) of soil. the final soc ff, adj value was obtained after adjusting the laboratory results with a consideration of the proportion (stone%) of stoniness determined in the field. the soil sampling and subsequent soc estimation approach was adopted from the national forest resource assessment (dfrs, 2015). for spatial prediction of soc, covariates were prepared using landsat 8 imageries and terrain parameters. composite of median reflectance from landsat-8 images (using total 81 scenes from year 2015 to 2016) was generated using earth engine platform (google earth engine team, 2015). the study area was in the overlap area of landsat path-row (142–41 and 143–41) and each had 40 and 41 scenes respectively. five bands (blue, green, red, nir and swir) were selected. 30m spatial resolution srtm 1 arc-second global elevation data for the study area were obtained from earthexplorer (u.s. geological survey (usgs), earth resources observation and science (eros) center). slope and aspect were derived from the dem using 9 parameter and 2nd order polygon method available in qgis. topograhic wetness index (twi) layer was also derived based on standard method in saga 2.1.2 (conrad et al. 2015). random forest (rf) technique was used to model relationships between field measured soc and environmental covariates. this technique has become increasingly popular in ecology and has also been applied in estimation of soc (yang et al. 2016). the model fitting and spatial prediction was done in r using random forest (liaw and wiener, 2002) and raster package (hijmans, 2006). the spatial prediction of soc was done separately for three depths: 0–10 cm, 10–20 cm and 20–30 cm. the fourth output layer was total soc in all three layers combined. for evaluation of prediction model, k-fold cross validation was done. all the analysis in this paper were done using r software. the average soc based on 184 sample was calculated by depth class (table 1). the soc varied with the sampling depth having lower soc stock on deeper soils. last national forest resource assessment estimated 33.66 t/ha and 31.44 t/ha soc for terai and churia (dfrs, 2015a). this district level estimate which combines plots from both terai and churia is 38.01 t/ha however unlike this study, the national scale assessment accounted for litter and woody debris as well. table 1: summary statistics for results across all 184 plots measured depth (cm) no of obs average (t/ha) sd se 95% ci 0–10 184 17.75 10.07 0.74 1.48 10–20 184 11.04 6.75 0.50 0.99 20–30 184 9.21 5.26 0.39 0.77 elevation was observed as an important covariate for soc content in all depth classes. similarly, latitude, landsat 4 band (nir) and landsat 1 and 2 were also important ones (fig. 2). fig. 2: covariate importance from rf. twi = topographical wetness index, elev = elevation, slo = slope, road = distance from road, lon= longitude, lat= latitude, lan 1 to lan 5 = landsat reflectance from band 15, asp = aspect khanal et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 74 khanal et al. yang et al. 2016 have reported that mean annual precipitation, ndvi, mean annual temperature, landsat tm band 5 are important predictors to explain soc. given the relatively small area and lack of high resolution climatic observation, the climatic predictors were not used in the models. the fitted rf model was applied on the environmental covariates for spatial prediction of soc (fig. 3). in predicted soc map the areas in the north had higher soc for all sample depth layers. this variation could be due to the fact that those sites are in the churia hills compared to flat plains in areas in the south. the flat areas have higher disturbance due to human activities such as grazing and litter collection compared to churia, which has typically difficult terrain. however, further study is required in order to understand the variation in spatial distribution of soc. performance of the rf models were assessed using k-fold cross validation for the rf model applied to each of the soc depth layers. 10 fold cross validation gave the rmse of 7.1, 4.5, 3.9 and 12.3 for layers 0–10 cm, 10–20 cm, 20–30 cm and 0–30 cm respectively. the models using the given covariates had r-squared values around 0.2 for each layers. fig. 3: spatial distribution of soc stock. the figure was produced using ggplot2 package (wickham, 2009). acknowledgements the study was funded by government of nepal under forest research and survey project implemented by department of forest research and survey. the authors would like to acknowledge all the forest inventory crew members who took part on this field data collection mission. references chaudhary a. k., acharya a. k. and khanal s. 2016. forest type mapping using objectbased classification method in kapilvastu district, nepal. banko janakari 26 (1): 38–44. conrad, o., bechtel, b., bock, m., dietrich, h., fischer, e., gerlitz, l., wehberg, j., wichmann, v. & böhner, j. 2015. system for automated geoscientific analyses (saga) v. 2.1. 4. geoscientific model development 8 (7): 1991–2007. dfrs, 2015a. state of nepal’s forests. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey (dfrs). kathmandu, nepal. dfrs, 2015b. district forest cover maps of nepal. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey (dfrs), kathmandu, nepal. google earth engine team, 2015. google earth engine: a planetary-scale geospatial analysis platform. https://earthengine. google.com fao, 2006. guidelines for soil description (4th edition). food and agriculture organization of the united nations (fao), rome, italy. hijmans robert j. 2016. raster: geographic data analysis and modeling. r package version 2.5-8. https://cran.r-project.org/ package=raster. liaw a. and wiener m. 2002. classification and regression by randomforest. r news 2 (3): 18–22. usgs, https://lta.cr.usgs.gov/srtm1arc walkey, a. and black, i. a. 1934. an examination of the digitized method for determining soil organic matters, and a proposed modification of the chromic acid titration method. soil science 37: 29–38. wickham h 2009. ggplot2: elegant graphics for data analysis. springer-verlag, new york, usa. yang, r. m., zhang, g. l., yang, f., zhi, j. j., yang, f., liu, f., & li, d. c. 2016. precise estimation of soil organic carbon stocks in the northeast tibetan plateau. scientific reports, 6. banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 48 pterospermum truncatolobatum gagnepain (sterculaceae): a new addition to the flora of nepal b. k. basnet1*and m. siwakoti2 pterospermum truncatolobatum is an angiosperm indigenous to southeast asia. it is most likely to grow naturally along forested stream banks. the best growing conditions are a seasonally moist then dry climate with access to full sunlight. pterospermum is an angiosperm that is traditionally included in the sterculiaceae family; however, it is grouped in the expanded malvaceae family as well. the classification pterospermum is based on two greek words, pteron and sperma, meaning “winged seed”. to date, only 10 species names within the genus have accepted where as other twenty five species listed unresolved in the plant list. about nine and five number of species under this genus pterospermum have been reported from china and india. only one species like pterospermum acerifolium reported from nepal (press et al, 2000). during the course of plant collection this herbarium specimens was collected by paudel, h. r. and basnet b. k. (fig.1). during the identification, this specimen did not match with any species of pterospermum already reported from nepal. after the detail study of specimens and available literatures (shu, 2007), it has been identified as pterospermum truncatolobatum gagnepain. description of the species trees, to 16 m tall; bark black, striate. branchlets densely yellow-brown stellate. stipules palmately 3-5-fimbriate, densely hairy, caducous; petiole robust, 4-12 mm; leaf blade oblong-obovate in outline, usually irregularly lobed, 8-16 × 3.511 cm, leathery, abaxially densely gray-white or yellow-brown stellate tomentose, adaxially glabrous or minutely hairy along midrib, base cordate or obliquely cordate, apex truncate and 3-5-lobed, central lobe acute or acuminate, 1—2 cm. flowers solitary, nearly sessile; epicalyx lobes fimbriate. sepals linear, relatively thick, 4.5-6.5 × ca. 0.4 cm, abaxially densely brown tomentose, adaxially silvery white villous. petals linear-falcate, 3-6 × 0.4-0.5 cm, base tapering. stamens ca. 3.5 cm; staminodesfiliform, ca. 5 cm, glabrous. ovary ovoid, hairy. fruiting pedicel to 8 mm; capsule woody, ovoid or ovoid-cylindrical, prominently 5-angular and 5-grooved, ca. 12 × 7 cm, densely brown stellate tomentose, verrucose or not, base narrowed into 2-3 × ca. 1 cm stipe. seeds 6-10 per locule, in 2 rows, 4-5.5 cm including wing, wing linear, up to 4.4 cm, apex obtuse or truncate. fl. jul. figure 1: herbarium specimen of pterospermum truncatobatum silviculture value: there is an array of common names for pterospermum truncatolobatum, depending on the region where it is grown. it is commonly referred to as kanak champa, muchakunda or karnikar. other common names include bayur tree, maple-leafed bayur tree, 1. national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawary, nepal , *e-mail :basnetbotanist@gmail.com 2. central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur short note banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 49 and dinner plate tree. the reddish wood of the tree can be used for planking. because the wood is soft, it is not considered to be very strong. however it is incredibly durable and somewhat flexible, making it perfect for planking and wooden boxes. the tree has been categories as fossil wood some of the species are under the iucn red list. mostly planted as an ornamental or shade tree, the leaves, flowers, and wood. the leaves can also serve as a primitive method of reenforcing roofs and preventing leaks. the pubescent under surface of the leaves is said to stop bleeding and can be used as tinder for a means of sparking fires. the flowers of the tree can serve as a pleasant perfume and can even keep away insects. the flowers also provide a number of medicinal uses. an effective tonic can be prepared, as well as being used as a cure for inflammation, ulcers, blood problems, and even tumors. its bark is also supposed to be used in case of scabies and topical preparation like lipsticks. references shu,chi zi 2007. flora of china 12: 327–329. http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/tree.html h t t p : / / w w w. i u c n r e d l i s t . o r g / d e t a i l s / full/113756894/0 http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_ id=2&taxon_id=200013829 http://www.efloras.org/object_page.aspx?object_ id=93551&flora_id=2 h t t p s : / / w w w. b i o d i v e r s i t y l i b r a r y. o r g / page/6675107#page/85/mode/1up h t t p s : / / w w w. b i o d i v e r s i t y l i b r a r y. o r g / openurlmultiple.aspx?id=p6675107|p4506 422|p4506546 http://tropicos.org/name/30401881 http://www.efloras.org/browse.aspx?flora_ id=2&start_taxon_id=127512http://www. efloras.org/object_page.aspx?object_ id=93551&flora_id=2 basnet and siwakoti 16 himalayan monal (lophophorus impejanus), commonly known as ‘danphe,’ is the national bird of nepal and the state bird of uttarakhand state of india. the species belongs to the family ‘phasianidae’ under the order ‘galliformes’ of birds and is native to afghanistan, pakistan, india, bhutan, china (mainland), nepal, and myanmar (birdlife international, 2022). it is a highly recognized pheasant species in the western himalaya due to its striking sexual dimorphism (ramesh et al., 1999; ramesh, 2003). long crest and metallic blue, copper, purple and green plumage are observed in adult males, whereas females have a more subdued appearance with brownish-black feathers (figure 1). the species feeds on grass and flower seeds, berries, shoots, tubers, insects and grubs, mainly by digging with its strong bill, and can dig deep in snow if necessary (ali & ripley, 1987). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1, 2023 pp 16‒26https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i1.56503 status, distribution, and threats of himalayan monal (lophophorus impejanus) in sagarmatha national park this study was conducted to assess the population status, distribution, and threats of himalayan monal (lophophorus impejanus) in sagarmatha national park from february to june 2022. the study area was divided into five blocksnamche, furte, syangboche, mislung, and kyangjuma. population was estimated by using the line transect method. bird survey was conducted two times in each transect during the study period. similarly, bird distribution was determined by direct evidences such as bird sightings, ground scratching marks of the birds, their feathers and fecal matter, and indirect evidences such as information from the locals and park staff. the digital elevation model (dem) was used in the feature digitization of slope, aspect, and elevation to show the bird distribution. a semi-structured questionnaire survey was conducted to assess the threats. altogether, 67 himalayan monal birds consisting of 48 male and 19 female individuals were recorded. the pheasants were distributed in all the blocks, preferably in the pure pine forests with different aspects and slopes within 3250 m and 4021 m altitude above the mean sea level. the overall population density was found to be 4.69 birds/km2. the highest density (7.26 birds/km2) was recorded in the namche block, followed by the furte block (7.05 birds/km2). habitat degradation, free-ranging dogs, and human disturbance were the major threats to himalayan monal. keywords: degradation, elevation, habitat, and population density s. paudel 1*, s. k. yadav 1, b. rokaya 2, and m. k. mandal 2 received: 31, january 2023 revised: 13, july 2023 accepted: 16, august 2023 published: 20, december 2023 1 tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, hetauda, nepal. *e-mail: snehap2056@gmail.com 2 department of national parks and wildlife conservation, kathmandu, nepal. https://orcid.org/0009-0002-1763-773x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3848-3525 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-9444-0254 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 17 paudel et al. figure 1: himalayan monals (one with sparking colors being male and another with nonsparking color being female) sighted in the snp during field survey the species prefers the oak-conifer forests in uppertemperate regions and oak forests in sub-alpine regions, combined with steep, grassy and open rocky slopes, cliffs and alpine meadows between 2400–4500 m elevation, mostly concentrating in a narrow belt between 2700–3700 m (grimmett et al., 1998). the species has been recorded near the tree line of oak forests between 2600–3200 m in azad jammu and kashmir (ahmed et al., 1999; qureshi et al., 1999; sabir et al., 1999). moreover, the species has been recorded between 2620–3350 m and 2000–2800 m during summer and winter respectively in the great himalayan national park of india (ramesh et al., 1999). however, the distribution is wider (2700–4000 m) for pakistan (mirza, 1978; roberts, 1991). in nepal, the pheasant is common in high-altitude protected areas and can be observed between 3300–4570 m in summer and down to 2500 m in winter (grimmett et al., 2016). it is mainly found in rocky forests, dispersed with steep slopes, cliffs and alpine meadows between 3800–4000 m in tibet, china (xiaochun et al., 2011). the legal status of himalayan monal in nepal is ‘protected’ (appendix i) under the national parks and wildlife conservation act 1973 and ‘appendix i’ in cites law (dnpwc and bcn, 2018). it has been nationally assessed as ‘near threatened’ and globally as ‘least concern’ (dnpwc, 2022). the global population size of himalayan monal has not been quantified (birdlife international, 2022). however, in nepal, its population is estimated to be between 3500-5000 (inskipp et al., 2016). the population of himalayan monal is declining throughout its distribution range because of various anthropogenic threats such as poaching, habitat destruction, livestock grazing, mushroom collection, egg stealing, fire and predation by domestic dogs (ramesh et al., 1999). in nepal, the species is seriously threatened due to pressure from hunting, trapping for food and live trapping for cage bird trade (inskipp et al., 2016). moreover, climate and land cover changes are likely to impact the habitat of himalayan monal by 2050 in the gandaki river basin (rai et al., 2020). there has been relatively limited research on himalayan monal in nepal though it is the national bird and the information is not sufficient to ensure the long-term conservation of the species in its natural habitat. sagarmatha national park (snp) is the potential site for this species, but the information on its distribution pattern and conservation threats is missing due to the lack of scientific research and proper regular monitoring. thus, this study was conducted to assess the population status, distribution, and threats of himalayan monal in the snp. material and methods study area sagarmatha national park is situated in the northeastern mountain region of nepal, covering an area of 1148 km2 in the solukhumbu district banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 18 paudel et al. (figure 2). the park elevation spans from 2845 m at monju to 8848.86 m at the summit of mount everest between 27°45’-28°07’ n and 86°28’-87°07’ e. the core area of the park covers ward 4 and 5 of khumbu pasanglhamu rural municipality. the park has been inscribed as a ‘world heritage site’ by the unesco for its diversified aesthetic, scientific, and cultural values. the park is rich in biodiversity and is home to several rare species, such as snow leopard (panthera uncia), musk deer (moschus chrysogaster), red panda (ailurus fulgens), himalayan monal, and many more. it is a wellknown destination for mountain tourism, with over 2500 sherpa people living within the region (unesco, 2022). pine and hemlock forests cover lower altitude of the national park, whereas high altitude tree species include juniper, fir, birch, and rhododendron. pinus wallichiana, betula utilis, figure 2: map showing the location of the study area with different blocks juniperus recurva, abies spectabilis, rhododendron arboretum, and tsuga dumosa are the dominant tree species. the park exhibits a temperate to arctic climate: generally moist and cool summer and cold, dry, and snowy winter. this research was concentrated within the core area (3111-4021 m altitude) of the national park since himalayan monal is commonly found within 3300-4570 m altitude in the protected areas of nepal (grimmett et al., 2016). data collection a preliminary survey was carried out in february 2022 to select the sites for transects. the sites were selected by interacting with local people, park staff, and bird watchers. the entire potential habitat was divided into five different blocks viz. i) namche block, ii) furte block, iii) syangboche block, iv) mislung block, and v) kyangjuma block (figure 2). altogether, ten transects (t1, t2, t3, t4, t5, t6, t7, t8, t9 and t10), two in each block, were laid. the status and distribution of himalayan monal were determined using line transect and direct observation. line transect method is reliable for estimating himalayan monal population because of the method’s accuracy and efficiency (selvan et al., 2013). moreover, a number of researchers such as ramesh (2003), miller (2010), and ahmad et al. (2019) have used this method in their studies. ten transects, each 1.5 km long, were monitored two times (in march and may) during the study period in 2022. all the pheasants observed within 200 m on either side of the transects were recorded. observations were carried out using binoculars and cameras in the morning and evening. the number, gender, and gps locations of the observed himalayan banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 19 paudel et al. monals were recorded for their population status. evidences like direct observations, calls, feathers, fresh ground scratches, fecal matter, and information from the local people, trekking guides and snp staff were used for assessing the distribution of himalayan monal. during the field survey, habitat types and composition data were also collected along the trails. different habitat types were recognized in the study area by analyzing field survey data and through direct field observations based on vegetation structure and land use. the entire habitat was classified into four typesi) pure pine forest, ii) mixed pine forest, iii) rangeland, and v) cultivated land. the proportion of transect in each habitat type was not equal. forty percent of the transects were traversed within pure pine forest, 23% within mixed pine forest, 17% within rangeland, and 20% within cultivated land. threats to himalayan monal were assessed through direct field observation and a semistructured questionnaire survey. questionnaire survey was carried out with 50 respondents, including the local people, trekking guides, local government representatives, photographers, local conservationists, and park staff, to assess the threats and to understand the local people’s opinion towards this avifauna. besides, relevant data and information were also collected through literature review, which included several books, research articles, journals, and reports from concerned authorities. data analysis the population density (pd) of himalayan monal was calculated by dividing the total number of the pheasants observed by the total area surveyed, i.e., pd = total number of pheasants observed / total area surveyed. similarly, the encounter rate (er) was calculated by dividing the number of sightings or birds detected by the distance covered, i.e., er = n / l, where n = number of sightings or birds detected and l = distance covered (caughley, 1977). likewise, the habitat preference rating index (hpi) was computed by dividing the percentage of the pheasants observed in each habitat type by the percentage of transect traversed in each habitat type, i.e., hpi = x / y, where x = percentage of the pheasants observed in each habitat type and y = percentage of transect traversed in each habitat type (mishra, 1982). the distribution pattern of himalayan monal was calculated based on the variance-to-mean ratio (odum, 1971), which is because the variance (s2) is equal to the mean (x) in the poisson distribution. the ratio s2/x < 1 indicates uniform distribution; the ratio s2/x = 1 indicates random distribution; and s2/x > 1 indicates clumped distribution. furthermore, the distribution of the himalayan monal within the study area was analyzed by using c2 tests (chi-squared test) at a 5 % level of significance: where, o= observed value and e= expected value. digital elevation model (dem) was used in feature digitization of the slope, aspect, and elevation to show the distribution of himalayan monal in the study area. digital data were downloaded from the usgs earth explorer’s srtm 1 arc-second global feature. slope was categorized as 0-10º, 10-20º, 20-30º, 30-40º, 50-60º, and 60-70º. the aspect was categorized as north, east, south and west. elevation range was categorized into 3100-3250 m, 3250-3400 m, 3400-3550 m, 3550-3700 m, 3700-3850 m, and 3850-4021 m. results himalayan monal was distributed in all five blocks with an area of 7.14 km2 ranging from 3111 m to 4021 m above the mean sea level (msl). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 20 paudel et al. twenty surveys were conducted in five blocks within the study area. during the study period, 67 himalayan monals were sighted in all the blocks, with 48 male and 19 female individuals (table 1). the overall population density was 4.69 birds/ km2, with the highest population density in the namche block and the lowest in the syangboche block (table 2). similarly, the overall encounter rate was 2.33 birds/km, the highest (encounter rate) in the furte block and the lowest in the syangboche block (figure 3). pinus wallichiana was the dominant tree species in the furte and mislung blocks, while p. wallichiana, abies spectabilis, and juniperus recurva were the major tree species noticed in the namche block. the study area consists of steep, rocky and open grassy slopes. figure 3: encounter rate of himalayan monal in different blocks. table 1: estimated population of himalayan monal in different blocks block transect no. of himalayan monal encountered march may male female male female namche t1 4 3 3 1 t2 3 1 2 1 furte t3 6 3 4 2 t4 3 1 3 0 syangboche t5 2 0 1 0 t6 1 0 1 0 mislung t7 3 1 3 0 t8 1 0 1 0 kyangjuma t9 3 2 1 2 t10 2 1 1 1 total 28 12 20 7 grand total 67 (48 male and 19 female) source: field study, 2022. table 2: block-wise population density of himalayan monal block himalayan monal encountered mean population total area of the block (km2) population density (birds/km2) namche 18 9 1.24 7.26 furte 22 11 1.56 7.05 syangboche 5 2.5 1.29 1.94 mislung 9 4.5 0.93 4.84 kyangjuma 13 6.5 2.12 3.07 total 67 33.5 7.14 4.69 source: field study, 2022. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 21 paudel et al. distribution pattern block-wise distribution the distribution of himalayan monal showed a clumped pattern (s2/x=2.76) with the highest proportion (33%) in the furte block and the lowest proportion (8%) in the syangboche block (figure 4). the himalayan monals encountered were not uniformly distributed (c2=13.821, df=4, p˂0.05) in different blocks within the study area. habitat-wise distribution` figure 5: distribution of himalayan monal in different habitat types the number of the himalayan monal sighted varied as per the habitat types. a maximum of 35 individuals were recorded in pure pine forest, and only seven were recorded in rangeland (figure 5). the distribution of himalayan monal was not uniform in different habitat types (c2=28.462; df=3, p˂0.05). habitat preference rating index (hpi) the habitat preference rating index indicated that the highest preference of the himalayan monal within the study area was towards the pure pine forest (table 3). table 3: habitat preference rating index habitat types himalayan monal encountered x y hpi (x/y) pure pine forest 35 52 40 1.30 mixed pine forest 15 22 23 0.96 rangeland 7 11 17 0.65 cultivated land 10 15 20 0.75 note: x = percentage of himalayan monal observed in each habitat type and y = percentage of transect traversed in each habitat type. figure 4: distribution of himalayan monal in different blocks banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 22 paudel et al. digital elevation model (dem) slope himalayan monals were recorded at different slopes; a maximum of 24 individuals recorded between 10-20º slope followed by 19 between 3040º slope and 16 between 20-30º slope. similarly, seven individuals were recorded between 0-10º slope and just one individual between 40 -50º slope (figure 6). however, the difference was statistically significant, and himalayan monals were not uniformly distributed through the range of slopes between 0-50º (c2=25.761, df=4, p˂0.05). aspect himalayan monals were encountered in all aspects of the study area. a total of 23 individuals (maximum) were observed on the northern aspect, 15 individuals both on the eastern and western aspects and 14 (minimum) individuals on the southern aspect (figure 7). himalayan monal was found to have preferred the eastern aspect in the kyangjuma block with steep rocky slopes and the northern aspect in the syangboche block with open grassy slopes. similarly, the northern aspect was preferred in the mislung block, where the dominant tree species was pinus wallichiana. likewise, the northern and western aspects were preferred in both the furte and namche blocks. however, the difference was found to be statistically nonsignificant, so the pheasants were uniformly distributed on all aspects (c2=3.149, df=3, p>0.05). figure 6: distribution of himalayan monal in terms of different slopes banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 23 paudel et al. figure 7: distribution of himalayan monal in terms of different aspects elevation himalayan monals were recorded at different altitudinal ranges. a total of 41 individuals (maximum) were recorded between 3400-3550 m altitude (figure 8). only one individual (least) was recorded between 3850-4021m altitude. the distribution of himalayan monal was not uniform in different elevations (c2=82.478, df=4, p˂0.05). figure 8: distribution of himalayan monal within different elevations banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 24 paudel et al. respondent’s perception all the respondents showed positive responses towards himalayan monal protection and conservation. though the bird feeds on potato fields during potato cultivation and harvesting season, the local people were always positive towards its conservation and happy to see the national bird feeding on their cultivated lands. threats most respondents perceived habitat degradation as the main threat to himalayan monal, followed by free-ranging dogs, human disturbances, and poaching (figure 9). human disturbances included collection of mushrooms and medicinal plants, livestock grazing, and trekking routes in the habitats of himalayan monal. figure 9: perception of respondents regarding threats to himalayan monal discussion poudyal et al. (2013) sighted 51 himalayan monals in seven sites of seti khola forests inside the annapurna conservation area. similarly, another study conducted in seven different routes covering almost all the areas of sagarmatha national park and its buffer zone recorded 97 himalayan monals (snp, 2016). this study recorded 67 individuals (48 male and 19 female). the population density in the study area was 4.69 birds/km2, less than the reported density (5.63 birds/km2) from the salkhala game reserve of pakistan (ahmad et al., 2019). the variations might be due to different methods, time duration, season, and topographic features of the coverage area. the distribution of himalayan monal was not uniform in the study area. the encounter rate was highest in the furte block because the block had suitable habitat conditions and low human interference. generally, the species avoids human disturbances and altered land use (sharief et al., 2022). according to miller (2010), himalayan monal preferred broadleaf and conifer forests in india’s great himalayan national park. this study also showed more preference towards pure pine forest. according to grimmett et al. (2016), himalayan monal is commonly found in the protected areas of nepal between 3300-4570 m altitude. this study recorded maximum number of himalayan monals (58) between 3400-3700 m altitude. himalayan monals were encountered in all aspects; however, most of the species were recorded on the northern aspect with 10-40º steep, rocky and open grassy slopes, which is in line with the findings of ahmad et al. (2019). prefence of cliffs and huge rocks for roosting in northern and south-eastern slopes is common for himalayan monal. high cliffs and rocks protect the species from predators such as foxes and allow the easy gliding for the species (rimlinger et al., 2000). the dnpwc and dfsc (2018) stated that the himalayan monal faces the most significant threat of extinction due to poaching, habitat loss, and degradation. according to the respondents, habitat degradation, free-ranging dogs, and human disturbance were significant threats to himalayan monal. poaching was found rare since the sherpa community is against killing wildlife and is always focused on biodiversity conservation. conclusion himalayan monal was distributed in all the blocks of the study area with different land use patterns (pure pine forest, mixed forest, cultivated land, and rangeland). however, the maximum number of the pheasants (35) was observed within the pure pine forests with different aspects and slopes between 3250 m and 4021 m above the mean sea level. mushrooms and medicinal plant collection, banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 25 paudel et al. livestock grazing, free-ranging dogs, and trekking routes were reported to be the major factors leading to disturbance and degradation in the habitats of himalayan monal in the sagarmatha national park. detail scientific research and longterm monitoring of himalayan monal should be prioritized along with improvement in patrolling by the sagarmatha national park authority to control the over-exploitation of the natural habitats of this national bird species. acknowledgments we would like to acknowledge the institute of forestry (iof), hetauda; forest research and training centre (frtc); and the department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc) for providing an internship to the first author at sagarmatha national park. we are very thankful to mr. bhumiraj upadhyay and the entire team of sagarmatha national park for their consistent support. we sincerely thank everyone who supported us directly and indirectly throughout the study period. references ahmad, b., noor, f., awan, m. s., minhas, r. a., and ali, u. (2019). distribution and population status of himalayan monal pheasant (lophophorus impejanus) in salkhala game reserve, neelum valley, azad jammu and kashmir (pakistan). the journal of animal & plant sciences, 29 (4). ahmed, k. b., awan, m. s., and anwar, m. (1999). status of major wildlife species in the moji game reserve, leepa valley, azad kashmir. proceedings of pakistan congress of zoology, 19: 173-182. ali, s. and ripley, s. d. (1987). compact handbook of the birds of india and pakistan together with those of bangladesh, nepal, bhutan and sri lanka. 2nd edition. oxford university press: 372 new delhi. bird life international (2022). species factsheet: lophophorus impejanus. http:// www.birdlife.org. accessed on 15th sep, 2022. caughley, g. (1977). analysis of vertebrate population. john wiley & sons, new york. 234. dnpwc and bcn. (2018). birds of nepal: an official checklist. department of national parks & wildlife conservation and bird conservation nepal, kathmandu, nepal. dnpwc and dfsc (2018). pheasant conservation action plan for nepal (20192023). department of national parks and wildlife conservation and department of forests and soil conservation. kathmandu, nepal. https://dnpwc.gov.np/media/ publication/pheasant_conservation_ action_plan_ 2019_tvxkz80.pdf. dnpwc. 2022. protected species: birds himalayan monal. https://dnpwc.gov. np/en/species-detail/47. accessed on 15th september, 2022. grimmett r., inskipp, c., and inskipp, t. (1998). birds of the indian subcontinent. oxford university press: delhi: 888. grimmett, r., inskipp, c., inskipp, t. and baral, h. s. (2016). birds of nepal. revised edition, helm field guide. new delhi: bloomsbury publishing india pvt. ltd. inskipp, c., baral, h. s., phuyal, s., bhatt, t. r., khatiwada, m., inskipp, t, khatiwada, a., gurung, s., singh, p.b., murray, l., poudyal, l. and amin, r. (2016). the status of nepal’s birds: the national red list series. zoological society of london, uk. miller, j. r. b. (2010). survey of western tragopan, koklass pheasant, and himalayan monal populations in the great himalayan national park, himachal pradesh, india. indian birds, 6: 60-65. mirza, z. b. (1978). pheasant survey in pakistan. american pheasant and waterfowl society. magazine. 78: 2-6. mishra, h. r. (1982). the ecology and behavior http://www.birdlife.org http://www.birdlife.org https://dnpwc.gov.np/media/publication/pheasant_conservation_action_plan_ 2019_tvxkz80.pdf https://dnpwc.gov.np/media/publication/pheasant_conservation_action_plan_ 2019_tvxkz80.pdf https://dnpwc.gov.np/media/publication/pheasant_conservation_action_plan_ 2019_tvxkz80.pdf https://dnpwc.gov.np/en/species-detail/47 https://dnpwc.gov.np/en/species-detail/47 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 26 paudel et al. of chital (axis axis) in the royal chitwan national park, nepal: with comparative studies of hog deer (axis porcinus), sambar (cervus unicolor) and barking deer (muntiacus muntjak). doctoral dissertation, university of edinburgh. odum, e. p. (1971). fundamental of ecology. published by w. b. saunders company, usa. poudyal, l. p., lamichhane, b. r., and baral, h. s. (2013). distribution of pheasants and partridges in the upper setikhola forests of annapurna conservation area, nepal. ibisbill: journal of himalayan ornithology, 93: 107. qureshi, m. a., awan, m. s., and anwar, m. (1999). status of major wildlife species in qazinag game reserve, azad kashmir. proceedings of pakistan congress of zoology, 19: 103-113. rai, r., paudel, b., changjun, g., and khanal, n.r. (2020). change in the distribution of national bird (himalayan monal) habitat in gandaki river basin, central himalayas. journal of resources and ecology, 11(2): 223231. https://doi.org/10.5814/j.issn.1674764x.2020.02.010. ramesh, k. (2003). an ecological study on pheasant of the great himalayan national park, western himalaya. phd thesis (unpublished). deemed university forest research institute, dehradun, india. pp. 181. ramesh, k., sathyakumar, s. and rawat, g.s. (1999). ecology and conservation status of the pheasants of the great himalayan national park, western himalaya. wildlife institute of india, dehradun. rimlinger, d. s., landel, h. f., yun, c. c., and geng, g. (2000). natural history of a marked population of chinese monals lophophorus lhuysii in sichuan province, china. in: woodburn, m. and mcgowan, p. (eds.). proceedings of the 2nd international galliformes symposium. pp. 174-182. roberts, t. j. (1991). the birds of pakistan. oxford university press. sabir, m., awan, m. s., and anwar, m. (1999). status of major wildlife species and their management in salkhala game reserve, leepa valley, azad kashmir. proceedings of pakistan congress of zoology, 19: 233243. selvan, k. m., lyngdoh, s., veeraswami, g. g., and habib, b. (2013). an assessment of abundance, habitat and activity patterns of three sympatric pheasants in an eastern himalayan lowland tropical forest of auranchal pradesh, india. asian journal of conservation biology, 2: 52-60. sharief, a., singh, h., joshi, b. d., singh, i., mukherjee, t., chandra, k., thakur, m. and sharma, l.k. (2022). understanding distribution and occupancy of himalayan monal in uttarkashi district, uttarakhand for conservation and management planning. wildlife biology, 2022: e01013. https://doi.org/10.1002/wlb3.01013. snp. (2016). birds of sagarmatha national park and its buffer zone. department of national parks and wildlife conservation. https://snp.gov.np/document/birds-of-snpand-its-bz. unesco. (2022). sagarmatha national park. ht tps: / /whc.unesco.org/en/ l is t /120. accessed on 15th september, 2022. xiaochun, m. a., junfeng, g. u. o., and xiaoping, y. u. (2011). himalayan monal (lophophorus impejanus): distribution, habitat and population status in tibet, china. environmental science: chinese birds, 2 (3):157. https://doi.org/10.5122/ cbirds.2011.002. https://doi.org/10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2020.02.010 https://doi.org/10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2020.02.010 https://doi.org/10.1002/wlb3.01013 https://snp.gov.np/document/birds-of-snp-and-its-bz https://snp.gov.np/document/birds-of-snp-and-its-bz https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/120 https://doi.org/10.5122/cbirds.2011.002 https://doi.org/10.5122/cbirds.2011.002 banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 3 sal (shorea robusta ) has ecological, economical and socio-cultural importance. it is a dominant species in the terai and chure region of nepal. natural regeneration is the only relevant regeneration method for sal in nepal. this study intended to assess natural regeneration potential of sal in ploughed and unploughed (control) sites. the study was carried out in chetaradei of kapilvastu district in an area of 4.79 ha. two treatments (control and ground work i.e. ploughed) were applied to assess regeneration potential of sal. the radius of the sample plots was 2 m, which were laid out systematically and the data were recorded from these plots in three consecutive years. regeneration density was found higher in control site than ploughed site. t-test for regeneration density in three consecutive measurements showed that there was no significant difference between ploughed and unploughed conditions. the species composition was dominated by sal in both ploughed and unploughed sites. species diversity (shannon weiner) index was found higher in ploughed site than unploughed site in three consecutive measurements. moreover, t-test showed that mean height of sal was not significant in both ploughed and unploughed sites except in the first measurement. this study shows that protection from grazing and fire is essential for natural regeneration of sal. however, ground work helps to increase tree species diversity but it is not necessary in degraded sal forest. keywords: ground work, kapilvastu, plough, treatment natural regeneration potential and growth of degraded shorea robusta gaert n.f. forest in terai region of nepal r. malla1* and b. k. acharya2 sal (shorea robusta) forest is one of the 35 different forest types found in nepal (stainton, 1972). it is a dominant species, shares 54.77% and 48.64% of the total stem volume in terai (dfrs, 2014a) and chure (dfrs, 2014b) regions, respectively. it is mainly valued for strong and durable construction timber but used as fuel and fodder as well (jackson, 1994). multiple product management for sal is essential from social, economical and ecological perspective (gautam and devoe, 2006). natural regeneration is the only relevant regeneration method for sal in nepal (joshi et. al., 1995). although many known and unknown causative factors affect the process of natural regeneration, the major factors include climate, soil, seed, biotic conditions, etc. (singh et al., 1987); and soil moisture and light intensity (tyagi et al., 2011). however, sal forests in nepal are shrinking with poor regeneration and there is change in species composition as well (sapkota et al., 2009) which is a challenge for sal forest management. variation in species composition, regeneration status and diversity in sal forest is determined by altitude, climate and edaphic factor (uma, 2001). in order to know the regeneration potential of sal in degraded sal forest, studies have been conducted in different parts of the country. however, these studies are limited to assess regeneration potential and growth of sal only under different thinning regimes in different forests system (high forest, coppice forest) without ground work (i.e. exposure of soil). soil working facilitates seed to grow due to easy aeration and nutrient uptake as compared to a compact soil. soil compaction typically decreases absorption of major mineral nutrients, especially n, p and k by roots (kang and lal, 1981) resulting in growth inhibition such as parks and golf courses (davis, 1952; lunt, 1 research officer, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal, *e-mail : raj_malla@yahoo.com 2 under-secretary, ministry of forests and environment, kathmandu, nepal banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 4 1956) and timber harvesting areas (youngberg, 1959, sands and bowen, 1978). in this regard, this study was carried out to assess regeneration potential and growth of sal forest in ploughed and unploughed sites in terai region, which is different from previous studies. thus, the study intended to know the effect of exposure of soil in natural regeneration potential and growth of sal. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in tilaurakot collaborative forest. it lies in chetaradei of kapilvastu district (fig. 1), approximately 15 km to the south of the mahendra highway near to gorusinghe bazaar. the study site was established in 2013. fig. 1: map of the study area with allocation of treatments in kapilvastu district condition of the study area the whole site was clear felled except maintaining few mother trees to promote regeneration. dispersal of seeds from the mother trees was enough to cover the extent of the study area as seeds disperse approximately 100 m away by wind (jackson, 1994). before the treatments applied, the site was absence of sal regeneration. it was supposed to be very difficult to regenerate sal without any intervention. thus, the site was ploughed using tractor assuming that there would be regeneration. the whole site was fenced and guarded to protect sal regeneration from grazing and fire. research design ploughing was done in two blocks of the selected site whereas three blocks of the site were treated as control (fig. 1). the detail of the research design is given in table 1. circular sample plots had 2 m radius and were spaced systematically. spacing between the plots was 30m x 30 m for ploughed site and 20m x 20m for unploughed (control) site. altogether, 50 and 41 sample plots were employed in ploughed and unploughed sites, respectively (table 1). data collection for the study, regeneration of sal includes both seedling (height <1m ) and sapling (height>1m and dbh<10 cm). recorded variables were species, its frequency and height. the first data collection was carried out after three years of establishment of the research plots and continued for another two years. data analysis the data analyses included estimation of regeneration/ha, mean height, species diversity in ploughed and unploughed sites and comparison of table 1: research design used in the study s.n treatment block area (ha) number of sample plots remarks 1 control (t0) 1 0.24 4 sample plot spaced between 20m x 20 m2 0.95 11 3 1.17 26 2 ploughed (t1) 1 0.74 6 sample plot spaced between 30m x 30m 2 4.79 44 malla and acharya banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 5 the regeneration potential of sal between these sites using tabular form. statistical test (i.e. t-test) was also performed to know the significant distribution of the target variables in different conditions. limitations the study was based on the data of three years only. the trend showed by the variables may not follow the same pattern in future. the study site was not completely well drained and of profuse growth of weeds. hence, findings of this study may not be generalized. results and discussion regeneration density status of regeneration (seedlings and saplings) in terms of number per hectare determines the condition of the forest. most of the regeneration were seedling (height up to 1m) whilst few were saplings (height >1m). thus, the density of seedlings was higher than the density of saplings in all the measurements (table 2). regeneration of shorea robusta shared major portion in the study area, which was followed by more than 20 different tree species such as syzygium cumini, sapium insigne (dudhekhirro), mallotus philippinensis, etc. in this study, regeneration density (in terms of total number of seedlings and saplings/ha) was found to be decreasing in three consecutive measurements in ploughed site while the trend was not similar in the control site. regeneration density was higher in unploughed site than ploughed site in all the three consecutive measurements (table 2). the difference in regeneration density was gradually being filled uptill the third measurement (fig. 2). fig. 2: regeneration density (number per ha) in ploughed and unploughed sites similarly, regeneration density of sal was found to be decreasing in both ploughed and unploughed sites in three consecutive measurements (fig. 3). particularly, the rate of decrease in sal regeneration in three consecutive measurements was higher in ploughed site (66.91%, 54.54% and 51.61%) than the unploughed site (68.61%, 61.97% and 65.14%). the regeneration density of sal was higher in unploughed site (fig. 3). fig. 3: regeneration density of sal in ploughed and unploughed sites table 2: density of seedlings and saplings in ploughed and unploughed (control) sites description treatment m1 (/ha) m2(/ha) m3(/ha) seedling ploughed 11,682 (1407) 8,992 (1153) 7,353 (930) control 15,741 (2825) 13,159 (2414) 10,656 (1969) sapling ploughed 971 (304) 3,613 (634) 4,488 (677) control 1,048 (216) 4,910 (899) 4,212 (594) note: standard error in parenthesis, and m1=first measurement, m2= second measurement, m3= third measurement malla and acharya banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 6 however, t-test for regeneration density in three consecutive measurements (i.e. p-value of 1st measurement = 0.2123, 2nd measurement = 0.1662 and 3rd measurement = 0.6471) showed that there was no significant difference between ploughed and unploughed sites. the t-test result was also the same for particularly sal regeneration (i.e. p-value of 1st measurement = 0.2662, 2ndmeasurement =0.0709 and 3rd measurement = 0.0832). number of natural regeneration can help classify the condition of forest. in general, more the regeneration, better the forest condition. good regeneration always remains a key for the sustainable forest management. in this study, regeneration was lower (just exceeded 18,000) than other studies conducted by rautiainen and suoheimo (1997), dfrs (2014a ) and ranabhat et.al. (2016). these studies were done in sal forest including different stages of trees (i.e., tree, pole, sapling and seedlings) and/or complete removal of weeds but this study was carried out in the degraded area with problem of regeneration. besides this, some portion of the study area was water logged and the area was dominated by the grasses and weeds, hence the regeneration was lower than other sites. total regeneration was higher in the unploughed site than ploughed site until the 3rdmeasurement. but, the difference in regeneration is gradually being narrowed with the elapse of time. by ploughing the land, it could disturb the soil to grow plant for few years and also kills the plants already existed there. thus, regeneration density becomes lower for few years in ploughed condition than control condition. once the soil becomes suitable for plants to regenerate, the regeneration process accelerates more in the ploughed condition. in particular, regeneration of sal is decreasing abruptly in the ploughed condition than control condition. in ploughed condition, soil is exposed which is good for aeration and nutrient uptake for plants compared to compact soil (kang and lal, 1981). this condition is suitable for plants to grow. besides sal, ploughed condition welcomes other tree species also to regenerate which ultimately helps in declining the density of sal regeneration. species diversity species diversity is one of the major indicators for the status of forest ecosystem. terai forest has diversity of tree species, where sal is a major tree species associated with many other tree species. species diversity was found higher in ploughed site than unploughed site (annex 1). altogether, 17, 19 and 23 regeneration species were found in ploughed site in three consecutive measurements whilst 14, 16 and 20 in unploughed site in the same measurements. similar results were found in case of seedlings and saplings when analyzed separately. however, in both ploughed and unploughed sites, the number of species was found to be in an increasing trend in later measurements (table 3). the value of shannon weiner diversity index was higher in ploughed site (i.e. 1.4, 1.56 and 1.75) than unploughed site (i.e., 1.00, 1.4 and 1.4) in three consecutive measurements. it indicates that the possibility of increase in species diversity is higher in ploughed site than unploughed site. the regeneration diversity found in this study (14 to 23 species) is more or less the same to the findings of (ranabhat et. al., 2016 ; sapkota et al., 2009), though research sites condition were different. the tree species diversity at the seedling stage was higher than that of sapling stage in both table 3: total number of regeneration species in three consecutive measurements description treatment 1st measurement 2nd measurement 3rd measurement regeneration ploughed 17 19 23 control 14 16 20 seedling species ploughed 15 17 18 control 10 13 17 sapling species ploughed 12 17 18 control 13 15 15 malla and acharya banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 7 ploughed and unploughed sites. similar findings were reported in previous studies (ranabhat et al., 2016; sapkota et al., 2009). however, regeneration density was found to be higher in the ploughed site than unploughed site. ploughed condition offers conducive environment for many species for regeneration, which may be one of the reasons of high species diversity. all the seedlings may not reach at the sapling stage due to adverse condition, which leads to reduction in species diversity at the sapling stage. species composition composition of species was dominated (in terms of frequency) by sal in both ploughed and unploughed sites. it represented more than half of the total regeneration. sal dominates in the forestsof terai and chure regions of nepal by 32.25% (dfrs, 2014a) and 30.42% (dfrs, 2014b), respectively. the same results are reported by (giri et al., 1999;paudyal, 2013; acharya et al., 2009 and sapkota, et al., 2009). however, domination of sal was higher in unploughed site than ploughed site. after sal, domination of other species was found different in both ploughed and unploughed sites (annex 2). in general, the domination of sal was found to be decreased in both ploughed and control plots in three consecutive measurements (fig. 4). it shows that the share of other species increased every year. however, domination of sal was found to be decreased more in ploughed site than unploughed site (fig. 4). result shows that the chance of regeneration of other species in the sal dominated area is higher when it is ploughed. note: m1=first measurement, m2= second measurement, m3= third measurement fig.4: domination of sal in three different consecutive measurements height growth in the first measurement, mean height of sal was found to be higher in the unploughed plots. contrastingly, second and third measurements showed opposite results (fig. 5). the presence of some sal regeneration in control plots during establishment might have caused to increase height growth in the first measurement. result shows the rate of height growth is higher in ploughed site than unploughed site. however, t-test showed that mean height of s. robusta was not significant in both ploughed and unploughed sites except in the first measurement (p1=3.45e-15, p2=0.5494, p3=0.2404). note: m1=first measurement, m2= second measurement, m3= third measurement fig.5: mean height of sal in three consecutive measurements in the favorable condition, height growth of sal is fast in the initial (regeneration) stage up to 6m after five years from the seed (jackson, 1994). height of the regeneration of sal increases more in the absence of shelter trees (rautiainen and suoheimo, 1997). result of the study shows that ploughed condition is more favorable to height growth of sal compared to normal condition. however, the result is opposite to the general findings i.e. as height of tree increases as it grows in dense. but, exposure of soil helps in nutrient uptake and good aeration which may be the reason to increase the height of sal irrespective of its density. conclusion it is well documented that degradation of sal forests is the result of heavy grazing, lopping and fire. the degraded condition of the sal forest can malla and acharya banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 8 be enhanced to the similar condition of the good natural forest in long run if it is conserved well (ranabhat et al., 2016). the satisfactory results of regeneration have been achieved even in the degraded area in this study. thus, it is clear that protection from grazing and fire is the foremost requirement for regeneration of sal. tree species diversity can be maintained in the degraded sal forest area. however, ground work (i.e. exposing soil) is necessary to increase tree species diversity at the cost of losing the dominance of sal species. similarly, ground work also supports to increase height growth of sal regeneration. all the studied variables (such as regeneration density, species diversity, height growth) do not differ significantly in the ploughed and unploughed sites until the five years of establishment. the result shows that the impact of the ground work (i.e. complete ploughing using machine) is ineffective to bring substantial differences in the growth of sal regeneration and species diversity but increases cost of management. based on this study, it can be concluded that complete ground work using machine in degraded sal forest may not be an essential task for sal forest management from both ecological and financial point of view. however, complete protection from grazing and fire seems foremost tasks to manage degraded sal forest in the terai region. acknowledgment this research study is one of the programmes of department of forest research and survey (dfrs). we would like to acknowledge dfrs for providing all the necessary resources for this research work. our special thanks go to the director general of dfrs, dr. deepak kumar kharal for his motivational support during the study. invaluable support from mr. gopal prasad gautam, mr. rajan regmi, mr. rajendra basukala, mr. rajkumar giri and mr. kajimantamang during the field work is highly appreciated as well. references acharya, k. p., chaudhary, r. p and vetaas, o. r. 2009.medicinal plants of nepal: distribution pattern along an elevational gradient and effectiveness of existing protected areas for their conservation. banko janakari 19 (1):16—22. davis, r. r. 1952. physical condition of putting green soils and other environmental factors affecting greens. usga j. turf manage 6:25—27. dfrs. 2014a. terai forests of nepal. forest resource assessment nepal project. department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. dfrs. 2014b. churia forests of nepal. forest resource assessment nepal project. department of forest research and survey. babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. gautam, k. h. and devoe, n. n. 2006.ecological and anthropogenic niches of sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) forest and prospects for multiple-product forest management-a review. forestry 79: 81—101. giri, a., aryal, b., bhattarai, b., ghimire, s. k., shrestha, k. k. and jha, p. k. 1999. vegetation composition, biomass production and regeneration in shorea robusta forests in the royal bardia national park, nepal. nepal journal of science and technology 1 (1): 47—56. jackson, j. k. 1994 .manual of afforestation in nepal. nepal-uk forestry research project, babarmahal, kathmandu. joshi, s. p., rautiainen, o. and suoheimo, j. 1995. silvicultural guidelines for the implementation of operational forest management plans in the terai. fmudp technical report no. 15.hmgn/ finnida, kathmandu, nepal. kang, b. t. and lal, r. 1981. nutrient losses in water runoff from agricultural catchments. in tropical agricultural hydrology (eds.) lal, r. and russel, e. w., wiley, new york, 153—161. lunt, o. r. 1956. minimizing compaction in putting greens. usda j. turf manage 9 (5):25—30 malla and acharya banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 9 paudyal., b. k. 2013. regeneration, growth of hill sal and plant diversity in community forest: a case study from pragatisil community forest in kaski district, western nepal. banko janakari 23 (2): 37—43. ranabhat, s., fehrman, l and malla, r. 2016. the effect of forest management on stand structure and tree diversity in the sal (shorea robusta) forest of nepal. indian forester 142 (6): 582—589. rautiaine, o and suoheimo, j. 1997. natural regeneration potential and early development of shorea robusta gaertn. f. forest after regeneration felling in the bhabar-terai zone in nepal. forest ecology and management 92 (1/3): 243— 251. sands, r. and bowen, g. d. 1978. compaction of sandy soils in radiata pine forests. ii. effects of compaction on root configuration and growth of radiata pine seedlings. aust. for. res. 8: 163—170. sapkota, i.p., tigabu, m and oden, p.c.2009. tree diversity and regeneration of community managed bhabar lowland and hill sal forests in central region of nepal. boisetforêts destropiques 300 ( 2 ). singh, a. k., kumar, v. k. and singh, j. 1987. forest resource economy and environment. concept publishing company, new delhi, india. stainton, jda. 1972: forests of nepal. john murray, london. tyagi, j. v., rakesh, k., srivastava, s. l. and singh, r. d. 2011. effect of microenvironmental factors on natural regeneration of sal. journal of forestry research 22 (4): 543—550. uma, shankar. 2001. a case of high tree diversity in a sal (shorea robusta) dominated lowland forest of eastern himalaya: floristic composition, regeneration and conservation. current science 81: 776— 786. youngberg. c. t. 1959. the influence of soil condition following tractor logging on the growth of planted douglas-fir seedlings. soil sci. soc. am. proc. 23:76—78. malla and acharya banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 10 annex 1:tree species in ploughed and unploughed (control) sites s.n. latin name local name control (t0) ploughed (t1) 1 shorea robusta sal √ √ 2 terminalia alata asna √ √ 3 dalbergia sissoo sisso √ √ 4 acacia catechu khair --√ 5 azadirachta indica neem √ --6 syzygium cumini jamun √ √ 7 sapium insigne √ √ 8 mallotus philippinensis sindure √ √ 9 terminalia belerica harro --√ 10 aegle marmelos bel √ √ 11 psidium guajava amba √ --12 pterocarpus marsupium bijaysal --√ 13 diospyros melanoxylon √ √ 14 schleichera oleosa kusum √ √ 15 holarrhena pubescens √ √ 16 dalbergia latifolia sati sal --√ 17 careya arborea --√ 18 kachari √ √ 19 ghurmusrani √ √ 20 tikuli --√ 21 terminalia chebula --√ 22 myrsine semiserrata √ √ 23 ficus glomerata √ --24 lagerstroemia parviflora botdhairo √ √ 25 unknown1 --√ 26 unknown2 --√ 27 artocarpus lakoocha katahar √ --28 leea crispa √ --annex 2: composition of ten major species in three consecutive measurements sn latin name composition (%) latin name composition (%) control (t0) ploughed plots (t1) m1 m2 m3 m1 m2 m3 1 s. robusta 68.62 61.98 65.14 s. robusta 66.92 54.55 51.61 2 s. cumini 14.43 10.63 7.18 m. philippninensis 7.38 7.83 6.59 3 m. philippninensis 4.15 3.87 5.22 s. insigne 5.98 0.88 4.7 4 s. oleosa 4.38 3.44 3.13 t. belerica 3.43 3.54 3.23 5 p. marsupium 1.73 1.29 2.48 p. marsupium 3.31 4.42 4.97 6 h. pubescens 0.92 8.81 9.5 s. oleosa 3.31 2.27 3.49 7 s. insigne 0.23 6.66 2.35 a. marmelos 3.18 1.77 2.02 8 a. marmelos 0.57 1.18 0.65 h. pubescens 1.27 19.44 16.94 9 t. alata 0 0.64 0.91 s. cumini 1.4 1.14 1.08 10 p. guajava 0.34 0.32 0 a. catechu 0.76 0 0 note: m1=first measurement, m2= second measurement, m3= third measurement malla and acharya banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal adjustment of watershed management towards federal system the recent constitution of nepal, promulgated in 2015, has introduced a three-tier structure of federal government (federal, province, and local) and all levels have the power to enact laws, prepare budgets, and mobilize their own resources. accordingly, government of nepal, redesigned the soil conservation and watershed management related structure too with the aim of decentralizing the 'fund', 'functions', and 'functionaries' (3f). major structural reforms are: ministry of forests and soil conservation is restructured as ministry of forests and environment, department of soil conservation and watershed management is integrated with the department of forests and named as the department of forests and soil conservation (dofsc), district soil conservation offices (61 numbers) were reorganized into soil and watershed management offices (14 numbers with 2 in each province). however, the total numbers of staffs were increased to 17 in each. four river basin centres (koshi, gandaki, karnali, mahakali) are established for the first time as the federal offices under the dofsc to deliver the integrated river basin management plan and programs. a watershed management learning resource centre (w-lrc) is established under dofsc to aggregate, generate, and disseminate the watershed related knowledge, science, skills and technology. the scope of watershed management is ever growing because there is a need to ensure the ecological integrity, economic and social viability of our fragile landscape. to learn the best watershed management models for this changing context, principles, approaches applied in different countries such as in india, thailand, america and europe as well as africa where they have already adopted watershed management successfully into their federal states or nation's union might be useful. the major approach adopted in worldwide practice is a river basin approach with the clear legislative framework and accordingly, ministry of forests and environment is also trying to adopt same scale with country specific situations here in nepal. although administrative structures have changes, yet the functions at federal and province level offices might be similar in nature while addressing the local scale problems. it might be because there is long-term effects of present management approach and existing system and knowledge of the human resources. in addition, there is also transitory period for developing concrete programs and policies too. simultaneously, the management of natural resources has become increasingly complex and uncertain because of shifts in demography, political power bases, public expectations, and understanding of natural systems. the fields of watershed science and management are likely to undergo rapid change for some years to come. uncertainties include (1) cumulative, long-term effects of current problems and resources availability (2) effects of plan, policies and programs at three tiers of government units and (3) effects of a changing national and global environment. considering these uncertainties, watershed management approaches are always dynamic in nature. since the period of its establishment (1974), the district soil conservation office (dsco) tried to address the challenges of soil erosion and watershed degradation faced by the country. it also worked efficiently to assist in reducing pressure on the ecological balance from natural hazards such as floods, landslides and soil erosion, through the conservation and development of important watersheds. it also put tremendous efforts to maintain land productivity, climate change adaptation, and safeguard lives, people's livelihoods, properties, and important infrastructure. during 45 years of institutional experience, it was realized that participatory watershed model was found to be effective to address the site-specific local problems. however, it was not sufficient to address the catchment scale problems at output and outcome scale. it means that how the different components of landscape (erosion, vegetation, disaster, people, etc) can be interlinked through appropriate institutional structure, plan, policies and programs to maintain the ecological integrity of the country should be plan in long term basis. that demands for the more concrete and stronger commitment by the respective government units in future. watershed management in federal system is offering the possibility to consider the interrelationships between the productivity and conservation in the use of natural resources as well as the recognition of upstream-downstream linkages related to the protection and use of land resources among three tiers of government. in forest policy 2019, and 15th five year plan (2019‒2024) need, strategies, working policies are written clearly specially in water, infrastructure, and agriculture/forestry sectors. owing to these policies, dofsc is mainly adopting following programs and approaches; i) river basin scale intervention, ii) theme and target based catchment restoration it means for what purpose catchment management/investment is important. it covers to answer like hydropower protection from sedimentation, protection of important infrastructures, sedimentation reduction at important wetland/lakes, managing land degradation, drought area management etc. institutionally six different sections within watershed and landslide management divisions are trying to critical watersheds (within river basin) through engagement of all stakeholders. implementation of some emergency and emerging problems like landslide disaster, drying up springs, rural roads safeguard, river corridor environment protection etc. are managing by developing appropriate tools and technologies. research, science and technology based plan, policies and programs with effective coordination among three tiers of government is strongly recommended. in this context, the appropriate institutional set up together with strengthening legislative power, strong coordination and participation of all levels of government are the prime concern to be resolved soon. it is suggested to increase the number of staffs in all four river basin centers. similarly, the number of offices in province level should be increased to cover easy and accessible service delivery. the local government units should be clear to establish the forest/watershed/ environment units to translate the provisions mentioned in local government act 2074. prem prasad paudel banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 6 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 silviculture is about the deliberate manipulation of a forest to achieve defined objectives. it can be thought of as the art of producing and tending a forest. the notion of “appropriate” silviculture is very important when considering silviculture for community forests because silvicultural approaches and prescriptions need to be appropriate for local users while also ensuring that they promote the long term sustainability of the forest. experience suggests that not all community forests require the application of sophisticated silvicultural regimes or the use of inventory data to schedule yields. many can be managed perfectly well by the application of very simple silvicultural regimes and little or no need to collect inventory data. the needs of the most complex situation (sophisticated silvicultural system and inventory) should not be the model for all community forestry silviculture. at best, conventional silvicultural regimes and inventory practices require major revision for community forestry. it is clear that community forestry will achieve its full potential only if a holistic view is taken and a number of enabling conditionalities are met. these include: secure tenure, an enabling regulatory framework, strong governance, viable technology (including appropriate silviculture), adequate market knowledge and a supportive bureaucracy. these all need to be present for community forestry to operate at its full potential to deliver the biophysical and socio-economic outcomes that are expected of it. viable technology, including appropriate silviculture informed by good science, is one of these important conditionalities but it is not the only one. sustainable outcomes require much more than the application of technical forestry. key words: community forestry, indigenous knowledge, nepal, silviculture silviculture and community forestry: looking backwards, looking forwards d. gilmour1 all forms of forestry occur in the context of social arrangements such as institutions, rules and tenurial arrangements. one difference between conventional forest management and community forestry is that conventional forestry tends to emphasise technical arrangements whereas community forestry is explicitly concerned with the integration of social and technical aspects. this paper concentrates on some of the technical arrangements for community forestry, while not losing sight of the fact that both need to be integrated in order to produce socially and ecologically sustainable outcomes. during the early years of the evolution of community forestry, particularly in asia, progress was limited by a lack of knowledge of the social/ institutional and governance arrangements needed to promote effective community-based forest management systems. as a result, most efforts went into exploring these arrangements and designing enabling policies and laws as well as building the capacity of forestry technicians to support community forestry. there is now a solid body of knowledge on the social/institutional and governance aspects of community forestry. to some extent, similar advances were not made in developing appropriate technical systems for community forestry, and there is a surprising lack of a coherent body of knowledge on this subject, although there are some exceptions (for example rgob, 2016). one of the major principles underlying the purposeful management of forests is that they can 1 watershed management division, department of forests and park services, thimphu, bhutan. e-mail: don.gilmour @gmail.com 7 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 be manipulated to provide a variety of goods and services. for example, forests can be managed to provide a single product such as timber, or a mix of products such as timber and nontimber products (e.g. fodder, fuel wood, vines, foods and medicines, animals, and water), and ecosystem services2 (e.g. watershed functioning, spiritual and recreational values). the deliberate manipulation of a forest is known as silviculture3, which can be simply thought of as the art of producing and tending a forest. knowledge of the ecological conditions that control and influence tree and forest growth, is required when deciding on appropriate silvicultural practices for any application. establishment of trees and forests, particularly if natural regeneration is being relied on to produce a future crop, requires an understanding of the site requirements and environmental conditions that are conducive to good growth for individual species. for example, some trees (including many pines and colonising rainforest species) require open conditions with little shade to regenerate and grow, while others (such as many primary rain forest species) require shady conditions to prosper. if a forest consisting mainly of species tolerant of shade is to be harvested and then regenerated, then a silvicultural system is required that removes relatively few individuals per unit area, so that shady conditions are retained to encourage regeneration and growth of the preferred species. by contrast, if a forest consisting primarily of species intolerant of shade is to be harvested then a silvicultural system is needed that results in relatively large areas being cut so that regeneration of the desirable species is encouraged by the creation of exposed sunny conditions. many pines, eucalypts and acacias fall into this latter category. decisions on silvicultural practices are generally supported by data on things such as area of the forest, size class distribution of trees and volume of timber. such data are collected through forest inventory4, which refers to techniques to collect data on forest condition to enable harvesting decisions to be made. the basic purpose of applying silvicultural techniques to a forest is to manipulate it to produce desired goods and services, while the purpose of using inventory tools and techniques is to gather the data/ information needed to determine and regulate the yield of the goods and services coming from the forest with sufficient accuracy so that they can continue to be produced in the long term (i.e. sustainably). this paper will critique silviculture and forest inventory in relation to community forestry, particularly as they relate to the notion of sustainability5. the origins and application of modern silviculture many of the contemporary technical approaches to forest management evolved in germany in the mid-19th century. as noted by cassells et al. (1988), at this time, german forests had experienced a long history of purposeful management. when trees had reached a desired degree of maturity they were cut, the forest was regenerated and the trees grown for a new cycle, leading to a new forest ready for harvesting at some future date. by having equal volumes of timber in each forest age class – the so-called normal or regulated forest – the harvest each year or at each interval could be approximately equal. however, it is important to recognise that some centuries of previous forest utilisation had produced the conditions that had allowed the development of the relatively even age class distributions which made this particular form of regulated forestry practical. under most conventional forestry regimes, sophisticated forest inventory systems are used to determine standing timber volumes and to schedule yield. such approaches to forest inventory can work quite well when applied to stands of trees that are relatively uniform, are evenly distributed across the forest landscape and where good information is available on gilmour 2 ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. these include provisioning services such as food and water; regulating services such as regulation of floods, drought, land degradation, and disease; supporting services such as soil formation and nutrient cycling; and cultural services such as recreational, spiritual, religious and other nonmaterial benefits. (source: millennium ecosystem assessment, 2005 www.millenniumassessment.org) 3 the art and science of controlling the establishment, growth, composition, health and quality of forests and woodlands to meet the targeted diverse needs and values of landowners and society on a sustainable basis. iufro (2005) silvaterm database. 4 a survey to determine, on a given area, data (such as condition, composition and constitution of the forests, soil conditions, water course, location, access, and topography) for….management, or as a basis for forest policies and programmes. adapted from iufro (2005) silvaterm database. 5 the achievement and maintenance in perpetuity of high-level annual or regular periodic output of the various renewable resources without impairment of the productivity of the land (clawson and sedjo, 1984) 8 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 growth rates and area. the manipulated forests in germany referred to above fall into this category, as do many plantations, particularly well managed industrial-scale plantations. under these circumstances the application of inventory techniques to determine stocking rates of different species and to schedule harvesting is likely to achieve useful results. classical approaches to silviculture and forest inventory tend to work less well in forest types that are characterised more by their heterogeneity than their uniformity. situations where tree stocking rates vary across the landscape pose considerable sampling problems with collecting reliable inventory information. the question of representativeness of sampling plots and the determination of the effective area6 of the productive forest are aspects of particular concern. simply establishing a couple of inventory plots, measuring the trees in the plots and extrapolating the resulting figures across the landscape is unlikely to produce reliable data that can be used with sufficient accuracy to determine standing volumes or to schedule yields. the application of data determined in this fashion can lead to spurious and misleading results. there is a real danger of falling into the trap of “confusing numbers with facts”. the use of numbers confers a degree of respectability and legitimacy to the exercise, even if the numbers have little meaning. an example of the way that the application of inventory data led to inappropriate decisions is shown in box 1. indigenous silviculture the experiences in germany during the 19th century referred to above led to the codification of silvicultural practices and inventory techniques and this body of knowledge became the basis for much of the curriculum of forestry schools throughout the world. as a result, they have become part of the “psyche” of foresters the world over, and, to a large extent, understanding and applying this knowledge defines the forestry profession. there is an implicit assumption that this body of “scientific forestry” knowledge must be applied if forests are to be managed sustainably. this assumption has been increasingly challenged in recent years with the recognition that forests have been subject to manipulation and management by rural communities for centuries. it is becoming increasingly evident that many of the world’s socalled pristine or virgin forests have been shaped by centuries of deliberate human manipulation. even though the approaches applied have not been codified into a coherent body of knowledge, there are sufficient examples from different parts of the world to demonstrate that indigenous silviculture is a reality and its application produced valuable forest landscapes for contemporary society. details are given by peters (2000) for the precolumbian americas, rackman (1986) for england, netting (1981) for switzerland, michon and de foresta (1995) for indonesia, fairhead and leach (1996) for west africa, wickramasinghe (1995) for sri lanka and lourandos (1997) and gammage (2011) for aboriginal australia. 6 the area available for harvesting. some parts of the forest may be too steep, degraded/regenerating or close to water courses and not available for harvesting. box 1. example of the use of inventory data which produced incorrect and misleading figures for scheduling forest harvesting wombat forest, ballarat, victoria, australia (adapted from petheram et al. 2002) in 1990 the sustainable yield from wombat forest (primarily mixed species dry sclerophyll eucalypts) was determined to be 70,000 cu.m. per year from a net area of 50,450 ha, but in 1996 this was reduced to 58,000 cu.m. per year from a net area of 42,430 ha. in 2000 the sustainable yield was further reduced to 40,000 cu. m. per year from 36,680 ha and finally it was reduced to 8,600 cu.m. per year. thus, since 1990, the sustainable yield (determined from the application of inventory data) was progressively reduced from 70,000 to 8,660 cu.m. per year. lesson learned: even though seemingly good quality inventory data was available for a single forest value, timber from many years of measurement of permanent yield plots, the application of that data failed to adequately reflect the real life situation of the forest in terms of determining the sustainable timber supply. gilmour 9 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 a clear conclusion from an analysis of these examples of indigenous silviculture is that illiterate and uneducated people in many parts of the world have applied silvicultural techniques of varying complexities to manipulate forests to produce the forest goods and services that were of value to them, and to sustain the forests for future generations. they did not need to apply what we now refer to as “scientific forestry” (such as inventory, yield regulation, etc.) to achieve their objectives. this is not to say that the application of scientific forestry might not add value to community forest management, but it should be emphasised that, in many situations, it is not a prerequisite for the sustainable management of community forests. appropriate silviculture for community forestry the notion of “appropriate” silviculture is very important. if community forests are to be managed for local benefit and if their management is to be truly in the hands of forest users, then it follows that the approaches to silviculture and forest inventory also need to be in the hands of the community rather than under the control of the forest management agency. silvicultural prescriptions need to be appropriate for local users while also ensuring that they promote the long term sustainability of the forest. when considering what type of silviculture is appropriate for community forestry, it is unsurprising that one quickly comes to the conclusion that there is no one answer to this question, rather there are many answers depending on a number of factors specific to the forest in question. among the most important of these factors are the aims and objectives of forest management and the type and condition of the forest in question. to a large extent, these two factors go hand in hand and need to be considered together when determining an appropriate silvicultural regime. defining the aims and objectives of forest management goes some way to setting the scene for deciding which silvicultural practices will be needed to deliver the desired mix of forest products. in many situations, particularly for newly established community forests on degraded land, the prime purpose of management is often to afford protection to a regenerating forest, and to provide limited subsistence goods such as grass and fuel wood. in such situations, sophisticated silvicultural systems are unnecessary, and in particular, the application of inventory techniques will add nothing to the ability of communities to manage the forest sustainably. however, in situations where the primary objective is to produce commercial products, particularly timber, there is a greater need to consider collecting sufficient data to schedule yields and to ensure that the silvicultural approaches will ensure that the forest will be managed in a sustainable manner. very few community forests are managed primarily to produce marketable timber, most are managed to provide a variety of forest goods and services including timber, poles, fuel wood, fodder, wild food, building materials and water. community forestry often involves uneven aged mixed species forests managed for different products and services. in addition, it involves communities as managers, or co-managers with forest management authorities. at best, conventional silvicultural regimes and inventory practices require major revision for community forestry. the type and condition of the forest is also an important consideration in determining what sort of silvicultural regime will be appropriate, and what type of inventory data (if any) will be necessary to schedule yields. in the example given above where a newly established community forest covers a largely degraded landscape, the silvicultural system would be protection oriented possibly for a decade or more. in such a situation, no inventory would be necessary as it would add nothing of value to the decision making processes. on the other hand, if the forest is a mature stand of trees with commercial potential, then more sophisticated information might be needed and more sophisticated silvicultural treatments needed if there was a desire to maximise timber production and ensure sustainability. because most community forests exhibit a wide range of age and size class distributions, we need to be careful in applying conventional silvicultural and inventory approaches that may not be well suited to the conditions. to obtain a sense of the range of silvicultural possibilities (from simple to sophisticated) that gilmour 10 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 need to be considered, we could think of a matrix of the two key elements of aims and objectives of management and type and condition of the forest (table 1). however, we need to recognise the multiple use nature of most community forests, and that this matrix is somewhat simplistic—the real situation will invariably be more complex. this table suggests that relatively few of the combinations shown require the application of sophisticated silvicultural regimes or the use of inventory data to schedule yields. the remainder can be managed perfectly well by the application of very simple silvicultural regimes and little or no need to collect inventory data. there is nothing intrinsically bad about complex silvicultural regimes or detailed inventory systems. however, simple systems are suggested as being appropriate, not because villagers cannot perform complicated tasks, but because, in many cases, complicated systems are not needed to produce useful products without jeopardising the long term sustainability of the forest. the needs of the most complex situation (sophisticated silvicultural system and inventory) should not be the model for all community forestry silviculture. in other words, do not make things more complicated than necessary. indigenous systems of silviculture are often dismissed by forestry professionals as being too simple to ensure sustainable management of a forest. however, experience in many countries has shown that indigenous systems of silviculture can be very effective, particularly when focused on protection, production of subsistence goods or subsistence and some commercial goods. dugan and pulhin (2007) cite an example from japan (japan agency of forestry, 1995) where villagers in gifu prefecture limit their annual allowable cut to one tree per ha per year. they have followed this simple silvicultural procedure for more than 100 years and their forests remain intact and productive. however, the literature on such indigenous silvicultural systems is still quite limited and community forestry would benefit from further research into these systems under a range of socio-economic and biophysical conditions. in many places simple silvicultural systems have been developed in collaboration between local communities and forest management agencies (gilmour and fisher, 1991 and gilmour et al., 1989). as forests grow and mature, for example when a young plantation matures or a shrub land becomes a productive natural forest, there may table 1: indicative requirements for silvicultural regimes and inventory data for various combinations of forest type and management objectives type of forest objectives of forest management protection subsistence goods subsistence and some commercial goods commercial timber and ntfps silvicultural and inventory needs young plantation simple silvicultural regime; no inventory simple silvicultural regime; no inventory medium silvicultural regime; no inventory n/a old plantation simple silvicultural regime; no inventory simple silvicultural regime; no inventory sophisticated silvicultural regime; simple inventory sophisticated silvicultural regime; simple inventory degraded natural forest simple silvicultural regime; no inventory simple silvicultural regime; no inventory n/a n/a shrub land simple silvicultural regime; no inventory simple silvicultural regime; no inventory n/a n/a mature natural forest simple silvicultural regime; no inventory simple silvicultural regime; no inventory sophisticated silvicultural regime; simple inventory sophisticated silvicultural regime; simple inventory n/a—not applicable gilmour 11 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 be a need to increase the level of sophistication of the silvicultural regime and to collect relevant inventory data to assist in scheduling sustainable harvesting. in such circumstances, forest management agencies tend to promote either the adoption of complex ‘scientific’ forest inventory systems or to attempt to simplify complex inventory approaches so that they are, in the view of forestry technicians, more suited to use by local people. in relation to the former approach, there may be administrative reasons for a certain level of complexity (for example, a requirement by the forest management agency to carry out inventory) but this should not be confused with a silvicultural need to ensure sustainable forest management. in relation to the latter approach, simplifying inventory techniques can often produce poor quality results as the data obtained can be misleading and lead to the application of inappropriate silvicultural practices. as mentioned earlier the ecological knowledge is needed to establish and manage trees and forests. local communities might well have sufficient knowledge of the ecological requirements for local trees and forest types, but they will generally need advice to guide their silvicultural practices if species are being used that are not well known locally. ecological advice would also be needed if there was little local experience in the establishment of plantations. for example, planting locally desirable species on infertile sites is unlikely to produce a productive forest, particularly if the desirable species are not tolerant of open exposed sites. in such situations it might be necessary to opt for a silvicultural system based on planting pioneer species that can survive and grow on the sites and, once these plants are well established, to plant the more desirable species beneath the canopy of the species originally planted. this leads us to identify several guiding principles that we should keep in mind when deciding what type of silvicultural systems should be designed and applied for community forestry. these are: • the objectives for forest management should be set by the forest users. • silvicultural systems should be based on sound ecological principles. • silvicultural systems should be capable of implementation with little or no input from government or other external service providers. • blanket silvicultural prescriptions across an entire forest are generally not suitable because of the diversity of forest condition and management objectives. • inventory systems should only be mandated on communities to satisfy clearly defined management needs and not to satisfy government administrative requirements. • inventory systems (where needed) should also be capable of being implemented with little or no input from government or other external service providers. • the role of forest departments should be advisory rather than supervisory. • systems should embody the principles of occam’s razor: never opt for something complicated when something simple will produce the same result. inventory needs for community forestry as mentioned earlier, conventional forest management often requires an inventory to be conducted as an integral part of applying a forest management system – it is part of the knowledge base that foresters usually consider to be essential to their craft. inventory data (when combined with knowledge of growth rates) can be used to determine sustainable harvest levels. however, as shown in box 1, this does not necessarily result in accurate information and there are many examples where the inappropriate application of such data has led to decisions which are disastrous for the forest and for key stakeholders such as sawmillers who have invested in new machinery to process timber that was not available. in addition, conventional inventory systems were developed primarily for trees, especially for those being used to produce timber, poles and pulpwood. such approaches are often unsuited to community forests: • they do not take into account different assessment techniques that might be needed for the types of forest product that might be of importance to communities e.g. small size timber is often not included because only trees over a certain diameter are measured; ntfps, wildlife and environmental services are normally not assessed. gilmour 12 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 • conventional forest inventory approaches need to be applied by outside experts or local people trained to apply such approaches. this can lead to disempowering local people as the measurements, yield calculations and harvesting prescriptions are decided outside the community leading to a lack of ownership of the results. • they are complicated and time consuming to carry out—and can easily lead to inaccurate and misleading results when applied to mixed species, multiple aged forests with high variability in stocking rates across the landscape. • basic growth rates and ecological information about species and species associations are often lacking or imprecise. therefore even highly accurate individual plot measurements can frequently not be applied across a forest to determine sustainable harvesting levels with any real precision (box 1). in many cases, technical precision is simply not necessary and villagers can harvest forest products sustainably using simple and nonquantitative assessment approaches. constraints to adoption of silvicultural practices in the late 1980s and early 1990s a substantial amount of work was done in community forests in nepal to identify silvicultural approaches that were appropriate for the developing forests. this work was not carried out in isolation from community forestry practitioners, and all of it was based on field trials. in addition, considerable effort went into establishing demonstration plots and exposing forestry technicians and villagers to the silvicultural options for the forests that were developing across the middle hills. while there was some adoption of the practices, by and large, there was relatively little up-take. this poses the question—why ? as mentioned earlier in this paper, in the early years of community forestry, progress was limited by a lack of knowledge of the social/institutional and governance arrangements needed for effective community forestry. at the time, the major silvicultural activity was protection, and the forest department was focused on rolling out community forestry across the middle hills. in hind-sight, perhaps the time was not right for either the forest department or communities to adopt silvicultural practices and to consider more sophisticated methods of managing forests. is the time right now ? we should remind ourselves that the application of sound silviculture to community forests will only lead to sustainable outcomes if a number of conditionalities are met. a recent global review of community-based forestry (cbf) concluded that the most effective cbf regimes have a number of common “enabling features” and these can guide policy reform (gilmour, 2016). these enabling features can be likened metaphorically to “keys” that unlock a door, with the analogy being that “opening the door to cbf success” requires both “opening the right locks” and “opening all locks” (fig. 1). fig. 1. keys to effective community based forestry (gilmour, 2016) regardless of the importance of each key, they all need to be available for cbf regimes to operate at their full potential to deliver the biophysical and socio-economic outcomes that are expected of them. this paper has focused primarily on the development and application of silvicultural practices that are appropriate for community forestry. viable technology, including sound silviculture, is one of the important “keys” but it is not the only one. it is important to remember that sustainable outcomes require much more than the application of technical forestry. conclusion community forestry has always emphasised the provision of multiple goods and services to a range of interest groups. the notion of “appropriate” gilmour 13 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 silviculture is very important in the context of developing and applying silvicultural systems that require little if any input from government or other service providers. the starting point for considerations of silviculture for community forestry is that community forests will be managed by local communities, so silvicultural systems need to be appropriate for application by local communities. while the notion of “appropriate” is contextual (anon., 2001) – it does not exclude the management of community forests for commercial purposes. many community forests are established on degraded land and the initial management objectives tend to be protection oriented. forests are generally not able to provide high yields of timber in the early years, although they may provide many other benefits. however, this situation will alter as community forests improve as a result of protection, and silvicultural systems can evolve accordingly. the initial protection oriented management objectives can give way to ones that focus on the production of a wider range of goods and services. thus, there is a need for adaptability in terms of setting management objectives and determining silvicultural practices in order to allow forest users to learn from experiences and modify their approaches. in most situations (exceptions might be the full-scale commercial production systems in mexico see, for example, antinori and bray, 2005) detailed growth and yield estimation is not required to assure sustainable off-take of most forest products (even assuming that reliable information could be collected). in fact, by emphasising appropriate silviculture rather than detailed inventory, communities will be able to utilise forest goods and services without jeopardising the long term ability of forests to satisfy future needs. most conventional forestry tends to view sustainable yield in terms of maximising the production of timber on a long term sustainable basis. it is more useful to think of managing community forests in terms of optimising the whole process, so that the yield of products and the social arrangements needed to manage the forest can both be sustained. ultimately, what is important is that: • the productivity of the forest is maintained or improved; and • goods and services of a type, quality and quantity to satisfy the requirements of forest users are regularly available. hence, the interaction of social and biological factors needs to be considered when determining suitable silvicultural regimes. there is no point in insisting on the application of sophisticated silvicultural systems and complicated inventory techniques on the basis that this is needed to maximise timber yield, if the system is too complicated to be applied by communities. it would be much better if a sub-optimal approach is taken leading to less than maximum yields, but the use of a system that can be understood and applied by community groups. communities can apply their extensive local and site-specific knowledge to the process of identifying and monitoring silvicultural activities. experience has shown that silviculture in community managed forests can be sophisticated in a way that differs from the sophistication resulting from the application of traditional forestry science. however, government forest departments do have an important role to play. they need to act as technical advisers and facilitators of participatory silvicultural processes so that the best of forest science and local knowledge can be integrated. long-term data collection and analysis of permanent sample plots in community forests can assist forest departments to be in a better position to suggest management options for communities, particularly for commercial timber utilisation. this could allow for a better combination of subsistence and commercial objectives in community forestry in the longer term. references anon. 2001. the search for a barefoot silviculture: too little, too early ? in cultivating forests: alternative forest management practices and techniques for community forestry (eds.) victor, m. and barash, a. proceedings of international seminar, 23–25 september 1998. recoftc report no. 17: vi–xviii. regional community forestry training center, bangkok, thailand. antinori, c. and bray, d. b. 2005. community forest enterprises as entrepreneurial firms: economic and institutional perspectives from mexico. world development 33 (9): 1529. gilmour 14 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 cassells, d. s., bonell, m., gilmour, d. a. and valentine, p. s. 1988. conservation and management of australia’s tropical rainforests: local realities and global responsibilities. in the ecology of australia’s wet tropics.(ed.) kitching, r. l. proceedings of the ecological society of australia 15, 313–326. clawson, m. and sedjo, r. 1984. history of sustained yield concept and its application to developing countries. in history of sustained yield forestry.(ed.) steen, h.k. proceedings of an iufro symposium, portland oregon, 3–15. dugan, p. and pulhin, j. 2007. forest harvesting in community based forest management in the philippines: simple tools versus complex procedures. in a cut for the poor (eds.) oberndorf, r., durst, p. mahanty, s., burslem, k. and suzuki, r. proceedings of the international conference on managing forests for poverty reduction: capturing opportunities in forest harvesting and wood processing for the benefit of the poor. ho chi minh city, 3–6 october, 2006. fao, snv and recoftc, bangkok, thailand, 38–46. fairhead, j. and leach, m. 1996. misreading the african landscape: society and ecology in a forest-savanna mosaic. cambridge university press. cambridge, new york, melbourne. forest agency of japan. 1995. imazu forestry. tokyo, japan. gammage, b. 2011. the biggest estate on earth: how aborigines made australia. allen and unwin. gilmour, d. a. 2016. forty years of community based forestry: a review of its extent and effectiveness. fao forestry paper no 176, fao, rome. http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5415e. pdf gilmour, d. a. and fisher, r. j. 1991. villagers, forests and foresters. the philosophy, process and practice of community forestry in nepal. sahayogi press, kathmandu, nepal. gilmour, d. a., ingles, a. and maharjan, m. r. 1989. preliminary harvesting guidelines for community forests in sindhupalchok and kabhrepalanchok. nepal-australia forestry project, kathmandu, nepal. technical note 2/89. iufro. 2005. silva term database: ww.iufro. org/science/special/silvavoc/silvatermdatabase/ lourandos, h. 1997. continent of huntergatherers: new perspectives in australian prehistory. cambridge university press, new york, u.s.a. michon, g. and foresta, h. de. 1995. the indonesian agro-forestry model. in conserving biodiversity outside protected areas: the role of traditional agroecosystems (eds.) halladay, p. and gilmour, d.a. iucn, gland, switzerland and cambridge, uk, 90–106. netting, r. mcc. 1981. balancing on an alp. cambridge university press, cambridge, london, new york, new rochella, melbourne and sydney, australia. peters, c. m. 2000. precolumbian silviculture and indigenous management of neotropical forests. in imperfect balance: landscapes transformations in the precolumbian americas (ed.) lentz, d. l. historical ecology series, columbia university press, new york, usa. petheram, j., stephen, p. and gilmour, d. 2002. collaborative forest management-a review. the university of melbourne, school of resource management, the institute of land and food resources. rackman, o. 1986. the history of the countryside. j. m. dent and sons, london and melbourne. rgob. 2016. forestry field manual for bhutan: silviculture and other forestry. operations. social forestry and extension division, department of forests and park services, ministry of agriculture and forests, royal government of bhutan (rgob), bhutan. wickramasinghe, a. 1995. the evolution of kandian home gardens. in conserving biodiversity outside protected areas: the role of traditional agro-ecosystems (eds.) halladay, p. and gilmour, d.a. iucn, gland, switzerland and cambridge, uk, 164–182. gilmour 45 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 community forestry is the most popular programme of forestry sector in nepal. previously community forest management was protection oriented and nowadays it has become production oriented due to implementation of scientific forest management plan. recent forest policy promotes the application of scientific management of all productive forests and now it becomes a novel programme in forestry sector. this study highlights the outputs of the first year of implementation of scientific forest management plan in seven community forests (cf) of rupandehi district, nepal. both bio-physical and socio-economic data were collected and analyzed. regeneration survey was carried out before and after one year of regeneration felling. similarly data related to income generation and employment opportunities were collected and analyzed. the results showed that 6.4 times increase in seedlings and 3.4 times increase in saplings after one year of regeneration felling operation. similarly, the average production of timber and fuel wood was 1,086 cft and 4.5 chatta per ha. during regeneration felling in studied cfs. average income from the intensive managed area of cf was found to be nrs. 884,059.8 and local employment generation of 910 man-days per ha. this indicates scientific forest management is one of the best options for improving forest condition through promoting regeneration of the forest for future generation and generating income and employment opportunities for the users. key words: community forestry, employment, income, regeneration, scientific forest management regeneration promotion and income generation through scientific forest management in community forestry: a case study from rupandehi district, nepal y. khanal1* and s. adhikari2 forest is one of the major natural resources and an integral part of the farming system of nepal. so forest management is always a high concern of local people (kanel et al., 2005). however, there was no effective people’s participation in forest management activities until 1990s. the first policy document that realised the importance of peoples’ participation in forest management was the national forest plan of 1976 which highlighted people’s participation as its fifth objective (kanel et al., 2005). the master plan for the forestry sector (1989) prioritized community forestry as a major forestry programme and is widely implemented after the enactment of forest act, 1993 and forest regulation, 1995. according to the forest act, 1993, community forests are national forests handed over to the local user groups for protection, management and utilization. the forests are managed according to the operational plan prepared by community forest users groups (cfugs), approved by the district forest office (dfo). according to the act, the cfugs have to be formulated and registered at the dfo before handing over of the forests and they are self-sustained institutions (kanel, 1993). the cfugs can act as self-governing entities to generate, utilize and sell the forest products as per the approved management plan. procedural details of the community forests are explained in the forest rules, 1995 and community forestry guidelines and directives. the concept of scientific forest management (sfm) is not a new concept; its principles had originated from the present-day germany in the early 19th century and have been adopted by forest training institutions and forest bureaucracies throughout the world (kumar, 2002; rutt et al., 2014). the sfm requires statistically sound forest inventories that determines the growing stock as well as annual increment with sufficient 1 district forest office, rupandehi, nepal. *e-mail: yajnamurti@gmail.com 2 silviculture division, department of forests, kathmandu, nepal 46 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 accuracy to ensure harvesting does not exceed regrowth over the longer-term while maintaining environmental services such as erosion control, watershed protection, wind protection, species habitat and carbon storage (rutt et al., 2014). in nepal, the concept of forest management was initiated in 1960s by preparing working plans of different forest divisions of terai3. however, these plans became ineffective due to lack of site specific plan, lack of political commitment and not addressing the local socio-economic issues and they were never implemented (gautam et al., 2004). similarly, in 1990s the government initiated the management of productive forests of terai region with financial and technical support from finnish international development agency (finnida) by preparing operational forest management plan. but this programme also became ineffective due to not involving local people and their concerns (bampton et al., 2007). formulation and implementation of the scientific forest management plan in the community based forest management system has gained momentum only after the formulation of revised forest policy, 2000 in nepal. the government of nepal (gon) has given emphasis on scientific management of forest resources to increase productivity so that more revenue can be generated from existing productive forest. further, gon not only formulated policies and guidelines in favour of sfm but also incorporated sfm programmes in periodic and fiscal year plans. according to the guideline “scientific forest management is the systematic application of forestry science knowledge for the management of forests based on the correct assessments of attributes of forest crop to maximize and sustain benefits (including indirect benefits such as environmental and ecosystem services) accruing from the forest. scientific forest management essentially follows silvicultural systems” (mfsc, 2014). application of sfm helps to create better forest condition, improve environmental services, sustainable supply of forest products, improve local and national economy and development, increase local employment opportunities (mfsc, 2014). the ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc) has endorsed the forest policy, 2015 (mfsc, 2015) which envisioned for the sustainable and scientific forest management to increase the productivity of the forest and has strategy and action plan for adopting proper silvicultural systems in prescribed operational plan for the forest management. the mfsc has also developed and approved scientific forest management guideline, 2014 for proper implementation of the policy. now, scientific forest management activities are in practice under the collaborative and community forest management system of terai and mid hill regions of nepal. the gon is implementing sfm to improve forest condition, generate employment opportunities, regular supply of forest products and increase local and national income and it is now at the initial stage. so it is too early to study the impacts of sfm on these aspects. so, this study tries to assess the initial effects of implementing sfm activities in community forestry in terms of regeneration promotion, forest products production, income, and employment generation. rupandehi district was selected for this study because it is one of the pioneer districts for implementing sfm in nepal. dfo rupandehi initiated sfm in lumbini collaborative forest and baunnakoti community forest since 2013 (khanal and jnawali, 2014). till 2016, 17 cfugs are implementing sfm plans in rupandehi district (dfo rupandehi, 2016). so this case study is based on the preliminary effect of the first year implementation of scientific forest management plans in seven community forests of the district. silviculture system and irregular shelterwood system silviculture system is a method of silvicultural procedure worked out in accordance with accepted sets of silvicultural principles by which crops constituting matured forests are harvested, regenerated, and tended and replaced by new crops of distinctive forms (khanna, 2004). in the past, silvicultural systems have been designed to maximize the production of timber crops. however, more recently additional ecological considerations and resource objectives have also been included. on the basis of mode of regeneration, silviculture system can be classified as high forest and coppice forests. similarly high forest system is further classified on the basis of pattern of felling affecting the 3 terai: it is one of the physiographic regions of nepal and consists of gently sloping alluvial deposits and is bordered by the indian gangetic plain to the south and the churia region to the north khanal and adhikari 47 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 concentration or diffusion of regeneration as clear felling, shelterwood, selection and accessory systems (khanna, 2004). shelterwood system can further classified into uniform shelterwood, group shelterwood, strip shelterwood, irregular shelterwood and one cut shelterwood system. irregular shelterwood system is a method of shelterwood system in which, few mother/shelter trees will be kept and remaining trees will be removed in regeneration felling operations and existing regeneration and poles will be kept for future crops resulting in a irregular crop, which is why it is known as a irregular shelterwood system. irregular shelterwood system is one of the prescribed silviculture system for sal (shorea robusta) forest management in nepal (mfsc, 2014; awasthi et al., 2015). those saplings and poles grown already in the forest are kept as future trees to reduce the risk of regeneration and use the already grown crops in the future which make the resultant crops uneven-aged. regeneration felling is the major management intervention in irregular shelterwood system. generally 80 years rotation with 10 years of regeneration period is used for terai sal forest. as a result, there are eight periodic blocks in each community forest. the regeneration felling operation has been carried out in first periodic block (pb) of each community forest for 10 years. because of the use of area control method of yield regulation, the first periodic block was divided into 10 equal annual sub blocks for regeneration felling. so for the first 10 years, regeneration felling operation has to be carried out in pb i and thinning of different intensities, seeding felling and climber cutting or improvement felling activities have to be carried out in other periodic blocks. similarly, species, diameter, height, class, health condition and location (x, y co-ordinate) of each individual tree of pb i are recorded and map of tree location is prepared, which is called as stem mapping. similarly, in each hectare of forest, 15—25 trees with medium age, medium crown, solid and straight boles with good health condition are selected as mother trees and remaining trees are felled during regeneration felling operation. majority of the mother trees are sal and its associated species. efforts are made for selecting uniformly distributed mother trees. materials and methods study area rupandehi district lies in the western terai region of nepal (fig. 1). the total area of the district is 130,522 ha. it has 25,105 ha. of forest area, in which 6,512 ha. lies in terai and 18,593 ha. in churiya4 region (dfrs, 2015). this district has 163,916 households (hhs) and the population is 880,196 (cbs, 2011). out of the total hhs, 34% hhs are primarily dependent on fuel wood for cooking purpose (cbs, 2014). in this district 15,820 ha. of national forest has been handed over to 97 community forest user groups benefitting 64,410 households. similarly, 2084 ha. of national forest has been managed as two collaborative forests, and 24.8 ha.of national forest has been handed over as three religious forests in the district (dfo rupandehi, 2016). fig. 1: location map of study area so far, 15 community forest user groups have prepared and implemented sfm plan in 2,910 ha. this case study is based on the five community forests of sainamaina municipality (previously, saljhandi village development committee) and khanal and adhikari 4 churiya, also known as the siwalik, is the youngest mountain range in the himalayas and just north of the terai, it runs the entire length of southern nepal, from east to west, skirting the southern flanks of the himalayas. 48 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 two community forests of devdaha municipality of rupandehi district. the forests in saljhandi and bhaluhi (devdaha) area are one of the most productive forest areas in the district. out of the 25 community forests in these areas, seven community forests were selected based on: forests handed over at least seven years before so that institutional capacity is developed in cf, sfm plan implemented before two years and regeneration survey completed and recorded prior to the implementation of sfm plan. sal is the dominant forest species in the study area. these community forests are adopting sfm on individual cf basis. data collection and analysis both bio-physical and socio-economic data were used for this study. data regarding regeneration status were collected through systematic sampling in the same plot for two time period. likewise, other data related to production of forest products, income and employment generation as well as expenditure pattern were collected from respective cfugs along with their annual and audit reports. collected data were also triangulated through discussions with committee members and office assistant of respective cfugs. regeneration survey was carried out in march, 2015 and 2016. regeneration was categorized into seedlings (height <1.3 m) and saplings (dbh <10 cm and height >1.3 m). systematic sampling method with nested plot design was used. at least six sample plots in the sub-block, where regeneration felling operation was carried out in 2015, of each community forest were laid out and measured before and one year after regeneration felling operation. the size of the sample plot was 5 m × 5 m for saplings and 2 m × 5 m for seedlings. sample plots were laid out on the map using arcgis 10.2.1 software. the point location of the plot was navigated through garmin gps and the identified point was used as the south west corner point of the main plot. the 2 m × 5 m plot was established in west corner of the main plot. all the data were entered in ms office excel spreadsheets. descriptive statistics like summation, mean and percentage were calculated and interpreted accordingly. results and discussion basic information of selected community forests all the studied community forests were handed over to the cfugs at least seven years before. the summary of the basic information of selected community forests is given in table 1. these cfs consist of matured sal (s. robusta) dominated forest, and irregular shelterwood system has been applied as silvicultural system for forest management. the sfm plans of all these community forests were approved in fiscal year 2013/14. regeneration status of the forests the major objective of the regeneration felling operation was to promote regeneration in the forest. since, sal is a light demanding species, regeneration felling operations open up the forest canopy and the sunlight can reach up to forest floor easily. during late summer the sal seeds ripe and fall on the forest floor and starts germination with pre-monsoon rain. during the monsoon season, there is vigorous growth of sal seedlings. if the forest is protected from fire and grazing the regeneration will establish within table 1: basic information of selected community forests name of cf address area (ha) handed over as cf (year in ad) households benefitted sfm plan approved (fiscal year in ad) kanchan saljhandi 3 131.6 2009 278 2013/14 shaljhandi saljhandi 4 149.1 2002 193 2013/14 shanti saljhandi 6,8,9 165 2003 599 2013/14 singhadarja saljhandi 2 3 75.22 2001 166 2013/14 rajapani saljhandi 5 270.6 2001 381 2013/14 pragati devdaha 284.73 2009 350 2013/14 janapriya devdaha 10 237.16 2009 428 2013/14 total 1313.41 2395 khanal and adhikari 49 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 5 to 10 years. the table 2 shows the status of regeneration in terms of seedlings and saplings before and a year after regeneration felling. there is significant change in number of seedlings and saplings before and after regeneration felling. before regeneration felling, the highest number of seedlings per ha. was found in janapriya community forest and the lowest in shanti community forest whereas the highest number of seedlings per ha. was found in kanchan community forest and the lowest at rajapani community forest after one year of regeneration felling. the average number of seedlings per ha. was 6,804 and 21,063 before and after regeneration felling, respectively (table 2). awasthi et al. (2015) found 16,555—21,000 seedlings per ha. after regeneration felling of sal forest under irregular shelterwood system in similar site of rupandehi district. the highest number of saplings was found in janapriya cf and the lowest number of saplings in saljhandi cf before regeneration felling whereas the highest number of saplings were found in janpriya cf and the lowest number of saplings in rajapani cf after one year of regeneration felling (table 2). the average number of saplings before and after regeneration felling was found to be 1,434 and 2,507, respectively. awasthi et al. (2015) found comparable results in similar sites of rupandehi district. they recorded 1,644 saplings per ha. after one year and 3,022 per ha. after two years of regeneration felling operation, while 1,055 saplings per ha. in no regeneration felling area. from table 2, it seems that there was significant increase in number of seedlings in shanti cf before and one year after regeneration felling. the least number of seedlings was increased in janapriya cf after regeneration felling. among the studied cfs, the most significant increase in saplings number was found in saljhandi cf and the least in shanti cf after one year of regeneration felling. on an average there was 6.4 times increase in seedlings and 3.4 times increase in saplings number after one year of regeneration felling. species composition of seedlings before and after one year of regeneration felling operation is shown in fig. 2. on an average, the share of sal seedlings before regeneration felling operation was 65% and increased to 86% after one year of regeneration felling. it indicates the goal of attaining at least 80% stems of sal in sfm plan can be achieved. troup (1986) also observed better shoot and root development of s. robusta in open space rather than under shade species composition of saplings before and after one year of regeneration felling operation is shown in figure 3. on an average the share of sal saplings before regeneration felling operation was 78% and increased to 86% after one year of regeneration felling. as sal is a light demander species, it requires a complete overhead light in most cases from earliest stage of development (champion and seth, 1968). opening of canopy in the forest stand promotes regeneration and the growth of under storey seedlings and saplings (troup, 1986). hence, the regeneration of s. robusta in the study cfs was found higher after khanal and adhikari table 2: regeneration status before and after regeneration felling (r.f.) name of the community forest area of the subblock (ha) number of seedlings per ha number of saplings per ha change in number (in multiplication) seedlings before r.f. seedlings after 1 yr of r.f. saplings before r.f. saplings after 1 yr of r.f. seedlings changed saplings changed kanchan 1.22 7833 34833 1533 2800 4.4 1.8 saljhandi 1.7 5333 21833 200 1760 4.1 8.8 shanti 1.99 1200 28800 1360 1520 24.0 1.1 singhadarja 0.68 7600 34600 300 2240 4.6 7.5 rajapani 3.16 1666 7834 800 1333 4.7 1.7 pragati 3.18 13000 19600 2880 4640 1.5 1.6 janapriya 3.15 17800 21000 4400 5760 1.2 1.3 average 2.15 6804 21063 1434 2507 6.4 3.4 50 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 khanal and adhikari regeneration felling operation. awasthi et al. (2015) also found higher number of sal saplings after regeneration felling than no regeneration felling area. production of forest products, income and employment generation forest products especially timber and fuel wood available during regeneration felling operation of each community forest are tabulated in table 3. the highest volume of timber and fuel wood per unit area was produced in kanchan community forest whereas the lowest volume of timber was produced in rajapani community forest and the lowest volume of fuel wood was in shanti community forest. on an average, the production of timber and fuel wood was 1086.6 cubic feet and 4.5 chatta per ha. from regeneration felling in the studied cfs. similarly, kanchan community forest, which had the highest volume of timber and fuel wood, had gained highest income per fig. 2: species composition of seedlings before and after regeneration felling operation fig. 3: species composition of saplings before and after one year of regeneration felling table 3: forest products production, income and employment generation name of community forest production per ha income ( nrs.) per ha investment (nrs.) per ha employment generation (man-days/ha)timber (cft) fuel wood (chatta) kanchan 1,677.8 8.2 1,527,844.3 951,400 1,492 shaljhandi 1,053.7 3.5 823,243.5 516,291 1,162 shanti 808.0 3.0 723,119.1 494,066 813 singhadarja 1,088.2 5.1 879,329.4 453,182 1,219 rajapani 755.2 4.7 714,656.6 272,214 612 pragati 1,253.2 3.2 1,039,369.8 299,563 565 janapriya 970.4 3.3 480,856.2 358,182 503 average 1,086.6 4.5 884,059.8 477843 910 51 banko janakari, special issue no. 4khanal and adhikari ha. average income from the studied community forests was found to be nrs. 884,059.8 per ha. community forest user groups were investing nrs. 477,843 per ha. for forest protection, utilization, management and implementation of silvicultural operations in regeneration felling areas. most of the activities like tree felling, trimming of logs, loading, unloading, piling, debarking, and numbering were carried out manually. however, the forest products were transported by tractors. therefore, all these activities require human resource which ultimately creates employment opportunities to local poor and forest dependent people. further, implementation of silvicultural operations especially weeding, cleaning, bush cutting, thinning and others also require forest labour which also create local jobs to users. on an average, 910 man-days were created while managing one hectare of community forest as per the sfm plan. khanal and jnawali (2014) found 800 man–days per ha. which is slightly lower than this study. this may be due to very few labour required for post harvesting and cleaning operation in teak (tectona grandis) forests in the absence of other species and shrubs in baunnakoti cf. trend in expenditures of community forest user groups community forest user groups act as a node for local development through the funds generated from their forest management activities and other sources in order to respond to a range of both public and private demands. these include the ongoing management of the forest resource, financing community development activities such as construction of schools, road, water supply and other small infrastructure. these activities were carried out mainly through the development of enterprise, support to private individuals’ income generation activities, training and provision of small grants particularly for educational purposes (mfsc, 2013). the cf operational guidelines, 2014 has prescribed at least 25% of cfugs total budget should be spent on activities related to forest management and 35% on pro-poor programmes (dof, 2014). however, it has not seen at all. in this study, administration costs covered mostly the costs of office such as stationeries, electricity, drinking water and communication charges, salary of office assistant, audit charge, monthly allowances of chairman, secretary and treasures, etc. similarly, the costs of institutional development included meeting fees, cost of training, workshops, educational tours, and annual general assembly. forest management costs covered the costs of forest protection, forest development and forest products utilization. the costs of forest protection included salary of forest watcher, fire line construction and maintenance costs, forest fire control activities, fencing, etc. forest development activities are plantation, weeding, thinning and regeneration promotion. forest product utilization activities include tree marking, product harvesting, transportation and selling. community development activities include development and maintenance of infrastructures like road, irrigation canal, water pond, drinking water supply, street light, supports to school, play ground maintenance, etc. livelihood improvement activities are support for income generating activities such as goat/pig/ buffalo/poultry farming, vegetable cultivation, shop keeping, support for biogas plant installation, support for disables, etc. the expenditure of fiscal year 2015/16 of selected community forest user groups is shown in figure 4.. fig. 4 : expenditure pattern of community forest user group budget it indicates that the cfug had invested more than 40 per cent in forest management activities which is more than the prescription made in cf operational guidelines, 2014. it is assumed that in the initial years of sfm implementation, cfugs have to invest more on forest protection measures such as construction of fire line and fencing and such investment will be reduced later. similarly cfugs had invested only 12% in livelihood improvement programmes for the pro-poor users 52 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 khanal and adhikari which is less than the prescription made in cf operational guidelines, 2014. however, the percentage sharing of activities varied from one cf to another. the expenditure pattern in this study was quite different from kanel and niraula (2004) and pokharel (2009). kanel and niraula (2004) found that cfug, spent 36% in community development activities, 28% in forest management activities, and 3% in pro-poor programmes, whereas pokharel (2009) found 55% in community development activities, 22% in pro-poor programmes and 17% in forest management activities, among others. during implementation of sfm plan in initial years, cfugs had to invest more on forest protection i.e. forest watcher, fencing, fire line construction and maintenance, as well as management activities like post harvesting operations, weeding, cleaning, singling which make higher investment on forest management activities than that of previous years. all these activities generate employment for local forest users and assist in uplifting their livelihood directly but these costs were listed in other than livelihood improvement activities. conclusion this study was based on sal dominated community forests which were handed over to the community forest users groups about seven years ago and now they have managed as per the approved scientific forest management plans in rupandehi district. regeneration felling was the major intervention carried out in the forest due to which more light has reached on the forest floor, among others. the results showed 6.4 times increase in seedlings number and 3.4 times increase in saplings number after one year of regeneration felling. the share of sal seedlings and saplings also increased significantly after regeneration felling operation. the productivity of kanchan cf was found to be the highest in both volume of forest products and income per unit area. similarly, investment per unit area was also found the highest in kanchan cf, as a result this cf had more employees per unit area. similarly, the cfugs had invested 40% of their total expenditure on forest management activities especially forest protection, forest products collection and tending operations whereas only 12% was spent on livelihood improvement of the pro-poor users in fiscal year 2015/2016. detailed study on impact of scientific forest management on community forest and forest user group is recommended for near future. acknowledgements i would like to thank mr. indra b. prachhai, then dfo rupandehi for his valuable inputs on preliminary version of this paper and acknowledge the staffs of saljhandi and bhaluhi ilaka forest office rupandehi and the respective cfug members for their support in this study. references awasthi, n., bhandari, s. k. and khanal, y. 2015. does scientific forest management promote plant species diversity and regeneration in sal (shorea robusta) forest? a case study from lumbini collaborative forest, rupandehi, nepal. banko janakari 25 (1): 20–29. bampton, j. f. r., ebrget, a. and banjade, m. r. 2007. collaborative forest management in nepal’s terai: policy, practice and contestation. journal of forest and livelihood 6 (2): 30–43. cbs. 2011. summary report of national census 2011. central bureau of statistics (cbs), thapathali, kathmandu, nepal. cbs. 2014. national population and housing census 2011: village development committee/ municipality level report rupandehi. volume 06, nphc 2011. central bureau of statistics, thapathali, kathmandu, nepal. champion, h. g. and seth, s. k. 1968. a revised survey of forests types of india. publication division, government of india, new delhi, india. dfo rupandehi, 2016. annual monitoring and evaluation report of community forests. district forest office, rupandehi, nepal. dfrs. 2015. state of nepal’s forests. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey (dfrs). kathmandu, nepal. dof, 2014. community forestry operational guideline 2071. community forestry division, department of forest, kathmandu, 53 banko janakari, special issue no. 4khanal and adhikari nepal. gautam, a. p., shivakoti, g. p. and webb, e. l. 2004. a review of forest policies, institutions and changes in the resource condition in nepal. international forestry review 6 (2): 136–148. kanel, k. r. 1993. community forestry and the 1993 forestry legislation: implications for policy and implementation. banko janakari 4 (1): 2–5. kanel, k. r., and niraula, d. r. 2004. can rural livelihood be improved in nepal through community forestry? banko janakari 14 (1): 19–26. khanal, y. and jnawali, d. 2014. scientific forest management practice in rupandehi district: a case study from baunnakoti community forest (in nepali language). in proceeding of the sixth national community forestry workshop, community forestry division, department of forests, 16–18 june 2014, jawalakhel, lalitpur, nepal, 121–129. khanna, l. s. 2004. theory and practice of indian silvicultural systems. khanna bandhu, dehra dun, india. kumar, s. 2002. does “participation” in common pool resource management help the poor? a social cost-benefit analysis of joint forest management in jharkhand, india. world dev. 30: 763–782. mfsc, 2013. persistence and change : review of 30 years of community forestry in nepal. e – book. ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), kathmandu, nepal. mfsc. 2014. scientific forest management guideline 2014. ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), kathmandu, nepal. mfsc. 2015. forest policy 2015. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. pokharel, r. k. 2009. pro-poor programs financed through nepal’s community forestry funds: does income matter? mountain research and development 29 (1): 67–74. rutt, r. l., chhetri, b. b., pokharel, r., rayamajhi, s., tiwari, k., and treue, t. 2014. the scientific framing of forestry decentralization in nepal. forest policy and economics 60 (11): 50–61. troup, r. s. 1986. the silviculture of indian trees. international book distributors, dehra dun, india. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 3‒11 3 thani et al. after initiation of community forestry system in nepal, the status of forest cover has improved due to significant roles of people in conservation, management and utilization of forest resources. as a result of increased productivity of the forest and restoration of degraded areas, forest users have been able to receive various economic, social, cultural and environmental benefits to strengthen their livelihood. despite many positive outcomes of community forestry, there are still some factors which haven’t allowed the proper biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services maintenance. the study carried out on 100 operational plans from different parts of the country and it showed that the incorporation status of biodiversity and ecosystem services into community forest operational plan is worse despite the fact that such plan is the main component to lead the destination of any community forest. in addition to this, some gaps and challenges were observed in community forestry which have not favoured to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services management systematically at an optimum level. among them, duplication problem of biodiversity and ecosystem services related issues in operational plan; timber oriented operational plan; limited provision about wildlife conservation and negative perception of people on wildlife and their conservation owing to human wildlife conflict; dominant socioeconomic factors; impact of introduced species, invasive and alien species; lacking in provision of adaptation and mitigation methods to cope with impact of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem services and shrinking of biological corridor due to habitat fragmentation were major issues. besides this, to address these issues, it was also identified from the national consultation workshop of forest officials and experts that most appropriate uniform methods, measures and mechanisms are needed to be developed for the complete assessment, prioritization, analysis and development of action plans to main stream biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services management into operational plan of community forestry. key words : biodiversity, community forest, ecosystem services, operational plans integrating biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services into operational plan of community forest in nepal : status and gaps p. r. thani1*, r. kc2, b. k. sharma1, p. kandel1 and k. nepal1 the community forestry is the noble innovation of nepal in the field of participatory forestry and is considered as one of the pioneers of the community based forest management system in the world (rajpoudel et al., 2014). this programme was evolved in the form of 'panchayat forest' and 'panchayat protection forest' in 1978. with the promulgation of the forest act, 1993 and forest regulations, 1995; the panchayat and panchayat protection forests were handed over to the forest user groups as 'community forest'. in this system, whole or part of the national forests are handed over to local users for the protection, management and utilization of the forest resources, where 100% of the revenue entirely goes to the community. it was developed to curb the large scale deforestation and degradation rate due to the failure of the government centric forest policy systems in nepal. till now, nepal has handed more than 22 thousand community forests covering more than 2, 237, 670. 524 ha to 2, 907, 871 households for protection, management, utilization and benefit sharing of forest resources (dof, 2018). 1 bird conservation nepal, email : *parbatkawa123@gmail. com 2 department of forests and soil conservation banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 3‒11 4 thani et al. after initiation of the community forests, degraded forests have been restored into green forests, almost throughout the country owing to significant participation of people in conservation, management and utilization of the forest (oldekop et al., 2019). forest resources of nepal (1987– 1998) revealed that the deforestation rate was 2.3% in the hilly areas and 1.3% in the terai regions of nepal, accounting for the average national deforestation rate to be 1.7% per annum (dfrs, 1999). the most recent forest resource assessment of the terai and siwaliks regions of nepal reported that the deforestation rate has been highly reduced as it was mere 0. 44% (terai) and 0. 18% per year in siwalik regions of nepal (fra/dfrs, 2014a, 2014b). the existing strict policies applied by the community forest users groups based on forest act 2049, like banned to set fires, construction of large buildings, formulation of large pits, hunting or capturing of wild animals, soil erosion encouraging activities, etc. are in favour of the conservation of biological diversity inside the community forests (padma, 2007, springate-baginski et al., 2007). users’ groups are also increasingly adopting different measures for biodiversity conservation in their community forests. the major initiatives carried out from the users’ group are : allocation of biodiversity conservation site in their community forest; shifting of tree selection criteria during thinning process from species to tree level characteristics; initiate to maintain all plant species during management interventions on the basis of their condition; conservation of the individual plant species, raise different tree species in nurseries and test their growth rate; removal of thin but pruning of the healthy trees; partially clear areas in densely regenerated sites and regular inventories of tree, their growth cycles and products (acharya, 2003; acharya et al., 2007; padma, 2007; shrestha et al., 2010). as a result of increased productivity of the forest and restoration of degraded areas, various economic, social, cultural, environmental benefits to the local people such as agricultural productivity (oli and manandhar, 2002), food security, human health and nutrition, indigenous knowledge, fuel wood, fiber, wood, fodder, grasses, culture, climate, water resources and aesthetic values (acharya, 2003; sharma, 2016) have generated. in spite of these efforts, the declining rate of many diverse species and scarcity of ecosystem services are still to exist in nepal. many species are endangered and many are in the verge of extinction. this indicates that there is still something lacking in the conservation of biodiversity and maintenance of ecosystem services. despite of having the important contribution of community forest for biodiversity conservation, the existing legal as well as administrative base (acharya, 2003) and the management practices in the form of enhancing species diversity and ecosystem functioning is questionable (shrestha, et al., 2010). the existing forest management approaches in community forestry considered the biodiversity conservation aspect as secondary issues (acharya, 2003). the community forestry (cf) inventory guidelines and practices generally emphasized the timber, fuel wood and fodder production by applying sustainable forest management principle (pande, 2005; sharma, 2016). as guided from the cf inventory guidelines, forest conservation approaches of nepal still focus on timber production (sharma, 2016). the management intervention prescribed in operational plan (op) based on the existing cf guideline includes the activities like clearing, weeding, thinning and pruning and the perception of community forest user groups (cfugs) in conserving useful species only rather than lowquality timber trees, shrubs, climbers, grasses and herbs, which could have negative implications for biodiversity (padma, 2007). it is always essential to maximize the utilization of forest resources but at the same time we should concerned about conserving the biological diversity and maintaining the ecosystem services in the community forest. now, it is necessary to scrutinize the operational plans and understand the forest users’ perception about biodiversity and ecosystem services related issues. therefore, this study probes in ground level to understand the status of incorporation of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services into constitutions and ops of the cfugs as well as to assess the gaps and challenges along with appropriate way of improving the status to support policy makers in positioning of the biodiversity and ecosystem services in the future is mandatory. materials and methods this review was carried out during 2016 and following methods were applied. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 3‒11 5 thani et al. workshops three regional workshops were conducted taking into consideration the three geographic regions of the country to interact with forest users of different community forests and collect the firsthand information about difficulties on biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management in community forests of nepal. the participants covering different districts are given in figure 1. fig. 1: districts representing participants and field visits review of community forest operational plans one hundred operational plans and constitutions from those community forestry user groups who participated in the workshops from the different districts representing different geographic regions were collected and then reviewed. the detail of methodology used for this work is as follows : development of indicators indicators for assessing the effective consideration and inclusion of the management of biodiversity (ecosystem, species and genetic levels) and ecosystem services components (provisioning, supporting, regulating and cultural) in cf operational plans were developed based on the review of ops. further refinement of the developed indicators was done by pretesting with some operational plans of the community forest. analysis of confidence index to monitor the inclusion of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the community forests, biodiversity and ecosystem services confidence index (besci) was applied. this index was calculated by converting the qualitative information included in operational plans, by assigning weighted values or scores to each indicator. in each indicator, the highest weighted value 3 was assigned for the more optimistic inclusion (very good, i.e. there has been a comprehensive assessment, prioritization and action plan of biodiversity and ecosystem services within the parameters of what is required and useful for the purpose of the op which are described in detail), 2 weighted value was assigned for optimistic inclusion (good, i.e. a limited number, >50% of available biodiversity (bd) and ecosystem services (es) were described), 1 weighted value was assigned for less optimistic inclusion (mentioned only, i.e. bd and es are mentioned, but only as a list of resources and services provided by the site, with no description of their use, status, distribution etc.) and 0 weighted value was assigned for no inclusion (i.e. no consideration of bd and es provided by the site apart from the provision of timber and fuel wood). the used indicators to assess values is illustrated in table 1. table 1 used indicators to collect data for the analysis of confidence index components indicators weigh tage value biodiversity tree species 0 = no mention 1= short list as per use 2= detail list 3= list on the base of inventory, inclusion of conservation/protection, management/ development, use and monitoring flora shrub species herb species bamboo species important species endangered species other (mushroom, lichens etc.) fauna mammals reptiles other ecosystem services provisioning services regulating services cultural services supporting services banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 3‒11 6 thani et al. the sum of these assigned weighted values was considered as the diffusion index. the diffusion index was calculated for each indicator (shamunnay, 2007; fncci, 2012). on the basis of the total score values obtained for the indices, they were classified into three groups for evaluation purpose. these were – below average, average and above average. the average value was considered as the benchmark (shamunnay, 2007; fncci, 2012). it thus follows that if : besci< average, the confidence index was worse, besci = average, the confidence index wasgood, and besci> average, the confidence index was better. the besci of provided operational plans (n = 100) was calculated and categorized on the basis of total scores obtained. then the results regarding the inclusion of biodiversity and es in community forestry operational plan was analyzed and interpreted. consultation workshop one national consultation workshop with forest officials was organized to identify the entry point to address the gaps and challenges in mainstreaming biodiversity and ecosystem services into community forest. results and discussion results biodiversity and ecosystem services confidence index after the analysis of the analyzed data, the inclusion of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the operational plan were found to be below the bench mark (average) table 2. it indicated that the inclusion of ecosystem services and biodiversity in the operational plans of community forests of nepal are worse. table 2: calculated and benchmark value of besci sn categories calculated value benchmark value confidence index 1. biodiversity 1773. 8 6552 worse 2. ecosystem services 781. 5 3150 worse inclusion of biodiversity and ecosystem services in operational plan biodiversity and ecosystem services have been incorporated in the operational plans of the community forest. however, there is still lacking to incorporate many of their components in scientific and systematic way for more fruitful results. biodiversity biodiversity conservation term was used in all the operational plans of community forest. description about availability of diversity in genetic level was absent but out of total species and ecosystem diversity of the community forests, very few species and ecosystem types were mentioned in all community forests’ operational plans. different activities such as conservation, management, utilization, monitoring were concentrated only in limited species despite many opportunities from other species. comparatively detailed descriptions were recorded from the few operational plans of low land region. ecosystem services ecosystem services are the products of biodiversity. out of total services received by community forest users, detail of two provisioning services, timber and fuelwood, provided by the community forest were described in almost all operation plans. however, broad descriptions regarding the other provisioning services such as food, different raw materials, medicinal and aromatic plants, water etc. along with regulating services, cultural services and supporting services were lacking. the inclusion of the different ecosystem services was found comparatively more in low land and mid-hill regions. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 3‒11 7 thani et al. biodiversity and ecosystem services management gaps in community forestry biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services have not well been streamlined systematically into the cfs despite its progress in other dimensions due to the lack of methodologies to mainstream biodiversity and ecosystem services into community forest. some observed lacking in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem services were found as follows : i. duplication problem of operational plan: operational plan should always reflect the real situation and circumstances of concerned community forest. however, many contents of operational plan have suffered from copy and paste problem. most of the studied operational plan have similar contents of biodiversity and ecosystem services although every community forest is specific in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem services related issues. ii. timber oriented operational plan: there are not much strong provisions directly addressing the assessment, conservation and management of available different important biodiversity and ecosystem services in the cf constitutions and operational plans despite many opportunities from them. rather, it describes about the conservation, management and utilization of some plant resources only which are commercially important from the timber and fuelwood prospective. for this, user groups conduct forest inventory to identify the growing stock and annual allowable cut based on forest inventory guidelines 2057. community forests are home to many endemic and threatened species and reservoir of ecosystem services but major attention of the cfugs is on productivity of major forest products rather than addressing wider biodiversity or ecosystem values. many species that might hold significant importance in future are yet to be identified. hence, these issues are overlooked in forest management plan and activities like tending operations and other management activities. even the main document to prepare operational plan “community forest development programme guidelines 2071 (third revision)” insists to include biodiversity and ecosystem services related issues into operational plan but, it is silent about methodology to apply those components systematically and scientifically. iii. limited provisions about wildlife conservation: community forests in many cases are confined within the conservation of the floral diversity rather than faunal diversity. while the users are not directly getting benefits from conserving wildlife, they feel less concerned towards wildlife conservation because of the fear of rise in human-wildlife conflict. human-wildlife conflicts have increased in recent days as the negative outcome of the improved forest status in community forests. the number of various animals have increased such as leopard, porcupine, peacock, wild boar, monkeys, etc. with this increase, the human and livestock injuries and casualties as well as crop depredation and disease transfer have also increased. most of the operational plans do not prescribe anything about the management and utilization of the wildlife at community forests. however, some good examples of establishment of rescue center and mini zoo by users for the recreational purpose can be seen in very few community forest although their operational plans do not mention anything about it. iv. dominant socio-economic factors: despite the fact that striking balance between socio-economic aspect of the forest users and ecological aspect of the forest is vital for getting direct and indirect benefits at an optimum level, socio-economic factors are more dominant than the ecological and environmental management in community forests. for example, the communities in general do not think about the seed sources, need of including new variety of species etc. and such issues have not been discussed and thoroughly considered during the plantations. v. impact of introduced species: the communities have started large scale cultivation of the exotic plants in terai regions of nepal for the production of essential oil which increase revenue. the cultivation of citronella (cymbopogan witerianus), banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 3‒11 8 thani et al. palmarosa (cymbopogon martinii), (cymbopogan citratus), etc. have been extensively planted under the community forests in the region. these species have started covering extensive ground that do not allow the seed dispersal reaching to the ground for germination. similarly, it is not palatable so not favoured by the wildlife. these kinds of large scale cultivation of exotic species without providing due consideration to the regeneration of the native species may cause negative impacts on the promotion of biodiversity and ecosystem services in community forests. sometimes, it is very useful to reduce crop depredation by wild animals in the surrounding areas of the protected areas as these are unpalatable to them. before the cultivation of these species the comprehensive analysis about the regeneration of other species and biodiversity could be done by mentioning into operational plan. vi. impact of invasive and alien species: community forests have been largely infested by invasive and alien species (ias). those forests which are near to disturbances such as road, settlement, landslide and barren areas have been heavily infested by large number of ias. the most chronic are eupatorium species, lantana camara, mikania micrantha, ageratina adenophora and a. odorata. these heavy invasions of the alien species have negatively impacted in the natural regeneration of the desired species. it has further increased the risk of forest fire and forest degradation in community forests of nepal. the community forests of the eastern nepal have recorded more invasions compared to the western regions of nepal. most of the operational plans are not aware appropriately about eradicating this evil. vii. impact of climate change: the impact of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem services are also visible such as change in phenological characters, reduction of water resources, stream drought, forest fire, etc. are some examples. most of climate change adaptation plan of ops are focused on community level adaptation plan. in fact, operational plans are less attensive in the positive and negative impact over forest products (biodiversity and ecosystem services). it will better to prepare action plan under op with the view of addressing climate change (cc) impact over biodiversity and ecosystem services. viii. shrinkage of biological corridor: habitat fragmentation is increasing every year due to population growth, deforestation, encroachment, land use land cover change, both illegal and legal settlements, different infrastructure development activities such as road construction, electric transmission line expansion etc. however, some community forest user groups have been trying to maintain harmony among conservation, management and sustainable development through preparation and strong implementation of appropriate operational plan but there is huge lack of coordination and collaboration among community forest user groups and relevant stakeholders in terms of exchanging their good experiences and practices in conservation and management of biodiversity and ecosystem services. entry point to address the gaps and challenges community forest consists of remarkable number of important biodiversity (flora and fauna) and provide different ecosystem services to user groups from there. however, operational plan does not have facts about exact biodiversity and ecosystem services that are available inside the community forest. it only explains the name of very few wild flora and fauna and ecosystem services instead of their complete assessment. there is neither any prioritization of biodiversity and ecosystem services in terms of necessity, utility and threatened status nor analysis and appropriate management or action plan to cope with the challenges and issues of those prioritized biodiversity and ecosystem for their conservation and sustainable usage. therefore, it was concluded that methodology for the complete assessment, prioritization, analysis and development of action plan is needed to apply for the incorporation of biodiversity and ecosystem services related issues into operational plan. the strict implementation of this action plan is believed to address the above mentioned issues and support in biodiversity conservation and maintenance of ecosystem services and ultimately, to ensure livelihood improvement as well. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 3‒11 9 thani et al. discussion the success of community forestry can be exemplified in terms of ecological and socioeconomical perspectives (shrestha et al., 2010). these successes can be signified from the different attributes like restoring degraded land and habitats, conserving biodiversity, increasing supply of forest products, empowering women and disadvantaged groups, generating rural incomes and developing human resources (shrestha et al., 2010; sharma, 2013). therefore, the conservation and improvement of biodiversity and ecosystem services is directly linked with the success of community forest. however, the above findings point to the worse incorporation of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services related issues into the operational plan as operational plan is the main component to lead the destination of community forest. the findings showed that there are some gaps in community forestry operational plan which have not favoured biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services management systematically in optimum level which consists of duplicate problem of biodiversity and ecosystem services related issues in operational plans, timber oriented operational plan; limited provision about wildlife conservation and negative perception of people on wildlife conservation owing to human wild life conflict; dominant socio-economic factors; impact of introduced species, invasive and alien species; lacking in provision of adaptation and mitigation methods to cope with impact of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem services and shrinking of biological corridor due to habitat fragmentation. many authors (pande, 2005; pandit and bevilacqua, 2011; charmakar, et al., 2016; padma, 2007; sharma, 2016) had made similar perspectives and agreed that there is still something lacking in systematic conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. (acharya, 2003; shrestha et al., 2010) also clarify that inconsistent understandings about biodiversity, its components, types, importance and subsistence need priority over conservation are the major constraints for biodiversity conservation in community forest. similarly, (chowdhary and kc, 2016) elucidate that despite numerous tangible benefits from community forests and its record maintenance; its ecological values and importance such as carbon sequestration, hydrological services, aesthetic and spiritual parts are partly missing and largely forgotten from the prevalent community forestry programme. these points indicate that biodiversity and ecosystem services have been altered or not main streamed community forest system due to the current management interventions inside community forest. more recently, the issues of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services have been incorporated in community forestry guidelines (2009). it is yet not free from the traditional utilitarian concept; under the guide-lines, cfugs have to make inventory of only useful plants, not all the species reside in the forests. the usefulness again is based on the personal judgment and state of knowledge. thus, it would not make a significant change on current management practices, practices which have been turning diverse forest into monoculture. therefore, the finding concluded that the methodology for the complete assessment, prioritization, analysis and development of action plan is needed to incorporate the biodiversity and ecosystem services related issues into operational plan. and, to maintain uniformity in incorporation of bd and es issues in all community forests over the nation, community forest development programme guidelines should make necessary to follow it for the better conservation and management of biodiversity and ecosystem services. conclusion in this paper, we identified that biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services have not been streamlined systematically into the community forests. the study showed that the incorporation status of biodiversity and ecosystem services into operational plan is worse as this plan is the main component to lead the destination of any community forest and the study also found some gaps and challenges in community forestry which have not favoured to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services management systematically in optimum level yet. among them, duplication of the problem of biodiversity and ecosystem services related issues in operational plan; timber oriented operational plan; limited provision about wildlife conservation and negative perception of people banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 3‒11 10 thani et al. on wildlife conservation owing to human wild life conflict; dominant socio-economic factors; impact of introduced species, invasive and alien species; lacking in provision of adaptation and mitigation methods to cope with impact of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystem services and shrinking of biological corridor due to habitat fragmentation were observed major issues. considering the crucial role of biodiversity and ecosystem services for the prosperity of local people, most appropriate uniform methods, measures and mechanisms are needed to be developed for the complete assessment, prioritization, analysis and the development of action plan is needed to mainstream biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services management into operational plan of community forestry. references acharya, k. p. 2003. “conserving biodiversity and improving livelihoods : the case of community forestry in nepal” paper presented at the international conference on rural livelihoods, forests and biodiversity, bonn, germany. acharya, k. p., goutam, k. r., acharya, b. k. and gautam g. 2007. participatory assessment of biodiversity conservation in community forestry in nepal. banko jankari 16 (1) : 46‒56. charmakar, s., pandey, a., joshi, n. and khanal, s. c. 2016. participatory biodiversity monitoring in community forests : a methodological discussion based on experience of nepal. in mainstreaming biodiversity and ecosystem services in nepal. bird conservation nepal, kathmandu, 117–127. chowdhary, c. and kc, rajendra. 2016. biodiversity and ecosystem services : neglected aspects of the community forestry systems in nepal. in mainstreaming biodiversity and ecosystem services in nepal, bird conservation nepal, kathmandu, 41–50. dfrs. 1999. forest resources of nepal. department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. fra/dfrs. 2014 a. churia forests of nepal. in forest resource assessment (fra), department of forest research and survey (dfrs), ministry of forest and soil conservation (mofsc), government of nepal, kathmandu. fra/dfrs. 2014 b. terai forests of nepal. in forest resource assessment (fra), department of forest research and survey (dfrs), mofsc, government of nepal, kathmandu. dof. 2018. community forestry bulletin. department of forests, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. oldekop, j. a., sims, k. r. e., karna, b. k., whittingham, m. j., and agrawal, a. 2019. reductions in deforestation and poverty from decentralized forest management in nepal. nature sustainability. 10. 1038/ s41893-019-0277-3. oli, k. p. and manandhar, m. s. 2002. the role of forest in supplying soil nutrients in agricultural production system in the mid hills of nepal. bankojankari 12 (1) : 27– 34. padma, t. v. 2007. community forestry : the regreening of the himalayas : leafy forests replanted by communities in nepal are flying in the face of accepted conservation practice, reports. spotlight, http :// www. scidev. net/global/policy/feature/ community-forestry-the-regreening-ofthe-himalaya. html# pande, r. s. 2005. pro-poor community forage production programme in the nepal australia community resource management and livelihoods project, nepal. proceedings of the workshop on fodder oats, fodder technology packages and small farm income generation. fao 8‒11 march 2005. pandit, r. and bevilacqua, e. 2011. forest users and environmental impacts of community forestry in the hills of nepal. forest policy banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 3‒11 11 thani et al. and economics 13 : 345 – 352. rajpoudel, n., fuwa, n. and otsuka, k. 2014. the impacts of a community forestry program on forest conditions, management intensity and revenue generation in the dang district of nepal. grips discussion paper 13–24. sharma, b. k. 2013. wildlife and their habitat in lowland areas of chitwan national park’s buffer zone in nepal : two decades of community conservation approach. ph d thesis, mizoram university, india. sharma, s. p. 2016. overview of community forestry inventory policy and plant biodiversity management and its implications. in mainstreaming biodiversity and ecosystem services in nepal. bird conservation nepal, kathmandu, 57–64. shrestha, u. b., shrestha, b. b. and shrestha, s. 2010. biodiversity conservation in community forests of nepal : rhetoric and reality. international journal of biodiversity and conservation 2 (5) : 98– 104. springate-baginski o., dev o. p., dhungana h., dahal s. and dutta i. c. 2007. communitybased forest biodiversity management concepts and tools : help people to reconcile forest biodiversity management with their livelihood development. hillside press. 200 p. 65 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 this paper explores the application of forest inventory to design silvicultural operations and its implementation to community forests. four-time series forest inventory data (2005, 2010, 2013 and 2016) of terai community forests were analysed, focusing on the type and size of tree removals from the forests. in addition, content analysis of the management plans of the forests was carried out and consultations were held with key informants. though the forest inventory was prepared during the preparation of management plans, the results did not provide proper guidance on the selection of silvicultural operations, which were decided without a clear definition of the management objectives. they were very generic and largely ignored site-specific forest stand conditions. most commonly practised silvicultural operations were cleaning and selective harvesting, which were similar for all forest blocks, though they varied in respect of forest stand conditions. the time series analysis of the inventory data showed that pole-sized trees were consistently removed in all four periods and emphasis was on extracting good quality trees without considering its effects on the stand. the study concludes that the current forest inventory is not very relevant in making a choice about silvicultural operations and the current practices might cause economic and ecological losses. hence, we argued for identifying minimum forest management requirement necessary for the sustainable forest management that the silvicultural operations should be decided based on the management objectives and conditions of the forest, considering the ecological and economic value of the forest. key words: community forest nepal, inventory, management plan, silvicultural operation the pertinent role of forest inventory in making choice of silvicultural operations in community forests of nepal s. g. baral1*, h. vacik1, b. b. k. chhetri2 and k. gauli3 the community forestry programme is one of the major national forest management strategies of government of nepal (bartlett, 1992; gautam, et al., 2004; maryudi, et al., 2011; gilmour, 2016) to restore forest and meeting subsistence need of forest dependent people. according to the forest rule 1995 and community forest directives, 1995, the management plan of community forest should be prepared by the forest users with the support of district forest office. in 2000, forest department formulated “guideline for inventory of community forests” to assist the users and district forest office officials in assessing forests condition, estimating growing stock and annual allowable cut aiming to manage forests sustainably (dof, 2000 p1). however, the guidelines was debated for its technical soundness and managerial perspective. the guidelines is often criticized for being conservative and protection-oriented which merely forbid cutting of green trees, allowed extraction of dead trees only rather than focusing on sustainable management of forests (yadav, et al., 2009). nevertheless, the forest act 1993 allows community forest user groups (cfugs) to manage and utilize their forests (cfs) under the guidance of the management plans. however, many of them are identical and emphasize more on protection than on adaptive contextual management (branney and yadav, 1998). the management plans mainly list the silvicultural operations, but not about the operation details. forest inventory plays a pivotal role in preparing inventory-based forest management plan (toft, et al., 2015) and enhancing the forest productivity 1 institute of silviculture, university of natural resources and life sciences, vienna, austria *email corresponding author: sonybaral@gmail.com 2 institute of forestry, campus, pokhara nepal 3 the deutsche gesellschaft für internationale zusammenarbeit (giz), nepal 66 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 (gilmour, 2016). forest department introduced silviculture-based management system i.e., scientific forest management in the cf in early 2013 (mfsc, 2014) for planning and harvesting of trees. it has received high priority after forest policy, 2014 and aims to increase forest productivity and production through sustainable management (mfsc, 2014a p.5). the policy requires to implement silviculture systembased management plan in community managed forest (mfsc, 2014 p.6). further, the forest sector strategy (2016–2025) emphasized for the development of management plans of forest in nepal to ensure forest sustainability (mfsc, 2016 p.11). subsequently, mfsc enacted silvicultural based forest management guidelines in 2014, known as “scientific forest management guideline, 2014. in course of forty years of community forests management, it achieved notable success in improving forest conditions and rural livelihoods (acharya, 2002; gautam, et al., 2004; pokharel, et al., 2007; poudel, et al., 2014; dfrs, 2015). while the first two decades of community forestry were mainly characterized by restoration of the forest; sustainable forest management remained in high priority, especially after the revision of the forestry policy in 2000. as a result, forest inventory guidelines was enforced in 2000 to support harvesting decisions and to select appropriate silvicultural operations based on forest stand conditions. however, sustainable resource management practices, including silvicultural operations, are largely ignored in community-based forest management. managing natural uneven-aged forest without considering appropriate silvicultural operations is one of the bottlenecks to maximising economic returns from the forest (wang, 2004). one of the main objectives in forest management is to meet societal needs e.g., forest products, ecosystem services, recreational opportunities. managing forests in ways that can be ‘closeto-nature’ is one of the examples of alternative models of silviculture (hara, 2016). silviculture is both an art and a science. it is an art because it prescribes management objectives by considering forest owners’ needs and it is a science because it assesses and collects information about a forest so that owners know its health conditions. silviculture is also known for helping chart out forest management roadmaps based on ground reality in order to meet the community’s future needs. it provides a pathway to move and to formulate a plan for the future. hobley (1996), explains participatory silviculture in relation to the conventional and scientific silviculture, and emphasizes linking both to social and institutional aspects and working together with forest technicians for development and implementation of management plans. the silviculture techniques that are mostly used in nepal are cleaning, singling, pruning, thinning, and harvesting of mature trees (acharya, 2003; yadav, 2009; yadav, 2011, and cedamon, et al., 2016). inventories are drawn up for making standlevel decisions over a planning horizon e.g., ten years with specific prescription of silvicultural treatments thinning or regeneration harvests. cfugs are supposed to follow schedule in the plan for various silvicultural operations (mofsc, 2000). however, they usually apply thinning and pruning whenever they need forest products, mostly for subsistence use (ojha, 2001). it is still unclear how results of a forest inventory are used on making decisions about the implementation of silvicultural operations in community forests. with transformations in the use of, and expectations from, forests and harmonizing people’s needs with forest conditions, there is a need for appropriate application of forest inventory in designing silvicultural operations. to contribute on both economic and ecological outcomes of community forest management, we especially focus to; a) assess the roles of inventory-based management plans in deciding silvicultural prescriptions b) assess the deviation of the silvicultural operations actual from the that of prescribed in management plan c) examine the role of stated silvicultural practice in bringing the change in forest conditions hence, with the support of the long-term data of past eleven years of terai community forest, we explore how the recommended silvicultural prescriptions and actual practices bring changes in the forest conditions. baral et al. 67 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 materials and methods study area the research was conducted in kankali cfug, in the chitwan district, which is one of the tropical districts of nepal. this site was selected based upon the existence of multiple forest inventories data4. the forest is located at 27.65° n, 84.57° e in khairani municipality covering 749.18 ha area (fig. 1). out of the total area,103.48 ha is classified as sensitive area and 645.65 ha as general forest area. the forest is dominated by tropical shorea robusta species and facing towards to south. the other associated species are semecarpus anacardium, holarrhena pubescens, terminalia alata, dalbergia sissoo, etc. fig. 1: study site the forest is divided into 5 blocks of 99.8 ha to 191.44 ha for forest management proposes. the community, comprising of 1967 households, is managing the forest with both long and shortterm objectives. the long-term objectives are to fulfil the need of forest product of the community and maintain ecosystem, enhance biodiversity through scientific forest management; and improve the livelihoods of the users (kankali cf, 2013). likewise, the short-term objectives are to maintain a continuous supply of forest products without degrading forest condition, control forest encroachment, control erosion, control open grazing, promote income generation activities, etc (kankali cf, 2013). table 1: general characteristic of the study site cfug handed over 1995 operational plan revised on 2013 forest origin natural forests altitude of the forest 220–580 m above mean sea level aspect south forest area 749.13 ha forest type shorea robusta (sal) dominated; other associated species semecarpus anacardium, lagerstroemia parviflora, holarrhena pubescens, buchanania latifolia forest development stage pole size dominated number of management blocks 5 number of households 1967 source: management plan of kankali cfug, chitwan (2016) research methods the study used a case study approach to explore a single phenomenon in a natural setting using a variety of methods to obtain in-depth knowledge (collis & hussey, 2009). it relies on long-term panel data of the comform project of three consecutive periods (2005, 2010 and 2013) and the data collected in 2016 by the principle author using the comform guideline. the project had established 68 permanent plots in the community forest according to the principles of stratified random sampling described by meilby et al., (2006) using coffee-house methods (müller, 2001). the detailed process of plot establishment is also explained in puri et al. (2012). however, the study only considered 60 plots as 8 plots were permanently damaged because of the reason which is beyond the control of the cfug. parameters measured included tree measurement, dbh, height, tree condition, social status, and regeneration condition. in addition, interviews with the past and present executive committee members, forest guards and user group staff were conducted to understand the silvicultural operations they have been practising. the interviews were taken during late 2016 and early 2017. 4 community-based forestry in nepal himalaya project (comform) is the long-term research project implemented by the institute of forestry, pokhara baral et al. 68 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 four-time series data sets of forest inventory (2005, 2010, 2013 and 2016) were analysed focusing on the type and size of the trees removed from the forests, forest stand condition and sampling and regeneration conditions. written documentations, such as forest inventory results, management plans, forest products extraction records, financial records, and meeting minutes from the forest user committees were also analysed. the study conducted a content analysis of the management plan to understand the basis for the decisions made on silvicultural operations along with field observations. in the content analysis key contents, such as (a) planning processes (b) silvicultural operations prescriptions and (c) basis for prescriptions are used. after the content analysis, stakeholder consultations, especially with the government forest officials, the forest users, executive members, persons involved in the operations, and the cfug staff were carried out to understand about practices of silvicultural operations in the plan, problems encountered and effect of different operations on forest management. results and discussions what is the role of inventory-based management plan in framing silviculture prescriptions. silvicultural prescriptions should be guided by the management objectives while considering the forest stand conditions. forest inventories are drawn up every ten years to examine the conditions of a cf during the revision of its management plan. data are collected on tree measurement (dbh and height) and regeneration conditions. from that data, annual increment is calculated and, considering the forest type, 40–60% of annual allowable cut is confined, but if it exceeds 178 m3/ha, then a limit will be set within that number. however, in this case study, neither inventory results nor management objectives were discussed while deciding about the implementation of silvicultural operations. though a forest inventory was prepared, it was simply used as a guide on defining the allowable harvest/selective thinning from the forest. inventory is considered as one of the prerequisites or administrative requirements for the approval of management plans. cedamon, et al. (2016) observes that inventory is not used to identify the silvicultural operations that are needed based on the forest assessment results, but only to limit the harvest (toft, et al., 2015). for instance, the chairperson of a community forest said, “we could hardly distinguish any difference between the plans; it appears almost identical to the previous version.” the use of inventory results as a guideline to decide about silvicultural operations could not be understood. a similar practice was also identified by toft, et al. (2015) and rutt, et al. (2014) in community forests in the mid hill region of nepal. forest management plans are needed by users for ensuring their access to forest resources. one cfug, executive member said that “no forest management operation can be carried out without a plan, but plans are prepared at the eleventh hour or after it has expired. furthermore, they only do minor editing of the existing plan instead of carrying out a detailed analysis and interpretation of the inventory data.” the revised forestry inventory guidelines 2004 prescribes the nature of the activities that are to be carried out according to the forest conditions. the nature of intervention should differ by forest conditions (table 2). however, it was hardly considered while prescribing interventions. furthermore, proposed silvicultural operations were very generic in nature and looked almost similar irrespective of the block. same interventions were followed in all forests, questioning the rationality of silvicultural operations and the need for a forest inventory. this further raised a question on the need for the block division itself. it was carried out for managerial reasons, especially for regulating harvesting rather than for managing forests sustainably. furthermore, silvicultural operations were confined within a small area of the block (annually 10 ha in each block where harvesting is done). forest inventory guidelines indicate that forests should be divided into blocks based on their conditions; however, in practice, block divisions are made without following any parameters. overall, (table 2) the prescriptions laid down in the management plan were followed only to meet the formality to approve the plan and failed to interlink themselves with the forest inventory results. according to users, a visual method was used to identify which trees were fit to be cut, considering the tree-to-tree distance, species, size, appearance, and structure of the baral et al. 69 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 tree. the prescribed silvicultural operations fail to address contextual specifications (forest conditions, species composition, and management objectives) and varied within and between blocks. the silvicultural operations were simply listed activities appended to the plan which were to be carried out in a block every year, but they were silent on what, how and where they were to be carried out. it could be because local communities and forest technicians lack specific knowledge of silvicultural treatment (yadav, et al., 2009). they simply apply tree improvement practices once a year mostly for the fulfilment of basic needs and suggest protection in the remaining blocks. cleaning and thinning are prescribed in the management plan by referring to the thinning guidelines of the department of forests. however, using of additional guidelines by forest users is not practical. the content analysis of management plan showed that (table 3) the same silvicultural operations were prescribed throughout blocks. the plan recommended conducting of different silvicultural activities such as cleaning and described what and when to be done, but the element, how it has to be carried out was missing. in addition, the prescribed area for silvicultural operations was the same, i.e. 10 ha, irrespective of plot size. it shows only maximum 20 ha of forests received silvicultural operations during the period of ten years, the whole tenure of operation plan in a block, while the size of the block was more than 100 ha. as a result, a large area of land in a block remained untouched. this apparently raised concerns on the usefulness of the silvicultural operations itself. silvicultural operations need to be designed in a way, that it is possible to cover the entire forest or a particular area of the forest in a given time frame to improve the conditions. this has happened mostly because management objectives were not defined at the time of selecting silvicultural operations. it merely appears as one of the basic ingredients of the management plan. the plan merely appears as a paper tool so that technician guide and forces users to do what they think are correct (rutt, et al., 2014 and toft, et al., 2015). are silvicultural operations prescribed in the management plan followed? the silvicultural operations are manipulated, and do not follow the forest inventory guidelines and management plan. whatever is written in the management plan is partially followed (table 4). the management plan prescribes conducting silvicultural operations during november– february; however, such activities are not taking place as is prescribed. this is because of administrative procedures required for conducting silvicultural operations, especially for thinning table 2: silvicultural interventions recommended in guidelines and in actual practice forest stand conditions no of blocks in cf recommended in community forest inventory guidelines, 2004 actual practice by communities good 3 selection felling, singling selection felling (4 d removal), cleaning moderate 2 natural regeneration, singling, weeding and cleaning selection felling (4 d removal), cleaning source: community forest inventory guidelines 2003 & management plan of kankali cfug, chitwan (2016) table 3: silvicultural operations prescribed in the management plan block no silvicultural operations block area (ha) prescribed area for silvicultural treatment (ha) prescribed year (ad) 1 cleaning, thinning 151.9 10 2012, 2017 2 cleaning, thinning 127.9 10 2013, 2018 3 cleaning, thinning 178.1 10 2014, 2019 4 cleaning, thinning 191.4 10 2015, 2019 5 cleaning, thinning 99.8 10 2016, 2020 source: management plan of kankali cfug, chitwan (2016) baral et al. 70 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 and selective harvesting. for instance, cleaning is prescribed during november–february, but these activities are not taking place as scheduled. likewise, thinning is practised as removing only 4ds (dead, diseases, dying and deform trees); however, users are also harvesting other categories of trees to fulfil their subsistence needs. silvicultural operations are simply cleaning of the forest after harvesting and selective felling of trees marked by forest officials. it might also be due to poor technical and post-formation support from district officials. in reviewing the management plans of seventy-six cfugs in the western regions of the terai, bhattacharya & basnyat (2003) conclude that silvicultural operations are complex and not in detail; so, it is difficult for users to follow them. furthermore, they fail to address management objectives. they, moreover, focus on the activities that are to be carried out in a particular block and year, but neglect to spell out methods for conducting such activities; so, instead of being prescriptive, silvicultural operations are descriptive. many activities are prescribed for being conducted at the time of harvesting and that, too, within selected blocks. as the management plan only suggests what is to be done and when it is to be done but is silent on how to do, this has created confusion among users (see box 1). one of the cf leaders says, “every other year, new forest officials come up with their own ideas and impose opinions based on either their own interests or government circulars. this has created confusion and delayed the process.” in a nutshell, silvicultural operations are de jure table 4: deviation between recommended silvicultural prescriptions in the management plan and actual practice silvicultural prescriptions recommendation actual practices* cleaning/ weeding removal of undesired species in the month of november to february partially practice; cleaning carried out in one block every year which is in rotation of harvesting of forest products. however, cleaning does as per prescribed schedule singling (from the coppice or from numerous seedling) singling will be carried out in the blocks where cleaning was conducted during november to february. it has to be conducted every year not practice; no singling activities were carried out during the god-mel (cleaning), but dense number of seedling/saplings of undesired/ less valuable species were removed at the time of cleaning. users follow their own judgement as there is no definite rule applies pruning no pruning; should be carried out in the presence of forest officials removal of lower branches and dead branches were quite common either for firewood or fodder which result also for canopy opening thinning/ selective felling/ harvesting removal of 4ds trees are given priority with considering ecological and biological sensitivity for harvesting of trees approval should be taken from dfo office the timber harvesting should limit within annual allowable harvest. removals are mostly 4ds (dead, dying, diseased and deformed/broken trees/ poles) however sometime harvest green and good trees to fulfil the users’ demands and which support on opening of crown approval is being taken in advance from the dfo dfo staff determined the trees to be felled and marked with considering the annual allowable harvest. mother tree mother trees are identified and marked users are aware of mother tree concept; however, only over matured tree are kept as mother tree source: management plan of kankali cfug, chitwan (2016); * derived from the experience of community forest user committee members baral et al. 71 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 recommended in the inventory guidelines and operational plan, but they do not de facto take place. this corroborates with meilby, et al. (2014), which observes that most of the revision work or sometimes technicians are responsible for preparation of plans itself, so that they limit the silvicultural operations to be carried out even though they are listed in the plan. box: 1. whom should we trust? users' dilemma over silvicultural prescriptions forest users are responsible for preparing management plans by considering all silvicultural operations to be carried out and submit them to the district forest office concerned for approval. however, it goes on other ways. users do not refer to the prescriptions in the plan and often do not tend to follow the prescriptions proposed in it, considering that technicians have limited knowledge of the subject-matter or do not understand the specific context or are scared of losing the forest they have developed. they merely do on their own considering local practices. whatever is written in the management plan is simply a paper tiger to convince others that they have a plan and that they are managing the forest according to the management plan. whatever prescriptions are in practice are in blanket approach “fit to all” (gelo and koch, 2012). the management plans prescribe all silvicultural operations needed for forest management, but only selective felling (removal of dead, dying, diseased and deformed trees), singling and cleaning are practised (cedamon, et al., 2016). moreover, the inventory results for deciding silvicultural operations are found to have failed to relate to the forest contextual conditions, which is due to either lack of proper inventory or ambiguity of the inventory for making a decision of forest management. almost all silvicultural operations prescribed are identical (bhattacharya & basnyat, 2003 and toft, et al., 2015); so there is no use of forest inventory. how current silviculture practices are brining change in the forest stand conditions the time series analysis showed that the species composition was changing over time (fig. 2). among the top five tree species, shorea robusta, lagerstroemia parviflora, semecarpus anacardium, holarrhena pubescens and buchanania latifolia, the population of s. robusta continuously increased during the time period. however, the share of the other species gradually decreased. the results show that the relative frequency of s. robusta was high and increased from 68 in 2005 to almost 71 in 2016, while that of other species was very low and indicated a decreasing trend. the change in species composition is due to the preference given by the communities to conserving economically valuable species and discarding other species with low value. as a result, the forest was gradually converting into a s. robusta dominated single species-focused management from mixed forest management despite the fact that one of the main objectives of forest management is maintaining forest tree diversity. so, it seems that management operations follow a different set of management objectives compared to those defined in the management plan. in a study of six cfugs in mid-hills of nepal, cedamon, et al. (2016) conclude that the current silviculture operations pose a threat to species diversity and understanding the forest stand structure is crucial to providing a basis for silvicultural interventions to be prescribed in case of multiple products and services management. fig. 2: relative frequency [%] of tree species in the community forest forests are dominated by pole trees, with very limited number of saplings, 169.57 n/ ha in 2016, which is much less than that prescribed by the community forestry inventory guidelines 2003 (table 5). the community forestry guidelines 2004 prescribes that a forest should have more than 2,000 per ha to be in good sapling conditions and those that are less than 800 ha are of poor quality (independently from the tree species considered). the pole-sized trees were mostly removed consistently over all four periods, while there was a marginal improvement in the baral et al. 72 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 number of trees per ha. analysis of s. robusta in comparison to other associated species showed that poles of other species were removed by 28 per cent than that of s. robusta, and the number of poles had decreased for all species, which might be because of selective harvesting practices in community forests. users preferred s. robusta trees to other species. nevertheless, the number of stems per ha had decreased among all species; however, the rate of decline was higher in other species than in s. robusta forests. the objective of the management plan was to stop degradation of the forest and improve its stand conditions. if management went on like this, the forest might force to turn towards corpse, with limited growth and retard quality trees (dfrs, 2015). it shows that, without taking out mature trees and properly maintaining the distance between poles, all the forests will produce fuelwood of economically valuable species instead of high quality timber in the future. on the other hand, seedlings are merely grow into saplings; regeneration seems very good; nevertheless, very few are established into saplings. saplings in 2005 were very poor and, in due course of time, their number decreased very sharply, from 623.6 to 169.57 stand density per ha.. if it continued like that, there would be no second generation trees, and again community would have to wait for another forty or fifty years to get good timber. rutt, et al. (2014), a study in high and mid-hills of nepal, also draws out similar findings. a proper silvicultural operation considering citizen science and scientific knowledge is very crucial for the management of economically valuable terai forests. the current silvicultural operations prescribed in the plan in a blanket manner without their appropriate implication in practice fail to typify the needs of specific stand condition enhancement of the forest and meet the objective of economic returns in the long run. furthermore, trees are harvested in a scattered and haphazard manner without considering the individual requirements of tree species. this may further impact the growth of economically important trees since the operations are carried out without considering the tree species targeted in the management. the inventory guidelines 2004 state that a 10 to 29.9 cm diameter class belongs to the pole category. the stand density analysis shows that pole trees are dominating. forest stand with regeneration ensures good health and composition of the forest, but the establishment of regeneration to sapling is the most important parameter to assess the forest health, which was lagging in our study site. forest condition is broadly defined based on the growing stock volume and regeneration and sapling conditions, measured in terms of the number of seedlings and saplings per ha (poudel, et al., 2014). however, a circular of september 30, 2012 explicitly notes that the national average of growing stock volume should be below 178 m3/ha, which was also approved by the ministrial cabinet meeting of may 23, 2011. it further indicates that the annual increment should be maintained between 1.5% and 2% in the case of slow-growing species. seemingly, it shows that, along with a forest inventory, there are several government forest decrees and circulars which also impact the current conditions of the forests, as well as silvicultural prescriptions rather than taking into account contextual conditions. terai forests are sparse but valuable where protection and silvicultural operations enhance the ecology and economic output of the forest (poudel, et al., 2015). the current management practice might cause huge economic and ecological losses in the absence of appropriate practices to interpret the inventory results and adapt silvicultural operations in considering the stand-specific context. table 5: tree species density in the community forests species categories (dbh class cm) overall tree (stem density/ha) change % between 2005 and 20162005 2010 2013 2016 seedling (below 2) 27,426.5 28,308.8 21,764.8 16,544.1 (10882.40) (39.68) sapling (2–9.9) 623.6 473.08 342.83 169.57 (454.03) (72.81) pole (10–29.9) 412.70 377.37 361.67 337.33 (75.37) (18.26) tree (30–49.9) 15.0 15.0 15.0 20.30 5.30 35.33 mature tree (>50) 8.33 8.33 9.33 10.0 1.67 20.05 source: inventory result of 2005, 2010, 2013 & 2016 baral et al. 73 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 conclusion from the above results and discussion, we conclude that silvicultural operations should be guided by the management objectives, forest stand conditions and other site-specific factors, such as forest type and topography. however, it is only appended to the plan as a prerequisite with little practical relevance to the forest management decisions. silvicultural operations are recommended in blanket approach in the inventory guidelines and the operational plan, but they are not actually being implemented in practice. both users and forest officials consider it as one of the necessary ingredients of the plan but low emphasis in implementation. community forests were handed over to communities with the objective of improving the degraded forest so that silvicultural operations prescribed were merely focusing on planting and protection planting of suitable trees. it is already four decades since we started conserving our forests, the practice is still the same despite of good forest cover and stock. despite of what is stated in the plan; users mostly focus on the collection of fuelwood, fodder, leaf litter and harvesting of timber, in practice. on the other hand, forest technicians merely think of enhancing resource conditions and exploring appropriate management practices based on forest condition, composition and physiography. as a result, silvicultural operations prescribed in the plan are very general and descriptive, allowing to fulfill many possible combinations of management objectives. our study concludes that present forest inventory does not support the deciding on silvicultural operations in forest management. silvicultural prescriptions are just an appended to the management plan. in fact, they should be defined by considering the site quality, actual forest condition and socio-economic situation of the forest dependent communities. hence, with the shifting needs of communities towards priorities other than collection of fuelwood and fodder, it urges introducing “adaptive silvicultural operations” by considering both ecological and economic context. the silvicultural prescriptions should not be civic-centric (simple pictorial form) rather than techno-centric (complex). a “civic-centric” adaptive forest management practice with considering the local context by the local should be in used. hence, for ensuring future economic and ecological sustainability of community forests, forest management should not only be output-oriented but also be processoriented. references acharya, k. p. 2002. twenty-four years of community forestry in nepal. international forestry review 4 (2): 149–156. acharya, k. p. 2003. conserving biodiversity and improving livelihoods: the case of community forestry in nepal. paper presented at the international conference on rural livelihoods, forests and biodiversity 19–23 may 2003, bonn, germany. bartlett, a. g. 1992. a review of community forestry advances in nepal. the commonwealth forestry review 95–100 basnyat, b. and bhattacharya, a. k. 2006. forestry for next decade: managing thrust area. in bhattacharya, a. k. (eds.), efficacy of community forestry operational plans in bio-diversity conservation: a study from western terai region of nepal (pp. 542–554). delhi, india: concept publishing house. bhattacharya, a. k. and basnyat, b. 2003. an analytical study of operational plan and constitutions at western terai region of nepal, banko jankari vol 13 (1) pp 3–14, branny, p. and yadav, k. p. 1998. changes in community forest condition and management 19941998: analysis of information from the forest resources assessment study and socioeconomic study in the koshi hills. nepal uk community forestry project. project report g/nukcfp/32, kathmandu, nepal. cedamon, e., nuberg, i., paudel, g., basyal, m., shrestha, k., paudel, n. 2016. rapid silviculture appraisal to characterise stand and determine silviculture priorities of community forests in nepal. small-scale forestry doi 10.1007/s11842-016-9351-0. collis, j. and hussey, r. 2009. business research: a practical guide for undergraduate and postgraduate students, 3rd edition, new york, palgrave macmillan. baral et al. 74 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 dfrs, 2015. state of nepal’s forests. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey (dfrs). kathmandu, nepal. dof. (2000). circular dated february 2000. department of forests (dof), government of nepal. kathmandu, nepal. fao, 2017. http://www.fao.org/sustainableforest-management/ toolbox/modules/ s i lvicul turein-natural-forests /basicknowledge/en/ cited on 14 february 2017. gautam, a. p., shivakoti, g. p., and webb, e. l. 2004. forest cover change, physiography, local economy, and institutions in a mountain watershed in nepal. environmental management 33 (1): 48–61. gelo, d and koch, s. f. 2012. does one size fit all? heterogeneity in the valuation of community forestry programs. ecological economics 74, pp 85–94. gilmour, d. 2016. forty years community based forestry. a review of its extend and effectiveness. food and agriculture organization united nations. rome. italy. gon, 1993. forest act, 1993. government of nepal (gon),official english version (kathmandu). nepal. gon, 1995. forest regulation, 2051 (1995). government of nepal (gon),official english version (kathmandu). nepal hobley, mary. 1996. participatory forestry and the process of change in india and nepal. rural development forestry study guide 3, rural development forestry network, overseas development institute, london. uk. hara k. l. o’, 2016. what is close-to-nature silviculture in a changing world? forestry : an international journal of forest research. 89(1): 1–6, doi:10.1093/forestry/cpv043 maryudi, a., r. devkota, c. schusser, c. yufanyi, m. salla, h. aurenhammer, r. rotchanaphatharawit and m. krott. 2011. “back to basics: considerations in evaluating the outcomes of community forestry.” forest policy and economics 14, vol. 4: 1–5. meilby, h., smith-hall, c., byg, anja., larsen, h. o., ystein uul nielsen, ø. j., puri, l., rayamajhi s., 2014. are forest incomes sustainable? firewood and timber extraction and productivity in community managed forests in nepal, world development, http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.03.011. meilby, h., puri, l., christensen, m. and rayamajhi, s. 2006. planning a system of permanent sample plots for integrated longterm studies of community-based forest management. banko janakari 16 (2): 3–11. mfsc.2000. guideline for inventory of community forests. ministry of forests and soil conservation (mfsc), department of forests, community and private forest division, kathmandu, nepal. mfsc. 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(2016). forest sector strategy, 2014. nepal: ministry of forest and soil conservation (mfsc), kathmandu, nepal. müller, w. g. 2001. collecting spatial data: optimum design of experiments for random fields. heidelberg: physica-verlag. ojha h. 2001. silviculture in community forestry: conceptual and practical issues emerging from the middle hills of nepal. banko janakari 11: 20–23. pokharel, b. k., braney, p., nurse, m. and malla, y.b. 2007. community forestry: conserving forests, sustaining livelihoods and strengthening democracy. journal of forest and livelihood 6 (2): 8–19. poudel, n. r., fuwa, n., and otsuka, k. 2015. the impacts of a community forestry program on forest conditions, management intensity and revenue generation in the dang district of nepal discussion paper: 13-24. national graduate institute for policy studies. 7-221 roppongi, minato-ku, tokyo, japan 1068677. baral et al. 75 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 puri, l., meilby, h., rayamajhi, s., timilsina, y. p., gautam, n. p., subedi, r., & larsen, h. o. 2012. growth and volume based on permanent sample plots in forests managed by communities. banko janakari, 22 (2), 11–18. rutt r, chhetri b, pokharel r, rayamajhi s, tiwari k, treue t. 2014. the scientific framing of forestry decentralisation in nepal. for policy and econ 60: 50–61. toft m, adeyeye y, lund j. 2015. the use and usefulness of inventory-based management planning to forest management: evidence from community forestry in nepal. for policy and econ 60: 35–49. wang, s. 2004. one hundred faces of sustainable forest management. forest policy and economics (6): 205–213 pacific forestry centre, canadian forest service, natural resources canada, 506 west burnside road, victoria, bc, canada v8z 1m5 yadav n, yadav k, yadav k, thapa n. 2009. facilitating the transition from passive to active facilitating transition from passive to active management of community forests in nepal: lessons from livelihoods and forestry programme. forest action discussion paper 2009/7. yadav n, yadav t, thapa y. 2011 active forest management as a means for promoting economic development and poverty reduction in community forest user groups, nepal, http://www.forestrynepal. org/publications/article/5309. accessed 20 may 2014. baral et al. 38 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 a study was conducted in the churia region in 2014 to assess the change in forest cover as an outcome of the performance of various forest management regimes and silvicultural practices with the main objective to find the gap between those two. geographic information system (gis) and remote sensing (rs) were used to compare the satellite imageries for the period of 1992 to 2014 in order to analyse the state of forest cover change. the demarcation of community forest boundaries was conducted based on available boundary maps and transferred to google earth and gis platform. results showed that overall forest cover in the churia region was increased by 7500 ha (1%) in 22 years, i.e. 1.35 million ha (76%) in 1992 to 1.36 million ha (77%) in 2014. the rate of deforestation in the churia region was reduced as compared to the national average. however, degradation of landscape was visible at riverbeds and cultivation lands close to the riverbeds. it was also found that the area of dense forest was increased by 42,000 ha, whereas the area covered by bushes and grassland was reduced by 39,000 ha. the study further showed that there was a decline in cultivated land by 20,000 ha. comparing the forest cover change in community forests with that of other management regimes, silvicultural practices in community forest areas have brought relatively better positive changes in the forest condition. it may be due to periodic silviculture operations carried out collectively by local communities. in the assessment, however, various elements of tenure rights and responsibilities of community, government and private forest and tree owners were identified and key silvicultural practices adopted by these regimes were highlighted as the drivers of positive or negative outcomes of forest cover change. key words: churia region, community forest, deforestation, degradation, forest cover change an assessment of the impact of silviculture and forest management regimes to forest cover change in the churia region during 1992 to 2014 b. k. pokharel1*, d. r. uprety1, r. r. niraula1 and p. r. pokharel1 in nepal, various forest regimes have been defined in the nepal’s forest act 1993 (dof/ gon, 1993), and its amendment made in 2017. these include: state owned national forest and private forests. under the state owned national forests there are various forest regimes based on who takes the responsibility of protecting and managing them. these regimes have evolved over time and their status and scale are also different ( table 1 ). so it is the performance in terms of silvicultural practice and the impact on forest cover change. 1. state owned national forest: all forests other than private forest, regardless of the demarcation of their boundaries and including cultivated or uncultivated land, roads, ponds, lakes, rivers, streams and the single land that is surrounded by or in the vicinity of a forest. • government-managed forests: national forests managed by the government. • protected forests: national forests that the government has declared protected in consideration of their environmental, scientific and cultural importance. • community forests: national forests that have been entrusted to user groups for development, conservation and utilization in the interest of the community. the community forestry regime is the largest regime among various community based forest regimes. the performance of this 1helvetas swiss intercooperational nepal, * e-mail: bharat.pokharel@helvetas.org 39 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 regime is reported to be relatively better (pokharel and nurse, 2004) in terms of increased forest condition and products supply and environmental conditions at the local level (pandit and bevilacqua, 2011). community forestry regime has provision of silvicultural practices in its operation plans, and has been practicing the same since last 25 years. • leasehold forests: national forests that have been leased for specified purpose(s) to a legally defined institution, forestbased industry or community. this regime has contributed to increase livestock production and rehabilitation of degraded land (bhattarai et al., 2005). • religious forests: national forests that have been entrusted to any religious entity, group or community as specified in clause 35 of the act. 2. private forests: the planted or protected forests on land that belong to an individual as per the prevailing law. these forest regimes have adopted a range of forest management and silvicultural practices; as a result, their performance varies in terms of forest cover change and landscape restoration. nepal’s forest cover assessment report, 2014 estimates that overall there is 5% national increment in forests’ coverage in nepal (dfrs, 2014). the contribution of various forest regimes to this increment is not known. although methodology exists for the quantification of the contribution of forest regimes to forest cover change and forest landscapes (miyamoto and sano, 2008), the measurement of the performance of various forest regimes is still an under research topic particularly quantifying the scale of improvement in forest species, composition diversity and density, soil conditions and hydrological behaviour and drivers of forest cover change in various forest regimes. this paper attempts to analyse the quantitative changes in forest cover of the largest two regimes mainly government managed forest and community forestry by using gis and remote sensing technology and compares the outcome of management in community forests with other management regimes. the current state of silviculture in the churia region has largely been observed as selection system with protection oriented regime. clear felling system in sagarnath and ratuwamai area are observed but not fully in churia range. similarly, the taungya system of tamagadi does not fall fully in churia range; therefore these patches of forests are not included in the study. the objective of this study is to analyze the outcomes of forest management in terms of forest cover change, reduce rate of deforestation and suggest an appropriate measures to expand silviculture based forest management in different forest management regimes. table 1: forest regimes in nepal (as of 2015) sn forest management regimes number of cfugs area (ha) households forest (%) 1 community forestry 18,961 17,98,917 23,92,828 33.00 2 collaborative forestry 22 61,709 5,53,262 1.06 3 leasehold forestry 7,419 42,835 75,021 0.73 4 religious forest 36 2,056 3,600 0.01 5 buffer zone community forestry 677 198,550 135,400 3.42 total community based forestry regime 27,115 21,04,067 31,60,111 38.22 6 government managed forest 3.25 million 61.77 7 privately managed trees and forests 2360 2,458 0.01 total 100.00 source: department of forests, 2015. courtesy fao, 2016 pokharel et al 40 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 materials and methods remote sensing as churia area extends from east to west, large set of data was required for the study. landsat imageries with resolution 30 m were selected for the purpose of the study. freely available landsat imageries of 1991/1992 and 2013/2014s for the month november/december (fig. 1) were downloaded from the http://earthexplorer.usgs. gov. similarly, the topographic maps published between 1993 and 1998 at the scale of 1:25,000 by the department of survey, government of nepal (gon) used to verify and support the interpretation of land cover/forest cover types from the imageries. fig. 1: map showing satellite image mosaic for churia region in addition, recent high resolution imageries covering the study area provided by the google earth were also used for the purpose of ground truthing of the interpreted land use and covers types from the imageries. supervised classification procedure was used with essential calibrations to classify seven classes of land cover in arc gis environment, similar to previous studied conducted by (niraula et al., 2013a; niraula and maharjan, 2011). the training sample data for the supervised classification of satellite image were generated from the google earth geoeye images with 0.5 m resolution. additionally definition of sparse forest and dense forest was taken from (niraula et al., 2013b; niraula and maharjan, 2011) (table 2 ). all satellite images were collected from march to april so that there was not much seasonal variation in vegetation. the rate of change in forest cover provides trend of change calculated for the study period. in this study, annual rate of change is calculated using formula provided by rate of change (q)=((a2/a1)^(1/(t2–t1))-1) x 100 where, a1 = forest cover at time t1 (1992/1993 in this study) a2= forest cover at time t2 (2013/2014 in this study) table 2: forest cover change definitions forest cover change definition improved forest sparse forest in 1992 changed to dense forest in 2014 and bushes/ grass in 1992 changed to sparse forest or dense forest in 2014 degraded forest dense forest in 1992 changed to sparse forest or bushes/grass in 2014 and sparse forest in 1992 changed to bushes/grass in 2014 deforested area dense forest or sparse forest or bushes/grass in 1992 changed into non forest in 2014 new forest area non forest in 1992 changed into bushes/grass or sparse forest or dense forest in 2014 unchanged forest dense or sparse forest or bushes/ grass in 1992 with no change unchanged non forest non forest with no change delineation of community forest boundary rapid mapping of community forest user groups (cfugs) which were located in 36 districts with a part of churia range was conducted for the study. collaboration with local stakeholders enabled communication at district level to acquire boundary map including the information of community forests located in the churia hills of each district. then the information were delineated in google earth and finally imported to arc gis for cf boundary preparation. out of 2400 cfugs listed in the churia, 1300 were digitized for this study. pokharel et al 41 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 ground truthing out of 36 districts, only eight districts were selected for ground truthing. the selected districts were udayapur, bara, dhanusa, mahottari, makwanpur, saptari, rautahat and siraha. the silvicultural practices adopted by the community forests in these eight districts were studied. results and discussion land cover change in churia land cover change in churia region is an indicator of land use dynamics and the present study compared land cover change in the churia region between 1992 and 2014. the major classes studied were barren land, bushes/ grass, cultivated land, riverbed, sparse forest, dense forest and water bodies. during 22 years of study period, it was observed that forest cover was increased by 7500 ha, forest condition improved as dense forest area increased by 42,000 ha; area of bushes found decreased by 39,700 ha; barren land increased by 5,800 ha; sparse forest increased by 5,100 ha while cultivated land decreased by 20,000 ha, riverbed increased by 12,300 ha and water bodies decreased by 3,800 ha. overall changes in forest as well as other topographic changes were captured in the comparison. forest cover change analysis provides more detail of undergoing processes (table 3 ) on how dense forests, sparse forests, bushes/grasses and non-forest areas were changed in the churia region from 1992 to 2014. as land cover changes only provide the total area of any class, it rarely indicates where does the forest go ? or which land use replaced the forest ? this is important to specify the problems and issues of land/forest cover changes in any landscape. deforestation, degradation, improvement and new forest area generation were all captured in this analysis as represented by fig. 2 fig. 2: forest cover change in the churia region numerous studies showed that the churia region has significant deforestation and degradation processes ongoing, which is mainly attributed to inappropriate policy on forest tenure security of local communities, increasing human population pressure and highly vulnerable topography. this particular analysis nevertheless clearly showed that despite political chaos and uncertainty, the churia region had more area of forest improvement and the creation of new forest area than the area of deforestation and degradation, hence, there was overall a positive change. while, deforestation and degradation were observed by 4% and 6%, respectively in the churia region during 1992 to table 3: land cover change in the churia region between 1992 and 2014 land cover area in 1992 (ha) % area in 2014 (ha) % rate of change per year (%) barren land 12105.9 0.7 18597.8 1.1 1.6 bushes/grass 153846.7 8.7 110364.4 6.2 -1.8 cultivated land 346818.0 19.5 327734.6 18.4 -0.3 dense forest 863303.0 48.6 897529.1 50.6 0.2 riverbed 50261.1 2.8 62708.2 3.5 0.9 sparse forest 332355.8 18.7 347284.1 19.5 0.2 water bodies 17053.3 1.0 13201.6 0.7 -1.2 total 1775743.8 100.0 1777419.8 100.0 pokharel et al 42 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 2014, positive changes of forest improvement and increase in forest area nevertheless occurred by 9% and 5%, respectively (fig. 2). much of this deforestation was dominated in river valleys only. this study compared the forest cover change inside and outside of community forests (fig. 3) as an indicator of the role that tenure security has in management of forest. while positive and negative changes exist inside as well as outside community forests, the major contribution of community forests was observed in maintaining the forest as unchanged forest by 73%. in contrast, outside community forests, 5% deforestation was still a major concern in forest landscape management. while evaluating community forests’ contribution in forest management, despite the fact that communities were highly dependable on the resources of the community forest, 7% degradation and 3% deforestation were balanced to some extent by 14% improved forest and 3% new forest area (fig. 3). fig. 3: forest cover change inside cf (left) and outside cf (right) in the churia region the results of the eight districts selected for ground truthing (fig. 4) showed a visible contrast between districts. the figure shows the percentage of the forest cover change and the percentage of churia area among the districts. the graph shows the percentage of improved forest area, new forest area, unchanged forest area, unchanged non-forest area, degraded forest area and the deforested area. makwanpur district has the highest percentage of churia area. it showed the least percentage of deforested area while showing the highest percentage of the new forest area. the overall new forest area in makwanpur was the highest, whereas siraha and mahottari showed alarming rates of deforestation. siraha however, showed better figures in new and improved forest area compared to mahottari. the figure when looked only through the scope of the percentage change of forest cover change might show other districts with improved forest cover changes, but we must also account for the area of churia forest present in those districts. the ground truthing further assessed the state of silviculture in those districts. fig. 4: results of selected districts for ground truthing fig. 5: the best performing districts: makwanpur and dang pokharel et al the study found that the best performing districts were makwanpur and dang (fig. 5). the percentage of churia area of dang is nearly 14%. the figure 5 shows that the percentage of the new forest area and improved forest area is lower compared to makwanpur but when we consider the percentage of churia area covered by dang, it is quite large, therefore improvement of forest area is found to be significantly large. the poor performing districts were also analysed in the study. although the percentage of deforested area in other districts such as lalitpur and dhankuta was higher, their percentage of churia area coverage was minimal. thus, mahottari with around 0.8% of churia area was considered the poor performing district (fig. 6). it showed an alarming rate of deforestation with minimal improvement in forest area coverage. 43 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 fig. 6: poor performing district: mahottari inadequate silvicultural practices led to large part of forest unchanged ground truthing revealed that there were various technical gaps in terms of silvicultural practices both in government managed and community forests. annual coupes for example, were not identified. the inability to demarcate the area under coupe resulted in irregular forest extraction. the thinning regimes were not defined either. collectively, these two factors resulted in the ambiguity among the silvicultural operations to be carried out in the forest. demarcation of annual coupes would have ensured that certain silvicultural operations such as weeding, cleaning, singling, thinning and final felling are carried out in specific areas of the forest. however the lack of such coupes and the failure in defining the thinning regimes brought irregularity in the silvicultural operations carried out in the forest. in an ideal condition, the thinning regimes should have been prescribed such that 50–70% of the trees in the coupe is removed in each 5–10 years before the final felling. the study discovered that lack of technical support, scarcity of an appropriate plan as well as funds for tending were the major factors for this inadequacy. this further resulted in old matured trees being for a prolonged period of time in the forest. this deprived the regeneration of new crops. the silvicultural operations such as weeding and cleaning were also found to be irregular. forest inventory was carried out in the forest, but not adequate to identify the total biomass, non-timber forest products and scale of species diversity. the principle applied for the annual allowable cut (aac) of timber was not found logical. the conservative approach in determining the aac has resulted in the overstocking of the forest. this has also resulted in the forest size being uneven. the foremost objective of forest management is to ensure sustained yield. it was also found that the shelterwood system practiced did not promote regeneration from a good mother. this resulted in the regeneration was weak. the thinning regimes on the other hand were not designed to promote light demanding species. there existed inferior timber such as knotty and tapering trees which would have little or no timber value. these discrepancies found between provisions put down on papers and the actual ground practices showed the actual reason for the large percentage of unchanged forest recorded both in government managed and community forests. inadequate silvicultural practices ultimately led to the large percentage of forest cover unchanged. conclusion comparing the forest cover change in different management regime in the churia region revealed that the silvicultural practices in community forests have brought positive changes in the forests managed by local communities. the research revealed that forest cover in the churia region was increased by 7500 ha while positive and negative changes exist inside as well as outside community forests. rate of deforestation inside community forest was only 0.13% per year while it revealed 0.22% in the forest outside of community forest i.e. government managed forest. it may be due to periodic silviculture operations carried out by local communities in their community forests, while such operations are lacking in other management regime in the churia region. local communities’ capacity to protect and maintain large portion of forest (73%), which was found unchanged, could be considered as a major contribution of community forests in the churia region, however from another angle, 73% of unchanged forest inside community forests that compares with 52% unchanged forests outside of community forests can be a big missed opportunity which if managed from silviculture prescription can be the best options for economic innovation from forestry sector by the means of silviculture operations. lack of negotiation among actors’ understanding on how to promote silvicultural operations in both inside and outside community forests is the main constraint for not promoting silviculture practices across the churia region together with other regions. pokharel et al 44 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 references bhattarai, b., ojha, h. and humagain, y. 2005. is leasehold forestry really a pro-poor innovation ? evidences from kavre district, nepal. journal of forest and livelihood 4 (2): 17–30. dfrs. 2014. churia forests of nepal (2011– 2013). forest resource assessment nepal project/department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. dof/gon. 1993. forest act, 2049 (1993). department of forests.(dof) government of nepal, 2049 (1993), 1–37. retrieved from http://www.forestrynepal.org/images/forest_ act_of_nepal_1993.pdf miyamoto, a. and sano, m. 2008. the influence of forest management on landscape structure in the cool-temperate forest region of central japan. landscape and urban planning 86 (3–4): 248–256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. landurbplan.2008.03.002 niraula, r. r., gilani, h., pokharel, b. k. and qamer, f. m. 2013a. measuring impacts of community forestry program through repeat photography and satellite remote sensing in the dolakha district of nepal. journal of environmental management 126: 20–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman. 2013.04.006 niraula, r. r., gilani, h., pokharel, b. k. and qamer, f. m. 2013b. measuring impacts of community forestry program through repeat photography and satellite remote sensing in the dolakha district of nepal. journal of environmental management 126: 20–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman. 2013.04.006 niraula, r. r. and maharjan, s. 2011. forest cover change analysis in dolakha district (1990–2010). kathmandu, nepal. pandit, r. and bevilacqua, e. 2011. forest users and environmental impacts of community forestry in the hills of nepal. forest policy and economics 13 (5): 345–352. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.forpol.2011.03.009 pokharel, b. k. and nurse, m. 2004. forests and people’s livelihood: benefiting the poor from community forestry. journal of forest and livelihood 4 (1): 19–29. pokharel et al 26 nepal consists of a total of 5. 96 million ha i. e. 40. 36% forest area (dfrs, 2015). there was no robust management of productive forests in the past due to the centralized institution structure of forest management in nepal (paudyal, 2007). the management was based on the annual allowable cut principle in which a single selection silvicultural system was applied for harvesting. recently, the government of nepal has started promoting scientific forest management (scifm) describing “an application of a appropriate silvicultural system and forest management principles through design of systematic compartments of fixed rotation age”. this highlights the use of shelterwood silviculture system with very high intensity logging, leaving only 15−30 mature mother trees per ha to address inactive forest management, suboptimal forest production, and forest health degradation (bhattarai et al., 2018; poudel, 2018). at present, it has been implemented by 285 community forest user groups (cfugs) across nepal (baral & dhakal, 2018). since its pilot implementation in tilourakot collaborative forest, scifm now has been expanded to 30 collaborative forests, 285 community forests and seven government block forests (baral & dhakal, 2018). as of 2020, around 121,852 ha of forests are currently being managed scientifically using scifm principles both within collaborative forests and community forests in 52 districts of the nation (bhandari & lamichhane, 2020). the regeneration and banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2, 2021 pp 26‒39https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v31i2.41898 regeneration status and species diversity of major tree species under scientific forest management in kapilbastu district, nepal in nepal, scientific forest management has been practiced as an effective forest management technique to utilize forest resources sustainable. however, the program has faced many controversies such as intentional logging of only high–valued timber species like shorea robusta. in addition, few believe this program is severely affecting the regeneration productivity and species diversity in the natural forests. in order to address these issues, we examined the regeneration condition and plant species diversity in the stands where scientific forest management operations were carried out. the data related to regeneration status and species diversity were collected using a systematic random sampling of the selected stands. our results showed good regeneration conditions (seedling >5000, sapling>2000) in all the studied stands. the tree species community was dominated by s. robusta (sal) followed by schleichera oleosa (kusum) and casia fistula (rajbriksha). the value of diversity indices of different species varied significantly between felling series. the highest diversity was found in the second year felling series with the simpsons index of dominance value 0. 6934 and the lowest species diversity was in the first year felling series with a value of 0. 8448. it can be recommended that the regeneration felling practice has helped in promoting the regeneration condition and growth. keywords: regeneration, scientific forest management, shorea robusta, silvicultural treatment. b. aryal 1, s. regmi 2* and s. timilsina 3 received : 12, july, 2021 revised : 22, november, 2021 accepted : 23, december, 2021 published : 31, december, 2021 1 agriculture and forestry university, faculty of forestry, hetauda, nepal 2 tribhuvan university (tu), institute of forestry (iof), hetauda, nepal. *e–mail: iregmisid@gmail. com 3 tu, iof, pokhara, nepal. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6177-0485 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2731-7916 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4749-9289 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 27 aryal et al. community–level species richness of both seedlings and saplings increases under active forest management (subedi et al., 2018). the forest management activities benefit the forest with improved regeneration (malik & bhatt, 2015), greater species diversity and richness (poudyal et al., 2020), and ultimately leading to sustainability (pokharel et al., 2015) if followed in prescribed way. in forest management, regeneration study not only depicts the current status but also hints about the possible changes in forest composition in the future (malik & bhatt, 2016). also, species is one of the major analytical characteristics of the plant community (malik et al., 2014). knowledge of species composition and diversity of tree species is of utmost importance not only to understand the structure of a forest community but also for planning and implementation of conservation strategy of the community (malik & bhatt, 2015). assessment of forest community composition and structure is very helpful in understanding the status of tree populations, regeneration, and diversity for conservation purposes (mishra et al., 2013). the species richness and diversity of trees are fundamental to total forest biodiversity because trees provide resources and habitat for almost all other forest species (malik, 2014). the forests of lowland nepal are prone to many calamities like fire, grazing, and flood. the most affected plant communities by these calamities are regenerations and young trees. enough knowledge and study in forest characteristics of different tree species is essential to guarantee forest’s natural regeneration (mousavi et al., 2011). several researchers (hull et al., 2010; sunam et al., 2013; baral et al., 2018; basnyat et al., 2018a; basnyat et al., 2018b) define scifm as a tool having complex mechanism which promotes centralization of forest disfavoring forest users in nepal. it is also explained as the name of active utilization implemented without considering institutional aspects (paudel et al., 2018). the government has announced to discontinue scifm practice in june 2019 stating the excessive logging of only high–valued tree species like shorea robusta which results in lowering and decling the plant diversity and regeneration status, respectively. the long–term effects of scifm on plant species and regeneration conditions are not studied well. most of the studies are concerned with livelihood impact on scifm. there has been significant increment in the regeneration per hectares after implementing the scifm program in this study area that makes it as an ideal location to assess the success or failure of scifm program. therefore, this study was carried out to assess the regeneration status and plant species diversity of major tree species after felling of the stands in scifm. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in the shringigh at community forest (cf) which is located in badganga municipality of kapilbastu district in the western terai region of nepal in 2019 (figure 1). the shringigh at cf covers an area of 499. 26 ha, and is located between 27°44'13. 2"−27°45'14. 1"n latitudes and 83°11'27. 8"−83°11'57. 5" e longitudes. the elevation of the study area ranges from 190 m to 200 m above the mean sea level. this forest is dominated by sal (s. robusta) figure 1: map showing the location of the study area banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 28 aryal et al. associated with asna (terminalia alata), karma (adina cordifolia), kusum (schleichera oleosa), satisal (dalbergia latifolia), rohini (mallotus philippensis), kutmero (litsea polyantha), bel (aegle marmelos), etc. the major soil types found here are clayey loam, alluvium, and rocky types of soil. the forest is managed under an irregular shelterwood silvicultural system. altogether, 2,480 households are benefited from this community forest. data collection the data was collected using a systematic random sampling method. the vegetation sampling data were collected from a total of40 concentric circular sample plots (ccsps) of 10 m radius spaced at 50 m (figure 2, aryal et al., 2017). further, the data on the plant species diversity were also collected from each of sample plot. the sample plots were overlaid on the map using the fishnet tool in arcgis 10. 4. 1, and the gps coordinates of the plots were extracted. each plot was located in the field with the help of garmin gps device. the total number of sample plots was determined in accordance with the total felling area, and resource inventory was carried out with a sampling intensity of 1% as per the community forest inventory guidelines 2061 (dof, 2004). figure 2: a concentric circular sample plot the number of tree species (≥10 cm dbh) were counted in the main plot of 10 m radius. to gather data on regeneration, individual plants were categorized into seedlings (height< 1. 3m), and saplings (height > 1. 3 m and < 10 cm dbh). the study was conducted in those periodic blocks where regeneration felling operation was carried out, and the areas were mapped out using arcgis 10. 4. 1. the seedlings and saplings within 1. 78m and 2. 82m radii in each ccsp (subedi et al., 2010) were counted and noted. the density per hectare of each species was calculated to determine their regeneration status in the managed coup. table 1 shows the area and the total number of sample plots in different felling series. table 1: no. of sample plots vs. area of different felling series felling series area (ha) no. of sample plots first–year 3. 43 15 second–year 3. 82 15 third–year 2. 86 14 fourth–year 3. 76 16 total 13. 87 60 data analysis arcgis10. 4. 1software was used for the proximity of establishing sample plots and map preparation. the data were processed and analyzed using ms excel. the number of seedlings and saplings of s. robusta and other species per hectare were calculated, and their status and forest condition were analyzed as per the cf inventory guidelines 2061 (dof, 2004). the density of each species per hectare was calculated using the formula: the condition of different felling series were assessed on the basis of the total number of seedlings and saplings of different tree species per hectare found in the respective felling series. as per the cf inventory guidelines 2061 (dof, 2004), the condition of the forest is 'good' if the numbers of seedlings and saplings exceed 5,000 and 2,000 per hectare. similarly, the condition of the forest is 'medium' if the numbers of seedlings and saplings occur between 2,000−5,000 and 800−2,000 per hectare;and 'poor' if the numbers banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 29 aryal et al. of seedlings and saplings occur below 2,000 and 800 per hectare, respectively (table 2). table 2: condition of forest based on regeneration status plant type no. per hectare seedling >5,000 2,000−5,000 <2,000 sapling >2,000 800−2,000 <800 condition of forest good medium poor source: cf inventory guidelines, 2061 (dof, 2004). plant diversity species diversity refers to the frequency and variety of species within a geographical area (malik et al., 2014). it is the combination of species richness and species evenness. species richness is the total number of species per sampling unit, and this makes no use of relative abundances. species evenness is the distribution of individuals among the species. species diversity can be expressed in a single number which can be used to assess the diversity of any population in which each member belongs to unique species. the plant diversity was measured using the following diversity indices: a) the concentration of dominance was measured using the simpson’s index which is mathematically expressed as– where 's' is the total number of species, 'pi' is the proportion of all individuals that belong to species 'i' in the sample. the value of 'd' ranges between 0 and 1. the value near zero corresponds to higher diversity or heterogeneous community while the value near one relates to a more homogeneous community. b) the simpson index of diversity is calculated by subtracting simpson’s index of dominance from 1, i. e. where,'d' is the simpson index of dominance the value of which also rages between0 and 1; the greater the value, the more the sample diversity. c) shannon–wiener diversity index (shannon, 1948) was used for the calculation of species diversity. mathematically, it is expressed as: where,'s' is the total number of species in the sample, 'pi' is the proportion of all individuals that are of species 'i'. the shannon index increases as both the richness and the evenness of the community increase. d) species richness index (d) indicates the mean number of species per sample (margalef, 1958), and is expressed as: where 'd' is the species richness index, s is the number of species and n is the number of individuals of all species. e) equitability or evenness index (e) refers to the degree of the relative dominance of each species in that area. mathematically, it is expressed as: where 'e' is the evenness, 'h' is the shannon– wiener’s diversity index and 's' is the number of species. the value of e ranges from 0 (not even) to 1 (completely even). results regeneration status the quantitative structures of regeneration of different tree species in the different felling series were studied based on the count of their seedlings and saplings in the sample plots. table 1depicts the area and the total number of sample plots in different felling series while table 3 shows the number of seedlings and saplings of different species in the sample plots of different felling banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 30 aryal et al. series counted during the inventory process. the regeneration count of s. robusta was found to be the highest among all the other species present in all the felling series. the numbers of seedlings and saplings of different species per hectare were determined based on their regeneration counting in the sample plots. s. robusta had the highest number of seedlings and saplings per ha in all the felling series as compared to those of all the other tree species. the regeneration status of different species are highlighted in figures 3−6with respect to their felling series. table 3: total count of regenerations of different species in the sample plots species felling series 1st yr. felling series 2nd yr. felling series 3rd yr. felling series 4th yr. felling series n o. o f se ed lin gs n o. o f sa pl in gs n o. o f se ed lin gs n o. o f sa pl in gs n o. o f se ed lin gs n o. o f sa pl in gs n o. o f se ed lin gs n o. o f sa pl in gs s. robusta 150 230 239 289 185 260 381 275 s. oleosa 10 0 9 0 11 0 5 1 c. fistula 5 0 0 0 7 0 2 2 d. latifolia 0 3 8 0 2 0 0 0 t. alata 0 0 8 10 0 0 0 3 a. cordifolia 0 0 6 0 23 0 1 0 others 16 0 70 11 16 6 62 0 total 181 233 332 310 244 266 451 281 source: field inventory, 2019. figure 3: regeneration status of seedlings and saplings of different. spp. in the 1st yr. felling series banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 31 aryal et al. figure. 4: regeneration status of seedlings and saplings of different spp. in 2nd yr. felling series figure 5: regeneration status of seedlings and saplings of different spp. in the 3rd yr. felling series figure 6: regeneration status of seedlings and saplings of different spp. in the 4th yr. felling series banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 32 aryal et al. regeneration status of different felling series table 6 below depicts the regeneration status of different felling series. figure 7: regeneration status of different felling series the total number of seedlings (28,188/ha) and saplings (7,025/ha) combined per ha was found to be the highest (35,213) in the 4thyear felling series. in this felling series, s. robusta possessed the highest number of seedlings (15,933) and saplings (6,875) per ha while a. cordifolia had the least (only 63 seedlings per ha, figure 6). the 2nd year felling series had the second highest number of seedlings (22,133/ha) and saplings (8,267/ha) combined (30,400) per ha. in this felling series, the highest number of seedlings (23,813) and saplings (7,707) per ha were belonged to s. robusta while a. cordifolia consisted of the least (just 400 seedlings per ha, figure 4). similarly, the third highest number of seedlings (17,429/ha) and saplings (7,600/ha) combined (25,029) per ha was noticed in the 3rd year felling series. this felling series also possessed s. roubsta as the dominant species with 13,214 seedlings per ha and 7,429 saplings per ha; d. latifolia consisted of merely 143 seedlings per ha (figure 5). the 1styear felling series consisted of the least number of seedlings (11,767/ha) and saplings 6,213/ha) combined (17,980/ha) per ha. s. roubsta possessed the highest number of seedlings (10,000/ha) and saplings (6,113/ha) whereas c. fistula occupied the least (just 33 seedlings per ha, figure 3). figure 7 shows the summary of regeneration status in different felling series. as per the cf inventory guidelines 2061, the regeneration status of all the felling series were found to be in good condition with the number of seedlings and saplings exceeding 5,000 and 2,000 per ha, respectively. diversity of plant species table 4 shows a different scenario of the plant diversity indices. comparing the diversity indices among the four felling series, the value of the simpson’s index (0. 6934) in the 2nd year felling series was more near to '0'which indicated that it was more diverse as compared to the other felling series. also, the value of the shanon weiner index (0. 6255) was higher in the 2nd year felling series in comparison with those of the other felling series which also supported the result of the simpson index. in the case of the species evenness, the value was found to be greater (0.3869) in the 2nd year felling series which depicted that the species were more evenly distributed in this series as compared to the other felling series. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 33 aryal et al. similarly, the species richness index was greater (0. 9624) in the 3rdyear felling series which possessed total of seven species. the 4th year felling series also consisted of seven species, but hada comparatively lower value of the species richness index (0. 9097) which could be due to the difference in the abundance of the species in those two felling series. however, if the values of all the plant diversity indices were analysed independently without comparing one felling series with another, then we could relate that there was no suitable plant diversity maintained in all the felling series as the dominance of a single species (s. robusta) was found to be more in all felling areas. it can be noticed from figures 3, 4,5& 6 and table 3that there is a homogeneous type of regeneration in all the felling series. discussion natural regeneration of plant species is crucial to the sustainable management of tropical forests (medjibe et al., 2014). therefore, knowledge about the plant regeneration procedure and dynamics is essential to plan and implement the management activities in the forest (mwavu & witkowski, 2009; puhlick et al., 2012; yang et al., 2014). this study revealed the number of regenerating species and plant diversity in the shringighat cf. the study found that executing scifmin community forests safeguards the promising forest health in terms of substantial regeneration of demanded species, s. robusta in the lowland region of nepal. in all the felling series, s. robusta was found to be the dominant species, which is similar to the findings of the terai forest inventory during 2010−2012 (dfrs, 2015). the same results was reported by giri et al. (1999); paudyal (2013); acharya et al. (2009); sapkota et al. (2009). after s. robusta, the dominance of other species was found to be different in the different felling series (see figure 3, 4, 5 & 6). the study found higher seedlings and saplings number in this cf;it could be the result of regeneration felling in the shringighat community forest. the numbers of seedlings were found to be 11,767/ha in the 1st year felling series, 22,133/ha in the 2nd year felling series, 17,429/ha in the 3rd year felling series, and 28,188/ha in the 4th year felling series. on an average, there were19,879 seedlings per ha in all the felling series which corresponds to the results of awasthi et al. (2015) who found 16,555−21,000 seedlings per ha after regeneration felling of s. robusta forest under irregular shelterwood system in a similar site of rupandehi district. similarly, there were 6,213 saplings per ha in the 1st year felling series, 8,267 per ha in the 2nd year felling series, 7,600 per ha in the 3rd year felling series, and 7,025 per ha in the 4th year felling series with s. robusta as the dominant species. as per the community forest inventory guidelines 2061, the status of regeneration (good, satisfactory, poor), the densities of the seedlings and saplings were found to be 'good' in all the four felling series. the difference in regeneration status in the different felling series may be due to the differences in the intensity of grazing, logging, cleaning operations, and the growth of invasive species in the different felling areas. a number of researchers such as gautam et al. (2002); sakurai et al. (2004); yadav et al. (2003) have stated that the prohibition of controlled grazing inside cfs in nepal is to contribute positive ecological impacts of the cf program, which ultimately increases forest cover, stem density, and natural regeneration. a table 4: plant diversity indices in different felling series felling series no. of species simpson's index of dominace (d) shannon wiener index (h) simpson’s index of diversity (1–d) species richness index (d) evenness index (e) 1styear 6 0. 8448 0. 3833 0. 1552 0. 8298 0. 2139 2nd year 6 0. 6934 0. 6255 0. 3066 0. 7734 0. 3869 3rd year 7 0. 7663 0. 5072 0. 2337 0. 9624 0. 2606 4th year 7 0. 8104 0. 4071 0. 1896 0. 9097 0. 2092 source: field inventory, 2019. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 34 aryal et al. study carried out by buffum et al. (2009) also sorted the overall increase in seedling and sapling density to the reduced grazing intensity in a late successional broadleaved community forest in bhutan. similarly, the impact of logging on tree regeneration varied with size and disturbance intensity. when the disturbances were immediate in intensity, the diversity of natural regeneration was highest whereas, pioneer tree species proliferated in the more heavily disturbed areas (de carvalho et al., 2017). a study conducted by baniya et al. (2019) in pine forest has also recommended that, the regeneration status and normal growing stock can be enhanced if the thinning and felling is carried out annually in different compartments in different cfs. invasive tree species (its) might influence natural regeneration by directly limiting the saplings of native species (hejda et al., 2017). the its shed large numbers of seeds below their canopies, and there exists competition for light and soil resources (kawaletz et al., 2014). hence, it affects regeneration too. from long ago, species richness, various diversity indices, stem density and species importance value index has been used to evaluate population dynamics and their diversity in the forest (gimaret–carpentier et al., 1998). different types of forest management practices significantly affect the structure of plant species diversity in forests (de avila et al., 2015). however, the script of the management objectives also plays a crucial part in determining plant diversity and species richness in the long–term (cedamon et al., 2017). species diversity refers to the frequency and variety of species within a geographical area (hmgn/ mfsc, 2002). it refers to the species richness and evenness within an area which describes the structure of the plant community. plant species are directly affected by the harvesting or management practices operated in a stand. this study showed the dominance of single species was higher,i. e. 0. 69 to 0. 84. subsequently, the diversity index was low in all the four felling series. the simpson species diversity index was found to be less in all the four felling seriesi. e. between 0. 15 to 0. 30. awasthi et al. (2020) also concluded that the silvicultural practices under scifm decreases plant diversity as the species diversity index was found to have decreased in all the managed blocks than in the unmanaged ones. the shannon–wiener index was found to be between 0. 38 to 0. 62. as these four felling series can be considered as managed forests, the present values are closely comparable to those reported by uniyal et al. (2010) from garhwal himalaya, where it was 0. 7 for the managed forests and 1. 4 for the unmanaged ones. also, the species richness and species evenness were found to be comparatively low in this study; the species richness was found to be between 0. 77 to 0. 96 while the species evenness was found to be within the range of 0. 20 − 0. 36 which could be due to the harvesting and logging practices in the felling series. harvesting operations and logging intensity are accounted to be decidedly effectual in shaping species diversity and composition (gonzález–alday et al., 2008). for example, the higher the harvesting quantity, the lesser the species diversity in scifm practices (shima et al., 2018). the cause of lowering species diversity, evenness, and richness in managed blocks is also accounted for the proportionately higher logging intensity in scifm, where just 15−30 mother trees per hectare are kept during regeneration felling in the forest (poudyal et al., 2019). the species richness indices in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year felling series in this study were found to be 0. 8298, 0. 7734, 0. 9624, and 0. 9097, respectively, indicating less species richness in our study site. a study conducted by halpern & spies (1995) and smith et al. (2005) reveled the declining of species richness due to high logging intensity in the sub–tropical forests of australia. our findings also indicated positive impacts towards regeneration status in different felling series but with less species diversity. several researchers such as carreño– rocabado et al., 2012; smith et al., 2005; and roberts & gilliam, 1995) have argued that there is less species diversity in intensively managed production forestry than natural forest. the study performed by sapkota et al. (2010) also found the significant decline in the species diversity along the disturbance gradient in s. robutsa forest in nepal. the additional management activities like fertilization, grazing, and herbicide application could also affect the species composition and diversity of vegetation in addition to the initial effect of logging and preparation of site. shima banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 35 aryal et al. et al. (2018) concluded that species diversity increased with the decreasing logging intensity in malaysia suggesting that the active management activities and logging practices in forests would change the species composition with due regards of changes in species mortality and recruitment. conclusion this study conducted a comparative analysis about the regeneration status and species diversity in different felling series of the shringigh at cf where scifm was practiced. we found that scifm resulted in homogeneity of the tree species and increased the number of regeneration of the seedlings and saplings whereas it eventually decreased the species diversity within the felling series. we found that scifm practices increased the dominance of the intended/high– value species. the silvicultural operations like regeneration felling followed by the post– harvesting operations showed excessive growth in the seedlings and saplings density. similarly, the regeneration promotion activities like cleaning, weeding, thinning were found suitable for establishing the regeneration of the intended species. taking this into consideration, the cfugs, management planners and practitioners should focus on maintaining the species diversity avoiding the excessive dominance of any single species. hence, this study recommends the concerned authorities to adopt various measures for establishing a heterogeneous plant community under scifm and control the risk factors that may affect regenerations. however, the reason behind the homogeneity of the species and essential measures to maintain plant species diversity should be further studied. references acharya, k. p., chaudhary, r. p. and vetaas, o. r. 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(2003). forest management and utilization under community forestry. journal of forest and livelihood 3 (1): 37−50. yang, x., yan, d. and liu, c. (2014). natural regeneration of trees in three types of afforested stands in the taihang mountains, china. plos one 9 (9): e108744 https:// doi. org/10. 1371/journal. pone. 0108744 (accessed on june 12, 2019 ). banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal silviculture for sustainable forest management in nepal shankar adhikari guest editor silviculture division, department of forests the role of silviculture in forest management has long been acknowledged to enhance forest productivity, uphold profitability and promote social well-being. silviculture is understood as an art and science of cultivating and raising forest crops. as an art, silivicuture architects the composition and shape of forest; and as a science it predicts growth and stock of forest; and makes forest management systematic. however, all forests do not follow the same silvicultural system. it varies with species, age, geographical condition and management objectives of forest. different types of silvicultural systems are in vogue in managing different types of forests in nepal. silvicultural system based forest management could be a vehicle to achieve nepal’s forestry sector vision “forestry for prosperity”. considering this fact, the department of forests, and the department of forest research and survey have organized the first national silviculture workshop, february 8–10, 2017 entitled "silviculture for sustainable forest management (sfm)". this special issue on silviculture contains 18 selected papers from the workshop and covers a broad spectrum of forest management from the nursery and plantation management to the management of natural forest under various silvicultural system and forest management regimes. the first paper in this issue by gilmour [1] has extensively discussed the silviculture issues in the context of community forestry (cf). the author argues that "appropriate silviculture" is an important aspect in selection and use of silviculture in cf because silvicultural approaches and prescriptions need to be compatible for local users, as it has to promote long-term sustainability. for instance, silvicultural system and practices in cf with terai broadleaf forest should be different from that of mountainous coniferous forest. the author further concludes that cf will not achieve full potential only through the conventional silvicultural management; rather it is possible if a holistic view is taken and a number of conditionalities are met. these conditionalities include secure tenure, an enabling regulating framework, good governance, viable technology, adequate market knowledge and a supportive bureaucracy; out of them, appropriate silviculture is one of the prerequisites coming under the viable technology. this argument is supported by paudel [2], which has acknowledged the fact that despite being technically sounds, past efforts on silviculture based forest management in nepal have failed due to lack of institutional capacity, political back-up, and conflict in the country. considering the lessons 2 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 learned in the past, the author highlighted the vision of “forestry for prosperity”, resulting in scientific forest management initiative. yet there are several challenges to spearhead the sfm practices including inadequate human and financial resources, weak institutional and professional competency, and lack of professional and political commitments. plantation establishment and management of planted forest is another important aspect discussed in the workshop. paudel and acharya [3] assessed the survival status of planted seedling in fourteen cfs in parbat district. of total eleven species planted, only 58.6% survival rate was reported one year after the plantation. small seedling size and unhealthy seedlings were identified as the main causes of seedling mortality followed by improper transportation and handling, fire, weeds, droughts, diseases, and grazing practices. the authors suggest that regular monitoring of plantation sites, and assessment of survival rate on different ecological zones on a regular basis for the effective establishment of planted seedlings in the forest. although the earlier case has identified survival issues of the plantation in early age, dangal and das [4] presented a successful case of pinus patula plantation establishment and/or management in a denuded hill of kavrepalanchowk district, and impact of management practices on growth pattern. the authors conclude that the growth rate decreased after 12 years and the cumulative increment was higher in the lower density class but was found to have retarded rapidly after 15–17 years of age. one important lesson learned from the management implication on the growth pattern that planned thinning from the early age of 10–12 years and the final felling at the age of 30±5 years is found appropriate for p. patula to maximize volume production. plantations on a degraded land not only maximize volume and fulfill the forest products requirements but also contribute to forest landscape restoration (flr). besides pine plantation, a bamboo plantation is also a viable option for flr. gautam et al. [5]illustrated another successful case of flr on the degraded site of dhaneshwor baikiwa cf in kavrepalanchowk district. it has converted the degraded site into the productive forest through monopodial moso bamboo (phyllostachys pubescens) plantation, which could be scaled-up in a similar geographic location of mid-hill region of nepal. unlike planted forest, natural forest management is considered quite complex, and management practices and their impact on forest condition also vary from one forest type to another, and one management regime to another. a comparative study by pokharel et al. [6] on forest cover changes in community forests with other management regimes shows that silvicultural practices in community forest areas have brought relatively better positive changes in the forest condition of siwalik region of nepal. in line with earlier findings of pokharel et al. [6], khanal and adhikari [7] further illustrated how silviculture based scientific forest management supports regeneration promotion and income generation in rupandehi district. the authors found out 6.4 times increase in seedlings and 3.4 times increase in saplings after one year of regeneration felling operation with a significant increase in income and local employment in that terai district. in contrast, basnyat et al. [8] strongly argued against the concept of 3 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 replicating the exact practices of scientific forest management in terai to mid-hill community forests as having little practical relevance due to differences in biophysical and socioeconomic status in different regions. this is because of administrative decisions being more powerful in guiding forest management decisions and suggested the replacement of existing scientific approach with adaptive management in cf. yet, the authors don't oppose the ideas of applying silviculture operations in cf, instead argue for forest management operations such as forest protection, silvicultural and tending operations, should be implemented as mentioned in the management plan. despite the fact that forest inventory is the basis of designing and implementing silvicultural system and management operations in forests including cf, baral et al. [9] suggested that the inventory results did not provide proper guidance on the selection of silvicultural operations in cf. rather, silvicultural operations and systems were decided without a clear definition of the management objectives and they were very generic and largely ignored site-specific forest stand conditions. therefore the authors strongly argue that the silvicultural operations of cf should be decided based on the management objectives and conditions of the forest, while also considering the ecological and economic value of the concerned forest. further, two papers in the special issue deal with the preparation of local volume table of important species in terai region. silwal et al. [10] emphasized the need of using the height to crown base as an important variable that affects main stem volume of shorea robusta for a given diameter tree at a site, whereas shrestha et al. [11] also acknowledged the importance of local volume tables for precise site-specific volume and therefore developed local volume tables for three important tree species, namely dalbergia sissoo, s. robusta and terminalia alata. these volume tables are expected to complement the field measurement and ease in volume estimation. this might further support designing and implementing appropriate silvicultural system in different forest types. three papers in this special issue particularly took up this with reference to terai and mid-hill forests. the paper by subedi et al. [12] review silvicultural system applied in the terai region of nepal under scientific forest management to regulate yield and suggest new methods of thinning in natural forests with reference to buddha shanti collaborative forest in nawalparasi district. the authors argue that irregular shelterwood system is an appropriate system of forest management while adopting the combination of area and stem control method for yield regulation. yet, it is found that the prescribed system follows quite a rigid methodology, cumbersome and time taking process requiring total enumeration even to find out the most frequent size of pole in selected sub-compartment. on the other hand, based on the silviculture trial in mid-hill of nepal, edwin et al. [13] examined the crown and regeneration response of pine and sal forests to selected silvicultural systems and practices such as uniform shelterwood system, selection system, and negative thinning with contrasting observation in both forest types. for example, whilst rigid silvicultural systems like shelterwood and selection systems were found creating canopy gap larger than negative thinning in pine plantations and the rate of natural regeneration was directly related with the canopy gap, in shorea-castanopsis-schima (sal-katus-chilaune) 4 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 forest, negative thinning created canopy gap larger than selection system due to removal of 4-d trees. yet the authors conclude that selection and shelterwood systems are better than current practices of negative thinning in this study. moreover, in their another paper by edwin et al, (14), further raised the question regarding the relevancy of current management practices based on the use of negative and crown thinning in matured community forests. the authors then proposed a new approach of q-factor for two reasons: (i) to address the existing problem resulting from the current management practices; and (ii) sustainable community forest management for wider adoption and policy recommendation. the leasehold forest (lhf) management is relatively less studied areas in nepal. to fulfill this knowledge gap, yadav et al. [15] highlighted the significance of lhf for socio-economic benefits to the vulnerable and poor farmers through increased productivity of forestland with the use of appropriate silviculture operations. in the only paper of special issue discussing the institutional modalities of community forests in nepal, paudel et al. [16] proposed "silvo-institutional model" for a more productive, sustainable and equitable management of cf in nepal. two key findings of the paper include: (i) earlier efforts of silviculture-based forest management did not consider the policy and institutional dimension, as a result, those initiatives have failed in the past; and (ii) despite current initiatives looks promising from an active utilization of cf, they have faced with complex institutional and regulatory barriers. despite the fact that silvicultural and management issues of different forest types and regimes were primarily discussed in earlier papers, crosscutting issues such as changing forests condition in a depopulated rural landscape, and invasive species are also discussed in this issue. for example, poudel et al. [17] have illustrated an interesting relationship between migration and forest cover changes. with increased migration and farmland abandonment in the mid-hill, area under forests and shrub lands has increased and growing stock of cf is also increasing. however, these forests lack proper management and posed a higher risk of forest fire. in another paper dealing with the control measures of invasive species in grassland area, aryal et al. [18] concluded that controlled fire is better than manual cutting for the management of grassland. overall, silvicultural systems and practices were developed in nepal and several attempts were made to practice somewhat in isolation as a purely technical issue for sfm. as seen in this special issue, however, silviculture based sfm needs both technical and socio-economic aspects including appropriate inventory and resource assessment, silvicultural system and operations as well as proper institutional and governance modalities with the active engagement of relevant stakeholders. as rightly pointed out by paudel [2], various aspects to be considered for sfm in nepal include: (i) create an enabling environment towards sfm; (ii) institutional reorganization; (iii) reducing non-forestry workload of forestry staffs; (iv) establishment and strengthening of robust information system; (v) promoting long-term scientific research to better understand the response of various silvicultural systems 5 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 and management regimes; and (vi) increased investment in forest management. as shown by multiple examples from various authors in this special issue, appropriate application of silviultural systems and various operations is the piv otal for the overall enhancement of forest productivity, profitability and sustain ability. it can be assured that the community and nation both receive increased benefits from the implementation of silviculture based forest management in nepal. all relevant stakeholders including forest administration, local communities, academician and civil society need to come closer in developing and implementing site specific silvicultural systems for ensuring sustainable forest management and harness larger economic and ecological returns. footnote: 1. gilmour, d. silviculture and community forestry: looking backwards, looking forwards. 2. poudel, k. c. silviculture for forest management in nepal. 3. paudel, g. and acharya, r. survival status of young plantations in parbat district, nepal. 4. dangal, s. p., and das, a. k. effect of management practice and age on increment in pinus patula plantations in nepal. 5. gautam, g. p., aryal r. r., and lamichhane, p. restoration of degraded land through moso bamboo (phyllostachys pubescens) plantation in the mid-hills of nepal. 6. pokharel, b. k., upreti, d. r., niraula, r. r., and pokharel, r. r. an assessment of the impact of silviculture and forest management regimes to forest cover change in the churia region during 1992 to 2014. 7. khanal. y. and adhikari, s. regeneration promotion and income generation through scientific forest management in community forestry: a case study from rupandehi district, nepal. 8. basnyat, b., treue. t., and pokharel r. k. silvicultural madness: a case from the “scientific forestry initiatives” in the community forests of nepal. 9. baral, s. g., vacik, h., chhetri b. b. k., and gauli, k. the pertinent role of forest inventory in making choice of silvicultural operations in community forests of nepal. 10. silwal, r., baral, s. k., and chhetri, b. b. k., modeling taper and volume of sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) trees in the western terai region of nepal. 11. shrestha, h. l., kafle, m. r., khanal k., mandal, r. a., and khanal, k. developing local volume tables for three important tree species in nawalparasi and kapilvastu districts. 12. subedi, v. r., bhatta, k. d., paudel, i. p., and bhattarai, p. application of silvicultural system, yield regulation and thinning practices in natural forests: case study from western terai. 13. cedamon, e., paudel, g., basyal, m., nuberg, i., and paudel, n. crown and regeneration responses to silviculture systems in pine and sal forests: preliminary results from silviculture trials in mid-hills nepal. 14. cedamon, e., paudel, g., basyal, m., nuberg, i., and shrestha, k. k. applications of single-tree selection guideline following a dbq approachon nepal’s community forests. 15. yadav, k. k., kafley, g. p., and yadav, k. p. linking silvicultural aspects of pro-poor leasehold forestry for socioeconomic benefits to the poor and vulnerable communities. 16. sharma paudel, n., ojha, h., shrestha, k., cedamon, e., karki, r., paudel, g., basyal, m., nuberg, i., and dangal, s. towards active utilisation of community forestry: silvo-institutional model for sustainable forest management in nepal. 17. poudel, m., kafle, g., khanal, k., dhungana, s., oli, b. n., dhankal, a., and acharya, u. linking land use and forestry transition with depopulation in rural nepal. 18. aryal, u., wagle, b. h., lamichhane, b., parajuli, a., and thapa, p. effectiveness of control measures of mikania micrantha on grassland: a case study from grassland in sauraha area of chitwan national park. note:1-18 are papers published in bankojanakari, special issue on silviculture, special issue no. 4, 2018. 62 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1, 2025 pp 62-70 https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i1.63355 why is nepal struggling to halt timber imports despite being rich in forest cover: a critical review from a theoretical lens? r. b. dangi this paper unveils the historical background of timber production, trade, and revenue collection. it also delves into spatial dynamics and the countries’ competitiveness to evaluate the comparative advantage of timber industry. furthermore, it analyzes the effects of tax, non-tax, and export duties on timber to explainwhy timber import substitution became elusive. the paper concludes by suggesting market-driven royalty fees for nf/nipf-produced softwood and transferring benefits of international best practices to make domestic timber competitive and substitute imports. key words: nepal; stumpage value; harvesting cost; demand; revenue; economic rent. timber trade in nepal dates back almost two centuries and gained momentum along with the railway expansion in northern and northeast india. poor road facilities compelled using rivers in timber shipment. in the early nineteenth century, a 2.5 percent export duty was levied under the trade treaty signed in 1792, which provisioned reciprocal import duty between nepal and british india (whelpton, 1987). however, the actual measurement of raw logs was unclear, and export regulation was weak. indian contractors monopolized timber extraction (regmi, 1971), often paying export duties less than the logging cost paid to the labor (hamilton, 1819). the sugauli treaty of 1816 allowed indian merchants to exploit nepal’s sal forests to export timber (hodgson, quoted by regmi, 1971). by 1882, a bilateral agreement between nepal and the british india government facilitated the export of 17,000 pieces of round logs within three years (mulmi, 2017). but measurement practice was primitive, relied on lump-sum duties for loaded boats and bull carts at exit points. efforts to standardize volume measurement by practicing the hoppus formula failed due to the resistance from merchants (tiwari, 2000). the forbesganj-jogbani railway extension in 1911 enabled the import of cheap sal timber from eastern terai, which boosted planned settlement for hill migrants and timber export. as per the nepal-britain treaty of friendship in 1923, nepal provided 200,000 broad-gauge sleepers to britain for free, supervised by british forester j.v. collier (collier, 1928). during his tenure, nepal experienced extensive deforestation in terai virgin forests (tiwari, 2000; adhikari & dhungana, 2010; chaudhary et al., 2016; ranjit, 2019). democratic reforms were initiated after the promulgation of democracy in 1950. public policies began to transform, which also influenced the forestry sector governing system. after the restoration of the multi-party system in the 1990s, new forest laws and bylaws were enforced to implement the master plan for the forestry sector (mpfs), which promoted community forestry to restore the degraded hills. however, political unrest and civil war disrupted forest management activities, and increased timber imports to meet urban demand. the 2000 forest policy banned green tree felling, further disturbed domestic timber production and supply chain. to address those challenges, the government attempted to implement the scientific forest management procedure, 2014, the forestry sector strategy for 2016-2025, and the forest policy, 2019 (dof, 2014; mofe, 2016; 2019). despite these initiatives, timber production stagnated, and imports nepal forest service (retired) email: reshamdangi@gmail.com received: 01, march 2024 revised: 24, november 2024 accepted: 03, february 2025 published: 30, may 2025 https://orcid.org/0009-0001-9626-0768 63 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1dangi reached 0.3 million m3 in 2022/23 (doc, 2023), contributing one-fourth of the domestic market (dangi, 2024). the scientific forest management program, though aimed to contribute to achieving policy goals, prematurely ended, with a marginal contribution to reduce timber imports. materials and methods this paper is based on desk research and uses qualitative and quantitative information from various sources, including the internet, government-published and unpublished documents, scholarly publications, online platforms, and textbooks. where required and appropriate, insights from forestry professionals and practitioners were gathered through personnel interactions to support theoretical reasoning. this paper uses the following four research questions to identify bottlenecks in timber production and develop a strategic roadmap to enhance timber production and reduce imports. first, what policy measures were adopted to increase domestic production and reduce imports? second, why does the sfm practice extension process remain slow even in the production potential forests? third, how competitive are the prevailing conditions to foster domestic timber industries? fourth, what are the key determinants of timber economics, and how to achieve the policy targets? results institutional arrangement the constitution of nepal, 2015 (gon, 2015) divides state power into three levels -federal, provincial, and local– and elaborates power in schedules 6, 7, 8, and 9. it mandates governments to execute policies to conserve and promote natural resources, share benefits, and maintain forest cover for ecological balance. the ministry of forests and environment (mofe) exists to administer federal forest agencies and draft national forestry sector policies and laws. provincial forest ministries handle policy and legislation for managing national forests within their jurisdiction, consistent with federal law. the provincial ministry administers divisional forest officers (dfo), which are responsible for executing timber production plans and collecting revenue as per national and provincial laws. federal forest law/bylaw elucidates the legal and functional role of three governments, while provincial law further details management functions. the local government operation act, 2017 (gon, 2017a) grants limited authority to municipal governments. the federal forest law has recognized two separate productive assets in nfland (owned by the federal government) and biomass (usufruct rights granted to forest users). as legitimate land owners, the federal government regulates all forest regimes under nf to ensure sustainable use for societal benefits. the national forest policy, 2019 (mofe, 2019) and the forestry sector strategy for 2016-2025 (mofe, 2016) aim to maintain at least 40% of land mass under forest cover and expand sfm practices in 50% of terai forests and 25% of inner terai and mid-hill forests to produce 10 million m3 round timber annually. based on the above discussion, following takeaways can be drawn. 1. ambitious target: timber production potential is calculated by multiplying the forest area by annual growth (mai). however, such predictions overlook spatial and regulatory constraints, such as slope restrictions under the chure master plan, which lead to estimation error. 2. implementation gaps: disparities between predicted and actual harvests highlight the need for improved governance, technical capacity, and financial support to extend sfm practices effectively. forests suitable for timber production recalling the ambitious policy targets, the issue was investigated by adapting a modified framework model, initially developed in the 19th century by a german economist, johann heinrich von thünen, for agricultural land use planning. like other theoretical models, it also offers the opportunity to start with a simple assumption and expand later as required and appropriate. this framework is simple but effective in interpreting the interaction of production cost, transportation cost, and market access in timber production decisions, and elaborated in land use planning and forestry (hyde et al., 1991; hyde et al., 1996; dangi, 2000; dangi & william, 2001; hyde, 2003; angelsen, 2007 & 2010; hyde, 2012; han et al., 2022; dangi, 2024). the value of a timber tree is a function of the expected revenue received upon delivering raw timber at sawmill. that means harvested raw logs get reasonable prices if the mill is nearby and delivery 64 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 dangi cost is minimal. therefore, timber harvesting is often high in forests near roads or seaports due to lower transportation costs and proximity to markets and processing facilities (kaimowitz & angelsen, 1998; angelsen, 2010). similar logic holds in the framework below, where va and vf represent the value function of the land under agriculture and forestry, respectively. both land uses require investment by the owner to secure property rights on those assets, as described by cost function ca and cf for agriculture and forestry, respectively. go far away (close to d). such remote forests remain as unmanaged old-growth natural forests. above discussion leads us to the following takeaways: 1. due to socio-economic and ecological constraints, not all forests in fragile hills and remote areas are suitable for producing timber. 2. the increased migration has a counterproductive impact in expanding sfm practice. timberproducing potential forests were estimated and were represented by point b to b', point b' to c and nearby point c under nipf, cf, and gmf respectively. the competitive advantage of the timber industry the government has reduced timber export duty to earn foreign currency and balance the trade deficit. we adopt michael e. porter’s five forces, an industry-level analysis tool, to understand the external competitive environment. this tool offers a strategic guide for input product suppliers to position themselves within the timber industry. this framework is adapted in competitive strategy development using five driving forces (jelicic, 2019), though it is less common in the timber industry. we attempt to scan the competitive advantage of the domestic timber industry in nepal by adapting the five forces analysis tool. 1. factor conditions: from earlier discussion, not all forests in nepal are suitable for producing timber due to demographic and ecological constraints. one study estimates 2.02 million hectares of nf ideal for timber production, capable of producing 2.9 million m3 (dangi, 2024). raw timber export restrictions in the past had favored establishing timber sawmills, but poor public infrastructure electrification, rural road networks, led to concentrate in the lowland urban centers. 2. demand conditions: recalling timber demand for 2020 of 3.7 million m3 (kanel et.al., 2012); it was assumed that rural demand is satisfied by the local community forests and trees nurtured in the private lands. one study estimates that the current timber supply in the formal market is 2.7 million m3 contributing three-fourth of the domestic market (dangi, 2024). the remaining one-fourth is contributed by imported timber, which is recorded at 0.3 million m3 in fy 2022/23 (doc, 2023). the lowland forests have greater commercial value, but the chure master plan adopts a limited-use approach in forests for above 19 degrees slope and strict protection figure 1: impact of spatial dynamics in timber production appraisal the land owner has an incentive to manage agriculture up to (b), and forest up to (c), where cost equals return, respectively. therefore, land b to b' is underutilized farmland, where natural trees grow or plant trees as non-industrial private forest (nipf). the return obtained from land (b to b') merely covers the cost of intensive farming practices and is set aside for specific uses that require low labor inputs. beyond b', the vf is above the va, so land from b' to c would be left as natural forests and managed by local communities as community forests (cf, includes collaborative and community forests), and forests beyond c remains as unmanaged public forests. this is elaborated elsewhere at a greater length. under high-migration scenarios, the cost curve shifts to the left, making management costly, and cf tends to remain passive (left to point c). though such forests do have the potential to produce positive returns, the labor shortages need to allow users to manage them by following technical standards. the dfo has the financial and technical capacity to manage part of the forests near point c as government managed forest (gmf), but significant costs may not allow them to go far away (close to d). such remote forests remain as unmanaged old-growth natural forests. above discussion leads us to the following takeaways: 1. due to socio-economic and ecological constraints, not all forests in fragile hills and remote areas are suitable for producing timber. figure 1: impact of spatial dynamics in timber production appraisal the land owner has an incentive to manage agriculture up to (b), and forest up to (c), where cost equals return, respectively. therefore, land b to b' is underutilized farmland, where natural trees grow or plant trees as non-industrial private forest (nipf). the return obtained from land (b to b') merely covers the cost of intensive farming practices and is set aside for specific uses that require low labor inputs. beyond b', the vf is above the va, so land from b' to c would be left as natural forests and managed by local communities as community forests (cf, includes collaborative and community forests), and forests beyond c remains as unmanaged public forests. this is elaborated elsewhere at a greater length. under high-migration scenarios, the cost curve shifts to the left, making management costly, and cf tends to remain passive (left to point c). though such forests do have the potential to produce positive returns, the labor shortages need to allow users to manage them by following technical standards. the dfo has the financial and technical capacity to manage part of the forests near point c as government managed forest (gmf), but significant costs may not allow them to 65 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1dangi for above 31 degrees gradient (gon, 2017b). such environmental standards impact timber production and supply. 3. related and supporting industries: timber processing industries are concentrated where electrification and road facilities are reasonably better. softwood processing industries (sawmill, veneer, and plywood) are operating where public infrastructure is better and softwood logs are available at reasonable price and quantities. the hardwood processing units are concentrated in the lowlands where hardwood is produced by nf. sawmills in big cities use both domestic and imported timber (hardwood/softwood) for construction and furniture-making. thus, urban area consume large share of processed timber in the construction and furniture-making industries. 4. firm strategy, structure, and rivalry: reduced export duty is likely to increase demand for raw timber export and make it expensive for existing industries. existing industries will face tight competition for input products. firms with diversified operation such as sawmills supplementing furniture making, may face exit barriers, forcing them to operate at a price merely covering variable costs. it risks increasing competition and reducing employment for skilled labor. the reduced export duty increases export opportunities, but risks raw timber leaving the country, and making it expensive for domestic industries. however, fragmented forests, lack of economies of scale, and legal compliance pose challenges. timber supply barriers due to poor internal governance risk distortion in the supply chain, new entrants would face cost disadvantages in switching delivery channels. above-stated entry barriers discourage new entrants. 5. government influence: the availability of imported timber risks the domestic industry’s switch to imports making the input product market volatile. the market for softwoods is much price-sensitive and low-priced imported timber risks making domestic softwood less attractive. saw-mill, veneer industry, construction industry, and furniture-making industry are the principal raw softwood buyers. the nipf contributes about two-thirds of raw softwood, and export opportunities increase the bargaining power of suppliers in the veneer industries. the veneer is the input product for plywood industries, and plywood is the input product for the furniture industry. the furniture industry may exercise the power to substitute plywood based on price and preference. since nipf producers have weaker bargaining power, nf producers can influence the market. in that context, the government can ensure consistent timber supply at competitive prices by implementing sfm practices in all timber-producing potential forests to reduce competition among existing industries. the fiscal incentive to invest in advanced technologies would help to reduce costs, improve quality, and diversify output for the broader market. the institutional support to eliminate regulatory hurdles in nipf will further enhance the competitive position of domestic timber. strategic insights for timber production timber producers consider market price (marginal revenue, mr) and production cost (marginal cost, mc) to determine timber quantities to produce and supply. they aim to maximize return when mr exceeds mc, which emphasizes the importance of accurate pricing and cost estimation in sustainable timber economics. discussion was simplified by assuming price represents the average weighted market value of one unit of raw timber, and mc represents the weighted average cost to produce one unit of raw timber (measured in ft3 or m3) in below figure 2 and figure 3. in the non-competitive process in figure 2, the buyers face cost function (ch) that include royalty fee (r), and production cost. suppose, saw-mill gate price of timber is (p), then producer collects upfront revenue equivalent to area rfoh. the revenue for the producer depends on the volume, inaccurate volume measurement leads to low economic rent to the producer. if buyers adopt selective logging at (h), leave low-quality trees uncut, and earn equivalent paer and capture economic rent equivalent cge. in the competitive process in figure 3, producers determine stumpage fee (p''), which is above royalty fee (r). it allows buyers to estimate sawmill price and subtract production costs (includes stumpage fee, harvesting cost, and average profit) to quote offer price (stumpage value) to producers. generally, the quoted price exceeds the stumpage fee, and the owner captures the difference between the stumpage value and the royalty fee as an economic rent. recall from figure 2, it was captured by the buyer. while related, the royalty fee and stumpage value serve different 66 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 dangi figure 2: buyers capture economic rent figure 3: producers capture economic rent in in non-competitive process (pre-harvest) competitive process (pre & post-harvest) difficult topography difficult topography figure 2: buyers capture economic rent figure 3: producers capture economic rent in in non-competitive process (pre-harvest) competitive process (pre & post-harvest) difficult topography difficult topography figure 2: buyers capture economic rent figure 3: producers capture economic rent in in non-competitive process (pre-harvest) competitive process (pre & post-harvest) difficult topography difficult topography figure 2: buyers capture economic rent figure 3: producers capture economic rent in in non-competitive process (pre-harvest) competitive process (pre & post-harvest) difficult topography difficult topography roles in timber economics. thus, economic rent and stumpage value are related but distinct concepts in forest economics (grut et al., 1991; newman & wear, 1993; day, 1998; vincent & gill, 1998; eismont et al., 2002; fao, 2005; amacher et al., 2009). post-harvest auction is common among producers in nf and nipf practice pre-harvest price negotiation. however, the post-harvest model follows the same theoretical argument which has been elaborated earlier for figure 3. producers intend to make earnings by determining the p'' above the r. whoever offers p' more than p'' that gets approval after depositing upfront revenue (p' x q), where q represents the timber volume (m3). thus, accurate estimation pushes buyers to go beyond (h) to recover upfront payment; if extended up to (d), then the producer earns equivalent to p'cod and pp'ab by the buyer. timber buyers may try to harvest up till the contract amount (q) earns a positive return (up to point d). if (q) is achieved at level (h), the buyer may try to highgrade for maximum return. thus, underestimation in timber appraisal incentivizes the buyer to stay close to (h), and allow producers to earn rent of p'ap''e. the accurate estimation pushes buyers to extend up to (d) to recover upfront payment, and the producer earns equivalent to p'cod and pp'ab by the buyer. thus, stumpage fees and volume estimation error influence the net returns to producers and buyers. this is why the inaccurate volume estimation formula, such as hoppus method, favors timber buyers at the cost of the producers? based on above discussion, following strategic insights were presented to enhance domestic timber production: 1. competitive mechanisms increase revenue for producers, decrease incentive for buyers to decide selective logging, and encourage the use of timber resources. 2. elevated fee structure risks reducing timber demand. producers need to consider the elasticity of demand to respond to such risk while maintaining competitiveness. 3. flexible fee customized to timber location and quality, and fiscal incentives to expand sfm practice, and investment in advanced technology enhances the competitiveness of the domestic timber industry. discussion majorities of timber production predictions for nepal have relied on estimated gross forest area and average annual growth (mai). however, timber logging in ecologically sensitive areas such as fragile mountains, sensitive watersheds, and biodiversity hotspots risks threatening local and downstream communities, where society expects strict regulation. authorities respond by enforcing standards, which increase production costs and narrows the viable forests available for timber production. therefore, such predictions based solely on forest area and growth rate may be overly optimistic. the data accessed from seven provincial forest directorates for fiscal year 2020/21 to 2022/23 shows that nipf producers dominate the formal market, contributing 82% while natural forests under the nf account for 18% (dangi, 2024). the timber production trend in nf has not been very impressive for the last fifteen years (figure 5); downturns in 2010 figure 2: buyers capture economic rent in noncompetitive process (pre-harvest) figure 3: producers capture economic rent in competitive process (pre & post-harvest) 67 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1dangi and 2020 indicate disturbances in timber production due to administrative hurdles, reflecting general criticism of public forest management in a weak governance context. in mid-hills, nipf producers nurture trees to produce non-wood products (e.g., fodder, fuel-wood). they tend to produce timber in small quantities and individual producers cannot influence the market and accept the prices buyers offer. as price takers, individual firms face an elastic demand curve that appears horizontal, as explained in klemperer (1996). in low-land, nipf producers plant fastgrowing commercial timber species benefiting from a competitive local market. they reflect perfectly inelastic behavior, as explained by newman and wear (1993). relaxing export duties could escalate buyer competition raising timber prices in low-lands. whereas, mid-hill producers get marginal benefits as price takers. stumpage price, and have to comply with the standards. consequently, hardwood prices remain relatively high, reflecting the limited supply. nf producers influence the market as price setters and face an inelastic demand curve. there are two primary revenue sources: tax and non-tax revenues. stumpage fees are the principal sources, if buyers express willingness to pay a high price then there is no reason to lower it. overpricing risks reducing domestic demand and stockpiling. stockpiling further diminishes value due to reduced usability. these economic implications are further elaborated elsewhere (amacher et al., 2003). since underpricing risks over-exploitation for exporting, it harms the domestic industries. to mitigate such pricing issues, adoption of a market-responsive stumpage fee has been suggested that take account of the relative prices of similar products in domestic and international markets. with reference to the debate, high stumpage fees determined by the government have made domestic timber less competitive than imports. it has been argued in response that this is partially true, given that producers in the lowlands are understood to face an inelastic demand curve. the buyer’s willingness to pay high prices for preferred timber species may negate competitiveness concerns. historical insights (e.g., weintraub, 1958) emphasize that properly adjusted stumpage fees help sustain timber production without negotiating demand. conclusion nepal’s timber trade history spans over two centuries, manifested by the massive deforestation in terai to export timber for railway expansion in adjoining northeast india. the planned settlement for hill migrants in terai further elevated deforestation to expand farmland. decentralized forestry governance practiced in 1990 contributed to improving forest quality and expanding forest cover. national policy and programs emphasized extending sfm practice to enhance timber production. despite all such efforts, timber production did not improve, and imports continued. the timber supply potential of nepal is estimated at 2.7 million m3 annually in the formal market from nipf and nf producers. nipf producers dominate the softwood market, and nf producers dominate hardwoods. the nf producers’ contribution to the formal domestic market is less than that of nipf due to the regulatory obligations. due to the high demand for domestic hardwoods, nf producers act as price figure 4: timber production trend (by regime) figure 5: timber production trend (aggregate) (source: dangi, 2024) (source: mof, 2022) the nf producers, managing old-growth forests, face stricter regulation as per the societal expectation. timber production and sales involves paying stumpage price, and have to comply with the standards. consequently, hardwood prices remain relatively high, reflecting the limited supply. nf producers influence the market as price setters and face an inelastic demand curve. there are two primary revenue sources: tax and non-tax revenues. stumpage fees are the principal sources, if buyers express willingness to pay a high price then there is no reason to lower it. overpricing risks reducing domestic demand and stockpiling. stockpiling further diminishes value due to reduced usability. these economic implications are further elaborated elsewhere (amacher et al., 2003). since underpricing risks over-exploitation for exporting, it harms the domestic industries. to mitigate such pricing issues, adoption of a market-responsive stumpage fee has been suggested that take account of the relative prices of similar products in domestic and international markets. with reference to the debate, high stumpage fees determined by the government have made domestic timber less competitive than imports. it has been argued in response that this is partially true, given that producers in the lowlands are understood to face an inelastic demand curve. the buyer�s willingness to pay high prices for preferred timber species may negate competitiveness concerns. historical insights (e.g., weintraub, 1958) emphasize that properly adjusted stumpage fees help sustain timber production without negotiating demand. conclusion figure 4: timber production trend (by regime) (source: dangi, 2024) figure 5: timber production trend (aggregate) (source: mof, 2022) figure 4: timber production trend (by regime) figure 5: timber production trend (aggregate) (source: dangi, 2024) (source: mof, 2022) the nf producers, managing old-growth forests, face stricter regulation as per the societal expectation. timber production and sales involves paying stumpage price, and have to comply with the standards. consequently, hardwood prices remain relatively high, reflecting the limited supply. nf producers influence the market as price setters and face an inelastic demand curve. there are two primary revenue sources: tax and non-tax revenues. stumpage fees are the principal sources, if buyers express willingness to pay a high price then there is no reason to lower it. overpricing risks reducing domestic demand and stockpiling. stockpiling further diminishes value due to reduced usability. these economic implications are further elaborated elsewhere (amacher et al., 2003). since underpricing risks over-exploitation for exporting, it harms the domestic industries. to mitigate such pricing issues, adoption of a market-responsive stumpage fee has been suggested that take account of the relative prices of similar products in domestic and international markets. with reference to the debate, high stumpage fees determined by the government have made domestic timber less competitive than imports. it has been argued in response that this is partially true, given that producers in the lowlands are understood to face an inelastic demand curve. the buyer�s willingness to pay high prices for preferred timber species may negate competitiveness concerns. historical insights (e.g., weintraub, 1958) emphasize that properly adjusted stumpage fees help sustain timber production without negotiating demand. conclusion round timber production trend for fy 2007/08 2021/22 (in m3) the nf producers, managing old-growth forests, face stricter regulation as per the societal expectation. timber production and sales involves paying 68 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 dangi setters, whereas the nipf producers vary in demand elasticity depending on their locations. nepal has recently enforced a policy shift by relaxing previously practiced high export duty for raw timber to boost exports. however, a landlocked nation with a limited capacity risks elevating competition for existing domestic industries, threatening job opportunities for skilled labor. there is a need to align domestic timber prices with imported prices and revise royalty fees to maintain competition. practicing a transparent mechanism was recommended by the concerned authorities to review royalty fees by involving experts to prevent potential conflicts. in summary, nepal needs to learn from timberexporting countries, such as malaysia, indonesia, and vietnam, to execute strategic reform. hence, conclusion was made by suggesting the concerned authorities focus on expanding sfm practices, practicing accurate volume measurement methods for harvested round logs, adapting market-driven royalty fees for nf/nipf-produced softwoods, and taking advantage of international best practices to strengthen the domestic timber industry while safeguarding environmental and economic goals. acknowledgement the author extends sincere thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, which were invaluable in enhancing the theoretical frameworks of this paper. conflict of interest the author reports no conflicts of interest and takes full responsibility for the analysis and conclusions. the findings of this paper do not necessarily reflect the organization’s views, where the author had prior professional engagements. references adhikari, j., & dhungana, h. 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[doctoral dissertation]. department of history, school of oriental and african studies, university of london, uk. https://soas-repository.worktribe. com/output/410887 40 nepal began systematic climate change adaptation (cca) planning after the initiative of the united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc) in 2001 as the cop7 (decision 1/cp. 7) decided to formulate and implement national adaptation program of action (napa) in the least developed countries (ldcs), and established the least developed countries (ldc) fund, special climate change fund (sccf), and adaptation banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2, 2021 pp 40‒50https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v31i2.41900 climate change adaptation governance in nepal: a framework for sustainable generationof adaptation services poverty and high dependency of rural and mountainous households on the natural resources of nepal have made the country more vulnerable to climate change. on the other hand,there is inadequacy of adaptation services provided to the vulnerable households and ecosystems. responding to climate change necessitates a more consolidated effort and effective implementation interventions from both the government and non–government actors. to help achieve this very essence, this study has aimed to– (i) review the existing climate change adaptation (cca)practices, processes and patterns of sustainable resource mobilization and benefit sharing, and (ii) develop a framework that ensures sustainability of resources and equitable sharing of services and benefits accrued from cca. consultations with the communities, key state and non–state stakeholders both at federal and provincial levels, reviews of national policies, strategies, periodic plans and programs and field visits were carried out to synthesize the information, document the knowledge, and highlight the gaps pertaining to cca. qualitative content analysis (qca) was executed for analyzing qualitative information. recently, the government of nepal has developed a priority framework on sustainable resource management and delivery of adaptation services. in line with the eight themes identified by the national climate change policy (nccp, 2019), the proposed framework has paid central attention on medium and long–term adaptation planning adhered with ecosystem–based adaptation (eba) and community–based adaptation (cba). building resilience, reducing vulnerability, increasing capacities, enabling environment, and integrating cca in development planning have been the focus of the framework. it is found that the delivery of adaptation services to the climate vulnerable groups and poor communities is well reached out through cba and eba approaches. it is therefore, crucial in strengthening community– and locally– based mechanisms (such as forest–user groups, farmers groups, agricultural and fisheries cooperatives, and community networks) for sustainable management and delivery of services to facilitate effective adaptation. keywords: adaptation service, benefit sharing, climate change, eba, sustainable resources. g. karki 1*, b. bhatta 1, n. r. devkota 2 and r. m. kunwar 3 received : 22, august, 2021 revised : 25, november, 2021 accepted : 23, december, 2021 published : 31, december, 2021 1 agriculture and forestry university, bharatpur, nepal. *e-mail: gyanendra.karki@icdpi.org 2 gandaki university, pokhara, nepal 3 food and agriculture organization of the united nations, kathmandu, nepal https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6414-4076 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9303-0932 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 41 karki et al. fund (af). the millennium development goals (2001), 10thperiodic development plan (2002−2006), sustainable development agenda (2003), and poverty reduction strategy paper (2003) are the entry–level protocols for addressing climate change issues in nepal. since 2002, the government of nepal recognized climate change as an emerging issue when the 10th plan (2002−2007) aimed at working the influence of weather on national economy (agrawal et al., 2003). the plan accompanied by medium–term expenditure framework (mtef) paper for the agriculture sector paid attention to curb climate–related risks. the first national communication (natcom–1) report to the unfccc (2004) provided an overview of the national circumstances that reflects nepal’s capacity to respond to climate issues. the national capacity need self–assessment (ncsa) (2008) accounted a report to jointly implement multilateral environmental agreements (moest, 2008), and came up with the challenges of climate change. these initiatives may advocate changes in practices and technologies, diversification of livelihood systems, and reconfiguring resource allocation and collective actions to access services, resources or markets as climate change actions (ncvst, 2009). adaptation to climate change has gained a prominent place on global, national, and local policy agendas only after 2010 (swart et al., 2014). nepal prepared national adaptation program of action (napa) in september 2010 with documentation of national climate change vulnerability and measures to identify the immediate and urgent cca needs and priorities. the redd readiness preparation proposal (2010), national framework on lapa (2011), and climate change policy (2011) were some other key strategic moves towards advancement of cca(regmi & karki, 2010). while proceeding, the nepal national adaptation plan (nap) process started in 2015 complements the mission that enables achieving sustainable development goals (sdg 2030) and cca together (karki et al., 2017). the government of nepal has endorsed the national climate change policy (nccp) (2019) that aims to contribute to the nation’s socio–economic prosperity by building a climate– resilient society. sustainability of resources and equitability in sharing the benefits and services are envisioned in the nccp. significance of the study translating policies and protocols into actions requires enhancing the knowledge through scientific investigation, understanding the task, implementing the efficient and acceptable measures, generating the resources, fair sharing the benefits and building ownership through development programs. however, the mechanism for cca resource management and benefit sharing in nepal is hitherto unknown. the research on climate change and adaptation rendering implications to the national–level strategic way forwards for sustainable development and building resilience and adaptive capacity in nepal are limited (gentle et al., 2018). the current climate change research agendas are consequence focused, not the cause, drivers and options based (kunwar, 2020). it should also be equally relevant to address the “uncertainties” and “surprises” (karki et al., 2020) that arise from future climate change and its impacts, and pave the way forward that balances the adaptation services and benefits (schneider & kuntz–duriseti, 2002). in this regard, this study, through the review, consultation and assessment of available adaptation services and needs, aims at developing a framework on 'how and where the adaptation services are generated, and what could be the best vehicle to distribute those adaptation services to the most vulnerable systems and households while giving due focus on sustainability of resources and equability of benefits and services. materials and methods study sites the fieldwork for this study was conducted in aabukhaireni (27° 54'– 27° 57' e latitudes and 84° 24'– 84° 32'n longitudes) of tanahun district and panchase (28° 15' – 28° 23' e latitudes and 83° 48' – 83° 51' n longitudes) of kaski district, both situated in the mid–hills of central nepal (figure 1). as mid–hills are highly populated and curtailed by climate change, we banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 42 karki et al. selected aabukhaireni from tanahun district and panchase from kaski district as our study sites. the fieldwork was carried out in december2020, and was facilitated by two local assistants. methods climate–change–related programs, technical reports and other published documents were reviewed for the purpose of the study. the review was complemented by consultative process where the national, provincial, community and local stakeholders were interviewed. the data collection method was complemented by fieldworks. a 15– day–long fieldwork was carried out to obtain information regarding where and how the cca resources, services and benefits had developed and shared. field observation and discussion at aabukhaireni helped collate information on climate change impact, vulnerabilities, and adaptation services at community–managed sites while that at panchase helped record the account of the same from the temperate and protected forests. the field visit at panchase also helped observe and assess the impacts of the intervention of eba. twenty–six respondents from both sites representing community forest user group (cfug) members, farmers, and village–elders were interviewed for acquiring the needed data and information. the major climate change adaptation services that tightly intrigued with climate stress, shocks, vulnerabilities & risks, and that helped promote lessening those constraints were sought while carrying out the fieldwork. data analysis in course of data analysis, a qualitative method with quantitative steps was followed since the qualitative information were quantified and measured for qualitative content analysis (qca) (mayring, 2014). with due focus on sustainable management, generation and delivery of cca services and adherence with the eight major thematic areas identified by nccp (2019), a framework on sustainable generation and delivery of adaptation services to the most vulnerable systems and communities figure 1:map showing the location of the study–sites banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 43 karki et al. was proposed. additional focus was given on keeping on reducing vulnerability, strengthening institutions, enabling environment and integrating cca in development planning for strengthening adaptive capacity and building more resilient system of cca. results understanding climate change vulnerability and adaptation services climate change vulnerabilities and impacts on rural livelihood–base such as reduction in crop yields, destruction of homes and increase in food prices and food in security were common in the studied districts. the local residents also responded that the climate–induced erratic rainfall triggered landslides that caused in land degradation and crop loss in and around the study area. here,the erratic rainfall was primary, landslide was secondary and land degradation and crop loss were tertiary impacts caused by climate change (figure 2). the climate change effects and their adaptation measures were observed to be different, locally developed in the study sites, as assumed;the warming effects were locally adapted and local counter measures were developed in panchase area of kaski district,which could be due to more community–centric and ecosystem–based adaptation–led works where forest–products– based local livelihood might have helped the communities resilient to climate change. the local communities in the mountains have long been using their indigenous knowledge for cca. the common adaptation practices adopted by the local people of kaski and tanahun districts included seasonal and/or permanent outmigration, redesigning their houses, diversifying livelihood portfolios, raising perennial vegetation around the settlements by planting bamboos in their homesteads for controlling soil erosion, forest– product collection and their storage, and ecotourism. climate adaptation services and priority activities panchase area demonstrated that the climate adaptation services rendered from the available ecosystem services were also due to the social coherence, which was also reflected in lavorel et al. (2015), supported the local residents to be resilient to climate change and variability. adaptation services complement the ecosystem services approach, and helps people develop choices for adaptation to climate change (figure 3). it is, therefore, imperative to carry out to offer cca options and services at local–levels. we observed that the climate services fostered the provision of more and better climate information/data (forecasts, modeling) that allowed farmers to fine–tune their planting, harvesting and marketing strategies based on climate forecasts (goosen et al., 2013; wmo, 2015; webber, 2017). resilience, adaptive capacity challenges adaptation strategies climate change primary impacts: change in temperature, precipitation secondary impacts: floods, droughts, heat tertiary impacts: yield loss, diseases outbreak, human casualties exposure vulnerability policy, plans and programs research and projects adaptation figure 2: climate change adaptation service approach (adapted from goosen et al., 2013) banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 44 karki et al. climate change ecosystem services natural disturbances management ecosystem state ecosystem function adaptation services that reduce climate vulnerability management for adaptation services figure3: adaptation service framework (adapted from lavorel et al., 2015) our study found the following adaptation services from the reflection of community experiential learning, desk mining and field observation, which could be grouped under six thematic areas (table 1); out of the 55 adaptation services catalogued, 14 were being practiced in kaski and tanahun districts. table 1: thematic areas and potential sectors where additional cca services can be generated thematic areas potential areas/ sectors potential cc adaptation services and generation traits fo re st , b io di ve rs ity , a nd w at er sh ed m an ag em en t community forests (cfs), leasehold forests (lfs), buffer zone community forests (bzcfs), collaborative forests (cofs), private forests (pvtfs), protected forests (pfs), ntfps/maps • timber & non–timber–based enterprise/value addition activities in all types of forest management (e. g. saw–mills, furniture, essential oils, handmade paper, resin tapping); • promotion of agroforestry model in terai and mid–hills in pfs, lfs and other fallow lands; • utilization of underutilized forest plant species such as dhatelo (prinsepiautilis royle), chiuri (diploknema butyracea), and amriso (thysanolaena maxima); • cultivation of high–value maps such as satuwa (paris polyphylla), valerian plants (valeriana officinalis), atis (aconitum heterophyllum), ban lasun (allium wallichii), kurilo (asparagus officinalis), etc. with value addition at local–level; • forest–fire management; • sustainable forest management; • fruit tree planting. watershed management • promotion of vegetation covers in chure, mahabharat and high–mountain areas; • soil conservation practices (hedge rows plantation, zero tillage cultivation, agroforestry practices); • development of drought hardy forest species; • creation of conservation pond especially in chure foothills; • degraded land rehabilitation. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 45 karki et al. thematic areas potential areas/ sectors potential cc adaptation services and generation traits a gr ic ul tu re a nd f oo d se cu rit y agriculture • crop calendar; • high–value agriculture; • off–season vegetables (e. g. cucumber in tunnel farming). • climate–resilient seed varieties development, community seed banks; • smart agriculture practices, climate–friendly agriculture practices (terrace farming, conservation tillage, salt technology); • cover crop, rotational, multiple cropping; • agro–processing enterprises (jam, jelly); • development of drought–hardy, low–moisture–requiring cereal and vegetables, integrated pest management; • use fallow and unused land such as garlic cultivation after rice harvesting, watermelon in sandy land. horticulture and livestock • high–value horticulture (orange, mango, avocado, kiwi, dragon fruit); • native/indigenous horticulture crops such as sankhotra (citrus decumana), khurpani (prunus corbneta), lapsi (choerospondias axillaris), okhar (juglans regia), etc. ; • development of drought–hardy, water–resistant horticultural crop species; • improved shade for livestock; • plantation of forage and fodder trees; • value addition in dairy products (e. g. make paneer from milk, hard cheese); • dry meat products, caning fish. w at er a nd e ne rg y irrigation • river–bed farming; • increase irrigation facility and water use efficiency through promotion of shallow tube–well, water collection/recycling and rainwater harvesting; • promotion of low–cost irrigation technology including drip/ sprinkle irrigation, thai–jar and overhead water tank. water (springs, streams, rivers and lakes) • conserve natural springs, streams, rivers, lakes and ponds; • rainwater harvesting in water–scarce areas; • watershed management, landscape management. energy • replace the fossil fuel to green energy and hydro energy; • utilize micro–hydro and biogas: integrating adaptation and mitigation; • harness solar power; use improved cooking stoves; replace fuel wood to other types of energy; • improve water mills. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 46 karki et al. thematic areas potential areas/ sectors potential cc adaptation services and generation traits d is as te r r is k re du ct io n meteorological information, dhm • early warning system for extreme events; • data for forecasting; • flood defense: disaster risk reduction, ecological restoration; • provide scope of iga for poor and vulnerable communities; • go beyond emergency planning: sustainable management of land, soil and vegetation; • community–based seed bank/management; • village–level emergency fund, crop and livestock insurance. w at er , sa ni ta tio n an d h ea lth health • forecasting diseases outbreak; • investments in health infrastructure and facilities; • mapping watersheds and water–bodies. to ur is m a nd in fr as tru ct ur e de ve lo pm en t tourism • early warning system for extremes in major touristic areas; • ecotourism development at local–level; • nature–based tourism development in potential areas beyond protected areas; • heritage tourism development (both natural and cultural); • village tourism development in rural areas. infrastructure development • climate–resilient roads, houses and other infrastructure designs and built–ups; • piloting of gravity–rope ways. delivery of adaptation services the national framework on local adaptation plans for action (lapa) developed in 2011 and updated in 2019, presents an approach for “delivery of adaptation services to the most climate– vulnerable areas and people”. it has succeeded in mobilizing local institutions and community groups in adaptation planning and in recognizing their role in adaptation. with the advent of lapa, there are several community–level initiatives in generation and delivery of climate adaptation services. processes that are participatory and that acknowledge key government agencies and stakeholders such as local government or district–level institutions such as divisional forest office are more responsive to complement the local needs through more integrated approaches (sharma, 2009). in this regard, the significance of community–based and community– led legally authorized organizations such as forest– user groups, farmer groups, cooperatives, and community networks was clearly emphasized for the generation of adaptation services and functional flow to the needful households. nepal’s national climate change policy (nccp, 2011 and its update, 2019) have proposed eight key climate vulnerable areas where adaptation services are to be focused and delivered through the coordinating leadership of the corresponding thematic lead ministries. these areas broadly include– i) climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction; ii) low carbon development and climate resilience; iii) access to financial resources and utilization; iv) capacity building, peoples’ participation and empowerment; v) study and research; vi) technology development, transfer and utilization;and vii) climate–friendly natural resource management. yet, creating an enabling environment, building capacities of all three levels (local, provincial, and federal) of governance and active linkage amongst research, policy and practice also needs to be considered as priority while advancing adaptation. thus, service generation and delivery could sustain once direct and effective vertical and lateral communications are in place amongst central, provincial, and local governments and non–government stakeholders (figure 4). banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 47 karki et al. central government: policy, regulations, research, funding provincial government: research, programs, funding research: nast, narc, universities, other research institutes monitoring adaptation services hamlet/ ward household local government: project implementation figure 4: climate change adaptation service delivery framework discussion the study helped understand that climate–related hazards exacerbate other stressors, they often chain with negative outcomes for livelihoods, especially of the pro–poor people living in inaccessible areas. thus, the poor and rural residents of hills and mountains,who are heavily dependent on forests and other natural resources for their livelihoods are more hard–hit (mainali & pricope, 2019) and challenged by the climatic disorders. despite the local adaptation practices and application of indigenous traditional techniques, many households were already forced to abandon their dwellings, and migrated to the nearby cities/towns for the protection of their lives and earn livelihoods. out–migration of the folk population leaving their properties un–attended could be noticed in many places of panchase of kaski district and in other districts, such as manang, mustang, ramechhap and nuwakot (khatri, 2013). land abandonment due to un–attendance is prevalent in tanahun (baral et al., 2021). policy and cca service generation in spite of the promulgation of over a dozen of climate change protocols, their implementation is fairly effective,which could be attributed by the fact that they were not efficiently materialized, monitored and measured by virtue of limited capacity of the service providing and regulating bodies. in addition, the policy makers and decision makers are not well aware of the urgent call of embedded vulnerability of poor households for climate change adaptation interventions. local and community–based adaptation interventions are, therefore, needed that can address climate vulnerabilities and help rural communities adapt in better ways sooner than later. in here enabling policy environments, capacities and partnerships are prerequisite for successful adaptation at all level. napa (2010) and climate change policy (2011 and 2019) both place significant emphasis on local adaptation plans, including implementing mandatory provisions to use at least 80% of their available budget for local adaptation activities (gon, 2011). moreover, the national planning commission (npc) had developed a framework, for climate–resilient planning, that included a useful format for the appraisal of core plans, providing support, and developing institutional systems (npc, 2011). apart from the institutional approaches in service generation, there were some community–led initiatives in generating adaptation services despite the incentives are local and minimal. the locally–embedded initiatives like agroforestry system helps support agricultural production, checks air quality and soil health, maintains biodiversity, connects habitats and wildlife, sequesters carbon, and promotes regeneration of plants;the latter four being adaptation services underpin bundles of regulating services fostering the former two. as the review manifested that the delivery of adaptation services to the climate vulnerable groups of hills and mountains is immediate and could be well reached out through community– based adaptation (cba) and ecosystem–based banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 48 karki et al. adaptation (eba), it is advised to ensure that the poor and vulnerable households and communities are prioritized, and the issue of inclusion and equity and integration of adaptation plans at cfug or village–level is considered (msfp, 2016; karki et al., 2021). collaboration between political leadership and resource users such as local governments and cfugs seemed to be imperative for delivery of cca services as purported by regmi & karki (2010); fao (2011); dhakal & jamil (2015). besides, considerable investment is also a matter of concern for the purpose of generating and delivering adaptation services, and also transparent and inclusive decision processes and competent human resources and political leadership having good understanding of climate foresight are needed to best deliver the adaptation services (pettengel, 2010). a suite of services comprised of administrative, financial and institutional services is an imperative for the generation and supply of adaptation services to the climate–vulnerable households. conclusion translating policies, protocols and plans into practices requires enhanced knowledge through research, understanding the gaps, implementing the efficient and acceptable measures, managing available resources in coherence for optimum products in perpetuity, fair sharing of the benefits and building the ownership. locally–governed institutions, for resource governance, are the best powerhouse for generating adaptation services through mobilization of natural and social capitals. for the delivery of climate change adaptation services, institutional mechanisms comprised of multi–stakeholders and having interconnectedness are required to deliver adequate supply of adaptation services. as climate change adaptation planning and implementation is a multi-stakeholder country– driven process, the best possible and available option for the mobilization of natural and bio–physical capital need to be explored and restrengthened. this study concludes that there are multiple opportunities of generating adaptation services where the opportunities of mobilizing natural and social capital are available. in the present context,local communities are well acquainted with the knowledge of community– based and ecosystem–based adaptation, which need to be capitalized with the embracing of circular economy and nature–based solutions to the adverse impacts of climate change. local governments are constitutionally mandated to act on local development together with climate change adaptation and disaster risk management; therefore, their capacity of coordination and leveraging resources could play a crucial role. there is a need of capacity building of all level of governments for leveraging adaptation resources and develop multi–stakeholder partnership for synergy in actions. acknowledgements we would like to thank dr. maheshwar dhakal, ms. srijana shrestha, mr. binaya parajuli,and late man k. dhamalafor their constructive feedback on its earlier drafts. mr. ram p. acharya, mr. abdul s. ansari, mr. rajan mahat, and dr. bhagawat rimal are acknowledged for their support on data collection, curation and analysis. references agrawal, s., raksakulthai, v. a., alast, v., smith, m., reynolds, j. and larsen, p. (2003). environment directorate development co–operation. https://www. oecd. org/ environment/about/ (accessed on june 27, 2020). baral, k., sharma, h. p., kunwar, r., morley, c., aryal, a., rimal, b., and ji, w. (2021). human wildlife conflict and impacts on livelihood: a study in community forestry system in mid– hills of nepal. sustainability 13: 13170. doi:10. 3390/su132313170(accessed on december 03, 2021). dhakal, t. n. and jamil, i. (2015). community governance for climate change adaptation in nepal. in: ha, h. (ed. ). land and disaster management strategies in asia. springer, new delhi. doi:10. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 49 karki et al. 1007/978–81–322–1976–7_16(accessed on june 27, 2020). fao (2011). fao–adapt, framework program on climate change adaptation. food and agriculture organization of the united nations. rome, italy. gentle, p., thwaites, r., race, d. and alexander, k. 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(2014). qualitative content analysis. theoretical foundation. basic procedure and software solution. klagenfurt, beltz, verlag. moest (2008). national capacity need self–assessment report. ministry of environment, science and technology, singhdurbar, kathmandu nepal. 2008. msfp (2016). enhancing resilience of vulnerable communities to climate change: msfp experiences and lessons learnt. multi– banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 50 karki et al. stakeholder forestry program, kathmandu, nepal. https://www. dfae. admin. ch/dam/ countries/countries–content /nepal/en/ enhancing_resilience_of_vulnerable_ communities_to_climate_change–en. pdf(accessed on june 23, 2020). ncvst (2009). vulnerability through the eyes of vulnerable: climate change induced uncertainties and nepal's development predicaments, institute for social and environmental transition– nepal (iset–nepal), kathmandu and institute for social and environmental transition (iset) boulder, colorado for nepal climate vulnerability study team (ncvst), kathmandu. npc (2011). climate–resilient planning: a tool for long–term climate adaptation (working document). government of nepal, national planning commission. https://www. npc. gov. np/images/category/climate_resilent_ planning. pdf(accessed on january 05, 2021). pettengel, c. (2010). climate change adaptation: enabling people living in poverty to adapt. oxfam international, uk. regmi, b. r. and karki, g. (2010). local adaptation plans in nepal. tiempo, 76: 21−25. https://www. tiempocyberclimate. org (accessed on june 07, 2020). schneider, s. h. and kuntz–duriseti, k. (2002). uncertainty and climate change policy, in: climate change policy: a survey, schneider, s. h., rosencranz, a., and niles, j. o. (eds. ). island press, washington d. c. sharma, a. (2009). planning to deliver: making the rio conventions more effective on the ground: climate change, biodiversity, and desertification, gtz. webber, s. (2017). circulating climate services: commercializing science for climate change adaptation in pacific islands. geoforum 85: 82−91. wmo (2015). valuing weather and climate: economic assessment of meteorological and hydrological services (world meteorological organization, publication no. 1153). geneva, 308 pp. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 25‒32 25 lama red panda is a vegetarian member of the order carnivore mammal native to the eastern himalayas and south-western china. it was enlisted globally as an endangered on the iucn red list of threatened species in 2015 (ling xu and jing guan, 2018). it is distributed throughout himalayan mountains of nepal, india, bhutan, myanmar and china between 2200 and 4800 m altitude with an exceptional case in tropical forest of meghalaya state in india. it is found in the temperate forests of himalayas with bamboo understory (yonzon, 2000). it was estimated to be more in the eastern part particularly along the border of myanmar to yunnan (roberts and gittleman, 1984). many populations recorded with low densities in small fragmented patches of forests in china and nepal have a wider elevation range in red panda distribution (2000–3800 m) compared to other countries (thapa et al., 2018). in nepal, it is recorded at least in seven protected areas (pas) i.e. kanchenjunga conservation area (kca), makalu barun national park and buffer zone (mbnp bz), sagarmatha national park and buffer zone (snp bz), langtang national park and buffer zone (lnp bz), annapurna conservation area (aca), dhorpatan hunting reserve (dhr) and rara national park (rnp) (dnpwc, 1995; yonzon et al., 1997). these animals are recorded in those places with temperature ranging from 10 to 25o c and having pattern of average annual rainfall of 3500 mm. habitat is characterized by presence red panda (ailurus fulgens fulgens), globally an endangered species of himalaya, were studied in simsime community forest of papung village development committee (vdc) in taplejung district.. it was carried out to assess status, habitat characteristics and threats to red panda. three transects were laid out along the contours and their total length was 2200 m. the altitude of these transects varied from 2800–3400m. while moving along the transect line, the signs such as pellets, footprints and nests of red panda were searched and the gps points were recorded in those places where the signs were observed. the habitat was assessed simultaneously to describe its characteristics in this community forest. square plots of 10m * 10m, 4m * 4m and 1m*1m were laid out to assess trees, shrubs and herbs, respectively along contour lines at an altitudinal interval of 200 m between 2800 m and 3400 m and the plots were spaced at a distance of 100 m. diameter at breast height (dbh) of major tree species (juniperus spp., pinus spp., acer spp. and rhododendron spp) was measured in the plots. the signs were found in simsime community forest at an altitude of 3026 m, 3125 m and 3127 m. overall sign encounter rate for this community forest was 1.36/ km. acer spp. had the highest importance value index (ivi) and arundinaria maling was the major bamboo species with highest relative frequency (rf). based on direct field observation, major threats to red panda were found to be grazing and bamboo cutting in which majority of the respondents agreed. key words: assessment, encounter rate, habitat characteristics, red panda, status, signs, transect line status and distribution of red panda (ailurus fulgens fulgens) in simsime community forest of papung vdc of taplejung district, nepal b. lama1 1 forest research and training center, ministry of forests and environment, nepal, email : bimalalama386@gmail.com banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 25‒32 26 lama of mixed deciduous and coniferous forest (chakraborty, 1999). it subsists primarily on a diet of bamboo and other vegetation (johnson et al., 1988; choudhary, 2001; panthi et al., 2012). tree species such as acer spp., betula utilis and quercus semicarpifolia, shrub species of elaegnus parviflora, jasminum humile and small sized bamboo, drepanostachyum spp. and the herbs like polygonatum cirrhifolium, fragaria nubicola and galium asperifolium were the most preferred substrate used for defecation (bhatta et al., 2014). according to yonzon and hunter 1989, about 86% of its resting sites are on trees mostly on abies spectabilis in summer and juniper (juniperus spp.), birch (betula spp.), rhododendron and maple (acer spp.) trees in winter. the exact population of red panda is not known; however, the global population is estimated to be in between 9,200 – 11,000 individuals (choudhary, 2001; wei et al., 1999). in nepal, a total of 314 individuals were estimated (yonzon et al., 1997) and nepal is home to approximately 1.9% of the total global population of the red panda on the basis of habitat suitability index. out of the total potential red panda habitat, 38% lies inside pas whereas remaining 62% lies in community managed and national forest in the country, where their population and conservation status is not known in most of the areas (dnpwc, 2010). red panda has unique morphological and behavioral features that have evolved to fulfill a niche as bamboo feeders. the average length of red panda is 100 cm; its body is about 60 cm and tail is about 40 cm long. the weight of adult red panda in wild is about 4 kg while in captivity they weigh 4 to 5 kg (yonzon, 1989). the tails are marked with about 12 alternating red and buff rings and are not prehensile. red panda has round head, short rostrum, large, erect and pointed ears. the body consists of long, coarse and guard hairs and the undercoat is soft, dense and woolly. in eastern specimen, the body is darker. its face colour is predominantly white with reddishbrown ‘tear mark’ extending from their eyes to the corner of their mouths (bradford, 2016). its fur on the upper side of the body is reddish-brown while it is glossy black ventrally. it has black legs and sole of its feet are covered with dense white hair. front legs are angled inward, leading to its waddling walk. the feet are plantigrade. no sexual dimorphism is there in colour or size between males and females (morris, 1965; roberts and gittleman, 1984; vaughan, 1972) red panda which resembles a raccoon in both size and appearance (pradhan et al., 2001 a ; roberts, 2001; wei et al., 1999; glaston, 1994) is of taxonomic importance because it is monotypic sub-family, meaning that its sub-familyailuridae contains only one genus ailurus and one species (chakraborty, 1999; yonzon, 1989). however, there are two sub-species in red panda ailurus fulgens fulgens and ailurus fulgens styani, which split around three million years ago when torrential river flow cut the eastern himalaya forming the brahamaputra gorge (chakraborty, 1999; wei et al., 1999). despite being categorized as a protected species by national parks and wildlife conservation act (1973), intensified anthropogenic activities such as livestock grazing, illegal trade, poaching, habitat loss and degradation are inducing threats for their long-term survival. according to the action plan developed by the department of national parks and wildlife conservation under the ministry of forests and environment, red panda is usually poached for their furs and meat. seventy-four cases of trafficking of red panda hides were reported in nepal during the nine-year period from 2008 to 2016. however, the market, where panda hides are in demand, remains unknown. also, lack of awareness, unsustainable developmental activities, bamboo die-off, climate change and transfer of diseases from livestock and dogs are some other threats to the survival of red panda (himalayan news service, 2019) in spite of being important species, the information on red panda is scarce in nepal. there is an urgent need to explore the status of red panda in nepal to enable its monitoring and conducting conservation efforts. similarly, habitat fragmentation, forest fire, lack of water in summer, heavy collection of forest products, poaching, rotational grazing and predation by dogs, natural dying of ringal bamboo species, drought and landslides are the major threats to red panda. climate change has also influenced red panda population. the government has developed red panda conservation action plan (2019– 2023) aiming the protection and management banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 25‒32 27 lama of red panda population in nepal through a holistic approach of conservation which includes research, monitoring, awareness building, habitat improvement and threat management. so, its effective implementation requires a sound and systematic database on red panda status and the genetic resources it carries since it is a unique species with a taxonomic uniqueness and has been a species of interest to biologists. the status on red panda in protected areas has been studied while very few studies have been done outside it. papung village development committee (vdc) is one of the adjoining vdcs of kanchenjunga conservation area with the possibility of presence of red panda but no previous study was carried out there. thus, the finding of this study explored the current population status and distribution, habitat characteristics and threats which will be useful for the conservation and management of red panda. materials and methods study area in 2011, the study was carried out in simsime community forest (cf) located at ward numbers 3 and 4 of papung vdc in taplejung district (fig. 1). this site was confirmed as potential habitat for red panda according to the information of kanchenjunga landscape concern group staffs, community forest user group members, herders and local villagers. three community forests namely simsime cf, bataase damali cf and ghyashi pemba phedichowk cf are located in papung vdc. the area of simsime community forest is 59.81 ha. the major tree species found in the study area are juniperus spp., pinus spp., acer spp. and rhododendron spp. whereas the major shrub species is rubus ellipticus and the major bamboo species is arundinaria maling. the total number of households in simsime cf of papung vdc is 65. fig. 1: map showing the study area data collection for primary data collection, the interviewed key informants were staffs of kanchenjunga landscape concern group, community forest user group members, herders and local villagers. based on their information, simsime cf was selected for the study to know the population status (presence or absence) of red panda, its habitat characteristics, threats and the potential habitats. three transects were laid out in an altitudinal range of 2800–3400 m and total length of these transects was 2200 m. while moving along the transect line, the signs such as pellets, footprints and nests of red panda were searched and the gps points were recorded in those places where the signs were observed. the red panda’s pellets were easily identified by their shape. they are spindle in shape, rounded and thicker in the middle and pointed at both ends while the colour is normally green and grayish white when dry. to assess the habitat characteristics of red panda, vegetation assessment was carried out through systematic sampling based on the altitude (karki 1999; mahato 2003; shrestha 1988). square plots of 10m*10m, 4m*4m and 1m*1m were laid out to assess trees, shrubs and herbs gysel and lyon, 1980; poudel, 2009), respectively along the contour lines at an altitudinal interval of 200 m banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 25‒32 28 lama between 2800 m and 3400 m and the plots were spaced at a distance of 100 m. diameter at breast height (dbh) of major species was measured in the plots. threats signs were assessed during field visits and also through key informants’ interview with project staffs, and herders. household survey out of 65 households (hhs) in simsime cf of papung vdc, 24 households were surveyed to assess the perception of local villagers on the status and threats to red panda population. secondary data collection secondary data were collected from department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc), institute of forestry library, wwf nepal staffs, published and unpublished thesis, books, research papers and journals. data analysis abundance indices the signs of red panda were plotted on the base map using arcgis 3.2 software to show their status and distribution in the study area. vegetation analysis for analysis of vegetation, spss and microsoft excel were used. the following derivations (shrestha and ghimire, 1996 poudel, k. 2009) were calculated to assess habitat characteristics. a) density and relative density (rd) a. density of species a = total no. of individuals of species a total no. of area surveyed × area of the plot b. relative density of species a = density of species a × 100 total density b. frequency and relative frequency (rf) : a. frequency of species a = no. of plots in which species a occurs × 100 total no. of plot sampled b. relative frequency of species a = frequency value of species a × 100 total frequency value of all species c. relative dominance (r. dom.) : a. relative dominance of species a = total basal area of species a × 100 total basal area of all species total basal area of a particular species is a sum of basal area of all trees of that species which was calculated using the following relation:basal area= π (d2/ 4) where, d= diameter at breast d) importance value index (ivi) ivi was obtained by summing relative density, relative frequency, and relative dominance (dinerstein, 1979; poudel, k. 2009). ivi = relative density + relative frequency + relative dominance threats analysis using spss and ms excel, data were presented in pie-charts to interpret the assessed threats in red panda habitat. results and discussion status and distribution of red panda abundance indices dropping group encounter rate in the study area was found to be more at an altitudinal banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 25‒32 29 lama range of 3200–3400 m (1.25/km) compared to the altitudinal range of 3000m–3200m (1.1/km) whereas there was no dropping at an altitudinal range of 2800 m–3000 m (table 1). the droppings were old. up to the altitudinal range of 2800 m–3000 m, the disturbances caused by people and livestock were more in comparison to higher altitudinal range. table 1: dropping encounter rate of red panda in different altitudinal ranges in simsime cf of papung vdc altitudinal range (m) transect length (m) dropping group encountered encounter rate 2800–3000 500 0 0 3000–3200 900 1 1.1/km 3200–3400 800 2 1.25/km total 2200 3 3/2.2=1.36/km transect length: 2200 m three red panda signs are shown in figure 2 in which point 1 (height: 3125m, longitude: 566487, latitude: 3048662) and point 2 (height: 3127m, longitude: 566505, latitude: 3048715) overlapped due to very small difference in altitudinal range between them and point 3 (height: 3026m, longitude: 3049213, latitude: 566884) (table 2). fig. 2: map showing the distribution of red panda in simsime forest of papung vdc table 2: gps location of red panda dropping encounter points s. n. latitude (x) longitude (y) elevation (m) 1 27.560165 87.67349 3125 2 27.560643 87.673675 3127 3 27.56512 87.677541 3026 people’s perception on population status of red panda in simsime cf about 45 per cent of the respondents were unknown about the status of red panda in simsime cf, 33.33% respondents believed that red panda population is declining and 22.22% respondents provided their opinion that red panda population is increasing (fig. 3). fig. 3: people’s perception on population status of red panda in simsime cf vegetation analysis important value index of red panda habitat important value index (ivi) shows the dominancy of one species and the information on the occupancy of major vegetation in the area. of the major tree species, acer spp. had the highest ivi of 103.132 (rf=38.33 and r. dom. = 14.137, rd= 50.165) and rhododendron spp. had the highest relative density (rd=80.132) and relative frequency (14. 56) (table 3). pinus spp. was found to be dominant in the area due to its larger diameter than other species. arundinaria maling was major bamboo species whereas rubus ellipticus was major shrub species. bamboo spp. had the higher relative frequency (rf=68.41) and lower relative density (rd= 9.434) than that of r. ellipticus (table 4). fern spp. had density of 4.33 and relative frequency of 4.066. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 25‒32 30 lama threats to red panda direct field observation threat signs such as grazing, bamboo cutting, signs of other wildlife, burnt stumps, human trails and landslides were observed during field observation. major threats to red panda population were grazing and bamboos cutting in which majority of the respondents agreed. people’s perception of the total surveyed hhs, 32% of the respondents stated that grazing was the main cause of decrease in red panda population in simsime cf, and other causes were bamboo collection (20% respondents), forest fire (17% respondents), collection of forest products (13% respondents), poaching (10% respondents), and predation (8% respondents) (fig. 4). fig. 4: people’s perception on threats to red panda in simsime community forest key informants’ interview based on key informants’ interview with project staffs and herders, livestock grazing was the major threat to red panda as it causes them to shift to another place due to disturbance in their table 3: relative density, relative frequency, relative dominance and important value index of major tree species in simsime cf s.n. latin name relative density relative frequency relative dominance important value index (ivi) 1 acer spp. 50.165 38.33 14.137 103.132 2 pinus spp. 14.3 23.3 63.1 100.7 3 juniperus spp. 15.401 23.4 14.8 53.601 4 rhododendron spp. 80.132 14.56 8 40.567 total 100 100 100 300 table 4: density, relative density, frequency and relative frequency of major bamboo and shrub species in simsime community forest s.n. latin name d r.d. f r.f. 1 arundinaria maling 4.56 9.439 86.666 68.41 2 rubus ellipticus 43.75 90.61 40 31.58 total 48.31 100 126.666 100 table 5: density and frequency of fern species in simsime community forest s.n. latin name d f 1 fern spp. 4.33 4.066 total 4.33 4.066 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 25‒32 31 lama habitat. bamboo collection due to which their preferable food decreased was another threat to their population. collection of non-timber forest product (ntfps) and other forests products disturbed their habitat. burnt stumps were observed indicating forest fire also as a threat. conclusion the study area is the adjoining vdc of kanchenjunga conservation area. no research of red panda was done earlier in this area due to which the status of red panda was unknown. the presence of red panda in simsime community forest of papung vdc is known from this study. overall encounter rate of red panda signs in simsime community forest was 1.36/km within the altitudinal range of 2800m to 3400m which shows the existence of red panda in the study area. according to direct field observation, the major threats to red panda population were grazing and bamboo cutting in which majority of the respondents agreed. recommendations • a detailed ecological study of red panda is required in this region. • in order to understand the population trend with time, regular monitoring should be done. • government and non-government organizations need to allocate budget to increase awareness for red panda conservation and uplift economic condition of local people. • human disturbances towards red panda habitat should be controlled. • alternate income generation programmes should be made to reduce human disturbances in the habitat. • regular and effective anti-poaching operation is essential. acknowledgments i owe a great debt of gratitude to my principal advisor mr. basudev pokhrel and co-advisor mr. gandhiv kafle, kanchenjunga landscape concern group (klcg), wwf nepal family, mr. badri binod dahal, mr. kamal bhattarai, mr. sonam tashi lama, mr. khadananda poudel, mr. dandu shrepa, mr. phupu gyabu sherpa, mr. prabesh shrestha, ms. shreejana gurung and all cfug members of papung vdc for their direct and indirect contribution to accomplish this work successfully. references bhatta, m., shah, k. b., devkota, b., paudel, r. and panthi, s. 2014. distribution and habitat preference of red panda (ailurus fulgens fulgens ) in jumla district, nepal. open journal of ecology 4: 989–1001. bradford, a. 2016. facts about pandas, live science. https://www.livescience. com/57312-red-pandas.html chakraborty, t. 1999. himalayan heritage: the endangered red panda. himalayan paryavaran 6:129–132. choudhary, a. 2001. an overview of the status and conservation of the red panda, ailurus fulgens in india with reference to its global status. oryx 35(3):250–259. dinerstein, f. 1979, an ecological survey of the royal karnali bardia willife reserve nepal part-i; vegitation modifying factors and successional relationship bilogical conservation 15 : 127–150. dnpwc. 2010. red panda (ailurus fulgens) conservation action plan for langtang national park, nepal. department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc), babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. dnpwc.1995. biodiversity assessment of forest ecosystems of the eastern midhills of nepal. biodiversity profiles project. publication no 9. department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc), kathmandu, nepal. glatston, a. r. 1994. status survey and conservation action plan for procyonids and ailurids: the red panda, olingos, coatis, raccoons, and their relatives. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 25‒32 32 lama iucn, gland, switzerland. gysel, l. j. and lyon, l. j. 1980. habitat analysis and evaluation. in wildlife management techniques manual (ed.) schemnitz, s. d., the wildlife society, washington dc, usa., 305–327. himalayan news service. 2019. five-year red panda conservation action plan developed. kathmandu, nepal. johnson, k. g., shaller, g. b. and jinchu, h. 1988. comparative behavior of red and giant pandas in the wolong reserve, china. journal of mammology 69 (3):552–564. karki, j. b. 1999. a study on red panda habitat at cholangpati area of langtang national park. department of national parks and wildlife conservation, kathmandu, nepal. ling, xu and jing, guan. 2018. red panda market research findings in china. traffic briefing paper. mahato, n. k. 2003. status of red panda ailurus fulgens (cuvier, 1825) in the kanchanjungha conservation area. b.sc. project paper submitted to institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, pokhara. morris, d. 1965. the mammals: a guide to the living species. harper and row, new york and evanston. panthi, s., aryal, a., lord, j., adhikari, b. and raubenheimer, d. 2012. summer diet and distribution of red panda (ailurus fulgens fulgens) in dhopatan hunting reserve, nepal. zool stud 51:701–709. poudel, k. 2009. status, distribution and threats of red panda in manang district, nepal. lambert academic publishing. pradhan, s., g. k. saha and j. a. khan. 2001a. ecology of the red panda ailurus fulgens in the singhalila national park, darjeeling, india. biological conservation 98: 11-18. roberts, m. s. and gittleman, j. l. 1984. ailurus fulgens. mammalian species. american society of mammologist 222: 1–8. shrestha, k. k. and ghimire, s. k. 1996, plant diversity inventory and vegation analysis in the shey phoksundo national park, (phoksundo and jagdulla valley) a report summitted to wwf nepal program, kathmandu nepal shrestha, m. 1988. vegetation study of red panda in langtang national park, central nepal. central department of zoology. kirtipur campus, tribhuvan university. thapa, a., wu, r., hu, y., nie, y. singh, pb., khatiwada, jr., yan, l., gu, k. and wei, f. 2018. predicting the potential distribution of the endangered red panda across its entire range using maxent modeling. wiley online library, ecology and evolution/volume 8, issue 21 publisher, place, country ? vaughan, t. a. 1972. mammology. w. b. saunders company; philadelphia, london and toronto. wei, f. w., feng z. j., wang z. w. and j. w. hu. 1999. current distribution, status, and conservation of wild red pandas (ailurusfulgens) in china. biological conservation 89 (3): 285‒291 yonzon, p. 2000. opportunities in ecoregion based conservation in kanchenjunga region, eastern nepal. in kanchenjunga mountain complex: biodiversity assessment & conservation planning, wwf nepal program, kathmandu, 1–29. yonzon, p. b. 1989. ecology and conservation of the red panda in the nepal himalayas. ph. d. dissertaion, submitted to university of maine, orono, maine, usa. yonzon, p., yonzon, p., chaudhary, c. and vaidya, b. 1997. status of the red panda in the himalaya. a resources nepal. kathmandu and metropolitan toronto zoo project, toronto canada. pp21. yonzon, p. b. and hunter, m. l. 1989. ecological study of the red panda in the nepal himalayas. spb academic publishing. the hague, the netherlands. biophysical disturbances of elephant safaris in the royal chitwan national park, nepal bodh raj subedi1 the paper explores peoples' perceptions on the biophysical impacts of elephant safaris which is a perfect way to go wildlife viewing, and is very eco-friendly. it surpasses its alternatives, especially noisy jeep safaris. however, more people are becoming aware of the biophysical impacts of the safaris in the park. they perceived that the safaris cause negative impacts on wildlife and can destroy habitat through soil compaction and erosion, vegetation damage and disturbances. the study also estimated that the current wildlife observation distance from elephant safaris are less than fifteen metres which is too close and may be harmful to wildlife. this study provides interesting comparisons with previous studies on impacts of tourist activities on wildlife from a biological perspective in that the appropriate distances perceived by park staff to view wildlife was the only one to “fit" their findings. the distances perceived by other groups of people as appropriate would in fact, cause unacceptable levels of disturbance. it is concluded that social (human) perception of disturbance by elephant safaris may not accurately reflect the biological severity of their impacts. key words: wildlife, eco-tourism, recreation, elephant safaris, royal chitwan national park, biophysical impacts, nepal t he royal chitwan national park (rcnp) is renowned for its large variety of wildlife, including rhinoceros and tiger. these animals can be viewed during safaris from the back of an elephant. elephant safari is one of the most popular activities related to park tourism. the rcnp is operating its own elephants for tourism and seven other concessionaire hotels have been guaranteed licenses to operate elephant safaris in different areas of the park. elephant safaris are presently concentrated in critical habitats and localities. for instance, they are highly intensified in the icharni tapu of the sauraha (the main entrance of the park), and more than twenty elephant safaris meet the rhino-population residing at this area. such safari trips are quite often organised two to four times a day particularly in the morning and in the evening during the peak tourist season. according to the department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc), there is also an increasing demand by other private parties to operate more elephant safaris inside the park, questioning the natural balance of its ecosystem. there is no doubt that elephant safaris in the park have provided employment and income opportunities for tourist operators and local communities. in addition, the safaris generated second highest amount of revenue (more than 16 %) after the entry fee (about 65 %) of the total revenue (over nrs. 48.29 million) for the park in the fiscal year 1996/97 (subedi, 1999). but one must also not forget of its consequences. in this connection, the present paper investigates the perceived vegetation damage and wildlife disturbances of elephant safaris and suggests practical management recommendations to enhance the quality of elephant safaris while minimising impacts in the park. methods both qualitative and quantitative approaches were adapted for this study. two different questionnaires were developed. a self-administered questionnaire was offered to park visitors (203) and the other set was used for interviewing mahut (elephant driversn= 40), tourist guides (30), and park staff (30) on quota basis. an error margin of the results derived from this visitor survey (quota sampling) is plus or minus 6.9 percent. more than ten key informants, including park managers and conservationists were interviewed. field observations to gain an in depth knowledge of the wildlife responses to the elephant safaris were also done. results and discussion the demand for elephant safaris has risen as a result of increasing tourist visits to the park. the total 1 forest officer, department of forest, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal subedi banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 number of tourists visiting the park increased from 836 in 1973/74 to 105,880 in 1998/99 (table 1). with an average annual growth rate of 30.9 percent (subedi, 1999), this rate of growing tourism in the park has topped the national trend of 13 percent (banskota, et al.y 1996). such trend of visitors inevitably produces pressure in the park and is contributing to both ecosystem degradation and reduction of the quality of the touristic experience. the present study has revealed that an elephant safari is a perfect way to go wildlife viewing and more than 97 percent of visitors coming to rcnp took part in it. it is eco-friendly, and surpasses its alternatives, especially noisy vehicle safaris. however, more people are becoming aware of the biophysical impacts of the safaris in the park. they perceive that the safaris cause negative impacts on wildlife and can ultimately provide a negative impact on their habitat through litter, soil compaction and erosion, vegetation damage and wildlife disturbance, etc. problems with litter and pollution, soil compaction and soil erosion are infrequently reported and there is an overall agreement that there is no significant problem of litter or pollution from elephant safaris in the park. the hypothesis “elephant safaris damage vegetation” and "elpehant safaris cause wildlife disturbances" are adapted to judge the perceived impacts of local respondents. information obtained from visitor surveys, from field observations and from interviews with key informants were also included to supplement these statements and to illustrate the nature of the perceived impacts. the above statement received the mean score of 3.76 with a standard deviation of 1.2 which indicated that there was an overall agreement with the statement. the chi-square test shows that there was no significant difference in the opinions among the sub groups of the respondents {%2 (2, 83) = 0.37, n.s.}. however, above figure shows that the majority of the park staff (73%) and tourist guides (76%) strongly perceived that elephant safaris damage vegetation. such damage arises partly as a result of direct impacts such as grazing of elephants, lopping and breaking branches and removing trees, or disturbance of soil on elephant trails. species such as simal (bombax cieba)y khair (acacia catechue) and many figs and other palatable species are suspected to decrease, which may affect the park fauna. however, the mahuts perceived less impact from elephant safaris on vegetation than either the park staff or tourist guides. this may be due to their lower degree of awareness on the ecological consequences of vegetation damage by their elephants. table 1: increasing trend of tourists at the rcnp fiscal years number of visitors % growth 1973/74 836 1974/75 2,206 163.9 1975/76 5,021 127.6 1976/77 5,547 10.5 1977/78 8,325 50.1 1978/79 6,250 -24.9 1979/80 12,503 100.0 1980/81 11,218 -10.3 1981/82 11,602 3.4 1982/83 11,714 1.0 1983/84 14,606 24.7 1984/85 14,156 -3.1 1985/86 25,490 80.1 1986/87 38,565 51.3 1987/88 44,890 16.4 1988/89 36,275 -19.2 1989/90 43,750 20.6 1990/91 55,335 26.5 1991/92 55,442 0.2 1992/93 58,998 6.4 1993/94 64,749 9.8 1994/95 83,898 29.6 1996/97 96,062 14.5 1997/98 104,046 8.3 1998/99 105,880 1.8 source: rcnp, this hypothesis statement "elephant safaris cause wildlife damage" had a mean score of 3.38 with a standard deviation of 1.32 which indicated an overall agreement that elephant safaris disturb wildlife. a chi-square test showed that there was a significant difference between responses of the three sub-groups on wildlife disturbances of elephant safaris {% (4, 84) = 9.36), p = 0.05}. table 2: responses on impact of elephant safaris on vegetation respondents strongly disagree slightly disagree neutral slightly agree strongly agree total park staff 4 4 9 13 30 elephant drivers 1 5 11 18 4 39 tourist guides 2 4 1 9 14 30 total 7 9 16 36 31 99 16 banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 subedi different opinions of the statement with 15.2 percent neutral responses were found (table 3). fifty three percent of the park staff and 73 percent tourist guides perceived that elephant safaris cause wildlife disturbances. by contrast, more than twothird of park visitors and 41 percent of mahuts did not perceive any wildlife disturbance. however, information collected during this research and previous researches (lott and mccoy, 1995; cosgriff, 1997) suggested that the behaviour of some wildlife such as rhinoceros and sambar in the area where elephant safaris were high, has some what changed than their relatives of other areas. they have less reactive to elephant safaris due to the frequent contact for the last ten to fifteen years (subedi and devlin, 1998). the numbers of sightings of individual animals and the number of species in the sauraha area have declined. elephant safaris have to spend more time to search for rhinos, and sometimes they have to travel far to view other wildlife. species such as tiger, leopard, sloth bear, spotted deer and bison have moved away from the sauraha area to other unlikely to be accepted and finally, the baby will die or killed by predators. studies have indcated that the feeding time of different large animals of the park is in the early mornings and late afternoons (laurie, 1978; mishra, 1982; dungel and ogara, 1991), which unfortunately, coincides with elephant safaris. and, the increased numbers of safaris have caused a greater interruption to feeding as safari elephant approaches close to the animals. this may lead to significant impacts on large herbivores because they require a considerable amount of time for feeding to remain healthy (stockwell etal., 1991). similarly, the movement of elephant safaris may be more stressful for small wildlife such as hog deer and wild boar. these animals display a greater flush distance and flee more in response to elephants than they do to jeep safaris (cosgriff, 1997). it may be argued that the sounds of the elephants’ movement through the forest may be similar to predators’ movements for the animals flushed. table 3: responses on impact of elephant safaris on wildlife _________________________________ local respondents strongly slightly neutral slightly strongly total disagree disagree agree agree park staff 4 4 6 12 4 30 elephant drivers 5 11 5 11 7 39 tourist guides 3 1 4 11 11 30 total 12 16 15 34 22 99 areas. this may be due to a lack of availability of escape zones for the species. the herd size of hog deer, sambar and spotted deer has also reduced in the area. reported wildlife disturbances by elephant safaris include disruption of feeding, resting, wallowing, mating, grooming, and feeding babies and the disruption to bonding between the newly born baby and the mother. the rhinoceros population of the sauraha area has frequently been disrupted from feeding and other activities. frequent disruption of bonding between the baby and mother and interruption of feeding may have serious negative effects on the animal populations. the elephant safaris frequently disrupt the bonds between parents and offspring of the deer family and other ungulates particularly during the breeding season in the sauraha area. the mother may flee away far from their young due to a fear of the moving elephant. as time taken to establish such bonds varies from species to species ranging from five minutes to six hours (edington and edington, 1986), even if the baby is physically reunited with the mother, it is the present study also confirmed that tolerance of certain wildlife (rhinos and sambars) against elephant safaries has developed. a previous study carried out by cosgriff (1997) estimated both “alert” and “flush” distances of some large animals including rhinos to elephant safaris. the median alert distance of rhinos to the safaris was estimated to be thirty metres in the park. the median flush distances of rhinos to the safaris were twenty five metres in the low tourist visiting (tiger tops) and ten metres in the high tourist visiting (sauraha) area (cosgriff, 1997). he concluded that rhinos and sambar have become more tolerant in high tourist areas than low tourist areas while the hog deer did not show any tolerance in either areas. the distance between safari elephants and wildlife is an important aspect to note. presently wildlife observation distances from elephant safaris are less than fifteen metres, which is too close and may be harmful to wildlife. a previous study carried out by lott and mccoy (1995) also found that distances less than twelve metres disrupted rhinos’ feeding and frequently displaced the animals from the feeding 17 subedi banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 sites they preferred. they argued that viewing distances should not be less than fifteen metres. a considerable variation on the perception of appropriate wildlife viewing distances among the park visitors, elephant drivers, tourist guides and park staff was found. the park staff recommended this distances to be more than fifteen metres while the others suggested less than that. this indicates that the park staff are more concerned that the closeness of the safaris has negative effects on the behaviour such as the feeding and resting of wildlife. majority of the people of the other three groups respond differently. there could be several reasons for the different perceptions of appropriate distances. the mahuts and tourist guides have little concern about the effect of wildlife disturbances and might have been motivated to satisfy visitors. and, the latter lack knowledge of and exposure to the impact of elephant safaris during their brief visit to the park. the present study outlined comparisons with the previous ones (e.g., lott and mccoy, 1995; cosgriff, 1997) related to impacts of tourist activities on wildlife from a biological perspective. the appropriate distances perceived by park staff to view wildlife were the only ones to “fit” their findings. the distances perceived by visitors, tourist guides and elephant drivers as appropriate would in fact, cause unacceptable levels of disturbance. therefore, this study concludes that social (human) perception of disturbance by elephant safaris may not accurately reflect the biological severity of their impacts. considering both the studies the social and the biological, it can berecommended that the ideal distance to view wildlife, particularly rhinos, should not be less than fifteen metres in the high tourist visiting areas such as sauraha, and not less than thirty metres in the low tourist visiting areas or future development areas. the populations of rhinos and sambars in the high tourist visiting areas have already become habituated and may exhibite no response to elephant safaris at the suggested distances of fifteen metre. this limit would be acceptable for both for the animals’ welfare and tourists’ satisfaction. however, visitation distances less than thirty metres in low tourist visiting areas would be unacceptable because the behaviour of the animals may be affected below this distance. conclusion and recommendations with the growing demand for safaris by both visitors and tourist operators, and looking at its economic benefit in the one hand, while with the ecological consequences on the other, the department of national parks and wildlife conservation has to be very cautious in making any decisions. the viewing distances for high tourist visiting areas such as sauraha should be fifteen metres and not closer than thirty meters for other low tourist visiting areas. effects of other jeep safaris and canoes including infrastructure development should be investigated. research should be conducted to address the question of long-term effects on wildlife disturbance and vegetation by elephant safaris in the park. a comprehensive wildlife viewing tourism management plan should be made to enhance the quality of elephant safaris while minimising impacts in the park. wildlife disturbances of elephant safaris must be controlled by limiting exposure. park wardens should limit exposure by limiting approach distances, safaris should be restricted to approach no closer than up to safe margins. the visitors who have binoculars and telescopic cameras are content to stay at a longer distance which results in better views and less disturbances to animals. visitors might be requested to bring such instruments. the park or tourist operators may provide binoculars for rent and slides or photographs of wildlife for sale. the park must be zoned to elephant safaris on the basis of carrying capacity, and it should not be concentrated to a particular area, rather should be extended to different parts of the park to accommodate the demands of tourists without jeopardising the welfare of the wildlife and the vegetation involved. the safari can be operated on a rotation basis. it is necessary that safaris are not repeated in the same areas more than once a day. the safaris may be banned in sensitive areas where the impact is very harmful (i.e. sensitive habitats of birds/ reptiles/ mammals such as nesting sites etc). a limited number of elephant safaris in the sauraha and tiger tops should be allowed. wildlife viewing from elephant safaris may be improved by managing grassland habitats. open patches of the size of 40 m x 80 m at different sites in grassland with water holes could prove an excellent wildlife viewing sites. observation towers and fixed routes for the safaris could be constructed to avoid the large network of 18 banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 subedi elephant trails particularly at sauraha. such tracks can minimise vegetation damage and soil compaction and erosion caused by haphazard movement of elephants. mahuts should be trained to collect grasses, and to adapt rotational grazing to reduce overgrazing pressure of elephants in certain areas. lopping and cutting of trees and branches for fodder for both government and private elephants should be stopped in the park. a reliable alternative should be identified to meet the feeding requirements of the elephants. these alternatives could be through managed plantations of sugar cane and different species of in buffer zones or from prepared food. legal provisions related to elephant safari should be developed in consultation with stakeholders to ensure an useful and workable system. a separate operation plan for elephant safaris, compatible with park conservation objectives is recommended. the plan should include guidelines for the operation of elephant safaris to reduce wildlife disturbances without minimising tourists’ satisfaction. issues related to the visitor safety and welfare of both wildlife and elephants, including mahuts, must be addressed. references banskota, k., sharma, b., sharma, u. r. and rijal, a. 1996. royal chitwan national park after twenty years: an assessment of values, threats and opportunities. king mahendra trust for nature conservation. kathmandu, nepal. cosgriff, k. m. 1997. wildlife tourism in royal chitwan national park, nepal: an assessment of the impacts of tourist activity on large animals. unpublished honours dissertation for bachelor degree, charles sturt university, albury, australia. dhungal, s. k. and ogara, b.w. 1991. ecology of the hog deer in royal chitwan national park. wildlife monographs, 119: 1-40. edington, j. m. and edington, m.a. 1986. ecology, recreation and tourism. england: cambridge university press. laurie, a. 1978. the ecology and behaviour of the greater one-horned rhinoceros. doctoral thesis, university of cambridge, england. lott, d. f., mccoy, m. 1995. asian rhinos rhinoceros unicornis on the run? impact of tourist visits on one rhino population. biological conservation, 73: 23-26. mishra, h. r. 1982. the ecology and behaviour of chital (axis axis) in the royal chitwan national park, nepal. doctoral thesis, university of edinburgh, uk. stockwell, c. a., bateman, g. c. and berger, j. 1991. conflicts in national parks: a case study of helicopters and bighorn sheep time budgets in the grand canyon. biological conservation, 56: 317-328. subedi, b. r . 1999. wildlife tourism and recreation: impacts of elephant safaris in the royal chitwan national park, nepal. master thesis, lincoln university, new zealand. subedi, b. r and devlin, p. j. 1998. wildlife tourism: impact of elephant safaris in royal chitwan national park, nepal. in kandampully, j. (ed). proceedings of the new zealand tourism and hospitality research conference (part 1), 1-4 december, 1998, akaroa. new zealand: lincoln university. 19 banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 46 the study on conflict between human and rhesus macaque was carried out at pumdivumdi/tallokodi in pokhara valley in march, 2016. questionnaire survey was carried out in 60 households to assess conflict, economic impact on livelihood of people and identify local deterrent method practiced. purposive sampling method was used to select respondent for questionnaire survey. majority of the respondents (58.3%) agreed that the damage of crops caused by monkeys was severe. according to 21.7% respondents, physical hurt and harassment were done by monkeys in the study area. there was a loss of more than nrs. 20,000 in 2015 in 32% of the total households surveyed. maize was the most raided crop (31%) followed by potato (30%). keeping dog in house (40%) was the most preferred local deterrent method followed by throwing stone and using catapult (21.7%). key words: conflict, crop raiding, human, pokhara, rhesus macaque human-rhesus macaque conflict at pumdivumdi/ tallokodi, pokhara, west nepal s. sharma1* and s. acharya2 there are six species of monkeys in nepal, rhesus macaque (macaca mulatta), assamese monkey (macaca assamensis) and hanuman langurs (semnopithecus ajax, semnopithecus entellus, semnopithecus hector and semnopithecus schistaceus) (chalise, 2013). rhesus monkeys are found in the tropical and subtropical forests in nepal (wada, 2005). the assamese monkey is reported from mid-hills and high montana forest of nepal and its ecological and behavioral details are still largely unknown (chalise, 2006). rhesus macaques are indigenous species of bangladesh, india, pakistan, burma, nepal, thailand, vietnam, afghanistan, southern china and some neighboring places. rhesus monkeys belong to the cercopithecidae family (primate’s order). according to iucn, the rhesus macaque is one of the least concerned primates in the world (timmins et.al 2008). it is commonly found in the terai and mid-hills of nepal (aryal and chalise, 2013). rhesus monkeys are both arboreal and terrestrial. they eat fruits, leaves, roots, seeds, flowers, buds, soil, insects and other small animals (rowe, 1996). primates are problematical because control measures are usually not successful (strum, 1994). crop raiding is one of the causes of conflict from nonhuman primates which is mainly associated with farmers (air, 2015). the competition between human and non-human primates is a major problem in some areas where they are sharing the same food resources. globally, primates are being problematical because of stealing food from human settlement or garbage found around forest and urban areas to supplement their natural diet. further, monkeys are being more aggressive towards human (sharma et al., 2011). due to this reason, monkeys are not liked in the areas of massive agriculture, horticulture and other plantations since they eat and damage the crops and orchards (roonwal and mohnot, 1977). monkeys have become commensalism and competitors of human being in and around villages, towns and cities. these are “urbanized monkeys” (rajpurohit et al., 2006). the main reason behind human-monkey conflict is the massive cutting of fruit trees and plantation 1 kimdanda-1, arghakhanchi, *e-mail: me.sonia07@gmail.com 2 district climate change specialist at asha project banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 47 of exotic commercial species which do not supply food to monkey; this compels the monkeys to enter into human residential areas and crop fields. (ahsan, 2014). when it is short supply of natural food, high quality and easily digested human food becomes alternative nutrition for monkey, which is the most important cause of crop raiding (horrocks and baulu, 1994). hence, this negative attitude due to crop raiding has brought a question mark in the conservation of monkeys. in developing countries, farmers have limited economic source and rarely get compensation for their losses which leads severe negative attitude towards monkey (nyhus et al., 2005, linkie et al., 2007). furthermore, farmers’ incapability to cope with crop-raiding, lack of compensation schemes and economic loss leads to retaliatory killing of this species (nyhus et al., 2005). crop raiding is a genuine reason for conflict between human and primates. in nepal, crop damage is very common in the mid-hills, high mountain, terai and immediate periphery of national parks and reserves. primates are considered as the pest of field crops, langurs in sworgadwari forest of pyuthan, sangekhola of tanahun, assamese macaques of hariharpur gadhi, rhesus macaques in ghodaghodi of kailali and pashupati, swoyambhu, thapathali and sankhu of kathmandu, and elsewhere (chalise, 2000). materials and methods study area this study was carried out at pumdivumdi/ tallokodi, ward no. 25 of pokhara metropolitan city in kaski district of nepal. the study area ‘pumdivumdi’ was selected as there was a serious issue of conflict between human and rhesus monkey since last three years. the study area is located at 78°66’75.5’’ e longitudes and 31°22’80.6’’ n latitudes and at an elevation of 1234m. this area is dominated by aryans and their main occupation is agriculture. this area is a tourist center too as it is near to phewa lake and world peace pagoda. the population of pumdivumdi was 7,391 (cbs,2011) fig. 1: map showing the study area ‘phumdivumdi/tallokodi’ questionnaire survey purposive sampling method was used for questionnaire survey and 60 households were selected for this study. a pre-tested close and open ended questionnaire was used to collect the information from respondents. the information collected were period of monkey visit, monkey related problems, deterrent methods used by the locals, possible remedial measures of conflict. focus group discussion focus group discussion was conducted in the study area by representing all categories of users. the main issues regarding conflict, response of concerned authorities and resolving methods were discussed in the focus group discussion. informal discussion informal discussions were carried out with different key informants: executive committee members, teachers, elder persons, local leaders and social workers to get the overall information on human-rhesus macaque conflict and verify the information collected in the focus group discussion. sharma and acharya banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 48 secondary information secondary sources of information such as published papers, theses, and reports were reviewed. data analysis data obtained were fed into ms-excel and statistical package for social sciences (spss) and analyzed accordingly. results were presented in the tabular and graphic form. results and discussion frequency of monkey visit forty-five per cent of the total respondents accepted that monkeys were seen twice a day (table 1). table 1: frequency of monkey visit description frequency per cent cumulative per cent every day once in a day twice in a day more total 9 15.0 15.0 14 23.3 38.3 27 45.0 83.3 10 16.7 100.0 60 100.0 problems caused by monkey ninety-two per cent respondents of hetauda (mccourt, 2005), 78% respondents of lamjung (adhikari,2013) and 76% respondents of vijayapur area of dharan reported crop raiding was main problem. likewise, in this study, 58.3% respondents said that crop raiding was a serious problem for them (fig. 2). similarly, majority of the respondents (43%) strongly agreed that people were suffered from monkeys 10—15 times in a month (fig. 3). thirty-two per cent respondents stated that there was annual financial loss of more than nrs. 20,000 due to crop damage followed by financial loss of 10000—20000 (30% respondents) (fig.4). problems caused by monkey fig. 2: problems of the respondents fig. 3: frequency of problems in a month annual financial loss due to damage of crops by monkeys fig. 4: annual financial loss of individual family by monkeys sharma and acharya banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 49 most raided crops by monkey according to the respondents, mostly monsoon crops i.e. maize, wheat, millet, rice and vegetables such as potato, cauliflower, cabbage and guard were raided most. thirty-one per cent respondents agreed that the most raided crop was maize (fig. 5). fig 5: most raided crops by monkeys local deterrent methods for monkeys forty per cent respondents opined that using dog was the effective deterrent method for monkeys which was followed by throwing stone and using catapult (21.7%) (fig. 6). in the study of mccourt (2005) in hetauda, 40% respondents agreed the deterrent method was throwing stone and using catapult. other strategies included flame rally to chase monkey, playing music through cassette player or radio with loud sound as well as planting thorny plants and non-palatable crops by farmers to prevent crop raiding. fig.6: local deterrent methods for monkeys (sfshout and follow, scthrowing stone and use of catapult, bdby dog, htbhitting tin boxes, gsgun shooting, ot-others) perception of people towards the conservation of rhesus macaque the response of majority of people towards the question asked on conservation of the species for ecosystem balance was negative i.e. 61.7% people denied for conservation (table 2). table 2: perception of people towards conservation of species description frequency per cent cumulative per cent yes no don't know total 10 16.7 16.7 37 61.7 78.3 13 21.7 100.0 60 100.0 interventional support none of the respondents have got interventional support from government or private agencies till this date. also rhesus macaque is not included in the list of animals in wildlife damage relief guideline (mfsc,2069) conclusion from this study, it is found that severe humanrhesus conflict exists in the study area due to crop raiding for four years which has compelled people to change crop pattern i.e. they have stopped growing potato and maize. in spite of pokhara being a tourist center, people of pumdivumdi are suffering a lot from rhesus macaque which has led people to shift towards home stay business from agriculture. majority of the respondents bear loss of nrs. 20,000+ due to crop raiding. mostly, monsoon crops (maize, wheat, millet) and vegetables (potato, cauliflower, guard, and cabbage) are raided by rhesus macaque during the month of march to july. this clearly implies that crop raiding was the serious issue in the study area that has severe impact on livelihood and economy of farmers. besides financial loss, five dogs were killed by rhesus attack and locals were also injured. none of the related authorities is concerned about this issue in the study area. neither interventional support is provided nor included in any legal document. the loss due to rhesus macaque and negligence of concerned authorities has heightened negative attitude of people towards the species. this negative attitude has put question mark in the conservation of this species. sharma and acharya banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 50 references adhikari, r. k. 2013. population status, distribution and general behavior of assamese macaque (macaca assamensis, mcclelland) in taghring and ghermu vdcs, lamjung, nepal. m. sc. thesis. central department of zoology, tribhuvan university, nepal. ahsan, f. m. and uddin mazbah, m. 2014. human-rhesus monkey conflict at rampur village under monohardi upazila in narsingdi district of bangladesh, journal of threatened taxa 6 (6) : 5905—5908. www.threatenedtaxa.org. air, a. 2015. crop raiding and conflict: study of rhesus macaque-human conflict in shivapuri-nagarjun national park, kathmandu nepal, natural resources management, norwegian university of science and technology, norway. aryal, k. and chalise m. k. 2013. human-monkey interface in arkhale and nayagaun, gulmi, west nepal. nepalese journal of zoology 1 (1) : 30—40. cbs,2011. national population and housing census 2011., government of nepal, national planning commission secretariat nepal, central bureau of statistics (cbs), kathmandu, nepal. chalise, m. k. 2006. primate census in different parts of nepal. journal of the university campus tuta, tu, prospective on higher education, 2, 35—41. chalise, m. k. 2000. crop raiding by wildlife, specially primates and indigenous knowledge of food conservation. asian primates 7(3-4):4—9. chalise, m. k. 2013. fragmented primate population of nepal. in primates in fragments (eds.) marsh, l. k. and chapman, c. a., springer, london, 329— 356. horrocks, j. a., and baulu, j. 1994. food competition between vervets (cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus) and farmers in barbados: implications for management. revue d ecologie-la terre et la vie 49: 281—294. linkie, m. , dinata, y. , nofrianto, a. and leaderwilliams n. 2007. patterns and perceptions of wildlife crop raiding in and around kerinci seblat national park, sumatra. animal conservation 10 : 127—135. mccourt, p. 2005. urban human-monkey conflict in the vicinity of the institute of forestry, hetauda, nepal. mofsc, 2069. wildlife damage relief guideline. government of nepal, ministry of forest and soil conservation (mofsc),kathmandu, nepal. nyhus, p. j.,osofsky, s. a. , ferraro, p. , madden, f. and fisher, h. 2005. bearing the cost of human–wildlife conflict: the challenge of compensation schemes. in people and wildlife conflict or coexistence? (eds.) woodroffe, r., thirgood, s. and rabinowitz, a., cambridge university press, cambridge, 107—121. rajpurohit, l. s. , chhangani, a. k. , rajpurohit, r. s., bhaker, n. r., rajpurohit, d. s. and sharma, g. 2006. man-monkey conflict and urbanization in nonhuman primates. int. j. primatol 27 (1) : 117. roonwal, m. l. and mohnot, s. m. 1977. primates of south asia : ecology, sociobiology and behavior. harvard university press, cambridge. rowe, n. 1996.the pictorial guide to the living primates. charlestown, rhode island: pogonias press. sharma, g., ram, c. and rajpurohit, l.s. 2011. study of man-monkey conflict and its management in jodhpur, rajasthan (india). journal of evolutionary biology research 3 (1) : 1—3. strum, s. c. 2010. the development of primate raiding: implications for management and conservation. international journal of primatology 31 : 133—156. timmins, r.j., richardson, m., chhangani, a. & yongcheng, l. 2008. macaca mulatta. the iucn red list of threatened species 2008:e.t12554a3356486. http://dx.doi. org/10.2305/iucn.uk.2008.rlts. t12554a3356486.en. wada, k. 2005. the distribution pattern of rhesus and assamese monkeys in nepal. primates, 46 (2) : 115—119. sharma and acharya 3 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1, 2021 pp 3‒11https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v31i1.37337 assessment of invasion of ageratina adenophora in the plantation forest of nepal 1 forest research and training centre, pokhara, gandaki province, nepal. *email: raj_malla@yahoo.com 2 forest research and training centre, kathmandu, nepal 3 international centre for integrated mountain development, lalitpur, nepal large-scale plantations of pine species were done in the bare hills of the middle mountain region of nepal during the early 1980s. there is a growing concern on the sustainability of the planted pine forests in the country due to the presence of invasive alien plant species (iaps). invasive alien plant species are considered as one of the drivers of forest degradation and deforestation. ageratina adenophora is one of the problematic iaps found in the planted pine forests throughout the country. in this study, we employed different treatments to control the invasion of a. adenophora in the planted pine (pinus patula) forest. the research design included four different treatments, viz., (i) control, (ii) stem felling, (iii) floor clearance, and (iv) stem felling cum floor clearance in one block (block i), which was replicated in another block (block ii). the data were collected using circular sample plots with 2m radius. the anova and tukeyhsd tests were applied during the analysis process so as to determine the effects of treatments on invasion of a. adenophora. the "floor clearance treatment" was found to be significantly effective to reduce the presence of a. adenophora in the planted pine forest. on the contrary, the "opening of forest cover treatment" was found to be conducive to this invasive species to invade the area. the "stem felling cum floor clearance treatment" could be an effective strategy to control invasion of a. adenophora in planted forest, but as it demands a high cost, it is likely to be appropriate for small forest areas where promotion of regeneration is of high priority. keywords: ageratina adenophora, floor clearance, invasion, pinus patula, treatment r. malla 1*, r. r. aryal 2 and s. ranabhat 3 received : 10, april, 2021 revised : 25 april, 2021 accepted : 26, may, 2021 published : 30, may, 2021 large scale plantation program was initiated in the middle mountain region of nepal during the early 1980s (gilmour et al., 1990). more than 370,000 hectares of plantations in the bare hills were successfully established with different pine species including native pinus roxburghii, p. wallichiana and alien p. patula (dof, 2012) as these species can survive and grow well on the areas with very poor soil (jackson, 1994). according to the fao (2015), world’s planted forest has increased by over 105 million ha since 1990 resulting in seven percent of the total forests. according to the then nepal australia community resource management and livelihood project (nacrmlp), a total of 23,404 hectares of plantations had been established in the sindhupalchowk and kabhrepalanchok districts of nepal since the late 1970s (nacrmlp, 2006), mostly dominated by pine species (hunt et al., 2001) among which p. patula covers almost 75% of the total pine plantations (eri, 2011). planted forests share many ecosystem services produced by native mixed forests, but the extent https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3604-2259 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5458-5380 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0992-4405 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 4 malla et al. of sharing is determined by its management (vihervaana et al., 2012). both the plantations and natural forests have advantages and disadvantages. however, there is a growing concern on the sustainability of planted forests (powers, 1999), and some of the issues associated with the stands of pure and mixed species have been still undetermined (jactel et al., 2002). according to the latest forest resource assessment in nepal, almost 45% of land is occupied with forest cover, including planted and natural forest (dfrs, 2015). however, forest degradation and deforestation has undergone due to many reasons. invasive alien plant species (iaps) are considered as one of the drivers of forest degradation (mfsc, 2009), threat to biodiversity conservation (mfsc, 2014) and has adverse effect on forest regeneration (shrestha, 2019a). invasive alien species have negatively affected forest ecosystems, wetlands, protected areas and agro-ecosystems by threatening both biodiversity and people’s livelihood (mfsc, 2014). the impact of invasive alien species is further worsened by ongoing climate change resulting in increase of frequency and intensity of biological invasion (simberloff, 2000) and severe impact on high altitude forest (wang et al., 2019) . limited studies have presented the ranges of impacts of iaps from habitat degradation of endangered wildlife, e.g., onehorned rhinoceros (murphy et al. 2013) to problems in the livelihood of rural communities (rai et al., 2012; shrestha et al., 2019b). it has been considered globally as the second major cause of biodiversity loss after habitat degradation (glowka et al., 1994; bellard et al., 2016). there are, altogether, 26 iaps in nepal, and a. adenophora is one of them. it is commonly found in forest, shrub land, grassland and agroecosystem at the altitudinal range of 400−2600m (shrestha, 2019). the invasion of a. adenophora is more severe at the edges of the forest and agricultural lands and also the wetlands (baral et al., 2013). in forest and shrub lands, a. adenophora is considered as one of the major problematic species including chromolaena odorata, lantana camara and mikania micrantha (shrestha, 2019a). management of invasive species involves three basic strategies i.e. prevention, eradication and control (radocevich et al., 2009). effects of invasion and initiatives to manage iaps and studies on their dynamics have been very limited (bhatterai et al., 2014). therefore, this study focused on assessing different treatments which help control invasion of a. adenophora in the planted pine forest. methods and materials study area the study was carried out at two sites within the sangaswoti deurali lauri community forest (sdlcf) of kabhrepalanchok district (bagmati province) situated in the middle-hill region of nepal (figure 1). figure 1: location of study sites in kabhrepalanchok district of nepal the sdlcf is located at an altitude of over 2200m from the sea level, and is dominated by p. patula associated with a few other tree species. the study sites consist of mainly the pine species planted in the early eighties. the mature stocks of p. patula and p. wallichiana were present in the study sites; around 95% of the stems were of p. patula. the practice of open grazing before the study had led the area prone to biological invasion. the forest grounds banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 5 malla et al. of the study sites were invaded mostly by invasive a. adenophora. in nepal, distribution of a. adenophora is mostly absent in the terai region (i.e. a wide belt of flat land along the southern border), and it occurs occasionally in the siwalik region, particularly in western nepal. the species is widespread in the middle mountain region (shrestha, 2019a). two blocks (block i and block ii), each with the area of 2 ha, were established within the sdlcf for the purpose of the study. each block was further divided into four treatment-plots, each with the size of 0.5 ha (100m × 50m) at the spacing of 5m as buffer (figure 2) so as to apply four different treatments, viz., (i) control, (ii) stem felling, (iii) floor clearance, and (iv) stem felling cum floor clearance (abbreviated with t0, t1, t2 and t3, respectively). pl ot u nd er tr ea tm en t t 0 b uf fe r pl ot u nd er tr ea tm en t t 1 b uf fe r pl ot u nd er tr ea tm en t t 2 b uf fe r pl ot u nd er tr ea tm en t t 3 figure 2: establishment of treatment-plots within a block in the study sites note: t0=control, t1=floor clearance, t2=stem felling (10%), t3= stem felling (10%) cum floor clearance. data collection after establishing the treatment-plots in the study sites, the aforementioned four treatments (t0, t1, t2 and t3) were applied every year for three consecutive years (fy 2073/074−2075/076). circular sample plots of 2m radius were laid out systematically at the spacing of 10m × 5m (length × breadth) inside each treatment-plot to collect the coverage of a. adenophora. altogether, 39 sample plots were established within the four treatmentplots to collect the necessary data. all the circular sample plots were divided into four parts at cardinal directions to record the cover percentage of a. adenophora. in between the treatment-plots, buffers of 5m width were created so as to neutralize the buffer effects on the plantations within the treatment-plots. the presence of a. adenophora in the treatmentplots was recorded on the basis of ocular estimation. data analysis the data collected from the field were analyzed separately for each block. the coverage of the iaps in each sample plot within each treatmentplot are highlighted in figure 3. the mean and standard deviation of the coverage percent of the iaps were calculated for all the treatment-plots. the significant effects of treatments in each block was determined by applying the anova test. besides, the tukeyhsd test was also applied to compare the means of the target variables. all the statistical analyses were conducted in r program (r core team, 2019). similarly, the distribution of the iaps, whether homogenous or heterogeneous in each treatment-plots, was analyzed in graphs (figures 3 and 4). moreover, the cost incurred for applying treatments in the blocks was also calculated using the number of labors and their per day rate as per the government norms; however, only the labor cost was considered in the analysis. results number of pine stems in the establishment year, the number of pine stems in both the blocks were recorded. every year, 10 percent of the stems were removed from the treatment-plots t2 and t3 within both the blocks in course of the application of treatments (table 1). banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 6 malla et al. table1: number of pine stems after the treatments in different years treatment before treatment 2015 2016 2017 block i block ii block i block ii block i block ii block i block ii control (t0) 205 212 205 212 205 212 205 212 floor clearance (t1) 192 159 192 159 192 159 192 159 stem felling (10% per year) denoted by t2 161 170 145 153 129 136 113 119 stem felling (10% per year) cum floor clearance denoted by t3 154 174 139 157 124 140 109 123 distribution of a. adenophora the distribution of a. adenophora was not similar in all the treatment-plots. the effects of treatment can be easily noticed in figure 3 and figure 4. the treatment-plots t1 and t3 followed some linear pattern as compared to the treatment-plots t0 and t2 with the lower level of the presence of a. adenophora in both the blocks. the results showed that the floor clearance work had important role in reducing the presence of a. adenophora. figure 3: distribution of a. adenophora in block i banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 7 malla et al. figure 4: distribution of a. adenophora in block ii coverage of a. adenophora in the case of block i, the mean coverage percent of a. adenophora was found to be the highest (59.61%) in the controlled plot t0 followed by the treatmentplots t2 (44.23%), t3 (30.76 %), and t1 (26.28%), respectively (table 2). similarly, the standard deviation of the coverage of a. adenophora was found to be the highest (20.24) in the treatment-plot t2 followed by the controlled plot t0 (18.68), and the treatment-plots t3 (10.67) and t1 (5.58), respectively within the same block. table 2: mean and standard deviation of the iaps coverage block treatment mean cover (%) i t0 59.61 (18.68) t1 26.28 (5.58) t2 44.23 (20.24) t3 30.76 (10.67) ii t0 72.43 (22.79) t1 29.48 (9.71) t2 83.97 (14.60) t3 30.12 (14.74) note: standard deviations in parentheses in the case of block ii, the mean coverage of the iaps was found to be the highest (83.97%) in the treatment-plot t2 followed by the controlled plot t0 (72.43%) and the treatment-plots t3 (30.12%) and t1 (29.48%), respectively. similarly, the standard deviation of the iaps coverage was found to be the highest (22.79) in the controlled plot t0 followed by the treatment plots t3 (14.74), t2 (14.60) and t1 (9.71), respectively (table 2). the result showed that the mean coverage of a. adenophora was higher in the treatment-plots where floor clearance had not been performed. the effect of floor clearance work (either solely or accompanied with stem felling) had reduced the presence of a. adenophora in the study sites. the trend of the presence of a. adenophora in both the blocks was more or less similar. the anova test indicated that there was significant effect of the "floor clearance treatment" on the presence of a. adenophora in both the blocksblock i (f<2e-16) and block ii (f< 2e16). it confirms that the floor clearance on the pine plantation forest helps reduce the presence of this invasive species significantly. on the other hand, the tukeyhsd test in r program (which was performed to test the multiple comparison of banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 8 malla et al. table 3: comparison of the means of different treatments based on tukeyhsd test block i treatments difference lwr upr p adj t1−t0 −33.33 −42.17 −24.48 0.0000 t2−t0 −15.38 −24.22 −6.54 0.0000 t3−t0 −28.84 −37.69 −20.00 0.0000 t2−t1 17.94 9.10 26.79 0.0000 t3−t1 4.48 −4.35 23.33 0.5529 t3−t2 −13.46 −22.30 −4.61 0.0006 block ii treatment difference lwr upr p adj t1−t0 −42.98 −52.46 −33.43 0.0000 t2−t0 11.53 2.02 21.05 0.0104 t3−t0 −41.51 −51.09 −31.93 0.0000 t2−t1 54.48 44.97 64.00 0.0000 t3−t1 1.43 −8.14 11.00 0.9799 t3−t2 −53.05 −62.62 −43.47 0.0000 the means) showed that all the treatments were significant except t3 and t1 in both the blocks (table 3). the treatment-plots t1 and t3 with the "floor clearance treatment" showed similar results. cost associated with removal of iaps the uprooting of a. adenophora including the removal of pine needles during floor clearance in the treatment-plots required significant labor cost. the cost incurred during the floor clearance treatment was nrs 13,800.00 (~ us $120) per ha per year. a total of 6 ha area was cleared in the treatment-plots in course of floor clearance during the study period of three years resulting expenditure of nrs 82,800.00 (~ us $720). the cost incurred in the removal of a. adenophora had, no doubt, contributed in lowering the presence of a. adenophora in the study sites (table 4). table 4: cost of treatment (floor clearance) for 3 years in the study sites block treatment cost/ha/yr. (nrs.) total area (ha) cost (nrs.) a. adenophora coverage (%) i t0 59.61 t1 13,800 (~ us $120) 0.5 × 3 = 1.5 20,700 (~ us $180) 26.28 t2 44.23 t3 13,800 (~ us $120) 0.5 × 3 = 1.5 20,700 (~ us $180) 30.76 ii t0 72.43 t1 13,800 (~ us $120) 0.5 × 3 = 1.5 20,700 (~$ us 180) 29.48 t2 83.97 t3 13,800 (~ us $120) 0.5 × 3 = 1.5 20,700 (~$ us 180) 30.12 total 6.0 82,800.00 (~ us $ 720) banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 9 malla et al. discussion both anthropogenic and natural factors are responsible for the introduction and spread of iaps (rai et al., 2012). in order to control population of a. adenophora, one of the problematic iaps, different control measures (i.e. biological, chemical and mechanical) have been in practice (poudel et al, 2019). manual removal of a. adenophora from the forest helps control its population to certain level than leaving the forest as it is. in the large area, it may not be feasible as it demands more budget. however, it can be financially viable for a small forest area that needs regeneration of native tree species. impact of invasive alien plant species on forest regeneration has been reported in many studies. it is shown that invasive species has stronger inhibitory effects on tree seedling establishment and growth compared to native understory species (nilsson et al. 2000; wallstedt et al. 2005). high abundance of a. adenophora inhibits the growth of seedlings of native canopy trees (denggao et al., 2018), detrimental impact on local biodiversity and negative impact on local communities (baral et al., 2013). thus, it is important to maintain the population of a. adenophora to minimize its detrimental effect on native tree regeneration. invasion of a. adenophora mostly occurs in open land such as grass land, agriculture land, open wood land, forest margins, etc. (baral et. al., 2013) has reported that open areas are conducive for the establishment of a. adenophora, and it is the first species to colonize the degraded areas preventing other plants to grow. our result also showed that the invasion of a. adenophora had positive relation with the opening of forest. it was noticed that the opening of the forest by felling the stems triggered the iaps to invade the area. floor clearance work is associated with the removal of a. adenophora and other pine needles in a pine plantation forest assuming that it controls the population of iaps. our results showed that the floor clearance work had significant effect on maintaining the population of a. adenophora at minimum level as compared to the other treatments. the floor clearance accompanied by stem felling did not produce better result than the floor clearance alone. opening of forest (canopy gap) makes the environment favorable for iaps to dominate other vegetation (vargas et al., 2013). on the contrary, increasing tree canopy closure in the forest suppress growth of iaps (khaniya & shrestha, 2020). the best option to control the population of a. adenophora in pine plantation forest could be a periodic removal of this invasive species from the forest ground with least disturbance to canopy cover of the forest. the cost associated with the removal of a. adenophora could be costly for large area in terms of labor cost. however, in the context of nepal, most of the forests (47.5%) are managed by the communities belonging to 4.2 million households (dfrs, 2015; dof, 2017). so, mobilization of communities could be a better option for rejuvenation of small degraded forest areas from iaps. in this regard, khania & shrestha (2020) have also suggested to control iaps through participatory way. conclusion invasion of iaps in the forest area is a problem for the existence of native species. in the planted pine forest, invasion of a. adenophora is common in nepal. the condition is further exacerbated when it gets conducive environment to spread all over. invasion of a. adenophora has positive relation with the opening of forest cover. creating gaps by stem felling in the planted pine forest offers iaps to invade the area. in order to control its population, human intervention is vital. periodic removal of this invasive species from the forest floor helps reduce its intensity of invasion. floor clearance along with maintaining forest cover is one of the best means to control the population of a. adenophora at minimum level in the planted pine forest. the cost for floor clearance periodically in planted pine forest is high for the developing countries like nepal. however, it could be applicable to small forest areas where the regeneration of desired species is of high priority. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 10 malla et al. acknowledgements this article has been prepared on the basis of the data collected from the research plots established by the then department of forest research and survey (now the forest research and training centre, frtc) within the sdlcf of kabhrepalanchok district in 2014. we are thankful to the frtc for providing the necessary data as well as financial support to accomplish the study. besides, we would like to thank all the technical staff involved in the fieldwork. references baral, s., adhikari, a., khanal, r., malla, y., kunwar, r., basnyat, b., gauli, k. and acharya, r. p (2013). invasion of alien species and their impact on different ecosystems of panchase area, nepal. banko janakari 27 (1): 31−42. bellard, c., cassey, p. and blackburn, t. m (2016). alien species as a driver of recent extinctions. biology letters 12 (2), 20150623 bhattarai, k. r., måen, i. e. and subedi, s. c (2014). biodiversity and invasibility: distribution patterns of invasive plant species in the himalayas, nepal. journal of mountain science 11 (3): 688–696. denggao, f., xiaoni w., huang, n. and changqun d (2018): effects of the invasive herb ageratina adenophora on understory plant communities and tree seedling growth in pinus yunnanensis forests in yunnan, china. journal of forest research. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13416979.2018.1429202 dfrs (2015). state of nepal's forests. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey. kathmandu, nepal. dof (2012). community forest data base. community forestry division, department of forest, ministry of forest and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. dof (2017). hamro ban. annual report of fiscal year 2016−2017, department of forest. kathmandu, nepal. fao (2015). global forest resources assessment (2015). food and agriculture organization of the united nations, rome. gilmour, d., king, g., applegate, g. and mohns, b. (1990). silviculture of plantation forest in central nepal to maximize community benefits. forest ecology and management 32: 173−186. glowka, l., burhenne-guilmin, f. and synge, h. (1994). a guide to the convention on biological diversity. iucn, gland, switzerland. hunt, s., dangal, s. and shrestha, s. (2001). the impact of stocking on the growth of pine plantations in the mid-hills of kabhrepalanchok and sindhupalchok districts. jactel, h., goulard, m., menassieu, p. and gouzon, g. (2002). habitat diversity in forest plantations reduces infestations of the pine stem borer dioryctria sylvestrella. journal of applied ecology 39: 618−628. jackson, j. (1994). manual of afforestation in nepal. forest research and survey centre, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. khaniya, l. and shrestha, b. b. 2020. forest regrowth reduces richness and abundance of invasive alien plant species in community managed shorea robusta forests of central nepal. journal of ecology and environment 44 (1):1−8. mfsc (2009). study on invasive alien species (ias) as drivers to deforestation and degradation of forests in different physiographic regions of nepal. redd cell, ministry of forests and soil conservation, babarmahal, kathmandu. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 11 malla et al. mfsc (2014). nepal national biodiversity strategy and action plan 2014−2020. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. murphy, s. t., subedi, n., gnawali, s. r., lamichhane, b. r., upadhyay, g. p., kock, r. and amin, r. (2013). invasive mikania in chitwan national park, nepal: the threat to the greater one-horned rhinoceros rhinoceros unicornis and factors driving the invasion. oryx 47: 361−368. nacrmlp (2006). thinning guidelines for pinus patula and pinus roxburghii plantations in nepal. nepal australia community resource management and livelihood project, kathmandu, nepal. nilsson, m. c., zackrisson, o., sterner, o. and wallstedt, a. (2000). characterization of the differential interference effects of two boreal dwarf shrub species. oecologia. 123: 122–128. poudel, a. s., jha, p. k., shrestha, b. b. and muniappan, r. (2019). biology and management of the invasive weed ageratina adenophora (asteraceae): current state of knowledge and future research needs. weed research 59 (2): 79–92. r core team (2019). r: a language and environment for statistical computing. r foundation for statistical computing, vienna, austria. https://www.r-project. org/. radocevich, s. r., prather, t., ghersa, c. m. and lass, l. (2009). implementing science based invasive plant management. in: management of invasive weeds. (ed.) inderjit. springer science + business media b.v. pp 345−359. rai, r.k., scarborough, h., subedi, n. and lamichhane, b. (2012). invasive plants do they devastate or diversify rural livelihoods? rural farmers’ perception of three invasive plants in nepal. journal of nature conservation 20: 170–176. shrestha, b. b. (2019a). management of invasive alien plant species in nepal: current practices and future prospects. in: tropical ecosystems: structure, functions and global change. s.c. garkoti, s. van bloem, p. z. fule and r. l. semwal (eds.). springer nature singapore. pp. 45−68. shrestha, b. b., shrestha, u. b., sharma, k. p., thapa-parajuli, r. b., devkota, a. and siwakoti, m. (2019b). community perception and prioritization of invasive alien plants in chitwanannapurna landscape, nepal. journal of environmental management 229: 38–47. simberloff, d. (2000). global climate change and introduced species in united states forests. the science of the total environment 262: 253–261. vargas, r., gartner, s., alvarez, m., hagen, e. and reif, a. (2013). does restoration help the conservation of the threatened forest of robinson crusoe island? the impact of forest gap attributes on endemic plant species richness and exotic invasions. biodiversity conservation 22: 1283–300 vihervaana, p., marjokorpi, a., kumpula, t., walls, m. and kampinnen, m. (2012). ecosystem services of fast-growing tree plantations. a case study on integrating social valuations with land-use changes in uruguay. forest policy and economics 14: 58–68. wallstedt, a., gallet, c. and nilsson, m. c. (2005). behaviour and recovery of the secondary metabolite batatasin-iii from boreal foresthumus: influence of temperature, humus type and microbial community. biochemistry system ecology 33: 385–407. wang, c. j., li, q.f. and wan, j. z. (2019). potential invasive plant expansion in global ecoregions under climate change. peerj 7: e6479. doi 10.7717/peerj.6479. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 12 nepal has an appreciative history on conservation of rhino with remarkable proportions of asian rhino population protected and managed within the protected areas. poaching risk map promises early warning and a way to target preventive action, which can safeguard both human and ecosystem. this study was designed to identify and map risk areas of rhino (rhinoceros unicornis) poaching within and around eastern sector of chitwan national park (cnp). a multi criterion gis method was used to analyze and derive the risky zone. a binary logistic regression and expert consultation were done to finalize variables and risk rating, then weighted sum index model was performed in arcgis to derive risk zonation map. presence/poaching and pseudo absence data were dependent variables and distance to guard post, settlement and road network from poaching events, land cover, slope and elevation were predictor variables for logistic regression model. poaching events were observed to be spatially distributed around the park except in the south part. among the seven predictable variables, five variables except terrain (slope and elevation) were statistically significant at 10% level of test (p<0.1). the poaching risk map indicates that areas near to roads, far from the guard post, and densely populated area of grasslands are high risk zone areas for rhino poaching. the gis based maps will be practical and strategical to wildlife managers in cnp to facilitate decision making on intervention programmes and how best to direct law enforcement patrol within and around the park. key words: pseudo absence data, rhinoceros unicornis, weighted sum index model identification and mapping of risk areas of rhino poaching; a geospatial approach: a case study from eastern sector of chitwan national park, nepal m. subedi1* and r. subedi2 among the natural resource management programme in nepal wildlife conservation has been steadily budgeted since the late 1970s (poudyal et al., 2012). primarily this is true for greater one-horned indian rhinoceros, which is protected within the protected areas in the lowlying terai region (poudyal and knowler, 2005). chitawan national park (cnp) provides prime habitat for the most of the rhinoceros in nepal, and the preservation of rhinos in this park is impressive conservation success stories (poudyal, 2005). due to the high value on illegal markets, endangered species are often targeted species of poachers. the greater one horned rhinoceros, also known as indian rhinoceros is an odd-toed ungulates of the family rhinocerotidae. the greater one-horned rhinoceros is the largest of three types of asian rhinos and, together with african white rhino, is the largest of all rhino species (wwf, 2017). it is listed in appendix i of cites (bhattarai and rupakheti, 2015), globally vulnerable (iucn, 2017) and nationally endangered (jnawali et al., 2011) and protected by national park and wildlife conservation act 1973. rhino population has been increasing in nepal for few years (www, 2017). poaching and illegal trade in endangered species and products made from them are considered foremost serious problem in biodiversity conservation, hence poaching is the biggest challenge in the biodiversity conservation (aryal, 2002). according to the nbsap (2014) illegal hunting and trade of important wildlife 1 department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal, * email: subedi.iof68@gmail.com 2 institute of forestry, central campus, pokhara, nepal banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 13 species is a major threat in the management of protected area’s biodiversity which has affected more severely to those vertebrates whose demand of products in international market is very high. poaching is one of most challenge faced by the management in cnp (acharya, 2006). as long as there is demand for oriental medicine-prepared from wildlife products like rhinoceros’s horns, there is always risk of poaching (aryal et al., 2009). despite the success in preserving the rhinos in nepal, substantial number have been poached within and outside these protected areas since the establishment of national park. according to treves et al. (2011), identification of the spatial distribution (e.g., extent, location) of poaching activities is utmost for managers to mobilize limited resources appropriately to the concentrated areas where poaching severity is high. monitoring, enforcement and deterrence are difficult for poaching due to its illegal nature. to control poaching significant human and financial resources are needed (keane et al., 2008) and manager most prioritize the monitoring and assessment activities relative to the other natural resources based on economic analysis (sheil, 2001). thus, it is necessary to investigate the relationship between accessibility, habitat and control factors with poaching events to identify high poaching risk zone. during the last three decades, remote sensing (rs) and geographical information system (gis) technologies are emerging as new tools assisting in resolving land use conflict and management of natural resources (brown et al., 1994) and also have made significant contributions in the management of natural resource and also for environmental monitoring (zaman, 2012). gis technology is a powerful tool for managing, analyzing, and visualizing wildlife data to intended areas where interventional management practices are required to monitor their effectiveness (esri, 2010). this study was carried out with an integrated approach using rs and gis techniques together with ancillary data for poaching risk mapping of rhino. population density and catch per unit effort of poachers is inversely proportionate which means if rhino population density increases, the effort required to find a rhino to poach will decreases (metzger et al., 2010). in the study area, population density of rhinoceros is very high in comparison to other protected areas of nepal which has created more favorable environment for poachers. regular monitoring of population is therefore essential to guide protection efforts and management decisions (subedi et al., 2013). mapping can be used to prioritize conservation efforts and to minimize wildlife poaching risk which is helpful to manage wildlife and to delineate the most vulnerable area of poaching risk for a specific species (sanches et al., 2008). this study had two main objectives: (i) to establish the relationship between accessibility habitat and control factors with spatial and temporal pattern of poaching events of rhino and (ii) to derive a poaching risk map. the results of this study will be useful for concerned stakeholders to conserve rhino in and around the cnp. materials and methods study area the study was confined to the eastern sector of world heritage listed chitwan national park (fig. 1). geographically, the study area extends from 27° 25’ 30’’ n to 27° 39’ 30’’ n latitude and from 84° 23’ 30’’ e to 84° 45’ 03’’ e longitude. the eastern sector covers around 407 sq. km of core area and 138 sq. km of buffer zone and spreads into the parsa, makawanpur and chitwan districts. the eastern sector consists of very good habitat for rhinoceros and has good population density. since the last 12 years 30 % of total poaching incidents were found in this sector (cnp, 2015). fig 1: map showing the location of study area subedi and subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 14 methodology the overall methodology used in this study is given in figure 2. fig. 2: overall methodology for the risk mapping data use the rapid eye image dated february 2010, having 5 m spatial resolution of the study area was used for the land use land cover map preparation. aster digital elevation model (dem) of the 30-m spatial resolution dated october 2011 was also downloaded from usgs (https://earthexplorer. usgs.gov) and used for the slope and elevation map preparation. digital topographic maps of the study area were purchased from department of survey, kathmandu nepal and used for the road network and settlement map preparation. the location of the guard/security post, poaching and population information, habitat distribution from 2003 to 2015 were used and the data were supplied by the cnp. data analysis generation of spatial layer and land cover map spatial layers of land use lan cover (lulc), settlement, slope, elevation, guard post, road, habitat distribution and poaching events of rhino were generated using arcgis. object based image analysis (obia) techniques were used for the land cover map using classification and regression tree (cart) approach (fig. 3) and ecognition developer version 8 was used to produce the lulc map. first of all, images were divided into object segments and then using the test sample, image objects were classified into samples. finally, the tuning parameters of different classifiers were adjusted to generate high classification accuracy. altogether, 206 sample points were used for the training sample and 60 sample points were used for the accuracy assessment. the mean values, standard deviation, brightness, max. diff. (max. intensity difference), ndvi (normalized difference vegetation index) and ndwi (normalized difference water index) were also chosen for classifications. subedi and subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 15 fig. 3: flow chart of image classification using cart pre-processing of poaching events data poaching data and poaching absence data were combined and processed in logistic regression analysis. poaching data were given name to presence data and poaching absence data were generated from the study area where poaching events were absent assuming there is no poaching and gave name to pseudo absence data. fifty pseudo absence data were generated using qgis and merged with presence data and got the presenceabsence dataset which were later used as a dependent variable in regression analysis. presence data were labelled 1 and pseudo absence data were labelled 0 during the logistic regression analysis. logistic regression model logistic regression is one of the generalized linear model (glm) which is distinguish with other statistical model since it is not influenced by the supposition of variance inequalities across the groups, and is appropriate to use whenever the dependent variable is binary in nature (hosmer et al., 2000). in the logistic regression model presence absence data as a dependent variable and distance to road network, distance to settlement, distance to guard post, land cover and slope as predictor variables, were used to explain the relationship with poaching events. distance to road, settlement, guard post as descriptive variables were determined from presence absence dataset using the near distance function in arcgis. the attributes and raster value of lulc map, slope and elevation were analyzed and extracted using arcgis and used in regression model. statistical package for social science (spss) were used for the logistic regression analysis. the poaching risk mapping after establishing the relationship between the bio-physical factors and poaching events, the results were discussed with the concerned expert and their weightage was fixed. only significant variables in logistic regression analysis were discussed with expert. this method was done because poaching spatial factor and field scenario may be different so only statistical test is not sufficient. after finalizing criteria all maps according to the risk rating were prepared and finally used to derive poaching risk zonation map of the study area by using multi-criterion weightage sum index modelling in raster gis environment. results and discussion relationship of poaching events with variables the logistic regression model perfectly predicted 34 pseudo absence (non-poaching) events out of 50 sample points and 25 presence (poaching) events out of 29 poaching events. 85.5 % overall accuracy was provided by the full model. to explain the rhino poaching within and around the eastern sector of cnp, six predicted variables were examined for their significance using stepwise logistic regression. out of six predictor variables, only four variables such as distance to guard post (p=0.030), distance to road (p=0.010), distance from settlement (p=0.021) and land cover (p= 0.074) were remained in the model with significant negative relationship of distance to road network and distance from settlement and positive relationship of distance to guard post and land cover with poaching events (p<0.1). logistic regression analysis table is given annex 1. in the scenario of natural resource management, roads make easier to people’s movement in formerly unreachable areas. if the area is easier to reach; then poacher can go in the area at short time for poaching (toxopeus,1996). similarly, in this study most of the poaching events were found to be occurred in areas within one to two kilometers. security guard post plays the most important role in bio-monitoring of illegal activities. the wildlife conservation history showed that more the guard posts less the poaching. this study showed negative relationship between security guard posts and illegal activities, as the increase in distance from guard post enhanced the likelihood of poaching. subedi and subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 16 some local inhabitant adjoining to the protected areas, illegal hunting comprises the part of their livelihood. ouko (2013) found the direct relationship between the incident of poaching and level of income of local people. in this study, the relationship between distance from the settlement and poaching incident was found negative which means nearer the area from settlement, higher the risk of poaching. rhinoceros preferred the alluvial plain grasslands and swampy area. they have definite spots for dropping their excreta (thakur et al., 2014). grasslands and water bodies are the potential area for rhino poaching. most of the poaching incidents were in grassland area, it could be because of habitat limitation in other areas. spatial distribution of poaching events the results showed that during a period of 12-years from 2003 to 2015, 72 % of the poaching events occurred in the grasslands, 7 % in forestlands, 14 % in water bodies, 4 % in cultivated area and remaining 4 % were in the sandy/river cutting area (fig. 4). about 35 % poaching events were found at a distance of 3000 m to 4500 m away from the guard post and very less at a distance of less than 1000 m (fig. 5). fig. 4: distribution of poaching events with lulc fig. 5: poaching incident and distance from guard post most of the poaching events were occurred at a distance of less than 1000 m from the road (fig. 6) and 2 – 4 km away from the settlement. no poaching events were found at a distance of 3000 m away from road and 8 km away from settlement (fig.7) fig. 6: poaching events with distance from road fig. 7: poaching events with distance from settlement subedi and subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 17 finalized criteria for risk mapping the variables were classified into five classes. the very high-risk area, high risk area, medium risk area, low risk area and very low risk area were rated as 5 to 1, respectively. finalized variables and their weightage is given in annex 2. risk zonation map figure 8 depicts the risk zone areas of rhino poaching within and around eastern sector of the cnp. the high-risk zone areas for rhino poaching are those areas close to roads, far from guard post and higher populated area of grasslands with red to green tones. this map is a result of combining the guard post distance risk map, road distance risk map, settlement distance risk map and land cover risk map. fig. 8: rhino poaching risk zonation map about 34. 6 km2 area was found as very higher risk area, 106.23 km2 as high risk, 132.92 km2 as medium, 161.88 km2 as low and 109.66 km2 as very low risk area of poaching (fig. 9). fig. 9: area covered by different risk zone conclusion the findings from this study indicate that the multi-criterion gis based weightage sum index model presented in this research identified and mapped risk areas of rhino poaching within and around eastern sector of the cnp. poaching events occurred all, except in the southern part of eastern sector of cnp. frequency of poaching was concentrated more in western site of the sector. the average rhino poaching location was found to be 792 m away from road, 3106 m away from settlement and 3424 m from guard post. grasslands and water bodies were more likely to exhibit poaching events. the increase in distance from the guard post increased the likelihood of poaching, but the increase in distance from road and settlement reduced the likelihood of poaching. most poachers avoid long distance travelling inside the park boundary. nearby village of the cnp has also created the proxy environment for the poaching. about 45 % incidences were found at the distance between 4—6 km from settlements. hence for the effective control of rhinoceros poaching, more security guard posts should be established and the area of responsibility (aor) of existing guard posts should be increased (maximized). this study recommends to prepare the similar risk map to other sectors of the cnp taking into account social factor in addition to the habitat, control and accessibility factors and the park should be arranged the anti-poaching activities according to risk zonation map. acknowledgements this paper is based on a part of the author’s b.sc. forestry thesis submitted to the institute of forestry, pokhara campus, nepal. we are obliged to the project coordination unit, national trust for nature conservation (ntnc) for financial support to conduct the study. we are deeply indebted to whole cnp family for providing the important data, their support and guidance during field work. we are grateful to the department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc) for allowing permission to conduct the research in the study area. we express our cordial thanks to mr. binod prasad heyojoo, mr. yajna prasad timalsina, mr. navin kumar yadav, kamal jung kuwar, amul kumar acharya, shiva khanal and buddi sagar poudel for their critical subedi and subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 18 suggestions and guidance during the study. references acharya, d. 2006. a report about rhino poaching in chitwan national park, nepal. media consultancy, nepal. aryal, r. s., box, p. o., lane, n. p. 2009. report on the facts and issues on poaching of mega species and illegal trade in their parts in nepal. transparency international nepal. review literature and arts of the americas 1—61. aryal, r.s. 2002. wildlife trade in nepal. environment 7 (8): 1—5. bhattrai, g. and rupakheti, n. 2014. flora and fauna of nepal in cites annexes. kathmandu: department of national park and wildlife conservation. retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/0b_ avmj98dt2hwdq4vvnfbxjhumc/ view?usp=sharing brown, s., schreier, h., william, a., thompson and vertinsky, i.1994. linking multiple 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poaching of the onehorned indian rhinoceros in nepal. prem working paper 05/07 . retrieved from http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_ files/117/1175857241.pdf poudyal, m., rothley, k., and knowler, d. 2012. ecological and economic analysis of poaching of the greater rhinoceros ( subedi and subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 19 rhinoceros unicornis ) in nepal. journal of ecological applications 19 (7):1693— 1707. sánchez-mercado, a., ferrer-paris, j. r., yerena, e., garcía-rangel, s. and rodríguez-clark, k.m. 2008. factor affecting poaching risk to vulnerable andean bears tremarctos ornatus in the cordillera de mérida, venezuela: space, parks and people. journal of flora and faunna oryx 42 (3): 437—447. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/ s0030605308006996 sheil, d. 2001. conservation and biodiversity monitoring in the tropics: realities, priorities, and distractions. conservation biology 15 (4): 1179—1182. doi:10.1046/ j.1523-1739.2001.0150041179.x subedi, n., jnawali, s., dhakal, m., pradhan, n., lamichhane, b., malla, s., and jhala, y. 2013. population status, structure and distribution of the greater one-horned rhinoceros rhinoceros unicornis in nepal. fauna & flora international, oryx 47 (3): 352—360 doi:10.1017/ s0030605313000562. thakur, s., upreti, c. r., and jha, k. 2014. nutrient analysis of grass species consumed by greater one-horned rhinoceros (rhinoceros unicornis) in chitwan national park, nepal. international journal of applied sciences and biotechnology 2 (4): 402—408.http:// doi.org/10.3126/ijasbt.v2i4.11119 toxopeus, a. g. 1996. ism, an interactive spatial and temporal modelling system as a tool in ecosystem management : with two case studies: cibodas biosphere reserve, west java, indonesia, amboseli biosphere reserve, kajiado district, central-southern kenya. itc, united states. treves,a., kerry a. martin, adrian p. wydeven, jane e. wiedenhoeft; 2011. forecasting environmental hazards and the application of risk maps to predator attacks on livestock, bioscience; 61 (6) : 451—458. https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2011.61.6.7 wwf. 2017. greater one horned rhino. retrieved from http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_ do/endangered_species/rhinoceros/asian_rhinos/ indian_rhinoceros/ on 7/8/2017. zaman, m. a. 2012. “gis and remote sensing applications in natural resources management in bangladesh” paper presented at the world conference on computers in agriculture, federation for information in agriculture, taipei, taiwan. subedi and subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 20 annex 1: logistic regression analysis table variable β df sig. exp (b) distance to guard post .068 1 .030* 1.001 distance from settlement -.001 1 .021* .999 distance to road -.053 1 .010* .997 land cover 3.054 1 .074** 21.195 slope 2.984 1 .598 7.25 elevation 6.34 1 .895 15.43 constant -2.882 1 .293 .056 * significant at 0.05 and ** significant at 0.10 annex 2: variables in forest poaching risk area modeling, their ratings and poaching occurrence and β coefficient in regression analysis variable class poaching occurrence risk rating β statistically significant land cover forestland 3 3 3.054 (p=0.074) significant at α=10% grassland 21 5 water bodies 3 4 sandy areas 1 2 cultivated area 1 1 distance from guard post (m) <1000 1 1 0.680 (p=0.030) significant at α=5% 1000 — 2000 5 2 2000 — 3000 6 3 3000 — 4500 10 5 >4500 7 4 distance from road (m) <1000 19 5 -0.053 (p=0.010) significant at α=5% 1000— 2000 8 4 2000—3000 2 3 3000— 4500 0 2 >4500 0 1 distance from settlement (m) <2000 8 2 -0.001 (p=0.021) significant at α=5% 2000— 4000 13 5 4000—6000 6 4 6000— 8000 2 3 >8000 0 1 subedi and subedi 98 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 silviculture trial plots were established in kavre and lamjung districts by the enlift project (enhancing livelihoods and food security through improved agroforestry and community forestry in nepal) to examine stand response to selected silviculture systems – uniform shelterwood, selection system, and negative thinning and as a showcase to forest users for these silviculture systems. this paper analyses the extent of canopy gaps on these trial plots after one-year of application of silviculture treatments and regeneration development. using crown photographs, crown cover was estimated and compared between silviculture systems. the analysis showed that rigid silviculture systems like shelterwood and selection systems created canopy gap larger than negative thinning in pine plantations and the rate of natural regeneration was directly related with the canopy gap. however, in shorea robusta-castanopsisschima (sal-katus-chilaune) forest, negative thinning created canopy gap larger than selection system due to removal of 4-d trees, majority of trees were schima wallichii (chilaune),which typically have large spreading crown. although, it may be too early to conclude the relationship between regeneration development and canopy gap from the trial plots, it became clear that silviculture operations have significant role in promoting higher regeneration. selection and shelterwood systems are better than current silviculture regime represented by negative thinning in this study. key words: canopy gaps, community forestry, multiple-use forestry, selection, shelterwood crown and regeneration responses to silviculture systems in pine and sal forests: preliminary results from silviculture trials in mid-hills nepal e. cedamon1*, g. paudel2, m. basyal2, i. nuberg1 and n. paudel2 community forestry was initiated in several developing countries primarily to reverse land degradation (gilmour, 2016; dressler et al., 2010). community development and livelihood outcomes were initially perceived as secondary outcome but has become a dominant objective gaining national governments and international community (gilmour, 2016). while the contribution of community forestry in improving forest cover, social cohesion and rural income (padgee et al., 2006; charnley and poe, 2007; antinori and rausser, 2008; chhetri et al., 2013), globally community forestry has underperformed, or community forestry goals are rarely achieved (sunderlin, 2005; maryudi et al., 2012). several authors have argued that a key success factor for community forestry is its ability to provide early and regular supply of materials to forest users (calderon and nawir, 2006; pokharel, 2012). the government of nepal is strongly campaigning for commercialisation of forest management through scientific forest management to meet the country’s demand for timber and fuelwood (mfsc, 2016). the department of forests (2015) promotes active silvicultural programmes such as shelterwood3 and selection silviculture systems or modification of these silviculture systems as approaches for scientific forest management. generally, it is understood that any silviculture system involves harvesting of overstorey trees either singly or in groups to promote tree regeneration (o’hara, 2002), there is a lack of understanding on regeneration development following harvesting or silviculture treatments on community forests in mid-hills of nepal. to address the lack of silviculture understanding, the enlift project4 embarked on a silviculture trials to demonstrate seed tree and selection silviculture 1 school of agriculture, food and wine, the university of adelaide, waite campus, urrbrae, south australia; *e-mail: edwin.cedamon@adelaide.edu.au 2 forest action nepal, bagdole, lalitpur, nepal 3 shelterwood system as described in the scientific forest management guideline is actually a seed tree system, this term is however adopted in the trials to be consistent with department of forests terminology. 99 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 systems and to examine forest ecological and forest users’ responses on these systems. the aim of this paper is to report the extent of canopy gaps and regeneration development in these trial plots after one-year of implementation of silviculture treatments. gaps on forest canopy represent opportunities for forest regeneration and had been studied widely (o’hara, 2014) but has been used little by foresters in developing silviculture regimes (coates and burton, 1997). the interest in understanding forest gaps in silviculture is due to opportunities it presents for wider range of forest management objectives including resilience and adaptability (kern et al., 2016). typical silvicultural regimes developed based solely timber-centred attributes present some challenges when applied in community forests due to diverse forest management objectives including commercial and subsistence demand for timber and non-timber forest products and environmental conservation (cedamon et al., 2016). for example, when the aim of forest management is increasing fodder and forest litters, silviculture programme may need to consider size and frequency of forest openings so that fodder and litter production is supported. the enlift silviculture trial plots, therefore, present opportunities for examining regeneration development, growth and survival of planted fodder species given canopy gaps resulting from different silviculture treatments. the enlift project established silviculture trial plots in chaubas and dhunkharka village development committees (vdcs) in kavre district and in tandrang taksar vdc in lamjung district. the purpose of the silviculture trials is two-fold. first, the trial plots were established as a learning site for community forest user groups on how to implement a number of silviculture systems potential for application in their community forests. secondly, the trial plots serve as experiments where tree and stand response can be measured to guide development of silviculture regimes for active and equitable community forest management. this paper reports the crown cover and natural regeneration development in the silviculture trial plots from chaubas and tandrang taksar representing pine plantation and naturally regenerated sal forests, respectively. crown cover and regeneration development in dhunkharka vdc is not reported, as the treatments were applied late in one plot. materials and methods study area the silviculture trial plots in chaubas vdc are located in the chapani community forest. the plantation has an area of 85 ha dominated by about 35-years old gobre (pinus wallichiana) and patle salla (pinus patula). the silviculture trial plots in tandrang taksar vdc are in lampata community forest which is a shorea robustaschima wallichii (sal-chilaune) with a total forest area of 50 ha. these forests are managed for timber, firewood, fodder and leaf litter. however, they are, generally, undermanaged due to strong conservation ethos and lack of silviculture skills of forest users. to address this gap, handson trainings on silviculture management were provided to participating community forest user groups. the trial plots served as a participatory research site where observations on the tree and forest response to silviculture systems are collaboratively undertaken by enlift researchers and forest users. in chapani community forest, four trial plots were established each having a dimension of 60 m x 70 m. in lampata community forest, three trial plots were established each having a dimension of 50 m x 80 m. the treatments are described in table 1. some trees were felled in each plot following single tree selection system based on dbq approach5, shelterwood system following nepal scientific forest management guideline 2015 and cutting dead, dying, deformed, and diseased (4-d) trees. the pre and post-treatment tree density and the volume of timber harvested from the trial plots are provided in table 1. after silviculture treatment applied, the forest floor was cleared by removing debris and weeds to prepare the ground for regeneration. in chapani cf, the silviculture treatments were applied from april to may, 2015 and the seedling count was made in january 2017, whereas the silviculture treatments were applied from january to march 2016 in lampata cf and the seedling count was made in january 2017. cedamon et al. 4 enlift project is an action research project funded by australian centre for international agricultural research (aciar). the aim of the project is to enhance food security and livelihood through improved agroforestry and community forestry in nepal. 5 q-factor is diminution quotient for a negative exponential function typical for a balanced uneven-stand. it is expressed as the q=ni÷ni+1. the dbq approach which builds upon decisions on upper diameter class for which the number of trees has to be retained (d), a desired basal area (b) and a q-factor (q). 100 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 trees were measured jointly by enlift and forest user groups (fugs) following the rapid silviculture appraisal technique described by cedamon et al. (2016) before the silviculture treatments applied to estimate timber stock and derive stand table. the timber stock table was used by the fug to apply for harvesting permit while the stand table was used in participatory and bilateral dialogues aimed at collaboratively determining silviculture systems appropriate for the given forest characteristics. tree measurement data included diameter at breast height, species local name, total tree height, and crown radii. eight photographs of the canopy were taken from corners of 10 m x 10 m subplots within the plot at 57.5o from the zenith ordinary (without hemispherical lens) using digital cameras to obtain estimate of canopy cover. canopy cover is defined in this study as the proportion of the forest floor covered by the vertical projection of the tree crowns (jennings et al., 1999). canopy photographs were processed using caneye software (freely downloadable from https:// www6.paca.inra.fr/can-eye/download) to estimate canopy cover. canopy gaps are then estimated as 100crown cover (%) because this value is more appreciated by forest users particularly in terms of regeneration development. seedling count was made in 1 m x 1 m sub-plots located within the trial plots spaced at 10 m x 10 m grid. in lampata, each trial plot has 28 seedling sub-plots while chapani trial plot has 30 seedling sub-plots. all seedlings within the sub-plots which include saplings below 5 cm diameter at breast height (dbh) are counted and species name recorded. these sub-plots were marked with timber sticks for future re-measurement. results and discussion canopy gaps created by silvicultural regimes it is generally understood that forest canopy determines the micro-habitat within the forest controlling the recruitment and growth of new plants and animal activities. all silviculture activities alter forest canopy and stand structure to some degree necessary for improving health and growth of existing forest and development of future forests. the enlift silviculture trial plots showed that different silviculture systems created a different canopy profiles as measured by canopy gaps and that these differences were more evident in pine plantation than that in naturally regenerated sal. in chapani forest, which is an even age pine plantation, the average canopy gap before applying silviculture treatment was between cedamon et al. table1:tree density in pre and post-treatment and volume harvested due to silviculture treatment in chapani and lampata cfs silviculture treatments pre-treatment tree density (stems per hectare) post-treatment tree density (stems per hectare) volume harvested due to silviculture treatment (m3/ha) 1. chapani cfchaubas, kavre negative thinning harvesting 4d trees only 416 283 60 single tree selection for mixed pine and broadleaf timber production – using dbq 504 185 300 single tree selection for timber-fodder forest garden – using dbq 535 147 200 uniform shelterwood system – using the sfm guideline 2015 361 50 243 2. lampata – tandrangtaksar, lamjung negative thinning – harvesting 4d trees only 1412 1167 38 single tree selection for timber production using dbq 953 780 173 single tree selection for timber-fodder forest garden using dbq 1253 963 52 101 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 34–44%. negative thinning increased the canopy gap by about 11%, selection silviculture for fodder-timber forest garden increased the gap by 28%, and selection system for timber production increased the canopy gap by 24%, while shelterwood system increased the gap by 43% (table 2). the differences on canopy gap on timing of measurements (before and after silviculture treatment) and between silviculture treatments was found to be statistically significant based in analysis of variance (anova) where p value is 0.000. there was also a significant interaction (p value = 0.000) between timing of measurement and silviculture treatments indicating that differences of canopy gaps that some silviculture treatments resulted in considerably larger canopy gaps than others. as shown in table 2, negative thinning retained more than half of crown cover, selection silviculture retained 28–40% of crown cover, while shelterwood retained 14% of crown cover. a relatively different canopy gap profile has been found in naturally regenerated sal forest in lampata community forest. as shown in table 2, the average canopy gap before applying silviculture treatments ranged from 7–9%, while after applying silviculture treatment it ranged from 48–53% across treatments. canopy gap increased by 45% in negative thinning, while it increased by 38% in selection silviculture system for fodder-timber forest garden and 41% for timber production. canopy gaps before and after silviculture treatments are significant while the differences in canopy gaps between treatments are not (p value = 0.072), indicating that generally negative thinning and selection silviculture have the same effects on canopy gaps creation on naturally regenerated sal stands. relationship between canopy gap and natural regeneration following silviculture operations, a survey was undertaken on seedlings in the trial plots. it was found that only 23% of the seedling sub-plots had regeneration in chapani pine plantation while it was 100% for selection silviculture for fodder-timber forest garden. the seedling density varied on an average of 26,000 to 423,000 per ha in pine plantation. in sal-chilaune forest, 79% to 100% of sub-plots had regeneration and the seedling density was in a range of 52,000 to 93,000 per ha (table 3). it is notable, however, that for pine plantation, seedling occurrence was higher in selection silviculture plot where fodder was planted and lower in negative thinning trial plot. although all plots were subjected to the same level of weed slashing and debris removal after harvesting, the fodder-timber selection plot had almost twice the number of regeneration than the shelterwood plot although it had slightly lower average canopy gap. in lampata trial plots, negative thinning had the lowest seedling density among the three plots while fodder-timber selection plot had the highest seedling density. cedamon et al. table 2: canopy gap (%) before and after silviculture treatments in chapani and lampata community forests in mid-hills districts silviculture treatment canopy gap (%) before silviculture treatment after silviculture treatment mean s.e. of mean mean s.e. of mean chapani cf negative thinning 34.31 1.36 45.28 2.19 selection for fodder -timber forest garden 44.31 .99 72.27 2.96 selection for timber 35.65 1.20 59.39 2.51 shelterwood 44.07 1.13 85.59 1.96 lampata cf negative thinning 7.75 .52 52.83 1.82 selection for fodder -timber forest garden 9.26 .97 46.99 1.41 selection for timber 6.78 .38 47.96 1.90 102 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 conclusion the silviculture trial plots establishment through the support and facilitation of enlift in kavre and lamjung had played a key role in changing people’s perspective in managing community forests for better livelihoods. not only that the plots had served as practical learning grounds for basic forestry management and operations, but it also has produced hard data on the impact of silviculture interventions on forest and stand. it has been found that significant proportion of the canopy has been opened because of silviculture intervention, and these canopy gaps can be utilised to promote growth of timber and nontimber plants. based on canopy gaps created, shelterwood and selection silviculture can be considered rigid stand intervention on pine plantation while negative thinning is less rigid. for sal-chilaune forest however, it was found that regeneration development differs between silviculture treatments, although canopy gaps is almost similar. although these results were not intended, negative thinning clearly created large gaps in a naturally regenerated forest compared to a pine plantation. the reason for this is generally due to the higher number of stems of 4-d trees, generally chilaune trees on sal forests which are not present in pine plantations. this is common in many mid-hills sal forests where older chilaune and sal trees are kept as mother trees despite the low phenotypic characteristics for mother trees. with government approval to conduct negative thinning, the fug has been given clearance to remove the bad old trees in their forest. although it may be early to make conclusion from this regeneration development and canopy gap study as the stand is still undergoing some development due to silviculture operation. moreover, silviculture operations have significant role in promoting higher regeneration and that rigid silviculture operations like selection and shelterwood systems are better than negative thinning. references antinori, c and rausser, g. 2008. ownership and control in mexico’s community forestry sector. economic development and cultural changes 57 (1): 101—136. calderon, m. m., nawir, a. a. 2006. an evaluation of the feasibility and benefits of forest partnerships to develop tree plantations: case studies in the philippines. cifor working paper no. 27. centre for international forestry research, bogor, indonesia. cedamon, e., nuberg, i., paudel, g., basyal, m., shrestha, k. and paudel, n. 2017. rapid silviculture appraisal to characterise stand and determine silviculture priorities of community forests in nepal. small-scale forestry 16 (2): 195–218. doi 10.1007/ s11842-016-9351-0. charnley, s. and poe, m. 2007. community forestry in theory and practice: where are we now? annual review of anthropology 36: cedamon et al. table 3: regeneration occurrence, seedling density and canopy gaps for silviculture treatments in chapani and lampata community forests silviculture treatment proportion of regeneration sub-plots with seedlings (%) seedling density (seedlings per hectare) average canopy gap after silviculture treatment(%) chapani trial plots negative thinning 0.23 26,000 45.3 selection for fodder -timber forest garden 1.00 423,667 72.3 selection for timber 0.53 54,000 59.4 shelterwood 0.97 223,667 85.6 lampata trial plots negative thinning 1.00 52,857 52.83 selection for fodder -timber forest garden 0.86 91,786 46.99 selection for timber 0.79 55,357 47.96 103 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 301–336. coates, k, and burton, p. 1997. a gap-based approach for development of silvicultural systems to address ecosystems management objectives. forest ecology and management 99 (3): 337–354. department of forests. 2015. scientific forest management guidelines 2015. department of forests, kathmandu, nepal. dressler, w., buscher, b. schoon, m., brockington, d., hayes, t., kull, c., mccarthy, j. and shrestha, k. 2010. from hope to crisis and back again? a critical history of the global cbrnm narrative. environmental conservation 37 (1): 5–15 gilmour, d. 2016. forty years of communitybased forestry: a review of its extent and effectiveness. food and agriculture organisation, rome, italy. jennings, s., brow, n. and sheil, d. 1999. assessing forest canopies and understorey illumination: canopy closure, canopy cover and other measures. forestry 72 (1): 59–73. khanal-chhetri, b., johnsen, f., konoshima, m. and yoshimoto, a. 2013. community forestry in the hills of nepal: determinants of user participation in forest management. forest policy and economics 30 (5): 6–13. maryudi, a., devkota, r., schusser, c., yufanyi, c., salla, m., aurenhammer, h., rotchanaphatharawit, r. and krott, m. 2012. back to basics: considerations in evaluating the outcomes of community forestry. forest policy and economics 14 (1): 1–5. mfsc. 2016. scientific forest management initiatives in nepal: msfp experiences and lessons learnt. multi stakeholder forestry program, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. kern, c., burton, j., raymond. p., d’amato, a., keeton, w., royo, a., walters, m., webster, c. and willie, j. 2017. challenges facing gap-based silviculture and possible solutions for mesic northern forests in north america. forestry 90 (1): 4–17. (1) (1):4=17doi:10.1093/forestry/cpw024. o’hara, k. 2002. the historical development of uneven-aged silviculture in north america. forestry 75 (1): 339–346. o’hara, k. 2014. multi-age silviculture: managing for complex forest stand structures. oxford university press, oxford, uk. padgee, a., kim, y, daugherty, p. 2006. what makes community forest management successful: a meta-study from community forests throughout the world. society & natural resources 19 (1): 33–52. doi: 10.1080/08941920500323260 pokharel, r. k. 2012. factors influencing the management regime of nepal’s community forestry. for. policy econ. 17 (4): 13–17. sunderlin, w, angelsen, a, belcher, b, burgers, p, nasi, r, santoso, l and wunder, s. 2005. livelihoods, forests and conservation in developing countries: an overview. world development 33 (9): 1383–1402. cedamon et al. 27 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 with the large-scale plantation commenced in the early 1980s, nearly 370,000 hectares of plantations have been successfully established in nepal. more than 26 thousand hectares (ha) of plantations have been established since late seventies in sindhupalchok and kavrepalanchok districts and are handed over to communities as community forests. pinus roxburghii and pinus patula are the dominant species of these plantations aiming to maximize biomass productions and restore greenery in degraded hills. the growth rate pinus patula was estimated 15 m³ ha-1 yr-1 in 1995 which but reduced to 7 m³ ha-1 yr-1 in 2011. as p. patula is an exotic species to nepal, knowledge on effect of age and management practices on increment was limited in nepal as well as in the regions. this is hindering in implementations of appropriate silviculture by the forest managers. to fill this knowledge gap, primary data were collected taking sample cores from 120 trees in 2015 from four community forests of chaubas ridge of kavrepalanchok district for dendrochronological assessment. among these four community forests, two followed improved management practices and two followed conventional management practices. to substantiate the data, secondary data of similar studies were used. dendrochronological assessment taking sample cores of 120 and 80 were conducted in 2000 and 2005 respectively in plantations,managed by community forest users groups, carried out between 1975 ad and 1990 ad in chaubas ridge of kavrepalanchok districts. the study found that the growth rate decreased after 12 years and this rate was bigger in the higher density class. the cumulative increment was higher in the lower density class but was found to have retarded rapidly after 15–17 years of age in the higher density class as well as in the conventionally managed plantations. the study recommends conducting planned thinning from the early age of 10–12 years while the final felling is recommended to be executed at the age of 30±5 years for p. patula to maximize volume production. however, most of the plantations have crossed its rotation age, growth rate has been stagnated and there is slim scope of increment from further thinning. in such case,as natural regeneration of the same species is observed encouraging, the study suggest to keep 10–15 seed trees and harvest the remaining. key words: conventional management, dendrochronological approach, density, growth rate, improved management, effect of management practice and age on increment in pinus patula plantations in nepal s. p. dangal1 and a. k. das2 globally, plantations forest account for 264 million hectares (ha). these plantations are mostly established to fulfil two third of the round wood demand and are mostly dominated by broad leaves (40%) and conifer (31%) (fao, 2010).with the commencement of a large-scale plantations in the early 1980s (gilmour et al., 1990), nearly 0.4 million ha plantations have been successfully established particularly in the mid hills of nepal dominated by pines especially pinus patula (dof-a, 2012).the main objectives of these plantations were to restore degraded land with forest cover and to fulfil the need of domestic and industrial demand of firewood and timber (gilmour et al., 1990). though p. patula is an exotic species, it grows considerably faster than the indigenous pines in a very poor soil (jackson, 1994) and has been dominating species to rehabilitate the degraded hills of nepal. establishment of these plantations incurred a huge cost but benefits from these plantations can be maximized only if they are managed adopting the principles of forest management (evans, 2000) to enhance the biomass on trees 1 phd candidate, mewar university, chittorgarh, rajasthan india. e-mail: shambhudangal@hotmail.com 2 senior technical advisor tgg-n project, fecofun, kathmandu, nepal 28 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 (silva et al., 2009). however, decline in yield has been reported due to the poor application of management prescriptions (evans, 2000). similarly, annual increment that leads to yield is normally affected by the age of plantations and management practices. when a tree becomes older and grows bigger, stand density influences the rate of increment. higher the crop density, more would be the competition among the trees for soil nutrients, water, light and growing space (dwivedi, 1993). thinning is a silviculture tool to reduce competition as tree grows with age and it results in greater availability of light, water and nutrients to the remaining trees. this contributes to accelerated diameter growth (demers et al., 2016). in nepal, appropriate prescriptions for plantations management have been neglected as most of the plantations have been considered as means of protection (chand et al., 2006) where community forest user’s remove tree based on their requirement. conventional management is typically performed by “selective logging” extracting small number of commercial species from a large number of non-commercial species (griscom et al., 2013). due to absent of appropriate management practice especially delayed in thinning in plantations, a huge amount of potential increment that is equivalent to us $ 176–235 ha-1 yr-1, in pine plantations has been lost (hunt et al., 2001). the improved management technologies in the forestry sector can be adopted in optimizing the productivity (fao, 2011) which is highly limited among the forest managers and academia in nepal as well as in asia. hence, this paper is aimed to generate management options along with an analysis on how increment is affected by age and management practices. materials and methods study area the primary data for the study was collected in 2014 from chaubas ridge of kavrepalanchok district (figure 1). the chaubas ridge was a severely degraded overgrazed barren land during late seventies. more than 400 ha of these degraded hills were rehabilitated mostly by pine species with the technical and financial support from australian aid for international development (ausaid), and the department of forests along with local community (eijnatten et al., 2001 & gilmour et al., 1990). after 1997, two to three thinnings were held in some forests; those consisting pinus patula species, adopting thinning guidelines nacrmlp, 2006 & timilsina, 2005. despite of these guidelines many communities are removing trees for their subsistence use in conventional way. the study was carried out in four community forests (cfs) dominated by p. patula (table 1). two of them conducted thinning using the thinning guidelines published by department of forests research and survey 2006. the forests where thinning guidelines was followed here after referred improved management and two which had not adopted referred as conventional management practice. all four cfs have a similar altitudinal range between 1850 and 2126 m.s.l. facing mostly south east and south-west. loamy clay soil mostly brown colour found without any fig. 1: location of study area, chaubas ridge in kavrepalanchok district, nepal dangal and das 29 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 indication of erosion in all the sites though these forests have slopes ranging from 8 to 25 degree. as pine needles normally do not promote regeneration of grasses, animal grazing is very low in all the areas. based on the records from the nearby hydrological station, the annual average precipitation is 1,923 mm, which falls mainly between june and september (nea, 2011). sampling and measurements the study conducted earlier in 2001 and 2005 were not confined to these four cfs and hence they are considered for cross reference. however, similar methods of sampling and preliminary analysis of tree core were adopted. following the techniques adopted by hunt et al., 2001 & de bell et al., 2001, diameter increment of individual trees over age and different stand densities, adopting dendrochronological approach, was measured taking core samples of individual trees. in 2001 & 2005, a total of 120 and 80 sample plots were established in different stand densities establishing a circular plot of 100 m2 and one dominant tree was selected from each sample plot to collect core sample (hunt et al., 2001 & chand et al.,2006). primary data was collected in 2014 taking a total of 120 tree core sample from 60 sample plots of 8.92 m radius were laid out for the purpose of forest growing stock measurement. core samples from a dominant and a codominant trees within each plot were taken. the reason behind to consider dominant and codominat trees only was to maintain consistency on tree selection among the plots (hunt et al., 2001). the number of tree per ha around the dominant and codominant trees within the plot were observed different. hence, to estimate more accurate stand density , trees were counted within 5.64 meter radius from the selected trees. from each selected tree, one core sample (0.5 cm round) was collected with the help of 30 cm long haglof increment borer (hunt et al. 2001). the core samples were collected from the most cylindrical section of the stem at 20–30 cm above the ground level. two cores were taken per tree so as to get the average if the tree bole was not cylindrical. diameter at breast height and total height of the cored trees were again measured using diameter tape and vertex. similar technique was followed to measure the core, stand density, height and diameter of the 6 dominant trees with height and diameter to understand the maximum growth potential under similar environment. for the measurement of core, each core was placed in a wooden frame of half circle (half of 0.5 cm) perpendicular channel. the core was first well sanded to increase the visibility of rings and then starting from the pith, the length of each section of the core was measured in mm with the help of vernier calliper, and recorded in a format for analysis. each ring denoted one year and the first ring was considered as first year growth though it takes one year to get height where core was taken. data analysis stand densities were estimated from a number of stems counted in 5.64 m2 radius plot as used by hunt et al., 2001 & chand et al., 2006 in their studies. this increases consistency to compare result among different studies. the core measurement data were further grouped into three stand density classes i.e. < 300 trees ha-1, 300–600 trees ha-1 and above 600 trees ha-1 hereafter referred as low, medium and high stand density, respectively. similarly, the data were also grouped based on the management practices including improved and conventional management and normality test was carried out following the kolmogorovsmirnov and shapiro-wilk test methods (razali et al., 2011) to understand data normality so as to decide the application of tests. all the data were estimated to be normal and hence decided to use parametric tests in all cases. table 1: details of the study area age of plantations (yrs) improved management conventional management forest name # of hh area (ha) forest name # of hh area (ha) 35-40 lankuri rukh 80 12.0 naya bihani 71 16.0 30-35 dharapani 63 35.0 lamrang 81 19.0 dangal and das 30 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 to examine the effect of management practices on increment, analysis of covariance (ancova) was used (de bell et al., 2001). the ancova is the combination of regression analysis and anova. linear regression analysis was used to test whether there was any effect of age on diameter increment (stock et al., 2012). in addition, trend lines and equations were developed to assess the future increment trend from different angles. results and discussion in overall, the current average stand density within the study sites varied regardless of management systems. the average densities estimated in forests with improved management was 436 stems ha-1 and forest with conventional management practice was 540 stems ha-1. findings of the study have been presented and discussed in two subheadings as below. management practices affecting diameter increment to perform ancova test, best fitted line was drawn using regression equation of y= -0.00619x + 2.7753 from measured increment data of various age. residual/deviations were estimated from the best fitted line.. the residual estimated from deviation was used for one tail anova t-tests. the test showed a significance difference in increment between improved and conventional management of p. patula at 95% confidence level with a degree of freedom 33 (since p value 0.037426826 was less than 0.5). the study conducted in 2005 to assess the increment difference between thinned and unthinned plantations showed a clear evident that the radial increment is 37% higher in thinned plots after the plantation crossed four years but in the both cases the increment retarded from second year as shown in figure 2 (chand et al., 2006). similar result was obtained from the measurement conducted in 2014 in improved and conventional managed plantations. as stated earlier, removal of trees in both areas began after 11 years. however, the effect of improved practice was seen after 17 years where increment rises sharply (fig. 3). the little effect on increment in first thinning which was conducted around 10–11 years could be due to very light mechanical thinning (10% of stems). the increment again fallen sharply after 22 years and demonstrated very little effect on increment following thinnings. this means, late thinning has less effect on increment since a stand which is unthinned or improperly thinned can’t respond the effect on a stagnated stand and similarly, thinning in a dense stand kept too long responses negative increment (punches, 2004). the average annual increment difference was estimated to be higher (0.25 mm yr-1) after the improved management systems have been adopted where 1.48 mm and 1.23 mm were measured in improved and conventional management systems, respectively. fig. 2: difference in annual increment by management practices (2006) fig. 3: difference in annual increment by management style (2015) these difference in increment demonstrated that improved management systems have impacts on increment as the proper thinning, as the key management tool in plantation, increase diameter growth by improving availability of light, water, and nutrient to the retained trees (demers et al., 2016). there has been significant positive effect on the cumulative increment in improved management system than in the conventional management system (fig. 4). dangal and das 31 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 fig. 4 : variation in cumulative increment between improved and conventional management practices cumulative increment was estimated almost equal until the age of 19 years after which increment in improved management system gradually becomes higher. both the improved and conventionally managed plantations have different tree density and effect on thinning was estimated to be different. the cumulative increments between the improved and conventionally managed plantation in various density classes showed a distinct pattern (figures 5 and 6). the cumulative increment was distinctive after the age of 15 years in improved management where as it was not very prominent until the age of 20 years. the thinned gap between the two lines density less than 300 tree ha-1 and between 300 to 600 trees ha-1 in figure 4 showed that the response of thinning after the age of 17 years was not significant as tree response to thinning if they are thinned before 16 or 17 years of age (demers et al., 2016). this could be due to the effects of competition for light, and availability of nutrients and ground water. this clearly indicated the need for reduction of density below 600 trees ha-1 in around 15 years. similarly, this results implicates that late and unmanaged thinning contribute less on increment as the increment normally reduces after it has reached age between 8–15 years (gerelbaatar et al., 2011). fig. 5: cumulative increment in improved management in different densities fig. 6: cumulative increment in conventional management in different densities in the plantations under conventional management (fig. 6), the cumulative increment was same up to 22 years in all the three density classes, and after then, the increment rate was low in the highdensity class, but no difference was noticed in the remaining two density classes. in this case, growth might be stagnated and thinning was needed before this age (punches, 2004). the low stand density in conventional management practices has yielded low increment than in similar density of improved management system. this could be due to the planned way of creating space during the intervention of improved management. normally, in a stand managed under conventional dangal and das 32 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 management, big trees are removed leaving the trees with inferior quality which naturally grow slower than the vigorous one. it is opposite in the case of a stand of improved management where the dead, diseased, dying, suppressed and inferior trees are removed first leaving the healthier big trees meant for natural regeneration and high return (demers et al., 2016). the mean annual increment (mai) was found to be notable difference in the sands managed under improved and conventional management systems and were also vary with stand densities within each of the management systems (figures 7 and 8). the reductions in the mais between improved and conventionally managed plantations were found to be almost similar until 12 years. the fluctuations in the mais in all density classes could be due to the site factors and removal of trees in conventionally managed plantations. it indicated that there was no effect of density until 12 years of age. after 12 years, the mai in the conventionally managed plantations was found to have declined; higher decline in the mai noticed in the high density class and almost similar decline noticed in the medium and low density classes. similar pattern was indicated in the high density class in the improved management practices but, fluctuations (sharp increase and decrease) in the mais were noticed in the other two density classes. fig. 7: annual increment in improved management fig. 8: increment in conventionally managed this could be the impact of thinning carried out relatively in planned way after the age of 12 years in the different blocks of the plantations on rotational basis. however, increment has continued to fall after 25 years in all density classes. this again, indicated that if objective of forest management is to maximise wood production than an early thinning, pre-commercial thinning should be done before 25 years and the final harvest between 35 and 40 years of age is probably appropriate (punches, 2004). the present issue ahead is how to manage the current plantations of the study sites and other similar plantations. the thinning guidelines for p. patula plantations suggested 45 years’ rotations when existing stocks were between 800 and 1100 stems ha-1 (nacrmlp, 2006). this was prescribed when the plantation was between 25 and 30 years of age. but the current stocking is measured between 350 and 900 ha-1 and have crossed 35 years. based on the community and topographical conditions of the forest area, it is suggested to carry out 1 more thinning to reduce stand density by 75–125 stems ha-1 within 45 years (in next 5 years) and obtain next rotation crop following shelterwood system since good potential for natural regeneration have already been observed in the study sites. under this system, 10–40 potential mother trees per hectare should be retained in next five years and all of them to be harvested in next 10 years after new dangal and das 33 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 crop have been established. these mother trees are retained according to terrain and site quality and are removed gradually in secondary and final felling. in the case of new pine plantation, the viable rotation age is recommended to be 30±5 years of age with 2–3 thinnings. age affecting diameter increment apart from the analysis based on management systems, effect of age on diameter increment was judged through a simple linear regression which showed a strong correlation of r = -0.89 between diameter increments and age. this means increment of a tree decreases when tree gets older (fig. 9). normally, increment in a forest stand depends mostly onsite quality, and density and age. as all the study sites were in almost same aspect, altitudinal range and slopes, they were considered as similar site qualities. in a similar site quality and stand density, increment depends on age as the younger trees give higher increment than older (kazmierczak, 2013). in the current study, average annual increment (aai) was retarded after four years of plantations (fig. 9). the increasing increment until this age could be due to the adoption of standard plantation methods where early pitting and composting was done that served as nutrient for at least four years as the plantations were carried out in highly degraded land (kharel et al., 2016). the diameter increment declined after the plantations reached four years. this may be due to loss of soil fertility and increasing stand density as the plantations were carried out at a spacing of 2 to 2.5 meters (kayastha et al., 2002), and plant competes for light when they are dense that result height increment than the diameter as height growth diminishes as stocking diminishes (mason, 2005). similarly, due to competition, trees with same diameter are taller in a denser stand (zeide et al., 2002). however, the significance tests suggested that when tree grows and passes its age, the rate of increment retards and become insignificant. the logarithmic projection of increment (fig. 9) forecasted the insignificant increment after 45 years however major fall observed after the plantations have crossed 31 years of age. similar result was observed in p. patula plantations in australia (binkley, 1985). in this study, the annual increment in radius was estimated almost three quarters of mm after 31 years which suggest not to keep these trees longer to attain growth (ramprakash, 1986). the small increment could be insignificant and opportunity cost could be high after 30–35 years .in ideal situation as per international practices and based on earlier study result conducted in nepal, they should be final felled at 30±5 years. due to the delayed thinnings and in the absent of execution of complete package of thinnings, an extended rotation age of 45 years was recommended for the same plantations (hunt et al., 2001), for which existing stems were to be reduced to 75–125 stems ha-1 at 30–35 years and 50 stems ha-1 at 40 to 45 years of age, respectively. fig. 9: average annual increment with trend line: the trend line showed the increment reached almost zero at the age of 47 years of age. this is also supported by the estimation of cumulative diameter increment (fig. 10) where annual increment is cumulatively added by almost three quarters of mm and the curve is nearly horizontal after 42 years. the accumulation of radial increment was more than 2 mm before 27 years of age which retarded to 1.58 mm at 31 years of age. the projected increment is almost 0.2 mm at 42 years and almost 0.1 at 50 years which is highly insignificant. fig. 10: overall cumulative increment in addition to age, the decreasing rate also influences by stand density. in a stand with density between 600 to 900 stems ha-1, the average radial increment at 31 years’ age was measured to be 0.4 mm where as it was 0.79 for overall average stand densities. the estimate of mai also showed dangal and das 34 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 a similar pattern as it was high (2.4 mm) in overall average stand densities and low (2.2 mm) at the age of 31 years. this has been the evident of effect of density on increment at the same age. the aggregated analyses of radial increment with different stand densities over passing age (fig. 11) showed that with the increasing age, the radial increment rate decreases in all density classes. the reduction in radial increment rate was found to be almost equal until the age of 8–10 years in all the stand density classes which is similar to the result obtained in the study conducted in 2001 (hunt, dangal, & shrestha, 2001).the decreasing rate was noticed to be higher in the high stand density (600–900 stems ha-1) after 12 years. fig. 11: decrease in annual increment in different density classes the sharp increase in annual increment in the second year in two density classes might not be due high density but could be due to the quality of seedling as well as the micro-climate during the plantation. however, there was a continuous fall in increment in the high stand density class except a small increment around 11 years. the fluctuations in the curve of low and medium stand density after 10 years could be due to the effects of thinning carried out in different years in different block of forests (dharapani cfug, 2007) & (lankuri cfug, 2000) whereas no such fluctuation was seen in higher stand density. in an ideal scenario, rotation age to achieve maximum volume is fixed at the age where the curves of cumulative increment become high (ramprakash, 1986). the study conducted in 2001 and 2015 suggested that after certain age, cumulative increment decrease faster in higher stand density classes (figure 12 and 13) which becomes almost horizontal and annual accumulation of biomass becomes almost one third of millimeter when it passes 30 years (fig. 13). the result indicated that, these forests should be clear felled before 40 years to attain maximum growth which is not far from international practices. for example, in us, for southern pine, a maximum age of final harvested was recommended to be 40 years of age (demers et al., 2016). similarly, a rotation age of 35 years with 4 high intensity thinnings has been practiced in kenya (kefri, 1997) whereas in the usa, p. radiata stands were managed up to three thinnings depending on potential productivity. this involves two thinnings to give a final crop stocking of 200 stems ha-1 at age 22 years and clear felling occurs at the age of 30 years (berg, 1973). fig. 12: cumulative increment measured in 2001 fig. 13: cumulative increment measured in 2015 conclusion and management implications the study assessed the effect of the age and management practices on radial increment of trees. from the findings of the present and past dangal and das 35 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 studies in same areas and supporting evidences from study conducted in other countries, it can be concluded that the radial increment in p. patula plantations declines with age i.e. when tree gets older, the increment declines accordingly. moreover, the decreasing rate depends on the stand density. the rate of decline in increment is higher in high density classes. however, the increment rate does not affect by stand density in early stage of plantations i.e. 10–20 years. management practices in plantations have significant role in increment as the study showed that improved management practices yielded more increment than the conventional forest management practices. the findings suggest the need for proper management practices in pine plantations to tap highest increment potential. based on the findings and conclusions, the following recommendations are offered. • gradual and systematic removal of trees is required after 8–10 years of plantations to provide sufficient spaces for light and nutrient. thinnings after 25 years is not required as late thinning has less effect. • if systematic thinnings are carried out from the beginning, the final felling of plantations should be done in an age of 30±5 years to received highest volumes. however, final feeling should be carried out after new crop has been fully established if natural regeneration followed. • for the existing plantations, they can’t be removed at once though they have crossed rotation age of maximum volume. they should be completely removed in the next 10 years with two felling. however, they should be replaced by a new crop of the same or mix species before final felling. phase wise removal is proposed for these plantations for which all the stock should be reduced to 75–125 stems ha-1 immediately. after five years from now, shelterwood system should be followed to allow natural regeneration for which only 10–15 potential seed trees per hectare should be kept. when new crop have been established, the potential seed trees should be removed. • intensive care should be given to protect forests from fire and grazing. references berg, p. (1973). silviculture of pinus radiata stand edge trees at woodhills forest. nz g journal of forestry 18 (1): 115–123. binkley, c. s. (1985). when is the optimal economic rotation longer than the rotation of maximum sustained yield? lakenburg, australia: international institute for applied systtems analysis. retrieved from http:// pure.iiasa.ac.at/2691/ [5 march 2017 ]. chand, p. b., & ghimire, k. (2006). unlocking the value of pine forests for sustainable livelihoods: a case study from hille jaljalle ‘ka’ community forest in kavrepalanchok district of nepal. in managing forest for poverty reduction: capturing opportunities in forest harvesting and wood processing for the benefit of the poor. ho chi min city, vietnam: fao. collett, g., chhetri, r., jackson, w. j., & shepherd, k. r. (1996). socio economic impact study. nepal australia community forestry project. kathmandu, nepal. de bell, d. s., keyes, c. r., and garner, b. l. (2001, february). wood density of eucalyptus saligna grown in hawaiian plantations: effect of silviculture practices and relation to growth rate. australian forestry, 64(2), 106–110. demers, c., andreu, m., mcgowan, b., long, a., and jarek, n. (2016). thinning southern pinesa kay to greater returns. ifas extension, ssfor24, pp. 1–5. http://edis. ifas.ufl.edu.[15 august 2016]. demers, c., andreu, m., mcgowan, b., long, a., and nowak, j. (2016, march). thinning southern pinesa key to greater returns. ifas extension-ssfor 24. florida, florida, usa: university of florida, school of forest resources and conservation department. http;//edis.ifas.ufl.edu [12 july 2016]. dharapani cfug. (2007, november 20). dharapani hile community forest management plan 2064/65. chaubas 6 &7, kavre district, nepal. dof-a. (2012). community forest data base. community forestry division of department of forest, ministry of forest and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. dangal and das 36 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 dwivedi, a. (1993). a text book of silviculture. : r.o. singh gahlot for international book distributers, dehra dun, india. eijnatten, j. v., acharya, h., and shrestha, s. (2001). organisational change in four cfugs operating the chaubas-bhumlu community saw mill. nepal australia community resource management project, kathmandu, nepal. evans, j. (2000). sustainability of productivity in successive rotation. in timber plantation development. manila, philippines: fao. http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac781e/ ac781e11.htm fao (2010). plantation report (online). food and agriculture organisation, rome, from www.fao.org: http://www.sifi.se/wp-content/ uploads/2010/10/fao-plantation-report. pdf.[3 august 2013]. gerelbaatar, s., & baatarbileg, n. (2011). growth of scotch pine (pinus sylvestris l.) plantation in northern mongolia. journal of agriculture and technoogy, 1205–1210. gilmour, d., king, g., applegate, g., & mohns, b. (1990). silviculture of plantation forest in central nepal to maximise community benefits. forest ecology and management, 173–186. hunt, s., dangal, s., & shrestha, s. (2001). the impact of stocking on the growth of pine plantations in the mid hills of kabhre palanchok and sindhu palchok. nepal australia community resource management project. kathmandu, nepal. jackson, j. k. (1994). manual of afforestation. forest research and survey centre, ministry of forest and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. kayastha, b., pradhan, s. l., rasaily, n., dangal, s., & frans, a. (2002). marketing for timber and non-timber forest products-2001. nepal australia community resource management project, kathmandu, nepal. kazmierczak, k. (2013). the current growth increment of pine tree stands comprising three different age classes. lesne prace bedawoze 72 (2): 93–100. doi:10.2478/frp2013-0009 kefri. (1997). silviculture of pine (online). kenyan forest reseach institute, foret department karura,kenya.http://www.fernis. net/system/files/current_silviculture_regime. pdf [2 may 2013]. kharel, k. b., kunwor, g. d., thapa, s. b., tamang, c. s. and kunwor, l. b. (2016, may 17). key informant interview. (s. p. dangal, interviewer) lankuri cfug. (2000, june 19). lankuri pakha bhulbhule kanchopat bari cf operational plan. chaubas 1,3&4, kavrepalanchok, nepal. mason, e. g. (2005, february). a brief review of teh impact of stand density on variables affecting radiata pine stand value (online). christchurch, canterbury, new zealand. http://www.fore.canterbury.ac.nz/euan/ spacing/density3.htm.[24 june 2016]. nacrmlp. (2006). thinning guidelines for pinus patula and pinus roxburghii plantations in nepal. canberrra australia: nepal australia community resource management and livelihood project managed by urs sustainable development. nea. (2011). initial environmental examination. nepal electricity authority, kathmandu, nepal. punches, j. (2004). thinning: an important forest management tool. roseberg, oregon. oregon state univeristyextension services. ramprakash. (1986). forest management. international book distributer, 9/3 rajpur road, dehra dun 248001, india. razali, n. m. and wah, y. b. (2011). power comparisons of shapiro-wilk, kolmogorovsmirnov, lilliefors and anderson-darling testts. journal of stastistical modeling and analysis, 2 (1): 21–33. amazonaws.com/ academia.edu.documents. sharma, s. p. (2012). brief analysis of community forest in nepal. hamro ban 2011/2012, 18–24. silva, l. n. and dudley, n. (2009, june). ecosystem integrity and forest plantations: technical paper. wwf international; malaysia-sabah forest department; state forest administration china; uk forestry commission. dangal and das 37 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 stock, w. d., bourke, l. and froend, r. (2012). dendroecological indicators of historical responses of pines to water and nutriend availability on a superficial aquifer in south-western australia. forest ecology and environment, 264: 108–114. doi:10.1016/j. foreco.2011.09.033 subedi, v. r. (2011). forest management opportunities and challanges in nepal. nepal forester association, kathmandu, nepal. timilsina, n. (2005). supporting livelihoods through employment: the chaubas-bhumlu community saw mill, nepal. forest action, kathmandu, nepal. zeide, b. and vandershaat, c. (2002). the effect of density on the heightdiameter relationship. eleventh bieddial southern silviculture research conference (p. 622). asheville, nc: us department of agriculture, forest science, southern research station, usa. dangal and das banko jankari-2017(5).1.1 forest encroachment is an illegal expansion of cultivable land and settlements within the jurisdiction of forests. it has been the key threat to forest management for the last several years in nepal. the department of forests (dof) is the responsible authority for detection and assessment of forest encroachment throughout the nation and updating the forest maps accordingly. detection and preparing the updated maps of encroached forest areas is necessary for sustainable management of forests. traditionally, the extent of forest encroachment is assessed through estimation by the front-line forestry staff. the new approach combines the aerial photographs, the cadastral maps prepared by the department of survey and the google earth imagery to spatially locate the encroachment. this method will work as a desktop tool for the forest manager such that appropriate strategic actions can be taken immediately. additionally, it will bring a transparency on the forest governance to identify the location of areas of interest like point location for forest-based industries or proposed sites for development of infrastructures on the ground. the local communities may use the tool to identify the actual location of the forest boundaries, and exert social pressure to relinquish the encroached forests, if any. the result showed that 8,540 ha of the forest area in bara district was found to be encroached during the period of last 50 years, between 1964 and 2014, of which 71% (6,038 ha) happened to be encroached in the first three decades, indicating the retarding trend of encroachment in the later years. the methodology used to assess the encroachment of forest in bara district can be easily scaled up to other districts too, and will eventually help to assess the country’s overall forest encroachment. since the boundary delineation will be done on the basis of the cadastral maps, the output will be used as a robust evidence to defend the forest-related cased in the court during the legal arbitrations key words: cadastral map, change detection, encroachment, forest cover loss detection, assessment, and updating the maps of encroached forest areas: a case study from bara district, nepal r. k. rimal1*, r. maharjan1, k. khanal2, s. koirala2, b. karki1, s. m. nepal2 and h. l. shrestha3 in nepal, forests are managed through different management regimes, under the jurisdiction of the government of nepal. the protected area network (national parks, wildlife reserves, conservation areas, buffer zones and protection forests) comprises 23.39% of the total land area of the country (dnpwc, 2016). this is followed by the community-managed forest which covers 1.79 million hectares, about 27% of the total forest area in nepal (dof, 2016). other forest regimes fall under the government, private, collaborative and leasehold forest management systems. the forests in nepal are facing degradation and depletion due to several proximate causes including uncontrolled forest fire, overgrazing, unsustainable extraction of forest products for local consumption and development infrastructures such as transmission lines, roads, canals and hydro-power due to population growth (geist and lambin, 2001; dfrs, 1999). besides, other socio-economic trends such as migration of people from the mountains and hills to the terai and other accessible areas have also impacted upon the forests. a report indicates that migration 65 1 department of forests, babarmahal, kathmandu. *e-mail: rajkumarrimal@gmail.com 2 world wildlife fund nepal, 3 eba south project, ministry of population, kathmandu, nepal banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 66 within the nation is also responsible for forest cover loss mostly in the terai region (wwf, 2014). in the nepalese context, forest encroachment is the illegal conversion of forested land to other land uses, such as agriculture and settlement. it is one of the major drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in nepal (acharya et al., 2011) which is more prominent in the terai and siwalik regions. some encroachments have been done illegally in the terai forests, especially along the east-west highway, for the expansion of local markets. satellite remote sensing (rs) coupled with geographical information system (gis) is one of the viable techniques to monitor the changing pattern of forests. satellite data from several moments in time allows the creation of land cover maps over the large spatial extents and more frequent time intervals than with expensive and detailed field studies (nagendra, 2001). human encroachment on forest land gives rise to the change in another type of land use. further, land use change by human activities through encroachment has become a proximate factor that catalyzes the deforestation and forest degradation (tole, 1998). it was estimated that 80,635 ha of forest area was encroached (published in rising nepal dated september 28, 2007) and this trend of encroachment is seemingly increasing. hence, detection of forest encroachment provides useful information for planning and sustainable management of forests. the problem of forest encroachment has become a sensitive issue over the years. the government of nepal has formulated the policy of forest encroachment control and management strategy, 2012’ to address the problem, but the scientific and reliable data on forest encroachment are unavailable. the department of forests (dof) felt the direct need of gis/rs based updated forest maps to address the problem. various time series forest cover data such as the 1964 aerial photographs, the 1960s national forest inventory (nfi) data, the 1990s nfi data and the 2010– 2014 nfi data produced by the department of forest research and survey (dfrs) and the 1994 and the 1996 topographic maps of nepal and the digital cadastral information produced by the department of survey(dos) are available. these data can be analyzed for temporal monitoring of the forest cover. the change in forest cover by several actors and drivers can be detected, assessed and updated both at nationaland district-levels using these dataset. this pilot study aims to detect forest encroachment and update forest maps in bara district using cadastral maps, google image and historical images, and provide a methodology for the encroachment detection that can be used to update forest maps for all the districts of nepal. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in bara district which is located in the south-central lowland terai region of nepal. the district is bounded by rautahat district on the east, parsa district on the west, makawanpur district on the north and india on the south (fig. 1). it is located between 26o 61’–27o 02’ n latitudes and 84o 51’– 85o16’ e longitudes. fig. 1: map showing the location of the study area the northern part of bara district covering 60,914 ha was set aside as the study area which covered 59,348 ha forest land and 1,566 ha non-forest land using the 1964 aerial photographs. the area on the southern part has been digitized as settlement area in the cadastral map and was, therefore, not included in the study. the conversion of forest and non-forest land within the area of 60,914 ha was the major focus where the change detection was analyzed. methodology the available data from the google earth, topographical sheets, cadastral map, historical data, 1964 aerial photographs and various time series satellite images were gathered and scanned. rimal et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 67 rimal et al. these data were geo-referenced by using arcgis 10.3 to avoid errors by providing adequate ground control points. this was followed by geo-spatial analysis where the geo-referenced cadastral maps were digitized. these data were overlaid on the google earth images for detecting the encroached forest areas. on the other hand, various time series data were analyzed to find out the change in forest area during the different time periods. different geo-processing tools such as clip, mosaic, dissolve, union, merge and spatial join were used to generate precise results. this was followed by digitization of the various time series data to generate polygon of forest and non-forest areas, and the encroached forest areas were identified with the help of the arcgis software. the attribute data were obtained from the digitized maps, and were analyzed (using the ms excel sheet). the detected areas were verified in the field through field observation and consultation with the district forest officer and other stakeholders. fig. 2 highlights the methodology applied in this study. fig. 2: methodological framework data source table 1 shows the different data and maps used for change detection analysis, and their sources. results and discussion land use bara district went through severe changes in its land use during the last 50 years (1964–2014). this change was mainly due to industrialization and migration of people from the mountains and hills to the terai. the analysis of data shows that the non-forestland increased from 1,566 ha to 10,106 ha during the period of 50 years, from 1964 to 2014 (fig. 3). the non-forestland increased to almost 5 folds during the last 30 years, from 1964 to 1994, and 6 folds in 2014 than in the base year (1964). the major reason behind this was the rapid establishment of big industries and expansion of settlement areas. bara district lies close to the indian border, and so it is easier to import raw materials from india, leading to the establishment of major industries, which has subsequently led to the reduction in the forest area in the district. the forest area was found to have decreased from 59,348 ha to 50,808 ha during the period, from 1964 to 2014. fig. 3: land use change in bara district during 1964–2014 table 1: data acquisition data year characteristics source 1964 aerial photographs 1964 black and white, 300 dpi, 10,000–12,000 scale department of forest research and survey (dfrs) topographic maps 1994 1:25000 scale department of survey (dos) high-resolution google image 2014 high-resolution imagery google earth cadastral map na parcel map national land use mapping project (lrmp) and department of land information and archive (dolia) banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 68 forest encroachment during the period of 1964–1994 the dos had conducted a survey of bara district in 1964, and developed a cadastral map of the district. during the survey, the settlement areas including the cultivated land were demarcated, and the rest of the areas were considered as forest. all the lands based on the ownership (kitta) of the people were digitized. in 1964, the total forest land within the study area was 59,348 ha while the cultivated land was only 1,566 ha. this provided the baseline for the forest cover change analysis. during the period of 1964 to 1994, bara district observed the expansion of industrial area and human migration from the mountains and the chure hills to the lower flat land which was the major cause for the encroachment of forest areas in the terai. besides this, the forest loss was also triggered due to the resettlement program at nijgadh in bara district. the resettlement was done from shaktikhola and campadada of makawanpur district to nijgadh in bara district. besides, the promotion of medicinal plants in almost 300 ha in the the kakadi village development committee (vdc) also reduced the forest area of the district to some extent. these government programs along with the establishment of industrial areas and illegal expansion of cultivated lands as well as settlements were the main causes for the decrease of 6,038 ha of the forest area in the district. the study showed that nijgadh, ratanpuri and dumarwana vdcs of bara district had suffered a huge loss of forest during the last fifty years, from 1964 to 2014 (fig. 4). fig. 4: vdc-wise forest cover loss in bara district from 1964 to 1994 forest encroachment during the period of 1994 to 2014 during the later 20-year period, from 1994 to 2014, the conversion in the land use was relatively low as compared to the one in the earlier 30 years (1964–1994) of the study period (1964–2014). there was a loss of 2,502 ha of forest, and the major changes were observed in the ratanpuri, kakadi and bharatganj vdcs, comprising almost 58% (1,446 ha) of the total forest loss (fig. 5). fig. 5: vdc-wise forest cover loss in bara district from 1994 to 2014 forest encroachment and forest change analysis as has been already mentioned beforehand, significant forest areas in bara district were found to have been converted into other land uses during the period of 1964 to 2014 (fig. 6a, 6b, 6c). considering all the causes of forest loss as encroachment, highest encroachment happened between the period of 1964 and 1994. the area of encroached land accounted to 6,038 ha which was about 60% of the total encroachment (fig. 7). fig. 6a: forest encroachment in bara district in 1964 rimal et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 69 fig. 6b: forest encroachment in bara district in 1994 fig. 6c: forest encroachment in bara district in 2014 fig. 7: forest encroachment in bara district during the periods of 1964–1994 and 1994– 2014 encroachments in the different vdcs of bara district during the last fifty-year period (1964– 2014) are indicated in the table 2. table 2: vdcs-wise assessment of forest encroachment during 1964–1994 and 1994–2014 vdc-wise forest to non-forest area (ha) amlekhganj 324 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 199 forest to non-forest (1994-2014) 124 bharatganj sinaul 522 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 227 forest to non-forest (1994-2014) 295 bhodaha 15 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 15 dumarwana 1,069 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 822 forest to non-forest (1994-2014) 248 haraiya 564 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 325 forest to non-forest (1994-2014) 239 jitpur 0 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 0 kakadi 727 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 392 forest to non-forest (1994-2014) 334 karaiya 109 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 73 forest to non-forest (1994-2014) 35 kolbi 4 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 4 manaharwa 331 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 192 forest to non-forest (1994-2014) 139 nijgadh 1,103 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 1084 forest to non-forest (1994-2014) 19 parsauna 53 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 48 forest to non-forest (1994-2014) 6 piprasimara 360 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 332 forest to non-forest (1994-2014) 29 ratanpuri 2,673 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 1857 forest to non-forest (1994-2014) 815 sapahi 556 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 337 forest to non-forest (1994-2014) 219 sihorwa 88 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 88 tetariya 42 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 42 umajan 2 forest to non-forest (1964-1994) 2 rimal et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 70 grand total 8,540 note: non-forest denotes the forest loss caused by humans, such as cultivation, settlement and other developmental activities, but the forest loss due to natural calamities has not been considered. categorization of forest conversion over the years, forests were either encroached or cleared off for different purposes such as the expansion of settlement for cultivation, establishing various infrastructures including government/public buildings, playgrounds, temples, community buildings and so on. these forest encroachments can be re-classified as the forest encroachment/conversion forcultivation, settlement, construction of government infrastructures and construction of social infrastructures. the conversion of forest for the purpose of cultivation was found to be the highest accounting for 7,510 ha followed by settlement with 911 ha. similarly, the conversion of forest for the purpose of the construction of government structures such as the government offices, schools, roads, health posts and so on, and accounted for 26 ha followed by the construction of social structures such as playgrounds, temples and community buildings, accounting for 24 ha. besides these categories, about 1,636 ha of forest area were found to be at the stage of being cleared off, and so were categorized as potential conversion. table 3: categorization of forest conversion s. n. forest conversion type area (ha) 1. cultivation 7,510 2. settlement 911 3. government 26 4. social 24 5. potential conversion 1,636 total 10,106 figure 8 shows the types of encroachment in bara district: fig. 8: type of forest encroachment in bara district conclusion the encroachment analysis was based upon visual interpretation techniques. the analysis has been done at the scale of 1:1000 with ground truthing. if the google maps and high-resolution satellite imageries are available at the time of forest survey, the encroached forest areas can be easily detected by updating the forest cover maps. in this study, an area of 8,540 ha was found to be encroached in the district in the last 50 years (1964–2014). most of the forest encroachments were found to have been done during the period of 1964–1994 when 6,038 ha forest had been encroached whereas only 2,502 ha forest area was found to have been encroached during the period of 1994–2014. besides, the methodology used to assess the encroachment could have been more effective if differential gps were used. the reference error of the aerial photos used during the process of geo-referencing and the low-resolution aerial photographs are some limitations of the study. if this methodological framework is accepted, this pilot project can be applied to detect the encroached forest areas in the other districts of the nation. this analysis will provide a base for detection and management of the encroached forest areas. furthermore, the definition of encroachment needs to be standardized, which has become a major gap in policy. forest losses due to forest-fire, landslides, and soil erosion are natural phenomenon, and were not considered under this study. rimal et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 71 acknowledgements we would like to thank the hariyo ban program, wwf nepal for providing all the resources required to carry out this study. similarly, we are also thankful to the department of forest research and survey (dfrs) for providing us some necessary data and technical support. references acharya, k. p., dangi, r. b. and acharya, m. 2011. understanding the forest degradation in nepal. unasylva 62 (238): 31–38. dfrs. 1999. forest resources of nepal (1987– 1998). publication no. 74. forest resource information system project. department of forest research and survey (dfrs), ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal, 1–33. dnpwc. 2016. annual report 2016. department of national parks and wildlife reserves (dnpwc), ministry of forests and soil conservation. kathmandu, nepal, 1–16. dof. 2016. community forestry bulletin 2016. department of forests (dof), ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal, 48. geist, h. j. and lambin, e. f. 2001. what drives tropical deforestation? a meta-analysis of proximate and underlying causes of deforestation based on sub-national case study evidence. louvain-la-neuve (belgium): lucc international project office, lucc report series no. 4. nagendra, h. 2001. using remote sensing to assess biodiversity. international journal of remote sensing 22: 2377–2400. tole, l. 1998. source of deforestation in tropical developing countries. environmental management 22: 19–23. wwf. 2014. assessment of impacts of migration on biodiversity, forest and local communities. hariyo ban program, world wildlife fund (wwf), kathmandu, nepal, 62. rimal et al. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 53‒61 53 rai et al. influence of environmental parameters on benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in the headwaters of bagmati river, kathmandu valley, nepal a. rai1*, d. n. shah2, r. d. t. shah3 and c. milner4 the distribution of benthic macroinvertebrates (bmis) is affected by various environmental factors. understanding their response to these factors is a key to assessing freshwater quality. the aim of this research is to understand the influence of different environmental parameters on bmis assemblages in the headwaters of bagmati river. the bmis were sampled following a multi-habitat sampling protocol and the – hydrological and physico-chemical parameters were measured using standard methods. the relationship between environmental parameters and macroinvertebrate assemblages was analyzed through multivariate analysis redundancy analysis and variation partitioning. stream discharge, ph and dissolved oxygen were selected for multivariate analysis through backward elimination method. ph and dissolved oxygen were important contributing factors explaining the variation in bmis community. physico-chemical parameters were found to be the most important group of variables explaining the variation in macroinvertebrate assemblages. only about twenty-five per cent of the variation in the bmis community was explained by the model so the parameters studied here do not have a high degree of explanatory power. key words : bagmati river, benthic macroinvertebrates, environmental parameters, headwaters, multivariate analysis 1 naayaaayam multidisciplinary institute, jorpati, kathmandu, nepal *email : raianu191@gmail. com 2 central department of environmental science, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, nepal 3 aquatic ecology centre, kathmandu university, dhulikhel, nepal 4 biosphere association, uk the understanding on ecological status of streams and rivers help determine the ecosystem services provided by them (grizzetti et al., 2016) so it is important to assess them. water quality and ecological status is affected by a complex interaction of environmental factors. understanding the relative effects of these environmental factors is a necessary step in determining the activities required for river management. the biological community is an ideal indicator to assess impacts as they respond to a wide variety of physical, chemical and biological factors. for such assessment, various biological components such as phytoplanktons (liu et al., 2017), zooplanktons (ren et al., 2011), periphyton (barbour et al., 1999), macrophytes (haury et al., 2006), macroinvertebrates (resh et al., 1995), fishes (pont d. et al., 2006) etc. are used. among these, stream benthic macroinvertebrates (bmis) are especially well suited for assessing freshwater quality as their distributions have been linked to various environmental variables (vinson and hawkins, 1998). notably, the bmis have been used by the european water framework directive 2000/60/ec for evaluation of the ecological quality of water (european union council, 2000). in nepal as well, albeit in its early development the bmis are being used in banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 53‒61 54 rai et al. the biological assessment of freshwater bodies (shah et al., 2012; shah and shah, 2013). the benthic macroinvertebrates are known to be the best biological indicators of freshwater quality as they exhibit different tolerance level to pollution, have high abundance, comparatively long-life and are available as cost effective means of sampling measure (rosenberg and resh, 1992). benthic macroinvertebrates in nature are affected by various concurrently occurring environmental factors operating at multiple spatio-temporal scales. some of these factors include physicochemical parameters (collier et al., 1998), hydrological regimes (white et al., 2018), land use patterns (helms et al., 2009), habitat type (graeber et al., 2017), sediment characteristics (jones et al., 2012), biotic interaction (verschut et al., 2015) etc. this complex interaction makes it difficult to characterize the individual effects of each factor (rempel et al., 2000). for instance, flow can induce the movement and deposition of fine sediment (wood and armitage, 1997) which can lead to turnover in macroinvertebrate assemblages through the accumulation of sediments (buendia et al., 2013). due to this complexity of interaction amongst environmental parameters, the study of the influence of a single parameter on bmis assemblages may not be fully comprehensive. their relative contributions have barely been quantified (peeters et al., 2004) and despite its recognition there is dearth of knowledge on the relative contributions of these factors in influencing the benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages. headwaters have a very important role in the overall functioning of the river because they feed the whole watershed. the water and chemicals, headwaters hold influence all waters and reactions downstream (alexander et al., 2007) and so, the studies of the effect of environmental parameters on macroinvertebrate assemblages particularly in the headwaters is essential. the headwaters of the bagmati river lie in the shivapuri nagarjun national park, representing a near-natural condition. nevertheless, the streams are still influenced by human settlement and agricultural practices (shrestha et al., 2014). the overall aim of the research is to understand the influence of environmental variables on benthic macroinvertebrate assemblages in the headwaters of bagmati river to provide a baseline for further study downstream. materials and methods study area the research was carried out in the headwaters of bagmati river and its tributary nagmati river which lie in the shivapuri nagarjun national park (snnp) in nepal. there were two sampling points in each river namely ba01 and ba02 in bagmati and na01 and na02 in nagmati (fig. 1 and table 1). the water temperature in the study sites varies from 4 ‒ 24°c with the average temperature lying between 12 ‒ 13°c (a data produced from a one-year average). the agricultural land use type has increased in the study area which has been attributed to increase in population among other reasons (shrestha et al., 2014). the increase in population has resulted in forest deterioration causing reduction in water quantity and quality (shrestha et al., 2014). the study builds on a long-term biomonitoring project entitled – ‘understanding the impacts of climate change on headwater hydrology and aquatic biodiversity with long-term citizen science-based monitoring of the bagmati river within the shivapuri nagarjun national park’ which has been in progress since 2015 (himbioclic, 2017). fig. 1: map showing the study area and the locations of the four sampling sites distributed in nagmati (na01, na02) and bagmati (ba01, ba02) river banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 53‒61 55 rai et al. table 1 : description of sensory features and flow type at each study sites sites sensory features (foam, odour, non-natural colour and turbidity; stone with algae vegetation thin layer) flow type (pool, riffle, run) sites picture na01 no foam, odour, non-natural colour and turbidity stone with algae vegetation thin layer riffle, run na02 no foam, odour, non-natural colour and turbidity stone with algae vegetation thin layer run pool ba01 no foam, odour, non-natural colour and turbidity stone with algae vegetation thin layer run pool ba02 no foam, odour, non-natural colour and turbidity stone with algae vegetation thin layer run data collection the sampling of benthic macroinvertebrates was carried out and hydrological and physicochemical parameters were measured during the post-monsoon period of 2016 in october, november and december. before sampling bmis, the habitat coverage of river bed within 100 m of river stretch was estimated and the substrate consisting of at least 5% habitat coverage was sampled. this technique follows the multihabitat sampling approach (moog, 2007) which is an enhancement over the traditional sampling procedures as it helps in sample collection across all the major habitat (barbour et al., 2006). the bmis were collected by using a kick net of 500μm mesh size from 20 micro-habitats and composited into a single sample. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 53‒61 56 rai et al. the discharge and the velocity of the river were measured using a flow tracker handheld acoustic doppler velocimeter (adv). it has several quality control (qc) features designed to increase data integrity. likewise, the river depth was measured by a staff gauge constructed in the study areas. the physico-chemical parameters ph, water temperature, dissolved oxygen (do), total dissolved solids (tds) and electrical conductivity (ec) were measured using a handheld multi-parameter probe. the use of such multi-parameter portable meter is helpful in determining water quality parameters accurately on site which is a great advantage over lengthy laboratory procedures. data analysis the benthic macroinvertebrates were processed in the laboratory – sorted and identified at family level. then they were counted and preserved in 90% ethanol for future reference. references used in identification include dudgeon (1999), wagner (2004), bouchard (2004), nesemann et al., (2007) and nesmann et. al. (2011). the relationship between environmental variables and bmis assemblage were evaluated through redundancy analysis using rda function in vegan package (oksanen et al., 2019) in r studio version 1. 2. 1335. the appropriate ordination technique – whether redundancy analysis (rda) or canonical correspondence analysis (cca) was selected by performing detrended correspondence analysis (dca) (ter braak et al., 2002). the gradient length was found to be less than three standard deviations; hence rda was performed (ter braak et al., 2002). prior to rda analysis, the bmis abundance data were square root transformed (hellinger transformation in vegan package in r) and the environmental variables were log-transformed to put them all at the same scale. variance inflation factors (vif) were measured and variables with vif > 20 were removed from the analysis. then, backward elimination method was performed with 500 permutation with ordistep function for removing variables until only significant ones remained. finally, rda was performed amongst hellinger transformed bmis abundance data with the remaining logtransformed explanatory variables. besides, variation partitioning method was performed for quantifying the contribution of different environmental variables in structuring bmis assemblages using varpart function in vegan package. results and discussion eleven orders of macroinvertebrates consisting of fifty-one families were found in the study area (fig. 2). the order diptera consisted of ten macroinvertebrate families dominating the bmi assemblage and the least families of macroinvertebrates were from orders arhynchobdellida, lepidoptera and megaloptera where only one family of macroinvertebrate was found. in all sites, the highest number of macroinvertebrate order was found in december except for site na01 where the highest number of macroinvertebrate order was found in november. fig. 2: macroinvertebrate richness in the study sites. o, n and d represent the months of october, november and december 2016 respectively likewise, the highest proportion of macroinvertebrates was found from ept taxa (fig. 3) which indicates good water quality in all sites. in a previous study, headwaters were found in good ecological status (shah and shah, 2013) which represents that despite the rapid and haphazard development of kathmandu valley, the headwaters seem to have retained its ecological integrity. except for site ba02 in the month of december, all sites had the highest relative abundance of ept taxa. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 53‒61 57 rai et al. fig. 3: percentage of relative abundance of macroinvertebrate in the study sites. o, n and d represent the months of october, november and december 2016, respectively the constrained axes in the multivariate analysis explained about thirty percent of the total variation in the samples and among the proportion of the constrained axes, the two rda axes explained about seventy-five per cent of the total variation. for each of these explanatory variables a correlation was obtained with the rda axis (table 2). ph clearly has a high negative correlation with the second ordination axis and to a lesser extent discharge also displays a negative correlation with the first ordination axis. table 2 : biplot score for the constraining variables in three rda axes parameter rda1 rda2 rda3 discharge -0.14 0.38 0.92 ph 0.27 -0.94 0.23 do 0.80 0.52 0.30 the multivariate analysis showed that different environmental variables explain variation in bmis assemblages (fig. 4). for instance : bmis families like ephemeridae and baetidae (ephemeroptera) showed positive correlation with dissolved oxygen meaning these species tend to have larger abundance at higher do. likewise, gyrinidae, empididae and capniidae have shown positive correlation with ph also meaning they have higher probability of occurrence at higher ph. from the analysis, it was found that ph and do were the two most important variables explaining the variation in macroinvertebrate assemblages (r2 = 0. 89, p-value=0. 001 and r2=0. 69 and p-value = 0. 005 respectively with respect to the two rda axes). these findings agree with other documentation where higher do has been seen to be positively associated with ept taxa as these taxa mostly contain sensitive organisms (merritt and cummins, 1996). however, with regard to ph even within same bmis taxonomic groups, variable responses have been seen both spatially and temporally (petrin et al., 2007), so a study of relationship of bmis along a phgradient is needed to robustly justify the results presented here. fig. 4: redundancy analysis triplot of the hellinger transformed macroinvertebrates abundance data constrained by environmental parameters with scaling 1. sit1-sit4, sit5sit8 and sit9-sit12 represent the sites ba01, ba02, na01, na02 in october, november and december, respectively.1 about twenty-five per cent of the total variation in the macroinvertebrate assemblages was explained by the variables included in the 1 the macroinvertebrate acronym represent ae = aeshnidae, ap = aphelocheiridae, at = athericidae, ba = baetidae, bl = blephariceridae, ca = capniidae, ce = ceratopogonidae, ch = chironomidae, cordule = cordulegastridae, corduli = cordulidae, cory = corydalidae, do = dolichopodidae, dr = dryopidae, el = elmidae, em = empididae, epheli = ephemerellidae, epheri = ephemeridae, ge = gerridae, gl = glossosomatidae, go = gomphidae, gy = gyrinidae, ha = haliplidae, he = heptageniidae, hi = hirudinidae, hyphi = hydrophilidae, hypsy = hydropsychidae, lepid = lepidostomatidae, leptoce = leptoceridae, leptoph = leptophlebiidae, leuct = leuctridae, libel = libellulidae, limno = limnocentropodidae, limon = limonidae, lu = lumbricidae, me = megascolecidae, nem = nemouridae, nep = nepidae, pel = peltoperlidae, per = perlidae, ph = philopotamidae, pse = psephanidae, psy = psychomyiidae, py = pyralidae, rh = rhyacophilidae, sc = scirtidae, sil = silphidae, sim = simulidae, st = stenopsychidae, ta = tabanidae, tip = tipulidae, tu = tubificidae banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 53‒61 58 rai et al. analysis (fig. 5). the highest variation in bmis assemblage was explained by physico-chemical parameter supporting the study by dalu et al., (2017). however, the study had used sediment characteristics as one of the groups of explanatory variables, also the variables chosen under water chemistry and physical variables were slightly different than the present study. nevertheless, the strong effect of water chemistry is remarked in both the studies. the results of variation partitioning depend on the type of variables selected for the analysis. the low partial effects between the variables reflected that the parameters had lower joint effect in explaining the variation in bmis assemblage, acting almost independently from one another in explaining the variation in bmis assemblages. fig. 5: variation partitioning showing the relationship of different groups of environmental variables and macroinvertebrate abundance data the high residual value showed that the parameters studied here had little influence on macroinvertebrate assemblages. the other parameters which could explain the variation in macroinvertebrate assemblages could be sediment type (peeters et al., 2004), habitat characteristics (graeber et al., 2017), biological factors (verschut et al., 2015) etc. besides, the study only considered headwaters and used local environmental conditions in explaining the variation in the bmis assemblages. moreover, the scale of analysis could also have yielded such high residual value. as mykrä et al. (2007) had shown that the stream macroinvertebrate assemblages are not only constrained by the local environmental factors but also depend on the biogeographical and neighborhood dispersal processes. furthermore, these dispersal processes are governed by dendritic landscape structure and the environmental conditions are itself linked to the network position (altermatt et al., 2013). moreover, on a larger scale, such as a regional scale different groups of variables could explain the variation in macroinvertebrate assemblages. in a study by shah et al. (2015) partition of the total variation in stream insects were explained by variables like climate, spatial and topography. the unexplained variations were also seen in this study which could be explained by other local factors, biogeographical factors or consideration of dendritic landscape structure. hence, to ascertain the effect of different environmental variables on macroinvertebrates, analysis of multiple parameter considering position in dendritic landscape structure along with the scale of analysis is a necessity. conclusion this research shows that the macroinvertebrate assemblages are constrained by a variety of environmental factors. the relative significance of different groups of environmental variables in structuring the macroinvertebrate assemblages were also found to be variable. since the physicochemical explanatory groups were assessed to be the most important group of variables in structuring bmis assemblages, the alteration in physico-chemical parameters of the streams should be carefully considered. however, the environmental variables studied had little influence on the macroinvertebrate family level communities. thus, a more rigorous study which takes into consideration various other factors at multiple scales are required to better understand the relationship between the macroinvertebrate assemblages and its constraining variables in the headwaters of bagmati river. the results obtained can be used as baseline information for further research. acknowledgements i would like to thank himalayan biodiversity and climate change center and biosphere association for funding this research and for providing me with temperature data (used as average for the study sites). i would also like to thank my colleagues ms. anusha pandey, mr. nischal devkota and ms. bhumika thapa and many other research volunteers for helping me in conducting the field survey and laboratory banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 53‒61 59 rai et al. analysis. besides, i would like to thank to dr. anish ghimire for the consultation on data analysis. furthermore, i would also like to thank mr. jeff davids for teaching me the procedures of using flow meter and for preliminary consultation on the use of gis datasets. i would like to express my sincere gratitude to the lecturers and management at nami college for their academic support and provision of laboratory equipment. i would also like to thank the department of national parks and wildlife conservation and shivapuri nagarjun national park for permitting to conduct the field work. references alexander, r. b., boyer, e. w., smith, r. a., schwarz, g. e. and moore, r. b. 2007. the role of headwater streams in downstream water quality. journal of the american water resources association 43 (1) : 41– 59. altermatt, f., seymour, m. and martinez, n. 2013. river network properties shape α-diversity and community similarity patterns of aquatic insect communities across major drainage basins j. sadler, ed. journal of biogeography 40 (12) : 2249–2260. barbour, m. t., gerritsen, j., snyder, b. d. and stribling, j. b. 1999. rapid bioassessment protocols for use in streams and wadeable rivers : periphyton, benthic macroinvertebrates and fish. us environmental protection agency, office of water washington, dc. barbour, m. t., stribling, j. b. and verdonschot, p. f. m. 2006. the multihabitat approach of usepa’s rapid bioassessment protocols : benthic macroinvertebrates. limnetica 25 : 839–850. bouchard, w. 2004. guide to aquatic invertebrates of the upper midwest. university of minnesota buendia, c., gibbins, c. n., vericat, d. and batalla, r. j. 2013. effects of flow and fine sediment dynamics on the turnover of stream invertebrate assemblages : effects of fine sediment dynamics on beta-diversity of stream invertebrates. ecohydrology 7 : 1105–1123. collier, k. j., ilcock, r. j. and meredith, a. s. 1998. influence of substrate type and physico chemical conditions on macroinvertebrate faunas and biotic indices of some lowland waikato, new zealand, streams. new zealand. journal of marine and freshwater research 32 (1) : 1–19. dalu, t., wasserman, r. j., tonkin, j. d., mwedzi, t. magoro, m. l. and weyl, o. l. f. 2017. water or sediment? partitioning the role of water column and sediment chemistry as drivers of macroinvertebrate communities in an austral south african stream. science of the total environment 607–608 : 317– 325. dudgeon, d. 1999. tropical asian streams : zoobenthos, ecology and conservation. hong kong university press. european union council, 2000 directive 2000/60/ec of the european parliament and of the council of 23 october 2000 establishing a framework for community action in the field of water policy. journal of the european communities 43 : 39–58. graeber, d., jensen, t. m., rasmussen, j. j., riis, t., wiberg-larsen, p. and baattruppedersen, a. 2017. multiple stress response of lowland stream benthic macroinvertebrates depends on habitat type. science of the total environment 599–600 : 1517–1523. grizzetti, b., lanzanova, d., liquete, c., reynaud, a. and cardoso, a. c. 2016. assessing water ecosystem services for water resource management. environmental science and policy 61 : 194–203. haury, j., peltre, m. c., trémolières, m., barbe, j., thiébaut, g., bernez, i., daniel, h., chatenet, p., haan-archipof, g. and muller, s. 2006. a new method to assess water trophy and organic pollution—the macrophyte biological index for rivers (ibmr) : its application to different types of river and pollution. in macrophytes banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 53‒61 60 rai et al. in aquatic ecosystems : from biology to management. springer, 153–158. helms, b. s., schoonover, j. e. and feminella, j. w. 2009. seasonal variability of landuse impacts on macroinvertebrate assemblages in streams of western georgia, usa. journal of the north american benthological society 28 (4) : 991–1006. himbio-clic, 2017 ongoing projects. himalayan biodiversity and climate change center, 2017. 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assessment of land use change in shivapuri nagarjun national park : the case of sundarijal vdc, kathmandu. ecoprint : an international journal of ecology 20 : 53–59. terbraak, c. j. f., smilauer, p., smilauer, p., smilauer, p. and smilauer, p. 2002. canoco reference manual and canodraw for windows user’s guide : software for canonical community ordination (version 4. 5). microcomputer power, ithaca, usa. verschut, t. a., meineri, e. and basset, a. 2015. biotic interactions affect the colonization behavior of aquatic detritivorous macroinvertebrates in a heterogeneous environment. estuarine, coastal and shelf science 157 : 120–128. vinson, m. r., hawkins and c. p. 1998. biodiversity of stream insects : variation at local, basin, and regional scales. annual review of entomology 43 : 271–293. wagner, r. 2004. freshwater invertebrates of the malaysian region. academy of sciences malaysia 634–637. white, j. c., house, a., punchard, n., hannah, d. m., wilding, n. a. and wood, p. j. 2018. macroinvertebrate community responses to hydrological controls and groundwater abstraction effects across intermittent and perennial headwater streams. science of the total environment 610 : 1514–1526. wood, p. j. and armitage, p. d. 1997. biological effects of fine sediment in the lotic environment. environmental management 21 (2) : 203–217. 3 human–wildlife conflict (hereafter hwc) is an ongoing issue in many parts of the world and is creating significant problems in the parts where wildlife and human populations coexist and share limited resources (bhandari et al., 2019; wang & macdonald, 2006; woodroffe, 2000). conflicting situations arise when wildlife negatively affect the lives of humans or when the activities of humans negatively affect the needs of wildlife (dickman & hazzah, 2016; wang & macdonald 2005). conflict between humans and wildlife is escalating due to the increased human population, loss of natural habitat, and in some areas, even increasing wildlife populations as a result of successful conservation programmes (baral et al., 2021; laurance et al., 2000; naha et al., 2018; syombua, 2013). hwc is not only an issue for humans and their livestock but when humans retaliate, this also has an impact on the survival of many endangered mammalian predators. as a consequence, large predator numbers are declining and at the same time people have concerns about their welfare, health and safety, economic existence and social costs (aryal banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1, 2022 pp 3‒14https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i1.45434 spatio–temporal pattern of human leopard conflict and mitigation strategy in baitadi district, mid–hills of nepal human–wildlife conflict is increasing globally, particularly in the areas, where wildlife and humans coexist and share resources. large mammalian predators such as common leopards not only kill livestock but they are also killing humans. baitadi is among the top ranked districts in nepal in terms of number of human common leopard conflict events in last 10 years. the fieldwork for this study was carried out between january and june 2020 in the villages of bishalpur, udayadev, pancheshor and aamchaura of baitadi district. field observation, questionnaire survey, key informant interview and literature review were used for the data collection. our study found that common leopards killed 23 and injured eight people between 2011 and 2019 in the district. in retaliation, people killed 26 common leopards in the same period, which must have spelt disaster for these rare cats. despite the increasing number of conflict events, the local people, in general, were found to have positive attitude towards wildlife conservation. therefore, improved prey species management, awareness raising among the local people and detailed study on habitat assessment, population status of leopards and their prey species are the urgent needs for the mitigation of human common leopard conflict in the district. keywords: conservation, habitat management, human–wildlife conflict, mitigation strategy k. baral 1*, 2,a. aryal 2, c. morley 3, r. m. kunwar 4, s. bhandari 5 h. p. sharma 6, k. t. magar 7, b. adhikari 8, and j. weihong 2 received: 8, march 2022 revised: 25, april 2022 accepted: 20, may 2022 published: 31, may 2022 1 division forest office, ministry of forests and environment, government of nepal, kaski, nepal,*e–mail: baralk6@gmail.com 2 institute of natural and mathematical science, massey university, auckland, new zealand 3 toi ohomai institute of technology, rotorua, new zealand 4 florida atlantic university, boca raton, fl 33431, usa 5 morgan state university, baltimore, md 21251, usa 6 central department of zoology, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal 7 colorado state university, fort collins, co 80523, usa 8 institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, pokhara, nepal https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2869-8901 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6658-8714 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7149-4915 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9303-0932 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2933-4883 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0708-1769 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2511-9687 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1777-5879 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5240-3344 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 4 baral et al. et al., 2016; bhandari & chalise, 2016; le bel et al., 2011). hwc may range from simple nuisance issues, such as crop damage, through to livestock depredation and potentially human life–threatening emergencies. thus, hwc is a burgeoning problem in several parts of nepal where people and wildlife share forest areas to fulfill their needs (aryal et al., 2014a; aryal et al., 2014b). hwc has become quite a serious issue in and around the protected areas (pas) of nepal, (adhikari et al., 2018; bhandari et al., 2019; neupane et al., 2018; sharma et al., 2019). due to the increased forest cover as a result of the successful community forestry (cf) programme, now a day, conflict has increased outside pas as well (baral et al., 2021; gurung et al., 2008; reddy et al. 2018). over two thirds of the hwc incidences reported in last five years in nepal occurred outside pas (dnpwc, 2017). previously, these incidents may have be underreported because there were no relief or compensation packages available from the government. the scheme to compensate the victims of human wildlife in pas was started in 1996 following the endorsement of the buffer zone regulation (dfo, 2018; 2019; dnpwc, 2017). however, this scheme for outside pas was started only in 2012. so, people did not use to report hwc outside pas before 2012 (dnpwc, 2017). out of the 77 districts in nepal, 69 have reported human wildlife conflicts. twenty–six species of animals were found to be involved in hwc (dnpwc, 2017). among them, snow leopards (panthera uncia), common leopards (p. pardus), tigers (p. tigris), himalayan brown and black bears (ursus arctos isabellinus and u. thibetanus laniger, respectively), elephants (elephas maximus), rhino (rhinoceros unicornis) and rhesus monkeys (macaca mulata) are the most common species involved in human wildlife conflict (dnpwc, 2017). baitadi, a district in far western province of nepal, is among the most highly affected districts by hwc in nepal (dnpwc, 2017)). during 2011 to 2019, common leopard killed 23 and injured eight people in the district. in retaliation, people killed 26 common leopards in the same period, in the district (dfo, 2019). despite the increasing number of conflict events, limited number of scientific studies focusing on human common leopard conflict have been carried in the district. in this study, we investigated the spatial and temporal pattern of human common leopard conflict and assessed the causes and the potential strategies for mitigation of the ongoing conflict. materials and methods study area baitadi district (29o 19' – 29o 40' n and 80o 22' – 80o 50' e) is located in the far western province of nepal (figure 1). its elevation ranges between 390 and 2,950 meters above sea level (m a.s.l.). the total area of the district is 1,519 km2. sixty– two percent of the district is covered by forests. of which, 69% are being managed under community forest system and the rest under the government management system (kunwar et al., 2016). majority of the forests are dominated by pinus roxburghii while the rest are dominated by mixed broadleaved species and sal (shorea robusta). the total population of baitadi district is 250,898 (ddc baitadi, 2017). more than 80% of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods, followed by government jobs and businesses. seasonal migration to india as laborers is also common in the district (sharma, 2008). the overall literacy rate of baitadi district is well below the national literacy rate, with only 63% of the males and 49% of female can read and write (ddc 2018). compounding this is the large number of people living in poverty. in the baitadi district, 37% of the population lives in below poverty line compared to the national average of 18% in nepal (nbs 2018). the fieldwork for this study was carried out between january and june 2020 in the villages of bishalpur, udayadev, pancheshor and aamchaura as several common leopard attacks on villagers were reported from these villages (dfo, 2018). these are the remote villages with limited access to electricity and road facilities, where people are living in extreme poverty (thapamagar et al., 2019). the villagers have low literacy rate banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 5 baral et al. and very low level of awareness about potential measures for mitigation of ongoing human common leopard conflict. figure 1: the study area map with (a) showing the location of baitadi district within nepal, (b) showing the location of four study villages within baitadi district and (c) showing the four study villages data collection questionnaire survey questionnaire survey was used for the collection of information on hwc with victimized and non– victimized people. a total of 359 people (330 males and 29 females; table 1) from bishalpur, pancheshor, aamchaura and udayadev were surveyed between may and june 2020. most of the survey respondents were males because women in these villages rarely attended public gatherings and did not wish to be surveyed individually. we collected information on the demography and socio–economy of the victims and their family (table 2), the leopard attacks on humans and their consequence (death or injury), season of attack (autumn, winter, spring, rainy), time of attack (morning, day, evening, night), location of attack (forest, farmland, home). table 1: details of the respondents of questionnaire survey. the respondents are disaggregated by village, sex and age villages sex age group (yr) total male female < 30 30–60 >60 amchaura 93 7 4 83 13 100 bishalpur 78 10 9 71 8 88 pancheshor 74 7 8 64 9 81 udayadev 85 5 17 65 8 90 330 29 38 283 38 359 table 2: socio–economic details of the respondents of questionnaire survey villages profession literacy economic status total ag j b o i p s u l m h amchaura 77 19 3 1 20 39 38 4 38 61 1 100 bishalpur 81 3 3 1 27 16 43 2 46 42 0 88 pancheshor 61 14 4 2 11 27 37 6 22 59 0 81 udayadev 82 8 0 0 12 35 38 5 38 52 0 90 301 44 10 4 70 117 156 17 144 214 1 359 details on respondents’ profession (ag = agriculture, j = government or private sector job, b = business person, o = other), literacy or education (i = illiterate, p = primary, s = secondary, u = university), and economic status (l = low, m = medium, h = high) are shown. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 6 baral et al. literature review we reviewed division forest office (dfo) baitadi records to obtain information on number of hwc events. we used the hwc data between 2011 and 2019 because we couldn't find the records of hwc before 2011 at dfo baitadi. we also obtained information on a range of other species involved in hwc from the records. information about the victims (age group, gender, and ethnicity) were obtained from dfo baitadi and province forest directorate. in addition, the current policies related to the forest and wildlife conservation and the directives were also thoroughly reviewed. key informant interview we interviewed dfo baitadi staffs to obtain information on the current hwc policies, legal provisions, major interventions carried out to date and their effectiveness, and future strategies to combat hwc. perception survey we surveyed perception of respondents to collect their impressions about need of wildlife conservation. open–ended questionnaire was used and the people were asked whether they want to conserve wildlife or not and why. for the ease of analysis, the responses of people were broadly categorized into five categories namely, i) legal (punishment and imprisonment), ii) cultural importance, iii) identity, iv) ecosystem balance, and, v) tourism promotion (table 3). table 3: categorization of respondents’ perceptions of wildlife conservation we want to conserve wildlife and not kill them because : category if we kill them, we will be punished. wildlife is protected by the law of nepal and we respect our law. legal we worship nature (plants, wildlife, water, etc.) according to hindu religion. goddess durga is believed to use leopard as her vahana (vehicle) according to hindu religion. every wildlife has some religious value. if we disturb wildlife, our god will be angry with us and we will have to face different catastrophes like, heavy rain, landslide, hail stone, fire, epidemic, etc. cultural importance wildlife are the ornaments of our forests. many of them helps to retain identity of our forests. wildlife are the gifts of god to us. identity our livelihoods are closely connected to many wildlife. if we disturb them, our livelihoods will be disturbed. snakes help us to control the mouse and birds help us in pollination of the crops. ecosystem balance wildlife help us promote tourism. many local and foreign tourists come to nepal to observe and to study wildlife. wildlife support livelihoods of people. tourism promotion. data analysis data on hwc events between 2011 and 2019 obtained from dfo baitadi records were tabulated based on year and species involved in the events. by examining the location of the incidents, and various characteristics of victims (age, gender, ethnicity, occupation, literacy etc), we performed an associative statistical analysis to identify whether correlated variables (positive/ banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 7 baral et al. negative) could help managers reduce wildlife attacks. the association between temporal variables (year, month, season, and time) and the hwc events were analyzed using fisher’s exact test. we classified the time of attack in four categories (morning: 4.00 to 9.59, day: 10.00 to 15.59, evening: 16.00 to 21.59 and night: 22.00 to 3.59) and seasons of attack also in four categories (spring, summer, autumn and winter) and tested whether time and season factor is significant in terms of occurrence of attack events. similarly, we categorized the location of attacks i.e. home yard / settlement area, farm / cultivated land and forestland and tested the association of these variables with the attack events. logistic regression was used to analyze the association between peoples’ perception of wildlife conservation. results overall scenario of hwc in baitadi district during 2011 to 2019, 34 people were attacked by wildlife in baitadi district. of the 34 reported attacks, common leopard attacks accounted for 91% (n= 31), himalayan black bear for 6% (n=2) and porcupine for 3% (n=1). the number of common leopard attacks are significantly higher than attacks by any other wildlife species (fisher's exact test, p = 0.02). of the 34 reported attacks, in 23 events, people (68%) were killed and in 11 events, people (32%) were injured. common leopards were responsible for all human killings. they mainly attacked females (65%: n = 22) below 13 years. the age of humans attacked by wildlife ranges between 1.5 and 55 years. since more children were attacked/killed, age is significantly associated with the wildlife attacks (fisher's exact test; p = 0.0003). in contrast, wild bears attacked and injured 2 people resulting in no deaths and one person was injured from a porcupine attack (table 4). eighty–eight percent (n = 27) of all attacks occurred around the victim’s home and/or backyard, while the rest occurred in farmland and forest area. most of the leopard attacks occurred in 2012. ten people were killed in 2012. most of the victims were uneducated farmers or the children of uneducated farmers 65% (n = 22, fisher's exact test, p = 0.0053). dfo baitadi records showed that 26 leopards were killed by people in retaliation in the same period. thus, retaliatory killing appears to be a great challenge for the conservation of common leopards in the district. table 4: human casualty and injury caused by wildlife in baitadi district year wildlife number of human death number of human injured 2011 leopard 5 0 2012 leopard 10 0 2013 leopard 3 0 2014 leopard 1 0 2015 leopard 2 0 2016 leopard 2 0 2017 leopard 0 3 2017 bear 0 1 2018 leopard 0 2 2018 bear 0 1 2018 porcupine 0 1 2019 leopard 0 3 total 23 11 of the 34 people attacked by wildlife, 20 (59%) were poor and 14 (41%) were medium class people. there is no significant difference in number of people killed or injured by wildlife by socio economic status (fisher's exact test, p = 1). among the victims, 35% (n = 12) were literate and 65% (n = 22) were illiterate. it shows that illiterate people are more often victimized by wildlife than literate people. human common leopard conflict situation in baitadi district villages affected by human common leopard conflict in total 13 villages (previously they were village development committees–vdcs) namely, amrhaura, bishalpur, dashrath chand, giregadha, kulau, mahakali, melauli, panchesor, patan, rhodidewl, shrmali, shivanath and udayadev were found affected by human common leopard banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 8 baral et al. conflict in baitadi district. the village that suffered the greatest loss was bishalpur, where nine people were killed by common leopards in last nine years. table 5: number of human death in different villages villages b is ha lp ur pa nc he sh or a am ch ou ra u da ya de v sh ar m al i k ul au g ir eg ad a number of human death due to leopard attack 9 4 4 4 1 1 1 time and season of leopard attacks in 24 occasions, common leopards attacked their victims in the evening (16.00 to 21.59; figure 2a). but leopards also attacked 5 people in the morning (4.00 to 9.59), 3 people during the day (10.00 to 15.59)and, two people at night (22.00 to 3.59) (figure 2a). further, most of the attacks of common leopard (n = 12) occurred during autumn followed by nine attacks in winter, eight in summer and, five in spring (figure 2b). our results show that common leopards attack people significantly more often in the evening (fisher's exact test, p = 0.001) and in the autumn season (fisher's exact test, p = 0.009). 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% evening night morning day frequency of attack (%) ti m e time of attack 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% autumn spring frequency of attack (%) se as on season of attack a b figure 2: a) time pattern of wildlife attack b.) seasonal pattern of wildlife attack in baitadi district spatial pattern of leopard attack out of 31 attacks of leopard 88% (n=27) were occurred close to the victims home and settlement area, 9% (n=3) in cultivated land and 3% (n=1) in forest area. as leopard attacks were significantly higher in home yard (fisher's exact test; p = 0.0002), there were other common features of the attacks site i.e. absence of security lighting at village or around home in evening, presence of dense vegetation and unsupervised children playing at home yard in the evening. eyewitnesses reported that the common leopards that attacked people were either old individuals or were females with cubs. possible causes of leopard attacks from the questionnaire survey and the key informant interview, habitat modification and behavior of the villagers were identified to be the two key reasons of leopard attacks. of the 359 people surveyed, 167 people thought prey scarcity inside the forests was the main reason of leopard attacks. many of the interviewees freely admitted that illegal hunting of deer, wild boar (sus scrofa), and other wildlife is common in the study villages. other issues, such as, water scarcity (n = 97), forest fires (n = 59) and deforestation (n = 36) were also identified as possible reasons of leopard attacks. however, the perceptions were significantly different between the male and female respondents (χ2 = 51.8; df = 3; p < 0.0001). lack of awareness about wildlife and leopard behavior among the villagers was identified to be a reason of leopard attacks by 209 respondents. many respondents (n = 103) identified continual incursions and frequent entering to the forests to collect firewood and food were also major contributing factors. habitat modification or land–use change i.e. encroachment of forest areas for agriculture and infrastructure, was identified as another reason of leopard attacks by 13% of the respondents. the perceptions of male and female respondents were not significantly different (χ2 = 4.27; df = 2; p = 0.1181). banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 9 baral et al. perception on wildlife conservation despite the serious loss of lives inflicted by common leopards, 71% (n = 254) of the respondents showed positive perception towards wildlife conservation. they expressed the view that coexistence of human and wildlife is necessary so long as they do not cause harm to each other. we asked the respondents to rank the reasons why they think they should conserve wildlife and 50% of them ranked fine and imprisonment (i.e. if they kill the wildlife then they will be punished) the first. cultural reasons were ranked second (34% (n = 124) of the respondents). similarly other reasons identity, ecosystem balance and tourism promotion were stood in third, fourth and fifty ranks with the 40 (11%), 11(3%) and 2 (1%) respectively. the anova test showed that the perception of the respondents were not significantly different (f=0.000; df = 24; p > 0.005) between male and female respondents. discussion we found that common leopards killed 23 people in baitadi district during period of 2011–2019. most of the leopard victims were children and they were killed in close proximity to their homes. while other wildlife species have been reported to injure people, none of them has killed any humans. habitat deterioration and decreased natural prey base within forests were identified to be the major causes for common leopards invading the human settlements, which is in line with the findings of baral et al. (2021). large predators like common leopards are more than capable of killing people and some have reported to switch their prey to specialize on humans (brain, 1983; sillero–zubiri & laurenson, 2001; treves & naughton–treves, 1999; woodroffe, 2000). villagers are concerned that if common leopards are moving into villages because their natural prey is declining and their habitats are being modified, then the number of attacks are bound to increase in future further heightening the tension between people and leopard. most people killed by common leopards were children aged below 13 years. this is in line with the findings from gharawal, india, where 41% of leopard victims were children aged under 10 years (sathyakumar et al., 2018). majority of attacks occurring in the evening may has to do with the crepuscular or nocturnal nature of common leopards (bailey, 1993; grimbeek, 2006; martins & harris, 2013). bhatia et al. (2017) have suggested that sickly or older leopards or female with cubs are more likely to attack vulnerable children because they would be easy to kill. thus, organized efforts are required to raise awareness and to educate people about not leaving young children alone in the evening to prevent future leopard attacks. in nepal, autumn is the season of festivals and a large number of people travel during this time presenting an opportune time for leopards to attack people. our data indeed showed that many attacks occurred in autumn in baitadi district. acharya et al. (2016) also found in their study from 2010 to 2014 that more people were killed in leopard attacks in autumn. on the other hand, spring is the dry season and most of the forests remain dry in this time. though the lowest number of leopard attacks were recorded in spring in baitadi district, leopards may still attack people because this is when a large number of forest fires erupt (bhatia et al. 2017; pitman et al., 2012; ritchie & johnson, 2009) and the leopards may retreat to settlements in search for shelter and water. the most highly affected villages in the baitadi district lies in the western most border of nepal that adjoins pithauragadh district of india. the study villages are often scattered apart but most are situated near the patches of forests. this must be the reason most leopard attacks occurred within 1 km radius from the forest edges. p. roxburghii is the dominant forest type in the study villages in baitadi district. fallen pine needles take long time to decompose on the forest floor and because of this, it prevents most grass species from growing well in the forests (jackson, 1994). consequently, the population of wild ungulates may be decreasing. this might be the major cause of prey scarcity of leopard within forest area. unlike other ungulate species that live deep inside the forests, barking deer (muntiacus vaginalis) depend on grasses on the forest edges banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 10 baral et al. near village. in absence of deer deep inside the forests, common leopards prowl the forest margins looking for deer, rather than hunting deep inside the forests (wang & macdonald, 2006). common leopards are opportunistic hunters (balme et al., 2007; dnpwc, 2017; jenny & zuberbuhler, 2005) and will attack any available prey when the occasion arises. with deer browsing close to the villages and common leopards seeking food, they may stray into villages seeking easy prey, which, in turn, may create situation for frequent encounter of leopard with people subsequent increase in number of attack events. as few police and dfo staffs are present in these remotely scattered villages, poaching is rife. villagers are poaching the species that are preferred by common leopards. such competition for prey may intensify the problem of common leopards roaming in villages in search for food. deforestation, agricultural encroachment and construction of rural roads are reported to cause habitat fragmentation and subsequent decline in prey numbers triggering behavior changes in wildlife (d'angelo et al., 2004; laurance et al., 2000; laurance et al., 2009; syombua, 2013). this situation is being exacerbated by drying up of natural water sources in the forests. as a results of habitat modification and recent forest fires natural water sources are drying up in the forests. indeed, the anthropogenic changes in forest structure has been highlighted as a key issue contributing to the increasing hwc (bhandari & chalise, 2016; kshettry et al., 2017; treves & naughton–treves, 1999). most of the villagers depend on the natural resources in the forests for their livelihoods. for example, more than 80% of villagers rely on firewood from the nearby forests for cooking and heating. the villagers often visit forests for collection wild fruits and fodder (dfo, 2019). such continual presence of the villagers in the forests is increasing the frequency of hwc in the study villages. as result of out–migration of youths to the urban areas and abroad for education and employment, majority of agriculture lands in the villages are being left abandoned to be converted into bushy area in absence of work force in the villages for agriculture works (childs et al., 2014; sharma, 2008). the situation is not different in the study villages. such conversion of agriculture lands that used to function as buffer the forests and human settlements into bushy areas could be a cause that is facilitating common leopards to close to human settlements and subsequently increasing the human wildlife encounters. it is promising to find that two third of the respondents are positive towards wildlife conservation despite the higher number of human casualties in the baitadi district (table 4). this is probably due to the religious belief of the people. most of the people (> 92%) in the district are hindus and in hindu myth, common leopard is believed to be the vehicle (vahan) of the goddess durga (dickstein, 2002; miller, 2010; mukul et al., 2012). regrettably, such beliefs are gradually eroding as people are becoming less religious (adeola, 1992; dickstein, 2002; miller, 2010; mukul et al., 2012) and this is reflected in our results that 26 leopards were killed in retaliation in last nine years in baitadi district. in other regions with adequate skilled human resources and facilities, nuisance leopards are darted, captured in snares or traps and translocated (dfo, 2019; viollaz, 2016). however, translocation is only a short–term solution to human common leopard conflict (dfo, 2019; kshettry et al., 2017). conservation of their habitats and prey base are required so that there is little need for the leopards to stray into the villages. unfortunately, there have been no studies on population of leopards and their prey species in baitadi district. provided insufficient prey are available because their habitats are constantly eroding, appropriate conservation/ management plans and actions are required to revive prey population. population studies will be helpful to adopt the appropriate management strategies in future. conclusion human common leopard conflict is one of the major conservation issues in baitadi district. during 2011 to 2019, common leopards killed 23 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 11 baral et al. people and 26 leopards were killed in retaliation. bishalpur, pancheshor, aamchaura and udayadev are the highly affected village of leopard attack where female, illiterate, poor people and farmers / children of farmers are extremely victimized. attacks were occurred significantly higher in evening time and autumn season. similarly, 88 percent of the attacks were held close to or around home of the victims. habitat modification and lower level of awareness on villagers regarding the habitat management of leopard were identified to be the two key reasons of leopard attacks. there is no single solution to control hwc and promote coexistence. therefore, there is a need to develop multilayer mitigation strategies (dickman & hazzah, 2016). to mitigate ongoing hwc and avoid future hwc, we recommend dfo baitadi, concerned rural municipalities and cfugs 1) to initiate habitat management activities such as construction/maintenance of water holes, grassland management for the ungulates/prey species of leopards, control forest fires, control poaching, and control forest fragmentation, 2) to carry out community awareness programmes to the villagers about leopards ecology and behavior and precautions to be taken to avoid hwc, and 3) to undertake detailed study on habitat assessment, population status of leopards and their prey species that will be helpful in prioritizing appropriate future management strategies. acknowledgments we thank the staff of the division forest office, baitadi for supporting us in the field. our thanks goes to the local people who participated in the questionnaire survey. we would like to highly appreciate the diligent efforts of mr. binaya adhikari and mr. milan baral graduate students of institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal during the data collection and compilation. finally, we are extremely thankful to the small grant program, wwf nepal/hariyo ban program for providing financial support to carry out this study. references acharya, k. p., paudel, p. k., neupane, p. r., & köhl, m. 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(1999). risk and opportunity for humans coexisting with large carnivores. journal of human evolution, 36(3), 275–282. viollaz, j. s. (2016). when human–leopard conflict turns deadly: a cross–country situational analysis. phd dissertation, graduate center, city university of new york, usa. wang, s. w., & macdonald, d. w. (2006). livestock predation by carnivores in jigme singye wangchuck national park, bhutan. biological conservation, 129 (4), 558–565. wang, s. w., & macdonald, d. w. (2009). feeding habits and niche partitioning in a predator guild composed of tigers, leopards and dholes in a temperate ecosystem in central bhutan. journal of zoology, 277 (4), 275–283. woodroffe, r. (2000). predators and people: using human densities to interpret declines of large carnivores. animal conservation, 3 (2), 165–173. 49 tropical forests, an important natural sink of organic carbon, are the most complex and species rich ecosystem in the world (schemske & mittelbach, 2017). in addition to providing many provisioning ecosystem services to human society (millennium ecosystem assessment, 2005), tropical forests have one of the fastest carbon sequestration rates per unit land area (harris et al., 2021) and, thus play a fundamental role in the mitigation of climate change by sequestering 30% of fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions (pan et al., 2011). a better understanding of distribution patterns and variability of carbons stocks is necessary for understanding how carbon stock changes over time (houghton, 2005) and for increasing the carbon stock of forest ecosystems (zhao & zhou, 2006). different studies have demonstrated that abiotic and biotic variables influence the carbon stock of the forest ecosystem (dayamba et al., 2016; poorter et al., 2015; vayreda et al., 2012; xu et al., 2015; zhao & zhou, 2006). forest diversity is one of the determinants of carbon stock patterns in forest ecosystems (arasa-gisbert et al., 2018; day et al., 2014). both the magnitude (hector et al., 1999; reich et al., 2001) and variability (bai et al., 2004) of banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2, 2023 pp 49‒60https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i2.58054 forest diversity and aboveground carbon linkage between the national park and community managed tropical forests of nepal the relationship of forest diversity and aboveground carbon has been poorly explored in tropical forests under different management regimes. an assessment of the linkage between forest diversity and carbon has become important, particularly to devise effective approaches to forest management and policy formulation. to assess the relation between forest diversity and carbon stock, we correlated the structural attributes (i.e., dbh, height, wood density, and stem density), diversity attributes (i.e., species richness, shannon weiner index and shannon equitability index) and aboveground carbon of tree species ≥ 5cm in dbh from bardia national park and adjoining buffer zone community forest. our results showed that most structural attributes are correlated to aboveground carbon in both forest types. while the diversity attributes (i.e., species richness and shannon index) and stem density had no relation with aboveground carbon in both forests. similarly, species evenness had a significant inverse relation with aboveground carbon in both forests. the correlation of dbh and height was stronger with aboveground carbon in community managed forest while the same was moderate in national park. in addition, the carbon stock was found slightly higher in the community managed forest than in national park. this indicates that forest structural diversity enhances the aboveground carbon in tropical forests, and community managed forest promotes the growth of vegetation similar to natural forest. these results provide a better insight into forest management and its effects on forest diversity and aboveground carbon. keywords: carbon stock, forest biodiversity, forest management, nepal s. ranabhat1* and r. malla2 received: 17, april 2023 revised: 30, december 2023 accepted: 4, february 2024 published: 26, february 2024 1 climate change adaptation through sustainable forest management, jica funded project, gandaki province, nepal. email: sunita.ranabhat@gmail.com 2 forest research and training center, gandaki province, nepal https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0992-4405 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3604-225 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 50 ranabhat & malla terrestrial biomass are influenced by the diversity and relative abundance of species. the study on the relationships between forest biodiversity and carbon stock among different types of forest ecosystems has increased over the years not only to maintain ecosystem functioning and protect biodiversity, but also to mitigate climate change effects (bosworth et al., 2008; con et al., 2013; lei et al., 2009; liang et al., 2007). although many studies have showed a positive relation between forest biodiversity and aboveground carbon stock (ali & yan, 2017; dimobe et al., 2019; ercanli, 2018; liu et al., 2018; thom & keeton, 2019; zhang et al., 2017), there has also been a negative association between forest diversity and aboveground carbon stock (aryal et al., 2018; suo et al., 2008; szwagrzyk & gazda, 2007; zhang et al., 2011). despite it, some studies have shown no relation between forest diversity and aboveground carbon stocks (vilà et al., 2003). this conflicting report on the linkage between carbon stocks and diversity from different parts of the world reassures about the complexity of the ecosystem structure and function (wang et al., 2011). more research on the evidence of the relationship between carbon and diversity at different geography, forest quality, spatial scales, and on a range of taxa is necessary to ascertain the biodiversity and carbon storage relation (day et al., 2014; luintel et al., 2018). though studies on relationship between biodiversity and carbon stocks in forest ecosystems are increasing, limited study was found on relation of forest diversity and aboveground carbon stock on different forest management, especially in the tropical forest of nepal. therefore, our research intends to assess the relationship between forest diversity and carbon stock of tropical forests that have the same history, topography and rainfall pattern but are under different management regimes in nepal. the comparative study on the forests with different management regimes will answer the following research questions: 1) does the forest management regime affect species diversity and aboveground carbon? 2) does forest management regime influence the relation between species diversity and aboveground carbon? the findings of the study are expected to contribute to the maintenance of species diversity and forest carbon. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in the south-western part of nepal, located in bardia district, which represents a tropical and subtropical ecosystem. the area falls within latitude 28°36` 28° 50` n and longitude 81° 30`81° 45` e (figure 1). the climate of the study area is that of a typical subtropical monsoonal with three distinct seasons, i.e. monsoon season (july-october), cold dry season (november-february) and hot dry season (march-june). the average temperature is 39.80 maximum and 9.60 minimum and annual rainfall is 1118 mm (ddc bardiya, 2013). the forest ecosystem is dominated by shorea robusta and terminalia tomentosa. bardia national park (national park hereafter), the largest undisturbed forest area, is managed by government, was declared a national park in 1988. the park consists of tropical and subtropical ecosystem ranging from early successional floodplain grassland to mature climax sal forest. buffer zone community forests (community managed forest hereafter), located adjoining to the national park, are managed by community and handed over to community in 2003 for conservation of forest and utilization of forest products in a sustainable way. before declaration of buffer zone, this forest was degraded due to human interventions, overharvesting and uncontrolled grazing (ranabhat et al., 2016), resulting in loss of regeneration. with the active participation figure 1: study area (source: google, 2023) banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 51 ranabhat & malla of local communities, buffer zone forest was conserved and managed to bring noticeable improvement in forest condition. buffer zone community forest user groups carry out different management activities, such as singling, thinning, cleaning, weeding, control fire etc. as per the operational plan. data collection: three transect lines were laid out parallel at 200m apart from each in the national park and community managed forest separately. sample points were laid out 100m inside the boundary line in both forests to reduce boundary edge effects. altogether 30 and 26 sample points were laid out systematically inside national park and community managed forest respectively at 150 m interval within respective transects. a circular concentric plot was laid out at each sample point. a concentric plot with radius of 12.62m, 5.64m, and 2.82m was established to measure the diameter at breast height of woody perennials of ≥ 30 cm (large trees), 10-29.9 cm (medium trees) and ≥5-9.9cm (small trees) respectively. besides, the height of all trees was recorded in the sample plots. data analysis: quantification of forest diversity for forest diversity we used two attributes: structural attributes and diversity attributes. forest structural attributes were described based on basal area, density (no. of stems), wood density, height and dbh distribution. basal area per plot of all stem ≥ 5cm was calculated using equation (1). similarly, density of trees in a plot was calculated and converted to per hectare (ha) applying different expansion factors resulting from the respective size of the nested plots.we also counted all trees and recorded the names of all the tree species ≥ 5cm in dbh within the plot for species identification. (1) diversity attributes were calculated by i) species richness (s), which reflects the number of tree species present, ii) ii) shannon wiener diversity index (h) (shannon index hereafter), which reflects to species richness and abundance of tree species, (2) where pi is the stem proportion of species ith. iii) iii) shannon evenness (j) index (evenness hereafter), which reflects the evenness of tree species. (3) estimation of biomass and aboveground carbon stock the allometric equation (ketterings et al., 2001) is commonly used for the estimation of forest biomass which later on used for the estimation of carbon stock in the forest (basuki et al., 2009) using conversion factors (i.e. 47% of agb) (ipcc, 2006). therefore, allometric equation developed for moist tropical forest (chave et al., 2005) was used for estimation agtb as the study sites are located in the moist climatic zone. we used available airdry density of wood for specificspecies available in sharma and pukkala (1990). (4) where, tagb=total aboveground biomass (kg) dbh= diameter at breast height (cm) h= total height of the tree (m) ρ=wood density (gm cm-3) statistical analysis for comparing different variables between two forest management regimes, we used t-test using t.test function if the data was normally distributed otherwise mann-whitney u test using wilcox.test function under r-package "stats". the shapirowilk goodness-of-fit test was utilized to confirm the normality of all variables using shapiro.test function under r-package "stats"(r core team, 2020). the relationships of aboveground carbon banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 52 ranabhat & malla with species richness, species diversity and structural diversity were examined with pearson correlation analysis using “cor.test” function under r-package "stats". furthermore, species diversity was assessed using shannon function under r-package "vegan" (oksanen et al., 2019). results forest diversity a total of 279 and 170 trees and shrubs were recorded in national park and community managed forest respectively. the number of species with dbh≥ 5 cm was found 19 species in national park and 14 species in community managed forest. the number of species per plot ranged from 2 to 7 in national park while ranged from 1 to 7 in community managed forest. the mean dbh was found larger in community managed forest while mean height was found higher in national park. similarly, basal area was higher in national park compared to community managed forest (table 1). there were more trees and shrubs per unit area in community managed forest (866.92±176.82 stem ha-1) than in national park (614.66±118.31 stem ha-1). the stem density was dominated by medium trees in national park while community managed forest was dominated by small trees (figure 1). shannon index was higher in community managed forest (table 1). species richness and evenness varied significantly (p<0.05) between the two forest types, while mean dbh, mean height, tree density and shannon index were not significantly different. table1: descriptive statistics of the forest diversity in two forest types. the values of diameter at breast height, tree height, basal area, density and aboveground biomass represent means and standard errors of the means, while species richness, shannon index, and evenness represent the, total count of species, shannon diversity index, and shannon equitability index forest type national park community managed forest no of sample plots 30 26 no. of trees 279 170 mean dbh(cm) 36.6±3.85 39.36±5.45 forest type national park community managed forest mean ht (m) 19.47±1.71 17.66±2.23 basal area (m2 ha-1) 32.32± 2.37 28.82±2.46 density (no. of stems ha-1) 614.66±118.31 866.92±164.61 species richness 19* 14* shannon index 1.77 1.89 evenness 0.60* 0.71* agb (mg ha-1) 410.88±37.46 415.84±51.03 carbon stock (mg ha-1) 192.16±17.54 195±23.98 * shows significance level p< 0.05 aboveground biomass and carbon stocks this study showed that aboveground biomass is slightly higher in community managed forest than in national park. carbon stock in community managed forest was 195±23.98 mg ha-1 while in national park it was found 193±17.60 mg ha-1. however, there was no significant difference in carbon stock between the forest types. the maximum carbon was stored in large trees i.e. 97% in community managed forest and 89% in national park. with the increase in diameter, the amount of carbon stock has increased in both forests. while the density of trees has decreased with diameter classes in community managed forest. though the density of medium trees was high, but the amount of carbon was found high in large trees in national park as well (figure 2). figure 2: distribution of aboveground carbon relative to the number of trees for different diameter classes. small, medium and large diameter classes represent trees and shrubs with diameter at breast height of <10, 10-30 and ≥ 30 cm banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 53 ranabhat & malla in terms of relative abundance, shorea robusta is the most abundant species (more than 40%) in both forests, contributing the highest (more than 70%) of the aboveground carbon stock (table 2). after shorea robusta, other species such as buchanania latifolia (≈ 15%), terminalia tomentosa (≈13%), lagerstroemia parviflora (≈4%), schleicheraoleosa (≈3%) were the most abundant species recorded in national park while the higher carbon stocks were found in terminalia tomentosa (≈18%), adina cordifolia (≈2%), buchanania latifolia (≈ 1%) and schlericheraoleosa (≈1%). in community managed forest, the other most abundant species were mallotusphilippinesis (≈25%), terminalia tomentosa (10%), eugenia jambolana (≈8%), and cleistocalyxoperculatus (≈4%) while terminalia tomentosa (≈18%), adina cordifolia (≈2%), eugenia jambolana (≈2%), schlericheraoleosa (≈2%) stored more percentage of carbon (table 2). table 2: relative abundance and contribution of the ten most dominant tree species (dbh≥ 5 cm) to aboveground carbon stocks between the two forest regimes forest types species relative abundance (%) agc contribution (%) n at io na l p ar k s. robusta 49.46 73.67 b.latifolia 15.77 1.37 t. tomentosa 12.90 18.53 l.parviflora 3.58 0.29 s.oleosa 2.86 1.08 m.philippinensis 1.79 0.31 a. cordifolia 1.43 2.38 mitragynaparviflora 0.71 0.81 anogeissuslatifolia 0.71 0.71 e.jambolana 0.71 0.30 c om m un ity fo re st s. robusta 36.47 72.60 m. philippinensis 24.70 0.68 t. tomentosa 10.00 19.24 e. jambolana 7.64 1.66 berry ** 4.11 0.01 c.operculata 3.52 1.60 s. oleosa 2.35 0.80 l.parviflora 2.35 0.05 a. cordifolia 1.17 3.26 cassia fistula 0.58 0.04 ** local name note: all the tree species shown in annex-1 table 3: correlations (r-values) between aboveground carbon and structural and diversity attributes in the national park and community managed forest attributes national park community managed forest structural dbh 0.30* 0.54* height 0.49* 0.57* wood density 0.53* 0.55* basal area 0.94* 0.89* density 0.09 -0.13 diversity shannon index -0.15 -0.07 richness 0.16 0.05 evenness -0.57* -0.47* *shows significance level p<0.05 3.3 relation between forest diversity and carbon stocks. this study found that basal area was very strongly correlated with aboveground carbon in both forests (table 3). while dbh and height were moderately correlated to aboveground carbon in national park, but had a strong relation to aboveground carbon in community managed forest. similarly, wood density had a strong relation with aboveground carbon in both forests. however, species richness and diversity had no significant relation with aboveground carbon in both forests. on the contrary, species evenness had a significant negative relation with aboveground carbon in both forests. discussion the aboveground carbon stock recorded in shorea robusta forest was found higher than the other shorea robusta forest of terai region of nepal. other studies conducted in shorea robusta forest reported 129.53-162.98 mg ha-1 (bhatta et al., 2021), 74.64±16.34 -163.12±20.23 t ha(joshi et al., 2020) 1 and 160.4 mg ha-1(regmi et al., 2021) in nepal and 72.32 -143.36 t ha− 1(raj & jhariya, 2021)in india. however, it is markedly banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 54 ranabhat & malla less than the subtropical shorea robust forest of india (e.g., 274.15 mg ha-1) (joshi et al., 2021). this might be due to the use of different biometric equations or the presence of trees with larger sized trees that contribute to higher biomass in the study site (joshi et al., 2020). also change in landforms, soil types, quality and prevailing weather conditions in study sites also varied the tree biomass and carbon storage (raj & jhariya, 2021) . however, the aboveground carbon stock found in this study falls within the carbon stock value range of tropical forest (5.75-238.63 t ha-1) (pragasan, 2022). major contributor to aboveground carbon is shorea robusta in the study site. luintel et al (2018) also found that shorea robusta contributed more than 70% of the carbon in the lower elevations (<1000m). similar to trends in most forests, this study revealed the dominance of small trees in both forests, but higher contribution of large trees to aboveground carbon. the higher contribution of large-size trees to aboveground carbon despite of their low density has been reported in various vegetation types (bastin et al., 2015; dimobe et al., 2019; lutz et al., 2018; mcnicol et al., 2017; slik et al., 2013). due to greater height and heavier crowns which enable the large trees to occupy growing space not reachable to small trees and various light niches within the canopy, the large size trees have higher proportion of aboveground carbon (mensah et al., 2020). the comparison between national park and community managed forest showed that shannon index and species evenness were higher in the community managed forest (table 1). while species richness was found higher in natural forest. a forest with a small number of species can still have a high shannon index if the species are evenly distributed. there was significant difference in the species richness in community managed forest to national park, this might be due to heavy human disturbance in community managed forest before the declaration of buffer zone area (ranabhat et al., 2016)., this study reveals that there is a significant positive relation of aboveground carbon with forest structure attributes, except for stem density (table 3) in both forest types. the study result supports the finding of rana et al (2017) that size and average carbon stock of particular trees is important than the number of trees. murphy et al (2013) also reported no relation between carbon and stem density. this might be due to the presence of higher number of small and medium sized trees, the relation between aboveground carbon and stem density is weak. wang et al (2011)also reported higher presence of small trees resulted less carbon in the forests. positive relation between structural attributes and aboveground carbon was reported in subtropical forest (ali et al., 2016), boreal forest (zhang & chen, 2015) and temperate forest (dănescu et al., 2016). similar aboveground carbon in community managed forest and national park, and strong relation of dbh and height with aboveground carbon in community managed forest compared to national park supports the finding that managed forest enhances the growth of plants by providing better site, space, and nutrients for plants (lung & espira, 2015; taylor et al., 2008). implementation of appropriate management practicescould increase the potential of degraded forest to store carbon as in a natural forest. furthermore, the aboveground carbon has no significant relation with shannon diversity index and species richness in both forests (table 3).negative or no relation between forest diversity and aboveground carbon was reported by other studies in various forest types (asase et al., 2012; pragasan, 2016; rana et al., 2017; urbano & keeton, 2017). different factors such as selective logging (widenfalk and weslien, 2009), abundance of lower carbon stocks species (baral et al., 2009) influence the distribution of biodiversity and carbon in a forest. however, some studies found higher forest diversity increases carbon stock of a forest (day et al., 2014; dimobe et al., 2019; pragasan, 2022). we found a significant negative effect of evenness on carbon stock in both forests. previous studies have demonstrated negative relation (shirima et al., 2015; sonkoly et al., 2019), or no relationship (luintel et al., 2018) between species banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 55 ranabhat & malla evenness and biomass /carbon. under uniform environmental conditions, a community may be most productive when it is dominated by a highly productive species, instead of biomass being distributed evenly among all species (hillebrand et al., 2008; chalcraft et al., 2010). this refers that higher evenness means low aboveground carbon. however, some studies have also demonstrated the positive effect of evenness on carbon stocks (schmitz et al., 2013). the dominance of shorea robusta and large sized trees in the contribution of aboveground carbon stock is likely to result in no relationship of shannon index and species richness to aboveground carbon. luintel et al (2018) also reported that presence of high carbon in a few species; reduce the influence of species richness to aboveground carbon. besides, the historical forest disturbance is also likely to have a significant impact on forest carbon and forest diversity (day et al., 2014), and the community managed forest have been under severe disturbance before handing over to communities. furthermore, van der sande et al (2017) has specified that the biodiversity, and carbon stock is strongly linked in mature forests and across larger spatial scales while weakly linked in disturbed forests and at local scales. sullivan et al (2017) also indicated that diversity-carbon relation is scale dependent. the study did not analyze below ground and soil organic carbon that might have provided additional insights into forest diversity and carbon relations under different management regimes. further study is recommended at different scales by including different biotic and abiotic factors to understand the complex relationship between forest diversity and carbon. conclusion this study aimed to assess the forest diversity and aboveground carbon relationship in the tropical forest of nepal under different management regimes. it reveals that aboveground carbon increases with dbh, height, basal area, and wood density but it does not change with species richness, shannon index and stem density. however, species evenness supports to decrease aboveground carbon, which attribute to the dominance of productive species in the study site. effective conservation and management of degraded forest improves diversity and forest carbon similar to natural forest. therefore, community managed forest with forest management interventions are successful approach for maintaining ecosystem diversity and productivity. author contribution statement sunita ranabhat: conception and design, data collection, analysis, manuscript writing. rajesh malla: conception and design, manuscript, result interpretation, manuscript revision, data availability the data used in this study are accessible upon request to the corresponding author. conflict of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest. references ali, a., & yan, & e.-r. 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(2006). carbon storage of forest vegetation in china and its relationship with climatic factors. climatic change, 74(1–3), 175–189. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-0066775-0 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-003-1182-y https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-003-1182-y https://academic.oup.com/forestscience/article/57/6/506/4604199 https://academic.oup.com/forestscience/article/57/6/506/4604199 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2008.12.010 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2008.12.010 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2ranabhat & malla annex 1: list of species found in the national park and community forest category family species local name national park community forest tr ee s a nd p ol es anacardiaceae buchanania latifolia piyari √ anacardiaceae semecarpus anacardium bhalayo √ combretaceae anogeissus latifolia banjhi √ combretaceae terminalia alata asna √ √ dilleniaceae dillenia pentagyna tantari √ dipterocarpaceae shorea robusta sal √ √ ebenaceae diospyros malabarica tendu √ euphorbiaceae mallotus philippensis sindhure √ √ fabaceae cassia fistula raj brikchhya √ √ fabaceae desmodium oojeinense sadan √ lythraceae lagerstroemia parviflora botdhainro √ √ myrtaceae cleistocalyx operculatus kyamuna √ √ myrtaceae eugenia jambolana jamun √ √ myrsinaceae myrsine semiserrata kali kath √ √ rhamnaceae ziziphus sps bayer √ rubiaceae mitragyna parviflora phaldu √ rubiaceae adina cordifolia haldu √ √ sapindaceae schleichera oleosa kusum √ √ sapotaceae madhuca latifolia lati mauwa √ sa pl in gs anacardiaceae buchanania latifolia piyari √ cordiaceae ehretia laevis roxb. pan, datrung √ dipterocarpaceae shorea robusta sal √ √ ebenaceae diospyros malabarica tendu √ √ euphorbiaceae mallotus philippinensis sindhure √ √ fabaceae cassia fistula raj brikchhya √ fabaceae dalbergia sissoo sisau √ lythraceae lagerstroemia parviflora botdhainro √ malvaceae kydia calycina bori √ myrsinaceae myrsine semiserrata kali kath √ √ myrtaceae cleistocalyx operculatus kyamuna √ √ myrtaceae eugenia jambolana jamun √ √ phyllanthaceae bischofia javanica kainjal √ phyllanthaceae bridelia retusa gayo √ rhamnaceae zyziphus sps bayer √ rubiaceae adina cordifolia haldu √ sapotaceae madhuca latifolia lati mauwa √ berry √ banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 ranabhat & malla category family species local name national park community forest se ed lin gs anacardiaceae buchanania latifolia piyari √ combretaceae terminalia alata asna √ √ dipterocarpaceae shorea robusta sal √ √ ebenaceae diospyros malabarica tendu √ euphorbiaceae mallotus philippinensis sindhure √ √ fabaceae cassia fistula raj brikchhya √ fabaceae dalbergia sissoo sisau √ lecythidaceae careya arborea khmubi √ moraceae ficus racemosa gular √ myrsinaceae myrsine semiserrata kali kath √ √ myrtaceae cleistocalyx operculatus kyamuna √ √ myrtaceae eugenia jambolana jamun √ √ myrtaceae psidium guajava belauti, amba √ phyllanthaceae bridelia retusa gayo √ rubiaceae adina cordifolia haldu √ rubiaceae mitragyna parvifolia phaldu √ sapindaceae schleichera oleosa kusum √ √ sapotaceae madhuca latifolia lati mauwa √ not identified not identified patai √ 52 common pool resources (cpr) share two common attributes: i) it is costly to exclude the individuals from using the resources and ii) the benefit consumed by one individual subtract the benefit available to others (ostrom & ostrom, 1997). these attributes make the management of cpr challenging. the concept of participatory forest management (pfm) arose as an odd to manage forests, one of the most valuable cpr (acharya, 2002). consequently, the pfm escalated quickly around the globe and approximately 730 million hectares of the forests in 62 countries representing 28% of the worldwide forest cover are being managed under participatory regime (gilmour, 2016). similarly, in nepal, more than 22,000 community forest user groups (cfugs) are managing more than one third of country's forests and these cfugs have evolved as one of the strong local level institutions to deliver multiple social and environmental outcomes (aryal et al., 2020). forest management is often guided by a series of government-formulated plans in both global and national contexts. in nepal too, community forests (cfs), involving locally organized community forest user groups with devolved rights and responsibilities (thoms, 2008), require two basic documents to function legally. they are: i) the constitution: (the document covering the banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2, 2022 pp 52‒62https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i2.50897 exploring the relevance of community forest operational plan: users’ perspective and implementation status community forestry has long been considered an epitome of decentralized forest management in nepal. the management of community forests are guided by their operational plans (ops), the mandatory technical document. their preparation demands substantial human and economic inputs. however, their extent of implementation and the significance of these plans to local user are topics of debate. in this context, this study analyzes users' perception about the op and their implementation status. we took case study approach and conducted key informant interview (n=25), focus group discussion (n=16) and purposive household survey (n=246) in 15 community forest user groups to compile required data. the perceptions were analyzed using qualitative methods. the results revealed that the users have poor understanding of their plans and considered the plan as technical legitimate documents. the implementation status of the plans was of sub-standard. silvicultural operations prescribed in the operational plans were insufficiently carried out. we found that the users are adopting only the forest product harvest and utilization aspects of the plans. provided the poor understanding of ops among the users and quality of plan implementation, this study questions the relevance of current operational plans and emphasizes the need of reviewing the planning process so that their high-standard implementation can be assured. keywords: forest management, management score, people perception, substandard implementation p. ghimire 1*, s. baral 2, p. khanal 3, s. bolakhe 1, and g. b. sharma 1 received: 9, august 2022 revised: 9, november 2022 accepted: 14, december 2022 published: 31, december 2022 1: faculty of forestry, agriculture and forestry university, hetauda, nepal, *email: prayash.pg@gmail.com 2: forest action nepal, lalitpur, nepal 3: institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, pokhara, nepal https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4778-3028 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1542-846x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0552-7325 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 53 ghimire et al. social and policy aspects of the cfugs) and ii) the operational plan (op): (the document covering biophysical aspects of the forest and technical management prescriptions). these two documents plans have broadly become a prerequisite for transferring right to local institutions (rutt et al., 2015). the plans are prepared for a fixed term (either 5 years/10 years period); the users lose their right to forest management if their ops expire (baral et al., 2020). therefore, cfugs are required have active ops specifying the system of forest management, forest conservation modalities and utilization pattern of forest products (dof, 2014). the ops include the management goals, the activities to be undertaken and the rules of forest product utilization and most importantly directly they serve as an agreement between department of forest and cfugs. the success of community forests largely depends on how well the ops are prepared and implemented. better the ops, greater will be the control of local communities over forest resources, higher will be the opportunity for sustainable management of cf and greater will be the benefits from the forests (charnley & poe, 2007). implementing the plans requires cfugs capacity to understand and act on the prescribed actions. the poor understanding of the plans may lead to poor implementation and subsequent deterioration of the forest cover and conditions. since cfugs are considered as the major vehicles for community development, social inclusion and democratic civic engagement (bhandari et al., 2019; kanel, 2006; pokharel et al., 2007), effective implementation of ops can have diverse ecological, economic and social impacts. for example, the regular and effective implementation of silvicultural treatments could increase the availability of forest product to local users (gurung et al., 2013), whereas the passive forest management could have negative impact on the rural livelihood (yadav et al., 2009) there is paucity of studies analyzing the user’s perception about the planning process and the implementation status of the plans. some criticize ops for being technically complex. they criticize that the ops are written by the technicians with the limited information of local users (baral et al., 2019; springate-baginski et al., 2003). others blame cfs are underutilized and benefit flows are stagnated (cedamon et al., 2017; yadav et al., 2009) mainly due to the poor implementation of ops (gilmour, 2018; baral et al., 2020; baral et al., 2019). few have assessed the field level implementation of the ops but they are site specific and surficial (puri et al., 2020). therefore, a study on implementation of cf operational plan is necessary. in this background, this study aims to examine the users’ perspective towards the plan, its implementation status and the relevance of the plan to the local communities for community forest management. in another word, this study intends to look into the plan through the users’ eyes and examine which prescriptions of the plan are easily implemented and which are not and explore the socio-political-technical reasons behind it. materials and methods study area fifteen community forests of sankhuwasava from mid hills were purposively selected for the study. tree species composition (four shorea forests, four mixed forests i.e. shorea-schimacastonopsis forest and seven schima-castanopsis forests) and forest condition1 (four forests in good condition, eight forests in fair condition and three forests in poor condition) were used as bases for the selection of the forests. the study forests were from altitude ranging between 400m to 1200 m above the sea level. the major tree species found in the study community forests were shorea robusta, schima wallichii and castanopsis indica (table 1). regarding the socio-economic structure of the community forest, the cf members were comprised of ethnic background mainly indigenous communities and were somewhat subsistence agriculturist and local labor. 1 the forest condition was determined based on the growing stock and regeneration status of the forest following inventory guideline 2064 prepared by department of forest total growing stock >200m3 per ha 50-200 m3 per ha <50 m3 per ha regeneration status good / fair / poor good / fair / poor good / fair / poor forest condition good / good / fair good / fair / poor fair / poor / poor banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 54 ghimire et al. table 1: description of the community forests selected for this study sn name of community forest area (ha) year of handover (ad) number of member households forest condition (based on op) major tree species 1 archale 39.83 1993 113 good shorea robusta 2 dharma devi 9.85 1992 57 good schima wallichii, castanopsis indica 3 harsiddhi 34.82 1997 82 fair shorea robusta 4 thulopakha dhungedhara 218.69 1993 245 fair shorea robusta, schima wallichii, castanopsis indica 5 arunsanguri 79.7 1997 81 poor shorea robusta 6 malbasekhop 12.5 1995 92 poor schima wallichii, castanopsis indica 7 makar 2.3 1992 26 good shorea robusta, schima wallichii, castanopsis indica 8 chilauna kharka 198.17 1996 202 good schima wallichii, castanopsis indica 9 dholbaje 4.0175 2006 69 fair schima wallichii, castanopsis indica 10 nigale dandebhir 67.72 2001 190 poor schima wallichii, castanopsis indica 11 manakamana 131.939 1993 170 fair shorea robusta, schima wallichii, castanopsis indica 12 pirima 20.49 1998 72 fair schima wallichii, castanopsis indica 13 sighadevi 49.98 1997 109 fair shorea robusta 14 bhasme 40.72 1993 87 fair schima wallichii, castanopsis indica 15 karkite batashe 160.81 1996 284 fair shorea robusta, schima wallichii, castanopsis indica methods perception mapping: people's perception is fundamental to identify locally relevant priorities, knowledge and contexts which are useful to understand the capacity, priorities and management performance of cfugs where on-ground management often do not resonate with stated policies (puri et al., 2020). to access people's perception and understanding of operational plans, focus group discussion (n = 16), key informant interview (n = 25), which included representatives from fecofun, local leaders, school teachers and ngos representatives) and household survey (n = 246) were used to collect and validate required information. the checklist used for focus group discussion and key informant interview was designed to cover the information related to the provisions listed in ops, the extent to which they were implemented, the reasons for accepting or denying the plan and its implementation, and the shortcomings of the plans. the respondents for household survey were purposively selected (respondent with distinct socio-economic conditions including households from poor, medium and rich households and their position in cfug). the questionnaire used for household survey was designed to understand the users' banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 55 ghimire et al. perspective about the op, its implementation status and relevance in the local context. formal and informal meetings at the dfo with the officials were means for obtaining any missing data and validating the existing data from the stakeholders. to structure the data collection process, the content of the operational plans of the study cfs were thoroughly reviewed and all the provisions mentioned in the plans were grouped into 5 broad topics, namely, forest protection, forest management and silviculture, forest utilization, expenditure pattern and miscellaneous as illustrated in table 2. table 2: the categorization of op provisions into broad categories i.e. forest protection, silviculture and management, forest utilization, expenditure pattern and miscellaneous categories forest protection silviculture and management forest utilization expenditure pattern miscellaneous forest fire control thinning forest products legal provisions expenditure for forest conservation dfo monitoring and evaluation patrolling pruning forest products harvest expenditure for community development women and disadvantaged groups targeted activities controlled grazing singling expenditure for income generating activities capacity building activities biodiversity conservation bush clearance community development poaching and encroachment control soil and water conservation data collection and analysis the data collection methodology was adopted from puri et al. (2020). a scale of 0-2 was used for the subjective assessment of the state of forest management (i.e., to calculate the managementscore), where 0 represented a score for the activity with no or negligible implementation; 1 = limited implementation; and 2 = full implementation of cf op provisions. the cfug members participating in the fgds were asked to provide score for each of the provisions listed in their ops. dfo officials were also asked to provide score for each of the provisions listed in their ops. then the average scores by broad management topics (called management score hereafter) for the cfs were calculated based on average of two scores (one from the discussion with cfug and other from the dfo) for each of the sampled community forest. field observation was done to validate the implementation status of every management activity highlighted during the fgds. descriptive analysis was used to assess the current cfug conditions both the biophysical and socio-economic status. kruskal-wallis (kw) test was performed to test if there is significant difference in management scores of cfs by their forest condition (good, fair and poor forests) and species composition (shorea robusta, schimacastanopsis and mixed forests). banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 56 ghimire et al. results users’ awareness about the content of the op, its preparation process and its importance of the 246 respondents, 38% were aware about the op during plan preparation, whereas 52% only heard about it and that too only during the cfs’ general assembly. this adds up around (90%) of the respondents were aware through any means regarding the presence of the plan in the form of book (document) (refer to table 3). the knowledge regarding operational plan existed amongst cfugs due to their presence in general assembly and during the plan preparation process where the forest officials approach the users and discuss the significance of the plans. the users though do not understand the process and technical aspects of the plan; the users are aware about existence of operational plan that is required for community forestry. around 80 % of respondent (n=196) perceived op preparation process as a technical/forester’s job and they were unaware about their role in the preparation of op. the respondents consider themselves as only "helpers" rather than partners in plan preparation process as they think only the forestry professionals have the knowledge to write in the plan. the local people's themselves undermine their local knowledge during operational plan preparation. table 3: table illustrating how users found the presence of operational plan of the community forest knowledge regarding the presence of operational plan number of respondent (n=246) during general assembly 128 during plan preparation 93 not specifically know about op 25 second, users' recognized the op as a “hariyo kitab” (green book) and the reason for the name is because the book cover of cf ops is mostly green. among the respondents, 90% had seen the op (table 3) but most had never turned its pages or referred to it. this was attributed to lower literacy of most of the users, the language and the higher technicality of the plan, low time available and poor use of plan during implementation. the respondents even if tried to go through the op text, they were obstructed by the use of technical phrases like sampling intensity, transect line, thinning, pruning, weeding and the contemporary national and international debates and requirements on climate change mitigation, adaptation, greenhouse gases. the first author observed how the local people (cf executives) turned the pages of the op and showed the content irrelevant to them or beyond their capacity to understand the meaning. the respondents were unable to articulate the op in action without support from the division forest officials. in addition, the technical and scientific names of the species were complex, the users recommended use of local names is more appropriate to them to understand. only a fraction of users (28%, especially the major position holders in cfug) had actually read the plans. the major sections referred to were the section showing the block for intervention (timber harvest), punishment and rewards and the membership section. other sections on climate change and gene conservation were redundant to the users. the cf executives had read the section of the ops, as they are accountable to general members. it is the user committee who get questioned (especially the chairperson and secretary) in case of irregularity and since the legal cases are common in commission for the investigation of abuse of authority, the cf executives tend to educate themselves with the op provisions so not to get tangled in these cases. the general users believe the plan is prepared with highest morale value with utmost diligence with no flaws at all. however, they have no interest to turn the pages of cf op as they feel it to be role of executive members. the general members also do not have access to the document as it is kept by the secretary either in the cfug office or at his home. the general members have no issues on the availability of the document to them. hence, plan to users is seen of low relevance regarding its utility to the cfug members. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 57 ghimire et al. users’ perception about the implementation status of op the results indicated that forest product harvesting (especially timber) was the most implemented activity with mean score (1.83) (table 4). table 4: management interventions/provisions listed in the community forest operational plans and their implementation status. the provisions were group with five broad topics and their implementation status were scores as per the methodology described by puri et al. (2020). forest protection silviculture and management utilization expenditure pattern miscellaneous management intervention cf f ir e pr ot ec tio n pa tr ol lin g c on tr ol g ra zi ng b io di ve rs ity c on se rv at io n po ac hi ng & _ en cr oa ch m en t c on tr ol so il w at er c on se rv at io n th in ni ng pr un in g si ng lin g b us h cu tti ng f ol lo w in g le ga l pr ov is io n du ri ng ha rv es tin g f or es t p ro du ct h ar ve st e xp en di tu re fo r f or es t c on se rv at io n e xp en di tu re fo r c om m un ity de ve lo pm en t e xp en di tu re in in co m e g en er at io n a ct iv iti es m on ito ri ng a nd e va lu at io n fr om d f o pr og ra m s f or w om en an d d a g s c ap ac ity b ui ld in g a ct iv iti es c om m un ity d ev el op m en t a ct iv iti es av er ag e sc or e archale 1.5 1.5 2 1 1 2 1.5 0.5 0.5 1.5 1.5 2 1 1.5 0.5 1 0.5 0 0.5 1.13 dharma devi 1.5 1.5 1 1 1 1 1 0.5 0.5 0.5 2 2 0.5 1.5 0 0.5 0.5 0.5 0 0.89 harsiddhi 1 0.5 1 1.5 0 1.5 0.5 0 0 1.5 2 2 0.5 1 0 0.5 0.5 0 0.5 0.76 thulopakha dhungedhara 2 1.5 2 1.5 1.5 1.5 1 0.5 0.5 1.5 2 2 1.5 1.5 0.5 1 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.39 arunsanguri 1 1 1.5 1.5 1 1.5 1 0 0 0.5 2 2 0.5 1 0.5 0.5 0 0 0.5 0.84 malbasekhop 0.5 1 0.5 1 0.5 1.5 1 0 0 1 1.5 2 1 1.5 0 0.5 0 0 0.5 0.74 makar 1 0.5 1 0.5 1 2 1 0 0 0.5 2 2 1 1.5 2 1 1 1 2 1.11 chilauna kharka 1 0.5 1.5 1 0.5 1 0 0 0 0 1.5 2 0.5 1 0.5 1 0 0 1 0.68 dholbaje 1 0.5 1.5 1 0.5 1 0.5 0 0 0.5 1.5 1.5 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0.71 nigale dandebhir 1 1 1.5 1 0.5 1 0.5 0.5 0 0 2 1 0.5 1 0 0.5 0 0 1 0.68 manakamana 1.5 1 1 1.5 0.5 1.5 0.5 0.5 0 1 2 1.5 1 1 0 1 0.5 0.5 1 0.92 pirima 0.5 1 1 1 0.5 1 0.5 0 0 0 1 1.5 1 1.5 1 1.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.76 sighadevi 0.5 1 1 1 1 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0 0.5 2 1.5 1 1 0.5 1 1 1 0.84 bhasme 1 1 0.5 1 1 1.5 0.5 0.5 0 0.5 1.5 2 1 0.5 0.5 0.5 0 0 1.5 0.79 karkite batashe 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0.5 0.5 1.5 2 1 1.5 0.5 1 0.5 1 2 0.89 individual average 1. 06 67 0. 9 1. 2 1. 1 0. 76 6 1. 3 0. 66 7 0. 23 3 0. 16 67 0. 63 3 1. 63 3 1. 83 3 0. 9 1. 2 0. 46 7 0. 8 0. 43 3 0. 4 0. 96 7 total average 1.055 0.425 1.733 0.855 0.65 0. 87 5 similarly, following the legal procedure for harvesting was individually second most implemented activity as users are well known that legal aspects are the core to forest harvesting. hence, the provisions related to timber harvests draws attention in op implementation. this is because the dfo officials play a significant role from chhapan (tree marking) to kataan (harvesting) and regulate the volume that is to be harvested. the overall average implementation status of ops from 15 cfugs was found to be 0.875 (i.e. below the average/limited category (<1) highlighting implementation status are sub-standard. this illustrates the persistent underperformance of community forests. activities like protection from fire, soil and water conservation, patrolling, grazing control, bush cutting and expenditure on community development were limited activities performed by cf. other silvicultural activities like thinning, pruning and singling were the least implemented though these technical forestry prescriptions determines the crop structure and forest composition. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 58 ghimire et al. however, some politically influencing parameters/activities like fire line construction was catching the interest of leaders and was implemented better than other activities. the user's preference to fire line construction was driven by the opportunity for road construction. in addition, these decisions were influenced more by elites rather than the op. summing up the results, it was found the the trend of implementation to be utilization> protection> expenditure pattern> miscellaneous> management and silviculture, highlighting focused on forest product extraction but neglecting essence of forestry science, i.e. silviculture and management. implementation status of op by forest condition and species composition inspecting the management score cf wise, dhungedhara thulopakha cf had the highest score of 1.39, and chilaune kharka and nigalae dandebhir cf were two cf with minimum average management score of 0.68 (refer to table 4). analyzing the species composition, dhungedhara thulopakha and archale cf had shorea robusta as the major tree species. however, community forest of chilaune kharka and nigale dandebhir were dominated by schima wallichi and castonopsis indica forest (refer to table 1). hence, we can see how the species composition influenced the implementation status. for statistical validation, kruskal-wallis h test exhibited significant difference in management score between the different species composition, χ2(2) = 8.370, p = 0.015 (table 5). mixed forest had the highest rank for management score, which was followed by shorea forest and the least rank was obtained on schima wallichi and castonopsis indica forest. table 5: statistical test highlighting kw test with species composition as grouping variable test statisticsa,b management score chi-square 8.370 df 2 asymp. sig. .015* a. kruskal wallis test b. grouping variable: species composition *significant at 5% level of significance however, kruskal-wallis h test showed no statistically significant difference in rank for management score between the different forest condition (good, fair and poor) as mentioned on op, χ2(2) = 2.352, p = 0.308. this highlight the average management score is indifference of the forest condition. directly involved key informant like fecofun also revealed that they found higher participation of the cfugs member in forest management activities in shorea dominated forest than compared to schima wallichi and castonopsis indica forest. key informant like local leaders also mentioned in contrast with users of schima wallichi and castonopsis indica forest, users of shorea dominated forest participate in wide range of forest and environment related activities. hence, result demonstrated the involvement of users differ with respect to tree species composition. discussion the study found that the users considered community forest operational plans as highly technical but legitimate documents allowing access to community forestry, users' had poor knowledge regarding the plan, the implementation status was of sub-standard, silvicultural operations prescribed were insufficiently carried out and users are adopting only the forest product harvest and utilization aspects of the plans. as ops are in existence for almost two decades now, most of the users were familiar with the presence of the operational plan, however this knowledge was only limited to the preparatory phase that never extended beyond the technical aspect. this finding corroborates with other researches who have assessed user's poor knowledge and understanding of the technical prescriptions in the plan (baral et al., 2018; baral et al., 2019; puri et al., 2020). one of the reasons was the use of expert knowledge in the form of technical prescription. similarly, the language and knowledge used in the op was not easy to understand which the users did not bother learning. puri et al. (2021) had a similar finding where study found that the information in the current op is intensive but not well understood by users. baral et al.(2019) also quoted the plan to be technical. in addition, ops are drafted by forestry banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 59 ghimire et al. technician with limited consultation with the local users their by losing interest attributing to its poor understanding (springate-baginski et al., 2003). hence, it can be argued how the current operational plan is filled with technicality that is beyond the capacity of the local users to understand. community forest operational plan, readers were the members of executive committee however it was clear that they do not read to learn, rather they read to only the sections e.g. block for forest management/timber harvesting, annual allowable cut, punishments and membership fees. this aligns with banjade et al. (2006), who demonstrated that the members in executive position had wider perspective of cf information. it was so since most often the member of executive committee participates in forest works and are accountable to dfos. regardless the knowledge of what was written inside, the users respected the plan. in addition, the timber is always on hot seat and drew larger attention from the cf executives (banjade et al., 2011). despite of limited applicability, the users are accepting the plan and consider it as unavoidable to get legitimate access to the community forestry (baral et al., 2020). thus, the user had poor knowledge regarding the plan; they seldom look and read the plan, but acknowledge and respect the plan since they feel the plan to be restrictive document against forest crime, hence having higher moral value towards the plan. the provisions on management plan are enlisted to assure its full implementation that can contribute to the ecological wellbeing of forest and social and economic up growth of the users. however, result highlighted sub-optimal implementation status and exposed how the plan is of limited use in practical forest management since the plan is often overlooked. similar is the findings from toft et al.(2015), who stated the community level manager appears knowledgeable about forest conditions and the management plans are not used in practical forest management since most of the activities are done superficially without looking through the plan. this is because the forestry officials take no actions even if the prescriptions are not implemented. studies like mathews (2011) highlight communities consider technical management plans as pre-requisite to gain recognized authority over forest rather than relevant support to practical forest management. thus, the role of management plan in field level implementation is questionable. result demonstrated harvesting was major activity performed but silvicultural operations are often overlooked though these are the most technical works. for instance, fuelwood prioritized forest and timber; prioritized forest should strictly follow different set of management regime of thinning, pruning and singling. but, cfug especially lack the technical expertise and thus these activities are sub implemented. baral et al.(2019) also reported the user's interest in timber harvesting thought they completely ignored the implementation of other silcultural activities. not only the cfugs are accountable for poor implementation of silvicultural activities but division forest office have also regulated the thinning, pruning and singling operations. dfo official’s shared that the cfugs were found to harvest good quality trees in the name of thinning. so, to limit the crime in the name of thinning dfo has mandatorily suspended thinning activities. these restricting nature of dfo coupled with incapability of users in performing silvicultural activities resulted the lower implementation of these provisions. our study is supported by the studies conducted by (pokharel et al., 2018; puri et al., 2020; rutt et al., 2015 ;toft et al., 2015) where they revealed that the silvicultural activities were not carried out on a regular basis and as per the op prescription. in addition, our results revealed the extent of implementation was found to be higher in mixed forest followed by shorea dominated forest and lastly the schima-castonopsis forest since mixed forest provides ample opportunity to diversify the forest product such as timber, fuelwood and fodder along with ntfps which encouraged the user’s motivation in implementation. higher implementation of management plan in shorea dominated forest was also identified by likes of (baral et al., 2019) and (puri et al., 2020). banjade et al. (2006) highlighted the resource richness and availability influence the perspective of information in the community forest user group. such information might also be the triggering factor for difference in implementation status based on forest composition. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 60 ghimire et al. another main reason behind poor implementation of the plan was due to inadequate technical support and an apparent scarcity of funds as most of the cf were vulnerable in case of financial assets. springate-baginski et al. (2003) also blamed the restrained capacity of department of forests for the post formation support to cfug as a key constraint to implementation. dfo do not have adequate time and resources to follow up all the cfugs on meeting the op prescriptions and thus only concentrate on forest product harvesting. though op specified the role of cfug to take lead in management like igas and capacity building, these activities are mostly done in the initiation of stakeholders like fecofun, dfo and local government. moreover, regarding the funds of cf, most of the fund is given as loan to the users with lower interest rate. so, their expenses on igas are minimal. thus, with poor understanding of the users and sub-optimal management interventions, this study provides sufficient evidence to question the relevance of current form of operational plan. conclusions users though have poor knowledge regarding the plan mainly due to higher technicality and merely refer the plan during forest management activities but they acknowledge its need and consider the plan as a legitimate document. the implementation status was found sub-standard, implementing only the harvesting activities whereas neglecting the essence of forest management, i.e. silviculture. the economic incentive significantly affects the implementation status illustrating higher implementation in shorea dominated forest. thus, underutilized from user’s perspective and poor implementation status with mainly technical activities missing, this study provides sufficient ground details to question the relevance of current form of operational plan and recommends the need for reflections for enhancing the relevance of the plan to the users. references acharya, k. p. (2002). twenty-four years of community forestry in nepal. international forestry review, 4 (2), 149–156. https:// doi.org/10.1505/ifor.4.2.149.17447 aryal, k., laudari, h. k., & ojha, h. r. (2020). to what extent is nepal’s community forestry contributing to the sustainable development goals? an institutional interaction perspective. international journal of sustainable development & world ecology, 27 (1), 28–39. banjade, m. r., schanz, h., & leeuwis, c. (2006). discourses of information in community forest user groups in nepal. international forestry review, 8 (2), 229-240. banjade, m. r., paudel, n. s., karki, r., sunam, r., & paudyal, b. r. (2011). putting timber in the hot seat: discourse, policy and contestations over timber in nepal. in forest action discussion paper series 11: 2. forestaction kathmandu. baral, s., hansen, c. p., & chhetri, b. b. k. (2020). forest management plans in nepal’s community forests: does one size fit all?. small-scale forestry, 19(4), 483504. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s11842-02009450-9 baral, s., meilby, h., & chhetri, b. b. k. (2019). the contested role of management plans in improving forest conditions in nepal’s community forests. international forestry review, 21 (1), 37–50. https://doi. org/10.1505/146554819825863799 baral, s., meilby, h., khanal chettri, b. b., basnyat, b., rayamajhi, s., & awale, s. (2018). politics of getting the numbers right: community forest inventory of nepal. forest policy and economics, 91 (june), 19–26. https://doi.org/https://doi. org/10.1016/j.forpol.2017.10.007 bhandari, p. k. c., bhusal, p., paudel, g., upadhyaya, c. p., & chhetri, b. b. k. 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(2018). silviculture and community forestry: looking backwards, looking forwards. banko janakari, 4, 6–14. https:// doi.org/10.3126/banko.v27i3.20536 gurung, a., bista, r., karki, r., shrestha, s., uprety, d., & oh, s. e. (2013). community-based forest management and its role in improving forest conditions in nepal. small-scale forestry, 12 (3), 377– 388. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-0129217-z kanel, k. r. (2006). nepal’s forest policies on community forestry development: the government perspective. in p. gyamtsho, b. k. singh, & g. rasul (eds.), capitalisation and sharing of experiences on the interaction between forest policies and land use patterns in asia: llinking people with resources (volume 2) (pp. 35–52). international centre for integrated mountain development (icimod). mathews, a. s. (2011). instituting nature authority expertise and power in mexican forests. the mit press. ostrom, v., & ostrom, e. (1997). a theory for institutional analysis of common pool problems. pokharel, b. k., branney, p., nurse, m., & malla, y. b. (2007). community forestry: conserving forests, sustaining livelihoods and strengthening democracy. journal of forest and livelihood, 6 (2), 8–19. pokharel, b. k., uprety, d. r., niraula, r. r., & pokharel, p. r. (2018). an assessment of the impact of silviculture and forest management regimes to forest cover change in the churia region during 1992 to 2014. banko janakari, 38-44. puri, l., nuberg, i., ostendorf, b., & cedamon, e. (2020). locally perceived social and biophysical factors shaping the effective implementation of community forest management operations in nepal. smallscale forestry, 19(3), 291-317. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11842-020-09438-5 puri, l., nuberg, i., ostendorf, b., & cedamon, e. (2021). making operational plans relevant to forest user groups in the mid-hills of nepal. international forestry review, 23(2), 182–196. https://doi. org/10.1505/146554821832952816 rutt, r. l., chhetri, b. b. k., pokharel, r., rayamajhi, s., tiwari, k., & treue, t. (2015). the scientific framing of forestry decentralization in nepal. forest policy and economics, 60, 50–61. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.forpol.2014.06.005 springate-baginski, o., dev, o. p., yadav, n. p., & soussan, j. (2003). community forest management in the middle hills of nepal: the changing context. journal of forest and livelihood, 3(1), 5–20. thoms, c. a. (2008). community control of resources and the challenge of improving local livelihoods: a critical examination of community forestry in nepal. geoforum, 39(3), 1452–1465. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 62 ghimire et al. toft, m. n. j., adeyeye, y., & lund, j. f. (2015). the use and usefulness of inventorybased management planning to forest management: evidence from community forestry in nepal. forest policy and economics, 60, 35–49. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.forpol.2015.06.007 yadav, n., yadav, k., yadav, k., & thapa, n. (2009). facilitating the transition from passive to active community forest management: lesson from rapti zone, nepal. journal of forest and livelihood, 2(8), 51–66. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 3‒12 3 basnet et al. this study presents the potential of a conifer species (abies spectabilis d. don) to reconstruct fire history by using dendrochronological technique along with the dendroclimatic response in langtang national park, central himalaya of nepal. for the fire history reconstruction, altogether eight cross-sections samples from fireaffected eight trees and another 20 tree-cores from 10 trees with visible fire scars were taken. in the case of dendroclimatic study, 24 healthy cores of a. spectabilis were selected from the 40 cores extracted from 19 trees. the standard dendrochronological methodology was used for sample preparation and analysis. a 199-year long ring-width chronology of a. spectabilis spanning from 1818 to 2016 ad was developed. in spite of visible fire burn in near bark-surface, no potential fire scars are seen in inner parts in the cross-section samples. however, 12 cores showed that three fire burns occurred simultaneously in the forest area in the years 1917−1918, 1969−1970 and 2009−2010, respectively. tree-ring-based fire event-record is found to be concurrent to the local people's perceptions/experience about the past fire history in the area. tree growth climate relationship showed sensitive responses to both growing and non-growing season’s temperature and precipitation variability. summer temperature had positive influence on growth of the species. precipitation of monsoon and autumn were found to have negative influence on radial growth whereas pre-monsoon precipitation had positive association with tree radial-growth. this preliminary assessment shows that there is a huge potential of tree-ring research for long-term fire history in the region and helps us to better understand the role of fire in the ecology and management in the himalayan region. the study can also be replicated in other fire-affected areas of the himalayan region by using fire sensitive species in the sampling. keywords : abies spectabilis, climate, dendrochronology, fire scar, tree growth, tree rings fire history and climate-growth response of abies spectabilis : a case from langtang national park, nepal himalaya s. basnet1, 4*, n. p. gaire2 and p. k. chhetri3 fire is an integral component of the earth system, and plays a key role in regulating vegetation structure and ecosystem function (pausas and keeley, 2009). it is also recognized as an important ecosystem process globally (hurteau et al., 2014), and is both human-induced and natural one (fowler and konopik, 2007; cohen et al., 2007). fire regime is relatively influenced by multiple factors, and understanding them is one of the fundamental objectives of fire ecology, and this knowledge is critical for improving our ability to forestall future fire regime changes. a series of factors are thought to influence fire activity such as climatic variability like temperature and precipitation (bradstock, 2010). for example, when it is dry in a year after relatively wet years, forest fire is inclined to occur. fire history is also related to large-scale climatic events. for instance, fire always occurs in the years of transition from el niño to la niña (xiaochun and ying, 2009), and phase combination of large-scale climatic events is more likely than a single event to lead to fire. in addition, landscape-scale patterns of 1 nepal academy of science and technology (nast), khumaltar, lalitpur, nepal 2 key lab of tropical forest ecology, xishuangbanna tropical botanical garden, chinese academy of sciences, menglun, mengla, 666303, yunnan, pr china 3 department of earth science and geography, csu dominguez hills, usa 4 golden gate international college, battisputali, kathmandu, nepal * correspondence: basnetsaroj1992@gmail.com https://doi.org:10.3126/banko.v29i2.28093 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 3‒12 4 basnet et al. vegetation (heon et al., 2014), topography and land use change (rollins et al., 2002; moreira et al., 2011), human activities (liu et al., 2012; pausas and fernández-muñoz, 2012) are also the crucial one. besides, factors such as fuel characteristics, fire management activities and climate change are also considered to influence fire activity in a region (dimitrakopoulos et al., 2011a). an attempt on tree-ring based fire study have been done in himalayan region of india (brown et al, 2011) and bhutan (gyeltshen and tenzin, 2018), but no studies have been carried out in the himalayan region. in nepal, human-induced forest fire is considered as one of the main reasons for alterations in forest ecosystems and loss of biodiversity in all the major physiographic/climatic regions including the terai and bhabar, the siwaliks or the inner terai, the middle mountains, and the high mountains regions (gon/mfsc, 2010). mostly forest fires occur during the dry season from february to june; and once the monsoon starts, fire problem disappears (sharma, 1996). however, wide range of challenges related to institutional, policy and legal frameworks have been identified as lacking (gon/mfsc, 2010). not only that, lack of sufficient fire statistics for nepal has also been recognized as one of the major problems for studying fire ecology in nepal. dendrochronology is an interdisciplinary science with wider applications in multiple sectors including forestry and climatology (speer, 2010). so, inspecting fire-scarred trees dated with dendrochronological techniques will be reliable method for providing quantitative information on fire-regime evidence at multiple scales to study fire events, their frequency, severity and patterns even on remote geographical area. though several tree-ring related studies have been carried out in nepal (cook et al., 2003; chhetri and thapa, 2010; gaire et al., 2011, 2014, 2016) but study regarding the fire disturbances in the perspective of dendroecology is still lacking in the whole country (gaire et al., 2013; thapa et al., 2017). so this study will help to inform management, and provide insight into the effects of fire on study area. similarly, it helps to fill the research gap in dendroecology and fire impacts in mountain forest dynamics. further, it forms the baseline for future studies along with the influence of climate on its radial growth. materials and methods study area the study site was carried out in cholangpati, laurabinayak, chandanbari and deurali area lying within the langtang national park (lnp, figure 1). extending over an area of 1,710 km2, it was established in 1976, and is the fourth protected area in nepal. it is the first himalayan national park, and is surrounded by a buffer zone of 420 km2. the national park covers an area of 1,710 km2 encircling 26 village committees of nuwakot, rasuwa and sindhupalchok districts of the central himalayan region. the lnp is situated between 28°10ʹ26ʺ n and 85°33ʹ11ʺ e. the northern and eastern borders of the lnp coincide with the international border and are linked with the qomolangma national nature preserve in tibet while the western boundary follows the bhote kosi and trishuli rivers. as lnp extends from 792 m to 7,245 m above mean sea level (the peak of mt. langtang lirung), there is an extreme climatic contrast with tropical climate in the south to arctic climate in the north. the southern part is warmer with an average temperature of 30°c in summer and 10°c in winter while the northern part is very cold below freezing point. the six different climatic zones are noted in the region : tropical, subtropical, temperate, subalpine, alpine and arctic. winter is very cold, and there is snowfall for six months (december to may). june and september are the monsoon months with three-fourth of the annual rainfall. the post-monsoon period from october to november and winter months from december to february are usually dry. the average rainfall is 1,900 mm per annum. the area is composed of a mosaic of habitats, including grass land, shrub land, and few tree stands. patches of berberis mucrifolia and rhododendron lepidotum comprise the major shrub species in the shrub land in the upper subalpine region (3,600 – 4,000 m) of the valley whereas few patches of juniperus indica are also present on the valley floor at around 3700 m a. s. l. the well-known shrub species such as r. setosum, r. anthopogon, hippophae tibetana and juniperus spp. are wide spread from about 4,000 m up to 4,500 m amsl. on the other hand, parts of the northern and northwestern facing mountain slopes of the valley are dominated by banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 3‒12 5 basnet et al. tree species like betula utilis, a. spectabilis and r. campanulatum. they form a forest belt in the upper subalpine zone. b. utilis, r. campanulatum or combinations of these tree species forms the forest line at 4000 m a. s. l. figure1 : location map of the study area (langtang national park), himalayan region data and sample collection both primary and secondary data were used in the present research. primary data (tree cores samples and cross-sections from the fire scarred trees) were collected from the field survey. similarly, the secondary data were acquired through different literatures, reports, journals, articles etc. likewise, the climatic data were obtained from the nearby station of the study area. the primary data were collected in the following ways : non-probability sampling method developed by beaty and taylor (2008) was followed for the selection of both the area and trees as the study was, moreover, concentrated on fire history reconstruction. first of all, the forest stands susceptible to fire were identified and selected on the basis of the detailed literature review and the preliminary observation in the field. both the living and dead trees with distinct cat’s eye scars from fire in their trunks were taken for sampling. a systematic survey was conducted on foot, starting from one edge of the sample site to the other edge following the procedures of (christopoulou et al., 2013). the cross-sections of the charred or blackened trunks or barks with the scars of charcoal were collected from the felled trees. the cores of the standing trees, at basal height (30cm above the ground) indicating the longest and most complete fire history based on externally visible fire scars and wood preservation, were collected with the help of the pressler’s increment borer (speer, 2010 and skinner et al., 2008). the closely situated old trees in the site were cored to cross-date, to build the master chronology as well as to determine tree age structure of forest on the basis of the technique developed by (vasileva and panayotov, 2016). sample preparation and data analysis the collected tree cores were preceded for laboratory analysis at the nepal academy of science and technology (nast). the dried samples were mounted on the wooden frame followed by sanding and polishing manually until the ring boundaries were clearly visible under microscope. each ring were counted and dated to the calendar year (stokes and smiley, 1968) with the known date of outer ring formation. with the help of lintab measurement system attached to a pc having tasp-win software, the ring-width of each series were then measured. crossdating was done in tsap by using alignment plotting technique and crossdating statistics (rinn, 2003). accuracy of measurement and crossdating was further examined using quality control program cofecha (holmes, 1983). series with several breakages or having individualistic growth properties were discarded from further analysis. detrending of raw tree-ring series was carried out in arstan as well as dplr (bunn, 2008). a 40 year cubic smoothing spline was fitted for standardization and removal of age related growth trend and finally a standard ring-width chronology was developed. autocorrelation present in the standard chronology was removed with the help of autoregressive (ar) modelling to develop residual chronology. climatic data analysis the observed climate data is necessary to examine the response of tree growth (ring-width chronology) with the climate, which is the basis for growth response analysis. as kyangjin is the nearest station located from the site but it has data of very short duration of time expanding from ad 1987 to 2015 with many missing values. therefore, the data of kyangjin climate data was of no use for this study. other nearest meteorological station was dhunche station. the precipitation data of this station ranged from ad 1971 to 2015 whereas, the temperature data ranged from ad 1996 to 2015. there were also missing banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 3‒12 6 basnet et al. data in both temperature and precipitation. so, due to relatively shorter period of time, online climate datasets, i.e. climate research unit time series data sets (cru ts3. 24) from the nearest grids region longitude = 85. 00 to 85. 50°, latitude =28. 00 to 28. 50° were downloaded using knmi climate explorer (trouet and oldenborgh, 2013; http : //climexp. knmi. nl/). the cru ts 3. 24 has climate data from ad 1901 to 2016. as it is always good to use instrumental data, the climate data of dhunche station was collected. the data of this station has relatively longer period as compared to that of kyangjin station, and so it has been also used by different researchers for their study in langtang national park. the climatic data of this station showed strong association with the average climate data of the grids (n = 152, p < 0. 01). the cru grid climate data was used for response analysis. the climate record of this station showed that june, july, august and september were the hotter months whereas november, december, january and february being the cooler months during the period of 1901−2016 ad (figure 2). similarly, higher precipitations were experienced in april, may, june, july and august whereas the months of september, october, november and december had lesser precipitation (figure 2). figure 2 : mean monthly rainfall and temperature (cru ts 3. 24) of study region of himalayan region results and discussion fire characteristics (analysis of crosssections and cores) in study area altogether, 8 cross-sections from three different trees species (4 cross-sections from abies spectabilis, 2 from juniper sp. and 2 from pinus wallichiana) were collected from the field. the fire history of a. spectabilis was reconstructed based on the 4 cross-sections and 20 cores from 10 different visible trees with fire scars. the fire history of the other two species was not remodeled due to a fewer samples to accurately date the fire occurrence. after sanding and polishing, the cross-sections were analyzed, but no visible fire scars were seen. however, 12 cores of a. spectabilis showed that three fires have occurred and burned the forest area simultaneously during the periods of 1917−1918, 1969−1970 and 2009−2010 respectively. example of potential fire marks visible in the tree cores of a. spectabilis are shown in figure 3. those fire occurrence events found from the tree core analysis were then cross-matched with the perception given by the local people and with the calendar year together with those years where massive fire had occurred at study area based on literatures (kharel, 1993; khadka, 2009; mitchell, 2009; malakar, 2012). these fire years experienced during hot climate and less rainfall compared to the other non-fire years. however due to lack of references of fire history in the region, it was difficult to identify all the fire scars in all cores and date according to the calendar year. tree-ring based fire reconstruction is noble study for himalayan region, as there is no such study from the region. however, previous studies from india and bhutan have shown the potential and suitability of pinus roxburghii (brown et al., 2011) and p. wallichiana in the forest fire history reconstruction from the himalayan region. as these species are also widely distributed in the himalayan region, there is a possibility to extend forest fire history reconstruction in the middle to high mountain regions of nepal. figure 3 : pictures (a, b and c), showing the potential fire scars in the tree core samples of abies spectabilis banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 3‒12 7 basnet et al. tree ring-width chronology from langtang a 199-year long residual ring-width chronology extending from 1818 to 2016 ad was prepared which showed growth fluctuations over time (figure 4). there was a long positive growth trend since 1850s to nearly 1950s after which there is continuous decline in the growth of a. spectabilis. figure 4 : the residual ring-width chronology of abies spectabilis from the langtang region of nepal himalaya with red colored curve representing 40 years spline-smoothing curve the average annual radial growth of a. spectabilis was 1. 26 mm/year. the value of mean sensitivity was 0. 32 with the standard deviation 0. 295. the correlation within trees, between trees and for all series was 0. 505, 0. 254 and 0. 263, respectively. the snr was 6. 1 and the eps was also above the commonly used threshold for common period (table 1). the chronology statistics observed in this study are similar to those reported for the same species from langtang and other regions (chhetri and thapa, 2010; gaire et al., 2011, 2014, 2017; shrestha et al., 2017). the growth trends observed in this study were found to be similar with those of the previous studies (chhetri and thapa, 2010; dawadi et al., 2013; gaire et al., 2011, 2014; 2017, shrestha et al., 2017). chhetri and thapa (2010) did not observe any persistent trend in the growth of the species. gaire et al. (2011) also did not find any persistent growth trend during the past 220 years in the a. spectabilis chronology growing at treeline ecotone of the lnp. on the contrary, shrestha et al. (2017) found increasing and decreasing growth trend in the a. spectabilis chronology along the elevation gradient in the langtang region. similarly, dawadi et al. (2013) also observed fluctuation in the growth of b. utilis over the past 400 years in the langtang region. similarly, thapa et al. (2017) also reported increasing or decreasing growth trend in different chronologies from nepal himalaya. the differences between the growth trends in the present study and the previous studies could be due to the differences in the species, site conditions as well as methods used to detrend the raw tree-ring series, and the type of chronologies. table 1 : the chronology statistics of abies spectabilis ring-width chronology from lnp, nepal himalaya statistics residual chronology average annual radial growth 1. 26 mean segment length 107 25thquantile 72 75thquantile 150 time span 199 (1818−2016 ad) cores (trees) 24 (19) mean sensitivity 0. 320 standard deviation 0. 295 *ac1 0. 036 common interval 52 r-bar (-) (all series) 0. 263 r-bar (-) (within trees) 0. 505 r-bar (-) (between trees) 0. 254 effective chronology signal 0. 338 signal-to-noise ratio (snr) 6. 080 expressed population signal (eps) 0. 859 climate growth relationship of a. spectabilis after examining the chronology characteristics of a. spectabilis, it was found that it has dendroclimatic potential and suitable for assessing the growth-climate response analysis (fritts, 1976 and speer, 2010). the response analysis carried out between the ring-width chronology and climate revealed a significant positive relationship with the temperatures of january and june of the current growth year (figure 5). precipitation of june, august, september and october showed significant negative relationship with the ring-width banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 3‒12 8 basnet et al. chronology whereas the precipitation of march showed positive relationship (figure 6). figure 5 : response between a. spectabilis chronology and climate (temperature) of study area at (p>0. 05) figure 6 : response between a. spectabilis chronology and climate (precipitation) of the study area (p>0. 05) the seasonal correlation showed that there was significant negative response between monsoon and autumn season precipitation with tree ring chronology (figure 7). on the contrary, there was a significant positive response between the tree ring chronology and monsoon season temperature (figure 8). figure 7 : seasonal correlation result between tree-ring data of a. spectabilis and climate (precipitation) of the study area (p> 0. 05) figure 8 : seasonal correlation result between tree-ring data of a. spectabilis and climate (temperature) of the study area (p> 0. 05) the overall growth climate relationship result revealed that the growth of a. spectabilis in the study area was mainly limited due to low temperature during the growing season and moisture availability during the beginning of the growing season, especially during march. june is the peak growing season for tree growth in the study area; therefore, higher temperature during this month would be beneficial for the growth of the trees there. as the study area received less precipitation during the pre-monsoon season, the moisture availability during this season, which is also the growth start period, is very important for tree growth. the rainfall during the monsoon and autumn season is negatively associated with the growth. this could be due to indirect effect of temperature. our study area lies in humid region with summer monsoon rainfall mainly contributing for annual rainfall and area receiving sufficient water for tree growth (more than 2000 mm annual rainfall). high rainfall in monsoon means, higher cloud coverage in the area, which blocks the incoming solar radiations and ultimately lowering the temperature. high rainfall with high cloud cover in the area can lead to temperature decrease. this could shorten the growth period or affects the lignifications of the cells of a. spectabilis, ultimately negatively affecting the growth of the species. the decrease in temperature negatively affects the growth as we found a positive relationship between the growth and temperature during monsoon season. the relationship between a. spectabilis growth and the climate variables were relatively weaker and more diverse in comparison to the findings from the previous literatures. however, the study done on this species at different parts of the himalayan region were receptive with the banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 3‒12 9 basnet et al. temperatures of different seasons like winter (suzuki, 1990; cook et al., 2003; bräuning, 2004; lv and zhang, 2012; chhetri and cairns, 2016), spring (sano et al., 2005; gaire et al., 2011; kharal et al., 2016; tiwari et al., 2016) and summer (cook et al., 2003; lv and zhang, 2012; gaire et al., 2017) but the literatures showed, a strong negative relationship with temperature and a positive relationship with precipitation during the pre-monsoon months as the dominant climatic signals for this species in the nepal himalaya. the results of this study showed slightly different responses to climate than those observed in the same species from the region (gaire, 2008; chhetri and thapa, 2010; gaire et al., 2011; shrestha et al., 2017). some differences in the response with previous studies could be due to the variations in the methods used for chronology development and differences in the climate data used for response analysis. similarly, some differences in the response with the previous studies could arise due to site condition too. the bases of the trunks of almost all the sampled trees in the present study were found to be affected by the fire with the visible fire scars which may affect the physiological activities of the trees and thus, to some extent, influence the climate signal of the growth. conclusion this research was carried out in the langtang national park in nepal himalaya to know the potentiality of a. spectabilis to reconstruct the fire history in the region. the fire history reconstructed from the tree-ring study (1917−1918, 1969−1970 and 2009−2010) matched well with the local peoples' reporting. as the abies trees affected by several fire events in the past are still standing alive in the study area, it could be concluded that a. spectabilis is resistant to minor fire events and suitable for fire history study. by collecting the samples from frequent fire-affected areas and analysis of the samples with more sophisticated instruments can give the fire frequency and intensity result more precisely. not only that, this kind of study can be replicated in the other areas by incorporating other fire sensitive species like p. roxburghii, p. wallichiana, and juniper species. the climatic response of a. spectabilis growth from the historic fire affected study area was diverse and weaker in comparison to the findings from the previous literatures indicating some effects of fires on modulating climate-growth response. acknowledgements we acknowledge the department of environment science and golden gate international college for the financial support to this work. the authors are also thankful to the national academy of science and technology (nast) for facilitating the use of its tree-ring laboratory. we would also like to express our gratitude to the department of national parks and wildlife conservation and langtang national park office for their permission to carry out this study. finally, we are obliged to mr. amar bahadur basnet for assisting us during sample collection and mr. sugam aryal for sample preparation and analysis. references beaty, r. m., and taylor, a. h. 2008. fire history and the structure and dynamics of a mixed conifer forest landscape in the northern sierra nevada, lake tahoe basin, california, usa. forest ecology and management 255 : 707−719. bradstock, r. a. 2010. a biogeographic model of fire regimes in australia : current and future implications. global ecology and biogeography 19 (2) : 145−158. bräuning, a. 2004. tree-ring studies in the dolpo-himalaya (western nepal). tree rings in archaeology. umwelt, reihe : climatology and ecology. brown, p. m., bhattacharyya, a. and shah, s. k. 2011. potential for developing fire histories in chir pine (pinus roxburghii) forests in the himalayan foothills. treering research 67 (1) : 57−62. bunn, a. g. 2008. a dendrochronology program library in r (dplr). dendrochronologia 26 (2) : 115−124. chhetri, p. k. and cairns, d. m. 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the smooth curve was drawn to develop the local volume tables. the results showed that estimated form factor of 10 cm and 20 cm top diameter of selected species varied from 0.50 to 0.69. in addition, local volume tables are developed for stem volume based on diameter under bark. key words: cylindrical volume, destructive sampling, diameter at breast height, diameter height ratio, form factor developing local volume tables for three important tree species in nawalparasi and kapilvastu districts the concept of volume table for the forest trees was first introduced by heinrich cotta in around 1804 (clark, 1902). an extensive study was carried out for many years to collect data for constructing the first volume table. this early study was mainly of norway spruce. the approach of the forest management demands both the current levels of volume of growing stock and the future potential growth. the current level of the growing stock can be obtained through forest inventories and the future growth can be assessed from a current inventory by using growth and yield models (methol, 2001). individual tree based volume measurements are the primary data for estimating stand volume per ha. per se for fixed area. volume table is a tabular statement showing the volume with respect to diameter of specific area. globally, volume table keeps a significant role for volume calculation of standing trees (husch et al., 2003; jayaraman, 2000). the local volume table is prepared based on the limited data set to show the volume. therefore, such volume tables are applied for the confined areas. in fact, there are several factors that affect precision of the volume table. some major factors are stand density, site quality, local climate, soil condition, altitudinal gradient, aspect, interand intra-specific competition (avery and burkhart, 2000). the volume table of one tree species is not used for another tree species (khanna and chaturvedi, 1982). three important tree species namely, shorea robusta, dalbergia sissoo and terminalia alata were selected for this study as they are abundant in the study area and their timber value is high at the local level. 1 eg-tech. pvt. ltd., kopundole, lalitpur. *e-mail: hlshrestha@gmail.com 2 department of forests, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal 3 wwf/hariyo ban project, nepal h. l. shrestha1*, m. r. kafle2, k. khanal3, r. a. mandal2 and k. khanal3 85 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 current interest in multiple product timber harvesting has generated a need for improved volume prediction for individual tree and yield prediction for stands. knowledge of total volume is no longer sufficient. now we need to know what portion of a tree can be used for specific products, and we need to identify the entire array of products that can be obtained from specific stands. however, estimation of stem volume directly is tedious, laborious, and costly. there are very limited volume tables of tree species in nepal. volume equations developed by sharma and pukkala (1990) and compiled by tamrakar (2000) are used to calculate the volume of trees in nepal. there are several issues raised about these volume tables specifically what is the source, application scopes and limitation of the volume table in nepal. moreover, no any record is found about the development of local volume table in nepal. specifically, d. sissoo, s. robusta and t. alata are major tree species in terai. so, the volume tables of these species are essential to estimate the growing stock. the aim of this study was to prepare local volume tables of the selected three tree species determining the form factors and diameter-height ratio for individual species. materials and methods study area the forests in kapilvastu and nawalparasi districts were purposively selected for this research work to represent tree vigour, species and site quality in these districts. it is assumed that the study sites will represent the cluster of kapilvastu and nawalparasi districts. the data were collected from two sites in these two districts (fig. 1), which represent different management regimes and geographical area of the terai forest. according to the climatic data of department of hydrology and meteorology as stated by jackson (1994), the mean annual precipitation is 2452 mm of which more than 80% falls from june to september and monthly average maximum and minimum temperature are 31.4°c and 17.7°c, respectively. fig. 1: location map of study area according to ojha et al. (2008), sal forest consists of more than 80% sal trees. other associated tree species are bajhi (anogeissus latifolia), asna (terminalia alata), amala (phyllanthus emblica), barro (terminalia belerica), bhalayo (semicarpus anacardium), botdhairo (lagerstroemia parviflora), harro (terminalia chebula), jamun (syzygium cumini), kalikath (myrsine semiserrata), karma (adina cordifolia), rajbriksha (cassia fistula) and sindure (mallotus philipinensis). tree selection and felling one-hundred eighty eight (156 trees felled, 32 trees standing) representative healthy trees having straight and clear bole were selected randomly (52 felled trees for each species). the main stem was cut into different sections maintaining the least taper. however, the data of standing trees were not used in developing the model. data collection the diameter at breast height and height of selected trees were recorded before felling. the diameter of both ends and at the centre of each section and its length were recorded. the data was collected using the odk collect tool (fig. 2) specially customized for the study. the odk collect tool is available from the google play store for android based smart phones for easy data collection from the field after developing field data collection format compatible to odk using the google platform. the data collection format was more related to the destructive and standing tree measurements in the field and it basically includes the standing parameters to measure and the destructive data on shrestha et al. 86 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 biomass of different parameters. fig. 2: odk interface used for field data collection data analysis calculation of actual volume from destructive sample tree data the data were analyzed using microsoft excel and spss tools. actual volume of each section was calculated applying the following formulae: volume calculation a) volume of lowest section (stump) v = s × l --------------------------------(1) (assuming section as a cylinder) b) volume of first section (next to stump assuming neoloid shape) using newton’s formula v = (s1 + 4sm + s2)/6 × l ---------(2) c) volume of other sections (next to the first section considering paraboloid shape) using smalian’s formula v=(s1 + s2)/2 × l -------------------------(3) d) volume of top most sections using cone formula v = (s1 + s2 +√(s1 × s2))/3 × l -------------(4) form factor (ff) the following formula was used to calculate form factor. ff = va/(s × l) ----------------------------(5) where, v is the volume of the section, s is crosssection area, s1, s2, sm are areas of one end, other end and middle part of the section, l is the length of the section, ff is the form factor and va is actual volume of tree validation of volume equations under bark volume of thirty-two data of standing trees (12 data of s. robusta, 10 data of t. alata and d. sissoo each) were calculated using the following models of sharma and pukkala (1990) and used for validating the selected models. ln (v)= a + b ln (d)+ c ln (h) -------------(6) where ln means logarithm, v=volume in m3, d=diameter at breast height in cm, h=tree height in m and a, b, and c are parameters. ln (v1/v) = a + b ln (d) ------------------(7) ln (v2/vt) = a + b ln (d) ------------------(8) where, v1 is the volume of tree top beyond 10 cm top diameter in m3, v is the total stem volume in m3, v2 is the volume between 10 cm and 20 cm top diameters in m3, vt is the total timber volume in m3 and d is the diameter at breast height in cm. the validity of the equation was determined by applying the equation (∑actual volume – ∑predicted volume/∑actual volume*100) (hawkins, 1987). development of volume tables the assumption of local volume table is that the same tree diameter may have identical height and same volume of a specific species, which is only possible in a small locality or a single homogenously structured-stand. the models presented in annex 1 were used to estimate under bark volumes up to 10 and 20 top diameters of s. robusta, t. alata and d. sissoo and the local volume tables are presented in that annex shrestha et al. 87 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 results relationship between diameter at breast height and height specially, the r2 value of s. robusta were 0.902 and 0.854 for 10 cm and 20 cm top diameter. furthermore, the r2 values of t. alata were 0.861 and 0.754 for 10 cm and 20 cm top diameter respectively. the r2 values of d. sisso were 0.903 and 0.834 for 10 cm and 20 cm top diameter, respectively. form factor the form factors (ffs) differed according to species and diameter classes. the value of ff was high in low diameter class as compared to the large diameter class. the similar ff (0.65 and 0.66) was found in dbh class of less than 10—20 cm for 10 cm top diameters of s. robusta and t. alata, respectively (table 1). the lower values of ffs were around 0.5 in dbh class of more than 40 cm for 10 cm and 20 cm top diameters of d. sissoo, s. robusta and t. alata. the ff value was 0.5 in dbh class of more than 40 cm for 10 cm top diameter of d. sissoo. the community forest inventory guideline considers 0.5 as a form factor (mofsc, 2004) considering the relation between cylindrical volumes are double than the actual volume due to tapering. the data gaps on the ff in table 1 are basically due to the limited measurability of the ratio on that dbh class. local volume tables and its relationship local volume tables the dbh range used in developing under bark volume models was 10 to 70 cm for s. robusta and t. alata and 10 to 50 cm for d. sissoo. the volume presented in local volume tables is based fig. 3: relationship between diameter at breast height and height of the tree at 10 cm and 20 cm top diameters of three tree species shrestha et al. d . s is so t. a la ta s. ro bu st a 88 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 on diameter (annex 1). the volume of 30 cm dbh of s. robusta was 0.7034 m3 whereas it was about 3.5714 m3 for 70 cm dbh up to 10 cm top diameter. relationship between diameter and volume the strong relationship between diameter at breast height (dbh) and actual volume up to 10 cm top diameter was found in d. sissoo. the r2 was higher in relationship between dbh and volume up to 20 cm top diameter in s. robusta, t. alata and d. sissoo than the relationship between table 1: form factor of d. sissoo, s. robusta and t. alata in different dbh classes dbh class (cm) d. sissoo s. robusta t. alata ff for 20 cm top diameter ff for 10 cm top diameter ff for 20 cm top diameter ff for 10 cm top diameter ff for 20 cm top diameter ff for 10 cm top diameter >40 0.51 0.50 0.52 0.51 0.53 0.52 30-40 0.53 0.52 0.54 0.53 0.56 0.55 20-30 0.55 0.54 0.58 0.57 0.59 0.58 10-20 0.56 0.65 0.66 <10 fig. 4: relationship between diameter at breast height and actual volume for 10 cm and 20 cm top diameters of three tree species ( timber volume excludes stump volume shrestha et al. d . s is so t . a la ta s. ro bu st a 89 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 dbh and volume up to 10 cm top diameter in these tree species (fig. 4). relationship between actual and predicted volume it has been used to measure the variation in the dependent variable being explained by the independent variable i.e. the larger the r2 value, the better the result. the trend line shows 0.9909 and 0.9989 r2 values in s. robusta, 0.9981 and 0.999 r2 values in t. alata and 0.997 and 0.9987 r2 values in d. sissoo for 10 cm and 20 cm top diameter (fig. 5), respectively. validation the selected equations were checked by using the data of standing trees to test the predicted volume against the actual volume of sample trees for all species. it was found that there was an over estimation of 7.5% for s. robusta (up to 10 cm top diameter) whereas an underestimation of 19.1% and 22.1% for t. alata and d. sissoo (up to 10 cm top diameter), respectively. likewise, there was fig. 5: relationship between actual and predicted volume shrestha et al. d . s is so t. a la ta s . r ob us ta 90 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 an underestimation of 10.4%, 20.3% and 26.2% for s. robusta, t. alata and d. sissoo (up to 20 cm tree top diameter), respectively (table 2). table 2: validation of predicted volume from the standing tree measurement latin name prediction error (%), volume up to d10 cm prediction error (%), volume up to d20 cm s. robusta -7.49 10.43 t. alata 19.09 20.3 d. sissoo 22.14 26.16 note: (-) ve means over estimation, (+) ve means under estimation conclusion the form factors varied from 0.50 to 0.69 for d. sissoo, t. alata and s. robusta. the volume up to 10 cm top diameter of s. robusta ranged from 0.7034 to 3.5714 m3 for a dbh range of 30 to 70 cm.; t. alata had volume in a range of 0.814 to 3.814 m3 for a dbh range of 30 to 70 cm and 0.805 to 2.025 m3 for d. sissoo attaining dbh in a range of 30 to 50 cm for up to 10cm top diameter. the volume of s. robusta ranged from 0.366 to 3.686 m3 for a dbh range of 30 to 70 cm.; t. alata had volume in a range of 0.538 to 4.018 m3 for a dbh range of 30 to 70 cm and 0.642 to 1.822 m3 for d. sissoo attaining dbh in a range of 30 to 50 cm for up to 20 cm top diameter. the local volume tables can be used for s. robusta, t. alata and d. sissoo in nawalparasi, and kapilvastu districts. further, refinement of the volume tables is necessary if it is felt. the endorsement from the government authority is necessary to implement the local volume tables at the field level. the coordination among the district and national stakeholders is essential during the implementation of such kind of project and generating data. acknowledgements we would like to acknowledge usaid and wwf nepal for providing financial resource through hariyo ban program to conduct the study. we thank department of forests for supporting to select the priority tree species and providing other technical support and permission to conduct the study in nawalparasi and kapilvastu districts. references acharya, k. p., regmi, r. and acharya, b. 2003. biomass and volume tables for terai sal (shorea robusta) forest of nepal. amatya, s. m. and shrestha, k. r., 2002. nepal forestry handbook. forestry research support programme for asia and the pacific (forspa). food and agriculture organization, bangkok, thailand. avery, t. e. and burkhart, h. e. 2000. forest measurement. mcgrawhill book company new york, usa. clark, j. f. 1902. volume tables and the bases on which they may be built. forestry 1: 6–11. hawkins, t. 1987. biomass and volume tables for eucalyptus camaldulensis, dalbergia sissoo, acacia auriculiformis, and cassia siamea in the central/bhabar terai of nepal. ofi occasional paper no. 33. oxford forestry institute, uk. husch, bertram, beers, thomas w. and kershaw, john a. 2003. forest mensuration. john willey and sons inc. hoboken new jersey, canada. jackson, j. k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. second edition. nepal-uk forestry research project, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. jayaraman, k. 2000. a statistical manual for forestry research. forestry research support programme for asia and the pacific (forspa). food and agriculture organization, bangkok, thailand. khanna, l. s. and chaturvedi, a. n. 1982. forest mensuration. international book distributer, deharadun, india. methol, r. j. 2001. comparisons of approaches to modeling tree taper, stand structure and stand dynamics in forest plantations. ph.d thesis. university of canterbury, newzealand. shrestha et al. 91 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 mofsc, 2004. community forest inventory guideline. ministry of forests and soil conservation, singhdurbar, kathmandu nepal. ojha, s. k., acharya, k. p., acharya, b. and regmi, r. 2008. simple coppice management options for the sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) forests in the terai of nepal. banko janakari 18 (1): 32–41. sharma, e. r. and pukkala, t. 1990. volume equations and biomass prediction of forest trees of nepal. forest survey and statistics division, ministry of forests and soil conservation. babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. publication 47. tamrakar, p. r. 2000. biomass and volume tables with species description for community forest management. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. shrestha et al. 38 agroforestry is defined by the international centre for research on agroforestry (icraf) as "a land-use system that integrates trees with crops and/or animals, simultaneously or sequentially, to achieve higher productivity, higher economic returns, and better social and ecological benefits on a sustained yield basis than is attainable from monoculture on the same unit of land, particularly under conditions of low levels of technological inputs and on marginal sites". agroforestry is a deliberate endeavor to mix and manage forest and agricultural resources on the same land. this intermediate land use system is essential for long-term forestry and agriculture (kiyani et al., 2017). farmers may combine productivity and profitability with environmental care using agroforestry practices, resulting in healthy, long-term agricultural systems that can be passed down to future generations. pressure to fulfill rising demand for food, fodder, fuel, and other commodities, as well as global challenges such as climate change, are putting strain on agricultural and other land natural resources. this has resulted in a "perfect storm" of poverty and food insecurity throughout the banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2, 2023 pp 38‒48https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i2.59094 status, opportunities, and challenges of agroforestry practices: perspectives from terhathum district, nepal tree cultivation in agricultural and public spaces serves as an alternative to fulfill the rural population's demand for forest products. however, agroforestry practices in nepal, categorized by agro-ecological areas, lack sufficient documentation and improvement. the current investigation, undertaken in the myaglung municipality of terhathum district in nepal, aimed to examine the current practices and preferences related to agroforestry. the study also sought to uncover potential opportunities and challenges inherent in agroforestry while gauging the local community's perceptions regarding agroforestry. the primary data collection employed household interviews, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and direct field observations while the secondary data were gathered from various public and unpublished sources. the farmers' preferences were evaluated using a five-point likert scale. in the study region, seven agroforestry systems, mainly employed for subsistence, were identified. the popular timber species in agroforestry included alnus nepalensis, schima wallichii, castanopsis hystrix, c. tribuloides, and pinus roxburghii. the favored fodder species were ficus roxburghii, f. nemoralis, artocarpus lakoochaa, litsea monopetala, and morus alba. on the other hand, the top fruit choices were citrus reticulata, c. limon, musa paradisica, mangifera indica, and litchi chinensis. the key barrier for agroforestry growth was the lack of technical knowledge in cultivating, managing, and harvesting agroforestry species, requiring attention for future agroforestry development in the region. keywords: agroforestry, farmland, fodder, preference, fruit, timber g. regmi1 and u. thapa2* received: 5, october 2023 revised: 14, december 2023 accepted: 4, february 2024 published: 26, february 2024 1 forest, environment & disaster management section, mai municipality, ilam 2 division forest office, dhankuta, ministry of tourism, forests and environment, koshi province. *email: utsabthapa@gmail.com https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#kiyani https://orcid.org/0009-0000-7806-2170 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5308-9619 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 39 regmi & thapa world. nair (1979) characterizes agroforestry as a method of land management integrating trees, crops, and animals in a manner that adheres to scientific principles, promotes environmental health, ensures economic feasibility, and meets the social preferences of farmers. integrating trees onto agricultural land has been practiced for millennia by cultures throughout the world (regmi & garforth, 2010). nepal has a wide range of physiographic and biological characteristics within a span of around 200 kilometers from south to north and 885 kilometers from east to west. nepal's diverse biodiversity reflects its unique geographical position, shifting elevation, and temperature. nepal is positioned in a biogeographic transition zone, sandwiched between two biogeographic realms: the palaearctic on the north and the palaeotropics on the south (udvardy, 1975). forests cover 45.31% of nepal's land area (frtc, 2022). aside from trees in forest environments, many tree species are protected on farms as part of subsistence farming systems. these trees play an important role in ensuring the sustainability of agricultural output, and the value of traditional farming practices for crop diversification has been recognized since time immemorial. the promotion of agroforestry species in private agricultural lands in nepal's hills has been one of the primary causes of the recent rise in forest cover (pandit & kumar, 2010). the nepalese economy is strongly reliant on natural resources, notably farmland, forests, marshes, and rangelands, with forestry and agriculture still employing more than 70% of the population and contributing to over 35% of the total gdp (cbs, 2011). the land is still a crucial resource in underdeveloped nations like nepal, where more than 90% of the population relies on it to meet basic needs such as food, fodder, fuel, fiber, and timber (lrmp, 1986). buffers made of trees work as a transition zone, allowing agriculture and communities to "reconnect", resulting in a more functioning and sustainable environment. the act of planting trees on agricultural land can contribute to forest preservation by enhancing farmer access to forest resources such as firewood and fodder. additionally, it aids in the restoration of soil fertility by mitigating soil erosion, enriching the soil through the decomposition of leaf litter and nitrogen fixation, recycling nutrients leached into the soil, and facilitating the breakdown of subsoil nutrients through extensive root systems (shrestha, 2002). agroforestry systems are supposed to be more profitable than forestry or agriculture alone (lehmann et al., 2020; liu et al., 2018). while numerous environmentally and economically beneficial agroforestry methods exist, comprehensive documentation of these techniques for dissemination to potential beneficiaries is still lacking (atreya et al., 2021). despite the presence of various legislative frameworks, policy statements, and strategic plans—such as the master plan for the forestry sector (1989), agriculture development strategy (2015–2035), agriculture policy (2004), forest act (2019), forest regulation (2022), forest strategy (2016), forest policy (2019), national agroforestry policy (2019), and periodic plans—that emphasize rural development through sustainable natural resource management, agroforestry, and other agricultural practices, the current initiatives fail to prioritize the interests of local farmers and other stakeholders. there has been very little effort put into creating programs that promote and reproduce effective agroforestry methods (atreya et al., 2021). most agroforestry systems in nepal are traditional, and despite tremendous socioeconomic and ecological benefits, little progress has been made in the deliberate management of trees, crops, and cattle as an integrated and dynamic agroecosystem. this study tried to find out the status, opportunities, and challenges of agroforestry initiatives in the mid-hill range of eastern nepal. specifically, this study tried to document different types of agroforestry practices, determine people's tree preferences, and investigate people's perceptions toward agroforestry at the study site. https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#regmi10 https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#udvardy https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#frtc https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#frtc https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#pandit https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#cbs11 https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#lrmp https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#lrmp https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#lehmann https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#liu https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#atreya https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#atreya banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 40 regmi & thapa materials and methods study area the study was carried out in the myanglung municipality of terhathum district from january to april 2022. myanglung, the district headquarters of terhathum district, is located between 26°66' 27°30' n latitudes and 87°15' 87°45' e longitudes. the location of the terrain ranges from 322m to 2,200m above the mean sea level, and covers an area of 100.21 km2 (38.69 sq. miles). the municipality borders with phedap rural municipality on the east, laligurans urban municipality on the west, chhathar rural municipality and paanchthar district on the south, and menchhyayem rural municipality and sankhuwasabha district on the north. subtropical to temperate climate predominate in this municipality. most of the land has a slope ranging from 15 degrees to 30 degrees. the municipality's average lowest temperature is 15° c, with a high temperature of 30° c and a minimum temperature of 4.70° c. it has a population of 19,078 people with 9,347 men and 9,731 women and with a population density of 200 people per square kilometer and a total household population of 4,163 (cbs, 2021). data collection reconnaissance surveys, key informant interviews, questionnaire surveys, formal and informal conversations, focus group discussions, and direct observation were used to collect the primary data. to conduct household interviews, the questionnaires underwent a pre-testing phase in select households during the preliminary survey. they were then refined based on feedback received from the relevant forest officials before finalization. household interviews were conducted in 121 households. the authors visited all the households for the purpose of data collection. a simple random sampling method was used to select the sample population. at least 10 households from each ward were selected from the 10 wards of the municipality. altogether 136 respondents (121 from household interviews and 15 from key informants’ interview) were questioned for acquiring the desired information for the purpose of the study, out of which 57% were female. questions related to demographics, livestock, landholdings, adopted agroforestry systems, energy sources, forest products’ demand and supply, ntfp availability, cultivation practices, sale of forest products, market availability, market accessibility, problems/challenges faced in agroforestry practices, preferred timber, fodder & fruit species, and farmers’ perception towards agroforestry practices were asked to the respondents. figure 1: location of the study area in the map of nepal banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 41 regmi & thapa agriculture was found to be the most common employment among the respondents, followed by service, and small enterprises. open and closeended questions related to family composition, land and livestock holding, cropping pattern, preferred tree species, source of energy, source of income, ways of selling their products, services, and facilities received from the government institutions, and future perspective were asked to the respondents. key informant interviews were conducted separately with the concerned divisional forest officer, sub-divisional forest officers; chief of the district-level (terhathum) unit of the federation of community forest users nepal, model farmers, community school teachers, village elders, and social workers. open-ended questions related to demography, institutions involved in agroforestry promotion, role of social organization in agroforestry development, services provided by the division forest office (dfo) and the agriculture knowledge centre, terhathum, and so on were asked. further, problems faced by the farmers in implementing agroforestry practices, and measures to improve and develop agroforestry production and productivity were also sought from the key informants. focus group discussions were held for three separate interest groups: model farmers, women's groups, and disadvantaged groups. besides, on-farm observation was conducted in the households interviewed for the survey. all the tree species and their numbers were counted with the help of the local farmers on their farmlands or private lands. main emphasis was given to counting and identifying tree species and their distribution on farmlands/private lands. secondary data were collected from a variety of sources and records, including reports published by the division forest office, agriculture knowledge centre dhankuta (branch office, terhathum), municipal office, ngos/ingos, libraries, journals, magazines, internet, etc. previous research papers, dissertations, journals, both published and unpublished articles, as well as other literature released by the ministry of forests and environment (mofe), ministry of agriculture and livestock development (moald), united states development agency (usda), international centre for research in agroforestry (icraf), dfo terhathum, nepal agroforestry foundation, etc. were also reviewed to collect relevant information on the status, issues, policies, and priorities of agroforestry development. data analysis the collected data were transferred into msexcel. descriptive statistics were used to summarize and analyze the socioeconomic traits of the respondents. the information collected/ obtained from the field survey were presented in bar-diagrams and tables. chi-square test was done to determine the associations between economic class and household’s perception towards agroforestry at 5% level of significance. the opinions/attitudes of the respondents towards agroforestry practices were analyzed using a likert scale which is a type of scale used to measure people’s perceptions (bryman, 2016). mathematically, it is expressed as: where, wm = weighted mean; wi = no. of respondents; and 𝑥i = value of strongly agree to strongly disagree. similarly, for the preference of tree species, preference value ranking (chhetri, 2018) was used. mathematically, it is expressed as: where, pv = preference value, 𝑥 = choice of species in order (1-5), f = frequency of respondents, and n = total no. of respondents. results types of agroforestry systems practiced in the study area traditional agroforestry systems have been consistently practiced over an extended period banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 42 regmi & thapa without significant modifications in the study area. a thorough overview of the most preferred agroforestry systems practiced by the respondents' households in the study area are presented in figure 2 and table 1 below: figure 2: agroforestry systems practiced in the study area table 1: agroforestry systems practiced in the study area agroforestry systems major agroforestry practices agrisilviculture • cardamom under alder (alnus nepalensis) and rudrakshya (elaeocarpus sphaericus); • ginger, turmeric, nepali broom-grass (thysanolaena maxima), etc. under chilaune (schima wallichii), a. nepalensis, and fodder species; • maize, millet, and seasonal vegetables under multipurpose fodder species. hortisilvipastoral • fruit, fodder, and timber species along with livestock; • grasses planted in terrace along with fruit and fodder species. agrisilvipastoral ‐ t. maxima and grasses along with fodder trees and livestock. homegarden • seasonal vegetables along with fodder and fruit species. agrisilvihorticulture • ntfps along with fodder and fruit species, e.g. cardamom, cinnamon along with e. sphaericus and musa paradisiaca. silvopastoral • fodder and grasses along with livestock. agrihorticulture • maize, millet and seasonal vegetables under mango, orange, litchi, etc. trees and banana plants; • cardamom, ginger, turmeric, and so on under mango, orange, litchi, etc. trees. preference ranking of agroforestry tree species in the study area while choosing the preferred tree species for timber, fodder, and fruits, the respondents assigned the values of 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 as per their choices of order: i, ii, iii, iv, and v in their agroforestry practices. table 2 below highlights the rankings of the ten preferred tree species for timber, in agroforestry, on the basis of their preference values. the five most preferred timber species were found to be uttis (alnus nepalensis) followed by chilaune (schima wallichii), patle katus (castanopsis hystrix), khote salla (pinus roxburghii), katus (c. tribuloides), and asna (terminalia alata) in order of priority. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 43 regmi & thapa similarly, the ten preferred agroforestry tree species for fodder, in agroforestry, based on their preference values are presented in table 3. nimaro (ficus roxburghii), badhar (artocarpus lakoocha), kutmiro (litsea monopetala), dudhilo (f. nemoralis), and kimbu (morus alba) were the most preferred five fodder tree species in order of priority. table 3: preference of fodder species in agroforestry s. n. species local/ common name no. of respondents choosing the order of choices preference value ranking i ii iii iv v 1. ficus roxburghii nimaro 35 25 8 9 7 2.68 i 2. artocarpus lakoocha badhar 29 16 14 3 6 2.17 ii 3. litsea monopetala kutmiro 20 18 19 9 5 2.08 iii 4. f. nemoralis dudhilo 9 13 13 9 13 1.38 iv 5. morus alba kimbu 9 10 14 11 15 1.36 v 6. bauhinia purpurea tanki 8 11 9 11 16 1.23 vi 7. leucaena leucocephala ipil-ipil 4 7 12 20 8 1.09 vii 8. f. auriculata khanyu 2 9 12 9 9 0.90 viii 9. f. lacor kabhro 1 5 9 14 13 0.77 ix 10. b. variegata koiralo 4 3 5 12 7 0.64 x likewise, the ten preferred plants for fruits, in agroforestry, based on their preference values are presented in table 4. mandarin orange (citrus reticulata) followed by banana (musa paradisica), kagati (citrus limon), aamp (mangifera indica), and litchi (litchi chinensis) were the five most desired fruit-yielding plants in order of priority. table 2: preference of timber in agroforestry s. n. species local/ common name no. of respondents choosing the order of choices preference value ranking i ii iii iv v 1. alnus nepalensis uttis/ nepalese alder 33 37 3 4 4 2.76 i 2. schima wallichii chilaune 21 31 11 8 5 2.34 ii 3. castanopsis hystrix patle katus/ chinkapin 11 9 27 13 8 1.70 iii 4. pinus roxburghii khote salla/ chir pine 14 6 21 19 6 1.66 iv 5. c. tribuloides katus/ chinkapin 9 2 20 12 9 1.21 v 6. terminalia alata asna, saj/ indian laurel 5 8 6 15 17 1.01 vi 7. michelia champaca champ/ champak 11 3 5 13 12 0.99 vii 8. rhododendron spp. gurans 5 6 8 5 19 0.84 viii 9. prunus cerasoides painu/ himalayan wild cherry 6 5 7 7 9 0.78 ix 10. melia azedarach bakaino/ chinaberry 4 4 6 9 17 0.74 x banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 44 regmi & thapa table 4: preference of fruit species in agroforestry s. n. species local/ common name no. of respondents choosing the order of choices preference value ranking i ii iii iv v 1. citrus reticulata suntala/ orange 31 13 15 11 6 2.31 i 2. musa paradisiaca kera/ banana 19 16 14 19 13 2.08 ii 3. c. limon kagati/ lemon 17 19 16 4 5 1.83 iii 4. mangifera indica aamp/ mango 12 17 15 12 13 1.74 iv 5. litchi chinensis litchi 9 12 16 12 11 1.45 v 6. pyrus pyrifolia naspati/ asian pear 11 12 9 14 12 1.40 vi 7. actinidia spp. thekifal/ kiwifruit 7 9 12 13 6 1.15 vii 8. psidium guajava amba/ guava 5 8 9 17 20 1.14 viii 9. carica papaya mewa/ papaya 5 8 10 7 9 0.91 ix 10. prunus persica aaru/ peach 5 4 5 4 16 0.66 x perception of respondents towards agroforestry respondents assessed their attitude towards various aspects of agroforestry through seven statements, rating them on a likert scale, ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. the tabulated results are presented in table 5. the "statement 3" (agroforestry conserves soil and water) is found to be in highest rank with the mean of 4.46. similarly, the "statement 7" (agroforestry improves surrounding environment) came to be in second rank with the mean of 4.36. likewise, the "statement 6" had the third ranking with the mean of 4.34. the "statement 4" (trees in agroforestry reduces crop yield) had the lowest ranking with the mean of 2.54. table 5: respondents' perception towards agroforestry s. n. statement no. of respondents choosing the order of choices preference value ranking attitudei ii iii iv v sa a n d sd 1. agroforestry is suitable for poor farmers 31 5 11 28 40 2.58 vi poor 2. may not take long time to get outcome 42 12 16 22 25 3.09 iv good 3. agroforestry conserves soil and water 81 24 13 2 0 4.46 i excellent 4. trees in agroforestry reduces crop yield 30 5 21 17 43 2.54 vii poor 5. agroforestry increases the income of hh 40 10 7 25 38 2.87 v good 6. agroforestry supplies substantial need for hh consumption 81 22 7 5 3 4.34 iii excellent 7. agroforestry improves surrounding environment 78 26 8 5 0 4.36 ii excellent banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 45 regmi & thapa note: sa = strongly agree, a = agree, n = neutral, d = disagree and sd = strongly disagree; hh = household. chi-square test a significant association exists between economic class and the perception on "agroforestry is suitable for poor farmers" at 5% significance level (x2=28.62; df=6; & p=0.000004). additionally, there is a statistically significant association between the scale of agroforestry and the perception that "trees in agroforestry reduces crop yield" at 5% significance level (x2=9.98; df=4, & p=0.04), specifically indicating that subsistence-scale agroforestry practices have a significant impact on crop-yield. challenges affecting agroforestry development in the study area respondents reported that the foremost challenge in agroforestry development in the study area was due to the lack of technical skills (86%, figure 3). according to them, other barriers for agroforestry development in the study area included: insufficient capital (84%), lack of qualified seeds (77%), absence of irrigation facilities (72%), labor shortages (71%), and lack of accessible markets for selling products (68%). figure 3: challenges for agroforestry development in the study area discussion socio-economic characteristics of the respondents the most prevalent type of farming in the study area is traditional agriculture which is centered on the production of cereals. the future of this farming, however, is in doubt given the labor shortage—a substantial portion of which is now seeking employment mainly in gulf nations— which has significantly reduced farming activity in nepal (khanal, 2018). the average family size in the study area was 4.4 in 2012, which is comparable to nepal's national average of 4.6 people (mohp, 2012). a household's size affects the amount of labor that is available, and more working members increase the likelihood that agroforestry will be adopted, as noted by ghadim (1999). studies conducted in the past in western kenya (kindt et al., 2004) and mexico (blanckaert et al., 2004) further support the idea that having more family members may result in more labor being provided for home gardening, as well as a greater variety of plants and animals being grown. the average amount of agricultural land owned by each household in the study area was 18.06 ropani (0.92 ha), which is comparable to terhathum district's average of 19.26 ropani (0.98 ha) (cbs, 2021). agroforestry systems practiced in the study area the purpose of this study was to investigate the current agroforestry techniques used in the study area. fifty seven percent of the local populace are mostly involved in agriculture. the study findings identified seven primary agroforestry systems operated by the local farmers, with home garden being found to be the most significant and widely used agroforestry system. this statement agrees with the findings of amatya (1994) from the terhathum district kindly check, where home garden was found to be the most popular and commonly practiced one among the other agroforestry systems practiced. however, the makeup of the home gardens varied according to the socioeconomic situations and ecological zones of the localities. seasonal vegetables were often planted alongside horticultural crops like banana, orange, chilly, ginger, and turmeric in most household gardens in the mid-hills (amatya et al., 2018). intensive cultivation of cereals, vegetables, and spices, as well as fuel, fruit, and fodder species, was done within the home gardens in the study area. to fulfill their dietary needs and not for economic gain, these items were solely https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#khanal https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#mohp https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#ghadim https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#kindt https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#blanck https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#cbs21 https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#aamatya1994 https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#aamatya2018 https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#aamatya2018 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 46 regmi & thapa meant for household consumption. the purpose of a home garden agroforestry system was to satisfy the owners' demands for sustenance as well as to provide aesthetic and ornamental advantages (amatya et al., 2018). preference of agroforestry species sixty agroforestry tree species were recorded from the farmer’s fields. these trees ranged from fruit trees to fodder trees to fuelwood & timber trees to multipurpose trees. the trees were found to be grown on the homesteads as well as scattered on the farms. the trees were preferred for the purpose of fodder, shade, and medicinal use together with ornamental and religious values. the study concluded that the five most preferred timber species were uttis (a. nepalensis) followed by chilaune (s. wallichii), patle katus (c. hystrix), khote salla (p. roxburghii) and musure katus (c. tribuloides). farmers preferred a. nepalensis as it is a fastgrowing plant with significant economic value. similar to the findings of osti (2016), nimaro (f. roxburghii) was the most chosen species for fodder, followed by badahar (a. lakoochaa), kutmiro (l. monopetala), dudhilo (f. nemoralis), and kimbu (m. alba). farmers favored these species because of their flavor, availability, and protein content. on the other hand, the five most popular fruit species were orange (c. reticulata), banana (m. paradisica), lemon (c. limon), mango (m. indica), and litchi (l. chinensis), which were like those mentioned in the district profile of terhathum (2016). local farmers' perception towards agroforestry practices the five-point likert scale was used to measure the perceptions/attitudes of the local farmers towards the agroforestry practices in the study area. the attitudes of different levels of respondents were measured from strongly agree (1-5) to strongly disagree (1-5). altogether, six statements were drawn from the respondents and asked about their perception. from the likert scale analysis, the people's perception regarding the statements: "agroforestry is suitable for poor farmers" and "trees in agroforestry reduces crop yield" were found to be poor. in the contrary, the respondents strongly believed that trees in agroforestry reduced crop yield. they held the opinion that agroforestry was only appropriate for the people with substantial landholding capacities since it ensured food security and required the allocation of some land for agroforestry being a long-term investment. according to them, the farmers who had access to more acreage tend to be less riskaverse and more open to experimenting with new technology. the adoption of agroforestry, as claimed by (dhakal & rai, 2020), was found to be influenced by the farmers' land holding capacity, and the farmers who used the conventional agroforestry practices felt that trees lowered agricultural yields. according to (barakoti et al., 1999), alley cropping of mixed tree species (a. lakoocha, b. purpurea, eucalyptus camaldulensis, leucaena latisiliqua, and madhuca latifolia) in the terai region had a favorable impact on agriculture crop production. this indicated that the farmers in the present study area were not aware that the right crop combinations might boost instead of decreasing the agricultural productivity. however, the farmers had a positive outlook on the notion that agroforestry might not take long to provide results and might boost household income, which seemed desirable. likewise, the farmers showed excellent attitude towards the statements: "agroforestry conserve soil & water" and "agroforestry supplies substantial needs (food, fuel, fodder, timber, and fruits) for household consumption". most of the farmers strongly agreed on both of these statements. the farming system in the study area was found to be traditional, and they knew the purpose of growing species on the farm. they had good indigenous knowledge about species which conserved soil and water in a proper manner. aryal et al. (2019) also argued that the agroforestry practice in rural areas had mostly supposed to produce fodder and fuelwood along with agricultural crops which coincided with the findings of our study. nevertheless, the farmers were found to be completely unaware of the multiple benefits (social, ecological, and economic) of agroforestry. https://d.docs.live.net/53b7d0704c629fe8/desktop/ongoing.docx#aamatya2018 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 47 regmi & thapa conclusion the adoption of agroforestry systems stands out as a promising alternative to address pressing issues such as biodiversity loss, food security, and the scarcity of forest products. seven different agroforestry practices, mostly concentrated for subsistence purposes, were observed within the study area. a total of 63 agroforestry tree species were recorded from the study area; the most preferred ones being a. nepalensis, f. roxbourghi, and c. reticulata for timber, fodder, and fruits, respectively. lack of technical knowledge among the farmers was observes as the major challenge for agroforestry development in the study area. gaps between policy makers, researchers, extension workers, and farmers should be reduced as far as possible. some policy reforms and institutional strengthening are necessary to promote agroforestry in the study area. furthermore, improvisation, commercialization, and modernization are necessary in agroforestry practices for its sustainability in the study area. author contribution statement g. regmi: data collection, analysis, draft writing. lbt: conception and design, manuscript revision. u. thapa: conception and design, manuscript, result interpretation, manuscript revision, supervision. data availability the data used in this study are accessible upon request to the corresponding author. conflict of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest. references amatya, s. m. (1994). agroforestry systems and practice in nepal. forest research and survey centre. ministry of forests and soil conservation, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. amatya, s. m., cedamon, e., & nuberg, i. (2018). agroforestry systems and practices in nepal. revised edition. agriculture and forestry university. aryal, k., thapa, p. s., & lamichhane, d. (2019). revisiting agroforestry for building climate resilient communities: a case of packagebased integrated agroforestry practices in nepal. emerging science journal, 3 (5): 303–311. atreya, k., subedi, b. p., ghimire, p. l., khanal, s. c., charmakar, s., & adhikari, r. (2021). agroforestry for mountain development: prospects, challenges and ways forward in nepal. archives of agriculture and environmental science, 6 (1): 87–99. https://doi. org/10.26832/24566632. 2021.0601012 barakoti, t. p., sapkota, m., & thapa, f. (1999). effect of multipurpose trees and cassia green leaf manure on maize yields under agroforestry systems. proceedings of the 3rd national conference on science and technology, royal nepal academy of science and technology (ronast), kathmandu, nepal. blanckaert, i., swennen, r. l., flores, m. p., lópez, r. r., & saade, r. l. (2004). floristic composition, plant uses and management practices in home gardens of san rafael coxcatlán, valley of tehuacán-cuicatlán, mexico. journal of arid environments, 57 (2): 179-202. bryman, a. (2016). social research methods. oxford university press. https://ktpu.kpi.ua/ wp-content/ uploads/2014/02/social-researchmethods-alan-bryman.pdf cbs. (2011). national population and housing census 2011. kathmandu: national planning commission, nepal. cbs. (2021). national population and housing census 2021. national planning commission, kathmandu, nepal. chhetri, r. (2018). perspective of farm gate agroforestry production in the emergency of the chepangs community: a case study on mega earthquake of central nepal. international journal of scientific research and management, https://doi.org/10.26832/24566632 https://doi.org/10.26832/24566632 https://ktpu.kpi.ua/wp-content / https://ktpu.kpi.ua/wp-content / banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 48 regmi & thapa 6 (3): 19–38. dhakal, a. & rai, r. k. (2020). who adopts agroforestry in a subsistence economy?— lessons from the terai of nepal. forests, 11 (5): 565. https://doi.org/10.3390/f11050565 frtc. (2022). national land cover monitoring system of nepal. forest research and training centre, kathmandu, nepal. p. 15. ghadim, a. k. a. (1999). a conceptual framework of adoption of an agricultural innovation. agricultural economics, 21 (2): 145–154. https:// doi.org/10.1016/s0169-5150(99)00023-7 khanal, u. (2018). why are farmers keeping cultivatable lands fallow even though there is food scarcity in nepal? food security, 10 (3): 603–614. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-0180805-4 kindt, r., simons, a. j., & van damme, p. (2004). do farm characteristics explain differences in tree species diversity among western kenyan farms? agroforestry systems, 63 (1): 63–74. https://doi. org/10.1023/b:agfo.0000049434.54654.97 kiyani, p., andoh, j., lee, y., & lee, d. k. (2017). benefits and challenges of agroforestry adoption: a case of musebeya sector, nyamagabe district in southern province of rwanda. forest science and technology, 13 (4): 174–180. https://doi.org/10.1 080/21580103.2017.1392367 lehmann, l. m., smith, j., westaway, s., pisanelli, a., russo, g., borek, r., sandor, m., gliga, a., smith, l., & ghaley, b. b. (2020). productivity and economic evaluation of agroforestry systems for sustainable production of food and non-food products. sustainability, 12 (13): 5429. https:// doi.org/ 10.3390/su12135429 liu, c. l. c., kuchma, o., & krutovsky, k. v. (2018). mixed species versus monocultures in plantation forestry: development, benefits, ecosystem services and perspectives for the future. global ecology and conservation, 15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2018.e00419 lrmp. (1986). land capability report. land resource mapping project, kenting earth science, canada and department of topography, government of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. mohp. (2012). nepal 2011 demographic and health survey: key findings. ministry of health & population, new era, and inner city fund (icf) international. nair, k. (1979). in defense of the irrational peasant: indian agriculture after the green revolution. university of chicago press. osti, n. p. (2016). multipurpose fodder species. national feed technology, 5 (1). national agriculture research council, animal feed division, khumaltar, lalitpur. pandit, b. h. & kumar, c. (2010). factors influencing the integration of non-timber forest products into field crop cultivation: a case study from eastern nepal. journal of sustainable forestry, 29 (6-8): 671–695. https://doi. org/10.1080/10549811003741599 regmi, b. n. & garforth, c. (2010). trees outside forests and rural livelihoods: a study in chitwan district, nepal. agroforestry systems, 79 (3): 393– 407. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-010-9292-0 shrestha, r. k. (2002). various patterns of retaining trees in indigenous agroforestry practices in the mid-hills of nepal. banko janakari, 12 (1): 35–41. udvardy, m. (1975). a classification of the biogeographical provinces of the world. semantic scholar. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a-classification-of-the-biogeographical-provinces-udvar dy/28fa76d9cb735d5358ad6d1401f4186fc3aad104 https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/ https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a-classification-of-the-biogeographical-provinces-udvar d https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a-classification-of-the-biogeographical-provinces-udvar d https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a-classification-of-the-biogeographical-provinces-udvar d banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 1 regmi & thapa annex 1: respondents' preferences for timber species s. n. timber species frequency of response preference valuescientific name local name i ii iii iv v 1. alnus nepalensis uttis/ nepalese alder 33 37 3 4 4 2.76 2. schima wallichii chilaune 21 31 11 8 5 2.34 3. castanopsis hystrix patle katus/ chinkapin 11 9 27 13 8 1.70 4. pinus roxburghii khote salla/ chir pine 14 6 21 19 6 1.66 5. c. tribuloides katus/ chinkapin 9 2 20 12 9 1.21 6. terminalia alata asna, saj/ indian laurel 5 8 6 15 17 1.01 7. michelia champaca champ/ champak 11 3 5 13 12 0.99 8. rhododendron spp. gurans 5 6 8 5 19 0.84 9. prunus cerasoides painu/ himalayan wild cherry 6 5 7 7 9 0.78 10. melia azedarach bakaino/ chinaberry 4 4 6 9 17 0.74 11. albizzia lebbeck kalo siris 1 2 3 3 5 0.27 12. bombax ceiba simal 1 1 1 3 3 0.17 13. fraximus floribunda lankuri 0 2 1 2 2 0.14 14. pinus wallichiana gobre salla 0 1 0 3 2 0.10 15. p. patula patle salla 0 1 1 2 1 0.10 16. engelhardia spicata mauwa 0 1 0 2 2 0.08 17. eucalyptus camaldulensis masala 0 1 1 1 0 0.07 18. semecarpus anacardium bhalayo 0 1 0 0 0 0.03 total 121 121 121 121 121 . banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 2 regmi & thapa annex 2: respondents' preferences for fodder species s. n. fodder species frequency of response preference valuescientific name local name i ii iii iv v 1. ficus roxburghii nimaro 35 25 8 9 7 2.68 2. artocarpus lakoocha badahar 29 16 14 3 6 2.17 3. litsea monopetala kutmiro 20 18 19 9 5 2.08 4. f. nemoralis dudhilo 9 13 13 9 13 1.38 5. morus alba kimbu 9 10 14 11 15 1.36 6. bauhinia purpurea tanki 8 11 9 11 16 1.23 7. leucaena leucocephala ipil-ipil 4 7 12 20 8 1.09 8. f. auriculata khanyu 2 9 12 9 9 0.90 9. f. lacor kabhro 1 5 9 14 13 0.77 10. b. variegata koiralo 4 3 5 12 7 0.64 11. melia azedarach bakaino 0 0 3 6 3 0.20 12. albizia lebbeck kalo siris 0 1 0 2 9 0.14 13. brassaiopsis hainla chuletro 0 0 2 3 4 0.13 14. saurauia napaulensis gogan 0 1 0 3 4 0.12 15. prunus cerasoides paiyu 0 1 1 0 2 0.07 16. senegalia catechu khari 0 1 0 0 0 0.03 total 121 121 121 121 121 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 3 regmi & thapa annex 3: respondents' preferences for fruit species s. n. fruit species frequency of response preference valuescientific name local name i ii iii iv v 1. citrus reticulata suntala/ orange 31 13 15 11 6 2.31 2. musa paradisiaca kera/ banana 19 16 14 19 13 2.08 3. c. limon kagati/ lemon 17 19 16 4 5 1.83 4. mangifera indica aamp/ mango 12 17 15 12 13 1.74 5. litchi chinensis litchi 9 12 16 12 11 1.45 6. pyrus pyrifolia naspati/ asian pear 11 12 9 14 12 1.40 7. actinidia spp. thekifal/ kiwifruit 7 9 12 13 6 1.15 8. psidium guajava amba/ guava 5 8 9 17 20 1.14 9. carica papaya mewa/ papaya 5 8 10 7 9 0.91 10. prunus persica aaru/ peach 5 4 5 4 16 0.66 11. citrus sinensis junar/ sweet orange 0 3 0 0 0 0.10 12. persea americana ghiuphal/ avocado 0 0 0 3 3 0.07 13. malus spp. syau/ apple 0 0 0 1 4 0.05 14. vitis spp. angur/ grapes 0 0 0 1 0 0.02 15. choerospondias axillaris lapsi 0 0 0 0 3 0.02 16. punica granatum anar/ pomegranate 0 0 0 1 0 0.02 17. juglans spp. dante okhar 0 0 0 1 0 0.02 18. diospyros kaki haluwaved/ persimmon 0 0 0 1 0 0.02 total 121 121 121 121 121 aamatya1994 aamatya2018 aryal atreya barakoti blanck bryman cbs11 cbs21 chhetri dhakal frtc ghadim khanal kindt kiyani lehmann lrmp liu mohp nair79 osti pandit regmi10 shrestha udvardy 63 forests are one of the biggest terrestrial carbon pools. forests (vegetation and soil) store 60% of the world’s terrestrial carbon (iturbide et al., 2020). therefore, sustainable forest management is recognized as one of the best climate change mitigation measures (arasagisbert et al., 2018). however, the ever-growing human population and its impacts on forests such as deforestation and forest degradation are posing a great challenge to the very existence and the vitality of forest ecosystems. studies have indicated that anthropogenic pressures have indiscriminately degraded the forest ecosystems over the past few decades (sundriyal & sharma, 1996; dhyani et al., 2019). in a forest ecosystem, carbon is stored in various pools such as above and below-ground living biomasses, including standing stems, branches, foliage and roots; and necromasses, including litter, woody debris, soil organic matter and forest products (riutta et al., 2021). among others, trees and soil are the main pools that store more carbon than the other pools (amir et al., 2018). currently, forests store around 45% of the organic carbon on land in their biomass and soils (bonan, 2008). about 2 gigatonnes (gtc) of carbon are absorbed annually by existing oldgrowth and regenerating forests collectively, which significantly contributes to the terrestrial carbon sink (pugh et al., 2019). about 40% of the global soil organic carbon (soc) stock resides in the forest ecosystems (eswaran et al., 1999). the current global stock of soil organic carbon is estimated to be 1,443 ± 141 pg c and 3,153 ± 312 pg c in top soils and subsoils respectively, banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2, 2022 pp 63‒76https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i2.50896 tree carbon stock in middle mountain forest types: a case study from chandragiri hills, kathmandu, nepal the forest carbon stock usually depends on the forest types, forest density, age of forest, size of trees, site quality, wood density, annual precipitation, and species composition. this research aims to analyze the relationship among tree carbon stock, species richness, soil chemical properties such as soil organic carbon and soil ph in the forests of chandragiri hills, kathmandu, central nepal. along this forest, five square plots (20 × 20 m2) each were established along the two transects at a maximum interval of 100 m. carbon stock of each tree was estimated by using allometric equation based on measured tree height and dbh. the mean tree carbon stock was found to be highest in mixed forest (87.13 t/ha) followed by oak forest (52.75 t/ha), and pine forest (22.5 t/ha). the tree carbon stock showed significant negative correlation with tree species richness (r = -0.56, p = 0.001). the tree carbon stock showed significant positive correlation with soil organic carbon (r = 0.57, p = 0.001) and soil ph (r = 0.37, p = 0.05). tree carbon was found positively highly significant correlation with altitude, soil organic carbon, ph and shannon diversity index. keywords: mixed forest, oak forest, pine forest, soil organic carbon, soil ph, species richness, tree biomass r. gurung 1, h. s. adhikari 1, r. s. dani 1,2, and c. b. baniya 1* received: 8, august 2022 revised: 9, november 2022 accepted: 14, december 2022 published: 31, december 2022 1 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, nepal, * email: cbbaniya@gmail.com 2 trichandra multiple campus, ghantaghar, kathmandu, nepal https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4265-622x https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1472-1469 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6206-0274 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8746-7601 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 64 gurung et al. totaling to be 4,596 pg c ± 453 pg c to a depth of 1 m (georgiou et al., 2022). tropical forests that cover 7% of the earth’s total land surface and that are among the major carbon sinks play a significant role in global carbon cycle (nascimento & laurance, 2004). studies have shown that forests have a tremendous role in lowering the net green house gases (ghgs) emissions to the atmosphere and mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change (creutzig, 2015; moomaw et al., 2020). however, clearing tropical forests for non-forestry uses is destroying globally important carbon sinks that are vital for sequestering co2and future climate stabilization (stephens et al., 2007). globally, it is estimated that tropical deforestation accounts for annual emission of about 1.7 billion tons of carbon (nakicenovic et al., 2000). the rate of emission depends on the types of disturbance such as logging, understory fires, edge effects etc. as well as the intensity and the frequency of disturbance events (barlow et al., 2012; sullivan et al., 2017). iturbide et al.(2020) has shown that reducing deforestation and forest degradation lowers ghg emissions (high confidence), with an estimated technical mitigation potential of 0.4–5.8 gtco2 yr-1 highlighting an important role of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (redd+) in mitigating climate change. in nepal, forests cover about 44.74% of the country’s total land area. nepalese forests could play an important role in the mitigation of global climate change (ghimire et al., 2018). carbon stock estimation reflects the potentiality of forests to mitigate climate change (ghimire et al., 2018). the forest carbon stock usually depends on the forest types, forest density, and age of forest, size of trees, site quality, wood density, annual precipitation, and species composition. furthermore, understanding the relationship between forest carbon stock and tree-species diversity and soil properties will be critical in maintaining carbon stocks of forests over the long term and improving our understandings of species-level management (kaushal & baishya, 2021). in this context, this research aims to analyze the relationship between tree carbon stock and tree species diversity and soil chemical properties in the mountain forests of nepal. estimating carbon stocks is highly desirable in different forest types, and the community forestry program of nepal should promote it. coniferdominated forest types store more carbon than broad-leaf-dominated forest types (sharma et al., 2010; aryal et al., 2013) while shrestha & devkota (2013) has found the higher carbon stock in oak forest (90.37 mgcha-1) than that in pine forest (24.82 mgcha-1). by sequestering atmospheric carbon in the growth of wood biomass through the process of photosynthesis, trees store carbon by raising the level of soil organic carbon (brown & pearce, 1994). pradhan et al. (2012) has shown that the tree carbon stock and soil organic carbon was higher in schima-castanopsis (mixed forest) than in pine forest. based on the existing literature, it can be hypothesized that higher species richness and better soil properties will have higher tree carbon stock. materials and methods study site the study was conducted in the three forests [(mixed forest (mf), oak forest (of), and pine forest (pf)] of chandragiri hills, which lies in kathmandu district, central nepal (figure 1). the selected forests were managed by three different community forest user groups (cfugs) (table 1). the geographic location of the study site extends from 27°27′e to 27°49′e longitude and 85°10′n to 85°32′n latitude. it ranges in elevation from 1600 to 2400m a.s.l. the study site has a sub-tropical to temperate climate with rainy summer and dry winter. the weather data recorded at the nearest weather station (panipokhari weather station, provide coordinates here) showed that the average annual minimum and maximum temperature of the study site are 7.70°c and 14.12°c respectively and the site receives an annual precipitation of about 1,559.25 mm (figure 2). banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 65 gurung et al. figure 1: map of kathmandu district showing the plots of studied sites of different forest types table 1: overview of study forests. the forest types, major tree species, the names of community forest user groups managing the forests, their area and the years the forests were handed over for community management forest types major tree species name of community forest user groups (cfugs) and their addresses area (ha) handover year (ad) mixed forest schima wallichii, myrica esculenta, castanopsis indica, and myrsine sp. laglagepakha cfug, thankot 24.509 1994 oak forest quercus semecarpifolia and rhododendron arboreum gumalchoki cfug, chandragiri 80.5 2000 pine forest pinus roxburghii bosan cfug, kirtipur 57 1994 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 66 gurung et al. figure 2: ombrothermic diagram showing mean monthly temperature and precipitation from years 2011-2020 of panipokhari weather station, kathmandu (source: department of hydrology and meteorology kathmandu nepal, dhm, 2021). daily average maximum temperature at station was 20.9˚c and total monthly average annual rainfall was 1559 mm. sampling design and data collection the transect method was used for vegetation survey and soil sample collection. a total of six transects, two transects per study forest were laid out. a distance of 100m was maintained between two transects. five square plots of size 20 × 20m2 were established in each transect maintaining a distance of 100m between the plots (figure 3). the geographic locations (latitude, longitude and elevation) of plots were recorded using the garmin etrex gps. within each plot, the height and diameter at breast height (dbh = 1.37 m) of individual trees (dbh > 5 cm) were measured using a clinometer and a dbh tape (frtc, 2022), and tree species having diameter less than 5cm were also used for vegetation analysis. the plant specimens were identified using standard literature (malla et al., 1986; press et al., 2000) and by tallying with tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch) specimens. the world flora online (http://www.worldfloraonline.org/) was followed for the specimen nomenclature. figure 3: sampling design used for vegetation survey and soil sample collection. two transects with five square plots (20 × 20m2) each separated by a distance of 100 m were laid out for vegetation survey. soil samples were collected from five points (four corners and center) of each plot. the soil samples were collected from five points (four corners and center) of each plot. they were collected from the depth of 10 cm. one composite soil sample of 200gm per plot was prepared by mixing soil samples from five points. the soil samples were air-dried in the shade for a week and were taken for laboratory analysis. vegetation analysis frequency, density, basal area, and importance value index (ivi) were calculated by using the methods and equations (1-7) provided by zobel et al.(1987), which are given below. frequency (%)= ……….. (1) density (trees/ha)= …….(2) basal area (ba) of tree (m2) = ……. (3) where, dbh = diameter at breast height (m), and = 3.14 ivi=relative frequency + relative density + relative basal area ……… (4) banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 67 gurung et al. where, relative frequency (%) = ×100 ……………….(5) relative density (%) = ×100 ……………………(6) relative basal area (%) = ×100 …………………….. (7) simpson’s diversity index and shannon index were calculated using standard equations provided by magurrun (2004) to estimate species diversity of the study forests. interpretation of forest regeneration by size class distribution is better than seedling counts because the former represents longer periods (maren & vetaas, 2007). trees recorded in all plots were divided into dbh classes of 5 cm interval. then the size class distribution graph was prepared to analyze the regeneration status of the study forests. biomass and carbon stock estimation the total above-ground tree biomass (agtb) was calculated using the equation (model, equation 8) developed by chave et al. (2005). for moist forest types, agtb = 0.0509x ρd2h …… (8) where, agtb = above-ground tree biomass (kg); ρ = wood specific gravity (g cm-3); d = tree diameter at breast height (cm); h = tree height (m). the global database developed by zanne et al. (2009) was used for the wood specific gravity. for some tree species, for which wood specific gravity information were unavailable in zanne et al. (2009), information in penman et al. (2003) were used. below-ground tree biomass (bgtb) was estimated by assuming that it constitutes 15% of agtb (macdicken, 1997). the total tree biomass (only living) was calculated by adding the above and below-ground biomass of the trees. finally, the living tree carbon stock was calculated by multiplying the total tree biomass with the default carbon fraction of 0.47 (eggleston et al., 2006). soil analysis soil samples were analyzed in the laboratory of the agricultural technology centre, jwagal, lalitpur, nepal. the soil properties such as ph and water holding capacity (whc) were estimated using which methods. soil organic carbon (soc) was estimated using the rapid titration method developed by walkey & black (1934). data analysis descriptive statistics were used to calculate means, range, and standard errors. anova was used to test the difference between the forest types. correlation analysis and scatter plots were used to analyse the relationship between carbon stock and species diversity and soil properties. all the analyses were done using microsoft-excel 2007 and r version 4.1.2 (r core team, 2022). results tree community attributes of forest types altogether 19 tree species belonging to 16 families were recorded in mixed forest. schima wallichii (59.71) had the highest ivi, followed by pinus roxburghii and castanopsis tribuloides (table 2.).on the other hand, only two species (2 families) and three species (3 families) were recorded in oak and pine forests respectively. quercus semecarpifolia (254.19) and pinus roxburghii (228.57) had the highest ivis in the oak and pine forests respectively (table 2). banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 68 gurung et al. table 2: tree community attributes (ba, basal area; rba, relative basal area; d, density; rd, relative density; f, frequency; rf, relative frequency: and ivi, importance value index) of mixed, oak and pine forests of chandragiri hills, kathmandu, central nepal. forest sn tree species family ba (cm2) rba (%) d (/m2) rd (%) f (%) rf (%) ivi (%) mixed forest 1 schima wallichii choisy theaceae 31961.15 24.56 208.00 25.24 10.00 9.90 59.71 2 pinus roxburghii sarg pinaceae 43199.00 33.20 86.00 10.44 9.00 8.91 52.55 3 castanopsis tribuloides a.dc fagaceae 15888.57 12.21 139.00 16.87 10.00 9.90 38.98 4 myrica esculenta buch.ham. myricaceae 13480.02 10.36 104.00 12.62 9.00 8.91 31.89 5 castanopsis indica (roxb. ex lindl.) a.dc. fagaceae 11510.34 8.85 86.00 10.44 9.00 8.91 28.19 6 rhododendron arboreum sm. ericaceae 2537.78 1.95 47.00 5.70 8.00 7.92 15.58 7 myrsine semiserrata wall. myrsinaceae 2588.06 1.99 52.00 6.31 7.00 6.93 15.23 8 symplocos pyrifolia wall. ex g. don symplocaceae 1522.51 1.17 33.00 4.00 8.00 7.92 13.10 9 syzygium cumini (l.) skeels myrtaceae 1851.52 1.42 19.00 2.31 6.00 5.94 9.67 10 eurya acuminata dc. pentaphylacaceae 1088.74 0.84 17.00 2.06 6.00 5.94 8.84 11 fraxinus floribunda wall. oleaceae 741.33 0.57 13.00 1.58 6.00 5.94 8.09 12 rhus javanica l. anacardiaceae 281.60 0.22 8.00 0.97 3.00 2.97 4.16 13 engelhardtia spicata lechen ex blume juglandaceae 867.27 0.67 4.00 0.49 3.00 2.97 4.12 14 persea gamblei (king ex hook. f.) kosterm. lauraceae 405.78 0.31 2.00 0.24 2.00 1.98 2.53 15 albizia lebbeck (l.) benth. leguminosae 1460.97 1.12 2.00 0.24 1.00 0.99 2.36 16 betula alnoides buch.ham. ex d.don betulaceae 373.25 0.29 1.00 0.12 1.00 0.99 1.40 17 rhus succedanea l. anacardiaceae 248.85 0.19 1.00 0.12 1.00 0.99 1.30 18 semecarpus anacardium l.f anacardiaceae 56.75 0.04 1.00 0.12 1.00 0.99 1.16 19 pyrus pashia buch.ham. ex d.don rosaceae 50.27 0.04 1.00 0.12 1.00 0.99 1.15 oak forest 1 quercus semecarpifolia sm. fagaceae 613993.12 99.68 495.00 92.01 10.00 62.50 254.19 2 rhododendron arboreum sm. ericaceae 2001.28 0.32 43.00 7.99 6.00 37.50 45.81 pine forest 1 pinus roxburghii sarg pinaceae 274066.75 95.09 380.00 80.85 10.00 52.63 228.57 2 schima wallichii choisy theaceae 13057.06 4.53 76.00 16.17 7.00 36.84 57.54 3 castanopsis indica (roxb. ex lindl.) a.dc. fagaceae 1106.82 0.38 14.00 2.98 2.00 10.53 13.89 regeneration status of forest types the dbh class distribution curve of mixed forest showed a reverse j-shaped distribution. whereas that of oak forest showed a u-shaped distribution. meanwhile, pine forest showed a bell-shaped distribution with a higher number of individuals in the middle dbh classes (figure 4). figure 4: tree diameter at breast height (dbh) class distribution of mixed, oak and pine forests of chandragiri hills, kathmandu, central nepal banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 69 gurung et al. variation in tree carbon stock with forest types the mean living tree carbon stock was found to be highest in mixed forest (87.13 t/ha) followed by oak forest (52.75 t/ha) and pine forest (22.50 t/ha). the differences in living tree carbon stock among the three forests types were significant at a 95% confidence interval (figure 5). regarding the species contribution to the living tree carbon stock, albizia lebbeck contributed the most (34.93%)to the living tree carbon stock in mixed forest followed by betula alnoides (12.33%), pinus roxburghii (12.25%), myrsine semiserrata (9.31%). the least contribution was made by pyrus pashia (0.29%, table 3). figure 5: mean living tree carbon stock of mixed forest (mf), oak forest (of) and pine forest (pf of chandragiri hills, kathmandu, central nepal. differences between the forest types were tested using anova. bar diagrams with same letters at the top are not significantly different while those with different letters at the top are significantly different (name which post-hoc test was used, p<0.05). error bars shows uncertainty in the estimation. table 3: tree species contribution to the living tree carbon stock of mixed forest, oak forest and pine forest of chandragiri hills, kathmandu, central nepal. mean diameter at breast height (dbh), mean height (ht), total biomass (tb), and total carbon stock (cs) forests sn tree species dbh (cm) ht (m) tb (mg) cs (t/ha) csc (%) mixed forest 1 albizia lebbeck (l.) benth. 29.20 19.85 647.50 30.43 34.93 2 betula alnoides buch.-ham. ex d.don 21.80 13.70 228.67 10.75 12.33 3 pinus roxburghii sarg 22.84 11.79 227.05 10.67 12.25 4 myrsine semiserrata wall. 19.75 12.00 172.51 8.11 9.31 5 persea gamblei (king ex hook. f.) kosterm. 16.05 9.90 90.59 4.26 4.89 6 myrica esculenta buch.-ham 12.14 9.55 66.31 3.12 3.58 7 schima wallichiichoisy 13.21 8.88 60.20 2.83 3.25 8 syzygium cumini (l.) skeels 10.80 9.87 57.33 2.69 3.09 9 rhus succedanea l. 17.80 6.70 54.67 2.57 2.95 10 engelhardtia spicata lechen ex blume 15.70 6.93 53.79 2.53 2.90 11 castanopsis indica (roxb. ex lindl.) a.dc. 12.41 7.27 50.16 2.36 2.71 12 castanopsis tribuloides a.dc 11.44 9.01 49.09 2.31 2.65 13 fraxinus floribunda wall. 8.25 8.26 22.45 1.06 1.21 14 semecarpus anacardiuml.f 8.50 7.60 19.28 0.91 1.04 15 eurya acuminata dc. 8.64 7.42 19.23 0.90 1.04 16 symplocos pyrifolia wall. ex g. don 7.09 5.54 11.88 0.56 0.64 17 rhododendron arboreum sm. 7.82 4.86 10.09 0.47 0.54 18 rhus javanica l. 6.48 6.10 7.02 0.33 0.38 19 pyrus pashia buch.-ham. ex d.don 8.00 2.70 6.07 0.29 0.33 total 264.73 174.05 1867.26 87.13 100.00 oak forest 1 quercus semecarpifolia sm. 29.12 13.03 1110.26 52.18 98.93 2 rhododendron arboreum sm. 7.40 7.17 11.98 0.56 1.07 total 36.52 20.20 1122.23 52.75 100.00 pine forest 1 pinus roxburghii sarg 29.47 14.00 370.36 17.41 77.38 2 schima wallichii choisy 14.35 10.58 74.60 3.51 15.59 3 castanopsis indica (roxb. ex lindl.) a.dc. 9.37 8.79 33.66 1.58 7.03 total 53.19 33.36 478.62 22.50 100.00 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 70 gurung et al. variation of soil properties with forest types the soil organic carbon (soc) was found to be significantly higher in oak forest (5.57±1.18) than in mixed forest (2.54±0.86) and pine forest (2.82 ± 0.48, table 4). all three forest types were found to have acidic soil. the soil ph of mixed forest (6.11±0.5) was found to be significantly more acidic than that of oak forest (6.57±0.3) and pine forest (6.4±0.25). in comparison to mixed forest and oak forest, pine forest (63.4±9.82) was found to have significantly lower water-holding capacity (whc, table 4). table 4: soil properties (mean ± sd) of mixed forest, oak forest and pine forest of chandragiri hills, kathmandu, central nepal. differences between the forest types were tested using anova. values with same letters in superscript are not significantly different while those with different letters in superscript are significantly different (name which post-hoc test was used, p < 0.05). forests soc (%) ph whc (%) mixed 2.54±0.86a 6.11±0.5a 80.1±7.33a oak 5.57±1.18b 6.57±0.3b 79±7.29a pine 2.82±0.48a 6.4±0.25b 63.4±9.82b f-value 35.63 3.9 12.88 p-value <0.0001 0.033 <0.0001 relationship between tree carbon stock and tree species diversity and soil properties the living tree carbon stock showed a strong negatively significant (-0.56) relationship with the species richness of trees in forests. meanwhile, such a relation with altitude was strong and positively significant (0.83). correlation analysis (figure 6) showed that living tree carbon stock was found to have a positively significant (0.57) relationship with soil organic carbon. the living tree carbon stock has a fair positively significant (0.37) relationship with the ph of the soil. and in the case of the water-holding capacity of the soil, there was no significant (0.084) relationship with the carbon stock of the tree. discussions tree community attributes, tree species diversity and regeneration status of forest types the result of the tree community structure indicates the ecological success of dominant species, and their good regeneration potential utilizing most of the forest area and resources (shameem & kangroo, 2011) in the study area. thus, the high ivi of schima wallichii, quercus semecarpifolia, pinus roxburghii and associated species might be due to available resources such as low tree density, sufficient rainfall, good light availability etc. in the present study, a j-shaped dbh class distribution curve structure in mixed and oak forests showed a higher number of trees with a smaller dbh class. this indicates a good natural regeneration state of these forests which are still in evolving stage (campbell et al., 1992; basyal et al., 2011). the reversed j-shaped dbh class distribution curve of pine trees in pinus figure 6: correlation coefficient matrix among different variables (shanshannon diversity index, tree_richnes – tree species richness, indi individuals, cartpheccarbon stock ton per hectare, soc – soil organic carbon, ph – soil ph, whc – water holding capacity of soil) each value inside the box represented the correlation coefficient value, star/s (*) indicated the level of significance. three stars (***) indicated p < 0.000, two stars (**) indicated p < 0.001 and a single star (*) indicated p < 0.05. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 71 gurung et al. forest indicated artificial regeneration. the mature status of the pine forest at the present study site is similar to the result inferred by dar et al. (2017) and sharma et al. (2020). this may have been accomplished by minimizing the disturbances and shifting management regimes (bhatt et al., 2015, dar et al., 2017). relationship of living tree carbon stock with species structure and soil properties the forest carbon stock is mainly determined by the nature of vegetation composition of the forest where the seedling and saplings have significantly less contribution (hu et al., 2015). higher living tree carbon stock in mixed forest and lower in pine forest may be due to different factors such as forest types, forest age, size and density of trees, degree of disturbance, species composition and allometric equation used for the estimation of carbon stock (mandal et al., 2013; berenguer et al., 2014; biswas et al., 2020; saimun et al., 2021). the variation of living tree carbon stock among the forests with different vegetation compositions is more or less supported by ikraoun et al. (2022), poudel et al. (2020), sharma et al. (2020), verma and garkoti (2019), shrestha et al. (2016), aryal et al. (2013) and joshi et al. (2013). in these forests, all silvicultural practices (thinning, pruning, singling, litter collection, plantation, fodder collection for cattle, etc.) may have been executed, which might also be the cause of the significant variation in the species-specific contribution to the carbon stock (forrester & baker, 2012; marden et al., 2021). soil organic carbon (soc) was also found varied in the different forest types which might be due to the forest stand, vegetation composition, soil moisture, soil organic matter (zhang et al., 2021). higher soc in oak forest than that in pine and mixed forest in the present study is comparable with the results inferred by aryal et al. (2013), shrestha et al. (2016), aryal et al. (2018) and kumar et al. (2021). in the present study, the soil ph of the all forests of different vegetation composition was acidic in nature. this may be the consequence of basic ions in the muddy soil being washed out, which led to h+ rich ions in the soil and more acid being generated by the decay of organic matter. since yu et al. (2019) suggested that soil ph doesn’t play a significant role in the accumulation of soc, which strongly supports the present study. soil organic carbon with oak forest found a strong positive correlation with the other two forest types which could be result from better nutrient input through litterfall and an increase in regenerating oak trees. the findings of the present study are comparable with various studies by khanal et al. (2010), gairola et al. (2012), joshi & negi (2015), and pandey et al. (2019). similar to this inference, in the present study, living tree carbon stock and biomass were higher for mixed forest than that for oak and pine forests. present study would be an excellent model to demonstrate to other communities that the more expansive, global conservation policies, strategies, and carbon market mechanism of redd+ can offer significantly more protection to the forest and enhance economic benefit. conclusions the living tree carbon stock of forest depends upon the different vegetation compositions. the average living tree carbon stock was found to be higher in mixed forest (87.13 t/ha) and lower in pine forest (22.50 t/ha). furthermore, the living tree carbon stock was found to be positively correlated with forest stand, altitude, soil organic carbon, soil ph, and whc of soil whereas, it was found to be negatively correlated with shannon and weiner index, tree species richness. mixed forest and oak forest were in good regeneration condition whereas the pine forest was in mature state. furthermore, the tree carbon stock was found to be positively correlated with forest stand, altitude, soil organic carbon, soil ph, and whc of soil whereas, it was found to be negatively correlated with shannon and weiner index, tree species richness. these findings imply that forests might be included in the redd+ program, which would then help for better forest management. acknowledgments we are grateful to the community forest user groups (cfug) of laglagepakha, gumalchoki, banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 72 gurung et al. and bosan community forest for their cooperation during the fieldwork. we are thankful to professor dr. ram kailash prasad yadav, head of central department of botany, t. u. for providing necessary facilities. thanks also goes to mr. basudev poudel, mrs. hira shova shrestha, ms. bidhya shrestha, and ms. pristi dangol for their contribution to this research. we are highly grateful to all anonymous reviewers for manuscript. conflict of interest the authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. authors’ contributions rg designed the study; collected data, and wrote the manuscript. hsa helped in designing the study, data collection and writing the manuscript. rsd helped with laboratory analysis; and cbb provided overall supervision and helped with manuscript correction and correspondence. references amir, m., liu, x., ahmad, a., saeed, s., mannan, a., & muneer, m. a. 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(1987). a practical manual for ecology. ratna book distributors, kathmandu, nepal, 149. http://www.worldfloraonline.org/ accessed on 03/12/2022 36 the basal area increment in silviculture is impacted by early growth achieved due to appropriate plantation, thinning and nutrition (moulinier et al., 2015). in this regard, we had considered to conduct our study on radiata pine (pinus radiata d. don). the p. radiata d. donrotation lasts for up to 40 years, and are thinned 3 to 5 times typically in south australia (jeong, 2017). a general policy of forestry in south australia has been to apply fertilizer one to two years after thinning so as to improve the productivity of p. radiata d. don (woollons, 1985, gavran & parsons, 2011). the current study site 'a' at mount gambier is a part of the ‘green triangle’ that has p. radiata d. don plantations (o' hehir & nambiar, 2010). the overall aim was to test the two types of coated and slow release forms of dap urea fertiliser against the standard dap urea fertiliser used by forestry sa for their impact on growth as a post thinning fertilizer application. the measurement of impact of fertilizer was done on the basis of merchantable wood volume produced on each plot treated with a particular fertilizer. certain coated fertilizers are recently available in the market, but their effectiveness in the local climatic range is yet to be ascertained, and the present analysis is expected to answer it to some extent. merchantable wood volume response of p. radiata d. don post thinned plots on coated and uncoated urea fertilizers r. nirola1*, c. saint1, j. o. hehir2 and j. liu3 1 natural and built environments research centre, division of information technology, engineering and environment, university of south australia, sa 5095, australia. *e-mail: rknirola@gmail.com; 2 forestry research divisional office, mount gambier, division of information technology, engineering and environment, university of south australia, sa 5095, australia; and 3 school of information technology and mathematical sciences, division of information technology, engineering and environment, university of south australia, sa 5095, australia. our study was focused on whether the optimization of nutrition at various growth stages of pinus radiata d. don plantation was an important factor to increase its merchantable wood volume yield in silviculture. the present study site is located within the ‘green triangle’ bordering the australian states of south australia and victoria. a total of 24 sampling sub-plots, averaged to 12 super plots, were established in both the sites, and all the plots, except one set aside as 'controlled plot' in each site, were treated with 5 types of coated and un-coated urea fertilizers. the data on tree-height and diameter at breast height over bark (dbhob) of all the standing trees were measured and recorded. a five-year sampling data from the 24 sub-plots consisting of two sites, namely picks (site 'a') and hollands lane (site 'b') in post thinned condition were analysed. the specific target was to evaluate a productivity response in terms of merchantable volumes based on fertilizer types. the statistical analysis employing anova, t-test, a neural network model, decision tree and box-plot model based on fertilizer treatment determined that di-ammonium phosphate entec urea (dapeu) fertilizer was found to be more effective in increasing productivity. as such, the merchantable wood volume increments measured after four years of application of dapeu were found to be 48.61 m3 ha-1 at site 'a' and 41.97 m3 ha-1 at site 'b', higher than the 46.71 m3 ha-1 at site 'a' and 39.79 m3 ha-1 at site 'b' with 'control' treatment. hence, the application of dapeau was found to be effective as compared to the 'control' treatment in silviculture to increase the merchantable wood volume. key words: fertilizer, periodic annual increment, silviculture, south australia, soil banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2, 2020 pp 36‒47https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i2.33477 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 37 nirola et al. a sustainable silvicultural practice can be met with a judicious use of fertiliser to meet the steady demand of timber (boardman, 1988). therefore, this study is, so far, first of its kind to conduct whether the use of a coated fertilizer makes any significant impact against the uncoated and control treatments. since there is a need to increase wood supply by implementation of cost-effective methods of plantation (sedjo & lyon, 2015), the fertilizer application at different growth stages is important. one of the important interventions in silviculture for improving productivity is to optimize tree nutrition at various growth stages (pretzsch et al., 2015). it has been found that the application of fertilizer impacts on the foliar region that promotes cell division leading to growth in wood volume (filipescu et al., 2016). for instance, three years after application of n (300 kg ha-1) on p. radiata d. don plantation revealed a higher foliar nitrogen concentration compared to control treatment. here, the effect of phosphorous (20-40 kg ha-1) level remained insignificant in the foliage health (alzate et al., 2016; trichet et al., 2009; turner & lambert, 2017). however after first thinning, the use of superphosphate fertilizer amounting in the range of 50-90 kg ha-1 at the rate of npk 2:3:2 was recommended for all-round tree development and productivity (donald et al., 1987; turner & lambert, 2015; green et al., 2016). an earlier study in australia reported the application of nitrogen fertilizer at mid rotation showed an increase in growth on p. radiata d. don (alzate et al., 2016). on a study of a relationship between nutrient status in a tenyear-old thinned plantation of p. radiata d. don leaf needles, sheriff et al., (1986) reported that three-year post fertilizer application was dominated by 60%, and 50% n concentration per cm2 leaf needle. therefore, the timing of fertilizer application at certain growth stages is important for the plant to achieve a maximum profitability (nyland, 2016). the temperature and soil properties also play a major factor in controlling growth rates. the drier zone soils are deficient of nitrogen, phosphorous, boron, zinc and other micronutrients (jackson, b.e., 2008; mead, 2013. the optimum level of soil ph for growth of p. radiata d. don is 4.1-5.7, but this species can even tolerate ph ranging from 3.6-7.1 ( romanya et al., 2000). as per the study of alzate et al. (2016) on p. radiata d. don, clay soils did not produce any impacts on productivity; the soil at the present study site 'a' at mount gambier area is, generally, highly leached (https://data.environment.sa.gov.au/ content/publications/soils). besides the role of nutrients, the role of rainfall is also an important factor on the health of p. radiata d. don stands (turner & lambert, 1985, simcock et al., 2006). the long-lived crop plant such as p. radiata d. don has to undergo several climatic and biological variations throughout its lifetime (biswas et al., 2019). for instance, the variations within and between seasons due to the locations where they are planted in are impacted by hot dry summers, with occasional droughts, and cool wet winters (nirola & jha, 2013).the p. radiata d. don have thrived in temperate areas of southern australia including the green triangle region of south east australia and south west victoria. material and methods the study area the study was conducted in the two sites, namely "picks" (site 'a') and "hollands lane" (site 'b') within the green triangle region situated at south east australia (figure 1). the site 'a' is located between 37° 55' 19"-37° 55' 20" s latitudes and 140° 56' 25"-140° 56' 43" e longitudes while the site 'b' is located between 37° 31' 45"-37° 31' 54" s latitudes and 140° 25' 33"-140° 25' 42" e longitudes. this green triangle area supplies about 20% of 10.3 million cubic metres of the total log production in australia (gavran & parsons, 2011). fig. 1: the green triangle (not to scale); picturesource:http://www.agtg.asn.au/the-gtregion/ banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 38 nirola et al. methodology a total of 24 sampling sub-plots were established within 6 super plots in each site; each super-plot consisting of 4 sub-plots. the sub-plots used under the trial design were, however, not true replicates as the data from two plots were merged to take an average. all the sub-plots except one plot that was set aside as 'control' in each site were treated with 5 types of coated and un-coated urea fertilizers (table 1). altogether, three site-visits were conducted during the course of data collection with the last one during march, 2017 so as to physically assess the status of the plantation stands. the impact of fertilizer application on 22 years old crop, planted in 1992 at site 'a' (named" picks") and 17 years old crop, planted in 1997 at site 'b' (named" hollands lane") were analysed. the pine trees at the current treatment-plots were after second thinning stage at site 'a' and first thinning stage at site 'b' when the data were analysed. both the sites receive an average annual rainfall of around 750-800 mm. the fertilizers of minimum of two tonnes were applied by ground-based skidder in bands along each trial compartment. the skidder was calibrated to disperse approximately 150 kg ha-1 of nitrogen. the site 'a' (picks) soil ph ranged from 4.1 to 5 with the soil condition consisting of caroline sand to heavy clay. the site 'b' (hollands lane) soil ph ranged from 5.3 to 6.5 with the soil condition of sandy to heavy clays. table 1: the ratio of fertilizer applications on the treatment-plots s.n. treatment symbol n:p:k ratio nitrogen (kg ha-1) application rate (tons ha-1) 1. forest mix 3 fm3 9:3:6 150 1.63 2. forest mix 4 fm4 14:2:0 150 1.08 3. application of dapu dapu 38:6:0 150 0.40 4. application of dapgu dapgu 32:10:0 150 0.47 5. application of dapeu dapeu 32:10:0 150 0.47 6. control c nil nil nil note: fm3= fertilizer mix 3, fm4= fertilizer mix 4, dapu=di-ammonium phosphate urea; dapgu=di-ammonium phosphate green urea; and dapeu=di-ammonium phosphate entec urea. source: forestry sa, mount gambier. the data on the diameter at breast height over bark (dbhob), tree height and total number of trees from the year 2010 to 2014 from site 'a' (picks) and site 'b' (hollands lane) were obtained from the forestry sa, mount gambier. in both the sampling sites, the sampling was conducted during september in 2010, october in 2011, november in 2012, late september to early august in 2013, and october in 2014. the rainfall and solar radiation intensity data were retrieved from the government website (http:// www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/?ref=ftr)of the mount gambier station no. 026021 for picks (site 'a') and millicent station no. 026018 for hollands lane (site 'b').the data in excel sheets were moderated and colour coded. the standard deviation and mean values were calculated initially for each sub-plot within the superplot (averaged data from sub-plots) for further analysis. data analysis the variation between the plots (which was used to test the fertilizer treatment effects) was found to be more than 230 times as compared to the one between the subplots. therefore, consideration was given to using multiple measurement technique to see the efficacy of different fertilizer treatments on the growth of p. radiata d. don. some difficulties in terms of the number of trees in each plot, age difference among the trees, and average tree volume between site 'a' and ‘b’ were encountered in course of data analysis. the various statistical models and tools such as anova, 'neural analysis' and 'decision tree banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 39 nirola et al. models' were used. the' box-plot analysis was also performed primarily on different fertilizers to merchantable volume increment relations. besides, the't-test' was also done to determine the efficacy of each fertilizer treatment. the merchantable volumes on different fertilizer treated plots were calculated using the following equations: where d stands for dbh ob (wood et al., 1999). wood volume (wv)=ba×h×f, where, 'h' stands for height of tree, and 'f' for form factor value, for tapering cut-off, of 0.35 (lu et al., 2018). area of each plot (ap) =l× b, where 'l' and 'b' stand for length and breadth of the plot, respectively. total wood volume (tv)=nt×wv, where, 'nt' stands for number of trees. note: volume occupied by trees per hectare is calculated to determine the productivity of merchantable wood. ( nogueira et al., 2008). results site 'a' fertilizer growth-plot analysis the site 'a' trees planted in 1992 was 22 years old when the last measurements were taken in 2014. the site 'a' is located towards the east of mount gambier city, where the trees were matured and had undergone the second thinning process. the site 'a 'has caroline type soil with the ph ranging from 4.1 to 5 which presents an ideal growing condition for p. radiata d. don (mead, 2013, romanya et al., 2000). however, in our current study, our interest was mainly focused on the coated fertilizer efficacy that impacted on the tree-growth. between the period of 20102014, the average height of the trees in the subplots were found to have increased from 25.3 m to 28.7 m with the fertilizer treatment 'fm 3'; from 26.2 m to 29.4 m with 'fm4'; from 26.5 m to 39.8 m with' dapu'; from 26.2 m to 29.8 m with 'dapgu'; and from 26.2 m to 30.1 m with 'dapeu' while it ranged from 26.0 m to 30.2 m in the case of controlled sub-plots (table. 2). the height gains were almost consistent (with ³3.5 m) during the period of 2010-2014 in all the subplots with all the treatments, which were similar to the findings of myers et al. (1996). table 2: the average height and diameter (dbhob)increment at site 'a' (n=4, ±std) treatments september, 2010 october, 2011 november, 2012 end of august, 2013 october, 2014 height (m) dbhob (cm) height (m) dbhob (cm) height (m) dbhob (cm) height (m) dbhob (cm) height (m) dbhob (cm) fm3 25.3±1.0 31.1±0.4 26.7±0.8 33.2±0.5 27.6±0.7 34.3±0.5 27.7±0.7 34.8±0.5 28.7±0.7 35.7±0.6 fm4 26.2±0.6 30.8±0.8 27.3±0.3 32.8±0.9 28.3±0.2 33.9±1.0 28.4±0.1 34.3±0.9 29.4±0.3 35.2±1.0 dapu 26.5±0.2 31.4±0.7 28±0.4 33.5±0.8 28.7±0.6 34.6±0.8 28.8±0.5 35±0.8 29.8±0.5 36.0±0.8 dapgu 26.2±0.6 30.3±0.7 28.1±0.3 32.2±0.7 29.2±0.2 33.2±0.8 29.1±0.2 33.6±0.8 30.1±0.2 34.5±0.9 dapeu 26.2±0.2 30.5±0.4 28.4±0.3 32.4±0.4 29.4±0.3 33.5±0.4 29.4±0.3 33.9±0.4 30.4±0.3 35.1±0.6 control 26.0±0.3 30.9±0.5 28.3±0.3 33.9±0.6 29.2±0.5 33.9±0.6 29.3±0.5 34.3±0.6 30.2±0.4 35.2±0.7 similarly, the average dbhob status after second thinning in picks (site 'a') ranged from 31.1 cm to 35.7 cm with the fertilizer treatment 'fm 3'; from 30.8 cm to 35.2 cm with 'fm 4'; from 31.4 cm to 36.0 cm with 'dapu'; from 30.3 cm to 34.5 cm with' dapgu'; and from 30.5 cm to 35.1 cm with' dapeu' while it ranged from 30.9 cm to 35.2 cm in the case of the controlled sub-plots (table 2). banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 40 nirola et al. site 'b' fertilizer growth-plot analysis the trees at site 'b' were 5 years younger than those at site 'a', and had undergone the first thinning. as the result of fertilizer treatment, the trees at site 'b' gained height and dbh ob which were almost consistent after the year 2011 (table 3). between the period of 2010-2014, the average height of the trees in the sub-plots were found to have increased from 20.4m to 25.2m with the treatment of fertilizer 'fm3'; from 20.3m to 25.4 m with'fm4'; from 19.9m to 24.1mwith'dapu'; from 19.8m to 24.5mwith 'dapgu'; and from 19.8m to 24.9m with 'dapeu' while it ranged from 20.0m to 24.3m in the case of the controlled sub-plots (table 3). table 3: the average tree height and diameter increment at site 'b' (n=4, ±std.) treatment sept. 2010 oct. 2011 nov. 2012 sept. 2013 oct. 2014 height (m) dbhob (cm) height (m) dbhob (cm) height (m) dbhob (cm) height (m) dbhob (cm) height (m) dbhob (cm) fm3 20.4±0.3 19.5±0.7 22.5±0.3 21.0±0.8 23.3±0.7 21.8±0.8 24.5±0.9 22.3±0.8 25.2±0.7 23.1±0.8 fm4 20.3±1.3 20.8±0.4 22.8±0.7 22.6±0.5 23.7±0.4 23.5±0.4 24.8±0.5 24.0±0.5 25.4±0.5 24.9±0.5 dapu 19.9±0.5 19.7±0.2 21.9±0.8 21.7±0.3 22.4±1.0 22.6±0.4 23.1±0.9 23.1±0.3 24.1±0.9 24.2±0.3 dapgu 19.8±0.4 19.4±0.2 21.9±0.5 21.3±0.3 22.8±0.4 22.2±0.3 24.1±0.4 22.8±0.3 24.5±0.5 23.8±0.3 dapeu 19.8±0.4 20.1±0.7 22.0±0.3 22.2±0.8 23.2±0.5 23.2±0.9 24.4±0.6 23.7±0.9 24.9±0.4 24.8±1.0 control 20.0±0.4 20.0±0.3 21.7±0.4 21.6±0.4 22.3±0.5 22.5±0.4 23.6±0.4 23.0±0.4 24.3±0.4 24.0±0.5 similarly between 2010-2014, the average dbh ob on the sub-plots of site 'b' were found to have increased from 19.5 cm to 23.1 cm with the treatment of fertilizer 'fm3'; from 20.8 cm to 24.9 cm with 'fm4'; from 19.7 cm to 24.2 cm with 'dapu'; from 19.4 cm to 23.8 cm with 'dapgu'; and 20.1 cm 24.8 cm with 'dapeu' while it ranged from 20.0 cm to 24.0 cm in the case of the controlled sub-plots (table. 3). wood volume analysis in site 'a', the periodic annual increment (pai) of wood volume was found to be slightly less (84.98m3 ha-1) on the dapeu-applied subplots in comparison with that (86.29m3ha-1) on the sub-plots with control treatment when the fertilizer application was initiated in 2010 (table 4).in 2014, the pai value was found to be just opposite on the controlled sub-plots, producing comparatively less volume (46.71m3 ha-1) than that (48.61m3ha-1) on the sub-plots with dapeuapplication at site 'a'. on the other hand; at site 'b', the 2010 dapgu applied plots had somewhat higher pai in 2011 (71.18 m3 ha-1) as compared to that (54.47m3 ha-1) on the controlled sub-plots. while it was found to be just opposite with a slightly less pai (37.85m3 ha-1) on the dapgu than that (39.79 m3 ha-1) on the control. table 4. the pai on the sub-plots under different fertilizer treatments at sites 'a' & 'b' tr ea tm en t pai (m3ha-1) site 'a' site 'b' 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 fm3 71.18 42.62 12.99 45.70 65.57 35.94 31.91 35.57 fm4 61.33 44.96 19.92 44.67 66.55 37.79 31.66 40.52 dapu 55.94 72.76 15.95 51.70 66.75 30.31 20.68 47.79 dapgu 87.70 48.45 12.99 50.62 71.18 39.56 31.51 37.85 dapeu 84.98 47.80 15.19 48.61 74.39 42.61 29.48 41.97 control 86.29 48.80 16.79 46.71 54.47 28.01 28.73 39.79 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 41 nirola et al. with regards to the increase in the pai values of the trees on all the sub-plots both with and without the application of fertilizers, it will be worthwhile to discuss here regarding the annual rainfall during the period of 2011–2014 at both the sites. at the site 'a', the annual rainfall was 847.4 mm in 2011 and 639.4 mm in 2014, while 750.9 mm in 2011 and 683 mm in 2014 at site 'b'. the rainfall and solar-radiation data from july to december are presented in table 5. the period of july to december is the main growing season in this region coinciding with maximum rain fall (mead, 2013). it is to be noted that the height and diameter data were gathered during spring (september-november), a period when 90% of the growth in wood volume occurs (squire et al., 1985; colgan et al., 2014). when assessing the rainfall data of july to december from 2010 to 2014, the amount of rainfall received by site 'b' is higher than that received by site 'a' (table 5). table 5: rainfall (rf-mm) and solar-radiation (sr-watts/m2) of mount gambier station no. 026021 for picks (a) and millicent station no. 026018 for hollands lane (b) year fa ct or month jul aug sep oct nov dec site a site b site a site b site a site b site a site b site a site b site a site b 2010 rf 98.2 85.6 163 191 78.2 84.2 59.8 43.6 42.6 30.6 100.8 108 sr 7.1 7.3 8.9 8.7 12.5 12.6 18.9 19.6 20.1 21.5 25.2 26.2 2011 rf 79.2 67.5 97.2 99.4 62 60.8 44.8 50 72.6 62 29.2 23.2 sr 6.2 6.8 9.9 10 13.5 14.1 17.2 18 20.6 20.6 27 27.7 2012 rf 78.4 90.4 114.2 117.6 54 44.4 33 33 20 24.6 26.2 25.7 sr 6.7 6.9 9.4 9.5 14.3 14.8 17.7 17.7 23.5 23.5 25.5 26.6 2013 rf 159 182.2 177.8 190 58.8 50.2 116.8 88.9 47.4 30 30.8 29.2 sr 7 6.6 9.6 9.6 12.6 12.3 15.2 15.5 19.9 19.9 25.2 26.4 2014 rf 84.2 101.5 43.4 53.8 31.8 42.7 25.2 22 19.4 20.6 29 23.6 sr 6.7 6.9 10 10.3 13.7 15.3 18.2 18.4 22.1 22.1 24.5 25.2 source: www.bom.gov.au/climate/data. as presented in figure 2 (a, b), the wood volume increment in the year 2010–11 was an offset of the fertilizer application of 2010.for instance, a sharp decline in rainfall by up to 200 mm in 2012 at site 'a' (fig 2a) is reflected by low productivity in 2013 (ivkovic et al., 2015). the merchantable wood volumes of the trees on all the sub-plots in 2011 were found to be comparatively higher with all the treatments including control. this is attributed to the impact of optimum growing condition of the trees in terms of the pai rather than the application of fertilizers alone. fig. 2: the pai based on rainfall and fertilizer application at site 'a' and site 'b' banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 42 nirola et al. anova and decision tree model the analysis of variance of growth trends of the merchantable volume against fertilizer treatments of both the sites 'a' and b are presented in table 6. the results of analysis could have been relied only on super-plots, but there were only 12 superplots, so the data input was not sufficient to get a reliable result. the actual analysis performed was 24 sub-plots for the data of site 'a' and ‘b’ merchantable wood volume. however, the subplot analysis gave very similar p values (0.097) to the super-plot approach. table 6. the analysis of variance (anova) of periodic increment of wood volume source of variation ss df ms f p-value f critical between groups 10,322 5 2064.4 0.15 0.97 2.4 within groups 752,356 54 13932.5 0 0 0 total 762,678 59 15996.9 0.15 0.97 2.4 a classification analysis was also conducted to see whether the fertilizers were effective as a whole and individually. we used annual growth of trees in centimetre to predict the fertilizer types (including the control type). the idea is that if the predictions are accurate, then the correlation (non-linear) between the growth and the fertilizer types are strong. the two classification models were built (hedl et al., 2009; safavian & landgrebe, 1991). one is a decision tree model while the other is a neural network mode. the performance of the models compared to the baseline is described in the receiver operating characteristic (roc) curve (figure 3). if the area between the decision tree model and the baseline is larger, the decision model is precise. the mis-classification rate of the decision tree model is 15%. this means in the present case; the fertilizers have impacted on the p. radiata d. don trees. fig. 3: the roc-curve for decision tree and neural network model based on fertilizer treatment an analysis on the false positive (fp) vs. false negative (fn) plot was performed to see whether there were any effects of fertilizers on wood volume growth. figure 4 indicates that the fp errors are more than the fn errors. the x-axis shows the annual growth at the 4th year (the strongest predictor), and the y-axis shows the number of wrong predictions (tyre et al., 2003). a false positive prediction (type i error) indicated that the trees on the controlled sub-plots were growing as fast as some trees in the fertilized plots. a false negative prediction (type ii error) showed that some trees in the fertilized plots were growing slowly like some trees in the control plots (ellis, 2010). fig. 4: the false positive (fp) and false negative (fn) plots with respect to fertilizer application discussion the australian silviculture for p. radiata d. don managed on a rotation of 32 years has the mean annual wood volume increment of 17-20 m3 ha-1 yr-1 (gavran & parsons, 2011). the total area of australia’s plantation estate is about 2 million hectares, with approximately half each of softwood and hardwood (gavran, 2015). wood quality is influenced by well managed silviculture (woollons & will, 1975) and mostly by the use of micronutrients such as calcium, boron and copper (turner & kelly, 1981). in the present study, we focused on quantitative analysis. overall, the treatment with dapu at the rate of 0.04 tha-1 impacted on the highest dbhob increase from 2010 to 2014 (table 3). the possible reason for this increased diameter could be the result of thinning and sufficient water availability (woollons & will, 1975; draper, 1980; mead et al., 1984; turner & lambert, 2015; zhang et al., 2016). the nitrogen-based fertilizer plays a significant role in the foliar chlorophyll concentration with an overall 45% basal area increase in the fertilized plots over control (fife & nambiar, 1997). banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 43 nirola et al. the fertilizer application after first thinning yields a better volume for younger plantation in terms of economic returns (woollons & whyte, 1988). in a study of moulinier et al. (2015), the thinned and fertilized plots of p. banksia performed better than control plots in terms of basal area growth. here, the application of nitrogen-based fertilizer enhanced diameter growth increasing the total merchantable volume. in the present analysis, hollands lane (site 'b') as compared to the picks (site 'a') indicated a steady growth in the height with a steady dbhob increase on the fertilized plots than on the controlled ones. the increase in the dbhob as a result of the first thinning is generally faster in young plantations like that of site 'b' plots in the present study (hebert et al., 2016).in the post thinning stands, the trees put on girth as the sunlight passes down through branches to aid in higher lateral surface area photosynthesis due to aeration (mcmurtrie et al., 1990; bloomfield et al., 2014). atthe site 'b', the first thinning had brought a considerable overall increase in girth or dbhob. the merchantable wood volume at site 'b' was comparatively less than at site 'a', a condition related to the age of plantation, site productivity and thinning period (castedo-dorado et al., 2007). the terrain of site ‘b’ is slightly sloppy as compared to that of site ‘a’. the surface runoff from the elevated landscape at site 'b' cannot be ruled out limiting soil moisture retention. the site 'b' of the study area has a ph range of 5.5 to 6.5 with calcareous sandy to heavy clayey soil. this is a possible reason for slightly lower merchantable volume at site 'b' compared to site 'a' whose soil condition was better suited for the growth of p. radiata d. don species (mead, 2013; romanya et al., 2000). however, the solar radiation values did not differ much at both the sites like the rainfall pattern to bring a significant difference on the pai data. therefore, more than the solar radiation, it is a rainfall intensity that is impacting on wood pai (ivkovic et al., 2015). most likely, the soils at picks (site ‘a’) is inherently more fertile and may retain moisture better than those at hollands lane (site ‘b’), giving more productivity (kirschbaum, 2004; pinkard et al., 2014). the solar radiation intensity also impacts on forest productivity (caldwell et al., 1998). however, there was no significant radiation variation recorded in 2012 for site 'a' compared to site 'b' (table 5) to impact on the pai in 2013.the pai of wood volume is the net increment on that particular year.a sufficient tree spacing together with fertilizer application yields good productivity along with the integration of biological and socio economical aspects of management (mead, 2013; fernandez et al., 2017). the analysis for wood volume done using boxplot method opens scopes for discussion on whether some fertilizers performed better than the others. according to williamson et al. (1989), the box-plot analysis involves "identifying patterns by using the median, the approximate quartiles and the lowest and highest data points to convey the level, spread, and symmetry of a distribution of data values". the ranking of fertilizers was conducted where the volume to fertilizer data of both the sites were put together so that each fertilizer had eight observations of the growth between 2010 and 2014 (figure 5). fig. 5: the fertilizer ranking using theboxplot method (y-axis ranking advantage while x-axis ranking fertilizer) there is a clear growth difference of p. radiata d. don on the dapeu, dapgu and dapu fertilizers against the rest (figure 5). we further conducted a t-test to see if the mean of the wood volume of the concerned fertilizers was really different. the t-score values were negative for all fertilizers except fm4. however, the negative highest value was scored by dapeu (-2.59) with the t-critical two tails (5%) value being 2.2.the dapeu fertilizer is designed to release nitrogen as per the plant requirement, and is said to be more stable and adaptive to the climatic conditions of mount gambier in south australia (raymond, 2016). the dapeu consists of active ingredients of dimethyl pyrazole phosphate (dmpp) that helps in the nitrification inhibition process, and stabilizes ammonium nitrogen in soil (zhang et al., 2016). the coated dmpp entec fertilizer banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 44 nirola et al. dapeu is, therefore, found to be helpful to promote growth indicating a better yield of p. radiata d. don. conclusion in the present findings, dapeu consisting of coated di methyl pyrazole phosphate (dmpp) was overall the most effective fertilizer that helped relatively increase the merchantable wood volume of p. radiata d. don. however, the thinned and mature plantation coupled with rainfall advantage also increased the productivity irrespective of fertilizer treatment. acknowledgements the first author would like to acknowledge prof. chris saint, uni sa-forestry sa grant programme, for leading and funding this work. our special thanks go to dr. ray correll, university of south australia, for statistical assistance, and dr. jerry leech, sa timber corporation, for technical support to complete this manuscript. note: the first author ramkrishna from damak-9, jhapa, nepal dedicates his work to motherland. references alzate, m. r., rubilar, r. a., montes, c., allen, h. l., fox, t. r. & sanfuentes, e. 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(1988). analysis of forest fertilizer experiments: obtaining better precision and extracting more information. forest science 34 (3): 769–780. zhang, j., webster, j., young, d. h. & fiddler, g. o. (2016). effect of thinning and soil treatments on pinus ponderosa plantations: 15-year results. forest ecology and management 368: 123–132. 37 most of nepal's population lives in rural areas, with less than half are living in urban areas (bhattarai & conway, 2021). nepal is rapidly urbanizing, and demographics are changing rapidly due to income inequalities that have forced the mass out-migration of the rural population (bhattarai & conway, 2021). urbanization refers to the growth and expansion of urban centers due to various factors, including a general shift of people from rural areas to cities (chapagain, 2018; hulley, 2012; welford & yarbrough, 2021). nepal has experienced rapid urbanization in recent years (rimal, zhang, keshtkar, sun, & rijal, 2018) and is one of the world's top ten fastest-urbanizing countries (heiling, 2012). nepal's annual urbanization rate is projected to increase to 1.9 % by 2050 (bakrania, 2015). urban expansion is occurring mainly around metropolitan cities, district headquarters (the then administrative centers), inner terai valleys, and the markets and towns located at highway junctures along the banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2, 2022 pp 37‒51https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i2.50895 assessment of urban heat islands (uhis) using satellitederived normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi), and land surface temperature (lst) in three metropolitan cities of nepal urban heat islands (uhis) are urban areas that are relatively warmer than nearby rural areas due to the presence of infrastructures, such as buildings, roads, and associated development. this study explored the uhis in nepal's three largest metropolitan cities, i.e., pokhara, bharatpur, and nepalgunj. using freely available data, we explored lst dynamics between 2000 and 2019 and how changes in ndvi affect lst and their relationship with uhi. we used the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (modis) 8-day product (mod11a2) to evaluate lst and the modis-derived ndvi 16-day product (mod13q1) to quantify land surface characteristics. using a simple linear regression technique, we explored the relationship between lst and ndvi. the results indicated that lsts for the urban areas are consistently greater than lsts for the nearby rural areas, and an inverse relation between lst and ndvi was obtained. the results from pokhara and bharatpur showed that increasing lst resulting from declining ndvi is responsible for uhis. however, the results from nepalgunj suggested that factors other than ndvi are responsible for variation in lst. these results indicate a need for systematic mapping, planning, and managing open and green areas in large cities. this research also highlights the scope of applying uhi conceptual models to rapidly developing urban areas in different locations of nepal for better planning and management of open spaces. keywords: land surface temperature, metropolitan cities, modis ndvi, nepal, urban heat islands s. kandel 1*, b. gyawali 1, j. sandifer 1, s. shrestha 1, and s. upadhaya 2,3 received: 9, september 2022 revised: 16, november 2022 accepted: 14, december 2022 published: 31, december 2022 1 college of agriculture, community, and the sciences, kentucky state university, frankfort, ky, 40601 *email : smritikandel@kysu.edu 2 bioeconomy institute, iowa state university, ames, ia 50011 3 himalayan conservation and research institute, dolpa, nepal https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5133-0833 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3929-3536 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8284-2775 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8173-9397 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 38 kandel et al. east-west highway, which tend to be the primary urban centers (acharya, 2018; rimal et al., 2020). urban centers are the centers of economic activities that attract businesses and workers that tend to be associated with enhanced productivity. internal migration is the most significant contributor to urban growth and is increasing over time (acharya, 2018; kc, 2020). cities that provide a variety of options for employment and education are drawing more and more people, especially those seeking work in the manufacturing, construction, and service industries. a significant portion of the national economy comes from the urban sector (bakrania, 2015). with regard to nepal, urban regions provide around one-third of the country's gdp (gdp). increased population growth is one of the primary reasons for the gradual transition from rural to urban centers (bakrania, 2015). the population of nepal was 26.5 million in 2011, then projected to be 29.1 million in 2022 (central bureau of statistics,2022). due to both political and economic factors, such as rural poverty and better employment possibilities in cities, nepal's urban population has grown rapidly during the past ten years. other driving factors of urban population growth include social, physical, developmental, high net migration, and administrative reclassification (rijal, rimal, stork, & sharma, 2020; rimal et al., 2020, 2018). climate and physiographic features make the area attractive for urban development, along with good government plans and policies (rijal et al., 2020). for instance, in nepal, urbanization primarily occurred at the periphery of the east-west, postal highway, and connecting road networks to the mid-hills (rimal et al., 2020). as a result, the areas accessible from the mid-hill districts were rapidly expanded. rapid urbanization poses multiple challenges, such as hazards and uncontrolled growth of built-up areas (i.e., areas populated with residential structures and other anthropogenic facilities that meet the need of the increased population) that require urgent policy attention. unplanned urban development leads to rapid and uncontrolled sprawl, loss of open spaces, increased vulnerability to disasters such as earthquakes, and decreased human suitability (aksha, juran, & resler, 2018; pandey, 2013). urbanization significantly changes the local landscape by replacing open vegetated areas with buildings, roads, and associated infrastructures. such a shift in landscape from rural to urban leads to the phenomenon called "urban heat island (uhi)." uhis are urban or metropolitan areas that experience significantly warmer temperatures than their nearby rural areas (cao, li, zhang, & chen, 2008; kim, 1992; w. li, cao, lang, & wu, 2017; y. wang & akbari, 2017). satellite-based remote sensing technology and a gis-based approach can dynamically and comprehensively detect change in the urban thermal environment. land surface temperature (lst) is an important parameter in analyzing uhis (cao et al., 2008; qiao et al., 2020; shi, xiang, & zhang, 2019). lst and normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi) are widely used to explore the relationship between landscape change patterns and uhi characteristics. for instance, c. li et al. (2014) found a negative correlation between ndvi and uhi in shanghai, china. studies have used lst based on various remote sensing data such as noaa avhrr, landsat thematic mapper (tm), enhanced thematic mapper plus (etm+), thermal infrared (tir) data, moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (modis) derived data (azevedo, chapman, & muller, 2016; grover & singh, 2015; mishra, sandifer, & gyawali, 2019; sridhar, sathyanathan, & sree shivani, 2020; r. wang, gao, & peng, 2020) to study uhi. this study used modis-derived lst and ndvi data to understand the impact of vegetation changes on uhi. a major advantage of using modis imagery is the availability of products made on varying temporal schedules, ranging from raw images to highly processed products (masuoka, fleig, wolfe, & patt, 1998). in addition, several previous studies have successfully used modis data to study the relationship between lst and ndvi (mishra et al., 2019; teodoro, duarte, barradas, mateus, & neto, 2018; r. wang et al., 2020; yuan et al., 2017). modis-derived lst and landsat image-derived lst were used to study uhi phenomena in banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 39 kandel et al. kathmandu metropolitan city, nepal (mishra et al., 2019; sarif, rimal, & stork, 2020). similarly, landsat satellite imagery-derived ndvi were used to assess increased urbanization in other metropolitan cities, including pokhara, bharatpur, and nepalgunj (rai, yili, paudel, khanal, & acharya, 2020; rimal et al., 2020). however, the study of uhi phenomena is limited in these metropolitan cities. uhis raise the demand for energy consumption, such as air conditioning, and contribute to compromised human health and environmental stress. however, studies on lst, uhis, and their relationship with other possible factors are limited in nepal. understanding the distribution of land surface temperature is important because it affects many aspects of life. therefore, in this study, we explored lst dynamics between 2000 and 2019 and how changes in ndvi affect lst and their relationship with uhi in the three major nepalese cities. materials and methods study area in this study, we focused on three metropolitan cities in nepal, namely pokhara, bharatpur, and nepalgunj. indicators of physical and human geography, as well as growth in terms of population size, vary between these three cities. pokhara is the second-largest and the most rapidly growing city located in the mid-hills of western nepal, with an annual population growth rate of five percent (acharya, 2018). the eastwest route passes through the urban areas of bharatpur and nepalgunj, where populations are dispersed, and agricultural lands have been exploited for residential uses, fragmenting the area. the existing urban agglomerations were spatially expanded along the peripheries of major cities and highways (rimal et al., 2020). for example, pokhara is densely populated and is growing towards prithivi highway and pokharabaglung highway. the characteristics of all three cities are provided in table 1. and figure 1 shows the geographic location of pokhara, nepalgunj, and bharatpur. table 1: characteristics of three study cities, pokhara, bharatpur, and nepalgunj district pokhara bharatpur nepalgunj kaski chitwan banke area (km2) 464.24 433 85.94 latitude 280 12'30''n 27° 41′ 0″ n 28° 3′ 0″ n longitude 830 59' 20''e 84° 26′ 0″ e 81° 37′ 0″ e elevation (m) 1740 208 150 annual precipitation (mm/year) 3350 2407 1447.8 average annual temperature (oc) 13.5 23.2 30.2 population density (per km2) 868 503 1592 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 40 kandel et al. figure 1: location (top panel) and land use land cover (bottom panels) of three study cities, bharatpur, pokhara, and nepalgunj data acquisition we downloaded mod11a2 and mod13q1 data from earthdata search (table 2). mod13q1 represents the terra moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (modis) vegetation indices, which is generated every 16 days at 250-meter spatial resolution. the land surface temperature and emissivity (lst&e) product of mod11a2 version 6 offers an average 8-day per-pixel lst&e with a 1 km spatial resolution. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 41 kandel et al. table 2: description of modis data used for this study data type date of acquisition spatial resolution source mod11a2 start: 2000-5-15 end: 2019-5-18 1000 m 250 m https://search.earthdata.nasa. gov/ mod13q1 start: 2000-5-8 end: 2019-5-23 normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi) normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi) quantifies vegetation by measuring the difference between the near-infrared band (which reflects vegetation strongly) and the red band (which absorbs vegetation) (viana, oliveira, oliveira, & rocha, 2019). its values range from -1 to +1, where values near +1 indicate dense vegetation, low positive values represent grassland, 0 indicates barren areas, and negative values represent water or impervious surfaces. it has been reported that impervious surfaces are warmer than green areas (kuang et al., 2015); therefore, there is likely a negative relationship between ndvi and lst. ….(1) land surface temperature (lst) one of the modis land products is landsurface temperature (lst). the mod11a2 version 6 product offers an average land surface temperature and emissivity (lst&e) of 8 days per pixel. under clear skies, the accuracy criteria for modis lst is 1°k at 1 km of spatial resolution. a simple average of all the relevant mod11a1 lst pixels gathered throughout that 8-day period is used to calculate each pixel value in the mod11a2 dataset. the 8-day compositing duration was selected since the terra and aqua platforms' ground track repeat periods are exactly twice that length of time. emitted spectral radiance l at wavelength λ from a surface at thermodynamic temperature ts is given by multiplying the planck function by spectral emissivity e(λ) (k. wang et al., 2007). l(λ, t) = e(λ) b(λ, ts) ………………(2). data preparation and analysis mod13q1 and mod11a2 data were preprocessed and analyzed using esri geospatial software arcmap version 10.5. the raster images representing lst were rescaled by multiplying with a scale factor of 0.02, while the raster representing ndvi was multiplied by a scale factor of 0.0001. rescaling was done to reduce the uncertainties of satellite data and receive the actual data value. data were projected into the wgs1984 utm zone 44n coordinate system. since the downloaded lst was in degrees kelvin, we converted it into degrees celsius. finally, lst images were resampled to match the spatial resolution of the ndvi image. about one hundred random points each were created inside the boundaries of pokhara, bharatpur, and nepalgunj (figure 2). lst and ndvi values of the random pixels were extracted and recorded in the attribute table of the random point feature class. this attribute table with a hundred lst and ndvi values was exported for further statistical analysis in r software version 1.2.5001 (r core team, 2020). simple linear regression (alpha level = 0.05) was used to assess the relationship between lst and ndvi for the years between 2000 and 2019. this analysis was applied to all sampled pixels separately for bharatpur, pokhara, and nepalgunj between 2000 and 2019. we considered ndvi as the independent variable and lst as the dependent variable. y=mx + c ………. (3) where y is the dependent variable, x is the independent variable, m is the coefficient, and c is the constant. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 42 kandel et al. figure 2: spatial distribution of one hundred random points were created inside the boundaries of pokhara, bharatpur, and nepalgunj results change in lst and uhi between 2000 and 2019 from the lst images,we can see uhi effects from past years. it was observed that higher temperatures exist in urban areas, and the distribution of higher lst values has increased over time from 2000 to 2019 (figures 3, 4, 5). along with expanding higher temperature zones to the city centers, nearby rural areas also faced increased temperatures. the variation in land surface temperature is observed in the central part of pokhara, as shown in figure 3, with more developed infrastructures such as houses and roads, where higher temperature exists between 32oc–33oc. also, variation in lst distribution from 2000 to 2019 is observed in areas surrounding the core city, where the temperature seems to increase. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 43 kandel et al. in bharatpur, a higher variation in the distribution of land surface temperature is observed from 2000 to 2019, as shown in figure 4. during 2000, higher temperatures existed at inner terai, which is located in the southern part of bharatpur. the distribution of higher temperatures expanded toward the northern part. this is due to the city's expansion in narayangadh, which is the central hub for trade, business, and transportation for kathmandu, pokhara, hetauda, and western nepal. moreover, this urban expansion has influenced suburban temperature in the northernmost part, where high elevation exists, and the southeastern part, which is a forested area and part of chitwan national park. the uhi phenomenon mostly influences sub-urban areas. figure 3: land surface temperature maps of pokhara metropolitan city for the year 2000 (upper panel) and 2019 (lower panel) figure 4: land surface temperature maps of bharatpur metropolitan city for the year 2000 (upper panel) and 2019 (lower panel) figure 5: land surface temperature maps of nepalgunj metropolitan city for the year 2000 (upper panel) and 2019 (lower panel) banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 44 kandel et al. similarly, variation in land surface temperature was observed in nepalgunj sub-metropolitan city from 2000 to 2019, as shown in figure 5. higher temperature exists in the central and eastern parts of nepalgunj. this might be due to heat captured by the impervious surface at the core city area. nepalgunj is the hottest place in nepal, which lies at a low elevation, where the highest temperature ever recorded was 45oc during the hot summer months. the lowest temperature of nepalgunj has risen from 36ocin 2000 to 37oc in 2019. change in ndvi between 2000 and 2019 our results showed that ndvi value significantly changed between the years 2000 and 2019 in all three cities. figures 6, 7, and 8 show the range of ndvi values between the years 2000 and 2019 for pokhara, bharatpur, and nepalgunj, respectively. the green indicates healthy vegetation, while the red represents no vegetation or impervious surface. ndvi value is less in the central part of pokhara in 2019 than in 2000 (figure 6). this indicates less vegetation and a more impervious surface, as represented by the red color. pokhara’s built-up area has grown specifically along the highways and phewa lakeside. this can result in increased lst. in the narayanghad area of bhatarpur metropolitan city, ndvi values in 2019 are lower and negative compared to ndvi values in 2000. this represents the urbanization of narayanghad over time. additionally, the vegetation toward the northern part of bharatpur decreased gradually from 2000 to 2019. those are the areas with higher elevation, where development activities like the construction of ungravelled roads occurred, which leave the land barren and also prone to erosion. barren lands produce higher radiance, giving rise to lst values. lower ndvi values toward the southern part of bharatpur during 2000 might be due to drought or less vegetation on the ground. in the case of nepalgunj sub-metropolitan city, vegetative land has decreased gradually, and areas with lower ndvi values increased from 2000 to 2019. ndvi values indicate the degree of vegetation greenness (lo & quattrochi, 2003). figure 6: maps showing ndvi for the years 2000 and 2019 for pokhara metropolitan city figure 7: maps showing ndvi for the years 2000 and 2019 for bharatpur metropolitan city banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 45 kandel et al. figure 8: maps showing ndvi for the years 2000 and 2019 for nepalgunj sub-metropolitan city relationship between lst and ndvi figures 9, 10, and 11 show the relation between temperature and vegetation for the years 2000 and 2019. it is known that an increase in vegetation correlates to decreases in uhi intensity. this shows an inverse relationship between temperature and ndvi (sridhar et al., 2020). figure 9: scatterplots showing the relation between ndvi and lst for the years 2000 and 2019 in pokhara figure 10: scatterplots showing the relation between ndvi and lst for the years 2000 and 2019 for bharatpur banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 46 kandel et al. figure 11: scatter plots showing the relation between ndvi and lst for the years 2000 and 2019 for nepalgunj discussion this research investigated the relationship between lst and ndvi concerning uhi in three metropolitan cities viz, pokhara, bharatpur, and nepalgunj of nepal, which has been facing rapid urbanization in recent years. our study showed increased lst and decreased vegetation as represented by ndvi in these major urban centers, which resulted in uhi phenomena. furthermore, lst has been found to be strongly determined by vegetation health (kant, bharath, mallick, atzberger, & kerle, 2009; yue, xu, tan, & xu, 2007). in this study, the high value of lst was found in areas with lower vegetation intensity. generally, negative ndvi depicts water bodies, positive ndvi depicts bare ground and built-up areas, and ndvi greater than 0.2 depicts vegetation, with higher ndvi denoting better vegetation (guha & govil, 2020; guha, govil, & mukherjee, 2017). several studies have found that lst negatively correlates with ndvi (grover & singh, 2015; guha & govil, 2020; mishra et al., 2019). the dependency between the lst and ndvi for pokhara, bharatpur, and nepalgunj is represented by regression analysis (figures 9, 10, and 11.). in the case of pokhara, 40% of the relationship is explained by ndvi, which indicates that the lower vegetation index is responsible for varied lst patterns (figure 9). about 37% of the relationship between lst and ndvi is reflected in bharatpur ( figure 10), and only 18% of the relationship is explained by ndvi in nepalgunj (figure 11). this reflects that there are other possible factors for high temperature in nepalgunj, which can be attributed to the humid subtropical climate, the presence of grasslands and shrubs other than the dense forest, and its location in the terai plains near the border of india. the distribution of water bodies, the amount of impermeable concrete, asphalt, and metal used, as well as the roughness of the surface are a few of the many variables that determine the development and intensity of lst and uhi (grover & singh, 2015; kuang et al., 2015). furthermore, although the spatial relationship between the change in lst and ndvi is statistically significant, it is not necessarily spatially coincident (mishra et al., 2019). people choose to move to urban areas for many different reasons, for example, better access to educational and health institutions, social services, better employment opportunities, and other facilities to improve their lifestyles (dussault & franceschini, 2006). urban regions in nepal have traditionally seen a noticeable rise in the quantity and size of small urban communities (bhattarai & conway, 2021). the main drivers of urban expansion across the nation have been population increase and internal migration. (ishtiaque, shrestha, & chhetri, 2017; poudel, 2013; rai et al., 2020). the urban expansion causes a corresponding decrease in cultivated lands. the built-up area in pokhara has increased mainly along the phewa lakesides and highways (pokhara to kathmandu and baglung highways) due to its location between mountainous and terai regions, which is an important east-west stage point in the trans-himalayan trade route (rai et al., 2020; rimal et al., 2020, 2018). moreover, pokhara is a major tourist destination in nepal that has surged urbanization (rimal et al., 2018). banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 47 kandel et al. along with the rapid expansion of places from mid-hill districts such as pokhara, extensive areas of agricultural land have been converted to urban in the cities of terai districts such as bharatpur and nepalgunj (rimal et al., 2020). urban areas near major population centers and thoroughfares, particularly those along the east-west and northsouth highways and the indian border, experienced the highest growth (portnov, adhikari, & schwartz, 2007; rimal et al., 2020). in the western terai of nepal, including bharatpur and nepalgunj, the land was fragmented due to scattered settlements, and agricultural lands were plotted for residential purposes. the trend of the rapid growth of urban areas and associated losses of cultivated land is projected to continue to 2026 and 2036 (rimal et al., 2020). furthermore, the trend of urbanization was found to be higher in bharatpur, with increased built-up area by 500% as compared to pokhara, where built-up areas increased by 300% during the past 28 years, which is primarily due to migration from the mountain and hill regions into the lowlying plains (rai et al., 2020). since most cultivated areas in nepal are frequently close to urban areas, farmers and urban dwellers compete for these lands. as a result, there is a high probability of transition of cultivated lands to built-up lands, as reported by various studies(adhikari, shrestha, singh, upadhaya, & stapp, 2016; ishtiaque et al., 2017; rai et al., 2020; rimal et al., 2020, 2018). the increase in new urban and semi-urban areas may raise the area’s temperature, leading to uhis. it may also potentially influence local weather conditions, such as the presence of fog, humidity levels, and wind patterns, posing health hazards to the urban people and ecosystem. conclusions lst and ndvi variations were observed during the study period between 2000 and 2019. lst images indicate a significant increase in lst from urban centers to nearby rural areas. this indicates that the temperature of the core city centers is likely to be associated with the temperature of the surrounding semi-urban areas if the increasing trend of lst continues. the increasing patterns of lst and uhi suggest that these metropolitan cities have experienced an unsystematic conversion of open and agricultural lands into urban areas. understanding the increase in lst and its relation to ndvi change assists in developing strategies for controlling the uhi phenomenon. for instance, retaining vegetation or planting trees in open or barren lands and regulating land use change practices assist in reducing lst. the urban planners and government agencies should continue to compile and periodically monitor lst, ndvi, and uhis indicators for the sustainable development of these cities. additionally, it is now possible to model lst variation and analyze uhi at higher resolutions and in greater detail, thanks to the availability of free spatial data and the decline in processing costs. so, there is a need to conduct more studies on deriving lst, ndvi, and uhi phenomena in different cities located in different regions of nepal to understand the pattern of uhi all over the country. although this study used readily available data and robust methodology selecting three different locations of nepal as a study area, it still has a few limitations. for example, in this study, we did not consider several probable drivers of uhi, including local population growth, policy, and topography, due to a lack of consistent data for associating with spatially-explicit land-cover change. therefore, future studies on land-change scenarios, demographic factors, and municipal border expansion should mainly be considered for studying uhi expansion patterns in nepal. author contributions buddhi gyawali and smriti kandel conceptualized the topic; methodology, jeremy sandifer and smriti kandel; analysis, sandesh shrestha and smriti kandel; writing-original draft preparation, smriti kandel; writing-review & editing, buddhi gyawali, jeremy sandifer, suraj upadhaya and sandesh shrestha; all authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 48 kandel et al. conflict of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest. references acharya, k. r. 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(2017). urban heat island and mitigation solutions evaluation in cold climates: a case of montreal. in adv. environ. res. retrieved from https://www. researchgate.net/profile/yupeng_wang7/ publication/314874350_urban_heat_ island_and_mitigation_solutions_evaluation_in_cold_climates_a_case_of_montreal/ links/58c6d3624585150ab4207471/ urban-heat-island-and-mitigation-solutions-evaluation-in-coldbanko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 51 kandel et al. welford, m. r., & yarbrough, r. a. (2021). human environment interactions an introduction. yuan, x., wang, w., cui, j., meng, f., kurban, a., & de maeyer, p. (2017). vegetation changes and land surface feedbacks drive shifts in local temperatures over central asia. scientific reports, 7 (1), 3–10. https:// doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03432-2 yue, w., xu, j., tan, w., & xu, l. (2007). the relationship between land surface temperature and ndvi with remote sensing: application to shanghai landsat 7 etm+ data. international journal of remote sensing, 28 (15), 3205–3226. https://doi. org/10.1080/01431160500306906 1 the rapid pace of global development, characterized by population growth, resource consumption, and technological advances, has led to significant environmental threats. these issues are not confined to individual nations; their regional and global impacts have become increasingly evident over the past several decades, as seen in biodiversity loss, environmental pollution, global warming and ozone depletion, which undermine the regenerative capacity of ecosystems and threaten environmental quality. over the past fifty years, nepal has signed more than 20 multilateral environment agreements (meas). the country first ratified the treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water in 1964, becoming a party to it. since then, nepal has continued to sign, ratify, or accede to various international environmental agreements, including: (i) plant protection agreement for the south east asia and pacific region (1956), (ii) statute of the international atomic energy agency (1957), (iii)convention on wetlands of international importance, especially as waterfowl habitat (ramsar) (1971), (iv) convention for the protection of the world’s cultural and natural heritage (1972), (v) convention on the world meteorological organization (1973), (vi) convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (1973), (vii) international tropical timber agreement (1983), (viii) vienna convention for the protection of the ozone layer (1985), (ix) montreal protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer (1987) and its subsequent amendments, (x) agreement on the network of aquaculture centers in asia and the pacific (1988), (xi) basel convention on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal (1989), (xii) united nations framework convention on climate change (1992), (xiii) convention on biological diversity (1992), (xiv) united nations convention to combat desertification (1994), (xv) kyoto protocol to the united nations framework convention on climate change (1997), (xvi) rotterdam convention (1998), (xvii) cartagena protocol on biosafety to the cbd (2000), (xviii) stockholm convention on persistent organic pollutants (2001), (xix) nagoya protocol (2010), (xx) minamata convention on mercury (2013); and (xxi) paris agreement (2015) etc. these commitments reflect nepal's dedication to environmental protection and sustainable development. aligning with these meas, nepal has been a member state of the international union for conservation of nature (iucn), the international bamboo and rattan organization (inbar), the global green growth institute (gggi), and the south asia wildlife enforcement network (sawen), playing a vital role in advancing the goals of each of these organizations. all these agreements and membership to esteemed organizations offer nepal significant opportunities to collaborate with the global community. the connection between environmental protection and economic development was first recognized in the 1972 stockholm declaration. it is widely accepted that economic development must incorporate socially acceptable and environmentally sustainable practices. the world conservation strategy (1980) further defined key objectives, including the maintenance of ecological processes, preservation of genetic diversity, and sustainable use of ecosystems. banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v34i2.71368 enhancing the effectiveness of nepal’s participation in multilateral environmental agreements 2 the united nations conference on the environment (unced) in rio de janeiro, brazil, in 1992 resulted in significant policy outcomes that shaped sustainable global environmental development. the key achievement was both binding agreements (such as treaties and conventions) and non-binding "soft law" documents that provide guidance without the strict legal obligations. nature key's non-binding instruments, including the earth charter, agenda 21, a comprehensive action plan that provides a framework for sustainable development on social, economic and environmental issues. the summit also produced the rio declaration, which set out principles to guide countries towards sustainable practices and established a roadmap for balancing economic growth and environmental protection. furthermore, unced called both the convention on climate change (unfccc) and the convention on biological diversity (cbd). key agreements were signed that laid the foundation for international climate action and biodiversity conservation. together, these effects established a new integrated approach emphasizing ways to address environmental challenges, and marked a major shift in international environmental policy. treaties are central to international binding environmental law, establishing agreements between states or organizations on various environmental issues. they generally require ratification and implementation by national governments. nepal has already ratified the agreements mentioned above and is in the process of ratifying several multilateral environmental agreements (meas), including the kigali amendment to the montreal protocol. the country has also made efforts to develop domestic laws and regulations to implement these international agreements. however, there are still many instances where a consistent approach to integrating international treaties into domestic law is lacking. for example, critics often point to the failure to endorse the access to benefit sharing bill, which was drafted long ago. nepal has played a significant role in drafting various international agreements and related instruments. currently, it is involved in drafting and negotiating the legally binding global treaty on plastic pollution, which is anticipated to be established soon. nepal has also actively participated in multiple conferences of parties (cop) and their scientific bodies. the cop serves as the highest authority for making key decisions, negotiating new measures, and reviewing the progress of the parties, typically convening every 1 to 3 years. the active participation of nepalese delegates, led by the head of state or head of government at unfccc-cop, exemplifies the country’s strong political commitment to addressing the climate crisis. additionally, nepal’s participation in the cops of the convention on biological diversity (cbd) and the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (cites) highlights its dedication to biodiversity conservation. nepal's participation in cop meetings has significant implications, both in terms of opportunities to advocate for its national interests and the mobilization of climate finance, conservation funding and technology transfer. despite its limited resources, the nation’s participation in cops and other meetings is considered valuable for understanding the global context. however, its effectiveness in addressing various global issues has been questioned. this may be attributed to factors such as insufficient preparation, frequent changes in personnel, a lack of expertise and negotiation skills, a limited number of participants, and constraints in financial resources and networks. the country, located in the himalayas, is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change despite contributing only a small amount to global greenhouse gas emissions. the country faces various climaterelated challenges, including melting glaciers, unpredictable weather patterns, and a rising incidence of natural disasters such as floods and landslides, as well as habitat loss. as a result, nepal's participation and preparations for the unfccc-cop tend to be more organized compared to its involvement in other cops. it embodies an approach that involves the entire society and all levels of government in preparing delegates for the cops. as a country dependent on agriculture and eco-tourism, climate change presents existential risks to its economy and the well-being of its population. the country has made commitments to increase its 3 forest to the 45% of its land cover, and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2045. the nation has been already successful to increase its forest cover to the 46.08% of its land. however, the external support for technology transfer and financial assistance is essential for successful implementation of achieving net zero target. nepal's biodiversity is also impacted by climate change. it houses diverse ecosystems, and decisions made at cbd-cops guide its conservation policies. nepal emphasizes community-based conservation, highlighted by its successful community forestry program, which manages nearly 40% of its forests and aligns with the nagoya protocol on access to genetic resources and benefit-sharing. nepal's participation in ongoing united nation’s biodiversity conference (cop-16) has aimed to share its conservation success and secure international support, particularly in the context of the new global biodiversity framework and the un decade on ecosystem restoration. nepal is a member of cites, which regulates the trade of wildlife and plants to ensure their survival in the wild. established in 1975, cites employs a system of permits and licenses to control the import, export, and re-export of endangered species, which are categorized into three appendices based on their conservation status. nepal’s participation in several cites-cops has successfully fostered networks and advanced the nation’s interests in promoting legal, transparent, and traceable trade while combating illegal international trade of cites-listed species. it is regularly submitting the annual reports to the cites secretariat related to the international trade from nepal. additionally, nepal is a signatory to the ramsar convention on wetlands, which aims to conserve and sustainably use wetlands worldwide, recognizing their essential role in biodiversity, climate regulation, and water purification. the country is also working hard to implement the provisions of other meas in nepal. to strengthen its role in international environmental treaties, nepal should establish a permanent negotiation team, simplify access to climate and conservation financing, advocate for the unique needs of mountain ecosystems, and build domestic capacity. additionally, nepal must work diligently to implement its commitments from cops and other international forums. despite the challenges, nepal should ensure the timely submission of required reports with robust scientific evidence. doing so will enhance nepal’s visibility, reliability, and credibility, boosting its influence in international forums and supporting its climate and biodiversity conservation goals. nepal’s resilience to climate change and biodiversity loss greatly relies on global cooperation, international support, and the effective execution of these agreements. kiran kumar pokhrel, managing editor rajendra kc, chief editor banko janakari _hlk143161325 2.2._input_data _hlk178967326 banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 11 litter production and nutrient return to soil through litterfall is important pathway for the regulation of nutrient cycling and primary production of the forest. litterfall dynamics is generally influenced by phenology of tree species, seasons and altitude of the forest stand. as most of the information on litter production are from temperate and dry tropical region. a comparative study on litter production and nutrient return were conducted in terai sal forest (tsf) and hill sal forest (hsf) located in moist tropical region of eastern nepal. litter samples were collected from the litter traps (1m × 1m size) placed randomly in the forest. collection was done at two months interval for one year. annual litterfall in tsf (8.82 mg ha-1y-1) was significantly (p < 0.001) higher than in hsf (7.18 mg ha-1y-1).there was distinct seasonality in litter production. in tsf and hsf, litterfall was maximum in the summer (6.57 mg ha-1 and 5.05 mg ha-1, respectively) and minimum in winter season (0.86 mg ha-1 and 0.72mg ha-1, respectively). amount of nutrient return to forest soil through litterfall (kg ha-1 y-1) was higher in tsf (72.44 n, 6.80 p and 33.23 k) than hsf (54.31 n, 4.84 p and 22.23 k). the difference in litter production between these two forests was influenced by the phenology of dominant tree species, variation in altitude and seasons. nutrient return through litterfall is a great input of nutrients in soil which is required for production process. thus, litter constitutes a significant role in forest management. key words: hill sal forest, litterfall, nutrient return, seasonal variation, tarai sal forest comparative study on litter production and nutrient return to soil in tarai and hill sal (shorea robusta gaertn.) forests of eastern nepal k. p. bhattarai1* and t. n. mandal2 plant litter production and its decay are the two important processes which provide the main input of organic matter in soil and regulate the patterns of nutrient cycling in forest ecosystems. litterfall reflects primary productivity which represents approximately 30% of annual production and characterizes a major proportion of forest carbon fluxes (macinnis-ng and schwendenmann, 2014). it is a central nutrient resource in tropical forest ecosystems where soils are generally nutrient poor and highly weathered (maritus et al., 2004). so, litterfall is an important pathway of nutrient succession which preserves soil fertility in forest ecosystems (bellingham et al., 2013). litterfall compilation is a standard non-destructive method for assessing the productivity and turnover of organic matter in a forest. therefore, determining the dynamics of litterfall and nutrient return to the soil through it with time is a fundamental aspect of functioning of terrestrial ecosystem (maritus et al., 2004). litterfall dynamics in the natural forest ecosystems is strongly influenced by species composition (singh and kushwaha, 2006), age structure (stonhlgren, 1988), seasons (sundharapandian and swamy, 1999), altitude (garkoti and singh, 1995) and latitude (bray and gorham, 1964). precipitation, temperature, radiation and soil features are also major controlling factors of litterfall in tropical forests where it occurs during the dry season (zhang et al., 2014). litterfall exhibits distinct seasonality in different forest ecosystems and depends mainly upon the location and nature of plant species. many deciduous species shed their leaves during 1. department of botany, mechi multiple campus, tu, bhadrapur, nepal * e-mail: krishnaprbhattarau@gmail.com 2. department of botany, post graduate campus, tu, biratnagar, nepal banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 12 the dry season (elliott et al., 2006). distinct seasonality occurs in sub-tropical mixed oak forest of northeastern india, where maximum litterfall takes place during november to march (devi and yadava, 2010). zhang et al. (2014) documented the seasonal pattern of litterfall in forest ecosystems by collecting data from existing literature and concluded that the peak of litterfall in tropical forest was in drought season corresponding to spring or winter season. however, peak of litterfall could occur at various seasons in temperate broadleaved and needleleaved evergreen forests, and peak of litterfall was observed in autumn in temperate deciduous broadleaved and boreal evergreen needle-leaved forests. from a large number of published and unpublished datasets across south american tropical forests, it is concluded that seasonality in litterfall was significantly correlated with the rainfall (chave et al., 2010). as the litter is the above ground source of nutrients, it helps to manage the nutrient cycling process for better forest production. regarding the litterfall and its seasonality mostly the information are from dry tropics. here, an attempt has been made to document the information from moist tropical region. the present study was carried out to answer the following questions. (i) what is the status of litter production in tarai and hill sal forests ? (ii) does seasonality affect the litter production in these forests ? (iii) what is the contribution of litter in providing the nutrients (n, p, k) to the soil in sal forests? materials and methods study area the study was carried out in sal forest located in tarai and hilly regions of eastern nepal. sal forest of tarai region is addressed as tarai sal forest (tsf) and hilly region as hill sal forest (hsf). tsf is located at jalthal near kechana (extreme low land of nepal) of jhapa district. it occupies an area of 6300 ha. of land and lies in between 87o 55’ and 88o 03’ e longitude and 26o 27’ and 26o 32’ n latitude. the forest floor has uneven surface and topographical variation ranges from 62 to 129 m msl. hsf is located at kiteni of kolbung, ilam district. the forest lies in sub-himalayan tract (shiwaliks) at an altitudinal range of 500 to 850 m msl. the hsf is situated in between 88o 02’ and 88o 04’ e longitude and 26o 44’ and 26o 47’ n latitude (fig. 1). fig. 1: location of study area of hill sal forest at kiteni, ilam district and tarai sal forest at jalthal, jhapa district in eastern nepal the climate of the study area is tropical monsoon type. based on the data pertain to the period, 2001— 2014, the mean monthly minimum temperature of tsf ranged from 10oc to 24oc and maximum temperature ranged from 23.9oc to 33.4oc (fig. 2a). likewise, the mean monthly minimum temperature of hsf ranged between 9.4oc to 19.9oc and maximum temperature between 16.4oc to 25.9oc (fig. 2b). the average annual rainfall of tsf was 2130.4 mm and hsf was 1776.07 mm in which maximum rainfall (80 — 85%) occurred during rainy season. fig. 2a: ombrothermic representation of the climate the climate in tarai sal forest bhattarai and mandal banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 13 fig. 2b: ombrothermic representation of in hill sal forest the temperature ( ̶○̶ ; mean monthly mimimum and ̶●̶ ; mean monthly maximum) and ̶∆̶ ; rainfall data pertain to the period, 2001—2014. both tsf and hsf (tropical moist forest according to the life zone classification of holdridge et al., 1971) are dominated by shorea robusta gaertn. the main associated species like lagerstroemia parviflora roxb., dillenia pentagyna roxb., and schima wallichii d. c korth are common in both forests. all these species are summer deciduous (gautam, 2015). however, tsf is peculiar in containing artocarpus chaplasa roxb. and sub-tropical species like castanopsis indica (roxb.) miq, michelia champaca land madhuca longifolia (koenig) mac. soil of tsf is sandy loam mollisols which has dark top soil. in the hsf, soil is sandy loam entisols with much gravel, stones and rock fragment (jackson, 1994). estimation of litter fall the inner core area in each forest stand (tsf and hsf) was divided into 100 grids each having 100m ×100m size. among them 30 grids were selected randomly for the study purpose. selection of grids was done alternately in clockwise direction for periphery to centre. within each selected grid a permanent plot of 20m × 20m was fixed. sampling plot was fixed in three ways e.g. at upper, middle and lower portion of the grids in each forest. litter fall samples were collected from the litter traps. one litter trap (1m × 1m size) was fixed in each plot. within the thirty plots in each forest the litter traps were located near the trees, far from the trees and between the trees. collection was done at an interval of two months for one year from march 2013 to february 2014. the collected samples were brought to the laboratory and separated into leaf and non-leaf (small branches, reproductive parts and miscellaneous) components. litter samples were oven dried at 80oc for 24 hours and the mean bi-monthly dry weight value for each forest was estimated. for the purpose of the chemical analysis, litter samples were mixed and pooled separately component wise in proportion to their volume to represent annual sample for each forest site. pooled samples were stored in dried form in airtight polythene bags for chemical analysis. chemical analysis of litter the oven dried form of pooled samples of each litter component were ground separately and passed through 1mm mesh screen. chemical analysis was done in triplicates for each litter component. the total nitrogen concentration was determined by micro-kjeldahl method (peach and tracey, 1956). using the method of allen et al. (1974), 200 mg oven dried plant material was digested in 7 ml triacid mixture (5:1:1, nitric acid: sulphuric acid: perchloric acid), cooled and transferred on hot plate till the material changed to pink color and diluted to 100 ml by using triple distilled water. using 5ml aliquot, ammonium molybdate and sncl2, the total p was determined by developing blue colour and with the help of spectrophotometer. potassium was determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometer. statistical analysis statistical tests were carried out in spss (ibm statistics, ver. 20) packages. the data were checked for normality (kolmogorov-smirnov test) before statistical analysis. two ways anova was used to test the significant difference in the amount of litterfall due to forest types (tsf and hsf) and seasons. bhattarai and mandal banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 14 results and discussion litter production in tsf and hsf annual litterfall in tsf (8.82 mg ha-1y-1) was higher than in hsf (7.18 mg ha-1y-1) (table 1). anova suggested that the variation in litterfall was significantly (p < 0.001) different for forest types (table 2). table 2: effect of forest sites, seasons and forest sites × seasons interaction in the litterfall in tsf and hsf as indicated by anova. source of variation df f significance forest 1 113.76 p<0.001 seasons 2 4038.84 p<0.001 forest × seasons 2 96.45 p<0.001 contribution of leaf litter was always higher (70%) than non-leaf litter (30%) in both forests. leaves comprised the most important part of litterfall, as has been found for most of the forest ecosystems (paudel et al., 2015; wang et al., 2007; yang, 2005; martius et al., 2004; arunachalam et al., 1998). in the present study the higher litter production in tsf than hsf could mainly be due to differences in microclimate and soil properties which affect the productivity (vitousek, 1984). as temperature declines with increasing altitude (girardin et al., 2010), the decomposition process and nutrient supply became retarded due to which aboveground net production including litter production declined (belligham et al., 2013; kitayama and aiba, 2002; garkoti and singh,1995). comparative account of litter production in some tropical and sub-tropical forests is presented in table 3. the value estimated for tsf was table 1: annual litter fall (mg ha-1 y-1± 1 se) in tarai sal forest and hill sal forest forests leaf litter % of total non-leaf litter % of total total tarai sal forest 6.16±0.06 70 2.66±0.05 30 8.82±0.06 hill sal forest 5.01±0.12 70 2.17±0.08 30 7.18±0.19 table 3: comparative account of litter production (mg ha-1 y-1) in some tropical and sub-tropical forests location forest types litter production references nepal jalthal, jhapa tarai sal forest 8.82 present study kiteni, ilam hill sal forest 7.18 present study charkoshe, sunsari tropical moist sal forest 11.8 gautam, 2015 panchakanya, sunsari plateau sal forest 10.3 mandal, 1999 india manipur subtropical oak forest 10.94 devi andyadaba, 2010 kodiyar, tamilnadu deciduous forest 5.76 8.65 sundarapandian and swamy, 1999 kodiyar, tamilnadu evergreen forest 5.63 7.84 sundarapandianand swamy, 1999 vidhyan plateau dry tropical savannahs 2.8 5.9 tripathi and singh, 1995 nanda devi reserve forests of central himalaya 4.22 garkotiand singh, 1995 thrissur, kerala moist deciduous 12.2 14.4 kumar and deepu, 1992 mornihills, haryana moist deciduous 10.4 gupta and raut, 1992 sal and mixed sal forest 2.8 7 sharma et al., 1990a, b deciduous forest 1 6.2 singh, 1968 other counties china evergreen broad-leaved forest 3.28 11.26 paudel et al., 2015 china global pattern 3.0 11 zhang et al., 2014 new zealand evergreen montane rain forest 2.81 bellingham et al., 2013 south america tropical forests (n= 81) 8.61 chave et al., 2010 china sub tropical forest 4.89 10.61 zhou et al., 2007 china evergreen broad-leaved forest 4.63 8.85 yang et al., 2005 bhattarai and mandal banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 15 comparable to plateau sal forest of nepal (10.3 mg ha-1y-1; mandal, 1999) and moist deciduous forest of moni hills, haryana, india (10.4 mg ha1y-1; gupta and raut, 1992). on the other hand the value obtained for hsf was comparable to tropical forests of south america (8.61 mg ha1y-1; chave et al., 2010). seasonal variation in litter production there was distinct seasonality in the pattern of litter production in both forests (table 2). in tsf and hsf, it was higher in the summer season (6.57 mg ha-1and 5.05 mg ha-1) followed by rainy (1.39 mg ha-1 and 1.41mg ha-1) and winter season (0.86 mg ha-1 and 0.72 mg ha-1), respectively (fig. 3). environmental variables like temperature and rainfall greatly influence the seasonal pattern of litter fall in tropical forests (zhang et al., 2014; chave et al., 2010). high temperature during summer season reduces the humidity and increases the rate of transpiration which enhances the rate of litter fall (twilley et al., 1986). 3 a 3 b fig. 3 a & 3 b: seasonal variation in litterfall (mg ha-1) in tarai sal forest and hill sal forest of eastern nepal. seasonal representations are as: summer (march-june), rainy (july october) and winter (november-february). nutrient return through litter fall nutrient concentration of different components of litter was slightly higher in tsf than hsf as summarized in table 4. concentration of nutrients in different litter components in diminishing order was: n>k>p in both forests. nutrient concentration in leaf litter was nearly 1.5 times higher than the non-leaf litter in each forest. generally, the woody litter has lower n and p concentration than the foliage (arunachalam et al., 1998) because woody litter has high amount of sclerophyllous tissue which contains less amount of nutrient (vitousek and sanford, 1986). the total amount of nutrient return to forest soil through litterfall is mentioned in table 5. n, p, k return through litterfall (kg ha-1y-1) was higher in tsf than hsf due to higher amount of litterfall. along with, it also depends upon the nutrient table 4: concentration (% ± se) of nutrients in litterfall in tarai sal forest and hill sal forest forests/components nutrients n p k tarai sal forest leaf litter 0.93±0.023 0.086±0.001 0.41±0.01 non leaf litter 0.57±0.024 0.057±0.002 0.30±0.02 hill sal forest leaf litter 0.85±0.023 0.077±0.001 0.34±0.01 non leaf litter 0.53±0.025 0.046±0.002 0.24±0.02 bhattarai and mandal banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 16 concentration of litter of tree species involved (yang et al., 2005). generally, montane forest leaves have lower nutrient concentration than those of fertile lowland forest (vitousek and sanford, 1986). the nutrient contribution to the forest floor through the litterfall was comparable to wanmulin nature reserve, china (yang et al., 2005), forest of central himalaya, india (garkoti and singh, 1995) and plateau sal forest, nepal (mandal, 1999). however, in sal forest and mixed sal forest of bidhyan plateau, india (sharma et al., 1990a) and in deciduous forest, india (singh, 1968) the nutrient return from litterfall was relatively lower than the present study. litterfall is only the above ground source of soil organic matter which enriches the soil with nutrients essential for forest production. removal or reduction of litter from forest floor can directly reduce the soil nutrients which ultimately affect the forest productivity. hence, litter stands as an essential factor for better forest management. conclusion it is concluded that litter production is influenced by the phenology of dominant tree species, variation in altitude and seasons, due to which low land tarai sal forest showed greater litter production and nutrient return to the soil. as tsf is rich in litter production and nutrient input in soil, it may have high production potential. further, to manage the soil fertility, litter should remain undisturbed on the forest floor to regulate the nutrient cycling process. as the litter and litter mediated soil nutrients are essential for biomass production, it serves as a pronounced factor for the forest management. acknowledgements we are grateful to the head, department of botany and to the campus chief of post graduate campus, t. u., biratnagar, nepal for providing laboratory and library facilities. the first author is grateful to the institute of science and technology, tribhuvan university, kathmandu for study leave and to the university grants commission, nepal for the research fellowship. references allen, s.e., grimshaw, h.m., parkinson, j.a. and quarmby, c. 1974. chemical analysis of ecological materials. blackwell scientific publication, oxford, uk. arunachalam, a., arunachalam, k., pandey, h. n. and tripathi, r.s. 1998. fine litterfall and nutrient dynamics during forest regrowth in the humid sub-tropics of north-eastern india. forest ecology and management 110: 209 — 219. table 5: amount of nutrient return (kg ha-1 y-1 ± se) through litterfall in tarai sal forest and hill sal forest forests/components nutrients n p k tarai sal forest leaf litter 57.28±2.15 5.29±0.09 25.25±0.7 non leaf litter 15.16±0.63 1.51±0.03 7.98±0.38 total 72.44±1.22 6.80±0.11 33.23±1.09 hill sal forest leaf litter 42.81±0.28 3.85±0.04 17.03±0.72 non leaf litter 11.50±0.52 0.99±0.07 5.20±0.37 total 54.31±0.92 4.84±0.04 22.23±1.1 bhattarai and mandal banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 17 bellingham, p. j., morse, c. w., buxton, r. p., bonner, k. i., mason, n. w. h. and wardle, d. a. 2013. litterfall, nutrient concentrations and decomposability of litter in a new zealand temperate montane rain forest. new zealand journal of ecology 37 (2): 162—171. chave, j., navarrete, d., almeida, s., alvarez, e., arag, l.e.o.c., bonal, d., chatelet, p., silvaespejo, j.e., goret, j.y., vo hildebrand, p., jimenez, e., patino, s., penuela, m.c., philips, o.l., stevenson, p. and malhi, y. 2010. regional and seasonal patterns of litterfall in tropical south america. biogeosciences 7: 43—55. devi, n. b. and 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pandey et al. relationship between soil properties and forests carbon: case of three community forests from far western nepal h. p. pandey1, p. pandey2, s. pokhrel3 and r. a. mandal4 the study was carried out in three community-managed forests of dadeldhura district located in far west of nepal in 2015. the objectives of the study were to analyze biomass and soil organic carbon (soc) accumulation and observe how primary soil nutrients and other soil properties affect the biomass and soc in these forests. simple random sampling method was used with 0. 62% sampling intensity. concentric circular sample plot of various sizes were laid out for the necessary data collection. anova, tukey’s hsd and correlation tests were performed. the carbon density differed significantly (p<0. 05) in the studied cfs. the tukey’s test showed the bpcf had significantly higher (p<0. 05) carbon density than other cfs. the correlation between biomass density (t/ha) and soil bulk density was very weak and it was not significant. however, biomass density revealed significant (p<0.05) negative correlation with soc (r = -0.38) and phosphorous (r = -0.56) content in the soil. biomass density had no significant correlation with rest of the parameters. similarly, soc had significant (p<0. 05) positive correlation with all the parameters except with soil bulk density (p<0.05, r = -0. 88). despite the higher biomass in forests, we found the lesser amount of soc and primary soil nutrients in the soil. similarly, acidic soils with higher contents of primary soil nutrients (npk) had relatively higher soc whereas higher bulk density decreased the soc content. results revealed that community-managed forests seemed a viable source of biomass production and carbon sink to combat the global environmental problem (global warming). these types of forests have conserved relatively the higher biomass (biomass carbon) than normally (business-as-usual) managed forests. this output would be a reference to the policy maker, national and international communities of diverse fields who are engaged in forest carbon services related activities such as reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation (redd), clean development mechanism (cdm) and forest management in terms of production. similar studies are recommended in larger geographical areas and different ecological zones to generalize the inference. keywords : biomass density, community-managed forests soc, soil nutrients 1 division forest office, darchula, nepal; email : pandeyhp123@gmail. com 2 central department of botany, biodiversity and environmental management, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, nepal 3 division forests office, arghakhanchi, nepal 4 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, nepal the effects of climate change have become obvious in the natural environment together with other threats like habitat destruction, fragmentation, disturbance and loss of biodiversity (lepetz et al., 2009). signs of global warming are evident from receding mountain snowlines and glaciers, shrinking ice cover on lakes and rivers in winter, melting polar seaice, migration patterns of birds and animals, changes in agriculture seasons and migration of lowland ecosystems to higher altitudes where forests can be both sources and sinks of carbon, depending upon the specific management regime and activities (ipcc, 2000). carbon stock is defined as the amount of carbon stored in the world's forest ecosystem which is mainly in living biomass, soil and to a lesser banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 43‒52 44 pandey et al. extent also in deadwood and litter, and carbon sequestration is the process of increasing the carbon content of a carbon pool other than the atmosphere (fao, 2011). carbon accumulations in forest ecosystems involve numerous components including biomass carbon and soil carbon. the world's forests and forests' soils currently store more than one trillion tons of carbon which is twice the amount floating free in the atmosphere (oli and shrestha, 2009), just over half of the carbon residing in terrestrial ecosystems (fao, 2001) and act as natural storage for carbon at the global scale, contributing approximately 80% of terrestrial above ground and 40 % of terrestrial below ground carbon storage (kirschbaum, 1996). soils also play an important role as the largest pool of terrestrial organic carbon in the global carbon cycle. globally, approximately 1500 pg of carbon are stored in soils in the form of organic matter, approximately twice the atmospheric pool (jin et al., 2000) which is a win–win strategy for developing countries, where land use change and agricultural intensification is most frequent (lal, 2004). rapidly rising concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (co2) have prompted a flurry of studies on soils as potential carbon (c) ‘sinks’. about 70% of this c is stored in the soil (dixon et al., 1994). the trees store carbon by sequestrating atmospheric carbon in the growth of wood biomass through the process of photosynthesis and thereby increasing the soil organic carbon (brown and pearce, 1994). in reality, the forest is a reservoir, a component or component of the climate system where green house gases are stored, as well as sink, any process that removes a greenhouse gas (ghg) from the atmosphere (pearce et al., 2003) and it is varied according to geographical location, plant species and age of the stand (van noordwijk et al., 1997; shrestha and singh, 2008), climatic conditions, soil type, aspect and density (shrestha and singh, 2008). the rate of carbon accumulation and its distribution in soil profile differ between tree species, for example, soils in a forestation areas accumulate less carbon and at a slower rate than the above ground biomass (jandle et al., 2007) in the intact forests. in fact its amount depends on the above ground input received from leaf litter and on the decomposition of fine roots below ground (rasse et al., 2006). forest soil tends to accumulate more carbon than soil does under agriculture, because the carbon turns over more slowly (guggenberger et al., 1994). thus, forest soils may store more carbon than agricultural soils and their responses to increasing atmospheric co2 concentrations will be significant for the future global carbon cycle. vegetation and soils are viable sinks of atmospheric c and may significantly contribute to mitigation of global climate change (bajracharya et al., 1998). in nepal, information on carbon stocks density at different forests’ ecosystem is still insufficient. inventory of forest and soil has been paid little attention regarding the carbon that it sequestrated, hence, amount of soil and biomass carbon sequestrated is unknown (shrestha, 2008) for many forests. moreover, in case of far western region, it is the least researched area of nepal in this context (lamsal et al., 2018). the constitution of nepal, 2015 envisioned that carbon is a service. after amendment of prevailing forest act (1993), carbon is recognized as an ecosystem service which is the first legalized document that emphasized that carbon has some economic value. further, with the enactment of forest act (1993), community forestry (cf) has been accorded the highest priority programme of the nepal's forestry sector and its subsequent amendment incorporates that carbon is an ecosystem service within the community forests too. thus, community forests should have baseline data on how much carbon credit they possess based on scientific inventories from which more than 20,000 communities and more than 2.2 million ha of forests could be benefited (dofsc, 2018). realizing the high carbon sinks in the forests by unfccc (2010), it is deemed necessary to account the carbon of individual forests. therefore, this study has realized the estimation of biomass and soil carbon accumulation in community forests. the objectives of the study were to analyze biomass and soil organic carbon (soc) accumulation and observe how primary soil nutrients and other soil properties affect the biomass and soc in three community-managed forests of dadeldhura district far west nepal. materials and methods study area dadeldhura district lies in province no. 7, covers an area of 1, 538 km², located between banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 43‒52 45 pandey et al. 28. 59° to 29. 26° n latitude and 80. 12° to 80. 47° e longitude. it is 798 km west of capital city kathmandu and the population was 142, 094 in 2011. the altitudinal range of the district is 462 m asl to 2639 m asl. the climate of the district is divided into four zones, namely, lower tropical (below 300 m, upper tropical (300–1000 ml), subtropical (1000–2000 m) and temperate (2000–3000 m), constituting an area of 0.6%, 34. 7%, 55.8%, and 8.9%, respectively (https ://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/dadeldhuradistrict). climate and natural vegetation of the district are quite varied due to variation in landscape and elevation. the average maximum temperature is 32.70c and average minimum temperature 13.60 c and average annual rainfall of 1343.6 mm (dhm, 2016). the study area is located in bhimdatta municipility of the dadeldhura district. community forests the formal handover of cf in the district was commenced in 1991. the district comprises more than 450 cfs. the study was carried out in rishikhola mahila community forest, baisyadharghatal patihalna community forest and dhobikhola community forest (fig. 1). fig. 1: a map showing study area rishikhola mahila community forest (rmcf) this forest is located in ward number 5 of amargadhi municipality in dadeldhura district. the total forest area is 66.26 ha and the altitude of forest ranges from about 868. 16–1654. 29 m. the forest was formally handed over as cf in july1994. the community forest user group (cfug) was awarded with sarbamanya ganeshman singh forest conservation prize in 5 june 1999 for its contribution in cf conservation and management. the forest is located in north-eastern aspect dominated by quercus leucotrichophora. major associated species are myrica esculenta, q. lanata, rhododendron arboreum, pyrus pashia, castanopsis tribuloides, pinus roxburghii, pinus patula, lyonia ovalifolia and saurauia napaulensis. the forest area per house hold is 0. 3 ha. the number of households is 244 and the benefited population is 1633. the major ethnic groups are brahmin and chhetri. baisyadharghatal patihalna community forest (bpcf) the forest is located in ward number 2 of amargadhi municipality in dadeldhura district. the total area of the forest is 60. 75 ha and altitudinal range of the cf is from 1623. 56– 1866. 05m. the forest was formally handed over as cf in july 1993. the forest is dominated by q. leucotrichophora, which is located in southern aspect. the disturbance in this forest is more than the rishikhola community forest. the major associate species are m. esculenta, q. lanata, r. arboreum, p. pashia, l. ovalifolia, p. roxburghii and s. napaulensis. the number of households is 152 and the benefited population is 936. the major ethnic groups' are brahmin and chhetri. the forest area per house hold is 0. 4 ha. dhobikhola community forest (dkcf) the forest is located in ward number 5, jhurkali of amargadi municipality in dadeldhura district. the total area of the forest is 55. 41ha and altitude of the forest ranges from 1400–1840 m. it was formally handed over as cf in 2014. the forest is located in west aspect and is dominated by p. roxburghii. major associated species are q. leucotrichophora, q. lanata, r. arboreum, m. esculenta, s. napaulensis and p. patula. the number of households is 38 and the benefited population is 265. the major ethnic groups are brahmin and chhetri. data collection the major data collection was carried out in the last of 2015. reconnaissance survey at the end of banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 43‒52 46 pandey et al. forest area was done to collect general information of the community forests. altogether 45 samples, 15 from each cf, were collected from three community forests. the map of the study area was prepared using gps and the sample plots were distributed randomly. then, the coordinates of sample plots were uploaded in gps. finally, the sample plots were located and laid out. forest sampling and inventory simple random sampling method with 0.62% sampling intensity was used for collecting data of tree biomass. a concentric circular sample plots (ccsp) of radius 8.92 m were laid out. within each plot, three sub-plots were established for specific purposes. inside the 8.92 m radius plot, a sub-plot with a radius of 5.64 m was established for saplings, a sub-plot with a radius of 1 m for counting regeneration and a sub-plot with a radius of 0.56 m radius for collecting samples of soil, leaf litter, herbs and grass (fig. 2). fig. 2: design of sample plot (source : ansab, 2010) measurement in sample plots diameter at breast height (dbh) at 1.3 m and total height of all trees, poles and saplings were measured using diameter-tape (d-tape) and clinometers in respective sample plots. all herbaceous and woody vegetation were clipped from a sub-plot of 0.56 m radius and collected separately to take their fresh weights. the representative samples of 300 grams of both leaf litter and herbaceous vegetation were taken and brought to the laboratory for oven drying. soil sampling the standard procedure (ansab, 2010) of collecting soil samples was followed for soil organic carbon assessment. soil samples were collected at different depths in three layers (0 ‒ 10 cm, 10 ‒ 20 cm and 20 ‒ 30 cm) from each sub-plot. a core ring sampler (5cm diameter and 10 cm long) was used for taking soil samples to estimate bulk density. data analysis data were analyzed by using the guidelines developed by ansab (2010). the predictive allometric equations (models) developed by chave et al. (2005) were used for estimating above-ground tree biomass (agtb). the biomass stock density of a sample plot was converted to carbon stock density using ipcc (2006) default carbon fraction of 0. 47. sapling (dbh<5cm) biomass was calculated by using biomass tables compiled by tamrakar (2000). soil organic carbon was calculated using pearson et al. (2007). to simplify the process for estimating below-ground biomass, we used macdicken (1997) root-to-shoot ratio value of 1 :5. biomass on leaf litter, dead wood, stumps was estimated in the laboratory. the cumulative value provided the total biomass from the forests. soc and npk constituents were analyzed in the laboratory. the soil carbon percent, bulk density, soil ph were analyzed in the soil laboratory of the agriculture technology center, lalitpur, nepal. anova and tukey’s hsd tests were performed to see the differences in carbon density. a correlation test was performed to observe the relationship between biomass (t/ha) and soil bulk density, soc, soil ph, soil n %, p (kg/ha) and k (kg/ha) content in the soil. similarly, correlation test between soc and soil ph, soil bulk density, n, p and k were performed. all the analysis and tests were performed in r version 3. 5. 2 (r core team, 2018). results and discussion forest status mixed types of forest were found in the study area. the density of trees varied in the studied cfs. rmcf had 1635 trees per hectare, bpcf consisted of 1048 trees per ha and dkcf comprised 1270 trees per ha. p. roxburghii trees were found to be the largest in size in rmcf and bpcf while r. arboreum were the smallest in size in these cfs. but p. patula banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 43‒52 47 pandey et al. trees were found to be the largest in size in dkcf. the diameter of different species in dkcf varied considerably. there was slight variation in mean height of different species in rmcf and bpcf (table 1). table 1 : mean height and diameter of major species in the studied cfs local name scientific name mean dbh (cm) mean height (m) rmcf bpcf dkcf rmcf bpcf dkcf sano banjh quercus leucotrichophora 13 14 13 9 10 8 thulo banjh quercus lanata 14 12 10 10 9 8 laligurans rhododendron arboreum 11 12 8 7 7 6 khote salla pinus roxburghii 20 21 26 12 12 14 pate salla pinus patula 18 17 31 11 11 15 musure katus castanopsis tribuloides 20 12 kafal myrica esculenta 13 15 12 7 9 8 biomass and carbon stock density forest biomass is the total weight of biologically produced materials in an over-dried state. the biomass stock density of three community forests is shown in table 2. table 2 : above and below ground biomass of the community forests community forest agtb (t/ha) agsb (t/ha) aglhgb (t/ha) total agb (t/ha) bgb (t/ha) total biomass (t/ha) total biomass carbon (t/ha) dkcf 140.48 0.16 0.22 140.86 28.09 168.95 79.39 rmcf 148.80 0.53 0.50 149.83 29.76 179.59 84.44 bpcf 234.79 0.41 0.55 235.75 46.95 282.70 132.87 agtbabove ground tree biomass agsbabove ground sapling biomass aglhgbabove ground leaf, herbs and grass biomass agbabove ground biomass bgbbelow ground biomass the highest mean values of agtb and aglhgb were found in the bpcf, which were 234.79t/ha and 0.55 t/ha, respectively (table 2). similarly, the highest agsb (0.53 t/ha) was found to be in the rmcf. the lowest agtb, agsb and aglhgb in dkcf were 140.48 t/ha, 0.16 t/ha and 0.22 t/ ha, respectively. the highest agb in bpcf was found to be 235.75t/ha. similarly, the lowest mean value of agb in the dkcf was found to be 140. 86 t/ha (table 2). respective hierarchy of quantity of bgb was found as a conversion that form 0.20 proportion (table 2). in a national inventory (2010–2014), the biomass density in the mid-hills region was 138.61 t/ha (dfrs, 2015a). the relatively higher biomass density in the studied cfs reveals the better management of the community forests which may have facilitated to accumulate larger amount of biomass. as a result, the cfs received a renounced national conservation prize in the past year. the above ground biomass of the forest depends on the age of the forest, density of the forest, types of species and wood species density. thus, the highest value of biomass was found in the bpcf due to relatively older trees composition (greater diameter and height of the trees). the major pool of carbon in the forest is supposed to be the biomass of its all forms. soil organic carbon, bulk density and ph the soil is considered as almost permanent stocking source of carbon. however, soil inside the forests has greater influences by the vegetation banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 43‒52 48 pandey et al. that grows on it. the soil organic carbon and bulk density of three community forests are given in table 3. the highest soc density was found in rmcf (99.23 t/ha) followed by bpcf (74.79 t/ha) and the least was in dkcf (69.67 t/ha). the visual observation showed that the highest soc in the rmcf may be due to higher amount of leaf litter accumulation on the forest floor. users had hardly collected the leaf litter from the forest. as a result the leaves and twigs decomposed and added organic matter into the soil. the soc reduced with the increase in depths of the soil in all three cfs. similar results were found in the national forest inventory (2010–2014) in midhills of nepal (dfrs, 2015a). the relationship of soil bulk density and soc was found reciprocal (table 3) and it was significant (table 4). soil ph was found to be acidic in nature in the studied cfs and the values were almost the same. washout of basic ions in the sloppy land resulted h+-rich ions in the soil and more acid released by the decomposition of organic residues may be the outcome of this figure. these results are comparable with the dfrs (2015a) soc stock of middle mountains region of nepal. the overall average soc stock (54.33 ±1.29 t/ha) was higher in middle mountains than the stocks in lower belt of churia and terai physiographic regions. even in similar forest types, there was more soc in middle mountains than in churia and terai regions (dfrs, 2014a; 2014b cited in dfrs, 2015a). similar result of soc was found in the studied cfs, as all these sites are in the middle mountains region. total carbon stock total forest carbon stock density is calculated by the addition of biomass carbon (table 2) and soil organic carbon (table 3). the agbc, bgbc and soc along with total carbon stock of three community forests are shown in figure 3. fig. 3: carbon stock density of studied three community forests the highest carbon density was found in bpcf (207. 67 t/ha) followed by rmcf (183. 67 t/ha). similarly, the lowest mean value of total carbon stock density of the dkcf was found to be 149. 06 t/ha. the highest carbon stock density in bpcf may be due to the presence of larger sized trees (older trees) and high accumulation of leaf litter. in percentile, dkcf constituted the 44.40% agbc, 8.87 % bgbc and 46.73% soc. the corresponding pools were 38.36 %, 7.61% and 54.03% for rmcf and 53.35%, 10.65% and 36% for bpcf, respectively. anova test showed that there was significant (p<0. 05) difference in total carbon stock density between the community forests. the tukey's hsd test showed that there was significant difference (p>0. 05) in mean carbon stock of bpcf with rmcf and dkcf but there was no significant difference (p>0. 05) in mean carbon stock between rmcf and dkcfs. the soc of this study is lower than the soc of cfs in gorkha (234. 54 t/ha) and chitwan (479. 29 t/ha) districts of the mid-hills (pandey and bhusal, 2016) but higher than mean carbon stock of the middle hills (138. 11t/ha) (dfrs, 2015a). the total carbon table 3 : soil organic carbon, bulk density and ph of the community forests community forest soc (t/ha) mean bulk density (g/cm3) ph soc (t/ha)soil depths (cm) 0-10 10-20 20-30 dkcf 26.65 22.86 20.15 0.97 5.03 69.67 rmcf 38.73 32 28.47 0.88 5.25 99.23 bpcf 30.49 23.79 20.43 0.93 5.06 74.79 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 43‒52 49 pandey et al. stock of rmcf and dkcf except bpcf were higher than national average (176. 95 t/ha) (dfrs, 2015b) (fig. 3). this scenario depicts the better management of community-managed forests with higher amount of carbon sequestration than other modalities of forests in the country. correlation of biomass density and soc with other properties cumulative mean value of biomass density and soc were tested against cumulative mean value of rest of the factors at a time. the test output is presented in table 4. very weak positive correlation was found between biomass density (t/ha) with soil bulk density and it was not significant (p>0. 05). however, there was significant (p<0. 05) negative correlation of biomass density with soc and phosphorus but no significant correlation with other parameters (table 4). on contrary to this result, forest ecosystems store 20–100 times more c per unit area than croplands and hence play a critical role in reducing ambient co2 levels, by sequestering atmospheric c in the growth of woody biomass through the process of photosynthesis and thereby increasing the soc content (brown and pearce, 1994). the possible reasons behind negative relationship between biomass density and soc are young forests and regular extraction of biomass from the forests due to which long time is needed to accumulate, decompose and convert biomass into soc. similarly, soc has significant (p<0.05) correlation with all the parameters, however, soil bulk density has high degree (r = -0.88) of negative correlation (table 4). biomass stock density (t/ha) (table 2) has negative significant (p<0.05) relation with soc and phosphorous content in the soil (table 4). this result revealed that the higher biomass in the forest facilitates the lesser amount of soc and phosphorus in the soil. similarly, alkaline soils with higher contents of primary soil nutrients (npk) have relatively higher soc in forest soil whereas higher the soil bulk density, lesser the soc in the community managed-forest of nepal, especially in dadeldhura district. table 4 : correlation between biomass and soc with other parameter in studied cfs s. n. test parameters correlation coefficient (r) p-value significance (yes/no) 1 biomass density (t/ha) vs. soc (t/ha) -0.38 0.0096 yes 2 biomass density vs. soil bulk density (gm/cm3) 0.23 0.1346 no 3 biomass density vs. soil ph -0.08 0.5824 no 4 biomass density vs. n % -0.22 0.1403 no 5 biomass density vs. p (kg/ha) -0.56 7-e5 yes 6 biomass density vs. k (kg/ha) -0.29 0.054 no 7 socvs. soil bulk density (gm/cm3) -0.88 3.72-e15 yes 8 socvs. soil ph 0.35 0.0198 yes 9 socvs. n % 0.43 0.0033 yes 10 socvs. p (kg/ha) 0.76 1.068-e9 yes 11 soc vs. k (kg/ha) 0.67 4.99-e7 yes correlation coefficient (r) value ranges from -1 to +1, negative value indicates the reciprocal relationship whereas positive value indicates proportional relationship between the test parameters. if the r value is closer to extreme case, then it signifies the stronger association between the parameters and vice-versa. p-value indicates the significant level. if p-value is less than 0. 05, then it indicates that the test result is significant at 5% level and vice-versa. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 43‒52 50 pandey et al. conclusion community-managed forests seemed a viable source of biomass production and carbon sink to combat the global environmental problem by local actions. these forests conserve the relatively more biomass (biomass carbon) than the normally managed forests in the country. the soc decreased with increase in soil depths in the study area. the carbon density significantly varied from one cf to another cf. very weak positive correlation between biomass density (t/ ha) with soil bulk density revealed that the heavy soil catalyze the higher biomass production in the forests. however, significantly negative correlation between biomass density with soc and phosphorous contents in the soil indicates either organic carbon leached in sloppy terrain or uptake by the plants to produce biomass. moreover, biomass density in the forests has no significant relation with soil ph, nitrogen percent in soil, potassium content in cfs of dadeldhura district. but soc has significant relation with most of the soil properties. reciprocal relation between soc and bulk density means that the higher soc was found in the lesser bulk density forest soil. also, higher biomass in the forests facilitates the lesser amount of soc and primary soil nutrients (npk) in forests' soil. similarly, acidic soil with high content of primary soil nutrients (npk) has relatively higher soc in forest soil. this result would be a reference to national and international community of diverse fields who are engaged in forest carbon services related activities such as reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation (redd), clean development mechanism (cdm). similar studies have to be carried out covering larger geographical areas and different ecological zones to generalize the inference. references ansab. 2010. forest carbon stock measurement : guidelines for measuring carbon stocks in community managed forest. asia network for sustainable agriculture and bioresources (ansab), federation of community forest users, nepal (fecofun), international centre for integrated mountain development (icimod), norwegian agency for development cooperation (norad). bajracharya, r. m., lal, r. and kimble, j. m., 1998. soil organic carbon distribution in aggregates and primary particle fractions as influenced by erosion phases and landscape position. in soil processes and the carbon cycle (eds.) lal, r., kimble j., follett. r and stewart, b. a., crc press, boca raton, florida, 353–367. brown, k. and pearce, d. 1994. the economic value of non timber benefits of tropical forests : carbon storage. in the economics of project appraisal and the environment; new horizons in environment economics (ed.) weiss, j., chelttenham (uk) : edward elgar, aldershot publishing. chave, j., andalo, c., brown, s., caims, m. a., chambers, j. q. and eamus, d. 2005. tree allometry and estimation of carbon stocks. oecologia 145 (1) :87–99. dfrs. 2015a. middle mountains forests of nepal. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey (dfrs). kathmandu, nepal. dfrs. 2015b. state of nepal's forests. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey (dfrs). kathmandu, nepal. http ://dfrs. gov. np/downloadfile/state%20of%20 forest_1470140234. pdf. dhm. 2016. meteorological data of the districts. department of hydrology and meteorology, kathmandu, nepal. dixon, r. k., brown, s., houghton, r. a., solomon, a. m., trexler, m. c. and wisniewski, j. 1994. carbon pools and flux of global forest ecosystems. science 263 :185–190. dofsc. 2018. status of community forests users’ groups. department of forests and soil conservation, ministry of forests and environment, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. fao. 2001. soil carbon sequestration for improved land management. world soil resources reports 96. fao, rome, italy. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 43‒52 51 pandey et al. fao. 2011. fao glossary terms. food and agriculture organization of the united nations, rome, italy. geider r. j., delucia, e. h., falkowski, p. g. 2001. primary productivity of planet earth :biological determinants and physical constraints in terrestrial and aquatic habitats. global change biology 7 : 847– 882. gon. 1993. the forest act, 1993. government of nepal, ministry of law, justice and parliamentary affairs, law books management committee, 2017. gon. 2015. the constitution of nepal, kathmandu, nepal : government of nepal, ministry of law, justice and parliamentary affairs, law books management committee, 2015. guggenberger, g., christensen, b. t. and zech, w. 1994. land-use effects on the composition of organic matter in particlesize separate of soil : i. lignin and carbohydrate signature. european journal of soil science 45 :449–458. https ://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/dadeldhura_district. [assessed on 2 august, 2018]. ipcc. 2000. land use, land use change, and forestry : a special report of the ipcc. cambridge university press. cambridge, uk. ipcc. 2006. ipcc guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories : intergovernmental panel on climate change, national greenhouse inventory program. united nations environment program (unep). http ://www. ipcc-nggip. iges. or. jp/ [accessed on 2 august, 2018]. jandle, r., lindner, m., vesterdal, l., bauwens, b., baritz, r., hagedorn, f., johnson, d. w., minkkinen, k. and byrne k. a. (2007). how strongly can forest management influence soil carbon sequestration? geoderma 137 : 253–268 jin, f., yang, h. and zhao, q. 2000. progress in the research of organic carbon storage. soil 32 (1) : 11–17. kirschbaum, m. u. f. 1996. the carbon sequestration potential of tree plantations in australia. in environmental management : the role of eucalypts and other fast growing species (eds.) eldridge, k. g., crowe, m. p. and old, k. m, csiro forestry and forest products, 77–89. lal, r. 2004. soil carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change. geoderma 123 (1-2) :1–22 lamsal, p., kumar, l., atreya, k. and pant, k. p. 2018. forest ecosystem services in nepal : a retrospective synthesis, research gaps and implications in the context of climate change. international forestry review 32 :506–537. lepetz, v., massot, m., schmeller, d. s. and clobert, j. 2009. biodiversity monitoring :someproposals to adequately study species’s responses to climate change. biodiversity and conservation 18 :3185. https ://doi. org/10. 1007/s10531-0099636-0. macdicken, k. 1997. a guide to monitoring carbon storage in forestry and agro forestry projects arlington (va). forest carbon monitoring programme, winrock international institute for agriculture development. oli, b. n. and shrestha, k. 2009. carbon status in forests of nepal : an overview. journal of forest and livelihood 8 (1) :63–67. pandey, h. p. and bhusal, m. 2016. a comparative study on carbon stock in sal (shorea robusta) forest in two different ecological regions of nepal. banko janakari 26 (1) :24–31. https ://www. nepjol. info/index. php/banko/ article/download/15498/12505. pearce, d. w., putz, f. and vanclay, j. k. 2003. sustainable forestry in the tropics : panacea or folly ? forest ecology and management 172 (2-3) :229–247. pearson, t. r., brown, s. l. and birdsey, r. a. 2007. measurement guidelines banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 43‒52 52 pandey et al. for the sequestration of forest carbon. northern research station, department of agriculture, usa. r core team. 2018. r : a language and environment for statistical computing. r foundation for statistical computing, vienna, austria. rasse, d. p., mulder, j., moni, c. and chenu, c. 2006. carbon turnover kinetics with depth in a french loamy soil. soil sci. soc. am. j. 70 (6) : 2097–2105. doi : 10. 2136/sssaj 2006.0056. shrestha, b. m. and singh, b. r. 2008. soil and vegetation carbon pools in a mountain watershed of nepal. nutrient cycling in agro ecosystems 81 : 179–191. shrestha, b. p. 2008. carbon sequestration in schima-castanopsis forest : a case study from palpa district. the greenery-a journal of environment and biodiversity 7 (1) : 34–40. tamrakar, p. r. 2000. biomass and volume tables with species description for community forest management. tree improvement and silviculture component, kathmandu, nepal. unfccc. 2010. draft decision -/cp. 16 : outcome of the work of the ad hoc working group on long-term cooperative action under the united nations framework convention on climate change, 2010. van noordwijk, m., cerri, c., woomer, p. l., nugroho, k. and bermoux, m. 1997. soil carbon dynamics in the humid tropical forest zone. geoderma. 79 :187–225. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 21 climate change brings lasting changes in forests and biodiversity together with the ecosystem services altering its ability to support present and future economic activities. current forest utilization and preservation is based on how forests developed under past climatic conditions. policy-makers and forest managers must accept that climate change is inevitable and from which forests and forest communities are significantly impacted globally and in nepal also, sustainable forest management (sfm) is already based on many measures to adapt to climate change as planned adaptation will reduce vulnerability at intervened sites and will have long term impacts. however, many forest species will be adapting autonomously and society will have to adjust to the result. adaptation requires planning for change so that a suite of options for the future but based on the present practice and knowledge is to be available whenever needed. on the foundation of concurrent learning, knowledge and experiences of national adaption program of action (napa) process, the national adaptation plan (nap) process for forests and biodiversity will build medium and long-term adaptation strategies and plans with widely accepted objectives of future forests and biodiversity management. key words: adaptation, biodiversity, climate change, forest, nap integrating forests and biodiversity in nepal's national adaptation plan: a review and synthesis of knowledge stock on opportunities and way forward g. karki1*, b. paudel2 and b. k. uprety2 climate change is one of the pronounced global challenges for our civilisation which is calling for immediate responses to tackle its impacts for the sake of current as well as future generations. the changing climate has been affecting all economic sectors and complicatedly intertwined with multiple environmental pressures such as loss of biodiversity, deforestation, forest and land degradation, desertification, water and air pollution, etc. including other sectors, forests and biodiversity in nepal is highly vulnerable to climate change due to climate variability and associated risks of the natural disasters (moe/napa, 2010). the effective response to climate change requires urgent formulation and implementation of comprehensive strategic plans and programmes that could halt the damages posed by climate change and prepare the economic sectors and population to adapt with. nepal commenced systematic adaptation planning based on the vulnerabilities after the national adaptation programme of action (napa) process in 2010. understanding that napa is intended to reduce climate change vulnerabilities through urgent and immediate actions, the national adaptation plan (nap) process has been put forward to address medium and long-term climate change adaptation needs. nepal, a least developed himalayan country, characterized by high levels of poverty, dense population, exposure to climate-related events, and their reliance on flood and drought-prone agricultural land (ncvst, 2009; ids et al., 2014), is one of the most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change. the ongoing climatic change and changes projected to occur are likely to have impacts on forests and biodiversity which urge for comprehensive adaptation actions. climate change adaptation considerations in forest and biodiversity management plans 1 thematic lead-forests and biodiversity in nap process * e-mail: gyanendra.karki@forestrynepal.org 2 nap formulation process/ministry of population and environment banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 22 articulating specific goals and objectives for climate change will help to create better avenues for adaptation in forestry sector. a clear statement of goals and objectives based on current trend and future scenario of climate change can lead to an achievement of stated goal that addresses longterm concerns within short-term decisions (gregory et al., 2001). this paper collates information on major climate change impacts on forests and biodiversity and the response to address impacts of climate change through policy and programmes. it envisions to review the policy measures and the programmes undertaken to address impacts of climate change in the sector. as nepal is formulating nap, which is aimed at reducing vulnerability and integrating adaptation into the development planning process (leg, 2012), it is imperative to assess the key gaps and needs in the forestry sector which accounts for 15% of gdp of the country (mope, 2017) with a potential to generate employment for about 100,000 mandays per year (msfp, 2015). moreover, forests in nepal have a total carbon stock of 1,054.97 million tonnes (dfrs, 2015), the trading of which could further offer additional economic contributions for adaptation actions. hence the idea of this paper emphasizes on creating an enabling policy environment for the nap formulation process by understanding the existing situation and future requirements. materials and methods this study is a synthesis of the knowledge stock and is based on the review of published reports, journal articles and research papers. information was drawn from national repositories. the policy provisions were reviewed from nepal’s policies, strategies, plans, and gaps and needs were identified accordingly. in addition, national experiences, consultations with key experts and their judgment also flourished the discussions. results and discussion global warming and climate change are the biggest concerns since they affect the whole ecosystem and human population. its impact on forests and biodiversity is more pronounced and easily understood as this sector is more dependent on climate sensitive natural nurture. in nepal, early symptoms of climate change due to alarmingly increased temperature have been observed. forests and biodiversity was considered one of the most climate sensitive and highly affected thematic areas in napa (moe/napa, 2010) and the same proposition was adopted in nap formulation process too where forests and biodiversity is a distinct thematic area. climate change poses a new dimension to forest and biodiversity management and planning because forests are not only affected by climate change but also by the climate change affected community and political economy as the mountain forest is expected to be most affected by a changing climate (gitay et al., 2001, houghton et al., 2001, ipcc, 2007). in nepal, forests cover about 45% of the area (dfrs, 2015), and play a critical role in regulating global and local climate, global carbon and water cycles, and in national economy (bhatti et al.,2003, karki, 2013). on contrary, forests are also highly affected by changing climate, with their distribution and characters being largely determined directly or indirectly by climate (kuusela. 1990, mcguire and chapin, 2006). by 2100, global climate is expected to warm by 1.4 to 5.8°c, but the temperature increase in nepal is projected to be double than this (ipcc, 2001 and 2007), with major implications for mountain biodiversity and forests. a study by organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd) using global circulation model (gcm) at special report on emissions scenarios (sres) b2 scenario shows increment of mean annual temperature by an average of 1.3°c, 1.7°c and 3°c by 2030, 2050 and 2100 respectively, in comparison to the 2000 baseline (moe/napa, 2010). in this situation, the nap process and its outcomes could be a point of departure for further adaptation medium and long-term planning in forests and biodiversity thematic area. climate change concerns of forestry sector forest’s contributions to the well-being of humankind is enormous and wide-ranging including its input in fostering agriculture and assisting in combating rural poverty and providing decent livelihoods, as about 76% of nepal’s population depends on forests for their livelihoods (amatya, 2013), where some 64% still using fuelwood as a major source of domestic energy (cbs, 2014). in addition to addressing climate change impacts, forests also offer green growth karki et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 23 opportunities and provide vital environmental services such as conserving biodiversity and watersheds. with providing essential goods and services, sustainably managed forests ultimately contribute to sustainable development. therefore, forests and their roles have also been strongly recognized in the sustainable development goals (npc, 2015). forests are not only the livelihoods base of rural community, but they are also one of the key economic sectors of nepal (subedi et al., 2014), it contributes to the national economy by providing an average annual revenue of npr 550 million (usd 5.4 million). moreover, the sale of different forest products and services, including timber, non-timber forest products (ntfps) and nature-based tourism, has become a significant source of national revenue (subedi et al., 2014). nepal houses 118 ecosystems, 75 vegetation types and 35 forest types (bpp, 1995; jackson, 1994; mofsc, 2014) and is characterized by a high number of floral and faunal diversity (table 1). majority of the ecosystem are reported to be found in the mid mountain (52 ecosystems) and in the high mountain (38 ecosystems) (mofsc, 2014). out of these ecosystems, 80 ecosystems are in the existing protected areas that cover 23.23% of the country’s area (dnpwc, 2016). xu et al. (2009) have projected that a 1oc increase in mean annual temperature will result in a shift in isotherms about 160 m in elevation or 150 km northward in mountain ecosystems. nepal is experiencing intense rainfall and/or drought with increased frequencies of landslides, floods, droughts, and forest fires and with accelerated damage to life and property but no clear and significant trend has been noticed in rainfall pattern (moe/napa, 2010). there is an increase at an average annual precipitation of 3.6 mm from 1976 to 2005. however, observed precipitation has reached over 40 mm/year in some small pocket areas while decreased annual rainfall has been observed in most parts of midwestern development region (baidya et al., 2007 and jvs/gwp, 2015). these statements indicate that a small change in the temperature will have dramatic change in the precipitation which is the major attribute of sustainable forest and biodiversity management. table 1: floral and faunal diversity in nepal floral diversity faunal diversity group # of species group # of species angiosperm 6973 mammals 208 gymnosperm 26 birds 867 bryophyte 1150 reptiles 123 pteridophyte 534 amphibians 117 fungi 1822 fish 230 lichens 465 butterflies 651 algae 1001 moths 3958 spider 175 others 5642 total 11971 11861 source: moe, 2010; mofsc, 2014 another climate change concern of forestry sector is vulnerability to forest fires in nepal. forest fires occur annually in all physiographic/ climatic regions of nepal. rimal et al. (2015) analysed the international centre for integrated mountain developmentmoderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (icimod-modis) based forest fire detection and monitoring system data until 2013 and found that terai region is the most vulnerable to forest fires. forest fire is a serious driver of forest degradation with increased incidents in nepal and is one of the toughest threats to forest conservation in nepal (karki et al., 2013 and karki, 2015a, 2015b) which has two fold implication i.e. it’s a source of greenhouse gas (ghg) emission and the accelerated climate change due to ghg emission triggers more forest fires. both preparedness and combating forest fires is further compounded in the hills and mountains due to remoteness, and this is accelerated by prolonged droughts in recent years. furthermore, introduction of alien invasive species is another concern but very few data available on the magnitude and impacts and infestation of alien invasion. invasive species invade degraded forests and then colonize the site gradually. the central and eastern parts of nepal seem to have high infestation by invasive species in comparison to the western parts (rai et al., 2012) karki et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 24 like for other biological systems, both temperature and precipitation are critical to forests. in general, warmer and wetter will enhance forest growth, while warmer and drier will likely be detrimental. if drying is significant, grasses will often replace forests in natural systems (bowes and sedjo, 1993) where for the 2xco2 climate, a poleward shift of vegetation by 500 km or more is assumed (solomon and kirilenko, 1997). in general, climate change is likely to shift natural forests toward the poles (to high altitude also). thus, for forests, the changes will be the greatest in the temperate climate. for forests growth and composition, perhaps changes in precipitation and moisture is more important than change in temperature because limits on moisture could result in forestlands being converted to grasses. although climate models are not generally regarded as good predictors of regional precipitation changes, the interiors of continents tend to be dry, and this tendency should be exacerbated under climate change and warming (sedjo, 2010). some impacts of climate change on forests are likely to be beneficial also. increased temperature could have direct effects on plant growth by enhancing photosynthesis and respiration rates, and plants can tolerate even extremely high temperatures, if sufficient water is available (kirschbaum, 1998). sensitivity of natural systems like forests is linked to the projected climate change-induced impacts, the degree to which natural systems have been degraded and the unsustainable utilization of resources. among forest species, ntfps are directly exposed and more sensitive to climate change. declined productivity of economically viable ntfps, such as panch aunle (dactylorhiza hatageria), silajit (rock exudates), amala (phyllanthus emblica), ritha (sapindus mukurosii), timur (zanthoxylum armatum), and bel (aegle marmelos) have been observed as a result of climate change (mofsc, 2011). a decrease in the availability of ntfps will impact the communities dependent on these resources for their livelihoods (mope, 2017). increase in population often result in the conversion of forest lands to cultivation and more intensive farming that result to accelerated forest fires and land degradation. there are also expected impacts on soil erosion, fertility in the soils, and depletion of water resources and genetic variability of crops (sinha et al., 1998; ipcc, 2001). impacts of climate change on biodiversity our understanding of the impacts of climate change on nepal’s biodiversity is inadequate (mope, 2017). the millennium ecosystem assessment showed that over the past 50 years human activities have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than at any comparable period in our history (ma, 2005). these changes have bagged many net development gains but at growing environmental costs: biodiversity loss, land degradation, and reduced access to adequate water and natural resources for many of the world’s poorest people. biodiversity loss matters because species and habitats are the building blocks on which human livelihoods depend, the foundation for production forests, fisheries and agricultural crops. enhanced protection and management of biological resources will also contribute to solutions as nations and communities strive to adapt to climate change (world bank, 2008). the risk of climate change to human systems is increased by the loss of ecosystem services that are supported by biodiversity (e.g., water purification, protection from extreme weather events, preservation of soils, recycling of nutrients, and pollination of crops). studies since the fourth assessment report (ar4) broadly confirm that a large proportion of species are at increased risk of extinction (oppenheimer et al., 2014). nepal houses about 12000 faunal species (mofsc, 2014). a smaller change in temperature significantly affects the rich biodiversity of nepal making it more vulnerable. natural disasters, such as landslides, glacial lake outburst floods and drought which have been triggered by climate change pose considerable threat to ecosystems and the people (mofsc, 2014). further, global warming may cause forest damage through migration of forests towards the polar region, change in their composition, and extinction of species. tropical forest and warm temperate forest would disappear, and cool temperate vegetation would turn to warm temperate vegetation. vegetation pattern would be different under the incremental scenario (at 2oc rise of temperature and 20% rise of rainfall) than the existing types (sedjo, 2010; bazzaz, 1998). in this situation, species with narrow tolerances may vanish by virtue of the extinction of their habitat. karki et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 25 detail impacts of climate change on nepal’s biodiversity are inadequate as less research have been conducted in this sector. some of the known impacts are: (i) shifts in agro-ecological zones, prolonged dry spells, and higher incidences of pests and diseases, (ii) increased temperature and rainfall variability, (iii) increased emergence and quickened spread of invasive alien plant species, (iv) increased incidence of forest fire in recent years, (v) changes in phenological cycles of tree species, (vi) shifting of tree line in the himalaya, and (vii) depletion of wetlands (moe/napa, 2010). the following are some of the likely impacts of climate change on biodiversity: a. the climatic range of many species will move upward in elevation from their current locations. having differential effects, some species will migrate through fragmented landscapes whilst others may not be able to do so. many species that are already vulnerable are likely to become extinct. species with limited climatic ranges and/ or with limited geographical opportunities (e.g., mountain top species), species with restricted habitat requirements, and/or small populations are typically the most vulnerable (xu et al., 2009). b. changes in the frequency, intensity, extent, and locations of climatically and non climatically induced disturbances will affect how and at what rate the existing ecosystems will be replaced by new plant and animal assemblages. the high himal and high mountain ecosystems are likely to be worst affected by climate change. among the natural habitats, remnant native grasslands are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change (bcn and dnpwc, 2011). the impacts of climate change are likely to increase in future, which will not only affect biodiversity but also livelihoods of millions of local and indigenous people who depend on biodiversity. disruption of ecological services on which they depend due to climate change is expected to especially affect the poorest and most vulnerable communities (unep, 2010). national adaptation plan formulation process and forestry sector nepal’s nap is aimed at building on the experiences of the moe/napa (2010) and local adaptation plan for action (lapa) implementation. napa provides a process for the least developed countries (ldcs) to identify priority activities that respond to their urgent and immediate needs to adapt to climate change – those for which further delay would increase vulnerability and/or costs at a later stage (unfccc, 2016). since vulnerability to climate change, particularly in the ldcs, is increasing over the years, 16th conference of the parties (cop) to the unfccc in 2010, realized the need for the medium and long-term adaptation together with addressing the most urgent and immediate adaptation needs. under the cancun adaptation framework (caf), the cop16 established a process to enable ldc parties to formulate and implement nap, and established adaptation committee to promote implementation of enhanced action on adaptation. the nap aims to reduce vulnerability to the impacts of climate change by building adaptive capacity and resilience. the objective is to facilitate integration of climate change adaptation, in a coherent manner, into relevant new and existing policies, programme and activities, in particular development planning processes and strategies, within all relevant sectors and at different levels, as appropriate. having climate change adaptation (cca) a high priority at national development discourse, nepal has been amplifying its efforts on raising awareness and building capacities in climate change along with creating enabling policy environment in addressing climate change in nepal. in the context where impacts of climate change are likely to couple up in the decade or so, forestry sector’s challenge is to conserve pristine biodiversity values together with fulfilling the need of growing population and infrastructure development. taking into account of the experience and outcomes of the napa process, the thematic working group (twg) on forests and biodiversity has been led by the mofsc. as the lead, mofsc is expected to coordinate with all stakeholders, facilitate the process of vulnerability and risk assessment (vra), propose karki et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 26 medium and long-term adaptation options, inter alia, develop effective financial mechanism and institutional framework in line with the new governance system. key gaps and challenges nepal has formulated many plans and policies in forests and biodiversity sector. however, there are critical gaps that need to be addressed to effectively address the increasing threats of climate change. impacts of climate change cannot be and must not be denied while addressing other conservation and forests management and economic development issues in policy discourse. broadly, the gaps include, a) inadequacy of policy to identify the poor and for providing special facilities on the basis of the identity, b) effectively addressing the emerging global challenges including climate change, c) the mechanism of benefit sharing between the state, developer and local communities on the use of local natural resources and d) the occasional conflicts between policies and acts that tend to take a long time to resolve. the institutional gap, at first, points to the organizational structure of mofsc. except creating redd implementation centre (which is basically not for adaptation), there is neither in the ministry nor in the departments, a designated desk to deal with climate change adaptation exist. both forest policy 2015 (mofsc, 2015) and forestry sector strategy 2014 (mofsc, 2014b) have clearly articulated the action points on climate change adaptation and mitigation including institutional reform, which urges forestry sector to lead the local adaptation planning and implementation process through existing forest user groups. but, a true translation of those strategic points into action is yet to be observed. other issues are the focus on a top-down approach in implementation, lack of effective monitoring mechanisms, and weak inter-sectoral and interagency coordination. the projects implemented in forestry sector have multiple significance on climate change but institutional synthesis, memory and collection and replication of good practice are still missing. these gaps have delayed decision making, leading to poor implementation, lack of an enabling environment, poor compliance and social safeguards, inadequate devolution to local bodies as envisaged by decentralization policy, and inadequate resources (human and financial) and technology for effectively designing and implementing the adaptation actions. data gap and limitation is another challenge. while preparing the vulnerability assessment report for the moe/napa (2010), use of expert judgement particularly in assigning weights to the various climate indicators was necessarily subjective. this has somehow missed the real vulnerability and hence further work is required on the sensitivity, risk/exposure, and adaptation capability indices and consequently the outputs on the basis of these indices, which hopefully need to be considered and the problems should be rectified in the nap process. moreover, there is limited research on assessing vulnerability, exposure and climate change impact on forests and biodiversity since it demands long-term engagement (mofsc, 2010). setting the goal of future forests and biodiversity is next pertinent challenge. the policy and strategic documents have stated broader forest management goals that anticipate a desired outcome, and objectives describe the range of conditions that are necessary to achieve management goals. within the context of climate change, the determination of the potential range of future conditions that could occur under different climate scenarios is expected together with its relation to the desired future conditions. second, while the influence of climate change on forest ecosystems poses new questions as to how sustainable forest and biodiversity management can be achieved (spittlehouse and stewart, 2003), in nepal also, the existing principles and practice of sfm within all forest management regimes embody many of the activities that will be required to respond to the effects of climate change on forests. nepal is comparatively new in systematic forest management although significant achievements are in place within a course of half century practice. nepal has rejuvenated the denuded forest lands and equally conserved the globally endangered and rare ecosystems including flora and fauna. however, at the interface of climate change, there are several challenges including (i) enhancing knowledge of the impact of climate change on ecosystems and species, (ii) mitigating the negative impacts of climate change, (iii) karki et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 27 promoting ecosystem-based adaptation methods and (iv) keeping people’s involvement intact in managing forest and conserving biodiversity additional issues include how to strengthen the process for translating the policy into implementation; mitigation of dependence on foreign technology for climate change adaptation due to inability to develop domestic technology; strategic enhancement; evaluation of the contributions of local genetic resources in climate change adaptation; and need to strengthen monitoring mechanism and system (npc, 2015). opportunities in the nap process for forests and biodiversity sector nap process is an opportunity to integrate adaptation into the forests and biodiversity policies, strategies, plans and programme. as nap is expected to develop adaptation measures for medium and long-term, it is imperative to consider the major objective of the forests and biodiversity such as conservation of biological diversity, maintenance of productive capacity, forest health and vitality and contribution to global carbon cycles. further it is important to rationalize on how to adapt forestry policies and actions to achieve these objectives in changing climate to meet the needs of societies and adoption of present legal, institutional, and economic framework for forest conservation and sustainable management. as for the nap process, vulnerability and risk assessment framework put forth by ar5 of ipcc has been considered, the gaps that was encountered during the napa vulnerability assessment could be addressed where holistic science (data based) approach could be used in assessing the vulnerability. it is also an opportunity to refine and validate the data that are available in forestry and biodiversity sector. although generic adaptation options for forestry are available in the literature (e. g., spittlehouse and stewart, 2003; ogden and innes, 2008), little research outcomes are available to evaluate their applicability in a local or applied context of forestry. in relation to climate change adaptation, structured decision making is required that involves: (1) establishing management objectives for the future forest, which are considered to be synonymous with the internationally agreed upon criteria for sfm; (2) determining the vulnerability of forest ecosystems, forest communities, local economies, and human populations; (3) developing alternative adaptation options; (4) evaluating alternative options against management objectives; (5) implementing desired adaptation policies and measures; (6) monitoring the effectiveness of climate change adaptation efforts in achieving management objectives; and (7) modifying management practices when adaptation efforts are not successful in meeting management objectives (e.g., adaptive management) (ohlson et al. 2005; ogden and innes, 2008). current forest utilization and preservation is based on how forests developed under past climatic conditions. policy makers and forest managers must accept that climate change is probable and that forests and forest communities face significant impacts. adaptation requires planning for change so that a suite of options for the future but based on the present practice and knowledge is to be available whenever needed. for a smooth facilitation of this process, a number of questions of forest management must be addressed (spitlehouse et al., 2003), such as, current research needs to aid development of strategies for climate change adaptation; capacity needs of the forestry community to enhance awareness and to facilitate adaptation at all levels; forest management actions implemented now that reduce compromise in future responses; policy and strategies need to be in place to facilitate adaptation in forests and biodiversity; current knowledge base and monitoring systems adequate to spot problems tempted by climate change soon enough to allow implementation of an acceptable response, which forest ecosystems and species will have to adapt autonomously and where we can intervene a planned adaptation, etc. nepal is now to formulate a clear vision that can lead the country to undergo rapid socioeconomic transformation to become a prosperous middleincome country (npc, 2015). in this connection the nap process is going to be instrumental to envision the climate change risks to sustainable development and propose and implement adaptation measures to halt the damages posed by climate change. on top, the new local governance system has transferred more responsibilities to the local level, where if the nap process could give a clearer current picture with future scenario, could karki et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 28 facilitate the local authorities to better plan for adaptation for not only forests and biodiversity but for all resource and service sectors. conclusions and recommendations the impacts of climate change on forests and biodiversity are very complex compared to other sectors. climate change induced risks projected in the greater himalayas, however, cannot only be addressed by a natural process of gradual adaptation. consolidated and coordinated adaptation interventions have to be in place considering the local knowledge, tools and practices. climate change, no action to tackle it, is the greatest threat to growth. the longer we wait, the harder and more expensive it will be and the costs will be the greatest for the developing world (freer-smith et al., 2007). in this backdrop, as forests and biodiversity sector is more exposed to climate change, it is one of the highly sensitive and thus highly vulnerable sector. forests are not only impacted by the climate change itself, they are also facing surmounted pressure from the people and communities affected by climate change as well. forests and climate change are fundamentally linked, in ways that range beyond carbon. the uncertainties associated with projections of climate change and associated impacts emphasize the need to identify robust but flexible management strategies that are likely to achieve the sfm goals and are likely to implement well across a wide range of potential future climate conditions (ogden and innes, 2008). flexible and responsive strategies to new information is sought (lempert et al., 2003), specifically to incorporate the principles of adaptive management as climate change scenarios are associated with irreducible uncertainties originating from a variety of factors, including a lack of information, long time scales, complexity of the climate system, measurement error and disagreement about structural models (moss and schneider, 2000; kalindikar et al.. 2005). climate change brings lasting changes in the ecosystem services altering its ability to support present and future economic activities which have already been observed in the mountains of nepal. unlike environmental problems, which are local and can be solved by relatively short-term interventions, climate change requires lasting solutions with coordinated and harmonised interventions in the long term. for nepal, which is more vulnerable and has fragile geography and socio-economy, climate change adaptation strategy should be viewed as part of the risk management component of a sustainable forest and biodiversity management plan under future climate change where adaptation should be facilitated by successful traditional technologies and practices used over the centuries. it should also be coupled by incorporation of climate change concerns into resource use and development decisions and plans for regularly scheduled investments. the nap process, need to recognise the key area of interventions for future adaptation planning within the national strategic thrust. with these all considerations in the light of the nap guidelines, nepal has developed a ‘nap approach’ and framework for vra. an inclusive and wider representative thematic working group (twg) is in place. the immediate next step is to capacitate the twg and involve in this iterative process to produce a functional nap document that could address the anticipated climate risk and vulnerability of thematic area including all sectors and support in climate resilient development pathway. acknowledgements the nap process in nepal has been led by the ministry of population and environment and supported by the ukaid, act, opm and practical action. references amatya, s. m. 2013. financing for sustainable forests management in nepal. indufor, auckland, new zealand. available on: http://www.un.org/esa/forests/ baidya, s. k., regmi, r. k. and shrestha, m. l. 2007. climate profile and observed climate change and climate variability in nepal. department of hydrology and meteorology, kathmandu nepal. bazzaz, f. a. 1998. tropical forests in a future climate: changes in biological diversity and impact on the global carbon cycle. in climate change, special issue: potential impacts of climate change on tropical forest ecosystems (ed.) schneider, s. h., karki et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 29 kluwer academic publishers, london, 177—336. bcn and dnpwc. 2011. the state of nepal’s birds 2010. bird conservation nepal (bcn) and department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc), kathmandu, nepal. bhatti, j. s., van kooten, g. c., apps, m. j., laird, l.d., campbell, i. d., campbell, c., turetsky, m. r.,yu, z. and banfield, e. 2003. carbon balance and climate change in boreal forests. in towards sustainable management of the boreal forest (eds.) burton, p.j., messier, c., smith, d.w. and adamowicz, w.l., national research council of canada, ottawa, ontario, canada, 799—855. bowes, m. and sedjo, r. 1993. impacts and responses to climate change in forests of the mink region. climatic change 24: 63—82. bpp. 1995. biodiversity project profile. government of nepal/netherlands. cbs. 2014. environment statistics of nepal. central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. dfrs. 2015. state of nepal’s forests. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey (dfrs). kathmandu, nepal. isbn: 978-9937-8896-3-6 dnpwc. 2016. annual report (fy 2071/72). department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc). babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. freer-smith, p.h., broadmeadow, m.s.j., and lynch j. m (eds). 2007. forestry and climate change. cab international, 2007.wallingford u.k.; gitay, h., brown, s.,easterling, w. and jallow, b. 2001. ecosystems and their goods and services. in climate change 2001: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability, (eds.) pages 235–342 in mccarthy, j. j., canziani, o. f., leary, n. a., dokken, d. j. and white, k. s., contribution of working group ii to the tar of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. cambridge university press, cambridge and new york, 235—342. gregory, r., mcdaniels, t. l. and fields, d. 2001. decision-aiding not dispute resolution: creating insights through structured environmental decisions. journal of policy analysis and management 20 (3): 415— 432. houghton, j. t., ding, y., griggs, d. j., noguer, m., van der linden, p. j., dai, x., maskell, k. and johnson,c. a. (editors). 2001. climate change 2001: the scientific basis. contribution of working group i to the third assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. cambridge university press, cambridge and new york. jackson, j. k. 1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. 2nd edition. forest. research and survey centre, kathmandu, nepal. jvs/gwp. 2015. stocktaking: climate vulnerability on agricultural sector for national adaptation plan process. jalsrot vikas sanstha (jvs)/gwp nepal march 2015. ids-nepal, pac and gcap. 2014. economic impact assessment of climate change in key sectors in nepal. ids-nepal, kathmandu, nepal. ipcc. 2001. climate change 2001: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. in contribution of working group ii to the third assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (eds.) mccarthy, j. j., canziani, o. f., leary, n. a., dokken, d. j. and white, k. s., cambridge university press, cambridge, united kingdom and new york, usa. ipcc. 2007. energy supply. in the assessment report of working group iii. chapter 4. new york: cambridge university press. http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg3. htm kandlikar, m. risbey, j. and dessai, s. 2005. representing and communicating deep uncertainty in climate-change assessments. geosciences 337 (4) : 443—455. karki, g. 2015a. climate change vulnerability assessment and potential adaptation karki et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 30 measures for local communities of the chure project area. wwf nepal. karki, g. 2015b. forest fire hazard mapping of chandranigahpur (rautahat) and ratanpuri (bara) vdcs. wwf nepal, sustainable land management project, kathmandu, nepal. karki, g., acharya, r. p., dhakal, s. and sharma, r. 2013. a wwf/hariyo ban commissioned forest fire hazard mapping of gorkha district, final report. karki, m. 2013. green economy for sustainable development in nepal: role of forestry sector. the initiation. vol 5 (2013) : 96— 109 kirschbaum, muf. 1998. the impacts of climate change on the growth and ecology of tropical forests. in tropical forests and climate change: status, issues and challenges (tffc’98), proceedings of the international conference on, college of forestry and natural resources, university of the philippines, los banos, philippines,19—44. kuusela, k. 1990. the dynamics of boreal coniferous forests. finnish national fund for research and development (sitra), helsinki, finland. least developed countries expert group (leg). 2012. national adaptation plans. technical guidelines for the national adaptation plan process. bonn: unfccc secretariat. bonn, germany. december 2012. lempert, r. j., popper, s.w. and bankes, s.c. 2003. shaping the next one hundred years: new methods for quantitative, long-term policy analysis. rand corporation, santa monica, california, usa. mcguire, a. d. and chapin, f.s. 2006. climate feedbacks in the alaskan boreal forest. in alaska’s changing boreal forest, (eds.) chapin iii, oswood, m. w., van cleve, k., viereck, l. a. and verbyla, d. l. f. s., pages 309–322 in f. s. chapin, iii, m. w. oswood, k. van cleve, l. a. viereck, and d. l. verbyla, oxford university press, new york, usa, 309—322. millennium ecosystem assessment (ma). 2005. ecosystems and human well-being: synthesis. island press, washington, dc, usa. moe/napa.2010. national adaptation program of action (napa) to climate change. ministry of science technology and environment, kathmandu, nepal. mofsc. 2011. role of forest on climate change adaptation. ministry of forests and soil conservation (mofsc), redd forestry and climate change cell, kathmandu, nepal. mofsc. 2014a. nepal biodiversity strategy and action plan (2014—2020). ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. mofsc. 2014b. forestry sector strategy (2012—2022). ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. mofsc, 2015. forest policy 2071. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. mope. 2017. synthesis of stock taking report for national adaptation plan (nap) formulation process in nepal. ministry of population and environment, kathmandu, nepal. moss, r.h. and schneider, s.h. 2000. uncertainties in the ipcc tar: recommendations to lead authors for more consistent assessment and reporting. in guidance: papers on the cross cutting issues of the third assessment report of the ipcc (eds.) pachauri, r., taniguchi, t. and tanaka, k.,world meteorological organization, geneva, switzerland, 33— 51. msfp. 2015. creating jobs and income through forestry in nepal. multistakeholder forestry programme, kathmandu, nepal. ncvst. 2009. vulnerability through the eyes of vulnerable: climate change induced uncertainties and nepal’s development predicaments, iset-n and iset, boulder, karki et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 31 colorado for nepal climate vulnerability study team (ncvst) kathmandu, nepal. npc. 2015. sustainable development goals, 2016—2030, national (preliminary) report. government of nepal, national planning commission, kathmandu, nepal ogden, a. e. and innes, j. l. 2008. climate change adaptation and regional forest planning in southern yukon, canada. mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change 13 (8) : 833—861. ohlson, d. w., mckinnon, g. a. and hirsch, k. g. 2005. a structured decision-making approach to climate change adaptation in the forest sector. the forestry chronicle 81 (1) : 97—103. oppenheimer, m., campos, m., warren, r., birkmann, j., luber, g., o’neill, b. and takahashi, k. 2014: emergent risks and key vulnerabilities. in climate change 2014: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. part a: global and sectoral aspects. contribution of working group ii to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (eds.) field, c. b., v. r. barros, d. j. dokken, k. j. mach, m. d. mastrandrea, t. e. bilir, m. chatterjee, k. l. ebi, y. o. estrada, r. c. genova, b. girma, e. s. kissel, a. n. levy, s. maccracken, p. r. mastrandrea, and l. l. white, cambridge university press, cambridge, united kingdom and new york, ny, usa, 1039—1099. rai, r. k. and scarborough, h. 2012. valuing the damage caused by invasive plant species in a low-income community in nepal. sandee working papers, issn 1893-1891; wp 74–1. isbn: 978-9937596-03-9. rimal, b., karki, g., trines, e. and goor, w. v. 2015. analytical study on assessing the value of forests, the political economy of land use and the carbon emissions from the drivers of dd: an assessment of drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in nepal. gon/mofsc/ redd cell. kathmandu, nepal. sedjo, r. a. 1993. economic aspects of climate, forests, and fire: a north american perspective. environment international 17(2/3): 163—168. sedjo, r. a. 2010. discussion paper on adaptation of forests to climate change: some estimates. the resources for the future. 1616 p st. nw washington, dc 20036 202-328-5000. sinha, s. k., rai, m. and singh, g.b., 1998. decline in productivity in punjab and haryana: a myth or reality ? indian council of agricultural research (icar) publication, new delhi, india. solomon, a. m. and kirilenko, a. p.1997. global ecology and biogeography. letters 6:139— 148. spittlehouse, d. l., and stewart, r. b. 2003. adaptation to climate change in forest management. british columbia. journal of ecosystems and management 4(1):1—11. subedi, b. p., ghimire, p. l., khanal, s.c., gyawali, s., katwal, p., sthapit, k. r. and gauli, k. 2014. potential of forestry sector in economic growth and development: short concept notes on five themes. multi stakeholder forestry programme, kathmandu, nepal. unfccc. 2016. climate action now: summary for policy makers (spm). united nations climate change secretariat platz der vereinten nationen 1 53113 bonn, germany. unep. 2010. integrated solutions for biodiversity, climate change and poverty. unep policy series 1, ecosystem management. world bank. 2008. biodiversity, climate change and adaptation, nature based solutions from the world bank portfolio. the international bank for reconstruction and development / the world bank. 1818 h street, nw washington, dc 20433 usa september 2008. xu, j. c, grumbine, r. e., shrestha, a., erriksson, m., yang, x., wang, y. and wilkes, a. 2009. the melting himalayas: cascading effects of climate change on water, biodiversity, and livelihoods. conservation biology 23 (3): 520—530. karki et al. 39 forest soils play a vital role in the global carbon cycle (detwiler and hall, 1988; jabaggy and jackson, 2000). most of the soil organic carbon (soc) is stored in the upper layers (unep, 2012; spain et al., 1983; burke et al., 1989), and are at a high risk of emission to the atmosphere due to disturbances and land use changes (lal, 2010). soil fertility, an important factor which determines the growth of plants depends on the concentration of n, p, and k organic and inorganic materials, micronutrients and water. lack of nutrient inputs is a major factor in soil degradation. understanding of soil chemical reaction and processes is essential for developing innovative resource management strategies, and understanding and regulating the behaviour of the terrestrial ecosystem at regional and global scale (tale and ingole, 2015). information on soil properties with regards to forest soil-depth are important for sustainable management of forest. soil productivity, health, sustainability, sequestration and emission potentials can be assessed by quantifying soc (vashum et al., 2016). vertical distribution of soc in relation to vegetation and land use is less understood (jabbagy and jackson, 2000). the soil carbon studies conducted in nepal mainly focused on its relation with land use (awasthi et al., 2005; bajracharya et al., 2004, 2015; dahal and bajracharya, 2012). the tropical forest soils of western nepal are less studied. hence, the present study aims to investigate the top soil physiochemical properties in the tropical forests of western terai region of nepal in relation to depth. physicochemical properties of tropical forest top soil in relation to depth in western nepal b. gautam1* and m. k. chettri1 1 department of botany, amrit campus (t.u.), kathmandu. *email: gautambikash2007@gmail.com information on soil properties with regards to forest soil-depth are important for sustainable management of forest. the present study investigated the physicochemical properties of the top soil (0−30cm depth) in the three forests, viz. i) the terai shorea forest (bardia national park), ii) the evergreen riverine forest (bardia national park) and iii) the puraina cf (kailali district) of western nepal. in the tropical forests of western nepal, the soil texture is, moreover, loamy sand to sand. the soil bulk density ranged from 1.33−1.63 gm cm-3, and slightly increased with the increase in the soil-depth. the soil ph value ranged from 5.77−7.36. the soil organic carbon, total nitrogen (n), available phosphorus (p), and available potassium (k) were found to be in the ranges of 0.54−1.64%, 0.04−0.14%, 4.84−31.72 kg ha-1, and 204.35−557.44 kg ha-1, respectively, and all these values decreased with the increase in the soil-depth in both the forests of the protected area; however, this decreasing trend of the soil nutrients with the increase in the soil-depth was not observed in the puraina cf as the values of the soil nutrients were lower within 0−10cm in the cf. the soil nutrients with all the depths were found to be the highest in the terai shorea forest. the lower values of the soil nutrients in the puraina cf were the result of resource extraction. keywords: forest soil, management practice soil properties, soil nutrients, top soil banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1, 2020 pp 39‒48https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i1.29181 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 40 gautam & chettri materials and methods study area the present study was conducted in the three forests, viz. i) the terai shorea forest situated in the south-western sector of the bardia national park (bnp) in western nepal, ii) the evergreen riverine forest situated in the south-western sector of the bnp, and iii) the puraina community forest (cf) situated in kailali district in western nepal. the bardia national park is located between 28o17'−28040' n latitudes, and between 81o12' e − 81o43' e longitudes. similarly, puraina community forest (cf) is located between 28o39' n − 28o40' n latitudes and 81o 00' e−81o01' e longitudes. the annual precipitation in the tikapur station, situated at 140 m above the mean sea level in kailali district, was 1,669 mm (average of 1987−2017, dohm, 2019). most of the total precipitation were found to have occurred during june−september while the least during november−december (figure 1). the average maximum and minimum temperatures recorded during the period of 1987–2017 were 30.8o c and 17.6o c, respectively (dohm, 2019). the study was conducted in 2018 a. d. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 jan feb mar apr may jun jul aug sep oct nov dec rainfall (mm) max. temp. (0c) min. temp. (0c) figure 1: the average monthly temperature and rainfall data of tikapur station, kailali district during 1987–2017 (source: dohm, 2019) the terai shorea forest is mainly dominated by shorea robusta followed by terminalia alata (shrestha and jha, 1997; giri et al., 1999). the evergreen riverine forest is dominated mainly by four tree species, viz. syzygium cumini, mallotus philippensis, ficus glomerata and schleichera oleosa (shrestha and jha 1997; giri et al., 2001). there is no resource extraction from the terai shorea and riverine forests in the protected areas. according to gautam (2019), the puraina cf is mainly dominated by t. alata followed by anogeissus latifolius, s. robusta and s. cumini. according to the puraina cf user group, this cf occupied an area of 189.21 ha, and the cf user group included 540 families in 2073 b.s. (figure 2 and 3). the settlements around the area were growing rapidly, increasing pressure in the forest. although, cattle grazing and resource extraction were banned by the authorities, illegal logging and resource extraction were still the main challenges. according to the locals, forest fire prevention/control and plantations in the barren areas were the positive approaches initiated by the cf user group. figure 2: satellite imagery of the puraina cf (retrieved from the google earth in dec, 2018) showing the locations of the sample plots banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 41 gautam & chettri figure 3: satellite imagery of the bardia national park (retrieved from the google earth in dec, 2018) showing the locations of the sample plots soil sampling the soil sampling was conducted in october, 2018. altogether, 13 plots, each of 500 m2, were taken into consideration; out of the total 13 plots, 5 plots were laid out in the terai shoera forest, 4 plots in the evergreen riverine forest, and 4 plots in the puraina cf. within each plot, five quadrats, each of 1m x 1m size were laid using stratified random design. the sample plots were randomly marked on the basis of frequent observations. from each quadrat, soil samples from the depths of 0−10cm, 10−20cm and 20−30cm were collected; three composite soil samples, one for each depth category, were prepared for each plot. hence, a total of 39 composite soil samples (13 for each depth category) were prepared and collected. soil analysis the laboratory analysis of the soil samples were carried at amrit campus (kathmandu) and agricultural technology centre (lalitpur). the soil samples were analysed for bulk density using the methodology of blake and hartge (1986). similarly, the soc was determined using the walkley and black rapid titration method (walkley and black, 1934) while the total nitrogen, the available phosphorus and the available potassium were determined by adopting the kjeldahl method, the olsen’s bicarbonate method, and the flame photometer method, respectively. the soil texture was determined using the sieve method, and the soil ph was determined electronically, on a direct-reading ph meter, using a saturated potassium chloride calomel reference electrode. the one-way anova followed by tukey’s hsd (honestly significant difference) test was conducted for the soil parameters using the r software (version 3.5.1). results and discussion physical properties soil texture the soil texture was found to be, moreover, loamy sand to sand in all the studied forests. the mean sand contents at all depths (0−10cm, 10−20cm and 20−30cm) were found to be within the range of 82.79−92.31%, 72.88−90.76%, and 77.30−85.69% in the terai shorea forest, the riverine forest and the puraina cf, respectively. similarly, the mean silt and clay contents at all depths were found to be within the range of 5.55−6.41% silt and 1.35−4.8% clay in the terai shorea forest, 6.65−12.56% silt and 1.92−14.56% clay in the riverine forest, and 5.39−8.82% silt and 7.35−13.87% clay in the puraina cf. the vertical differences in the percentages of sand, silt, and clay were found to be statistically insignificant for all the three study area. the comparison of the soils at all depths of all the three studied forests showed that the difference in the percentages of sand, silt and clay were all statistically insignificant, except clay% banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 42 gautam & chettri at 10−20cm depth differed significantly (p < 0.05) among the three study area. the percentage of clay at 10−20cm depth in the puraina cf was found to be significantly higher (13.87%, p < 0.05) than that in the terai shorea forest (1.35%, p < 0.05) at the same depth. soil bulk density the mean soil bulk density slightly increased with the increase in depth in all the three studied forest which is because the soil gets more compact with the increase in its depth. the soil bulk densities at all depths in the three study sites area were in the range of 1.33−1.58 gm cm-3, 1.35–1.58 gm cm-3, and 1.45–1.63 gm cm-3, respectively (table 1). the bulk densities at all depths in the puraina cf were found to be slightly higher than that terai shorea forest except at 10−20cm depth where the bulk density of both the forests recorded equal value i.e.1.58 gm cm-3. riverine forest recorded the least value for bulk density at all depths. it was found that the bulk density value of terai shorea forest and puraina cf (1.58 gm cm-3in both forests) at 10-20 cm was found to be significantly higher (p < 0.05) than in the riverine forest (1.35 gm cm-3) at the same depth. the vertical difference in the bulk densities of all the three forests was found statistically insignificant. chemical properties soil ph the mean soil ph at all depths was found to be in the range of 5.77–5.80, 7.11–7.36, and 6.36–6.50 in the terai shorea forest, the evergreen riverine forest, and the puraina cf, respectively. the oneway anova showed that the vertical differences among the soil ph were statistically insignificant in all the three different forest study sites; however, the differences among the soil ph values at all depths in the three different forest study areas were statistically significant (p < 0.05, table 1). the soils were more acidic in the terai shorea forest than in the puraina cf; however, the soils in the riverine forests were slightly alkaline because the occasionally flooded forest soils have higher ph (budke et al., 2008). this indicates that the forest soils in flat plains are more acidic as compared to the riverine forest soils in flood plains. the acidic forest soils with the ph values of 4.33 and 5.26 at 0−15cm depth in a community forest and a national forest, respectively, within udayapur district have also been reported by paudel and sah (2003);with the ph values of 5.6, 5.8 and 6.6 at 0−15cm, 15−30cm, and 30−45cm depths, respectively, in the forest of sunsari district by gautam and mandal (2013); and with the ph value of 5.36 in the forest of chitwan district by chauhan et al. (2014). soil organic carbon (soc) the percentage of the mean soc at all depths were found to be the highest (1.64%, 0.96%, and 0.65% at 0−10cm, 10−20cm, and 20−30cm depths, respectively) in the terai shorea forest followed by the riverine forest (0.79%, 0.63%, and 0.54% at 0−10cm, 10−20cm, and 20−30cm depths, respectively) and the puraina cf (0.54%, 0.63%, 0.59% at 0−10cm, 10−20cm, and 20−30cm depths, respectively). generally, the mean soc content in the protected areas were found to have decreased with the increase in depth; however, this general trend was not found in the puraina cf where the mean soc content (0.54%) in the uppermost layer (0−10cm depth) was lower than those (0.63% and 0.59%) in the deeper layers (10−20cm and 20−30cm depths, respectively) (figure 4). the vertical difference in the mean socs was statistically significant (p < 0.05) in the terai shorea forest, but insignificant in the riverine forest and the puraina cf. the difference in the mean soc sat 0−10cm depth in the three studied forests was found to be statistically significant (p < 0.05), but statistically insignificant at 10−20cm and 20−30cm depths. the mean soc content (1.64%) at 0−10cm depth in the terai shorea forest was significantly higher as compared to those in the riverine forest and the puraina cf (0.79% and 0.54%, respectively, table 1). banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 43 gautam & chettri table 1: mean ± sd values of soil parameters at 0-10cm, 10-20cm, and 20-30cm depths in terai shorea forest (tsf), riverine forest (rf), and puraina cf soil parameters depth forest study area tsf rf cf oc (%) 0−10cm 1.64 ± 0.65 a a 0.79 ± 0.46 a a,b 0.54 ± 0.13 a b 10−20cm 0.96 ± 0.41 a,b a 0.63 ± 0.27 a a 0.63 ± 0.1 a a 20−30cm 0.65 ± 0.15 b a 0.54 ± 0.27 a a 0.59 ± 0.07 a a tn (%) 0−10cm 0.14 ± 0.05 a a 0.09 ± 0.01 a a,b 0.05 ± 0.01 a b 10−20cm 0.08 ± 0.03 b a 0.06 ± 0.02 a,b a 0.05 ± 0.01 a a 20−30cm 0.06 ± 0.01 b a 0.05 ± 0.02 b a 0.04 ± 0.01 a a ap (kg ha-1) 0−10cm 31.72± 10.66 a a 12.36 ± 4.45 a b 12.88 ± 4.25 a b 10−20cm 16.07 ± 6.74 b a 10.82 ± 3.90 a a 16.41 ± 7.68 a a 20−30cm 14.09 ± 8.87 b a 4.84 ± 5.18 a a 10.09 ± 1.68 a a ak (kg ha-1) 0−10cm 557.44 ± 47 a a 314.9 ± 35.45 a b 221.1 ± 45.77 a c 10−20cm 525.28 ± 69.24 a a 257.95 ± 50.58 a b 204.35 ± 35.24 a b 20−30cm 470.2 ± 120.62 a a 241.2 ± 66.55 a b 224.45 ± 58.28 a b ph 0−10cm 5.78 ± 0.05 a a 7.11 ± 0.41 a b 6.50 ± 0.51 a b 10−20cm 5.77 ± 0.11 a a 7.25 ± 0.18 a b 6.45 ± 0.47 a c 20−30cm 5.80 ± 0.20 a a 7.36 ± 0.05 a b 6.36 ± 0.54 a a bd (gm cm-3) 0−10cm 1.46 ± 0.11 a a 1.33 ± 0.15 a a 1.58 ± 0.13 a a 10−20cm 1.58 ± 0.08 a a 1.35 ± 0.10a b 1.58 ± 0.05 a a 20−30cm 1.58 ± 0.11 a a 1.45 ± 0.10a a 1.63 ± 0.05 a a sand (%) 0−10cm 82.79 ± 11.97 a a 72.88 ± 28.42 a a 84.76 ± 4.4 a a 10−20cm 92.31 ± 5.7 a a 88.16 ± 13.12 a a 77.30 ± 13.53 a a 20−30cm 90.77 ± 5.57 a a 90.76 ± 6.81 a a 85.69 ± 10.89 a a silt (%) 0−10cm 6.41 ± 5.4 a a 12.56 ± 13.47 a a 5.39 ± 1.21 a a 10−20cm 6.27 ± 4.81 a a 6.82 ± 8.61 a a 8.82 ± 4.88 a a 20−30cm 5.55 ± 2.90 a a 6.65 ± 5.75 a a 6.96 ± 3.96 a a clay (%) 0−10cm 4.8 ± 2.59 a a 14.56 ± 15.06 a a 9.85 ± 3.49 a a 10−20cm 1.35 ± 0.84 a a 5.01 ± 4.6 a a,b 13.87 ± 9.38 a b 20−30cm 3.75 ± 3.33 a a 1.92 ± 1.62 a a 1.35 6.94 a a note: different letters in superscript (small alphabets) implies significant difference for each soil parameters along a depth gradient for each forest. different letters in subscript (capital alphabets) implies significant difference in soil parameters between the three forests at a particular depth banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 44 gautam & chettri figure 4: diagrammatic representation of the vertical distribution of mean soc, total nitrogen, available phosphorus and available potassium in three different forest study areas total nitrogen the total nitrogen content in the terai shorea forest (0.14%, 0.08% and 0.06% at 0−10cm, 10−0cm, and 20−30cm depths, respectively) were found to be higher than that in the riverine forest (0.09%, 0.06%, and 0.05% at 0−10cm, 10−20cm, and 20−30cm depths, respectively) and the puraina cf (0.05%, 0.05%, and 0.04% at 0−10cm, 10−20cm, and 20−30cm depths, respectively). the vertical differences in the mean soil nitrogen content were statistically significant (p < 0.05) in the terai shorea and riverine forests; however, the differences were statistically insignificant in the puraina cf. the mean soil nitrogen content in the three forest study sites was found to have differed significantly at 0−10cm depth, but not so at 10−20cm and 20−30cm depths. the mean soil nitrogen content at 0−10cm depth in the terai shorea forest was significantly higher than that in the puraina cf (table 1). available phosphorus the mean available phosphorus was found to have decreased with the increase in depth in the terai shorea forest (31.72 kg ha-1, 16.07 kg ha1, and 14.09 kg ha-1 at 0−10cm, 10−20cm, and 20−30cm depths, respectively) and the riverine forest (12.36 kg ha-1, 10.82 kg ha-1, and 4.84 kg ha-1 at 0−10cm, 10−20cm, and 20−30cm depths, respectively). in the puraina cf, the mean phosphorus content was highest (16.41 kg ha-1) at 10−20cm followed by 0−10cm (12.88 kg ha-1) and 20−30cm (10.09 kg ha-1). the vertical difference in the mean available phosphorus was statistically significant (p < 0.05) only in the terai shorea forest, and insignificant in the riverine forest and the puraina cf. the mean soil phosphorus contents in the three forest study area were statistically significant (p < 0.05) at 0−10cm depth; however, insignificant at 10−20cm and 20−30cm depths. the mean value of the available phosphorus at 0−10cm depth in the terai shorea forest was significantly higher than that in the riverine forest and puraina cf (table 1). available potassium the mean available potassium decreased with the increase in depth in the terai shorea forest (557.44 kg ha-1, 525.28 kg ha-1, and 470.2 kg ha-1 at 0−10cm, 10−20cm, and 20−30cm depths, respectively) and the riverine forest (314.9 kg ha-1, 257.95 kg ha-1, and 241.2 kg ha-1 at 0−10cm, 10−20cm, and 20−30cm depths, respectively). in the puraina cf, the decreasing trend of potassium content with the increase in depth (221.1 kg ha1, 204.35 kg ha-1, and 224.45 kg ha-1 at 0−10cm, 10−20cm, and 20−30cm depths, respectively) banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 45 gautam & chettri was not observed. the mean potassium contents at all depths were highest in the terai shorea forest followed by the riverine forest and the least in the puraina cf. the vertical differences in the mean potassium content in the three forest study area were found to be statistically insignificant; however, the mean available potassium content in the three studied forests at all depths were found to be statistically significant (table 1). in the present study, the mean soc percent, total nitrogen percent, available phosphorus and available potassium (kg ha-1) decreased with the increase in soil depth in the protected area. similar decreasing trend of soc with increase in depth has been reported in a number of literatures (vsahum et al., 2016; jabbagy and jackson, 2000; dorji et al., 2014). yang et al. (2010) reported that both soc and total nitrogen decreased with increase in depth, however the c:n ratio did not change. gautam and mandal (2013) also observed the decreasing soc and total nitrogen with the increase in depth in the tropical moist forest of sunsari, nepal. in the puraina cf, the mean values of the soil nutrients (soc, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, and available potassium) in the upper most layers were low, and hence the trend of decreased soil nutrients with the increase in soil depth was violated. the lower values of the soil nutrients in the puraina cf could be probably due to anthropogenic disturbances. the wood and fodder needs of the cf users were mostly met from the extraction of the same from their cf. forest harvesting caused a sharp decline in the soc stock as much as 50% within the first 20 years or more (johnson, 1992; davidson and ackerman, 1993; lal, 2005). the decline in soc in harvested forests is probably due to decreased litter input, shifts in composition of woody and herbaceous vegetation, distribution of plant roots, accelerated decomposition and decreased net primary production (covington, 1981; johnson et al., 1995; jackson et al., 2000). the presence of soil nutrients at all depths in the terai shorea forest was found to be higher than those in the riverine forest and the puraina cf (table 1). this could be attributed to the natural strains, tree species composition, and management practices adopted in those forests. according to the locals, the terai shorea forest used to encounter summer fire episode while the riverine forest monsoon flooding. on the other hand, the puraina cf encountered anthropogenic disturbances such as lopping, logging, and resource extraction. the soc in the present study sites were lower than those (3.07%, 1.34%, and 1.17% at 0−15 cm, 15−30 cm, and 30−45 cm depths, respectively, in a sal bearing moist forest in sunsari district) reported by gautam and mandal (2013), and those (1.86% and 2.03% at 0−15 cm depth, respectively, in a community-managed forest and a protected forest within the panchase area) reported by kalu et al. (2014). this could be possibly attributed to the lesser amount of the total precipitation in the present study sites as compared to its occurrence in the panchase area since soc increases with increased precipitation (jabbagy and jackson, 2000). duration of monsoon and total precipitation gradually decreases from east to west in nepal (bohlinger and sotreberg, 2017). despite the difference in total precipitation, the soc content in the protected terai shorea forest of the present study was similar to those (1.4% and 1% at 0−15cm depth in a community-managed forest and a national forest with free access to the local people, respectively in udayapur district) reported by paudel and sah (2003); those (0.65−2.39% at 0−30cm depth in a communitymanaged forest in syangja district) reported by kc et al. (2013); and those (1.98% at 0−20 cm depth in a community-managed forest in chitwan district) reported by chauhan et al. (2014). the presence of low amount of soc in the puraina cf could be probably due to resource extraction from this cf. the total nitrogen content at all depths in the present study sites were lower than those (0.24%, 0.24%, and 0.09% at 0−15cm, 15−30cm, and 30−45cm depths, respectively, in the sal bearing moist forest in sunsari district) reported by gautam and mandal (2013), and those (0.21% and 0.29% at 0−15cm depth in the community-managed forest and the protected forest, respectively, in the panchase area) reported by kalu et al. (2014). the total nitrogen content (at 0−15cm depth)in the terai shorea forest was also similar to those (0.117% and 0.111% at 0−15cm depth in the community-managed forest and the national forest with free access to the local people, respectively, in udayapur district) reported by paudel and sah (2003); that (0.09−0.12% at 0−30cm depth in the community-managed forest in syangja district) reported by kc et al. (2013) and the one (0.19% banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 46 gautam & chettri at 0−20cm depth in the community-managed forest in chitwan district) reported by chauhan et al. (2014). this indicated a strong relationship between soc and total nitrogen. the available phosphorus in the present study sites were comparatively lower than those (76.64 kg ha-1 and 79.29 kg ha-1 at 0−15 cm depth in the community-managed forest and the national forest with free access to the local people, respectively, in udayapur district) reported by paudel and sah (2003) and that (73.71–93.23 kg ha-1 at 0−30cm depth in the community-managed forest in syangja district) reported by kc et al. (2013). the available potassium (2.54–4.23 kg ha-1 at 0−30cm in the community-managed forest in syangja district) reported by kc et al. (2013), and the one (79.5 kg ha-1 at 0−20cm depth in the seti devi cf of chitwan district) reported by chauhan et al. (2014) were comparatively lower than that recorded in the present study sites. however, the available potassium (267.73 kg ha-1 and 233.86 kg ha-1 at 0−15 cm depth in the community-managed forest and the national forest, respectively, in udayapur district) reported by paudel and sah (2003) were similar to that in the protected riverine forest and the puraina cf, but lower than the one in the protected terai shorea forest. relationship among soil parameters the soil nutrients (soc, total nitrogen, available phosphorus and potassium) showed significant positive correlation (p < 0.05) among themselves (table 2). the soil ph value showed significant negative correlation (p < 0.05) with the soc, total nitrogen, available phosphorus and potassium, and bulk density (table 2). the percentage of sand was found to be significantly negatively correlated with the percentages of silt and clay (table 2). however, the percentages of silt and clay showed significant (0.72, p < 0.05) positive correlation. the soc, total nitrogen and available phosphorus were found to be negatively correlated with the bulk density and sand content. available potassium had zero correlation with the soil bulk density and positively correlated with the sand content. the soc and the available phosphorus were positively correlated to the silt and clay contents. the total nitrogen was positively correlated with the silt while negatively correlated with the clay contents. the available potassium was found to be negatively correlated with the silt and clay contents. the ph value was negatively correlated with the sand and positively correlated with the silt and clay contents. the soil bulk density was positively correlated with the sand while negatively correlated to the silt and clay contents. however, these correlations were statistically insignificant (table 2). table 2: pearson correlation coefficient values among the soil parameters oc tn ap ak ph bd sand silt clay oc 1 0.94* 0.54* 0.54* −0.32* −0.14 −0.19 0.22 0.01 tn 1 0.57* 0.58* −0.33* −0.18 −0.12 0.13 −0.06 ap 1 0.49* −0.5* −0.12 −0.1 0.04 0.09 ak 1 −0.67* 0 0.11 −0.13 −0.25 ph 1 −0.43* −0.2 0.23 0.25 bd 1 0.17 −0.14 −0.18 sand (%) 1 −0.84* −0.88* silt (%) 1 0.72* clay (%) 1 note:oc : organic carbon, tn : total nitrogen, ap : available phosphorus, ak : available potassium, and bd : bulk density; *p< 0.05 statistically significant strong positive correlation (0.94) was found between the soc and the total nitrogen. similar significant correlation between the soc and the total nitrogen was also observed by gautam and mandal (2013) in the sal-bearing tropical moist forest of sunsari district. positive correlation between the soc and the total nitrogen was observed by paudel and sah (2003) in the forests of udayapur district and by chauhan et al. (2014) in chitwan district. the soc and the total nitrogen, both showed significant positive relationships with the available phosphorus and the available potassium. the soc, the total nitrogen, the available phosphorus, the available potassium and the bulk density showed significant negative relationships with the soil ph. the soc, the total nitrogen and the available phosphorus also showed negative relationships with the soil bulk density while the available potassium showed zero correlation with the soil bulk density, but statistically insignificant. similar to our results, paudel and sah (2003) had also observed negative correlation of soil ph with organic matter and nitrogen, positive correlation of organic matter with nitrogen and phosphorus, and positive correlation between nitrogen and potassium. chauhan et al. (2014) had banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 47 gautam & chettri also reported negative correlation between total nitrogen and soil bulk density in chitwan district. conclusion in protected forests, soc, total nitrogen, available phosphorus and available potassium generally decrease with increase in soil depth. however in the puraina cf, this trend was not observed. the soil nutrients in the puraina cf were found to be lower than in the protected forests which could be because of the extraction of resources from the cf. references awasthi, k. d., singh, b. r., and sitaula, b. k. 2005. profile carbon and nutrient levels and management effect on soil quality indictors in mardi watershed of nepal. acta agriculture scandinavia section b-soil and plant, 55 (3): 192−204. bajracharya, r. m., sitaula, b. k., shrestha, b. m., awasthi, k. d., balla, m. k. and singh, b. r. 2004. soil organic carbon status and dynamics in the central nepal middle mountains. journal of the institute of forestry, 12: 28−44. blake, g. r. and hartge, k. h. 1986. bulk density. in: methods of soil analysis, part 1: physical and mineralogical methods, klute, a. (ed.), 2nd edition, agronomy monograph 9, american society of agronomy-soil science society of america, madison. 363−382. bohlinger, p. and sortberg, a. 2017. a comprehensive view on trends in extreme precipitation in nepal and their spatial distribution. international journal of climatology, 5 (1): 4. budke, j. c., jarenkow, j. a., and oliveira-filho, a. t. 2008. tree community features of two stands of riverine forest under different flooding regimes in southern brazil. flora, 203: 162−174. burke, i. c., yonker, c. m., parton, w. j., cole, c. v., flach, k., and schimel, d. s. 1989. texture, climate, and cultivation effects on soil organic matter content in u.s. grassland soils. soil science society of america journal, 53: 800−805. chauhan, r. p., pande, k. r., and thakur, s. 2014. soil properties affected by land use systems in western chitwan, nepal. international journal of applied sciences and biotechnology, 2 (3): 265–269. covington, w. w. 1981. changes in forest floor organic matter and nutrient content following clear cutting in northern hardwoods. ecology, 62: 41–48. dahal, n. and bajracharya, r. m. 2012. effects of sustainable soil management practices on distribution of soil organic carbon in upland agricultural soils of mid-hills of nepal. nepal journal of science and technology, 13 (1): 133−141. davidson, e. a. and ackerman, i. l. 1993. changes in soil carbon inventories following cultivation of previously untilled soils. biogeochemistry, 20: 161–193. detwiler, r. p. and hall, c. a. s., 1988. tropical forests and the global carbon cycle. science, 239: 42–47. dohm. 2019. climatological records of nepal. government of nepal, ministry of energy, water resources and irrigation, department of hydrology and meteorology, kathmandu, nepal. dorji, t., odeh, i. o. a., and field, d. j. 2014. vertical distribution of soil organic carbon density in relation to land use/ cover, altitude and slope aspect in the eastern himalayas. land, 3: 1232−1250. gautam, b. 2019. physiochemical properties of soil in relation to depth, tree species composition and management practices in western terai, nepal. m.sc. thesis, tribhuvan university, nepal. 24−28. gautam, t. p. and mandal, t. n. 2013. soil characteristics in moist tropical forest of sunsari district, nepal. nepal journal of science and technology, 14 (1): 35−40. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 48 gautam & chettri giri, a., aryal, b., ghimire, s. k., shrestha, k. k., and jha, p. k. 2001. vegetation composition and biomass production in riverine forest of the royal bardia national park, nepal. nepal journal of science and technology, 3: 33−40. giri, a., aryal, b., bhattarai, b., ghimire, s. k., shrestha, k. k., and jha, p. k. 1999. vegetation composition, biomass production and regeneration in shorea robusta forests in the royal bardia national park, nepal. nepal journal of science and technology, 1: 47−56. jabbagy, e. g. and jackson, r. b. 2000. the vertical distribution of soil organic carbon and its relation to climate and vegetation. ecological applications, 10 (2): 423−436. jackson, r. b., schenk, h. j., jobbagy, e. g., canadell, j., colello, g. d., dickinson, r. e., field, c. b., friedlingstein, p., heimann, m., hibbard, k., kicklighter, d. w., kleidon, a., neilson, r. p., parton, w. j., sala, o. e., and sykes, m. t., 2000. belowground consequences of vegetation change and their treatment in models. ecological applications, 10: 470–483. johnson, c. e., driscoll, c. t., fahey, t. j., siccama, t. g., and hughes, j. w. 1995. carbon dynamics following clear cutting of a northern hardwood forest. in: mcfee, w., kelly, j.m. (eds.). carbon forms and functions in forest soils. soil science society american, madison, wi. 463–487. johnson, d. w. 1992. effects of forest management on soil carbon storage. in: wisniewski, j., lugo, a.e. (eds.). natural sinks of co2, springer, dordrecht. 83−120. kalu, s., koirala, m., khadka, u. r., and kc, a. 2014. soil quality assessment for different land use in the panchase area of western nepal. international journal of environmental protection, 5 (1): 38−43. kc, a., bhandari, g., wagle, s. p., and banjade, y. 2013. status of soil fertility in a community forest of nepal. international journal of environment, 1 (1): 56−67. lal, r. 2005. forest soils and carbon sequestration. forest ecology and management. 220: 242−258. lal, r. 2010. beyond copenhagen: mitigating climate change and achieving food security through soil carbon sequestration. food security, 2 (2): 169−177. paudel, s. and sah, j. p. 2003. physiochemical characteristics of soil in tropical sal (shorea robusta gaertn.) forests in eastern nepal. himalayan journal of sciences, 1 (2):107−110. shrestha, k. k. and jha, p. k. 1997. plant diversity analysis and evaluation of conservation measures in the royal bardia national park. draft report. world wildlife fund (wwf) nepal program, kathmandu. 1−63. spain, a. v., isbell, r. f. and probert, m. e. 1983. organic matter contents of australian soils. in: soils: an australian viewpoint. csiro, melbourne/academic press, london. 551−563. tale, s. and ingole, s. 2015. a review on role of physicochemical properties in soil quality. chemical science review and letters, 4 (13): 57−66. unep, 2012. annual report. retrieved from http:// www.unep.org/annualreporton jan, 2019. vashum, k. t., kasomwoshi, t., and jayakumar, s., 2016. soil organic carbon sequestration potential of primary and secondary forests in northeast india. proceedings of the international academy of ecology and environmental sciences, 6 (3): 67−74. walkley, a. and black, i. a. 1934. an examination of the degtjareff method for determining soil organic matter, and a proposed modification of the chromic acid titration method. soil science, 34: 29−38. yang, y. h., fang, j. y., guo, d. l., ji, c. j., and ma, w. h. 2010. vertical patterns of soil carbon, nitrogen and carbon: nitrogen stoichiometry in tibetan grasslands. biogeosciences, 7: 1−24. 48 forest ecosystems are globally recognized for their critical role in terrestrial carbon dynamics, providing invaluable services to humankind and acting as significant carbon sinks (bonan, 2008; pan et al., 2011). since the onset of the industrial revolution, drastic climate changes have been predominantly attributed to human activities that escalate greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide (co2), methane (ch4), and nitrous oxide (n2o). among these, co2 is the primary contributor, with its atmospheric concentration having increased dramatically since pre-industrial times (forster et al., 2007). according to the latest data from the national oceanic and atmospheric administration (noaa), co2 levels have reached unprecedented highs, crossing 421 parts per million (ppm), signaling an urgent need to understand and enhance carbon sequestration processes (noaa, 2022). forests worldwide play a pivotal role in sequestering carbon, accounting for an estimated global carbon uptake of around 900 petagrams (pg c), and sequestering about 1.1 teragrams (t c) annually (sabatini et al., 2019). photosynthesis enables plants to absorb atmospheric co2, releasing oxygen and incorporating carbon into their biomass and soil. this carbon allocation across various forest compartments, including above-ground and below-ground biomass, dead wood, litter, and soil organic matter, and the resulting carbon fluxes from leaf and fine root turnover, are essential to understanding ecosystem dynamics (pan et al., 2011; ipcc, 2014). in european temperate forests, the total carbon storage is estimated to be approximately 110 t c/ha, with soil contributing up to 65 t c/ ha, highlighting the importance of these carbon reservoirs (brunner & godbold, 2007). in addition to natural processes, incremental growth in trees also suggests an increase in carbon storage. this is particularly evident in tree trunks, where their growing biomass is closely correlated with the sequestered carbon content (stephenson et al., 2014). accurate quantification of biomass— and, by extension, carbon reserves—requires both allometry, biomass, and productivity of deciduous oak forests in xanthi, northern greece in this work, the data collected for the preparation of the management plans prepared by the xanthi forestry service were used to estimate the biomass allometry and productivity of the deciduous oak forests. for the purpose of our study, the diameter at breast height (dbh), distribution of trees above breast height, and the wood stock amounts were analyzed. to estimate the aboveground biomass, three biomass models were tested. the dbh distribution clearly indicated that the majority of the stands were young, thus having a high net productivity. this fact suggests that, in order to get a fair estimate of biomass, a biomass expansion factor (bef), used to convert volume to mass, should have a value close to the upper limit of the factor’s range, which is appropriate for young stands. the comparison of the three tested models proved that only one could be appropriate for use while the other two were completely unsuitable. keywords: allometry, biomass, deciduous oak forests, productivity k. kitikidou 1*, e. milios 1, and k. radoglou 1 received: 12, july 2024 revised: 27, august 2024 accepted: 28, august 2024 published: 22, november 2024 1 democritus university, greece.*email: kkitikid@fmenr.duth.gr banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2, 2024 pp 48‒60https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v34i2.68661 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3198-9387 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2056-5685 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5555-0582 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 49 kitikidou et al. direct measurement techniques, such as harvesting trees for biomass calculation, soil coring for below-ground carbon content, and litter traps for detritus biomass (rustad et al., 2001), as well as indirect methods involving allometric models that relate tree dimensions to dry biomass (chave et al., 2014). biomass expansion factors (befs) are also used in conjunction with these models to adjust for variations in biomass accumulation depending on tree size, age, and forest management practices (penman et al., 2003). indirect methods, while less invasive and more practical than direct methods over large scales, depend heavily on the accuracy and applicability of the allometric models and befs used. these models are crucial for estimating the amount of carbon sequestered within a forest ecosystem, contributing to our understanding of global carbon budgets and informing climate change mitigation strategies. ensuring that the allometric models are region-specific and representative of the true complexities of forest structures and species compositions is vital (lehtonen et al., 2004; gasparini et al., 2015). this research was part of the foroaks project, supported by the green fund, which aims to enhance the national greenhouse gas inventory in greece by dynamically assessing co2 sequestration in deciduous oak forests and evergreen broadleaved forests. in this regard, this study was conducted to ascertain the optimal allometric model for determining the aboveground biomass of the deciduous oak forests located in the regional unit of xanthi, northern greece, which are under the jurisdiction of xanthi forest service (xfs). by scrutinizing the established allometric models in conjunction with the data from the local forest management plans, our objectives were to refine the biomass estimates and elucidate the carbon dynamics within these temperate woodlands. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in the year 2023 in the oak-dominated deciduous forests located within the xanthi regional unit of east macedonia and thrace, northern greece (see figure 1). the study area is situated between 41.0771312-41.4079084 n latitudes and between 24.6089329-25.2263813 e longitudes. the altitude of the terrain ranges from 50 m to 1827 m above the mean sea level. the study area exhibits csa (hot-summer humid continental) and dfb (humid continental mild summer, wet all year) types of climate (köppengeiger explorer, nondated). the annual average temperature varies from 4.87 oc to 14.57 oc, and the annual average precipitation varies from 532 mm to 773 mm (worldclim, nondated). encompassing over an area of 34,791.92 ha, these forests constitute 55.30% of the region's forest cover, as outlined in the xfs' official management plans (xfs, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c, 2023d, 2023e, 2023f, & 2023g). the study area is characterized by a mosaic of tree species, reflecting a blend of broadleaf deciduous and evergreen vegetation. the area is mostly dominated by oak species such as quercus frainetto, q. petraea, q. pubescens, and q. cerris associated with beech (fagus sylvatica) and other broadleaf species. methods used utilizing the high-resolution satellite imagery from the google earth pro, we delineated the study area (indicated in red color in figure 1). nested within this domain were several forest complexes (each indicated in distinct color in figure 2): thermes-satres (white), kotili (blue), oreo (black), echinos (brown), miki (purple), gerakas-xanthi-kimmeria (green), and drimos (orange). the red markers, in figure 2, pinpoints the locations of the sample plots established for the measurement of tress for evaluation of biomass and allometric relationships. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 50 kitikidou et al. figure 1: screenshot of google earth pro showing the forested areas under the jurisdiction of xfs, indicated in red color (source: google earth, 2023). banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 51 kitikidou et al. figure 2: jurisdiction of xfsshowing the forest complexes (stand blocks) in distinct colors thermes-satres (white), kotili (blue), oreo (black), echinos (brown), miki (purple), gerakasxanthi-kimmeria (green), and drimos (orange); red pins correspond to sampling points. criteria for choosing biomass allometric models to test selecting the right biomass allometric models is of paramount importance for the accurate assessment of forest biomass, especially when direct measurements are impractical or unfeasible. following the structured methodology recommended by the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc), we adopted a systematic, tiered approach to identify the models that provide the best fit for our study's specific requirements (penman et al., 2003; ipcc, 2006). the tier 1 approach is considered the most fundamental level of the ipcc framework, where default models and conversion factors based on global averages are employed. although tier 1 models are readily accessible and broadly applicable, they are often too generalized. this can result in substantial discrepancies when applied to localized contexts, thus compromising precision and potentially introducing significant uncertainties in regional biomass estimations (goetz & dubayah, 2011; henry et al., 2011). tier 2 builds upon the foundation of tier 1 by introducing the enhanced accuracy based on the country-specific or regional allometric equations. these models, based on datasets gathered from biomes and ecological zones akin to those being studied, provide a moderate level of specificity without necessitating the comprehensive data inputs of more advanced tiers. by integrating localized growth patterns and species-specific attributes, tier 2 models bridge the gap between the generalizations of global averages and the granular detail of localized field data, offering a sensible compromise for many research endeavors (chave et al., 2014; mcroberts et al., 2012). banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 52 kitikidou et al. at the apex of the tiered system, tier 3 epitomizes precision through the adoption of site-specific allometric equations. these models are developed from rigorous and extensive field research, tailored to the unique conditions of the study area. they consider localized climate, soil properties, and forest management practices, thereby affording scientists the capability to conduct finely tuned biomass estimations. while tier 3 yields the highest degree of accuracy, its employment is contingent upon the availability of substantial field data, extensive research efforts, and often larger financial resources, which can limit its applicability, particularly in less-studied or -funded regions (pilli et al., 2006). in our research, we aligned with the tier 2 protocol due to its viable blend of precision and data accessibility. the rationale for this choice were based on the following considerations: 1. tier 1 models are insufficient for our study purpose because of their universal nature, not accounting for the heterogeneity inherent in the regional ecological settings. their application could lead to misrepresentations of the actual biomass in our study area due to the absence of regional calibration (sileshi, 2014). 2. tier 2 offers an intermediate route, relying on a wealth of data that has been tailored to the greek context, specifically addressing the characteristics of the oak species that dominate our study landscapes. the use of these models facilitates more reliable biomass estimations that harmonize better with the ecological nuances of the mediterranean region. 3. although tier 3 represents the optimum in terms of model accuracy, it is not a feasible option given the limitations in our data collection capabilities and the extent of resources currently at our disposal. engaging with tier 3 would necessitate a considerable elevation in the scope and breadth of our field measurements, a venture beyond the constraints of our current research project (schroeder et al., 1997). two peer-reviewed allometric models and two bef models were adopted on the basis of their relevance to our study area and focal species. they are as follows: 1. the bef model used for estimating the biomass in a study conducted by ganatsas et al. (2022) in the 77-year-old oak forest (dominated by quercus frainetto and is in the process of conversion from coppice to high forest) of cholomon mountain in chalkidiki, northern greece was: b=v×befd, where, 'b' refers to the aboveground tree’s biomass (t), 'v' refers to the aboveground tree’s volume over bark (m3), and 'befd' refers to the biomass expansion factor with the inclusion of wood density which is equal to 1.011. 2. the allometric model used for estimating the biomass in the study conducted by manolis et al. (2016) in the gorgiani oak forest (dominated by quercus frainetto with other oak species present sporadically) in grevena, northwestern greece, was: b=35.3660×d2.9902, where, 'b' refers to the aboveground tree’s biomass (gr), and 'd' refers to the class of diameter at breast height (dbh) over bark (cm). 3. the allometric model used for estimating the biomass in the study conducted by zianis et al. (2016) in the taxiarchis experimental forest, consisting of the same tree species as in the study area of ganatsas et al. (2022), located on the chalkidiki peninsula, northern greece was: b=0.1341×d2.47, where, 'b' refers to the aboveground tree’s biomass (gr), and 'd' refers to the class of diameter at breast height (dbh) over bark (cm). banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 53 kitikidou et al. 4. the bef model used for estimating the biomass in the study conducted by penman et al. (2003) was: b=v×bwd×bef, where, 'b' refers to the aboveground tree’s biomass (t), 'v' refers to the aboveground tree’s volume over bark (m3), 'bwd' refers to the basic wood density (kgr of dry weight per m3 of green volume = 700, fao, 2023), and 'bef' refers to the biomass expansion factor, with values ranging from 1.15 to 3.2. the upper limit of the range represents young forests or forests with low growing stock while the lower limit represents mature forests or those with high growing stock (penman et al., 2003). input data the application procedure for the four models was as follows: for the calculation of the minimum sample size required (minimum number of sample areas required) for a finite population with size np in the areas of deciduous oak forests in the study area (the area of responsibility of the xfs), the formula of stauffer (1982) was applied: , where, 'n' stands for size of finite population (= 1909) of deciduous oak stands; 't' stands for value of student (t) distribution, for a probability of 5% and 1 (pre-sample size) degree of freedom; 'cv' stands for coefficient of variance of the presample; 'e' stands for desired precision (acceptable error) = 0.10 (arbitrarily defined). as a pre-sample (pilot sample), we defined 10 values of the total oak wood stock (m3), selected at random from the 1909 deciduous oak polygons, as recorded in the vegetation polygon mapping of the xfs’ s management plans. random sampling of the 10 pre-sample values was repeated 599 times (wilcox, 2001). as per the above formula, a total of 48 sampling points had to be distributed on the map. the distribution was done using the collect earth grid generator tool (ofca, nondated). this tool enables the automated generation of spatially distributed sampling points, ensuring a systematic and unbiased sample selection process. sampling process involved 1. integration of tabular data with spatial maps: the management plans provided detailed forest inventory data, including the number of trees per diameter at breast height (dbh) class, volume over bark, and area per stand block. these tabular data were linked with spatial maps of the forest stands obtained from the xfs, allowing us to associate specific forest stands with their corresponding inventory data. 2. selection of representative strata: forest stands were categorized into strata based on their dbh classes and wood stock amounts to ensure that the sampling points covered the entire range of variability within the study area. this stratified sampling approach ensured that each stratum of the forest ecosystem, representing different age groups and biomass densities, was adequately sampled. 3. mapping and distribution of sampling points: using the collect earth grid generator tool, we distributed the 48 sampling points across the study area. each sampling point was precisely mapped and associated with a designated block and stand within the boundaries of the xfs. the use of high-resolution satellite imagery from google earth pro facilitated the accurate placement and verification of these points. 4. data collection from each sampling point: from each sampling point, we collected detailed forest inventory data, such as the number of trees per dbh class and volume over bark for the calculation of biomass estimates. for instance, the total biomass estimates for sampling point 12 within stand 'd' of block 11 in the thermes-satres complex were calculated using the aforementioned models as highlighted in table 1. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 54 kitikidou et al. table 1: biomass calculations through ganatsas et al. (2022), manolis et al. (2016), and zianis et al. (2016) models dbh class over bark 'd' (cm) no. of trees 'ν' in 0.1 ha sample plot volume over bark 'v' (m3); area 'a' (ha) biomass via ganatsas et al. (2022) b=v × befd/a (t/ha) biomass via manolis et al. (2016) b=(35.3660 × d2.9902×n)×0.001 (kgr) biomass via zianis et al. (2016) b=0.1341×d2.47×n (kgr) 10 21 1498; 36.16 41.88 726.1147139 831.09 12 5 298.2110342 310.44 14 5 472.8332395 454.29 16 7 986.8327517 884.51 18 8 1603.9535030 1352.20 20 4 1098.9699740 877.07 22 8 2922.7268530 2219.74 24 4 1895.6300690 1375.97 26 1 602.0592700 419.19 28 1 751.4115873 503.40 30 1 923.5787213 596.92 based on the results displayed in table 1 above, the estimated total biomass for the sampling point 12 was: � 41.88 t/ha, using the ganatsas et al. (2022) model; � 122.82 t/ha, using the manolis et al. (2016) model; and � 98.25 t/ha, using the zianis et al. (2016) model. finally, the method of biomass estimation by penman et al. (2003) was implemented with the following approach: the volumes of oak wood and the corresponding areas per stand block were extracted from the management plans' yield tables. we calculated the biomass at each sampling point, applying the bef values against the volume data. for example, for the same sampling point (i.e., sampling point 12, block 11, stand d, in the thermes-satres complex), we determined the biomass with bef as shown in table 2. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 55 kitikidou et al. table 2: biomass calculations through bef (penman et al., 2003) volume over bark (m3) bef (penman et al., 2003) area (ha) biomass via bef b=v×bwd×bef×0.001/area (t/ha) 1498 [1.15 to 3.2] 36.16 [33.35 to 92.80] based on the data presented in table 2, the estimated biomass through the bef method within the sampling point 12 ranged from 33.35 to 92.80 t/ha, accounting for the varying growth stages of the oak trees. results the average aboveground biomass was estimated at 103.807±16.41 t/ha, 242.946±47.09 t/ha, and 165.734±25.79 t/ha using the models of ganatsas et al. (2022), manolis et al. (2016), and zianis et al. (2016), respectively. using the bef of penman et al. (2003), the average aboveground biomass was estimated to be within the limit of 82.655±13.06 t/ha (lower limit bef=1.15) to 229.997±36.35 t/ ha (upper limit bef=3.2). the comparison between the tested biomass estimation models is given in figure 3. figure 3: comparison between the tested biomass estimation models. the examination of the forest structure of our study area, with the distribution among dbh classes of the trees in the forest’s stands (figure 4), clearly indicated that the stands were young, thus having a high net productivity. trees within these young stands were in an ascendant phase of their growth, marked by higher npp and, hence, a significant accumulation of biomass. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 56 kitikidou et al. figure 4: dbh distribution of the stands. discussion our study evaluated the applicability of the biomass models proposed by ganatsas et al. (2022), manolis et al. (2016), and zianis et al. (2016) to a forest area managed by the xfs. the manolis et al. (2016) model, approximating biomass with a biomass expansion factor (bef) of 3.2, emerged as the most accurate for our assessment. this can be attributed to its ability to account for the youthful vigor of the stands, which is consistent with the structure of the forests within our study area. an interesting observation from our study was that only 4 out of 48 sampling points represented high-volume stands, each exceeding 400 m³/ha (sampling points: 8, 35, 55, and 60). these highvolume stands exhibited significant deviation between the biomass estimates of different models. conversely, in low-volume stands, the deviation between the models was considerably smaller. for these stands, the biomass estimates showed greater consistency, reflecting the homogeneity in their structure. these insights underscore the necessity of selecting and applying the appropriate allometric models based on forest structure and growth stage. failure to do so can lead to significant errors in biomass estimation, particularly in heterogeneous forest landscapes like those managed by the xfs. models by zianis et al. (2016) and ganatsas et al. (2022) are calibrated more towards the biomass estimation of mature stands and, therefore, fall short in our case. primary productivity is integral to forest ecosystems, as it encapsulates the photosynthetic activity of plants, which is instrumental in biomass accumulation. this process forms the cornerstone for the net primary productivity (npp) of a forest by reducing gross photosynthetic carbon capture by the energy expended in autotrophic respiration and losses due to plant tissue mortality (chapin et al., 2011). npp thus becomes a critical driver of organic carbon accrual in forest ecosystems, marking the difference between the amount of banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 57 kitikidou et al. carbon assimilated through photosynthesis and that used or lost in respiration and decay processes (clark et al., 2001). the distribution of trees across various dbh classes is a fundamental component influencing npp and, consequently, aboveground biomass. forest structure encompasses various aspects such as tree density, size, age distribution, species composition, and the spatial arrangement of trees. a commonly used structural parameter is the distribution of trees among dbh classes, revealing productivity patterns across forest growth stages (ryan et al., 2004; stephenson et al., 2014). in young stands, characterized by a greater number of small-diameter trees, active growth and high npp are evident. as forests age, the distribution typically shifts towards fewer larger-diameter trees, signifying a mature forest where npp may level off or decrease as biomass accumulation slows (odum, 1969; luyssaert et al., 2007). our study area, dominated by young forests, showed rapid biomass accrual, making it apt to apply a bef near the upper end of the range (jenkins et al., 2003). in contrast, in mature forests with a more scattered distribution of large-diameter trees, a lower bef might be more appropriate (luyssaert et al., 2007). this is evident from our high-volume stands where the selected models showed larger deviations, indicating that the models suited for younger forests provided more accurate estimates. accurately gauging forest biomass requires an understanding of both npp and the forest’s structural dynamics, particularly when considering how the distribution of trees across dbh classes can reflect the growth phase and productivity of the forest. befs must be tailored to the specific structure of each forest—acknowledging that early-growth, dense stands rich in smaller dbh classes are structurally different from older, more evenly distributed stands with larger dbh trees. the tailored application of befs, based on forest structure, is not merely a theoretical exercise; it embodies a critical decision with tangible impacts on carbon budgeting and the assessment of a forest’s ecological status and conservation value. it implicates management strategies, sustainability considerations, and carbon accounting practices within the framework of global efforts to mitigate climate change (canadell & raupach, 2008). conclusion this research aimed to identify the most appropriate model for predicting forest biomass in the oak-dominated ecosystems within the xanthi region, using established models as benchmarks. besides the relevance of a model to another study region and focal species, the structure of the studied forest plays a crucial role in biomass estimation. our study area is characterized by young stands with a majority of smaller diameter trees, indicating high net primary productivity (npp). such characteristics necessitate the application of a bef closer to the higher end of its range, which is suitable for young, actively growing stands (penman et al., 2003). a comparison of allometric models, therefore, favors the use of the model proposed by manolis et al. (2016). consistent with the tiered approach for model selection advocated by the ipcc, our analysis underscores the necessity of matching allometric models to the forest's structural attributes to ensure accurate biomass estimates. the suitability of the model of manolis et al. (2016) for young stands implies that our study area possesses considerable potential for future biomass yield and carbon sequestration. this has significant implications for sustainable forest management, wherein accurate biomass estimates are crucial for formulating strategies that enhance the carbon storage potential of forests and contribute to climate change mitigation. acknowledgments we are grateful to the foroaks project for providing us financial support to accomplish this study. we are thankful to the xfs for providing us the necessary management plans and field data necessary for this study. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 58 kitikidou et al. author’s contribution statement k. kitikidou: research ideas, develop the research tools and methods, data analysis, revision of the research findings and manuscript preparation. e. milios: research ideas, develop the research tools and methods, data analysis, revision of the research findings and manuscript preparation. k. radoglou: research ideas, review and editing. data availability the data collected for this study is available from the foroaks project’s official websitehttps:// foroaks.fmenr.duth.gr/ conflict of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest. references bonan, g. b. (2008). forests and climate change: forcings, feedbacks, and the climate benefits of forests. science, 320: 1444–1449. brunner, i. & godbold, d. l. (2007). tree roots in a changing world. journal of forest research, 12, 78–82. canadell, j. g. & raupach, m. r. (2008). managing forests for climate change mitigation. science, 320, 1456–1457. https://doi.org/10.1126/ science.1155458. chapin, f. s., matson, p. a., & vitousek, p. (2011). principles of terrestrial ecosystem ecology (3rd ed.). springer. chave, j., réjou-méchain, m., búrquez, a., chidumayo, e., colgan, m., delitti, w., duque, a., eid, t., fearnside, p., goodman, r., henry, m., martinez-yrizar, a., mugasha, w., …………, & vieilledent, g. (2014). improved allometric models to estimate the aboveground biomass of tropical trees. global change biology, 20: 3177– 3190. clark, d. a., brown, s., kicklighter, d. w., chambers, j. q., thomlinson, j. r., & ni, j. (2001). measuring net primary production in forests: concepts and field methods. ecological applications, 11 (2): 356–370. fao. (2023). appendix 5 table 5.3 basic wood densities (d) of stem-wood (tones dry matter/m3 fresh volume) for tropical tree species. https:// www.fao.org/3/j2132s/ j2132s17.htm (accessed on may 5, 2023). forster, p. v., ramaswamy, p., artaxo, t., berntsen, r., betts, d. w., fahey, j., haywood, j., lean, d.c., lowe, g., myhre, j., nganga, r., prinn, g., …………., & van dorland, r. (2007). changes in atmospheric constituents and in radiative forcing. in s. solomon, d. qin, m. manning, z. chen, m. marquis, k. b. averyt, m. tignor, & h. l. miller (eds.), climate change 2007: the physical science basis. contribution of working group i to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. cambridge university press. ganatsas, p., tsakaldimi, m., karydopoulos, t., petaloudi, l. m., papaemmanouil, a., papadopoulos, s., & gerochristou, s. (2022). carbon pools in a 77-year-old oak forest under conversion from coppice to high forest. sustainability, 14: 13764. gasparini, p. & di cosmo, l. (2015). forest carbon in italian forests: stocks, inherent variability, and predictability using nfi data. forest ecology and management, 337: 186–195. goetz, s. & dubayah, r. (2011). advances in remote sensing technology and implications for measuring and monitoring forest carbon stocks and change. carbon management, 2: 231–244. https://www.doi.org/10.4155/cmt.11.18. google earth. (nondated). https://www.google. com/earth/ (accessed on may 5, 2023). henry, m., besnard, a., asante, w. a., eshun, j., adu-bredu, s., valentini, r., & saint-andré, l. 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(2014). rate of tree carbon accumulation increases continuously with tree size. nature, 507: 90–93. wilcox, r. r. (2001). fundamentals of modern statistical methods: substantially improving power and accuracy. springer science & business media. worldclim (nondated). worldclim climatology, version 1. https://developers.google.com/ earthengine/datasets/catalog/ worldclim_v1_ monthly xfs. (2023a). forest management plan of “drimos” complex, 2019-2028. xanthi forestry service, greece. xfs. (2023b). forest management plan of “echinos” complex, 2019-2028. xanthi forestry service, greece. xfs. (2023c). forest management plan of “gerakas-xanthi-kimmeria” complex, 20172026. xanthi forestry service, greece. xfs. (2023d). forest management plan of “kotili” complex, 2018-2027. xanthi forestry service, greece. xfs. (2023e). forest management plan of “miki” complex, 2022-2031. xanthi forestry service, greece. xfs. (2023f). forest management plan of “oreo” complex, 2015-2024. xanthi forestry service, greece. xfs. (2023g). forest management plan of “thermes-satres” complex, 2020-2029. xanthi forestry service, greece. zianis, d., spyroglou, g., tiakas, e., & radoglou, k. (2016). bayesian and classical models to predict aboveground tree biomass allometry. forest science, 62: 247–259. https://developers.google.com/ earth-engine/datasets/ https://developers.google.com/ earth-engine/datasets/ _hlk143161325 2.2._input_data _hlk178967326 72 euphorbia umbellata, a newly recorded naturalized species from nepal m. l. pathak 1* and s. k. kasaju 2 received: 10, september 2024 revised: 21, september 2024 accepted: 18, october 2024 published: 22, november 2024 1 plant research center, department of plant resources, salyan. *email: scientistdrmitra@gmail.com 2 botanics nepal pvt. ltd, kathmandu, nepal banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2, 2024 pp 72‒75https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v34i2.69691 euphorbia umbellata, a member of the family ‘euphorbiaceae’, is a succulent, evergreen shrub or a small bushy tree, typically reaching heights of 5 m and occasionally up to 10 m. it has been documented as a naturalized species in salyan and the neighboring regions of nepal (refer to figure 1). this particular species stands out from other euphorbia species due to its distinct leaves with visible venation and its green to yellowish-green flowers, which are mostly hidden by lance-shaped bracts that are purplishgreen on top and reddish-purple underneath. the euphorbiaceae family consists of 218 genera and 6745 species found in tropical regions worldwide, with 249 taxa in south asia (stevens, 2012; pahlevani et al., 2020). most members of this family are monoecious herbs, shrubs, and small trees, although some display xerophytic adaptations as succulent and cactus-like plants shortnote fig. 1. map showing the distribution of e. umbellata (indicated in red patches) in nepal. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4216-9093 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 73 pathak & kasaju (esser et al., 2009; stevens, 2012). there are 39 genera and 2810 species in the subfamily ‘euphorbioideae’. the genus euphorbia l. is the largest within this sub-family, containing approximately 2420 species (stevens, 2012). up to now, 20 species of euphorbia have been documented in nepal (shrestha et al. 2022), and this discovery will contribute to the nation’s floral record. the species was formerly known as synadenium grantii hook. f., and it has cyathia with glands that are arranged in a ring, while the glands of euphorbia species are distinct from each other. recent molecular analyses have demonstrated that the species of synadenium are nested within euphorbia section monadenium (bruyns et al., 2006; prota, 2017). the name synadenium grantii is still used in horticultural trade; however, the accepted name is euphorbia umbellata (pax) bruyns. fig. 2. a–c: individuals of e. umbellata; d–f: flowers of the species; and g: e. umbellata plants in their natural habitat. https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/10.1079/cabicompendium.121883#core-ref-3 https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/10.1079/cabicompendium.121883#core-ref-3 https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/10.1079/cabicompendium.121883#core-ref-11 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 74 pathak & kasaju taxonomic description euphorbia umbellata (pax) bruyns in euphorbia world 3: 5 (2007) shrubs or small trees can reach heights of 3–10 m, with a few thick erect branches and succulent stems. the leafy branchlets are 3–10 mm thick, terete, and without hairs. the leaves are fleshy and arranged spirally, clustered towards the ends of the stems as shown in figure 2, with petioles that blend into the leaf bases. the leaf blades measure 5–17 cm in length and 2–6 cm in width, and are narrowly obovate to oblongobovate or oblanceolate, with obtuse apex, entire or minutely denticulate margin, and cuneate base. the underside of the leaves is green or often reddish, and they are mostly hairless except along the edges or near the base. there are 9–14 strongly ascending secondary veins on each side. the flowers are green to yellowish-green and are mostly hidden by lance-shaped bracts, which are purplish-green on top and reddish-purple underneath. inflorescences1.0–1.5 cm long, red or green, peduncles5 cm long, branching dichotomous, bracts up to 3 mm long below the cyathiuma; cyathia4 mm diameter. this description is based on burger & huft (1995) and our own observation. habit: shrub or a small bushy tree. habitat: seasonally dry tropical biome. distribution: native to africa and widely spread around the world. uses: used as hedge plant or medicinal plant and rarely as ornamental plant. medicinal values despite its toxicity and ability to cause skin and mucous membrane irritation, latex has been used internally to combat internal parasites. warmed leaves are utilized to extract several drops of latex for expelling intestinal parasites and, on occasion, tapeworms. the sap from the leaves is also employed to address cardiac issues and excessive menstruation. a small amount of latex is applied topically to warts, as well as to sores as a treatment for syphilis. additionally, latex is used to help abscesses mature. the toxic potential of the latex from e. umbellata, due to the presence of certain phorbol-type diterpenes, is acknowledged when it is mixed with water and consumed as a treatment. the sap is extremely irritating to the skin, eyes and mouth. skin contact can cause blisters. all plant parts are considered very poisonous (ernst et al., 2015). figure 3. herbarium specimen of e. umbellata. distribution of e. umbellata in nepal in nepal, the plants of this species were reported to be growing wildly in the form of shrub either in the open dry areas or on the roadsides within the altitude of 800–1700 m above the mean sea level (msl) in the following localities: i. kapurkot, salyan to kumakh salyan (28°14ˈ47”-28°37ˈ41” n latitudes and 82°11ˈ36”-82°21ˈ07” e longitudes); https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/10.1079/cabicompendium.121883#core-ref-4 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 75 pathak & kasaju ii. padukasthan, dailekh karnali ridge (28°53ˈ24”-28°49ˈ34” n latitudes and 81°34ˈ10”-81°34ˈ06” e longitudes); iii. bheri river to near hospital road, jajarkot (28°40ˈ50”-28°41ˈ57” n latitudes and 82°11ˈ31”-82°12ˈ00” e longitudes); iv. bheri base to chhinchu road, surkhet (28°27ˈ30”-28°30ˈ51” n latitudes and 81°35ˈ09”-81°43ˈ25” e longitudes); and v. musikot to syarpu lake, rukum, west (28°34ˈ58”28°41ˈ39” n latitudes and 82°29ˈ18”82°33ˈ02” e longitudes). plant specimen collection point: mulpani village salyan (28°14ˈ47” n latitudes and 82°21ˈ07” e longitudes; 1500 m above the msl) date of collection: november 11, 2023. collected by: dr. m. l. pathak and mr. b. sen the herbarium specimen of e. umbellata (mlbg20230121, see figure 3) was prepared and sent to the kath laboratory (located at godawari, lalitpur) for deposition. the specimen was checked and verified by ms. pratikshya chalise (research officer, kath, godawari, lalitpur). references bruyns, p. v., mapaya, r. j., & hedderson, t. j. (2006). a new subgeneric classification for euphorbia (euphorbiaceae) in southern africa based on its and psba-trnh sequence data. taxon, 55 (2): 397–420.r burger, w. c. & huft, m. (1995). flora costaricensis: family #113 euphorbiaceae. fieldiana botany, 36: 1-169. doi: 10.5962/bhl. title.2536 ernst, m., grace o. m., saslis-lagoudakis c. h., nilsson, n., simonsen h. t., & rønsted, n. (2015). global medicinal uses of euphorbia l. (euphorbiaceae). journal of ethnopharmacology, 176. doi: 10.1016/j. jep.2015.10.025 esser, h. j., berry, p. e., & riina, r. (2009). euphorbia: a global inventory of the spurges. blumea 54: 11–12. pahlevani, a. h., liede-schumann, s., & akhani, h. (2020). diversity, endemism, distribution and conservation status of euphorbia (euphorbiaceae) in sw asian countries. plant systematics and evolution, 306: 80. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s00606-020-01705-4 prota. (2017). prota4u web database. wageningen, netherlands: plant resources of tropical africa. http://www.prota4u.org/search. asp (accessed on july 1, 2024). shrestha, k. k., bhandari, p., & bhattarai, s. (2022). plants of nepal (gymnosperms and angiosperms). heritage publishers & distributors, kathmandu, nepal. stevens, p. f. (2012). angiosperm phylogeny. http://www.mobot.org/mobot/research/ apweb/ (accessed on june 1, 2024). https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.2536 https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.2536 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2015.10.025 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2015.10.025 https://www.researchgate.net/journal/plant-systematics-and-evolution-1615-6110?_sg=st26raa0o_vevdz4twvfqtw6t4_zhgo03k6-qptcfi386lz9yznmi9k37zhd7ftwl-0mgcmmlfuzarjw_d9k47m7alnbow.gqburn2hjyeyh2pa1miqjvgxr6yhv8fire3dytixgnqbndamnl2fjfnh4xanaqohpydljcp8r9sywsucrddsnq&_tp=eyjjb250zxh0ijp7imzpcnn0ugfnzsi6imhvbwuilcjwywdlijoichvibgljyxrpb24ilcjwb3npdglvbii6inbhz2vizwfkzxiifx0 https://www.researchgate.net/journal/plant-systematics-and-evolution-1615-6110?_sg=st26raa0o_vevdz4twvfqtw6t4_zhgo03k6-qptcfi386lz9yznmi9k37zhd7ftwl-0mgcmmlfuzarjw_d9k47m7alnbow.gqburn2hjyeyh2pa1miqjvgxr6yhv8fire3dytixgnqbndamnl2fjfnh4xanaqohpydljcp8r9sywsucrddsnq&_tp=eyjjb250zxh0ijp7imzpcnn0ugfnzsi6imhvbwuilcjwywdlijoichvibgljyxrpb24ilcjwb3npdglvbii6inbhz2vizwfkzxiifx0 http://www.prota4u.org/search.asp http://www.prota4u.org/search.asp http://www.mobot.org/mobot/research/apweb/ http://www.mobot.org/mobot/research/apweb/ _hlk143161325 2.2._input_data _hlk178967326 1 increasing temperature, unpredictable rainfall, pollution, land use change, deforestation and land degradation and their consequences are the major global environmental challenges. to mitigate climate change, global leaders and environmentalists are looking for cost effective ways to incentivize governments, communities, and companies through payment-based mechanisms. policies, programs and legislative actions such as clean development mechanism (cdm), reduction emission through deforestation and forest degradation (redd+), and lowering emissions by accelerating forest finance (leaf) coalition are the some of the examples of payment-based mechanisms. the global leaders have agreed that conservation and sustainable management of the forests could significantly contribute to lowering the ghgs. to estimate carbon sequestration potential of the forests and to optimize emissioncaps-and-trade systems, reliable volume and biomass estimates are must. however, nepal still lacks reliable tools for quantifying volumes and biomasses required for carbon estimation. in this context, allometric volume and biomass equations could be important tools for quantifying tree volumes and biomasses. allometric equations use easily measurable variables to estimate the characteristics that are difficult to measure. in forestry, diameter at breast height (dbh) and total tree height (h) are the most frequently used variables to estimate volumes and biomasses and subsequent carbon stocks of trees and forest stands. considering this, different researchers and forestry practitioners around the world including nepal, have tried to develop allometric biomass and volume allometric for numerous tree species across several forest biomes. allometric tree volume and biomass equations can be prepared using both destructive and nondestructive methods. destructive methods are more costly as it is time and resource demanding. above that, direct measurement of tree biomass is impractical for least developed countries like nepal. on the other hand, non-destructive methods are time and resource efficient but they can hardly provide complete reliable information .thus, hybrid method combining destructive felling with suitable choice of allometric equations could be an appropriate option for resource limited mountainous countries like nepal. in this method, sample trees representing all geographic sites are selected randomly, then trees are felled and their volumes are estimated by measuring diameter at different predefined positions along their stems. densities of the stems are estimated by calculating densities of sub-samples (discs). then stem biomasses are calculated by multiplying stem volumes and densities. biomasses of leaves and branches are quantified directly by weighing. then the total biomass or biomasses of desired components are calculated by adding the biomasses of the components of the trees. then the candidate models are developed and the best-fit models are chosen as the allometric volume and biomass equations of the tree species. under the unfccc, countries are required to report the state of their forest resources and forest reference levels. the allometric volume and biomass equations can be used to convert the forest inventory data derived from ground-based inventory and remote sensing into biomass or carbon stock. the accuracy of the biomass estimation depends on the accuracy of the inventory data and the method, choice and errors of the allometric equations used. generally, country specific rigorous allometric equations are taken as banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal allometric volume and biomass equations for nepalese tree species https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i2.50891 2 low uncertainty (tier1) of the carbon estimation. often due to the high uncertainty associated with the carbon estimation, high buffer percentage is used in carbon trading. due to such high buffer percentage, countries are losing huge sum of foreign currency from carbon trade. therefore, to realize full benefit of carbon trade, robust country specific allometric equations are must. allometric volume and biomass equations are also equally important for sustainable forest management. biomass equations of individual trees are required to accurately assess forest productivity, growth performance, nutrient cycling and energy flows. together with total tree biomass and volume, different tree component and variable-top stem volume and biomass predictions/estimations are necessary for industries and forest product markets. for these reasons, researches on allometric equations have been frequently conducted in developed countries and the research results have been applied in the field that contributes in acquiring high productivity. however, in the least developed countries like nepal, only few research have been conducted and even available research results are not adequately applied. this is one of the reasons behind low forest productivity in nepal. we also lack confidence on using existing equations because of their poor prediction accuracy and lack of associate equations such as timber/ fuel wood proportion to total volume. therefore, allometric tree biomass and volume equations are important for forest researchers and managers. in addition, such equations will also help policy makers in making informed decisions. nepal started forest inventory in 1960s, primarily to quantify timber resources for sleeper and saw mills. later it was extended to national forest inventory (nfi). during that period, different volume equations were prepared, using the data collected through non-destructive method. these equations were then used to calculate extractable timber volume. likewise, biomass equations were prepared mostly by taking wood density data from different sources especially from the indian literature. later, in 1990s, during the second nfi, same equations were converted into metric system, which are still widely used as national level allometric equations in nepal. however, those equations were based on air-dried weight of wood sample and lack clear sampling method. besides, it has been almost six decades since the equations were developed. site quality and tree composition of the forests have changed drastically in the meantime. therefore, there is clear need for up to date national level allometric equations based on the representative samples from the entire tree population. nepal tried to prepare allometric volume and biomass equations for eight tree species during the third national forest resources assessment (2010-2015).though the project could not complete the task, it sensitized the policy makers and researchers about the importance and necessity of the allometric equations. consequently, preparation of allometric equations was identified as priority project and included in the project bank of the ministry of forest and soil conservation. realizing its importance, nepal planned to prepare tree level allometric equations for major tree species. during the second phase of redd readiness project, nepal identified 16 major tree species (also some genus) to prepare allometric equations based on the proportions of the total tree stem volume. the readiness project could not complete the task but it accomplished some preparatory work with the help of financial support from world bank. recently, the world bank has approved financial grant for allometric equation preparation under the forest for prosperity project. in this context, the forest research and training centre (frtc) has started the process for the preparation of allometric equations for seven tree species in cooperation of other departments and provincial ministries. however, difficult physiographic conditions of the country, nearby leaf fall season and cumbersome administrative procedures for tree harvesting are some challenges that frtc is facing to smoothly run the research. despite these odds, frtc is dedicated to complete the task with sound technology and improved/ precise measurement methods. we expect all the stakeholders including the cfugs, private sector and local communities will help us in successful completion of the mission of preparation of allometric volume and biomass equations for major tree species of nepal. thakur subedi research officer forest research and training centre banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 3 sal (shorea robusta gaertn.) is one of the most important commercial tree species in nepal and far-western terai is renowned for its forest. this study was carried out in far-western terai to develop volume models of sal at tree level using destructive sampling. out of 99 sample trees, 81 data were used to develop the models and 18 data for validation of the selected models. over bark stem diameters were measured at an interval of 0.5 m in lowermost three sections, at an interval of 1 m for one section and at an interval of 2 m in upper part of the trunk from the ground level. smalian’s formula was used to compute tree volume. seven regression models were tested using dbh as a predictor variable. cross validation of the independent data set was used to validate the selected models. the graphical analysis and fit statistics of the models were evaluated to select the best fit model. the selected model for total over bark stem volume is ln v = 8.04674 + 2.26641 ln dbh with r2 of 92 % and standard error of 0.18. similarly, the selected models for over bark volume up to 10 and 20 cm top diameter have r2 of 82.41% and 79.97% and standard errors of 0.35 and 0.42, respectively. the prediction error of the selected model was found to be less than 6%. forest managers can use the recommended model in estimation of timber volume of sal in a particular forest area of this region for effective forest management. key words: destructive sampling, far-western terai, fit statistics, regression equation volume models for sal (shorea robusta gaertn.) in far-western terai of nepal t. subedi1 tree volume provides vital information in forest management for estimating current and future stock of forest. however, direct measurement of volume is a tedious and impractical in the field. thus, models or mathematical functions are necessary to estimate the volume using some measurable variables such as height, diameter and form of the tree. further, volume models have been used as one of the best means to estimate trees and stand volume and have played vital role in forest inventory, management and silvicultural research (ozçelik et al., 2010). in principle, height and diameter are measured in the routine forest measurement. however, height measurement is not always practical due to more time consuming and cost and possibility of being less accurate (wagle and sharma, 2011; sharma and pukkala, 1990b; chaturvedi and khanna, 1982). on one hand, the possibility of error increases more in the dense forest measuring tree height, on the other, dbh can be measured more easily and accurately with less time and cost. further, volume table produced using a model with predictor variable dbh only is particularly useful for quick timber inventory. it can be tallied with species and only dbh (sharma and pukkala, 1990a; chaturvedi and khanna, 1982; özçelik, 2008). department of forest research and survey (dfrs) have been involved in producing various volume and biomass models (sharma and pukkala, 1990a; laamanen et al, 1995, tamrakar, 2000; acharya et al., 2003) of tree species required for forest management for long time. the general volume tables of 21 tree species and two species groups were developed in 1990 using data collected in 1960s (sharma and pukkala, 1990a). during 1990s there were few studies on general volume and growth models of sal, especially in central bhabar forests of nepal (laamanen et al., 1 department of forest research and survey, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal e-mail: ecothakur@yahoo.co.in banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 4 1995). in addition to this, dfrs has developed biomass and volume models of some trees and bamboo species and some forest types. however, the diameter used in developing the models was ≤ 35 cm and the data were collected from thinning operation applied in trial plots may not represent the natural forest and again, the data were from only central part of the country (acharya and acharya, 2004; acharya et al., 2003; tamrakar, 2000; pukkala et al, nd.). s. robusta gaertn., only one species found in nepal of tropical family dipterocarpaceae, is a multipurpose tree species. sal is a valuable and important timber species for construction, and fuel wood. sal seeds are used as raw material in industries and leaf used for making plates and as fodder for livestock (jackson,1994). it is still most predominant species in the terai of nepal (dfrs, 2014). it is found from terai region to 1500 m but common up to 1000 m. it occurs mostly in terai, siwalik and low land of hilly areas. in most areas, almost pure sal forest can be found or in association with terminalia alata. in some places, it grows along with broadleaved species. the sal forests in the terai (plain area) are mostly large and differ from hill sal forest. in higher rainfall and moist areas, it is replaced by mixed forest. dobremez (1976) listed nine types of shorea forests, but champion and seth (1968) listed more than that, most of them are expected to be found in nepal (cited by jackson,1994). the climate of far-western terai is drier than other parts of the country. out of the total forest area of kailali district, 32.16% is covered by sal forest and 31.39% by terai mixed hardwood (tmh) with sal (ddc kailali, 2015). the sal forest in far-western terai is similar with minor variations due to topographic and climatic similarity. thus, dfrs, 2014 described as far-western forest clusters, which is different from those in other parts of the country because its climate is drier than other parts of the country. therefore, the volume models based on one variable viz. dbh alone will be applicable. in recent years, efforts have been made towards the scientific forest management in nepal. however, there is lack of appropriate technical tool for volume and biomass estimation of timber. there is need for precise and site specific volume estimation equations using easily and accurately measurable independent variables of the trees. realizing the situation, department of forests has called for preparing district wise local volume tables to estimate the timber quantity (dof, 2014). therefore, preparation of local volume equations of this species for the natural forest of far-western terai is essential. the purpose of the study was to prepare local volume models of s. robusta for specific heights of tree trunk in far-western terai. materials and methods study area the study site is balchaur area located at the eastern part of kailali district and other sites such as bani, banka, motipur, gwalabari, krishnapur, basahan, singapurur, etc. located at eastern and southern part of kanchanpur district (fig. 1). fig 1: map of the study area these sites are in an altitudinal range of 109 m to 200 m above the mean sea level. kailali district has an area of 3,235 sq. km, in which 40 per cent is covered by terai (flat land) and 60 per cent by chure hills. the total area of kanchanpur district is 1610 sq. km in which 11.7 percent covered by chure region, 55 percent is covered by forest and subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 5 streams and 548.5 sq. km. of wildlife reserves and its buffer zone area. the far-western terai forest extends from the karnali river in the east to the western border of nepal. it covers 97,622 ha forest outside the protected area (dfrs, 2014). sal forest, terai mixed hardwood forest, sal with terai mixed hardwood forest and khair-sissoo forest are the dominant types of forest in this area (dfrs, 2014). the southern parts of the districts consist of plain area with deep fine sandy loamy soil. the climate is generally sub-tropical. the precipitation and temperature from dhangadhi and mahendranagar stations represent eastern and western study sites, respectively. the data of precipitation and temperature in dhangadhi are average figures of 25-years and 6-years, respectively. the data of precipitation and temperature in mahendranagar are average figures of 10-years and 4-years, respectively. average annual precipitation ranges from 1547 mm in mahendranagar to 1725 mm in dhangadhi. average monthly temperature ranges from 23.7o c in dhangadhi to 23.6o c in mahendranagar. absolute maximum temperature is 43.5o c whereas absolute minimum temperature is 2.0o c in dhangadhi. absolute maximum temperature is 43.0o c whereas absolute minimum temperature is 2.6o c in mahendranagar. dhangadhi annual autumn temperature is maximum 43o c to minimum 24o c and winter temperature is maximum 19o c to minimum 2o c. in this way, average temperature is found as 30.5o c. these climatic data taken from department of hydrology and meteorology/department of irrigation, hydrology and meteorology are stated by jackson (1994). data collection according to the forest act (1993), plants above 30 cm diameter are regarded as tree and selected as samples for the study. the data of selected sample trees were collected above 30 cm dbh to develop models particularly for estimation of sal timber. the data were collected from the forests of far-western terai. the trees above 30 cm diameter were divided into 10 cm diameter class up to 90 cm and one class above this. for each diameter class, at least 10 trees were selected for developing a model. the data were collected from different forest types, quality class, crown class and density to represent all the possible local minor variations of natural forest. the forest type, quality class, crown class and density were measured as in fra (2010). the representative sample trees with respect to size (diameter) were chosen randomly among the available trees from all parts of the selected area. twenty-one sample trees were selected from pure sal forest, 23 from sal-asna mixed forest and 37 from terai mixed hardwood forest to develop the model . the crown cover of these forests ranged from 30 to 85% having median of 60% crown cover. similarly, the selected sample trees to develop the model were 67 from predominant, 12 from co-dominant and two from suppressed trees. in this way, 81 (32 from kailali and 49 from kanchanpur) sample trees were selected to develop the model. similarly, 18 sample trees were selected from representative study area for validation of the models. the basic characteristics of the site and sampled trees were recorded before felling the sample trees. after measuring dbh, trees were felled and over bark diameters were measured at an interval of 0.5 m in lowermost three sections, at an interval of 1 m for one section and at an interval of 2 m in upper part of the trunk (sharma and pukkala, 1990a; eerikainen, 2001). further the height of the sampled tree up to 10 cm and 20 cm over bark top diameters were recorded. the over bark diameters were measured by a diameter tape with an accuracy of 0.1 cm. sectional volume was calculated using smalian’s formula and then total volume and volume up to top 10 and 20 cm diameters were obtained by summing up sectional volumes (laamanen et al.,1995, segura and kanninen, 2005 özçelik, 2008, ozçelik et al., 2010). data structure and model development the average dbh and height of the sample trees were approximately 59 cm and 30 m (table 1). the detailed descriptive statistics of 81 sample trees is given in table 1. subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 6 table 1: descriptive statistics of data of sample trees variables number of sample trees minimum median mean maximum standard deviation total height (m) 81 19.00 30.05 29.91 41.20 5.05 dbh (cm) 81 30.10 57.50 59.21 108.50 16.86 height diameter ratio 81 0.38 0.50 0.53 0.76 0.10 crown height (m) 72 3.40 12.20 12.39 23.30 5.28 total volume (m3) 81 0.58 2.90 3.69 11.20 2.35 volume up to 20 cm (m3) 81 0.38 2.80 3.59 11.14 2.36 volume up to 10 cm (m3) 81 0.56 2.89 3.67 11.18 2.35 the following different models were tested using r statistical software (r core team, 2012). v = a + b *d ...............................(i) ln v = a + b *ln d........................(ii) v = a + b *ln d............................(iii) ln v = a + b *d............................(iv) v = a + b *d2...............................(v) v = a + b*d+c*d2.......................(vi) v = adb........................................(vii) moreover, the following models were tested for predicting the volume of the proportion of sample tree in top 10 cm and top 20 cm over bark diameter (sharma and pukkala, 1990a; laamanen et al., 1995). lnv1/ v = a + b* ln d ................(viii) lnv2/vt = a + b*ln d .................(ix) where, a, b and c are parameters to be estimated, v is total volume of tree, v1 is volume beyond 10 cm top diameter, v2 is volume between top 10 and 20 cm diameter, vt is volume up to 10 cm top diameter, dbh is diameter at breast height and ln is the natural logarithm. model selection and validation t-test and f-test were used for testing the significance of the parameters and whole equation, respectively. the best fit model was selected based on residual analysis (whether the model fulfilled regression assumption or not), and fit statistics (standard error, bias and coefficient of determination). the back transformation was done with bias correction by adding exp (se2/2) to the intercept (sprugel, 1983). the method of cross validation technique was used (hawkins, 1987; kozak and kozak, 2003). the models were evaluated by testing cross validation of separate data sets of 18 trees. the prediction statistics was estimated using following equation and percentage error were plotted against the explained variable (hawkins,1987; acharya et al., 2003; ducey and williams, 2011). prediction error = (∑ actual volume − ∑ predicted volume)/ ∑ actual volume ∗ 100)………(xii) results and discussion relationship between total volume and tree variables the relation of volume with both the height and dbh was found to be strong and positive (fig. 2). the pearson correlation between total volume and dbh was found to be 0.9897. similarly, the correlation between volume and height was found to be 0.8610 whereas it was fig 2: relationship among different variables subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 7 0.8011 between dbh and total height. since, the total height has strong and positive relation with dbh, the height adds very little effect on volume than that of the dbh alone. total stem volume model above mentioned models were fitted and checked both by graphically and numerically in order to identify the best predicted model. the fitted models were overlaid on the observed data (fig. 3). in second graph, the observations are better distributed around the model throughout the dbh range. however, in all other figure, the models better capture the observation only in some part of the dbh range. the seven different regression models as given above were fitted and checked both by graphically and numerically to test the best predicted model. the fitted models were overlaid on the observed data (fig. 3). except the fifth and sixth models, the parameters of other five models are significant at 5% level of significance or even less. in general, all models fitted to the data well, as their good statistical fits in terms of r2 explained greater than 80% of variability (table 2). there were variations in standard error of estimate (see) in different models and equation 2 has the lowest see which is less than 0.2. v = adb fig. 3: visualization of seven models table 2: values of regression constants, std.error, r2 with t and p-values of tested models mo del no. para meter estimate standard error t value pr(>|t|) sd. error of estimate r2 p-value 1 a -4.3588 0.3291 -13.2500 <2e-16*** 0.8053 0.8915 <2.2e-16 b 0.1360 0.0053 25.6600 <2e-16 *** 2 a -8.0640 0.2930 -27.5300 <2e-16 *** 0.1859 0.9249 <2.2e-16 b 2.2664 0.0722 31.4100 <2e-16 *** 3 a -27.2900 1.6610 -16.4300 <2e-16 *** 1.054 0.8142 <2.2e-16 b 7.6680 0.4090 -18.7500 <2e-16 *** 4 a -1.1329 0.0937 -12.1000 <2e-16 *** 0.2292 0.8873 <2.2e-16 b 0.0376 0.0015 24.9400 <2e-16 *** 5 a -0.3144 0.1626 -1.9330 0.568 0.724 0.9135 <2.2e-16 b 0.0011 0.0000 28.8680 <2e-16 *** 6 a -0.7848 0.8744 -0.8970 0.372 0.7272 0.9137 <2.2e-16 b 0.0154 0.0281 0.5480 0.586 c 0.0009 0.0002 4.3460 4.14e-05*** 7 a 0.0006 0.0002 2.9250 0.00449** 0.7306 0.8928 6.11e-06 b 2.1144 0.0786 26.8970 <2e-16*** (converge nce tolerance) note: ** shows significant at 95% and *** shows significant at 99% confidence level subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 8 in the past, similar models were tested for different species (hawkins, 1987; dfrs, 2006). laamanen et al. (1995) developed a general volume model with r2 of 97.1% and standard error of estimate of 0.13 for adabhar, bara district. the model developed for sal by sharma and pukkala (1990) for producing general volume table has r2 of 98.3% and standard error of estimate of 0.13 and it is widely used. in both cases, dbh and height were used as predictor variables but in this study only dbh was used as a predictor variable, which alone explained 92.5% variation of the observed tree volume. lower r2 value in this study may be due to the use of single predictor variable, dbh. see is greater in one explained variable than two variables (pukkala et al. n.d.). other similar models were also developed in the past but their statistics of fit was not mentioned (acharya et al., 2003). the residuals of all models were analyzed. due to the brevity of space, only graphs of the most suitable model (m2) were presented in figure 4. it is important to note that only model 2 showed homoscadascity and normality of residual distribution. the curve of the residuals was not seen sharply decrease or increase in the selected model. similar trend was found for standardized residuals. three outliers were found in which two outliers had underestimated and one outlier had overestimated values. the outlier samples were identified and analyzed. though, removal of outliers improves the model reliability but they were not removed so as to represent the data from all parts of the study area. fig. 4: histogram of residuals and residuals versus ln (dbh) over bark stem volume up to top 10 cm and top 20 cm top diameter the distribution of ratios (m8 and m9) against its predictor variable clearly indicates that the data were distributed negative exponentially (fig. 5). hence the models with both side logarithms were used as in the past in similar cases (sharma and pukkala, 1990a; laamanen et al., 1995). in this case, only logarithmic model was tested as used in similar past studies (sharma and pukkala, 1990a ; laamanen et al., 1995). all the parameters of both models were significant (table 3). volume between 10 cm to 20 cm top diameter/ volume up to 10 cm top diameter vs dbh vol. beyond 10 cm top diameter/total volume vs dbh fig. 5: volume ratio of top 10 and 20 cm diameter vs. dbh in comparison to total stem volume equation, the r2 values of both equations were lower, while standard error of estimates was higher. it may be due to error accumulation from total volume model. sharma and pukkala (1990a) reported 78.9 and 74.1 r2 values for the ratio of top 10 and 20 cm over bark diameter, respectively. similarly their standard error of estimates was 0.51 for both the equations. these two models were better than sharma and pukkala (1990a) in terms of r2 and see (table 3). however, the fit statistics reported by laamanen et al. (1995) was better than that of the study. table 3: values of regression constants, r2 and standard error of the models model no. model a b r2 see n 8 ln(v1/v) = a + b*ln d 5.0445 -2.6094 0.8241 0.3469 81 9 ln(v2/vt) = a + b*ln d 8.221 -2.954 0.7997 0.4253 81 subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 9 the residuals of both models (m8 and m9) were found to be satisfactory and they were distributed evenly without any trend, so these models can be recommended. the residuals against dbh are shown in figure 6. fig. 6: residuals vs. dbh in two models model validation the definition and method of validation among the researchers were not found uniform (kozak and kozak, 2003; bellocchi et al., 2010). most of them considered components of fit statistics and graphical inspection for validation (kozak and kozak, 2003; bellocchi et al., 2010). in addition to the analysis of fit statistics, meehl et al. (2005) compared different models, which are used for similar purposes. vanclay (1994) calculated the prediction statistics of independent data sets for model validation. iles (2003) strongly recommended for checking few independent trees to measure accuracy of the volume table (cited by ducey and williams, 2011). therefore, for validation of these equations, in addition to compare different equations, fit statistics and graphical inspection, the prediction statistics of 18 trees were analyzed. the bias, rmse and prediction error of models for total volume, and volume up to 10 and 20 cm diameter are almost similar (table 4). the equation for total volume over bark was biased to 0.1 8 m3 with rmse of nearly 0.4 m3, which is acceptable since validation data sets were fewer than modeled data, resulting losses of the information (kozak and kozak, 2003). moreover, hawkins (1987) recommended that the overall prediction error should be within 10 to 15 % of the actual value. in this study, the prediction errors of selected model was found to be within 6% and were lower than that of acharya et al. ( 2003). but some statisticians argue that due to fewer validations data sets rather than modeled data validation losses the information (kozak and kozak, 2003). the predicted values of all suggested models were plotted against the actual values of test data sets (fig. 7). there is slightly underestimation of volume mainly in large-sized trees (fig. 7). fig. 7: predicted versus actual volume the individual error of test data set was evaluated by plotting against the diameter (fig. 8). the overall prediction errors of all models were within limit but the error percentage of individual trees was a bit high in some cases. the models consistently underestimated volume of trees over the range of dbh (fig. 8). fig. 8: percent error vs. dbh of individual tested tree table 4: prediction statistics of the models model rmse bias prediction error (%) total volume over bark 0.3958158 0.1836834 5.812 volume up to 10 cm over bark 0.395469 0.1827535 5.809 volume up to 20 cm over bark 0.4009819 0.1759837 5.769 subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 10 conclusion among the tested seven models, the recommended logarithmic model has the smallest rmse and bias, and higher r2. the model for total stem volume is ln v = 8.04674 + 2.26641 ln dbh. the models for ratio of volume beyond 10 cm top diameter to total stem volume is ln (v1/v) = 5.0618 2.6094*ln dbh and ratio of volume between 10 cm and 20 cm diameter to volume up to 10 cm top diameter is ln (v2/vt) = 8.31144 2.954*ln (dbh). this study recommends for application of the equations within the range of sample data. since, the samples are site specific, the models should be used cautiously in other places of nepal after validating the models. acknowledgements i highly acknowledge to dr. binaya pasakhala for linguistic improvement and valuable comments. i also want to thank mr. kiran kumar pokharel for inspiring me to write this article. references acharya, k. p. and acharya, b. 2004. early growth performance of natural sal (shorea robudta) dorest in central nepal. department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. acharya, k.p., regmi, r. and achrya, b. 2003. biomass and volume tables for terai sal (shorea robusta) forest of nepal. department of forest research and survey, forest research leaflet no. 15. bellocchi, gianni, rivington, mike, donatelli, marcello and matthews, keith. 2010. validation of biophysical models: issues and methodologies. a review. agronomy for sustainable development 30 (1): 109– 130 champion, h. g. and seth, s. k. 1968. a revised survey of the forest types of india. manager of publications, delhi, india. chaturbedi a.n. and khanna l.s. 1982. forest mensuration; international book distributors, dehra dun, india. dof. 2014. commitments paper; fifth national meeting of district forest officers, department of forests (dof), kathmandu, nepal. dfrs.2006. local volume tables for major tree species in dhaulagiri area department of forest research and survey (dfrs), district forest offices: parbat, baglung and myagdi, livelihoods and forestry programme, dhaulagiri area. dfrs. 2014. terai forests of nepal. forest resource assessment nepal project, department of forest research and survey, kathmandu, nepal. ddc kailali. 2015. district profile: periodic district development plan (fiscal year 2072/073 − 2076/077), district development committee, kailali. dobremez, j. f.1976. le nepal, ecologie et biogeographie. cnrs, paris, france. ducey, m. j. and williams, m.s. 2011: comparison of hossfeld’s method and two modern methods of volume estimation of standing trees. western journal of applied forestry 26 (1):19-23. eerikainen, kalle. 2001. stem volume models with random coefficients for pinus kesiya in tanzania, zambia, and zimbabwe. canadian journal of forest research 31 (5): 879888 fra. 2010. field manual for inventory data collection. forest resource assessment project, kathmandu, nepal. unpublished. hawkins, thomas. 1987. biomass and volume tables for eucalyptus camuldulensis, dalargia sissoo, acacia auriculiformis and cassia siamea in the central bhabar terai of nepal. oxford forestry institute, department of plant sciences, the uk. iles, (2003); a sampler of inventory topics.: kim iles & associates nanaimo, bc, canada. jackson j. k.1994. manual of afforestation in nepal. volume 2. forest research and survey center, kathmandu, nepal. subedi banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 11 kozak, antal and kozak, robert. 2003. does cross validation provide additional information in the evaluation of regression models. canadian journal of forestry research 33 (6): 976–987. laamanen, r., joshi, m. r. and sharma, s.p. 1995. biomass and volume models for sal in the central terai of nepal. frisp project paper no.7 kathmandu, nepal. özçelik, r. 2008. comparison of formulae for estimating tree bole volumes of pinus sylvestris . scandinavian journal of forest research 23 (5):412–418. ozçelik, r., diamantopoulou, m. j., brooks, j. r. and wiant jr., h.v. 2010. estimating tree bole volume using artificial neural network models for four species in turkey. journal of environmental management 91 (3):742–753. pukkala, t., sharma, e. r. and rajbhandari, m. d. a guide to biomass modeling for forest inventory in nepal. forest survey and statistics division, publication no. 51. r core team. 2012. a language and environment for statistical computing. r foundation for statistical computing, vienna, austria. isbn 3-900051-07-0, url http://www.r project.org/ segura, m. and kanninen, m., 2005. allometric models for tree volume and total aboveground biomass. biotropica 37 (1) : 2–8. sharma, e. r. and pukkala, t. 1990a. volume equations and biomass prediction of forest trees of nepal. publication number 47. ministry of forests and soil conservation, forest survey and statistics division, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. sharma, e. r. and pukkala, t., 1990b: volume tables for forest trees of nepal. ministry of forests and soil conservation, forest survey and statistics division, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. publication number 48. ministry of forests and soil conservation, forest survey and statistics division, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. sprugel, d.g. 1983. corrected for bias in logtransformed allometric equations: ecology 64 (1): 209–210. tamrakar, p. r. 2000. biomass and volume table with species description for community forest management, his majesty’s government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, natural resources management sector assistant programme (narmsap), tree improvement and silvicultural component, nepal. vanclay, j. k. 1994. modelling forest growth and yield. application to mixed tropical forest. cab international, oxon, uk. wagle, b. h. and sharma, r. p. 2011. modelling height-diameter relationship for pinus wallichiana trees for lete and kunjo of mustang district. banko janakari 21 (2): 13–23. subedi banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal banko janakari: status and way forward the forest research and training centre (frtc) has a long history in forestry research in nepal. the end-users (planners, decision makers, and managers of government/ community forests, researchers and so on) won’t be informed about the research and survey outcomes unless those are published and disseminated to them. so, the publication of those research findings via its own scientific open access journal banko janakari (bj) has been regularly published by the frtc, under the ministry of forests and environment since 1987 when this organization used to be in the name of forest survey and research office (fsro, directly under the then department of forests, ministry of forests and soil conservation). banko janakari, a journal of forestry information for nepal, is an internationally recognized peer-reviewed journal (in english), which publishes the forestry and environment-related research articles. it aims to communicate scientific information and latest development in forestry researches to the national and international forestry stakeholders as well as scientific community. the genesis of the nomenclature of this journal is quite historical; the name “banko janakari” for this journal was approved through the consensus amongst a significant number of foresters and others concerned with forests and environment at its initial stage. the nepali name of the journal literally means “information about forests” in english. it has been recognized as a “two star journal” in nepal. initially indexed in nepjol, it has been recently listed in “elsevier’s scopus”, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. there are defined rules and regulations regarding the publication of any forestry or environment-related article in the bj; the frtc has published a publication manual for the purpose. the submitted manuscripts are first screened by its managing editor, and if they are found to have covered the scope of the journal, these are sent to the relevant national and/or international experts listed in the roster through its editorial board. despite the rigorous review, the journal endeavors to keep the decision duration relatively short. https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v31i1.37312 2 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1, 2021 the articles so submitted are accepted only after the approval from the experts along with their comments and suggestions for improvement. initially, only the articles related with the organization’s forestry research and survey activities used to be published in this journal. later on, the articles from outside, mainly from the university graduates and faculty members, have also been considered for publication after recommendations from the related competent reviewers. the students pursuing phd degree courses in various fields of forestry and environment from the nepalese universities must fulfill the requirements of publishing at least three scientific articles (based on their field-data) in any internationally recognized peer-reviewed scientific journal. bj has largely served these students in fulfilling their requirements. moreover, the foreign students studying such courses at the universities in their own countries or abroad can also be attracted for getting their articles published in bj. for this purpose, the present bj editorial board which is composed of mostly the nepalese members except a few from other countries of the asian continent needs to be restructured so as to include some from other continents as its members. undoubtedly, it will enhance the standard and broad spectrum of the board as well as fulfill the requirements of the international practices of peer-reviewed scientific publications. besides, the articles to be published in bj need to be improved in every aspect, including scientific writing and subject coverage. similarly, the articles prepared on the basis of the research and studies conducted outside nepal should also be considered for publication in this journal. the bj has established itself as the leading and one of the most reputed journals of forestry sector in nepal. the challenges exist to maintain its high reputation and upscale its visibility to international scientific community as well. kiran kumar pokharel managing-editor banko janakari banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 32 this paper focuses on the participatory market chain analysis of agroforestry products in six sites of two districts (kavre and lamjung) of nepal. in total, 93 market actors were involved in the study, in which 80 persons were purposively selected from local resource person (lrp) and local resource group (lrg) members and 13 persons were randomly selected from the local, district and national level traders. primary data on agroforestry products was collected through participatory rural appraisal (pra) tools following several field visits. fourteen agroforestry products in lamjung and 20 agroforestry products in kavrepalanchok district were selected for analysis. the findings showed that small-scale production and insufficient service to farmers from the village level agriculture collection centers and cooperatives are the major constraints to effective and efficient market chain development and management. the main factors responsible for increasing the production of agroforestry products are the rise in awareness among lrps/ lrgs about agroforestry practices along with institutional and policy development to facilitate the marketing of agroforestry products. the paper concludes by highlighting the controlling factors in agroforestry business. key words: agroforestry market chain, agroforestry products, market trend, participatory appraisal participatory market chain appraisal for the full range of agroforestry products including market trends and growing markets s. m. amatya1*, i. nuberg2, e. cedamon2, k. k. shrestha3, b. h. pandit1, p. aulia4, m. joshi1 and b. dhakal1 nepal’s food insecurity is worsening as traditional agroforestry systems being practiced are unable to adapt to, or make use of, changing market and climatic conditions. improving the agroforestry practice aside, one of the ways to improve food security is to enhance agroforestry marketing practices. agroforestry product marketing is a dynamic and complicated process, which covers various activities and agencies from producers to the consumers (amatya et al., 2015). one of the main problems of agroforestry product marketing in nepal is small scale production resulting in low productivity in volume and quality (pandit et al., 2014). sustainable marketing mechanism differs with the location and available infrastructures. the market chain and trends of all agroforestry products produced in research sites are not known. therefore, a study was undertaken to identify the existing market mechanism for agroforestry products of the project research sites, to assess the market chain of the full range of agroforestry products harvested and to explore the factors responsible for changing agroforestry products market chain and trends, its barriers and constraints, opportunities and limitations. materials and methods in order to investigate food security and livelihoods of rural people, a five year joint project of government of nepal and australian government is being implemented in six sites of two districts (kavre and lamjung) in nepal since 2013. the market mechanisms were looked at involving project beneficiaries categorised as local resource persons (lrps) and local resource groups (lrgs) who are also the 1 nepal agroforestry foundation, kathmandu, nepal. *e-mail: swoyambhu_amatya@yahoo.com 2 professor, university of adelaide, australia 3 professor, university of new south wales, australia 4 international centre for research in agroforestry, indonesia banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 33 members of six community forest user groups of the case study districts. various agroforestry products related with primary food security such as vegetables, fruits, spices, flowers and timber products were grown by these lrps/ lrgs’ in their fields. these groups developed various types of marketing mechanisms to overcome some of the constraints of small-scale agroforestry products. fig. 1: location of study area this study adopted a descriptive qualitative case study approach to obtain an in-depth analysis of context in which agroforestry market chain occurs. it also employed quantitative methods to analyse the quantity and price of the products related to the benefits gained by different social actors along the market chain. the qualitative strategy is aimed to generate insights into the processes and practice through which the agroforestry product market chains are organised. emphasis is given to the analysis of behaviours of market actors. the quantitative strategy complements qualitative analysis by brining insights of the distribution of benefit from agroforestry product trade. a commodity selection process was conducted to identify the most promising market options (ostertag et al., 2007). thirty-seven commodities were selected in the beginning from six sites: dhungkharka, mithinkot, and chaubas in kavre, dhamilikuwa, jeeta taksar, and nalma in lamjung (naf, 2014). this framework was developed based on three criteria as described below: step 1 selection criteria: the value chains were evaluated in focus group discussion using seven criteria: a) market and market demand b) economy of scale and outreach c) high value d) stakeholders’ interest and commitment (women and poorest households) e) coordination f) short turnover and g) leverage. step 2 weightage percentage: the first criteria ‘market and market demand’ was given 20% weightage, the second to fifth criteria were given 15% and the rest two were given 10% weightage each. step 3 assessing commodities fit against each criterion: each criterion was given a score in a range from 1 to 5, with 5 representing maximum compliance and 1 minimum compliance. overall ranking was determined using a weighted average of the seven criteria. primary information regarding products, market chain, trends and market growth were collected through field visits using participatory rural appraisal (pra) tools and technique and review of literatures. information was also collected through key informants’ interview and focus group discussion. discussions were also held with cfug (community forestry users groups) executive committee members, lrps, local teachers, and government line agencies supporting lrps and lrgs members for agroforestry intervention in the project sites and traders of agroforestry products. information required for the analysis of the agroforestry products, data on prices and costs were collected at successive levels of the market chain. to identify the market actors involved in the market chain, a snowball sampling method (hair et al., 2010) was used. the direction of the snowballing approach was from farmers to consumers. the researchers participated directly in the marketplace. they were able to describe the market chain due to their direct participation and observation of marketing places of agroforestry products at the local, district and national level, they were able to describe the market chain. initially, information was collected from farmers who helped to identify the traders. subsequently, the identified traders were approached for the necessary information as well as for identification of other traders and cooperation to who they sold the products. to analyse the overall agroforestry product market chain, rapid market appraisal (rma) was used to identify and assess the problems and opportunities related to the market system and to understand how the trade is organized, operates amatya et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 34 and performs. as an iterative process and interactive research methodology, rma was used to better understand complex market systems in a short time (ilo, 2000; ostertag et al., 2007; perdana et al., 2013) using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. secondary information of agroforestry products market chain and their trend and marketing mechanisms, and their barriers and constraints, opportunities and limitations were gathered to supplement primary data. the main source of secondary data were lrp and lrg member’s records and reports of other line agencies and traders, agroforestry markets and marketing mechanisms, and related published and unpublished documents, literatures and journals. key agriculture and forestry related policy documents were also reviewed to understand the market chain of agroforestry products and change over market chain actors and price of agroforestry products at the local, district and national level. in total 93 market actors were involved in the study, in which 80 persons were purposively selected from lrp and lrg members and 13 persons were randomly selected from the local, district and national level traders. the participation of women in this study was 43%. among 93 respondents only 10% were dalits, 50% were from ethnic community and 40% were brahmin and chhetri. in the study population, agriculture, business and services were found major occupation. out of them, majority (80%) of the total respondents were dependent mainly on agriculture based occupation. results and discussion a total of 16 commodities were selected in the first phase which received at least the score of good compliance (table 1). in the second phase, the high scoring (maximum compliance) commodities such as buffalo milk, goat meat, banana, tomato, cardamom, ginger and round chillies were selected which scored more than four. table 1: result of agroforestry commodity selection process commodity name kavre lamjung dhung kharka mithinkot chaubas dhamili kuwa jeeta takshar nalma 1. buffalo milk √√√√ √√√√ √√√ √√√√ √√√ √ 2. goat meat √√√ √√√ √√√ √√√ √√√√ √√√ 3. timber √√ √ √√√ √ √ √ 4. lauth salla √√√ x √√ x x x 5. brooms √√ √ √√ √ √√√ √√√ 6. ginger x √√√√ x √ √ x 7. lapsi √ √ √√ x √ √√√ 8. cardamom √√√ x √√√√ x x √√ 9. banana x √ x √√√√ √√√√ √√ 10. honey √ √ √ √ √√√ √ 11. bamboo x √ x √ √√√ x 12. drum stick x x x √√√ √ x 13. round chilli x √√√ x x √ √√√√ 14. tomato √√√√ x √√√ x x √√ 15. tejpat √√ √ √ √√√ √√√ √√ 16. satawari/kurilo x √√√ √ √ √ √ number of products selected 5 5 5 5 6 4 scale: xno compliance (0 score); √ – little compliance (1—2 score);√√compliance (2—3 score); √√√good compliance (3—4 score); √√√√ – max compliance (4—5 score). amatya et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 35 at least one maximum compliance agroforestry product was thus selected from each of the six sites. these included tomato from dhungkharka, ginger from mithinkot, cardamom from chaubas, round chilli from nalma and banana from two sites (jeeta taksar and dhamilikuwa) in the beginning (fig. 1). as identified through research, producers, collectors, retailers, and cooperatives were the major actors in the market chain in the study areas. the following section describes their roles and practices in the market chain prices at different market levels, and the growing markets of agroforestry products. producers farmers involved in producing agroforestry products were the main producers. producers in the study areas tended to sell what was produced and did not engage in further processing or value adding activities. generally, they were producing vegetables and other products in small quantity, and then these products were collected by collectors in one place through a group of farmers or cooperatives and delivered to wholesalers in kathmandu valley (table 2). they had engaged in the market chain mostly through collectors and retailers, but generally they had limited access to market information and were seldom in a position to negotiate higher rates. regardless of the negotiation approach taken, producers usually perceived that their products were bought at a price that was lower than expected because of their limited access to market information, weak bargaining position, and the dominant role of traders. their current practice is limited on small scale production resulting in low productivity in terms of volume and quality (pandit et al., 2014). collectors, wholesalers, and retailers collectors play an important role in the agroforestry product market chain. first, they search for potential buyers in the marketplace and enquire as to the buyers’ requests. guided by their information network, they visit smallholders, searching for products available for harvest, which suit the request. they also explore upstream to increase their supply. they repeat this process frequently because supply, quality, and prices change so often. second, the harvest of multiple producers is sorted into lots for sale to the wholesalers and retailers. third, they serve to minimise and facilitate the number of contacts in the market chain. competition between other collectors was mostly from neighbouring villages. they had access to market information such as current prices, demands and specifications. from their informants, the collectors were aware of prices offered by other collectors. their role ended when the products were delivered to the buyers, wholesalers or retailers. wholesalers are the middle traders who purchase products in huge amounts at significant discounts from collectors or agriculture products marketing cooperatives, and then distributed among the retailers at higher prices. on an average wholesaler in kathmandu received 13—17% benefits from their marketing activities. retailers were town or city based traders who had bought agroforestry products from collectors. they had well-established contacts with most collectors in the study area, as they had been engaged in an extensive business relationship for some time. similar to the relationship between producers and collectors, links with larger traders were a matter of mutual trust built upon a gradually established relationship. the retailers had purchased agroforestry products from the wholesalers and sold to the end users at a marked up price. the best example of a retailer would be the small family-operated fruit shop on the corner of a market, hotels and supermarkets. on an average, retailers in kathmandu received 20—25% benefits from agroforestry products marketing. amatya et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 36 table 2: list of agroforestry products in the study area study site agroforestry products study site agroforestry products lamjung kavre aapchaur cfug, dhamilikuwa banana cauliflower potato tomato black pepper milk kalapani cfug, dhungkharka tomato cabbage cauliflower potato mustard leaves radish garlic milk lampata cfug, jeeta taksar banana ginger turmeric honey broom grass sugarcane phagarkhola cfug, chaubas cardamom pumpkin marigold flower lapsi utis timber pine timber khundru langdi cfug, nalma round chilly potato tomato onion goat sa pa ru pa cfug, methingkot ginger chilly tomato milk goat aapchaur cfug of dhamilikuwa, lamjung the main agroforestry products marketed from the dhamilikuwa of lamjung district were banana, black pepper, milk, cauliflower, potato and tomato. these products were sold in local markets located in the district through three market actors (producers, retailers and consumers). the major constraints of this marketing mechanism were price variation due to the lack of information and services in the local market, lack of storage facilities. in addition, they also lacked skill and knowledge on quality and value enhancement through grading and processing. however, the development of road transportation system in the village and telephone communication has helped farmers significantly for marketing of their agroforestry products. producers and retailers of local markets had known very well with each other and had mobile telephone communication facilities to plan and organize agroforestry product marketing in this action research test site. farmers of dhamilikuwa were selling their fresh products directly to the retailers of surrounding township such as bhoteodar, sundar bazaar, besisahar and other local markets, which are located in nearly one hour driving distances from dhamilikuwa. retailers have contact directly to the farmers by telephone and then farmers supplied their fruits and vegetables based on demand of these retailers. farmers harvest their products, clean it in fresh water and then packet in plastic bags and send to the retail markets. figure 2 shows the agroforestry products marketing mechanisms of dhamilikuwa. fig. 2: market chain of agroforestry products of dhamilikuwa retailers were also selling these products to consumers without any value addition work. in this site, the “radha krishna agriculture cooperative” was found passive due to low volume of agriculture products. the production capacity of these traded agroforestry products (table 3) of dhamilikuwa site was found high because there was very good irrigation facilities compared with other five action research sites. the number of farmers, land areas and per unit production have been increased compared with 3 years ago. the main factors responsible for the increment were awareness raising in agroforestry by the project team and developing institution of lrgs and lrps. in addition, farmers were also diverted into cash crops. the price of agroforestry products at local market was also increased by 15% compared amatya et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 37 with three years ago. however, low volume of production was the major constraint for developing and managing agroforestry product marketing mechanism in this site. table 3 shows that price difference of banana between farm gate price, local/district markets and national markets. the price of banana at national market was very high compared with other agroforestry products. farmers of this site were using chemical fertilizers such as di-ammonium phosphate, urea and muriate of potash, etc to produce rice, maize, wheat, potato, tomato and cauliflower, etc. the use of chemical fertilizers ranged from 25—150 kg per households, which cost rs 45/kg. in addition, some farmers also had used insecticides such as novan to protect potato and tomato crops from fungal diseases. more chemical fertilizers were used in cereal crops compared with vegetable crops. the average total cost of production of marketable agroforestry products such as cauliflower, potato and tomato was calculated rs 30 per kg. agroforestry products of the test site were sold in local level markets, and therefore, load, unload and transportation costs up to the local markets was only rs 2—3 per kg. lampata cfug of jeeta taksar, lamjung the major agroforestry products marketed from the jeeta taksar site were banana, ginger, turmeric, broom, honey and black sugarcane. these products were sold in local markets through three market actors (producers, retailers and consumers). there was lack of market information and services in the local market. in addition, they did not have storage and transportation facilities. they also lacked skill and knowledge on quality and value addition through grading and processing. development of road transportation system in the village had helped them significantly for marketing of their agroforestry products. banana farmers had harvested their products targeting to festival and other local level religious functions. local fruit sellers and retail shop keepers of local market, called sotipasal, had direct contact with farmers or producers, and farmers supplied their banana fruits and other fresh products based on demand of fruit sellers and shop keepers. farmers harvest their products, clean it in fresh water and then delivered to the markets. figure 3 shows the agroforestry products marketing mechanisms of jeeta taksar site. fig. 3: market chain of agroforestry products of jeeta taksar site the production capacity of traded agroforestry products (table 4) of this site can be improved in coming years because there are increasing trend in number of farmers, land areas, per unit production and price of agroforestry products table 3: agroforestry products, their quantity and per unit price at different markets agroforestry products approximate production quantity price (rs) at different level of markets farm gate (local) district national banana 25000 darjan 40/darjan 65/darjan 80/darjan cauliflower 5000 kg 45/kg 55/kg 60/kg potato 6000 kg 40/kg 50/kg 55/kg tomato 3000 kg 50/kg 65/kg 75/kg black pepper 50 kg 800/kg 1200/kg 1400/kg milk 50000 litres 40/litre 60/litre 65/litre note: 1 darjan = 12 banana amatya et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 38 compared with three years ago. the main factors responsible for increasing agroforestry production were increase in awareness level. however, farmers were facing problem in selling ginger. a product collection centre was established in 2012 for marketing of agriculture products, which was found passive due to the low production of agriculture commodities. table 4 shows that price difference of banana and ginger between farm gate price, local markets, district markets and national markets was very high compared with other agroforestry products marketed from this test sites. farmers of these sites were using di-ammonium phosphate and urea mainly in rice field and some farmers were also found using chemical fertilizers in vegetable farms. the use of chemical fertilizers ranged from 5—25 kg per household, which cost rs 47/kg. in addition, some farmers were also using insecticides in rice field. the use of chemical fertilizers and insecticides in marketable agroforestry products were nominal, and transportation cost was not required because almost all agroforestry products were sold in local markets. khundru langdi cfug of nalma, lamjung the main marketable agroforestry products of nalma site were round chilly, potato, tomato, onions and goat production. these products were sold locally moving through producers to consumers because the productions were very low compared with local demands. there was lack of market information and services in the local market. they also lacked skill and knowledge on quality and value addition through grading and processing. agroforestry products such as round chilly, potato, tomato and onion were sold in local markets, while farmer had kept goat for meat production but there was no organized way of selling them in market. local and district level contractors visit the households having goats, and buy them to supply in district level markets. one saving and credit institution and mother group were found functioning in this test site but they were not taking any care of agroforestry products marketing because production quantity was very low and the consumption was within the village. the production capacity of traded agroforestry products is provided in table 5. it was revealed that trend of agroforestry marketing was increasing as compared with three years ago. the main factors responsible for increase in agroforestry production are the increase in the level of awareness and development of institutional capacity of lrg and lrp. table 5 shows that price of agroforestry products such as potato, tomato and onion in nalma was higher than the price of these products in district and national level markets. this could be the effect of attribute to the high demand of these products compared with local level production. table 4: agroforestry products, their quantity and per unit price at different markets agroforestry products approximate quantity price (rs/unit) at different level of markets farm gate (local) district national banana 20,000 darjan 40/ darjan 60/ darjan 100/ darjan ginger 2500 kg 20/kg 60/kg 95/kg turmeric 800 kg 100/kg 140/kg 160/kg honey 800 mana 600/mana 650/mana 750/mana broom grass 600—800 kucho 30/kucho 40/kucho 40/kucho sugarcane 3500 sugarcane 45/sugarcane 65/sugarcane 80/sugarcane note: 1 mana=568 ml (approximately) kucho is made from broom grass amatya et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 39 table 5: agroforestry products, their quantity and per unit price at different markets agroforestry products approximate quantity price (rs/kg) at different level of markets farm gate (local) district national round chilly 60 kg 250/kg 300 350-400 potato 1000 kg 60/kg 40 55 tomato 900 kg 70/kg 65 75 onion 600 kg 60/kg 45 50 goat 50 goats 400/kg of meat 700 800 majority (60%) of the farmers were producing organic products and those farmers, who were using chemical fertilizers, had used in low volume. the average cost of chemical fertilizer is rs 52/ kg. the average cost of production of round chilly, potato, tomato and onion was rs 35 per kg, and these products were sold in local village. sa pa ru pa cfug of methingkot, kavrepalanchok the main agroforestry products sold by the lrp and lrg members from the methinkot research sites were ginger, chilly, tomato, milk and goat. beside these, different kinds of vegetables such as potato, cauliflower, cabbage, radish, pumpkin, cucumber, etc were also sold by the cfug members. agroforestry market chain is from producers to consumers through collectors and retailers. producers lacked price information, and knowledge on quality and value enhancement through grading and processing. local traders and traders of banepa and kathmandu valley also visit bhakundebesi market to purchase ginger and other vegetables, and goats, which is 2 km far from this site. there is one agriculture co-operative, which is also involved in ginger marketing. figure 4 shows the agroforestry products marketing mechanisms of methinkot site. fig. 4: market chain of agroforestry products of methinkot test site change in rainfall pattern and lack of irrigation facilities have hindered the cultivation of agroforestry products (table 6). however, there is increasing trend in number of farmers, land areas and price of agroforestry products compared with three years ago due to increase in the awareness level of participating farmers. this site is near to kathmandu market, but farmers were getting nearly 47% low prices compared with national market price. farmers of methinkot sites were forced to sell their products in low price compared with national markets. table 6: agroforestry products, their quantity and per unit price at different markets agroforestry products approximate quantity price (rs/unit) at different level of markets farm gate (local) district national ginger 4000 kg 65/kg 75/kg 100/kg chilly 2500 kg 75/kg 100/kg 125/kg tomato 30000 kg 30/kg 40/kg 55/kg milk 72000 litre 65/litre with fat 65/litre 65/litre goat 150 goats 400 per kg of meat 700/kg 800/kg amatya et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 40 farmers of methinkot sites had used chemical fertilizers (di-ammonium phosphate and urea) ranging from 25—200 kg per household, which cost rs 40 per kg. insecticides were also being used in vegetable farms. the average cost of production of tomato was calculated at the rate of rs 25 per kg. the transportation cost of vegetables from this research sites to banepa was about rs 2 per kg. kalapani cfug of dhungkharka, kavre the main agroforestry products of dhungkharka site were tomato grown in plastic tunnel during off-season and main season, cauliflower, cabbage, mustard leaves, chilli, potato, radish, garlic, and milk (table 7). beside these vegetables, farmers of kalapani cfug also sold chilly, squash, young shoot of squash and pumpkin, egg plants, and sponge guards. agroforestry products were distributed through a chain of producer, agriculture cooperatives/local collectors, wholesaler, retailers and consumers. two co-operatives (paribartanshil multi purpose co-operative and district micro enterprise association) are under operations for the marketing of agroforestry products in dhungkharka vdc. figure 5 shows the agroforestry products marketing mechanisms of dhungkharka site. fig. 5: market chain of agroforestry products of dhungkharka test site according to the wholesalers of kalimati (located at kathmandu), fruits and vegetable wholesale market, vegetable grown in dhungkharka were in high demand in kathmandu metropolitan city compared with vegetables grown in low lying areas of kavrepalanchok, nuwakot and dhading districts because farmers of dhungkharka had grown vegetables following the integrated pest management (ipm) techniques supported by the different government organizations and i/ngos. milk was marketed using the chilling centre located in parthali bhanjyang. the production capacity of traded agroforestry products of dhungkharka site has been increased in recent years with increasing trend in number of farmers, land areas, per unit production and price of agroforestry products compared with three years ago (table 7) shows that farmers of dhungkharka are obtaining reasonably high price compared with the farmers of other sites. this is due to the well organized vegetable collection and marketing mechanisms developed by the local peoples. farmers of dhungkharka had used urea and potash, vitamins and fungicides in vegetable farms. the use of chemical fertilizers ranged from 25—50 kg per household, which cost rs 50 per kg. the average cost of production of potato and tomato was about rs 21 per kg, and cauliflower and cabbage was rs 13 per kg. the transportation cost of these products was about rs 4 per kg from dhungkharka to kathmandu. table 7: agro forestry products, their quantity and per unit price at different markets agroforestry products approximate quantity price (rs/kg) (rs/ litre) at different level of markets farm gate (local) district national tomato 27,000 kg 30 40 55 cabbage 180,000 kg 20 30 45 cauliflower 12,000 kg 20 35 50 potato 60,000 kg 30 45 55 mustard leaves 12,000 kg 15 25 30 radish 9,000 kg 15 30 35 garlic 4,500 kg 60 75 90 milk 2500 litre/day 70/litre with 6% fat 65/litre after butter extraction 65/litre after butter extraction amatya et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 41 phagarkhola cfug chaubas, kavre the main agroforestry products grown and marketed from chaubas site were cardamom, pumpkin, lapsi fruit, and the forest products from pine and utis trees. these products were traded through producers to consumers via local traders/collectors and retailers. generally, farmers produce vegetables and other products in small quantity, and therefore, these products are collected by collectors or local traders in one place through a group of farmers or cooperatives and delivered to the city in retail shops. retailers of kathmandu valley and banepa purchase agroforestry products from the traders of chaubas and sell to the end users at a marked up price. cardamom and timber were the main products which were normally sold to contractor of kathmandu through farmer’s cooperative with initiative of lrp members and local traders. the chaubas multipurpose co-operative which has 600 members is working to support in marketing of cardamom and other agriculture products. figure 6 shows the agroforestry products marketing mechanisms of chaubas site. timber brought from chaubas is normally used to make furniture through which value in timber is added by nearly 40% compared with sawn timber sold in the market. fig. 6: market channels of agroforestry products of chaubas test site the production of marketed agroforestry products of chaubas site has been increasing in recent years with increasing trend in number of farmers, land areas, per unit production and price of agroforestry products compared with three years ago (table 8) shows the large variation in price of pine timber in kathmandu market, which is normally determined by the size of sawn timber. pine timber obtained from plantation forests was small in size and were sold at the rate of rs 800/ table 8: agroforestry products, their quantity and per unit price at different markets agroforestry products approximate quantity price (rs/unit) at different level of markets farm gate (local) district national cardamom 1000 kg 2200/kg 2200/kg 2400/kg pumpkin 20,000 kg 5/kg 25/kg 35/kg marigold flower 20,000 garland 50/garland 60/garland 70/garland lapsi 2,500 kg 15/kg 35/kg 45/kg utis timber 3,000 cft 200/cubic feet (cft) 400-450/ cft 500/cft pine timber 2,000 cft 300/cft 600-800/cft 800-1400/cft note: one cubic meter is approximately 35 cubic feet. amatya et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 42 cft in kathmandu market. additionally, farmers of the chaubas had obtained low price for pumpkin compared with other agroforestry products. until now, farmers of chaubas have no problems to sale their products because local traders and chaubas multipurpose cooperative members have good linkage with district and national level traders of kathmandu valley. farmers of chaubas site had used chemical fertilizers (urea) in maize and millet production only which cost rs 46 per kg. the transportation cost of agriculture products from chaubas to banepa was about rs 8—10 per kg depending on season. analysis of results provision of funds in all sites, there were provision of fund at specific interest rate for the promotion of agriculture, livestock and off-farm enterprises through local saving and credit groups and cooperatives (see table 9). both men and women are eligible for loan, which is provided with the recommendation by one of their committee member for one year. choice nepala local ngo working in jeeta taksar had provided rs 200,000 as a loan to deep jyoti cooperative for goat and poultry farming. the maximum limit of loan is rs 100,000 per person per year at 8% interest rate. in nalma, very few persons had taken loan for agriculture purposes, and majority (90%) of the loan was for foreign job. in dhungkharka site farmers had not taken loan for vegetable production. on the other hand, most household women and men have saved small amount (rs 25/month) in these saving and credit groups. institutions supporting farmers different institutions are supporting lrp and lrg members for agroforestry products promotion and marketing. agriculture service centre and public awareness centre of dhamilikuwa had provided training to the lrp and lrp members in cash crop production and marketing. similarly, choice, nepal had provided about two million rupees in deep jyoti cooperative in jeetataksar. table 10 shows the local and district level institutions supporting farmers for agroforestry production and market chain development and management in six research sites. table 9: name of saving and credit groups and their annual interest rate s.n. district study sites name of saving and credit groups interest rate (%) 1 kavre methinkot methinkot saving and credit cooperative, jorsalla agri-seed production cooperative and panchakanya agricoperative 14% per year dhungkharka nari chetana saving and credit cooperative, bindabasini saving and credit cooperative and parbati saving and credit cooperative, etc. 14–16% per year chaubas agri-saving and credit group and chaubas multipurpose cooperative 14% per year 15% per year 2 lamjung dhamilikuwa champabati saving and credit cooperative 15% per year jeeta taksar deep jyoti cooperative 8% per year nalma sunkot saving and credit cooperative 18% per year amatya et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 43 table 10: institutions supporting agroforestry farmers district institution local level district level kavrepalanchok cfug, farmer’s cooperative, ilaka forest office and agriculture and livestock service centre, village development committee (vdc) and municipality, etc. district forest office (dfo), federation of community forest user, nepal (fecofun), district agriculture development office (dado), district livestock service office (dlso), district soil conservation office (dsco) and district development committee (ddc). lamjung cfug, farmer’s cooperative, choice nepal, saving and credit group and mother groups, ilaka forest office, agriculture and livestock service centre, public awareness centre and municipality, etc. dfo, fecofun, dado, dlso, dsco, ddc, federation of ethnic groups, district irrigation office and micro-enterprise development programme of the united nations. the micro-enterprise development programme (medep) of the united nations had also provided support for vegetables production and marketing in dhungkharka and cardamom production and marketing in chaubas site. similarly, lrp and lrg members of chaubas site had also received financial support from the chaubas village development committee for agroforestry production and marketing. majority (86%) of the total respondents had reported that training and cross-visit opportunities provided by the enhancing livelihoods and food security through improved agroforestry and community forestry in nepal (enlift) project had also played significant roles in promoting agroforestry activities in the respective research sites. gender and social inclusion the involvement of women in agroforestry products promotion and marketing was very high in chaubas and dhungkharka sites with more than 75% participation of women followed by nearly 50% in dhamilikuwa, methinkot and nalma and 42% in jeeta taksar. the involvement of dalit and marginalized households in agroforestry production and marketing in study sites was low (nearly 10%) because they had very small land holding to produce agroforestry products. in addition, they were forced to work as wage labour for day to day survival of their family members. the involvement of ethnic communities such as gurung, tamang, magar, bhujel and pahari was higher (50%) compared with the involvement of brahmin and chhetri (40%). issues and constraints of marketing agroforestry marketing mechanism is very good in dhungkharka site compared with other sites. the major issue for developing well organized marketing system in all sites was small scale production. in addition, lrp and lrg members of jeeta taksar are facing problems to sell ginger. the involvement of dalit and marginalized community in agroforestry products market chain is very poor. the main issues and constraints of market chain of all agroforestry products are discussed below: the major strengths for agroforestry products promotion and marketing in study areas are because of relatively good road network, nearness to market, and good access of services of local and district level institutions, fertile land, long tradition in growing fruits, vegetables and other cash crops, active women and supporting farmers. however, the major constraints noted for agroforestry products marketing are small scale production, small number of local traders, occurrence of insects (aphids, white grub, red ant, etc), pests and diseases (damping off) and lack of amatya et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 44 common facilities for marketing of agroforestry products. in addition, capacity of local institutions such as farmer’s cooperatives, saving and credit institutions and mother groups are low to promote marketing of agroforestry products. the major limitation reported by the lrp and lrg members for the promotion of agroforestry products marketing is the out migration of youth in search of better opportunities. expectation of market chain changes in jeeta taksar and dhamilikuwa sites, the number of farmers, land areas and per unit agriculture production have been increased compared to last three years. the main factors responsible for increased agroforestry production are rise in awareness level, and effective communication. additionally, farmers are more inclined to cash crops because of the attractive price of agroforestry products except in nalma, the marketing situation of agroforestry products was found different where the price of potato has been increased by 50% compared to the last three years ago. this was attributed to the increase of potato price in besisahar vegetable markets. other factors responsible for increase in price of agroforestry products in nalma were low production compared with local demand and problem of irrigation to increase the production price. similarly, the number of farmers, land areas and per unit agriculture production has also been increased in chaubas and dhungkharka sites compared with the last three years. the main factors responsible for this change were increase in demand, improvement in transportation facilities, increase in production, commercialization, mass production trend in village, market information flow, and skill and technology handover through training and field visit programs to farmers. in addition, market price of vegetables and milk in dhungkarka has also increased by 30% compared with the last three years. similarly, market price of cardamom, lapsi and marigold flower in chaubas has been increased by 40%, 15% and 20% respectively compared to the last three years. agroforestry production in methinkot site has been found negative as compared to the last three years. this is because of change in rainfall pattern, lack of irrigation facilities, reduction in per unit production. the expectation of market chain changes of agroforestry products over the next five years shows that round chilly, banana, black pepper, tomato, potato, onion, ginger, turmeric and lapsi would increase and local cooperatives would come into picture for marketing. it is found that future agroforestry practices would be driven by only children and aged persons, as youth are leaving their village in search of better opportunities. in case of kavre site it is expected that the production of selected items such as cardamom, marigold flower, ginger and tomato and other vegetables would increase and more farmers would be involved for commercialization of these products with strong network of farmers established and function in place. price of cardamom will increase from rs 2200/kg to rs 3500/kg as with the labour cost (by 75% from rs 350/day). conclusion the analysis shows that 14 agroforestry products in lamjung and 20 agroforestry products in kavrepalanchok are being marketed. lrp and lrg members involved in these agroforestry products marketing in lamjung district have good connection with local traders, fruits and vegetables shop keepers whereas lrg members of kavrepalanchok district have good linkage with local collectors and wholesalers of the kathmandu valley. farmers of all sites are obtaining good price for their products. however, two critical factors controlling the effectiveness and efficiency of agroforestry marketing were: a) scale and b) service. small-scale production and insufficient service to farmers from the village level agriculture collection centers and cooperatives are the major constraints for effective and efficient market chain development and management of full range of agroforestry projects. the number of farmers, land areas under agroforestry practices and per unit agriculture production and price of agroforestry products has also been increased compared to the last three years. the main factors responsible for increasing agroforestry production in research sites are the rise in the level of awareness among lrps/ lrgs in agroforestry practices along with institution being empowered in their functioning. amatya et al. banko janakari, vol 27 no. 2, 2017 45 acknowledgements we are grateful to enlift project for providing us the opportunity of carrying out this study.we would also like to thank all the local resource persons and local resource groups for their active participation in the study. references amatya s. m., nuberg, i., cedamon, e., and pandit, b. h. 2015. removing barriers to the commercialization of agroforestry trees in nepal. in small-scale and community forestry and the changing nature of forest landscapes, sunshine, australia, 2015.pp 5—17 hair, j. f., wolfinbarger, m. f., ortinau, d. j. and bush, r.p. 2010. essentials of marketing research. 2nd edition. mcgraw-hill, new york, usa. ilo. 2000. rapid market appraisal: a manual for entrepreneurs. the fit manual series. international labour organization, geneva. naf. 2014. identification and listing of researchable agroforestry products market opportunities in six sites of lamjung and kavre districts of nepal. a report submitted to aciar/enlift project. ostertag, c., lundy, m., gottret, m.v., best, r. and ferris, s. 2007. identifying market opportunities for rural smallholder producers. rural agro-enterprise development project, centro international de agriculture tropical, palmira, colombia. pandit, b. h., ojha, h., shrestha, k. k., nuberg, i. and amatya, s.m. 2014. “why cannot local communities do forestry business? analysis of barriers in the value chain of private forestry products in nepal” paper presented at the sixth national community forestry conference, june 16—18, 2014, kathmandu, nepal. perdana, a., budidarsono, s., kurniawan, i. and roshetko, j. m. 2013. rapid market appraisal. in negotiation-support tool kit for learning landscapes (eds.) van noordwijk, m., lusiana, b., leimona, b. and wulandari, d., world agroforesry centre (icraf) south east asia regional program. amatya et al. 1 ‘conference of the parties (cop)’ of the united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc) in an annual conference of the united nations with the high–level participation of party countries, observers, regional organizations and non– governmental actors. the cop organized in france in 2015 (cop21) gave birth to the paris agreement on climate change. the agreement´s goal is to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees celsius, pursuing the efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees celsius, compared to pre–industrial levels. the 26th cop was organized as cop26 in glasgow, scotland from 31st october, and concluded on the second week of november with the declaration of ‘glasgow climate pact’. raising ambition on climate change mitigation, adaptation and finalization of the ‘rulebook for paris agreement’ were some of the major objectives of the conference. keeping alive the 1.5 oc temperature target was one of the major objectives of the cop26. finalization of enhanced transparency framework and market and non–market mechanism for carbon trading (article 6 of the paris agreement) were also included in the conference. from the ambition point of view, the cop26 has delivered only a little despite the strong mitigation need of greenhouse gas emission presented by the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) sixth assessment report which clearly mentioned that global greenhouse gas (ghg) emission should be reduced by 45 percent to the 2010 level by 2030 to keep the 1.5oc temperature goal alive. however, the latest synthesis report of nationally determined contribution (ndc) indicates that the global emission is still going up by 13 percent as compared to the 2010–level even if the countries mitigation pledges will be fully implemented. however, the cop26 decided to present more ambitious emission mitigation plans that are in line with the ipcc’s recommendation of 1.5 oc pathways by 2022. historically, the cop26 decision has included the language of reducing the use of fossil–fuel that is contributing significantly to the global emission of ghgs. the glasgow climate pact, which was the outcome of the intense negotiation among the country parties, has delivered some of the objectives set forth before the banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal cop 26: a glass half full https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v31i2.41880 2 conference. it has included the provision of phasing down the unabated coal power and phasing out the inefficient fossil–fuel subsidies which are the bright side from the ghg mitigation point of view. however, those outcomes are not enough for anyone to feel confident about the fulfillment of the objectives of the cop26. the cop26 has been successful to achieve some adaptation finance required for adaptation actions of the countries like nepal. it has been successful to generate an unprecedented space for the loss and damage due to climate change negotiation. developing countries had demanded to establish a finance facility to address the loss and damage due to the climate change, which has not been fulfilled so far; however, the parties have agreed to keep the finance discussion going. the conference also approved the functions of the santiago network for loss and damage to technically assist the developing countries’ work on averting, minimizing and addressing the loss and damage due to climate change. ‘glasgow dialogue’ between parties, relevant organizations and stakeholders to discuss the arrangements for the funding of activities to avert, minimize and address loss and damage associated with the adverse impacts of climate change has also been established. on the climate finance side, developed countries (annex i countries) are still falling short of their climate finance commitments. the 100–billion–dollar annual finance commitments made back in 2009 which should have been fulfilled by 2020 has been further pushed back to 2023. however, cop26 decided to meet those promises as soon as possible and continue to the year 2025 when the new collective finance goal will be set from the floor of 100 billion dollar. furthermore, the cooperative and market mechanism agreed for carbon trading might also assist generating some climate finance for developing countries that are able to produce significant mitigation outcomes. from nepal’s point of view, the cop26 hasn’t delivered enough towards emission mitigation ambition, addressing loss and damage and climate finance ambitions; however, it is not a complete failure either. the cop26 has kept the 1.5oc temperature target alive even with a very weak pulse. the parties should do more to inline their ghg emission reduction in a pathway that is recommended by the ipcc. outcomes on the loss and damage issue could be carried further to access the technical as well as financial facilities. doubling the adaptation finance could really assist the countries to minimize the impact of changing climate. importantly, cop26 has been successful to agree on the paris rulebook on transparency and article 6 of the paris agreement which effectively implement the agreement. as always, the success of the cop26 will be measured in future with the implementation of the outcomes both by the developed and developing countries in years to come. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2, 2021 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal nepal's forest: a diminishing resource ? the national forest inventory has been completed. and, its report has also been recently endorsed by the ministry of forests and soil conservation. with this, documents on nepal's forests now on will cite the contry having only 29% of its land under forest having ten (or more) percent of crown cover. hitherto this figure was 38%. it is not the matter of citation in the texts that is important, what is shocking to all informed people of the country, is a substantial loss of the country's forest area in the past twenty years. with an annual rate of 1.7% decrease of the country's forest cover, and in the terai alone such rate being 1.3%, the country's policy makers might be in grave concern of the existing forest management practices. the estimation done by the land resource mapping project in 1978/79 indicated nepal's forest cover as 38% plus 4.7% shrub totaling to 42.7%. the present figure is 29% forest cover plus 10.6% shrub totaling to 39.6%. there seems, however only 3.1% decrease in the forest land, but the increase of shrub cover in every regions at the cost of forest area followed by a gradual transformation of forest land into other land-use forms in the terai, is nothing but an indication of a catastrophic ecological imbalance for the mountainous country like ours. the decrease of forest cover from 34.2% in 1978/79 to 23.4% in 1993/96 (annual rate of loss is 2.3%) in the fifty one hilly districts and the lowest percentage of shrubs and forest cover in areas between 1000 to 2000 m is its sign. what went wrong ? why is nepal's' forest so vital for restoring water balance and supporting optimal productivity of agricultural land decreasing with a pace seemingly beyond control ? in spite of a huge input from our own efforts as well as from a number of external funds expended to manage the forests, the reverse gear so pronounced in the forestry sector, is some thing very serious. plenty of reasons are cited purporting to explain the causes of forest destruction. of them, reasons related to population increase have been cited the most often. but, one must not forget the trans-boundary smuggling of timber, legal and illegal settlements of the hill migrants, agricultural expansion, fire, and also the presnce of bhutani refugees are the significant causes which have not been effectively tackled. above all, scientific management practices to increase forest productivity have never been 1 adequately applied, and since 1964, the growing stock of forests in the terai is in decline from 101 to 73 cubic metre for sal (shorea robusta) and 76 to 58 cubic metre for the terai hardwoods. much has been depicted about the country’s shift in forest policy from 'a failed policing' to 'participation', and much is expected from it. nepal has been praised, especially by the donors for adopting it. peoples' participation is undoubtedly a noble approach of forest management and should be cherished. but, the lack of adequate homework before handing over and/or the snail's pace of handing-over forest areas to the communities (the present rate of handing over may need sixty more years for its completion), their post formation support, and solving issues related to conflicts and other discrepancies especially in the terai where there is market access, etc. have made this programme debatable. handing over large areas of commercial forests to a small number of users is one such example which will force people to think instinctively on the negative side of this programme. the role that forests play in the country like ours needs no eloraboration to forestry professionals; nonetheless, the truth is that the forests of nepal are decreasing at an alarming rate since 1960s. the national mandate of developing forestry sector for the welfare of the country is solely given to forestry professionals. and it is, none other than we forestry professionals, senior or junior, should share the credit or discredit of the state of affairs. instead of pointing fingers to others, we should take responsibility for not being able to manage them to the level needed. unless realised, the time is not very far when we won't see the remaining public forests, except protected areas, of this beautiful, but neglected country. lastly, thanks to the hard core effort of the ministry for strictly setting aside 18.1% of the country's land as protected areas most of which have reasonable forest cover, or is it the only system to save the remaining forests of the country ?. hopefully, better sense will prevail. sushim ranjan baral, ph d editor banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 26 chir pine (pinus roxburghii sarg.) and blue pine (pinus wallichiana a.b. jacks.) are two common species found in mid-hill forests of nepal where households largely depend on forest resources for their livelihoods and subsistence. the management of such forests is supported by our understanding of the dynamics in forest structure and species composition and the relationship between different forest community characteristics. this study was designed to determine the variation in species composition and the relationship between various forest community characteristics in two pine forests of kailash sacred landscape, nepal.quadrat sampling was applied to collect information on forest species, forest community structure, and disturbance factors.data was statistically analyzed using ibm spss. there were a total of31 plant species under 28 genera and 20 families in the p. roxburghii forest, and 38 plant species under 37 genera and 19 families in the p. wallichiana forest. mean dbh, height and canopy diameter of p. roxburghii was 23.98 cm, 12.77 m and 1.97 m, respectively, and that of p. wallichiana was 31.5 cm, 11.48 m and 2.79 m, respectively. the relationship between dbh and both height and crown diameter showed strong relationships in the two forest types.in both forests, dbh and height class distribution showed a hump-shaped (unimodal type) distribution with a greater proportion of medium-sized individuals that indicated disruptive forest regeneration. fire and treecut were significant disturbance factors in p. roxburghii forest, while grazing and trampling were significant in p. wallichiana forest. the extent of these disturbance factors as determinants of regeneration and species recruitment is important to assess for effective forest management. key words: community characteristics, disturbance, forest structure, pinus roxburghii, pinus wallichiana variation in structure and composition of two pine forests in kailash sacred landscape, nepal c. k. subedi1*, j. gurung2, s. k. ghimire3, n. chettri2, b. pasakhala2, p. bhandari1 and r. p. chaudhary1 the structure of a forest is determined by biotic and abiotic components (behera et al., 2012; mishra et al., 2013), along with human disturbance (sanderson et al., 2002; kareiva et al., 2007). disturbance and biological processesare significant factors determining forest stand development (franklin et al., 2002). both forest structure and composition respond to environmental fluctuations and anthropogenic activities (gairola et al., 2008). moreover, stand structure, tree size and composition are key characteristics for maintaining ecological integrity and dynamics of forest ecosystems and their functions (elourad et al., 1997;kuuluvainen, 2002;larsen et al., 2005; merlin et al., 2014). these are also the basis for developing forest management and conservation strategies (gutierrez and huth, 2012). in mountain areas, forest structure and composition is regulated by slope orientation and elevation which both affect incoming solar radiation in an area (gallardocruz et al., 2009). topographic variables, such as radiation, in turn affect species composition between slopes due to their influence on smallscale abiotic environmental variables (ferrercastan and vetaas, 2003; paudel and vetaas, 2014). 1. research centre for applied science and technology (recast), tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal * e-mail: chandraks2000@yahoo.com 2. international centre for integrated mountain development (icimod), khumaltar, lalitpur, nepal 3. central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 27 chir pine (pinus roxburghii sarg.) and blue pine (pinus wallichiana a.b. jacks.) are two pine species distributed mainly in the western himalaya while also flourishing in bhutan (ohsawa et al., 1986). they are commercially important plant species in the himalaya used for timber, turpentine and several medicinal and cultural purposes (tiwari, 1994; siddique et al., 2009). several research studies have been conducted on these pine species from different parts of the himalaya. a review of p. roxburghii was made by kaushik et al. (2013) on ethnobotany and phytopharmacology. dendrochronological study was carried out to determine the impact of climate change on growth of p. wallichiana (bajwa et al., 2015). similar work was conducted on p. roxburghii to understand stand age, structure, soil erosion, disturbance history and tree health (speer et al., 2016). composition, population structure and diversity of p. wallichiana in garhwal himalaya with special reference to altitude and aspect was studied by bhandari (2003). study on phytosociology of p. roxburghii was conducted by siddique et al. (2009) in the lesser himalaya and hindukush range of pakistan. ghimire et al. (2010) carried out research on regeneration of p. wallichiana in the trans-himalayan dry valley of north-central nepal. most research conducted in nepal on these pine species are focused on allometric relationships for biomass prediction (sharma and pukkala, 1990), basal area growth model (gyawali et al., 2015), dendrochronology (schwab et al., 2015) and carbon sequestration (aryal, 2016). in nepal, chir pine and blue pine constitute 8.45% and 3.37%, respectively, of total forest area (dfrs, 2015). the two species are also the major constituents of forests in the midhills of nepal (dfrs, 2015) where households largely depend on forest resources for their livelihoods and subsistence (springate-baginski et al., 2003). long-term studies on forest socio-ecological systems are lacking in nepal. this study was conducted in two pine-dominated community managed forests of kailash sacred landscape (ksl) in nepal to collect baseline information as part of a long-term socio-ecological study of forest ecosystems in the landscape. knowledge on forest structure and composition is important for their management, but such studies are lacking in the landscape. thus, the findings of this study will contribute to forest management while also providingbaseline data for long-term forest monitoring.the study addresses the following questions: 1) what are the variations in forest structure and species composition in chir pine and blue pine forests? and 2) what is the relationship between different community characteristics in the two pine forests ? materials and method study area the study was carried out in ksl-nepal (mfsc, 2016) (fig. 1). the landscape, whichextendsbetween 29° 22’ n to 30° 45’n latitude and 80° 15’ e to 82° 10’ e longitude, covers an area of 13,289 sq. km and comprises the districts of baitadi, bajhang, darchula and humla.altitudesin ksl-nepal range from 390 m to 7,132 m above sea level (masl). the climatic condition of the area is characterized by high rainfall and humidity, with average rainfall of 2,129 mm. average maximum and minimum temperature is 18.6°c and 7.7°c, respectively. forests occupy almost 30% of the total area of ksl-nepal of which subtropical broadleaved forests (with shorea robusta, terminalia alata, and pinus roxburghii) constitute 10% and uppermontane conifer forests (with cedrus deodara, cupressus torulosa, tsuga dumosa, and pinus wallichiana) constitute 3%. fig. 1: map of the study area. the forest survey was conducted in two community managed forests in the landscape: kirmadhe sinnadi in hunainath village development committee (vdc) of darchula district and kailash kachaharikot mahila in kailash vdc of bajhang district. kirmadhe subedi et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 28 sinnadi community forest (cf) covers an area of 50.76 hectares (ha). altitudes in this cf range from 1808 to 1958 m asl and slopes between 5° to 21°with the forest oriented towards east and west. p. roxburghii is the dominant tree species while other tree species include quercus lanata, rhododendron arboreum and myrica esculenta. kailash kachaharikot mahila cf covers an area of 20 hectares. altitudes range from 1800 to 2100 masl and slope between 20° to 35°with the forest oriented towards south and west. p. wallichiana is the dominant tree species in this cf. field methods field work was conducted between may and june 2016 to establish permanent forest monitoring plots in the two pine forests. the boundaries of both forests were delineated using a global positioning system (gps) device garmin oregon 650. the forest boundary was then transferred to google earth map where a 20m*25m grid was overlaid. sample forest plots were then randomly selected and verified in the field. based on the total size of the cfs, ten permanent plots were established in p. roxburghii forest and four in p. wallichiana forest. each plot was further divided into 20 5m*5m subplots to collect data on plant life forms (fig. 2). the location of each plot was recorded using a gps device, and topographic variables including altitude, slope and aspect were recorded with an altimeter (suunto). in each plot, grazing, trampling, cutting, lopping and fire were visually estimated as disturbance variables. they were recorded on a scale ranging from 0 (no visible sign of disturbance) to 3 (high disturbance). ocular estimate of top canopy (tree crown), mid canopy (canopy of shrubs and saplings) and low canopy (canopy of herbs, forbs and seedlings) was made from the center of each subplot. fig: 2 vegetation sampling design vegetation sampling based on diameter at breast height (dbh) and height (h) of the individual, plant species were classified in to three categories, viz. tree (>10 dbh), saplings (< 10 cm dbh and h >1.3 m) and seedlings (h<1.3 m) (newton, 2007). individual trees were recorded in the entire 20m*25m plot (hereby referred here as ‘tree plot’). dbh of each individual tree was measured at 1.3 m height from the ground usingmillion diameter tape(yamayo) and its height with a vertex iv (haglof sweden). canopy of each individual tree was measured in eight directions from the center. tree saplings were measured in a nested 10m*15 msubplot (sapling plot) within the tree plot. the number and percentage cover of shrubs were recorded in six 5m*5m subplots(shrub plot), four of which were fixed at the corners of the tree plot and two at the center. similarly six 1m*1m subplots(herb plot) nested within the subplot were used to record herbaceous vegetation. the number of herb species and an ocular estimate of their percent cover was recorded. most of the plant species were identified in the field withstandard flora (stainton, 1997; polunin and stainton, 2000). unidentified plant species were collected and later identified usingavailable literature (sharma and kachroo, 1983; stainton, 1997; polunin and stainton, 2000) and by consulting herbarium specimens housed at tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch) and national herbarium and plant laboratory (kath). plant species nomenclature follows press et al. (2000). statistical analysis spearmen’s correlation was used to determine relationships between different characteristics of forest community and environmental variables. linear regression analysis was performed to determine relationships between different forest community characteristics. the regression coefficients and equationswere obtained through a fitted line on the scattered plot, and f and p valueswere obtained through anova. before regression analysis,all disturbance variables (grazing, trampling, cut, harvesting and fire) were combined through dimension reduction process in principle component analysis (pca) to obtain a combined measure of disturbance. ibm spss was used for data analysis. subedi et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 29 results and discussion floristic composition there were 31 plant species belonging to 28 genera and 20 families in p. roxburghii forest, and 38 plant species belonging to 37 genera and 19 families in p. wallichiana forest. based on life forms, 22 herbs, 4 shrubs and 5 trees were recorded in the p. roxburghii forest, and 19 herbs, 13 shrubs and 4 tree species were found in p. wallichiana forest. 14 herbs, 2 shrubs, and 2 trees were common to both forests while 8 herbs, 2 shrubs and 3 trees were found exclusively in p. roxburghii forest and 6 herbs, 11 shrubs and 3 trees exclusively in p. wallichiana forest (table 1). p. roxburghii is invasive in nature and can easily replace broadleaved species, ultimately leading to monoculture forest development (bhandari, 2003). it has competitive superiority than other species in obtaining resources (bargali, 1997). it is a light demanding and fire promoting species. surface fire causes substantial loss of nitrogen, and this depletion on nitrogen is the major cause of monoculture development of pineforests (singh et al., 1984). phytosociological analysis showed that p. roxburghii was generally distributed in pure form (siddiqui et al. 2009). pine forests are affected by fires especially in the summer season resulting in deterioration of soil fertility and development of new species. fire reduces total organic matter, phosphorus and potassium (benerjee and chand, 1981; ghotz and fischer, 1982). in comparison to p. roxburghii, p. wallichiana tends to share its habitat with other tree species (bhandari, 2003) resulting in higher species richness in this study. forest structure the dbh and height class distribution of p. roxburghii population is presented in fig.3 and of p. wallichianain fig. 4. in both forests,dbh and height class distribution showed humpshaped (unimodal type) distribution with greater proportion of medium-sized individuals. there was a gradual increase in the proportion of individuals of dbh class up to >20-<30 cm for p. roxburghii and >30-<40 for p. wallichiana, and height class upto>10-<15 mfor p. roxburghii and >15-<20 m for p. wallichiana after which height class gradually decreased. subedi et al table 1: floristic composition in pine forests life form occurring in only common to both forests p. roxburghii forest p. wallichiana forest trees alnus nepalensis, quercus lanata symplocos paniculata, viburnum erubescens lyonia ovalifolia, rhododendron arboreum shrubs hedysarum kumaonense, rubus paniculatus cotoneaster frigidus, cotoneaster microphyllus, daphne papyracea, indigofera heterantha, inulacappa, myrsine africana, prinsepia utilis, pyracantha crenulata, smilax aspera, spiraea bella and viburnum cotinifolium berberis asiatica, rubus ellipticus herbs anaphalis busua, cirsium wallichii, commelina benghalensis, curculigo orchioides, drosera peltata, fimbristylis dichotoma, hypericum japonicum, reinwardtia indica bidens pilosa, centella asiatica, gaultheria nummularioides, gnaphalium affine, origanum vulgare, potentilla sundaica anaphalis triplinervis, carex filicina, erigeron karvinskianus, flemingia strobilifera, fragaria indica, galiu melegans, gonostegia hirta, imperata cylindrica,, micromeria biflora, oplismenus compositus, oxalis corniculata, taraxacum parvulum, viola serpens, ageratina adenophora banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 30 fig. 3 dbh and height class distribution of p. roxburghii fig. 4 dbh and height class distribution of p. wallichiana the size distribution of trees is an important indicator for population dynamics and for forest management (kohira and ninomiya, 2003; white et al., 2007). this study showed that there were fewer juveniles as compared to adults in the two forests indicating disruptive regeneration probably due to disturbance (condit et al., 1998; george et al., 2005; deb and sundriyal, 2008). a study on p. roxburghii in bhutan showed unimodal distribution resulting from anthropogenic and natural disturbances (wangda and ohsawa, 2006). both forests in ksl-nepal are used by local communities, especially for extraction of timber, and hence the preference for large-sized trees. while felling such trees, the resulting disturbance on seedlings and saplings could possibly affect their regeneration. relationship between forest community characteristics the forest community characteristics of p. roxburghii and p. wallichiana are presented in table 2. density of pine was high in both forests. mean dbh, height and canopy diameter of p. roxburghii was 23.98 cm, 12.77 m and 1.97 m, respectively, and that of p. wallichiana was 31.5 cm, 11.48 m and 2.79 m, respectively. the mean top and mid canopy cover was higher in p. wallichiana forest than in p. roxburghii forest, but low canopy cover was highest in the latter forest. table 2: community characteristics of p. roxburghii and p. wallichiana forest variables mean (se) p. roxburghii p. wallichiana mean (se) number of tree species 1.60(0.31) 2.00 (0.45) density of pine (number/ha) 168.5 (7.15) 65.00 (3.73) mean dbh (cm) 23.99 (1.78) 31.02 (4.70) mean height (m) 12.77 (0.83) 11.49 (1.02) mean canopy diameter (m) 1.97 (0.19) 2.80 (0.15) canopy (%) top 27.03 (3.36) 32.75 (3.31) mid 4.25 (0.60) 16.50 (1.96) low 14.59 (1.18) 12.00 (2.61) the dimension reduction process in pca resulted in two pca factors explaining 56.5% of variance: pca factor 1 (31.32% variance) explained grazing (0.841) and trampling (0.858) as main associated variables; and pca factor 2 (25.23% variance) explained tree cut (0.807) and fire (0.734) as main associated variables in p. roxburghii forest. in p. wallichiana forest, two pca factors were obtained explaining 55.2% of variance: pca factor 1 (35.25% variance) explained grazing (0.801) and trampling (0.851) as main associated variables, and pca factor 2 (19.95% variance) explained tree cut (0.782), harvesting (0.517) and fire (0.539) as main associated variables. the density of p. roxburghii was negatively correlated with mean dbh (r = -0.872, p = 0.01) and canopy diameter (r = -0.770, p = 0.01) and positively with disturbance factor 2, i.e fire and cut (r =0.792, p = 0.01). since the local villagers had extracted large sized trees for timber and fire allows regeneration of pine seedlings (paucas et al., 2004), large sized tree with larger dbh were absent in the forest. p. roxburghii can tolerate more stress and potentially colonize disturbed and moisture-deficient areas (singh and singh, subedi et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 31 1992; ryan and yoder, 1997). fire helped liberate seeds from cones allowing their regeneration and monospecific stand development in pinus halepensis (pausas et al., 2004; moya et al., 2007). tang et al. (2013) reported that the natural recovery of pinus yunnanensis was more efficient after fire contributing to the density of pine in central yunan, china. the mean dbh was positively correlated with mean canopy diameter (r = 0.841, p = 0.01). the mean crown radius was the function of stem size, stand density and site productivity and the canopy radius increased linearly with dbh (avsar and ayyildiz, 2005; attocchi and skovsgaard, 2015). strong negative correlation was found with canopy diameter and number of tree species (r=0.987, p = 0.05) in p. wallichiana forest. crown morphology has important implications to compete with other species in a community (messier, 1996; messier et al., 1999). high tree canopy cover reduces the amount of solar radiation to the ground while facilitating more litter deposition which is not a favorable condition for seedling establishment (spanos et al., 2001). dbh-height relationship a significant linear relationship (p<0.001) was found between dbh and height (r2 = 0.571 for p. roxburghii and 0.551 for p. wallichiana) (fig. 5 (a) and (b)). the strength in relationship between dbh and height of the two pine forests was not significantly different. the height–diameter relationship of trees are stand specific, site specific, and time specific and also differ within a site due to competition among trees (trincado et al., 2007; pretzsch, 2009; schmidt et al., 2011). tree diameter has a significant correlation with the height and age of the forest stand and thereby directly affects sustainable volume production (khan et al., 2016). this correlation depends on the growing environment and stand conditions (calama and montero, 2004; sharma and zhang, 2004). dbh-crown diameter relationship measurement of crown diameter is usually not carried out in forest inventory but is important to measure some competitive measures and to determine canopy cover (biging et al., 1995; gill et al., 2000; popescu et al., 2003). the r2 value obtained from regression between dbh and crown diameter in this study was 0.572 in p. roxburghii forest and 0.422 in p. wallichiana forest (fig. 5 and 6). gill et al. (2000) developed models for different coniferous trees of california and obtained r2 values between 0.2691 and 0.6077 where dbh predicted most of the model. incorporation of crown area into models improved accuracy of the predictions (nakai et al., 2010; gonzalez-benecke et al., 2014). fig 5 regression between dbh and height of (a) p. roxburghii (b)p. wallichiana fig 6 regression between height and crown diameter of (a) p. roxburghii and (b) p. wallichiana conclusion pinus roxburghii and pinus wallichiana are important needleleaved species occurring in subtropical broadleaved and upper montane conifer forests in ksl-nepal. this study presents the forest structure and species composition of two pine forests selected for conducting long term socio-ecological research in the landscape. both forests were dominated by the respective tree species, with mean number of tree species being 1.60 (± 0.31) in p. roxburghii forests and 2.00 (± 0.45) in p. wallichiana forests. tree density subedi et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 32 averaged 168.5 (± 7.15) and 65.0 (± 3.73) stems per ha. in p. roxburghii and p. wallichiana forests, respectively. size distribution of trees displayed a unimodal type with greater proportion of medium-sized individuals. the structure of both forests indicates that they are heavily disturbed. fire and tree cut were significant disturbance factors in p. roxburghii forest, while grazing and trampling were significant in p. wallichiana forest. the extent of these disturbance factors as determinants of regeneration and species recruitment is important to assess for effective forest management. acknowledgement this study was supported by kailash sacred landscape conservation and development initiative (kslcdi) nepal, a collaborative programme between ministry of forests and environment, government of nepal; research centre for applied science and technology, tribhuvan university; and international centre for integrated mountain development; and supported by the german federal ministry for economic cooperation and development (bmz) through the deutsche gesellschaft für internationale zusammenarbeit (giz) gmbh and the united kingdom’s department for international development (dfid) – uk aid, as well as by the core funds of icimod contributed by the governments of afghanistan, australia, austria, bangladesh, bhutan, china, india, myanmar, nepal, norway, pakistan, switzerland, and the united kingdom. the views and interpretation in this publication are those of the authors and should not be ascribed to mofe, recast, icimod or their donors. we are thankful to santosh thapa, mohan pandey, neha bisht, and community forest user groups for their help during data collection, and to sunil thapa for preparing the study area map. the district forest offices of bajhang and darchula are acknowledged for their support. references aryal, b. 2016. carbon sequestration in a fired ecosystem of pinus roxburghii forest in rasuwa district, nepal. 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soronzonbold, b., swe, t., thapa, i. and tiwari, a. 2016. pinus roxburghiist and dynamics at a heavily impacted site in nepal: research through an educational fieldweek. dendrochronologia. 41: 2—9. springate-baginski, o., dev, o. p., yadav, n. p. and soussan, j. 2003. community forest management in the middle hills of nepal: the changing context. journal of forest and subedi et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 1, 2018 36 livelihood 3(1): 5—20 stainton, a. 1997. flowers of the himalaya a supplement. oxford university press, new delhi, india. tang, q. t., he, l., su, w., zhang, g., wang, h., peng, m., wu, z. and wang, c. 2013. regeneration, recovery and succession of a pinus yunnanensis community five years after a mega-fire in central yunnan, china. forest ecology and management 294: 188— 196. tiwari d.n. 1994. a monograph on chir pine (pinus roxburghii sarg). dehradun: indian council of forestry research and education. trincado,g., vander schaaf,c.l. and urkhart,h.e.2007.regional mixed-effects height-diameter models for loblolly pine (pinus taedal.) plantations. european journal of forest research 126: 253—262. wangda, p. and ohsawa m. 2006. structure and regeneration dynamics of dominant tree species along altitudinal gradient in a dry valley slopes of the bhutan himalaya. forest ecology and management. 230: 136—150. white, e. p., morgan ernest, s. k., kerkhoff, a. j. and enquist, b.j. 2007. relationships between body size and abundance in ecology. trends in ecology and evolution 22: 323—330. subedi et al banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 42‒48 42 thapa anthropogenic climate change is perceived as one of the most threatening global environmental issues today. a common finding in the past researches is that most of the vulnerable communities affected by the changing climate are the indigenous ones living in rural parts of the world, mostly from the developing nations. these indigenous communities have a close relation with their surrounding environments which have provided them a vast knowledge and clues about the micro-climatic conditions in their surroundings. these clues shape their perceptions and adaptation practices. this research was conducted on the indigenous thami community of nepal focusing on their perceptions towards changing climate and their adaptation practices in congruence with their local and indigenous knowledge about their environment. as thamis are mostly reliant on subsistence agricultural farming for their livelihood, this study mainly focuses on the impacts of climate change on agriculture practices of thami community of dolakha district. in this study it was found that the practices of thamis were severely affected by the changing environmental conditions. the farmers perceived changes in temperatures, precipitation and extreme weather events, and interpreted those as per their understanding of their surroundings. keywords : agriculture, community, people, production, vulnerability climate change perception and adaptation among indigenous farmers : a study on thamis of dolkha b. j. thapa1 in the past century, global warming has been one of the major reasons for climate change. statistically speaking, 95% of the observed climatic changes is human induced, most of which is due to excessive greenhouse gases (ghg) emissions (pachauri et al., 2014). these emissions are mainly driven by population size, economic activities, lifestyle, energy use, land use patterns, technology and climate policy that impact on different global natural systems. indigenous communities living in rural areas are among the most affected groups of people by climate change who bear the brunt of it all. often, they are solely dependent on agricultural practices in small land holdings which make them even more vulnerable to environmental hazards. furthermore, this situation is worsened due to illiteracy and limited understanding of the implications of climate change and its effects on the environment. in these communities, their daily activities are guided by decades of experiences regarding their environment and the indigenous knowledge passed on through generations, which also shape their perceptions about their local environment. thus, individual perceptions of the people living in these communities are important for gaining vital information in order to understand the changes in their local environment due to climate change. perceptions shape the ability to comprehend and react to environmental risks associated with natural hazards caused by the changing climate (arbuckle et al., 2015). based on these reactions, one can learn about complex issues and problems regarding environmental hazards, which can be essential in formulating plans and policies for adaptation practices. overall, local perceptions help in understanding and addressing the multiple stresses and multi-faceted vulnerabilities due to jawalakhel, lalitpur, nepal. email : thapabinayj@gmail. com banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 42‒48 43 thapa the direct involvement and understanding of the local people in the affected surroundings (moste, 2015). nepal is a least developed agrarian country where 65% of the population and 33% of the gdp are based on agriculture (moac, 2011). it is ranked as the 4th country on the vulnerability index list in 2011 (maplecroft, 2011). most of the studies point out that climatic conditions of nepal is changing at an alarming rate with an increase in average maximum temperature by 0. 06 oc per annum since the past four decades. despite having only 0. 4 % of the total global population responsible for 0. 025 percent of the total ghgs emissions globally, nepal is affected disproportionately by climate change (napa/ mope, 2010). consequently, floods, landslides, intense rains, hailstorms, droughts, cold and heat waves and other climate-related hazards are regular phenomenon in the country (moac, 2011). agriculture is anticipated to be the most vulnerable sector because of low adaptive capacity of the poor farmers and their high dependency on climate-sensitive natural resources, such as water resources, forest products, soil and ecological systems. the strain of it all falls on the nepalese farmers who are forced to alter traditional lifestyles, cultures and identities as a result of unpredictable climate changes. likewise in the past, the status of the environment paralleled the perceptions and understanding of the indigenous people. the current altered and unpredictable state of the environment makes the acquired indigenous knowledge ineffective for adaptation to hazards in agriculture. primarily agrarian and skilled builders, thamis are one of the most marginalized communities of nepal. it is only recently that the government of nepal acknowledged their identity as a distinct ethnicity. even so, they are dramatically affected by the changing climatic conditions, and are struggling to adapt to these impacts. materials and methods research site the research was conducted in bhimeshwor municipality of dolakha district of province no. 3, nepal. the bhimeshwor municipality is situated between 27°44' 33.57" n and 27°36' 45.38" n latitudes and between 86°01' 60.00" e and 85°57' 36.02" e longitudes (fig.1). the municipality has been named after the very ancient and sacred dolakha bhimeshwor temple. the region is bordered by sun koshi river on the west and khimti khola on the east. on the northeast side of the site lies the impressive rolwaling mountain range whereas peaks such as gauri shanker and melungtse lie on the western side (gon, 2017). two villages, viz. topar and lisapoto of suspa were chosen as the research sites from the bhimeswor municipality. the climatic characteristics of these places coincide with that of the hilly regions of nepal. the temperatures vary along with the altitudinal variation and geographical characteristics with lower valley regions having minimum temperature of approximately 3o c going up to 20o−22o c maximum whereas the temperature remains around 0o c at the higher elevations. this region has a yearly rainfall of around 2000 mm (gon, 2007). the research was conducted in august, 2017. source : google earth, gis map figure 1 : location of bhimeshwor municipality in dolakha district this study adopted mixed approach for data collection and analysis. to generalize and make the data more objective, a questionnaire survey of 100 households (hhs) was conducted. the questionnaire captured the socio-economic dimensions of the village, their perceptions concerning climate change and the practiced adaptation measures. likewise, the primary data were collected through field observations, indepth interviews and focused group discussions (fgds). the combination of both qualitative and banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 42‒48 44 thapa quantitative methods yielded convergent findings which were based on concurrent triangulation design (figure 2). figure 2 : concurrent triangulation design selection of respondents the thami community is listed as one of the highly marginalized groups of people in nepal. (nefin, 2017). it is also a community that largely depends on their indigenous knowledge for livelihood. subsistence farming done in small landholdings is the primary occupation practiced through generations. ninety percent of the farmers are totally dependent on rain-fed agriculture. the thami people have deep traditional knowledge and experiences about agriculture which are reflected in the interviews. a sample size of 100 hhs was decided by taking into account the findings of the preliminary field visit, presence of maximum number of hhs in one clustered hamlet, difficulty in accessing other villages because of time and budget constraints. moreover, convenience sampling method was used during the field work. firstly, a consultation with a key informant was conducted during the preliminary field visit. secondly, a number of fgds were conducted followed by in-depth interviews with some key informants and local farmers. finally, the hh survey of 100 hhs was conducted to acquire the required data; one individual per hh was interviewed for the purpose. altogether, eight participants with specific experiences were interviewed. fgd was conducted with nine participants in faselung, ward no. 1 of bhimeswor municipality. a mixed group of people, both male and female, ranging from youngsters to oldsters participated in the fgds. in particular, the discussions were focused around the topics of socio-economic condition of the village and climate change. interviews were concentrated on central to narrative research, and provided an opportunity to understand and reflect their perceptions regarding climate change and adaptation to climate change. the fgds helped to generate detailed data and information regarding the indigenous knowledge and practices of thamis in the research site. likewise, key informant interviews were essential to connect and interact with the local people of the study area, especially the village heads, elderly group of people and teachers. the hh-surveyquestionnaire contained closed ended queries, and the data was collected using the kobo toolbox, a survey tool available on the internet. in course of qualitative data analysis, the processes of coding, categorizing, thematizing and meaning-making were followed kindly check the sentence. results and discussion the farmers of the topar and lisapoto villages follow both the traditional and modern agricultural practices. they cultivate their rain-fed terraced lands (locally called "khet" and "pakho bari"). the farmers produce paddy, wheat, maize, millet as their major crops. similarly, potato is a prime vegetable grown in both the villages. besides, they grow tomatoes, chilli, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumber, kiwi fruit and guava as cash crops. most of the respondents were small landholders, practicing subsistence farming. only a few hhs were reported to have irrigation facilities and the rest were fully dependent on rain-fed agriculture resulting in lower productivity; the productivity used to be also determined on the basis of the availability of chemical fertilizers and pesticides for particular farmers (gon, 2007). the farmers perceived the changing climate through its impacts on their daily lives. education and communication media played a vital role in shaping these perceptions through information dissemination. climate change perceptions in thami community awareness of climate change climate change although an old phenomenon, was a new concept for the thami community. they understood climate change as the change in banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 42‒48 45 thapa temperature and short-term weather. they could not relate disasters to climate change. instead, they related climate change to weather change. the farmers' perceptions concerning climate change were mainly based on their indigenous knowledge. besides, their perceptions were also found to have depended on awareness and non-formal trainings held in the villages. the thamis use their own local terminologies for local climatic and weather phenomenon. however, they fully do not understand that the alterations in the climatic conditions are the causes of many environmental incidents such as erratic rainfall and droughts in the village (nhmrcc, 2015). impacts of climate change on water seventy eight percent of the respondents experienced the decrease in the amount of rainfall in the month of march as compared to the past kindly check the sentence. the respondents also experienced severe droughts in the months of april and may. rainfall was perceived to be unpredictable and erratic for the rest of the months. sixteen percent of the respondents who replied that there was no water scarcity were the ones with year-round access to water for irrigation. changes in temperature (maximum and minimum) the respondents perceived increase in temperature which according to them has led to increase in production of new kinds of fruits and vegetables in their villages. most of the respondents replied that temperature had increased during the last decade, which coincided with the official scientific data. figure 3 shows the maximum temperature to be in increasing trend during the period of 19872016 at the jiri meteorological station. each node in the figure represents a year. the standard deviation over the years has shifted upwards, which indicates the rise in average maximum temperature in the area for the past decades. majority of the respondents also reported that they experienced warmer temperatures even in the colder months nowadays. figure 3 : average maximum temperature at the jiri meteorological station during the period of 1987−2016 figure 4 represents the average minimum temperature through three decades. the chart shows the changes throughout the decades in average minimum temperatures with increased variability in the temperatures. the minimum temperatures in the past decade have gone upward by almost one degree celsius. this result coincides with the perceptions of most of the respondents in the study site. due to such rise in temperature, numerous extreme weather events were reported to be experienced by the respondents in the area. the direct impacts due to increasing temperatures are reduced crop yield, erratic rainfall, increased pests and diseases, landslides and droughts in the study area. figure 4: average minimum temperature at the jiri meteorological station during the period of 1987-2016 erratic rainfall the thami farmers believed that incidences of droughts and floods in the village were due to "god’s play" and nothing new. according to their elders, the rain clouds came in with the cold eastern winds and with the flowering of wheat or with the corn silk. as per the calendar, 1987 1992 1997 2002 2007 2012 2016 1987 1992 1997 2002 2007 2012 2016 1987 1992 1997 2002 2007 2012 2016 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 42‒48 46 thapa there should be regular incidences of rain arriving at mid-june instead of may. however, the farmers experienced heavy rainfall mostly accompanied by hail storms at the wrong time nowadays. figure 5 represents the average monthly rainfall data from the jiri hydrological station from 1987 to 2016, which shows the changing characteristics of rainfall over time. the average rainfall during the period of 2007−2016 and 1997−2006 periods seems erratic than during the period of 1987−1996. some thami farmers also perceived the decrease in rainfall by observing the local stream named "kuthali khola" which has not risen nowadays as compared to the past. they also reported that erratic rain had now affected the production of maize, one of the staple crops. likewise, the melting of snow was rapid at higher altitudes in most winters nowadays, which was an unusual occurrence in the past. in the past, the arrival of winter was indicated by the snowfall on the nearby hill, which also indicated the end of monsoon rain. now, the farmers rarely noticed snow on that hill. likewise in the past, the sowing time for wheat was indicated by the flowering of prunus cerasoides (paiyun). similalry, the flowering of michalia champaca (champ) indicated the sowing season for maize and the presence of demoiselle crane (karang kurung) indicated the season for sowing cucumber and summer fruits. these incidences made the indigenous knowledge useless in some situations. 250.0 270.0 290.0 310.0 330.0 350.0 370.0 390.0 a v er a g e ra in fa ll year 1987 to 2016 average rainfall average of rainfall (1987 1996) average of rainfall (1997 2006) average of rainfall (2007 2016) (m m ) source : dohm, 2017. figure 5 : average rainfall at the jiri meteorological station during the period of 1987−2016 climate change impacts on agriculture eighty five percent thami respondents reported that agriculture sector was most affected by climate change. similarly, 63% respondents indicated the impact of climate change on the availability of water for agriculture in the village. agriculture being a climate-dependent sector, is most vulnerable to climatic hazards. high dependency on agriculture for livelihood makes the thamis susceptible to climate change. this also had implications on their socio-economic aspects, such as poverty, food insecurity and outmigration from the villages. the cases of crop failures due to hail storm and droughts were more likely in the study site. according to the respondents, there was no rain in during the period of april-july because of which nothing grew during the months of october, november and december. in winter season, there were mostly no crops grown. there was also rise in pests and insects in the fields due to rising temperature. besides, the loss of fertility in the soil was also caused by excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides by the villagers to tackle low agricultural productivity. further, the villagers had experienced the problems like discoloration of the crops and vegetables. due to excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, most of the local breed of vegetables such as local spinach, cucumber and pumpkin had disappeared which has serious implications on the livelihood of the thamis. adaption practices change in agricultural practices as adaptation the thamis were found to be applying different adaptation practices for climate change. most of these practices were based on their indigenous knowledge while some were done with the support of different governmental and non-governmental programs. for seasonal calendar shifts due to climate change, the thamis had to change crop plantation timings. the villagers were also found to be experimenting with hybrids and improved seeds from the local market for faster and larger quantities of production. they mostly used hybrid seeds for vegetables and for staple crops mostly in the case of insufficient home stored seeds. however, most of the thami farmers were not aware of the quality of the seeds available in banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 42‒48 47 thapa the market. hybrid species needed proper care and use of modern tools and techniques and manuring for better growth. some of the offseason species even grew all year round. though the thami farmers had shifted to cultivating new seeds for greater yield, they complained about loss of nutritional values and taste in their new productions. thamis were also given trainings by various organizations on modern agricultural practices which are beneficial and had created lucrative business opportunities of vegetable farming. adaptation to erratic rainfall and droughts i. conservation of forest and water source management each of the hhs at the topar and lisapoto villages possessed taps installed with the support of the local government and nepal red cross. another way the thamis were adapting to erratic rainfall was by conserving forest and planting perennial plants around the water springs to help conserve the water sources. during drought seasons, they had a system of water source management through water pooling and using water from the streams. this sometimes resulted in conflicts between the farmers as there were no systems for measuring the volume of water used per hh. they also used drought-resistant crops provided by the district agricultural office at charikot. some thamis did not cultivate anything at this time of the year whereas some of them had developed irrigation channels. ii. early harvesting as adaptation in the case of hailstorm, some of the farmers tried to predict it by observing the changing weather (thundering and lightning). there was nothing that the villagers could do to stop the effects of hail storm than to prevent the crops from getting affected which could be done by early harvesting. this could be done only when the crops were almost ripe. same was the case for less rain and drought. also if there was more rain than required, they had a traditional draining system. iii. use of modern technology likewise, drip irrigation and water pooling techniques practiced by the thamis was for efficient water use in the field. in the case of late seasonal rainfall, the crops were sowed a month later than scheduled. in the winter when temperatures lowered, they planted coldresistant crops, such as wheat, buckwheat, paddy, maize and cabbage. some farmers also used plastic tunnels for farming tomatoes in winter. adaptation to increasing insect pests by use of home-made pesticides and fertilizers thamis used to sprinkle homemade pesticides/ repellant on their plants, which were prepared by adding tobacco in urine (of both human and cattle) and adding water to dilute the mixtures. this practice was helpful in chasing away the pests, especially the red ants. apart from this, the farmers also made use of artimisia vulgaris (titepate) and the leaves of zanthoxylum armatum (timmur) in this mixture. these indigenous ways of keeping the pests away were found to be very useful in every step of the plant growth. the use of market pesticides, moreover, affected the plants, humans and animal health. however, the farmers used chemical pesticide called "bevestine" by mixing it with the seeds before sowing when the homemade pesticides stopped working. adaptation to other climate-induced hazards by use of bio-engineering and plantation of new hardy crop species in the case of soil erosions and landslide, the thamis used big stones to reinforce the terraced walls of the fields. also, most of the thamis applied their knowledge about elevation and other traditional farming techniques, such as making barriers for guiding the water in their fields, which had helped them manage and regulate water around their fields. likewise, the villagers also adapted to increasing temperature by planting new varieties of crops and vegetables. the local government also conducted trainings and awareness programs in the villages on integrating traditional and modern ways of farming. they were also provided with seed bins and technical support for local seed production. furthermore, they were also supported with tractors, plastics for ponds, rainwater harvesting, and drip irrigation by different non-governmental organizations (ngos) and international non-governmental organizations (ingos). banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 42‒48 48 thapa migration purchasing food from the market is another adaptation measure done by the thamis when there is not enough production of food grains in their fields to sustain for the entire year. the data from the hh survey indicated that only 6% respondents had an adequate amount of food grains for 12 months whereas the rest purchased food grains from the market and migrating to the cities and working as labor for rest of the year. conclusion indigenous communities are the most vulnerable to climate change. they are among the first to face its direct consequences due to their dependence and close relationship with nature. climate change had severely affected agriculture in the research sites, posing threats to food security. nevertheless, there was increased productivity in some areas due to increase in temperatures. however, some were concerned about the change in traditional species of plant species. their traditional ways of farming was threatened due to climate change. although short-term adaptation practices were carried out in the villages, they did not possess any additional financial sources to face the long-term challenges caused by climate change. further, there was an increased interest in modern technology in farming. although this study is limited to a small geographical area, it reflects on a much bigger problem faced by many farmers in the hilly regions of nepal. this problem needs intervention at much larger scale by the government through proper planning and policies for environment management, climate change adaptation and mitigation, especially in agriculture and water sectors. references arbuckle, j. g., morton, l. w. and hobbs, j. 2015. understanding farmers' perception on climate change adaptation and mitigation : the roles of trust in sources of climate information, climate change beliefs and perceived risk. sage publications inc. creswell, j. w. (2009). research design : qualitative, quantitative and mixed method approaches. sage publications inc, los angeles. gon. 2007. household survey of dolakha suspachhyamawati region. government of nepal. moste. 2015. indigenous and local knowledge and practices for climate resilience in nepal. ministry of science, technology and environment, kathmandu, nepal. gon. 2017. historical, religious and cultural heritage, nature and tourism enriched bhimeshwor. office of the municipal executive, bhimeshwor municipality, government of nepal. http : //bhimeshwormun. gov. np/en/node/4 (accessed on 6th sep, 2017). maplecroft, v. 2011. risk calculators and dashboards. https : //maplecroft. com/about/ news/ ccvi. html (accessed on 7th july, 2017). moac. 2011. climate change adaptation and disaster risk management in agriculture priority framework for action 2011-2020. ministry of agriculture and cooperatives, kathmandu, nepal. napa/mope. 2010. thematic working group summary report. national adaptation program of action/ ministry of population and environment, kathmandu, nepal. nefin. 2017. categorization of indigenous people based on development. nepal federation of indigenous nationalities. http : //www. nefin. org. np/list/ categorization-of-indigenous-peoplebased-ondevelopment-/5/95/6 (accessed on 7th july, 2017). dohm. 2015. study of climate and climatic variation over nepal. department of hydrology and meteorology, kathmandu, nepal. pachauri, r. k., meyer, l. a. and team, t. c. 2014. climate change 2014 : synthesis report. contribution of working groups i, ii and iii to fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. geneva, switzerland. inadequate supply of fuelwood and timber from forests of nepal raj bahadur shrestha1 the existing public supply of fuelwood does not meet the demand of growing population. while peoples' need of fuelwood is being met mostly from government forests legally or illegally, and some from community and private lands, the government will soon find it difficult to compensate 69% of fuelwood energy from the depleting forest. appropriate technologies such as biogass, improved stoves, etc. should be promoted to reduce fuelwood consumption. also, appropriate harvesting technology could help improve fuelwood and timber supply system of the country. keywords: demand and supply, fuelwood, timber, nepal. i n nepal, fuelwood, agriculture residues, and animal wastes form the traditional sources of energy whereas coal, kerosene, and electricity are the commercial ones. the energy from hydropower, biogass, lpg (cooking gases), and solar are considered far from the reach of the general public. the traditional sources supply nearly ninty two percent of energy (biomass 69%; agriculture residues 15% and animal wastes 8%) (redp, 1997). fuelwood is still the main source of cooking and heating especially in rural areas. rural residents use about 70% of fuelwood as compared to urban who use 31% (adhikari, 1999). the demand of such products is obviously high in compare to the supply. the present paper therefore, discusses on demand-supply system of fuelwood for household consumption in nepal. it is based on the author's field experience and literature search. few recommendations which are expected to correct the supply system have been presented. existing demand-supply system the actual demand-supply situation of fuewood is difficult to quantify due to lack of valid figures. there is no nation-wide studies. the only official estimatation for per-capita household consumption of fuelwood for the urban area is 248 kg and for rural areas (including mountain and terai) is 559 kg (hmg, 1988). based on such data and alongwith the existing population growth rate, the present demand of fuelwood has been presented in table 1. similarly, the actual supply of fuelwood only from the government-managed forests has also been tabulated. likewise, for comparison hmg's projection for the year 1995/96 has been also presented. as per the forest act (1993), timber corporation of nepal (tcn), district forest supply board (dfsb), and district forest office (dfo) are involved in supplying timber and fuelwood. the former supplies fuelwood generally to the city dwellers and to industries. dfsb which has been formed in twenty six districts, supplies fuelwood upon demand by the local people. similarly, dfos of the remaining districts allow the people to collect fuelwood from the government forests, if asked permission. status of forest forest areas are decreasing annually. in 1963/64, the forest cover was 45.6% of the total land (hmg/usaid, 1963/64; cited in frisp, 1998), which was 38% in 1978/79 (lrmp 1986). now, it has gone down to 29% of the total land area (dfrs 1999). apart from that, this figure also includes protected forests which cover 18.84% of the total land. the forest cover is decreasing with a rate of 1. 7 percent each year. the hilly area has high rate (2.3%) whereas it is 1.3% in the terai. the physiographical distribution of the forest cover is shown in the table 2. discussions and recommendations despite there are alternative sources, rural nepali still need fuelwood for cooking and heating. therefore, demand for fuelwood is high. the supply by the government of lacking far behind (see fig 1). for the last few years, a slight change in the pattern of demand in the urban areas like kathmandu, biratnagar, pokhara, etc. has occurred. * forest officer, department of forests, babar mahal, kathmandu, nepal. shrestha banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 table 1: existing demand-supply system of fuel wood fiscal fuelwood (1000 ton). year demand supply rural urban total real master plan (1988) projection 93/94 9438 591 10029 100 94/95 9628 603 10231 157 95/96 9837 616 10453 29 49475 96/97 10036 628 10664 52 97/98 10244 642 10886 22 98/99 10462 655 11117 21 !'r formal supplies only from government managed forest (annual reports of dof from 1993 to 1998) ** only from forests demand for fuelwood has rapidly decreased in these areas, due to alternative sources and changing life style of the urban people.) the use of lpg and kerosene has reduced fuelwood consumption in kathmandu valley by 50% in 1989/90 with compared to 1984/85 (adhikari 1999). however, this has not minimised the fuelwood consumption in developing urban towns like chitwan, surkhet, illam, and so on. villagers are still seen selling fuelwood in these places. table 2: distribution of tree cover by physiographical zones. physiographic regions area of forests (%) high himal 2.75 high mountains 29.68 mid mountains 27.11 shiwalik 29.25 terai 11.21 total 29 in rural areas, no such institution exists for selling fuelwood to the rural people. nor the rural people can afford to buy other alternative sources. this makes clear that forests are the only option for them to get fuelwood. this is either with the permission of dfo or community forest (cf) or from private owners (po) or others. the supply from dfo is negligible and that from cf and po is very less because contribution of cf, pl, and others is 11. 9%, 18.95%, and 3.09%, respectively (cbs, 1996a; cited at adhikari, 1999). the question then arises how the people have been managing their need for fuelwood ? the simple answer is that they have been collecting it from government managed forests without permission. contribution of government forest in supplying fuelwood which is 66.06% (cbs, 1996a; cited at adhikari, 1999), also proves this. the main problem for the future is that the growing population has to depend on limited as well as ep eting forest resources (fig 2). similarly, supply rom high. himal region is virtually impossible, iwa i region is fragile and is not recommended to harvest trees. the terai and mountain forests are the only potential areas from where timber and fuelwood can be harvested, but meeting the demand only from these areas is unattainable. in addition, the terai and mountain forests also include protected forests the exploitation of which is out of question. also, there has been no scientific management of commercial forests, the deficit will continue to rise, and the vicious cycle continues. fig 1: existing trend of demand supply of fuelwood 12000 j ■g 10000 t 8000 -■g 6000 34000 r* lo co dco cd cd cd cd cd cd cd co ̂ lo cd co cd cd cd cd cd cd fiscal year fig 2: physiographical distribution of forests el high himal ■ high mountain ig mid mountain ■ siw in such scenario, the following recommendations will, to some extent help manage the supply in relation to demand: ® base line study on demand-supply situation and related matters should be done for planning. series 1 26 banko janakari, vol. 9, no. 2 shrestha • the shrub land should be managed to expand the forest area. • effective-harvesting operations should be carried out in cfs with a sound technical plan. • involvement of private sectors in the forestry should be emphasised as a partner. private forestry enhancement programmemes should be simultaneously carried in order to increase supply. • afforestation and reforestation programmes should be revitalised. • mountain forests should be also managed for harvest. transportation through cable-logging system could be an option for mountains. • technically sound operational forest management plan should be developed and implemented. • the terai forests should be managed as a partnership between government and local communities. • dependency on fuelwood in rural areas should be minimised by promoting biogass and other domestic sources. similarly, improved stove should again be encouraged to use. references adhikari, d. v. 1999. a report on air pollution situation and management plan, kathmandu, nepal. dfrs 1999. forest and shrub cover of nepal 1994, department of forest research and survey publication no 72, kathmandu, nepal. dof 1994. an introduction of department of forests, department of forest, kathmandu, nepal. dof 1999. annual reports (1993 to 1997) of the department of forest, kathmandu, nepal. frisp 1998. strategic guidelines for forest utilization, forest resource information system project main report no 10, hmg/finnida, kathmandu, nepal. hmg 1998. master plan for forestry sector, main report, ministry of forest and soil conservation, singhdarvar, kathmandu, nepal. lrmp 1986. land utilization report, land resource mapping project kathmandu, nepal. redp 1997. environment management guideline, rural energy development program, nep/95/016 publication, kathmandu, nepal. 23 drying up of springs and water scarcity issues underscore the need to increase the understanding of spring hydrology, especially in the himalayan region. it is realized that climate change impacts more on developing countries because they have a lesser capacity to adapt and have other stresses. many studies in these regions show high water stress, and there is no sign of decreasing the effects in future. in a review of micro-scale and mesoscale studies, negi (2002) stressed on the systematic monitoring to aid the management of himalayan springs. himalayan regions are one of the least monitored areas in terms of hydro-meteorological information (agarwal et al., 2012). bruijnzeel & bremmer (1989) and alford (1992) elucidated that the management plans stemming from inadequate understanding would not solve water scarcity challenges. in order to improve water availability for the rural communities in water balance component analysis of a spring catchment of western nepal 1 program officer, freshwater, wwf nepal, baluwatar, kathmandu. *email: jibeshkc2012@gmail.com; 2 sustalndus phd fellow, mountain hydrology, water and air, icimod, nepal; 3 regional researcher – water & climate, international water management institute, nepal; and 4 assistant professor, tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal. springs in the mountains and hills are getting affected by both climatic and non-climatic changes. hydrologic models are used to simulate the response of spring systems to the changes; however, only a limited number of studies using the hydrologic modeling approach have been accomplished on studying springs and spring-dominated watersheds in nepal. this research aimed at understanding changing hydrological processes through hydrologic modeling in a spring catchment. a micro-catchment named 'sikharpur' of west seti watershed of nepal was selected to get insights into the process influencing the spring system. the rrawflow models with gamma distribution and time variant irfs were calibrated and validated for the catchment to get the best fit model. the discharge was simulated according to the future projected climate scenarios. then, a water balance was assessed for the micro-catchment. the results showed that understanding of likely response of hydrologic variables to potential future climate scenarios is critical for water resource management. it was estimated that the spring discharge would be decreased by more than 40 percentage after 50 years mainly due to the increase in evapo-transpiration (91.47% of the precipitation). evapo-transpiration was found as a major hydrologic process impacting upon water balance in the spring catchment; therefore, its management for better spring resource conservation is recommended by considering high evapo-transpiration months, water deficient period and crop factor. the change in the storage was observed to be 51.78%; so, detail isotopic analysis and long-term monitoring of water balance is required for further characterization of water balance components. keywords: climate change, evapo-transpiration, hydrologic model, nepal, rrawflow, spring micro-catchment j. k. k.c. 1*, s. dhaubanjar 2, v. p. pandey 3 and r. subedi 4 received : 10, april, 2021 revised : 10 may, 2021 accepted : 26, may, 2021 published : 30, may, 2021 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1, 2021 pp 23‒32https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v31i1.37341 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0791-2486 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2974-0427 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5258-7446 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0471-070x banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 24 k.c. et al. the himalayan region, it is, generally, felt that there is a need to study these critical resources; however, only a limited number of studies using the hydrologic modeling approach have been accomplished on studying springs and springdominated watersheds in nepal. spring is an important source of water supply in the nepalese mountains because of its ease of access in the nearby rural communities, availability during short-term climatic variability and good quality compared to the surface-water located in the valleys. however, understanding spring system and associated hydrological process, such as, groundwater recharge have long been one of the most difficult challenges in data-scarce countries like nepal. given a certain set of favorable topographic and geological conditions in the catchment, spring may emerge as a result of flow through unconfined stratum or through fissures, cracks and other geological features in a confined stratum (matheswaran et al., 2017). although there exists considerable uncertainty about the climate change impacts in nepal, increased temperature and changes in timing, magnitude, and intensity of monsoonal rainfall patterns are predicted to occur. spring being the primary source of water resources for the rural communities perched at elevated locations in the nepalese hills, it is imperative to address the challenges in the management of spring system and to devise ways to sustainably manage it under climate change. this requires a better understanding of key surface and subsurface hydrological components, and processes' controlling the spring system. hydrologic modeling aims to have a more global approach to understanding the behavior of watershed systems to make better predictions and to face the major challenges in water resource management. in spring hydrology, discharge reflects the complex interactions between the weather and the biophysical environment as water flows through hydrologic cycle. hydrological processes can be simply described as a water balance equation to express the contributions of hydrologic processes to a stream-flow. the approach allows an examination of the hydrologic cycle for any period of time. the objective of this research is to understand the climatic trend in western nepal and assess their effects on prevailing hydrologic processes and water balance components in a monitored spring microcatchment. materials and methods study area the study on the spring hydrology was conducted in the sikharpur micro-catchment under the west seti watershed area situated in the sigash village municipality-1 of baitadi district of western nepal (figure 1), one of the most climate-vulnerable districts in the country. the study was carried out between july, 2017 − july, 2018. with the total area of 86.9 ha, the study area is located between 29°28'46.70" − 29°29'40.70" n latitudes and between 80°41'16.85" − 80°41'54.78" e longitudes. the altitude of the terrain ranges from 1850 m to 2430 m above the mean sea level (figure 1). the general geology of sikharpur consists of phyllite and limestone, and springs are located near the contact of underlying quartzite and phyllite, and overlying limestone. there is high pressure on forest resources and it has been converted to other land uses and the site also experience noticeable climate extremes including prolonged drought, less and intense rainfall, declining water flow in the springs (poudel et al., 2021). topography of the area includes stable steep slopes, rocky land and terrace agriculture. most of the area under the catchment is covered by some kind of vegetation (83.78 %) dominated by kharland1 (31.06%) followed by the cultivated terraces (26.79%) and sparse vegetation (19.89%, figure 2 & table 1). the quercus tree species were found in the upstream area of the catchment while the pines were found in the downstream area. the water from the springs of the microcatchment had been harnessed through the direct diversion pipe system. altogether, 453 inhabitants used the spring sources for drinking, bathing, livestock feeding, irrigation, and hydroelectricity generation. 1 kharland area is a land that is used for grazing in upland areas. often termed as kharka land or kharka area. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 25 k.c. et al. figure 1: location of the study area in the map of nepal table 1: land use and land cover (lulc) area by type s. n. lulc type area (ha) % 1 dense forest 5.24 6.04 2 sparse vegetation 17.26 19.89 3 kharland 26.94 31.06 4 terraces (cultivated) 23.24 26.79 5 terraces (fallow) 2.15 2.48 6 settlement 1.36 1.57 7 barren 7.67 8.84 8 other 2.89 3.33 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 26 k.c. et al. figure 2: land use and land cover map of sikharpur catchment {data source: highresolution resource mapping of lulc for bcrwme project area (iwmi, 2019)} data collection the sikharpur micro-catchment falls under the project-area of the "building climate resilience in watersheds of mountain eco-regions" (bcrwme) project. as a part of the project, international water management institute (iwmi) nepal conducted a comprehensive research study titled, “watershed hydrology impact monitoring research in far west nepal". iwmi, nepal set up a hydro-meteorological monitoring station in the sikharpur village in order to monitor the weather parameters and spring flow. this study is financially supported by iwmi nepal and the daily hydro-meteorological data during the period of 1st may, 2016 − 23rd june, 2018 were obtained from the stations for the purpose of this study. for climate change analysis, the data from the local hydro-climatic station is not adequate. therefore, the climatic data were collected from the nearby meteorological station at patan situated at 1266m elevation in baitadi district; the daily maximum and minimum temperatures as well as the daily precipitation data during the aforementioned period were used for climate change analysis. the schematic flow followed during the study is presented below in figure 3. figure 3: flowchart showing the methodological framework of the study banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 27 k.c. et al. development and application of hydrological models hydrologic model selection a field visit with the experts was performed to know the spring system and catchment area, and also discussions were conducted to find out an appropriate model applicable for the microcatchment area under study. the available literatures and the associated models were reviewed keeping into consideration the lack of the data concerned with the weather characteristics, micro-watershed (small in area), available input variables and their characteristics (land use & land cover map of 2m × 2m resolution and two years' precipitation & discharge), hilly area, spring discharge and local hydrogeology of the study area. after careful review and discussions, the rainfall response aquifer and watershed flow (rrawflow) model, and water balance approach were considered for application. description of rrawflow model the rrawflow is a lumped model that simulates response of stream flow, groundwater level, and solute transport or cave drip for a measurement place from the input of precipitation, recharge or solute. the model includes a time-series process to assess recharge from precipitation, and simulates the response from the convolution like in the unit-hydrograph approach. a discrete form of the convolution integral for uniform time steps used in rrawflow (long, 2014) is: where, yi is the system response; is the change in time; hi-j is the impulse response function (irf); is the input; j and i are time-step indices corresponding to system input and output, respectively; n is the number of time steps in the output record; φi represents the errors resulting from measurement inaccuracy, sampling interval, or simplifying model assumptions. the quantity i – j represents the time duration from impulse to response, and the irf represents a distribution of these delay times. physically, irf is the system response (yi) per unit impulse of input (uj) and also can be described as the response produced by a system when the input is a delta function (smith, 2003). conceptually, convolution is the superposition of a series of irfs that are initiated at the time of each impulse of uj and are scaled proportionally by the magnitude of the corresponding impulse. model outputs consist of time series for simulated discharge, the irfs (dry and wet), the soilmoisture index, and the input to convolution. other outputs consist of a coefficient of efficiency "e" to measure the similarity between the simulated and observed system response (residuals) and the hydrological memory of the system. the simulation period for sikharpur was from 1st may, 2016 to 31st may, 2017 followed by the validation period which ended on 23rd june, 2018. prediction of discharge under changing climatic scenarios the climate trend analysis was accomplished to find out the projected change in temperature and precipitation in future. the future discharge was predicted from the best fit model by applying the changed temperature and precipitation in the rrawflow model. estimating water balance components water balance equation water balance components include precipitation, discharge, evapo-transpiration and soil water storage for a spring catchment. for the purpose of this study, the precipitation and discharge data from the local meteorological and hydrological stations within each micro-catchment were used for the water balance analysis. the reference evapo-transpiration was assessed using the evapo-transpiration (eto) calculator based on the fao penman-monteith equation. allen et al. (1998) recommended the fao banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 28 k.c. et al. penman-monteith method as a new standard for reference evapotranspiration and also provided guideline for calculating various parameters under the method. in this study, crop coefficient was not included to calculate the evapo-transpiration as most of the area under the catchment was covered by some kind of vegetation (83.78%), which reflect the ideal situation to use reference evapo-transpiration ( figure 2 & table 1). the data used for the calculation of evapotranspiration were: the mean monthly temperature data (min, max and mean), solar radiation, wind speed, and relative humidity. the water consumption by the users was calculated by multiplying daily consumption per person with the total population dependent on the water source. who (2011) illustrates water requirement quantity of a person ranges from 7.5 to 15 liters per day (lpd) including need of survival, basic hygiene practices and basic cooking needs. this study used the least water requirement per person (7.5 lpd) for characterizing water balance as additional water sources are also available nearby the sikharpur catchment. results calibration and validation of rrawflow the best-fit model for sikharpur micro-catchment was explored by conducting hundreds of manual optimization of variables (figure 4). gamma distribution and irfs were found to be appropriate for the modeling. four irfs including two of dry mean years and the rest two of the wet years were fitted in the best mode fit. the model was found to be appropriate for the prediction of discharge from precipitation and temperature in the sikharpur catchment (table). also during the calibration and validation periods, only a very little difference was observed in the model efficiency, indicating a good model fit (table 2). table 2: model calibration and validation statistics from to r2 p-bias nse simulation period 1st may, 2016 22nd jun, 2018 0.73 4.9 0.73 calibration period 1st may, 2016 31st may, 2017 0.74 0.3 0.72 validation period 1st jun, 2017 22nd jun, 2018 0.72 2.9 0.72 note: nash–sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient (nse) is used to assess the predictive skill of hydrological models. pbias is percent bias, and r2 is coefficient of determination. climate change and spring discharge at sikharpur, the average mean temperature was found to be 18.6˚c with an increasing trend of mean temperature at the rate of 0.024˚c (0.13% every year) and also a sharp decline in minimum and mean temperatures in 2002 (figure 5). the average annual rainfall at sikharpur was found to be 1366 mm with an increasing trend of rainfall by only 0.56 mm/ year (0.04% per year) with frequent fluctuations (figure 6). 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 1400 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000 18000 20000 1m ay -2 01 6 15 -j u n -2 01 6 30 -j u l-2 01 6 13 -s ep -2 01 6 28 -o ct -2 01 6 12 -d ec -2 01 6 26 -j an -2 01 7 12 -m ar -2 01 7 26 -a p r20 17 10 -j u n -2 01 7 25 -j u l-2 01 7 8se p -2 01 7 23 -o ct -2 01 7 7d ec -2 01 7 21 -j an -2 01 8 7m ar -2 01 8 21 -a p r20 18 5ju n -2 01 8 ra in fa ll (m m ) d is ch ar g e (l/ m in ) rainfall qobs qsim figure 4: best fit model for sikharpur micro-catchment banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 29 k.c. et al. fig. 5: temperature trend at sikharpur fig. 6: rainfall trend at sikharpur y = 0.0511x + 24.234 y = 0.0241x + 18.18 y = 0.0147x + 12.177 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 19 81 19 83 19 85 19 87 19 89 19 91 19 93 19 95 19 97 19 99 20 01 20 03 20 05 20 07 20 09 20 11 20 14 tmax tmean tmin y = 0.5569x + 1356 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 19 81 19 83 19 85 19 87 19 89 19 91 19 93 19 95 19 97 19 99 20 01 20 03 20 05 20 07 20 09 20 11 20 13 20 15 precipitation linear (precipitation) figure 5: temperature trend at sikharpur figure 6: rainfall trend at sikharpur a decreasing trend was noticed in discharge in future climatic scenario by 0.84% after one year, by 1.74% after two years, by 9.51% after 10 years, by 31.66% after 30 years, and by 40.48% after 50 years (table 3). table 3: future climate scenario and change in discharge description total discharge for 784 days (liter/min) average yearly discharge(liter/min) % change in discharge (based on simulated discharge by bestfitted model) measured discharge 2103466.44 980633.91 simulated discharge 2189840.55 1020901.43 projected discharge after 1 year 2171347.52 1012280.00 −0.84 projected discharge after 2 years 2150864.43 1002730.80 −1.78 projected discharge after 3 years 2130482.06 993228.56 −2.71 projected discharge after 4 years 2108820.52 983129.97 −3.70 projected discharge after 5 years 2087287.85 973091.46 −4.68 projected discharge after 10 years 1981547.51 923795.42 −9.51 projected discharge after 20 years 1744067.11 813082.31 −20.36 projected discharge after 30 years 1496456.13 697646.32 −31.66 projected discharge after 50 years 1303445.81 607665.11 −40.48 estimating water balance components the water balance equation for the sikharpur micro-catchment can be presented as: change in storage = inflow – outflow change in storage = precipitation – (discharge or runoff + evapo-transpiration + consumption) or, the total evapo-transpiration for the entire period of 26 months (2.14 years) was 2.5689×103 mm, precipitation 2.8085×103 mm and runoff 0.190×103 mm. the water consumption of water by 453 users of sikharpur was found to be 3.065×103 mm (@ 7.5 liters per person per day as per the who, 2011). based on these figures, the change in the banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 30 k.c. et al. storage value was found to be −3.015×103 mm for 26 months (table 4). on an average, annually 1.312×103 mm precipitation fell in the sikharpur micro-catchment, 1.20×103 mm evaporated from the catchment, 1.429×103 mm consumed by the users and 0.089×103 mm flew as runoff through the spring sources and turned as discharge. therefore, the change in the storage was found to be −1.405×103 mm/year. the total outflow in the system for the whole period was found to be 5.824×103 mm. table 4: water balance components of sikharpur micro-catchment water balance component values in period 2 yrs. and 2 months 1 year precipitation (p), mm 2808.49 1312.40 evapo-transpiration (e), mm 2568.91 1200.40 runoff (r), mm 189.92 88.75 total inflow (i), mm = p 2808.49 1312.40 total outflow (o), mm = e+r+c 5824.00 2715.14 change in storage (s), mm −3015.51 −1405.83 consumption (c), mm 3065.17 1428.98 runoff ratio (p/r) 14.79 runoff (%) 6.76 evapo-transpiration (%) 91.47 change in storage (%) −51.78 the residence time (rt=s/o) was found to be 25 minutes and 55 seconds which means on an average, the given water parcel remained for about 26 minutes as storage in the sikharpur micro-catchment. the runoff ratio (p/r) was found to be 14.79 or 6.76% which indicated that 14.79 fraction or 6.76% of the precipitation appeared as runoff in the spring catchment, and became spring discharge after evaporation loss and consumption by the users. moreover, 91.47% of the total precipitation was found to have evaporated in the atmosphere, which is the very big portion of the precipitation. however, a significant negative change in storage, i.e., −51.78 indicated a big amount of groundwater inflow (table 4). we found evapotranspiration to be a major influencing hydrologic process, therefore, it would be relevant to explore it in more detail. monthly reference evapotranspiration was found minimum 2.35 mm/day to a maximum 4.93 mm/day (figure 7). the evapotranspiration was higher (>4.00 mm/day) in the months of october, march, april and may, highest (4.93 mm/day) being in mid-may. it was low (around 2.35 mm/day) in the months of july, august, november and december. for the study area, the period from mid-may to mid-september was found to be the “soil water recharge period” followed by the period from mid-september to mid-october as “soil water utilization period”, and mid-november to mid-may was found “water deficient period” (figure 7). 0.00 2.00 4.00 6.00 8.00 10.00 12.00 evapotranspiration (mm/day) precipitation (mm/day) runo� (mm/day) figure 7: water balance graph including runoff for sikharpur micro-catchment banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 31 k.c. et al. discussion like elsewhere in the world, the increasing trend of temperature was observed in the study area. the increase in precipitation was observed with very little volume, and the frequent fluctuations indicated erratic rainfall as experienced in other parts of the country and the world. very big portion of precipitation (> 90%) was found to have evaporated from the spring hydrologic system. it is high in comparison to the continental united states where approximately two-third of all rainfall delivered is lost due to evapotranspiration (us wrc, 1978). based on the water balance study, another big volume of water inflow as groundwater inflow was predicted, which was also indicated by chinnasamy & prathapar (2016) in the microcatchment. a nearby area was identified by the duo researchers as potential spring shed; however, they were unable to quantify the area. isotope analyses, particularly water dating and stable isotope investigations, can be a best method to access recharge areas outside a watershed, as they have ability to assess complex spring systems including connection between aquifers. the monthly reference evapo-transpiration at sikharpur was found to be similar to the other parts of the country ranging from minimum in july to maximum in december. among others, some months were observed as having higher evapo-transpiration, i.e., october, march, april, and may. in addition, the "soil water recharge period", the "soil water utilization period" and the "water deficient period" observed in the study area represented a typical example of far-west nepal. in this study, crop coefficient was not included to calculate the evapo-transpiration as more than 83% of the catchment is covered by some kind of cover. the crop coefficient includes effect of typical vegetation on evapo-transpiration which is different from the effect of the ideal grass reference that depicts continuous grass presence with complete cover (fao, 1998). consequently, different crops have different effect on evapotranspiration. crop factor can influence evapotranspiration by the crop-height, albedo (reflectance) of the crop-soil surface, aerodynamic properties, leaf and stomata properties, canopy resistance and evapo-transpiration from soil. following soil wetting, the vapor transfer rate from the soil is high, especially for crops having incomplete ground cover (fao, 1998). conclusion and recommendations while analyzing the future climatic scenario based on the rrawflow's best fit model of the sikharpur micro-catchment, it was estimated that the discharge will be decreased by 40.48% after 50 years in the micro-catchment. the erratic change in precipitation (increase by 0.04% per year) and gradual increase in temperature (by 0.13% per year) resulted in the decreasing spring discharge. the rrawflow model with four time-invariant irfs and gamma distribution (nse=0.73) was found best for the prediction of discharge from precipitation, and portraits the behavior of the sikharpur spring micro-catchment quite good. more than 90% of the precipitation was found to have evaporated from the catchment, which is a very big portion of the precipitation. therefore, its management for spring resource conservation is recommended by this study. the months of october, march, april, and may were found to have higher evapo-transpiration (>4.00 mm/day) while the months between september and may were observed as the water deficient period at sikharpur. apart from these, crop factor also need to be considered for better management of spring catchment areas. almost 52% of negative change in the storage was found at the study site. therefore, the groundwater inflow was also predicted as one of the determinant hydrologic processes for spring discharge in this study. however, further detail isotopic analysis (to find recharge areas) and long-term monitoring of water balance are recommended for further characterization of water balance components. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 32 k.c. et al. references agarwal, a., bhatnaga, n. k., nema, r. k. and agrawal, n. k. (2012). rainfall dependence of springs in the midwestern himalayan hills of uttarakhand. mountain research and development 32 (4): 446−455. https://doi.org/10.1659/mrdjournal-d-12-00054.1 alford, d. (1992). streamflow and sediment transport from mountain watersheds of the chao phraya basin, northern thailand: a reconnaissance study. mountain research and development 12 (3): 257−268. allen, r. g., pereira, l. s., raes, d. and smith, m. (1998). crop evapo-transpiration guidelines for computing crop water requirements. fao irrigation and drainage paper no 56. rome, italy. 300 pp. bruijnzeel, l. a. and bremmer, c. n. (1989). highland-lowland interactions in the ganges brahmaputra river basin: a review of published literature. icimod occasional paper no. 11. kathmandu, nepal: international centre for integrated mountain development (icimod). 152p chinnasamy, p. and prathapar, s.a. (2016). methods to investigate the hydrology of the himalayan springs: a review. colombo, sri lanka: international water management institute (iwmi). (iwmi working paper 169). 28p. doi:10.5337/2016.205 fao (1998). crom evapo-transpiration – guidelines for computing crop water requirements – fao irrigation and drainage paper 56. food and agriculture organization of the united nations, viale delle terme di caracalla, 00100 rome, italy. m-56, isbn 92. isbn 92-5-1042195. http://www.fao.org/3/x0490e/x0490e0b .htm#topofpage grabs, w. e. and pokhrel, a.p. (1992). establishment of measuring service for snow and glacier hydrology in nepal: conceptual and operational aspects. in: international symposium on snow and glacier hydrology, g.j. young (ed.). kathmandu, nepal: international association of hydrological sciences (iahs). pp 3–16. iwmi. (2019). characterization of springdominated micro-watersheds in western nepal—the case of springs in shikharpur and banlek. international water management institute (iwmi): colombo, sri lanka, 2019. long, a. j. (2014). rrawflow: rainfallresponse aquifer and watershed flow model (v1.11). geoscientific model development. pp. 5919–5963. https://doi. org/10.5194 /gmdd-7-5919-2014 matheswaran, k., dhaubanjar, s., pandey, v. p. and bharathi, l. (2017). literature review of models for understanding hydrology of spring system in western nepal. international water management institiute, colombo, srilanka, december 2017. pp 1-19. negi, g.c.s. (2002). hydrological research in the indian himalayan mountains: soil and water conservation. current science 83 (8): 974−980. poudel, j. sudehi, r. khadka, a. and okwany, r. (2021). impact of forest cover, land use change and climate change on water availability: scenario of water use practices in the mountains of nepal. unpublished. us wrc (1978). the nation’s water resources, 1975−2000: second national water assessment. the us water resource council, washington, dc. pp. 1−64. who (2011). guidelines for drinking-water quality, 4th edition. world health organization, geneva. http://www.who. int/water_sanitation_health/publications/ 2011/dwq_chapters/en/index.html 71 identification and management of heart-rot fungi s. k. jha1 short note heart-rot fungi are key players in trees health, diversity and nutrient dynamic in forest as pathogens and decomposers along with a number of invertebrates are associated with wood-decay fungi serve as vectors for fungal pathogens, or are fungivorous and influence rates of wood-decay and nutrient mineralization. a number of fungi, viz. polyporus spp., serpulala crymans, fusarium negundi, coniophora cerebella, lentinus lapidens and penicillium divaricatum cause destruction of valuable timbers by reducing the mechanical strength of wood. molds cause rotting of the heartwood in the middle of tree-branches and trunks. wooddecay fungi can be classified according to the type of decay that they cause. the best-known types are brown rot, soft rot, and white rot. each type produces different enzymes, can degrade different plant materials, and can colonize different environmental niches (bednarz et al. 2013). wood-decay fungi are also divided into those that attack heartwood causing heart-rots and those that attack sapwood causing sap rots and canker rots. further subdivision (white rots, brown rots, and soft rots) is based on the appearance of the decayed wood or location in the tree; the decay is called a butt rot if it is at the base of the trunk (vasaitis, 2013). canker rots usually appear on branches or the trunk. when a fruiting body is visible on a tree, it is usually associated with advanced decay; the extent of decay may be far above or below the location of the fruiting body. trees with extensive sap rot may show symptoms of decline, including increased deadwood and a thinning canopy with reduced density of foliage. white rots white rots break down all the major wood components i.e. cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, and commonly cause rotted wood to feel moist, soft, spongy, or stringy and appear white or yellow. mycelia of fungi colonize much of the woody tissues. white rots usually form in flowering trees (angiosperms) and less often in conifers (gymnosperms). fungi that cause white rots also cause the production of zone lines in wood, sometimes called "spalted wood". this partially rotted wood is sometimes desirable for woodworking. the examples of white rot fungi are armillariell amellea, pleurotus ostreatus, coriolus versicolor, cyathus stercoreus, ceriporiopsissu bvermispora, trametes versicolor, hetero basidionannosum, and so on. brown rots brown rots primarily decay the cellulose and hemicellulose (carbohydrates) in wood, leaving behind the brownish lignin. wood affected by brown rot usually is dry, fragile, and readily crumbles into cubes because of longitudinal and transverse cracks occurring which follow cellular lines, or across cells, respectively. the decay commonly forms columns of rot in wood. brown rots generally occur in conifers as heartrots. hardwood trees are more resistant to decay by brown rot than by white rot fungi. only about 6% of wood-decay fungi cause brown rots, and all these fungi are members of the basidiomycota. examples of brown rot fungi are laetiporus portentosus, fomitopsis lilacinogilva, schizophyllum commune, piptoporus betulinus, etc. soft rots soft rots are caused by both bacteria and fungi. these organisms break down cellulose and hemicellulose but only in areas directly adjacent to their growth. soft rot organisms grow slower than brown or white rot organisms, and therefore damage occurs to the host tree more gradually. given enough time, however, any rot can cause extensive structural damage. examples of soft rot fungi are the members 1 central department of botany,tribuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu. e-mail: sk.jha@cdbtu.edu.np banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2, 2020 pp 71‒77https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i2.33482 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 72 jha of the genera phoma, cephalosporium, phialophora,pestalozzia, chaetomium, etc. bacterial soft rots are caused by several types of bacteria, but most commonly by species of gram-gramnegative bacteria, e.g., erwinia, pectobacterium, pseudomonas, etc. causes of heart-rot heart disease in trees is caused by fungal invasions. although there are many species of fungi which cause decay in living trees, most important are those that cause heart decay, often called heart-rot. these pathogens usually enter a tree as a result of injury. such points of entry may come from broken branches caused by wind, fire, lightening, and even from improper pruning by humans. fungi kill the tree’s hemicellulose, cellulose, and sometimes its lignin, ultimately causing the fall of tree (leelavathy & ganesh, 2000).heart-rot disease cannot be visible because all the rot sareconcerted inside. fungi cause decay after they enter a tree. heart-rot can occurs in many hardwoods, and all deciduous species can get heart-rot (table 1),but it is especially found in sal (shorea robusta), simal (bombax malabricum), asna (terminalia termentosa), sisso (dalbergia sisso), salla (pinus rosburghi),katus (castenopsis indica), chilaune (schima wallichii), and oak (quercus glauca.) in nepal (sinclair & lyon, 2005; jha & tripathi, 2012; aryal & budhathoki, 2013; acharya & parmar, 2016). symptoms of heart-rot detecting heart-rot can be difficult as it occurs internally and remains out of sight for many years. usually, in the latter stages of heart-rot, mushrooms grow on the trunk or branch. this is one of the first visible signs that a fungal pathogen resides within a tree and primary pathogens that directly kill living sapwood cells in advance of infection (shortle et al., 1996). unfortunately as decay progresses, the heartwood is destroyed and the integrity of the tree’s strength becomes a serious issue. these external mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of the fungi generally called "conks" or "bracket fungi". these visible conks produce spores. spores become wind-borne and microscopic. wind carries spores to other susceptible trees, thus perpetuating the life cycle of conks. these fungi appear bracket-like, attached to the tree and varying greatly in size, color and texture. eliminating or minimizing heart-rot can keep tree healthy. proper mending can take place with pruning branches, making cuts just outside the branch collar. major branch removal creates small wounds,and thus shapes a tree at an early age. so, the broken branch-stubs should be removed immediately following storm damage, and the suspected trees with heart-rot should be checked by an arborist to determine structural safety of live wood. prevention and control of heart-rot as long as a tree is growing vigorously, rot will be confined to a small central core within the tree. this behavior is called "tree wood compartmentalization". but if the tree is weakened and fresh wood exposed by severe pruning or storm damage, decay fungi can advance into more and more of the tree's heartwood. there is no economically feasible fungicide to use on a tree that hosts the heart-rot fungi. the best way to prevent heart-rot in hardwood tree is to keep it healthy using following proper management techniques:  minimize pruning wounds that expose large areas of wood.  prune periodically to remove all dead, dying, interfering, and broken branches. prune broken stems below the damaged portion so that water will drain off and not collect on the wound surface. the severed ends of roots should be made blunt rather than left jagged. pruning is best done during the dormant season when the weather is dry ; pruning in late spring often leads to separation of wood and bark around pruning wounds.  identify the trees suspected of heart-rot and get them checked by an arborist to determine whether sufficient live wood is present for structural safety.  whenever feasible, keep woody plants vigorous throughproper applications of fertilizer in midto late-autumn or early spring; soaking of the soil to a 12-inch depth every 10 to 14 days during extended hot, dry periods; and wrapping the trunks of newly transplanted, thin-barked trees with sisalkraft paper, special tree-wrapping paper, or other appropriate material prior to winter. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 73 jha table 1. wood-decay fungi associate trees fungal pathogen common hosts symptoms inonotus dryophilus larix, abies, tsuga and picea spp., oak, and other broadleaved woody species: highly susceptible. decay is a white pocket rot of the heartwood of living trees, usually in the upper bole and large branches (unlike inonotus root and butt rot, which always occurs near ground level). annual conks appear on upper bole usually near knots, broken branches or pruning wounds. conks are large (3.5 to 12 inches in diameter), thick, usually shelf-shaped, light brown initially, then dark brown. the decay consists of long white pockets (pipes) separated by darker and more solid wood. conks deteriorate during winter to a very dark-brown color, and usually fall from tree within a year of formation. cytospora spp. wide variety of forest trees including populus alba, juglans regia, salix pyrunus, eucalyptus, and pine. cytospora species cause branch dieback and cankers on trees. bark often splits along the canker margin as the tree is protecting itself and callus formation occurs. the fungus may quickly girdle and kill twigs without forming cankers .bark above infected cambium may appear sunken and yellow, brown, reddish-brown, gray, or black. diseased inner-bark and cambium turns reddish-brown to black, and becomes watery and odorous as it deteriorates. liquid-ooze on aspen and gummy-ooze on populus, salix, juglans spp. and cherry are common. cankers, sunken dead areas of bark with black pinhead-sized speckling or pimples, may be evident. species differentiation in cytospora has relied mainly on conidiomata/ ascomata morphological characters, including locule shape/organization and spore dimensions (wang et al., 2011).  check trees every few years, and be certain about new growth maintaining a sound structure; large trunks and main branches with extensive decay may have little sound wood to support the tree.  avoid all unnecessary bark wounds. when bark and wood injuries do occur, treat them promptly. cut away all loose or discolored barks. remove splintered wood. clean, shape, and smooth the wound into a streamlined oval or vertical ellipse, and then swab the surface liberally with an antiseptic such as 70 percent alcohol or shellac; the use of a commercial tree wound dressing (tree paint) is of questionable value since it does not check the invasion of wood by decay fungi. the barrier zone of cells formed by the cambium effectively confines the decay within the tissues present at the time the tree is wounded. the use of tree wound dressings is largely cosmetic and their usefulness in preventing wood-decay is questionable.  control discoloration and decay in lumber and other wood products by drying the wood in a kiln or by treating with a recommended wood-preserving fungicide. wood likely to be in contact with soil or moist surface should be treated with a wood preservative.  it can be very hard to prevent and control heart-rot, but may be avoided, if a tree is carefully monitored over its entire lifetime. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 74 jha monilinia fructicola numerous ornamental plants and fruit trees including peach, apple, cherry, citrus, maple, oak, and olive. brown rot is an economically important fungal disease especially on peaches, apple and cherry. symptoms-infected flower parts turn light brown, and may develop areas of buff-color or gray spores. infected petals may look water soaked, which can be mistaken for frost injury (gell et al. 2008). flowers generally collapse as the fungus invades through the pedicel. infected flowers often adhere to twigs and spurs during the harvesting season. this pathogen is a major yield limiting factor of many orchards and natural forest and is very active in wet season. on peach, the disease continues into twigs or spurs. lesions may remain discrete or may girdle the twig, causing all distal portions to die. profuse gumming also may occur in these areas. again, buff or gray spores may develop on these necrotic twigs (burnett et al. 2010). fruit symptoms begin as small, dark spots that enlarge rapidly. fruit remains fairly firm and dry relative to a watery-rot caused by rhizopus spp. production of masses of buff-colored spores is equally rapid in the necrotic area. peaches may have concentric rings of gray sporulation as the rot takes a few days to encompass the entire fruit. phytophthora alni alder all alder (alnus spp.) species are threatened by a lethal disease, which was first discovered in 1993 in britain. the causal agent is a formerly unknown species of phytophthora, named p. alni, which is highly specific to alder. the disease is now considered to be one of the most important diseases of natural forest. infected trees possess small, yellow and sparse summer leaves, thin and sparse crowns. trees that have suffered infection for several years have dead twigs and branches in the crown. heavy cone production and bleeding visible as tarry or rusty spots at the base of the tree. laetiporus gilbertsonii acacia spp., birch, cherry, chestnut, elm, eucalyptus, fir, oak, sissoo, pepper tree, pine, poplar, spruce, and walnut. the fungus causes a brown heart-rot on living trees but also will decay dead trees. it is one of the few brown rot fungi of hardwood trees. it can enter trees through bark wounds and dead branch stubs. this fungus is one of the most serious causes of decay in oaks and eucalyptus. the soft, fleshy, moist conks range from 2 inches to over 20 inches wide, and are bright orange yellow above and red yellow below. conks are produced annually and appear singly or in clusters, usually in fall; they become hard, brittle, and white with age. conks do not appear until many years after the onset of decay and indicate extensive internal damage. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 75 jha pleurotus ostreatus acacia spp., alder, ash, beech, birch, chestnut, elm, eucalyptus, sissoo, maple, oak, albizzia sp., walnut, and teak. this fungus decays heartwood and sapwood, causing a white, flaky rot. infections occur through open wounds, and decay is most extreme when wounds are large. a bunch of shelf-like mushrooms, each 2–8 inches wide, is produced annually and can indicate localized decay or heart-rot that extends up to10 feet in either direction. the mushrooms are smooth on the upper surface with gills that characteristically extend down along the stalk on the lower surface. schizophyllum commune many species of trees including acacia spp., birch, eucalyptus, juniper, laurel, teak, magnolia, oak, pine, poplar, walnut, and sissoo. this fungus causes a white rot of sapwood and produces annual fruiting bodies that are hairy and white to pale brown when young but darken with age. the stalk-less brackets are tough, leathery, about 1–4 inches wide, and usually found in clusters. the pale gills on the underside have the appearance of being longitudinally split, hence the common name. the fungus colonizes trees stressed by heat, sunburn, drought or major wounds. it generally grows on cut and fallen wood and dead parts of living trees. stereum species acacia spp., alder, birch, catalpa, cherry, chestnut, elm, eucalyptus, fir, juniper, magnolia, maple, oak, pine, sequoia, spruce, and willow. this group of fungi are commonly found on dead trees, branches, and stumps but rarely cause serious decay in living trees. they can cause heart-rot on trees wounded by pruning or bark injury. the annual fruiting bodies are thin, leathery, and bracket-like, lack stalks, and are 1 inch or more across. the upper surface is gray brown whereas the lower side is buff to brown and smooth, lacking tubes or pores. trametes hirsuta alder, ash, birch, catalpa, cherry, chestnut, citrus, elm, eucalyptus, fir, ginkgo, holly, juniper, maple, oak, pine, poplar, and walnut. this fungus, which causes white rot, can enter a tree through dead wood exposed by fire scarring; decay begins as a sap-rot and can continue as a heart-rot on some woody species. it often produces fruiting bodies on the dead portions of live hardwoods; fruiting bodies are tough, leathery, usually stalk-less, shelf-like, and 1–10 inches wide. the outer surface is dry, velvety, and has concentric zones whereas the under surface is poroid. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 76 jha trametes versicolor alder, apple, birch, cherry, chestnut, crape myrtle, elm, eucalyptus. gingko, blackberry, juniper, maple, nectarine, oak, poplar, walnut, and willow. this fungus is commonly found on cut and fallen wood and on wounded areas of living trees; also, it is capable of colonizing sapwood of trees and shrubs stressed by water shortage, sun-burn, freeze damage, or wounding. the fungus, which causes a white, spongy rot of wood, can actively invade and rapidly kill the cambium (the tissue between the bark and wood), causing cankers with papery bark and dieback. the annual conks are thin, leathery, stalk-less, bracket-like, 1–4 inches across, and often found in groups. the upper surface is velvety with concentric zones of various colors, and the lower surface is cream colored and minutely poroid (gilbertson & ryvarden, 1986). phellinus igniarius apple, birch, elm, cottonwood, lilac, poplar, pear, walnut, oak, and teak. phellinus produce perennial conks with a “hoof” like appearancedark and cracked above and tan or ochre below, with small pores. a new hymenium or spore bearing layer is added each year. these are white rotting fungi common on various species of hardwoods and softwoods. these cause heart-rots on intact trunks. biscogniauxia mediterranea mango, oaks, maple, pecan, golden raintree, and walnut. biscogniauxia is an ascomycete fungus that resides in trees as a latent infection not causing symptoms. when trees are stressed by drought, the fungus invades the sapwood, decaying it extensively and cutting water supplies to the canopy. fruiting bodies are long sheets of charcoal-like stroma that emerge through and from under the bark of affected hardwoods. conidia proceed the dark charcoal sexual fruiting bodies. annulohypoxylon spp. syzygium cumini, oak, maple, alder, birch, apple, cottonwood, and elm. annulohypoxylon spp. are in the same group as biscogniauxia, but fruiting bodies form on the surface of bark in a concentricor globe-shaped stroma. they only form on dead wood and indicate that the sap-rot fungus has killed that portion of the standing tree. the young fruiting bodies are creamcolored and covered in asexual spores called conidia in early summer or late spring. these later darken into structures that contain the sexual ascospores. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 77 jha references acharya, r. & parmar, g. (2016). preliminary documentation of basidiomycetes fungi (polypores and mushrooms) found in bardiya national park and its buffer zone area, western nepal. bulletin of department of plant resources38: 22–29. aryal, h. p. & budhathoki, u. (2013). ethnomycological studies on some macro-fungi in rupandehi district, nepal. banko jankari 23 (1): 51–56. bednarz, j. c.; huss, m. j.; benson, t. j. & varland, d. e. (2013). the efficacy of fungal inoculation of live trees to create wood-decay and wildlife-use trees in managed forests of western washington, usa. forest ecology and management. 307: 186–195. burnett, a. l., lalancette, n. & mcfarland, k. a. (2010). effect of qoi fungicides on colonization and sporulation of moniliniafructicola on peach fruit and blossom blight cankers. plant disease 94:1000–1008. gell, i., decal, a., torres, r., usall, j. & melgarejo, p. (2008). relationship between the incidence of latent infections caused by monilinia spp. and the incidence of brown rot of peach fruit: factors affecting latent infection. european journal of plant pathology 121: 487–498. gilbertson, r. l., & ryvarden,l. (1986). north american polypores. volume 1: abortiporuslindtneria. 209 abb., oslo. fungifloraa/s. g. gramss. 433 pp. jha, s. k. & tripathi, n. n. (2012). diversity of macrofungi in shivapuri national park of kathmandu valley, nepal. biological forum 4:27-34. leelavathy, k. m. & ganesh, p. n. (2000). polypores of kerala. daya publishing house, delhi, 165pp. sinclair, w. a. & lyon, h. h. (2005). diseases of trees and shrubs, 2nd edition. cornell university press. ithica, ny. 660 pp. shortle, w. c., smith, k. t., & dudzik, k. r. (1996). decay diseases of stem wood: detection, diagnosis, and management. in: forest trees and palms. s. p. raychaudhuri & k. maramorosch (eds.). oxford & ibh publishing, new delhi, india. 95-109 pp. vasaitis, r. (2013). heart-rots, sap-rots and softrots. p. gontheir, and r. nicoletti (eds.). infectious forest diseases. cab international. wang, x., wei, j., huang, l., & kang, z. (2011). re-evaluation of pathogens causing valsa canker on apple in china. mycologia 103: 317–24. 15 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 forests and trees have social, ecological and economic importance to humankind. it is high time to manage worlds’ forests sustainably to ensure supply of forest based goods and services and reduce the adverse impacts of climate change. this paper highlights the history and current status of forest management, challenges and opportunities, various approaches adopted in forest management and recent initiatives in sustainable and scientific forest management (sfm) in nepal. about one-third of the total 6.61 million ha (45%) of nepal’s forest has been handed over to over 30,000 forest user groups. various failed attempts in forest management in the past were mainly due to lack of institutional capacity, political back-up, conflict, etc. “forestry for prosperity” a new vision announced at the 10th national conservation day in 2012, re-introduced the concept of sustainable and scientific forest management and launched this in ten districts with designated program and budget in the same year. accordingly, forest blocks are identified, inventoried, management plans drawn and implemented. over 69, 000 ha forests in 11 districts are under silviculture management to date. thus managed forests show profuse regeneration, improved supply of forest products, increased revenue, improved forest health and enhanced capacity of forestry professionals. yet, lack of political and professional commitment, inadequate human and financial resources, and weak institutional and professional competency are specific challenges to sfm in nepal. creating enabling environment, institutional reorganization, enhancing forest management capacity, improved forestry governance, reducing non-forestry workload of government forestry staff, and preparation and use of standard silvicultural operational guidelines have been suggested to upscale sfm in nepal. key words: forest management, nepal , prosperity, silviculture silviculture for forest management in nepal k. c. poudel1 forests and trees have social, ecological and economic importance throughout the world since the beginning of human civilization. they provide various goods and services to mankind and contribute in food security, energy, health, culture, tourism, biodiversity conservation and climate regulation. forest ecosystems have potential to reduce poverty, enhance economic growth and prosperity thereby contributing to sustainable development. to date forests are getting higher attention globally due to their capacity to minimize impacts of climate change as trees absorb co2 during photosynthesis and turn it into solid carbon and store in their trunk, bark, leaves and roots and contribute in reducing co2 emission. however, natural forests are disappearing at a faster rate than ever before due to human induced pressures such as deforestation, degradation, forest fire, urbanization, agriculture expansion and also due to climate change impacts. in such a situation, it is high time to manage world’s forest sustainably, using science based silvicultural practices for sustained production and supply of forest products and ecosystem services. this paper describes history of forest management in nepal, recent initiatives, objectives of sustainable and scientific forest management (sfm), various approaches, initial results, challenges and way forward to upscale sfm in nepal. nepalese forests and their management status to date nearly 45% of land mass (6.61 million ha) in nepal is covered with forest including other wooded land (dfrs, 2015). most of the accessible forests are handed over and managed under different categories (community forests, 1. former secretary, ministry of forests and soil conservationse email: kcpoudel@gmail.com 16 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 collaborative forests, leased forest) for multiple use, mostly under adaptive management by local communities, called forest users. government of nepal has handed over about one-third of the total forest area to over 30,000 forest user groups. however, only about 69,000 ha of forests in 11 districts are under active forest management to date. as a result of massive community mobilization and their willing in participation in forest conservation and domestic use over the past three decades, forests in the middle mountains and high mountains have increased in terms of area and quality (dfrs, 2015). but during the same period, forests in chure foot hills, siwaliks and in tarai continued to degrade due to serious challenges such as forest land encroachment, forest fire, over grazing, over exploitation, etc. despite of invaluable contribution to sustain food, water and energy systems, forestry sector has never been considered as high priority sector by the government in terms of resource allocation. it remained rather blamed for less paying in the government treasury and environmental over concerned and hurdle for various kinds of resettlement schemes and development of physical infrastructures by so called power producers, miners/extractors and other physical infrastructure developers. rural households are still heavily dependent on forest resources for energy (64%), timber and non-timber forest products for construction and livelihoods. supply of major forest products is dominated by private and community production, mostly locally and informally. market price of construction timber in cities is unregulated, often distorted and increasing at a level unaffordable by general public. import of timber is increasing. in the past and even today in tarai, most of the forestry officials are bound to engage in policing, patrolling, fighting against forest land encroachment, revenue collection and judiciary activities. many attempts were made in the past by various institutions for silvicultural management of nepal’s forests. the finland aided forest management and utilization project (fmud), which worked in tarai, was one of them but failed due to various reasons such as lack of institutional capacity, political back-up and conflict of interests among stakeholders. felling of green trees was banned in nepal because of mismanagement, over-harvesting, theft and exploitation of forests. oversight agencies often put a ceiling on harvesting the annual increment to regulate forest harvest and establish governance. in absence of scientific management of forests in the past, some forests, mostly in the inaccessible areas are over matured, quality of timber is sacrificed while others are over exploited leading to forest degradation. large plantations of pines in the hills of central development region are not even thinned on time. hence, the composition, age distribution, health and productivity of forests have been compromised and deviated from normal forest concept. as government forestry institutions are old and historically least oriented towards sfm, it lagged behind by over a quarter of a century even after the master plan for forestry sector (mpfs) was approved by the government in 1989 (mpfs, 1989).. therefore, it is high time that forestry professionals are made more responsible, re oriented and motivated towards sfm, forestry institutions are reorganized and the foresters’ job description be revisited to suit present context for tackling growing problems and exploit the potentials. recent initiatives in scientific forest management realizing the urgent need for sustainable management of nepal’s forest and recognizing the huge potential for the prosperity through forestry, a new vision on forestry – “forestry for prosperity” was announced by the author in then capacity of secretary of ministry of forests and soil conservation at the auspices of the 10th national conservation day on 23rd sep. 2012. the vision contained four major pillars of prosperity – sustainable and scientific forest management, sustainable use of forest products and services, commercialization and marketing of forest resources and creating enabling environment (fig. 1). the vision was shared among wider stakeholders nationally and internationally. taking feedback from various experts and stakeholders, it was refined and approved by the ministry in january 2012 (mofsc, 2012). based on this vision a new forest policy was endorsed by the government of nepal (gon) in 2015. as poudel 17 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 a new beginning in 2012, at least one forest each in 10 districts including kapilvastu, nawalparasi, morang, kailali were selected for scientific forest management with special budgetary support from then multi-stakeholder forestry program. since then, the scientific forest management (sfm, often used as sustainable forest management interchangeably) has been internalized and mainstreamed under the regular annual program of the forest department. this vision has also been incorporated in the 14th periodic plan developed by the national planning commission. fig. 1: four pillars of the vision –“forestry for prosperity” and their linkages currently, sfm program is implemented in degraded sal and mixed hardwood forests of tarai region. other forest types include planted eucalypts, teak and sissoo in sagarnath area. sfm initiatives are implemented in collaboration with local community and collaborative forest users, very few blocks of government managed forests are included. this has reduced the cost of operations and raised awareness and confidence of stakeholders in application of silvicultural principles, mostly green felling and natural regeneration. silvicultural systems applied include mainly irregular shelter wood system followed by simple coppice, coppice with standard and selection system. although there are no evidence based prescribed rules and procedures on sfm in nepalese context, the learning by doing approach, follows following steps: i. identification and /or selection of forest for sfm ii. stakeholder consultation iii. survey, mapping and separation into block/compartments iv. forest inventory v. preparation of management plan with defined activities and time vi. implementation of management plan/ forest operations vii. benefit sharing among stakeholders some of the key features of sfm as practiced in nepal to date include intensive forest inventory (100% trees measured), measurement of co2 stock, selection of mother trees, rotation of sal is fixed at 80 years and working period of 10 years. however, choice of silviculture system and yield regulation is not uniform due to disproportionate ageclass distribution of degraded forest that created complexity in yield regulation. some ambiguity in understanding silvicultural systems and inconsistencies in the use of silvicultural terms has also been noticed. observation to some of the sfm plots indicates that the forest inventory as carried out is intense and expensive, 100% enumeration of trees (both to be retained or felled ) using gps in each compartment is neither affordable nor necessary. such practice is to make the process more transparent and to avoid any potential blames by media and oversight agencies – a situation lacking trust and confidence in scientific forest management. despite adequate technical knowhow and physical facilities, efforts on removal of over mature trees and regeneration has been appreciating. regeneration of sal has been successful both naturally and by direct sowing. scientifically managed forests, in short period, have demonstrated following results: • profuse natural regeneration • improved forest condition • increment of growing stock • revenue generation higher than investment • impressive training and demonstration sites • growing interest about and better understanding of sfm • “forestry for prosperity” has become common vision for all. • few foresters championing on sfm poudel 18 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 objectives of sfm nepal considering the condition of forests, need of local communities, available resources for forestry operation and professional competency, the sfm intervention in nepal should, inter alia, meet following objectives, where applicable: • removal of over mature trees to meet the current demand of timber and firewood and encourage natural regeneration, • increase production and productivity considering domestic demand and commercialization potential of forests for prosperity, • maintain/improve appropriate species composition and age distribution, • maintain forest biodiversity to meet the demand of multiple goods and services of indigenous and local communities, • preservation of sites, habitat and species of historic, religious, cultural and aesthetic value • maintain ecosystem services, • reduce disaster risks and minimize climate change impacts and, • create green jobs and enterprises for socio economic development in order to achieve the broader national goal of prosperity through sfm, appropriate silvicultural systems should be identified, customized if needed and applied for desired results. hence, choice of appropriate silviculture system for sfm should meet the objectives of forest management as mentioned above and also consider the following criteria: • silviculture systems must be based on scientific principles, simple to understand and easy to apply by mid level technicians and forest users • identification and use of simple and cost effective survey, inventory, mapping, yield regulation methods • use of efficient/appropriate harvesting, transportation, fire fighting tools and machines where applicable (consider availability of skilled forest workers) • silvicultural characteristic of the species (light demander/shade bearer, etc.) • forest type (broadleaves, conifer, etc. ) • condition of the forest (degraded, well stocked, plantations, regeneration, etc.) • composition of forest (pure sal or sal mixed hardwoods, associated spp., etc.) • development stage (regeneration/new plantations, pole, mature, over mature, etc ) • objective of forest management (timber, pole production, other ntfps, etc.) • topography of the forest (terrain, accessibility) • management objectives and size of forests challenges to application of silvicultural principles in forest management nepal is a country of numerous challenges and opportunities in terms of forest resource. forests are interlinked with agriculture, tourism, industries, water resource, energy and environment in one hand and it is a single such natural resource that embraces over one-third of the total nepalese households in its management and use on the other. forestry is not therefore only an ecological business but also a strong socio-political agenda of its diverse stakeholders and balancing conflicting interest of diverse stakeholders is a major challenge. likewise, in the new political system, benefit sharing among central, provincial and local government could be challenging due to disproportionate distribution of forests in different provinces. it may lead to conflict unless an agreeable mechanism for balancing demand and supply of forest product and services is devised and forestry sector governance is significantly improved on time. however, new avenues for prosperity should not be undermined under smooth political transition scenario. among many challenges that forestry sector faces to date, some of the specific challenges for the successful implementation of silvicultural management, inter alia, include: • lack of political and professional commitment, • inadequate and inefficient human resource, poudel 19 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 • weak institutional and professional capacity, • lack of adequate technical knowledge, skills, orientation, motivation and basic physical facilities (office space, accommodation, transportation) to field foresters, and • low priority and inadequate resource allocation to sfm way forward to upscale sfm first and foremost condition to nurture and upscale sfm in nepal to date is to create an enabling environment towards sfm. entry point may be establishment of a core group of silviculturists within the forest department and build their capacity together with the capacity of the department itself. this may include a human resource development plan, education and training, exposure visit, orientation and reorientation of front line forest staff. raising awareness, motivation and demonstration to forestry sector stakeholders and forest owners including community and collaborative forest users, local government bodies is equally essential. the core group of silviculturists once established could then be trained, motivated and used as resource persons and catalyzer for training and capacity building of others for faster up-scaling of the sfm. separate career path should be developed to encourage and use their expertise and prevent them from unwanted political and bureaucratic harassment, such a group of silviculturists should only be transferred within the territories of similar task. secondly, institutional reorganization in the federalized context is urgent. this may include strengthening silviculture wing of the department of forests and expanding in all regions/ provinces, also strengthening of stakeholder/ local community institutions and enhancing their forest management capacity is equally important. thirdly, reducing non forestry related work load (policing, patrolling, revenue collection and judiciary function) of forestry professionals and focusing their role in scientific research and core forestry are essential. forests as national and public property, designated specialized agencies for the protection of such property (e.g. nepal police, armed police force, etc.) should be made responsible for the policing, patrolling, fighting against forest theft and encroachment of forest lands. likewise, forestry professionals should be relieved from the sales of forest products except at the stumpage. it can be better done by other specialized agencies responsible for commerce and supplies or by a private sector in the free market economy. this will in one hand reduce unhealthy competition for transfer of officials at certain districts and on the other, save time to focus on core forestry function. as per new constitution, implementation of forest law and judiciary function of the dfo should be handled by the respective agencies. fourth, establishment and strengthening a robust information system to make all forestry transactions, operations, inventory records and stock piles of forest products is essential to build trust and make forestry profession more transparent, reliable and predictable. all the information of public interest such as forest management plans, inventory records, growing stock, stock of timber, fire wood and other forest products and sales and purchase records at various districts offices and also in the community/ collaborative forests should be made clearly visible and transparent to assure good forest governance to general public. fifth, forestry being a long rotational business, identification, establishment and continuity of long-term scientific research to better understand the response of various silvicultural systems and management regimes, including that of the human and climate change induced factors have to be carefully planned and monitored in collaboration with academia and relevant national, regional and international forestry research organizations. sixth, in order to translate scientific principles of forest management into practice, sound guidelines and operational procedures must be developed and communicated. based on available information and gained experience over few years, the sfm guidelines should be revised and updated. a matrix as a decision making tool for the choice of silvicultural system may be developed, field tested and recommended to suit diverse forest types and management regimes for the simplicity and uniformity. forests must be managed based on scientific principles, not as directed by oversight agencies. increment and allowable cuts must be removed for optimum production using sound silvicultural systems without hesitation. poudelpoudel 20 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 finally, investment in forest management must be increased. provision of forest insurance, community/collaborative forests as collateral to get soft loans, provision of small forest management grants and provision of loans at low interest rate (as for agriculture) may encourage forest owners and private sector to invest more on sfm for higher yield and for the healthy future crop. last but not the least, serious commitment on collective and continuous efforts among forest policy makers, professionals and stakeholders is essential to gear up scientific/sustainable forest management in nepal. references dfrs, 2015. state of nepal’s forests. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey (dfrs). kathmandu, nepal. mpfs, 1989. master plan for forestry sector nepal. government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. mofsc, 2012. “forestry for prosperity 2012”. a government of nepal’s official document endorsed by the minister for forest and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. gon, 2015. forest policy 2071 bs. government of nepal (gon) ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. poudel banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 20‒27 20 lamichhane et al. barandabhar protected forest (pf) has provided numerous goods and services to the people living around the forest. integrated evaluation of this pf along with its ecological and economic value is required for the conservation and sustainable management of its forest resource. the field study was carried out in two community-managed forests around the barandabhar pf. market price method and contingent valuation method were used to estimate the use and non-use values of the forest. determination of the local users' willingness to pay for sustainable management and conservation of the natural resources was done through contingent valuation survey. it was administered to 142 users. multiple regression model was used to analyze the factors affecting the users' willingness to pay (wtp) value. the wtp value for the conservation and sustainable management of forest was found to be affected by the income and gender of the users and their time to reach the forest. the study revealed that the women were more willing to pay for the environmental services provided by the forest. based on the household (hh) survey, the average hh-consumption of the forest products (timber, fodder and fuelwood) was estimated to be worth of nrs. 5,246 (us$ 46. 69) per hh per year and the specific use value of the forest was estimated to be nrs. 15,160,940 (us$134,931. 82) per year. the total wtp value for the sustainable management and conservation of the forests was estimated to be nrs. 1,341,153 (us$11,936. 20) per year; the users' average wtp value for the conservation and sustainable management of the barandabhar pf being nrs. 589 (us$ 5. 24) per hh per year. key words : contingent valuation method, economic valuation, goods and services, willingness to pay economic value of community forest to local users : a case study from barandabhar protected forest, chitwan, nepal r. lamichhane1*, a. sedhain1, and m. maharjan1 natural ecosystems provide a wide range of services and economic benefits for local livelihoods (pant et al., 2012) and human wellbeing (mea, 2005). ecosystem goods and services are the benefits that people obtain from natural environment (mea, 2005). ecosystem provides essential goods such as food, fodder, fuelwood, timber and non-timber forest products (ntfps) including medicinal plants on the one hand and various fundamental benefits such as soil production, erosion and control, climate regulation, water purification, bio-energy, etc. on the other hand. these benefits and services are very crucial for the survival of human beings and other organisms on the earth (mea, 2003; de groot et al., 2002; villegas-palacio et al., 2016). ecosystem services are generated as a consequence of interaction and complex exchange between biotic and abiotic components of an ecosystem (singh et al., 2002). nepal’s forests are often described as “green wealth of nepal” because of its significant contribution in the livelihoods of a large number of communities. rural people depend on forest resources for their livelihoods by collecting 1 institute of forestry (iof), tribhuvan university (tu), hetauda, nepal *e-mail: rakshyalamichhane123@gmail.com https://doi.org:10.3126/banko.v29i2.28096 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 20‒27 21 lamichhane et al. biomass to meet their needs for firewood, fodder, leaf-litter, ntfps and other forest products (powell et al., 2002). moreover, recreational, socio-cultural, regulating, provisioning and so on are the main ecosystem services provided by forests. ecosystem valuation can be defined as the valuation of the quantities of the goods and services provided by an ecosystem (kumar and kumar, 2002). there are numerous approaches used in ecosystem valuation studies. these includemeasuring the direct costs of ecosystem services in explicit markets (such as the revenue from selling a ton of carbon), the productivity method (such as measuring the contribution that pollination makes to total farm-gate output), hedonic pricing estimates (using for instance, changes in real estate or other market process as a proxy for the value of the ecosystem services), travel cost method (which measures how much people had spent to visit protected parks), and contingent valuation method (cvm) through different kinds of wtp surveys or questionnaires ( barbier et al. 2009). kc et al. (2010) have examined the value of ecosystem services in the baghmara buffer zone community forest of nepal adopting the cvm. similarly, bhandari et al. (2018) have estimated the economic value of ecosystem services provided by the panchase protected forest (pf) of nepal using the cvm; the analysis revealed that the total annual economic value of the panchase pf was nrs. 52. 2 million (us$ 521,930. 00). methodology study area the study was conducted in barandabhar protected forest (pf) of chitwan district of nepal during december, 2018 may, 2019. the barandabhar pf is located between 27039' n and 27046' n latitudes and between 84028' e and 84048' e longitudes. the barandabhar forest block serves as a corridor for the movement of wild-lives (cnp, 2015). the barandabhar corridor forest is the only existing corridor forest linking the chitwan national park (cnp) and the parsa national park of nepal together with the valmiki tiger reserve of india with the ecologically significant upland forests of the mahabharat range. the forest situated north of the east-west highway is managed by the district forest office, chitwan as protected forest whereas that of the south is managed by the cnp as buffer zone (cnp, 2015). encompassing over an area of 10,302 ha area, the barandabhar forest was announced as the barandabhar pf on 15th falgun, 2068 b. s. the barandabhar forest area has been divided into three management zones, namely i) impact zone, ii) intensive forest management zone and iii) core zone. the settlements outside the protected forest have been declared as impact zone which includes 17,453 hhs. similarly, the intensive forest management zone is managed by 16 community forest (cf), 36 leasehold forest, and 3 religious forest management committees. the core zone covering an area of 6,922 ha has been set aside as the protected area for wildlife habitat and biological corridor. purposive sampling method used to select two community forests (cfs) i.e. panchakanya cf with the highest users and jaldevi cf with the lowest users from impact zone. the panchakanya cf, registered as community forest in 2068 b. s., lies within the ratnanagar municipality of chitwan district; the total area of this cf is 197 ha, and covers 1,615hhs. on the other hand, the jaldevi cf, registered as cf in 2067 b. s., is located in bharatpur metropolitan of chitwan district. it covers an area of 198 ha area and 1,275 hhs. sal (shorea robusta) and sissoo (dalbergia sissoo) are the dominant tree species found in both the cfs. figure 1 : map showing the locations of the two selected community forests banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 20‒27 22 lamichhane et al. sample size sampling technique used out of the total hhs covered by the two cfs, 5% hhs from each cf were taken for hh survey. simple random sampling procedure was adapted to select the hhs. semi-structured questionnaire were used to acquire the information regarding the people’s perception towards the forest. out of the total 2,890 hhs covered by the two cfs, 142 hhs (80 hhs covered by the panchakanya cf and 62 hhs covered by the jaldevi cf) were selected randomly for hh survey. prioritization of the goods and services from the cfs was done on the basis of the users' preferences. market price method and contingent valuation method were used to assess the economic value of the cfs. two focus group discussions were organized with the various levels of stakeholders within the study area. definition and description of the independent variables for the local users is given in table 1. prioritization of goods and services from the cfs for the users' preference ranking of the environmental goods and services, the ranking scores were calculated using the analytical technique of reverse method. in this method, the first choice will have the highest weighted value and the last choice will have the lowest weighted value. for example, if there are, altogether, 5 choices regarding the ecosystem goods and services to be prioritized and if a respondent gives first (1st) choice to one of them, then its weighted value will be 5; on the contrary, if a respondent gives last (5th) choice for any of the services, then its weighted value will be 1. the average ranking score is calculated as : total no. of respondents x1w1 + x2w2+ x3w3+ … +xnwnaverage ranking score = where, w= weight of ranked position, n= no. of choice, and x= respondent's count for choice of answer valuation of goods and services a) market price method market price method (mpm) estimates the economic value of the goods or services provided by an ecosystem that are bought and sold in markets. it uses standard economic techniques for measuring the economic benefits from marketed goods and services. the market price method uses prevailing prices for goods and services, such as timber, fuelwood, non-wood forest products (e.g., mushrooms, berries, aromatic and medicinal plants, etc.) traded in markets. the price data can be easily obtained using the mpm as it only takes account of the use-values and marketed goods or services that have an actual price. so, we used mpm in this study. market data are available only for a limited number of goods and services. b) contingent valuation method true economic value of services may not be fully reflected by market price method in market transactions. contingent valuation method (cvm), a form of “stated preference method”, is used to estimate the economic values for all kinds of ecosystem and environmental services. for the purpose of this study, cvm was used to identify-i) the users' wtp for the sustainable management and conservation of the forests and, ii) quantify and convert services into monitory value. cvm involves directly asking people, in a survey, how much they would be willing to pay for specific environmental services (merrett, 2002). it uses questionnaires to ask people how much they would be willing to pay to increase or enhance the provision of ecosystem services, or alternately, how much they would be willing to accept for its loss or degradation (pascual et al., 2010). they are the only available methods to estimate non-use values. the use of surveys allows collecting relevant socio-economic and attitudinal data on the respondents that could be relevant for understanding the variables influencing social preferences and choices. the use of surveys allows estimating hypothetical changes and their impact before they have taken place. a strong criticism of cvm is that the answers obtained through surveys relying upon hypothetical propositions are subject to a variety of biases (diamond and hausman, 1994). the primary sources of bias identified in the literature include : design bias, which involves subjectivity in the establishment of initial bids or payment vehicles; operational bias which refers to unfamiliarity with goods to be valued; hypothetical bias, banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 20‒27 23 lamichhane et al. usually an upward bias in wtp-based on the fact that expectations of having to submit an actual payment may not be present; and strategic bias which is related to individuals' intention not to reveal their true preferences, comparable to the free-rider problem (lesser et al., 1997). however, certain sources of potential bias cannot be entirely removed from the method, each can be controlled to a certain degree through careful study design, allowing for reasonably reliable results (arrow et al., 1993; venkatachalam, 2004). in this study, we were able to estimate the individual's wtp for hypothetical changes in tax for sustainable management and conservation of the forests using the cvm. we minimized the design and operational biases by establishing bids based upon the pre-existing entry fee. hypothetical bias was addressed by suggesting tax for sustainable management and conservation of the cfs. strategic bias may be impossible to eliminate as there is no reason to suspect a unidirectional bias in the study. econometric model the following multiple regression model was developed to find out the relationship between the wtp and the factors affecting the wtp money for the local users (baral et al., 2008; khanal et al., 2010). wtp = β0+ β1 x1+ β2 x2+ β3 x3+ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +βn xn+ error, where, wtp stands for the local users' wtp money for sustainable management and conservation of the barandabhar pf (dependent variable); β0 to βn are parameters to be estimated; and x1 to xn are explanatory variables influencing the wtp. for the local users, probability (wtp) = β0+ β1 caste + β2 gender + β3 age +β4 education + β5 income + β6 family size + β7 landholding + β8 residence type + β9 distance + error table 1 : definition and description of the independent variables for the local users description variable type hhs' distance from the cfs (minutes) scale no. of hh members respondent's age scale scale respondent's sex (1=male and 0=female) respondent's ethnicity (1=brahmin, 2= chhetri, 3=janajati, 4=dalit) nominal nominal land holding size owned by a hh (kattha; 1 kattha = 0. 007 ha) scale respondent's education-level (years of school attended) scale income of respondent scale results ecosystem goods ecosystem goods prevailing in the study area were identified based on the direct field observation and consultation. the benefits that people are getting from the ecosystem goods were verified with the help of questionnaire. the study identified four ecosystem goods in the study area (table 2). table 2 : identified ecosystem goods s. n. ecosystem goods benefits to the local people 1 fuel-wood combustible material for cooking 2 fodder forage material for livestock 3 timber building material 4 ntfp’s vegetable, medicine ecosystem services ecosystem services identified during the field visit were verified with the community people. the benefits of each service were identified banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 20‒27 24 lamichhane et al. in the same way as done for ecosystem goods identification (table 3). table 3 : ecosystem services and benefits s. n. ecosystem services benefits 1. soil conservation prevention from soil erosion 2. oxygen purification amelioration of oxygen 3. tourism and recreation revenue 4. wildlife habitat habitat for wild-lives 5. aesthetic entertainment 6. landscape beauty scenic beauty ranking of the ecosystem goods and services numerous ecosystem goods and services provided by the barandabhar pf were reported to have benefitted the users of the cfs. the respondents were requested to prioritize most promising goods and services based on their preference. though all the goods and services were important for livelihood, the ranking of the ecosystem goods and services was accomplished on the basis of the weighted mean of the respondents' preferences. most of the respondent’s prioritized timber as their 1st choice (table 4). however, the maximum average mean (6. 3) was found to be on wildlife habitat, which revealed that most of the respondents were aware of the importance of the barandabhar pf for wildlife habitat; so wildlife habitat was ranked as no. 1. similarly, this forest had provided large amount of timer to the hhs around the forest; so, timber was ranked as no. 2. finally, the ntfps were ranked as no. 8 with least preference. monetary value of the forest goods mpm was used for estimating the direct use value of the forest goods by the hhs. the major forest goods that are consumed by the local communities include timber, fuelwood and fodder. these goods are obtained through purchase or selfcollection. the study computed the average value of the forest goods consumed in the area based on the estimation of the market price of each of the goods. the sampled hhs (142) were found to have consumed the forest goods (timber, fuelwood and fodder) worth of nepalese rupees (nrs. ) 745,000 (us$ 6,630. 47 @us$1= nrs 112. 36)per year; the average consumption of forest goods being nrs. 5,246 (us$ 46. 69) per hh per year. there were, altogether, 2,890 hhs (in both the cfs), and so the total specificuse value was estimated to be nrs. 15,160,940 (us$134,931. 82) per year. table 4 : ranking of the ecosystem goods and services provided by the barandabhar pf weight preference timber fuelwood fodder wildlife habitat tourism fresh air ntfps soil conservation 8 1st choice 60 0 0 30 30 22 0 0 7 2nd choice 25 0 5 50 38 20 0 4 6 3rd choice 18 9 12 30 47 23 0 3 5 4th choice 7 31 27 17 5 40 0 15 4 5th choice 9 19 17 5 2 6 4 80 3 6th choice 5 53 20 3 5 8 28 20 2 7th choice 8 17 53 7 6 11 30 10 1 8th choice 10 13 8 0 9 12 80 10 average/mean 6. 16 3. 45 3. 40 6. 3 6. 03 5. 18 1. 69 3. 73 rank ii vi vii i iii iv viii v banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 20‒27 25 lamichhane et al. wtp for conservation and sustainable management of forest the concerned cf users were directly asked regarding their wtp money as tax for the conservation and sustainable management of the barandabhar pf. majority of the users were found to be willing to pay for better management and conservation of the forest. out of the total 142 respondents, 78. 8% respondents were ready to pay whereas 21. 2% respondents were not ready to pay. similarly, 4. 5% respondents were willing to pay below nrs 100; 57. 1% were willing to pay nrs, 100−500; 27. 7%were willing to pay nrs. 501−1,000 and 10. 7% were willing to pay more than nrs. 1,000 (figure 2). the wtp of the sampled users for the conservation and sustainable management of the barandabhar pf was found to be nrs. 65,968 (us$ 587. 11)per year. the mean wtp was found to be nrs. 589 (us$5. 24) per hh per year. majority of the respondents were aware of the importance of the forest. altogether, there were 2,890 cf users, and the users' wtp was estimated to be nrs. 1,341,153 (us$ 11,936. 20) per year. 4.5% 57.1% 27.7% 10.7% 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 <100 100-500 501-1000 >1000 % o f re sp o n ed en ts nrs. figure 2 : willingness to pay for conservation and sustainable management of forest multiple regression model the following multiple regression models was developed to find out the relationship between the wtp and the factors affecting the wtp for both the users and the visitors (baral et al., 2008; khanal et al., 2010). wtp = β0+ β1 x1+ β2 x2+ β3 x3+ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +βn xn+ error, for the local cf users, probability (wtp) = β0+ β1 ethnicity + β2 gender + β3 age +β4 year of education + β5 income + β6 family size + β7 landholding + β8 time to reach forest+ error results of the multiple regression table 5 shows the results of the multiple regressions on the users' wtp of the users for their efforts on conservation and sustainable management of the forest resources. the gender, income and time to reach the forest were found to be significant (p≤0. 05) with the users' wtp, which indicated that the income had positive coefficient with the users' wtp where as the gender and time to reach the forest had negative coefficient with the users' wtp. the results showed that the income of the users was found to be significant (p≤0. 05) with positive regression coefficient (0. 002813), indicating that the users' wtp increased with the increase in the income-level of the local community people. similarly, the gender was found to be significant (p≤0. 05) with negative regression coefficient (-0. 548189), indicating that the users' wtp increased with the increase in the female respondents. likewise, the time to reach the forest was significant (p≤0. 05) with negative regression coefficient (-0. 028548), indicating that the users living far from the forest were less eager to pay for the conservation and sustainable management of the barandabhar cf than those living near the forest. table 5 : multiple regression model calculation variable coefficient std. error z-statistic prob. ethnicity -0. 105082 0. 222478 -0. 472326 0. 6367 family size -0. 093586 0. 167079 -0. 560134 0. 5754 gender -0. 548189 0. 448339 -1. 222713 0. 0314 income 0. 002813 0. 001475 1. 907852 0. 0264 landholding 0. 059609 0. 070794 0. 841997 0. 3998 time to reach forest -0. 028548 0. 014335 -1. 991513 0. 0464 year of education 0. 004800 0. 051107 0. 093912 0. 9252 age 1. 562174 1. 374900 1. 136209 0. 2559 mcfadden r2 0. 092056 total observations = 142 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 20‒27 26 lamichhane et al. discussion the total wtp of the users for the conservation and sustainable management of barandabhar pf by the local community forest users was calculated as nrs. 1,341,153 (us$ 11,936. 20). similarly, the study conducted by bhandari et al. (2018) in the panchase pf showed the users' wtp for its sustainable use and management to be nrs. 52. 2 million (us$ 521,930. 00). the economic value of the barandabhar pf is significantly less as compared to that of the panchase protected forest. it could be due to the reason that the users of the panchase pf might have received more ecosystem services than the barandabhar pf users. besides, it could be due to more wildlife conflict in the barandabhar pf than in the panchase pf. the estimated specific use value of the barandabhar pf was nrs. 15,160,940 (us$134,931. 82) per year. we did not find any literature to compare our findings on the monitory value of the goods of this pf with those of the other protected forests of nepal. however, pant et al. (2012) estimated the value of the provisioning services (the goods from the forests used directly or indirectly) from the kangchenjunga landscape to be nrs. 7. 01 billion (approx. us$ 98 million) per year, which is more than that from the barandabhar pf. the reason could be that the kangchenjunga landscape possess a large amount of forest goods like wood, timber and, especially, ntfps as compared to the ones possessed by the barandabhar pf. in this study, income, distance and gender were found to be the factors affecting the wtp of the users. the results of the multiple regression showed that the users' wtp decreased as per the decrease in the proximity of the users' hhs from the forest. this indicated that the users living near the forest were more willing to pay as compared those living far from the forest for the conservation and sustainable management of the barandabhar pf. in terms of gender, the women were found to be more willing to pay as compared to the men. this might be because the women had to spend more time in domestic chores such as collecting grass, firewood, fodder, bedding materials, etc. from the forests. similarly, the users' wtp increased with the increase in their income. these findings are consistent with those of bhandari et al. (2018) and kc et al. (2010). conclusion the barandabhar pf has provided numerous ecosystem goods and services to the people living around the forest. additionally, this pf has also provided significant opportunity for tourism and recreation. thus, integrated evaluation of this pf along with its ecological and economic value is required for the conservation and sustainable management of its forest resource. the estimated specific-use value of the barandabhar pf was found to be nrs. 15,160,940 (us$134,931. 82) per year. the estimated total wtp value for the conservation and sustainable management of this pf was nrs. 1,341,153 (us$ 11,936. 20); the average users' wtp value for the purpose being nrs. 589 (us$ 5. 24) per hh per year. these results show that there is significant opportunity for the payment for ecosystem services in the barandabhar pf. the results of regression revealed that the users with high income were willing to contribute more for the conservation and sustainable management of the forest as compared to those with low income as the latter have to spend almost all their income just for their subsistence livelihood. these findings suggest that forest management interventions are needed to increase the income of the poor users. similarly, time to reach the forest was found to have negative relationship with the uses' wtp; the wtp of the users living near the forest was found to be higher than that of those living far from the forest. this could be due to the higher opportunity of benefits to the users living close to the forests. so, the concerned forest user committee should emphasize to distribute the benefits among all the users in equitable manner. in addition, the cf users are likely to be further benefited from the sustainable management of their cfs. however, the concerned forest user committee should emphasize on distributing the benefits to all the cf users in equitable manner. our study revealed that the women were more willing to pay for the ecosystem services provided by the barandabhar pf as compared to the men. this indicates that women's participation in the conservation and management of the forests in the rural areas is likely to increase the value of the forests as their wtp is higher than that of men. therefore, the policy makers and the concerned stakeholders should consider significant involvement of women in forest conservation and management programs. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 20‒27 27 lamichhane et al. references arrow, k., solow, r., portney, p. r, leamer,e. e, radner, r. and schuman, h. 1993. report of the noaa panel on contingent valuation. national oceanic and atmospheric administration,washington, d. c. baral, n., stern, m. j., and bhattarai, r. 2008. contingent valuation of ecotourism in annapurna conservation area, nepal : implications for sustainable park finance and local development. ecological economics 60 : 218−227. barbier, e. b., baumgärtner, s., chopra, k., costello, c., duraiappah, a., hassan, r., kinzig, a., lehman, m., pascual, u., polasky, s., perrings, c., 2009. the valuation of ecosystem services, chapter 18. in biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and human wellbeing : an ecological and economic perspective. edited by shahid naeem, daniel e. bunker, andy hector, michel loreau, and charles perrings. oxford : oxford university press. : 248–62. bhandari, a. r., khadka, u. r., and kandel, k. r. 2018. valuation of ecosystem services : a case of panchase protected forest in the midhill of western nepal. tribhuvan university, central department of environmental science, kathmandu, nepal. asian journal of science and technology 09 : 7591−7595. diamond, peter a. and hausman,j. a. 1994. "contingent valuation : is some number better than no number?" journal of economic perspectives 8 (4) : 45−64. groot, r. d., wilson, m. a. and boumans, r. m. j. 2002. a typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services. ecological economics 41 (3) : 393–408. kc, b., kandel, p. n. and adhikari, s. 2010. economic valuation of ecosystem services in protected areas : a case study from nepal. banko january 23 : 1. kumar, m. and kumar, p. 2002. valuation of the ecosystem services, a psycho-culture perspective. ecological economics 4 : 808−819. lesser, j. a., dodds, d. e. and zerbe, r. o. 1997. environmental economics and policy. addison and wiley longman, inc. new york, usa. merrett, s. 2002. deconstructing households' willingness-to-pay for water in low-income countries. water policy 4 : 157−172. mea. 2005. ecosystems and human wellbeing : synthesis. millennium ecosystem assessment, island press, washington d. c. pant, k. p., rasul, g., chhetri, n., rai, r. k. and sharma, e. 2012. value of forest ecosystem services : a quantitative estimation from the kangchenjunga landscape in eastern nepal. icimod working paper 2012/5. kathmandu, nepal. pascual, u. and muradian, r. 2010. the economics of valuing ecosystem services and biodiversity. in the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity : ecological and economic foundations (ed) kuman, p. london/washington : earthscan. powell, i., white, a. and landell-mills, n. 2002. developing markets for the ecosystem services of forests. forest trends, washington d. c. singh, s. p., negi, g. c. s., pant, m. c. and singh, j. s. 2002. economic consideration in the central himalayan agro-ecosystems. centre for science and forests, new delhi. venkatachalam, l. 2004. the contingent valuation method : a review. environmental impact assessment review 24 : 89−124. villegas-palacio, c., berrouet, l., connie, l., ruiz, a., and upegui, a. 2016. lessons from the integrated valuation of ecosystem services in a developing country : three case studies on ecological, socio-cultural and economic valuation. ecosystem services 22 (2016) : 297−308. http : //dx. doi. org/10. 1016/j. ecoser. 2016. 10. 017 12 the himalayas are one of the largest mountain ranges in the word having distinctive landscapes, ecosystems, climatic variation, and geological features (olson and dinerstein, 2002). these mountains are one of the most sensitive and fragile ecosystems to climate change impacts (shrestha et al., 2012). the regional climate of this mountain range is dominated by the indian summer monsoon that extends from june to september and the western disturbance from december to march (cannon et al., 2015). the eastern part of the region is mainly affected by the summer monsoon which arrives from the bay of bengal. the intensity of the summer monsoon decreases from the east to the west (lang and barros, 2004). on the other hand, the western part receives most of the rainfall in the winter because of the westerlies, which brings moisture from the arabian, mediterranean, and caspian seas (ahmed et al., 2011). the availability of moisture greatly decreases from the east to the west because of this atmospheric circulation. these climatic patterns and availability of moisture affect the growth and distribution of the plant species in the region of the himalayas (sharma and gupta, 1997). we can use dendrochronological tools to understand the most limiting climatic factor for the growth of the species (speer, 2010). several studies have been done in the himalayas to relate the growth of plants and climate (dawadi et al., 2013; aryal et al. 2018; khan et al., 2018; shah et al., 2018; bhandari et al., 2019). growth-climate relationship of pinus wallichiana in three different parts of the himalayas s. bhandari1* and j. h. speer1 1. department of earth and environmental system, indiana state university, terre haute, indiana, united states of america. * e-mail: sbhandari2@sycamores.indstate.edu we have used six tree-ring width chronologies of pinus wallichiana from the himalayan region, which are available in the international tree-ring data bank (itrdb), to determine their growth trends through time and the growth-climate relationship. each of the chronologies downloaded from the itrdb was detrended using an age-dependent cubic smoothing spline with a 20-year starting spline stiffness in the rcsigfree software program. we broke the six chronologies into three regions based on natural breaks between the sample sites. altogether, three composite chronologies were made, one each from bhutan, nepal, and pakistan. the average value for common periods was taken from each of those two chronologies to make a composite chronology. across the three regions, the growth was lowest in the 1810s and has increased since 1980s. the growth showed a significant positive response to the winter temperature (november-february) in the eastern himalayas in bhutan. the chronology from nepal showed that the growth of this species had a significant positive response to the self-calibrated palmer drought severity index of the previous year’s december and the current year’s january and march. in the western himalayas of pakistan, the growth of the same species is positively correlated to the annual selfcalibrated palmer drought severity index. winter temperature limits the growth of this species in the eastern himalayas where there is enough moisture whereas the growth of this species is primarily limited by moisture in the western himalayas. keywords: drought, moisture, pinus wallichiana, temperature, tree-ring banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1, 2020 pp 12‒20 https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i1.29177 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 13 bhandari & speer pinus wallichiana, one of the native plant species to the himalayas, has been frequently used in dendroclimatic studies (yadav and bhattacharyya, 1997; cook et al., 2003; cook et al., 2010; asad et al., 2017; gaire et al., 2019). this species, commonly known as blue pine, is a large evergreen conifer distributed across the himalayas, spanning from northeast pakistan to yunnan in southwest china (devkota, 2013). this species usually prefers to grow on deep moist soils, in pure as well as mixed stands with cedrus deodara, picea smithiana, abies pindrow and quercus sps. at the higher altitude above 3,000 m, it is associated with birch and juniper (yadav and bhattacharyya, 1997). generally, pine trees are sensitive to moisture, and have strong common signals compared to other species (thapa et al., 2017). in this research, we have used six tree-ring chronologies of p. walllichiana from the himalayas region, which are available in the international tree-ring data bank (itrdb) to understand its growth trends and its climate response across the himalayas. materials and methods chronology development the international tree-ring data bank holds six chronologies of p. wallichiana with two from bhutan, two from nepal, and two from pakistan (table 1). each of these chronologies were downloaded from the international treering data bank and detrended using an agedependent cubic smoothing spline with a 20year starting spline stiffness followed by signal free standardization in the rc sigfree software program (melvin and briffa, 2008). this detrending method retains the most low-frequency variability in the chronology while reducing the effects from juvenile growth (melvin et al., 2007). the average value for common periods was taken from each of those two chronologies in each region to make a composite chronology. altogether, three composite chronologies were made, one each from bhutan, nepal and pakistan. growth-climate relationship temperature (1901−2017, cru ts 4.02), precipitation (1901−2017, cru ts 4.02), and the self-calibrating palmer drought severity index, scpdsi (1901−2016) global 3.25 (van der schrier et al., 2013) were taken from knmi climate explorer (trouet and oldenborgh, 2013). these climatic parameters were correlated with each of the chronologies in the treeclim package in r (zang and biondi, 2015) to find the growth-climate relationship. the growthclimate relationship identifies the most limiting factor for the growth of the trees. spatial correlation was carried out between each of the tree-ring chronologies and climate parameters in the knmi climate explorer (trouet and oldenborgh, 2013). table 1: brief description of pinus wallichiana's chronologies in itrdb sample location principal investigators sample duration latitude longitude nangay, bhutan edward cook, paul j krusic and dorji dukpa (cook et al., 2010) 1625−2003 ad 27.4 90.7 pembu, bhutan edward cook, paul j krusic and dorji dukpa (cook et al., 2010) 1741−2005 ad 27.2 89.3 bhratang, nepal edward cook, paul j krusic, and philip d. jones (cook et al., 2003) 1796−1994 ad 28.4 84.1 alubari, nepal edward cook and paul j krusic, and philip d. jones (cook et al., 2003) 1803−1993 ad 28.4 83.4 astore-rama, pakistan edward cook, jonathan palmer and moinnudin ahmed (pages 2k consortium, 2013) 1317−2005 ad 35.3 74.8 mushkin, pakistan edward cook, jonathan palmer and moinnudin ahmed (pages 2k consortium, 2013) 1730−2007 ad 35.5 74.7 14 bhandari & speerbanko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 results and discussion we have constructed three composite chronologies one each from bhutan, nepal and pakistan. our composite p. wallichiana chronology from bhutan in the eastern himalayas spans over 263 yearsfrom 1741 to 2003 ad based on the common period between the chronologies (figure 1a). this chronology showed a sharp decline in the growth of this species in the early 1800s while the growth was higher during 1750−1800 ad, 1930−1960 ad and 1975−2003 ad. the growth of this species in bhutan showed a significant positive correlation with winter temperature (figure 2). the spatial correlation between the ring-width and cru temperature also indicates a strong correlation with winter temperature in the eastern himalayas (figure 3). figure 1: (a) a 263-year (1741−2003) long chronology of p. wallichiana from bhutan figure 1: (b) a 191-year (1803−1993) long chronology of p. wallichiana from nepal, and (c) a 276-year (1730−2005) long chronology of p. wallichiana from pakistan figure 2: correlation between the tree-ring width of p. wallichiana from bhutan and cru temperature banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 15 bhandari & speer figure 3: spatial correlation between the tree-ring width of p. wallichiana from bhutan and november-february average cru ts4.02 temperatures during 1902−2003 (p<0.1%) similarly, a 191-year (1803−1993) long chronology of p. walllichiana was made from nepal in the central himalayas (figure 1b ). this chronology showed that the growth of this species was suppressed in the early 19th century and the growth has increased since the 1980s. the tree-ring chronology of p. wallichiana from the central nepal himalayas showed a positive correlation with the scpdsi of december of the previous year and january and march of the current year (figure 4). this indicates that winter moisture limits the growth of this species in the central himalayas of nepal. interestingly, the chronology of this species showed low spatial correlation with the scpdsi in the central himalayas of nepal (figure 5). figure 4: correlation between the ring-width chronology of p. wallichiana from nepal and cru scpdsi 16 bhandari & speerbanko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 figure 5: spatial correlation between tree-ring width of p. wallichiana from nepal and december− january average cru scpdsi 3.26e during 1901−1993 (p<0.1%) we also developed a 276-year long chronology of p. wallichiana from pakistan (figure 1c). the growth was suppressed in the 19th century while it was above average in the 20th century. this chronology was found to positively correlated with annual scpdsi (figure 6) indicating that moisture availability affects the growth in western himalayas of pakistan. the spatial correlation between ring-width of the same species from pakistan and january−june average cru scpdsi showed a strong drought signal in the western himalayas (figure 7). figure 6: correlation between a tree-ring width chronology of p. wallichiana from pakistan and cru scpdsi banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 17 bhandari & speer figure 7: spatial correlation between tree-ring width of p. wallichiana from pakistan and january− june average cru scpdsi 3.26e during 1901−2005 (p<0.1%) all three chronologies of p. wallichiana from three different parts of the himalayas showed a sharp decline in growth in the 1810s. this coincides with the eruption of an unidentified volcano in 1809 (cole-dai et al., 1997) and that of mt. tombara (indonesia) in 1815. the decline in growth in this period might be because of extreme climate triggered by the explosion of these volcanoes. these eruptions may have caused the asian monsoon failure for a few years after the events (anchukaitis et al., 2010) and may have reduced moisture availability. the growth of conifer and himalayan birch from the central himalayas, nepal (thapa et al., 2017; gaire et al., 2019; liang et al., 2019), tsuga dumosa from eastern himalayas (borgaonkar et al., 2018) and junipers from western central asia (esper et al., 2002) were also suppressed in the 1810s. the growth of this species is above average in the last decades of the 20th century. several studies (esper et al., 2002; asad et al., 2017; bhandari et al., 2019; gaire et al., 2019) from the himalayan region have also shown increased growth of different conifer species in the last decade of 20th century. the growth-climate relationship showed that winter temperature limits the growth of this species in the eastern himalayas of bhutan. the positive relation between tree-rings and winter temperatures may indicate that in the good winter months this species might experience photosynthesis and store carbohydrates for the subsequent growing season. the p. wallichiana trees of the central himalayas in nepal showed a positive correlation with winter moisture. in the winter season, the amount of rainfall is low in the region, which finally could not provide enough moisture for the growth of trees. recently published articles (sigdel et al., 2018a; thapa and st. george, 2019) also indicated that the growth of pine in nepal is limited by winter moisture. precipitation in the form of snow or rainfall during the winter is an important source of moisture for plants during the following season (borgaonkar et al., 2018). the ring-width of this species showed a strong positive correlation with the annual scpdsi in the western himalayas of pakistan. the total annual rainfall decreases from eastern to western himalayas, causing the western part to have a moisture deficit (cannon et al., 2015) which limits the growth of the species (sharma and gupta, 1997). in the dry and semi dry areas of the himalayas, high moisture and 18 bhandari & speerbanko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 cool temperature could be helpful for the growth of this species (treydte et al., 2006; sigdel et al., 2018b; gaire et al., 2019). conclusion the growth of p. wallichiana was sharply suppressed in the 1810s, and was increased in the late 20th century in the three different regions of the himalayas. the sharp suppression of growth in the 1810s coincided with two volcanic eruptions. the growth of this species showed a winter temperature signal in the moist region of the eastern himalayas in bhutan and a drought signal in the dry to semi dry region of the western himalayas. this species has a great potential for the study of both temperature and drought in the himalayas. we will be able to have a better understanding of the growth-climate relations of this species in the himalayan region if we can gather more chronologies from this species and collect the remnants from this species to extend its chronologies further back in time. acknowledgements the first author is grateful to the department of earth and environmental system, indiana state university for providing a graduate teaching assistantship. we are thankful to dr. edward cook, pages 2k consortium, and their entire team for sharing their p. wallichiana chronologies to the international tree-ring data bank. references ahmed, m., palmer, j., khan, n., wahab, m., fenwick, p., esper, j. and cook, e. (2011). the dendroclimatic potential of conifers from northern pakistan. dendrochronologia 29 (2) : 77−88. anchukaitis, k. j., buckley, b. m., cook, e. r., cook, b. i., d'arrigo, r. d. and ammann, c. m. (2010). influence of volcanic eruptions on the climate of the asian monsoon region. geophysical research letters 37 (22) : 1−5 aryal, s., bhuju, d. r., kharal, d. k., gaire, n. p. and dyola, n. (2018). climatic upshot using growth pattern of pinus roxburghii from western nepal. pakistan journal of botany 50 (2) : 579−588. asad, f., zhu, h., zhang, h., liang, e., muhammad, s., farhan, s. b., hussian, i., wazir, m. a., ahmed, m. and esper, j. (2017). are karakoram temperatures out of phase compared to hemispheric trends? climate dynamics 48 (9−10) : 3381−3390. bhandari, s., gaire, n. p., shah, s. k., speer, j. h., bhuju, d. r. and thapa, u. k. (2019). a 307-year tree-ring spei reconstruction indicates modern drought in western nepal himalayas. tree-ring research 75 (2) : 73−85. borgaonkar, h. p., gandhi, n., ram, s. and krishnan, r. (2018). tree-ring reconstruction of late summer temperatures in northern sikkim (eastern himalayas). palaeogeography, palaeoclimatology, palaeoecology 504 : 125−135. cannon, f., carvalho, l. m., jones, c. and bookhagen, b. (2015). multi-annual variations in winter westerly disturbance activity affecting the himalaya. climate dynamics 44 (1−2) : 441−455. cole-dai, j., mosley-thompson, e. and thompson, l. g. (1997). annually resolved southern hemisphere volcanic history from two antarctic ice cores. journal of geophysical research 102 : 761−771. cook, e. r., anchukaitis, k. j., buckley, b. m., d'arrigo, r. d., jacoby, g. c. and wright, w. e. (2010). asian monsoon failure and megadrought during the last millennium. science 328 (5977) : 486−489. cook, e. r., krusic, p. j. and jones, p. d. 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(2012). widespread climate change in the himalayas and associated changes in local ecosystems. plos one 7 (5) : 1−10. sigdel, s. r., wang, y., camarero, j. j., zhu, h., liang, e. and peñuelas, j. (2018b). moisture-mediated responsiveness of tree-line shifts to global warming in the himalayas. global change biology 24 (11) : 5549−5559. sigdel, s., dawadi, b., camarero, j., liang, e. and leavitt, s. (2018a). moisture-limited tree growth for a subtropical himalayan conifer forest in western nepal. forests 9 (6) : 340 doi : 10. 3390/f9060340. speer, j. h. (2010). fundamentals of tree-ring research. university of arizona press. thapa, u. k. and george, s. s. (2019). detecting the influence of climate and humans on pine forests across the dry valleys of eastern nepal’s koshi river basin. forest ecology and management 440 : 12−22. thapa, u. k., george, s. s., kharal, d. k., and gaire, n. p. (2017). tree growth across the nepal himalaya during the last four centuries. progress in physical geography 41 (4) : 478−495. treydte, k. s., schleser, g. h., helle, g., frank, d. c., winiger, m., haug, g. h. and esper, j. (2006). the twentieth century was the wettest period in northern pakistan over the past millennium. nature 440 (7088) : 1179−1182. 20 bhandari & speerbanko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 trouet, v. and oldenborgh, g. j. v. (2013). knmi climate explorer : a web-based research tool for high-resolution paleoclimatology. tree-ring research 69 (1) : 3−13. van der schrier, g., barichivich, j., briffa, k. r. and jones, p. d. (2013). a scpdsibased global data set of dry and wet spells for 1901−2009. journal of geophysical research atmosphere 118 : 4025−4048. yadav, r. r. and bhattacharyya, a. (1997). climate and growth relationship in blue pine (pinus wallichiana) from the western himalaya india. the korean journal of ecology 20 (2) : 95−102. zang, c. and biondi, f. (2015). treeclim : an r package for the numerical calibration of proxy-climate relationships. ecography 38 (4) : 431−436. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 12‒24 12 nagarkoti et al. community structure and regeneration pattern of abies spectabilis was studied along the elevation gradient from 2750 to 3550 m asl in mixed forest of a. spectabilis in sagarmatha national park, eastern nepal. various community attributes (viz. importance percentage, species diversity and beta diversity) and population characteristics (e. g. densitydiameter, bar diagram) were analysed. out of the thirtyfour species recorded from the study forest, a. spectabilis was the co-dominant species with high species diversity. total tree density was the highest at 3450 m and the lowest at 3550 m. elevation appeared to be the important environmental factor that affects the community attributes of the study forest. the curve for a . spectabilis solely was slightly deviated from the typical reverse j-shaped which indicates a discontinuous regeneration pattern. the distribution of the seedling and sapling distribution was not uniform. seedling mortality was found relatively medium and development of seedlings into saplings was also low. the lower number of sapling might be due to moderate disturbance (grazing and trampling) by livestock or due to environmental factors. the use of abies tree for construction and firewood might be the reason of unsustainability. key words : abies spectabilis, community structure, regeneration pattern, sagarmatha national park community structure and regeneration pattern of abies spectabilis in sagarmatha national park, central himalaya, nepal a. b. nagarkoti1, m. l. pathak2*, b. pandey2 and a. devkota1 abies, a genus under the family pinaceace, is a large group of soft wood tree with 48 species in the world (farjon, 2010). it is also called himalayan silver fir (vidakovic, 1991) while local people called ‘talispatra’. abies are slow growing, tall evergreen, pyramidal tree that attains a height of 60 m. its distribution in nepal is restricted between the elevations of 2700 m and 3900 m above sea level (masl). the plants are found in moist open areas, woodland, garden, canopy zones. three species are reported from nepal viz. abies spectabilis, a. densa, and a. pindrow (anonymous, 2001; hara et al., 1982; press et al., 2000). the common associates of the a. spectabilis forests are rhododendron, betula, acer and sorbus species (stainton, 1972). natural regeneration is a process in which the plant species replace themselves to maintain the ecosystem. it is the most important course of action for ensuring the replacement of any member of a community that dies off after completing life cycle (fatubarin, 1987). undisturbed forest with sustainable regeneration found to have a reverse j-shaped sizeclass distribution (west et al., 1981). a bell shaped size-class distribution has been attributed for disturbed forest where regeneration is hampered (saxena et al., 1984). the issue of regeneration is mainly important for those forests which are under various anthropogenic pressures such as felling tree, grazing, trampling, etc (west et al., 1981). counting of seedlings and saplings and analysis of size class distribution are methods for the regeneration analysis (vetaas, 2000). regeneration of abies was high as it can stand long winters and heavy snow, shade light, under low light and seedling can thrive under closed canopy of other species. it prefers a good moisture but not water-logged soil, grows well in heavy clay, 1 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, 2 chengdu institute of biology, university of chinese academy of sciences, chengdu, sichuan, china *e-mail : youngecologist@gmail.com banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 12‒24 13 nagarkoti et al. acidic and neutral soil conditions (dpr, 2001). there are many similar attempts to study about the regeneration pattern of the different forest structure in the himalaya (ghimire and lekhak, 2007; kumar et al., 2004; mehraj and kumar, 2010; shrestha et al., 2007; tiwari, 2010). a. spectabilis is the important timber and fuel wood tree in the temperate and subalpine area even up to the tree line. so, the demand of the abies plant for construction and fuel wood, growth pattern, regeneration, impacts like grazing, trampling, etc. are being crucial concern for sustainable use of this preferred species. the previous studies were focused mostly central and western nepal (acharya, 2004; ghimire et al., 2008; ghimire and lekhak, 2007). likewise, some studies reveal that the biomass distribution and tree invasion vary significantly with elevation (fadrique et al., 2016). we have retested the hypothesis and have chosen some different locality to scrutinize new aspects of regeneration. because the vegetation type, forest composition and climatic conditions are different in eastern, central and western nepal (stainton, 1972). in this context, the community structure of eastern nepal with sustainability of a. spectabilis species is assessed in the designated field area which was situated along the trekking route of various tourist destinations in the foothills of the himalayas. the study was focused only on narrow elevation zone due to technical hitches. the general objective of the present study was to assess the vegetations of sub-alpine mixed a. spectabilis forest. the specific research questions that we tried to address were (i) what is the effect of altitude on community structure of sub-alpine mixed a. spectabilis forest in sagarmatha national park ? ( ii) what is the effect of environmental parameters like rock cover, soil carbon and elevation on regeneration of a. spectabilis ? (iii) how is the regeneration pattern of mixed a. spectabilis forest in study area ? the park is managed by the sagarmatha national park authority under the department of national parks and wildlife conservation, whereas, the buffer zone is managed by a buffer zone management committee (bzmc) within each village that takes care of location-specific issues by collaborating with the national park authority. for this, the bzmc is an apex body under which different buffer zone user committees (bzucs) and buffer zone user groups (bzugs) have been formed and institutionalized in sagarmatha national park and its buffer zone (snp, 2003). the distribution of fuel wood and necessary timbers from logging trees are also managed by bzucs. there are no stringent rules to control grazing in the settlement of protected areas of himalaya regions according to himalayan national park regulations (hnpr, 1997) and practically it is not apposite too. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in mixed forest of abies spectabilis and rododendron arboreum between guranse danda and khumjung of the sagarmatha national park. the study area (fig. 1) includes mainly rhododendron and abies forest along the trekking routes from guranse danda (2750 m asl), gouyam (3040 m asl) to lamjura (3500 m asl) and khumjung (3550 m asl). the study was conducted on north-east facing slope with inclination of 35˚ (27° 30' 50' n and 86° 40' – 50' e, elevation 2750 – 3550 m). fig. 1: map of the study area sampling methods vegetation in the study area was sampled through systematic random sampling method (vetaas, 2000). a total of 45 plots of 0. 1 ha (1000 m2) were sampled between 2750 m to 3550 m each at 100 m elevation interval (fig. 1). nine vertical transects were defined within the study area and quadrats were located along each transect. five sampling plots were laid in each elevation for one or both sides of the well-established footpath. the location for the first plot in each elevation was banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 12‒24 14 nagarkoti et al. chosen on the side of the path where there was at least one mature abies spectabilis tree. the distance between two transects were between 30‒200 m. other plots in the same elevation were laid at a distance of 30‒200 m difference. the distance between the plots was determined on the basis of the accessibility and presence of a. spectabilis trees. if abies trees were not observed along the sampling transect, a sidewise search was conducted on either side of the path at the same elevation. the number of individuals of a. spestabilis at all life stages as tree, sapling and seedling were recorded and diameter at breast height (dbh) measured at 137 cm above the ground using dbh tape. all shrubs species present in the quadrat were recorded. each tree species were grouped into tree (dbh>10 cm), sapling (dbh<10cm, height>30cm) and seedling (height <30cm) (sundriyal and sharma, 1996). the predictor variables as slope, litter content, aspects, rock cover and land use pattern (tree lopping, logging, trampling evidences of human disturbances and cattle grazing) by visual estimation were also recorded to study the micro-environment. lopping, logging and grazing were categorized as low, medium and high. looping of 1‒5 trees, 6‒10 trees and more than 10 trees refers to low, meidum and high, respectively in each plot. further low is coded as 1, medium as 2 and high as 3. similar scale was used for logging and grazing. grazing pattern was categorized based on the number of piles of cattle dung present within the plots. we did a general discussion among the key stakeholders regarding the consumption of fire wood in different season of the year. from each quadrat, 200 g soil sample was collected from the corners and centre of each quadrat at a depth of 30 cm and their physiochemical characteristics (soil ph, carbon and nitrogen content) were analysed. relative radiation index (rri) was calculated from the values of aspect (ω), slope (β) and latitude (φ). the value ranges from +1 to -1. rri was calculated following the formula given by oke (1987) : rri= cos (180-ω). sin (φ) + cosβ. cosφ. various community attributes like importance percentage, species diversity, beta diversity and population characteristics (e. g. densitydiameter bar diagram) were analysed (shannon and warner, 1949; simpson, 1949). ordination methods were used to analyse species composition and to relate this to rock cover, soil carbon and elevation using “vegan” package in r (oksanen, 2015). detrended corresponding analysis (dca) was used to analyse sparse data matrices. dca is a multivariate stastistical technique widely used by ecologist to find the main factors or gradients in large, species rich but usually sparse data matrices that typify ecological data. ordination of the different characters and elevation on two axis dca1 and dca 2 are evaluated and explained in our study (table 1). results and discussion results species composition while observing species composition, daphne bholua, tsuga dumosa, berberis aristata dominated in elevation between between 2750 – 3150 m asl while abies spectabilis, rhododendron arboreum, quercus semicarpifolia and juniperus indica dominated between 3150 – 3550 m asl, rhododendron, juniperus etc. were the associated species of abies altogether thirty four species of trees and shrubs were recorded, of which, twelve species were tree while remaining were sapling. however, a. spectabilis, q. semicarpifolia and pinus wallichina reached to canopy layer. remaining species were confined only to sub-canopy layer. table 1 : summary of dca result axis eigenvalues decorana values axis lengths dca1 0. 4666 0. 4797 3. 6192 dca2 0. 1932 0. 2341 2. 3670 dca3 0. 2083 0. 1549 2. 3504 dca4 0. 14325 0. 09719 1. 95503 sum of eigen value 1. 011 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 12‒24 15 nagarkoti et al. twenty two species were recorded in shrub layer and mainly dominated by d. bholua, b. aristata, lonicera lanceolata at lower altitude whereas higher altitude was dominated by juniperus species and some of places by vibrurnum species. d. bholua was the most frequently occurring (53. 3%). the diversity dominance curve showed that out of twelve species, five species had ip less than 1% (table 2). the total number of woody species (trees and shrubs) recorded was 34. among trees, rhododendron arboreum had the highest ip (61. 91%) and then after a. spectabilis had 22. 72% ip (table 2). average species richness for tree was found to be 130 species/ha and shrub species richness was 108 species/ha. beta diversity for tree was 1.26. simpson’s index of dominance (c) for tree was 0. 44 and shannon-wiener index (h’) of species diversity was 1.21. the sapling and tree ratio was lowest for a. spectabilis than the seedling and tree ratio and seedling and sapling ratio. the total tree density of various species was found to be 267. 11 stems/ha and the density of seedlings and saplings of a. spectabilis were 76. 89 and 28. 44 stems/ha respectively whereas total sapling and seedling density were 1086 and 524.2 stems/ha (table 3). the mean tree canopy cover was 53. 78% while the distribution pattern of seedling and sapling of abies was not uniform, however, 40% of the studied sub-plots were with seedlings while 66. 67% of studied were without sapling and 40% of plot had no a. spectabilis trees. total sapling density increased with altitude up to 3050 m after that it decreased up to 3350 m. total seedling density of all tree species was lower than that of sapling density (fig. 2), which was not a normal demographic development. the most densely populated plots were found between 3450 m and 3550 m. total basal area of tree species was 2. 24 m2/ha. in the highest elevation range, trees were small with lower basal area. the highest basal area of abies tree was found at 3450 m (6.033m2/ ha). fig. 2: density of all species along elevation gradient table 2: frequency (f), relative frequency (rf), density (d), relative density (rd), basal cover (bc), relative basal cover (rbc) and importance percentage (ip) of tree species in mixed abies spectabilis forest of the study area s. n. plant name f (%) rf (%) d (stem/ ha) rd (%) bc (%) rbc (%) ip (%) 1 rhododendron arboreum sm. 100 42.86 184.88 79.26 1589.46 63.63 61.91 2 abies spectabilis (d. don.) mirb. 60 25.71 60.88 11.9 763.66 30.57 22.72 3 michelia champaca l. 2.22 0.95 0.44 0.18 20.29 0.81 0.64 4 lyonia ovalifolia (wall.) drude 4.44 1.9 0.44 0.18 2.64 0.10 0.72 5 quercus semicarpifolia sm. 17.77 7.61 10.22 4.38 77.38 3.09 5.02 6 eurya acuminate dc. 8.88 3.8 1.11 0.47 7.58 0.30 1.5 7 betula utilis d. don. 6.66 2.85 1.5 0.64 5.44 0.21 1.2 8 prunus cornuta (wall. ex royle) 11.11 4.76 1.77 0.75 8.57 0.34 1.95 9 juniperus indica bertol 15.55 6.66 4.22 1.81 15.72 0.62 3.03 10 tsuga dumosa (d. don) eichler 2.22 0.95 0.22 0.09 1.57 0.06 0.36 11 acer sp. 2.22 0.95 0.22 0.09 1.18 0.04 0.36 12 salix sp. 2.22 0.95 0.44 0.18 4.22 0.16 0.43 total 233.29 99.95 266.34 99.93 2497.71 99.93 99.84 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 12‒24 16 nagarkoti et al. intensity of grazing/trampling was relatively high in the study forest (table 3). soil of the forest under study was slightly acidic in nature with ph ranging from 4.2 to 5.93. total carbon content in soil varied between 1.24% to 6.79% and nitrogen content in the soil was found between 0.11% and 0.52% (table 3). table 3 : descriptive statistics of all the variables used variables (unit) mean minimum maximum se sd kurtosis skewness total tree density (stem/ha) 267.11 10 570 23.59 158.22 -1.05 0.10 total sapling density (stem/ha) 1086.44 70 3300 112.33 753.54 -0.05 0.59 total seedling density (stem/ha) 524.22 20 2230 80.30 538.65 2.79 1.69 total tree basal area (m2) 2.24 0.173 6.033 0.24 1.58 -0.66 0.58 abies seedling density (stem/ha) 76.89 0 910 29.05 194.90 10.63 3.29 abies sapling density (stem/ha) 28.44 0 250 8.60 57.68 4.94 2.30 elevation (m) 3150.00 2750 3550 38.92 261.12 -1.23 0.00 total species richness (count) 5.29 1 16 0.50 3.33 0.64 0.75 tree (count) 6.09 0 31 1.19 7.97 2.45 1.64 sapling (count) 2.84 0 25 0.86 5.77 4.94 2.30 seedling (count) 7.89 0 91 2.90 19.46 10.58 3.27 ph 5.17 4.2 5.93 0.06 0.39 0.34 -0.29 soil carbon content (%) 3.06 1.246 6.792 0.21 1.40 -0.19 0.59 soil nitrogen content (%) 0.27 0.112 0.518 0.01 0.09 0.54 0.72 lopping (categorical) 1.11 1 2 0.05 0.32 4.77 2.56 logging (categorical) 1.42 1 3 0.09 0.62 0.45 1.20 grazing (categorical) 1.29 1 2 0.07 0.46 -1.12 0.96 slope (°) 186.56 90 280 8.91 59.76 -1.16 0.09 aspect (°) 34.58 10 45 1.30 8.72 0.25 -0.89 litter (%) 2.16 1 3.8 0.09 0.58 0.18 0.51 canopy (%) 53.78 5 80 3.10 20.81 -0.18 -0.78 rock cover (%) 16.44 0 80 2.73 18.33 3.22 1.80 relative refractive index 0.02 -0.90 0.98 0.09 0.62 -1.37 0.13 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 12‒24 17 nagarkoti et al. relation of the different community attributes with environmental variables the environmental parameters such as rock cover, soil carbon and elevation were fitted in this ordination diagram (fig. 3). fig. 3: ordination diagram obtained by detrended correspondence analyses (dca) density of all species along with elevation (fig. 2) and importance percentage of the abies is shown (fig. 4). fig. 4: diversity-dominance curve for the tree species of the mixed abies spectabilis forest the bi-plot diagram of species and elevation showed that elevation had strong correlation with respect to distribution of various species along axis i. the total seedling density decreases with increased elevation. the relation of the different community attributes with environmental variables is explained (fig. 5-14). fig. 5: total sapling density along with elevation gradient fig. 6: species richness along with elevation gradient fig. 7: seedling densities of abies along with elevation banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 12‒24 18 nagarkoti et al. fig. 8: total tree density along with elevation fig. 9: relationship between species richness and total sapling density fig. 10: relationship between total tree density and litter content fig. 11: species richness of abies tree along with canopy fig. 12: total tree basal area vs canopy (%) fig. 13: total tree density vs relative refractive index banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 12‒24 19 nagarkoti et al. fig 14: seedling density of abies spectabilis vs canopy (%) elevation appeared to be the important environmental factor that affected the community attributes of the study forest. the total sapling density, seedling density of abies and total density of trees decreased along with elevation. seedling density, population of abies tree and total basal area were increased along with the canopy (figs. 11, 12 and 14). total tree density increased with litter content but decreased with relative refractive index. density of seedlings of a. spectabilis declined with increasing height classes. there was gradual decline in density from first to last height class (fig. 14). density-diameter curve for all tree species combined was nearly reverse j-shaped indicating continuous regeneration (fig. 15). also it was observed that medium girth trees were used by people mainly for construction and firewood. fig. 15: density-diameter curve for abies spectabilis alone as well as all tree species of the forest correlation test was done among population density and environmental variables to evaluate the relationship of various variables with species richness. summary of environmental correlation matrix among the explanatory variables are shown (annex1). there was a highly significant correlation (r = 0.73) between the total sapling vs. species richness, sapling population of abies vs. abies seedling density, seedling population of abies vs. abies sapling density, seedling population vs. tree population of abies and canopy cover vs. total tree density. seedling population of a. spectabilis showed significant positive correlation with the tree population (r = 0. 73) and saplings of abies (r = 0.37). the number of seedlings was higher where the trees and saplings were high. species richness (r = -0.66), total sapling density (r = -0.6) and total seedling density (r = -0.4) showed negatively significant correlation with elevation. similarly total tree density (r = 0.61), total tree basal area (r = 0.47) and number of abies trees (r = 0.41) were significant with litter content in soil. species richness (r = 0.32), total tree density (r = 0.73) and total basal area (r = 0.57) were positively significant correlation with canopy cover of trees. the summary of dca results showed that axis-i have a high eigen value (0.46) and was correlated with elevation (table 1). the degree of divergence and heterogeneity increased with the elevation as indicated by the length of the gradients of the dca axis-i and their eigen values (table 1). discussion the average tree density showed that the number decreases along with elevation within the range of study area which is also similar to the observation (shrestha et al., 2007) in the transhimalayan tree line and in eastern himalayan (bhuju et al. 2010). in upper manang mixed forest, it was found that the total tree density ranged from 375 plants/ha at altitude 3800‒4000 m to 845 plants/ ha at 3300-3500 m. in mixed a. spectabilis forest of manang, the total tree density was found 900 stem/ha (acharya, 2004). whereas total tree density was found 1274 stem/ha in sub alpine a. mariesii forest of central japan (mori and takeda 2005) and 759 stem/ha in sub-alpine coniferous forest on changbai mountain, china (qijing, 1997). tree density (267.1 stem/ha) in present study was lower than tree density 445 stem/ha (bhuju et al., 2010) from tree line of sagarmatha banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 12‒24 20 nagarkoti et al. national park. lower value of total tree density in the study site might be due to logging and high disturbance due to grazing and trampling. also, the study area was near to trekking route so it might be the impact of tourism. in general discussion with local people, it was found that the rate of consumption of fire wood was high during the winter season and months of september to november which is the most favourable time for visitors. it was also visualized that the use of abies as timber tree was common in hotel area than other regions. in the present study, tree density of a. spectabilis was found less (76.89 stems/ha) than previous studies (acharya, 2004; scholl and taylor, 2006). this showed that the study forest was not pure a. spectabilis forest and co dominant by observing. density-diameter curve for all tree species combined was nearly reverse j-shaped, indicating sustainable regeneration. but, the curve of a. spectabilis alone deviated slightly from the typical reverse j-shape. reverse jshaped densitydiameter curve is the indication of unsustainable regeneration (vetaas, 2000). similar trend was reported by (acharya, 2004; shrestha et al., 2007; ghimire et al., 2008; qiaoying et al., 2008). some observation (bhuju et al., 2010) found bell shaped diameter class distribution of a. spectabilis and inversed j shaped distribution of b. utilis at tree line (eastern nepal). the same study recorded 99 cm dbh of a. spectabilis whereas the highest dbh of a. spectabilis was 120 cm in present study. the result indicated that density of the trees having larger girth size was higher than that of the smaller girth size in whole mixed a. spectabilis forest. a. spectabilis curve slightly fluctuated from the typical reverse j-shape which did not indicate sustainable regeneration of co-dominant species a. spectabilis. however, sustainability of whole forest might be of further research interest. lower sapling density (28. 44 stems/ha) in the present forest might be due to higher seedling mortality because of several disturbances. mechanical damage to seedlings of a. spectabilis due to intense grazing and trampling may lead to high seedling mortality. seedling density of abies also declined with increasing canopy (fig. 14). seedling generally preferred high soil moisture, moderate ph and moderate canopy cover. as a. spectabilis is shade tolerant species it can regenerate under a densely closed canopy (qi-jing, 1997). high frequency of saplings of a. spectabilis under dense canopy has been also inferred in mixed betula utilis-a. spectabilis forest of manang (shrestha et al., 2007). however, in the present study, frequency (28.89%) of saplings was very low, and it was absent in homogeneity stands. the seedling and sapling ratio shows higher proportion of sapling than seedling in a. spectabilis for which sapling is higher than seedling indicating recent regeneration. there was significant influence of grazing on tree seedling species composition (darabant et al., 2007). intensity of grazing and trampling was relatively medium (2.26 out of 3) in the studied forest. the study area was also slightly acidic in nature with ph ranging from 4.2 to 5.93. most conifer foliage contains acid substances and after decomposition of leaves it will keep soil slightly acidic or neutral. the ph range of 5.5 to 6.5 may provide most satisfactory plant nutrient and is most suitable for most plants (brady and well, 1984). similar results were found in the alpine forest of central nepal (ghimire and lekhak 2007; shrestha et al., 2007; tiwari 2010) and garhwal himalaya, india (kumar et al., 2004; mehraj et al., 2010). both soil organic carbon (oc) and nitrogen (n) content (3.06% and 0.27% respectively) in the present study forest were relatively low. this might be due to wide spacing of trees which provide low input litter cover to the soil (2.16 cm). the study forest can be considered as the mixed forest. the previous similar study on a. pindrow has shown as dominant species (importants percentage=16.44%) and betula utilis as codominant species (ip=16.10%) in north-western slope of mixed abies-betula forest of indian himalaya (gairola et al., 2008). however, we found a. spectabilis as co-dominent species after rhododendron arboreum (with ip 22.72% and 61.91%, respectively). the trend of average total basal area of study area showed similarities with previous studies, (qi-jing 1997; scholl and taylor 2006; bhuju et al. 2010). average beta diversity (β), simpson’s index of dominance (c) for tree and shannon wiener index (h’) of species diversity was 1.26, 0.44 and 1.21 respectively in the present banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 12‒24 21 nagarkoti et al. study forest. the result was compared with previous studies (liyun et al., 2006; ghimire et al., 2008; jiangming et al., 2008; sharma et al., 2009; tiwari, 2010) where, species diversity in forest edge was higher than that in pure forest which was possibly caused by ‘edge effect’. this is the effect that changes in population or community structures that occur at the boundary of two habitats. species richness usually reduces along the vertical gradient and it is caused by the decrease of temperature (qi-jing, 1997). the higher seedling and sapling distribution found were 910 stems/ha and 250 stems/ha at 3050 and 2950 m, respectively. in the previous studies (west et al., 1981; acharya, 2004; diaci et al., 2005; ghimire and lekhak 2007; tiwari 2010), the seedling density of abies was found higher than that of sapling density which shows a normal demographic development. the differences in different attributes of abies tree might be due to various geological circumstances, mostly temperature, rainfall and clamminess of study sites which we have considered here unvarying while comparing. conclusions abies spectabilis was the co-dominant species among trees after rhododendron arboreum tree. the seedling density was higher than that of sapling density which shows a normal demographic development. density-diameter curve for all tree species combined was nearly reverse j-shaped, indicating sustainable regeneration. but density-diameter curve for a. spectabilis was not continuous which did not show sustainable regeneration. so that the cutting of timber to build house and for firewood should be controlled by concerned authority, grazing pressure should be minimised at april may during the period of seedling development and human pressure should be controlled. the bzucs and bzugs should be categorized as the forests and land use for conservation, community use and for grazing under the rules of the national parks and wildlife conservation act (npwca, 1973), the himalayan national park regulations (hnpr, 1979) and the buffer zone management guidelines (bzmg, 1999) the community user groups should make the local people aware for sustainable use of forest products which can provide the legal basis for protection of the flora and fauna as well. references acharya, k. p. 2004. post fire natural regeneration of dominant tree species in pisang, manang, nepal. m. sc. dissertation. tribhuvan university. central department of botany, kirtipur, kathmandu. bhuju, d. r., carrer, m., gaire, n. p., soraruf, l., riondato, r., salerno, f. and maharjan, s. r. 2010. dendroecological study of high altitude forest at sagarmatha national park. in contemporary research in sagarmatha (mt. everest) region, nepal : an anthology (eds). jha, p. k. and khanal, i. p., nepal academy of science and technology, lalitpur, nepal, pp 119‒130. brady, n. c. and well, r. r. 1984. the nature and properties of soils. mac millan press. new york, usa. bzmg 1999. buffer zone management guideline. government of nepal. ministry of forests and soil conservation, singhdurbar, kathmandu, nepal. darabant, a., rai, p. b., tenzin, k., roder, w. gratzer, g. 2007. cattle grazing facilitate tree regeneration in a conifer forest with palatable bamboo understorey. forest ecology and management 252: 73 – 83. https ://doi. org/10. 1016/j. foreco. 2007. 06. 018. diaci, j., pisek, r. boncina, a. 2005. regeneration in experimental gaps of subalpine picea abies forest in the slovenian alps. european journal of forest research 124: 29 – 36. https ://doi. org/10. 1007/s10342005-0057-7. dpr, 2001. flowering plants of nepal. in bulletin of department of plant resources. no. 18. kathmandu, nepal. fadrique, b., homeier, j. and woods, k. 2016. elevation and topography influence community structure, biomass and host tree interaction of lianas in tropical montane forests of southern ecuador, journal of vegetation science 27 :958 – 968. https :// doi. org/10. 1111/jvs. 12427 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 12‒24 22 nagarkoti et al. farjon, a. 2010. a handbook of the world's conifers. leiden, netherlands : brill academic publishers. fatubarin, a. 1987. observation on the natural regeneration of the woody plants in a savana ecosystem in nigeria. tropical ecology 28: 1 – 8. gairola, s., rawal, r. s. and todari, n. p. 2008. forest vegetation patterns along an altitudinal gradient in 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(eds.) local effects of global changes in the himalayas : manang, nepal. tribhuvan university, nepal and university of bergen, norway, pp 139 – 149. ghimire, b. k., lekhak, h. d., chaudhary, r. p. and vetaas, o. r. 2008. vegetation analysis along an altitudinal gradient of juniperus indica forest in southern manang valley, nepal. international journal of ecology and development 9: 20 – 29. hara, h., charter, a. o. wiliams, l. h. j. 1982. an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal, vol. 3, british museum (natural history), london, u. k. hnpr. 1979. himalayan national park rules. nepal law commission, government of nepal. jiangming, m. a., liu, s., shi, z., zhang, y., kang, b. and chen, b. 2008. changes in species composition and diversity in the restoration process of sub alpine dark brown coniferous forest in west sichuan province, china. frontiers of biology in china 3: 300‒307. https ://doi. org/10. 1007/s11461-008-0047-2 kumar, m., sharma, c. m. and rajwar, g. s. 2004. a study 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fir – western white pine forests in the northern sierra nevada, lake tahoe, usa. forest ecology and management 235, 143–154. https :// doi. org/10. 1016/j. foreco. 2006. 08. 006 shannon, c. e. and wiener, w. 1949. the mathematical theory of communication. university of illinois press, urbana, usa. sharma, c. m., sarvvsh, s., gairola, s. and ghildiyal, s. k. 2009. species richness and diversity along an altitudinal gradient in moist temperate forest of garhwal himalaya. journal of american science 5: 119–128. shrestha, b. b., ghimire, b. k., lekhak, h. d. and jha, p. k. 2007. regeneration of tree line birch (betula utilisd. don) forest in a transhimalayan dry valley in central nepal. mountain research and development 27: 259–267. https ://doi. org/10. 1659/mrdd. 0784 simpson, e. h. 1949. measurement of diversity. nature 163: 688. http ://dx. doi. org/10. 1038/163688a0 snp. 2003. sagarmatha national park buffer zone management plan 2003-2007. sagarmatha national park office, namche bazaar, solukhumbu, nepal. stainton, j. d. a. 1972. forest of nepal. john murray publishers, ltd. london, uk. sundriyal, r. c. and sharma, d. 1996. anthropogenic pressure on tree structure and biomass in the temperate forest of mamlay watershed in sikkim. forest ecology and management 81: 113–134. tiwari, r. m. 2010. comunity structure and regeneration of sub-alpine abies spectabilis (d. don). mirb. forest of langtang national park, central nepal. m. sc. thesis. tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal vetaas, o. r. 2000. the effect of environmental factors on the regeneration of quercus semecarpifolia sm. in central himalayan, nepal. plant ecology 146: 137–144. https ://doi. org/10. 1023/a :1009860227886 vidaković, m. 1991. conifers : morphology and variation. grafičko zavod hrvatske. zagreb, yugoslaviai. west, d. c., shugart, h. h. and ranney, j. w. 1981. population structure of forests over a large area. forest science 27: 701–710. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 12‒24 24 nagarkoti et al. a nn ex 1 : su m m ar y of e nv ir on m en ta l c or re la tio n m at ri x am on g th e ex pl an at or y va ri ab le s (n >1 00 , p ≤ 0 . 0 5, r ≥ |0 . 1 95 |) (* ) in di ca te t he le ve l o f si gn ifi ca nc e at p ≤ 0 . 0 5. el e sp p ttd ts ad ts ed ttb a a se d a sa d tr e sa p se d ph c n lo p lo g g ra li t c an o r oc k rr i el e 1 -0 .6 6 -0 .1 2 -0 .6 0 -0 .4 0. 02 -0 .1 6 -0 .2 3 0. 11 -0 .2 3 -0 .1 7 -0 .3 9 -0 .2 0. 18 -0 .3 3 -0 .2 5 -0 .1 7 0. 12 -0 .2 8 0. 45 -0 .3 1 sp p 1 0. 23 0. 73 0. 25 0. 05 0. 28 0. 45 0. 06 0. 45 0. 29 0. 3 0. 11 -0 .0 6 -0 .1 4 0. 08 0. 05 -0 .1 4 0. 32 -0 .2 2 0. 03 ttd 1 0. 27 -0 .0 4 0. 58 * 0. 39 0. 36 0. 62 0. 36 0. 40 0. 05 0. 25 -0 .0 4 -0 .2 2 0. 2 -0 .0 2 0. 61 * 0. 73 -0 .1 3 -0 .3 4 ts ad 1 0. 31 0. 07 0. 33 0. 36 0. 07 0. 36 0. 34 0. 05 0. 16 -0 .1 8 -0 .0 6 0. 21 0. 24 -0 .0 2 0. 41 -0 .3 7 -0 .2 4 ts ed 1 -0 .1 0. 21 0. 26 -0 .0 8 0. 26 0. 23 -0 .1 7 -0 .0 6 -0 .1 2 -0 .1 -0 .2 5 -0 .1 3 0. 02 -0 .1 1 -0 .3 6 -0 .0 4 ttb a 1 0. 08 -0 .0 3 0. 37 -0 .0 3 0. 08 0. 02 0. 26 -0 .1 -0 .2 5 0. 11 0. 03 0. 47 0. 57 * 0. 01 -0 .3 1 a se d 1 0. 73 * 0. 36 0. 73 * 1 -0 .1 1 -0 .1 9 -0 .2 4 -0 .1 4 0. 12 0. 00 0. 08 0. 14 -0 .2 3 -0 .1 9 a sa d 1 0. 31 1 0. 73 * -0 .1 0. 1 -0 .1 2 -0 .1 8 0. 08 -0 .1 5 0. 08 0. 2 -0 .2 8 -0 .0 9 tr e 1 0. 31 0. 37 -0 .1 1 -0 .0 3 -0 .1 -0 .2 7 -0 .0 4 -0 .1 1 0. 41 0. 5* -0 .2 3 -0 .1 9 sa p 1 0. 73 -0 .0 9 0. 1 -0 .1 2 -0 .1 8 0. 08 -0 .1 5 0. 08 0. 2 -0 .2 8 -0 .0 9 se d 1 -0 .0 9 -0 .2 -0 .2 5 -0 .1 4 0. 11 0. 02 0. 08 0. 14 -0 .2 4 -0 .2 1 ph 1 0. 08 -0 .0 5 0. 12 0. 27 0. 22 -0 .1 6 0. 03 0. 12 0. 37 c 1 0. 27 -0 .2 3 0. 08 -0 .2 6 0. 26 0. 27 -0 .1 7 0. 12 n 1 -0 .1 8 -0 .1 6 -0 .2 7 0. 02 -0 .0 6 0. 23 0. 16 lo p 1 0. 33 0. 4 -0 .1 7 -0 .0 6 -0 .1 3 0. 11 lo g 1 0. 28 -0 .2 2 0. 1 -0 .1 8 0. 01 g ra 1 -0 .1 8 -0 .0 2 0. 06 -0 .1 8 li t 1 0. 54 -0 .1 -0 .4 7 c an o 1 -0 .0 8 -0 .2 4 r oc k 1 0. 12 rr i 1 n ot es :e le = e le va tio n, s pp = s pe ci es , t td = to ta l t re e de ns ity , t sa d = t ot al s ap lin g d en si ty , t se d = t ot al s ee dl in g d en si ty , t tb a = t ot al tr ee b as al a re a, a se d = a bi es s ee dl in g d en si ty , a sa d = a bi es sa pl in g d en si ty , t re = tr ee , s ap = sa pl in g, s ed = se ed lin g, c = c ar bo n, n =n itr og en , l op = lo pp in g, l og = lo gi ng , g ra =g ra zi ng , l it = lit te r, ca no = ca no py , r ri= r el at iv e re fle ct iv e in d 1 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal environmental conundrum: urgency of managing invasive alien species plants, animals and other organisms have evolved and sustained in a specific geographical region for millions of years. species' ability to move from one geographical region to another has largely been limited by natural barriers, such as ocean, mountain and deserts. species' natural barriers of dispersal have, however, been breached by human mobility. human mobility has increased tremendously following the discovery of america and advancement of transport infrastructures as well as expanding network of trade and travel globally. when humans move, they do not move alone; they carry seeds, plant parts, animals, and microorganisms along with them, intentionally or accidently. many species introduced to new localities through human activities do not regenerate naturally while others do, and produce selfsustaining populations in a completely new environment. globally, 37000 species, shifted outside their native range by humans, have established their self-sustaining populations in the introduced regions. some of such established species could be hostile to the native species and ecosystem. such species of plants, animals and microorganisms are referred to as invasive alien species (ias). over 3500 species are known to have negative impacts on native species, environment and human welfare, and have been, therefore, categorized as ias. expanding trade and travel through extensive transport networks have facilitated the unchecked introductions and rapid spread of ias at local, regional, and global-levels. an analysis by philip hulme in 2009 has shown that the number of ias have been rapidly increasing since the beginning of the industrial revolution while it was very low prior to that. ias are projected to expand further with global climate change, increased global trade and movement of people and commodities. ias are among the major threats to biodiversity, and can cause irreversible damage to native species, ecosystem and nature’s contribution to people. an assessment report published by the intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services (ipbes) has attributed ias as a major cause of recent species extinction with their higher impacts on oceanic and small islands. according to the report, invasive species are solely responsible for the extinction of 16% of animal and plant species, globally. biological invasion has also reduced uniqueness of the continents in terms of the species they have, a phenomenon known as biotic homogenization. invasive species cause tremendous economic loss annually which constitutes direct damage (e.g., crop loss and reduced nature’s contribution to people) as well as management cost (e.g., expenses associated with prevention and control including biological control program). according to the ipbes report, a staggering cost of ias to be over us $ 432 billion globally in 2019, which has been predicted to increase in the future. in nepal, a total of 227 species of plants have already been reported as naturalized or established alien species. the number of the invasive alien plant species (iaps) has been reported to be increasing over the years in the nation. in 2005, the iucn reported a total of 21 species of iaps, of which six were flagged out as high-risk-posing species. bharat babu shrestha, a professor of botany at tribhuvan https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i2.62934 2 university, who has been extensively working on iaps for almost two decades, has updated the number of invasive species to thirty. most of the iaps found in nepal are of south american origin. among the thirty species, five species, namely, seto banmara (chromolaena odorata), lahare banmara (mikania micrantha), kande banmara (lantana camara), singapore daisy (sphagneticola trilobata), and jalkumbhi (pontederia crassipes) are among '100 of the world's worst invasive species'. in addition, ipil ipil (leucaena leucocephala) and pate salla (pinus patula), for example, have risk to be invasive in nepal. botanical explorations have clearly shown that invasive species are spreading fast and several of these species are moving both west and northwards. iaps have already affected forests, wetlands, pastures, crop fields and other open areas mainly in the tropical and subtropical regions of nepal. additionally, iaps have suppressed forest regeneration, degraded habitat quality for wildlife, increased risk in forest fire, reduced availability & quality of forest environmental services. furthermore, iaps are management burden in wetlands. an assessment of invasion threat in agriculture across 124 countries has ranked nepal as the third most threatened countries. this issue must be taken as a serious warning as invasion risk in agriculture can have widespread impacts ranging from production cost to food security. acknowledging the threat posed by iaps, nepal's national biodiversity strategy and action plan (nbsap, 2014-2020) has set forward strategies for managing these species. however, the progress in their management is rather slow with most of the targets including policy responses remain unachieved by the end of 2020. governments, communities and other stakeholders have been undertaking field-level actions to control iaps, mainly a few burdensome species in forests and wetlands. local communities' have implemented a range of methodsfrom hand pulling to use of herbicides, to contain these weeds. despite efforts and investments over time, results regarding their management are not satisfactory and enduring, especially in the case of lantana and mikania species. failure to achieve desired outcome in iaps management can be attributed to the lack of long-term perspectives in management and uninformed management decision. every year, one or more established ias have been reported. recently, a new ias, namely mimosa diplotricha has been reported in the eastern terai region of nepal. preliminary report shows that the species has already caused death of around 1000 goats, cows and buffalos in jhapa and morang districts. as the species has limited distribution, there is a window of opportunity to contain the weed in the eastern nepal before it becomes widespread and causes big damage. the mimosa case also provides an opportunity to the nepal government to demonstrate its environmental commitment through early detection and rapid response against ias, and their management within the broader goal of forest landscape restoration is very relevant and important in the context of un decade on ecosystem restoration. most importantly, ias management will largely contribute towards un sustainable development goals (target-15.8) and global biodiversity framework target-6. management of ias is easier when they are identified and responded at the early stage of invasion. failing to capitalize the window of opportunity, which may be short, increases management burden as well as impacts over time. ultimate management of invasive species occurs at local level. therefore, species and ecosystem specific action plans framed with long-term perspectives are required for efficient management of invasive species. local actions and successful practices in turn should be backed by national policies and programs including a strong regulation of quarantine for incoming propagules. lila nath sharma, phd forest action nepal 85 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 demystifying the forest revenue and policy spillovers in the utilization of softwoods in nepal resham b. dangi nepal forest service (retired). email: reshamdangi@gmail.com investigating forest revenue sources, timber auction rules, the spillover effects of trade policies on wood product demand, and import and export trends, this paper explores the influence of sectoral policies on the utilization of softwoods. acknowledging the relative advantages of veneer and plywood exports, it suggests taking promotional measures to enhance the supply of required input products in partnership with other national policies. analyzing wood product export trends, drawing on the authors’ professional experience, raises doubts about the export competitiveness of hardwoods. it concludes by suggesting that concerned authorities revisit the cost centers of hardwood production, adopting a transparent mechanism and ensuring ownership of outcomes. keywords: forest revenue, softwoods, spillover effects, timber auctions, trade policy forest owners expect a return from two productive assets, physical land and biological resources. however, in some typical cases, forest land and biomass may belong to two different owners per contractual arrangements, such as community-based forest management (cbfm), which is one example. in the cbfm, forest users do not hold rights to the land but have rights to access, extract, and sell forest products (biomass). the government reserves the right to regulate cbfm as a legitimate landowner through the management contracts. as long as cbfm maintains forest functions, forest health, and follows approved forest operational plans, forest agencies limit their role to technical support and practice less regulation. in this paper, the term forest owner is used interchangeably to imply all types of forests, such as cbfm, government-managed forests (gmf), and private forest (pf). the forest act 2019 and forest regulation 2022 envisage the forest revenue-generating sources into four categories: forest areas used for extraction activities, green activities, environmental services, and non-forest uses (permanent conversion) (gon, 2015; 2022). forest product extraction activities are a significant source of royalty revenue, but leased forests for rent-and-use are scarce, and their royalty contribution is negligible. another emerging revenue source is payment for environmental services (pes), which generates revenue as a new market mechanism. one such source is the forest carbon trade, which pays for carbon sequestration services through reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (redd+) frameworks. the government of nepal (gon) and the world bank’s forest carbon partnership facility (fcpf) signed an agreement on 24 february 2021, unlocking up to us$45 million to mitigate carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation through 2025 (world bank, 2021). national media of nepal, including republica, rising nepal daily, sharesansar, and radio nepal, reported, quoting the redd implementation center under the ministry of forests and environment (mofe), totaling nrs 1.06 billion equivalent for sequestering 2.4 million tons of carbon from 2018 to 2024 to be disbursed in october 2024 (myrepublica, 2024; sharesansar, 2024). the last royalty source category includes compensatory payments for accessing rights to use forest land for other purposes, as per the agreed terms and conditions, proponents compensate for biodiversity and ecosystem loss. forest owners collect royalty fees for issuing extraction permits and leasing their forest lands received: 21 february 2025 revised: 13 july 2025 accepted: 9 september 2025 published: 30 september 2025 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2, 2025 pp 85-93https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i2.75827 https://orcid.org/0009-0001-9626-0768 86 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 under a rent-and-use arrangement. this paper skips the discussion on royalty revenues in protected areas and further narrows to formal trade-related wood and non-wood products. informally traded and directly consumed goods, for free, are beyond the scope. furthermore, it tightens the discussion in timber auctions and rent redistribution, confining it to the forest area used for extraction activities, and excludes the rest. besides royalty revenue, the government collects revenues from taxes, levies, and service charges, which are often misquoted as royalty revenues. one researcher estimates annual nrs of 19.49-38.99 billion royalty contribution from forests (nfa, 2011, p. 19), and another claims nrs of 300 billion from sustainable management of cbfm, gmf, and pf (pokhrel, 2022, p. 223). in one presentation at the national policy dialogue organized by mofe/fao/ fecofun/ recoftc in 2024, the potential for forest royalty collection was estimated at an annual nrs 28 billion. such wide-ranging estimates imply that authors often project forest revenue by multiplying the estimated annual allowable timber harvest (aah) of accessible forests by expected market prices. the author doubts overestimation due to a false assumption that all forests have the potential to contribute timber royalty revenues. since more than eighty percent of accessible forests fall under cbfm and pf regimes, which generate tax revenue (vat) but not royalty revenues, the author doubts the relevance of such projected figures in policy dialogues. nepal has historical records of standing tree auctions. the government of nepal (gon) endorsed the sixth five-year plan, leading forest agencies to transition to post-harvest (tiwari, 2000, p. 139). this transition occurred when the gon was practicing protectionist and inward-looking trade policies, and domestic industries were in their infancy (khatri, 2018). in the late 1980s, the government adopted a strategic policy to foster local resource-based industries (aryal et al., 2014), and timber auctions fully transitioned to post-harvest auctions by enforcing forest regulation 1995 (gon, 2015). nepal transitioned to a liberal economy in the early 1990s, which accelerated trade liberalization, facilitated the mobilization of foreign direct investment (fdi), and expanded public infrastructure. the fdi finance enabled the gon to expedite rural infrastructure development; however, delays in site clearance extended the project duration, and forest agencies were blamed for increasing project costs. the post-harvest auctions did not align with the construction schedule and portrayed forest agencies as anti-development in the public eye. this situation persisted due to a lack of separate standards for infrastructure development in the forest regulation 1995. the increasing conversion of national forests for infrastructure development increased pressure to expedite tree removal, which dof responded to by reinstating standing tree auctions in forest product (timber/firewood) collection, sales, and distribution guidelines in 2000, explicitly for development projects. this guideline empowered district forest officers (dfos) to expedite tree removal, elaborating on the process in provision 14 under section 5 (dof, 2014). responding to the earthquake-led timber demand shock in 2015, dof drafted new forest product collection and sales-distribution guidelines in late 2015. elaborating on standing tree auctions in provision 19 under section 4 (dof, 2016), guidelines allowed for the execution of standing tree auctions based on stumpage value for softwood species, with a threshold of 200 trees per harvesting plot. dof had envisaged that it would enhance softwood utilization, and dfo staff would become burdenfree by shifting the risks to merchants. however, it did not progress as expected, suggesting that weak governing systems hindered the utilization of softwoods. if softwood utilization were a technical issue, then forest agencies could have attempted to pilot and learn from practicing standing tree auctions in accordance with the directives. to avoid the risk of losing the commercial value of softwood harvests in gmf and cbfm, they are inclined towards hardwoods. as a result, pf contributed to filling softwood supply gaps and dominating the softwood market, as well as national forests in the hardwood market (dangi, 2025a). at the outset, this paper aims to explore the potential of pre-harvest auctions in gmf and cbfm, concluding with a set of policy measures to enhance softwood production. materials and methods this study employs a qualitative research approach to evaluate prevailing timber auction standards and forest taxes, integrating insights from observations, a systematic literature review, and informal dangi 87 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 consultations with forestry professionals and timber merchants to understand the issues about production costs and timber auctions. the author has used professional experience and training background to synthesize the findings of the literature review and insights from key informants, employing an expert judgment methodology. although formal surveys or statistical tools were not used, the author argues that the proposed methodology was consistent with expert-based methods and advocates for the merits of this methodology in interpreting under-documented phenomena. there was limited information available about experiences with standing tree auctions in nepal, and the author contends that the adopted methods are justifiable. the literature review included scholarly journals, policy documents, the forest act/ regulations, and relevant textbooks on forest economics. while searching relevant literature, the author used keywords such as forest revenue, forest royalty, stump value of forest, and forest rent, preferably from developing countries. this study presents a literature review on four key themes: production potentials, forest taxes and fees, forest revenue sources, and royalty enforcement, which are highlighted in the introductory paragraphs. the author consulted reports published by government agencies to collect information about timber production, revenue collection, royalty rates, and foreign trade statistics. synthesizing findings on policy and practices, the author categorized them into regulatory, operational, and strategic shortcomings by examining the literature review findings and key informant observations, integrating these with the author’s own observations. moreover, the author applied the above-stated methodological tool, drawing on over thirty years of professional experience in the forestry sector, and adopted safety measures to normalize biases of informant observations by triangulating them with secondary literature and policy documents. results forest revenue sources the value of the national forest comprises physical resources and growing biomass. the biomass value is appraised for stock values, whereas inherent characteristics and alternative uses determine the values of land resources. governments impose three categories of taxes on forests in one place or another: income taxes, property taxes or their substitutes, and severance taxes (fao, 2003). others suggest two broad classes of forest taxes: harvest taxes and property taxes (amacher et al., 2009). following the forest regulation 2022, forest products are categorized into three main groups: wood (including timber and fuelwood), non-timber forest products (ntfps), and other miscellaneous products. the gon collects royalty revenue from the gmf and, to a lesser extent, from the collaborative forests (cof), as outlined in schedules 6, 7, and 8 (gon, 2022). referring to the verdict of the supreme court bench of india, led by chief justice dy chandrachud, the royalty revenue is distinct from tax revenue (bawa, 2024), which considers royalty as a financial obligation of resource-extracting contractors. therefore, this paper presents forest revenue in three categories: royalty, tax, and non-tax. the royalty revenue sources refer to product extraction activities. the 13% value-added tax (vat) on sales value denotes tax revenue, while pes and compensatory payments represent non-tax revenue. since the constitution of nepal includes the use of natural resources in the concurrent power list (schedule 9) and vat in federal power (schedule 5), it empowers the federal government to collect royalties and vat revenues, respectively. the state (provincial) governments collect non-tax revenue (schedule 6), following constitutional provisions (moljpa, 2020). timber auctioning practices there are widely varying estimates for nepal’s timber production potential, ranging from 2.89 to 25.8 million m³ per year (nfa, 2011; magrath et al., 2013; dfrs, 2015, cited in msfp, 2016; world bank, 2019). one study quoting (subedi et al., 2014) claims that timber supply could be increased to at least 1.66 million m3 annually just by employing a conservative harvesting scenario while it could go up to 9.18 million m3 under an optimistic scenario (jayasawal & bishwokarma, 2016; pp. 2), and another study claims annual production of 3 million m3 timber from 1.3 million ha forests (rai, 2022, p. 228). another study estimates an annual production of 2.9 million m3 of timber, of which 1.7 million m3 would be available in the formal market (dangi, 2024). in forestry literature, the value of a standing tree is the stumpage value that a potential harvester must be willing to pay to purchase harvesting rights. in other words, this is the residual value left after deducting dangi 88 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 associated production costs from the revenue received at the processing unit. under the forest regulation 2022, there are two types of timber auctioning provisions, and any factors that influence revenue and cost change the stumpage value determined by owners in both cases. pre-harvest auctions this method was once a dominant practice in the teria region. it continued till the early seventies, but little information is available about its extent and implications. to overcome the under-reported phenomenon, the author relied on key informants, retired forest officers, timber merchants from the eastern region, and independent forestry experts. the author presents below a summary of synthesized information to maintain anonymity. a forest officer, who was heavily involved in standing tree harvesting activities in eastern terai, particularly in morang and jhapa districts, recollected that the ministry of forests (mof) used to play a dominant role in managing standing tree auctions. indian merchants used to purchase harvesting permission from the ministry by paying upfront revenue for the permitted quantity. if the total harvest volume exceeded the licensed quota, merchants had to pay an additional revenue for the difference. such practices continued till the late seventies, particularly in establishing tea estates in the eastern terai and planned settlements in the western terai. the gon adopted industry-supporting trade policies, which created opportunities for local merchants to participate in timber auctions. when local participation in timber auctions increased, it weakened the monopoly power of indian merchants but elevated public complaints alleging corruption. however, it is acknowledged that indian merchants were efficient in utilizing softwoods in the veneer, matchsticks, paper, and pulp-making industries in nearby indian cities, and successfully avoided the risk of losing commercial value. in standing tree auctions, a prospective buyer must quote bid prices (p) above the predetermined stumpage price and purchase harvest permits for appraised timber volume (q) by paying upfront revenue equivalent to (p×q). therefore, the buyer extracts all possible positive returns to cover the upfront amount and ensure a fair return from investment in labor and capital. moreover, if the appraisal document underestimates the volumes, it risks harvesting high-value commercial trees and leaving low-value commercial trees uncut in the forests. the buyer adopts this strategy to avoid paying the difference for harvesting low-value timber that exceeds the appraised volume. therefore, an accurate volume estimation of standing trees is crucial in encouraging timber buyers to harvest trees until a positive net value is achieved within the harvesting permits. if there are issues with species-level biodiversity conservation, the regulatory agencies reserve the right to impose additional standards for harvesting (such as retaining mother trees and a diameter threshold) to ensure regeneration. moreover, it protects forest owners and forestry professionals from the risk of losing commercial value if harvested timber remains stockpiled under the sun and rain in log yards, and it shifts those risks to timber buyers. if standing tree auctions were effective and efficient, high-position holding forest professionals would have tried to reestablish them in the consecutive forest regulations, because they were aware of the pros and cons of standing tree auctions. since it received little attention in consecutive harvesting standards, the author doubts their effective execution. therefore, a systematic analysis may help to answer why consecutive regulations provided a limited scope for standing tree auctions. post-harvest timber auctions in this timber-selling method, tree owners harvest timber and sell raw logs from the log depots. owners employ labor for harvesting and deliver activities, and sell logs in accordance with rule 25 of the forest regulation 2022. the labor cost occupies the largest share (63%), followed by transportation (37%), in the tree felling, sectioning, and transport to the sales depot (kanel et al., 2012). only wood-based industries or firms can participate in such auctions, and rule 27 restricts them from reselling without adding primary value. no such preconditions prevail in cbfm if logs are sold to their users. while selling logs to non-users, they must determine post-harvest stumpage fees and collect extraction costs separately from timber buyers. while selling, the owners estimate the stumpage fee (p) and disclose the unit extraction cost (hc) for the selling quantity (q). the owner asks buyers to reimburse extraction costs (hc×q) separately. buyers own timber (q) by paying the owner the price (p×q) as revenue. the profit for timber buyers depends on margins between the prices received at the sawmill dangi 89 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 gate and the cost incurred in the contract award and delivery. if harvested logs remain stockpiled in log depots for an extended period, tree owners risk losing commercial value. the harvested logs in gmf and cbfm comprise hardwoods of high commercial value. such skewedness risks over-matured and dead softwoods from being underutilized. the skewed harvesting in gmf and cbfm indicates that the risks outweigh their profit margin, suggesting a weak governance system that hinders them from optimizing the utilization of softwoods. the domination of the softwood market by pf suggests that profit margins outweigh the risks for landowners. according to key informants from the timber industry, they mobilize petty contractors and middlemen to harvest logs in pf and deliver them to the industry gate. any factors that undervalue harvested logs risk reducing the size of available rent and expected profit. using inaccurate log-scaling methods (like the hoppus formula) risks undervaluing volume, enabling log buyers to purchase them by paying less. such practices allow buyers to generate additional profit due to scaling errors. if producers pay labor and transportation costs based on the volume estimated by such methods, they incur lower costs and create equivalent surplus value. therefore, scaling error risks the producers and the government losing revenue, including that of the cf and pf owners, which is elaborated in length elsewhere (dangi, 2025b). furthermore, if regulatory agencies play dual roles, regulating and selling functions, the risk of influencing stumpage fees by manipulating timber appraisal records and log grading is high. a similar risk may also prevail in cbfm when it involves selling to non-users. policy spillovers one study estimates that the projected timber demand for 2020 was 3.7 million m3 (kanel et al., 2012), with the import contribution one-fourth (world bank, 2019). the domestic timber supply contracted in 2020 due to an administrative investigation into scientific forest management in cf, which increased timber imports in 2020. the demand contracted in 2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic. the contraction in construction and furniture-making activities during the covid outbreak further tapered it, leading to less than one-third contribution (dangi, 2024). the foreign trade statistics (fts) of the customs office for the year 2024/25 confirm that the trend of imports of wood–based construction materials has declined, making the import contribution even less (doc, 2025). the construction industry experienced high growth during the post-earthquake reconstruction period (2015-2020). the credit for such growth goes to the increased financial support from donor-funded and public-funded investments in the maintenance and reconstruction of earthquake-damaged physical infrastructure in 2015. the increased investment had boosted the production and supply of construction materials. noticing supply gaps for construction timber, the industrial promotion board awarded a license to prefabricated house manufacturers to produce alternative raw materials for the construction industry. since then, it has gained popularity in the construction industry in nepal (tkp, 2015). the technical support provided by the nra to the furniture makers in rural villages created opportunities to utilize softwoods in furniture making. consequently, the establishment of small and medium-sized sawmills, plywood, veneer, and furniture-making industries increased during the reconstruction phase to respond to consistent market demand. the gon’s decision to reduce the distance for establishing forest-based enterprises from nearby national forests positively contributed to their expansion in rural areas (doi, n.d., p. 27) while the earthquake reconstruction phase was nearing completion, the country faced the covid-19 pandemic, which disrupted economic activities, turning the gdp growth trajectory negative, with demand contraction across consumption, investment, trade, and industrial activity. the manufacturing sector was hard-hit, experiencing a sharp decline due to reduced domestic demand and increased imports (dhungel & lamichhane, 2020). construction projects stalled due to lockdowns and disrupted supply chains, resulting in a significant contraction in investment spending (khanal et al., 2020). aggregate demand did not revive throughout the covid period, resulting in a standstill situation in the country’s overall economic activity. therefore, the earthquake and pandemic influenced the domestic timber industries in opposite manners; the first had an expansionary effect, and the latter had a contractionary impact. therefore, during the post-earthquake reconstruction (2015-2020), the timber supply was enhanced, which was contributed to by domestic and imported products. however, it contracted in the post-pandemic period (october 2021 to september 2022). one such study indicates dangi 90 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 that growth in the construction and manufacturing sectors during the 2023-2024 period has stagnated (world bank, 2025), signaling a contraction in demand for these respective sectors. the foreign trade statistics (fts) maintained by the department of customs (doc) indicate that export values surpassed import values at customs points, positioning wood products as a net exporter for the last two fiscal years (doc, 2025). therefore, figure 1 below supports the author’s earlier argument that imports of wood products (under hs-codes 44014421) surged rapidly during the post-earthquake reconstruction phase to fill the domestic timber supply gap. the contraction of input-product demand by the construction and furniture-making industries during the covid pandemic period had a contractionary influence on wood-product imports. despite reduced export duty on logs and sawn timber, their export performance was low due to cost disadvantages, which hinder their export competitiveness. discussion based on the previous analysis, the author argues here that the current method of projecting forest revenue—by multiplying estimated annual allowable harvests (aah) by market prices is likely to result in overestimation. it makes sense because most earnings from community forests (cf) and a large portion from collaborative forests (cof) are deposited into the users’ accounts, and the government does not receive royalty revenues from them. noting that over eighty percent of accessible forests are under community-based forest management (cbfm) or private ownership, the federal government only receives tax revenue (vat), not royalty revenue (except partially from cof). the standing tree auctions offer upfront revenue for tree owners at a minimal monitoring burden, and a precise merchantable volume estimation forces timber buyers to harvest at a lower risk. in contrast, poor appraisal leads to uncertainty in rent capture where the governing capacity of regulatory agencies is not robust. therefore, gon must be proactive in anticipating unintended risks of implementation. specifically, authorities should critically consider three aspects: (1) precision in merchantable timber appraisal of standing trees, (2) accuracy in measuring harvested timber, and (3) third-party verification of appraisal reports. the second and third are particularly crucial for risk mitigation. since post-harvest regulation requires measuring logs at felling sites and log yards, where the risk of tampering with documents and records prevails. the author considers that the prevailing log measurement standard has a systemic error, which has cascading effects through undervaluation and surplus values for timber buyers. to mitigate the identified risks, the author has suggested strategic actions elsewhere (dangi, 2025b). the effectiveness of policy measures adopted to enhance the utilization of softwoods hinges on the spillover effects of other national policies, such as housing policy, industrial policy, trade policy, construction policy, fiscal policy, and monetary policy. the protection-oriented trade policy enhanced labor-intensive, resource-based industries, and the consecutive liberal trade policies augmented the figure 1: wood-products import and export trends in the last six years (doc, 2025) to respond to the prevailing contractionary input-product demand of the construction and manufacturing sectors, it is suggested that forest owners consider adopting a two-pronged strategy for domestic hardwood and softwood, targeting different marketplaces. the hardwood-based output products can be targeted for a niche market, whereas second-layer processed softwood products target the regional and global marketplaces due to their strong export competitiveness. furthermore, the production process of carved-wooden door and window panels, marquetry products, and wood-based souvenirs requires high-skilled labor, which is difficult to replace with capital-intensive technology. considering their competitive advantage of irreplaceability features, it suggests focusing on product differentiation to capture a premium price. it is worth noting that the veneer and plywood have contributed to reversing the trade balance scenario in the wood product segment, which suggests that their revealed comparative advantages are high. dangi 91 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 expansion of softwood-based processing industries. acknowledging the positive spillover effects of expanded wood-based small and medium-sized enterprises (smes), it suggests promoting and facilitating the veneer and plywood industries to enhance softwood production. analyzing trends in wood product exports paired with prevailing tariff and customs duties, it acknowledges positive spillover effects of reduced customs duty in boosting export of softwood products, and it confirms the competitiveness of plywood and veneer products for export (doc, 2025). however, it acknowledges that the export volume of sawn timber is lower than anticipated by the author (dangi, 2024; dangi, 2025a), which suggests high production costs. acknowledging weak governing systems in regulatory agencies, it suggests that there is a need for systematic and evidence-based cost revisions to enforce regulatory measures. anticipating potential challenges in reducing transaction costs, it suggests revisiting the royalty rate of competitive raw products. the high-level economic reform committee, led by mr. rameshor khanal, suggests that there is a need to enhance economic opportunities where all sectors can compete equally (khatiwada, 2025). it concedes prevailing contraction in construction activities, which risks a further decline in hardwood demand. acknowledging the growing demand for alternative building materials, such as pvc, aluminum, steel, and fiberboard, after the earthquake reconstruction phase, the author anticipates further price falls for hardwoods. the prevailing market scenario signals that stockpiling of hardwoods in log yards is likely to prevail in gmf and cbfm due to high production costs. based on the above-stated trade and economy-related indicators, it is less likely that demand for hardwoods would revive immediately, particularly in urban centers, unless they are made available at a lower price and the construction industry recovers to its full potential shortly. conclusions the pre-harvest auction was advantageous over the post-harvest auction in softwoods for upfront financing, risk-free of stockpiling loss, and minimal inspection burdens. the expansion of manufacturing industries, such as veneer, plywood, and furnituremaking, has positive spillover effects in enhancing the utilization of softwoods. however, market information is critical in promoting softwood, as stockpiling risks them losing commercial value. therefore, prompt delivery without stockpiling loss would enhance their utilization, increase revenues, and reduce imports. at the outset, it suggests revisiting the current standards for promoting softwoods. consider revising forest rule 2022 to provide scope for pre-harvest auctions by ensuring crossverification mechanisms from credible authorities for standing timber appraisals. consider adopting standing tree appraisals where manipulative risks and harvesting activity monitoring burdens are high in post-harvest auctions; consider replacing the current log scaling methods with more precise methods. the reduced export duty has mixed results in promoting the export of domestic timber. the export performance of softwood-based veneer and plywood responded positively to a fair export duty, while hardwoods did not perform well to this policy measure, as expected. at that outset, it suggests considering adopting a two-pronged strategy for domestic hardwood and softwood, targeting different marketplaces. the hardwood-based output products should be targeted for a niche market, whereas second-layer processed softwood products should aim at global marketplaces. since higher royalty rates risk increasing harvesting costs, they make them less competitive in the market. it suggests revisiting the royalty rate of competitive products, adopting a transparent mechanism, enhancing their credibility in the public eye, and ensuring ownership of outcomes. author’s note: the author prepared the manuscript without seeking external financial support. the author extends sincere thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and appreciates the key informants for sharing their viewpoints. the author is solely responsible for the analysis and conclusion, and does not necessarily align with the views of organizations where the author had professional engagement before. references amacher, g. s., ollikainen, m., & koskela, e. 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(2022). natural resource royalty transfers and forest management in nepal (pp. 225-229). a souvenir published on the auspicious occasion of the annual function. national natural resource and fiscal commission, kathmandu, nepal. https:// nnrfc.gov.np/uploads/resources/2022-12-11/ smarika_20791.pdf; subedi, b. p., ghimire, p. l., koontz, a., khanal, s.c., katwal, p., sthapit, k. r., and mishra, s. k. (2014). private sector involvement and investment in nepal’s forestry: status, prospects and ways forward. study report, multistakeholder forestry programme-service support unit, babarmahal, kathmandu. sharesansar. (2024). nepal to receive rs 1.06 billion from carbon trading for terai forest conservation efforts. published on 6 october 2024. https:// www.sharesansar.com/newsdetail/nepal-toreceive-rs-106-billion-from-carbon-tradingfor-terai-forest-conservation-efforts-2024-1006#:~:text=%2dsharesansar,implemented%20 to%20support%20carbon%20trading. tiwari, k. b. (2000). historical perspectives of nepal’s forest management (2nd ed.), multigraphi press, bafal, kathmandu, nepal. tkp. (2015). growing interest in prefab houses. the kathmandu post (tkp). published on 21 june 2015. https://kathmandupost.com/ money/2015/06/21/growing-interest-in-prefabhouses?utm_source=chatgpt.com world bank. (2019). nepal environment sector diagnostic: path to sustainable growth under federalism (a country environmental analysis). world bank, washington, d.c. https://documents1. worldbank.org/curated/en/141591574193407696/ pdf/nepal-environment-sector-diagnostic-pathto-sustainable-growth-under-federalism.pdf world bank. (2021). nepal and world bank sign innovative financing agreement on forests and climate change for building back greener. press release on 26 february 2021. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/pressrelease/2021/02/26/nepal-and-world-bank-signinnovative-financing-agreement-on-forests-andclimate-change-for-building-back-greener world bank. (2025). nepal development update 2025. leveraging resilience and implementing reforms for boosting economic growth (april 2025). world bank, washington, d.c. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/ en/099951004022532326/pdf/idu-c2bf07811145-4639-8b64-321016ade046.pdf dangi 1 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal status of bamboo and rattan sub-sector in nepal belonging to the family "poaceae", bamboos are characterized as evergreen woody grasses. nepal's landscape hosts bamboos in both natural forests and farmlands. in contrast, rattans belong to the subfamily "calamoideae" of palms, and mostly occur in the tarai lowlands. both these plants are considered as nontimber forest products (ntfps). nepal's diverse flora comprises 23 genera and 81 bamboo species/varieties, with over 40 native species, together with 2 genera and 10 rattan species although only 7 have been documented so far. in nepal, bamboos and rattans together cover an area of approximately 63,000 hectares of which 60% lie in natural forests. rattan resources have been significantly depleted due to their overexploitation, immature harvesting, and habitat destruction. bamboos play a pivotal role in maintaining ecosystems as well as in long-term carbon sequestration when harvested sustainably. both bamboos and rattans are commonly used in producing household and garden furniture. in the rural areas, bamboos are used in constructing huts and sheds. additionally, bamboos are used in producing various household items including cabinets, baskets, and handicrafts. moreover, bamboo culms are utilized for scaffolding during the construction of houses and other structures. furthermore, bamboos provide essential support to various wildlife species such as red pandas, bamboo lemurs, and rats. these animals rely on bamboos either for sustenance or as their habitat. conservation of bamboo ecosystems aids in preserving these species. nepal's varied climate supports large-scale bamboo cultivation in community/leasehold forests and private lands, stabilizing slopes and alleviating pressure on national forests. bamboo's versatile utility encompasses food, fodder, fuelwood, and construction materials, making it colloquially known as "poor man's timber". demand for bamboo and rattan products is surging in nepal, driving planting efforts and cottage industries. tens of thousands of people are involved in bamboo and rattan-based enterprises in the nation. national policies and strategies such as the major forest products strategy (1989) underscore their importance. the herbs and ntfp, development policy (2004), the national forest policy (2019), forest sector strategy (2016−2025), industrial policy (2011), trade policy (2015), forest act (2076), forest regulations (2079), national park and wildlife conservation act (1973), and various government plans and other frameworks advocate for their development. during the early 1980’s, the then forest survey and research office under the department of forests had started taxonomic study & research on bamboo propagation, and the then department of forest research and survey (dfrs) under the ministry of forests and soil conservation (now the forest research and training center, frtc, under the ministry of forests and environment) followed the https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i1.58047 2 biological research on bamboo and rattan. furthermore, dfrs in collaboration with the international bamboo and rattan organization (inbar) had established bamboo research plots in the different year at different places of nepal through the then market development of bamboo and rattan products with potential project. some plots have been already handed over to the concerned community forest (cf) user groups. nevertheless, the moso bamboo (phyllostachys edulis) research plots established at baikiwa cf, dhaneshwor, kavrepalanchowk and dharapani cf, kaudanda, kaski are still in operation. besides, the frtc has been conducting research on nursery technology development and extension of moso bamboo for restoration of degraded lands. the development of bamboo and rattan sub-sector in many developing countries is hindered by lack of policy frameworks, research resources, and infrastructures. however, various national and international organizations, projects, and institutes are actively involved in advancing this sector to enhance climate change adaptation, mitigation, livelihoods, and green economies. out of 29 articles set in paris agreement 2016 five articles as identified by inbar were related to climate change alone. established in 1997, the inbar promotes sustainable development through the use of bamboo and rattan in its 50 member states. it fosters south-south cooperation, particularly in construction of safe bamboo structures, land restoration, capacity-building, and green policies. nepal faces a lack of accurate, comparable, and spatially explicit data on bamboo resources. in this regard, the frtc aims to establish a comprehensive inventory of bamboo resources along with their area coverage, distribution and biomass occupancy. nepal has undertaken significant initiatives, including the draft “bamboo and rattan development strategy," a first national road map, planting of 10 million bamboo in the chure region under the president churetarai madhes conservation board, and assessment of financial resources related to bamboo and rattan .the frtc holds the responsibility of executing various initiatives aimed at advancing the development of the bamboo and rattan sub-sector across the nation. furthermore, it serves as the central entity for dealing with the inbar-related matters on behalf of the country. the 12th council session of the inbar held in beijing, china unanimously elected nepal as chair for its 13th council session (2023−2025). nepal is committed to bamboo usage, replacing plastics with bamboo, as promising and noble endeavor. to foster the comprehensive development of the bamboo and rattan sub-sector in our nation, appropriate policies need to be formulated, strategic plans need to be prepared, and collaborative networks among the relevant organizations and institutions need to be established. equally important is training the interested farmers and community forest users on proper cultivation techniques of bamboos and rattans. likewise, supporting entrepreneurs/artisans involved in producing high-quality products for international markets is also a vital aspect of this endeavor. apart from that, establishment of advanced, high-tech nurseries at provincial-level and carrying out research on both native and exotic species of bamboo and rattan are essential. furthermore, collaborations with research-oriented and academic institutions are crucial for boosting up this sub-sector. these concerted efforts will contribute significantly to the growth of the nation's rural economy. bimal kumar acharya under secretary (tech.) forest research and training centre 12 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1, 2025 pp 12-21 https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i1.64913 impact of elevation and soil characteristics on phytochemical constituents and antioxidant potential of berberis aristata and berberis asiatica r. awal , d. r. pant , g. p. joshi * central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal *email: giri.joshi@cdb.tu.edu.np species of berberis have been used for a long time in traditional medicine, especially in the treatment of diarrhea, fever, and ophthalmic problems. the therapeutic potential of these species is attributed to the presence of various phytochemicals. the present study aims to analyze the impact of elevation and soil properties on phytochemical constituents and antioxidant potential of methanolic bark extracts of berberis asiatica and berberis aristata. quantitative estimation of total phenol content (34.13±4.3 to 59.96±1.2 mg gae/g dw) was found to increase with increasing elevation for both species. in contrast, total flavonoid content (31.69±2.4 to 27.24±1.2 mg qe/g dw) and antioxidant potential (ic50; 79.26±0.9 to 102.97±2.3 µg/ml) in both species of berberis were found to decrease with increasing elevation. semi-quantitative estimation of berberine content (0.76±0.01 to 0.95±0.02 mg/g dw), also showed a similar trend. the soil parameters including moisture and total npk content were studied for the samples collected from the same sites used for plant sample collection. all soil parameters also increased with increasing elevation. the increase in soil moisture and npk content showed an increase in total phenol content but a decrease in berberine and total flavonoid content for both species of berberis. overall, the outcome of the present study reveals the impact of elevational gradients and soil characteristics on phytochemical content and antioxidant potential in two species of berberis. key words: berberis; elevation; soil characteristics; flavonoids; phenols; antioxidant activity. berberis, the largest genus in the berberidaceae, grows in most vegetation types throughout nepal, from 1000-4600 m asl. it is an ideal group to study the effect of the himalayan orogeny on plant diversification as it grows in a wide range of habitats including forest floor, forest margin, open pastures at higher elevations, semi-desert vegetation, and the margins of cultivated land. some species of berberis found in nepal are widespread while others are much more geographically and elevationally restricted (mouri et al., 2004). among the 21 species, b. asiatica commonly occurs in the western and central himalayas, and in tibetan plateau at an elevational range from 1000-2700 m asl. similarly, b. aristata is often found in small patches on the hilly slopes in the central, western, and eastern himalayas at an elevation ranging from 1300-3400 m asl. (adhikari et al., 2012). berberis species are known for their ability to treat different ailments. every part of the plant including the root, bark, stem, and fruit, is used in different ayurvedic preparations. among these, the stem and root are the most extensively studied in b. aristata and b. asiatica, mainly for their medicinal properties (bhardwaj & kaushik, 2012). in nepal, extracts from the stem and root of these species are used as ophthalmic medicine, and to treat jaundice, fever, diarrhea, and other conditions (manandhar, 2002). similar applications have also been reported for the bark extracts of b. aristata in the traditional sowa rigpa system of medicine (ghimire et al., received: 18, april 2024 revised: 11, january 2025 accepted: 12, february 2025 published: 30, may 2025 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-9174-2310 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5247-8052 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9166-3974 13 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1awal et al. 2021). the medicinal effects of berberis spp. are attributed to various compounds, mainly isoquinoline alkaloids like berberine present in different parts of the plant (saied et al., 2007). berberine has also been reported to exhibit antioxidant, antiinûammatory, hepatoprotective, anti-hyperglycemic and hypotensive properties (soffar et al., 2001; semwal et al., 2009; singh & kakkar, 2009; končić et al., 2010; tiwari & khosa, 2010). the quantity and quality of alkaloids in plants are, to some extent, genetically controlled but are also greatly influenced by varying growth conditions arising from difference in elevation and soil properties including moisture and potassium content (nautiyal, 2007; andola et al., 2010). although significant work has been conducted on various aspects of berberis species, studies on nepalese species have been confined merely to either ethnobotanical studies (rawal et al., 2009) or taxonomic revision (adhikari et al., 2012). consequently, investigations into the influence of ecological variation on their phytochemical profiles remained limited. in this background, the present study aims to determine the effects of elevational gradients and soil characteristics on the phytochemical content and antioxidant activity of bark extracts from two species of berberis namely, berberis aristata and berberis asiatica in nepal. materials and methods plant material and soil samples the samples (stem bark and soil) were collected from three different elevations (1400 m, 1900 m and 2400 m) of the champadevi hill, kathmandu in february 2016. b. aristata samples were collected from 1900 m and 2400 m while those of b. asiatica were collected from all three elevations. barks were taken from mature, thick twigs that were cut from the plants. similarly, soil samples were collected from the depth of 5 cm beneath each berberis plant. voucher specimens were collected from each sampling site, and representative herbarium specimens have been deposited at tribhuwan university central herbarium (tuch). table 1 summarizes the details of the berberis samples collected from different elevations of champadevi hill, kathmandu. preparation of methanolic extracts the plant samples were extracted following khanal et al. (2015) with minor modifications. collected bark samples were cleaned to remove mosses, lichens, and dust particles. the samples were air-dried in the shade for three weeks to remove moisture and then ground. the powder was sieved to obtain a fine powder for the extraction procedure. ten grams of the powder from each sample were mixed with 100 ml of methanol in a vial and subjected to sonication (uc-7240bdt e-chrome tech, taiwan) for 2 hours for the first extraction, then filtered through whatman no. 1 filter paper. the same process was repeated on the residue for another 1 hour and filtered as before. both filtrates were combined and then evaporated using a rotary evaporator under reduced pressure. the crude extracts were allowed to dry on petri plates under aseptic conditions. the dried extracts were scrapped off the petri plates and stored in 2 ml polypropylene tubes at -20 °c. determination of total phenolic contents (tpc) the total phenolic content (tpc) of the methanolic extracts was determined using the folin–ciocalteu method as described by ainsworth and gillespie (2007). 100 µl of the plant extract (2.5 mg/ml) was separately mixed with 1 ml of 10-fold diluted folinciocalteu phenol reagent (fisher scientific) and 0.8 ml of 1 m solution of na2co3 solution. the reaction mixture was incubated at room temperature for 15 minutes and absorbance was measured at 765nm using the uv-visible spectrophotometer (ct-8200, e-chrome tech, taiwan). a blank was prepared by substituting the plant extract with 100 µl of absolute methanol in the reaction mixture. for calibration, a standard curve was generated using gallic acid solution of different concentrations (25-250 µg/ml) prepared in a 50:50 (v/v) methanol–water mixture total phenolic content in the plant extract were then quantified by using standard calibration curve. the tpc of the extracts was expressed as milligrams of table 1: details of collected plant samples from champadevi hill, kathmandu were collected from 1900 m and 2400 m while those of b. asiatica were collected from all three elevations. barks were taken from mature, thick twigs that were cut from the plants. similarly, soil samples were collected from the depth of 5 cm beneath each berberis plant. voucher specimens were collected from each sampling site, and representative herbarium specimens have been deposited at tribhuwan university central herbarium (tuch). table 1 summarizes the details of the berberis samples collected from different elevations of champadevi hill, kathmandu. table 1: details of collected plant samples from champadevi hill, kathmandu sn species name plant part collected elevation (m asl.) latitude/longitude 1 berberis aristata stem bark 1900 27°38'17" n, 85°15'43" e 2 berberis aristata stem bark 2400 27°38'58" n, 85°14'09" e 3 berberis asiatica stem bark 1400 27°39'24" n, 85°15'51" e 4 berberis asiatica stem bark 1900 27°38'17" n, 85°15'43" e 5 berberis asiatica stem bark 2400 27°38'58" n, 85°14'09" e preparation of methanolic extracts the plant samples were extracted following khanal et al. (2015) with minor modifications. collected bark samples were cleaned to remove mosses, lichens, and dust particles. the samples were air-dried in the shade for three weeks to remove moisture and then ground. the powder was sieved to obtain a fine powder for the extraction procedure. ten grams of the powder from each sample were mixed with 100 ml of methanol in a vial and subjected to sonication (uc7240bdt e-chrome tech, taiwan) for 2 hours for the first extraction, then filtered through whatman no. 1 filter paper. the same process was repeated on the residue for another 1 hour and filtered as before. both filtrates were combined and then evaporated using a rotary evaporator under reduced pressure. the crude extracts were allowed to dry on petri plates under aseptic conditions. the dried extracts were scrapped off the petri plates and stored in 2 ml polypropylene tubes at -20°c. determination of total phenolic contents (tpc) the total phenolic content (tpc) of the methanolic extracts was determined using the folin� ciocalteu method as described by ainsworth and gillespie (2007). 100 l of the plant extract (2.5mg/ml) was separately mixed with 1 ml of 10-fold diluted folin-ciocalteu phenol reagent (fisher scientific) and 0.8 ml of 1 m solution of na2co3 solution. the reaction mixture was incubated at room temperature for 15 minutes and absorbance was measured at 765nm using the uv-visible spectrophotometer (ct-8200, e-chrome tech, taiwan). a blank was prepared by 14 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 awal et al. gallic acid equivalent per gram of dry weight (mg gae/g dw). determination of total flavonoid contents (tfc) the total flavonoid content (tfc) was determined using the aluminum chloride (alcl3) colorimetric method following roy et al. (2011) with slight modifications. 250 μl of methanolic extract (10 mg/ ml) of each sample was separately mixed with the 750 µl of methanol, 50 µl of 10% aqueous aluminum chloride solution, 50 µl of 1 m potassium acetate solution, and 1.4 ml of distilled water. the resulting mixture was shaken and kept at room temperature for 30 minutes. the absorbance was then measured at 415 nm using the uv-visible spectrophotometer (ct-8200, e-chrome tech, taiwan). a standard calibration curve was prepared using quercetin solutions (10–100 µg/ml in methanol), while the blank was prepared by replacing the plant extract with methanol. the tfc was expressed in terms of mg qe/g dw i.e. milligram of quercetin per gram of dry matter by using the equation of linear curve. berberine content thin layer chromatography (tlc) was performed to detect and quantify the major alkaloid berberine present in the methanolic bark extract of two species of berberis following wagner and bladt (1996). a stock solution of berberine (1 mg/ml; sigma aldrich, germany) was prepared in methanol and subsequently diluted to prepare a series of of 0, 25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 200 μg/ml. a 5 µl aliquot of each berberine standard solution and the plant extract (5mg/ml) were loaded on tlc silica gel 60 f254 plates (merck kgaa, germany) making spot 2 cm above the bottom. the plates were then run in the mobile phase consisting of methanol: acetic acid: water (8:1:1, v/v/v) until the solvent front reached approximately three-quarters of the plate. then, the plate was air dried and visualized under a uv chamber at 365 nm. the intensities of fluorescence quenching of the bands in the samples and reference standard in the photograph were estimated by using gelquant, net software version 1.8.2 (biochemlabsolutions.com). a standard calibration curve was generated by plotting the intensity of berberine against the concentration. the amount of berberine in different plant samples was then estimated semi-quantitatively using the standard curve. antioxidant activity assay the antioxidant activity of the plant extract was determined using the dpph (2, 2diphenyl-1 picrylhydrazyl) free radical scavenging activity with ascorbic acid as the standard (singh et al., 2002). various concentrations of the plant extracts (25-200 µg/ml) and ascorbic acid (10-100 µg/ml) were prepared in methanol in clean test tubes. then, 0.5 ml of each sample was mixed with 0.5 ml of 0.2 mm dpph solution. the mixture was shaken thoroughly and incubated in the dark for 30 minutes. a control solution was prepared in the same way, but with pure methanol instead of plant extract. after incubation, the absorbance was measured at 517nm using a uv-visible spectrophotometer (ct-8200, e-chrome tech, taiwan). the free radical scavenging activity (rsa) of the plant samples was calculated as a percentage by using following formula: the ic50 value of the dpph radical scavenging activity of plant samples was calculated using the formula: ic50 = exp (ln (conc.> 50%) – ((pi > 50% – 50)/ (pi > 50% – pi < 50%)*ln(conc. > 50%/conc. < 50%))) analysis of soil parameters moisture content soil moisture content was determined following the method described by o’kelly (2004) with slight modifications. fifty grams of soil were oven dried at 110 °c for 24 hours and then weighed. the soil moisture content (%) was calculated by using the formula: moisture content (%) = 100 × (w1-w2)/w1 where, w1 is the initial weight of the soil, w2 is the final weight after oven drying soil ph twenty grams of finely ground air-dried soil were placed in a beaker and 40 ml of distilled water was added to it. this mixture was stirred thoroughly and allowed to stand undisturbed for 1 hour. the ph of the suspension soil was then measured by using a ph meter (hanna hi 208 model). antioxidant activity assay the antioxidant activity of the plant extract was determined using the dpph (2, 2diphenyl-1 picrylhydrazyl) free radical scavenging activity with ascorbic acid as the standard (singh et al., 2002). variousconcentrations of the plant extracts (25-200 g/ml) and ascorbic acid (10-100 g/ml) were prepared in methanol in clean test tubes. then, 0.5 ml of each sample was mixed with 0.5 ml of 0.2 mm dpph solution. the mixture was shaken thoroughlyand incubated in the dark for 30 minutes. a control solution was prepared in the same way,but with pure methanol instead of plant extract.after incubation, the absorbance was measured at 517nm using a uvvisible spectrophotometer (ct-8200, e-chrome tech, taiwan). the free radical scavenging activity (rsa) of the plant samples was calculated as a percentage by using following formula: % radical scavenging activity (rsa) =     the ic50 value of the dpph radical scavenging activity of plant samples was calculated using the formula:                       analysis of soil parameters moisture content soil moisture content was determined following the method described by o�kelly (2004) with slight modifications. fifty grams of soil wereoven dried at 110°c for 24 hours and then weighed. the soil moisture content (%) was calculated by using the formula: moisture content (%) = 100* (w1-w2)/w1 where, w1 is the initial weight of the soil, w2 is the final weight after oven drying soil ph twenty grams of finely ground air-dried soil wereplaced in a beaker and 40 ml of distilled water was added to it. this mixture was stirred thoroughly and allowed to stand undisturbed for 1 hour.the ph of the suspension soil was then measured by using a ph meter (hanna hi 208 model). nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium content 15 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1awal et al. nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium content the total nitrogen (%) in the soil was analyzed by kjeldahl method (kjeldahl, 1883). organic matter was oxidized by treating the soil with concentrated sulphuric acid (h2so4). the digestion of the soil with sulphuric acid was facilitated by using sodium sulfate (na2so4). the digestion solution liberated ammonia, which was collected in a boric acid solution and titrated with standardized dilute acid using a mixed indicator. similarly, total phosphorus content (kg/ha) was determined following the modified olsen method (olsen et al., 1954). the extracting solution was sodium bicarbonate at ph 8.5 with a soil-to-solutin ratio of 1:20. total potassium content (kg/ha) was measured using a photometric method. potassium content in the leaching extract was made with 1n ammonium-acetate at ph 7.0. the soil extract was then measured using a flame photometer (labtronics 65). data analysis all the experiments were performed in triplicates for each sample, and the values are reported as mean ± standard deviation (s.d.). all statistical analyses were conducted using microsoft excel 2013. results total phenolic content (tpc) the standard graph obtained from the standard solution of gallic acid used to determine the total phenolic content (tpc) in the sample extracts is shown in figure 1. in both species, tpc showed an increasing trend with elevation. in b. aristata, the highest tpc (58.04 ± 2.08 mg gae/g dw) and the lowest tpc content (53.29 ± 5.5 mg gae/g dw) were observed in extracts of samples from 2400 m and 1900 m, respectively. similarly, for b. asiatica the highest tpc (59.96 ± 1.23 mg gae/g dw) and the lowest (34.13 ± 4.27 mg gae/g dw) were observed in extracts of samples from 2400 m and 1400 m, respectively (figure 2). figure 2: total phenolic content present in the methanolic extract of two species of berberis in different elevation. dw: dry weight total flavonoid content (tfc) a standard graph of quercetin used to determine total flavonoid content (tfc) is presented in figure 3. in both species, tfc in the bark extracts showed a decreasing trend with increasing elevation. in b. aristata, the tfc highest value (29.85 ± 0.93 mg qe/g dw) was obtained in the extracts from 1900 m, while the lowest value (27.71 ± 1.08 mg qe/g dw) was from the extracts of samples from 2400 m. similarly, in b. asiatica the highest tfc (31.7 ± 2.4 mg qe/g dw) was found in the sample from 1400 m, and the lowest (27.2 ± 1.2 mg qe/g dw) at 2400 m (figure 4). the total nitrogen (%) in the soil was analyzed by kjeldahl method (kjeldahl, 1883). organic matter was oxidized by treating the soil with concentrated sulphuric acid (h2so4). the digestion of the soil with sulphuric acid was facilitated by using sodium sulfate (na2so4). the digestion solution liberated ammonia, which was collected in a boric acid solution and titrated with standardized dilute acid using a mixed indicator. similarly, total phosphorus content (kg/ha) was determined following the modified olsen method (olsen et al., 1954). the extracting solution was sodium bicarbonate at ph 8.5 with a soil-to-solutin ratio of 1:20. total potassium content (kg/ha) was measured using a photometric method. potassium content in the leaching extract was made with 1n ammonium-acetate at ph 7.0. the soil extract was then measured using a flame photometer (labtronics 65). data analysis all the experiments were performed in triplicates for each sample, and the values are reported as mean ± standard deviation (s.d.). all statistical analyses were conducted using microsoft excel 2013. results total phenolic content (tpc) the standard graph obtained from the standard solution of gallic acid used to determine the total phenolic content (tpc) in the sample extracts is shown in figure 1. in both species, tpc showed an increasing trend with elevation. in b. aristata, the highest tpc (58.04±2.08 mg gae/g dw) and the lowest tpc content (53.29±5.5 mg gae/g dw) were observed in extracts of samples from 2400 m and 1900 m, respectively. similarly, for b. asiatica the highest tpc (59.96±1.23 mg gae/g dw) and the lowest (34.13 ±4.27 mg gae/g dw) were observed in extracts of samples from 2400 m and 1400 m, respectively (figure 2). figure 1: standard curve of gallic acid for calibration of total phenolic content y = 0.0016x + 0.1867 r² = 0.9791 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 a bs or ba nc e at 7 65 nm concentration of gallic acid µg/ml figure 2: total phenolic content present in the methanolic extract of two species of berberis in different elevation. dw: dry weight total flavonoid content (tfc) a standard graph of quercetin used to determine total flavonoid content (tfc) is presented in figure 3. in both species, tfc in the bark extracts showed a decreasing trend with increasing elevation. in b. aristata, the tfc highest value (29.85±0.93 mg qe/g dw) was obtained in the extracts from 1900 m, while the lowest value (27.71±1.08 mg qe/g dw) was from the extracts of samples from 2400 m. similarly, in b. asiatica the highest tfc (31.7±2.4 mg qe/g dw) was found in the sample from 1400 m, and the lowest (27.2±1.2 mg qe/g dw) at 2400 m (figure 4). figure 3: standard curve quercetin for calibration of the total flavonoid content 53.29 58.04 0 20 40 60 80 1900 m 2400 mtp c in m g g a e/ gm d w berberis aristata 34.13 52.54 59.96 0 20 40 60 80 1400 m 1900 m 2400 mtp c in m g g a e/ gm d w berberis asiatica y = 0.0014x + 0.0916 r² = 0.983 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 a bs or ba nc e at 4 15 nm concentration of quercetin (µg/ml) figure 2: total phenolic content present in the methanolic extract of two species of berberis in different elevation. dw: dry weight total flavonoid content (tfc) a standard graph of quercetin used to determine total flavonoid content (tfc) is presented in figure 3. in both species, tfc in the bark extracts showed a decreasing trend with increasing elevation. in b. aristata, the tfc highest value (29.85±0.93 mg qe/g dw) was obtained in the extracts from 1900 m, while the lowest value (27.71±1.08 mg qe/g dw) was from the extracts of samples from 2400 m. similarly, in b. asiatica the highest tfc (31.7±2.4 mg qe/g dw) was found in the sample from 1400 m, and the lowest (27.2±1.2 mg qe/g dw) at 2400 m (figure 4). figure 3: standard curve quercetin for calibration of the total flavonoid content 53.29 58.04 0 20 40 60 80 1900 m 2400 mtp c in m g g a e/ gm d w berberis aristata 34.13 52.54 59.96 0 20 40 60 80 1400 m 1900 m 2400 mtp c in m g g a e/ gm d w berberis asiatica y = 0.0014x + 0.0916 r² = 0.983 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 a bs or ba nc e at 4 15 nm concentration of quercetin (µg/ml) figure 1: standard curve of gallic acid for calibration of total phenolic content 16 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 awal et al. figure 3: standard curve quercetin for calibration of the total flavonoid content in both species, berberine content was highest in extracts from samples collected at lower elevations, and lowest in those of higher elevations. the berberine content in extracts of samples from corresponding elevations was comparable between the two berberis species (figure 6). figure 2: total phenolic content present in the methanolic extract of two species of berberis in different elevation. dw: dry weight total flavonoid content (tfc) a standard graph of quercetin used to determine total flavonoid content (tfc) is presented in figure 3. in both species, tfc in the bark extracts showed a decreasing trend with increasing elevation. in b. aristata, the tfc highest value (29.85±0.93 mg qe/g dw) was obtained in the extracts from 1900 m, while the lowest value (27.71±1.08 mg qe/g dw) was from the extracts of samples from 2400 m. similarly, in b. asiatica the highest tfc (31.7±2.4 mg qe/g dw) was found in the sample from 1400 m, and the lowest (27.2±1.2 mg qe/g dw) at 2400 m (figure 4). figure 3: standard curve quercetin for calibration of the total flavonoid content 53.29 58.04 0 20 40 60 80 1900 m 2400 mtp c in m g g a e/ gm d w berberis aristata 34.13 52.54 59.96 0 20 40 60 80 1400 m 1900 m 2400 mtp c in m g g a e/ gm d w berberis asiatica y = 0.0014x + 0.0916 r² = 0.983 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 a bs or ba nc e at 4 15 nm concentration of quercetin (µg/ml) figure 4: total flavonoid content in methanolic bark extract of two species of berberis from different elevations. dw: dry weight berberine content a standard graph of berberine was obtained from the standard marker compound, and the equation of the calibration curve used to quantify the amount of berberine in samples collected from different elevations for both berberis species is shown in figure 5. figure 5: standard curve of berberine for calibration of the total berberine content in both species, berberine content was highest in extracts from samples collected at lower elevations, and lowest in those of higher elevations. the berberine content in extracts of samples from corresponding elevations was comparable between the two berberis species (figure 6). 29.85 27.71 0 10 20 30 40 1900 m 2400 m tf c in m g q e/ gm d w berberis aristata 31.69 29.85 27.24 0 10 20 30 40 1400 m 1900 m 2400 m tf c in m g q e/ gm d w berberis asiatica y = 0.0011x + 0.0281 r² = 0.991 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0 50 100 150 200 250 m ea n ba nd in te ns ity berberine concentration µg/ml figure 4: total flavonoid content in methanolic bark extract of two species of berberis from different elevations. dw: dry weight berberine content a standard graph of berberine was obtained from the standard marker compound, and the equation of the calibration curve used to quantify the amount of berberine in samples collected from different elevations for both berberis species is shown in figure 5. figure 5: standard curve of berberine for calibration of the total berberine content in both species, berberine content was highest in extracts from samples collected at lower elevations, and lowest in those of higher elevations. the berberine content in extracts of samples from corresponding elevations was comparable between the two berberis species (figure 6). 29.85 27.71 0 10 20 30 40 1900 m 2400 m tf c in m g q e/ gm d w berberis aristata 31.69 29.85 27.24 0 10 20 30 40 1400 m 1900 m 2400 m tf c in m g q e/ gm d w berberis asiatica y = 0.0011x + 0.0281 r² = 0.991 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0 50 100 150 200 250 m ea n ba nd in te ns ity berberine concentration µg/ml figure 4: total flavonoid content in methanolic bark extract of two species of berberis from different elevations. dw: dry weight berberine content a standard graph of berberine was obtained from the standard marker compound, and the equation of the calibration curve used to quantify the amount of berberine in samples collected from different elevations for both berberis species is shown in figure 5. figure 4: total flavonoid content in methanolic bark extract of two species of berberis from different elevations. dw: dry weight berberine content a standard graph of berberine was obtained from the standard marker compound, and the equation of the calibration curve used to quantify the amount of berberine in samples collected from different elevations for both berberis species is shown in figure 5. figure 5: standard curve of berberine for calibration of the total berberine content in both species, berberine content was highest in extracts from samples collected at lower elevations, and lowest in those of higher elevations. the berberine content in extracts of samples from corresponding elevations was comparable between the two berberis species (figure 6). 29.85 27.71 0 10 20 30 40 1900 m 2400 m tf c in m g q e/ gm d w berberis aristata 31.69 29.85 27.24 0 10 20 30 40 1400 m 1900 m 2400 m tf c in m g q e/ gm d w berberis asiatica y = 0.0011x + 0.0281 r² = 0.991 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0 50 100 150 200 250 m ea n ba nd in te ns ity berberine concentration µg/ml figure 5: standard curve of berberine for calibration of the total berberine content figure 6: berberine content (bc) in methanolic bark extract of two species of berberis from different elevations antioxidant activity ic50 value of dpph radical scavenging activity for ascorbic acid was found to be 19.62 µg/ml, whereas the ic50 values for bark extracts of both berberis species were significantly higher. in both species, the highest ic50 value was obtained in extracts from samples collected at the lowest elevation, and the lowest value was obtained in those from the highest elevation, indicating higher antioxidant potential in extracts of samples from higher elevation (figure 7). figure 6: berberine content (bc) in methanolic bark extract of two species of berberis from different elevations antioxidant activity ic50 value of dpph radical scavenging activity for ascorbic acid was found to be 19.62 µg/ml, whereas the ic₅₀ values for bark extracts of both berberis species were significantly higher. in both species, the highest ic50 value was obtained in extracts from samples collected at the lowest elevation, and the lowest value was obtained in those from the highest elevation, indicating higher antioxidant potential in extracts of samples from higher elevation. (figure 7). figure 7: ic50 value for dpph radical scavenging activity in methanolic extracts of two species of berberis from different elevations. bar: berberis aristata, bas: berberis asiatica impact of soil characteristics the values of different soil parameters in the samples from different elevations are presented in table 2. all tested parameters increased with increasing elevation. 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1900m 2400m b c m g/ gm d w berberis aristata 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1400m 1900m 2400m b c m g/ gm d w berberis asiatica 19.62 102.97 88.12 90.76 82.39 79.26 0 50 100 150 ascorbic acid bar 1900m bar 2400m bas 1400m bas 1900m bas 2400m ic 50 va lu e figure 6: berberine content (bc) in methanolic bark extract of two species of berberis from different elevations antioxidant activity ic50 value of dpph radical scavenging activity for ascorbic acid was found to be 19.62 µg/ml, whereas the ic₅₀ values for bark extracts of both berberis species were significantly higher. in both species, the highest ic50 value was obtained in extracts from samples collected at the lowest elevation, and the lowest value was obtained in those from the highest elevation, indicating higher antioxidant potential in extracts of samples from higher elevation. (figure 7). figure 7: ic50 value for dpph radical scavenging activity in methanolic extracts of two species of berberis from different elevations. bar: berberis aristata, bas: berberis asiatica impact of soil characteristics the values of different soil parameters in the samples from different elevations are presented in table 2. all tested parameters increased with increasing elevation. 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1900m 2400m b c m g/ gm d w berberis aristata 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1400m 1900m 2400m b c m g/ gm d w berberis asiatica 19.62 102.97 88.12 90.76 82.39 79.26 0 50 100 150 ascorbic acid bar 1900m bar 2400m bas 1400m bas 1900m bas 2400m ic 50 va lu e figure 6: berberine content (bc) in methanolic bark extract of two species of berberis from different elevations antioxidant activity ic50 value of dpph radical scavenging activity for ascorbic acid was found to be 19.62 µg/ml, whereas the ic₅₀ values for bark extracts of both berberis species were significantly higher. in both species, the highest ic50 value was obtained in extracts from samples collected at the lowest elevation, and the lowest value was obtained in those from the highest elevation, indicating higher antioxidant potential in extracts of samples from higher elevation. (figure 7). figure 7: ic50 value for dpph radical scavenging activity in methanolic extracts of two species of berberis from different elevations. bar: berberis aristata, bas: berberis asiatica impact of soil characteristics the values of different soil parameters in the samples from different elevations are presented in table 2. all tested parameters increased with increasing elevation. 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1900m 2400m b c m g/ gm d w berberis aristata 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 1400m 1900m 2400m b c m g/ gm d w berberis asiatica 19.62 102.97 88.12 90.76 82.39 79.26 0 50 100 150 ascorbic acid bar 1900m bar 2400m bas 1400m bas 1900m bas 2400m ic 50 va lu e figure 7: ic50 value for dpph radical scavenging activity in methanolic extracts of two species of berberis from different elevations. bar: berberis aristata, bas: berberis asiatica 17 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1awal et al. table: 2 measurements of different parameters of soil samples of different elevation sn soil characteristics elevation (m asl.) 1400 1900 2400 1. moisture content (%) 20.53±0.37 20.85±0.92 27.35±2.79 2. total nitrogen content (%) 0.40±0.02 0.41±0.03 1.10±0.20 3. total phosphorus content (p2o5) (kg/ha) 100.30±2.38 111.23±2.93 114.82±1.03 4. total potassium content (k2o) (kg/ha) 174.20±3.54 294.80±4.85 710.20±0.93 5. soil ph 5.46±0.00 5.45±0.04 5.69±0.08 discussion plant phenols represent one of the major groups of compounds acting as primary antioxidants or free radical terminators (sofidiya et al., 2012). these secondary metabolites are generally involved in defense mechanism against ultraviolet (uv) radiation and aggression by pathogens (beckman, 2000). they are also responsible for antioxidant properties in cells (velioglu et al., 1998) the total phenolic content in aqueous extracts of b. integerrima and b. vulgaris was reported as 6.8 ± 0.1 and 2.3 ± 0.3 mg gae/g dry mass (dm), respectively (bayani et al., 2016). bhatt et al. (2018) reported phenol contents of 11.04±2.2 and 13.73±1.65 mg gae/g in bark extracts of b. aristata and b. thomsoniana, respectively from sagarmatha national park, nepal. similarly, parajuli et al. (2012) reported total phenolic content of 80.2±0.1 mg gae/g in stem extracts of b. aristata. the phenolic contents in extracts of b. aristata in the present study is in the range between those reported by bhatt et al. (2018) and parajuli et al. (2012). variation in phenolic content may be due to genetic variation, environmental conditions, timing of sample collection, and altitudinal factors (ghimire et al., 2011). furthermore, the present study also reveals an increase in total phenolic content with increased elevation in both the species of berberis. similar findings were also reported in thalictrum foliolosum (pandey et al., 2018). flavonoids are one of the most extensively studied groups of secondary metabolites in higher plants because they are the major constituents of plant pigments (mol et al., 1998). flavonoid variations are also considered a phytochemical adaptation to the abiotic and biotic environment (dixon & pavia, 1995). flavonoids are potent antioxidants because of their free radical scavenging activity (pal et al., 2009). total flavonoid content of b. aristata stem extract is reported to range from 3.03±0.32 mg qe/g (bhatt et al., 2018) to 122.2±0.4 mg qe/g (parajuli impact of soil characteristics the values of different soil parameters in the samples from different elevations are presented in table 2. all tested parameters increased with increasing elevation. discussion plant phenols represent one of the major groups of compounds acting as primary antioxidants or free radical terminators (sofidiya et al., 2012). these secondary metabolites are generally involved in defense mechanism against ultraviolet (uv) radiation and aggression by pathogens (beckman, 2000). they are also responsible for antioxidant properties in cells (velioglu et al., 1998) the total phenolic content in aqueous extracts of b. integerrima and b. vulgaris was reported as 6.8 ± 0.1 and 2.3 ± 0.3 mg gae/g dry mass (dm), respectively (bayani et al., 2016). bhatt et al. (2018) reported phenol contents of 11.04 ± 2.2 and 13.73 ± 1.65 mg gae/g in bark extracts of b. aristata and b. thomsoniana, respectively from sagarmatha national park, nepal. similarly, parajuli et al. (2012) reported total phenolic content of 80.2 ± 0.1 mg gae/g in stem extracts of b. aristata. the phenolic contents in extracts of b. aristata in the present study is in the range between those reported by bhatt et al. (2018) and parajuli et al. (2012). variation in phenolic content may be due to genetic variation, environmental conditions, timing of sample collection, and altitudinal factors (ghimire et al., 2011). furthermore, the present study also reveals an increase in total phenolic content with increased elevation in both the species of berberis. similar findings were also reported in thalictrum foliolosum (pandey et al., 2018). flavonoids are one of the most extensively studied groups of secondary metabolites in higher plants because they are the major constituents of plant pigments (mol et al., 1998). flavonoid variations are also considered a phytochemical adaptation to the abiotic and biotic environment (dixon & pavia, 1995). flavonoids are potent antioxidants because of their free radical scavenging activity (pal et al., 2009). total flavonoid content of b. aristata stem extract is reported to range from 3.03 ± 0.32 mg qe/g (bhatt et al., 2018) to 122.2 ± 0.4 mg qe/g (parajuli et al., 2012), while the bark extracts have shown values around 6.08 ± 0.50 mg qe/g (bhatt et al., 2018). the tfc values in bark extracts of b. aristata in the present study are substantially higher than those reported by bhatt et al. (2018). furthermore, the present study found a negative correlation between tfc and elevation in both species of berberis. pandey et al. (2018) however, have reported a positive correlation between elevation and flavonoid content in t. foliolosum. antioxidants play a major role in protection against molecular oxidative damage (evans, 2007). precisely, antioxidants are compounds that delay or inhibit the oxidation of other molecules by interfering with the initiation or propagation of oxidizing chain reactions. antioxidant compounds, such as phenolic acids, polyphenols, and flavonoids scavenge free radicals like peroxide, hydroperoxide, or lipid peroxyl and thus inhibit the oxidative mechanisms that lead to degenerative diseases. antioxidant activity can be inferred based on the percentage of radical scavenging activity (%rsa) and the ic50 value. a higher %rsa corresponds to a lower ic50 value, indicating stronger antioxidant potential, and vice versa. the present study showed higher antioxidant activity from methanolic bark extracts of both species of berberis in higher elevations and vice versa. a similar pattern was also reported for the methanolic fruit extract from elaeagnus angustifolia (sarirani et al., 2017). berberine, a protoberberine alkaloid, is the major phytochemical responsible for many of the table: 2 measurements of different parameters of soil samples of different elevation 18 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 awal et al. pharmacological properties of berberis species. a significant decrease in berberine content in all parts at high elevation areas as compared to those at lower elevation was reported for eight species of berberis from western himalaya (chandra & purohit, 1980). similar results have been revealed for berberis species from other parts of the himalayas (nautiyal, 2007; maithani et al., 2014). high accumulation of alkaloids in low-elevation populations compared to higher elevations have been also reported for lupinus argenteus (carey & wink, 1994) and thalictrum foliolosum (pandey et al., 2018). the findings of the present study are consistent with all these previous studies. the higher berberine content in extracts of plants from lower elevation may be attributed to their high requirement of defensive compounds to cope with greater abundance of microorganisms and herbivores in warmer climates in those areas. soil is the main source of water, and all the mineral nutrients required for the growth and development of plants. its physical properties such as structure, texture, and depth determine the total capacity for storing available water for plant growth. elevation strongly influences landscape topography, geology, and rainfall, consequently influencing soil moisture and texture, ground-water depth, hydrology, evaporation, soil type, and vegetation (knoop & walker, 1985). usually, water deficit in soil has been suggested to increase the amount of secondary metabolites in different medicinal plants (zobayed et al., 2005; jaleel et al., 2008). the present study showed a decrease in both flavonoid and berberine contents with an increase in soil moisture. the decrease in berberine content with increasing soil moisture aligns with the findings of andola et al. (2010). however, consequent decrease in phenol content with a decrease in soil moisture in this study suggests that moisture alone may not be the determining factor for phenol accumulation in plants. low nitrogen in soil induces flavonoid and isoflavonoid nod gene inducers and chemo-attractants for nitrogen-fixing symbionts resulting in increase in flavonoid content with decrease in nitrogen content in soil (wojtaszek et al., 1993). however, in the present study, a gradual increase in total phenolic content (tpc) along with increasing levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (npk) was observed. this trend aligns with the findings from different previous studies. for instance, liaqat et al. (2012) reported a decrease in total phenolics in blackberries with the decrease of potassium levels. ibrahim et al. (2012) found that elevated potassium levels enhanced phenolic production in various plants. regarding the correlation between amount of potassium and berberine content, andola et al. (2010) observed positive correlation for the samples of both root and stem bark of berberis asiatica. by contrast, the present study showed a negative correlation between potassium levels and berberine content. soil ph is governed by its mineral composition, especially nitrogen content. it strongly inûuences abiotic factors, such as carbon availability (andersson et al., 2000; kemmitt et al., 2006), nutrient accessibility (kemmitt et al., 2005; 2006; pietri & brookes, 2008), and the solubility of metals (firestone et al., 1983; flis et al., 1993). soil ph decreases with increase in available nitrogen, thereby increasing soil acidity. in the present study, soil collected from 2400 was highly acidic compared to that of 1400 m and 1900 m, where there was only little variation in acidity. this difference in soil ph may be due to higher nitrogen content in the soil from 2400 m and low varied nitrogen content in the soils from 1400 m and 1900 m. conclusion the present study demonstrates that two species of berberis: b. aristata and b. asiatica, collected from different elevations exhibit significant variations in their phytochemical and antioxidant profiles. total flavonoid content (tfc) and berberine concentration decreased with the increase in elevation while total polyphenol content and antioxidant activity increased with rise in elevation. furthermore, soil parameters like moisture content, ph, and npk levels, varied along the elevation gradient, in the soil as the environmental factor also showed variation along the elevation gradient suggesting their role in influencing the biological activity of both berberis species. as different phytochemicals respond to elevations in different manners, it is worth exploring similar types of biological activities in other medicinal plant species. in this study, the unavailability of certain chemicals has limited phytochemical screening to a limited number of compounds, which presents opportunities for future research. furthermore, the semiquantitative estimation of berberine is only for reference purposes and may not give the exact quantity of the marker compound in the bark extracts. however, the approach taken in the present study may be useful for varietal or population-wise screening of medicinal plants rich in amount of specific marker compounds. 19 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1awal et al. acknowledgments the authors are indebted to the university grants commission, nepal (ugc-nepal) for providing the master’s thesis preparation support award to ms rajeena awal. the authors are also thankful to mr. shambhu ram bista of the central department of botany for his support in the collection of plant samples. similarly, the authors are thankful to ms. sneha joshi, and mr. yadu nath paudel for their support during the fieldwork. funding this research was supported by the master’s thesis preparation support award 2072/73 (masters/ ts/s&t-46) provided by the university grants commission, nepal, awarded to ms. rajeena awal. author’s contribution statement r. awal: sample collection, lab work, data collection, analysis, draft writing; d. r. pant: conception and design, manuscript revision, supervision; g. p. joshi: conception and design, result interpretation, manuscript revision, supervision. data availability the data used in this study are accessible upon request to the corresponding author. conflict of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest. references adhikari, b., pendry, c. a., pennington, r. t., & milne r. i. 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(1996). plant drug analysis: a thin layer chromatography atlas. (2nd ed.) (pp 3-91). springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-662-02398-3 wojtaszek, p., stobiecki, m., & gulewicz, k. (1993). role of nitrogen and plant growth regulators in the exudation and accumulation of isoflavonoids by roots of intact white lupin (lupinus albus l.) plants. journal of plant physiology, 142 (6), 689-694. https://doi.org /10.1016/s01761617(11)80903-x zobayed, s. m. a., afreen, f., & kozai, t. (2005). temperature stress can alter the photosynthetic efficiency and secondary metabolite concentrations in st. john’s wort. plant physiology and biochemistry, 43 (10), 977-984. https://doi. org/10.1016/ j.plaphy.2005. 25 climate means the weather averaged over a long period of time (ihara et al., 2009). climate change is defined as the significant change in rainfall, temperature, and other climatic parameters observed over time in a specific area (pan, 2010). it is obvious that climate change has already adversely affected socio–economic sectors, including water resources, agriculture, forestry, human settlements, and ecological system (ipcc, 2001). despite their negligible contribution to global warming, least developed countries like nepal are amongst the countries most susceptible to the impacts of climate change due to their limited capacity to deal with them (manandhar et al., 2011). nepal is recognized as the fourth most climate–vulnerable nation globally and has good reasons to be concerned about climate change (adhikari et al., 2018; khanal et al., 2019). climate change has added additional stress on poor communities in nepal (pant, 2012), where the poorest communities are struggling to fulfill their basic needs (joshi et al., 2010). more than two million nepalese depend on climate–sensitive sectors like agriculture banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1, 2022 pp 25‒40https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i1.45443 climate change, climatic disasters, and adaptation techniques: learnings from the lowlands of nepal nepal is experiencing inevitable consequences of changing climate. rural communities are badly suffering from these implications. meanwhile, the rural communities are trying to acclimatize through small–scale adaptation efforts. this study aims to analyze changes in temperature and rainfall trends, identify major climatic disasters, and document current adaptation measures being adopted by rural communities. for this study, we randomly selected 220 households from a total of 4,282 households, and seven key informants for the questionnaire survey within the study area. meteorological data from the nearest station were used to analyze changes in temperature and rainfall trends. the study revealed that both mean annual maximum and minimum temperature increased by 0.063 °c/year and 0.072° c/year respectively, between 1991 and 2020. similarly, mean annual rainfall increased by 12.329 mm/year. floods, droughts, landslides, hailstorms, and forest fires were major climate disasters experienced by the locals. the adverse impact perceived were loss of crop yield, decrease in water availability, an increase of mosquitoes, and a decline in sightings of the birds and waterfowls in the area. embankment construction along rivers, changing cropping patterns and cultivation time, forest protection, and maintaining home gardens were major adaptation measures being practiced by the locals. we believe the findings of this study will be helpful for policymakers to develop strategies and programs for communities that will promote resilience against climate– induced disasters at a local level in the lowlands of nepal. keywords: adaptation strategies, impact, landuse change, livelihood, terai r. s. thagunna 1, s. g. chhetri 2,3, d. gautam 1, 4, d. bhattarai 5 and p. s. thapa 5,6,* received: 14, february 2022 revised: 2, may 2022 accepted: 20, may 2022 published: 31, may 2022 1 institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, pokhara, 33700, nepal 2 himalayan conservation and research institute, dolpa, 21400, nepal 3 college of forestry, agriculture and natural resources, university of arkansas, monticello ar 71656, usa 4 school of ecology and nature conservation, beijing forestry university, beijing 100083, china 5 ministry of forests and environment, singhadurbar, kathmandu, 44600, nepal 6 ishikawa prefectural university, ishikawa–prefecture, nonoichi–shi, suematsu, 1–308, japan ,*e–mail: prakashsthapa7@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7958-988x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3577-9304 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5239-365x https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3861-4705 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6246-0657 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 26 thagunna et al. and forestry for their livelihoods, and they have limited capacity to cope with climate change– induced disasters (garg et al., 2007). nepal is particularly prone to natural disasters because of its unique geographical location and topography (gauli & upadhaya, 2019; wfp, 2009). erratic rainfall, flash floods, landslides, and glacial lake outburst floods (glofs) impacting the country's food supply are some of the examples of the disasters that have occurred due to changing climatic patterns in nepal (karki & gurung, 2012). climate change is linked to an increasing prevalence of natural disasters in nepal, such as droughts, floods, landslides, and hailstorms with large stones (moac, 2009). buildings and infrastructures can be damaged during extreme climatic events such as flooding, while rising temperatures and water scarcity may affect property value by increasing operation costs (aboulnaga et al., 2019). habitat degradation and loss of native biodiversity are becoming inevitable with the increasing invasion of invasive species (such as mikania micrantha, lantana camara, chromolaena odorata, and ageratina adenophora) and are bound to increase with the future warming climate in nepal (lamsal et al., 2017). another serious threat associated with climate change is the increase in infectious diseases such as malaria (dhimal et al., 2014). climate change impacts are expected to exacerbate poverty in most of the developing countries and create new poverty pockets in countries with increasing inequality in both developed and developing countries (joshi et al., 2017). ipcc (2007) highlighted that by the year 2050, the number of people suffering from water stress could double (bates et al., 2008). the vulnerable groups, mainly poor people, would be in a dilemma of economic hardship because of insufficient knowledge of disaster management, low literacy rates, inadequate physical infrastructure, poor forecasting facilities, and unplanned settlement (dhungana et al., 2018; dhungana et al., 2020). meanwhile, the rural communities are trying to cope with the changing climate. individual households are adopting various climate change risk combating measures such as rainwater harvesting, mulching, planting date adjustments, farming drought–tolerant crops, and off–farm employment (paudel et al., 2019). in order to maintain crop yields, farmers are considering changes in traditional practices such as cropping patterns, timing, crop varieties, and using more fertilizers and pesticides (shrestha & nepal, 2016). adaptation to climate change is a bigger priority in many low–income countries like nepal than climate change mitigation (baniya et al., 2021). nevertheless, in disaster–prone areas, early warning systems for extreme climatic events (such as floods and landslides) are crucial for saving lives and properties (bajracharya et al., 2021; thapa & adhikari, 2019). especially, the people of the lowlands i.e., the terai region of nepal, are highly susceptible to climate change–induced risks, such as floods, droughts, forest fires, and drying of ponds, rivers, and wetlands (moste, 2010). the changes in climate parameters are evident in the shuklaphanta municipality area. to date, limited researches related to climate change and climate– induced disasters have been conducted in the area (maharjan et al., 2011). in this background, this study aims to analyze changes in temperature and rainfall trends, identify major climatic disasters in the study area, and explore adaptation measures practiced by the rural communities. in doing so, this study anticipates establishing a piece of baseline information on changing climate, climatic disasters, and their impact on the local livelihoods. further, it also anticipates documenting adaptation measures that can be replicated in other similar areas in the country. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in the shuklaphanta municipality (28° 32' – 29° 28' n and 80° 30' – 80 °33' e) of kanchanpur district located in sudurpashchim province of nepal (figure 1). we chose shuklaphanta municipality for several reasons: i) the municipality is vulnerable to climate change; ii) climate–induced natural disasters are increasing in the municipality (climate change, 2019; nepali times, 2019); and the municipality is located close to banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 27 thagunna et al. shuklaphanta national park, one of the most prominent biodiversity hotspots. thus, to reduce the impact of climate change on biodiversity and human lives, it is very important to carry out this study in the area. shuklaphanta municipality covers an area of 162.57 km2 and comprises a total population of 24,347 living in 4,282 households (cbs, 2011). topographically, this municipality embraces three regions: churia hills, bhabar range, and terai plain, with an elevation ranging between 160 m–1,528 m. the average annual rainfall of the district is 1,575 mm. the average maximum and minimum temperatures are 43°c and 24°c during summer and 19°c and 2°c during winter (joshi & singh, 2010; pant & yadav, 2013). the district has hot and humid tropical to sub–tropical climates. major ethnic groups in the district include brahmin, chhetri, tharu, dalits, and others. figure 1: map showing the study area. top– left inset shows the location of kanchanpur district within nepal. top–right inset shows the location of shuklaphanta municipality within the kanchanpur district data collection the fieldwork was conducted in the months of december 2019 to january 2020. in total, 220 households (hh) were selected randomly for hh survey. hh heads were interviewed wherever applicable, if not available then adult hh members were interviewed. a structured questionnaire was used for the interview, which took 15–20 min per respondent. the three–page questionnaire was divided into five parts. part a included open–ended questions related to respondents’ details and socio– demographic characteristics such as age, name, sex, education, and occupation. part b included close–ended questions (yes, no, don’t know and increasing, decreasing and don’t know) related to respondents’ experience of changes in temperature and precipitation. part c included close (increasing, decreasing and don’t know) and open–ended questions related to respondents’ experience of climate–induced impact on agriculture yield, water resources, mosquito prevalence, and birds/waterfowls. parts d included close (increasing, decreasing and don’t know) and open–ended questions related to climate–induced disasters, namely flood, drought, forest fire, hailstorm and landslide, and adaptation measures practiced to adapt to flood, drought, forest fire, and hailstorm. farmers, community leaders, local teachers, community forest users group (cfug) committee members, ward chairperson, the mayor, and representatives of local non–government organizations were selected through snowball sampling for key informant interviews (kii). key informants were interviewed to get information about major climatic events and their impacts. field observation was carried out to validate the information gathered from kii and hh surveys. climatic data (1991–2020), such as maximum and minimum annual temperature (°c) and rainfall (mm) were obtained from the department of hydrology and meteorology (dhm), nepal, for the mahendranagar meteorological station (index no. 0105). additionally, published literature relevant to this study was downloaded from google scholar, and reports from government and non–government organizations were also collected and reviewed. the questionnaire used for the hh surveys, and the checklists used for kii are provided in supplemantary material. https://frtc.gov.np/downloadfile/supporting%20document%20annex_1656330684.pdf?fbclid=iwar1b0nr770wkejz4g4m_pkmrzagrga0ozm6fh9mez6wufaqllyrhalj6p0w banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 28 thagunna et al. data analysis datasheets were reviewed and checked daily for completeness, consistency, and accuracy. after finalizing the data collection, all the data were rechecked, edited, coded, categorized, entered, and analyzed. the linear least–squares curve fitting technique, shown in equation 1, was used for analyzing changes in mean annual maximum and minimum temperature and mean annual rainfall trends (pan, 2009). it is the simplest and the most used technique in regression analysis that provides the best–fitting straight line through a set of points (chakrabarty, 2014). ms excel version 2013 and spss version 23 were used for data analysis. y=mx + c ………….. equation 1 where, y is temperature in degrees celsius (oc) or rainfall in millimeters (mm), “m” and “c” are the constants estimated by the principle of least squares as a major part of this study, we explored the valued perceptions of sampled individuals and analyzed their opinions with bar diagrams and tabular forms, in a simplistic way to make them easier to understand. the chi–square test was used to analyze the association between the socio– demographic characteristics of the respondents and their knowledge of climate change. while using a chi–square test, we have considered only “yes” and “no” and excluded “don’t know” response from the analysis. results socio–demographic characteristics of the respondents in total, 220 respondents participated in the hh survey. the average age of the respondents was 41 years old, with a median age of 39 years. majority of the respondents were females (56%). about 77% of the respondents were brahmin/chhetri. similarly, agriculture was the primary occupation of 74% of the respondents. the majority of the respondents (75%) were literate (table 1). table 1. socio–demographic characteristics of the respondents socio–demographic characteristics count (%) age (years) less than 35 84(38.2) 35–55 98(44.55) more than 55 38(17.25) gender female 124 (56.36) male 96 (43.64) ethnicity bhramin/chhetri 169(76.82) tharu 22(10.00) dalits 19(8.64) others 10(4.54) occupation agriculture 162(73.63) service 16(7.27) business 42(19.10) education illiterate 55(25.00) literate 165 (75.00) primary level 78 (35.45) secondary level 37(16.82) higher secondary level 28(12.73) bachelor’s level 17(7.73) masters level 5(2.27) respondents’ knowledge and experience of climate change except for gender, every other five variables, ethnicity, age, years of residence, occupation, and education level, were found to have a significant effect on respondents’ knowledge and experience of climate change, and hazards (things which cause harm to the people) (table 2–4). the results showed that half of the respondents (50%) have knowledge of climate change. a chi– square test of independence was performed to examine the relationship between several socio– demographic characteristics and the respondents’ knowledge on climate change (table 2). among five variables, ethnicity (p=0.001), age (p=0.001), occupation (p=0.001), and education (p=0.001) were statistically significant to the knowledge of climate change. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 29 thagunna et al. table 2: contingency table showing the interrelation between different socio–demographic variables and respondents’ knowledge of climate change socio–demographic characteristics categories yes (count) no (count) don’t know (count) chi–squared test (p–value) ethnicity bhramin/chhetri 95 74 0 0.001tharu 3 19 0 dalit 5 14 0 others 7 3 0 gender female 58 66 0 0.276 male 52 44 0 age less than 35 63 21 0 0.001 35–55 39 59 0 more than 55 30 8 0 occupation agriculture 55 107 0 0.001services 39 3 0 business 16 0 0 education illiterate 3 52 0 0.001 primary 35 43 0 secondary 24 13 0 higher secondary 26 2 0 bachelor 17 0 0 master 5 0 0 one–fourth (26%) of the respondents have feelings about any climate pattern change. the contingency table indicates that except for gender, all other variables such as ethnicity (p=0.001), age (p=0.001), occupation (p=0.001), and education (p=0.001) were statistically significant to the experience with climate change (table 3). table 3: contingency table showing the interrelation between different socio–demographic variables and respondents’ experience with climate change socio–demographic characteristics categories yes (count) no (count) don’t know (count) chi–squared test (p–value) ethnicity bhramin/chhetri 49 79 41 0.003 dalit 2 16 1 tharu 2 19 1 others 5 3 2 gender female 29 71 24 0.178 male 29 46 21 age less than 35 32 30 22 0.001 35–55 20 57 21 more than 55 6 30 2 occupation agriculture 21 114 27 0.001 services 26 3 13 business 11 0 5 education illiterate 2 52 1 0.001 primary 21 44 13 secondary 6 17 14 higher secondary 11 4 13 bachelor 13 0 4 master 5 0 0 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 30 thagunna et al. more than one–third (36%) of the respondents understand that increasing climatic hazards have been the last 30 years. a chi–square test shows that except gender, other variables such as ethnicity, age, occupation, and education were statistically significant to the understanding of increase of climatic hazards over 30 years (table 4). table 4: contingency table showing the interrelation between different socio–demographic variables and respondents’ understanding of natural hazards increase due to climate change socio–demographic characteristics categories yes (count) no (count) don't know (count) chi–squared test (p–value) ethnicity bhramin/chhetri 64 65 40 0.076 dalit 6 12 1 tharu 5 16 1 others 5 3 2 gender female 42 59 23 0.2314male 38 37 21 age less than 35 43 19 22 0.001 35–55 27 51 20 more than 55 10 26 2 occupation agriculture 41 94 27 0.001 services 28 2 12 business 11 0 5 education illiterate 11 43 1 0.001 primary 27 38 13 secondary 10 13 14 higher secondary 13 2 13 bachelor 14 0 3 master 5 0 0 temperature trend the study showed that the mean annual maximum temperature increased at the rate of 0.063°c/ year between 1990 and 2020 (figure 2). the average annual maximum temperature for the past 30 years was found to be 30.88 °c. the year 2008 was recorded to be the hottest year, with a mean annual maximum temperature of 34 °c (figure 2). also, there is an increasing trend in the mean annual minimum temperature (0.072 °c/year; figure 3). the average annual minimum temperature for the past 30 years was found to be 17.28 °c. the lowest mean annual minimum temperature (14.5 °c) was recorded in 1997 (figure 3). y = 0.063x 95.158 r² = 0.21 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2014 2017 2020 te m pe ra tu re (� c ) year tmax (°c) linear (tmax (°c)) figure 2: mean annual maximum temperature trend banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 31 thagunna et al. y = 0.072x 126.16 r² = 0.33 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2014 2017 2020 t em pe ra tu re ( �c ) year tmin (°c) linear (tmin (°c)) figure 3: mean annual minimum temperature trend rainfall trend the study revealed that annual rainfall increased at the rate of 12.329 mm/year between 1990 and 2020 (figure 4). the average annual rainfall for the past 30 years was found to be 1863 mm/year. the annual rainfall was the highest (2540 mm) in the year 2007 and the lowest (1150 mm) in the year 2006 (figure 4). y = 12.329x 22863 r² = 0.12 1000 1250 1500 1750 2000 2250 2500 2750 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2014 2017 2020 r a in fa ll ( m m ) year rainfall (mm) linear (rainfall (mm)) figure 4: annual rainfall trend respondents’ perception of climate change seventy percent of the respondents reported that the temperature is increasing, 20% reported that it is decreasing, and the remaining 10% had no clue about the change in temperature. likewise, 28% of the respondents reported that rainfall is increasing, 60% reported that it is decreasing, and the remaining 12% had no clue about the change in rainfall (figure 5). 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 increasing decreasing do not know % o f r es po nd en ts rainfall tempreture figure 5: perception towards changing rainfall and temperature in the area climate–induced disasters and their impacts the chronology of the climate–induced disasters together with their impacts in and around the study area, is presented in table 5. there was no measurement system or systematic documentation of disasters and their impacts in the study area. the key informants were asked to recall climate– induced disasters and the impacts that they had experienced. flood, droughts, and hailstorms were the major climate–induced disasters experienced by the people of the study area. table 5: timeline of climate–induced disasters and their impacts year climate– induced disasters effects 1995 cold wave and winter rain caused blight outbreak and damaged tomato and potato crops. 2002 prolonged drought farmers could not plant winter and early crops, which affected subsistence living. 2002 malaria outbreak kanchanpur is a malaria–endemic district (nhrc, 2007), and many died because of the outbreak. 2004 rain deficit crop production decreased by 12.5% on a national basis (nhrc, 2007) 2008 mahakali river flood ten persons died, and damaged 5,500 houses in ward number 2, 11, 12, and 15 of the former mahendranagar municipality (moha, 2009) 2013 hailstorm an intense hailstorm of less than half an hour completely damaged crops in the wards of the study area. 2018 cold waves and thick fog schools in the kanchanpur district were closed for a few days. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 32 thagunna et al. impacts of climate change based on the perceived impacts, local people perceived a decrease in crop production, water availability, forest area, and birds/waterfowl, but they expressed mosquito number has been increased compared to a previous time. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 crop production water availabilty mosquito presence birds/waterfowls % o f r es po nd en ts increase decrease no change figure 6: locals' perception towards the impact of climate change the impacts of climate change on various sectors are discussed separately in the following paragraphs. agriculture yield: most of the respondents (60%) (figure 6) claimed that agricultural production (main crops: paddy and wheat) has reduced. among them, 12% of the respondents reported that production of paddy and wheat has increased slightly whereas the remaining 28% claimed that they did not perceive any change. while interviewing about agricultural productivity during the field study, local people reported that together with main crops such as paddy and wheat, other crops such as sugarcane and mustard production have also dropped in recent years. water resources: about 72% of the respondents (figure 6) reported that water sources were drying up (decrease in the quantity of water quantity in hand pumps and borings) and abandoned their use (figure 7). in contrast, 21% of the respondents reported that water resources are increasing, and the remaining 7% reported they do not know about changes in water resources. mosquito presence: about 91% of the respondents (figure 6) claimed that the number of mosquitoes had increased considerably in the suklaphanta municipality. figure 7: abandoned dried–up spring (left) and dried water boring (right) in shuklaphanta municipality–8 birds and waterfowls: majority (57%) of the respondents (figure 6) claimed that the bird population has decreased in the study area. according to them, habitats of the birds are shrinking due to decline in forest area and water entities because of increase in climate–induced disasters (such as fires and droughts). locals’ perception of climate change–related disasters: the disastrous events such as floods, drought, forest fire and hailstorms are found increasing in the area (figure 8). according to respondents, the main disasters are floods followed by drought. most of (70%) of the respondents agreed that flood occurrences are increasing, 20% said decreasing and 10% expressed do not know. for drought, 60% of respondents agreed that drought is increasing. similarly, 49% said forest fires are increasing and 45% agreed that hail storming events are increasing in the area. 0 20 40 60 80 flood drought forest fire hailstorm % of respondents ty pe s of d is as te rs increasing decreasing do not know figure 8: locals’ perception on climate– induced disaster occurrences banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 33 thagunna et al. adaptation measures practiced by local communities further, the analysis of kii and hh surveys revealed that those local communities are practicing adaptation measures at both community and individual levels. shayali and sunbara rivers are two main streams flowing in the study area gets huge volume of water flow during torrential rains in monsoon season, resulting in flood and waterlogging, so local people have constructed embankment along the river with the governmental support. locally available stones and bags filled with pebbles and gravels were used to construct such embankment. respondents shared embankments and plantations along streambanks have been helpful in controlling erosion hazards and agricultural land cutting to some extent. people were found constructing deeper borings for drought management than in the past to extract more water for daily use. respondents reported that seed sowing, planting, and harvesting time for rice, wheat, and maize had shifted two to three weeks earlier in comparison to 30 years back. the respondents have switched to cash crops like vegetables, fruits, etc., because the productivity of traditional crops has been decreasing in recent years. community forests in the study area are supporting locals to protect and conserve their forests. in addition, respondents have also started planting trees, including fruit trees and fodder/ fuelwood trees, in their home gardens. they expressed that the installation of ics has been helpful in adaptation as well as mitigation of climate change as icss use less fuelwood and produce less smoke compared to traditional stoves. major adaptation measures being practiced by local communities are summarized in table 6. table 6: climate–induced disasters, common effects, and practiced adaptation measures disasters perceived effects adaptation measures flooding damage to crops especially paddy fields, loss of life and livestock, destruction of the riverbanks, wooden houses and roads, soil erosion embankment of rivers and streams, plantation of trees, and constructing raised shed houses disasters perceived effects adaptation measures drought crop yield reduced, less water for household use and irrigation purpose, handpump drying pipeline from a far distance, irrigation canal sharing with neighbors, deep boring, drought– tolerant species hailstorms loss and damage of major crops and vegetables plastic tunnel, crop diversification with agroforestry forest fires reduced fuelwood for cooking, and unavailability for cattle forest watcher provision and awareness campaigns, recently the installation of improved cooking stoves (ics) which needs less fuelwood discussion changes in temperature and rainfall trend this study found that the mean annual maximum temperature is increasing at the rate of 0.063°c/ year (figure 2), which is comparable to the national average of 0.06°c/year between 1977 and 2000 reported by sharma et al. (2009). similarly, we also found that the mean annual minimum temperature is increasing at the rate of 0.072°c/year (figure 3). thapa et al. (2015) reported an annual increment of 0.03 °c/year and 0.05 °c/year for mean annual maximum and minimum temperature respectively, between 1982 and 2011 for the kailali district, the district adjoins the study district, which is slightly lower than what we found. we found that annual rainfall is increasing at the rate of 12.329 mm/year, which is in line with the results of chhetri (2012). an increase in temperature and decrease in rainfall leads to drought (gautam et al. 2020), but for the study increase in both the temperature and rainfall has been observed. shrestha et al. (2000) found that the monsoon rainfall shows great inter–annual variability. such variability in the rainfall is likely to have an impact on agriculture, ultimately affecting the peoples’ livelihoods. there is an agreement between climate data and local’s perceptions of mean annual temperature and rainfall. in cases of temperature, more than 70% of the respondents perceive an increase in banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 34 thagunna et al. temperature and, there is an increasing mean annual maximum temperature and mean annual minimum temperature (figure 2 & 3). local perceived irregularities in rainfall pattern with overall increase in rainfall which is similar to the increasing trend of mean annual rainfall shown by the recorded data (figure 4). impacts of climate change the study found that agriculture, water resources, mosquito numbers, and birds/waterfowls are the sectors being affected by climate change. short–term droughts, unpredictable rainfall, a decrease in the water table, and an increase in evapotranspiration have mostly affected the agriculture sector in nepal (sharma et al., 2018). chhetri (2012) found that the number of crops per year has been reduced from three to two crops per year. due to climate change, water resources have been decreased (ghimire et al., 2019). diseases like malaria and allergies, and itching are increasing with the changing climate (blayneh et al., 2009) and are affecting human health. increment in mosquito numbers has been identified to be the main reason behind an increase in malaria spread (who, 2009). the respondents reported that because of the rising temperature, mosquito number is increasing in the study area. an increase in the drought period has led to an increase in the incidence of fire, resulting into the decrease in a number of birds not only in the area but also across the country (gon, 2011; gon, 2014). dahal (2009) suggested that some native tree species such as shorea robusta, dalbergia sissoo, terminalia tomentosa, acacia catechu, and bombax ceiba are decreasing due to climate change. baral (2009) reported that human properties like houses, sheds, and agricultural lands are mostly being destructed by weather– related disasters like landslides and flooding and the situation is not different in the study area. this suggests that changing climate has serious impacts on the livelihood assets of rural communities (mofe, 2019). adaptation measures practiced by local communities this study revealed found that local communities are practicing adaptation measures at both community and individual levels. major adaptation measures being practiced by local communities are embankment construction along the river, deeper borings, change in crop planting time, change in types of crops, plantation of trees in the home garden, and installation of ics. such practices have also been observed in other parts of the country (tiwari et al., 2010). the study found that locals are using locally available materials like stones and bags filled to construct embankments. they are also planting multipurpose tree species along the embankments to reinforce them. such tree plantations not only re–strengthen the embankments but also provide additional benefits such as carbon sequestration, greenery promotion, fuelwood production, and ecological balance (pandey, 2016), which in turn helps local communities in recovering from climate change impacts (udayashankara et al., 2016). kattel & nepal (2022) reported that local people are practicing rainwater harvesting techniques and the establishing conservation ponds to adapt to water scarcity. nepal disaster report showed that rainfall pattern is changing, and drought periods are increasing throughout the country (gon/moha, 2019). local communities are using harvested rainwater and water stored in conservation ponds for crop plantation (moha, 2009). however, in our case, local communities are using irrigation canals to irrigate their agricultural lands. to address the issue of declining agricultural production, local communities have introduced hybrids (e.g., gorakhnath, us–312) and improved varieties (e.g., shanti, ramdhan, sarju) of rice crops, which is in line with the finding that the hybrid seeds are replacing the local varieties (khanal & kattel, 2017; khanal et al., 2019). forests and trees, when sustainably managed, can play an important role in climate change mitigation and adaptation as they help in reducing drought, increasing rainfall, and maintaining rainfall time (fao, 2007). indeed, the community forests in the study area are supporting local communities to protect and conserve forests. in addition, respondents have also started planting trees, including fruit trees and fodder/fuelwood trees, in their home gardens. local communities are switching to improved cooking stoves (ics), which is helping them to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, avoid adverse health effects of indoor air pollution, and also banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 35 thagunna et al. improve forest conservation (anenberg et al., 2013). conclusion the findings of the study provide a basis for preparing a community–level adaptation plan for climate change since results from the study cannot be generalized to a larger scale. the impact of climate change at the local level should be understood in order to prepare local communities for the implementation of adaptation and mitigation measures. furthermore, documenting the perceived impacts of climate change and the countermeasures taken can help in the decision– making process for climate change mitigation. our study shows that people residing in the study area experienced an increase in both average annual rainfall and mean temperature. however, the perception of climate change may differ based on the socio–demographic characteristics of the local people. similarly, the recoded data of the study areas have unsurprisingly supported the perception of local people. the data shows that the mean annual minimum and the maximum temperature have increased from 1990 to 2020. the yearly rainfall fluctuates from high to low, with alternative years showing variation in the amount of rainfall. farmers have experienced climatic disasters, mostly floods and droughts, that had negatively impacted their livelihood options in terms of agricultural production, and water availability. to reduce the impacts of climate change, the study shows that local people have accommodated several adaptation measures. the adaptation strategies such as rescheduling the cropping time, planting trees in their home gardens, constructing embankments along streams, and installing ics systems. though this research examined changes in rainfall, and temperature and gathered local perceptions, the exact quantification of socio– economic losses resulting from changing climate was not possible due to a lack of baseline data. comprehensive research should be done to determine the impact of climate change on diverse sectors, such as agriculture, biodiversity, disasters, and local livelihoods, to recommend specific solutions accordingly. communities should be involved in developing plans that take traditional knowledge and combine it with scientific solutions to curb climate change disasters and increase climate resilience. conflict of interest: the author declares no conflict of interest. acknowledgments the authors are thankful to all the respondents of the shuklaphanta municipality who responded to all the survey. also, sincere thanks to two anonymous reviewers of this manuscript. funding: the study was financially supported by the national trust for nature conservation– shuklaphanta conservation program and ministry of industry tourism forestry and environment, sudurpashchim province, nepal. references aboulnaga, m. m., elwan, a. f., & elsharouny, m. r. 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(2009). world malaria report. world health organization. who press, geneva, switzerland, 190. https:// www.who.int /malaria/publicat ions/ atoz/9789241563901/en/ 1 annexes annex 1: questionnaire for hhs survey: a. general introduction: date: name of interviewer: age: gender/sex: male or female address: educational status: major occupation: household head: ethnicity: year of residence: b. climate change (temperature and rainfall) related questions: 1) are you feeling any changes in climate pattern? temperature or rainfall? a) yes b) no c) i do not know 2) are you feeling any change in the pattern of temperature in the last 30 years? a) increasing b) decreasing c) i do not know if yes, how, or what are a) summer temperature is rising rapidly b) winter is warming c) i don’t know 3) are you feeling any change in the pattern of rainfall in the last 30 years? a) increasing b) decreasing c) i do not know if yes, how a) rainy days are increasing or decreasing b) erratic rainfall happening frequently or not? c) i don’t know c. climate induced impact perceived (i) agricultural production 4) does the crop yield in your agricultural land is changing? a) increasing b) decreasing c) i don’t know 5) which crop mostly affected in agricultural production? a) ………. b) ………… c) ………… (ii) water resources availability 6) does there any changes in water availability or water in wells and streams? a) increasing b) decreasing c) i don’t know 7) are there any changes in water supply (handpump and boring pumps) a) yes b) no c) i don’t know 2 iii) diseases/mosquito presence 8) are there any changes in mosquitoes than in the past a) increasing b) decreasing c) i don’t know 9) are there any incidences of malaria disease a) yes b) no c) i don’t know iv) birds/waterfowl presence 10) are there any changes in birds numbers or waterfowls in nearby paddy fields and streams a) yes b) no c) i don’t know if yes, why birds number might have increased or decreased? a) …………. b) …………. c)…………. d. climate induced disasters 11) do you know about climatic disasters/hazards in this area such as a) floods b) drought c) forests fire d) hailstorms e) landslides a) yes b) no c) i don’t know if yes, are climatic hazards/disaster, increasing? a) increasing b) decreasing c) i don’t know 12) which of the following disasters occurs frequently? a) floods b) drought c) forests fire d) hailstorms e) landslides f) others if any. (i) flood 13) are there any incidences of flood a) yes b) no c) i don’t know if yes, does the intensity of flood varying? a) increasing b) decreasing c) i don’t know 14) what is the impact of flood in this area? a) …………. b) …………. c)…………. 15) how do you respond to flood, or activities done in response to the flood? a) ………… b) ……….. c) ………. 16) in your opinion, what activities need to adapt immediately by government to adapt with flood? a) …………. b) …………. c)…………. ii) drought 17) have you experienced drought in this area? a) yes b) no c) i don’t know 3 if yes, (year in which drought was must sever? can you remember…………….) 18) do the drought events change in the area? a) increasing b) decreasing c) i don’t know 19) has drought affected agricultural production? a) yes b) no c) i don’t know 20) are there any changes in water supply (handpump and boring pumps) a) yes b) no c) i don’t know 21) what are the other effects of (drought)? a) …………. b) …………. c)…………. 22) if there is a prolonged period of drought, what activities do you conduct in agricultural land, as adaptation measures? a) ……… b) ……… c)……… 23) in your opinion, what activities need to adapt to adapt with drought? a) …………. b) …………. c)…………. iii) hailstorms 24) have you noticed hailstorm occurrence in this area? a) yes b) no c) i don’t know 25) if yes hailstorm events… a) increasing b) decreasing c) i do not know 26) in your opinion, what activities need to adapt immediately to adapt with hailstorms? a) ……. b) …….. c)……… iv) forest fire 27) are there any forest fire incidences in the area? a) yes b) no c) i don’t know 28) if yes, forest fire events… a) increasing b) decreasing c) i do not know 29) what are the effects of forest fire in daily life? a) …………. b) …………. c)…………. 30) how are you improving dependency on forest product such as fuelwood and fodder? a) …………. b) …………. c)…………. 4 31) in your opinion, what activities need to adapt immediately by government to mitigate forest fire? a) …………. b) …………. c)…………. 5 annex 2: checklist for key informants name…. age of participant………. occupation/affiliation ward no……. specific character……… • knowledge about climate change • since when you are feeling a change in climate • pattern of climate change (in terms of changes in rainfall and temperature) • major climatic disastrous events • effects of disaster/hazards on rural livelihood options • potential causes of disastrous events • impact of climate change on local livelihood • adaptation measures for drought, floods, hailstorms, forest fire • mitigation measures for drought, floods, hailstorms, forest fire banko jankari-2017(5).1.1 forests and biodiversity conservation in federal nepal nepal is endowed with rich biological diversity. it shares 1.1 and 3.2 percent of total faunal and floral diversity of the world respectively, while occupying only 0.1 percent of global area. biodiversity and forest resources are integral component of rural livelihoods and economic prosperity of nepal. nepal’s constitution 2015 has explicitly mentioned to maintain certain portion of the land of the country as forest land for environmental equilibrium. the essence of the constitution has been later incorporated in forest policy (2015) emphasizing to maintain at least 40% of the total land as forest cover with equal importance to biodiversity. undoubtedly, nepal has been able to maintain the given target to date. for the conservation of forest and biodiversity, nepal has formulated various policy documents and action plans which are underway. however, these documents were made under the framework of unitary system. the new constitution of nepal has led the country towards federal system from its long unitary system. the federal system has given opportunities to share power among different levels of government. annexes from 5 to 9 in the constitution have clearly specified three tiers of government i.e., federal, provincial, and local to exercise their individual and shared rights over the different resources including forests and biodiversity within their political boundaries. political boundary and forests ecosystem services boundaries are not mutually inclusive. they are completely independent to each other. ecosystem services and externalities from forests and biodiversity spreads beyond the political boundary. the management of such widely spread services and externalities is difficult to restrict within territorial decision-making approach after long experiences. now, new paradigm shift of landscape level forests and biodiversity conservation has been in existence worldwide irrespective of political boundaries. conservation forest resources and biodiversity beyond the political boundaries in the newly formed federal system in nepal is quite challenging. in the federal system, different aspirations of different governments either horizontally or vertically might bring conflicting interest among themselves for the conservation and management of forests and biodiversity. however, the model of forest and biodiversity conservation has already been decentralized to settlement levels in nepal but has very limited acceptance of political devolution on forest resource governance. the community-based forest management banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 2 practices, community managed conservation areas, the community based-seed and genome conservation practices, and buffer zone resource conservation are exemplary participatory resource management practices developed within unitary system of government. transforming the existing decentralized model to a more strongly devised political devolution model need an innovative planning and strategic intervention. adoption of ecosystem approach in the federal system can be a strategic point of intervention to address gaps in forestry and biodiversity sector. the widely accepted ecosystem approach in conservation science and popular power devolution in political science need to be blended to secure optimum benefits for people and nature. the benefits sharing among governments should need trade off while maintaining well-established system of ecosystem structure and functions. ecosystem structure and functions should not be detached by territory based political decision rather they have to be restrengthened in the process of federal restructuring of forestry sector. federal restructuring of forestry sector should follow a different course rather than a general administrative, legal and basic infrastructure development model. it should begin with mapping forest and biodiversity, outlining services flow pattern, mapping economic potentiality of different level governments and devising a sound and resilient management structure. at the end, the model should appear as ecologically sound, economically viable and socio-politically acceptable. while devising this kind of model i.e., governance model, the forestry sector should neither be reluctant on constitutional rights of different tiers of governments nor it should forget the ecological integrity. despite some challenges, we have no option to ignore any of these. therefore, it is high time for the forestry sector to start designing a governance model with wider consultations. the model should be able to optimize forest and biodiversity services, benefits sharing and integrity of the ecosystem with well recognized and accountable institutions in all tiers of governments as envisioned by the constitution of nepal. 41 forest fire frequency is increasing globally, with significant incidents occurring in asia (vadrevu et al., 2019; zong et al., 2020). forest fire frequency is also growing at an alarming rate in nepal, suggesting that the current management practices and methods are inadequate to address the risk (parajuli et al., 2020). the humans’ role and support in fire management can be considered as the first anthropogenic instrument to address the risk in the fire–prone landscapes (doerr & santín, 2016; santín & doerr, 2016). unlike in the case of other natural hazards, the concerned stakeholders can avoid or reduce the forest fire risk (donovan & brown, 2007). many factors determine public attitude towards the measures taken for addressing natural resource management issues, but a key element is the social acceptance of the practices (shindler et al., 2009). identifying current problems and future needs can be an effective tool for prioritizing banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1, 2022 pp 41‒51https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i1.45476 a strategy for involving community forest managers in effective forest fire management in nepal each year forest fire causes enormous damage to nepal's forest ecosystems and landscape. for an active community involvement at the landscape level, policymakers must take the interests of local forest managers into account to increase social acceptability. this research explores the perception of community forest managers, who are constantly managing forests at the grassroots level, to understand the relationship between their priorities, needs, and attitudes toward forest fire management. eighty–eight key informants from six districts were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. the questionnaire was divided into three major sections, (i) forest fuel management and infrastructure, (ii) forest fire management strategies and actions, and (iii) public education and awareness on forest fire management. the data were analyzed using the kruskal–wallis test, where the respondents rated above 4.2 out of 5 for activities like increase of insurance mechanisms, providing training for firefighting volunteer groups, and provisioning firefighting equipment. the majority of the respondents agreed on the activities under the forest fire management strategies and actions section (kendall's tau = 0.8501), followed by forest fuel management and infrastructure (kendall’s tau= 0.6757). we anticipate that the results of this study will be helpful for the local decision–makers in involving different communities and identifying their priorities while implementing various forest fire management activities in diverse landscapes or provinces of the country. keywords: adaptation measure, community forest, landscape, local participation, perception a. parajuli 1*, a. p. gautam 2, s. p. sharma 3, p. lamichhane 4, g. sharma 1 b. s. bist 5, u. aryal 6 and r. basnet 7 received: 14, february 2022 revised: 23, april 2022 accepted: 20, may 2022 published: 31, may 2022 1. ministry of forests and environment, hetauda, bagmati province, nepal *e–mail:saracaindica07@gmail.com; 2. kathmandu forestry college, kathmandu, nepal, 3. department of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal 4. forest research and training center, ministry of forests and environment, kathmandu, nepal 5. the school of forestry and natural resource management, institute of forestry, kritipur, nepal 6. ministry of industry, tourism, forests and environment, butwal, lumbini province, nepal 7. kaligandaki polytechnic institute, tanahu, nepal https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9401-888x https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9800-0057 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0355-0222 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0124-0693 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2230-725x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0235-6866 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6935-7003 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 42 parajuli et al. forest fire management strategies and actions in different landscapes (ghasemi et al., 2020; kouassi et al., 2020; palaiologou et al., 2021; raftoyannis et al., 2014). for effective forest fire management, the active involvement of the local forest managers is a must (tshering, 2006). furthermore, incorporating local knowledge and practices in forest fire management planning is crucial for effective forest fire management (schultz et al., 2019). the community forestry program, a participatory forest management program, was started in nepal in 1978. since then, numerous community forest user groups (cfugs) are managing their forests independently in the technical support of the department of forests. cfugs are also playing a vital role in forest fire management but mainly in traditional ways. some cfugs seem to have concrete ideas about fire occurrences, the role of fire lines, the history of fire occurrences, and the fuel loading that they are using to suppress forest fires (kunwar & khaling, 2006). however, not all cfugs have the required knowledge and experience and several users have lost their lives while fighting forest fires (bhujel et al., 2017). insufficient understanding of suppression techniques, limited or no availability of firefighting equipment, communication, and awareness could be the major reasons behind such losses. terai arc landscape (tal) and chitwan annapurna landscape (chal) are the two major landscapes in nepal that contain asia’s important biodiversity eco–region and a fire– prone landscape of the country (parajuli et al., 2020). in recent years, global climate change has been recognized as a significant driver of ecological change. accordingly, solomon et al., (2007) have predicted a higher rate of warming and increase in precipitation for the himalayas in nepal, which is bound to affect the ecosystems of the country (thapa et al., 2015) and subsequently the livelihoods, lives, and economic investments in the himalayas (eriksson et al., 2009). such changes are likely to affect the biodiversity of these landscapes resulting in multiple threats. in addition, the increase in anthropogenic activities have played a significant role in altering the different natural landscape and these activities have affected the local people by having direct contact with the forest fire (dlamini, 2009). to date, studies carried out by (matin et al., 2017; parajuli et al., 2020; qadir et al., 2021) in nepal have focused on identifying forest fire risk areas but no studies have been conducted at the country or regional level about the forest user's preferences for managing forest fire. only providing information related to the risk of forest fire to the public might not help increase awareness or undertake actions (kumagai et al., 2004; slovic, 1999). a recent study stated that both experience and perception of the effective mitigation measures can determine the risk perception and their intention while implementing the measures (spano et al., 2021). documenting the perceptions of community forest managers will provide essential insights into the state of knowledge and practice on the adoption of different plans and strategies related to forest fire management (williamson et al., 2005). therefore, to understand the relationship between knowledge, needs, and attitudes toward forest fire management, this paper attempts to explore the perception of community forest managers on forest fire management, focusing on the planning and outreach process and management outcomes at the landscape level. this study also attempts to identify different forest fire management activities that are mostly preferred by the local community forest managers by ranking the different activities that were provided to the respondents to increase social acceptability and ownership. by doing so, the study intends to build knowledge on forest fire suppression that will be helpful in reducing the costs and the ecological disasters (kalabokidis et al., 2008). materials and methods study area among the five identified landscapes in nepal (mfsc, 2016), terai arc landscape (tal) and chitwan–annapurna landscape (chal) are the major landscapes (figure 1). the tal is located in southern part of nepal between longitude (80° 15́ e to 85° 49́ e) and latitude (27° 14́ n to 29° 08́ n) whereas the chal lies in central banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 43 parajuli et al. part of the country between longitude (82° 88' e to 85° 80' e) to latitude (27° 35' n to 29° 03' n). tal that represents asia's one of the most crucial biodiversity eco–regions of the terai duar savanna and grassland was declared a transboundary conservation landscape in 2001 (wikramanayake et al., 2010). chal that includes four wwf global 200 eco–regions was declared a conservation landscape in 1999 to maintain north–south ecological connectivity (mfsc, 2016). more than 75% of the forests of the lowland terai and churia fall within the tal boundary. the main natural ecosystems of the chal are forests and grasslands, with more than 38% of the landscape under forest cover. it serves as a habitat for many endangered and threatened flora such as satisal (dalbergia latifolia) and bijayasal (pterocarpus marsupium) (mfsc, 2016) as well as fauna like tiger (panthera tigris tigris), greater one–horned rhinoceros (rhinoceros unicornis), swamp deer (cervus duvaucelii , asian elephant (elephas maximus), clouded leopard (neofelis nebulosa), snow leopard (panthera uncia), red panda (ailurus fulgens), musk deer (moschus leucogaster) and many other less charismatic species (thapa et al., 2015). however, most of the forests are highly fragmented (wwf nepal, 2017). the total population of these two landscape is over 12.5 million people who are heavily dependent upon forests and ecosystem services for their livelihoods and wellbeing (mfsc, 2016). data collection the main objective of this study was to get broad insights into issues related to forest fire management in nepal based on the opinions of local resource managers, who are constantly implementing activities at the grass–root level. secondary sources were used to obtain data on fire incidents. data on fire incidents from 2001 to 2019 were acquired from the nasa moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (modis) satellite (giglio, 2010). the districts within the boundaries of two study landscapes figure 1. map of the study area banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 44 parajuli et al. were classified into high, medium, and low–risk districts according to the number of fire incidents of which, six districts two each from high, medium, and low fire risk districts were selected for the study i.e. chitwan and bardiya from the high–risk category, bara and lamjung from the medium–risk category, and salyan and baglung from the low–risk category as shown in table 1. table 1 selection of high medium and low–risk districts from the study district based on past fire records t al fire counts chal fire counts bardiya 3494 chitwan 3333 kanchanpur 2799 gorkha 1184 parsa 2798 dhading 840 kailali 2577 myagdi 711 banke 2541 tanahu 633 dang 2480 lamjung 537 nawalparasi 1839 rasuwa 364 makwanpur 1465 kaski 295 kapilbastu 1137 gulmi 263 bara 912 nuwakot 197 rautahat 569 syangja 195 rupandehi 445 manang 179 palpa 221 parbat 91 arghakhanchi 83 baglung 84 salyan 74 mustang 75 eighty–eight key informants were sampled purposively based on their knowledge of forest fire management and awareness from the six study districts (chitwan 10, bardiya 18, lamjung 17, bara 13, salyan 14, and baglung 16). they were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. the structured questionnaire survey was carried out on those respondents who are in key positions (either president or secretary) of the community forest users committee assuming that the selected respondent has wider knowledge of their community forest and forest fire than other general forest users. there were 28 questions in the questionnaire, of which 16 questions were related to the following three major groups: (1) forest fuel management and infrastructure, (2) forest fire management strategy and actions, and (3) public education, coordination and awareness on forest fire management, and the rest were related to the general background of key–informants. since the interviews were done face to face, the response rate was 100%. the majority of the key informants were males (73%) with agriculture as the primary occupation. the key informants were asked to rank the importance of each measure on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1=not important; 2=not so important; 3=important; 4=very important; 5=the most important. data analysis we adopted the data analysis techniques used by raftoyannis et al. (2014) for the data analysis. keeping in mind the non–normal and heteroscedastic nature of the data, the kruskal– wallis test was used to identify the nature of homogeneity in the responses among different districts and three major groups as stated in the data collection section. israel (2009) argues that this method does not need to fulfill the assumptions of normal distribution and interval data homogeneity of group variance and is one of the most powerful techniques comparable to anova. this method was used to identify the differences in the responses of every measure of each three groups under each district assuming that community forest managers have different needs or priorities while mitigating or managing the forest fire. for example, the priority or need for certain measures under high–risk areas might differ in the low or medium–risk district. therefore, each adoptive measure was analysed by comparing each risk district. the level of agreement between the district's responses to all three groups was also evaluated using kendall's tau coefficient of concordance. results kruskal–wallis test was used to know the difference in acceptability between the three main groups. most of the kruskal–wallis probability values are greater than 0.05 (table 2) suggesting that there is no significant difference between the perceptions of the groups. out of 16 measures, 5 measures mainly fire line development, reduction of fuels, identification of risk areas, insurance banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 45 parajuli et al. table 2. district differences in the median ranks of each adaptive measure (normal rows) and a group of measures pooled together (rows in italic). a district with the same letter in a row indicates the significance. higher mean ranks indicate the higher importance among different measures fire management measures all districts pooled together median rank asymp. sig df kw (h)tal chal bardiya bara salyan chitwan lamjung baglung (1) forest fuel management and infrastructure fireline development 3.8 4.2a 3.5b 3.6ab 4.2a 3.5c 3.8bc 0.0014 5 19.72 fire fighting tools 4.2 4.3a 4.1a 4.4a 4.2a 4.0a 4.4a 0.4133 5 5.021 control burning 3.8 3.8b 3.7b 3.8b 3.8b 3.6b 3.9b 0.4983 5 4.364 reduction of fuels 3.8 4.2a 3.7bc 3.6c 4.3a 3.6ab 3.6b 0.0114 5 14.76 increase of fire fighting force 4.4 4.4ab 4.2ab 4.5ab 4.6ab 4.3ab 4.4ab 0.7563 5 2.633 fire fighter training 3.9 4.0b 3.9b 3.9b 4.1b 3.9b 3.7b 0.5013 5 4.342 forest fuel management and infrastructure pooled – 4.1 3.9 4 4.2 3.8 4 (2) forest fire management strategies and actions identification of risk areas 4 4.4ab 4.2b 2.9c 4.4ab 4.1b 3.9a 0.0383 5 11.75 improvement in information flow and warning system 3.9 3.7c 3.9c 4.0c 4.0c 3.9c 3.8c 0.8798 5 7.871 insurance mechanism for the firefighters 4.5 4.9b 4.6b 3.6a 4.9b 4.6b 4.2b 0.0002 5 24.69 restriction of human activities in forests 1.6 1.5ab 1.7ab 1.6ab 1.4ab 1.7ab 1.9ab 0.6724 5 3.179 improvement in law enforcement 3.4 3.7b 3.2b 3.1b 3.7b 3.4b 3.2b 0.1635 5 1.772 forest fire management strategies and actions pooled – 3.6 3.5 3.1 3.7 3.5 3.4 (3) public education and coordination on forest fire management community involvement in fire suppression 4.1 3.9a 4.2a 4.1a 4.1a 4.1a 4a 0.9358 5 1.291 different forest fire awareness mechanism 3.9 4.2b 3.8b 3.7b 4.2b 3.8b 3.9b 0.1287 5 8.545 stakeholder involvement in fire fighting 3.8 3.6ab 3.9ab 3.9ab 3.6ab 3.9ab 3.6ab 0.677 5 3.149 knowledge of fire fighting 4 3.9bc 4.2bc 4.1bc 3.9bc 4.1bc 3.8bc 0.46 5 4.651 school–level knowledge 3.8 4.4abc 3.6ab 3.5a 4.5abc 3.7b 3.3ab 0.0003 5 23.63 public education and coordination on forest fire management pooled – 4 3.9 3.9 4.1 3.9 3.7 mechanism for the firefighters and school–level knowledge were statistically significant. to know which districts are different from each other, dunn's posthoc multiple comparison test was also conducted. for the fire line development, bara– bardiya and lumjung–bardiya had a difference in mean rank with the adjusted significance of 0.039 and 0.017 respectively. similarly, in the insurance mechanism for firefighters, the mean ranks were different with salyan–chitwan, salyan–bardiya and baglung–bardiya. the remaining other three measures having statistically significant values had the major difference in the mean rank, especially between high risk and low or medium risk. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 46 parajuli et al. when the rating of the overall district was compared under the section of forest fuel management and infrastructure, high fire risk districts (chitwan and bardiya) have rated above 4 in all activities except control burning (3.8) compared to medium and low–risk districts. the topmost priority was given to the training of the fire fighting forces (4.4), followed by fire fighting forces (4.2). public education and coordination were ranked as the subsequent essential following fuel management and infrastructure. as per se, commitment, collaboration, and coordination are highly required. thus, from the survey, respondents emphasized community involvement in fire suppression (4.1) as the most crucial activity under this section, followed by knowledge of fire fighting (4.0). activities like forest fire awareness, stakeholder involvement in fire fighting, and school–level knowledge were considered almost similar. in this study, forest users also agree uniformly that awareness and collaboration are required for the efficient performance of the strategy. on the other hand, strategy and actions were found to be the least essential sections except for the activity of the insurance mechanism scheme. this section got the lowest rank because, the respondents were asked if there should be a restriction of human access inside the forest where most of the respondents do not want to restrict human access, with a mean answer of 1.6 among 5. likewise, the lowest rating was also found in another question based on the improvement of law enforcement (3.4 out of 5). level of agreement between the respondents the level of agreement or concordance between the district's responses to the different adaption measures within each of the three groups was evaluated by kendall's tau coefficient of concordance (table 3). this method gives the level of agreement between the respondents or overall views on the perception of priorities among the respondents. higher the level of coefficient of concordance, the higher is the level of agreement on the preferences of forest fire management measures. table 3. level of agreement between the district responses. pooled adaptation measure groups, kendall’s tau and p–values are presented adaptation measures group (pooled) kendall's tau p–value forest fuel management and infrastructure 0.6757 <0.01 forest fire management strategies and actions 0.8501 <0.01 public education and coordination on forest fire management 0.2471 >0.05 the strongest agreement between district responses was found for forest fire management strategies and actions (kendall's tau = 0.8501, table 3) as most of the rankings were similar for insurance mechanisms for firefighters, improvement in law enforcement, and restriction of human activities in forest (table 2). insurance mechanism was highly preferred by the respondents whereas improvement in law enforcement and restriction of human activities in the forest were felt unimportant. the second strongest agreement between district responses was found for forest fuel management and infrastructure (kendall tau = 0.6757, table 3) as most of the rankings were similar for firefighting tools and infrastructure and fuel reductions mechanism (table 2). the lowest agreement between district responses was found for public education and coordination (kendall's tau = 0.2471, table 3) as the rankings varied in almost all of the characteristics (table 2). discussion nepal is among the most vulnerable countries to climate change impacts. narc (2010) predicted that because of climate change, events of natural disasters, including forest fires are likely to be increased in the coming years. this will cause a problem in the demand and supply of different climate services to the policymakers (clar & steurer, 2018). to effectively implement and involve local forest users in forest fire management, concerned official or decision– makers need to incorporate the existing knowledge of the local people, their perception banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 47 parajuli et al. and risk in terms of forest fire and their opinions and interest in the best forest fire management measures should be incorporated. shindler et al., (2009) also stated that public acceptance of forest fire management activities can play a key role in the successful implementation of forest fire management strategies. therefore, to reduce the knowledge gap in understanding the perception, needs and priorities of forest users’ communities and increasing the social acceptability and local response to forest fire management activities, we studied different measures that have high social acceptability across two landscapes. three major areas for discussion come from the result that is related to forest fuel management and infrastructure, forest fire management strategies and actions and public education and coordination on forest fire management. firstly, under the forest fuel management and infrastructure section, adoptive measures such as the increase in fire fighting force, firefighting tools and fire fighting training were ranked higher than the measures such as control burning, reduction of fuels and fire line development. the overall result indicates that local forest users focus on capacity development or infrastructure over forest fuel management. ensuring simple yet effective forest fire suppressing equipment can prove to be less costly and more realistic if local people have some experience in managing forest fires (appiah et al., 2010). moreno et al., (2005) also argued that technological advancement improves the monitoring and warning systems in firefighting and reduces the fire detection and response time. under the same section, almost all of the measures were ranked as significantly important by both high–prone districts of the study areas, i.e., chitwan and bardiya. for example, both infrastructures and reduction of forest fuels were rated higher by both districts because they have been frequently experiencing the negative aspects of forest fires and other remaining districts have fewer forest fires. low or medium–risk districts focused on fire fighting training and tools than forest fuel reduction. these findings are similar to those of bright & newman (2006) and gordon et al., (2018) who stated in their study that control or prescribed burning was strongly supported by the local people who experienced frequent or recent forest fires than that of low or no fire history. in line with this, raftoyannis et al., (2014) argued that the stakeholders of the high fire risk region are more aware of the importance of suppression measures, especially with the reduction of surface fuels and prescribed burning in the areas where large and frequent fires occurred. the second measure that the respondents were asked to rank was the forest fire management strategies and section. interestingly, we found a wide range of rankings where the respondents ranked the highest priority measure as the provision of insurance mechanism to the firefighters and the least preferred measure as restriction of human activities in forests among all the measures. the insurance mechanism got the highest ranking, having a mean of 4.5, making it the foremost priority of all the groups, including the other 16 activities. both high and medium–risk districts showed primary concern about insurance mechanisms because of the direct threat to their life or physical loss while suppressing fire. many researchers claim that the health and life insurance mechanism is vital for firefighters (rubaca & majid khan, 2020; varney et al., 2020). in addition, lee et al., (2020) argue that there are chances to have around five cancer types where firefighting is involved. most of the respondents across the landscape believed that if the insurance mechanism were provisioned, then the participation in the firefighting would be increased. restriction of human activities in forests under the same group received the least ranking (1.6 out of 5). improvement in law enforcement was also ranked second least preferred measure by all most all of the respondents across the region suggesting that strong law and enforcement in this region will decrease the participation of local people in managing the forest fire. a similar result was obtained by chhetri et al., (2012) and the author explains the negative consequences of forest management when the law is enforced against local people's will. raftoyannis et al., (2014), likewise, also stated that although the human restrictions in the forest might be helpful to decrease the rate of forest fire incidents, there banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 48 parajuli et al. would be other adverse effects on forest–related crimes, deforestation, and degradation. on the contrary, yuliana et al., (2021) in their study found that the majority of the respondents who had a high level of perception of forest fire were mostly supportive to introduce strict laws and regulation that prohibits forest fire. public education and coordination are also the major components of forest fire management. encouraging stakeholders' involvement in fire management will help reduce the risk and forest fire suppression cause (kalabokidis et al., 2008). in this study, forest users also uniformly agree that awareness and collaboration are required for the efficient performance of the strategy. under this group, community involvement in fire suppression and knowledge of fire fighting was both supported and considered effectively by the community forest managers. they believed fighting with fire needs knowledge because there have been numerous incidents in the past that took many lives for not having adequate knowledge, equipment and coordination (bhujel et al., 2017). therefore, they ranked forest fire awareness measure as the third most important measure. if the awareness is increased in the landscape, it will have a higher level of agreement among the stakeholders (karki, 2002) and implementation of different other measures will be easier. for example, awareness of social networks and institutions and wise decision–making can be effective for the implementation of a long–term forest fire management plan (gordon et al., 2018). conclusion to increase effective participation of local people in the forest fire management sector, it is essential to understand the opinion of those forest users on the risk management. therefore, this study highlighted the perception of community forest managers on the preferences of different forest fire management measures in order to gain wider social acceptability. the respondents were asked to rank on three main themes i.e., forest fuel management and infrastructure, forest fire management strategies and actions, and public education and coordination on forest fire management. the study found an increased concern in implementing forest fire risk management measures such as insurance mechanisms, increase of the fire fighting force, and fire fighting tools. this study could be helpful to local and regional planners for increasing public participation and social acceptability for effective implementation of forest fire management plan. references appiah, m., damnyag, l., blay, d., & pappinen, a. 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(2020). impacts of climate change on wildfires in central asia. in forests (vol. 11, issue 8). https:// doi.org/10.3390/f11080802 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 33‒42 33 franca et al. although integrated conservation and development projects (icdps) have been undertaken worldwide to protect biodiversity while addressing social and economic needs of communities, they have also been subjected to wide critique for their lack of effectiveness in achieving conservationdevelopment win-win scenarios (bauch et al., 2014 hughes and flintan, 2001). for instance, barrett and arcese (1995) pointed out that conservation goals often take precedence, and because livelihood needs are not meaningfully addressed, illegal (and often unsustainable) harvesting persists. berkes et al. (2003) argued that the restrictions established by current conservation methods have deprived the local communities of opportunities necessary for their survival and development. indeed, icdps seem to have an implicit bias toward conservation, given that they typically occur in areas with perceived high levels of biodiversity that is worth preserving for its own sake and/or for tourism. moreover, the revenue generated by conservation, such as tourism, often serves national development over local development. in other words, local development is rarely a true priority and outcome from icdps. such negative perspectives dominate icdp-related literature. despite the widespread critiques of icdps, the annapurna conservation area project (acap) in the highlands of nepal has been largely described as an example of an icdp done right (hughes and flintan, 2001; bajracharya et al., 2007; spiteri and nepal, 2008; ojha et al., 2010). launched in 1986, the acap aims to conserve natural resources for the benefit of present and future generations, bring sustainable social and economic development to the local people, and develop tourism in a way that has minimum negative impact on the natural, socio-cultural, and economic environments (ntnc, 2010). participatory forestry in the integrated conservation and development projects (icdps) have been undertaken in many countries due to expectations of their supporting both natural resource sustainability and livelihoods. however, they have been challenged by critics over the years, who claim that conservation goals take precedence over local development in practice, thereby worsening the vulnerability of resource-dependent people. nonetheless, one icdp implemented in nepal, the annapurna conservation area project (acap), has been largely regarded by researchers and practitioners as an icdp success case. under the authority of a conservation-oriented ngo, acap, the icdp engages local communities participatory for resource management. one community within acap has been found to have a substantial timber surplus that satisfies conservation goals, but could also become a sizeable and sustainable source of income for local development. we interrogate the rules and practices of timber management in this community to explore the why behind this practice, discussing how modes of environmental governance aimed at producing behaviors to manage natural resources in particular ways (‘environmentalists’) feature in the seemingly conservation-oriented de jure rules and de facto practices and in authority relations in and around the community. keywords : icdp, conservation, local development, decision-making, nepal making sense of conservation behaviours in mustang, nepal c. s. s. frança1, e. o. kyei2, g. s. aragundi1 and r. l. rutt1 1 university of copenhagen, copenhagen, denmark * all co-authors contributed equally to this article. email: carol.srto@gmail.com 2 bangor university, bangor, united kingdom banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 33‒42 34 franca et al. form of local conservation area management committees (camc) has been implemented across much of the acap, to enroll residents as custodians of the forests and other natural resources. according to legislation (gon, 1996), the primary responsibility of the camcs (as per sections 14 and 15) is to prepare and implement a management work plan, which lays out among other details, the rules and restrictions for forest product harvesting. recent research carried out in part of the acap indicates that a camc situated in the lower part of the mustang district, the so-called ‘timber basket’ of the region, has established a low quota for timber extraction. meilby et al., (2014) argue that, within the sustainable limits of the forest, the commercial use of timber could bring approximately three-folds additional income to this community. this would be of particular interest for the communities in this region, where forest income makes up in average 22% (12‒31%) of the overall income and is of crucial importance especially to the poorest households (rayamahji et al., 2012). although research in the regional context suggests a tendency for top-down technocratic approaches favoring conservation in this area (meilby et al., 2014, rutt et al., 2014, ohja et al., 2014), there is a knowledge gap on “why” local decision-makers would leave commercial timber standing, when it has the potential to increase the incomes of the community through harvest and sale. thus, a question persists : what is the rationale behind the decision to keep trees standing? to respond, we refer to existing scholarship describing the production of environmental subjects while examining the status of and rationales behind four main timber rules and practices : how much the communities can/do harvest; what they can harvest; where/who they can sell to; and how much they can sell for. these rules and practices are deemed most significant for conservation and development objectives. further, we examined perceptions of local development needs and ambitions, including in relation to forest conservation. this study provides a case to the growing body of research looking to understand why decision-makers enact and adopt certain conservative standards under the trade-off conditions of conservation and local development. furthermore, the rules, practices and their rationales presented here can be helpful to setting up future projects also pursuing the critical dual goals of resource conservation and human wellbeing. explaining conservation behaviour : ‘environmentalities’ a dominant perspective to explain why different actors practice resource conservation behaviour stems from the foucauldian notion of governmentality (the cultivation of selfregulation in line with the interests of a governing power), in relation to environmental governance and behaviours. called ‘environmentality’, this perspective originally examined shifts in belief systems toward a supposed intrinsic valuation of natural resources. environmentalities are poststructural conceptualizations of modes of environmental governance (bluwstein, 2017) aimed at the production of behaviours that protect and manage the material environment in certain ways (fletcher, 2010; agrawal, 2005). agrawal (2005) described how “environmental subjects” are created that care about resource conservation. he found firstly, that individuals’ beliefs about forests were found to vary not because of socioeconomic aspects, but because of people’s involvement in regulatory practices (agrawal, 2005). through participation in forest protection, the values held by the local "environmental subjects" were reshaped to converge with those of the ruling power, which in this case largely favoured resource conservation. in more recent work on this concept, scholars have extended the notion to describe multiple types of environmentalities. fletcher, (2010) draws from the extensive work of foucault to elaborate four variations : disciplinary, neoliberal, sovereign, and truth environmentalities. disciplinary environmentality is an authoritative technique of government through the invocation of an environmental morality (largely the version put forth by agrawal). neoliberal environmentality is implemented through economic incentives that assume and cultivate self-interest and competition, and steeringbehaviour towards productive ends. sovereign environmentality invokes the power of the state authorities, typically manifesting through other environmentality projects and often visible in the conservation sector through command and control, ‘fences and fines’ type banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 33‒42 35 franca et al. approaches. finally, truth environmentality is employed by people and institutions to promote supposed universal ideas (e. g. wilderness, nature, indigeneity) or depict an essentialist connection, such as between ‘indigenous’ or ‘local’ people and ‘nature’ (bluwstein, 2017). these ‘truths’ can serve diverse agendas, from empowerment of typically vulnerable groups to conservation ambitions. fletcher, (2010) describes how these different forms of environmental subject-making occasionally overlap. he provides an example : “neoliberal governmentality could be seen as reliant upon certain disciplinary techniques to facilitate its operation. that is, disciplinary governmentality would be necessary to construct the rational actors upon which neoliberal governmentality would then operate”. he also notes that different governmentalities may also conflict, constituting “the terrain of political debate” and “leading to debate concerning the proper approach to governance within a given situation”. while the entanglement of and conflict amongst environmentalities is of great interest, we focus mainly on utilizing these concepts as co-existent explanatory tools to better understand the rationales at work in relation to the timber rules and practices in this context. this unfolds in the later discussion section. materials and methods study site our study site is located in the mustang district of highland nepal. it encompasses multiple villages totaling almost 80 km2, with around 1000 inhabitants across approximately 150 households, that largely engage in agriculture as the main income source (cbs, 2011, larsen et al., 2014). locals depend on firewood for subsistence needs and timber as a source of income (larsen et al., 2014). tourism is an increasingly viable livelihood activity for people in the region (urothody and larsen, 2010). the acap is managed by the nepali ngo national trust for nature conservation (ntnc), which was granted temporary management authority under the supervision of the department of national parks and wildlife conservation, within the ministry of forest and soil conservation. the ntnc officials (‘acap officers’), i.e. a chief conservation officer and technical support staff, work with and provide support and oversight for local conservation area management committees (camc). the camc members consist of the chairperson of the local government body (called village development committee (vdc), one internally nominated representative from each vdc sub‒divisions (called wards), and five persons nominated by the acap chief conservation officer from among the local users for a total of 11 members in the camc in our site. members of the camc selfselect their leadership (chairperson, secretary, etc.). forest management sub‒committees (fmsc) are formed to address ward-based management tasks such as the evaluation of timber requested by households (larsen et al. 2014). acap officers also frequently take part in the camc meetings. data collection the field research occurred over two weeks in early 2016. data was obtained through several methods : (i) literature review, (ii) semi-structured individual and group interviews, with nine camc and sub‒ committee members (many of whom also sit on the main camc), with three acap officers (in one group interview), and informally with three nepali forestry scholars with substantial knowledge of this camc – making a total of 11 interviews, and (iii) data extraction from the camc operational plan (2009), timber transaction records, and meetings minutes. unofficial discussions with approximately ten residents that do not hold camc positions and observation of conditions in the villages and forest were used for triangulation. interviews were carried out simultaneously in english and nepali with the aid of a translator acquainted to the local context. all interviews were recorded and transcripted. documents in nepali were translated. interview transcripts and supporting documents were analysed by following an interpretative approach (elliott and timulak, 2005). quantitative data on timber harvest records, income, price, and sale were analysed using excel. results and discussion results the following section presents four main timber rules (de jure) and practices (de facto), namely how much, what, where, and for how much, as well as perceptions on local development needs and ambitions. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 33‒42 36 franca et al. how much can/do they harvest ? the camc management operational plan provides an upper limit for timber extraction of 5000 ft3 (141.58 m3) for use by insiders and 3500 ft3 (99. 11 m3) for use by outsiders, making a total of approximately 8500 ft3 (240.69 m3) per annum (rutt et al., 2014). timber transaction records show the total harvest between 2008/9 to 2015/16 (in accordance with the nepali calendar; fig. 1). the amount consists of extraction for both ‘insiders’, or those from within the camc territory, as well as ‘outsiders’, who live within the same mustang district and within the overall acap. as is shown in figure 1, the total harvest has exceeded the limit stated in the plan. in fact, the camc members described the practice of an “extraction system” of a 60/40 ratio using dead or dying wood, whereby 60% of any dead and dying wood can be harvested, with 40% left in the forest to support biodiversity conservation and soil fertility as well as to retain some usable wood for the (near) future, as needed. interviews revealed what appears to be a heavy reliance on the acap technicians to give approval regarding how much of the available timber actually constitutes the harvestable 60 (or 80) percent. for example, one sub-committee member explained : "in the event of a storm, for instance, we just call the acap officials and they do the monitoring with special method and we harvest according to the forest technicians’ estimates”. in times of crisis, such as heavy storms, forest fires, and earthquakes events which both make timber available for extraction but also increase demand for repair of buildings, fences, and other infrastructure the system changes to 80/20. as mentioned by interviewees, peak times visible in the graph coincide with incidences of such emergencies, most recently the 2015 earthquake. fig. 1: trend of timber extraction (from sales records) of the camc, 2008/9 ‒ 2015/16 the years on the graph reflect the nepali calendar. for instance, the year 2008/09 on the graph reflects the nepali year of 2065, which begins in april/ may 2008 and ends on march/april 2009 when translated into the english calendar. this explains why the years on the graph overlap. insiders are consumers of timber within the camc. outsiders are consumers of timber outside the camc, but within the mustang district of which the camc is a part. the “upper limit” is the total amount of timber that can be extracted for use as stipulated in the sites forest management plan. yet, forest inventory data from meilby et al. (2014) based on estimates of annual tree volume increments and extractions from 122 permanent plots in the high mountain site (of which the camc territory is a part), over a period of five years (2005 ‒ 2010), suggest that the actual annual harvest of timber in the camc area is lower than what the sustainable harvest levels should be for their forest. specifically, they state that about 4192 m3 yr-1 (i.e. 80% of the estimated 5240 m3yr-1 mean annual increment) is the sustainable harvest level for the high mountain forest. what can they harvest ? to meet local timber needs, the operational management plan (2009) states permitted species for harvest and sale include pine (pinus wallichiana), dhupi (cupressus torulosa) and kisin (tsuga dumosa) and “the dried and felled tree should be provided by the committee”. the plan prioritizes “dried and felled tree”, which is notable given the higher economic and use value of green (live) timber. the plan continues, “in case of green or standing tree, the girth should exceed 5 ft”. however, trees with a girth over 5 ft are uncommon in this forest. further, as elaborated by inter viewers, for the previous three years, the felling of green trees had been effectively banned. exceptions occurred only under very special conditions such as when dead or dying wood is in short supply and an urgent (non-commercial) need emerges and only in “very limited” quantity. the reasons given to support the ban included a preoccupation with the capability of the forest to provide for future generations. one committee member explained : “green tree felling [happened] only in the beginning [when banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 33‒42 37 franca et al. the camc was formed] but when we became more aware of conservation we stopped doing that”. some raised the point that the forest litter provided by green trees is an essential input (e.g., manure) to local agriculture, especially since they do not use commercial fertilizer. others explained that allowing for green timber harvest will likely incentivise people to harvest green timber close to the villages and to the most accessible places and trails, instead of going far inside into the forest to harvest available dead and dying wood. if this happens, it may reduce the aesthetic or touristic value along for instance trails, and this they believe can negatively affect the emerging ecotourism in the area. another driver behind the ban appeared to be pressure from the acap. a general consensus seems to have been established between the camc and acap officials to refrain from using green trees for the foreseeable future. when pushed in interview, a few camc officials admitted that “from time to time we have raised our concern and interest in using green trees for harvesting but the acap does not approve, they tell us it’s not good”. in a separate interview, the acap officials acknowledged, “there are a few that are not happy. ” yet they justified their position by explaining, “the district has areas with very little trees, so all have to conserve. yes, we bind [this area] to rules, like other areas. we have our directives, we must follow, for conservation. the forest is also home to other biodiversity. we can not forget this.” at the same time, a visit to one of the arguably most elite members of the community (owning comparatively large assets) and of the camc (having held several executive positions), admitted during a field visit that green trees are “occasionally” used to construct fencing on his private property (with non-timber species used for fencing, and timber species for poles). he acknowledged this was officially against the rules, but justified it by its limited extent. during another field visit with a small group of the camc members from ward level (who by appearances were significantly less wealthy), fervently expressed the view that a green tree ban was absolutely essential for the wellbeing of the resource. when pushed to consider circumstances under which it could be appropriate, e. g. if they learned that they had sufficiently abundant resources, they nearly refused to hear the arguments, taking a firm stand that harvesting green trees is not a possible option for them. this dissonance we observed in beliefs and practice across the camc members is considered in the coming discussion. to who/ where can they sell ? in relation to timber sale, the management operational plan (2009) draws from the conservation area management rules of 1996, which state that the camcs are allowed to sell timber only to areas within the mustang district of the acap. a camc respondent explained that the restrictions stemmed from the substantial dependency of those from barer parts of the district, positioning them as the district’s ‘timber basket’. timber sale records (fig. 1) show an increase in the amount of timber traded over the years, which reflects an increase in timber demand over the years with more demand from buyers outside this camc. the district’s growing furniture industry is the principal buyer. some respondents suggested that if the market was not restricted, sales would likely expand to beyond the district, possibly at higher prices. how much can they sell for ? current government regulation stipulates that timber may not be sold at less than npr 100 (usd 0. 96) per ft3 (i.e. about npr, 3,531 or usd 33.15, per m3), for outsiders. this camc sells timber at npr 150 (usd 1.45) per ft3 (i. e. usd 51. 20 per m3) to outsiders; insiders pay a highly subsidized price of npr 10 (usd 0. 10) per ft3 (i. e. usd 3.53 per m3). timber prices and income have increased over the years (fig. 2), revealing an awareness and interest in maximizing income potential that was confirmed in interview. timber prices in some neighbouring camcs are higher, at npr 200 (usd 1.94) per ft3 (i.e. usd 68.51 per m3). the camc respondents explained that while they are actively considering a price increase, current prices reflect careful rationales. low insiders’ prices are believed to incentivize forest protection by the local users. the camc officials also justified their relatively lower prices for outsiders (compared to neighbouring camcs) by referring to their comparatively worse roads and severe topography that is more susceptible to flooding. poorer access increases the price banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 33‒42 38 franca et al. for buyers, who bear the cost of harvesting and transport themselves. therefore, selling timber at a price lower than neighbours enables them to be competitive. fig. 2: trend of timber income and price of the study site from 2008/9-2015/16 the years on the graph reflect the nepali calendar. for instance, the year 2008/09 on the graph reflect the nepali year of 2065, which begins in april/ may 2008 and ends on march/april 2009 when translated into the english calendar. this explains why the years on the graph overlap. insiders are consumers of timber within the camc. outsiders are consumers of timber outside the camc, but within the mustang district of which the camc is a part. what are local development needs and ambitions ? respondents were questioned on their perceptions of local development needs, ambitions, and their priorities in relation to development and conservation. in terms of need, respondents referred to small industry development, better employment opportunities, and general education, mentioning the heavy reliance on “just agriculture” in problematic terms. several expressed interest in more ecotourism in their area (also referred to above). it is also notable that one of the camc sub‒committees is explicitly dedicated to ‘tourism’. the same respondent described shifts in the community toward more “welcoming” attitudes to visitors as compared to the past. another described the role for forest product sales, “the funds that we are generating helps the people in building some cottage industries and the harvesting also provides some employment for the youth in the area. so yes, it’s helping a lot in local development.” but as many respondents, this one quickly expressed concern for conservation goals : “the demand for timber is high. we fear we may not be able to meet the demand in a sustainable way. ” a few respondents described some dissatisfaction with the distribution of the camc funds to local development and livelihood enhancement vs. conservation. two for instance referred to a lack of resource allocation to protect agricultural areas from wildlife disturbance. yet overall, conservation was largely a part of any response to inquiries into local development as if the two are for the most part inseparable. from the perspective of the acap, tourism has potential for this camc, but it is something for ‘the future’. the acap officials also acknowledged the importance of including development goals particularly for community motivation to conserve. the acap officer clarified their first priority : “as a conservationist, i must say we have to prioritize conservation”. overall it appears the acap is both assisting tourism development and local development, but also holding it back when it appears to be in odds with conservation priorities. discussion in his work on the concept of ‘environmentality’, agrawal (2005) describes a process by which people come to see themselves as defenders of the environment because of their involvement in regulatory practices. while we were unable to dig deeply into behaviour and value changes in practice across the community over time, many of the interview responses seem to align with the changes described by agrawal (2005), corroborating with the idea that local decision-makers have become environmental subjects from their interaction with the regulatory system promoted through participatory forestry and championed by the acap officials. the camc members described a generally heavy reliance on the acap officials for practical issues (e. g. the presence of the acap officials is described as necessary to legitimate the camc decisions on which trees and how much they can harvest), which over time likely encroached even into the value system that the camc members promote in their community. some described, “acap has had a very big impact on mindsets of people regarding conservation”. we learned that the acap officials take an active part in the camc meetings and during any key banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 33‒42 39 franca et al. decisions. the acap officials also acknowledged the influential role that they have on the committee members, which have led to substantial changes in community forest management practices. one acap conservation officer described the numerous awareness and conservation programmes they hold (also frequently referred to by the camc members), “to sensitize the local people of the importance of conservation”, noting, “we made them follow it strictly. ” this relationship between acap officers and camc officials appears to be a manifestation of mutually reinforcing disciplinary, truth, and sovereign (state-authority driven) environmentalities (following fletcher, 2010), through acap’s frequent presence and heavy hand in forest management as well as the emphasis on conservation as a primary value, where development goals are instrumentalized to motivate conservation behaviors (e.g. tourism only as it aligns with conservation). a conservation ethos certainly seems to be predominant in most de jure rules and de facto practices. in reaction to limitations on how much they can and do harvest, to what they can harvest (the ban on green timber), and where, the forest inventory data from meilby et al., (2014) imply that increasing harvest to maximum sustainable levels would allow for a tripling of forest income for the camc. the conclusions of meilby et al. ’s work in 2014 were reiterated during our own field work by a team of international foresters conducting technical research in the same area. after examining multiple forest plots (though less extensively than meilby et al.) this group also called for the harvesting of green trees to improve forest condition and particularly, to allow for increased timber values to develop if desired community sales records demonstrate income from timber sales is increasing (fig. 2). since timber prices have only risen marginally, this implies that the increase in income may be a result of increase in the number of customers or increases in the average transaction size. this corresponds to the camcs claim that the demand for timber in the region is very high. this reinforces the claim of meilby et al. (2014) that incomes would rise if current harvest levels are increased, given the ongoing high demand for timber in the region. the demand for timber in nepal is certainly high. the himalayan times (2016) reported that almost 30 million cubic feet of timber were imported from e. g. malaysia, indonesia, and african countries, to fill the timber supply gap left as a result of strict regulations against extraction of timber in nepali forests. prices of timber also appear higher outside the mustang district. for instance, the average price per cubic feet of the same timber produced in this camc, pinus wallichiana, on the nepali market was reported at around npr 900 (usd 8.73) (housing nepal, 2010), while the camc sold to outsiders (but within the district) at just npr 70 (usd 0.68). the high demand for timber and better prices outside the mustang district means that more income could be generated by expanding the market beyond the district. therefore, a decision to leave timber in the forest suggests an inclination towards conservation over local development. yet while a conservation ethos manifests in some of the explanations of rules by the camc representatives, they are also concerned with more economic-oriented values of standing forests, suggesting the growth of a neoliberal environmentality that, for now, aligns with the overarching conservation agenda. for instance, litter from green trees provides an important source of mulch for their agricultural production a main source of income for most as opposed to purchasing expensive chemical fertilizer. furthermore, the camc representatives’ interest in ecotourism also indicates that the environmental income from such activities in the area is more desirable than potential income from harvesting and sale of the green trees. one sub‒committee member (with an advantageous location for benefiting from tourism) stated "a lot of the revenue is being produced by the tourism, thousands of rupees" – despite that this has not yet really manifested in their area. regarding timber sale price, the camc seems to be operating from a profit-maximizing rationale in that timber prices are set lower than neighbouring areas, to make up for their infrastructural and other accessibility challenges. we interpret their pricing decision as a thoughtful strategy to both conserve forests and support local development. keeping price low for insiders is expected to induce resource conservation, which may be evident in how strictly the community seems to follow conservation rules, the low occurrence of illegal logging, and the abundance of timber resources that meet their needs. on the other hand, low prices of timber for insiders ensure that locals have access to cheap timber and fuelwood, which can induce savings on incomes. such savings can be channeled into provision of other livelihood or local development needs, such as to support the education of children or purchase other household items. of course, low banko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 33‒42 40 franca et al. ‘internal’ timber prices have been found to benefit the wealthier community members more, as they are often best enabled to channel cheap timber into infrastructure that allows them to benefit from, e.g., tourism opportunities (lund et al., 2014). poorer people, without the capital needed to take advantage, simply lose due to the lost revenue from sales that might have benefited everyone. overall, the explanations and practices of the camc respondents (notably camc leadership) seem to echo fletcher (2010) and others (bluwstein, 2017) depictions of a neoliberal environmentality that prioritizes conservation for positive economic incentives – with a particular bias in favour of already better off residents. we do wonder if this form of ‘environmentality’with its emphasis on profit, may come to undermine the other forms so carefully cultivated by conservation authorities. the practice of using small green trees for fencing poles by the camc elites (shunned officially and unlikely to be practiced by regular users), combined with the insistence of lower-ranking camc members (those from the ward level that are poorer and that do not hold executive positions within the camc) of the importance of protecting valuable green trees, also makes us also wonder if a sort of 'trickle-down’ environmentality might be occurring. by this, we mean that whereas the camc elites, constituted by aspects of wealth/assets, education, caste, etc., are most likely to have participated in acap awareness and conservation programmes, we imagine a sort of ‘environmentality’ transfer taking place down to socially lower ranking community members. these members receive the knowledge of conservation practice and ethos from their authoritative/social ‘superiors’ through the regular practice of the camc meetings and responsibilities. environmental ‘subjecthood’ is not necessarily a permanent condition, and the concern for the environment as pushed by the acap officials may now be pushed upon the lower ranking officials at sub‒committee level, to encourage their conformity to rules while freeing up elites to push the boundaries of legality so to speak for their own benefit (which at this limited scale is unlikely to cause substantial forest damage). in other words, if community elites can successfully (through indoctrination into a conservation morality), produce overall conformity to rules, then their occasional breaking of rules is unlikely to be seen as problematic by those to whom they are ultimately accountable to the acap officials. this raises questions as to the effectiveness and durability of ‘environmentalities’ and in this case, particularly disciplinary and truth environmentalities that are based particularly on morality/belief systems. in fact, it is precisely the upward pathways of accountability that have complicated participatory resource management in practice in other parts of nepal, whereby relations of patronage amongst community elites and forest officers come to outweigh the accountability of community group executives to regular and less powerful users (malla, 2001). we suppose that if we were informed about the practice of green tree harvest for the use of elites within a relatively short field visit, other similar practices would likely come to light over time. as such, this context may contribute to increasing disparity within the community rather than comprehensive community development. the nature of environmentality transfer downward through social strata, as well as the effectiveness and durability of various environmentalities over time, are research arenas we hope more researchers will explore further, particularly through more in-depth research than we were able to conduct for this study. conclusion while at first glance some rules and practices appear to favour conservation due to their strictness in restricting the harvesting or commercialization of standing timber, a second look at the rationales behind those rules and some practices in the study area tell a more nuanced story. overall it appears that the interests of the locals and the authorities converge, leading to resource conservation behaviours and outcomes, and there appear to be multiple environmentalities at work in the community not purely the disciplinary and other environmentalities that imply the uptake of a morality of the intrinsic value of forests, but also a growing neoliberal environmentality oriented towards the economic potential of resource conservation. further, we believe that there is a ‘trickle-down’ effect occurring in the study area, where disciplinary, sovereign, and truth environmentalities that promote both certain value systems (conservation for conservation’s sake), and the maintenance of systems of authority, first occurs through an indoctrination of community leaders via acap trainings (and frequent engagement in decision making spaces). community leaders eventually transfer such environmental subjectbanko janakari, vol 29 no. 1, 2019 pp 33‒42 41 franca et al. hood to lower ranking community members, as they simultaneously take advantage of their own authority to push boundaries of legality. this we believe may have led to a broader community of “environmental subjects” but we question whether it is effective and durable in terms of conservation goals. we also question durability of the conservation ethos under a growing (if slowly) neoliberal environmentality prioritizing profit. future research could further investigate how exactly multiple environmentalities are taken up, maintained or contested, undermine one another and also travel among different types of people over time. research on participatory forestry across nepal has also indicated a persistent and widespread context of elite capture in decision-making and in the distribution of benefits. thus, interrogating differences in the impacts of decisions across the communities also appears pertinent. acknowledgements all co-authors contributed equally to this article. this study was developed in connection with the m. sc. sustainable tropical forestry program organized by a consortium of five european universities – bangor university, uk, university of copenhagen, denmark, dresden university of technology, germany, agro paris tech, france, and university of padova, italy – and benefited from the erasmus mundus scholarship offered to students by the european commission. the authors are deeply grateful to the camc members, acap officers, and forestry scholars for their time and valuable insights. we would like to thanks bidhan adhikary and ashmi ramachandran for their various crucial contributions to this research as well as to muna sharma and bidhya sharma for their invaluable support in the field and for translating the interviews. we are also grateful to henrik meilby for his generous feedback on this manuscript. we thank the institute of forestry pokhara 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forest user groups of dang district, nepal ganesh raj acharya 1*, krishna raj tiwari 1, sanjaya acharya 2 1institute of forestry, tribhuvan university. *email: grajacharya@gmail.com 2 faculty of humanities and social sciences, tribhuvan university this study on climate change adaptation (cca) strategies in community forest user groups (cfugs) was conducted at two levels: household and user group. the study was conducted in seven community forests (cfs) of dang district, nepal, using household questionnaires administered to 570 households (hhs) and focus group discussion (fgd) checklists. primary data on climate change adaptation strategies were collected from both the household and group levels. this study explores the understanding of cca strategies and climate change adaptation knowledge at the local level. the understanding of climate change is primarily shaped by its adverse effects. we identified nine different adaptation strategies at the household level, while seven different strategies were observed at the user group level. individual preferences for adaptation practices are often those that provide immediate benefits. similarly, at the user group level, the construction of recharge ponds and ecological restoration activities were among the most widely adopted cca strategies with strategic importance. an eta correlation was used to assess the relationship between household income and climate change adaptation strategies, yielding a coefficient of 0.383, indicating a relationship exists. the study concludes that cfugs have emphasized cca strategies as an inseparable part of their community practices, as evidenced by their choices at both the household and user group levels. keywords: adaptation, climate change, community forestry, resource, strategy climate change has been a global concern, primarily due to its direct and indirect adverse effects on humankind (chausson et al., 2020; dellmuth & gustafsson., 2021; ghimire & chhetri, 2022; taylor, 2023). its most profound impacts are observed in agriculture, water resources, and the energy sector (mofe, 2021a; shayanmehr et al., 2022; rej et al., 2023). the primary objective of climate change adaptation (cca) is to empower individuals and communities to address the threats and challenges in sectors directly linked to their livelihoods and institutions, such as agriculture, forestry, and water resources (cooper & messina, 2023; mogess & ayen, 2023). therefore, cca strategies have become an integral part of addressing these challenges. in this study, climate change adaptation (cca) is defined as a process that adjusts to the impacts of climate change, aiming to mitigate livelihood challenges through community-based initiatives and actions. similarly, the discourse around cca is becoming increasingly visible in the domain of community forestry. it has policy significance due to its sensitivity to adaptation issues (dany et al., 2015; bhattarai, 2020). as a result, adapting to climate change is emerging as a significant developmental challenge both globally and locally, especially for highly vulnerable countries like nepal (brandt et al., 2016; roshani et al., 2022; turner et al., 2022). adaptation strategies and practices have been a common concern globally (biesbroek et al., 2010; keessen, 2013; wester et al., 2019; raihan, 2023). in the context of nepal, community forest user groups (cfugs) employ incremental, conventional, and transformative adaptation approaches to enhance community resilience, adjusting to and sustaining it (loginova & baterbury, 2019; adhikari et al., 2021). recognizing this, the government of nepal has also acknowledged these adaptation strategies in its policy documents (salerno, 2017; nepal, 2019; gon, 2021; rijal et al., 2022). the national adaptation received: 17 january 2024 revised: 26 july 2025 accepted: 19 september 2025 published: 30 september 2025 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2, 2025 pp 70-84https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i2.61976 https://orcid.org/0009-0001-7679-069x https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8278-9997 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0543-2868 71 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 plan (nap) outlines the country’s priorities for climate adaptation and is a principal document in this domain. it further identifies challenges and gaps in implementing adaptation strategies, including constraints related to financial resources, technology transfer, capacity building, and technical support, among others (gon, 2021). the mandatory provision requiring member countries to submit biennial transparency reports (btrs), including details on adaptation under the enhanced transparency framework, has made the discussion of adaptation issues more prominent (un, 2015; unfccc, 2018, 2022, 2024). articles 9, 10, and 11 of the paris agreement categorically cover critical components of climate action support, including finance, technology development and transfer, and capacity-building (un, 2015). these provisions emphasize the responsibility of developed countries to help developing nations with initiatives related to technical, financial, and capacity development. simply formulating adaptation plans is not enough; they require sufficient resource mobilization for effective implementation. to address this, nepal has formulated both the nationally determined contribution (ndc) implementation plan (20212030) and the national adaptation plan (nap) (20212050) to implement its adaptation and mitigation commitments (npc, 2014, 2017). the total climate budget of nepal exhibits an increasing trend, and the country’s engagement with international climate finance mechanisms has expanded over the years (mofe, 2021a, 2021b; chhetri & rai, 2024; laderach et al., 2024; upreti & chhetri, 2024). the major challenge lies in achieving climate change adaptation while simultaneously building resilience to enhance the livelihoods of poor communities and the broader society (mofe, 2019a, 2019b; npc, 2021). although the understanding of adaptation may vary in local contexts and discourses, its core remains consistent. effective adaptation decisions require climate knowledge. this understanding, both in practice and concept, leads to a better grasp of climate change adaptation among the practitioners and cfug users (smit & wandel, 2006; wise et al., 2014; thomas et al., 2019). analytical framework adaptation strategies and practices have become global concerns (biesbroek et al., 2010; keessen, 2013; wester et al., 2019; raihan, 2023). the concept of adaptation has been applied in various settings and themes (keskinen et al., 2010; wise et al., 2014; berkhout & dow, 2023; cradock-henry et al., 2023). in human systems, adaptation is understood as the process of adjusting to actual or expected climate conditions and their effects to mitigate harm or capitalize on beneficial opportunities. it plays a key role in reducing exposure and vulnerability to climate risks (ipcc, 2022). the use of adaptation practice for specific purposes links them to different adaptation approaches, including conventional, transitional, and transformative adaptation (warner et al., 2019; irham et al., 2022). conceptual framework of this study this study is based on the understanding that climate challenges and knowledge are two principal attributes influencing the adoption of adaptation strategies. this conceptual framework conceptualizes adaptation as element of pathways of interacting changes and societal responses (ipcc, 2014; wise et al., 2014). figure 1: conceptual framework for the study (source: adapted and modified based on analytical framework from reviewed literature) materials and methods study area this study was conducted in seven community forests (cfs) located in the dang district of nepal (figure 2). historically, dang has been known as a destination for migrants from the hilly regions, and the indigenous tharu community constitutes a significant portion of the local population. the study aimed to explore community forest user group (cfug) strategies and to understand how these strategies are utilized at the user level. a heterogeneous mix of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds characterizes the selected user groups. all community forests included in the study are situated within the dang district. the name, number of participating households (hhs), and area covered by each cf are presented in table 1. adaptation strategies � hh level � users level climate adaptation climate challenges in cfug knowledge *indigenous *introduced community forest user groups figure 1: conceptual framework for the study (source: adapted and modified based on analytical framework from reviewed literature) acharya et al. 72 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 it is an approach to suit nature according to context. this framework interprets adaptation as a decisionmaking process that occurs at both the individual household (hh) level and the collective community level (figure 1). materials and methods study area this study was conducted in seven community forests (cfs) located in the dang district of nepal (figure 2). historically, dang has been known as a destination for migrants from the hilly regions, and the indigenous tharu community constitutes a significant portion of the local population. the study aimed to explore community forest user group (cfug) strategies and to understand how these strategies are utilized at the user level. a heterogeneous mix of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds characterizes the selected user groups. all community forests included in the study are situated within the dang district. the name, number of participating households (hhs), and area covered by each cf are presented in table 1. among the seven community forests studied, pandaweshwor and khadgadevi community forests are located in the chure region of dang district, while the remaining cfs are in the mahabharat region. the chure region is located in the southern part of the district, and the mahabharat region is situated in the northern part. all the mentioned cfs share similar characteristics in terms of forest composition, species diversity, and patterns of human settlement. the indigenous tharu population inhabits both regions. figure 2: map of the study district table 1: name of cfugs sn name area (ha) hhs sample hh 1 pandaweshwor cfug 792 850 170 2 khadgadevi cfug 600 450 90 3 kartikerani cfug 104.6 352 72 4 jharana cfug 74.5 215 43 5 bhulke cfug 230 119 24 6 kalika cfug 149.2 111 23 7 gadibara cfug 322 735 148 total 2832 573 among the seven community forests studied, pandaweshwor and khadgadevi community forests are located in the chure region of dang district, while the remaining cfs are in the mahabharat region. the chure region is located in the southern part of the district, and the mahabharat region is situated in the northern part. all the mentioned cfs share similar characteristics in terms of forest composition, species diversity, and patterns of human settlement. the indigenous tharu population inhabits both regions. methods the field study aimed to explore strategies adopted for climate change adaptation at both the household and community levels. specific strategies adopted by users were assessed as distinct figure 2: map of the study district table 1: name of cfugs sn name area (ha) hhs sample hh 1 pandaweshwor cfug 792 850 170 2 khadgadevi cfug 600 450 90 3 kartikerani cfug 104.6 352 72 4 jharana cfug 74.5 215 43 5 bhulke cfug 230 119 24 6 kalika cfug 149.2 111 23 7 gadibara cfug 322 735 148 total 2832 573 among the seven community forests studied, pandaweshwor and khadgadevi community forests are located in the chure region of dang district, while the remaining cfs are in the mahabharat region. the chure region is located in the southern part of the district, and the mahabharat region is situated in the northern part. all the mentioned cfs share similar characteristics in terms of forest composition, species diversity, and patterns of human settlement. the indigenous tharu population inhabits both regions. methods the field study aimed to explore strategies adopted for climate change adaptation at both the household and community levels. specific strategies adopted by users were assessed as distinct table 1: name of cfugs figure 2: map of the study district acharya et al. 73 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 methods the field study aimed to explore strategies adopted for climate change adaptation at both the household and community levels. specific strategies adopted by users were assessed as distinct strategies. primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews (ssi), key informant interviews (kii), focus group discussions (fgd), and direct field observations. informal discussions during the field visit helped gather deeper information and insights, enabling the triangulation of results. a total of 570 respondents were randomly selected for semi-structured interviews, representing 20% of the total households in the selected community forests. similarly, 14 fgds were conducted across the seven cfugs. the information gathered from the fgds provided insights that complemented the information received from ssi. the kii was conducted with a diverse group of stakeholders, including officials from district, provincial, and federal government institutions, non-government organizations, and members of forestry networking organizations. this information helped triangulate the household-level findings, finally. after completing fieldwork, the interview texts were then organized, condensed, categorized, coded, and recorded at both the household and cfug levels. the level of understanding about climate change among community forest users was explored using descriptive statistical analysis. this was done to show how climate change is perceived and understood by the community. climate adaptation strategies were assessed at both the household and user group levels. the household questionnaire survey provided information on adaptation practices at both the individual level and community level. focus group discussions provided more profound insights into collective strategies employed by user groups. household vulnerability was also assessed in terms of food availability and income. the relation between household income and the choice of adaptation strategies was examined using eta-correlation analysis. the surveyed data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the chi-square test. descriptive statistics provided information about the adaptation strategies being implemented. at the same time, the chi-square test examined the relationship between key socioeconomic variables and the adaptation strategy adopted by the users. results knowledge about climate change shapes the approach communities take to tackle it. the understanding guides them in adopting strategies to mitigate its adverse effects. communities possess skills and knowledge to adapt to climate impacts, through indigenous and other forms, such as learning. the understanding of climate change and knowledge of different contexts were found to guide the adaptation process. in this regard, adaptation strategies in community forests were observed at two levels: the household level and the user group level. at the household level, the strategies were based on individual choices and their adaptation to climate change. while at the user group level, the strategy focused on the community as a whole. household-level adaptation strategies, which prioritize individual benefits, are often linked to short-term gains. individual households or families seek tangible benefits, such as horticulture or cash crops, which provide immediate returns on investment. on the other hand, community-level strategies reflect a collective effort towards a common goal. these strategies are more strategic in nature, aiming for long-term benefits such as ecological restoration, water conservation, and the adoption of low-cost technologies, among others, with broader significance. understanding climate change climate change is a widely discussed issue in the community, with frequent use of climaterelated narratives suggesting a high level of public awareness. community members discuss it in various contexts, often focusing on its perceived adverse effects. a common understanding among people is that climate change leads to negative consequences for the community. this understanding of climate change is primarily shaped by its adverse effects, such as rising temperatures, floods, and other observable impacts (figure 3). community members perceive the effects of climate change as both positive and adverse (table 2). to explore these perceptions, focus group discussions were conducted within the community forest user groups, following a predefined agenda. some adverse climate effects, such as drought, have compelled households to change their practices, like switching crops. such adaptations have sometimes yielded a acharya et al. 74 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 higher return than conventional crops. however, fgd participants emphasized that climate change mainly affects their lives negatively. a detailed list of these adverse effects was recorded (table 2). field discussions with the divisional forest office team, household interviews, and direct observation confirmed experiences of climate change impacts. focus group discussions revealed multiple climate change issues and threats, such as drought and water shortages. the frequency and severity of floods have increased, and more unpredictable weather patterns and climate extremes have been observed. the high incidence of pests and diseases, along with the increased frequency and intensity of storms and weather-related disasters, was also attributed to the adverse effects of climate change. crop failure due to frequent unfavourable weather conditions is becoming a big challenge for users. even crops that initially showed excellent growth sometimes fail to yield at harvest time. according to cfug members from jharana cf, climate change education and promotion of adaptive farming practices could significantly help address these challenges. the work plan of the cf also categorically addresses climate issues and areas for future intervention, dedicating a separate section to these topics within the work plan. adaptation strategy at the household level communities have employed both indigenous knowledge and external interventions to address climate challenges, as revealed from the household (hh) data analysis. such adaptation measures, developed by the community in the form of traditional practices or adapted practices, are mentioned as an adaptation strategy. at the household level, adaptation strategies primarily focus on providing immediate benefits to individuals. the immediate benefit is the return of the benefit in a short duration. such a return is achieved within a year and has a direct impact on the concerned household. a total of nine different adaptation strategies were identified at the household level: water source protection, crop switching, riverbed farming, low-cost technologies, drought-resistant crops, horticulture development, and income generation activities (figure 4). according to the field findings, the adverse impact of climate change disproportionately affects vulnerable community members due to their limited capacity to cope. despite this, the consequences of climate change ultimately affect all households, regardless of their socioeconomic status or adaptation scale. switching crop switching crops to adapt to climate change was observed as one of the key strategies for adaptation table 2: perceived effects of climate change in the study area adverse effect positive effect � decreased crop yields � disappearance of some of the indigenous crop varieties � water source shrinkage � increased livestock pests and diseases � declining productivity � change in rainfall pattern � increased flooding incidents � soil erosion and land degradation � unpredictable precipitation (excessive/low) � crop failures due to delayed monsoon and prolonged drought � river flood/flash floods � emerging epidemic risks (potential) � more frequent landslides � increased hailstorm frequency � crop seasonal pattern changed (the crop seasonal pattern changes the crop structure, introducing new crops. for example, turmeric, wheat, new varieties of fruits such as dragon fruits, etc., plantation, harvest) � successful adoption of climate-resilient crops field discussions with the divisional forest office team, household interviews, and direct observation confirmed experiences of climate change impacts. focus group discussions revealed multiple climate change issues and threats, such as drought and water shortages. the frequency and severity of floods have increased, and more unpredictable weather patterns and climate extremes have been observed. the high incidence of pests and diseases, along with the increased frequency and intensity of storms and weather-related disasters, was also attributed to the adverse effects of climate change. crop failure due to frequent unfavourable weather conditions is becoming a big challenge for users. even crops that initially showed excellent growth sometimes fail to yield at harvest time. according to ms. rita chaudhary from jharana cf, climate change education and promotion of adaptive farming practices could significantly help address these challenges. the work plan of the cf also categorically addresses climate issues and areas for future intervention, dedicating a separate section to these topics within the work plan. adaptation strategy at the household level communities have employed both indigenous knowledge and external interventions to address climate challenges, as revealed from the household (hh) data analysis. such adaptation measures, developed by the community in the form of traditional practices or adapted practices, are mentioned as an adaptation strategy. at the household level, adaptation strategies figure 3: climate change understanding of users (%) table 2: perceived effects of climate change in the study area acharya et al. 75 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 among households, serving both to address changing climatic conditions and respond to individual household circumstances. conventional crop switching is also linked to this. besides, crop diversification and product diversification have also been inseparable components of an adaptation strategy. the innovative farming concept among users was observed through the introduction of apiculture, integrated agricultural farms, mushroom cultivation, a cow farm, and a vegetable farm. respondents reported that crop switching proved effective in both increasing household income and enhancing climate resilience. water source protection water source protection was claimed to be a strategy to provide a visible impact in the community through its multiple uses. respondents reported significant water source depletion, with water shrinkage being one of the serious challenges that households face in agricultural production. households are maintaining water source protection-related activities to address water source shrinkage. river/stream bed farming river/stream bed farming practices were also observed among households with land adjacent to water systems. essentially, this practice serves a dual purpose, generating income and conserving or stabilizing the soil. seasonal farming was common in riverbeds, where short-rotation crops such as cucumbers and groundnuts were grown. the short rotation was preferred to avoid possible flooding. plantation plantation was linked to multiple benefits, ranging from environmental value to long-term financial returns. it served as a prominent adaptation strategy among households that provided fuelwood and fodder for livestock. since most users were farmers, they depended on these forest products for their livelihoods. improved farming improved farming has emerged as a relatively recent concept in the community. over time, traditional farming practices have gradually transformed as households adopt improved farming practices to address climate challenges. these traditional methods are often considered inadequate in meeting households’ economic needs. horticulture practice and improved livestock horticulture practice and improved livestock management were found to be interconnected in user adoption practices. while horticulture yields long-term benefits, it simultaneously enhances both food security and household income. this approach serves as an ecological adaptation strategy and an integrated farming concept. these practices have been successfully implemented across community forests and agricultural lands. drought-resistant crops households have adopted drought-resistant crops as a means of adapting to drought. in the past, drought events have severely impacted fodder and grassland availability for livestock, resulting in the shift in cultivation practices observed in the study. farmers now prioritize resilient crop varieties, including cash crops such as ginger and turmeric. low-cost technology adoption the adoption of low-cost technologies was linked to both the household’s affordability capacity and its effectiveness. people have been widely using bioengineering and other cost-effective solutions, with bamboo plantations emerging as one of the most practised examples. recently, bioengineering techniques have been increasingly employed to protect vulnerable land from landslides and erosion. cash crop and income generation cash crop cultivation has been practiced as both an income generation measure and a climate adaptation strategy. the adverse impact of climate change affects the most vulnerable populations due to their lower coping capacity. farmers mentioned employing nine different adaptation strategies to mitigate these challenges. focus group discussions (fgds) in pandaweshwor community forest highlighted that climate impacts have the most significant effect on agriculture systems and livelihoods; at the same time, water source conservation has emerged as a critical concern. similarly, the respondents mentioned that earlier, people used to cultivate local species with low productivity. farmers are now shifting towards cash crops and income-generating activities (igas) as an adaptation strategy, including adjusting their cropping times. notably, severe droughts during july and august, which have previously caused lower productivity, have prompted the adoption acharya et al. 76 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 of drought-resistant crop varieties and modified cropping patterns. the study revealed that the most vulnerable groups, dalit communities (categorized as v4), demonstrated limited adaptation choices. approximately 37% of the sampled households fell into this category. fgds revealed that most v4 households rely on wage labor and other means of income. climate change adaptation strategy and its relation to variables the chi-square test was used to explore the relation between cca strategies and variables such as ethnicity, gender, and occupational status (table 3). cca and ethnicity were found to be closely linked, with household strategies differing according to the ethnic background. changes in a household’s ethnic background were observed to influence the choice of cca strategy (p = 0.021). similarly, the chi-square values for gender (p < 0.001), age (p = 0.013), educational status (p = 0.001), and occupational status (p = 0.05) indicate that these variables significantly influence the preference for specific adaptation strategies. across all cfugs, tharus (an ethnic group from dang district) predominated numerically, except in the gadibara cfug, where other ethnic groups such as magar, pun, and thapa were also present. brahmin, chhetri, and dalit communities were also present in all cfugs. during the fgd, a discussion on adaptation strategies was conducted. the principal rationale for adopting these strategies is presented in table 4. based on the discussion, adaptation emerged as a gradual process of learning and adoption. practices such as riverbed farming, water source protection, and plantation were adopted through community learning. however, strategies such as crop switching, drought-resistant crops, and improved livestock rearing were developed as long-term measures to address adverse climate challenges. adaptation strategy of households and their relationship with their income the vulnerability assessment conducted during the study also recorded household (hh) income levels. an analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between the income of all households and their adaptation strategies (table 5). the relationship between household income and climate change adaptation strategies was assessed using an eta correlation, with a coefficient of 0.383. cfug, where other ethnic groups such as magar, pun, and thapa were also present. brahmin, chhetri, and dalit communities were also present in all cfugs. table 3: chi-square test of adaptation strategy and variables (n = 570) chi-square tests (pearson chi-square) variable value df asymptotic significance (2-sided) ethnicity 29.449 16 0.021 education 61.339 32 0.001 gender 51.962 8 0.000 occupational status 66.431 40 0.005 during the fgd, a discussion on adaptation strategies was conducted. the principal rationale for adopting these strategies is presented in table 4. table 4: adaptation strategies and their rationales for use sn adaptation at the household level rationale behind these strategies 1 switching crop to cope with drought and excessive rain 2 protecting water sources ensuring water availability for agriculture and other purposes 3 river/stream bed farming income diversification 4 plantation environmental conservation and income 5 improved farming techniques increased income 6 horticulture and improved livestock rearing alternative crops 7 drought-resistant crops safety net 8 adopting low-cost technology river-bed farming 9 cash crop cultivation safety net and additional income (fgd, field visit 2022) based on the discussion, adaptation emerged as a gradual process of learning and adoption. practices such as riverbed farming, water source protection, and plantation were adopted through community learning. however, strategies such as crop switching, drought-resistant crops, and improved livestock rearing were developed as long-term measures to address adverse climate challenges. adaptation strategy of households and their relationship with their income the vulnerability assessment conducted during the study also recorded household (hh) income levels. an analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between the income of all households and their adaptation strategies (table 5). the relationship between household income and climate change adaptation strategies was assessed using an eta correlation, with a coefficient of 0.383. table 5: eta correlation between household adaptation strategies and income eta correlation income of households 0.217 climate change adaptation strategy among households 0.383 figure 4: cca strategy of users (hh%) table 3: chi-square test of adaptation strategy and variables (n = 570) table 4: adaptation strategies and their rationales for use cfug, where other ethnic groups such as magar, pun, and thapa were also present. brahmin, chhetri, and dalit communities were also present in all cfugs. table 3: chi-square test of adaptation strategy and variables (n = 570) chi-square tests (pearson chi-square) variable value df asymptotic significance (2-sided) ethnicity 29.449 16 0.021 education 61.339 32 0.001 gender 51.962 8 0.000 occupational status 66.431 40 0.005 during the fgd, a discussion on adaptation strategies was conducted. the principal rationale for adopting these strategies is presented in table 4. table 4: adaptation strategies and their rationales for use sn adaptation at the household level rationale behind these strategies 1 switching crop to cope with drought and excessive rain 2 protecting water sources ensuring water availability for agriculture and other purposes 3 river/stream bed farming income diversification 4 plantation environmental conservation and income 5 improved farming techniques increased income 6 horticulture and improved livestock rearing alternative crops 7 drought-resistant crops safety net 8 adopting low-cost technology river-bed farming 9 cash crop cultivation safety net and additional income (fgd, field visit 2022) based on the discussion, adaptation emerged as a gradual process of learning and adoption. practices such as riverbed farming, water source protection, and plantation were adopted through community learning. however, strategies such as crop switching, drought-resistant crops, and improved livestock rearing were developed as long-term measures to address adverse climate challenges. adaptation strategy of households and their relationship with their income the vulnerability assessment conducted during the study also recorded household (hh) income levels. an analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between the income of all households and their adaptation strategies (table 5). the relationship between household income and climate change adaptation strategies was assessed using an eta correlation, with a coefficient of 0.383. table 5: eta correlation between household adaptation strategies and income eta correlation income of households 0.217 climate change adaptation strategy among households 0.383 acharya et al. 77 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 table 5: eta correlation between household adaptation strategies and income follows a systematic process. first, the cfug collects user demands based on seedlings availability, site monitoring, and verification. seedling sources are identified in advance. if an area is found to be suitable for plantation, the cfug provides seedling transportation, technical support for plantation activities, and monitoring and post plantation technical support to users. ntfp promotion and plantation the promotion of non-timber forest products through plantations is a common practice among cfugs. this focus on ntfps is one of the most visible activities in cf management. user groups have introduced short rotation ntfps in the cfs. low-cost technology and bioengineering cfugs widely practice the choice of low-cost technology and bioengineering. due to their costeffectiveness, durability, and efficiency, low-cost technologies are being increasingly adopted by cfugs. ecological restoration and income generation ecological restoration and income generation are strategic focuses among cf users. income generation serves as a short-term incentive to engage the users. at the same time, ecological restoration represents the long-term strategic goal of cfugs, aiming to address both community needs and mitigate climate change. ecological restoration and bioengineering a combined approach of ecological restoration and bioengineering has been employed to achieve conservation and ecological restoration simultaneously. construction of larger recharge ponds and fencing is one of the standard climate change adaptation strategies adopted by user groups. ecological restoration ecological restoration efforts focus solely on improving environmental services within community forests. these activities include the construction of conservation ponds and grass plantations, among others. bamboo, ntfp, grass, and plantation practices bamboo cultivation, harvesting of ntfps, grass planting, and other plantation activities are widely practiced in the community. since agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for users, the user groups prioritize both grass cultivation and cfug, where other ethnic groups such as magar, pun, and thapa were also present. brahmin, chhetri, and dalit communities were also present in all cfugs. table 3: chi-square test of adaptation strategy and variables (n = 570) chi-square tests (pearson chi-square) variable value df asymptotic significance (2-sided) ethnicity 29.449 16 0.021 education 61.339 32 0.001 gender 51.962 8 0.000 occupational status 66.431 40 0.005 during the fgd, a discussion on adaptation strategies was conducted. the principal rationale for adopting these strategies is presented in table 4. table 4: adaptation strategies and their rationales for use sn adaptation at the household level rationale behind these strategies 1 switching crop to cope with drought and excessive rain 2 protecting water sources ensuring water availability for agriculture and other purposes 3 river/stream bed farming income diversification 4 plantation environmental conservation and income 5 improved farming techniques increased income 6 horticulture and improved livestock rearing alternative crops 7 drought-resistant crops safety net 8 adopting low-cost technology river-bed farming 9 cash crop cultivation safety net and additional income (fgd, field visit 2022) based on the discussion, adaptation emerged as a gradual process of learning and adoption. practices such as riverbed farming, water source protection, and plantation were adopted through community learning. however, strategies such as crop switching, drought-resistant crops, and improved livestock rearing were developed as long-term measures to address adverse climate challenges. adaptation strategy of households and their relationship with their income the vulnerability assessment conducted during the study also recorded household (hh) income levels. an analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between the income of all households and their adaptation strategies (table 5). the relationship between household income and climate change adaptation strategies was assessed using an eta correlation, with a coefficient of 0.383. table 5: eta correlation between household adaptation strategies and income eta correlation income of households 0.217 climate change adaptation strategy among households 0.383 there is a relationship between the strategy and households (hhs). wealthy households have different adaptation strategies than poor ones. the poor rely on strategies such as riverbed farming, among others. the eta correlation value of 0.383 indicates that household income has some relation with specific climate change adaptation strategies, but the relationship is not stronger. as a result, the livelihood strategies used by households are not only determined by income. adaptation practices at the user group level at the user group level, members have their own understanding of climate adaptation, as reflected in the work plans developed by community forest user groups. a review of the community forest operational plan (cfop) provided further insight into how adaptation strategies are perceived at this level. during the cfop formulation process, users identified the key climate challenges. based on these existing and anticipated challenges, adaptation strategies were developed. the cfuglevel strategy is a common approach applicable to the entire cfug as a unified entity. according to the survey, the promotion and plantation of non-timber forest products (ntfps) are the most common strategies across all cfugs. adaptation efforts at this level focus on long-term benefits, considering both ecological sustainability and user needs. the long-term benefits or strategic benefits are the concerns that encompass the ecosystem with longerterm implications. such a longer-term or strategic benefit may not provide immediate benefits, but its importance lies in ameliorating the environmental aspects linked to sustainability. since cfugs function as institutions, they prioritize long-term ecological resilience over short-term effects. a total of seven different adaptation strategies were observed at the user group level. plantation activity plantation activity is a prominent activity in all community forests (cfs). every cf includes plantation as one of its primary activities. the cfugs have also emphasized plantation in their work plans. the implementation of plantation activities in cfugs acharya et al. 78 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 plantation activities. the study found that bamboo is most preferred for plantation and soil conservation purposes. some species of bamboo shoots are used as a vegetable. similarly, ntfps are planted for both income generation and soil stabilization purposes. additionally, broom grass and various bamboo species, selected for their adaptability to local microclimates, are also cultivated as a measure for soil conservation and protection of water sources. figure 5: cca strategy of users (%) during the focal group discussion (fgd), participants discussed the rationale behind seven different user group-level adaptation strategies (table 6). discussion understanding climate change understanding climate change is a first step towards developing local adaptation plans of action (lapa). it is critically important to explore the level of understanding in order to formulate effective plans (mofe, 2019b). a higher level of understanding and awareness about climate change among users suggests that the cfugs have been discussing the issue for a long time. such understanding enables users to make informed choices about cca strategies. logically, individual households prioritize immediate benefits, as they need to secure livelihoods. household-level adaptation strategies have been widely discussed and often characterised as safety nets (bryan et al., 2013; pandey et al., 2018; khadka et al., 2022; mogess & ayen, 2023; fahad et al., 2023). the long-term benefits achieved by cfugs in addressing climate change are viewed as strategic interests for minimizing the adverse effects of climate change on community forests. as institutions, it is acceptable that cfugs must work towards long-term agendas. adaptation offers approaches, strategies, and opportunities to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change and enhance the well-being of affected communities (mofe, 2021a). the introduction of the climate change budget code in 2012 and the climate change financing framework reform roadmap in 2017 demonstrate the government’s commitment to adaptation efforts (gon, 2012; npc, 2014, 2017). adaptation strategy at the household level the results showed that adaptation practices are not new to the community; they have been practiced for a long time. however, there is a growing need for systematic arrangement and integration of these strategies. various studies and assessments of adaptive strategies have demonstrated that adaptation is not a new phenomenon to local communities worldwide (atube et al., 2021; bednar-friedl et al., 2022; kumar et al., 2023). they must continually develop and implement individual and collective strategies to adapt to climate variability and environmental change (cannon & muller-mahn, 2010; bele et al., 2013; maru, 2014; ipcc, 2014). the national climate change policy, 2019 (gon, 2019), states that at least 80% of climate-changerelated programs should be implemented at the local figure 5: cca strategy of users (%) during the focal group discussion (fgd), participants discussed the rationale behind seven different user group-level adaptation strategies (table 6). table 6: adaptation strategies at the user group level sn adaptation strategy rationale 1 plantation activity enhance greenery and promote conservation 2 ntfp promotion and plantation demonstrate sustainable practices and generate income for user groups 3 low-cost technology/bioengineering conservation 4 ecological restoration and income generation conservation and income 5 ecological restoration and bioengineering address drought and drinking water challenges 6 ecological restoration long-term conservation at the ecosystem level 7 bamboo, ntfps, grass, and plantation align with the cfug�s adaptation plan (fgd, 2022) discussion understanding climate change understanding climate change is a first step towards developing local adaptation plans of action (lapa). it is critically important to explore the level of understanding in order to formulate effective plans (mofe, 2019b). a higher level of understanding and awareness about climate change among users suggests that the cfugs have been discussing the issue for a long time. such understanding enables users to make informed choices about cca strategies. table 6: adaptation strategies at the user group level acharya et al. 79 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 level. this is possible if households become proactive in their climate adaptation efforts. construction of artificial ponds, pest and weed control, changes in plantation and harvesting times, and shifts in cropping patterns are some of the major adaptation strategies adopted by local communities in nepal (adhikari et al., 2021; kandel et al., 2023). the nine different adaptation strategies observed at the household level are associated with the immediate adaptation benefits. the findings of this study align with those of previous studies on local adaptation strategies, such as switching crops and using lowcost technologies (adhikari et al., 2021; atube et al., 2021). additionally, urban plantation has been recognized as one of the climate change adaptation measures in other parts of the globe as well (brandt et al., 2016). adaptation strategies have become an integral component of development discourse, and the government of nepal has incorporated these strategies into national policy frameworks (salerno, 2017; gon, 2020, 2021, 2023). studies also support the relation between household income and adaptation strategies observed in the findings. the study shows that adaptation practices are linked to the capability to afford coping (below et al., 2012; shumetie & alemayehu yismaw, 2018; paudel et al., 2019). the relationship between ethnicity and cca strategy, as observed in this research, where adaptation approaches vary by household ethnicity, can be attributed to the background of the people and their choices (delisle & turner, 2016; quandt, 2019). adaptation practices at the user group level user group-level adaptation in the community is a long-term and visionary approach, aiming to restore forest ecosystems over time. strategic interventions, like conserving water and restoring degraded forests, are directly linked to sustainability. seven different strategies were observed at the user group level, and these finding aligns with other similar studies (bartlett & dedekorkut-howes, 2023; ranabhat et al., 2023). the global concerns about climate change adaptation strategies and practices (biesbroek et al., 2010; keessen, 2013; wester et al., 2019; bednarfried et al., 2022; raihan, 2023) are also reflected in this finding within the community context. ecological restoration encompasses a wide range of activities aimed at recovering physical, socio-economic, and environmental systems (mofe, 2021c; fu et al., 2023). the understanding of climate change adaptation in this research resembles the findings from previous studies (pandey et al., 2018; nor diana et al., 2022). climate-resilient crops are being introduced in response to drought challenges (cooper & messina, 2023). being long-term and strategic in nature, user group-level adaptation practices can be considered a transformative approach. plantation activities, low-cost technologies, and ecological restoration measures, such as conservation ponds, discussed in the findings, support this conclusion. such a transformative type of adaptation has the scope to fulfil national adaptation plan (nap) objectives locally by identifying necessary support systems for adaptation, thereby bridging existing gaps that address climate resilience. similarly, climate change poses social challenges at both local and global scales (de scally & doberstein, 2021; yazdanpanah et al., 2023). in the watershed communities, community adaptive practices include the use of improved seeds, changes in cropping patterns, removal of invasive species from wetlands, construction of irrigation canals, and diversification of income-generating activities, further substantiating the findings of this research (bartlett & dedekorkut-howes, 2023; ranabhat et al., 2023). the lapa framework provides a roadmap to develop community-level climate action, from awareness raising to planning and implementation. communities are encouraged to develop their own plans based on their specific local contexts. the mobilization of local resources and stakeholder engagement are also emphasized (dhm, 2017; npc, 2021). the adaptation approach adopted by community forest user groups (cfugs) is incremental, focusing on addressing immediate challenges. at the same time, it also retains the conventional knowledge through its community and transformative adaptation approach to enhance long-term climate resilience (loginova & baterbury, 2019; adhikari et al., 2021). opportunities for future research the study has explored climate change adaptation strategies in community forests (cfs) of dang district. based on the researchers’ understanding and review, no prior research of this kind has been conducted in the area. therefore, these findings can serve as a stepping stone for broader research focused on community-based adaptation to climate change. acharya et al. 80 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 conclusions this study has explored that community forest user groups (cfugs) are already implementing climate change adaptation (cca) strategies. these strategies are practiced at both the household and community levels, indicating that the adverse effects of climate change are recognized as a significant issue within the cfugs. the experiences of climate change impacts shared by users at the household level are closely linked to crop-switching patterns, one of the main adaptation strategies. individual preferences for adaptation practices are driven mainly by the desire for immediate benefits. these cca strategies have been introduced through a combination of traditional knowledge and development interventions, aiming to reduce risks through systematic and focused climate adaptation efforts. similarly, other adaptation strategies can be integrated into the future development models of cfugs. crop switching and low-cost adaptation activities, such as bamboo plantation, have been identified as a significant practice at the user level. adaptation activities applied by cfs tend to be more strategic, incorporating both immediate benefits and environmental considerations, thus addressing shortterm needs while promoting long-term resilience. due to their economic feasibility and long-term effects, ecological restoration and low-cost technologies are more effective. the community’s understanding of climate change largely depends on effective communication. this understanding does not necessarily need to be uniform across all users, as factors like education level and exposure influence it. communities perceive global climate discourse through the lens of their specific contexts and everyday experiences. the study concludes that cfugs perceive climate change adaptation strategies as an integral part of their livelihoods and have been actively implementing them at both community and household levels to enhance resilience. the cca strategies have emerged through a combination of traditional community knowledge and development interventions. the adaptation activities implemented by cfs are more strategic and have incorporated both immediate livelihood benefits and long-term environmental sustainability to increase community resilience. the issue of climate change within cfugs still needs more comprehensive and focused research. acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge the community forest user group members, stakeholders, and everyone who supported this research. author contribution gra: overall research conceptualization, field work, data collection, data analysis, write-up, and manuscript submission; krt: supervision, review, editing, and feedback on manuscript; sa: cosupervision, review of manuscript, and feedback. disclosure statement and conflict of interests this paper presents original findings based on fieldwork conducted by the first author in dang district, nepal. the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. references adhikari, d., prasai, r., lamichhane, s., gautam, d., sharma, s., & acharya, s. 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(2023). understanding the influence of iranian farmers’ climate change beliefs on their adaptation strategies and mitigation intentions. climate and development, 15(4), 340-352. acharya et al. https://unfccc.int/first-biennial-transparency-reports https://unfccc.int/first-biennial-transparency-reports 32 the dead plant materials such as leaves, bark, needles, and twigs that have fallen on the ground are called litter. as the majority of organic matter (om) produced by plants is returned to the soil as litter, the transfer of nutrients and energy from living biological components to the soil is the important mechanism of nutrient recycling. in the cycling of such nutrients, decomposition processes have a crucial role by releasing a complex organic compounds into the simple usable form for proper growth and development of plants (saha et al., 2016). litter has thus occupied the attention of ecologists as it is an important factor in ecosystem dynamics to determine ecological productivity and may be useful in predicting soil fertility (guendehou et al., 2014). the process of biological disintegration of dead organic materials whereby mineralization of complex organic compounds into simple inorganic forms takes place is called decomposition (saha et al., 2016). the process of decomposition is primarily carried out by bacteria and fungi, thus the rate of decomposition entirely depends on microbial activities which in turn, get affected by soil character and climatic condition in an area (berg and mcclaugherty, 2014). moreover, gautam and mandal (2016) have also reported the effect of disturbance on litter dynamics in a moist tropical forest. litter mass loss or decay is the sum of carbon dioxide release and discharge of compounds that contains both carbon compounds and nutrients (brady and weil, 2010). in general, three major factors viz. site environmental condition (particularly climate), litter quality and soil biota play a crucial role on decomposition of leaf-litter; however, climate is known to be the dominant factor followed by litter quality influencing the decomposition process (austin leaf-litter decomposition and nutrient dynamics of five selected tropical tree species s. bhattarai1* and b. bhatta1 1. agriculture and forestry university, faculty of forestry, hetauda, nepal. *email: sbhattarai@afu.edu.np leaf-litter decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems has a major role in recycling the nutrients to the soil. nutrient dynamics is the way nutrients cycle in an ecosystem. the present study was conducted for five selected tropical tree species viz. shorea robusta, ficus hookeri, mallotus philippensis, artocarpus lakoocha and dillenia pentagyna at hetauda, makawanpur. this paper aims to determine the litter decomposition rateconstant and nutrient mineralization pattern of the selected species. the litter-bag method was used to assess the decomposition and nutrient dynamics for one year. both decomposition rate-constant and weight loss were highest for m. philippensis (% weight loss = 73.49; k = 0.33) and lowest for s. robusta (% weight loss = 54.01; k = 0.18). in general, weight remaining showed a strong negative correlation with n and p concentration but a slightly negative with k. however, the remaining weight of litter showed a strong positive correlation with c : n ratio, thus indicating a good predictor of mass loss and mineralization. the study showed that there was no net release of nitrogen during the one-year study period; however, the net p release was found to be highest for s. robusta followed by d. pentagyna and the net k release was highest in f. hookeri followed by a. lakoocha. keywords: immobilization, leaf-litter decomposition, nutrient dynamics, weight remaining banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1, 2020 pp 32‒38 https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i1.29180 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 33 bhattarai & bhatta and vitousek, 2000; berg and mcclaugherty, 2014). nutrient dynamics is broadly defined as the way nutrients are taken up, retained, transferred, and cycled over time and distance, in an ecosystem (hauer and lamberti, 2006; allan and castillo, 2007). decomposition process plays an important role in maintaining soil fertility in terms of nutrient cycling and formation of soil om (usman et al., 2000; singh et al., 2007; guendehou et al., 2014). slow decomposition rates result in the building up of om and nutrient stocks in soil; however, fast decomposition rates help to meet plant intake requirements (isaac and nair, 2005). litter diversity also influences the activity of soil communities and processes during decomposition (chapman and koch, 2007). moreover, some chemical characteristics of the litter materials like lignin, polyphenol, cellulose, and hemicellulose along with c : n ratio affect decomposition (silveira et al., 2011). a litter with higher initial n concentration usually shows a higher mass loss; however, the importance of initial n concentration decreased with time (ross et al., 2002). in the traditional mountain farming system of nepal, there exists a triangular relationship among forest, agriculture, and livestock. in this system, forest trees are responsible to provide nutrient to the soil surface in the form of leaflitter in both forest and agricultural lands. as a result, the tradition of harvesting leaf-litters from the forests for agricultural use has been a complementary practice of agriculture in rural nepal. leaf-litters have been used for livestock bedding and farmyard manure (fym) production. thus, decomposed leaf-litters become a major source of plant nutrients to the agricultural field as manure. however, most of the farmers do not know the chemical nature of the leaf-litters and their decomposition mechanism as some of the species are with complex structural biomolecules that do not provide nutrients easily. therefore, the present study was carried out to compare the leaf-litter decomposition and nutrient dynamics of frequently used species in the study area. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in tropical lowland (about 450 m altitude) of makawanpur district, central nepal. shorea robusta, terminalia chebula, t. bellirica, mallotus philippensis, ficus spp., adina cordifolia, acacia catechu and dalbergia sissoo were the common species found in the study area. the experiment was set up in tropical climatic conditions having the average temperature of 29.180c and 173.64 mm rainfall during the study period. the temperature and rainfall variations in the study area are shown in figure 1. figure 1: monthly variation of rainfall, temperature (maximum and minimum) of the study area source: department of hydrology and meteorology, 2019 selection of species a total of five tree species viz. s. robusta, f. hookeri, m. philippensis, a. lakoocha and d. pentagyna were selected for the study based on the key informant interview with the local farmers focusing on their use-values. of them, s. robusta, m. philippensis and d. pentagyna were found to be highly used for animal bedding and composting whereas f. hookeri and a. lakoocha were used for fodder and composting. methods the decomposition of the leaf-litter of the selected tree species was studied in the open land using a nylon bag technique following gilbert and bocock (1960). the newly fallen leaves of the selected five species were collected from the forest-floor during the peak litter fall period (march). the litter samples were identified based on the morphological characters, and oven-dried at 700c to a constant weight in the laboratory. for each species, 36 litter bags were prepared enclosing a 50g sample of the oven-dried leaves banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 34 bhattarai & bhatta into a 25×25 cm sized 2 mm thick nylon mesh which was small enough to prevent the major losses of the litter sample yet large enough to permit microbial activity, and placed at the open area during march, 2018. the litter-bags were placed separately in an open field in such manner that they were in contact with soil, and care was taken not to disturb the floor vegetation. three litter bags of each species were recovered randomly at monthly interval from march, 2018 to march, 2019. afterward, the samples were made free from dust and other unnecessary materials, and oven-dried at 700c and weighted. then, the samples were immediately brought to the soil laboratory at hetauda for nutrient analysis. the nitrogen (n) content was estimated using the micro-kjeldahl method whereas the phosphorus (p) and potassium (k) were determined by adopting the spectrophotometry method and flame photometer method, respectively as per jackson (1967). the climatic data (temperature and rainfall) obtained from the department of hydrology and meteorology were used. data analysis the decomposition rate-constant was calculated using the exponential decay model of olsen (1963) which is expressed as x/xo = e-kt, where, x is the dry weight remaining at time t (year), xo is the original dry weight of the litter, and k is the decay rate coefficient. the time required for half-life (t50) was calculated as t50 = 0.693/k likewise, correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship of the remaining weight with the remaining om, n, p and k. results and discussion initial chemical composition the initial nutrient composition of leaf-litter showed variation among the selected tree species (table 1). the highest nitrogen concentration was estimated in a. lakoocha (0.07%) followed by f. hookeri and m. philippensis (0.062%) and so on. the maximum phosphorus was in d. pentagyna (0.145%) followed by f. hookeri (0.131%). and least in m. philippensis (0.078%). similarly, potassium was highest in f. hookeri (21.159%) followed by s. robusta (5.62%). weight loss pattern at the end of the study, the maximum weight loss (73.49%) was observed in m. philippensis whereas this value was minimum (54.01%) in s. robusta. likewise, the annual decomposition constant (k) values for the different species ranged from 0.18 (s. robusta) to 0.33 (m. philippensis) and the halflives (t50) from 3.85 to 2.1, respectively (see table 2). comparatively, the rates of decomposition of the leaf-litters of f. hookeri, m. philippensis, a. lakoocha and d. pentagyna were found to be higher at the end of the first month followed by a gradual mass loss for the subsequent days. however, the rate of decomposition of s. robusta was not higher during the first months as found in the other species; rather the rate was higher at the end of the second month (figure 2). table 1: initial chemical composition and decomposition constant of leaf-litter species local name om n p k c:n shorea robusta gaertn. sal 6.19 0.042 0.116 5.620 147.376 ficus hookeri miq. nimaro 7.28 0.062 0.131 21.159 118.0654 mallotus philippensis (lam.) mull. arg. sindure 6.54 0.062 0.071 2.382 106.189 artocarpus lakoocha wall. ex roxb. badahar 6.32 0.070 0.078 5.295 90.26995 dillenia pentagyna roxb. tatari 6.86 0.048 0.145 2.429 143.9757 (note: om organic matter; n nitrogen, pphosphorus, kpotassium, c carbon, k decomposition rate-constant) banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 35 bhattarai & bhatta table 2: annual weight loss, decomposition constant (k), half-life (t50) and c: n ratio s. n. species dry mass initial c:n final c:n k weight loss (%) t50 1. s. robusta gaertn. 0.18 54.01 3.85 147.376 69.94018 2. f. hookeri miq. 0.24 65.58 2.89 118.0654 70.48909 3. m. philippensis (lam.) mull. arg. 0.33 73.49 2.1 106.189 60.71628 4. a. lakoocha wall. ex roxb. 0.29 70.53 2.39 90.26995 54.23127 5. d. pentagyna roxb. 0.25 70.6 2.77 143.9757 62.31835 0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80 1.00 1.20 1.40 1.60 0 30 60 90 120 150 180 210 240 270 300 330 360 s. robusta f. hookeri m. philippensis a. lakoocha d. pentaxylla days k va lu e figure 2: leaf-liter decomposition rateconstant with respect to time the decomposition rate-constant showed a significant positive correlation with the aerial temperature (p = 000; r = 0.54) and rainfall (p = 0.000; r = 0.51). hasanuzzaman and hossain (2014) reported the concentration of the nutrients to have decreased gradually at the end of the experiment in a dry season whereas there was decrease in the initial stage but increase at the end of the experiment in the wet season. on the contrary, salinas et al. (2011) concluded the temperature to be overwhelmingly the most important driver. however, wieder et al. (2009) concluded the positive correlation between precipitation and leaf-litter decomposition along with the temperature. hence, the physicochemical environment, litter quality and the composition of the decomposer community are the three leading features regulating litter decomposition (dechaine et al., 2005). changes in nutrient concentration in decomposing litter in general, there was a significant positive correlation (except f. hookeri) between the remaining weight and the c: n ratio (table 3). kim (2007) also concluded that the lower c : n ratio increased the rate of decomposition. table 3. correlation between the remaining weight and the om, n, p & k species value om n p k c:n s. robusta p 0.04 0.000 0.482 0.194 0.000 r 0.58 -0.945 -0.214 -0.385 0.885 f. hookeri p 0.27 0.302 0.315 0.915 0.216 r 0.33 -0.311 -0.303 -0.033 0.368 m. philippensis p 0.42 0.005 0.901 0.021 0.019 r 0.25 -0.728 -0.039 -0.632 0.637 a. lakoocha p 0.49 0.003 0.831 1.000 0.002 r 0.21 -0.756 -0.066 0.000 0.773 d. pentagyna p 0.92 0.001 0.231 0.168 0.048 r -0.03 -0.809 0.357 -0.407 0.556 organic matter concentration the percentage of the om showed a positive correlation with the remaining weight in all the species except d. pentagyna which showed a slightly negative correlation (figure 3a). however, there was no significant relationship (p>0.05) between the remaining weight and the om except in the case of s. robusta. the value of the remaining om at monthly intervals showed high fluctuation for f. hookeri followed by m. philippensis. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 36 bhattarai & bhatta nitrogen concentration the initial n concentration of a. lakoocha (0.07%), was found to be the highest followed by f. hookeri and m. philippensis each having 0.062%. there was a continuous increase in n concentration (figure 3b) of residual litter throughout the decomposition cycle in all the species, thus showing significant (p<0.05, except in the case of f. hookeri) inverse linear relationship. at the end of the study period, the n concentration was more than one and half times higher than the initial in the case of all the species except f. hookeri whose concentration was just slightly higher than that at the initial phase. similar to the findings of this study, an increase in n concentration was observed by bargali et al. (2015), arslan et al. (2010) and bargali et al. (2006). this might have resulted from microbes taking up inorganic n, i.e. fungal immobilization as microbes require nutrients like n and p for their growth, and they have to take sufficient n to use c containing materials (bargali et al., 1993). though there was an increasing pattern of nitrogen concentration during the study period, f. hookeri might provide mineralized n earlier than other species as this species showed less net change from the initial n content. phosphorus concentration the initial p was found to be highest (0.145%) in d. pentagyna followed by f. hookeri (0.131%). similar to the result of n, the correlation between the remaining weight and the p was slightly negative except in the case of d. pentagyna which showed a positive relationship with the remaining weight (figure 3c). however, the relation was not significant for any of the species (p>0.05). this study showed that the net release of p was highest for s. robusta followed by d. pentagyna. potassium concentration the remaining p concentration with time was more or less similar for all the species. the initial concentration was highest in f. hookeri (21.159%) followed by a. lakoocha (5.295). the amount of p was found to have dramatically decreased during the first month for all the species and increased in the second month and again decreased in the third month (see figure 3d). the rate slightly fluctuated again at the last two months of the study period. the net release of p was highest in f. hookeri followed by a. lakoocha. figure 3a: remaining om (%) with time; figure 3b: remaining n (%) with time; figure 3c: remaining p (%) with time; and figure 3d: remaining k (%) with time banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 37 bhattarai & bhatta conclusion based on the present study, it can be concluded that the rate of decomposition of m. philippensis is highest followed by a. lakoocha whereas the rate of decomposition of s. robusta is lowest. decomposition is a complex procedure heavily influenced by biotic and abiotic factors. both decomposition rate-constant and weight loss were highest for m. philippensis (% weight loss = 73.49; k = 0.33) and lowest for s. robusta (% weight loss = 54.01; k = 0.18). in general, the weight remaining was strongly negatively correlated with n and p concentrations but slightly negatively correlated with k concentration. however, there was a strong positive correlation between the remaining om and c : n ratio for all the species. the study showed that there was no net release of n during the one-year study period, thus indicating none of the species to be the immediate source for n to the soil. however, the net p release was highest for s. robusta followed by d. pentagyna while the net k release was highest in f. hookeri followed by a. lakoocha. acknowledgments the authors are thankful to mr. rajesh tamang, mr. amod mallik, ms. samrajya subedi, ms. roshani bhatta, ms. shrijana acharya and mr. bhola chaudhary for assisting us during sample collection and monthly treatment of the collected samples. the faculty of forestry (agriculture and forestry university), the soil laboratory, hetauda, the plant research center, hetauda and the department of hydrology and meteorology are highly acknowledged for various supports during this study. the authors are grateful to the directorate of research and extension (agriculture and forestry university) for providing financial support to carry out this research. references allan, d. j., and castillo, m. m. 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(2007). leaf-litter decomposition and nutrient release pattern in multipurpose tree species of central india. journal of basic and applied biology 1 : 14−21. usman, s., singh, s. p., rawat, y. s. and bargali, s. s. (2000). fine root decomposition and nitrogen mineralization pattern in quercus leucotrichophora and pinus roxburghii forest in central himalaya. forest ecology and management 131 : 191−199. wieder, w. r., cleveland, c. c. and townsend, a. r. (2009). control over leaf-litter decomposition in wet tropical forests. ecology 90 (12) : 3333−3341. 3 in nepal, forest covers 40.36% of the total land area of the country, which is almost 10.0% greater than the global average. on the other hand ,the forest area is lower than the average global per capita forest land available (fao/unep, 2020; dof 2017; dfrs, 2015). within this forest area, the average number of stems greater than ten cm diameter is 430/ha (dfrs, 2015). moreover, despite increasing efforts of the government and non-government actors, the mean stem volume per unit area of nepal was decreased (dof, 2017;dfrs, 2015). the demand for timber is increasing in nepal, particularly for post-earthquake reconstruction works. in the fiscal year (f.y.) 2074/075 (2017/018), it was estimated that around 20.7 million cubic feet (cft) timber log was produced while nearly one million cft of sawn timber was imported (kc, 2019; mofe, 2018). in the same f.y., approximately nrs. 0.8 billion worth of plywood was imported through the nepalgunj custom office alone. further, steel and cement are increasingly used as substitutes of forest products (kc, 2019; mofe, 2018).thus, a large amount of foreign currency is going outside from the country every year due to lack of wood production. economic interpretation of lost due to improper stump-height of trees in nepal t. subedi1* and m. ghimire1 1 forest research and training centre, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. *e-mail: ecothakur@yahoo.co.in in recent years, import of timber and other wood products from different parts of the world have been increasing in nepal. the government of nepal aims to be a self-sustain in timber production. in this context, the objective of this study was to estimate efficiency of harvesting practices in nepal in relation to stump-height. we collected the data on the stump-heights and other biometric characteristics of the trees from different felling sites of kailali, kanchanpur, jhapa and morang districts of nepal. the volumes of the individual trees as well as the proportions of the volumes of their stumps with different heights were calculated. correlation and anova were used to find the significance of the associated factors. the average stump-heights using the conventional felling method and the chain saw method were found to be 0.74±0.17m and 0.46±0.21m, respectively with wider range. the correlation between the stump-height and diameter at breast height (dbh) was found significant. similarly, the harvesting method, skill and experience of the tree-fellers and tree species were also found to be significant with the stump-heights. on an average, 5% of the total timber production equivalent to one million cubic feet (cft) is lost in the fiscal year 2074/075 in nepal while adopting the conventional method of harvesting because of the higher stump-height than the one prescribed by the government. the estimated loss was nrs. 2 billion (roughly equivalent to us $ 20 million, @nrs 100 = 1 usd) to the national economy, and the government had to bear loss of about nrs. 500 million (roughly equivalent to 5 million usd) from the royalty of timber. this amount of loss could be reduced to half by using power chain saw. lack of skilled laborers, poor implementation of law, and weak knowledge of officials were major causes for losses in harvesting practices. moreover, about 2% wood volume loss can be avoided, without any further investment, by setting minimum standard stump-height at 15 cm and providing training to the field staff and tree harvesters. keywords: conventional method, correlation, harvesting, power chain saw, wood volume banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2, 2020 pp 3‒10https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i2.33475 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 4 subedi et al. despite higher potentials, wood production in the country is lower due to the lack of proper forest management tool and knowledge. it is estimated that 30% of value is lost during tree harvesting (boston & dysart, 2000). small improvements in value recovery can lead to large improvements in the financial performance of forestry investments (boston & dysart, 2000). there have been several studies to compare and improve the productivity during the felling through different methods and tools throughout the world (boston & dysart, 2000; hall & han, 2006; berch et al., 2012; han & renzie, 2005). these studies have indicated higher stump-height (the lower portion of tree bole left on the ground after felling trees) as one of the major causes of losses of timber volume. therefore, since 1964 different techniques had been adopted to estimate the value of stumps left in normal harvesting (boston & dysart, 2000). however, there is a dearth of studies aimed at increasing wood productivity through improvement of harvesting technology in nepal (shrestha, 2017). therefore, a suitable harvesting system is needed to enhance wood production (akay et al., 2006). in this context, this study aims to investigate the losses of timber volume and their monitory value during logging operations due to higher stumps. in this study, we assessed the average stump-height during the regular forest harvesting operations, evaluated the economic losses due to the prevailing harvesting systems, analyzed the causes of losses, searched the possible value gain during the felling operations, and recommend the attention for future operations. the findings of this study will be useful to develop guidelines for minimizing wood loss and maximizing benefits and improving productivity during timber harvesting operations. materials and methods the sample trees were selected through purposive sampling covering the trees with all diameter range available in the felling area. data were collected mainly for volume calculation (table 1), and average stump height calculation (table 2). in order to calculate the total volumes of trees and different sections of stumps of the felled trees, 42 samples of sal (shorea robusta) and 34 samples of asna (terminalia alata) were collected from the felling sites of the ranijamara irrigation project, the balchaur area of kailali district and the felling site of the then timber corporation of nepal (tcn), the bani area of kanchanpur district and the manakamana, hachumasa, halluwagadh and jukekhadi cfs of jhapa district. species name and diameter at breast height (dbh), diameter at 15 cm and 30 cm above ground level of all the sampled trees were recorded before felling. then, the stump-heights and the over bark diameters along the tree-stem with 0.5 to 2 m interval up to the tip of the trees were measured using diameter tape after felling the trees (subedi, 2017). the total volumes of the sampled trees and their stumps were calculated using the smalian's formula through the sectional method (subedi, 2017) and stump volume (up to 15 cm) were calculated assuming the cylinder. similarly, 15-30 cm above ground level, and above 30 cm to the tip of the individual stumps (left-over after felling) were calculated using the smalian's formula. the volume percentages of different sections of the stumps with respect to the total volume of the same trees were calculated. the details of the sampled trees measured in this way are presented in table 1. in all these areas, harvesting operations were done in march to mid-june using saw and axe following the conventional method. table 1: statistics of the sampled trees for volume calculation (first dataset) species no. of samples (n) dbh (cm) total tree height (m) harvesting methodav. std. dev. min. max. av. std. dev. min. max. sal (s. robusta) 42 63.77 15.13 34.0 108.5 29.4 6.12 25.0 42.1 conventional asna (t. alata) 34 71.83 20.24 37.9 116.3 35.7 4.0 8.0 41.2 conventional total 76 67.4 17.9 34.0 116.3 32.7 6.14 8.0 42.1 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 5 subedi et al. table 2: statistics of the sampled trees for stump-height measurement (second dataset) species district no. of samples (n) average dbh std. dev. min. dbh max. dbh harvesting method asna (t. alata) kailali 11 77.6 17.41 50.9 116.3 conventional kanchanpur 18 73.2 19.49 41.7 115.2 conventional morang 17 56.6 8.92 43.3 75.1 chain saw karma (a. cordifolia) kailali 3 51.2 22.98 37.9 77.7 conventional kanchanpur 2 88.0 17.68 75.5 100.5 conventional morang 22 86.8 36.75 46.4 190.4 chain saw tetrameles nudiflora morang 32 79.2 40.50 37.1 166.0 chain saw s. robusta kanchanpur 8 61.9 14.87 42.8 90.6 conventional morang 43 61.9 17.31 31.4 115.1 chain saw others* morang 5 76.2 26.03 43.2 113.0 chain saw total/ average 161 71.1 28.07 31.4 190.4 * include albizia spp, l. coromandelica and t. bellirica. secondly, in order to find out the stump-heights and the causes for their heights, the information on the tree species and the stump-heights of the felled trees using saw and axe were collected from the felling sites of kailali and kanchanpur districts while the same information on the felled trees using power chain saw were gathered from the aahale, ramite, siddhartha, sukuna, and basanta hariyali cfs and the latijhoda collaborative forest (cfm) of morang district (table 2). out of the total 237 sample trees selected, 93 belonged to sal (s. robusta), 80 belonged to asna (t. alata), 32 belonged to maina (tetrameles nudiflora) and 27 belonged to karma (adina cordifolia). similarly, 2 each belonged to siris (albizia spp) and hallude (lannea coromandelica) while 1 belonged to barro (terminalia bellirica). among them, 118 trees were felled adopting the conventional method (table 1 and table 2) while 119 were harvested using chain saw (table 2). the data were entered into the excel sheet, and analyzed in the r environment (r core team, 2018). in addition to the measurements of tree characteristics, 15 groups of tree harvesters, at the aforementioned felling sites, were interviewed with regards to their years of experience and skill in felling trees, their knowledge about legal code on stump-height and physical challenges they used to face during tree felling. similarly, the officials of the 10 community forest user groups were interviewed regarding their knowledge on tree harvesting technique and legal code. the data were analyzed using the graphical visualization and statistical test. the pearson's product moment correlation test was used for significant correlation with the dbh and stump-heights of the trees. anova was used to test against the null hypothesis as there was no significant difference in the stump-heights with respect to the species and the laborers' performance at different locations. all the tests and analyses were performed separately for volume calculation data sets (table 1) and stumpheights data sets (table 2). results stump-height and dbh using conventional method the average stump-height using the conventional method of felling was found to be 0.737±0.167 m (conventional method, of table 1 and table 2), but 0.697±0.16 m was noticed with the range of 0.25-1.2 m for the first data set, i.e. volume calculation dataset (table 1). however as per the government guidelines (mofsc, 2016), banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 6 subedi et al. the stump height should not be higher than 30 cm. figure 1 (a) indicates the positive linear relation of stump-height with the dbh (of volume calculation data set). the correlation between the stump-height and the dbh was found to be moderate (r=0.5822) but highly significant (df =74 and p-value =3.447e-08 at 95% confidence level). around 80% of the interviewees (tree harvesters) reported that cutting trees at lower stump-height was more time consuming and more physically arduous, and therefore, they preferred to cut trees at higher stump-height. according to them, neither their supervisors nor any officials had provided any instruction regarding stump-height to them in course of tree felling. though, the average stump-height was much higher, the minimum stump-height showed that there was possibility to cut trees at 25 cm above ground level using saw and axe. all most informants reported that they were unaware about the standard stump-height. fig. 1: in conventional method of felling-a) stump-height (m) vs. dbh (cm) with respect to different tree species and districts;and b) stumpheight (m) vs. harvesters at different locations factors associated with stump-height adopting conventional method of felling the stump-heights of both the species (s. robusta and t. alata) are not so distinguishable up to 75 cm dbh (figure 1a); but, in the case of the trees with above 75 cm dbh, t. alata had higher stumpheight, which might be either due to the perceived lower economic value of the species or difficulty in felling the trees with larger diameter at lower height. however, the difference in the stumpheights between the species was not found to be statistically significant (p-value =0.0571, df =74) when using conventional method of felling. no uniformity was noticed in the stump-heights even within the same district. though, one stumpheight was found to be highest in jukekhadi cf of jhapa district (figure 1 b),the laborers of this district were found to be slightly more efficient (with lower mean stump height)than those of kanchanpur and kailali districts. it can be clearly noticed from figure 1 b that the tree harvesters from the different places with almost similar terrain condition left over unequal stumpheights. the reason for this is that almost all the tree harvesters hired for the purpose were either inexperienced or not properly trained on tree harvesting. stump-height using chain saw figure 2a shows the clear difference in the stumpheights based on the felling methods. the stumpheights of the trees felled using the conventional method of felling were rarely lower than 60 cm above ground level (figure 2a). the mean stumpheight using chain saw was found to be 0.46±0.21 m above ground level with the range of 0.05-1.15 m (table 3). however, boston & dysart (2000) found that the mean stump-height of the trees felled using chain saw was 20 cm above ground level which was a bit higher than that of the trees felled using other mechanical means. han & renzie (2005) found that chain saw felling left 19.8 cm stump-height. similar type of study in british columbia found the average stumpheight to be 21.9 cm; the stump-height as per the government's guidelines being 30 cm (hall & han, 2006). in this regard, pukkala et al. (undated) used the stump-height of 10 cm, oderwald & banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 7 subedi et al. johnson (2009) used 12 cm; applegate et al. (1985) used 15 cm, and eerikainen (2001) used 20 cm as standard stump-heights for total stem volume calculation of trees. they also found that the stump-height as low as 10 cm above ground level was attainable using chain saw. fortunately in this study, we found 5 cm as the lowest stumpheight; however, we noticed a wider range in the stump-heights which could be due to the variation in the capacity and experience of the harvesters using chain saw (boston & dysart, 2000). figure 2: in chain saw method of felling-a) stump-height (m) vs. dbh (cm) with respect to different tree species and harvesting method; and b) stump-height (m) vs. harvesters from different places when the felling was done using chain saw, the correlation between the stump-height and dbh was found to be higher (0.66) than that using the conventional method. the pearson's correlation test also showed statistically significant (p-value=2.67e-16 and df=117 at 95% confidence interval).similarly, the stump-heights were also found significantly different among the species (p=2.4e-11; df=114) when using the chain saw method. the detailed statistics of the stumpheights using chain saw among the species are presented in (table 3). han & renzie (2005) also indicated that stump-height was significantly affected by the species, slope of the felling site, and average stump diameter; however, keivan & ghaffarzadeh (2018) found no significant difference between the different tree diameter classes and stump-heights when the trees were felled using chainsaw, but they found higher stump-height in the higher sloppy areas. among the tree species, t. nudiflora had higher stumpheight, mainly due to higher diameter range (>100 cm), larger swellings, buttresses and low economic value. the tree species having larger buttresses such as karma also had similar stumpheight (figure 2a). moreover, the tree harvesters were also found equally important factor for causing variations in the stump-heights. figure 2b clearly shows variation in the stump heights in different locations due to different harvesters. table 3: stump-height using chain saw method species mean stump-ht. std. dev. min. max. t.nudiflora 0.62 0.237 0.25 1.04 s. robusta 0.36 0.103 0.05 0.60 t. alata 0.28 0.100 0.15 0.55 a. cordifolia 0.53 0.178 0.25 1.15 others 0.53 0.172 0.30 0.70 av. stumpheight 0.46 0.208 0.05 1.15 most of the tree harvesters using chain saw were paid on the basis of the quantity of the harvested timber; therefore, they wanted to cut trees at lower stump-height if the trees were not twisted and devoid of buttress; the reason for higher stumpheight, according to the tree-fellers, was that the trees to be felled were already stamped (locally known as "chhapan") at higher height, and they were instructed to cut the trees above the stamped portions so that the stamps were visible on the left-over stumps for the purpose of monitoring. then, in course of our field observation, such stamp-marks were mostly noticed around 25 cm above ground level, which is against the government's rule of stamping the trees to be felled within 15 cm above ground level (mofsc, 2016). the harvesters described that cutting trees at higher heights were easy in the case of the banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 8 subedi et al. trees with buttresses or twisted stems. a few experienced tree harvesters opined that it was feasible to cut trees as below as 10 cm above ground. during the interviews with the concerned cf officials, it was revealed that they were unaware about the loss of wood-volume owing to cutting of trees at higher heights. only after convincing them the truth, they accepted that stamp-marks could be put at heights lower than 15 cm above ground even in the sloppy areas. however, boston & dysart (2000) argued that large range of stumpheight is questionable to the skill and experience of the tree harvesters though in difficult situation, their safety should not be jeopardized for attaining lower stump-height. discussion stumps percentage of the total tree volume we assumed that the stumps with the lowest height of 15 cm above ground level were not achievable; however, the absolute mean wood volume of the stumps up to 15 cm above ground level was found to be 0.1476 m3 (figure 3a) which was 3.65% of the total stem volume (figure 3d). similarly, the absolute mean wood volume of the stumps within the range of 15-30 cm height above ground level was 0.1007 m3 (figure 3b) which was 2.32% with the range of 1.60-3.70% of the total stem volume of the trees (figure 3e).based on the above discussion with the harvesters and the cf officials, this proportion of wood can be achievable through efficient management and trained workers. likewise, the mean wood volume of the stumps from 30 cm height above ground level to the tip of the stump (n=72) was 0.148m3 (figure 3c) equivalent to 5.07% with range of 0.04-14.20% of the total stem volume (figure 3f). this is absolutely lost due to inefficient management and only partially obeys the rule. the absolute stump volume of the higher than 30 cm height above ground level fig. 3: absolute volume of the stumps up to different heights (a, b, c), and their percentage as compared to the volumes of the whole trees (d, e, f) were found to have gradually increased up to 80 cm dbh, and then increased more sharply in the cases of the trees with over 80 cm dbh (figure 3c) which could be possibly due to the reason that the trees with larger dbh (above 80 cm) might have higher stump-height and might be butt-swelling (figure 3a), especially in the cases of t. alata, a. cardifilia and t. nudiflora. the study indicates that, on an average, 5.07% of the timber volume was lost through conventional method of felling due to the stumpheight which was more than the prescribed by the government (mofsc, 2016). in the fiscal year 2074/075, about 20.7 million cft of timber wood were produced in nepal (kc, 2019); thus, the amount of wood loss, owing to the felling of trees adopting the conventional method, was expected to be 1 million cft. coincidently, about 1 million cft of sawn timber was imported from different countries in the same fy (kc, 2019). assuming the rate of timber to be nrs. 2,000 per cft, there was a loss of nrs. 2 billion (roughly equivalent to 20 million usd @ of nrs. 100 = 1usd) to the national economy. on the other hand, the government had to bear a loss of about nrs. 500 million from the royalty of timber if we assume the royalty rate of nrs 500 per cft or about nrs 300 million if we assume only 15% of the market price. this amount of loss could be reduced to half by using power chain saw since the average stump height (using chain saw) above the prescribed height is found more than half than the conventional method. about 2% of the further timber volume can be produced without any banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 9 subedi et al. further investment through setting the standard stump height as 15 cm and strictly follow the government code and using power chain saw. in addition to this direct financial benefit, there was a loss of other ecological and climatic benefits, e.g. reduction of emission in the decaying process of stumps (hall and han, 2006). lack of effective implementation of legal codes and hiring inexperienced laborers for felling of trees had resulted in the loss; however, it is to be noted that the government's legal codes have clearly prohibited the hiring of untrained or inexperienced laborers for tree harvesting operations (mofsc, 2016). awareness raising and capacity building of the laborers and officials in operating power chain saw together with effective implementation of the legal codes will help to attain the national target for self-sustaining in timber production. however, as it is feasible to fell trees as below as 10 cm above ground level, felling trees within 15 cm above ground level is likely to increase timber production by 2.0% without any further investment. conclusion and recommendations the harvesting method was found major determinant factor of higher stump heights. the average stump-height of the trees was found to be 0.74±0.17m and 0.46±0.21m through conventional harvesting method and power chain saw method, respectively. the stump-heights were found to be significantly correlated with the dbh of the trees in both the cases. however, the stump-heights were found to be affected by the species when the trees were felled by power chain saw. though the absolute volumes of the stumps were directly related to the size of the trees, their percentage volumes were not affected by their sizes. nepal lost, on an average, 5% of the total timber volume per tree due to the higher stump-height than the one set by the government, leading to the loss of one million cft wood through conventional harvesting in the fy 2074/075.the wood production throughout the nation can be improved by lowering the stump-height of the trees to be felled. this amount of loss could be reduced to more than half by using power chain saw. there is possibility of producing about 2% more timber volume by setting new standard and strictly following the government code. the major causes for higher stump-heights were the physical difficulties, weak knowledge and weak monitoring of the conventional felling method. in addition to this, stamping the felling-marks (on the trees) at higher heights, lack of experience and skill of tree harvesters and weak enforcement of the government's guidelines in the field are other major determinant factors for the same.the mean stump-height can be significantly reduced by setting new harvesting code in addition to strictly adhering to the government's felling norms, adopting chain saw method of felling instead of the conventional method, providing necessary trainings to the concerned field technical staff and tree harvesters. acknowledgements i acknowledge dr. b. pasakhala, international centre for international mountain development (icimod), kathmandu, for his valuable comments and suggestion since course of the preparation of this manuscript and mr. k. k. pokharel, managing editor of banko janakari for encouraging me to bring it into this stage. references akay, e. a., yilmaz, m. & tonguc, f. (2006). impact of mechanized harvesting machines on forest ecosystem: residual stand damage. journal of applied sciences 6 (11): 2414-2419. applegate, g. p. hawkins, t. & thompson, i. (1985). preliminary guidelines for biomass studies in nepal. technical note 2/85. nepal australia forestry project ii; nepal/uk silvicultural research project, forest research information centre, kathmandu, nepal. berch, s. m., curran, m., dymond, c., hannam, k., murray, m., tedder, s., titus, b. & melissa t. (2012). “criteria and guidance considerations for sustainable tree stump harvesting in british columbia”. scandinavian journal of forest research 27 (8): 709–23. boston, k. & dysart, g. (2000). a comparison of felling techniques on stump-height and log damage with economic interpretations. western journal of applied forestry 15 (2) : 59–61. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 10 subedi et al. dfrs. (2015). state of nepal’s forests. government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, department of forest research and survey (dfrs), kathmandu, nepal. dof. (2017). silviculture for forest management. procedings of the first national silviculture workshop. department of forest (dof), kathmandu, nepal. eerikainen, k. (2001): stem volume models with random coefficients for pinus kesiya in tanzania, zambia, zimbabwe. canadian journal of forest research 31: 879-888. fao/unep. (2020). the state of the world’s forests 2020. forests, biodiversity and people. rome. https://doi. org/10. 4060/ ca8642en hall, r. & han, h. (2006). improvements in value recovery through low stump-heights: mechanized versus manual felling. western journal of applied forestry21 (1): 33–38. han, h. & chad, r. (2005). effect of ground slope, stump diameter, and species on stump-height for feller-buncher and chainsaw felling. international journal of forest engineering16 (2) : 81-88 kc, r. (2019). situation analysis of scientific forest management in nepal. hamro ban 2074/075, department of forest and soil conservation, kathmandu nepal. keivan behjou f. & ghaffarzadeh mollabashi o. (2018): effects of tree diameter and some working conditions on residual stump height following selective logging – short communication. j. for. sci., 64 : 91–95. mofsc. (2016). forest products collection and distribution directives. ministry of forests and soil conservation, 2073, singhadarbar, kathmandu, nepal mofe. (2018). white paper of forest and environmental sectors. government of nepal, ministry of forests and environment, 2075, kathmandu, nepal. oderwald, r. g. & johnson, j. e. (2009). measuring standing trees and logs. https://pubs. ex ext. vt. edu/420/420560/420-560_pdf. 420-560. pukkala, t., sharma e. r. & rajbhandari, m. d. (undated). a guide to biomass modeling for forest inventory in nepal. forest survey and statistics division, publication no. 51. r core team. (2018). r: a language and environment for statistical computing. r foundation for statistical computing, vienna, austria. url http://www. r-project. org/. shrestha, r. b. (2017). tree harvesting in nepalese forestry: practice and challenges, silviculture for forest management. proceedings of the first national silviculture workshop, 19-21 february, 2017. department of forest, kathmandu, nepal. 458–466. subedi, t. (2017). volume models for sal (shorea robusta gaertn.) in far-western terai of nepal. banko janakari 27 (2): 3-11. https://doi. org/10. 3126/banko. v27i2. 21218. a 61 wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems with significant ecological, cultural, and economic importance. they support health, welfare, safety, and sustainability of people and biodiversity (cbd, 2015). wetlands are considered critically important due to different functions like water filtration, storage, groundwater recharge, regulating flood, nutrients, & sediment, and providing habitat for fish and wildlife. wetlands also provide recreational opportunities, aesthetic benefits, sites for research & education, and production advantages (usepa, 2015). wetlands, including ramsar sites, preserve and shelter many threatened and endangered flora & fauna, and provide suitable habitats for internationally important migratory birds, aquatic life, and other wildlife (iucn, 2004). they also have important cultural, traditional, and religious values (verschuuren, 2016). nepal possess a variety of inland freshwater wetlands, encompassing highaltitude glacial lakes, hot springs, ponds, ox-bow lakes, river floodplains, marshes, and swamps (siwakoti & karki, 2009; mofe, 2018a). these wetlands have beautified nature and cities, catering people’s wellbeing. wetland city accreditation is a voluntary scheme launched in june 2017 by the convention on wetlands of international importance, especially as aquatic habitats (hui et al., 2017). the 'wetland city accreditation' of ramsar convention also means fostering conservation and wise utilization of urban and peri-urban wetlands and sustainable socio-economic benefits for nearby people (ramsar resolution xii.10, 2015). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2, 2023 pp 61‒75https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i2.62544 wetland city accreditation in nepal: an approach to wetland management for livable cities and urban resilience the ramsar wetland city accreditation encourages conservation and wise use of urban and peri-urban wetlands and promotes sustainable socio-economic benefits for local communities. it recognizes cities that value and protect their wetlands, fostering positive relationships with these ecosystems and increasing awareness in municipal planning and decision-making processes. a city's commitment to wetland conservation, awareness, active engagement in sustainable practices, and integration of wetland conservation into planning makes it a strong candidate for this recognition. currently, 43 cities worldwide have achieved this accreditation since 2017; however, nepalese cities, endowed with rich wetlands, are yet to be accredited. this study delves into the wetland-rich cities of nepal, identifying five potential candidates for accreditation based on a comprehensive assessment. following the assessment aligned with the ramsar convention requirements, pokhara city (kaski district) emerged as the top candidate for ramsar wetland city accreditation in nepal. the subsequent rankings include sandakpur rural municipality (ilam district), bharatpur metropolitan city (chitwan district), ghodaghodi municipality (kailali district), and kapilvastu rural municipality (kapilvastu district), respectively. keywords: conservation, ramsar convention, urban wetlands, wise-use d. n. shah1* , j. paudel1 , r. d. tachamo-shah2 , k. m. dixit3 , and r. sada4 received: 2, november 2022 revised: 28, december 2022 accepted: 4, february 2024 published: 26, february 2024 1 central department of environmental science, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal *email:dnshah@cdes.edu.np 2 department of life sciences, kathmandu university, dhulikhel, kavre, nepal 3 institutes for social and environmental transition – nepal 4 world wide fund for naturenepal, baluwatar, kathmandu, nepal banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 62 shah et al. the 'wetland city accreditation' program promotes a positive connection between urban areas in close proximity to, and reliant upon, wetlands— especially those of international significance. this initiative aims to enhance public awareness of wetlands and foster engagement in municipal planning and decision-making processes. cities demonstrating a commitment to the preservation and enhancement of their natural or humanmade wetlands can voluntarily participate in this scheme, gaining international recognition and positive publicity for their endeavors (ramsar, 2015). the ramsar convention resolution xii.10 established a 'wetland city accreditation' system, from which contracting parties can apply for 'wetland city accreditation' for those cities which are located in close proximity to ramsar sites or other significant wetlands. in order to qualify for ramsar convention's accreditation of wetland cities, contracting parties must submit a proposal for each candidate city that is consistent with the framework provided. after being proposed by contracting parties and completing the accreditation protocol stated, the candidate city accreditation shall be accepted as an accredited wetland city by the independent advisory committee. the advantages of 'wetland city accreditation' includes: (i) delivering wise-use of wetlands and avoiding any further degradation or loss of wetlands as a result of urban development or management, and (ii) promoting the contribution that wetlands make to social and environmental sustainability of a wetland city (ramsar: resolution xii.10, 2015). cities that have received accreditation are granted the privilege of utilizing the ramsar brand for duration of six years. this enables them to promote their agricultural products and ecotourism activities, establishing a close connection between sustainable development goal 11 "make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable" and sdg 6 "ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all" (wwf, 2018). at cop14, the ramsar convention accredited additional 25 cities with exceptional efforts in protecting their wetlands. with this addition, the total number of cities accredited for their conservation actions increased from 18 to 43 cities, spanning 17 countries across 5 continents (table 1). table 1: list of recognized world wetland cities (ramsar, 2022) s. n. continent country 2018 2022 1. asia china changde, changshu, dongying, haerbin, haikou, yinchuan hefei, jining, liangping, nanchang, panjin, wuhan, and yangcheng 2. republic of korea changnyeong, inje, jeju, suncheon gochang, seocheon, and seogwipo 3. sri lanka colombo 4. indonesia subaraya and tanjung jabung timur 5. islamic republic of iran bandar khamir and varzaneh 6. japan izumi and niigata 7. iraq al chibayish 8. thailand sri songkhram district 9. africa tunisia ghar el melh 10. morocco ifrane 11. rwanda kigali 12. europe south africa cape town 13. france amiens, courteranges, pont audemer, saint omer belval-en-argonne and seltz 14. hungary lakes by tata 15. spain valencia 16. north america canada sackville 17. south america madagascar mitsinjo banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 63 shah et al. for 'wetland city accreditation' of the ramsar convention, a candidate city must fulfill the national standards used to implement each of the international criteria mentioned in the point 13 of the framework for wetland city accreditation of the ramsar convention (ramsar: resolution xii.10, 2015). nepal has been a party of the ramsar convention on wetlands since 1989, and to date, 10 wetlands are designated as ramsar sites, the wetlands of international importance. the koshi tappu wetland is the first site appended to ramsar list on december 17, 1987, and the lake clusters of pokhara valley is the latest wetland included. wetlands in nepal cover approximately 60,561 hectares (nearly 5%) of the country's total area (mofe, 2018a) belonging to 15 types of natural and 10 types of human-built inland wetlands (shiwakoti, 2006). the country’s ramsar sites play a crucial role in maintaining and enhancing the diversity and population of globally threatened flora, fauna, and supporting the ecosystem services these wetlands provide (shrestha et al., 2020). they also provide feeding and breeding places for many threatened birds, fishes, and wildlife (usepa, 2015). these sites are important for their ecological value and have significant implications for sustainable urban development and city accreditation. wetlands provide habitats for: 27% of threatened bird species (inskipp et al., 2017), 85% of endemic vertebrates (iucn, 2004), 230 indigenous fish species (rajbanshi, 2013), and 24% of protected plant species in nepal (wcn, 2020). by recognizing the value of ramsar sites and integrating their conservation into urban planning and development processes, cities can highlight their commitment to sustainable urban development and conservation. incorporating wetlands' protection and sustainable use into city accreditation frameworks can showcase a city's efforts to protect and use wetlands responsibly and contribute to sustainable development goals. additionally, city accreditation programs can encourage urban areas to engage in communitybased conservation efforts and raise awareness among people about the importance of ramsar sites or other important wetlands. it could involve the local communities in monitoring and protecting these wetlands. connecting the ecosystem services offered by the ramsar sites or other important wetlands to city accreditation, cities can emphasize that wetland conservation and their services extend beyond rural regions, becoming integral aspects of urban planning, decision-making, and development (ramsar, 2015). based on the criteria for 'wetland city accreditation', this study identifies the potential cities and recommends them for 'wetland city accreditation'. materials and methods study area the selection of cities was based on the ramsar guidelines and criteria for national standard outlined in ramsar: resolution xii.10, 2015. the cities in the vicinity of all ten ramsar sites of nepal were considered for the study. a preliminary survey was conducted, which involved reviewing literature and evaluating the proximity of the urban or periurban areas to the wetlands. after evaluation, five cities meeting the criteria for national standards were chosen (figure 1; table 2). figure 1: location map of the selected ramsar sites with their local administrative boundaries (a: ghodaghodi lake complex; b: jagadispur reservoir; c: lake cluster of pokhara valley; d: beeshazar and associated lakes; and e: mai pokhari) banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 64 shah et al. table 2: description of the selected cities with wetlands (ramsar sites) for the study s.n. name of cities description 1. pokhara pokhara metropolitan city (pomc) stands as a naturally captivating and historically significant metropolis in nepal. serving as the headquarters of gandaki province, it is located approximately 200 kilometers west of kathmandu, the capital city of nepal. recently, it has been declared as the biggest metropolitan city, occupying an area of 464.24 sq. km and a population of 414,141. the pomc encompasses the mahabharata range, mid-hills and the great himalayan range of nepal between 83°48' 84°13'11"e longitudes and 28°4'39" 28°36'18"n latitudes (rimal et al., 2015). the lake cluster of pokhara valley (lcpv) is distributed across the pomc, annapurna rural municipality, and rupa rural municipality and was declared as a ramsar site in 2016. majority (over 90%) of the lcpv falls within the pomc, comprising nine ecologically significant cluster lakes viz. i) phewa, ii) begnas, iii) rupa, iv) dipang, v) maidi, vi) khaste, vii) neurani, viii) kamalpokhari, and ix) gunde. the lakes are located within the chitwan-annapurna landscape (chal), close to the boundaries of the annapurna conservation area in the northeastern part of nepal (mofe, 2018b). 2. sandakpur sandakpur is a rural municipality in ilam district of koshi province in eastern nepal. it spans over an area of 156 sq. km with the total population of 16,065. within the boundary of sandakpur rural municipality lies mai pokhari, a mid-hill wetland of religious significance in the eastern ilam. in 2008, mai pokhari was declared as a ramsar site, recognizing its international significance. the area of mai pokhari lies in the middle of kanchenjungasinghalila landscape complex and is considered as one of the biodiversity hotspots. mai pokhari serves as a significant habitat for native animal species, including a tree frog and the himalayan newt, commonly referred to as 'thakthake'. it is a habitat for more than 300 species of birds, and 42 species of bryophytes (pradhan & heimstad, 2018) including one endemic species (sphagnum nepalense). riparian vegetation serves as a home for noteworthy epiphytic orchids and shelters various protected species, including the white-rumped vulture (gyps bengalensis), leopard cat (prionailurus bengalensis), and eurasian otter (lutra lutra), along with endemic species such as the variegated mountain lizard (japalura variegata). additionally, mai pokhari bears cultural and religious importance for pilgrims following the buddhist and hindu traditions. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 65 shah et al. s.n. name of cities description 3. taulihawa taulihawa, an ancient city of nepal, serves as the headquarters of kapilvastu district, spans over an area of 137 sq. km with the total population of 88,874. it is located within kapilvastu municipality, approximately 22 km north-east of lumbini, at 107m above sea level. it shares its southern border with khunwa, uttar pradesh state of india. kapilvastu municipality is notable due to the presence of lumbini, the birth place of lord buddha, and jagadispur reservoir. in 1972, the reservoir was created by diverting the banganga river for irrigation purpose. the reservoir is one of the internationally important wetlands listed as the ramsar site. the reservoir serves as the primary water source for irrigating approximately 406 hectares of land in the kapilvastu district. it is a habitat for more than 108 species of birds including migratory birds (baral, 2008). the water level in the reservoir experiences fluctuations, ranging from a maximum of 5-7 meters to a minimum of 2-3 meters (shah et al., 2011). 4. ghodaghodi ghodaghodi municipality lies along the east-west highway in the kailali district of sudurpashchhim province. it spans over an area of 354.44 sq. km with the total population of 87,679. the ghodaghodi lake area is situated within the ghodaghodi municipality, covering approximately 2500 hectares of 14 ox-bow lakes of various sizes. these wetlands include marshes, swamps, streams, springs, seasonal marshy grasslands, and artificial wetlands like canals, irrigated fields, and ponds. the area is encircled by a tropical deciduous mixed sal forest, located on the lower slopes of the siwalik hills. the inhabitants of ghodaghodi lake area are mainly the indigenous tharu and the migrants from the adjoining hilly areas. this lake complex is also a habitat of 17 mammal species, 6 reptile species including mugger crocodiles, 8 amphibian species, 148 bird species, 29 fish species, and 32 butterfly species (shrestha et. al., 2020; kafle, 2019; kafle, 2005; lamsal et al., 2014; kafle et al., 2007). ghodaghodi lake area was declared as a bird sanctuary in march 2022. 5. bharatpur bharatpur is the headquarter of chitwan district. it spans over an area of 433 sq. km with the total population of 369,377. within the bharatpur metropolitan city and the buffer zone of chitwan national park, beeshazar and associated lakes cover about 3,200 ha area. these lakes are of extensive typical ox-bow lake system of the tropical inner tarai, in central nepal, situated within the barandabhar corridor forest (bcf), which is an important wildlife corridor connecting the chitwan national park in the south and mahabharat hills up to the annapurna mountain range in the north. this wetland provides good habitat as a water hole and corridor for endangered wildlife species. the area is characterized by its forested wetlands featuring finger-like projections with associated lakes, meadows, swamps and marshes (bhattarai, 2006). this area is also a habitat for various wildlife including, 32 species of mammals, 31 species of herpetofauna, 329 species of birds, 37 species of fish, 16 species of butterflies, and 10 species of aquatic fauna (lamichhane et al., 2016). beeshazar and associated lakes are also an important wetland in the tarai arc landscape (tal) and chal. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 66 shah et al. methods the study was conducted in the year 2022 following the standard protocol of ramsar criteria for national standard for wetland city accreditation (table 3). the study involved a comprehensive review of reports from relevant authorities such as the ministry of forests and environment, department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc), department of forests and soil conservation (dofsc), local government bodies, international union for conservation of nature (iucn), national trust for nature conservation (ntnc), and world wildlife fund (wwf). additionally, the assessment included on-site visits to wetlands, a direct questionnaire survey targeting local government authorities, wetland committee representatives, and other key stakeholders. the purpose was to evaluate indicators for wetland selection and prioritize them. these indicators were developed in accordance with the ramsar guidelines for city accreditation (see table 4). table 3: criteria for national standard for 'wetland city accreditation' s.n. criteria 1. candidate city must have one or more ramsar sites or other significant wetlands fully or partially situated in its territory. 2. has adopted measures for the conservation of wetlands and their services. 3. has implemented wetland restoration and/ or management measures. 4. has adapted information to raise public awareness about the importance of wetlands and encourage wise use principle for wetland conservation, establishing education sector. 5. to fulfill the convention criteria, different approaches should be established such as appropriate standards regarding water quality, sanitation and management, sustainable agriculture, forest, tourism, pastoral production system, evaluation of socio-economic and cultural values as well as the ecosystem services of the ramsar sites and other significant wetlands and plan for disaster prevention and management. table 4: indicators based on ramsar guidelines for wetland city accreditation s. n. indicator type indicator name score of each item (1 to 10) components supporting documents 1. resources baseline important wetlands site has established one ramsar site (necessary condition). ramsar site designation/approval document 2. protection and management conditions wetlands protection rate 3. wetlands management plan has mainstreamed wetland conservation in local development plan, developed a special plan on wetlands conservation that meets the needs for the investment in wetlands conservation and restoration. integrated lake basin management plan, site management plan banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 67 shah et al. s. n. indicator type indicator name score of each item (1 to 10) components supporting documents 4. protection and management conditions special organization for wetlands management has established a special committee for wetlands conservation & management, and deployed full-time staff lake conservation committee 5. wetlands management regulation has wetlands-related policies local government operation act, 2017; wetland policy, 2012; national ramsar strategy & action plan, 2018-2024 6. assessment indicator system on ecocivilization has incorporated the indicators on wetlands conservation and wise use environment friendly local governance 7. organization structure has established a committee on the application for 'world wetland city' relevant files (e.g., minute of the meeting approving the committee) 8. water management has incorporated wetlands conservation and restoration in water management infrastructure development and water pollution control efforts measures to prevent/ control non-point and point source pollution, measures to secure the quantity of important wetlands, water quality guidelines 9. wise use of wetlands has wisely used the wetlands, taking into full account of wetlands conservation and wetlands ecological, economic and cultural functions related activities and reports banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 68 shah et al. s. n. indicator type indicator name score of each item (1 to 10) components supporting documents 10. public education and volunteer system wetland publicity and education has established a special center for wetland publicity & education, and conducted campaigns on wetlands conservation and wise use establishment of wetlands information center, awareness campaigns, activities conducted on world wetlands day 11. wetlands conservation volunteer system has established a wetlands conservation committee, subcommittee, wetland clubs and other volunteer groups, and actively engaged the general public in wetland conservation and other activities related to knowledge dissemination wetland conservation committee/ subcommittees; number of clubs, birdwatching groups/ societies, community based organizations, etc. 12. management of important wetland site wetlands protection or restoration measures has taken wetland protection/ restoration measures on important wetland site and has achieved good results wetland related project approval letter; proof on fund input; implementation/ results of protection or restoration projects 13. wetlands monitoring, management plan, ecological status, earlywarning mechanism has conducted assessment and monitoring of wetlands, prepared 'wetland health report card', prepared management plan, taken measures to prevent and address the sudden and catastrophic incidents wetland monitoring data, monitoring reports, wetland health report card 14. negative indicators conversion of wetlands, dumping/ draining wetlands/ changing wetlands use, permanently blocking the water source of wetlands; discharging pollutants; wetlands resource exploitation journal articles/ newspapers, reports banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 69 shah et al. the indicators were evaluated by assigning a score to each indicator on a scale from 1 to 10. this rating system allowed for a quantitative assessment of each indicator's performance and significance. a score of 1 indicates poor performance or low significance, while a score 10 indicates excellent performance or high significance. data analysis the scoring was done based on the information gathered through the questionnaire survey to facilitate the nomination process for ramsar wetland city accreditation. each indicator type was assigned a score ranging from 0 to 10. the city attaining the highest score secured the top rank, while the one with the lowest score was positioned last, aiding in the prioritization of nominations. results among the studied cities with wetlands, the pokhara metropolitan city ranked top prioritized city for ramsar accreditation followed by the sandakpur municipality, the bharatpur metropolitan city and the ghodaghodi municipality while the kapilvastu municipality ranked the lowest (table 5, annex 1). table 5: the cities potential for ramsar world wetland city accreditation with their respective calculated indicator value s. n. city indicator value remarks 1. pokhara metropolitan city 123 first 2. sandakpur rural municipality 115 second 3. bharatpur metropolitan city 110 third 4. ghodaghodi municipality 111 fourth 5. kapilvastu municipality 108 fifth discussion wetlands of urban areas have been directly linked with human population from the beginning of human civilization, and are the base of sustainable cities that provide economic benefits and human well-being (alikhani et al., 2021). wetlands play an important role in providing ecosystem services to the urban area, and there is increasing evidence of the importance of managing and restoring urban wetlands (tong et al., 2007). ramsar established the scheme of 'wetland city accreditation' to encourage cities close to wetlands to promote, conserve and wise use of wetlands. this accreditation aims to encourage regional and international cooperation and to generate sustainable socio-economic benefits for local populations (ramsar resolution xii.10, 2015). all five cities examined in proximity to the wetlands are anticipated to be considered for inclusion in the "world wetland city" list during the accreditation process. they meet the majority of the criteria set by ramsar for 'wetland city accreditation.' the local governments in these cities have actively formulated plans and regulations for conserving and managing their wetlands designated as ramsar sites that provide essential ecosystem services for the cities. these cities have worked towards organizing awareness-raising campaigns related to wetlands conservation, conducting educational programs, and celebrating "wetlands day". these cities have also implemented policies for wetlands conservation and wise use; actively engaged in waste management and sanitation efforts; managed the wetlands for multiple functions like recreation, flood regulation, and different provisioning ecosystem services; and established special committees and educational centers for wetlands conservation. moreover, these cities have established a division related to wetlands conservation which works on formulating plans, regulations, monitoring wetlands and conducting different programs engaging the local people for better wetlands conservation. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 70 shah et al. 1. pokhara metropolitan city the lake cluster of pokhara valley (lcpv) comprising nine lakes, including the renowned phewa lake, is under the authority of the pokhara metropolitan city (pmc) office. the lcpv offers various ecosystem services, creating income-generating opportunities for trade and business communities (mofe, 2018b). additionally, these wetlands serve as crucial drinking water sources for local residents and hold significant biodiversity, fishery, irrigation, and hydropower values in the pokhara valley. the lcpv hosts 168 species of birds, including globally threatened migratory birds, such as the critically endangered baer’s pochard (aythya baeri) and indian vulture (gyps indicus) (mofe, 2018b). furthermore, the lcpv records 28 fish species, 11 frog species, 28 reptile species, and 36 mammal species (tamrakar, 2008). overall, 362 plants species have been recorded in the lake cluster, with 286 terrestrial species and 61 aquatic species including 32 orchids, of which 10 are endemic. likewise, dipang lake, one of the lakes of the lcpv, hosts 156 insect species, including 29 dragonfly species. notably, two new species have been documented in nepal: the indian violet dartlet (aciargion hisopa) and the orange-tailed marsh dart (ceriagrion cerinorubellum) (k.c. & gurung, 2020). the surrounding forests of each lake basin are overseen by the communities through a community forest user group (cfug). pmc is the key implementing institution for the management of the lake cluster of the pokhara valley. the local government works for wetland conservation and its wise use to maintain and sustain ecosystem services and conserve indigenous biodiversity, socio-economic prosperity of the lake-basin, minimizing degradation by climate resilience programs, inclusivity of local people in implementation, practice, governance, and execution of plan, policy and regulations. the pokhara valley lake conservation committee collaborates with the individual lake conservation committees within the valley. additionally, the lake conservation and development authority (lcda), founded in 2020, serves as an institution dedicated to the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands in gandaki province. the lcda actively promotes an ecosystem-based approach to wetland management, focusing its initiatives on the restoration and improvement of all nine lakes within the pokhara valley. furthermore, a "women’s lake conservation committee", functioning as an ngo, has been established for the preservation of the gunde and khaste-neureni lakes within the pokhara valley. additionally, the pokhara metropolitan city is actively involved in several crucial initiatives which include the enforcement and restoration of laws, budget allocation for the implementation of management plans, execution of annual planning and monitoring as part of the management plan, development and transfer of technology tailored for the sustainable conservation and prudent use of the lcpv, establishment of a knowledge-based management system derived from research, and dissemination of knowledge through appropriate mechanisms. the city also focuses on capacity building for local government and nongovernment personnel, as well as communities, ensuring their active involvement in the sustainable conservation and judicious utilization of the lake cluster. this comprehensive approach extends to engaging community organizations and lake-dependent communities to promote the sustainable conservation and wise use of lake resources for their collective prosperity (mofe, 2018b). 2. sandakpur rural municipality the mai pokhari area consist of a botanical garden, a religious forest, and community forests (rijal, 2011). the mai pokhari was a natural, rainfall-fed lake, but at present, it is fed by puha river. the surrounding vegetation serves as a habitat for notable epiphytic orchids and supports the protected species, including the whiterumped vulture (gyps bengalensis), leopard cat (prionailurus bengalensis), eurasian otter (lutra lutra), and endemic species like the variegated mountain lizard (j. variegata). additionally, the site holds substantial religious and cultural importance, serving as a convergence point for buddhism, hinduism, and mundhum (animism) traditions. wetlands provide habitat to wildlife and endemic plants, and support the livelihood of banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 71 shah et al. the local communities (siwakoti, 2006; bhattarai, 2018; kafle & savillo, 2009). the municipality has included the mai pokhari in its annual plan for conservation, protection, and management. different activities are currently in progress for the proper management of the wetland, such as gradual removal of exotic pine trees and exotic fish from the mai pokhari. the mai pokhari management plan was formulated in 2012. additionally, the local government initiated a community-centric wetland conservation project, and established a dedicated "mai pokhari wetland conservation committee". moreover, a wetland education center was established, complemented by an awareness campaign on wetlands. other efforts by the local government in the conservation and management of the mai pokhari wetlands include heightening public awareness about the significance of wetlands and ecosystem services. they also focus on enhancing coordination among the site’s community forest user groups through workshops and awareness campaigns alongside providing capacity building on wetland management (wwf, 2008). 3. kapilvastu municipality the local government of the kapilvastu municipality has formulated environment and wetland-related regulations for the conservation and management of jagadispur reservoir. the municipality is also directly involved in formulating and managing different committees, forums, and centers, such as jagadispur lake conservation program, jagadispur lake management forum, and jagadispur lake conservation & tourism promotion center for the conservation of jagadispur reservoir. additionally, the municipality engages in monitoring and restoration initiatives, including sediment removal, measures to enhance water quality, wetland biodiversity conservation, livelihood improvement, tourism development, agro-biodiversity conservation, and more. constructed in 1979 for irrigation purpose, jagadispur reservoir is one of the largest humanmade wetlands in nepal. it receives water from the banganga river in the churia hills catchment. the reservoir, with an area of 157 ha, can store 4.7 cubic meters of water, facilitating irrigation across 6070 hectares of farmland. the total catchment area of the reservoir is 225 ha, which was also designated as a ramsar site in 2003 (thapa & lindner, 2023). the reservoir provides shelter for an assemblage of some rare, endangered, monogenetic plant species that hold importance for the conservation of a number of important flora and fauna, e.g. endangered plant serpentine (rauvolfia serpentine), rare pondweed (potamoge tonlucens), threatened lotus (nelumbo nucifera), endangered 'sarus crane' the tallest flying bird (grus antigone), and resident stork species (open-bill and whiteneck), and also serves as the buffer zone for the migratory birds (thapa & saund, 2013; siwakoti & karki, 2010). moreover, in 2022, jagadishpur reservoir was declared a bird sanctuary, marking the second bird sanctuary in nepal after the ghodaghodi bird sanctuary in the kailali district. 4. ghodaghodi municipality the ghodaghodi lake, situated between the bardiya national park to the east and the suklaphanta wildlife reserve to the west, serves as a crucial corridor for wildlife movement between these protected regions and the tarai and siwalik hills. the surrounding forest plays a vital role in facilitating this wildlife migration. the wetlands system is bordered by sandepani, darakh, and ramshikharjhala villages with a combined population of 43,687. the indigenous tharu community, constituting 51.3% of the local population, traditionally relies on wetland resources. the wetland holds significant cultural and religious value for the tharu community, influencing their way of life. the local community relies on the wetlands for various activities, including fishing, livestock grazing, and gathering fodder, firewood, and nontimber forest products (ntfps). furthermore, the water from the wetlands is utilized for irrigating the surrounding agricultural land (kafle, 2018; siwakoti & karki, 2010). the ghodaghodi lake, which has been declared as the first bird sanctuary of nepal in 2022, is banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 72 shah et al. the largest natural ox-bow lake in the tarai, and has finger-like projections with associated marshes and meadows. the wetlands area harbors 473 species of plants, including critically endangered tree species "bijayasal" (pterocarpus marsupium) and over 95 aquatic macrophytes (iucn, 2004) and wild rice (oryza rufipogon). similarly, about 16% avifauna (140 species) of the country, including critically endangered whiterumped vulture (gyps bengalensis), slenderbilled vulture (g. tenuirostris), endangered ferruginous duck (aythya nyroca), lesser adjutant stork (leptotilos javanicus) and nearly 1% population of cotton pygmy-goose (nettapus coromadelianus) have been reported from the ghodaghodi wetland area (baral 1992: from kafle et al., 2007). similarly, it supports several species of vulnerable animals such as smooth-coated otter (lutra perpiscillata), common otter (l. lutra), marsh crocodile (crocodyl uspalustris), golden monitor lizard (varanus flavescens), and so on (iucn, 2004). for generations, indigenous communities have been incorporating wetlands resources into their livelihood activities. their knowledge encompasses the harvesting, utilization, and management of wetlands resources, along with various social and cultural beliefs, taboos, and religious practices (adhikari & poudel, 2018). the local government has also included conservation and management of the ghodaghodi lake area in its fiscal year plan & program and conducted several programs on its management, including restoration and monitoring of the lake. the municipality is also directly involved in formulating and managing different committees, forums and a center such as ghodaghodi area conservation and public awareness forum, bird conservation network (sukhad), basanta protected forest council, community forest users group (cfug) and other communitybased organizations for its conservation. different organizations collaborate with the municipal bodies in conducting communitybased conservation awareness programs, various technical trainings and workshops for forest user groups and home stay management for the local communities, targeting forests protection and biodiversity conservation. likewise, local communities and community-based organizations (cbos) play an active role in conservation endeavors, engaging in community forestry initiatives and programs that focus on local institutional development. initiatives such as the establishment of eco-clubs and women's groups are undertaken. iucn nepal and wwf nepal have been instrumental in guiding and supporting these efforts for the wise use and sustainable management of wetlands resources in the area. a participatory community-centered management plan has been prepared for the conservation of the lake area. furthermore, there are ongoing initiatives to form eco-clubs, women's groups, and a community-based anti-poaching unit committed to wildlife conservation in the area. 5. bharatpur metropolitan city the beeshazar and associated lakes, designated as a ramsar site, is situated within the buffer zone of chitwan national park. positioned in the heart of the barandabhar corridor forest, a crucial wildlife corridor linking chitwan national park (cnp) to the north and valmiki tiger reserve in bihar, india, to the south. this lake is bordered by the east-west highway to the north, rapti river to the south, some villages of ratnanagar municipality to the east, and bharatpur metropolitan city to the west (thapa, 2011; thapa & tuladhar 2021). the lake system is surrounded by seven buffer zone community forests (bzcf). this region serves as the habitat for numerous endangered or threatened wetlands fauna, including various migratory birds (adhikari et al., 2018), globally threatened species such as the royal bengal tiger (panthera tigris), great one-horned rhino (rhinoceros unicornis), and white-rumped vulture (gyps bengalensis). beeshazar and associated lakes records a total of 17 fish species, including the threatened swamp hurb (puntius chola), the endemic asiatic knife fish (notopterus notopterus), and the large razorbelly minnow (oxygaster bacaila). moreover, the site supports the largest population of marsh crocodile (crocodylus palustris). for over a decade, management activities have been performed by the beeshazari lake management committee (blmc) and the banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 73 shah et al. chitwan national park office (cnp) for the conservation of the beeshazar and associated lakes. furthermore, the local communities actively engage in the manual removal of the invasive species collaborating with the relevant buffer zone user committees, blmc, and the cnp. boating is strictly prohibited in the lake. the site management plan for the beeshazar and associated lakes was also formulated by the dnpwc in 2014, and currently, the action plan is under revision. most of the programs are conducted by the blmc and the cnp. among the aforementioned five different cities and their corresponding wetlands studied, pokhara metropolitan city stands out for its commendable efforts in wetland conservation. the municipality has excelled in involving the local communities in decision-making processes, enhancing human well-being through the sustainable use of wetland resources, and integrating comprehensive management and conservation programs into its overall plan. in contrast, some other wetlands exhibit deficiencies, such as the absence of educational and information centers, awareness programs initiated by municipal authorities, a lack of proper monitoring and conservation plans, and insufficient utilization of wetlands resources to sustain human well-being. these factors collectively position pokhara metropolitan city as a top-priority city for 'wetland city accreditation'. conclusion the 'wetland city accreditation' not only acknowledges but also provides favorable branding opportunities for cities demonstrating strong and positive connections with wetlands. among the five cities examined in this study, pokhara metropolitan city is dignified to receive 'wetland city accreditation' recognition, while sandakpur, ghodaghodi, kapilvastu, and chitwan lag behind, falling short in fulfilling certain indicators for accreditation. these cities must exert additional efforts in alignment with the ramsar guidelines and criteria, as outlined in ramsar: resolution xii.10, 2015, to attain the national standard for accreditation. references adhikari, j. n., bhattarai, b. p., & dhakal, d. n. (2018). conservation value of beeshazari lake: an insight into diversity and abundance of wetland birds. our nature, 16 (1): 17–26. adhikari, s.& poudel, a. (2018). indigenous knowledge for wetland conservation and resource utilization: a case study of ramsar sites, nepal. pp. 80. alikhani, s., nummi, p., & ojala, a. (2021). urban wetlands: a review on ecological and cultural values. water, 13(22): 3301. baral, h. s. (2008). birds of jagdishpur reservoir, nepal.forktail (journal of asian ornithology), 3: 115-119. bhattarai, b. (2006). conservation implications of beeshazari lake cleaning campaign. hui, w., mingxin, l., yawen, z., & yali, w. (2017). international wetland city accreditation and suggestions for its implementation in china. world forestry research, 30 (6): 6–11 inskipp, c., baral, h. s., inskipp, t., khatiwada, a. p., khatiwada, m. p., poudyal, l. p., & amin, r. (2017). nepal’s national red list of birds. journal of threatened taxa, 9 (1): article 1. iucn. (2004). a review of the status and threats to wetlands in nepal. international union for conservation of nature, kathmandu, nepal, pp. 78. k.c., s. &gurung, j. (2020). records of dragonflies and damselflies (insecta: odonata) of dipang lake, with two new records to nepal. journal of threatened taxa. 12: 15955-15961. kafle, g. (2018). avifaunal survey and vegetation analysis at ghodaghodi lake of nepal. 35. kafle, g. and savillo, i. t. (2009). present status of ramsar sites in nepal. international journal of biodiversity and conservation,1 (5): 146-150. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 74 shah et al. kafle, g., balla, m., baral, h., &thapa, i. (2007). ghodaghodi lake area: resources, opportunities and conservation. 16, 1–6. lamichhane, s., kandel, r. c., pokharel, c. p., dahal, t. p., & bhattarai, s. (2016). biodiversity profile of beeshazar and associated lakes, chitwan. department of national parks and wildlife conservation, chitwan national park, national trust for nature conservation, norad(norwegian agency for development cooperation), and ramsar site international. lamsal, p., pant, k. p., kumar, l., &atreya, k. (2014).diversity, uses, and threats in the ghodaghodi lake complex, a ramsar site in western lowland nepal. isrn biodiversity, 2014: 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/680102 mofe. (2018a). national ramsar strategy and action plan, nepal (2018-2024). ministry of forests and environment, singha durbar, kathmandu, nepal mofe. (2018b). integrated lake basin management plan of lake cluster of pokhara valley, nepal (2018-2023).ministry of forests and environment, kathmandu, nepal. pradhan, n. & heimstad, r. (2018). diversity and local status of bryophytes in mai pokhari of ilam district, east nepal. journal of natural history museum, 30: 39–46. rajbanshi, k.g. (2013). bio-diversity and distribution of fresh-water fish of central nepal himalayan region. nepal fisheries society, pp. 136. ramsar (2015). ramsar wetland city accreditation. https://www.ramsar.org/activity/ wetland-city-accreditation [retrieved on october 31, 2022] ramsar (2022). ramsar wetland city accreditation. https://www.ramsar.org/activity/ wetland-city-accreditation ramsar resolution xii.10. (2015). wetland city accreditation. resolution xii.10.rijal, k. (2011). wetland and biodiversity conservation: a case study on maipokhari, ilam [phd thesis]. the central department of sociology/anthropology. shah, d. n., tachamo-shah, r. d. t., & pradhan, b. k. (2011). diversity and community assemblage of littoral zone benthic macroinvertebrates in jagdishpur reservoir. nepal journal of science and technology 12:211–219. shrestha, b., shrestha, s., shrestha, a., & khadka, u. (2020). ramsar sites in nepal: conservation, present scenario, biodiversity value and threats. journal of wetlands ecology, 2020: 15. https:// doi.org/10. 3126 /jowe.v2020i0.24782 siwakoti, m. & karki, j.b. (2009). conservation status of ramsar sites of nepal terai: an overview. botanica orientalis (journal of plant science), 6: 76–84 siwakoti, m. & karki, j. b. (2010). conservation status of ramsar sites of nepal terai: an overview. botanica orientalis (journal of plant science), 6. https://doi.org/10.3126/botor.v6i0.2914 siwakoti, m. (2006). an overview of floral diversity in wetlands of terai region of nepal. our nature, 4 (1): 83-90. thapa, j. & saund, t. (2013).water quality parameters and bird diversity in jagadishpur reservoir, nepal. nepal journal of science and technology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3126/njst. v13i1.7453 thapa, k. & lindner, a. (2023). beyond protected areas: assessing management effectiveness of a ramsar site in nepal. diversity, 15(5):593. https://doi.org/10.3390/d15050593 thapa, k. & tuladhar, s. (eds.) (2021). connecting corridors.world wildlife fund nepal, kathmandu, nepal. thapa, t. b. (2011). habitat suitability evaluation for leopard (panthera pardus) using remote sensing and gis in and around chitwan national park, nepal. faculty of wildlife sciences, wildlife institute of india, dehradun and department banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 75 shah et al. of biosciences, saurashtra university, rajkot, gujrat, india. (ph.d. thesis), pp. 252. tong, c., feagin, r., lu, j., zhang, x., zhu, x., wang, w., & he, w. (2007). ecosystem service values and restoration in the urban sanyang wetland of wenzhou, china. ecological engineering, 29: 249–258. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2006.03.002 wcn. (2020). wetlands: a source of rich biodiversity. wildlife conservation nepal. https:// wcn.org.np/ feature/wetlands--a-source-of-richbiodiversity/4/[retrieved on january 6, 2023] wwf. (2018). ramsar announces first 18 wetland cities. world wildlife fund. https://wwf.panda. org/ wwf_news/ ?337222/ramsar-announcesfirst-18-wetland-cities banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2shah et al. annex 1: indicators based on ramsar guidelines for wetland city accreditation are scored for selected cities. [pokpokhara metropolitan city, san sandakpur rural municipality, kapkapilvastu municipality, ghoghodaghodi municipality, bhabharatpur metropolitan city] sn indicator type indicator name value of each item pok san kap gho bha 1 resources baseline important wetland site 10 10 10 10 10 2 wetland rate 9 9 8 7 9 3 protection and management conditions wetland protection rate 9 9 7 7 8 4 wetland conservation plan 10 7 6 7 6 5 special organization on wetland conservation 9 9 9 9 8 6 wetland conservation regulation 10 10 10 10 10 7 assessment indicator system on ecocivilization 7 7 7 5 7 8 organization structure 0 0 0 0 9 water management 8 7 6 8 8 10 wise use of wetlands 9 8 7 8 8 11 public education and volunteer system wetland publicity and education 9 8 6 8 6 12 wetland conservation volunteer system 8 7 8 8 8 13 management of important wetland site wetland protection or restoration measures 8 8 8 8 7 14 wetland monitoring and management plan and ecological status early-warning mechanism 8 7 8 8 8 15 negative indicators 9 9 8 8 7 total 123 115 108 111 110 11 vegetation, as an indicator, plays a pivotal role in evaluating the health and stability of the ecological environment, and primarily reflects the way ecological systems respond to both climate change and human disturbances (huo & sun, 2021; zhang & ye, 2021). vegetation provides a wide range of benefit to humankind, commonly known as ecosystem services (reid et al., 2005). these include carbon storage regulating the global climate (mitchard, 2018), an important role in water regulation and soil conservation (zhang & ye, 2021) and the support of rural livelihoods in communities with high dependencies on natural resources (asprillaperea & díaz-puente, 2019). national parks and other similarly managed reserves contribute to addressing climate change and fostering development (dimobe et al., 2019). additionally, protected areas are outstanding in terms of their richness and abundance of species and provision of multiple ecosystem services banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2, 2023 pp 11‒23https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i2.55086 plant communities in shivapuri-nagarjun national park, central nepal this study analyzes the plant communities in the shivapuri-nagarjun national park (snnp), nepal. field survey was carried in the national park using quadrat sampling at four different sites selected based on elevation and aspects. diversity indices, density, frequency, abundance and importance value index (ivi) were measured for tree species. a total of 31 tree species representing 29 genera and 18 families were reported from the snnp. four types of plant communities (schima-pinusalnus community, schima-lindera mixed community, schima-castanopsis mixed community, and quercus-myrsine-rhododendron mixed community) characterized with elevation and aspects were identified by cluster analysis. the panimuhan site situated on the south-west aspect at lower elevation was rich in terms of number of tree species. the ivi value of castanopsis tribuloides in the sundarijal site showed the highest density and ivi. the quercus species occurring at the bagdwar site at higher elevation was found to be the dominant trees with higher diameter (dbh) values. schima wallichii and rhododendron arboreum showed their association with different species in both the eastern and western aspects. tree canopy, litter cover and shrub cover showed significant effect on species composition whereas herb cover and rock cover showed no effect on species composition. this study is expected to contribute in understanding the present vegetation status and diversity of snnp, which could be helpful in implementing sound management planning to boost conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity. keywords: diversity index, shivapuri-nagarjun national park, species composition, vegetation t. m. dhakall, 2 , l. b. thapa2 , r. k. p. yadav2 , and c. p. pokhrel2* received: 22, may 2023 revised: 7, december 2023 accepted: 4, february 2024 published: 26, february 2024 1 siddhanath science campus, tribhuvan university, mahendranagar, kanchanpur, nepal 2 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu. * e-mail: chandra.pokhrel@cdb.tu.edu.np https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4764-4554 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3513-2276 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5787-3134 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2573-8370 mailto:chandra.pokhrel@cdb.tu.edu.np banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 12 dhakal et al. (harrison et al., 2014; baccini et al., 2017). these areas serve as crucial sinks with the capacity to absorb substantial amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (dimobe et al., 2019). globally, protected areas store an average of 115 mg ha−1 of carbon in above-ground biomass, which is higher than the average global estimate (71.6 mg ha−1) (fao, 2010; pandey, 2012). changes in the composition and structure of vegetation, instigated by both climatic and human-induced disturbances, can result in shifts in species diversity and associated carbon stocks (dimobe et al., 2019). owing to its wide range of physiographic and climatic variations as well as unique ecological setting, nepal, a mountainous country, is an important himalayan region in terms of ecosystem, vegetation and biodiversity where 118 ecosystems and 75 vegetation types were reported (dobremez, 1970; gon, 2014). on the basis of climate, vegetation & floristic composition, the country’s forests are classified into 35 types (stainton, 1972). nepal’s topographical and climatological variations taken together with other local factors account for the high species richness within the country. despite small land surface (0.1 % of the world’s total land area), nepal represents over 3 % of the world’s known flora, of which 284 are endemic ones (gon, 2014). nepal’s forest including other wood land occupies a total of 44.74 %. out of the total forest area, 37.80 % lies in the middle mountains, 32.25 % in high mountains & high himal, 23.04 % in churia hills, and 6.90 % in terai (dfrs, 2015). similarly, protected areas cover 23.56 % of the country’s total area encompassing 12 national parks, six conservation areas, 13 buffer zones areas, one wildlife reserve and one hunting reserve (dnpwc, 2019). among the national parks, the shivpuri-nagarjun national park (snnp) with an area of 159 sq. km, lies in the sub-tropical and lower temperate zone and presents sole repository of the middle mountain’s flora, fauna and ecosystem. it is located towards the north-eastern part of the kathmandu valley within bagmati province of central nepal. the snnp is one of the major fresh water sources for the kathmandu valley. apart from that, the area possesses historical, religious, cultural, touristic, environmental, and archeological significance. therefore, understanding the present vegetation status and diversity of the area is essential for sound management planning, thereby conserving ecosystem and biodiversity. previous studies in the snnp reported vegetation structure in a particular region of the park. for example, a study on quantitative analyses of vegetation (trees and shrubs) was undertaken on the north-east (ne) and south-west (sw) slopes of the nagarjun hill (yadav & sah, 1998). sigdel (2008) studied the vegetation structure along altitudinal bands in the shivapuri national park. other studies are focused mainly on specific species such as adiantum (singh & siwakoti, 2012) and the phyllospheric bacterial populations of the woody vegetation within the park (yadav et al., 2013). this study aims to characterize the plant communities in the snnp focusing mainly on tree species, and produce baseline information for community structure, diversity, and ecology that would be helpful for developing sustainable forest management strategy and conserving natural resources. materials and methods study sites the study was conducted in the shivpurinagarjun national park (snnp) situated within the bagmati province of nepal in 2020 (figure 1). the national park is situated between 27°43' 27°52' n latitudes and 85°13' 85°30' e longitudes towards the north-eastern part of the kathmandu valley, and covers a total area of 159 sq km (snnp, 2022). the elevation of the terrain ranges from 1350 m to 2795 m above the mean sea level (msl). geographically the national park represents a transitional zone between subtropical and temperate regions. the mean annual rainfall of the snnp is 2727 mm (snnp, 2022). the rainy season start from june and ends by october whereas the dry season starts from november and ends by april. the temperature varies from 27.7o c to 0.30o c (snnp, 2022). the vegetation of the area is characterized as subtropical and temperate. the subtropical zone is dominated by species such as schima wallichii, castanopsis indica, c. tribuloides and pinus roxburghii. the mixed temperate forest at higher elevations banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 13 dhakal et al. consists of quercus lanata, q. semecarpifolia and rhododendron arboreum as dominant species (sigdel, 2008). vegetation sampling and data collection the study was conducted in 2020 during postmonsoon season. a total of 43 sample plots (quadrats), each of size 10×10m2 were sampled at the south-eastern and south-western aspects and also at the top of the national park. among those, 13 sample plots were within the sundarijal site (ss) located at an elevation between 15141634 m above the msl towards the eastern aspect while 9 plots were within the panimuhan site (ps) located between 1731-1869 m above the msl towards the south-western aspect. similarly, 9 plots were sampled in the okhreni site (os) located between 1883-1945m above the msl nearby the okhreni village within the national park. the remaining 12 sample plots were in the bagdwar site (bs) at the top of the national park (elevation between 2244-2795m above the msl). this site is dominated by quercus species, and a sacred "bagdwar temple" exists within the site. three to four plots were at a spacing of 100m along each of the three transects were established parallelly at a spacing of 150-200m in each site and there were 3-4 plots at a spacing of 100m in each transect. the locations of the sample plots are presented in figure 1. all the individual tree species in each plot were counted, and herbs, shrubs and climbers were also duly recorded. the density, frequency, total basal area, relative values of density, frequency, abundance, and dbh (diameter of breast height) of the tree species were calculated following misra (1968), muller-dombois & ellenberg (1974), and zobel et al. (1987). per hectare density and basal area were also calculated for all the tree species. besides, the importance value indices (ivis) of the tree species were determined by summing up the values of relative of density (rd), relative frequency (rf), and relative dominance (rdo). the shannon-wiener index, simpson index for species diversity and pielou evenness were computed following shannon & wiener (1963), whittaker (1975) and pielou (1975). the tree canopy cover, shrubs, herbs, rocks and litter in each plot were estimated visually as a percentage cover. the plant species were identified by following malla et al. (1986), rajbhandari et al. (2021) and shrestha et al. (2022). voucher specimens were deposited at the tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch), kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal. statistical analysis multivariate analysis (ordination) was applied for knowing the effects of environmental variables (tree canopy, cover of shrubs, herb, litter, and rock) on species composition. all the species of herbs, shrubs and trees were included in the analysis. the gradient length in the data yielded through detrended correspondence analysis (dca) was 4.8; therefore, canonical correspondence analysis (cca) was used as a unimodal technique. the data were down-weighted so as to reduce the effect of rare species in the result. besides, permutational multivariate analysis of variance (permanova) was used to test the significance of the relationships. hierarchical clustering analysis (ca) based on sørensen similarity index was applied to identify plant figure 1: map showing study area and sampling locations in the snpp (bs = bagdwar site, os = okhreni site, ss = sundarijal site, and ps = panimuhan site) banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 14 dhakal et al. communities. average linkage clustering based on minimum average distance between groups was used, and a 'hierarchical cluster dendrogram' was generated. the analyses were performed using the r software (version 3.5.1) (r core team, 2018). results floristic composition a total of 31 tree species from 29 genera and 18 families were reported from the study sites. the families fagaceae and rosaceae had 4 species each followed by lauraceae, theaceae and myrsinaceae with 3 species each. similarly, betulaceae and ericaceae were represented by 2 species each while the rest of the families by single species (table 1). the panimuhan site (ps) was rich in terms of number of species (22 species) followed by the sundarijal site (ss) with 17 species, the okhreni site (os) with 12 species and the least number of tree species (11 species) were reported from the bagdwar site (bs, table 1). among the 22 species reported from the panimuhan site (ps), albizia julibrissin, betula alnoides, castanopsis indica, eurya acuminata, fraxinus floribunda, prunus cerasoides, pyrus pashia, and saurauia napaulensis were limited in this site (table1). the tree ziziphus incurva was confined in the okhreni site (os) and cinnamomum tamala, edgeworthia gardneri, grevillea robusta and lindera pulcherrima were confined in bagdwar site (bs). the trees garuga pinnata, heptapleurum rhododendrifolium and woodfordia fruticosa were found only in the sundarijal site (ss). altogether, 6 species were found to be common in the bagdwar and panimuhan sites. similarly, 11 species were common in okhreni and sundarijal sites whereas 5 species were common in all the study sites (table 1). table 1: plants found in different sites of the snnp s. n. species name plant type family sites 1. albizia julibrissin var. mollis (wall.) benth. tree fabaceae ps 2. alnus nepalensis d. don tree betulaceae ss, ps 3. betula alnoides buch.-ham. ex d. don tree betulaceae ps 4. castanopsis tribuloides (sm.) a. dc. tree fagaceae os, ss, ps 5. c. indica (roxburgh ex lindley) tree fagaceae ps 6. cinnamomum tamala (buch.-ham.) t. nees & nees tree lauraceae bs 7. edgeworthia gardneri meisn. small tree/shrub thymelaeaceae bs 8. rhaphiolepis dubia (lindl.) b. b. liu & j. wen small tree/shrub rosaceae os, ss, ps 9. eurya acuminata dc. tree theaceae ps 10. e. japonica thunb. tree theaceae bs, os, ss, ps 11. fraxinus floribunda wall. tree oleaceae ps 12. garuga pinnata roxb. tree burseraceae ss 13. grevillea robusta a. cunn. ex r. br. tree proteaceae bs 14. lindera nacusua (d. don) merr. tree/shrub lauraceae os, ss, ps 15. l. pulcherrima (nees) hook. f. small tree lauraceae bs 16. lyonia ovalifolia (wall.) drude small tree/shrub ericaceae bs, os, ss, ps banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 15 dhakal et al. s. n. species name plant type family sites 17. morella esculenta (buch.-ham. ex d. don) i. m. turner tree myricaceae ss, ps 18. myrsine capitellata wall. tree myrsinaceae bs, os, ss, ps 19. m. semiserrata wall. tree myrsinaceae bs, os, ss, ps 20. pinus roxburghii sarg. tree pinaceae os, ss, ps 21. prunus cerasoides buch. ham. ex d. don tree rosaceae ps 22. p. nepalensis ser. tree rosaceae ps 23. pyrus pashia buch. ham. ex d. don tree rosaceae os, ss, ps 24. quercus lamellosa sm. tree fagaceae bs, ps 25. q. semecarpifolia sm. tree fagaceae bs, ss, 26. rhododendron arboreum sm. tree ericaceae bs, os, ss, ps 27. saurauia napaulensis dc. tree actinidiaceae ps 28. heptapleurum rhododendrifolium (griff.) g. m. plunkett & lowry tree araliaceae ss 29. schima wallichii (dc.) korth. tree theaceae os, ss, ps 30. woodfordia fruticosa (l.) kurz small tree lythraceae ss 31. ziziphus incurva roxb. tree rhamnaceae os note: bs = bagdwar site; os = okhreni site; ps = panimuhan site; and ss = sundarijal site. diversity and importance value indices of tree species based on the diversity indices, the panimuhan site was found to be more diverse than other sites. the order of the simpson diversity index and shanon-weiner index values were: ps>os>bs>ss (table 2). similarly, the pielou's evenness also followed the same pattern as the diversity indices. table 2: diversity indices and evenness at different sites index/evenness sites ps os bs ss simpson index 0.90 0.89 0.79 0.73 shannon-weiner index 2.50 2.36 1.86 1.79 pielou's evenness 0.50 0.47 0.36 0.32 quercus semecarpifolia had the highest ivi value (103.55) in the bagdwar site, with 24.11 relative density and 15.58 relative frequency, but the relative density was high in m. semiserrata (34.75). q. semecarpifolia was also present in the sundarijal site, but its ivi was <10. comparing the values of the ivi among the species in the bagdwar site, m. semiserrata, r. arboreum, and m. capitellata were found to be the species having the ivi >25 (table 3). m. semiserrata had the ivi value of 26.19 in the okhreni site while the values were >5 in the other two sites viz. sundarijal and panimuhan. r. arboreum had the ivi value of 25.05 in the sundarijal site following the bagdwar site whereas the values were less (>10) in the panimuhan and okhreni sites (table 3). similarly, m. capitellata was present in the other three sites besides the bagdwar site with the ivi values ranging from 12.42 to 35.20. among the species having the least ivi in the bagdwar site, banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 16 dhakal et al. g. robusta was not found in the other sites while l. ovalifolia had almost the similar ivi value in the sundarijal site, but the values were higher in the panimuhan (14.51) and okhreni (20.46) sites than in the bagdwar site (4.33, table 3). the tree species in the okhreni site had the ivi values ranging from 2.62 (r. arboreum) to 47.54 (l. nacusua). s. wallichii, p. pashia, p. roxburghii had the ivi values of 44.61, 33.46, and 31.38, respectively. z. incurva was the species having comparatively the least ivi (6.50) in the okhreni site. l. nacusua was also present in the sundarijal and panimuhan sites with low density and frequency as compared to those in the okhreni site. the density and frequency of s. wallichii were higher in the panimuhan site with the ivi value of 66.37 but lesser in the sundarijal site than in the okhreni site (table 3). p. pashia and p. roxburghii were also reported in sundarijal and panimuhan sites. p. pashia had less than 5 relative density and relative frequency in both the sundarijal and panimuhan sites, but p. roxburghii had much higher ivi value of 15.59 in the sundarijal site and 27.12 in the panimuhan site (table 3). among all the tree species, c. tribuloides was the dominant at the sundarijal site with the highest ivi value of 120.05 followed by panimuhan site (40.09) and okhreni site (16.21). e. acuminata, g. pinata, w. fruticosa, p. pashia, a. nepalensis and m. semiserrata were among the species having the least ivi (<5) at the sundarijal site (table 3). following s. wallichii and c. tribuloides, a. nepalensis had the ivi value of 29.63 at the panimuhan site. the tree speciesa. julibrissin, c. indica and s. napaulensis were found only at the panimuhan site with the relative density, frequency, and dominance less than 2 and the ivi less than 3 (table 3). table 3 : relative density (rd), relative frequency (rf), relative dominance (rdo), and importance value index (ivi) of tree species in different sites of snnp s. n. name of species bagdwar site (bs) okhreni site (os) sundarijal site (ss) panimuhan site (ps) rd rf rdo ivi rd rf rdo ivi rd rf rdo ivi rd rf rdo ivi 1. a. julibrissin 0.39 1.67 0.40 2.46 2. a. nepalensis 0.56 1.85 1.25 03.66 6.98 6.67 15.98 29.63 3. b. alnoides 0.39 1.67 4.32 6.38 4. c. indica 0.39 1.67 0.20 2.26 5. c. tamala 1.42 10.39 0.12 11.93 6. c. tribuloides 4.73 3.57 7.91 16.21 48.60 14.81 56.64 120.05 12.79 6.67 20.63 40.09 7. e. acuminata 3.55 5.19 3.02 11.76 6.76 8.93 2.29 17.98 0.28 1.85 0.68 02.81 0.78 1.67 2.68 5.13 8. r. dubia 6.08 8.93 3.26 18.27 4.19 5.56 4.15 13.90 1.55 3.33 0.19 5.07 9. e. gardneri 0.71 3.90 0.03 4.64 10. e. japonica 5.82 10.00 0.10 15.92 11. f. floribunda 5.04 8.33 2.36 15.73 12. g. pinata 0.28 1.85 0.60 02.73 13. g. robusta 2.13 1.30 0.33 3.76 14. l. nacusua 18.92 12.50 16.12 47.54 1.96 3.70 0.32 05.98 2.33 1.67 0.53 4.53 15. l. ovalifolia 0.71 2.60 1.02 4.33 6.08 8.93 5.45 20.46 1.40 3.70 0.3 05.40 7.37 5.00 2.14 14.51 16. l. pulcherrima 2.13 3.90 0.16 6.19 17. m. capitellata 13.48 11.69 4.78 29.95 5.41 5.36 1.65 12.42 14.25 14.81 6.14 35.20 7.37 5.00 1.45 13.82 18. m. esculenta 3.07 5.56 2.18 10.81 3.88 6.67 2.06 12.61 19. m. semiserrata 34.75 14.29 5.04 54.08 6.08 12.50 7.61 26.19 1.68 1.85 1.15 04.68 1.16 3.33 0.20 4.69 20. p. cerasoides 5.82 1.67 1.26 8.75 21. p. nepalensis 1.55 1.67 0.87 4.09 22. p. pashia 16.89 14.29 2.28 33.46 0.28 1.85 1.32 03.45 1.16 5.00 0.61 6.77 23. p. roxburghii 0.68 1.79 28.91 31.38 3.35 5.56 6.68 15.59 3.10 5.00 19.02 27.12 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 17 dhakal et al. s. n. name of species bagdwar site (bs) okhreni site (os) sundarijal site (ss) panimuhan site (ps) rd rf rdo ivi rd rf rdo ivi rd rf rdo ivi rd rf rdo ivi 24. q. lamellosa 4.26 3.90 5.74 13.90 0.78 1.67 0.79 3.24 25. q. semecarpifolia 24.11 15.58 63.85 103.54 2.23 7.41 0.31 09.95 26. r. arboreum 12.77 7.79 15.04 35.60 0.68 1.79 0.15 2.62 7.54 11.11 6.40 25.05 2.71 5.00 0.46 8.17 27. h. rhododendrifolium 4.47 7.41 0.62 12.50 28. s. napaulensis 0.78 1.67 0.35 2.80 29. s. wallichii 16.22 10.71 17.68 44.61 5.59 9.26 11.32 26.17 27.91 15 23.46 66.37 30. w. fruticosa 0.28 1.85 0.11 02.24 31. z. incurva 1.35 1.79 3.36 6.50 dbh of trees the bagdwar site possessed the highest number of trees (71) having dbh >50 cm while the okhreni site had the least number of such trees (50) (figure 2). on the other hand, the sundarijal site consisted of the highest number of trees (148) with dbh 5-25cm while the bagdwar site had the lowest number of such trees (31). cluster dendrogram a total of 4 plant communities were identified in the snnp through cluster analysis. cluster 'a' included all the sample plots from the panimuhan site except one (# 33) from the sundarijal site. altogether, 22 species were found in this community having s. wallichii, p. roxburghii, c. indica, and a. nepalensis as the major ones; therefore, this cluster was categorized as 'schimapinus-alnus community' (figure 2). similarly, cluster 'b' consisted of the sample plots1321 and 22-32 & 34 from the okhreni site, the later ones (plots22-32 & 34) mainly consisted of s. wallichii, l. nacusua, and p. pashia, and so it was categorized as 'schima-lindera mixed community'. likewise, cluster 'c' included all the plots from the sundarijal site. the major tree species in this community were s. wallichii, c. tribuloides, m. capitellata, and r. arboreum, and therefore, it was thus categorized as 'schimacastanopsis mixed community'. cluster 'd' had distinctly two sub-clustersone with the sample plots7-12 from the bagdwar site dominated by q. semecarpifolia, r. arborium, and m. semiserrata and another with the sample plots1-6 also from the bagdwar site with the dominance of q. semecarpifolia, myrsine spp., c. tamala and r. arborium, and thus, this cluster was categorized as 'quercus-myrsine-rhododendron mixed community' (figure 2). effect of environmental parameters on tree species composition the cca results showed that the first (cca1) and second (cca2) axes accounted for 61% and 35% variations in the species composition (see figure 3). the tree species like z. incurva, a. nepalensis and w. fruticosa were closely associated with high tree canopy. likewise, the shrub species such as diplomorpha canescens, maesa chisia and r. arboreum had close relationship with the tree canopy (figure 3). similarly, the tree species like lagerstroemia parviflora, l. pulcherrima and shrubs rubus ellipticus, and viburnum cylindricum had optimum association towards the shrub cover, and they showed positive correlation. on the other hand, litter cover also had shown effect on species composition. the species m. semiserrata, drepanostachyum falcatum, q. semicarpifolia, daphne bholua, c. tamala, and ilex dipyrena have positive correlation with the litter cover while the species such as m. esculenta and sarcococca coriacea were found to be negatively correlated with the same. the tree species such as m. semiserrata, l. ovalifolia, m. esculenta, and s. coriacea were allied with the rock cover. on the other hand, the species such as smilex zeylanica, p. parvifolius, and ageratina adenophora had their optimal abundance towards the herb cover (figure 3). the permanova test showed that the environmental variables (tree canopy, litter cover, and shrub cover) had significant effect on the species composition (p<0.001) whereas the herb cover and rock cover showed no effect on the same. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 18 dhakal et al. discussion comparing the richness of tree species among the four study sites in the snnp, the panimuhan site was rich in terms of the number of species followed by the sundarijal site. these two sites are located at the entrance point of the national park. at the entrance point, there is an army check post and, therefore, the level of disturbance is low there compared to the other two sites. on the other hand, both the sites are located at more or less the same elevation (1514-1869 m). the bagdwar and okhreni sites had a lesser number of species (see table 1). the bagdwar site lies at the top (2795 m) of the national park, and it has matured forest with almost closed canopy due to which the number of species at the understory of tree canopy is lower. okhreni forest lies at 1945m above the msl within the buffer zone near the okhreni, chilauni and mulpani villages; hence, the forest was used for grazing, collection of fodder and firewood. the low richness of species in this site was due to anthropogenic disturbances. subedi et al. (2020) also described that the species richness and the abundance decrease with elevation and the disturbances like cutting and grazing are also responsible for decreasing species richness. santaniello et al. (2016) and abella & springer (2015) concluded that partial cutting is beneficial for the growth of plant species because it exposed understory vegetation toward sunlight, which makes growth more vigorously but larger scale has a negative impact on plant diversity. the results of our study are in favor of these studies. the ivi along with the sum of rf, rd and rdo measure how dominant a species is in a given figure 2: hierarchical clustered dendrogram showing similarities among different sample plots within the watershed area of snnp figure 3: cca biplot showing the effects of environmental parameters on species composition (complete list of the plant species is presented in annex i) banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 19 dhakal et al. forest area (curtis & mcintosh, 1950). based on the ivi, the four study sites within the snnp (bagdwar, panimuhan, okhreni and sundarijal) were found to be dominated by different tree species. a dominant species has a significant influence over other organisms in the ecological community. also, the species tend to have an impact on environmental situations, community diversification, and ecosystem features (komatsu et al., 2019). the species c. tribuloides at the sundarijal site showed the highest density and ivi among the four sites (table 3), which indicated that this species was the most dominant in this community (c), which is in line with the findings of sigdel (2008). the lowest densities of e. gardneri and l. ovalifolia at the bagdwar site (table 3) showed that these were the rare species in this community (d). the speciesq. semecarpifolia and s. wallichii at the bagdwar and panimuhan sites, respectively, showed the highest frequency indicating the uniformity of distribution of these species in those sites. the speciesg. robusta at the bagdwar site showed the lowest frequency (1.3, table 3), which indicated that this species was either irregularly distributed or rare in this community. presence of high number species indicate the characteristic of more diverse communities. if the species are uniformly distributed, then the diversity index value would be high (henderson & southwood, 2016). in our study, all the values were nearer to 1, which indicated that all these sites had moderate diversity (table 2). the biodiversity indices slightly differed among the sites. the panimuhan site had the highest value of shannon-weiner index, indicating high species richness, which might be due to the conservation of the species owing to the army check post nearby this site. on the other hand, the bagdwar site had a comparatively low shannon-weiner index, indicating low species richness, which might be due to its location at higher elevation as compared to the other sites. limbu et al. (2017) also reported that the number of species decreased with the increase in elevation. the observed value of evenness was moderate in this study, which might be due to the apartness of the study sites from one another or due to the differences in their micro-climates. the tree species at the bagdwar site consisted of higher dbh (>50 cm) while those at the sundarijal site had comparatively lower (<25 cm) girth (figure 2). the low dbh indicates the mid-level of succession (bhatt & khanal, 2010). poudel et al. (2020), in the panchase area of western midhills of nepal, described that higher dbh of trees were found in the forests which were far from anthropogenic disturbance whereas the forests which were easily accessible to humans and are subjected to regular disturbance possessed the trees with low dbh. a total of 4 plant communities were identified in the snnp through cluster analysis (figure 2). the cluster 'a' from the panimuhan site (southwestern aspect) was found to be rich in a number of species with the dominance of s. wallichii, a. nepalensis, and p. roxburghii which was categorized as schima-pinus-alnus community. the clusters'b' and 'c' formed a mixed composition of tree species like s. wallichii, l. nacusua, p. pashia, c. tribuloides, m. capitellata, and r. arboreum towards the okhreni and sundarijal sites (eastern aspect), showing the range of distribution of s. wallichii with association of different species towards the eastern and western aspects, and hence this cluster was categorized as 'schima-lindera mixed community' (figure 2). similarly, the presence of r. arboreum at all the sites showed its association with varieties of tree species in all aspects. cluster 'd' (quercusmyrsine-rhododendron mixed community) had a peculiar community at the top of the snnp with dominancy of q. semecarpifolia, representing a transitional zone between subtropical and temperate regions (figure 2). higher abundance of species such as p. roxburghii at lower elevations, r. arboreum and q. lanata at mid elevations, and q. semicarpifolia at higher elevations were also reported by sigdel (2008). cca biplot showed the association of species and environmental variablestree canopy, shrub cover, herb cover, litter cover, and rock cover. the species like z. incurva, a. nepalensis, w. fruticosa, d. canescens, and m. chisia were found associated with high tree canopy (figure 3). z. incurva and a. nepalensis were the trees forming canopy themselves, but the species such as w. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 20 dhakal et al. fruticose, d. canescens, and m. chisia were also found to be forming the canopy as they might be shade-tolerant species as well. the species such as persea pallida, drepanostachyum falcatum, m. semiserrata, and q. semecarpifolia were correlated with litter cover (figure 3), indicating the species capable of producing high amount of litter. in forest areas, species are subjected to a dense tree canopy that changes light quality & quantity (holmgren et al. 1997) and water availability which are required to germinate and establish from beneath a thick litter layer (sydes & grime 1981). the cca biplot also showed a group of plant species (mostly shrubs and herbs) towards a high cover of shrubs, herbs, and rock cover areas against high tree canopy (figure 3). it shows that species such as r. ellipticus, berberis aristata, smilex zeylanica, s. coriacea, osbeckia stellata, l. pulcherrima etc. do not prefer high amounts of litter and shade. conclusion in the snnp, four types of plant communities (schima-pinus-alnus community, schima lindera mixed community, schima-castanopsis mixed community, and quercus-myrsinerhododendron community) with 31 tree species representing 19 genera and 18 families were identified. the plant communities were characterized with elevation and aspects. comparing the richness, the panimuhan site was rich in terms of number of tree species. the richness of species was lower at higher elevation (bagdwar site) and at the okhreni site near the okhreni village. the ivi value of c. tribuloides at the sundarijal site showed the highest density score and ivi among the four sites. the panimuhan site possessed the highest value of diversity indices while the bagdwar site had the lower values. on the other hand, the tree species at the bagdwar site had higher dbh (>50 cm) while those at the sundarijal site had lower dbh<25 cm. e. acuminata, l. ovalifolia, m. capitellata, m. semiserrata, and r. arboreum were found in all the four plant communities. two species, s. wallichii and r. arboreum showed their association with different species in both the eastern and western aspects. the environmental variables like tree canopy, shrub cover, and litter cover were found to have significant effect on species composition whereas herb cover and rock cover showed no effect on tree species composition in the study sites. acknowledgments the university grants commission, nepal is acknowledged for providing research grant to the first author (mr. t. m. dhakal, grant no. phd77/78-s & t 02). similarly, the authors are thankful to the department of national parks and wildlife conservation, nepal and snnp for providing permission to carry out the study within the park area. special thanks go to mr. nabin lamichhane for his support in preparing the study site map. author contribution statement tmd: data collection, analysis, draft writing. lbt: conception and design, manuscript revision. rkpy: conception and design, 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(1987). a practical manual for ecology. ratna book distributors, kathmandu, nepal. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 1 dhakal et al. annex i: plant species found in the snnp with abbreviated name, local name and habit s. n. name of plant species name abbreviation habit local name s. n. name of plant species name abbreviation habit local name 1. ageratina adenophora age.ade h kalo banmara 26. myrsine capitellata myr.cap s seti kath 2. albizia julibrissin alb.jul t seto shiris 27. m. macrophylla myr.mac s 3. alnus nepalensis aln.nep t uttis 28. m. semiserrata myr.sem t kali kath 4. berberis aristata ber.ari s chutro 29. morella esculenta mor.esc t kaphal 5. b. napaulensis ber.nap s jamane mandro 30. maesa chisia mae.chi t bilaune 6. betula alnoides bet.aln t lek painyu 31. osbeckia stellata osb.ste s rato chulesi 7. caesalpinia decapetala cae.dec c areli kada 32. phyllanthus parvifolius phy.par t khareto 8. camellia kissi cam.kis s chiyaapaate 33. pinus roxburghii pin.rox t rani salla 9. castanopsis indica cas.ind t dhale katus 34. prunus cerasoides pru.cer t painyu 10. c. tribuloides cas.tri t musure katus 35. p. nepalensis pru.nep t 11. cinnamomum tamala cin.tam t tejpat 36. pyrus pashia pyr.pas t mayal 12. daphne bholua dap.bho s lokta 37. quercus lamellosa que.lam t falant 13. diplomorpha canescens dip.can s phurke paat 38. q. semecarpifolia que.sem t kharsu 14. drepanostachyum falcatum dre.fal s nigalo 39. rhaphiolepis dubia rha.dub t jure kafal 15. edgeworthia gardneri edg.gar t argeli 40. rhododendron arboreum rho.arb t gurans 16. eurya acuminata eur.acu t saano jhingane 41. rubus ellipticus rub.ell s ainselu 17. e. japonica eur.jap t jhingane 42. smilax zeylanica smi.zey c kukur daaino 18. garuga pinnata gar.pin t dabdabe 43. sarcococca coriacea sar.cor s telpaaro 19. gaultheria fragrantissima gau.fra s dhasingre 44. saurauia napaulensis sau.nap t gogan 20. grevillea robusta gre.rob t kaenyo 45. schima wallichii sch.wal t chilaune 21. heptapleurum rhododendrifolium hep.rho t 46. smilax aspera smi.asp c kukur daaino 22. ilex dipyrena ile.dip s seto khasru 47. viburnum cylindricum vib.cyl s ghode khari 23. lindera pulcherrima lin.pul t phusre 48. woodfordia fruticosa woo.fru t dhairo 24. l. nacusua lin.nac t 49. ziziphus incurva ziz.inc t hade bayar 25. lyonia ovalifolia lyo.ova t angeri note: c = climber; h = herb; s = shrub; and t = tree. _hlk154127214 _hlk152447776 _hlk152692305 _heading=h.30j0zll banko jankari-2017(5).1.1 biomass and reproductive output are important functional traits that influence aspects of plant performance. measurements of these attributes by harvesting plant parts are often destructive and impractical. therefore, non-destructive methods, based on allometric relationships, have been recommended for measuring plant biomass and reproductive output, particularly in the ecosystems where plant harvesting is not very practical or feasible. here, we assessed the variation in the traits related to vegetative and reproductive performance (including plant height, trunk diameter, canopy area, leaf biomass and number of fruits set) among populations of juniperus indica distributed along an elevation gradient in manang district of the north-central nepal, and finally determined the allometric relationships addressing the leaf biomass and the fruit output. the distribution range of j. indica was divided into lower(3,350– 3,580 m), mid(3,650–3,880 m) and higher(3,950–4,250 m) elevation classes where we made 54 sample plots of 10 m × 10 m size. in each plot, we recorded the number of individuals of j. indica classifying into seedling, juvenile and mature classes, and measured their vegetative traits and fruit output. trunk diameter, leaf dry-weight and fruits set parameters spatially varied within the same elevation class. the individuals at the lower-elevation were larger in vegetative size with largertrunk, height and canopy area, and produced higher leaf biomass and greater number of fruits as compared to those produced by the individuals situated at the midand higher-elevations. the regression analysis showed the strongest relationship between the canopy area and the leaf biomass. thus, the use of outer canopy dimension is found to be the best option for estimation of leaf biomass of j. indica using non-destructive method.. key words: fruit output, leaf biomass, manang, non-destructive method variation in leaf biomass and fruit output of juniperus indica along an elevation gradient in north-central nepal a. chapagain1*,3, r. p. chaudhary2 and s. k. ghimire3 plant biomass and reproductive output are important functional traits that determine plant growth, aspects of individual performance and competitive ability. there are two methods available for estimating plant biomassi) destructive method and ii) non-destructive method. the destructive method, also known as the harvest method is the most commonly used method for measuring plant biomass and reproductive output. it is the most direct and accurate method, and involves plant harvesting in the known area, and measuring the fresh or oven-dried weight of the different plant parts for biomass estimation (tackenberg, 2007; vashum and jayakumar, 2012). measurements of these attributes by harvesting plant parts are often destructive, and time-as well as resourceconsuming, and require a large number of samples, which is impractical for rare and threatened species. therefore, non-destructive methods, based on allometric relationships, have been recommended for measuring plant biomass in such ecosystems where plant harvesting is not very practical or feasible (tackenberg, 2007; vashum and jayakumar, 2012). non-destructive measurements of plant allometric attributes (e.g., height, canopy dimensions and stem diameter) have long been used to estimate plant biomass (mason and hutchings, 1967; peek, 1970; ludwig et al., 1975) and reproductive output (haymes and fox, 2012; otárola et al., 2013). recent interests in quantifying ecosystem carbon stocks, and potential uses of bio-energy have shown the need of implementing non-destructive methods to 1 federation of community forestry users nepal (fecofun), duwakot, bhaktapur, nepal. *e-mail: arjun1chapagain@gmail.com 2 research centre for applied science and technology, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal 3 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal 3 banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 4 estimate total above ground biomass (ansley et al., 2012). studies indicate that canopy area and/ or stem diameter can provide the best regression fit for above ground biomass prediction in several tree species including juniperus (mason and hutchings, 1967; ansley et al., 2012). juniperus indica is an important component of sub-alpine forest of manang district, northcentral nepal (ghimire et al., 2008a). juniperus forest in the nepal himalayas is under threat due to high anthropogenic pressure (e.g., destructive practices, such as over-harvesting of leaves for incense and slash-burning to harvest its wood) as well as harsh climatic conditions. studies carried out in other parts of the world have shown that the principal ecological problems in junipers are related to low production of viable seeds (juan et al., 2003; otto et al., 2010). juan et al. (2003) assessed viability in j. oxycedrus which showed difficulties in seed germination because of harsh cold climate. in some species of juniperus, low reproductive success is due to low amount of pollen that reaches female individuals resulting in less number of fruits set (juan et al., 2003). most of the works on himalayan junipers are confined to essential oil variation in leaf (e.g., adams and chaudhary, 1996; adams et al.,1998), taxonomic determination (e.g., adams et al., 2009), and ethnobotany (e.g., bhattarai et al., 2006). ethnobotanical study of junipers (j. indica, j. squamata and j. communis) in manang by bhattarai et al. (2006) revealed that the local community and traditional tibetan traditional practitioner had been using almost all parts for different purposes. fruits, leaves, stem and barks of juniperus spp. are used in traditional medicine to cure kidney, skin and lymph disorders, fever, cough and cold, sores, wounds, and paralysis of limbs (bhattarai et al., 2006; ghimire et al., 2008b); leaves are also burnt for incense by followers of buddhism. the plant is also used as fencing material and for carving different household items (bhattarai et al., 2006). dried leaves are sold locally for incense, and essential oil obtained from steam distillation of fresh leaves is traded internationally for its use in medicines and cosmetics (ghimire et al., 2008b; gurung, 2010). leaves are harvested throughout the year while fruits during july to august. these all activities put heavy pressure on juniperus stands in the forest ecosystem. in this study, we sampled j. indica along an elevation gradient in manang district situated in the north-central nepal, and examined the relationship among the traits associated with vegetative and reproductive performances. we assessed the variations in the traits related to vegetative and reproductive performance (including plant height, trunk diameter, canopy area, leaf biomass and number of fruits set) among the populations distributed along the three elevation gradients. finally, we determined the relationship among the allometric traits with leaf biomass and fruit output. materials and methods study area j. indica is native to high-altitude himalaya, occurring from the northern indus valley in kashmir to western yunnan in china and it occurs throughout nepal at elevations ranging from 3,300 m to 4,500 m above sea level (press et al., 2000). the plant is found on open and rocky alpine slopes in drier areas; sometimes forming forests at lower elevations. the plant occurs as dwarf woody-shrub at higher elevations exceeding 4,200 m and as tree growing at lower elevations of range 3,300–4,000 m above sea level (ghimire et al., 2008b). the leaves are dark grey-green, dimorphic, mature plants having mostly scale-like leaves which are decussate or sometimes in whorls of 3, closely appressed, 1-3 mm long; while young plants have mostly needlelike leaves, which are borne in whorls of 3 and are 5–8 mm long. needle-like leaves are also found on shaded shoots of adult plants. the plant is dioecious with male (pollen) and female (seed) cones on separate plants. the pollen cones are sub-globose or ovoid, 2–3 mm long; seed cones are ovoid, berry-like, 6–10 mm long, glossy black when ripe, and contain a single seed. the cones are seen in april to may, and mature in october to december. the seeds are mostly dispersed by birds, which eat the cones (ghimire et al., 2008b). study area the study area is located in manang district of the north-central part of nepal (fig. 1). it lies within the broad u-shaped trans-himalayan valley dissected by the marshyangdi river, and is extended up to the north of the annapurna mountain range (up to 7,000 m asl). the northern chapagain et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 5 part of the manang valley, therefore receives very low annual monsoonal precipitation of 450 mm, whereas the precipitation at southern region (chame, manang, at 2,680 m asl) remains to be over 1,000 mm (miehe et al., 2001; baniya et al., 2009). similarly, the mean annual temperature remains 6.2o celsius in the northern transhimalayan valley while 11.0o celsius in the southern region in manang district. the moisture is found to be decreasing from east to west in the upper manang valley, and the south-facing slopes are much drier than those facing north (bhattarai et al., 2004; ghimire et al., 2008a). vegetation in the manang valley at elevations above 3,000 m supports the luxuriant stands of pinus wallichiana, betula utilis and abies spectabilis on the north-facing slopes, and some patches of p. wallichiana on the dry south-facing slopes (baniya et al., 2009). j. indica and rosa sericea with other shrubs are dominant on the dry south-facing slopes. at the lower elevations, the vegetation mainly comprises j. squamata, lonicera obovata and caragana gerardiana. fig. 1: map of the study area methods the sampling of j. indica population was carried out in september 2011 during fruiting season in the north-eastern part of the manang valley. a systematic sampling approach was used. the study was started from bhraka village (3,350 m asl) almost at the bottom of the valley to the ice lake (4,250 m asl). the whole of the distribution range was divided into lower(3,350–3,580 m), mid(3,650–3,880 m) and higher(3,950–4,250 m) elevation classes so as to cover the wider range of distribution of j. indica, heterogeneous environmental conditions and diverse vegetation types. in each elevation class, three horizontal transects were laid at 75–100 m elevation intervals. in each transect, six plots of size 10 m × 10 m were sampled at 50–100 m length intervals, totaling 54 plots from all transects and elevation classes. each plot (100 m2)was further divided into 4 subplots of 5 m × 5 m size. in each subplot, individuals of j. indica of different size (maturity) classes were recorded separately. the size classes were recognized corresponding to their growth stages following schemske et al. (1994). the size classes were broadly defined according to the plant height or trunk diameter as seedlings (height <0.1 m and trunk diameter <1 cm), juveniles (height 0.1–1.0 m, trunk diameter <1 cm) and mature (height usually >1 m, trunk diameter >1 cm and also bearing reproductive structure). the mature individuals were recorded for their height (ground level to the top of the canopy), trunk diameter, canopy area and number of fruits. the trunk diameters of mature >1–3 m tall individuals were measured at 25 cm aboveground, whereas the trunk diameters of mature >3 m tall individuals were measured at 137 cm above ground. the crown cover was directly measured in terms of the canopy area occupied by each adult individual using measuring tape. in each plot, a mature individual was randomly selected, and its leaves were collected within an area of 0.0625 m2 by randomly placing a small quadrat (0.25 m × 0.25 m) on the crown surface. all the leaves within the selected quadrats were collected from the crown base to the tip across the vertical profile. the leaves were packed in paper bags, and fresh weight was taken with the help of a spring balance (error of ±2.5 gm).in the field, all the leaf samples, collected from each plot, were packed in cotton bags, and dried in shade. after returning to the laboratory, the samples were oven dried at 600oc for 72 hours, and dry weight was recorded with the help of a digital weighing machine (error ±1.5 gm). we could collect the samples from only 46 plots due to the absence of mature individuals in the rest 8 plots. the number of fruits per tree was counted only from one mature individual present within each sub-plot. we could measure the number of fruits from only 90 plants, one each from 90 subplots as the mature individuals were completely absent in the remaining sub-plots as in the 8 plots. the latitude, longitude and altitude of each plot were recorded with the help of global positioning system (gps) device. the aspect and slope of each plot were recorded with the help of compass and clinometer, respectively. chapagain et al. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 6 the variations in the vegetative and reproductive traits among the three elevation classes was tested using one-way anova. the relationships between the vegetative and reproductive traits were analyzed by calculating pearson correlation coefficients. the traits exhibiting statistically significant correlations were further analyzed through linear regression analysis to evaluate the strength of relationships and derive allometric equations. particularly, we focused on significant allometric traits to predict the leaf biomass (vegetative trait) and the number of fruits (reproductive trait). to meet the statistical assumptions of normality and homogeneity of variance while fitting linear regression, the trunk diameter, the plant height, the leaf dry weight and the number of fruits were log transformed, and the canopy area was square-root transformed. all the statistical analyses were performed using the spss 17.0 software. results and discussion variation in vegetative and reproductive traits the mean, standard error (se) and the range values of the vegetative and the reproductive traits of j. indica recorded in the ice lake area of the upper manang valley are given in table 1. most of the individuals were of moderate to small size with the height, trunk diameter and canopy area ranging from 0.5 m to 25.0 m, 0.95 cm to 60.48 cm and 0.01 m2 to 2.01 m2, respectively. the mean leaf dry weight per 0.0625 m2 canopy was found to be 0.031 kg, ranging from 0.013 kg to 0.058 kg; the mean dry leaf biomass was calculated to be 28.98 kg per ha. the mean number of fruits per plant ranged from 10 to 1040 (mean 202.9). j. indica showed higher values of all its vegetative and reproductive traits at the lower-elevation than at the midand the higher-elevations (fig. 2). the individuals of j. indica at the lower-elevation were found to be larger in size, with larger trunk, height, canopy area, and produced higher leaf biomass and greater number of fruits as compared to those from the midand the higher-elevations (fig. 2). fig. 2: variations in (a) trunk diameter, (b) plant height, (c) canopy area, (d) leaf dry biomass (gm per 0.0625 m2), (e) leaf dry biomass (kgha-1), and (f) number of fruits set of j. indica at the three elevation classes (low, mid and high) around the ice lake in the upper manang valley. the means with different letters represent significant difference in the traits among the three elevation classes at <0.05 level of significance based on the oneway anova. chapagain et al. table 1: mean, se and range values of the vegetative and the reproductive traits of j. indica recorded in the ice lake area of the upper manang valley traits n mean se minimum maximum plant height (m) 134 2.62 0.26 0.50 25.00 trunk diameter (cm) 134 5.82 0.71 0.95 60.48 canopy area (m2) 134 0.16 0.03 0.01 2.01 leaf dry weight (g) per 0.0625 m2 canopy 46 31.12 1.65 12.50 58.10 leaf dry weight (g) per plant 46 153.26 47.27 1.22 1801.51 leaf dry biomass (kg ha-1) 46 28.98 8.37 0.18 202.20 number of fruits per plant 90 202.90 21.64 10.00 1040.00 banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 7 correlation among the traits the pearson correlation analysis revealed significant relationships among a numbers of traits of j. indica (table 2). significant correlations (p=<0.01) were observed between the trunk diameter and the plant height (r = 0.58), the trunk diameter and the canopy area (r = 0.34), the trunk diameter and the leaf dry weight (r = 0.54), the canopy area and the leaf dry weight (r = 0.93), the trunk diameter and the number of fruits (r = 0.44), and the plant height and the number of fruits (r = 0.34). regression analysis for statistically significant traits the allometric traits exhibiting statistically significant correlations with leaf dry weight and fruit production were further analyzed using simple linear regression analysis to evaluate the strength of relationships and derive allometric equations (fig. 3). the relationship between the plant height and the leaf dry weight and between the canopy area and the number of fruits were not further analyzed as their strength of relationship was very low (table 2). of the three allometric measurements (trunk diameter, plant height and canopy area), the canopy area was found to be the strongest variable to explain the variability of the total leaf biomass (fig. 3b). fig. 3: relationships between (a) the trunk diameter and the leaf dry weight, (b) the canopy area and the leaf dry weight, (c) the trunk diameter and the no. of fruits, and (d) the plant height and the no. of fruits. fitted line based on linear regression model. the canopy area of j. indica in the present study varied from 0.01 m-2 to 2.01 m-2 per tree which is far less than the findings of ghimire and devkota (2008) who measured the canopy area of j. indica of the kangchenjunga conservation area, east nepal to be 7.98 ± 0.32m2 (mean±se, range: 0.01–7.98 m2). this might be because of the difference in the micro-climate between the more mesic condition of the eastern himalaya and the xeric microclimate of the manang valley. of the three allometric measurements (trunk diameter, plant height and canopy area), the canopy area was found to be the strongest variable (r2=0.869) chapagain et al. table 2: the pearson correlation coefficients among the vegetative and reproductive traits of j. indica traits abbreviation trdiam ht canar drwtpl nofr trunk diameter trdiam 1 (n = 131) plant height ht 0.580* (n = 129) 1 (n = 129) canopy area canar 0.344* (n = 124) -0.074 (n = 122) 1 (n = 127) leaf dry weight per plant drwtpl 0.538* (n = 53) 0.252 (n = 52) 0.932* (n = 51) 1 (n = 56) number of fruits per plant nofr 0.439* (n = 87) 0.339* (n = 87) 0.100 (n = 82) 0.332 (n = 33) 1 (n = 88) note: statistically significant correlations (p=<0.05) are denoted by asterisk (*); other correlations being insignificant. banko janakari, vol. 27, no. 1 8 for predicting the total leaf biomass. the average canopy area and, thus, the mean leaf dry weight per plant tended to be high at the lower-elevation, which decreased gradually towards the midand the higherelevations. subedi (2016) also reported highest leaf biomass in j. squamata at the low elevation in the manang valley. linear negative relationship between biomass and elevation has been reported for several woody plant speices (e.g., rastetter et al., 2004). plants growing along an elevation gradient exhibit reduction in radial and vertical growth of their stem towards higher elevations mostly caused by corresponding decline in temperature and nutrient availability, and delay in start of seasonal growth (körner et al., 1983; klinka et al., 1996). among the other allometric variables, the trunk diameter was found to be less strong for predicting total leaf biomass (r2=0.289). plant height was found to be even less effective predictor of leaf biomass, which is similar to the findings of ansley et al. (2012). the reason might be due to the suppression and release from suppression in vertical growth at different time periods and space, corresponding to light intensity, moisture and temperature. measurements of basal trunk diameter and canopy height are difficult in bushyjuniper because of very compact canopy with a high density of under-growth stems that restrict access to the core base of the stems. thus, the use of individual outer canopy dimensions may be the best option for non-destructively estimating leaf biomass of j. indica as reported in other species (ansley et al., 2012). none of the allometric traits considered in this study showed strong power for predicting fruit-output. nevertheless, larger plants [with greater trunk diameter (r2=0.192) and height (r2=0.115)] produced more fruits as compared to the smaller ones (table 2). as the individuals at the lower elevation are generally larger in size, they produced greater number of fruits than those in the midand higher-elevations. the less number of fruits produced per plant in the midand high-elevations may also be due to the limited pollination success as reported by juan et al.(2003) as a result of the wider spatial distance between the male and the female plants. however, further study is needed to support this statement in the local scenario. conclusion vegetative and reproductive traits are found to be the most important characteristics to differentiate the populations of j. indica that are influenced differently by the variation in elevation as the individuals at the lower-elevation were larger in vegetative size, with larger trunk, height, canopy area, and produced higher leaf biomass and greater number of fruits as compared to the individuals at the midand higher-elevations in this study. trunk diameter, leaf dry-weight and fruits set parameters spatially varied within the same elevation class. the use of outer canopy area was also found to be the best option for non-destructively estimating the leaf biomass of j. indica. this technique can be, therefore, used for estimating the leaf biomass of j. indica for different purposes, e.g., for its bioenergy estimation as well as for quantification of its carbon stock. acknowledgments we sincerely acknowledge the missouri botanical garden (mbg), usa and the central department of botany (cdb), tribhuvan university, nepal for their financial support to carry out this study. we are grateful to dr. jan salick and dr. kattie konchar, mbg, and mr. prem subedi and ms. sita karki, cdb for their suggestions and company during our fieldwork. we are highly thankful to two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions on the earlier version of the manuscript. references adams, r. p. and chaudhary, r. p. 1996. leaf essential oil of juniperus indica bertol. from nepal. journal of essential oil research 8: 677–680. adams, r. p., thapa, r. k., agrawal, s. g., kapahi, b. k., srivastava, t. n. and chaudhary, r. p. 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flowering plants of nepal. the natural history museum, london, uk. rastetter, e. b., kwiatkowski, b. l, dizes, s. l. and hobbie, j. e. 2004. the role of down-slope water and nutrient fluxes in the response of arctic hill slopes to climate change. biogeochemistry 69: 37–62. schemske, d. w., husband, b. c., ruckelshaus, m. h., goodwillie, c., parker, i. m. and bishop, j. g. 1994. evaluating approaches to the conservation of rare and endangered plants. ecology 75: 584–606. subedi, p. u. 2016. population structure and plant performance of juniperus squamata buch.-ham. ex d. don along an elevation gradient in manang, nepal. m.sc. thesis, central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kritipur, nepal. tackenberg, o. 2007. a new method for nondestructive measurement of biomass, growth rates, vertical biomass distribution and dry matter content based on digital image analysis. annals of botany 99: 777–783. vashum, k. t. and jayakumar, s. 2012. methods to estimate above-ground biomass and carbon stock in natural forests a review. journal of ecosystem and ecography 2: 4 http://dx.doi. org/10.4172/2157–7625.1000116 accessed on 27 december, 2016. chapagain et al. 24 one-third of the earth's landmass is covered by forests (wwf, 2023), providing various ecological, social, and economic benefits to humans and other organisms (paquette & messier, 2010). the services provided by forest range from protection of water, soil, and biodiversity to betterment of micro-climate and regulation of the carbon cycle (wardle & kaoneka, 1999). nearly 45% (44.74%) of the total area of nepal is covered by forest (frtc, 2022). the forest of nepal is being managed under different management regimes including government managed forest, community forest and other community based forest management regimes (nlc, 2019). sustainable forest management has been promoted as a way to maintain the ecological integrity of forests while meeting the needs of local communities and supporting economic development (baral et al., 2018). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2, 2023 pp 24‒37https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i2.58280 impact of silvicultural system on regeneration status and species diversity: reflection from far-western lowland, nepal adoption of silvicultural system aims to enhance the regeneration of desired species. irregular shelterwood system was initiated in shorea robusta dominated forest under different forest management regimes including community forest in lowland forest of nepal. the present study was conducted in 2023 to compare the regeneration status and species diversity between the two different management practices (scientific forest management and conventional forest management) in patela community forest in far-western lowland of nepal. a total of 27 quadrat sample plots (each with 4 m2) were established at a spacing of 50 m x 50 m across the three scientifically managed blocks, each with an area of 2.14 ha. an equal number of sample plots (27) were established within the conventionally managed blocks. important value index, sorenson’s similarity indices, and the distribution patterns of each species were calculated in both the management blocks to compare the species diversity. shapirowilk test was performed to check the normality of regeneration count, and a twosample t-test was employed to examine the significant differences in the mean count of the plant species. the present study revealed that the conventionally managed forest block has higher species diversity; however, the number of seedlings was significantly high in the scientifically managed forest blocks. the important value index analysis indicated that s. robusta was dominant tree species in both the management blocks followed by terminalia tomentosa; however, there was higher number of s. robusta regeneration under the scientifically managed blocks. the study concludes that irregular shelter-wood system is effective for regulating s. robusta forests in the western lowlands of nepal. keywords: important value index, silvicultural system, shorea robusta, species diversity, sustainable forest management p. ojha1* , k. r. acharya1 , a. subedi1 , and s. regmi2 received: 2, september 2023 revised: 24, november 2023 accepted: 4, february 2024 published: 26, february 2024 1 tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, *email: prakashojha403@gmail.com 2 clemson university, forestry and natural resources management https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2400-9803 https://orcid.org/0009-0001-6541-4736 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5198-0408 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2731-7916 mailto:prakashojha403@gmail.com banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 25 ojha et al. sustainable forest management is an approach that integrates social, ecological, and economic considerations into forest management practices (teplyakov, 2011; sheppard et al., 2020). it is an approach that aims to preserve and boost the health and productivity of forest ecosystems in a long-run (monserud, 2003) while ensuring that the benefits of forest resources are equitably distributed (wilson & wang, 1999). sustainable forest management is grounded on the principles of biodiversity conservation, social & economic development, and ecosystem services (marchi et al., 2018). conventionally managed forests, on the other hand, are managed for short-term gains and are often characterized by transformations to other land uses, unsustainable harvesting and logging practices, and reduced biodiversity (kubsa & tadesse, 2002). this type of forest management can result in the loss of forest biodiversity, degraded ecosystem services, and reduced resilience to environmental stresses (siraj et al., 2018). in the global context, the terms 'scientific forest management' (scifm) and 'sustainable forest management' have been used interchangeably (poudel, 2018). the government of nepal enacted scifm through the approval of the scifm guidelines in 2012 (mfsc nepal, 2014) to address various forest-related problems, such as sub-standard forest production, insufficient forest management, and declining forest health (awasthi et al., 2020). this technique involves utilizing appropriate silvicultural methods and principles of forest management to establish structured compartments with a set rotation age (awasthi et al., 2020). the predominant silvicultural system under the guidelines was the shelter wood system, which involves high-intensity logging and retention of only 15-30 fully-grown mother trees per hectare (poudyal et al., 2019). the forest region divided into eight periodic blocks with an 80-year rotation age and 10-year of regeneration interval (subedi et al., 2018). the irregular shelterwood system was employed in managing the blocks, with distinct operations occurring in each one (bhusal et al., 2020). for example, regeneration felling, intermediate felling, and final felling are carried out in one periodic block, while thinning and cleaning operations are accomplished in others (awasthi et al., 2020). the key activities associated with scifm include selecting and labeling mother trees, harvesting, thinning, fencing, cleaning, weeding, and creating fire-lines among others (bhusal et al., 2020). implementation of silvicultural-system-based forest management practices was officially started in 2012; however, the guidelines for the same were approved in 2014 (gon, 2014). we have used both the terms 'scientifically managed forest' and/or 'sustainably managed forest' adopting the scifm guidelines. however, the government of nepal has abolished the scifm guidelines in 2021 (gon, 2021, basnyat, 2021) stating that scifm practices have a negative impact on forests (gon, 2021; adhikari et al., 2023). nevertheless, the decision is still debatable among the concerned stakeholders in nepal. thus, this study aims to compare the regeneration status and diversity in the scientifically/sustainably managed forest blocks with those in the conventionally managed forest blocks within a community forest in kailali district situated in the far-western lowland of nepal by understanding the ecological impact of scientific forest management practices on forest regeneration and biodiversity. the following hypotheses were assumed: h1: regeneration counts both in the conventionally managed and sustainably managed forest blocks were normally distributed; and h2: there was a significant difference in the mean count of the plant species between the conventionally managed forest blocks and the sustainably managed forest blocks. the findings of the research have been expected to be useful for policymakers, forest managers, and local communities in designing and implementing sustainable forest management practices that support both ecological and socioeconomic objectives. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in the patela community forest (cf) located between 280 41' 57.92'' 280 42' 19.41'' n latitudes and between 800 38' 39.55'' banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 26 ojha et al. 800 39' 30.21'' e longitudes (figure 1) within kailali district of far-western nepal. the pcf covers an area of 171.44 ha, and is bounded by patela village on the east, debariya cf on the west, samaiji cf on the north, and beli-milan cf on the south. the dominant plant species were sal (shorea robusta) followed by asna (terminalia tomentosa), karma (adina cordifolia), and jamun (syzygium cumini). the patela cf was handed over to 98 households in 2009, and scientific forest management was started in this cf in 2017 following the irregular shelterwood silvicultural system. the total forest area had been divided into 8 periodic blocks/subcompartments, each with an area of 21.43 ha and with eighty-year rotation period and ten-year regeneration period; eighty-year rotation period has been proposed and practiced for s. robusta dominated forest in nepal (poudel, 2018). each sub-compartment (sc) was further divided into 10 annual felling coupes, and regeneration fellings were carried out in those felling coupes. treatment area among the eight sub-compartments, felling operation was implemented in the sub-compartment 7 (sc7). before abolishment of the guidelines, regeneration fellings were carried out in three annual felling coupes (each with an area of 2.14 ha) within the sc7 in the three successive years2018, 2019 and 2020. the areas under regeneration felling were set aside as 'sustainably managed blocks' while the remaining blocks were considered as 'conventionally managed blocks'. as conventionally managed block, the sub-compartment 6 (sc6) was also further divided into 10 annual coupes (each with an area of 2.14 ha) so as to compare their regeneration status with those in the scientifically managed blocks. three annual coupes were considered as conventionally managed blocks for this research purpose. the adjoining blocks were taken for both the sustainably managed blocks and the conventionally managed blocks in order to minimize the other locality factors (area, elevation, and soil type) affecting regeneration. the selected sub-compartments and felling coupes are highlighted in figure 1. data collection vegetation survey was conducted in februarymarch, 2023 following the quadrat methods as described by mishra (1968); shrestha (1996); cunningham (2001); and shrestha et al. (2007). systematic random sampling was conducted in sc7 by laying down 27 square quadrats (sample plots), each of 4m2 size (figure 2) at a spacing of 50m x 50 m in three sustainably managed blocks where regeneration felling was carried figure 1: map showing the location of the study area (patela cf) along with the sub-compartments (8) and annual felling coupes (10) in kailali district, far-western nepal banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 27 ojha et al. out. similarly, 27 quadrat sample plots (each with 4 m2 area) were laid out at a spacing of 50 m 50 m in sc6 for collecting data. vegetation sampling was conducted within a total of 54 sample plots (27 in sustainably managed blocks and 27 in conventionally managed blocks) by laying down the quadrat of 2 m x 2 m (4 m2) in each sample plot as suggested by kharel et al. (2021); the seedlings and saplings of all the live tree species within the quadrats were counted and recorded. figure 2: a square quadrat for vegetation sampling data analysis the study examined the composition of plant communities in both the managed and unmanaged blocks. structural analysis of the regeneration data both in the disturbed and undisturbed blocks was analyzed by calculating the important value index (ivi), considering the relative values of density, frequency, and abundance to present the comprehensive overview of the species dynamics following the methods of shukla & chandal (2000) and zobel et al. (1987). plant species diversities species diversity pertains to the occurrence and diversity of species within a specific geographic region, combinely representing species richness and evenness (malik et al., 2014). the following eight diversity and richness indices were analyzed to get a comprehensive understanding of regeneration diversity in both the sustainably managed and conventionally managed forest blocks: 1. the statistical measure of the number of species and evenness in a particular area was calculated using the species diversity index (sdi) (odum & barrett, 1971) which is expressed as: sdi = s/n (1), (eq. 8) where, s is the total number of species and n is the total number of individuals of all the species; the higher value of species diversity index indicates the healthier ecosystem (magurran et al., 2010). 2. the average of species count per sample plot was assessed using the species richness index (r) (margalef, 1958) which is expressed as: r = (s 1) / ln (n), (eq. 9) where, s is the total number of species and n is the total number of individuals of all species; it represents the total number of species within a defined region (moore, 2013). 3. the species diversity in the forest stand was assessed using the shannon-weiner diversity index (h) (michael, 1984) which is expressed as: h = ∑ pi x ln pi, (eq. 10) where, pi is the number of individuals of one species divided by the total number of individuals in the samples; the higher value of h indicates the greater species richness and evenness (dejong, 1975); its value banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 28 ojha et al. ranges from 0 to hmax (shannon, 1948). 4. the maximum value of the species diversity was assessed using the shannon’s maximum diversity index (hmax) (kent, 2011) which is expressed as: hmax = ln (s), (eq. 11) where, s is the total number of species; it depends upon species richness (shannon, 1948). 5. the proximity of species in the forest was assessed using the shannon’s equitability index (eh) (kent, 2011) which is expressed as: eh = h / hmax, (eq. 12) where, h is the shannon-weiner diversity index and hmax is the shannon’s maximum diversity index. 6. the concentration of relative dominance expressed by each species was assessed sing the species evenness index (e) (pielou, 1966) which is expressed as: e = h/ log (s), (eq. 13) where, h is the shannon-weiner diversity index and s is the total number of species. 7. the degree of diversity was assessed using the simpson diversity index (d) (magurran, 1988) which is expressed as: d = ∑ pi x pi, (eq. 14) where, pi is the number of individuals of one species divided by the total number of individuals in the samples; the simpson index decreases as biodiversity increases (rahman et al., 2011). 8. the dominance of simpson index (d) (magurran, 1988) which is expressed as: d' = 1 d, (eq. 15) where, d is the simpson diversity index. similarity of species the similarity of the species between the conventionally managed and sustainably managed forest blocks was assessed by using the sorenson’s similarity index (cs) (zhou et al., 2014) which is expressed as: (eq. 16) where, j is the total number of common species found in both the forest blocks, a is the total number of species found in the conventionally managed forest blocks, and b is the total number of species found in the sustainably managed forest blocks. distribution pattern the ratio of the abundance (a) to frequency (f) was calculated for each plant species in the two separate forest blocks, and their distribution was considered to be regular, random, and contagious (i.e. occurring in clusters) if a/f <0.025, a/f = 0.025-0.05 and a/f >0.05 respectively (whitford, 1949; khatri et al., 2021; khadka et al., 2023). statistical analysis r version 4.0.3 (r core team, 2023) was used for performing all the statistical analysis using “stats” package at 5% level of significance. for checking the normality, shapiro-wilk test (shapiro & wilk, 1965) was used. the null hypothesis (h0) was accepted when the calculated p-value > 0.05 (shapiro & wilk, 1965). after obtaining the normal distribution of data from the shapiro-wilk test, a 'two-sample test' was used to check the significant difference in the mean count of plant species between conventionally managed forests and sustainably managed forests. results regeneration status a total of 10 and 13 regenerating plant species were recorded in the sustainably and conventionally managed forest blocks, respectively (table 1). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 29 ojha et al. the regeneration statuses of the conventionally managed and sustainably managed forests are highlighted in table 2. the regeneration was found to be 35,741 per ha in the conventionally managed forest blocks while it was 59,537 per ha in the sustainably managed forest blocks. table 1. regeneration status of conventionally and sustainably managed forest blocks s. n. species regeneration per hectare conventionally managed blocks sustainably managed blocks 1. a. cordifolia 370 556 2. ficus religiosa 93 3. lagerstroemia parviflora 93 741 4. litsea monopetala 648 1,389 5. madhuca longifolia 93 93 6. mallotus philippensis 1,204 7. psidium guajava 93 8. scheichera oleosa 833 741 9. semecarpus anacardium 93 10. s. robusta 27,593 48,056 11. s. cumini 1,852 463 12. terminalia bellirica 185 1481 13. t. tomentosa 2,500 5,926 14. trewia nudiflora 185 total 35,742 59,539 important value index (ivi) in the case of the conventionally managed forest blocks, s. robusta, t. tomentosa, and s. cumini were found to be the most significant species based on the importance value index (ivi) (table 2), indicating their overall importance in this ecosystem. s. robusta particularly leads in multiple aspects, having the highest relative frequency (rf), relative density (rd), and relative abundance (ra) among the surveyed species. conversely, the species like f. religiosa, l. parviflora, s. anacardium, and m. longifolia appeared as less frequent, with lower density and abundance as compared to the dominant species in these forest blocks. on the other hand in the case of the sustainably managed forest blocks, s. robusta possessed the highest ivi with the highest rf, rd and ra, making it the most dominant plant species (see annexes i and ii). after s. robusta, t. tomentosa had the highest ivi of 43.67 (table 2), making it the second most abundant plant species. p. guajava and m. longifolia were found to be the plants with the least ivi. table 2: important value indices of tree species in conventionally and sustainably managed forest blocks s. n. species conventionally managed forest blocks sustainably managed forest blocks rf (%) rd (%) ra (%) ivi rf (%) rd (%) ra (%) ivi 1. a. cordifolia 3.90 1.04 4.65 9.58 5.48 0.93 2.96 9.37 2. f. religiosa 1.30 0.26 3.49 5.04 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 3. l. parviflora 1.30 0.26 3.49 5.04 6.85 1.24 3.16 11.25 4. l. monopetala 6.49 1.81 4.88 13.19 9.59 2.33 4.23 16.15 5. m. longifolia 1.30 0.26 3.49 5.04 1.37 0.16 1.97 3.50 6. m. philippensis 10.39 3.37 5.67 19.42 7. p. guajava 1.37 0.16 1.97 3.50 8. s. oleosa 9.09 2.33 4.48 15.91 2.74 1.24 7.89 11.88 9. s. anacardium 1.30 0.26 3.49 5.04 10. s. robusta 29.87 77.20 45.18 152.30 36.99 80.72 37.94 155.64 11. s. cumini 12.99 5.18 6.97 25.14 6.85 0.78 1.97 9.60 12. t. bellirica 2.60 0.52 3.49 6.60 1.37 2.49 31.58 35.44 13. t. tomentosa 16.88 6.99 7.24 31.12 27.40 9.95 6.32 43.67 14. t. nudiflora 2.60 0.52 3.49 6.60 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 30 ojha et al. plant species diversity indices the plant diversity indices in the conventionally and sustainably managed forest blocks are highlighted in table 3 below: table 3: biological indices in conventionally and sustainably managed forest blocks forest blocks diversity indices h hmax eh sdi r e d d' conventionally managed 0.98 2.56 0.38 0.03 1.68 0.88 0.61 0.39 sustainably managed 0.78 2.20 0.36 0.01 1.24 0.82 0.67 0.33 note: h = shannon-winner diversity index; hmax = shannon’s maximum diversity index; eh = shannon’s equitability index; sdi = species diversity index; r = species richness index; e = species evenness index; d = simpson diversity index; and d' = dominance of simpson diversity index. the study evaluated the biological diversity in the conventionally and sustainably managed forest blocks through a comprehensive analysis of key diversity indices. in the conventionally managed forest blocks, the shannon-winner diversity index (h) was observed to be significantly higher (0.98), indicating a greater overall diversity in terms of both species abundance and evenness as compared to that (0.78) in the sustainably managed ones. a slightly higher value (2.56) of the shannon’s maximum diversity index in the conventionally managed forest blocks as compared to that (2.20) in the sustainably managed ones also supported the result. moreover, the diversity indices provided insights into the distribution and dominance of the species within the two forest blocks. the dominance of simpson index (d') is notably lower (0.33) in the sustainably managed forest blocks as compared to that (0.39) in the conventionally managed ones, indicating a more equitable distribution of species in the former. additionally, the species richness index (r=1.68) revealed that the conventionally managed forest blocks had a higher count of different species as compared to that (1.24) in the sustainably managed ones. these findings contribute valuable insights into the nuanced dynamics of biological diversity in conventionally and sustainably managed ecosystems, informing our understanding of their ecological health and management strategies. the value of sorenson’s coefficient was found to be 0.782, which indicated that there were 78% common and 22% different tree species in the sustainably and conventionally managed forest blocks distribution pattern all the tree species in both the conventionally and sustainably managed forest blocks showed contagious distribution. statistical analysis 1. shapiro-wilk test the results of the shapiro-wilk test are depicted in table 4 below: table 4: shapiro-wilk test of normality in the conventionally and sustainably managed forest blocks statistical parameter forest blocks conventionally managed sustainably managed w 0.96875 0.95694 p-value 0.569 0.314 since the p-values for both the conventionally and sustainably managed forest blocks were greater than 0.05, the number of regenerations was normally distributed. furthermore for visual inspection of normality, histograms were plotted for each forest type, indicating a normal distribution. 2. two-sample t-test the two-sample t-test (snedecor & cochran, 1989) was used to determine if the population means of the two sustainably and conventionally banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 31 ojha et al. managed forest blocks were equal or not. the results are presented in table 5 below: table 5: two sample t-test in sustainably and conventionally managed forest blocks test forest blocks mean sd t-value df p-value 95% ci twosample t-test sustainably managed 23.93 25.83 -3.61 52 0.0006788 [-15.15, -4.33]conventionally managed 14.19 13.12 since the calculated p-value < 0.05, the assumed hypothesis (h2) is accepted which considered a significant difference in the mean counts between the two forest blocks. these results suggested that the management practices had a significant impact on the counts of the selected tree species discussion based on the findings of our study, the level of regeneration was observed to be significantly greater in the sustainably managed forest blocks as compared to the conventionally managed ones. this difference in regeneration can be attributed to the implementation of an irregular shelterwood system as a management intervention. these results suggest that sustainable forest management practices can have a positive impact on forest regeneration and may be an effective approach for ensuring long-term forest health and productivity. studies done by khanal & adhikari (2018), kharel et al. (2021) and khatri et al. (2021) found that the sustainably managed blocks exhibited a higher regeneration status as compared to the unmanaged blocks. this finding aligns with the results of our own study, indicating a congruence between our study and their studies. many studies from different parts of nepal have shown an increase in the number of regeneration of selected species (e.g. s. robusta) by applying shelterwood system (awasthi et al., 2015; cedamon et al., 2018; khanal & adhikari, 2018; aryal et al., 2021) the important value index (ivi) is an important tool for assessing the ecological significance of plant species in a given ecosystem, and it indicates the dominance of a species (siraj & zhang, 2018). the results of our study indicated that s. robusta was the most dominant plant species in both the forest blocks, with the highest ivi values of 152.30 and 155.64 in the conventionally and sustainably managed forest blocks, respectively. after the implementation of scientific forest management, the number, frequency, density and abundance of the species were found to have increased in the case of s. robusta, which are similar to the results obtained by shrestha et al. (2019) and kharel et al. (2021). after s. robusta, t. tomentosa was found to be the next dominant tree species in both the forest blocks, with the important value indices of 43.67 in the sustainably managed forest blocks and 31.12 in the conventionally managed ones. the increased plant density indicates the more number of plant species per area. the sustainably managed forest blocks possessed the higher value of density per ha for each plant species than that of the conventionally managed ones. similar type of result was observed by barzin et al. (2018), with more plant density in managed forest. a significant role is played by forest management activity to create a variation among different biological indicators (torras et al., 2012). the results of our study showed that there was higher biological diversity in the conventionally managed forest blocks than in the sustainably managed ones. the irregular shelterwood system has negative effect on plant diversity, showing an increase in the concentration of the dominance of s. robusta (gotame et al., 2020). our study showed the lower shannon-weiner diversity index (0.78) in the sustainably managed forest blocks than in the conventionally managed ones (0.98), affecting both the species richness and evenness, which are similar to the results obtained by awasthi et al. (2015) and ranabhat et al. (2016). this might be due to regular cleaning, weeding and other anthropogenic disturbances in the sustainably managed forest blocks as has been claimed by khatri et al. (2021). similarly, the shannon’s maximum diversity index was found to be higher (2.56) in the conventionally managed forest as compared to that (2.20) in the scientifically managed ones. a study conducted by luna-bautista et al. (2015) also reported the higher plant diversity in the unmanaged forests where diversity in managed forest is lost due to banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 32 ojha et al. the effect of logging and cleaning. our results indicated that the conventionally managed forests blocks had a higher species richness index (1.68) as compared to the sustainably managed ones (1.24); specifically, we recorded a total of 13 and 10 plant species in the conventionally and sustainably managed forests, respectively. similar results were obtained by friedel et al. (2006), with more plant species in the unmanaged forest than in the managed one. we attribute this difference to the initial effect of the irregular shelterwood system, where the cleaning and weeding of undesired plant species in sustainably managed forests reduce the richness index. the findings of our study were also consistent with the results of the previous studies conducted by awasthi et al. (2015), kharel et al. (2021), and khadka et al. (2023). a review done by paillet et al. (2010) in europe and shrestha et al, (2019) in tilaurakot collaborative forest found that the species richness index was higher in the unmanaged forests than that in the managed ones. a study done by nouri et al. (2015) in iran observed that the species evenness were higher in the unmanaged forest than that in the managed one, which coincides with the results of our study. the species diversity, richness, and evenness in a sustainably managed forest are comparatively lower because of human activities such as logging, harvesting, and removal of unwanted vegetation, and anthropogenic disturbances (khadka et al., 2023). similarly, smith et al. (2005) suggests that species richness is lower at initial phase of shelterwood system due to regeneration felling and post-harvest activities but after a long run it will be more than unmanaged natural stand. our findings reveal the value of sorenson’s coefficient as 0.78 which is very close to the value (0.75) obtained by khatri et al. (2021) in their study. it shows that the proportion of species decreases after the implication of irregular shelterwood system (monarrez-gonzalez et al., 2020). a similar type of study done by khadka et al. (2023) revealed that regenerating plant species exhibit a contagious distribution in managed forests, while the majority of species in unmanaged forests also display a similar contagious distribution pattern. the contagious distribution is considered to be most common in pattern in nature (odum, 1971). khatri et al. (2021) also found that all of the plant species showed contagious distribution in both the managed and unmanaged forests, which coincides with our findings. it means the regenerating plant species generally grow in clusters near seed trees. on the contrary, chowdhury et al. (2019) claimed that the lower value of the simpson diversity index indicated the better species diversity in some forest areas. in our study, the simpson diversity index was found to be slightly low (0.61) in the conventionally managed forest blocks than that (0.67) in the sustainably managed ones, which indicated that the conventionally managed forest blocks had higher plant diversity as compared to that in the sustainably managed ones; these results were similar to those obtained by monarrezgonzalez et al. (2020) in mexico. likewise, the lower value of the species evenness index (0.82) in the sustainably managed forest blocks as compared to that (0.88) in the unmanaged ones also supported the results, which were similar to those obtained by mohammadnezhad-kiasari et al. (2023). conclusion the irregular shelterwood system applied in the patela community forest resulted in the higher number of species diversity in the conventionally managed forest blocks than in the sustainably managed ones. however, the number of seedlings of desired species including s. robusta was found to be significantly higher in the scientifically management forest blocks. the significant disparity in regeneration count, between these two forest blocks, highlights the favorable impact on the forests that are managed for timber production in future. while the conventionally managed forest blocks exhibited greater plant diversity, the sustainably managed ones displayed a more concentrated distribution of regeneration. our study concludes that irregular shelterwood system is effective in enhancing the regeneration of desired species. furthermore, scientific forest management plays a crucial role in transforming conventionally managed forests into sustainable and high productive forest by retaining the regeneration of desired as well as productive tree species and removing the unwanted as well as unproductive ones. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 33 ojha et al. author contribution statement prakash ojha : author's contribution: develop the research tools, field data collection, data analysis, draft preparation, review and editing. keshav raj acharya: author's contribution: support for conception of the idea, analysis of the data, revision of the research findings, and input during the writing of the research paper. aliza subedi : author's contribution: review and editing. siddhartha regmi: author's contribution: review and editing. data availability the data used in this study are accessible upon request to the corresponding author. conflict of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest. acknowledgments the authors are grateful to the wwf-gef supported integrated landscape management to secure nepal’s protected areas and critical corridors (ilam) project for providing us financial support to carry out this research/study. we are thankful to all the anonymous reviewers and editors for their constructive comments and suggestions in finalizing this article. references adhikari, s., harada, k., dahal, n. k., & gurung, r. 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(1987). a practical manual for ecology. ratna book distributors, kathmandu, nepal, 149. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6397-4_4 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6397-4_4 https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/forests_practice/ https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/forests_practice/ https://doi.org/10.1080/ 17429145. 2013.873959 https://doi.org/10.1080/ 17429145. 2013.873959 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 1 ojha et al. annex i: abundance to frequency ratios of tree species in sustainably managed forest blocks s. n. scientific name local name/ common name frequency abundance a/f 1. adina cordifolia karma 14.81 150.00 10.13 2. psidium guajava amba 3.70 100.00 27.00 3. lagerstroemia parviflora bot dhaiyanro 18.52 160.00 8.64 4. litsea monopetala kutmiro 25.93 214.29 8.27 5. madhuca longifolia mahuwa 3.70 100.00 27.00 6. scheichera oleosa kusum 7.41 400.00 54.00 7. shorea robusta sal 100.00 1922.22 19.22 8. syzygium cumini jamun 18.52 100.00 5.40 9. terminalia bellirica barro 3.70 1600.00 432.00 10. t. tomentosa asna 74.07 320.00 4.32 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 2 ojha et al. annex ii: abundance to frequency ratios of tree species in conventionally managed forest blocks s. n. scientific name local name/ common name frequency abundance a/f 1. a. cordifolia karma 11.11 133.33 12.00 2. ficus religiosa pipal 3.70 100.00 27.00 3. l. parviflora bot dhaiyanro 3.70 100.00 27.00 4. l. monopetala kutmiro 18.52 140.00 7.56 5. m. longifolia mahuwa 3.70 100.00 27.00 6. mallotus philippensis sindure 29.63 162.50 5.48 7. s. oleosa kusum 25.93 128.57 4.96 8. semecarpus anacardium bhalayo 3.70 100.00 27.00 9. s. robusta sal 85.19 1295.65 15.21 10. s. cumini jamun 37.04 200.00 5.40 11. t. bellirica barro 7.41 100.00 13.50 12. t. tomentosa asna 48.15 207.69 4.31 13. trewia nudiflora bhellar 7.41 100.00 13.50 _gjdgxs _r6xj9h6t6g3 _30j0zll _3znysh7 16 an alternate method for micropropagation in plant species is the asexual embryogenesis of somatic cells due to the totipotent nature of plant cells through the tissue culture technique. bipolar somatic embryos, which resemble zygotic embryos morphologically, are produced through direct or indirect somatic embryogenesis. induction of somatic embryos for micropropagation through callus culture and other explants has been investigated in some medicinal plants including piper nigrum (joseph et al., 1996; nair & gupta, 2003, 2006; sasi & bhat, 2016), p. colubrinum (yusuf et al., 2001), and p. aduncum (de sousa et al., 2020). the callus is a homogeneous mass of undifferentiated cells that has the biological capacity to re-differentiate into somatic embryos, shoots, or roots under suitable conditions in a culture medium (adhikari & pant, 2013; pant, 2014). in culture media, plant tissue induces several forms of callus, including compact, friable, embryogenic, and non-embryogenic callus. among these, embryogenic callus is important for the development of somatic embryos. several factors may affect the form of callus generated in tissue culture, such as the kind and amount of plant growth regulators (auxins and cytokinins) employed in the culture media, the genetic makeup of the plant, and the culture environment such as light intensity, temperature, indirect somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration through leaf and nodal cultures of piper longum l. this research aims to develop a protocol for inducing somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration through callus in piper longum. leaf and nodal explants were cultured in the murashige and skoog (ms) medium added with 2, 4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2, 4-d) or α-naphthaleneacetic acid (naa), kinetin (kn), and 10% coconut water (cw). the maximum frequency of embryogenic/nodular callus development (66.66%) and the number of embryos (28.33±3.511) per 0.2-0.3 g embryogenic callus developed from the leaf explant was obtained in the ms medium fortified with 1.5 mg/l 2, 4-d, 1.0 mg/l kn, & 10% cw. similarly, the maximum frequency of embryogenic/nodular callus production (50%) and the number of embryos (12.66±2.51) per 0.2-0.3 g embryogenic callus developed from the stem explant were obtained in the ms + 1.0 mg/l naa + 10% cw. somatic embryo differentiation, maturation, and conversion were obtained when the nodular calli with various stages of embryos were transferred to the ms + 0.25 -1.5 mg/l thidiazuron + 10% cw. somatic embryos were also transformed into seedlings after being transplanted to the ms media with no growth regulators. this study developed a technique for micropropagation of p. longum using somatic embryos derived from leaf and nodal explants, which could serve as the foundation for an alternate method of micropropagation and ex-situ germplasm conservation. keywords: coconut water, micropropagation, murashige and skoog medium, nodular callus, somatic embryos c. b. thapa 1,2, k. k. pant 1, h. d. bhattarai 1, and b. pant 1* received: 13, february 2024 revised: 09, july 2024 accepted: 28, august 2024 published: 22, november 2024 1 central department of botany, tribhuvan university (tu), kirtipur, nepal 2 butwal multiple campus, tu, butwal. *email: bijaya.pant@cdb.tu.edu.np banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2, 2024 pp 16‒28https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v34i2.62729 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5113-9043 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-8772-7459 https:// https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5614-6031 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 17 thapa et al. etc. (bhatia, 2015). according to santos et al. (2002), somatic embryogenesis is one of the most crucial ways to propagate superior or genetically modified plants in large quantities and also serves as a helpful experimental model to study the processes of plant embryogenesis. it has the potential for automating the large-scale generation of embryos in bioreactors, and the ability to sow artificial seeds in the wild (giri et al., 2004). similarly, tissue culture techniques have the potential to boost vegetative propagation rates and maintain pathogen-free plants (saito & nakano, 2002). moreover, tissue culture is an excellent approach for the ex-situ conservation of plant biodiversity because it permits the rapid vegetative reproduction and safeguarding of several uncommon, susceptible, vulnerable, and fragile plant species from a relatively small tissue or part of plants (fay, 1992, 1994; rao, 2004; joshi et al., 2022; pandey et al., 2023). since ancient times, p. longum, a tropical and subtropical medicinal plant, has been used to treat cough, bronchitis, stomachaches, sleeplessness, and diabetes (iucn, 2004; thapa, 2020; thapa et al., 2023). it contains the alkaloid piperin, which has digestion-improving properties, anti-mutagenic and anti-cancer properties, and anti-diarrheal and anti-dysenteric properties (choudhary & singh, 2018). it is distributed throughout the world, including india, bhutan, sri lanka, malaysia, indonesia, nepal, singapore, and burma. the nepalese government has prioritized p. longum for scientific and technological advancement, in addition to agricultural technology development (dpr, 2012, 2017). it requires ex-situ conservation since people heavily utilize its fruits and roots for a variety of diseases, reducing its population in its native habitats. however, micropropagation through nodal explant is difficult in p. longum because of the frequent contamination of culture by endophytic bacteria (bhat et al., 1995; parida & dhal, 2011; sathelly et al., 2016). somatic embryogenesis through callus culture of the leaf may therefore be useful for this purpose. this study attempts to develop an effective protocol for the production of somatic embryos from leaf and nodal explants for micropropagation. this is the first study that has developed a protocol for indirect somatic embryogenesis using leaf and nodal segments in p. longum. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in the rupandehi district situated in the southern part of western nepal (see figure 1). the district is located between 27o 20' 00'' n-28o 47' 25'' n latitudes and between 83o 12' 16'' e-83o 38' 16'' e longitudes. the elevation of the terrain ranges from 100 m to 1229 m above the mean sea level (msl). it is bounded by nawalparasi, kapilvastu, and palpa districts on the east, west, and north, respectively, and india on the south. the district, moreover, experiences a sub-tropical type of climate, and so the plants found there are of tropical to subtropical in nature. the study was conducted from 2022 to 2023. figure 1: location of the study area in the map of nepal and the site of collection of plant material. collection of plant materials p. longum was collected from the rupandehi district of western nepal in october-november 2022 at the elevation of 160 m above the mean banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 18 thapa et al. sea level. the plant specimens were identified by comparing with the herbarium specimens of p. longum deposited at the national herbarium and plant laboratories (kath) and its voucher specimen (voucher no. 135, 136) were deposited at the tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch), kirtipur. a few plants were cultivated in the botanical garden of the central department of botany, tribhuvan university. surface sterilization of plant materials the leaves and nodal segments (stems) were taken from the garden-grown p. longum plants from the botanical garden, which were immersed in tween-20 (2% v/v) for 1/2 an hour before being cleaned with the running tap water. the nodal segment was immersed in 0.2% bavistin (w/v) for one hour, 70% alcohol (v/v) for one minute, and 0.1% hgcl2 (w/v) for seven minutes while the leaves were dipped in 0.1% hgcl2 for three minutes and 70% alcohol for thirty seconds. following sterilization, the leaves and nodal segments were washed three times with sterilized pure water to remove any mercuric chloride residues.. inoculation of explants and embryogenic callus induction the nodal (0.5 cm) and leaf (0.5 cm2) explants were cut off and cultured on the ms medium (murashige and skoog, 1962) lacking plant growth regulators (pgrs) and coconut water (cw), and the ms medium added with pgrs, such as 0.254.5 mg/l 2, 4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2, 4-d) alone, 0.25-4.5 mg/l α-naphthalene acetic acid (naa) alone, and in combination with 0.25-3.5 mg/l 2, 4-d+0.25mg/l to 1.0 mg/l kinetin (kn), 10% cw (v/v), 3% sucrose (w/v), and 0.8% agar (w/v). before adding agar, the ph of the media was maintained at 5.8, sterilized in autoclave for 15 minutes at 121°c temperature and 15-pound pressure, and then poured into the sterile 78 mm × 122 mm jars (30 ml each) covered with aluminum foil. cultures were maintained at 25± 2ºc in a culture room with a 16/8 hours light-dark cycle utilizing cool-white fluorescent lamps (2842 µmol/m2/s). somatic embryo differentiation, development, and maturation for somatic embryo (se) differentiation, growth, and maturation, the calli developed from both the leaves and nodal explants were transferred to the ms media without pgrs and cw and added with 0.25 to 3.5 mg/l thidiazuron (tdz) and 10% cw. the cultures were maintained at 25±2oc with cool-white fluorescent light (3000 lux) for 16 hours. at the intervals of 30 days, subcultures were performed into new media. the ses that had formed on the callus surfaces of each subculture were separated and transferred to full-strength, 1/2-strength, and 1/4-strength ms media. the ms media (without pgrs) were solidified with 0.8% agar to facilitate the germination or embryo conversion into seedlings. histological studies the embryogenic calli and somatic embryos were dipped in 1% acetocarmine for 12 hours, and then heated in test tubes until boiling, squashed in glass slides, and observed under a compound microscope. similarly, the serial thin sections of the embryogenic calli and morphogenic calli were cut with a fine blade, stained with safranin for two minutes, mounted with 10% glycerin water, and examined under a compound microscope. photographs were taken using the scopeimage 9.0 image-processing software professionally designed for digital microscope (labomed-121, inc., usa). statistical analysis the frequency of the embryogenic/nodular callus produced per 0.2 g to 0.3 g callus and the number of somatic embryos produced was calculated in terms of the percentage of six replicates, and the standard deviation (sd) was calculated. moreover, the frequency of embryogenic/nodular calli that developed into shoots, roots, calli, and whole plantlets was expressed in terms of percentage (%). banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 19 thapa et al. results embryogenic and nodular callus induction the formation of embryogenic callus from explants is the first stage in the growth and development of somatic embryos. in our study, the embryogenic and nodular calli were not induced in ms media without the addition of pgrs and coconut water. however, the ms media supplemented with 2, 4-d alone, naa alone, or in combination with 2, 4-d and kn, and 10% cw, leaf, and nodal segments developed embryogenic mass of callus initially in p. longum (figures 2a, 2b). in a subsequent subculture using the same media, the embryogenic callus changed into a nodular aggregate callus with various stages of somatic embryos (figure 2d); however, in the case of nodal segments, the nodular callus was produced by subculturing the embryogenic callus at dark (figure 2c). figure 2: embryogenic and nodular calli in p. longum: (a) embryogenic calli from leaf explant; (b) embryogenic calli from nodal explant; (c) nodular calli from node explant at dark; and (d) nodular calli from leaf explant at light. the nodular aggregate calli from the leaf explants were induced on ms+1.5-4.5 mg/l 2, 4-d+10% cw alone, and in combination with 1.0-3.5 mg/l 2, 4-d+0.25-1.0 mg/l kn + 10% coconut water (table 1 & 2). in the first subculture on ms + 3.5 mg/l 2, 4-d + 10% cw, the maximum frequency of embryogenic callus formation (50%) and the number of embryos (16.66±2.08) per 0.2-0.3 g fresh weight embryogenic callus was obtained. table 1: frequency of embryogenic/nodular callus and somatic embryo (se) development from leaf segment in the ms + 2, 4-d + 10% cw and control (ms only) explants media composition/treatment embryogenic callus (%) no. of countable se/callus ± sd leaf segment ms leaf segment ms + 0.25 mg/l 2,4-d + 10% cw leaf segment ms + 0.5 mg/l 2,4-d + 10% cw leaf segment ms + 1.0 mg/l 2,4-d + 10% cw leaf segment ms + 1.5 mg/l 2,4-d + 10% cw 16.6 4.00±1.00 leaf segment ms + 2.5 mg/l 2,4-d + 10% cw 33.3 13.66±4.50 leaf segment ms + 3.5 mg/l 2,4-d + 10% cw 50.0 16.66±2.08 leaf segment ms + 4.5 mg/l 2,4-d + 10% cw 33.3 6.33±1.52 in vitro condition: at 25±2o c temperature for 16 hours with 3000-4000 lux cool-white light intensity. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 20 thapa et al. similarly, in the first subculture on ms + 1.5 mg/l 2, 4-d + 1.0 mg/l kn + 10% cw, the maximum frequency of embryogenic callus formation (66.66%) and the number of embryos (28.33±3.511) per 0.2-0.3 g fresh weight embryogenic callus was obtained from the leaf segments (table 2). table 2: frequency of embryogenic/nodular callus and somatic embryo (se) development from leaf segment in the ms + 2, 4-d + kn + 10% cw and in control (ms + 2, 4-d + kn) explants media composition/treatment embryogenic callus (%) no. of countable se/callus ± sd leaf segment ms + 0.25 mg/l 2, 4-d + 0.25 mg/l kn leaf segment ms + 0.25 mg/l 2, 4-d + 0.25 mg/l kn + 10% cw leaf segment ms + 0.5 mg/l 2, 4-d + 0.25 mg/l kn + 10% cw leaf segment ms + 1.0 mg/l 2, 4-d + 0.25 mg/l kn + 10% cw 33.33 14.33±1.52 leaf segment ms + 1.5 mg/l 2, 4-d + 0.25 mg/l kn + 10% cw 50.00 16.33±2.51 leaf segment ms + 2.5 mg/l 2, 4-d + 0.25 mg/l kn + 10% cw 33.33 8.66±1.52 leaf segment ms + 3.5 mg/l 2, 4-d + 0.25 mg/l kn + 10% cw 16.66 7.00±2.00 leaf segment ms + 0.25 mg/l 2, 4-d + 1.0 mg/l kn + 10% cw leaf segment ms + 0.5 mg/l 2, 4-d + 1.0 mg/l kn + 10% cw leaf segment ms + 1.0 mg/l 2, 4-d + 1.0 mg/l kn + 10% cw 16.66 10.00±2.64 leaf segment ms + 1.5 mg/l 2, 4-d + 1.0 mg/l kn + 10% cw 66.66 28.33±3.05 leaf segment ms + 2.5 mg/l 2, 4-d + 1.0 mg/l kn + 10% cw 50.00 19.66±2.08 leaf segment ms + 3.5 mg/l 2, 4-d + 1.0 mg/l kn + 10% cw 33.33 12.33±2.51 in vitro condition: at 25±2o c temperature for 16 hours with 3000-4000 lux cool-white light intensity. moreover, the nodular aggregate calli from the stem explants were induced on ms media fortified with 0.5-4.5 mg/l naa with 10% cw (table. 3). however, the nodular callus did not induce on ms media supplemented with 2, 4-d alone and in combination with 2, 4-d and kn. the maximum frequency of embryogenic callus formation (50%) and the number of embryos (12.66±2.51) per 0.2-0.3 g fresh weight embryogenic callus was obtained in the first subculture on a medium supplement with 1.0 mg/l naa. table 3. frequency of embryogenic/nodular callus and somatic embryo (se) development from the nodal segment in the ms + naa + 10% cw and in control (ms only) explants media composition/treatment embryogenic callus (%) no. of countable se/ callus ± sd nodal segment ms nodal segment ms + 0.25 mg/l naa + 10% cw nodal segment ms + 0.5 mg/l naa + 10% cw 16.66 6.66±2.51 nodal segment ms + 1.0 mg/l naa + 10% cw 50.00 12.66±2.51 nodal segment ms + 1.5 mg/l naa + 10% cw 16.66 8.00±3.00 nodal segment ms + 2.5 mg/l naa + 10% cw 33.33 9.00±2.00 nodal segment ms + 3.5 mg/l naa + 10% cw 33.33 10.33±0.57 nodal segment ms + 4.5 mg/l naa + 10% cw 16.66 4.33±1.52 in vitro condition: at 25±2o c temperature for 16 hours with 3000-4000 lux cool-white light intensity. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 21 thapa et al. somatic embryo development, maturation, and conversion into plantlets the nodular callus developed into somatic embryos through 2-celled, 4-celled, 8-celled, globular, and torpedo stages on further subculture in the ms media fortified with 2, 4-d alone, naa alone, and in combination with 2, 4-d + kn + 10% cw (figures 3a-3i). morphogenic differentiation of somatic embryos (whole plantlets/seedlings or shoots only), maturation, and conversion into seedlings were obtained when the nodular/embryogenic calli with somatic embryos, induced in the leaf explants, were transferred to the ms + 0.25-2.5 mg/l thidiazuron (tdz) + 10% cw while those induced in the nodal explants were transferred to the ms + 0.25-3.5 mg/l tdz + 10% cw (table 4). however, seedlings were also differentiated from the nodular calli with somatic embryos in the ms media in the absence of pgrs. figure 3: various stages of somatic embryo development: (a) two-celled stage; (b) four-celled stage; (c) eight-celled stage; (d) globular stage; (e) globular & torpedo stages; (f) torpedo stages; (g) multiple shoots from nodular callus; and (h & i) mature isolated seedlings with roots. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 22 thapa et al. in the case of the nodular callus induced from the leaf segment, the maximum frequency of the shoot differentiation (83.33%) and the whole plantlet (16.67%) differentiation occurred from the various stages of embryos in the ms + 0.5 mg/l tdz + 10% cw, and was not found to be differentiated only into the roots and callus in any treatments (table 4). however, in the case of the nodular callus induced from the nodal segment, the maximum frequency of the entire plantlet differentiation (66.66%) and the differentiation of the shoots alone (33.34%) occurred from the various stages of embryos, which was present in the nodular callus, in ms + 2.5 mg/l tdz + 10% cw and was not found to be differentiated into roots only in any treatments, but in the ms + 0.25-0.5 mg/l tdz + 10% cw, it induced callus only (table. 4). however, in the case of the nodular callus induced from the nodal segment, the maximum frequency of the entire plantlet/seedling differentiation (66.66%) and the differentiation of shoots only (33.34%) occurred from the various stages of the embryos in the ms + 2.5 mg/l tdz + 10% cw while differentiation into roots only were not noticed in in any treatments. the nodular callus induced from the nodal segments were not differentiated into whole plantlets and shoots only in the ms + 0.25-0.5 mg/l tdz + 10% cw but produced callus only in this treatment. (table. 4). table 4. frequency of morphogenic response from leaf and nodal segments in the ms medium supplemented with tdz explants/ nodular calli media composition/ treatment morphogenic response (%) shoots only roots only callus only whole plantlets leaf segment ms leaf segment ms+0.25 mg/l tdz+ 10% cw 66.66 8.33 leaf segment ms+0.5 mg/l tdz+ 10% cw 83.33 16.67 leaf segment ms+1.5 mg/l tdz+ 10% cw 33.33 leaf segment ms+2.5 mg/l tdz+ 10% cw 16.66 nodal segment ms nodal segment ms+0.25 mg/l tdz+ 10% cw 66.66 nodal segment ms+0.5 mg/l tdz+ 10% cw 33.33 nodal segment ms+1.5 mg/l tdz+ 10% cw 16.66 nodal segment ms+2.5 mg/l tdz+ 10% cw 33.34 66.66 nodal explant ms+3.5 mg/l tdz+ 10% cw 20.66 50.00 in vitro condition: at 25±2o c temperature for 16 hours with 3000-4000 lux cool-white light intensity. moreover, roots were regenerated from the shoots that were differentiated from the nodular calli regenerated from leaf segments in ms + 0.25-2.5 mg/l tdz and nodal segments in ms + 2.5-3.5 mg/l tdz when transferred to the ms media in the absence of pgrs (see figure 4a). similarly, some nodular calli containing somatic embryos were also differentiated directly into seedlings after being transferred banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 23 thapa et al. to the growth regulator-free full-strength ms media. for the acclimatization process, seedlings were grown in various substrates (figure 4b & 4c). figure 4: embryo conversion: (a) rooting seedling; and (b) & (c) process of acclimatization of plantlets. discussion p. longum is a valuable medicinal plant; however, sexual reproduction by seed production is difficult due to a lack of viable seeds and a shorter seed germination period (sarasan et al., 1993). micropropagation by nodal explant culture, on the other hand, is difficult due to frequent contamination in culture by systemic endogenous bacteria (bhat et al., 1995; sathelly et al., 2016). as a result, in vitro propagation by somatic embryogenesis may be crucial for ex-situ conservation of p. longum. according to williams & maheswaran (1986), indirect embryogenesis generates somatic embryos through the development of callus. the induction of embryogenic callus from tissue/explant is the first stage in the formation of a somatic embryo. the embryogenic callus may change into a nodular callus at a later stage of growth, which is an embryogenic callus with compact and distinct spherical structures or nodules within a callus mass (ferreira et al., 2022). embryogenic and nodular callus were not induced in the absence of 2, 4-d alone, naa alone, and in the combinations of 2, 4-d and kn, with 10% cw in the ms media. however, the maximum percentage of embryogenic callus (66.66%) and somatic embryos (28.33±3.05) were induced from the leaf explants in the combination of the ms + 1.5 mg/l 2, 4-d +1.0 mg/l kn + 10% cw than that in the ms +3.5 mg/l 2, 4-d alone. it may be because the combination of 2, 4-d and kn has a synergistic effect on somatic embryogenesis by stimulating cell proliferation, differentiation, and the development of appropriate hormonal balance. the combined use of 2, 4-d and kn has been widely utilized to promote somatic embryogenesis in a variety of plant species (zhang et al., 2004; joshee et al., 2007; raja et al., 2012; mazri et al., 2017). other studies showed that somatic embryos were developed in the ms media in combination with kn and 2, 4-d in some plants such as centella asiatica (joshee et al., 2007), epipremnum aureum (zhang et al., 2004), and phoenix dactylifera (mazri et al., 2017). similarly, the 2, 4-d is an auxin that induces somatic embryogenesis, but auxins may require another auxin or cytokinin in association to induce somatic embryos (yongwook, 2000). a lower concentration of 2, 4-d alone as well as in combination with kn did not induce nodular callus and somatic embryos in this study. therefore, this study showed that induction of nodular callus and somatic embryos in the leaf segment is preferred by a higher dosage of 2, 4-d & a lower dosage of kn in ms media. some researchers also developed somatic embryos from leaf segments in other combinations of pgrs, such as ms + ba + kn in p. colubrinum (yusuf et al., 2001) and ms + naa + bap in p. aduncum (de sousa et al., 2020), demonstrating that effective somatic embryos can develop in combination of both cytokinins as well as auxins and cytokinin. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 24 thapa et al. moreover, the maximum frequency of embryogenic callus induction (50%) and the number of somatic embryos (12.66±2.51) were obtained in the ms medium fortified with 1.0 mg/l naa alone and 10% coconut water in the callus induced from the nodal explants of p. longum. these results were supported by the findings of xu et al. (2019) in ranunculus scleratus, where somatic embryos were induced from the stem, leaf, and root at higher concentrations of naa. the results were equally supported by the findings of pinto et al. (2002), where somatic embryos were induced from the callus regenerated from cotyledons & from whole mature zygotic embryo explants at higher concentration of naa in eucalyptus globulus. the results were also supported by the findings of zdravkovic-korac et al. (2023), where somatic embryos were induced from the roots of spinach (spinacia oleracea l.) in the ms + 20 µm naa + 5 µm ga3. mazri et al. (2017) and szewczyktaranek & pawlowska (2015) also developed somatic embryos in phoenix dactylifera bud explants and szewczyk-taranek & pawlowska (2015) produced somatic embryos from the embryogenic callus induced from seedlings of hepatica nobilis at 1.0 µm concentration of naa. naa can stimulate somatic embryogenesis by boosting cell division and differentiation, activating embryogenic pathways, restoring hormonal balance, initiating dedifferentiation, and encouraging the organogenesis process (bhatia, 2015). however, venkatachalam et al. (1999) found the 2, 4-d to be a more effective auxin for the induction and production of somatic embryos as compared to naa. another crucial step during somatic embryogenesis is the differentiation, development, and transformation of somatic embryos into seedlings/plantlets from the various stages of embryos present in the nodular callus. when the nodular callus formed from both the leaf and nodal explants was further subcultured in the same composition of media, it differentiated into somatic embryos ranging from 2-celled to torpedo stage embryos (see figure 2), but embryo differentiation into multiple shoots or whole plantlets did not occur in the absence of tdz and 10% cw. nhut et al. (2006) observed that tdz, whether alone or together with other plant growth regulators, can stimulate somatic embryogenesis in a tissue culture medium. altering the auxin to cytokinin proportion in vitro results in somatic embryogenesis in somatic cells (murthy et al., 1998), while tdz alone can also cause somatic embryogenesis in many species (murthy et al., 1998; ghosh et al., 2018; erland et al., 2020). sreenivasu et al. (1998) used tdz alone to stimulate somatic embryogenesis in azadirachta indica and cajanus cajan. moreover, coconut water might act as a natural and useful ingredient in tissue culture media for somatic embryo differentiation, supplying important nutrients, growth hormones, osmotic management, and antioxidant protection to aid in the growth and development of embryos. the maximum percentage of somatic embryo conversion (83.33% shoots only and 16.67% whole plantlets) was found in the ms + 0.5 mg/l tdz + 10% cw from nodular callus induced from the leaf explants, while the maximum percentage of somatic embryo conversion (33.33% shoots only and 66.66% whole plantlets) was found in the ms + 2.5 mg/l tdz + 10% cw from the nodular callus induced from the nodal explants. it demonstrates that a lower tdz concentration (0.25 to 0.5 mg/l) supports the differentiation of embryos into shoots only whereas a higher tdz concentration (2.5 mg/l) favors the conversion into seedlings in p. longum from the various stages of embryos that were present in nodular callus. thus, the percentage of whole plantlet conversion was higher in the nodular callus developed from the nodal explants than in the nodular callus developed from the leaf explants. it may be due to the residual effect of naa in somatic embryos that was induced from nodal explants for in vitro rooting. on the other hand, after embryo differentiation, all the embryos developed into seedlings when they were grown in the fullstrength ms media in the absence of pgrs. this observation has been reinforced by the findings of mazri et al. (2017) in phoenix dactylifera. however, simos et al. (2010) found that not all embryos were transformed into seedlings (plantlets), but a small percentage were converted into roots only and callus only in the ms media in the absence of pgrs. in some piper species, including p. nigrum, somatic embryogenesis banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 25 thapa et al. was reported from micropylar tissues or zygotic embryos in schenk & hildebrandt (sh) media in the absence of hormones at dark (nair & gupta, 2003, 2006; sasi & bhat, 2016). conclusion the efficient protocol for the development of somatic embryos in p. longum was established using the leaf and nodal explants in the ms media fortified with 2, 4-d alone, naa alone, & when used together with 2, 4-d, kn, and 10% coconut water. the efficacy of nodular calli induction in the case of the leaf segment was higher in the ms + 2, 4-d + kn than in the ms + 2, 4-d alone. the nodular callus with embryos, which was induced from both the leaf and nodal explants, was differentiated into entire plantlets/seedlings and shoots only in the ms media fortified with tdz and 10% coconut water. the matured embryo conversion into seedlings also took place without the addition of growth regulators in the full-strength ms media. this research could aid in the ex-situ conservation of p. longum by providing an alternative approach for its successful micropropagation. acknowledgement we appreciate the partial financial support provided by the tribhuvan university rector's office coordination branch for this study. author's contribution statement c. b. thapa: conceptualization of study, data curation, data analysis, and original draft writing. k. k. pant: formal data analysis, review, and editing. h. d. bhattarai: data analysis, review, and editing. b. pant: conceptualization of the study, supervision, review, and final editing. data availability the raw data utilized in this study can be obtained on request from the corresponding author. conflict of interest the authors have no conflicts of interest in this study. references adhikari, s. r. & pant, b. 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(2019). naa at a high concentration promotes efficient plant regeneration via direct somatic embryogenesis and se-mediated transformation system in ranunculus sceleratus. scientific reports, 9: 18321. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-01954538-8. yong-wook, k. (2000). somatic embryogenesis in quercus acutissima. in s.m. jain, p.k. gupta, and r.j. newton (eds.). somatic embryogenesis in woody plants (pp. 671–685). kluwer academic publishers, dordrecht, netherlands. yusuf, a., tyagi, r., & malik, s. (2001). somatic embryogenesis and plantlet regeneration from leaf segments of piper colubrinum. plant cell, tissue and organ culture, 65: 255–258. https:// doi. org/10.1023/a:1010678609606. zdravkovic-korac, s., belic, m., calic, d., & milojevic, j. (2023). somatic embryogenesis in spinach—a review. horticulturae, 9: 1048. https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae9091048. zhang, q., chen, j., & henny, r. j. (2004). direct somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration from leaf, petiole, and stem explants of golden pothos. plant cell reports, 23 (9): 587–95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-004-0882-z. https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/ https://doi https://doi _hlk143161325 2.2._input_data _hlk178967326 51 aero–terrestrial green microalgae grow as epiphytic or as epilethic on natural surfaces such as tree bark, soil and rock (ettl & gärtner, 1995). this organism also causes developmental attachment, in cities, on artificial surfaces such as tiles, concrete, building facades and other artificial surfaces causing incrustations (tomaselli et al., 2000). aero–terrestrial habitats are characterized by a wide range of temperature and availability of solar radiation and water. algae growth occurs with the availability of moisture from the deposition of dust between the erosion of metal and the passage of time by chemical erosion, and the presence is driven by rain and atmospheric moisture (das & gupta, 2015). the genus apatococcus f. brand belongs to the phylum ‘chlorophyta’ and order ‘chlorellales’ in the family ‘chlorellaceae’. it is cosmopolitan, and is composed of globular cells which, in most cases, divide into two or three planes, and form irregular, cubic packets, sometimes forming short uniseriate i.e. arranged in a single row, layer, or series of filaments. the cells are uninucleate, often lobed, parietal chloroplast without pyrenoids. the genus apatococcus consists of 5 species viz. a. constipates printz, a. fuscideae beck & zahradnikova, a. lobatus (chodat) j.b.petersen, a. minor edlich, and a. vulgaris (guiry & guiry, 2021) including a. lobatus as holotype of the genus. a. lobatus has been recorded in austria, great britain, czech republic, france, italy, germany, netherlands, romania, spain, and ukraine of europe, japan (asia), queensland (australia), new zealand, and pacific islands (guiry & guiry, 2021). in india, it was found to have occurred in the iron pole in the ajc bose indian botanic garden, howrah (das & gupta, 2015); they observed that the occurrence of a. lobatus was inversely proportional to the availability of the sun, possibly due to dependency on the atmospheric moisture. in our study, a. lobatus was found to be growing on the painted iron poles (situated at the elevation of 1505 m between 27.5970° n–27.5971° n latitudes and 85.3074° e– 85.3809° e longitudes in the fern garden within the national botanical garden of godawari, lalitpur, nepal. the species has been neither included in the checklist of the algal flora of nepal (prasad, 2011) nor mentioned in the recent publication of rai & ghimire (2020). likewise, joshi (1977; 1979), prasad & prasad (2001), and (dhakal et al. 2021), who have carried out the studies on the algal flora of the godawari area of lalitpur district, have also not mentioned the present genus. so, we confirmed this genus to be the new one in the list of algal flora of nepal. first generic record of aero–terrestrial algae: apatococcus lobatus  (chodat) j. b. petersen for algal flora of nepal s. dhakal 1*, m. l. pathak 2 and s. dhakal 3 received : 8, september, 2021 revised : 26, november, 2021 accepted : 23, december, 2021 published : 31, december, 2021 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2, 2021 pp 51‒55https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v31i2.41902 short note 1 national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari, lalitpur, nepal. *e–mail: dhakalsajita0@gmail.com 2 plant research center, salyan, nepal 3 department of soil science and agricultural engineering afu, rampur chitwan, nepal https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9528-4514 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4216-9093 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7024-5415 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 52 dhakal et al. materials and methods study area the study was conducted within the national botanical garden (nbg) of godawari which is situated at the foothills of phulchoki mountain of lalitpur district of nepal. geographically, this garden is located between 27.5985°–27.5946° n latitudes and 85.3770°–85.3881° e longitudes at an altitude of 1,480–1,520 m above the mean sea level (figure 1). the study sites exhibit subtropical type of climate. the average annual temperature as recorded in 2020 was 15.9 °c with the averages of 20.3 °c in june and 9.1 °c in january, respectively, and the average annual rainfall of 2,595 mm (climate–data.org, 2020). the study was conducted in august, 2021. collection and identification of the algal  samples the samples were collected from the painted iron surfaces in the fern garden within the nbg. the algae were scrapped using toothbrush. the samples were brought to the cryptogams section of the national herbarium and plant laboratories at godawari (lalitpur district) where they were preserved in 4% formalin. their microscopic study was performed using a huma scope led microscope with 10 mp camera adaptor. figure 1: map showing  the occurrence of a. lobatus (chodat) j. b. petersen in the study area (nbg, godawari)  banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 53 dhakal et al. results taxonomic treatment: the taxonomic treatment of petersen (1928) was followed while confirming the samples of a. lobatus in the laboratory. basionym: pleurococcus lobatus chodat (1902). the cells of this species were found to be spherical to slightly irregular in shape; the mature ones being in the group of 2–4 in number divided in both horizontal and vertical directions; cell– diameter being 3.7–7.2 µm; chloroplast parietal, and pyrenoid inconspicuous (figure 3). collectors of samples: the samples were collected by s. dhakal and r. tamang of the nbg. date of collection: 10th august, 2021. fig. 2 (a): growth of a. lobatus on painted iron pole; and (b): collection of algal sample in a  bottle using a toothbrush banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 54 dhakal et al. discussion the finding of the genus apatococcus as new record in national botanical garden area; one of the most familiar and important scientific research centers of department of plant resources reveals that we need to do more exploration regarding the algal flora of nepal and young researchers are needed to be a focus for future algal survey. conclusion a. lobatus (chodat) j. b. petersen found in the nbg of godawari (lalitpur district) was detected as a new generic record for algal flora of nepal. acknowledgements we would like to acknowledge mr. s. khatri, chief of the national herbarium and plant figure 3 (a–c): cell morphology and colony formation of a. lobatus; (d): cells representing  parietal chloroplast. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 55 dhakal et al. laboratories for allowing us to carry out the study. we are grateful to mr. d. lamichhane, chief of the nbg for permitting us to collect the samples from the garden. besides, we are thankful to mr. r. tamang for his assistance while collecting samples. references climate–data.org (2020). climate godavari (nepal). https://en.climate–data.org/ asia/nepal/ central–development–region/ godavari–799296/ [accessed on august 19, 2021]. das, s. k. and gupta, r. k. (2015). colonization of micro–algae on the painted iron surfaces. phykos 45 (2): 9–12. dhakal, s., rai, s.k. and pathak, m.l. (2021). enumeration of freshwater algae in godawari area lalitpur district, central nepal. banko janakari 31 (1): 41–50. ettl, h. and gärtner, g. (1995). syllabus der boden–, luft– und flechtenalgen, gustav fischer verlag, stuttgart, germany. guiry, m. d. and guiry, g. m. (2021). algaebase. world–wide electronic publication, national university of ireland, galway. https://www.algaebase.org [accessed on august 19, 2021]. petersen, j. b. (1928). the aërial algae of iceland. in: the botany of iceland vol. ii. part ii. (rosenvinge, l.k. & warming, e. (eds.), pp. 328–447. joshi, a. r. (1979). contributions to our knowledge of the myxophyceae of nepal. journal of natural history museum 3 (1– 4): 35–41. joshi, a. r. (1977). some myxophyceae of kathmandu valley, nepal: oscillatoria. journal of natural history museum 1 (1): 89–92. rai, s. k. and ghimire, n. (2020). algal explorations in nepal. in: m. siwakoti, p. k. jha, s. rajbhandary and s. k. rai (eds.), botanical society of nepal. plant diversity in nepal pp. 16–40. prasad, r.c. and prasad, b. n. (2001). screening of blue green algae (cyanobacteria) and their distributional pattern in rice field of narayani and bagmati zones of nepal. journal of livelihood world 8 (1): 1–12. prasad, v. (2011). modern checklist of algae of nepal. s. devi (manipal), manipal house, vishwa, birgunj–18, nepal. 84p. tomaselli, l., lamenti, g., bosco, m. and tiano, p. (2000). biodiversity of photosynthetic microorganisms dwelling on stone monuments. international biodeterioration & biodegradation 46: 251–258. 51 calanthe r.br. is the largest genus in the tribe collabieae under subfamily epidendroideae of the family orchidaceae. it comprises about 223 orchid species worldwide, commonly called 'christmas orchids', with the distribution across tropical and subtropical asia, australia, madagascar, africa, central and south america, and the caribbean (chase, 2005; chen et al., 2020; yukawa & cribb, 2014) while there are 18 species in nepal, including calanthe himalaicum raskoti, an endemic species (raskoti et al., 2024). the calanthe species are evergreen or deciduous herbs, usually terrestrial, rarely epipetric or epiphytic with thick roots, plicate leaves, mostly upright and sometimes with archic flowering stems (kurzweil & ormerod, 2019). the genus calanthe, which was formerly divided into three genera, calanthe, cephalantheropsis guillaumin, and phaius lour. has undergone several intrageneric taxonomic revisions (nanjala et al., 2022). the members in this group are characterized by the presence of simple and plicate leaves, widely connivent sepals and petals, lip base fused with column and eight waxy pollinia (kurzweil, 2010). a distinct population of calanthe species was collected from sundarijal in shivapuri-nagarjun national park (snnp) located at the northern fringe of the kathmandu valley, central nepal in november 2023. the plants were found to be naturally growing at the margin of alnus nepalensis mixed forest. the morphological characteristics of the collected species was examined and compared with that of the other calanthe species stored at the national herbarium and plant laboratories (kath), godawari, lalitpur district, nepal. the morphology of the aforementioned calanthe species did not resemble with any of the calanthe species reported earlier from nepal. upon careful examination of different literatures (pearce & cribb, 2002; xinqi et al., 2009), including the protologue (hooker, 1890) and the type image, the species was identified to be calanthe longipes hook.f. the occurrence of c. longipes has been reported in bhutan (pearce & cribb, 2002), china (xinqi et al., 2009), india (hooker, 1890); however, its presence in nepal has not been reported in any of the previous literatures (don, 1825; hara et al., 1978; rajbhandari, 2015; rajbhandari & rai, 2017; raskoti, 2009; rokaya et al., 2013; shrestha et al., 2022) so far. hence, the orchid "c. longipes" found in the snnp is, no doubt, a new record for the flora of nepal. taxonomic treatment c. longipes hook.f. in j.d. hooker, fl. brit. india 6: 195 (1890). type: india, sikkim, s.d., king s.n. (bm!). ≡ alismorkis longipes (hook.f.) kuntze, revis. gen. pl. 2: 650 (1891). ≡ phaius longipes (hook.f.) holttum, gard. bull. singapore 11: 286 (1947). ≡ cephalantheropsis longipes (hook.f.) ormerod, orchid digest 62: 156 (1998). calanthe longipes hook.f., a new record of orchidaceae for the flora of nepal r. kafle 1, m. s. thapa magar 1, & g. parmar 1* received: 7, march 2024 revised: 24, march 2024 accepted: 24, may 2024 published: 31, may 2024 1 national botanical garden, department of plant resources, godawari 44709, lalitpur, nepal. *email: gaurav_mascot4u@yahoo.com banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1, 2024 pp 51‒56https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v34i1.63566 short-note https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:1004734-1 https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:1004734-1 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8876-5520 mailto:gaurav_mascot4u@yahoo.com banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 52 kafle et al. description plants: 35–60 cm; rhizomes: creeping; stem: usually erect, cylindrical, 6–8 mm in diameter, striate when dry, with distinct nodes and internodes with leafy sheaths at base; leaves: amplexicaul, elliptic to ovate-oblong, 10–26 cm × 2.5–6 cm, apex narrowly acute to acuminate, margins entire, both surfaces glabrous; inflorescence: usually one, 10–20 cm, erect when anthesis, ascending after flower maturation; puberulent; lax to dense, 9–17 flowered; floral bracts: caducous, lanceolate; flowers: connivent in an inclined or horizontal manner, not completely opened; sepals: spreading, lance-ovate to lanceolate, 6–8 mm × 2.5–3.5 mm, white, light yellowish-brown when mature, puberulent, apex shortly acuminate; petals: lance-ovate to ovate, 5–6 mm × 2–3 mm, similar to sepals in colour; lip: connivent, 4.5–5.5 mm × 3.5–4.5 mm including lateral lobes, oblong-ovate, 3-lobed, white with yelloworange tinge at center; lateral lobes: 1.5–1.8 mm, broadly triangular-ovate, apices rounded-truncate, irregularly cleft; middle lobe: 1.6–1.8 mm × 2.5– 3 mm (excluding claws), margins sinuate; claws: 1.6–2 mm; disk: yellow-orange with 2 lamellae, extending from lip base to the base of middle lobe; column: 3–4 mm, puberulent at apex (see figures 1-2). figure 1: habit of calanthe longipes (photo: rashika kafle). banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 53 kafle et al. figure 2: voucher specimen of c. longipes deposited at the kath. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 54 kafle et al. habitat and distribution this species is found under closed canopy of the forests and also at the margin of the forests. this species may have more individuals if it is explored within the forests as evidenced by the discovery of over 12 of them growing in patches on the soil at the edges of the forests. it is distributed throughout the tibetan plateau, east himalaya, east asia, and south east asia. in nepal, it is found in the snnp located near the northern edge of the kathmandu valley in bagmati province (see figure 3). figure 3: (a) map showing the distribution of c. longipes in nepal; (b) map showing the location of snnp within bagmati province; and (c) map showing the site where c. longipes plants were detected within snnp, kathmandu valley. phenology: october to november. date of collection of specimens: november 7, 2023. specimens collected from: 27°45'51"n latitude and 85°25'33"e longitude; 1555 m elevation; sundarijal, shivapuri-nagarjun national park, kathmandu valley, bagmati province, central nepal. specimens collected by: h.r. poudel, r. chhetri, t.r. pandey, r. acharya, t.k. thapa & r. kafle specimen examined by: g. parmar & r. kafle key to the allied species of calanthe in nepal (for the identification of newly reported species) 1a. lips without spur ......................................... 2 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 55 kafle et al. 1b. lips with spur ............................................ 4 2a. flowers pink, lip mid-lobe without lamellae ............................................c. puberula 2b. flowers yellow or white, lip mid-lobe with lamellae ............................................................. 3 3a. flowers yellow, lip disk with 3-5 lamellae ......................................... c. tricarinata 3b. flowers white, lip disk with 2 lamellae .............................................c. longipes 4a. margin of lip mid-lobe fimbriate ......................................... c. metoensis 4b. margin of lip mid-lobe not fimbriate ........... 5 5a. spur less than 5 mm long ............................. 6 5b. spur longer than 5 mm ................................ 7 6a. leaves elliptic to broadly lanceolate; flowers brick red with white striations …. c. brevicornu 6b. leaves oblong-lanceolate; flowers dark brown with golden yellow lip ......................... c. mannii 7a. flowers pinkish; lip pinkish or purple ......... 8 7b. flowers greenish; lip yellowish or white .... 9 8a. rhizome caespitose; lip pinkish, mid-lobe of lip cuneate; apex aristate ………. c. plantaginea 8b. rhizome not caespitose; lip purple, mid-lobe of lip reniform; apex emarginate ......... c. masuca 9a. lip yellowish; spur straight ......... c. griffithii 9b. lip white; spur arcuate .......... c. chloroleuca acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the exploration team of the flora of kathmandu valley and the curator of the kath for giving access to the herbarium specimens. author contribution statement rk: field visit, draft writing, manuscript revision. mstm: conception, manuscript revision. gp: conception, draft writing, manuscript revision. data availability the data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. conflict of interest all the authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest. references chase, m. w. (2005). classification of orchidaceae in the age of dna data. curtis's botanical magazine. 22 (1): 2–7. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1355-4905.2005.00466.x chen, y., zhong, h., zhu, y., huang, y., wu, s., liu, z., lan, s., & zhai, j. (2020). plastome structure and adaptive evolution of calanthe s.l. species. peerj, 8: e10051. https://doi.org/10.7717/ peerj.10051 don, d. (1825). prodromus florae nepalensis. j. gale. hara, h., stearn, w. t., & williams, l. h. j. (1978). an enumeration of the flowering plants of nepal, 30–58. trustees of british museum (natural history), london. hooker, j. d. (1890). the flora of british india 6: 195. l. reeve & co. kurzweil, h. (2010). a precursory study of the calanthe group (orchidaceae) in thailand. adansonia, 32 (1): 57–107. https://doi. org/10.5252/a2010n1a4 kurzweil, h. & ormerod, p. (2019). a review of the calanthe group (orchidaceae) in myanmar. thai forest bulletin (botany), 47 (2): 196–225. https:// doi.org/10.20531/tfb.2019.47.2.12 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10051 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10051 https://doi.org/10.5252/a2010n1a4 https://doi.org/10.5252/a2010n1a4 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 56 kafle et al. nanjala, c., wanga, v. o., odago, w., mutinda, e. s., waswa, e. n., oulo, m. a., mkala, e. m., kuja, j., yang, j. x., dong, x., hu, g. w., & wang, q. f. (2022). plastome structure of 8 calanthe sl species (orchidaceae): comparative genomics, phylogenetic analysis. bmc plant biology, 22 (1): 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1186/ s12870-022-03736-0 pearce, n. r. & cribb, p. j. (2002). flora of bhutan: including a record of plants from sikkim and darjeeling. the orchids of bhutan 3 (3): 281– 298. royal botanic garden, edinburgh and royal government of bhutan. rajbhandari, k. r. & rai, s. k. (2017). a handbook of the flowering plants of nepal, 1: 68–157. department of plant resources, ministry of forests and soil conservation, government of nepal. rajbhandari, k. r. (2015). a handbook of the orchids of nepal. department of plant resources, ministry of forests and soil conservation, government of nepal. raskoti, b. b. (2009). the orchids of nepal. quality printers. raskoti, b. b., bajracharya, d. m., & duwal, r. (2024). calanthe r.br. online flora of nepal. national herbarium and plant laboratories (kath). https://floraofnepal.org.np/online-flora/ calanthe/ (accessed on february 23, 2024). rokaya, m. b., raskoti, b. b., timsina, b., & münzbergová, z. (2013). an annotated checklist of the orchids of nepal. nordic journal of botany, 31 (5): 511–550. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1756-1051.2013.01230.x shrestha, k. k., bhandari, p., & bhattarai, s. (2022). plants of nepal (gymnosperms and angiosperms). heritage publishers & distributors pvt. ltd. xinqi, c., gale, s. w., & cribb, p. j. (2009). cephalantheropsis guillaumin. in c. y. wu, p. h. raven, & d. y. hong (eds.), flora of china 25: 288–289. science press & missouri botanical garden press. yukawa t. & cribb p. (2014). nomenclatural changes in the genus calanthe (orchidaceae). bulletin of the national museum of nature and science, series b (botany), tokyo. 40 (4): 145– 151. https://floraofnepal.org.np/online-flora/calanthe/ https://floraofnepal.org.np/online-flora/calanthe/ _hlk89945590 _hlk119235766 _goback 22 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1, 2025 pp 22-35 https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i1.74132 1 central department of microbiology, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal 2 department of plant protection, faculty of agriculture, universiti putra malaysia, serdang, selangor, malaysia 3 institute of plantation studies, universiti putra malaysia, serdang, selangor, malaysia 4 nepal agricultural research council, national entomology research centre, lalitpur, nepal 5 environment research laboratory, faculty of science, nepal science and technology, lalitpur, nepal 6 central department of biotechnology, tribhuvan university, kirtipur 44618, kathmandu, nepal 7 central department of chemistry, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal 8 research centre for applied science and technology, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal *e-mail: dev.joshi@cdmi.tu.edu.np insecticidal potential of seeds of datura metel l., abrus precatorius l., and diploknema butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam e. maharjan 1, m. y. wong 2,3, s. k. upadhyay 4, t. prasai joshi 5, p. panta 6, r. adhikari 7,8, and d. r. joshi 1* the present study aimed to assess the insecticidal efficacy of methanol extracts of the seeds of three plants: datura metel l., abrus precatorius l., and diploknema butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam. the bioactive compounds in crude extracts were analyzed using fourier transform infrared (ftir) spectroscopy and gas chromatographymass spectrometry (gc-ms). insecticidal activities of different concentrations of extracts were evaluated against adults and the second instar larvae of drosophila melanogaster by using ingestion and spraying methods. among the three seeds, the extract of datura metel l. at a concentration of 30 mg/ml consistently exhibited a higher mortality rate of 73.33±7.64% against adult insects while applying each method. however, all concentrations of the seed extracts exhibited lower mortality rates in larvae compared to adults of d. melanogaster. the qualitative phytochemical analysis of the seed extracts revealed the presence of detected alkaloids, phenols, flavonoids, carbohydrates, saponins, and tannins. ftir analysis of the seeds revealed the presence of alcohols or phenols, alkanes, esters or ethers, amines, ketones, and nitro-compounds. gc-ms analysis identified a wide array of bioactive compounds. abrus precatorius l. contained 1,2,3-benzenetriol, and 9-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester (e)-. atropine, and scopolamine were abundantly detected in datura metel l. similarly, stigmasterol, 2,4,6-triaminoquinazoline, and brucine were identified in diploknema butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam. since these gc-ms identified compounds are known for insecticidal properties, the seeds of all three plants particularly datura metel l., can be a potential candidate for development as biopesticide against insect pests. although field applications require further verification, our findings provide laboratory-based evidence supporting the potential of nepalese indigenous plantbased biopesticides for reducing crop loss and enhancing food security. key words: gc-ms; seed extracts; insecticidal compounds; pesticides; pests. crop loss due to insect infestations poses a significant threat to global food security, with annual losses estimated between 2040% (karar et al., 2021). in the kathmandu valley, insect pests account for 12.5% of crop loss, with major insect pests including whiteflies, leaf miners, cyclamen mites, and caterpillars (chudali et al., 2020). these pests adversely impact both the production and productivity of agriculture. in nepal, the prevalence of disease severity and occurrence of new plant diseases is high. farmers often apply insecticides indiscriminately to control received: 16, january 2025 revised: 27, january 2025 accepted: 03, february 2025 published: 30, may 2025 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2009-369x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6944-4860 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4237-5623 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4783-8452 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7298-0541 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7350-0204 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4698-6322 23 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1maharjan et al. pests, leading to environmental degradation and risks to human health (pandey et al., 2019). based on a report of the government of nepal, a total of 370208.39 kg of insecticides were imported in the fiscal year 2021/2022 and the annual consumption of insecticides is substantially higher than that of biopesticides, with insecticides accounting for 32.3% of the pesticide market share, compared to a mere 0.015% for bio-pesticides (pqpmc, 2022). the negative impact of chemical insecticides has led to the exploration of alternative methods to enhance agricultural productivity. biocontrol agents are an alternative and effective approach to managing plant pathogens and pests. these agents not only help preserve and promote human, plant and animals’ health but also balance ecosystems. various types of biocontrol agents including microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, plants, and animals play an important role in improving plant health (al-ani et al., 2020). approximately 6,000 plant species have been reported as sources of biopesticides and are widely used by farmers (jindal et al., 2013). these plants contain phytochemical compounds like flavonoids, tannins, alkaloids, phenolic acids, and saponins, that exhibit antimicrobial, insecticidal, antiviral, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and therapeutic properties (zhou et al., 2023). botanical pesticides are extracted from various plant parts including, leaves, stems, seeds, roots, bulbs, rhizomes, unripe fruits, and flower heads (mamun & ahmed, 2011). botanicals with strong insecticidal properties like neem (azadirachta indica), datura (datura metel), eucalyptus (eucalyptus globulus), ghora-neem (melia sempervirens), marigold (tagetes erecta), hijal (barringtonia acutangula), karanja (pongamia pinnata), tobacco (nicotiana tabacum), lantana (lantana camara), mahogoni (swietenia mahagoni) (mamun et al., 2015) can be easily cultivated by farmers at low cost. azadirachtin, a neem-based insecticide, has been widely used due to its wide range of biological activities such as repellency, antifeedancy, toxicity, and effect on growth, development, and reproduction (kilani-morakchi et al., 2017). daphne mucronata, tagetes minuta, calotropis procera, boenninghausenia albiflora, eucalyptus sideroxylon, cinnamomum camphora, and isodon rugosus showed insecticidal activity against d. melanogaster (diptera), pea aphids acyrthosiphon pisum (hemiptera), red flour beetles of tribolium castaneum (coleoptera), and armyworms of spodoptera exigua (lepidoptera) (khan et al., 2017). different types of plant extract preparations, such as powders, solvent extracts, essential oils, and whole plant application, have been found to possess pesticidal properties, acting as significant oviposition differences, repellents, fumigants, growth inhibitors, antifeedants, or toxic agents (stankovic et al., 2020; ngegba et al., 2022). therefore, plant-derived materials could be an alternative to chemical pesticides that help to control major pests. traditional uses of indigenous pesticidal plants offer an environmentally safe, less hazardous, and cost-effective approach to crop protection, making them an important component of an integrated pest management system (giri et al., 2014). the selection of indigenous plants is preferred based on their availability throughout crop-growing areas, and the users can use these plants in pest management, especially for pest control. since these plants have toxic properties, they can be used as alternative insecticides against chemical insecticides. several indications for the insecticidal properties of widely distributed plants like datura metel l., abrus precatorius l., and diploknema butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam are notable because of various bioactive compounds, including alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, and terpenoids (mamun & ahmed, 2011; qian et al., 2022; uprety & asselin, 2023). a. precatorius l. is a toxic plant but has pesticidal properties against a broad range of arthropods with inhibitory effects on pests like fungal plant pathogens, parasitic protozoans, and mollusks (prasad et al., 2015). d. metel l. is a medicinal plant traditionally used as an insecticide to control pests like the tea mosquito bug, thrips, jassids, and aphids (mamun & ahmed, 2011). d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam is a plant rich in tritepenic saponins and functions as an antifungal, nematicidal, pesticide, fish poison, and leech repellent (saha et al., 2010; upreti & asselin, 2023; maharjan et al., 2024; gupta et al., 2025). it is noteworthy to delineate an array of insecticidal compounds present in the seeds of these plants. drosophila melanogaster, commonly known as the fruit fly, causes significant agricultural damage to vegetables and fruits, resulting in great economic loss. it is also a widely used model organism in insecticidal bioassays due to its short life cycle, rapid reproduction, and ease of handling and cultivation. if d. melanogaster is not controlled in time, it may cause a significant loss in fruit production and storage (wohlenberg et al., 2009; khan et al., 2017). fruit flies are responsible for approximately 24 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 maharjan et al. the collection, identification, and crude extraction of the seeds of three plant species, viz a. precatorius l., d. metel l., and d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam (figure 1) have been described in a previous publication (maharjan et al., 2024). briefly, seeds purchased from the local market were authenticated by a botanist. clean, powdered seeds were subjected to methanolic extraction using a rotary evaporator. figure 1: seeds of (a) abrus precatorius l., (b) datura metel l., and (c) diploknema butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam the percentage yield of the crude extracts was calculated using the following formula (ansari et al., 2021): percent yield (%) = × 100 evaluation of insecticidal activities of seed extracts insect rearing wild-type d. melanogaster was collected from banana peels (ali et al., 2019). d. melanogaster was identified based on morphological characteristics with the help of an entomologist at the entomology division of the nepal agricultural research council (narc). the adult fruit flies were reared on an artificial drosophila medium as described by schlesener et al. (2018), at 25 °c and 65% relative humidity under a photoperiod of 16 hours of light: 8 hours dark (khan et al., 2017). adult flies and second instar larvae were used for the bioassays. adult bioassay different concentrations (10 mg/ml, 20 mg/ml, and 30 mg/ml) of methanol extracts from the selected plant seeds were prepared using dimethyl sulfoxide (dmso) as a solvent. three negative controls were used in the bioassays: methanol and dmso were used as negative controls to check their toxicity against the target pest, while distilled water served as a blank control. in addition, three commercial insecticides were used as positive controls: spinosad (a a b c 10-30% economic loss in cucumber production (papadopoulos et al., 2024). the larvae, in particular cause internal damage to the fruits (sapkota et al., 2010). in addition to direct crop damage, d. melanogaster acts as a vector for pathogens, transmitting diseases from one organism to another. recent studies have demonstrated the toxic effects of drimia maritima on d. melanogaster (saadane et al., 2021). moreover, microbial insecticides, weed extracts, and plant extracts have been reported as effective alternatives to synthetic insecticides for the control of d. melanogaster (riaz et al., 2018; akhtar et al., 2019). there is an urgent need to address crop losses caused by pests and to systematically investigate botanical biopesticides for sustainable pest management. plants are easily available, grow easily, and their extracts can be used to promote the development and application of biopesticides, which are generally safer for the environment. by exploring and utilizing these natural resources, this research could significantly contribute to developing more sustainable and environmentally friendly agricultural practices. the primary objective of this study was to evaluate the insecticidal efficacy of selected plant seed extracts against the pest d. melanogaster, and to identify potential insecticidal compounds through gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (gc-ms) analysis. materials and methods chemicals and reagents methanol was procured from sigma-aldrich (usa). spinosad; a natural chemical insecticide (tracer spinosad 45% sc, india), azagro 300; a commercial biopesticide (neem oil-based ec containing azadirachtin 0.03% w/w min 300 mg/l, india), and astha; a commercial biopesticide (bacillus thuringiensis 1.0% w/w, india) were used as positive control. all the chemicals/reagents used were of analytical grade. plant seeds and crude extraction the collection, identification, and crude extraction of the seeds of three plant species, viz a. precatorius l., d. metel l., and d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam (figure 1) have been done following the methodology described in maharjan et al. (2024). briefly, seeds purchased from the local market were authenticated by a botanist. clean, powdered seeds were subjected to methanolic extraction using a rotary evaporator. the percentage yield of the crude extracts was calculated using the following formula (ansari et al., 2021): the collection, identification, and crude extraction of the seeds of three plant species, viz a. precatorius l., d. metel l., and d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam (figure 1) have been described in a previous publication (maharjan et al., 2024). briefly, seeds purchased from the local market were authenticated by a botanist. clean, powdered seeds were subjected to methanolic extraction using a rotary evaporator. figure 1: seeds of (a) abrus precatorius l., (b) datura metel l., and (c) diploknema butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam the percentage yield of the crude extracts was calculated using the following formula (ansari et al., 2021): percent yield (%) = × 100 evaluation of insecticidal activities of seed extracts insect rearing wild-type d. melanogaster was collected from banana peels (ali et al., 2019). d. melanogaster was identified based on morphological characteristics with the help of an entomologist at the entomology division of the nepal agricultural research council (narc). the adult fruit flies were reared on an artificial drosophila medium as described by schlesener et al. (2018), at 25 °c and 65% relative humidity under a photoperiod of 16 hours of light: 8 hours dark (khan et al., 2017). adult flies and second instar larvae were used for the bioassays. adult bioassay different concentrations (10 mg/ml, 20 mg/ml, and 30 mg/ml) of methanol extracts from the selected plant seeds were prepared using dimethyl sulfoxide (dmso) as a solvent. three negative controls were used in the bioassays: methanol and dmso were used as negative controls to check their toxicity against the target pest, while distilled water served as a blank control. in addition, three commercial insecticides were used as positive controls: spinosad (a a b c figure 1: seeds of (a) abrus precatorius l., (b) datura metel l., and (c) diploknema butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam evaluation of insecticidal activities of seed extracts insect rearing wild-type d. melanogaster was collected from banana peels (ali et al., 2019). d. melanogaster was identified based on morphological characteristics with the help of an entomologist at the entomology division of the nepal agricultural research council (narc). the adult fruit flies were reared on an artificial drosophila medium as described by schlesener et al. (2018), at 25°c and 65% relative humidity under a photoperiod of 16 hours of light: 8 hours dark (khan et al., 2017). adult flies and second instar larvae were used for the bioassays. bioassay using adult drosophila different concentrations (10 mg/ml, 20 mg/ml, and 30 mg/ml) of methanol extracts from the selected 25 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1maharjan et al. seeds were prepared using dimethyl sulfoxide (dmso) as a solvent. three negative controls were used in the bioassays: methanol and dmso were used as negative controls to check their toxicity against the target pest, while distilled water served as a blank control. in addition, three commercial insecticides were used as positive controls: spinosad (a natural insecticide), bacillus thuringiensis (a bacterial biopesticide), and neem (a plant-based biopesticide). adult bioassays were conducted using two methods: (i) ingestion through diet and (ii) spray on diet following the procedure described by rima et al. (2021). each treatment was tested in triplicate. mortality of d. melanogaster adults was recorded at 24, 48, and 72 hours post-exposure (khan et al., 2017). mortality was calculated by using the following formula: hydroxide test), saponins (foam test), tannins (10% sodium hydroxide test), and carbohydrates (fehling’s test). fourier transform infrared (ftir) analysis the methanolic seed extracts were analyzed using attenuated total reflectance (atr) mode on an iraffnity-1s ftir spectrophotometer (shimadzu, japan) using transmittance mode with 40 scan and 4 cm-1 resolution in between 400 cm-1 and 4000 cm-1 spectral range (chieme et al., 2022). gas chromatographymass spectrometry (gcms) analysis the seed extracts were prepared for gc-ms analysis following the method described by kumari et al. (2020). phytochemicals in the seed extracts were analyzed using a gc-ms analyzer (agilent). the crude extracts were dissolved in methanol (gc grade) and filtered through a whatman™ filter (0.2 μm pore size). helium (99.99%) was used as the carrier gas, maintained at a ûow rate of 1 ml/min in the split mode (50:1). crossbond® hp-5ms capillary columns (5% diphenyl / 95% dimethyl polysiloxane) with dimensions of 30 m length, 0.25 μm df, and 0.25 mm id column were used to separate the fractions of compounds. a 1 μl sample was injected into the column and the injector temperature was set at 280 ºc. the start temperature of the oven 70 ºc was held for 2 min and then increased at a rate of 7 ºc per minute until it reached 310 ºc, where it was held for 1 minute. the ion source temperature was set at 250 ºc. the mass spectrum was obtained by electron ionization at 70 ev, and the detector was operated in scan mode of 30-500 da atomic units. the total running time was 37.286 minutes, including a 3-minute solvent delay. identification of individual compounds was based on the comparison of mass spectra with the nist/epa/ nih mass spectral library of the national institute of standards and technology (nist 11). data analysis all experimental data were expressed as the mean ± standard deviation (sd) of three independent replicates. results the seeds of the three plant species viz abrus precatorius l., datura metel l., and diploknema butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam were crushed in bioassay using larval drosophila toxicity assays were conducted on second-instar larvae of d. melanogaster following previously described methods (quiroz-carreno et al., 2020, rima et al., 2021) with minor modifications. crude plant extracts at concentrations of 10 mg/ml, 20 mg/ml, and 30 mg/ml were incorporated into the drosophila medium. twenty second-instar larvae were introduced into each treatment group. the negative control consisted of a diet supplemented with distilled water and methanol (solvent). larval mortality was monitored at 24-hour intervals and continued until adult emergence. the larvae, unable to move, were considered dead. each concentration was tested in triplicate. larvicidal activity was assessed using two treatment methods: (i) ingestion via diet, and (ii) spray onto the diet. larval mortality was calculated by using the following formula: natural insecticide), bacillus thuringiensis (a bacterial biopesticide), and neem (a plant-based biopesticide). adult bioassays were conducted using two methods: (i) ingestion through diet and (ii) spray on diet following the procedure described by rima et al. (2021). each treatment was tested in triplicate, with three replications conducted for each plant extract. mortality of d. melanogaster adults was recorded at 24, 48, and 72 hours post-exposure (khan et al., 2017). mortality was calculated by using the following formula: percentage mortality (%) = larvicidal bioassay toxicity assays were conducted on second-instar larvae of d. melanogaster following previously described methods (quiroz-carreno et al., 2020, rima et al., 2021) with minor modifications. crude plant extracts at concentrations of 10 mg/ml, 20 mg/ml, and 30 mg/ml were incorporated into the drosophila medium. twenty second-instar larvae were introduced into each treatment group. the negative control consisted of a diet supplemented with distilled water and methanol (solvent). larval mortality was monitored at 24-hour intervals and continued until adult emergence. the larvae, unable to move, were considered dead. each concentration was tested in triplicate. larvicidal activity was assessed using two treatment methods: (i) ingestion via diet, and (ii) spray onto the diet. larval mortality was calculated by using the following formula: percentage mortality (%) = analysis of plant seed extracts phytochemical screening preliminary phytochemical analysis of the methanol extracts of the seeds was conducted to detect the presence of various bioactive compounds using standard qualitative methods as described by kumar and nirmalababurao (2016). the following tests were performed: alkaloids (hagner’s test), phenols (5% ferric chloride test), flavonoids (5% sodium hydroxide test), saponins (foam test), tannins (10% sodium hydroxide test), and carbohydrates (fehling’s test). fourier transform infrared (ftir) analysis the methanolic seed extracts were analyzed using attenuated total reflectance (atr) mode on an iraffnity-1s ftir spectrophotometer (shimadzu, japan) using transmittance mode with 40 scan and 4 cm-1 resolution in between 400 cm-1 and 4000 cm-1 spectral range (chieme et al., 2022). natural insecticide), bacillus thuringiensis (a bacterial biopesticide), and neem (a plant-based biopesticide). adult bioassays were conducted using two methods: (i) ingestion through diet and (ii) spray on diet following the procedure described by rima et al. (2021). each treatment was tested in triplicate, with three replications conducted for each plant extract. mortality of d. melanogaster adults was recorded at 24, 48, and 72 hours post-exposure (khan et al., 2017). mortality was calculated by using the following formula: percentage mortality (%) = larvicidal bioassay toxicity assays were conducted on second-instar larvae of d. melanogaster following previously described methods (quiroz-carreno et al., 2020, rima et al., 2021) with minor modifications. crude plant extracts at concentrations of 10 mg/ml, 20 mg/ml, and 30 mg/ml were incorporated into the drosophila medium. twenty second-instar larvae were introduced into each treatment group. the negative control consisted of a diet supplemented with distilled water and methanol (solvent). larval mortality was monitored at 24-hour intervals and continued until adult emergence. the larvae, unable to move, were considered dead. each concentration was tested in triplicate. larvicidal activity was assessed using two treatment methods: (i) ingestion via diet, and (ii) spray onto the diet. larval mortality was calculated by using the following formula: percentage mortality (%) = analysis of plant seed extracts phytochemical screening preliminary phytochemical analysis of the methanol extracts of the seeds was conducted to detect the presence of various bioactive compounds using standard qualitative methods as described by kumar and nirmalababurao (2016). the following tests were performed: alkaloids (hagner’s test), phenols (5% ferric chloride test), flavonoids (5% sodium hydroxide test), saponins (foam test), tannins (10% sodium hydroxide test), and carbohydrates (fehling’s test). fourier transform infrared (ftir) analysis the methanolic seed extracts were analyzed using attenuated total reflectance (atr) mode on an iraffnity-1s ftir spectrophotometer (shimadzu, japan) using transmittance mode with 40 scan and 4 cm-1 resolution in between 400 cm-1 and 4000 cm-1 spectral range (chieme et al., 2022). analysis of seed extracts phytochemical screening preliminary phytochemical analysis of the methanol extracts of the seeds was conducted to detect the presence of various bioactive compounds using standard qualitative methods as described by kumar and nirmalababurao (2016). the following tests were performed: alkaloids (hagner’s test), phenols (5% ferric chloride test), flavonoids (5% sodium 26 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 maharjan et al. powder form and subjected to methanol extraction using a soxhlet apparatus. the total crude extracts yield obtained was 12.16% for abrus precatorius l., 12.07% for datura metel l., and 30.08% for diploknema butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam. adult insect mortality different concentrations of seed extracts with the normal diet were applied against adult and larvae of d. melanogaster using ingestion and spray methods. the average mortality rate indicated that spinosad, used as a positive control, showed 100% mortality against adult fruit flies, while neem and bacillus thuringiensis were comparatively less effective. of the three plant extracts tested, d. metel l. at a concentration of 30 mg/ml demonstrated consistently higher insecticidal activity, with a mortality rate of 73.33±7.64% when applied by both the ingestion and spray methods. however, a. precatorius l. at the same concentration displayed a mortality rate of 51.67±10.41% via ingestion and 80±10.00% via the spray method against adult d. melanogaster (table 1). larval mortality rate in general, the insecticidal activity of seed extracts was higher against adults compared to larvae of the targeted pest as presented in table 1. methanol extracts of seeds of d. metel l. showed the highest mortality at a concentration of 30 mg/ml with 43.33±0.58% via ingestion and 30±10.00% via spraying. at the same concentration, abrus precatorius l. showed larval mortality rates of 38.33±5.77% and 26.67±7.64% through ingestion and spraying, respectively (table 1). preparations with lower concentrations of plant seed extracts were comparatively ineffective. presence of phytochemicals in plant seeds phytochemical screening of methanol extracts of seeds of the three plant species is shown in table 2. the analysis revealed the presence of alkaloids, phenols, flavonoids, tannins, and carbohydrates in a. precatorius l. in contrast, both d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam and d. metel l. were found to contain alkaloids and saponins only. fourier transform infrared (ftir) spectral analysis of extracts fourier transform infrared (ftir) spectroscopy analysis revealed distinct functional groups in the methanol seed extracts of the three plant species (table 3; figure 2). a. precatorius l. showed stretching frequencies (ν) at 3278 cm-1 (o-h stretching alcohols or phenols), 2925 cm-1 (c-h stretching alkane), 1602 cm-1 (c=o table 1: insecticidal activity of methanol extracts of seeds with different concentrations against d. melanogaster table 1: insecticidal activity of methanol extracts of seeds with different concentrations against d. melanogaster treatment ingestion in adult spray in adult ingestion in larvae spray in larvae mean mortality ± sd (%) mean mortality ± sd (%) mean mortality ± sd (%) mean mortality ± sd (%) methanol 21.67±7.64 20.00±5.00 0.00 0.00 spinosad 100.00 100.00 91.67±7.64 100.00 neem 51.67±12.58 75.00±13.23 51.67±12.58 51.67±12.58 bacillus thuringiensis 48.33±15.28 43.33±15.28 65.00±13.23 65.00±13.23 5% dmso 3.33±2.89 5.00 0.00 0.00 a. precatorius l. 10 mg/ml 30.33±12.58 33.33±5.77 5.00 5.00 a. precatorius l. 20 mg/ml 33.33±12.58 50.00±5.00 13.33±7.64 10.00 a. precatorius l. 30 mg/ml 51.67±10.41 80.00±10.00 38.33±5.77 26.67±7.64 d. metel l. 10 mg/ml 23.33±12.58 38.00±2.89 5.00 5.00 d. metel l. 20 mg/ml 53.33±2.89 50.00±10.00 20.00±5.00 16.67±7.64 d. metel l. 30 mg/ml 73.33±7.64 73.33±7.64 43.33±2.89 30.00±10.00 d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam 10 mg/ml 38.33±2.89 38.88±2.89 0.00 0.00 d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam 20 mg/ml 40.00±18.03 53.33±2.89 8.33±2.89 13.33±7.64 d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam 30 mg/ml 48.33±2.89 71.67±18.93 15.00±5.00 25.00±5.00 presence of phytochemicalsin plant seeds phytochemical screening of methanol extracts fromseeds of the three plant speciesisshown in table2.the analysis revealed the presence of alkaloids, phenols, flavonoids, tannins, and carbohydrates in a. precatorius l. in contrast, both d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam and d. metel l. were found to contain alkaloids and saponins only. table2: phytochemical screening of methanol extracts of seeds of the three plant species sn phytochemical compounds method of testing a. precatorius l. d. metel l. d. butyraceae (roxb.) h.j. lam 1 alkaloids hagner test + + + 2 phenols (5%) fecl3 test + 3 flavonoids (5%) naoh test + 4 saponins foam test + + 5 tannins (10%) naoh test + 6 carbohydrates fehling’s test + +present, -absent. fourier transform infrared (ftir) spectral analysis of methanol extracts of seeds fourier transform infrared (ftir) spectroscopy analysis revealed distinct functional groups in the methanol seed extracts of the three plant species (table 3; figure 2). 27 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1maharjan et al. table 1: insecticidal activity of methanol extracts of seeds with different concentrations against d. melanogaster treatment ingestion in adult spray in adult ingestion in larvae spray in larvae mean mortality ± sd (%) mean mortality ± sd (%) mean mortality ± sd (%) mean mortality ± sd (%) methanol 21.67±7.64 20.00±5.00 0.00 0.00 spinosad 100.00 100.00 91.67±7.64 100.00 neem 51.67±12.58 75.00±13.23 51.67±12.58 51.67±12.58 bacillus thuringiensis 48.33±15.28 43.33±15.28 65.00±13.23 65.00±13.23 5% dmso 3.33±2.89 5.00 0.00 0.00 a. precatorius l. 10 mg/ml 30.33±12.58 33.33±5.77 5.00 5.00 a. precatorius l. 20 mg/ml 33.33±12.58 50.00±5.00 13.33±7.64 10.00 a. precatorius l. 30 mg/ml 51.67±10.41 80.00±10.00 38.33±5.77 26.67±7.64 d. metel l. 10 mg/ml 23.33±12.58 38.00±2.89 5.00 5.00 d. metel l. 20 mg/ml 53.33±2.89 50.00±10.00 20.00±5.00 16.67±7.64 d. metel l. 30 mg/ml 73.33±7.64 73.33±7.64 43.33±2.89 30.00±10.00 d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam 10 mg/ml 38.33±2.89 38.88±2.89 0.00 0.00 d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam 20 mg/ml 40.00±18.03 53.33±2.89 8.33±2.89 13.33±7.64 d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam 30 mg/ml 48.33±2.89 71.67±18.93 15.00±5.00 25.00±5.00 presence of phytochemicalsin plant seeds phytochemical screening of methanol extracts fromseeds of the three plant speciesisshown in table2.the analysis revealed the presence of alkaloids, phenols, flavonoids, tannins, and carbohydrates in a. precatorius l. in contrast, both d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam and d. metel l. were found to contain alkaloids and saponins only. table2: phytochemical screening of methanol extracts of seeds of the three plant species sn phytochemical compounds method of testing a. precatorius l. d. metel l. d. butyraceae (roxb.) h.j. lam 1 alkaloids hagner test + + + 2 phenols (5%) fecl3 test + 3 flavonoids (5%) naoh test + 4 saponins foam test + + 5 tannins (10%) naoh test + 6 carbohydrates fehling’s test + +present, -absent. fourier transform infrared (ftir) spectral analysis of methanol extracts of seeds fourier transform infrared (ftir) spectroscopy analysis revealed distinct functional groups in the methanol seed extracts of the three plant species (table 3; figure 2). stretching aldehyde, ketone, ester, or ether), 1351 cm-1 (n-o stretching nitro compound), 1216 cm-1 (c-h stretching aliphatic amine), and 1025 cm-1 (c-o stretching ester or ether). the ftir spectrum of d. metel l. showed stretching frequencies (ν) at 3366 cm-1 (o-h stretching alcohols or phenols), 2921 cm-1 (c-h stretching alkane), 1708 cm-1 (c=o stretching aldehydes, ketones, esters or ethers), and 1017 cm-1 (c-o stretching esters or ethers). similarly, d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam showed stretching frequencies (ν) at 3334 cm-1 (o-h stretching alcohols or phenols), 2939 cm-1 (c-h stretching alkane), 1648 cm-1 (n-h bending secondary amine), and 1017 cm-1 (c-o stretching ester or ether). table 2: phytochemical screening of methanol extracts of seeds of the three plants table 3: ftir analysis of methanol extracts of seeds of the three plants +present, -absent figure 2: ftir spectra of methanol extracts of the seeds table 3: ftir analysis of methanol extracts of seeds of the three plants sn frequency range (cm -1 ) chemical bond functional groups (phytoconstituents) the peaks shown by abrus precatorius l. datura metel. l. diploknema butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam 1 3500-3200 o-h stretching alcohols or phenol 3278 3366 3334 2 3000-2850 c-h stretching alkane 2925 2921 2939 3 1750-1600 c=o stretching aldehyde, ketone, ester, or ether 1602 1708 4 1650-1550 n-h bending secondary amine 1648 5 1360-1290 n-o stretching nitro compound 1351 6 1250-1020 c-n stretching aliphatic amine 1216 7 1320-1000 c-o stretching c-n stretching ester or ether aliphatic amine 1025 1017 1017 a. precatorius l. showed stretching frequencies (ν) at 3278 cm-1(o-h stretching alcohols or phenols), 2925 cm-1 (c-h stretching alkane),1602 cm-1 (c=o stretching aldehyde, ketone, ester, or ether), 1351 cm-1 (n-o stretching nitro compound), 1216 cm-1 (c-h stretchingaliphatic amine),and 1025cm-1 (c-o stretching ester or ether).the ftir spectrum ofd. metel l. showed stretching frequencies (ν) at 3366 cm-1 (o-h stretching alcohols or phenols), 2921 cm-1 (c-h stretching alkane), 1708 cm-1 (c=o stretching aldehydes, ketones, esters or ethers), and 1017 cm-1 (c-o stretching esters or ethers).similarly, d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam showed stretching frequencies (ν) at 3334 cm-1(o-h stretching alcohols or phenols), 2939 cm-1 (chstretching alkane), 1648 cm-1 (n-hbending secondary amine), and 1017 cm-1 (c-o stretching ester or ether). 28 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 maharjan et al. figure 3: gc-ms chromatogram of methanol extract of seeds of a. precatorius l. figure 4: gc-ms chromatogram of methanol extract of seeds of d. metel l. ab un da nc e 1,2,3-benzenetriol 9-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester cyclotrisiloxane, hexamethyl-l ab un da nc e scopolamine atropine squalene n-hexadecanoic acid figure 3: gc-ms chromatogram of methanol extract of seeds of a. precatorius l. figure 4: gc-ms chromatogram of methanol extract of seeds of d. metel l. ab un da nc e 1,2,3-benzenetriol 9-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester cyclotrisiloxane, hexamethyl-l ab un da nc e scopolamine atropine squalene n-hexadecanoic acid figure 5: gc-ms chromatogram of methanol extract of seeds of d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam gc-ms analysis revealed that the seeds of the three different plant species contained different types of insecticidal compounds. the key insecticidal and toxic compounds present in methanol extract of a. precatorius l. seeds (table 4) included 1,2,3-benzenetriol (peak area, 26.95%) hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester, 9-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester (e)and cyclotrisiloxane, hexamethylat retention times (rt) 12.405, 21.308, 23.679, and 35.736 minutes, respectively (figure 3). seed extracts of d. metel l. was found to have scopolamine (largest peak area, 47.29% at rt 27.077 minutes), followed by atropine, n-hexadecanoic acid/scopoletin, 9octadecenoic acid (z)-, methyl ester, and squalene (figure 4). these compounds are known for their insecticidal toxicity as shown in table 5. as shown in the chromatogram (figure 5), the major insecticidal compounds identified in the seed extracts of the d. butyraceae (roxb.) h.j. lam by gc-ms analysis were brucine, 2,4,6-triaminoquinazoline, stigmasterol, and silane, trimethyl [5-methyl-2-(1-methylethyl) phenoxy] at retention times 33.700, 34.688, 36.050, and 36.266, respectively (table 6). table 4: key bioactive compounds identified from the methanol extract of seeds of a. precatorius l. using gc-ms analysis s.n. retention time (rt) area (%) compound name function reference 1 12.405 26.95 1,2,3-benzenetriol toxic gomathy & rathinam, 2016 2 21.308 1.79 hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester nematicide and pesticide krishnamoorthy & subramaniam, 2014 3 23.679 8.03 9-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester antiandrogenic, insectifuge, and anemiagenic properties krishnamoorthy & subramaniam, 2014 4 35.736 2.7 cyclotrisiloxane, hexamethyl biocontrol agent shilaluke & moteetee, 2022 stigmasterol silane, trimethyl[5-methyl-2-(1methylethyl)phenoxy]brucine figure 3: gc-ms chromatogram of methanol extract of seeds of a. precatorius l. figure 4: gc-ms chromatogram of methanol extract of seeds of d. metel l. figure 5: gc-ms chromatogram of methanol extract of seeds of d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam 29 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1maharjan et al. figure 5: gc-ms chromatogram of methanol extract of seeds of d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam gc-ms analysis revealed thatthe seeds of the three different plant species contained different types of insecticidal compounds. the keyinsecticidal and toxic compounds present in methanol extract of a. precatorius l. seeds (table 4) included1,2,3-benzenetriol (peak area, 26.95%) hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester,9-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester (e)and cyclotrisiloxane, hexamethylat retention times (rt)12.405, 21.308, 23.679, and 35.736 minutes, respectively (figure 3). seed extracts ofd. metel l. was found to have scopolamine (largest peak area,47.29% at rt 27.077 minutes),followed by atropine,n-hexadecanoicacid/scopoletin, 9octadecenoic acid (z)-, methyl ester,and squalene (figure 4). these compounds are known for their insecticidal toxicity as shown in table 5.as shown in the chromatogram (figure 5), the major insecticidal compounds identified in the seed extracts of the d. butyraceae (roxb.) h.j. lam by gc-ms analysis were brucine, 2,4,6-triaminoquinazoline, stigmasterol, and silane, trimethyl[5-methyl-2-(1-methylethyl) phenoxy]at retention times 33.700, 34.688, 36.050, and 36.266, respectively (table 6). table 4: key bioactive compounds identified from the methanol extract of seeds of a. precatorius l. using gc-ms analysis sn retention time (rt) area (%) compound name function reference 1 12.405 26.95 1,2,3-benzenetriol toxic gomathy & rathinam, 2016 2 21.308 1.79 hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester nematicide and pesticide krishnamoorthy & subramaniam, 2014 3 23.679 8.03 9-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester antiandrogenic, insectifuge, and anemiagenic properties krishnamoorthy & subramaniam, 2014 4 35.736 2.7 cyclotrisiloxane, hexamethyl biocontrol agent shilaluke & moteetee, 2022 stigmasterol silane, trimethyl[5-methyl-2-(1methylethyl)phenoxy]brucine table 5: key bioactive compounds identified from the methanol extract of seeds of d. metel l. using gc-ms analysis sn retention time (rt) area (%) compound name function reference 1 21.830 3.74 n-hexadecanoic acid antioxidant, nematicide, pesticide elaiyaraja & chandramohan 2016 scopoletin insecticide liu et al., 2023 2 23.679 1.73 9-octadecenoic acid (z)-, methyl ester antifungal, antioxidant, antimicrobial, and insectifuge krishnamoorthy & subramaniam, 2014 3 25.462 14.68 atropine toxic steenkamp et al., 2004 4 27.077 47.29 scopolamine toxic steenkamp et al., 2004 5 31.922 2.57 squalene pesticide gomathy & rathinam, 2016 table 6: key bioactive compounds identified from the methanol extract of seeds of d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam using gc-ms analysis sn retention time (rt) area (%) compound name function reference 1 33.7 4.2 brucine antipathogenic, antibacterial, and toxic jain et al., 2023 2 34.688 4.57 2,4,6-triaminoquinazoline antimicrobial, antifungal, antiviral, acaricidal, and weedicide yaduwanshiet al., 2021 3 36.05 31.88 stigmasterol larvicidal, repellent, gade et al., 2017 4 36.266 2.68 silane, trimethyl[5-methyl2-(1-methylethyl)phenoxy] insecticide, acaricide, and animal repellent escobar et al., 2020 discussion this study primarily aims to explore the insecticidal efficacy of seeds extracts from three different plant species, with theobjective of identifying suitable and effective plant-based biopesticides for managing insect pests that damagecrops. furthermore, the research investigates phytochemical compounds with insecticidal propertiespresent in the seeds of these plant species. in this study, spinosad exhibited the highest mortality rates against both adult and larval stages of drosophila melanogaster.neem and bacillus thuringiensisalso demonstrated goodinsecticidal properties with moderate to high mortality rates in various modes of applications. the methanol seed extracts from the tested plants: d. metel l., a. precatorius l., and d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lamalso showed promising insecticidal activities. all three extracts exhibited increased effectiveness with higher concentrations, suggesting a dose-dependent insecticidal response. we found that, among the three plant seed extracts, d. metel l. caused significant mortality ind. melanogaster both in adults (73.33±7.64 %) and larvae (43.33±2.89). corroborating with our table 5: key bioactive compounds identified from the methanol extract of seeds of d. metel l. using gc-ms analysis sn retention time (rt) area (%) compound name function reference 1 21.830 3.74 n-hexadecanoic acid antioxidant, nematicide, pesticide elaiyaraja & chandramohan 2016 scopoletin insecticide liu et al., 2023 2 23.679 1.73 9-octadecenoic acid (z)-, methyl ester antifungal, antioxidant, antimicrobial, and insectifuge krishnamoorthy & subramaniam, 2014 3 25.462 14.68 atropine toxic steenkamp et al., 2004 4 27.077 47.29 scopolamine toxic steenkamp et al., 2004 5 31.922 2.57 squalene pesticide gomathy & rathinam, 2016 table 6: key bioactive compounds identified from the methanol extract of seeds of d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam using gc-ms analysis sn retention time (rt) area (%) compound name function reference 1 33.7 4.2 brucine antipathogenic, antibacterial, and toxic jain et al., 2023 2 34.688 4.57 2,4,6-triaminoquinazoline antimicrobial, antifungal, antiviral, acaricidal, and weedicide yaduwanshiet al., 2021 3 36.05 31.88 stigmasterol larvicidal, repellent, gade et al., 2017 4 36.266 2.68 silane, trimethyl[5-methyl2-(1-methylethyl)phenoxy] insecticide, acaricide, and animal repellent escobar et al., 2020 discussion this study primarily aims to explore the insecticidal efficacy of seeds extracts from three different plant species, with theobjective of identifying suitable and effective plant-based biopesticides for managing insect pests that damagecrops. furthermore, the research investigates phytochemical compounds with insecticidal propertiespresent in the seeds of these plant species. in this study, spinosad exhibited the highest mortality rates against both adult and larval stages of drosophila melanogaster.neem and bacillus thuringiensisalso demonstrated goodinsecticidal properties with moderate to high mortality rates in various modes of applications. the methanol seed extracts from the tested plants: d. metel l., a. precatorius l., and d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lamalso showed promising insecticidal activities. all three extracts exhibited increased effectiveness with higher concentrations, suggesting a dose-dependent insecticidal response. we found that, among the three plant seed extracts, d. metel l. caused significant mortality ind. melanogaster both in adults (73.33±7.64 %) and larvae (43.33±2.89). corroborating with our insecticidal compounds detected by gc-ms gc-ms analysis identified a diverse array of bioactive compounds, exhibiting insecticidal and toxic properties, in the methanol seed extracts of the three plant species investigated. (figures 3-5). gc-ms analysis revealed that the seeds of the three different plant species contained different types of insecticidal compounds. the key insecticidal and toxic compounds present in methanol extract of a. precatorius l. seeds (table 4) included 1,2,3-benzenetriol (peak area, 26.95%) hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester, 9-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester (e)and cyclotrisiloxane, hexamethylat retention times (rt) 12.405, 21.308, 23.679, and 35.736 minutes, respectively (figure 3). seed extracts of d. metel l. was found to have scopolamine (largest peak area, 47.29% at rt 27.077 minutes), followed by atropine, n-hexadecanoic acid/scopoletin, 9-octadecenoic acid (z)-, methyl ester, and squalene (figure 4). these compounds are known for their insecticidal toxicity as shown in table 5. as shown in the chromatogram (figure 5), the major insecticidal compounds identified in the seed extracts table 4: key bioactive compounds identified from the methanol extract of seeds of a. precatorius l. using gcms analysis table 5: key bioactive compounds identified from the methanol extract of seeds of d. metel l. using gc-ms analysis table 6: key bioactive compounds identified from the methanol extract of seeds of d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam using gc-ms analysis 30 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 maharjan et al. of the d. butyraceae (roxb.) h.j. lam by gc-ms analysis were brucine, 2,4,6-triaminoquinazoline, stigmasterol, and silane, trimethyl [5-methyl-2-(1methylethyl) phenoxy] at retention times 33.700, 34.688, 36.050, and 36.266, respectively (table 6). discussion this study primarily aims to explore the insecticidal efficacy of seeds extracts from three different plant species, with the objective of identifying suitable and effective plant-based biopesticides for managing insect pests that damage crops. furthermore, the research investigates phytochemical compounds with insecticidal properties present in the seeds of these plant species. in this study, spinosad exhibited the highest mortality rates against both adult and larval stages of drosophila melanogaster. neem and bacillus thuringiensis also demonstrated good insecticidal properties with moderate to high mortality rates in various modes of applications. the methanol seed extracts from the tested plants: d. metel l., a. precatorius l., and d. butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam also showed promising insecticidal activities. all three extracts exhibited increased effectiveness with higher concentrations, suggesting a dose-dependent insecticidal response. we found that, among the three plant seed extracts, d. metel l. caused significant mortality in d. melanogaster both in adults (73.33 ± 7.64%) and larvae (43.33 ± 2.89). corroborating with our results, the insecticidal and insect-repellent activities of d. metel l. have been reported previously against various insect species (cespedes-mendez et al., 2021). the hexane extract of the seed kernel and leaf of d. metel l. was found to induce 70% mortality in three mosquito larval species (yahaya et al., 2021). besides seeds, the leaf extract of d. metel l. also exhibited insect-repellent and insecticidal effects against grasshoppers and red mites in both contact and spray application tests (kuganathan & ganeshalingam, 2011). other species of datura like d. alba were also found to be effective against trogoderma granarium and sitophilus oryzae, under laboratory conditions (ali et al., 2012). these findings suggest that d. metel has high potential to be applied as an insecticide. however, other plant species such as spinacia oleracea, ulva lactuca, and drimia maritima were also found to exhibit insecticidal activity against d. melanogaster through both contact and spray applications in separate studies (rima et al., 2021; saadane et al., 2021). the insecticidal activity of plant extracts is dependent on their phytochemical constituents. for instance, plant alkaloids have been shown to exhibit acute and chronic insecticidal effects against d. melanogaster at 10 µg/ml, resulting in feeding alteration, deformations, and less development of larvae (quiroz-carreno et al., 2020). qualitative phytochemical screening of the bioactive compounds revealed that alkaloids were present in all the three plant species. in addition to alkaloids, phenols, flavonoids, tannins, and carbohydrates were also detected in a. precatorius l. saponins and alkaloids were found in d. metel l. and d. butyraceae (roxb.) h.j. lam. these findings suggest that insecticidal activity shown by extracts of seeds of these plants may be due to the active phytochemicals present in them. however, qualitative tests in this study could not detect all tested phytochemicals in the seed extracts of all the three plant species. detection of lower or trace amounts of the phytochemicals may require extraction using different solvent systems and multiple detection methods (shaikh & patil, 2020). however, analytical techniques like chromatography and spectroscopy can identify and confirm the presence of specific compounds. ftir is an analytical technique to determine the presence of specific functional groups. interpretation based on the frequency range indicates the presence of alcohols or phenols, alkanes, esters, and ethers in d. metel l., a. precatorius l., and d. butyracea (roxb.). ftir allows the detection of unique chemical bonds and functional groups such as hydroxyl (–oh), carbonyl (c=o), amine (–nh), and others, which are associated with different classes of phytochemicals such as alkaloids, flavonoids, and tannins, known for their pesticidal and antimicrobial properties. d. metel l. contains flavonoids, saponins, alkaloids, volatile oils, and steroids which are responsible for exhibiting the larvicidal properties (yahaya et al., 2021). tannins, terpenes, alkaloids, phenols, alcohols, and other secondary metabolites present in plants cause damage to fungal cell walls, membranes, and organelles, leading to toxicity (lengai et al., 2020). these may be attributed to their unique pesticidal and fungicidal properties. gc-ms has emerged as a highly effective, rapid, and relatively simple method for identifying bioactive compounds in plants. it is also widely used for the purification and structural characterization of chemical constituents. analyzing these bioactive compounds play a significant role in advancing, updating, and maintaining the quality of herbal 31 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1maharjan et al. formulations (kanthal et al., 2014; chieme et al., 2022). recent research has identified 166 secondary metabolites with flavonoids and terpenoids exhibiting toxic properties against pest and pathogens (qian et al., 2022). some of the identified compounds, such as 1,2,3-benzenetriol, hexadecanoic acid, methyl ester, 9-octadecenoic acid, methyl ester, and cyclotrisiloxane, hexamethylhave been reported to act as biocontrol agents (krishnamoorthy & subramaniam, 2014; gomathy & rathinam, 2016; shilaluke & moteetee, 2022). the major chemical compounds squalene, atropine, scopolamine, scopoletin, 9-octadecenoic acid (z)-, methyl ester, and n-hexadecanoic acid identified from seeds of d. metel l. were also detected in previous studies (steenkamp et al., 2004; krishnamoorthy & subramaniam, 2014; elaiyaraja & chandramohan, 2016; gomathy & rathinam, 2016; liu et al., 2023). pratheeba et al. (2019) reported that 9,12-octadecadienoic acid (z, z) may be responsible for the mosquito larvicidal activity. similarly, gcms analysis of d. butyraceae (roxb.) h.j. lam revealed the presence of compounds such as brucine, 2,4,6-triaminoquinazoline, stigmasterol, silane, trimethyl[5-methyl-2-(1-methylethyl)phenoxy]-, which are responsible for pharmacological properties such as antibacterial, antioxidant, antifungal along with the insecticidal and toxic effects (gade et al., 2017; escobar et al., 2020; yaduwanshi et al., 2021; jain et al., 2023). triterpenic saponins present in deoiled/defatted seed cake of d. butyraceae have been found to exhibit feeding deterrent and insect growth regulatory effects on spodoptera litura (f.) (noctuidae: lepidoptera). saponins act as biological detergent due to its amphiphilic nature. when agitated in water, they produce abundant foam similar to synthetic detergents. saponins also display hemolytic activity, which is partially responsible for toxicity (saha et al., 2010). gc-ms profiling of d. butyraceae further confirmed the presence of antibacterial, antifungal, and antioxidant components. stigmasterol derived from the chromolaena odorata has been shown to induce mortality against culex quinquefasciatus, aedes aegypti, and chironomus riparius through inhibition of acetylcholinesterase (gade et al., 2017). in this study, gc-ms profiling of seed extracts identified several bioactive compounds known for their pesticidal properties, suggesting the potential of these seeds as biocontrol agents against d. melanogaster. however, a key limitation is that the experiments were conducted under controlled laboratory conditions, which may not exactly reflect real field scenario. therefore, further research involving field trials is necessary to validate the practical use of these extracts in controlling insect pests. additionally, investigations on the key application method and mechanism of antagonism are warranted to confirm the suitable approach in agricultural practices. nevertheless, our findings support the development of plant-based pesticides as a sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative for pest management. the use of plant biopesticides can promote the value of agricultural products and and contribute to food security. conclusion the seeds of abrus precatorius l., datura metel l., and diploknema butyracea (roxb.) h.j. lam demonstrated the insecticidal activities with the presence of several bioactive compounds. our results provide laboratory-based evidence that these plant seeds have potential as biopesticides. however, the insecticidal activity of the methanolic seeds extracts varied depending on the developmental stage of the insect (i.e., adult or larval) and the method of application (ingestion or spray). similarly, insecticidal activity increased with increasing concentration. among the tested plants, d. metel l. exhibited showed more consistent efficacy across both ingestion and spray methods, making it a promising candidate for further evaluation as a biopesticide. our findings demonstrated the potential of d. metel l. as an effective and sustainable alternative to chemical pesticides. the bioactive compounds identified through gc-ms with their toxic and insecticidal properties support the development of sustainable pest management strategies. these findings are relevant efforts to reduce the reliance on synthetic agrochemicals in countries like nepal, where agriculture is a cornerstone of the economy and rural livelihoods. acknowledgements we acknowledge the organization for women in science for the developing world (owsd) for the owsd ph.d. fellowship and the swedish international development cooperation agency (sida) for financial support. we are grateful to the nepal agricultural research council (narc) for helping in insect rearing and bioactivity test. we also extend our sincere thanks to the research centre for applied science and technology (recast), halal products research institute, and universiti putra malaysia (upm) for their technical support. 32 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 maharjan et al. author’s contribution statement e. maharjan: writing original draft, data acquisition, data analysis; m. y. wong: supervision, resources, review and editing, funding acquisition; s. k. upadhyay: resources, review, and editing; p. panta, t. prasai joshi: data analysis, review, and editing; r. adhikari, d. r. joshi: conceptualization, supervision, data analysis, review, and editing. data availability this study offers the author’s original work, which has not been published previously. all the data are embedded within the manuscript. conflict of interest the authors declare that there is no conflict of interest. references akhtar, n., hussain, u., zulhussnain, m., zahoor, m. a., rasul, a., majeed, h. n., munir, r., ranian, k., & zahoor, m. k. 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(2023). the potential role of plant secondary metabolites on antifungal and immunomodulatory effect. applied microbiology and biotechnology, 107 (14), 4471-4492. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s00253-023-12601-5 bhandari et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 13-22 13 women participation has been in discussion for long in community forestry in nepal a successful programme in participatory forest governance. despite having ample of policy instruments to address the women concern in community forestry decision making activities several pragmatic issues have been encountered. this paper examines on the women participation in different community forestry decision making activities and identifies the factors influencing participation in such activities. the evidences were generated from five community forest user groups in kaski district. the analysis was based on the household surveys that included the random sample of 213 respondents (107 females and 106 males). similarly, regular triangulation and verification of the data were made through series of interviews, discussions and observations followed by the analysis of cf documents. three ordered logit regression models were deployed to examine the determinants of women participation in decision making in forest management, resource utilization and participatory activities. the analysis showed lower participation of women in community forest decision making activities. gender had the significant association with the participation in all decision making activities. the men with higher education, who are the member of executive committee and have access to community forestry fund, had participated significantly more than women in community forestry decision making activities. low participation of women was associated with lower representation in user group committee, social and traditional beliefs and preoccupied assumption that women cannot lead which may result in unfair implication of community forestry. key words: community forestry, decision making, gender, participation looking women seriously: what makes differences for women participation in community forestry ? p. k. c. bhandari1*, p. bhusal1, b. b. khanal chhetri1 and c. p. upadhyaya1 community forestry (cf) has been cited as the successful model to ensure the participation of local communities for better forest management. currently, about 35% of nepal’s population is involved in community forestry programme through 22,266 community forest user groups (cfugs), in which women led cfugs are 6% and cf covers 33% of the total forest area in nepal (dof, 2018). cf is considered as the global innovation in the field of participatory environmental governance (kumar, 2002). the innovations of community forestry in operational activities, legislative development and evolving practices have helped in enhancing the access to forest products, improving livelihood opportunities for forest dependent people, strengthening local institutional capacity, and improving ecological conditions of forests (ojha and pokharel, 2005; pokharel et al., 2007). however as its success has been grown up with the participation of communities in forest management the women participation has been always low in decision making (chhetri et al., 2013; wagle et al., 2017). usually women have been involving in the collection of fuel wood, fodder, medicinal plants and other non-timber forest products (shiva, 1989; agarwal, 2010). the gender relation has the direct effect on forest use and management as women are the key forest users with major stakes in forest governance. gender biases persist in forestry research and practice; as a result, there has been reduced scientific rigor and inequitable, less efficient policies, programmes, and interventions (elias et al., 2017). the lack of a recognized role 1 institute of forestry, pokhara campus, pokhara, nepal. * e-mail: puspa_kcbhandari@yahoo.co.uk banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 13-22 bhandari et al 14 of women in public forums, limited access to information and norms of silence results in the exclusion of women from decision making (agarwal, 2002). the gender and other factors of social differentiation like age, socio-economic status, social constructs and the gender division has critical role in defining who can participate in decision making, in forest management and obtaining the associated benefits (howard and nabanoga 2007; elias et al., 2017). there have been several discussions at different sphere to enhance the participation of women in community forestry. since the emergence of community forestry in nepal, there has been gradual progress towards recognizing gender equity through laws, policies and strategies. the community forestry guideline 2015, the gender equality and social inclusion strategy and the forest sector gender and social inclusion strategy (mfsc, 2012) have emphasized and legally ensured women participation in decision making. however the participation of women remains low and many of the women who are in the executive committee (ec) are serving as a token representative without exercising the authority (lama et al., 2017). although the women participation in cfugs ec is increasing it is still beyond the target (fao and recoftc, 2015) and particularly in terms of decision making it is always debatable. the policy change has shown its minimal and slow effects however there needs to be intense and focused actions and programmes to sensitize, prepare, involve and learn women for better and effective application of policy in real ground. the women’s role is crucial in community forestry management in nepal as it affects in the intensity of the cooperation in forest management. though women participation in decision making activities have been recognised through several policies in 40 years of community forest development, still the issue of meaning participation has always been contested. women participation is still costly and they have been bounded by several factors. thus it needs to be explored more and need a lot of case studies for consolidated effects for long term outcome on forest management. in this context this paper has explored on the women participation in decision making activities in community forestry in the mid hill through collection of empirical data from five cfugs and has tested the existing knowledge. similarly the study will fulfil the knowledge gap particularly, on decision making activities that women participate or they are requested to participate. equally, we have analysed the determinants of women participation in decision making process. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in five cfugs in kaski district which lies in the middle mountain region of nepal (fig. 1). a total of 501 community forest areas have been transferred to local communities, which are managed by 46,390 households (hhs) in the district (dof, 2018). out of the total forest user committee members, 37% are women and five cfugs are led by them. the data was collected during december 2015 to february 2016. the consultation was made with the staff of district forest office before selecting the study area. the selected five cfugs (table 1) were from almost all parts of the district. other criteria for selection of cfugs included representation of mixed castes, at least five years of cf establishment and the good size of the annual income (more than one million). fig. 1: map showing study area bhandari et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 13-22 15 field survey a randomisation process was carried to select the hh for survey in each cfug. of the total hhs in each cfug, we carried out the survey in more than 20% of the total hhs. a total of 213 hhs were surveyed in five cfugs (table 1) including 107 male and 106 female. a self-administered, semi-structured survey instrument was developed and survey was carried out in selected households in september and october 2017. questionnaires were given to the head of each household—the individual responsible for making most decisions on behalf of the family. the questions were related to collect information on respondent demographics, fuc member, access to cf fund, income sources, and distance from the market, migration and the women participation in different cf decision making activities. similarly, we observed women participation in different activities and analysed cfugs documents, district forest office reports and available literatures minutely. participation of women in different decision making activities is the dependent variable in our statistical model, and is operationalised as the actual involvement in the following community forestry activities: (1) forest management activities, (2) resource utilization activities, and (3) participatory activities (fig. 2). participation in different decision making activities forest management activities resource utilization activities participatory activities independent variables respondent’s age respondent gender respondent’s caste respondent’s education level household size executive member in fug from respondent house access to cf fund total livestock unit owned by a household distance between nearest market and respondent house wellbeing ranking of the respondent household total out migrants from the respondent household fig. 2: factors impacting women participation in community forestry decision making activities respondents were asked to rate their level of participation on a four-point scale ranging from ‘no’ participation to a ‘high’ level of participation. the independent variables represent the social, table 1: summary data of study cfugs sn name of cfug/address no of hhs cf area (ha) sample size (hhs) number of respondents by gender male female 1 thulo dhungapatalthum (puranchur, wards 6,7,9) 154 27.94 42 20 22 2 ghewapanikusunde (siddha, wards 8, 9) 252 106 50 25 25 3 situmkaseri (lekhnath municipality, ward 18) 179 136 38 18 20 4 kirakokhor (rupakot, 8) 280 92.25 56 29 27 5 furketari (lekhnath municipality, ward 29) 48 15.69 27 15 12 6 total 913 213 107 106 banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 13-22 bhandari et al 16 economic and biophysical conditions. definitions and descriptions of the independent variables are presented in table 2. table 2: definitions and descriptions of independent variables variable name variable description variable type* r_age r_sex r_caste r_edu hh_size fuc_m acs_cf total_lsu** dis_min wel_be_d out_mig respondent’s age (year) respondent gender (1=male) respondent’s caste (1=other than dalits) respondent’s education level household size executive member in fug from respondent’s house (1= yes) access to cf fund (1= yes) total livestock unit owned by a household distance between nearest market and respondent’s house wellbeing ranking of the respondent household total out migrants from the respondent household c b b c c b b c c c c *c = continuous b = binary **all livestock converted into livestock units (lsu) using the following formula: 1 lsu = 1 buffalo = 1.2 cows = 4 goats = 5 sheep = 4 pigs = 2 calves (otte and chilonda, 2002). statistical analysis descriptive statistics values were used to summarize and present the data. different decision making activities were taken as average with three major divisions and level of participation in each activity calculated and analysed in terms of gender. cross tabulations were also used to compare the frequency distribution of one variable to another. we used pearson product– moment correlation coefficients to determine the magnitude and direction of the relationship between women participation in different decision making activities and continuous independent variables. chi-square tests were used to examine the degree of association between participation and independent variables. an econometric approach was used to analyse the participation in decision making activities in terms of gender in forest management, resource utilization, and participatory activities. the effect of different independent variables on levels of participation in decision making activities in forest management, resource utilization, and participatory activities were estimated using ordered logit regression models (chhetri et al, 2013). an ordered logit model is preferable because our categorical dependent variable (participation in decision making activities) is neither continuous nor normally distributed. as demonstrated by the conceptual framework (fig. 2), participation is described as a function of economic, social, and biophysical factors. results and discussion among the respondents, 75% had some education, 10% had higher education and 15% had no formal education. in terms of gender, higher percentage of women had primary and secondary education (80%) and only 4% women had higher education. also the male respondents were more in ec of the cfug compared with the female members. people perceive position in ec in the cfug as the symbol of high social status. most of the committee members were from wealthy and elite groups. during the survey women were busy bhandari et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 13-22 17 in farm and household activities whereas male members were found utilizing their leisure time playing cards and gossiping in tea shops. the results are presented in table and figures. the descriptive statistics of independent variables are presented in table 3. the role and access of women in different cfug activities are shown in figure 3. different level of participation in decision making activities like forest management, resource utilization and participatory activities is presented in table 4. similarly, table 5 represents community forestry decision making activities and participation level in per cent. the correlation coefficient between different continuous independent variables and chi-square of categorical variables are presented in table 6 and table 7, respectively. finally the table 8 presents the empirical results from ordered logit model analysis of participation in decision making activities in community forestry. in each of participation category the chi-square values were significant at less than 0.001 level, this suggests that the regression model has high level of explanatory power indicating that the independent variables have relation with the dependent variables. the coefficients presented in table 8 were used to interpret the direction of the change that each variable contributes to the model. similarly, the p-values associated with the coefficient describe on how significantly each independent variable contributes to overall variation in the model. the cut points are the ancillary parameters on the standardised normal distribution for each point of the independent variable. table 3: descriptive statistics for independent variables (n=213) variables minimum maximum mean standard deviation r_age 26 88 51.24 13.09 r_sex 0 1 0.50 0.50 r_caste 0 1 0.87 0.33 r_edu 0 18 5.73 4.34 hh_size 1 15 5.87 2.51 fuc_m 0 1 0.18 0.38 acs_cf 0 1 0.20 0.41 total_lsu 0 12.67 2.09 1.78 dis_min 10 90 35.07 32.12 variables minimum maximum mean standard deviation wel_be_d 0 1 0.79 0.41 out_mig 0 3 0.38 0.59 the women’s access and role in cfug resources was found inadequate (fig. 3). around 50% of the women respondents (n=106) stated that they had medium access in cfug resources, which was followed by low access (38%). similarly, the role of women in monitoring activities was found insignificant. based on almost half (49%) of the respondents out of total respondents (n=213), women had medium role in cf monitoring activities whereas 34% agreed that women had low role in monitoring activities. however, the role of women in implementation activities seemed comparatively better than that in monitoring and access to resources (fig. 3). the major activities carried out by women in cfugs were forest management activities like thinning, cleaning, pruning, plantation, fuel wood and fodder collection, etc. this implied that in key cf process like resources management and decision making activities women were largely kept aloof, whereas their participation seems comparatively higher during implementation activities which largely include regular forest management activities. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 access in cf resources role in implementation role in monitoring women's access and role in different cfug activities ( %) no low medium high fig. 3: women’s access and role in cfug activities in research sites on an average, respondents showed greater degree of participation in decision making in participatory activities followed by forest management and resource utilization activities. compared with the men, the women participation was found low in all decision making activities. moreover, majority of the women respondents had low or/and no participation in each activity. the women had high degree of participation in participatory activities followed by forest management and resource utilization activities banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 13-22 bhandari et al 18 and the same trend in level of participation was found in men (table 4). the medium to high level of participation of men was table 4: community forestry decision making activities and overall participation level (n=213) participation in cfug decision making activities no low medium high forest management activities (protection measures, silvicultural activities, product distribution, block division, op implementation and monitoring) male 7 (3.3) 37 (17.4) 45 (21.1) 18 (8.5) female 23 (10.8) 52 (24.4) 21 (9.9) 10 (4.6) resource utilization activities (resource collection, price allocation of forest product, fund allocation for different activities, fund allocation for capacity development, iga) male 9 (4.23) 42(19.72) 38(17.84) 18(8.45) female 29(13.62) 50(23.47) 20(9.39) 7(3.3) participatory activities (users identification, fuc formation, inclusion of women’s concerns , op preparation, time setting to enter in the forest for silvicultural and harvesting purpose) male 7(3.3) 31(14.55) 50(23.47) 19(8.92) female 21(9.9) 42(19.72) 2913.62() 14(6.57) considerably higher in participatory activities than that of women (men = 64.5%; women = 40.6%) (table 5). the men participation in decision making was found higher in all activities. the table 5: community forestry decision making activities and participation level (%) (n=107 for male and n = 106 for female respondents) participation in cfug decision making activities no low medium high forest management activities (protection measures, silvicultural activities, product distribution, block division, op implementation and monitoring) male 6.5 34.6 42.1 6.8 female 21.7 49.1 19.8 9.4 resource utilization activities (resource collection, price allocation of forest product, fund allocation for different activities, fund allocation for capacity development, iga) male 8.14 39.25 35.51 16.82 female 27.35 47.17 18.87 6.60 participatory activities (users identification, fuc formation, inclusion of women’s concerns , op preparation, time setting to enter in the forest for silvicultural and harvesting purpose) male 6.54 28.97 46.73 17.75 female 19.63 39.25 27.35 13.08 result supports the traditional view that the women participation in decision making is lower than that of men in cfs and men always dominate in decision making activities in community forestry. chhetri et al. (2013) and wagle et al. (2017) also argue that the participation of women in cfugs decision making activities is lower and is usually passive participants. participation in all decision making activities showed significant association with the gender implying that decision making is crucial and most influential in community forestry development. the level of participation of men in all decision making activities in cfs was significantly different with women (table 6) and this finding is supported by chi-square test also (table 7) and the other studies (chhetri et al., 2013; nightingale, 2002. in reality women had fewer choices and access in cf decision making activities than that of men. the domestic works, social norms and perceptions limit abilities and opinions of women (agrawal, 2001). it obviously will create less opportunity for them to participate in cf decision making activities. similarly, there is stereotype thought that women cannot decide in a better way so that the authority should not be provided directly to them. bhandari et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 13-22 19 table 6: correlations between independent variables and participation in forest management, resource utilization, and participatory activities (n = 213) independent variables correlation coefficient forest management resource utilization participatory activities r_age 0.252 0.253 0.242 r_edu 0.188 0.125 0.151 hh_size 0.134 0.186 0.127 total_lsu 0.080 0.077 0.110 dis_min 0.011* 0.054 0.034* *significant at 5% level table 7: chi-square value for the tests comparing independent variables and participation in decision making in forest management, resource utilization and participatory activities independent variables forest management resource utilization participatory activities chi p-value chi p-value chi p-value r_sex 30.82 0.000* 24.47 0.000* 24.99 0.000* r_caste 2.25 0.522 3.55 0.314 4.15 0.245 fuc_m 19.18 0.000* 18.89 0.000* 21.31 0.000* acs_cf 23.58 0.000* 18.04 0.000* 25.22 0.000* wel_be_d 3.07 0.380 2.83 0.419 0.47 0.924 out_mig 2.83 0.829 3.90 0.690 3.98 0.679 *significant at 5% level our results showed that the hhs, who was not in the forest user executive committee, participated less in all decision making activities. this can be attributed to the fact that ec most often do not reflect the social structure and community at large. the local leaders and elites tend to dominate the executive position and decision making processes. several researchers have shown that the low participation of women in forest user committee and nearly absence of key positions have marginalized their role in cf decision making activities. agrawal (2010) states that women involvement in executive committee, which is the decision making body, is crucial for better women participation in decision making. similarly, the proportionate strength of women in ec can help women to raise their voice and strengthen the governance of the cgugs effectively. further this will increase women participation in cf meetings, general assemblies and other gatherings. the access to cf fund was significantly different with participation in all decision making activities (table 7). the members with more access to cf fund participate more in decision making activities than those with less excess to cf fund. usually, women have weak access during vital decision making in cf including the economic activities and this will obviously push them back to participate in decision making activities in cfugs. the age and education of the people had significant relation with decision making in forest management activities, however, there was no significant differences of age and education with participating in resource utilization activities and participatory activities (table 8). the people with higher age had more association with forest management decision making activities. similarly, the people with no formal education was less likely to participate in decision making in forest management activities, however, there was no relation with decision making in resource utilization and participatory activities. thus, the men with higher age from educated hhs, who were in fuc committee, had significant association with the cf decision making process. according to agrawal (2009), the cfs with older members in ec, particularly the older women in ec were more effective in forest management and decision making. banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 13-22 bhandari et al 20 the caste and the hhs size revealed no connection with the decision making activities (tables 6, 7 and 8). the total livestock holding affected the participation in decision making in participatory activities. this is obvious that the decisions on harvesting time are decided during participatory activities. the households with more livestock were more inclined to community forest resources to meet their fodder need. the distance to market showed significant relation with participation in decision making in forest management and participatory activities (table 6). however, the regression analysis showed no significant association of market distance with participation. similarly, the participation in cfug decision making activities was not significantly different with the out migration (table 8). conclusion the user’s participation in community forest decision making activities is interrelated with various socio economic and biophysical factors. the women participation was low in all decision making activities. women were more likely to participate in participatory activities followed by resource utilization and forest management activities. the gender, user group committee member and access to cf fund showed significant relation to the level of participation in decision making while the caste, household size, out migration and market distance have no relation to the level of participation in decision making. the study suggests that the participation of women in decision making has greater significance in community forest management; however, their effective participation has not been practiced in community forests. despite the policy provision to include 50% women in ec and at least one position of chairman or secretary, the lower representation in user group committee, the symbolic representation system, social and traditional beliefs and perceptions, the preoccupied assumption that women cannot lead, table 8: determinants of participation in decision making in forest management, resource utilization and participatory activities variables forest management resource utilization participatory activities coefficient sd error p value coefficient sd error p value coefficient sd error p value r_age 0.32 0.13 0.018* 0.21 0.12 0.095 0.30 0.14 0.036* r_sex 0.90 0.35 0.011* 0.94 0.32 0.004* 0.82 0.33 0.015* r _ caste -0.48 0.420 0.239 -0.39 0.37 0.286 0.32 0.4 0.413 r_edu 0.08 0.04 0.047* 0.37 0.39 0.338 0.63 0.035 0.071 hh_size 0.02 0.06 0.680 0.78 0.61 0.197 0.022 0.06 0.725 fuc_m 1.27 0.33 0.001* 1.32 0.37 0.000* 1.41 0.42 0.001* sts_cf 1.22 0.33 0.000* 0.96 0.34 0.005* 1.28 0.38 0.001* total_ lsu 0.10 0.08 0.201 0.08 0.90 0.358 0.14 0.08 0.050* dis_min -0.00 0.004 0.915 0.001 0.004 0.718 0.001 0.005 0.810 w e l _ be_d -0.26 0.37 0.569 0.18 0.33 0.574 -0.35 0.31 0.263 o u t _ mig 0.12 0.23 0.591 0.16 0.24 0.494 0.29 0.23 0.202 cut 1 0.30 0.79 0.67 0.69 0.59 0.82 cut 2 2.81 0.81 2.97 0.72 2.34 0.84 cut 3 5.26 0.89 5.43 0.79 5.26 0.94 *significant at 5% bhandari et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 13-22 21 have resulted in low participation of women in decision making processes and put question in their capacities and ideas. thus there is need for collective efforts to encourage women, enhance their pro-activeness and level of participation in decision making to ensure equitable benefits for all users. similarly, the collective and focused facilitation should be given and prepare them to include in key posts in forest user group committee to encourage participation of women in decision making. the study adds the empirical evidences on current status and trends of women participation in decision making activities in cf practice in nepal. it also helps to scratch on the knowledge that there has been no substantial change in women participation in decision making in cf from the last decades in ground despite having some innovative policy changes to include and ensure women presence in cfugs decision making positions. hence further research on what difference can be made by women’s presence in decision making should be carried out with more intensive analysis using both qualitative and quantitative data. acknowledgements we are thankful for the science and power in participatory forestry (scifor) project funded by danish consultative research committee on development (danida) research for financial support. we are also grateful to division forest office kaski, community forest user groups for sharing information and dhurba bahadur malla, thakur giri, sami shrestha and bishnu paudel for helping us in the field work. references agarwal, b. 2009. gender and forest conservation: the impact of women participation in community forestry governance. ecological economics 68 (8–9): 2785– 2799. agarwal, b. 2010. does women’s proportional strength affect their participation? governing local forests in south asia. world development 38 (1): 98–112. agarwal, b. 2002. the hidden side of group behaviour: a gender analysis of community forestry in south asia. in group behaviour and development: is the market destroying cooperation? (eds.) heyer, j., stewart, f. and thorp, r. oxford university press, oxford, united kingdom, 185–208. agrawal, b. 2001. participatory exclusion, community forestry and gender: an analysis for south asia and a conceptual framework. world development 29: 1623– 1648. chhetri, b. b. k., johnsen, f. h., konoshima, m. and yoshimoto, a. 2013. community forestry in the hills of nepal: determinants of user participation in forest management. forest policy and economics 30: 6-13 http:// dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2013.01.010. dof. 2018. database on community forests in nepal. department of forests, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. elias, m., hummel, s. s., basnett, b. s. and colfer, c. j. p. 2017. gender bias affects forests worldwide. ethnobiology letter 8 (1): 31– 34, doi 10.14237/ebl.8.1.2017.834 fao and recoftc.2015. understanding women’s participation in forestry in nepal. policy brief. bangkok, thailand. howard, p. l. and nabanoga, g. 2007. are there customary rights to plants? an inquiry among the baganda (uganda), with special attention to gender. world development 35 (9): 1542–1563. kumar, n. 2002. the challenges of community participation in forest development in nepal. operations evaluation department working paper no. 27931. the world bank. washington, d.c, usa. lama, a. s., kharel, s. and ghale, t. 2017. when the men are away: migration and women’s participation in nepal's community forestry. mountain research and development 37 (3): 263–270. mfsc. 2012. forest sector gender and social banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 13-22 bhandari et al 22 inclusion strategy. ministry of forests and soil conservation, singhadurbar, kathmandu, nepal. nightingale a. j. 2002. participating or just sitting in? the dynamics of gender and caste in community forestry. journal of forest and livelihood 2 (1):17–24. ojha, h. and b. pokharel. 2005. democratic innovations in community forestry—what can politicians learn? participation 7 (7): 22–25. otte, m. and chilonda, p. 2002. cattle and ruminant production systems in subsaharan africa. a systematic review. food and agriculture organisation, ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005y4176e/ y4176e00.pdf. pokharel, b. k., branney, p., nurse, m. and malla, y. b. 2007. community forestry: conserving forests, sustaining livelihoods and strengthening democracy. journal of forest and livelihood 6: 8–19. shiva, v., 1989. staying alive: women, ecology and development. zed books, london, uk. wagle, r., oli, d., sapkota, b., aryal, s. and prajapati, s.m., 2017. feminist institutionalist interpretation of forest tenure regimes in nepal. journal of forest and livelihood 15 (1): 131–142. 33 climate change is one of the contemporary threats to biodiversity worldwide both individuals and population in animal communities (isaac, 2009). climate change and its effect on the species might be one of the more difficult challenges faced by any natural resource manager. it is expected that the global temperature could rise by as much as 6.4°c by the end of the twenty-first century (ipcc, 2007). many taxa response to inter-annual fluctuations in precipitation, temperature, and extreme climatic events over ecological and evolutionary timescales (post & forchhammer, 2002). the abundance, distribution, and demography of acute cold stress: a potential threat to royle's pika (ochotona roylii) survival at central himalayas of nepal 1 center for postgraduate studies, nepal engineering college, pokhara university, nepal. *email: npkoju.2003@gmail.com; 2 central department of zoology, tribhuvan university, nepal; 3 department of psychology, university of washington, seattle, usa; and 4 nepal biodiversity research society, lalitpur, nepal. 5 departments of global health and anthropology; center for global field study; washington national primate research center, university of washington, seattle, wa 98125 usa climate change and its threat to human life and biodiversity are under discussion as the major issue of this century. in this study, pika (ochotona roylii) was taken as a model animal to study the effect of changing climatic parameters in the central himalayas of nepal. the study was carried out for three consecutive years (2011−2013) in the kyanjing valley situated at 3900 m asl, langtang national park, nepal. the study focused on the population density of pika, its lowest elevation distribution, and temperature patterns of the pika-burrows and their immediate surroundings. an ibuttons temperature recorder was installed inside a pika-burrow for acquiring burrow temperature while the ambient temperature data were obtained from the nearby metrological station. the population density of pika decreased compared to those based on the previous studies. over the last 25 years, there was a significant increase in the minimum temperature (r2=0.77) that decreased the snow cover which might have reduced the insulation effect and colder winter to animals living inside the burrow. the temperature inside the burrow was recorded below −5°c for nearly 50% time during january alone and 25% time during total winter days. the environment with a temperature below −5°c could be a threat to the survival of pikas suffering from acute cold stress. neither there was any record of heat stress (above 25°c) recorded nor there was an increasing trend of the ambient maximum temperature within the lnp during the study period. the lowest elevation of the pika's habitat was found to have shifted 200 m upwards over the last 46 years, indicating that the animals had either migrated upwards or facing extinction locally at lower elevations. however, this short-term study is not sufficient to reflect the effects of climate change on the population of pika in the central himalayas. therefore, a long-term study is required to explore the relation between pikas and their vulnerability to the changing climate. keywords: extinction, hyperthermia, hypothermia, ibuttons, langtang national park n. p. koju 1*,3, m. k. chalise 2,4 and r. c. kyes 5 received : 24, march, 2021 revised : 25 april, 2021 accepted : 26, may, 2021 published : 30, may, 2021 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1, 2021 pp 33‒40https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v31i1.37343 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4303-0520 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1417-6053 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4501-3764 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 34 koju et al. animals are known to track climate-related variables over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales (post & stenseth, 1999). organisms especially distributed and restricted to narrow fragmented habitats are particularly threatened by climate change (peters, 1985). species adapted to cold climatic environments are more vulnerable to global warming (hughes, 2000) since the rate of climate change is higher in alpine areas (naftz et al., 2002). figure 1: a royle’s pika in its natural habitat (photo: npk) pikas are saxicolous (rock-dwelling) groups inhabiting a diverse range of environments, from mid-elevation forests and steppes to high alpine talus, specific to microhabitat and microclimate on higher peaks in the himalayas (hoffmann & smith, 2005; reese & roles, 2014; smith et al., 1990). royle’s pika also called "himalayan mouse hare" (ochotona roylii, previously ochotona roylei) is a small, mountain-dwelling mammal that inhabits the himalayas and tibetan plateau (figure 1). it has been listed under "least concern" in the iucn red list (iucn, 2016) pikas have short limbs, a round body, and even coat fur (smith et al., 1990). the thin abdominal skin, high metabolic rate, poor heat dissipation and high body temperature of 40.1°c (macarthur & wang, 1973; kawamichi, 1998) force them to adapt to cold and high altitude environments (primack, 1998). they are supposed to be extremely temperature-sensitive and are nonhibernating species. therefore, pikas are supposed to be vulnerable to global climate change (rodhouse et al., 2010). pikas are living in sky islands (koju et al., 2017) which cannot easily move to higher altitudes or northward latitude for cold as their habitat is usually fragmented and restricted to small areas (deo et al., 2008). they may suffer from hyperthermia or death after brief exposure to an ambient temperature above 25°c (smith, 1974) and hypothermia causing acute cold stress below −5°c temperature (beever et al., 2010). therefore, we aimed to explore the pika’s survival threat due to acute cold stress in the kyanjing valley of the langtang national park (lnp). materials and methods study area langtang national park is located in the central himalayas of nepal between 85°15'− 86°0' e longitudes and 28°20'−28°32' n latitudes. langtang lirung (7,245 m) is the highest peak in the park (dnpwc, 2020). the lnp encompasses over three districts of nepal, viz., rasuwa, nuwakot, and sindhupalchowk. the park experiences distinct summer and winter seasons. from mid-april to mid-june, it is warm but often cloudy with occasional rain. summer monsoon lasts until the end of september. the climate varies with altitude. average daily temperature decreases after the onset of december and continues up to february (dnpwc, 2020). the snowline in the lnp lies at 5000 m above mean sea level (asl) while the tree-line is around 4500 m asl (kawamichi, 1968). the lnp harbors 46 mammalian species including two species of pika viz., o. roylei and o. macrotis (kawamichi, 1968; deo et al., 2008; koju & chalise, 2013). most of the park the area is covered with pastures, rocks, bare grounds, and snow/glaciers. the study was conducted in the kyanjing valley situated at 3900 masl within the lnp (figure 2). the valley was selected as the study site since it was the only area equipped with the meteorological station that had recorded the temperature data above 3000 m asl. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 35 koju et al. figure 2: map showing the location of the study area, kyanjing (encircled) within the lnp (source: dnpwc/gon) data collection population abundance the direct and indirect sign of pika's presence/ absence was studied along the transect of 53 km length starting from the elevation of 2500 m asl to 5000 m asl. the lowest elevation having the pika's sign was noted during the entire period of fieldwork. the signs of fresh pellets, hay-piles, call and live observation of pika were used to note its active habitat at the lowest elevation. ten quadrates, each with the size of 50m × 50m were randomly established within the kyanjing valley in 2011, and six fieldworks were conducted in the three consecutive years starting from 2011 to 2013. during every fieldwork, quadrates were plotted at the same spots using gps coordinates, and the population of pika was observed thoroughly by recording the number of the animals encountered within the quadrates. each quadrat was observed for two complete days in every visit following the method applied by bhattacharya et al. (2009) and haleem et al. (2012), and the encountered individuals were recorded. the number of the animals so recorded per quadrat was later on converted to density per ha. to prohibit the mixed-up of the individuals and repetition in the population count, close photographs of various marks like a tear, wounds, scares, and coloration was used for individual identification. climatic data the meteorological data recorded at the meteorological station located in the kyanjing valley were collected from the department of hydrology and meteorology (dhm). the temperature was taken into account from 1987 to 2013 ad. two data loggers (ds1921g banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 36 koju et al. thermochron ibuttons, maxim integrated products, sunnyvale, ca, usa) were installed within the pika's habitat near the meteorological station, one inside burrow (2 feet deep from the surface) and another on the ground surface beneath a big rock to avoid direct sunlight for recording temperature from january 2012 to october 2013 (22 months). the ibuttons recorded the temperature of respective elevation and location at an interval of 90 minutes as practiced by beever et al. (2010); millar & westfall (2010). the setting was changed to a 4-hour interval to increase the time length with the memory of the ibuttons after six months. altogether, 6000 counts of temperature, both inside and outside the burrow, were recorded by the ibuttons during 22 months. the installed ibuttons were unable to record the temperature of 10 days in may 2012 and 15 days in october 2012 due to a delay in downloading data. the one-wire drivers x86 software was used to download data from ibutton and was used for data analysis. we assumed that the temperatures above +25°c and below −5°c were a thermal survival threat for pikas causing hyperthermia (smith, 1974) and hypothermia (beever et al., 2010) due to acute heat stress and acute cold stress, respectively. results the density of pika was maximum (14.8/ha) during the monsoon season (july 2011) while least (2.4/ha) during the winter season (january 2012; figure 3). the average density of pika in the kyanging valley was found to be 7.4 individuals per ha with 10.8, 5.8, and 5.6 individuals per ha, respectively in 2011, 2012, and 2013. 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 d e n si ty /h a monsoon (jul 2011 y), autum (october), mn 2011 winter ( 20 (january), 012 spriing (march), 2012 (a post monsoon aug/sept), 20122 pre-monsoo (april/may), 2 on 2013 figure 3: population density of pika recorded in different seasons in the kyanjing valley, lnp the comparative study on the trend-lines of the annual mean maximum, the annual mean minimum, and the annual average temperatures over the last 25 years (1988−2013) showed that only the mean minimum temperature was significantly increasing (r2 = 0.75) along with time-period (figure 4), indicating that the minimum temperature in the kyanjing valley was increasing significantly. on the other hand, the trend lines of the annual mean maximum temperature (r2 = 0.06) were found to be almost intact. however, the annual average temperature (r2 = 0.32) was found to be increasing slowly. figure 4: temperature trends during 25 years (1988−2013) at kyanjing, lnp moreover, the temperatures recorded by ibuttons inside and outside the burrow were highly correlated (r=0.97). the maximum temperatures recorded outside and inside the burrow were 19°c and 14°c, respectively in june 2013 (figure 5). on the other hand, the minimum temperatures recorded were −9°c and −9.5°c, respectively in january 2012. the average temperature outside the burrow during the summer and winter was 10.78°c and 7.67°c, respectively. similarly, the average temperatures inside the burrow during the summer and winter were 5.4°c and 3.3°c, respectively. altogether, 362 counts with above 15°c temperature were recorded outside the burrow, but the temperature inside the burrow was always observed to be below 15°c. likewise, 1401 and 1315 counts with below 0°c temperature were recorded inside and outside the burrow, respectively. furthermore, 119 and 337 counts with the temperature below −5°c were recorded inside and outside the burrow, respectively. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 37 koju et al. so far, not a single day with a temperature above 25°c (threshold temperature for survival of pika) was recorded both inside and outside the burrow in two years’ period (2012 and 2013). similarly, the ambient temperature was not recorded so during 25 years (1988−2013) as reported by the meteorological station at kyanjing. however, the days below −5°c (temperature below the threshold for the survival of pikas) were recorded both outside and inside the burrow during december−march of the respective years. in terms of the period, 31.25% period of january 2012; 16.87 % of february 2012; 6.05% of march 2012; 9.1% of december 2012; 50.8% of january 2013; and 9.16 % of february 2013 inside the burrow were recorded by the ibuttons as acute cold stress (with the temperature below −5°c). ninety percent of this time was recorded during the night and early morning (between 21:00 pm−7:00 am). similarly, 22% time in january 2012; 2.5% in february 2012; 0.83% in december 2012; and 2.5% in january 2013 outside the burrow were recorded below −5°c. thus, these records reveal that the winter temperature inside the burrow is colder than outside, especially at night. in totality, it was observed that 40.6% of time outside the burrow and 23.5% inside the burrow figure 5: temperatures recorded by ibuttons (inside and outside the burrow) at kyanjing in 2012 and 2013 had a temperature range of 10°c to 15°c whereas 29.9% outside the burrow and 49.9% inside the burrow had a temperature range of above 0°c to below 10°c, respectively. thus, these records indicate that the burrows help to keep the summer cooler but cannot help to keep the winter warmer in comparison to the temperature change outside the burrow. discussion the population density of himalaya pika is not constant throughout the central himalayas. bhattacharya et al. (2009) recorded the mean density of royle's pika as 15.3 individuals per ha in uttarakhand, india. on the other hand, haleem et al. (2012) recorded the mean density of pika as 48.44/ha (maximum) in the tree-line region and 20.76/ha (minimum) in the alpine region of the kedarnath wildlife sanctuary, uttarakhand, india. koju & chalise (2013) described the population density of pika in the api nampa conservation area as 7.2 per ha in july 2012 and 8 per ha in july 2013. koju et al. (2015) reported the population density of royle’s pika to be 7.3 individuals per ha in the forest and its edge area, 18.2 in the subalpine area, and 11.8 per ha in the alpine area of the lnp. similarly, kawamichi (1968) and smith et al. (1990) found the density of royle's pika as 14.1 and 12.5 individuals per ha, respectively in the lnp, nepal. these studies revealed that the population density of the pika in the lnp was less than those reported by the indian researchers and also less than the one reported by the nepalese researchers who had conducted the studies in the same area in the past. the lowest elevation showing the evidence of the presence of pika during this study was 3005 m asl in the lnp (figure 6), which is 200 m higher than the one reported by kawamichi (1968) and 100 m higher than the one reported by khanal & shrestha (2000). deo et al. (2008) also suggested banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 38 koju et al. that the pika in the lnp migrated upwards by 100 m in eight years. these results indicated that either the pikas in the lnp might have migrated upward or might be facing extinction locally at lower elevation (figure 4); however, further long-term studies need to be conducted to conclude so. our results were similar to those of some studies conducted in the usa, which revealed the relation of pika and climate change. in this regard, beever et al. (2003) reported that the population of pika in the great basin of the usa was highly vulnerable to climate change. likewise, beever et al. (2010) reported 150 m up-slope migration of pika in the past decade, roughly 12 m per decade in california, usa. the authors indicated the adverse impact of acute cold stress on pika's distribution due to temperature warming in the usa. wilkening et al. (2011) and ray et al. (2012) also supported the negative impact of acute cold stress on the survival of pikas. beever et al. (2003), beever et al. (2010), and rodhouse et al. (2010) also recently reported the loss of pikas from a significant fraction from their historically occupied locations in the usa. conclusion in the lnp, not a single day with an ambient temperature of more than 25° was recorded during the fieldwork of this study. therefore, no evidence of hyperthermia in the pikas owing to acute heat stress was reported during our study period, but acute cold stress was significant in winter, especially in january and february. these months had a significant number of days and times with the temperature below −5°. the low temperature inside the burrow force pikas to bear acute cold stress in winter. the possible cause may be the reduction of insulation effect of snow as an increase in ambient minimum temperature that accelerates melting of snow cover. so, the pikas in the lnp are facing the impact of climate changedue to the increase in average minimum temperature in winter that leads the snowpack to melt and reduce insulation effect, and not due to the increasing heat in summer, but. thus, acute cold stress on pikas in the lnp needs to be taken into account. acute cold stress might be the possible reason behind the local extinction of pikas or the declining population of pika at a higher elevation. therefore, the pikas in the central himalayas are under threat of thermal stress and the acute cold caused by the increase in minimum temperature. however, further long-term studies need to be carried out in the future to find out the severe and acute impact of climate change on pika's population density and distribution, and their relation with different climatic parameters. acknowledgments we are grateful to the second higher education project (shep) fresh graduate fellowship 20112014, university grant commission (ugc) nepal for providing financial support to conduct this study. rck’s effort was supported in part by the office of research infrastructure programs (orip) of the national institutes of health through grant number p51od010425 to the wanprc. we acknowledge the staff of the dhm and lnp together with the local people of the kyanjing valley for their support and cooperation during our fieldwork. 2750 2800 2850 2900 2950 3000 3050 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 . el ev at io n m as l year in ad figure 6: graph showing the lowest elevations with the evidence of the presence of pika in the lnp based on the studies conducted in different years sources: kawamichi (1968); khanal & shrestha (2000); deo et al. (2008); koju et al., 2015. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 39 koju et al. references beever, e. a., brussard, p. f. and berger, j. (2003). patterns of apparent extirpation among isolated populations of pikas (ochotona princeps) in the great basin. journal of mammalogy 84 (1): 37−54. beever, e. a., ray, c., mote, p. w., and wilkening, j. l. (2010). testing alternative models of climate-mediated extirpations. ecological applications 20 (1): 164−178. bhattacharya, s., adhikari, b. and rawat, g. (2009). abundance of royle's pika (ochotona roylei) along an altitudinal gradient in uttarakhand, western himalaya. hystrix, the italian journal of mammalogy 20 (2): 111−119. deo, r. k., shrestha, h. k., khanal, b. and devkota, s. 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(1990). the pikas. in: rabbits, hares and pikas: status survey and conservation action plan. j. a. chapman & j. e. c. flux (eds.). international union for conservation of nature, switzerland. lagomorph specialist group. pp. 14−60. wilkening, j. l., ray, c., beever, e. a. and brussard, p. f. (2011). modeling contemporary range retraction in great basin pikas (ochotona princeps) using data on microclimate and microhabitat. quaternary international 235 (1−2): 77−88. camscanner 06-20-2025 11.07 https://v3.camscanner.com/user/download https://v3.camscanner.com/user/download https://v3.camscanner.com/user/download https://v3.camscanner.com/user/download https://v3.camscanner.com/user/download https://v3.camscanner.com/user/download banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 49‒53 49 khadka et al. glimpses of forest research, survey and extension activities in nepal a. khadka1*, b. p. dhakal1, m. paudel1, d. k. pradhan1 and m. kafle1 management of forest has been an important aspect not only to meet the growing needs of the ever-increasing population but also to address the climate-related issues such as climate change, global warming, and biodiversity. furthermore, forest is an important habitat for most of the wildlife on the earth. like elsewhere, it is the most important asset that provides the basic needs and one of the major sources of nepal’s income (mfsc, 2013). despite huge importance of forests, global forests are in crisis; nearly half of all global forests are under threats of deforestation and forest degradation forming a major risk to climate, biodiversity, water, people, and forest-based businesses (wwf, 2019). to manage the existing forests scientifically, to establish new forests and to rehabilitate the degraded ones, inputs from forest research are imperative (hamito, 2001). properly addressing such emerging issues been a challenge worldwide. several national, regional and international research organizations are committed to research excellence and interdisciplinary cooperation for discovering the science-based solutions and options for influencing policy processes. in nepal, number of organizations such as the forest research and training center (frtc), regional community forest training centre (recoftc), asia network for sustainable agriculture and bioresources (ansab), institute of forestry (iof) and international centre for integrated mountain development (icimod) are involved in carrying out studies on forest research, survey and extension activities. however, frtc is the only government body that has been mandated for carrying out forestry-related researches, surveys and trainings. besides, it is a national correspondent and main organization for data generation to facilitate several international reporting including the global forest resource assessment (un-fao) and monitoring, reporting and verification (mrv) of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (redd)+ program. history of the frtc in 1963, the then forest resources survey project (frsp) was set up under the department of forests (dof) to conduct forest resources survey. in 1976, it was upgraded as the forest survey and research office (fsro), and the separate research faculty was created in forestry service. later on, in 1988, the survey component of this office was merged with the then ministry of forests and soil conservation (mofsc, now the ministry of forests and environmentmofe) as "forest survey and statistics division" while the research component was amalgamated with the department of plant resources as "forest and plant research division". again in 1993, both the research and survey components were integrated as "forest research and survey centre (foresc)", a semi-autonomous body directly under the then ministry of forests and soil conservation. later on, in 1999, it was upgraded as the department of forest research and survey (dfrs). in 2018, this department and the central forestry training and extension centre (cftec), both under the ministry of forests and environment were merged as the "forest research and training centre" (frtc, 2019). 1 forest research and training centre (frtc), kathmandu, nepal. *e-mail : anandakhadka@gmail. com figure 1 : history of the forest research and training centre. https://doi.org:10.3126/banko.v29i2.28099 short note banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 49‒53 50 khadka et al. mandates of frtc the frtc has been mandated to carry out the following activities under the broad five themes, namely, i) forest research; ii) forest survey and mapping; iii) soil laboratory; iv) central forest library (cfl); and v) training and extension. under these five themes, the centre carries out the following activities on an annual basis : �� researches on natural forests, plantations, nursery techniques and growth, silviculture, forest management, forest conversion, etc. ; �� research on economically important tree species and non-timber forest products along with bamboo and rattans; �� research on forest products utilization, biomass and volume table ; �� socio-economic researches on forestrelated themes, for instance, contribution of forestry sector in the national economy of nepal; �� agroforestry researches including feasibility studies and model diagnostics; �� national-level forest inventory (forest resources assessment); �� mapping and updating of the forest cover, forest change detection, forest types, etc. at national-level; �� digitization and archives of the available aerial photographs; �� policy research; �� testing of important soil properties (including n, p, k and soc) in the soil laboratory; �� management of the cfl to facilitate the researchers, students and other individuals interested in forestry-related subject matters with all the available study materials (books, journals, dissertations, newsletters and so on); and �� provision of different forestry-related trainings to forestry professionals. key achievements of frtc in forest research, survey and training sub-sectors plenty of research, survey and extension activities have been conducted by this organization so far. some of the key achievements are listed in table 1 below : table 1 : key achievements made by frtc in forest research, survey and training sectors s. n. program year funding 1. in-service training for forest officers on "forests for development and administration" annually goni 2. developing a methodology to assess the forestry sector's contribution to national economy 2019 gon 3. national-level forest and land cover analysis using google earth imageries 2019 usaidii/ wwfiii nepal/ hariyo ban 4. overview of different agroforestry models prevalent in different ecological zones of nepal 2019 gon 5. re-measurement of the permanent sample plots (psps) 2016−2019 gon/ world bank 6. assessment of forest quality, growth and regeneration in the scientifically managed forest of kapilvastu district 2017 gon 7. selection of appropriate species to rehabilitate degraded lands in churia and mid-hills 2017 gon 8. volume table s of shorea robusta, terminalia alata and anogeissus latifolia for western terai of nepal 2017 gon 9. accessing dependency of the local people on churia forest resources 2017 gon 10. forest research strategy 2017 gon banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 49‒53 51 khadka et al. s. n. program year funding 11. mapping deforestation and forest degradation of the churia region of eastern nepal 2015 gon 12. identification of land reclamation area and potential plantation area on bagmati river-basin in the terai region of nepal 2015 gon 13. assessment of regeneration potential, quality and growth of s. robusta forest in the terai region of nepal 2015 gon 14. livelihood improvement of disadvantaged communities through bamboo cultivation and capacity enhancement 2013−2015 usaid/ wwf nepal/ hariyo ban 15. g;{/ldf /f]u sl/fx?sf] /f]syfd / go"gls/0f (preventative and control methods of disease and pest in nursery) 2012 gon 16. review of traditional deigns and technologies of bamboo and rattan in nepal 2011 gon/ mdbrppiv project 17. national-level forest resource assessment (fra) 2010−2014 gon/ government of finland 18. review of developed western markets for bamboo and rattan commodities of nepal 2010 gon/ mdbrpp project 19. assessment of trees outside forest : nawalparasi and dhanusha districts 2008 gon 20. management option for degraded sal forest in terai 2009 gon 21. l/¶fsf] alp pkrf/ ljlwaf/] hfgsf/l (information on seed treatment technique of sapindus mukorossi) 2009 gon 22. gldsf] k|f]leg]g; 6«fon ;dagwl cwoog (study on provenance trail of azadirachta indica) 2008 gon 23. sndl ptkfbg if]q :yfkgf pj+ joj:yfkg / sndl tof/l af/] hfgsf/l (information on establishment and management of coppice production area and coppice preparation) 2008 gon 24. establishment of research plots of moso bamboo (phyllostachys pubescens) in kavre district (for scientific study) 2007 gon 25. g]kfndf kf6] ;nnf / vf]6] ;nnf j[iff/f]k0f jg ktnofpg] ;dagwl dfu{bz{g (thinning guidelines for pinus patula and p. roxbughii plantation forests) 2007 gon 26. studies on the growing stock of different species of bamboo and rattan in nepal, their utilization and market potential, and plantation technique of moso bamboo (p. pubescens) 2005−2011 dfrs/ mdbrpp project 27. t/fo{ tyf leql dw]; sf] nful ax'kof]ul sofl;of:ofldof (multipurpose cassia siamea for terai and inner terai) 2005 gon 28. participatory research in community forest in nepal 2004 gon 29. impact of forest management on biodiversity in community forests 2004 gon 30. ;fnsf] k|fs[lts k'g?tkfbg k|ljlw (natural regeneration technique of s. robusta) 2001 gon 31. wide area tropical forest resources survey of nepal 1999−2000 hmgnv/ jaftavi banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 49‒53 52 khadka et al. s. n. program year funding 32. investigation on causal agents responsible for dieback of d. sissoo in terai belts of nepal 1999 gon 33. deforestation in the terai districts (1978/79 − 1990/91) 1994 hmgn 34. volume equations and biomass predictions of forest trees of nepal 1990 hmgn 35. national-level forest inventory (nfi) 1987−1998 gon/ government of finland 36. plantation trials in central and mid-western regions 1983−1988 hmgn/ cfdpvii 37. plantation trials in mid-hills of western region 1982−1985 hmgn/ rcupviii 38. plantation trials in different parts of the country 1981−1986 hmgn/ tcfpix 39. plantation trials of different tree species 1980−1998 hmgn 40. plantation trials in the inner terai and mid-hills 1980−1985 hmgn/ srpx 41. research on nursery and plantation techniques of different tree and fodder species, management options for different types of forest, agro-forestry techniques, tree improvement, growth performance of different species of bamboo, forest soil, forest pathology, forest entomology, etc. 1979−1996 hmgn/ frpxi (phase i) 42. plantation trials of different tree species (selection of suitable fast growing species and species elimination trials) 1964−1979 hmgn 43. nfi 1963−1967 hmgn/ usaid more information and publications are available at frtc online library, url : shorturl. at/orj02 and website : www. frtc. gov. np note : i government of nepal; ii united states agency for international development; iii world wildlife fund; iv market development for bamboo and rattan products with potential; v his majesty's government of nepal; vi japan foresters' technical association; vii community forestry development project; viii resource conservation and utilization project; ix terai community forestry project; x silvicultural research project; xi forestry research project. frtc in federal system the constitution of nepal has provisioned three levels of governmenti) federal-level government, ii) provincial-level government, and iii) local-level government. the frtc has been restructured and established at the federal and provincial levels accordingly. the frtc at the center (i.e. kathmandu) remains under the federal government. besides, seven province-level frtcs have been established under the province governmentsone each in all the seven provinces. key issues and needs since its establishment, the frtc has done its level best to identify the knowledge gaps (with respect to the resources available) and disseminate information to the concerned stakeholders. however, regarding technology and skill development, it has not been able to convey the services as required. furthermore, an increasing thirst of innovations at localand practitioner-levels has not been accomplished so far. the following issues and future needs have been identified to strengthen the research, survey and extension of forestry sector : �� poor networking and collaboration with national and international institutions; �� lack of coherence in dissemination of research results, extension and knowledge management; �� inability to resolve the growth performance of the presently preferred species such as agarwood (aquilaria spp. ), bodhichitta banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 49‒53 53 khadka et al. (ziziphus budhensis), paulownia spp., red sandalwood (pterocarpus santalinus), etc. at practitioner-level; �� weak implementation of research findings; �� need for training manuals and training of trainers (tots); �� database management; �� lack of advanced technology and equipment; �� low priority on research; �� monitoring and evaluation; �� no institutional incentives and motivation; and �� need for a detailed guideline to address the following requirements : � integration of forestry researches being conducted by several institutions e. g. the frtc, department of forests and soil conservation (dofsc, earlier dof), redd-implementation centre, etc. ; � consistency in methods, data, imageries, resources and accuracy; and � a rigid definition of burning terminologies, e. g. forest degradation. advancement nevertheless, the frtc is pursuing its best to achieve the targets and overcome the related issues, accordingly. the ministry of forests and environment had requisitioned the frtc (central) to conduct the technical auditing of the community-managed forests under scientific forest management. henceforth, the frtc got approval for a program on "technical auditing of scientific forest management". besides, a program on "internship of students from forestry science" has been approved to enhance the technical capability of forestry manpower. furthermore, to obtain reliable and more precise results from the soil laboratory, accreditation procedure has been initiated. since the generation of scientific results and information has not been fully accomplished due to the lack of coordination and collaboration with different research institutions, the frtc has started to build up collaboration with different research/survey organizations to carry out various forest-related research/survey activities. recently, a program on "bamboo resource inventory" has been approved to assess the bamboo resources all over the country and to further collaborate with the international network for bamboo and rattan (inbar). besides, the frtc and the icimod are working together to develop a national land cover monitoring system (nlcms) to analyze and map out the national land cover status on an annual basis. likewise, the frtc has been technically supported by the silvacarbon and the university of maryland (umd) to strengthen its capacity on image-based forest cover mapping and monitoring. references frtc. 2019. forest research and training center, kathmandu, nepal. https://www.frtc.gov.np. hamito, d. 2001. research methods in forestry principles and practices with particular reference to ethiopia. mfsc. 2013. country report on the state of forest genetic resources, nepal. government of nepal, ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. wwf. 2019. collaborating to conserve forests : hp and wwf project goes beyond responsible sourcing toward a healthier planet. web story on wwf gifts. https : // www. blogarama. com/travel-blogs/264636 (published on 23rd september, 2019). 19 trees are an essential part of our life. trees can also be found outside of the forest areas. fao (1998) has defined trees outside forest (tof) as “the trees on the land that fulfils the requirements of forest and other wood land except that the area is less than 0.5 ha and the canopy is < 10%”. for example, scattered trees in permanent meadows and pastures; permanent tree crops such as fruit trees and coconut; trees in park and gardens, around buildings and in lines along streets, roads, railways, rivers, streams and canals; and trees in shelterbelts of less than 20 m width and 0.5 ha area. tof comprises all trees ranging from a single discrete individual tree to systematically managed trees (kleinn, 2000). tof includes both trees as well as shrubs (foresta at al., 2013). bamboo is a part of tof that is merchantable for house construction (bhusal & bashyal, 2020). in some cases, total wood production from tof is more than that from the forests (krishnankutty et al., 2008). tof has become an important source for timber globally but still there are no policies related to management, harvest, transit and marketing of timber from tof (ghosh & sinha, 2018). it plays a significant role in meeting the challenges of resource sustainability, poverty banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2, 2022 pp 19‒36https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i2.50894 valuation of timber and firewood of trees outside forest along the urban–rural gradient in kathmandu valley, nepal this study aims to analyze diameter class, quality class, wood production potential and timber and firewood values of trees outside forest along the urban-rural gradient in kathmandu valley of central nepal. inventory was performed in 209 randomly selected points. circular plots of 20 m radius were used for inventory. all trees (height > 1.3 m and dbh ≥ 5 cm) in the plots were identified to species level and their height, dbh & quality class were recorded. in total 6,210 trees (236.35 ha-1) of 150 species belonging to 111 genera and 57 families were recorded. the total merchantable timber volumes of timber class a and b, and total timber volumes were highest in the urban stratum (537.08, 84.88 and 621.96 cu ft ha -1 respectively) followed by rural (442.94, 66.82 and 509.76 cu ft ha -1 respectively) and suburban (250.04, 47.31 and 297.35 cu ft ha -1 respectively) strata. but due to higher merchantable price of tree species recorded in rural stratum, total market value of class a timber was higher in rural stratum (npr 7,89,871/us$ 6,085), class b timber was higher in urban stratum (npr 1,08,255/us$ 834), total timber was higher in rural stratum (npr 8,70,410/us$ 6,706), firewood was higher in urban stratum (npr 4,88,709/us$ 3,765) and total wood was higher in urban stratum (npr 12,95,531/us$ 9,981). cinnamomum camphora was found as tree species with highest market price of total wood value in the study area. the study provides the baseline data of useful timber species through tof suggesting a need for appropriate timber producing species selection for plantation. keywords: diameter class, merchantable timber, quality class, strata, wood b. shrestha 1*, b. k. sharma 2, and r. k. p. yadav 1* received: 2, august 2022 revised: 9, november 2022 accepted: 14, december 2022 published: 31, december 2022 1 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal; *e-mail: biobabita@gmail.com, rkp.yadav@cdbtu.edu.np 2 conservation development foundation (codefund), nepal, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1470-0617 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7432-8007 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5787-3134 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 20 shrestha et al. reduction, food security, lessening the pressure on forest resources, conserve farmland, increase agricultural productivity and food supplies (foresta et al., 2013). besides, tof also provide the impetus to the growth of wood-based industries and employment opportunities by increasing the extent of area under forest (fsi, 2003) especially more jobs to rural communities (asanzi et al., 2014). tof are prominent features in many landscapes, strata (urban, suburban and rural) and substrata (linear, clumped and scattered tree formations) (baffetta et al., 2010; dfrs, 2011) and serve a number of ecological and economic functions that might be similar to those of forests in different ways and extent (kleinn, 2000). wood includes all timber, industrial wood, firewood and charcoal (krishnankutty et al., 2008). it is still the most widely used fuel source in the developing countries (fao, 1999a). a timber readily harvestable is the merchantable timber (ouattara et al., 2014). according to dfrs (2015), a tree can be classified as: quality class a tree (high quality sound tree) a live tree which would produce at least one 6 m long saw log; quality class b tree (sound tree) –a live tree which would produce at least one 3 m long saw log; and quality class c tree (cull tree) a live tree not qualified as class a or class b but would produce fire wood only. forests resources, particularly the timber, face an uncertain future because of high deforestation rate, rapid population growth, timber rights allocation system, forest fees, poor law enforcement, increasing demand for timber and energy and sawmills being export oriented (oduro et al., 2014). generally, single trees in areas with lower density attain a larger diameter at breast height (dbh) and as a consequence, greater volume (bembenek et al., 2014). stem volume is an important parameter to estimate the monetary value of timber (crecente-campo et al., 2009). categorization of tof on the basis of diameter class and timber quality class is necessary for the valuation of the wood (pompa-garcía, et al., 2009; bembenek et al., 2014). merchantable value of the wood depends on the species (mejia et al., 2015). merchantable value gives an idea about the economic importance of a species. the organized tree planting first started in the malla era was continued up to the rana era (poudel, 2010). new species like araucaria araucana, other imported species from europe along with pines were planted to beautify kathmandu valley urban areas and palaces. later with the introduction of modern urbanenvironmental planning in the 1960s and 1970s, the government renovated roads and trails throughout kathmandu. again in the 1980s, urban environmental planners introduced a three-line green belt. trees were also planted along either side of other roads (poudel, 2010), roadside gardens and traffic islands (baral and kurmi, 2005). many parks were also built during different historical eras. a botanical garden and zoo were also built. thus, many native as well as exotic tree species were planted. kathmandu valley with the rapid urban population growth rate of 3.9 % is one of the fastest growing urban agglomerations in south asia (muzzini & aparicio, 2013). it is characterized not only by the rapid population growth rate in the urban core but also by the rapid expansion of urban sprawl in the periphery. plant communities are sensitive to urban expansion and therefore may serve as indicators for human-induced land use change (vakhlamova et al., 2014). the rural system usually is rich in natural vegetation (xiao et al., 2017) with more timber production whereas due to rapid urbanization, tof formations have increased with less timber production in urban area. thus tree species selection for afforestation in tof will help to minimize the demand-supply gap of timber (shrivastav et al., 2012). tof are little recognized in forest resources assessments, and it is only recently that tof started receiving attention from the research community and the general public (kleinn, 2000). nepal's annual import of wood and wooden materials exceeds npr 6 billion (rss, 2019.). in this context, the study of tof in terms of timber production would be important (oli, 2002). since fy 2004/05, the department of forests research and survey (now the forest research and training center), government of nepal has started the assessment of tof at national level (fao, 2009). but it is limited only to volume banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 21 shrestha et al. assessment by diameter class. the assessments of tof in terms of timber and firewood production along the urban-rural gradient are lacking. in this background, this study aims to analyze diameter class, quality class, wood production potential and timber and firewood values of tof along the urban-rural gradient in kathmandu valley of central nepal. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in kathmandu valley (ca. 66,500 ha in area), which includes three districts namely, kathmandu, lalitpur and bhaktapur of bagmati province in the middle hill region of central nepal (icimod, 2007; figure 1). this bowl-shaped valley extends between 27°32’13” n to 27°49’10” n latitude and 85°11’31” e to 85°31’38” e longitude. it’s elevation ranges between 1,100–2,700 m a.s.l. (mishra et al., 2019). it is characterized by subtropical vegetation and has a distinct monsoon climate with hot and wet summers and cold and dry winters. the average annual minimum and maximum temperature are 1.6°c in january and 31.9°c in april respectively and the average annual rainfall is 1,509 mm (based on dhm data between 2000-2018). sampling and data collection a two-phase sampling method was applied (lister et al., 2011). in first phase, the study area was divided into 500 m x 500 m grids (n = 2800) (figure 1). a total of 1,046 sites with tof were identified under urban, suburban and rural stratum categorized on the basis of population and urban development (gon, 2014). google earth image interpretation showed that more sites with tof were found in urban (440) stratum than in suburban (366) and rural (240) strata. twenty percent of sites with tof from three strata [urban figure 1: map of the study area. the distribution of the sample points in urban, suburban and rural strata banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 22 shrestha et al. (88), suburban (73) and rural (48) strata] were selected randomly for the field survey (figure 1). in second phase field survey was done. circular sample plots with 20 m radii (area = 0.13 ha) were used for the survey (fra/dfrs, 2011). plant characteristics (height, dbh and quality class) of woody plants (trees and shrubs) with height > 1.3 m and diameter at breast height (dbh) ≥ 5 cm were recorded. dbh was measured at 1.3 m above the ground using diameter tape and the tree height was measured using suunto clinometer (pm-5/360 pc). tree quality class was also noted for individual trees. plants were identified to species level based on herbarium specimen prepared following standard procedure (bridson & forman, 1998). the vernacular names of the plant species were also recorded with the help of local people and verified with sharma (2014). identification was done by using literatures such as flora of kathmandu valley (malla et al., 1986), followed by comparison with identified specimens previously deposited at tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch), nepal, scientific names were determined. press et al. (2000) and plants of the world online (https:// powo.science.kew.org/) were followed for plant nomenclature. species richness of the study area and across the strata were estimated with respect to the area sampled at the study area and each stratum. average species richness was calculated as the total number of species recorded per plot (dorji et al., 2014). growth forms of the plants were based on sharma (2014). frequency of the individual tree species were also calculated (danekhu et al., 2016-18). data analysis dbh and height of the recorded trees were used. estimation of above ground biomass of trees the total above ground tree biomass was estimated using allometric equation developed by petersson et al. (2012). agtb = 0.0509 ρ d2 h where, agtb = aboveground tree biomass (kg), ρ= wood specific gravity (g cm-3), d = tree diameter at breast height (cm), h = tree height (m). sharma & pukkala (1990) and zanne et al. (2009) were used for wood specific gravities of tree species. for the tree/shrub species for which wood specific gravity data were not available, the arithmetic mean of all known tree/shrub species in the study area was used (brown et al., 1989). estimation of biomass of merchantable timber and firewood merchantable weights of log of quality class a tree and quality class b tree were calculated only for trees with dbh ≥30 cm as such trees are regarded as mature trees (dof, 2004 and brown et al., 2020). the biomass of merchantable timber of log of class a tree and class b tree were estimated using following allometric equations adapted from petersson et al. (2012). merchantable weight of log of class a tree agtb = 0.0509 * ρ* d2* 6 (kg) merchantable weight of log of class b tree agtb= 0.0509 * ρ* d2 * 3 (kg) where, agtb = aboveground tree biomass (kg), ρ= wood specific gravity (g cm-3), d = tree diameter at breast height (cm), 6 and 3 are the lengths (m) of merchantable logs of class a and class b trees respectively. the biomass of firewood was calculated for timber yielding trees by subtracting the biomass of merchantable timber from the total agtb of trees. the total agtb of trees of class c were also accounted as fire wood biomass. these biomasses were converted into kg ha-1. economic valuation of merchantable timber and firewood as the merchantable timber are sold in cu ft measurement, biomass of merchantable timber of class a and class b trees in ton ha-1 were converted into volume (cubic feet) by multiplying with 40 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 23 shrestha et al. (wallis, 1970). market value of merchantable timber of class a and b were calculated by multiplying the merchantable volumes by the per cu ft market price of timber. unlike timber, the firewood is sold in per kg measurement. so, the market value of firewood was calculated by multiplying the firewood biomass by per kg market price of firewood. retail market prices of class a, class b logs and firewood of tree species were collected from the retail depots (n = 4) (ahmed, 2008). the average market prices were used for valuation. for the tree species for which market prices were not available (both timber and firewood), the average values of market prices of all tree species were used (bembenek et al., 2014). market values of timber of class a and class b were added to that of firewood to get the total economic value of individual tree species. all these values were then summed up to get the total economic value of all tree species except the bamboo. as bamboos are sold as culms (bhusal & bashyal, 2020), their merchantable values were calculated by multiplying the density per hectare by average market price. all these prices were then summed up to get the total merchantable value of wood in each stratum and the study area. economic values in npr were converted into us$ by multiplying with 129.8 (1 us$ = 129.8 npr, accessed on 11/7/2022) statistical analysis first the data were standardized. standardized values are calculated by subtracting the sample mean of each variable from each observation and dividing this difference by the sample standard deviation (gotelli & ellison, 2013). those values were then tested for normality. however, the data were not normal and their normality did not improve even after transformation so kruskalwallis test with post-hoc mann-whitney test at p ≤ 0.05 were used for comparison among groups. past (v 4.09; hammer et al., 2001) was used for analysis. results plant species diversity a total of 150 species of plants [trees (n=121) and shrubs (n=29)] belonging to 111 genera and 57 families were enumerated from the study area. though the average species richness was found to be higher in urban stratum than in suburban and rural strata, kruskal-wallis test followed by mann-whitney test showed that there are no significant differences among the strata (table 1 and table 2). table 1: species richness of trees outside forest along the urban-rural gradient in kathmandu valley, nepal. number of plots, species richness (range), species richness ha-1 and average species richness (ha-1) in three strata are shown. different superscript letters indicate statistical significance at p<0.05 (kruskal-wallis test followed by mann whitney test) strata number of plots species richness (range) species richness (ha-1) average species richness (ha-1) urban 88 109 (1-21) 9.85 55.95±31.67a suburban 73 89 (1-16) 9.7 46.31±26.99a rural 48 85 (2-15) 14.09 45.74±23.35a banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 24 shrestha et al. table 2: scientific name, vernacular name, english name, family and frequency of species of trees outside forest species found in the study area s.n. scientific name vernacular name english name growth form family frequency (%) 1 acacia catechu (l.f.) willd. khayar cutch tree tree leguminosae 0.48 2 acacia nilotica (l.) willd. ex del. babool gum arabic tree tree leguminosae 0.96 3 acer oblongum wall. ex dc. phirphire himalayan maple tree sapindaceae 0.48 4 agave cantula roxb. ketuke century plant shrub agavaceae 0.48 5 alangium chinense (lour.) harms baman patti chinese alangium tree alangiaceae 0.48 6 albizia julibrissin durazz. rato siris mimosa tree tree leguminosae 9.09 7 albizia procera (roxb.) benth. seto siris white siris tree tree leguminosae 0.96 8 alnus nepalensis d. don uttis alder tree betulaceae 10.05 9 alstonia neriifolia d. don tree apocynaceae 1.91 10 alstonia scholaris (l.) r. br. chatiwan devil's tree tree apocynaceae 3.35 11 anthocephalus chinensis (lam.) a. rich. ex walp. kadamgachi kadam tree rubiaceae 0.48 12 araucaria bidwillii hook. dhengre sallo monkey puzzle tree araucariaceae 6.70 13 araucaria columnaris j. r. forst & hook. coral reef araucaria tree araucariaceae 0.48 14 araucaria heterophylla (salisb.) franco living christmas tree tree araucariaceae 8.13 15 areca catechu l. bhale supari betel nut tree palmae 1.44 16 artocarpus integra (thumb.) merr. rookh katahar jack fruit tree moraceae 0.48 17 azadirachta indica a. juss. neem neem tree tree meliaceae 2.39 18 bambusa nepalensis stapleton bansa bamboo grass gramineae 3.83 19 bauhinia variegata l. koiralo purple orchid tree tree leguminosae 2.87 20 berberis asiatica roxb. ex dc. chutro barberry shrub berberidaceae 0.96 21 borassus flabellifer l. taad toddy palm tree palmae 5.74 22 bougainvillea glabra choisy kagaj phool paper flower shrub nyctaginaceae 2.39 23 brugmansia arborea pers. dhaturo angel's trumplet shrub solanaceae 1.91 24 buchanania latifolia roxb. chiraungi cuddaph almond tree anacardiaceae 0.48 25 buddleja asiatica lour. bhimsenpati butterfly bush shrub loganiaceae 8.61 26 burretiokentia vieillardii pic. serm. taad tiger palm tree palmae 0.48 27 callistemon citrinus (curtis) skeels kalki phool bottle brush tree myrtaceae 19.14 28 camellia japonica l. chinia guransa garden camellia shrub theaceae 0.96 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 25 shrestha et al. s.n. scientific name vernacular name english name growth form family frequency (%) 29 carica papaya l. mewa papaya tree caricaceae 2.39 30 carya illinoensis (wangenheim) k. koch picanut pecan tree juglandaceae 0.48 31 caryota urens l. jagar fishtail palm tree palmae 0.96 32 cassia fistula l. raj brichya cassia pods tree leguminosae 0.48 33 cassia mimosaides l. amala jhar tooth cup shrub leguminosae 0.48 34 casuarina equisetifolia l. jangali jhyau whistling pine tree casuarinaceae 0.48 35 cedrus deodara (roxb. ex d. don) g. don devdaru deodar tree pinaceae 0.96 36 celtis australis l. khari europian nettle tree tree ulmaceae 29.67 37 cestrum nocturnum l. rat ki rani night jasmine shrub solanaceae 0.48 38 choerospondias axillaris (roxb.) b.l.burtt & a.w.hill lapsi nepali hog plum tree anacardiaceae 11.96 39 cinnamomum camphora (l.) j. presl kapoor camphor tree lauraceae 41.15 40 cinnamomum tamala (buch-ham) nees & eberm. tejpatta cinnamon leaf tree lauraceae 0.48 41 citrus aurantifolia (christm) swingle kagati lemon tree rutaceae 5.74 42 citrus jambhiri lush. jyamir florida lemon tree rutaceae 0.96 43 citrus limon (l.) burn. f. nibuwa lime tree rutaceae 1.91 44 citrus maxima (burm.) herr. bhogate pummelo tree rutaceae 18.18 45 citrus reticulata blanco. suntala mandarin orange tree rutaceae 0.48 46 cotinus coggygria (scop.) rato peepal smoke bush shrub anacardiaceae 0.48 47 croton roxburghii balakrishnan ach croton tree euphorbeaceae 0.48 48 cycus pectinata buch.ham. kalbal cycus tree cycadaceae 0.96 49 cyphomandra betaceae (cav.) sendt tyamter tree tomato shrub solanaceae 0.96 50 dalbergia sissoo roxb. sisau indian rosewood tree leguminoceae 4.31 51 diospyros kaki thunb. haluwabed persimon tree ebenaceae 4.31 52 diploknema butyracea (roxb.) lam. chiuri butter fruit tree sapotaceae 0.48 53 duranta erecta l. nil kanda golden dewdrops shrub verbenaceae 0.96 54 elaeocarpus sphaericus (gaertn.) k. schum. rudrakshya utrasum bead tree tree elaeocarpaceae 5.74 55 eriobotrya japonica (thumb.) lindl. laukat loquat tree rosaceae 0.48 56 erythrina arborescens roxb. theki kath himlayan coral bean tree leguminosae 0.48 57 erythrina stricta roxb. phaledo indian coral tree tree leguminosae 1.91 58 eucalyptus camaldulensis dehn. masala river red gum tree myrtaceae 4.78 59 euphorbia pulcherrima willd. ex klotzsch lalupate poinsettia shrub euphorbeaceae 1.91 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 26 shrestha et al. s.n. scientific name vernacular name english name growth form family frequency (%) 60 ficus auriculata lour. timilo roxburgh fig tree moraceae 2.39 61 ficus benghalensis l. bar banyan fig tree moraceae 5.74 62 ficus benjamina l. sami weeping fig tree moraceae 4.78 63 ficus elastica roxb. rubber plant rubber plant tree moraceae 7.18 64 ficus lacor buch.-ham. kabhro java fig tree moraceae 5.26 65 ficus neriifolia sm. dudhilo willow leaf fig tree moraceae 0.48 66 ficus religiosa l. pipal sacred fig tree moraceae 25.84 67 ficus semicordata buch ham ex sm. khanayo drooping fig tree moraceae 0.48 68 fraxinus floribunda wall. lankure ash tree oleaceae 1.44 69 ginkgo biloba l. maidenhair tree tree ginkgoiaceae 0.48 70 gossypium arborium l. kapas cotton plant shrub malvaceae 0.48 71 grevillea robusta a. cunn. ex r. br. kagiyo silky oak tree proteaceae 29.19 72 hibiscus brackenridgei a. gray rose mallow shrub malvaceae 0.48 73 hibiscus rosa-sinensis l. ghanti phool china rose shrub malvaceae 1.44 74 homalium napaulense (dc.) benth. falame kanda tree flacourtiaceae 0.48 75 ilex excelsa (wall.) hook. fil. pwanle tree aquifoliaceae 1.44 76 jacaranda mimosifolia d.don nilo phool jacaranda tree bignoniaceae 19.14 77 jasminum mesnyi hance double jai primrose jasmine shrub oleaceae 0.48 78 juglans nigra l. hade okhar black walnut tree juglandaceae 4.31 79 juglans regia l. dante okhar english walnut tree juglandaceae 2.87 80 juniperus chinensis l. dhupi chinese juniper shrub cupressaceae 0.96 81 juniperus communis l. dhupi pencil cedar shrub cupressaceae 0.48 82 juniperus indica bertol. dhupi black juniper shrub cupressaceae 6.22 83 juniperus recurva buch.ham. ex d. don dhupi himalayan juniper tree cupressaceae 3.35 84 lagerstroemia indica l. asare phool crape myrtle tree lythraceae 12.44 85 lagerstroemia parviflora roxb. bot dhairo crepe flower tree lythraceae 0.48 86 lagerstroemia reginae roxb. thulo asare queen's crape myrtle shrub lythraceae 0.48 87 leucaena leucocephala (lam.) de wit epil ipil ipil tree leguminoseae 0.96 88 ligustrum confusum decne. kanike rookh privet tree oleaceae 0.48 89 lindera pulcherrima (nees) benth. ex hook. f. shyal phusre wild privet tree lauraceae 0.96 90 litchi chinensis sonner lichi lychee tree santalaceae 0.96 91 litsea monopetala (roxb.) pers. kutmiro manyflowered litsea tree lauraceae 3.83 92 macadamia integrifolia maiden & betche queensland nut tree proteaceae 0.48 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 27 shrestha et al. s.n. scientific name vernacular name english name growth form family frequency (%) 93 madhuca longofolia (koeing) chiuri macbride tree sapotaceae 0.48 94 magnolia soulangeana soul. neel kamal saucer magnolia tree magnoliaceae 0.48 95 mahonia nepaulensis dc. jamanemandro mahonia tree berberidaceae 0.48 96 malvaviscus arboreus cav. khursani phool turkcap shrub malvaceae 0.96 97 mangifera indica l. aap mango tree anacardiaceae 7.18 98 manglietia insignis (wall.) blume rookh kamal tree magnoliaceae 5.74 99 melia azedarach l. bakaino china berry tree meliaceae 14.35 100 michelia champaka l. champ champaca tree magnoliaceae 4.78 101 michelia fuscata bl. kankakchampa banana shrub shrub magnoliaceae 0.48 102 miliusa velutina (dunal) hook. f. & thombs kali kath velveti miliusa tree annonaceae 0.48 103 morus alba l. kimbu common mulberry tree moraceae 5.74 104 murraya koenigii (l.) sprengel kadi patta curry tree tree rutaceae 0.48 105 musa paradisiaca l. kera banana shrub musaceae 0.96 106 myrica esculenta buchham. ex d. don kafal box myrtale tree myricaceae 0.96 107 myrsine capitellata wall. seti kath tree myrsinaceae 0.48 108 nerium indicum miller karbir indian oleander tree apocynaceae 1.44 109 nerium oleander variegatum kannel kaner tree apocynaceae 2.39 110 nyctanthes arbor-tristis l. parijat coral jasmine tree oleaceae 7.66 111 persea americana mill. ghiu phal avocado tree lauraceae 8.61 112 persea duthiei (king ex hook. f.) kosterm. kaulo duthiei bay tree tree lauraceae 2.87 113 phoenix humilis royle. khajur dwarf date palm tree palmae 0.96 114 phoenix sylvestris roxb. taadi wild date palm tree palmae 0.48 115 phyllanths emblica l. amala emblic tree euphorbeaceae 2.87 116 pinus roxburghii sarg. khote salla chir pine tree pinaceae 14.35 117 platanus orientalis l. chinar oriental plane tree platanaceae 0.48 118 podocarpus neriifolius d. don gunsi oleander podocarp tree podocarpaceae 0.48 119 populus jacquemontiana dode. lahare pipal poplar tree salicaceae 11.96 120 prunus avium l. cherry sweet cherry tree rosaceae 0.48 121 prunus cerasoides d. don paiyun himalayan cherry tree rosaceae 9.57 122 prunus domestica l. aaloo bokhada europian plum shrub rosaceae 7.18 123 prunus persica (l.) batsch aaroo peach tree rosaceae 8.61 124 psidium guajava l. amba guava tree myrtaceae 17.22 125 punica granatum l. anar pomegranate tree punicaceae 4.78 126 pyrus communis l. naspati europian pear tree rosaceae 0.48 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 28 shrestha et al. s.n. scientific name vernacular name english name growth form family frequency (%) 127 pyrus crenata buch. ham. ex d. don. naspati wild pear tree rosaceae 0.96 128 pyrus malus l. syau apple tree rosaceae 0.96 129 pyrus pashia buch.ham. ex d. don. mayal wild himalayan pear tree rosaceae 5.74 130 pyrus pyrifolia (burn.) nak. naspati asian pear tree rosaceae 9.57 131 quercus glauca thumb. falant ring-cupped oak tree fagaceae 0.48 132 rhododendron arboreum smith lali guransa tree rhododendron tree ericaceae 0.96 133 ricinus communis l. andir castor bean shrub euphorbiaceae 0.48 134 salix tetrasperma roxb. bainsa indian willow tree salicaceae 11.00 135 sambucus hookeri rehder galeni elder tree sambucaceae 6.70 136 sapindus mukorossi gaertn. rittha soap berry tree sapindaceae 0.96 137 schefflera impressa (c. b. clarke) harms simaal schefflera vine tree araliaceae 1.44 138 schima wallichii (dc.) korth. chilaune needlewood tree tree theaceae 6.22 139 spathodea campanulata p. beauv african tulip tree tree bignoniaceae 0.48 140 syzygium cumini (l) skeels jamuna malabar plum tree myrtaceae 8.61 141 syzygium jambos (l.) alston gulab jamun rose apple tree myrtaceae 2.87 142 tecoma stans (l.) h. b. k. ghata pushpi yellow bell shrub bignoniaceae 0.96 143 thespesia lampas (cav.) dalz. & gibs. ban kapas common mallow shrub malvaceae 1.91 144 thuja orientalis l. mayur pankhi cedar tree cupressaceae 29.19 145 toona ciliata m. roem. tooni indian cedar tree meliaceae 0.48 146 trachycarpus sp. h. wendl. taad fan palm tree palmae 0.96 147 vitex negundo l. simali five-leaved chaste tree shrub verbenaceae 0.96 148 woodfordia fruticosa (l.) kurz dhangero fire flame bush shrub lythraceae 0.48 149 zanthoxylum armatum dc. timur prickly ash tree rutaceae 0.48 150 ziziphus incurva roxb. hade bayar bead plum tree rhamnaceae 1.44 tree density, tree height and stem dbh the average tree density in the study area was 236.35±173.12 ha-1. maximum height of the tree was 31.50 m with an average of 6.83±3.77 m. similarly, maximum dbh of the stem was 203 cm with an average of 21.44±19.49 cm. the average tree density was higher in suburban stratum (248.44±198.56 ha-1) than in urban (232.58±155.08 ha-1) and rural (224.88±165.31 ha-1) strata (table 3). however, the difference was not significant. the tallest tree (31.50 m) and widest tree (203 cm) were found in urban stratum. the urban stratum was found to have significantly taller and wider trees than suburban and rural strata (table 3). banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 29 shrestha et al. table 3: average tree density (±sd), maximum and average (±sd), tree height and maximum and average (±sd) stem dbh of trees outside forest along the urban-rural gradient in kathmandu valley, nepal. different superscript letters indicate statistical significance at p<0.05. strata average tree density (number of stem ha-1) tree height (m) stem dbh (cm) maximum average maximum average urban 232.58±155.08 a 31.5 7.64±4.63a 203 22.80±19.85a suburban 248.44±198.56 a 20.3 6.43±2.97bc 157.3 20.36±16.80b rural 224.88±165.31 a 23 5.92±2.68c 187 20.62±22.59b tree density by quality class and stem diameter class the average density of merchantable trees of quality class a, quality class b and quality class c in the study are were 20.90±37.01 ha-1, 13.09±22.16 ha-1 and 202.37±178.53 ha-1 respectively. the average density of merchantable trees of quality class a was found to be significantly higher (p<0.05) in urban stratum than in rural stratum but that did not differ significantly from that in suburban stratum (table 4). moreover, the differences in average densities of merchantable trees of quality class b and c were not significant among three strata (p<0.05). similarly, the average stem densities of diameter classes 5-9.90 cm, 10-19.90 cm, 20-29.90 cm and ≥ 30 cm in the study area were found to be 79.51±107.30 ha -1, 64.28±77.09 ha-1, 34.94±36.62 ha-1 and 57.24±60.92 ha-1 respectively (table 4). there were no significant differences in the average stem densities across different strata except for the diameter class 20-29.90 cm. urban and suburban strata were found to have significant stem density of diameter class 20-29.90 cm than the rural stratum (table 4). table 4: average densities (±sd) of trees by tree quality classes and stem diameter classes of trees outside forest along the urban-rural gradient in kathmandu valley, nepal. different superscript letters indicate statistical significance at p<0.05. strata average density of trees by quality class (ha-1) average stem density by diameter class (ha-1) (cm) a b c 5-9.90 10-19.90 20-29.90 ≥30 urban 28.20±45.50a 15.37±23.57 a 189.02±160.72 a 66.26±93.69 a 68.97±71.06 a 37.06±35.84a 60.29±60.12 a suburban 18.85±29.60ab 11.77±21.87 a 217.83±207.20 a 87.83±119.45 a 61.35±83.17 a 40.10±43.78a 59.17±67.38 a rural 10.61±25.96b 10.94±19.87 a 203.35±163.62 a 92.80±111.09 a 60.16±79.29 a 23.20±20.75b 48.72±51.80 a volume and biomass of merchantable timber and firewood out of 53 tree species with merchantable timber recorded in the study area, 13 species could yield timber of quality class a, 13 could yield timber of quality class b, while 27 could yield timber of both quality class a and b (appendix i). the total volume of merchantable timber in the study area was 625.51 cu ft ha -1 with 549.33 cu ft ha -1 and 76.18 cu ft ha -1 as volumes of merchantable timber class a and class b. total biomass of firewood was 50840.85 kg ha-1. the volume of merchantable timber was highest in the urban stratum followed by rural and suburban strata while biomass of firewood was highest in urban stratum followed by suburban and rural strata (table 5). https://frtc.gov.np/downloadfile/shrestha%20etall%20appendix_1672983385.pdf?fbclid=iwar2ejun79jcdgh9cvpgdyimrov-7lfowzbappcctcpa9s8if3ysscihkwcq banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 30 shrestha et al. table 5: volume of merchantable timber and biomass of firewood from trees outside forest along the urban-rural gradient in kathmandu valley, nepal. volume ha-1 by quality class and total volume ha-1 of merchantable timber and total biomass ha-1 of firewood strata class a timber (cu ft ha-1) class b timber (cu ft ha -1) total timber (cu ft ha -1) firewood (kg ha -1) urban 537.08 84.88 621.96 55835.49 suburban 250.04 47.31 297.35 39410.01 rural 442.94 66.82 509.76 39032.12 market value of merchantable wood the total market values were calculated based on the per unit market price of the timber and firewood in the study area (appendix ii). based upon the market values of individual tree species. (appendix iii), the total market values of timber class a, timber class b, total timber, firewood and total wood from the tof were found to be npr. 746,613 (us$ 5,752), npr. 96,358 (us$ 742), npr. 842,971 (us$ 6,494), npr. 516,612 (us$ 3,980) and npr. 1362,880 (us$ 10,500) ha-1. the market value of total merchantable timber was highest in the rural stratum followed by urban and suburban strata while that of firewood was highest in urban stratum followed by suburban and rural strata (appendix iv, appendix v, appendix vi and table 6). cinnamomum camphora was the tree species with highest market value of timber class a, timber class b, total timber and total wood value ha-1 as (npr. 229,851) (us$ 1,771), (npr. 17,399) (us$ 134), (npr. 247,250) (us$ 1,905) and (npr. 2,96,101) (us$ 2,281) in the study area (table 7). pinus roxburghii was the tree species with highest market value of firewood as (npr. 63,793) (us$ 491) here. rural stratum had the highest merchantable values for timber class a in c. camphora, for total timber in c. camphora, for firewood in eucalyptus camaldulensis and for total wood in c. camphora while the urban stratum had the highest merchantable value for timber class b in c. camphora. economically, c. camphora, recorded from 86 plots and p. roxburghii recorded from 30 plots showed the highest merchantable timber and firewood values respectively in the study area. 32 timber class a and 49 timber class b logs of c. camphora were estimated from the study sites. c. camphora was second highest expensive species, the retail market prices of which varied from npr 2200 to 3200. e. camaldulensis, s. cumini and f. floribunda were other tree species with more economic valuations. local merchantable market prices matter during valuation because they vary for a single species. table 6: market values (mv) of merchantable wood i.e., timber plus firewood from trees outside forest along the urban-rural gradient in kathmandu valley, nepal. market values of timber of class a and b, total timber, firewood and total wood in npr and us$ strata mv of timber class a (npr ha-1) us$ mv of timber class b (npr ha-1) us$ mv of total timber (npr ha-1) us$ mv of firewood (npr ha-1) us$ mv of total wood (npr ha-1) us$ urban 698,567 5,382 108,255 834 806,821 6,216 488,709 3,765 1,295,531 9,981 suburban 383,485 2,954 60,759 468 444,244 3,423 444,104 3,421 888,828 6,848 rural 789,871 6,085 80,539 620 870,410 6,706 380,303 2,930 1,250,713 9,636 https://frtc.gov.np/downloadfile/shrestha%20etall%20appendix_1672983385.pdf?fbclid=iwar2ejun79jcdgh9cvpgdyimrov-7lfowzbappcctcpa9s8if3ysscihkwcq https://frtc.gov.np/downloadfile/shrestha%20etall%20appendix_1672983385.pdf?fbclid=iwar2ejun79jcdgh9cvpgdyimrov-7lfowzbappcctcpa9s8if3ysscihkwcq banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 31 shrestha et al. table 7: tree species and their market values (mv) of timber class a, timber class b, total timber, fire wood and the total wood in different strata of the study area strata species mv of timber class a (npr ha-1) us$ species mv of timber class b (npr ha-1) us$ species mv of total timber (npr ha-1) us$ species mv of firewood (npr ha-1) us$ species mv of total wood (npr ha-1) us$ urban cinnamomum camphora 218,142 1,681 cinnamomum camphora 31,077 239 cinnamomum camphora 249,219 1,920 pinus roxburghii 86,736 668 cinnamomum camphora 315,156 2,428 suburban eucalyptus camaldulensis 116,498 898 syzigium cumini 16,069 124 eucalyptus camaldulensis 120,125 925 pinus roxburghii 91,760 707 syzigium cumini 175,826 1,355 rural cinnamomum camphora 530,006 4,083 fraxinus floribunda 15,196 117 cinnamomum camphora 543,055 4,184 eucalyptus camaldulensis 92,461 712 cinnamomum camphora 591,656 4,558 discussion a total of 150 plant species were reported from the study area (table 2). vakhlamova et al. (2014) found slightly high species richness (160) in urban–rural gradient in kazakhstan. it might be due to enumeration of all vascular plants regardless of dbh in the study. moreover, thompson (2010) found comparatively less species diversity (22) from in khartoum, sudan. it is possibly due to enumeration of only the living fences in the urban and suburban gardens where homogeneity of species occurs. species richness in terms of stratum area (ha-1) was higher in rural stratum than in urban and suburban strata (table 1). vakhlamova et al. (2014) also found an increasing trend of species richness from urban to rural in urban–rural gradient in kazakhstan, western siberia. this pattern can be explained by the fact that plant life forms and evolutionary strategies do not follow any urban-rural gradient, rather are affected by varied habitat and landscape features. in addition, reduced suitable habitats for plants in densely built-up urban areas and excessive trampling of vegetated patches might cause decrease in plant diversity (aronson et al., 2014). average species richness (ha-1) was higher in urban stratum than in suburban and rural strata which are due to trees were planted types in the urban stratum while majority of them were natural woodlots in remaining strata. tree density in the present study area was found higher than that in tof in morang (15 ha-1) (dfrs, 2007) and nawalparasi (10 ha-1) districts (kharal et al., 2008) which might be due to dominance of agricultural lands and less tree plantation culture in terai area. the average tree density was found more in suburban stratum than in urban and rural strata which is due to abundance of trees with 20-29.9 stem diameter class indicating more branched trees here. the higher average tree density in urban stratum than in rural in this study (table 3) showed the similar patterns in morang and nawalparasi districts (dfrs, 2007; kharal et al., 2008) this pattern could be due to plantation drives (also includes exotic species) during panchayat regime in the urban areas in kathmandu valley and major other urban areas (goutam, 2018). moreover, rural people cut down the trees for domestic use. the average trees heights and average dbh also followed the same distribution pattern (dfrs, 2007 and kharal et al., 2008). average density of tree quality class a and b were found more in urban stratum than in suburban and rural strata whereas that of tree quality class c was found more in rural stratum than in suburban and urban strata (table 4). this is supported by the occurrence of more average stem density and distribution of mature trees (≥30) in the urban stratum. this is due to more abundance of such mature trees eucalyptus camaldulensis, ficus elastica, jacaranda mimosifolia etc.) in the parks, roads, river and stream lines etc. whereas due to less dominance of such sized trees, rural stratum had less average tree density with dominance of smaller stem diameter class. furthermore, both tallest tree and widest tree were also recorded in urban stratum. out of four stem diameter classes, dominance of smaller diameter class (5-9.90 cm and 10-19.90 cm) in the urban stratum in the study area (table 4) is similar as morgenroth et al. (2020) reported in america’s urban forests as > 40% of trees in banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 32 shrestha et al. the smallest dbh class (< 15 cm) which could be attributed to preference for smaller ornamental trees as bottle brush, albizia, junipers etc. in urban areas or a recent increase in tree planting efforts. a greater proportion of stem diameter classes of 10-19.9 cm and ≥ 30 cm in urban stratum were also same as morgenroth et al. (2020) found the dominance of 16–45 cm dbh class in urban forests. this may be due to existence of youthful trees. as regards the stem densities of diameter classes 5-9.90 cm, 10-19.90 cm, 20-29.90 cm and ≥ 30 cm in kathmandu valley, values are higher than those reported from morang (dfrs, 2007) and nawalparasi (kharal et al., 2008); that could be attributed to less planted trees in both morang district and nawalparasi district. further, stem density of lower diameter class (5-9.90 cm) was higher in rural stratum than that in suburban and urban strata whereas stem densities of higher diameters were higher in urban and suburban strata except for trees of diameter 20-29.9 cm which showed uneven distribution. this result is consistent with the findings reported from morang district (dfrs, 2007), but different from that reported from nawalparasi district (kharal et al., 2008). this could be due to more naturally regenerated trees in rural stratum in both morang and the study area. also, tree plantation drive earlier during rana regime and panchayat regime would have contributed to this pattern of tree size class distribution (goutam, 2018). tof are important in terms of wood production. dfrs (2015), on the basis of fao recommendation, has stated that 13.29% of middle mountains forests have the potential of timber production. this study shows slightly higher value (14.38%) of timber production by tof. similar results are found in india (fsi, 2011; ghosh & sinha, 2018) as well as in kerala, india (krishnankutty et al., 2008). but yadav et al. (2020) reported higher percentage of timber production (25.17%) from tof in dhangadhi municipality, siraha district, nepal which is due to more distribution of planted tree species with wider dbh there. in a study by bembenek et al. (2014), high mean tree height, mean dbh and high mean volume of merchantable timber with low mean tree density of scots pine were reported. the higher volumes of merchantable timbers of class a and class b in the urban stratum than in rural and suburban strata in the study area could be due to distribution of more mature and taller trees. it might be due to conservation of the old trees in the parks, road sides, river lines, pond lines, etc. similarly, lower volumes of merchantable timbers of class a and class b in the rural stratum might be due to lesser tree density as well as less dominance of stem density of ≥ 30 diameter class. conclusions urban tof are important in terms of species diversity whereas suburban tof are richer in terms of density. due to the presence of large sized tree species planted during rana regime, urban tof have taller and wider trees. due to more tree density of timber class a and class b in urban stratum, volumes of total merchantable timber along with timber class a and class b and biomass of merchantable firewood were also found higher here. rural tof are economically more important. due to high market prices of the wood of tree species recorded in rural stratum, market value of timber class a and total timber were found higher in rural stratum than the others. urban tof are also economically important because it showed high market value for b class timber, firewood and total wood. in terms of tof species, c. camphora and p. roxburghii were found to be economically more important as they showed the highest merchantable timber and firewood values. people should be encouraged for afforestation in tof areas with these species which offers opportunity of timber availability and could help in local livelihood. on the other hand, import of wood and wooden materials could be minimized as well as urban greenery would be enhanced. acknowledgements mr. mahendra shrestha, mr. mayukh shrestha, mrs. laxmi joshi shrestha, mrs. prativa neupane and local people are acknowledged for their support during data collection. mr. mayukh shrestha helped in developing sampling location points map of the study area. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 33 shrestha et al. references ahmed, p. 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(2009). global wood density database. dryad. identifier: http:// hdl.handle.net/10255/dryad.235. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 1 shrestha et al. appendix i number of trees outside forest by species and timber quality classes measured for the estimation of volume and biomass of the merchantable timber sn species vernacular name number of trees class a class b 1 acacia catechu khayar 1 2 albizia julibrissin rato siris 12 3 3 albizia procera seto siris 4 4 alnus nepalensis uttis 5 14 5 araucaria bidwillii dhengre sallo 5 1 6 araucaria heterophylla dhengre salla 1 3 7 areca catechu bhale supari 4 2 8 borassus flabellifer taad 1 9 buddleja asiatica bhimsenpati 3 10 burretiokentia vieillardii tiger palm 1 11 callistemon citrinus kalki phool 1 8 12 casuarina equisetifolia jangali jhau 1 3 13 celtis australis khari 8 9 14 choerospondias axillaris lapsi 15 5 15 cinnamomum camphora kapoor 49 32 16 dalbergia sissoo sisau 1 3 17 elaeocarpus sphaericus rudraksha 2 18 eucalyptus camaldulensis masala 36 12 19 ficus auriculata timilo 1 20 ficus benghalensis bar 4 21 ficus benjamina sami 1 22 ficus elastica rubber plant 1 2 23 ficus lacor kabhro 8 24 ficus religiosa pipal 28 10 25 fraxinus floribunda lankuri 6 26 grevillea robusta kagiyo 67 36 27 homalium napaulense falame kanda 1 28 jacaranda mimosifolia nilo phool 22 17 29 juglans nigra hade okhar 1 2 30 juglans regia dante okhar 2 1 31 juniperus recurva dhupi 1 1 32 lindera pulcherrima shyal fushre 1 33 litsea monopetala kutmiro 3 34 mangifera indica aanp 2 35 melia azedarach bakaino 1 36 michelia champaka champ 1 1 37 myrica esculenta kafal 1 38 nyctanthes arbor-tristis parijat 2 39 persea americana ghiu phal 2 3 40 pinus roxburghii khote salla 5 18 41 platanus orientalis chinar 5 42 podocarpus neriifolius gunsi 2 43 populus jacquemontiana lahare pipal 23 12 44 prunus cerasoides painyu 3 1 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 2 shrestha et al. sn species vernacular name number of trees class a class b 45 pyrus pashia mayal 1 46 rhododendron arboreum lali gurans 1 47 salix tetrasperma bainsa 2 48 schima wallichii chilaune 17 5 49 spathodea campanulata 1 50 syzygium cumini jamun 6 7 51 syzygium jambos gulab jamun 2 52 thuja orientalis mayur pankhi 12 6 53 ziziphus incurva hade bayar 8 appendix ii market price (mp) of merchantable timber and firewood in kathmandu valley, nepal. *maximum, **minimum and ***average sn species mp of timber class a (cu ft. -1) mp of timber class b (cu ft. -1) mp of fire wood (kg-1) max* min** av*** max min av 1 acacia catechu 1100 1100 900 900 9.86 2 albizia julibrissin 1452 1165 9.86 3 albizia procera 1452 1165 9.86 4 alnus nepalensis 800 525 663 700 700 6 5 araucaria bidwillii 1300 1050 1175 1150 1150 6 6 araucaria heterophylla 1200 1100 1150 1000 1000 6 7 areca catechu 1300 1300 900 900 9.86 8 borassus flabellifer 1452 1165 9.86 9 buddleja asiatica 1452 1165 9.86 10 burretiokentia vieillardii 1452 1165 9.86 11 callistemon citrinus 1452 1165 9.86 12 casuarina equisetifolia 1452 1165 9.86 13 celtis australis 1000 1000 700 700 9.86 14 choerospondias axillaris 700 650 675 600 600 6 15 cinnamomum camphora 2200 3200 2700 2000 2000 9.86 16 dalbergia sissoo 2500 6500 4500 2000 3000 2500 16 17 elaeocarpus sphaericus 1452 1165 9.86 18 eucalyptus camaldulensis 1300 2000 1650 1100 1400 1250 16 19 ficus auriculata 1452 1165 9.86 20 ficus benghalensis 1452 1165 9.86 21 ficus benjamina 1452 1165 9.86 22 ficus elastica 1452 1165 9.86 23 ficus lacor 1452 1165 9.86 24 ficus religeosa 700 700 600 600 9.86 25 fraxinus floribunda 1452 1165 9.86 26 grevillea robusta 800 800 1165 7 27 homalium napaulense 1452 1165 9.86 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 3 shrestha et al. sn species mp of timber class a (cu ft. -1) mp of timber class b (cu ft. -1) mp of fire wood (kg-1) max* min** av*** max min av 28 jacaranda mimosifolia 1452 1165 9.86 29 juglans nigra 1452 1165 9.86 30 juglans regia 1452 1165 9.86 31 juniperus recurva 1452 1165 9.86 32 lindera pulcherrima 1452 1165 9.86 33 litsea monopetala 1452 1165 9.86 34 magnifera indica 1050 1050 1165 8 35 melia azedarch 1452 1165 9.86 36 michelia champaka 1452 1165 9.86 37 myrica esculenta 1452 1165 9.86 38 persea americana 1452 1165 9.86 39 phoenix sylvestris 1000 1000 900 900 9.86 40 pinus roxburghii 1800 3600 2700 2700 2700 16 41 platanus orientalis 1452 1165 9.86 42 podocarpus neriifolius 1452 1165 9.86 43 populus jacquemontiana 550 550 1165 7 44 prunus cerasoides 900 900 800 800 7 45 pyrus pashia 1452 1165 9.86 46 rhododendron arboreum 1400 1400 1100 1100 9.86 47 salix tetrasperma 1452 1165 9.86 48 schima wallichii 1100 650 875 800 800 6 49 spathodea campanulata 1452 1165 9.86 50 syzigium cumini 1400 3000 2200 1200 1200 16 51 syzigium jambos 3050 3050 1165 15 52 thuja orientalis 1452 1165 9.86 53 ziziphus incurva 800 800 1165 9.86 1452 1165 9.86 54 bambusa nepalensis** **market price ranged from npr 210-420 with the average price npr 315. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 4 shrestha et al. appendix iii total market value (mv) of class a timber, class b timber, total timber, firewood and wood in the study area sn species total mv of timber class a (npr ha-1) total mv of timber class b (npr ha-1) total mv of total timber (npr ha-1) total mv of fire wood (npr ha-1) total mv of wood (npr ha-1) 1 cinnamomum camphora 229851.10 17399.08 247250.18 48850.59 296100.77 2 schima wallichii 130209.91 5045.35 135255.26 8623.72 143878.98 3 pinus roxburghii 35764.81 16550.56 52315.37 63792.83 116108.19 4 eucalyptus camaldulensis 52300.14 1885.26 54185.41 42417.02 96602.43 5 ficus religeosa 38367.50 2431.66 40799.16 34526.56 75325.72 6 syzigium cumini 32545.79 5612.76 38158.55 36249.56 74408.11 7 grevillea robusta 32433.85 6931.04 39364.90 32311.10 71676.00 8 jacaranda mimosifolia 36207.46 4149.46 40356.92 19877.31 60234.23 9 populus jacquemontiana 11655.63 6645.28 18300.91 21232.49 39533.40 10 celtis australis 6261.26 3213.15 9474.41 27060.54 36534.95 11 albizia julibrissin 13862.81 759.17 14621.98 11810.10 26432.09 12 araucaria bidwillii 17991.43 505.37 18496.81 5184.19 23680.99 13 thuja orientalis 6946.61 1153.78 8100.39 15552.98 23653.36 14 callistemon citrinus 2042.93 5415.71 7458.64 11783.83 19242.47 15 ficus lacor 16951.15 0.00 16951.15 708.73 17659.88 16 litsea monopetala 17094.64 0.00 17094.64 521.06 17615.70 17 choerospondias axillaris 6290.36 973.81 7264.17 7726.15 14990.31 18 rhododendron arboreum 0.00 818.14 818.14 13173.07 13991.21 19 syzigium jambos 13333.15 0.00 13333.15 322.73 13655.89 20 dalbergia sissoo 4759.29 1333.06 6092.35 6428.49 12520.84 21 morus australis 0.00 0.00 0.00 10852.03 10852.03 22 ziziphus incurva 8216.28 0.00 8216.28 2548.88 10765.16 23 melia azedarch 385.14 0.00 385.14 8431.25 8816.39 24 casuarina equisetifolia 686.48 1044.48 1730.96 6430.28 8161.24 25 alnus nepalensis 1499.03 1473.51 2972.54 5053.95 8026.49 26 juglans nigra 502.47 1382.57 1885.05 5856.57 7741.62 27 albizia procera 5508.75 0.00 5508.75 1760.91 7269.66 28 salix tetrasperma 0.00 527.40 527.40 6617.94 7145.34 29 ficus elastica 2739.55 271.11 3010.66 4105.11 7115.77 30 fraxinus floribunda 0.00 3489.98 3489.98 2813.24 6303.22 31 persea americana 3234.73 950.37 4185.10 1894.76 6079.86 32 araucaria heterophylla 2004.87 1765.63 3770.49 1700.37 5470.86 33 anthocephalus chinensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 4936.62 4936.62 34 prunus cerasoides 1147.91 376.18 1524.08 2416.24 3940.33 35 magnifera indica 0.00 507.61 507.61 3343.07 3850.68 36 ficus benjamina 1173.03 0.00 1173.03 2326.47 3499.50 37 cassia fistula 0.00 0.00 0.00 3238.48 3238.48 38 areca catechu 1447.31 534.31 1981.63 1250.63 3232.26 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 5 shrestha et al. sn species total mv of timber class a (npr ha-1) total mv of timber class b (npr ha-1) total mv of total timber (npr ha-1) total mv of fire wood (npr ha-1) total mv of wood (npr ha-1) 39 ficus benghalensis 0.00 575.30 575.30 2385.13 2960.44 40 juniperus recurva 758.14 379.92 1138.05 1580.33 2718.38 41 borassus flabellifer 1619.02 0.00 1619.02 891.65 2510.67 42 citrus maxima 0.00 0.00 0.00 2414.72 2414.72 43 platanus orientalis 2104.49 0.00 2104.49 302.98 2407.47 44 podocarpus neriifolius 2140.32 0.00 2140.32 177.74 2318.06 45 michelia champaka 1844.05 0.00 1844.05 417.18 2261.23 46 lagerstroemia indica 0.00 0.00 0.00 2142.11 2142.11 47 juglans regia 1202.57 219.15 1421.72 660.68 2082.39 48 pyrus pyrifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 2053.11 2053.11 49 elaeocarpus sphaericus 1086.35 0.00 1086.35 638.96 1725.31 50 myrica esculenta 0.00 773.83 773.83 768.61 1542.44 51 homalium napaulense 1423.89 0.00 1423.89 8.06 1431.95 52 psidium guajava 0.00 0.00 0.00 1409.06 1409.06 53 diospiros kaki 0.00 0.00 0.00 1348.03 1348.03 54 spathodea campanulata 1018.55 0.00 1018.55 118.54 1137.09 55 nyctanthes arbor-tristis 0.00 0.00 0.00 986.84 986.84 56 buddleja asiatica 0.00 307.13 307.13 660.85 967.99 57 pyrus pashia 0.00 170.64 170.64 759.00 929.65 58 manglietia insignis 0.00 0.00 0.00 900.95 900.95 59 erythrina arborescens 0.00 0.00 0.00 785.68 785.68 60 prunus domestica 0.00 0.00 0.00 744.51 744.51 61 prunus persica 0.00 0.00 0.00 734.26 734.26 62 lindera pulcherrima 0.00 0.00 0.00 630.67 630.67 63 nerium indicum 0.00 0.00 0.00 613.95 613.95 64 pyrus malus 0.00 0.00 0.00 609.22 609.22 65 citrus jambhiri 0.00 0.00 0.00 546.68 546.68 66 carya illinoensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 441.64 441.64 67 bauhinia variegata 0.00 0.00 0.00 431.49 431.49 68 cycus pectinata 0.00 0.00 0.00 430.36 430.36 69 phoenix humilis 0.00 0.00 0.00 383.50 383.50 70 bougainvillea glabra 0.00 0.00 0.00 382.51 382.51 71 musa paradisiaca 0.00 0.00 0.00 381.83 381.83 72 phoenix sylvestris 0.00 203.02 203.02 170.06 373.08 73 persea duthiei 0.00 0.00 0.00 360.86 360.86 74 ficus auriculata 0.00 170.71 170.71 165.08 335.79 75 burretiokentia vieillardii 0.00 181.61 181.61 128.05 309.65 76 macadamia integrifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 298.33 298.33 77 ilex excelsa 0.00 0.00 0.00 295.60 295.60 78 juniperus indica 0.00 0.00 0.00 284.71 284.71 79 litchi chinensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 264.11 264.11 80 citrus aurantifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 246.76 246.76 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 6 shrestha et al. sn species total mv of timber class a (npr ha-1) total mv of timber class b (npr ha-1) total mv of total timber (npr ha-1) total mv of fire wood (npr ha-1) total mv of wood (npr ha-1) 81 sambucus hookeri 0.00 0.00 0.00 245.08 245.08 82 acacia catechu 0.00 230.85 230.85 2.22 233.07 83 caryota uens 0.00 0.00 0.00 193.38 193.38 84 michelia fuscata 0.00 0.00 0.00 167.78 167.78 85 juniperus chinensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 167.70 167.70 86 leucaena leucocephala 0.00 0.00 0.00 159.42 159.42 87 punica granatum 0.00 0.00 0.00 158.83 158.83 88 phyllanths emblica 0.00 0.00 0.00 154.19 154.19 89 myrsine capitellata 0.00 0.00 0.00 90.57 90.57 90 cestrum nocturnum 0.00 0.00 0.00 90.46 90.46 91 azadirachta indica 0.00 0.00 0.00 86.06 86.06 92 toona ciliate 0.00 0.00 0.00 81.35 81.35 93 erythrina stricta 0.00 0.00 0.00 73.10 73.10 94 quercus glauca 0.00 0.00 0.00 65.27 65.27 95 madhuca longofolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 64.32 64.32 96 thespesia lampas 0.00 0.00 0.00 64.19 64.19 97 ficus semicordata 0.00 0.00 0.00 64.01 64.01 98 acacia nilotica 0.00 0.00 0.00 63.65 63.65 99 tecoma stans 0.00 0.00 0.00 61.21 61.21 100 lagerstoemia reginae 0.00 0.00 0.00 59.11 59.11 101 cedrus deodara 0.00 0.00 0.00 56.25 56.25 102 alstonia scholaris 0.00 0.00 0.00 54.95 54.95 103 ficus neriifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 53.49 53.49 104 zanthoxylum armatum 0.00 0.00 0.00 45.03 45.03 105 duranta erecta 0.00 0.00 0.00 44.69 44.69 106 cinnamomum tamala 0.00 0.00 0.00 40.11 40.11 107 prunus avium 0.00 0.00 0.00 30.71 30.71 108 nerium oleander variegatum 0.00 0.00 0.00 30.36 30.36 109 brugmansia arborea 0.00 0.00 0.00 30.34 30.34 110 araucaria columnaris 0.00 0.00 0.00 30.23 30.23 111 cassia mimosaides 0.00 0.00 0.00 26.09 26.09 112 lagerstroemia parviflora 0.00 0.00 0.00 25.70 25.70 113 euphorbia pulcherrima 0.00 0.00 0.00 25.22 25.22 114 citrus reticulata 0.00 0.00 0.00 21.91 21.91 115 croton ruxburghii 0.00 0.00 0.00 20.90 20.90 116 pyrus crenata 0.00 0.00 0.00 20.03 20.03 117 ginkgo biloba 0.00 0.00 0.00 18.92 18.92 118 woodfordia fruticosa 0.00 0.00 0.00 18.57 18.57 119 trachycarpus sp. 0.00 0.00 0.00 17.59 17.59 120 ligustrum confusum 0.00 0.00 0.00 16.33 16.33 121 schefflera impress 0.00 0.00 0.00 15.97 15.97 122 hibiscus rosa-sinensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 15.24 15.24 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 7 shrestha et al. sn species total mv of timber class a (npr ha-1) total mv of timber class b (npr ha-1) total mv of total timber (npr ha-1) total mv of fire wood (npr ha-1) total mv of wood (npr ha-1) 123 miliusa ventulina 0.00 0.00 0.00 14.48 14.48 124 atrocarpus integra 0.00 0.00 0.00 12.28 12.28 125 malvaviscus arboreus 0.00 0.00 0.00 12.21 12.21 126 berberis asiatica 0.00 0.00 0.00 10.92 10.92 127 murraya koenigii 0.00 0.00 0.00 10.82 10.82 128 mahonia nepaulensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 9.45 9.45 129 gossypium arborium 0.00 0.00 0.00 9.34 9.34 130 carica papaya 0.00 0.00 0.00 8.36 8.36 131 citrus limon 0.00 0.00 0.00 7.78 7.78 132 sappindus mukorossi 0.00 0.00 0.00 7.16 7.16 133 diploknema butyracea 0.00 0.00 0.00 6.88 6.88 134 acer oblongum 0.00 0.00 0.00 6.47 6.47 135 buchanania latifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 6.24 6.24 136 magnolia soulangeana 0.00 0.00 0.00 6.07 6.07 137 juniperus communis 0.00 0.00 0.00 5.19 5.19 138 agave cantula 0.00 0.00 0.00 4.08 4.08 139 pyrus communis 0.00 0.00 0.00 3.12 3.12 140 hibiscus brackenridgei 0.00 0.00 0.00 3.08 3.08 141 alangium chinense 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.17 2.17 142 jasminum mesneyi 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.98 1.98 143 alstonia neriifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.83 1.83 144 cotinus coggygria 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.70 1.70 145 cyphomandra betaceae 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.70 1.70 146 ricinus communis 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.26 1.26 147 camellia japonica 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.26 1.26 148 vitex negundo 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.02 1.02 149 eriobotrya japonica 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.71 0.71 total 746612.77 96357.93 842970.71 516612.30 1359583.00 150 bambusa nepalensis 3297.32 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 8 shrestha et al. appendix iv total market value (mv) of class a timber, class b timber total timber, firewood and wood in the urban stratum sn species total mv of timber class a (npr ha-1) total mv of timber class b (npr ha-1) total mv of total timber (npr ha-1) total mv of fire wood (npr ha-1) total mv of wood (npr ha-1) 1 cinnamomum camphora 218141.88 31076.60 249218.48 65937.02 315155.50 2 pinus roxburghii 79497.15 22072.30 101569.45 86736.31 188305.76 3 grevillea robusta 46577.99 815.28 47393.26 52477.73 99870.99 4 jacaranda mimosifolia 56982.34 8298.60 65280.95 27181.30 92462.25 5 ficus religeosa 66501.12 5147.44 71648.56 4221.87 75870.43 6 populus jacquemontiana 23080.86 4349.91 27430.76 37544.38 64975.15 7 albizia julibrissin 37363.78 1803.03 39166.81 24259.07 63425.88 8 litsea monopetala 40599.77 0.00 40599.77 17241.14 57840.91 9 celtis australis 10279.77 6055.56 16335.33 25971.62 42306.95 10 ziziphus incurva 28416.77 0.00 28416.77 10216.07 38632.84 11 callistemon citrinus 4851.97 8508.65 13360.61 11984.08 25344.70 12 choerospondias axillaris 13848.19 1388.81 15237.01 8544.26 23781.27 13 eucalyptus camaldulensis 13287.23 1469.27 14756.51 8507.40 23263.91 14 syzigium jambos 12095.47 0.00 12095.47 9118.30 21213.77 15 ficus lacor 27.73 0.00 27.73 13319.88 13347.61 16 dalbergia sissoo 0.00 1957.63 1957.63 8156.72 10114.35 17 elaeocarpus sphaericus 2580.08 0.00 2580.08 6646.44 9226.52 18 ficus elastica 6506.43 0.00 6506.43 1683.22 8189.65 19 melia azedarch 0.00 0.00 0.00 6904.49 6904.49 20 araucaria heterophylla 4761.56 0.00 4761.56 2001.45 6763.01 21 areca catechu 3437.37 1269.00 4706.37 1793.72 6500.09 22 casuarina equisetifolia 1630.39 2480.64 4111.03 2374.40 6485.43 23 araucaria bidwillii 1285.58 1200.26 2485.84 3722.20 6208.04 24 salix tetrasperma 0.00 0.00 0.00 5855.73 5855.73 25 podocarpus neriifolius 5083.27 0.00 5083.27 422.13 5505.40 26 thuja orientalis 2642.17 802.64 3444.80 1933.69 5378.49 27 ficus benjamina 2785.94 0.00 2785.94 2417.31 5203.25 28 citrus maxima 0.00 0.00 0.00 4855.18 4855.18 29 prunus cerasoides 1956.38 893.42 2849.80 1799.36 4649.15 30 borassus flabellifer 3845.17 0.00 3845.17 681.79 4526.96 31 schima wallichii 0.00 545.38 545.38 3949.17 4494.55 32 syzigium cumini 2252.60 0.00 2252.60 1819.19 4071.79 33 juglans regia 2856.10 0.00 2856.10 1128.44 3984.54 34 ficus benghalensis 0.00 1366.35 1366.35 2417.31 3783.66 35 juglans nigra 1193.37 578.73 1772.10 1503.91 3276.01 36 spathodea campanulata 2419.06 0.00 2419.06 281.54 2700.59 37 lindera pulcherrima 0.00 1519.97 1519.97 1139.44 2659.41 38 nyctanthes arbor-tristis 1779.44 0.00 1779.44 611.27 2390.71 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 9 shrestha et al. sn species total mv of timber class a (npr ha-1) total mv of timber class b (npr ha-1) total mv of total timber (npr ha-1) total mv of fire wood (npr ha-1) total mv of wood (npr ha-1) 39 manglietia insignis 0.00 0.00 0.00 2030.45 2030.45 40 buddleja asiatica 0.00 729.44 729.44 1186.28 1915.72 41 pyrus pyrifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 1862.01 1862.01 42 magnifera indica 0.00 505.68 505.68 1235.19 1740.87 43 persea americana 0.00 1210.42 1210.42 334.99 1545.40 44 morus australis 0.00 0.00 0.00 1475.62 1475.62 45 lagerstroemia indica 0.00 0.00 0.00 1165.61 1165.61 46 pyrus pashia 0.00 0.00 0.00 1054.78 1054.78 47 carya illinoensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 1048.91 1048.91 48 prunus domestica 0.00 0.00 0.00 886.63 886.63 49 psidium guajava 0.00 0.00 0.00 880.43 880.43 50 phoenix humilis 0.00 624.14 624.14 242.04 866.18 51 bauhinia variegate 0.00 0.00 0.00 793.05 793.05 52 acacia catechu 0.00 548.27 548.27 200.16 748.43 53 ficus auriculata 0.00 405.44 405.44 185.81 591.25 54 burretiokentia vieillardii 0.00 431.31 431.31 152.05 583.37 55 albizia procera 0.00 0.00 0.00 563.25 563.25 56 diospiros kaki 0.00 0.00 0.00 526.05 526.05 57 rhododendron arboreum 0.00 0.00 0.00 522.36 522.36 58 prunus persica 0.00 0.00 0.00 501.73 501.73 59 michelia champaka 0.00 0.00 0.00 369.66 369.66 60 juniperus indica 0.00 0.00 0.00 357.43 357.43 61 caryota uens 0.00 0.00 0.00 353.78 353.78 62 juniperus chinensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 324.97 324.97 63 bougainvillea glabra 0.00 0.00 0.00 303.61 303.61 64 sambucus hookeri 0.00 0.00 0.00 290.09 290.09 65 alnus nepalensis 0.00 200.38 200.38 48.89 249.26 66 myrsine capitellata 0.00 0.00 0.00 215.11 215.11 67 cestrum nocturnum 0.00 0.00 0.00 214.84 214.84 68 azadirachta indica 0.00 0.00 0.00 200.99 200.99 69 punica granatum 0.00 0.00 0.00 198.72 198.72 70 toona ciliate 0.00 0.00 0.00 193.20 193.20 71 erythrina stricta 0.00 0.00 0.00 173.61 173.61 72 acacia nilotica 0.00 0.00 0.00 151.16 151.16 73 lagerstoemia reginae 0.00 0.00 0.00 140.39 140.39 74 cedrus deodara 0.00 0.00 0.00 96.65 96.65 75 prunus avium 0.00 0.00 0.00 72.93 72.93 76 alstonia scholaris 0.00 0.00 0.00 71.31 71.31 77 cassia mimosaides 0.00 0.00 0.00 61.97 61.97 78 lagerstroemia parviflora 0.00 0.00 0.00 61.04 61.04 79 murraya koenigii 0.00 0.00 0.00 54.64 54.64 80 croton ruxburghii 0.00 0.00 0.00 49.65 49.65 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 10 shrestha et al. sn species total mv of timber class a (npr ha-1) total mv of timber class b (npr ha-1) total mv of total timber (npr ha-1) total mv of fire wood (npr ha-1) total mv of wood (npr ha-1) 81 woodfordia fruticosa 0.00 0.00 0.00 44.11 44.11 82 euphorbia pulcherrima 0.00 0.00 0.00 43.15 43.15 83 trachycarpus sp. 0.00 0.00 0.00 41.77 41.77 84 anthocephalus chinensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 40.80 40.80 85 miliusa ventulina 0.00 0.00 0.00 34.38 34.38 86 juniperus recurva 0.00 0.00 0.00 32.15 32.15 87 citrus aurantifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 32.15 32.15 88 atrocarpus integra 0.00 0.00 0.00 29.16 29.16 89 schefflera impress 0.00 0.00 0.00 26.83 26.83 90 mahonia nepaulensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 22.44 22.44 91 gossypium arborium 0.00 0.00 0.00 21.38 21.38 92 hibiscus rosa-sinensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 16.43 16.43 93 diploknema butyracea 0.00 0.00 0.00 16.35 16.35 94 buchanania latifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 14.81 14.81 95 carica papaya 0.00 0.00 0.00 11.79 11.79 96 brugmansia arborea 0.00 0.00 0.00 11.73 11.73 97 nerium indicum 0.00 0.00 0.00 11.54 11.54 98 agave cantula 0.00 0.00 0.00 9.70 9.70 99 pyrus communis 0.00 0.00 0.00 7.40 7.40 100 alangium chinense 0.00 0.00 0.00 5.15 5.15 101 ilex excelsa 0.00 0.00 0.00 4.35 4.35 102 malvaviscus arboreus 0.00 0.00 0.00 4.22 4.22 103 citrus limon 0.00 0.00 0.00 3.33 3.33 104 cycus pectinata 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.84 2.84 105 cyphomandra betaceae 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.84 2.84 106 pyrus crenata 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.72 2.72 107 hibiscus brackenridgei 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.54 2.54 108 leucaena leucocephala 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.53 1.53 109 duranta erecta 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.19 1.19 total 698566.90 108254.54 806821.45 488709.35 1295530.80 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 11 shrestha et al. appendix v total market value (mv) of class a timber, class b timber total timber, firewood and wood in the suburban stratum sn species total mv of timber class a (npr ha-1) total mv of timber class b (npr ha-1) total mv of timber (npr ha-1) total mv of firewood (npr ha-1) total mv of wood (npr ha-1) 1 syzigium cumini 90463.58 16069.40 106532.98 69292.58 175825.56 2 eucalyptus camaldulensis 116498.43 3626.36 120124.79 43566.07 163690.86 3 pinus roxburghii 6562.96 11555.17 18118.13 91759.95 109878.08 4 grevillea robusta 36709.76 7373.00 44082.76 20351.36 64434.12 5 cinnamomum camphora 35550.69 3884.10 39434.79 18590.60 58025.39 6 ficus religeosa 12719.51 0.00 12719.51 23900.10 36619.61 7 jacaranda mimosifolia 20164.82 1876.16 22040.98 13853.31 35894.29 8 celtis australis 1075.70 0.00 1075.70 28165.46 29241.16 9 populus jacquemontiana 5546.74 2249.78 7796.52 19240.47 27036.99 10 thuja orientalis 5176.58 2692.54 7869.13 16631.19 24500.31 11 dalbergia sissoo 13625.91 1456.68 15082.59 6972.09 22054.68 12 albizia procera 15771.63 0.00 15771.63 4362.51 20134.14 13 persea americana 9261.08 1261.78 10522.86 6990.81 17513.67 14 callistemon citrinus 0.00 3489.63 3489.63 10963.11 14452.74 15 melia azedarch 1102.66 0.00 1102.66 11750.18 12852.83 16 salix tetrasperma 0.00 1509.94 1509.94 8109.41 9619.36 17 alnus nepalensis 317.51 0.00 317.51 8460.25 8777.76 18 platanus orientalis 6562.96 0.00 6562.96 1905.56 8468.52 19 albizia julibrissin 4425.72 0.00 4425.72 2311.63 6737.36 20 michelia champaka 1948.49 1336.32 3284.81 1027.14 4311.95 21 ficus benjamina 0.00 0.00 0.00 3746.69 3746.69 22 choerospondias axillaris 0.00 1113.85 1113.85 2592.33 3706.18 23 juniperus recurva 0.00 0.00 0.00 3663.34 3663.34 24 ficus elastica 0.00 776.18 776.18 2532.25 3308.43 25 psidium guajava 0.00 0.00 0.00 2680.57 2680.57 26 lagerstroemia indica 0.00 0.00 0.00 2267.55 2267.55 27 schima wallichii 0.00 0.00 0.00 2228.98 2228.98 28 nyctanthes arbor-tristis 0.00 0.00 0.00 1934.05 1934.05 29 nerium indicum 0.00 0.00 0.00 1297.75 1297.75 30 pyrus pashia 0.00 488.55 488.55 689.38 1177.93 31 fraxinus floribunda 0.00 0.00 0.00 1073.71 1073.71 32 ficus benghalensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 980.59 980.59 33 citrus maxima 0.00 0.00 0.00 909.40 909.40 34 ilex excelsa 0.00 0.00 0.00 840.25 840.25 35 persea duthiei 0.00 0.00 0.00 835.80 835.80 36 prunus cerasoides 0.00 0.00 0.00 657.47 657.47 37 pyrus pyrifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 656.44 656.44 38 borassus flabellifer 0.00 0.00 0.00 595.64 595.64 39 litsea monopetala 0.00 0.00 0.00 570.37 570.37 40 mangifera indica 0.00 0.00 0.00 407.03 407.03 41 bauhinia variegate 0.00 0.00 0.00 368.94 368.94 42 araucaria bidwillii 0.00 0.00 0.00 359.50 359.50 43 musa paradisiaca 0.00 0.00 0.00 304.09 304.09 44 morus australis 0.00 0.00 0.00 300.92 300.92 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 12 shrestha et al. sn species total mv of timber class a (npr ha-1) total mv of timber class b (npr ha-1) total mv of timber (npr ha-1) total mv of firewood (npr ha-1) total mv of wood (npr ha-1) 45 prunus domestica 0.00 0.00 0.00 222.97 222.97 46 macadamia integrifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 205.26 205.26 47 quercus glauca 0.00 0.00 0.00 186.86 186.86 48 tecoma stans 0.00 0.00 0.00 175.25 175.25 49 punica granatum 0.00 0.00 0.00 165.48 165.48 50 ficus auriculata 0.00 0.00 0.00 163.78 163.78 51 sambucus hookeri 0.00 0.00 0.00 152.22 152.22 52 erythrina stricta 0.00 0.00 0.00 151.56 151.56 53 elaeocarpus sphaericus 0.00 0.00 0.00 142.61 142.61 54 juglans nigra 0.00 0.00 0.00 139.43 139.43 55 zanthoxylum armatum 0.00 0.00 0.00 128.92 128.92 56 caryota uens 0.00 0.00 0.00 127.17 127.17 57 duranta erecta 0.00 0.00 0.00 126.53 126.53 58 cinnamomum tamala 0.00 0.00 0.00 114.82 114.82 59 nerium oleander variegatum 0.00 0.00 0.00 102.67 102.67 60 prunus persica 0.00 0.00 0.00 93.89 93.89 61 araucaria heterophylla 0.00 0.00 0.00 83.56 83.56 62 thespesia lampas 0.00 0.00 0.00 79.43 79.43 63 buddleja asiatica 0.00 0.00 0.00 79.41 79.41 64 brugmansia arborea 0.00 0.00 0.00 72.71 72.71 65 alstonia scholaris 0.00 0.00 0.00 71.36 71.36 66 ficus lacor 0.00 0.00 0.00 63.76 63.76 67 citrus reticulata 0.00 0.00 0.00 62.72 62.72 68 ginkgo biloba 0.00 0.00 0.00 54.16 54.16 69 pyrus crenata 0.00 0.00 0.00 53.46 53.46 70 juniperus indica 0.00 0.00 0.00 49.44 49.44 71 cedrus deodara 0.00 0.00 0.00 44.54 44.54 72 diospiros kaki 0.00 0.00 0.00 41.65 41.65 73 citrus aurantifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 34.67 34.67 74 phyllanths emblica 0.00 0.00 0.00 34.12 34.12 75 bougainvillea glabra 0.00 0.00 0.00 28.74 28.74 76 manglietia insignis 0.00 0.00 0.00 21.51 21.51 77 sappindus mukorossi 0.00 0.00 0.00 20.51 20.51 78 acer oblongum 0.00 0.00 0.00 18.54 18.54 79 citrus jambhiri 0.00 0.00 0.00 14.97 14.97 80 juniperus communis 0.00 0.00 0.00 14.85 14.85 81 litchi chinensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 14.05 14.05 82 carica papaya 0.00 0.00 0.00 11.70 11.70 83 ficus neriifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 9.52 9.52 84 leucaena leucocephala 0.00 0.00 0.00 8.54 8.54 85 lindera pulcherrima 0.00 0.00 0.00 5.72 5.72 86 euphorbia pulcherrima 0.00 0.00 0.00 4.78 4.78 87 azadirachta indica 0.00 0.00 0.00 4.11 4.11 88 vitex negundo 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.92 2.92 89 eriobotrya japonica 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.03 2.03 total 383484.73 60759.45 444244.18 444103.69 888347.87 90 bambusa nepalensis 480.60 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 13 shrestha et al. appendix vi total market value (mv) of class a timber, class b timber total timber, firewood and wood in the rural stratum sn species total mv of timber class a (npr ha-1) total mv of timber class b (npr ha-1) total mv of timber (npr ha-1) total mv of fire wood (npr ha-1) total mv of wood (npr ha-1) 1 cinnamomum camphora 530006.08 13048.76 543054.83 48601.00 591655.83 2 eucalyptus camaldulensis 57242.12 0.00 57242.12 92461.20 149703.32 3 araucaria bidwillii 75980.80 0.00 75980.80 14848.05 90828.86 4 schima wallichii 69857.04 5333.48 75190.52 15101.95 90292.47 5 ficus religeosa 25795.52 1150.89 26946.41 21470.64 48417.05 6 pinus roxburghii 0.00 14024.52 14024.52 18569.22 32593.74 7 fraxinus floribunda 0.00 15195.97 15195.97 10616.39 25812.36 8 celtis australis 6780.38 2888.70 9669.08 14539.97 24209.05 9 alnus nepalensis 6044.14 6048.56 12092.70 9049.47 21142.17 10 cassia fistula 0.00 0.00 0.00 14100.90 14100.90 11 grevillea robusta 0.00 0.00 0.00 13663.08 13663.08 12 thuja orientalis 5252.10 628.00 5880.10 6919.95 12800.06 13 mangifera indica 0.00 1283.15 1283.15 11367.58 12650.73 14 jacaranda mimosifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 10047.75 10047.75 15 callistemon citrinus 0.00 2674.56 2674.56 6996.16 9670.72 16 juglans nigra 0.00 4958.96 4958.96 4636.77 9595.73 17 araucaria columnaris 0.00 4794.32 4794.32 2802.80 7597.12 18 choerospondias axillaris 2000.91 0.00 2000.91 5570.79 7571.69 19 prunus cerasoides 1411.48 0.00 1411.48 6112.71 7524.19 20 juniperus recurva 3301.05 1744.45 5045.51 1851.27 6896.77 21 myrica esculenta 0.00 2916.77 2916.77 3346.65 6263.43 22 homalium napaulense 6199.86 0.00 6199.86 35.07 6234.93 23 melia azedarch 0.00 0.00 0.00 6182.76 6182.76 24 salix tetrasperma 0.00 0.00 0.00 5747.06 5747.06 25 pyrus pyrifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 4527.58 4527.58 26 araucaria heterophylla 0.00 2893.51 2893.51 1453.27 4346.78 27 lagerstroemia indica 0.00 0.00 0.00 3592.83 3592.83 28 pyrus malus 0.00 0.00 0.00 2652.63 2652.63 29 litchi chinensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 2421.60 2421.60 30 prunus persica 0.00 0.00 0.00 2134.46 2134.46 31 populus jacquemontiana 0.00 0.00 0.00 2028.17 2028.17 32 ficus elastica 0.00 0.00 0.00 1598.28 1598.28 33 juglans regia 0.00 954.20 954.20 495.06 1449.26 34 ilex excelsa 0.00 0.00 0.00 1304.13 1304.13 35 borassus flabellifer 0.00 0.00 0.00 1282.70 1282.70 36 prunus domestica 0.00 0.00 0.00 1277.13 1277.13 37 nyctanthes arbor-tristis 0.00 0.00 0.00 1132.92 1132.92 38 ficus benghalensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 1117.54 1117.54 39 persea duthiei 0.00 0.00 0.00 1067.52 1067.52 40 bougainvillea glabra 0.00 0.00 0.00 1065.18 1065.18 41 phoenix humilis 0.00 0.00 0.00 1058.54 1058.54 42 phyllanths emblica 0.00 0.00 0.00 619.48 619.48 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 14 shrestha et al. sn species total mv of timber class a (npr ha-1) total mv of timber class b (npr ha-1) total mv of timber (npr ha-1) total mv of fire wood (npr ha-1) total mv of wood (npr ha-1) 43 juniperus indica 0.00 0.00 0.00 473.45 473.45 44 psidium guajava 0.00 0.00 0.00 444.45 444.45 45 diospiros kaki 0.00 0.00 0.00 414.54 414.54 46 pyrus pashia 0.00 0.00 0.00 322.64 322.64 47 persea americana 0.00 0.00 0.00 305.10 305.10 48 madhuca longofolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 280.04 280.04 49 sambucus hookeri 0.00 0.00 0.00 243.11 243.11 50 erythrina stricta 0.00 0.00 0.00 232.33 232.33 51 citrus maxima 0.00 0.00 0.00 229.85 229.85 52 ficus neriifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 218.45 218.45 53 bauhinia variegate 0.00 0.00 0.00 185.18 185.18 54 manglietia insignis 0.00 0.00 0.00 167.68 167.68 55 elaeocarpus sphaericus 0.00 0.00 0.00 166.31 166.31 56 thespesia lampas 0.00 0.00 0.00 158.67 158.67 57 juniperus chinensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 158.51 158.51 58 ficus auriculata 0.00 0.00 0.00 129.05 129.05 59 michelia fuscata 0.00 0.00 0.00 122.79 122.79 60 buddleja asiatica 0.00 0.00 0.00 78.12 78.12 61 punica granatum 0.00 0.00 0.00 75.58 75.58 62 berberis asiatica 0.00 0.00 0.00 47.56 47.56 63 malvaviscus arboreus 0.00 0.00 0.00 45.44 45.44 64 rhododendron arboreum 0.00 0.00 0.00 36.33 36.33 65 hibiscus rosa-sinensis 0.00 0.00 0.00 36.24 36.24 66 schefflera impress 0.00 0.00 0.00 31.76 31.76 67 citrus jambhiri 0.00 0.00 0.00 28.27 28.27 68 citrus limon 0.00 0.00 0.00 27.78 27.78 69 magnolia soulangeana 0.00 0.00 0.00 26.41 26.41 70 euphorbia pulcherrima 0.00 0.00 0.00 23.43 23.43 71 ligustrum confusum 0.00 0.00 0.00 20.98 20.98 72 ficus semicordata 0.00 0.00 0.00 20.49 20.49 73 hibiscus brackenridgei 0.00 0.00 0.00 13.40 13.40 74 albizia julibrissin 0.00 0.00 0.00 9.67 9.67 75 jasminum mesneyi 0.00 0.00 0.00 8.62 8.62 76 citrus aurantifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 8.20 8.20 77 alstonia neriifolia 0.00 0.00 0.00 7.96 7.96 78 cotinus coggygria 0.00 0.00 0.00 7.39 7.39 79 syzigium cumini 0.00 0.00 0.00 7.28 7.28 80 michelia champaka 0.00 0.00 0.00 6.55 6.55 81 ricinus communis 0.00 0.00 0.00 5.50 5.50 82 camellia japonica 0.00 0.00 0.00 5.47 5.47 83 cyphomandra betaceae 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.18 2.18 84 carica papaya 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.94 1.94 total 789871.48 80538.80 870410.27 380302.94 1250713.22 85 bambusa nepalensis 5077.39 camscanner 06-20-2025 10.09 https://v3.camscanner.com/user/download https://v3.camscanner.com/user/download 3 remote sensing is a common approach for monitoring land-use and land use change to quantify the impacts on the earth's system. over the past decades, significant changes in the remote sensing field have made land monitoring more cost-effective and technically feasible. access of moderate to high-resolution satellite imageries such as landsat, sentinel and open source software have facilitated the remote sensing users to monitor land resources and provided the end-use products. land cover patterns on the earth have been impacted by several anthropogenic activities and thus, influence the biophysical processes (li and shao, 2014). a variety of social and biophysical factors are responsible for land use and land cover change at several spatialand temporal-levels (briassoulis, 2004). for instance, conversion of natural ecosystems for agricultural practices has been a primary factor in land use and land cover change (ramankutty and foley, 1999). although the information derived from forest and other land cover analysis provides a key input for policy formulation and management decisions, a handful of national-level forest and land cover assessments have been conducted in nepal. however, the approach adopted for those forest and other land cover assessment in nepal using collect earth a. khadka1*, m. dhungana2, s. khanal3 and d. k. kharal4 1 forest research and training centre (frtc), babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal, *e-mail: ananda.khadka@nepal.gov.np, anandakhadka@gmail.com 2 ministry of forests and environment, singh durbar, kathmandu, nepal 3 hawkesbury institute for the environment, western sydney university, australia 4 ministry of industry, tourism, forest and environment, gandaki province, pokhara, nepal periodic monitoring of land cover is essential to examine the total extent and changes over time. information derived from forest and other land cover analysis provides key input for policy formulation and management decisions. land cover patterns on the earth are constantly being changed by different human activities, thereby influencing biophysical processes. analysis and mapping of land cover are important aspects in management, planning and monitoring of forest resources. thus, we designed this study to assess national-level forest and land cover using the openforis collect earth and compare the results with other assessments. we generated a number of systematic sampling points across the country and visually interpreted each of them on this platform to assess the land cover type. furthermore, we adopted six land cover classes as prescribed by the ipcc good practice guidance. our study provided the current status of forest and other different land cover classes. forest occupied 6.54 million ha (44.47%) followed by other land 4.22 million ha (28.68%) of the total area of nepal, respectively. besides, cropland, settlement, wetland and grassland covered 3.22 million ha, 0.17 million ha, 0.18 million ha and 0.38 million ha, respectively. the overall accuracy of the interpretation of all the land cover classes was found to be more than 98%. comparing the results with the past studies, the calculated results of forest, cropland, settlement and wetland were found to be reliable for reporting purpose. however, further studies are necessary to generate more reliable results in terms of the other land and grassland. keywords: collect earth, forest resource assessment, land cover, visual interpretation banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1, 2020 pp 3‒11https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i1.29176 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 4 khadka et al. assessments were not consistent and comparable to each other (figure 1). figure 1: history of land cover assessments in nepal notes: 1) * different physiographical regions of nepal; 2) lrmp: land resources mapping project, jafta: japan foresters' technical association, and icimod: international centre for integrated mountain development periodic monitoring of land cover is essential to examine the total extent and changes over time. thus, analysis and mapping of land cover play an important role in management, monitoring and planning of land resources (aspinall and hill, 2007; foody and atkinson, 2003). in this regard, this study aimed to analyze the forest and land cover of nepal using the openforis collect earth and compare the results with other assessments. materials and methods study area the study area covers the entire area of nepal which is located between 26°22'–30°27′ n latitudes and 80°04'–88°12' e longitudes (figure 2). it has a considerable variation in elevation ranging from flat plains as low as 70 m above the sea-level in the south to 8,848 m (mt. everest) on the north (lrmp, 1986). politically, the country is divided into seven federal states and 77 districts. the temperature and precipitation vary with the vertical terrain which consists of 118 ecosystems, 75 vegetation types, and 35 types of forest (mofsc, 2014). apart from the topographical, meteorological, and socio-economic variations, it has a diverse and complex land cover (bhattarai et al., 2009). the major land cover types mainly include forests (broad-leaved, needle-leaved, and mixed), croplands, shrub-lands, grasslands, bare lands, and permanent ice/snow (wang, 2004; uddin et al., 2014). the study was conducted in 2018. figure 2: topographical map of nepal banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 5 khadka et al. review of different classification methods several approaches have been used in land cover classification and analysis. uddin et al., (2014) adopted a harmonized and standardized classification scheme with 12 classes using the land cover classification system (lccs) while developing the 2010 national land cover database for nepal. they have adopted the geographic object-based image analysis (geobia) technique for image classification. geobia is a methodological framework for the machinebased interpretation of complex classes defined by spectral, spatial, contextual, and hierarchical properties (duro et al., 2012). lei et al. (2017) used an object-based classification method to produce the nepal cover-2010 product and adopted a two-level classification system with 8 and 31 classes at the first and second level, respectively. conversely, a study on land cover of the asmara region in eritrea adopted both pixel-based and object-oriented classifiers to compare the results from two different approaches wherein the overall accuracy for an object-based approach was found to be higher (85%) than that of the pixel-based approach (78%, araya and hergarten, 2008). presently, a number of open-source software and free satellite imageries are available for land use/ land cover analysis (table 1), out of which the collect earth is more comprehensive with varied functionalities as it provides instant access to both very-high spatial and very-high temporal resolution data within a simple framework built upon google technologies (openforis, 2018). table 1: overview of different freely available softwares for land use/ land cover analysis source: bey et al. (2016) land cover classes altogether, 36,843 sample points were generated systematically at a spacing of 2 km × 2 km grid over the map of nepal, out of which 36,773 were visually interpreted on the openforis collect earth to assess the land cover type. collect earth, an open-source tool developed by the food and agriculture organization of the united nations, is used to facilitate land data collection, management and analysis (openforis, 2018). it can be also used for a wide variety of purposes including land cover assessments, national forest inventories and quantifying deforestation. adoption of land cover classes depends on the purpose of assessment. thus, the classes which are used at national, regional and/or international levels are rarely consistent. consequently, various studies conducted on the assessment of land use/land cover in nepal in different years had adopted varied types of land use/ land cover classes (table 2). banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 6 khadka et al. table 2: land use/ land cover classes used in different land use studies in nepal project organisation land use/ land cover classes first nfi (1960s) foresc [7 classes]: 1. forest, 2. cropland, 3. grassland, 4. urban areas, 5. water bodies, 6. badly eroded lands, and 7. barren lands lrmp (1970s/80s) survey dept. [5 classes]: 1. cultivated land, 2. non-cultivated land, 3. grazing (grassland) area, 4. forest and shrub area, and 5. rocks, ice, water bodies, settlements and others wecs (1988) wecs [6 classes]: 1. forest, 2. shrub-land, 3. grassland, 4. cultivated land, 5. non-cultivated inclusion, and 6. other land mpfs (1988) mofsc [6 classes]: 1. forest, 2. shrub-land, 3. grassland, 4. cultivated land, 5. non-cultivated inclusion, and 6. other land second nfi (1989−1992) dfrs [3 classes]: 1. forest, 2. shrub-land, and 3. non-forest land cover mapping (2010) icimod [7 classes]: 1. forest, 2. shrub-land, 3. grassland, 4. agriculture, 5. barren areas, 6. snow, and 7. built-up areas fra nepal (2010−2014) dfrs/fra [3 classes]: 1. forest, 2. other wooded land, and 3. other land topographic mapping (1995) survey dept. [7 classes]: 1. agriculture, 2. built-up area, 3. forest, 4. riverine and lake areas, 5. shrub and grassland, 6. snow/ glaciers, and 7. others land use policy (molrm, 2015) molrm [11 classes]: 1. agriculture, 2. residential areas, 3. commercial areas, 4. industrial areas, 5. mines, 6. cultural heritage areas, 7. water bodies, 8. forest, 9. public-use zones, 10. construction-material extraction areas, and 11. others note: nfi: national forest inventory; lrmp: land resource mapping project; wecs: water and energy commission secretariat; mpfs: master plan for the forestry sector; fra: forest resource assessment; mofsc: ministry of forests and soil conservation; dfrs: department of forest research and survey; icimod: international centre for integrated mountain development; molrm: ministry of land reform and management. in this study, we adopted the land cover classes prescribed in the "good practice guidance for land use, land use change and forestry" developed by the international panel on climate change (ipcc, 2003). the ipcc has broadly classified land cover classes into six categories (table 3). those categories can be considered as top-level for designating land areas within a country, and are consistent with the ipcc guidelines and the requirements of the kyoto protocol (ipcc, 2003). nevertheless, the land cover/land use classes can be further subdivided as per the national requirements. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 7 khadka et al. table 3: top-level land categories prescribed in the good practice guidance of ipcc s.n. land categories description 1. forest land this category includes all lands with woody vegetation consistent with thresholds used to define forest land in the national ghg inventory, subdivided into managed and unmanaged, and also by ecosystem type as specified in the ipcc guidelines. it also includes systems with vegetation that currently fall below, but are expected to exceed, the threshold of the forest land category. 2. cropland this category includes arable and tillage lands and agro-forestry systems where vegetation falls below the thresholds used for the forest land category, consistent with the selection of national definitions. 3. grassland this category includes rangelands and pasture lands which are not considered as cropland. it also includes systems with vegetation that falls below the thresholds used in the forest land category and are not expected to exceed, without human intervention, the threshold used in the forest land category. the category also includes all grasslands from wildlands to recreational areas as well as agricultural and silvi-pastoral systems, subdivided into managed and unmanaged consistent with national definitions. 4. wetlands this category includes lands which are covered or saturated by water for all or part of the year (e.g. peatland) and which do not fall into the forest land, cropland, grass land or settlements categories. the category can be subdivided into managed and unmanaged according to national definitions. it includes reservoirs as managed sub-division and natural rivers and lakes as unmanaged sub-divisions. 5. settlements this category includes all developed lands including transportation infrastructure and human settlements of any size, unless they are already included under other categories. this should be consistent with the selection of national definitions. 6. other land this category includes bare soil, rock, ice, and all unmanaged land areas that do not fall into any of the other five categories. it allows the total of identified land areas to match the national area, where data are available. source: ipcc (2003) accuracy assessment although accuracy assessment is important for traditional remote sensing techniques, with the advent of more advanced digital satellite remote sensing the necessity of performing an accuracy assessment has received new interest (congalton, 1991). accuracy assessment in any study is considered as an integral part. it should usually be performed with reference to some ancillary data such as aerial photographs, previously prepared maps or even high-resolution satellite imagery or field verification. however, since the results of this study were not compared with other ancillary data and also could not generate sufficient data from field verification, an error matrix approach was performed on the individual land cover classes interpreted (figure 3). 16354 8045 10548 954 448 424 1 10 100 1000 10000 100000 forest cropland other land grassland wetland settlement total number of sample points by land cover classes figure 3: total numbers of sample points by land cover classes banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 8 khadka et al. a set of around 5% of the total sample points (1,871) was selected systematically at an interval of 20 with a random start as test data sets. the reason behind the systematic selection of sample points was to incorporate data from all physiographic regions. the data were more carefully interpreted by an independent expert. the outcomes from those independent visual interpretations of the same sample points were arranged as a confusion matrix, and the overall accuracy of the interpretation was calculated. results and discussion current land cover status of nepal the results from this study provide the current status of forest and other different land cover classes. forest occupies 6.54 million ha which is equivalent to 44.47% of the total area of nepal (figure 4). secondly, other land occupies 4.22 million ha, equivalent to 28.68% of the total area of the country. then after, cropland occupies 3.22 million ha which is 21.88% of the total area of the country. settlement and wetland, on the other hand, cover 0.17 million ha and 0.18 million ha representing 1.15% and 1.22% of the total area of the country, respectively. regarding grassland, only 0.38 million ha (equivalent to 2.60% of the country area) are estimated in this assessment. figure 4: current land cover status of nepal forest cover of nepal this study has revealed the present forest cover of nepal to be 6.54 m ha which is equivalent to 44.47% of the total area of the country. according to the latest forest resource assessment of nepal (fra 2010−2014), forest and other wooded land covered 5.96 and 0.65 million ha respectively which together occupied 44.74% of the total area of the country (dfrs, 2015). table 4 below highlights the comparison of forest cover assessed from this study with the ones obtained from the past assessments conducted in nepal. table 4: forest cover of nepal as assessed from different assessments land cover lrmp 1978/79 nrsc 1984 master plan 1985/86 wecs 1988 nfi 1994 survey dept. 1995 jafta 2000/01 fra 2010−2014 this study 2018 forest 38 35.9* 37.4 38.1 29 38.3 37.3 40.36 44.47 shrub 4.7 4.8 4.7 10.6 9.3 4.38** forest + shrub 42.7 35.9* 42.2 42.8 39.6 38.3 46.6 44.74 44.47 *including some shrub areas; **other wooded land source: dfrs (2015) accuracy assessment comparison of the test sample points (1,871) against the subset of large regular plots for the same showed that the interpretation was consistent. the overall accuracy of the interpretation of all the land cover classes was found to be 98.5%. the classwise accuracies are presented in table 5. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 9 khadka et al. table 5: accuracy of visual interpretations expert interpretation (accuracy assessment) cr op la nd fo re st g ra ss la nd o th er la nd se ttl em en t w et la nd to ta l ac cu ra cy o rig in al in te rp re ta tio n cropland 438 4 0 1 1 1 445 98.43% forest 2 821 0 1 0 0 824 99.64% grassland 0 0 6 1 0 0 7 85.71% other land 2 1 5 540 0 1 549 98.36% settlement 0 0 0 1 23 0 24 95.83% wetland 0 1 0 1 0 20 22 90.91% total 442 827 11 545 24 22 1,871 several studies have been conducted in the past with an aim to quantify the status of land use/ land cover. figures 5−8 represent the proportion of the country by different land cover/landuse classes from those studies. however due to inconsistencies on methods and adopted classes among those studies, a thorough comparison of different time periods is rather difficult. source: lrmp, 1986 figure 5: land use status by lrmp in 1986 source: wecs, 1988 figure 6: land use status by wecs in 1978/79 source: mpfs, 1988 figure 7: land use status by mpfs in 1988 source: uddin et al., 2014 figure 8: land-use status by icimod in 2010 nevertheless, this study attempted to test the collect earth as a tool to analyze different land cover classes with respect to the earlier assessments. the method of analyzing land cover classes using the collect earth could identify larger patches of land cover classes like forest and cropland. interpretations of other land and grassland were challenging because of their changeability in appearance with changing seasons of the year. in addition, grasslands are the most confusing land cover category to identify in imageries (zhao et al., 2017). thus different assessments have provided contrasting estimates of grassland in nepal. for example, table 6 below illustrates a decreasing trend of grassland cover in nepal. however, some changes can be expected due to natural regeneration and succession to shrub-land and forest which have been reported particularly in the mountains. however, other critical factors leading to differences in the estimates in different assessments arise due to the variation in the definition, input data and approach used for estimation and mapping of grasslands. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 10 khadka et al. table 6: grassland cover of nepal in different studies s.n. assessments grassland cover (%) reference 1. land resources mapping project 12.00 lrmp, 1986 2. district, regional and national forest cover class summaries of the area, fuelwood yield and wood volume for the kingdom of nepal 11.90 wecs, 1988 3. master plan for the forestry sector 11.83 mpfs, 1988 4. national forage & grassland research centre, nepal 11.55 pande, 2007 5. development of 2010 national land cover database for nepal 7.90 uddin et al., 2014 the methodology adopted in the assessment of forest and land cover situation of the country can be recognized as a methodology for future monitoring programs. however, developing the national land cover monitoring system using the google earth engine can be a promising effort to consistently acquire the data and information on the periodic land cover status of nepal. the method can also be convenient to obtain the required datasets for periodic reporting to the unfccc and un-fao in addition to other internal as well as international reporting. conclusion the calculated results of forest, cropland, settlement and wetland from this study are reliable for various reporting purposes. however, further studies are necessary to generate more reliable results in terms of grassland and other land. more reliable results can be generated with the use of ancillary datasets along with imageries for all seasons and acquiring a sufficient number of verified field sample points. the results can be further improved by including more frequent time-series observations with the help of highresolution imageries. the findings of this study may be useful for land-use planners in updating the forest and other land cover areas of nepal and also for scholars and practitioners in using the latest tools and technologies on land cover assessments. acknowledgements the authors hereby acknowledge ministry of forests and environment, nepal for endorsing the program under forest research and training centre, kathmandu. furthermore, we express sincere thanks to wwf nepal/usaid/hariyo ban program for funding this study. references araya, y. h. and hergarten, c. 2008. a comparison of pixel and object-based land cover classification : a case study of the asmara region, eritrea. wit transactions on the built environment volume 100, pp. 233−243. aspinall, r. j. and hill, m. j. 2007. land use change : science, policy and management. crc press. bey, a., sánchez-paus díaz, a., maniatis, d., marchi, g., mollicone, d., ricci, s., bastin, j. f., moore, r., federici, s., rezende, m. and patriarca, c. 2016. collect earth : land use and land cover assessment through augmented visual interpretation. remote sensing 8 (10) : 807. bhattarai, k., conway, d. and yousef, m. 2009. determinants of deforestation in nepal’s central development region. environment management 91 (2) : 471–488. briassoulis, h. 2009. land use, land cover and soil science—factors influencing land-use and land-cover change. encyclopedia of life support systems i : 9. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 11 khadka et al. congalton, r. g. 1991. a review of assessing the accuracy of classifications of remotely sensed data. remote sensing of environment 37 (1) : 35−46. dfrs. 2015. state of nepal's forests. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey. kathmandu, nepal. duro, d. c., franklin, s. e. and dubé, m. g. 2012. multi-scale object-based image analysis and feature selection of multisensor earth observation imagery using random forests. international journal of remote sensing 33 (14) : 4502−4526. foody, g. m. and atkinson, p. m. (eds). 2003. uncertainty in remote sensing and gis. john wiley and sons. ipcc. 2003. good practice guidance for land use, land-use change and forestry. ipcc national greenhouse gas inventories programme, technical support unit, the inter-governmental panel on climate change, hayama, kanagawa, japan. lei, g., li, a., cao, x., zhao, w., bian, j., deng, w. and koirala, h. l. 2017. land cover mapping and its spatial pattern analysis in nepal. in land cover change and its eco-environmental responses in nepal. springer, singapore. pp. 17−39 li, x. and shao, g. 2014. object-based landcover mapping with high-resolution aerial photography at a county scale in midwestern usa. remote sensing 6 (11) : 11372−11390. doi : 10. 3390/rs61111372. lrmp. 1986. summary report. land resource mapping project, his majesty's government of nepal and government of canada. kenting earth sciences limited. mofsc. 2014. national biodiversity strategy and action plan. ministry of forests and soil conservation, government of nepal. molrm. 2015. land use policy. government of nepal, ministry of land reform and management, singhdurbar, kathmandu, nepal. mpfs. 1988. master plan for the forestry sector nepal : main report. ministry of forests and soil conservation, kathmandu, nepal. openforis. 2018. collect earth. augmented visual interpretation for land monitoring. [webpage article]. online at : http : //www. openforis. org/tools/collect-earth. html. accessed on 21st october, 2018. pande, r. s. 2007. grassland resources in nepal [blog article]. national forage & grassland research centre, nepal. monday, july 9, 2007. http : //nfgrcnepal. blogspot. com/2007/07/ grasslandresources-in-nepal-by. html. ramankutty, n. and foley, j. a. 1999. estimating historical changes in global land cover : croplands from 1700 to 1992. global biogeochemical cycles 13 (4) : 997−1027. doi : 10. 1029/1999gb900046. uddin, k., shrestha, h. l., murthy, m. s. r., bajracharya, b., shrestha, b., gilani, h., pradhan, s. and dongol, b. 2014. development of 2010 national land cover database for nepal. journal of environmental management 148 : 82−90. wang, h. 2004. guide to the world states : nepal. social sciences academic press (china), beijing. wecs. 1988. district, regional and national forest cover class summaries of the area, fuelwood yield and wood volume for the kingdom of nepal, vol i & ii. kathmandu. zhao, y., feng, d., yu, l., see, l., fritz, s., perger, c. and gong, p. 2017. assessing and improving the reliability of volunteered land cover reference data. remote sensing 9 (10) : 1034. 3 globally, approximately 8.9% of the population, equivalent to 690 million people, suffer from hunger with an annual increase of 10 million and a cumulative rise of nearly 60 million over five years (fao, 2020). besides, food security is significantly more impacted by the prevalence of socioeconomic problems like extreme poverty, unemployment, and acute malnutrition (fatema & kaur, 2023). addressing the challenge of meeting the growing demand for wholesome and nourishing food without threatening the natural environment is paramount (langyan et al., 2022; rini et al., 2022). to ensure ample supply of affordable, nutritious food, new and innovative agricultural and food systems must be explored (vu et al., 2020; xu et al., 2021). in this context, the exploration of plant-based proteins holds significance for banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1, 2024 pp 3‒14https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v34i1.63668 duckweed (lemna minor d0158): a promising protein source for food security duckweeds, recognized as the fastest growing aquatic flowering plants, exhibit substantial biomass production. recently, they have been emerged as a potential industrial crop for efficient and eco-friendly protein production and nutrient recovery compared to conventional crops. the objective of the study was to determine the biomass accumulation rate, protein content and amino acid analysis of duckweeds (lemna minor d0158). we cultured l. minor d0158 from its preserved state in the gene bank into both aseptic (in-vitro) and open condition at controlled room. the medium was hoagland solution (hs) mixed with sucrose in in-vitro condition while 1/5 concentration of hs (without sucrose) was in the open condition. subsequently, we determined the dry biomass growth by calculating the weight difference adopting the bergmann method, and then calculated the protein percentage following the kjeldahl method. moreover, the amino acid profiling was obtained using the hydrolysis and liquid chromatography technique. later on, we compared the results with those of the other duckweeds and soybean together with the fao requirements. we found that l. minor d0158 possessed the dry biomass growth rate of 6.72 g/m2/d with 33.13% protein content within 7-day cultivation period. moreover, it exhibited significantly higher levels of branched chain amino acids (bccas) than soybean and met the fao requirements. however, methionine (met) content was found to be slightly low. the study suggested that l. minor d0158 might offer a sustainable solution for protein food security in future. keywords: aquatic plant, biomass, essential amino acids (eaas), protein, sustainable protein source. r. basnet 1*,2,3, a. du 1,2, l. tan 1,2, l. guo 1,2, y. jin 1,2, z. yi 1,2, t. huang 3, y. fang 1, & h. zhao 1 received: 11, march, 2024 revised: 19, march 2024 accepted: 21, march 2024 published: 31, may 2024 1 key laboratory of environmental & applied microbiology, chengdu institute of biology (cib), chinese academy of sciences (cas), chengdu 610041, sichuan province, china. *e-mail: basnetbt@yahoo.com/ fangyang@cib.ac.cn/ zhaohai@cib.ac.cn 2 university of chinese academy of sciences (ucas), beijing, 100049, china 3 cib, cas, chengdu 610041, china https://orcid.org/0009-0002-9806-1890?lang=en https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8697-7725 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5993-8544 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1986-3175 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7667-8115 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-6877-2861 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4535-457x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6116-6149 mailto:basnetbt@yahoo.com/ mailto:fangyang@cib.ac.cn/ mailto:zhaohai@cib.ac.cn banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 4 basnet et al. their ease of availability, affordability, and environmentally friendly attributes. plant-based protein can contribute to reduce the cost of livestock feed by partially replacing animal origin protein and major food crops as the demand for resource consuming animal-based protein further limits food obtainability (shepaon et al., 2018). notably, soybean meal stands out as a valuable protein source among ingredients frequently included in animal feed mixtures (parrini et al., 2023). despite being extensively cultivated in brazil, usa, argentina, china, and india for livestock feeds and biofuel, its dominance in the food and feed market poses a threat to the forest management and staple food production (smaling et al., 2008; hans, 2019). to address these challenges, the utilization of the fastest growing aquatic plants such as "duckweeds" (see figure 1) can be valuable alternatives as they offer higher productivity and are cost effective compared to soybean (appenroth et al., 2017). in fact, soy-protein dominates both the food and feed market, and the cultivation of soybean and its consumption presents massive threats to climate, water resources and the habitats of wildlife (smaling et al., 2008). duckweeds (family lemnaceae) are known as "aquatic model plants" in both academic and industrial research before 1990s, and are emerging with increased attention after 2000s (zhao et al., 2012; oláh et al., 2023). the first international conference on duckweed research and application (icdra) was held in chengdu, china in 2011 followed by a number of conferences globally. recently, it is going to be held in thailand in 2024. currently, the duckweeds offer a novel perspective on physiology and metabolic strategies for both academic research and applications (acosta et al., 2021). various duckweeds are extensively employed for pollutant recovery and phytoremediation (chen et al., 2018; ekperusi et al., 2019). optimizing wastewater treatment yields advantages for society, ecology, and economy, and is crucial to fulfilling the 2030 agenda for sustainable development (united nations [un], 2018). duckweeds are gluten-free and are rarely found to contain lectin which is a major component of soy beans. lectin is a well-known anti-nutrient that binds to glycoprotein receptors on intestinal mucosal epithelial cells during nutrient absorption (liener, 1994). duckweeds retain less phytate than soybean meal (rojas et al., 2014). many plant proteins require thermal processing, such as cooking, extrusion, roasting, and streaming to reduce anti-nutrients and improve nutrient absorption (hamad et al., 2019). conversely, duckweeds can be used as food for humans without undergoing such an expensive and energy-intensive processing (xu et al., 2021). duckweeds have traditionally been consumed as human food particularly in thailand and neighboring countries under the name “khai-nam” which literally means “eggs of the water” or “possible source of inexpensive protein” (bhanthumnavin & mcgarry, 1971). all the five genera of duckweeds, namely spirodela, landoltia, lemna, wolffiella, and wolffia do not have any detectable cytotoxic or anti-proliferative effect on the human cell lines like huvec, k-562, and hela, which is the first and crucial information to be accepted as human food (sree, et al., 2019). similarly, the advantage figure 1: duckweeds (lemna minor) growing in natural habitat (around the swamp of rara lake, mugu district, nepal). banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 5 basnet et al. of duckweed over other protein-rich plants of a similar nature is its ability to thrive in a wide range of environmental factors, such as nutrients, light, ph, and temperature (fiordelmondo et al., 2022). among the duckweed genera, lemna comprises 12 species with wider distribution and occurrence (bog et al., 2019). lemna contains one stabilizing root and three or four fronds, which are leaf-like structures. the other advantage of the genus lemna is it can be grown in freshwaters at all seasons over a wide temperature range (landolt, 1986; zhao et al., 2014). additionally, lemna has proven to be a reliable source of protein supplements to both the human as well as animal feed (kaplan et al., 2018). this study aimed to estimate biomass accumulation rate, protein content, and amino acid profiling of l. minor d0158, one of the selected strains available in the duckweed gene bank of chengdu institute of biology, chinese academy of sciences (cib-cas), china. we have compared the characteristics of l. minor d0158 with that of soybean, a prominent terrestrial plant protein source. this study provides insights to establish duckweed (l. minor d0158) as a sustainable and novel source of plant protein, and functional food which can contribute food and nutritional security in future. materials and methods the study was conducted in the duckweed gene bank of chengdu institute of biology, chinese academy of sciences (cib-cas), chengdu, china, during july, 2019-september, 2019. sources of duckweed l. minor d0158, identified as one of the suitable germplasm in terms of both protein content and biomass growth rate in the cib-cas preserved in murashige and skoog (ms) solid medium, composed of 0.7% agar and 0.1% sucrose. growth medium the composition of stock solution to prepare the hoagland solution (hs) included: i) macronutrients (ca(no3)2.4h2o: 59 g/l, kno3: 75.76 g/l, kh2po4: 34 g/l, hcl 6m: 6 ml); ii) mgso4.7h2o: 200 g/l; iii) edta /c₁₀h₁₆n₂o₈: 9 g/l, koh 6m: 8 ml; iv) tartaric acid/c4h6o6: 3 g/l; v) fecl3.6h2o: 5.4 g/l; and vi) micro-nutrients (h3bo3: 2.86 g/l, znso4.7h2o: 0.22 g/l, na2moo4.2h2o: 0.12 g/l, cuso4.5h2o: 0.08 g/l, mncl2.4h2o: 3.62 g/l, table 1). table 1: basic chemical composition of hoagland solution (hs) s. n. stock solution 10 l (1/5 strength) ml/l (full strength) remarks 1. macro-nutrients 40 ml 20 5.2 ph maintained using 20% hcl or 40% naoh 2. mgso4.7h2o 5 ml 2.5 3. edta 2 ml 1 4. fecl3.6h2o 2 ml 1 5. micro-nutrients 2 ml 1 6. tartaric acid 2 ml 1 7. sucrose --1.5 primary growth activation in aseptic condition we conducted two phases of experiment. in order to obtain the optimum amount of biomass in the growth chamber (gz-300-gsii, shaoguan guangzhi technology equipment development co., ltd, wuhan, china). in the first phase, 2-4 lemna fronds were aseptically transferred into 100 ml erlenmeyer conical flask containing 70 ml full strength hs and allowed to grow for two weeks. in the second experimental phase (after two weeks), 10-15 fully grown fronds were aseptically transferred into 150 ml conical flasks containing the same strength of hs. during this experimental phase, lemna were allowed to grow for 3 weeks so as to obtain sufficient biomass for further experiment. in both the phases, we maintained the ph of the full-strength hs medium at 5.2 ph. moreover, the condition was (25±2 °c temperature and photoperiod of 16:8 h i.e. 16 hours of light and 8 hours of darkness in banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 6 basnet et al. the growth chamber. biomass preparation and acclimatization in controlled room subsequently, the plant sample was first washed with running tap water gently for 3 minutes followed by deionized water 3 times to remove the nutrients of the medium, and then were dried in normal air dryer to remove water for 3 minutes. the duckweed (2.5 g) was then transferred into blue tray (17×11×5=935 cm) containing 700 ml of 1/5 strength hs to grow in normal growth condition (at 25±2 °c room temperature for a photoperiod of 16:8 h with a light intensity of 125 µmol/m2/s) for 1 week. on the third day, 150 ml of 1/5 strength hs was added to replenish the loss of the medium through evaporation. this step was carried for acclimatization and sufficient biomass production for further experiment. determination of biomass accumulation rate and protein content after one week, the plant sample was washed with the running tap-water gently for three minutes followed by deionized water three times to remove the nutrients of the medium. the sample was dried in normal air dryer for three minutes and weight was recorded. at this step, we placed 5 g initial biomass in a blue plastic tray (size: 17×11×5 cm) containing 700 ml of 1/5 strength hs (replacing nitrate macro-nutrient by adding 70 mg/l urea nitrogen, and 5.5 g/l anhydrous cacl2) and were allowed to grow in normal growing condition (16:8 h) photoperiod under 175 µmol/m2/s light intensity at 25±2 °c temperature). the experiment was replicated three times (n=3). after one week, the grown l. minor d0158 was harvested by washing under running tap water for 3 minutes followed by rinsing with deionized water 3 times to remove the medium nutrients. after that, 12 g fresh weight was taken separately to calculate dry weight and protein percentage. then, the harvested material was air-dried for 3 minutes and further dried for 24 hours at 60 °c temperature in hot air oven. the dried plant weight was recorded. the dry biomass accumulation rate (growth rate) was calculated using the bergmann’s method (bergmann et al., 2000). after that, the plant sample was powdered using a mortar and pestle. the nitrogen concentration (%) was determined adopting the kjeldahl method (foss kj 2200, foss corp, sweden) to estimate protein (%) (gb/t, 1994). the equations used were as follows: biomass accumulation rate (g/m2/d) = δw/s/t ………… (1), where, δw = increase in dry weight (g); s = calculated area (m2) covered by the growth of lemna; and t = experimental time period in days (d) nitrogen (%) = hcl (ml) blank (ml) × 0.098 n (hcl concentration) × 14.007 × 100/dry weight of the sample (g) × 1000 .…………… (2); and protein (%) = nitrogen (%) × 6.25 ……....…. (3) amino acid analysis the quantitative determination of amino acid was carried out following the national standard of the people’s republic of china (gb/t182462019) (gb/t, 2019). the sample (50 mg dry powder) was treated with hydrochloric acid (hcl 6: mol/l) and retained for 22 hours under vacuum conditions at 110±1 ℃ temperature. the resulting hydrolysis product was filtered and diluted with sodium citrate buffer for amino acid analysis with ninhydrin post-column derivatization ion exchange chromatograph (sykam s-433d, chromatographic column lca k06/na). for tryptophan analysis, the duckweed sample (50 mg dry powder) was subjected to alkaline hydrolysis by lithium hydroxide solution (lioh, 4 mol/l) under vacuum condition at 110±1 ℃ for 20 hours. finally, the hydrolysis product was diluted with sodium citrate buffer and filtered for analysis by reversed-phase liquid chromatography (agilent). the amino acid profile in l. minor d0158 was examined and compared with the results of the previously studied duckweed species (appenroth et al., 2017) and with other protein sources like legumes soybean (ijeoma & ubaka, 2019) and with the who-recommendations (who/ banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 7 basnet et al. fao/unu, 2007). the overall study process is highlighted in figure 2 below: statistical analysis all the experiments were observed in triplicate (n=3), and the analyses were carried out in ms excel program 2013. results l. minor d0158 in our investigation, displayed a dry biomass growth rate of 6.72 g/m2/d and protein content of 33.13% after 7 days cultured in 1/5 strength hs (see table 2). table 2: biomass growth rate and protein % at different time periods time biomass growth rate (g/m2/d) n1 n2 n3 average 6 hr -0.22 -0.22 -0.22 -0.22±0 1 d 0.82 0.84 0.85 0.84±0.01 3 d 2.49 2.52 2.55 2.52±0.03 5 d 4.00 4.04 4.08 4.04±0.04 7 d 6.62 6.72 6.82 6.72±0.10 9 d 6.35 6.41 6.48 6.41±0.06 protein % n1 n2 n3 average 6 hr 31.16 32.26 33.35 32.25±1.09 1 d 28.08 28.70 29.32 28.70±0.62 3 d 28.7 29.00 29.30 29.00±0.30 5 d 30.91 31.28 31.65 31.28±0.37 7 d 32.30 33.13 33.95 33.13±0.82 9 d 31.14 31.95 32.75 31.94±0.80 in our study, amino acid profiling of l. minor d0158 revealed the quantities of aspartic acid (asp), glycine (gly), alanine (ala), threonine (thr), valine (val), isoleucine (ile), leucine (leu), arginine (arg), proline (pro), phenylalanine+tyrosine (phe+tyr) were found to be higher than those in soybean (ijeoma & ubaka, 2019) and also higher than the faorecommended levels (see table 3). in comparison to other previously studied duckweed species, l. minor d0158 strain exhibited similar or even higher essential amino acid (eaa) composition. importantly, l. minor d0158 contains higher or comparable amounts of most amino acids present in soybean is presented in table 3. figure 2: flow chart of the study process. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 8 basnet et al. s. n. amino acid % (g/100 g protein) l. minor d0158 soybean fao recommendations 1. asp 18.97 11.53 2. thr 4.46 3.44 3.1 3. ser 4.76 5.54 4. glu 11.08 15.89 5. gly 5.46 3.37 6. ala 5.35 4.44 7. cys+met 1.96 2.70 2.7 8. val 5.46 4.74 4.3 9. ile 4.29 3.60 3.2 10. leu 8.42 8.20 6.6 11. phe+tyr 7.77 7.88 5.2 12. lys 5.90 6.36 5.7 13. his 2.06 3.19 2 14. arg 8.14 6.71 15. pro 4.06 3.45 table 3: comparison of amino acid percentage of d0158 with those of soybean and fao recommendations (2011) discussion both protein percentage and dry biomass accumulation rate (growth rate) are important for any promising crop. the protein percentage and protein yields of common duckweed, soybean and other feed crops are presented in table 4. table 4: the protein yields of duckweed and other feed crops (adapted from hillman & culley, 1978; gijzen & khondker, 1997) plant/crop yield (t dry wt/ ha/y) crude protein (% dry wt) relative protein production duckweed 17.60 37.00 100.00 soybean 1.59 41.70 10.20 alfalfa hay 4.37-15.69 15.90-17.00 11.40-38.30 peanuts 1.60-3.12 23.60 5.70-11.30 cotton seed 0.76 24.90 2.90 note: the relative protein production of duckweed is considered as: 100 units = 6.51 t dry wt/ha/year (source: iqbal, 1999). the protein content in duckweeds (25-35% on dry biomass) depends upon the genotype and age of the species, growth conditions, such as light, temperature, nutrients, nutrient depth & agitation speed, and extraction methods (rusoff et al., 1980; casal et al., 2000). regarding the biomass growth rate, our results were consistent with those reported by (landolt, 1986; leng et al., 1995). in another study performed by (iqbal et al., 2019), it was found that the maximum growth rate of l. minor was 7.03 g/m2/d in synthetic leachate when harvested in 10 days. duckweed prefers to consume urea nitrogen than nitrate nitrogen to synthesize protein content, which is due to low energy required by ammonium ion assimilation than nitrate assimilation (tian et al., 2021). after seven days, our investigation yielded 33.13% protein, which is comparable to 33.56% found in a prior study (landolt, 1986). duckweed’s protein content varied from 20% to 35% of its dry weight, surpassing that of cereals (6-15% protein) (appenroth et al., 2017; beukelaar et al.; 2018; herawati et al., 2020). the primary protein (rubisco i.e. ribulose 1, 5-bisphosphate carboxylase) in duckweeds is a good source of essential amino acids (goldberg, 2003). due to its nutritional value, in vitro digestibility, and absence of allergies, rubisco protein is a good choice for a functional food (chakrabarti et al., 2018; yahaya et al., 2022). duckweed protein contains every amino acid that the human body needs. together with noneaas, it includes all eaas. aspartic acid (asp) and glutamic acid (glu) have regulatory roles in nutrition, energy metabolism and oxidative stress (wang et al., 2017). in our study, the asp was found to be 18.97%, significantly higher than of soybean (11.53%, table 3). asp serves as a precursor for amino acids such as methionine, threonine, isoleucine and lysine that regulate the secretion of crucial hormones (chen et al., 2021). additionally, asp plays a role in controlling the production and synthesis of testosterone and luteinizing hormone (topo et al., 2009). on the other hand, glu serves as a flavor enhancer (stryer, 1998). in our study, the glu content in l. minor d0158 was found to be lower (11.08%) than in soybean (15.89%), which may decrease the palatability and taste preference of the banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 9 basnet et al. duckweed food product (rangan & barceloux, 2009). furthermore, the aquatic clone of l. minor d0158 contain 5.9% lysine/lys, which is comparable to terrestrial soybean. additionally, it plays a role in the production of carnitine, which is essential in fatty acid metabolism, and in the crosslinking of collagen polypeptides (hall & da costa, 2018). lemna gibba, spirodela polyrhiza, landoltia punctata, and wolffia columbiana were found to have the following average amino acid values (g/100 g of protein): 4.0 lys, 3.6 ile, 6.7 leu, 0.9 met, 7.3 phe+thr, and 4.4 val. (rusoff et al., 1980). in our study, we found 5.9 lys, 4.29 ile, 8.42 leu, 7.77 phe+thr, and 5.46 val. moreover, the strain offers more advantages over most of the cereal crops (monocots) that contain inadequate levels of eaas such as lysine/lys and threonine/thr (vasal, 2020) whereas the content of lys is low in corn and rice2.3 g/100 g and 3.2 g/100 g, respectively. however, duckweed contains only 0.9 methionine (met) while corn and rice have high levels of the same3.1 and 3.4, respectively (rusoff et al., 1980). met (sulphur containing amino acid) is a precursor to homocysteine, cysteine, creatine, and carnitine as well as succinyl-coa. furthermore, met has been shown in recent studies to control the innate immune system, metabolism, and digestive functions in mammals (martínez et al., 2017). interestingly, the content of threonine in l. minor d0158 was 4.46%, higher than that of soybean (3.44%) and the fao-recommendation of 3.1% for human consumption (fao, 2011). mostly, thr is used as a substrate for the synthesis of proteins, especially mucin. moreover, thr has the ability to enter the catabolic pathway where it can be broken down into a number of vital byproducts that are essential to host metabolism, such as glycine, acetyl coa, and pyruvate (tang et al., 2021). duckweed protein exhibits higher concentration of eaas and is more similar to animal protein (skillicorn et al., 1993). the eaa obtained in l. minor d0158 were similar to the fao 2011 recommendation for human consumption except met+cys. our study showed l. minor d0158 clone had 37.18% eaa of the total amino acids, 17.15% glutamic acid of the total non-eaas, and 47.48% branched chain amino acids (bcaas) of the total eaas. the bcaas (leucine/leu, isoleucine/ile and valine/val) play key role in protein synthesis and muscle repair (brestenský et al., 2015), particularly beneficial for athletes. the bcca content in l. minor d0158 was found to be substantially higher (18.17% of the total amino acids), lower than in soybean (16.54%) and the fao-recommendation 14.1% (fao, 2011; leser, 2013). in this regard, l. minor d0158 strain qualifies as an additional source of quality protein in terms of the total bccas percentage than soybean. by 2050, there will be a two-fold increase in demand for animal-derived proteins due to the growing global population and rising meat consumption (fao, 2011). duckweed is a great option to meet the rising demand for animal-derived proteins worldwide because it can produce more protein for animal feed than traditional land-grown crops like soybeans; duckweed can produce 5-10 times as much protein per area. moreover, switching people to more sustainable plant-based protein will be a better option (roman et al., 2021). moreover, duckweeds face no competition with other food and cash crops for arable land, and can be easily harvested (bhanthumnavin & mcgarry, 1971; hillman, 1961; appenroth et al., 2015). interestingly, the researchers from italy noted that 20% replacement of duckweed (l. minor) in the standard feed of rainbow trout had no adverse effects on the fish (fiordelmondo et al., 2022). additionally, duckweed contributes a valuable supplementation of balanced amino acids to grains (corn, maize) for animal and human consumption. increased consumption of duckweeds, as a novel source of the plant-based protein, may contribute to improve health of the people and long-term sustainability of food supply (casavale et al., 2016). therefore, the utilization of duckweed, especially l. minor d0158, holds promise for both food and feed, offering a sustainable alternative plant-based protein that support to mitigate the issues of climate change such as deforestation and, environmental degradation associated with large-scale cultivation of soybeans. ultimately, the study can contribute to achieve the foundation of the sustainable development goal (sdg) 2 (freedom from hunger) that covers end hunger, banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 10 basnet et al. achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture and sdg 12 (responsible production and consumption). conclusion our study found that l. minor d0158 showed the biomass growth rate of 6.72 g/m2/d while the protein content was 33.13%. all the eaa contents in the duckweed were found to be comparable to those of soybean, meeting the fao requirements. the clone l. minor d0158 demonstrates as a significant protein source, bringing higher levels of amino acids such as aspartic acid, glycine, bcaas and threonine compared to soybean, with lysine content nearly equivalent and lower in methionine (met.). this research holds promise for large-scale production and promotion of l. minor d0158 to tap its advantageous features such as aquatic production, fast growth rate that enhance low cost and easier production. therefore, the clone can be a solution for protein food security in future. however, further studies should focus on seasonal variability, protein digestibility, bioavailability, safety considerations, and beneficial health-related claims. acknowledgments first of all, we are grateful to the national natural science for general foundation of china (31770395), innovation academy for seed design, chinese academy of sciences (cas), national aquatic biological resource center (nabrc), the chinese academy of sciences (zdrwzs-2017-2-1), cas "light of west china" program (2017xbzg_xbqnxz_b_012 and 2018xbzg_xbqnxz_b_007), the department of science and technology of sichuan province (2019yfg0332) for providing us the required funds to conduct this study. we acknowledge prof. kaize he and prof. zhongyan wang for their support during our study period. our sincere thanks go to dr. colin pendry, editor of nepal flora from royal botanical garden (rbge), and uk for english language proof reading. author’s contribution statement conceptualization, f. y., t. l. and r. b.; methodology, r. b. and t. l., validation, t. l., d. a. p. and f.y.; investigation, r. b.; data curation, d. a. p., t. l. and g. l.; writing-original draft preparation, r. b.; writing-review and editing, d. a. p., j. y. l., y. z. l., r. b.; visualization, d. a. p., supervision, z. h. and f.y., funding acquisition, z. h., f. y., t. l., d. a. p., and h.t.f. all authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. funding this study was supported by the national natural science for general foundation of china (31770395), innovation academy for seed design, chinese academy of sciences/cas, national aquatic biological resource center (nabrc), key deployment project of the chinese academy of sciences (zdrwzs-2017-2-1), chinese academy of sciences/cas "light of west china" program (2017xbzg_xbqnxz_b_012 and 2018xbzg_xbqnxz_b_007), the key research and development projects from department of science and technology of sichuan province (2019yfg0332). data availability the data used in this study are accessible upon request to the corresponding author. conflicts of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest. references acosta, k., appenroth, k. -j., borisjuk, l., edelman, m., heinig, u., jansen, m. a. k.., oyama, t., pasaribu, b., schubert, i., sorrels, s., sree, k. s., xu, s., michael t.p., & lam, e. 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(2014). potential of duckweed in the conversion of wastewater nutrients to valuable biomass: a pilot-scale comparison with water hyacinth. bioresource technology, 163c: 82-91. _hlk89945590 _hlk119235766 _goback 3 the economy of nepal is dominated by agriculture and forestry. subsistence agriculture having linkage with forestry is the major source of livelihoods in the rural areas (mofsc, 2014). forest, agriculture, and human have complex and inseparable relationships. agricultural systems are mostly traditional and subsistence. the farming systems in nepal rely on forests and trees for their sustainability. agroforestry trees are the most important source of fodder for livestock (avis, 2018) the increasing human population has put significant pressure on the forest and is further exaggerated by the fragile nature of geology and traditional farming system resulting in landslides, floods, and downstream sedimentation in nepal (amatya, 1996). farmers in the hills have responded to forest degradation and deforestation by increasing the number of agroforestry trees on their farmland to meet their immediate demand for fodder, fuelwood, and small-sized timber products. earlier, the agroforestry products were used by the rural people for their subsistence living. with the initiation of land allocation for the poor in the community forests, leasehold forests, and varieties of subsidies by the government, the rural farmers have started to commercialize agroforestry products, such as cardamom. generally, agroforestry is practiced on private land and on communal land. agroforestry on communal land and private land are becoming promising land-use options for maximizing diverse products to meet the diverse demands of banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2, 2021 pp 3‒12https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v31i2.41885 exploring agroforestry systems and practices in the terai and hill regions of nepal this paper explores the status of agroforestry systems and practices in the terai and hill regions of nepal. field survey, semi-structured interview and focus group discussions with the local farmers and stakeholders were conducted to explore the status of the agroforestry system and practices. the study covers forty-three districts, and represents agroforestry systems and practices in the terai and hill regions of nepal. altogether, twelve agroforestry systems and forty-three agroforestry practices were documented in the terai and hills of nepalten systems in the terai and seven systems in the hills. agrisilviculture, agrisilvihorticulture, agrosilvopastoral, agrohortosilvopastoral, homegarden, hortiagriculture, silvofishery, agrosilvifishery, hortisilviculture and apiculture were the major agroforestry systems adopted in the terai whereas those adopted in the hills included hortiagriculture, agrisilviculture, agrisilvihorticulture, agrosilvopastoral, homegarden, hortosilvipastoral and silvopastoral. the study revealed a gradual emerging scenario of commercial agroforestry systems in these regions although the continuation of traditional agroforestry systems was observed in most of the terai and hill regions. insufficient labour availability, fragmentation of land, market price fluctuation, lack of technical knowledge, and wild animal disturbances were some of the major challenges observed in the terai and hills of nepal. keywords: agroforestry, agroforestry species, commercial, fragmentation. s. ulak 1* b. lama 1, d. k. pradhan 1 and s. bhattarai 2 received : 10, august, 2021 revised : 12, november, 2021 accepted : 23, december, 2021 published : 31, december, 2021 1 forest research and training centre, babarmahal, kathmandu. *e–mail: sunita.ulak@nepal.gov.np 2 institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, hetauda campus. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6110-8400 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2527-5919 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6105-406x banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 4 ulak et al. rural people and to protect the remnant forest area from further destruction (npc, 2019). fourteen agroforestry systems have been identified in nepal where five systems are the most popular and relevant to agroforestry research (sinclair, 1999). major government policies such as forest policy 2019 and agricultural development strategy 2015 have emphasized agroforestry for fodder, small timber, and firewood production for livelihood improvement of the poor. agroforestry is a land-use system where agriculture and forestry components are integrated in order to provide multiple benefits such as food, timber, fodder, fuelwood, leaf litter, medicine related to agriculture, and forestry in a specific space and period. the international centre for research on agroforestry (icraf) has defined agroforestry as "a land-use system that integrates trees with agricultural crops and/or animals, simultaneously or sequentially, to get higher productivity, more economic returns, and better social and ecological benefits on a sustained yield basis, than is obtainable from monoculture on the same unit of land, especially under conditions of low levels of technological inputs and on marginal sites" (icraf, 1987). taungya system was the first agroforestry system practiced at tamagadhi, bara in the early 1970s by the then department of forest in coopeation with the sagarnath forestry development project to protect the remaining shorea robusta forest and its associate trees in central nepal by involving poor and landless villagers as taungya planters. they cultivated crops under the residual trees and in between the new plantations for the period of three to four years. the department of forest had planted tree species like eucalyptus camaldulensis, dalbergia sissoo, and tectona grandis. species like zea mays, brassica juncea, and other seasonal vegetables were planted in between the areas where agricultural crops were harvested twice a year. however, this practice doesn’t exist now due to the determination of the farmers to settle in such areas permanently rather than practicing intercropping and the weakness of the government in providing new areas to the taungya settlers (amatya & cedamon, 2018). agroforestry systems can be divided into two broad categories i.e. farm-based agroforestry system and forest-based agroforestry system. farm-based agroforestry system includes home gardens, trees in agricultural fields, alley cropping, commercial crops under tree shade, intercropping with horticulture trees, cultivation of annual crops with bamboo, trees around agricultural fields, woodlot. similarly, the forest-based agroforestry systems include taungya, production of non-wood forest products, silvopastoral systems within the forested areas (amatya, 1999). in nepal, forest plantations on public lands have been raised for over 35 years for fuel, fodder, timber, leaf litter, and other products. research on financial analysis of nepalese agroforestry models shows that the internal rate of return (irr) per hectare is 8.5% in the case of the area with less than 20 ha. thus, twenty-hectare plantation size would be ideal for both economic and ecological considerations (amatya et al., 1996). this paper explores the current agroforestry systems practiced in the terai and hills of nepal in order to alert the policymakers and those who are involved in agroforestry to plan for the development, design and diagnosis of agroforestry systems in nepal. materials and methods study areas the study was conducted almost throughout the terai (except saptari, siraha, dhanusha and mahottari districts) and the hilly regions (siwalik or churia, mid-hills, and high mountains) of nepal (figure 1). out of the five distinct physiographic regions of nepal, terai is the southernmost region, stretching from east to west all along the indian boarder, just beneath the foothills of siwalik range. it comprises a narrow (20−50 km wide) belt of flat and fertile land which constitutes 14% of the total land area of nepal (lrmp, 1986; amatya et al., 2016). it exhibits subtropical type of climate. scattered patches of tropical semi-evergreen and deciduous forests with various species such as s. robusta, terminalia alata, t. bellirica, t. chebula, adina cordifolia, d. sissoo, a. catechu, lannea banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 5 ulak et al. coromandelica, albizzia spp., tectona grandis, anogeissus latifolia, laerstroemia parviflora, elaeocarpus ganitrus, etc. and riverine forests dominated by d. sissoo and a. catechu are the major vegetation of the region (jackson, 1994). on the other hand, hilly regions stretch from east to west in between the terai in the south and high himalayas in the north, and are characterized by a great variety of terrain types and intensive farming on hillside terraces. the hilly regions for this study included siwalik, mid–hills, and high mountains. siwalik, mid– hills, and high mountains cover 15%, 29% and 19% land area of the country, respectively. the hilly regions have diverse climatic condition and vegetation types (jackson, 1994). the hilly regions, in general, consists of tree species such as s. robusta, t. alata, t. bellirica, emblica officinalis, elaeocarpus ganitrus, eucalyptus spp., castanopsis indica, schima wallichii, toona ciliata, ziziphus spp. at the lower altitudes while pinus roxburghii, michelia champaca, alnus nepalensis, autocarpus lakoocha, elaeocarpus ganitrus, etc. are found in the middle mountains. species like garuga piñata, prunus spp., swertia chiraita, merica esculenta, p. wallichiana, melia azedarach, populus spp., juglans regia, ficus spp., quercus spp., acer oblongum, rhododendron spp., juniperus spp., taxus spp., picea smithiana, abis spectbilis, cedrus deodara, betula utilis, etc. occur in the higher mountain region (jackson, 1994; amatya et al., 2016). methodology the study was designed to explore the existing agroforestry systems, practices, knowledge, challenges, and possibilities in the terai and hills of nepal. a qualitative data collection method was used, which included desk review; semi– structured interviews; focus group discussions; phone interviews; photographs & video captures; consultations with the provincial ministries of industry, tourism, forest & environment; division forest offices; and agriculture knowledge centres. fieldworks were conducted from november, 2018 to may, 2019. primary data was collected through field surveys of agroforestry farms, interviews with farm owners and workers, and focus group discussions were conducted at the required sites (where most of the villagers were involved in some kinds of agroforestry practices). the snowball sampling technique was adopted where the certain agroforestry system was identified through different sources during the fieldwork. similarly, key informants' interviews were accomplished at the concerned division forest offices and other relevant organizations. figure 1: map showing the study locations along with the physiographic regions of nepal banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 6 ulak et al. table 2: agroforestry systems and practices adopted in the terai region s.n. agroforestry systems agroforestry practices 1. agrisilviculture tea (camelia sinensis) under albizia procera and dalbergia sissoo. turmeric and ginger under eucalyptus camaldulensis. seasonal agricultural crops under tectona grandis. seasonal agricultural crops along with mixed tree species. 2. agrisilvihorticulture agricultural crops along with banana and tree species. fruit–trees and agricultural crops along with t. grandis, shorea borneensis, and d. sissoo. fruit–trees, agricultural crops and seasonal vegetables along with e. camaldulensis. mangifera indica and agricultural crops along with e. camaldulensis, t. grandis, poplus species, and melia azedarach. 3. agrosilvopastoral agricultural crops along with acacia catechu and elaeocarpus ganitrus, and pig farming. agricultural crops, tree species along with grasses and livestock. 4. agrohortosilvopastoral agricultural crops and areca catechu along with t. grandis, e. camaldulensis, e. ganitrus, s. borneensis, and a. catechu, and livestock. 5. hortiagriculture fruit–trees along with seasonal agricultural crops. table 1: identified transects and districts transects districts 1. makwanpur–parsa–bara–rautahat–sarlahi 2. panchthar–ilam–jhapa–morang–sunsari–dhankuta–bhojpur 3. kavre–sindhupalchok–dolakha–ramechhap–sindhuli 4. kathmandu–bhaktapur– nuwakot 5. chitwan–nawalparasi–kapilbastu–rupandehi–palpa–dang–pyuthan 6. tanahu–gorkha–lamjung–kaski–syanja–myagdi 7. banke–bardiya–surkhet–dailekh–salyan 8. kailali–kanchanpur–dadeldhura–baitadi– accham eight transects were laid covering forty–three districts of seven provinces and four physiographic regions (table 1; figure 1). the agroforestry farms along the transects were selected based on the pre–set criteria. the identified transects followed the major highways. altogether, one hundred and forty agroforestry farms were surveyed. the data were analysed with the help of microsoft excel software. results altogether, 12 agroforestry systems and 43 agroforestry practices were explored within the terai and hill regions. ten agroforestry systems and twenty–one agroforestry practices were identified in the terai region while seven agroforestry systems and twenty–two agroforestry practices were identified in the hill region (tables 2 and 3). thus, the number of agroforestry systems was found to be higher in the terai region as compared to the one in the hills, but a higher number of agroforestry practices were identified in the hills as compared to the ones in the terai region. increasing trend of commercialization and abandonment of agricultural lands has diversified the agroforestry practices in nepal. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 7 ulak et al. s.n. agroforestry systems agroforestry practices 6. silvofishery fish farming in conjunction with e. camaldulensis, t. grandis, d. sissoo and mango trees (mangifera indica). fish farming along tectona grandis, paulownia tomentosa, and s. borneensis. 7. homegarden cultivation of cereals, vegetable spices with firewood, fodder and animals. 8. agrosilvifishery fish along with e. camaldulensis, t. grandis, and seasonal crops. 9. hortisilviculture banana plants along with e. camaldulensis and t. grandis. m. indica along with e. camaldulensis and t. grandis avocado and pomegranate trees along with t. grandis and e. camaldulensis e. camaldulensis and m. indica along with asparagus, citronella, palmarosa, and mentha. 10. apiculture bee farming in conjunction with t. grandis and p. tomentosa. table 3: agroforestry systems and practices adopted in the hills s.n. agroforestry systems agroforestry practices 1. hortiagriculture mango and banana plants along with maize. pear trees along with maize and seasonal vegetables. seasonal crops and vegetables under orange and sweet orange trees. coffee under orange, banana, walnut and jackfruit trees. zanthoxylum armatum (shrub) along with orange trees and agricultural crops. 2. agrisilviculture tea under alnus nepalensis. cardamom under a. nepalensis. cardamom along with broom grass (thysanolaena maxima), elaeocarpus ganitrus, a. nepalensis, schima wallichii, and fodder tree species. cardamom and coffee plants under a. nepalensis. coffee plants under multipurpose tree species. coffee plants, maize, and seasonal vegetables under e. ganitrus. cinnamomum tamala along with agricultural crops. t. maxima along with c. tamala. kiwi, cardamom and chirato along with taxus wallichiana, e. ganitrus, and michelia champaca. ntfps along with agricultural crops and tree species. 3. agrisilvihorticulture ntfps along with fodder and fruit–trees. 4. agrosilvopastoral t. maxima along with fodder trees and livestock. cardamom and c. tamala along with e. ganitrus and banana plants. 5. homegarden seasonal vegetables, fruit–trees along with multipurpose trees. 6. hortosilvipastoral swertia chiraita and z. armatum along with fodder and fruit–trees. multipurpose trees, fodder trees, fruit–trees, and grasses along with livestock. 7. silvopastoral ziziphus budhensis, s. wallichii, litsea monopetala, f. semicordata, and grasses along with goat farming. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 8 ulak et al. we had surveyed one hundred and forty farms in the terai and hills. in the terai, 22% of the farms had adopted agrisilviculture system followed by agrisilvihorticulture (21%), agrosilvopastoral (10%) and agrohortosilvopastoral (10%, figure 2a). other adopted agroforestry systems in terai were hortiagriculture, silvofishery, homegarden and agrosilvofishery with 7%, 7%, 7%, and 6% representations respectively. the least adopted agroforestry systems in terai were hortisilviculture and apiculture both representing about 5%. the major agroforestry systems adopted in hills included hortiagriculture (31%) followed by agrisilvicultire (22%) and agrisilvihorticulture (16%) (figure 2b). other adopted agroforestry systems in hills included agrosilvopastoral (14%) and homegarden (9%). hortosilvipastoral and silvopastoral were found to have lowest adoption in hills representing 5% and 3% respectively. the highest diversification of adopted agroforestry practices was observed in agrisilviculture system the terai and hill regions of nepal (figure 3), suggesting agrisilviculture as the most preferred and diversified system practiced in the terai and hills of nepal followed by hortiagriculture, agrisilvihorticulture, hortisilviculture, agrosilvipastoral, hortosilvipastoral, silvofishery, homegarden, silvopastoral, agrihortosilvopastoral, agrosilvifishery and apiculture respectively. the major tree species planted in agroforestry figure 2: agroforestry systems adopted in the a) terai and b) hills of nepal 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 apiculture agrosilvifishery agrohortosilvopastoral silvopastoral homegarden silvofishery hortosilvipastoral agrosilvipastoral hortisilviculture agrisilvihorticulture hortiagriculture agrisilviculture terai hills figure 3: diversity of agroforestry practices within the systems banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 9 ulak et al. practices in the terai and hills of nepal are listed in tables 4 and 5 below: table 4: major trees species preferred in agroforestry in the terai region s. n. scientific name local name family 1. albizzia spp. siris fabaceae 2. dalbergia sissoo sissoo fabaceae 3. eucalyptus camaldulensis masala myrtaceae 4. tectona grandis teak/sagwan lamiaceae 5. areca catechu betel–nut arecaceae 6. shorea borneensis malaysian sal dipterocarpaceae 7. acacia catechu khair fabaceae 8. elaeocarpus ganitrus rudrakshya elaeocarpaceae 9. paulownia tomentosa paulownia paulowniaceae table 5: major trees species preferred in agroforestry in the hills s. n. scientific name local name family 1. alnus nepalensis uttis betulaceae 2. elaeocarpus ganitrus rudrakshya elaeocarpaceae 3. michelia champaca champ magnoliaceae 4. toona ciliata tooni meliaceae 5. melia azedarach neem meliaceae 6. castanopsis indica katus fagaceae 7. ficus semicordata khanyu moraceae 8. myrica esculenta kafal myricaceae 9. cinnamomum tamala tejpat lauraceae 10. juglans regia walnut julgandaceae 11. schima wallichii chilaune theaceae 12. artocarpus lakoocha badahar moraceae 13. garuga piñata dabdabe burseraceae 14. litsea monopetala kutmero lauraceae 15. ziziphus budhensis bodhichitta rhamnaceae challenges of agroforestry development in the terai and hills agroforestry has a high possibility to add in to social, financial, and natural capitals; and hence in local, regional and national prosperity. most of the farmers face acute shortage of farm–workers because of the movement of villagers to urban areas and foreign countries for better life and services. in most of the surveyed households, the aged and children were the majority family members, and were unable to continue the agroforestry that had been practiced for many generations. in most of the terai region, farmers are inclined towards the plantation of trees only rather than agroforestry practices. growing agriculture and forest crops requires the understanding of silviculture and management aspects of the trees and crops. the farmers were exultant to plant forest crops and let them grow without caring for water, cleaning, etc. the technical knowledge of the farmers to manage the agroforestry crops simultaneously and sequentially in the same piece of land is banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 10 ulak et al. limited. for example, in the surkhet, banke and bardia districts of western terai, most of the farmers import seedlings of eucalyptus, tectona and other horticultural crop seedlings from indian nurseries; and to sell more seedlings, the indian vendor suggests the farmers to plant seedlings in closer spacing, resulting in less return both from forest and agriculture crops. in addition, most of the farmers have fear of casting shade by the agroforestry trees and hampering the growth of the agricultural crops where agricultural crops are the first priority. high–quality quality and vigor seedlings of forest and horticultural crops are not easily available; even if they are available, it is difficult to assure their quality. most of the farmers concerned about the easy availability and certified seedlings of their interest. agriculture crops and tree species combination plays an important role to enhance the productive and protective function of the agroforestry systems. most of the agroforestry farms overlooked the suitable species specific combinations. most of the farmers had planted the tree species which were easily available or freely distributed by governmental or non– governmental organizations without considering the need of the farmers and species suitability of the particular locality. similarly, proper species combination, e.g., the species that shade leaves during the crop cultivation period and flourish green leaves during the fodder deficit season in winter when farmers are in need of fodder to feed livestock was not observed. many agroforestry practices, especially with commercial crops like tea and cardamom are shifting from subsistence to commercial in the western and eastern regions. furthermore, farmers were concerned about the marketing of agroforestry products. the lack of two–way market linkages and buyback guarantee of the agroforestry products have discouraged the farmers to continue the practices in the long run. in addition, the tedious and long bureaucratic hassles to get the release permits discouraged the farmers to continue agroforestry on their farmlands. return on investment from planting trees takes many years, and it is a long–term investment with the risk of failure from environmental, social, and technical reasons, e.g., insect and pest infestation may destroy the seedlings, poles or trees. the farmers were concerned about the insurance of the agroforestry crops that encouraged them to adopt the system with full confidence. most of the farmers, especially in the hills where subsistence farming is considered beneficial, have very small landholding sizes which limit the adoption of agroforestry practices. discussion there is no definite agroforestry classification system that has incorporated all the agroforestry practices in all ecological regions (nair, 1994). this study categorised the agroforestry practices based on the component and predominant usages of land, and identified 12 agroforestry systems and 43 agroforestry practices in the terai and hills of the country. sinclair (1999) classified the major agroforestry practice on the basis of components involved and the principal usage of land, and identified fourteen agroforestry systems in nepal. similarly, amatya et al. (2018) have explored seven agroforestry systems and thirty– five agroforestry practices in the eastern, central, and far–western regions of nepal. farmers with less availability of land and less access to financial resources are practicing traditional agroforestry practices with their own traditional knowledge. many years of experiences of farmers with many trials have developed local practices maintaining interaction of crop, tree and animal (thapa et al., 1997; thapa et al., 1995). agroforestry practices in nepal suffer from scarcity of quality planting material and improved seed varieties and also lack of simple to complex machineries and proper treatment practices of diseases in tree species (subedi et al., 2014). in western terai, most of the farmers bought seedlings of fast–growing timber species such as eucalyptus and tectona from a border– side indian vendor with no assurance of quality. generally, small landholder farmers plant the tree species which are easily available or freely distributed by different organizations without the certainty of quality seeds and seedlings. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 11 ulak et al. there are possibilities of generating additional income by identifying and promoting fast– growing and high–value crops and tree species. in the agroforestry system of nepal, the multipurpose high–value tree species planted are d. sissoo, ficus species, bauhinia species, a. catechu, a. lakoocha, c. siamea and a. lebbeck in the terai region and bauhinia species, a. procera, and a. nepalensis in the hills (atreya et al., 2021). additionally, e. camaldulensis, t. grandis, a. catechu, and p. tomentosa are some of the prominent agroforestry species in the terai while m. champaca, m. azedarach, c. indica, f. semicordata, etc. are noticeable species in the hills; however, the choice of species largely depends upon the production fuelwood, fodder or timber. conclusion different agroforestry practices are adopted in nepal to meet the immediate need for fodder, fuelwood, and small–sized timber. agroforestry provides a sound ecological basis for increased crop and animal productivity, more economic return, greater biodiversity, and increased social benefits on a sustainable basis. traditional agrisilviculture is one of the commonly adopted agroforestry practices in most parts of the terai and hills of nepal. however, agroforestry practices are gradually shifting towards the commercialization of products. agroforestry practices based on timber and cash crops in the terai and fruit–based agroforestry practices in the hills are inclined towards commercialization, indicating the paradigm shift in the traditional agroforestry in nepal. in this study, the tree–based agroforestry systems were found to be common in the terai whereas agricultural and horticulture– based agroforestry systems were dominant in the hills. interestingly, it was observed that commercial agroforestry had been mostly adopted by the retired professionals having interest in agroforestry, and the youth entrepreneurs having abroad knowledge and experiences were found to be investing in commercial agroforestry practices in the terai. farmers with less availability of land and less access to financial capital were found to be practicing traditional agroforestry practices with their own traditional knowledge. most of the farmers were found to be lacking with sufficient ideas about suitable agroforestry species and land management techniques. similarly, drought, labour scarcity, and labour–based agroforestry practices were reported as the major challenges for the farmers. in addition, undefined administrative boundaries are one of the major hindrances to the development of agroforestry system in nepal. this study explores the existing status of agroforestry systems and practices in the terai and hills of nepal; however, more research on socially acceptable, ecologically sound, and economically beneficial agroforestry systems and practices are the need of farmers to maximize the products and benefits from the limited available arable land. acknowledgments we are thankful to forest research and training centre (frtc) for providing the opportunity to conduct this study. similarly, we are grateful to all the concerned division forest offices and agricultural knowledge centres for providing us valuable information and support. our thanks also go to mr. keshav ghimire, mr. deepak mahatara and mr. kiran pokharel of the frtc, and all those who directly and indirectly contributed for the completion of this study. references amatya, s. m. (1996). financial returns in the nepali agroforestry model. banko janakari: a journal of forestry information for nepal 6 (2): 56−59. amatya, s. m. (1999). opportunities for agroforestry in nepal. department of forest. nepal journal of science and technology 1: 63–70. amatya, s. m., cedamon, e. and nuberg, i. (2018). agroforerstry system and practices in nepal. revised edition. amatya, s. m., shrestha, k. r. and cedamon, e. (2016). nepal forestry handbook (third edition). aciar and nfa kathmandu, banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 12 ulak et al. nepal. atreya, k., subedi, b. p., ghimire, p. l., khanal, s. c., charmakar, s. and adhikari, r. (2021). agroforestry for mountain development: prospects, challenges and ways forward in nepal. archives of agriculture and environmental science 6 (1): 87–99. https://doi.org/10.26832/24566632.2021.0 601012 (accessed on december 12, 2021). avis, w. (2018). livelihood options for households in nepal. 1–31. https:// opendocs.ids.ac.uk /opendocs/bitstream/ handle/20.500.12413/13593/livelihood_ options_for_households_in_nepal.pdf (accessed on december 11, 2021). icraf (1987). agroforestry, a decade of development. international council for research in agroforestry. apps. worldagroforestry.org (accessed on december 19, 2021). jackson, j. k. (1994). manual of afforestation in nepal. kathmandu: forest research and survey centre. 2nd edition. lrmp (1986). land system report, land resource mapping project: kenting earth science, canada. mofsc (2014). nepal national biodivesity strategy and action plan, 2014−2020. ministry of forests and soil conservation, singhdurbar, kathmandu. https://www. cbd.int/doc/world/np/ np–nbsap–v2– en.pdf (accessed on december 18, 2021). nair, p. k. (1994). an introduction to agroforestry, kluwer academic publishers, london. npc (2019). the fifteenth plan (2076/077−2080/081). national planning commission, singhdurbar, kathmandu. sinclair, f. l. (1999). a general classification of agroforestry practice. agroforestry systems 97 (1–4): 131–141. http://dx.doi. org/10.1023/a:1006278928088 (accessed on december 18, 2021). subedi, b. p., ghimire, p. l., koontz, a., khanal, s. c., katwal, p., sthapit, k. r. and mishra, s. k. (2014). private sector involvement and investment in nepal’s forestry. thapa, b., walker, d. h. and sinclair, f. l. (1997). indigenous knowledge of the feeding value of tree fodder. animal feed science technology 67. https://docplayer. net/18872047–indigenous–knowledge– of–the–feeding–value–of–tree–fodder. html (accessed on november 11, 2021). thapa, b., sinclair, f. l. and walker, d. h. (1995). incorporation of indigenous knowledge and perspectives in agroforestry development – part 2: case–study on the impact of explicit representation of farmers’ knowledge. agroforestry systems 30 (1–2): 249–261. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00708924 (accessed on november 9, 2021). 1 the progress of a country depends on how it is using modern technology in monitoring and management of its resources. earth observation science and machine learning algorithm are one of the most fascinating modern technologies used for monitoring of natural resources and their management planning. these technologies acquire information on different phenomena on earth without making physical interaction with the ground. such information enables us to construct meaningful evidence for decision making regarding management of natural resources on earth. nepal has a long history of preparing national land cover maps, especially forest cover map for national reporting and providing baseline information for decision making. the first attempt of forest cover mapping was made during the forest inventory in 1960, whereas the first detailed land system mapping was carried out in 1986 by the land resource mapping project (lrmp) using aerial photographs. similarly, the department of survey of the government of nepal has published a topographical map of nepal based on aerial photographs. in addition, the department of forest research and survey developed a forest cover map of nepal in 2010. the forest research and training centre (frtc) is now implementing the ecosystem and forest type mapping program, which aims at developing updated maps of forest types and ecosystems in nepal. one of the drawbacks of our mapping efforts is that none of the land cover products are comparable due to inconsistencies in the baseline data, i.e. satellite imagery, methodologies, and classification systems used for mapping. as party to the united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc), nepal needs to prepare the land use and land cover (lulc) information as per the guidelines of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) to estimate ghg emissions/ removals. the comparable periodic or annual land cover maps provide information on land cover changes that is required for international reporting and informing national, provincial and local level policies related to land use, including forest management and ghg emission reduction plans. in this context, the frtc, in collaboration with icimod, has recently developed a national land cover monitoring system (nlcms) that gives accurate annual land cover information of nepal between 2000 and 2019. mapping and monitoring land cover using satellite data is highly challenging, especially in high mountain areas, due to shadows and inaccessibility for field data collection. however, this challenge was overcome using the landsat 4–5 thematic mapper (tm), landsat 7 enhanced thematic mapper plus (etm+) banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal national land cover monitoring system for nepal https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i1.45429 2 and landsat 8 operational land imager (oli) sensor satellite, launched by nasa. the annual land cover maps have been generated using primitive approach. notably, landsat data is available free of cost. since july 1972, satellites in the landsat program have been imaging our planet's landmasses at a particularly useful scale that shows us both natural and artificial changes. landsat is the only satellite system that has recorded earth's land–surface conditions for over four decades. it is a surprise that users can find much more historical landsat data than ever before in the landsat archive at the u.s. geological survey's earth resources observation and science center. besides, all the landsat images can be analyzed using google earth engine (gee) applying the machine learning algorithm following various landsat specific processing methods. specifically, there are methods to compute at–sensor radiance, top–of–atmosphere (toa) reflectance, surface reflectance (sr), cloud score and cloud–free composites. with the support of the servir–hkh, frtc was able to generate national–level land cover maps for nepal without massive downloads of landsat images, and an online land cover application system has been prepared. land cover results show that the primary land cover in the country is forest, followed by cropland and grassland. these three classes cover about 80% of the country’s area. the results show that forests covered 40.01% of the total area of nepal in 2000, 41.15% in 2010, and 41.72% in 2019, whereas other wooded land (owl) covered 3.57% in 2000 and 3.62% in 2019. the foreshores and owl together covered 45.34% of the total area of nepal in 2019. data show that agricultural land is decreasing. quality assured reference data is vital for the nlcms development. reference data are collected from the field. additional reference data are collected using collect earth online (ceo) software. through free–of–cost cloud–based software, the ceo enables users to access satellite imagery to efficiently collect up–to–date data about their environment, monitor landscape changes over time, and use data to implement and enforce conservation policy. an intuitive, web–based interface enables multiple users, including students and members of the public institutions, to contribute to image analysis and data collection. the capacity building, sustainability, information sharing and technology exchange were considered while developing the nlcms. therefore, the system was co–developed by the frtc in collaboration with icimod and international experts through the servir–hkh programme. national stakeholders were engaged to define the land cover classification systems to ensure widespread use of the product. the algorithm was implemented in gee using python and a few scripts to make the system consistent and transparent for any land cover analyst. the use of gee helped to analyze a large number of landsat satellite images for nepal without downloading them. the nlcms is expected to be useful for monitoring land–based resources continuously in future. raja ram aryal assistant remote sensing officer forest research and training centre 30 exponential population growth has caused significant damage to the environment and ecosystems. one of the many factors affecting the environment is related to some heavy metals 'hms' (khan et al., 2021). there are several toxic hms, including cadmium 'cd' (saini & dhania, 2020) that poses a threat to biota even at a very low concentration. consumption of food contaminated with cd is hazardous to human health (khan et al., 2017). accumulation of cd can cause renal tubular dysfunction (bernard, 2004) and affects the reproductive systems (kumar & sharma, 2019). additionally, the presence of cd affects mineral nutrient uptake in plants and their growth. this is associated with growth inhibition and low dry matter yield (meena et al., 2018; fattahi et al., 2019), photosynthesis and respiration inhibition (navarro-león et al., 2019), and chlorosis (chun et al., 2020). there are various methods, including physical, chemical, and biological approaches, being used and developed for remediation of hms. one promising method that has the potential to save energy and cost is called 'phytoremediation' which involves using plants and plant processes to remove, contain, or reduce pollutants in the environment (berti & cunningham, 2000). in vitro selection and characterization of cadmiumtolerant calli of tagetes erecta and gomphrena globosa ornamental plants (ops) are beneficial to remove, control and reduce heavy metals (hms) in a process called 'phytoremediation'. this study evaluated the in vitro systembased phytoremediation properties of tagetes erecta and gomphrena globosa calli. leaves from in vitro seed-grown t. erecta and g. globosa were used as an explant source for callus culture. callus culture was found optimal in ms medium supplemented with 8 μm bap + naa for t. erecta and 2 μ m 2, 4-d for g. globosa. these plants were grown in their respective optimized (controlled) medium enriched with different amounts (50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 μm) of cadmium (cd) added in the form of cadmium chloride (cdcl2). the in vitro calli developed were evaluated for cd stress tolerance based on callus diameter, growth tolerance index (gti) and catalase (cat) activity. over four weeks, the callus diameters of t. erecta and g. globosa grown in different concentrations of cd had lower growth than that of the controlled one. on the other hand, the gti measured were greatest at 150 μm of cd for both t. erecta (130.95%) and g. globosa (149.32%) suggesting a potential cd tolerance. however, the cat activity in t. erecta callus increased with the cd concentration peaking at 150 µm then started declining while g. globosa callus showed the highest cat activity at 50 μm of cd. thus, t. erecta callus showed greater cd tolerance with the prospect of utilizing it for phytoremediation. the study also suggests growing t. erecta at 150 μm cd for tolerant calli. keywords: cadmium tolerance, callus, catalase activity, growth tolerance index, ornamental plants. g. lama 1, b. shrestha 1, s. limbu 1, p. r. gurung 1, & k. k. pant 1* received: 4, march 2023 revised: 20, may 2024 accepted: 24, may 2024 published: 31, may 2024 1 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal. *e-mail: krishna.k.pant@gmail.com banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1, 2024 pp 30‒39https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v34i1.66289 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-8772-7459 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 31 lama et al. the mechanism of hms tolerance of plants has been the subject of numerous studies aimed at improving phytoremediation performance (yan et al., 2020). tissue culture-based in vitro breeding technique is a practical and economical way to improve plants. during the tissue culture process, callus cells can change due to mutagenic conditions (phillips et al., 1994; wang & wang, 2012), leading to somaclonal variation (skirvin et al., 1993). the culture stress process can also induce genetic and epigenetic changes (gao et al., 2010), ultimately improving the genetics of the plant. the application of ornamental plants (ops) for phytoremediation of hms as well as beautification may be an attractive option (khan et al., 2021). tagetes erecta (locally called 'sayapatri') and gomphrena globosa (locally called 'makhamali') are culturally important ops in nepal. these two plant species possess industrial value with extensive markets during 'tihar festival' (i.e. festival of lights observed in oct/nov) in nepal. it has been demonstrated that these plants can effectively accumulate chromium (coelho et al., 2017) and arsenic (signes-pastor et al., 2015). in vitro testing systems based on ops can be a quintessential tool for the characterization of possible phytoremediation of different hms (khan et al., 2021). in light of this knowledge, this study aimed to evaluate the potential phytoremediation properties of in vitro calli developed from t. erecta and g. globosa (see figure 1). materials and methods in vitro seed germination and callus culture the seeds of t. erecta and g. globosa, obtained from the puspa bikash kendra, godawari, lalitpur, nepal, were separated from other floral parts and cleaned under running water with added 'tween 20 solution' for 30 minutes. sterilization was performed inside a laminar flow cabinet using 1% sodium hypochlorite (naocl) solution and 70% ethanol (ch3ch2oh). the seeds were then germinated and grown on a hormonefree ms medium as described by murashige & skoog (1962). later on, the leaves from the seed-grown plants (size: 1cm × 0.5cm) were removed and used as explants for growing calli in culture. the hormones 6-benzylaminopurine (bap), naphthaleneacetic acid (naa), and 2, 4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2, 4-d) were added to the ms medium for callus culture (belarmino et al., 1992; bodhipadma et al., 2017). callus growth in cd-enriched media the type of medium used for growing callus was selected based on the percentage of callus induction and the average weight of the callus. the selected medium was enriched with different quantities of cd (50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 μm) by adding cadmium chloride (cdcl2) solution as described by nehnevajova et al. (2007). the figure 1: the in vitro germinated plantlets from seeds: (a) t. erecta and (b) g. globosa. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 32 lama et al. effects of cd on callus growth were monitored by measuring the diameter of the callus using the diameter = √length×√width (compton, 1994; chenar et al., 2016). formula: the callus growth tolerance index (gti) was used to select calli that are tolerant to hms exposure (samantaray et al., 2001). it was calculated using the formula: catalase activity catalase activity was evaluated from the callius developed on a cd-enriched medium as described by zhang et al. (2007). to accomplish this, 1.0 gram of callus was combined with 3 ml of a buffer solution (50 mmol/l sodium phosphate buffer at ph 7.8 with 1.0 mmol/l ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid (edta) and 2% polyvinylpyrrolidone) and then centrifuged for 10 minutes at 5000g (relative centrifugal force). the resulting enzyme extract was added to a reaction mixture containing phosphate buffer (ph 7.0), 0.1 mmol/l edta and 20 mmol/l hydrogen peroxide (h2o2), and the reaction was monitored by measuring the depletion of h2o2 at 240 nanometers applying the beer-lambert law and using the molar extinction coefficient (ε) of 36 mol/l cm. as per the beer-lambert law, the absorbance (a) of h2o2 was calculated as: a = εlc, where, ε = molar extinction coefficient; l = length of light path; and c = concentration of sample. the results were reported as the amount of enzyme activity per milliliter of sample per gram of callus as described by swinehart (1962). statistical analysis the study collected data on the growth parameters (percentage callus induction, diameter, and gti) from five different samples, and data on the activity of the catalase enzyme from three different samples. these were measured in the form of 'mean' and 'standard error'. a statistical test called 'spearman's correlation test' was used to investigate the relationship between the concentration of cd in the growth media and the activity of the catalase enzyme. results selection of callus induction media the t. erecta leaf explants showed the earliest callus initiation on medium supplemented with 8 μm bap + naa, with 80% of the explants forming callus in the first week as shown in table 1. table 1: effects of bap, naa, and 2, 4-d supplemented ms media on callus initiation of t. erecta observed during a four-week period bap (μm) naa (μm) 2, 4-d (μm) week 1 week 2 week 3 week 4 weight measured in week 4 (gm) 0 0 0 0% 0% 0% 0% 0 2 2 0 0% 0% 40% 100% 0.85±0.12 4 4 0 0% 0% 0% 20% 0.33±0.14 6 6 0 0% 0% 0% 80% 0.77±0.27 8 8 0 80% 80% 80% 100% 1.03±0.20 10 10 0 0% 80% 80% 100% 1.25±0.35 0 0 10 0% 40% 60% 60% 0.82±0.32 0 0 11 40% 60% 60% 80% 0.64±0.33 0 0 12 0% 40% 40% 60% 0.91±0.40 0 0 13 0% 60% 80% 80% 0.67±0.29 0 0 14 60% 60% 80% 80% 0.83±0.3 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 33 lama et al. after four weeks, 2 μm, 8 μm, and 10 μm bap + naa showed 100% callus formation, but none of the concentrations of 2, 4-d showed 100% callus formation. after four weeks, calli were weighed where 10 μm bap + naa gave the highest final weight. all the calli obtained from the combination of bap and naa were greenish-yellow (see figure 2a), whereas the calli added to the 2, 4-d supplemented medium were brownish and granular. since the search was directed towards rapid callus initiation, the ms medium supplemented with 8 μm bap + naa was selected as a controlled growth medium for t. erecta calli. on the other hand, g. globosa showed callus initiation in the first week, with all the concentrations of 2, 4-d; however, 100% initiation was shown only in the media supplemented with 2 and 8 μm 2, 4-d. all the calli were pale yellow (see figure 2c). as shown in table 2, the ms medium containing 2 μm 2, 4-d showed the fastest callus initiation and better growth, and was thus used as a controlled growth medium for g. globosa calli. figure 2: callus culture of t. erecta and g. globosa: (a) callus developed from in vitro leaf explants of t. erecta in ms medium supplemented with 8 μm bap+naa; (b) t. erecta callus developed in 150 µm cd enriched ms medium supplemented with 8 μm bap+naa; (c) callus developed from in vitro leaf explants of g. globosa in ms medium supplemented with 2 μm 2,4-d; and (d) g. globosa callus developed in 150 µm cd enriched ms medium supplemented with 2 μm 2,4-d. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 34 lama et al. table 2: effects of 2, 4-d supplemented media on callus growth of g. globosa observed during a four-week period 2, 4-d (μm) week 1 week 2 week 3 week 4 weight measured in week 4 (gm) 2 100% 100% 100% 100% 0.93±0.4 4 80% 80% 80% 80% 1.08±0.26 6 80% 100% 100% 100% 0.31±0.1 8 100% 100% 100% 100% 0.65±0.21 16 80% 100% 100% 100% 0.65±0.2 callus diameter and gti in cd-enriched media in the first week, all of the tagetes erecta calli samples grown in the controlled medium and those containing 100 and 150 μm of cdcl2 were successfully initiated. after two weeks, the calli grown in a medium with 100 μm cdcl2 had the greater diameter, followed by those with 50 μm cdcl2 (see figure 3). in the third week too, the calli grown in a medium with 100 μm cdcl2 had the largest diameter. the highest increase in overall diameter was seen in the controlled calli, followed by those with 200 and 150 μm cdcl2. the t. erecta calli turned brown when exposed to all concentrations of cd treatment, with the most severe browning observed with 250 μm cdcl2. figure 3: effects of cdcl2 concentrations (50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 μm) on the callus diameter of t. erecta. in the case of g. globosa, the calli grown on the controlled medium were found to have the highest diameter followed by the medium supplemented with 150 µm cdcl2 throughout all the four weeks of callus growth (figure 4). the browning of the calli was observed at the concentration of 150 μm cdcl2 and above. figure 4: effects of cdcl2 concentrations (50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 μm) on the callus diameter of g. globosa. the gti of both g. globosa and t. erecta calli were found to be the highest when the medium contained 150 μm of cdcl2 (figure 5). similarly, the second highest growth rate was observed in the medium containing 200 μm of cdcl2. the gti for g. globosa was 149.32% while it was 130.95% for t. erecta, suggesting a potential tolerance level to cd stress of calli in both the plants. figure 5: gti of t. erecta and g. globosa in media enriched with 50 μm, 100 μm, 150 μm, 200 μm, and 250 μm cdcl2. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 35 lama et al. catalase activity the cat activity in the t. erecta calli were found to have increased with the increase in the concentration of cdcl2 in the medium, reaching a peak (nearly 60) at a concentration of 150 μm, before decreasing as shown in figure 6. in contrast, the highest level of cat activity (nearly 45) in g. globosa callus was observed at a concentration of 50 μm cdcl2. a positive correlation was seen between the concentration of cdcl2 and cat activity in t. erecta callus up to 150 μm cdcl2 [spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (1) = 0.54 & p = 0.18]. in contrast, g. globosa callus showed a significant negative correlation between the concentration of cdcl2 and cat activity at 50 μm cdcl2 [spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (1) = -0.51 & p = 0.5]. figure6: cat activity of calli of both t. erecta and g. globosa in controlled medium 'c' and the media supplemented with 50 μm, 100 μm, 150 μm, 200 μm, and 250 μm cdcl2. discussion the t. erecta callus were successfully induced with a combination of bap and naa at a concentration of 8 μm, similar to the results of previous studies by benítez-garcía et al. (2014) and munshi et al. (2021), although belarmino et al. (1992) reported difficulty in regenerating callus from leaf explant. the browning of t. erecta callus in media supplemented with 2, 4-d could be caused by the oxidation of phenolic compounds, leading to cell death (khosroushahi et al., 2011; vijayalakhsmi & shourie, 2017). in contrast, the g. globosa callus formation was the most effective at a low concentration of 2, 4-d, similar to the findings of vieira et al. (1994) and bodhipadma et al. (2017). the t. erecta callus grown in media containing 200 μm cdcl2 had the greatest diameter among all treatment groups, but it did not have the highest fresh weight. this phenomenon might be caused by the reduction in cell division and an increase in cell growth caused by the toxic effect of cd (zou et al., 2012). labancová et al. (2020) found that poplar callus entered a linear phase characterized by decreased cell division rate and increased cell growth when exposed to 10 μm cd. additionally, the presence of chloride in the cd source (i.e. cdcl2) has been reported to promote cell elongation, as it has a better ability to regulate osmosis and generate turgor pressure (colmenero-flores et al., 2019). in the case of g. globosa, both the growth in length and biomass were at the highest when the media contained 150 μm of cdcl2. this indicated that the growth in length and biomass of the callus had a similar pattern. namjooyan et al. (2012) and israr et al. (2006) both found that cd reduced callus growth in carthamus tinctorius and gomphrena globosa, respectively, with the most significant reduction at higher concentrations (75 μm, 100 μm, and 250 μm, respectively). our study also found that the callus growth was highest in the explants exposed to 150 μm cd, which is suggested to be due to cd accumulation. the gti was higher in the calli exposed to 150 μm of cdcl2 for both t. erecta and g. globosa plants, indicating that these calli had a mechanism for tolerance to cd (bernabe´-antonio et al., 2015). however, after a positive response to 150 μm cdcl2, the biomass declined again, which may be due to the phenomenon of hormesis which is an adaptive response where low levels of stress activate cellular and molecular pathways that enhance the ability of the cell and organism to withstand more severe stress (calabrese et al., 2007; bernebe-antonio et al., 2015). a high level of antioxidant enzymes can improve tolerance to stress caused by heavy metals (gechev et al., 2006). tolerant calli have been found to have significantly higher cat activity than non-tolerant calli (rout & sahoo, 2007). this study observed that as the concentration of cdcl2 increased, the activity of cat initially increased, but then decreased at toxicity levels banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 36 lama et al. of cdcl2. this decline in cat activity was accompanied by the browning of the calli, which is a sign of cell necrosis caused by the production of phenolic compounds (sandalio et al., 2001; shekhawat et al., 2010). browning was more severe when cat activity decreased, suggesting that phenolic compounds were replacing the scavenging role of catalase on hydrogen peroxide (michalak, 2006). phenolic compounds can act as antioxidants in their reduced form, but are cytotoxic in their oxidized form (michalak et al., 2006; khosroushahi et al., 2011; vijayalakshmi & shourie, 2017). it was suggested that the variation in the activity of the calli in different media with and without cd was caused by mutation. the presence of cd in culture media can lead to increased somaclonal variation and spontaneous mutations in some callus cells, resulting in regeneration with altered metal accumulation (nehnevajova & herzig, 2007). the use of phytohormones such as 2, 4-d and naa can also lead to mutation through an increase in cytosine methylation in plant tissue cultures (phillips et al., 1994). however, the use of constant hormone concentration across all cd treatments suggested that the mutation is a result of changes in cd concentration rather than hormone. conclusion this study presents an initial step in the form of a callus culture to develop tolerant plants for phytoremediation of cadmium. the results suggest that callus culture in ms media supplemented with 150 μm cd is appropriate for developing cd-tolerant calli for t. erecta. the toxicity symptoms could be profound above this level as detected in our study. although the results for the tolerant calli of g. globosa did not materialize, the outcome obtained has given a toxicity level for its callus. the toxicity levels for the calli of these plants indicated that the calli of t. erecta were more tolerant than that of g. globosa. our study suggests that the calli of t. erecta treated with 150 μm cd can be used to develop its plantlets. thus, the selection of tolerant calli and the toxicity level of hms in ornamental plants can be determined by understanding the stress responses of their calli. this method of selection can be used in other plants as well, but its use, especially, in selecting tolerant ornamental plants can be beneficial as they are less likely to end up in their food-chain process and since their flower parts have an insignificant accumulation of heavy metals. besides, the cut-flowers of these plants could still be used, and hence could be idle for phytoremediation. acknowledgments we are grateful to the university grants commission, sanothimi, bhaktapur for providing us financial support to conduct this study. similarly, we are thankful to the central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur for providing us access to all the laboratory facilities. last but not the least, we would like to acknowledge associate professor, deepak raj pant for his valuable suggestions. author's contribution the concept and design were developed by gl. kkp and prg polished the designs whereas bs, sl and gl carried out experimentation. data availability the data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. conflict of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest funding this project was funded by university grants commission, sanothimi, bhaktapur, nepal. ethical approval and consent no harm to any plants or animals was done. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 37 lama et al. references belarmino, m.m., toshinorians, a.b.e., & sasahara, s. 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(2012). effects of cadmium stress on root tip cells and some physiological indexes in allium cepa var. agrogarum l. acta biologica cracoviensia, 54 (1): 129-141. _hlk89945590 _hlk119235766 _goback 59 good governance is considered as a peoplecentered way of managing public affairs and resources for the benefit of the entire population so that the rights of the marginalized remain central to the entire effort (dhungana et al., 2020; gauli & upadhaya, 2014; bridgewater & upadhaya, 2013). as stated by the unescap (2005), it has eight major characteristics, viz. i) the rule of law, ii) participation, iii) consensus, iv) accountability, v) transparency, vi) responsiveness, vii) efficiency & effectiveness, and viii) equity & inclusiveness. the main purpose of "good forest governance" is to ensure prevailing ecological processes, promoting the sustainable management of resources whilst also creating benefits economically and socially. (paudyal et al., 2017). as community forestry is considered as the global innovation towards participatory environmental governance (kumar, 2002), community forestry has become successful in increasing the supply of forest products, improving the environmental condition, degraded forests rehabilitation, biodiversity conservation, community development and institutionalizing democratic practices at local-level in nepal (dhungana et al., 2018; stapp et al., 2015; stapp et al. 2016). the community forestry program in nepal has been considered as a learning ground for governance reform towards gender and equity sensitivity, governmental agencies partnership, participatory decision-making, nongovernment and private sector agencies, bottom-up planning process, participatory monitoring, and evaluation process (pokharel & niraula, 2004). till date, the total number of community forests in nepal is 22,266 possessing 2,237,670.52 ha land area, and more than 2,907,871 households have benefitted from this program (dof, 2018), and are working to attain good forest governance. although community forestry's success has been expanded with community's participation in forest management, wagle et al. (2016) considered forestry sector as a gendered sector, does gender-based leadership affect good governance in community forest management ? a case study from bhaktapur district s. thapa1*, r. prasai2 and r. pahadi3 1 tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, hetauda campus, makwanpur, nepal. *e-mail: swosthinani@gmail.com 2 wildlife, sustainability and ecosystem science, tarleton state university, stephenville, texas, usa; and 3 tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, hetauda campus, makwanpur, nepal. in spite of policy programs in place, good forest governance does not still persist in community forestry sector of nepal. this study aims to understand how genderbased leadership affects good forest governance in the two community forest user groups, viz. the bandeshwori cfug and the suryamod perunge cfug of bhaktapur district, nepal from gender perspective. both the primary and secondary methods were employed for data collection. the collected data were screened, and analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. the study compares the individual elements (transparency, accountability and participation) of the governance with the overall governance scenarios between the two community forests. as per the findings of this study, the female leadership was found to be better in forest management by maintaining all aspects of governance as compared to the male. this was because of the higher participation of all the users, regular audit of income and expenditure, accountability of executive committee towards user group, high-level of transparency and predictability. the study concludes that decentralization of power to female, and their active participation in leadership position are needed for maintaining good governance and proper management of community forest. keywords: community forestry, decision making, gender, good governance, leadership banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2, 2020 pp 59‒70https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i2.33479 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 60 thapa et al. which is influenced by gendered perspectives in forest resource use and sharing mechanism. many studies conducted on community forestry in nepal (agarwal, 2001; lama & buchy, 2002; nightingale, 2002, 2006; malla et al. 2003; parajuli et al., 2010; bhandari et al., 2018) have reported gender inequality and exclusion. most of the forestbased decisions are made by men, which results in marginalization of women's involvement in forest management and protection, and minimizing the potential contributions of women (christie & giri, 2011; lidestav, 2010) which, in turn, is creating difficulty in attaining forest governance. lama et al., (2017) pointed out that participation of women remained low and many of the women who were in the executive committees (ecs) of the cfugs were serving as symbolic representative without exercising the authority. also, a growing body of work on gender and forest governance focuses on women's limited participation in management bodies and on gender equity/equality effects (bhattarai, 2020). a study conducted by bhandari et al. (2018) highlighted that the gender had direct impact on forest products utilization and management as women were the primary forest users with significant stakes in good forest governance. lack of inclusive and pro-poor policy making process, inequitable benefit distribution system, inappropriate organizational structure and bottom-up planning, and unfair decision-making are some of the current governance-related issues of community forestry (pokharel & niraula, 2004). elias et al. (2017) explored that gender inequality persisted in forestry research and practice, resulting into inequitable, inefficient policies, programs, and interventions. the existence of socio-economic heterogeneity and gender inequality may lead to a failure of collective action in communal bodies (adhikari & lovett, 2006; baland et al., 2007). it has been further argued that community forestry needs good forest governance to function systematically (pokharel & tiwari, 2013). however, there have been several discussions at various areas to enhance gender perspective in community forestry governance system of nepal. numerous governmental and nongovernmental organizations have been playing an efficient role for improvement of participation, transparency, and accountability elements of good governance (paudel & vogel, 2007). agarwal (2009) analyzed that higher presence of women in the ecs of forest user groups (fugs) showed improved forest conditions. there is a provision of 50% women representation in the ec of community forest user group (cfug), of which one key position (either chairperson or secretary) should be provided to women (guidelines for cfdp, 2009). although gender perspective for governance is being promoted, fao (2018) reported that insufficient information on the overall contribution of forests in gender equality still persists; gender-disaggregated data are required in greater extent at all levels (local, sub-national, national, regional and global) (agarwal, 2009; gurung et al., 2011; bradley et al., 2013; colfer, 2013; fao, 2018). more than 1,000 solely women-managed community forests (cfs) exist in nepal with female leadership (dof, 2018); however, it is not enough to maintain women empowerment and forest governance throughout nepal. some studies, e.g., lamichhane & parajuli (2014) and pokhrel & tiwari (2013) focused on governance assessment, but the studies on gender-based leadership impacting on forest governance through gender perspective is rare in nepal. in this context, this paper has explored the gender-based leadership's impacts on the forest governance status of two cfs of bhaktapur district of nepal in terms of gender perspectives through collection and comparison of the data of the two concerned cfugs. it is a pilot case study conducted in the district, and is expected to help in fulfilling knowledge gap in gender-based forest management systems and maintaining forest governance. it would further help for development of the policies and programs to encourage women towards community forest management and reduce gender discrimination of forest users towards governance maintenance. the general objective of this study was, to assess and compare the present status of good forest governance of the two cfugs (one solely female-managed and another managed by mixed gender but with male leadership) of the district with regards to three elements (transparency, accountability and participation level)while the specific objectives were to uncover how the ecs with different gender leadership incorporate the respective forest users of gender (male and female) categories in decision making activities in order to maintain good governance. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 61 thapa et al. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in the two the community forest user groups (cfugs), viz. bandeshwori cfug and suryamod perunge cfug of bhaktapur district which lies in the eastern part of the kathmandu valley situated in the central mid-hill region of nepal (figure 1). it is located between 27°36' 27°44' n latitudes and 85°21' 85°32' e longitudes ,and the terrain ranges from 1,331 m to 2,191 m above the mean sea level. bhaktapur,the smallest district among all the 77 districts of nepal, extends over an area of 11,900 ha of which 1,253 ha (29.6% of the total forest area of nepal (dfrs, 2018); out of this total forest area, 4,232 ha lies within the suryabinayak municipality alone. so far, 56 cfs have been handed over to the concerned cfugs within the district. the bandeshwori cf, with the area of 55.36 ha and lying within the suryabinayak municipality-10, is solely a female managed cf of the district. it was handed over to the concerned cfug in 2058 b.s., and is providing benefits to 253 households (hhs) in the locality. on the other hand, the suryamod perunge cf, with the area of 24.1 ha and situated in suryabinayak municipality-8 of the district, is purely a male-headed cf. it was handed over to the concerned cfug in 2056 b.s., and is benefitting 128 hhs. the district is inhabited by diverse ethnic groups of people with different socio-economic backgrounds. so, both the cfugs consist of different caste of users such as brahmin, chhettri, newar and other janajatis (nationalities), and dalits (socially backward groups of people) as their members. in both the cfs, the principal species found are rani salla (pinus roxburghii), utis (alnus nepalensis), katus (castanopsis indica), chilaune (schima wallichii) and gurans (rhododendron arboreum) together with nigalo (drepanostachyum falcatum). data collection the data were collected from the cfugs through structured and semi-structured questionnaire. the primary information were collected from key informant surveys, household surveys, personal observations, and focus group discussions while the secondary information were acquired from the district forest office reports, the respective operational plans (ops) of the two studied cfs, the constitutions of the concerned cfugs and their minute-books together with the financial and administrative records, research reports and journal-articles. for household survey, stratified random sampling with a sample of 15% total households from every well-being class (rich, medium and poor) of both the cfs was carried out. altogether, 39 hhs (with 2-rich, 35-medium, and 2-poor) of the total 253 hhs (with 8-rich, 234-medium, and 11-poor) of the bandeshwori cfug were selected for interview. similarly, 20 hhs (with 5-rich, 11-medium, and 4-poor) of the total 128 hhs (with 28-rich, 70-medium, and 30-poor) of the suryamod perunge cfug were selected for the purpose. on the other hand, focus group discussions (fgds) were organized with the community forest user committees (cfucs) and the women groups to discuss on various topics, such as fug operation procedure, information flow mechanism, decision making, participation level, record keeping system, forest harvesting, management and protection, transparency, accountability, responsibility, and so on. apart from the fgds, key informant survey was also conducted with the excommittee members, village leaders, forest watchmen, social workers, local elites and school teachers. furthermore, personal observations were also done during the study period and all types of meetings.fig. 1: map showing the locations of the study areas banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 62 thapa et al. developing criteria and indicators the assessment of forest governance in this study centered on the program on forest (profor, 2011)/fao’s framework for assessing and monitoring forest governance; and profor assessing and monitoring forest governance diagnostic tool (kishor and rosenbaum, 2012) which identifies good forest governance in the circumstance of large range of various actors with different requirements. the framework determines six principles, viz. (i) transparency, (ii) participation, (iii) efficiency, (iv) accountability, (v) effectiveness, and (vi) fairness/equity cutting across three pillars of governance, viz. (i) policy, legal, institutional and regulatory frameworks (i.e. how legislation, policies and institutions look on paper); (ii) planning and decision-making processes (i.e., how people plan and make decisions); and (iii) implementation, enforcement and compliance (i.e., how things work out practically). for the study of good forest governance in bhaktapaur district, the number of indicators from this assessment tool were reduced and added based on the local relevance, availability of quality information, and adjusted for scoring the indicators to reflect local conditions or issues. our study focused only on 3 principles/criteria (transparency, accountability and participation) and 14 indicators (5 under participation, 5 under transparency, and 4 under accountability) of the tool. a scoring scale of indicators (poor-1, fair-2, good-3, and excellent-4) were developed (table 1). table 1: criteria and indicators for governance assessment criteria/ elements indicators transparency i. ratio of cfug members who know about source of income and expenditure of cfug; ii. transparency on forest product distribution system and its allocation; iii. regular practice of public audit process, details discussion and approved by concerned public/ users; iv. cfug's annual programs, progress, budget and other information are approved by the users that is made public through community notice boards and other best means; and v. transparency in decision making. criteria/ elements indicators participation i. active participation of users in general assembly, meetings, op/ constitution preparation/renew; ii. regular following of participatory decision making process, and bottom-up planning; iii. full attendance in forest product distribution related meetings, and cf activities; iv. purposeful and regular engagement of women and socially backward people in every general assembly/ meeting and consideration of their voice; and v. decision in benefit sharing and need analysis. accountability i. ratio of users following their roles, responsibilities and duties; ii. attendance of the cfuc and cfug members on time in meetings and assembly; ii. accountability of cfug/cfuc for implementation of women, poor and dalit development program; and iv. provision for performance-based reward and penalties. calculation of governance index for statistical analysis of good governance, a sequence of calculations were conducted methodologically. response from every respondent of both the cfugs, considering the criteria/elements and indicators, were obtained for further analysis. the governance status in each cfug was calculated using the simple formula: % % (lamichhane & parajuli, 2014). the expected value for each indicator was taken as 4 because it was the highest value in scoring scale of indicators. the overall performance was estimated on the basis of the weighted average of the percentage scores (table 2) of all the criteria to determine the governance status and the areas for improvement. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 63 thapa et al. table 2: evaluation of performance on good governance score range (%) status remarks 85-100 very good keep it up 65-84 good still room for improvement 50-64 medium still plenty of rooms for improvement 35-63 poor needs more effort and commitment to improve <35 very poor needs major reforms source: (gyawali & subedi, 2011). the status of the participation of the users in decision making was accomplished through pearson chi-square test, and the information was interpreted for gender category which played great role in the objective of the study. results governance status in elements of the cfugs the indicators for individual elements of good forest governance were scored on the basis of obtained information from the users of cfs. the score of indicators of each cfug from the individual selected respondents were analyzed properly. along with the descriptive analysis of each element, a sequence of calculations were conducted for statistical analysis based on the simple mathematical procedure for calculating the governance explained earlier. the values thus calculated following the mathematical procedure is explained in the form of bar graph in figure 2 which shows the status of all the three elements of good governance for both the cfugs. the status of the elements of the bandeshwori cfug under female leadership was found to be higher with 84% on transparency, 85% on accountability and 88% on participation as compared to that of the suryamod perunge cfug under male leadership with 64% on transparency, 63% on accountability and 60% on participation (figure 2). the performance of each element on the basis of the criteria highlighted in table 2 indicated that the level of the accountability and participation elements of the bandeshwori cfug were found to be "very good" and that of transparency "good" whereas in the case of suryamod perunge cfug, all the three elements were found to be at medium-level, and they still required plenty of rooms for improvement. 84 85 88 64 63 60 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% transparency accountability participation sc or e (% ) elements of good governance comparison of elements of good governance of both cfugs bandeshwori cfug suryamod perunge cfug fig. 2: governance status in the cfugs overall governance status in the cfugs after analyzing and comparing the status of each element of governance, the overall governance of each cfug was assessed following the mathematical procedure. the weight score of all the three elements (which indicated the overall governance status) of the bandeshwori cfug was found to be 85%, while it was only 62% in the case of the suryamod perunge cfug (figure 3), which clearly indicated that the overall governance status of the later one needed more improvement so as to increase it to the level of the former one. 85 62 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% g ov er na nc e (% ) cfugs overall governance status bandeshwori cfug suryamod perunge cfug fig. 3: overall governance status in the cfugs banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 64 thapa et al. participation of the cfug users in decision making on forest-related activities on the basis of the objective of the study, the status of decision making (which was influenced by the gender category ultimately affecting the forest governance) in both the cfugs were analyzed. all the female users of the bandeshwori cfug were involved in decision making activities because of which the calculation of gender consideration was not included here, but the suryamod perunge cfug had gender-related issues in decision making. in the case of suryamod perunge cfug, the involvement of the male users in all the forest-related decision making activities was from medium to high whereas that of the female was either nil or just medium, lacking their higher involvement (table 3). table 3: participation of suryamod perunge cfug members in decision making on forest-related activities decision making on gender participation of cfug members (%) no low medium high forest management activities (silvicultural and harvesting activities, forest protection and fire line construction, forest block division, proper op implementation and monitoring, management plans and implementation) male 0 0 10 30 female 20 25 15 0 resource utilization activities (sustainable resource collection and utilization, pricing of forest products, fund mobilization for various forestry and community activities, fund allocation for capacity development, iga) male 0 0 15 25 female 15 30 15 0 participatory activities (users identification, female's inclusion, cfuc formation, general assembly/monthly meetings, op preparation, participatory forest product distribution, appropriate time selection to enter in the forest for silvicultural purpose) male 0 0 15 25 female 10 20 30 0 the low participation ratio of the female users compared to the male ones of the suryamod perunge cfug in decision making was determined through chi-square test (table 5). it was hypothesized that "the involvement of the forest users in decision making on forest-related activities was associated with gender of the users". the observed and expected values of the various forestry activities of both the genders at participation-level are highlighted in table 4. in the case of forest management activity, the calculated chi-square value (15.0) was found to be greater than the tabulated one (7.815) at 0.05 significance level with 3 degrees of freedom, which was further supported by the lower p-value of 0.002 (table 5). similarly, the calculated chi-square values of the resource utilization and participatory activities were 13.75 and 11.67, respectively, which were higher than the tabulated ones (7.815). also, the p-values (0.003 and 0.009) for both the respective activities were lower at 0.05 level of significance. therefore, the null hypothesis (no association between gender and forestry activities) was rejected, and it came to be true that, in the case of the suryamod perunge cfug, the involvement of the forest users in decision making on forestrelated activities was highly dependent on gender of the users. generally, the males were favored in decision making on the forest-related activities while the females were discarded from such activities even if they were primary users of the forest resources. on the contrary, the female users of the bandeshwori cfug were involved in decision making activities too, which was, no doubt, supported by its governance status. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 65 thapa et al. table 4: observed and expected values of the extent of participation of suryamod perunge cfug members in different forestry activities forestry activities extent of participation gender male female observed values expected values observed values expected values forest management no 0 1.6 4 2.4 low 0 2.0 5 3.0 medium 2 2.0 3 3.0 high 6 2.4 0 3.6 resource utilization no 0 1.2 3 1.8 low 0 2.4 6 3.6 medium 3 2.4 3 3.6 high 5 2.0 0 3.0 participatory activities no 0 0.8 2 1.2 low 0 1.6 4 2.4 medium 3 3.6 6 5.4 high 5 2.0 0 3.0 table 5: chi-square values of different variables in suryamod perunge cfug independent variables forestry activities forest management resource utilization participatory activities chi-square p-value chi-square p-value chi-square p-value gender (male/female) 15.00 0.002* 13.75 0.003* 11.67 0.009* *at 5% level of significance with 3 degrees of freedom. discussion our study has considered gendered perspective towards forest governance of the two cfs of bhaktapur district of nepal, selected on genderbased leadership. the study indicated that women's participation and leadership had great influence on governance status of forest, which would directly affect forest management. the womenmanaged cfug, i.e. the bandeshwori cfug did not have any gender-related issues as all the ecmembers and forest users were female, and all of them were involved in forest-related activities as well as capacity building and decision making, which, no doubt, helped to maintain good forest governance. besides, the income and expenditure were always audited, forest products distributed systematically, and all the information were kept transparent through notices, informal messages and meetings. our study supports study of buchy & rai (2008) who reported that women-only cfugs has contributed towards maintenance of governance (transparency, communication and accountability) including forest cover management and financial improvement. also, leisher et al. (2016) suggested that women empowerment in decision making roles has great importance in better governance of natural resources. the studies of agarwal (2009, 2010) in nepal and india reported that improvement in forest governance and resource sustainability were directly correlated with women's involvement in forest management executive committees, and decision making in rule enforcement. although there is a provision of 50% women representation in male-headed cfug, they are less favored for active involvement. wagle et al. (2016) stated that in nepal, achievements in preparation of women-friendly policies banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 66 thapa et al. and practices in community-based forestry institutions are only in paper, and lacked in application towards overall governance of forestry sector. instead of achieving genuine influence in decision making process, increase of women’s memberships in decision-making bodies are only for fulfilling official gender-equity quota described by the governmental policies (bhattarai, 2020). key positions in cfucs are essential as their individual involvement in the respective field has greater importance, and they hold some kind of authority. despite being in one of the key positions (secretary) in the case of the suryamod perunge cfuc, female were excluded in decision making process, which in turn decreased the overall performance of the cfug. our study contradicts the findings done by acharya & gentle (2006) who noted positive changes because of women's key decision making positions in community forest user groups in nepal. women are generally under-represented in forest user groups (coleman & mwangi, 2013). it was reported that the users, especially women, hardly participated in the meetings and assemblies of the suryamod perunge cfug unless they received direct benefits which made meetings irregular and inactive. there was a lack of accountability among the users and committee members. the women were mostly excluded by men from major forest activities, meetings, product distribution and decision making. in reporting a similar situation, poudel (2003) concluded that women's presence in committee meetings and discussions was only for attendance to record on the minute books and not for suggestions and decision making in different activities. women were highly excluded from decision making because of limited access to required information and norms, lack of women's representation and their recognized role in public forums (agarwal, 2002);also, the decisions are done without seeking the agreement of the female members (giri & darnhofer, 2010; lama & buchy, 2002). despite the fact that some remarkable efforts towards policies and practices, e.g., in cf operational plan, practice of auditing and reporting of funds, and maintenance of minute books had been made in the male-headed suryamod perunge cfug, these achievements were not reflected in the overall forest governance. the decisions were self-oriented and were made mainly by male cfuc. despite the fact that both male and female have equal ability to create positive change in the institution in their favor, there is difficulty in achieving change due to women's lower-level of power resources in the institution ( samndong & kjosavik, 2017). if gender isn't taken into account in policy research and implementation, it highly affects forestry planning, distort understanding of human impacts on resource management and alter resource allocation thus negatively affecting potential opportunities for successful policy implementation (fao, 2007). for ensuring proper forest management, there is necessity of women encouragement, enhance their pro-activeness and increase participation in decision making process. however, the forgotten initial step for gender-inclusive community forests management might be developing appropriate social space for female members in every public decision making bodies (bhattarai, 2020).although policies and programs have favored in increment of women representatives in community forestry ec and general assemblies, there is necessity of their effective participation at all-levels (agarwal, 2010; lama & buchy, 2002). there is a strong need to revive the work on gender relations, identities, and responsibilities (tyagi & das, 2017). numerous important issues have been identified from this pilot case study on the community forestry status in nepal in relation to gender and good forest governance. firstly, women are well presented in participatory decision making only in solely women-managed cfugs while women are generally dominated as well as deprived from such activities in cf managed by mixed gender. secondly, good forest governance can only be maintained when effective participation of women in forestry is encouraged. thirdly, regular research and monitoring of application of policies and further exploration in other elements play vital role for proper women representation and governance maintenance in cfs. conclusion among the community forest users, females are primary users of forest resources, so gender is important factor in maintaining governance. while comparing the elements and overall governance status of the two cfugs, the study revealed that the female-headed cfugs was better in forest management in terms of all aspects of governance as compared to the one under male banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 67 thapa et al. leadership. it can be, therefore, concluded that decentralization of power to female users and their active participation in leadership position are needed for maintaining good governance and proper management of community forests. besides, regular studies with more sample size and techniques are required for maintaining forest governance in community forestry. acknowledgements we express our gratitude to all the cfuc and cfug members of both the bandeshworiand suryamod perunge cfs for their cooperation during our field visits and data collection. also, we are grateful to the district forest office, bhaktapur for providing valuable information. references acharya, k. p., and gentle, p. 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(2016). examining nepalese forestry governance from gender perspectives. international journal of public administration40 (3): 205–225. 21 any plant species that are native to one region but have been introduced into an area outside their natural distribution range where they colonize and threaten biological diversity, ecosystems and human well-beings are considered as the invasive alien plant species (iaps), and the processes are known as biological invasions (cbd, 2002). the iaps can display strong allelopathic properties (rai and tripathi, 1982), rapid vegetative growth, prolific seed production capacity (norbu, 2004), long-lived seeds, early maturation to sexually reproductive stage, phenotypic plasticity and ability to survive in a wide range of environmental conditions (tiwari et al., 2005). the iaps can display several negative impacts in wide range of field such as biodiversity, ecosystems, human health and livelihood, agriculture and aquaculture, and can cause economic losses (rai and singh, 2020). invasion by iaps is often associated with out-competing native species and homogenizing ecosystems, changing hydrological characteristics, degrading gene pools through hybridization with native species resulting biodiversity loss (miththapala, 2007; richburg, 2008; hui et al., 2011). these damages are aggravated by climate change (kriticos et al., 2003), pollution, habitat loss and human-induced disturbances (norbu, 2004; kohli et al., 2009). the iaps can break the plantconsumer interactions, drive population declines and species extinction (donlan et al., 2003; reaser et al., 2007; dangermond et al., 2010). status and impacts of invasive alien plant species in parsa national park, central nepal r. chaudhary1, b. b. shrestha1*, h. thapa1 and m. siwakoti1 1. central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal, *e-mail: shresthabb@gmail.com extent of plant invasions has been expected to be low in protected areas such as national parks due to low anthropogenic activities and high wilderness. however, recent researches across the world have revealed that plant invasions can be severe in the national parks with negative impacts on the protected species and ecosystems. unfortunately, the status of plant invasions in the national parks of nepal is mostly unknown. in this study, we sampled at seven locations inside the parsa national park (pnp) to document diversity and abundance of invasive alien plant species (iaps) and their impacts on tree regeneration. altogether, 130 quadrats of 10 m × 10 m were sampled. we recorded 14 iaps in the pnp. three of the iaps (chromolana odorata, lantana camara and mikania micrantha) were among the 100 of the world’s worst invasive alien species. c. odorata was found to be the most frequent iaps with the highest cover. the frequency and cover of the iaps were higher at the sites close to the settlements than at the sites away from the settlements. the species richness of the iaps was also higher at the sites closer to the settlements than away. the sapling density of the tree species was found to have declined with the increasing cover of the iaps suggesting that the iaps had negatively affected tree regeneration. our data revealed that the pnp has already witnessed massive plant invasions with widespread occurrence of three of the world’s worst invasive species. therefore, it is high time to integrate management of invasive alien species in the management plan of the park. keywords: biological invasions, chromolaena odorata, protected areas, species richness, tree regeneration banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1, 2020 pp 21‒31https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i1.29179 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 22 chaudhary et al. the problem of plant invasions is also escalating in nepal (shrestha, 2019). altogether, 179 species of naturalized plants have been reported from nepal (shrestha et al., 2017), and 26 of them are considered invasive (shrestha, 2019). some iaps, such as ageratina adenophora (chettri, 1986), chromolaena odorata (norbu, 2004), mikania micrantha (sapkota, 2012; rai and scarborough, 2012), lantana camara and hyptis suaveolens are serious iaps disrupting forests and shrub lands in nepal (tiwari et al., 2005). similarly, parthenium hysterophorus has been expanding its distribution from urban areas and grasslands to forest ecosystems including the habitats of endangered mammals (shrestha et al., 2015, 2019). the introduction and colonization of iaps is one of the serious threats to different protected areas, particularly the lowlands of nepal. the iaps like c. odorata, m. micrantha, l. camara, ipomoea carnea and p. hysterophorus were the most common and problematic species in the national parks and wildlife reserves of the terai region in nepal (bhuju et al., 2013). m. micrantha has proliferated rapidly in forest, grasslands and wetland areas, and has been categorized as the most serious weed of chitwan national park (sapkota, 2012, murphy et al. 2013). the invasion of such iaps disrupts the ecosystems in the park, and may disturb the lives of flagship species and various threatened floras and faunas (e.g. murphey et al., 2013). the management of such iaps requires park specific data related to the iaps diversity, their abundance and impacts on native species. in this context, the present study was undertaken with the following objectives: i) to identify the iaps invading the parsa national park, and analyze their abundance; ii) to analyze how the species richness of the iaps vary spatially within the park, and iii) to assess the impacts of the iaps on the regeneration of tree species. the data generated from this study is useful for the management of the iaps in the parsa national park (pnp). materials and methods study area the study was conducted in the parsa national park (pnp) which is located in the southcentral lowland terai of nepal (figure 1). the park extends over 627.39 km2 area, and is located between 27°13'52" n and 27°32'26" n latitudes, and 84°40'22" e and 84°58'41" e longitudes (dnpwc/pcp, 2003). it partially covers three districts, viz. parsa, makawanpur and bara. most of the park’s landscape consists of siwalik hills. the soil is primarily composed of gravel and conglomerates susceptible to erosion. the foothills are very porous; hence, water is scarce in this park (bhuju et al., 2007). the park has eight types of ecosystems and two types of forest vegetation with 298 species of vascular plants, 37 mammals, 503 birds, 8 herpeto and 8 fish species (bhuju et al., 2007). the forest in the park is mostly composed of sal (shorea robusta) mixed with broadleaved vegetation. the park focuses on the protection of plants like dalbergia latifolia (satisal) and faunas like bos frontalis gaurus (gaur), elephas maximus (elephant), panthera tigris (tiger), rhinoceros unicornis (rhino) and python molurus (python). the main threats to the biodiversity of the park are the illegal hunting and poaching, illegal collection of non-timber forest products (ntfps) and rapid spread of iaps (dnpwc, 2003). figure 1: map showing the sampling sites and locations of sample plots within the pnp (the map was prepared using the arcgis version 10) according to the records of the hetauda weather station, which is located at about 12 km north-east from the study area, the average annual rainfall of the study area is 2,256 mm with more than 90% rainfall during may-september, and highest during july and august (figure 2). the monthly mean temperature ranges from a minimum of 17°c to a maximum of 30°c. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 23 chaudhary et al. 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 ja n fe b m ar a pr m ay ju n ju l a ug se p o ct n ov d ec pr ec ip ita tio n in m m . t em pe ra tu re in ° c months max. temp min. temp rainfall figure 2: five-year (2009−2013) average minimum and maximum temperatures and monthly precipitation recorded at hetauda weather station. (source: department of hydrology and meteorology, government of nepal) vegetation sampling the field data were collected through vegetation sampling using quadrat method. considering representativeness and accessibility of the potential sampling sites and safety from wildlife, we selected adhabhar, mahadev khola, charbhaiya, gadualine, nirmalbasti, bhata and pratappur areas for sampling (see figure 1 above). these were also the sites where security posts of the park were located. among them, three sites (adhabhar, bhata and pratappur) were close to the human settlement, and the remaining four were away from the settlements. at each of the six sites except bhata, 20 quadrats (10m × 10m) were sampled within a distance of about 200−250m. at the bhata site, only 10 quadrats were sampled due to the high risk of wild animal. therefore, the total number of quadrats sampled was 130. in each quadrat, we recorded the flowering plant species, and visually estimated the cover of both the individual iaps as well as the combination of all the iaps. besides, we measured the diameters of the tree trunks at breast height (137cm, dbh) and counted the number of saplings (height>137cm and dbh<10cm) of all the tree species and fire marks (i.e. presence/ absence of burnt plant parts). in addition, the geographic locations (latitude, longitude and elevation) of all the quadrats were recorded with the help of global positioning system (gps) receiver. the herbarium specimens of all the flowering plants were collected. plant identification flowering plant species were identified on the basis of their morphological features with the help of a number of references (e.g. polunin and stainton, 1984; grierson and long, 1984, 1987, 1991, 1999 and 2001; malla et al.,1986; siwakoti and varma, 1999; press et al., 2000; wu et al., 2011; bhuju et al., 2013). we identified the invasive alien plant species (iaps) following tiwari et al. (2005). data analysis the flowering plant species were categorized into dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous. they were further categorized into different life forms such as tree, shrub, climber and herb. the frequencies of the iaps for each site were calculated separately in terms of the percentage of the quadrat. similarly, the cover values of the individual iaps for each site was calculated in terms of the mean of the cover values estimated for each quadrat. these site-wise frequencies and cover values of the iaps are presented in table 1. the frequencies and cover values of the iaps for the pnp were calculated using the methods mentioned above by pooling the data of the three sites (adhabhar, bhata and pratappur) which are close to the human settlements and another four sites (mahadev khola, charbhaiya, gadualine, and nirmalbasti) which are far from the settlements. that means the combined frequencies and covers of the iaps were calculated for two groups of the sites, viz. i) near the settlements and ii) away from the settlements. the combined cover value (0−100%) of all the iaps present in each quadrat was converted to domin cover scales to minimize the errors and to normalize the data (kent and coker, 1994). the domin cover scales were 1=1−2 individuals with no measurable cover, 2=several individuals but less than 1% cover, 3=1−4% cover, 4=4.1−10% cover, 5=10.1−25% cover, 6=25.1−33% cover, 7=33.1−50% cover, 8=50.1−75% cover, 9=75.1−90% cover, 10=90.1−100% cover. these cover classes were used to compare the iaps cover by independent sample t-test between the sites close to and away from the settlements; between quadrats with and without fire marks. using the same method, the species richness of the iaps (i.e. the no. of iaps/quadrat) was also compared between sites. analysis of variance (anova) was used to compare the cover class values and the iaps species richness among seven sites. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 24 chaudhary et al. in order to access the impact of the iaps on tree regeneration, the variation of tree sapling density with the combined cover percentage of all the iaps was analyzed with the help of linear regression. before accomplishing the statistical analyses, the data were checked for normality (kolmogorov-smirnov test) and homogeneity of variance (levene’s test). all the statistical analyses were accomplished using the statistical package for social sciences (spss, version 16.0). results flowering plant species altogether, we recorded 231 flowering plant species belonging to 63 families from the sampling sites of the pnp (figure 3). majority of them were found to be dicotyledonous. in terms of life forms, the highest number of species belonged to herb. among all the flowering plants, 14 species were iaps. figure 3 (a b): diversity of the flowering plants collected within the sampling sites. frequency, cover and richness of the iaps we recorded 14 iaps representing 5 families in the pnp (figure 4 and table 1). the most species riches family was found to be asteraceae with 7 species followed by fabaceae with 3 species, amaranthaceae with 2 species, lamiaceae and verbenaceae, each with 1 species. among them, c. odorata had the highest frequency and cover (figure 4a and figure 4b). the frequency and cover of each iaps within the sites near the settlements were found to be always higher as compared to the ones within the sites away from the settlements (figure 4). across the sampling sites, c. odorata was the most frequent iaps with the highest cover in all the sampling sites except in the bhata site where senna tora was the most frequent but m. micrantha had the highest cover (table 1). when the coverages of all the iaps was combined, it was found to be higher near the settlements than away from the settlements (table 2a) and lower in the plots with fire marks than the ones without fire mark (table 2b). similarly, the cover of all the iaps combined was higher at bhata and pratappur sites than at the other sampling sites (table 2c). 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 fr eq ue nc y% invasive alien plant species near settlement away from settlement 0 5 10 15 20 25 co ve r% invasive alien plant species near settlement away from settlement a) b) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 fr eq ue nc y% invasive alien plant species near settlement away from settlement 0 5 10 15 20 25 co ve r% invasive alien plant species near settlement away from settlement a) b) figure 4 (a): frequency of the iaps near and away from the settlements, and figure 4 (b): cover of the iaps near and away from the settlements. (note: chr.od=chromolaena odorata, sen.to=senna tora, mim.pu=mimosa pudica, age.co=ageratum conyzoides, hyp.su =hyptis suaveolens, sen.oc=senna occidentalis, age. ho=ageratum houstonianum, mik.mi=mikania micrantha, alt.ph=alternanthera philoxeroides, lan.ca=lantana camara, bid.pi=bidens pilosa, xan.st=xanthium strumarium, par.hy=parthenium hysterophorus and ama.sp=amaranthus spinosus). banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 25 chaudhary et al. ta bl e 1: s um m ar y of th e si te -w is e fr eq ue nc ie s ( % ) a nd c ov er ag es (% ) o f t he ia ps in th e pn p sa m pl in g si te s pr at ap pu r c ov . 28 .5 5 2. 2 6. 25 5. 7 0. 25 1. 7 4. 65 2 1. 25 0. 85 0. 25 1. 75 2. 35 fr eq . 90 20 30 45 5 20 50 30 10 10 5 10 15 b ha ta c ov . 16 .4 2. 8 4 18 .5 0. 5 3. 4 3. 4 0. 6 24 .8 0. 5 fr eq . 60 40 10 90 10 30 60 20 60 10 n ir m al va st i c ov . 9. 7 0. 45 0. 15 0. 2 0. 05 0. 15 0. 1 fr eq . 55 10 5 10 5 10 10 g ad uw al in e c ov . 5. 1 0. 2 0. 1 0. 25 0. 55 fr eq . 60 15 5 5 15 c ha rb ha iy a c ov . 7. 3 0. 15 0. 2 0. 1 0. 25 fr eq . 75 10 10 5 15 m ah ad ev k ho la c ov . 2. 95 0. 5 0. 25 0. 05 0. 25 fr eq . 50 30 15 5 5 a dh ab ha r c ov . 21 .2 1. 25 1. 05 0. 25 0. 65 0. 55 0. 25 0. 05 0. 25 fr eq . 95 45 40 25 20 10 10 5 5 in va si ve a lie n pl an t s pe ci es c hr om ol ae na o do ra ta (s pr en g. ) r .m . k in g & h . r ob m im os a pu di ca l . h yp tis su av eo le ns (l .) po it. se nn a to ra (l .) r ox b. la nt an a ca m ar a l. al te rn an th er a ph ilo xe ro id es (m ar t.) g ris eb . ag er at um h ou st on ia nu m m ill . ag er at um c on yz oi de s l . se nn a oc ci de nt al s ( l. ) l in k. m ik an ia m ic ra nt ha k un th pa rt he ni um h ys te ro ph or us l . am ar an th us sp in os us l . bi de ns p ilo sa l . xa nt hi um st ru m ar iu m l . s. n . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10 . 11 . 12 . 13 . 14 . banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 26 chaudhary et al. table 2: mean coverages and species richness of the iaps a) near and away from the settlements samples & tests domin cov. scale of iaps (͞χ ± s.e.) iaps richness (͞χ ± s.e.) settlement status near settlements 6.32 ± 0.29 3.3 ± 0.16 away from settlements 2.72 ± 0.22 1.29 ± 0.11 levene's test for equality of variances f-value 0.406 0.491 sig.-value 0.525 0.485 t-test sig.-value 0.000 0.000 b) with and without fire marks fire mark status no fire mark 4.7 ± 0.31 2.35 ± 0.16 fire mark 3.2 ± 0.33 1.61 ± 0.18 levene's test of equality of variances f-value 2.041 2.260 sig.-value 0.156 0.135 t-test sig.-value 0.001 0.002 c) different sampling sites sampling sites adhabhar 4.95 ± 0.45 2.80 ± 0.27 mahadev kohola 2.00 ± 0.36 1.10 ± 0.19 charbhaiya 2.85 ± 0.47 1.25 ± 0.24 gaduwaline 2.70 ± 0.44 1.25 ± 0.22 nirmalvasti 3.35 ± 0.49 1.55 ± 0.23 bhata 8.00 ± 0.42 3.80 ± 0.25 pratappur 6.85 ± 0.38 3.55 ± 0.22 leven's test of equality of variances sig.-value 0.465 0.691 anova f-value 22.578 22.047 sig.-value <0.001 <0.001 (note: domin cover scale of iaps: 1=1−2 individuals with no measurable cover, 2=several individuals but <1% cover, 3=1−4% cover, 4=4.1−10% cover, 5=10.1−25% cover, 6=25.1−33% cover, 7=33.1−50% cover, 8=50.1−75% cover, 9=75.1−90% cover and 10=90.1−100% cover of the iaps) the species richness of the iaps was higher near the settlements than away from the settlements (table 2a) and lower in the areas with fire marks than in the areas without fire marks (table 2b). similarly, the species richness was also significantly different (p<0.05) across the sampling sites, with the highest value at the bhata site. impacts of iaps on tree regeneration the sapling density of the tree species was calculated as a measure of tree regeneration in the study area. the sampling density declined significantly with the increasing cover of the iaps suggesting that the iaps had adverse effects on the regeneration of the tree species (figure 5). banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 27 chaudhary et al. y = -0.040x + 4.414 r² = 0.203 p = 0.000 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 sa pl in g d en si ty /h a coverage of iaps (%) figure 5: variation of sapling density with coverage of iaps. each point in figure represents a quadrat (n = 130). the less number of points in the figure is due to the overlapping of the data among the quadrats. the fitted line is based on the linear regression model. discussion national parks are relatively less disturbed from the anthropogenic activities compared to the surrounding landscape. therefore, the extent of plant invasions is expected to be low in the national parks. however, our data showed that more than half of the invasive alien plant species (iaps) found in nepal has already invaded the pnp. three of the world’s worst iaps (c. odorata, l. camara and m. micrantha) have invaded several localities inside the park with potential negative impacts on the protected wildlife and native biodiversity. due to the logistic and safety reasons, we could not cover the entire area of the park for sampling the iaps. there is possibility of finding the additional iaps through more intensive sampling than the present one (study). however, the results of the present study revealed that the problem of plant invasions in the pnp is already alarming, requiring immediate management interventions. there was spatial variation in the cover and richness of the iaps. the higher cover and richness of the iaps in the bhata, pratappur and adhabhar sites might be due to the effect of human activities. these three sites were close to the settlements, and the local communities used the adjacent areas for grazing and collection of forest resources. human movements and associated disturbances increase the propagule pressure of iaps by dispersing seeds and other reproductive units, and provide opportunity for the establishment of the iaps by reducing native vegetation cover (hobbs and huenneke, 1992). the frequency of the individual iaps reported in this study is similar to the findings of tiwari et al. (2005). for example, the most frequent species (c. odorata) in the pnp was also reported as the most frequent species in the forest of the terai region (tiwari et al. 2005). among the 14 iaps recorded in the pnp, 3 species (c. odaorata, l. camara and m. micrantha) are in the list of 100 of the world’s invasive alien species (lowe et al., 2004). similarly, a. conyzoides, c. odorata, l. camara, m. micrantha and p. hysterophorus present in the pnp were also identified as the noxious invasive plants in the asia pacific region (sankaran et al., 2005). the high invasion of c. odorata in the pnp might be due to the prolific seed production capacity, availability of intermediate light intensity and high efficiency of competition for nutrition (rejmanek and richardson, 1996; norbu, 2004). sal forest of terai region with relatively open canopy may provide suitable habitat for the proliferation of c. odorata (joshi, 2001). however at bhata site, m. micrantha was reported as the most problematic iaps, and this could be due to the presence of wetlands associated with lakes (lauki daha and devaki daha) and streams (bhata khola and jalvayu khola). the moist land with open canopy is considered as the best habitat for the growth, reproduction and rapid colonization of m. micrantha (siwakoti, 2007; sapkota, 2012). there was higher abundance of individual iaps in the areas close to the settlements than in the areas away from the settlements within the pnp. fugii et al. (2008) also reported high level of invasion of each iaps near the settlements. anthropogenic activities and animal movement near the settlements may help in arrival and distribution of iaps propagules (hobbs and huenneke, 1992). the level of invasion was found to have declined with decreasing human activities in peri-urban areas (karki, 2009). generally, mild forest fire provide suitable niche for the establishment of iaps, and promotes their growth (de rouw, 1991; witkowski, 2000). however, impacts of fire may depend on intensity and frequency of fire. in the pnp, the cover and species richness of the iaps was lower in the quadrats with fire marks than in the plots without such marks. forest floor and grasslands banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 28 chaudhary et al. are frequently burnt in the pnp to induce growth of forage species for wildlife. it was likely that severe fire might have eliminated propagules and seed bank of some iaps. in the pnp, the sapling density of the trees was found to have declined with the increase in the iaps cover. high abundance of iaps can modify the micro-habitat in such a way that it becomes hostile for seed germination and seedling growth of native species. iaps release certain secondary metabolites i.e. allelochemicals that makes the chemical environment of soil unsuitable for germination of seeds of other species (inderjit et al., 2008). iaps are 'passengers' of deforestation and forest degradation at their early stage of colonization, which later change into 'drivers' by disrupting tree regeneration process (dalalclayton et al., 2014). conclusion the presence of 14 iaps (out of the 26 iaps reported in nepal) revealed that the pnp has already witnessed massive plant invasions. the widespread occurrence of three of the world’s worst invasive species suggests that the park management has been ineffective in preventing introduction of the well-known invasive weed. in absence of specific management plan for the invasive species, it is highly likely that the extent of invasion of the previously established iaps will increase, which may pose additional threats to the protected wildlife and native biodiversity. furthermore, there is also a chance of introduction of new invasive species into the park. therefore, it is high time to integrate the management of the iaps in the management plan of the park. additional research focusing on spatial distribution mapping of the invasive alien plant species and their impacts on native plant species and ecosystem are essential to better inform the park management. acknowledgements this work was supported by the university grants commission through its faculty research grants program. we are thankful to dr. lal bahadur thapa of the central department of botany, tribhuvan university and mr. nilambar mishra, chief warden of the pnp for their support in the study. we are equally thankful to mr. yagya raj paneru for preparing the map of the study area. we are grateful to the department of national park and wildlife conservation, and parsa national park for granting permission to work in pnp. similarly, we are indebted to the national herbarium and plant laboratories (kath) and tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch) for allowing us to check the herbarium specimens during plant identification. references bhuju, u. r., shakya, p. r. basnet, t. b. and shrestha, s. 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(eds. ) (2011). flora of china, vol. 20–21 (asteraceae). science press, beijing and missouri botanical garden press, st. louis. phuyal et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 3-12 3 the common method of propagation is through seeds but seed germination in zanthoxylum armatum is very low due to the presence of hard seed coat, which might be a great hurdle for large scale production of plantlets. so an attempt was made in this study to see the effect of different growth hormones, their concentrations and different rooting media on the rooting and sprouting of z. armatum. the stem cuttings of z. armatum were treated with two types of auxins namely indole-3-butyric acid (iba) and naphthalene acetic acid (naa) at different concentrations (2000 ppm, 3000 ppm and 5000 ppm), while the untreated cuttings were used as control. the cuttings were planted in three different rooting media: sand, neopeat and mix (containing a mixture of sand, soil and vermin-compost). the completely randomized design was used for the experiment. the total number of stem cuttings of z. armatum used in the experiment was 1080 for 18 treatments in three replicates (20 cuttings per treatment x 18 treatments x 3 replicates). the experiment was set up in controlled greenhouse conditions at dabur nepal private limited nursery, banepa, kavre district. the parameters evaluated were root length, shoot length and number of roots per cutting. the collected data were analyzed statistically using r-program with agricola. least significant difference (lsd) and duncan multiple range test (dmrt), as mean separation technique was applied to identify the most efficient treatment in the rooting and shooting behavior of z. armatum (gomez and gomez, 1984). hormone concentration and growth media significantly affected the rooting and shooting ability of z. armatum stem cuttings. iba was found to be more effective than naa. neopeat medium was better than sand and mix media. the highest number of roots (6.5) and root length (11.6 cm) were recorded under iba 5000 ppm in neopeat medium. key words: growth hormones, growth media, sprouting, stem cuttings, rooting, zanthoxylum armatum, effect of growth hormone and growth media on the rooting and shooting of zanthoxylum armatum stem cuttings n. phuyal1 & 2*, p. k. jha1, p. p. raturi3, s. gurung3 and s. rajbhandary1 zanthoxylum armatum dc. (eng. winged prickly ash; nep. timur) belonging to family rutaceae, is a popular nepalese spice plant (manandhar, 2002). the plant is an erect shrub or a small tree up to 6 m in height with dense glabrous foliage and straight prickles on stem, commonly occurring in hot valleys of subtropical to temperate himalayas (kashmir to bhutan), north-east india and pakistan, laos, myanmar, thailand, china, bangladesh, bhutan, japan, north and south korea, north vietnam, taiwan, lesser sunda islands, philippines, malaya peninsula and sumatra (grierson and long, 1991; nair and nayar, 1997). in nepal, it is distributed from west to east at an elevation range of 1000 to 2500 m in open places or in forest undergrowth (dpr, 2007). it is an important medicinal plant with a high trade value having diverse uses in ayurveda, pharmacy and industry. it has been used in several traditional medicinal practices to cure several diseases such as abdominal pain, carminative, antispasmodic, rheumatism, skin diseases, cholera, diabetes and asthma (singh et. al, 2016). among the eight species of zanthoxylum found in nepal, z. armatum is the most common and one of the 1 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathamndu, nepal. * e-mail: nirmalaphuyal@gmail.com 2 department of plant resources, ministry of forests and environment, thapathali, kathmandu, nepal. 3 ashok medicinal and aromatic plants center, dabur nepal pvt. ltd., janagal, kavre, nepal. banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 3-12 phuyal et al 4 30 medicinal plants and it is prioritized by the government for cultivation and agro-technology development (dpr, 2006). the plant grows well in open pastures, degraded slopes, shrub lands, natural forests and wastelands with adequate rainfall, deep soils exposed to sun. clay or loam soil with high organic matter is suitable for the cultivation of this species. the flowering starts in five year old plants in aprilmay and fruiting in august-october and can be harvested from october to january (anonymous, 2008). the plants are ready to harvest after three years of plantation and the average annual yield of five years old plant is about 3.5 kg (ansab, 2011). z. armatum is generally free from disease, insect or nematode attack; however seven insect pests mostly causing defoliation were reported by tara et al. (2011). the growing demand of z. armatum in both domestic and international markets, unsustainable harvesting from the wild and lack of proper conservation strategies have led to a sharp decline in the natural population of this valuable plant (phuyal et al., 2018). the common method of propagation is through seeds but seed germination in z. armatum is very low due to the presence of hard seed coat (chadha, 1976) which might be a great hurdle for large scale production of plantlets. furthermore the solitary seeds in the fruit also limit the quantities of seed in z. armatum (singh and rawat, 2017). hence vegetative propagation through stem cuttings could be a viable option for mass scale nursery production of quality planting materials of required genotypes. the increased genetic gains through mass propagation have been obtained in several horticultural plants (leakey et al., 1994; poupard et al., 1994; swamy et al., 2002). however, root initiation in cuttings is affected by various factors like plant growth regulators, age of the plant, growth media, size of the cuttings (hartmann et al., 2002; husen and pal, 2006). the information on the propagation techniques of z. armatum is still meager. therefore a low cost and reliable technology for the propagation for z. armatum has to be developed to integrate its manifold applications into agroforestry systems for the overall benefit of the rural communities as well as the ex-situ and in-situ conservation of this important plant. commercial farming by developing suitable agro-technology could be very crucial for enhancement of the marginalized and disadvantaged rural communities. hence an attempt was made in this study to see the effect of different growth hormones, their concentrations and different rooting media on the rooting and sprouting of z. armatum. materials and methods the study was conducted at the green house of dabur nepal nursery private limited, banepa during february 2017. collection of plant materials fresh branches were collected from 4–5 years old healthy plants of z. armatum grown at the nursery premises. the semi-hard wood branches were cut into 15 cm long segment with 2–3 nodes, and all the leaves were removed. surface sterilization all the selected cuttings were surface sterilized by soaking in freshly prepared 1 % bordeaux mixture (calcium hydroxide and copper sulphate) for 10-15 minutes. hormone concentration different concentrations i.e. 2000, 3000 and 5000 ppm of two plant growth hormones iba and naa were prepared according to the procedure described by hartmann et al. (2002). the surface sterilized cuttings (cut ends only) were then dipped in a bucket containing the respective hormones solutions for 24 hours so as to enhance the absorption of hormones. growth media three different growth media (rooting media) viz. sand, neopeat (coconut fiber) and mix (containing a mixture of sand, soil and vermi-compost, in the proportion of 2:1:1) were used for studying the rooting behavior of z. armatum. after dipping in hormones, the cuttings were planted directly into the rooting media. plastic trays (no.21) having 20 cells/cavities and holes at the bottom were used for planting the cuttings. the length and breadth of the tray are 54 cm and 28 cm, respectively. the length of each cell is 6.8 cm whereas the top diameter is 6 cm and the bottom diameter is 2.7cm. the cavities phuyal et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 3-12 5 in the trays were filled with the respective rooting media. a single cutting per cavity was inserted obliquely up to a depth of 3 cm. experimental design the completely randomized design was used for the experiment. the total number of stem cuttings of z. armatum used in the experiment was 1080 for 18 treatments in three replicates (20 cuttings x 18 treatments x 3 replicates). hundred cuttings treated with bordeaux mixture and washed with distilled water were used as control. growth conditions after planting the cuttings, all the planting trays were labeled clearly and they were transferred to the green house and placed in the controlled environment. the temperature and relative humidity were maintained at 21.9ºc and 75%, respectively throughout the research/study period. inside the greenhouse, agro-meteorological parameters were recorded through the sensor system run by argus control and the data were recorded in the computer. relative humidity was maintained through misting. data collection numbers of roots, root length and shoot length of individual cutting was recorded after 90 days of planting. a cutting was considered to be rooted if it had at least one primary root of about 1 mm long. for measurement, the cutting was uprooted gradually and then it was cleared off the rooting media carefully so that the roots do not get damaged. the number of primary roots was counted and root and shoot length were measured with a ruler. statistical analysis the collected data were analyzed statistically using r-program with agricola. least significant difference (lsd) and duncan multiple range test (dmrt), as mean separation technique was applied to identify the most efficient treatment in the rooting and shooting behavior of z. armatum (gomez and gomez, 1984). results and discussion both growth hormones, iba and naa at different concentrations and different growth media viz. sand, mix and neopeat had a significant effect (p< 0.05) on the number of roots, length of roots and shoots of stem cuttings of z. armatum. the values obtained for iba and naa were close to each other (table 1), however, iba was found to be more effective than naa and neopeat was the best growth medium as compared to sand and mix media (table 3). furthermore, the measured values (root length, shoot length and number of roots) showed steady increment with the increase in concentration of the growth hormones from 2000 ppm to 5000 ppm. but for naa, the values increased from 2000 ppm to 3000 ppm concentration and decreased in 5000 ppm concentration except for number of roots, which was the highest in concentration 5000 ppm of naa. similarly, the shoot length for concentration 3000 of iba was lower than concentration 2000 ppm (table 2). iba produced more number of roots per cutting as compared to naa as well as the root and shoot lengths were also longer in iba than naa. the values obtained in the treated groups were relatively higher than those of the untreated groups (control). the number of roots per cutting was affected by the type and concentration of growth hormones and the different growth media but not by the interaction between hormone concentration and growth media. the number of roots produced by iba and naa are not significantly different. the value is 4.6 for iba and 4.4 for naa (table 1). the concentration 5000 ppm of iba had the highest mean number of roots i.e. 5.9, table 1: effect of different hormones on the rooting and shooting of z. armatum stem cuttings growth hormones root length (cm) shoot length (cm) number of roots iba 9.0a 28.0a 4.6a* naa 8.1a 25.3b 4.4a control 5.4b 22.0c 2.4b* means with the same letter in the same column are not significantly different (p ≥ 0.05). banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 3-12 phuyal et al 6 while control had the least mean number of roots i. e. 2.4 (table 2). likewise, the maximum average number of roots was 5 in the growth medium neopeat, while it was 4.2 in sand (table 3). on the other hand, the highest number of roots was observed in the interaction of concentration 5000 ppm of iba with neopeat medium with an average of 6.5 and the lowest value was 2 for the interaction between control and sand (table 4). hormone concentration had significant effect on the root length of z. armatum stem cuttings. the concentration 5000 ppm of iba had the longest root length (11.3 cm) and control had root length of 5.4 cm (table 2). there was no significant effect of growth media and interaction between hormone concentration and growth media. the interaction between hormone concentration and growth media showed that the concentration 5000 ppm of iba with neopeat and mix media had the highest mean length of root of 11.6 cm each, while the least value was 5cm for control in sand (table 4). among the growth media, neopeat had the longest mean root length of 9.2 cm, while the least value was 8.3cm for sand (table 3). the length of shoots was not significantly affected by different growth media and the interaction between different hormone types and concentration. the highest mean shoot length (27cm) was in neopeat, while it was 26.4 cm in both sand and mix media (table 3). similarly the interaction between growth media and hormone concentration had the highest shoot length (29.7cm) in the combination of iba 2000 ppm and neopeat and the lowest mean shoot length of 21.2cm in control with sand (table 4). on the other hand, the different hormone types and concentration had significant effect on the shoot length. iba had the highest mean shoot length (28 cm) (table 1) and iba 5000 ppm had the best effect on the shoot length with a mean value of 28.7cm (table 2). table 2: effects of hormone concentrations on z. armatum stem cuttings hormone concentration root length (cm) shoot length (cm) number of roots iba2000 7.6b 28.6a 3.4c iba3000 8.3b 26.8b 4.5b iba5000 11.3a 28.7a 5.9a naa2000 7.6b 25.9b 3.2b naa3000 9.8a 26.1b 4.3c naa5000 6.9b 23.9c 5.2a control 5.4c 22.0c 2.4c means with the same letter in the same column are not significantly different (p ≥ 0.05). table 3: effects of rooting media on the performance of z. armatum stem cuttings growth media root length (cm) shoot length (cm) number of roots sand 8.3 26.4 4.2b neopeat 9.2 27.0 5.0a mix 8.8 26.4 4.4ab means with the same letter in the same column are not significantly different (p ≥ 0.05)(ns: not significant) phuyal et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 3-12 7 there were significant differences in effect of different concentrations of iba and naa and different growth media (sand, neopeat and mix) on the rooting and shooting of stem cuttings of z. armatum.. the exogenous application of growth hormones to induce rooting on stem cuttings has been widely established by several researches (leakey et al., 1994; poupard et al., 1994; hartman et al., 2002; tchoundjeu et al., 2004). the widely used sources of growth hormones for rooting stem cuttings are the different types of auxins: iaa, iba and naa, which are known to increase the rate of rooting as well as number of roots per cutting (gehlot et al., 2014; ibrahim et al., 2015). auxins are responsible for the overall development in plants from cell division to cell expansion (taiz and zeiger, 1998). the initial cell division during root formation in the cuttings depends on the level of auxins, be it exogenous or endogenous (ludwig, 2000; kochhar et al., 2005). in this experiment also, iba and naa had a significant effect on the number of roots per cutting as well as the length of the roots and shoots as compared to the untreated groups. this might be due to the accumulation of metabolites at the auxins application site, cell enlargement, enhanced hydrolysis of carbohydrates, synthesis of new proteins, and cell division (strydem and hartman, 1960). iba was found to be more effective than naa in enhancing root formation. the exogenous application of adequate iba might have caused the vascular differentiation of cells and production of more number of roots. increase in length of the roots and shoots at higher concentrations might be due to the early formation of roots and more utilization of the nutrients (banjara, 2017). the effectiveness of iba in enhancing root proliferation as well as root numbers have been well documented by several earlier studies in different species. the cuttings of jatropha curcas treated with iba had the highest mean number of roots than cuttings treated with naa (adekola and akpan, 2012). the highest rooting rate was obtained in aesculus indica cuttings treated with iba (majeed et al., 2009). stereospermum suaveolens cuttings produced the longest root with iba (baul et al., 2008). similar results were obtained for the cuttings of shorea leprosula (aminah et al., 1995), ulmus villosa (bhardwaj and mishra, 2005), lippia javanica (soundy et al., 2008), buchholzia coriacea (akinyele, 2010), ficus hawaii (hassanein, 2013), massularia acuminate (usman and akinyele, 2015), cyclopia subternata (mabizela et al., 2016) and toona ciliata (thakur et al., 2018). among the different concentrations of iba, 5000 ppm showed the best result in both rooting and shootings of z. armatum stem cuttings. this is in accordance with the findings of daudi et al. (2016), who conducted propagation techniques in z. alatum through stem cuttings and seed germination. they found that the cuttings treated with the concentration 5000 ppm of iba exhibited better sprouting and rooting than the concentrations 4000 ppm and 6000 ppm of iba. they also concluded that propagation from the stem cuttings is more suitable than seed sowing for z. armatum because seed germination process table 4: interaction of hormone concentration and growth media on z. armatum stem cuttings growth media root length (cm) shoot length (cm) number of roots sand neopeat mix sand neopeat mix sand neopeat mix hormone concentration iba2000 6.9 8.0 8.0 28.8 29.7 27.8 2.7 3.3 3.8 iba3000 8.5 9.1 7.4 27.5 27.2 25.8 3.8 5.1 4.8 iba5000 10.7 11.6 11.6 28.2 28.5 29.0 5.5 6.5 5.6 naa2000 7.4 7.1 8.3 26.0 25.4 26.3 4.5 5.8 5.0 naa3000 7.0 11.3 11.3 26.3 27.3 24.8 4.4 5.9 3.7 naa5000 7.0 8.2 5.4 22.1 25.0 24.4 3.9 3.4 3.2 control 5.0 5.8 5.5 21.2 22.6 22.4 2.0 2.3 2.9 banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 3-12 phuyal et al 8 is very slow in the species. similar results were obtained by singh and rawat (2017) in z. armatum semi-hard wood (shw) and hard-wood (hw) branch cuttings. iba at 0.3% and 0.4 % concentrations exhibited greater success in root and shoot growth, whereas lower concentrations completely failed to root. several studies have demonstrated the better rooting ability of iba at higher concentrations. majeed et al. (2009) proved that iba at 4000 ppm concentration is an optimal plant growth regulator for rooting the cuttings of aesculus indica . high rooting rate was obtained for celtis australis cuttings treated with 3000 ppm iba (shameet et al.. 1989). dalbergia sisso and dalbergia latifolia also exhibited a very high rooting rate with the application of the concentration 5000 ppm of iba (sharma and pandey, 1999). maximum number of roots was produced in melissa officinalis stem cuttings at 5000 ppm concentration of iba (sevik and guney, 2013). thakur et al. (2018) concluded that the cuttings of toona ciliata produced significantly maximum average length of sprouts, root and number of roots per cutting with the application of 8000 ppm of iba in comparison to other formulations. the apical cuttings of berberis aristata treated with 5000 ppm of iba concentration demonstrated significantly better rooting and sprouting compared to other treatments (ali et al., 2008). the higher concentration of iba is required to compensate the low endogenous levels of auxin in the mature cuttings, otherwise difficult to root species like terminalia arjuna (banjara, 2017). the growth medium or the rooting medium is one of the major factors affecting the rooting of stem cuttings (ingram et al., 1993). the rooting success in any cutting is affected by the interaction of a number of factors like water, oxygen, and nutrient availability in the growth media (alikhani et al., 2011; bhardwaj, 2014). the effect of growth media on the rooting ability of stem cuttings of several economically important plants have been demonstrated by several works (wojtusik et al., 1994; tchoundjeu et al., 2002; akinyele, 2010; jacygrad et al., 2012; usman and akinyele, 2015; ibironke and victor, 2016). the results obtained in this study revealed that there was a significant effect of growth media on the root number, root length and the shoot length of z. armatum stem cutings. the highest values were observed in neopeat medium and the lowest values in sand medium. neopeat medium had more number of roots and the longest roots than sand and mix media. sand is too porous and cannot retain water for a longer period of time as well as low in nutrient content whereas the neopeat consists of mixture of all the required nutrients, better aeration and adequate drainage (akinyele, 2010). poor aeration in waterlogged conditions may lead to decay of cuttings before root initiation (schmitz et al., 2013). this corroborated with the findings of tchoundjeu et al. (1998) in the cuttings of prunus africana, which rooted bet ter in sawdust than in sand. similar findings were described by wojtusik et al., 1994 in prosopis juliflora cuttings, which produced more number of roots and the longest roots in perlite medium than in compost medium. therefore to enhance steady rooting, the best quality hormone and rooting media is crucial. conclusion as the seed germination rate is very slow in z. armatum, vegetative propagation through stem cuttings is a viable option for the mass production of elite plant materials. this study evaluated the effect of different growth hormone types, concentration and growth media on the rooting and shooting performance of z. armatum stem cuttings. the results showed that growth media and hormonal concentration significantly affect the growth of root, shoot and the number of roots of z. armatum stem cuttings. both iba and naa responded well in rooting and shooting but iba was found to be effective as compared to naa. among the various concentrations of iba, 5000 ppm showed the best performance in terms of average root length, shoot length and number of roots per cutting. similarly, the neopeat growth medium was found to be superior over the sand and mix media. so it can be concluded from this study that iba 5000 ppm concentration with neopeat medium is the best treatment for rooting the stem cuttings of z. armatum. the results obtained in this study could be of relative significance for the commercial production of quality plantlets as well as for improving agroforestry systems. phuyal et al banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 3-12 9 acknowledgements the first author is thankful to dabur nepal for the grant “dabur csr fellowship (late sri ashok chand burman) 01/2016’. we are thankful to the staff of dabur nepal private limited nursery for their various help in conducting the experiment. special thanks to mr. mohan mahato from cimmyt, nepal for his valuable assistance in statistical analysis. sincere thanks to prof. dr. mohan siwakoti, head, central department of botany, tribhuvan university for his encouragement. we are thankful to mr. kiran kumar pokharel from the forest research and training center for his help and support. references adekola, o. f. and akpan, i. g. 2012. effects of growth hormones on sprouting and rooting of jatropha curcas l. stem cuttings. journal of applied science and environment management 16 (1):153–156. akinyele, a. o. 2010. effects of growth hormones, rooting media and leaf size on juvenile stem cuttings of buchholziacoriacea engler. annals of forest research 53 (2): 127–133. ali, m., malik, a. r. and sharma, k. r. 2008. vegetative propagation of berberis aristata dc. an endangered himalayan shrub. journal of medicinal plants research 2 (12): 374– 377. alikhani, l., ansari, k., jamnezhad, m., tabatabaie, z. 2011.effect of different media and cuttings on growth and rooting of pomegranate cuttings. iranian journal of plant physiology 1 (3): 199–203. aminah, h., dickb, j. m. p., leakey, r. r. b., grace, j. and smith, r. i. 1995. effect of indole butyric acid (iba) on stem cuttings of shorea leprosula. forest ecology and management 72: 199–206. anonymous. 2008. agro-techniques of selected medicinal plants (vol. 1). national medicinal plants board, new delhi, india. ansab. 2011. enhancing livelihood and reducing poverty of mountain people by linking high value product and services. value chain development project, final progress report, ansab, kathmandu. banjara, k., swamy, s. l. and singh, a. k. 2017. vegetative propagation of terminalia arjuna (roxb.) wt. & arn. by stem cuttings under mist. international journal of agriculture sciences 9 (50): 4847–4850. baul, t. k, mezbahuddin, m. and mohiuddin m. 2008. veg etative propagation and initial growth performance of stereospermum suaveolens dc, a wild tropical tree spe cies of medicinal value. new forests 37 (3): 375–283. bhardwaj, d. r. and mishra, k. 2005. vegetative propagation of ulmus villosa: effects of plant growth regulators, collection time, type of donor and position of shoot on adventitious root formation in stem cuttings. new forests 29: 105–116. doi 10.1007/s11056-005-0240-1. bhardwaj, r. l. 2014. effect of growing media on seed germination and seedling growth of papaya cv. ‘red lady’. african journal of plant science 8 (4) : 178–184. chadha, y. r. 1976. the wealth of india – raw materials. the wealth of india 11. council of scientific and industrial research: new delhi. daudi, p., bisht, k. s. and pandey, b. 2016. propagation techniques of zanthoxylum alatum roxb. 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central africa. in current research issues and prospects for conservation and development (eds.) sunderland, t.c.h., clark, l. e. and vantomme, p. fao. tchoundjeu, z., avana, m. l., leakey, r. r. b., simons, a. j., assah, e., duguma, b., and bell, j. m. 2002. vegetative propagation of prunus africana: effects of rooting medium, auxin concentrations and leaf area. agroforestry systems. 54 (3): 183–192. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1016049004139. tchoundjeu, z., ngo mpeck, m. l., asaah, e. and amougou, a. 2004. therole of vegetative propagation in the domestication of pausinystalia johimbe (k. schum), a highly threatened medicinal speciesof banko janakari, vol 28 no. 2, 2018, pp 3-12 phuyal et al 12 west and central africa. forest ecology and management 188:175–183. thakur, l., gupta, t. and kumar, r. 2018. effect of growth regulators on sprouting and rooting behaviour in cuttings of acacia catechu willd. and toona ciliata m. roem. journal of pharmacognosy and phytochemistry sp1: 109–114. usman, i. a and akinyele, a. o. 2015. effects of growth media and hormones on the sprouting and rooting ability of massularia acuminata (g. don) bullock ex hoyl. journal of research in forestry, wildlife & environment 7 (2): 137–146. wojtusik, t., boyd, m. t. and felker, p. 1994. effect of different media on vegetative propagation of prosopis juliflora cuttings under solar-powered mist. forest ecology and management 67 (1–3): 267–271. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 13‒19 13 poudel et al. carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems is gaining a global attention, including nepal, to address the issues of climate change. since, the quantification of carbon stock under different land use systems with focus on both biomass and soil profile is lacking, objective of this paper is to quantify carbon stock in biomass and in soil profile under different land use regimes, namely community forest, leasehold forest and agricultural land of chitwan district. the carbon stock in biomass was calculated using the standard allometric equations, and dry combustion method was used to determine the soil organic carbon (soc). the carbon content in above ground tree biomass (agtb) was found to be higher (81.25 t/ha) in community forest than in leasehold forest (80.09 t/ha). the carbon stock in above ground sapling biomass (agsb) was calculated only for the community forest, and was found to be 3. 67 t/ha. similarly, the density of leaf litter, herbs and grasses (lhg) was also found to be higher (9. 25 t/ha) in the community forest in comparison to leasehold forest (6.45 t/ha). further,the root carbon stock density was also higher (16.25 t/ha) in the community forest than in the leasehold forest (16.02 t/ha). however, the soc density was highest in the agricultural land (73.42t/ha) followed by the community forest (66.38 t/ha)and the leasehold forest (52. 62 t/ha). overall, the carbon stock was highest in the community forest (176.8 t/ha) then in leasehold forest (155.18 t/ha) followed by the agricultural land (73.42 t/ha). hence, this study shows that well managed community forest can contribute significantly in offsetting global carbon emission. keywords : climate change, community forestry, leasehold forestry, redd+, total carbon stock quantification of carbon stock under different land use regimes of chitwan district, nepal a. poudel1*, h. l. shrestha2 and r. m. bajracharya3 global warming has become the most concerning issue these days both to scientists and environmentalists. recent estimate indicate that human activities are currently responsible for annual global carbon emission of about 10 giga ton (gt) of which 1.5 gt is a result of land use change (canadell et al., 2007). 10,000 years ago,forest covered 6 billion ha land area of earth, and now it has come down to 4 billion ha, with an average annual net loss of about 5. 2 million ha within in the past ten years (fao, 2012). forest can contribute up to 20% of the global emission of carbon dioxide annually,which is more than the one contributed by transportation sector (acharya et al., 2009). reducing emission from forest-based greenhouse gases (ghgs) is critical in curbing global warming, and so, the united nations framework convention on climate change (unfcc) introduced reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation (redd+), a carbon offset program in 2005 (cop 11). redd+ could be cost effective measure to address climate change (acharya et al., 2009). taking action on carbon sequestration will not only help to lower the concentration of ghgs but will help to improve soil properties, and have positive impact on environment (fao, 2001). therefore, quantifying the carbon stored in 1 graduate student, asian institute of technology (ait), bangkok, thailand. *email : poudel. asmita09@gmail. com 2 associate professor, kathmandu forestry college; coordinator, unigis program 3 visiting faculty, department of environmental science and engineering, kathmandu university https://doi.org:10.3126/banko.v29i2.28095 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 13‒19 14 poudel et al. different carbon pools is gaining a global attention. forest is one of the largest pools, sequestering significant amount of carbon and preventing the carbon stored within it from being released into the atmosphere. a recent study conducted by the united nations environment program (unep) reveals that tropical and subtropical forest store largest amount of carbon followed by boreal forest whereas the tundra biome has the highest density of carbon storage (trumper et al., 2009). soil is another largest terrestrial carbon pool (chan, 2008). it is estimated that around 1,200 to 1,800 giga tons of carbon is stored in soils worldwide. soil pool is 3. 3 times the size of atmospheric pool and 4. 5 times the size of vegetation pool. hence carbon sequestration has potential to offset 5−15% of global fossil fuel emission (dahal and bajracharya, 2010). the amount of carbon that gets sequestered in biomass and soil is dynamic as it depends on land use change (shrestha and singh, 2007), types of species with different management regimes and soil profile. this signifies that there must be a regular accounting of carbon emission, carbon removal and carbon stock which is limited in developing countries like nepal. as nepal harbors 118 ecosystems with 36 vegetation types and 35 forest types (mofs, 2009), regular quantification of carbon stock is a necessity. according to the world resources institute (2008), nepal ranks 11th in the world for the emission of ghgs, and about 80% of emission is only from forest and grassland conversion (mope/unep, 2004). implementation of the united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc) introduced redd+ program, in developing countries like nepal to reduce such emission, is expected to build capacity in measuring and monitoring forest carbon stock, opportunity for reducing poverty, enhancing livelihood, preserving biodiversity, and promoting adaptation to climate change. in spite of these opportunities, there are significant challenges for effective engagement with redd+ in nepal due to lack ofresearch on quantification of carbon stock with standard scientific method, regular monitoring the change in carbon stock, and setting baseline scenario for assessing emission reduction (acharya et al., 2009). for studying carbon sequestration, the authors have pointed out that quantification of carbon stock, their changes over time and quantification of associated uncertainties are prerequisite for reporting removal of carbon from atmosphere and making a good mitigation strategy for climate change effects. in the context of nepal, quantified data on carbon stock using standard scientific procedure under different land use system at ecosystem-level is lacking. with the emergence of redd+, much focus has been diverted towards community forest neglecting other locally managed forest regimes which occupy three quarter of the total forest area. failure to include these forest in national redd+ program could heighten social and political tension. therefore,this study was carried out with an objective to quantify and compare the carbon stocks in forest biomass and in soil profile under different land use regimes, viz. community forest, leasehold forest and agricultural land of kayerkhola watershed, chitwan district, nepal. such studies are necessary to assess the effects of forest management, cropping system option on carbon dynamics and to guide management decisions that deal with enhancing carbon sequestration potential of an ecosystem as highlighted by wutzler et al. (2011). as carbon sequestration is a win-win strategy to reduce ghg emission, there has been increasing pressure for accounting the carbon stocks in vegetation and soil ascertaining the potential of these reservoirs as carbon sink. however, there is high probability for these reservoirs to become carbon source in absence of their proper management. on the other hand, in the absence of baseline data, nepal will face significant challenges for effective engagement with redd+. hence, this study will be helpful for the establishment of baseline data to enable us to project carbon sequestration over time, make the public aware of the potential of terrestrial system to sequester carbon in mitigating climate change issues; adopt different strategies and policies to enhance the potential of different forest regimes as carbon sinks and minimize carbon emission; to prove our contribution towards emission reduction in the world; and to obtain financial incentives. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 13‒19 15 poudel et al. materials and methods study area the study was conducted at the kayerkhola watershed, ward no. 5 of shaktikhore village development committee, chitwan district, nepal (figure 1). the study was carried out in december 2012. the kayerkhola watershed represents the tropical and subtropical region. it is located between 27ᵒ 40’07. 79’’ n and 84ᵒ 33’25. 88’’ e. the altitude of this watershed ranges from 245 m to 1,944 m above mean sea level. it covers an area of 8,002 ha of which 2,381. 96 ha area is occupied by community forest (cf) which is locally managed by 15 community forest user groups (cfugs). beside community forest, leasehold forest and agricultural land are other major land use regimes within this watershed. sub tropical hill sal (shorea robusta) mixed with other deciduous trees are major forest types found in this watershed. this watershed is inhabited by the forest-dependent indigenous community of chepang and tamang (ansab/icimod/ norad, 2010). figure 1 : map showing the location of the study area the kayerkhola watershed was chosen as it is one of the sites where the redd+ project (world's first carbon offset project),at pilot phase, is being implemented by the international centre for integrated mountain development (icimod), asia network for sustainable agriculture and bioresources (ansab) and the federation of community forest users, nepal (fecofun) with the financial support of the norwegian agency for development cooperation (norad). for the purpose of the study, the sampling was carried out in the jamuna community forest and leasehold forest, the chelibeti community and leasehold forest and agricultural land. method used the study was conducted adopting the methodology of subedi et al. (2010). forest sampling in order to quantify the carbon stock in the forests and the agricultural land, a total of 8 sample plots were considered2 plots within the community forest, 2 plots within the leasehold forest, and 4 plots for collecting the soil samples from the agricultural land. concentric circular sample plots with different radii were selected randomly, and laid out within the sampling area for the measurement of above ground biomass of trees, saplings, seedlings, leaf litter, herbs and grasses. the outermost plot with 8.92 m radius was laid out to measure the above ground tree biomass (agtb). the next sub-plot with 5.64 m radius was established for the measurement of above ground sapling biomass (agsb). likewise, the next sub-plot with 1 m radius was established for counting regeneration, and the innermost sub-plot with 0.56 m radius was established for taking the samples of leaf litter, herbs and grasses (lhgs) and for the calculation of soil organic carbon (soc). the latitudes, longitudes, slope and aspects of each sample plot were recorded with the help of global positioning system (gps) set. soil sampling individual soil samples from 0−15 cm and 15−30 cm depth were collected with the help of standardized metallicsoil sampling corer (volume : 104. 09 cm3),and weighed in the field to record their fresh weight. similarly, the composite soil sample (mixture of soil from both the layers) of around 100 g was collected from each sample plot so as to determine the concentration of soc. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 13‒19 16 poudel et al. data analysis for the calculation of the agtb and carbon stock,allometric equation developed by chave et al., (2005) was used. the agtb of a sample plot was converted to carbon stock density by using the default fraction of 0. 47 (ipcc, 2006). the saplings with diameter ≥ 1cm but< 5cm at 1. 3 m above ground level was measured while those with diameter <1 cm at breast height were counted as regeneration. samples of leaf litter, herbs and grasses from 1 m2 plot were collected in plastic bags, and weighed to determine their fresh weight. the collected soil samples were brought to the laboratory of the kathmandu university to measure their oven dry weight to determine the moisture content and finally to estimate the soc. macdicken's root to shoot ratio of 1 : 5 (macdicken, 1997) was used to calculate the carbon content in the root biomass. adding carbon content from all the carbon pools yielded the total biomass from the forest. the soc was calculated using the equation of pearson et al. (2007). for determination of the soc, bulk density was calculated by dividing the oven dried weight (at 105ᵒc after 24 hours) with the total core volume (blake and hartage, 1986). similarly, the soc% was determined by adopting the dry combustion method (nelson and sommers, 1982). results and discussion plant species diversity during the fieldwork, 18 different tree species were recorded in eight sampling plots. shorea robusta (sal), lagerstroemia parviflora (botdhayero), mallotos phillipinensis (sindure) and cassia fistula (rajbriksha) were the major species occurring in the community forests (figure 2). 73% 9% 6% 5% 3% 4% shorea robusta (73%) lagerstroemia parviflora(9%) mallotos phillipinensis(6%) cassia fistula(5%) rhus wallichii(3%) others (4%) figure 2 : plant species density in community forest s. robusta and rhus wallichii were found to be dominant in the leasehold forests. besides, different fodder species such as ficus semicordata, albizia juriblissin, quercus floribunda, dendrocalamus strictus, etc., and the fruit trees like mango and pineapple were also observed; the fruit trees were reported to be grown to meet the need of the forest-dependent communities (figure 3). 60% 16% 4% 4% 4% 12% shores robusta (60%) ficus semicordata (16%) rhus wallichii (4%) tiyari (4%) albizia juriblissin (4%) others (10%) figure 3: plant species density of leasehold forest forest carbon stock the carbon content in the agtb in the community forest (cf) and leasehold forest (lf) were (81. 25 t/ha) and (80. 095 t/ha) respectively (table 1). the carbon density in the agtb was found to be higher in the cf than in the lfas the tree density, diameter and height which influence the agtb value were comparatively higher in the cf. similarly due to the higher density of trees with large canopy cover and restriction in the collection of leaf litter, twigs, fallen branches and fodder, biomass and carbon content in the lhgs in the cf was found to be higher. the demand for leaf litter, fallen branches, twigs and fodder is fulfilled from the lf when it is opened for its members. although the difference between the carbon stock in the cf and the lf was minimal, the standard deviation in the agtb of the lf was higher. the lf consisted of more number of young trees (pole-size) than mature ones. when these young trees reach maturity, the lf holds the potential to store significant amount of carbon. the average carbon stock (80. 47 t /ha) in the agtb as detected in this study is comparable with the ones reported by baral et al. (2009) and by oli and shrestha (2009) for the terai forest, 80. 47 t/ ha and 76 t/ha, respectively. however, shrestha and singh (2007) has reported the agtb for banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 13‒19 17 poudel et al. sal forest to be 169 ± 26 t/ha. the calculation of the carbon content in the leaf litter, grasses, and herbs including twigs in both the cf and lf indicated that these carbon pools contributed significantly in the sequestration of atmospheric carbon. the root biomass was calculated as 20% of the agtb. the root biomass and the carbon content were also found to be higher in the cf than in the lf. the agsb was recorded from only one sample plot from the jamuna cf as there were significant number of young trees which contribute in increasing the carbon stock of that cf. the carbon content in the agsb was found to be 3. 67 t/ha. table 1: biomass and carbon content (tons c/ ha) in different carbon pools of forest s.n. carbon pools community forest leasehold forest 1 agtb 172.89 170.41 2 c (agtb) 81.25 80.09 3 agsb 7.8 4 c(agsb) 3.67 5 lhg 19.65 13.70 6 c (lhg) 9.25 6.45 7 bb 34.58 34.08 8 c (bb) 16.25 16.02 soil organic carbon the result showed that the soc (t/ha) up to 30 cm depth was highest in the agricultural land (73. 42 t/ha) as compared to the cf (66. 38 t/ ha) and the lf (52. 62 t/ha). this might be due to the application of farm yard manure (fym), compost and crop rotation which are some of the activities included in soil management practice (smp), and these lead to increase soc accumulation by three fold in soils (dahal and bajracharya, 2010). in addition, the soils in agricultural land have greater clay content (26. 75%) than in the community and leasehold forests (26. 75%) which might have contributed to high soc-level in agricultural soils (lal, 2005); clay consists of bonding cations like ca, al or fe leading to accumulation of organic carbon in comparison to other soil types. the nitrogen concentration in soils was also found to be highest in the agricultural soils which might have also contributed in maintaining higher soc-level than in the community and leasehold forests (liddicoat et al., 2010; lal, 2005). further, slower turnover of roots, slower decomposition of leaf litter due to low soil quality, cooler and drier condition under forest, inhibition of soil fauna, low or no understory vegetation, enhanced rate of loss of carbon as aggregation is reduced, presence of rocky and shallow soil might be some of the reasons for lower soc-level in forest soils (chan et al., 2008). the soc-level was found to be higher (66. 38 t/ha) in the cf than in the lf (52. 62 t/ ha). this may be because of less sand content in the cf soil than in the lf soil. similar result was reported in the study conducted by shrestha and singh (2007). the soc-level was high in the cultivated land (bari) followed by degraded forest, paddy field (khet), schim-catanopsis forest, managed dense s. robusta forest and pine mixed forest. the soc% was found to be in decreasing order in all the studied land use regimes, indicating reduced organic matter and decomposition at increasing depth (table 2). table 2 : soc in different land use regimes s. n. land use soc min max mean median st. dev 1 c f carbon 46.54 80.15 66.38 68.455 12 2 l f carbon 27.57 85.36 52.62 48.78 25.67 3 a l carbon 53.89 93.01 73.42 69.28 14.2 total carbon stock the calculation of the total carbon stock under different land use regimes in the study area depicts that the community forest sequesters greater amount of atmospheric carbon (176. 8 t/ ha) than the leasehold forest (155. 18 t/ha) and agricultural land (73. 42 t/ha, figure 4). however, the difference is not too high which implies that if leasehold forest is well managed, then it possesses potential to sequester greater or equal amount of carbon as sequestered by community forest. further, comparing only soc, agricultural land stores higher amount of carbon than the forest. this shows that, agricultural land also contributes significantly in lowering the atmospheric carbon, and carbon sequestration can be increased if farmers are involved in soil and crop management practices. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 13‒19 18 poudel et al. 81.25 80.095 3.67 9.25 6.45 16.25 16.02 66.38 52.62 73.42 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 community forest leasehold forest agriculture t/h a c(agtb) c(agsb) c(lhg) c(root ) soc figure 4 : total carbon stock in different carbon pools of different land use regimes conclusion as expected, the community forest exhibited higher carbon stock (176. 8 t/ha) followed by leasehold forest (155. 18 t/ha) and agricultural land (73. 42 t/ha). the carbon stored in the forest biomass was found to be 1. 5 times higher than in the forest soils (considering soc up to 30 cm depth). although the carbon stock in the community forest was found to be higher than in the leasehold forest, the latter also indicated good potential for enhancing carbon sequestration. this indicates that if proper forest management techniques (proper site preparation, fire management, afforestation, species selection, use of organic fertilizers and manure, application of soil amendments and enforcement of rules and regulations regarding fodder, timber, dead woods and leaf litter collection) are applied by the concerned forest user group, different forest regimes (community forest and leasehold forest) will sequester notable amount of carbon. the highest soc in the agricultural land indicates that it can contribute significantly in offsetting the carbon emission. in addition, promoting the practice of agroforestry in cropland can further aid in enhancing the carbon capture. this study can serve as a reference to all the upcoming studies and projects on carbon sequestration for offsetting greenhouse gases to mitigate the impacts of climate change. further, more detail studies need to be carried out, especially focusing on soc from depth up to 100 cm, which will aid in more accurate estimation of sequestered carbon. also studies/researches with focus on particular species (dominant) will serve as a good reference for policy-level to prepare report on offsetting greenhouse gases to be submitted to the international forum on climate change. references acharya, k. p., dangi, r. b., tripathi, d. m., bushley, b. r., bhandary, r. r. and bhattarai, b. (eds). 2009. ready for redd? taking stock of experience, opportunities and challenges in nepal. nepal foresters association, kathmandu, nepal. ansab/icimod/norad. 2010. forest carbon stock in community forests in three watersheds (ludhikhola, kayarkhola and charnawati). asia network for sustainable agriculture and bioresources, international centre for integrated mountain development, norwegian agency for development cooperation, kathmandu, nepal. baral, s. k., malla, r. and ranabhat, s. 2009. above-ground carbon stock assessment in different forest types of nepal. bankojanakari 19 (2) : 10−14. blake, g. r. and hartage, k. h. 1986. bulk density. in methods of soil analysis, part i, physical and mineralogical methods (ed) klute, a. madison, wisconsin, usa : american society of agronomy, soil science of america. canadell, j. g., le quéré, c., raupach, m. r., field, c. b., buitenhuis, e. t., ciais, p., conway, t. j., gillett, n. p., houghton, r. a. and marland, g. 2007. contributions to accelerating atmospheric co2 growth from economic activity, carbon intensity, and efficiency of natural sinks. proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america. 104 (47) : 18866−18870. chan, y. 2008. increasing soil organic carbon of agricultural land. primefact 735. chan, k. y., cowie, a., kelly, g., singh, b. and slavich, p. 2008. scoping paper : soil organic carbon sequestration potential for agriculture in nsw. chave, j., andalo, c., brown, s., caims, m. a., chambers, j. q. and eamus, d. 2005. tree allometry and estimation of carbon stocks. oecologia 145 (1) : 87−99. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 13‒19 19 poudel et al. dahal, n. and bajracharya, r. m. 2010. prospects of soil organic carbon sequestration : implications for nepal’s mountain agriculture. journal of forest and livelihood 9 (1) : 45-56. fao. 2001. soil carbon sequestration for improved land management. world soil resources report 96. food and agriculture organization, rome, italy. fao. 2012. state of world’s forest. food and agriculture organization, rome, italy. lal, r. 2005. forest soils and carbon sequestration, forest ecology and management. pp 242– 258. liddicoat, c., schapel, a., davenport, d. and dwyer, e. 2010. pirsa discussion paper : soil carbon and climate change. primary industries and resources sa, prescott building, waite campus, urrbrae sa 5064. macdicken, k. 1997. a guide to monitoring carbon storage in forestry and agroforestry projects arlington (va). forest carbon monitoring program, winrock international institute for agriculture development. mope/unep. 2004. nepal initial national communication to the conference of the parties of the united nations framework convention on climate change. ministry of population and environment/united nation environment program. kathmandu, nepal. nelson, d. w., and sommers, l. e. 1982. total carbon, organic carbon and organic matter. in methods of soil analysis. part 2. chemical and microbiological properties (eds) page, a. l., miller, r. m. and keeney, d. r. 2nd edition. american society of agronomy monograph no. 9, asa-sssa, inc., madison, wi, usa. pp. 539−580. oli, b. n. and shrestha,k. 2009. carbon status in forests of nepal : an overview. journal of forest and livelihood 8 (1) : 63−67. issn : 1684–0186. pearson, t. r., brown, s. l., and birdsey, r. a. 2007. measurenment guidelinesfor the sequestration of forest carbon. north research station, department of agriculture, usa. shrestha, b. m. and singh, b. r. 2007. soil and vegetation carbon pools in a mountainous watershed of nepal. nutrient cycling in agroecosystems (2008) 81 : 179–191. subedi, b. p., pandey, s., pandey, a., rana, e. b., bhattarai, s., banskota, t. 2010. forest carbon stock measurement : guidelines for measuring carbon stocks in community managed forest. asia network for sustainable agriculture and bioresources, international centre for integrated mountain development, norwegian agency for development cooperation, kathmandu, nepal. trumper, k., bertzky, m., dickson, b., van der heijden, g., jenkins, m., manning, p. june 2009. the natural fix? the role of ecosystems in climate mitigation. a unep rapid response assessment. united nations environment programme, unepwcmc, cambridge, uk. wutzler, t., profft, i. andmund, m. 2011. quantifying tree biomass carbon stocks, their changes and uncertainties using routine stand taxation inventory data. silva fennica 45 (3) : 359–377. 29 a study on soil moisture under different land management practices across two rural municipalities in semi-arid region of mustang, nepal soil moisture refers to the water amount present in the soil, which is a critical factor influencing plant growth, nutrient cycling, and groundwater recharge. accurate information on soil moisture-level is crucial for water resource management, agriculture, land degradation, and ecosystem health assessment in semi-arid mountainous regions. therefore, this study aims to assess average soil moisture under different land managements of the two rural municipalities (thasang and gharapjhong) of the mustang valley using remote sensing and a geospatial approach. sentinel-1 and sentinel-2 data were processed in google earth engine to derive soil moisture using the modified dubois and topp's models. the key findings demonstrated that the spatial distribution of soil moisture ranged from 0.01 to 0.4 m3/m3 with cropland exhibiting the highest values (0.36 m3/m3). the correlation of the average soil moisture with the rainfall showed a strong positive correlation with the coefficient of determination (r2) of 0.94. the findings of this paper contributes for a better understanding of soil moisture dynamics of different land cover types of this study region. further, research on the modeling of soil moisture based on in-situ field data and other influencing factors is recommended. keywords: gis, geospatial technique, modified dubois model, topp's model, soil moisture index, surface soil moisture s. dhakal 1 *, s. kandel 1, & r. subedi 2 received: 03, may 2024 revised: 11, august 2024 accepted: 28, august 2024 published: 22, november 2024 1 tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara campus, pokhara, nepal., *e-mail: dhakalsandesh33@gmail.com 2 arthur temple college of forestry and agriculture, stephen f. austin state university, nacogdoches, tx 75962, usa. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2, 2024 pp 29‒47https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v34i2.65366 soil moisture is the water that is temporarily stored in a shallow layer of the earth's top surface (gao & shao, 2012). soil moisture is a crucial factor in the global energy, water, and carbon cycle, and also plays a significant role in several earth sciences, such as hydrology, meteorology, climatology, and agronomy (seneviratne et al., 2010). soil moisture content is important for plant growth and development (janani & rajeswari, 2022). for an effective implementation of irrigated agriculture, surface soil moisture (ssm) determination is crucial, particularly in arid or semi-arid locations where crop development and yield may be negatively impacted by water scarcity and poor water quality. soil moisture aids in hydrological modeling (brocca et al., 2011), overland flow prediction (brocca et al., 2010), numerical weather prediction (dharssi et al., 2011), groundwater potentiality assessment (dhakal et al., 2024), impact assessment of climate on agriculture (talchabhadel et al., 2019), and drought monitoring (nepal et al., 2021). climate change and its effects have great effects on mountainous environments regarding soil moisture availability (buytaert et al., 2011). this crucial problem of soil moisture measurement has received less attention as a key research area. the knowledge of the variation of soil moisture in diverse land cover had to be assessed to understand the overall scenario and implication of appropriate management practices. therefore, for environmental preservation, it is essential to accurately and continuously monitor soil moisture https://orcid.org/0009-0001-7167-0664 https:// https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0471-070x mailto:dhakalsandesh33@gmail.com banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 30 dhakal et al. over different land cover types. soil moisture was assessed in two ways one through the in-situ method and the next through remote sensing (rs) methods. insitu measurement provides the most accurate soil moisture measurement; however, it is an extremely tedious process and is expensive and time-consuming (taktikou et al., 2016). the in-situ method works for a brief period in a constrained region (saha et al., 2018). so, it is not optimal for rapid and continuous soil moisture monitoring at regional-scale. for sm estimation of the large spatial extent, rs methods are best because of their large coverage, continuous, and easily available data. there were primed available ssm data types, such as soil moisture and ocean salinity (smos) and soil moisture active passive (smap) for numerous applications (brown et al., 2013; kerr et al., 2010; tiwari et al., 2023). these products, however, were not appropriate for minor regional planning at landsape-level due to their coarser spatial resolution (about 10 km). to recover ssm at a finer scale, several researches based on synthetic aperture radar (sar) have been introduced (mirsoleimani et al., 2019; yadav et al., 2020). it proved challenging to extract ssm using sar data in the presence of vegetation (i.e., sparse and dense cover) because of volume scattering, leaf moisture content, and underlying soil surface scattering (petropoulos et al., 2020). sar-based x, c, l, and p-bands have been used in several investigations in the past to recover surface soil moisture over a variety of land cover types, including bare ground, agricultural fields, and surfaces with sparse vegetation (bhogapurapu et al., 2022; hajj et al., 2016; parida et al., 2022; shen et al., 2020). though the penetrating powers of the l-band make it the most useful of these bands (ottinger & kuenzer, 2020), l-band was typically not easily available due to the restricted number of sensors and their wholistic coverage, which was not offered for free, and easy data availability. consequently, as a result, various research was conducted after the applicability of the sentinel-1a (c-band) satellite to collect ssm and use the information to water management procedures including scheduling irrigation (le page et al., 2020) and monitoring agricultural development (hajj et al., 2017). this was because the backscattering of radar signals for ssm depended on the incidence angle in addition to sar bands and the sensitivity of radar signals was stronger at lower incidence angles (hosseini et al., 2015). the radar backscattering coefficient was also influenced by a few other target factors, such as terrain, plant cover, soil types, surface roughness, and dielectric constant (pasolli et al., 2014). the radar backscattering coefficient (σ◦), which rises with the increase in the ssm, was highly influenced by the soil's dielectric constant (xing et al., 2019). over the years, numerous backscattering models such as physical, empirical, and semi-empirical have been developed. the water cloud model (wcm) was typically employed on vegetated areas that range from sparse to dense. the radar signal was modeled by wcm as a combination of vegetation and soil contributions, attenuated by the vegetation cover and the subsurface (wang et al., 2021). the wcm model uses horizontal-horizontal (hh) or vertical-vertical (vv) polarization to simulate the backscattering coefficient as a function of soil properties (such as soil moisture and surface roughness) and vegetation descriptors, such as plant height, leaf area index (lai), vegetation water content, and normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi)) (dong et al., 2023). additionally, ssm was retrieved for several crops using machine learning techniques, such as support vector machine (svm), random forest (rf), and neural networks (adab et al., 2020; prakash et al., 2018). most of the researches showed that vv polarization was more sensitive to surface roughness and was superior to vertical-horizontal (vh) polarization for simulating ssm using insitu observations (yang et al., 2023). in addition, bayesian merging method (wu et al., 2017) and change detection process (zhu et al., 2022) have been wisely used to estimate ssm which integrates sar and passive microwave data. additionally, with single polarization (vv, hh) sar data, nagaraju et al., (2013) investigated that the modified dubois model performed more accurately for soil moisture estimation. singh et al., (2020) employed a similar method to obtain banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 31 dhakal et al. ssm in central india. according to ji et al. (1996), the dubois model's ability to recover soil moisture outperformed other models including the "oh model". the dubois model has the benefit of being able to function on terrain with minimal vegetation and tolerating an ndvi of up to 0.4 (parida et al., 2022). the launch of the sentinel-1a (c-band) and sentinel-2 satellites and their implications have facilitated many researchers to recover ssm in operations like scheduling irrigation and monitoring crop growth (mirsoleimani et al., 2019; yadav et al., 2020). the modified dubois model and the integrated topp's model proved to be appropriate methods for assessing soil moisture with better accuracy. therefore, this study aims to assess the average soil moisture (from 2015 to 2022) of the mustang valley, a semi-arid region, using the modified dubois model and the topp's model on the google earth engine (gee) platform. similarly, the accuracy of the retrieved soil moisture map was performed using the valid spring source locations and stream features over the study area. finally, the variation of soil moisture contents in different land covers were also assessed. the findings of this study are expected to contribute to a better understanding of soil moisture dynamics within the study area. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in the rural municipalities of thasang and gharapjhong within mustang district, gandaki province, western nepal (see figure 1). this area covers 577.97 sq km and has a population of 6568 (cbsc, 2021). it is located between 28° 33'-28° 52' n latitudes and 83° 28' 30''-83° 53' e longitudes. the elevation of the terrain ranges from 1,372 m to 2863 m above the figure 1: location of the study area in the map of nepal. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 32 dhakal et al. mean sea level (msl); the terrain is featured with elevated mountains, river valleys, spurs, saddles, vividly colored stratified rock formations, barren high-altitude semi-arid areas, and ridges. the study area encompasses the kali gandaki river flowing through its center. this region is a prime example of the trans-himalayan zone, with its characteristic continental climate and extreme temperature swings. it is also vulnerable to climate change (giri, 2017), and its impact such as precipitation of higher snowfall together with rapid melting may favor the occurrence of flash floods (fort, 2015). the area is protected from monsoon impacts as it is situated on the drier side. typically, it receives an average annual rainfall of 1097 mm, most occurring durung summer and least during winter. in 2022, the annual precipitation at lete (situated between 28° 37′ 57.83"–28°37′12″ n latitudes and 83° 36′ 33.19″83°36′0″ e longitudes at 2490 m above the msl) was around 1813 mm (dhm, 2022). in the same year, the annual precipitation was found to have decreased to below 531mm at thakmarpha (situated between 28° 44′ 27.27″– 28°47′24″ n latitudes and 83° 40′ 53.81″–83.68′ 00.0″ e longitudes at 2,695 m above the msl) and further to below 300 mm at jomosom (situated between 28° 47′ 2.43″–28°47′0″ n latitudes and 83° 43′ 47.34″–83°43′50″ e longitudes at 2,740 m above the msl). at elevations above 2,500 m above the msl, most of the snowfall happens during winter although unusually heavy snowfall can occur throughout the year (khadka et al., 2020). this study has generated baseline data for decision-makers to understand the ssm and the sustainable management of resources within the aforementioned two rural municipalities. the study was accomplished in 2023. models used for soil moisture estimation the launch of the sentinel-1a satellite in april 2014 improved the availability as well as the spatial and temporal-resolution sar data for use in estimating soil moisture around the world (wagner et al., 2009). the sentinel1a satellite sensor collects data on the earth's surface in selectable single (hh or vv) and dual polarization (hh + hv, vv + vh) modes while operating in the c-band at a frequency of 5.405 ghz (bauer-marschallinger et al., 2018). table 1 below enlists several techniques and models for soil moisture estimation using sentinel-1 c-band data; among those, we chose the modified dubois model and topp's model for soil moisture retrieval. the dubois model is easy to implement and it performs well in steep terrain. besides, it accounts for surface roughness which is a critical factor in mountainous regions (thanabalan et al., 2018). on the other hand, the topp's model is not directly affected by terrain as it operates on dielectric constant data (ma et al., 2021). table 1: techniques used to retrieve soil moisture using sentinel-1 c-band grd data s. n. models indices used to retrieve soil moisture data used polarization or bands suitability 1. water cloud model (wcm) rvi ndvi, lai sentinel-1 sentinel-2 vv, vh, hh, hv b4, b8 densely vegetated areas 2. machine learning (support vector regression) sepal platform sentinel-1 both single and dual-polarization highly uncertain in densely forested areas 3. integrated equation model (iem) lai, vwc, ndvi, evi sentinel-1 sentinel-2 vv, vh, hh, hv b4, b8 both dense and sparsely vegetated areas 4. bayesian approach training data sentinel-1 (c & l bands) vv, vh, hh, hv dense vegetation, bare soil, and agricultural lands 5. oh model backscattering coefficient sentinel-1 vv, vh, hh, hv not applicable over the area with significant vegetation banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 33 dhakal et al. s. n. models indices used to retrieve soil moisture data used polarization or bands suitability 6. artificial neural network (aan) approach training data, soil water content, land surface temperature ndvi sentinel-1 sentinel-2 dual polarization (vh, hv) b4, b8 site-specific, precise for agriculture area, and sparsely vegetated areas 7. change detection approach backscattering coefficient, ndvi, calibration sentinel-1 vv, hh, vv/vh diverse regions such as agriculture, forest, arid and semi-arid regions, wetlands, and others. 8. modified dubois and topp's models relative soil permittivity, surface roughness ndvi sentinel-1 sentinel-2 vv b4, b8 sparsely vegetated areas and bare lands (sitespecific) data collection sentinel-1 and sentinel-2 satellite data sources were used to retrieve the soil moisture map. the accuracy assessment of the retrieved soil moisture map was performed using perennial spring source locations and stream features taken via field survey. similarly, the google earth engine platform was used for soil moisture mapping (gorelick et al., 2017). satellite data and gee this study aimed to produce the soil moisture map of the study area using sentinel-1 and sentinel-2 imageries of 10 m spatial resolution. the sentinel imagery on the gee platform was used in this study. the modified dubois and topp's models were used to classify the sentinel imageries on the gee cloud computing platform to develop an average surface soil moisture map of the aforementioned two rural municipalities (thasang and gharapjhong rural municipalities). sentinel-1 sar grd image provides c-band sar data at different modes. we used 709 s1 images and derived an average of an interferometric wide-swath (iw) mode image of january, 2015 to december, 2022, which was in vv polarization with an incidence angle θ (value ranging from 380 to 450) to derive the average soil moisture index map of the study area. the sentinel-1 image on the gee platform is already preprocessed with radiometric calibration, speckle noise removal, and terrain correction. similar to this, 940 sentinel-2 msi images were chosen for detecting the mean pixel value; the imageries were processed using the red (r) and near-infrared (nir) bands to get the average ndvi over the period. table 2 shows the characteristics of the multi-temporal sentinel data used for the purpose of the study. table 2: characteristics of multi-temporal sentinel data used in the study region of interest image series date season band total no. of bands used in data cubes thasang and gharapjhong rural municipalities, mustang district sentinel-1 grd sentinel-2 january, 2015 to december, 2022 allseason vv red and nir 1 2 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 34 dhakal et al. location of spring sources the field campaign was conducted (during 20-27 april, 2023) to locate the sources of the perennial spring sources with the help of gps and a participatory-based approach. the spring sources that could not be accessed for direct observation due to difficult geographical terrain were located with the help of a participatory approach. a total of twenty-nine spring sources were located within the study area. the information on the perennial spring sources were used for assessing the accuracy of the derived ssm map based on the assumption that "springs play a role in maintaining soil moisture". figure 2 below shows the spatial distribution of spring source locations within the study area: rainfall data the department of hydrology and meteorology in gandaki province, pokhara provided the precipitation data from january, 2015 to december, 2022, which formed the basis for constructing the average rainfall data of the study area on monthly basis. there were three meteorological stations within the study areaat lete, at marpha, and at jomsom at the elevations of 2490 m, 2655 m, and 2741 m, respectively. the monthly precipitation data from january 2015 to december 2022 was analyzed to determine the average monthly rainfall and its relationship to soil moisture variation. land use land cover (lulc) data landsat-8 or sentinel-2 data were used by many researchers for land use land cover mapping of their study areas (dhakal et al., 2022; xiao et al., 2022). on the contrary, we used the frtcprepared landsat-based lulc map of nepal, published in 2022 (https://frtc.gov.np/uploads/ files/study%20report%20inner-final.pdf). the frtc-prepared lulc map includes eleven land cover types(i) forest, (ii) water bodies, (iii) built-up areas, (iv) grassland, (v) cropland, (vi) other woodland, (vii) bare soil, (viii) bare rock, (ix) river, (x) snow, and (xii) glacier. out of these, only four land covers, viz. (i) forest (sparse coniferous), (ii) grassland, (iii) cropland, and (iv) bare land were considered for the purpose of our study. figure 2: location of springs within the study area. https://frtc.gov.np/uploads/files/study report inner-final.pdf https://frtc.gov.np/uploads/files/study report inner-final.pdf banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 35 dhakal et al. data analysis soil moisture index map the procedure adopted to retrieve the soil moisture is highlighted in figure 3. in this study, the modified dubois model together with the topp's model was used to retrieve the relative soil permittivity using the sar backscattering values from ‘vv’ single polarization. the vv polarization band can retrieve soil moisture with greater accuracy as compared to the vh polarization using the sentinel-1 (kweon & oh, 2013). additionally, the volumetric soil moisture was calculated using the universal topp's model and using the relative soil permittivity value. the final map prepared was verified with the help of the valid spring sources and stream features. figure 3 below depicts the methodology used to estimate the soil moisture: sentinel-1 on gee in this study, sentinel-1 images which were already pre-processed and available on the gee platform were used for data analysis. the images uploaded were of radiometric calibration, speckle noise reduction, and terrain correction. the true backscatter values (σ◦) contained in the resultant image pixels were on a linear scale. these values were then transformed to a decibel scale (σ◦ db) using the formula: σ◦ db = 10 x log10 (σ◦) the sentinel-1 imageries in single polarization (vv) at 10 m x 10 m resolution and the ‘iw’ instrument mode were used in this study. the incidence angle at this swath varies from 38 to 45 degrees for close and distant ranges, respectively. when paired with sentinel-1b, sentinel-1's 12day temporal resolution was boosted to six days. c-band microwave transmissions may reach a depth of up to 5 cm below the soil's surface (owe & van de griend, 1998). sentinel-2 for ndvi on gee sentinel-2 imagery was used to generate the normalized difference vegetation index (ndvi) in order to quantify the amount of plant cover in terms of height and density. the ndvi was obtained using the ratio of the difference between band 8 (near infrared) and band 4 (red) to the total of band 8 and band 4 of sentinel-2 images. nagaraju et al. (2013) found that there may be figure 3: flow chart depicting the methodology used to estimate soil moisture. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 36 dhakal et al. misvalued in regions having ndvi greater than 0.4 while estimating soil moisture using the modified dubois model, which could be due to the limitation of the c-band to penetrate through the dense forest canopy. modified dubois model to determine the relative soil permittivity from quad-polarized sar images, dubois et al. (1995) devised an empirical model. originally developed for l, c, and x-band data from scatter meters, this model was later applied to aerial photographs. even though the portions of the unknown coefficients were obtained by fitting the experimental data, the model structure was developed using compelling physical arguments. utilizing the backscatter values of vv polarization of the c-band (sentinel-1a) and incidence angle, the relative soil permittivity (ε) was computed as a dubois model input (dubois et al., 1995). the backscattering coefficient (σ0) can be calculated using the equation (1) based on vv polarization: σ◦vv = 10-2.37(cos3θ/sin3θ) x 100.046xextanθ x (kxsxsinθ)1.1 x λ0.7 ………………… (1) where, k stands for (2π/λ), λ for the sar wavelength (5.3 cm), s for the soil surface roughness (cm), and θ for the incidence angle. while the values of θ and μ were connected to the sensor parameters, the goal parameters, e and s, are often unknown. the dubois model was only used in the case of bare soil or sparsely vegetated areas. therefore, the ndvi of 0.4 criterion is usually applied to retrieve the ssm using the modified dubois model. as per this model, soil permittivity (ε) can be calculated using the equation (2) based on vv polarization: soil permittivity (ε) = [log (σ◦vv) – log (axc)]/b …………………. (2) where, a stands for 10-2.37(cos3θ/sin3θ), b for 0.046 x tanθ, and c for (kxsxsinθ)1.1xλ0.7. the unknown surface roughness parameter (s) is assigned as 1.8 cm based on the existing literature on semi-arid regions (bousbih et al., 2018; singh, et al., 2020; zribi et al., 2014) and we had assumed those regions to be similar to our study area. the study conducted by bousbih et al. (2018) in kairouan plain was a semi-arid region typically with agriculture and sparse vegetation cover, and average annual rainfall of approximately 300 mm. similarly, zribi et al. (2014) claimed that the roughness parameter obtained from their study conducted over the bare soil in the semiarid region could also be used elsewhere having identical geophysiological conditions. our study area also possessed similar geographical, climatical, and physiological conditions. topp's model with the use of the topp's model (thanabalan et al., 2022), the volumetric ssm (mv) may be obtained using the equation (3), where ε was based on the vv polarization of the c-band data (sentinel–1a). since this model was not affected by the characteristics of the soil (such as texture or grain size), it was a useful method for simulating surface soil moisture (song et al., 2009). volumetric ssm (mv) = -5.3x10-2 + 2.92x10-2 x ε (-5.5)x10-4 x ε 2 + 4.3x10-6 x ε3 ………… (3) validation validation was performed using the information on the location of the spring sources and stream features (see annexes i & ii) based on the assumption that "the spring and stream sources play a role in maintaining soil moisture". the linear link between the two variables was measured by buffering the spring and stream features at the distances of <100 m, 100-300 m, and 300-500 m, and the average soil moisture value of this region was analyzed using the zonal statistics (chen & hu, 2004; singla et al., 2012). the degree of strength between the soil moisture index value and the distance from the spring and stream sources were used for the validation of the soil moisture map. results average soil moisture index (smi) the existence of plant cover attenuates the soil's contribution, making it more difficult to retrieve banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 37 dhakal et al. soil moisture from sar data. the study used an ndvi threshold of 0.4 to identify areas with bare land or sparse vegetation. these areas were excluded from the analysis using the modified dubois model to minimize the influence of vegetation on soil moisture estimation. in the study area, the spatial patterns of the modeled soil moisture revealed that the moisture value ranged from 0.01 to 0.4 m3/m3 (figure 4). the majority of the area had lower soil moisture levels (<0.2 m3/m3). a moderate soil moisture level between 0.2 and 0.3 m3/m3 was observed across the forest and agricultural areas of the thasang and marpha regions. only the stream sections of the kali gandaki river and its tributaries in the eastern, western, and northern parts possessed the maximum soil moisture (0.3-0.4 m3/m3). figure 4: estimated ssm (m3/m3) and its spatial dispersion using sentinel-1 (white pixels represent the area outside the scope of the modified dubois model). figure 5 shows the ndvi map of the study area derived from sentinel-2. the ndvi map was classified into five categories, viz. < 0.1, 0.1-0.2, 0.2-0.3, 0.3-0.4, and > 0.4. out of the total area (577.97 km2), 25.78% was under less than 0.1 category, 54.36% under 0.1-0.2 category, 17.41% under 0.2-0.3 category, 2.41% under 0.3-0.4 category, and 0.04% above 0.4 category (table 3). banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 38 dhakal et al. figure 5: map showing the ndvi categories of the study area. table 3: percentage coverages of ndvi of the study area ndvi category area (km2) percentage < 0.1 148.97 25.78 0.1-0.2 314.17 54.36 0.2-0.3 100.62 17.41 0.3-0.4 13.95 2.41 > 0.4 0.25 0.04 total 577.97 100.00 validation the soil moisture values estimated from sentinel-1a images were compared with the spring source data and stream features based on the assumption that the closer the region to these water sources higher the soil moisture value. for locations where valid spring and stream sources existed, the corresponding pixels from the modeled soil moisture maps at a distance of <100m, 100 m-300 m, and 300 m-500 m were extracted (figure 6). banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 39 dhakal et al. figure 6: average soil moisture vs. proximity to spring and stream buffer. the average soil moisture index (smi) value was calculated within the distance from the spring and stream source to measure the overall accuracy of the soil moisture map. table 4 shows the accuracy assessment result that the average smi value within 100 m was found to be 0.27 (m3/m3), 100m-300m was found to be 0.21 (m3/m3), and 300m-500m was found to be 0.17 (m3/m3) (annex-1). the accuracy assessment result showed that the retrieved soil moisture map relatively represents a spatial variation of surface soil moisture over the study area. table 4: average soil moisture vs. proximity to stream/spring buffer proximity from spring/stream (m) percentage coverage area av. soil moisture (m3/m3) <100 0.97 0.27 100-300 2.85 0.21 300-500 5.06 0.17 total 8.88 analysis of smi and rainfall across the study area monthly basis for this analysis, the average soil moisture index from 2015 to 2022 on a monthly basis was plotted in the graph with rainfall data (figure 7). here, the monthly average soil moisture in percentage and monthly rainfall in mm were kept on the y-axis and time period (month) on the x-axis. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 40 dhakal et al. figure 7: av. soil moisture vs. av. monthly precipitation during 2015-2022. the above chart (figure 7) represents the change in soil moisture (percentage) vs. monthly precipitation (mm) from january 2015 to december 2022. the average soil moisture was found to be maximum in june, july, and august. it might be due to the influence of monsoon rainfall. moreover, the overall variation of soil moisture showed that the mean soil moisture increased from january to may and remained higher in june, july, and august (could be due to the rainy season) and slowly decreased from september to december (could be be due to dry season). the average variation of soil moisture was found to be within the range of 16.17% (minimum) and 24.23% (maximum) within the study area. similarly, the coefficient of determination (r2) between the soil moisture and rainfall was found to be 0.9469, indicating that there was a strong positive correlation between the soil moisture and the amount of rainfall in the study area. land use land cover map figure 8 shows the land use land cover map, of the study area, consisting of grassland (44.09%) as the major land cover class followed by bare land (14.5%), sparse coniferous forest (11.09%), cropland (2.89%) and other land cover classes were kept under masked area (27.43%), see also table 5. figure 8: lulc map of the study area. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 41 dhakal et al. table 5: class-specific lulc of the study area s. n. land cover area (km2) percentage cover 1. grassland 254.88 44.09 2. bareland 83.81 14.50 3. forest 64.15 11.09 4. cropland 16.76 2.89 5. masked area 158.37 27.43 total 577.97 100 comparison between average smi and land cover the lulc map was derived using the landsat imageries with 30 m x 30 m resolution. therefore, the soil moisture map derived from sentinel-1 (10 m x 10 m resolution) was resampled into 30 m x 30 m, and then the average pixel value of different land cover types such as forest, cropland, bare land, and grassland was analyzed with the average pixel value for the smi as shown in figure 4. the soil moisture in the cropland, and the sparse coniferous forest was found to be somewhat high which was reasonable. the grassland and bareland were found to possess slightly low soil moisture index (value less than 0.2 m3/m3, table 6). this study was based on the sar data and it was highly dependent on the signal and its reflectance. different surface types possessed different absorption and reflectance within a pixel; so, the forest and cropland had high soil moisture as the areas vegetation could have overlapped spectral reflectance. similarly, the soil moisture in cropland was found to be high (0.36 m3/m3); the reason for this might be due to the artificial irrigation practiced by the local farmers. further, the infiltration rate and permeability could play a role in this regard. table 6: average soil moisture with land cover types s. n. lulc features soil moisture (m3/m3) 1 cropland 0.36 2 sparse coniferous forest 0.32 3 grassland 0.18 4 bareland 0.12 discussion in this study, the vv polarization in the semiarid zone was used to extract soil moisture based on the sentinel-1a sar data using the dubois model. the mean surface soil moisture index of the study region from january 2015 to december 2022 was found to have ranged from 0.01 to 0.4 m3/m3. the generated soil moisture index gives a first-order approximation of soil moisture despite the limitation of the model's approach, such as their reliance on the frequency of sar data, the state of the land used, and the types of land cover. the modified dubois model was also used to calculate the soil moisture in the kosi river basin based on the sentinel-1 sar data in north india, and the result showed that the ssm varied from 0.05 m3/m3 to 0.5 m3/m3 (parida et al., 2022). additionally, the modified dubois model may be used for the ssm values between 0 and 0.35 m3/m3 and the ndvi less than 0.4, which depicts the model's performance declines when moisture level approaches saturation levels (rao et al., 2013). the ssm cannot be obtained using the modified dubois model provided the region has dense vegetation cover (liu et al., 2020; thanabalan et al., 2022). therefore, the modified dubois model effectively measures ssm, particularly in agricultural areas, areas with bare soil, and semi-arid areas. alternatively, in areas having dense vegetation cover (ndvi>0.4), the improved water cloud model (wcm) was advised to be applied for deriving ssm (lei et al., 2022; zribi et al., 2019). similarly, the variation of soil moisture with different land covers indicated that the smi of the cropland was found to be highest (0.36 m3/ m3) followed by forest (0.32 m3/m3), grassland (0.18 m3/m3), and bareland (0.12 m3/m3) which was reasonable as per the findings of the study conducted by tiwari et al. (2023) on smi of nepal. moreover, they also found a positive correlation between vegetation with smi. the temporal analysis of average soil moisture with rainfall (precipitation) revealed that the smi correlated with the amount of rainfall, which coincides with the findings of schoener et al. (2020). several researchers have used sar data and a variety of models to determine ssm, such as balenzano et banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 42 dhakal et al. al. (2011), hajj et al. (2016), and zan & parizzi (2013). some studies used ground-based in-situ measurement of soil moisture to trend and validate the models, then the obtained soil moisture map was found to correlate well with field scale data, such as albergel et al. (2011) and rajib et al. (2016). the present method can also make it possible to utilize cost-effective remote sensing data for estimating soil moisture for a variety of crop planning and agronomy applications. conclusion our study exploited vv polarization of the c-band of sentinel-1a to generate the spatiotemporal pattern of the ssm across the bare soil and minimally vegetated land of the two rural municipalities (thasang and gharapjhong) of mustang district. the spatial variability of soil moisture within the study area was found to have ranged from 0.01 m3/m3 to 0.4 m3/m3 and has been accurately represented by the suggested technical framework. in course of the analysis of the rainfall data and the smi figures, the rainfall showed a strong positive correlation with the smi, with the correlation coefficient of 0.9469. the comparative study on the soil moisture with land cover showed that the smi of the cropland was found to be the highest (0.36 m3/m3) followed by the forest areas (0.32 m3/m3). this study contributes toward using remotely sensed data to monitor moisture content of surface soil for tracking the impact of climate change on ssm, crop and water usage, management of water, scheduling crop irrigation, soil erosion, droughts, and flooding with better spatial and temporal resolutions. however, research on modeling ssm based on in-situ field data and other influencing factors is essential. acknowledgment we are thankful to the gandaki province academy of science and technology (gpast) for granting us financial support to carry out this study. we are also grateful to mr. shambhu kumar mishra, asst. forest officer, divisional forest & soil conservation office, kusma, parbat and the local residents around the study area for helping us during our fieldwork. author’s contribution statement sandesh dhakal: conceptualization of the study, development of methodology, data collection, data analysis, and preparation of draft manuscript; saroj kandel: investigation of the study, data collection, data analysis, and validation of results; and rajan subedi: conceptualization, visualization and supervision of the entire study. data availability the data will be accessible after the request for the data. conflict of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest. references adab, h., morbidelli, r., saltalippi, c., moradian, m., abbas, g., & ghalhari, f. 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(2019). analysis of l-band sar data for soil moisture estimations over agricultural areas in the tropics. remote sensing, 11 (9): 1122. https://doi. org/10.3390/rs11091122. _hlk143161325 2.2._input_data _hlk178967326 1 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v34i1.66276 monitoring, reporting & verification of carbon emission and its trading carbon trading or carbon emissions trading is the use of a marketplace to buy and sell permits that allow companies or other parties to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide (co2). it allows individuals and companies to offset their emissions by purchasing carbon credits from entities that actively reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. since the kyoto protocol in 1997, global adoption of clean development mechanism (cdm) and emissions buying and selling structures has increased. nepal, as a signatory to the united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc), the kyoto protocol, and the paris agreement, takes part in reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation (redd) initiative to assign economic cost to wooded area carbon storage. nepal's redd initiatives provide environmental, economic, and social benefits through clean energy adoption deforestation reduction, and improved land use and forest management. after cop13 held in 2007, nepal started redd readiness efforts, filing a redd readiness plan idea note (r-pin) to the world bank's forest carbon partnership facility (fcpf) in march, 2008. this led to the establishment of nepal's national redd implementation centre directly under the ministry of forests and soil conservation then submitted a readiness preparation proposal (r-pp) to the fcpf in april 2010 and formation of the fcpf participants committee in june 2010. the r-pp involved extensive studies on key areas, such as strategic environmental and social assessment (sesa), an environmental and social management framework (esmf), deforestation, carbon possession, land use, and forest value. these studies had certainly inspired the development of a national redd strategy for a developing country like nepal, for which the nation has already developed nationally development contributions (ndcs1& 2) for its further improvement. additionally, studies on monitoring, reporting, & verification (mrv) and reference level/reference emission level (rl/rel) had already been accomplished in 2013, nepal submitted a mid-term report to the fcpf detailing progress in its r-pp, highlighting areas like land use, governance, and monitoring structures. several donors, mainly the fcpf under the world bank, the un-redd program, and development partners like usaid, sdc, dfid, norad, and giz, have supported in course of the preparation of nepal's r-pp. nepal submitted its national forest reference level (frl) to the unfccc in 2017 for overview multi-stakeholder selfevaluation process was recommended in 2016. since june 2018, nepal has been implementing the 'people and forests: a sustainable forest management-based emission reduction program' inside the terai arc landscape (tal), which became admitted to the carbon fund portfolio during the paris assembly. criticism towards redd for prioritizing carbon over biodiversity has faded in current years. international organizations like unfccc, un-redd and the world bank have evolved hints to make certain redd tasks integrate those safeguards, emphasizing the conservation of forests and biodiversity. cop16 in cancun (2010) and cop19 in warsaw (2013) installed shield concepts, including the requirement for redd nations to establish safeguard information systems. the emissions reduction purchase agreement (erpa) is committed to switch 9,000,000 emission reduction (er) unit devices through fcpf over an area of four million hectares within nepal's tal, covering 15% of the country's total area and hosting 25% of its population. the program aims to mitigate deforestation and 2 degradation while supporting livelihoods and normal forest management practices. the ministry of forests and environment (mofe) plays various key roles in redd implementation, which involves federal, provincial, and local governments, with institutional mechanisms developed since the initiation of the redd readiness segment in 2009. the national redd implementation center (nrc) is the primary operational body for the overall implementation of redd initiative as per the national redd strategy. it follows fiduciary standards, generates budget independently, and accesses global redd-related budgets. the national redd steering committee and the national redd coordination committee together with the representatives from federal ministries, local governments, and provincial government supervise decision-making and technical matters. the structure ensures inclusive participation and gender balance in course of the implementation of redd initiative throughout the nation. the shape additionally consists of the joint secretaries and director generals of the departments under the mofe, and up to nine representatives from different organizations concerned; the head of the nrc serves as its member secretary. forest resource assessment (fra) or national forest inventory (nfi) of nepal is a periodic process that produces estimates on emission factors and information on biomass and carbon stored per hectare of forest. so far, nepal has conducted three national-level forest inventories: i) nfi in the early 1960s, ii) nfi during 1987−1998, and iii) fra during 2010−2014. the fra (2010−2014) produced emission factors used for the forest reference emission level (frel) submitted to the unfccc in 2017. during the latest national-level forest inventory (2010−2014), a multi-source forest resource inventory was adopted using high-resolution satellite imageries and digital elevation models along with the national topographic maps. recently, nepal has implemented a systematic forest monitoring system known as the 'national land cover monitoring system' (nlcms, 2022) through the forest research and training center (frtc) to conduct annual monitoring and mapping of forest cover using satellite images. nlcms serves as one of the input variables for generating the activity data which are prepared using ensemble methods, which include four algorithms: coded (continuous degradation detection), ccdc-sma (continuous change detection and classificationspectral mixture analysis), land trendr, and mtdd (multivariate time-series disturbance detection). these methods are detailed in the nepal forest change area estimation tool. the establishment of the reference level and the estimation of emissions and emissions reductions during the monitoring and reporting period involve using these activity data for estimating emissions and removals from the sources/ sinks, carbon pools, and greenhouse gases selected in the er-pd. the forest survey and carbon monitoring division of the frtc is responsible for the task of mrv of carbon emission from the forested areas of the nation. in addition to this, the frtc has initiated to develop the allometric equations for 16 major tree species for precise estimation of their volume and biomass through outsourcing in 2022; however, frtc has now conducted wood sample collection from different parts of the nation to develop allometric equations for seven out of the 16 major tree species. in 2021, nepal signed an agreement with the fcpf to reduce deforestation and forest degradation. with 45.31% of its land covered by forests, nepal has potential for carbon financing. the emission reductions payment agreement aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 9 million tons, with usd 5 for every ton of emission successfully mitigated. now it is final stage that the third party has recently audited carbon accounting methodology for nepal's payments in tal area through world bank. carbon trading from the forest resources including soil organic carbon (soc) , below ground biomass, herb and shrub with robust inventory design from tal area, leaf coalition (lowering emissions by accelerating forest finance) of bagmati, lumbini, and gandaki regions as well as from other parts of the nation is absolutely necessary for additional economic returns keeping environment balance with zero emission, as far as possible, through sustainable forest management adopting carbon trade and redd+ mechanism. kiran kumar pokharel managing editor banko janakari _goback 15 with the adverse impacts of climate change felt across the globe, the agenda of climate change has become more important than ever before (unfccc, 2017). the world's climate is changing at an unprecedented rate, threatening the survival of humanity (unfccc, 2018). carbon dioxide (co2) in the atmosphere has increased to levels that are higher than they have been for 800,000 years, and it is rising (unfccc, 2018). forests play a key role in the global carbon cycle by taking up co2 from the atmosphere and storing it in biomass (jenkins & schaap, 2018). therefore, quantifying the substantial roles of forests as storehouses of carbon has become one of the most important aspects to understand and modify global climate change. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1, 2022 pp 15‒24https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i1.45442 aboveground carbon stocks and sequestration rates of forests under different management regimes in churia region of nepal the impact of forest management activities on the ability of forest ecosystems to sequester and store atmospheric carbon is of increasing scientific and social concern. this research estimated the aboveground carbon stocks and carbon sequestration rates of forests under various management regimes in the churia region of nepal. we used tree data from 469 permanent sample plots distributed across the region from the data archive of forest research and training centre for the study. the data from 2012 and 2017 were used. the volumes of individual trees were calculated using species–specific allometric equations, which were then converted to biomasses using their respective wood densities. the carbon content was calculated by multiplying the biomass by 0.47 and was converted to the amount of sequestrated co2 by multiplying by 3.67. we found that the average estimated aboveground carbon stock increased from 78.43 t ha–1 in 2012 to 89.20 t ha–1 in 2017, resulting in an average annual carbon sequestration rate of 5.34 t ha–1 yr–1 (i.e. 7.90 t co2 ha–1 yr–1). the results showed significant differences in aboveground carbon stocks and annual carbon sequestration rates among different forest management regimes in the region. generally, aboveground carbon stock was found to be the highest in protected areas in both years whereas, the annual carbon sequestration rate was found to be the highest in government–managed forests. it can be concluded that the churia region has great potential in terms of carbon sequestration. the evidence of the strong association of carbon stock and sequestration rate with management regimes provides valuable information for policymakers to maintain and further enhance carbon storage in a geographically vulnerable region like churia. keywords: carbon assessment, churia forests, climate change, diverse management regimes, sequestration rates, tree density b. subedi 1*, p. lamichhane 2, l. k. magar 3 and t. subedi 2 received: 5, march 2022 revised: 6, april 2022 accepted: 20, may 2022 published: 31, may 2022 1 agriculture and forestry university hetauda, makwanpur, nepal, *e–mail: bipanasubedi632@gmail.com 2 forest research and training center, ministry of forests and environment, kathmandu, nepal, 3 agriculture and forestry university, hetauda, makwanpur, nepal, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8336-7988 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0355-0222 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9314-0632 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3772-2897 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 16 subedi et al. until 10,000 years ago, forests used to cover 6 billion ha of earth's land area, but they today only cover 4 billion ha, with an average yearly loss of around 5.2 million ha during the last ten years (fao, 2012). deforestation and forest degradation can account for up to 20% of the global co2 emissions each year, which is more than that of the entire transportation industry (acharya et al., 2009). intending to reduce emissions from forest– based green house gases (ghgs), the united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc) has announced the carbon offset program of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (redd+) at cop 19 in 2013 (poudel et al., 2019). nepal ranks 11th in the world for the emission of ghgs from deforestation and other land– use changes (world resources institute, 2008). forest and grassland conversion alone contributes about 80% of nepal's ghg emissions (mope/unep, 2004). the redd+ initiative assigns a monetary value to carbon stored in forests, incentivizing developing countries to cut emissions from forested areas and invest in low–carbon, sustainable development (sharma & kakchapati, 2018). nepal is a poor country economically, and forests are one of the main sources of national income and a vital source of livelihood for the local population (sharma & kakchapati, 2018). despite the opportunities, there are numerous challenges to the effective implementation of redd+ in nepal. one of the key barriers to the proper implementation of redd+ in nepal is the lack of research on the estimation of carbon stocks using established scientific methodologies for frequent assessment of emission reduction (acharya et al., 2009). more studies on the quantification of forest carbon stocks and factors affecting the forest carbon stocks and sequestration rates are needed. such studies would be useful for the sustainable management of forest resources and increasing contributions of the forests to the national economy (sharma & kakchapati, 2018). carbon is stored in various pools in forest ecosystems. ipcc (2006) has identified five carbon pools in terrestrial ecosystems: aboveground biomass (agb), belowground biomass, litter, woody debris, and soil organic matter. the world's forests are estimated to store 662 gt of carbon (including all carbon pools), of which 295 gt of carbon is stored in living biomass (fao, 2020). the carbon amount sequestered in different pools is variable and is affected by various factors such as land use, species composition, management regimes, and soil profile (poudel et al., 2019; shrestha & singh, 2007). this means that the carbon removals and carbon sequestrations must be tracked regularly, which is limited in developing countries like nepal (poudel et al., 2019). carbon stored in agb of trees is often the greatest pool, which is also most immediately affected by deforestation and forest degradation (yang, 2013). the churia region of nepal is the physiographic region with the highest occurrence of forest disturbances. churia forests are disappearing at an annual rate of 0.18% (dfrs, 2015). reducing carbon emissions from forest degradation and deforestation in this region is one of the priorities of the program and it requires information on forest carbon stock and sequestration rates. the results could be beneficial to the government for identifying actions that maintain or enhance carbon storage in churia that supports both natural resource conservation and united nations– redd+ program to mitigate carbon emission issues. moreover, with the advent of redd+, considerable attention has been directed towards community forests, but other locally managed forest regimes, which account for three–quarters of total forest area, have been overlooked (poudel et al., 2019). quantifying carbon stocks in other management regimes is necessary for management planning for effective climate change mitigation (ghimire, 2019). quantification of carbon stocks and sequestration rates of the churia forests is not only necessary for the conservation of degraded natural resources but also for supporting the implementation of redd+ in nepal (sharma & kakchapati, 2018). hence, the aim of this study is: (a) to estimate the above–ground carbon stocks of the forests in churia physiographic region of nepal, (b) to assess the average annual rates of carbon sequestration of the forests in the region, and (c) to compare the carbon stocks and sequestration rates of forests under various management regimes. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 17 subedi et al. materials and method study area the study was conducted in churia physiographic region of nepal. the churia region covers 12.84% of the total area of the country (survey department, 2001). it extends between longitudes 800 9' 25" e and 880 11' 16" e and latitudes 260 37' 47" to 290 10' 27” (lrmp, 1986, figure 1). its elevation ranges from 93–1,955 masl and stretches from 10 to 50 km in width (lrmp, 1986). the region's climate varies from sub–tropical to warm temperate, with hot and humid summers, heavy monsoon rain, and frigid winter. low elevation regions fall in the sub– tropical climatic zone whereas high hills fall in the warm temperate climatic zones (dfrs, 2015). the churia region consists of 23.04% of the total forest area of nepal (dfrs, 2015). forests in the region are being managed under six management regimes as i. community forests ii. government–managed forests iii. protected areas iv. private forests v. buffer zone forests managed by the government and vi. buffer zone community forests (mofsc, 2015). sampling and data collection we used data from 469 permanent sample plots distributed across the churia region (figure 1) from the data archive of forest research and training center (frtc) for this study. frtc used two–phase cluster sampling method for the inventory. in the first phase, the entire country was divided into 4 km grids, and a cluster of plots was established at each grid point. the clusters were sub–sampled for field measurement in the second phase. concentric circular sample plots (ccsps) of radii 4, 8, 15, and 20 cm were used for the measurement of trees of dbh range 5–9.9, 10– 19.9, 20–29.9, and 30 cm and more, respectively (figure 2). trees were identified to species level and their diameter at breast height (dbh) and heights was measured. diameter tape was used to measure the trees' dbh (1.3 m above ground level), while vertex iv and transponder t3 were used to measure their heights. figure 1: map showing physiographic regions of nepal. the churia region, also known as chure is marked in green color. red dots represent the locations of 469 permanent sample plots established by forest research and training center banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 18 subedi et al. r3=15 m r2=8m r1= 4m r4= 20m n figure 2: layout of concentric circular sample plots (ccsp) for the estimation of stem volume, biomass and carbon content using the following methods: data analysis dbh and height of the tallied trees were used stem volume estimation for the estimation of stem volume, the volume equations (eqn. 1) developed by sharma &pukkala (1990) was used: ln (v) = a + b ln(d) + c ln(h)………….(eqn. 1) where 'ln' is the natural logarithm to the base 2.71828, 'v' is the volume per hectare(m3ha–1), 'd' is the diameter of the trees measured at breast height (cm), 'h' is the height of the trees (m) and 'a', 'b' and 'c' are coefficients depending on species (table 1). the volume estimates were then divided by 1000 to convert them into cubic meters. table 1: species–specific coefficients used for the estimation of stem volume of individual tree s.n. species local name a b c r2 1 acacia catechu khair –2.3256 1.6476 1.0552 99.2 2 adina cordifolia haldu/karma –2.5626 1.8598 0.8783 98.1 3 albizia spp. siris –2.4284 1.7609 0.9662 98.8 other trees in terai –2.3993 1.7836 0.9546 98.3 other trees in hills –2.3204 1.8507 0.8223 97.7 source: sharma & pukkala, 1990 stem biomass estimation eqn. 2 was used for the estimation of stem biomass. stem biomass (ton kg–1) = volume × density……………….(eqn. 2) where, volume = stem volume in m3, density = air–dried wood density in kg m–3 species–specific wood–density values were obtained from sharma & pukkala (19900 (table 2). table 2: air–dried wood densities for different tree species s.n. species local name air–dried wood density (kg m–3) 1 acacia catechu khair 960 2 adina cordifolia haldu/karma 670 3 albizia spp. siris 673 other tree species in terai 674 other tree species in hills 674 source: sharma & pukala 1990. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 19 subedi et al. above–ground biomass estimation tree branch biomass and foliage biomass were estimated by using species– and size–specific branch– to–stem and foliage–to–stem biomass ratios recommended by mofsc (1988) (table 3). table 3: branch–to–stem and foliage–to–stem biomass ratios for different trees (mofsc, 1998) s.n. species local name biomass ratio branch–to stem foliage–to–stem small medium big small medium big 1 alnus nepalensis utis 0.803 1.226 1.510 0.169 0.089 0.060 2 dalbergia sissoo sissoo 0.684 0.684 0.684 0.010 0.010 0.010 3 pinus roxburghii khotesalla 0.189 0.256 0.300 0.101 0.046 0.033 4 schima wallichii chilaune 0.520 0.186 0.168 0.064 0.035 0.033 5 shorea robusta sal 0.055 0.341 0.357 0.062 0.067 0.067 6 other species – 0.400 0.400 0.400 0.070 0.057 0.040 source: mofsc, 1998 then, total agb was obtained by adding the stem biomass, branch biomass, and foliage biomass, i.e. total above–ground biomass (agb) = stem biomass + branch biomass + foliage biomass……… (eqn. 3) carbon stock / carbon content estimation the above–ground carbon content (t c ha–1) was calculated by multiplying total aboveground biomass (kg ha–1) by 0.47 and by dividing it by 1000 (eqn. 4) (ipcc, 2006). aboveground carbon content (t c ha–1) = (aboveground biomass (kg ha–1)* 0.47)/ 1000… (eqn. 4) co2 sequestration estimation the amount of sequestrated co2 was calculated by multiplying carbon stock by 3.67 (eqn. 5) (toochi, 2018). amount of co2 sequestered in aboveground biomass (t co2 ha–1) = aboveground carbon content (t c ha–1) * 3.67…………(eqn.5). statistical analysis the difference between the carbon stocks and sequestration rates of forests under various management regimes was analyzed using the kruskal–wallis test with a post hoc dunn test. for this, forests were grouped into four management regimes, i.e. community forests, government managed forests, forest protection areas, and others that included buffer zone forests, collaborative forests, and leasehold forests. all calculations and analyses were done with google sheet and statistical package software r version 3.6.1. (r core team, 2020). results major tree species a total of 232 species of trees were recorded from the 469 permanent sample plots in churia region in 2017. in terms of frequency, shorea robusta (38.67%), terminalia alata (10.35%), anogeisus latifolia (4.96%), lagerstroemia parviflora (3.86%), buchanania latifolia (2.96%), syzygium cuminii (2.11%), and pinus roxburghii (2.09%) were the major tree species in the region (figure 3). the remaining 35% was contributed by banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 20 subedi et al. other tree species (mallotus philippensis, adina cordifolia, aegle marmelos, etc.). 38.67 10.35 4.96 3.86 2.96 2.11 2.09 35 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 n um be r of tr ee s ( % ) major tree species figure 3: frequency distribution of major tree species in the churia region tree stem volume and aboveground tree biomass of forests under different management regimes tree stem volume increased from 158.19 m3 ha–1 in 2012 to 180.86 m3 ha–1in 2017 and aboveground biomass increased from 166.88 t ha–1 in 2012 to 189.79 t ha–1 in 2017 (table 4). protected areas had the highest stem volume of aboveground biomass in both years (table 4). table 4: tree stem volume and aboveground tree biomass of forests under different management regimes in churia region, nepal s. n. management regimes no. of plots tree volume (m3ha–1) aboveground tree biomass (t ha–1) 2012 2017 2012 2017 1 community forests 269 155.63 179.57 163.42 187.11 2 govt. managed forests 94 140.47 147.72 150.85 177.93 3 protection areas 76 191.82 193.94 200.71 221.53 4 others 30 151.47 165.04 162.41 170.58 churia region 469 158.19 180.86 166.88 189.79 carbon stock and co2 sequestration of forests under different management regimes the total estimated carbon stock of forests in the churia region was 78.43 t ha–1 in 2012 and it increased to 89.20 t cha–1 in 2017 (table 5). the total sequestrated co2 of the forests of the churia region in the year 2012 was 287.85 t co2 ha–1 and it increased to 327.37 t co2 ha–1 in 2017 (table 5). table 5: carbon stock and co2 sequestration of forests under different management regimes in churia region, nepal management regime community forests govt. managed forests protected areas others churia region c ar bo n st oc k (t c ha –1 ) no. of plots 269 94 76 30 469 2012 mean 77.32 68.22 95.18 76.84 78.43 s.d. 42.89 45.08 47.40 57.78 45.59 median 73.14 62.45 87.31 70.49 74.00 2017 mean 88.51 80.94 104.96 80.74 89.20 s.d. 44.54 47.70 42.09 48.54 45.46 median 83.37 74.68 98.16 79.38 83.46 c o 2 se qu es tr at io n (t c o 2e ha –1 ) 2012 mean 283.76 250.37 349.31 282.00 287.85 s.d. 157.40 165.43 173.94 212.05 167.31 median 268.42 229.21 320.42 258.69 271.59 2017 mean 324.84 297.04 385.22 296.32 327.37 s.d. 163.46 175.07 154.48 178.14 166.84 median 305.96 274.08 360.27 291.34 306.31 (s.d. = standard deviation) banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 21 subedi et al. the total increment in co2 sequestration during these two assessment periods was 39.52 t co2 ha–1. similarly, the annual rate of co2 sequestration in the region over the two assessment periods i.e. 2012 and 2017 was 7.90 t co2 ha–1 yr–1) (table 6). table 6: rate of co2 sequestration of forests under different management regimes in churia region management regime community forests govt. managed forests protected areas others total rate of co2 sequestration (t co2 ha–1 yr–1) annual n 269 94 76 30 469 mean 8.21 9.33 7.18 2.86 7.90 s.d. 11.81 7.99 10.54 16.18 11.35 median 7.61 8.50 7.48 5.99 7.61 rate of co2 sequestration (t co2 ha–1) over a period mean 41.07 46.67 35.91 14.32 39.28 s.d. 59.07 39.95 52.70 80.90 56.71 median 38.03 42.50 37.38 29.94 38.03 (s.d. = standard deviation) kruskal wallis test showed that there is a significant difference between annual co2 sequestration rates among the forests under different management regimes. post–hoc dunn test showed that the annual co2 sequestration rate of government–managed forests is significantly higher than that of forests under other management regimes (figure 4). figure 4: annual co2 sequestration rates of forests under different management regimes (cf– community forests, gmf– government managed forests, pf– protected areas) in the churia region, nepal discussion the carbon store of nepal's forests, according to the ministry of forest and soil conservation, is estimated to be as 176.95 t c ha–1(mofsc, 2015). according to the department of forest research and survey (dfrs), churia forests have an average carbon stock of 116.94 t c ha–1 (dfrs, 2015). however, in this study, we estimated the carbon stock of the region to be 89.20 t c ha–1, which seems to be relatively lower than that reported by dfrs (2015). this might be because this study only considered the above–ground carbon stock and excluded deadwood carbon stock, which was included in dfrs (2015). furthermore, carbon stock per unit area might vary based on a variety of factors such as geographic location, tree density, species diversity, tree stem volume, dbh, canopy, and other forest management or legal considerations (brown, 2002; sharma et al., 2011; sharma & kakchapati, 2018). the estimated carbon stock in the region increased from 78.43 t c ha–1 in 2012 to 89.20 t c ha–1 in 2017 (table 4). this increase in carbon stock in the region is probably due to an increase in stem volumes and biomass due to the increase in diameter and height of individual trees from 2012 to 2017. the volume of the stem matters when assessing the carbon stocks of forests since banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 22 subedi et al. the stem is the main section of the tree where the majority of carbon is stored (sharma & kakchapati, 2018). increased tree size results in an increment in biomass, which ultimately leads to positive changes in carbon stock. in addition, the government of nepal has prioritized the churia region as an environmental conservation area, which might have reduced deforestation and consequently increased carbon storage in the region. the average annual rate of co2 sequestration in the region was estimated to be 5.4 t ha–1 yr–1 (i.e. 7.90 t co2 ha–1 yr–1 i.e. 5.4 t c ha–1 yr–1) (table 6). this value is comparable to that reported for forests in the central himalayan region, which ranges from 2.4 to 5.6 t c ha–1yr–1 (rana et al., 1989). the increment in co2 sequestration during the assessment period (2012–2017) was 39.52 t co2 ha–1 yr–1 (table 6), which was around 54.3 million tonnes of carbon for the whole region, which is equivalent to 197 tonnes of co2. this means that about 197 tonnes of co2 were removed from the atmosphere by these forests over 5 years, which is lower than the actual value as the extraction of timber and fuelwood during these years was excluded in the study. therefore, the churia region is expected to have more potential to sequester carbon than illustrated in the results. our study showed that carbon stocks and sequestration rates vary significantly among the forests under different management regimes. this result is in line with the results of the study by gurung et al. (2015) from terai arc landscape (tal). the highest level of carbon stock was found in protected area forests, followed by community forests, government–managed forests, and other forests. indeed, mbaabu et al. (2013) showed that the forest management practices affect the carbon stock of the forest. the variation among forests under different management regimes could be the reflection of the degree of usage limits of forest products, primarily wood harvesting. timber harvesting is strictly forbidden in protected areas because conservation is their major goal (gurung et al., 2015), whereas the production of timber is one of the primary goals of community forests and government–managed forests. the annual carbon sequestration rate was found to be the highest for government–managed forests, followed by community forests (table 6). however, it was comparatively lower for protected areas, which could be an indication of the need for proper silvicultural treatments and management activities. in addition to the management activities, other biotic and abiotic factors also affect carbon sequestration rates (newell & stavins, 2000). for instance, young stands and fast–growing species tend to have a high sequestration capacity (nowak et al., 2013). however, the effects of such biotic and abiotic factors were not examined in the study. having said that, the impact of other management activities on carbon stock, such as forest fire control, silvicultural activities, and other biotic factors, should not be disregarded, and more research on their effects on carbon stock is required. it is perhaps not surprising that community forests are not the highest carbon–sequestering management regime because community forest operational plans do not include carbon value. the main aim of community forests is not the sequestration of carbon but the better growth of trees so that they can, later on, be harvested to fulfill the needs of the local users. similarly, the difference between carbon sequestration rates of cf and gmf is not too high indicating that both management regimes have great potential for sequestering carbon. conclusion we found a significant difference among diverse management regimes in terms of their carbon sequestration potentials. carbon stocks were found the highest in protected areas where tight restrictions on the exploitation of forest products are imposed, compared to government–managed forests, community forests, and other forests where timber harvesting occurs. the forests of the churia region have a huge carbon reservoir. because of the region's high rates of deforestation, most of the carbon previously held in the reservoir may have been released into the atmosphere. there is a great opportunity to cut future emissions by avoiding deforestation in the churia region. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 23 subedi et al. government–managed forests exhibited higher rates of carbon sequestration than community forests. where carbon sequestration studies in nepal are primarily focused on community forests, our study showed that management regimes other than community forests, too, have great potential for carbon sequestration. references acharya, k. p., dangi, r. b., tripathi, d. m., bushley, b. r., bhandary, r. r., & bhattarai, b. (eds). (2009). ready for redd? taking stock of experience, opportunities, and challenges in nepal. nepal foresters association, kathmandu, nepal. brown s. (2002). measuring carbon in forests: current status and future challenges, environmental pollution, 116(3), 363–372. chhatre a. & agrawal a. (2009). trade–offs and synergies between carbon storage and livelihood benefits from forest commons. proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america, 106 (42), 7667–7670. dfrs. (2015). state of nepal’s forests. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey (dfrs). kathmandu, nepal. dfrs. (2014).churia forests of nepal. forest resource assessment(fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey(dfrs). kathmandu, nepal. dfrs. (2017). field manual. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey (dfrs). kathmandu, nepal. fao. 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(2018). linear regression model to identify the factors associated with carbon stock in chure forest of nepal. scientifica. id: 1383482. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/1383482 survey department. (2001). national topographical base maps.survey department, kathmandu, nepal. toochi e.c. (2018).carbon sequestration: how much can forestry sequester co2?. forest res engint j. 2(3), 148–150. unfccc. (2018). un climate change annual report 2017. united nations framework convention on climate change. https:/ unfccc.int. yang, x.,strahler, a. h.,schaaf, c. b., jupp, d. l. b., yao, t., zhao, f., wang, z., culvenor, d. s, newnham, g. j., lovell, j. l., dubayah, r. o., woodcock, c. e., & ni– meisteri w. (2013). three–dimensional forest reconstruction and structural parameter retrievals using a terrestrial full– waveform lidar instrument (echidna®). remote sensing of environment. 135, 36 –51. doi:10.1016/j.rse. 2013.03.020. 55 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 mitigation co-benefits of ecosystem-based adaptation measures: learnings from catalyzing ecosystem restoration for climate-resilient natural capital and rural livelihoods in degraded forests and rangelands of nepal keshav prasad khanal 1, top bahadur khatri 1, santosh mani nepal 1, buddi sagar poudel 2, raju sapkota 2, binod thapa 1, digambar singh dahal 1 and bhola dhakal 1* 1 united nations environment program (unep). *email: keshav_khanal@hotmail.com 2 ministry of forests and environment, singhadurbar, kathmandu, nepal ecosystem-based adaptation (eba) interventions, while primarily aimed at enhancing resilience to climate impacts, can also produce measurable climate mitigation benefits. this study evaluates the carbon sequestration and emission reduction potential of eba interventions implemented in degraded forests and rangelands of nepal to quantify their climate mitigation outcomes. carbon sequestration was estimated using secondary data from national sources and literature for two types of interventions: reforestation of 1,393 hectares and sustainable forest management (sfm) over 10,000 hectares. standardized carbon stock increments from similar ecological zones were applied over 20 years. reforested areas sequestered an average of 83.4 tons of co2 per hectare per year, while sustainably managed forests contributed 4.4 tons of co2 per hectare per year. over 20 years, these measures are projected to sequester approximately 1,134 t co2/ha from plantations and 533 t co2 /ha from sfm. eba interventions in nepal not only build adaptive capacity but also provide significant climate mitigation benefits. the observed carbon gains highlight the importance of incorporating ecosystem restoration into national climate policies, especially in forest and rangeland landscapes where adaptation and mitigation collaborations can be achieved. keywords: carbon emissions, climate change, eba co-benefits, ecosystem-based adaptation ecosystem-based adaptation (eba) involves the sustainable management of ecosystems and utilizing their services to help communities adapt to climate change. by increasing the resilience of both ecosystems and livelihoods, eba lowers climate-related vulnerabilities and provides cobenefits such as biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation (cbd, 2009; munang et al., 2013). eba strategies can also support climate change mitigation by boosting carbon sequestration and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (locatelli et al., 2015). many ecosystems, such as forests and wetlands, store significant amounts of carbon. conserving and restoring these ecosystems through various eba measures can help sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, reducing greenhouse gas concentrations and mitigating climate change (díaz et al., 2019). similarly, protecting and managing forests to reduce deforestation and forest degradation can curb major sources of carbon emissions. by conserving these carbon sinks, eba can help mitigate climate change (unep, 2014). additionally, sustainable land management practices, such as agroforestry and sustainable agriculture, can enhance soil health and decrease the need for chemical fertilizers, leading to lower emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas (smith et al., 2007). the effectiveness of eba measures in reducing climate change impacts depends on various factors, such as the type of ecosystem (e.g., forests, wetlands, and grasslands), its ecological health, and socioreceived: 26 september 2024 revised: 30 july 2025 accepted: 5 september 2025 published: 30 september 2025 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2, 2025 pp 55-60https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i2.70139 https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5087-0716 https://orcid.org/0009-0006-3303-7848 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6343-2496 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3987-8684 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4996-6088 https://orcid.org/0009-0000-8931-3764 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6509-4931 https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9470-4874 56 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 economic and environmental conditions in the local context (munroe et al., 2011; griscom et al., 2017). a study by vignola et al. (2009) reported that customizing eba measures to specific ecosystems and local settings improves their ability to deliver cobenefits. it highlights that such tailored approaches are essential for successfully achieving both mitigation (e.g., carbon sequestration) and adaptation (e.g., increased resilience) goals. while the main aim of eba measures is to strengthen resilience against climate change effects, their mitigation benefits are important additional advantages. these co-benefits make eba an attractive strategy for addressing both climate change adaptation and mitigation (andrade et al., 2011). the project “catalyzing ecosystem restoration for climate resilient natural capital and rural livelihoods in degraded forests and rangelands of nepal” (eba ii) is funded by the global environment facility (gef) and the least developed country fund (ldcf). launched in may 2018 and concluding in april 2025, the project aimed to reduce community vulnerability to climate change and improve local adaptation capacities through eba measures in degraded forests and rangelands of the mid-hills (salyan and achham districts) and high mountain areas (dolakha district) (unep, 2019). this paper seeks to analyze and quantify the mitigation benefits of eba by evaluating the intervention measures implemented under the eba ii project in dolakha, salyan, and achham districts of nepal, with a particular focus on assessing the resulting carbon sequestration and emission reductions. materials and methods study area the study sites for this research were located in two hill districts (salyan and achham) and one high mountain district (dolakha) of nepal. the project spans 18 wards across 10 municipalities. table 1 shows the total forest area covered in this study. this research includes 1,393 hectares of reforested areas and 1,000 hectares of sustainably managed forests within 132 community forests. baseline data this study primarily depends on secondary data from reputable national and peer-reviewed sources to estimate carbon emissions and sequestration. in the absence of site-specific baseline data, we referenced the dfrs (2015) carbon stock report. peer-reviewed literature from ecologically similar regions in nepal was utilized to validate assumptions and strengthen data triangulation. we acknowledge that field-based validation through primary data collection or qualitative assessments (e.g., stakeholder consultations, focus group discussions) was not conducted during this study due to time and logistical constraints. while this limits the contextual depth and local verification of data, the chosen secondary sources are consistent, nationally recognized, and widely cited in similar carbon assessments in nepal. future research should incorporate mixed-method approaches, including stakeholder interviews, participatory forest monitoring, and carbon sampling to enhance data accuracy and local relevance. here is a general outline of the method we used to calculate the carbon impact of forest conservation. carbon stock calculation carbon stock for plantation and rehabilitated forests was estimated based on assumed annual increment rates derived from the literature. for new plantations, we assumed full growth by year 20, and yearly stock was adjusted proportionally from year 1–9 using incremental factors (0.2–0.9). to estimate forest carbon stock and annual carbon sequestration for plantation and sustainably managed forests, we reviewed studies from similar forest types and ecological zones. a study conducted in the syangja district of the middle hills of western nepal, at elevations ranging from 979 to 1320 meters above sea level, examined the carbon sequestration of community forests. it found the total carbon stock, annual carbon sequestration rate, and total co2 mitigation potential to be 122.29, 0.45, and 1.64 tons per hectare, respectively (kc et al., 2013). similarly, a study on hill sal forests of nepal reported a carbon sequestration rate of 2.6 mg (dolakha district) (unep, 2019). this paper seeks to analyze and quantify the mitigation benefits of eba by evaluating the intervention measures implemented under the eba ii project in dolakha, salyan, and achham districts of nepal, with a particular focus on assessing the resulting carbon sequestration and emission reductions. materials and methods study area the study sites for this research were located in two hill districts (salyan and achham) and one high mountain district (dolakha) of nepal. the project spans 18 wards across 10 municipalities. table 1 shows the total forest area covered in this study. this research includes 1,393 hectares of reforested areas and 1,000 hectares of sustainably managed forests within 132 community forests. table 1: forest area of eba ii project intervention sites project sites achham salyan dolakha total total forest restoration area by eba ii project (ha) 348 873 172 1393 total sites 35 18 21 74 sustainable forest management (ha) 10000 data source: eba ii project report baseline data this study primarily depends on secondary data from reputable national and peer-reviewed sources to estimate carbon emissions and sequestration. in the absence of site-specific baseline data, we referenced the dfrs (2015) carbon stock report. peer-reviewed literature from ecologically similar regions in nepal was utilized to validate assumptions and strengthen data triangulation. we acknowledge that field-based validation through primary data collection or qualitative assessments (e.g., stakeholder consultations, focus group discussions) was not conducted during this study due to time and logistical constraints. while this limits the contextual depth and local verification of data, the chosen secondary sources are consistent, nationally recognized, and widely cited in similar carbon assessments in nepal. future research should incorporate mixed-method approaches, including stakeholder interviews, participatory forest monitoring, and carbon sampling to enhance data accuracy and local relevance. here is a general outline of the method we used to calculate the carbon impact of forest conservation. carbon stock calculation table 1: forest area of eba ii project intervention sites khanal et al. 57 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 tons per hectare per year (thapa & shrestha, 2015). another study on community forests in nepal found the average annual carbon increment to be 2.19 tons per hectare (shrestha et al., 2013). additionally, an assessment by icimod at the icimod knowledge park in godavari, nepal, found a carbon sequestration rate of 2.65 tons of carbon per hectare per year (karki et al., 2016). these studies present consistent data on baseline carbon stock and annual carbon sequestration rates in the middle hills of nepal, closely aligning the data from dfrs. therefore, we used the data provided by dfrs (2015) as the baseline carbon stock for the project sites. emissions reduction and carbon sequestration the potential emissions reduction from preventing of deforestation or forest degradation was calculated by finding the difference between the current carbon stock (baseline) and the possible carbon emissions if the forest were converted to other uses, such as agriculture or urban development. according to the carbon stock report of the forest resource assessment (dfrs, 2015), the carbon stock of plantation forests is 79.43 tons of carbon per hectare. we assume that plantation forests reach this carbon stock level after 10 years. for the years from the second to the ninth year of plantation, we applied factors of 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, up to 0.9 to the 79.43 tons of carbon per hectare value. time horizon carbon sequestration is a long-term process, so understanding the timeframe is crucial for accurate calculations. we assumed that full forest growth can be achieved within 20 years of planting or conservation. calculation of the carbon storage potential of plantation forests and natural forests carbon calculation of plantation forests: the carbon storage potential of plantation forests was estimated, predicting how much carbon these forests would store over time. the calculation can be complex, and the value may vary based on factors like tree species, age, site conditions, and forest management practices. however, we assume that the forest will reach its full growth in 20 years, and we use the same amount of carbon stock for planted forests as that of the natural forests in the study sites. for this, we use the forest resource assessment (dfrs, 2015) data on the carbon stock of middle mountain forests. enhance carbon sequestration due to sfm: we used the current tree carbon sequestration rate for tropical moist forests, based on the ipcc default value (tier 1). according to the ipcc, the aboveground biomass is 3 tons per hectare, with 25% of this amount as below-ground biomass. therefore, the total carbon stock for one hectare of forest would be 3 tons of above-ground biomass plus 25% of 3 tons (0.75 tons) for below-ground biomass, resulting in a total of 3.75 tons per hectare. we assumed a 5% increase in carbon biomass after five years of sustainable management, resulting in an improved carbon sequestration rate of 3.9375 tons per hectare per year (3.75 tons + 0.05 × 3.75 tons). for the first through fourth years of sustainable forest management, we applied factors of 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8 to this value (3.9375 tons) to estimate the annual carbon increase. after the fifth year, we assumed the annual carbon increase would rise by 10% each year until the forest reached the rotation age of 20 years. details on carbon emission reduction and carbon sequestration are provided in appendix 1. results the carbon sequestration from planting 1,393 hectares of forest was found to be 116,178 tons annually. similarly, the annual carbon sequestration from the sustainable management of 10,000 hectares was 44,364 tons. combining both plantation and sustainable forest management practices, the total annual carbon sequestration was 160,542 tons. table 2 displays the annual and total co2 emission reductions and sequestrations from the project implementation. it shows that the project actions can result in a reduction or sequestration of 711,527 tons of co2 each year. over the five-year period of the project, a total of 1,001,108 tons of co2 can be sequestered or reduced due to these actions. table 3 and figure 1 show the annual co2 sequestration and emission reduction from the eba project. they reveal that the eba project sequestered nearly one million tons of co2 over five years. discussion this study illustrates the potential of ecosystembased adaptation (eba) measures, specifically forest plantation and sustainable forest management khanal et al. 58 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 environmental characteristics have been shown to significantly boost the co-benefits of eba (vignola et al., 2009; andrade et al., 2011). although this study mainly focused on carbon benefits, the broader value of eba interventions lies in their multi-functional nature. evidence from other studies shows that besides addressing climate change, forest-based eba improves biodiversity, stabilizes soil, regulates water cycles, and supports local economies through non-timber forest products (locatelli et al., 2015; reid et al., 2019). the interventions of the eba ii project, although not measured explicitly for these co-benefits in this study, probably provide similar ecosystem services that help build long-term resilience. a key implication of these findings is the need for long-term monitoring and adaptive management. carbon sequestration is not a static process; it changes with forest age, species composition, climate variability, and anthropogenic pressures. successful eba requires a feedback system that involves ongoing learning, participatory governance, and flexible strategies that can adapt to changing conditions (unep, 2014; seddon et al., 2020). this study relied on secondary data and literature-based estimates, which restricts the ability to verify findings through ground-truthing or participatory assessments. future research should include field-based carbon measurements, stakeh older interviews, and participatory monitoring systems to improve accuracy and social legitimacy. this will not only strengthen the scientific foundation of eba interventions but also promote local ownership and sustainability. conclusion in this study, we examined the carbon sequestration and emission reduction resulting from the eba project interventions using secondary sources. our table 3 and figure 1 show the annual co2 sequestration and emission reduction from the eba project. they reveal that the eba project sequestered nearly one million tons of co2 over five years. table 3: annual and total co2 sequestration due to project interventions of the eba ii project annual carbon sequestration from eba project 711,527 ton co2e carbon sequestration within the project period (5 years) 1,001,108 ton co2e total carbon sequestration within 20 years from eba project implementation (one whole rotation period of forest crop) 10,329, 164 ton co2e total 10.33 million tco2e figure 1: cumulative co2 emission reduction of eba project (tons) discussion this study illustrates the potential of ecosystem-based adaptation (eba) measures, specifically forest plantation and sustainable forest management (sfm), to significantly contribute to climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration. the carbon sequestration results reported here table 3 and figure 1 show the annual co2 sequestration and emission reduction from the eba project. they reveal that the eba project sequestered nearly one million tons of co2 over five years. table 3: annual and total co2 sequestration due to project interventions of the eba ii project annual carbon sequestration from eba project 711,527 ton co2e carbon sequestration within the project period (5 years) 1,001,108 ton co2e total carbon sequestration within 20 years from eba project implementation (one whole rotation period of forest crop) 10,329, 164 ton co2e total 10.33 million tco2e figure 1: cumulative co2 emission reduction of eba project (tons) discussion this study illustrates the potential of ecosystem-based adaptation (eba) measures, specifically forest plantation and sustainable forest management (sfm), to significantly contribute to climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration. the carbon sequestration results reported here table 2: co2 emission reduction/carbon sequestration (tco2 e) from year 1 to year 20 co2 emission reduction/sequestration (tco2 e year 1 year 2 year 3 year 4 year 5 year 6 year 7 year 8 year 9 year 10 year 11 year 12 year 13 year 14 year 15 year 16 year 17 year 18 year 19 year 20 annual total of one rotation per year 28,875 138,890 208,336 277,781 347,226 389,240 431,268 473,311 515,369 557,442 579,244 602,076 625,988 651,034 677,270 704,754 733,549 763,719 795,332 828,461 711,527 10,329,164 cumulative 28,875 167,765 376,101 653,882 1,001,108 1,390,348 1,821,616 2,294,927 2,810,296 3,367,738 3946982 4549058 5175046 5826080 6503350 7208104 7941653 8705371 9500704 10329164 tco2e/a tco2e table 2: co2 emission reduction/carbon sequestration (tco2 e) from year 1 to year 20 table 3: annual and total co2 sequestration due to project interventions of the eba ii project (sfm), to significantly contribute to climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration. the carbon sequestration results reported here are consistent with findings from other community forestry and eba projects in the region. for example, shrestha et al. (2015) and karki et al. (2016) documented annual carbon sequestration rates of 2.2 to 2.6 tons per hectare in nepal’s middle hills, similar to those found in this study’s sfm areas. additionally, the high sequestration potential of plantation forests observed here aligns with data from large-scale restoration projects in south asia and latin america. the bonn challenge and afr100 initiatives have reported sequestration rates of 5 to 20 tons of co2 per hectare annually, depending on species composition and management strategies (chazdon et al., 2016; iucn, 2017). these findings reinforce the global understanding that forest restoration, especially when integrated into an eba framework, not only supports mitigation but also improves ecosystem resilience and community livelihoods (munang et al., 2013; seddon et al., 2020). the effectiveness of these efforts, however, largely depends heavily on local ecological and socio-economic conditions. customized approaches that incorporate indigenous knowledge, community participation, and site-specific ecological and figure 1: cumulative co2 emission reduction of eba project (tons) khanal et al. 59 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 findings show that while the primary focus of the ecosystem-based adaptation project is on climate adaptation for local communities, it also significantly contributes to climate change mitigation. climate change mitigation is an important co-benefit of the eba project. acknowledgements the researchers sincerely thank mr. sharad babu pageni, ms. shila gnyawali from the ministry of forests and environment, and the technical experts dr. deependra joshi, mr. prakash lamsal, and the entire eba ii project team for their invaluable guidance throughout this research. their comments and suggestions were essential in validating the research tools, improving the study’s credibility, and ensuring the reliability of its results. author contributions kpk: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, data curation, visualization, validation, writing original draft, and review. tbk and bsp: supervision, review, and editing. smn and rs: review and editing. bt, dsd, and bd: data collection (field). declaration of competing interest the authors declare there is no conflict of interest. references andrade, a., córdoba, r., dave, r., girot, p., herrera-f., b., munroe, r., oglethorpe, j., pramova, e., watson, j., & vergara, w. 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(2011). does eba work? a review of the evidence on the effectiveness of ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation. cambridge, uk: unep-wcmc. https://resources.unep-wcmc.org/products/ wcmc_rt259 reid, h., hou jones, x., porras, i. t., hicks, c., wicander, s., seddon, n., kapos, v., rizvi, a. r., & roe, d. (2019). is ecosystem-based adaptation effective? perceptions and lessons learned from 13 project sites (iied report). international institute for environment and development. https://www.iied.org/17651iied seddon, n., chausson, a., berry, p., girardin, c. a. j., smith, a., & turner, b. (2020). understanding the value and limits of nature-based solutions to climate change and other global challenges. philosophical transactions of the royal society b: biological sciences, 375(1794), 20190120. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0120 shrestha, s., karky, b. s., gurung, a., bista, r., & vetaas, o. r. (2013). assessment of carbon balance in community forests in dolakha, nepal. small-scale forestry, 12(4), 507–517. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11842-012-9226-y smith, p., martino, d., cai, z., gwary, d., janzen, h., kumar, p., mccarl, b., ogle, s., o’mara, f., rice, c., scholes, b., sirotenko, o., howden, m., mcallister, t., pan, g., romanenkov, v., schneider, u., towprayoon, s., wattenbach, m., & smith, j. (2007). policy and technological constraints to implementation of greenhouse gas mitigation options in agriculture. agriculture, ecosystems & environment, 118(1–4), 6–28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2006.06.006 thapa-magar k. b. & shrestha b. b. (2015). carbon stock in community managed hill sal (shorea robusta) forests of central nepal. journal of sustainable forestry, 34(5), 483–501. https://doi. org/10.1080/10549811.2015.1031251 unep (united nations environment programme). 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(2009). ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change: what role for policy-makers, society, and scientists? mitigation and adaptation strategies for global change, 14(8), 691–696. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11027-009-9193-6 khanal et al. 107 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 a pp en di x 1: c al cu la tio n of an nu al un it to n c o 2 em is si on re du ct io n/ se qu es tra tio n ite m /d es cr ip tio n ye ar 1 ye ar 2 ye ar 3 ye ar 4 ye ar 5 ye ar 6 ye ar 7 ye ar 8 ye ar 9 ye ar 10 ye ar 11 ye ar 12 ye ar 13 ye ar 14 ye ar 15 ye ar 16 ye ar 17 ye ar 18 ye ar 19 ye ar 20 an nu al to ta l ca rb on se qu es tra tio ni n pla nt ati on fo re st 1 (t on ) 22 ,12 9 33 ,19 4 44 ,25 8 55 ,32 3 66 ,38 8 77 ,45 2 88 ,51 7 99 ,58 1 11 0,6 46 11 6,1 78 12 1,9 87 12 8,0 87 13 4,4 91 14 1,2 15 14 8,2 76 15 5,6 90 16 3,4 75 17 1,6 48 18 0,2 31 11 6,1 78 2,0 58 ,76 6 en ha nc ec arb on se qu es tra tio nd ue to su sta ina bl em an ag em en t2 (t on /h a) 7,8 75 15 ,75 0 23 ,62 5 31 ,50 0 39 ,37 5 39 ,76 9 40 ,16 6 40 ,56 8 40 ,97 4 41 ,38 4 41 ,79 7 42 ,21 5 42 ,63 7 43 ,06 4 43 ,49 4 43 ,92 9 44 ,36 9 44 ,81 2 45 ,26 1 45 ,71 3 44 ,36 4 75 8,2 78 to tal ca rb on se qu es tra tio n( to n) 7,8 75 37 ,87 9 56 ,81 9 75 ,75 8 94 ,69 8 10 6,1 56 11 7,6 19 12 9,0 85 14 0,5 55 15 2,0 30 15 7,9 76 16 4,2 03 17 0,7 24 17 7,5 55 18 4,7 10 19 2,2 06 20 0,0 59 20 8,2 87 21 6,9 09 22 5,9 44 19 4,0 53 2,8 17 ,04 5 1 pl an ta tio n ar ea 13 93 h a; c al cu la tio n /s ou rc e: a ss um e 79 .4 3 to n c ar bo n pe rh a of pl an ta tio n fo re st af te ry ea r5 of pl an ta tio n 2 to ta la re a of sf m :1 32 c fs w ith ap pr ox im at e ar ea of 10 ,0 00 h a; c al cu la tio n /s ou rc e: pr es en tt re e ca rb on se qu es tra tio n ra te /h a/ yr (i pc c) fo rt ro pi ca lm oi st fo re st = 3+ 3* 25 % (a g b+ b g b )= 3. 75 to n/ ha /y r; as su m e to in cr ea se by 5% in 5 ye ar s. so ,e nh an ce ca rb on se qu es tra tio n af te r5 ye ar s, 3. 75 + 0. 05 × 3. 75 = 3. 93 75 a pp en di x 1: c al cu la tio n of a nn ua l u ni t t on c o 2 e m is si on re du ct io n/ se qu es tra tio n khanal et al. 104 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 there is growing interest by forest users, government forest officers and policy makers on maximising forest goods and livelihood provisions from community forestry in a sustainable manner. however, the way several mature community forests are currently managed based on selection, e.g. negative thinning and crown thinning, is questionable as it results to decline in forest stock, timber quality and regeneration. to assist forest users in managing their community forests, an action research was implemented in kavre and lamjung to manage planted pine (pinus spp.) and naturallyregenerated sal (shorea robusta) through selection system. this paper describes the q-factor and its relevance for sustainable community forest management in nepal. the simple guideline for selection system introduced to 30 community forest users groups in six sites are presented for wider adoption and policy recommendation. key words: forest goods and services, livelihoods, regeneration, stand structure, sustainable forest management applications of single-tree selection guideline following a dbq approach on nepal’s community forests e. cedamon1*, g. paudel2, m. basyal2, i. nuberg1 and k. k. shrestha3 the ongoing campaign for scientific forest management (sfm) in nepal is now challenging the community forestry sector to implement silviculture systems in the management of community forests. there are few examples of silviculture systems at work on community forests that are efficient both at increasing timber production and rate of regeneration. this paper describes a selection silviculture system guided by q-factor, diameter class limit and target basal area as a promising management system for a considerable areas of community forests. community forests in nepal to date have an area of about 1.8 million hectares managed by 18,960 community forest users groups (dof, 2015). the area of community forests represents about a third of the countries forest cover of 5.96 million hectares and a national average growing stock is 165 m3/ha where high mountains and high himal physiographic regions together has the highest growing stock of 225 m3/ha whereas middle mountains has the lowest growing stock of 124 m3/ha (dfrs, 2015). the average tree density is 430 stems per hectare where 67% of these stems are small poles (10–20 cm diameter at breast height, dbh), 18% are large poles (20–30 cm dbh), and 15% saw log/ timber (>30 cm dbh). the diameter class distribution from this national forestry outlook suggests that a management system is needed to be in place so that growth and vigour of small poles are promoted when saw logs are harvested. a selection silviculture system is generally applicable for such forest structure and management objectives. community forests are the main source to fulfil subsistence needs of timber, firewood, fodder and leaf litter for majority of the rural population in nepal. community forest management is undergoing a level of redefinition particularly with regards to efficiently increasing production of forest products to improve forest-based livelihood and efficiently regenerating healthy forests. cedamon et al. (2016) in their rapid silviculture appraisal found that selection and shelter wood systems are preferred by community forest users. these silviculture systems appeal to forest users because of the potentials of planting fodder trees and grasses, non-timber forest products (ntfps), and medicinal and aromatic plants (maps) on the forests after applying treatments. scientific forest management is now a concept being promoted by the department of forests (dof) for sustainable management and use of forests. however, silviculture practices in 1 school of agriculture, food and wine, the university of adelaide, waite campus, urrbrae, south australia. *e-mail: edwin.cedamon@adelaide.edu.au 2 forest action nepal, bagdole, lalitpur, nepal 3 school of social science, university of new south wales, sydney, new south wales, australia 105 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 community forests are yet at early stages of trials and some silviculture practices are confusing to forest users. the scientific forest management guideline 2015 (dof, 2015) suggests clear felling, selection and shelter wood silviculture systems that may be applied on a community forest but the guideline is only about shelterwood system. in support of the government of nepal’s campaign on ‘forestry for prosperity’ through the scientific forest management, the australian centre for international agriculture research (aciar) enlift project4 initiated a participatory action research (par) to investigate forest and people’s responses to different silviculture systems. this paper describes why selection system is a promising management system for many community forests and how this can be implemented. a simple implementation guideline is provided as used in the enlift silviculture pine forest and sal forest demonstration works in kavrepalanchowk and lamjung districts, respectively. taxonomic description and distribution the decision to practice any silvicultural system is primarily based on combination of factors including silvicultural characteristics of species, current forest stand structure and diameter distribution and forest management objectives. for implementation of selection silviculture system the following three components have to be taken into consideration: residual stocking, diameter class limit and target diameter distribution. but what is selection silviculture? smith et al. (1997) define selection silviculture as silviculture programmes that are used to manage multi-age stand where a system of tree selection for residual trees is employed for harvesting, establishing and developing regeneration. smith et al. (1997) and helms (1998) described that in selection system, mature tree is harvested either as single scattered trees or in small groups at short interval to open growing space for regeneration and these cuttings are repeated indefinitely. implementing selection system requires an understanding of the current forest structure and a target future structure that will support the needs of forest users. generally nepal’s forests are composed of natural forest and plantations. natural forests have multi-age5 classes, although some may have attained even-age stand structure. but many plantations too, which are expected to have even-aged stand structure, have developed into multi-age classes or at least three crown classes. based on the report of department of forest research and survey (dfrs, 2015), the forest structure in nepal can be described based on the diameter distribution. dfrs (2015) estimated seedlings (<1.3 m height) of 10,095/ ha, small saplings (≥1.3 m height, < 5 cm dbh) of 1045/ha, large saplings (5—10 cm dbh) of 426 /ha, small poles (10—20 cm dbh) of 287/ ha, large poles (20—30 cm dbbh) 79 /ha, small saw log (30—50 cm dbh) of 46 stems/ha and large saw log (≥ 50 cm dbh) of 18 stems/ha. this forest structure is confirmed by few case studies including cedamon et al. (2016) and awasthi et al. (2015). the current stand structure of community forests in nepal has been achieved through harvesting based on ad hoc selection and sometimes high grading creating openings on the stand allowing natural regeneration to occur. community forest in nepal has been a major for timber, firewood, fodder and leaf litter for millions of rural people. while these forest products are derived by forest users for their subsistent needs, many community forest groups aspire to utilise timber for commercial purposes to drive economic development of the group but retaining a significant forest cover on the stand. the current silviculture practice however is not effective in supplying timber in large-quantity for driving forest based enterprises and inefficient in developing healthy regeneration. silviculture practice on community forests therefore has to change if forests users have to increase timber supply and managed stand openings for better and healthy regeneration. selection system is an alternative silviculture system for community forests in nepal that has great potential for increasing supply of timber from current stand at the same time maintaining forest cover and promoting healthy regeneration on newly opened spaces. larsen (1995) argued that selection system maintains a stable complex forest structure through efficient biogeochemical cycle determined through release of open spaces for regeneration. managing and maintaining cedamon et al. 4 enlift project is an action research project funded by australian centre for international agricultural research (aciar). the aim of the project is to enhance food security and livelihood through improved agroforestry and community forestry in nepal. 5 the term multi-age is adopted instead of the term uneven age following o’hara (2014) to include two-age stands which are common in some community forests in nepal. 106 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 cedamon et al. multi-age stand is now a priority worldwide due to complex societal needs and due to inherently long-term nature of forest management, forest should be managed to be able to resist local disturbances and global environmental and climate changes (o’hara, 2014). selection system is generally classified into two broad groups – single tree selection and group selection. while group or strip selection may be suitable for some community forests, single tree selection has been implemented in many community forests though ad hoc basis. therefore, aim of this paper is to provide a more scientific and technical guidance into the single tree selection silviculture system to increase timber supply and achieve efficient regeneration establishment and improve health and quality of residual and new trees. dbq approach for single tree selection system on nepal’s community forest as means of organising stand treatments or operations for tending, harvesting and reestablishing new forests (regeneration), silviculture systems provide means for maintaining or achieving a desired stand structure and that for multi-aged stand selection silviculture is widely applied. a number of approaches for managing or achieving a multi-age stand but the widely used are dbq approach, plenter system, allocation by stand density index, and leaf area allocation (o’hara and gersonde, 2004). stand density index and leaf area allocation are technically complicated perhaps beyond forest capability. the plenter system on the other hand is also technically complicated because of the requirement to at least know the standing timber volume (which should be maintained over long-term period) and growth rates so that harvest volume is equal to growth (equilibrium). the dbq approach which builds upon decisions on upper diameter class for which a number of trees has to be retained (d), a desired basal area (b) and a q-factor (q). qfactor which ranges from 1.2 to 2.0, represents the frequency of the trees resembling and inverse j curve or an inverse exponential function. a q-factor of 2 means a particular diameter class is twice as many as the next larger diameter class while a q-factor of 1 represents equal distribution of trees across diameter classes or represented by a flat line. smith et al. (1997) described that a stable equilibrium can be achieved by dbq approach by maintaining a diameter distribution defined by dbq after harvest or mortality. dbq approach has been proven by the enlift project to be easily understood and implemented by forest users in nepal because diameter distribution and target diameter limits are readily available information. a routine of calculations is necessary to obtain the residual stocking for dbq. the first step in this calculation is determination of target basal area and maximum diameter at breast height for residual trees. a target basal area of 30 m2 has been widely used in selection system and is adopted by the enlift project as suitable for community forests in nepal. it is to be noted however that many community forests have basal areas <30 m2 (cedamon et al., 2016), the aim therefore for selection system is basal area increase from high quality trees. the rapid silviculture appraisal conducted by cedamon et al. (2016) revealed that the diameter limits for residual trees on community forests ranges from 40 to 50 cm (though a few trees larger than 50 cm may present and protected as mother trees). once an appropriate diameter limit and basal area for the community forest are determined, the next step is to choose a k value from table 1 for q-factors 1.1–1.6 and range of diameter class limit calculated by cancino and gadow (2002). the residual stocking for the largest diameter class is obtained by dividing the target basal area by the k value corresponding for the desired q-factor and maximum diameter, e.g. the residual stocking for 35–40 cm dbh class for q-factor of 1.2 is 53 trees per ha (tph) (30/0.567). the residual stocking for the next lower dbh class is obtained by multiplying the stocking of the next larger diameter class with the desired q-factor, e.g. the stocking for 30–35 cm dbh class is 63 (52.91 x 1.2). table 1: k values for range of q-factors and diameter limits based on cancino and gadow (2002) maximum dbh (cm) number of classes q-factor 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 40 8 0.475 0.567 0.684 0.829 1.011 1.237 45 9 0.681 0.840 1.048 1.320 1.675 2.139 50 10 0.945 1.204 1.558 2.044 2.709 3.618 107 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 following cancino and gadow (2002) the dbq distribution for basal areas of 30 m2 and 40 m2, diameter limits of 40, 45 and 50 cm and for q-factors 1.2 to 1.6 are provided in figure 1 (please see related ideal stocking table in appendix 1), although, the choice of a q-factor depends in species and site (smith et al., 1997). figure 1 provides some guidance on choosing a q-factor appropriate for a community forest. it is evident that lower q factors, e.g. 1.2 would result to higher stocking trees in the largest diameter limits similarly but a lower stocking required in the lowest diameter class resulting to a relatively flatter inverse j curve. therefore, when forest management is aimed for a more frequent cutting or a shorter cutting cycle a lower q-factor may seem to be an appropriate choice. the decision on maximum diameter limit depends on the current stocking of large trees where more diameter classes will require higher stocking for larger trees, i.e. <40 cm dbh. for example, the stocking requirement for residual in <35 cm dbh is 91 tph, 79 tph and 53 tph for diameter class limits of 45–50 cm, 40–45 cm, and 35–40 cm, respectively. the frequency however of trees above <40 cm is generally low for many community forests and therefore having a higher diameter class limit is almost unachievable for these forests. an aim for retaining higher number of larger trees will mean an extremely low harvest of sawlogs. a diameter class limit of 35–40 cm seemed to be a compromise of ensuring timber harvests as well as maintaining forest cover. as expected, the effect of higher basal means a proportionate increase of about 33% on stocking across diameter classes. while seedlings may be naturally available in some forest types particularly sal forests, some dense forests like pine plantation may have low cedamon et al. fig. 1: ideal stocking distribution of a 1-hectare forest based on dbq for basal area 30 m2 and 40 m2 for 40–50 cm dbh limits and q-factors, 1.2 to 1.6 108 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 cedamon et al. natural regeneration with exception to those that are affected by frequent fires. for forest with extremely regeneration, the ideal stocking for diameter class 0–5 cm will serve as a guide for minimum number of seedlings that may be required for planting in areas opened after harvesting. selection of silviculture trials in nepal examples from the enlift project silviculture demonstration plots are now provided to show how single tree selection silviculture system can be implemented. the first step in the implementation of any silviculture system is to obtain information on the existing stand structure and diameter distribution of the forest to be treated. this required an inventory in the demonstration plots, which was carried out by the members of the forest users groups (fugs) after a hands-on training provided by the enlift. then, the fugs and the executive committee members were consulted in a forest field day to present the inventory and decide for the silviculture treatments to be applied. during the consultation, a proposed silviculture regime was presented using graphs of the current and proposed stand stocking based on dbq approach. a q-factor of 1.2 and 1.3 was proposed for single tree selection system for timber production and conversion of the current stand into a timber-fodder forest garden. example of application of dbq regime for chapani pine forest (chaubas, kavre) the chapani community forest covers an area of 83 hectares. pinus wallichiana (gobre salla) and pinus patula (patle salla) were planted in the early 1980s. it is managed by 117 households located in chaubas, kavre district (nepal australia community resource management and livelihoods project, 2006). chapani forest was established by the nepal australian forestry project and the initial aim was generally to reforest the denuded hills providing villagers with timber, fuel wood and fodder. the forest provides timber, fuel wood, leaf litter and grasses to meet forest users’ needs. additionally, the cfug also sells a small amount of timber from the forest to the chaubas saw mill, of which it is a component of the forest comprising the sawmill board. a small portion of the forest has been thinned at around 8-10 years old, but after then forestry operation has been dominated mainly with regular (yearly) small volume of harvest of fuel wood and timber, generally guided by an extremely conservative annual allowable cut. grasses and leaf litter are regularly collected in the forests generally by women but they often compete for good quality grasses due to closed forest canopy. the chapani cfug is in consensus that forest management should improve to increase harvest volumes as well as to increase grass growth in open spaces. from the analysis of forest inventory data of the plots, it is found that the size of trees on the demonstration plot before treatment was found to range from 10 cm to 55 cm where the highest stocking was 136 trees per hectare at dbh class 20–25 cm (fig. 2, supplemented in table 2) with declining stocking from this dbh class. the low stocking above 40 cm dbh classes are attributed to negative selection regime where only the dead, dying, diseased and deformed trees were harvested indicating low quality of large trees and generally of the whole forest. it is also notable that poles (10–20 cm dbh class) were approximately 22 % of the total stocking, but the quality of these trees is low with small and dying crown due to lack of growing space. it is believed that most of these poles are of the same age with the large trees but has stagnated due to lack of thinning. the last time the stand was harvested is believed to be 8–12 years before the enlift demonstration plot is established indicating the inability of previous harvests to encourage regeneration establishment. following dbq single tree selection regime, a considerable number of trees from dbh classes 15–40 cm and removal of all trees over 40 cm is suggested. using the marking guide in table 2 used by the cfug in selecting and marking residual trees, 30% of the standing tree volume was harvested. due to the aim of distributing residual trees within the plot and achieving the minimum stocking for 10 m x 20 m marking plot, some trees from over 40 cm dbh was retained. heavy thinning was also done in dbh classes, 15 cm – 30 cm to remove dying, diseased, dead and deformed trees. after treatment, michelia champaca (champ)) seedlings were planted to achieve a total stocking of around 900 tph. a plot 109 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 demonstrating conversion of the pine plantation to timber forest garden was also established in the chapani forest guided by ideal dbq stocking q-factor 1.3. a q-factor of 1.3 was chosen for timber fodder forest garden because of the low stocking requirement for large trees and higher stocking in lower diameter classes. fig. 2: actual pre-treatment stocking and ideal dbq stocking of chapani forest (dbq stocking derived for q-factor=1.2, target basal area = 30 m2, dbh limit = 40 cm) example of application of dbq regime for lampata sal forest (taksar, lamjung) lampata community forest (cf) has a total land area of 75 hectares. it consists of shorea robusta (sal) with some castanopsis indica (katus) and schima wallichii (chilaune) managed by 246 households, of which the effective forest area is estimated to be 55 ha. like other community forests in nepal, lampata cf is managed for timber, fuel wood, grass and leaf litter. due to high number of forest users, slow growth of timber and full stocking of forest, the forest users often encounter shortage of fuel wood and fodder from the forest. timber is generally provided to user on a priority basis at a forest user’s timber price that is 25% of the market price for sal. sale of sal timber to outside the village has not been experienced by the forest users due to conservative annual allowable cut. the lampata forest is a natural regeneration that developed by a strict prohibition of open grazing in the forest and currently it has an uneven age structure showing and inverse j-shape dbh distribution (fig. 3). as argued earlier, this stocking distribution was achieved by ad hoc negative tree selection; the forest user group is challenged by the lack of trees that may be available to meet forest users’ needs for timber. it is also observed that the quality of seedlings and saplings is very low although there is sufficient number on the forest floor. the quality of standing trees is also poor due to lack of information on assessing tree quality. the ideal dbq stocking shown in figure 3 suggests that trees over 40 cm table 2: current stocking, ideal stocking, marking guide, residual stocking and harvest volume before and after dbq single tree selection treatment in chapani forest dbh class (cm) plot tree count* current stocking (tph) ideal dbq stocking (tph)** marking guide*** plot residual tree count residual stocking (tph) plot harvested tree volume (m3)**** plot residual tree volume (m3)**** 0 – 5 -a a 190 4 5 – 10 0 0 158 3 b b 10 – 15 10 24 132 3 1 2 0.86 0.06 15 – 20 37 88 110 2 7 17 4.83 1.15 20 – 25 57 136 91 2 19 45 12.92 6.12 25 – 30 48 114 76 2 20 48 15.91 10.74 30 – 35 36 86 63 1 16 38 16.15 12.72 35 – 40 14 33 53 1 9 21 5.68 11.17 40 – 45 7 17 5 12 3.11 8.02 45 – 50 2 5 1 2 2.19 1.95 50 – 55 1 2 0 1.37 total 212 505 873 18 78 185 63.0 51.9 *plot area is 4200 m2 **ideal stocking = q factor 1.2, dbh limit=40cm, basal area 30m2. ***marking guide = number of trees per 10m x 20m, the number of trees was derived by dividing the ideal stocking for each dbh class by 50 and rounded to the next higher number of trees. ****standing tree volume was calculated following cedamon et al. (2016) aseedlings were not counted during the pre-treatment inventory but generally seedlings were not present. b tree volume for this dbh class was not calculated. cedamon et al. 110 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 dbh may be available for harvest representing 6% of the total tree count. as shown in figure 3, stocking in dbh classes in 15–40 cm are all below or on the ideal dbq line indicating that all trees in these classes should be retained but is not the case due to the need to cut bad and deformed trees in the stand to make sure that regeneration is coming from healthy and vigorous mother trees. the abundance of poor quality poles and saplings make the single tree selection regime challenging for lampata forest. as shown in table 3, more than half of the saplings and poles were removed representing 39–45% of the total timber stock. the fug also decided to remove deformed and damaged large trees to allow better and faster growth of good quality trees on the same size class and in lower size class removing just over half of the standing volume of sawlogs. the selection system implemented in lampata may be seen as over harvesting but in reality the regime is able to refine the stand by removing badly damaged large size chilaune and sal trees as well as poles and saplings. the treated stand is currently showing abundant healthy regeneration and a faster and better growth of residual saplings and poles. the forest is proud of this system in that it has retained healthy and vigorous residual trees with a better stand structure compared to irregular shelterwood system applied in a nearby forest. a plot demonstrating conversion of current forest to timber-fodder forest garden was established on lampata forest using guided by the ideal stocking for q-factor of 1.2. the major challenge in implementing dbq-based single tree selection regime in forests like the lampata forest is the difficulty in achieving the ideal stocking on a per hectare basis. this is due to the fact that most forests have irregular spacing of trees such that some patches are dense and others are sparse. following the marking guide for a 10 m x 20 m plot (tables 2 and 3) it is possible that the residual stocking may be lower than the ideal stocking. however this can be easily corrected in the succeeding cutting operations. fig. 3: actual pre-treatment stocking and ideal dbq stocking of lampata forest (dbq stocking derived for q-factor=1.2, target basal area = 30 m2, dbh limit = 40cm) table 3: current stocking, ideal stocking, marking guide, residual stocking and harvest volume before and after dbq single tree selection treatment in lampata forest dbh class (cm) plot tree count* current stocking (tph) ideal dbq stocking (tph)** marking guide*** plot residual tree count residual stocking (tph) plot harvested tree volume (m3)**** plot residual tree volume (m3)**** 0 – 5 -a a 190 4 5 – 10 134 335 158 3 2 5 b b 10 – 15 76 190 132 3 31 78 1.95 2.42 15 – 20 44 110 110 2 27 68 3.20 4.95 20 – 25 33 83 91 2 20 50 3.84 9.08 25 – 30 29 73 76 2 15 38 9.52 10.43 30 – 35 24 60 63 1 10 25 15.42 12.49 35 – 40 18 45 53 1 8 20 15.19 14.62 40 – 45 13 33 5 13 14.98 11.17 45 – 50 7 18 3 8 10.42 8.51 50 – 55 2 5 6.22 total 380 952 873 18 121 305 80.74 73.67 information on these symbols and letters, *, **, ***, ****, a, b are given in table 2. cedamon et al. 111 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 proposed guidelines for selection silviculture system in nepal moving on from demonstration plot to whole forest silviculture intervention, the following steps are proposed as a simple guideline for implementing single tree selection silviculture system on community forests in nepal. step 1: decide on the desired basal area (m2) of residual stand and largest target diameter class. step 2: decide on a qfactor (between 1.1— 2.0). step 3: from table of k values derived by cancino and gadow (2002) provided in table 1, find the k values for desired q-factor and max, say q=1.3, largest dbh =40 cm = 0.684. step 4: using k values, calculate the number of trees (ni) for the largest diameter class for one hectare stand. for example, if the desired basal area of 30 m2, then ni = 30/0.684=43.8596 ≈ 44 trees. step 5: once the number of trees in the largest diameter class is obtained, calculate for the next lower diameter class, ni-1= 44*1.3 = 57.2 … and so on. (calculations for q-factor 1.2–1.6 for basal area 30 m2 and 40 m2 is provided in appendix 1) step 6: from the data of forest inventory either following the community forest inventory guideline or based on rapid silviculture appraisal (cedamon et al., 2016), derive the actual tree distribution by dbh classes. then, calculate the number of harvestable stems per dbh class = actual stocking ideal stocking step 7: calculate the harvestable volume per ha (hvh) = average stem volume on the dbh class * number of harvestable stem per dbh class (step 6) step 8. calculate the harvestable volume for the whole forest (wfv) = hvh * area of the forest = example 200 cu.m./ha* 120 ha = 200*120=24,000 cu.m. step 8: calculate the felling cycle = wfv/aac, for example aac = 600, 24000/600=40 years step 9: determine the annual felling area = forest area/ felling cycle length (years) = 120 ha/40 years = 3 ha/year step 10: for each felling area, derive the ideal residual stocking per hectare and the number of trees per dbh class for 10 m x 20 m sub-plot for marking residual trees. see examples from lampata and chapani forests for this procedure. follow existing guidelines for marking trees and documentation required for obtaining harvesting permit. conclusion many community forests in nepal are managed based on ad hoc ‘selection system’, removal of dead and dying as well as few big trees. there is now an increasing interest to manage community forests based on scientific forestry, however, examples of practicing scientific forest management and practical guidelines are lacking. this paper tried to present selection silviculture system based on diameter distribution, basal area and q-factor (dbq). as shown in the examples for chapani and lampata forests, dbq selection silviculture system is not necessarily difficult if target dbh distribution for residual stocking is provided to forest user groups in guiding harvesting. the authors believed that misunderstanding of how ‘proper’ selection silviculture works has caused much reluctance by foresters to accept or to apply it. the misunderstanding is exacerbated with confusion between late thinning and selection silviculture system which boundaries between the two are often not understood. another issue with regard to selection silviculture system is the difficulty to harvest marked trees over a range of diameter classes without damaging the residual growing stock. to some degree this is true but this is other silviculture system except clear felling may also pose damage to residual trees. given that tree felling and skidding on community forests in nepal is generally manual, tree damage will always occur and that tree damage is generally low. selection silviculture system based on dbq is generally new in community forestry, trainings should be provided to foresters who could then provide trainings to forest users. silviculture demonstration plots established by enlift are generally important show cases to assist these trainings. in delivering trainings, it is important that foresters are refreshed with theories and principles of forest ecology and management to be able to fully grasp uneven age forest management cedamon et al. 112 banko janakari, special issue no. 4 and implementation of silviculture system based on diameter distribution. the examples from chapani and lampata forests provided in this paper are simple guidelines for practicing selection silviculture based on reverse j curve. in deriving the residual stocking for dbq selection, the k value is the key parameter for calculating the number of residual trees. these values are provided in table 1 to allow foresters to calculate stocking not provided in appendix 1. the implementation of dbq system is assisted with a tree marking guide which provides the number of residual trees in a particular dbh class for 10 m x 20 m sub-plot. the size of the marking plot may be decreased or increased depending on the pre-treatment tree density references awasthi, n., bhandari, s. k. and khanal, y. 2015. does scientific forest management promotes plant species diversity and regeneration in sal (shorea robusta): a case study from lumbini collaborative forest rupandehi nepal. banko janakari 25 (1): 20–29. cancino, j. and von gadow, k. 2002. stem number guide curves for uneven-aged forest, developments and limitations, in continuous cover forestry: managing forest ecosystems volume 4 (eds.) von gadow, k., pukkala, t. and tome, m., springer, dordrecht, 163— 174. cedamon, e., nuberg, i., paudel, g., basyal, m., shrestha, k. and paudel, n. 2016. rapid silviculture appraisal to characterise stand and determine silviculture priorities of community forests in nepal. small-scale forestry 16 (2): 195–218. doi 10.1007/ s11842-016-9351-0. dof. 2015. community forestry users group database record available in mis, department of forests (dof). report date: 25 august 2015, http://dof.gov.np/image/ data/community_forestry/summary.pdf, accessed 9/09/2015. dof. 2015. the scientific forest management guideline 2015. department of forests, kathmandu, nepal. dfrs. 2015. state of nepal’s forests. forest resource assessment (fra) nepal, department of forest research and survey (dfrs). kathmandu, nepal. helms, j. (ed.). 1998. the dictionary of forestry. society of american foresters, bethesda, md, usa. larsen, j. 1995. ecological stability of forests and sustainable silviculture. forest ecology and management 73 (1–3): 85–96 nepal australia community resource management and livelihoods project. 2006. rough guide to the potential value of the plantations. project coordination committee meeting, 30 may 2006, unpublished power point slides. o’hara, k. 2014. multi-aged silviculture: managing for complex forest stand structures. oxford university press, oxford, uk. o’hara, k. and gersonde, r. 2004. stocking control concepts in uneven-aged silviculture. forestry 77 (2): 131–143. smith, d., larson, b., kelty, m. and ashton, p. m. 1997. the practice of silviculture: applied forest ecology. 9th edition, john wiley & sons, new york, usa. cedamon et al. 60 chiuri (diploknema butyracea) is an under– utilized but economically important tree species of nepal primarily grown for butter and bee keeping (medep, 2010). belonging to the family 'sapotaceae', it is a fairly large tree native to nepal, and is also spread in other countries such as india, bhutan, and the philippines (zargar & kumar, 2018). in nepal, it is found from the terai region to 1500 m above the mean sea level (jackson, 1994). although chiuri is spread across the country, it is culturally and economically important for chepang community in the chure region of central nepal (pa, 2010). the potential benefit of this species is yet to be harnessed (chikanbanjar et al., 2021a). however, this tree species is not yet domesticated, and proper farming system is yet to be established (chikanbanjar et al., 2021b). traditionally, chiuri trees are planted in the khorias (wastelands), but in recent years, this species is also planted in bari, i.e., small farmland (chikanbanjar et al., 2021b). good planting material is a prerequisite for efficient production system of any crop (honja, 2014). however, the planting materials used for chiuri plantation is seed–based, and hence takes longer period (6−10 years) to bear fruits (chikanbanjar et al., 2021b). there is also possibility that the young plants raised from seed may not be true to type due to cross pollination, and there could be inconsistent in quality (bhuyan & kobra, 2007). success of rooting in stem cutting was 79.7% in aisandra butyracea, and was possible with the use of rooting hormone (500ppm iba plus naa) during the month of summer (tiwari & dhar, 1997). however, the air layering was only 30% successful with the use of rooting hormone (1000ppm naa, tiwari & dhar, 1997).cuttings from juvenile tree of diploknema butyracea was found successful from sprouting (92%) to survival (87.8%) to hardened plant (77.8%), but the response of cuttings from mature tree was very poor in all aspects such as sprouting (38%), survival (5.6%) and hardened plant (0%) (zargar & kumar, 2018).the failure of the cuttings from branches of older and already bearing tree may be due to the presence of sclerenchyma tissue in the phloem of mature trees which obstruct the emergence of the root (goodin, 1965). however, the rooting success of juvenile plant may not be very useful until and unless it shortens the fruit bearing time. although, good rooting success was achieved with the cuttings sourced from juvenile plant (zargar & kumar, 2018), yet the uncertainty of the time to fruiting of these plants overshadows the implication of this approach. hence, it may not be recommended for propagation of chiuri. propagation of chiuri is yet to be studied in a systematic manner, and there is no recommended technique to produce good quality planting materials of this species (zargar & kumar, 2018). thus, good planting materials in the form of a grafted plants could change the farming approach of chiuri, thereby providing true to type plants from elite mother plants and significantly shortening the fruiting time from 6−10 years to as short as 2−3 years. early flowering would not only reduce time to fruiting, but it would also increase scope for bee keeping much earlier than the traditional planting material (plant raised from seeds). research notes on vegetative propagation of chiuri (diploknema butyracea (roxb.) h.j.lam) r. subedi 1, r. chikanbanjar 2 and u. k. pun 3* received : 22, november, 2021 revised : 5 ,december 2021 accepted : 20, may 2022 published : 31, may 2022 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1, 2022 pp 60‒64https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i1.45445 short note 1 sungava agriculture farm, milan chowk, chitwan district, nepal 2 central department of environmental science, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, nepal 3 njala university, freetown, sierra leone. *e–mail: umedpun@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6884-1242 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6194-3633 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 61 subedi et al. the study was designed to determine the possibility of best vegetative propagation technique (grafting) of churi growing in chitwan district of nepal to produce high quality planting materials. materials and methods the study was conducted in the month of february through may in the premises of sungava krishi farm, in bharatpur metropolitan city of central nepal. the scions were prepared from the chiuri plants at shaktikhor (chitwan), and were grafted with the rootstocks prepared from the one–year plants at the sungava agriculture farm (saf), bharatpur metropolitan city(figure 1: a−d). general caring of the grafted plants (e.g., watering and weeding) was done from time to time as per the requirement. plant materials type of plant used the chiuri plant used for the purpose of this research was the early flowering type collected from shaktikhor located within ward number3 of kalika municipality, chitwan. a healthy flowering mother tree (about30m tall as observed visually) at its fruiting stage was selected for the purpose of preparing scions. the tree had begun flowering since october until february. the chepangs of shaktikhor were consulted for the selection of the mother tree. the fruiting mother tree is called' aasare' or 'wayo' in chepang language (chikanbanjar et al., 2021b), and it reaches its defoliated stage in the month of october. fruit is harvested during july−august. scions the branches of a healthy flowering mother tree were used for the preparation of scions. rootstocks about one year–old chiuri plants (with around 1 cm thick stems) raised from the seeds at the nursery within the saf were selected for rootstocks. care was taken to select healthy and disease–free plants for rootstocks. preparing the scions the scions of about 3−4 cm length and 1 cm thickness and with three–four good buds were prepared with 1 to 2–inch slanted–cuts on either side after removing the leaves, and were quickly transferred to the premises of the saf located within the bharatpur metropolitan city for the purpose of grafting. preparing the rootstocks the selected rootstocks were decapitated at about 10cm height from the ground–level. a two to three–inch incision was made on the center of each rootstock using a sharp knife, and a small piece of wood was inserted into it to keep the two sections apart. figure 1: a) preparation of scions from branches; b) cleft grafting; c) covering of scions upto graft union for better humidity and temp.; and d) additional low plastic cover to protect the grafted plants from low temp banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 62 subedi et al. grafting the scions and rootstocks cleft grafting technique was used for propagation of chiuri. the scions so prepared were inserted into the rootstocks ensuring the union of their cambiums after removing the wood pieces in the rootstocks; plastic tape was used to tie their unions. care was taken to make it airtight to prevent desiccation of the scions. each grafted plant was covered with a transparent plastic bag from top and tied little bit below the union to maintain humidity and desirable temperature for the plant. all the plants were then kept in a low tunnel house to maintain better temperature. successfully grafted plants (with emergence of first leaves) were removed from plastic–house, and kept in a shade–house. holding the grafted plants the successfully grafted plants were kept in a greenhouse covered with shade, and were moved to open field after emergence of two leaves. biometric data the biometric data were collected from the successfully grafted plants, such as length of scion, girth of scion and number of leaves. results grafting success the cleft–grafts of wayo type of chiuri were approximately 53.0% successful (table 1; figure 2) during the spring−summer season. table 1: success status of cleft grafting technique in wayo type of chiuri no. of plants grafted success of grafted plants percentage of success 40 21 52.5% source: chiuri plants, shaktikhor, chitwan, 2021 figure 2: a successfully grafted chiuri plant length of scion the length of the scions ranged from 1.5 cm to 3.2cm after 145 days of grafting (table 2). girth of scion the girth of the scions ranged from 1.0 cm to 2.5 cm after 145 days of grafting (table 2). number of leaves the number of leaves per grafted plant ranged from 3 to 6 after 145 days of grafting (table 2). table 2: biometric data collected from the successfully grafted chiuri plants after 145 days of grafting no. of plants length of scion (cm) girth of scion (cm) no. of leaves 1 2.0 2.5 3.0 2 2.0 2.0 3.0 3 1.5 2.0 3.0 4 2.0 2.2 4.0 5 2.1 1.6 3.0 6 3.0 1.1 5.0 7 3.2 2.5 6.0 8 3.2 2.0 6.4 average 2.4 2.0 4.1 source: chiuri plants, shaktikhor, chitwan, 2021. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 63 subedi et al. discussion this is the first report of grafting success in chiuri, and although the success percentage is relatively low, yet this has opened the possibility for more grafting research in d. butyracea. the success rate could be low due to lower ambient humidity and lower temperature during the graft–union period. in mango, higher grafting success with cleft grafting technique was found with higher temperature (max. 30°c and min. 15.6°c) and humidity (50.5%) than lower temperature (max. 28.5°c and min. 11.4°c) and humidity (48.5%, damtew &assefa, 2018). chiuri is a deciduous tree and ideally, deciduous trees are grafted during the dormant period for higher success (dimri et al., 2005). however, the defoliation time of chiuri in makwanpur depends on the type of chiuri; the wayo type defoliates in september (chikanbanjar et al., 2021b). cleft grafting was the technique used in this research, but other grafting techniques may also be tested to identify the best grafting technique. besides, seasons may also significantly influence graft success (vasav et al., 2012). grafting success of chiuri opens opportunity for production of quality planting materials in contrast to plants raised from seeds or no hardening success with cuttings raised from mature plants (zargar & kumar, 2018). the growth of the scion length is quite slow in contrast to scion girth and number of leaves. the growth of scion length of grafted mango was much higher (22.49 cm in 120 days, damtew & assefa, 2018) in contrast to chiuri (2.4 cm in 145 days), signifying slower growth rate of chiuri. conclusion cleft grafting technique was found to be successful in propagating chiuri plants (wayo type) from their planting materials, such as scions and rootstocks. references bhuyan, m.a.j. and kobra, k. (2007). fruit characteristics of some uncommon mango varieties under joydebpur condition. journal of agricultural research 32 (3): 493−500. chikanbanjar, r., pun, u.k., bhattrai,b. and kunwar, r.m.(2021a). chiuri (diploknema butyracea (rox.) h.j. lam): a tree species for improving the livelihood of chepang in makwanpur, central nepal. ethnobotany research and applications 21 (15): 1−11. chikanbanjar, r., pun, u.k. and bhattrai, b.(2021b).status and types of chiuri (diploknema butyracea (rox.) h.j.lam) trees owned by indigenous chepang communities in makwanpur, nepal. journal of institute of forestry 18: 119−226. damtew, m. and assefa, w. (2018). influence of grafting season and rootstock age on the success and growth of mango (mangifera indica l.) cv. apple using cleft grafting. international journal of novel research in life sciences 5 (3): 12−18. dimri, d.c., petwal, a. and kamboj, p. (2005). determination of optimum time for chip budding in apple cv. red fuji. acta horticulture 696: 173−176. goodin, j. r. (1965). anatomical changes associated with juvenile–to–mature growth phase transition in hedera. nature 208: 504−505. honja, t. (2014). review of mango value chain in ethiopia. journal of biology, agriculture and health care 4: 230−240. jackson, j. k. (1994). manual of afforestation in nepal (volume 2). forest research and survey centre, babarmahal, kathmandu, nepal. pp. 365. medep(2010). resource analysis of chiuri (aesandra butyracea) in nepal. kathmandu: micro–enterprise development programme (medep–nep 08/006). pa(2010). chiuri – the butter tree of nepal (practicalaction brief). (accessed on december13, 2021). banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 64 subedi et al. tiwari, a. and dhar, u. (1997). studies on the vegetative propagation of indian butter tree (aisandra butyracae (roxb.) baehni). journal of horticultural science 72 (1): 11−17. vasav, v. p.,narkhede, s. s., gunaga, r. p. and rane, a. d. (2012). effect of seasons on grafting success in karanj. pkv research journal 36 (1): 49−51. zargar, a. r. and kumar, d. (2018). effect of maturity stage of donor plant on propagation of diploknema butyracea through branch cutting. world journal of agricultural research 6: 1−4. 37 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 regeneration patterns following regeneration felling in sal (shorea robusta gaertn.f.) forests managed under the shelterwood system ram bichari thakur 1*, rajesh kumar rai 2, ridish kumar pokharel 1, prem raj neupane 3 1institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, nepal. *email: rbthakur@gmail.com 2school of forestry and natural resource management, institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, nepal 3university of hamburg, germany a shelterwood system was implemented, with regeneration felling carried out in the most degraded areas and mother trees retained to support seedling establishment. empirical findings indicate high regeneration density but low species richness. additionally, concerns remain regarding the quality of regeneration, including the origin of seedlings following regeneration felling. in this context, this study examines regeneration dynamics in six community-managed sal (shorea robusta) forests in nepal’s far-western region, where dry climatic conditions and forest fragmentation pose significant challenges to regeneration. a total of 376 sample plots were surveyed, with managed plots (subjected to regeneration felling) compared to natural stands. seedling and sapling densities were assessed using systematic sampling, and a semi-destructive method was employed to determine the origin of seedlings (seed vs. seedling coppice). the findings revealed that managed plots had significantly higher density and species richness across both seedling and sapling stages of regeneration. seedling coppice dominated both managed and natural stands, with significantly higher seed-originated seedlings in natural stands. overall, the study highlights the effectiveness of regeneration felling under a shelterwood system, which enhances regeneration density and species richness, and improves the mechanical properties of wood by promoting seed-originated seedlings. keywords: forest management, natural stands, seedling coppice, seed-originated seedlings sal (shorea robusta gaertn.f.) forests are the most ecologically and economically significant ecosystems in the hindu kush himalayan region and the surrounding gangetic plain, particularly in nepal, bangladesh, india, and bhutan. these forests play a crucial role in biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, and provide a diverse range of forest products (webb & sah, 2003; gautam & devoe, 2006; soni et al., 2013). however, these forests are gradually degrading due to anthropogenic pressures, including grazing and forest fires, as well as poor management (rahman et al., 2010). in this context, there is a risk of declining sal forest area, which requires an appropriate strategy for conservation and restoration of these ecosystems (shishir et al., 2020). natural regeneration of sal is the appropriate method for forest restoration and management; however, it is often challenged by high seedling mortality and periodic disturbances (chauhan et al., 2010). these disturbances include seasonal flooding, selective logging, and forest management activities aimed at increasing yield. as sal can be propagated by both seed and coppice, most of the sal forests are dominated by seedling coppice (suoheimo, 1999). seedling coppice originates from the rootstock of a plant, which has remained in the soil for several years (kermode, 1954). this is mainly due to the dieback phenomenon in sal forests. the dieback typically occurs during the recruitment phase of sal seedlings, where the root system remains viable and produces new sprouts annually until the shoot successfully received: 10 february 2025 revised: 15 august 2025 accepted: 5 september 2025 published: 30 september 2025 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2, 2025 pp 37-44https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i2.75312 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4871-1630 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2275-815x https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2076-2299 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4979-7113 38 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 matures into a tree (troup, 1921; jackson et al., 1994). seedlings exposed to extreme environmental conditions, such as frost, drought, or fire, may experience dieback. even surface fire is sufficient to kill seedlings (kermode, 1954). dieback has both ecological and economic consequences in sal forests. it delays the establishment of regeneration by repeatedly damaging young seedlings. since the root system often remains alive, seedlings may continue to sprout annually, but recurrent dieback weakens their growth, leading to prolonged recruitment phases. this cycle significantly slows down the natural regeneration process, especially in the absence of protective measures, which may take 30 to 60 years to establish the new generation of sal (troup, 1921; jackson et al., 1994). coppice-originated trees exhibit rapid growth rates; they tend to develop irregular stems and lower wood density, making them less suitable for high-value timber production (bailey & harjanto, 2005). in contrast, seed-originated trees grow more slowly but produce superior timber due to their straight bowl, high mechanical strength, and uniform wood properties (krainovic et al., 2023; savidge, 2003). in nepal, natural regeneration of sal forests is predominantly characterized by coppice regeneration, rather than by seed-originated seedlings (suoheimo, 1999; pokhrel et al., 2024). the high density of coppice seedlings in sal forests raises concerns about the long-term quality of timber and the sustainability of forest management. strategies to reduce coppice dominance and encourage seedoriginated regeneration—such as controlled burning, reducing tree density, and selective thinning—are essential for maintaining forest health and economic value (chauhan et al., 2010). similarly, regeneration felling retaining an appropriate number of shelter trees and selective removal of less desirable species for timber can also reduce the dieback phenomenon in sal seedlings (rautiainen & suoheimo, 1997). this can be performed under the shelterwood system, in which mature trees are removed in a series of partial cuttings to establish and protect natural regeneration under the shelter of remaining trees. this gradual removal of the canopy creates favorable microclimatic conditions, such as moderated light and temperature, and moisture levels, which are essential for the successful germination and growth of light-demanding species like sal (klopcic & boncina, 2012). however, there is a consistent critique of the implication of regeneration felling under a shelterwood system as it reduces plant species diversity and increases the dominance of sal (awasthi et al., 2020; pokhrel et al., 2024). most of these studies have focused on regeneration density and species richness in the regeneration layer, but have excluded the aspect of forest condition in terms of the origin of regeneration. understanding the origin of regenerations offers valuable insights for designing silvicultural treatments that promote seedoriginated sal forests. this study aims to evaluate the regeneration dynamics of sal forests by comparing forest areas where regeneration felling has been implemented with areas where no forest management interventions have taken place. the evaluation focuses on key indicators of forest regeneration, including the composition of regenerating vegetationparticularly seedling density and species richness -and the origin of the regeneration (i.e., whether it arises from coppice (rootstock) or seed germination). by analyzing these parameters, the study aims to understand how silvicultural interventions, such as regeneration felling, influence the natural regeneration processes of sal forests and whether these management practices support or hinder ecological recovery and species diversity compared to natural forest stands. materials and methods study area the study was conducted across six communitymanaged sal forests of the far-western region of nepal. these are the barhaban collaborative forest management (cfm) of kailali district, and hariyali community forest (cf), jagadhamba cf, krishna cf, mahakali cf, and sita cf of kanchanpur district. the far-western region has a relatively drier climate. kailali and kanchanpur districts receive an average annual rainfall of 1,550 -1,650 mm, with the highest precipitation occurring between july and september (gautam et al., 2010). prolonged dry periods and seasonal drought stress make sal regeneration more challenging (garkoti et al., 2003). this could be the reason behind the higher species richness and diversity of seasonally dry, sal-dominated forests in the lowland of the eastern himalayan region compared to other regions (shankar, 2001). sal forests in most areas are becoming increasingly fragmented, with reduced tree density, primarily due to the clearing of adjacent forest land for farming and other purposes (dfrs, 2014). thakur et al. 39 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 all these forests have been subjected to the irregular shelterwood management system. according to the scientific forest management guidelines (2014), sal forests were divided into compartments based on area, with an 80-year rotational period (dof, 2014). each compartment was further divided into eight sub-compartments, where regeneration felling was carried out over 10 years. in those plots with regeneration felling, only individuals above 30 cm diameter at breast height (dbh) were felled, and 15-25 individuals per hectare were retained as shelter/mother trees. regeneration felling in these forests was carried out four to five years ago. after the regeneration felling, all plots were fenced, and cleaning operations (removing debris, shrubs, and weeds) were carried out to promote regeneration. the characteristic features of these forests are presented in table 1. individuals with a dbh of 10– 29.9 cm are classified as poles, and those with a dbh of 30 cm or greater are classified as trees (dfrs, 2015a). in accordance with the guidelines, mother or shelter trees have been retained in barhaban and sita forests (20-21 trees/ha), while other forests have a higher number of retentions (>31/ha) compared to the number of mother/shelter trees recommended by the guidelines (15-25 trees/ha). although the growing stock varies among the forests, all have initiated regeneration felling in the areas with little or no regeneration. in regeneration felling, mother trees are retained to open the canopy and allow more light to facilitate regeneration. data collection this study is based on the primary data collected through a forest inventory. in all selected forests, plots with regeneration harvesting were classified as managed, while those without regeneration harvesting were considered natural stands. the natural stands were selected immediately adjacent to the managed plots to ensure comparability. a systematic approach was used to sample the plots within the forests. in each forest, the first plot of 10 m2 (5m × 2m) was selected 30 m west of the southeastern corner and then 50 m inward from the edge, perpendicular to it, to avoid edge effect. different distances, ranging from 20 to 100 meters into the forest interior, have been utilized to reduce the edge effect on regeneration in tropical forests (benítez-malvido et al., 2018). the distance between two consecutive plots was 100 m, and between two transects was 50 m. a total of 376 plots were studied across these areas (table 2). the number of sample plots was determined based on the area of each plot, whether managed or not, selected for the study, and thus varied among the community forests. in each sample plot, regenerations of tree species were counted by species. this is because the management approach, the shelterwood system, adopted in these forests, focused on timber production. in this study, a seedling refers to a young plant less than 1.3 meters in height, while a sapling is a young plant with a height greater than 1.3 meters and a dbh of less than 5 cm (community and private forest division, 2004). both seedlings and saplings of the tree category are collectively referred to as regeneration (frtc, 2022). a measuring stick of 1.3 meters in height was used to classify the regenerating plants as either seedlings (height < 1.3 m) or saplings (height ≥ 1.3 m). seedlings were counted by species, and height and dbh of all saplings were measured and counted by species (community and private forest division, 2004). similarly, a sub-plot of 1 m² (1m × 1m) was nested within the main plot. a semi-destructive approach was used to determine the mode of regeneration, whether the seedling germinated through the seed or the seedling coppice. in this approach, carefully digging around a seedling can reveal its origin, exposing the root system without damaging it (kermode, 1954). only sal seedlings within the subplots were excavated and examined to determine 5 table 1: structural characteristics of the studied sal forests, including growing stock, tree and pole density, and the number of mother or shelter trees retained per hectare name of forest growing stock (m3/ha) number of trees/ha number of poles/ha mother or shelter trees retained / ha barhaban cfm 218.13 73 75 20 sita cf 214.12 58 67 21.5 mahakali cf 169.83 58 225 35 hariyali cf 165.83 77 38 45 jagadamba cf 234.8 76 83 31 shree krishna cf 159.03 102 68 60 source: operational plan of respective forests data collection this study is based on the primary data collected through a forest inventory. in all selected forests, plots with regeneration harvesting were classified as managed, while those without regeneration harvesting were considered natural stands. the natural stands were selected immediately adjacent to the managed plots to ensure comparability. a systematic approach was used to sample the plots within the forests. in each forest, the first plot of 10 m2 (5m × 2m) was selected 30 m west of the southeastern corner and then 50 m inward from the edge, perpendicular to it, to avoid edge effect. different distances, ranging from 20 to 100 meters into the forest interior, have been utilized to reduce the edge effect on regeneration in tropical forests (benítez-malvido et al., 2018). the distance between two consecutive plots was 100 m, and between two transects was 50 m. a total of 376 plots were studied across these areas (table 2). the number of sample plots was determined based on the area of each plot, whether managed or not, selected for the study, and thus varied among the community forests. in each sample plot, regenerations of tree species were counted by species. this is because the management approach, the shelterwood system, adopted in these forests, focused on timber production. in this study, a seedling refers to a young plant less than 1.3 meters in height, while a sapling is a young plant with a height greater than 1.3 meters and a dbh of less than 5 cm (community and private forest division, 2004). both seedlings and saplings of the tree category are collectively referred to as regeneration (frtc, 2022). a measuring stick of 1.3 meters in height was used to classify the regenerating plants as either seedlings (height < 1.3 m) or saplings (height  1.3 m). seedlings were counted by species, and height and dbh of all saplings were measured and counted by species (community and private forest division, 2004. table 1: structural characteristics of the studied sal forests, including growing stock, tree and pole density, and the number of mother or shelter trees retained per hectare source: operational plan of respective forests thakur et al. 40 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 their originwhether from coppice shoots or seed germination. each seedling was individually recorded. as seedling coppice grows from the dormant buds in the hypocotyledonary region of damaged sal seedlings, it has a swelling part between the cotyledons and root (suoheimo, 1998). data analysis statistical analysis a normality test was conducted to assess whether the data follow a normal distribution; a key assumption for a parametric test. this test helps decide whether to apply parametric tests or opt for non-parametric methods based on the data distribution. the jarquebera test was performed for all variables by the origins of seedlings (glinskiy et al., 2024). since parametric tests are generally more robust than non-parametric alternatives, data transformations (e.g., log, boxcox) are often applied to adjust non-normal data toward normality. data transformation is favorable for statistical tests but requires back-transformation of the results to make them interpretable (lee, 2020). since finding a valid transformation is not always possible, non-parametric tests, despite being less robust, may provide a viable solution (habibzadeh, 2024). therefore, the mann-whitney u test, a nonparametric statistical test, was used to compare seedling and sapling densities between managed and natural stands, as well as to examine differences in seedling establishment between seedling coppice and seed origin. it evaluates whether one group has significantly higher or lower values than the other by ranking all observations and calculating a test statistic based on rank sums. ibm spss 29.0 was used to analyse the data. results descriptive statistics table 3 presents the descriptive statistics of the sample plots categorized by management regime and the results of the mann-whitney u test. the managed plots exhibited 1.26 times higher regeneration density compared to natural stands. within the regeneration layer, sapling density in managed plots was 3.25 times greater than in natural stands, while seedling density remained nearly the same. additionally, the regeneration density of other tree species (excluding sal) was significantly higher in managed plots, with an overall increase of 1.77 times-specifically, 1.71 times higher seedling density and 2.48 times higher sapling density. these species include saj (terminalia eliptica), sindure (mallotus philippensis), rajbriksha (cassia fistula), kusum (schleichera oleosa), jamun (syzygium cumini), barro (terminalia bellirica), and haldu (adina cardifolia). furthermore, species 7 observations and calculating a test statistic based on rank sums. ibm spss 29.0 was used to analyse the data. results descriptive statistics table 3 presents the descriptive statistics of the sample plots categorized by management regime and the results of the mann-whitney u test. the managed plots exhibited 1.26 times higher regeneration density compared to natural stands. within the regeneration layer, sapling density in managed plots was 3.25 times greater than in natural stands, while seedling density remained nearly the same. additionally, the regeneration density of other tree species (excluding sal) was significantly higher in managed plots, with an overall increase of 1.77 times�specifically, 1.71 times higher seedling density and 2.48 times higher sapling density. these species include saj (terminalia eliptica), sindure (mallotus philippensis), rajbriksha (cassia fistula), kusum (schleichera oleosa), jamun (syzygium cumini), barro (terminalia bellirica), and haldu (adina cardifolia). furthermore, species richness was greater in managed plots, with the sapling layer showing an 18-fold increase in the diversity index. however, the total regeneration layer maintained an equal diversity index across both management regimes. table 3: average seedling, sapling, and overall regeneration density (per ha) and species richness in managed and natural sal forests (n = 376, df = 374) for sal, other woody species, and all species combined attributes seedling sapling regeneration managed natural managed natural managed natural density: sal 4,519a 4,318a 1,006ab 309ab 5,525a 4,627a density: others 1,064ab 622ab 134a 54a 1198ab 676ab density: all species 5,583a 4,940a 1,140ab 363ab 6,723ab 5,303ab species richness 1.368ab 1.257ab 1.176ab 1.017ab 1.455ab 1.280ab note: letters in the superscript denote significant difference (p<0.05) between managed and natural stands the findings of the mann-whitney u test (table 3) indicate that species richness is consistently and significantly higher in managed forests across all stages�seedlings, saplings, and overall regeneration �highlighting greater species variety in managed areas. in terms of total density, managed forests exhibit significantly higher sapling density and overall regeneration density, while no significant difference is observed for seedlings. a similar pattern is seen in sal density, with a significant difference only in the sapling layer. for other species, managed 6 table 2: distribution of sample plots forests barhaban cfm hariyali cf jagadhamba cf krishna cf mahakali cf sita cf tot al managed plots 40 40 20 20 16 20 156 natural stands 20 40 40 40 40 40 220 total 60 80 60 60 56 60 376 similarly, a sub-plot of 1 m² (1m × 1m) was nested within the main plot. a semi-destructive approach was used to determine the mode of regeneration, whether the seedling germinated through the seed or the seedling coppice. in this approach, carefully digging around a seedling can reveal its origin, exposing the root system without damaging it (kermode, 1954). only sal seedlings within the subplots were excavated and examined to determine their origin� whether from coppice shoots or seed germination. each seedling was individually recorded. as seedling coppice grows from the dormant buds in the hypocotyledonary region of damaged sal seedlings, it has a swelling part between the cotyledons and root (suoheimo, 1998). data analysis statistical analysis a normality test was conducted to assess whether the data follow a normal distribution; a key assumption for a parametric test. this test helps decide whether to apply parametric tests or opt for non-parametric methods based on the data distribution. the jarque-bera test was performed for all variables by the origins of seedlings (glinskiy et al., 2024). since parametric tests are generally more robust than non-parametric alternatives, data transformations (e.g., log, boxcox) are often applied to adjust non-normal data toward normality. data transformation is favorable for statistical tests but requires back-transformation of the results to make them interpretable (lee, 2020). since finding a valid transformation is not always possible, nonparametric tests, despite being less robust, may provide a viable solution (habibzadeh, 2024). therefore, the mann-whitney u test, a non-parametric statistical test, was used to compare seedling and sapling densities between managed and natural stands, as well as to examine differences in seedling establishment between seedling coppice and seed origin. it evaluates whether one group has significantly higher or lower values than the other by ranking all table 2: distribution of sample plots table 3: average seedling, sapling, and overall regeneration density (per ha) and species richness in managed and natural sal forests (n = 376, df = 374) for sal, other woody species, and all species combined thakur et al. 41 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 richness was greater in managed plots, with the sapling layer showing an 18-fold increase in the diversity index. however, the total regeneration layer maintained an equal diversity index across both management regimes. the findings of the mann-whitney u test (table 3) indicate that species richness is consistently and significantly higher in managed forests across all stages-seedlings, saplings, and overall regeneration -highlighting greater species variety in managed areas. in terms of total density, managed forests exhibit significantly higher sapling density and overall regeneration density, while no significant difference is observed for seedlings. a similar pattern is seen in sal density, with a significant difference only in the sapling layer. for other species, managed forests have significantly higher density in seedlings and overall regeneration, whereas no significant difference is found in saplings. seedling origin table 4 presents seedling densities by regeneration method. in both management regimes, seedling coppice of sal dominates the regeneration layer. the density of seedling coppice is 4.14 and 18.80 times higher than the density of seed-originated seedlings in managed and natural stands, respectively. between management regimes, sal seedlings originating from seeds are significantly higher in the managed plot compared to natural stands. however, the density of sal seedling coppice is not significantly different between these management regimes. the density of seedlings (originating from seed) of other species is significantly higher in managed plots compared to natural stands. overall, the data reveal that managed stands have more consistent sal seed-origin regeneration, while natural stands show greater variability, particularly in seedling coppice density. discussion the findings of this study indicate that creating a gap by removing mature crops contributes to promoting regeneration and species richness, while also supporting the development of future forests with denser and stronger wood through the encouragement of seed-originated seedlings. seedling coppices constitute a significant portion of sal forests, regardless of management interventions. the dominance of seedling coppices is a common trend in sal forests, as observed in the past, where only four percent of seedlings originated from seeds, while the remaining 96 percent were coppice seedlings (suoheimo, 1999). although shelterwood regeneration aims to promote natural regeneration through seed-originated growth by retaining mother trees, the dominance of seedling coppices raises questions about the necessity of retaining these trees. this may be primarily due to the dieback phenomenon observed in sal forests, which, though often perceived as harmful during the regeneration phase, serves as a crucial survival mechanism (rautiainen & suoheimo, 1997). high seedling mortality is a common occurrence in sal forests (chauhan et al., 2010). the high density of coppice seedlings is primarily attributed to the stimulation of sal regeneration by the dieback phenomenon under favorable conditions within 3-10 years (jackson et al., 1994). coppice shoots often exhibit rapid early growth due to the existing root system, which can result in wood with different anatomical properties compared to seed-origin trees (lei et al., 1997; savidge, 2003; longui et al., 2016). typically, coppices are managed for small-scale forest products, as most species never reach the dimensions of trees grown from seed (savill, 2004). seed origin is better for stronger and more resilient wood due to narrower vessels at the transition zone (longui et al., 2016). therefore, it would be better to focus on promoting the seedoriginated seedlings and reducing the dominance of seedling coppice. several strategies exist to mitigate dieback and reduce seedling coppice in sal forests. these include reducing tree density to allow light penetration and minimize competition for nutrients 8 forests have significantly higher density in seedlings and overall regeneration, whereas no significant difference is found in saplings. seedling origin table 4 presents seedling densities by regeneration method. in both management regimes, seedling coppice of sal dominates the regeneration layer. the density of seedling coppice is 4.14 and 18.80 times higher than the density of seed-originated seedlings in managed and natural stands, respectively. between management regimes, sal seedlings originating from seeds are significantly higher in the managed plot compared to natural stands. however, the density of sal seedling coppice is not significantly different between these management regimes. the density of seedlings (originating from seed) of other species is significantly higher in managed plots compared to natural stands. overall, the data reveal that managed stands have more consistent sal seed-origin regeneration, while natural stands show greater variability, particularly in seedling coppice density. table 4: average density (mean ± sd) and range (min�max) of sal regeneration by seed origin, seedling coppice, and other species in managed and natural stands attributes mean ± sd min�max managed natural managed natural salseed origin 878±809ab 218± 1,779ab 0-12,000 06,000 sal-seedling coppice 3,641±4,880a 4,100± 4,366a 0-22,000 0-36,000 other species 1,064±1,476ab 622±1,919 ab 0-10,000 0-8,000 note: letters in the superscript denote the significant difference (p<0.05) between managed and natural stands discussion the findings of this study indicate that creating a gap by removing mature crops contributes to promoting regeneration and species richness, while also supporting the development of future forests with denser and stronger wood through the encouragement of seed-originated seedlings. seedling coppices constitute a significant portion of sal forests, regardless of management interventions. the dominance of seedling coppices is a common trend in sal forests, as observed in the past, where only four percent of seedlings originated from seeds, while the remaining 96 percent were coppice seedlings (suoheimo, 1999). although shelterwood regeneration aims to promote natural regeneration through seedoriginated growth by retaining mother trees, the dominance of seedling coppices raises questions about the necessity of retaining these trees. this may be primarily due to the dieback table 4: average density (mean ± sd) and range (min–max) of sal regeneration by seed origin, seedling coppice, and other species in managed and natural stands thakur et al. note: letters in the superscript denote the significant difference (p<0.05) between managed and natural stands 42 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 and water, controlled burning, and the removal of diseased trees (troup, 1921; chauhan et al., 2010). in the absence of such management interventions, sal forests may be dominated by individuals that grow from seedling coppice, which may affect the future of the forests. this could have negative ecological implications, as seed-originated individuals possess greater genetic diversity and natural growth patterns (mejstřík et al., 2024). the regenerations of sal and other species are significantly enhanced under the shelterwood system. this aligns with previous studies that have measured regeneration density under the shelterwood system in other parts of the country (khanal & adhikari, 2018; pokhrel et al., 2024). these results reaffirm that canopy openings in sal forests play a crucial role in shaping future forest development. additionally, the sapling layer is significantly influenced by management practices, consistent with existing research, which highlights that while tree species in sal forests germinate under both gap and canopy conditions, sapling density is higher in gaps (sharma et al., 2019). the higher species richness in managed forests contrasts with previous studies, which suggest that regeneration felling may reduce diversity due to the dominance of sal (awasthi et al., 2020; ojha et al., 2023; pokhrel et al., 2024). these studies were conducted approximately three years after regeneration felling, during which lightdemanding species are likely to dominate following canopy opening. over time, as seedlings develop into saplings, they can create a more favorable environment for other species, particularly those that are shade-tolerant (thakur et al., 2025). therefore, it is likely that managed forests will have more species richness in the regeneration layer. consequently, the regeneration layer in managed forests is likely to have higher species richness. spatio-temporal fluctuations in light availability may contribute to the diversity of tropical tree species by providing opportunities for niche differentiation based on varying light requirements for regeneration (rüger et al., 2009). conclusions the findings of this study highlight the critical role of management interventions, canopy opening through regeneration felling, in shaping the regeneration dynamics and species composition of sal forests. while the shelterwood system has been effective in promoting natural regeneration, the dominance of seedling coppices raises important concerns regarding the quality and long-term sustainability of sal timber production. the high prevalence of coppice seedlings, driven by the dieback phenomenon, suggests that current regeneration strategies may need refinement to enhance seed-originated growth. forest management could benefit from prioritizing the promotion of seed-originated seedlings, which may improve timber quality and enhance the ecological stability of sal forests. given the substantial differences in timber quality between seed-originated and coppice-originated trees, it may be beneficial for management strategies to promote the establishment of seed-originated seedlings. without intervention, sal forests risk being dominated by lower-quality coppice-originated trees, which may have long-term economic and ecological consequences. this study reaffirms that while canopy openings enhance sapling density and encourage the recruitment of diverse species, spatio-temporal variations in light availability create opportunities for niche differentiation, supporting a richer biodiversity over time. these findings suggest that balancing regeneration felling with conservation efforts can enhance both species richness and timber quality of future stands. future research should focus on refining silvicultural techniques that help to minimize the abundance of seedling coppice following regeneration felling, as well as evaluating the diversity of entire plant communities to better understand ecological impacts. acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which significantly improved the quality of the paper. this paper is part of a phd thesis supported by the institute of forestry under the higher education reform project (herp-dli-7b) at tribhuvan university (tu), nepal. author contribution rbt: conceptualization, methodology, data collection, data analysis, original draft.; rkr: methodology, data analysis, review & editing, validation, supervision.; rkp: data analysis, review & editing, supervision.; prn: review & editing, supervision thakur et al. 43 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 conflict of interest the authors declare no conflicts of interest. references awasthi, n., aryal, k., chhetri, b. b. k., bhandari, s. k., khanal, y., gotame, p., & baral, k. 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(2010). regeneration and plant diversity of natural and planted sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) forests in the terai-bhabhar of sohagibarwa wildlife sanctuary, india. journal of american science, 6(3), 32-45. community and private forest division. (2004). revised guidelines for community forest resource inventory (m. of f. and s. c. community and private forest division, ed.). dfrs. (2014). terai forests of nepal 2010-2012 (vol. 53, issue 9). department of forest research and survey. department of forest research and survey (dfrs), kathmandu, nepal. dfrs. (2015a). middle mountains forests of nepal: forest resource assessment (fra) nepal. department of forest research and survey (dfrs), kathmandu, nepal. dof. (2014). scientific forest management guidelines 2071. department of forests (dof), kathmandu, nepal. frtc. 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(2012). recruitment of tree species in mixed selection and irregular shelterwood forest stands. annals of forest science, 69, 915-925. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s13595-012-0224-1 krainovic, p. m., de resende, a. f., amazonas, n. t., de almeida, c. t., de almeida, d. r. a., silva, c. c., de andrade, h. s. f., rodrigues, r. r., & brancalion, p. h. s. (2023). potential native timber production in tropical forest restoration plantations. perspectives in ecology and conservation, 21(4), 294-301. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.pecon.2023.10.002 thakur et al. 44 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 lee, d. k. (2020). data transformation: a focus on the interpretation. korean journal of anesthesiology, 73(6), 503–508. https://doi.org/10.4097/kja.20137 lei, h., gartner, b. l., & milota, m. r. (1997). effect of growth rate on the anatomy, specific gravity, and bending properties of wood from 7-yearold red alder (alnus rubra). canadian journal of forest research, 27(1), 80–85. https://doi. org/10.1139/x96-165 longui, e. l., sonsin, j., santos, m., arzolla, f. a. r. d. p., vilela, f. e. s. p., lima, i. l. de, florsheim, s. m. b., & descio, f. (2016). differences between root and stem wood in seedlings and sprouts of sessea brasiliensis (solanaceae). rodriguésia, 67(3), 615–626. https://doi.org/10.1590/21757860201667306 mejstřík, m., svátek, m., pollastrini, m., šrámek, m., & matula, r. (2024). differential roles of seed and sprout regeneration in forest diversity and productivity after disturbance. forest ecosystems, 11, 100198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. fecs.2024.100198 ojha, p., acharya, k. r., subedi, a., & regmi, s. 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(2001). a case of high tree diversity in a sal (shorea robusta)-dominated lowland forest of eastern himalaya: floristic composition, regeneration and conservation. current science, 776-786. sharma, l. n., shrestha, k. b., & måren, i. e. (2019). tree regeneration in gap-understory mosaics in a subtropical shorea robusta (sal) forest. journal of forestry research, 30(6), 2061-2068. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s11676-018-0747-x shishir, s., mollah, t. h., tsuyuzaki, s., & wada, n. (2020). predicting the probable impact of climate change on the distribution of threatened shorea robusta forest in purbachal, bangladesh. global ecology and conservation, 24, e01250. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e01250 soni, r. k., dixit, v., irchhaiya, r., & singh, h. (2013). a review update on shorea robusta gaertn f. (sal). journal of drug delivery & therapeutics, 3(6), 127-132. doi:10.36808/if/2022/v148i6/ suoheimo, j. (1998). shorea robusta gaertn.f. (sal) in the forestry of nepal. thai journal of forestry, 17, 43-54. suoheimo, j. (1999). natural regeneration of sal (shorea robusta) in the terai region, nepal. university of helsinki, department of forest ecology, tropical silviculture unit. thakur, r.b., rai, r.k., pokharel, r.k., & neupane, p.r. (2025). regeneration dynamics in sal (shorea robusta) forests under the shelterwood system. forest systems, 34 (2), 20959. https:// doi.org/10.5424/fs/2025342-20959 troup, r. s. (1921). the silviculture of indian trees. 1. dilleniaceae to leguminosae (papilionaceae) (vol. 1). clarendon press. webb, e. l., & sah, r. n. (2003). structure and diversity of natural and managed sal (shorea robusta gaertn. f.) forest in the terai of nepal. forest ecology and management, 176(1– 3), 337-353. https://doi.org/10.1016/s03781127(02)00272-4 thakur et al. 49 nepal is known as one of the richest countries for biodiversity, and almost all the climatic zones of the earth are represented within its national boundary (hara and williams, 1978; 1979). the world conservation monitoring center have estimated that 6,500 species of angiosperms are found in nepal (caldecott et al., 1994; bista et al., 2001). out of the estimated 6,500 flowering plants, approximately 1,000 species are trees. nearly, 200 species attain tree size and are capable of producing timber (bhargava and kumar, 1977). wood is the cell-wall material produced by the cells of the cambium in a living tree. wood cells make up the xylem portion of the tree as contrasted with the phloem (bark), which forms the protective outer layer. during the growing season, the cells of the cambium divide frequently into so called daughter cells which may differentiate into specialized elements of the phloem or the wood portion of tree trunk (pandey, 2001). there are both inter and intra specific anatomical variation in plants (noshiro et al., 1995). changing of wood parameters along the elevational gradient was reported from some other studies too which can help to identify the wood at species-level (pathak, et al., 2011, 2018). timber, the wood of commercial importance, is one of the most valuable and versatile raw materials used by people, and plays a vital role in the economic and industrial development of a nation. timber identification is a highly specialized and fascinating field of study which is very complicated to even wood anatomist. identification of timber may be grouped broadly into two heads, viz. general features and anatomical features. the former include common physical properties like color, weight, hardness, luster, etc. with the help of which simple carpenters and timber dealers also can identify the common timbers. the latter, on the other hand, can be studied only under the microscope and require a minimum basic knowledge regarding the structure of wood for their proper understanding and application in the field of identification of timbers (pathak, 2012). botanical knowledge of important timber plants is necessary to identify them in their crude form when they are illegally traded, exported or smuggled. those are either identified through anatomical study, dna analysis, and staple isotope analysis or through chemical analysis. chemical test is one of the general tools to confirm the wood of tree species. some tools are made to identify the commercially important treewood through chemical test or even with the help of ultraviolet rays (bsi, 2012). however, we need to be aware about the use of pesticides and flame retardants because of the chemical substances used. we should be equally aware that the wood sample is actually a solid piece of wood or a manmade composite or plastic made to imitate wood. in this study, we have tried to find out simple chemical reactions to identify some important timbers that are often brought to the national herbarium and plant laboratories of the department of plant resources (dpr) for their identification. materials and method the wood powders of twenty four wood samples (triplicate samples of each tree) were made with short note wood identification of some important timbers through chemical test m. l. pathak1*, r. acharya2, k. k. pokharel3 and d. lamichhane1 1. national botanical garden, godawari-3, lalitpur, department of plant resources, ministry of forests and environment, nepal. *e-mail: scientistdrmitra@gmail.com 2. national herbarium and plant laboratories godawari, department of plant resources, ministry of forests and environment, nepal 3. forest research and training centre, ministry of forests and environment, nepal banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1, 2020 pp 49‒53https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i1.29182 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 50 pathak et al. the help of a saw, and were mixed with water and different chemicals (alcohol, sulphuric acid, nitric acid, acetic acid, ether, ammonia solution, potassium chlorate, sprit, etc.). for the whole study, the bsi 2012 method was partially followed, and some innovative ideas were created. the chemical reactions of wood powder and chemical reagents were observed for twenty four hours. the results of the preliminary reactions were noted down instantly while the final results were obtained after twenty four hours. the study was accomplished during the lab experiment of wood samples at national herbarium and plant laboratories from 2011 to 2019. results and discussion the results of the chemical tests of wood powders and different chemicals are presented in tables 1−8. in the first phase of our study, only the color obtained from chemical reaction is presented. in the second phase, the chemical reactions and resulted compound with color will be studied in detail. out of the eight tree-timbers studied, only the wood-powder of dalbergia sisoo reacted with water and dissolved slightly, and formed suspension at bottom initially yielding slightly pale yellow color after 24 hours. similarly, the wood powder of pterocarpus santalinus reacted with ethyl alcohol yielding red blood color both at initial and final stages. on the other hand, the wood powder of santalum album reacted with ethyl alcohol yielding black suspension at bottom. the wood powders of the rest seven tree-timbers did not show any reaction with ethyl alcohol. on the contrary, the wood powders of p. santalinus, p. marsupium, s. album, acacia catechu, dalbergia sisoo, d. latifolia, shorea robusta and terminalia alata reacted with concentrated sulphuric acid yielding deep purplish black suspension or black color at the top initially and after 24 hours as well. similarly, the wood powders of p. santalinus and s. album reacted with conc. nitric acid yielding yellow color after 24 hours while the wood powder of accacia catechu with nitric acid yielded pale yellowish color after 24 hours. likewise, the wood powders of a. catechu and s. album with conc. nitric acid yielded pale yellowish red color and yellow color, respectively with brown suspension at the top at the beginning and turned into green color after 24 hours. on the other hand, the wood powder of p. marsupium with concentrated nitric acid yielded black suspension at the top initially and turned into green color after 24 hours. similarly, the wood powders of s. album and a. catechu with concentrated nitric acid yielded yellow color and pale yellowish color initially and pale yellowish red color after 24 hours. the wood powder of p. santalinus with acetic acid yielded deep red color initially and turned into deep orange red color after 24 hours. in the case of s. album, a. catechu, p. marsupium, d. latifolia, s. robusta and t. alata, the wood powders did not show any reaction with acetic acid. however, the wood powder of pterocarpus. santalinus with ammonia solution yielded violet color initially and later too while that of santalum album yielded red color with suspension at the bottom. the wood powder of acacia catechu with ammonia solution yielded black color with suspension at the bottom. on the other hand, the wood powders of p. marsupium and d. latifolia with ammonia solution did not show any reaction. however, the wood powder of d. sissoo with ammonia solution yielded yellowish suspension at the bottom at the beginning and finally turned into violet color at the bottom. the wood powder of s. robusta with ammonia solution remained intact at the bottom initially, and finally turned into violet color with suspension at the bottom. for some genus, we tried to find out the possible chemical reactions between the wood powder and the chemical used; in the case of shorea robusta, heartwood extractives (brown color) leaching out when in contact with water (richter and dallwitz, 2000). likewise, the chemical ‘santalin’ (c15h14o5) reacts with ethyl alcohol (c2h5oh) and yields red color (bsi, 2012). nevertheless, the details of reactions among all wood powders (their chemical compounds) and studied reagents could not be traced out. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 51 pathak et al. table 1: pterocarpus santalinus (raktachandan) s.n. activities initial result result after 24 hrs. i wood powder + water (h2o) no reaction no reaction ii wood powder + ethyl alcohol soluble with red blood color red blood color iii wood powder + acetic acid deep red deep orange red color iv wood powder + conc. h2so4 insoluble with deep purplish black suspension at top insoluble with deep purplish black suspension at top v wood powder + conc. hno3 no color yellow color after 24 hours vi wood powder + ether soluble with yellow color soluble with yellow color vii wood powder + kclo3 purple color purple color viii wood powder + nh3 soluble with violet color soluble with violet color table 2: santalum album (shreekhanda) s.n. activities initial result result after 24 hrs. i wood powder + water (h2o) no reaction no reaction ii wood powder + conc. h2so4 dissolved with black color dissolved with black color iii wood powder + acetic acid no reaction no reaction iv wood powder + conc. hno3 dissolved with yellow color dissolved with yellow color v wood powder + ethyl alcohol dissolved and makes black suspension dissolved with black suspension vi wood powder + nh3 red color with suspension red color with suspension table 3: acacia catechu (khair) s.n. activities initial result result after 24 hrs. i wood powder + water (h2o) no reaction no reaction but suspension at bottom ii wood powder + ethyl alcohol no reaction no reaction iii wood powder + acetic acid no reaction no reaction iv wood powder + nh3 black color black suspension v wood powder + conc. h2so4 black color black suspension vi wood powder + conc. hno3 pale yellowish color pale yellowish red color table 4: pterocarpus marsupium (bijayasal) s.n. activities initial result result after 24 hrs. i wood powder + water (h2o) no reaction no reaction ii wood powder + ethyl alcohol no reaction no reaction iii wood powder + acetic acid no reaction no reaction iv wood powder + nh3 undissolved undissolved both at top and bottom v wood powder + conc. h2so4 black suspension at top black suspension at top vi wood powder + conc. hno3 brown suspension at top color changed into green banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 52 pathak et al. table 5: dalbergia latifolia (satisal) s.n. activities initial result result after 24 hrs. i wood powder + water (h2o) no reaction no reaction ii wood powder + ethyl alcohol no reaction no reaction iii wood powder + acetic acid no reaction no reaction iv wood powder + nh3 undissolved undissolved both at top and bottom v wood powder + conc. h2so4 black suspension at top black suspension at top vi wood powder + hno3 undissolved orange color table 6: dalbergia sisoo (sissoo) s.n. activities initial result result after 24 hrs. i wood powder + water (h2o) slightly dissolved with suspension at bottom slightly pale yellow color ii wood powder + ethyl alcohol no reaction no reaction iii wood powder + nh3 yellowish suspension at bottom violet color at bottom iv wood powder + conc. hno3 dissolved with orange red color yellow suspension at bottom v wood powder + acetic acid not dissolve suspension at bottom slightly pale yellow suspension at bottom vi wood powder + conc. h2so4 black suspension at top whole black suspension at bottom table 7: shorea robusta (sal) s.n. activities initial results result after 24 hrs. i wood powder + h2o (water) undissolved with suspension at bottom brown suspension at bottom ii wood powder + ethyl alcohol undissolved with suspension at bottom suspension at bottom iii wood powder + nh3 remained same at bottom violet color suspension at bottom iv wood powder + hno3 reddish brown suspension at top red black color suspension at bottom v wood powder + acetic acid suspension at bottom suspension at bottom vi wood powder + h2so4 black suspension at top whole black suspension vii wood powder + spirit undissolved with suspension at bottom suspension at bottom table 8: terminalia alata (asna/saaj) s.n. activities initial results result after 24 hrs. i wood powder + water (h2o) undissolved with suspension at bottom suspension at bottom ii wood powder + alcohol undissolved with suspension at bottom suspension at bottom iii wood powder + acetic acid not dissolve remain at bottom suspension at bottom iv wood powder + nn3 suspension at bottom changes into violet color v wood powder + h2so4 black suspension at top black suspension both at top and bottom vi wood powder + hno3 black suspension at top turned into yellow color banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1 53 pathak et al. conclusion it was found that different timber wood samples yielded different color due to formation of dissimilar compounds. it proves that chemical test is also an important tool to distinguish or identify the close species of a genus besides anatomical and dna methods, and it will be helpful to recognize plants for taxonomic identification and illegally traded, exported or smuggled wood samples. we have realized that it would be more effective if we could describe the exact compounds formed after reactions, but it is not an easy task. as far as possible, we will accomplish this task in the second phase of our study. acknowledgements the authors are thankful to the director general and deputy director general of the department of plant resources together with the chiefs of the national herbarium & plant laboratories and national botanical garden for their constant encouragement in course of the study period. references bhargava, a. k. and kumar, s. 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(2000 onwards). commercial timbers : descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. in english, french, german, portuguese and spanish version, 25th june, 2009. http : //delta-intkey. com /wood/en/ index. htm. 94 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 biodiversity governance outside protected areas in the context of other effective area-based conservation measures (oecms): a systematic review ekraj sigdel 1*, khagendra prasad joshi 2, aayoush raj regmi 3, shant raj jnawali 4, sony baral 1, & bir bahadur khanal chhetri 5 1institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, kathmandu 44600, nepal. *email: ekrajsigdel@gmail.com 2department of forestry and environment conservation, clemson university, usa 3school of forestry and natural resources management, institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, kathmandu 44600, nepal 4wwf nepal 5pokhara campus, institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, nepal the other effective area-based conservation measures (oecms) have recently been recognized as a viable tool for conserving biodiversity beyond protected areas. as a new concept, it is essential to evaluate the current knowledge on oecms and their prospects for conserving biodiversity resources outside protected areas. we conducted a systematic review of the literature on key concepts, including oecms, governance, and biodiversity, using the publish or perish software program in google scholar. out of the total 200 articles identified through the keywords, 54 were shortlisted for a comprehensive full-text review. based on the closeness of the study objectives to our research questions, 27 articles were selected for detailed analysis. as no journal articles related to the oecm in nepal were found within the set time frame, contemporary policies and legal documents of nepal were also reviewed. additionally, to account for the lengthy publication process, a few more recent journal articles were also reviewed. the review revealed that nearly half of the studies (13) focused on global and regional scales, while eight studies were conducted in eight different countries, and two studies in each of three additional countries. recent studies on the integration of oecm principles in nepal’s forestry sector policies and practices were also reviewed. community-led conservation, supported by coordination and collaboration among multilevel governance systemsincluding both state and non-state actors-has been found effective in conserving biodiversity resources outside protected areas. however, further studies on natural resources governance beyond protected areas are needed to ensure long-term insitu conservation of biodiversity through the oecm model. keywords: biodiversity, governance, other effective conservation measures the global community is moving towards conserving 30% of the terrestrial land by 2030 through the adoption of the kunmingmontreal global biodiversity framework. other effective area-based conservation measures (oecms) have been considered as a governing tool to complement the protected areas (pas) and help achieve this global target (cbd, 2022). parties to the convention on biological diversity (cbd) committed to conserving 17% of terrestrial and inland water areas and 10% of coastal and marine areas by the end of 2020 (cbd, 2010). the concept of oecm was introduced in 2010 and further defined in 2018, emphasizing the effective and equitable management of biodiversity outside protected areas to achieve the 30% target. however, it is known to only a limited group of experts (gurney et al., 2021). the 14th conference of the parties to the cbd defined oecm as, “a geographically defined area other than a protected area (pa), which is governed and managed in ways that achieve positive and sustained received: 22 january 2025 revised: 30 july 2025 accepted: 5 september 2025 published: 30 september 2025 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2, 2025 pp 94-103https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i2.74408 https://orcid.org/0009-0006-5253-1403 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0141-741x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5075-3858 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1655-2398 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5230-698x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6845-3773 95 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2sigdel et al. long-term outcomes for the in-situ conservation of biodiversity, with associated ecosystem functions and services and where applicable, cultural, spiritual, socio–economic, and other locally relevant values”. with proper recognition, sound management, equitable participation, and support, oecms have the potential to promote biodiversity conservation. for instance, a study conducted by kshettry et al. (2020) provides evidence of the significance of governing interconnected non-forested landscapes, forest patches, and tea-plantation sites for wildlife habitat outside the protected area system. effective administration, policy implementations, and governance tools are equally essential to ensure the ecological integrity in conservation programs (lazdinis et al., 2007). in the context of oecms, the governance needs to be participatory and should incorporate the local cultural values and rights (springer et al., 2021). indigenous people and local communities are key governance entities of oecms (borrini-feyerabend et al., 2010). the management of natural resources by indigenous communities is more effective than stringent government policies (hayes & ostrom, 2005; nolte et al., 2013). furthermore, the oecm could encompass the ecosystems that are not adequately conserved within the protected areas. there is a plethora of literature (cox & underwood, 2011; penjor et al., 2021; renwick et al., 2017) highlighting the significance of land and other natural resources outside formal protected areas, managed by local communities, in achieving biodiversity gains, including those of threatened species. nepal, as a party to the cbd, has an obligation to comply with the global commitment to bring 30% of its landmass under conservation areas. however, nepal’s commitment to promoting and mainstreaming oecms is not known. the iucn has highlighted ten key governance principles essential for the effective implementation of oecms. these principles primarily focus on an inclusive and decentralized decision-making process that involves all concerned stakeholders, the recognition of the rights of indigenous communities, and the empowerment of local communities. it also highlights the importance of collaboration among stakeholders in developing governance strategies, ensuring equitable benefit sharing, and managing resources sustainably (springer et al., 2021). in this review article, we revisit and analyse the recent studies on oecm, focusing on its significance in promoting biodiversity. we also examine its prospects and a potential pathway for countries like nepal, where local communities manage many patches of forest and natural resources outside the protected areas. the key questions examined include: i) how biodiversity is governed outside protected areas, ii) how biodiversity governance has evolved in the context of oecms, iii) how oecms promote biodiversity, iv) which governance arrangement has been found more effective, and v) what is the prospect of oecms in nepal, where key biodiversity areas outside formal protected areas have yet to be conserved effectively and equitably? methodology we performed a systematic review of articles using publish or perish software. we established the research aim and objectives and conducted an article search within the google scholar search engine component of the software on july 6th, 2023. the keywords used for article retrieval were as follows: other effective conservation measures” and “conservation” and “governance” and “biodiversity types” a total of 200 research articles were retrieved using the above-mentioned keywords. we then evaluated these articles using inclusion and exclusion criteria by initially reviewing their titles and abstracts. following this preliminary assessment, 54 articles were selected for a comprehensive full-text review. the selection of articles excluded inferior journals, duplicate studies, and irrelevant publications (table 1). during the thorough full-text review, we eliminated articles with marginal relevance to our objectives, ultimately retaining 27 articles that were most closely aligned with the research objectives (refer to figure 1). as we were unable to find any journal articles related to the oecms in nepal within the specified time frame, we also reviewed contemporary policies and legal documents of nepal. furthermore, to capitalize on the lengthy publication process, a few recent journal articles were reviewed, primarily to enhance the results and discussion sections of the article. to collect data from these selected articles, we created an ms excel workbook containing categories such as biodiversity types, good governance, and inclusiveness variables. we then meticulously 96 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 examined and interpreted the research articles, extracting and coding relevant information into the workbook. we conducted sen’s slope and mannkendall trend test to analyze trends in publications related to biodiversity governance outside protected areas over the years. results increasing coverage of biodiversity conservation outside protected areas the spatial distribution of articles related to biodiversity governance in the context of oecms reveals that most studies included in the review were conducted at the global (n=7) or regional scale (n=6). we found an equal number of studies (n=1) from eight different countries (mozambique, united states, scotland, laos, kenya, australia, romania, zimbabwe). similarly, we found two studies from each of brazil, finland, and south africa. sen’s slope and mann-kendall trend tests were conducted to analyze further the temporal trend of publications related to biodiversity governance outside protected areas. the positive value of sen’s slope (0.095) indicates that the trend of publications on biodiversity governance outside protected areas is gradually increasing over the years. the mann-kendall trend test (p = 0.0046) revealed a statistically significant increasing trend at the 5% level (p < 0.05) (figure 2). marginal relevance to our objectives, ultimately retaining 27 articles that were most closely aligned with the research objectives (refer to figure 1). as we were unable to find any journal articles related to the oecms in nepal within the specified time frame, we also reviewed contemporary policies and legal documents of nepal. furthermore, to capitalize on the lengthy publication process, a few recent journal articles were reviewed, primarily to enhance the results and discussion sections of the article. to collect data from these selected articles, we created an ms excel workbook containing categories such as biodiversity types, good governance, and inclusiveness variables. we then meticulously examined and interpreted the research articles, extracting and coding relevant information into the workbook. we conducted sen�s slope and mann-kendall trend test to analyze trends in publications related to biodiversity governance outside protected areas over the years. table 1: inclusion and exclusion criteria inclusion criteria exclusion criteria article published in q1 journal low-ranked journal primary research article review paper, books article published in the english language only duplicate articles article containing the term biodiversity, governance, and oecm phrase in the title and abstract of the study essays, analysis, opinions, perspectives, and synthesis article marginal relevance to our objectives, ultimately retaining 27 articles that were most closely aligned with the research objectives (refer to figure 1). as we were unable to find any journal articles related to the oecms in nepal within the specified time frame, we also reviewed contemporary policies and legal documents of nepal. furthermore, to capitalize on the lengthy publication process, a few recent journal articles were reviewed, primarily to enhance the results and discussion sections of the article. to collect data from these selected articles, we created an ms excel workbook containing categories such as biodiversity types, good governance, and inclusiveness variables. we then meticulously examined and interpreted the research articles, extracting and coding relevant information into the workbook. we conducted sen�s slope and mann-kendall trend test to analyze trends in publications related to biodiversity governance outside protected areas over the years. table 1: inclusion and exclusion criteria inclusion criteria exclusion criteria article published in q1 journal low-ranked journal primary research article review paper, books article published in the english language only duplicate articles article containing the term biodiversity, governance, and oecm phrase in the title and abstract of the study essays, analysis, opinions, perspectives, and synthesis article table 1: inclusion and exclusion criteria figure 1: flowchart showing the initial stage of literature search to data extraction and analysis figure 2 figure 3 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 1 2 1 2 0 1 2 4 3 0 2 2 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 74 37 22 48 52 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 pe rc en ta ge o f a rt ic le governance regimes figure 2: frequency of articles per year sigdel et al. 97 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2figure 2 figure 3 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 1 2 1 2 0 1 2 4 3 0 2 2 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 74 37 22 48 52 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 pe rc en ta ge o f a rt ic le governance regimes orga niz ati on s/ p riv ate diversity of governance regimes in operation biodiversity has been managed mainly through five governance types in the articles reviewed for areabased conservation. these include government, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, indigenous peoples, and local communities, through shared management. local or central governments managed the highest number of potential oecms, followed by local and indigenous communities and private landowners across the 10 countries studied (donald et al., 2019). the most common type of regime for managing biodiversity was a government-led regime, reported in approximately 74% (n = 20) of the articles, followed by a shared regime at 52% (n = 14). in a shared regime, biodiversity conservation was managed collaboratively by local communities, organizations, and the government. communitymanaged areas were mentioned in 48% (n = 13) of the articles, while organizations such as ngos/ ingos, and the private sector were reported in 37% (n = 10). only six articles discussed governance by indigenous communities (figure 3). about 30% of the articles assessed the conservation effectiveness of various governance models. the articles stress that effective conservation outcomes can be achieved by adopting different types of governance models (table 2). this highlights that the contributions of communities and the private sector in conserving biodiversity outside protected areas are highly valuable and should be recognized. thus, the concept of oecms in such areas offers a novel tool for acknowledging and supporting these contributions. indigenous people, local communities, and privately managed resources are effective in conserving biodiversity. additionally, multilevel governance, joint management, and collaboration and coordination between state and non-state actors have also contributed to the successful conservation of biodiversity resources. likewise, of the 27 articles analyzed, only four assessed the relationship between governance and biodiversity outcomes. the review suggests that inadequate governance contributes to poor biodiversity conservation in developing countries (eklund et al., 2011). for example, weak governance has contributed to the degradation of forest conditions in zimbabwe (mutekwa & gambiza, 2016). governance impact on biodiversity author community managed management of forest commons through community forestry could play a prominent role in biodiversity conservation persha et al. (2011) multi-level governance effective for biodiversity conservation in protected areas young et al. (2013) collaboration among farmers better agro-biodiversity leventon et al. (2017) indigenous people and the local community (iplc) managed an effective mechanism for conserving natural land cover and biodiversity intactness. highly relevant in long-term biodiversity conservation shumba et al. (2020) private management private conservation areas were critical in conserving lower elevation habitat, and by association, endangered vegetation in the little karoo region, south africa shumba et al. (2020) joint management state and private management of protected areas, and their extension governance, can be more effective if the state and private sectors manage jointly onditi et al. (2021) indigenous people and the local community (iplc) managed effective in curbing native vegetation conversion and promoting regrowth alves-pinto (2021) coordination federal, provincial, and territorial governments' coordination is necessary for the effective conservation of biodiversity schuster et al. (2023) likewise, of the 27 articles analyzed, only four assessed the relationship between governance and biodiversity outcomes. the review suggests that inadequate governance contributes to poor biodiversity conservation in developing countries (eklund et al., 2011). for example, weak governance has contributed to the degradation of forest conditions in zimbabwe (mutekwa & gambiza, 2016). similarly, governance alone has been identified as a precondition for achieving target 11 of the global biodiversity framework, which was later redefined as oecm (onditi et al., 2021). inclusive governance that devolves authority, responsibility, and accountability of natural resource management to the local community level, particularly within protected areas, can address conservation challenges while also contributing to poverty alleviation by ensuring a fair share of benefits to local people (ullah & kim, 2021). six articles reported biodiversity loss resulting from the exclusion of indigenous and marginalized communities in conservation efforts. effective biodiversity governance studies on the implications of governance on biodiversity richness, specifically in the context of oecms, have primarily focused on the global and regional level, with very few studies conducted at the national level. a very few studies have been carried out in southeast asian, african, and other asian countries (abas et al., 2022). various aspects of governance and their impact on conservation have been examined (figure 4). inclusive decision-making was identified as the most important governance factor (63%, n figure 3: governance regime across studied articles table 2: conservation effectiveness of various governance modalities sigdel et al. 98 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 similarly, governance alone has been identified as a precondition for achieving target 11 of the global biodiversity framework, which was later redefined as oecm (onditi et al., 2021). inclusive governance that devolves authority, responsibility, and accountability of natural resource management to the local community level, particularly within protected areas, can address conservation challenges while also contributing to poverty alleviation by ensuring a fair share of benefits to local people (ullah & kim, 2021). six articles reported biodiversity loss resulting from the exclusion of indigenous and marginalized communities in conservation efforts. effective biodiversity governance studies on the implications of governance on biodiversity richness, specifically in the context of oecms, have primarily focused on the global and regional level, with very few studies conducted at the national level. a very few studies have been carried out in southeast asian, african, and other asian countries (abas et al., 2022). various aspects of governance and their impact on conservation have been examined (figure 4). inclusive decision-making was identified as the most important governance factor (63%, n = 17), followed by sustainable resource use (56%, n = 15), for effective biodiversity conservation. devolution and accountability were each reported by 44% of the articles as key components of biodiversity conservation. oecms can be governed in any form, from state-owned areas to community-managed areas, areas under land stewardship, or privately owned areas, as long as they deliver effective conservation outcomes (borrini et al., 2013; armitage et al., 2020) the least reported governance elements in the articles were tenure rights (11%, n = 3), cultural preservation (15%, n = 4), coordination (22%, n = 6), and conflict resolution (22%, n = 6). unaccountable governance (smith et al., 2003; eklund et al., 2011; dawson et al., 2018), inefficient and inadequate laws and policies (smith et al., 2003; eklund et al., 2011), lack of tenure rights (dawson et al., 2018), ineffective coordination among the local communities and governing bodies (leventon et al., 2017), and conflicts surrounding conservation areas (dawson et al., 2018) contribute to environment and biodiversity degradation (figure 4). inclusive governance, or local participation and collaboration, was highlighted by 47% (n = 8) of articles. the inclusion of indigenous and economically marginalized people in the decisionmaking process, who are most dependent on the resources, was emphasized in about 29% (n=5) of the articles. local people’s and community engagement were identified as key drivers of positive biodiversity conservation outcomes, which were reported by 18% (n=3) of the studies (figure 5). figure 4 figure 5 22 41 44 56 22 33 44 15 11 63 4 7 11 4 4 -15 -5 5 15 25 35 45 55 65 75 justice and conflict resolution rule of law accountability sustainable resource use cordination & coherance strategic vision devolution cultural preservation tenure rights inclusive decision making percentage of articles g ov er an ce in di ca to rs negatively reported positively reported 47 18 29 47 6 6 6 6 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 collaborative leadership identity and dignity indigenous and poor participation percentage of articles in cl us iv e as pe ct r ep or te d negatively reported positively reported figure 4 figure 5 22 41 44 56 22 33 44 15 11 63 4 7 11 4 4 -15 -5 5 15 25 35 45 55 65 75 justice and conflict resolution rule of law accountability sustainable resource use cordination & coherance strategic vision devolution cultural preservation tenure rights inclusive decision making percentage of articles g ov er an ce in di ca to rs negatively reported positively reported 47 18 29 47 6 6 6 6 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 collaborative leadership identity and dignity indigenous and poor participation percentage of articles in cl us iv e as pe ct r ep or te d negatively reported positively reported figure 5: various types of inclusivity discussed in the articles governance impact on biodiversity types the impact of governance on species diversity and richness was reported by 44% (n = 12) of the articles. good governance has been shown to improve species richness, enhance forest coverage, and maintain tree species diversity (zumeta & ellefson, 2000; paloniemi & tikka, 2008; persha et al., 2011; shumba et al., 2020; alves-pinto et al., 2021), improve aquatic animals and fisheries resources (diz et al., 2018; kenward et al., 2011), increase bird species diversity (amano et al., 2018; schuster et al., 2023), enable mammal conservation (lockie, 2009; faleiro & loyola, 2013; onditi et al., 2021; schuster et al., 2023), and improved habitats for reptiles and amphibians (schuster et al., 2023). further, the articles argue that good governance has improved the status of threatened and endemic species, biodiversity hot-spots, and ecosystem services. in total, 19% (n = 5) of the articles argued figure 4: governance principle reported in the articles sigdel et al. 99 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 for the positive impact of governance on ecosystem diversity and connectivity, which accounted for approximately 15% (n = 4) of the total articles. the least covered area for biodiversity conservation was invasive species and their management, covered by just one article (gogaladze et al., 2020), whereas genetic diversity and ecosystem function were covered by 11% (n = 3) of the articles. a few articles have demonstrated the negative impacts of governance on biodiversity (figure 6). the negative impacts were manifested in decreasing species diversity (mcpherson & simpson, 1999; smith et al., 2003; eklund et al., 2011; leventon et al., 2017), depleting ecosystem diversity (eklund et al., 2011; leventon et al., 2017), disrupting connectivity due to degradation of habitat (mutekwa & gambiza, 2016; leventon et al., 2017), and weakening ecosystem services and functions (mutekwa & gambiza, 2016). even one article claimed that due to weak governance, it has jeopardized the population of vulnerable black african elephants and rhinos (smith et al., 2003). (nepal et al., 2025). there is also a lack of a specific policy agenda and responsive policies at the federal, provincial, and local government levels to promote conservation (baral et al., 2022). ensuring effective biodiversity conservation outside protected areas requires policies that promote equitable governance and effective conservation outcomes, which are the key components of the oecm approach. discussion the plurality of governance types is appreciated for effective biodiversity conservation effective conservation outcomes can be achieved by adopting different governance models, including multilayer governance approaches. five different types of biodiversity governance are prevalent worldwide: government, non-governmental organizations (ngos/ingos), the private sector, indigenous peoples, local communities, and shared management. the most common model is government management, followed by a shared regime involving local communities, non-government organizations, and the government. only six articles described the governance of biodiversity resources by indigenous communities. state-community-managed protected areas are more successful in conserving biodiversity compared to ngo-managed and community-managed protected areas (nyaupane et al., 2020). it is suggested that conserving biodiversity outside protected areas, such as in community-managed forests, can contribute to broader biodiversity conservation impacts through enhancing collaboration between community forest user groups and local governments (sharma et al., 2021). inclusion and equity are at the core, irrespective of governance type a strong relation has been found between biodiversity richness and cultures, traditional knowledge, and practices of indigenous people (armitage et al., 2020). to halt the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, “transformative change” is needed, which requires inclusive governance (iied, 2021). nepal’s constitution guarantees livelihood rights and participation in governance for various groups, including women, indigenous peoples, local communities, youth, and marginalized groups, in environmental management and biodiversity conservation. an empirical evaluation of state pas, indigenous territories (its), and civil society figure 6 4 19 11 19 19 11 15 15 44 4 4 7 7 15 -20 0 20 40 60 invasive species threatend/endemic species ecosystem functions ecosystem service biodiversity hotspots genetic diversity connectivity ecosystem diversity species diversity/richness percentage of articles im pa ct o n bi od iv er si ty negatively reported positively reported figure 6: the impact of governance on biodiversity policy perspective of oecm very few articles mentioned conserving biodiversity resources outside protected areas in the context of oecm policy. although the concept of oecms has emerged as a viable strategy in global conservation efforts, policy development has been slow to keep pace (cook, 2024). the study shows a disproportionately low focus on biodiversity conservation in non-protected areas in nepal (paudel et al., 2023). some important natural areas in nepal that are currently excluded from the protected area system should be considered for protected status through policy reform (heinen & yonzon, 1994). ecosystem degradation and the loss of environmental services have multiple causes and therefore must be addressed through coordination and diverse policies, legislation, and institutional responses sigdel et al. 100 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 and private conservation concessions (ccs) in the peruvian amazon revealed that ccs and its were, on average, more equitable and effective in conserving biodiversity than state-government pas (schleicher, 2017). the loss of natural resources is often the result of excluding indigenous and poor communities, disregarding local tradition (dawson et al., 2018), and lacking leadership and collaboration, which leads to the fragmentation of major bioreserves (leventon et al., 2017). natural resources management led by indigenous communities has proven effective in conserving biodiversity resources outside protected areas. conserving key biodiversity areas under oecms contributes to maintaining greater biodiversity richness compared to managing them under the protected area system (donald et al., 2019). however, there is a clear need for more studies to build a robust evidence base evaluating the suitability of different conservation measures as oecms (cook, 2024). policy coordination prerequisite among different governments natural resource management issues, such as ensuring equitable benefits for all, regardless of income level, ethnicity, or marginalization, are key characteristics of oecms that require policy coordination among different levels of government. collaboration among diverse stakeholders is generally considered necessary for developing legitimate and sustainable biodiversity conservation policy. policy provision and coordination among federal, provincial, and territorial governments is necessary for effective conservation of biodiversity (schuster et al., 2023). since ecosystem degradation and the loss of environmental services arise from multiple drivers, they must be addressed through integrated and diverse policies, legislation, and institutional responses (nepal et al., 2025). however, significant knowledge gaps remain regarding how effectively policies can be coordinated in the federal context, particularly in adopting oecms and managing natural resources, specifically in community forests of nepal. conclusion knowledge of biodiversity governance outside of protected areas, particularly in the context of oecms, remains very limited. however, interest in this area has been growing in recent years. effective biodiversity conservation outside protected areas requires a governance structure that extends beyond state-led approaches. policies that promote multilevel governance, encourage collaboration among state and non-state actors, indigenous people, and local communities, are more likely to deliver positive conservation outcomes. therefore, a policy that promotes polycentric governance could be effective for conserving biodiversity in the context of oecms, although further investigation is required. acknowledgement we gratefully acknowledge the partial financial support provided by forest action nepal through the international development research centre (idrc) under the project economic empowerment of women through forest solution (wee-fs), grant no. 109772 – 001. author contribution all authors have made substantial contributions to the conception, design, execution, analysis, and/or interpretation of the study. each author has reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript. conflict of interest the authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest that could have influenced the work presented in this study. references abas, a., aziz, a., & 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(2000). conserving the biological diversity of forests: program and organizational experiences of state governments in the united states. environmental management, 26, 393–402. sigdel et al. 1 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2http://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i2.84927 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal editorial nepal’s biodiversity vision 2050: “biodiversity for resilience and prosperity” the 21st century is confronting a triple crisis worldwide: biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution. these issues weaken ecological integrity and societal stability, which ultimately threaten human survival. rapid decline in species and genetic diversity, restricted ecosystem services, and threats to livelihoods and public health are evidence of these crises. additionally, political instability, economic crises, conflicts, and social pressures have further intensified these threats. in nepal, biodiversity is an integral part of daily life, underpinning economic growth, livelihoods, and human health. the country’s abundant forests, rivers, wetlands, grasslands, agricultural lands, and mountains serve as important ecological assets, forming the backbone of its culture, economy, and lifestyle. effective management of these resources is crucial for ecological health and global benefits, while also supporting nepal’s future prosperity. nepal’s formal conservation effort began about six decades ago with the establishment of chitwan national park in 1973. over the past twenty years, these initiatives have gained further momentum through active engagement in the national biodiversity strategy and action plan processes under the convention on biological diversity (cbd) framework. nepal has demonstrated a strong commitment and played a vital role in global biodiversity conservation efforts by signing the cbd at the earth summit on june 12, 1992, ratifying it on november 23, 1993, and officially becoming its party on february 21, 1994. to fulfill its commitments, nepal introduced its first biodiversity strategy, the nepal biodiversity strategy (nbs), in 2002, providing a comprehensive framework for preserving its unique natural heritage. this strategy integrated legal, institutional, and community approaches to combat biodiversity threats, aligning with national development goals. key achievements included adopting landscape-based conservation methods, involving local communities, raising public awareness, and establishing a monitoring system to evaluate progress toward the cbd’s goals: biodiversity conservation, sustainable use, and equitable sharing of benefits from genetic resources and traditional knowledge. later, the national biodiversity strategy and action plan (nbsap) (2014–2020) was developed to provide a strategic framework for the conservation and sustainable use of the country’s biodiversity. the plan aimed to support local livelihoods, promote environmentally friendly development, and ensure the fair and equitable sharing of benefits derived from the utilization of biological resources across all sectors. it is considered essential for turning the cbd’s aichi targets into actionable national goals. over time, nepal’s nbsap has helped protect landscapes, ecosystems, and species, especially in maintaining wildlife populations and ecosystems. currently, forests cover 46.08% of the land, cropland 22.59%, grasslands about 114.71%, and vol. 35, no. 2 september 2025 2 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 wetlands around 5%, making nepal a global biodiversity hotspot. the plan also highlighted the vital role of indigenous peoples and local communities (iplcs), who have relied on biodiversity for their cultural and subsistence needs and have also contributed to sustainable resource management. despite these efforts, progress remains insufficient to address the drivers of biodiversity loss and threats. land use change, habitat fragmentation, forest encroachment, the proliferation of invasive alien species, pollution, overexploitation, and climate change continue to deplete ecological resources. although the indicators for measuring results for the nbsap (2014–2020) were appropriate, external factors—notably the covid-19 pandemic, political transitions, and shocks from earthquakes and economic blockades—affected the achievement of outcomes. moreover, issues in design, particularly regarding alignment with the aichi targets, limited progress reviews, and monitoring, hindered progress. poor inter-sectoral and inter-governmental coordination, along with inadequate funding, also hindered advancements. additionally, insufficient mainstreaming of biodiversity into development planning further obstructed progress. nepal’s constitution, promulgated in 2015, transformed the country into a federal democratic republic with three levels of government: federal, provincial, and local. the constitution grants substantial powers to provincial and local governments over biodiversity, natural resources, environment, forests, and regional development, showing that conservation is no longer solely a federal responsibility. it also guarantees citizens’ right to live in a clean and healthy environment (article 30) and emphasizes the need for sustainable resource use, which the nbsap must uphold. the adoption of the kunming–montreal global biodiversity framework (gbf) during the conference of the parties (cop) of the cbd in 2022 redefined the 2050 vision, which is living in harmony with nature. it set new goals for 2030, including restoring biodiversity, managing and using biodiversity sustainably, ensuring fair and equitable sharing of benefits, and strengthening implementation mechanisms. consequently, revising the nbsap is essential to develop a shared vision among all levels of government, especially to achieve the national targets, align them with the gbf, and contribute to the national development vision, “prosperous nepal, happy nepali.” furthermore, nbsap aims to provide citizens with constitutional rights to live in a clean and healthy environment. the ministry of forests and environment is now finalizing the nepal biodiversity strategy and action plan (nbsap 2025-2030), aligning with the country’s constitutional framework, the gbf, and other multilateral environmental agreements related to climate, desertification, agrobiodiversity, and wetlands. this nbsap will further support the three objectives of the cbd in a balanced way, while also including the objectives of the cartagena protocol on biosafety and the nagoya protocol on access and benefit sharing. the nbsap revision adopted a resultbased planning and budgeting approach, along with participatory and consultative methods, to ensure evidence-based and result-oriented decision-making. the nbsap vision for 2050 is “biodiversity for resilience and prosperity,” with a 2030 mission of “collectivism for biodiversity and human well-being.” to achieve the 2030 mission, seven strategic objectives or pathways are proposed, focusing on protecting, conserving, and restoring biodiversity; promoting sustainable use; integrating biodiversity considerations across sectors and government; ensuring equitable and inclusive biodiversity governance; strengthening capacity at all levels of government, sectors, and iplcs; improving coordination and collaboration across sectors, levels of government, and with iplcs; and enhancing financial flows. nbsap identifies three guiding principles: collectivism, green, inclusive, and resilient development, as well as a human rights-based and social justice approach, as uncompromising principles. considering the country’s current biodiversity status, along with stakeholders’ needs and aspirations, especially those of iplcs, 36 national action targets, along with their respective monitoring indicators, are proposed. 3 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 nbsap is our commitment to conserve, restore, and sustainably manage biodiversity and contribute to nature-positive development. a transformative approach is necessary to achieve the national vision, focusing on managing biodiversity sustainably for the nation’s prosperity while balancing both conservation and development needs. a shared vision among all actors, stakeholders, and iplcs for conservation-friendly development must be developed. instead of creating an institutional silo, nbsap should prioritize integrating biodiversity agendas into various thematic and sectoral committees and all levels of government. the emphasis should be on mainstreaming biodiversity agendas across all levels and sectors, thereby strengthening shared accountability for reaching national targets. an institutional mechanism should be reinforced in this context. additionally, issues of insufficient financing need to be addressed by mobilizing domestic resources through innovative and sustainable funding mechanisms, utilizing different financial and economic instruments such as grants, equity, and de-risking. key priorities include expanding conservation beyond protected areas, enhancing area-based conservation measures outside protected zones, ensuring full and equitable participation of iplcs, women, and youth—all while promoting fair benefit sharing—and embedding biodiversity considerations across all sectors. the plan should also incorporate a human rights-based and social justice approach to ensure no one is left behind. nbsap shall serve as the strategic framework that guides all sectors to live in harmony with nature or halt and reverse biodiversity losses, strongly emphasizing green, resilient, and inclusive development, and work collectively to achieve the national vision. most importantly, it should not remain merely a plan but a living, inclusive, result-based framework that facilitates conservation-friendly decisions, inspires communities, and mobilizes adequate resources. the plan shall adopt a “whole-of-government, and whole-of-society” approach, engaging federal and provincial ministries, local governments, iplcs, ngos, and the private sector during the planning, monitoring, and implementation of the nbsap. collective action is essential for balancing conservation and development needs, encouraging all stakeholders to collaborate in finding a sustainable balance. we anticipate that this nbsap will enhance cooperation, mobilize financial resources, address the fundamental causes of biodiversity loss, and help achieve the national biodiversity vision. seerjana maharjan, managing editor rajendra kc, chief editor 12 impact of training on different observers in forest inventory 1 forest inventory and remote sensing, university of göttingen city. *e-mail: prashant.paudel@icdpi.org observers with different experience levels are involved in the measurement of large number of sample plots during forest inventories, particularly in national forest inventories. however, limited information exist on the quality of data produced by different observers in forest inventory after certain levels of training. this study tries to evaluate the measurement error in forest inventory associated with observers' experience after initial and field-based training for measuring the most fundamental variablesdbh (cm), total tree height (m), and horizontal distance (m) together with bearing (azimuth) to tree from the plot-centre. on completing the second level of training, the mean of the differences in dbh measurement decreased for both the ‘experienced’ and ‘inexperienced’ groups. the mean of the differences in height measurement in the case of the experienced observers was very low as compared to the inexperienced ones. however, the mean of the differences in azimuth measurement showed that the experienced groups were overestimating by at least 1 degree. there was no trend in deviation of measurement for all four variables regardless of tree size. the decrease in the mean and error of differences in measurements after second training showed that field-based training with supervision and training on the use of instruments at laboratories were required for inexperienced surveyors whereas update in working and measurement procedure would be sufficient for the experienced ones. key words: forest inventory, measurement error, observers' experience, training p. paudel 1*, p. beckschäfer 1 and c. kleinn 1 received : 24, march, 2021 revised : 25 april, 2021 accepted : 26, may, 2021 published : 30, may, 2021 forest inventory is a complex and time consuming, multiple steps project with involvement of many personnel from planning to field execution (butt et al., 2013), making the process costly as well as error-prone. kleinn (2013) concluded that errors generally occurred in selection of field crews, location and establishment of plots, identification of trees for measurement, measurement and classifying the variables of interest, recording the measurements and transporting and transferring data to central database. nature and extent of errors vary with sampling techniques, instruments selected for measurement, and people involved in planning and implementing the forest inventory (kangas, 1998). among various sources of errors contributing to overall uncertainty of estimates in forest inventory, measurement error (me) is one of the most important and often neglected in large-scale forest sampling (berger et al., 2012). a me is a difference between an observed or estimated and the actual or population value for the attribute, and can occur in both fixed and stochastic predictor and the response variable (canavan & hann, 2004). measurement errors of different variables measured in forest inventory commonly occur due to composition of crews, lack of adequate training, inappropriate use of instrument, carelessness, etc. (muller-landau et al., 2013). since forest inventory is time consuming and difficult in nature, field measurement teams are likely to change over time (ghosh et al., 1995). in such cases, it is not always possible that field teams are composed of banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1, 2021 pp 12‒22https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v31i1.37338 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0982-4818 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1728-724x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8625-3492 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 13 poudel et al. highly experienced and extensively trained observers in conducting forest inventory, and inclusion of inexperienced crew members is unavoidable (westfall & woodall, 2007) resulting in variation in measurement. eid (2000) and islam et al. (2009) studied the effects of systematic and random errors in inventory data at holding-level, and concluded that errors in site index estimations had most significant effects on contents of plans, particularly for treatments of young stands. canavan (2001) summarized that biased and imprecise estimates of stand and tree attributes might result from the presence of me which as a result affect forest models and management decisions. the consequences of having me in variables are varied, and include producing biased and inefficient parameter estimates as well as leading to incorrect interpretations such as invalid statistical tests of model coefficients (köhl et al., 2006). the accuracy of inventory data is required for proper forest management decisions such as timing of thinning, final harvesting time, international reporting, etc. (chen et al., 2011). measurement of erroneous data clearly affects the extent of thinning at holding-level (time to conduct thinning activities) during the planning period. similarly, me lead to modest losses in timber production, at a maximum of 3.7 %, the loss being higher when more errors are made in the measurements (islam et al., 2009). it is difficult to determine the size of me from a single measurement, but it can be done by repeated measurements of same objects and evaluation of the variability of those results (kleinn, 2013). in forest inventory project, me is evaluated through blind re-measurement of a portion of inventory plots that helps in problem identification during field surveys and improvement of measurement methods (kitahara et al., 2009). measurement errors do not result from sampling procedure, and increasing sample size is not a viable method for reducing their effects; instead of cancelling out the me, effects may be cumulative (canavan, 2001). in such cases, proper training to field crews can contribute to minimize the mes, but they cannot be eliminated completely (elzinga et al., 2005). training of field surveyors is important to reduce me to meet quality assurance needed for any long-term and large-scale environmental monitoring program (ferretti et al., 1999), especially when new inexperienced surveyors and sophisticated instruments are involved (kitahara et al., 2010). training ensures observer’s basic skills which meet the measurement quality objectives for data collections. however, the level of precision that can be achieved by different surveyors and the optimum level of training needed to achieve adequate data quality of measured variables are unknown (kitahara et al., 2010). theoretical developments outside forestry have shown that me can be a significant source of error in many types of field surveys, among which forest inventory is most liable (gertner, 1989). although mes have been known to contribute significantly to the total error of the forest inventory (omule, 1980), only a few empirical studies have been done to determine the extent of these errors by crews of different working experience, e.g., mcroberts et al. (1994), nester (1981), gerner & kohl (1992), and kitahara et al. (2010). none of the studies conducted, so far, compared the data quality from inexperienced surveyors or analyzed the effects of training on the performance of observers. there is a need for wider assessment of data quality and clarification of the independent effects of professional training, task training, experience with the task, observer's age, training duration, and mode of training on large ecological monitoring program to evaluate the me (dickinson et al., 2010). furthermore, information about impacts of training on observers and data quality produced in forest inventory are rarely available. therefore, this study aims to evaluate the impact of training on observers of different knowledge and compares the role of previous experience of observers on data quality in forest inventory. methodology study area the study area lies within a state forest (situated on the north of göttingen city) owned by the federal state of lower saxony, germany. the forest is used for training forestry students (figure 1). it is located between 5031’24” 5033’53” n latitudes and 9055’30”9057’39” e longitudes. the forest is mainly composed of the secondary growth of beech (fagus sylvatica), but also consists of the plantations of european ash (fraxinus excelsior), field maple (acer campestre), norway spruce (picea abies), etc. the study was completed in collaboration with the master's degree-level students participating in "exercises in forest mensuration and inventory" at the department of forest inventory and remote banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 14 poudel et al. sensing, georg-august-university of göttingen in 2015. group formation and training: two groups of individuals with different levels of experience in forest inventory were formed with modification on categories of observers as defined by trenda & burkman (2012) in forest inventory project. the "inexperienced group" consisted of the students who did not participate in any forest inventory work previously and those with experience were under "experienced group". altogether, five teams, each with two individuals were formed, wherein three teams were under "inexperienced group" and the remaining two were under "experienced group". two levels of training were designed. the firstlevel of training was focused on the methods of field measurement, variables to be recorded, use of instruments through a power point presentation together with practical measurement and recording information for two days while the second-level of training was practice-based rather than instructing at laboratory or practicing in forest. after finishing the first measurement (part of second training), a four-hour interaction meeting was conducted with the teams. this meeting focused mainly on the discussion concerned with: i) tension applied to tape, ii) making transponder-fixed monopod perpendicular, iii) transponder being exactly at 1.3m during height measurement, and iv) ample distance between tree and point of measurement. besides, there was also a discussion on any unexpected obstacles encountered. data collection altogether, 47 sample plots, each with the size of 75m × 75m, were laid out in the field for the purpose of this study and also for conducting training to the students. out of the total sample plots, 11 plots (plot nos. 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18 and 19) with beech (fagus sylvatica) as dominant species were selected for analyzing the me. the diameter at breast height (dbh, cm), total height (m), and the horizontal distance together with the bearing (azimuth) from the plot-centre to each of the trees falling within each sample plot were measured; the dbh was measured using the diameter tape, total tree height and horizontal distance using the ultrasonic vertex iv, and bearing were measured using the suunto clinometer. altogether, 250 trees within the sample plots with the desired 12.61 m radius were selected and marked; the marked trees were the observation units for this study. figure 1: map showing the location of study area (area with red boundary used for analysis) and layout of sample plots for measuring tree banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 15 poudel et al. in all the selected 11 sample plots, the plotcenters were marked and fixed with wooden stick so that the horizontal distance was always measured from the same point. all the trees ≥ 7cm in diameter at breast height (dbh) within the defined area of 500 m2 were marked with yellow tape (not necessarily at breast height). the marked trees were given specific identification (id) to make sure that the tree id would be same for every measurement. for the purpose of comparing the mes, the "inexperienced group" measured 750 trees while the "experienced group" measured 500 trees in both the measurements. at the same time, control data was produced to analyze the effect of training and previous experience on the me by measuring the same tree for five times by an experienced researcher using the same instruments; the average of these five measurements was considered as the "true value". data analysis in order to evaluate the accuracy and bias in measuring different variables, both groups and individual trees were treated independently, and all the sample trees were compared to control data. the deviations from true value of the teams' measurements were calculated for each tree to evaluate the bias which is mathematically expressed as: dijk=xijk-xi ............ (1) where, dik = measurement bias on the ith tree in the jth measurement by the kth group (difference) xi = true measurement of the ith tree xijk = measurement of the ith tree in jth measurement by the kth group the mean and variance of measurements were calculated for each group, and each group was instructed to evaluate the overall bias of every single tree considered as sample. matched paired t-test was used to test the center of differences of two measurements done by the same team to analyze the effects of training and previous experience using r software. the t.test() functions with the argument paired=true with 95% of confidence interval (ci) was used to perform the paired tests whereas with the argument paired=false was used for performing the normal t-test. on the other hand, f-test was applied to test the equality of variances between the measurements and between the groups; the var.test() function with the argument ratio=1 and alternative=two-sided was used to conduct f-test with 95% of confidence interval. results dbh measurement the measurements done by both the groups after two levels of training showed that there was no any visible difference in distribution of outliers. however, after second measurement, the experienced group measured more accurately (figure 2). except for some outliers, the differences in dbh measurement were within ±2.5 cm for both the groups in both the measurements. figure 2: difference in dbh measurement for two groups corresponding to two levels of training the mean of the differences in dbh measurement was found to be decreased (from) after second training. it was found to be smaller for "inexperienced group" in both the measurements (−0.08 cm and almost 0 in the first and second measurements, respectively, table 1). the t-test revealed that the variance of differences in dbh measurement was almost the same in the first measurement for both the groups with no significant difference (around 1.40). banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 16 poudel et al. table 1: mean and variance of differences in dbh measurement for each group measurement no. mean of differences (cm) variance of differences inexperienced experienced inexperienced experienced first −0.080 −0.107 (p=0.7764) 1.402 1.39 (p=0.937) second 0.0002 −0.02 (p=0.8164) 1.14 1.51* (p=0.016) * significant difference between the two groups (p<0.05) with 95% ci using fand t-tests height measurement the difference in height measurements for both the groups indicated that there was a reduction of deviation in the difference in measurements after second training. the difference was up to 20m for the "inexperienced group" in the first measurement whereas those extreme outliers decreased in the second measurement (figure 3). for experienced group, there was more deviation in the first measurement as compared to the second measurement. figure 3: difference in height measurement for the two groups corresponding to two levels of training the mean of the differences in height measurement showed that the "inexperienced group" had overestimated in both the measurements (48 cm in the first measurement and 77 cm in the second one) whereas the experienced group had underestimated (6 cm) in the first measurement and overestimating (21 cm) in the second one. the variance was found to be almost equal (around 16) for both the groups in the first measurement; however in the second measurement, it was found to be quite low (3.53) in the case of "experienced group". the t-test showed that there was no significant difference in the mean of the differences between the two groups in the first measurement but in second measurement there was significant difference (table 2). however, the variance of the differences in height measurement between the two groups was not significantly different (around 16) in the first measurement, but was significantly different (11.32 and 3.53 for the inexperienced and experienced groups, respectively) in the second measurement (table 2). table 2: mean and variance of differences in height measurement for each group measurement no. mean of differences (m) variance of differences inexperienced experienced inexperienced experienced first 0.48 −0.06 (p=0.1037) 16.529 16.14251 (p=0.4226) second 0.77 0.21* (p=0.008351) 11.323 3.529* (p=0.2e−16) * significant difference between the two groups (p<0.05) with 95% ci using f-test and t-test. measuremnet of horizontal distance the differences in the measurement of horrizontal distances (hds) from the plot-centre to the trees showed that both the groups had measured the hd with variation showing a number of outliers banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 17 poudel et al. (figure 4). the differences in the horizantal distance measurement were found to be higher for the expereinced group as comapred to the inexpereinced one in both the measurements with the presence of more outliers (figure 4). figure 4: difference in hd measurement for two groups corresponding to two levels of training (denoted by first and second measurements) the mean of the differences in hd measurement was found to be the same (−0.015 m) for the "experienced group" in both the measurements whereas the "inexperienced group" had slightly overestimated the hd (with 0.02 m) in the second measurement (table 3). however, the variance of the differences in hd was almost the same (0.35 and 0.48 for the inexperienced and inexperienced groups, respectively) in the first measurement whereas it was low (0.16) for the "experienced group" as compared to the inexperienced one (0.51) in the second measurement. the t-test showed that the mean of the differences in hd measurement was not significantly different between the two groups (with −0.065 for the "inexperienced group" and −0.015 for the "experienced" one) in both the measurements, but the f-test showed that there was a significant difference in variance of the differences in the second measurement (p<0.05). table 3: mean and variance of differences in hd measurement for each group measurement no. mean of differences (m) variance of differences inexpereinced expereinced inexpereinced expereinced first −0.065 −0.015 (p=0.3582) 0.353 0.482 (p=0.996) second 0.023 −0.015 (p=0.1709) 0.505 0.163* (p=2.2e-16) * significant difference between the two groups (p<0.05) with 95 % ci using fand t-tests. measurement of bearing (azimuth) figure 5: difference in azimuth measurement for two groups correspondingto two levels of training, denoted by first and second measurements in both the measurements, the "inexperienced group" had measured the bearings to the trees from the plot-center with high deviation as compared to the "experienced" one. there was a decrease in the outliers in the second measurement for the "experienced group" as compared to the ones in the first measurement whereas the extreme positive outliers decreased in the second measurement for the "inexperienced group" (figure 5). the mean of the differences in azimuth measurement was smaller for the "inexperienced group" in both the measurements in comparison with the "experienced group". in the second measurement done by the "inexperienced group", there was an underestimation of bearings whereas the "experienced group" had measured the same with overestimation in both the measurements. the variance of the differences in azimuth banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 18 poudel et al. table 4: mean and variance of differences in azimuth measurement for each group measurement no. mean of differences (degree) variance of differences inexperienced experienced inexperienced experienced first −0.008 1.206* (p=0.04618) 55.02 53.65 (p=0.4172) second −0.259 1.279* (p=1.291e-06) 22.02 8.97* (p=1.049e-13) * significant difference (p<0.05) between the two groups with 95% ci using f-test and t-test. measurement was nearly the same in the first measurement in the case of both the groups; however, after the second training, it was found to have decreased in the case of the "experienced group" (table 4). the t-test showed that the means of the differences in azimuth measurement was significantly different (p<0.05) between the experienced and inexperienced groups in both the measurements. however, the f-test showed that there was a significant difference in the variance of the differences in azimuth measurement (p<0.05) (with 22.02 for the "inexperienced group" and 8.97 for the "experienced" one) between the two groups only in the second measurement. relation between training, observer's experience and error distribution in dbh measurement the relation between the different levels of training and the observers' experience on the me was assessed by plotting the differences in measurement against the tree size. there were no trends in deviation in the measurement of dbh (of big and small trees), height, horizontal distance and bearing (figure 6) for both the groups in both the first and second measurements. in the second measurement, more precise measurement was accomplished, and the differences in measurement were found to be closer to horizontal line with zero mean and with only a few extreme outliers for the "experienced group". figure 6: differences in dbh, height, hd, and azimuth measurements against dbh for two groups corresponding to two levels of training banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 19 poudel et al. discussion the difference in dbh measurement was found to be within the range of ±2.5 cm for both the groups, which was smaller in magnitude as compared to the other studies. theilade et al. (2015) found that 95% of the measurements were within the range of ±6 cm against the actual dbh size for any kind of observer whereas elzinga et al. (2005) concluded that the difference in dbh measurement was within the range of −3.5 cm to 2.8 cm with the mean of zero. likewise, the difference in dbh measurement was low as compared to the values obtained by mcroberts et al. (1994) who found the distribution of the differences between the individual measurements to be around the mean of 0.13 cm for the experienced observers. the main reason for very small difference in dbh measurement in this study was mainly because the forest stand within the study area chosen for the purpose of study was dominated by beech trees where measurement is rather easy. similarly, the trees were of almost regular shape, and the undergrowth was not hindering the dbh measurement. theilade et al. (2015) concluded that large errors in dbh measurement occurred mostly in the odd-shaped trees, especially the buttressed, presence of dense undergrowth vegetation or mosses in tree-trunk. the mean difference in height measurement, in this study, was found to be within −0.06m to 0.77m for both the groups in both the measurements; however, some outliers were up to 20m in the first measurement and up to 14m in the second one. these mean differences in tree-height measurement were similar to those of kitahara et al. (2010) who found those as −0.21 m, 0.11 m and −0.10 m after the first, second and third levels of training, respectively for the inexperienced observers. the presence of some large outliers, in this study, could be due to the shorter distance between the observers and the trees while measuring the tree-height or not correctly locating the tree top, and/or measuring the outer branch instead of the tree-top. according to larjavaara & muller-landau (2013), accurate measurement of tree-height depends on the distance between tree and observer, types of instruments used, and experience in handling instruments. after initial training, there was overestimation for both the groups and in second measurement mean difference was found to have decreased. the measurement of height performed by the experienced group was better than the one done by the "inexperienced group", where the inexperienced group measured 6 cm less in the first measurement while 21 cm more in the second measurement as compared to the controlled measurement data. these results indicated that the height measurement accomplished by the "inexperienced group" could have bigger impacts on plot-level estimation where height is used as independent variable. caciano & paudel (2016) estimated that the error due to measurement of height and dbh contributed to 1−41% in above ground biomass per tree resulting in significant variation in plot-level estimation of the same. all the trees to be measured in this study were already marked, which could lead the observers to pay less attention on measuring the hd and azimuth. omule (1980) claimed that there could be up to ±6 tree counter error in the case of the relatively inexperienced crews if they were asked to identify the unmarked trees to be measured. it showed that if the trees to be measured were not marked and tagged, the teams were likely to record a greater number of trees than the actual number to be measured. the higher difference in azimuth measurement might be due to misreading the data or recording those incorrectly. improper orientation of compass or due to improper reading of compass (from the opposite direction), leading to cause a difference of at least 10 degrees (klienn, 2013). decrease in number of outliers after second training could be due to improper handling of the instrument. kitahara et al. (2000) concluded that the measurement of forest attributes increased with the decrease in bias after second level of training. a relatively higher error in tree-height measurement was recorded as compared to dbh measurement which might be related to the inherent difficulties in measuring the height rather than dbh of the trees. however, other variables were measured relatively easily due to marking of the trees to be measured and having less under growth and clear bole. among the measured variables, the major problem was, therefore, in tree height measurement of the broad-leaved trees, as no consistent improvements were found with successive levels of training. kitahara et al. (2010) concluded that single training session for inexperienced surveyors could not achieve the measurement quality objectives (mqo) of a forest inventory program but follow-up training improved the data quality banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 20 poudel et al. significantly. in terms of overall data quality, the "experienced group" in this study was found to be better than the inexperienced one in measurement, which is similar to the findings of theilade et al. (2015). the quality of data measured after second training showed the importance of training to any kind of observer. therefore, another training session with feedback instructions on the results from the second measurement can be more effective in order to make precise measurements and the reasons for measuring extreme values might become apparent. in addition, these results showed that the "inexperienced group" could collect data with high precision, if the proper training on handling instruments and eliminating personal error along with discussion on sources of error in field measurements is provided. it can be assumed that inexperienced surveyors will achieve higher accuracy for the 'measured' variables rather than the 'identified' and 'visually estimated' ones and, therefore, it would be logical to assign them to field measurements of the 'measured' variables as has been suggested by kitahara et al. (2010). therefore, these results highlight the importance of quantifying the me in large-scale forest inventories. conclusion the errors in all measurements originate from various sources which depended on observers' personal attitude, motivation and time spent in measurement. the extent of decrease in measurement deviation after second training, clearly indicated the need of training or cautions against using untrained crews in forest inventory. even the experienced observers' results showed that there is an obvious need for rigorous monitoring and training program and establishment and implementation of checkcruising guidelines during measurement process. for the inexperienced observers, the initial training on instrument use was not sufficient for the measurement of tree-height but was just enough for the measurement of dbh. further, six to seven hours of field training on handling instruments along with detail explanation of field protocol at laboratory followed by feedback instruction after field training will be sufficient for any kind of observer to achieve the measurement quality objective. acknowledgements first of all, we are thankful to the master's degreelevel students of the georg-august-university of göttingen who helped us in data collection. the paper also benefited with feedback from numerous scholars. lastly but not least, we would like to thank the banko janakari team for accepting this article for publication. references berger, a., gschwantner, t., gabler, k. and schadauer, k. (2012). analysis of tree measurement errors in austrian national forest inventory. austrian journal of forest science 129: 153–155. butt, n., slade, e., thompson, j., malhi, y. and riutta, t. (2013). quantifying the sampling error in tree census measurements by volunteers and its effect on carbon stock estimates. ecological applications 23 (4): 936–943. https://doi.org/10.1890/112059.1 caciano, r. t. and paudel, p. (2016). “error propagation in agb estimation comparison of uncertainty estimation of agb obtained with different devices.” in the science poicy gap regarding informed decision in forest policy and anagement, ed. alina kleinn and christoph kleinn fehrmann, lutz. cuvillier verlag goettingen, 203–13. canavan, s. j. (2001). the presence and characterization of measurement error in forestry. oragon state university. canavan, s. j. and hann, d.w. (2004). the two-stage method for measurement error characterization. the society of american foresters 50: 743–756. https:// doi.org/10.1007/ 978-0-387-09834-0 chen, x., hong, h. and nekipelov, d. (2011). nonlinear models of measurement errors. journal of economic literature 49 (4): 901– 937. https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.49.4.901 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 21 poudel et al. dickinson, j. l., zuckerberg, b. and bonter, d. n. (2010). citizen science as an ecological research tool: challenges and benefits. annual review of ecology, evolution, and systematics 41 (1): 149– 172. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurevecolsys-102209-144636 eid, t. (2000). use of uncertain inventory data in forestry scenario models and consequential incorrect harvest decisions. silva fennica 34 (2): 89–100. elzinga, c., shearer, r. c. and elzinga, g. (2005). observer variation in tree diameter measurements. western journal of applied forestry 20 (2): 134–137. ferretti, m., bussotti, f. and cozzi, a. (1999). implementation of quality assurance procedures in the italian programs of forest condition monitoring. water, air, and soil publication 116: 371–376. gertner, g. z. (1989). the sensitivity of measurement error in stand volume estimation. canadian journal of forest research 1990 (june): 800–804. gertner, g. and köhl, m. (1992). an assessment of some nonsampling errors in a national survey using an error budget. forest science 38, 525–538. ghosh, s., illes, j. l. and hoffman, c. (1995). observer variation as a source of error in assessments of crown condition through time. forest science 41 (2): 235–254. islam, n. m., kurttila, m., mehtatalo, l. and haara, a. (2009). assessment and measurement errors in slash pine research plots. silva fennica 43 (1): 71–85. kangas, a. s. (1998). effect of errors-in-variables on coefficients of a growth model and on prediction of growth. forest ecology and management 102 (2–3): 203–212. https:// doi.org/ 10.1016/s0378-1127(97)00161-8 kitahara, f., mizoue, n. and yoshida, s. (2009). evaluation of data quality in japanese national forest inventory. environmental monitoring and assessment 159 (1–4): 331–340. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s10661008-0632-8 kitahara, f., mizoue, n. and yoshida, s. (2010). effects of training for inexperienced surveyors on data quality of tree diameter and height measurements. silva fennica 44 (4): 657–667. kleinn, c. (2013). lecture notes for the teaching module monitoring of forest resources. georg-august_university of goettingen. goettingen germany. köhl, m., magnussen, s.s. and marchetti, m. (2006). sampling methods, remote sensing and gis multiresource forest inventory. springer, new york. pp. 71−196. http://books.google.com/ books?id= uspzljvwngmc &pgis=1 larjavaara, m. and muller-landau, h.c. (2013). “measuring tree height: a quantitative comparison of two common field methods in a moist tropical forest.” methods in ecology and evolution 4 (9): 793–801. mcroberts, r. e., hahn, j. t., hefty, g. j. and van-cleve, j. r. (1994). variation in forest inventory field measurements. canadian journal of forest research 24 (9): 1766– 1770. https://doi.org /10.1139/x94-228 muller-landau, h. c., detto, m., chisholm, r. a, hubbell, s. p. and condit, r. (2013). detecting and projecting changes in forest biomass from plot data. in forests and global change. united kingdom: cambridge university press. pp. 381–416. omule, s. a. y. (1980). personal bias in forest measurement. the forestry chromicle 56 (5): 222–224. theilade, i., rutishauser, e. and poulsen, banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 22 poudel et al. m.k. (2015). community assessment of tropical tree biomass: challenges and opportunities for redd+. carbon balance and management 10 (1): 17. https://doi. org/10.1186/s13021-015-0028-3 trenda, d. and burkman, w. (2012). quality assurance plan for annual forest inventory in the south, southern research station, forestry inventpry and analysis. knoxville, tennessee, usa. westfall, j.a. and woodall, c. w. (2007). measurement repeatability of a large-scale inventory of forest fuels. forest ecology and management 253 (1–3): 171–176. https:// doi.org/10.1016 /j. foreco.2007.07.014 52 forests cover 40.36% of the country's total land area in nepal (paudel, et al., 2021). the rate of deforestation in nepal has been declining (oli & shrestha, 2009). however, pressure on natural forests for lumber, fuelwood, fodder, and infrastructure development has increased dramatically in recent years, negatively affecting the delivery of forestry goods and services to people (pokharel, 2019). establishment of plantation forests reduces logging pressure on natural forests by offering alternative sources of these supplies (cossalter & pye–smith, 2003). some of tree species that are being planted in nepal are melia azedarach, celtis australis, toona ciliata and so on. besides being good quality timber species these tree species are used in multiple ways. for example, leaves of celtis australis are used as fodder in dry season (gautam, 2014) and extract from the trees are used to treat edema, headache and boils (hocking 1993; singh 1982). similarly, melia azedarach leaf based products are used as botanical insecticides in agriculture in asia and the middle east (thacker, 2002). traditionally, melia azedarach based products are used as anthelmintic, antilithic diuretic, astringent and stomachic drugs (warrier et al., 1995). likewise, the bark of toona ciliata is used as astringent and antiperiodic drugs, and in the treatment of chronic infantile dysentery and ulcers (singh & plant 1995). several pathogenic fungi cause plant diseases such as anthracnose, leaf spot, rust, blight, gall, canker, mildew, etc. (jain et al., 2019). nigrosora sphaerica that causes leaf spot on celtis australis (gautam, 2014) and rhytisma acerinum that causes tar spot on toona ciliata (chandel & kumar 2017) are some of the pathogenic fungi recorded for the study tree species. fungal pathogens play crucial roles in producing diseases. forest diseases are causing significant losses in plantation forests banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1, 2022 pp 52‒59https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i1.45444 fungal diseases of economically important tree species in plantation forest of arjam, myagdi district, nepal this paper deals with the fungal diseases of important tree species, which have enormous economic value, i.e. melia azedarach, celtis australis and toona ciliata. these tree species are used for timber, fuelwood, fodder and for infrastructure development. a number of devastating fungal diseases were prevalent among the tree species in plantation forest of myagdi district. for isolation and identification of pathogen infected samples were cut into small pieces, washed, sterilized with 70% ethanol and transferred to petri plates containing potato dextrose agar (pda) media. then, incubated at 25 ± 2ºc and after few days when fungal colonies developed observed in microscope. these fungal pathogen causing different disease were erysiphe kusanoi (powdery mildew), colletotrichum gloeosporioides (anthracnose), pestalotia neglecta and fusarium sp. (canker) and alternaria alternata (blight). it has been concluded that to moderate the damages caused by these pathogens, it is must to identify them early in the infection process. keywords: celtis australis, diseases, melia azedarach, toona ciliata s. k. jha 1* and s. shrestha 1 received : 10, december 2021 revised : 10, april, 2022 accepted : 20, may 2022 published : 31, may 2022 1. central department of botany tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal,*email: sk.jha@cdbtu.edu.np https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9737-3214 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3135-1834 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 53 jha & shrestha of nepal (malla & pokharel, 2018). however, due to limited research, proper documentation of fungal pathogens causing diseases on planted tree species has not been done so far in nepal. the main aim of this study was to identify the fungal pathogen to mitigate the damages caused by these fungal pathogens. materials and methods study site the study was conducted in arjam plantation forest located at beni municipality 1, myagdi district, gandaki province, nepal (figure 1). geographically, it is located at 28º 19' 13̎ n to 28º 19' 8̎ n latitude and 83º 33' 55̎ to 83º 34' 56̎ e longitude and at an elevation of 1,400–m.a.s. l. the study area has subtropical climate. collection of disease sample the diseased parts of the selected tree species were collected from the study plantation forest in november 2020. before collecting the infected parts, photographs were taken with their host plants. the collected samples were then placed in paper bags and store in icebox for long – term preservation. especial care was taken while cutting infected parts from the trees not to damage the samples and trees. thereafter, the samples were brought to the laboratory of central department of botany, kirtipur, kathmandu for isolation and identification of causal organisms. isolation and identification of pathogen the collected infected samples were cut into small pieces and washed in sterile distilled water for removing dust and adherent soil particles. these pieces were sterilized with 70% ethanol and washed with sterile distilled water. then, the pieces were transferred to sterilized petri plates containing potato dextrose agar (pda) media. the petri plates were then incubated at 25 ± 2ºc. after few days, the fungal colonies were developed. the pure cultures were obtained by inoculation pieces of respective fungal mycelia. powdery mildew was observed directly in microscope. while, preparing slide for powdery mildew, a piece of sticky tape figure 1. study area map showing a) location of study municipality within nepal b) location of study municipality within myagdi district and c) location of study plantation forest with beni municipality banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 54 jha & shrestha was placed on infected leaves, stripped off and placed on a slide with 1–2 drop of cotton blue. lacto–phenol or cotton blue was used as staining agent while preparing slides for microscopic examination of fungi. fungi were identified based on morphological characteristics such as colony morphology, conidial septation pattern and shape and size of the conidia (barnett, 1960). results celtis australis, melia azedarach and toona ciliata were the economically important tree species planted in the study area. five species of fungi causing four fungal diseases were isolated and identified. out of four identified fungal disease, three were foliage diseases and one was stem diseases (table 1). the description of the identified fungal diseases and the causal organisms figure (2–7) and plant pathogen with their colony size and spore size is given at table 2. 1. leaf blight of melia azedarach l. causal organism– alternaria alternata (fr.) keissl. symptoms: brown– lesions towards the tip of leaves. at later stage, dark brown lesions extended to the midribs and entire leaves showing blighted appearance and, curling inwards. colonies fast growing. white cottony to black green in colour. conidiophores arise singly or in small groups and are pale to golden brown in colour. conidia in branched chains of up to 15–20, sometimes separated by a short secondary conidiophore. conidia obpyri form in shape with long beak, obclavate with rounded at the apex. average conidial length of three spores 32.24µm and width 10.64µm and conidiophore 10.83µm in length. figure 2: (a–b) front and back view of infected leaf. (c–d) pure culture on pda. (e) first culture. (f) alternaria alternata. scale bar: 10 µm 2. canker of melia azedarach l. causal organism – pestalotia neglecta thüm. symptoms – elongated, slightly discolored brown to reddish wound in the tree trunk. colonies white to whitish from the edge to the center of colony and cottony. colonies gets, darker with age. conidia smooth, five–celled, four septa, curved, relatively short apical appendages. figure 3: (a) infected trunk of m. azedarach. (b–c) pure culture on pda. (d) first culture. (e) conidia of pestalotia neglecta. scale bar: 50 µm 3. powdery mildew of celtis australis l. causal organism – erysiphe kusanoi (syd. & p. syd.) u. braun & s. takam. symptoms – white mycelia on the surface of leaves with embedded small black to brown spherical ascomata and in severe case the white powdery mass on the backside of leaves. powdery mildew fungi grow superficially or epiphytically on plant surfaces. it can be observe directly in microscope without culture in media. chasmothecia black, scattered, with about 7–22 appendages, equatorial, stiff or mostly somewhat flexuous, coiled or hooked at the tip. asci 3–7, obovoid–saccate, short stalked. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 55 jha & shrestha figure 4: (a–b) front and back side of infected leaf. (c) chasmothecia with coil appendages. scale bar: 50 µm 4. leaf blight of celtis australis l. causal organism – alternaria alternata (fr.) keissl. symptoms – irregular, brown–black lesions in the leaf of the infected plant. these appear on the tips and margins of the leaves. as a disease progresses, leaves turn brown, curl up and die. affected leaves shrivel and dry up. colonies fast growing, white cottony at margin while black at center. conidiophores arising singly or in small groups, pale to golden brown in colour and up to 50 µm long, 3–6 µm thick with one or more distinct conidial scars. conidia in chain, long chain more than 4 conidia, pale brown to light brown, obclavate, ovoid or ellipsoidal, short conical beak at the tip or beakless. 1–7 (commonly 3) transverse septa, 0–2 longitudinal septa. figure 5: (a) infected leaves. (b–c) pure culture on pda. (d) first culture on pda. (e) conidia of alternaria alternata in chain. scale bar: 10 µm 5. anthracnose of toona ciliata m. roem. causal organism – colletotrichum gloeosporioides (penz.) penz. & sacc. symptoms – appears first as small, irregular brown spots and patches. these spots darken as they age and develop sunken lesions on leaves. these symptoms are inclined to be located on edges of the leaves and between veins. colony on pda flat, irregular margin, first white in colour later turning grey to black. conidia are hyaline, ovoid to oblong, one–celled, slightly curve or dumbbell shaped 13 µm in length and 6 µm in width. figure 6: (a) front and back view of infected leaves of t. ciliata (b–c) first culture on pda. (d) colletotrichum gloeosporioides conidia. (e) ascocarps. scale bar: 50 µm 6. disease – canker of toona ciliata m. roem. causal organism – fusarium sp. symptoms – affected area appears cracked, swollen and discoloured. colonies fast growing, white in colour. conidia are fusiform to ovoid, straight to curved, one or two celled and hyaline figure 7: (a) infected trees (b–c) first culture on pda. (d–e) conidia of fusarium sp. scale bars: 50 µm banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 56 jha & shrestha table 1. list of fungal diseases with their host plants and causal organisms sn diseases host plant plant pathogens class colony character 1. leaf blight melia azedarach l. alternaria alternata (fr.) keissl. dothideomycetes white cottony to black green 2. canker melia azedarach l. pestalotia neglecta thüm. sordariomycetes white to whitish 3. powdery mildew celtis australis l. erysiphe kusanoi (syd. & p. syd.) u. braun & s. takam. leotiomycetes direct observed 4. leaf blight celtis australis l. alternaria alternata (fr.) keissl. dothideomycetes white cottony at margin black at center 5. anthracnose toona ciliata m. roem. colletotrichum gloeosporioides (penz.) penz. & sacc. sordariomycete white to black 6. canker toona ciliata m. roem. fusarium sp.(link) sordariomycete white table 2. plant pathogen with their colony size (expressed as mean ± standard deviation) and spore size (length and breadth) sn plant pathogens colony diameter on pda media (cm) spore length × breadth (µm) 1. alternaria alternata (fr.) keissl. 6.63±0.42 25.15 –36.09 × 7.22–12.56 µm 2. alternaria alternata (fr.) keissl. 6.26±0.20 20.3 –37.1× 7.1–11.6 µm 3. colletotrichum gloeosporioides (penz.) penz. & sacc. 5.80±0.10 10.5–14.6 × 5.5–6.5 µm 4. erysiphe kusanoi (syd. & p. syd.) u. braun & s. takam. direct observed 28–35 × 11–16 µm 5. fusarium sp.(link) 3.96±0.51 20.3 –50.8 × 3.3–5.1 µm 6. pestalotia neglecta thüm. 8.60±0.17 25–27 × 6–8 µm banko janakari, vol 32 no. 1 57 jha & shrestha discussion (espinoza et al., 2008) identified pestalotiopsis clavispora, p. neglecta and p. angustata (pestalotiopsis = pestalotia) are associated with canker and twig dieback of blueberry in chile for the first time. here, study found that p. neglecta is also responsible for causing canker on melia azedarach the leaf blight disease caused by a. alternata was first observed in 1996, and it was reported as one of the most severe and common diseases among crop plants (mmbaga & sheng, 1997; mmbaga et al., 2005). later different researchers (hubballi et al., 2010; maurya et al., 2016) reported that a. alternata is also responsible for causing leaf blight in different plants such as morinda citrifolia & aegle marmelos. in our case, we found that a. alternata is causing causing leaf blight on melia azedarach. to our knowledge, this is the first study to report a. alternata causing leaf blight on m. azedarach. similarly, we also found that a. alternata is causing leaf blight on celtis australis. we confirmed erysiphe kusanoi as a causal agent of powdery mildew on c. australis based on morphological and microscopic characteristics such as conidia, chasmothecia, its appendages, asci and ascospores (barun & cook 2012), which has also been reported by (gautam, 2014). however, (ahmad et al., 1995; adhikari, 2018) found pleochaeta indica as causative organism of powdery mildew of c. australis. (zhou et al., 2016) described two novel fusarium species that caused canker disease in zanthoxylum bungeanum in northern china and stated that different fusarium species can cause canker on woody plants. based on the structure of microconidia and other morphological character (singha et al., 2016) we also confirmed that fusarium sp. as causal agent of canker on toona ciliata. colletotrichum gloeosporioides has been reported as a causal agent of leaf anthracnose on euonymus japonicas by (huang et al., 2016). here, we found that c. gloeosporioides is also responsible for causing leaf anthracnose on t. ciliata. this suggests that although the majority of fungal pathogens are host specific (li et al., 2020), some of them are not. conclusion some fungal pathogens are becoming prevalent among the economically important tree species in the plantation forest of myagdi district and are likely to reduce their quality and productivity, causing morbidity and mortality. the tree species like melia azedarach were found to be infected by pathogens like alternaria alternata and pestalotia neglecta, associated with leaf blight and canker. similarly, fungal diseases found in celtis australis were powdery mildew and leaf blight. the responsible fungi were erysiphe kusanoi and a. alternata. in addition, toona ciliata was found to be infected by diseases like anthracnose and canker, caused by pathogenic fungi like colletotrichum gloeosporioides and fusarium sp. to moderate the damage caused by these pathogens, it is necessary to identify them early in the infection process. furthermore, effective management and control measures are needed to reduce the incidence of disease in these economically important tree species. acknowledgments the authors would like to acknowledge the central department of botany for providing access to the laboratory facilities. the authors’ special thanks goes to prof. of emirates dr. pramod kumar jha and dr. jay kant raut for their guidance and encouragement throughout the study. we would also like to extend our gratitude to sadiksha thapa for her support during field trip and lab work. we are also grateful to senior scientist dr. shambhu kumar, kerala forest research institute (kfri) for his valuable comments and suggestion on this work. references adhikari, m. k. 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(1995). indian medicinal plants, a compendium of 500 species. orient longman ltd. ,hyderabad, india. zamani, a. r., imani, a., mirzaaghayan, m., & mohammadi, r. (2011). a study and comparison of control methods of anthracnose disease in walnut trees of roodbar region. journal of nuts, 2(04), 75–81. zhou, x., o’donnell, k., aoki, t., smith, j. a., kasson, m. t., & cao, z. m. (2016). two novel fusarium species that cause canker disease of prickly ash (zanthoxylum bungeanum) in northern china form a novel clade with fusarium torreyae. mycologia, 108(4), 668–681. 13 rattan is one of the economically high potential non–wood forest products (nwfps) (bystriakova et al., 2000; belcher, 1995)contributing to biodiversity as well as local economy (weinstock, 1983) in nepal contributing 20−30% demand of the nepalese rattan industries (mdbrpp/dfrs, 2010; chowdhary & paudel, 2008). overexploitation, poor forest management (bystriakova et al., 2000)and loss of forest habitats were found to have threatened the existence of rattan in nepal (chowdhary, 1994; 1995; paudel & chowdhary, 1996; 2005). most of the forest enterprises in developing countries fall under small and medium enterprises (smes) (elson, 2009). community– owned forest–based enterprises are effective tool to address poverty issues by creating employment, generating income, and increasing rural livelihood options (koirala et al., 2013). smes contribute in building local wealth, encouraging local entrepreneurship, enhancing social networks, promoting local stewardship of natural resources through increased cultural, social, financial and environmental accountability, and keeping indigenous knowledge, cultural values and traditions intact. adding value to raw rattan through improved pro–poor value chain development and cleaner processing technologies could lift several millions more out of poverty, while maintaining a healthy natural resource base (inbar, 2015). banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2, 2021 pp 13‒25https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v31i2.41897 processing and marketing of rattan canes in nepal this study highlights the processing and marketing of rattan canes with reference to small and medium enterprises (smes). the study was designed based on the exploratory research, and was carried out in all the districts of nepal with rattan enterprises. the main objective was to assess the processing status, supply and demand including constraints and potentialities of rattan–canes as well as their marketing practices. systematic random sampling method was followed to take the sampling of rattan processing enterprises of cfugs. the questionnaire survey was conducted among 35 rattan entrepreneurs cum rattan traders and ten executive committee members of cfugs. the quantitative data was analyzed using frequency. the study found that hanger, cradle, stools, chairs, and tables were largely manufactured items among all the rattan–cane products. the annual consumption of imported rattan from india and other countries ranged from 850 mt to 1094 mt. nepalese rattan fulfills 30% of the total demand. the average marketing margin of rattan products was found to be 37−64%. nepalese rattan is potential to fulfill 70−80% of the total domestic demand of smaller size strands of rattan. key words: competitiveness, rattan enterprises, small and medium enterprises, supply and demand, traders c. l. chowdhary 1* and i. c. dutta 2 received : 22, august, 2021 revised : 16, november, 2021 accepted : 23, december, 2021 published : 31, december, 2021 1 phd scholar, mewar university. *email: clchowdhary2006@gmail. com 2 chairperson, purbanchal university college of environment and forestry banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 14 chowdhary & dutta rattan is marketed and used for multiple purposes including furniture frame, basketry, ropes, mats and bird cage (sunderl and, 1999). in nepal, major rattan products are indoor handicrafts such as chair, table, sofa set, hanger, stool, baskets and decorative items. although rattan processing industries were confined to major cities in the past, they are now open both in the rural areas and urban peripheries. the total number of rattan processing industries were found to have reached 66 in 2005 from 42 in 1996. presently, there are 57 processing enterprises running in nepal (chowdhary, 2017; chowdhary & dutta, 2021); out of them, 70% are operated using raw rattan cane of indian and other countries, and they are located in urban and semi–urban areas; rest of 30% smes rely on domestic rattan (chowdhary, 2017). the main constraints of the rattan processing industries are supply of raw materials, diversification of products, and market linkages. an established rattan furniture unit creates employment and income generating opportunities for a wide range of people, and helps improve the economies of the rural communities (benton et al., 2011). community based rattan resource management approaches can be cost effective and reliable (campbell & knowles, 2011). rattan– based enterprises in nepal are involved mainly in manufacture of furniture and other household items. the industry accounts for the production of more than nrs. 17 million worth of various rattan products, and has substantial market potential in urban areas of nepal (sharma, 2007). approximately 66% of the total consumption of rattan in nepal are imported from north–east india, because the large–diameter rattans are not available in nepal at commercial–scale. most of the rattan firms are located in the urban cities, and have low market in the rural area (mdbrpp/ dfrs, 2010). although the importance of bamboo and rattan as valuable resource is widely acknowledged, the exact scale of their trade is barely known. tackling the international trade is difficult because of the lack of custom codes for bamboo and rattan. the international trade of all available products is recorded through common format for transient data exchange (comtrade) which uses internationally agreed standard definitions and product coding. in recognition of this potential, 14 new 6–digit individual codes for bamboo and rattan were introduced under the harmonized commodity description and coding system (hs) for global trade in 2007, an increase from only two species for bamboo and rattan (benton et al., 2011). the position of rattan in the world market is expanding due to increasing demand for environment– friendly products in europe and the united states of america (usa). the world’s rattan sector is estimated to generate global revenue of usd 10 billion annually (inbar, 2015). there are limited number of studies that examine their management strategies together, particularly in the context of smes (mokhtar et al., 2014). despite the initiation of rattan smes in the urban areas of nepal in 1976, their status, marketing behavior, consumption of raw material, market growth, contribution in economy, constraints and opportunities are yet to be explored. this paper identifies the market orientation of rattan smes, supply and demand situation of raw material, major market centers, marketing channel, and marketing margin. however, this paper does not cover technical aspects of rattan smes. study areas the study was carried out in kathmandu, lalitpur, and bhaktapur of the valley together with the major cities viz. mahendranagar of kanchanur district, tikapurand sati bazar of kailali district, gulariya and rajapur of bardiya district, nepalganj and kohalpur of banke district,pokhara of kaski district, bharatpur and narayangarh of chitwan district, dharan of sunsari district, and kakkarvitta of jhapa district where rattan smes were located with potential market centers. some of them were even located in the cfugs' areas of kailali and bardiya districts. the study was conducted in the fiscal year (f. y. ) 2017/018. methods and material this study was designed based on the exploratory research. the research has explored research framework which includes the combination of marketing, enterprises and socio–economic status banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 15 chowdhary & dutta of the people. for this, simple random sampling method was followed to take the sampling of rattan smes and cfugs. sampling size was selected using the equation developed by yamane (1967) at 95% confidence level. sampling was determined from the total availability of rattan processing enterprises available in the areas. the researcher collected data through face to face and self–administered questionnaire techniques from the marketing managers or owners of rattan processing smes. out of the 57 smes operating in nepal, 25 (44%)were found to be running in the kathmandu valley alone (11 in kathmandu, 12 in lalitpur and 2 in bhaktapur districts) while the other smes were located in the major cities like pokhara, narayangarh, bharatpur, kakkarvitta, nepalganj, kohalpur, rajapur and tikapur. the survey was conducted within 35 smes (61. 4%) using proportionate random sampling. the respondents were either marketing managers or owners of the smes, with 7 women and 28 men. the survey included 35 rattan processing and manufacturing smes, 526 households (hhs), 10 executive members of the cfugs, and 3 key informant interviewees (kis). two types of smes were selected – (i) the private rattan processing smes and (ii) the community– managed rattan forests representing all the geographical locations. of the 35 smes selected, 16 were selected from the kathmandu valley, 4 from kailali, 3 from chitwan, 3 from bardiya, 1 from sunsari and 3 from jhapa districts, 2 from banke and 2 from kaski districts, and one each from dang and sunsari districts. the hhs selected were from the users of the cfugs managing rattan in their community forests. similarly, 10 executive members of the cfugs 3 officials from the governmental and non–governmental organizations were interviewed. data analysis the qualitative data were obtained from personal observations and voice records. they were first coded into themes, and then analyzed for connections between data, concepts and theories. the quantitative data were analyzed using frequency of the spss 20 software results types of rattan processing industries/ enterprises rattan processing enterprises are categorized into processing enterprises, selling enterprises and both manufacturing as well as selling enterprises. the processing enterprises manufacture varieties of handicrafts, and sell those only to the wholesalers while the selling enterprises only sell the products after collecting finished products from various processors. on the other hand, manufacturing and selling enterprises do both manufacturing and selling of rattan products by themselves. altogether, there were3 (9%) manufacturing rattan enterprises, 7 (20%) selling enterprises, and 25 (71%)both manufacturing and selling enterprises (figure 1). thus, majority of the rattan enterprises/entrepreneurs were found to be involved in manufacturing and selling the rattan products by themselves. in 2016, the number of rattan processing industries were reported to have decreased to 57from 66 in 2005, i. e. 17%decrease in the total number (figure 2). more or less, 17 % of the rattan smes were reported to have closed their business as they faced adequate shortage of raw material, poor market and administrative hurdle. 3, 9% 7, 20% 25, 71% processing/ manufacturing selling both processing and selling figure. 1: types of rattan processing industries/ enterprises banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 16 chowdhary & dutta out of the total 57 rattan processing industries, 25 processing industries were located in the kathmandu valley alone while the other processing industries were located in the major cities like pokhara, narayangarh, bharatpur, kakkarvitta, nepalganj, kohalpur, rajapur and tikapur. the processing industries located at birgunj, janakpur, rajbiraj, itahari, and hetauda were reported to be completely closed whereas those located in pokhara, nepalgunj, kohalpur, biratnagar, dharan, bhairahawa and butwal were reported to be partially closed (by more than 50%, figure 3). the study found that about one third (30 %) of the total demand (2,835 mt) of unprocessed rattan cane per annum were fulfilled from its national production. the study also found that all the 18 processing industries located in the kathmandu valley also used 'nigalo' (drepanostachyum khasianum), a small–size bamboo, as an alternative raw material while producing various products. on an average, 4 5 17 9 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 before 1990 1990-2000 2000-2010 after 2010 n o. of r at ta n sm es period figure 2: establishment of rattan smes (n=35) during different time–periods figure 3: distribution of rattan smes showing the running, partially closed, and fully closed ones banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 17 chowdhary & dutta a processing enterprise consumed a slightly over 24,500 nigalo culms per annum (table 1). table 1: consumption of nigalo by rattan processing industries use of nigalo quantity value (nrs. ) remarks annual use of nigalo 3,600−4,800 bundles, i. e. 4,000−6,000 culms nrs. 5−15 per culm (small–size nrs. 5/culm; large–size nrs. 15/culm) 20 culms per bundle total consumption 102,000−340,000 culms nrs. 510,000−5,100,000 average consumption 24,555 culms 17 smes mixed nigalo with rattan source: field survey, f. y. 2017/018. the production of rattan handicrafts initiated by the cfugs is expected to give a big boost to the industry. currently, nepalese artisans experimented the nepalese rattan, calamus tenuis, as a reliable raw material for the production of various products. there are eight rattan enterprises in kailali and bardiya districts using solely c. tenuis acquired from the local community forests. they were reported to be running within tikapur of kailali and rajapur of bardiya districts. major rattan products the major rattan products were indoor handicrafts such as chairs, tables, sofa–sets, hangers, stools, baskets, cradles, stools, chairs, tables, lamp–covers, and decorative items. among them, hangers, cradles, stools, chairs and tables were found to be the largely manufactured products whereas lamp–covers were the least–manufactured and marketed items in the processing industries. figure 4 below presents the number and percentage of the manufacturing of rattan products of the 35 rattan processing enterprises. the rattan products,comparatively with cheaper prices and commonly used for household purpose, were the priority products of most of the processing industries. their next priority products were the items preferred by hotels and restaurants, which indicated that the processing industries had targeted the market demand. consumption of rattan the major raw materials for rattan handicrafts were solid rattan cane, nigalo (bamboo species with small–diameter), and weaving rattan (split– one). the major rattan species consumed in the enterprises were panibet (c. tenuis), fekribet (c. latifolius), gouribet (c. acanthospathus), putalibet (c. inermis), murgibet (c. guruba), dudhiyabet (daemonorops jenkinsianus),and rotangbet/ radanbet (c. rotang). both the large–size and small–size rattan were mostly imported from india;however, some processing industries also imported rattan from indonesia, thailand, malaysia and singapore. our study found that the annual consumption of the imported rattan from india and other countries ranged from 850 mt to 1,094 mt with the value of nrs. 60−98 million in the f. y. 2017/018; the import of indian rattan 30 27 22 26 26 21 29 27 34 8 9 30 24 18 19 8 9 5 3 2 85.7 77.1 62.9 74.3 74.3 60 82.9 77.1 97.1 22.9 25.7 85.7 68.8 51.4 54.3 22.9 25.7 14.3 8.6 5.7 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 percent number figure 4: processing priorities of rattan products by smes banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 18 chowdhary & dutta alone shared about 66% of its total consumption in nepal (table 2). the cost of the imported rattan canes varied depending on their diameter–size. smaller the diameter, cheaper the price and vice versa; the cost of the imported rattan cane with small– size diameter varied from nrs. 15 to nrs. 20 per culm and with large–size diameter ranged from nrs. 400 to nrs. 500 as compared to the domestic one costing nrs. 55 to nrs. 65 per kg. however, the processing industries located in kailali and bardiya districts were reported to be fully dependent on domestic rattan. in the f. y. 2017/018, a slightly over 1,487. 95 mt rattan canes,costing nrs. 68. 49−99. 75million were consumed by the total 57 rattan processing enterprises in nepal (table 2). the nepali rattans were extensively used in the past by the domestic rattan processing enterprises. out of the nine rattan species recorded in nepal, c. tenuis is mainly commercially available. however,the purchase of nepali rattan was dramatically reduced due to administrative cumbersome from division forest office (dfo), national parks and police check posts. the indian contractors purchased nepali rattan mainly from the cfugs. our survey showed that the value of nepali rattan consumed (445. 5 mt) in the domestic market ranged from nrs. 4. 37 million to nrs. 5. 25 million whereas that of the exported one (to india) ranged from nrs. 44. 55 million to nrs. 156. 7 million. the split–rattan is mainly used for binding purposes. the split–rattans were imported from india, indonesia, malaysia, and china (via singapore). the indian split–rattans were brought from calcutta, siliguri and susta. the consumption of split–rattan was about 15 bundles (150 kg) per sme per annum. our survey estimated that annually around 5,500−6,000 kg split–rattan costing around nrs 4.1 to 4.5 million were consumed by the rattan processing industries of nepal in the f.y. 2017/018 (table 2) supply of rattan from the community forests a division forest office approves the request for harvesting various quantities of rattan from the community forests (cfs) within its territories. during the last 12 years (2005−2016), 129.96 mt with the value of nrs 12.83 million rattan were sold from the community forests of kailali and bardiya districts (figure 5). after imposing initial environmental examination (iee) and environmental impact assessment (eia) in 2007, the harvesting of rattan from community forests was considerably reduced. in bardiya district, more than 15 cfugs had neither renewed their forest operational plans (fops) nor carried out iee. the concerned district forest offices approve the request for harvesting various quantities of rattan from their community forests. as a result, the local entrepreneurs did not get adequate raw material to sustain their enterprises. the entrepreneurs of rajapur area revealed that they got 25−50% of raw rattan supply from their community forests. table 2: summary of the quantities and cost of raw materials in the f. y. 2017/018 raw material quantity (mt, on an average) % value (nrs. million) indian rattan 980. 00 66. 00 60. 00–90. 00malaysian, thai, indonesian, etc. rattan 56. 70 4. 00 weaving (split–rattan) 5. 75 4. 12−4. 50 nepali rattan 445. 50 30. 00 4. 37−5. 25 sub–total 1,487. 95 100. 00 68. 49−99. 75 nepali rattan exported to india 1,012. 50 44. 55−156. 70 sub–total 2,500. 45 100. 00 113. 04−256. 45 nigalo 567 3. 92−4. 90 total 116. 96−261. 35 source: field survey,f. y. 2017/018. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 19 chowdhary & dutta 0.715 2.399 3.34 0.17 2.61 0.28 1.08 0.64 0.77 0.73 0.07 0.24 0.65 2.38 1.52 0.19 2.67 0.32 1.15 0.33 0.85 0.1 0.97 0.33 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 qty (mt) value (nrs million) qty vs value figure 5: qty. vs. value (nrs. million) of rattan (in quintal) from the cfs of kailali and bardiya districts during 2005−2016 (source: field survey, f. y. 2017/018) demand and supply of rattan according to the rattan entrepreneurs of nepal, the total annual supply of rattan canes (both from the cfs as well as imported from the foreign countries) in the nation was estimated to be a slightly over 1,487.95 mt (see table2). the total demand of rattan cane in nepal, as per their version, was around 2,835 mt which indicated that the deficit of rattan cane supply was approximately 1,470.5 mt (table 3). the total production capacity of rattan of different community forests was about 1,418 mt per annum. however in the recent years, the potentiality of harvesting of nepalese rattan was only 30%. it indicates that 70% rattan was not harvested due to the expiry of the forest operational plans (fops) and administrative hurdles. rattan forests were increased tremendously in the community forests of nepal over the last two decades. it is estimated that the total production could increase up to4,455 mt per year if proper harvesting techniques are adopted. it could fulfill the demand of 70 to 80%rattan except the demand of large– size rattan. large–size rattan such as c. latifolius, c. acanthospathus, and c. leptospadix are also found in many places of hilly areas. there are some 10−15 forest areas of such large–size rattan cane throughout nepal (chowdhary & paudel, table 3: demand and supply of rattan raw material quantity (mt) average (mt) total demand of rattan 2,430−3,240 2,835. 0 deficit of rattan 1,215−1,620 1,470. 5 total capacity of production of domestic rattan (small–size diameter rattan, e. g., c. tenuis), if fully regulated 4,050−4,860 4,455. 0 total capacity of production of domestic rattan (large–size diameter rattan, such as c. inermis, c. laptospadix, and c. acanthospathus 41−81 61. 0 source: field survey, f. y. 2017/018. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 20 chowdhary & dutta 2008). if they are properly managed, some 41−81 mt rattan could be harvested per annum after 5 years (table 3). market of local rattan products there are five major market centers of rattan cane products in nepal, viz. kathmandu, pokhara, chitwan, kakkarvitta and midwest nepal. kathmandu is the largest market center followed by chitwan and pokhara. from kathmandu, pokhara and chitwan market centers, rattan cane products are sold to the local people for their household purposes and also to the hotels and restaurants. there are four types of consumers of rattan cane products in nepal, viz. i) domestic users, ii) hotels and restaurants, iii) offices, and iv) foreigners. the field survey revealed that out of the total consumption of rattan products, approximately 34.5% cane furniture were consumed by household users, 58. 0% furniture consumed by hotels, restaurants, and offices, and 7.5% furniture were consumed by foreigners living in nepal. on the other hand, high quality nepalese furniture were also exported to germany, america and japan. about 50% rattan cane products were sold in the market places of pokhara and 30% in the market places of chitwan. similarly, various rattan products of different places of eastern nepal such as kakkarvitta sold about 60% cane products in the market places of the kathmandu valley and 40%in the neighboring cities. in the far– and mid–west nepal, c. tenuis is used for furniture making. the local entrepreneurs prefer c. tenu is for the production of all types of furniture items such as chairs, stools, hangers, cradles, and sofasets. hangers, stools and cradles are highly consumed by the local users. there are, altogether, 9 major market centers located in the cities of the mid–western and far–western terai regions of nepal, viz. nepalgunj, kohalpur, surkhet, ghorahi, tulsipur, tikapur, attariya, mahendranagar, and dadeldhura. according to the entrepreneurs of the mid–western and far– western terai regions of nepal, 30% of the total rattan products were sold in the local markets for domestic use 20% finished products were sold in the market places of the kathmandu valley, 10% each in the market places of dadeldhura, nepalganj and dang, and the rest 20% in the market places of mahendranagar. marketing channel marketing channel of rattan cane highlights people, organizations and activities necessary to transfer the ownership of both nepalese and indian rattan from point of production to point of consumption. indian rattan is mainly imported from arunachal, silapathar (assam), siliguri (west bengal), nagaland, up and susta (bihar). both small–size and large–size rattan used to be imported from these places. however, some high–quality and large–size rattan were also imported from indonesia, malaysia, thailand and bhutan too. such high–quality rattans were utilized by only a limited processing industries of the kathmandu valley. the community forests of kailali, bardiya, dang,and chitwan districts were reported to have produced c. tenuis at commercial scale. about 233. 4 mt rattan were produced in kailali, 32. 1 mt in bardiya, 1 mt in dang, and 0. 5 mt in chitwan districts. 233.4 32.1 1 0.5 kailali bardia dang chitwan figure 6: quantities of rattan harvested in various districts although some community forests of nawalparasi and kapilvastu districts were also reported to have produced c. tenuis, their supplies were not regular and also the quantities were unknown. a few years ago, nepalese rattan was highly banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 21 chowdhary & dutta preferred by the processing industries of the kathmandu valley due to their high quality cane. it was estimated that 2−3% nepalese rattan mixed with indian rattan were again brought back to nepal from india. split rattan was mainly imported from indonesia, malaysia and china through singapore. of the total production of rattan cane items, 95%were consumed in nepal and only 5%were exported to foreign countries such as usa, germany, italy and france (figure 6). previously, rattan items was also exported to canada and australia. cost of production, average selling price and marketing margin the cost of production of raw rattan was estimated to be nrs 28−30 per kg in the community forest. this cost includes harvesting and transportation up to nearest seasoning place. however, due to shortage of rattan in the market, contractors paid higher price of raw rattan. for example, in the pr od uc tio n c on su m pt io n rattan resources domestic rattan imported rattan rattan processing industries-35% approx. 2�3% back to nepal through wholesalers indian contractors-65% community forests (kailali, bardiya, dang, chitwan)30% import from indonesia, malaysia, thailand, china/ singapore4% indian cane industries domestic use34.5% export to usa, france, italy,germany 5% raw rattan cane from india (arunachal pradesh,siliguri (assam), silapathar (west bengal), up, nagaland, and susta (bihar) 66% domestic consumption 95% hotels, restaurants and offices-58% foreigners in nepal-7.5% figure 6: marketing channel of rattan in nepal banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 22 chowdhary & dutta kailali district, stocked rattan was sold at the rate of nrs 57 per kg in 2016. in the case of finished products manufactured using imported rattan, the selling price might be up to 50 % more than the cost price due to distance from the market centers, availability of raw material, storage capacity, and market condition. according to the entrepreneurs, if the products were immediately sold after finishing, there was likely to be 90% profit, and if stored for a longer time, there might be a chance of loss. on the other hand, nigalo–mixed items were comparatively of low cost. it was found that some of the entrepreneurs store goods in the warehouse for more than eight years since rattan products did not deteriorate even after eight years in the warehouse. longer the period of storage of finished goods means financial flow is locked, and profit margin is less. the marketing margin is the cost of difference between selling cost and production cost. the study found that the average marketing margin of rattan products ranged from 37 to 64%. however, the normal margin was about 50%. figure7 presents the marketing margin based on the calculation of the cost of production and average selling price. the benefits shared by producers, wholesalers and retailers were 18−41%, 5−10%,and 8−20%, respectively. discussion nepalese rattan processing smes are scattered, unorganized and less competitive in marketing. however, smes contribute in building local wealth, encouraging local entrepreneurship, enhancing social networks, promoting local stewardship of natural resources through increased cultural, social, financial and environmental accountability, and keeping indigenous knowledge, cultural values and traditions intact (koirala et al., 2013). despite the multiple–use potentialities of rattan, indoor handicrafts such as chairs, tables, sofa sets, hangers, stools, baskets, cradles, and decorative items are major rattan products in nepal. among them, hangers, cradles, stools, chairs and tables are largely manufactured items in the processing industries. sunderland (1999) also argued that rattan is marketed and used for multiple purposes including making furniture frames, basketry, ropes, mats, and birdcages. according to benton et al. (2011), producing goods from rattan creates community–based jobs, many of which are for semi–skilled labor in processing and finishing, 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 pr ofi t % retailer wholeseller producer figure 8: marketing margin of rattan products banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 23 chowdhary & dutta which require training to increase individual’s skills, and thus help empower them. our study revealed that over the last four decades, 17% rattan processing smes had been closed due to irregular supply of raw material. thapa et al. (2000) also argued in favor of this statement that the irregular supply of raw cane had caused to close 30−40% enterprises. the present study also found out that the nepalese rattan supply fulfilled 30% of the total demand. according to sumarno et al. (2019),the productivity of rattan furniture industry and the efforts to increase the competitiveness level of rattan products has not yet developed in nepal although rattan industry accounts for over nrs. 17 million and there is substantial market potential in urban areas of nepal (sharma, 2007). currently, nepalese artisans have been using c. tenuis as a raw material for various furniture in the local rattan processing enterprises. currently, there are eight rattan processing enterprises in kailali and bardiya districts solely using c. tenuis from the local community forests. however, scarcity of raw material posed them at a risk to sustain. the initial environment examination (iee) and environment impact assessment (eia) processes imposed by the government of nepal has affected harvesting of rattan in the community forests. before amendment of the environmental protection act 2076 and the environmental protection regulation 2077, the cfugs required to conduct iee and get approval from their respective dfos to harvest more than 5,000 kg. it has seriously impacted upon the harvesting of rattan (karki & chowdhary, 2019). according to sharma (2016), more than 15 cfugs of bardiya district had neither renewed their fops nor had conducted iee. as per the amended environmental protection act 2076 b. s., the cfugs require to conduct iee and get approval from their respective provincial ministries of forest, environment and soil conservation to harvest more than 150 mt of rattan or forest products at a time (mofe, 2021). importing rattan cane from india and other countries is a risky job in nepal since export is banned by the government of india. there are many formalities to address in the route such as check posts, local taxes, etc. during transportation. pradhan (2015) insisted that the price of cane had been increased continuously by 10−15% per year. there are no securities and incentives to rattan processing industries from the government of nepal. thapa et al. (2000) also favored the statement and argued that the price of raw cane sometimes increased 4−5 times the farm gate price. according to inbar (2000) and bajaj (1994), there are relatively few policies in place in most countries on bamboo and rattan, and several asian countries have imposed bans on the export of unprocessed rattan. conclusion and recommendation rattan processing smes are categorized into processing enterprise, rattan selling enterprise and both manufacturing and selling enterprises. the main constraints regarding the trade of rattan are supply of raw materials, diversification of products, and market linkages. nepal has limited supply of commercial rattan canes mainly produced in community forests. large amount of rattan are imported from india and other foreign countries. rattan–based enterprises in nepal are involved mainly in manufacture of furniture and other household items. major rattan products are indoor handicrafts such as chairs tables, sofa sets, hangers, stools, baskets and decorative items. the weak supply chain of rattan from production to processing stage, and the lack of improved skills in the processors are the major problems in most of the rattan enterprises of nepal. nepalese youths have proved that various types of competitive rattan cane items could be manufactured using c. tenuis alone. therefore, effective processing technologies are required to transform the youths to design rattan products using domestic rattan. despite c. tenuis including other large–size rattan have potential to scale up to meet the demand of rattan processing smes, the government's restriction on the harvesting, transportation and uses seems to be the main obstacle for the smooth operation of these enterprises, and so the prevailing restrictions need to be removed urgently so as to sustain them. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 24 chowdhary & dutta references bajaj, m. (1994). public policy and the sustainable uses of forest resources: a study of the indian experience of stare. m. sc. thesis. london: wye college, university of london. belcher, b. (1995). bamboo and rattan production to consumption sytem: a framework for assessing development options. beijing: international network for bamboo and rattan (inbar). benton, a., cronin, t., frith, o. and jonkhart, j. (2011). market potential of bamboo and rattan products. beijing: international network for bamboo and rattan (inbar). bystriakova, n., dransfield, j., kapo, v. and lysenko, i. (2000). potential distribution of rattans in asia–pacific and africa. cambridge: unep–wcmc. campbell, r. and knowles, t. (2011). project evaluation of wwf sustainable rattan project in lao pdr. wwf greator mekong lao country program. chowdhary, c. (1994). distribution and status of rattan nepals. pokhara: institute of forestry. chowdhary, c. (1995). partial survey of the distribution of rattan in nepal. banko janakari, 5 (2): 82−83. chowdhary, c. l. (2017). socio–economic and market study of rattan and its contribution to livelihood in nepal. international network for bamboo and rattan organization (inbar), beijing. http://www. inbar. int (accessed on january 2, 2021). chowdhary, c. l. and dutta, i. (2021). value chain analysis of rattan in nepal. nepal journal of multidisciplinary research (njmr)4 (1): 84−97. doi:https://doi. org/10. 3126/njmr. v4i1. 36621 (accessed on 15 october 2021). chowdhary, c. and paudel, s. (2008). rattan cultivation, management and development initiatives in nepal. kathmandu: kabita and sunita. elson, d. (2009). adding value can flegt voluntary partnership agreement to increased investment and trade for partner countries? forest governance, market and trade implications for sustainability and livelihood. london: department for international development. inbar (2000). research needs for bamboo and rattan to the year 2000. beijing: international network for bamboo and rattan. inbar (2015). toward a framework for rattan sector development in aean countries. international network for bamboo and rattan. https:www. inbar. int retrieved on 20 decembr 2020. karki, m. b. and chowdhary, c. l. (2019). non–timber forest products (ntfps) and agroforestry subsectors: potential for growth and contribution in agriculture development. in a. k. ganesh thapa, agriculture transformation in nepal: trend, prospects, and policy options. pp. 385−419. springer nature singapore pvt. ltd. koirala, g., acharya, r. p., dhakal, s. and karki, g. (2013). a rapid assessment of forest– based enterpises in nepal. kathmandu: multi–stakeholders forestry programme. mdbrpp/dfrs (2010a). market opportunity and constraints for bamboo and rattan commodities of nepal. market development of bamboo and rattan products with potential project. kathmandu: department of forest research and survey. mdbrpp/dfrs. (2010b). review of developed western markets for bamboo and rattan commodities of nepal. department of foret research and survey . kathmandu: banko janakari, vol 31 no. 2 25 chowdhary & dutta market development of bamboo and rattan products with potential project. mofe (2021). nepal rajpatra (gazette of government of nepal). ministry of forests and environment. https://doind. gov. np/ (accessedon november 17, 2021). mokhtar, s., yusoff, r. and ahmad, a. (2014). key elements of market orientation on malaysian smes performance. international journal of business and society, 15 (1): 49−64. paudel, s. and chowdhary, c. (1996). rattan of nepal. in: m. karki and r. rao (eds. ). role of bamboo, rattan and medicinal plants in mountain development. pp. 156−161. pokhara: institute of forestry/ idrc. paudel, s. and chowdhary, c. (2005). managing rattan as a common property: a case study of community rattan management in nepal. journal of bmaboo and rattan4 (1): 81−91. pradhan, a. (2015). perception of rattan furniture in nepalese society. c. l. chowdhary, (interviewer cum translator). august 10, 2015. kakkarvitta, nepal. sharma, d. r. (2016). bottleneck of rattan business in bardiya district. c. l. chowdhary, (interviewer). june 2016, 28. gularia, bardiya) sharma, u. r. (2007). development of rattan sector under community forestry enterprise in nepal: future direction. https://www. researchgate. net/publication/291529732 (accessed on august 23, 2020). sumarno, dharsono, guntur, purnomo, a. and setyawan, b. w. (2019). rattan batik: local wisdom based rattan furniture finishing industry. seword fress. sunderland, t. c. (1999). new research on african rattan an important ntfp from the forest of central africa. the non– wood forest products of central africa: current research issue and prospect for conservation and sustainable development (pp. 87−98). rome: food and agriculture organization (fao). thapa, h., paudel, s. and chowdhary, c. (2000). identification, validation and in–situ conservation of rattan in nepal. kathmandu, nepal:international network for bamboo and rattan (inbar): department of forest research and survey. weinstock, j. (1983). rattan: ecological balance in borneo rainforest swidden. economic botany 37 (1): 58−68. 61 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2, 2025 pp 61-69https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i2.72629 people’s perceptions on forest management sustainability in far-western nepal keshab raj pant central department of humanities and social sciences, far western university, mahendranagar, kanchanpur, nepal. email: pantkr89@gmail.com public perception of community forests (cfs) is crucial for their sustainability and for addressing future challenges in forest resource management. this study, based on descriptive and explanatory field research, examines community roles in forest management, perceptions of sustainability, and key challenges facing community forest management over the next decade. taking into account diverse socioeconomic and geographic contexts, surveys were conducted with 368 households from 19 community forest user groups (cfugs) across four districts. the findings indicate strong community support for the community forest model but reveal significant gender disparities in management roles, with men more likely to see themselves as managers and women as users. statistical tests confirm these gender differences in community forest management roles. while most respondents perceive their forests as sustainable, invasive species, forest fires, climate change, governance issues, and resource-sharing conflicts remain major threats for the coming decade. addressing these challenges requires urgent management attention and the development of comprehensive resource management plans to ensure the long-term sustainability of forest management. keywords: challenges, community forest program, far-western, gender disparities, public perception, sustainability forest management is essential for maintaining env i ronmenta l ba lance , conserv ing biodiversity, and supporting sustainable development globally (poudyal et al., 2020). in farwest nepal, now renamed sudurpaschim province following the adoption of federalism, effective forest resource management is crucial not only for sustaining local livelihoods but also for preserving ecosystem health (gautam et al., 2024). this province is rich in biodiversity, with extensive forested areas that host a wide variety of plants and animal species (acharya et al., 2004). these forests provide vital ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, water regulation, and habitats for many species. they are also a key source of livelihood for local communities, supplying fuelwood, timber, and nontimber forest products as well as grazing land. in the context of community forestry, public perception refers to the collective opinions, beliefs, attitudes, and understanding of community members regarding forest management practices. these perceptions are shaped by various factors, such as personal experiences, cultural norms, social practices, local media, education levels, and communication skills. they generally involve how individuals and communities perceive their roles within forest governance, the benefits derived, the sustainability of forest resources, and the challenges associated with community forest management practices. public perception can significantly influence decision-making, policy implementation, and the overall success of programs or initiatives (khadka et al., 2023). it directly affects community members’ willingness to participate in and support collective actions aimed at addressing the long-term challenges of community forestry. investigating how public perceptions and community roles influence the sustainability of community forest (cf) is essential for identifying local needs and developing actionable strategies that promote inclusivity and long-term adaptation of the cf model. this process ultimately plays a critical role in ensuring the success and sustainability of the community forest management (thoms, 2008). received: 14 december 2024 revised: 8 august 2025 accepted: 5 september 2025 published: 30 september 2025 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-2016-6475 62 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 despite their importance, forests in far-west nepal face numerous challenges, including illegal logging, deforestation, habitat loss, and the growing impacts of climate change, all of which pose substantial threats to forest ecosystems in the region (gao et al., 2023). additional obstacles, such as land disputes, weak policy enforcement, and limited resources, further hinder sustainable forest management (pant, 2017). pant (2021) provides valuable insights into forest governance in the far-western terai region of nepal, offering recommendations for improving governance by addressing issues of discrimination. ghimire and lamichhane (2020) have also highlighted organizational and policy-related challenges in the implementation of the community forest model. according to lund et al. (2014) and rosen (2020), a lack of awareness regarding policy provision, structural system, and poor access to information about community forest user group (cfug) decisions often prevent marginalized groups, such as women and lower castes, from fully participating in community forestry and equitably sharing its benefits. despite these challenges, there are significant opportunities to strengthen forest management. community-based forest management initiatives have shown promise in improving forest conservation and local livelihoods. capacity building programs can equip communities with the skills and knowledge necessary for sustainable resource use and forest conservation. moreover, integrating traditional knowledge with contemporary management approaches can enhance forest management practices and support biodiversity conservation through the reform of forest governance systems (adhikari et al., 2016). a study by joshi et al. (2018) shows that engaging local communities in decision-making processes enhances participation and fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility toward forest resources. similarly, public awareness and a willingness to participate in forest conservation are crucial for fostering ownership and responsibility towards forest resources (handberg, 2018). incorporating public views and preferences into forest management policies can promote more inclusive and sustainable outcomes. in nepal’s far-western province, community forest (cf) management plays a vital role in biodiversity conservation, environmental protection, and the socioeconomic well-being of local communities (thoms, 2008). however, the effectiveness of these initiatives depends on the active participation and meaningful engagement of all community members, who are the primary stakeholders. in this region, where the majority of communities live in close connection with their natural surroundings, sustainable forest management is both an ecological concern and a socioeconomic necessity. the province is characterized by diverse ecological zones, each requiring context-specific management strategies that consider local opportunities and challenges (acharya et al., 2020). despite the recognized importance of community involvement in community forest (cf) management, local public attitudes, perceptions of roles and responsibilities in forest conservation, willingness to participate in forest conservation, and sustainable resource use remain poorly understood and insufficiently addressed. such study gaps in planning and understanding can hinder the effective implementation of forest management strategies that align with the needs and aspirations of local communities. moreover, if public attitudes, perceptions, and willingness to participate in forest conservation initiatives are not adequately recognized and addressed, the effectiveness and long-term sustainability of these efforts may be significantly constrained (tesfaye et al., 2012). the primary objective of this study is to identify and analyze public perceptions regarding their role in community forest (cf) management in farwestern province, nepal. specifically, the study aims to investigate the public perception towards the cf model, the role of the community in cf management, the sustainability of cf, and the major threats to their cf in the coming decades. by comprehensively understanding these public perspectives, stakeholders can develop informed strategies and interventions that cater to the needs and aspirations of local communities while safeguarding the ecological integrity of these vital natural resources. analyzing public opinion is crucial for identifying potential participation barriers and possibilities to improve community engagement, as public perception plays a critical role in the effectiveness of community forest (cf) management. by doing so, stakeholders can develop well-informed strategies and initiatives that not only safeguard the ecological integrity of forest ecosystems but also promote the well-being of local populations who depend on them. therefore, the purpose of this study is to address a significant knowledge gap concerning public perceptions of cf management in far-western nepal. through this analysis, the research seeks to provide pant 63 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 insights that will support more inclusive and efficient forest management practices, ensure the long-term preservation of these priceless natural resources, and help prepare for future challenges. materials and methods study area the study was conducted across various communities in the kailali, kanchanpur, dadeldhura, and baitadi districts of far-western nepal (figure 1). this province is geographically diverse, comprising three distinct regions the mountain region covering 7,932.8 km2 (40.6%), the hill region covering 6,748.8 km2 (34.54%), and the terai region covering 4,857.4 km2 (24.86%). far-western nepal is a unique blend of natural beauty, wildlife, and cultural richness, extending from the tropical terai plains of kailali and kanchanpur districts to the middle hills and further into the towering peaks of mount api (7,132 m). the study districts were purposively selected due to their extensive implementation of the community forest (cf) program over a span of more than twenty-five years. the cf program involves local communities in the management of forest resources, aiming to promote sustainability and community empowerment. within these districts, community forest user groups (cfugs) were chosen based on specific criteria from different local communities. research design the research design for this study adopts both descriptive and explanatory field-based research approaches, focusing on the community forest user groups (cfugs) in the selected districts. the household was considered the basic sampling unit to assess the impact of the community the household was considered the basic sampling unit to assess the impact of the community forest (cf) program on local communities and to explore people’s perception regarding forest management and sustainability. to ensure statistical rigor, a mathematical formula was employed with a ninety-five percent level of confidence to calculate the appropriate sample size. given the heterogeneity of the communities and the need for inclusive representation, a stratified random sampling method was employed. stratification was based on geographical location, ethnicity, caste, and dependency on forest products as indicators of economic well-being. from the nineteen selected cfugs, a total of 368 households were sampled, figure 1: location of the sample area in the map of nepal the study districts were purposively selected due to their extensive implementation of the community forest (cf) program over a span of more than twenty-five years. the cf program involves local communities in the management of forest resources, aiming to promote sustainability and community empowerment. within these districts, community forest user groups (cfugs) were chosen based on specific criteria from different local communities. research design the research design for this study adopts both descriptive and explanatory field-based research approaches, focusing on the community forest user groups (cfugs) in the selected districts. the household was considered the basic sampling unit to assess the impact of the community the household was considered the basic sampling unit to assess the impact of the community forest (cf) program on local communities and to explore people's perception regarding forest management and sustainability. to ensure statistical rigor, a mathematical formula was employed with a ninety-five percent level of confidence to calculate the appropriate sample size. given the heterogeneity of the communities and the need for figure 1: location of the sample area in the map of nepal pant 64 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 ensuring representation across diverse demographic and socio-economic groups. additionally, twelve key informants were identified and interviewed to provide deeper insights into cf management and its implications. these key informants included the chairpersons of cfugs, local schoolteachers, community leaders, and senior citizens with extensive experience in cf management (ojha et al., 2010). before the household survey, a test-retest method was applied to assess the reliability and relevance of the data collection instruments, thereby minimizing errors and ensuring data validity. data were collected between 14 january and 11 march 2024. to address potential seasonal biases in the responses, follow-up verification was conducted in august 2024 by revisiting the same respondents. both quantitative and qualitative data were collected using semi-structured questionnaires, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of the cf program’s effects on local communities. qualitative data provided rich contextual information and insights into community perceptions and experiences. overall, the research design employed in this study aims to provide a thorough and nuanced assessment of the implementation and outcomes of the cf program, contributing to a deeper understanding of community-based natural resource management in the far-western region of nepal. sample size determination and data collection the formula used for sample size determination from a known population was derived following arkin and colton (1963), which is as follows: where, n = required sample size, z2 = value (e.g., 1.96 for 95% confidence level), so, with a 95% confidence level and a known population size of 8276, a sample size of approximately 368 would be sufficient. the calculated sample size was distributed to each household of the selected community forestry, as shown in annex 1. data collection data collection for this research incorporated both primary and secondary methods to ensure a comprehensive understanding of community forestry (cf) practices and their impact on forest resource conservation. primary data were gathered through face-to-face interviews conducted during household surveys in march 2024, with a total of 368 interviews conducted with household heads. random sampling techniques were employed to ensure representative coverage of the surveyed population. additionally, twelve key information interviews were conducted with relevant stakeholders. semistructured questionnaires to guide discussions and capture specialized insights. while the primary focus was on interviewing household heads, in cases where they were unavailable, other knowledgeable household members involved in cf activities were selected as interviewees. to ensure clarity and accuracy, the questionnaires were initially prepared in english and then translated into the nepali language before data collection. furthermore, to enhance the reliability of household information, pretesting of the questionnaire was conducted in a nearby area before the formal household survey, ensuring the effectiveness of data collection instruments. in parallel, secondary data were collected through the examination of various documents from the ministry of forests and environment, government of nepal, documents of cfugs, including forest management operational plans, constitutions of cfugs, meeting minutes, and annual audit report records of cf user groups (cfugs) (ministry of forests and environment, 2024, march 3). these sources provided baseline information regarding forest resource conservation efforts and and contributed to the contextual understanding of the research. data analysis by employing both thematic analysis for qualitative data and statistical analysis for quantitative data, this study gained a comprehensive understanding of the research topic. thematic analysis provides depth and context, revealing the richness of participants’ experiences, beliefs, and behaviors. a chi-square test for independence was conducted to test the hypothesis.                 n = the population size, p = the population proportion (assumed to be 0.50 since this would provide the maximum sample size), d = the degree of accuracy expressed as a proportion (.05). here n=8276, z= 1.96, p=0.5, d=0.05 then, n = 1.962 × 8276 × 0.5 × 0.5 d 0.052 ×8275 + 1.962 × 0.5 ×0.5 n = 367.14 rounded to the nearest whole number, the required sample size (n) is approximately 368. pant 65 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 respondent % respondent % respondent % yes no don't know user's responses male(n=175) 170 97.1 1 0.5 5 2.7 female(n=193) 181 93.6 4 2 8 4.1 total (n=368) 351 95.35 5 1.25 13 3.4 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 r es po nd en t h h s this test was allowed to determine whether there is a significant association between gender (male or female) and their perceptions or roles in cf management. integrating these approaches, findings were triangulated, corroborated by insights from multiple sources, and enhanced the validity and reliability of the study’s conclusions. bar graphs, tables, and descriptions were used to present the results. results public perception regarding the community forest (cf) model was analyzed through a structured household survey. participants were asked the question, “do you agree that the cf model for forest management is the best approach for forest management?” responses were recorded and categorized into three options yes, no, and don’t know to reflect the level of agreement or uncertainty among community members toward the effectiveness of the cf model. a “yes” response indicated agreement that the cf model is the best approach for forest management. “no” indicated disagreement, and “don’t know” indicated respondents are unsure about whether the cf model is the best approach for forest management. the findings of the study on public perception about the community forest (cf) model in far-western nepal, as shown in figure 2, reveal strong support for the cf model among both male and female respondents. public perceptions of individuals’ roles within the community forest were tested through a study question. the findings of the study showed mixed results. the data provided reflects the public perception regarding individuals’ roles within community forest (cf) management, categorized into three main groups: managers, users, and both managers and users. similarly, to understand the public perception of the sustainability of community forests in far-western nepal, this study examined how people in far-western nepal perceive the sustainability of community forests (cf). participants were asked whether they believe these forests are sustainable, and their responses were grouped into three categories: “yes,” indicating they think the forests are sustainable; “no,” indicating they do not think the forests are sustainable; and “don’t know,” indicating they are unsure about the sustainability of the forests. the distribution of responses regarding roles in cf management is presented in table 1. figure 2: response of people to the performance of the cf model table 1: respondents’ views about their role in their cf figure 2: response of people to the performance of the cf model public perceptions of individuals� roles within the community forest were tested through a study question. the findings of the study showed mixed results. the data provided reflects the public perception regarding individuals' roles within community forest (cf) management, categorized into three main groups: managers, users, and both managers and users. similarly, to understand the public perception of the sustainability of community forests in far-western nepal, this study examined how people in far-western nepal perceive the sustainability of community forests (cf). participants were asked whether they believe these forests are sustainable, and their responses were grouped into three categories: "yes," indicating they think the forests are sustainable; "no," indicating they do not think the forests are sustainable; and "don�t know," indicating they are unsure about the sustainability of the forests. the distribution of responses regarding roles in cf management is presented in table 1. table 1: respondents' views about their role in their cf the results presented in table 1 show the approach used to assess the level of awareness and confidence among the local population regarding the long-term sustainability and viability of their community-managed forests. table 2: response of people about the sustainability of community forests respondents user's responses yes no don't know respondent % respondent % respondent % male(n=175) 96 54.9 66 37.7 13 7.4 female(n=193) 128 66.3 41 21.2 24 12.5 total (n=368) 224 60.6 107 29.5 37 9.9 to gather insights on the anticipated challenges for community forestry in the coming decade, respondents were asked the open-ended question as "what are the five major challenges that you expect your community forestry will face in the next decade?" this question aims to identify the primary concerns and obstacles that community forestry initiatives might encounter in the foreseeable future. the findings, ranked by the order of significance based on respondents' feedback, are detailed in table 3. table 3: responses of people regarding the five significant challenges for cf in the next decade respondents categorized themselves as manager user both (manager and user) respondent % respondent % respondent % male(n=175) 63 36 91 52 21 12 female (n=193) 21 11 160 83 12 6 total (n=368) 84 23 251 68 33 9 pant 66 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 figure 2: response of people to the performance of the cf model public perceptions of individuals� roles within the community forest were tested through a study question. the findings of the study showed mixed results. the data provided reflects the public perception regarding individuals' roles within community forest (cf) management, categorized into three main groups: managers, users, and both managers and users. similarly, to understand the public perception of the sustainability of community forests in far-western nepal, this study examined how people in far-western nepal perceive the sustainability of community forests (cf). participants were asked whether they believe these forests are sustainable, and their responses were grouped into three categories: "yes," indicating they think the forests are sustainable; "no," indicating they do not think the forests are sustainable; and "don�t know," indicating they are unsure about the sustainability of the forests. the distribution of responses regarding roles in cf management is presented in table 1. table 1: respondents' views about their role in their cf the results presented in table 1 show the approach used to assess the level of awareness and confidence among the local population regarding the long-term sustainability and viability of their community-managed forests. table 2: response of people about the sustainability of community forests respondents user's responses yes no don't know respondent % respondent % respondent % male(n=175) 96 54.9 66 37.7 13 7.4 female(n=193) 128 66.3 41 21.2 24 12.5 total (n=368) 224 60.6 107 29.5 37 9.9 to gather insights on the anticipated challenges for community forestry in the coming decade, respondents were asked the open-ended question as "what are the five major challenges that you expect your community forestry will face in the next decade?" this question aims to identify the primary concerns and obstacles that community forestry initiatives might encounter in the foreseeable future. the findings, ranked by the order of significance based on respondents' feedback, are detailed in table 3. table 3: responses of people regarding the five significant challenges for cf in the next decade respondents categorized themselves as manager user both (manager and user) respondent % respondent % respondent % male(n=175) 63 36 91 52 21 12 female (n=193) 21 11 160 83 12 6 total (n=368) 84 23 251 68 33 9 the results presented in table 1 show the approach used to assess the level of awareness and confidence among the local population regarding the long-term sustainability and viability of their communitymanaged forests. to gather insights on the anticipated challenges for community forestry in the coming decade, respondents were asked the open-ended question as “what are the five major challenges that you expect your community forestry will face in the next decade?” this question aims to identify the primary concerns and obstacles that community forestry initiatives might encounter in the foreseeable future. the findings, ranked by the order of significance based on respondents’ feedback, are detailed in table 3. besides the top five challenges for community forestry in the coming decade, additional concerns of respondents include migration and elite influence, excessive demand for forest products, diseases in timber products, encroachment, and natural disasters. discussion the primary objective of this study was to explore and assess public perceptions of participation in community forest (cf) management in nepal’s farwestern province. the study specifically sought to examine how the cf model is seen, the roles played by the community in managing cf, the sustainability of cfs, and the main risks to their long-term survival. the explanation that follows clearly links the results to each of these goals. public perception towards the cf model the community forest (cf) model is widely supported in far-western nepal, according to survey results, with 97% of men and 94% of women expressing approval. this strong consensus and acceptance reflect the community’s perception of cf as an empowering approach that fosters ownership and strengthens social cohesion through collective decision-making in community forest user groups (cfugs) and committees (cfucs these research findings reveal good public impressions of the cf model and highlight its role in promoting local participation and livelihood support. these results with the first research objective show that communities generally view the cf model positively as a means to improve participation and livelihood support. perceptions of individual and community roles in cf management public perception regarding individuals’ roles within community forest management revealed that most respondents see themselves as users rather than managers or both, with this trend being more pronounced among women (83%) compared to men (52%). this mismatch between the cf approach envisions individuals as both managers and users. moreover, actual practice suggests limited awareness and participation, especially among women. this indicates a disconnection between the cf model, which envisions individuals as both managers and users. this clearly pointed out that more awareness and effective participation are required to develop ownership towards community forestry. the chi-square test further confirms significant gender differences, with men more likely to perceive themselves as managers. the computed chi-square statistic (χ² = 40.20) is substantially higher than the critical value of 5.99 at the 5øüþ = 0.05 level with 2 degrees of freedom. this indicates a sn name of challenges respondents number ranked number percentage (%) 1 invasion of alien species 343 93% 1 2 forest fires 341 93% 2 3 climate change and biodiversity loss 320 87% 3 4 governance issues within user groups 298 81% 4 5 conflicts over natural resource sharing 294 80% 5 besides the top five challenges for community forestry in the coming decade, additional concerns of respondents include migration and elite influence, excessive demand for forest products, diseases in timber products, encroachment, and natural disasters. discussion the primary objective of this study was to explore and assess public perceptions of participation in community forest (cf) management in nepal�s far-western province. the study specifically sought to examine how the cf model is seen, the roles played by the community in managing cf, the sustainability of cfs, and the main risks to their long-term survival. the explanation that follows clearly links the results to each of these goals. public perception towards the cf model the community forest (cf) model is widely supported in far-western nepal, according to survey results, with 97% of men and 94% of women expressing approval. this strong consensus and acceptance reflect the community�s perception of cf as an empowering approach that fosters ownership and strengthens social cohesion through collective decisionmaking in community forest user groups (cfugs) and committees (cfucs these research findings reveal good public impressions of the cf model and highlight its role in promoting local participation and livelihood support. these results with the first research objective show that communities generally view the cf model positively as a means to improve participation and livelihood support. perceptions of individual and community roles in cf management public perception regarding individuals' roles within community forest management revealed that most respondents see themselves as users rather than managers or both, with this trend being more pronounced among women (83%) compared to men (52%). this mismatch between the cf approach envisions individuals as both managers and users. moreover, actual practice suggests limited awareness and participation, especially among women. this indicates a disconnection between the cf model, which envisions individuals as both managers and users. this clearly pointed out that more awareness and effective participation are required to develop ownership towards community forestry. table 2: response of people about the sustainability of community forests table 3: responses of people regarding the five significant challenges for cf in the next decade pant 67 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 statistically significant difference in how male and female members of community forest user groups (cfugs) perceive their roles in forest management. specifically, a substantially higher proportion of men identify as managers, whereas women more often identify as users. these results suggest that gender does indeed play a significant role in shaping perceptions of forest management within community forestry, reflecting broader gendered divisions of labor and responsibility. potential causes of this disparity may include traditional gender roles in rural nepalese communities, where women are more involved in family and subsistence tasks while men more frequently occupy leadership and decision-making roles. socioeconomic factors may also hinder women’s participation in management roles, such as their limited access to resources, education, and training. to align community perceptions with the dual roles needed for effective cf management, there is a need for increased education and meaningful participation. these findings are consistent with previous studies, such as baral et al. (2024), which emphasize the critical role of women and public involvement in sustainable forest management. perceptions of sustainability in cfs the survey revealed that 66% of women and 55% of men perceive their community forests (cfs) as sustainable, citing regular harvesting, frequent planting, and conservation activities as key factors for sustainability. however, 22% of women and 38% of men express concerns about sustainability, mentioning problems like invasive species, resource scarcity, elite influence, and climate change. the chi-square analysis indicates a statistically significant association between gender perceptions of the sustainability of community forests (cfs) in far-western nepal. the results reveal that women tend to show greater optimism regarding sustainability, whereas men express more concern. this suggests that male and female members of cfugs have different perceptions of sustainability, with a higher proportion of women believing that their cfs are sustainable, while more men perceive sustainability challenges. these disparities may arise from gendered interactions with forests, wherein women primarily emphasize immediate household benefits to address daily subsistence needs, while men may be more conscious of long-term management challenges. differences in levels of education and understanding may also affect the views of women and men about sustainability, as women in rural areas are often less formally educated than men. these results resonate with the findings of dahal and cao (2017), who emphasized the significance of raising community awareness and inclusive participation to promote sustainable forest management. perceptions of major threats to cfs in the coming decades this study identified several major obstacles anticipated over the next decade, including the spread of invasive species, forest fires, biodiversity loss due to climate change, governance issues, and conflicts over natural resource sharing. among these, forest fires and invasive species were mentioned as the primary concerns by 93% of respondents. other worries included migration, caste-based discrimination in hilly areas, elite influence in decision-making, and natural catastrophes. these results are consistent with those of roy et al. (2024) and gyawali et al. (2024), indicating that community forests (cfs) in nepal face multiple socio-ecological challenges that demand comprehensive and adaptive management strategies. by directly linking these results to the study’s objectives, the research demonstrates that although the cf model is widely accepted, socioeconomic barriers and gender roles lead to differences in participation and role recognition. men and women tend to emphasize different aspects of forest management, reflecting how lived experiences influence views of sustainability and hazards. to ensure the long-term sustainability of cfs in farwestern nepal, it is essential to address these gaps through inclusive engagement, awareness-raising, and adaptable measures. conclusion this study confirms that the community forest (cf) model is widely supported and accepted by communities, with 97% of men and 94% of women. the findings reveal that most respondents identify themselves primarily as users rather than managers or both, with women significantly underrepresented in managerial roles. a statistically significant difference exists between men’s tendency to see themselves as managers and women’s tendency to view themselves as users in forest management. while most respondents believe that their community forests (cfs) are sustainable. however, the spread of invasive species, forest fires, biodiversity loss due pant 68 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 to climate change, governance issues, and resource conflicts threaten the sustainability of cfs in the future. addressing these challenges requires urgent management attention and the development of comprehensive resource management plans to ensure the long-term sustainability of forest management. conflict of interest the author declares no conflict of interest. references acharya, k. p., maraseni, t., & cockfield, g. 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(2010). community forestry in nepal: a policy innovation for local livelihoods, biodiversity conservation, and food security. international food policy research institute (ifpri) discussion paper 00913. washington, dc: ifpri. https://www. researchgate.net/publication/239807424 pant 69 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 pant, a. p. (2017). climate change and forest management in nepa l . in pro tec t ing forest and marine biodiversity (pp. 197224). edward elgar publishing. https://doi. org/10.4337/9781786439499.00016 pant, k. r. (2021). analysis of forest governance in far-western terai region of nepal. contemporary research: an interdisciplinary academic journal, 5(1), 35-50. https://doi.org/10.3126/craiaj. v5i1.40481 poudyal, b. h., maraseni, t., & cockfield, g. (2020). scientific forest management practice in nepal: critical reflections from stakeholders’ perspectives. forests, 11(1), 27. https://doi. org/10.3390/f11010027 rosen, l. 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(2008). community control of resources and the challenge of improving local livelihoods: a critical examination of community forestry in nepal. geoforum, 39(3), 1452–1465. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2008.01.006 pant 108 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 annex 1: sample size of selected communities/cfugs with sampled households sn name of forest area(ha) location total (hhs) selected (hhs) 1 narmada cfug 47 lamkichuwa-5 kailali 205 14 2 chetana cfug 489 lamkichuwa-1 kailali 720 29 3 mahilajagaran cfug 87 lamkichuwa-1 kailali 400 18 4 martibhumi cfug 93 lamkichuwa-1 kailali 497 20 5 jankalyan cfug 422 lamkichuwa-1,5 kailali 1498 55 6 kopila cfug 208 lamkichuwa-3 & janaki-7 kailali 754 30 7 sahara cfug 50.09 kailari-07 kailali 103 8 8 mohana cfug 28.55 kailari-07 kailali 65 5 9 baskota cfug 650 godavari-4 kailali 750 31 10 bishal cfug 197.44 krishnapur-1 kanchanpur 323 15 11 birendraadarsh cfug 128.5 krishnapur-2 kanchanpur 392 17 12 hariyali cfug 195 krishnapur-4 kanchanpur 597 24 13 samaiji cfug 198 krishnapur-4 kanchanpur 936 37 14 mahakali cfug 156.23 krishnapur-7 kanchanpur 132 11 15 salani cfug 120 patan 10 baitadi 220 10 16 kalekhaya cfug 200 patan 10 baitadi 197 12 17 danshera cfug 246.0 parshuram-6 dadeldhura 275 18 18 dharampani cfug 50.31 parshuram-10 dadeldhura 109 9 19 tilkhola cfugs 149.0 parshuram-10 dadeldhura 103 5 total 3715.12 8276 368 annex 1: sample size of selected communities/cfugs with sampled households pant 25 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 community perspectives on elephant conservation in eastern nepal bishal bhandari 1*, nishan kc 2, nirmal chaudhary 3,6, shreejan gautam 4, bijaya dhami 5, aashish gc 6, bijaya neupane 4,7 1 wildlife conservation and research endeavour (wild care), lalitpur, nepal. *email: vishalbhandari746@gmail.com 2 wwf nepal, kathmandu, nepal 3 division forest office, rapti, manahari, makwanpur, nepal 4 institute of forestry, pokhara campus, tribhuwan university, pokhara 33700, nepal 5 department of biological sciences, university of alberta, edmonton, canada 6 faculty of forestry, agriculture and forestry university, hetauda, nepal 7 department of forest sciences, faculty of agriculture and forestry, university of helsinki, helsinki 00014, finland understanding people’s attitudes towards elephants (elephas maximus) is crucial for formulating appropriate policies for species conservation and mitigating human-elephant conflict (hec). therefore, this study aimed to assess attitudes and perceptions toward elephant conservation in udayapur district, eastern nepal. based on information from key informants (n = 10) and focus group discussions (n = 3), a total of 97 households were selected for a semi-structured questionnaire survey to collect data on human-elephant incidents. half of the respondents (50%) identified crop damage as the primary issue caused by wild elephants, and nearly half (46%) reported an increase in hec over the past five years (2016-2020). the majority (60%) claimed habitat encroachment as a major cause of hec in the study area. approximately 46% of respondents use fire-related techniques to mitigate such conflicts. moreover, more than half of the respondents (62%) showed a low willingness to conserve elephants, which was significantly influenced by their education level [χ2(2) = 9.43, p < 0.001] and occupation [χ2(2) = 7.81, p < 0.05]. the findings of this study will help develop management interventions that benefit communities and elephants through effective hec mitigation. keywords: attitudes, crop damage, conflict, mitigation, willingness human-wildlife conflict (hwc) has long been recognized as one of the most challenging issues for human-dominated landscapes and wildlife conservation (anand & radhakrishna, 2017; dhami et al., 2023). the expansion of human settlements and agricultural fields has led to massive habitat destruction, fragmentation, changes in landuse patterns, and reduced landscape connectivity (li et al., 2018; de silva & srinivasan, 2019). such activities alter available resources for both humans and wildlife populations, which results in various types of conflict, such as crop-raiding, livestock depredation, property damage, human casualties, the retaliatory killing of wildlife, and even the extinction of endangered species (madden, 2004; pant et al., 2016; kandel et al., 2023). conflicts become extremely controversial when people are attacked by species that are globally threatened and legally protected, such as the bengal tiger (panthera tigris tigris), the common leopard (panthera pardus), the greater one-horned rhino (rhinoceros unicornis), and the asian elephant (elephas maximus) (acharya et al., 2016). human-elephant conflict (hec) is an increasingly serious issue in the lowland terai region of nepal, posing a major challenge to effective conservation of elephants (acharya et al., 2016; neupane et al., 2018b). the asian elephant (hereafter referred to as elephant) is an umbrella species found in the tropical and subtropical forests of asia, including nepal. it holds both ecological and cultural importance. ecologically, elephants disperse seeds and act as ecosystem engineers, maintaining healthy forest ecosystems (zungu & slotow, 2022). culturally, they are significant in asian religions and have historically received: 21 july 2024 revised: 29 august 2025 accepted: 7 september 2025 published: 30 september 2025 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2, 2025 pp 25-36https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i2.68002 https://orcid.org/0009-0002-8219-7443 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5895-9594 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8526-8062 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4117-5109 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4127-138x https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8849-6347 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1215-689x 26 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 contributed to livelihoods and even military activities (greene, 2021; ram et al., 2024). the asian elephant is classified as ‘endangered’ on the iucn red list of threatened species and is listed in appendix i of the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (cites) (choudhury et al., 2008; cites, 2017). in nepal, the species is legally protected under the national parks and wildlife conservation act of 1973 (gon, 1973). the terai region of nepal is home to a fragmented population of asian elephants (>200 individuals) (ram & acharya, 2020). however, the conflict has escalated significantly during the last few decades (silwal et al., 2017) due to rising encroachment and forest conversion in the southern lowlands of the terai and chure regions (ram, 2014). this has an extensive impact on elephant habitats and migratory paths (pradhan et al., 2011). elephants are forced into closer proximity to humans as a result of habitat degradation, which leads to an increased level of conflicts over territory and resources (white & ward, 2010; liu et al., 2017). elephants’ attacks on people represent the most severe form of hec. besides, crop loss, property damage, and safety concerns are other consequences of hec (dickman, 2010; gross et al., 2021). for instance, hec events other than casualties were reported higher in western nepal, whereas human and elephant casualties were higher in the central and eastern regions (koirala et al., 2021). studies regarding local people’s attitudes and perceptions could be a multidisciplinary approach for mitigating hwc events. they are very crucial for assessing changes in the pattern of hwc and pinpointing the present and historical context of local attitudes and perceptions toward community-based wildlife conservation (basak et al., 2022). such studies provide insight into how local communities respond to wildlife-related economic losses, how they accept government laws safeguarding wildlife, and their willingness to coexist with wildlife despite suffering and witnessing the conflict (mir et al., 2015). communities living in proximity to wildlife habitats often experience human attacks, crop damage, and livestock depredation, influencing local attitudes and perceptions regarding wildlife (bagchi & mishra, 2006). few studies have found that people’s perceptions of wildlife conservation are influenced by several socio-economic factors, including sex, age, ethnicity, income, and education (kellert, 1994). however, there are very few studies on people’s attitudes and perceptions toward conflictprone species. therefore, it is critical to understand people’s perceptions and attitudes regarding major conflict-causing megafauna, such as elephants, and incorporate those perspectives into mitigation efforts (almeida et al., 2014). research on human-elephant conflict (hec) in nepal has primarily focused on understanding the patterns and distribution of conflicts (neupane et al., 2013; acharya et al., 2016; dangol et al., 2020; kurmi & koju, 2021; ram et al., 2021a), their severity (shrestha, 2007; pant et al., 2016; neupane et al., 2018a), and potential mitigation strategies (neupane et al., 2018b; khanal, 2020). however, relatively few studies have examined the attitudes and perceptions of local people toward hec (thapa & dhakal, 2014; chaudhary et al., 2021). understanding local people’s perceptions and their willingness to support elephant conservation is crucial for effectively mitigating and managing hec. therefore, this study aimed to assess the conservation perspectives of local people regarding hec in the udayapur district of eastern nepal. the findings are expected to inform forest authorities and other local stakeholders in developing community-focused management strategies that promote safe coexistence between humans and elephants while integrating existing local knowledge. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in udayapur district (lat. 26°30’ and 27°11’ n, long. 86°10’ and 87°10’ e) of eastern nepal, which is a part of the inner terai located in koshi province (figure 1). the region lies between parsa national park (pnp) and koshi tappu wildlife reserve (ktwr). both protected areas are part of the chure-terai madhesh landscape (ctml), which runs east-west through the himalayan foothills and terai plains. the study area provides habitat for diverse wildlife, including the asian elephant (elephas maximus), chinese pangolin (manis pentadactyla), sloth bear (melursus ursinus), striped hyena (hyaena hyaena), indian crested porcupine (hystrix indica), rhesus macaque (macaca mulatta), and barking deer (muntiacus muntjak) (bhandari et al., 2025). the region is also rich in floral diversity, with dominant species such as sal (shorea robusta), katus (castanopsis spp.), chilaune (schima wallichii), and khair (senegalia catechu) (subba & pokharel, 2021). this landscape encompasses the habitat range and migratory route of elephants in nepal, where bhandari et al. 27 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 significant habitat loss and fragmentation have led to severe habitat degradation events (ram et al., 2021a). each year, approximately 100 elephants are estimated to migrate from west bengal, india, to nepal via the eastern border, primarily during september to october and may to june. they then continue their movement through ktwr up to the udayapur and sindhuli districts of nepal (mallick, 2012; ram et al., 2021a). the study area comprises ten wards within three municipalities of udayapur district, including five wards in triyuga municipality, two wards in katari municipality, and three wards in belaka municipality. the local inhabitants primarily support their livelihoods through agriculture and livestock farming, producing crops such as paddy, barley, bananas, maize, wheat, mustard, and vegetables, and raising cows, buffalo, oxen, and goats. selection of effective hec zone a preliminary field visit was carried out in august 2021 for 20 days to identify suitable municipalities and wards with conflict incidents and households of victims for a detailed survey. during this period, ten key informant interviews (kiis) were conducted, followed by three focus group discussions. key informants included representatives from agriculture and forestry university (n = 1), chairpersons and executive members of community forest users’ groups (cfugs) (n = 2), forest officers (n = 2), ktwr staff (n = 2), and the local community (n=3), as they are the concerned conservation stakeholders who can provide complementary insights on humanelephant conflict (hec). three focus group discussions (fgds) were conducted with local political leaders, farmers residing near forest areas, and local elites because they are directly or indirectly involved in decisionmaking, are primary victims of crop damage, and play influential roles in shaping community perspectives on hec. kiis provided technical, policy, and management insights, while fgds allowed us to understand collective community perceptions and validate local patterns of conflict. in addition, secondary information, including hec-reported cases and annual reports, was reviewed from the division forest office, triveni, udayapur, and figure 1 (a): map of nepal with district layer highlighting udayapur district (study area); (b): map of udayapur district with local wards layer highlighting study area wards; (c): land use/ land cover map of the study area selection of effective hec zone a preliminary field visit was carried out in august 2021 for 20 days to identify suitable municipalities and wards with conflict incidents and households of victims for a detailed survey. during this period, ten key informant interviews (kiis) were conducted, followed by three focus group discussions. key informants included representatives from agriculture and forestry university (n = 1), chairpersons and executive members of community forest users� groups (cfugs) (n = 2), forest officers (n = 2), ktwr staff (n = 2), and the local community (n=3), as they are the concerned conservation stakeholders who can provide complementary insights on human-elephant conflict (hec). three focus group discussions (fgds) were conducted with local political leaders, farmers residing near forest areas, and local elites because they are directly or indirectly involved in decision-making, are primary victims of crop damage, and play influential roles in shaping community perspectives on hec. kiis provided technical, policy, and management insights, figure 1 (a): map of nepal with district layer highlighting udayapur district (study area); (b): map of udayapur district with local wards layer highlighting study area wards; (c): land use/ land cover map of the study area bhandari et al. 28 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 the division forest office, udayapur, gaighat, to identify conflict zones in the study area. we found ten local wards within the three municipalities of the district as major hec zones, based on general trends of hec events over the past few years (figure 2).: five wards in triyuga municipality (ward no. 2, 3, 5, 11, and 13), two wards in katari municipality (ward no. 2 and 5), and three wards in belaka municipality (ward no. 3, 8, and 9).kiis also revealed that the primary causes of hec in udayapur district are linked to the habitat proximity of elephants. most conflicts occur around the belaka and triyuga municipalities due to elephant movement from ktwr, while in katari municipality, conflicts arise from its proximity to pnp, where elephants frequently cross the kamala river during the summer when water levels are low. household interview in september 2021, 97 households were interviewed using a stratified systematic sampling approach, in which the first household was purposely selected based on its proximity to the forest area in triyuga and belaka municipalities, as well as the kamala riverbank in katari municipality. the remaining households were selected systematically, with every 10th household selected for sampling (figure 3). a total of 36 households from belaka, 50 households from triyuga, and 11 households from katari municipality were selected for the household survey. the variation in sample size reflects the differing frequency of hec events across municipalities. while households were selected randomly within each municipality, a larger proportion was drawn from belaka and triyuga, where conflicts are more frequent, to ensure adequate representation of affected households. we acknowledge that this approach may place greater weight on high-conflict areas, but it allowed us to capture the range of hec experiences across the district. a set of semi-structured questionnaires was prepared in the english language and then translated and administered in nepali during the survey. before conducting a household survey, a set of questionnaires was tested with a small number of samples to ensure clarity and relevance. before each interview, respondents were informed about the objectives of the study and obtained their verbal consent. each interview lasted approximately 20-30 minutes per respondent. one available representative family member, familiar with hec events (preferably the oldest, with a minimum age of 18), from each household was interviewed without bias toward gender or family rank (head/non-head). all surveys were conducted during the morning and evening time periods to ensure the availability of at least one elder member in each household. questionnaire design we used semi-structured questionnaire forms for the survey, which included a combination of open-ended and closed-ended questions related to hec (see supplementary file). first, we collected respondents’ socio-demographic information, including gender, age, occupation category (farming or non-farming), education category (primary/basic, medium to high school, higher secondary), and the major crops grown on their agricultural land (paddy, maize, millet, wheat, vegetables, or sugarcane). respondents were asked about the major threats they faced from wild elephants, the season when conflict severity was highest, and the trends of hec in the while fgds allowed us to understand collective community perceptions and validate local patterns of conflict. in addition, secondary information, including hec-reported cases and annual reports, was reviewed from the division forest office, triveni, udayapur, and the division forest office, udayapur, gaighat, to identify conflict zones in the study area. we found ten local wards within the three municipalities of the district as major hec zones, based on general trends of hec events over the past few years (figure 2).: five wards in triyuga municipality (ward no. 2, 3, 5, 11, and 13), two wards in katari municipality (ward no. 2 and 5), and three wards in belaka municipality (ward no. 3, 8, and 9).kiis also revealed that the primary causes of hec in udayapur district are linked to the habitat proximity of elephants. most conflicts occur around the belaka and triyuga municipalities due to elephant movement from ktwr, while in katari municipality, conflicts arise from its proximity to pnp, where elephants frequently cross the kamala river during the summer when water levels are low. figure 2 (a): paddy crop damage by elephant in the study area; (b): traditional house wall damage by elephant in the study area household interview in september 2021, 97 households were interviewed using a stratified systematic sampling approach, in which the first household was purposely selected based on its proximity to the forest area in triyuga and belaka municipalities, as well as the kamala riverbank in katari municipality. the remaining households were selected systematically, with every 10th household selected for sampling (figure 3). a total of 36 households from belaka, 50 households from triyuga, and 11 households from katari municipality were selected for the household survey. the variation in sample size reflects the differing frequency of hec events across municipalities. while households were selected randomly within each municipality, a ba figure 2 (a): paddy crop damage by elephant in the study area; (b): traditional house wall damage by elephant in the study area bhandari et al. 29 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 region over the past five years (2016–2020). we also inquired about the reasons behind hec, adopted mitigation measures, and recommended strategies for government authorities. finally, we assessed their willingness to engage in elephant conservation through three ordinal responses: high, moderate, and low. data analysis the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, and the rank-based nonparametric kruskal–wallis test. this test was used to assess the association of willingness level to conserve elephants by gender, occupation, and education level. dependent variable was ordinal responses (willingness level: high, medium, and low), while the independent variables were gender (male, female), occupation (farming, non-farming), and education level (primary/basic, medium to high school, higher secondary). the associated p-value for each test was less than 0.05 (at a 95% confidence level), indicating statistical significance. all the analyses were completed using r-studio (r core team, 2020). results socio-demographic characteristics of the 97 respondents, 57% (n = 55) were male and 43% (n = 42) were female. the majority of respondents (43%) were adults (26-44 years old), followed by middle-aged (45-59 years old, 22%), elderly (60 years and older, 22%), and young adults (18-25 years old, 13%). the occupation category of most of the respondents was farming (77%), followed by non-farming (23%). of the total respondents, 57% have received only a primary/basic education, followed by a medium to high school education (36%), and a higher secondary education (7%). most households (67%) grew paddy as their primary crop, followed by maize (28%), vegetables (2%), sugarcane (1%), millet (1%), and wheat (1%) (table 1). threats from wild elephants crop damage was reported by most households (50%) as the major threat caused by wild elephants over the previous five years (figure 4a). a higher proportion of the respondents (41%) experienced the most conflict events during the summer season (juneaugust), while 32% experienced them in winter (december-february), 15% in spring (march-may), and 12% in autumn (september-november) (figure 4b). over the same period, 46% of respondents said hec had increased, 39% said it had decreased, and 15% said it had remained constant (figure 5). the mean (x ± sd) annual harvest loss in 2020, as reported by respondents, was 0.093 ± 0.178 hectares. most respondents reported paddy (54%) as the most raided by wild elephants, followed by wheat (24%), maize (14%), vegetables (5%), and millet (3%). larger proportion was drawn from belaka and triyuga, where conflicts are more frequent, to ensure adequate representation of affected households. we acknowledge that this approach may place greater weight on high-conflict areas, but it allowed us to capture the range of hec experiences across the district. a set of semi-structured questionnaires was prepared in the english language and then translated and administered in nepali during the survey. before conducting a household survey, a set of questionnaires was tested with a small number of samples to ensure clarity and relevance. before each interview, respondents were informed about the objectives of the study and obtained their verbal consent. each interview lasted approximately 20-30 minutes per respondent. one available representative family member, familiar with hec events (preferably the oldest, with a minimum age of 18), from each household was interviewed without bias toward gender or family rank (head/non-head). all surveys were conducted during the morning and evening time periods to ensure the availability of at least one elder member in each household. figure 3: conceptual framework of the methodology questionnaire design we used semi-structured questionnaire forms for the survey, which included a combination of open-ended and closed-ended questions related to hec (see supplementary file 1). first, we collected respondents� socio-demographic information, including gender, age, occupation category (farming or non-farming), education category (primary/basic, medium to high school, figure 3: conceptual framework of the methodology bhandari et al. 30 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 figure 4 [a]: major hec incidents faced by the respondents from 2016 to 2020 and [b]: season-wise hec incidents experienced by the respondents table 1: socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents attribute category number percentage gender male 55 57 female 42 43 age young adults (18-25 years) 13 13 adults (26-44 years old) 42 43 middle-aged (45-59 years) 21 22 elderly (60 years and older) 21 22 occupation farming (agriculture) 75 77 non-farming (business, government job, private job, foreign labor, student, self-employed) 22 23 education primary/basic education (1-5 class) 55 57 medium to high school (6-10 class) 35 36 higher secondary and above (above 10 class) 7 7 major grown crops paddy 65 67 maize 27 28 vegetables 2 2 sugarcane 1 1 millet 1 1 wheat 1 1 threats from wild elephants crop damage was reported by most households (50%) as the major threat caused by wild elephants over the previous five years (figure 4a). a higher proportion of the respondents (41%) experienced the most conflict events during the summer season (june-august), while 32% experienced them in winter (december-february), 15% in spring (march-may), and 12% in autumn (september-november) (figure 4b). over the same period, 46% of respondents said hec had increased, 39% said it had decreased, and 15% said it had remained constant (figure 5). the mean (x� ± sd) annual harvest loss in 2020, as reported by respondents, was 0.093 ± 0.178 hectares. most respondents reported paddy (54%) as the most raided by wild elephants, followed by wheat (24%), maize (14%), vegetables (5%), and millet (3%). table 1: socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents figure 5: perception of respondents on hec trends from 2016 to 2020 perceived reason behind the hec most respondents (60%) indicated that the encroachment of elephants’ natural habitat was a reason for hec, while 22% reported that elephants unknowingly entered human settlements and damaged crops and properties. similarly, 18% of respondents stated that elephants preferred consuming agricultural crops. adopted mitigation measures and suggested mitigation strategies most respondents (46%) reported using fire (throwing firecrackers and fire bursts at elephants) as a mitigation strategy, followed by sound or shouting techniques (18%), throwing stones at wild elephants (10%), and bhandari et al. 31 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 watchtowers (10%) to monitor the elephant herds (figure 6). additionally, 16% of respondents had not employed any mitigation strategy to date against hec. furthermore, 37% of respondents suggested enhancing the prompt payment of relief funds under existing wildlife damage relief schemes to mitigate hec for the concerned government authorities (mofe, 2023). similarly, 24% suggested monitoring conflict-prone elephants and 22% suggested installing electric fences. in contrast, 18% of respondents were unaware of the recommended mitigation measures. figure 6: mitigation strategies adopted by respondents in the study area willingness for elephant conservation most respondents (62%) reported low levels of willingness to conserve elephants, stating that the animals damage their crops and property. this was followed by a high willingness level (24%) and a moderate willingness level (14%), with respondents indicating that they would contribute to elephant conservation by sensitizing local people about the ecological role of elephants, informing the nearest forest authorities about conflict-prone elephants, and applying all the available mitigation measures. a kruskal-wallis test revealed no significant differences in willingness level [χ2 = 3.16, p = 0.205] across gender. however, significant differences were observed across education categories [χ² = 9.43, p < 0.001], with respondents having primary/ basic education exhibiting lower willingness toward elephant conservation. similarly, significant differences were found across occupation categories [χ² = 7.81, p < 0.05], where respondents engaged in farming showed comparatively lower willingness toward elephant conservation than those in the nonfarming. discussion hec incidents in the study area in our study, the majority of respondents reported crop damage as the primary threats associated with wild elephants. udayapur produces a variety of agricultural products, including paddy, rice, maize, which provide high nutritional value for elephant herds and likely drive their movement into farmland area. additionally, the eastern region hosts a large migratory herd of elephants (>100) as well as some residential individuals but expanding settlements and agricultural lands along their routes lead to conflict resulting in crop damage (ram et al., 2021a; yadav et al., 2014). further research is needed to understand the main factors driving elephant movement in the region. the majority of the crops damage cases were reported from the buffer zone communities of ktwr. crops cultivated near the forest edge are particularly vulnerable, as elephants are strongly attracted to palatable and nutritious agricultural products compared to available forage in the forest (sukumar, 1992). consequently, conflicts tend to be higher along the boundaries of protected areas (chen et al., 2016). among the various crops cultivated, respondents reported paddy as the crop most frequently damaged by elephants in our study area, which aligns with previous studies (santiapillai et al., 2010; neupane et al., 2018a). local people have experienced raiding of paddy fields more frequently during the harvesting period i.e., in november (late autumn) and december (pre-winter), when grains reach full maturity and offer high-energy, protein-rich food for elephants. some respondents also reported frequent damage to stored grain and structural property by wild elephants in the study area. this may be because local people in the terai region (lowlands) of nepal store grains in their homes, and elephants are attracted to such grains when they move in search of food around settlements. most respondents reported that hec had increased in the study area over the last five years (2016– 2020). they agreed that elephant’s natural habitat encroachment is the main reason for the rising incidents of hec. local people observed more fragmentation of elephant habitat outside protected areas due to high pressure of encroachment and developmental activities. forest fragmentation and the increasing migration of elephants from india to nepal are major causes of rising hec in the country (pradhan et al. 2011). the increasing human population in the terai and chure regions bhandari et al. 32 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 has led to a higher rate of deforestation, especially in the chure region (0.18% annually) (dfrs, 2015). moreover, remaining forests are increasingly fragmented by large-scale infrastructure development, including the madan bhandari highway, udayapur cement industry, and rapid urban expansion. these developments act as barriers to elephant movement (ram et al., 2021b), ultimately leading to higher incidents of hec in the region (lamichhane et al., 2018; mukeka et al., 2019). mitigation measures our findings show that most local people use traditional methods, like fire, throwing stones, sounds, or shouting, to reduce human-elephant conflicts (neupane et al., 2018a; chaudhary et al., 2021). these methods are simple and low-cost (fernando et al., 2008; neupane et al., 2017) but they can be reactive, risky, and may sometimes exacerbate conflicts (chakraborty, 2018; buffum et al., 2020). most respondents suggested improving wildlife damage relief by ensuring timely compensation for crop damage, property loss, injuries, and fatalities (pokhrel & aryal, 2020). some respondents recommended using electric fences, which are more effective than traditional methods in deterring elephants (shrestha et al., 2007; ram et al., 2022). however, high installation and maintenance costs often make traditional techniques more practical (noga et al., 2015; dhakal & thapa, 2019). communitybased mitigation measures that are scientifically grounded and feasible are recommended, such as “biological fences” (eg. bamboo and apiculture), or unpalatable crops (tea, tobacco, chilli, and mentha) around settlements (fernando et al., 2009; shaffer et al., 2019; ram et al., 2021a), supported by subsidies, market access, and insurance. integrated settlements and community grain storage can also reduce conflict cases (ram et al., 2021b). respondents also suggested monitoring elephants that cause conflicts. gps collars and drones can track their movements in real time, provide early warnings, and help reduce human-elephant conflicts (graham et al., 2012; thakur et al., 2015). integrating elephant movement into agriculture, infrastructure, and settlement planning can prevent habitat encroachment (ram et al., 2021a). community involvement in monitoring can also be valuable, particularly in resource-limted (neupane et al., 2017). however, many respondents did not suggest or use any mitigation measures, highlighting the need for targeted awareness and behavior-change programs (chaudhary et al., 2021). these programs should focus on small landholders, resource-dependent, less-educated, and marginalized ethnic groups near forests, as they are most affected by human-elephant conflicts (karanth & nepal, 2012; ram et al., 2022). willingness level of respondents in our study, the low level of willingness to conserve elephants due to crop and property damage clearly indicates that hec is a significant barrier to conservation efforts. such low willingness towards elephant conservation could create negative perceptions and attitudes, thereby limiting local support for sustainable conservation (sampson et al., 2019; shaffer et al., 2019). education was a significant predictor of respondents’ willingness to participate in conservation. those with higher levels of education showed greater willingness to engage in conservation efforts, consistent with the findings of bandara and tisdell (2005). similarly, respondents engaged in farming occupations reported lower willingness to participate in elephant conservation. this may be explained by the significant damage caused by elephants, which directly impacts the livelihoods of farmers who predominantly depend on their crops for food and income (abdullah et al., 2019; su et al., 2020). however, substantial with lower proportion of respondents expressed a high or moderate level of willingness to engage in conservation efforts. local people’s positive attitudes towards elephants may be due to their recognition of the ecological role of elephants. moreover, elephants are also symbolized and worship as goddess in the hindu community. we suggest strengthening support for conservation initiatives for wild elephants in areas with limited conservation awareness, by engaging local people who are already inclined to support elephant conservation. conclusion and conservation implication the study found that hec incidents have increased over the past five years (2016-2020) in udayapur district of eastern nepal. while no human casualties were reported, significant crop damage (mainly paddy) was the major problem faced by the local people due to conflict incidents. the local people exhibited low willingness to conserve elephants, which was significantly influenced by their education level and occupation. we recommend communitybhandari et al. 33 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 based initiatives, such as forming rapid-response youth groups, implementing behavior-change communication, and promoting collaboration between forest authorities and communities, to improve attitudes toward elephant conservation. respondents suggested using electric fences and watchtowers, improving wildlife damage relief payments, and monitoring elephant behavior to reduce hec in the study area. compensation mechanisms have been effective but could be improved with emergency relief funds and streamlined procedures. habitat encroachment was identified as the primary cause of hec. therefore, conservation authorities should manage historical elephant migratory routes (west bengal–indo-nepal eastern border–koshi tappu wildlife reserve and westwards) through sustainable management plans. acknowledgements we are thankful to the college of natural resource management, udayapur, faculty of forestry, agriculture and forestry university (afu) for financial support to undertake this study. we would like to express our gratitude to the division forest office, triveni, udayapur and division forest office, udayapur, gaighat, for their support throughout the study period. we also acknowledge mr. hira lal sharma, mr. prakash mahatara, ms. shushma gosai, ms. shubekshya subedi, ms. nisha pangeni, ms. akriti yadav and ms. sharmila khadka for their assistance during the field survey. we are thankful to mr. santosh ayer for his efforts in shaping our manuscript. finally, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to the respondents who participated in the questionnaire survey. author contribution bb: conceptualization, methodology, field work, validation, formal analysis, writing original draft, writing, review & editing; nkc: conceptualization, formal analysis, writing original draft, writing, review & editing; nc: conceptualization, field work; sg: writing original draft, writing, review & editing; bd: writing review & editing; agc: conceptualization, field work; bn: writing, review & editing. declaration of 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(2022). a systematic review of the success and unintended consequences of management interventions on african elephants. pachyderm, 63, 99-139. https://doi. org/10.69649/pachyderm.v63i.499 bhandari et al. 105 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 supplementary file questionnaire form title: community perspectives on elephant conservation in eastern nepal name of the interviewer: location with household no: housing type: date & time: i. socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents i) name of the respondents: ii) gender…. iii) age: …... iv) primary occupation: a) farming b) government job c) private job d) business e) foreign labor f) student g) self-employed v) education: a) illiterate b) primary/basic education (1-5 class) c) medium to high school (5-10 class) d) higher secondary and above (above 10 class) vi) landholding: vii) major crops raised in agricultural land: viii) have you grown any crops or fruits in your home garden? ii. perceptions regarding human-elephant conflict i) how much human-elephant conflict is befalling in your community? a) low b) moderate c) high d) extremely high ii) how they are creating the conflict/ problem? a) crop damage b) property damages c) human attack/injuries/fatalities d) livestock attack/injuries/ fatalities e) other (please specify) iii) have you or anyone in your household suffer from any problem/threats from elephant from past 5 years (2016 2020)? if yes then please specify the following; a) crop damage b) property damages c) injuries of family member d) death of family member d) livestock attack/injuries/fatalities. if so then, have you submitted any application letter in request for compensation in your district’s divisional forest office or sub-divisional office? a) yes b) no………… ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………….. iv) about how much of harvest did you lost during last year from elephant problem? a) less than 10% b) about 25% (one quarter) c) about 33% (about one third) d) about 50% (one half) e) more than 50% v) what types of crop does elephant damage most?.............................................................................. ............... vi) at what season of the year does elephant damage the crops most? a) spring (march-may) b) summer (june-august) c) autumn d) (september-november) e) winter (december-february) f) equally in all the seasons bhandari et al. 106 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 vii) what do you suppose the reasons for the elephant entering your community and causing a problem? a) elephant natural habitat encroachment b) unknowingly elephant enter to human’s area and damage crops and property c) elephant like to consume human-raised crops d) elephant hate human and likely to attack them vii) how is the current human-elephant conflict trend in your community in comparison to the past years? a) increasing b) same c) decreasing iii) mitigation measures i) what mitigating measures are you undertaking right now to minimize the elephant’s threats and problems? a) fire b) fire crackers c) physical barriers (concrete wall, electric fences) d) watch towers e) planting alternative crops if any…………………………………… ii) in your village/community, what do you think the most successful mitigation techniques that government agencies should undertake to prevent human-elephant conflict? ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… iv) conservation attitudes i) what is your willingness-level to contribute in reducing human-elephant conflict and initiating conservation efforts? and why? a) high b) moderate c) low d) not at all …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ii) is it necessary for nepal to protect elephants? and why is that? a) yes b) no …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… comments:……………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ————**thank you for your kind participation! **……… bhandari et al. 77 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2, 2022 pp 77‒86https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i2.50898 documentation of wild and underutilized vegetables:potential for conservation and utilization wild and underutilized vegetables are important sources of food, nutrition and income for rural communites and indigenous people. cultivation of high yielding hybrid varieties, change in food habits, climate change and over harvesting have resulted in genetic erosion of these vegetables. in addition to this, their availability,distribution and uses are poorly documented.this study aims to document the wild, neglected and underutilized vegetable species in jaimini municipality of baglung district, western nepal. complete information on wild and underutilized vegetables were collected using semi-structured interviews, guided field walks and field observation. we recorded 64 species of wild and underutilized vegetables belonging to 27 different families in the study area. leaf was the most used plant part (26 species) and majority of the plantsspecieswere herbs (33 species). most of these vegetables were consumed in rainy and summer season and their availability decreased during winter season. knowledge regarding their utilization, cultivation and conservation were also gradually disappearing. therefore, consumer awareness, evaluation of their nutritional value and promotion for their commercial use should be emphasized for the inclusion of these vegetable species in our daily diet. keywords: conservation, documentation, jaimini municipality, underutilized, utilization m. regmi 1, a. shrestha 1, and h. r. paudel 2* received: 4, may 2022 revised: 21, november 2022 accepted: 14, december 2022 published: 31, december 2022 1 department of horticulture, post-graduate program, institute of agriculture and animal science, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal 2 national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari, lalitpur, nepal. *email : hemrajpaudel1619@gmail.com nepal has diverse climate. climate varies according to the altitude, agroecological zones and topography which is reflected in the higher biodiversity prevalent in nepal (rana et al., 1998).a total of 246 species of vegetables are found in nepal,most of which are wild and underutilized (dangol et al., 2017). cultivation and gathering of indigenous and wild vegetables for self-consumption are still prevalent, especially in rural areasof nepal. especially during scarcity of food and vegetables, people collect wild and underutilized vegetables from their natural habitats(dangol, 2003). wild vegetables like dioscorea species are still being used as a daily source of energy and micronutrients by the chepang community and other isolated communities (aryal et al.,2009). these vegetables contribute to the health and well-being of thousands of indigenous people and local communities in nepal (manandhar, 2002). in the present context, the availability of underutilized species is decreasing at an alarming rate in rural areas consequently causing large genetic, cultural and religious erosion(aryal et al.,2009). the main reasons behind this rapid decline are overexploitation, monocropping, introduction of high yielding hybrid varieties, intensive and mechanized agriculture, population pressure and habitat destruction (manandhar, 2002). the decline and extinction process are further accelerated by forest fire, deforestation, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0089-0950 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 78 regmi et al. desertification and climate change induced droughts and erratic rainfall (joshi et al., 2007). along with their decline, knowledge regarding their cultivation, utilization and conservation is also gradually disappearing (engle & faustino, 2006).the conversion of wetlands into agricultural fields, fish ponds, and settlements has destroyed the natural habitats of many indigenous vegetable species(siwakoti & tiwari, 2007). often due to misidentification and limited knowledge about their importance, most of them are treated as weeds (weinberger& msuya, 2004). in addition,our indigenous landraces of vegetables are being replaced by exotic high-yielding varieties directly affecting seed production and ultimately leading to their extinction. fagopyrum esculentum (mithephapar), f. tartaricum (titephapar), amaranthus lividus (lude) and a. caudatus (latte) are still being cultivated in some parts of nepal (shrestha et al., 2004). the extension on cultivation of such species may enhance the economic activities of locals and independent for vegetables and food security. some of the wild vegetables with high market values such as rheum australe (padamchal), dryopteris cochleata (danthe), polygonum molle (thotne), asparagus racemosus (kurilo) are endangered due to overharvesting (joshi et al., 2007). year-round production in their natural habitat, higher nutritional value, well adapted to adverse environmental conditions, and resistance to insect, pest and diseases has made them superior than our domesticated vegetables (shava, 2005). efforts for the conservation and promotion of largely eroding genetic resources of wild and underutilized vegetable species are incipientstage. in-depth information about their distribution, abundance and availability is still lacking(joshi et al., 2007). the analysis of the abundance of the species in their natural habitats should be the first step towards the conservation of these species. hence, this study focuses on strengthening the limited knowledge about these vegetables by assessing their present status, documenting their distribution and suggesting strategies for their conservation. figure 1: study area map. map of jaimini municipality ward-5 in baglung district banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 79 regmi et al. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in jaimini municipality, ward no. 5 of baglung district in the mid-hills of nepal (figure 1). the district has a total area of 1,784 sq. km. and includes four municipalities and six rural municipalities. among the ten wards of the jaimini municipality, ward no. 5 is located in the easternmost part. there are 562 households with a total population of 2,392 and covers an area of 6.56 sq. km. the ward no.5 was particularly selected for this study due to itswider altitudinal range (600 to 2000 ma.s.l.) and diverse climatic conditions, which in turn are likely to support a wide range of plant diversity. ethnic group (dalits) holding less agricultural land and residing near to the forest area are most likely to use the wild vegetable species and have a broader knowledge of their occurrence and use. data collection and analysis complete information on wild and underutilized vegetables were collected using semi-structured interview, key informant interview, focus group discussion, guided field walk and field observation.the fieldwork was carried out during august-september 2021. a total of64 respondents directly involved in the collection of these vegetables from their natural habitats were interviewed. through the interview, information on local names, habitats, parts used, the season of availability and market value were gathered. the prior informed consent was obtained from all the respondents before the interview. the snowball sampling was used to identify the key informants as only a limited number of local people were found to have in-depth knowledge about the occurrence, distribution and utilization of the wild and underutilized vegetables. the key informants were women involved in daily household activities, elderly people, vegetable sellers, lead farmers and ward chairperson. for the collection of information, plant specimens were collected and photographs were taken. furthermore, guided field walks and direct field observations were undertaken in participation of the key informants and other knowledgeable local people.the forward farmers and senior citizens served as a guide to collect information on the identification of wild and plants used as vegetables. vegetable specimens were collected from natural and semi-natural habitats and were photographed. some of the common vegetable specimens collected were identified with the help of local people and standard literatures (shrestha, 2013) whereas other specimens were identified by comparing those with the specimens deposited in national herbarium and plant laboratories (kath), godawari, kathmandu, nepal. the ‘annotated checklist of the foweringplants of nepal’ (press et al., 2000) was followed for the nomenclature of the collected specimens. results we recorded a total of 64 wild and underutilized vegetable species belonging to 27 families and 45 genera in the study area (table 1). cucurbitaceae with 7 species was found to be the most dominant family in the study areafollowed by fabaceae (6 species), dioscoreaceae, poaceae, amaranthaceae and polygonaceae (4 species each,table 1, fig. 2). out of the total species recorded, 26 species were used for their leaves, 11 species for fruits, 8 species for young shoots, 6 species for roots/ tubers, 6 species for flowers, 4 species for seeds and 3 species as a whole plant (table 1). in addition to their use as vegetables, these plants were also commonly utilized as medicine and animal feed.the availability of these vegetables varied among seasons. from june to august, 39 species were reported to be harvested whereas respondents stated ten species to be collected in the month of december to february. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 80 regmi et al. table 1: list of wild and underutilized vegetablespeciesfound in jaimini municipality, ward no.5. local name, scientific name, family, parts uses, season of availability and other uses of the vegetable species sn local name scientific name family parts used season of availability others uses 1 banko arisaema tortuosum (wall.) schott araceae whole plant june-july medicinal 2 ban kurilo asparagus filicinus buch.-ham. ex d.don asparagaceae shoot may-june medicinal 3 ban lunde amaranthus spinosus l. amaranthaceae stalk and leaf april-july fodder 4 ban nigalo thamnocalamusspathiflorus (trin.) munro poaceae shoot june-july fodder 5 ban phapar fagopyrum dibotrys (d. don) hara polygonaceae stalk and leaf may-june medicinal 6 ban tarul dioscoreabulbifera l. dioscoreaceae root/tuber decemberfebruary medicinal 7 barela cyclantherapedata (l.) schrad. cucurbitaceae fruit april-june feed to livestock 8 bethe chenopodium album l. chenopodiaceae stalk and leaf january-march feed to livestock 9 bhorla bauhinia vahlii wight &arn. fabaceae fruit augustseptember 10 bramelidhaniya eryngium foetidum l. apiaceae leaf augustseptember medicinal 11 chari amilo oxalis corniculata l. oxalidaceae leaf april-june medicinal 12 chichinda trichosanthescochinchinensis (lour.) m. roem. cucurbitaceae fruit autumn feed to livestock 13 dhanthe neuro diplazium maximum (d.don) c. chr. woodsiaceae stalk and leaf rainy medicinal 14 gandhe houttuynia cordata thunb. saururaceae stalk and leaf april-june medicinal 15 ghartarul dioscoreaalata l. dioscoreaceae root/tuber decemberfebruary feed to livestock 16 golkankri solenaamplexicaulis (lam.) gandhi ex saldanha & nicolson cucurbitaceae fruit july-august feed to livestock 17 halhale rumex nepalensisspreng. polygonaceae leaf aprilseptember medicinal 18 jhotekauso mucuna pruriens (l.) dc. fabaceae seed march-april medicinal 19 jhusetil guizotiaabyssinica (l. fil.) cass. asteraceae seed winter 20 kalobethe chenopodiastrummurale (l.) s. fuentes, uotila& borsch chenopodiaceae stalk and leaf augustoctober feed to livestock 21 kalobihi solanum nigrum l. solanaceae leaf may-june medicinal 22 kalo neuro tectariacoadunata (wall. ex hook. &grev.) c. chr. dioeridaceae leaf june-july medicinal 23 kavro ficus concinna (miq.) miq. moraceae young leaves may-june fodder 24 khanayo ficus semicordata miq. moraceae fruit octobernovember feed to livestock 25 khasreto ficus hispida l. fil. moraceae fruit july-august feed to livestock 26 koiralo bauhinia variegata l. fabaceae flower april-may medicinal 27 kundruk coccinia grandis (l.) voigt cucurbitaceae fruit summer feed to livestock 28 kukurdiano smilax aspera l. smilacaceae shoot may-june fodder 29 kukurdiano smilax ferox wall. ex kunth smilacaceae shoot may-june fodder 30 kutilkosa vicia angustifolia l. fabaceae seed march-april feed to livestock banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 81 regmi et al. sn local name scientific name family parts used season of availability others uses 31 kutilkosa vicia hirsuta (l.) gray fabaceae seed june-july feed to livestock 32 kubindo benincasahispida (thunb.) cogn. cucurbitaceae fruit septemberoctober feed to livestock 33 laligurans rhododendron arboreum sm. ericaceae flower february-april fuelwood 34 latte sag amaranthus caudatus l. amaranthaceae leaf april-july fodder 35 lekalisisnu girardiniadiversifolia (link) friis urticaceae leaf june -august fiber yielding 36 liku neuro athyrium atkinsoniibedd. woodsiaceae stalk and leaf rainy 37 lude sag amaranthus tricolor l. amaranthaceae leaf april-july 38 lude sag amaranthus viridis l. amaranthaceae leaf april-july 39 masino neuro diplazium esculentum (retz.) sw. athyriaceae stalk and leaf may-june 40 mithephapar fagopyrum esculentum moench polygonaceae stalk and leaf may-june fodder 41 nigalo drepanostachyumfalcatum (nees) keng f. poaceae shoot april-june fodder 42 neuro depariaboryana (willd.) m. kato woodsiaceae leaf june-july 43 kulfa sag portulaca oleracea l. portulacaceae stalk and leaf year round 44 parwar trichosanthes dioica roxb. cucurbitaceae fruit summer feed to lvestock 45 pate ghiraula luffa acutangula (l.) roxb. cucurbitaceae fruit summer feed to livestock 46 pindalu colocasia esculenta (l.) schott araceae whole plant augustoctober feed to livestock 47 photongi physalis minimaculata waterf. solanaceae fruit winter medicinal 48 rato latte dysphania ambrosioides (l.) mosyakin&clemants chenopodiaceae stalk and leaf augustseptember 49 sajiwan moringa oleifera lam. moringaceae fruit april-may medicinal 50 sarpa ko makai arisaema jacquemontii blume araceae whole plant april -may 51 simal bombax ceiba l. bombaceae fruit februarymarch medicinal 52 sim sag nasturtium officinale r.br. brassicaceae leaf year round 53 simal tarul manihot esculenta crantz euphorbiaceae root/tuber december february 54 sipligan crateva religiosa g. forst. capparaceae stalk and leaf march-april medicinal 55 sisnu urtica dioica l. urticaceae leaf year round medicinal 56 tanki bauhinia purpurea l. fabaceae flower augustoctober feed to livestock 57 tarul dioscoreadeltoidea wall. ex griseb. dioscoreaceae root/tuber decemberfebruary feed to livestock 58 tarul dioscorea esculenta (lour.) burkill dioscoreaceae root/tuber decemberfebruary feed to livestock 59 titephapar fagopyrum tataricum (l.) gaertn. polygonaceae stalk and leaf may-june feed to livestock 60 thakal cirsium wallichii dc. asteraceae shoot june-july 61 tori ghans capsella bursa-pastoris (l.) medik. brassicaceae leaf january-april 62 tatelo oroxylum indicum (l.) kurz bignoniaceae fruit march – may medicinal 63 tama bans dendrocalamushamiltonii nees & arn. ex munro poaceae shoot june-july fodder 64 tama bans dendrocalamusstrictus (roxb.) nees poaceae shoot june-july fodder banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 82 regmi et al. figure 2: number of wild and underutilized vegetable species found found injaimini municipality, ward no. 5 by families the majority of species (21 species) were collected from natural forests, 19 species were gathered from uncultivated lands, 10 species were cultivated in farmers’field, 11 species were grown in home gardens whereas 3 species were collected from fallow lands (fig. 3). figure 3: natural habitats of wild and underutilized vegetable species found in jaimini municipality, ward no. 5 the majority of the recorded wild and underutilized vegetable species (33 species) were herbs, 14 species were climbers, 11 species were trees, 5 species were grasses whereas 1 species was shrub (fig. 4). figure 4: proportion of wild and underutilized vegetable species found found injaimini municipality, ward no. 5 by life forms we found that seven species of the vegetables are traded in the local market. they were drepanostachyum falcatum (nees) keng f., cyclanthera pedata (l.) schrad., chenopodium album l., bauhinia variegata l., dendrocalamus strictus (roxb.) nees, dioscorea deltoidea wall. ex griseb. and diplazium maximum (d.don) c. chr.species like diplazium esculentum (masino neuro), dendrocalamus strictus (tama bans), moringa oleifera (sajiwan) and drepanostachyum falcatum (nigalo) were found to have high market value and some of the species of dioscorea are culturally important as they have banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 83 regmi et al. a high market demand during the hindu festival of maghe sankranti. elderly people were found to have wider knowledge about the use of wild plants as vegetables than the younger respondents. they also pointed out that common vegetables like pate ghiraula (luffa acutangula), kubindo (benincasahispida) are slowly disappearing from their home garden because of the replacement by modern high yielding varieties of the vegetables. most of the vegetable species found in this region were nutritionally important while some of them have medicinal value too. sisnu (urtica dioica), sipligan (crateva religiosa) and sajiwan (moringa oleifera) were used locally to lower high blood pressure and high blood sugar level. according to the local farmers, the availability and distribution of these vegetable species are declining at an alarming rate.they also mentioned that there is limited knowledge regarding the use of wild plants in the younger generation. they stated excessive collection, deforestation, drought and forest fires to be the major factor for their declination (appendix). discussion wild and underutilized vegetables have been the major source of human diets for centuries with a great contribution to food and nutrition security, particularly for rural people. it is perceived that wild and underutilized vegetables are tastier, more nutritious and are easily available to meet their daily need and are a source of income as well(limbu & thapa, 2011;bhattarai et al., 2013;aryal et al.,2018). in this study, the rural people were dependent on the wild and underutilized vegetables mostly in the lean season. limbu and thapa (2011) found majority of chepang people residing in the hilly areas of nepal highly dependent on wild fruits and vegetables as shifting cultivation was insufficient to feed their families throughout the year. another study carried out in a chepang community reported that 58% of households were depended on wild and underutilized plants for vegetables for up to 5 months a year (aryal et al., 2009). bhattarai et al. (2013) reported that75% of the respondents were depending exclusively on wild and underutilized plants for 1–3 months and 10% for more than 3 months to meet their daily vegetable requirements in darchula district. a review study done bydangol et al. (2017) revealed that the highest number of wild edible plants were constituted by vegetable species (246 out of 349 species). the present study documented fewer wild vegetables than joshi et al. (2015), who reported 89 wild vegetable species from makawanpur district. the possible reason for more number of wild vegetables reported is wider altitudinal range covering a larger area than the present study.uprety et al. (2012) reported 36 wild vegetable species from five districts (makawanpur, tanahun, dang, bardiya, kailali) and found highest diversity in makawanpur district. regarding the habitat of these species, the majority of them were collected from the forest. forest providing partial shade, undisturbed conditions and good soil fertility can be probable reasons for their higher diversity. this finding is in line with the result of joshi et al. (2015) which stated forest to be the most important place for the collection of these vegetables whereas in contrast, a lesser number of vegetable species were collected from fallow in this study. the findings of this study showed that leaves and other aerial parts were the most consumed parts as vegetables which is similar to the result of singh et al. (2012) which discovered tender and succulent shoots, young growing aerial parts and leaves (30 species) as the most consumed plant parts of wild edible vegetables followed by floral parts, roots and tubers. wild and underutilized vegetables are providing millions of consumers with essential micronutrients, such as vitamins and minerals needed to maintain health and promote immunity against infections. this research found many of the formerly neglected commodities like: sisnu(urtica dioica), sipligan (crateva religiosa) and sajiiwan (moringa oleifera) have now become nutritionally and medicinally important due to consumer awareness.some species were found to have multiple uses also.tanki was found to have been used for different purposes like:vegetable, fodder, fuel wood, litters, and also can fix nitrogen in the soil. many researches https://frtc.gov.np/downloadfile/ragmi%20at%20all%20appendix%20(1)_1672983671.pdf?fbclid=iwar2wjb9nx-yre6ouznww0erx-09obegfbujbdgezvrvtrfhfc4ffy4c6wfu banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 84 regmi et al. have revealed that the vitamins like vitamin a, b, c, beta carotene, mineral composition such as nitrogen, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and protein contents of wild vegetables are generally higher than those of cultivated species (flyman &afolayan, 2006). rajyalakshmi et al. (2001) reported 36 out of 70 wild vegetables eaten by the tribal people in south india had high vitamin a concentration. the same study revealed dioscorea bulibifera, d. versicolor, d. deltoida, d. triphylla to have 5 times more protein than potatoes, sweet potatoes and colocasia. in our study, only four species of dioscorea were documented while sharma and bastakoti (2009) reported9 out of 10 species of dioscorea used as food in chepang community. this indicates that the traditional knowledge of identification, collection, processing and consumption have saved this community of dhading district from food insecurity to great extent. singh et al. (2012) found a greater number of plant species were used for curing stomach related diseases among 43 wild plants used as vegetable in rupandehi district. limbu and thapa (2011) reported that dust of roots of kalo neuroandbankurilo eaten with warm water can treat diarrhea. issues and challenges major issues in the utilization and management of the wild and underutilized vegetables are changing human lifestyle, food habit and taste, modernization in agriculture, lack of human resources for collection, overgrazing, land clearanceandoverharvest. however, the chemical, nutritional and toxicological properties of wild and underutilized vegetables and their modification by various processing techniques still need to be properly studied and documented (flyman &afolayan, 2006). dependency on imported vegetables, lack of awareness and low demand for underutilized vegetables are the main reasons for farmers’ unwillingness to use and grow them. expectation of farmers to cultivate commercial varieties with a strong market chain can be another challengeintheconservation efforts. people are overharvesting these wild plants from their natural habitats but are not concerned with their conservation and rational utilization. also, there is a limitation of knowledge about their abundance, diversity, and availability to some local people and ethnic communities only. strategies for their conservation and utilization wild and underutilized plants are valuable genetic resources. the use of wild vegetables in breeding programs to improve resistance to insect pests and adaptation to different microclimatic niches of nepal can be a potential scope. mostly, wild varieties of vegetables are hardy, require low agricultural inputs and can produce desirable yields with fewer management practices. hence, marginalized lands with lower productivity could easily be utilized to help in their conservation and promotion(shava, 2005).participatory variety selection for the adaption of local varieties and awareness programs for the conservation of genetic resources from government, community, and private levels can play important role in the conservation of our underutilized vegetables (rana et al., 1998).conservation and awareness programs for local people who know the use of indigenous food plants must be strengthened for rational utilization and conservation(brush, 1995). diversity fairs, food fairs, poetry and dramas can be organized to explore these diverse vegetables and sensitize people about their importance. both ex-situ and in-situ methods can be applied for the conservation of genetic resources.along with the sustainable harness, domestication and in-situ conservation of these endangered vegetable species by certain ethnic groups or local people aresimple and highly effective strategies in the case of nepal and transfer of knowledge concerning conservation is much more practicable (malla & chhetri, 2009; battarai et al., 2013).community-level seed collectionand establishment of seed bank withtheactive participation of locals are the best alternative for ex-situ conservation of genetic resources. local communities, ethnic groups and women were found to know the culinary uses, gathering seasons, conservation and utilization better than other people. hence, they can play an important role in the preservation and domestication of indigenous vegetables (joshi et al., 2007). banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 85 regmi et al. research and promotion of wild and underutilized vegetables can lead to the rise of new staple crops and hence a sustainable change in consumption patterns could be established (kunwar et al., 2012). efforts should be made to cultivate high-value indigenous vegetables permanently on the field or commercial scale to reduce the extinction risk.also, consumers are always eager to taste new commodities and underutilized vegetables can play an important role to satisfy their demand. thus, it has now become necessary to diversify our food by accommodating such nutritious wild and underutilized vegetables into our diet for improved health and nutrition (jaenicke & hoschle-zeledon, 2006). evaluation of commercial use and market values including potentials for their domestiation and promotion should be explored. also, identification of local and international markets, marketing channels, and value addition of local products should be prioritized for their conservation and development (shava, 2005). promotion, utilization, and marketing of indigenous vegetables can aid in their conservation while also reducing food and nutrition insecurity in the country, particularly in rural and hilly areas of nepal. conclusion the present study documented 64 species of wild and underutilized vegetables from 27 different families. knowledge of abundance, distribution and utilizationofwild and underutilized plant species has gradually degraded in the new generation. people from the dalit community who had been highly involved in the collection and utilization of these species have now relied on modern vegetable species. only few species which are readily available and easy to collect have been extensively used for self consumption or for marketing. distribution of some of high value marketable wild vegetable species in the study area is declining day by day due to overharvesting while most of them are being neglected. identification, collection, documentation, characterization, and research from government and non-governmental sides and detailed analysis of their nutritional values should be prioritized for their promotion and conservation. along with sustainable consumption, domestication, in-situ and ex-situ conservation of these vegetables is the only way of controlling genetic erosionthus, contributing to the food and nutrition security, and a means for income generation for rural people. references aryal, k. p., poudel, s., & chaudhary, r. p. (2018). diversity and use of wild and noncultivated edible plants in the western himalaya. journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine, 14 (10). aryal, k., berg, a., & ogle, b. (2009). uncultivated plants and livelihood support-a case study from the chepang people of nepal. ethnobotany research and applications, 7, 409–422. doi:10.17348/era.7.0.409-422 bhattarai, s., pant, b., & upadhyaya, c. (2013). dependency of tharu communities on wild plants: a case study of shankarpur, kanchanpur district. banko janakari, 21(1), 35-40. doi:10.3126/banko. v21i1.9062 brush, s. (1995). in situ conservation of landraces in centres of crop diversity. crop science, 35, 346-354. doi:10.2135/ cropsci1995.0011183x003500020009x dangol, d. (2003). economic uses of forest plant resources in western chitwan, nepal. banko jankari, 12 (2), 56–64. dangol, d. r., maharjan, k. l., maharjan, s. k., & acharya, a. k. (2017). wild edible plants in nepal. conservation and utilization of agricultural plant genetic resources of nepal (pp. 390-407). dhulikhel: nagrc. engle, l. m., & faustino, f. c. (2006). conserving the indigenous vegetable germplasm of southeast asia. international conference on indigenous vegetables and legumes. prospectus for fighting poverty, hunger and malnutrition 752 (pp. 55–60). flyman, m. v., & afolayan, a. j. (2006). the suitability of wild vegetables for alleviating human dietary deficiencies. south african journal of botany, 72 (4), 492–497. doi:10.1016/j.sajb.2006.02.003 jaenicke, h., & hoschle-zeledon,i. (2006). strategic framework for underutilized plant species research and development: banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 86 regmi et al. with special reference to asia and the pacific, and to sub-saharan africa. rome, italy: international centre for under utilized crops. joshi, n., kehlenbeck, k., & maass, b. l. (2007). traditional, neglected vegetables of nepal: their sustainable utilization for meeting human needs. conference on international agricultural research for development, (pp. 1–10). tropentag. joshi, n., siwakoti, m., & kehlenbeck, k. (2015). wild vegetable species in makawanpur district, central nepal: developing a priority setting approach for domestication to improve food security. economic botany, 69 (2), 161–170. kunwar, r., mahat, l., sharma, l., shrestha, k., kominee, h., & bussmann, r. (2012). underutilized plant species in far west nepal. journal of mountain sciences, 9(5), 589-600. doi:10.1007/s11629-012-2315-8 limbu, p., & thapa, k. (2011). chepang food culture: contribution to wild edible and neglected plant species. pokhara, nepal: local initiatives for biodiversity research and development (libird). malla, b., & chhetri, r. (2009). indigenous knowledge on ethnobotanical plants of kavrepalanchowk disctrict. journal of science engineering and technology, 5 (2), 96–109. manandhar, n. (2002). plants and people of nepal. portland oregon, usa: timber press . press, j. r., shrestha, k. k., & sutton, d. a. (2000). annotated checklist of the flowering plants of nepal. london: the natural history museum. rajyalakshmi, p., venkatalaxmi, k. v., & suneetha, v. (2001). total carotenoid and beta-carotene contents of forest green leafy vegetables consumed by tribals of south india. plant foods for huma. plant foods for human nutrition, 56 (3), 225–238. rana, r., joshi, k., & lohar, d. (1998). on-farm conservation of indigenous vegetables by strengthening community based seed banking in seti river valley. pokhara, nepal: li-bird. sharma, l. n., & bastakoti, r. (2009). ethnobotany of dioscorea l. with emphasis on food value in chepang communities in dhading district, central nepal. botanica orientalis: journal of plant science, 6, 12–17. doi:10.3126/botor.v6i0.2905 shava, s. (2005). research on indigenous knowledge and its application: a case of wild food plants of zimbabwe. southern african journal of environmental education, 22, 73–86. doi:10.4314/sajee. v22i0.122700 shrestha, d. (2013). indigenous vegetables of nepal for biodiversity and food security. international journal of biodiversity and conservation, 5 (3), 98–108. doi:10.5897/ ijbc11.124 shrestha, p., gautam, r., rana, r., & sthapit, b. (2004). managing diversity in various ecosystems: home gardens of nepal. washington, usa. singh, a. g., singh, m. p., & tewari, d. d. (2012). wild plants used as vegetable in rupandehi district of nepal and their ethnomedicinal importance. journal of natural history museum, 26, 111–125. siwakoti, m., & tiwari, s. (2007). emerging needs of wetlands protection for the conservation of wild rice biodiversity in nepal: a case study from lumbini area. science world, 5 (5), 95–99. doi:10.3126/ sw.v5i5.2664 uprety, y., poudel, r., shrestha, k., rajbhandary, s., tiwari, n. n., shrestha, u. b., & asselin, h. (2012). diversity of use and local knowledge of wild edible plant resources in nepal. journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine, 8 (16), 1–15. weinberger, k., & msuya, j. (2004). indigenous vegetabls in tanzania: singnificance and prospects. shanhua, taiwan: avrdc publication. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 1 regmi et al. appendix some photographs of wild and underutilized vegetables found in jaimini municipality ward – 5. local name: halhale scientific name: rumex nepalensis local name: chichinda scientific name:trichosanthes cochinchinensis local name: scientific name: amaranthus wallichii local name: photongi scientific name: plantago major local name: ban phapar scientific name: fagopyrum dibotrys local name: thakal scientific name: cirsium verutum local name: bethe scientific name: chenopodium album local name: chari amilo scientific name: oxalis corniculata local name: kubindo scientific name: benincasa banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 2 regmi et al. local name:tanki scientific name: bauhinia purpurea local name:barela scientific name: cyclanthera pedata local name: kukurdiano scientific name: smilax aspera local name: githo scientific name: dioscorea bulbifera local name: vhyakur scientific name: dioscorea alata local name: bramelidhaniya scientific name: eryngium foetidum local name: sisnu scientific name: urtica dioica 45 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1, 2025 pp 45-61https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i1.73301 effects of dust pollution on leaf morphology and chlorophyll content: a comparative study across two seasons in biratnagar, nepal u. shrestha 1, s. rijal 1, m. k. chettri 1, b. d. acharya 1, m. r. paudel 2, a. shrestha 2, p. adhikari 2, a. devkota 2* the effect of dust on leaf morphology and chlorophyll content in industrial, roadside, residential, and campus areas during the winter (january) and monsoon (june) season of 2024 was investigated. the highest dust load on the leaves of tectona grandis was recorded in industrial areas during the winter season. the greatest leaf area reduction was observed in azadirachta indica (13.25%) in winter and citrus maxima (14.32%) in the monsoon season. the specific leaf area (sla) of ficus religiosa decreased by 20.48% in winter, and that of nephelium litchi decreased by 28.46% in monsoon, particularly in industrial areas, likely due to their dust-trapping capacity and stress tolerance. total chlorophyll was mostly reduced in polluted areas (industrial, roadside areas) in the winter season. during the studied seasons, chlorophyll-a ranged from 0.04 to 2.56 mg/g, chlorophyll-b ranged from 0.66 to 2.56 mg/g, and total chlorophyll ranged from 0.13 to 3.08 mg/g. both chlorophyll-a and chlorophyll-b showed greater reduction during the monsoon season compared to winter. less reduction in chlorophyll-a was observed in ficus benghalensis, ficus religiosa, mangifera indica, neolamarckia cadamba, and syzygium cumini. but the species like artocarpus heterophyllus, citrus maxima, syzygium cumini, and mangifera indica exhibited less reduction in chlorophyll-b. the chlorophyll a:b ratio was generally higher during the winter season, particularly in the campus area (a less polluted site), whereas the ratio was reduced in more polluted areas. physiological characteristics were more affected by dust accumulation than morphological characteristics. plant species like artocarpus heterophyllus, ficus benghalensis, ficus religiosa, mangifera indica, neolamarckia cadamba, nephelium litchi and psidium guajava showed comparatively less impact from dust, indicating their potential use in minimizing air pollution and enhancing urban green spaces. key words: chlorophyll ratio; dust; leaf area; plant species; specific leaf area (sla). air pollution, a pervasive issue in urban and industrial areas, consists of various pollutants such as particulate matters (pms), gases, and heavy metals that adversely affect living organisms, including plants (sharma et al., 2007; jitin & jain, 2014). leaves which are the primary site for photosynthesis, are the most exposed part of a plant and are often the first to exhibit signs of damage when exposed to pollutants (prajapati & tripathi, 2008). air pollution impacts plants through the accumulation of dust and particulate matter on leaf surfaces. due to their large surface area, airborne pollutants get trapped and block stomata function, reduce photosynthetic efficiency, and alter metabolic processes (javanmard et al., 2019). studies have shown that increased dust accumulation lead to higher relative water content (rwc) and ascorbic acid levels, while simultaneously reducing chlorophyll content and leaf ph (pandey et al., 2015; bharti et al., 2017; sapkota & shrestha, 2024). one of the most 1 department of botany, amrit campus, tribhuvan university, kathmandu 2 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kathmandu *email: devkotaa@gmail.com received: 30, december 2024 revised: 30, march 2025 accepted: 19, may 2025 published: 30, may 2025 https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5272-2493 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-7485-2302 https://orcid.org/0009-0007-7710-371x https://orcid.org/0009-0004-0262-5861 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1739-9228 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-0343-1740 https://orcid.org/0009-0000-8583-364x https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1065-3286 46 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 shrestha et al. common impacts of plant exposure to pollutants is a reduction in chlorophyll concentrations (nithamathi & indira, 2005), along with leaf yellowing, which consequently decreases the photosynthetic rate (joshi & swami, 2007). the ratio of chlorophyll-a to chlorophyll-b helps in the identification of changes in light perceptions in plants (kushwaha et al., 2024). specific leaf area (sla) is the ratio of leaf area to its dry mass. it is an important morphological and functional trait that reflects a plant’s adaptability to its environmental conditions (liu et al., 2018). sla is closely related to photosynthesis, respiration, and biomass production. changes in sla due to environmental stressors indicate shifts in resource allocation and overall plant health. additionally, leaf shape parameters, including leaf area, length, and width, serve as key indicators for evaluating the impact of air pollution on plant morphology and functioning (wang et al., 2021). understanding the extent of dust accumulation and its effects on leaf morphology is crucial for assessing the implications of air pollution on plant growth and development. this study aimed to investigate the impact of dust load on leaf macro morphology and chlorophyll content with the objective of identifying tolerant and sensitive plant species suitable for plantation in urban areas of the terai region, nepal. materials and methods study area the study was conducted in biratnagar, located in morang district, koshi province (26°28’60” n latitude and 87°16’60” e longitude). biratnagar, is an industrial city in the eastern terai region of nepal. located in the tropical zone, biratnagar experienced temperature variations ranging from 9.76 °c in january to 33.58 °c in april. the highest recorded precipitation was 353 mm in september, while no rainfall was recorded in november during the period from 2019 to 2024 (biratnagar station). according to the department of industry (doi, 2022), a total of 302 industries were registered in morang district in the fiscal year 2078/2079. the most polluted industrial areas were budhiganga and gidhaniya, surrounded by various industries like swastika jute mills, surya chemical pvt. ltd, located within an aerial distance of 250 to 500 m (figure 1). roadside areas were titariya, ghinaghat and malaya road, which are road networks connected to biratnagar. residential areas were from the rani temple area nearer to the biratngar custom office. the mahendra morang multiple campus, biratnagar was considered as relatively less polluted area. the study was conducted in biratnagar, located in morang district, koshi province (26°28'60" n latitude and 87°16'60" e longitude). biratnagar, is an industrial city in the eastern terai region of nepal. located in the tropical zone, biratnagar experienced temperature variations ranging from 9.76 °c in january to 33.58 °c in april. the highest recorded precipitation was 353 mm in september, while no rainfall was recorded in november during the period from 2019 to 2024 (biratnagar station). according to the department of industry (doi, 2022), a total of 302 industries were registered in morang district in the fiscal year 2078/2079. the most polluted industrial areas were budhiganga and gidhaniya, surrounded by various industries like swastika jute mills, surya chemical pvt. ltd, located within an aerial distance of 250 to 500 m (figure 1). roadside areas were titariya, ghinaghat and malaya road, which are road networks connected to biratnagar. residential areas were from the rani temple area nearer to the biratngar custom office. the mahendra morang multiple campus, biratnagar was considered as relatively less polluted area. figure 1: map of the study area (a=nepal, b= morang, c= industrial and d= roadside, residential and campus, source: qgis version 3.28) study areas were categorized based on the average concentrations of particulate matter (pm), respirable suspended particles (rsp) and total suspended particles (tsp) (measured in μg/m³) recorded at different sites using aeroqual air sampler, usa (table 1). figure 1: map of the study area (a=nepal, b= morang, c= industrial and d= roadside, residential and campus, source: qgis version 3.28) 47 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1shrestha et al. study areas were categorized based on the average concentrations of particulate matter (pm), respirable suspended particles (rsp) and total suspended particles (tsp) (measured in μg/m³) recorded at different sites using aeroqual air sampler, usa (table 1). sampling design purposive sampling was conducted in january for winter and july for monsoon season of 2024 in biratnagar, morang district because ambient air quality during winter months mostly remains polluted due to dry weather conditions. altogether 12 plant species (table 2) were selected based on their availability and natural occurrence in the study area. plant species were identified through direct field observations prior to sample collection. secondary sources, including references books (flora of nepal) and the tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch), were also consulted for accurate identification. broad and mature leaves (25-30 samples per species) were collected using a pruner from approximately 2 meters above ground level to ensure the optimal dust accumulation and to standardize the average height of trees. for comparative study between polluted and less polluted campus areas, 12 plant species were found to be common between the industrial and less polluted campus areas, 10 species were common between the roadside and less polluted campus areas and only 4 plant species were recorded as common between residential and less polluted campus areas. laboratory analysis morphological characteristics triplicate leaf samples were collected from each plant species. leaf length, leaf width and leaf area of the respective plant species were measured using imagej software version 1.54 (hamal, 2023). dust load dust load on the leaves was measured following prusty et al. (2005) protocol. first, three mature leaf samples of each species from each site were collected and weighed with dust (w1). the leaves were then thoroughly cleaned and weighed again (w2). the leaf area was calculated using imagej software version 1.54g (hamal, 2023). the dust load accumulated on table 1: classification of study areas based on average concentrations of pm, rsp and tsp on the different sites (μg/m3) (mean± sd, n=60) note: significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05) sampling design purposive sampling was conducted in january for winter and july for monsoon season of 2024 in biratnagar, morang district because ambient air quality during winter months mostly remains polluted due to dry weather conditions. altogether 12 plant species (table 2) were selected based on their availability and natural occurrence in the study area. plant species were identified through direct field observations prior to sample collection. secondary sources, including references books (flora of nepal) and the tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch), were also consulted for accurate identification. broad and mature leaves (25-30 samples per species) were collected using a pruner from approximately 2 meters above ground level to ensure the optimal dust accumulation and to standardize the average height of trees. table 2: list of plant species collected from different sites sn name of plant species common name family 1. artocarpus heterophyllus lam. jackfruit moraceae 2. azadirachta indica a.juss. neem meliaceae 3. citrus maxima (burm). merr. bhogate rutaceae 4. ficus benghalensis l. bar moraceae 5. ficus religiosa l. peepal moraceae 6. mangifera indica l. mango anacardiaceae 7. neolamarckia cadamba (roxb.) bosser kadam rubiaceae 8. nephelium litchi steud litchi sapindaceae 9. psidium guajava l. guava myrtaceae 10. syzygium cumini (l.) skeels jamun myrtaceae 11. saraca ascosa (roxb.) wild. ashoka fabaceae 12. tectona grandis l. f. teak lamiaceae for comparative study between polluted and less polluted campus areas, 12 plant species were found to be common between the industrial and less polluted campus areas, 10 species were common between the roadside and less polluted campus areas and only 4 plant species were recorded as common between residential and less polluted campus areas. study area category locations pm1 pm2.5 pm10 rsp tsp industrial polluted budhiganga and gidhaniya 32.95±3.86d 46.20±4.63d 75.70±12.27d 56.05±6.23c 86.68±17.22d roadside polluted titariya, ghinaghat and malaya 26.71±0.99c 34.17±1.14c 64.37±1.92c 43.09±1.55b 80.62±2.38c residential moderately polluted rani temple 21.67±1.85b 25.28±1.42b 36.77±2.30b 28.39±1.83 a 34.28±2.60a campus area less polluted mahendra morang campus 17.10±0.99a 22.78±1.18 a 31.87±1.89 a 28.87±1.76 a 42.84±2.27b table 1: classification of study areas based on average concentrations of pm, rsp and tsp on the different sites (μg/m3) (mean± sd, n=60) note: significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05) sampling design purposive sampling was conducted in january for winter and july for monsoon season of 2024 in biratnagar, morang district because ambient air quality during winter months mostly remains polluted due to dry weather conditions. altogether 12 plant species (table 2) were selected based on their availability and natural occurrence in the study area. plant species were identified through direct field observations prior to sample collection. secondary sources, including references books (flora of nepal) and the tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch), were also consulted for accurate identification. broad and mature leaves (25-30 samples per species) were collected using a pruner from approximately 2 meters above ground level to ensure the optimal dust accumulation and to standardize the average height of trees. table 2: list of plant species collected from different sites sn name of plant species common name family 1. artocarpus heterophyllus lam. jackfruit moraceae 2. azadirachta indica a.juss. neem meliaceae 3. citrus maxima (burm). merr. bhogate rutaceae 4. ficus benghalensis l. bar moraceae 5. ficus religiosa l. peepal moraceae 6. mangifera indica l. mango anacardiaceae 7. neolamarckia cadamba (roxb.) bosser kadam rubiaceae 8. nephelium litchi steud litchi sapindaceae 9. psidium guajava l. guava myrtaceae 10. syzygium cumini (l.) skeels jamun myrtaceae 11. saraca ascosa (roxb.) wild. ashoka fabaceae 12. tectona grandis l. f. teak lamiaceae for comparative study between polluted and less polluted campus areas, 12 plant species were found to be common between the industrial and less polluted campus areas, 10 species were common between the roadside and less polluted campus areas and only 4 plant species were recorded as common between residential and less polluted campus areas. study area category locations pm1 pm2.5 pm10 rsp tsp industrial polluted budhiganga and gidhaniya 32.95±3.86d 46.20±4.63d 75.70±12.27d 56.05±6.23c 86.68±17.22d roadside polluted titariya, ghinaghat and malaya 26.71±0.99c 34.17±1.14c 64.37±1.92c 43.09±1.55b 80.62±2.38c residential moderately polluted rani temple 21.67±1.85b 25.28±1.42b 36.77±2.30b 28.39±1.83 a 34.28±2.60a campus area less polluted mahendra morang campus 17.10±0.99a 22.78±1.18 a 31.87±1.89 a 28.87±1.76 a 42.84±2.27b table 1: classification of study areas based on average concentrations of pm, rsp and tsp on the different sites (μg/m3) (mean± sd, n=60) note: significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05) table 2: list of plant species collected from different sites 48 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 shrestha et al. the leaves was calculated using the formula given by prusty et al. (2005): statistical analysis all data calculation was done in ms excel 2013, and statistical analyses were performed using ibm spss statistics 20 version. one-way anova was used to assess significant differences in the mean and percentage decrease of specific leaf area (sla), leaf area, leaf length, leaf width, chlorophyll concentrations, and chlorophyll-a to chlorophyll-b ratio (a:b) among plant species from different study areas across the two seasons. pearson’s correlation test was performed to determine the relationship between dust load per leaf area, leaf morphology, and chlorophyll concentration reduction across both seasons. a scatter plot was drawn to visualize the relationships between selected pairs of variables. results dust load dust load was comparatively higher in the winter season than in the monsoon (figure 2), with industrial areas recording the highest average dust load accumulation, followed by residential, roadside, and campus areas in both seasons. among the sample species, tectona grandis in winter and saraca asoca in the monsoon recorded the highest dust load in industrial areas with 12.29 mg/cm2 and 0.28 mg/cm2 respectively (table 3). at roadside locations, azadirachta indica exhibited the highest dust accumulation in both seasons, with 2.61 mg/ cm² in winter and 0.31 mg/cm² in the monsoon. similarly, saraca asoca (winter) and mangifera indica (monsoon) recorded significantly higher dust load (p < 0.05) in residential areas, with 2.20 mg/ cm² and 0.21 mg/cm². syzygium cumini in winter and nephelium litchi in the monsoon recorded the highest dust load at 0.67 and 0.54 mg/cm2, respectively. the dust levels in residential areas were higher than those near the roads due to ongoing construction activities and increased vehicle movement. laboratory analysis morphological characteristics triplicate leaf samples were collected from each plant species. leaf length, leaf width and leaf area of the respective plant species were measured using imagej software version 1.54 (hamal, 2023). dust load dust load on the leaves was measured following prusty et al. (2005) protocol. first, three mature leaf samples of each species from each site were collected and weighed with dust (w1). the leaves were then thoroughly cleaned and weighed again (w2). the leaf area was calculated using image j software version 1.54g (hamal, 2023). the dust load accumulated on the leaves was calculated using the formula given by prusty et al. (2005): specific leaf area (sla) for the measurement of sla, broad and mature leaf samples were selected, and their photographs were taken alongside a scale using redmi mobile phone. triplicate leaf samples were taken. the leaves were then oven-dried at 70 ˚c, and their dry weight was recorded using a digital balance (s303, 0.001g). the fresh leaf area was calculated using the imagej software version 1.54g. sla for each leaf was determined according to cornelissen et al. (1996). chlorophyll content disc of fresh leaves (weighing 0.09 g) were punched and kept in an eppendorf tube containing 1 ml of dmso4 (dimethyl sulfoxide) solvent immediately after collection. chlorophyll content was determined according to barnes et al. (1992) with slight modifications. specifically, triplicate leaf disc samples from each species were immersed in dmso4 and kept in an ice box for 24-48 hours to extract the chlorophyll and prevent chlorophyll degradation prior to laboratory analysis. after that, the solution along with leaf samples was kept in a water bath at 60-70 ˚c for 2-3 hours till the complete extraction of chlorophyll. the resulting extract was pipetted in a micro-plate using a micropipette, and the absorbance was measured at 665 nm and laboratory analysis morphological characteristics triplicate leaf samples were collected from each plant species. leaf length, leaf width and leaf area of the respective plant species were measured using imagej software version 1.54 (hamal, 2023). dust load dust load on the leaves was measured following prusty et al. (2005) protocol. first, three mature leaf samples of each species from each site were collected and weighed with dust (w1). the leaves were then thoroughly cleaned and weighed again (w2). the leaf area was calculated using image j software version 1.54g (hamal, 2023). the dust load accumulated on the leaves was calculated using the formula given by prusty et al. (2005): specific leaf area (sla) for the measurement of sla, broad and mature leaf samples were selected, and their photographs were taken alongside a scale using redmi mobile phone. triplicate leaf samples were taken. the leaves were then oven-dried at 70 ˚c, and their dry weight was recorded using a digital balance (s303, 0.001g). the fresh leaf area was calculated using the imagej software version 1.54g. sla for each leaf was determined according to cornelissen et al. (1996). chlorophyll content disc of fresh leaves (weighing 0.09 g) were punched and kept in an eppendorf tube containing 1 ml of dmso4 (dimethyl sulfoxide) solvent immediately after collection. chlorophyll content was determined according to barnes et al. (1992) with slight modifications. specifically, triplicate leaf disc samples from each species were immersed in dmso4 and kept in an ice box for 24-48 hours to extract the chlorophyll and prevent chlorophyll degradation prior to laboratory analysis. after that, the solution along with leaf samples was kept in a water bath at 60-70 ˚c for 2-3 hours till the complete extraction of chlorophyll. the resulting extract was pipetted in a micro-plate using a micropipette, and the absorbance was measured at 665 nm and specific leaf area (sla) for the measurement of sla, broad and mature leaf samples were selected, and their photographs were taken alongside a scale using redmi mobile phone. triplicate leaf samples were taken. the leaves were then oven-dried at 70°c, and their dry weight was recorded using a digital balance (s303, 0.001g). the fresh leaf area was calculated using the imagej software version 1.54g. sla for each leaf was determined according to cornelissen et al. (1996). chlorophyll content disc of fresh leaves (weighing 0.09 g) were punched and kept in an eppendorf tube containing 1 ml of dmso4 (dimethyl sulfoxide) solvent immediately after collection. chlorophyll content was determined according to barnes et al. (1992) with slight modifications. specifically, triplicate leaf disc samples from each species were immersed in dmso4 and kept in an ice box for 24-48 hours to extract the chlorophyll and prevent chlorophyll degradation prior to laboratory analysis. after that, the solution along with leaf samples was kept in a water bath at 60-70°c for 2-3 hours till the complete extraction of chlorophyll. the resulting extract was pipetted in a micro-plate using a micropipette, and the absorbance was measured at 665 nm and 648 nm using a microplate spectrophotometer (biotek epoch 2). chlorophyll contents in the leaves were then calculated by using the formula given by barnes et al. (1992). 648 nm using a microplate spectrophotometer (biotek epoch 2). chlorophyll contents in the leaves were then calculated by using the formula given by barnes et al. (1992). where, v= volume of dmso4 solvent, w= weight of fresh leaves used statistical analysis all data calculation was done in ms excel 2013, and statistical analyses were performed using ibm spss statistics 20 version. one-way anova was used to assess significant differences in the mean and percentage decrease of specific leaf area (sla), leaf area, leaf length, leaf width, chlorophyll concentrations, and chlorophyll-a to chlorophyll-b ratio (a:b) among plant species from different study areas across the two seasons. pearson’s correlation test was performed to determine the relationship between dust load per leaf area, leaf morphology, and chlorophyll concentration reduction across both seasons. a scatter plot was drawn to visualize the relationships between selected pairs of variables. results dust load dust load was comparatively higher in the winter season than in the monsoon (figure 2), with industrial areas recording the highest average dust load accumulation, followed by residential, roadside, and campus areas in both seasons. among the sample species, tectona grandis in winter and saraca asoca in the monsoon recorded the highest dust loads in industrial areas with 12.29 mg/cm2 and 0.28 mg/cm2 respectively (table 3). at roadside locations, azadirachta indica exhibited the highest dust accumulation in both seasons, with 2.61 mg/cm² in winter and 0.31 mg/cm² in the monsoon. similarly, saraca asoca (winter) and mangifera indica (monsoon) recorded significantly higher dust loads (p < 0.05) in residential areas, with 2.20 mg/cm² and 0.21 mg/cm². syzygium cumini in winter and nephelium litchi in the monsoon recorded the highest dust loads at 0.67 and 0.54 mg/cm2, respectively. the dust levels in residential areas were higher than those near the roads due to ongoing construction activities and increased vehicle movement. where, v= volume of dmso4 solvent, w= weight of fresh leaves used figure 2: dust accumulation on leaves at different study areas across two seasons figure 2: dust accumulation on leaves at different study areas across two seasons table 3: dust load (mg/cm2) on leaves of different plant species comparing two seasons plant species industrial roadside residential campus winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon artocarpus heterophyllus 1.05±0.10a 0.15±0.27abcd 0.48±0.09ab 0.09±0.01ab 0.26±0.10abc 0.15±0.04a azadirachta indica 1.89±0.64a 0.20±0.02cd 2.61±0.43g 0.32±0.10c 0.23±0.09ab 0.14±0.01a citrus maxima 9.60±0.89bc 0.05±0.01a 1.84±0.32efg 0.10±0.04ab 0.24±0.14ab 0.12±0.08a ficus benghalensis 1.73±0.22a 0.12±0.01abc 0.88±0.19abcde 0.07±0.03a 0.63±0.21cd 0.10±0.03a ficus religiosa 1.87±0.13a 0.11±0.00abc 1.71±0.32defg 0.11±0.01ab 0.27±0.06abc 0.13±0.03a mangifera indica 6.99±0.94b 0.19±0.01bcd 1.56±0.29cdef 0.11±0.03ab 1.45±0.29bc 0.26±0.08b 0.40±0.10abcd 0.54±0.03b neolamarckia cadamba 1.78±0.16a 0.11±0.01abc 0.70±0.19abcd 0.10±0.01ab 0.87±0.13ab 0.04±0.01a 0.16±0.05ab 0.04±0.01a nephelium litchi 3.14±0.24a 0.14±0.07abc 0.66±0.12abcd 0.04±0.02a 0.13±0.03a 0.08±0.03a psidium guajava 0.87±0.02a 0.15±0.10abcd 1.51±0.29bcdef 0.23±0.04bc 0.84±0.15ab 0.23±0.01ab 0.15±0.03ab 0.40±0.16b syzygium cumini 2.89±0.23a 0.06±0.01ab 2.23±0.39fg 0.07±0.03a 0.67±0.08d 0.06±0.02a saraca asoca 2.64±0.029a 0.28±0.01d 2.20±0.57c 0.21±0.07ab 0.33±0.04abcd 0.01±0.01a tectona grandis 12.29±2.51c 0.21±0.05cd 1.57±0.41cdef 0.15±0.03ab 0.12±0.03a 0.05±0.02a f-value 14.12 2.48 5.16 3.40 4.25 2.98 2.53 7.14 note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, (n=12 to 36) leaf area in winter, the leaf area ranged from 8.63 cm2 in azadirachta indica at the industrial area to 194.98 cm2 in tectona grandis at the roadside area. during the monsoon, the range was broader, with the lowest leaf area of 10.28 cm2 in azadirachta indica in the industrial area and the highest of 904.58 cm2 in tectona grandis in the campus area (table 4). 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 industrial area road side residential campus area d us t l oa d (m g/ cm 2 ) winter monsoon study areas 49 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1shrestha et al. leaf area in winter, the leaf area ranged from 8.63 cm2 in azadirachta indica at the industrial area to 194.98 cm2 in tectona grandis at the roadside area. during the monsoon, the range was broader, with the lowest leaf area of 10.28 cm2 in azadirachta indica in the industrial area and the highest of 904.58 cm2 in tectona grandis in the campus area (table 4). the percentage of leaf area reduction was lower in industrial areas compared to campus areas during table 3: dust load (mg/cm2) on leaves of different plant species comparing two seasons both seasons. in the winter season, the greatest leaf area reduction was observed in azadirachta indica (13.25%) at industrial, and in neolamarckia cadamba at both roadside (12.65%) and residential (8.35%) areas. during the monsoon season, the maximum reduction in leaf area was recorded in citrus maxima at industrial (14.32%) and psidium guajava at both roadside (21.88%) and residential (13.91%) areas. ficus religiosa showed the least leaf area reduction (0.42%) in industrial areas during the winter season (figure 3). table 4: leaf area (cm2) of different plant species at study areas during two seasons note: data are expressed as mean ± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p-values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, (n=12 to 36) note: data are expressed as mean ± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, (n=12 to 36) table 4: leaf area (cm2) of different plant species at study areas during two seasons plant species industrial roadside residential campus winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon artocarpus heterophyllus 67.91±9.25cd 70.67±6.21bc 68.55±12.73cd 76.97±3.49ab 72.53±10.12de 78.23±3.58bc azadirachta indica 8.63±0.23a 10.28±1.81a 8.71±0.22a 10.49±1.77a 9.95±0.18a 11.26±1.49a citrus maxima 55.66±1.27bcd 48.89±7.10bc 58.44±5.34bc 51.43±2.64a 58.65±5.37bcd 57.02±2.65b ficus benghalensis 89.64±8.60e 145.05±19.19e 86.10±5.66d 141.26±19.84bc 90.61±8.06e 161.46±17.48d ficus religiosa 74.30±3.64de 51.40±2.59bc 66.39±6.41cd 51.05±2.60a 75.38±7.24de 54.81±3.18b magnifera indica 60.36±5.04cd 81.71±10.73d 64.79±4.74c 86.08±8.98ab 65.86±13.20a 83.31±17.32a 67.02±4.69cd 92.35±10.33c neolamarckia cadamba 114.48±2.76f 195.06±9.02f 106.82±4.35e 189.39±6.26c 112.00±3.84b 195.38±9.80b 122.32±4.31f 199.41±8.74e nephelium litchi 39.92±4.98b 45.97±4.57b 41.13±2.75b 48.54±4.71a 41.74±3.16b 54.52±7.32b psidium guajava 73.91±7.43de 74.71±12.50cd 71.61±3.96cd 67.00±12.01ab 70.74±4.84a 72.80±7.04a 74.61±7.15de 85.16±9.59c syzygium cumini 50.78±4.69bc 71.75±3.42bc 56.72±6.90bc 70.95±5.59ab 58.17±4.41bcd 77.69±1.21bc saraca asoca 51.34±4.30bc 55.01±5.20bc 48.41±2.37a 52.48±1.04a 51.95±4.13bc 59.42±3.67b tectona grandis 174.13±12.35g 895.94±1.65g 194.98±7.85f 809.43±79.56d 196.57±7.35g 904.58±0.29f f-value 42.850 790.69 55.036 79.03 13.285 36.88 58.623 1029.69 note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, (n=12 to 36) the percentage of leaf area reduction was lower in industrial areas compared to campus areas during both seasons. in the winter season, the greatest leaf area reduction was observed in azadirachta indica (13.25%) at industrial, and in neolamarckia cadamba at both roadside (12.65%) and residential (8.35%) areas. during the monsoon season, the maximum reduction in leaf area was recorded in citrus maxima at industrial (14.32%) and psidium guajava at both roadside (21.88%) and residential (13.91%) areas. ficus religiosa showed the least leaf area reduction (0.42%) in industrial areas during the winter season (figure 3). figure 2: dust accumulation on leaves at different study areas across two seasons table 3: dust load (mg/cm2) on leaves of different plant species comparing two seasons plant species industrial roadside residential campus winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon artocarpus heterophyllus 1.05±0.10a 0.15±0.27abcd 0.48±0.09ab 0.09±0.01ab 0.26±0.10abc 0.15±0.04a azadirachta indica 1.89±0.64a 0.20±0.02cd 2.61±0.43g 0.32±0.10c 0.23±0.09ab 0.14±0.01a citrus maxima 9.60±0.89bc 0.05±0.01a 1.84±0.32efg 0.10±0.04ab 0.24±0.14ab 0.12±0.08a ficus benghalensis 1.73±0.22a 0.12±0.01abc 0.88±0.19abcde 0.07±0.03a 0.63±0.21cd 0.10±0.03a ficus religiosa 1.87±0.13a 0.11±0.00abc 1.71±0.32defg 0.11±0.01ab 0.27±0.06abc 0.13±0.03a mangifera indica 6.99±0.94b 0.19±0.01bcd 1.56±0.29cdef 0.11±0.03ab 1.45±0.29bc 0.26±0.08b 0.40±0.10abcd 0.54±0.03b neolamarckia cadamba 1.78±0.16a 0.11±0.01abc 0.70±0.19abcd 0.10±0.01ab 0.87±0.13ab 0.04±0.01a 0.16±0.05ab 0.04±0.01a nephelium litchi 3.14±0.24a 0.14±0.07abc 0.66±0.12abcd 0.04±0.02a 0.13±0.03a 0.08±0.03a psidium guajava 0.87±0.02a 0.15±0.10abcd 1.51±0.29bcdef 0.23±0.04bc 0.84±0.15ab 0.23±0.01ab 0.15±0.03ab 0.40±0.16b syzygium cumini 2.89±0.23a 0.06±0.01ab 2.23±0.39fg 0.07±0.03a 0.67±0.08d 0.06±0.02a saraca asoca 2.64±0.029a 0.28±0.01d 2.20±0.57c 0.21±0.07ab 0.33±0.04abcd 0.01±0.01a tectona grandis 12.29±2.51c 0.21±0.05cd 1.57±0.41cdef 0.15±0.03ab 0.12±0.03a 0.05±0.02a f-value 14.12 2.48 5.16 3.40 4.25 2.98 2.53 7.14 note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, (n=12 to 36) leaf area in winter, the leaf area ranged from 8.63 cm2 in azadirachta indica at the industrial area to 194.98 cm2 in tectona grandis at the roadside area. during the monsoon, the range was broader, with the lowest leaf area of 10.28 cm2 in azadirachta indica in the industrial area and the highest of 904.58 cm2 in tectona grandis in the campus area (table 4). 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 industrial area road side residential campus area d us t l oa d (m g/ cm 2 ) winter monsoon study areas 50 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 shrestha et al. specific leaf area (sla) during the winter season, the sla varied from 55.10 cm2/g in syzygium cumini at the industrial area to 187.93 cm2/g in azadirachta indica at the roadside area. in the monsoon season, the sla ranged from 49.68 cm2/g in ficus benghalensis at the roadside to 179.08 cm2/g in citrus maxima at the campus area (table 5). sla was reduced in industrial areas and roadside compared to the campus area during both studied seasons (figure 4). in industrial areas, ficus religiosa showed the highest sla reduction (20.48%) during figure 3: percentage (%) reduction in leaf area of different plant species in two seasons specific leaf area (sla) during the winter season, the sla varied from 55.10 cm2/g in syzygium cumini at the industrial area to 187.93 cm2/g in azadirachta indica at the roadside area. in the monsoon season, the sla ranged from 49.68 cm2/g in ficus benghalensis at the roadside to 179.08 cm2/g in citrus maxima at the campus area (table 5). 0 5 10 15 20 25 winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon industrial roadside residential % r ed uc tio n in le af a re a seasons/study areas artocarpus heterophyllus azadirachta indica citrus maxima ficus benghalensis ficus religiosa nephelium litchi mangifera indica neolamarckia cadamba psidium guajava syzygium cumini saraca asoca tectona grandis figure 3: percentage (%) reduction in leaf area of different plant species in two seasons table 5: specific leaf area (cm2/g) areas of different plant species at study areas during two seasons table 5: specific leaf area (cm2/g) areas of different plant species at study areas during two seasons plant species industrial roadside residential campus winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon artocarpus heterophyllus 97.03±14.74b 140.50±10.58de 84.86±6.86abc 141.99±11.67de 111.71±34.70bc 143.13±11.06cde azadirachta indica 150.28±1.69c 125.09±13.12cde 187.93±2.52f 117.73±15.52bcd 172.58±2.36d 129.88±22.24bcd citrus maxima 102.99±2.50b 166.94±7.88e 123.49±15.71de 174.57±2.42e 110.57±6.51b 179.08±0.81e ficus benghalensis 82.61±3.74b 61.38±5.49a 55.54±7.08ab 49.68±1.02a 86.13±1.45ab 68.50±7.97a ficus religiosa 85.69±0.23b 86.18±7.08abc 76.09±28.76abc 92.32±7.15abc 114.70±18.47bc 101.49±4.15abc magnifera indica 82.46±2.54b 87.83±23.67abc 55.06±1.99ab 56.18±3.78a 59.82±6.99a 85.46±22.74a 86.70±7.54ab 91.41±24.28ab neolamarckia cadamba 146.60±10.77c 146.08±22.67de 130.95±1.43e 148.98±14.19de 96.66±4.13b 144.81±21.89a 153.61±5.92cd 154.72±18.65de nephelium litchi 82.44±6.60b 116.20±6.92bcd 77.78±7.81abc 135.19±32.33cde 83.76±1.54ab 162.63±4.61de psidium guajava 80.62±8.01b 73.94±26.90ab 89.22±1.00bc 71.92±25.55ab 88.94±4.72b 79.71±30.03a 93.50±2.95ab 81.49±29.91a syzygium cumini 55.10±0.95a 80.06±6.50abc 49.68±3.10a 87.24±1.84ab 60.35±1.64a 89.50±1.45ab saraca asoca 142.33±12.67c 138.71±9.44de 99.04±4.82b 140.81±4.62a 152.94±11.55cd 142.05±4.28cde tectona grandis 105.00±3.37b 141.48±17.27de 94.84±7.27cd 150.87±6.26de 119.82±14.25bc 157.57±5.18de f-value 16.998 5.25 14.044 8.21 11.684 2.53 6.563 6.27 note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, (n=12 to 36) sla was reduced in industrial areas and roadside compared to the campus area during both studied seasons (figure 4). in industrial areas, ficus religiosa showed the highest sla reduction (20.48%) during winter, while nephelium litchi showed the highest reduction (28.46%) during the monsoon. similarly, mangifera indica at roadside (35.55% and 30.57%) and neolamarckia cadamba at residential areas (37.08% and 6.98%) recorded maximum sla reduction during both seasons. note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, (n=12 to 36) 51 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1shrestha et al. figure 4: percentage (%) reduction in sla of different plant species in two seasons an inverse relationship was observed between dust load and specific leaf area (sla) (figure 5), indicating that an increase in dust load corresponds to a decrease in the sla of plant species. (a) (b) figure 5: analysis between sla and dust load in winter (a) and monsoon (b) seasons leaf length during winter, the leaf length was shortest in azadirachta indica (6.11 ± 0.32 cm) at the industrial area), while the longest was recorded in tectona grandis (41.44 ± 0.79 cm) at the 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon industrial roadside residential % r ed uc tio n in s la seasons/study areas artocarpus heterophyllus azadirachta indica citrus maxima ficus benghalensis ficus religiosa nephelium mangifera indica neolamarckia cadamba psidium guajava syzygium cumini saraca asoca tectona grandis figure 4: percentage (%) reduction in sla of different plant species in two seasons an inverse relationship was observed between dust load and specific leaf area (sla) (figure 5), indicating that an increase in dust load corresponds to a decrease in the sla of plant species. (a) (b) figure 5: analysis between sla and dust load in winter (a) and monsoon (b) seasons leaf length during winter, the leaf length was shortest in azadirachta indica (6.11 ± 0.32 cm) at the industrial area), while the longest was recorded in tectona grandis (41.44 ± 0.79 cm) at the 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon industrial roadside residential % r ed uc tio n in s la seasons/study areas artocarpus heterophyllus azadirachta indica citrus maxima ficus benghalensis ficus religiosa nephelium mangifera indica neolamarckia cadamba psidium guajava syzygium cumini saraca asoca tectona grandis figure 4: percentage (%) reduction in sla of different plant species in two seasons figure 5: analysis between sla and dust load in winter (a) and monsoon (b) seasons winter, while nephelium litchi showed the highest reduction (28.46%) during the monsoon. similarly, mangifera indica at roadside (35.55% and 30.57%) and neolamarckia cadamba at residential areas (37.08% and 6.98%) recorded maximum sla reduction during both seasons. an inverse relationship was observed between dust load and specific leaf area (sla) (figure 5), indicating that an increase in dust load corresponds to a decrease in the sla of plant species. leaf length during winter, the leaf length was shortest in azadirachta indica (6.11 ± 0.32 cm) at the industrial area), while the longest was recorded in tectona grandis (41.44 ± 0.79 cm) at the roadside area (table 52 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 shrestha et al. 6). during monsoon, azadirachta indica had the shortest leaves (8.27 ± 0.19 cm) in the industrial area, while tectona grandis had the longest (48.31 ± 1.17 cm) in the campus area. overall, tectona grandis consistently exhibited the largest leaf lengths across all studied areas, whereas azadirachta indica had the smallest. the percentage of leaf length reduced mostly in industrial and roadside areas during winter compared to other areas and the monsoon season (figure 6). in industrial areas, mangifera indica exhibited maximum leaf length reduction (33.81%) during winter, but in monsoon ficus benghalensis showed the greatest reduction (28.56%). at roadside locations, ficus religiosa showed the maximum reduction in winter (5.21%), while neolamarckia cadamba exhibited the highest reduction (29.79%) during monsoon. in residential areas, saraca asoca showed maximum reduction during winter (5.43%), but in winter psidium guajava showed the maximum reduction (38.51%). leaf width during the winter season, the smallest leaf width was observed in azadirachta indica (3.39 ± 0.02 cm), while the largest was in tectona grandis (22.84 ± 0.93 table 6: leaf length (cm) of different plant species at different study areas during two seasons note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, (n=12 to 36) roadside area (table 6). during monsoon, azadirachta indica had the shortest leaves (8.27 ± 0.19 cm) in the industrial area, while tectona grandis had the longest (48.31 ± 1.17 cm) in the campus area. overall, tectona grandis consistently exhibited the largest leaf lengths across all studied areas, whereas azadirachta indica had the smallest. table 6: leaf length (cm) of different plant species at different study areas during two seasons plant species industrial roadside residential campus winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon artocarpus heterophyllus 12.08±0.36b 15.66±0.92bc 15.03±0.46bc 15.24±0.47bc 15.26±0.36b 15.75±0.81bc azadirachta indica 6.11±0.32a 8.27±0.19a 8.26±0.78a 8.47±0.28a 8.36±0.79a 8.52±0.15a citrus maxima 21.55±0.93d 11.88±0.25ab 22.08±0.95f 11.80±1.03ab 22.62±0.78e 12.66±0.35b ficus benghalensis 12.36±0.28b 16.61±2.90bcd 16.35±0.79bc 16.70±0.69b 17.25±0.70bc 23.21±0.20d ficus religiosa 13.57±0.17bc 12.23±1.53ab 14.61±0.18b 11.53±0.58ab 14.98±0.46b 13.68±0.42b magnifera indica 14.14±0.51bc 19.49±2.31cd 21.29±0.21ef 17.00±2.00c 20.90±0.30a 17.30±3.26ab 21.38±0.21de 22.41±2.14d neolamarckia cadamba 17.20±0.86c 21.00±1.54de 19.86±1.42def 16.69±1.41c 19.58±0.67 a 23.01±1.04b 19.60±0.69cde 23.75±0.49d nephelium licthi 13.64±1.48bc 14.18±1.05b 18.31±1.90cde 15.42±1.29bc 18.78±2.09cd 16.92±1.33c psidium guajava 15.78±0.64bc 15.64±1.60bc 20.93±1.87ef 13.81±0.43bc 21.66±2.47 a 11.46±0.68a 20.48±1.13cde 18.79±1.70c syzygium cumini 12.24±1.21b 16.21±0.39bc 17.00±0.49bcd 13.44±2.24bc 17.35±0.57bc 17.29±0.70c saraca asoca 23.31±3.44d 20.91±0.51d 25.18±2.37 a 19.90±0.97b 26.57±2.17f 22.23±0.61d tectona grandis 40.41±1.31es 46.84±1.51e 41.44±0.79g 34.58±2.76d 42.52±0.93g 48.31±1.17e f-value 45.241 44.02 59.894 21.90 1.864 7.28 57.988 93.43 note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, (n=12 to 36) the percentage of leaf length reduced mostly in industrial and roadside areas during winter compared to other areas and the monsoon season (figure 6). in industrial areas, mangifera indica exhibited maximum leaf length reduction (33.81%) during winter, but in monsoon ficus benghalensis showed the greatest reduction (28.56%). at roadside locations, ficus religiosa showed the maximum reduction in winter (5.21%), while neolamarckia cadamba exhibited the highest reduction (29.79%) during monsoon. in residential areas, saraca asoca showed maximum reduction during winter (5.43%), but in winter psidium guajava showed the maximum reduction (38.51%). figure 6: percentage (%) reduction in leaf length of different plant species in two seasons leaf width during the winter season, the smallest leaf width was observed in azadirachta indica (3.39 ± 0.02), while the largest was in tectona grandis (22.84 ± 0.93 cm) in the industrial area (table 7). during monsoon, azadirachta indica had the smallest leaf width (1.87 ± 0.08 cm) in the industrial area, while tectona grandis had the largest (33.48 ± 1.25 cm) in the campus area. overall, tectona grandis exhibited the greatest leaf width across all study areas and seasons, whereas azadirachta indica had the narrowest leaves. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon industrial roadside residential % r ed uc tio n in le af le ng th seasons/study areas artocarpus heterophyllus azadirachta indica citrus maxima ficus religiosa nephelium mangifera indica neolamarckia cadamba psidium guajava syzygium cumini saraca asoca tectona grandis figure 6: percentage (%) reduction in leaf length of different plant species in two seasons 53 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1shrestha et al. cm) in the industrial area (table 7). during monsoon, azadirachta indica had the smallest leaf width (1.87 ± 0.08 cm) in the industrial area, while tectona grandis had the largest (33.48 ± 1.25 cm) in the campus area. overall, tectona grandis exhibited the greatest leaf width across all study areas and seasons, whereas azadirachta indica had the narrowest leaves. the percentage of leaf width reduction was higher in polluted area during monsoon season compared to the less polluted area (figure 7). in industrial areas, nephelium litchi during winter (13.30%) and psidium guajava during monsoon (21.77%) season showed the highest reduction. at roadside, syzygium cumini during winter (12.39%) and neolamarckia cadamba during monsoon season (24.61%) showed the highest reduction. similarly, in residential areas, saraca asoca showed the maximum leaf width reduction in both seasons (5.30% in winter and 19.92% in monsoon). chlorophyll-a chlorophyll-a levels generally increased during the monsoon compared to the winter season, with industrial and less polluted areas showing significantly higher values than roadside and residential areas (table 8). however, certain plant species like, artocarpus heterophyllus, ficus religiosa, mangifera indica, neolamarckia cadamba, nephelium litchi, psidium guajava, syzygium cumini, and saraca asoca exhibited higher chlorophyll-a levels during the winter season. in winter, chlorophyll-a ranged from 0.09 mg/g in tectona grandis in industrial areas table 7: leaf width (cm) of different plant species at different study areas during two seasons figure 7: percentage (%) reduction in leaf width of different plant species in two seasons table 7: leaf width (cm) of different plant species at different study areas during two seasons plant species industrial roadside residential campus winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon artocarpus heterophyllus 9.48±0.32de 7.79±0.65e 10.36±0.59ef 7.42±0.76d 10.69±0.36f 8.40±0.22e azadirachta indica 3.39±0.02a 1.87±0.08a 3.36±0.02a 1.81±0.39a 3.56±0.52a 2.37±0.09a citrus maxima 7.51±0.56c 4.90±0.04bc 8.15±0.51cd 5.03±0.38b 8.25±0.56de 5.59±0.34bc ficus benghalensis 12.15±0.72f 10.47±0.80f 12.19±0.85fg 10.32±0.43e 12.93±0.88g 12.18±0.20f ficus religiosa 10.85±0.46ef 7.26±0.38de 11.70±0.21fg 6.86±0.43cd 11.80±0.28fg 8.17±0.17e magnifera indica 6.33±0.49cd 6.02±0.28cd 6.90±0.40bc 5.45±0.26bc 7.40±0.59b 6.24±0.78b 6.95±0.38cd 6.34±0.20cd neolamarckia cadamba 11.17±0.80ef 12.76±1.14g 12.64±0.41g 10.30±0.65e 11.82±0.07c 12.60±0.08c 12.73±0.39g 13.65±0.43g nephelium litchi 5.14±0.13ab 4.18±0.21b 5.59±0.40b 5.03±0.36b 5.94±0.18bc 5.21±0.33bc psidium guajava 7.87±0.75cd 6.30±0.74cde 8.81±0.60cde 5.47±0.04bc 8.98±0.67b 5.35±0.10b 9.09±0.65e 8.01±0.52e syzygium cumini 10.29±0.074ef 6.38±0.14cde 9.58±1.40de 6.47±0.31bcd 10.81±0.66f 6.99±0.77de saraca asoca 4.74±0.42ab 4.16±0.22b 5.03±0.43a 3.53±0.34a 5.31±0.38b 4.44±0.23b tectona grandis 22.84±0.93g 29.67±0.30h 22.30±0.54h 26.92±1.19f 24.10±0.41h 33.48±1.25h f-value 73.125 187.62 59.198 141.93 32.341 82.08 120.122 319.43 note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, n=12 to 36) the percentage of leaf width reduction was higher in polluted area during monsoon season compared to the less polluted area (figure 7). in industrial areas, nephelium litchi during winter (13.30%) and psidium guajava during monsoon (21.77%) season showed the highest reduction. at roadside, syzygium cumini during winter (12.39%) and neolamarckia cadamba during monsoon season (24.61%) showed the highest reduction. similarly, in residential areas, saraca asoca showed the maximum leaf width reduction in both seasons (5.30% in winter and 19.92% in monsoon). figure 7: percentage (%) reduction in leaf width of different plant species in two seasons chlorophyll-a 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon industrial roadside residential % r ed uc tio n in le af w id th seasons/study areas artocarpus heterophyllus azadirachta indica ficus benghalensis ficus religiosa nephelium litchi mangifera indica neolamarckia cadamba psidium guajava syzygium cumini saraca asoca tectona grandis table 7: leaf width (cm) of different plant species at different study areas during two seasons plant species industrial roadside residential campus winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon artocarpus heterophyllus 9.48±0.32de 7.79±0.65e 10.36±0.59ef 7.42±0.76d 10.69±0.36f 8.40±0.22e azadirachta indica 3.39±0.02a 1.87±0.08a 3.36±0.02a 1.81±0.39a 3.56±0.52a 2.37±0.09a citrus maxima 7.51±0.56c 4.90±0.04bc 8.15±0.51cd 5.03±0.38b 8.25±0.56de 5.59±0.34bc ficus benghalensis 12.15±0.72f 10.47±0.80f 12.19±0.85fg 10.32±0.43e 12.93±0.88g 12.18±0.20f ficus religiosa 10.85±0.46ef 7.26±0.38de 11.70±0.21fg 6.86±0.43cd 11.80±0.28fg 8.17±0.17e magnifera indica 6.33±0.49cd 6.02±0.28cd 6.90±0.40bc 5.45±0.26bc 7.40±0.59b 6.24±0.78b 6.95±0.38cd 6.34±0.20cd neolamarckia cadamba 11.17±0.80ef 12.76±1.14g 12.64±0.41g 10.30±0.65e 11.82±0.07c 12.60±0.08c 12.73±0.39g 13.65±0.43g nephelium litchi 5.14±0.13ab 4.18±0.21b 5.59±0.40b 5.03±0.36b 5.94±0.18bc 5.21±0.33bc psidium guajava 7.87±0.75cd 6.30±0.74cde 8.81±0.60cde 5.47±0.04bc 8.98±0.67b 5.35±0.10b 9.09±0.65e 8.01±0.52e syzygium cumini 10.29±0.074ef 6.38±0.14cde 9.58±1.40de 6.47±0.31bcd 10.81±0.66f 6.99±0.77de saraca asoca 4.74±0.42ab 4.16±0.22b 5.03±0.43a 3.53±0.34a 5.31±0.38b 4.44±0.23b tectona grandis 22.84±0.93g 29.67±0.30h 22.30±0.54h 26.92±1.19f 24.10±0.41h 33.48±1.25h f-value 73.125 187.62 59.198 141.93 32.341 82.08 120.122 319.43 note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, n=12 to 36) the percentage of leaf width reduction was higher in polluted area during monsoon season compared to the less polluted area (figure 7). in industrial areas, nephelium litchi during winter (13.30%) and psidium guajava during monsoon (21.77%) season showed the highest reduction. at roadside, syzygium cumini during winter (12.39%) and neolamarckia cadamba during monsoon season (24.61%) showed the highest reduction. similarly, in residential areas, saraca asoca showed the maximum leaf width reduction in both seasons (5.30% in winter and 19.92% in monsoon). figure 7: percentage (%) reduction in leaf width of different plant species in two seasons chlorophyll-a 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon industrial roadside residential % r ed uc tio n in le af w id th seasons/study areas artocarpus heterophyllus azadirachta indica ficus benghalensis ficus religiosa nephelium litchi mangifera indica neolamarckia cadamba psidium guajava syzygium cumini saraca asoca tectona grandis note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, n=12 to 36) 54 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 shrestha et al. to 2.56 mg/g in saraca asoca in less polluted areas. similarly, during monsoon season, it ranged from 0.74 mg/g in tectona grandis in industrial areas to 2.56 mg/g in saraca asoca in less polluted areas. reduction in chlorophyll-a mangifera indica from both industrial and residential areas, and neolamarckia cadamba from the roadside, exhibited the lowest percentage of reduction in chlorophyll-a during the winter season (figure 8). during monsoon season, plants species like ficus benghalensis, ficus religiosa, magnifera indica, neolamarckia cadamba and syzygium cumini exhibited less percent of reduction in chlorophyll-a from different study areas. chlorophyll-b chlorophyll-b increased during the monsoon, with significant variations across study areas and plant species (p<0.05 in most cases). during the winter season, chlorophyll-b ranged from 0.04 mg/g in tectona grandis in industrial areas to 0.52 mg/g in saraca asoca in less polluted areas (table 9). during monsoon, chlorophyll-b levels ranged from 0.66 mg/g in nephelium litchi in industrial area to 1.05 mg/g in psidium guajava in less polluted areas. reduction in chlorophyll-b the leaves of plants like artocarpus heterophyllus, citrus maxima, neolamarckia cadamba and ficus table 8: chlorophyll-a of different plant species at different study areas during two seasons note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, n=12 to 36) chlorophyll-a levels generally increased during the monsoon compared to the winter season, with industrial and less polluted areas showing significantly higher values than roadside and residential areas (table 8). however, certain plant species like, artocarpus heterophyllus, ficus religiosa, mangifera indica, neolamarckia cadamba, nephelium litchi, psidium guajava, syzygium cumini, and saraca asoca exhibited higher chlorophyll-a levels during the winter season. in winter, chlorophyll-a ranged from 0.09 mg/g in tectona grandis in industrial areas to 2.56 mg/g in saraca asoca in less polluted areas. similarly, during monsoon season, it ranged from 0.74 mg/g in tectona grandis in industrial areas to 2.56 mg/g in saraca asoca in less polluted areas. table 8: chlorophyll-a of different plant species at different study areas during two seasons plant species industrial roadside residential campus winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon artocarpus heterophyllus 1.15±0.09d 0.95±0.12abc 0.68±0.15b 0.87±0.02bc 1.34±0.12bc 1.95±0.10d azadirachta indica 0.61±0.06bc 0.78±0.04a 0.65±0.11b 1.54±0.26d 0.66±0.04a 1.64±0.36bcd citrus maxima 0.45±0.03b 0.82±0.10ab 0.48±0.07b 1.00±0.08c 0.57±0.07a 1.69±0.32cd ficus benghalensis 0.19±0.02a 1.16±0.08bcd 0.47±0.12b 0.99±0.07c 0.57±0.03a 1.45±0.30abcd ficus religiosa 0.50±0.06b 0.94±0.07abc 1.25±0.07cd 0.95±0.04c 1.68±0.07bcd 1.00±0.05ab mangifera indica 1.65±0.02e 1.51±0.00d 1.19±0.06c 0.93±0.17c 1.39±0.06b 1.21±0.18a 1.76±0.10cd 1.52±0.12abcd neolamarckia cadamba 0.82±0.02c 1.41±0.07d 1.52±0.04d 0.97±0.09c 0.42±0.03a 1.59±0.35a 1.56±0.03bcd 1.78±0.31d nephelium litchi 0.58±0.03bc 1.16±0.05bcd 1.04±0.02c 0.92±0.11c 1.60±0.04bcd 1.41±0.01abcd psidium guajava 1.58±0.01e 1.35±0.19d 1.11±0.09c 0.50±0.04a 1.16±0.23b 0.92±0.08a 1.83±0.05d 1.73±0.10d syzygium cumini 1.12±0.18d 0.94±0.13abc 1.12±0.18c 0.55±0.05ab 1.26±0.26b 1.05±0.11abc saraca asoca 2.08±0.12f 1.26±0.04cd 0.64±0.06a 1.06±0.15+a 2.56±0.35e 1.63±0.00bcd tectona grandis 0.09±0.01a 0.74±0.19a 0.11±0.01a 0.75±0.02abc 0.30±0.03a 0.94±0.02a f-value 56.24 5.69 17.52 5.53 12.55 1.74 21.47 2.65 p-value 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.23 0.00 0.02 note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, n=12 to 36) reduction in chlorophyll-a mangifera indica from both industrial and residential areas, and neolamarckia cadamba from the roadside, exhibited the lowest percentage of reduction in chlorophyll-a during the winter season (figure 8). during monsoon season, plants species like ficus benghalensis, ficus religiosa, magnifera indica, neolamarckia cadamba and syzygium cumini exhibited less percent of reduction in chlorophyll-a from different study areas. figure 8: percentage (%) reduction in chlorophyll-a of plant species in two seasons figure 8: percentage (%) reduction in chlorophyll-a of plant species in two seasons chlorophyll-b chlorophyll-b increased during the monsoon, with significant variations across study areas and plant species (p<0.05 in most cases). during the winter season, chlorophyll-b ranged from 0.04 mg/g in tectona grandis in industrial areas to 0.52 mg/g in saraca asoca in less polluted areas (table 9). during monsoon, chlorophyll-b levels ranged from 0.66 mg/g in nephelium litchi in industrial area to 1.05 mg/g in psidium guajava in less polluted areas. 0 20 40 60 80 winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon industrial roadside residential% r ed uc tio n in c hl -a seasons/ study areas artocarpus hetrophyllus azadirachta indica citrus maxima ficus religiosa mangifera indica neolamarckia cadamba nephelium litchi psidium gujava syzygium cumini saraca asoca tectona grandis 55 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1shrestha et al. table 9: chlorophyll-b of different plant species at different study areas during two seasons note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, n=12-36) table 9: chlorophyll-b of different plant species at different study areas during two seasons plant species industrial roadside residential less polluted winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon artocarpus heterophyllus 0.22±0.05cde 0.21±0.00ab 0.15±0.01ab 0.20±0.02abc 0.20±0.08a 0.23±0.02ab azadirachta indica 0.11±0.06abc 0.20±0.05ab 0.11±0.00ab 0.14±0.06ab 0.16±0.04a 0.31±0.07a citrus maxima 0.10±0.05abc 0.18±0.00a 0.16±0.03ab 0.23±0.05abcd 0.15±0.02a 1.07±0.49c ficus benghalensis 0.11±0.02abc 0.34±0.06abcd 0.14±0.02ab 0.10±0.03a 0.16±0.01a 0.60±0.15abc ficus religiosa 0.10±0.01abc 0.42±0.03cde 0.20±0.01bc 0.11±0.04a 0.56±0.21b 0.48±0.02ab mangifera indica 0.32±0.01e 0.36±0.02bcde 0.30±0.04c 0.82±0.08e 0.30±0.05b 0.41±0.13a 0.40±0.03ab 0.83±0.06bc neolamarckia cadamba 0.21±0.03bcd 0.44±0.01cde 0.31±0.02c 0.31±0.02bcd 0.13±0.00a 0.42±0.08a 0.35±0.01ab 0.58±0.12abc nephelium litchi 0.15±0.01bcd 0.66±0.04f 0.18±0.04ab 0.37±0.11cd 0.24±0.01a 0.66±0.02abc psidium guajava 0.26±0.02de 0.50±0.04def 0.22±0.00bc 0.13±0.00ab 0.19±0.00a 0.39±0.015a 0.37±0.01ab 1.05±0.04c syzygium cumini 0.17±0.09bcd 0.30±0.02abc 0.17±0.09ab 0.17±0.00ab 0.26±0.05a 0.31±0.03ab saraca asoca 0.40±0.02d 0.47±0.14cde 0.14±0.01a 0.68±0.25a 0.52±0.10b 0.80±0.08bc tectona grandis 0.04±0.01a 0.53±0.02ef 0.06±0.02a 0.40±0.02d 0.18±0.01a 0.61±0.10abc f-value 8.92 7.19 4.17 14.87 9.20 0.84 3.44 2.84 p-value 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.50 0.00 0..01 note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, n=12-36) reduction in chlorophyll-b the leaves of plants like artocarpus heterophyllus, citrus maxima, neolamarckia cadamba and ficus benghalensis showed a minimum percentage of reduction in chlorophyll-b from polluted areas during winter season while (figure 9), species like nephelium litchi, syzygium cumini and mangifera indica showed less percentage of reduction in chlorophyll-b during monsoon season. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon industrial roadside residential % r ed uc tio n in c hl -b seasons/ study areas artocarpus hetrophyllus azadirachta indica citrus maxima ficus benghalensis ficus religiosa mangifera indica neolamarckia cadamba nephelium litchi psidium gujava syzygium cumini saraca asoca tectona grandis table 9: chlorophyll-b of different plant species at different study areas during two seasons plant species industrial roadside residential less polluted winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon artocarpus heterophyllus 0.22±0.05cde 0.21±0.00ab 0.15±0.01ab 0.20±0.02abc 0.20±0.08a 0.23±0.02ab azadirachta indica 0.11±0.06abc 0.20±0.05ab 0.11±0.00ab 0.14±0.06ab 0.16±0.04a 0.31±0.07a citrus maxima 0.10±0.05abc 0.18±0.00a 0.16±0.03ab 0.23±0.05abcd 0.15±0.02a 1.07±0.49c ficus benghalensis 0.11±0.02abc 0.34±0.06abcd 0.14±0.02ab 0.10±0.03a 0.16±0.01a 0.60±0.15abc ficus religiosa 0.10±0.01abc 0.42±0.03cde 0.20±0.01bc 0.11±0.04a 0.56±0.21b 0.48±0.02ab mangifera indica 0.32±0.01e 0.36±0.02bcde 0.30±0.04c 0.82±0.08e 0.30±0.05b 0.41±0.13a 0.40±0.03ab 0.83±0.06bc neolamarckia cadamba 0.21±0.03bcd 0.44±0.01cde 0.31±0.02c 0.31±0.02bcd 0.13±0.00a 0.42±0.08a 0.35±0.01ab 0.58±0.12abc nephelium litchi 0.15±0.01bcd 0.66±0.04f 0.18±0.04ab 0.37±0.11cd 0.24±0.01a 0.66±0.02abc psidium guajava 0.26±0.02de 0.50±0.04def 0.22±0.00bc 0.13±0.00ab 0.19±0.00a 0.39±0.015a 0.37±0.01ab 1.05±0.04c syzygium cumini 0.17±0.09bcd 0.30±0.02abc 0.17±0.09ab 0.17±0.00ab 0.26±0.05a 0.31±0.03ab saraca asoca 0.40±0.02d 0.47±0.14cde 0.14±0.01a 0.68±0.25a 0.52±0.10b 0.80±0.08bc tectona grandis 0.04±0.01a 0.53±0.02ef 0.06±0.02a 0.40±0.02d 0.18±0.01a 0.61±0.10abc f-value 8.92 7.19 4.17 14.87 9.20 0.84 3.44 2.84 p-value 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.50 0.00 0..01 note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one-way anova for obtaining f and p values. significance mean values among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, n=12-36) reduction in chlorophyll-b the leaves of plants like artocarpus heterophyllus, citrus maxima, neolamarckia cadamba and ficus benghalensis showed a minimum percentage of reduction in chlorophyll-b from polluted areas during winter season while (figure 9), species like nephelium litchi, syzygium cumini and mangifera indica showed less percentage of reduction in chlorophyll-b during monsoon season. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon industrial roadside residential % r ed uc tio n in c hl -b seasons/ study areas artocarpus hetrophyllus azadirachta indica citrus maxima ficus benghalensis ficus religiosa mangifera indica neolamarckia cadamba nephelium litchi psidium gujava syzygium cumini saraca asoca tectona grandis figure 9: percentage (%) reduction in chlorophyll-b of plant species in two seasons benghalensis showed a minimum percentage of reduction in chlorophyll-b from polluted areas during winter season while (figure 9), species like nephelium litchi, syzygium cumini and mangifera indica showed less percentage of reduction in chlorophyll-b during monsoon season. ratio of chlorophyll (a:b) the chlorophyll a:b ratio was higher during the winter season, particularly in less polluted areas, as observed in species like artocarpus heterophyllus (table 10). in contrast, industrial and roadside areas exhibited more variable levels of chlorophyll content. notable species-specific trends were observed, such as syzygium cumini showing elevated chlorophyll content in industrial and roadside during winter, while tectona grandis consistently displayed low chlorophyll levels across all areas and seasons. total chlorophyll generally, plant species during monsoon seasons showed higher total chlorophyll levels, especially 56 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 shrestha et al. table 10: ratio of chl (a:b) of different plant species in two seasons note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one way anova for obtaining f and p value. significance mean value among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, n=12 to 36) figure 9: percentage (%) reduction in chlorophyll-b of plant species in two seasons ratio of chlorophyll (a:b) the chlorophyll a:b ratio was higher during the winter season, particularly in less polluted areas, as observed in species like artocarpus heterophyllus (table 10). in contrast, industrial and roadside areas exhibited more variable levels of chlorophyll content. notable speciesspecific trends were observed, such as syzygium cumini showing elevated chlorophyll content in industrial and roadside during winter, while tectona grandis consistently displayed low chlorophyll levels across all areas and seasons. table 10: ratio of chl (a:b) of different plant species in two seasons plant species industrial roadside residential campus area winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon artocarpus heterophyllus 6.06±1.78c 4.49±0.48bc 4.34±0.59a 4.36±0.39ab 11.57±0.66b 8.25±0.27c azadirachta indica 5.35±0.28bc 4.86±1.92c 6.00±1.09a 18.07±4.26c 4.57±0.85a 5.26±0.22b citrus maxima 4.58±0.05abc 4.41±0.48bc 3.24±0.89a 4.82±0.89ab 3.97±0.11a 4.45±0.31ab ficus benghalensis 1.77±0.25a 3.70±0.75abc 15.72±1.78a 13.42±1.64ab 3.57±0.04a 2.49±0.39ab ficus religiosa 4.99±0.81bc 2.22±0.04ab 5.99±0.19a 11.16±1.40abc 4.30±1.85a 2.07±0.01a mangifera indica 5.13±0.06bc 4.17±0.27bc 4.00±0.35a 1.19±0.30ab 4.82±0.92ab 3.59±1.02a 4.42±0.67a 1.87±0.29a neolamarckia cadamba 4.04±0.55abc 3.18±0.11abc 4.89±0.47a 2.72±0.64ab 3.19±0.21a 3.74±0.08a 4.48±0.24a 3.15±0.40ab nephelium litchi 3.65±0.07abc 1.80±0.17a 6.67±1.98a 3.04±0.95ab 6.56±0.13b 2.12±0.09a psidium guajava 6.17±1.10cd 2.63±0.12abc 4.96±0.54a 3.82±0.25ab 5.98±1.17b 2.36±0.23a 4.99±0.13a 1.63±0.04a syzygium cumini 8.56±2.20d 3.09±0.14abc 8.56±2.20a 3.16±0.25ab 4.66±0.09a 3.43±0.09ab saraca asoca 5.23±0.07bc 3.16±0.82abc 4.50±0.07ab 2.10±0.70a 5.01±0.64a 2.08±0.23a tectona grandis 2.44±0.51ab 1.42±0.39a 2.86±1.52a 1.91±0.17a 1.69±0.07a 1.66±0.31a f-value 3.55 2.56 0.42 2.60 2.29 1.73 1.30 4.26 p-value 0.00 0.02 0.92 0.03 0.15 0.23 0.27 0.00 note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one way anova for obtaining f and p value. significance mean value among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, n=12 to 36) total chlorophyll generally, plant species during monsoon seasons showed higher total chlorophyll levels, especially in less polluted areas. however, certain species like saraca asoca, mangifera indica and psidium guajava showed higher amount of total chlorophyll during the winter season (table 11). in contrast, tectona grandis had the lowest levels, showing high sensitivity to pollution. during winter, total chlorophyll content ranged from 0.13 mg/g in tectona grandis (industrial area) to 3.08±0.43 mg/g in saraca asoca (less polluted area). in monsoon, the values range from 0.72 mg/g in syzygium cumini (roadside area) to 2.78mg/g in psidium guajava (less polluted area). table 11: total chlorophyll of different plant species at different study areas during two seasons note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one way anova for obtaining f and p value. significance mean value among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, (n=12 to 36)) table 11: total chlorophyll of different plant species at different study areas during two seasons plant species industrial roadside residential campus area winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon artocarpus heterophyllus 1.37±0.06f 1.16±0.12ab 1.37±0.05c 1.08±0.04b 1.54±0.16b 2.19±0.11ab azadirachta indica 0.73±0.07cd 0.98±0.00a 0.73±0.07b 1.68±0.20c 0.82±0.07a 1.96±0.43ab citrus maxima 0.56±0.03bc 1.00±0.10a 0.64±0.03b 1.23±0.14b 0.73±0.06a 2.77±0.81b ficus benghalensis 0.30±0.04ab 1.49±0.03bcd 0.62±0.13b 1.10±0.04b 0.73±0.04a 2.06±0.43ab ficus religiosa 0.60±0.06bc 1.37±0.11abc 1.47±0.09c 1.06±0.01b 2.24±0.27c 1.49±0.08a mangifera indica 1.97±0.03g 1.88±0.015d 1.49±0.10c 1.76±0.08c 1.70±0.08b 1.63±0.18a 2.17±0.07b 2.36±0.06ab neolamarckia cadamba 1.03±0.04de 1.85±0.08d 1.84±0.03d 1.35±0.10b 0.55±0.03a 2.01±0.43a 1.91±0.02bc 2.37±0.40ab nephelium litchi 0.75±0.04cd 1.83±0.03d 1.22±0.04c 1.29±0.00b 1.85±0.05bc 2.07±0.02ab psidium guajava 1.85±0.08g 1.86±0.24d 1.33±0.09c 0.63±0.05a 1.35±0.23b 1.31±0.08a 2.19±0.07c 2.78±0.14b syzygium cumini 1.30±0.27ef 1.24±0.16ab 1.30±0.27c 0.72±0.05a 1.53±0.32b 1.36±0.15a saraca asoca 2.48±0.14h 1.73±0.13cd 0.79±0.08a 1.74±0.22a 3.08±0.43d 2.44±0.09ab tectona grandis 0.13±0.12a 1.27±0.18ab 0.17±0.00a 1.15±0.02b 0.48±0.04a 1.56±0.13a f-value 50.32 7.57 20.38 14.13 15.14 1.18 17.63 4.26 p-value 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.37 0.00 0.00 note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one way anova for obtaining f and p value. significance mean value among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, (n=12 to 36)) total chlorophyll content in the leaves mangifera indica, artocarpus heterophyllus, azadirachta indica, ficus benghalensis and neolamarckia cadamba showed relatively lower reductions in polluted areas during the winter season (figure 10). conversely, syzygium cumini, ficus religiosa, azadirachta indica, neolamarckia cadamba exhibited less reduction in total chlorophyll content during the monsoon season. figure 10: percentage reduction in total chlorophyll content of different plant species in two seasons discussion 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon industrial roadside residential % r eu ct io n in to ta l c hl seasons/study areas artocarpus hetrophyllus azadirachta indica citrus maxima ficus benghalensis ficus religiosa mangifera indica neolamarckia cadamba nephelium litchi psidium gujava syzygium cumini saraca asoca tectona grandis in less polluted areas. however, certain species like saraca asoca, mangifera indica and psidium guajava showed higher amount of total chlorophyll during the winter season (table 11). in contrast, tectona grandis had the lowest levels, showing high sensitivity to pollution. during winter, total chlorophyll content ranged from 0.13 mg/g in tectona grandis (industrial area) to 3.08±0.43 mg/g in saraca asoca (less polluted area). in monsoon, the values range from 0.72 mg/g in syzygium cumini (roadside area) to 2.78mg/g in psidium guajava (less polluted area). total chlorophyll content in the leaves mangifera indica, artocarpus heterophyllus, azadirachta indica, ficus benghalensis and neolamarckia cadamba showed relatively lower reductions in polluted areas during the winter season (figure 10). conversely, syzygium cumini, ficus religiosa, azadirachta indica, neolamarckia cadamba exhibited less reduction in total chlorophyll content during the monsoon season. discussion dust load dust load in industrial areas was comparatively higher during the winter seasons, primarily due to the presence of industries, brick kilns and factories. elevated levels of particulate matter were found 57 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1shrestha et al. table 11: total chlorophyll of different plant species at different study areas during two seasons plant species industrial roadside residential campus area winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon artocarpus heterophyllus 1.37±0.06f 1.16±0.12ab 1.37±0.05c 1.08±0.04b 1.54±0.16b 2.19±0.11ab azadirachta indica 0.73±0.07cd 0.98±0.00a 0.73±0.07b 1.68±0.20c 0.82±0.07a 1.96±0.43ab citrus maxima 0.56±0.03bc 1.00±0.10a 0.64±0.03b 1.23±0.14b 0.73±0.06a 2.77±0.81b ficus benghalensis 0.30±0.04ab 1.49±0.03bcd 0.62±0.13b 1.10±0.04b 0.73±0.04a 2.06±0.43ab ficus religiosa 0.60±0.06bc 1.37±0.11abc 1.47±0.09c 1.06±0.01b 2.24±0.27c 1.49±0.08a mangifera indica 1.97±0.03g 1.88±0.015d 1.49±0.10c 1.76±0.08c 1.70±0.08b 1.63±0.18a 2.17±0.07b 2.36±0.06ab neolamarckia cadamba 1.03±0.04de 1.85±0.08d 1.84±0.03d 1.35±0.10b 0.55±0.03a 2.01±0.43a 1.91±0.02bc 2.37±0.40ab nephelium litchi 0.75±0.04cd 1.83±0.03d 1.22±0.04c 1.29±0.00b 1.85±0.05bc 2.07±0.02ab psidium guajava 1.85±0.08g 1.86±0.24d 1.33±0.09c 0.63±0.05a 1.35±0.23b 1.31±0.08a 2.19±0.07c 2.78±0.14b syzygium cumini 1.30±0.27ef 1.24±0.16ab 1.30±0.27c 0.72±0.05a 1.53±0.32b 1.36±0.15a saraca asoca 2.48±0.14h 1.73±0.13cd 0.79±0.08a 1.74±0.22a 3.08±0.43d 2.44±0.09ab tectona grandis 0.13±0.12a 1.27±0.18ab 0.17±0.00a 1.15±0.02b 0.48±0.04a 1.56±0.13a f-value 50.32 7.57 20.38 14.13 15.14 1.18 17.63 4.26 p-value 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.37 0.00 0.00 note: data are expressed as mean± s.e and statistical analysis using one way anova for obtaining f and p value. significance mean value among different plant species are indicated by different letters. (duncan multiple test, p≤0.05, (n=12 to 36)) total chlorophyll content in the leaves mangifera indica, artocarpus heterophyllus, azadirachta indica, ficus benghalensis and neolamarckia cadamba showed relatively lower reductions in polluted areas during the winter season (figure 10). conversely, syzygium cumini, ficus religiosa, azadirachta indica, neolamarckia cadamba exhibited less reduction in total chlorophyll content during the monsoon season. figure 10: percentage reduction in total chlorophyll content of different plant species in two seasons discussion 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 winter monsoon winter monsoon winter monsoon industrial roadside residential % r eu ct io n in to ta l c hl seasons/study areas artocarpus hetrophyllus azadirachta indica citrus maxima ficus benghalensis ficus religiosa mangifera indica neolamarckia cadamba nephelium litchi psidium gujava syzygium cumini saraca asoca tectona grandis figure 10: percentage reduction in total chlorophyll content of different plant species in two seasons in these areas compared to others. dust load pollution is higher in winter than in the monsoon due to lack of precipitation, low wind speed and low temperature, which trap pollutants near the surface. dry soil and increased human activities, vehicle movement and biomass burning further contribute to dust accumulation. in contrast, during the monsoon season, rainfall washes away dust particles, while strong wind disperses the pollutants and dense vegetation helps trap airborne particles thereby reducing atmospheric dust pollution (linden et al., 2023). similar findings were also reported by chaturvedi et al. (2013) in industrial areas. roadside and residential areas were reported as moderately polluted due to construction of roads and traffic congestion. the dust-holding capacity of the plants depends on various morphological traits and environmental conditions (prusty et al., 2005). plants growing near busy roads, and polluted areas like industries are highly affected by dust (gostin, 2009; leghari & zaidi, 2013). this study found that high dust load was found in leaves with thick, rough, and hairy surfaces whereas low dust was accumulated on smoother and smaller leaf surface areas, consistent with the findings of javanmard et al. (2019). in the present study, tectona grandis from industrial areas with rough surfaces, large surface area, and short petiole, accumulated more dust whereas species like saraca asoca with smoother, flatter and smaller surface areas accumulated less dust. dust deposition was more on ficus benghalensis and artocarpus heterophyllus compared to other species, likely due to their coriaceous and waxy leaf structures. similar findings were also reported by rai & panda (2014). dust accumulation can significantly obstruct stomatal pores, impeding the plant’s ability to perform gaseous exchange efficiently (sawidis et al., 2012). this obstruction reduces co2‚ uptake, leading to a decline in photosynthetic activity and energy production, which are vital for plant growth and metabolism. the findings of this study indicate that leaf physiological process appear to be significantly impacted by dust pollution than morphological traits. physiological stress induced by dust pollution could lower chlorophyll content, decrease enzyme activity, and disrupt overall plant metabolism, as the dust layers block light penetration, which reduces photosynthetic activities (swaidis et al., 2012). reduction on leaf morphology leaf area reduction was more pronounced in industrial areas during the winter season followed by roadside and residential areas. similarly, leaf length and width were mostly reduced in polluted areas in monsoon seasons compared to less polluted controlled sites. these findings are consistent with those of hamal & chettri (2017) and hamal (2023), who reported a reduction in leaf area and sla in the polluted area as compared to that of a controlled less polluted area. several studies have reported the effect of dust on plant morphological traits across different 58 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 shrestha et al. seasons in different plant species (leghari & zaidi, 2013; rai & panda, 2014; lu et al., 2018). a reduction in sla near polluted areas during winter season was also reported by prasai (2021). notably, ficus religiosa and nephelium litchi could be utilized for pollution control, as they exhibited a significant reduction in sla indicating their strong dust trapping ability and adaptive leaf morphology (singh & kaushik, 2022). a reduction in leaf area, leaf length, and leaf width, in polluted areas than the non-polluted areas has been reported, which is consistent with the findings of the present study. the reduction in the leaf area, leaf length and leaf width might be due to the reduction of gaseous exchanges for photosynthesis and productivity of the leaf as the pollutants can block stomatal openings (bhatti & iqbal, 1988; jahan & iqbal, 1992; leghari & zaidi, 2013). leaf area reduction is the result of air pollution that can block a plant’s ability to undergo photosynthesis effectively and reduce its resilience in coping with the strains posed by air pollutant stressors (tiwari et al., 2006). plants growing in polluted areas showed lower sla (yang et al., 2023). plants species thriving in environments with limited amounts of nutrients, shortage of water and light, exhibited lower sla values (cornelissen et al., 1996). the inverse relationship between dust load and sla near polluted sites found from this study corresponds with the findings of hamal (2023). furthermore, prolonged exposure to pollutants leads to reductions in leaf area, sla, leaf length, and width (meerabai et al., 2012) chlorophyll content in this study, variation in chlorophyll-a and chlorophyll-b was observed across different plant species, likely driven by seasonal changes, dust accumulation, and leaf morphological traits. seasonal changes primarily control chlorophyll variations, while dust load and leaf morphology act as modifying factors influencing their impact (prajapati & tripathi, 2008). in winter, dust accumulation due to minimal precipitation and low wind speed obstructed sunlight, thereby reducing photosynthesis and contributing to chlorophyll degradation. the monsoon rains helped to wash away dust, allowing for improved light absorption and a subsequent increase in chlorophyll content. leaf traits also influenced the extent of dust accumulation, with plants having rough or hairy leaves tending to trap more dust, leading to greater chlorophyll loss. the chlorophyll-a to chlorophyll-b ratio was generally higher in winter, especially in less polluted areas. the study showed that chlorophyll-a was more affected than chlorophyll-b, which resembled the findings of giri et al. (2013) and talebzadeh & valeo (2022). chlorophyll-a and -b reduction was highest during the monsoon. mangifera indica and neolamarckia cadamba showed minimal reduction in chlorophyll-a during winter, while ficus benghalensis, ficus religiosa, mangifera indica, neolamarckia cadamba, and syzygium cumini were less affected by dust in monsoon. chlorophyll-b reduction was lowest in artocarpus heterophyllus and citrus maxima in winter, while syzygium cumini and mangifera indica exhibited better retention during the monsoon season. the photosynthetic pigments undergo several photochemical reactions like oxidation, reduction, and pheophytinisation to overcome stress due to which the chlorophyll content decreases in polluted areas (tripathi & gautam, 2007). the reduction of chlorophyll content in plants growing in polluted areas might also be due to the adverse effects of industrial and vehicular emissions on plant physiology (dhyani et al., 2019). the reduction in chlorophyll contents might also be due to the uptake of heavy metals like cu, zn, and pb through the leaf surfaces. decreased chlorophyll (a:b) ratio with increasing pollution, also reported by chettri et al. (1998), might be due to a decrease in chlorophyll-a and an increase in chlorophyll-b concentrations. this shift might occur because chlorophyll-b is synthesized from chlorophyll-a through the oxidation of the methyl group on ring ii to an aldehyde (bidwell, 1979). conclusion air pollutants significantly affect both the morphological and physiological characteristics of the tree leaves growing around industrial and roadside areas, particularly during the winter season, compared to those in residential and campus areas. leaves with rough texture, large areas and complex structures, such as those of tectona grandis showed higher dust accumulation than the leaves with smooth and smaller areas like those of nephelium litchi and psidium guajava. plant leaf morphological characters were significantly reduced across the industrial, roadside and residential areas in comparison to that of campus areas during the winter than the monsoon seasons however, synthesis of chlorophyll-a was more significantly affected by dust pollution than chlorophyll-b, as evidenced by a higher chlorophyll a:b ratio in less polluted areas, particularly during winter indicating their resilience to seasonal variations and environmental stressors. plant species like artocarpus heterophyllus, citrus maxima, ficus 59 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1shrestha et al. benghalensis, ficus religiosa, mangifera indica, neolamarckia cadamba, nephelium litchi and psidium guajava showed minimal reductions in both morphological traits and chlorophyll content. these species, therefore, exhibit potential for use in urban greening and pollution mitigation strategies due to their relative tolerance to environmental pollutants. acknowledgements we are thankful to the research directorate, tribhuvan university for providing financial support under the national priority area research program (grant no. tu-npar-079/80-erg-10). we also acknowledge the biratnagar metropolitan office for granting permission to collect samples from the city area. author’s contribution statement u. shrestha: sample collection, laboratory analysis, original draft writing, and formal analysis. s. rijal, a. shrestha, p. adhikari: sample collection and laboratory analysis. m. k. chettri: material collection, data curation and validation. b. d. acharya, m. r. paudel: material collection and supervision. a. devkota: material collection, conceptualization, laboratory analysis, writing review and editing, and supervision data availability the data used in the study are accessible upon request to the corresponding author. declaration the authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work in this paper. references barnes, j. d., balaguer, l., manrique, e., elvira, s., & davison, a. w. 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(2008). anticipated performance index of some tree species considered for green belt development in and around an urban area: a case study of varanasi city, india. journal of environmental management, 88, 1343–1349. prasai, p. (2021). assessment of air pollution tolerance index and leaf structure of selected plant species around udayapur cement factory, nepal. [unpublished m.sc. dissertation]. department of botany, amrit campus, tribhuvan university. kathmandu, nepal. prusty, b. a. k., mishra, p. c., & azeez, p. a. (2005). dust accumulation and leaf pigment content in vegetation near the national highway at sambalpur, orissa, india. ecotoxicology environmental safety, 60 (2), 228–235. rai, p. k., & panda, l. l. s. (2014). leaf dust deposition and its impact on biochemical aspect of some roadside plants of aizawl, mizoram, north east india. international research journal of environment science, 3 (11), 14-19 sapkota, s., & shrestha s. m. (2024). assessment of air pollution tolerance index and anticipated performance index of roadside plants used for greenbelt development in kathmandu valley, nepal. environmental challenges, 14, 100818. sawidis. t., krystallidis. p., veros. d., & chettri. m. k. (2012). a study of air pollution with heavy metals in athens city and attica basin using evergreen trees as biological indicators. biological trace element research, 148 (3), 396-408. sharma, a. p., rai, p. k., & tripathi, b. d. (2007). magnetic biomonitoring of roadside tree leaves as a proxy of vehicular pollution. in l. l. vyas (ed.) urban planning and environment: strategies and 61 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1shrestha et al. challenges (pp. 326-331). mc millan advanced research series. singh, b., & kaushik, a. (2022). suitability assessment of some tree species in trafficarea verges of delhi, india for air pollution tolerancecum-performance for green urban planning. international journal of geography, geology and environment,4 (2), 122-134. talebzadeh, f., & valeo, c. (2022). evaluating the effects of environmental stress on leaf chlorophyll content as anindex for tree health. in iop conference series: earth and environmental science, 1006 (1), p. 012007. https://doi. org/10.1088/1755-1315/1006/1/012007 tiwari, s., agrawal, m., & marshall, f. m. (2006). evaluation of ambient air pollution impact on carrot plants at a sub urban site using open top chambers. environmental monitoring and assessment, 119 (1-3), 15-30. tripathi, a. k., & gautam, m. (2007). biochemical parameters of plants as indicators of air pollution. journal of environmental biology, 28, 127-132. wang, y., chen, y., zhang, x., & gong, w. (2021). research on measurement method of leaf length and width based on point cloud. agriculture, 11 (1), 63. https://doi. org/10.3390/agriculture11010063 yang, z., zhang, x., qu, y., gao, f., & li, y. (2023). response of common garden plant leaf traits to air pollution in urban parks of suzho city (china). forests, 14 (11), 2253. https://doi.org/10.3390/ f1411225 16 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 a comparative study of biomass and carbon stock in tropical and temperate forests of ilam district in nepal animesh poudel , krishna prasad dahal , mohit joshi , sakshi thapa magar , ripesh kharel * institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, hetauda campus, hetauda. *email: kharelripesh@gmail.com quantification of biomass and carbon is imperative in optimizing ecological and low-carbon emission-oriented economic benefits of forestland. this study quantified stock densities of carbon in two distinct forests, viz., tropical and temperate. we selected two community forests (cfs) with predominance of shorea robusta in the tropical and castanopsis sp. in the temperate region of ilam district (chure and mid-hill). data were gathered using stratified systematic sampling with a 1% sampling intensity. it was discovered that the overall stock (carbon) in the tropical and temperate cfs was 95 mg ha-1 and 75.59 mg ha-1, respectively. tropical forests exhibited a higher level of biomass (202.14 mg ha-¹) relative to temperate forests (169.34 mg ha-¹). the biomass carbon in tropical forests was 1.19 times greater (per hectare) compared to temperate forests. interestingly, analysis revealed an absence of significant differences in carbon sequestration between the two forests under study with respect to diameter and height class. the study shows that both tropical and temperate forest stands sequester a significant amount of carbon, and appropriate management can yield additional benefits. keywords: carbon sequestration, castanopsis, community forest, shorea robusta maintaining and increasing carbon stocks in forests worldwide is a crucial part of the global effort to combat climate change (un, 2017; raihan, 2024). the total amount of carbon within a pool at a specific time is different from sequestration, which is the process that accumulates carbon in pools outside of the atmosphere (fao, 2011). forest ecosystems are both sources and sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide (huang et al., 2020). they are among the most important options for carbon sequestration and play a crucial role in regulating the global carbon cycle (salunkhe et al., 2018; nugroho et al., 2022). as a natural process, the captured carbon is primarily absorbed as biomass (jindal et al., 2008). the majority of terrestrial carbon is stored in tree trunks, branches, foliage, and roots, which are collectively referred to as biomass (muradian et al., 2013; suryawanshi et al., 2014). unlike many plants and crops, forests can accumulate carbon over long periods, such as decades or centuries. forest ecosystems store between 20 and 100 times more carbon per unit area compared to agricultural lands. (brown & pearce, 1994). in this way, forests play a crucial role in carbon sequestration, offering long-term potential for carbon storage as a sink. estimating the total biomass and soil carbon stored in a forest is essential because it benefits the local population both economically and ecologically (shrestha, 2009). the redd+ program aims to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation by improving forest carbon stock assessment and monitoring, supporting reforestation projects, and helping developing countries meet global climate goals through reward-based systems (muradian et al., 2013). since 2008, nepal has made significant progress in preparing for redd+. however, nepal faces significant challenges to effective participation because there is limited research on the scientific methods for measuring carbon stocks, monitoring changes over time, and establishing baseline scenarios for emission reduction evaluation (acharya et al., 2009). nepal’s goal is to achieve net zero emissions between 2020 and 2030 and become entirely net received: 22 september 2024 revised: 7 august 2025 accepted: 9 september 2025 published: 30 september 2025 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2, 2025 pp 16-24https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i2.70006 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-3739-0377 https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4424-9405 https://orcid.org/0009-0009-6432-7954 https://orcid.org/0009-0000-4504-5614 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3819-9062 17 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 zero by 2045 (pradhan et al., 2018; shakya et al., 2023). the key to lowering carbon emissions is management that focuses on increasing forests’ role as carbon sinks. numerous studies show that nepal’s communitymanaged forests have significant potential for sequestering carbon (carlson & curran, 2009; karky & skutsch, 2010). users of the forests are increasingly interested in learning about and utilizing the potential for carbon sequestration in this environment. currently, more than 23000 community forest user groups (cfugs) have been established, representing 2.4 million households, or 35% of nepal’s total population, and they are responsible for managing 24,90,194 hectares of national forest that can store carbon (mofe, 2020). hope remains that, over time, the financial resources to support countries like nepal in implementing climate mitigation and adaptation strategies will become more accessible (unfccc, 2015). the geographical, physiographic, and cultural diversity of nepal’s terrain is reflected in its mainly agricultural and forested landscape. because of its extensive physiographic features and wide climatic variations, ilam district is exceptionally diverse in its plant species. many tree species can transform a large amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide into biomass. this provides multiple benefits, both directly and indirectly, by sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide in biomass and helping to reduce climate change. since temperate (alnus, castanopsis, and others) and tropical (shorea robusta) forests both store and reduce carbon emissions, they can be key allies in the effort to fight rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. the capability of its forests to store atmospheric carbon can help determine potential compensation for countries that need to protect forests beyond their own needs. in nepal, few studies directly focus on estimating carbon stocks in different forest categories. research shows that carbon sequestration rates vary significantly among forest types and locations. for example, subtropical sal forests in central nepal sequester about 2.6 mg ha-1 of carbon annually (thapa-magar & shrestha, 2015). similarly, riverine forests in the central tropical region and alnus nepalensis forests in the central and western mid-hills have higher sequestration rates, ranging from 1.30 to 3.21 mg ha-1per year (baral et al., 2009). still, information on carbon stocks across various forest ecosystems in nepal remains limited. considering different physiographic zones in studying biomass and carbon yields valid comparative results. therefore, the study aims to measure biomass carbon in two forest types and compare their roles in offsetting atmospheric carbon. materials and methods study area the sites are located within two cfs in ilam district (26°54′42.12″ n and 87°55′12.72″ e), nepal: pasupati community forest in mai municipality, wards no. 1 & 2, and deumai namuna community forest in deumai municipality, ward no. 1 (figure 1). these two community forests represent the tropical and temperate regions. pashupati community forest lies in the eastern tropical zone (200m-300m above mean sea level), while deumai namuna community forest is in the lower temperate zone (2100m-2700m above mean sea level). pashupati community forest covers 200 hectares, and deumai namuna community forest spans 155.07 hectares. tropical terai sal (shorea robusta) mixed hardwoods are the main tree species in pashupati cf, whereas mixed species dominate in deumai namuna cf. data collection data collection for this study was based on the community forestry inventory guidelines (mofsc, 2004). the data were collected using a stratified systematic sampling method with 1% sampling intensity. stratification was conducted based on physical boundaries as documented in the operational plan of the forests, which divided the forest into different blocks. a total of 30 sampling plots were established in deumai namuna cf and 40 in pashupati cf, with a consistent plot-to-plot distance of 224 meters. to measure the above-ground biomass of trees, poles, saplings, and seedlings, sample plots with concentric circular shapes and varying radii were selected and set up within the sampling area. a 12.61-meter radius was designated as the outermost plot to evaluate above-ground tree biomass (agtb). above-ground pole biomass (agpb) was measured within the subsequent inner plot with a 5.64-meter radius. similarly, a 2.82-meter radius inner plot was established for counting regeneration. in these sample plots, measurements of dbh at 1.3 meters and total heights of poles, trees, and saplings were taken using diameter tapes and suunto clinometers. poudel et al. 18 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 figure 1: map of study area data collection data collection for this study was based on the community forestry inventory guidelines (mofsc, 2004). the data were collected using a stratified systematic sampling method with 1% sampling intensity. stratification was conducted based on physical boundaries as documented in the operational plan of the forests, which divided the forest into different blocks. a total of 30 sampling plots were established in deumai namuna cf and 40 in pashupati cf, with a consistent plot-to-plot distance of 224 meters. to measure the aboveground biomass of trees, poles, saplings, and seedlings, sample plots with concentric circular shapes and varying radii were selected and set up within the sampling area. a 12.61-meter radius was designated as the outermost plot to evaluate above-ground tree biomass (agtb). above-ground pole biomass (agpb) was measured within the subsequent inner plot with a 5.64-meter radius. similarly, a 2.82-meter radius inner plot was established for counting regeneration. in these sample plots, measurements of dbh at 1.3 meters and total heights of poles, trees, and saplings were taken using diameter tapes and suunto clinometers. data analysis a simplified standard regression model incorporating dbh, height, and wood density was used to estimate tree biomass for calculating biomass and carbon stock according to the community forest carbon measurement guideline, which is based on average annual rainfall (chave et al., 2005; subedi et al., 2010). for species with unknown wood density, the empirical biomass equation developed by zianis (2008) for global use was employed. (cairns et al., 1997; tamrakar, 2000) where, agsb = above-ground sapling biomass (kg); log = natural logarithm a = intercept of sapling allometry (no unit) b = slope of sapling allometry (no unit) d = stem diameter (cm) root to shoot ratios of 0.26 for the temperate region (cairns et al., 1997) and 0.21 for lowland tropical forests (malhi et al., 2014) were used to determine below-ground root biomass (bgrb). a default biomass-to-carbon conversion factor of 0.47 was employed to calculate carbon stock density. (ipcc, 2006). overall, carbon was estimated by aggregating the carbon content from all distinct storage pools. results species richness the forest was more diverse in the temperate region than in the tropical region in the ilam district. during the inventory, the mid-hill forest contained a greater number of species than the chure forest. in figure 1: map of study area                                           (chave et al., 2005).                      (zianis, 2008) where, agtb = above-ground tree biomass (kg); ρ = specific gravity of wood (g/cm3), d = dbh = diameter of the tree at breast height (cm); h = height of the tree (meters). a = 0.1424 and b= 2.3679 the aboveground biomass of saplings was estimated using a logarithmically transformed allometric formula (tamrakar, 2000). poudel et al. 19 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 the field study, 22 species were recorded in deumai namuna cf, whereas 17 species were documented in pashupati cf. major species in pashupati cf of the tropical zone included shorea robusta (sal), terminalia alata (saj), schima wallichi (chilaune), lagerstroemia parviflora (botdhayero), and adina cordifolia (karma). in deumai namuna cf of the temperate zone, dominant species were castanopsis sp. (kattus), quercus semecarpifolia (khasru), alnus nepalensis (utis), rhododendron arboreum (laligurans), and quercus lamellosa (bajrath) (see figure 2 and figure 3). cf had 44 trees and 103 poles per hectare, while deumai namuna cf had 55 trees and 193 poles per hectare. shorea robusta was the dominant species in pashupati cf, whereas castanopsis indica was the main species in deumai namuna cf. there was considerable variation in average diameter (p=0.38, =0.05) and average height (p=0.20, =0.05) among major species both cfs. general statistics for diameter and height in the two cfs are shown in tables 1 and 2. table 1: statistics of diameter and height of major species in pashupati cf species dbh (cm) height (m) average minimum maximum average minimum maximum shorea robusta 48.73 2.00 92.00 18.80 4.00 29.00 terminalia alata 63.75 48.00 84.00 24.25 21.00 27.00 schima wallichi 28.50 6.00 87.00 13.29 6.00 25.00 lagerstormia parviflora 22.13 4.00 41.00 11.25 8.00 15.00 adina cordifolia 70.00 51.00 93.00 21.50 15.00 25.00 others 24.40 17.33 29.46 11.64 9.67 13.33 overall 42.92 21.39 71.08 16.79 10.61 22.39 table 2: statistics of diameter and height of major species in deumai namuna cf species dbh (cm) height (m) average minimum maximum average minimum maximum castanopsis indica 41.63 5.50 80.53 14.82 5.00 22.00 quercus semecarpifolia 25.64 4.50 57.30 11.65 6.00 18.00 alnus nepalensis 27.40 4.00 73.21 13.25 5.00 18.00 rhododendron arboretum 29.30 6.00 56.02 11.69 7.00 15.00 quercus lamellosa 55.64 9.00 89.13 17.38 8.00 22.00 others 22.60 13.74 34.29 11.23 8.44 14.35 overall 33.70 7.12 65.08 13.34 6.57 18.23 biomass and carbon stock table 3 shows the biomass stock density of the two different forest types. table 3: above-ground and below-ground biomass of cfs cf agtb agpb agsb total agb bgb total biomass total carbon (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) deumai namuna cf 94.50 34.02 5.88 134.40 34.94 169.34 79.59 pashupati cf 144.41 18.66 3.99 167.05 35.08 202.14 95.00 note: agtbabove-ground tree biomass, agpbabove-ground pole biomass, agsbabove-ground sapling biomass, agbabove-ground biomass, bgbbelow-ground biomass carbon stock estimation overall vegetation carbon stock was calculated by adding the above-ground biomass carbon and below-ground biomass carbon of the two forest regions, showing that the mean carbon figure 2: species richness in pashupati cf was the dominant species in pashupati cf, whereas castanopsis indica was the main species in deumai namuna cf. there was considerable variation in average diameter (p=0.38, α=0.05) and average height (p=0.20, α=0.05) among major species both cfs. general statistics for diameter and height in the two cfs are shown in tables 1 and 2. biomass and carbon stock table 3 shows the biomass stock density of the two different forest types. carbon stock estimation overall vegetation carbon stock was calculated by adding the above-ground biomass carbon and belowground biomass carbon of the two forest regions, showing that the mean carbon density was higher in the tropical forest (95 mg/ha) than in the temperate forest (75.59 mg/ha) (table 4). cf had 44 trees and 103 poles per hectare, while deumai namuna cf had 55 trees and 193 poles per hectare. shorea robusta was the dominant species in pashupati cf, whereas castanopsis indica was the main species in deumai namuna cf. there was considerable variation in average diameter (p=0.38, =0.05) and average height (p=0.20, =0.05) among major species both cfs. general statistics for diameter and height in the two cfs are shown in tables 1 and 2. table 1: statistics of diameter and height of major species in pashupati cf species dbh (cm) height (m) average minimum maximum average minimum maximum shorea robusta 48.73 2.00 92.00 18.80 4.00 29.00 terminalia alata 63.75 48.00 84.00 24.25 21.00 27.00 schima wallichi 28.50 6.00 87.00 13.29 6.00 25.00 lagerstormia parviflora 22.13 4.00 41.00 11.25 8.00 15.00 adina cordifolia 70.00 51.00 93.00 21.50 15.00 25.00 others 24.40 17.33 29.46 11.64 9.67 13.33 overall 42.92 21.39 71.08 16.79 10.61 22.39 table 2: statistics of diameter and height of major species in deumai namuna cf species dbh (cm) height (m) average minimum maximum average minimum maximum castanopsis indica 41.63 5.50 80.53 14.82 5.00 22.00 quercus semecarpifolia 25.64 4.50 57.30 11.65 6.00 18.00 alnus nepalensis 27.40 4.00 73.21 13.25 5.00 18.00 rhododendron arboretum 29.30 6.00 56.02 11.69 7.00 15.00 quercus lamellosa 55.64 9.00 89.13 17.38 8.00 22.00 others 22.60 13.74 34.29 11.23 8.44 14.35 overall 33.70 7.12 65.08 13.34 6.57 18.23 biomass and carbon stock table 3 shows the biomass stock density of the two different forest types. table 3: above-ground and below-ground biomass of cfs cf agtb agpb agsb total agb bgb total biomass total carbon (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) deumai namuna cf 94.50 34.02 5.88 134.40 34.94 169.34 79.59 pashupati cf 144.41 18.66 3.99 167.05 35.08 202.14 95.00 note: agtbabove-ground tree biomass, agpbabove-ground pole biomass, agsbabove-ground sapling biomass, agbabove-ground biomass, bgbbelow-ground biomass carbon stock estimation overall vegetation carbon stock was calculated by adding the above-ground biomass carbon and below-ground biomass carbon of the two forest regions, showing that the mean carbon table 1: statistics of diameter and height of major species in pashupati cf table 2: statistics of diameter and height of major species in deumai namuna cf figure 3: species richness in deumai namuna cf forest type and status tropical sal (shorea robusta) mixed hardwood and temperate mixed forest formed the significant part of the study area. tree densities varied notably in the cfs examined. pashupati cf had 44 trees and 103 poles per hectare, while deumai namuna cf had 55 trees and 193 poles per hectare. shorea robusta species richness in deumai namuna cf poudel et al. 20 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 figure 4: aggregated stock (carbon) in varied carbon pools of differing forest regions carbon stock distribution with respect to dbh class and height class in the tropical region, carbon stock was highest in the dbh class of 70-80 cm (26.52 mg/ha), while in the temperate zone, the highest carbon stock was found in the 20-30 cm dbh class (14.15 mg/ha). similarly, the lowest amount of carbon stored was 0.83 mg/ ha in the 30-40 cm dbh class of the tropical forest and 2.48 mg/ha in the 0-10 cm dbh class of the temperate forest (figure 5). figure 5: carbon stock with respect to dbh class in pashupati cf of the tropical zone, the highest carbon stock was in the 25-30 meter height class (38.77 mg/ha), while in deumai namuna cf of the temperate zone, the highest carbon stock was in the 15-20 meter height class (31.78 mg/ha). similarly, the lowest stocking was found in the 0–5 m height class in both forests (figure 6). figure 6: carbon stock with respect to height class. carbon sequestered by different species in pashupati cf, which is a tropical forest, shorea robusta (sal) contributed the highest amount of carbon sequestration with a carbon stock of 63.01%. it was followed by adina cordifolia, terminalia alata, schima wallichi, lagerstromia parviflora, t. chebula, and t. belerica, which accounted for 12.61%, 9.78%, 4.51%, 2.59%, 2.04%, and 0.58% of the total carbon stock from trees, poles, and saplings, respectively. similarly, other species contributed for 4.87% to carbon sequestration (figure 7). in deumai namuna cf, i.e., temperate forest, castanopsis sp. (katus) stored the highest amount of carbon at 33.19%, followed by quercus lamellosa, q. semecarpifolia, alnus nepalensis, rhododendron arboretum, symplocos theifolia, and michelia sp. (chanp), which sequestered 17.80%, 9.08%, 6.86%, 4.87%, 3.42%, and 1.46% of the total carbon stored by trees, poles, and saplings, respectively. similarly, other species accounted for 27.33% of carbon sequestration (see figure 8). carbon stocks comparison between tropical and temperate forests the recorded carbon stock values from sample plots were analyzed to compare tropical and temperate cf had 44 trees and 103 poles per hectare, while deumai namuna cf had 55 trees and 193 poles per hectare. shorea robusta was the dominant species in pashupati cf, whereas castanopsis indica was the main species in deumai namuna cf. there was considerable variation in average diameter (p=0.38, =0.05) and average height (p=0.20, =0.05) among major species both cfs. general statistics for diameter and height in the two cfs are shown in tables 1 and 2. table 1: statistics of diameter and height of major species in pashupati cf species dbh (cm) height (m) average minimum maximum average minimum maximum shorea robusta 48.73 2.00 92.00 18.80 4.00 29.00 terminalia alata 63.75 48.00 84.00 24.25 21.00 27.00 schima wallichi 28.50 6.00 87.00 13.29 6.00 25.00 lagerstormia parviflora 22.13 4.00 41.00 11.25 8.00 15.00 adina cordifolia 70.00 51.00 93.00 21.50 15.00 25.00 others 24.40 17.33 29.46 11.64 9.67 13.33 overall 42.92 21.39 71.08 16.79 10.61 22.39 table 2: statistics of diameter and height of major species in deumai namuna cf species dbh (cm) height (m) average minimum maximum average minimum maximum castanopsis indica 41.63 5.50 80.53 14.82 5.00 22.00 quercus semecarpifolia 25.64 4.50 57.30 11.65 6.00 18.00 alnus nepalensis 27.40 4.00 73.21 13.25 5.00 18.00 rhododendron arboretum 29.30 6.00 56.02 11.69 7.00 15.00 quercus lamellosa 55.64 9.00 89.13 17.38 8.00 22.00 others 22.60 13.74 34.29 11.23 8.44 14.35 overall 33.70 7.12 65.08 13.34 6.57 18.23 biomass and carbon stock table 3 shows the biomass stock density of the two different forest types. table 3: above-ground and below-ground biomass of cfs cf agtb agpb agsb total agb bgb total biomass total carbon (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) (mg/ha) deumai namuna cf 94.50 34.02 5.88 134.40 34.94 169.34 79.59 pashupati cf 144.41 18.66 3.99 167.05 35.08 202.14 95.00 note: agtbabove-ground tree biomass, agpbabove-ground pole biomass, agsbabove-ground sapling biomass, agbabove-ground biomass, bgbbelow-ground biomass carbon stock estimation overall vegetation carbon stock was calculated by adding the above-ground biomass carbon and below-ground biomass carbon of the two forest regions, showing that the mean carbon table 3: above-ground and below-ground biomass of cfs table 4: carbon stock in tropical and temperate forests density was higher in the tropical forest (95 mg/ha) than in the temperate forest (75.59 mg/ha) (table 4). table 4: carbon stock in tropical and temperate forests cfs aboveground carbon stock (mg/ha) belowground carbon stock (mg/ha) total carbon stock (mg/ha) pashupati cf 78.51 16.49 95 deumai namuna cf 63.17 16.42 75.59 figure 4: aggregated stock (carbon) in varied carbon pools of differing forest regions carbon stock distribution with respect to dbh class and height class in the tropical region, carbon stock was highest in the dbh class of 70-80 cm (26.52 mg/ha), while in the temperate zone, the highest carbon stock was found in the 20-30 cm dbh class (14.15 mg/ha). similarly, the lowest amount of carbon stored was 0.83 mg/ha in the 30-40 cm dbh class of the tropical forest and 2.48 mg/ha in the 0-10 cm dbh class of the temperate forest (figure 5). figure 5: carbon stock with respect to dbh class. poudel et al. 21 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 forests. welch’s t-test showed no significant statistical differences in average carbon stock between the two forest types (t = 1.771, df = 63, p = 0.0814). additionally, no significant relationship was found between carbon stock and diameter class. (t = 0.498, p = 0.6291) or height class (t = 0.01, p = 0.993) within either forest type (table 5). these results suggest that variations in diameter and height classes do not significantly affect carbon stock differences between tropical and temperate forests. discussions biomass and carbon stock were higher in tropical forest than in temperate forests. as diameter increased , the biomass of the tree was also increased, indicating a direct positive relationship between dbh and biomass across tree components (supriya devi & yadava, 2009). the amount of aboveground biomass in a forest is influenced by factors such as forest age, tree density, species type, and wood density (shrestha & devkota, 2013; zhang et al., 2013; sun et al., 2016). therefore, the higher biomass value in the tropical region was due to the prevalence of older trees with larger diameters and greater heights. additionally, tropical regions contained species with higher wood densities. despite higher stem density in the temperate region, biomass was lower, as increased stem density does not necessarily lead to greater tree biomass (khadanga & jayakumar, 2020). overall, forest biomass is considered an essential primary source of carbon stock. the total biomass of the tree component was 169.34 mg/ha in cfs of chure (tropical) and and 202.14 mg/ha in the mid-hill (temperate) regions. shrestha (2009) reported a similar biomass amount of 183.29 mg/ha in shorea robusta forests, while the schima-castanopsis forest studied had a much lower biomass of 80.4 mg/ha. the forest resource assessment published by dfrs in 2015 showed that the average aboveground biomass of nepal is 172.21 mg/ha in chure and 143.26 mg/ha the midhill regions, which aligns with this study. baral et al. (2009) observed that the above-ground carbon content of shorea robusta forests in the mahabharat foothills was higher at 97.86 mg/ha, while the schima-castanopsis and alnus nepalensis forests had 76.24 mg/ha and 76 mg/ha, respectively. however, these data are from central nepal, where variations in elevation, stand age, soil, and climate can influence the amount of carbon stored by the forests (shrestha & singh, 2008; dar & sundarapandian, 2015; thapa-magar & shrestha, 2015). this study found that both forests sequester nearly equal amounts of carbon in their tree components. this result closely matches the national inventory carried out by the department of forest research and survey (dfrs, 2015), which reported an average carbon stock of 97.69 mg/ha in the chure region and 79.42 mg/ha in the middle mountains. in contrast, mandal et al. (2013) estimated an aboveground carbon stock of 116.72 mg/ha and a belowground carbon stock of 15.12 mg/ha in mahottari district, which differs from the findings of this study. figure 8: carbon stock percentage in different species of temperate forest in deumai namuna cf, i.e., temperate forest, castanopsis sp. (katus) stored the highest amount of carbon at 33.19%, followed by quercus lamellosa, q. semecarpifolia, alnus nepalensis, rhododendron arboretum, symplocos theifolia, and michelia sp. (chanp), which sequestered 17.80%, 9.08%, 6.86%, 4.87%, 3.42%, and 1.46% of the total carbon stored by trees, poles, and saplings, respectively. similarly, other species accounted for 27.33% of carbon sequestration (see figure 8). carbon stocks comparison between tropical and temperate forests the recorded carbon stock values from sample plots were analyzed to compare tropical and temperate forests. welch�s t-test showed no significant statistical differences in average carbon stock between the two forest types (t = 1.771, df = 63, p = 0.0814). additionally, no significant relationship was found between carbon stock and diameter class. (t = 0.498, p = 0.6291) or height class (t = 0.01, p = 0.993) within either forest type (table 5). these results suggest that variations in diameter and height classes do not significantly affect carbon stock differences between tropical and temperate forests. table 5: carbon stocks comparison between tropical and temperate forest s.n. forest test parameters t-value p-value 1 tropical carbon stock vs. diameter class 0.498 0.6291 temperate 2 tropical carbon stock vs. height class 0.01 0.993 temperate discussions figure 7: carbon stock percentage in different species of tropical forest figure 8: carbon stock percentage in different species of temperate forest table 5: carbon stocks comparison between tropical and temperate forest poudel et al. 22 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 shorea robusta had the most extensive carbon stock in tropical forests among the species studied. chand et al. (2018) noted that shorea robusta had the highest carbon pool among forest species. they also reported that carbon stock was higher in larger dbh classes (>80 cm and 70-80 cm) in the tropical region, which aligns with this study. however, in the temperate region, the highest carbon stock was found in the 20-30 cm diameter class, consistent with the forests of golapara district, assam (rabha, 2014). in the temperate region, castanopsis sp. sequesters the highest amount of carbon, and concluded that castanopsis contributed the highest amount of carbon in the forest due to its dominance (tripathi et al., 2018). overall, the carbon pool in tropical shorea robusta-dominated forests was higher than in temperate castanopsis-quercus forests. it is reported that both biomass and carbon stock decrease with increasing altitude (moser et al., 2007; sheikh et al., 2012). although in some cases, carbon storage shows a positive correlation with altitude (alves et al., 2010; pragasan, 2022). conclusion as a source of biomass and an essential carbon sink, tropical forests play a crucial role in addressing the world’s environmental crisis. the carbon stored in forests showed variation across altitude, forest type, age, and wood density. tropical forests store relatively more biomass carbon than temperate forests, due to the abundance of trees with larger diameters and heights. however, the temperate forests were more diverse than the tropical forests of ilam district. no significant statistical differences were reported in the carbon accumulated by these forests in terms of diameter and height classes. additionally, the presence of hardwood species with higher wood-specific gravity in tropical forests resulted in greater carbon stock. the study indicates that cfs in nepal sequester a substantial amount of carbon, which may benefit future redd+ initiatives. however, this research was limited to the biomass and carbon reservoirs of both temperate and tropical forests. estimation of soil organic carbon was not included, even though soil contains a significant amount of carbon. this omission could affect the accuracy of the total carbon stock estimated in these forests. broader studies covering larger geographical areas and diverse ecological zones are necessary to understand these findings better. further research should also focus on soil organic carbon to enable stronger conclusions. acknowledgements we would like to acknowledge the division forest office, illam, for their support during the fieldwork. we are also grateful to mr. siddhartha regmi for his guidance during the initial draft of the manuscript. author’s contribution ap: conceptualization, methodology, field work, validation, formal analysis, writing original draft, writing review & editing; kpd: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, writing review & editing; supervision; mj: methodology, field work, formal analysis, writing review & editing; stm: methodology, formal analysis, writing review & editing; rk: methodology, validation, formal analysis, writing original draft, writing review & editing, correspondence. conflict of interests the authors declare no conflict of interests. references acharya, k. p., dangi, r. b., tripathi, d. m., bushley, b. r., bhandary, r. r., & bhattarai, b. 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(2008). predicting mean aboveground forest biomass and its associated variance. forest ecology and management, 256(6), 1400–1407. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2008.07.002 poudel et al. 1 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1http://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i1.79332 banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal editorial development of the bamboo sector for enhancing local livelihoods and the national economy nepal is naturally endowed with rich bamboo resources. the country hosts over 12 genera and 53 species of bamboo, including seven endemic species, contributing significantly to global bamboo diversity. bamboos are found in nearly every district of nepal and grow at elevations ranging from 60 to 4,000 meters above sea level, across all geographical regions. three main types of bamboos are found in nepal: bans (over 4 cm in diameter), nigalo and malingo (under 4 cm). recognized as the “poor man’s timber”, “green gold,” and the “rich man’s aspiration” bamboo is renewable, biodegradable, strong, lightweight, fast-growing, and environmentally friendly. its potential as a substitute for plastic and as a carbon sink underscores its ecological significance. it plays a crucial role in daily life, serving as a material for construction, handicrafts, traditional tools, and furniture. bamboo also supports health and agriculture. in the central siwalik region, bamboo extracts are used as antiseptics, and species like bambusa nutans and bambusa nepalensis are used as livestock fodder. the crystal substance “vansa lochan” or “tabasheer” found in some bamboo species, is a valuable ingredient in ayurvedic and unani medicines. the forest research and training centre (frtc) has documented 86 distinct designs and crafts using 293 techniques to produce 33 bamboo products in the past. economically, the sector shows strong domestic demand: over 4 million bamboo culms are sold annually, generating npr 0.8 billion; the sale of bamboo shoots (tama) and sprouts (tusa) generate npr 0.6 billion; and the widespread use of bamboo-made items like nanglo and doko contributes to an annual market value exceeding npr 3.5 billion. including furniture, ply, biochar, and engineered bamboo, the sector’s total estimated market value exceeds npr 5 billion and involves over 25,000 families, particularly from marginalized communities in eastern nepal. despite its potential, nepal’s bamboo sector faces significant challenges: • policy and institutional support: bamboo and other non-timber forest products (ntfps) have been widely under-prioritized in practice and investment in national development agendas, leading to weak institutional frameworks and inadequate policy. • market development: a lack of fixed markets and pricing creates uncertainty for producers and hinders value chain development. • research and development: inadequate data on bamboo plantations, economic contributions, and ecosystem services limit strategic planning and investment. with technological advancements and rising global demand, bamboo offers great promise for sustainable development. however, strategic policy reform, better supply chain management, and investment in research are essential to unlock its full potential in nepal. bamboo has been deeply integrated into nepalese culture, environment, and economy for centuries. however, research on the cultural and ecological significance of bamboo in nepal remains limited. few studies explore vol. 35, no. 1 may 2025 2 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 its influence on traditions and community identity, while data on bamboo’s carbon stock and climate change mitigation potential is lacking. research is unevenly distributed, with a focus on hill regions, leaving the terai and mountain areas underexplored. most studies emphasize bamboo’s economic uses, construction and crafts, while its ecological aspects and broader ecosystem services, such as habitat and supporting functions, are underrepresented. few studies incorporate all four categories of ecosystem services (regulating, provisioning, cultural, and supporting), highlighting a need for more holistic research. additionally, local farmers often lack awareness and technical knowledge for proper bamboo management, limiting its sustainable use. bamboo’s rapid growth, versatility, and applications in construction, furniture, paper, and bioenergy make it a key resource for sustainable development, especially in rural nepal. the commercialization of timber bamboo offers economic promise, but challenges such as poor marketing infrastructure, inadequate r&d, and inconsistent product quality persist. nepal has been a key player in global bamboo promotion as a founding member of the international bamboo and rattan organization (inbar) since 1997. recently, the government endorsed the bamboo and rattan development strategy 2025 and hosted the first national bamboo conference in diktel, khotang. the conference concluded with a 35-point declaration emphasizing bamboo cultivation, sustainable management, industrial development, research advancement, policy strengthening, climate solutions, and employment generation. these strategic efforts aim to integrate bamboo into nepal’s green economy, positioning it as a low-cost, sustainable solution for development, environmental conservation, and livelihood improvement. to promote sustainable development through bamboo in nepal, several strategic actions are essential. integrating indigenous knowledge with modern techniques can significantly improve bamboo cultivation and utilization. supportive policies should be developed to create a conducive environment for investment and sectoral growth. training programs focused on sustainable harvesting, processing, and product development can enhance quality, empower local communities, and improve marketability. establishing organized markets with transparent pricing mechanisms and robust infrastructure will connect producers to markets and ensure fair returns. investments in research are vital to explore innovative bamboo products, applications, and market opportunities while gathering data on species distribution, growth patterns, and economic potential for informed planning. capacity-building programs can enhance the skills of bamboo growers, artisans, and entrepreneurs in cultivation, design, and processing. these targeted interventions can generate rural employment, strengthen bamboo-based livelihoods, and contribute to nepal’s green economy. by recognizing bamboo’s economic and ecological value, nepal can unlock its full potential, fostering sustainable economic growth, environmental conservation, and improved community well-being. seerjana maharjan, managing editor rajendra kc, chief editor banko janakari 3 accurate and up-to-date information on current growing stock and its future growth potential is crucial for informed and sustainable forest management strategies. this information allows forest managers to make data-driven decisions regarding harvesting, conservation, and resource allocation. timely and precise data on current growing stock can be efficiently obtained through taper functions, which express the relationship between tree diameter and height (muhairwe, 1999). as such, stem taper functions are considered fundamental inputs for forest planning and management at all levels (kublin et al., 2013; heidarsson & pukkala, 2011). while form factors provide a general idea of a tree’s shape, they fail to capture the crucial detail of how diameter changes along the stem as height increases. this dynamic relationship is precisely what taper equations excel at representing. taper equations offer a predictive tool for estimating diameters at any desired point along the trunk, unlocking essential information for various forestry applications. modeling stem taper thus becomes a cornerstone for deriving upper stem diameters and calculating stem volumes at different heights both vital for accurate resource assessments and sustainable forest management practices. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2, 2023 pp 3‒10https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i2.58809 developing stem taper model for shorea robusta in far-western terai of nepal tree taper functions expressed in terms of height and diameter at breast height (dbh) provide essential information for precise estimation of current growing stock. taper models play a crucial role in calculating timber volumes in forest inventories. however, such models are still unavailable at the required level in nepal. this study aimed to develop taper equations for shorea robusta, enabling predictions of diameter anywhere along the stem and estimation of tree volumes at desired sections. a destructive sampling method was employed, involving 81 sample trees of s. robusta across ten locations within kailali and kanchanpur districts in the far-western terai region of nepal. the trees were felled for measurement of upper stem diameters. two independent models b-spline and 5th degree polynomial were used to predict upper stem diameters. both models were applied to the entire dataset, irrespective of dbh, to create common fitted taper models. subsequently, these models were tested for three dbh classes to compare and identify the best fitting model. the b-spline polynomial taper models exhibited a strong dependency on tree dbh size. hence, improved b-spline models were derived by classifying the dataset based on dbh. conversely, the 5th degree polynomial model showed no dbh size dependency, offering a better fit for the unclassified dataset encompassing all dbh ranges. keywords: b-spline, dbh, destructive sampling, polynomial, stem taper model, taper r. dhakal1 , a. khadka2* , k. k. pokharel2 , t. subedi2 , a. k. acharya2 , p. lamichhane3 , b. p. dhakal2 , and s. khanal3 received: 2, november 2023 revised: 21, january 2024 accepted: 4, february 2024 published: 26, february 2024 1. agriculture and forest university, faculty of forestry, hetauda, nepal 2. forest research and training centre, kathmandu, nepal .*email: anandakhadka@gmail.com 3. ministry of forests and environment, kathmandu, nepal https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7137-6550 https://orcid.org/0009-0003-5414-160x https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8799-9598 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3772-2897 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3638-6692 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0355-0222 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8534-6558 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6173-6789 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 4 dhakal et al. the stem taper represents the rate of change (decrease) in stem diameter with increasing tree height (kohler et al., 2016). this change, captured by taper equations, holds significance for both the current state and future potential of forest resources. various methods have been developed for constructing taper equations, with past studies often focusing on softwood species like pine and spruce (max & burkhart, 1976; fang et al., 2000). however, valuable hardwood species like shorea robusta have received considerably less attention, despite their significant economic and ecological value in regions such as nepal’s terai and siwalik where shorea robusta is abundant (dfrs, 2014). this multipurpose tree can reach impressive heights of 45–50 m and constitutes a primary timber source for the nepalese market (jackson, 1994). despite its crucial role, information on volume and taper functions for shorea robusta in nepal remains scarce. consequently, national forest resource assessments have had to rely on rough volume estimates derived from polynomial taper equations developed using data from exotic tree plantations in zambia a far cry from the specific context of nepal’s native shorea robusta populations (heinonen et al., 1996). this highlights the critical need for locally relevant taper equations tailored for shorea robusta in nepal. the present study aims to address this gap by developing robust and localized taper equations specifically for shorea robusta in nepal to empower forest managers with the ability to reliably predict tree volumes and diameters. materials and methods study area the data were collected from ten different sites located in the far western terai region of nepal, specifically within kailali and kanchanpur districts of sudurpaschhim province (figure 1). the study was conducted in the year 2022. the study sites are located between 28.8314°n and 28.8372°n and between 80.8987°e and 80.3213°e. this region, extending from the karnali river in the east to the country’s western border, holds 97,622 hectares of forests outside protected areas (dfrs, 2014). the elevation of the study area ranges from 109 m to 200 m above mean sea level (msl). the climate varies from subtropical to tropical, with an annual precipitation of 1130 mm to 2680 mm (dfrs, 2014). summers are hot, with peak temperatures exceeding 40°c, while winters are dry with lows below 15°c. the native forest type in the region is characterized as terai mixed hardwood, dominated by shorea robusta, which is the most common species in terms of basal area. data collection the data collection was done to prepare local volume tables for s. robusta in 2018. the data figure 1: location of the sample sites in far-western terai region of nepal banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 5 dhakal et al. consisted of 81 sample trees with different dbh (over-bark) classes (figure 2). a destructive sampling approach was adopted to measure the data. the recorded tree characteristics included the tree height, dbh, crown height, location, sectional diameters, and height from base to diameter measuring points at several sections of the stem. figure 2: histogram showing the distribution of dbh (cm) of the sampled trees after felling of sample trees, the first three overbark diameter measurements were done at 0.5m intervals at the lowermost sections. the upper stem diameters (over-bark) were measured at 0.3m, 0.8m, 1.3m, 1.8m, 2.8m, 4.0m, and at every 2m (sharma & pukkala , 1990; eerikäinen, 2001) up to the tip of the trees from their base (figure 3) using a diameter tape at 0.1cm accuracy (subedi, 2017). figure 3: diameter measurement points along the tree stem all the trees with serious defects and abnormalities were excluded from the sampling frame. observation of tree stem diameters (cm) at different heights (m) from its base for all the sampled trees is presented in figure 4. fig. 4: observation of stem diameters (cm) at different heights from the base (m); different colours stand for different sample trees, i.e. same coloured downward inclined dotted lines represent unique sample trees. data analysis and tools stem taper functions were used to model the relative decrease in upper stem diameters (dx) with an increase in relative heights (hx). the diameter at breast height (dbh), due to its easy-to-access property, has been taken as the relative value to derive proportional decrease in dx which were modelled as a function of the hx. the following two independent modelling approaches were followed to develop the stem taper equations: i. b-spline cubic polynomial model spline interpolation is a common mathematical approach of generating a set of new points within the boundaries of known points. these new points are function values of an interpolation function (referred to as spline), consisting of multiple cubic piece-wise polynomials (fornberg & zuev, 2007). cubic spline has a continuous second derivative while quadratic spline only has a continuous first derivative. thus, cubic spline being smoother, was chosen (equation 1). y = a + bx + cx2 + dx3 ……………………. (1) where, y is dependent variable, i.e. upper stem diameter (cm); x is independent variable, i.e. ratio of upper stem diameter and dbh; and a, b, c, and d are equation parameters. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 6 dhakal et al. ii. polynomial 5th degree polynomial 5th degree modelling approach was based on the functions implemented in rforest package that allowed to fit the following taper model (equation 2) along with plot visualization in 2d and 3d (silva, 2021): di/dbh=(hi/ht)+(hi/ht)2+(hi/ht)3+(hi/ht)4+(hi/ht)5 ……………… (2) where, di/dbh is the ratio of upper stem diameter and tree dbh; hi is the height of tree from its base at the point of sectional diameter measurement ht is the total height of tree two independent taper models namely b-spline and polynomial 5thdegree were initially tested for the trees with different dbh classes. later, both the models were tested for three different dbh classes: i) <55 cm, ii) 55–70 cm, & iii) >75 cm, and the model outputs were compared to find the best-fit model. several r packages such as splines (r core team, 2022), rforest (silva et al., 2021), tidyverse (wickham et al., 2019), and ggplot2 (wickham, 2016) were used for the purpose of data analysis and visualization. results i) b-spline cubic polynomial the b-spline cubic polynomial taper models developed independently for three different dbh classes: i) <55 cm, ii) 55–70 cm, & iii) >70 cm were found to have lesser standard errors of 6.25, 5.48, and 8.87 respectively with higher adjusted r2 of 0.84, 0.90, and 0.96 respectively (table 1). on the other hand, a single taper model developed for all dbh sizes had a lower adjusted r2 of 0.78 and a greater standard error of 12.85 as compared to the former ones (figure 5). table 1: estimated parameters of b-spline cubic polynomial taper models s.n. dbh class (cm) a b c d se (residuals) adj. r2 1. < 55 50.3 −25.4 −19.1 −51.0 6.25 0.84 2. 55–70 75.0 −40.3 −31.6 −76.8 5.48 0.90 3. > 70 82.3 −37.6 −36.7 −84.2 8.87 0.96 all dbh classes 64.5 −32.7 −26.8 −65.7 12.85 0.78 ii) 5th degree polynomial the model built for the three dbh classes i) <55 cm, ii) 55–70 cm, & iii) >70 cm predicted a large deviation from the observed value, although the outcome varied for each of the three dbh classes. however, the standard errors for each model parameter of the model developed for all dbh sizes were smaller than that were estimated for the former ones (figure 6). figure 5: b-spline cubic polynomial taper models banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 7 dhakal et al. discussion taper equations of eucalyptus species in new south wales revealed that changes in diameter and height growth along the stem over time contribute to taper variations between individual trees (muhairwe, 1999). several factors influence this variability, including intrinsic characteristics like genetics and extrinsic factors like climate change, site quality, tree and stand age, crown size, canopy position, defoliation, species, and stand density. a single “universal” taper model is difficult because of the intricate interactions between these components (mcclure & czaplewski, 1986). this emphasizes the requirement for speciesspecific and context-sensitive models tailored to accurately represent the unique growth patterns of different tree species. this study investigated the influence of diameter at breast height (dbh) classes on the development of taper models for shorea robusta. our findings show that considering dbh classes is crucial for achieving optimal model accuracy, particularly when using the b-spline cubic polynomial function. models developed for individual dbh classes significantly outperformed the single model built for all sizes combined, confirming the importance of accounting for inherent variations within different size groups. this finding aligns with prior research emphasizing the benefits of fitting statistics and size-specific approaches for improved model selection (kozak & kozak, 2003; bellocchi et al., 2010). moreover, our approach implicitly incorporates independent tree accuracy checks as recommended by ducey & williams (2011), as each dbh class represents a distinct size group. the study compared two contrasting methodologies for developing taper models for shorea robusta. firstly, the available data was grouped into three dbh classes (small, medium, large) based on established classification systems figure 6: 5th degree polynomial taper models banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 8 dhakal et al. in the region. separate taper models were then developed for each class using both b-spline cubic polynomial and 5th degree polynomial functions. in addition, models were developed using all data points irrespective of dbh size for both functions, providing a broader representation of tree variability. the findings showcase the effectiveness of the classification by dbh approach for the b-spline cubic polynomial model. models specific to individual dbh classes exhibited significantly better fits compared to the model built for all sizes combined. this aligns with recommendations by kozak & kozak (2003) and bellocchi et al. (2010) who emphasize the importance of fitting statistics and graphical evaluations in model selection. additionally, by segmenting data based on size classes, our approach implicitly incorporates the recommendations of ducey & williams (2011) for independent tree accuracy checks, as different dbh classes represent distinct tree size groups. the success of the b-spline model under the classified approach can be attributed to its inherent flexibility. splines offer a balance between adaptability and complexity, effectively capturing the dynamic changes in stem form observed across different size classes, particularly in hardwoods like shorea robusta prone to stump flare (kublin et al., 2013). furthermore, cubic spline interpolation minimizes oscillations at knots, leading to smoother approximations and improved model accuracy (fornberg & zuev, 2007). this flexibility allowed the spline model to effectively adapt to different dbh classes, resulting in superior performance compared to the single, unclassified model. interestingly, the opposite trend was observed for the 5th degree polynomial model. in this case, a single model encompassing all dbh sizes yielded better results compared to models specific to individual classes. this suggests that for this specific function, incorporating the entire range of tree sizes within one model provided a more accurate representation of tree variability, particularly regarding size class. while further investigation is needed to fully understand this finding, it highlights the potential benefits of considering the broader spectrum of variability when choosing or developing taper models. our findings regarding the 5th degree polynomial model resonate with similar research by téo et al. (2018) in brazil, where this function outperformed other models for taper prediction in their study. however, it’s crucial to emphasize that the optimal approach may vary depending on the species, function chosen, and specific application. conclusion the findings highlight the importance of carefully considering both species-specific characteristics and the chosen function when developing taper models. while our study demonstrates the effectiveness of classifying data by dbh for b-spline models in shorea robusta, the optimal approach may differ for other species or functions. future research could investigate the performance of additional functions or incorporate ecological variables beyond dbh for even more refined model development. additionally, exploring alternative classification methods, such as crown size or site quality, could further enhance model accuracy and applicability. the insights gained from this study can be invaluable for researchers, forest managers, and stakeholders seeking accurate and reliable estimates of tree volume and stem dimensions in shorea robusta plantations. our findings provide valuable guidance for choosing appropriate functions and classification methods, ultimately contributing to improved sustainable forest management practices. author’s contribution statement a. khadka: research ideas, develop the research tools, methods, and select most appropriate packages, data analysis, results generation, revision of the research findings and manuscript preparation. r. dhakal: research ideas, select most appropriate packages, data analysis, results generation and first draft preparation. t. subedi: field data collection, ideas on data analysis, review and editing. a. k. acharya: select appropriate packages, data analysis, results generation, review and editing. b. p. dhakal: review and editing. p. lamichhane: review and editing.k. k. pokharel: review and editing. s. khanal: develop banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 9 dhakal et al. the research tools, methods, and select most appropriate packages, revision of the findings, review and final editing data availability the data collected for this study is available from the figshare repository https://www.doi. org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25225511.v2 conflict of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest. references bellocchi, g., rivington, m., donatelli, m., & matthews, k. (2010). validation of biophysical models: issues and methodologies. a review. agronomy for sustainable development, 30 (1): 109−130. dfrs. (2014). terai forests of nepal. forest resource assessment nepal, department of forest research and survey (2010−2012). ducey, m. j. & williams, m.s. (2011). comparison of hossfeld’s method and two modern methods of volume estimation of standing trees. western journal of applied forestry, 26 (1): 19−23. eerikäinen, k. (2001). stem volume models with random coefficients for pinus kesiya in tanzania, zambia, and zimbabwe. canadian journal of forest research, 31 (5): 879–888. https://doi. org/10.1139/x01-019. fang, z., borders, b. e., & bailey, r. l. (2000). compatible volume-taper models for loblolly and slash pine based on a system with segmentedstem form factors. forest science, 46 (1): 1–12. fornberg, b. & zuev, j. (2007). the runge phenomenon and spatially variable shape parameters in rbf interpolation. computers & mathematics with applications, 54 (3): 379−398. heidarsson, l. & pukkala, t. (2011). taper functions for lodgepole pine (pinus contorta) and siberian larch (larix sibirica) in iceland. icelandic agricultural sciences, 24 (1): 3–11. heinonen, j., saramäki, j., & sekeli, p. m. (1996). a polynomial taper curve function for zambian exotic tree plantations. journal of tropical forest science, 8 (3): 339−354. jackson, j. k. (1994). manual of afforestation in nepal. kathmandu: forest research and survey centre. 2nd edition. kohler, s. v., koehler, h. s., filho, a., arce, j. e., & machado, a. s. (2016). evolution of tree stem taper in pinus taeda stands. ciência rural, 46 (7): 1185−1191. kozak, a. & kozak, r. (2003). does cross validation provide additional information in the evaluation of regression models? canadian journal of forestry research, 33 (6): 976−987. kublin, e., breidenbach, j., & kändler, g. (2013). a flexible stem taper and volume prediction method based on mixed-effects b-spline regression. european journal of forest research, 132 (5): 983−997. max, t. & burkhart, h. e. (1976). segmented polynomial regression applied to taper equations. forest science, 22 (3): 283–289. mcclure, j. p. & czaplewski, r. l. (1986). compatible taper equation for loblolly pine. canadian journal of forest research, 16: 1272−1277. muhairwe, c. k. (1999). taper equations for eucalyptus pilularis and eucalyptus grandis for the north coast in new south wales, australia. forest ecology and management, 113 (2–3): 251–269. https://doi.org/10.1016/s03781127(98)00431-9 ounekham, k. (2009). developing volume and taper equations for styraxton kinensis in laos. master’s thesis, university of canterbury, new zealand. r core team (2022). r: a language and environment for statistical computing. r https://www.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25225511.v2 https://www.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25225511.v2 https://doi.org/10.1139/x01-019 https://doi.org/10.1139/x01-019 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 2 10 dhakal et al. foundation for statistical computing, vienna, austria. url: https://www.r-project.org/. sharma, e. r. & pukkala, t. (1990). volume equations and biomass prediction of forest trees of nepal. silva, c., klauberg, c., carvalho, s., rosa, m., madi, j., & hamamura, c. (2021). rforest: forest inventory and analysis. r package version 0.1.4, url: https://cran.r-project.org/ package=rforest/ subedi, t. (2017). volume models for sal (shorea robusta gaertn.) in far-western terai of nepal. banko janakari, 27 (2): 3−11. téo, s. j., machado, s., do a., filho, a. f., & tomé, m. (2018). stem taper equation with extensive applicability to several age classes of pinus taeda l. floresta, 48 (4): 471–482. vanclay, j. k. (1994). modelling forest growth and yield. application to mixed tropical forest. cab international, oxon, uk. iles (2003); a sampler of inventory topics. kim iles & associates nanaimo, bc, canada. wickham, h., averick, m., bryan j., chang, w, mcgowan, l.d., françois, r., grolemund, g., hayes, a., henry, l., hester, j., kuhn, m., & yutani, h. (2019). “welcome to the tidyverse”. journal of open source software, 4 (43): 1686. url: https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01686 wickham, h. (2016). ggplot2: elegant graphics for data analysis. springer-verlag new york. https://www.r-project.org/ https://cran.r-project.org/package=rforest/ https://cran.r-project.org/package=rforest/ https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01686 _hlk154127214 _hlk152447776 _hlk152692305 _heading=h.30j0zll _gjdgxs _r6xj9h6t6g3 _30j0zll _3znysh7 aamatya1994 aamatya2018 aryal atreya barakoti blanck bryman cbs11 cbs21 chhetri dhakal frtc ghadim khanal kindt kiyani lehmann lrmp liu mohp nair79 osti pandit regmi10 shrestha udvardy _hlk140695995 48 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2, 2020 pp 48‒58https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i2.33478 invasive alien species (ias) are the species which have the capacity to compete with native species outside their geographical origin (cbd, 1992). ias are of great concern for conservationists and natural resource managers because of their rapid spreading nature, competitiveness and capability to colonize in new areas within short time period (rejmánek and richardson, 1996). these species primarily gain entry into new geographic areas through human activities, environmental disturbances, deforestation and forest degradation, and forest fire which promotes the establishment of the species (early et al., 2016; mcneely, 2001). ias have negative consequences to native species and ecosystem services (mea, 2005) by predation, impact of invasive alien plant species on aquatic biodiversity of koshi tappu wetlands : ramsar site, nepal i. p. pandey1, d. n. shah1* and r. d.tachamo-shah2 1 central department of environmental science, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal. *e-mail: dnshah@cdes.edu.np 2 aquatic ecology centre, kathmandu university, dhulikhel, nepal. koshi tappu wetlands play a significant role in the conservation of many rare and endangered species of flora and fauna. however, this wetland is threatened by several natural and anthropogenic stressors; among others, invasion by invasive species is the most serious problem. the objective of this study was to prepare an inventory list of wetlands, categorize the wetlands based on the coverage of alien species, identify the problematic aquatic invasive plant species, and assess their impact on water quality and aquatic biodiversity (fish and macroinvertebrates). this study was conducted in winter and spring seasons of 2018. composite water samples were collected from the wetlands with different covers of invasive species. macroinvertebrate samples were collected using hand net of 500µm mesh following the habitat specific sampling approach, and fishes were sampled using cast net. the analysis of water quality parameters, macroinvertebrates and fishes were performed for different levels of invasion. altogether, 66 wetlands were documented in the buffer zone located in the east of eastern embankment of the ktwr. out of the total 66 wetlands, 33.33% were found to be non-invaded while 66.67%were found to be invaded by the invasive macrophytes. the invaded wetlands were further subdivided into abundant 'a' (>75% coverage), common 'c' (50-75% coverage) frequent 'f' (25-50%coverage), occasional 'o' (5-25% coverage), and rare 'r' (1-5% coverage) which were found to have occupied 19.69%, 16.67%, 12.12%, 13.63% and 4.50%, respectively, of the invaded wetlands (66.61%). the most problematic invasive species were found to be eichhornia crassipes and ipomoea carnea. the dissolved oxygen (do) decreased while the total alkalinity and free co2 increased significantly with the increased coverage of invasive macrophytes. the macroinvertebrate diversity was observed high in common and abundant coverage, but the fish diversity was high in the frequent coverage of invasive species. the taxa compositions shifted from “decapoda” and “ephemeroptera” to “odonata” and “mollusca” in none to abundant coverage of invasive species. the findings of this research are expected to help wetland managers and related stakeholders to understand the level of impact of different coverage of invasive species on wetlands, help to develop the conservation strategy and action plans to mitigate the spread of these invasive species, and wise use of wetlands. keywords: coverage class, fish, macroinvertebrates, water quality banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 49 pandey et al. competition and habitat modification (mcgeoch et al., 2010). invasive species have become a threat for 42% of the native species to fall into endangerment in the united states (pimentel et al., 2005). freshwater ecosystems are at high risk of invasion compared to the terrestrial ecosystems as the vulnerability of invasion varies with biotic resistance of ecosystems (rejmánek and richardson, 1996). half of the world’s wetlands have been lost, and the remaining are degraded due to large-scale water diversion, introduction of invasive species, overharvesting, industrial pollution and climate change (carpenter et al., 2011). in nepal, wetlands occupy approximately 5% of the total area of the country (dofd, 2012). these wetlands are converting into unproductive land due to exotic plant species, expansion of cropland, siltation, overharvesting, land use change, and climate change. out of the total 219 alien species of flowering plants (siwakoti, 2012; sukhorukov, 2014; tiwari et al., 2005), 26 plant species including 6 species in wetlands are invasive in nepal (shrestha, 2017). koshi tappu, the first ramsar site designated in 1987, plays a significant role in the conservation of many rare and endangered plant species together with different fishes, resident and migratory birds and mammals. however, this ramsar site is threatened by different array of natural and anthropogenic factors out of which invasion of alien species in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem is a serious problem (savillo, 2009). in aquatic ecosystem, macrophytes influence the nutrient dynamics and water quality, and finally contribute to the primary productivity which alter the fish and macro-invertebrate communities (kovalenko et al., 2010; petr, 2000). macroinvertebrates have important link in the food web between decomposing leaves and algae, fish and other vertebrates, and are valuable indicators in assessments of environmental change (shah et al., 2011; shah et al., 2015).tiwari et al. (2005) divided ias in four risk categories, viz .i) very high risk, ii) high risk, iii) medium risk, and iv) low risk based on their coverage and abundance in which eichhornia crassipes and ipomoea carnea fall into high risk, and are recorded from the koshi tappu wildlife reserve (ktwr) and surrounding areas. alternanthera philoxeroides and myriophyllum aquaticum have been categorized in medium risk species while pistia stratiotes under the category posing low risk. e. crassipes, i. carnea, p. stratiotes and a. philoxeroides are native to the tropical and subtropical region (penfound & earle, 1948). these species were introduced in nepal because of their attractive flower and ornamental purpose (tiwari et al., 2005). ias reproduce sexually and asexually, and proliferate in short periods (gopal, 1987; zhu et al., 2015). these characteristics of ias enhance the growth and coverage in the water bodies which consequently block the sunlight into water leading to changes in the water chemistry (bassett et al., 2012; mujere, 2016). this also reduces the space for native aquatic flora and fauna (sharma and bachheti, 2013). the dense mat in the aquatic body creates the mosquito and pathogen breeding-habitat (zimmels et al., 2006) which is dangerous to spreading human diseases. the koshi tappu wetlands are covered predominately by water hyacinth (e. crassipes). the local people harvest water hyacinth for biogas production, food for pigs, fertilizer in field, and raw materials for handicraft for the conservation and sustainable use of the wetland (maharjan & ming, 2012; tiwari et al., 2005). in some areas, ipomoea spp. is used for fencing, firewood, raw materials for paper production, green manure, flood and soil erosion control (fatima et al., 2014). however, the management interventions, so far, are not enough; as a result, the spread of these invasive alien plant species (iaps) is increasing over the years. this has direct negative consequences to the wetland habitats, its aquatic biodiversity and on the livelihood of the wetland dependent communities (kovalenko et al., 2010). so far, very few studies have been conducted on the invasive species and their impacts on koshi tappu and other wetlands of nepal. therefore, the present study aims to determine the impacts of iaps on water quality and assemblages of aquatic biodiversity in koshi tappu wetlands. materials and methods study area the study was carried out in the buffer zone of the koshi tappu wildlife reserve (ktwr, figure 1). the ktwr, having a core area of 175 km2,was established in 1976 under the national parks and wildlife conservation act. on the other hand, the ktwr buffer zone surrounding the reserve was declared in 2004 with an area of 173.5 km2. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 50 pandey et al. the ktwr exhibits sub-tropical type of climate with the temperature ranging between 8.332.3°cand the annual precipitation of 2,019 mm. the reserve is rich in biodiversity with 670 species of vascular plants (siwakoti, 2012), 21 species of mammals (chhetry and pal, 2011), 45 species of herpetofauna, 494 species of birds,77 species of butterflies (dnpwc, 2009) and 42 taxa of macroinvertebrates (khatri et al., 2010). in koshi tappu, the local communities are highly dependent on wetland resources for their livelihoods (thapa and dahal, 2009). this wetland contributes 16 million usd from ecosystem services annually (sharma et al., 2015). in the koshi tappu area, over 250 wetlands are used for fisheries. many of these wetlands are dominated by invasive macrophytes such as e. crassipes, i. carnea, p. stratiotes, and a. philoxeroides. fig. 1: location of the ktwr in the map of nepal and the adjacent buffer zone (bottom left) together with the distribution of sampling sites within the buffer zone situated in the easternmost embankment of the ktwr (bottom right) methods the wetlands situated in the easternmost embankment of the ktwr buffer zone were listed visually, and were categorized based on the coverage of ias. the coverage of the dominant macrophytes was noted, estimated visually on the basis of acfor abundance scale provided by stiers et al. (2011) and no coverage wetland based on the braun-blanquet cover/ abundance scale. the classes were categorized as abundant 'a' (>75% coverage), common 'c' (50-75% coverage), frequent 'f' (25-50% coverage), occasional 'o' (5-25% coverage) and rare 'r' (1-5%). among the listed wetlands, 12 were assessed to determine the water quality, macroinvertebrates and fish diversity across the invasive coverage classes during winter (january, 2018) and spring (may, 2018) seasons. for the water quality parameters, water samples were taken from different points representing different micro-habitats, and were mixed to make a single composite sample for the analysis from each wetland. the water ph, temperature, total dissolved solids, conductivity and dissolved oxygen were measured instantly during sample collection using multi parameter probe (hanna port) and do meter (ysi-ecosense do, 200a), respectively. other parameters were analyzed in the laboratory of the central department of environmental science (tu-cdes),tribhuvan universityusing standard methods as described in apha (1998). a cast net of 40 mm mesh size was used to collect the fish samples. a hand net with 500-micron mesh size was used to collect the macro-invertebrate samples following the habitat specific approach ( tachamo-shah et al., 2011; shah et al., 2015). the fish specimens were identified based onshrestha (2008). similarly, the macroinvertebrates were identified using the country specific keys (shah et al., 2015; nesemann et al., 2007; nesemann et al., 2011). data analysis the sorenson’s similarity index was used to determine the community similarity within the same coverage class while the shannon diversity index and evenness were used to calculate the diversity of the macroinvertebrates and fishes. similarly, the kendall rank correlation was used to detect the correlation between the coverage banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 51 pandey et al. of invasive species and water quality parameters. likewise, the mann-whitney u-test was used to compare the seasonal data. on the other hand, the analysis of similarities (anosim) was used to test the community similarity between the coverage classes; the stress value gives the level of community dissimilarity. all the analyses were done in the rstudio1.1.423 software, and the inventory map was prepared using the arcgis 10.4 software. results inventory of wetlands altogether 66 wetlands were documented in the east of eastern embankment within the buffer zone of the ktwr. based on the field observation, 33.33% wetlands were found to be without invasive macrophytes while 66.67% were found to be invaded ones which were further categorized as abundant 'a' (>75% coverage); common 'c' (5075% coverage);frequent 'f' (25-50% coverage); occasional 'o' (5-25% coverage), and rare 'r' (1-5% coverage); these sub-classes were found to have occupied 19.69%, 16.67%, 12.12%, 13.63% and 4.50%, respectively of the invaded wetlands (66.61%) (figure 2). the non-invaded wetlands (33.33%) had regular human interference because of their fishing activities. some of these non-invaded wetlands were near from the settlements whereas the invaded wetlands were near from the agricultural areas, consequently with less human disturbance. the less-invaded wetlands had intermediate disturbances due to human activities. abundant coverage of invasive species was observed in fig. 2: distribution of the wetlands with respect to the coverage of invasive macrophytes in the ktwr buffer zone. the closed circles and triangles with different colors indicate the wetlands with respect to the presence of abundant invasive macrophytes the abandoned wetlands located nearby the agricultural areas. water quality parameters the temperature of water, though not statistically significant, was observed to have negative relation in winter but almost no correlation in spring season (table 1). the ph of water showed the negative correlation in both the seasons. the ph value decreased with the increasing coverage of invasive species. the ph value was slightly acidic in the wetlands invaded by invasive species. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 52 pandey et al. table 1. correlation between different coverage level of invasive macrophytes and water quality parameters in the wetlands of ktwr sn parameters (unit) winter spring concentration (mean ± s.d.) correlation value concentration (mean ± s.d) correlation value 1 temperature (□) 18.33±1.64 -0.31 30.18±2.57 0.09 2 ph 7.95±0.5 -0.57 7.79±0.63 -0.37 3 tds (ppm) 169±57.97 0.07 115.20±24.27 0.06 4 conductivity (µs cm-1) 285±84 0.57 225.91±49.42 0.25 5 dissolved oxygen (mg/l) 2.33±0.67 -0.64* 1.14±0.23 -0.77* 6 turbidity (ntu) 7.48±7.005 -0.43 10.14±11.55 -0.28 7 total hardness (mg/l) 130±40 0.57 177.16±51.93 0.15 8 total alkalinity (mg/l) 211.25±46 0.62* 57.51±15.44 -0.02 9 free co2 (mg/l) 4.95±2.27 0.75* 9.17±2.94 0.55* 10 ammonia (mg/l) 0.20±0.02 0.04 0.36±0.014 -0.25 11 chloride (mg/l) 3.55±2.27 -0.35 5.80±3.55 0.02 12 nitrate (mg/l) 5.21±1.65 -0.11 2.14±0.92 0.06 13 phosphate (mg/l) 0.18±0.05 0.21 0.19±0.05 0.18 14 iron (mg/l) 0.71±0.003 0.40 0.25±0.0011 -0.11 15 potassium (mg/l) 4.04±2.8 -0.29 1.57±1.015 -0.05 16 chlorophyll-a (mg/l) 0.23±0.19 0.07 0.98±0.52 -0.40 *indicates significant relation at p<0.05 the dissolved oxygen (do) significantly decreased with the increased coverage of invasive species (table 1) while the free carbon dioxide (co2) showed positive correlation with the increased coverage of macrophytes in both the seasons. the total alkalinity was found to be higher (211.25±46 mg) in the increased coverage of invasive species during winter season, but almost no relationship was found in the spring season. macroinvertebrate assemblages altogether, 41 taxa belonging to 12 orders of macroinvertebrates were recorded in the studied wetlands. hemiptera was the most diverse order having 10 taxa whereas megaloptera, oligocheta, lepidoptera and trombidiformes were recorded with single taxon. the palaemonidae and atyidae belonging to decapod comprised 69.62% and 61.61%, respectively of the individuals in the non-invaded wetlands, but were missing in abundant coverage wetlands (figure 3). the invaded wetlands with abundant invasive species (a,>75% coverage) had 36.47% and 46.56% coleopterain the winter and spring seasons, respectively while there were less than 5% of these individuals in the non-invaded ones. the notonectidae, corixidae and gerridae belonging to hemiptera were the most abundant taxa in the non-invaded wetlands, and their occurrences were low in the invaded wetlands. the planorbidae, viviparidae and ampullaridae individuals belonging to mollusca increased with the increased coverage of invasive plants, but the lymnaeidae individuals did not change with increased coverage of invasive species. abundance of ephemeroptera was high in the wetlands with frequent coverage (f, 25-50%), but decreased in the ones with abundant coverage (a, >75%). the taxa belonging to megaloptera, trombidiformes, oligocheta and lepidoptera were recorded in very few numbers, and mostly found in the wetlands with intermediate invasive species coverage. the richness and abundance of odonatataxa increased with the increased coverage of invasive species. the diversity of macroinvertebrate was observed high in the banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 53 pandey et al. wetland with common (c, 50-75%) and abundant (a, > 75%) coverages of invasive species in both the seasons (figure 4). fig. 3: macroinvertebrate composition across the invasive species coverage classes in winter (january, 2018) and spring (may, 2018) seasons fig. 4: macroinvertebrate diversity across the coverage classes of iaps in winter (january, 2018) and spring (may, 2018) seasons there was no significant difference in shannon diversity index between the seasons i.e., winter and spring (mann-whitney u-test, p>0.05).the analysis of similarities revealed that there was no significant difference in shannon diversity index across the invasion coverage classes (p>0.05). the sorensen’s similarity index revealed 24%, 44%, 48%, and 43% similarities within the same coverage class when divided into only four coverage classes of 0-25%, 25-50%, 50-75% and >75%, respectively during the winter season. it was observed that 33.33%, 11.00%, 58.82%, 57.14%, 32.34%, and 43.24% taxa were overlapped within the non-invaded, rare 'r', frequent 'f', occasional 'o', common 'c', and abundant 'a' coverage classes, respectively in the spring season. fishes in total, 22 fish species belonging to 5 order and 12 families were documented in the studied wetlands. most of them were from cypriniformes order and cyprinidae family; altogether12 different species represented the cyprinidae family followed by the order perciformes, ambassidae family. the fish diversity index was high in the occasional coverage class 'c' (5075%), followed by the non-invaded category and the frequent coverage class 'f' (25-50%, figure 5). the diversity increased with the increased invasive species coverage up to 25%, and then decreased with the further increase in the invasive species coverage. the maximum number of fish species were recorded in the non-invaded wetlands while the least number of fish species recorded in the occasional coverage class 'o' (5-25%) in the winter season, but the lowest species richness was observed in the common coverage class 'c' (50-75%) in the spring season. the species richness was low in the winter season than in the spring season. the fish diversity was lowest in the common coverage class 'c' (50-75%). fig. 5: comparison between fish diversity across the coverage of iaps during winter and spring seasons there was no significant difference in the shannon diversity index, species richness and species evenness when compared between the winter and spring seasons (mann-whitney u-test, p>0.05). banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 54 pandey et al. the analysis of similarities showed no significant difference across the invasion coverage classes (p>0.05). the sorensen’s similarity index showed 53%, 85%, and 40% similarity within the same coverage class during the winter season, when divided into three coverage classes of 0-25%, 2550%, and 50-75% based on the equal interval of percentage up to 75%. low similarity was observed in the spring season as compared to the winter season within the same coverage class. in totality, 71%, 33%, 40%, 50% and 40% species overlapped within the non-invaded, rare 'r', frequent 'f', occasional 'o', and common 'c' coverage classes, respectively. discussion many wetlands in the koshi tappu were found to be invaded with invasive macrophytes. this shows that the non-invaded wetlands have high probability of invasion, if appropriate measures are not considered on time. all the invaded wetlands were dominated by e. crassipes which falls in the list of 100 worst invasive species in aquatic system (lowe et al., 2000) followed by i. carnea, p. stratiotes, and a. philoxeroides. water quality parameters the weak relationship between the water temperature and increased invasive species coverage could be due to the barrier in heat exchange between the atmosphere and water surfaces as the macrophytes form the mat (mironga et al., 2012). the spring season is decaying season, hence the heat generated from decay process is high, particularly in the wetlands with abundant coverage of macrophytes (attionu, 1976). in the winter season, the water temperature was low in the wetlands with abundant coverage, because the mat of the macrophytes might have prevented the sunlight and heat exchange between the atmosphere and water surface. the increased coverage of the invasive species led to low ph (though not significant) which might be because of poor oxygenation and presence of carbonic and bicarbonic acids. the findings were similar to those of mironga et al. (2012). the seasonal variation in dissolved oxygen and free carbon dioxide are consistent with the results observed in other studies (ndimele, 2012; attionu, 1976; gopal, 1987). the changes might be due to the decay of the dead plants and blockage of sunlight hindering photosynthesis and mixing of wind by the dense mat of the invasive species. the high alkalinity may be due to the presence of carbonates and bicarbonates in water. the natural carbon dioxide combines with water to form carbonic acid which is further dissociated into hydrogen and bicarbonate ions, hence alkalinity significantly increased in the winter season, corroborating with the findings of svobodová (1993). many other studies showed that nutrient concentration such as nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus decreased with the increase in the coverage of macrophytes as macrophytes uptake nutrients for their growth (maharjan & ming, 2012; mironga et al., 2012; ndimele, 2012; nguyen et al., 2015). the uptake of nutrients decrease the nutrient concentration in water and again release into water during decomposition of macrophytes. therefore, the nutrient concentrations did not vary in both the seasons in the invaded wetlands, corroborating with the findings of tachamo-shah et al. (unpublished) and petr (2000). the low concentration of nitrate, phosphate and potassium in the spring season as compared to the winter season in this study might be due to the fact that the uptake of nutrient efficiency is high in warm season, long sunny days and flowering period (penfound & earle, 1948). the koshi tappu wetlands with increased coverage of invasive species had lower concentration of chlorophyll-a, which might be due to the fact that invasive species stabilize water current, prevent sunlight for photosynthesis, and hence primary productivity become slow (nguyen et al., 2015). however, the detritus loading during the decomposition of invasive species leads to increase in chlorophyll-a concentration (gallardo et al., 2016), it could be the reason of high concentration of chlorophyll-a recorded in the abundant coverage class 'a' (>75% coverage), hence this might be a cause of unclear relationship with the coverage of invasive species. the increased sunshine hour, decomposition of organic matters and algal growth may support increased concentration of chlorophyll-a in the spring season. macroinvertebrate assemblages the wetlands were rich in aquatic macro invertebrate as depicted in the earlier study of banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 55 pandey et al. khatri et al. (2010). hemiptera was the most diverse order in this study, similar to the findings of similar researches in the tropical lakes of nepal, e.g. shah et al. (2011), tachamo-shah et al. (unpublished). the decapoda individuals were abundant in the non-invaded wetlands while absent in the invaded ones with abundant coverage class 'a' (>75% coverage), because they need open space to swim in water surface. they occur in good water status with relatively high-oxygen level; nevertheless, these taxa can also survive at low-oxygen level by obtaining oxygen from the atmosphere during swimming in surface water (kushlan and kushlan, 1980). high coleoptera abundance was recorded in the abundant coverage 'a' (>75% coverage) wetlands as documented in the beeshazari and the associated lakes (tachamo-shah et al., unpublished). abundant macrophytes coverage provide suitable habitats to coleopteran to cling on stem and roots of the macrophytes and use leaves as food. macrophytes also prevent macroinvertebrates to be preyed by higher level organisms like fishes (petr, 2000). therefore, high abundances of coleopteran are quite obvious in wetlands with large coverage of macrophytes. hemiptera and coleoptera (adults) can colonize in poor water quality as they do not solely depend on dissolved oxygen of water, but could trap oxygen from atmosphere. the low number of molluscan individuals in the koshi wetlands contracted with the results for other parts of the world, (pyron & brown, 2015). ephemeroptera order prefer littoral sections of wetlands where emergent plants exist. the species of this order are highly sensitive to toxic materials, inhabit in narrow temperature range and with low ph and dissolved oxygen (alhejoj et al., 2014). in the koshi tappu, ephemeroptera was abundant in the wetlands with 25-50% coverage of invasive species. the changes in the composition of the macroinvertebrates in the wetlands were due to the structural habitats provided by the macrophytes (kouamé et al., 2011; kovalenko et al., 2010; schultz and dibble, 2012; stiers et al., 2011). the richness and abundance of odonates were high in the wetlands with high coverage of invasive species. as these odonates can survive at relatively low oxygen level and attach on the submerged macrophytes or roots of water hyacinth and water cabbage (nesemann et al., 2011). fishes petr (2000) found that the wetlands with rare cover of macrophytes are suitable habitat for fish species for food and shelter, hence enhance diversity while increased coverage reduce the species diversity as it influences the foraging efficiency, space availability, and deplete oxygen concentration that hampers the fish diversity. these could be the reasons for decreased species diversity in the higher coverage of macrophytes in the koshi tappu wetlands, similar to the findings of gallardo et al. (2016). the fish species richness was lower in the winter season than in the spring season, which may be influenced by breeding season as breeding generally favors the warm season (pankhurst, 1997). the low richness of fish species in the invaded-wetlands with common and abundant coverage classes may be due to the poor water quality and lack of habitat suitability (svobodová, 1993; toft et al., 2003). conclusion the study showed that the koshi tappu wetlands were highly invaded by the invasive species, viz. e. crassipes, i. carnea, p. stratiotes and a. aphiloxeroides with about 67% of the wetlands being dominated by e. crassipes alone. the coverage of the invasive species was associated with the anthropogenic disturbances and land use pattern around the wetlands. the extensive coverage of invasive alien plant species adversely affected the water quality and fish communities, but supported the abundance of benthic macroinvertebrates in the wetlands. the findings of this study are expected to be useful to the concerned authorities for proper management of the koshi tappu wetlands. references alhejoj, i., salameh, e. & bandel, k. 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(2006). application of eichhornia crassipes and pistia stratiotes for treatment of urban sewage in israel. journal of environmental management81 (4): 420-428. 5 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 diversity and distribution of freshwater fishes of the dano, banganga, and arung khola rivers of western nepal santoshi shrestha 1, kumar khatri 2*, nripesh shrestha 3, ram chandra poudel 4*, kumar sapkota 1 1 central department of zoology, tribhuvan university, nepal 2 central department of environmental science, tribhuvan university, nepal. email: khatri.kumar@cdes.tu.edu.np 3 bhaktapur multiple campus, tribhuvan university, nepal 4nepal academy of science and technology (nast), khumaltar, nepal. email: ramchandra.poudel@nast.org.np this study was conducted to generate foundational data on the fish diversity of three rivers in western nepal. three sampling sites were selected on each of the following rivers: the dano river, the banganga river, and the arung khola. cast netting was conducted with the help of local fishermen during the post-monsoon, winter, and pre-monsoon seasons from 2018 to 2022. a total of 52 species belonging to 7 orders, 16 families, and 36 genera were recorded. cypriniformes was the most dominant order across all river systems. garra simbalbaraensis and glyptothorax striatus were reported as new species for nepal. the most abundant species were garra gotyla in the dano river and puntius sophore in both the banganga and arung khola. in contrast, schismatorhynchos nukta and glyptothorax striatus were each observed only once. the dano river exhibited the highest species richness and diversity, suggesting more heterogeneous habitat with a balanced species distribution. all three river systems showed relatively high evenness, indicating that species were evenly distributed across the sampling sites. these findings provide vital baseline data and underscore the importance of continued research to monitor biodiversity trends and to support evidence-based conservation and management strategies for sustaining freshwater ecosystems in western nepal. keywords: fish diversity, garra simbalbaraensis, glyptothorax striatus, richness, species distribution freshwater ecosystems, which include lakes, rivers, streams, and wetlands, cover less than 1% of the earth’s surface yet support 9.5% of all described fauna (reid et al., 2019). they are essential for biodiversity conservation, human water security, and ecological balance, playing a crucial role in regulating water flow and sustaining environmental health (dudgeon, 2006). these ecosystems also provide critical habitats for diverse species, including aquatic plants, fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals (de groot et al., 2002). despite covering only, a small fraction of the earth’s surface, freshwater ecosystems are biodiversity hotspots supporting migratory and threatened species (shuter et al., 2011). with over 400 major ecoregions and thousands of diverse aquatic habitats, these systems provide essential resources such as food, shelter, and breeding grounds, all of which play a vital role in species survival (schofield et al., 2018). however, freshwater ecosystems face numerous threats, including pollution, agricultural runoff, industrial discharges, and urbanization (camara et al., 2019); habitat destruction due to dam construction, deforestation, and land conversion (scanes, 2018); and climate change, which disrupts hydrological cycles and alters precipitation patterns (carpenter et al., 2011). furthermore, the introduction of invasive species significantly disrupts ecological balance (david et al., 2017). a recent study highlights the alarming decline in freshwater biodiversity, showing that 24% of freshwater species are at risk of extinction, with nearly 1,000 considered critically endangered and 200 potentially already lost (sayer et al., 2025). freshwater fish are a keystone of global biodiversity, with an estimated 37,106 species worldwide; 18,898 of these live exclusively in freshwater habitats (fricke received: 23 april 2025 revised: 10 june 2025 accepted: 20 july 2025 published: 30 september 2025 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2, 2025 pp 5-15https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i2.77886 https://orcid.org/0009-0007-9120-332x https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6582-9256 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-0320-3174 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6603-0822 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6302-0354 6 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 shrestha et al. et al., 2025). asia is particularly rich in freshwater fish diversity, hosting approximately 3,500 species with 559 endemics, with cyprinidae and balitoridae being prominent families (de silva et al., 2007). although they contribute to essential ecosystem functions such as nutrient cycling, sediment regulation, and habitat connectivity (miranda & miqueleiz, 2021), one-third of all freshwater fish species are threatened with extinction due to habitat destruction, overfishing, and pollution (wwf, 2021). for instance, over the past few decades, a significant decline in freshwater fish diversity and population has been reported from their natural habitats. some species experienced up to 81% population decline between 1970 and 2012 (wwf nepal, 2017), primarily due to various anthropogenic activities such as overfishing, pollution, destructive fishing practices, and developmental interventions (saund & shrestha, 2007; adb, 2018). nepal harbors a significant portion of the world’s biodiversity, including numerous endemic species across 118 ecosystems. it is home to over 200 fish species, with some estimates recording up to 258, reflecting the country’s rich ichthyofaunal diversity (khatri et al., 2020; shrestha & thapa, 2020). although most research in nepal has historically focused on species inventories rather than fish ecology (smith et al., 1996; shrestha, 2012), recent studies have begun to examine fish assemblages and their relation to environmental variables (jha et al., 2018; pokharel et al., 2018; tumbahangfe et al., 2021). one of the primary reasons for declining fish diversity and abundance is the degradation of water quality. for instance, the bagmati river supports 117 fish species (shrestha & thapa, 2020), including 26 in its upper stretches (shrestha, 1990); however, severe pollution from untreated wastewater and solid waste disposal in the kathmandu valley threatens its biodiversity (mishra et al., 2017). preserving ichthyofaunal diversity and maintaining freshwater systems, particularly in biodiverse regions like nepal, requires addressing these environmental challenges. this study aimed to provide a checklist of fish species in the dano river, banganga river, and arung khola of western nepal. these rivers were selected due to their ecological significance, biodiversity richness, and increasing anthropogenic pressures, which necessitate a better understanding of species–environment interactions for effective conservation and management. materials and methods study area and duration the study was carried out in selected stretches of the banganga river in kapilvastu, dano river in rupandehi, and arung khola in nawalpur, all located in western nepal. sampling was conducted at three sites on each river during three distinct seasons: premonsoon, post-monsoon, and winter between 2018 and 2022 (figure 1). fish sampling and identification fish samples were collected with the help of local fishermen using cast nets (5mm and 15 mm mesh size) covering a 300-meter stretch both upstream and downstream. to validate the findings, local fishing gears ghorlang, paso, duwali thunne, dhadiya, khoka, and heluka-were also used. relevant information, including fish count, length, weight, colour pattern, body form, morphological characteristics, and photographs, was recorded onsite. the representative individuals were preserved in 70% ethanol and brought to the laboratory of the central department of zoology, tribhuvan university, for further analysis. the remaining individuals were released back into their natural habitat. finally, the collected samples were identified using standard literature (shrestha, 1981, 1994; talwar & jhingran, 1991; jayaram, 2012; nebeshwar & vishwanath, 2017; rath et al., 2019; shrestha, 2019; vishwanath, 2021; jayaram, 2022), and voucher specimens were deposited at central department of zoology museum, tribhuvan university (cdzmtu), kirtipur, nepal. diversity indices various diversity indices were calculated to elucidate the seasonal diversity of fish. these included the shannon-weiner diversity index (h') (shannon & weaver, 1948), simpson’s index of diversity (1-d) (simpson, 1949), pielou’s evenness (j) (pielou, 1966), and margalef ’s diversity index (dmg) (margalef, 1958) statistical analyses seasonal variations in fish assemblages were analyzed using the kruskal-wallis test (h) for multiple comparisons of abundance data across seasons. temporal differences were further examined using analysis of similarity (anosim). to assess the percentage contribution of species and the average dissimilarity between seasons, similarity percentage 7 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 figure 1: map showing sampling sites marked with red triangles indicate the sampling sites in the three rivers fish sampling and identification fish samples were collected with the help of local fishermen using cast nets (5mm and 15 mm mesh size) covering a 300-meter stretch both upstream and downstream. to validate the findings, local fishing gears ghorlang, paso, duwali thunne, dhadiya, khoka, and helukawere also used. relevant information, including fish count, length, weight, colour pattern, body form, morphological characteristics, and photographs, was recorded onsite. the representative individuals were preserved in 70% ethanol and brought to the laboratory of the central department of zoology, tribhuvan university, for further analysis. the remaining individuals were released back into their natural habitat. finally, the collected samples were identified using standard literature (shrestha, 1981, 1994; talwar & jhingran, 1991; jayaram, 2012; nebeshwar & vishwanath, 2017; rath et al., 2019; shrestha, 2019; vishwanath, 2021; jayaram, 2022), and voucher specimens were deposited at central department of zoology museum, tribhuvan university (cdzmtu), kirtipur, nepal. diversity indices (simper) analysis was also conducted (clarke & warwick, 1994). anosim, simper, and diversity indices were analyzed using r version 4.2.0 (r core team, 2022) in r studio. results fish diversity a total of 5,688 individuals, representing 52 species belonging to 7 orders, 16 families, and 36 genera, were recorded from the study area (table 1). the order cypriniformes was the most dominant, comprising 29 species across all water bodies. a total of 1503 individuals belonging to 6 orders, 14 families, 26 genera, and 37 species were observed in the dano river, whereas 20 species belonging to 6 orders, 11 families, and 16 genera with a total of 2360 individuals were observed in the bangana river. similarly, a total of 1825 individuals belonging to 4 orders, 9 families, 23 genera, and 31 species were observed in the arung khola (table 1). two species, garra simbalbaraensis from the dano river and glyptothorax striatus from the arung khola, were recorded as new additions to the ichthyofaunal diversity of nepal. in the dano river, cypriniformes was the most diverse order, comprising five families and 22 species. it was followed by siluriformes (four families, seven species), anabantiformes (two families, three species), and synbranchiformes (one family, three species). beloniformes and gobiformes were each represented by a single family and one species (table 1; figure 2). in the banganga river, cypriniformes included five families with 13 species, followed by siluriformes (two families, three species). the orders anabantiformes, beloniformes, gobiformes, and perciformes were each represented by one family and one species (table 1; figure 2). in the arung khola, cypriniformes was again the most diverse, with four families comprising 22 species. it was followed by siluriformes (two families, five species), while anabantiformes and synbranchiformes were each represented by one family and one species (table 1; figure 2). figure 1: map showing sampling sites marked with red triangles indicate the sampling sites in the three rivers shrestha et al. 8 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 fish richness, abundance, and community composition out of 52 species, twelve species were found only in the dano river, and three species were observed only in the banganga river, while eleven species were found only in the arung khola. ten species lepidocephalychthys guntea, garra annandalei, garra gotyla, pethia conchonius, puntius sophore, barilius barila, opsarius barna, opsarius bendelisis, table 1: diversity of freshwater fishes from the three river systems of western nepal order family species name dano bangana arung anabantiformes channidae channa gachua  ×  channa punctata   × channa stewartii × ×  osphronemidae trichogaster fasciata  × × beloniformes belonidae xenontodon cancila   × cypriniformes botiidae botia lohachata   × cobitidae lepidocephalychthys guntea    cyprinidae garra annandalei    garra gotyla    garra simbalbaraensis  × × tariqilabeo latius  ×  chagunius chagunio  × × pethia conchonius    puntius sophore    pethia ticto ×   osteobrama cotio ×  × cyprinion semiplotum × ×  schismatorhynchos nukta × ×  danionidae danio rerio × ×  devario devario × ×  amblypharyngodon mola × ×  barilius barila    barilius vagra  ×  cabdio morar  × × opsarius barna    opsarius bendelisis    salmostoma bacaila  ×  laubuka laubuca  × × esomus danrica    nemacheilidae acanthocobitis botia    nemacheilus corica  × × schistura beavani  ×  schistura sps 1  × × schistura sps 2  × × schistura sps 3 × ×  schistura sps 4 × ×  gobiformes gobiidae glossogobius giuris   × perciformes ambassidae chanda nama ×  × siluriformes amblycipitidae amblyceps mangois  ×  bargidae mystus bleekeri  × × mystus cavasius  × × mystus tengara   × mystus vittatus   × heteropneustidae heteropneustes fossilis  × × schilbeidae eutropiichthys vacha ×  × sisoridae pseudecheneis sulcata  ×  myersglanis blythii × ×  glyptothorax trilineatus × ×  glyptothorax striatus × ×  synbranchiformes mastacembelidae mastacembelus armatus  ×  macrognathus pancalus  ×  macrognathus lineatomaculatus  × × note:  = present, × = absent in the dano river, cypriniformes was the most diverse order, comprising five families and 22 species. it was followed by siluriformes (four families, seven species), anabantiformes (two table 1: diversity of freshwater fishes from the three river systems of western nepal shrestha et al. 9 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 esomus danrica, and acanthocobitis botia were common to all river systems. the orders beloniformes and gobiformes were not recorded in the arung khola; perciformes were absent from both the dano river and arung khola, while synbranchiformes were absent from the banganga river. in the dano river, garra gotyla was the most abundant species with 271 individuals, while nemacheilus corica, mystus bleekeri, and macrognathus lineatomaculatus were represented by only two individuals each. in the banganga river, puntius sophore was the most abundant species with 683 individuals, whereas botia lohachata was the least abundant, with just 6 individuals. in the arung khola, 333 individuals of puntius sophore were recorded, while schismatorhynchos nukta and glyptothorax striatus were rare, with only a single individual of each recorded during sampling. the site-wise values of species richness and various species diversity indices, including the shannon– wiener diversity index (h'), simpson’s index of diversity (1-d), pielou’s evenness (j), and margalef’s diversity index (dmg), were calculated. in the dano river system, the shannon–wiener index (h') ranged from 1.96 to 2.74, with a mean value of 2.32 ± 0.40. simpson’s index of diversity (1-d) ranged from 0.77 to 0.91, with a mean of 0.85 ± 0.07. pielou’s evenness (j) ranged from 0.66 to 0.85, with a mean of 0.78 ± 0.10. margalef’s diversity index ranged from 2.36 to 4.05, with a mean of 3.04 ± 0.89. in the banganga river system, the mean shannon–wiener index (h') was 1.95 ± 0.11, simpson’s index of diversity (1-d) was 0.82 ± 0.03, pielou’s evenness (j) was 0.78 ± 0.07, and margalef’s diversity index was 1.74 ± 0.37. in the arung khola system, the mean shannon– wiener index (h') was 2.25 ± 0.37, simpson’s index of diversity (1-d) was 0.85 ± 0.05, pielou’s evenness figure 2: total number of catches and fish species recorded at different sites from the dano river, banganga river, and arung khola the kruskal-wallis test revealed significant differences in species abundance among the three sites of the dano river (h = 10.82, df = 2, p = 0.004). post hoc dunn’s test identified significant pairwise differences: 13 species differed between butwal and gundi, 12 species between butwal and semlar, and eight species between gundi and semlar (table 3). further analysis using anosim (r = 0.92, p = 0.0001) confirmed significant differences in species composition among sites. simper analysis indicated an overall average dissimilarity of 78.57%, with key contributing species including garra gotyla, garra annandalei, and salmostoma bacaila (table 4). similarly, the kruskal-wallis test revealed significant differences in species abundance among the three sampling sites of the banganga river (h = 13.35, df = 2, p = 0.001). post hoc dunn’s test indicated significant pairwise differences, with five species table 2: diversity indices of different sites of the three river system of western nepal system, the mean shannon�wiener index (h) was 1.95 ± 0.11, simpson�s index of diversity (1d) was 0.82 ± 0.03, pielou�s evenness (j) was 0.78 ± 0.07, and margalef�s diversity index was 1.74 ± 0.37. in the arung khola system, the mean shannon�wiener index (h) was 2.25 ± 0.37, simpson�s index of diversity (1d) was 0.85 ± 0.05, pielou�s evenness (j) was 0.78 ± 0.05, and margalef�s diversity index was 2.75 ± 0.88 (table 2). table 2: diversity indices of different sites of the three river system of western nepal river sample species richness h (1d) j dmg dano butwal 19.00 1.96 0.77 0.66 2.72 gundi 15.00 2.26 0.87 0.83 2.36 semlar 25.00 2.74 0.91 0.85 4.05 mean 2.32 0.85 0.78 3.04 sd 0.40 0.07 0.10 0.89 banganga bodgaun 13.00 2.08 0.85 0.81 2.04 laxmanghat 10.00 1.91 0.82 0.83 1.32 ramghat 14.00 1.87 0.78 0.71 1.85 mean 1.95 0.82 0.78 1.74 sd 0.11 0.03 0.07 0.37 arungkhola arungkhola-bazar 14.00 1.89 0.80 0.72 2.03 damar 26.00 2.62 0.90 0.80 3.74 vyuran 16.00 2.24 0.85 0.81 2.48 mean 2.25 0.85 0.78 2.75 sd 0.37 0.05 0.05 0.88 shrestha et al. (j) was 0.78 ± 0.05, and margalef’s diversity index was 2.75 ± 0.88 (table 2). 10 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 differing between bodgaun and laxmanghat, eight species between bodgaun and ramghat, and nine species between laxmanghat and ramghat (table 3). anosim confirmed a significant difference in species composition (r = 0.84, p = 0.001), and simper analysis revealed an average dissimilarity of 61.69%, with pethia conchonius, esomus danrica, and chanda nama contributing most to the dissimilarity (table 4). in the arung khola, the kruskal-wallis test (h) also showed significant differences in species abundance (h = 9.84, df = 2, p = 0.007). dunn’s post hoc test identified 11 species differing between arungkhola bazar and damar, one species between arungkhola bazar and vyuran, and 10 species between damar and vyuran (table 3). anosim confirmed significant compositional differences (r = 0.78, p = 0.001), and simper analysis indicated an overall average dissimilarity of 61.82%, with major contributors being cyprinion semiplotum, puntius sophore, and pethia conchonius (table 4). in contrast, the kruskalwallis test (h) revealed no significant differences (p > 0.05) in overall abundance patterns across the three seasons in any of the river systems. however, dunn’s post hoc test identifies significant variation in specific species during the study period. discussion the presence of 52 fish species across just three water bodies reflects the rich ichthyofaunal diversity of the study area. the predominance of the order cypriniformes, represented by 29 species, aligns with earlier findings that highlight the dominance of cyprinids in south asian freshwater ecosystems, attributed to their ecological adaptability and evolutionary radiation (talwar & jhingran, 1991; jayaram, 2012). among the families, danionidae and cyprinidae were the most dominant, consistent with prior studies from various freshwater systems in nepal (shrestha, 2012; rajbanshi, 2012; jha et al., 2018; khatri et al., 2024) and also globally (cheok & soo, 2022; debnath et al., 2022). species composition varied across water bodies, with some species absent compared to historical records. for instance, shrestha (2005) reported species such as channa orientalis, pethia ticto, schistura devdevi, and schistura rupecula in the dano river, but these were not recorded in this study. likewise, jha (2006) recorded 21 species in the arung khola with a dominance of loaches. these differences in species richness could be attributed to variations in sampling frequency, site selection, and seasonal changes (zhao et al., 2017). among the recorded species, the consistent presence of pethia conchonius, puntius sophore, acanthocobitis botia, esomus danrica, and lepidocephalichthys guntea across all sites and seasons suggests that these species possess broad ecological tolerance and a high degree of resilience to environmental variability (fausch et al., 1990; pinna et al., 2023). table 3: list of fish species across seasons in the sampled water bodies water bodies species name h df p value dunn's test dano river barilius barila 6.25 2 0.044 pre-monsoon-winter schistura beavani 7.16 2 0.028 post monsoonwinter mastacembelus armatus 6.73 2 0.035 post monsoon-pre monsoon, post monsoonwinter banganga river channa punctata 6.73 2 0.035 post monsoonpre monsoon, post monsoonwinter xenentodon cancila 7.81 2 0.02 post monsoonwinter garra annandalei 6.42 2 0.04 post monsoon-pre monsoon arung khola lepidocephalychthys guntea 10.89 2 0.004 post monsoonwinter barilius barila 11.98 2 0.003 post monsoon-pre monsoon, post monsoonwinter laubuka laubuca 14.29 2 0.001 post monsoon-pre monsoon, pre-monsoonwinter esomus danrica 7.86 2 0.02 post monsoon-pre monsoon, pre-monsoonwinter table 4: average dissimilarity and key contributors of different water bodies of western nepal water bodies r p value dissimilarity key contributors dano river 0.92 0.001 78.57% garra gotyla, garra annandalei, salmostoma bacaila banganga river 0.84 0.001 61.69% pethia conchonius, esomus danrica, chanda nama arung khola 0.79 0.001 61.82% cyprinion semiplotum, puntius sophore, pethia conchonius discussion the presence of 52 fish species across just three water bodies reflects the rich ichthyofaunal diversity of the study area. the predominance of the order cypriniformes, represented by 29 species, aligns with earlier findings that highlight the dominance of cyprinids in south asian freshwater ecosystems, attributed to their ecological adaptability and evolutionary radiation (talwar & jhingran, 1991; jayaram, 2012). among the families, danionidae and cyprinidae were the most dominant, consistent with prior studies from various freshwater systems in nepal (shrestha, 2012; rajbanshi, 2012; jha et al., 2018; khatri et al., 2024) and also globally (cheok & soo, 2022; debnath et al., 2022). species composition varied across water bodies, with some species absent compared to historical records. for instance, shrestha (2005) reported species such as channa orientalis, pethia ticto, schistura devdevi, and schistura rupecula in the dano river, but these were not recorded in this study. likewise, jha (2006) recorded 21 species in the arung khola with a dominance of loaches. these differences in species richness could be attributed to variations in sampling frequency, site selection, and seasonal changes (zhao et al., 2017). table 3: list of fish species across seasons in the sampled water bodies water bodies species name h df p value dunn's test dano river barilius barila 6.25 2 0.044 pre-monsoon-winter schistura beavani 7.16 2 0.028 post monsoonwinter mastacembelus armatus 6.73 2 0.035 post monsoon-pre monsoon, post monsoonwinter banganga river channa punctata 6.73 2 0.035 post monsoonpre monsoon, post monsoonwinter xenentodon cancila 7.81 2 0.02 post monsoonwinter garra annandalei 6.42 2 0.04 post monsoon-pre monsoon arung khola lepidocephalychthys guntea 10.89 2 0.004 post monsoonwinter barilius barila 11.98 2 0.003 post monsoon-pre monsoon, post monsoonwinter laubuka laubuca 14.29 2 0.001 post monsoon-pre monsoon, pre-monsoonwinter esomus danrica 7.86 2 0.02 post monsoon-pre monsoon, pre-monsoonwinter table 4: average dissimilarity and key contributors of different water bodies of western nepal water bodies r p value dissimilarity key contributors dano river 0.92 0.001 78.57% garra gotyla, garra annandalei, salmostoma bacaila banganga river 0.84 0.001 61.69% pethia conchonius, esomus danrica, chanda nama arung khola 0.79 0.001 61.82% cyprinion semiplotum, puntius sophore, pethia conchonius discussion the presence of 52 fish species across just three water bodies reflects the rich ichthyofaunal diversity of the study area. the predominance of the order cypriniformes, represented by 29 species, aligns with earlier findings that highlight the dominance of cyprinids in south asian freshwater ecosystems, attributed to their ecological adaptability and evolutionary radiation (talwar & jhingran, 1991; jayaram, 2012). among the families, danionidae and cyprinidae were the most dominant, consistent with prior studies from various freshwater systems in nepal (shrestha, 2012; rajbanshi, 2012; jha et al., 2018; khatri et al., 2024) and also globally (cheok & soo, 2022; debnath et al., 2022). species composition varied across water bodies, with some species absent compared to historical records. for instance, shrestha (2005) reported species such as channa orientalis, pethia ticto, schistura devdevi, and schistura rupecula in the dano river, but these were not recorded in this study. likewise, jha (2006) recorded 21 species in the arung khola with a dominance of loaches. these differences in species richness could be attributed to variations in sampling frequency, site selection, and seasonal changes (zhao et al., 2017). table 3: list of fish species across seasons in the sampled water bodies table 4: average dissimilarity and key contributors of different water bodies of western nepal shrestha et al. 11 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 in contrast, the rare occurrence of species like garra simbalbaraensis and glyptothorax striatus suggests niche specialization and higher sensitivity to habitat changes, as garra simbalbaraensis typically inhabits benthopelagic zones with muddy or sandy substrates, while glyptothorax striatus prefers fast-flowing streams and adheres to rocks using its specialized thoracic adhesive organs (rath et al., 2019; pathak et al., 2023). among the three river systems, the dano river supported the highest species richness (37 species), likely due to its greater habitat heterogeneity and availability of diverse microhabitats that support various ecological niches (allan & castillo, 2009). the dominance of cypriniformes (22 species, five families), followed by siluriformes and anabantiformes, indicates a balanced community structure comprising both benthic and pelagic species (kantharajan et al., 2022). in contrast, the banganga river, despite having the highest number of individuals (2,360), supported only 20 species. this pattern of low richness but high abundance may reflect ecological stress or habitat simplification, conditions that often favor a limited number of tolerant species (karr & dudley, 1981). the arung khola exhibited moderate species richness (31 species from 4 orders). although fewer taxonomic orders were represented, the dominance of cypriniformes (22 species) once again highlights their ecological plasticity. notably, the presence of synbranchiformes in the arung khola reflects the occurrence of species adapted to specialized or lowoxygen environments (nelson et al., 2016). overall, the variation in taxonomic composition and species richness among the river systems underscores the influence of environmental conditions, stream order, substrate diversity, and anthropogenic pressures on fish assemblages. biodiversity indices such as the shannon–wiener index, simpson’s index, and margalef’s diversity index provide insights into species richness and distribution across seasons. the highest species richness was observed in the dano river, particularly during the post-monsoon season, while the banganga river exhibited the lowest diversity. these indices revealed notable variations in fish community structure among the three river systems. the dano river recorded the highest species richness and diversity, suggesting a more heterogeneous habitat and a well-balanced species distribution—likely due to favorable environmental conditions and relatively low levels of anthropogenic disturbance (massicotte et al., 2015; spurgeon et al., 2018). in contrast, the banganga river showed lower diversity, reflecting a relatively species-poor community. this reduced diversity may be attributed to factors such as habitat degradation, water abstraction, and pollution, all of which are known to negatively impact aquatic biodiversity (allan & castillo, 2009). the arung khola displayed intermediate levels of diversity, with relatively high evenness and diversity, suggesting that species were more evenly distributed across the sampling sites. the observed significant spatial variations in fish abundance and community composition across the sampling sites indicate the influence of localized environmental factors and habitat heterogeneity on fish distribution. the kruskal–wallis and dunn’s tests revealed clear differences in species abundance among sites within each river system, suggesting that habitat conditions such as flow regime, substrate type, and anthropogenic disturbances likely shape species assemblages (gorman & karr, 1978; oberdorff et al., 1993). high dissimilarity values from simper analysis, along with strong anosim results, further confirm distinct community structures among sites. key contributing species such as garra gotyla, puntius sophore, and pethia conchonius demonstrated varying dominance across locations, reflecting differences in ecological preferences and tolerance levels (bose et al., 2019; yang et al., 2021). the high r-values from anosim (e.g., r = 0.92) indicate strong spatial segregation in fish communities, supporting the idea of habitat partitioning and site-specific pressures influencing species distribution (jackson et al., 2001). in contrast, seasonal variation in overall species abundance was not significant, indicating temporal stability in community composition. however, dunn’s test revealed some species-specific responses to seasonal changes, likely due to reproductive cycles or migratory behavior (lévêque et al., 2008). this suggests that, while the overall community structure remains stable, certain species may be more sensitive to temporal environmental shifts. conclusion this study provides valuable baseline information on the ichthyofaunal diversity of three river systems, documenting a total of 52 fish species, with a dominance of the order cypriniformes. the dominance of species such as garra gotyla in the dano river and puntius sophore in both the banganga shrestha et al. 12 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 river and the arung khola highlights the ecological adaptability and resilience of these taxa. conversely, the rare occurrences of schismatorhynchos nukta and glyptothorax striatus indicate the presence of specialized and potentially vulnerable taxa. high values of species evenness and diversity across sites suggest relatively balanced community structures. in contrast, significant differences in species composition and high dissimilarity among sites, as revealed by anosim and simper analyses, underscore the unique ecological character of each river system. these findings provide crucial baseline data for long-term ecological monitoring and freshwater biodiversity assessments in the region. continuous monitoring and integrative habitat assessment will be essential to support sustainable management and conservation planning for these freshwater ecosystems. acknowledgments the first author gratefully acknowledges the nepal academy of science and technology (nast) for awarding the ph.d. fellowship. this research was carried out with permission from the department of forests and soil conservation, government of nepal/ ministry of forests and environment (gon/mofe). author contribution ss: conducted fieldwork, laboratory analysis, data preparation, statistical analysis, manuscript conception, design, and drafting; kk: performed laboratory work, data analysis, manuscript conception, design, and drafting; ns: assisted in fieldwork, laboratory analysis, data preparation, and logistical arrangements; rcp: provided conceptualization, supervision, manuscript review, and editing; ks: contributed to conceptualization, supervision, manuscript review, and final approval conflict of interests the authors declare no conflict of interest. references adb. 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(2017). influence of sampling frequency on detectability of fish community and fish species in a fishery-independent survey. aquaculture and fisheries, 2(2), 94–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. aaf.2017.03.003 shrestha et al. 60 the himalayan snowcock (tetraogallus himalayensis, figure 1), locally called “himali hiunkukhura”, represents one among the 23 terrestrial bird species within the family “phasianidae” found in nepal. this diverse bird group also includes species such as tibetan snowcock (tetraogallus tibetanus), cheer pheasant (catreus wallichii), kalij pheasant (lophura leucomelanos), himalayan monal (lophophorus impejanus), indian peafowl (pavo cristatus), koklass pheasant (purcasia macrolopha), hill partridge (arborophila torqueola), common quail (coturnix coturnix), etc. (grimmett et al., 2016; inskipp et al., 2016). these species generally engage in foraging behaviors involving the excavation of ground surfaces and leaf litter (sathyakumar & sivakumar, 2007) and prefer locomotion over flight or gliding when confronted with potential threats (grimmett et al., 2016). they have a wide range of habitat from the terai lowlands to the higher elevations of the himalayas in nepal (grimmett et al., 2016; inskipp et al., 2016). among the pheasant species of nepal, only one species viz. common quail (coturnix coturnix) is a migratory one (winter visitor) while the others including himalayan snowcock are residential (grimmett et al., 2016). himalayan snowcock is an alpine bird species which is comparatively sedentary in nature, and is restricted to higher altitudes between 3600 and 4,579 m above the msl (longying et al., 2010; bli, 2018). globally, the species is distributed in afghanistan, china, india, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, nepal, pakistan, tajikistan, turkmenistan, and uzbekistan (bli, 2018). in nepal, the species is reported between the elevations of 4250-5900 m above the msl, especially in western and midwestern nepal (grimmett et al., 2016). prior to 1990, the presence of the himalayan snowcock was documented as far up to the langtang national park in eastern nepal; however, subsequent observations have been indicated that the species has been exclusively recorded in the western region of annapurna conservation area of nepal (inskipp et al., 2016). frequently mistaken for its close relative, the tibetan snowcock, himalayan snowcock has a limited distribution within nepal (grimmett et al., 2016). this misidentification can be attributed to similarities in plumage and overlapping ranges with the tibetan snowcock himalayan snowcock (tetraogallus himalayensis) in dhorpatan hunting reserve, nepal s. regmi 1 and h. p. sharma 2* received: 3, july 2023 revised: 9, july 2023 accepted: 16, august 2023 published: 20, december 2023 short note banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1, 2023 pp 60‒64https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i1.56507 1 central department of zoology, institute of science and technology, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal 2 nepal zoological society, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal. *e-mail: hpsharma@cdztu.edu.np figure 1: a himalayan snowcock captured on camera trap in dhorpatan hunting reserve, 2022 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8549-1333 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0708-1769 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 61 regmi & sharma (grimmett et al., 2016; inskipp et al., 2016). the species is categorized globally as the “least concerned” by the iucn red list (bli, 2018), but under “near threatened” by the national bird red data book of nepal (inskipp et al., 2016). the species faces different anthropogenic threats due to its consumption as a source of food and ethno-medicine among the local communities residing within its habitat (haq et al., 2020). despite the potential risks posed by these threats, only a limited research has been conducted on the status of this bird species both globally and in nepal so far. definitive information regarding the population status of the species in nepal remains elusive, primarily due to the scarcity of systematic studies, with many of the available records consisting of opportunistic sightings predating 1990 (inskipp et al., 2016). therefore, we aimed to identify the current distribution of himalayan snowcock in dhorpatan hunting reserve (dhr), nepal. material and methods study area dhorpatan hunting reserve is a highland protected area and the only hunting reserve of nepal which is attributed to temperate, subalpine and alpine vegetation (figure 2). it was established in 1983, and was officially declared in 1987. it covers an area of 1325 km2. the altitude of the terrain ranges from 3000 m to 7000m above the msl, and comprises seven distinct blocksi) surtibang, ii) fagune, iii) barse, iv) ghustung, v) dogari, vi) seng, and vii) sundaha. in the dhr, the monsoon season figure 2: map showing the locations of himalayan snowcock within dhr; location of dhr in the map of nepal (top-left corner) banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 62 regmi & sharma transpires from june-october, characterized by an annual precipitation level below 1000 mm. the temperature in the area exhibits variation, with an average of 1.4° c during winter and an average of 24.8° c during summer. it supports the occurrence of mammal species including snow leopard (panthera uncia), barking deer (muntiacus vaginalis), blue sheep (pseudois nayaur), leopard (panthera pardus), himalayan goral (naemorhedus goral), himalayan tahr (hemitragus jemlachicus), himalayan black bear (ursus thibetanus), red panda (ailurus fulgens), rhesus macaque (macaca mulatta), himalayan serow (capricornis thar), wild boar (sus scorfa), wolf (canis lupus), and 149 species of avian fauna including cheer pheasant (catreus wallichi) and himalayan monal (l. impejanus, jnawali et al., 2011; grimmett et al., 2016, regmi et al., 2023; sharma et al., 2023). data collection data on the himalayan snowcock were collected during our camera trap monitoring of the mammal species in the dhr following regmi et al. (2023) and sharma et al. (2023). the survey was conducted from march 15 to june 15, 2022, covering three specific blocks viz. i) fagune, ii) barshe, and iii) surtibang. while reviewing the camera trap data, an individual himalayan snowcock (figure 1) was observed at one of the sites. in addition, data on each bird-sighting including the location coordinates and number of the observed individuals throughout the study period were opportunistically documented. additionally, the ground cover types (barren-land, grassland, shrub-land, and snow) were visually interpreted and recorded for each observation site. results during the course of our survey, we had a total of 34 independent observations of himalayan snowcock at 18 different locations within the dhr. the elevational distribution of this bird species was found to be between 37574408m above the msl, with an average of 4105.06±153.5461m above the msl. of the total eight study sites (n=8), only a single individual was observed followed by two individuals at five sites, three at two sites, four & five individuals at two different sites. we found a steady increase in the number of the independent observations with the increase in elevation; the highest number of independent observation (n=5) being at an elevation of 4408m above the msl. the occurrence of himalayan snowcock was found to be correlated with elevation (|r|=0.61). we observed the species in four different habitat types viz. i) barren/cliff, ii) grassland, iii) shrubland, and v) snow across the observation sites during our study. of the four habitat types, the species was mostly detected in the grassland where a total of 15 (44.20 %) individuals were observed while the least with only 2 (5.88 %) individuals were detected in the shrub-land. in the case of the snow covered area and barren land, 9 (26.50 %) and 8 (23.50 %) individuals were observed, respectively. discussion this study recorded the occurrence of himalayan snowcock in the dhr for the first time, with the increase in the number of observation with the increase in elevation. himalayan snowcock belongs to the “galliformes” group of birds distributed at higher altitudes between 42505900 m above the msl both inside and outside the protected areas of nepal, mainly in western and mid-western nepal as well as in the langtang national park situated in central himalayan region of nepal (grimmett et al. 2016). though the species is reported to be seen nearby the sheyphoksundo national park (kusi et al., 2018) and annapurna conservation area (baral, 2018), the existence of this species is yet to be confirmed in the dhr. there is a lack of scientific studies on this bird species in the dhr, which might be due to the reason that it is listed as “least concerned” by the iucn red list (bli, 2018). however, this is not the case in the dhr alone as the species is relatively less focused in scientific research globally (bli, 2018) in comparison to other “galliformes”. our study found that the species preferred to reside and roam above 3790 m altitude in the dhr. it is a species with strictly restricted banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 63 regmi & sharma distribution and is limited mainly by the factors like elevation and habitat type (chun-hua et al., 1992; luzhang et al., 2005) which correlates with the preference of alpine habitat close to snowline by the species (bhattacharya et al. 2009). however, our observation was contradictory to the study of grimmett et al. (2016) as the species was observed well beyond the elevation range specified for nepal. this might possibly indicate less focus on the study of this pheasant across nepal, and indicates the need to reassess the species distribution in the highlands of nepal. a significant proportion of our observations of himalayan snowcock occurred within the grassland areas; grasslands offer favorable foraging sites rich in potential food resources (bland & temple, 1990). this species engages in foraging behaviors characterized by scratching and digging the ground with its claws and beaks, primarily to locate roots and insects (sathyakumar & sivakumar, 2007). in addition to grasslands, the himalayan snowcock has also been observed foraging in close proximity to cliffs or barren regions (bland & temple, 1990). the relatively higher number of detections in snow-covered areas and barren lands can be attributed to the species’ preference for alpine habitats (bhattacharya et al., 2009), which not only provide suitable conditions but also potentially serve as a strategy to evade predators (bland & temple, 1990). conclusion this study confirmed the presence of himalayan snowcock in the dhr for the first time. the study suggests that many rural areas need to be explored for identifying the spatial locations of many faunal species so that the government of nepal can develop a species specific management plan. acknowledgements we are grateful to the department of national parks & wildlife conservation and the dhorpatan hunting reserve for providing permissions to carry out this study which is simply a supplementary work accomplished during the study on the mammal species in the dhorpatan hunting reserve. we acknowledge mr. hem b. katuwal for his critical comments to shape the manuscript. conflict of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest. references baral, r. 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(2023). effects of anthropogenic and ecological factors on himalayan goral in dhorpatan hunting reserve, nepal. global ecology and conservation, e02562. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 28 karki & ghimire suspa-kshamawoti area of dolakha district covers diverse vegetation types and harbors many interesting species of orchids. this paper documents 69 species of orchids covering 33 genera based on repeated field surveys and herbarium collections. of them, 50 species are epiphytic (including lithophytes) and 19 species are terrestrial. information regarding habit and habitat, phenology, host species and elevational range of distribution of each species are provided in the checklist. keywords : bulbophyllum, nepal, orchidaceae orchids of suspa-kshamawoti, dolakha -an annotated checklist s. karki1* and s. k. ghimire1 orchids are one of the most diverse and highly evolved groups of flowering plants, and orchidaceae is the largest family comprising 29,199 species and are globally distributed (govaerts et al., 2017). out of them, two-third belong to epiphytes (zotz and winkler, 2013). in nepal, orchidaceae is one of the major families amongst the higher flowering plants and comprises 502 taxa belonging to 108 genera, which forms around 8 percent of our flora (raskoti and ale, 2019). the number of species might increase because many areas of nepal are yet to be explored. with various growth forms, orchids are distributed from 62 m to 5,200 m, growing in various types of habitats in nepal (rokaya et al., 2013). due to their beautiful long-lasting flowers and the presence of important chemicals, orchids are harvested, grown and traded for various purposes as ornamental plants, medicinal products and food (hinsley et al., 2017). although with great diversity and prodigious economic and ecological values, orchids are also threatened by habitat destruction and fragmentation, unsustainable harvesting and illegal trade in nepal. these activities are pushing many orchids into small populations in the wild and finally towards extinction. research on orchids has been carried out by several researchers in nepal. some notable contributions on documentation of orchid flora are made by bajracharya (2001; 2004); rajbhandari and bhattrai (2001); bajracharya and shrestha (2003); rajbhandari and dahal (2004); milleville and shrestha (2004); subedi et al. (2011); rajbhandari (2015); raskoti (2015); raskoti and ale (2009; 2011; 2012; 2019) and bhandari et al. (2016 b; 2019). suspa-kshamawoti, the northern part of the dolakha district covers diverse vegetation and harbors some interesting species of orchids. bhandari et al. (2016a) reported the endemic orchid panisea panchasensis subedi., from the same area with a very good population than in its type locality panchase, kaski, nepal. however, no comprehensive record of orchid flora of this region is available till date. thus, this research is aimed to document the orchid flora of suspa-kshamawoti area, the region outside the protected area. this work also highlights the importance of forest outside the protected area in maintaining orchid diversity. study area the study area suspa-kshamawoti (now bhimeshor municipality-1), lies in the northern part of the dolakha district (27°42'38. 82" n and 86°02'21. 88" e) (figure 1). the elevation ranges from 1,603 m to around 2,600 m above mean sea level (amsl). the area, moreover, exhibits sub-tropical to lower temperate climate; therefore, experiences high rainfall during the monsoon period. floristically, 1 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal. *e-mail : karki.sangram99@gmail.com https://doi.org:10.3126/banko.v29i2.28097 banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 29 karki & ghimire the area is categorized into four forest types, viz. schima-castanopsis and alnus nepalensis forest in the lower belt, and daphniphyllum-symplocos and quercus semecarpifolia forest in the upper belt. although the study area covers the narrow elevational gradient, it represents the diverse forest patches of older and major host tree species, such as alnus nepalensis, schima wallichii, daphniphyllum himalense, lyonia ovalifolia, castanopsis indica and eurya acuminata. these host trees support many interesting epiphytic orchids on their tree canopies. figure 1. location of the study area in nepal a. nepal, b. dolakha district and c. suspakshamawoti (study area) materials and methods the present study is the result of extensive field surveys covering all the seasons during 2015−2019 ad in different localities of the suspa-kshamawoti region, the elevation of which ranges from 1,603 m to 2,500 m amsl. different community forests were surveyed during the trips. all the orchid species encountered were recorded along with their voucher specimens adopting the standard technique of jain and rao (1977). in the case of epiphytic orchids, their host species were also noted. photographs of each orchid and their host species (in case of epiphytes) were taken. the identification of species was done by adopting the methods of white and sharma (2000); rajbhandari and bhattrai (2001); raskoti and ale (2009); rajbhandari (2015), and rajbhandari and rai (2017). roscov et al. (2019) was followed for the nomenclature and author citation of the genus and species. the collected specimens were deposited at the tribhuvan university central herbarium (tuch). results this research enumerated 69 species of orchids belonging to 33 genera from the suspakshamawoti area (appendix 1). the present study also reported 18 host species of 50 epiphytic orchids. global distribution, distinguishing character, habit, phenology of flowering and their host species (in case of epiphytes) are also provided. some photographs of epiphytic orchids are presented in figure 2 and figure 3 while the terrestrial orchids are provided in figure 4. figure 2 : (a) bulbophyllum retusiusculum, (b) b. yoksunense, (c) b. viridiflorum, (d) b. careyanum, (e) coelogyne cristata, (f) cryptochilus luteus, (g) cymbidium elegans, (h) dendrobium amoenum and (i) d. heterocarpum figure 3. (a) dendrobium porphyrochilum, (b) d. amplum, (c) gastrochilus calceolaris, (d) oberonia pachyrachis, (e) otochilus porrectus, (f) panisea panchaseensis, (g) phalaenopsis taenialis, (h) pleione humilis and (i) vanda cristata banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 30 karki & ghimire figure 4. (a) calanthe plantaginea, (b) odontochilus lanceolatus, (c) anthogonium gracile, (d) liparis cathcartii, (e) spiranthes sinensis and (f) goodyera procera discussion the present study recorded 69 orchid species belonging to 33 genera from the suspakshamawoti region, dolakha district. of these, 50 species are epiphytic and 19 species are terrestrial. this shows the dominance of epiphytic orchids in the study area where there is the presence of most preferable host trees, like s. wallichii, a. nepalensis, rhododendron arboreum and d. himalense. orchid species, such as uncifera acuminata, porpax elwesi, d. amoenum, rhynchostylis retusa, b. careyanum, d. moniliforme, luisia tristis, and d. amplum were found to be very rare in the study area, whereas b. reptans, d. heterocarpum, vanda cristata, g. calceolaris, eria coronaria, liparis resupinata, oberonia pachyrachis and oberonia falcata were commonly noticed. out of the 33 genera present, bulbophyllum was found to be the largest one comprising 11 species followed by dendrobium with 7 species. epiphytic orchids were mostly recorded on the host trees, like s. wallichii, d. himalense and a. nepalensis, the most preferred host species of epiphytic orchids. it showed that the forests outside the protected area have also supported for many rare and endangered species of orchids to thrive well. therefore, it is important to save the patches of the forest outside the protected area as they function as habitat islands, which have continuously maintained the population of many endangered orchid species. thus, it is recommended that future conservation plans should focus on the conservation of forests outside the protected area for long-term conservation of orchid resources. conclusion the environmental and climatic condition of the suspa-kshamawoti area is suitable for various epiphytic and terrestrial species of orchids. the moist deciduous forest floor has supported many terrestrial species whereas the large trees with fissured bark covered with moss have supported many epiphytic orchid species to flourish. the destruction of habitats due to deforestation and construction activities have resulted in drastic depletion of orchid species in the study area. the selective logging of trees, such as schima wallichii, a. nepalensis, r. arboreum, and d. himalense has increased for timber extraction. this has severely reduced the number of epiphytic orchids in the study area. therefore, it is necessary to conserve habitats and the most preferable host species in order to conserve many orchid species in the wild. acknowledgements we are grateful to the head, central department of botany for providing necessary laboratory facilities. we are also thankful to prabin bhandari for the valuable suggestions during our fieldwork. we would also like to thank the local people for their support during our fieldwork. references bhandari, p., karki, s. and budhamagar, s. 2016a. a new locality record for endemic panisea panchaseensis subedi (orchidaceous) in nepal. pleione 10 (1) : 183–185. bhandari, p., shakya, l. r. and shrestha, k. k. 2016b. zeuxine membranacea (orchidaceae) : an addition to the orchid flora of nepal. the journal of japanese botany 91 : 317–320. bhandari, p., shakya, l. r. and chaudhary, r. p. 2019. zeuxine lindleyana (orchidaceae) : an addition to the orchid flora of nepal. the journal of japanese botany 94 : 45– 46. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 31 karki & ghimire bajracharya, d. m. 2001. eria apertiflora summerh. and e. bipunctata lindl. (orchidaceae), new records for the nepal himalaya. the journal of japanese botany 76 : 297–302. bajracharya, d. m. 2004. the genus eria lindley (orchidaceae) in the himalayas : a taxonomic revision. ph. d. thesis, tribhuvan university, nepal. bajracharya, d. m. and shrestha, k. k. 2003. eria nepalensis (orchidaceae), a new species from nepal. the journal of japanese botany 78 (3) : 158–161. chen, x., liu z., zhu, g., lang, k., ji, z., luo, y., jin, x., cribb, p. j., wood, j. j., gale, s. w., ormerod, p., vermeulen, j. j., wood, h. p., clayton, d. and bell, a. 2009. orchidaceae. in flora of china, vol. 25. (eds)wu z., raven p. h. & hong d. science press, beijing; missouri botanical garden press, st. louis, usa. govaerts, r., bernet, p., kratochvil, k., gerlach, g., carr, g., alrich, p., pridgeon, a. m., pfahl, j., campacci, ma., holl and baptista, d., tigges, h., shaw, j., cribb, p., george, a., kreuz, k. and wood, j. j. 2017. world checklist of orchidaceae. kew : facilitated by the royal botanic gardens. http : //apps. kew. org/wcsp/ (accessed 23 march, 2017). hinsley, a., de boer, h. j., fay, m. f., gale, s. w., gardiner, l. m., gunasekara, r. s., kumar, p., masters, s., metusala, d., roberts, d. l. and veldman, s. 2017. a review of the trade in orchids and its implications for conservation. botanical journal of the linnean society 186 (4) : 435–455. jain, s. k. and rao, r. r. 1977. a hand book of field & herbarium methods. today & tomorrow´s printers & publishers, new delhi. milleville, r., and shrestha, t. b. 2004. nepal orchids in pictures. malla prakashan, kathmandu, nepal. rajbhandari, k. r. and bhattarai, s. 2001. beautiful orchids of nepal. keshab r. rajbhandari, kathmandu, nepal. rajbhandari, k. r. and dahal, s. 2004. orchids of nepal : a checklist. botanica orientalis 4 : 89–106. rajbhandari, k. r. 2015. a h and book of the orchids of nepal. department of plant resources, thapathali, kathmandu,nepal. rajbhandari, k. r. and rai, s. k. 2017. a h and book of flowering plant of nepal, volume-1. department of plant resources, thapathali, kathmandu, nepal. raskoti, b. b. 2009. the orchids of nepal. published by b. b. raskoti and r. ale, kathmandu, nepal. raskoti, b. b. and ale, r. 2011. a species of sunipia (orchidaceae) from nepal. phytotaxa 31 : 55–58. raskoti, b. b. and ale, r. 2012. liparis ferruginea lindley (orchidaceae) : a new record for the flora of nepal. taiwania 57 : 308–311. raskoti, b. b. and kurzweil, h., 2015. odontochilusn and ae (orchidaceae; cranichideae; goodyerinae) : a new species from nepal. phytotaxa 233 (3) : 293–297. raskoti, b. b. 2015. a new species of gastrochilus and new records for the orchids of nepal. phytotaxa 233 (2) : 179–184. raskoti, b. b. and ale, r. 2019. new species of orchids and notes on orchidaceae of nepal. phytotaxa 394 (4) : 257–266. rokaya, m. b., raskoti, b. b., timsina, b. and muenzbergova, z. 2013. an annotated checklist of the orchids of nepal. nordic journal of botany 31 : 511–550. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 32 karki & ghimire roskov, y., ower, g., orrell, t., nicolson, d., bailly, n., kirk, p. m., bourgoin, t., dewalt, r. e., decock, w., nieukerken, e. van, zarucchi j. and penev l., eds. (2019). species 2000 & itis catalogue of life, 2019 annual checklist. digital resource at www.catalogueoflife.org/annualchecklist/2019. species 2000 : naturalis, leiden, the netherlands. issn 2405-884x. subedi, a., chaudhary, r. p., vermeulen, j. j. and gravendeel, b. 2011. panisea panchaseensis sp. nov. (orchidaceae) from central nepal. nordic journal of botany 29 (3) : 361–365. white, c. and sharma, b. 2000. wild orchids of nepal : a guide in the himalayan orchids of tribhuvan rajpath and chitwan jungle. white lotus press, bangkok, thailand. zotz, g. and winkler, u. 2013. aerial roots of epiphytic orchids : the velamen radicum and its role in water and nutrient uptake. oecologia 171 (3) : 733–741. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 33 karki & ghimire agrostrophyllum bl. about 60 species distributed in the old world tropics from seychelles and tropical asia east to the pacific island , new guinea as the center of distribution (chen et al., 2009); 2 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspa-kshamawoti. agrostophyllum callosum rchb. f. in seem., fl. vit. : 296 (1868). habit : epiphyte, flowers pinkish white. flowering : may-aug. exsiccatae : karki s. 005 (tuch) altitude : 1,820 m habitat : epiphyte in mixed deciduous forest and humid evergreen forest host species : schima wallichii, daphniphyllum himalense and lyonia ovalifolia anthogonium wall. ex lindl. only one species distributed in bangladesh, bhutan, cambodia, china, n india, laos, myanmar, nepal, sri lanka, thailand , vietnam (chen et al., 2009); 1 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspakshamawoti. anthogonium gracile wall. ex lindl., gen. sp. orchid. pl. : 426 (1840). fig. 4c anthogonium corydaloides schltr. habit : terrestrial, flowers pink to white. flowering : aug-nov. exsiccatae : karki s. 006 (tuch) altitude : 1,620−1,780 m habitat : terrestrial growing on grassy slopes and rock bulbophyllum thouars. about 1,900 species distributed in tropical areas of both old and new worlds (chen et al., 2009); 36 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017; raskoti and ale, 2019), 11 species in suspakshamawoti. bulbophyllum affine wall. ex lindl. gen. sp. orchid pl. : 48 (1830). bulbophyllum kusukusense hayata habit : epiphyte, flowers white with pink-lined, solitary. flowering : may-aug. exsiccatae : karki s. 007 (tuch) altitude : 1723 m habitat : epiphyte in mixed deciduous forest host species : schima wallichii and lyonia ovalifolia bulbophyllum careyanum (hook. ) spreng., syst. veg. ed. 16 (3) : 732 (1826). fig. 2d anisopetalon careyanum hook. phylloorchis purpurea (d. don) kuntze. habit : epiphyte, flowers purplish-brown, 0. 5-0. 8 cm long. flowering : sep-dec. exsiccatae : karki s. 008 (tuch) altitude : 1,604 m habitat : epiphyte in dense humid evergreen forest host species : schima wallichii bulbophyllum cylindraceum wall. ex lindl., gen. sp. orchid. pl. : 53 (1830). bulbophyllum imbricatum griff. habit : epiphyte, flowers many, pale purple. flowering : oct-nov. exsiccatae : karki s. 009 (tuch) altitude : 1,740−2,400 m habitat : epiphyte in dense humid evergreen forest or lithophytic on moist rocks host species : daphniphyllum himalense and schima wallichii bulbophyllum hirtum (sm. ) lindl. ex wall., gen. sp. orchid. pl. : 51 (1830). stelis hirta sm. habit : epiphyte or lithophytes, flowers greenish white, highly scented. flowering : oct-nov. exsiccatae : karki s. 0010 (tuch) altitude : 1,740−2,400 m habitat : epiphyte in dense humid evergreen forest or lithophytic on moist rocks host species : buddleja asiatica and schima wallichii bulbophyllum leopardinum (wall. ) lindl. ex wall., gen. sp. orchid. pl. : 48 (1830). dendrobium leopardinum wall. habit : epiphyte or lithophytes, flowers creamy yellow to pale green, spotted with red dots, lip yellow. flowering : may-aug. exsiccatae : karki s. 0011 (tuch) altitude : 1,740−1,800 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks or lithophytic on rocks host species : schima wallichii, engelhardia spicata bulbophyllum purpureofuscum j. j. verm., schuit. & de vogel., phytotaxa 166 (2) : 105 (2014). sunipia cirrhata (lindl. ) p. f. hunt. appendix 1. orchid checklist banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 34 karki & ghimire bulbophyllum cirrhatum (lindl. ) hook. f. habit : epiphyte, white purple veins, 4-8 flowered, lip purple. flowering : oct-dec. exsiccatae : karki s. 0012 (tuch) altitude : 1,800−2,215 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : schima wallichii bulbophyllum reptans (lindl. ) lindl. ex wall., numer. list : n. 1988 (1829). tribrachia reptans lindl. habit : epiphyte, flowers 3-6, pale yellow with purplish-red stripes. flowering : jan-mar. exsiccatae : karki s. 0013 (tuch) altitude : 1,930−2,400 m habitat : epiphyte on evergreen forest or lithophytic on rocks host species : schima wallichii, daphniphyllum himalense and symplocos sp. bulbophyllum retusiusculum rchb. f., gard. chron. 1869 : 1182 (1869). fig. 2a cirrhopetalum retusiusculum (rchb. f. ) hemsley, gard. habit : epiphyte, flowers yellow with reddish veins. flowering : sep-dec. exsiccatae : karki s. 0014 (tuch) altitude : 2,400 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : rhododendron arboreum bulbophyllum roseopictumj. j. verm., schuit. & de vogel (2014). sunipia bicolor lindl. habit : epiphyte, flowers small, whitish with purplish-red stripes, lip purple-red. flowering : jul-nov. exsiccatae : karki s. 0015 (tuch) altitude : 2,000−2,400 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : schima wallichii and daphniphyllum himalense bulbophyllum viridiflorum (hook. f. ) schltr., orchis 4 : 108 (1910). fig. 2c cirrhopetalum viridiflorum hook. f. habit : epiphyte, flowers 5-12, yellow. flowering : oct-nov. exsiccatae : karki s. 0016 (tuch) altitude : 2,300 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : daphniphyllum himalense bulbophyllum yoksunense j. j. sm. bull. jard. buitenzorg 28 : 29 (1912). fig. 2b cirrhopetalum brevipes hook. f. habit : epiphyte, flowers 6-12, creamy white with pink stripes. flowering : sep-nov. exsiccatae : karki s. 0017 (tuch) altitude : 2,000−2,210 m habitat : epiphyte on subtropical mixed forest host species : daphniphyllum himalense and symplocos ramosissima calanthe r. brown about 150 species distributed in tropical and subtropical asia, australia, new guinea, sw pacific islands, as well as tropical africa and central and nw south america (chen et al., 2009); 16 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017; raskoti and ale, 2019), 4 species in suspakshamawoti. calanthe brevicornu lindl., gen. sp. orchid pl. : 251 (1833). alismorkis brevicornu (lindl. ) habit : terrestrial, flowers laxy, 5-13 in number, yellowish-green with pinkish-red strations. flowering : may-jun. exsiccatae : karki s. do 1 (tuch) altitude : 1,800−2,200 m habitat : terrestrial in the dense forest floor calanthe mannii hook. f., fl. brit. ind. 5 : 850 (1890). calanthe brachychila gagnep. habit : terrestrial, flowers dark brown, lip golden yellow. flowering : may-jun. exsiccatae : karki s. do 2 (tuch) altitude : 1,800−2,200 m habitat : terrestrial in the dense forest floor calanthe plantaginea lindl., gen. sp. orchid pl. 250 (1833). fig. 4a alismorkis lindleyana kuntze habit : terrestrial, flowers 12-25 or more, pinkish to white, scented. flowering : mar-apr. exsiccatae : karki s. do 3 (tuch) altitude : 1,950−2,200 m habitat : terrestrial in the evergreen broad leaved forest floor calanthe trulliformis king & pantl., j. asiat. soc. bengal 64 (2) : 337 (1895). habit : terrestrial, flowers chocolate brown, lip white, trowel-shaped. flowering : jul. exsiccatae : karki s. do 4 (tuch) altitude : 1,800−2,200 m habitat : terrestrial in the dense and humus-rich banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 35 karki & ghimire forest floor coelogyne lindl. about 200 species distributed in tropical and subtropical asia to oceania (chen et al., 2009); 11 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 4 species in suspa-kshamawoti. coelogyne corymbosa lindl., fol. orchid., coelogyne 5 : 7 (1854). pleione corymbosa (lindl. ) habit : epiphyte, flowers white, lip with four yellow eyelike spots surrounded by red reddishorange, lip 3 lobed. flowering : may-jun. exsiccatae : karki s. 0018 (tuch) altitude : 2,000−2,300 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks of evergreen forest host species : schima wallichii, juglans regia and daphniphyllum himalense coelogyne cristata lindl., collect. bol. : sub t. 33 (1824). fig. 2e cymbidium speciosissimum d. don habit : epiphyte or lithophytes, flowers white, lip 3 lobed, callus having 5 fimbriate lamellae. flowering : feb-may. exsiccatae : karki s. 0019 (tuch) altitude : 1,700−2,110 m habitat : epiphyte or lithophytes on tree trunks or exposed rocks host species : schima wallichii, castanopsis indica and daphniphyllum himalense coelogyne fuscescens lindl., gen. sp. orchid. pl. 41 (1830). coelogyne fuscescens var. viridiflorum pradhan habit : epiphyte, flowers pale brown or ocheryellow, large 2-5 flowered around 4 cm across, lip pale brown with dark brown spots, 3 lobed. flowering : oct-dec. exsiccatae : karki s. 0020 (tuch) altitude : 1,700−2,110 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : schima wallichii, rhododendron arboreum, juglans regia coelogyne longipes lindl., fol. orchid., coelogyne 5 : 10 (1854). pleione longipes (lindl. ) habit : epiphyte, flowers white to yellow, small 5-7 flowered, lip apex truncate and emarginate, callus with 2 longitudinal lamellae. flowering : may-jun. exsiccatae : karki s. 0021 (tuch) altitude : 1,980−2,100 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : schima wallichii conchidium griff. about 10 species in bhutan, s china, n india, s japan, laos, myanmar, nepal, thailand , vietnam (chen et al., 2009); 3 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017; raskoti and ale, 2019), 1 species in suspa-kshamawoti. conchidium muscicola (lindl. ) rauschert, feddes report. 94 : 444 (1983). eria muscicola (lindl. ) lindl. habit : epiphyte or lithophytes, flowers small pale green, 2-5 flowered, lip sub-elliptic. flowering : mar-may. exsiccatae : karki s. 0022 (tuch) altitude : 1,650−2,100 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks or moist rocks host species : schima wallichii crepidium blume. about 280 species throughout the asian tropics and sub-tropics, australasia, indian ocean islands, few species are found in temperate asia (chen et al., 2009); 2 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017; raskoti and ale, 2019), 1 species in suspa-kshamawoti. crepidium acuminatum (d. don) szlach., fragm. florist. geobot. suppl. 3 : 123 (1995). malaxis acuminata d. don. habit : terrestrial, flowers yellow, pink or purple, small 5-7 flowered, lip apex truncate and emarginate, callus with 2 longitudinal lamellae. flowering : may-jul. exsiccatae : karki s. 0023 (tuch) altitude : 1,732 m habitat : terrestrial in dense forest cryptochilus wall. about 10 species in bhutan, s china, n india, laos, myanmar, nepal, thailand, and vietnam (chen et al., 2009); 2 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspakshamawoti. cryptochilus luteus lindl., j. proc. unn. soc. bot. 3 : 21 (1858). fig. 2f cryptochilus ferrari schltr. habit : epiphyte, flowers campanulate, yellow, many-flowered, petals enclosed in a tube, entire and encallose. flowering : jun-jul. exsiccatae : karki s. 0024 (tuch) altitude : 2,110−2,300 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : schima wallichii and daphniphyllum himalense banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 36 karki & ghimire cymbidium sw. about 55 species distributed in tropical and subtropical asia, south to papua new guinea and australia (chen et al., 2009); 9 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 3 species in suspakshamawoti. cymbidium elegans lindl., gen. sp. orchid. pl. 163 (1833). fig. 2g cymbidium longifolium d. don. habit : epiphyte, flowers cream-yellow to pale yellowish-green, around 18-38 flowered, oblanceolate-triangular. flowering : sep-oct. exsiccatae : karki s. 0025 (tuch) altitude : 1,800−2,300 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : schima wallichii, daphniphyllum himalense cymbidium erythraeum lindl., j. proc. linn. soc. bot. 3 : 30 (1859). habit : epiphyte, flowers green with heavy reddish-brown longitudinal stripes, flower large 3-8 flowered, lip white with red-brown spots on the mid-lobe. flowering : oct-dec. exsiccatae : karki s. 0026 (tuch) altitude : 2,110−2,300 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : schima wallichii and daphniphyllum himalense cymbidium lancifolium hook., exot. fl. 1 : t. 51 (1823) cymbidium caulescens ridl. habit : terrestrial, flowers white to pale green, flower large 2-6 flowered, lip white with purplishbrown markings. flowering : may-aug. exsiccatae : karki s. 0027 (tuch) altitude : 1,500−2,400 m habitat : terrestrial in deciduous forest dendrobium sw. around 1,100 species in india across to japan, south to malaysia and indonesia, east to australia, new guinea, and pacific is lands (chen et al., 2009); 26 species (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 8 species in suspa-kshamawoti. dendrobium amoenum wall. ex lindl., gen. sp. orchid. pl. : 78 (1830). fig. 2h dendrobium mesochlorum lindl. habit : epiphyte, flowers white with pale violet margins, flower many 2-3 cm across, lip white with violet spots on the apex and greenish-yellow on the middle region. flowering : may-jun. exsiccatae : karki s. 0028 (tuch) altitude : 1,720−1,900 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : alnus nepalensis, ficus auriculata, schima wallichii and daphniphyllum himalense dendrobium amplum lindl., gen. sp. orchid. pl. : 74 (1830). fig. 3b epigeneium amplum lindl. habit : epiphyte, flowers yellowish-green, spotted with deep brown, 1 flowered, lip p and urate in outline, 3 lobed. flowering : sep-nov. exsiccatae : karki s. 0029 (tuch) altitude : 1,720−2,000 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : rhododendron arboreum and schima wallichii dendrobium eriiflorum griff., icon. pl. asiat. 3 : 316 (1851). callista eriiflora (griff. ) habit : epiphyte, flowers greenish-cream, 7-10 flowered, lip curved and spotted with purple stripes. flowering : sep-oct. exsiccatae : karki s. 0030 (tuch) altitude : 1,720−1,900 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : alnus nepalensis and schima wallichii dendrobium heterocarpum wall. ex lindl., gen. sp. orchid. pl. : 78 (1830). fig. 2i dendrobium aureum lindl. habit : epiphyte, flowers silver-white or creamy yellow, usually 10-15 flowered, scented, lip yellow with red stripes. flowering : apr-may. exsiccatae : karki s. 0031 (tuch) altitude : 1,720−2,200 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks in open forests. host species : alnus nepalensis, schima wallichii, buddleja asiatica and castanopsis indica dendrobium longicornu lindl. in edwards’s bot. reg. 16 : t 1315 (1830). dendrobium bulleyi rolfe. habit : epiphyte, flowers white, usually 1-5 flowered, pendulous, lip veined with yellow or orange, fimbriate. flowering : sep-nov. exsiccatae : karki s. 0032 (tuch) altitude : 1,720−2,400 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks in open forests. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 37 karki & ghimire host species : lyonia ovalifolia, schima wallichii, rhododendron arboreum and daphniphyllum himalense dendrobium moniliforme (l. ) sw., nova acta regiae soc. sci. upsal. 6 : 85 (1799). epidendrum moniliforme l. habit : epiphyte; flowers white, 2-5 or even more in number, lip white tip acute, lip with greenishyellow on the middle region. flowering : sep-oct. exsiccatae : karki s. 0033 (tuch) altitude : 2,300 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : schima wallichii and daphniphyllum himalense dendrobium porphyrochilum lindl., j. proc. linn. soc. bot. 3 : 18 (1859). fig. 3a dendrobium caespitosum king &pantl. habit : epiphyte, flowers pale green with red veins, 10 or even more in number, lip deep purplish-brown. flowering : may-aug. exsiccatae : karki s. 0034 (tuch) altitude : 1,800−2,500 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : schima wallichii, viburnum erubescens and berberis sp. erialindl. eria (s. l. ) comprises around 370 species, widespread in tropical asia and the whole of the malay archipelago, east to new guinea and bougainvillea island (chen et al. 2009); 14 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017; raskoti and ale 2019), 1 species in suspa-kshamawoti. eria coronaria (lindl. ) rchb. f. in walp., ann. bot. syst. 6 : 271 (1861). coelogyne coronaria lindl. habit : epiphyte, flowers white with purple stripes, usually 1-6 in number, large, lip oblong in outline and curved. flowering : may-jun. exsiccatae : karki s. 0035 (tuch) altitude : 1,700−2,500 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : schima wallichii and daphniphyllum himalense gastrochilus d. don about 47 species distributed from india and sri lanka to east asia and south to indonesia (chen et al., 2009); 7 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 2 species in suspa-kshamawoti. gastrochilus calceolaris (buch. -ham. ex sm. ) d. don, prodr. fl. nepal. : 32 (1825). fig. 3c aerides calceolaris buch. -ham. ex sm. in rees. habit : epiphyte, flowers yellow with purplishbrown markings, lip with white epichile and yellow hypochile. flowering : feb-apr. exsiccatae : karki s. 0036 (tuch) altitude : 1,700−2,300 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : schima wallichii and eurya acuminata gastrochilus distichus (lindl. ) kuntze, revis. gen. pl. 2 : 661 (1891). saccolabium distichum lindl. habit : epiphyte, flowers pale green with reddishbrown spots, 2-4 flowered, lip with saccate hypochile. flowering : jan-may. exsiccatae : karki s. 0037 (tuch) altitude : 2,300 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : symplocos ramosissima, eurya acuminata, and quercus semecarpifolia goodyerar. br. about 100 species distributed in s africa, asia, ne australia, europe, madagascar, north america including mexico, sw pacific islands (chen et al., 2009); 11 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017; raskoti and ale, 2019), 4 species in suspa-kshamawoti. goodyera biflora (lindl. ) hook. f., fl. birt. india 6 : 114 (1890). georchis biflora lindl. habit : terrestrial, flowers tubular, creamy white, usually 2 rarely 3 flowered. flowering : feb-jul. exsiccatae : karki s. 0038 (tuch) altitude : 2,200−2,300 m habitat : terrestrial in humus-rich, moist soil goodyera foliosa (lindl. ) benth. ex c. b. clarke, j. linn. soc. bot. 25 : 73 (1889). georchis foliosa lindl. habit : terrestrial, greenish-white, pubescent. flowering : jul-sep. exsiccatae : karki s. 0039 (tuch) altitude : 2,000−2,100 m habitat : terrestrial in humus-rich, moist soil goodyera procera (ker-gawl. ) hook., exot. fl. l : t. 39 (1823). fig. 4f neottia procera ker-gawl. habit : terrestrial, flowers white, many (5-20) flowered, lip ovate. flowering : feb-may. exsiccatae : karki s. banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 38 karki & ghimire 0040 (tuch) altitude : 900−2,000 m habitat : terrestrial in humus-rich, moist soil goodyera repens (l. ) r. br. satyrium repens l. habit : terrestrial, flowers tubular, creamy white, hairy, many-flowered. flowering : jan-feb. exsiccatae : karki s. 0041 (tuch) altitude : 1,900−2,300 m habitat : terrestrial in humus-rich, moist soil habenaria willd. about 600 species distributed worldwide, mainly in tropical and subtropical areas (chen et al., 2009); 17 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspa-kshamawoti. habenaria arietina hook. f., fl. brit. india 6 : 138 (1890). ochyrorchis arietina (hook. f. ) szlach. habit : terrestrial, flowers white or greenishwhite, many-flowered, petals forming a hood. flowering : jun-aug. exsiccatae : karki s. 0042 (tuch) altitude : 1,400−3,000 m habitat : terrestrial in damp places, sloppy grass lands herminium r. br. about 25 species distributed in europe, parts of sw and c asia, extending to e and se asia and the himalayas (chen et al., 2009); 24 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspa-kshamawoti. herminium lanceum (thunb. ) vuijk, blumea 11 : 228 (1961). ophrys lancea thunb. ex sw. habit : terrestrial, flowers pale yellowish to green, many-flowered, petals forming a hood. flowering : jun-aug. exsiccatae : karki s. 0043 (tuch) altitude : 1,700−2,400 m habitat : terrestrial in damp places, sloppy grass lands liparis l. c. rich. about 320 species : tropical asia, new guinea, australia, sw pacific islands, subtropical and tropical americas, europe and north america (chen et al., 2009); 18 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017; raskoti and ale, 2019), 3 species in suspa-kshamawoti. liparis cathcartii hook. f. in hooker, icon. pl. 19 : t. 1808 (1889). fig. 4d leptorkis cathcartii (hook. f. ) kuntze habit : terrestrial, flowers green to purple, more than 10 flowered, lip elliptic-ovate. flowering : jun-jul. exsiccatae : karki s. 0044 (tuch) altitude : 2,200−2,400 m habitat : terrestrial in moist, humus-rich soil liparis resupinata ridl., j. linn. soc. bot. 22 : 290 (1886). liparis ridleyi hook. f. habit : epiphyte, flowers pale green or greenishyellow, 10-50 flowered, lip elliptic-oblong or ovate-oblong. flowering : oct-dec. exsiccatae : karki s. 0045 (tuch) altitude : 1,800−2,500 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : daphniphyllum himalense and eurya acuminata liparis viridiflora (blume) lindl., gen. sp. orchid. pl. : 31 (1830) malaxis viridiflora bl. habit : epiphyte, flowers pale yellowish-green, lip orbicular or ovate-orbicular. flowering : nov-feb. exsiccatae : karki s. 0046 (tuch) altitude : 1720-1900 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : daphniphyllum himalense and schima wallichii luisia gaudich. about 40 species distributed in bhutan, china, india, indochina, indonesia, japan, malaysia, new guinea, pacific is lands, philippines, sri lanka, and thailand (chen et al., 2009); 1 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspa-kshamawoti. luisia tristis (g. forst.) hook. f., fl. brit. india 6 : 25 (1890). epidendrum triste g. forst. habit : epiphyte, flowers greenish-yellow, 2-4 flowered, lip oblong. flowering : mar-aug. exsiccatae : karki s. 0047 (tuch) altitude : 1,741 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : fraxinus floribunda and schima wallichii oberonia lindl. around 150-200 species, centered in tropical s and se asia but extending to tropical africa, madagascar, the mascarene is lands, the philippines, new guinea, ne australia, and the sw pacific is lands across to tahiti (chen et al., 2009); 19 taxa in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 39 karki & ghimire 2017), 3 species in suspa-kshamawoti. oberonia caulescens lindl., fol. orchid. oberonia 2 : 7, no. 39 (1859) malaxis caulescens (lindl. ) rchb. f. habit : epiphyte, distichous, falcate leaves. flowering : jun-jul. exsiccatae : karki s. 0069 (tuch) altitude : 2,000−2,200 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : buddleja asiatica and daphniphyllum himalense oberoniafalcate king &pantl., j. asiat. soc. bengal, pt. 2, nat. hist. 64 (2) : 329 (1895). oberonia caudata king &pantl. habit : epiphyte, densely flowered, falcate leaves. flowering : jun-jul. exsiccatae : karki s. 0048 (tuch) altitude : 1,700−2,200 m habitat : epiphytic on medium-sized tree trunks host species : buddleja asiatica, daphniphyllum himalense, and prunus cerasoides oberonia pachyrachis rchb. f. ex hook. f., fl. brit. india 5 : 681 (1888). fig. 3d oberonia umbraticola rolfe. habit : epiphyte, flowers pale brown, small many-flowered. flowering : nov-mar. exsiccatae : karki s. 0049 (tuch) altitude : 1,700−2,115 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : alnus nepalensis, schima wallichii, prunus cerasoides and fraxinus floribunda odontochilus blume. about 40 species : n india and the himalayas, through se asia, as far north as japan, east to the sw pacific is lands (chen et al., 2009); 3 species in nepal (raskoti and kurzweil, 2015), 1 species in suspa-kshamawoti. odontochilus lanceolatus (lindl. ) bl., coll. orchid. 80 (1859). fig. 4b anoectochilus lanceolatus lindl. habit : terrestrial, flower yellow, lip golden yellow. flowering : jun-sep. exsiccatae : karki s. 0050 (tuch) altitude : 1,700−2,115 m habitat : terrestrial in humus-rich soil. otochilus lindl. around four species : bhutan, china, ne india, myanmar, nepal, thailand , and indochina (chen et al., 2009); 4 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 2 species in suspa-kshamawoti. otochilus lancilabius seidenf., bot. tidsskr. 71 : 13. t. 11 (1976). otochilus albus var. lancilabius (seidenf.) pradhan habit : epiphyte, flowers white, small manyflowered. flowering : oct-nov. exsiccatae : karki s. 0051 (tuch) altitude : 2,115 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : daphniphyllum himalense otochilus porrectus lindl., gen. sp. orchid. pl. : 36 (1830). fig. 3e otochilus latifolius griff. habit : epiphyte, flowers white, small manyflowered, lip 3 lobed. flowering : oct-dec. exsiccatae : karki s. 0052 (tuch) altitude : 1,870−2,115 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : schima wallichii and daphniphyllum himalense panisea (lindl. ) steud. about 7 species distributed in bhutan, cambodia, china, north east india, laos, myanmar, nepal, thailand , vietnam (chen et al., 2009); 3 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 2 species in suspa-kshamawoti. panisea demissa (d. don) pfitz. in engler, pfl. -reich iv. 50, i1b-7, ht. 32 : 141, t. 49 (1907). dendrobium demissum d. don. habit : epiphyte, flowers white, 5-8 flowered, lip sigmoid shaped. flowering : oct-jan. exsiccatae : karki s. 0053 (tuch) altitude : 2,000−2,300 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : daphniphyllum himalense and symplocos sp. panisea panchaseensis subedi, nord. j. bot. 29 (3) : 361 (2011). fig. 3f habit : epiphyte, flowers white, 1-3 flowered, lip tip acute. flowering : oct-jan. exsiccatae : karki s. 0054 (tuch) altitude : 2,100−2,500 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : daphniphyllum himalense and quercus semecarpifolia peristylus bl. about 70 species distributed in e, s, and se asia to new guinea, ne australia, and the sw pacific islands (chen et al., 2009); 11 species in nepal banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 40 karki & ghimire (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspakshamawoti. peristylus aristatus lindl., gen. sp. orchid. pl. : 300 (1835). habenaria aristata (lindl. ) hook. f. habit : terrestrial, flowers green, many-flowered, lip longer than sepal and petals. flowering : aug-sep. exsiccatae : karki s. 0055 (tuch) altitude : 2,300−2,500 m habitat : terrestrial on humid and humid slopes phalaenopsis bl. about 46 species distributed in india, south east asia,indonesia, philippines and north australia (chen et al., 2009); 3 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspakshamawoti. phalaenopsis taenialis (lindl. ) christenson & pradhan., indian orchid j. 1 : 154 (1985). fig. 3g aerides taenialis lindl. kingidium taeniale (lindl. ) p. f. hunt. habit : epiphyte, flowers pale pink, lip rosepurple, 1-2 flowered, lip 3 lobed. flowering : apr-jun. exsiccatae : karki s. 0056 (tuch) altitude : 1,700−2,300 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : schima wallichii, alnus nepalensis pholidota lindl. ex hook. about 30 species distributed in the main l and se asia, australia, new guinea and pacific islands (chen et al., 2009); 5 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspakshamawoti. pholidota pallida lindl. in edwards’s bot. reg. 21 : sub t. 1777 (1835). coelogyne calceata rchb. f. habit : epiphyte, flowers white, many-flowered. flowering : jun-jul. exsiccatae : karki s. 0057 (tuch) altitude : 1,700−1,800 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : buddleja asiatica and schima wallichii pinalia lindl. about 160 species distributed from nw himalayas and ne india to myanmar, s china, vietnam, laos, thailand , the malay archipelago, ne australia, and the pacific is lands (chen et al., 2009); 7 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspa-kshamawoti. pinalia spicata (lindl. ) kuntze., fl. china. 25 : 354 (2009). eria spicata (d. don) h and . -mazz. habit : epiphyte, flowers white, lip apex yellow, many-flowered. flowering : nov-feb. exsiccatae : karki s. 0058 (tuch) altitude : 2,135−2,200 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : daphniphyllum himalense and symplocos sp. pleione d. don about 25 species distributed throughout nepal, across c, s, and e china and bhutan, south to laos, myanmar, thailand , and vietnam (chen et al., 2009); 5 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 2 species in suspa-kshamawoti. pleione humilis (sm. ) d. don, prodr. fl. nepal. : 37 (1825). fig. 3h coelogyne humilis (sm. ) lindl. habit : epiphyte, flowers white, lip white, spotted with crimson or yellow-brown. flowering : feb-mar. exsiccatae : karki s. 0059 (tuch) altitude : 2,135−2,500 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : quercus semecarpifolia, daphniphyllum himalense, and symplocos sp. pleione praecox (sm. ) d. don, prodr. fl. nepal. : 37 (1825). coelogyne praecox (sm. ) lindl. habit : epiphyte, flowers pink with yellow callus, lip fimbriate. flowering : sep-nov. exsiccatae : karki s. 0060 (tuch) altitude : 1,800−2,500 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : daphniphyllum himalense, schima wallichii and symplocos sp. porpax lindl. about 11 species : main l and asia, from india through thailand and indochina to peninsular malaysia (chen et al., 2008); 2 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspakshamawoti. porpax elwesii (rchb. f. ) rolfe, orchid. rev. 16 : 8 (1908). eria elwesii rchb. f. habit : epiphyte or lithophyte, flowers dark red or chocolate color, one flowered. flowering : apr-aug. exsiccatae : karki s. 0061 (tuch) altitude : 1,700−1,920 m habitat : epiphytic or lithophyte host species : schima wallichii banko janakari, vol 29 no. 2, 2019 pp 28‒41 41 karki & ghimire rhynchostylis bl. about 4 species distributed in india, srilanka, myanmar, south east asia, malaysia, philippines and indonesia (chen et al., 2009); 1 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspa-kshamawoti. rhynchostylis retusa (l. ) bl., bijdr. fl. nederl. ind. 7 : 286, t. 49 (1825). epidendrum retusum l. habit : epiphyte, flowers purplish pink, lip apex and spur white. flowering : jun-jul. exsiccatae : karki s. 0062 (tuch) altitude : 1,750 m habitat : epiphytic on tree trunks host species : alnus nepalensis and ficus sp. satyrium lw. about 90 species distributed mainly in s africa, with a few species also found in s asia (chen et al., 2009); 1 species and 1 variety in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspakshamawoti. satyrium nepalense d. don, prodr. fl. nepal. 26 (1825). satyrium albiflorum a. rich. habit : terrestrial, flowers whitish pink or pale purple, floral bract reflexed. flowering : jul-nov. exsiccatae : karki s. 0063 (tuch) altitude : 2000-2500 m habitat : terrestrial on moist areas like grass lands. spiranthes rich. about 50 species distributed in north america, africa, asia, australia, central, and south america, and europe (chen et al., 2009); 2 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 2 species in suspa-kshamawoti. spiranthes sinensis (pers. ) ames, orchid. 2 : 53 (1908). fig. 4e neottia sinensis pers. habit : terrestrial, flowers pink, lip white, manyflowered. flowering : jul-aug. exsiccatae : karki s. 0064 (tuch) altitude : 1,900−2,500 m habitat : terrestrial on open grassl and spiranthes spiralis (l. ) chevall., fl. gen. env. paris 2 : 330 (1827). ophrys spiralis l. habit : terrestrial, flowers white, lip white, many-flowered. flowering : apr-jun. exsiccatae : karki s. 0065 (tuch) altitude : 1,900−2,100 m habitat : terrestrial on moist areas, wetland uncifera lindl. about six species distributed in tropical himalayan regions to indochina and thailand (chen et al., 2009); 2 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspakshamawoti. uncifera acuminata lindl., j. linn. soc. bot. 3 : 40 (1859). saccolabium acuminatum (lindl. ) hook. f. habit : epiphyte, flowers yellow, many-flowered. flowering : apr-jun. exsiccatae : karki s. 0066 (tuch) altitude : 1,670 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : eurya acuminata and schima wallichii vanda jones ex r. br. about 40 species distributed in tropical asia to new guinea and australia (chen et al., 2009); 7 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017; raskoti and ale, 2019), 1 species in suspakshamawoti. vanda cristata lindl. gen. sp. orchid. pl. 216 (1833). fig. 3i trudelia cristata (wall. ex lindl. ) senghas habit : epiphyte, flowers yellowish-green, lip golden yellow to white, two-lobed. flowering : may. exsiccatae : karki s. 0067 (tuch) altitude : 1,670−2,200 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : prunus cerasoides, schima wallichii, alnus nepalensis, euphorbia royelena, buddleja asiatica and ficus sp. vandopsis pfitz. about five species distributed in india, china, main l and se asia, the philippines, the malay archipelago to new guinea (chen et al., 2009); 1 species in nepal (rajbhandari and rai, 2017), 1 species in suspa-kshamawoti. vandopsis undulata (lindl. ) j. j. sm., natuurk. tijdschr. ned. -indio 72 : 77 (1912). vanda undulata lindl. habit : epiphyte, flowers white, fragrant, lip yellow to white. flowering : may-jun. exsiccatae : karki s. 0068 (tuch) altitude : 1,670−2,300 m habitat : epiphyte on tree trunks host species : daphniphyllum himalense, quercus semecarpifolia and schima wallichii 61 evaluating the potentiality of naturally growing ipomoea carnea jacq. as an iron hyperaccumulator in ramgram municipality, nawalparasi (west), nepal hyperaccumulator plants, such as ipomoea carnea, are known for their ability to accumulate heavy metals in their aerial parts. this study aimed to determine whether i. carnea is an iron hyperaccumulator. ten sites within the ramgram municipality, nawalparasi (west) district were selected randomlyfive near industrial areas and five away from industries. two plants from each site were harvested along with the soil samples nearby, following the standard protocols for collection. after sun-drying, the plant samples for four weeks and soil samples for three days, iron concentrations in roots, shoots, leaves, and soil were measured with an atomic absorption spectrophotometer using ashing and wet acid digestion. the results showed a significant correlation (r = 0.728, p < 0.05) between the root iron concentration and the total iron in the plant. the analysis of variance revealed differences in iron accumulation in the roots, stems, and leaves of i. carnea. in the industrial areas, the biological absorption coefficient was 0.12 as compared to 0.08 in the non-industrial areas, indicating i. carnea is a low accumulator. the bioconcentration factor and the translocation factor were observed to be higher in the industrial areas. overall, i. carnea was not found to be an effective iron hyperaccumulator in the study area, as indicated by the biological absorption coefficient, bio-concentration factor, and translocation factor values. in addition, the soil iron concentration was within the acceptable limit in the study area. keywords: bioconcentration factor, heavy metals, iron concentration, soil pollution s. r. regmi 1 and b. ghimire 1* received: 09, august 2024 revised: 01, september 2024 accepted: 15, september 2024 published: 22, november 2024 1 faculty of forestry, agriculture and forestry university, makawanpur, hetauda, nepal., *email: bkghimire@afu.edu.np banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2, 2024 pp 61‒71https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v34i2.67060 hyperaccumulators are those species that can accumulate a particular type of metal or metalloid in their biomass which is a hundred or thousand times greater than is normal for most species (van der ent et al., 2013). in accumulator plants, the concentration ratio of the metal in the plant to that in the soil is >1. these species can absorb metal from the soil in large amounts without showing a phytotoxic effect. phytoremediation is the technique of remediation of contaminated sites using hyperaccumulator plants. it comprises phytovolatization, phytodegradation, rhizofiltration, phytostabilization, and phytoextraction (nrmrl, 2000). rapid industrialization and urbanization have created a serious threat of environmental degradation including soil pollution. the most common heavy metals present in the soil are lead, nickel, iron, copper, zinc, mercury, arsenic, and chromium (bakshi et al., 2018). there are different ways to remediate the heavy metals from soil namely, adsorption, soil leaching, electrokinetic remediation, soil removal, and isolation and replacement of contaminated soil (nyiramigisha et al., 2021). when combined with forestry and bio-energy production, phytoremediation can still be economical despite its slow process (robinson et al., 2003). after the chernobyl accident in 1986, cesium and strontium were removed by using sunflowers (ghosh et al., 2021). thus, hyperaccumulator plant species can be a good alternative to remediate the soil contaminated with such heavy metals by extracting the metals in their biomass (ghosh et al., 2021). https://orcid.org/0009-0003-4908-1147 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2169-1280 mailto:bkghimire@afu.edu.np banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 62 regmi & ghimire figure 1: ipomoea carnea plants growing naturally in the study site. belonging to the family 'convolvulaceae', ipomoea carnea jacq. is a shrubby plant (see figure 1) native to tropical america and caribbean, and it has become an invasive plant in nepal (shrestha et al., 2017). it is found growing in degraded land and waterlogged areas, particularly in tropical regions. this species usually grows around 1-3 m erect tall in open habitats whereas in shady habitats it usually likes to climb with twining stems reaching up to 5 m (kulshrestha & dabral, 2018). it is a fast-growing species that yields higher biomass, and has shown potential for phytoextraction of cadmium (ghosh & singh, 2005). besides, it has shown the ability to accumulate metal in roots and translocate them to aerial parts in fly ash dumps (pandey et al., 2016). kulshrestha & dabral (2018) have shown that i. carnea exhibited banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 63 regmi & ghimire considerable metal uptake potential for cadmium (cd), chromium (cr), copper (cu), iron (fe), nickel (ni), lead (pb), and zink (zn) in its roots as well as translocate these to above-ground parts showing high bioconcentration factor for iron. the purpose of this study was to find out whether the naturally growing i. carnea within the ramgram municipality, nawalparasi (west) district meets the criteria of iron hyperaccumulator and to assess its iron phytoremediation capability. the study area possesses different industries like alcohol distillery, steel plants, paper processing plants, brick kilns, and other small wood-based industries. industrial activities are considered major contributors of heavy metals to environmental contamination (he et al., 2005; mpewo et al., 2023). the study also aimed to investigate if these industries are causing iron contamination in the area within 200 m of their surroundings. materials & methods study site the study was conducted within the ramgram municipality of nawalparasi (west) district, western nepal (see figure 2) in 2023. the municipality is situated between 27°28'0"-27°35'0" n latitudes and between 83°35'0"-83°43'0" e longitudes. encompassing over an area of 128.32 sq. km, it is bordered by sunwal municipality on the north, devdaha municipality, omsatiya and rohini rural municipalities on the west, sarawal rural municipality on the east, and palhi nandan rural municipality on the south. it lies nine km. south of mahendra highway from sunwal. the ramgram area includes various industries such as steel plants, paper mills, alcohol distilleries, brick kilns, and other small-scale wood industries. the area within a 100 m radius around these industries was considered as contaminated with heavy metals. figure 2: location of the study area (ramgram municipality), nawalparasi (west) district in the map of nepal. https://nepjol.info/index.php/banko/$$$call$$$/api/file/file-api/download-file?submissionfileid=204780&submissionid=67060&stageid=3 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 64 regmi & ghimire sampling a total of ten locations were chosen within the study area (see figure 3) on the basis of the objectives of the study. the sampling sites, both industrial and non-industrial, were selected randomly. sampling locations s1 to s3 were positioned around the periphery of the alcohol distillery, steel plant, paper plant, and plastic recycling plant, respectively, within a 50-100 meter range. meanwhile, s4 and s5 were located at a waste disposal site. therefore, samples s1 to s5 were classified as industrial samples (polluted areas). the remaining locations (s6 to s10) were situated along roadsides and agricultural fields, more than 1 km away from industrial sites. however, s6 was only 600 meters far from the waste disposal site (s5), and s10 was 500 meters away from the steel plant. two whole plants were collected from each sampling site by carefully digging them out, and they were labeled according to their respective sampling locations. soil samples were collected from the corresponding sites within 15 cm following the techniques used in naveen & madhukar (2022). the whole plant samples were sun-dried for four weeks and soil samples were dried for three days. the root, stem, and leaves were separately stored in a zip-lock plastic bag and labeled. figure 3: sampling locations within the study area. soil and plant analysis both the plant and soil samples were analyzed for iron content using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer (aas) (analytik jena: novaa 350) in accordance with the standard techniques established by the aoac (1990). the dried plant and soil samples were placed in a muffle furnace for ashing at 500 °c for 20 minutes. following this, one gram of the ash sample was taken and digested in 6m hcl, placed in a hot bath for about two hours. once digestion was complete, the resulting sample was analyzed for iron content using the aas. https://nepjol.info/index.php/banko/$$$call$$$/api/file/file-api/download-file?submissionfileid=204781&submissionid=67060&stageid=3 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 65 regmi & ghimire determination of bio-concentration factor, biological absorption coefficient, and translocation factor bio-concentration factor (bcf) is the ratio of the metal accumulated in the root and the metal present in the soil (lorestani et al., 2011). it is calculated as: the biological absorption coefficient (bac) is the ratio of the metal present in the plant and the metal present in the soil (cui et al., 2007; li et al., 2007). it is calculated as: the translocation factor (tf) is the ratio of metal concentration in the leaves & stems and the metal concentration in the root (mellem et al., 2009). it is calculated as: statistical analysis the data were statistically analyzed for analysis of variance (anova) and pearson correlation using the data analysis tool pack in microsoft excel. statistical significance was established at a 5% level of significance. results quantification of iron in soil and plant samples the concentrations of total iron in various parts of the i. carnea plant (root, stem, leaf, and total plant) as well as the iron concentration in the soil for ten distinct samples are presented in table 1. table 1: iron concentration in soil and plant samples (mg/kg) sites sample no. root stem leaf soil total plant remarks 1. s1 469.47 299.50 1493.0 23445.6 2261.50 polluted (industrial area) 2. s2 930.74 274.60 424.6 14903.4 1629.90 3. s3 1796.20 161.70 544.3 10436.6 2502.20 4. s4 471.44 93.40 373.8 18874.6 938.67 5. s5 1263.30 92.48 552.3 15859.0 1908.00 6. s6 597.05 161.10 156.8 13409.0 914.95 non-polluted (non-industrial area) 7. s7 811.05 89.82 284.6 21988.8 1185.50 8. s8 1427.60 343.70 415.0 22239.4 2186.30 9. s9 383.62 170.50 357.9 10313.9 911.98 10. s10 1214.40 199.50 372.4 23668.3 1786.30 the term "total plant" refers to the overall iron concentration in the plant, calculated by adding the iron concentration values from the leaf, stem, and root. the highest total iron concentration in the whole plant was found at s3 (plastic recycling plant) and the lowest was found at s9 (agricultural field). on the other hand, the highest soil iron concentration was found at s10 (the side nearby a less busy road) and the lowest was found at s9 (agricultural field). in the whole plant, the order of total iron concentration was: banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 66 regmi & ghimire s3 (2502.2 mg/kg) > s1 (2261.5mg/kg) > s8 (2186.3mg/kg) > s5 (1908 mg/kg) > s10 (1786.3 mg/kg) > s2 (1629.9 mg/kg) > s7 (1185.5 mg/kg) > s4 (938.67 mg/kg) > s6 (914.95 mg/kg) > s9 (911.98 mg/kg). however, in the soil, the order was: s10 (23668.3 mg/kg) > s1 (23445.6 mg/kg) > s8 (22239.4 mg/kg) > s7 (21988.8 mg/kg) > s4 (18874.6 mg/kg) > s5 (15859 mg/kg) > s2 (14903.4 mg/kg) > s6 (13409 mg/kg) > s3 (10436.6 mg/kg) > s9 (10313.9 mg/kg). the results also showed that the roots and leaves accumulated more iron than the stem in the industrial areas (see figure 4). however, the average iron concentration in the stem from the non-industrial areas was found to be slightly higher. figure 4: mean iron concentration in different plant parts in industrial and non-industrial areas of ramgram municipality. translocation of iron in different parts of i. carnea the tfs between the stem and root, leaf and stem, leaf and root, and shoot (leaf + stem) and root were calculated separately (table 2). the bcf was determined to assess the ratio of the metal accumulated in the roots and the metal present in the soil. in addition, the bac was also calculated to find out how much iron was accumulated from the soil by the plant. the mean values of the bac, bcf, and tf were found to be higher in the industrial area than in the non-industrial area (see figure 5 & table 2). figure 5: mean values of bac, bcf, and tf from industrial and non-industrial area. https://nepjol.info/index.php/banko/$$$call$$$/api/file/file-api/download-file?submissionfileid=204782&submissionid=67060&stageid=3 https://nepjol.info/index.php/banko/$$$call$$$/api/file/file-api/download-file?submissionfileid=204782&submissionid=67060&stageid=3 https://nepjol.info/index.php/banko/$$$call$$$/api/file/file-api/download-file?submissionfileid=204783&submissionid=67060&stageid=3 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 67 regmi & ghimire table 2: translocation factor of iron between different plant parts sites sample no. stem/root leaf/ stem leaf/root shoot/ root bac bcf 1. s1 0.64 4.98 3.18 3.82 0.10 0.02 2. s2 0.30 1.55 0.46 0.75 0.11 0.06 3. s3 0.09 3.37 0.30 0.39 0.24 0.17 4. s4 0.20 4.00 0.79 0.99 0.05 0.02 5. s5 0.07 5.97 0.44 0.51 0.12 0.08 6. s6 0.27 0.97 0.26 0.53 0.07 0.04 7. s7 0.11 3.17 0.35 0.46 0.05 0.04 8. s8 0.24 1.21 0.29 0.53 0.10 0.06 9. s9 0.44 2.10 0.93 1.38 0.09 0.04 10. s10 0.16 1.87 0.31 0.47 0.08 0.05 relation between total iron concentration in soil and plant accumulation the pearson correlation was conducted for different variablesroot, stem, leaf, total plant (total iron concentration in the plant), and total iron concentration in the soil. the results indicated a significant correlation between the iron concentration in the roots and that in the whole plant (p≤0.05). this revealed that an increase in iron concentration in the roots was associated with a rise in iron concentration in the total plant. in addition, the iron concentration between the root-to-stem and leaf-to-stem was positive but root-to-leaf was negative although the relation was statistically insignificant in all cases. comparison of iron concentration in different plant parts single-factor anova was conducted to assess whether there were significant differences in iron concentration among the leaf, stem, and root of i. carnea. the p-value (0.002478964, table 3) was found to be less than the alpha level (0.05), indicating a statistically significant difference in iron concentration among at least two of these groups (leaf, stem, and root). table 3: single factor anova for comparing mean iron concentration in root, stem, and leaf source of variation ss df ms f p-value f crit. between groups 3174030.189 5 634806.0377 5.114 0.002478964 2.621 within groups 2979222.830 24 124134.2846 total 6153253.019 29 note: ss = sum of squares; df = degrees of freedom; ms = mean square; and f crit. = f critical value. discussion the iron concentration in the root of ipomoea carnea was found to be the highest in the sample s3 (1796.2 mg/kg) which is located near the plastic recycling plant followed by the sample s8 (1427.6 mg/kg) located within a non-polluted area. similarly, the iron concentration in the stem and leaf was found to be the highest in the samples s8 (343.7 mg/kg) and s1 (1493 mg/kg), respectively. we observed that, with the exception of the samples s1 and s9, the concentration of iron in the above ground parts (leaves and stems) was slightly low as compared to the underground banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 68 regmi & ghimire part (roots). this differs from the findings of pandey et al. (2016), who reported a higher iron concentration in the aboveground portion of i. carnea in jharkhand, india. according to alloway (1990) and reeves (2002), the safe critical limit of iron, above which toxicity occurs in plants, is >1000 mg/kg. except for the samples s4, s6, and s9, the remaining seven samples in this study surpassed the threshold for iron concentration in the entire plant. nevertheless, there were no observable indications of iron toxicity such as chlorosis and necrosis (zahra et al., 2021), indicating the plant's tolerance to elevated iron levels. despite variations in different parts, the iron concentration in the whole plant was found to be higher in the polluted area in our study. this suggests that various industries in the polluted sites may leach heavy metals into the soil, which ultimately reaches the plant body during nutritional uptake. the results showed that only the tf surpassed a value of one in both industrial and non-industrial areas. while kulshrestha & dabral (2018) found a bcf for iron in i. carnea greater than one, this study did not detect any bcf values above one. this may be explained by the fact that the total soil iron concentration was assessed instead of the bioavailable iron. the bac, bcf, and tf are the parameters used to describe the potential of plants to accumulate and translocate the metal. on the basis of bac, plants can be classified into four categories: (i) high accumulator plants, with 1.0–10 bac; (ii) moderate accumulator plants, with 0.1–1.0 bac, (iii) low accumulator plants, with 0.01–0.1 bac; and (iv) nonaccumulator plants, with bac < 0.01 (aziz et al., 2015). as per this criteria, i. carnea was found to be a moderate accumulator of iron in the industrial areas and a low accumulator in the non-industrial areas. the concentration of 2500 mg/kg in leaves is considered the threshold for iron hyperaccumulators (reeves & baker, 2000). none of the plants sampled in our study reached this concentration. with the exception of the sample s1, all the samples showed higher iron accumulation in the roots, similar to the findings of a study in an iron mine in nawalparasi (east) district, where nearly all species accumulated more iron in the roots (parajuli & chettri, 2020). higher concentrations of iron were observed in the plant roots, followed by the leaves, with the lowest levels detected in the stems. this indicates effective translocation of iron from the stem to the leaves. however, the stem iron concentrations in the non-industrial areas were slightly higher than those in the industrial areas. plants growing near steel plants have been shown to accumulate high levels of heavy metals (ogunkunle et al., 2017). in our study, we also found the accumulation of iron by plants greater in the industrial areas than in the non-industrial areas. a study carried out by bose & bhattacharyya (2008) showed a strong positive correlation between the iron concentration in the roots with the iron concentration in the soil, indicating the increase in the root iron concentration as per the increase in the soil-available iron concentration. however, no correlation was found between the root iron concentration and the total plant iron concentration in this study, which could be because the total iron was assessed in the soil. instead, this study found a strong correlation between the root iron concentration and total plant iron concentration, suggesting that as root iron concentration increases the overall plant iron concentration increases. the threshold concentrations for iron in soil is 50,000 mg/kg (mng’ong’o et al., 2021). this threshold concentration was not found to have exceeded even in the soils of the industrial area in our study. the highest iron concentration in the soil was found in the sample s10 (near a less busy road, 500 m away from the steel plant). it is noteworthy to highlight that the highest concentration was not discovered in the soils of the industrial areas. this suggests that the industrial periphery is not contaminated with heavy metals, such as iron. however, it is important to note that the sample size was small and the samples were collected from the periphery of the industries. thus, drawing a firm conclusion that industries are not polluting the soil with iron might not be reasonable based on the available evidence. on the other hand, higher iron concentration in the cultivated field might be due to the use of chemical fertilizers while on less busy roads, it could result from exhaust emissions and vehicle leakage banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 69 regmi & ghimire (masindi et al., 2021). according to cornell & schwertmann (2003), iron is relatively abundant in cultivated soils, typically ranging from 20,000 mg/kg to 40,000 mg/kg. the concentration of iron at our study sites (7, 8, and 10), located next to the cultivated land, falls within this range. conclusion according to our study, i. carnea does not fulfill the requirements to be considered as an iron hyperaccumulator, making it ineffective for iron phytoremediation. based on the results, it was found to be a low accumulator of iron within the non-industrial areas and a moderate accumulator within the industrial areas. our results, however, indicated significant iron accumulation in the roots and efficient translocation from the stem to the leaves. the concentration of iron in the soil samples was within the threshold values. nevertheless, it is recommended to take a large sample size around an industrial area to detect a possible hotspot of pollution using a geographic information system. authors' contribution both the authors were equally involved in the preparation of this manuscript. however, the first author was involved in the preparation of the conceptual framework of the study, data collection, data analysis, and draft manuscript preparation whereas the second author was, moreover, involved in the preparation of the conceptual framework together with the editing & reviewing of the manuscript. conflict of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest in preparing this manuscript. data availability the data used in this study are accessible upon request to the corresponding author. references alloway, b. j. 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(2000). metalaccumulating plants. in i. raskin & b. d. finsley (eds.). phytoremediation of toxic metals: using plants to clean up the environment. wiley, new york, pp. 193-229. reeves, r. d. (2002). metal tolerance and metal accumulating plant exploration and exploitation. in 9th new phytologist symposium on heavy metals and plants. philadelphia. robinson, b., fernández, j. e., madejón, p., marañón, t., murillo, j. m., green, s., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021 https://doi.org/10.1080/26395940 https://doi.org/10.1080/26395940 https://doi https://doi.org/10.1080/15226514 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 71 regmi & ghimire & clothier, b. (2003). phytoextraction: an assessment of biogeochemical and economic viability. plant and soil, 249 (1): 117–125. doi:10.1023/a:1022586524971 shrestha, b. b., ranjit, j. d., & siwakoti, m. (2017). status of invasive alien plant species in nepal. in b. k. joshi, h. b. kc, & a. k. acharya (eds.). proceedings of 2nd national workshop on conservation and utilization of agricultural plant genetic resources in nepal. 22-23 may, 2017, dhulikhel. http://nepalindata.com van der ent, a., baker, a. j. m., reeves, r. d., pollard, a. j., & schat, h. (2013). hyperaccumulators of metal and metalloid trace elements: facts and fiction. plant and soil, 362 (1–2): 319–334. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104012-1287-3 zahra, n., hafeez, m. b., shaukat, k., wahid, a., & hasanuzzaman, m. (2021). fe toxicity in plants: impacts and remediation. physiologia plantarum, 173 (1): 201–22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-012-1287-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-012-1287-3 _hlk143161325 2.2._input_data _hlk178967326 3 lichens, vital components of the ecosystem, are distinct mutualistic groups of autotrophic organisms (baniya & bhatta, 2021). they are widely distributed and highly diversified. they occur in a wide range of habitats throughout the world and are considered pioneer colonizers of the terrestrial ecosystem (negi and upreti, 2009). some species of lichens are found in both the freshwater stream and marine intertidal zones (hawksworth, 2000). based on where they occur, lichens can be categorized into corticolous (on the tree bark), follicolous (on the leaf), saxicolous (on the rock) and terricolous (on the soil) lichens. the thallus of lichens shows morphological variation and exists in different growth forms such as crustose, leprose, squamulose, foliose and fruticose (upreti et al., 2015). lichens have the ability to obtain water and nutrient directly from their surrounding air. as a consequence, they are more sensitive to changing environmental conditions (gausalaa, 2014). hence, alteration in lichens diversity is assumed to indicate the changes in environmental conditions (shukla et al., 2014). furthermore, the changes in topographical variables and environmental factors are reported to affect the banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2, 2022 pp 3‒18https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i2.50892 distribution pattern of corticolous lichens in different areas of kathmandu valley, nepal this study attempts to document the lichen species and their distribution in different areas of kathmandu valley, nepal. twenty sampling sites with different degrees of air pollution categorized as disturbed (industrial, heavy traffic and residential areas) and undisturbed areas (clean area) were selected for the study. sampling was done using the quadrat method. to enumerate the total number of lichen species found in kathmandu valley, lichen specimens were collected from inside as well as outside the quadrats. a total of 97 species of corticolous lichens belonging to 21 families and 44 genera were recorded from the study sites. parmeliaceae was the largest family followed by graphidaceae. the importance value analysis showed that candelaria concolor (115.2), dirinaria aegialita, lepraria sp., phaeophyscia hispidula var. hispidula and physcia sorediosa (106.02) are the most common and dominant lichen species in kathmandu valley. among the most common and dominant lichen species, candelaria concolor, dirinaria aegialita, phaeophyscia hispidula var. hispidula and physcia sorediosa were found concentrated in heavy traffic areas whereas lepraria sp. in the industrial areas. a higher number of lichen species (70%) was recorded in undisturbed areas than in disturbed areas (50%). these study confirm that the distribution of lichen flora is strongly influenced by degrees of pollution. this in turn suggests that lichens can be used as bio indicators of air quality in the kathmandu valley. keywords coverage, flora, importance value, pollution, quadrat n. karmacharya 1*, d. k. upreti 2, and m. k. chettri 3 received: 5, may 2022 revised: 24, november 2022 accepted: 14, december 2022 published: 31, december 2022 1 botany department, padma kanya multiple campus, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal, * email:karmacharya129@gmail.com 2 lichenology laboratory, csir-national botanical research institute, lucknow (up), india 3 botany department, amrit campus, tribhuvan university, lainchaur, kathmandu, nepal banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 4 karmacharya et al. distribution, diversity and abundance of the lichens (hauck, 2011). therefore, lichens are globally recognized and utilized as bioindicators of a variety of environmental conditions (garty, 2001; gupta et al., 2014; de silva & senanayake, 2015). besides, lichens are of high economic value and are used as food, medicines, natural remedies, perfumes, dyes, etc. (upreti et al., 2015; devkota et al., 2017; crawford, 2019; yang et al., 2021). furthermore, lichens are chemically rich and produce more than 1000 different types of secondary metabolites. among them, more than 90% are unique to themselves and show a variety of biological activities (elix & stockerwӧrgӧtter, 2008). globally, about 20,000 species of lichens are known so far, of which india harbors 2,963 species (islary et al., 2022). the lichens of different parts of nepal had been studied by various native and foreign lichenologists for several years and 1,129 taxa have been recorded so far (baniya et al., 2022). sharma (1995) estimated 2,000 lichen species in nepal. the copious presence of lichens in the country is due to the diverse topographic condition together with varied climatic conditions (jha et al. 2017). although several lichenological explorations have been undertaken in the central, western and eastern regions of nepal (sharma, 1995; baniya et al., 2001; olley & sharma, 2013; rai et al., 2016; chongbang et al., 2018), only a few have undertaken a thorough collection of lichens from the kathmandu valley (baniya & bhatta, 2021). hence, the present study aims to enumerate the corticolous lichens in kathmandu valley and analyze their distribution pattern in areas with different degrees of pollution i.e., disturbed (industrial, heavy traffic, residential) and undisturbed (clean) areas within kathmandu valley. materials and methods study areas the study areas were located in the kathmandu valley (27042’ n and 85020’ e) of bagmati province, central nepal. twenty sampling sites under four study areas with different degrees of air pollution categorized as disturbed (industrial, heavy traffic and residential areas) and undisturbed areas (clean areas) were selected for the study (figure 1). sampling was done during dry season i.e., october 2016 ‒ january 2017. as we were interested in corticolous (barkinhabiting) lichens, sampling sites were chosen based on the availability of lichens on the bark of the host trees. collection of lichen specimens specimens of lichens were collected from all the sampling sites. at each site, five old and big trees (having more than 80-120 cm trunk diameter) were selected within the area of 100 x 100 m based on the availability of lichens on the tree barks. sampling was carried out by placing a quadrat of 20 x 20 cm (having 4 sub-quadrats of 10 x 10 cm) on four sides of the tree trunk at a height of 1.5 m (breast height) above the ground level, without overlapping (asta et al., 2002; pinokiyo et al., 2008; conti, 2008). the standard size of the quadrat was determined by the species-area curve method (asta et al., 2002). altogether 400 quadrats were laid on 100 trees in 20 sampling sites (i.e., 20 quadrats in each sampling site). the coverage and frequency of each lichen species within each quadrat were recorded. all the available lichen specimens were collected from each quadrat. to enumerate the lichen species found in kathmandu valley, specimens present outside of the quadrats were also collected. for this, specimens present on any trees with an area of 100 x 100 m at each sampling site (up to ca. 2200 m altitudes in clean areas) were collected. altogether 230 lichen specimens, including 136 specimens inside the quadrats, were collected from 20 sampling sites under four study areas (industrial, heavy traffic, residential and clean areas) of kathmandu valley. forest conservation rules and strategies were followed while collecting the specimens and a very small quantity of lichen specimens was collected for identification. the collected specimens together with their primary identification information like color, substrate type, quadrat number, collection number, and name of the sampling site were placed in individual paper bags and curated according to the standard protocol of awasthi (2000). banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 5 karmacharya et al. figure 1: map of the study area showing the location of 20 sampling sites banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 6 karmacharya et al. lichen identification identification of lichen specimens was carried out at the lichenology laboratory of the council of scientific & industrial research-national botanical research institute, lucknow, india. the lichen specimens were identified on the basis of their morphology, anatomy and chemistry. the morphological and anatomical details of the specimens were studied using standard light microscopy techniques under stereomicroscope leicatm s8apo and optical microscope leicatm dm500 respectively. the chemistry of the lichens was studied by spot color test, uvlight and thin layer chromatography (tlc) with solvent system a using protocol of elix and ernstrussel (1993) and orange et al. (2001). authentication and documentation of identified lichen species identification, changes of nomenclature and novelties of the species were authenticated using monographs, relevant keys, literature and checklists (awasthi, 1991, 2007; wolseley & aptroot, 2009; jagadeesh ram & sinha, 2009, 2011; singh & sinha, 2010; mishra et al., 2011; aptroot, 2012; olley & sharma, 2013; ingle et al., 2017; kantvilas et al., 2018). nomenclature changes with current name of each species was also checked using the website address (http:// www.indexfungorum.org/names/names.asp). after identification, the herbarium of each species was prepared following the protocol of nayaka (2014) and labeled with the name and family of species, detail of locality, date of collection, name of collector and collection number. all the prepared herbaria were deposited at the national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari, kathmandu, nepal. calculation of importance value assemblage of lichens was quantitatively analyzed by determining their importance values. the importance values (iv) of lichen species were calculated according to printos et al. (1993, 1995), which were the sum total of relative coverage (rc) and relative frequency (rf). iv = rc + rf the rc and the rf were calculated by using the following formulae. rc = (coverage of individual species/sum of coverage of all species) x 100 rf = (frequency of individual species/sum of frequency of all species) x 100 results lichen species found in kathmandu valley a total of 97 species of epiphytic lichens (including 61 species inside the quadrats) belonging to 21 families and 44genera were identified (table 1). among the families reported, parmeliaceae was the largest family with 8 genera and 20 species followed by graphidaceae with 7 genera and 20 species. physciaceae, a very common family reported from all the study areas including areas with high anthropogenic activities, was the third largest family with 5 genera and 16 species. the photobiont study showed that the lichen species with green algae (trebouxia and trentepohlia) as photobiont dominated the study areas. the cyanophycean lichens with blue-green algae (photobiont – nostoc) exhibited their poor distribution as represented by only one family collemataceae with two species and reported from shady and moist places of the balaju industrial site, ranibari site and suryabinayak site. banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 7 karmacharya et al. table 1: lichen species found in kathmandu valley showing their family name, name of lichen species, their accession number and growth form sn name of family name of lichen species accession number growth form 1 parmeliaceae bulbothrix isidiza (nyl.) hale 17-174b foliose bulbothrix meizospora ((nyl.) hale 17-176 foliose bulbothrix setschwanensis (zahlbr.) hale 16-126 foliose canoparmelia pustulescens (kurok.) elix. 16-096a foliose canoparmelia texana (tuck.) elix & hale 16-116 foliose hypotrachyna cirrhata (fr.) divakar, a. crespo, sipman, elix & lumbsch 17-145 foliose hypotrachyna majoris (vain.) hale 17-181 foliose hypotrachyna physcioides (nyl.) hale 17-177 foliose myelochroa subaurulenta (nyl.) elix & hale 17-172 foliose myelochroa xantholepis (mont. & bosch) elix & hale 16-096b foliose parmelinella wallichiana (taylor) elix & hale 17-168 foliose parmotrema austrosinense (zahlbr.) hale 16-028 foliose parmotrema praesorediosum (nyl.) hale 16-026a foliose parmotrema pseudonilgherrense (asahina) hale 17-175 foliose parmotrema reticulatum (taylor) choisy 16-094 foliose parmotrema tinctorum (nyl) hale 16-069 foliose remototrachyna awasthii (hale & patwardhan) divakar & a. crespo 16-061 foliose remototrachyna flexilis (kurok.) divakar & a. crespo 16-100 foliose usnea eumitrioides motyka 17-146 fruticose usnea orientalis motyka 17-205a fruticose 2 graphidaceae allographa cleistoblephara (nyl.) lücking & kalb 16-016 crustose allographa leprographa (nyl.) lücking & kalb 16-133a/c crustose diorygma hieroglyphicum (pers.) staiger & kalb 16-148 crustose diorygma junghuhnii (mont. & bosch.) kalb, staiger & elix 16-089 crustose graphina anguina (mont.) müll. arg 16-093a/b crustose graphis antillarum vain 17-207c crustose graphis breussii g. neuwirth & lücking 16-093c crustose graphis cincta (pers.) aptroot 16-046 crustose graphis galactoderma (zahlbr.) lücking 17-158b crustose graphis lineola ach. 16-109b crustose graphis paradisserpens sipman and lücking 16-093a/a crustose graphis paraserpens lizano and lücking 16-182 crustose graphis perticosa (kremp) a. w. archer 16-163a crustose graphis pinicola zahlbr. 17-200a crustose graphis proserpens vain 17-149 crustose graphis stenotera vain. 16-093b crustose pallidogramme chrysenteron (mont.) staiger, kalb & lücking 17-163b crustose pallidogramme divaricoides (räs.) pushpi singh & kr.p. singh 16-089b crustose phaeographis leiogrammodes (kremp.) mull. arg. 17-196a crustose thalloloma subvelata (stirt.) d.j. galloway 17-196b crustose banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 8 karmacharya et al. sn name of family name of lichen species accession number growth form 3 physciaeae heterodermia diademata (taylor) d.d.awasthi 16-132 foliose heterodermia firmula (linds.) trevis. 16-088a foliose heterodermia incana (stirt.) d.d.awasthi 17-221 foliose heterodermia speciosa (wulfen) trevis. 17-142 foliose hyperphyscia adglutinata var. pyrithrocardia (mull. arg.) d.d. awasthi 16-120 foliose hyperphyscia minor (fée) d.d. awasthi 16-059 foliose hyperphyscia isidiata moberg 16-108d foliose phaeophyscia hispidula var. hispidula (ach.) essl. 16-003a foliose phaeophyscia pyrrhophora (poelt) d.d. awasthi & m. joshi 16-127a foliose physcia abuensis d.d. awasthi & s.r. singh 16-068 foliose physcia aipolia (ehrh. ex humb.) fürnr 16-029 foliose physcia crispa (nyl) 16-014 foliose physcia dubia (hoffm.) lettau 16-064a foliose physcia integrata (nyl.) arnold 16-98 foliose physcia sorediosa (vain.) lynge 16-010b foliose polyblastidium japonicum (m. satô) kalb 17-195 foliose 4 arthoniaceae arthothelium subruanum makhija & patw 17-160 crustose herpothallon flavominutum jagad. ram, g.p. sinha & elix 16-091 crustose herpothallon granulosum jagad. & g.p. sinha 17-197 crustose herpothallon himalayanum jagad. & g.p. sinha 16-089c crustose herpothallon isidiatum jagad. and g. p. sinha crustose herpothallon philippinum (vain.) aptroot & lücking 16-042 crustose herpothallon sticticum jagad. & g.p. sinha 17-186 crustose stirtonia psoromica aptroot & wolseley 17-207a crustose 5 ramalinaceae bacidia incongruens (stirt.) zahlbr. 16-090a crustose bacidia rubella (hoffm.) a. massal 17-190 crustose phyllopsora corallina (eschw.) müll. arg. 16-066b squamulose phyllopsora furfuracea (pers.) zahlbr. 17-153 squamulose ramalina conduplicans vain. 17-144 fruticose 6 caliciaceae dirinaria aegialita (afzel. ex ach.) b.j. moore 16-010b/b foliose dirinaria consimilis (stirt.) d.d. awasthi 16-123a/b foliose pyxine reticulata (vain.) vain. 16-035 foliose pyxine subcinerea stirt. 16-123b foliose 7 pertusariaceae lepra leucosorodes (nyl.) i. schmitt, b.g. hodk. & lumbsch 16-147 crustose pertusaria melastomella nyl 17-164 crustose 8 lecanoraceae lecanora achroa nyl. 16-095 crustose lecanora chlarotera nyl. 17-182e crustose lecanora interjecta mull. arg. 17-166a crustose lecanora leprosa fée essai 17-182b crustose 9 cladoniaceae cladonia cervicornis (ach.) flot. 17-151a fruticose cladonia corniculata ahti & kashiw. 17-151b fruticose cladonia subradiata (vain.) sandst. 17-154 fruticose 10 candelariaceae candelaria concolor (dicks.) arnold 16-001 foliose candelaria indica (hue) vain. 16-124a foliose banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 9 karmacharya et al. sn name of family name of lichen species accession number growth form 11 collemataceae leptogium burnetiae dodge 17-171 foliose leptogium wilsonii zahlbr. 16-015 foliose 12 pyrenulaceae pyrenula astroidea (fée) r.c. harris 16-186 crustose pyrenula submastophora ajay singh & upreti 16-92 crustose 13 byssolomataceae byssoloma subdiscordans (nyl.) p. james 16-90 crustose 14 leprocaulaceae leprocaulon coriense (hue) lendemer & b.p. hodk. 16-087b crustose 15 teloschistaceae opeltia flavorubescens (huds.) s.y. kondr. & hur 16-046b/b crustose 16 chrysothrichaceae chrysothrix candelaris (l.) j.r. laundon 16-020 leprose 17 coccocarpiaceae coccocarpia erythroxyli (spreng.) swinscow & krog 17-178 foliose 18 coenogoniaceae coenogonium lutescens (vezta & malcolm) malcom 17-154 crustose 19 malmideaceae malmidea granifera (ach.) kalb, rivas plata & lumbsch 17-171a crustose 20 stereocaulaceae lepraria sp. 16-018 leprose 21 trypetheliaceae polymeridium submuriforme aptroot 16-072 crustose among the 44 genera reported, graphis was the largest genus with 11 species followed by herpothallon and physcia with six species each, and parmotrema with five species (table 1). the study of growth forms revealed that kathmandu valley has almost an equal number of crustose (44 species) and foliose (43 species) lichens (table 1). the crustose lichens (45%) dominated the areas followed by foliose lichens (44%) (figure 2). the foliose and crustose lichens showed their diversity in all the disturbed and undisturbed areas including high elevation in clean areas. whereas, the fruticose form of lichens was reported only from the high elevation in clean areas. figure 2: lichen species found in kathmandu valley by their growth forms importance value (iv) of lichen species the study revealed that there is considerable variation in lichen species composition and abundance among 20 sampling sites across four study areas of kathmandu valley (table 2). among the 61 species identified inside the quadrats, 43 (70%) species were reported from clean (undisturbed) areas while 31 (50%) species were reported from disturbed areas (industrial, heavy traffic and residential areas). the most common and dominant species of the valley were candelaria concolor (iv ranges from 3.5 to 115.2), dirinaria aegialita (iv ranges from 14.2 to 45.9), lepraria sp. (iv ranges from 5.9 to 74.1), phaeophyscia hispidula var. hispidula (iv ranges from 7.3 to 67.7) and physcia sorediosa (iv ranges from 9.4 to 106.02) (table 2). these species were reported from all the study areas and have a high importance value in most of the sampling sites of disturbed areas (industrial, heavy traffic and residential areas) than in undisturbed (clean) areas. among the all species recorded in quadrates, candelaria concolor was found with the highest importance value (115.2) at heavy traffic areas followed by physcia sorediosa (106.02) in the same area and both species were reported from 95% of sampling sites, with exception of the phulchoki sampling site, a clean area. contrary to this, the species like banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 10 karmacharya et al. bacidia incongruens and remototrachyna flexilis have the lowest importance value (1.0) followed by hypotrachyna cirrhata (2.3) and leptogium burnetiae (2.4) in clean areas. among the species of all twenty sampling sites, 52.5% of the species were confined to only one sampling site. the rest of the species were relatively restricted in particular sites. table 2: impotance value of lichen species (n = 20) for each sampling site in the study areas. (* name of sampling site: figure 1) name of lichen species industrial areas heavy traffic areas residential areas clean areas 1* 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 allographa cleistoblephara 2.7 allographa leprographa 32.5 bacidia incongruens 1.0 bulbothrix isidiza 9.2 21.1 bulbothrix setschwanensis 9.6 10.1 byssoloma subdiscordans 14.3 candelaria concolor 90.3 11.5 7.3 15.2 55.3 64.4 16.0 115.2 22.9 100.5 5.5 22.1 23.3 24.6 10.1 22.2 17.7 5.4 3.5 candelaria indica 13.7 canoparmelia pustulescens 6.5 24.5 24.8 canoparmelia texana 20.1 16.2 12.2 15.3 3.5 33.3 4.8 chrysothrix candelaris 7.5 6.9 15.3 12.0 16.1 2.2 16.1 17.0 diorygma hieroglyphicum 10.3 diorygma junghuhnii 5.7 30.5 dirinaria aegialita 24.5 45.91 14.2 15.3 21.0 20.0 35.9 42.8 17.7 42.1 16.1 15.4 dirinaria consimilis 15.4 graphina anguina 8.6 graphis breussii 2.8 graphis cincta 10.2 5.4 5.2 1.5 graphis lineola 5.5 graphis stenotera 4.2 herpothallon flavominutum 18.6 herpothallon granulosum 10.0 44.2 herpothallon himalaya 11.8 herpothallon isidiatum 41.8 herpothallon philippinum 21.5 55.4 heterodermia diademata 11.0 2.3 heterodermia firmula 10.4 heterodermia speciosa 11.4 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 11 karmacharya et al. name of lichen species industrial areas heavy traffic areas residential areas clean areas 1* 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 hyperphyscia adglutinata var. pyrithrocardia 32.0 30.0 7.2 12.9 hyperphyscia isidiata 6.7 hyperphyscia minor 25.3 4.77 30.3 21.8 9.4 6.1 hypotrachyna cirrhata 2.3 lecanora achroa 16.7 5.4 lecanora chlarotera 4.7 lepraria sp. 27.4 74.1 41.14 29.9 15.9 28.9 16.8 34.5 21.7 21.2 45.6 5.9 11.0 leptogium burnetiae 2.4 leptogium wilsonii 3.0 13.9 lithocalla ecorticata 38.70 myelochroa xantholepis 5.0 opeltia flavorubescens 5.2 pallidogramme divaricoides 11.8 parmotrema austrosinense 7.1 parmotrema praesorediosum 2.9 19.4 5.3 7.8 12.4 6.6 6.6 parmotrema reticulatum 7.6 21.6 parmotrema tinctorum 4.5 6.7 1.8 2.8 7.5 phaeophyscia hispidula var. hispidula 12.4 25.3 67.7 61.6 25.6 26.9 16.3 7.3 25.3 8.8 43.3 7.4 phaeophyscia pyrrhophora 3.0 phyllopsora corallina 33.2 physcia abuensis 7.7 physcia aipolia 3.7 13.3 physcia crispa 35.1 45.3 physcia dubia 20.0 12.7 69.6 2.2 13.4 11.6 1.5 6.2 physcia integrata 1.6 15.9 physcia sorediosa 52.8 35.6 35.7 25.2 106.02 37.7 14.8 42.1 43.2 66.3 22.6 75.7 32.5 47.7 39.6 50.8 12.5 14.5 9.4 polymeridium submuriforme 37.9 pyrenula astroidea 8.1 pyrenula submastophora 4.1 pyxine reticulata 9.7 7.5 8.3 pyxine subcinerea 37.4 11.7 18.0 6.1 remototrachyna awasthii 9.1 5.5 remototrachyna flexilis 1.0 banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 12 karmacharya et al. discussion lichen species found in kathmandu valley this study revealed that a total of 97 species of corticolous lichens are found in kathmandu valley (table 1). previously, baniya et al. (2001) enumerated 99 species of lichens from shivapuri (clean forest area), kathmandu and sikles, pokhara. but in this case, 97 species of bark-inhabiting lichens were reported only from kathmandu valley. this number is quite high in comparison to the previous study from kathmandu valley alone, which may be due to the variation in topography and heterogeneity in a climate with diverse vegetation in the study areas which provides good habitat for the luxuriant growth of lichens. the rich lichen flora in a particular region was dependent upon their growth, development, diversity and a wide range of interrelated environmental factors (brunialt & giordani, 2003; sequiera & muktesh, 2008). similarly, chonbang et al., (2018) observed that the distribution of lichen community was significantly affected by elevation gradient, different land use types and variations in canopy openness in the kanchenjunga conservation area, eastern nepal. in recent years, many nepalese lichenologists have enumerated and studied the distribution pattern of lichen flora in different parts of the country. in this contest, baniya & gupta (2002) reported 77 species from thodimai of annapurna conservation areas and 78 species from the buffer zone of makalu-barun national park. similarly, devkota (2008) enumerated 32 species of lichens from phulchowki hill, lalitpur. in the same way, baral (2015) reported 68 species from sagarmatha national park and 13 species from manaslu conservation area. among the species recorded from kathmandu valley, 18 lichen species of graphidaceae are new records for nepal (karmacharya et al., 2018). similarly, rai et al. (2016) added 28 species of lichens from dadeldhura, mahakali zone, as new to nepal. these findings indicate the occurrence of rich lichen flora in the country and many areas are still unexplored lichenologically. among the 21 families reported in this study, parmeliaceae and graphidaceae, which exhibited the same number of species were the largest families in the kathmandu valley. globally these two families are the largest with 2,765 lichen species under parmeliaceae and 2,161 species under graphidaceae (lucking et al., 2016). similarly, the finding of singh & sinha (1997) also supported our study as they reported parmeliaceae (199 species) is the largest family in india. this study recorded the corticolous lichens with the green algae as a photobiont in most of the study areas whereas cyanophycean lichens with blue-green algae as photobiont showed poor diversity representing only two species of a single-family collymataceae. cyanophycean lichens are shade-adopted and moisturedependent. hence these two cyanolichens were found in shade and moisture conditions. many numbers of shade-loving and moisture-tolerant cyanophycean lichens including collemataceae were observed in the bolampatti ii forest range, in tamil nadu, india (balaji and hariharan, 2013). among the growth form studied, crustose lichens dominate the study areas followed by foliose lichens. contrary to this, chongbang et al. (2018) observed a higher number of foliose lichens compared to other growth forms in the kanchenjunga conservation area of eastern nepal. this difference in growth forms might be due to the variation in habitat as kathmandu valley is a polluted urban area whereas kanchejunga is a comparatively clean area. they also observed that the area was dominated by corticolous lichens and showed poor diversity of cyanophycean lichens supporting this study. in the study, fruticose lichens were reported only from higher altitudes. this finding is comparable to pinokiyo et al. (2008), who observed a higher abundance of crustose lichens than other growth forms and an absence of fruticose lichens at lower altitudes of arunachal pradesh in northeast india. fruticose lichens prefer areas having good air quality with appropriate light conditions (wolseley and pryor, 1999). lichen diversity the study of importance value (table 2) investigated the effect of different areas of pollution gradients on the distribution and diversity of corticolous lichens. the distribution banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 13 karmacharya et al. and species richness of corticolous lichens were not uniform and were found different in different study areas of kathmandu valley. undisturbed (clean) areas have rich lichen diversity and supported more species compared to sampling sites of disturbed (polluted) areas (industrial, heavy traffic and residential areas) (table 2). similar results have been obtained by various researchers (das et al., 2013; agnanet al., 2017; khastini et al., 2019). pinokiyo et al. (2008), also observed a higher number of corticolous lichen species in the dense forest of the undisturbed central zone than in areas along the roadsides located towards the periphery of the sanctuary in northeast india. distribution and diversity of epiphytic lichen flora are influenced by changes in microclimate, air quality, local sources of disturbance, alteration in environmental pollution and habitat fragmentation (brunialti & giordani, 2003; moen & jonsson, 2003; jayalal et al., 2015; das et al., 2013; khastini et al., 2019). in the present study, the occurrence of a higher number of lichen species in undisturbed areas could be due to the presence of forest patches with dense vegetation, suitable environmental conditions, sufficient moisture, unpolluted air and undisturbed stratum (purvis, 2000; nayaka, 2014; jayalal et al., 2015). on the contrary, the decrease of lichen species in disturbed (polluted) areas may be the cause of industrial activities, the density of road traffic and anthropogenic activities which influence the epiphytic vegetation to decline (gombert, et al. 2004; seaward, 2008; llop et al., 2012; das et al., 2013; sett & kundu, 2016; khastini et al., 2019). weerakon et al., (2020) observed that the diversity and community composition of corticolous lichens were strongly influenced by the richness of tree species, vegetation type and disturbance in the study area. the present study revealed that the most common and dominant group of lichens species in kathmandu valley were candelaria concolor (dicks.) arnold, dirinaria aegialita (afzel. ex ach.) b.j. moore, lepraria sp., (afzel. ex ach.) b.j. moore, phaeophyscia hispidula var. hispidula (ach.) essl. and physcia sorediosa (vain.) lynge. these species were reported from all the study areas of different degrees of pollution levels (industrial, heavy traffic, residential and clean areas) and have comparatively high importance values in disturbed areas (table 2). candelaria concolor and lepraria sp. are nitrophilous species and are able to thrive in both polluted and clean areas (fibrous et al., 2017). similarly, dirinaria aegialita and members of lichen belonging to physciaceae (phaeophyscia hispidula var. hispidula and physcia sorediosa) are pollutiontolerant species and able to exist in areas with high anthropogenic activity (shukla & upreti, 2011; nag et al., 2020; díaz et al., 2021). among these species, candelaria concolor and physcia sorediosa exhibited the highest importance value in polluted areas indicating more tolerant species than other species. hence, the high iv value of these species can be used as suitable indicators for monitoring air quality. epiphytic lichens are good indicators to monitor air quality as they are very sensitive to changing environments (das et al., 2013; jayalal et al., 2015; varela et al., 2018; loppi, 2019). the species like bacidia incongruens, remototrachyna flexilis, hypotrachyna cirrhata and leptogium burnetiae which showed their occurrence in undisturbed (clean) areas having no industries, less traffic and minimum anthropogenic activities can be considered sensitive species. similarly, the lichen species having high importance value and mostly growing in more or less polluted sites with industrial, heavy traffic and anthropogenic activities (disturbed areas) can be considered pollution-tolerant species (mishra et al., 2016). in this way, the distribution and diversity of tolerant and sensitive lichens species help to distinguish the high and less polluted localities in the study areas. conclusion the study showed that a total of 97 species of corticolous lichens are found in kathmandu valley indicating the lichen species richness of study areas. the areas with rich lichen diversity indicate a low level of environmental pollution whereas the areas with poor lichen diversity indicates a high level of pollution. the most dominant species of the valley are candelaria concolor, dirinaria aegialita, lepraria sp., phaeophyscia hispidula var. hispidula and physcia sorediosa, which banko janakari, vol 32 no. 2 14 karmacharya et al. can be considered pollution-tolerant species whereas the species like bacidia incongruens, remototrachyna flexilis, hypotrachyna cirrhata and leptogium burnetiaeare are rare species that can be considered pollution-sensitive species. in this way, the present study helps us to learn about tolerant and sensitive species of the valley. the findings of this research provide a suitable platform for monitoring the air quality of kathmandu valley using these species for future purposes. acknowledgments neena karmacharya is thankful to the university grant commission, bhaktapur, nepal for the award of a ph.d. fellowship and grant and nepal association of science and technology (nast) and indian national science and technology (insa) for the financial support to visit csir– national botanical research institute, lucknow, india. the department of botany, amrit campus, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal and csir–national botanical research institute, lucknow, india are also highly acknowledged for providing laboratory facilities for lichen identification. references agnan, y., probst, a., & séjalon-delmas, n. 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(2021). ethnolichenology—the use of lichens in the himalayas and southwestern parts of china. diversity, 13, 1‒16. banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal ecological assessment and restoration ecological assessments facilitate understanding of an area's past, present, and future conditions through comprehensive description of ecosystem patterns, processes, and functions. they synthesize our knowledge on ecological systems, and commonly describe the biophysical and social limits of a system, the interrelations of its ecosystem components, and the uncertainties and assumptions that underlie a given assessment effort. ecological assessments are not decision documents because they do not resolve issues or provide direct solutions to specific policy questions. instead, they provide foundation for proposed additions or changes to existing land management plans or regulatory policies, and are a critical component for implementing principles of ecosystem management in land management planning. forest ecosystem provides important services both for the animals and birds that live in forest and for humans who use the forest for a variety of purposes. to remain healthy, many forest species rely on periodic disturbances such as wildfire. however, some disturbances, such as deforestation, may instead impair the normal functioning of a forest by increasing soil erosion or by eliminating wildlife habitat. deforested lands can be, no doubt, restored through reforestation; the reforestation process may include the ecological succession, the long-term evolution of the structure of an ecosystem’s biological community that follows a disturbance event. excessive resource use and the associated environmental degradation in the country are responsible for the accelerated rate of natural disasters like soil erosion, land degradation and mass wasting, which in turn are making the ecosystems threatened. ecosystem degradation is one of the major environmental problems in nepal. nepal's ecosystems are very fragile and prone to degradation both inherently and in response to anthropogenic activities. in nepal, ecosystem degradation, mainly the forest degradation, has adverse environmental and social implications. rising demand and increasing utilization of resources (timber, fuel and fodder) from forests and grasslands to sustain increasing growth of nepal’s population is one of the major causes of degradation of these ecosystems. the loss and degradation of forests have been increasing in the churia and terai regions during the last few decades. water erosion in different forms causes loss of huge amount of soil from the nepal himalaya. similarly, wind erosion and chemical and physical deterioration of land are also responsible for loss of soils. in an effort to conserve critical ecosystems, the government of nepal has set aside nearly onefourth of the country’s area as the protected ones. these areas are not only playing a crucial role in the conservation of diverse ecosystems but also providing a range of environmental, social and economic benefits contributing to human well-being. however, anthropogenic activities have made such areas susceptible to degradation. protected areas are experiencing overexploitation of resources, unplanned infrastructure development, uncontrolled forest fires, climate change https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i2.33474 2 and pollution, leading to habitat loss and ecosystem degradation. invasive plant species, such as mikania micrantha, eupatorium adenophorum, e. odoratum, lantana camara, and parthenium species, are proliferating in protected areas, leading to destruction and shrinkage of habitats of native flora and fauna. over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any other period of time due to increasing demand for resources (food, fresh water, timber, fiber, and fuel) and advancing technology. in the meantime, efforts of ecological restoration have also been in place. the common understanding of ecological restoration suggests human actions; they fall along a continuum from passive to active corrective options. in the passive option, the ecosystem requiring restoration is left as it is to heal itself through ecological succession, soil building, and colonization of the area by the species that have been extirpated directly or indirectly by humans. in the active option, direct human interventions, such as plantation are applied to the area requiring restoration. the ecosystem restoration programs and projects as such have rarely been implemented in nepal. however, ecosystem restoration has long been an integral part of some national priority programs and initiatives, such as community forestry and protected area management programs. the community forestry program, which is considered as one of the most successful forest management programs in nepal, has been able to restore a large area of degraded forests, especially in the middle hills of nepal. similarly, ecosystem restoration activities have been regularly implemented in many protected areas. restoration of degraded ecosystems has also been integrated into the special landscape management programs like the terai arc landscape, the sacred himalayan landscape, the kailash sacred landscape, the chitwan-annapurna landscape, and various watershed management programs. these various efforts aim to contribute to nepal’s commitment to the convention on biological diversity (cbd) and aichi declaration. restoration and maintenance of ecosystems in a country require continued efforts; the first and foremost steps for the same include characterization, classification and mapping of ecosystems. in nepal, several attempts have been made time and again for the purpose. however, the vegetation maps prepared by dobremez and his colleagues in the 1970s have been the basis of all those efforts. the existing classifications of ecosystem are based on limited field studies of vegetation composition and structure, and analysis of bioclimatic and ecological conditions. in this regard, the forest research and training centre, under the ministry of forests and environment, with the technical assistance from the ukaid’s policy and institutions facility and the usaid’s hariyo ban program, has initiated the ecosystem and forest type mapping (eftm) program to standardize the classification of nepal’s ecosystems, and update the related maps based on a comprehensive and systematic study. the program also aims at assessing ecosystem threats and vulnerabilities. besides this program, the frtc has also been carrying out field studies to identify appropriate interventions to restore the degraded forests in the churia and middle mountain regions. the findings of these research initiatives are expected to support decision making on ecosystem restoration and management across the country through a combined effort of federal, provincial, and local governments. editors banko janakari banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2, 2020 40 high-altitude forests in nepal offer various essential services, such as firewood, construction materials along with edible and medicinal plants, which are crucial for subsistence survival in challenging environmental conditions (dhamala et al., 2020). the total forest area in the country has increased from 39.99% (5,915,518 ha) in 2000 to 41.69% (6,166,766 ha) in 2019 (frtc, 2022). forests act as natural carbon sinks, absorbing vast amounts of co2 from the atmosphere and playing a pivotal role in regulating global temperatures. however, they are under unprecedented threat from deforestation, degradation, and wildfires, exacerbating the climate crisis (ipcc, 2023). community structure, composition, and vegetative function are pivotal ecological attributes of forests, exhibiting variations in response to both environmental and anthropogenic factors (rana et al., 2020). climate change and anthropogenic disturbances are causing notable changes in the structure, composition, and regeneration of natural forests in the himalayan region of nepal. temperatures are found to be increasing across nepal, with an average yearly trend of 0.06°c, particularly population structure and regeneration of tsuga dumosa and abies spectabilis across altitudinal gradient in rasuwa district, central nepal in nepal, tsuga dumosa thrives well between 2,100−3,600 m altitudes above the mean sea level, mostly in the temperate region while abies spectabilis occurs between 3,000−4,200 m altitude above the mean sea level in the sub-alpine region. research on mature t. dumosa-a. spectabilis forests in nepal is limited. this study aimed to analyze the population structure and regeneration status of t. dumosa and a. spectabilis in the high-altitude mixed forests of rasuwa, central nepal. conducted in 2023, a total of 61 concentric circular sample plots were laid out following a stratified systematic sampling method. the population-structure-curve displayed a consistent upward trend showing abnormality. the abnormal population structure with a lack of young trees and poor regeneration status in both species points towards potential threats like grazing and wildfires. the highest dbh class ranged from 90 cm to 120 cm dbh for t. dumosa while from 60 cm to 90 cm dbh for a. spectabilis. the study found that the seedling condition of t. dumosa species was ‘fair’ in the lower (2800−3100 m) and middle stratum (3100−3400 m), while it was ‘poor’ in the upper-elevation stratum (3400−3600 m). on the other hand, the seedling condition of a. spectabilis was found to be ‘poor’ in all the three elevation strata. furthermore, the sapling condition of both the species were found to be ‘poor’. therefore, the studied forest requires sustainable management along with a comprehensive strategy combining controlled grazing, zonation, monitoring, community engagement, regulation enforcement, restoration, ongoing research, and public awareness. keywords: anthropogenic disturbance, conifer, climate change, grazing, high-altitude forest b. p. dhungana 1* & v. t. chhetri 2 received: 16, april 2023 revised: 10, april 2024 accepted: 24, may 2024 published: 31, may 2024 1 division forest office, rasuwa district, bagamati province, nepal. *e-mail: bpstona2090@gmail.com 2 institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, pokhara, nepal banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1, 2024 pp 40‒50https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v34i1.64672 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6044-3036 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8046-4213 mailto:bpstona2090@gmail.com banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 41 dhungana & chhetri noticeable in the elevated regions (shrestha & aryal, 2011). high-altitude forests in the himalayas are susceptible to anthropogenic disturbances due to the harsh climatic conditions and the presence of local populations at high altitudes (gairola et al., 2014). anthropogenic disturbances like grazing, logging, and fuelwood collection are identified as major contributors to forest degradation in himalayan ecosystems (maren & sharma, 2018). most of the population structure and regeneration studies are reported from the terai forests of nepal (chhetri et al., 2023). however, there remains a significant gap in understanding the regeneration dynamics of the forests across the elevation gradient in the nepal himalaya (kharal et al., 2015). research along these elevation gradients holds great importance due to the varied abiotic factors, such as temperature, which change significantly with altitude. quantitative studies of high-altitude forest is crucial for assessing the impact of climate change on future species coexistence, establishing baseline data for long-term monitoring, and understanding species shifts (dash et al., 2021). gymnosperms, particularly conifers, are important vegetation of nepal. nearly all the conifer species in nepal ranges from subtropical to sub-alpine regions (rajbhandari et al., 2020). tsuga dumosa is one among the 41 conifer species found in nepal. commonly known as 'himalayan hemlock', it generally occurs between 2,100− 3,600 m altitudes above the msl in the temperate region of nepal (jackson, 1994). t. dumosa occurs on the southern slopes in the eastern himalayas from kumaon (80°e) to the inner valleys (84°e) with pure stands common between 2,100−3,000 m (miehe et al., 2015). t. dumosa accounts for approximately 7.68% of the high mountain and high himal forests of nepal, with the growing stock of 17.86 m3 per ha . similarly, abies spectabilis, commonly known as 'himalayan silver fir', predominates in the moist, high-altitude forests near the upper tree line across the western himalayan region (dfrs, 2015). this species is found in both humid and sub-humid conditions in the upper montane belt, ranging from kumaon to eastern nepal. a. spectabilis forests is commonly found between 3,000−4,200 m in the sub-alpine region (miehe et al., 2015). abies species comprise about 10.15% of the total stem volume, amounting to 23.58 m3 per ha in high mountain and high himal forests of nepal (dfrs, 2015). on the other hand, the high-altitude forests of the nepalese himalaya, especially those composed of mixed t. dumosa-a. spectabilis forests, remain relatively understudied ecosystems. to date, only a few studies have examined the community structure and regeneration of a. spectabilis in nepal (tiwari, 2010; kharal et al., 2015; and nagarkoti et al., 2019). however, there has been no research conducted on mature t. dumosa-a. spectabilis forests in nepal. the objective of this study was to examine the population structure and regeneration status of t. dumosa and a. spectabilis in the high-altitude mixed forest of rasuwa, central nepal. the main research questions addressed for the purpose of this study were: i) how does the population structure of mixed t. dumosa and a. spectabilis differ in comparison to other species? and ii) do the regeneration patterns of both t. dumosa and a. spectabilis significantly vary across different elevation strata? therefore, quantitative assessments of tree communities are also essential for sustainable utilization, management, and conservation of species within specific forest communities (rawat et al., 2018). materials and methods study area the study was conducted in jyarsogothen community forest, situated in aamachhodingmo rural municipality-03, gatlang within rasuwa district, located in the central himalayan region of nepal (see figure 1) in 2023. situated within the bagmati province, the district is adjacent to the tibetan autonomous region of china. it is located between 27⁰55'−28⁰25' n latitudes and between 85⁰00’−85⁰50' e longitudes, with an altitude ranging from 614 m to 7227 m above the mean sea level (msl) (dong, 2017). the district possesses 49,821 ha (33.19%) forest area and 4,935 ha (3.29%) of other wooded land. the forest area covers most of the langtang national park (lnp) and a portion of the chitwan-annapurna landscape (chal). the terrain of the study area ranges from 2600 m to 3700 m above the msl. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 42 dhungana & chhetri figure 1: location of the study area in rasuwa district, central nepal and the layout of sample plots within the study area (upper right corner). banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 43 dhungana & chhetri the elevation gradients, in conjunction with complex topography and geology, have engendered a diverse array of biodiversity and distinct vegetation belts. in the temperate zone (2600−3000 m), oak forests are dominant, transitioning into old-growth forests of a. spectabilis, t. dumosa, and larix himalaica in the lower sub-alpine zone (3000−3600 m). near the tree line, species like betula utilis, a. spectabilis, sorbus microphyla, and rhododendron campanulatum are commonly found (chaudhary, 1998). the study site had significant anthropogenic disturbance, primarily due to the logging activities targeted towards a. spectabilis and rhododendron species, especially for timber and firewood. besides, yak & sheep herding system was reported to be common in and around the study site, with around 1500 yaks and sheep per annum; grazing being concentrated during march−october. the study site exhibits a typical temperate climate with snowfall in winter and cool temperatures in the remaining seasons. the average annual rainfall is 691.7 meters, with most of it occurring during the monsoon season (june−september) (dhm, 2022). the district is home to several renowned religious and tourist wetlands, including gosaikunda and parvatikunda. the study site receives snowfall during the winter season, making it an attractive destination for tourists and researchers. sampling design after conducting a reconnaissance survey to identify the natural distribution range of t. dumosa and a. spectabilis dominant forests, the whole forest (omitting the fire burnt area) was categorized into three distinct strata based on altitudinal variation: i) lowerelevation stratum (2800−3100 m) denoted by symbol 'a', ii) medium-elevation stratum (3100−3400 m) denoted by symbol 'b', and iii) upper-elevation stratum (3400−3600 m) denoted by symbol 'c'. a total of 61 concentric circular sample plots (ccsps) were established systematically within the study area, i.e. the community forest using a two-dimensional fishnet approach in accordance with the community forest inventory guidelines, 2004 (dof, 2004). the sample plots were allocated proportionately in all three strata on the basis of their area coverages so as to ensure representative sampling across all the strata within the study area (see figure 1). the aforementioned methodology was also adopted by chikanbanjar et al. (2020). table 1 below depicts the stratum-wise distribution of sample plots within the community forest: the plots within the lower-elevation stratum were located near the seed stand established by the division forest office, rasuwa. similarly, the plots within the middle-elevation stratum were located from 'mendo-kharka' up to 'uri-kharka'. likewise, the plots within the upper-elevation stratum were located above the 'uri-kharka' area of the community forest. data collection in course of the measurement of sample plots, the diameters (dbh) of all the trees (dbh ≥ 30 cm) and poles (10−30 cm dbh) falling within the plots were measured and recorded. besides, the number of saplings (> 100 cm ht. & < 10 cm dbh) and seedlings (30−100 cm ht.), representing the early stages of tree growth inside the plots, were also counted and documented. table 1: stratum-wise allocation of sample plots s. n. elevation category elevation range (m) area (ha) no. of sample plots spacing among the sample plots (m) 1. lower (a) 2800−3100 166 22 275 2. middle (b) 3100−3400 136 18 275 3. upper (c) 3400−3600 158 21 275 total 460 61 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 44 dhungana & chhetri data analysis the population structure was developed for the dominant species, i.e. t. dumosa and co-dominant species, i.e. a. spectabilis using the dbh information of the individual trees recorded. the data so recorded were entered, coded, validated and verified to rectify the errors. data cleaning procedures, such as removing duplicates or outliers, were conducted to improve the data quality. microsoft office excel (2019) was used to present the data in descriptive statistics form, i.e. column chart showing the trend line. ibm spss statistics 23 was used to employ the one-way analysis of variance (anova) to test whether there were statistically significant variations in the mean seedling and sapling densities among the three elevation strata. the natural regeneration statuses of the dominant and co-dominant species recorded in the inventory were examined following the community forestry inventory guideline (2004). according to the cf inventory guidelines (2004), a forest is considered to be in 'good' condition if there are more than 5,000 seedlings and 2,000 saplings per hectare. if the numbers of seedlings and saplings fall between 2,000−5,000 and 800−2,000 per hectare, respectively, the forest is considered to be in 'medium' condition. a forest is deemed to be in 'poor' condition if the numbers of seedlings and saplings are less than 2,000 and 800 per hectare, respectively (dof, 2004). results population structure the population structure of the dominant species, i.e. t. dumosa indicated that the large proportion of its population consisted of the trees with higher dbh classes (90−120 cm and >120 cm); in the lower elevation stratum (2800−3100 m), denoted by symbol 'a' (figure 2), its population density was observed to have increased continuously up to 90−120 cm dbh class while the trend was noticed to have decreased in the case of the trees with more than 120 cm dbh. the similar pattern of population structure was found in the middle elevation stratum (3100−3400 m), denoted by symbol 'b', too; however, the higher dbh class population was found to be less in the upper elevation stratum (3400−3600 m), denoted by symbol 'c', as compared to the other two elevation strata. figure 2: population structure of dominant tree species (t. dumosa) across altitudinal gradient. on the other hand, the population of the codominant tree species, a. spectabilis was found to be increasing up to the 60−90 cm dbh class in both the lower and upper elevation strata, indicated by symbols 'a' and 'c', respectively, but there was a slight decline in the population of the individuals falling under the lower dbh class (30−60 cm) in the middle elevation stratum, denoted by symbol 'b' (figure 3); however, its population was found to have slightly increased again in the 60−90 cm dbh category in the same elevation stratum. similarly, the population of the individuals falling under the 90−120 cm dbh class were observed to have increased slightly in the lower elevation but drastically in the middle elevation stratum; however, it was noticed to have declined again in the upper elevation stratum. the highest population of mature trees falling under the 90−120 cm category was noticed in the middle elevation stratum followed by the lower elevation and the upper elevation strata, respectively. the population of the individuals with more than 120 cm dbh was found to have decreased in all the three elevation strata. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 45 dhungana & chhetri figure 3: population structure of co-dominant tree species (a. spectabilis) across altitudinal gradient. regeneration the distribution of dominant and co-dominant species across different stages of growth, including seedlings and saplings differed across varying altitudes. considering the compositional attributes, seedling density of t. dumosa decreased continuously with increasing altitude, whereas high accumulation of seedlings of a. spectabilis was found in the middle elevation. variation in the seedling density across the three elevation strata was found to be significant (f=2.45 & p<0.01). likewise, its seedling density was found to be in the ‘medium’ condition in the lower and middle elevation strata, but was ‘poor’ in the upper stratum. on the other hand, higher number of seedling individuals of a. spectabilis was found in the middle elevation followed by the upper and lower elevation strata, respectively. its seedling density was found to be ‘poor’ in all the three elevation strata (figure 4). variation in the seedling density of a. spectabilis across the altitudinal gradient was significant (f= 6.40 & p<0.001) (table 3). similarly, the sapling density of t. dumosa was highest in the lower elevation followed by the middle and upper elevation, respectively; however, the sapling density of a. spectabilis was greater in the middle elevation followed by the upper and lower elevation, respectively (figure 5). considering the compositional attributes, the variation in the sapling density of t. dumosa across the altitudinal gradient was found to be significant (f= 27.52 & p<0.001). likewise, the variation in the sapling density of a. spectabilis across the altitudinal gradient was also found to be significant (f= 7.93 & p<0.001, table 3). the sapling conditions of both the species were found to be in ‘poor’ state as per the cf inventory guidelines (2004). figure 4: seedling density of dominant and co-dominant tree species along altitudinal gradient. figure 5: sapling density of dominant and co-dominant tree species along altitudinal gradient. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 46 dhungana & chhetri table 3: summary of regeneration structure of t. dumosa and a. spectabilis across altitudinal gradient s. n. elevation stratum seedling density (no/ha) sapling density (no/ha) t. dumosa a. spectabilis t. dumosa a. spectabilis 1. 2800−3100 m 2425 1375 419 135 2. 3100−3400 m 2222 1985 286 315 3. 3400−3600 m 1875 1650 178 222 f ratio 2.45* 6.40*** 27.52*** 7.93*** significance levels: p <0.01* and p <0.001*** discussion the population structure of both t. dumosa and a. spectabilis revealed the higher proportion of their population falling in the dbh classes of 90−120 cm and 60−90 cm, respectively, with fewer populations falling in the lower dbh classes (30−60 cm and 60−90 cm), indicating the asymmetrical pattern of regeneration. shrestha et al. (2007), ghimire et al. (2008), and qiaoying et al. (2008) reported a similar trend. the deviation of the t. dumosa and a. spectabilis curves from the typical reverse j-shaped size distribution, where larger trees dominate and smaller trees are fewer, indicated challenges in sustainable regeneration. the reason behind the abnormal curve might be due to anthropogenic disturbances such as logging, grazing, and trampling which can disrupt natural regeneration processes by damaging seedlings and saplings, hindering their growth and survival. himalayan forests play a crucial role in nature conservation, and sustain the livelihoods of people living in the mountain regions (dhamala et al., 2020); hence, over matured trees should be harvested applying the suitable silvicultural system which could also promote regeneration potential of the species. when looking at the individual dbh class, gaps were observed in some diameter classes. these gaps might be due to the past anthropogenic disturbances or episodic regeneration events. anthropogenic disturbances could include human activities such as logging, clearing, or grazing, which can impact the growth and survival of trees (burgess et al., 2022). episodic regeneration events could include natural disturbances such as landslides or fires, which can create gaps in the forest canopy (crausbay & martin, 2016). the study documented a maximum dbh of 240 cm for t. dumosa, which is more than double the average weighted dbh of 100.88 cm for this species (dfrs, 2015). similarly, the study identified a maximum dbh of 130 cm for a. spectabilis, surpassing the previously recorded maximum dbh of 120 cm in sagarmatha national park by nagarkoti et al. (2019). additionally, the study found that the density of trees with larger girth size was higher than that of the trees with smaller girth size throughout the t. dumosa dominated mixed-forest. the seedling densities of both t. dumosa and a. spectabilis were found to be higher than their sapling densities, which indicated a normal demographic development. both the species had a noticeable variation in their sapling distribution patterns between different elevations (see figure 5 above). in a healthy forest ecosystem, there are usually more seedlings than saplings, as young regeneration are constantly germinating and growing, while some of the saplings may not survive to reach maturity stage. the average seedling density of t. dumosa was found to be higher in the lower elevation stratum followed by the middle elevation stratum and minimal in the upper elevation stratum. furthermore, the average seedling density of a. spectabilis was appreciable in the middle elevation stratum which is analogous to the results of kharal et al. (2015). the sapling density of t. dumosa was significantly different across the altitudinal gradient, with maximum density in the lower elevation stratum. conversely, the sapling density of a. spectabilis was found higher in the middle elevation stratum banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 47 dhungana & chhetri followed by the upper elevation stratum and inconsiderable in the lower elevation stratum which corresponds with the findings of kharal et al. (2015). likewise, chhetri et al. (2023) found the forest in a good regeneration condition in the tropical region of nepal, but our study found the seedling condition of t. dumosa species in ‘medium’ condition in the lower and middle elevation strata, while it was in a ‘poor’ state in the upper elevation stratum. on the other hand, the seedling condition of a. spectabilis, as per the cf inventory guidelines (2004), was deemed to be in a ‘poor’ state in all the three elevation strata. the reason behind the ‘medium’ and ‘poor’ conditions might be due to harsh climatic conditions characterized by low temperature and moisture availability, which makes slow growth rate of regeneration (dolezal et al., 2016). in the studied forest, grazing & trampling intensity was relatively high due to yak herding system. grazing has a significant influence on the composition of tree seedling species (darabant et al., 2007). tiwari (2010) found similar findings on a. spectabilis in the langtang national park. the variation in the seedling and sapling densities observed along the elevation gradient may be attributed to variations in soil nutrients and other abiotic factors, as well as climatic factors (joswig et al., 2022). additionally, soil properties such as nutrient availability and water-holding capacity may also vary with elevation. other factors may have contributed to the observed variation in adult densities across the elevation gradient, such as competition with other vegetation, the presence of pests and diseases, and human disturbances (lindenmayer & laurence, 2017). therefore, further research may be necessary to determine the relative importance of different factors in influencing tree densities along the elevation gradient. conclusion this study aimed to investigate the population structure and regeneration dynamics of t. dumosa and a. spectabilis in the high-altitude mixed forest of rasuwa district, central nepal. the study observed increasing trend of trees in larger dbh classes which showed a potential consequence of anthropogenic disturbances, resulting in an imbalance in population structure and a decrease in the population of younger trees within the ecosystem. this highlights the need for effective management strategies to mitigate the impacts of anthropogenic disturbances and promote the regeneration of forest, ensuring the sustainability of all stages of tree population. effective management strategies to mitigate the impacts of anthropogenic disturbances and promote forest ecosystem regeneration include implementing controlled grazing practices, establishing buffer zones, conducting regular monitoring and assessment of forest health, engaging local communities in conservation efforts, enforcing regulations, restoring degraded areas through reforestation/afforestation and other conservation measures, collaborating with the concerned stakeholders, raising public awareness against haphazard grazing practices, investing in research and innovation, adapting management strategies based on changing environmental conditions & emerging threats, and so on. such management efforts can be optimized through collaborative initiatives involving the appropriate technical staff of the division forest offices and the community forest user groups concerned. acknowledgments we would like to acknowledge the division forest office, rasuwa and the jyarsagothen community forest user group, aamachhodingmo-3, gatlang, rasuwa for providing support throughout the study period. author's contribution the concept and design were developed and manuscript written by b. p. dhungana and v. t. chhetri data availability the data that support the findings of this study are available upon request from the corresponding author. conflict of interest the authors declare no conflict of interest banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 48 dhungana & chhetri references burgess, t.i., oliva, j., sapsford, s.j., sakalidis, m.l., balocchi, f., & paap, t. 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(2010). community structure and regeneration of sub-alpine abies spectabilis (d. don) mirb. forest in langtang national park, central nepal (msc dissertation, department of botany). http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/ rg.2.2.13106.66247 https://doi.org/10.1659/mrdd.0784 http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/rg.2.2.13106.66247 http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/rg.2.2.13106.66247 45 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 gis-based analysis of wildfire distribution across slopes in the wadi safsaf watershed, northeastern algeria faicel tout *, nouh rebouh , yacine benzid , zakaria zouak , amer zeghmar , meriem bourecherouche , haythem dinar and sara keblouti centre de recherche en aménagement du territoire (crat), campus zouaghi slimane, route de aïn el bey, 25000 constantine, algérie. *email: faicel.tout@crat.dz; tel.: (+213)044956961 in recent decades, many regions of the world have been affected by wildfires. as a result, researchers have shown increasing interest in understanding the causes of these events, their patterns of spread, and the factors that influence their behaviour. this study aimed to investigate the distribution of wildfire affecting vegetation on slopes in the wadi safsaf watershed in algeria using geographic information systems (gis). the research focused on analysing the relationship between slope and area affected by wildfires by comparing the differential normalised burn ratio (dnbr) with slope maps. the study also used the normalised difference vegetation index (ndvi) and the land use and land cover (lulc) map in additional stages to gain a deeper understanding of the results. interestingly, the results showed that, contrary to initial expectations, areas with low slopes had the highest percentage of wildfire damage. further analysis revealed that most of the affected areas were agricultural land that had been misclassified as burned by the (dnbr). the research underlines the importance of field verification and highlights the role of slope in increasing wildfire damage in forested areas. however, it also emphasises the complexity of the relationship between slope and wildfire spread, which is influenced by other factors. the study concludes by recommending the consideration of multiple environmental factors in the study of this phenomenon. it advocates the development of more accurate predictive models to support disaster management decision-making. keywords: algeria, forest, slopes, vegetation cover, wadi safsaf, wildfires forest fires have become a significant concern, representing one of the most impactful threats to the environment and human settlements (nájera de ferrari et al., 2024; soualah et al., 2024; vogiatzoglou et al., 2024). as a result, numerous researchers worldwide have been working to find ways to mitigate and control them, making the investigation of their causative factors an essential endeavour (paudel et al., 2024; xu et al., 2024b). these fires, which originate from diverse sources (tout, 2023), can be exacerbated and intensified by several factors, including rising temperatures, strong winds, and generally arid conditions. moreover, topographical features are among the contributing factors to the spread of fires (makumbura et al., 2024; paudel et al., 2024). these features have increasingly been considered as fundamental criteria in certain studies, particularly those utilising multi-criteria analysis to identify areas most susceptible to the occurrence and spread of these fires (talukdar et al., 2024; vergara et al., 2024). therefore, it is crucial to evaluate the role of slopes in facilitating fire spread and exacerbating damage rates (butler et al., 2007; an et al., 2009; shan et al., 2024). this understanding will help develop proactive and contingency plans that take this factor into account, enabling better control of fire spread and protection of priority areas. a deep understanding of the relationship between slope and wildfires is crucial for effective fire management and policymaking, as slope significantly affects fire behaviour, spread, and intensity (shan et al., 2024). overlooking this factor can result in ineffective fire suppression, increased threats to human settlements, and severe ecological received: 31 december 2024 revised: 27 july 2025 accepted: 5 september 2025 published: 30 september 2025 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2, 2025 pp 45-54https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i2.73366 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0352-5534 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6214-2942 https://orcid.org/0009-0006-1147-8300 https://orcid.org/0009-0006-3919-0237 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6369-5979 https://orcid.org/0009-0006-0821-809x https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4504-2963 https://orcid.org/0009-0004-5184-0779 46 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 consequences. therefore, integrating slope-related variables into fire prediction models (e.g., fire behaviour prediction systems), mitigation strategies (e.g., targeted fuel treatments on steep terrain), and emergency planning (e.g., slope-specific evacuation routes) is essential for strengthening wildfire resilience and response. in this study, which focuses on the wadi safsaf watershed in algeria as the study area, we aim to understand the influence of slope on wildfires by analysing the distribution of areas affected by wildfires in different slope categories. although the study of this topic may require the creation of a controlled environment to isolate other factors, such as wind, in order to examine the effect of slope as the sole factor in the spread of wildfires in vegetation cover, this paper attempts to analyse the affected areas using remote sensing techniques and commonly used indices for the detection of burned areas. we then evaluate their distribution among different slope classes within their natural environment. it is worth noting that this research does not investigate the dynamics of wildfire spread along slopes, such as whether fires spread uphill or downhill, or the speed of their progression along these slopes. these aspects require real-time monitoring during wildfire events. instead, this study focuses solely on identifying or demonstrating the relationship between slope gradients and increased wildfire damage. materials and methods study area the wadi safsaf watershed is located in northeastern algeria (figure 1) and represents sub-watershed no. 09 of the constantine coastal watershed no. 3, covering an area of approximately 1165 km². one of the primary reasons for selecting this area for the study is its distinctive forest cover and significant topography. the region has a mediterranean climate, characterised by hot, dry summers and seasonal winter changes that promote the dense growth of diverse plant species, which are susceptible to drought during the summer. many areas within this watershed have experienced wildfires in the past, with numerous damages recorded, particularly in the last decade. additionally, the choice of this hydrological unit for this type of study aims to support ongoing research that focuses on the same study area from different perspectives. figure 1: geographic location of the study area methods the study primarily relies on geographic information systems (gis) to understand the impact of slopes on the behaviour of forest fires in the study area. the diagram in figure 2 illustrates the sequential steps typically followed in research. the research initially required the production of a map depicting areas previously affected by fires, categorised by severity. this was achieved using google earth engine and arcgis, applying the dnbr (differenced normalised burn ratio), a commonly used indicator (zhao et al., 2023; cai & wang, 2022; giddey et al., 2022; guo et al., 2022; jodhani et al., 2024). generally, this index is utilised in satellite image analysis to assess the impact of fires on vegetation cover (fassnacht et al., 2021). the dnbr can be calculated using the following formula (xu et al., 2024a): dnbr = nbr_prefire nbr_postfire nbr is derived from landsat 8 data using the formula: nbr = band 5 – band 7/ band 5 + band 7 where, band 5: near infrared (nir) band 7: shortwave infrared (swir) tout et al. 47 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 figure 2: sequential steps followed in the research landsat 8 collection 2 level 2 data were used for this study, with two observation periods: a pre-fire period (january 1, 2021 – february 28, 2021) and a post-fire period (october 15, 2021 – december 1, 2021). figure 3 illustrates the areas affected by fires using the dnbr, with particular focus on highlighting areas with values greater than or equal to 0.1. these values represent regions that have been affected by fires according to the united states geological survey (usgs) (sobrino et al., 2019). values indicating areas that were not affected or that show improvements in vegetation cover were not considered. figure 3: burned areas identified based on dnbr values the main reason for relying on this index is the difficulty of conducting field investigations (oseghae et al., 2024), especially over the entire watershed area and inventorying the affected regions. however, we attempted to verify this using satellite images, as shown in figure 4, which was later compared with the slope map featuring multiple categories to explore the relationship between them. figure 4: some areas that were affected by fires in previous years to produce the slope map, the 30-meter resolution shuttle radar topography mission srtm digital elevation model was used, which is reliable for studies of this nature (makumbura et al., 2024). to facilitate understanding the impact of slopes on forest fire behaviour, the categories represented in figure 5 were used. this map only represents the slope categories in the area identified as having been affected by fires, according to the dnbr. results table 1 shows the data related to dnbr values. the results were obtained using the zonal statistics tool within the arcgis software suite to calculate various statistical values representing dnbr for each slope category. min and max represent the minimum and maximum dnbr values, respectively, for each tout et al. 48 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 category, while range is the difference between the minimum and maximum values. mean and std represent the average and standard deviation of the dnbr values for each category. in general, the table illustrates how dnbr values change with varying slope categories. for example, in the first category, which includes areas with a mild slope between 0% and 10%, the dnbr value ranges from 0.1 to 0.735, with an average of 0.205 and a standard deviation of 0.081. this indicates a moderate variation in dnbr values. figure 5: classification of slope categories in the study area tout et al. 49 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 the bar charts in figure 6 illustrate the variation in the area of regions affected by fires according to the slope categories. the 10–20% and 0–10% slope categories account for the most significant areas affected by fires. figure 6: variation in the area affected by fires according to the slope categories the bar charts in figure 7 also illustrate how the average dnbr values change with slope variations, where we observe that areas with steep slopes are less affected, indicating a limited impact of fires in high-slope regions. figure 7: change in dnbr values with slope variations figure 8 illustrates the vegetation cover distribution index across areas that were affected by fires. the prefire ndvi was calculated using landsat-8 imagery from january 1, 2021, to february 28, 2021. figure 8: ndvi for the study area to gain a clear understanding of how vegetation is distributed across slope classes, we conducted a distribution analysis using the same zonal statistics tool to obtain various statistical values representing the ndvi for each slope class. the curves in figure 9 illustrate the mean values for both dnbr and ndvi, where we observe a gradual decrease in dnbr values as slope values increase, accompanied by a relatively stable ndvi or possibly a slight increase in the class greater than 50%. the land use map obtained through supervised classification in google earth engine is shown in figure 10. it reveals a significant distribution of agricultural lands compared to other land uses, including forests. between the minimum and maximum values. mean and std represent the average and standard deviation of the dnbr values for each category. in general, the table illustrates how dnbr values change with varying slope categories. for example, in the first category, which includes areas with a mild slope between 0% and 10%, the dnbr value ranges from 0.1 to 0.735, with an average of 0.205 and a standard deviation of 0.081. this indicates a moderate variation in dnbr values. table 1: the changes in dnbr values across different slope categories dnbr area min max range (mean) std 0-10 116.03 0.1 0.735 0.635 0.204 0.080 10-20 175.45 0.1 0.578 0.478 0.195 0.078 20-30 80.73 0.1 0.539 0.439 0.174 0.068 30-40 24.34 0.1 0.521 0.421 0.167 0.069 40-50 5.32 0.1 0.497 0.397 0.164 0.068 50< 1.94 0.1 0.468 0.368 0.150 0.058 the bar charts in figure 6 illustrate the variation in the area of regions affected by fires according to the slope categories. the 10�20% and 0�10% slope categories account for the most significant areas affected by fires. figure 6: variation in the area affected by fires according to the slope categories the bar charts in figure 7 also illustrate how the average dnbr values change with slope variations, where we observe that areas with steep slopes are less affected, indicating a limited impact of fires in high-slope regions. table 1: the changes in dnbr values across different slope categories tout et al. 50 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 figure 10: lulc for the study area the large area of agricultural lands affected by fires, with an estimated area of 349 km² out of a total burned area of 404 km² (figure 11). this means that 86% of the burned land is agricultural land. the graph in figure 12 illustrates the changes in mean values of both dnbr and ndvi over the area of forest affected by fire. the curve illustrates the change in average dnbr values, showing an increasing slope, with the highest value of 0.2 recorded in the 30-40% slope class. figure 12: changes in mean dnbr and ndvi values across the forest area affected by fire discussion these results do not explicitly align with the commonly known fact that areas most prone to fires are those with steeper slopes. instead, they may lead to a contrary understanding, challenging the prevailing trend. from this perspective, the question shifts from “how do slopes contribute to fire spread?” to “why did fires not spread in steep slopes?” this is a different question that requires further analysis and broader research to find an answer. the ndvi is involved in many studies that focus on identifying and predicting fire-prone areas (tonbul et figure 9: mean values of both dnbr and ndvi across different slope classes figure 11: agricultural areas affected by fires tout et al. 51 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 al., 2016; ji et al., 2024), and it is used to understand the distribution of vegetation across the landscape. one hypothesis that could explain these results is that there is a proportional distribution between areas affected by fires, represented by dnbr, and areas with dense vegetation across slope classes (klimas et al., 2025). in other words, higher slope classes have less vegetation cover, which is why they were not significantly affected by these fires. the study indicates that the reduced fire-induced vegetation damage in steeper slope classes is not due to a lack of vegetation cover, thereby challenging the earlier assumption. the curve representing the variation in ndvi values shows that vegetation density remains relatively stable with increasing elevation. this suggests that the conditions for fire spread due to this factor exist on the slopes, but these areas were not affected, or there are factors preventing fire spread to these slopes, such as the absence of suitable vegetation cover. this necessitates the exploration of land use patterns and vegetation types (eker et al., 2024) as an attempt to explain the previously obtained results. these results may not reflect the true behaviour of fires on slopes. based on the previous map (figure 10), it can be hypothesized that the areas most prone to fires may be agricultural lands, which could explain the results obtained earlier. large areas of agricultural land are affected by fires (figure 11). these results indicate that most areas with significant fire damage were not located on steep slopes but rather consisted of agricultural lands, predominantly used for wheat and barley cultivation. these findings align with what is known about fire spread in agricultural areas (samphutthanont, 2024), particularly in fields that have been harvested, such as wheat and barley, due to the availability of dry material after harvest. this provides a plausible explanation for the large area identified as having been affected by fires. additionally, the index not only identifies areas affected by fires during the study year (2020) but can also detect areas that were affected by fires in previous years, making it highly likely that the index reflects the actual events. another assumption is that the wildfires affecting agricultural lands are intentional and initiated by farmers seeking insurance compensation or financial assistance from the government for those affected by the wildfires. farmers may resort to this behavior when their agricultural yields are unsatisfactory or economically unviable. on the other hand, there is another possibility that the results indicating areas affected by fires may not be accurate. this is not only due to the data resolution of 30 meters, meaning each pixel represents an area of approximately 900 square meters, but also because of potential errors that can arise from considering agricultural lands in general as areas affected by fires (samphutthanont, 2024). the spectral properties of agricultural land change depending on the season, whether during planting, harvest, irrigation, or drying. these seasonal changes can lead to an increase or decrease in reflectance in the bands used to calculate dnbr, potentially resulting in false signals (chen et al., 2020). for example, after harvesting, the soil becomes exposed, which reduces the reflectance of vegetation spectra, making it resemble areas that have been affected by fires. forest cover, on the other hand, represents a more stable domain compared to agricultural lands, as it undergoes less significant seasonal changes, especially since the plant species present are almost evergreen, meaning their spectral properties do not change drastically. therefore, focusing the study on forest areas affected by fires could yield more realistic results. the change in the average dnbr values, with an increasing slope (figure 12), suggests that the increase in slope in forest areas contributes to greater fire damage. on the other hand, the decrease in dnbr values on slopes greater than 40% can be attributed to changes in vegetation density, weather conditions, and the soil type present on these steep slopes. therefore, there is a significant priority for preventive and emergency interventions in sloped forest areas to prevent the spread of fires, such as creating buffer zones between these areas and flatlands, including roads and other areas. additionally, a specific afforestation method could be implemented in the future for sloped areas. on the other hand, this research highlights the need to verify the results of both indices, dnbr and ndvi, and to use them with caution due to the spectral variations that affect the study areas, especially those associated with seasonal variations, in order to avoid errors in classification. this research also emphasizes the importance of incorporating multi-criteria analysis in studies that aim to predict areas likely to experience wildfires. these studies often rely heavily on the ndvi index without giving equal weight to, or even considering, the type of vegetation cover. this approach can lead tout et al. 52 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 2 to results that are not sufficiently reliable. this study focused on the impact of slopes on vegetation damage caused by fires, using remote sensing techniques to assess the damage after the fires occurred. it highlights the importance of linking fire spread to the type and density of vegetation present. our study has shown that this is one of the key factors that should be considered to gain a broader understanding of the expected behaviour of future fires in the region. however, accurately assessing the impact of slopes on vegetation damage from fires will require examining this effect alongside other influencing factors such as temperature, wind, and humidity (eker et al., 2024). therefore, it is also important to explore new methods of monitoring fire behaviour during its occurrence to refine our understanding in this regard. conclusions several factors influence fires affecting vegetation. in this study, which focused on understanding the impact of slopes on these fires, the dnbr and slope maps were used as key methods to address the research question, and some interesting findings were revealed. a significant impact on vegetation was observed in lower slope classes. the research required further validation of the results using the ndvi and lulc map, where an attempt was made to interpret these results and clarify some of the reasons that led to the increased affected area in these slope categories. among the factors identified were spectral changes in agricultural areas, which led to them being considered as fire-affected areas. subsequently, forest areas, which have lower seasonal changes, were considered. a positive relationship was observed between increased slopes and the degree of fire damage, especially in slopes below 40%, reinforcing the priority for preventive and emergency interventions in sloped forest areas to prevent the spread of fires. on the other hand, this study highlights some limitations in the use of both dnbr and ndvi, emphasizing the need for cautious application. it also underscores the importance of considering land use maps, particularly in multicriteria analysis, to achieve more accurate predictive results. acknowledgement we thank the territory planning research center for its technical assistance. author contribution ft: conceived and supervised the study, designed the methodology, and conducted the literature review. nr: contributed to the analysis and interpretation of results and assisted in map preparation. yb and hd were involved in preparing maps, verifying results, and monitoring the research progress. zz: contributed to the translation and finalizing the manuscript. az: and mb: contributed to data processing, validation, and interpretation of spatial analyses. sk: assisted with the literature review, editing, and manuscript preparation. all authors contributed to the discussion of results and approved the final version of the manuscript. conflicts of interest the authors reported no potential conflicts of interest. references an, s. h., lee, s. y., park, g. s., & ohga, s. 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(2023). forest fire mapping using multi-source remote sensing data: a case study in chongqing. remote sensing, 15(9). https://doi.org/10.3390/ rs15092323. tout et al. 36 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 evaluation of cytotoxicity and antidiabetic activities of plant extracts used in triphala from western nepal using different solvents a. chataut 1,2, j. maharjan 1, r. c. poudel 1, r. malla 2*, and d. khadka 1* plant products have played a vital role in traditional medicine for centuries due to the abundance of secondary metabolites like alkaloids, steroids, flavonoids, terpenoids and tannins. these bioactive compounds are beneficial in addressing various health issues (chhetri et al., 2008). about 80% of the population in developing countries rely on traditional medicine, including medicinal plants, for primary healthcare needs (who, 2013). although an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 plant species exist globally, only a small fraction has been scientifically investigated for their phytochemical composition and therapeutic potential (prabhu et al., 2010). nepal is rich in biodiversity, sheltering over 2,332 species of medicinal and aromatic plants that are extensively used in traditional healing practices (baral & kurmi, 2006). these plants are equally significant for both traditional medicine and modern pharmacological applications. the safety of herbal products is often taken for granted, as many people believe that their long history of use without apparent side effects implies that they are inherently safe; however, this belief can be misleading. just because something is natural or has a long history of use does not guarantee the 1 molecular biotechnology laboratory, faculty of science. nepal academy of science and technology, khumaltar, lalitpur, nepal 2 central department of biotechnology, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, kathmandu, nepal *email: rajanimalla200@gmail.com; deegendrakhadka@gmail.com; deegendra.khadka@nast.org.np the triphala plants: phyllantus emblica, terminalia chebula and terminalia bellirica have been traditionally used in the treatment of various aliments since prehistoric times. their antidiabetic activity, particularly against α-amylase enzyme, has been reported in studies from different countries. however, limited research has evaluated the antidiabetic potential of triphala plants originating from nepal using solvents like hexane, ethylacetate and water. in this study, extraction of the plants was carried out using the soxhlet method with the solvents. the antidiabetic activity was evaluated through an α-amylase enzyme inhibition assay, while cytotoxic effect was determined through the brine shrimp lethality assay. among the extracts, the highest percentage yield was obtained from the aqueous extract of t. chebula (7.17%), while the lowest was from the hexane extract of p. emblica (1.28%). the aqueous extracts of t. chebula demonstrated the highest antidiabetic potential with an ic50 value of 97.86 ± 0.17 µg/ml, forming the smallest polygon in the radar diagram, whereas the least potential was exhibited by the hexane extract of p. emblica (ic50 = 810.85 ± 2.05 µg/ml; 0.81 mg/ml), forming the largest polygon in the radar diagram. regarding safety, the cytotoxicity of these extracts was assessed using the brine shrimp lethality assay. the hexane extract of p. emblica exhibited the least toxicity (lc50 = 8.54 mg/ ml). in contrast, the aqueous extract of t. cheuba showed the highest toxicity with an lc50 of 0.99 mg/ml. key words: medicinal plants; antidiabetic; brine shrimp lethality; triphala; various solvents. received: 22, december 2024 revised: 17, march 2025 accepted: 19, may 2025 published: 30, may 2025 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1, 2025 pp 36-44 https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i1.73002 https://orcid.org/0009-0005-6577-5565 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3671-9853 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6603-0822 https://orcid.org/0009-0008-6500-9387 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2838-1277 37 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 absence of harmful effects. adulteration, improper formulation, and insufficient knowledge about plantdrug interaction can lead to severe adverse reactions. numerous studies have linked herbal medicines to hepatotoxicity, while other effects such as harm to the kidneys, nervous system, blood, heart, and skin as well as risks of mutation and cancer are also documented (saad & said, 2011). herbal toxicity primarily arises from poor quality control during production, confusion arising from similar plant names and misidentification of plant species. the level of active compounds can vary depending on several factors; the parts of the plant used, the time of harvest, the growth stage and the region and climate where the plant is grown. herb may also be contaminated with microorganism, fungal toxin (aflatoxins), pesticides, heavy metals, or synthetic drugs (saad et al., 2006). the identification of the therapeutic and toxic compounds in natural products is cumbersome because of the contamination caused by different harvesting seasons and various extraction protocols used in herbal medication preparation (opuni et al., 2023). therefore, scientific validation and safety assessments are essential to ensure the efficacy and safety of herbal products for public health. diabetes mellitus (dm) is a condition in which blood glucose level exceeds its limit range. it develops when the pancreatic β-cells fail to produce sufficient insulin, when body cells become resilient to insulin or due to a combination of both factors (khadka & pandey, 2022). diabetes is a major risk factor for several complications, including cardiovascular diseases, neuropathy, and retinopathy. according to the international diabetes federation (idf, 2021), an estimated 537 million adults worldwide were living with diabetes in 2021, and this figure is projected to rise to 643 million by 2030 if current trend continues. idf claims that a significant portion of this increase is occurring in developing countries. in nepal, diabetes is emerging as a growing public health problem, particularly in urban areas. this is largely attributed to lifestyle and environmental changes such as sedentary activities and dietary shifts. as of 2021, approximately 6.3% of nepal’s adult population was affected by diabetes (idf, 2021). the rising prevalence of diabetes places increasing pressure on healthcare systems, necessitating the urgent need for prevention and early intervention strategies. despite the availability of several synthetic antidiabetic drugs in the global markets, they are not free from severe side effects such as hypoglycemia (sulphonylureas), lactic acidosis and folate and b12 malabsorption (metformin), gastrointestinal symptom (acarbose), weight gain (sulphonylureas and thiazolidinediones), and edema (thiazolidinediones) (campbell, 2007). developing antidiabetic drugs without any side effects is still a challenge. therefore, efforts to discover more secure and effective hypoglycemic agents are continually increasing. regarding the discovery of natural hypoglycemic agents, our research team focused on testing constituent plants of triphala, collected from the western regions of nepal. triphala is a well-known polyherbal formulation in ayurveda, composed of three medicinal fruits: p. emblica, t. chebula and t. bellirica. triphala mixture is prepared by blending equal proportions of the powdered fruits (venkateswarlu et al., 2019). owing to its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and digestive benefits, triphala has been widely studied in herbal medicine (peterson et al., 2017). p. emblica, associated with the family phyllanthaceae, is indigenous to the indian subcontinent and its primary chemical constituents include vitamin c, tannins, flavonoid, and phenolic compounds (prananda et al., 2023). p. emblica has been used traditionally for treating digestive disorders, diabetes, inflammation and for enhancing immunity (prananda et al., 2023). t. bellirica, a member of the family combretaceae, is commonly found in nepal and india. it contains tannins, gallic acid and ellagic acid as its major components. traditionally, t. bellirica has been used for treating respiratory issues, supporting digestive health and as a mild laxative (gupta et al., 2020b). likewise, t. chebula, also from the family combretaceae, is native to south asia, particularly, india, nepal and sri lanka. the major chemical components are chebulinic acid, ellagic acid and gallic acid (muhammad et al., 2012). t. chebula has long been used in traditional medicine for treating digestive issues, respiratory ailments, and promoting would healing (bag et al., 2013). in this study, the fruit pulp of each plant was subjected to extraction using three different solvents; water, ethylacetate and hexane to identify the most effective extract based on its half-maximal inhibitory concentration (ic50) against α-amylase for diabetes management. detailed information about the plant samples is presented in table 1. the choice of solvent plays a crucial role in determining the type and quantity of bioactive compounds extracted (harborne, 1998). non-polar solvents like hexane chataut et al. 38 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 extract fat-soluble compounds while polar solvents like water isolate polar compounds and moderately polar solvent such as ethyl acetate extracts a wide range of bioactive compounds including polyphenols, flavonoids, alkaloids due to its intermediate polarity (cowan, 1999). this approach facilitates the exploration of diverse bioactive compounds in triphala plants of nepal origin. materials and methods collection and authentication of plant material plant samples were collected in april 2019 from mahendranagar, kanchapur, nepal, situated at an altitude of 210 meters above sea level, to ensure seasonal consistency. the collected samples were identified by dr. r. c. poudel, senior scientist at the nepal academy of science and technology (nast). the collected materials were air-dried until a consistent weight was achieved. all the samples were collected with the necessary permission from local authorities and in compliance with ethical guidelines to ensure sustainable and responsible sampling practices. preparation of plant extracts the collected fruits were briefly cleaned with 70% ethanol to remove surface impurities and then shadedried until a stable weight was achieved. the dried materials were ground into a fine powder using an electric grinder. soxhlet extraction method was employed to isolate the bioactive compounds using three different solvents: hexane, ethyl acetate, and water. for each extraction, approximately 50 grams of powdered material was uniformly packed in a thimble and extracted separately with 350 ml of the respective solvents. the extraction was carried out until the solvent in the siphon tube appeared transparent. the resulting extracts were concentrated using a rotary evaporator to remove the bulk of the solvent and the obtained extract was then transferred to a beaker and heated on a hot plate at 30-40 °c until a semi-solid consistency was achieved. the semi solid extracts were stored at 4 °c for further analysis. the percentage yield of extracts obtained from each solvent is presented in table 2. antidiabetic activity the antidiabetic potential of the plant extracts was evaluated using the α-amylase inhibition assay, following a standard protocol with slight modifications (tamil et al., 2010; karki et al., 2021). the presence of undigested starch due to enzyme inhibition was identified by the formation of a blue starch-iodine complex measured at 630 nm. 100 µl of a 1% starch solution was pre-incubated at 37 °c for 5 minutes with 50 µl of different concentrations (20, 40, 80, 160 µg/ml) of each plant extract and the standard inhibitor acarbose. subsequently, 50 µl of a 50 µg/ml α-amylase solution was introduced into each mixture and incubated at 37 °c for 15 minutes. the enzymatic reaction was halted by adding 200 µl of 0.1m hydrochloric acid (hcl), followed by 250 µl of iodine reagent to develop the color. the absorbance of the resulting blue starchiodine complex was recorded at 630 nm using a uv-visible spectrophotometer. all experiments were conducted in triplicate and the percentage inhibition of α-amylase activity was calculated using the following formula: % inhibition = [1-(abs2-abs1/abs4-abs3)] ×100 where, abs1 = absorbance of a mixture incubated with plant extract, starch and amylase. abs2 = absorbance of a mixture incubated with table 1: detailed information about the studied plants in the study respiratory issues, supporting digestive health and as a mild laxative (gupta et al., 2020b). likewise, t. chebula, also from the family combretaceae, is native to south asia, particularly, india, nepal and sri lanka. the major chemical components are chebulinic acid, ellagic acid and gallic acid (muhammad et al., 2012). t. chebula has long been used in traditional medicine for treating digestive issues, respiratory ailments, and promoting would healing (bag et al., 2013). in this study, the fruit pulp of each plant was subjected to extraction using three different solvents; water, ethylacetate and hexane to identify the most effective extract based on its half-maximal inhibitory concentration (ic��) against -amylase for diabetes management. detailed information about the plant samples is presented in table 1. the choice of solvent plays a crucial role in determining the type and quantity of bioactive compounds extracted (harborne, 1998). non-polar solvents like hexane extract fat-soluble compounds while polar solvents like water isolate polar compounds and moderately polar solvent such as ethyl acetate extracts a wide range of bioactive compounds including polyphenols, flavonoids, alkaloids due to its intermediate polarity (cowan, 1999). this approach facilitates the exploration of diverse bioactive compounds in triphala plants of nepal origin. table 1: detailed information about the studied plants in the study scientific name vernacular name family collected sites parts used traditional usage phyllanthus emblica amala phyllanthaceae mahendrnagar, kanchanpur, nepal fruit rejuvenating agent, tonic for longevity, improve digestion, ailment like respiratory issues sore throat and fever (prananda et al., 2023) terminalia chebula harro combretaceae mahendrnagar, kanchanpur, nepal fruit digestive disorder, wound healing, respiratory disorder. oral health (chopra et al., 2023) terminalia bellirica barro combretaceae mahendrnagar, kanchanpur, nepal fruit wound healing, liver health, digestive disorder (gupta et al., 2021) materials and methods collection and authentication of plant material plant samples were collected in april 2019 from mahendranagar, kanchapur, nepal, situated at an altitude of 210 meters above sea level, to ensure seasonal consistency. the collected samples were identified by dr. r. c. poudel, senior scientist at the nepal academy of science and chataut et al. 39 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 plant extracts and starch only. abs3 = absorbance of a mixture incubated with starch and amylase only. abs4 = absorbance of a mixture incubated with starch alone. the ic50 value denotes the inhibitor concentration needed to reduce enzyme activity by 50%, a graph was mapped with the extract concentration on the x-axis and percentage inhibition on the y-axis to obtain a linear regression equation. ic50 was calculated through the linear regression by fitting straight line equation with variable slope using microsoft excel 2019. brine shrimp lethality assay a pinch of brine shrimp eggs was sprinkled into a beaker filled with artificial seawater and illuminated with a 60 w table lamp at 30 °c for 24 hours to hatch the shrimps. the extracts were initially dissolved in a 1% aqueous dimethyl sulfoxide (dmso) and subsequently diluted with sea water to obtain test concentrations of 1000 ppm, 100 ppm and 10 ppm. an aliquot of 1 ml of each concentration was transferred into a cleaned sterile measuring cylinder and the volume was raised up to 5 ml using seawater. twenty nauplii were transferred into each measuring cylinder. the test samples were incubated at room temperature for 24 hours, after which the number of survivors was counted using a pipette. the lethal concentration (lc50) is defined as the concentration causing 50% mortality after 24 hours of exposure along with its 95% confidence intervals. lc50 was determined using the probit analysis method (finney, 1971). according to meyer’s toxicity index, extracts with lc50 values below 1000 µg/ml (1 mg/ml) are considered toxic, while those with lc50 values above 1000/ µg/ml are considered as non-toxic (meyer et al., 1982). results the extraction yield for the three plants: t. chebula, t. bellirica and p. emblica varied depending on the solvents used (hexane, water and ethyl acetate). among the solvents, water consistently produced the highest yield, except in the case of t. bellirica. the aqueous extract of t. chebula showed the highest percentage yield (7.16%) followed by p. emblica (7.11%). in comparison, the ethyl acetate extracts yielded moderate yields, with p. emblica yielding 3.69%, t. bellirica 3.62% and t. chebula 3.49%. in contrast, hexane extracts yielded the lowest percentages, ranging from 1.28% in p. emblica to 1.41% in t. chebula, as shown in table 2. the inhibitory effects of hexane, ethylacetate and water extracts of triphala plants against α-amylase were evaluated. acarbose was used as the reference standard, with an ic50 value of 86.49 ± 0.31 µg/ml. the results revealed differences in ic50 values among the various extracts. for p. emblica, the water extract exhibited the lowest ic50 value of 235.22 ± 0.64 µg/ ml (0.235 mg/ml), compared to the hexane and ethyl acetate extracts, as shown in table 2. similarly, t. bellirica had ic50 values of 651.05 ± 10.75, 627.12 ± 4.49, and 180.69 ± 0.44 µg/ml for the hexane, ethylacetate and water extracts, respectively. in the case of t. chebula, the aqueous extract had the lowest ic50 value of 97.86 ± 0.17 µg/ml followed by the ethyl acetate extract (163.01 ± 1.8 µg/ml), while the hexane extract showed the highest ic50 value of 500.51 ± 4.33 µg/ml, indicating the least potency. the radar diagram in figure 1 illustrates that t. chebula exhibited the highest antidiabetic potency of all three solvents, followed by t. bellirica and p emblica, as indicated by the area occupied by the respective polygons. table 2: yield percentage and ic50 value of the studied plant in different solvents name of the plants % yield ic50 ± sem (µg/ml) hexane water ethylacetate acarbose hexane ethylacetate water phyllanthus emblica l. 1.28 7.11 3.69 86.49 ± 0.31 810.85 ± 2.058 656.37± 2.92 235.22 ± 0.64 terminalia bellirica retz. 1.32 1.43 3.62 651.05 ± 10.75 627.12±4.49 180.69± 0.44 terminalia chebula (gaertn.) roxb. 1.41 7.16 3.49 500.51 ± 4.33 163.0±1.8 97.86 ± 0.17 the inhibitory effects of hexane, ethylacetate and water extracts of triphala plants against amylase were evaluated. acarbose was used as the reference standard, with an ic�� value of 86.49 ± 0.31 g/ml. the results revealed differences in ic50 values among the various extracts. for p. emblica, the water extract exhibited the lowest ic50 value of 235.22 ± 0.64 g/ml (0.235 mg/ml), compared to the hexane and ethyl acetate extracts, as shown in table 2. similarly, t. bellirica had ic50 values of 651.05 ± 10.75, 627.12 ± 4.49, and 180.69 ± 0.44 g/ml for the hexane, ethylacetate and water extracts, respectively. in the case of t. chebula, the aqueous extract had the lowest ic50 value of 97.86 ± 0.17 g/ml followed by the ethyl acetate extract (163.01±1.8 g/ml), while the hexane extract showed the highest ic50 value of 500.51 ± 4.33 g/ml, indicating the least potency. the radar diagram in figure 1 illustrates that t. chebula exhibited the highest antidiabetic potency of all three solvents, followed by t. bellirica and p emblica, as indicated by the area occupied by the respective polygons. chataut et al. 40 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 figure 1: radar diagram showing ic50 in μg/ml of the studied plants in different solvents cytotoxicity of the extracts was assessed using the brine shrimp lethality (bsl) assay. the lc50 values for different solvents extracts revealed noticeable variations (table 3). for p. emblica, the aqueous extract exhibited the highest cytotoxicity, with an lc50 value of 1.970 mg/ml, while the ethyl acetate and hexane extracts showed lc50 values of 2.560 mg/ml and 8.54 mg/ml, respectively. t. bellirica displayed lc50 of 1.32 mg/ml in its aqueous extract. notably, t. chebula’s aqueous extract exhibited the highest cytotoxicity among the tested extracts, with an lc50 of 0.99 mg/ml. according to meyer’s toxicity index, all extracts except the aqueous extract of t. chebula were considered non-toxic (lc50 > 1 mg/ml). discussion the choice of solvent significantly influenced the yield percentage of triphala plant extracts. aqueous extracts demonstrated the highest yields, with t. chebula yielding 7.17% and p. emblica showing a comparable 7.11%. in contrast, the hexane extracts yielded the lowest, with p. emblica producing just 1.28%, shown in table 2. these findings suggest that non-polar solvents are less effective in isolating water-soluble phytochemicals like tannins and flavonoids (nawaz et al., 2020). the high yield observed in aqueous extract aligns with the fact that polar solvents enhance the extraction of hydrophilic bioactive compound (xia et al., 2023). in comparison, hexane primarily isolates non-polar components like lipids, which are generally less abundant in medicinal plants used for antidiabetic purposes (sutedja et al., 2020) the moderate yields obtained with ethyl acetate indicate that this solvent is effective for extracting compounds of intermediate polarity, such as phenolic acids and some flavonoids (baehaki et al., 2020). these results emphasize the importance of solvent-specific extraction methods, as solvent polarity directly affects the composition and quantity of bioactive compounds extracted (lee et al., 2024). furthermore, the higher yields in aqueous extracts support their potential for cost-effective and scalable antidiabetic formulations considering the environmental and economic advantages of using water as a solvent (castro-puyana et al., 2017). the present study focused on triphala plants to evaluate their antidiabetic activities using hexane, ethyl acetate and water as extraction solvents. although extensive research has been conducted on these three plants to evaluate their α-amylase inhibitory activity (antidiabetic) and cytotoxicity using brine shrimp lethality assay, studies specifically using these solvents on nepal-originating triphala plants remain scarce. the α-amylase inhibitory activity of p. emblica varies considerably across the literature, with ic50 values ranging from 85.92 µg/ml for seed extract (dinesh et al., 2016) to 397.67 µg/ ml for methanolic fruit extract (poongunran et al., 2015), and ethanolic leaf extracts showing 61.12% inhibition under specific conditions (singh & kaur, 2015). in our study, the lowest ic50 value observed for p. emblica was 235.22 ± 0.64 µg/ml in the aqueous extract, as compared to its hexane and ethyl acetate extracts (table 2). name of the plants % yield ic50 ± sem (µg/ml) hexane water ethylacetate acarbose hexane ethylacetate water phyllanthus emblica l. 1.28 7.11 3.69 86.49 ± 0.31 810.85 ± 2.058 656.37± 2.92 235.22 ± 0.64 terminalia bellirica retz. 1.32 1.43 3.62 651.05 ± 10.75 627.12±4.49 180.69± 0.44 terminalia chebula (gaertn.) roxb. 1.41 7.16 3.49 500.51 ± 4.33 163.0±1.8 97.86 ± 0.17 the inhibitory effects of hexane, ethylacetate and water extracts of triphala plants against amylase were evaluated. acarbose was used as the reference standard, with an ic�� value of 86.49 ± 0.31 g/ml. the results revealed differences in ic50 values among the various extracts. for p. emblica, the water extract exhibited the lowest ic50 value of 235.22 ± 0.64 g/ml (0.235 mg/ml), compared to the hexane and ethyl acetate extracts, as shown in table 2. similarly, t. bellirica had ic50 values of 651.05 ± 10.75, 627.12 ± 4.49, and 180.69 ± 0.44 g/ml for the hexane, ethylacetate and water extracts, respectively. in the case of t. chebula, the aqueous extract had the lowest ic50 value of 97.86 ± 0.17 g/ml followed by the ethyl acetate extract (163.01±1.8 g/ml), while the hexane extract showed the highest ic50 value of 500.51 ± 4.33 g/ml, indicating the least potency. the radar diagram in figure 1 illustrates that t. chebula exhibited the highest antidiabetic potency of all three solvents, followed by t. bellirica and p emblica, as indicated by the area occupied by the respective polygons. figure 1: radar diagram showing ic50 in µg/ml of the studied plants in different solvents cytotoxicity of the extracts was assessed using the brine shrimp lethality (bsl) assay. the lc50 values for different solvents extracts revealed noticeable variations (table 3). for p. emblica, the aqueous extract exhibited the highest cytotoxicity, with an lc50 value of 1.970 mg/ml, while the ethyl acetate and hexane extracts showed lc50 values of 2.560 mg/ml and 8.54 mg/ml, respectively. t. bellirica displayed lc50 of 1.32 mg/ml in its aqueous extract. notably, t. chebula's aqueous extract exhibited the highest cytotoxicity among the tested extracts, with an lc50 of 0.99 mg/ml. according to meyer's toxicity index, all extracts except the aqueous extract of t. chebula were considered non-toxic (lc50 > 1mg/ml). table 3: lc50, slope and regression equation of the studied plants in different solvents plants solvent used lc50 mg/ml slope regression equation phyllanthus emblica hexane 8.54 r² = 0.9932 y = 0.0053x + 4.7222 ethylacetate 2.56 r² = 0.9745 y = 0.0188x + 1.3889 aqueous 1.90 r² = 0.8972 y = 0.0218x + 8.6111 terminalia bellirica hexane 7.59 r² = 0.3243 y = 0.006x + 4.4444 ethylacetate 3.20 r² = 0.9382 y = 0.0135x + 6.6667 aqueous 1.32 r² = 0.8176 y = 0.0165x + 28.889 terminalia chebula hexane 3.20 r2= 0.9382 y = 0.0135x + 6.6667 ethylacetate 1.12 r² = 0.8176 y = 0.033x + 12.778 aqueous 0.99 r² = 0.9138 y = 0.0353x + 15.278 discussion the choice of solvent significantly influenced the yield percentage of triphala plant extracts. aqueous extracts demonstrated the highest yields, with t. chebula yielding 7.17 % and p. emblica showing a comparable 7.11%. in contrast, the hexane extracts yielded the lowest, with p. emblica producing just 1.28 %, shown in table 2. these findings suggest that non-polar solvents are less effective in isolating water-soluble phytochemicals like tannins and flavonoids (nawaz et al., 2020). the high yield observed in aqueous extract aligns with the fact that polar solvents enhance the extraction of hydrophilic bioactive compound (xia et al., 2023). in comparison, hexane primarily isolates non-polar components like lipids, which are generally less abundant in medicinal plants used for antidiabetic purposes (sutedja et al., 2020) the moderate yields obtained with ethyl acetate indicate that this solvent is effective for extracting compounds of intermediate polarity, such as phenolic acids and some flavonoids (baehaki et al., 2020). these results emphasize the importance of solvent-specific extraction methods, as solvent polarity directly affects the composition and quantity of bioactive compounds extracted (lee et al., 2024). furthermore, the higher yields in aqueous extracts support their potential for table 3: lc50, slope and regression equation of the studied plants in different solvents chataut et al. 41 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 gupta et al. (2020a) reported that the ethyl acetate extracts of t. bellirica exhibited stronger α-amylase inhibitory activity (ic50 = 43.5 μg/ml) than aqueous extract (ic50 =74.8/ μg/ml). however, in our study, the hexane, ethyl acetate, and aqueous extracts of of t. bellirica exhibited ic50 value of 651.05 ± 10.75, 627.12 ± 4.49 and 180.69 ± 0.44 μg/ml respectively. similarly, mukherjee et al. (2010) reported that tannins from t. chebula fruits exhibited 52% inhibition of pancreatic amylase at 100 µg/ml. however, our study found the lowest ic50 in the aqueous extract t. chebula fruit pulp (97.86 ± 0.17 μg/ml), followed by the ethyl acetate extract (163.0 ± 1.8 µg/ml), while the hexane extract demonstrated the highest ic50 value of 500.51 ± 4.33 µg/ml indicating the least potency (table 2). the radar diagram presented in figure 1 visually illustrates the comparative potency of three plant extracts in different solvents for antidiabetic activity based on the size of the polygon. the small polygon for t. chebula indicates higher potency across all three solvents, followed by t. bellirica and then p. emblica. previous studies on the cytotoxicity of p. emblica using the brine shrimp lethality assay have demonstrated potent activity, with lc50 values ranging from 10.25 µg/ml for the chloroform fraction of a crude methanolic extract (rahman et al., 2009) to 1.25 µg/ ml for seed extract-capped nanoparticles (dinesh et al., 2017). similarly, krishnaraju et al. (2005) reported an lc50 value of 58 μg/ml for the ethanol extract. in comparison, our study revealed that the aqueous extract of p. emblica exhibited the highest toxicity among the three solvents tested, with an lc50 value of 1.38 mg/ml (table 3). this indicates that the three solvent extracts of p. emblica are non-toxic based on meyer’s toxicity index. ali et al. (2013) reported high cytotoxicity for the methanolic bark extract of t. bellirica with an lc50 value of 3.21 mg/ ml. in our findings, the aqueous extract of t. bellirica exhibited the highest cytotoxicity among the tested solvents, with an lc50 value of 1.378 mg/ml, which is still categorized as non-toxic. previous investigations have demonstrated that ethanol and methanol extracts of t. chebula fruit show cytotoxic activity with lc50 value of 107 μg/ ml (ved et al., 2010) and 97.36 µg/ml (sarwar et al., 2013) respectively. however, our study found lc50 values of 0.99, 1.12 and 3.2 mg/ml for the aqueous, ethylacetate and hexane extracts respectively. the aqueous extract exhibited significantly higher toxicity than the other two solvents. the lc50 of the extracts in different solvents are shown in table 3. according to meyer’s toxicity index, extracts with lc50 below 1000 µg/ml (1 mg/ml) are considered toxic, while those above 1 mg/ml are considered non-toxic (meyer et al., 1982). based on this classification, all three extracts of the triphala plants prepared using hexane, ethylacetate, and water were found to be non-toxic, except for the aqueous extract of t. chebula, which had an lc50 value of 0.99 mg/ml supplementary details are presented in table 3. conclusion this study demonstrates that triphala plants as evidenced by their inhibitory effects on α-amylase enzyme, possess promising antidiabetic properties. among the three triphala constituent plants, t. chebula demonstrated the strongest activity followed by t. bellirica and p. emblica. while most plant extracts were found to be non-toxic, the aqueous extract of t. chebula showed toxicity, indicating the need for further investigation. overall, the findings of this study highlight the potential of nepal-originating triphala plants as sources for developing natural antidiabetic remedies. the maximum percentage yield of t. chebula in aqueous extract was found. further pharmacological and toxicological studies are recommended to validate these initial results and to ensure their safe application in clinical settings. acknowledgments this study was conducted with the support of the nepal academy of science and technology (nast). the authors gratefully acknowledge nast for providing the necessary resources and institutional support to carry out this research. conflicts of interest the authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest concerning the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. author’s contribution statement a. chataut: carried out laboratory experiments, data analysis and methodology. r. malla: methodology and supervision. d. khadka: conceived the study, interpreted the data, supervised the work and critically reviewed the manuscript. j. maharjan: manuscript revision and data analysis. r. c. poudel: collection of plant samples, morphological identification and manuscript revision. chataut et al. 42 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 references ali, m. s., faruq, k. o., islam, a., nurullah, a. m. m., chowdhury, k. a. a., & sayeed, m. a. 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(2023.) exploring efficient extraction methods: bioactive compounds and antioxidant properties from new zealand damson plums. food bioscience, 55 (2), 103057. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. fbio.2023.103057 chataut et al. 3 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1, 2025 pp 3-11https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v35i1.70162 winter diet analysis of leopard (panthera pardus) in the nagarjun forest of shivapuri nagarjun national park s. shrestha 1, n. p. koju 1, 2*, a. thapa magar 2, s. b. shrestha 3, s. ghimire 1 1 goldengate international college, tribhuvan university, nepal 2 center for postgraduate studies, nepal engineering college, pokhara university, nepal 3 national college of computer studies, kathmandu, nepal *email: npkoju.2003@gmail.com the leopard (panthera pardus) is a common and wide-ranged wild cat species listed in the vulnerable category of the iucn red list of threatened species. it is distributed widely in different protected areas and the human-dominated landscape of nepal. the current study explored the winter diet of leopard in the nagarjun forest, shivapuri nagarjun national park. a total of 16 scat samples of leopards from nagarjun forest were opportunistically collected between november and january 2022 and were analyzed for their diet composition based on microhistological analysis. altogether 13 prey species were identified in the scats, compromising 11 wild and 2 domestic species. the primary wild prey was the wild boar with a percent occurrence of 81.25% and percentage biomass consumption of 30.76%. among domestic prey was the dog with a percent occurrence of 43.75% and percentage biomass consumption equal to 12.25%. the measurements for length, overall hair diameter, medullar diameter, and medullary index were determined. the findings suggests that the winter diet of leopards of nagarjun forest is primarily sustained by wild prey, with smaller contributions from livestock. we suggest further studies on the seasonal dietary composition of this apex predator. key words: biomass; diet composition; prey species; scat analysis. the leopard (panthera pardus) is a solitary wild cat of the bush and forest and is mostly nocturnal. leopards are the most prevalent wild cats around asia and africa (nowell & jackson, 1996) inhabited by mountains, rain forests, suburban areas, and semiarid environments, throughout the middle east, south asia, the russian far east, and sub-saharan africa (stein & hayssen, 2013). the leopard’s home range is influenced by prey availability and the natural environment. they exhibit remarkable tolerance to the fluctuation of altitude, temperature, and rainfall (sunquist, 1999). leopards inhabit in the mountainous areas to an elevation of 4,600 m on mount kenya and 5,200 m in the himalayan region (stein et al., 2016). despite their broad range of distribution from arid to mountain, leopards are increasingly endangered due to habitat loss and degradation, prey depletion, poaching, and retaliatory killings by local communities in response to livestock depredation and human injuries (kandel, 2019). currently, leopards occupy only 25 to 37% of their historical range (jacobson et al., 2016). according to the iucn red list, the species is categorized as vulnerable (vu) due to an estimated global population decline of over 30% over the past three generations (stein et al., 2016). it is listed in appendix i of the convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (cites). in nepal, leopards are generally distributed from the lowland terai region (<100 meters above sea level) to the mountainous areas exceeding 4,000 meters. they primarily inhabit areas outside protected zones particularly forests and forest corridors, and seldom across the agricultural regions (dhungana et al., 2019). leopard’s habitat coincide with the royal bengal tiger (panthera tigris) within national parks and buffer zones in both the lowland terai received: 27, september 2024 revised: 02, february 2025 accepted: 12, february 2025 published: 30, may 2025 https://orcid.org/0009-0008-6057-0108 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4303-0520 https://orcid.org/0009-0006-9308-4128 https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4293-0571 https://orcid.org/0009-0000-0586-8384 4 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 shrestha et al. and mountainous regions (dnpwc, 2018; subedi et al., 2021). leopards possess the most varied diets among greater obligate carnivores (hussain et al., 2019). their widest distribution among wild felid species is because of their diverse feeding habits, extremely flexible hunting style, and solitary nature (chattha et al., 2015). a leopard’s food preference is largely determined by its ability to seize and hold onto its prey (de jesus, 2021). they consume a variety of prey, including various-sized ungulates, tiny rodents, other small mammals, birds, as well as livestock (nowell & jackson, 1996). although leopards favor prey between the sizes of 10 to 40 kg, they may also eat bulkier prey if there are no competing predators (hayward et al., 2006; stein, 2008). leopards can live in close vicinity to humans and are primarily nocturnal. in a large portion of their territory, habitats have been converted to agricultural land to meet the demands of a growing human population. this has led to habitat degradation and fragmentation, posing significant threats to local leopard populations. knowledge about prey preference and diet is essential to understanding the structural and physiological behavior of carnivores and to the conservation and management of top predators (miquelle et al., 1996). both the number and availability of the wild as well as domestic prey species are the main aspect that considers the potential carrying capacity of bigger carnivores in the human-inhabited environment (boitani & powell, 2012). winter is a challenging season, with harsh climatic conditions and scarcity of food for large predators. thus, it is important to study the winter diet composition of leopards. such studies will be beneficial for determining whether a location has enough wild food species available for leopards as well as to plan efficient conservation and management strategies for this apex predator species (hussain et al., 2019). therefore, this study aims to analyze the winter diet composition of leopards in the nagarjun forest of shivapuri nagarjun national park, nepal, through scat analysis to identify prey species composition and biomass consumption. we assume that leopards primarily rely on wild prey during winter, with domestic animals constituting a smaller portion of their diet. materials and methods study area shivapuri nagarjun national park (snnp) is situated within the boundaries of nuwakot, kathmandu, dhading, and sindhupalchwok districts covering an area of 159 square kilometers. the park encompasses two distinct forest patches: shivapuri and nagarjun forests. nagarjun forest, located between latitudes 27°43’ to 27°46’ north and longitudes 85°13’ to 85°18’ east, spans 16 square kilometers at the border of nuwakot and kathmandu districts (figure 1). the forest ranges in elevation from approximately 1,350 meters above sea level (masl) to 2,100 masl. nagarjun forest comprises largely of quartzite rock along with siliceous limestone, limestone, and calcisilicate rocks for certain areas (hagen, 1959). the forest’s soill composition varies from dry, light brown to black soil and has varying levels of humus (kanai et al., 1970). the forest experiences its highest humidity during july, august, and september, with peak rainfall occurring in july and august. the average monthly temperature ranges from 3.5°c to 30.2°c, humidity levels fluctuate between 78.73% and 87.73%, and rainfall ranges from 5.5 mm to 552.8 mm (rijal, 2015). poudyal et al. (2023) documented a total of 65 mammalian species within snnp that belong to eight different orders. the fauna of nagarjun forest includes diverse species of birds, herpetofauna, and mammals. among the fauna in the forest, the leopard and sambar deer (rusa unicolor) are listed as vulnerable (vu) on the iucn red list, while other species such as the wild boar (sus sp.), leopard cat (prionailurus bengalensis), large indian civet (viverra zibetha), barking deer (muntiacus vaginalis), jungle cat (felis chaus), masked palm civet (paguma larvata), himalayan porcupine (hystrix brachyuran), yellow-throated marten (martes flavigula) are categorized as least concern (lc). the chinese pangolin (manis pentadactyla) is classified as critically endangered (cr) and the assam macaque (macaca assamensis) is listed as near threatened (nt) on the iucn red list (dhital et al., 2020). koju et al. (2022) documented the presence of the burmese ferret badger (melogale personata) through camera trapping inside nagarjun forest. 5 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1shrestha et al. includes diverse species of birds, herpetofauna, and mammals. among the fauna in the forest, the leopard and sambar deer (rusa unicolor) are listed as vulnerable (vu) on the iucn red list, while other species such as the wild boar (sus sp.), leopard cat (prionailurus bengalensis), large indian civet (viverra zibetha), barking deer (muntiacus vaginalis), jungle cat (felis chaus), masked palm civet (paguma larvata), himalayan porcupine (hystrix brachyuran), yellow-throated marten (martes flavigula) are categorized as least concern (lc). the chinese pangolin (manis pentadactyla) is classified as critically endangered (cr) and the assam macaque (macaca assamensis) is listed as near threatened (nt) on the iucn red list (dhital et al., 2020). koju et al. (2022) documented the presence of the burmese ferret badger (melogale personata) through camera trapping inside nagarjun forest. figure 1: map of the study area with the location leopard scats methods collection of scats methods collection of scats scats of leopards were collected opportunistically from november to january 2022 by walking all available human trails, roads, and animal trails covering a distance of more than 19 kilometers. a portion of each scat was intentionally left to prevent alterations to the natural mark of the leopard (schwarz & fischer, 2006). zip-lock plastic bags were used to collect the scat samples, with the date and gps coordinates labeled on each bag (kandel, 2019). to differentiate leopard scats from those of other species, signs of leopard such as pugmark and scrape were observed along with shape, which is characterized by pointed ends and several lobes concerning the diameter (edgaonkar & chellam, 2002). scat analysis all the collected leopard scat samples were first washed with tap water using a fine-mesh sieve, to separate the undigested remains such as bones and teeth, to help identify the types of prey that the leopard had eaten. the washed samples were furthermore cleaned in a 1:1 ether-alcohol solution and further dried using blotting paper. subsequently the samples were oven-dried at approximately 60 °c (oli, 1993; koju et al., 2023). following the method described by mukherjee et al. (1994), 20 random prey hair samples were taken from each scat for histological study. to ensure impartiality and randomization, an a4 sheet paper was drawn with 2.5 × 2.5 cm2 and 20 colored boxes were randomly chosen. after that dried hairs were spread randomly in paper and one hair sample was chosen from each selected box for further examination. the variation in prey consumption obtained from the number of hairs in the scats of leopards was statistically analyzed using the chi-square (χ²) test. the prey species were categorized into two major categories: wild and domestic. mounting of hair and prey species identification each hair sample was mounted on a glass slide using dpx (dibutylphthalate polystyrene xylene) as the mounting medium and covered with a cover slip. thus prepared slides ware then examined under the microscope at 400× magnification and photographs figure 1: map of the study area with the location leopard scats 6 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 shrestha et al. were taken. prey species were identified by examining the structure of the medulla and comparing it with reference slides of hair samples (bahuguna, 2010; shrestha, 2015; schacker et al., 2018). reference slides for domesticated and pet animals were prepared using hair samples collected from the study area. biomass calculation the relative composition of prey species was determined using ackerman’s equation (ackerman et al., 1984), presuming that the leopard has similar digestive physiology to that of the mountain lion (puma concolor) (karanth & sunquist, 1995), to prevent bias resulting from varying prey body size, as follows: y = 1.98 + 0.035x where, y= weight of prey devoured per scat x = assumed prey species weight (kg) several studies have employed this method for leopards (karanth & sunquist, 1995; andheria et al., 2007; mondal et al., 2012; athreya et al., 2014). we used athreya et al. (2014), bhandari et al. (2017), hussain et al. (2019), desai et al. (2021), and rasphone et al. (2022) to get the prey species’ assumed weight (x). microscopic analysis the mounted hair samples were analyzed for micrometry and the following distances and medullary index were calculated (kshirsagar et al., 2009). 1) shaft’s overall diameter, 2) medulla diameter, and 3) medullary index: medulla diameter/ shaft’s overall diameter. pearson correlation test was conducted between biomassof the prey species with recorded medullary index to assess whether hair thickness is related to biomass of animal. results diet composition a total of 13 different pre species were identified from the analysis of 16 leopard scat samples (table 1). of these samples, 10 contained remains of three prey species, 4 containeed four species, and 2 contained five species. among the wild prey, the wild boar was the most frequently occurring species (81.25%), followed by yellow-throated marten at 68.75%. two domestic animal species dog and goat were also identified. among them, dogs (43.75%) were the most favored species during the winter season. among small mammals, rodents (43.75%), crab-eating mongoose (43.75%), himalayan striped squirrels (18.75%), and indian hares (18.75%) were also commonly detected in the leopard scats during winter. the chi square test (χ2) on variations of preys consumption obtained from number of hairs in the scats of leopards suggested that wild and domestic prey species in the leopard’s diet is significantly different from an equal distribution, indicating a preference for wild prey (χ2=6.23, df=1, p-value is 0.0126) biomass consumption in terms of biomass consumed, wild prey constituted a major fraction (80.09%) of the leopard diet where table 1: percent occurrence of prey species of scat sample of leopard name of species scientific name number of samples with presence percent occurrence % wild boar sus scrofa 13 81.25 yellow throated marten martes flavigula 11 68.75 assamese monkey macaca assamensis 8 50 rodent rodentia spp. 7 43.75 crab eating mongoose herpestes urva 7 43.75 himalayan striped squirrel tamiops macclellandii 3 18.75 indian hare lepus nigricollis 3 18.75 rhesus monkey macaca mulata 2 12.5 himalayan langur semnipithecus entellus 2 12.5 barking deer muntiacus vaginalis 1 6.25 large indian civet viverra zibetha 1 6.25 dog canis lupus 7 43.75 goat capra spp 5 31.25 unknown -not applicable 8 50 the chi square test (2) on variations of preys consumption obtained from number of hairs in the scats of leopards suggested that wild and domestic prey species in the leopard's diet is significantly different from an equal distribution, indicating a preference for wild prey (2=6.23, df=1, p-value is 0.0126) biomass consumption in terms of biomass consumed, wild prey constituted a major fraction (80.09.16%) of the leopard diet where wild boar contributed the highest (25.08%) followed by assamese monkey (13.03%). domestic animals constituted 19.05% of prey biomass consumed by the leopard. among domestic animals, the dog was the important constituent in the diet of leopards accounting for 10.22% of the consumed biomass (table 2). table 1: percent occurrence of prey species of scat sample of leopard 7 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1shrestha et al. wild boar contributed the highest (25.08%) followed by assamese monkey (13.03%). domestic animals constituted 19.05% of prey biomass consumed by the leopard. among domestic animals, the dog was the important constituent in the diet of leopards accounting for 10.22% of the consumed biomass (table 2). medullary index the medullary index of hair samples from prey species varied by species (table 3). among wild prey, barking deer exhibited the highest hair medullary index (0.84), followed by himalayan striped squirrel (0.83), crab eating mongoose (0.83), and assamese monkey (0.82). among domestic animals, the goat showed the highest medullary index (0.74). in contrast, the rhesus monkey had the lowest medullary index (0.34). the pearson correlation test yielded a pearson correlation coefficient ( r ) of approximately 0.104, indicating a very weak positive correlation between table 2: calculation for biomass consumption by leopard name of species assumed weight (a) biomass per scat (b) no. of scats (c) biomass consumed (d) percentage (%) biomass consumption (e) wild boar 38 3.31 13 43.03 25.08 yellow throated marten 1.5 2.0325 11 22.3575 13.03 assamese monkey 10 2.33 8 18.64 10.86 rodents 0.5 1.9975 7 13.9825 8.15 crab eating mongoose 2 2.05 7 14.35 8.36 himalayan striped squirrel 0.8 2.008 3 6.024 3.51 indian hare 2.5 2.0675 3 6.2025 3.61 rhesus monkey 10 2.33 2 4.66 2.71 himalayan langur 10 2.33 2 4.66 2.71 barking deer 20 2.68 1 2.68 1.56 large indian civet 8.5 2.2775 1 2.2775 1.32 dog 15 2.505 7 17.535 10.22 goat 30 3.03 5 15.15 8.83 a = assumed weight (kg) of the prey species b = estimated weight of prey consumed per scat (b = 1.98 + 0.035 × a) (ackerman et al., 1984) c = number of scats in which prey species were identified d = biomass consumed (b × c) e = percentage consumption (b ×cc/ [b × c] × 100) (khatoon et al., 2017) medullary index the medullary index of hair samples from prey species varied by species (table 3). among wild prey, barking deer exhibited the highest hair medullary index (0.84), followed by himalayan striped squirrel (0.83), crab eating mongoose (0.83), and assamese monkey (0.82). among domestic animals, the goat showed the highest medullary index (0.74). in contrast, the rhesus monkey had the lowest medullary index (0.34). table 2: calculation for biomass consumption by leopard a = assumed weight (kg) of the prey species b = estimated weight of prey consumed per scat (b = 1.98 + 0.035 × a) (ackerman et al., 1984) c = number of scats in which prey species were identified d = biomass consumed (b × c) e = percentage consumption (b ×cc/∑ [b × c] × 100) (khatoon et al., 2017) table 3: medullary index of prey species of leopards prey species no. of prey species overall diameter medullar diameter medullary index mean (µm) ± sd mean (µm) ± sd wild boar 64 96.34 36.20 68.08 42.93 0.71 assamese monkey 44 115.91 43.08 95.13 43.27 0.82 yellow throated marten 36 58.57 16.99 29.44 8.30 0.50 rodents 35 97.22 44.02 73.14 41.77 0.75 himalayanlangur 19 73.83 17.46 53.23 17.97 0.72 barking deer 18 147.46 24.29 123.17 22.09 0.84 crab eating mongoose 14 123.27 21.29 101.84 24.72 0.83 himalayan striped squirrel 8 117.50 17.84 97.14 18.39 0.83 large indian civet 7 90.20 19.58 54.29 17.22 0.60 rhesus monkey 6 44.29 12.36 15.24 2.33 0.34 indian hare 3 36.19 16.25 14.29 2.86 0.39 dog 26 56.37 17.15 36.81 13.70 0.65 goat 10 76.00 22.14 56.29 24.39 0.74 the pearson correlation test yielded a pearson correlation coefficient ( r ) of approximately 0.104, indicating a very weak positive correlation between the assumed body weight and the medullary index of the prey species discussion the dietary analysis revealed that the most preferred wild prey of the leopard was the wild boar, followed by the yellow-throated marten, as determined by the percentage occurrence of prey species in the leopard scat samples. the high consumption rate of wild boar in the current study may be attributed to its abundance and widespread distribution across the study area. this finding is consistent with the study by ghoddousi et al. (2017) in golestan national park, iran, where wild boar was alos the predominant prey species in the leopard�s diet due to its high population density. the preference for wild boar can be explained by its larger body mass, which provides substantial nourishment, especially in the absence of other prey species. despite being a preferred prey item, the wild boar is considered a highly aggressive and dangerous species for leopards (ramakrishnan et al., 1999), which may explain why it is often classified as a less favorable prey choice in other studies (hayward et al., 2006). leopards may avoid predation on mature wild boar and instead target juveniles to minimize the risk associated with hunting large and aggressive individuals (sugimoto et al., 2016). this preference for wild boar could result from a prey switching strategy (ghoddousi et al., 2017), likely driven by the lower densities of other ungulates in the study area (upadhyay et al., 2019). in the present study, a low representation of barking deer was observed, with a percentage occurrence of 6.25% and biomass consumption of 1.87% in the diet of leopards. it may be due table 3: medullary index of prey species of leopards 8 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1 shrestha et al. the assumed body weight and the medullary index of the prey species. discussion the dietary analysis revealed that the most preferred wild prey of the leopard was the wild boar, followed by the yellow-throated marten, as determined by the percentage occurrence of prey species in the leopard scat samples. the high consumption rate of wild boar in the current study may be attributed to its abundance and widespread distribution across the study area. this finding is consistent with the study by ghoddousi et al. (2017) in golestan national park, iran, where wild boar was alos the predominant prey species in the leopard’s diet due to its high population density. the preference for wild boar can be explained by its larger body mass, which provides substantial nourishment, especially in the absence of other prey species. despite being a preferred prey item, the wild boar is considered a highly aggressive and dangerous species for leopards (ramakrishnan et al., 1999), which may explain why it is often classified as a less favorable prey choice in other studies (hayward et al., 2006). leopards may avoid predation on mature wild boar and instead target juveniles to minimize the risk associated with hunting large and aggressive individuals (sugimoto et al., 2016). this preference for wild boar could result from a prey switching strategy (ghoddousi et al., 2017), likely driven by the lower densities of other ungulates in the study area (upadhyay et al., 2019). in the present study, a low representation of barking deer was observed, with a percentage occurrence of 6.25% and biomass consumption of 1.87% in the diet of leopards. it may be due to the seasonal fluctuations and the number of scat samples analyzed. although crab-eating mongoose, himalayan langur, and indian hare are absent from the study area, they were still found in the scat samples. this may be due to the nagarjun forest being nearer to the shivapuri forest, which provides a corridor for leopards to migrate between forest patches to fulfill their dietary needs. leopards have a large home range and may migrate to nearby forests, suggesting that the available prey species innone forest may appear in the scat sample of another forest patch. rodents contributed approximately 10% of the prey biomass consumed by the leopard. this highlights the importance of rodents in the leopard’s diet, specially during the scarcity of native prey in the forest, which may force leopards to rely on rodents for nutrition (kandel, 2019). in our study, domestic animals accounted for 22.83% of the leopard’s diet in terms of biomass consumption. among domestic animals, the dog was the important prey both in percentage occurrence and biomass consumption. no consumption of other domesticated animals such as goats, was found in the study. this might be due to the implementation of predator-proof corrals, which help reduce human-wildlife conflict (athreya et al., 2014). this study revealed that wild prey were the major food items of the leopard’s winter diet, although domestic livestock were consumed. our findings are somehow similar to the study of chattha et al. (2015) and dar and bhat (2022), who reported that leopards consumed more wild prey species than domestic livestock during the winter season. this may be due to the reduced availability of livestock for predation as the livestock remain caged in sheds. while domestic prey species do contribute to the diet of large felids, they are rarely the sole food source (athreya et al., 2014). however in human settlement, domestic prey populations can exceed those of wild prey (kshettry et al., 2018). leopard depredation on livestock may primarily result from a depletion of wild prey. similalry, the study also found that the medullary index value obtained for goats aligns with the findings of shrestha (2008), and the value for dogs aligns with with the results reported by negi et al. (2017). the width of hairs in the medulla and cortex varies by species, forming distinctive scale patterns that can be used for accurate species identification (wiley, 2004). these findings supports the conclusion that using hair parameters and the medullary index together ensures more reliable method for prey species identification in diet analysis (mihaylov & kirilov, 2022). conclusion this study shows that leopards (panthera pardus) in nagarjun forest consume a variety of prey species. during the winter season, leopards prefer wild prey as the food source over domestic animals. the findings of this study provides baseline informatiom on the winter diet of leopards, which will be helpful in the development of effective, evidence-based long-term strategies for the conservation and management of this apex predator and its wild prey base. furthermore, the findings can also contribute to mitigating humanleopard conflict in areas of shared habitat. 9 banko janakari, vol 35 no. 1shrestha et al. acknowledgments we owe a debt of gratitude to the department of national parks and wildlife conservation (dnpwc), nepal and the panimuhan office of shivapuri nagarjun national park (snnp) for granting permissin to conduct this research. we are also thankful to the department of environment, the park officials, and the personnel of the nepal army stationed at the nagarjun sector office for their help during field data collection. author’s contribution statement s. shrestha: conceptualization, methodology, field work, validation, formal analysis, writing original draft, writing review & editing; n. p. koju: conceptualization, methodology, field work, validation, formal analysis, writing original draft, writing review editing; a. thapa magar: methodology, field work, formal analysis, writing review & editing; s. b. shrestha: methodology, field work, formal analysis, writing review & editing; s. ghimire: methodology, field work, formal analysis, writing review & editing. declaration of competing interest the authors declare there is no conflict of interest. references ackerman, b. b., lindzey, f. g., & hemker, t. 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(2006). feeding ecology of leopards (panthera pardus) in the western soutpansberg, republic of south africa, as revealed by scat analyses. ecotropica, 12, 35-42. shrestha, b. (2008). prey abundance and prey selection by snow leopard (uncia uncia) in the sagarmatha (mt. everest) national park, nepal. report for international snow leopard trust, snow leopard conservancy and snow leopard network, forum of natural resource managers, nepal, 34pp. shrestha, p. m. (2015). diet composition of leopard (panthera pardus linnaeus, 1758) in shivapuri nagarjun national park, nepal. center department of zoology, tribhuvan university, kathmandu. henschel, p., hunter, l., breitenmoser, u., purchase, n., packer, c., khorozyan, i., bauer, h., marker, l., sogbohossou, e., & breitenmoser-wursten, c. (2016). panthera pardus. the iucn red list of threatened species 2016. https://doi.org/10.2305/ iucn.uk.2020-1.rlts.t15954a163991139.en stein, a. b. (2008). ecology and conservation of the leopard (panthera pardus linnaeus 1758) in northcentral namibia. university of massachusetts amherst. stein, a. b., & hayssen, v. (2013). panthera pardus (carnivora: felidae). mammalian species, 45 (900), 30-48. subedi, n., lamichhane, b. r., dahal, y. n., kandel, r. c., karki thapa, m., regmi, r., & shrestha, b. (2021). tigers in the himalayan foothills: possible linkage between two tiger population clusters in terai arc landscape, nepal. journal of animal diversity, 3 (2), 69-75. https://doi.org/10.52547/ jad.2021.3.2.7 sugimoto, t., aramilev, v. v., nagata, j., & mccullough, d. r. (2016). winter food habits of sympatric carnivores, amur tigers and far eastern leopards, in the russian far east. mammalian biology, 81 (2), 214-218. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.mambio.2015.12.002 sunquist, m. (1999). ecology, behaviour and resilience of the tiger and its conservation needs. riding the tiger: tiger conservation in human dominated landscapes, 5-18. upadhyay, h. s., behera, s., dutta, s. k., sahu, h. k., & sethy, j. (2019). a viable tiger population in similipal tiger reserve, india? calculating if the ungulate prey base is limiting. wildlife biology, 2019 (1), 1-7. https://doi.org/10.2981/wlb.00474 wiley, k. d. (2004). a microscopical study of exotic animal hair: part 1. modern microscopy. 3 springs are the ultimate source of water for the people inhabiting in the hills and mountain regions of nepal. almost 80% of the people residing in these areas use springs as their primary source of water (sharma et al., 2016). it is often used for livestock feeding, irrigation for agricultural field etc (chapagain et al., 2019; niraula et al., 2020).while springs play vital role in maintaining water-flow, water balance in lakes & ponds, it equally contributes in the downstream water availability (rosegrant et al., 2009). besides, these are important resources to maintain land productivity, ecosystem health, and wetland biodiversity. despite the availability of plenty of water resources (chaulagain, 2011; wecs, 2011), most rural villages, towns and banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1, 2023 pp 3‒15https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i1.55463 identifying potential recharge areas of mountain springs through hydrogeological mapping springs are the primary source of water for the people inhabiting in the hills and mountain regions of nepal. climate variability, climate change, land use change and management factors together with various human activities including haphazard infrastructure development like urbanization and road construction over the recharge area are responsible for drying up of springs in the hills and mountains, especially in the mid-hill region of nepal. this study attempts to identify the potential recharge zones of the springs within the four catchments viz. banlekh and shikharpur of baitadi and doti districts, respectively in far-western nepal, and the khaste and begnas of kaski district in western nepal through hydrogeological mapping. hydrogeological conceptual model was adopted while identifying the potential recharge areas. we measured the orientation of the rock outcrops, their types, and discontinuities found around the possible recharge areas. we prepared a conceptual hydro-geological layout of the spring-sheds based on the collected data, and delineated the potential recharge areas. we found the potential recharge zone of the banlekh springs at hill slopes and bedding plane within the catchment. however, the recharge zone of the shikharpur springs was found on the top and beyond the catchment due to the presence of a number of sinkholes. moreover, the recharge zone of the thulopadhero spring was found to be controlled by the orientation of the rocks and fractures found in the unconsolidated sediments within the catchment and beyond the ridge of the escarpment. the rock orientation within the falekund-saunepani-lapsibot catchment suggests that the potential recharge zone of the springs consists of unconsolidated sediments. the identified potential recharge areas, the observed rainfall, and the discharge data on springs indicated that the recharge areas were more influenced by the local geology. key words: drying springs, geological setting, hydrogeological process, recharge zone and spring-shed. r. s. thapa 1*, r. subedi 1, k. r. tiwari 1, j. desai 2, m. l. rijal 3, and p. n. kandel 4 received: 2, march 2023 revised: 25, may 2023 accepted: 16, august 2023 published: 20, december 2023 1 institute of forestry, tribhuvan university, pokhara, p.o. box 43, nepal. *email: rstsila@gmail.com 2 advanced center for water resources development and management, pune, india 3 department of geology, tribhuvan university, kathmandu, nepal 4 kathmandu, nepal https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1927-4442 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 4 thapa et al. even some cities are currently experiencing water shortages (chapagain, 2019; sharma et al., 2016). crisis of fresh water resources is the major concern across the globe as there is increasing demand of water with growing population and less availability of water (mekonnen & hoekstra, 2016). drying up of springs in the hindu kush– himalayan region will create water shortage as a major environmental threat (mukherji et al., 2015; rasul, 2012; scott et al., 2019). about 50 percent of the perennial springs running in the indian himalayan region have faced two fates; either being dried up or has been converted into seasonal water sources (tambe et al., 2020). about 73.2% of the springs are found to have decreased their flow while 12.2% springs have dried up over the past 10 years or more in the thulokhola watershed of nuwakot district, nepal (poudel & duex, 2017). in the central himalayas, while the water remains available for major duration of the year, water shortage usually occurs during dry periods ranging from march to may, sometimes even extending uptp mid-june (merz et al. 2004). the springs within the banlekh, thulopadhero and falekund-saunepani-lapsibot catchments are used for drinking water. the local people use the springs even for irrigation in shikharpur. however, they face water insecurity during lean season due to diminishing discharge of the springs. climate variability, climate change, land use change and management factors together with various human activities including haphazard infrastructure development like urbanization and road construction over the recharge area are responsible for drying up of springs in the mid-hill region of nepal (adhikari et al., 2020; chinnasamy et al., 2015). some major concerns for sustainable water resource management are found to be population growth, agricultural intensification, land use change, deforestation, economic development, and impacts of climate change (merz et al., 2003; negi & joshi, 2002; vaidya, 2012). the average annual mean temperature is projected to increase by 1.720 c on average over a long period of time while the number of rainy days is likely to decrease by 1% in the long run (mofe, 2019). thus, increase in average temperature, change in precipitation pattern and decrease in number of rainy days will impact upon infiltration process. current understanding on spring hydrogeological processes in the himalayas is inadequate, occurrence of springs is poorly understood, and watershed management stemming from inadequate understanding would not solve water scarcity challenge (shrestha et al., 2018; tarafdar et al., 2019). water source protection is one of the programs under watershed management to increase spring discharge (dscwm, 2015). conventional watershed management approach (ridge to valley) has been found ineffective to enhance spring discharge in many cases (rijal, 2016). the recharge area of a spring may lie within a watershed or back side of a watershed or multiple watersheds depending upon the local geology (shrestha et al., 2018). since the source of spring water is mainly determined by aquifer characteristics rather than surface topography, spring-shed is the potential recharge area of a spring and hence it differs from watershed (shrestha et al., 2018; tarafdar et al., 2019). identification of recharge area is, thus, important for effective implementation of recharge intervention. this study intends to assess the hydrogeological process of the springs through hydrogeological mapping and identify the potential recharge areas of the springs in the mountain landscape of karnali and gandaki river basins in western nepal. the specific objective is to identify orientation of rocks and fractures in the catchments and to delineate potential recharge areas of the springs in the four different catchments (two each in the karnali and gandaki river basins). study sites the study was carried out within four catchment areas viz. the banlekh and shikharpur catchments of baitadi and doti districts, respectively in far-western nepal, and the khaste and begnas catchments of kaski district in western nepal (figure 1). those four different sites were selected banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 5 thapa et al. to capture the differences in lithology which would support to explain the relationship between lithology and recharge zone. both the banlekh and shikharpur catchments lie in the lower seti watershed under the karnali river basin while the thulopadhero and falekund-saunepani-lapsibot catchments lie in the seti river sub-basin under the gandaki river basin. all the three springs viz. falekund, saunepani, and lapsibot lie within the begnas catchment. the study was carried out in 2018 and accomplished in 2022. thulopadhero catchment: the catchment of thulopadhero spring, a tributary of khaste lake of pokhara-26 covers an area of 12.67 ha. the elevation ranges from 1009 m to 1137 m above the mean sea level (msl). the catchment is located between 840 02’ 50.47” 840 03’ 11.70” e longitudes and 280 12’ 28.62” 280 12’ 42.34” n latitudes, respectively. the spring is located at 1009m elevation. thulopadhero spring is the source of water for drinking and other household consumptions within the locality. falekund-saunepani–lapsibot catchment (begnas_rupa catchment): the catchment lies within pokhara-31. it covers an area of 56.82 ha, and its elevation ranges from 924m to 1125 m above the msl. the catchment is located between 840 07’ 14.49” 840 07’ 45.99” e longitudes and 280 10’ 48.18” 280 11’ 20.01” n latitudes, respectively. there are three springs namely falekund, saunepani and lapsibot lying almost parallel to one another at the elevations of 924 m, 948 m and 951 m, respectively, within the catchment area. the water from these springs is used for drinking and other household consumptions within the locality. shikarpur catchment: this catchment has three springs viz. relapani, tallo paharpani and mathillo paharpani. these springs are located at 2087 m, 2269 m and 2294 m above the msl, respectively. the catchment is located between 80040’ 57.52” 800 41’ 45.44” e longitudes and 290 29’ 10.55” 290 29’ 35.50” n latitudes, respectively. the catchment covers an area of about 374 ha, and its altitudinal range varies from 1812 m to 2470 m above the msl. these springs are the source of water for drinking and other household consumptions as well as microirrigation within the locality. figure 1. location map showing the districts and catchment areas under the study (source: survey department, nepal, 1998/1999; modified by the researchers). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 6 thapa et al. banlekh catchment: there are four springs (magarau mul, mallo badekhola, upallo badekhola and badekhola noulo) lying linearly along the gorge at the elevations of 755m, 822 m, 832 m and 867 m above the msl, respectively. the catchment covers an area of about 174ha. the elevation ranges from 770 m to 1250 m above the msl. the catchment is located between 800 45’ 50.94” 800 46’ 01.92” e longitudes and 290 17’ 10.69” 290 17’ 24.06” n latitudes, respectively. the water from all these springs are used for drinking water supply and household consumption. material and methods hydrogeological mapping was adopted to delineate the potential recharge areas of all the selected springs in our study. hydrogeological approach is fundamentally based on the concept that local geological conditions control the subsurface flow of water after rainfall infiltrates in the sub-surface. hydrogeological mapping allows development of the conceptual model for site hydrology and identification of potential constraints on ground-water flow and protective zones (jensen et al., 1997). rock types and their orientations, openings and structural features of the rocks control the accumulation and the movement of ground water in the himalayan regions (shrestha et al., 2018). this study comprises three footsteps for delineating the potential recharge areas; (i) geological mapping of the study sites on the basis of field verification, (ii) conceptual hydrogeological layout of the springsheds, and (iii) identification and delineation of the potential recharge areas. a hydrogeological layout of a spring-shed is a geological crosssection that represent a spring and its connection to the surrounding geology viewed in 3-d (dass et al., 2021; shrestha et al., 2018). we generated secondary data for hydrogeological mapping based on the existing geological maps produced by the department of mines and geology, 2011 and the topographic features based on the digital database and topographic maps (1998 and 1999) published by the survey department. the data were modified based on the field observation made. the geological traverses were performed covering the probable recharge areas of the selected springs to collect information on spring location, rock type, strike and dip values of rock outcrops and fractures (shrestha et al., 2018) in the four selected catchments under this study. all the rock outcrops appeared within and nearby the catchments were taken into account during field observation. brunton compass was used to gather information on attitudes of rock and fractures. the geological information of thulopadhero and falekund-saunepani-lapsibot catchments are presented in annex 1 and that of shikharpur and banlekh catchments are shown in annex 2. all the data collected during the transect walks were transferred to a google file format (.kml) using the online converter www.earthpoint. us, and the interpolation and extrapolation of the rock outcrop data helped in producing the geological maps of the study area. an elevation profile (topography profile) of the catchment of each springs under study was generated using googleearth and transferred to coreldraw x7 software to produce 2-d cross section for the individual spring-shed and subsequently 3-d conceptual hydro geological layout which displays the fracture trend, strike and dip of the rocks together with the location of the spring. the hydro geological lay out so generated was used to identify the area that supplies water to the aquifer that feeds the spring (shrestha et al., 2018). the potential recharge area was then delineated based on the dips of the bedding plane and fractures plane and the type of rocks. the rainfall and discharge of each spring in the thulopadhero and falekund-saunepani-lapsibot catchments were measured from july 2018 to july 2019 so as to analyze the rainfall reaction on spring discharge. daily rainfalls of the study catchment were recorded through installation of manual rain gauge while the weekly discharges of springs were measured by applying volumetric approach. the local citizens were trained and mobilized for the purpose of measurement. the rainfall and discharge of the respective springs within the banlekh and shikharpur catchments were measured from august 2015 to december 2016 and october 2015 to december 2016, banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 7 thapa et al. respectively, by the building climate resilience of watersheds in mountain ecoregions (bcrwme) project under the department of soil conservation and watershed management (dscwm). the identified/delineated recharge area and the underlying geology were interpreted with respect to the rainfall and the discharge observed during one-year period. results we generated the regional map (see figure 2) of the study area based on the map produced by the departments of mines and geology, 2010/2011, and later on prepared the local geological maps (see figure 3) based on the regional map and the observation made during the transact walks. the figure 2: regional geology of the study area; thulopadhero, falekund-saunepanilapsibot (right) and banlekh, shikharpur (left) [source: department of mines and geology, nepal, 2010/2011 and dhital (2015)] figure 3: local geology of the catchments within the study sites (source: geological maps prepared by the department of mines and geology, nepal, 2010/2011 and field observation) banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 8 thapa et al. local geological map so prepared included the attitudes of exposure rocks (strike, dip direction and dip amount), types of rocks around the catchment of spring, attitudes of fractures, and location of spring together with the geological cross section towards the spring. the conceptual hydrogeological layouts indicating the potential recharge areas based on the observed data are depicted below in figure 4a, 4b, and 4c for the thulopadhero, falekund, and saunepani and lapsibot springs respectively and those for the shikharpur and banlekh springs are displayed in figure 5a and 5b, respectively. we used the hydrogeological layouts to identify the areas supplying water to the aquifers that feed the springs. delineation of the potential recharge areas based on the hydrogeological layouts, we identified and delineated the potential recharge areas of all the springs in the googleearth imagery, 2019. the hydrogeological layouts depicted the recharge areas based on the dipping and dip amounts of the bedding planes, presence of fractures and their dipping. the identified potential recharge areas of thulopadhero, falekund-saunepani-lapsibot, banlekh and shikharpur springs are showcased in figures 6a, 6b, 6c and 6d, respectively. rainfall and discharge response the observed seasonal rainfall data of the catchments and the discharge response of the springs are presented in table 1 and the discharge response of the estimated potential recharge areas of the springs against the annual rainfall are depicted in table 2. similarly, the weekly rainfall and the weekly average discharge of the springs are showcased in figure 7. the observed data indicated that the monsoon rainfall contributed to 81.6 %, 78.2 %, 69 %, and 70 % of the annual rainfall at banlekh, shikharpur, thulopadhero and falekund-saunepani-lapsibot catchments, respectively. figure 4: conceptual hydrogeological layouts for(a) thulopadhero, (b) falekund, and (c) saunepani and lapsibot springs [source: googleearth, 2019 and coreldraw x7] banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 9 thapa et al. figure 5: conceptual hydrogeological layouts for(a) shikharpur and (b) banlekh springs [source: googleearth, 2019 and coreldraw x7] figure 6: potential recharge areas in the goggleearth imagery for the springs of (a) thulopadhero, (b) falekund, saunepani and lapsibot, (c) mangru mul and (d) paharpani [source: googleearth 2019; modified by the researchers] banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 10 thapa et al. table1: seasonal rainfall and discharge of the springs s. n. season monsoon post monsoon winter pre-monsoon spring rainfall (mm) discharge (lps) rainfall (mm) discharge (lps) rainfall (mm) discharge (lps) rainfall (mm) discharge (lps) 1. thulopadhero 1986.93 0.54 149.78 0.36 186.37 0.11 562.44 0.03 2. falekund 2126.25 1.32 156.39 0.33 222.84 0.16 531.53 0.25 3. saunepani 2126.25 2.01 156.39 0.68 222.84 0.24 531.53 0.31 4. lapsibot 2126.25 1.30 156.39 0.40 222.84 0.05 531.53 0.23 5. banlekh 434 5.18 (lpm) 36.8 3.42 (lpm) 33 5.44 (lpm) 28 4.08 (lpm) 6. paharpani tallo (lower) 1621.6 7.18 51.4 2.27 50 0.88 348.6 0.60 7. paharpani upallo (upper) 1621.6 2.56 51.4 2.50 50 1.96 348.6 1.49 note: lps refers to liters per second while lpm refers to liters per minute figure 7. weekly rainfall and discharge response of the selected springs banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 11 thapa et al. table 2: annual rainfall, annual average discharge and the estimated potential recharge area of the springs springs estimated potential recharge area (ha) annual average discharge (lps) annual precipitation (mm) observations lower paharpani spring 3.12 2.93 2145.6 higher discharge per unit recharge area upper paharpani spring 3.12 2.24 2145.6 higher discharge per unit recharge area magarau mul 3.73 0.08 531 less rainfall and lower discharge thulopadhero 7.77 0.32 2852 more rainfall but lower discharge falekund 13.24 0.67 3037 more recharge area, more rainfall but lower discharge saunepani 8.20 1.04 3037. more rainfall higher discharge per unit recharge area in comparison to falekund lapsibot 8.20 0.65 3037 more rainfall but low discharge in comparison to saunepani discussion thulopadhero and falekund-saunepanilapsibot catchment thulopadhero and falekund-saunepani-lapsibot catchments rest upon the kuncha formation (dhital, 2015). it is composed of light greygreen to dark green phyllite, gritty phyllite and sandstone. it contains a monotonous noncalcareous sequence of alteration of phyllite, phyllitic quartzite and phyllitic grit stones. fracture pattern is prominent with two or more than two sets. loose unconsolidated materials and residual soil were found across the entire study area. folded structures were seen at both regional and local scale. attitude of foliations is towards sw and se, which is due to one of the limbs of the regional anticline spreading from majhthana to bimirapani village (dhital, 2015). the dipping of the bedding planes in both the catchments is towards sw i.e. towards the springs. therefore, the springs in this region are “depression springs” along with fractured rocks. in the case of the thulopadhero spring, the bedding plane is slopped towards the spring, and is made up of weathered materials (figure 6a). this geological setting shows that the potential recharge area is above the spring because of enhanced permeability caused by loose weathered sediments. furthermore, the orientation of the fractures in the escarpment slope at the back of the catchment also supports the movement of water towards the spring. similarly, the fractures in the bedrock and unconsolidated sediments within the catchment above the falekund spring contribute favorably to its recharge. therefore, the potential recharge zone in the case of the falekund spring lies above the spring and at the top of the catchment due to the existing fractures and dipping slope (figure 6 b). the presence of unconsolidated sediments towards the dip slope and fractures at the ridge of the catchment is attributed to the spring recharge (figure 6 b). hence, the saunepani and lapsibot springs possess the same recharge area on the same hill slope. groundwater potential is relatively low in this type of litho-units, which is verified by the discharge data depicted in table 2. however, we couldn’t identify the individual recharge zones of the saunepani and lapsibot springs. topographically, both the springs banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 12 thapa et al. seem to share the common recharge zone. their hydrogeology study also could not recognize the separate recharge zones. they both must have different hydrogeological connectivity internally. besides, the observation of the rock outcrop could not represent the geology underneath in this case. this is the limitation of hydrogeological mapping method. however if even more accurate result is required, environmental isotope analysis can be carried out. (shrestha et al., 2018). banlekh and shikarpur catchments the general dipping trend of the bedding plane in the case of the banlekh catchment is towards north, and the outcrops are not well exposed. the springs in this region are “depression spring”. the identified potential recharge area of the magarau mul at the banlekh catchment is simply based on the concept of natural slope of the hill. the dominant rocks present in the catchment are phyllites (dhital, 2015). groundwater potential is relatively low in this type of litho-units, which is also verified by the discharge data presented in table 2. considering unconsolidated sediments at the top layer, the recharge area covers the hill slope and bedding planes to some extent (figure 6 c). the springs within the shikharpur catchment emerges out through reddish brown colluvial and residual deposit, and the dipping of the bedding plane is towards nw, opposite to the spring, thus making depression-cum-fracture spring. geologically, the shikharpur area lies in the lesser himalayan sequence while the banlekh area lies in the tethyan himalayan sequence (figure 2). the proterozoic major carbonate band and mixed lithology of slate, shale, siltstone, sandstone, graphitic schist, paleozoic rocks including melmura and damgad formations of dadeldhura district are found in the lesser himalayan sequence (dhital, 2015). a number of sinkholes exist at the top and backwards of the shikharpur catchment, indicating a major carbonate band. the upper region consists of carbonate band with karstic feature, which makes the spring perennial and flow constantly throughout the year. thus, the potential recharge area of the springs within the shikharpur catchment is at the top and also beyond the catchment (figure 6 d). the identified recharge zones of the banlekh and shikharpur springs are also supported by the study conducted through isotopic analysis (matheswaran, 2019 ). the recharge area of the banlekh springs was found to be within the catchment while that of the shikharpur springs was noticed on the top and also beyond the catchment. rainfall and discharge response the rainfall and discharge graph of the springs clearly demonstrated that the study region received 70 % to 81.6 % of the annual rainfall during monsoon season, and the discharge response of the springs is also relatively higher in monsoon. karki et al. (2017) also discovered that about 80% of the annual precipitation was contributed by monsoonal precipitation while winter, pre monsoon and post-monsoon precipitation covered only 3.5 %, 12.5 %, and 4.0 %, respectively. the observed data showed that the winter rainfall of the falekund-saunepami-lapsibot catchment is relatively higher (7.34 %) in comparison to that of the thulopadhero catchment (6.46 %), shikharpur catchment (2.41 %) and banlekh catchment (6.21 %), and thus contributing towards the discharge of springs in pre-monsoon period. the discharge trend of the springs within the thulopadhero, banlekh and shikharpur catchments was found to be decreasing during pre-monsoon in comparison to winter discharge. these findings reveal the contribution of winter rainfall towards the discharge of springs during pre-monsoon. size of the surface catchments, delineated potential recharge area, annual rainfall and discharge depicted varying discharge response of the springs (table 1), mostly governed by the local geological conditions. the analysis on the weekly total rainfall and average discharge showed that there were varying response of the springs that could be due to different residence time and recharging characteristics in the catchment. the data reveal that spring discharge does not solely depend on the size of its catchment and rainfall but is also influenced by the local hydrogeology. our study found that both the paharpani springs had highest annual average discharge in spite of banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 13 thapa et al. their smallest identified potential recharge area in comparison to the other studied springs. this is due to the catchment features with carbonate band in which there are numbers of sinkholes which support for higher ground recharge. this result is also supported by kulkarni et al. (2021) who claimed that the translation of rainfall into spring discharge is basically influenced by spatial variation in topography, geology and land use characteristics of a catchment. conclusion this study explores the application of hydrogeological mapping to identify the potential recharge areas of the springs in mountain catchments. the study showed that each of the observed springs had a certain recharge area controlled by the orientation of rocks and associated discontinuities. the recharge areas of the springs at the backwards of the shikharpur and thulopadhero catchments depicted that the recharge area of a spring could lie within or opposite side of its watershed depending upon the local geology. this underscores that if the primary objective is to enhance the discharge of any spring especially in the hills and mountains during lean season, a paradigm shift from practicing the conventional watershed management approach of the ‘ridge to the valley’ to the ‘valley to valley’ approach is urged. furthermore, geology underneath the catchment controls the discharge capacity of a spring as observed in the shikarpur catchment. this study is expected to support the concerned policymakers in decision-making while planning climate-resilience-programs to address the issue of drying up of springs. acknowledgments we are grateful to the hariyo ban program, wwf nepal, the bcrwme project under the department of forests & soil conservation, and the institute of forestry, pokhara for supporting us to accomplish this study. conflicts of interest: the authors declare no conflict of interest. references adhikari, s., gurung, a., chauhan, r., rijal, d., dongol, b. s., aryal, d., & talchabhadel, r. (2020). status of springs in mountain watershed of western nepal. water policy, december. https://doi.org/10.2166/wp.2020.187. chapagain, p. s., ghimire, m.l., & shrestha, s. (2019). status of natural springs in the melamchi region of the nepal himalayas in the context of climate change. environment, development and sustainability, 21 (1): 263–280. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10668-017-0036-4. chaulagain, n. p. (2011). climate change impacts on water resources of nepal with reference to the glaciers in the langtang himalayas. journal of hydrology and meteorology, 6 (1): 58–65. https:// doi.org/10.3126/jhm.v6i1.5489. chinnasamy, p., bharati, l., bhattarai, u., khadka, a., dahal, v., & wahid, s. (2015). impact of planned water resource development on current and future water demand in the koshi river basin, nepal. water international, 40 (7): 1004–1020. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.20 15.1099192. dass, b., abhishek, s., bamola, v., sharma, a., & sen, d. (2021). assessment of spring flows in indian himalayan micro-watershedsa hydrogeological approach. journal of hydrology, 598. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126354. dhital, m. r. (2015). geology of the nepal himalayaregional perspective of the classic collided orogen. springer nature. pp. 81-91; 125-152. isbn: 978-3-319-02495-0. dscw. (2015). soil conservation and watershed management program/activities. government of nepal jensen, m. e., lowe, m., & wireman, m. (1997). investigation of hydrogeologic mapping to delineate protection zones around springs. report of two case studies. u.s. environmental protection agency, washington, dc, epa/600/r-97/023, 1997. accessed on 22nd march banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 14 thapa et al. 2023. https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_ report.cfm?lab=nrmrl&direntryid=23457. karki, r., hasson, s., schickhoff, u., scholten, t., & böhner, j. (2017). rising precipitation extremes across nepal. climate, 5 (1): 4. https:// doi.org/10.3390/cli5010004. kulkarni, h., desai, j., & siddique, m. i. (2021). rejuvenation of springs in the himalayan region. in water, climate change, and sustainability (pp. 97–107). wiley. https://doi. org/10.1002/978111956 4522.ch6. matheswaran, k., khadka, a., dhaubanjar, s., bharati, l., kumar, s., & shrestha, s. (2019). delineation of spring recharge zones using environmental isotopes to support climate-resilient interventions in two mountainous catchments in far-western nepal. hydrogeology journal, 27 (6): 2181–2197. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10040019-01973-6. mekonnen, m. m., & hoekstra, a. y. (2016). sustainability: four billion people facing severe water scarcity. science advances, 2 (2): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500323. merz, j., nakarmi, g., shrestha, s. k., dahal, b. m., dangol, p. m., dhakal, m. p., dongol, b. s., sharma, s., shah, p. b., & weingartner, r. (2003). water: a scarce resource in rural watersheds of nepal’s middle mountains. mountain research and development, 23 (1): 41–49. https://doi. org/10.1659/0276-4741(2003)023[0041:wasrir]2 .0.co;2. merz, j., nakarmi, g., shrestha, s., dahal, b. m., dongol, b. s., schaffner, m., shakya, s., sharma, s. & weingartner, r. (2004). public water sources in rural watersheds of nepal’s middle mountains: issues and constraints. environmental management, 34: 26–37. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s00267-004-0118-6. mofe. (2019). climate change scenarios for nepal (issue february). http://mofe.gov.np/ downloadfile/ mofe_2019_climate change scenarios for nepal_nap_1562647620.pdf. mukherji, a., molden, d., nepal, s., rasul, g., & wagnon, p. (2015). himalayan waters at the crossroads: issues and challenges. international journal of water resources development, 31 (2): 151–160. https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2015 .1040871. negi, g. c. s. & joshi, v. (2002). drinking water issues and development of spring sanctuaries in a mountain watershed in the indian himalaya. mountain research and development, 22: 29–31. https://doi.org/10.1659/02764741(2002)022[0029:dwiado]2.0.co;2. niraula, r. r., sharma, s., pokharel, b. k., & paudel, u. (2020). spatial prediction of spring locations in data poor region of central himalayas. hydrology research, 1–14. https:// doi.org/10.2166/nh.2020. 223. poudel, d. d., & duex, t. w. (2017). vanishing springs in nepalese mountains: assessment of water sources, farmers’ perceptions, and climate change adaptation. mountain research and development, 37 (1): 35. https://doi.org/10.1659/ mrd-journal-d-16-00039.1. rasul, g. (2012). contribution of himalayan ecosystems to water, energy and food security in south asia: a nexus approach. icimod, 2015. rijal, m. l. (2016). the importance of springshed approach for the conservation of springs in nepal himalaya. bulletin of nepal geological society, 33 (april): 61–64. rosegrant, m. w., ringler, c., & zhu, t. (2009). water for agriculture: maintaining food security under growing scarcity. annual review of environment and resources, 34 (1): 205–222. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev. environ.030308.090351. scott, c. a., zhang, f., mukherji, a., immerzeel, w., mustafa, d., & bharati, l. (2019). water in the hindu kush himalaya. in s. a. wester p., mishra a., & mukherji, a. (ed.), the hindu kush himalaya assessment. pp. 257–299. springer international publishing. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-319-92288-1_8. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 15 thapa et al. sharma, b., nepal, s., gyawali, d., pokharel, g. s., wahid, s., mukherji, a., acharya, s., & shrestha, a. b. (2016). springs, storage towers, and water conservation in the midhills of nepal. icimod working paper, 2016/3. pp. 1–44. https://doi.org/10.13140/rg.2.1.4142.4886. shrestha, r. b., desai, j., mukherji, a., dhakal, m., kulkarni, h., mahamuni, k., bhuchar, s., & bajracharya, s. (2018). protocol for reviving springs in the hindu kush himalayas: a practitioner’s manual. international centre for integrated mountain development (icimod). https://doi.org/10.53055/icimod.735. isbn: 978 92 9115 606 1 (printed) 978 92 9115 607 8 (electronic). tambe, s., dhakal, s., dhakal, d., sharma, g., sherpa, p. n., kulkarni, h., bhutia, n. t., dhakal, d., pradhan, s., sinha, u. k., tiwari, a., kharel, g., phukan, i., & arrawatia, m. l. (2020). scaling up spring revival in the himalaya: graduating from spring-centric to aquifer-centric nature-based solutions. pp. 29–50. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-981-15-4712-6_2. tarafdar, s., bruijnzeel, l. a., & kumar, b. (2019). improved understanding of spring and stream water responses in headwaters of the indian lesser himalaya using stable isotopes, conductivity and temperature as tracers. hydrological sciences journal, 64 (7): 757–770. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 02626667.2019.1600698. vaidya, r. (2012). water and hydropower in the green economy and sustainable development of the hindu kush himalayan region. hydro nepal: journal of water, energy and environment, 10: 11–19. wecs. (2011). water resources of nepal in the context of climate change. government of nepal, water and energy commission secretariat (wecs), singha durbar, kathmandu, nepal. 27 climate change has become a pressing concern in the twenty-first century (wong et al., 2022) and is threatening humanity, particularly those who have less capacity to adapt to climate change impacts (berse, 2017). adolescents (10-19 years age group) are also one of the vulnerable groups to climate-induced disasters (baker et al., 2021; rousell et al., 2020). extreme climate-induced disasters such as droughts, floods and landslides can put their mental health and academic as well as intellectual development under threat (clayton & manning, 2017; gibbs et al., 2019). in the context of nepal, adolescents are particularly vulnerable to disasters because of the high incidence of poverty, illness exposure, resource reliance, limited access to climate change adaptation knowledge, disaster risk reduction, rights, and protection (plan nepal, 2012). according to the mofe (2021), dhading, rolpa, humla, dolpa, baitadi, salyan, and manang are highly vulnerable districts to climate change. moreover, adolescents, women and marginalized communities of these districts are highly vulnerable because they have least access to relevant information, resources and capacity banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1, 2023 pp 27‒36https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i1.49013 climate change knowledge among the community school students of sindhuli district of central nepal knowledge of climate change is a key instrument to combat climate change and raise awareness of society, but only a few studies have been conducted to assess students’ knowledge level in nepal. in this study, a semi-structured questionnaire survey was conducted on 140 students of grades 7, 8, 9, and 10 from four community schools to assess climate change knowledge. the results showed a statistically significant association between students’ responses to being aware (yes/no) of the term “climate change” across genders as well as across different grades. a majority of the surveyed students reported a rise in temperature (n=67.85 %) and increasing rainfall intensity (n=57.85 %) over the course of the years. more than half of the surveyed students (n=55 %) would like to receive climate change education through their own curriculum books. similarly, 44.27 % of the surveyed students identified plantation activities as a key climate change adaptation measure that they could perform. the findings of our study has indicated that school education is the best medium for students to learn about climate change. thus, environmental education programs should be widely promoted while climate change education needs to be integrated into school curricula to a greater extent. keywords: adaptation strategies, adolescence, climate change education, global warming and school curriculum n. kc 1*, v. thapa chhetri 2, s. bhattarai 2, s. subedi 2, m. karki 2, b. bhandari 3, b. sharma 4, and s. acharya 5, 6 received: 2, november 2022 revised: 28, december 2022 accepted: 16, august 2023 published: 20, december 2023 1 wwf nepal, baluwatar, kathmandu, nepal. *email: nishan.kc@wwfnepal.org 2 tribhuvan university, institute of forestry, pokhara, nepal 3 agriculture and forestry university, college of natural resource management, udayapur, nepal 4 tribhuvan university, institute of agriculture and animal science, paklihawa campus, rupandehi, nepal 5 department of anthropology, university of maine, orono, me, usa; climate change institute, university of maine, orono, me, usa; 6 himalayan conservation and research institute, dolpa, nepal https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5895-9594 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8046-4213 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5882-0800 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7839-5941 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1392-8521 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5400-327x banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 28 kc et al. to manage the impacts of climate change and related disasters (mainlay & tan, 2012). school education can be a strategic step towards climate education and social awareness. it creates a platform for intergenerational learning (lawson et al., 2019). as students learn about disasters and climate change in their schools, they communicate the information with their parents and relatives, as well as provide practical ideas to recover from disasters (tanner, 2010). educational institutions like secondary schools can play a crucial role in result-oriented communication on climate change (nerlich et al., 2010). it is an important means to combat climate change by enhancing students’ knowledge and ultimately raising the collective awareness of society (anderson, 2012). climate change education has been gaining significance in recent years because of the global interest in international and national educational programs (læssøe & mochizuki, 2015; unesco, 2009). therefore, strengthening climate change education and awareness, adaptation, and mitigation is a goal shared by the government, educational institutions, national and international organizations, and other stakeholders in nepal (mofe, 2019; plan nepal, 2012). the national climate change policy, 2019 of nepal has also emphasized the causes and impacts of climate change and capacity building of the students through formal and non-formal education curricula of lower secondaryand secondarylevels (gon, 2019). information on students’ level of knowledge on climate change has been identified as the key instrument because it acts as a baseline for developing school curriculum education (özdem et al., 2014; punter et al., 2011). furthermore, school students are the future climate activists at the local, national, and international levels, and they are responsible for reducing climate change vulnerabilities and passing on knowledge to the next generation (seddighi et al., 2020). it is, therefore, important to assess their current state of knowledge on climate change. several factors such as gender, age group, and academic grades can shape student’s knowledge and understanding of climate change (ojala, 2015). limited studies have attempted to quantify students’ knowledge regarding the impacts of climate change in nepal (devkota & phuyal, 2017; gautam et al., 2021). therefore, this study assessed students’ (adolescents’) level of knowledge on climate change and its impacts on health and biodiversity in the current context in the selected four community schools in sunkoshi rural municipality of sindhuli district. our research can shed light on community school students’ current understanding and knowledge regarding climate change, which could be useful for local and national education institutions to strengthen climate change education in school curricula. the current study may not provide the whole scenario of nepal, but it does serve as a foundation for future research in other parts of the country. material and methods study area four community schools within the sunkoshi rural municipality of sindhuli district of nepal (see figure 1) were selected to assess the students’ perceptions and level of knowledge regarding climate change. sunkoshi rural municipality is located between 85° 47’ 30”-85° 59’ 10” e longitudes and between 27° 21’ 23”-27° 27’ 00” n latitudes, and is about 150 kilometers east from kathmandu, the capital city of nepal. the srm exhibits subtropical type of climate, with major vegetation such as chir pine (pinus roxburghii), katus (castanopsis spp.), and chilaune (schima wallichii). there are, altogether, 4,920 households with a total of 18,136 populace consisting of various ethnic groups such as brahman, chhetri, tamang, magar, damai, kami, and sarki (cbs, 2021). the srm consists of around 21 secondaryand lower-secondarylevel community schools (srm, 2018). around 64 % of the rural municipality area is occupied by forests (srm, 2018). the sindhuli district lies within a climate-induced disaster-prone zone due to its geographic and climatic conditions, where landslides and debris flows are prevalent mostly in the hills while massive floods occur in the plain areas (gon, 2010; neupane & dhakal, banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 29 kc et al. 2017). the srm is situated in the mahabharat range which features remote hilly terrain prone to landslides and debris flows. therefore, it is vital to assess the young mind’s knowledge and perceptions regarding climate change in such climate vulnerable zone. this study is the purposive project undertaken in the hilly region of nepal to understand the knowledge of climate change among the students of community schools. data collection approach the survey was conducted in sep, 2020. a total of 140 students from four different schools were surveyed through a self-administered questionnaire following a simple random sampling method. the sample sizes taken from the four different schools were 48 (34% of 140) from the gramkali higher secondary school, 20 (33% of 60) from the bhumeshwor lower secondary school, 31 (23% of 135) from the ganesh higher secondary school, and 41 (29 % of 142) from the dirgha pradip secondary school. an appropriate size of sample was taken from the estimated 20,000 students of grades 7, 8, 9, and 10 of sindhuli district using the equation developed by newey and mcfadden: n=[z2 pqn/e2 (n 1) + z2 where n = sample size; p = representative population size; q = 1-p; z =1.96 at 95% confidence level; e = margin of error; and n = population size (newey & mcfadden, 1994). we used a self-administered questionnaire in our survey to avoid the undesirable interviewers’ effects and to prefer the cost-effective approach (deleeuw, 2008). a standardized questionnaire was designed in nepali on those developed by özdem et al. (2014) and berse (2017), which consisted of both openand closed-ended questions. the questionnaire was divided into figure 1. location of sindhuli district (study area) in the map of nepal (lower right corner); administrative boundaries of the local units of sindhuli district (upper right corner); and the selected schools within the sunkoshi rural municipality (upper left corner) banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 30 kc et al. five different sections (table 1). we only used the english term “climate change” in q5 because we aimed to determine whether the students were familiar with this specific english term or not. in the remaining questions, we used the nepali term “jalabayu parivartan” instead of the english term to denote climate change. table 1: questionnaire’s section and its description used to assess climate change knowledge among the community school students section theme description i students’ basic demographic information (q1-4) students’ basic demographic information. ii familiarity with the term “climate change” (q5). students’ familiarity with the term “climate change” assessed through binary-choice questions (yes/no). iii temperature and rainfall trends (q6 & 7). perception on temperature and rainfall trends assessed through multiple-choice questions. iv observed impacts of climate change (q8-11) the observed impacts of climate change assessed through multiple-choice questions as well as through binary questions (yes/no) consisting of four different statements as a single question. v climate change education and understanding about adaptation strategy (q12-13) perceived medium to pursue climate change education assessed through multiple-choice questions whereas students’ understanding about adaptation strategy assessed through an open-ended question. on an average, it took 12 minutes to accomplish a survey. almost two-third of the surveyed students (64%) were female (n=64%) and one-third (36%) were male. the mean age of the students was found to be 14.1 years (±1.4 sd), ranging from 11 to 19 years. more than one-third of the surveyed students (n=33%) were from grade 9 followed by the students of grade 7 (n=25%), grade 8 (n=23%), and grade 10 (n=19%, table 2). table 2. student’s basic-demographic characteristics characteristics number (n) percentage gender male female 50 90 36 64 total 140 100 grade 7 8 9 10 35 32 47 26 25 23 33 19 total 140 100 source: field survey, 2020. data analysis initially, the surveyed data were entered into the microsoft excel spread sheet (professional plus 2016). the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, and chi-square test. the chi-square test was performed using the r studio version 4.1.3 (r core team, 2022) to test the association between the male and female students and between the students of different grades with regards to their responses (yes/no) with the term “climate change” following the techniques of haq & ahmed (2020) and özdem et al. (2014). results student’s awareness regarding the term “climate change” majority of the students (n=90%) were found to be aware of the term “climate change”. the results of the chi-square test showed a statistically significant association (χ2=9.487, df=2, p=0.0087) between the male and female students with regards to their responses (yes/no) with the term “climate banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 31 kc et al. change”; the male students being more aware than the female ones. similarly, there was also a statistically significant association (χ2=17.601; df=6; p=0.0073) between the students (both male and female) of different grades with regards to their response (yes/no) with the term “climate change”; the students of higher grade being more aware than those of lower grade. knowledge on temperature and rainfall trends majority of the students (n=67.85%) reported that the temperature had been increasing over the years. on the contrary, about one-fourth of the students (n=24.28%) reported it to be in the decreasing trend. only a few students (n=7.87%) reported that it had neither been rising nor decreasing over the years (see figure 2). in the case of rainfall, majority of the students (n=57.85%) reported that the rainfall intensity had been increasing over the years. on the contrary, a slightly more than 32% (32.15%) of the students reported it to be in the decreasing trend while 10% of the students reported that it was neither increasing nor decreasing (figure 3). figure 2: percentage of students regarding their response on increasing/ decreasing/ unchanging trend of temperature figure 3: percentage of students regarding their response on increasing/ decreasing/ unchanging trend of rainfall observed impacts of climate change more than half of the surveyed students (n=52.85%) observed drought, forest destruction, heavy storms, and water scarcity as the climate change impacts (see table 3). similarly, more than half (n=52.87%) of the surveyed students observed diarrhea, malnutrition, and malaria as the climatechange-related health issues. ninety percent (n=90%) students responded that climate change had negative impact on agricultural productivity while a slightly more than 81% (n=81.5%) students responded that climate change had caused pests in agricultural crops. similarly, a slightly more than 69% (n=69.30%) students believed that climate change had been causing forest fires. a slightly more than 61% (n=61.50%) assumed that climate change had caused habitat shifting and wildlife migration. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 32 kc et al. table 3: perceived impacts of climate change: closed-ended questions (multiple and binary choices) s.n. statement response 1. what is/are the impact/s of climate change? a) drought; b) forest destruction; c) heavy storms; d) water scarcity; e) all of them a) drought (16.00 %) b) forest destruction (19.28 %) c) heavy storms (3.00 %) d) water scarcity (8.87 %) e) all of them (52.85 %) 2. what is/are the health issue/s caused by climate change? a) diarrhoea; b) malnutrition; c) malaria; d) all of them a) diarrhea (34.28 %) b) malnutrition (7.85 %) c) malaria (5.00 %) d) all of them (52.87 %) 3. what do you think about the following?; are those the impacts of climate change? a) forest fire b) habitat shifting and wildlife migration c) pests in agricultural crops d) low productivity of agriculture a) yes (69.30 %); no (30.70 %) b) yes (61.50 %); no (38.50 %) c) yes (81.45 %); no (18.55 %) d) yes (90.00 %); no (10.00 %) perceived medium to receive climate change education more than half of the surveyed students (n=55 %) would like to pursue climate change education through their own school-curriculum books (see figure 4). similarly, almost 28% (n=27.86 %) students preferred awareness and outreach programs while around 17 % (n=17.14 %) students preferred radio and television programs as the best medium to pursue the same. figure 4: percentage of students preferring best medium to pursue climate change education understanding the adaptation strategy about 72 % of the students were able to answer one action that they can do from their own level to minimize the impacts of climate change in their communities (table 4). among them, a slightly more than 44% (n=44.27 %) stated that they would perform plantation. on the other hand, almost 10 % (n=9.88 %) gave importance for environmental cleanliness while nearly 8% (n=7.85 %) focused on water source conservation for adaption to climate change. table 4: students’ understanding on adaptation strategy statement responses list one action that you can perform from your level to reduce the effects of climate change in your community. plantation (44.27 %); environment cleanliness (9.88 %); conservation of water sources (7.85 %); awareness among the community people (7.14 %); and organic farming (2.85 %) banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 33 kc et al. discussion our study showed a higher awareness among the school students regarding the term “climate change”, which corresponds with a similar study conducted in nigeria (oruonye, 2011). the higher-level of awareness regarding the term “climate change” among the school students in our survey might be due to formal education in schools and informal education through different media platforms (parajuli, 2016). even in modern societies, women are typically more involved in household management (daminger, 2019). in nepal, female students are not well exposed to the outside environment in comparison to male students as the former are, moreover, limited within their homes from their early age. it is, therefore, not surprising that female students have less awareness regarding the term “climate change”. in contrast, a similar study conducted by liarakou et al. (2011) showed no statistically significant difference between the male and female greek secondary school students regarding their level of knowledge regarding the same. on the other hand, our study found a statistically significant awareness among the different grades regarding the term “climate change”, which could be associated with the increased level of exposure, experience, and incorporation of environmental studies in school curricula with the increase in grades (cdc, 2020). a better awareness level on the term “climate change” with the increase in grades was also observed in other surveys (carr et al., 2015; liarakou et al., 2011; oruonye, 2011). our study showed that the students were more familiar with the trends of rising temperatures and rainfall over the years. this result corresponds with the climatic data on the yearly precipitation and the mean temperature of nepal where the yearly precipitation has increased by 8.7mm/ year and the mean temperature by 0.03°c/year (shrestha et al., 2019). similar findings have been claimed by a number of other researchers, such as khanal et al. and adhikari et al. (2021). this study demonstrated a good deal of awareness regarding the impacts of climate change among the surveyed school students, which is consistent with the similar studies of punter et al. (2011) and liarakou et al. (2011). this study revealed a good level of awareness among the students and reported that all the issues viz. forest destruction, drought, heavy storms, and water scarcity, were the impacts of climate change. a fundamental foundation of climate knowledge appears to have been built in the students’ mind through years of personal experiences and environmental science education in schools. besides physical impacts, students were also able to examine other aspects of climate change, as more than half of the surveyed students (52.87 %) reported diarrhea, malnutrition, and malaria as major health issues caused by climate change. majority of the surveyed students were aware of forest fires and wildlife shifting/migration as the impacts of climate change in the biodiversity sector. also, they were aware of pests in agricultural crops and low agricultural production as the impacts of climate change in the agricultural sector. these findings are consistent with those of punter et al. (2011) and liarakou et al. (2011), which could be because the students might have witnessed the impacts of climate change in their everyday life as well as through their curriculum books. in our study, more than half of the surveyed students (n=55 %) preferred their own curriculum books to pursue climate change education. a slightly more than one-fourth of the surveyed students (n=27.86 %) preferred awareness and outreach programs as an effective means of building climate change knowledge, which might be due to the lack of effective non-curricular climate-related programs among the students of the surveyed schools. in contrast to our findings, the study conducted by liarakou et al. (2011) found “television” as a major source to receive information regarding climate change, followed by “classrooms” in greek schools. about 28 % of the surveyed students remained clueless when we asked them to list one action that they could perform at their level to reduce the effects of climate change in their communities. around 44 % of the surveyed students thought that plantation and forest conservation were important adaptation strategies that they could implement in their communities. the study conducted by gautam et al. (2021) in nepal also found a similar result, with majority of the students citing afforestation as the prime adaptation measure against climate change. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 34 kc et al. overall, our study found that majority of the surveyed students were aware of general information about climate change but lacked a detailed understanding about the issue. nepal, being sensitive to the impacts of global climate change, needs the integration of practical and solution-centric climate change education more urgently. hence, this study provides the current knowledge status on how students perceive climate change, its effects and impacts, the best medium to pursue climate change education and learn about their role in climate change mitigation. conclusion school education can be a strategic step towards climate education and social awareness as students can inform their parents and communities about new knowledge regarding the same. a good deal of awareness towards the impacts of climate change and less awareness towards the adaptation strategies for climate change, found in our study, emphasizes for solution-centric courses that focus on the adaptation and mitigation aspects of climate change. this study shows that curriculum books are also a decent medium for receiving climate change education for school students. besides, the findings of this study are expected to guide the concerned educational institutions in developing strategies and curriculum resources for improving students’ knowledge and skills about climate change in days to come. conflict of interest no conflict of interest is declared by the authors. acknowledgements we are grateful to the korea safety health environment (she) foundation, seocho-gu, seoul for funding our climate change adaptation project under the global seed grant 2020. we are thankful to the principals of all the selected schools for granting us permission to undertake our survey. furthermore, we are obliged to all the teachers of the selected schools for their enormous efforts during our questionnaire survey. last but not the least, we would like to thank all the students who helped us in accomplishing our survey successfully in their schools. references adhikari, d., prasai, r., lamichhane, s., gautam, d., sharma, s., & acharya, s. (2021). climate change impacts and adaptation strategies in trans-himalaya region of nepal. journal of forest and livelihood, 20 (1). anderson, a. (2012). climate change education for mitigation and adaptation. journal of education for sustainable development, 6 (2): 191-206. https://doi. org/10.1177/0973408212475199. baker, c., clayton, s., & bragg, e. (2021). educating for resilience: parent and teacher perceptions of children’s emotional needs in response to climate change. environmental education research, 27 (5): 687-705. berse, k. (2017). climate change from the lens of malolos children: perception, impact and adaptation. disaster prevention and management: an international journal, 26 (2): 217–229. carr, p., buggy, c. j., & mcglynn, g. (2015). climate change awareness amongst secondary level students’ in a dar es salaam university college of education (duce) affiliated school in urban tanzania. in united nations sustainable development network 3rd annual international conference on sustainable development practice, columbia university, new york, usa, 23-24 sep, 2015. cbs. (2021). population & housing census 2021 of nepal (national report). central bureau of statistics, kathmandu, nepal. https:// censusnepal.cbs.gov.np/. accessed on 28 nov, 2022. cdc. (2020). curriculum adjustment format (secondary level). government of nepal, https://doi.org/10.1177/0973408212475199 https://doi.org/10.1177/0973408212475199 https://censusnepal.cbs.gov.np/ https://censusnepal.cbs.gov.np/ banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 35 kc et al. moest, curriculum development centre, kathmandu, nepal. daminger, a. (2019). the cognitive dimension of household labor. american sociological review, 84 (4): 609-633. https://doi. org/10.1177/0003122419859007. de leeuw, e. (2008). self-administered questionnaires and standardized interviews. handbook of social research methods, pp. 313-327. devkota, n., & phuyal, r. k. (2017). an analysis of nepalese youth understanding level on climate change. asian journal of economic modelling, 5 (3): 342-353. gautam, b., mandal, p. k., & yangden, n. (2021). students’ awareness towards climate change: a study of climate change effects on human health in nepal. prithvi academic journal, (4): 18-26. gibbs, l., nursey, j., cook, j., ireton, g., alkemade, n., roberts, m., & forbes, d. (2019). delayed disaster impacts on academic performance of primary school children. child development, 90 (4): 1402-1412. gon. (2010). national adaptation programme of action (napa). ministry of environment, government of nepal. gon. (2019). national climate change policy. ministry of health and population (mohp). haq, s. m. a., & ahmed, k. j. (2020). perceptions about climate change among university students in bangladesh. natural hazards, 103 (3): 3683-3713. khanal, p., wagle, b. h., upadhaya, s., ghimire, p., & acharya, s. (2019). perceived climate change impacts and adaptation strategy of indigenous community (chepangs) in rural mid-hills of nepal. forestry: journal of institute of forestry, nepal, (16): 48-61. læssøe, j., & mochizuki, y. (2015). recent trends in national policy on education for sustainable development and climate change education. journal of education for sustainable development, 9 (1): 27-43. https://doi. org/10.1177/0973408215569112. lawson, d. f., stevenson, k. t., peterson, m. n., carrier, s. j., l strnad, r., & seekamp, e. (2019). children can foster climate change concern among their parents. nature climate change, 9 (6): 458-462. liarakou, g., athanasiadis, i., & gavrilakis, c. (2011). what greek secondary school students believe about climate change? international journal of environmental and science education, 6 (1): 79-98. mainlay, j., & tan, s. f. (2012). mainstreaming gender and climate change in nepal. international institute for environment and development. mofe. (2019). climate change scenarios for nepal for national adaptation plan (nap). ministry of forests and environment, kathmandu, nepal. mofe. (2021). vulnerability and risk assessment and identifying adaptation options: summary for policy makers. ministry of forests and environment, government of nepal. kathmandu, nepal. nerlich, b., koteyko, n., & brown, b. (2010). theory and language of climate change communication. wiley interdisciplinary reviews: climate change, 1 (1): 97-110. neupane, m., & dhakal, s. (2017). climatic variability and land use change in kamala watershed, sindhuli district, nepal. climate, 5 (1): 11. newey, w. k., & mcfadden, d. (1994). large sample estimation and hypothesis testing. handbook of econometrics, (4): https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419859007 https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419859007 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 36 kc et al. 2111-2245. ojala, m. (2015). climate change skepticism among adolescents. journal of youth studies, 18 (9): 1135-1153. oruonye, e. d. (2011). an assessment of the level of awareness of the effects of climate change among students of tertiary institutions in jalingo metropolis, taraba state nigeria. journal of geography and regional planning, 4 (9): 513. özdem, y., dal, b., öztürk, n., sönmez, d., & alper, u. (2014). what is that thing called climate change? an investigation into the understanding of climate change by seventh-grade students. international research in geographical and environmental education, 23 (4): 294313. https://doi.org/10.1080/10382046.20 14.946323. parajuli, k. (2016). mobile learning practice in higher education in nepal. open praxis, 8 (1): 41-54. plan nepal. (2012). impact of climate change on children in nepal. punter, p., ochando-pardo, m., & garcia, j. (2011). spanish secondary school students’ notions on the causes and consequences of climate change. international journal of science education, 33 (3): 447–464. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2010.49 2253. r core team, (2022) r: a language and environment for statistical computing. r foundation for statistical computing, vienna. rousell, d. & cutter-mackenzie-knowles, a. (2020). a systematic review of climate change education: giving children and young people a ‘voice’ and a ‘hand’ in redressing climate change. children’s geographies, 18 (2): 191-208. seddighi, h., yousefzadeh, s., lópez, m. l., & sajjadi, h. (2020). preparing children for climate-related disasters. bmj paediatrics open, 4 (1). shrestha, u. b., shrestha, a. m., aryal, s., shrestha, s., gautam, m. s., & ojha, h. (2019). climate change in nepal: a comprehensive analysis of instrumental data and people’s perceptions. climatic change, 154 (3): 315-334. srm. (2018). sunkoshi rural municipality profile. sunkoshi rural municipality. https://sunkoshi munsindhuli.gov.np/. accessed on 5 sep, 2022. tanner, t. (2010). shifting the narrative: child-led responses to climate change and disasters in el salvador and the philippines. children & society, 24 (4): 339-351. unesco. (2009). unesco international seminar on climate change education, 27–29 july, 2009. paris: unesco. wong, j. l., lee, m. l., teo, f. y., & liew, k. w. (2022). a review of impacts of climate change on slope stability. climate change and water security, pp. 157-178. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2010.492253 https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2010.492253 https://sunkoshi munsindhuli.gov.np/ 46 about 80% of the population of the developing world relies on traditional medicines for primary healthcare (who, 2014). in nepal, about 70-80% populace in the mountain region depends on traditional medicines for health care (manandhar, 1980). there are over 6,500 species of higher plants in nepal, of which about 2,000 species are used medicinally (ghimire, 2008; kunwar et al., 2021). however, due to the changing life style, secrecy of traditional healers, availability of modern health facilities and the tendency of younger generation to leave behind the tradional practices, the knowledge on medicinal plants is disappearing (kutal et al., 2021). the traditional knowledge about medicinal plants is declining fast in the lowlands of nepal (manandhar & chaudhary, 1988). therefore, documentation of indigenous knowledge about the usefulness of plants from the lowland areas is important for the preservation of traditional knowledge and conservation of useful plant species. wetlands, forest, and vegetation in the lowland terai region have declined dramatically in terms of both area banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1, 2023 pp 46‒59https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i1.52473 documentation of flowering plants and ethnobotany in jhilmil lake area, kanchanpur, sudurpaschim province documentation of indigenous knowledge about plants plays a key role for conservation and utilization of plant resources. the present paper documents the diversity of plants and their traditional use in and around the jhilmil lake area, one of the forest-dominated peri-urban areas of kanchanpur district lying in sudurpaschim province. vegetation sampling and ethnobotanical surveys were carried out twice between january, 2020 and january, 2021. semi-structured questionnaire and checklists were used to record the use and distribution of the plant species and their conservation. a total of 126 plant species representing 52 families and 113 genera were reported. among the total plants recorded, 114 (90.48 %) species were found to be ethnomedicinally used. the results showed that the use of plants as ethnomedicine was culturally motivated and less influenced by availability of the plants. the plant “importance value index” (ivi) was found to be negatively associated with the plant “relative frequency of citation” (rfc; p=0.057–0.790). the high rfc values of the trees and climbers hinted that the plant collection was subjectively oriented towards quality products. the findings suggested that the rare plants with high-use values such as pterocarpus marsupium, dalbergia latifolia, rauvolfia serpentina, citrus limonum, and mussaenda frondosa should be prioritised for future conservation. it illustrates that lakes in forested areas are essential resources for plant diversity and local life because they include a variety of rare and useful local plant species. key words: ethnomedicine, ethnomedicinal value, importance value index, relative frequency citation. m. d. bhatt 1, d. r. joshi 1, g. s. bhandari 2, s. maharjan 3, d. guragain 4, p. tamang 4, and r. m. kunwar 5* received: 2, september 2022 revised: 15, december 2022 accepted: 16, august 2023 published: 20, december 2023 1 department of botany, siddhanath science campus, tribhuvan university, nepal 2 resources himalaya foundation, sanepa, lalitpur 3 basin management center, gandaki, pokhara, nepal 4 department of forest and soil conservation, ministry of forests and environment, nepal 5 ethnobotanical society of nepal, kathmandu, nepal. *email: ripukunwar@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9303-0932 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 47 bhatt et al. and density over the last few decades (subedi, 2019), threatening traditional livelihoods. tropical forests are confined to the terai and siwalik, and comprise over 500 plant species (shrestha et al., 2002). there are over 240 wetland sites in western nepal, of which 163 are in the lowland terai regions of nepal (siwakoti & karki, 2010). kanchanpur district has over 700 plant species, including over 300 medicinal plants, of which more than half are employed in traditional medicine (dnpwc, 2006; bhatt et al., 2021). khatiwada et al. (2019) identified 15 macrophyte species from jhilmil lake. kunwar et al. (2015), on the other hand, inventoried the macrophytes of the mahakali river, which runs near the jhilmil lake, and documented 140 plant species. nepal’s terai region is densely populated, resulting in enormous encroachment and pressure on the forest resources. forest encroachment, habitat degradation and biological invasion are prevalent in western nepal (weaver, 2001; kunwar & acharya 2013), altering both the local flora and culture. the collection of fuelwood, fodder, edible and medicinal plants from the wild has put further strain on the forests and flora. the higher dependency on the plants is due to the preferences given by the local people to subsistence livelihood and traditional herbal remedies as well as poverty, accelerated human population, and belief in the effectiveness of folklore herbal remedies (bhattarai, 1992). habitat loss, agricultural run-off, drainage and over exploitation of the forest resources owing to the escalating human onslaughts has led to the reduced area of wetlands, there by endangering various biological resources in the terai region of sudurpaschim province. moreover, the tarai and wetland areas are on the hardest hit by the increasing temperature and erratic rainfall (dofsc, 2021). rural distant places, rich in biodiversity and managed by local communities for their livelihoods, are frequently ignored in research priorities. although wetlands have aesthetic benefits and offer a variety of services and goods, their socioeconomic benefits, biodiversity, and sustainability have not been sufficiently investigated (poudel, 2009; khatiwada et al., 2021). the jhilmil lake has also high natural as well as religious significance. the lake is surrounded by dense forests; however, the status of its plant biodiversity and utilization of plants & plant products are poorly understood. documentation of plant biodiversity and indigenous knowledge through ethnobotanical studies play a crucial role in the conservation and sustainable utilization of plant biodiversity. the main objective of this study was to analyze the plant-people interactions within the jhilmil lake area (jla), one of the forest-dominated periurban areas of kanchanpur district. besides, this study aimed to document the composition of the plant species, and assess the plant use values and conservation initiatives therein. study area the study was conducted in and around the jhilmil lake located at an altitude of 801m above the mean sea level (msl) within the ward no. 9 of bhimdatta municipality, the district headquarters of kanchanpur district which lies in the sudurpaschim province of nepal (figure 1). the study was accompished in the year 2021. jhilmil lake is situated between 29.050-29.060 n latitudes and 80.1850-80.1880 e longitudes, and is about 10km north of bhimdatta municipality. extending over an area of 1610 km2, kanchanpur district stretches from the nepal-india border along the mahakali river on the west to the mohana river on the east and from the nepalindia border along the terai plain on the south to the shiwalik ridge on the north. the altitude of the terrain ranges from 175 m to 1575 m above the msl. the district, moreover, exhibits subtropical type of climate with an average annual precipitation of 1717 mm and temperature range of 3–42 oc (ddc kanchanpur, 2008). the local biodiversity is, no doubt, influenced by the rising warmth and irregular rainfall (figure 2). the district possesses a number of beautiful lakes such as betkot, rani, pyara, sundue, and jhilmil. the jhilmil lake covers an area of 4ha, and is surrounded by thick forest. due to slightly steeper terrain, the southern and northern regions of the lake are more vulnerable to landslides and trash deposition as compared to its eastern and western banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 48 bhatt et al. borders (figure 2). approximately, 3,000 people visit the lake every year because of its natural beauty, surrounding evergreen forest, ease of accessibility, and spiritual significance, particularly during the months of shrawan, ashoj, and chaitra when various hindu festivals are observed in the region. as a result, the lake has the potential for tourism expansion. however as a result of increased tourism, human interferences are slowly causing the lake to deteriorate. the ecological and ethnobotanical values of the lake have not been thoroughly studied or documented despite the fact that they have the potential to attract tourists because of their natural beauty and significance as a place of pilgrimage. figure 2: graph depicting daily temp and rainfall of bhimdatta municipality (2000-2020); rainfall data (mm) divided by 10 in order to present both rainfall and temp data figure 1: map showing the location of the study area (jhilmil lake) along with its google earth image, 2021 (source: dofsc, 2021) banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 49 bhatt et al. material and methods field visits and ecological & ethnobotanical study sampling was conducted around the jhilmil lake covering all the northern, southern, eastern and western sides. a total of 10 quadrats, each measuring 10m×10m, were laid following stratified random sampling following misra (1968). fieldwork was carried out twice between january, 2020 and january, 2021. each fieldwork lasted for 25-30 days. the data and information regarding the composition of plant species, habitat condition, indigenous uses of the plants, and local conservation measures were collected during the fieldwork. ecological indices such as distribution, frequency, density, and importantance value index (ivi) were calculated following curtis & mcintosh (1951) and zobel et al. (1987). plant samples were collected for voucher records and ethno-ecological assessments. to assess the distribution of plant use knowledge, a total of 20 respondents including 15 men and 5 women with the age ranging from 45 to 75 years were randomly selected from the nyaulebasti and tarakot villages lying at the north and east sides of the lake. among the 20 respondents, 12 were vaidhyas (traditional practitioners of ayurveda), 2 guruwas (traditional healers of tharu community) and 6 migrant traditional healers from darchula (1), baitadi (1), dadeldhura (1), achham (1), doti (1) and bajhang (1) districts. the ethnic composition of the respondents consisted of brahmin (2), kshetri (3), janajati (4), dalit (5) and tharu (6). they were interviewed using semi-structured questionnaire following kunwar et al. (2019). during the course of our survey, the names of the beneficial plant species, as well as their usage, distribution, and method of application, were noted. a semi-structured questionnaire was used for survey, and supplementary information were collected through informal meetings following putnam (1975). while pursuing informal meeting and questionnaire surveys, the information on the dominant plant species and the most useful species together with their vernacular names and their conservation status were also collected. the information gathered were compared with those of bhatt & kunwar (2020; 2021), bhatt (2019), dhami (2008), and kumar et al. (2002). furthermore, the species were reconfirmed by comparing them to herbarium specimens deposited at the department of botany, siddhanath science campus, bhimdatta municipality (previously mahendranagar), and all the collected voucher specimens (126) were deposited there. the plant list (http://www.theplantlist.org/) was used to confirm the scientific names of all the plants and their families. the relative frequency of citation (rfc) of each plant species was computed using the following formula devised by rehman et al. (2020): rfc= rc/n, where, rc = no. of informants who used the plant species; and n = total no. of informants during the survey. we evaluated p<0.05 to be statistically significant following sokal and rholf (1995), and utilized the “generalized linear regression model” to determine whether or not there was a correlation between the ecological value (ivi) and the ethnomedicinal value (rfc) of the various plant species, as well as if the greater plant usage value had linkage with the higher ecological value. results jhilmil lake and its ecosystem jhilmil lake is situated along the churia range that links the low lands of terai and bhimdutta municipality on the south and the mahabharat ranage on the north. the northern and eastern parts of the lake are occupied by wetlands while the southern and western parts are covered with the mixed tropical vegetation under the baijnath siddhanath community forest (bscf). as the lake is located nearby the bhimdutta municipality, it is regarded as a “peri-urban area”. it has a diverse environment that includes forests, transitional zones, and vacant land. the lower belt (forested area) of jhilmil lake is banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 50 bhatt et al. protected by the rules and regulations (under the forest act 1993) of the bscf whereas its upper area is protected by the churia conservation area (cca), a recently enforced initiative of the government of nepal under the environment protection act 1996, and is protected by its rules and regulations. furthermore, the lake contains a variety of land use and ecosystem types within its boundaries; nonetheless, land use change resulted in an increase in forest area by 1.37 % at the expense of barren land (-1.35 %) around the lake over a ten-year period between 2010 and 2020. plant biodiversity a total of 126 flowering plants of 113 species belonging to 52 families were found around the vicinity of jhilmil lake (see annex 1). “fabaceae” (with 19 species) was found to be the dominant family followed by “poaceae” (with 7 spp.), “lamiaceae” (with 7 spp.), “asteraceae” (with 6 spp.), “apocyanaceae” (with 5 spp.), “combretaceae” (with 5 spp.), and so on (see annex 1). the southern and western parts of the lake were found to be rich in plant species richness and diversity as it had mosaic habitat (open spaces, wetland ecosystem, and undulating slopes) with gravel type of soil texture. the top 10 dominant plant species based on frequency, density and ivi as observed during our field visit are presented in table 1. sal (shorea robusta), being the dominant species in the forest, is of profound socio-ecological importance. although the lake is far from the city, the forests and settlements surrounding the lake were found to be invaded by invasive alien plant species (iaps) such as ageratum houstonianum and lantana camara. the recorded dominant species were a. houstonianum, cynodon dactylon, himalaycalamus asper, ocimum gratissimum, rubus ellipticus, asparagus racemosus, eulaliopsis binata, and l. camara (table 1). among the ten dominant species, one belonged to tree species, three to shrub, three to herb, two to grass, and one to climber species. table 1: dominant plant species reported around jhilmil lake s. n. scientific name local name family plant form relative density relative freq. ivi 1. dioscorea deltoidea wall. ex griseb. tarul dioscoriaceae climber 2.90 0.88 1.89 2. ocimum gratissimum l. ban tulsi lamiaceae shrub 2.40 0.88 1.64 3. himalayaclamus asper stapleton nigalo poaceae bamboo 2.29 0.88 1.58 4. rubus ellipticus sm. ainselu rosaceae shrub 2.18 0.88 1.53 5. cynodon dactylon (l.) pers dubo poaceae grass 2.18 0.88 1.53 6. ageratum houstonianum mill. ganaune jhar asteraceae herb 2.12 0.88 1.50 7. saccharum spontaneum l. kans poaceae grass 2.12 0.88 1.50 8. shorea robusta gaertn. sal dipterocarpaceae tree 1.95 0.88 1.42 9. eulaliopsis binata (retz.) c.e. hubb babiyo poaceae grass 1.90 0.88 1.39 10. lantana camara l. banmara varbenaceae shrub 1.84 0.88 1.36 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/dipterocarpaceae banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 51 bhatt et al. a higher number of trees but only a few shrubs & herbs were noticed around the lake; the reason might be because the lake is distant from the human settlement and relatively less disturbed. there were 57 tree species, accounting for 45% of the total 126 plant species (table 2). the top 10 plant species found around the lake along with their ivi scores and the most use rfc values are presented in table 3. table 2: ecological and ethnobotanical values of plants plant life form number average ivi average rfc remarks tree 57 (45.2%) 0.64 0.55 dominant, frequently used shrub 17 (13.5%) 0.92 0.41 herb 34 (27.0%) 0.85 0.51 grass 13 (10.3%) 1.06 0.27 climber 5 (4.0%) 1.12 0.62 total 126 (100%) useful plants and their association with plant biodiversity among the total 126 plant species found within the study area, 114 (90.48%) species were used to treat various ailments and diseases, and the other 12 (9.52%) species were used as firewood, forage and fodder. the highest number of useful medicinal plants was attributed to the fact that it has mosaic habitat featured with open spaces, wetland, and undulating slopes and far away from the city area. the collection of forest products, fuelwood, fish, fodder and medicinal plants was found to be rampant. the major tree species found around the lake were: dalbergia sissoo, adina cordifolia, buchanania latifolia, semecarpus anacardium, terminali atomentosa, emblica officinalis, bauhinia variegata, alstonia scholaris, bombax ceiba, acacia catechu, and pterocarpus marsupium, all with ethnomedicinal value and the latter six being rare, indigenous, and threatened (figure 3). we investigated the relationship between the ecology (of the lake) and ethnomedicine by employing the plant ivi values and the plant family ivi values along with the plant harvest and use. neither the plant ivi values nor the plant family ivi values were found to be positively linked with the plant collection and use. the individual plant ivi values (p=0.057, f=3.66, & r2=23; figure 4: upper one) were found to be adversely linked with the plant family ivi values (p=0.79, f=0.06, & r2=1; figure 4: lower one). furthermore, the ecology and ethnomedicinal values of the plants table 3: top 10 plant species with the highest use citations and their ivi values s. n. scientific name local name family plant form rel. density rel. freq. ivi use rfc 1. ocimum gratissimum l. ban tulsi lamiaceae shrub 2.40 0.88 1.64 0.9 2. piper longum l. pipla piperaceae climber 1.51 0.88 1.19 0.9 3. artemisia vulgaris l.c.b. clarke titepati asteraceae shrub 1.00 0.88 0.94 0.9 4. phyllanthus emblica l. amala phyllanthaceae tree 0.95 0.88 0.92 0.9 5. tinospora sinensis (lour.) merrill gurjo menispermaceae climber 0.39 0.88 0.64 0.9 6. ocimum tenuiflorum l. tulsi lamiaceae shrub 0.33 0.59 0.46 0.9 7. asparagus racemosus willd. kurilo asparagaceae shrub 1.78 0.88 1.33 0.85 8. rauvolfia serpentina (l.) benth ex kurz sarpaganda apocynaceae shrub 0.73 0.88 0.80 0.85 9. azadirachta indica a.juss. neem meliaceae tree 0.33 0.88 0.61 0.85 10. terminalia chebula retz. harro combretaceae tree 0.22 0.59 0.41 0.85 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 52 bhatt et al. were not found to be positively associated, indicating that the folk-medicinal value (rfc) of the plants was negatively influenced by the ecological value (ivi). figure 3: chord-dendrogram showing the plant parts & forms useful in ethnomedicine (ffs= fruit, flower, seed; cg=climber and grass) figure 4: relationship between the individual/ family ivi values and rfc values of the plants people living in the jla were discovered to be heavily reliant on the plants. the use of plants ranged from food, fodder, wood, medicine, oil, fiber, aroma and ornamental value to religious. despite the extensive use of the plants for local livelihood, these resources have been underutilized and inadequately documented. there could be a large number of other species of socio-economic potential, urging the detailed and frequent inventories for better conservaiton. discussion the jhilmil lake area is a peri-urban location where urban and rural activities coexist and ecosystems are prone to rapid changes (leaf, 2011), and is rich in the species found both in the disturbed and undisturbed forests nearby. the tree species used in ethnomedicine and threatened as a result of over exploitation include alstonia scholaris, bombax ceiba, acacia catechu, and pterocarpus marsupium (manandhar, 1990; kunwar et al., 2013). the hardwood hill sal forest in the vicinity of the lake is gradually succeeding to mixed type of forest (dfrs, 2015). the lake and its surroundings are used as the source of fodder, fish, eco-tourism, fuelwood, non-timber forest products. besides, the lake site is also used as a site for cultural tourism while the lake-water is used for irrigation (chalaune et al., 2020); there are several natural water bodies around the lake, maintaining the soil moisture and biodiversity in its surroundings (neupane et al., 2011). anthropogenic landscapes and disturbed sites are rich in useful herbs and shrubs (albuquerque & lucena, 2005) and are frequently foraged (kunwar, 2018) while the distant and primary forests are rich in trees. out of the 73 herbs reported by gautam & mandal (2016), 43 were found in the disturbed forestand and 30 in undisturbed one. fifty seven tree species were reported by gautam & mandal (2018) from the undisturbed tropical forest of eastern nepal. only six invasive species viz. ageratum houstonianum, chromolaena odorata, lantana camara, mimosa pudica, imperata cylindrica, and parthenium hysterophorus were reported from the study area. out of the total six invasive alien plant species banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 53 bhatt et al. (iaps) found within the area, two viz. l. camara and a. houstonianum were dominant ones with the ivi values of 1.36 and 1.50, respectively; l. camara and c. odorata have been reported as the world’s 100 worst iaps (lowe et al., 2000). a similar study carried out in the tropical forest of chitwan and rautahat districts reported eleven iaps (dofsc, 2020). useful plants and their values out of the 114 ethnomedicinal plants mentioned, 61 species were used following dhami (2008) whereas 25 species were used according to the report of singh (2014). both bhatt & shakya (2015) and the current study found the largest number of common beneficial species (75), which was attributed to the fact that both studies were conducted from the center region of the kanchanpur district. the plants belonging to the piperaceae (e.g. piper longum), asparagaceae (e.g. asparagus racemosus), and asteraceae (e.g. artemisia vulgaris) families were reported to be frequently identified for ethnomedicinal purposes; however, three plant families (linaceae, orchidaceae, and selaginellaceae) and 12 plant species were reported to be underutilized for ethnomedicinal use. according to sah et al. (2003), the jla contains around 560 plant species including over 200 valuable species. a significant number of beneficial plants are generally connected with a big number of plant species available in a given location (charmakar et al., 2021). human groups that live in speciesrich habitats may broaden their repertoire by utilizing a large number of plant species (salick et al., 1999). the identified 114 species of medicinal plants, trees and leaves were frequently employed in ethnomedicine (figure 3 above). the local people reported that they had been using different plant parts through various modes of application to cure different ailments such as dysentery, diarrhea, cough, inflammation, urinary diseases, jaundice, ulcer, asthma, diabetes, fever, cough, wounds, and dermatological complaints. plant-based therapies are persistent in western nepal for primary and local health care (dhami, 2008; singh et al., 2012; shakya, 2014; bhatt & shakya, 2015; bhatt & kunwar, 2020; bhatt et al., 2021). the ethnic people of nepal rely on wild plants to meet their basic needs, and each ethnic community has its own pool of secret ethnomedicinal and ethnopharmacological knowledge about the use of plants available in their surroundings (panthi & singh, 2013). association of ecology and ethnobotany as inconsistent association shown between ecological and ethnomedicinal attributes, species cultural values, popularity and usefulness are supposed to be found related (araujo et al., 2008), meaning that the plant collection and their use are less influenced by the availability of plants while more dependent on cultural belief. foraging for plants typically takes place in nearby and accessible locations (kutal et al., 2021). according to thomas et al. (2009), phytosociological indices were more positively associated with the category of non-medicinal use (wood, fuel, and building uses) and less positively associated with the category of medicinal use. the findings of our study showed that, while the ethnomedicinal usage of plants depends on cultural belief and their widespread use, ecological values of a ceratin area could be useful for defining the general ethnobotanical practises. as the individual plants and the plant families had negative association between their ivi and ethnobotanical values, the plant forms did not have positive association; the association being insignificant (p = 0.71). the high rfc value of the trees and climbers suggested that the plant collection was directed subjectively towards quality products and was not impacted by cost-benefit trade-offs (thomas et al., 2009). this demonstrated that plant ivi values influenced plant gathering for ethnomedicine in the jhilmil area. it is plausible to infer that if use pressure is oriented towards species with lower ivi values, the supply of uncommon plants will be jeopardised in the future. conservation of the plants with less ivi values but high rfc values (such as p. marsupium, d. latifolia, r. serpentina, c. limonum, mussaenda frondosa, etc.) should be given high priority. these species were found to be threatened because of their overexploitation for local livelihood and health care practices as claimed by bhatt et al. (2022). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 54 bhatt et al. our findings indicated that the medicinal use values were not influenced by the frequency and density of the plants in the jla. it becomes clear and obvious that the study area, which is rich in culture and ethnomedicinal plants, is still influenced by local culture and tradition, and that it is also threatened by the increasing strain caused by tourism growth. conclusion a total of 126 plant species were discovered in the jla, and 114 (90.48%) of those species were used as ethnomedicine by the locals. due to less disturbance and distance from the city, there are less shrubs and herbs but more trees in the lake area; however, our research revealed that the trees, climbers, and herbs therein were regularly used. as the ecological variables negated the rfc values of the plants (p=0.057), it was determined that the use for ethnomedicine was motivated by culture. additionally, the trees and climbers’ high rfc ratings indicated that the plant collection had previously been subjectively directed towards high-quality goods. in nepal’s rural and remote places, ethnobotanical knowledge is crucial for preserving plant diversity and treating a number of diseases. in this regard, uncommon plant species like p. marsupium, d. latifolia, r. serpentina, c. limonum, and mussaenda frondosa having lower ivi values but with high use values (high rfc) within the jla should be given high priority for their conservation. acknowledgements the authors are thankful to the respondents and key informants along with the president of ward no. 9 of the bhimdatta municipality for providing us their perspectives on traditional remedies and other jla-related information. mr. yen singh dhami, mr. dipendra joshi, ms. renu bhandary, and ms. babita khadka deserve our thanks for assisting us in data collection and curation. last but not the least, we appreciate the coordination and collaboration of all green era team members throughout our field visits. references acharya, e. & pokhrel, b. 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(2017). a recent update on phytochemistry, pharmacology and medicinal value of axle wood (anogeissus latifolia wall. cat). international journal of ayurveda and pharmaceutical chemistry, 7: 3. eissn: 2350-0204. zobel, d. b., jha, p. k., behan, m. l., & yadav, u. k. r. (1987). a practical manual for ecology. ratna book distributor, kathmandu, nepal. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-019-0285-4 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-019-0285-4 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 1 bhatt et al. annex 1: plant species with local names, families, ivi, rfc values, plant form, plant parts used, traditional uses, and earlier reports of ethnomedicine s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 1. justicia adhatoda l. basingo acanthaceae aca-301 0.39 0.88 0.64 0.4 shrub whole plant whole plant is antiinflammatory, antispasmodic, febrifuge and pectoral. it used to treat bronchitis, asthma, fever and jaundice. green mature leaves used to prepare traditional medicines for curing cough, fever, asthma and dysentery. mature leaves as well as inflorescence used as food (singh et al., 2013). 2. acorus calamus l. bojo acoraceae aco-302 0.33 0.88 0.61 0.8 herb root used in the treatment of digestive complaints, bronchitis, sinusitis, etc. rhizome infusion used in cough, cold, bronchial problems and chest pain. juice of rhizome is taken to treat diarrhea and dysentery. oil is extracted from the rhizome to use in perfumes (dhami, 2008; bhatt & shakya, 2016). 3. achyranthes aspera l. bippeykuro amaranthaceae amar-303 1.00 0.88 0.94 0.55 herb whole plant juice of the plant used in the treatment of boils, diarrhea, dysentery and itches. used for treatment of jaundice. root paste is given in diarrhea, pain in lower abdomen, snake bite and scorpion sting. it is also used for enhancing milk production (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; dhami, 2008). 4. buchanania latifolia roxb. chiraunjee anacardiaceae ana-304 0.78 0.88 0.83 0.6 tree root used for treatment of anaemia, inflammation, oxidative stress, ulcer, diabetes, wounds and gas. used for treatment of leprosy, constipation, diarrhea, cough, asthma and skin diseases (fern, 2014). 5. choerospondias axillaris (roxb.) b.l. burrt & a.w. hill lapsi anacardiaceae ana-305 0.67 0.88 0.78 0.5 tree fruit used for treatment of calming nerves, blood disorders and cardiovascular diseases. used for treatment of menstruation disorder (tamang et al., 2017). 6. annona squamosa l. sitaphal annonaceae anno-306 0.33 0.88 0.61 0.65 tree whole plant used to treat diarrhea, dysentery, rheumatism and used as anti-cancer activity. leaf paste applied to boils, ulcers, sores. root paste applied to forehead to relief form headache. leaf juice used in cut wounds and skin disease (dhami, 2008; bhatt & shakya, 2016). 7. trachyspermum ammi (l.) sprague ex turrill. ajwain apiaceae api-307 0.17 0.59 0.38 0.7 herb seed used in the treatment of colds, coughs, influenza, asthma, diarrhea, cholera, colic, indigestion, arthritis and rheumatism. used for treatment of bronchitis, asthma, cold & cough (alamgeer et al., 2018). 8. centella asiatica (l.) urb. khuchaday apiaceae api-308 0.39 0.88 0.64 0.4 herb whole plant widely used as blood purifier and for controlling high blood pressure & memory enhancement, and promoting longevity. used for treatment of acidity and urinary problem (stopped urination). plant juice is considered a tonic and used in urinary troubles (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; dhami, 2008). 9. rauwolfia serpentina (l.) benth ex kurz sarpagandha apocynaceae apo-309 0.73 0.88 0.80 0.85 shrub root used for treatment of hypertension, intestinal disorders, eye diseases, cuts, wounds, splenic diseases, uterine contraction, headache and skin diseases. used for treatment of mental disorder (acharya & pokhrel, 2006). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 2 bhatt et al. s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 10. calotropis gigantean (l.) drayand. aankh apocynaceae apo-310 0.17 0.59 0.38 0.65 shrub bark & leaves bark used to treat diarrhea, dysentery and leprosy while the leaves are used to treat sores, burns, headache and rheumatic. bark used for treatment of asthma and malaria. it is equally applied for fracture, asthma, pinas (english name?) and scorpion-sting, body pain, sinusitis, boils, sprain and bloody stool (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; tamang et al., 2017; miya et al., 2020). 11. alstonia scholaris (l.) r.br chhatiwan apocynaceae apo-311 0.22 0.59 0.41 0.6 tree bark & leaves bark used to treat abdominal pain, fevers, chronic diarrhea and irregular menstruation while the leaves are used to treat dropsy and wounds. bark is bitter, healing astringent, tonic, alterative and febrifuge. it is also used to treat heart diseases, asthma and to stop bleeding of wound (dutta, 2007). 12. carissa carandas l. karauda apocynaceae apo-312 0.22 0.59 0.41 0.5 tree roots & leaves leaf decoction used against fever, diarrhea and earache. roots serve as stomachic, vermifuge and remedy for itches. used as astringent & antiscorbutic. used for treatment of fever, diarrhea and earache (fern, 2014). 13. wrightia tinctoria (roxb.) r. br., mem wern. dudhelo apocynaeae apo-313 0.56 0.88 0.72 0.5 shrub whole plant it has anti-inflammatory and anti-dandruff properties, and hence used in hair oil preparations. used to treat dysentery, diarrhea, toothache and stomach pain (fern, 2014). 14. colocasia esculenta (l.) schoolt pindalu araceae ara-314 0.50 0.88 0.69 0.45 herb leaves leaf juice is stimulant, expectorant, astringent and appetizer. tuber is useful in stomatalgia, alopecia, stimulant in internal hemorrhages. juice of tuber is laxative demulcent (bhatt & shakya, 2016). 15. arisaema tortuosum (wall.) sehott araceae ara-315 0.61 0.88 0.75 0.3 herb stem & root roots have been used to treat wounds in cattle while tuber is applied to snake bites and the wounds of cattle. root used for wounds healing and also used as vermifuge i.e. anthelmintic medicine while tuber is applied against snake bites (fern, 2014). 16. calotropis procera (aiton) dryand madar asclepiadaceae ascle-316 1.12 0.88 1.00 0.6 herb leaves leaf paste used for treatment of snake-bite, sinus fistula, rheumatism, mumps, burn injuries & body pain, and jaundice. used in cuts, wounds, asthma, odontalgia, hepatitis, tuberculosis, malaria, skin burns and infestation (kumar et al., 2011; umair et al., 2019). 17. asparagus racemosus willd. kurilo asparagaceae asp-317 1.78 0.88 1.33 0.85 climber whole plant rhizome used as a soothing tonic that acts mainly on the circulatory, digestive, respiratory and female reproductive organs. the whole plant used for treatment of diarrhea, rheumatism and diabetes. whole plant used in case of diabetes, stomach problem and fracture, increase lactation, urinary problems gastritis, tonic, fever, headache, paralysis, anorexia, burnt area, spots on skin, and high blood pressure (miya et al., 2020). 18. artemisia vulgaris l. c.b. clarke titepati asteraceae ast-319 1.00 0.88 0.94 0.9 herb whole plant used for treatment of cough, stomach and intestinal upset, common cold, measles, irregular heartbeat and muscle weakness. plant is stomachic, purgative, antispasmodic, anthematic and insecticide. it cures asthma, itching, gastritis, rheumatism, bronchitis, fever, headache, hemorrhage and diarrhea. (bhatt & shakya, 2016). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 3 bhatt et al. s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 19. ageratum houstonianum l. ganaune jhar asteraceae ast-319 2.12 0.88 1.50 0.65 herb leaves leaf-juice either used as a tonic or used to treat colic, colds, fever, diarrhea, rheumatism, and spasms. juice and paste of plant used to cure various ailments that include leprosy, skin disorders, sleeping sickness, rheumatism, headaches, dyspnea, toothache, pneumonia and many more (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; yadav et al., 2019). 20. parthenium hysterophorus l. gauja asteraceae ast-320 1.73 0.88 1.31 0.65 herb whole plant the decoction of this plant has been used in traditional medicine to treat fever, diarrhea, neurologic disorders, urinary tract infections, dysentery and malaria. whole plant is bitter and strong-scented, reckoned tonic, stimulating and anti hysteric. root decoction is useful in dysentery, antitumor activity (bhatt & shakya, 2016). 21. chromolaena odorata l. chirstmas bush asteraceae ast-321 1.12 0.88 1.00 0.55 herb leaves fresh leaves have been used for the treatment of leech bites, soft tissue wounds, skin infections, and diabetes. used for treatment of malaria, skin wounds, and eye-pain; also used as antibacterial (fern, 2014). 22. bidens pilosa l. kalo kuro asteraceae ast-322 0.61 0.88 0.75 0.35 herb root & leaves used as anti-bacterial, anti-dysentery, antiinflammatory, antimicrobial, anti-malarial, diuretic, and hypotensive. leaf decoction used to treat headaches, ear infections, kidney problems and flatulence (subhuti, 2013). 23. ageratina adenophora (spreng.) king & h. rob. banmara asteraceae ast-323 0.28 0.59 0.43 0 herb 24. athyrium filixfemina (l.) roth fern athyariaceae athy-324 1.45 0.88 1.17 0.4 herb stem & leaves used to relieve liver pains. used as an anthelmintic, diuretic, healing sores (fern, 2014). 25. oroxylum indicum (l.) benth. ex kurz faltate bignoniaceae bign-325 0.17 0.59 0.38 0.5 tree bark & leaves bark used in the treatment of anti-allergic, astringent, blood purifier and tonic. decoction of leaves used in the treatment of stomachache, toothache and headache. bark used for treatment of jaundice, arthritic & rheumatic problems, gastric ulcers, tumors, respiratory diseases, diabetes, diarrhea & dysentery, and jaundice (dinda et al., 2015; miya et al., 2020). 26. garuga pinnata roxb. dabdabe burseraceae bur-326 0.39 0.88 0.64 0.4 tree stem & leaves juice of stem and leaves used to the treatment of eye disorders, asthma and stomach disorders. used in infection and would healing, and also as a vermifuge (fern, 2014). 27. cannabis sativa l. bhang cannabaceae cann-327 0.95 0.88 0.92 0.65 herb fruit & leaves used for the treatment of pain, spasms, asthma, insomnia, depression and loss of appetite. used in respiratory problems followed by rheumatism, gastrointestinal, gynecological, cancer and other ailments including hypertension, headache, itch, increases bile secretion, dandruff, fever and urinary problems (shakil et al., 2021). 28. terminalia chebula retz. harro combretaceae com-328 0.22 0.59 0.41 0.85 tree fruit used in the treatment of constipation, diarrhea, dysentery, intestinal worms, vaginal discharge, coughs and asthma. used for treatment of cough, sore throat, fever, bronchitis, eye disease, and gastritis; also used as blood purifier (miya et al., 2020). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 4 bhatt et al. s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 29. t. bellirica (gaertn.) roxb. barro combretaceae com-329 0.33 0.59 0.46 0.8 tree fruit used to treat diarrhea, indigestion, constipation, throats, hoarseness and coughs. fruits are anthelmintic, and used in indigestion, cough, cold, respiratory problems and fever. dried-fruit mixed with tobacco is smoked for sedative action. fruit powder is used to cure wound (dhami, 2008; bhatt & shakya, 2016; dutta, 2007). 30. t. tomentosa (roxb.) wight & arn. asna, saaj combretaceae com-330 1.12 0.88 1.00 0.65 tree bark bark is astringent, anti-diarrheal, and antileucorrhea. it is used for curing hemorrhagic & skin diseases, and leucoderma. bark used in liver troubles. bark paste is applied on head for dandruff (kumar et al., 2011; marandi and britto, 2014). 31. t. elliptica willd. saaj combretaceae com-331 1.00 0.88 0.94 0.65 tree bark & leaves treatment of diarrhea, cuts, burns, wounds, swellings & dandruff. it has anti-fungal, antioxidant and antileucorrhea properties. used as an antiseptic and antioxidant. to treat diarrhea, cuts, wounds, dandruff & swellings (fern, 2014). 32. anogeissus latifolia wall. axlewood combretaceae com-332 0.45 0.88 0.66 0.35 tree bark & leaves decoction of the bark used to treat wounds, swelling, diarrhea, bleeding piles, skin diseases, and jaundice. it has property of antiseptic, and is used in wound healing, treatment of tumour, cancer, rheumatism and burning sensation (yadav et al., 2017). 33. kalanchoe pinnata (lam.) pers. kankaral crassulaceae cras-333 0.17 0.59 0.38 0.35 herb leaves leaf paste used to treat wounds, ulcers, bruises, and boils. used as astringent, antibacterial, antiseptic, diuretic and febrifuge. treatment of diarrhea, dysentery, cholera, colds and coughs (fern, 2014). 34. cyperus rotundus (l.) mothe cyperaceae cyp-334 1.00 0.88 0.94 0.4 grass root & stem root and tuber are analgesic, antibacterial, aromatic, astringent, diuretic, sedative, skin, stimulant, tonic and vermifuge. root tubers used in stomachache; an infusion of tuber is given for indigestion, diarrhea, dysentery, dyspepsia, vomiting, cholera and fever (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; dhami, 2008; bhatt & shakya, 2016). 35. c. difformis (l.) mothe cyperaceae cyp-335 1.28 0.88 1.08 0 grass 36. dillenia indica l. elephant apple dilleniaceae dill-336 0.50 0.88 0.69 0.55 tree bark & leaves bark & leaves used for treatment of indigestion, asthma, influenza, dysentery, jaundice, weakness, cough, and rheumatic pain. bark & leaves used as tonic and as laxative to treat cough, abdominal disorders and to wash mouth (fern, 2014). 37. d. pentagyna roxb., pi coromandel tatari dilleniaceae dill-337 0.17 0.59 0.38 0.45 tree leaves paste of leaves is applied to poultice to treat scorpion bites, anal fistula, wounds, diabetes, pneumonia, and burning sensation. leaf paste used to treat scorpion bites, wounds, anal fistula, diabetes, and pneumonia (fern, 2014). 38. dioscorea deltoidea wall. ex griseb. tarul dioscoriaceae dios-338 2.90 0.88 1.89 0.7 climber root juice of root tuber used in the treatment of roundworm, constipation, asthma, arthritis, and genital disorders. juice of root tuber used in soap making, and as wormicide and fish poisoning; also used as anthelmintic (tamang et al., 2017; miya et al., 2020). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 5 bhatt et al. s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 39. shorea robusta roth. sal dipterocarpaceae dip-339 1.95 0.88 1.42 0.65 tree bark & leaves bark & leaves used to treat variety of diseases including piles, leucorrhea, gonorrhea, skin disorders, ulcers, wounds, diarrhea, dysentery, burns, seminal weakness, etc. resin is given orally to get rid of worms from stomach. seed-powder is given orally to treat diarrhea and dysentery (marandi & britto, 2014; miya et al., 2020). 40. phyllanthus emblica l. amala euphorbiaceae eup-340 0.95 0.88 0.92 0.9 tree whole plant all parts of the plant used in the treatment of diarrhea, jaundice, and inflammation. used for blood purification and mental disorder. barkjuice used in dysentery, constipation, and body pain. fruits are stomachic, and used in shore throat cold, cough, gastritis, stomach disorder, and as tonic & appetizer (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; dhami, 2008; bhatt & shakya, 2016; miya et al., 2020). 41. mallotus philippensis (lam.) muell. arg. kumkum euphorbiaceae eup-341 0.95 0.88 0.92 0.75 tree whole plant the whole plant possesses anthelmintic, anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and antidiabetic properties. used for treatment of diarrhea and dysentery, urinary issues, vulnerary, diuretic, skin disorders, and heating; also used as purgative and anthelmintic (tamang et al., 2017; ishtiaq et al., 2021). 42. ricinus communis l. arande euphorbiaceae eup-342 1.39 0.88 1.14 0.35 shrub seed & leaves paste of leaves and seeds used to treat migraine, low back ache, arthritis pain, and skin disorders. oil from seed used to treat constipation. used for treatment of heel cracks, bronchitis, asthma, colds and cough (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; alamgeer et al., 2018). 43. trewia nudiflora l. gutel euphorbiaceae eup-343 0.33 0.88 0.61 0.3 tree 44. pterocarpus marsupium roxburgh. vijaysaal fabaceae fab-344 0.17 0.59 0.38 0.65 tree bark used in the treatment of diarrhea. used for treatment of stomachache, cholera, dysentery, urinary complaints, tongue diseases, and toothache (badkhane et al., 2010). 45. dalbergia latifloia roxb. satisaal fabaceae fab-345 1.39 0.88 1.14 0.6 tree bark used for treatment of diarrhea, worms, indigestion and leprosy. used as astringent & vermifuge, and also used to treat diarrhea, indigestion and leprosy (fern, 2014). 46. dalbergia sissoo roxb. sissoo fabaceae fab-346 0.78 0.88 0.83 0.55 tree stem & leaves used to treat skin diseases. used for treatment of diarrhea, scabies; and bladder & kidney stone, piles, bronchial asthma, cough, rheumatism, and skin burn; also used as laxative and blood purifier. (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; alamgeer et al., 2018). 47. tamarindus indica l. imli fabaceae fab-347 0.22 0.59 0.41 0.55 tree fruit fruit is eaten to care fevers and control gastric acid; powdered seed used to cure dysentery and diarrhea. used in case of inflammation, boils, and chicken pox (miya et al., 2020). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 6 bhatt et al. s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 48. albizia procera (roxb.) benth. siris fabaceae fab-348 0.17 0.59 0.38 0.5 tree whole plant decoction of bark used for treatment of rheumatism, haemorrhage, and stomach ache; it acts as an anticancer agent while the leaves are poultice into ulcers. used as an anti-cancer agent. used for treatment of rheumatism, haemorrhage, and stomach ache (fern, 2014). 49. cassia fistula l. rajbriksha fabaceae fab-349 0.33 0.88 0.61 0.45 tree bark & leaves applied to skin problems, broken bones, ulcers, wounds, and fevers. the pulp is given in case of diarrhea & dysentery, and the paste of pulp is used to cure snake/scorpion-bites (dhami, 2008; bhatt & shakya, 2016). 50. abrus precatorius l. ratigedi fabaceae fab-350 0.67 0.88 0.78 0.4 shrub seed & leaves traditionally, used to treat tetanus & rabies. it is also used to treat score and wounds caused by dogs, cats, and mice. the leaves used to cure fever, cough and cold. used to treat female sterility (acharya & pokhrel, 2006). 51. bauhinia variegata (l.) koiraalo fabaceae fab-351 0.56 0.88 0.72 0.4 tree whole plant used for treatment of skin diseases, leprosy, intestinal worms, tumours, wounds, ulcers, cough, and bleeding disorders. roots are cool, astringent, anthelmintic, acrid and styptic, they cure ulcer, swelling leprosy, cough, menstrual disorder, glandular diseases and prolapse of rectum. bark is useful in skin diseases. juice of flower is given to treat diarrhea and other stomachic disorders (dutta, 2007; bhatt & shakya, 2016). 52. mimosa pudica l. lajjawati fabaceae fab-352 1.17 0.88 1.03 0.35 herb root & leaves leaf-juice used in the treatment of biliousness, leprosy, dysentery, vaginal & uterine complaints, and blood diseases while the root-juice is used to control alcoholism. juice of plant used in scabies, diarrhea, asthma, jaundice, and dysentery (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; shakya, 2016). 53. senna tora (l.) roxb. koshe ghas fabaceae fab-353 1.17 0.88 1.03 0.35 herb root & leaves leaves used to treat ringworm and skin diseases while the roots are used as a laxative and anthelmintic. used for drug discovery as alternatives for alzheimer’s disease. used to treat ringworm (chethana et al., 2017; tamang et al., 2017). 54. bauhinia vahlii (wight & arn.) benth malu fabaceae fab-354 0.67 0.88 0.78 0.35 shrub seed & leaves seeds are tonic and aphrodisiac while leaves are demulcent and mucilaginous. leaves used as plates and sun/rain hats. seeds have aphrodisiac properties and are considered as tonic, and given to children suffering from indigestion (dutta, 2007; bhatt & shakya, 2016). 55. leucaena leucocephala (lam.) de wit dalle ghas fabaceae fab-355 0.61 0.88 0.75 0.35 tree leaves used to control stomach diseases, facilitate abortion and diabetes. used for treatment of ascariasis, and also used as tonic (fern, 2014). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 7 bhatt et al. s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 56. vachellia nilotica (l.) p.j.h. hurter & mabb. bakareul fabaceae fab-356 0.61 0.88 0.75 0.35 tree whole plant bark and gum used for treating cancers, tumors, chest problems, liver and heart problems, cold, coughs and tuberculosis. root used to treat tuberculosis. wood used to treat smallpox. used to treat diarrhea, dysentery, cancers, tumours, chest problems, coughs and smallpox (fern, 2014). 57. albizia lebbeck (l.) benth lebbeck tree fabaceae fab-357 0.50 0.88 0.69 0.35 tree bark used for treatment of bronchial asthma. also, used to make herbal tea. used for treatment of flu, cough and lung problem, sexual disorders and impotency; also used as tonic, diuretic, blood purifier and treatment of asthma (alamgeer et al., 2018; umair et al., 2019). 58. senegalia catechu (l.f.) p.j.h. hurter &mabb. khosatte fabaceae fab-358 0.28 0.88 0.58 0.35 tree whole plant used for treatment of dysentery, chronic diarrhea, skin problems, mouth ulcers, bed sores, score throats, and dental infections. used for treatment of blood clothing, dysentery, chronic diarrhea, bed-sores, nose bleedings, mouth ulcers and dental infections (fern, 2014). 59. flemingia strobilifera (l.) w. t. aiton bhatwasi fabaceae fab-359 1.12 0.88 1.00 0.3 herb root used for various ailments such as insomnia, epilepsy, ulcer, inflammation and microbial infection. used for treatment of tuberculosis, rheumatism and also used as a vermifuge (fern, 2014). 60. butea monosperma (lam.) kuntze palas fabaceae fab-360 0.84 0.88 0.86 0.3 tree whole plant used for treatment of menstrual disorders, skin disorders. the leaves have astringent, diuretic and aphrodisiac properties. infusion or decoction of flowers is given orally for sun stroke, and also applied in the body. the seed power is given orally for killing worms in the stomach. the decoction of the bark is given orally for curing diarrhea and dysentery (marandi & britto, 2014). 61. tara spinosa (feuille ex molina) britton & rose tarra fabaceae fab-361 0.22 0.59 0.41 0 tree 62. desmodium triflorum (l.) dc. berseem fabiceae fab-362 1.06 0.88 0.97 0.4 grass whole plant the plant is anti-pyretic, anti-septic and expectorant. plant decoction is commonly used to treat diarrhea and dysentery. used for curing toothache, stomachache and piles, kidney & urinal problems; the whole plant is considered as a beneficial drug in the treatment of various gastric ailments, and is administered in the form of decoction. (singh et al., 2015; padal et al., 2012). 63. curcuma aromatic salisb ban haldi gingerberaceae ging-363 0.45 0.88 0.66 0.65 herb stem stem-juice stimulates gall bladder and circulatory system. stem-juice is used to improve digestion, and is also used to cure jaundice, chest pains, and painful menstruation. used for treatment of jaundice, nose bleedings, painful menstruation, and chest pain (fern, 2014). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 8 bhatt et al. s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 64. ocimum gratissimum l. ban tulsi lamiaceae lam-364 2.40 0.88 1.64 0.9 herb stem & leaves used internally in the treatment of colds, influenza, fevers, headaches, diarrhea, dysentery and worms in children. used for curing gonorrhea, rheumatic pain, swelling and headache (miya et al., 2020). 65. o. tenuiflorum l. tulsi lamiaceae lam-365 0.33 0.59 0.46 0.9 herb whole plant used for treatment of illnesses colds, influenza, arthritis, digestive discords, etc. it has a variety of biological/ pharmacological activities, such as anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal, anti-protozoal, antimalarial, anthelmentic, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antioxidant, anti-cancer, anti-fertility, anti-ulcer, anti-arthritic, immunomodulatory, and anti-coagulant activities. used as memory enhancer and improving central nervous system (pandey & madhuri, 2010). 66. thymus vulgaris l. jwano lamiaceae lam-366 0.45 0.88 0.66 0.75 shrub whole plant used in the treatment of digestive discords, sore throats and fever. thyme is incredibly useful in cases of assorted intestinal infections and infestations, such as hookworms and ascaris. used as a gargle, thyme is helpful in treatment of laryngitis and inflammation. it used for skin issues like oily skin, acne, dermatitis, skin condition, and bug bites (reddy et al., 2014) 67. mentha spicata l. mentha lamiaceae lam-367 0.28 0.59 0.43 0.75 herb leaves & stem leaves used for treatment of fevers, headaches, digestive discords while stem is used as a poultice on bruises. leaves used as appetizer and for treatment of throat infection, indigestion, vomiting, gastric disorder, and boils; also used to treat cholera, stomach problems, insomnia, heat sickness, and jaundice (miya et al., 2020). 68. leucas aspera (willd.) link tilaula lamiaceae lam-368 0.61 0.88 0.75 0.4 herb leaves leaf-sap used to treat sores of eyes and nose, fevers, colds, rheumatism and snake bites. leaf-juice used as a tonic and to treat sores of eyes & nose, snakebites, wounds, and narcosis (fern, 2014). 69. lathyrus aphaca l. lamiaceae lam-369 0.73 0.88 0.80 0.35 herb seed ripe seeds used as antibacterial, narcotic and in the treatment of toothache. ripe seeds used for treatment of toothache and used as anti-bacterial and narcotic (fern, 2014). 70. colebrookea oppositifolia sm. dhusura lamiaceae lam-370 1.51 0.88 1.19 0.3 shrub root & leaves leaves used to treat wounds, bruises, fever, headache and dysentery while roots used to treat peptic ulcers. leaves used for treatment of conjunctivitis, typhoid, epilepsy, sinusitis opaqueness in cornea, nose bleeding, sinus, and wounds (miya et al., 2020). 71. cinnamomum verum j. presl dalchini lauraceae lau-371 0.17 0.29 0.23 0.8 tree bark bark-extract used as a poultice for treatment of rheumatism, stomach and intestinal gas. used to treat colic pain, diarrhea, digestive disorder and kidney disease, stomach ache, and skin disease (miya et al., 2020). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 9 bhatt et al. s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 72. cassytha filiformis l. akashbeli lauraceae lau-372 0.39 0.88 0.64 0.75 climber stem stem-juice used for treatment of skin problems, eczema, ulcers and parasitic conditions of both skin and scalp. used for treatment of jaundice and body pain. plant given to domestic animals suffering from fever and dysentery (dhami, 2008; bhatt & shakya, 2016; dutta, 2007). 73. machilus odoratissima nees kaulo lauraceae lau-373 0.50 0.88 0.69 0.3 tree bark extract of bark has antioxidant and antibacterial properties. used as antioxidant and antibacterial (fern, 2014). 74. reinwardtia indica dumort. pyauli linaceae lin-374 1.78 0.88 1.33 0 shrub 75. punica granatum l. anar lythraceae lyt-375 0.17 0.59 0.38 0.75 tree whole plant used as anti-bacterial, antiviral and astringent agent. seed used to treat syphilis. juice of fruit used to treat jaundice and diarrhea. used as anthelmintic and body tonic, and also used for treatment of piles, intestinal disorders, jaundice, tumors, fever, cooling, cough, sore throats, skin disorders, and stomach pains (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; miya et al., 2020; ishtiaq et al., 2021). 76. woodfordia fruticosa (l.) kurz. dhanyaro lythraceae lyt-376 1.73 0.88 1.31 0.35 shrub fruit fruits are astringent; used to treat dysentery and menorrhagia. used to treat cholera, jaundice, dysentery and stomachache (miya et al., 2020). 77. magnolia champaca (l.) baill. ex pierre chanp magnoliaceae mag-377 0.22 0.59 0.41 0.6 tree whole plant bark used as a febrifuge while flowers are used to treat leprosy. leaves are used against colic, and seeds are used to treat badly chapped skin. whole plant used for treatment of leprosy, colic, skin problems, typhoid and also used as a febrifuge (fern, 2014). 78. bombax ceiba l. simal malvaceae mal-378 0.67 0.88 0.78 0.5 tree roots & leaves roots are diuretic & tonic, and used in the treatment of cholera, fistula, cough, and abdominal pain. leaves are hypotensive and hypoglacaemic. root-paste used for curing dysentery and fracture. plant-juice used to treat headache, cough, cold, indigestion, cuts, wounds, and diarrhea. (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; dhami 2008; bhatt & shakya 2016). 79. sida acuta l. malvaceae mal-379 0.73 0.88 0.80 0.4 herb whole plant a decoction of the whole plant used as a treatment for fever and indigestion whereas leaves used to treat dysentery. roots used to treat fever and toothache. leaves are demulcent and diuretic; root extract used to treat leucorrhoea (kumar et al., 2011). 80. grewia optiva j.r. drumm. er. burret bhimal malvaceae mal-380 0.73 0.88 0.80 0.35 tree bark & leaves bark & leaves applied on eruptions, indigestion, gastric problems, and fever. bark & leaves are aphrodisiac, and applied for wound healing and prolapse of placenta (ishtiaq et al., 2021). 81. azadirachta indica a. juss. neem meliaceae mel-381 0.33 0.88 0.61 0.85 tree leaves leaves used to treat leprosy, eye disorders, intestinal worms, skin ulcers, liver and blood diseases, stomach disorders, diabetes, and fever. used tor treatment of hyperglycemia and malarial fever, headache, smallpox, toothache, malarian fever, diarrhea, and intestinal worms; also used as blood purifier and vermifuge (alamgeer et al., 2018; miya et al., 2020). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 10 bhatt et al. s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 82. toona ciliata m. roem. tooni meliaceae mel-382 0.33 0.59 0.46 0.35 tree bark used to treat chronic dysentery, wounds, and boils. used for curing blood diseases and stomach flatulence issues (ishtiaq et al., 2021). 83. cissampelos nepalensis rhods. baral-panrhe menispermaceae meni-384 1.34 0.88 1.11 0 climber 84. tinospora sinensis (loureiro) merrill gurjo menispermiaceae meni-384 0.39 0.88 0.64 0.9 climber stem & leaves used for treatment of rheumatism and other ailments. squeezed stem is kept in water over a night and decanted water is taken next morning as a remedy of stomach troubles. juice of fresh plant is taken in diuretic and gonorrhea (dutta, 2007; dhami 2008; bhatt & shakya 2016). 85. ficus religiosa l. ban pipal moraceae mor-385 0.89 0.88 0.89 0.7 tree whole plant traditionally, used as anti-ulcer, anti-bacterial, anti-diabetic and in the treatment of gonorrhea and skin diseases. used for curing cuts, wounds, cough, asthma, typhoid and spleen swelling. asthma, dysentery, diabetes, wounds healing, epilepsy, diarrhea, fever, gastritis, inflammation, infectious and sexual disorders (miya et al., 2020; ishtiaq et al., 2021). 86. f. auriculata lour. timla moraceae mor-386 0.22 0.59 0.41 0.55 tree fruit the roasted fruit is used in the treatment of diarrhea and dysentery. the bark, leaves and fruits extracts are antioxidant, antibacterial, hepatoprotective, anticancerous, antidiabetic, and anti-inflammatory (kunwar & bussmann, 2006; pant et al., 2009; tamata et al., 2021). 87. f. palmata forssk. bedu moraceae mor-387 0.33 0.59 0.46 0.5 tree fruit fruit is used to treat constipation, lungs and bladder discords. plants are potential source of antioxidant, and used to treat diabetes and inflammation (negi et al., 2018). 88. f. racemosa l. gullar moraceae mor-388 0.78 0.88 0.83 0.4 tree whole plant this plant is medically important in ayurveda, and it has been used to treat jaundice, dysentery, diabetes, diarrhea and inflammatory conditions. milky latex is applied in muscular pain, cut wounds, fractures and boils (dhami 2008). 89. myristica fragrans hoult. jaiphal myristicaceae myr-389 0.17 0.59 0.38 0.7 tree seed seeds are used to treat toothache, rheumatic, abdominal pain, and poor digestion. seed-oil is used to keep body temperature warm while seeds are used for treating piles and leucorrhea (wangchuck et al., 2011; sihotang et al., 2018; jianwitchayakul et al., 2018). 90. syzygium cumini l. skeels jamun myrtaceae myr-390 1.34 0.88 1.11 0.7 tree bark & leaves bark & leaves are used for treatment of sore throat, bronchitis, asthma, thirst, biliousness, dysentery, ulcers, and blood disorders. used for indigestion. fruits and decoction of leaves used for curing diarrhea, dysentery, cough, headache, sinusitis, and dysentery (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; dhami, 2008; miya et al., 2020). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 11 bhatt et al. s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 91. nyctanthes arbor-tristis l. parijat oleaceae ole-391 0.17 0.59 0.38 0.45 tree leaves the bitter leaves are useful as a cholagogue, laxative, diaphoretic and diuretic. fever, chronic typhoid, diabetes, inflammation, and scurvy (miya et al., 2020). 92. orchis tourn ex l. sunakhari/ orchid orchidaceae orc-392 0.67 0.88 0.78 0 herb 93. oxalis corniculata (l.) chari amilo oxalidaceae oxa-393 1.28 0.88 1.08 0.35 grass whole plant the whole plant is anthelmintic, astringent, diuretic and styptic. the leaf juice is applied to insect bites, burns and skin eruptions. stomachache. plant-juice is used in pimples, cut wounds, diarrhea and dysentery. appetizer, body cooling, sinusitis, fever, tooth corrosion, sinusitis, anaemia, piles, scurvy, and jaundice (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; dhami 2008; miya et al., 2020). 94. pinus roxburghii sarg. sallo pinaceae pin-394 0.06 0.29 0.17 0.55 tree stem the wood is aromatic, deodorant, haemostatic, stimulant, anthelmintic, and is used as digestive and liver tonic. coughs and cold (alamgeer et al., 2018). 95. piper longum l pipla piperaceae pip-395 1.51 0.88 1.19 0.9 herb fruit fruit is aromatic & stimulant, and is used to treat colds, asthma, bronchitis, arthritis, rheumatism, indigestion and toothache. used as stomachic, carminative as well as tonic useful in bronchitis, asthma, cold, cough and snake bite (bhatt & shakya, 2016; miya et al., 2020). 96. saccharum spontaneum l. kans poaceae poa-396 2.12 0.88 1.50 0.55 grass root roots are sweet, astringent, emollient, diuretic, tonic, burns, piles, and sexual weakness. cold, cough and fever; root is eaten for recovery of post pregnancy; recovery of stomachache (tamang et al., 2017; shah & lamichhane, 2017; miya et al., 2020). 97. imperata cylindrica (l.) siru poaceae poa-397 1.17 0.88 1.03 0.45 grass root roots are antibacterial, diuretic, febrifuge, wounds, fevers, thirst etc. cholera (in child). body tonic, hypertension, wounds, cuts, urodynia, and febricity. anthelmintic (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; umair et al., 2019; miya et al., 2020). 98. cynodon dactylon (l.) pers. dubo poaceae poa-398 2.18 0.88 1.53 0.35 grass whole plant decoction of the whole plant is used in the treatment of cough, diarrhea, dysentery, headache, hypertension, rubella, snake bite and tumors. used for curing cuts, wounds and burns, hemorrhage, inflammation of limbs, disorder in urinary tracts, and gastric disorders (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; miya et al., 2020). 99. himalayacalamus asper stapleton nigalo poaceae poa-399 2.29 0.88 1.58 0 shrub 100. eulaliopsos binata (retz.) c.e. hubb babiyo poaceae poa-400 1.90 0.88 1.39 0 grass 101. thysanolaena latifolia (roxb. ex hornem.) honda amlisha poaceae poa-401 0.84 0.88 0.86 0 grass 102. fimbristylis dichotoma (l.) vahl. banso poaceae poa-402 0.78 0.88 0.83 0 grass banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 12 bhatt et al. s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 103. persicaria barbata (l.) hara nali ghans polygonaceae pol-403 1.67 0.88 1.28 0.3 herb whole plant seeds are used to treat dysentery and cholera while the roots are used to treat scabies; wood-sap is applied eternally to wounds. used for curing scabies and fish poisoning, bacterial infections, fertility issues, colic pain, inflammations, urinary disorders, stomachache, and scabies. (tamang et al., 2017; ishtiaq et al., 2021). 104. rumex nepalensis sprngel hal hale polygonaceae pol-404 0.89 0.88 0.89 0 herb root & leaves decoction of root applied to swollen gun, rheumatism, colic, stomach ache, abdominal pain and abscesses while leaf-juice applied externally to relieve headaches and wounds. root-paste used as medicine in skin allergy (shah & lamichhane, 2017). 105. ziziphus mauritiana lam. bayar rhamnaceae rha-405 0.56 0.88 0.72 0.75 tree fruit & leaves used to treat chronic fatigue, loss of appetite, diarrhea, bronchitis, anaemia and fevers. used to cure obesity, diarrhea, anemia, snake biting and wound healing; ripe fruits are edible and good for indigestion, constipation, and stomach problems; also used as blood purifier (ishtiaq et al., 2021; bhatt et al., 2021 ). 106. rubus ellipticus sm. ainselu rosaceae ros-406 2.18 0.88 1.53 0.45 shrub whole plant decoction of root is used to treat fever, gastric, diarrhea, and dysentery. used as anthelmintic agent as well as appetizer and for curing abdominal pain, curing wounds, urinary tract infection, diarrhea, sore throat, cholera, gastritis, fever, mouth wounds, tonsillitis, cough & cold, tongue eczema, and snake bite (miya et al., 2020). 107. anthocephalus cadamba (roxb.) miq. kadam rubiaceae rub-407 0.17 0.59 0.38 0.65 tree bark & leaves dried bark is used to relieve fever and as a tonic while the leaves are used to treat ulcers, digestive problems, fevers, and vomiting. dried bark used as tonic, astringent, expectorant, and febrifuge (fern, 2014). 108. adina cordifolia (willd. ex roxb.) benth. & hook. f. ex brandis karma rubiaceae rub-408 1.23 0.88 1.05 0.55 tree root roots act as astringent and constipating agent, and are useful in diarrhea and dysentery; used in the treatment of chronic, cough, jaundice, and stomach ache. used for treatment of chronic cough, jaundice, stomachache, and a variety of other ailments (tamang et al., 2017). 109. mussaenda frondosa l. asaray rubiaceae rub-409 0.17 0.59 0.38 0.4 shrub bark & leaves decoction of leaves is used to get rid of intestinal worms while the bark-juice is used in the treatment of body ache, diarrhea and dysentery. traditionally, used in the treatment of white leprosy, eye troubles, skin infections, tuberculosis, jaundice, ulcers, wounds, cough, and bronchitis (shanthi & radha, 2020). 110. zanthoxylum armatum dc. timur rutaceae rut-410 0.22 0.59 0.41 0.85 tree fruit used in the treatment of abscesses, arthritis, bruises, gastritis, swellings, and toothache. used for dental troubles and its lotion used for curing scabies, fever and toothache. used as eye-sight enhancer, carminative, digestives, and stomachic (dutta, 2007; ishtiaq et al., 2021). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 13 bhatt et al. s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 111. citrus limon (l.) osbeck kagati rutaceae rut-411 0.11 0.29 0.20 0.85 tree stem stem-bark is bitter, stomachic and tonic. continuous application of lemon essential oil solubilized in grape seed oil might be useful in the prevention of lifestylerelated skin diseases by regulating the balance of oxidative stress (khalid et al., 2010; bertuzzi et al., 2013). 112. murraya koenigii (l.) sprengel kadi patta rutaceae rut-412 1.12 0.88 1.00 0.75 shrub whole plant leaves used to treat dysentery, diarrhea, diabetics, wounds, and skin eruptions while root is used to relive from body-ache. bark is helpful in treating snakebites. juice of leaves used for improvement of appetite and digestion, treatment of diarrhea and dysentery (fern, 2014). 113. aegle marmelos (l.) correa stone apple rutaceae rut-413 0.39 0.59 0.49 0.45 tree fruit used for treatment of dysentery, and as an ayurvedic medicine for loss of appetite, respiratory problems, tuberculosis, fever, and diabetes. bark and leaf juice given in diarrhea, dysentery, indigestion and abdominal disorders (dhami, 2008; bhatt & shakya, 2016; dutta, 2007). 114. sapindus mukorossi gaertn. reetha sapindaceae sap-514 0.22 0.59 0.41 0.65 tree fruit used to treat burns and to wash hair and get rid of lice. used for cold, cough and fever (tamang et al., 2017). 115. schleichera oleosa (lour.) oken kusum sapindaceae sap-515 0.39 0.88 0.64 0.45 tree whole plant all parts of this plant are used as decoction to cure ulcers and wounds of cattle. bark is used for skin problems and ulcers. treatment to wounds and ulcers of cattle, skin problems and also promotes hair growth (fern, 2014). 116. bergenia ciliata (haw.) sternb. revis. saxifrag. suppl. silfode saxifragaceae sax-516 0.22 0.59 0.41 0.55 herb whole plant used for treatment of heart diseases, haemorrhoids, stomach discords, and opthalmia. used as aphrodisiac agent, used in case of fever, maternity problem, and post pregnancy, diarrhea, typhoid, dysentery, vomiting, stomachache, body pain, sprain, headache, cuts, wound, renal calculi, fracture, menstrual haemorrhage and whooping cough (miya et al., 2020). 117. selaginella p. beauv. selaginella selaginellaceae sel-517 0.50 0.59 0.55 0 grass 118. datura metel l. kalodhatura solanaceae sol-518 0.45 0.59 0.52 0.8 herb whole plant used to treat asthma, epilepsy, hysteria, heart diseases, fever, diarrhea, and skin diseases. dried stems and leaves smoked in asthma. fruits and seeds used for curing paralysis; leaf-paste used in case of gonorrhea (dhami, 2008; bhatt & shakya, 2016). 119. datura stramonium l. setodhatura solanaceae sol-519 0.45 0.88 0.66 0.75 herb leaves & seeds the dried ground leaves and seeds mixed with fat eaten to treat ringworm. used for treatment of toothache, asthma, bronchitis, and insomnia. used as insecticide, antipyretic, narcotic, verimicidal, and for treatment of cold & fever in cattle. also, used for early copulation and pregnancy in cow/ buffaloes (miya et al., 2020; ishtiaq et al., 2021). banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 14 bhatt et al. s. n. name of plant species local/ english name family voucher no. rd rf ivi rfc plant form plant parts used traditional uses of plant spp. in the present study earlier reports on ethnomedicine with references 120. withania somnifera (l.) dunal. ashwagandha solanaceae sol-520 0.17 0.59 0.38 0.65 shrub whole plant used to treat nervous exhaustion, infertility, boils, wounds, swelling, and bed-sores. used for curing skin infection, smallpox, measles, etc. used as aphrodisiac. used for treatment of pulmonary troubles, asthma, stomachache, night mare, hyperglycemia, irregular menstruation, breast cancer, wounds, and malarial fever (mabona & van, 2013; chauhan et al., 2014; alamgeer et al., 2018; umair et al., 2019; ishtiaq et al., 2021). 121. ceastrum nocturnum l. rato rani solanaceae sol-521 1.45 0.88 1.17 0.55 shrub whole plant extracts of the plant useful in preventing tumour growth. folklore uses of the plant are in treatment of various heart diseases, spasms, hypertension, urine retention and various digestive diseases (maharjan et al., 2019). 122. solanum nigrum l. kali kuiyan solanaceae sol-522 1.39 0.88 1.14 0.35 herb whole plant whole plant is alterative, anti-periodic, antiphlogistic, aprodisiac, diaphoretic, diuretic, laxative, narcotive, puragative, stimulant, and tonic. used for easy child delivery and intermittent fever. used in case of diabetes, headache, insomnia and indigestion (acharya & pokhrel, 2006; miya et al., 2020). 123. girardiana diversifolia (link.) friis allo sisno urticaceae urt-523 0.73 0.88 0.80 0.6 herb root & leaves roots are used to treat constipation while leaves used for treatment of headache, fever, and swollen joints. used to cure constipation, sprain and diabetes (miya et al., 2020). 124. urtica dioica l. sisno utricaceae utr-524 0.89 0.88 0.89 0.55 herb whole plant whole plant is anti-asthmatic, antidandruff, astringent, depurative, diuretic, galactagogue, haemostatic, hypoglycaemic and a stimulating tonic. root juice given in case of stomach problems, fever, and intestinal worms. stem juice given in fever, cut wounds. flower decoction used in burns and wounds. decoction of roots used to treat wounds of dog-bite. fruits paste applied to treat dislocation of bone (dutta, 2007; dhami, 2008; bhatt & shakya, 2016). 125. lantana camara l. banmara verbenaceae ver-525 1.84 0.88 1.36 0.3 shrub whole plant leaves contain antimicrobial, fungicidal and insecticidal properties while the roots are used to treat influenza, cough, mumps, high fever, malaria, headache, and asthma. used for treatment of respiratory diseases, headache, aerodontalgia, malarial fever, rheumatoids, arthritis, cuts, wounds, injuries, cough & cold, and to get rid of ring-worm (alamgeer et al., 2018; umair et al., 2019). 126. lippia nodiflora (l.) rich. kurkure jhar verbenaceae ver-526 0.61 0.88 0.75 0.4 grass whole plant a poultice of fresh plant is applied to ripen boils, swollen cervical glands, burns, and chronic ulcers while root-juice is used in the treatment of gastric troubles. used as antibacterial, astringent, diuretic, parasiticides and refrigerant and to treat gastric problems, fever, and coughs & colds (fern, 2014). 41 freshwater ecosystems vary in size and composition, and contain large variety of organisms. freshwater algae are globally ubiquitous and a highly diverse group. algae are a vast group of photosynthetic organisms and found in many forms, viz. individual cells, colonies or extended filaments (chaterjee & raziuddin, 2006). they play an important role in the primary producers of ecosystem for various consumers of aquatic fauna. they are one of the most helpful indicators to monitor freshwater ecosystem because of their position at the base of aquatic food webs, and algal indicators provide rapid response to environmental changes compared with commonly used higher organisms (mccormick & john, 1994). altogether, 998 algal species are found in nepal (rai & ghimire, 2020). previously, most of the explorations of the algal flora were carried out in and around the kathmandu valley. the contribution of algal explorations especially in the kathmandu valley, has been initiated by hirano (1955, 1963, 1969, 1984) of kyoto university of japan and has reported 271 taxa from eastern nepal and central nepal (kathmandu, rasuwa, gorkha, kaski, manang and mustang districts). then, many researchers focused on the explorations of the algal species in nepal. hickel (1973) also studied the phytoplankton in taudaha (kathmandu district) and nagdaha (lalitpur district). joshi (1977, 1979) also contributed to the algal explorations from kathmandu, lalitpur and sindhupalchok districts. similarly, prasad & prasad (2001) have also studied the algal diversity of the bagmati river flowing in kathmandu, lalitpur and bhaktapur districts. in recent period, algological researches have been focused only on the eastern region of nepal (rai and ghimire, 2020). the broad algal exploration all through the country is still to be carried out. no, any researchers focused on the explorations of the godawari area alone, but many of them include some species from that area during algal explorations of the kathmandu valley. this is a preliminary work for the exploration of the total algal flora of the godawari area. the present work provides only a small stack to pile up the algal flora of godawari area in future. materials and methods the study site lies within the godawari area situated at the foothills of phulchoki mountain of lalitpur district within bagmati province of nepal (figure 1). phulchoki, the highest peak in the kathmandu valley, is one of the popular hiking destinations in and around the valley due to its rich biodiversity and splendid environment. godawari is also famous because of the national botanical garden (nbg) and the lama kunda (pond) which is the outlet of “godawari kunda”, one of the sacred sites in nepal. the sample collection sites (nbg and lama kunda) are enumeration of freshwater algae in godawari area, lalitpur district, central nepal 1 national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari, lalitpur. *e-mail: dhakalsajita0@gmail.com 2 phycology research lab, department of botany, post graduate campus, tribhuvan university, biratnagar, nepal 3 national botanical garden, godawari, lalitpur. s. dhakal 1*, s. k. rai 2 and m. l. pathak 3 received : 20, march, 2021 revised : 26, april, 2021 accepted : 26, may, 2021 published : 30, may, 2021 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1, 2021 pp 41‒50https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v31i1.37344 short note https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7024-5415 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9582-4632 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4216-9093 banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 42 dhakal et al. situated between 28°11′25″-28°12′25″ n latitudes and between 83°55′56″-83°58′50″ e longitudes with the elevation ranging from 1515 m to 1521 m above mean sea level in the southeastern corner of the valley. the study sites, moreover, exhibit a subtropical type of climate. the average annual temperature is 15.9°c, with a maximum average of 20.3°c in june and a minimum average of 9.1°c in january in the year 2020 (climate-data.org, 2020). the average annual precipitation is 2595 mm; november is the driest month, with precipitation as low as 14 mm on average, and july the wettest, with 699 mm precipitation in the year 2020 (climate-data. org, 2020). the study area is surrounded by the natural forest of alnus nepalensis, schima walllichii, castanopsis indica, prunus cerasoides, pyrus pashia, ziziphus sp., and so on. the algal species were noticed along some streams, streamlets, and around a man-made coronation pond inside the nbg. sample collection and identification all the samples were collected from the aforementioned two sites during 8-12 oct, 2020. ten samples were collected from the national botanical garden while 2 samples from the lama kunda. the locations of the sample sites were detected using a gps set (table 1). the algal samples were collected freely for planktonic forms and by squeezing submerged aquatic macrophytes for epiphytic forms. each sample was assigned with collection number, and preserved in 4% formaldehyde solution in airtight glass bottles; all the samples so collected were brought to the national herbarium and plant laboratories, godawari for their identification. the samples were first screened, and their microscopic observation was performed using the humascope premium led microscope; the microphotography of the samples was taken with the attached toupcam camera of 0.5x. figure 1: location map of godawari area (highlighted in pink color) banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 43 dhakal et al. table 1: description of sampling sites in the study area collection no. date of collection latitude longitude altitude (m) nbg1 9th oct, 2020 27°35’46.227” 85°22’56.547” 1515 nbg2 9th oct, 2020 27°35’42.681” 85°22’55.646” 1515 nbg3 9th oct, 2020 27°35’42.687” 85°22’55.646” 1515 nbg4 9th oct, 2020 27°35’42.687” 85°22’55.646” 1515 nbg5 9th oct, 2020 27°35’42.687” 85°22’55.646” 1515 nbg6 9th oct, 2020 27°35’41.733” 85°22’56.547” 1515 nbg7 9th oct, 2020 27°35’40.023” 85°22’53.009” 1515 nbg8 9th oct, 2020 27°35’44.336” 85°22’51.073” 1515 nbg9 9th oct, 2020 27°35’44.336” 85°22’51.073” 1515 nbg10 9th oct, 2020 27°35’46.567” 85°22’48.381” 1515 lk1 8th oct, 2020 27°35’53.088” 85°23’11.688” 1521 lk2 8th oct, 2020 27°35’53.988” 85°23’11.580” 1518 note: nbg = national botanical garden; and lk = lama kunda. the morphological observation of green algae focused mainly on the presence of chloroplast, shape and size of the cells and filaments; in the case of diatoms, presence of raphe and presence or absence of centriole were observed. similarly for blue green algae, presence and absence of sheath, heterocyst, shape and size of cells were taken into consideration. the identification of taxa was done by referring to the standard taxonomic manuals (desikachary, 1959; prescott, 1961; philipose, 1967). nomenclature as well as classification were accomplished as per guiry & guiry (2021). results the present study documented a total of 19 algae under 17 genera, 14 families, 12 orders and 4 classes (table 2). ten taxa were identified up to the species-level and eight only up to the genuslevel. microspora is closely related to amoena species. lack of high magnification lens to view the internal structures of algae, and sometimes non-appearance of valve view in diatoms while observing through the microscope were the major reasons for difficulty in identifying all taxa up to the species level. bacillariophyceae was found to be the dominant class with six species belonging to five different genera. it was followed by chlorophyceae, zygnematophyceae and cyanophyceae (four species each). however, klebsormidiophyceae was represented by single taxa i.e. klebsormidium flaccidum (figure 2). banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 44 dhakal et al. table 2: list of freshwater algae reported from the study area (classification based on guiry & guiry, 2021) s. n. algal taxa family order class phylum 1 1oscillatoria princeps oscillatoriaceae oscillatoriales c ya no ph yc ea e c ya no ba ct er ia 2 1,2oscillatoria sp. 3 1,2phormidium sp. 4 2pseudanabaena sp. pseudanabaenaceae synechococcales 5 2oedogonium sp. oedogoniaceae oedogoniales c hl or op hy ce ae c hl or op hy ta 6 2 hydrodictyon reticulatum hydrodictyaceae sphaeropleales 7 1pediastrum duplex 8 1microspora cf. amoena microsporaceae 9 2closterium moniliferum closteriaceae desmidiales zy gn em at op hy ce ae c ha ro ph yt a 10 1pleurotaenium trabecula desmidiaceae 11 1cosmarium granatum 12 2spirogyra sp. zygnemataceae zygnematales 13 2klebsormidium flaccidum klebsormidiaceae klebsormidiales klebsormidiophyceae 14 1amphora sp. catenulaceae thalassiophysales b ac ill ar io ph yc ea e b ac ill ar io ph yt a 15 1nitzschia sp. bacillariaceae bacillariales 16 1gomphonema sphaerophorum gomphonemataceae cymbellales 17 1ulnaria sp. ulnariaceae licmophorales 18 1ulnaria ulna 19 2pinnularia viridis pinnulariaceae naviculales note: 1 species found at nbg; 2 species found at lama kunda; and 1, 2 species common at both the sites. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 45 dhakal et al. figure 2: dominant classes of algal species in the study area the species occurring in both the localities were phormidium sp. and oscillatoria sp. the species (10 i.e. 52%) recorded only from nbg showed high species richness in the nbg locality than in lama kunda. among the observed taxon, there were also diverse thallus organizations. for example, coccoid forms in cosmarium granatum and closterium moniliferum, filamentous in oscillatoria sp., oedogonium sp., microspora cf. amoena, spirogyra sp., klebsormidium flaccidum, etc., non motile coenobia in pediastrum duplex and hydrodictyon reticulatum and unicellular in all bacillariophyta. besides, some other interesting findings were also explored during the study. the hydrodictyon reticulatum and spirogyra sp. were blooming in the lama kunda affecting the growth of other algal species. taxonomic description cyanophyceae 1. oscillatoria princeps vaucher ex gomont (figure 3: 1) desikachary (1959): p. 210, pl. 37, figs. 1, 10, 11, 13, 14; rai and dhakal 2020, p. 129, figs. 77-78. trichomes-end slightly bend, not constricted at the cross walls, mostly forming a thallus, blue-green, or more or less brownish; endcells rounded or hemispherical, slightly capitate; trichomes 20-50 μm broad; cells 2.5-6.5 μm long. 2. oscillatoria sp. (figure 3: 2) wehr & sheath (2003): p. 155, figure 16. trichomes straight or somewhat irregularly undulate, motile by gliding or oscillating; sheaths missing in vegetative state; end cells screw-like coiled. 3. phormidium sp. (figure 3: 3) wehr & sheath (2003): p. 141, figure 12a. filaments arranged in tufts, not in fascicles, forming flat, slimy mats; filaments vary incurvature, without pseudo-branches, usually entangled, slightly too strongly waved or loosely and irregularly screw-like coiled; sheaths facultative. 4. pseudanabaena sp. (figure 3: 4) yu et al. (2015): p. 4, figure 2. trichomes solitary, usually straight or slightly bend, cylindrical, consisting of few to several cells; seldom long with many cells; generally, with conspicuous constrictions at cross-walls; cells cylindrical with round ends, longer than width, rarely close to isodiametric. chlorophyceae 5. oedogonium sp. (figure 3: 5) shrestha & rai (2017): p. 47, pl. 1, figure 15. filaments solitary, unbranched; vegetative cells cylindrical, capitate, with numerous pyrenoids; basal cell with holdfast; terminal cell obtuse. 6. hydrodictyon reticulatum (linnaeus) bory (figure 3: 6) halder (2015): p.169, figure 1-2. plant macroscopic, grass green; free floating, colonies reticulate; 6 cells adjoined together end to end walls repeatedly forming hexagonal mesh, and whole structure of the alga appears as cylindrical net; net may vary in size; cells coenocytic, elongate, and cylindrical; cells 51.2–54.8 µm long and 9.1–10.8µm broad. 7. pediastrum duplex meyen (figure 3: 7) prescott (1961): p. 223, pl. 48, figure 4; philipose (1967): p. 121, figure 43b. colonies usually of 16-32 cells, sometimes4, banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 46 dhakal et al. 8, 64 or 128 celled with small lens shaped perforations between cells; inner cells quadrate to angular in shape, inner side of marginal cells concave, outer side produced into two short truncate processes; colonies 38–90μ m in diameter; marginal cells 13 μm long, 9–11.5 μm broad; inner cells 11 μm long, 8–9 μm broad. 8. microspora cf. amoena (kützing) rabenhorst (figure 3: 8) das & adhikary (2012): p. 169, pl. 1, figure 10. thallus filamentous, unbranched, thickened cell wall, cross wall lamellated; cells 46-57 μm long and 31.3-32 μm broad. zygnematophyceae 9. closterium moniliferum ehrenberg ex ralfs (figure 3: 9) bando et al. (1989): p. 7, figure 2k. the ventral side of the mid-region is usually inflated; the cell ends are broadly rounded and often slightly recurved. at first glance, the cell wall seems to be smooth but at high magnification, it appears delicately striate; cells 225-300 μm long, 36-39μm broad; apices 7.5-9 μm broad, 247-276 μm distant. 10. pleurotaenium trabecula nageli (figure 3: 10) prescott (1961): p. 18, pl. 3, figure 4. cells medium-sized, straight, cylindrical, basal inflation of semi-cells slight but definite, with 1-3 swellings beyond it; semicells usually a little swollen in the mid-region and slightly tapered to apex; apex truncate with rounded angles without any tubercle; wall punctate or smooth; cell length 316-516 μm long and 39-40 μm broad; isthmus 3235 μm wide; apices 20-22 μm broad. 11. cosmarium granatum brebisson ex ralfs (figure 3: 11) prescott et al. (1981): p. 146, pl. 185, figs. 1-3. cells small, constriction deep, sinus closed; semi cell trapezoid with rounded basal angles and apex; cell wall punctuated; cells 30-37 μm long and 20-26 μm broad, isthmus 4-7 μm. 12. spirogyra sp. (figure 3: 12-13) srivastava et al. (2018): p. 5, figure 2 (o). filaments long and unbranched; cells cylindrical, short, to very long in some species, with plane; replicate, chloroplast a parietal band or ribbon which may be spirally twisted. photoplates figure 3: 1. oscillatoria princeps, 2. oscillatoria sp., 3. phormidium sp., 4. pseudanabaena sp., 5. oedogonium sp., 6. hydrodictyon reticulatum, 7. pediastrum duplex, 8. microspora cf. amoena, 9. closterium moniliferum,10. pleurotaenium trabecula, 11. cosmarium granatum, and 12 & 13. spirogyra sp. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 47 dhakal et al. klebsormidiophyceae 13. klebsormidium flaccidum (kützing) silva et al. (1972): figure 4: 14; mikhailyuk et al. (2015): p. 757, figure 2 (a–c). filaments long, cells cylindrical; hpieces present rarely; chloroplast covers 1/2– 2/3 of the cell inner surface; with smooth margins; pyrenoid large, surrounded by several layers of starch grains; cells 8-12 μm long and 6-10 μm broad. bacillariophyceae 14. amphora sp. (figure 4: 15) park & koh (2012): p. 105, figure 2. frustules elongate-elliptic with truncated apices; valves lunane with acute apices, ventral margin slightly inflated in the middle; raphe moderately curved, somewhat distant from the ventral margin; central raphe endings slightly inflated; axial area distinct on the dorsal side, semilanceolate; valves 32-49 μm long, 15 μm broad. photoplates continued…. figure 4: 14. klebsormidium flaccidum, 15. amphora sp., 16. nitzschia sp., 17. gomphonema sphaerophorum, 18. ulnaria sp., 19. ulnaria ulna, and 20. pinnularia viridis 15. nitzschia sp. (figure 4: 16) foged (1980): p. 656, pl. 13, figs. 5-6. valves long, narrowly linear with almost parallel margins and oblique; cuneata constricted, sub-capitates poles. 16. gomphonema sphaerophorum ehrenberg (figure 4: 17) rai (1970): p.11, figure 9. valves broad; capitate head pole and slightly capitate foot pole; axial area linear, narrow, and widening into a small circular central area with an isolated pore on the primary side of the central nodule; raphe straight with distinct central nodules; striae punctate and slightly radiate, wider at the centre of the valve; valves 44 µm long and 9 µm broad. 17. ulnaria sp. (figure 4: 18) tiffany & britton (1952): p. 236, pl. 63, figure 722. valves solitary, conspicuously linear with nearly parallel edges and cuneate ends; broadly linear in girdle view; pseudo-raphe narrowly linear; central area usually not evident. 18. ulnaria ulna (nitzsch) compere (figure 4: 19) rai et al. (2012): p. 6, figure 11. valves solitary, linear to linear lanceolate, gradually attenuated towards the rostrate or broadly rounded ends; central area quadrangular having small lineate striae on both margins; striae coarse, lineate, transverse and parallel; valves 55-235 μm long and 5-9 μm broad. banko janakari, vol 31 no. 1 48 dhakal et al. 19. pinnularia viridis (nitzsch) ehrenberg (figure 4: 20) rai et al. (2012): p. 8, figure 16; rai & khadka (2017): p.12, figs. 60-62. valves, solitary, linear to elliptic-linear, almost parallel or slightly convex sides and broadly rounded ends; axial area less than ¼ of cell diameter, narrow near the poles, widened centrally; central area round or elliptical; raphe thick, undulate with a one-sided central pore; transverse striae coarse, lineate, 6-9 in 10 μm, slightly radial medianly and convergent polarly, crossed by a wide longitudinal band; valves 44-125 μm long and 8-25 μm broad. discussion analysis of these data revealed that a total of 19 freshwater algae, 6 species belonging to bacillariophyta were recorded from the godawari area. most of the chlorophyta species were found in the lama kunda including highly blooming species of hydrodictyon reticulatum, spirogyra sp. indicating the eutrophic status of the water body (bhakta et al., 2011). blooming of hydrodictyon reticulatum, spirogyra sp. in the lama kunda might be due to sewage runoff or might be due to the internal origin of nutrients coming from the sediments leading to the increase in the nutrient pool. comparative occurrence of algal forms in the water bodies of godawari area (hickel 1973; joshi 1977, 1979; prasad & prasad, 2001) showed that no species were common to the present findings. the physical destabilization of the sample collection sites may have been the reason for the change in the species composition over time (ozer et al., 2019). habitat specificity of the occurrence of algae was also observed, for example, there were hydrodictyon reticulatum and spirogyra sp. blooming at the lama kunda, but not in the nbg. conclusion the algal diversity of godawari consists of five major classes with 19 species, viz, i) bacillariophyceae (6 species), ii) chlorophyceae (4 species), iii) zygnematophyceae (4 species), iv) cyanophyceae (4 species), and v) klebsormidiophyceae (1 species). the occurrence of the species in terms of trophic status indicated that the water bodies in the lama kunda were more eutrophic than those in the nbg. thus to use the water bodies in the lama kunda, the pond needs to be changed from eutrophic to oligotrophic. acknowledgements we would like to acknowledge mr. sanjeev kumar rai (director general, department of plant resources) and mr. subhash khatri, (chief, national herbarium and plant laboratories) for allowing us to carry out the study in the godawari area. we are also grateful to mr. deepak lamichhane (chief, national botanical garden) for permitting us to collect the algae samples from the national botanical garden. we would also like to thank ms. pratikshya chalise, mr. amrit khatri and ms. maiya pandey, national herbarium and plant laboratories for their support during sample collection. the authors are also thankful to mr. sandesh dhakal, post graduate student of the department of soil science and agriculture engineering, agriculture and forestry university, rampur chitwan for preparing the map of the study area. references bando, t., nakano, t. and watanabe, m. 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(2018). fresh water algal diversity of central india. international journal of research and development in pharmacy and life science 7 (4): 30393049. tiffany, l. h. and britton, m. e. (1952). the algae of illinois. hafner publishing co., new york, usa. wehr, j. and sheath, r. g. (2003). freshwater algae of north america: ecology and classification. academic press. 917p. yu, g., zhu, m., chen, y., pan, q., chai, w. and li, r. (2015). polyphasic characterization of four species of pseudanabaena (oscillatoriales, cyanobacteria) from china and insights into polyphyletic divergence within the pseudanabaena genus. phytotaxa 192 (1): 1-12. 11 the continuous war against disease and illness has been fought by man from the beginning of human civilization to present date. for the victory of the war and maintenance of health, various plant-based medicines have been used since the early days (ghani, 2013). from time immemorial, many medicinal plants are used as folk medicine for the treatment of various ailments in nepal and rest of the world. globally, about 30,000 to 70,000 plant species are used medicinally, and in developing world, 70-80% of the population depend upon plants for their primary health care (who, 2002). similarly, at least 7,000 medical compounds in the modern pharmacopoeia are derived through ethnobotanical surveys from the plants mainly based on the folk medicine of native people (coe & anderson, 1996). nepal is rich in its biological and cultural diversity. the documentation of ethnobotanical knowledge helps in the preservation of indigenous culture and contribute to the conservation and management of plant diversity that benefits the local communities (luitel et al., 2014). over 2,500 plant species are medicinal in nepal (ghimire, 2008; bhatt & kunwar, 2020) which are used in the traditional systems of medicine. the uses are associated with diverse ethnic groups of the country residing in diverse geographical ranges, and the knowledge is transferred orally through grenrations (adhikari et al., 2019). however, the new generation does not seem willing to continue their local healing tradition since it neither generates sustainable income nor offer any career development scheme. in addition to documenting the traditional knowledge related to medicinal plants, scientific validation of the healing systems is required for protecting the intellectual property rights of the particular community (aryal et al., 2016). in nepal, ethnobotanical research started from eastern nepal with the publication of a paper on medicinal and food plants by banerji in 1955. since then, many scientists have covered different ethnobotanical survey on plants used in mai municipality of ilam district, eastern nepal k. r. bhattarai1 1 department of plant resources, kathmandu, nepal. e-mail: krbhattarai@gmail.com this study was aimed to document medicinal plant species, their utilization and methods to treat common ailments by traditional healers in churiya region of ilam district, eastern nepal. this study would contribute positively to the field of biodiversity conservation, phytochemistry and ethnopharmacology. ethnobotanical information were collected in 2016 based on semi-structured questionnaire with key informant interview. data were evaluated and expressed in terms of number and percentage. a total of 116 medicinal plants belonging to 61 families were reported to treat 76 different ailments categorized into 18 groups. the highest numbers of plants were used to treat digestive system disorders. the most medicines were prepared as the form of paste from leaves or tender shoots and administrated orally. of the documented plants, 5 species were reported with novel uses and 7 were newly reported as ethnomedicinal plants in nepal. besides medicine, 111 species were utilized additionally for food, fodder, socio-cultural events and environmental use. people of the area less frequently use traditional herbal therapies. due to lack of proper collection, conservation and cultivation practices, some plant species are at risk of extinction.thus, sustainable harvesting and access to benefit sharing help to improve livelihood and conserve biodiversity. key words: ailment, churiya, ethnobotany, livelihood, medicinal plant banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2, 2020 pp 11‒35https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i2.33476 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 12 bhattarai communities in different geographical area. a number of studies such as oli et al. (2005), acharya & pokhrel (2006), gachhadar (2006), maden et al. (2008), poudel (2009), gautam (2011), limbu & rai (2013), bhattarai & khadka (2016), shrestha et al. (2016), uprety et al. (2016), bhattarai (2017), parajuli (2017), bhattarai (2018), chaudhary et al. (2020) and pradhan et al. (2020) have documented ethnobotanical information from eastern nepal based on different communities. however, many communities in different parts of the nation are still either unexplored or little explored. most of the ethnomedicinal studies conducted in the recent years in nepal have only documented whether the community people have knowledge about the use of plant or not, but have not mentioned about the recent practices of the use of these plants as medicines. though they have knowledge about the traditional medicine, they may prefer modern medicine. more recent data suggest that the use of traditional medicine in some asian and african countries is substantially lower and is declining (oyebode et al., 2016). i hypothesized that the people in danabari of mai municipality, ilam have specialized knowledge on the utilization of medicinal plants, because the settlement area is rich in plant diversity with diverse ethnic communities. i also expected that the knowledge on ethnomedicine is declining in young generatin as the community is affected by urbanization and cultural transformation. the present study, therefore, aims to enlist the ethnomedicinal plants and the methods/technique to manage common ailments by the traditional healers among the magar-dominated community in ilam district. besides, emphasis had been also given for the multiple utilization of medicinal plants and evaluation of ethno medicinal knowledge status in young generations. materials and methods study area extending over an area of 1,703 sq km, ilam is a hilly district situated about 600 km east from kathmandu, in province no. 1 of nepal (figure 1). it is located between 260 40' 270 08' n latitudes and 870 40' 880 10' e longitudes. the district stretches from the lower belt of terai (flat land stretching all along the southern border with india) and chure (a stretch of siwalik hill extending from east to west on the north, next to the terai) to the upper hilly belt of the himalayan region with the altitude ranging from 150 m to 3636 m above the mean sea level (amsl). the average annual temperature is 200c, and the average annual rainfall is 2500 mm with more than 90% of relative humidity during january-october (sharma, 2000). the tropical to alpine vegetation is found in the district with forest coverage of about 55% (dfrs, 2015). fig. 1: map showing the location of the study area the study was conducted in danabari area within mai municipality situated in the southern part of ilam district (figure 1). the municipality is surrounded by deumai and ilam municipalities on the north, suryodaya municiplaity on the north-east, jhapa district on the south-east and mangsebung and chulachuli rural municipalitieson the west. the total area of the municipality is 264 sq km with 33,210 population. danabari stretches towards north from the east of kankai mai river at an average altitude of 200 m to 400 m amsl in the churiya region. the area is inhabited by diverse group of people like chhetri, brahmin, magar, limbu, inmigrants from different places of ilam and other districts as well as indigenous people like meche, dhimal, danuhar, rajbanshi, tharu, jhangad, darai, etc. (ddc, 2015); magar being the dominant ones. the forest resources in this area are under great threat due to rapid population growth, deforestation, habitat encroachment, over grazing and over exploitation, but still the eastern churiya has been regarded as a rich place in terms of vegetation and floristic diversity (oli et al., 2005). banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 13 bhattarai data collection and analysis this study was conducted among the key informants between feb-july, 2016 by using semi-structured questionnaire. prior to documentation of ethnomedicinal information, a number of open discussions and interactions were organized among the pre-informed people of danabari in order to acquire knowledge about the medicinal plants found in the locality and also to dcocument the ethnomedicinal information. after that, field survey was carried out with the help of the local people to collect information on the available medicinal plants and their conservation status. the informants were selected randomly to document the knowledge about the medicinal plants in detail. the collected plant specimens were photographed, and some of them were collected and preserved as herbarium specimens. the reported use of the medicinal plants and ailments treated were grouped into major categories following cook (1995), and compared with the national and international literature. the data were entered in the microsoft office excel 2016 software to analyze the information regarding plant families, their habit, habitat, parts used, preparation type, mode of application, ethnomedicinal uses and other uses; data were expressed in terms of number and percentage. the plants were first identified following the nomenclature of apg iii (the plant list, 2013), and the reported uses were verified by using the available literature of nepal (manandhar, 2002; baral & kurmi, 2006; kunwar et al., 2010; malla et al., 2015; uprety et al., 2016; adhikari et al., 2019; ambu et al., 2020). the voucher specimens were deposited at the herbarium of plant research centre, ilam. results plant diversity and uses among the documented 116 medicinal plant species belonging to 61 families and 106 genera, 97 were dicots, 16 were monocots and 3 were pteridophytes. these were represented by highest number of trees (n=42) followed by herbs (n=31), shrubs (n=23), climbers (n=15) and lianas (n=5). out of the 61 families, leguminosae (10 spp.) and lamiaceae (8 spp.) were dominant followed by malvaceae (5 spp.), euphorbiaceae, myrtaceae and zingiberaceae (4 spp. each). rest of the 55 families had less than 4 species each (annex 1). the study showed that different parts of the same plants were used for different purpose (food, food-additives, fodder, fuel, different materials, socio-cultural use, environmental use and poison) and for the treatment of different ailments. among the total medicinal plant species, 5 species were used only as medicine whereas 111 species were used for different other purposes besides medicine. of the total plants with other uses, 40 species (20%) were used as food (fruits, curries and pickles); 8 species (4%) as food additives (condiments, souring agent and flavours); 48 species (24%) as fodder and forage; and 33 species (17%) as materials (furniture, agricultural tools, household containers, musical instruments, rope, ink, etc.); and 13 species (7%) as fuel. similarly, 31 species (16%) were used either as sacred plants or used in various socio-cultural events; 21 species (11%) as hedge, ornamental use and also for erosion control; and the rest 2 species (1%) as poison to control pests of plants and livestock (figure 2). fig. 2: uses of medicinal plants in the study area the people in the study area used the documented medicinal plants for the treatment of 76 different ailments categorized into 18 groups. the highest number of plants (54 spp.) were reported to be used for digestive system disorders, followed by 34 spp. for skin/subcutaneous, 31 spp. for infections/infestations, 27 spp. for respiratory disorders, 24 spp. for muscular-skeletal disorders, 16 spp. for genito-urinary disorders, 12 spp. for metabolic disorders, 11 spp. for nutritional disorders, 8 spp. for mental disorders, and 7 spp. for endocrine disorders. similarly, 6 spp. were reported to be used for circulatory disorders, 6 spp. for the treatment of inflammation and 7 spp. for poisoning. likewise, 5 spp. were reported to be used for the treatment of pregnancy/birth/ banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 14 bhattarai puerpuerium disorders, 2 spp. for neoplasm, 2 spp. for sensory disorders, and 1 sp. for nervous disorders, and the use of 5 spp. were unspecified (table 1). table 1: list of plant species used for specific ailment categories ailment categories name of ailments name of plant species in each category no. of plant spp. circulatory system disorders high blood pressure aloe vera, justicia adhatoda, moringa oleifera, nyctanthes arbor-tristis, rauvolfia serpentina, sida rhombifolia 6 digestive system disorders bad breath, constipation, dental problems /toothache, diarrhoea, dysentery, gastritis, ulcer, green diarrhoea ("saruwa"), indigestion jaundice and liver disorder, mild laxative, piles, pyorrhoea, stomach disorder, vomiting achyranthes aspera, aegle marmelos, aloe vera, acorus calamus, bauhinia vahlii, bombax ceiba, brucea javanica, cassia fistula, centella asiatica, cinnamomum tamala, citrus aurantifolia, curcuma aromatica, curcuma longa, cuscuta reflexa, elaeocarpus serratus, euphorbia royleana, gladiolus sp, hibiscus sabdariffa, lasia spinosa, maesa macrophylla, mallotus philippensis, mangifera indica, melastoma melabathricum, mimosa pudica, musa paradisica, ocotea lancifolia, phyllanthus emblica, piper longum, piper mullesua, pogostemon benghalensis, polygonum molle, premna barbata, psidium guajava, rauvolfia serpentina, scoparia dulcis, shorea robusta, sida acuta, sida rhombifolia, smilax ovalifolia, spondias pinnata, stephania glandulifera, stephania japonica, syzygium cumini, tamarindus indica, tectaria sp., terminalia bellirica, terminalia chebula, terminalia tomentosa, tinospora sinensis, trichosanthes cucumerina, vitex negundo, woodfordia fruticosa, wrightia arborea, zingiber montanum 54 endocrine system disorders diabetes aegle marmelos, aloe vera, moringa oleifera, scoparia dulcis, stephania glandulifera, syzygium cumini, ziziphus jujuba 7 genitourinary system disorders burning urination, dysuria, female sterility, hematuria, kidney problems, m e n o r r h a g i a , menstrual disorder alstonia scholaris, cassia fistula, centella asiatica, colebrookea oppositifolia, eclipta prostrata, mangifera indica, mentha spicata, mimosa pudica, molineria crassifolia, morus alba, nephrolepis cordifolia, ocotea lancifolia , scoparia dulcis, solanum torvum, stephania glandulifera, tinospora sinensis 16 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 15 bhattarai ailment categories name of ailments name of plant species in each category no. of plant spp. infections/ infestations a n t h e l m i n t i c , diphtheria, fever, food poisoning (“naskapat”), gonorrhoea, lice repellent, malaria, measles, scabies, sore throat, hyperthermia (heat illness ) achyranthes aspera, aegle marmelos, alstonia scholaris, artemisia indica, azadirachta indica , callicarpa macrophylla, centella asiatica, cheilocostus speciosus, colebrookea oppositifolia, curcuma aromatica, curcuma longa, dioscorea deltoidea, etlingera linguiformis, euphorbia royleana, justicia adhatoda, lasia spinosa, lobelia nicotianifolia, mimosa pudica, murraya koenigii, molineria crassifolia, mussaenda macrophylla, ocimum tenuiflorum, ocotea lancifolia, pogostemon benghalensis, rauvolfia serpentina, scoparia dulcis, sida acuta, tetrastigma bracteolatum, woodfordia fruticosa, zingiber montanum, ziziphus jujuba 31 muscularskeletal system disorders fracture, joint pain, muscular pain, body pain, sprain acacia pennata, asparagus racemosus, butea monosperma, callicarpa macrophylla , calotropis gigantea, curcuma aromatica, desmodium multiflorum, eclipta prostrata, gonostegia hirta, lagerstroemia parviflora, lepidium sativum, lygodium flexuosum, neolamarckia cadamba, oroxylum indicum, poranopsis paniculata, pterospermum acerifolium, shorea robusta, smilax ovalifolia, solanum torvum, spatholobus parviflorus, terminalia chebula, terminalia tomentosa, uncaria sessilifructus, zingiber montanum 24 neoplasm cancer asparagus racemosus,butea monosperma 2 nervous system disorders nervous problems zingiber montanum 1 nutritional disorders tonic alstonia scholaris, asparagus racemosus, bauhinia vahlii, calamus erectus, centella asiatica, mangifera indica, morus alba, murraya koenigii, musa paradisica, phyllanthus emblica, tinospora sinensis 11 poisonings caterpillar sting, insect bite, snake bite caryota urens, cassia fistula , centella asiatica, clerodendrum viscosum, polygonum molle, rauvolfia serpentina, sida rhombifolia 7 pregnancy /birth/ puerpuerium disorders abortifacient, breast engorgement, delay expulsion of placenta, lactation stimulant, prevent miscarriage asparagus racemosus, achyranthes aspera, butea monosperma, mentha spicata, sida rhombifolia, 5 banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 16 bhattarai ailment categories name of ailments name of plant species in each category no. of plant spp. respiratory system disorders asthma, cough, coughcold, sore throat, deepening of voice, pneumonia, respiratory problems, sinusitis achyranthes aspera, acorus calamus, aegle marmelos, bauhinia vahlii, centella asiatica, cinnamomum tamala, cissus repanda, colebrookea oppositifolia, curcuma longa, drymaria cordata, etlingera linguiformis, mimosa pudica, myrica esculenta, ocimum tenuiflorum, ocotea lancifolia, oroxylum indicum, phyllanthus emblica, piper longum, piper mullesua, piper nigrum, pogostemon benghalensis, spondias pinnata, stephania japonica, syzygium kurzii, terminalia bellirica, terminalia chebula, vitex negundo 27 sensory system disorders conjunctivitis, corneal opacity euphorbia royleana, piper nigrum 2 skin/ subcutaneous cellular tissue disorders boils, burn and scalds, cracks and sores, cut and wound, dandruff, rashes on tongue/ mouth, skin diseases/ lesions, stinging irritation of clocosia, vitiligo ("seto dubi") achyranthes aspera, aerva sanguinolenta, ageratina adenophora, aloe vera, alstonia scholaris, antidesma acidum, artocarpus lakoocha, azadirachta indica, caryota urens, centella asiatica, curcuma longa, eclipta prostrata, euphorbia heterophylla, ficus racemosa, justicia adhatoda, lygodium flexuosum, magnolia champaca, mimosa pudica, molineria crassifolia, moringa oleifera, mucuna macrocarpa, mussaenda macrophylla, ocimum tenuiflorum, oroxylum indicum, pogostemon benghalensis, poranopsis paniculata, premna barbata, sapindus mukorossi, scoparia dulcis, senna sophera, sida rhombifolia, spatholobus parviflorus, thunbergia coccinea, thysanolaena maxima 34 unspecified chest pain, dizziness, headache, internal wound, nasal bleeding drymaria cordata, sida rhombifolia, syzygium cumini, vitex negundo, zingiber montanum 5 plant parts used, their preparation and administration different parts of these plants were reported to be used for ethno medicinal purpose. the most commonly used parts of the plants were found to be the leaves and tender shoots (48 spp.), followed by root/rhizome (41 spp.), fruit/pulp (35 spp.), bark (25 spp.), stem (17 spp.), flowers (13 spp.), seeds (11 spp.), gel/latex/sap (6 spp.) while thewholepartsof 4 spp. were reported to be used (figure 3). fig. 3: usability and frequency of the plant parts used banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 17 bhattarai the study revealed that the plant parts were mostly used as paste (63 spp.), followed by raw/ chewable (45 spp.), juice (34 spp.), decoction (14 spp.) and powder (10 spp.). the young shoot and fruits of some species like lasia spinosa, moringa oleifera, piper longum and smilax ovalifolia were even used as curry and some other species were used as tea, infusion, ash, fume/scent/vapour, chew stick, fomentation and adhesive (figure 4). internal consumption as well as external applications are involved in administration of medicines. it was found that the most common method of administration was oral (66%, 128 spp.) followed by external or topical application (32%, 62 spp.), and inhalation (2%, 3 spp.). in the study area, 95 plant species were collected from wild while the remaining 21 species were domesticated in kitchen garden or cultivated in farm-land. fig. 4: no. of plant species in different modes of drug preparation discussion ethnobotanical uses of medicinal plants the frequent use of tree species as source of medicine is a common phenomenon in the lowaltitudinal regions like the present study site, which indicates the better abundance and yearround availability of such resources. the studies conducted by singh (2017) in parsa district and other tropical region (raj et al., 2018) also reported the similar trend. the families 'leguminosae' and 'lamiaceae' have accounted for highest number of medicinal plants, which could be due to their species richness. other studies (bhattarai & acharya, 2015; singh et al., 2018; pradhan et al., 2020) carried out in different parts of the country also revealed the similar trends. most of the people in study area were farmers, and so they had to depend upon the forest resources for food, fodder/forage, agricultural tools, pesticides, fermenting agent and construction materials along with different religious and environmental activities. the scenario of using the highest number of plants for digestive system disorders showed that there is high frequency of occurrence of this group of ailments, and better exchange of information among the informants for their treatment (heinrich et al., 1998). local people had to use sharp tools and work with mud during farming, leading to frequent problem of skin diseases, cuts/wounds, boils/infections, and so on. these problems were tried to be solved by the recognized healer of their own community by using the plants found in their surroundings, and so, they had cultural belief in folk medicine. though the indigenous population is less as compared to the immigrants, the existing knowledge on ethnomedicine is rich, which may be due to the social interaction among the communities (gaoue et al., 2017), resulting in accumulation and sharing of knowledge among themselves (medeiros et al., 2012). the similarities in the uses of plants with the findings of the previous researchers (oli et al. 2005; poudel, 2009; subba et al., 2016; bhattarai, 2017; bhattarai, 2018) from the same region indicates the highly reliable pharmacological effectiveness of the reported plants. in the case of herbaceous plants, the whole parts were used for preparation of remedies. fresh parts were preferred if remedies contain essential oils, the concentration of which could be lost on drying (giday et al., 2009). the plant parts were dried and stored for future need as well. the common use of young leaves and tender shoots could be due to the relative ease of collection, simplicity of preparation, and are more likely to have alkaloids with more medicinal value than older ones (coley et al., 2003). the leaves of the herbaceous plants were shown to be the most commonly utilized parts in other studies (malla et al., 2015; bhattarai & khadka, 2016) as well. on the contrary, some studies carried out in the highland areas of western nepal (rokaya et al., 2010; budha-magar et al., 2020), central nepal (shrestha et al., 2014; tamang et al., 2017) and eastern nepal (limbu & rai, 2013; shrestha et al., 2016) reported that roots were the most widely used parts, and this might be related to the culture and environmental condition of the area. moreover, collecting leaf parts for medicinal banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 18 bhattarai purpose is usually not a threat to the survival of plants as compared to the use of whole parts, roots, and stem barks (giday et al., 2003; bekalo et al., 2009). in the study area, the removal of under ground parts was one of the major causes of declination and rare occurrence of the population of asparagus racemosus, etlingera linguiformis and rauvolfia serpentina. in this study, paste was the most common form of preparation followed by raw/chewable, juice, decoction, powder, cooked, tea, infusion, ash, fume/scent/vapour, chew stick, fomentation and adhesive tape. all these preparations resemble the findings of the previous studies (rokaya et al., 2010; bhattarai, 2018; adhikari et al., 2019; khadka et al., 2020) carried out in nepal. such a diverse preparation may contain single or multiple plant species. meragiaw et al. (2016) reported that combined use of several plant species to treat specific ailments was considered important to increase the strength and effectiveness of the remedies. it was also found that one species might be used to treat a single ailment or a number of ailments. in general, one ailment can be cured by using several plant species. the idea that several species can be used for the same purpose are predicted to experience less impact as the use pressure is diffused across a greater number of species (albuquerque & de oliveira, 2007). the use of individual medicinal plants to cure a single disease was less in number. limbu & rai (2013) reported that oral and topical modes of administrations were easiest and most effective in delivering bioactive compounds into the body. in this study, medications for fracture were reported to be applied by multiple modes (oral and topical) for betterment and fast recovery. threat to medicinal plants and their conservation different people have different perception regarding the available plants. some perceive them as nothing, just natural objects to earn money, whereas others take them as resources for their socio-cultural and other use value in their life (poudel, 2009). in the present study area, medicinal plants used by the community were found to be unsustainable. only 18% of the plants were either domesticated in kitchen garden or cultivated in farm land. the plants with additional use value in terms of timber, fodder and firewood were found to be the most threatened. in addition to this, logging, grazing, forest encroachment, illegal collection, and forest fire were accelerating the threatened rate of all the plant species. the loss of resources and habitat has disrupted the social and ecological context within which the communities have made use of their traditional knowledge (venkataraman & latha, 2008). the knowledge of medicinal plant species for their correct identification and treating various ailments was found low among the young generations as in the previous studies conducted by luintel et al. (2014), bhattarai (2018) and pradhan et al. (2020) in nepal. the knowledge of medicinal plants use was largely associated with common ailments in the area. however, the plants for the treatment of nervous problems, genito-urinary system disorders, pregnancy/birth related problems, cancer, etc. were rare, and were familiar only to the traditional healers and a few local community members. this indicates the issue of knowledge erosion due to modern medicine and other reasons including socio-cultural issues and over exploitation as indicated by wanjohi et al. (2020) in kenya. in the study area, the local government should ensure adequate income to the community healers and support in cultivation of medicinal plants for effective conservation of biodiversity and traditional knowledge. comparison of the reported uses and novelty of work the comparison of uses with different existing studies showed that there are novel uses of some plants which were still not yet reported. by comparing the uses of 116 plants, 7 plants were newly reported as ethnomedicinal plants in nepal, because these were not reported as medicinal plants in the previous available literatures so far. the documentation on ethnomedicinal use of caryota urens, cissus repanda, etlingera linguiformis, gladiolus sp., ocotea lancifolia, pterospermum acerifolium and syzygium kurzii were newly reported in nepal, but were already reported in other countries. however, ghimeray et al. (2010) reported the food value of stem-pith and terminal leaf bud of caryota urens from ilam. similarly, 5 plants have novel uses against ailments which were not reported elsewhere. the uses of mussenda macrophylla in leucoderma, tetrastigma bracteolatum in diphtheria, pogostemon benghalensis in mental disorder, premna barbata in jaundice and banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 19 bhattarai ziziphus jujuba in measles were not reported elsewhere, and so these need to be confirmed further. out of the 116 plants, 104 plants have similar uses in different parts of nepal with 13 plants having additional uses which were unreported in nepal, but were already reported by a number of international literatures. the plant achyranthes aspera was found additionally to be used against pneumonia which was reported by hasan (2014). similarly, alstonia scholaris was used for female sterility (choudhary et al., 2017) and against sores (pankti et al., 2012), asparagus racemosus was used against fracture (bantawa & rai, 2009) and in cancer (mitra et al., 2012). likewise, butea monosperma against cancer, cassia fistula against snake bite, curcuma longa in sprain and fracture, mimosa pudica against jaundice, neolamarckia cadamba against inflammation, nyctanthes arbor-tristis against high blood pressure, oroxylum indicum against sore throat, sapindus mukorossi against boils and skin lesions, smilax ovalifolia against diarrhea/dysentery and uncaria sessilifructus against arthritis and fracture were also reported and supported by international literatures. traditional knowledge and intellectual property rights traditional knowledge (tk) is a knowledge that consists of tradition-based innovations and creations that originate from indigenous and local communities, and are used within themselves. because its generation, preservation and transmission are based on cultural traditions, it is integral to the cultural identity of the social group in which it operates and is preserved (girsberger, 2004). tk is collective in nature, and is often considered as the property of the entire community and not belonging to any single individual within the community. it is transmitted orally through elders or specialists, and often to only a selected people within a community (hansen & van fleet, 2003). intellectual property rights (iprs) are the legal protections given to protect tk. tk, its protection and its interrelationship with iprs have been the subject of international debate for several years. this debate covers issues mainly in protection of the environment and conservation of biological diversity; access to genetic resources and fair & equitable sharing of the benefits arising from their use; and the rights of indigenous and local communities. iprs should guarantee both an individual’s and a group’s right to protect and benefit from its own cultural discoveries, creations, and products. tk and natural resources are still under the threats of both unethical uses by outsiders as well as bio-piracy without sharing benefits and assuring rights of the knowledge and practices (aryal et al., 2016). therefore, there is an urgent need for registration and patenting of knowledge along with comprehensive studies for documentation and sustainable management of the existing resources. in this study, different types of formulations of 116 plant species with 5 spp. of novel uses, including 7 newly reported ones should be registered as community asset. these findings should be scientifically confirmed for protectiong their iprs. conclusion present study area is rich in medicinal plants where 7 species were newly reported in nepal with medicinal potentials. several plant species were threatened due to unsustainable harvesting, deforestation, habitat degradation, urbanization and cultural transformation. the uses of medicinal plants to cure ailments were found less frequent due to availability of modern medicine along with inappropriate government policies. threfore, there is an urgent need to develop a database of medicinal plants, legal provisions for registration of tk, and creating intellectual property rights through scientific validation of tk. this provisions help for benefit sharing and conservation of ethnobotanical knowledge. acknowledgments i am grateful to the department of plant resources (dpr) for providing opportunity to carry out this study. i am thankful to the participants and local community of mai municipality, ilam for their sharing of information. i would like to thank mr. m. k. khadka for preparing map of the study area; mr. d. bam, mr. g. dhimal, mr. m. rai, mr. k. b. khati and mrs. j. niraula for helping in the field work and plant collection; and dr. m. b. rokaya and dr. r. m. kunwar for their valuable suggestions and guidance in different phases of the study and production of the manuscript. references acharya, e. & pokhrel, b. 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(2013). www. theplantlist. org. retrieved on september 14, 2020.https://www.theplantlist.org banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 24 bhattarai annex 1: list of ethnomedicinal plant species documented in mai municipality, ilam s. n. botanical name; family; local name plant category; type parts used preparation type mode of application ethnomedicinal uses other uses 1 acacia pennata (l.) willd.; leguminosae; arari kanda d; sh root-bark paste topical sprain, fracture barrier, hedge; fodder 2 achyranthes aspera l.; amaranthaceae; datiwon/apamarga d; h root paste oral pneumonia; fever; typhoid; sore throat; to fasten the expulsion of placenta after birth forage; used in hindu culture, "teej" raw topical (tied on outer end of placenta) to accelerate the expulsion of placenta after birth (cattle), abortifacient (root inserted in uterus) topical skin diseases (wound and lesions) stem chew-stick topical (as tooth brush) relieve from dental problems and pyorrhoea 3 acorus calamus l.; acoraceae; bojho mo; h rhizome raw (chewable) oral cough, deepening of voice, stomach disorder (diarrhoea and dysentery) plant pest control 4 aegle marmelos (l.) corrêa; rutaceae; bel/sitalu d; t leaf, tender shoot raw oral bad breath; anthelmintic, mild laxative wild fruit; fruit used as polisher to smoothen the "nepali-kagaj" by rubbing because fruit contains latex., leaves offered to shiva root, leaf paste oral pneumonia and fever of children fruit juice, raw oral diabetes; gastritis, diarrhoea 5 aerva sanguinolenta (l.) blume; amaranthaceae; iteen jhar d; h leaf juice topical cut-wound ornamental 6 ageratina adenophora (spreng.) r.m.king & h.rob.; compositae; kali jhar/ilame jhar d; h leaf juice topical cut-wound forage 7 aloe vera* (l.) burm. f.; asphodelaceae; ghyu kumari mo; h gel raw topical burn and scalds, cut and wound gel is used as substitute of shaving creamoral gastritis, high blood pressure, diabetes, piles, constipation, jundice, ulcer banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 25 bhattarai s. n. botanical name; family; local name plant category; type parts used preparation type mode of application ethnomedicinal uses other uses 8 alstonia scholaris (l.) r. br.; apocynaceae; chhatiwon d; t tender shoot juice oral sore throat fodder; wood is used to make "madal", "dhol", and "theki"as it is light. trunk is used as feeding container for cattle. bark powder, raw oral tonic (promote weight gain in cattle); cause sterility effect on female cattle. paste topical healing cracks and sores, boils 9 antidesma acidum retz.; phyllanthaceae; archal d; sh tender shoot, leaf raw oral stinging irritation on tongue by eating clocosia sp. fruit and tender shoot is eaten directly or used to make pickle because of its sour taste; fodderroot paste topical skin lesions "khatira"; cutwound 10 artemisiaindica willd.; compositae; titepati d; sh leaf juice topical scabies, skin lesions (wounds), religious and incense; livestock pest controltender shoot raw oral fever 11 artocarpus lakoocha wall. ex roxb.; moraceae; badhar d; t latex adhesive tape with "nepali paper". topical boils wild fruit; fodder; construction materials 12 asparagus racemosus* willd.; asperagaceae; kurilo mo; h flower decoction with cowurine oral cancer tender shoot used as vegetable; used in rituals tender shoot cooked oral tonic, lactation stimulant tuberous root paste (along with stem of p. paniculata, root of d. multiflorum, u. sessilifructus, a. pennata, seed of l. sativum; slug and red soil) topical in fracture 13 azadirachta indica a. juss.; meliaceae; neem d; t leaf, bark decoction oral fever furniture, construction; plant pest control; ornamental paste, powder topical (for bathing) skin diseases and lesions 14 bauhinia vahlii wight & arn.; leguminosae; bhorla/ gokarne d; lianas tender shoot juice oral dysentery, diarrhoea seed is roasted and eaten; fodder; stem used as rope, leaves used to make plate during religious work, also used to make special type of rain-coat called "ghum"; in the past, the large pods were used as slippers. seed roasted, baked oral cough and cold, tonic bark raw (chewable) oral pyorrhoea 15 bombax ceiba l.; malvaceae; simal d; t flower paste oral diarrhoea, dysentery flowers are used as vegetable; timber, fibre 16 brucea javanica (l.) merr.; simaroubaceae; bhaki-amilo d; t fruit powder oral dysentery fodder; fruit used as souring agent in pickle. banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 26 bhattarai s. n. botanical name; family; local name plant category; type parts used preparation type mode of application ethnomedicinal uses other uses 17 butea monosperma (lam.) taub.; leguminosae; palans d; t bark paste topical sprain, fracture flowers are used to offer gods; stem is used as "samidha" (fire wood) or used to make "suro" (a spathula shaped tool) for religious works. used as "buti"by pregnant women in the belief of prevention of miscarriage). juice oral cancer flower, leaf paste topical burn 18 calamus erectus roxb.; arecaceae; phyakre mo; sh. ripe fruits raw oral tonic wild fruit; used for making baskets and comb 19 callicarpa macrophylla vahl; lamiaceae; guyelo d; t bark paste, raw (chewable) oral muscular pain, body pain wild fruit; fodder; fierwood fruit raw oral fever 20 calotropis gigantea (l.)dryand.; asclepiadaceae; ank d; sh leaf fomentation (heated lightly on fire) topical muscular pain, inflammation and fracture social use; fibre and fur 21 caryota urens l.;arecaceae; machha jode/ rangbang mo; t leaf, bark paste topical cut-wound, boils, snake bite ornamental 22 cassia fistula l.; leguminosae; raj brikchha d; t seed, fruit pulp paste topical snake bite fodder; furniture, construction materials; leaf is used to ripen banana and jack fruit; ornamental fruit-bark ash topical (as tooth powder ) dental problems fruit pulp raw oral diarrhoea, vomiting (in diarrhoea pulp from basal portion of fruit is eaten whereas in vomiting, pulp from apical portion is eaten) seed, fruit pulp infusion oral painful urination (dysuria), hematuria; constipation 23 centellaasiatica (l.) urb.; apiaceae; ghodtapre d; h leaf juice, paste topical cut and wound, used against caterpillar sting ("dhokre" infection) curry; forage raw oral heat illness (burning urination), gastritis, pneumonia, fever, jaundice, tonic, urinary problems banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 27 bhattarai s. n. botanical name; family; local name plant category; type parts used preparation type mode of application ethnomedicinal uses other uses 24 cheilocostus speciosus (j.koenig) c.d.specht; costaceae; bet lauri mo; h stem juice oral sore throat, urinary problems stem is used during the ritual, "kirati" use the stem during "kul puja/shiva puja". 25 cinnamomum tamala* (buch.-ham.) t.nees & eberm.; lauraceae; tejpat d; t leaf, bark raw (chewable), tea oral stomach disorders, coughcold condiment 26 cissus repanda (wight & arn.) vahl; vitaceae; pani lahara d; lianas sap raw (drinkable) oral pneumonia; reduce heat illness (hyperthermia) fodder; stem used as rope 27 citrus aurantifolia* (christ.) swingle; rutaceae; kagati d; sh fruit juice oral indigestion, anorexia fruit, pickle; souring agent 28 clerodendrum viscosum vent.; lamiaceae; bhanti d; sh root paste topical snake bite 29 colebrookea oppositifolia sm.; lamiaceae; dhusuro d; t root juice oral pneumonia, fever leaves and inflorescence used for ripening of banana. leaf juice topical corneal opacity in cattle flower decoction with newly delivered cow-urine oral menstrual disorder 30 curcuma aromatica salisb.; zingiberaceae; kalo haledo/ ban besar mo; h rhizome paste, raw (chewable) topical sprain and fracture used in "buti" oral food poisoning ("nas-kapat"), indigestion, heat illness (hyperthermia) 31 curcuma longa* l.; zingiberaceae; besar mo; h rhizome powder, tea oral fever, coughcold, liver disorder (jaundice) condiment paste topical wound, inflammation 32 cuscuta reflexa roxb.; convolvulaceae; binajadi d; cl whole plant paste oral jaundice 33 desmodium multiflorum dc.; leguminosae; bhatamanse d ; sh root paste oral muscular pain, body pain fodder 34 dioscorea deltoidea wall. ex griseb.; dioscoreaceae; vyakur d; cl root/ tuber paste oral diphtheria (in cattle) vegetable 35 drymaria cordata (l.) willd. ex roem. & schult.; caryophyllaceae; abijalo d; h leaf, stem fume/scent, warmjuice dropped in nostril or scent inhaled nasal bleeding, sinusitis forage juice oral pneumonia banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 28 bhattarai s. n. botanical name; family; local name plant category; type parts used preparation type mode of application ethnomedicinal uses other uses 36 eclipta prostrata (l.) l.; compositae; bhringa raj/bhumi raj d; h root, stem, leaf juice, paste topical, oral cut and wound; fracture use as dye for making ink and colouring hair.juice oral heat illness (hyperthermia), urinary problems (burning urination) 37 elaeocarpus serratus* l.; elaeocarpaceae; rudrakshya d; t bark juice oral jaundice sacred plant seed paste oral pneumonia, ulcer 38 etlingera linguiformis (roxb.) r.m.sm.; zingiberaceae; madhu mo; h fresh rhizome raw oral cough-cold, sore throat, tonsilitis, burning sensation in stomach rhizome used as flavouring agent in alcohol preparation due to its pleasant smell; fodder dried rhizome raw oral deepening of voice 39 euphorbia heterophylla l.; euphorbiaceae; dudhe d; h latex raw topical cut-wound forage 40 euphorbia royleana* boiss.; euphorbiaceae; siudi d; t latex, stempulp. raw topical conjunctivitis or cloudiness of eye (latex is applied carefully on temper of opposite side of infected eye) protect house from thunder and lightning; biofence baked (mix latex or stem pulp with rice grain, cover in leaf and baked on hot ash.) oral anorexia, stomach disorder, food poisoning ("nas-kapat") 41 ficus racemosa l.; moraceae; dumri d; t latex raw topical skin lesions, boils ripe fruits are eaten; fodder 42 gladiolus sp.; iridaceae; tarbare phool mo; h stem-bulb paste oral diarrhoea and dysentery ornamental 43 gonostegia hirta (blume ex hassk.) miq.; urticaceae; chiple d; h root paste topical fracture, inflammation vegetable; forage 44 hibiscus sabdariffa* l.; malvaceae; lalchan/belchan d; h fruit infusion oral diarrhoea and dysentery (of both man and cattle) seeds are roasted to make pickle; fibre 45 justicia adhatoda l.; acanthaceae; asuro d; sh flower tea oral high blood pressure hedge plant, leaves used as compostleaf decoction oral fever paste topical (for bathing) skin lesions 46 lagerstroemia parviflora roxb.; lythraceae; bot dhairo d; t bark paste oral fracture fodder; fire wood 47 lasia spinosa (l.) thwaites; araceae; morange sag mo; h leaf cooked as curry oral piles, used as anthelmintic vegetable banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 29 bhattarai s. n. botanical name; family; local name plant category; type parts used preparation type mode of application ethnomedicinal uses other uses 48 lepidium sativum* l.; brassicaceae; chamsur d; h seed cooked with milk oral fracture, body ache vegetable 49 lobelia nicotianifolia roth ex schult.; campanulaceae; eklebir d; h root paste oral food poisoning ("nas-kapat") for adults, not for children. 50 lygodium flexuosum (l.) sw.; lygodiaceae; lahare unu, janai laharo pt; cl whole plant paste topical sprain and fracture, cut and wound tender shoot used as vegetable; fodder; used as bedding materials of cattle; used in "buti"for children. 51 maesa macrophylla wall. ex roxb.; primulaceae; bhogate d; sh tender shoot paste oral dysentery seeds are used as substitute of millet for preparation of local alcoholic beverage; root is used as fermenting agent. 52 magnolia champaca (l.) baill. ex pierre; magnoliaceae; chanp d; t bark paste topical cut-wound furniture, construction; ornamental 53 mallotus philippensis (lam.) müll.arg.; euphorbiaceae; sindure d; t stem-bark decoction oral gastric problems, diarrhoea, used against heat illness (hyperthermia) fodder; fuelwood. 54 mangifera indica* l.; anacardiaceae; aanp d; t bark paste oral urinary problems (hematuria) fruits and pickle; fodder; fuel wood; religious. unripe fruit paste oral anorexia ripe fruit paste oral tonic, piles 55 melastoma melabathricum l.; melastomataceae; kaali angeri d; sh ripe fruit raw oral dysentery ripe fruits are eaten raw. 56 menthaspicata* l.; lamiaceae; pudina d; h leaf paste oral heat illness (burning urination), anorexia, breast engorgement of lactating women. leaves are used as pickle. 57 mimosa pudica l.; leguminosae; lajawati/lajime d; h root paste oral fever; pneumonia; menstrual problems topical wounds, sores; dental caries. juice (along with stem juice of cuscuta) oral jaundice 58 mirabilis jalapa l. nyctaginaceae; lankasaani d; h root juice oral urinary problems ornamental banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 30 bhattarai s. n. botanical name; family; local name plant category; type parts used preparation type mode of application ethnomedicinal uses other uses 59 molineria crassifolia baker; hypoxidaceae; dhotisaro mo; h root paste oral urinary problems (hematuria); gonorrhoea ornamental topical boils ("baghe khatira") 60 moringa oleifera* lam.; moringaceae; sajiwon d; t flower, leaf raw (chewable) oral high blood pressure; diabetes fruit and tender shoot used as vegetable; fodder. root juice topical healing of wound of cattle (as alternative of prunus leaf) fruit cooked as curry oral relieve from heat illness (hyperthermia) 61 morus alba l.; moraceae; kimbu d; t root paste oral menstrual disorder ripe fruits are edible; shade giving plant.fruit raw oral tonic 62 mucuna macrocarpa wall.; leguminosae; pangra d; lianas seed paste topical skin diseases, cure dandruff fodder 63 murraya koenigii (l.) spreng.; rutaceae; mitha neem d; sh leaf juice topical/spray lice repellent to control bugs and fleas. leaves are used as condiments; fodder for goat; bedding material for cattle; soil erosion control. cooked (condiment) oral tonic 64 musa paradisica* l.; musaceae; kola/ kera mo; h unripe fruit raw oral diarrhoea ripe fruits are edible, flowers and unripen fruits are used as vegetable; social use. ripe fruit raw oral tonic, constipation 65 mussaenda macrophylla wall.; rubiaceae; dhobini phool d; sh root juice oral sore throat of infant fodder; ornamental stem prepare paste with "seto dubo" (phalaris arundinacea) and mix with buffalo's curd topical in leucoderma/ vitiligo ("seto dubi") 66 myrica esculenta buch.-ham. ex d. don; myricaceae; kaphal d; t bark fume (burn on fire) inhale sinusitis wild fruit; fodder; material for furniture and construction. 67 neolamarckia cadamba (roxb.) bosser; rubiaceae; karam/kadam d; t bark paste oral inflammation, fracture construction material, social use (religious plant) 68 nephrolepis cordifolia (l.) c. presl; nephrolepidaceae; pani amala pt; h root/ tuber raw oral menorrhagia (over bleeding in menstruation); heat illness (hyperthermia), urinary problems ornamental 69 nyctanthes arbortristis* l. ; oleaceae; parijat d; t flower raw oral high blood pressure flowers are used as curry; religious plant. 70 ocimum tenuiflorum* l.; lamiaceae; tulsi d; h leaf, flower, whole plant decoction oral fever; pneumonia; rashes on tongue or mouth. religious plant banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 31 bhattarai s. n. botanical name; family; local name plant category; type parts used preparation type mode of application ethnomedicinal uses other uses 71 ocotea lancifolia (schott) mez; lauraceae; jhankri syauli d; t leaf, tender shoot, bark juice oral sore throat, constipation, piles, painful urination (dysuria), respiratory problems fodder; agricultural tools; faith healing 72 oroxylum indicum* (l.) kurz; bignoniaceae; tatelo/totala d; t stem-bark paste topical burn, wound, fracture social useash topical fast healing of burnt wound flower ash oral pneumonia, sore throat 73 phyllanthus acidus* (l.) skeels; euphorbiaceae; kansi amala/ madhise amala d; t fruit raw oral heat illness (hyperthermia) fruits are eaten fresh or pickled. 74 phyllanthus emblica l.; phyllanthaceae; amala d; t fruit raw oral cough-cold; tonic, tonic to teeth. fruits are eaten fresh or pickled; twigs used as fire wood ("samidha") during fire ritual i.e. "yagya/hom / hawan". fruit/bark juice oral gastritis 75 piper longum l. piperaceae; pipla d; cl stem paste oral gastritis condiment fruit cooked (in milk) oral cough 76 piper mullesua buch.-ham. ex d. don; piperaceae; chabo d; cl stem, fruit powder oral asthma, cough fodder stem chew stick topical (brush) toothache, bad breath leaves eaten or used as betel; fodder 77 piper nigrum* l.; piperaceae; marich d; cl seed powder, tea oral cough-cold condimentchew to make powder in mouth topical (breathe out scented warm air) corneal opacity 78 pogostemon benghalensis (burm. f.) kuntze; lamiaceae; rudhilo d; h root juice oral mental disorder fodder; manure.leaf, stem tea oral stomach disorders; cough-cold and pneumonia leaf juice topical cut-wound, lice/ fleas repellent 79 polygonum molle d. don; polygonaceae; thotne d; sh stem juice topical insect bite tender shoot used as vegetable; fodderpaste oral diarrhoea 80 poranopsis paniculata (roxb.) roberty; convolvulaceae; sikari laharo d; lianas stem paste topical, oral sprain, fracture, body pain, inflammation due to accident. fodder topical cut-wound 81 premna barbata wall. ex schauer; lamiaceae; gineri d; sh leaf juice topical skin diseases, leaf juice is sprayed on fowl, cattle to remove fleas ("sulsule"). fodder; bedding material for cattle. root juice oral jaundice banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 32 bhattarai s. n. botanical name; family; local name plant category; type parts used preparation type mode of application ethnomedicinal uses other uses 82 psidium guajaval*.; myrtaceae; amba/ ambak d; t bark paste oral diarrhoea and dysentery fruit plant 83 pterospermum acerifolium (l.) willd.; malvaceae; hatti paila d; t root decoction prepared by cooking along with stem of u. sessilifructus and p. paniculata; bark of o. indicum, t. chebula, s. robusta, l. parviflora, n. cadamba and t. tomentosa is eaten for 1-2 months. oral fracture, inflammation fodder; fuelwood; furniture, rope, leaf plate. 84 rauvolfia serpentina (l.) benth. ex kurz; apocynaceae; chand marauwa/ sarpa gandha d; sh root raw (chewable) oral fever, malaria, jaundice, high blood pressure, mental disorder ornamental paste topical snake bite 85 sapindus mukorossi gaertn.; sapindaceae; ritha d; t seed paste of kernel topical boils, pimples, skin diseases fruits used as soap substitute, timber 86 scoparia dulcis l.; plantaginaceae; chini jhar/ambake jhar/khareto jhar d; h leaf, root paste, raw oral sore throat, tonsillitis, green diarrhoea of infant ("saruwa"), diabetes, burning urination, heat illness (hyperthermia) used to prepare fermenting cake, "marcha" paste topical cut-wound and lesions 87 senna sophera (l.) roxb; leguminosae; tapre d; sh root, leaf paste topical cut-wound, skin diseases 88 shorea robusta gaertn.; dipterocarpaceae; saal/sakhuwa d; t bark paste oral diarrhoea, dysentery; fracture fodder; timber plant; fuel-wood; leaves used to make plates.topical fracture 89 sida acuta burm.f.; malvaceae; kuchi jhar/satamuli d; sh root juice oral sore throat, fever fodder; used as fermenting agent; used as "buti" in the sickness of cattle. raw (chewable) oral anorexia, stomach disorders, food poisoning ("naskapat") banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 33 bhattarai s. n. botanical name; family; local name plant category; type parts used preparation type mode of application ethnomedicinal uses other uses 90 sida rhombifolia l.; malvaceae; sano khareto jhar d; sh leaf paste topical wounds, boils, skin lesions, breast engorgement in cattle and women, infection of caterpillar hairs. used as broom juice, tea oral headache, high blood pressure, deepening of voice, to cure internal wounds. root juice oral diarrhoea 91 smilax ovalifolia roxb. ex d.don.; smilacaceae; kukur daino m; cl leaf fomentation (heated on fire) topical sprain and fracture tender shoot used as vegetable; used during the ritual in shrawan 1st ("luto phalne"),stem is hanged on ceiling in the belief of prevent from evil eyes ("chedbhed"). tender shoot cooked as curry or decoction oral diarrhoea and dysentery 92 solanum torvum sw.; solanaceae; ban bihi d; h whole plant decoction oral urinary problems (hematuria) fruit edible. paste topical joint pain 93 solena amplexicaulis (lam.) gandhi; cucurbitaceae; gol kankri d; cl. fruit raw oral reduce heat illness (hyperthermia) ripe fruits are eaten fresh; fodder. 94 spatholobus parviflorus (dc.) kuntze; leguminosae; debre lahara d; lianas stem and leaf decoction topical cut and wound; fracture fodder; fibre. 95 spondias pinnata (l.f.) kurz; anacardiaceae; amaru d; t fruit raw oral pneumonia; dysentery wild fruit 96 stephania glandulifera miers; menispermaceae; gujar gano/tamarke d; cl root bulb paste oral diabetes, kidney problems; stomach disorders fodder; root bulb is used as feeding container for cattle; veterinary medicine 97 stephania japonica (thunb.) miers; menispermaceae; batulpate d; cl leaf powder oral cough fodder root/ tuber paste oral gastritis 98 syzygium cumini (l.) skeels; myrtaceae; jamun d; t fruit powder, ripe fruits-raw oral (eaten with honey) gastritis, diarrhoea fruits edible; fodder; firewood; construction materials. bark paste oral chest pain leaf decoction topical (massage) body ache seed infusion oral diabetes 99 syzygium kurzii (duthie) n.p.balakr.; myrtaceae; amaru/ ambake d; t fruit raw oral pneumonia fruit plant banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 34 bhattarai s. n. botanical name; family; local name plant category; type parts used preparation type mode of application ethnomedicinal uses other uses 100 syzygium jambos (l.) alston; myrtaceae; gulab jamun/fandir d; t fruit raw (ripe fruits) oral relieve from heat illness (hyperthermia) fruit plant; fodder; fuel-wood. 101 tamarindus indica l.; leguminosae; imali/titri d; t fruit raw oral indigestion, anorexia ripe fruits are pickled; construction materialsseed powder oral diarrhoea and dysentery 102 tectaria sp.; tectariaceae; kali niguro pt; h root paste oral diarrhoea and dysentery young frond used as vegetable. 103 terminalia bellirica (gaertn.) roxb.; combretaceae; barro d; t fruit powder/raw oral gastritis; cough fodder; timber; fire-wood. 104 terminalia chebula retz.; combretaceae; harro d; t fruit powder/raw oral cough; gastritis and constipation. timber; fire-wood. bark paste topical fracture 105 terminalia tomentosa wight & arn.; combretaceae; saj/ asna d; t bark paste oral fracture; diarrhoea fodder, timber, fire-wood. 106 tetrastigma bracteolatum (wall.) planch.;vitaceae; charchare lahara d; cl stem paste oral diphtheria fodder 107 thunbergia coccinea wall. ; acanthaceae; kanase d; cl leaf, tender shoot paste topical cut and wound ornamental 108 thysanolaena maxima* (roxb.) kuntze; poaceae; amliso mo; sh root paste topical boils fodder; common broom grass and used in rituals; used in bioengineering to control landslide. 109 tinospora sinensis (lour.) merr.; menispermaceae; gurjo d; cl stem decoction oral gastritis, urinary problems, tonic to cattle and human fodder 110 trichosanthes cucumerina l.; cucurbitaceae; ban ghiraula d; cl fruit pulp, leaf infusion of pulp (fibre), juice oral jaundice 111 uncaria sessilifructus roxb.; rubiaceae; bhainse kando d; cl root, stem, bark paste topical arthritis, sprain and fracture fodder for goat; root is used as one of the 7 kinds of spiny plant material to prepare "buti" for young children to cure "moch/runche lageko". 112 vitex negundo l.; lamiaceae; simali d; sh leaf rubbed; paste heated on fire inhale scent; inhale vapour headache; sinusitis fuel-wood; used as support for twiner and climber crops; hedge plant, landslide control. decoction oral jaundice infusion oral gout (joint problems due to uric acid) banko janakari, vol 30 no. 2 35 bhattarai s. n. botanical name; family; local name plant category; type parts used preparation type mode of application ethnomedicinal uses other uses 113 woodfordia fruticosa (l.) kurz.; lythraceae; dhayero d; sh flower juice, powder, raw oral dysentery; sore throat fuel-wood; soil stability in steep land. 114 wrightia arborea (dennst.) mabb.; apocynaceae; rani khirro d; t bark decoction oral piles timber, agricultural tools. 115 zingiber montanum* (j.koenig) link ex a.dietr.; zingiberaceae; phachhayang mo; h rhizome raw (chewable) oral diarrhoea, food poisoning ("naskapat") protect from evil spirit ("bhut pret lageko, bachha jhaskane, sato jane bhaya ma rhizome ko buti badhne; dewa lageko ma nidhar ra sarir ma ghasne"). raw oral, topical headache; nervous problems (contraction and nodule formation of nerves); joint pain; dizziness; fracture 116 ziziphus jujuba mill.; rhamnaceae; bayar d; sh root decoction oral fever wild fruit; used as bio-fence.leaf tea oral diabetes seed paste oral measles note: cl = climber; d = dicotyledon; h = herb; mo = monocotyledon; pt = pteridophyte; sh = shrub; t= tree; * = domesticated plant (in kitchen-garden or farm-land). banko janakari a journal of forestry information for nepal ecological solutions to prevent future pandemics like covid-19 globally, forest covers 3,999 million hectares (ha), which is 30.6% of the earth’s land surface. the world is losing its forest at an alarming rate of 3.3 million ha per year. over a quarter (27%) of the global forest loss is due to deforestation through permanent land use change for commodity production. only 40% of the world’s forests are in good condition. in nepal, forest covers about six million ha (40% of the total land area). between 2000 and 2010, nepal lost 22,314 ha and gained 13,598 ha of forest, resulting in a net decrease in forest area by 8,716 ha. according to the intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem service (ipbes) global assessment report 2019, about 75% of the earth’s terrestrial environment has been severely altered by human actions. deforestation and biodiversity loss are often considered as the key drivers of zoonotic disease emergence. zoonoses are diseases transmitted from animals to humans. they comprise 60% of all infectious diseases in humans and 75% of all emerging infectious diseases. ecohealth alliance, a non-governmental organization, states that nearly one in three outbreaks of new and emerging diseases are linked to land-use change like deforestation. deforestation and anthropization are among the most important factors that assist disease outbreaks. deforestation exposes livestock and humans to zoonotic disease. disease spillover is connected to the likelihood of human-animal interactions. these interactions increase the likelihood that animal viruses are jumping to humans. the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) outbreak caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome (sars) coronavirus 2 (cov-2), which was first detected in december 2019 in wuhan, china, has caused 35,88,773 infections in 214 countries and 2,47,503 deaths by 6 may, 2020. the world health organization (who) has already declared the covid-19 outbreak as a pandemic. wild animals (bats) are thought to be the most likely reservoir for sars-cov-2 as it is very similar to a bat coronavirus responsible for the sars outbreak. sars-cov which caused the sars pandemic in 2003 and mers-cov, causing middle east respiratory syndrome (mers) in 2012, were found to have been transmitted from bats to animals – palm civet and camel, respectively, which subsequently infected humans. it is suspected that pangolins may have served as the intermediate host, which transmitted the sars-cov-2 virus to humans. bats are usually beneficial to humans. they play an important role in agriculture by assisting in pollination and controlling insect populations. however, bats are also hosts of many viruses; 31% of the bat-borne viruses are corona viruses. anthropized environment attracts different bat species, which in turn creates high concentration of bat-borne viruses. the risk of new viruses likely to emerge from bats is very high due to three main reasons: (i) bats account for about onefifth of the total mammal species (1,200) in the world, (ii) they live in large colonies making easier to pass viruses among one another, and (iii) they are more resistant to viruses. https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v30i1.29175 2 recently, it has been reported that tigers and lions in the bronx zoo (usa) tested positive of covid-19, which is assumed to have been transmitted from a zoo-worker. a new study has found out that cats are highly susceptible to covid-19. there are possibilities of the spread of the virus amongst wild animals and also the transmission of the virus from humans to wild animals and vice-versa. the likelihood of emergence of zoonotic diseases is high given the increasing interactions between humans and wild animals. the covid-19 pandemic has been driven by human-to-human transmission till now, but this human to animal transmission has raised new queries regarding the measures to monitor wildlife health and take actions to reduce the risks. our planet "earth" is under severe threat because of excessive human activities. human activities have put many species at risk. the 2019 un report reveals that humans threaten one-eighth of the earth’s species (one million species). about 18% of the wild animals are affected from wildlife trade. we need preventive, long-term, and ecological solutions to prevent future pandemics. covid-19 stimulus package must save lives, protect livelihoods, and safeguard nature to reduce the risk of future pandemics. in order to protect our planet "earth", one health policy is important. the government of nepal has recently approved the "one health strategy, 2019" which recognizes that human health is connected to animal health and environment. in this regard, multidisciplinary research approach on surveillance and monitoring of wildlife, domestic animals, pets and human, their interactions, risk assessment and early detection and prevention is required. forests are important both for the people and our planet "earth". forests provide both wood and nonwood products together with various ecological services including disease containment. forests are home to about 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. the world’s forests can absorb up to 40% of the anthropogenic co2 emissions. an estimated 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihoods. the 2018 un report on climate change has highlighted the importance of reducing deforestation to keep global warming below 1.50c. humans and nature are parts of one connected system, so protecting plants and animals is protecting human. therefore, forests, the lungs of the earth, and biodiversity conservation should be the focus of the long-term ecological solutions that may includestopping deforestation, ban on live animal markets and wildlife trade, adoption and implementation of the one health policy, monitoring and surveillance, and accelerating research and developmental works. the world has failed to learn from the previous zoonoses such as sars, mers, avian flu, ebola, and malaria. humans continue to destruct nature, consume wild meat, and involve in wildlife trade, putting the entire world at great risk. deforestation and biodiversity loss owing to human activities are linked to the outbreak of several global infectious disease outbreaks. hope, all the nations of the world will learn this time from the outbreak of covid-19 pandemic, and do something together for maintaining our planet "earth", the common home for humanbeings and wild-lives, healthy for living. let us move on to ecological solutions to prevent future pandemics like covid-19! buddi sagar poudel, phd editor banko janakari, vol 30 no. 1, 2020 15 forests play a significant role in supporting human livelihoods, ensuring the provision of clean air and water, safeguarding biodiversity and mitigating the adverse effects of climate change (aerts & honnay, 2011). the impact of forests on the global carbon cycle is now well acknowledged since forests and their soils are significant atmospheric carbon sinks (basu, 2009). further, forests, as pivotal components of the global carbon cycle, play a multifaceted pattern of plant biomass and carbon stock along different elevational forests in eastern nepal the primary aim of this investigation was to determine the biomass and carbon stock distribution pattern among different forest stands of diverse elevations in the morang district of east nepal. it is noteworthy to estimate carbon stock and biomass of relatively least underexplored forests in east nepal. the data for estimating the biomass and carbon stocks of the five different forest sites, viz. bhaunne, raja-rani, murchungi, adheri, and sagma located between 100-1300m above the mean sea level, were acquired through the measurement of inventory plots selected randomly. altogether, 50 sample plots were established within five forest stands located on different elevational zone; within each forest site, 10 sample plots of 20m × 20m size, were laid out for the measurement of trees. in the case of shrubs and herbs, nested plots of 5m × 5m and 1m ×1m, respectively were established. calculation of the biomass of trees and shrubs was facilitated through the application of an allometric equation, while the biomass of herbs was determined by the harvest method. the carbon concentration in the plant materials was estimated using ash content method. the comprehensive analysis of the stand biomass in the bhaunne, raja-rani, murchungi, adheri, and sagma forest sites were: 815.86 mg ha-1, 414.19 mg ha-1, 606.81 mg ha-1, 519.20 mg ha-1, and 299.96 mg ha-1, respectively, with minimum at the sagma site (high-altitude forest) and maximum at the bhaunne site (low-altitude forest). as per the variation in stand biomass, the carbon stocks in the forest sites also showed the same trend, but the values ranged from 140.19 mg c ha-1 to 333.63 mg c ha-1, with the minimum in the sagma site and the maximum in the bhaunne site. the application of the friedman test revealed statistically significant variation in the tree biomass between the murchungi and sagma sites and also in the shrub biomass between the adheri and sagma sites. similarly, noteworthy variations were observed in the herb biomass of the bhaunne, raja-rani, murchungi, and adheri sites as compared to that of the sagma site. the present study contributes to the understanding of forest ecosystems in context to carbon management. key words: biomass, carbon stocks, morang district, tropical forest. p. k. gachhadar 1, c. b. baniya 1*, & t. n. mandal 2 received: 17, march 2024 revised: 9, may 2024 accepted: 24, may 2024 published: 31, may 2024 1 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, nepal. corresponding author: *email: chitra.baniya@cdb.tu.edu.np 2 degree campus, tribhuvan university, biratnagar, nepal banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1, 2024 pp 15‒29https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v34i1.62716 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8746-7601 mailto:chitra.baniya@cdb.tu.edu.np banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 16 gachhadar et al. role in sequestering atmospheric carbon through accumulation of biomass and soil organic carbon. the concept of biomass in the context of forests encompasses the captured or stored carbon within trees, consisting a vital component of the terrestrial ecosystem’s carbon pools. these pools comprise aboveground biomass, belowground biomass, litter, woody debris, and soil organic matter, as they are also identified by the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) as the main carbon pool (vashum & jayakumar, 2012; ipcc, 2013; ipcc, 2023). forests contribute to 34% of the terrestrial gross primary production and serve as reservoir of approximately 55% of the world's forest carbon (beer et al., 2010; pan et al., 2011; hassan et al., 2020). forests located along elevational gradients exhibit variation in plant species composition, density, biomass and carbon stock which garner a significant attention in the realm of environmental research. carbon stock in a forest is a complex process, intricately linked to various factors such as seasons, vegetation types, climate, soil structure, and nutrient availability (chave et al., 2005). this complex phenomenon underscores the need for a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of carbon sequestration in forest ecosystems, particularly in the context of elevation gradients. despite the importance of forests in biomass production and carbon sequestration, the works in this regard is limited, especially in the tropical forests of nepal (mandal, 1999; baral et al., 2009). thus, there exists a compelling need to deepen our understanding of forest composition and function, particularly in the context of elevation gradients. hence, the present study is designed to achieve the objective of assessing the plant biomass and carbon stocks of different forests at varying elevations in east nepal. materials and methods study area the study was conducted across five different forest sites, viz. bhaunne (within belbarichisang cooperative forest, raja-rani (within raja-rani community forest (cf), murchungi (within akashe cf), adheri (within shatkanya cf), and sagma (within kuwapani cf) in morang district, east nepal (figure 1). the sites were located between 26°39'45.69''26°48'28.68''n latitudes and between 87°28'2.08''-87°28'45.06''e longitudes, with the terrain ranging from 100 m to 1300 m above the mean sea level (msl). geology and soil the study area lies in the churia hills composed of mostly soft limestone and the mahabharat range made of phyllite, schist, quartzite, limestone, etc. the soils of all the study sites except the sagma site are, moreover, loamy sand; the soils of the sagma site being sandy loam. climate the district experiences a diverse types of climate, ranging from tropical to temperate. the southern part of the district exhibits tropical and subtropical types of climate while there is temperate type of climate in the northern part. there is a tropical monsoon climate with dry and warm summer, wet and warm rainy season, and dry and cool winter in areas up to 1000 m above sea level. the mean annual minimum temperature ranges from 11°c to 25°c. while mean annual maximum temperature ranges from 21°c to 35°c (dhm, 2022). comparatively, the bhaunne to murchungi forest area experiences its greatest annual rainfall, which ranges from 64.4 mm to 10630.12 mm (figure 2a). in adheri and sagma sites, the cold season generally begins from the beginning of december and lasts till the end of february, with temperatures dropping to around 7°c. the annual rainfall ranges from 27.9 mm to 4908.6 mm, peaking in july and reaching a minimum in november (dhm, 2022). the annual minimum temperature ranges from 7°c to 21°c while the annual maximum temperature ranges from 20°c to 30°c (figure 2b). banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 17 gachhadar et al. figure 1: map of the study area showing the layout and sampling plots. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 18 gachhadar et al. fig. 2 (a, b): ombrothermic representation of the climate in the study area; data belonging to the period 2000–2020 (source: dhm, 2022). plant biomass estimation the estimation of plant biomass involved various steps across the five forest stands. for the estimation of tree biomass, a total of 50 permanent sample plots (20m × 20m), with 10 in each stand, were established randomly. similarly, for the estimation of shrub biomass, 5m × 5m sized nested quadrats were laid out, and for the estimation of herb biomass, 1m × 1m sized nested quadrats were established in each permanent tree plot. the girth of all standing trees with girths more than 10 cm gbh i.e. girth at breast height (1.37 m) were measured. similarly, girth of shrubs inside the plots were measured at 10 cm above the ground. utilizing the girth: biomass allometric equation developed by singh & singh (1992) for the sal (shorea robusta) forest of the siwalik region, the biomass (aboveground biomass) of the trees with girths greater than 30 cm was determined for each plot. in this case, the major root-biomass was estimated by using the root to shoot ratio developed by singh (1974) for sal forest. in the case of the estimation of the aboveground and belowground biomass of sal trees having 1030 cm girth and also for shrubs, another set of girth: biomass regression equations developed by mandal (1999) for the forest of eastern siwaliks of nepal were used. the aboveground biomass of herbs within the sampling plots was estimated using destructive sampling, i.e. by cutting and weighing all the herbs within the nested plots set aside for the measurement of herbs. the fine-roots (<5 mm diameter, may be of herbs, shrubs and trees) in soil monoliths (10cm × 10cm × 30cm) were collected from 50 sample plots, with 10 sample plots within each site. the fineroot biomass (frb) was estimated by washing the soil monolith with fine jet of waters. within each sample plot, the depth ranges were separated into upper (0–15 cm) and lower (15–30 cm). estimation of carbon in vegetation the samples of trees, shrubs and herbs (aboveground) components were collected within each sampling plot for carbon estimation. additionally, fine-root samples (<2mm and 2-5mm diameter) were collected and weighed. composite samples of all components were subjected to oven drying at 80 °c until a constant weight was achieved, followed by powdering of each component for carbon (c) analyses. the ash-free weight method was used to estimate the carbon concentration (mcbrayer & cromack, 1980). with this technique, each oven-dried plant part (stem, branch, twig, root, and leaf) was burned separately at 400 °c in an electric furnace. after burning, resulting ash content; the inorganic elements in the form of oxides, was weighed. the carbon concentration was then calculated using the following equation: carbon % = (initial weight – ash weight) × 100/2 carbon stock in vegetation was calculated by multiplying the dry weight biomass by the c-concentration. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 19 gachhadar et al. statistical analysis initially, the observed data underwent testing for normality distribution. the carbon stock and biomass data were identified as quantitative variables while forest types were used as categorical variables. an equal number of samples were collected from each forest. however, the data exhibited unequal variance and non-normal distribution. consequently, a non-parametric alternative to one-way analysis of variance (anova), specifically the friedman test was used to assess the distribution of medians among the forest stands. after statistically significant results obtained by using the dunn test (dunn, 1964), multiple pairwise comparisons were conducted through the friedman test; it was also referred to as the 'sign test' when p-adjustments were made through the bonferroni test. in this test, fixed errors caused by sampling biases among the sample plots were corrected after partialling out from random errors caused by forests. the friedman test was used by using the formula: friedman_test(data, a ~ b|c) in this formula, 'data' refers to data.frame containing variables such as 'fine.root.biomass', as well as 'forests', 'plots' etc. the variable 'a' represents the response variable, for instance, 'fine.root.biomass'. 'b' denotes the predictor variable, which is 'forest' in this context. 'c' stands for the fixed variable, represented here by 'plots'. all the analyses were conducted using the r software (r core team, 2023). results plant biomass and carbon stock the total biomass estimation revealed that the bhaunne forest possessed the highest stock of biomass (815.86 mg∙ha–1) and carbon (333.63 mg c∙ha–1) while the sagma forest had the lowest biomass stock of 299.96 mg∙ha–1 and carbon stock of 140.19 mg c∙ha–1 (table 1). the total biomass and carbon stocks of tree layer were found to be the highest in the bhaunne forest, with 796.46 mg∙ha–1 and 326.91 mg c∙ha–1, respectively while the lowest was in the sagma forest, with 265.23 mg∙ha–1 and 124.88 mg c∙ha–1, respectively (table 2 and annex-i). across all the forest stands, it was observed that 79% of the total tree biomass belonged to aboveground while the remaining 21% being belowground (excluding fine-roots). the boles (main trunks) of the trees contributed the highest proportion to the total stand biomass in in all the study sites; however, the proportions of their contribution decreased with the increase in elevation, with the maximum (514.29 mg∙ha–1) at bhaunne site and the minimum (154.33 mg c∙ha–1) at sagma site. additionally, the sagma site possessed the highest shrub biomass of 16.38 mg∙ha–1 which decreased with the increase in elevation. likewise, the aboveground herb biomass was maximum (8.65 mg∙ha–1) in the sagma site. the aboveground biomass and carbon stock showed almost decreasing pattern with the increase in elevation (figure 3). table 1: oven dry stand biomass (mg ha -1 ± se) of forests located at different elevation in morang district forest stands / components bhaunne raja-rani murchungi adheri sagma tree bole 514.29 ± 167.50 230.02 ± 38.15 336.93 ± 44.27 286.04 ± 36.69 154.33 ± 42.15 branch 70.16 ± 7.35 46.69 ± 7.01 73.44 ± 7.51 66.10 ± 6.60 38.37 ± 8.14 twig 30.67 ± 6.30 17.89 ± 2.78 28.06 ± 3.16 26.27 ± 2.71 10.51 ± 1.57 leaf 16.99 ± 1.74 11.41 ± 1.59 17.37 ± 1.86 17.92 ± 1.47 7.29 ± 1.16 course root 164.35 ± 45.13 79.56 ± 12.84 118.51 ± 14.7 103.05 ± 12.31 54.73 ± 13.35 total 796.46 ± 218.72 385.57 ± 62.23 574.31 ± 71.23 499.38 ± 59.64 265.23 ± 64.72 shrub stem 3.79 ± 0.60 7.17 ± 1.05 7.29 ± 1.90 4.15 ± 0.70 8.58 ± 1.10 leaf 1.50 ± 0.18 2.07 ± 0.25 2.01 ± 0.30 1.70 ± 0.18 3.01 ± 0.18 root 3.24 ± 0.6 4.61 ± 0.50 5.11 ± 1.33 2.63 ± 0.33 4.79 ± 0.55 total 8.53 ± 1.21 13.85 ± 1.79 14.41 ± 3.5 8.48 ± 1.14 16.38 ± 1.76 herbs* 3.73±3.35 2.04±1.85 2.09 ±1.89 1.80 ± 1.52 8.65 ±7.73 fine-root 7.14± 0.84 12.73 ± 1.43 16.00 ± 2.69 9.54 ± 0.83 9.70 ± 1.42 total stand vegetation 815.86 414.19 606.81 519.20 299.96 *aboveground part banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 20 gachhadar et al. table 2: component wise carbon stock (mg c∙ha-1) estimates in different growth forms in different forests of morang district growth form component forest stands bhaunne rajarani murchungi adheri sagma tree bole 207.39 103.89 157.80 82.00 72.54 branch 30.63 22.72 34.15 26.55 18.35 twig 14.77 7.93 13.28 11.04 5.06 leaf 6.66 5.27 8.08 7.53 3.16 course root 67.46 36.35 55.46 33.05 25.77 total 326.91 176.16 268.77 160.17 124.88 shrub stem 1.74 3.31 3.50 1.73 4.08 leaf 0.66 0.96 0.95 0.76 1.40 root 0.24 1.36 2.33 1.03 2.23 total 2.64 5.63 6.78 3.52 7.71 herb 1.18 0.60 0.57 0.77 3.70 fine-root 2.90 4.10 7.00 4.20 3.90 total 333.63 186.49 283.12 168.66 140.19 fig. 3: trend of aboveground biomass (mg ha-1) and carbon stock (mgcha-1) in the forests located at different elevations of morang district. fine-root biomass and carbon stock the total fine-root biomass and carbon stock exhibited the maximum values of 16 mg ha-1 and 7 mg c ha-1, respectively in the murchungi site located in the mid-mountain region and the minimum values of 7.14 mg ha-1 and 2.90 mg c ha-1, respectively in the bhaunne site (low-elevation site, figure 4). banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 21 gachhadar et al. figure 4: trend of total fine-root biomass (mgha-1 ) in the forests located at different elevations of morang district. the maximum fine-root biomass value was recorded in the murchungi site in terms of both soil depths and fine-root size classes (<2mm and 2-5mm), where the total maximum fine-root biomass was 9.63 mg ha-1 within the 0-15cm soil depth and reaching up to 6.37 mg ha-1 within the 15-30cm soil depth (figure 5). figure 5: fine-root biomass at 0-15 cm and 15-30 cm soil depth of different sites. the carbon stock value was also maximum (5.44 mg ha-1) for both <2mm and 2-5mm diameter classes in 0-30 cm soil depth (figure 6). the fine-root biomass was not found to be statistically significant among the studied forest sites even in the case of both diameter classes (<2mm and 2-5mm). banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 22 gachhadar et al. figure 6: fine-root biomass and carbon stocks (mg c∙ha-1) of <2mm and 2-5mm diameter classes within 0-30cm soil depth. friedman test the friedman test conducted on three variables (trees, shrubs, and herbs biomass) revealed distinctive differences in the distribution of tree biomass among the five different forests. statistical significant disparities were noted in the tree biomass between the murchungi and sagma sites (p=0.021, figure 7). regarding the shrub biomass, statistical significant differences were observed between the adheri and sagma sites (p=0.017, figure 8). moreover, statistical significant differences in the herb biomass were observed among the bhaunne and sagma, raja-rani and sagma, murchungi and sagma, and adheri and sagma sites (p=0.0001, figure 9). figure 7: relationship of total tree biomass (t/ha) among five forests located at different elevations of morang district. line covered forests inside figure with asterisk sign (*) indicated statistical significance pair after friedman test (p < 0.05). banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 23 gachhadar et al. figure 8: relationship of total shrub biomass (t/ha) among five forests located at different elevations of morang district. line covered forests inside figure with asterisk sign (*) indicated statistical significance pair after friedman test (p < 0.05). figure 9: relationship of herb biomass (t/ha) among five forests located at different elevations of morang district. line covered forest inside figure with asterisk sign (*) indicated statistical significance pair after friedman test (p < 0.05). fine-root biomass and carbon stocks the study revealed a higher fine-root biomass in the upper soil depth (0-15 cm), indicative of an efficient utilization of soil nutrients. notably, fine-roots with <2 mm diameter exhibited greater dynamism in banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 24 gachhadar et al. nutrient supply due to their high turnover rate as compared to those with 2-5 mm diameter (gautam & mandal, 2016). the maximum fine-root biomass observed in the murchungi site (see figure 5 above) could be attributed to a potentially lower turnover rate, possibly associated with specific species characteristics (pandey et al., 2023; raich et al., 2009). the fine-root biomass displayed an increasing trend up to the murchungi site, followed by a decrease with increase in elevation beyond this point. the present study highlighted an extensive carbon stock in fine-root biomass with <2 mm diameter, likely influenced by various external factors such as soil nutrients and altitude in addition to internal factors (bhattarai et al., 2020; vogt et al., 1986; wendy & gordon, 2000). the total fine root biomass for both below 2mm as well as 2-5 mm diameter did not show statistical significant results in the pairwise comparison among studied forests of varying elevations (figures 10 and 11) though chi-square value of friedman test for fine root biomass below 2 mm was statistically significant (figure 10). figure 10: relationship of fine root (<2 mm) biomass (t/ha) among five forests located at different elevations of morang district. the pairwise comparison result plotted after friedman test. figure 11: relationship of fine root (2-5 mm) biomass (t/ha) among five forests located at different elevations of morang district. the pairwise comparison result plotted after friedman test. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 25 gachhadar et al. discussion plant biomass and carbon stock the distribution of plant biomass and carbon stocks in the forest are known to affect by various factors, including the presence of different tree species, nutrient availability in the soil, and climate (bhatta et al., 2018; dani & baniya, 2019; gurung et al., 2022; malla & neupane, 2024). the current study suggests that total biomass and carbon stocks vary across sites in relation to different elevations. a higher biomass of 815.86 mg ha-1 was observed in bhaunne site, possibly due to the presence of various species with greater girth, such as s. robusta (baral et al., 2009) while a lower carbon pool in sagma forest may be due to the composition of different species, dominated by schima castanopsis, which is similar to the findings of khanal et al. (2008). several other researchers (shrestha & singh, 2008; mwakisunga & majule, 2012; gautam & mandal, 2016; bohara et al., 2021) have claimed that higher plant biomass is due to increase in tree density, which is in contrast with the findings of our study. we found that the aboveground biomass varied among the sites due to differences in plant species and community structure. in present study, the decline in carbon stocks in high-elevation forests might be due to steep slopes (bohara et al., 2021; pandey et al., 2020). however, an increase in the forest carbon stock in tropical lowlands may be due to the accumulation of more organic matter and other minerals in the less sloping areas as a result of heavy rainfall. this result is comparable to the findings of leuschner et al. (2007), moser et al. (2011), sanquetta et al. (2013), bhattarai & mandal (2020) and bohara et al. (2021). aboveground biomass and carbon exhibit wide variations in tropical forests, influenced by stem size distribution, soil fertility (gautam & mandal, 2013) and topography (kc et al., 2024; castilho et al., 2006; malhi et al., 2006). baral et al. (2009) estimated 97.86 mg c ha-1 in hill shorea forest, with a maximum stand height of 30 m and the mean height of 12.75 m, and the maximum dbh of 89 cm and the mean dbh of 19.56 cm. a decline in aboveground biomass with the increase in elevation as reported by a number of researchers (rana et al., 2023; leuschner et al., 2007; moser et al., 2011) are in line with the findings of this study while some others (pokhrel & sherpa, 2020; thakur et al., 2024; kumar et al., 2019; thokchom & yadava, 2017) have reported an increase in aboveground biomass with the increase in elevation. the range of aboveground biomass (230.74–641.13 mg ha-1) of the trees, shrubs, and herbs in the present study supports well with other studies in the tropical forests of nepal. ramachandran et al. (2007) reported a range of aboveground biomass (36.85 to 196.98 mg ha-1) in kolli hills of eastern ghats, 7.92–307 mg ha-1 in chitteri hills of eastern ghats, 64.81– 624.96 mg ha-1 in sathanur reserve forest, and 118–260 mg ha-1 in javadi hills (pragasan, 2014) of india. the findings of the present study contradict with those of behera et al. (2017), and borah et al. (2013), padmakumar et al. (2018) regarding the relationship between species diversity and biomass. the present study suggests that higher biomass is not always associated with higher diversity, which may be attributed to the tree density and girth size of individual species. a positive relationship between tree density and carbon stock was found by pragasan (2014) which is similar to the present study. thus, tropical forests of east nepal act as c-accumulating systems, serving as significant global carbon sinks (gautam & mandal, 2016), similar to other wet tropical forests (pan et al., 2011). conclusion in conclusion, this study highlights the considerable variation in biomass and carbon stocks across the forests situated at different elevations in the morang district of nepal. the intricate relationship between fine-root biomass, carbon stocks and elevation, together with variations in fine-root diameter classes, unveiled a distinct ecological pattern. notably, thinnerdiameter fine-roots exhibited higher biomass compared to their thicker fine-root. the observed high fine-root biomass and carbon stocks in the upper layers of soil (0-15 cm) emphasized the banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 26 gachhadar et al. importance of this region for nutrient cycling and storage. the fine-root biomass of <2 mm and 2-5mm diameters across the forests were insignificant. this highlights a potential uniformity in fine-root dynamics despite variations in forest types and elevations, contributing valuable insights to our understanding of below-ground ecological processes. the implications of these findings are expected to be useful in preparing practical guidelines for forest ecosystem management. recognizing the intricate relationships between plant biomass and carbon stocks, fine-root biomass and carbon stocks with elevation can enhance strategies aimed at optimizing carbon storage and promoting sustainable forestry practices. this study contributes to the broader understanding of forest ecosystems and provides a foundation for decision-making in the realm of carbon management. acknowledgments we acknowledge the koshi province's ministry of forests, tourism, and soil conservation for providing us a partial financial support to conduct this study. similarly, we are thankful to the district forest office, morang for providing us permission to conduct this study in the aforementioned community forests. last but not least, we would like to express our sincere thanks to mr. madan bhattarai and all the other individuals for their support during our fieldwork and laboratory work. authors contribution: conceptual framework, data collection, and manuscript written by p. k. gachhadar, conceptual frame and manuscript written, statistical analysis, editing, reviewed, and correspondence by c. b. baniya and conceptual frame and manuscript written, editing and review t. n. mandal. data availability: the data used in this study are accessible upon request to the corresponding author. declaration we have no conflict of interest in the publication of this research manuscript. references aerts, r. & honnay, o. 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(2000). nutrient concentrations in fine-roots. ecology, 81: 275– 280. https://doi.org/10.2307/177151. https://doi.org/10.1080/ https://doi.org/10.1080/ https://doi.org/10 https://doi.org/10 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 1 gachhadar et al. annex-i plotwise total biomass among five studied forests of morang, east nepal. forests plot tree_ biomass(t/ ha) shrub_ biomass (t/ha) herb_ biomass (t/ha) fine_root_less_ than_2mm (t/ha) fine_root_two_ five mm(t/ha) bhaunne 1 716.97 6.936 0.215 4.7 0.7 bhaunne 2 937.48 10.4 0.423 3.9 1.26 bhaunne 3 2664.76 9.872 33.86 2.42 0.75 bhaunne 4 238.04 10.14 0.1975 4.99 6.42 bhaunne 5 543.52 11.388 0.1902 3.88 2.97 bhaunne 6 282.67 4.852 0.443 3.94 0.81 bhaunne 7 477.18 4.608 0.3294 3.29 0.99 bhaunne 8 757.3 16.5 0.35 1.66 0.93 bhaunne 9 760.19 5.12 0.7589 2.89 1.11 bhaunne 10 586.38 5.516 0.5266 2.9 1.03 rajarani 1 721.18 7.592 0.2304 4.49 3.71 rajarani 2 242.78 9.424 0.2011 5.11 3.79 rajarani 3 167.77 11.736 18.73 5.15 8.95 rajarani 4 334.07 12.964 0.1923 3.94 1.62 rajarani 5 479.75 17.98 0.2011 3.06 0.17 rajarani 6 115.38 12.26 0.11 4.56 1.16 rajarani 7 485.23 25.072 0.1532 6.59 3.25 rajarani 8 436.69 19.048 0.1955 3.36 4.12 rajarani 9 617.87 15.568 0.1675 2.56 1.14 rajarani 10 254.97 6.828 0.1987 4.98 1.85 murchungi 1 576.54 20.868 0.2246 2.58 0 murchungi 2 858.21 31.132 0.1456 11.62 3.81 murchungi 3 731.31 6.432 19.12 9.91 4.16 murchungi 4 545.19 7.368 0.256 5.77 3.7 murchungi 5 459.07 20.508 0.209 0.55 0.05 murchungi 6 919.01 4.652 0.1377 13.2 6.85 murchungi 7 680.33 32.888 0.178 2.56 0.83 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 1 2 gachhadar et al. forests plot tree_ biomass(t/ ha) shrub_ biomass (t/ha) herb_ biomass (t/ha) fine_root_less_ than_2mm (t/ha) fine_root_two_ five mm(t/ha) murchungi 8 223.56 3.46 0.1543 5.87 2.69 murchungi 9 423.84 8.472 0.2021 7.56 4.78 murchungi 10 326.16 8.304 0.2257 5.87 3.89 adheri 1 566.56 12.272 0.4955 5.49 1.99 adheri 2 320.14 6.304 0.1956 3.24 2.73 adheri 3 263.7 11.276 15.44 3.27 0.48 adheri 4 447.01 4.288 0.2013 2.69 1.32 adheri 5 377.93 11.164 0.1249 5.9 2.83 adheri 6 464.78 7.452 0.4605 2.48 1.07 adheri 7 940.95 1.54 0.1867 2.7 3.11 adheri 8 617.81 12.352 0.201 3.36 4.37 adheri 9 487.27 9.492 0.4377 2.45 3.67 adheri 10 507.67 8.608 0.2211 2.61 1.37 sagma 1 444.89 14.852 0.5 2.35 1.5 sagma 2 122.54 11.42 0.511 5.35 1.5 sagma 3 208.71 13.272 78.2 4.49 0.71 sagma 4 479.04 30.624 0.7512 4.18 2.42 sagma 5 169.71 12.176 1.5013 11.02 4.6 sagma 6 704.57 17.412 0.9001 1.53 0.34 sagma 7 120.58 18.388 0.7511 3.34 1.65 sagma 8 127.07 13.184 0.822 4.07 1.26 sagma 9 119.37 14.668 0.8005 3.32 0.23 sagma 10 155.73 17.868 1.7501 5.76 1.23 37 urban forests are the areas inside cities and urban centers that are planted or naturally occurring vegetation that varies from any combination of trees, shrubs, and grasses (konijnendijk, 2018). generally, urban forestry is the conservation and management of urban forests to enhance the urban landscape, and this concept also advocates the role of trees as a critical part of the urban infrastructure (fao, 2006). it was developed to address the issue of urban forestry. urbanization is considered as the greatest threat to biodiversity (aronson et al., 2017). however, cities can play a significant role in the preservation of native biodiversity, particularly through the management, planning, and conservation of urban green spaces (ives et al., 2016). the migration from rural to urban areas in the current decades is increasing, and more than half of the world’s population are living in towns and cities, which is expected to increase to 70 percent by 2050 (salbitano et al., 2016). nepal is also one of the top 10 urbanizing nations, which has led to a number of issues with pollution, flooding, and social disorders in both the environment and human life (bakrania, 2015). managing urban population and environment has been one of the most important challenges. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1, 2023 pp 37‒45https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v33i1.56497 assessment of urban forest species preference and nursery use practice in pokhara metropolitan city pokhara is one of the rapidly urbanizing cities with declining trees and green spaces. it has become imperative to develop effective plans and strategies to maintain greenery in the city. there is little knowledge about the individual choice of urban tree species and how it shapes up the urban green spaces. this study was conducted in the ward17 of the pokhara metropolitan city to assess the people’s preferences and factors influencing their choices. data collection was done through nursery survey (n=15), household survey (n=60), and site observation (n=12). the observed sites were parks, religious sites and streets of ward-17 of the pokhara metropolitan city. majority of the household were found to be practicing home gardens with exotic species which were more preferred than the indigenous ones. altogether, 15 major species were recorded from the households, with dhupi (juniperus indica) being the most frequent species followed by guava (psidium guajava). a total of 48 tree species were recorded during site observation, with a maximum frequency of sissoo (dalbergia sissoo). among the six major factors for species selection, use and benefits derived from the species were detected as the most responsible ones. nurseries provide seedlings mostly for individual purposes; however, financial and technical assistance should be provided to all the interested households with emphasis on the preferred type of species required for further development of urban forestry in the pokhara metropolitan city. keywords: greenery, people’s response, plant nurseries and urban forest species m. acharya 1*, b. subedi 2 and s. subedi 2 received: 20, august 2022 revised: 5, july 2023 accepted: 16, august 2023 published: 20, december 2023 1 agriculture and forestry university, fof, hetauda, nepal. *email: acharyamadan5@gmail.com 2 institute of forestry, pokhara campus, pokhara, nepal. https://orcid.org/0009-0006-6286-8990 https://orcid.org/0009-0001-7027-7828 https://orcid.org/0009-0008-0821-3218 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 38 acharya et al. however in nepal, urban forestry is still in its infancy. through a number of initiatives, such as the “forest decade program (2014–2023)” and the “nepal clean environment campaign 2075 ad,” the nepal government has placed an emphasis on urban forestry (goutam, 2018). urban vegetation provides a wide range of advantages, addressing the physiological, sociological, educational, and economic demands of urban residents (kwartnik-pruc & droj, 2023). according to virtudes (2016), the availability of green spaces has particular importance in a city due to their influence on the quality of life of its citizens, and the integration of plants affects the urban environment favorably. the vegetation is a climate moderator that helps to reduce the imperviousness of soil, contributes to storm-water management and improves the air quality through the production of oxygen (goutam, 2018). urban forestry will play a larger role in providing various commodities and in improving the urban living environment (khan et al., 2020). urban people’s psychophysical and social requirements are regarded to be considerably aided by forests, trees, and other green places. urban forests, which are made up of trees and related plants in cities offer co-benefits to city residents as multifunctional green infrastructure (lyytimaki et al., 2017). urban forests provide a range of ecological services for local economic growth, improved social and educational opportunities, climate mitigation and adaptation, and physical and mental health (barron et al., 2021). trees in urban environments have unusual growth conditions due to fragmented landscapes, challenging site constraints, fluctuating meteorological conditions, and disturbance regimes (warn & adamo, 2015). however, in many developing nations, forest managers responsible for managing urban tree populations do not possess the knowledge necessary for appropriate species selection, care, and maintenance, and lack information on street trees, including basic data such as city street surveys that are appropriate to that locality and environment (chen & cheng, 2022). in the context of nepal, urban forestry is still in the primitive stage (goutam, 2018). due to rapid unplanned urbanization, and commercial development along with population pressure, the overall city environment is getting worsened seriously day by day (fort et al., 2018). because of this, there is a severe need for the assessment of household’s preferences in species selection in the city areas. this paper aims to find out the urban people’s preferences and the factors influencing their choices of tree species in the pokhara metropolitan city (pmc). material and methods the study was carried out in the ward no. 17 of the pmc in 2020. with an area of 123 km2, this ward is located between 83.75°-84.25° e longitudes and between 28.2°-28.6° n latitudes in the central region of nepal, and is about 200 km west of kathmandu. the elevation of the terrain ranges from 505 m (kotre) to 2650m (armala) above the mean sea level. the total area of the pmc is 464.94 km², which represents 23.01 % area of the kaski district and 0.31 % area of the country. the city exhibits a humid subtropical type of climate; however, the elevation keeps temperatures moderate; the average temperature in summer fluctuates between 25-35 °c while it varies from -2 °c to 15 °c in winter. pokhara and nearby areas receive 4851mm of rainfall per year (lamichhane & thapa, 2012). a survey was carried out in the randomly selected 15 local private nurseries within the pmc (figure 1). information on the nursery locations were obtained through the floriculture association of nepal (fan), kaski. both open and closed-type of questionnaires were used for interviewing the nursey respondents. similarly, a total of 60 households: 10 households with plants from 6 toles (localities), were surveyed (figure 2). semi-structured questionnaire were used for the purpose. direct observation was done alongside the major road sections (3), parks (3), riverbanks/ canals (3), and religious places (3) with a total of 12 such sites located within the ward so as to assess and list out the plant species to express those in terms of frequency percentage. species with a frequency percentage less than 1.5% are banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 39 acharya et al. not mentioned here. information on the available sites were further supplemented with the help of the ward profile. figure 1: map showing the locations of the selected nurseries within the pmc figure 2: map showing the area set aside for hh survey and site observation within ward no. 17 banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 40 acharya et al. calculation of weighted mean the following formula was used to calculate the weighted mean to understand about the factors influencing the species selection and plantation: where, wi = respondents response in %, and xi = value assigned to “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. results household preference a total of 40 % of the household-respondents belonged to the age between 30-45 years, and most of them (56.7 %) were female. among them, majority (77 %) of the households had developed their yards as home gardens. plants were observed on the balconies and the rooftops of the houses. moreover, some households had indoor plants. the practice of hanging plants on the walls was also noticed for decoration purpose. out of the total number of households surveyed (60), 42 % were found to have planted indigenous species while 58 % had exotic ones. introduction of the ornamental plants and several fruit trees of outside origin had resulted in a higher number of exotic species (table 1). factors influencing species selection and plantation the respondents ranked the major factors influencing the species selection in order of importance as shown in table 2. the “use and benefits derived from the species” were ranked first with a mean rank of 2.25 followed by others, which indicated that the people were more concerned about the use of the species and less about their price. table 1: major 15 species planted in the yards of the households s.n. species (local/english name) scientific name frequency (%) remarks 1. dhupi thuja spp. 7.2 ornamental tree, native 2. guava psidium guajava 6.9 fruit tree, exotic 3. banana musa spp. 6.8 fruit tree, exotic 4. papaya carica papaya 5.7 fruit tree, exotic 5. false ashoka/indian mast tree polyalthia longifolia 4.8 ornamental tree, exotic 6. peach prunus persica 4.6 fruit tree, native 7. mango magnifera indica 3.9 fruit tree, exotic 8. tejpat cinnamomum tamala 3.4 fruit tree, native 9. christmas tree araucaria columnaris 3.3 ornamental tree, exotic 10. bottle palm hyophorbe lagenicaulis 3.1 ornamental, exotic 11. sugarcane saccharum officinarum 3.1 cash crop, native 12. monkey puzzle a. araucana 2.8 ornamental tree, exotic 13. lalupate\poinsettia euphorbia pulcherrima 2.7 ornamental tree, native 14. bakaino melia azedarach 2.4 fuelwood/fodder tree, native 15. pomegranate punica granatum 2.3 fruit tree, exotic banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 41 acharya et al. table 2: factors influencing species selection and plantation tole/ locality factors influencing species selection and plantation 1 2 3 4 5 6 s.d. mean rank environmental suitability of species 9 14 18 8 9 2 1.378 3.00 3 rd availability of space in residence 18 15 16 7 2 2 1.307 2.43 2 nd policies and regulations 0 5 7 15 12 21 1.303 4.62 5 th availability of seedlings in nursery 5 10 6 7 15 17 1.712 4.13 4 th money/price of plant 1 3 6 14 18 18 1.246 4.65 6 th use and benefits derived from plant species 27 12 7 8 5 1 1.445 2.25 1 st site observation from our site observation, a total of 48 different species were recorded. table 3 below shows the highest composition of major 15 species. among them, sissoo was the most frequently species observed with a frequency of 15.1%. table 3: species with the highest composition as observed from the sites s.n. species (local/ english name) scientific name frequency (%) 1. sissoo dalbergia sissoo 15.10 2. kapoor cinnamomum camphora 14.90 3. false ashoka/indian mast tree polyalthia longifolia 10.00 4. simal bombax ceiba 4.90 5. kalkiphool callistemon viminalis 4.86 6. bottle palm hyophorbe lagenicaulis 4.05 7. birendraphool jacaranda ovalifolia 3.78 8. bans dendrocalamus spp. 3.51 9. peepal ficus religiosa 3.50 10. sami f. benjamina 2.97 11. lalupate euphorbia pulcherrima 2.16 12. dhupi thuja spp. 1.62 13. gulmohar delonix regia 1.60 14. tooni cedrella toona 1.60 15. painyu prunus cerasoides 1.50 nursery survey seedling production in the nurseries out of the total number of nurseries surveyed (60), the owners/informants of the two nurseries reported that they used to grow seedlings of their own. similarly, the owners/informants of the four nurseries banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 42 acharya et al. informed that they did not grow seedlings by themselves, rather they used to bring seedlings from outside. the owners of the remaining nine nurseries used to bring some seedlings from outside apart from growing on their own. they informed that they had to import the perennial plants from india while the seasonal flowering plants and other tree species used to be brought from other places of our country as they did not have enough space in their own nurseries to grow plants due to high commercial value and cost of the land within the pmc. types of species produced in the nurseries on an average, the surveyed nurseries had the highest number of the seedlings of fruit/medicinal plants (34) followed by those of fodder/fuelwood tree species (33), ornamental plants (24), and the plants with religious value (7). supplies of seedlings from the nurseries as per the nursery respondents, the seedlings produced at their nurseries were mostly supplied to the individual/private users (with rank 1.2, the highest; see figure 3). similarly, the seedlings were supplied to the different organizations (with mean rank 2.3), hotels and restaurants (with mean rank 2.7), and parks (with mean rank 3.8). besides, some seedlings were also supplied for roadside plantation (with mean rank 2.7, the least). figure 3: supply ranking of the seedlings for various purposes discussion according to the report of undesa (2014), the urban growth rate in the pmc was found to be 5.21 percent in between 2010-2015, and is expected to be increasing in the years to come. it is estimated that pokhara had 6.2 percent of the urban population in 2015, which will be rising to 6.7 percent in 2030. the practice of planting trees was noticed in many other areas too. however, majority of the previous tree planting had been done on an ad hoc basis without a comprehensive city-wide master greenery plan, a problem that can also be found even in some u.s. cities (beatty & heckman, 1981). private households maintain their trees according to their own principles. trees on urban matrices contain a significant proportion of wild indigenous species with relatively high species diversity though not as high as the original natural vegetation of seasonal tropical rain forests (kidane & kejela, 2021). this does not match with the findings of our study as more exotic plants were recorded in the private compounds. planting can be done at open spaces, along roadsides, along canal/stream/river-sides and roof-top gardens. furthermore, private individuals living in houses with gardens in a few low-density residential zones frequently plant trees on their own initiative (xue, 2016). we also noticed the practices of home gardening, rooftop gardening, and fostering hanging plants during our site visits. forty cultivated street-trees were recorded along the streets of hong kong (jim, 1987). we had recorded 48 species with 15 major ones from our site observation. a similar study conducted by khanal et al. (2021) with the sample sites along the balkumari-shankhamul road in kathmandu had recorded 30 plant species belonging to 13 families. similarly, a study conducted by pandey & luitel (2020) had recorded a total of 2531 individual trees of 61 woody species belonging to 28 families in the kathmandu valley. to a limited extent, the floral diversity demonstrated relatively higher diversity (biodiversity index: 0.024, simpson index: 18, shannon index: 3.36). however, the species chosen for roadside plantations in this area appeared to be unprofessional and haphazard, which were almost similar to our study site. mainly, poplars (populus spp.), birch (betula alnoides), willow (salix spp.), and jacaranda mimosifolia were found to be planted (pandey & luitel, 2020), which were banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 43 acharya et al. different than our recorded species. this might be due to the difference in the environmental conditions of the two places. baral & kurmi (2005) recorded 202 species of wild ornamental plants growing in godawari and phulchoki sectors. they had recommended 306 indigenous species for the kathmandu valley. the recommended species included 66 trees, 80 shrubs, 42 climbers, 87 herbs, and 31 orchids. people’s preferences for purchasing trees from nurseries are also likely to be a major determinant of urban tree structure and composition (avolio et al., 2018), which is true in the case of our study area. similarly, a preliminary census published by the central bureau of statistics in 2078 revealed that the population of the pmc was 518,452, the 2nd highest of nepal with a population density of 1100 km2 (cbs, 2022). this means that there are limited areas suitable for implementation of urban forestry in the city. this coincides with our findings where the respondents ranked the availability of space as a factor influencing the plantation. according to lamichhane & thapa (2012), the local people living in the urban areas were aware of the importance of trees in the urban context and quite positive about their benefits. they found that 42 % of the urban respondents were aware about the aesthetic benefits of trees/plants, 26 % were aware about their importance for food/ fruits, 17 % were aware about their importance for environmental cleanliness, and the remaining 15 % were aware about their importance for ecological balance. these findings coincided with our findings as the major preference for plantation was given for the use and benefits derived from the trees. of the total species listed, 42 % were found to be indigenous and 58 % exotic. this proportion of indigenous and exotic species was similar to that of (gyawali, 2015) who recorded the percentage of indigenous as 47 % and exotic as 53 %. our study found that, on an average, a household possessed four seasonal plants, three non-woody perennial plants, and two woody perennial plants. of all the 60 nurseries surveyed, only three had started producing flowers themselves in addition to the seasonal flower seedlings. to meet the rising demand in the pmc, enormous quantities of seedlings of various seasonal flowers and plants were reported to be imported from kathmandu and india. this indicated that there were limited domestic production and lack of communication between domestic growers and clients (kunwar & bist, 2021). so, market linkage should be developed through a formal communication network. hotels, travel agencies, foreign missions, government offices, ngos/ ingos, banks, business organizations, pilgrims, resorts, and the general public are the primary customers of nursery products (pun magar & baniyar, 2021). in the case of our study, the major supplies were for the private users followed by organizations, hotels, parks and road sides. recommendations in the pmc, the majority of the households were found to be developing their own yards as home garden with plants ranging from fruit trees to ornamental plants to different seasonal flowers. exotic species were mostly preferred rather than indigenous ones. people need to be encouraged to use native species. “use and benefits derived from plant species” was found to be the major factor in the selection of plants in residential areas. the local residents were found to be least concerned about the price/money of the plants while choosing species for plantation in their yards. while observing the different sites within the study area, a total of 48 different species were recorded with sisoo (d. sissoo) having the highest frequency followed by kapoor (c. camphora) and false ashoka (p. longifolia). mainly, ornamental and fruit species were preferred by the people for household purposes. most of the perennial plants and seasonal flowering plants had to be imported from india whereas other tree species were brought from other parts of our country. the nurseries used to supply seedlings mostly for individual household use and least for roadside plantation. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 44 acharya et al. conclusion the urban forestry in the pmc is still at its infant stage. therefore, there is a need of strong provisions and regulations regarding the availability of open areas and plantation of forest trees and plants in order to boost it in the pmc. besides, rooftop and balcony plantation should also be encouraged, which can be a good means for maintaining greenery levels in the city. furthermore, educating people and nursery owners through urban-forestry-related research, trainings and publications by the concerned organizations and media is essential for improving the status of urban forestry in the pmc. references aronson, m. f., lepczyk, c. a., evans, k. l., goddard, m. a., lerman, s.b., macivor, j.s., nilon, c.h., & vargo, t. (2017). biodiversity in the city: key challenges for urban green space management. frontiers in ecology and the environment, 15 (4): 189–196. avolio, m. l., pataki, d. e., trammell, t. l. e., & endter-wada, j. (2018). biodiverse cities: the nursery industry, homeowners, and neighborhood differences drive urban tree composition. ecological monographs, 88 (2): 259–276. https://doi.org/10.1002/ ecm.1290. bakrania, s. (2015). urbanisation and urban growth in nepal. governance, social development, humanitarian response and conflict (gsdrc), applied knowledge services of university of birmingham, birmingham, uk. http://www.gsdrc.org/ wp-content/uploads/2015/11/hdq1294.pdf. baral, s. r. & kurmi, p. p. (2005). assessing city beautification with plants: the kathmandu perspective. banko janakari, 15 (1): 49– 57. barron, s., sheppard, s., kozak, r., dunster, k., dave, k., sun, d., & rayner, j. (2021). what do they like about trees? adding local voices to urban forest design and planning. trees, forests and people, (5): 100116. beatty, r. a., & heckman, c. t. (1981). survey of urban tree programs in the united states. urban ecology, 5 (2): 81–102. https://doi. org/10.1016/0304-4009(81)90002-4. cbs. (2022). final preliminary report of census 2021 nepal. government of nepal, central bureau of statistics. chen, r. q. & cheng, s. t. (2022). detecting nestedness in city parks for urban biodiversity conservation. fao. (2006). urban and peri-urban forestry and greening in west and central asia. food and agriculture organization of the united nations, pp. 122. fort, m., adhikari, b. r., & rimal, b. (2018). pokhara (central nepal): a dramatic yet geomorphologically active environment versus a dynamic, rapidly developing city. in urban geomorphology (pp. 231–258). elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-012-811951-8.00012-6. goutam, k. r. (2018). urban forestry in the federal context of nepal. banko janakari, 28 (1): 1–2. gyawali, r. a. (2015). urban forestry: status, people’s attitude and institutional involvement: a case study from pokhara sub-metropolitan city. tribhuvan university, institute of forestry. ives, c. d., lentini, p. e., threlfall, c. g., ikin, k., shanahan, d. f., garrard, g. e., bekessy, s. a., fuller, r. a., mumaw, l., & rayner, l. (2016). cities are hotspots for threatened species. global ecology and biogeography, 25 (1): 117–126. jim, c. y. (1987). the status and prospects of urban trees in hong kong. landscape and urban planning, (14): 1–20. https://doi. org/10.1016/0169-2046(87)90002-8. banko janakari, vol 33 no. 1 45 acharya et al. khan, m. m., akram, m. t., janke, r., qadri, r. w. k., al-sadi, a. m., & farooque, a.a. (2020). urban horticulture for food secure cities through and beyond covid-19. sustainability, 12 (22): 9592. khanal, k., asheshwar, r., & mathema, b. (2021). assessment of species diversity and its management challenges in avenue plantation (study of shankhamul and balkumari road). journal of historical archaeology and anthropological aciences, 6 (2). kidane, l. & kejela, a. (2021). food security and environment conservation through sustainable use of wild and semi-wild edible plants: a case study in berek natural forest, oromia special zone, ethiopia. agriculture & food security, 10 (1): 29. konijnendijk, c. c. (2018). the forest and the city: the cultural landscape of urban woodland (vol. 9). springer international publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3319-75076-7. kunwar, s. & bist, p. (2021). socioeconomic characters and status of cut-flower producers in kathmandu, nepal. social values & society (svs), 3 (2): 58–60. kwartnik-pruc, a. & droj, g. (2023). the role of allotments and community gardens and the challenges facing their development in urban environments—a literature review. land, 12 (2): 325. lamichhane, d. & thapa, h. b. (2012). participatory urban forestry in nepal: gaps and ways forward. urban forestry & urban greening, 11 (2): 105–111. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2011.07.008. lyytimaki, j., fini, a., van den bosch, c., & francesco, f. (2017). routledge handbook of urban forestry. pandey, h. p. & luitel, d. r. (2020). diversity and species selection in urban forestry: reflection from maitighar to tinkune road of kathmandu valley, nepal. journal of environment sciences, 19. pun magar, a. & baniyar, n. (2021). status and prospects of floriculture in pokhara valley of nepal. salbitano, f., borelli, s., conigliaro, m., & chen, y. (2016). guidelines on urban and peri-urban forestry. food and agriculture organization of the united nations. undesa. (2014). world urbanization prospects, the 2014 revision: highlights. un department of economic and social affairs, united nations, new york. virtudes, a. (2016). benefits of greenery in contemporary city. iop conference series: earth and environmental science, (44): 032020. https://doi.org/10.1088/17551315/44/3/032020. warn, e. & adamo, s. b. (2015). the impact of climate change: migration and cities in south america. wmo bulletin, 63 (2): 1014. xue, c. q. (2016). rail village and mega-structure. hong kong architecture 1945-2015: from colonial to global, pp. 139–168. 4 juniperus is the second largest genera of the conifers with 69 species and is native to sub-arctic & temperate eurasia to tropical african mountains, north america to guatemala, and caribbean regions (powo, 2024). due to its adaptability and capacity to thrive in harsh environments, the genus exhibits remarkable variation in its morphology. the members of this genus range from low-growing prostrate mats found above the tree-line to towering trees reaching heights of 50–60m at lower elevations near sea level (florin, 1963). in nepal, the genus juniperus is represented by five species and three infra-specific taxa, as documented by rajbhandari et al. (2020) and shrestha et al. (2022). junipers are known for their medicinal properties, and are used for flavoring, perfumery, and for cosmetic purposes (rana et al., 2022). j. squamata buch.-ham. d. don, commonly called himalayan juniper or nepalese juniper is an evergreen coniferous shrub or dwarf trees in wood anatomical features of juniperus squamata buch.-ham. ex. d. don from high mountains of trans-himalayan zone of central nepal wood anatomical characters were investigated for juniperus squamata buch.-ham. ex. d. don from high mountains of trans-himalayan zone of manang district of central nepal. we studied the anatomical features and the inter-relationship between the anatomical parameters of himalayan juniper from 30 different wood samples collected at 4600 m above the mean sea level (msl). wood samples were boiled at 100ºc in oven, and sectioning was done using the kd-3390 semi-automatic microtome. the sections were then dehydrated in alcohol stained with 1% safranin and fast green solutions, and permanent slides were prepared and observed under microscope. j. squamata is a softwood species and is characterized by the presence of distinct narrow annual growth rings with gradual to abrupt transition from earlywood to latewood. both earlywood and latewood tracheids comprising square to polygonal cells, circular bordered pits and few resin cells arranged in loose tangential bands. the rays were found to be exclusively uniseriate and homogenous; most of the ray cells contained prismatic crystals while cupressoid pits were present in the ray cells. the annual-ring-width showed a positive correlation with both the earlywood and latewood width but a negative correlation with tracheids length. in softwood species like junipers, tracheid length is an important characteristic, not only for wood and fiber quality, but also for the tree's hydraulic architecture. furthermore, this is also coupled with the acclimatization of the species in harsh climatic condition of the arid trans-himalayan region. dwarf individuals with reduced growth ring dimensions and increased tracheid length ensure effective water transportation towards the shoot system. therefore, this intra-specific variation in wood anatomical features of j. squamata is due to variation in micro-habitat types. key words: annual-rings, cupressoid pits, prismatic crystals, resin cells, tracheids. p. chalise 1 & a. tiwari 2* received: 12, july 2024 revised: 11, august 2024 accepted: 28, august 2024 published: 22, november 2024 1 national herbarium and plant laboratories (kath), godawari, lalitpur, nepal 2 central department of botany, tribhuvan university, kirtipur, nepal. *email: achyut.tiwari@cdb.tu.edu.np banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2, 2024 pp 4‒15https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v34i2.67754 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9497-2497 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9095-4067 mailto:achyut.tiwari@cdb.tu.edu.np banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 5 chalise & tiwari the family cupressaceae (shrestha et al., 2022). j. squamata is very close to drooping juniper, i.e., j. recurva in terms of its uniform foliage and purple-black berries but differs in terms of its broader, shorter, glaucous leaves and ridged seeds (rajbhandari et al., 2020). it is the second most widely distributed alpine juniper in the world and the most widely distributed juniper in south-temperate asia (debreczy & racz, 2011; rajbhandari et al., 2020). in nepal, it commonly occurs on open slopes between 33004500 m above the msl (rajbhandari et al., 2020). sometimes, it is found extending down to 2440 m (shrestha et al., 2022). the himalayan juniper has a rich history of medicinal use. leaves as well as female cones of nepali juniper possess medicinal value (bean, 1973; rajbhandari et al., 2020; shrestha et al., 2022). studies have shown that the leaf extracts of j. squamata possess antibacterial properties, against several pathogenic bacteria responsible for human diseases (sati & kumar, 2015). in nepal, juniper is extensively used for the preparation of incense and so it is locally known as ‘dhupi’. it is one of the heavily exploited but highly neglected species in terms of its research and conservation. as per the iucn red list, its status is ‘least concern’ (iucn, 2023). wood is generally classified based on cellular structure as hardwood (in angiosperms) and softwood (in gymnosperms), based on the presence and absence of vessels. xylem forms the main portion of wood which is complex tissues composed of tracheids, vessels, xylem parenchyma and xylem fibers (wimmer, 2002). among those, tracheids and vessels are chief conducting elements. however, in gymnosperms, vessels are usually absent such that xylem in gymnosperms consist of earlywood and latewood tracheids, and those of angiosperms are more complex due to the presence of vessels as conducting tissues. the structure of wood in gymnosperms is relatively simple, consisting of tracheids and rays where the tracheids are mainly responsible for water transportation and mechanical support (zhang, 2017). the ray cells, also known as xylem or phloem rays, play crucial roles in plant's vascular system, ensuring efficient resource distribution, storage, structural support, and response to stress or damage due to environmental changes (evert & eichhorn, 2006). in most of the junipers, the wood is pycnoxylic with absence of resin canals but presence of resin cells & homogenous rays and absence of spiral thickenings in tracheids (rajbhandari et al., 2020). wood of j. squamata is similar to other junipers but is characterized by the presence of crystals in rays and resin cells (rajbhandari et al., 2020). woods of juniperus have fragrant or cedar-like odor, and their heart woods are dull red, rose-red to purplish, reddish brown or dull brown (panshin & de zeeuw, 1980). wood anatomical features such as earlywood and latewood width, average length and width of tracheids, parenchymal ray types, and height of rays vary within different species of junipers (jowary & sharefy, 2021). studies have shown that wood anatomical features are of adaptive significance. hydraulic safety and efficiency are influenced by the anatomy of xylem (lachenbruch & mcculloh, 2014; schuldt et al., 2016). xylem anatomy is an important driver to determine growth performance of trees, their survival and capacity to fix carbon (sperry & love, 2015; pandey et al., 2020). it is affected by both genetic and environmental factors (downes et al., 2009; downes & drew, 2008). however, the environmental conditions can also influence these anatomical features within and among species. some wood traits are closely associated with both the survival as well as mortality rate, reproductive time, (swenson & enquist, 2007; wright et al., 2003) and life span (sterck et al., 2001) of trees as well as the growth rate of stem diameter and canopy (king et al., 2005). wood traits are also connected with resource competition among species (baker et al., 2004), community dynamics and ecosystem functions (chave et al., 2006; zhang et al., 2011). variation in wood anatomical features have been analyzed in angiosperms with several ecological factors, such as macroclimatic divisions, moisture availability, habit, and phenology (baas, 1973; oever et al., 1981; baas et al., 1988; zhang et al., 1992). at higher elevations, shrubs adapt to harsh conditions (low temperatures, strong winds, and intense uv radiation) by developing smaller banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 6 chalise & tiwari leaves, thicker cuticles, fewer sunken stomata, compact growth forms, and denser wood with narrower vessels, which are crucial for their survival in extreme environments with short growing seasons (körner, 2003). unlike in case of many juniperus species, detailed studies on the wood anatomical features of j. squamata are lacking (phillips, 1968; herbst, 1978; panshin & dezeeuw, 1980; ter welle & adams, 1998; bauch et al., 2004; adamopoulos & kosh, 2011; vasić et al., 2014; lehejček et al., 2017; jowary & sharefy, 2021). pandey et al. (2020) in central and eastern himalayas reported elevation driven variation in wood characteristics of rhododendron lepidotum although they did not find any distinct pattern with elevation. the quantitative changes related to age of trees in wood characters in central nepal was explained for pinus roxburghii (joshi & chalise, 2022). in fact, very few studies have been carried out on wood anatomical features in relation to ecological factors and microclimatic conditions in nepal. therefore, the present study was carried out to: (i) study the general anatomy of wood, and (ii) to analyze the variation in wood anatomical parameters of j. squamata on its uppermost range of distribution in the high altitude transhimalayan manang valley of central nepal, and (iii) highlight whether there are any differences in qualitative and quantitative wood characters within the intraspecific population. materials and methods study area the study was conducted within the neshyang rural municipality of manang district which lies within the annapurna conservation area of central nepal (see figure 1). the huge annapurna massif forms the trans-himalayan range as a semi-arid zone characterized by less than 400 mm annual precipitation (miehe et al., 2001), which forms a typical mountain ecosystem with the diversity of wild flora and fauna (mayewski & figure 1: (a) j. squamata growing in its natural habitat; (b) location of the study area and the sample collection site in the map of nepal; and (c) stem discs collected for anatomical study. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 7 chalise & tiwari jeschke, 1979). we collected 30 stem discs from 30 individuals of j. squamata from the ledar area (situated within 28.730-28.740 n latitudes and 83.970-83.980 e longitudes at 4600-4690 m altitude) in manang district, central nepal during the month of june 2021. the ledar area forms the upper part of manang along the thorang khola (stream) in the northwest of marsyangdi valley. all the individuals of j. squamata were in creeping conditions due to harsh environment at this elevation. for anatomical study, we collected wood samples from one of the largest branches from the main stem of the individual shrubs (see figure 1c). juniperus is the second largest genus of conifers having about 70 species and 30 varieties under cupressaceae family. among them, j. squamata usually grows in poor rocky and sandy soil along the trails of manang valley. j. squamata is a dwarf spreading, prostrate shrub up to 1m tall with flaky brown to red-brown bark, exfoliating in thin strips or plates, with densely arranged straight or recurved branchlets; and needle-like incurved leaves (bhattarai et al., 2006; rajbhandari et al., 2020). j. squamata is an important medicinal plant in the highlands of nepal (ghimire et al., 2008; miehe et al., 2001). anatomical study all the samples were brought to the national herbarium and plant laboratories (kath), godawari, lalitpur for anatomical study. wood samples were boiled at 100ºc in oven for softening, and sectioning was done using semi-automatic microtome kdee-3390. the sections were then dehydrated in ethanol series, stained with 1 % safranin, and permanent slides were prepared. the permanent slides were then observed under olympus cx43 microscope under different magnifications of the objective lens, and photomicrography was done using fitted olympus lc30 camera. after photomicrography, the measurement of anatomical parameters was accomplished using image j software (schneider et al., 2012). the anatomical parameters were tabulated in microsoft excel; data analysis was performed using ibm spss version 21 (ibm, 2012). altogether, 12 anatomical parameters were considered during this study; the parameters included growth ring width (grw), earlywood tracheid width (ewtw), earlywood tracheid tangential diameter (ewtd), earlywood tracheid radial diameter (ewrd), latewood tracheid width (lwtw), latewood tracheid tangential diameter (lwtd), latewood tracheid radial diameter (lwrd), tracheid length (tl), uniseriate ray height (urh), number of cells in each ray (nurc), ray parenchyma tangential diameter (rpctd), and ray parenchyma vertical diameter (rpcvd). for each of these anatomical parameters, 20 measurements were taken for each of the samples. the mean values of these anatomical parameters were compared between the collected samples. the data were checked for their normality, and since the data were not normal in distribution, the spearman’s rank correlation test was performed to study the correlation between the anatomical parameters. results general anatomy of wood growth rings the growth rings of variable widths were visible in the cross-sections of the sampled j. squamata wood; the growth rings were narrow with distinct boundaries between the concentric rings. the width of the growth rings of the sampled j. squamata wood in our study ranged from 149.16 µm to 636.69 µm (table 1). gradual transition was observed from the earlywood to latewood (figures 2a & 2b). wood of j. squamata is characterized by the presence of tracheids, resin cells, uniseriate ray parenchyma, and narrow growth rings. the wood is soft, vessel-less, and light-brown to yellowish-brown in color. the heartwood is distinct from the sapwood. two different sizes of rings in terms of width were noticed in our sampled j. squamata wood (figure 2a). the narrower rings (indicated by blue arrow) reflect less rainfall while the wider rings (indicated by black arrow) reflect abundant rainfall in the respective years. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 8 chalise & tiwari tracheids the tracheids of the sampled j. squamata wood comprised square to polygonal cells (see figure 2b). the widths of the earlywood tracheids were found to be between 8.58-35.68 µm and 8.90-38.40 µm in terms of their radial diameter (rd) and tangential diameter (td), respectively (table 1). similarly, the widths of the latewood tracheids were found to be between 3.40-18.11 µm and 3.11-27.87µm, respectively. the tracheid length ranged from 601.79 µm to 1224.59 µm. the bordered pits were circular, ca. 8 µm in diameter, arranged in uniseriate rows and with fine torus (see figure 2f). apart from this, clear signs of some extreme weather events (frost ring) were noticed in some of the collected samples (see figure 2b). resin cells j. squamata wood was characterized by the presence of resin cells. resin cells usually diffuse, sometimes in loose tangential bands with 1-2 cells. the walls of resin cells are smooth, and crystals are present inside (figure 2a, 2b). the dimensions of these resin cells are usually 9-25 µm and 9-24 µm in terms of radial and tangential diameters, respectively, mostly square shaped (as noticed in figure 2b) and rarely polygonal. rays the rays of j. squamata wood were exclusively uniseriate and homogenous (as seen in figure 2e, 2f). the ray height (of the parenchyma cells alone) of our sampled wood ranged from low to medium (46.14 µm to 101.24 µm). generally, the ray height had of 1-5 cells (occasionally 6-7 cells), but few larger rays with up to 10 cells in height. the rays of the parenchyma cells of the studied samples were found to be 10.87 ̶ 19.42 µm and 17.32 ̶ 29.15 µm in terms of td and vertical diameter (vd), respectively (table 1). the parenchyma cells of this species were smooth-walled with thick vertical walls. prismatic crystals were present in the ray cells of our sampled wood (figure 2c, 2d, 2e, 2f). besides, cupressoid pits were present in the ray cells, and were more numerous in the marginal ray cells as compared to the other ray cells (see figure 2f). the mean values of the anatomical parameters of the studied samples are presented in table 1. table 1 : mean values of the anatomical features in the studied samples of j. squamata sample code growth ring width (µm) earlywood tracheid (µm) latewood tracheid (µm) tracheid length (µm) uniseriate ray ray parenchyma cells (µm) width td rd width td rd height (µm) no. of cells td vd mj1 231.59 291.20 13.50 15.42 65.18 5.49 8.12 1093.69 84.69 4 14.33 20.18 mj2 262.32 228.80 8.90 8.58 41.73 3.11 3.40 1089.83 76.64 3 17.11 27.19 mj3 210.11 284.63 23.12 25.04 60.10 10.36 18.11 1038.28 101.24 3 17.46 29.15 mj4 156.69 342.50 23.09 20.89 65.62 9.46 14.95 789.44 90.41 3 11.82 17.75 mj5 636.69 342.76 13.32 16.48 33.42 6.05 12.78 804.98 56.22 3 12.88 19.77 mj6 972.27 815.10 18.97 16.36 94.27 10.27 6.09 745.29 65.11 4 11.41 17.32 mj7 557.23 362.89 21.30 19.86 82.07 12.23 7.09 714.36 64.63 3 13.23 17.87 mj8 254.85 218.51 15.70 16.37 55.10 10.64 7.02 885.62 49.14 2 10.87 22.76 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 9 chalise & tiwari sample code growth ring width (µm) earlywood tracheid (µm) latewood tracheid (µm) tracheid length (µm) uniseriate ray ray parenchyma cells (µm) width td rd width td rd height (µm) no. of cells td vd mj9 352.55 426.20 18.26 18.56 73.40 11.34 7.10 601.79 66.08 3 12.12 20.24 mj10 576.09 276.98 15.99 16.52 55.56 11.31 6.28 844.11 65.37 3 12.89 22.49 mj11 357.09 215.95 16.09 16.29 45.34 12.13 7.46 881.21 62.69 3 15.84 18.95 mj12 481.21 292.50 17.17 17.59 39.55 13.42 5.99 965.13 62.36 3 16.69 19.75 mj13 459.01 487.25 23.46 28.28 56.52 16.92 10.10 834.12 59.99 3 11.71 18.48 mj14 315.64 276.70 19.28 16.23 49.37 14.79 7.61 971.18 66.20 3 14.03 19.86 mj15 340.37 349.29 19.21 17.59 37.44 13.53 6.73 758.66 58.72 3 15.54 20.04 mj16 291.25 251.26 23.25 15.97 31.85 15.04 6.18 903.34 60.50 3 12.77 19.70 mj17 332.59 255.47 16.80 16.16 39.48 12.35 7.13 882.88 57.05 3 14.89 19.68 mj18 401.16 329.58 33.84 27.13 42.25 21.85 11.71 1053.35 77.60 4 16.20 23.74 mj19 628.70 542.78 18.02 16.77 53.21 11.89 6.95 782.49 55.10 3 13.97 17.39 mj20 523.15 191.14 20.84 15.83 43.00 14.48 7.52 819.41 60.89 3 16.57 19.53 mj21 532.35 450.13 18.19 21.71 59.88 11.36 7.41 1224.59 60.55 3 19.42 23.20 mj22 383.87 436.98 38.40 35.68 54.73 27.87 11.75 1104.72 70.28 3 16.06 23.83 mj23 465.89 299.93 16.29 18.21 71.58 10.15 6.67 798.68 79.58 4 11.85 19.23 mj24 525.96 427.16 21.84 20.94 63.59 14.68 5.91 735.46 46.14 3 11.63 19.56 mj25 231.94 297.21 28.41 27.30 47.58 19.36 8.57 802.65 50.18 3 12.19 19.03 mj26 374.67 310.63 18.18 14.47 50.67 12.65 5.56 845.99 85.69 3 14.88 24.75 mj27 149.16 74.49 20.53 16.35 17.86 11.64 7.73 618.09 59.13 3 12.38 21.37 mj28 374.25 300.25 17.56 16.32 50.91 13.66 6.54 978.64 56.76 3 14.45 19.74 mj29 351.40 265.04 18.41 20.46 33.85 14.11 8.13 913.24 62.41 3 14.44 19.68 mj30 286.68 220.46 16.89 16.62 39.65 13.88 6.14 943.55 75.28 4 14.20 22.79 overall mean 400.56 328.79 19.83 18.99 51.82 12.86 8.09 880.82 66.22 3.18 14.13 20.83 sd 200.42 156.43 6.31 5.97 22.10 5.20 3.33 205.39 26.67 1.33 2.82 4.47 banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 10 chalise & tiwari figure 2: wood anatomical structure in j. squamata: (a) transverse section of wood showing growth rings, tracheids, resin cells, and frost rings; (b) black arrow showing wide rings and blue arrow showing narrow rings; (c, d) tangential longitudinal section of wood showing uniseriate rays, prismatic crystals in ray cells; and (e, f) rls showing homogenous rays, cupressoid pits in ray cells, and tracheids with circular bordered pits. all photomicrographs taken at (10× + 0.5×) magnification. wood anatomical parameters wood anatomical parameters refer to the structural features and characteristics of wood at the microscopic-level. these parameters are important for understanding the physical and mechanical properties of wood as well as its biological and ecological functions (wheeler, 1983). we had considered growth ring width (grw), earlywood width (eww), earlywood tracheids tangential diameter (ewtd), earlywood tracheids radial diameter (ewrd), latewood width (lww), latewood tracheid tangential diameter (lwtd), latewood tracheid radial diameter (lwrd), tracheid length (tl), uniseriate ray height (urh), number of uniseriate ray cells (nurc), ray parenchyma cell tangential diameter (rpctd), and ray parenchyma cell vertical diameter (rpcvd) for analyzing the anatomical parameters of the sampled j. squamata wood. spearman’s rank correlation test was carried out between the anatomical parameters studied. the results of this correlation test is presented in table 2. the grw exhibited strong positive correlation with the eww and lww while it had significant negative correlation with the tl, lwrd, urh, and rpcvd (table 2). similarly, the eww showed significant positive correlation with the ewtd, ewrd, and lww while it had significant negative correlation with the rpctd and rpcvd. however, the ewtd exhibited a significant positive correlation with the ewrd, lwtd, and lwrd. similarly, the ewrd also exhibited a significant positive correlation with the lww, lwtd, and lwrd (table 2). similarly, the lww exhibited a significant positive correlation with the urh as well as nurc while a significant negative correlation with the lwtd and rpctd. likewise, the lwtd showed a significant positive correlation with the lwrd while it had a significant negative correlation with the urh. in contrast, the lwrd showed a significant positive correlation with the urh (see table 1). however, the tl exhibited a significant positive correlation with the rpctd and rpcvd. similarly, the urh exhibited a banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 11 chalise & tiwari significant positive correlation with the nurc, rpctd, and rpcvd. likewise, the rpctd exhibited a significant positive correlation with the rpcvd (see table 1). table 2 : spearman’s rank correlation test between the anatomical parameters studied grw eww ewtd ewrd lww lwtd lwrd tl urh nurc rpctd rpcvd grw 1.000 eww 0.371** 1.000 ewtd -0.069 0.157** 1.000 ewrd 0.028 0.264** 0.499** 1.000 lww 0.176** 0.357** 0.043 0.131** 1.000 lwtd 0.057 0.049 0.514** 0.340** -0.104* 1.000 lwrd -0.105* 0.079 0.330** 0.439** 0.011 0.130** 1.000 tl -0.083* -0.051 -0.055 0.061 -0.031 0.029 0.044 1.000 urh -0.130** -0.063 -0.005 0.026 0.086* -0.103* 0.087* 0.074 1.000 nurc 0.028 -0.002 0.019 0.041 0.108** -0.002 0.043 -0.041 0.836** 1.000 rpctd 0.011 -0.093* -0.016 0.016 -0.153** 0.077 -0.003 0.341** 0.092* -0.025 1.000 rpcvd -0.193** -0.162** 0.022 0.023 -0.075 -0.023 0.020 0.208** 0.137** -0.031 0.219** 1.000 ** correlation is significant at 0.01 level (2-tailed); and * correlation is significant at 0.05 level (2-tailed). discussion wood is characterized by the presence of tracheids, extremely narrow latewood and comparatively broader earlywood, resin cells, uniseriate ray parenchyma, homogenous rays, narrow growth rings and distinct growth ring boundaries. inside wood (2023) and rajbhandari et al. (2020) also reported the presence of similar wood anatomical features in himalayan juniper. anatomical studies conducted on other juniper species and members of the cupressaceae family worldwide mentioned homogenous rays with smooth walls and cupressoid pits in other members of cupressaceae, such as tetraclinis (esteban et al., 2015). we found the wood anatomical features of j. squamata differed from other juniper species in terms of ray cells, resin cells and their density, and presence of crystals in ray and resin cells. in j. squamata, crystals are present in ray cells and resin cells. however, crystals are absent in ray cells and resin cells in j. recurva, j. communis, and j. indica, (rajbhandari et al., 2020). each annual-ring is made up of concentric rings of earlywood and latewood; thus, the positive correlation between the grw with the eww and lww is justified. however, the negative correlation between the grw and tl means that when the width of growth ring increases, the length of tracheid decreases. the negative relationship between tracheid length and annual-ring width was reported in conifers including pinus sylvestris (fabisiak & fabisiak, 2021) and pseudotsuga menziesii (douglas fir) from netherlands (kort, 1990). the relative proportions of the three tissues (tracheids, rays, and parenchyma) are generally similar among gymnosperms (cheng, 1985). however, they markedly vary in angiosperm tree species. zhang et al. (2017) showed smaller coefficient of variation in gymnosperm wood traits than in angiosperm ones. similarly, great variation in wood trait was observed due to the influence of climate in angiosperms (cheng, 1985; carlquist, 2001). our results showed that annual-ring width exhibited strong negative correlation with uniseriate ray height as well as banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 12 chalise & tiwari size of ray parenchyma cells. however, a positive correlation was seen between tracheid length and uniseriate ray height as well as tangential and vertical diameters of ray parenchyma cells. we also found a positive correlation between ring width and latewood proportion as well. annualring width showed positive and strong correlation to early and latewood width, and negative correlation with tracheid length and latewood proportion in thuja occidentalis (bouslimi et al., 2019). these results coincide with our findings. we found a considerable intra-specific variation in the wood anatomical features within the sample individuals of j. squamata. these anatomical modifications can sometimes be due to acclimatization of the plant to its surrounding environment (vasić et al., 2014) or due to the bioclimatic condition of the surroundings (castagneri et al., 2017). for example, the tracheid size in picea abies in the italian alps was influenced by the climate during the growing season and the early-summer temperature influenced cell enlargement at higher elevations while the water availability contributed to the cell enlargement at lower elevations (castagneri et al., 2017). the study site in manang lies in the trans-himalayan region where there is very limited availability of soil water, and the climatic condition is also harsh. here, the bushes of juniper usually grow in the rocky habitat, where the snow melts earlier such that it can take advantage of the moisture obtained from the melting of snow after receding icecaps. therefore, the bushes of juniper can form a distinct microhabitat within their surroundings. dwarf individuals with reduced growth ring widths and increased tracheid length insures effective water absorption and transportation towards the shoot system. parallel to our findings, studies have indicated that the intra-specific variation in wood anatomical features among different growth forms of juniper is closely linked to the plant’s hydraulic architecture (beikircher & mayr, 2008). similarly, elevation-driven variations in the wood characteristics of rhododendron lepidotum were reported in the central and eastern himalaya, though no distinct pattern with elevation was found (pandey et al., 2020). however, age-related quantitative changes were reported in the wood characteristics of pinus roxburghii trees in central nepal (joshi & chalise, 2022). conclusion the sampled j. squamata wood was characterized by the presence of tracheids, resin cells, uniseriate ray parenchyma, and narrow growth rings with abrupt transition from earlywood to latewood. both the earlywood and latewood tracheids of j. squamata comprised square to polygonal cells with circular bordered pits and a few resin cells. rays were exclusively uniseriate, homogenous, with cupressoid pits. annual-ring width showed a positive correlation with both the earlywood and latewood width, but a negative correlation with tracheids length. we found that there was a higher variability of structures due to modification in the surrounding environment and micro-climatic condition at the uppermost range of j. squamata. therefore, dwarf individuals with reduced growth ring dimensions and increased tracheid length insure effective water absorption and transportation in harsh conditions. however, wood characters are changed quantitatively but not qualitatively with respect to change in ecological factors. further studies on the comparative anatomical examination of same plant species existing in different ecological regions as well as in different microhabitats within same ecological regions would ideally reveal the anatomical changes modified by environmental conditions. acknowledgement we are grateful to the departments of national parks and wildlife conservation and the annapurna conservation project (aca, pokhara) for providing us permission to collect the wood samples of j. squamata from the study area. we acknowledge mr. ananda adhikari and adarsha subedi for their support during our fieldwork. author’s contribution statement p. chalise: development of study tools, sample preparation, anatomical measurement, preliminary data analysis and first draft preparation. banko janakari, vol 34 no. 2 13 chalise & tiwari a. tiwari: research ideas, sample collection, data analysis, review and final editing of manuscript. data availability the data collected for this study is available from the figshare repository https://www.doi. org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25225511.v2 (i think this link has to be developed by the editorial from the supplementary data we have 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